cakes and stories

[happycakestories]

“He could have wished it otherwise; never in his life had he been conscious of so sharp a wish to see and touch his fellow-creatures; for struggle as he might, there was borne in upon his mind a crushing anticipation of calamity” (Dover Thrift Edition, 28).

The Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson

[happycakewonders]

the muses

~la la la love~

~everything happened in a flash~ 

i call it ~ love

Keep reading

[happycakewonders]

the secretary of stars

jungkook arrives with a hop and stumble across the marble steps. 

Keep reading

[giltrees]

— ᴛᴀᴇᴋᴏᴏᴋ 

[fortuitoushoneybun]

[aestheticgcfbts]

🌙; 𝓶𝓲𝓷 𝔂𝓸𝓸𝓷𝓰𝓲 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓷𝓲𝓰𝓱𝓽 𝓵𝓸𝓸𝓴 𝓰𝓸𝓸𝓭 𝓸𝓷 𝔂𝓸𝓾

Dark

[bultaoreugay]

1/7 from Murmuration of Starlings – Kim Taehyung

↳ The sound of thunderstorms and the croaking of toads.

[happycakestories]

a reflection now that i am here

so finally i’ve cleaned out all my docs and figured what to keep/what to delete/what to work with. in truth, i haven’t really deleted anything permanently and i don’t think i should b/c -- 

1). while i may cringe cleaning all of this out, i do not cringe b/c it’s “shit” or “trash.” my younger self deserves my utmost respect for writing what she wanted without shame and that’s the only reason i’m here today. i’m not gonna shit on her for being into things that were gratuitous, self-serving, or cheesy b/c that’s what gets you into fandom, that’s what gets you excited in the first place. if u move on, good for u. if u wanna stick with it, then go for it and make it your own. 

2). i’m still proud of what i’ve done so far in some way. of course the cringe comes unavoidably b/c i don’t think some stuff is as well written/developed and some ideas/content i’m just not as into anymore. there’s certainly a lot of tropes my younger self seemed to like that can be hard to present in a well-developed way that understands the more “problematic” aspects of such fics (cough abo cough) -- but hey people have interests that aren’t always wholesome and i always understood that fiction was fiction -- so it’s about growth and maturing, not shaming. 

3). look i’m still sentimental and there are still the few pieces that i’ve kept just for myself b/c they hold so much meaning for me whether b/c of the time i’ve invested, their content, or what they represented at the certain point in time they were written. so those are for me alone :)

anyway having done a whole overhaul i can trace this from october-november 2016 -- may 2019. so damn, that’s almost 2.5 years of writing. i started reading fic most intensely with kfic and to this day some of the most memorable pieces of writing in terms of skill, story, and general emotional impact that provide inspiration for me are still kfic ones -- so thanks to this great big area of interest i found myself cultivating my own interests. and now i’m still writing today so i’m happy to give a great big thanks :). 

i don’t plan on saying goodbye forever; who knows what i’ll be doing, there’s no need to talk in such absolutes. but i am happy to reflect on all these past pieces, published or unpublished, and see how i’ve changed in my interests, my style, and most importantly my outlook on writing. truly, people say write for yourself, but it takes a lot to realize and really internalize it -- but i’m happy to say now that is why i write and continue to push myself to do so. after all, if i wasn’t personally invested, then why would i continue to push myself to do so through such difficulty (torture lol) -- but seriously, the moment i finally realized what it meant to write for myself, it was like re-learning the joys of something so fundamentally wonderful at its core. man, that’s why kids are so precious right? they experience everything for the first time with such excitement. 

let’s see: i would like to tackle some gl/k-girl group fic and of course return to my childhood dream and love - anime. anyway, here’s to a wonderful, fulfilling summer :) and to my younger self who violently rolled out of bed one dark oct/nov. afternoon and spewed out words onto a document - thanks for letting that impulse drive you so far. i’m happy to take it up once more :)

[happycakestories]

old mx fic - some last real big projects

here are all the various messy ideas i’ve had from the beginning to the most recent times, a real good way to trace the development of my interests- from a catch-all doc

“Just the two of us” AOA → Lostboycrow - Love Won't Sleep (Kill Them With Colour Remix), wizard - forgive, opia-falling (wheathin remix), iu’s jam jam, ozzie see me, Zayn - Pillowtalk (No Sleep Remix), Justin Abisror - i’m gonna go (instrumental), AOA “Under the street lamps”  ---> sex song

Shiny eyes and pouting lips

it actually talks about a boy going with a french prostitute for the first time in his life and discovering that he loves her despite her being a prostitute and not understanding a word she says

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acCzIUE8qwc

https://affenknecht.com/lyrics/rammstein-fruhling-in-paris/

Fashion prompt au:

Soft browns, long coats, and big sweaters! Jooheon and pink pastels and aesthetic color clashing! Changkyun.

Big sweatshirts and fluffy pastel fashion with rude logos! Changkyun and long, dark, almost witch-like fashion, indie/hipster! Jooheon

Both hella pastel or both super punk rock boyfriends.

Jooheon is the softest punk boyfriend with pastel boyfriend Changkyun who looks like a cinnamon roll but could actually kill you; isn’t afraid to fight.

Soft whites/pink pastels! Jooheon (Soft browns, long coats, and big sweaters! Jooheon)  and muscle shirts/athleisure! Boyfriend Hyunwoo.

5 times hyunwoo coordinated his outfits to match with his boyfriend’s and one time jooheon did the same

Pastel fashion! Jooheon with punk! Wonho. A scene in which Wonho makes jooheon try on his clothing and he looks so good, he’s never allowed outside wearing that kind of fashion ever again.

“I was carving my name into your side and you were calling me soft, calling me gentle. I do not think you were paying attention.”

Trista Mateer, from “For the One Who Loved My Hands More than Anything Else,”

How lovely the silence of growing things

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbC0IOVM09A rapper solo 2016 gda

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWRGqx8104w sistar performance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkNkuUmTdOY  kcon vid? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xskGDUAZtq4 kcon vid found

we’re stuck in a log cabin overnight during a snowstorm bc of some stupid school team building exercise and it’s freEzing and I can’t sleep and you can hear me shivering in the next bed so you pick me up and dump in your bed and good grief you are hot in every sense of the word’ au --- definitely showheon

We met briefly on the plane ride over, then again at a bar just off of post, had a one night stand, now it’s first formation and SURPRISE! I’m your new Commanding Officer and you’re my new First Sergeant AU ---- showheon probs

Fantasy military au! Where taekwoon and hakyeon are conflicting military generals vying for the same position and a former love.

However, taekwoon decides to switch sides mid-battle with the intervention of a few heavenly helpers.

Jaehwan power dynamic fic. Top of the military chain, seems so pretty and delicate, but with one word through his generals and commanders they’d be dead. Image of him in chair, with only military longcoat on, bruises on thighs, neck and body, with hongbin and hyuk kneeling at his feet.

http://kin.naver.com/qna/detail.nhn?d1id=3&dirId=302140101&docId=263876142&qb=6rOg65Ox7ZWZ7IOdIOuCqOyelOuNsCDruYXsiqTqsIA=&enc=utf8&section=kin&rank=1&search_sort=0&spq=0

Please power dynamics SO MUCH

Origin fic, how Jaehwan got to power, how he picked up hongbin and hyuk as his second in commands. How hongbin and hyuk separately interact with him and each other.

Also an au where the human world has been incorporated with the world of gods, so much of the military is biased towards the gods as the top commanders, of course not acknowledged out loud, but people usually suspect things.

Military au! Where it seems like taekwoon and hakyeon are rival military generals vying for the same position and a former love.  However taekwoon forms a new strategy mid-battle and instead, it’s one that aims straight for Hakyeon’s heart.

however, taekwoon changes what he’s fighting for mid-battle with the helpful (or unhelpful) intervention of some heavenly beings.

Maybe include a bit of teasing from hyuk, he really does love his hyung but he loves riling him up. Flirts with him a little bit to make taekwoon jealous, obviously hakyeon knows and is a little exasperated, but taekwoon can’t believe this young man who’s someone higher up in position than him is also acting like this to someone older than him.

http://happycakeycake.tumblr.com/post/153833786832/hong-buns-cha-just-came-out-to-have-a-good

http://happycakeycake.tumblr.com/post/153834638942/prince-taekwoon-do-not-edit-romantic-cat

It’s hard to keep a frivolous god under control, but it’s even harder to keep a frivolous lover

how lucky it is that hongbin and sanghyuk have been tasked with both!

i’m looking for you (you’re looking for me)- conflicting military generals

think about love- pet house au

baby (with drowsy eyes), say something- lace pet au

so arrogant (but I like that attitude)-more lace pet au? 1st Chapter name maybe

In a world where pets are extremely expensive and treasured property, military commander taekwoon is encouraged to spend his well earned credit in a pet house. The pleasure slaves there are rumored to be the most expensive things ever, but even one hour with them brings an experience that’s supposedly worth every cent. Taekwoon has no use for his overwhelmingly large paycheck, and besides, what’s the worst that could happen?

Workaholic military general taewoon is dragged out by his friends for a night out to the theatre. There, he makes a connection with the most beautiful dancer he’s ever seen.

Lonely military general taekwoon is gifted (burdened) with a pushy, loud-mouthed pet named hakyeon

Scene where they’re both in leo’s lonely ass woods cabin with rainy day outside and hakyeon reading by the fire/leo working: maybe a fight or changing point

N with lace collar or blindfold OR BOTH???? Hakyeon cuddled up in taekwoon’s large military jacket with a lace collar and black booty shorts by the window.

Where taekwoon gets a personal military outfit tailored for N with lace detailing (lace collar) just because he’s a top ranking general and because he fucking can. Totally showing him off at the office, but get jealous anytime anyone looks at him with anything hinting at lust or attraction.

Hades and persephone au:

Taekwoon hates the coming of spring, the arrival of hakyeon; yet he wants to possess him, he wants that beautiful smile, his tanned skin, and his entire heart and soul, ok but like what if the underworld was super militaristic and everyone had to dress in military uniforms, but above world everyone dresses in loose bright clothing and hakyeon has to wear a specifically tailored military uniform once he goes to the underworld.

“you belong to the underworld now; you body, soul, and your way of dress are to be part of this place”

Hyunwoo hasn’t left the shadows of the Underworld for millenias on end, but today when he looks up toward the Above, something has him interested.

More jookyun hades and persephon

Changkyun knows he’s young and brash, but the evidence of what he’s just done is sitting in front of him and crying into cupped palms, which makes him regret his hot-headed actions even more. As Kihyun would have probably said, “changkyun what makes you think that kidnapping someone is a good way to get them to notice you?” In Changkyun’s defense, it had seemed like a really good idea at the time. WRITE JOOHEON IN THE WHITE SHIRT- also maybe changkyun in black fighter outfit or that plaid jacket w/ hoodie because underworld is definitely rocker chic.

“Awkward hell lord” daniel, hecate! Kihyun,

yes i’m a bad boy (so yes i like you)- CUTE OUTFITS WHERE CHANGKYUN IS DRESSED IN TOUGH CHIC CLOTHING AND JOOHEON IS DRESSED IN THAT LOOSE WHITE T SHIRT/

Where Joohon has a terrible weakness for bad boys and Changkyun thoroughly exploits said weakness (even though he’s actually a lameass nerd). What if he was a waiter/barista and looked so heavenly and cute in that white button up and changkyun comes in threatening at the end of his shift to try and scare people away.

I’m a fighter, fighter (your champion)- WRITE JOOHEON IN THAT ONE OUTFIT WHERE HE’S SITTING WITH SOME BEAR STICK THING IN ALL BLACK CAUSE HIS THIGHS LOOK REALLY GOOD

Everyone here fights for a reason: money, fame, freedom, love, or survival.

but when shownu looks down at his bloodied knuckles, he doesn’t know why he’s here. He doesn’t know why he’s fighting. He continues living: day in and day out, punching and kicking, until he falls or his opponent does. The next morning he’s dragged out to do the exact same thing over and over again. For what reason? He doesn’t know.

This is the first night that Shownu actually feels like he slept well. Today’s fight had been great, at least by his standards. His opponent had been significantly younger than him, and he had huddled in the corner of the ring as Shownu slowly advanced on him. He had screamed and refused to fight before crying and begging to be let go as the bear-headed judges dragged him away. Shownu felt a twinge of pity for the boy, for he somehow knew that where the boy was being taken would be infinitely worse than being bruised and beaten by him.

Maybe this is the why he dreams tonight. He dreams of a young man and with a honey-sweet smile. The whole image is blurry, but he can  

Another fantasy-caged au, merge this one/separate from oracle au????

Mute dreamseer Jooheon, kept up in a beautiful gilded cage for his entire life. Looking for new guards that know nothing of the situation to watch him.

Changkyun is one of the newest, but most eligible fighters. Blessed with the element of fire, trained as a small child to fight.

Kingdom grants him a sum he can’t say no to, but wonders what’s so precious that requires so much protection.

Use that one post of lace and roses: http://t1cc.tumblr.com/post/138081715838/i-dont-do-anything-with-my-life-except: good imagery for a fic, a cage of lace and satin?

Demon/Angel/Human au: WRITE JOOHEON IN THAT ONE OUTFIT WHERE HE HAS HIS HAIR SLICKED BACK IN THE WHITE TSHIRT OR HIS ALL IN OUTFIT WITH THE WEIRD STRAP ACROSS THE CHEST DURING AS

Angel jooheon is friends with demon changkyun, and recently jooheon has been very infatuated with human hyunwoo. Changkyun obviously gets some jealousy issues since he’s been chasing Jooheon’s admirers away for centuries. There’s no way his efforts will be ruined by some simple human.

Angel jooheon meets gentle demon shownu and they both are kinda bad at their jobs

Angel jooheon and demon changkyun meet over a fight about a human’s soul and changkyun accidentally gets hooked on jooheon’s obnoxious personality and dimpled smile.

Demon changkyun is hell bent on bringing Jooheon down. There is no way someone can be so pure and innocent without any darkness in them. Determined to defile him somehow. Or the story of how changkyun tries to be an evil demon, but really he’s just a sucker for Jooheon’s smile. Where Changkyun thinks he wants to see Jooheon cry, but really he’s more of a sucker for his smile.

unfair love

Jooheon towards shownu, accidentally teasing him?

Jooheon being oblivious towards changkyun, “you’re so unfair towards me, why can’t you see me as perfect boyfriend material hyung?”

Serial killer, murderers au, i love you so much (we were made for each other)

Where both shownu and jooheon are psychopaths and they find the purest love in each other. Also accidental murder on both sides?????? yay????

Jooheon’s been betrayed so many times, so there’s no way he’ll let the best thing that’s ever happened to him leave him now.

Hyunwoo has felt nothing his entire life. He’s been detached from his family for years and he’s never been able to connect with his so called friends. He’s been so lonely, but when he’s with Jooheon, he wants to wrap his entire being around him, love him, touch him, and possess him. He’ll use anything and everything he has to keep Jooheon with him forever. Even if the consequences are Jooheon’s tears and hate, there’s no way he’ll let him go.

When Changkyun had said “if i had to die I would like to go via suffocation by your thighs”, Jooheon was not supposed to have said okay and then sat on his face and actually strangle him to death. With his thighs. He regrets everything and nothing at the same time.

Policeman changkyun is faced with the most gruesome series of murders he’s ever witnessed in his career. He’s tired, stressed, and his sweet cheeked boyfriend keeps disappearing during the strange hours of the night. Something’s obviously suspicious here, and there’s no way Jooheon being his lover will prevent Changkyun from properly doing his job.

Maneater au? Not sure if i want this to be literal or not. If literally maybe incubus au (please use those cute demon horn with heart sticker pics) with young stupid demon prince - changkyun who overestimates his own power and jooheon basically knocks him down a few pegs. Or maybe Jooheon and hyunwoo are dating and Jooheon is sincerely in love this time and to him sex doesn’t have to do anything with love since for him it usually just means dinner, and he also doesn’t want to end up accidentally draining hyunwoo dry. Of course hyunwoo has no idea and is dying of blue balls, so he gets to work testing jooheon’s self control. We all know how this ends obviously.

If literally, maybe men around their early to mid 20s have been disappearing and turned up half eaten. Young policeman changkyun investigating these cases and comes upon a young man walking around in a dangerous part of town just as he finishes his rounds and goes up to him to ask him if he can offer him a ride home and maybe a coffee date later. They start dating and suddenly the killings stop. However, once Changkyun tries to investigate into them Jooheon strangely becomes aggressive and tries to convince him to just leave them. Again we all know how this ends

Figuratively, jooheon’s what people would call a vixen, a slut maybe, but he prefers the word maneater. He strings along multiple partners on his pinky fingers for months only offering them small trinkets of affection before tossing them aside. One day when he meets hyunwoo he thinks it’ll just be another easy conquest, but hyunwoo purely falls in love with him and hijinks ensue. Like feelings or smth. Also aggravated best friend changkyun please.

If you write any of these listen to man-eater on 8tracks by chuwenjie.

Rich young master:

Changkyun’s the young spoiled rich son of a CEO and Jooheon’s the newly hired part time worker who knows nothing about the unwritten rules of serving the young master. Of which includes don’t ever talk back or offend him.

Hyunwoo is a lonely heir to an entire company and a rich fortune. For years, all he’s done is shut himself away and worked to better the company. His lifelong friend (and unofficial housekeeper) is tired of Hyunwoo’s shit and puts out an ad for a someone that would be willing to clean Hyunwoo’s old mansion for a few hours everyday. A young rapper named Jooheon picks up the job offer because hey he needs to make a few bucks on the side and cleaning for a few hours every day isn’t that bad. A cheesy romance story where a lonely soul meets a warm one.

Mafia boss/pet au:

Shownu is the kindest person Jooheon has ever met, and he wonders why someone like him would be living in this kind of neighborhood. In which Jooheon and shownu are your typical next door neighbors, but in a neighborhood that is completely owned by the mafia. Little does Jooheon know, Shownu is actually the boss who owns the neighborhood.

Jooheon is a pampered pet of the most powerful mafia boss of the city, hyunwoo. However, the arrival of a new recruit catches his eye. He asks Hyunwoo if he can have him, and of course there’s no way Hyunwoo can say no his precious pet.

Changkyun is part of a group of new recruits who have been integrated into hyunwoo’s mob. Of course, their loyalty must be tested somehow, and Jooheon’s perfectly willing to do whatever his master needs him to. The new recruits only take up more of Hyunwoo’s precious time, and he needs someone to spend time with Jooheon. It just so happens that Jooheon’s taken interest in one of the new recruits, and Hyunwoo needs someone to take care of him while he’s away. Or basically Changkyun is tasked with the babysitting of Hyunwoo’s precious pet, which both tests his patience and sexuality. MAKE JOOHEON WEAR WHAT HE’S WEARING IN SLOW W/ HYOLYN. Power dynamics galore please

As the most powerful mafia boss in the city, Hyunwoo must constantly watch over everything he loves. As it stands, Jooheon has been the most precious thing to him for years. With a new batch of recruits arriving, they all have to be thoroughly tested for their loyalty, and it just so happens that his pet has taken up interest in one of them. Hyunwoo has always believed in the motto of killing two birds with one stone. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with spoiling his pet for a bit.

http://sterekvoid.tumblr.com/post/153757382229/super-sick-and-want-to-die-but-showheon-keeping-me: please this position,

Changkyun is completely sure at this point that he will be Monsta X’s new boss; he’s directly under the chain of power as the group’s current boss, hyunwoo, is ready to retire. He’s done everything over the past 2 years to gain hyunwoo’s approval and he’s so sure that hyunwoo will name him his successor that he’d bet his life on it (not like that’s a valuable form of currency in the world of crime ha). However, hyunwoo’s got one more test for him before the exchange of power happens, and it could be the one that makes it or breaks it for Changkyun.

   The test? Show his absolute loyalty and devotion to hyunwoo by laying his life out on the line for his beloved cousin Jooheon. Basically Changkyun just got stuck being some glorified babysitter for a sweet-cheeked, baby-faced, college student, who also happens to know nothing about his cousin’s shady business in crime. The catch? Changkyun is allowed to drop out any time, but he’d be forfeiting his claim to the top position forever, and there’s no way, insufferable babysitting or not, he’s giving up on that.   

One scene: Somehow Jooheon gets his feet hurt or something?? Or his leg hurt, and he and changkyun get into a big fight over taking his pants/socks off? Maybe leave them behind so he can clean the wound. Image, Jooheon cuddled by the window in a sweatshirt and boxers in a safehouse somewhere holding a grudge against Changkyun.

Very dark pet au:

Lighter but not (crack) more action and kind of tense/action feel:

Write something with that one picture of Jooheon where he looks like a policeman. Policemen Jooheon and hyunwoo versus mafia boss changkyun???

Gods/virtues au:

Changkyun is Apollo and he falls in love with a simple wood nymph named Jooheon. They make some sick beats with each other and fall in love along the way.

Jooheon, the patron saint of victory grants Hyunwoo the everlasting curse of victory and war as he lays on the battlefield pleading with his last breath.

Changkyun is a rising young general and he knows to ensure victory he must make a successful deal with a god. Unfortunately, he makes it with the wrong one entirely.

Young powerful God Jooheon and his warrior boyfriends, inspired by jooheon’s look in slow w/ hyorin. Hyorin could be like his female counterpart?

Plant shop/florist

Changkyun’s found his own personal haven with the new botanical shop that’s just opened down the street.

Forest nymph:

Changkyun gets himself lost in the forest the one day he voluntarily decides to go outside, and he encounters playful woodland nymph Jooheon.

Werebear hyunwoo and forest nymph Jooheon and their lovey dovey, domestic life in the forest.

Cute garden witch Jooheon, maybe this could link to plant shop one??

Mermaid au- cute bunny jooheon in that one white shirt, soaked through? Hair slicked back?

Shownu likes to swim, best mermaid ever. What kind though-gentle whale shark?? Rescues bunny hybrid jooheon when he accidentally falls into the big forest lake? s’cute

Hanahaki Disease

Changkyun coughs up pink/yellow/orange/blue daisies; he’s in love with Jooheon, but Jooheon has always only seen him as a little brother. When he looks at Jooheon, Jooheon is only looking at hyungwoo.----unfair love

http://livingartsoriginals.com/flower-daisy.htm

Jooheon starts to cough up pink tulips, and he knows he can’t avoid either telling shownu or letting himself die. Changkyun crushes his own daisies in his hand and tells Jooheon that there’s no way he’ll let him do this to himself. Even if he has to betray him by telling hyunwoo.------i knew from the beginning (that there is no answer)

http://livingartsoriginals.com/flower-tulip.htm

Shownu coughs up blue daisies. He presses each separate petal into a book and checks himself into the hospital.--------i knew from the beginning (that there is no end)

Ten demon au

Murderer johnny is out for his daily rounds at night when he finds a starving demon and he takes it upon himself to feed it.

Tiny guardian au

Tiny shoulder guardians, angels or devils

Changkyun has jooheon as his shoulder guardian, angel jooheon, don’t know if i can make this one shippy? Maybe Changkyun introduces jooheon to shoulder guardian hyunwoo and they have the purest fluffiest love.

Spy agency au

Literally honey trap au though, jooheon’s known for successes on honey trap mission, nickname honeybee. Given a new mission to seduce the rich heir changkyun to gain some important information about his company to see whether if there could be secret plans from his company to produce nuclear weapons. Of course something goes wrong when changkyun ends up being Jooheon’s teenage love.

Spy partners IM and jooheon, or jooheon and shownu. Or jooheon is a spy and he lives next door to trainer shownu who has some suspicions about his neighbor.

Hybrid au

Puppy changkyun loves his owner Jooheon, he’s been with him his entire life and they’ve basically grown up together. He wishes he were bigger, that he could stand next to Jooheon and grip his hands with fingers and not paws.

Minhyuk decides to break some magical laws and grant his wish.

-     hybrid bunny jooheon and hybrid puppy changkyun

- Jooheon and changkyun met when they were kids and have grown up together, basically friends to lovers, except changkyun becomes a possessive dog hybrid when they’ve grown up.

-      bear shownu and bunny jooheon/bumblebee jooheon???

- hyungwoo decides to get a new hybrid pet to keep changkyun company. Changkyun doesn’t want to share his owner, but the new bunny hybrid is endearingly adorable and he warms up to him. Or kihyun w changkyun meets shownu w jooheon and the two hybrids are forced to spend time together since their owners are dating, and they slowly warm up to each other.

Teacher au

Competing music teachers changkyun and jooheon

Music teacher jooheon making some last minute copies before heading home and he hears a splashing in the pool and freaks out. Basically swim coach shownu loves practicing late at night and scares the fuck out of jooheon

Defiling the innocent

Churchboy jooheon and he somehow gets a less than innocent boyfriend in changkyun

Where hyunwoo and jooheon have been growing up together and one day hyunwoo has some strange thoughts about jooheon and thinks he’s being possessed by the devil.

Innocent church boy jooheon and actually demon changkyun, sexytimes in the church.

Arranged marriage au

Youngest son Changkyun from Kihyun’s family married to youngest son of hyunwoo’s family, jooheon. Either fantasy au or real world au?

Younger man Jooheon married off to silent and scary hyunwoo in the countryside. Slow burn of them falling in love.

Write something where changkyun has his hair up from that one performance of fighter of 161118 fighter/monsta x- fighter @musicbank

Model au

Grace’s prompt: Model shownu is in a rush to finish the day of work so he can head out for the night with wonho. Has had a long time crush on wonho since they both fought long and hard to enter model industry together. Rushes into changing room, hurriedly whipping off clothing and hears a surprised gasp. Sees a young man with full cheeks and slim eyes flushing a pretty pink as he averts his eyes and runs out of the room. Leaves shownu a little shocked and slightly yearning to chase after him. Sees him the next day and he cutely blushes again while looking shyly at hyunwoo.

Please include unknowingly married wonho and kihyun. Cute late night ramen outings with hyunwoo and jooheon/other models. Jooheon being starstruck by all the beautiful models. Jooheon having badass protective rapper friends jackson and changkyun.

Radio dj/singer/asmrtist Jooheon

Jooheon is the cutest idol changkyun’s had to write songs for

New radio dj jooheon joins old veteran shownu and they have some late nights together

Changkyun meets his favorite asmrtist/idol in person and he is absolutely adorable.

Boxer shownu au- shownu in glasses

Shownu does fighting and his cute boyfriend cheers him on at night

Doll/android au-shownu in glasses

Bored twenty year old changkyun is looking to buy one of those new Doll models on the market and he stumbles upon an older model called Jooheon. He is a worker just out of college and this model is much more affordable for him and somehow he feels a connection to it.

Scientist hyunwoo that makes the first successful model of an android, names it I.M. Unfortunately he’s not sure how to develop it emotionally and often leaves it to its own devices. His boyfriend discovers him one day and they form a bond, I.M.quickly develops emotional complexity, unfortunately one of those feelings is jealousy and possession.

Shownu is given one of those new fangled android models from some random selection that he somehow won. The cheery model named Jooheon bursts into his quiet life and changes it irrevocably.

Intimidating boyfriends au

Jooheon thinks he’s super intimidating and takes a lot of pride in that, but really it’s just because of his two boyfriends

SHOWNU IN GLASSES FOR EVERYTHING MAYBE/PUT JOOHEON IN THOSE CUTE SEXY OUTFITS HE WORE.

Please write a fic where jooheon is really thirsty for shownu’s arms/shoulders. His all in back dancing.

Thigh sex/intercrural sex:

Jooheon has thick thighs. That’s all there is to it. Maybe tie that into Changkyun’s obsession with his thighs? In quickies/moments of need jooheon’s thighs are all they need to get the job done. Shownu and jooheon and changkyun polyamorous relationship?

Melancholic/darker pet au!

Fallen in love with friend’s younger sibling au!

Here are Changkyun’s new year resolution’s: Love Jooheon, Cherish Jooheon, and Support Jooheon (heart), Kihyun watches Changkyun smirk to himself and he shakes his head at that idiot.

Midsummer night’s eve-Wedding night with shownu and jooheon but somehow put a twist on it? Maybe do garden nymph jooheon and shownu wedding night with ritualistic sex on midsummer’s eve? Where every midsummer night’s eve, someone in the clan has to host a celebration night for everyone. Unfortunately this year, it’s Jooheon’s turn and he has to tell Hyunwoo just how crazy it gets. Wherein midsummer’s night’s eve is the most active for garden nymphs and other magical creatures and it usually involves clan orgies. Jooheon still has to the duty to his clan and host it, but obviously can’t take part in all clan rituals anymore, jealous hyunwoo, slightly possessive changkyun, instead hyunwoo has the wildest night in his life with Jooheon high on spiritual energy.

Write amazing dancer hyunwoo-inspired by his performances on hit the stage. Jooheon getting so embarrassed watching his body rolls and hip thrusts. Maybe they work in the same company, Jooheon writes lyrics and hyunwoo choreographs. They have an end of the year december show and they’re both thoroughly enamored with each other’s performances. For one of hyunwoo’s later shows, Jooheon writes a rap for him.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Sugar baby au- ken and leo

Kihyun wedding photographer for hyunwoo and jooheon

Jooheon sings inappropriate songs in English (missy elliot) and Changkyun gets really embarrassed.                                                                                                                                                                                                                           She’s dreaming: lyrics of talking about not remembering him next morning, do something with that, something whimsical, magical? Maybe god/night spirit changkyun and Jooheon never remembers him next morning. Or Jooheon has a weird sleep personality (really erotic night sex), but never remembers doing it with changkyun the next morning.

Red lips, curled lashes, flushed cheeks, soft skin, loose hair, gold jewelry. Hmm maybe with reborn oracle jooheon? Or pet jooheon idk

Write something/ integrate into fics based off of this photo: photographer au? Maybe the kihyun wedding one http://garisanee.tumblr.com/post/153703032612

Jooheon with smeared lipstick: mafia or pet au, maybe into gods au, murder au maybe????????

God au w/ heroes of the remixx, but also that other one with the gates and women one

Close: space was just a word made up by someone who’s afraid to get too close

Write something based off playing with fire, or insert into an au- gods au?

Maybe combine with this quote: http://dvoyd.tumblr.com/post/152519735188

Ooh soft fic: changkyun sends jooheon that one selfie in your likes, also the instagram accounts, boyfriend instagrams or they live kinda far away and routinely check each other accounts, hyunwoo gets jealous with all the pictures jooheon posts with other guys.

Cherubic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdyY-x4IX_E: shownu and jooheon taking pics of his abs for twitter pics, but kinda turns into a makeout session with some explicit videos and that’s why he can’t post them.

http://sterekvoid.tumblr.com/post/149778025364/shownu-looking-daddy-af

Daddy hyunwoo???????

http://sterekvoid.tumblr.com/post/153634045339/thankful-for-this-moment

Feeding?

That one picture of jooheon hugging hyunwoo from the side and he’s wearing a brown kind of zip up jacket, adorably pressed up against him.

For intimidating boyfriends au! That one picture of hyunwoo and jooheon in radio station with jooheon making a cute fight me gesture, but behind him hyunwoo looks like he’d actually fucking beat you up.

Stuck lyrics are really good, queen, blind, sir yes sir salute to your lips: all good for oracle au

Jooheon in dark outfit: https://68.media.tumblr.com/ad0dc00f77e935a701a31f6144e413eb/tumblr_ohijrdOo1W1u5ikz6o1_540.jpg, would work for murder au or maybe gods au for dark rituals?

Murder au, suits?????

Oracle au or murder au- girl your face is like a blue moon, smooth radio dj changkyun?

Can’t sleep love-Pentatonix: late night love making fic

When changkyun is actually taller than jooheon

Mafia ideas: suicide squad track in clubs, jooheon’s long dangling cross earring. Hyoyeon's mystery? At one point Changkyun gets properly fitted for a suit and he looks so good

A dimple is the mark left by an angel’s finger when turning up the baby’s face to kiss when they are sleeping. Potential oracle, angel/demon, au?? www.ancientsuperstitions.com/dimples-ears/

“What would you do if you had a free day with a lover?”..... “Uh what could we do?” “Watch movies I guess” ----jackson is totally thinking about something dirty

Mermaid jooheon please: something with changkyun or maybe koi fish/any other kind of fish jooheon meeting with gentle basking shark or whale hyunwoo.

Honey cafe: honey pots, honey rings

Lingerie model: thigh highs, garters

Piglet jooheon, bear hyunwoo, fox changkyun/wolf changkyun idk

But like the growth span of Jooheon in one year picture: au where jooheon and hyunwoo grew up together and hyunwoo always saw the other boy as a sweet little brother, but jooheon’s always been in love with him. He and his family had to move away when they were just kids, but at one point when they’re all grown up, kihyun mentions having a friendly get together with the people at his work and invites hyunwoo along, since they technically work in the same company, just in separate departments. There he meets jooheon again and holy shit wow he’s all grown up and damn did mother nature do well. They separated when they were just kids, but hyunwoo’s always remembered a boy with dimples as deep as the sea and eyes that formed a half crescent when he smiled.

I know what you did last summer: angsty au! Where hyunwoo’s promised betrothed of 5 years falls in love with a castle guard instead. Featuring much angst and crying. Please have a scene where hyunwoo confronts jooheon and grabs him by the shoulders and jooheon’s never seen him this angry. For the first time he’s actually scared of the other man, and hyunwoo watches jooheon’s face crumple and wet spots start to dot his sleeve. “I’m sorry, I never meant for this to happen, but…” he crumples in on himself before quietly admitting “you can’t control the way I feel.” Hyunwoo can’t control the surge of jealousy he feels, at the thought that he, the prince, the next king of this country, was somehow jilted for some common castle guard. He grips jooheon’s chin and forces him up into a bruising kiss. Their kisses before had been speculated by the public from behind judging lashes and hidden smiles, so they had been a short, chaste press of lips. But now in the privacy of their (shared) room, he swallows Jooheon’s surprised gasp and roughly licks his way into the other’s mouth, not caring for how wild he looks right now.

Shades of cool: A world where magical creatures are rare and few between, and the ones that are seen are locked up in various aquariums and zoos. Changkyun is given the chance to work at a local aquarium that is rumored to have caught a mermaid.

Handmaiden inspired visual aesthetic: That one scene where the lady was outside with the gentlemen,laid in the quiet forest and she’s wearing a loose hanbok with her hair down, but he has a casual light suit on. Maybe fantasy wedding/engaged au, where they escape to the forest one day when they’re supposed to be on a royal procession and on official business, but jooheon never looks happy during them so after a meeting with a local earl instead of boarding the train to the next county, he takes his hand and rushes them into a nearby garden that’s been closed to the public. Hyunwoo’s never been this spontaneous in his life, but when he remembers how uncomfortable Jooheon had looked under the hungry stares of the public, it only makes him run faster. “Wait, what are you doing?!” Jooheon shouts after him. “We’ll miss the train!”

Hyunwoo yells back, “I guess we’ll just be taking a bit of a detour then~”

Nose boop kiss

hybrid/woodland creatures au!: adorably nuzzling/writhing around in the snow or leaf pile.

Maybe domestic polyamory au!: christmas where changkyun and hyunwoo just accidentally are too busy and forget to get jooheon a gift. The two panic and somehow end up deciding popping out of a gift box shirtless is a good idea. Of course, that ends up going as smoothly as expected.

Including shirtless hyunwoo, ribboned changkyun, and hysterical jooheon.

Sweet boy: hufflepuff jooheon, slytherin changkyun, gryffindor shownu, kihyun slytherin, ravenclaw hyungwon, minhyuk hufflepuff, wonho gryffindor: hp au where slytherin changkyun is hopelessly sweet on oblivious hufflepuff jooheon.

Hyunwoo, minhyuk, wonho, and changkyun all play quidditch

Jooheon always comes to watch everyone’s practices, and Changkyun always ends up trying to show off. At one point idiotically flies into a pole.

Jooheon’s lips and fingertips stained black. No matter how hard he scrubs or washes it only gets darker and smears everywhere, with no sign of it coming off. He panics, leaving more black trails everywhere. Changkyun finds him huddled in the bathroom, face stained as if he had walked through a mine shaft, and the previously pristine, white walls pressed with black fingerprints.

“What’s wrong with me?” his friend cries. A typical friends to lovers story, except this time with demonic possessions

Prompt idea: he eats sunshine and star powder

“The prettiest smiles hide the deepest secrets. The prettiest eyes have cried the most tears. And the kindest hearts have felt the most pain.”

your cheeks bleed a fiery red (but you cry a soft blue)

Fantasy au! where Changkyun is young, fresh-out-of-training, recruit for the special magical creatures unit of his local area. Not many people are willing to endanger themselves to help cosmic beings beyond their own comprehension, and Changkyun's especially rare, in that he signed up for direct in-field work out of his own volition. It was either that or a boring office job, and he'd much rather get blown to smithereens trying to help an allergic phoenix, than pour over endless forms for the rest of his life.

Of course, when he had said he expected his first day on-site to be filled with excitement, being completely on his own as he heads toward the largest warp portal he's ever seen in his life was definitely not the picture in his head.

Never did he think, as he stands shocked in a ruined church chapel, that on his first day he'd be given the opportunity to save an angel. A fallen one, to be exact.

Flower nymph/Witch au: Resin rings

https://www.buzzfeed.com/maitlandquitmeyer/little-luxuries-you-deserve-right-now?utm_term=.fozYAeWoG0#.aswkNw7oZz

This is so aesthetic a moodboard for something must be made HONEY'S cafe or some shit idfk

happycakeycake sent a photoset a.a.w.s

Special delivery for a favorite customer

happycakeycake sent a photo post

A quiet night in together

I JUST WANT JOOKYUN IN T SHIRTS AND SHITTY PAJAMA BOTTOMS SITTY ON A WOOD PORCH AND DRINKING PINK CHAMPAIN OUT OF CAT MUGS THERE TOO DECADENT

Mångata

n. The road-like reflection of the moon across the water

Night-time reflections on drunken feelings and spare pink champagne

Changkyun’s cheek is almost completely numb against the wood railing when he hears the tell-tale swish of the front door. He raises his head, stretching out the crick in his neck as he looks toward the sky. According to the half-moon, it must be at least ten.

The glare of his phone tells him he’s off just so. 10:47.

The arrival of the apartment’s second tenant is indeed confirmed when their porch door rattles open against the shoddy metal frame. Newly-dyed blonde hair pops out into the moonlight, followed by slim eyes that crinkle fondly when they take in Changkyun’s welted cheek.

“Hey, I’m back. Did you wait long?”

The words puff as into visible clouds, and the younger man shivers as each syllable cuts through the air like a cold wind blowing towards him.

“Mm,” he hums noncommittally, leaning an elbow casually against the railing and keeping his face flat. “What do you think?”

Jooheon pouts, lips curving into an ever-familiar duck bill, and Changkyun resists the urge to snicker loudly. The other man fidgets at the younger’s impassive expression, reluctantly half-in and half-out between the porch and the living room.

“In my defense,” he states (see: whines), “Fridays are always rush nights. Plus,” he sighs dusting at unseen leftovers on tight slacks, “there were at least two days worth of leftovers to clean up.”

Changkyun goes lax against the wooden rails, amusement warming his stomach as he imagines Jooheon making puppy-eyes at untouched pies and cookies. His housemate immediately groans, sensing he’s about to be laughed at and disappears back into the darkness of the apartment. The creak of muffled footsteps recedes towards the bedroom and Changkyun can’t hold back his grin, breathing out noisy snickers and watching them unfurl as hints of mist into the frigid air.

Jooheon comes back in time to catch the last wisps of Changkyun’s laugh, pausing at the open doorway to hum out his own quiet giggle. The younger man is sprawled loosely against the porch, faded purple t-shirt and oversized sweatpants hanging off his frame, face relaxed as he grins openly toward the night sky. A cold draft winds around their building, and Jooheon tugs gingerly at the worn sleeves of what was once a maroon hoodie.

Now, in its washed-out red, the color fades into a pink under the moon’s spotlight and he fingers sulkily at fraying cuffs. A shadow of the tight cinch of the collar of his work uniform still remains under his skin, so he pulls the hoodie up to his mouth, hiding his face in soft cotton.

“Why are you even waiting out here anyway? It’s absolutely freezing...” Jooheon muffles out, shuffling forward to rest beside Changkyun on the railing. The younger turns immediately over onto his elbows, coming to hunch and glance towards the other man. He rolls his eyes, huffing as he rests his chin to a raised fist.

“Well, I thought I’d enjoy the view for a little, because someone said they’d be off-shift early today!” The moon cycle hits this week as a dangling half-sickle, and it had hung so crookedly beautiful in the sky, Changkyun decidedly bore the brunt of the cold for what he had thought would be a five-minute thought session with himself and the winking cosmos.

Unfortunately, deep thought leads to easy loss of consciousness, and he had promptly passed out in the cold.

Now, they’re both awake and shivering, each wondering why the other chose to stay outside. Jooheon shrinks his hands even further into his sleeves, rubbing thin cloth desperately together as his eyes wander up towards the sky.

“It’s because of the moon isn’t it?”

He takes Changkyun’s silence as a yes and snorts his signature croaky laugh into curled sleeves. “You’re such a nerd, why did I even ask?” He reaches over, ruffling a sleeved fist against Changkyun’s scalp. Even softened by worn cotton, the knuckles dig a bit too hard and combined with the late arrival home, Changkyun’s more than a little annoyed.

“Hyung - I swear to god,” he growls ducking away from the affectionate touch and turns to glare jerkily downwards. The intrusive hand pauses mid-air, where it had been buried in the younger’s hair just moments before, and slowly retraces a lingering path back to its owner.

The space between them grows thick with unreadable tension, and Jooheon swallows awkwardly as he tries to breathe through the silent space between them. It’s true, he had promised earlier this week when Changkyun shyly took his hand and asked if he was available Friday night. What he hadn’t expected was just how long cleanup would take today - busy enough for him to get back over an hour late than scheduled.

When he cautions a glance over to the younger man, he’s still adamantly avoiding Jooheon’s eyes. However, he’s also still shivering in his thin shirt, skinny arms wrapping tightly around an equally small chest. The best thing would be for the both of them to go back inside, but Jooheon is probably the last person who could convince Changkyun of that right now.

Well, if they’re both inevitably stuck out here, Jooheon might as well make something of that, right?

He whispers hesitantly, “Wait here-” before cutting away and heading back inside, letting the porch door slide closed with a clack.

Changkyun finally drops his sulk, straightening up to look regretfully back at the door. He had gotten irrationally mad in the moments past. Somehow Jooheon’s friendly teasing had hit an already exposed nerve and he had snapped. For the elder’s tough facade, he’s irrevocably soft inside, prone to crying at the smallest of things. Changkyun wouldn’t be surprised if his small eruption had driven the other man away for the rest of the night.

Just as he’s about to mope to the moon again, a noisy slam announces Jooheon’s (unexpected) return, and Changkyun has to control how quickly he perks up. The other man is back but with a puffy coat wrapped comically around an already oversized hoodie, another winter jacket in hand, along with two familiar mugs and a bottle of...is that champagne?

He bustles over, coat sleeves sliding and rustling loud enough to wake every bird in the neighbourhood, setting down the bottle and mugs in order to drape the jacket gingerly around Changkyun. He pats awkwardly at the younger’s now warm-er shoulders, making sure the jacket stays on before returning to his previous position against the railing.

Indeed, it is champagne upon closer inspection as Changkyun takes a closer look, pulling his goosebumped arms through the jacket at the same time. The fabric settles comfortably around his lanky proportions almost perfectly, and he realizes Jooheon’s somehow managed to dig out his favorite jacket from the mixed cesspool that is his bedroom.

ALSO LESBIAN JOOKYUN WITH SKINNY SHARP CHANGKYUN WITH THE SHARPEST EYELINER AND RIPPED JEANS AND SOFT CURVY JOOHEON wHO RECENTLY DYED HER HAIR BLOND AND CHANGKYUN S HAVING HEART PALPITATIONS

Compendium (n): a collection of concise but detailed information about a particular subject, especially in a book or a form of publication.

A string of loose stories and different universes for one Lee Jooheon

happycakeycake

Changkyun with like a rough spiky bob and messy bangs and the only thing she knows how to do is the fiercest eyeliner but jooheon always coos over her anyway "my favorite dongsaeng looks so adorable today!"

happycakeycake

COLLEGE LESBIANS JOOKYUN IS ALL I WANT IN LIFE

Jooheon with longer curly hair and soft curves and snapbacks that she thinks makes her look cool but it's just precious

Imagery practice:

Like a pastel painting but with the colors melting as if in molten lava, raspberry pink blending into a bright orange,  grey fading into a baby blue.

Rolling flames across the sky, pierced by shadows of telephone wires and tall trees

Fat lumps of grey sit still in the sky, looming and unchanging overhead. Yet, somehow it fades into a complete shade of open blue, barely dotted with white fluff. When the bus shifts, all he can see is the darkness of rain clouds again. It’s like watching foaming waves push out to the sea, going so far until everything melts into plain blue.

The vibrant green of the grass and the trees stands out cartoonishly in the shaded light and he blinks owlishly, wondering if he’s somehow living in a child’s drawing. White dots flutter across the open windows and they melt into the ground. It can’t be snowing in April, can it?

He squints harder, pressing his cheek to the lukewarm glass. The white pieces are actually minuscule petals, revolving through the spring wind as every tree shakes their flowers loose, shedding them for summer leaves instead. There’s so many of them flying around though that if he looks far away enough, it could be an early March blizzard.

The weather is strange today. It had been appropriately wet and freezing in the morning, the world saturated in shades of grey and green. Nothing unexpected after the previous night, where the heavens had poured out their sorrows out for hours on end.

However, as he steps out to the bus stop it’s blindingly bright. From inside glass windows, the sunlight seemed mild and subdued by the thick net of grey across the sky. Yet, as he’s almost blinded, it’s obvious the view from inside had been a lie. It’s another strange weather phenomenon  - yesterday the snowing flowers and today the post-rain sunshine.

Where could this expanse of sunlight come from, he wonders, finally relaxing his stare as he enters the shielded cover of the bus. The sky is entirely painted in grey, only occasional patches of watered down blue showing through. Somehow, the sharp light only stands out more, pure white smeared against a muffled backdrop.

Maybe he’s spent too long blankly staring at computer screens or just being inside, but he thinks this must be what heaven on earth looks like.

Dream: 4/24/17

A wide penthouse/apartment room, empty except for two large beds and some tables and cabinets.

It seems dark, but there’s wide rectangular glass window that takes up the entire front wall. It shows through as cloudy and gloomy - the expected night city view is shrouded in gray mist; the room completely dimmed and dark: only off-white light coming from the window - more like a buzzing violet, hazy enough to be a fog.

Kihyun sat on one bed, face placid and unreadable as he stared at Jooheon sleeping under the covers in the other, Changkyun sitting on the edge of the same bed, hovering over him.

His arms are bare, but he’s safely tucked under blankets; sleeping so calmly - completely open and vulnerable.

eyes closed with lashes pressed and fluttering against his cheek, mouth slightly parted as he breathes sleepily, cheeks squished into the pillows; blond hair ruffled and curly.

Curled like a baby with blankets gripped in a loose embrace. There’s some kind of light - purple/violet pink neon light glowing above him from the wall? It’s spilling over his body like stained watercolor paints - especially on bare fingers, neon pink shading across pale wrists, across the back of his hand and stopping just a little over his knuckles.

Also highlighting the back of his head, violet strands standing up, frizzly in the neon light. There’s a cold purple creeping across his bare back, fading against skin in a soft highlight - at least from where Changkyun is sitting.

Changkyun is reaching over, with one arm over Jooheon’s figure as he looks down at his peaceful visage. He’s worried about something - they’re going in for a surgery? “reprogramming” was the word used. He lays down over him, but so carefully he’s barely putting any actual weight down on the sleeping boy.

Kihyun sits straight, with his hands clenched in his lap as he observes the two - eyes completely dark. He says, “You know, he won’t be the same after the reprogramming. Are you still going to go through with it?”

It’s some kind of decision, something Jooheon’s completely entrusted to Changkyun to make. It doesn’t seem to be a literal reprogramming, more of a biological fix that will heal whatever disease Jooheon seems to have, but Changkyun knows something will “snap” and Jooheon could potentially become a new person - forgetting him and who he used to be. He doesn’t know if he can do it, so he clenches his eyes shut and huddles against Jooheon, breath shaking as he feels the solid mass of the other’s body under him.

At this, Jooheon wakes, swollen lids rousing as he turns toward Changkyun with pink cheeks. It’s the overused metaphor of the sun suddenly shining through dark clouds - shining lips immediately pull into a sweet grin when he drowsily sees Changkyun. It’s absolutely beautiful - a ray of light in the darkness of the bedroom, his hair glowing like a halo.

The first thing he says is “I trust you.” before pulling the other boy flush into his embrace, looping bare arms around his neck tightly.

On another note: later dream: college volleyball game? Jooheon whining across a volleyball court about a foul or something? An oversized maroon red volleyball jacket falling over his fingers and those typical tight volleyball shorts - red and white sneakers and socks with a stripe up to the ankle. Later on, he and his teammate argue across the net, both of them pouting, but she’s really fiery and angry - she’s small with the short sleeved t-shirt of their jersey - red and white, something black emblazoned across the front. She has her hair down with a curtain of straight bangs - YooA from Oh my Girl! Maybe?

gumiho/fox spirit Jooheon: http://www.cracked.com/funny-7186-8-scary-japanese-urban-legends/

As an offering to the gods, living beings have been sealed into the pillars supporting temples to ensure stability and longevity in construction - after all human flesh is the best foundation for a building. These structures are still standing and Changkyun happens upon some dusty remains in a small nameless temple village.

Lee Jooheon/Lim Changkyun | I.M

Lee Jooheon

Lim Changkyun | I.M

Monsta X Ensemble

Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements

Horror

Alternate Universe - Merpeople

Any Rating

Any Warning

The dead walk out of the sea, beautiful and alive, and no one suspects anything otherwise. Except for Changkyun, when Jooheon shows up in front of his door, asking him cheerfully if he still has the keys to the lighthouse. The other boy had drowned himself just two months ago.

Lee Jooheon/Lim Changkyun | I.M

Lee Jooheon

Lim Changkyun | I.M

Monsta X Ensemble

Alternate Universe - Circus

Horror

Alternate Universe - Merpeople

Any Rating

Any Warning

every attraction in the circus show is obviously fake, save for the locked, covered tank pushed into the dusty corner of the back of the supply room. changkyun, a new hand hired to help with cleaning, hears a strange gurgling from the supposedly empty tank and goes to investigate.

captured mermaid! jooheon falling in love with changkyun, and along the way changkyun discovering all the terrifying horrors of his workplace and the previous attractions who may or may not have disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

Lee Jooheon/Lim Changkyun | I.M

Lee Jooheon

Lim Changkyun | I.M

Monsta X Ensemble

Horror

Kitsune

Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements

Any Rating

Any Warning

Changkyun hears the capital's temple is famous for offering wandering travelers like him the best of luck. However, he's more than interested in the rumored treasure that's said to be hidden within the midnight depths of the nearby burial ground.

kitsune/gumiho/fox spirit! jooheon who's been sealed deep within the temple for centuries by generations of priests and finally a handsome young man comes and accidentally sets him free...how will he repay him?

Every beauty comes with her horrors.

A vague fantasy au - inspired by Blind MX - something about secrecy, sanctity, and ruining virginal purity - “I wanna rip apart the blinds that cover you - I see it, blind” - absolute sacrilege but neither of them can resist the sin - “Your existence flickers before my eyes, don’t disappear”

Perhaps a temple boy - one of a dozen chosen oracles - life entirely devoted to the gods and nothing else, i.e. vestal virgins. Exist for the sole purpose of tending to the temple, keeping the flames alight for the gods - therefore cannot leave at any moment - especially not in the daytime. “You were not born for the public’s eye - you are a piece of the gods themselves, their flesh and bone, their blood and hair - keep yourself sacred and so too will your god.”

First meeting in the dark - a flash of a wide heated stare and the oil pot clangs hastily against the ground. The flames flicker, sparks alighting in crackling anger, and the male oracle

That + something w forbidden royalty - changkyun a prince and jooheon a simple servant of the gods - and yet when changkyun is with him, he’s never felt more in awe - the holiest image of jooheon nestled between his sheets, a sheer blanket held to his chest, draping down just so around his hips as the morning sun surrounds him in a stream of glowing gold - “my angel, my heaven, stay with me forever,” he murmurs languidly, pressing each word with a dragging kiss over Jooheon’s arched neck. “You are my religion,” he confesses fully, words dry, hushed, and sacred in the dusty air. “Shh-you must not say such things,” jooheon smiles easily, but there’s an uneasy wrinkle in his brow as he smooths a thumb over Changkyun’s parted lips. The prince kisses him fiercely, determined to swallow away the protest with a talented swirl of his tongue as he digs his fingers into the creases of the oracle’s bare hips. A laugh echoes sweetly into his mouth, but he only bears down harder, extricating a shy moan as he sets upon the task of proving his words true. After all, he doesn’t lie about things such as this.

Scene with Jooheon bathing in a pond hidden in the center of a forest clearing - cleansing himself with the essence of the earth - connect and recenter himself again for holy work. Thin white linen shirt, fitted loosely with errant ends of delicately tied straps batting softly against his skin. Hem of pants billow right under his knees, tickling at the crook there and jooheon shivers, rubbing both hands up along his practically bare arms. He hangs up the lantern, stepping fully clothed into the hushed pond and clenching his eyes shut as cold creeps unflinchingly across his every inch of skin. Fire bugs blink curiously from the bushes, their glowing torsos lighting up the glossy ripples with nebulous dots of amber. Pink lotuses sway with the wind, little boats for sleeping buds and jooheon’s stills as much as possible, waiting for the pond to settle into its impenetrable plateau again.

Changkyun: the young brash stubborn hormonal prince → but honest and absolutely knows what he wants - but in the process he mucks up a bit. Play w idea that even w prince and oracle, he absolutely reveres jooheon, treating him like he’s his most sacred idol, his most precious object - a conflict between protecting and desecrating. Wants him in every sense: body, mind, and soul - wants every bit of him, free him from the servitude of the temple, make him his and jooheon will never have to hide his pretty face from the sun’s beaming smile ever again. Free him - and lock him up in his own cage.

Suit porn! Au: rich young heirs or aristocrats, they have nothing better to do with their time nor their money and so they buy suits just to wreck them again with each other.

#otw: 170727 meet and greet  on fymonstax.tumblr.com

Wonheon mafia! Au w/ gang member wonho and stripper jooheon:

Title ideas / inspo: Kiss me like it’s a lie, lie to me, baby don’t say you want no liar, baby don’t say you want a bad guy like me, you’re my favorite kind of lie, put me in my place if you want- (as if it's your last, pride and prejudice - zico, sweet lies, earned it, frzzn by teflon saga, (slick neon nights and the city thrumming through the dirty veins of the underground - a smooth rush, you’ll never feel the same as you do now, splayed on your bruised knees, the lights pressed into your skin, here, even as he’s pinned to the spot ten times over, jooheon feels the danger like a dance beat, pulsing in time beneath his skin. Here, caught in hoseok’s stare, they create the very definition of heat between them. It’s so dangerous, so dangerous, so hot and he teases anyway. - want by taemin, in the night  and false alarm by the weeknd, some exo spicy edits,  then the cruel tenderness of it all sets in, teeth grazing across the back of your neck, the world caught in the odd hours before dawn - wicked game by hula hi-fi)

Jooheon takes the crumpled bill between his teeth, gritting his teeth around the taste of sweat and smoke as he crawls backwards on the stage, throwing his head back against the heated metal of the pole.

“Good work,” Youngjae pouts without taking his eyes off the glossy pucker of his lips in the tilted backstage mirror. Jooheon grunts noncommittally, jaw aching as he spits out the wad of bills onto the makeup table, littered with a bottle here, a half-open compact there - a collection of shared clutter.

“Rest up,” Youngjae hums, snapping the strap of garter belt with a clawed finger, and Jooheon watches half-heartedly out of the corner of his eye as the lace settles into a reddened welt over the other’s curving, round thigh.

“Get a ride, alright?” He grins, hazy, lined eyes blinking smoky pink with hasty eyeshadow as he struts out into the rabid screams, each step clicking perfectly to the beginnings of a pounding bass.

Jooheon checks his phone, pressing his bruised knees over the rapidly cooling line of sweat making its way down his bared chest, pooling at the thin hem of the only flimsy piece of lace offering him any semblance of decency right now. His phone blares bright, reading 11:50 with startling bluntness.

Minhyuk’s shift ends at 1, but there’s no way his discolored knees nor his swollen, aching waist can take any more of this - at least not tonight. He gingerly steps his grime covered feet over the tacky carpet, grimacing when his bare toes stick with every step. There’s a pair of ripped jeans hung over the back of a chair, and jooheon painfully, tenderly slips into them, waiting quietly for his shifting joints to settle into bearable silence as he zips himself into the tight denim.

He can’t find his shirt anywhere in the mess of leather straps and ripped lace, so he folds his arms into a puffy winter jacket, sighing as the fine layers encompass him in a bubble of warmth. The edge of the hood comes to the edge of his cheek, the sleeves dangle over the tip of every finger, but it’s not so bad on a winter’s night. It’ll be easier to wait for hours in the alleyway like this.

“Want a light?” A black car rolls past him before purring to a sleek, silent stop.

“You hate smoking.” Jooheon says by way of greeting, keeping his back pressed to the hard grit of the alleyway. It’s the truth.

“Only on some nights,” Hoseok affirms, taking a long, slow drag before puffing a grey dragon’s breath at his huddled figure. “And tonight, you looked good up there.”

Jooheon says nothing, and Hoseok stares, taking in the smeared edge of black around blood-shot eyes, glancing over the streaks of lipstick still glossed over in shiny pools of pink moonlight. “Come on,” he smiles, teeth showing, “I’ll give you a ride home.”

Jooheon frowns, pressing his mouth into a fine line of wordless disapproval. Hoseok stifles a chuckle at his pout. After a beat or two, the younger man shifts meaninglessly along the wall before muttering, “Minhyuk’s taking me home.”

“At one in the morning?” Hoseok supplies, not missing a beat, eye-catching smile still plastered across his pale face. “Youngjae told me you know, that you needed a ride.”

Damn Youngjae, Jooheon frowns harder, kicking at a pile of dusty pebbles, scuffing the toe of his worn boots even further. There’s an audible click from above his downturned head, and he looks up to see Hoseok still leaned casually on his open window edge, cigarette tilted jauntily out from the corners of his upturned lips. “Get in,” he quips, each word dislodging a flickering ember drop to the ground, short life extinguished into the bite of the cold cement.

“Put it out,” Jooheon bites, demanding even as he pushes away from the wall, knees and ankles creaking as he forces his body to stumble around to the passenger side.

“Sure thing,” Hoseok sing-songs, letting the cigarette tumble to the ground without a moment’s hesitation. He slithers his upper body back into the driver’s side and rolls up the window with an indistinguishable hum.

“The boss is planning a business talk at the club next Saturday,” Hoseok remarks through the dead silence between them, one hand on the wheel, both eyes on the road. “You’re dancing then right?” He turns slightly, catching a flashing glance of Jooheon’s dark head propped against the foggy window before swiveling back to the road.

A business talk, Jooheon considers, a shiver running through him at the unspoken implications behind it, and he’s suddenly reminded of the fact that he’s not wearing anything under his winter coat. He curls up tighter on the seat, the realization of it somehow infinitely worse in Hoseok’s presence. “Yeah,” he murmurs, breath condensing over fine glass.

“It’ll be good money,” Hoseok affirms as he pushes the car into a thrumming stop, unlocking the doors with an echoing click. Jooheon pushes against the handle, almost tripping over the side edge in his hurry to escape the strange atmosphere of marlboro smoke and gun lubricant, of piano music on the radio and the slickness of Hoseok’s smile.

“I’ll see you then,” the older man waves in a short, cheery motion, ducking down slightly so Jooheon can see his slitted eyes, closed in a sly grin, from under the obstruction of the car’s black hood. Jooheon turns on his heel and leaves.

Jooheon distracted by Wonho - letting himself succumb just for a little, until a tussle with drunken members - youngjae’s dead fish-eyed stare is lain across the floor at all the wrong angles and he breaks down, (how could he have let himself go, to let himself be fooled while this was going on - they were never that close, but there’s some sort of unspoken solidarity, a trust you could never form unless you toiled away your body, letting yourself be sold like this everyday - youngjae understood - and now he’s dead).

sleazy gang member leering up at him + wonho seeing jooheon’s discomfort and calling him aside to another room.

“You - you had guns the entire time?” jooheon whispers, throat dry, staring up at hoseok from his dislodged seat against the ground. Youngjae’s cold body remains swollen, clammy, and silent under his touch. The shuffle of metal clicks over holsters and suit jackets, shed easily in the presence of the few eyes left. hoseok grins, the sickly glare of club lights looming in his eyes, above jooheon.

“the deal had to be made one way or another - he was the one who chose the more difficult alternative.” hoseok shrugs, shoulders rippling calm and easy under the leather holster. Jooheon looks away, a hot tightness  rising through his throat as he meets youngjae’s flat grey stare instead. He takes a moment to truly look, to realize the wide emptiness of youngjae’s eyes, the only thing left of him in his final moments, and he finally bottles it up and swallows the feeling down with a silent, pained gasp.

hoseok trails bare knuckles along his cheek, tight and elegant lines shifting in the dark as he kneels to jooheon’s level. “Collateral damage,” he comments. A glance, a half-shrug and youngjae’s dead body is quickly thrown away. Jooheon doesn’t look up, feeling hoseok’s fingers begin to tremble again his skin from his own slow undercurrent of growing shudders.

“But don’t worry.” The grazing of knuckles becomes a smooth palm, cupped around the entirety of his cheek, fitting itself into the empty crook of his jaw and hooking its easy touch behind his ear. Jooheon stills for so long he can’t tell whether it’s because he’s unwilling to move or because he physically can’t. hoseok cradles his face, gentle and soft, and leaves his words in a whisper of a kiss over jooheon’s forehead. “I would have never let anything happen to you.”  unlike him goes unspoken.

The fall is eventual and inevitable. It’s enough that one of these nights, these nights so black so suffocating and another crack of the gun as he stares at another pair of dead fish eyes hidden between shuffling legs. Finally, when hoseok looks at him with such simpering pity, as if he understands - those arms open and he can’t stop himself from falling.

The night passes like an eternal damnation between them. Jooheon can’t take his eyes away, not when Hoseok looks down at him like he’s finally won. It’s a frenzied, maddening thing. Teeth latched onto his neck, hands dragging him down by his writhing hips, he fades with the rest of the night.  

It is only until dawn, that turns to the great Venetian window and hides his stained cheeks in his palms.

At his side, Hoseok lights up a smoke and breathes in and out, a deep and satisfying drag. This is not the first or last time between them. Jooheon should run, he should strip Hoseok’s touch from his skin and leave himself raw against the white, tainted sheets. But danger feels as familiar as the burn of cigarette smoke and the beast’s nadir bathed holy in the morning light is enough to fool him, just for the moment.

The idea that Hoseok drives Jooheon into his arms - so cruelly so casually, until he’s entangled. Only until he’s shot down the ones at the very top, that it even occurs to Jooheon - it’s too late to run. “My love,” Hoseok kisses him, and Jooheon finally tastes it, the spilled blood on his tongue, the cold edge against his throat.

“I admit, I’ve had this in mind for a long time. But then you came along - and well, here we are.”

Modern Noir Songs inspired crime/mafia! Au: My Love by Kovacs

(my love, no more whiskey and cocaine, like a shark I'll be ripping you apart, and celebrate with lots of champagne) (can’t trust a cold-blooded man, he’ll love you and leave you alive) (your eyes are frozen to kill me-gashina) (The tremble of your mouth sets me on fire as night closes in) - kal cahoone, “the movement” (I think I said te amo, before I knew your name) - Tarantella - Esqueletos album

A chapter based on each song in the 15 song noir playlist

The boss, for all his whispered reputations, sits small and contained behind a simple mahogany desk, looking for all the world like he just stepped out from behind the stage of a New York fashion scene, everything about him brushed to what Changkyun would say - a point of spoiled perfection. Delicate pops into mind, and the younger man bows fluidly at the waist, subtly scoffing at the chances of someone like him ending up here with that face still intact.

“Kneel.”

The unwavering command stops him mid-way, half-trapped at ninety degrees and a slow jerky ascent, the word registering like the grate of chalk over sidewalk in his stuttering mind. He glances up, still bent at the waist, only to meet a slitted gaze, flat with the cold grey of tombstones and nimbus clouds and drops to his knees with an unexpected wave of shivers.

Changkyun’s neck is locked into a stiff column of stone as he keeps his head ducked to the lush carpets, breath inextricably caught as every muscle twitches, tensed and yet not daring to move even an inch out of place. His own bug-eyed reflection stares back at him from the glossy tip of pointed leather, warping his quiet terror into something much more palpable as a polished oxford jerks harshly under the tender length of his throat.

His frozen vision is forced upwards, caught in the same stormy pair of nimbus clouds again as they tilt towards him in smooth, slanted consideration. The hard edge of the other’s shoe nudges his neck up even further, strained and bare in a defenseless offering.

It’s the first time the other man smiles, hazy storm clouds dipping beneath silk lashes as creamy welts appear under full cheeks. Dimples, Changkyun acknowledges vaguely, feeling his throat work uncomfortably against unforgiving leather. The rubber rim of the shoe stays still, hooked under his chin as the boss smiles down at him with a sense of unsettling calm, and Changkyun’s frantic mind is already on its way towards shutting down as it repeatedly screams what do you want? into the silent void of the closed room.

But well, the answer is right there, nudging a harsh imprint against his proffered throat. He swallows audibly, breath catching as he looks into those fathomless pools again before clenching his own nervous gaze shut and pressing his dry lips to the arched length of a socked ankle.

He leaves his kiss there, stilling for an unmeasurable moment before retracting his mouth in bated hesitance. The leather digs into the soft skin of his chin for a few seconds more before slipping down across his skin in silent approval. Changkyun closes his eyes and sends a murmured prayer to whatever god is out there because he was sure for a minute or two he was going to be kicked straight across the face.

“You may leave now. Hyunwoo will see you about tomorrow’s matters.” Changkyun doesn’t need anything more to stumble to his heels and basically turn tail and sprint out of there. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches the soft hint of another dimpled grin and resolves to never trust another pretty face again.

Betrayal scene: “i’ve always wanted to see you on your knees,” jia er coos, nudging his boots between jooheon’s open thighs, pressing them into the ripped slashes along the other’s bloodied pants. Changkyun’s never seen such desperation in the older man’s eyes before, never seen him in such a state of vulnerability. (He can’t help the strange thrill that runs up his spine).

“Here-” Changkyun mutters, fumbling for the spare gun in his shoulder holster and pressing it into Jooheon’s stiff hands. He’s re-loading his own with precise, memorized motions, but the other man only holds it like he’s cradling a teacup, as if the handle would shatter if he bore the entire weight of his grip around it. His fingers curl around the barrel like the way a schoolgirl would pick a blossom from a spring tree, careful with the wonder of a lovesick novice.

No- Changkyun doesn’t believe this. “Don’t tell me,” he chances to speak even as Jooheon’s shadowed gaze roves along the gun’s black body with meticulous investigation, “you’ve never used a gun before?”

The older man’s fingers finally curl into a clenched grip around the handle as his ripped lips form an irritated glower. Even now, Changkyun thinks his soft, rounded hands are completely unsuited to the touch of blackened metal - too unwieldy, too delicate for killing. And yet, he knows, he’s seen otherwise.

“Hyunwoo always shot it for me,” Jooheon murmurs after a tense pause, turning the Charter 0.38 around his smooth palms, the barrel’s unforgiving edge presented in stark contrast against the curved porcelain of his fingers, “but well, I suppose what better time to learn than now?” A wet shriek pierces through the wall behind them, and Changkyun grimaces as the sound pounds through his eardrums. Yeah, why not - after all, he’s always wanted to see the boss with blood on his pretty, delicate hands and what better chance than today, with their lives on the very edge of the line. He can’t thank the gods enough.

Bedroom interrogation scene:

Backstory: “He grew up in an orphanage, much like every other boy in that wasted part of the city,” Hyunwoo states, voice vibrating smoothly to the same tandem of the ragged cloth he’s currently polishing over the pistol’s scratched surface. “But well, he saw some things-” he pauses, cocking the gun to the gentle morning light, inspecting its barrel this way and that before he silently deems it acceptable and sets it aside for the next banged up smith and wesson. “And his poor little brother did too.”

Changkyun’s breath catches; it’s cliche as every other sob story he’s heard and yet - he wonders what Jooheon would’ve looked like as a chubby, innocent child, the faceless body of another boy appearing as some vague form by his side. The image glitches, unequivocally fake compared to the sleek-eyed, fine-haired man that Changkyun presents himself before everyday, staring at him over lightly crossed legs with a cocked, unreadable gaze.

“He was only seventeen too - so close to leaving with all his belongings in one hand, his brother safely tucked in the other,” Hyunwoo sighs, age-old fatigue cracking across the tanned face as he loads a new magazine into the now-polished smith and wesson. The distinct click of the fresh bullets punctuates his every word, leaving Changkyun inordinately chilled to his very core. “I’m sure you can guess what happened when the men found them.”

Changkyun’s mind races with a thousand images, dark, blurred and flickering images as he finds himself blurting out hasty questions without a moment’s consideration. “What men? And how did he even survive?”

Hyunwoo only sends him a unspoken glance, before his face shifts into a blank mask as he continues with his methodical task, filling up the dry silence between them with the rhythmical re-loading of bullets. “I’d assume they’re long gone now - low-life thugs that ran wild in the underbelly of the city, so drunk on power that they forget-” he re-sets the grip with a forceful shove of his palms, piecing the gun together with a final echo of cold metal, “a king never lasts.”

“Then what about Jooheon?” Changkyun’s mouth runs wild with unbidden thoughts, words tumbling like a rushing, unbroken waterfall.

“He’s something else,” Hyunwoo hums, a strange light glimmering inside his calm eyes. Fondness? Changkyun wouldn’t dare guess out loud. “When I found him - well, my first thought was that he must’ve been the only survivor of a sudden gunfight, probably just a poor lamb caught in the slaughter.” He chuckles, low and unhindered, the unreadable emotion in his creased gaze pooling with the amber intensity of raw honey. “But I’m sure you of all people know what a farce that is.” He glances lazily at Changkyun, observing the other’s expression of wary agreement with a keen pang of satisfaction in his stomach.

“I can still remember it now, the way he stumbled over dead bodies with an obvious injury - at the very least a dislocated ankle, but most likely a cracked bone.” He grimaces, tapping the pointed leather of his shoe against the tiled floor in phantom pain. “There were marks all over him, bruises blooming across his cheeks, a collar of handprints around his throat, and blood - blood was everywhere.” He sets the gun down with an air of tense finality, the light in his eyes glazing over as he sits back, caught in something only he can see. “It was gruesome.”

Changkyun doesn’t doubt him for a minute; if someone with as many scars like Hyunwoo is admitting this without an ounce of hesitation, then he’s really only proven himself as the novice everyone thinks he is.

“He never held the crown of a king, but when he stepped up to me, bleeding from the mouth, chin held sharp and proud - I thought I saw the fangs of a wolf.”

Hyunwoo’s death? Potential?: (i just want to know you, bury you in black)

Jackson interactions + CK onlooker:

Title ideas: affection is cigarettes after sex (mocha is the glimpse of heaven)

MX monsters au: incubus! Shownu and fire kitsune! Jooheon

https://vixxtastic90.tumblr.com/post/165353681691/xeletteshipsyou-monsta-x-mystical-creatures

http://xeletteshipsyou.tumblr.com/post/164789108510/monsta-x-mystical-creatures-shownu-will-be-an

The stage roars with the crowd’s frenzied screams and as the stalagmites of light fracture past the sweaty film of Changkyun’s blurred vision - Jooheon grows a pair of wings right before their very eyes.

A heavy sleeper - prompt idea? Horror maybe?

You know how to handle guys baby - prompt idea (queen - mx)

Escape is just a nod and a casual wave - tear you apart - she wants revenge

take me (cage me) in your love

“I wonder what an angel tastes like,” Minhyuk sighs, smearing a line of red past his cheek with a long, lazy drawl of a pointed finger. Hoseok runs his tongue along the rounded edge of his teeth, swallowing down the hint of iron, filling his stomach with only a sense of empty dissatisfaction. Life hums sluggishly in his veins, and the heady thrum of blood flows behind his closed lids. It’s not enough.

“Why don’t we find out?” The eternal inferno of his appetite awakens with a roar, and, suddenly, he’s hungry all over again.

In which hungry demons/incubi wonhyuk devote themselves to the desecration of heaven’s holiest child.

http://aminoapps.com/page/monbebe/6017419/monsta-x-as-witches

Kihyun sings for no man, but for Jooheon’s innocent smile he’ll make his first and only exception. The crown treasure is a songbird tucked away into the hushed, twisting hallways of the palace - sworn to never sing for any man as long as he lives. The songbird of the palace is tucked away into the hushed twisting corridors of its expansive body, muffled in rooms of dusty silks and locked behind shining silver bars - sworn to never sing as long he lives.

burn me to ashes with the softness of your kisses (burn me with the softness of your kisses), look at song lyrics rec page, tear you apart lyrics, dark noir songs? I yearn to hold you close (tonight and always) - pillowtalk

Out of my head, of my heart and my mind - siames the wolf - as you get high - i want you to snuff out my flame - you make my blood pound faster (my heart break harder) - “san telmo” tarantella

Ruts are a whirlwind force of nature: irrepressible, uncontrollable, and dangerous above all else. Without a mate or black market suppressants, you might as well sentence yourself to a life of government-imposed isolation - that is, if you aren’t practically charred from the inside out first.

Changkyun knees shake, knocking against the ice-cold porcelain of the toilet bowl as he watches his future swirl down the drain, white bits of crushed suppressants mixing with the acid green-yellow of his body’s plain rejection of his efforts at maintaining control. His degree (a full four year scholarship - his mother had cried tears of pure happiness), his career (an open position at a nearby lab already there for the taking - the sunbaes teasing him mercilessly, asking if he’s submitted his application yet), all of it - gone. A curtain of red falls in blooming blotches across his vision, and Changkyun’s hopes, his dreams (his innocent childhood yearnings, the only thing he had ever, has ever, loved) are destroyed by a simple clot of heat, swelling heavy and hot over engorged flesh as if to remind him this is what you are, this is all you ever will be - a beast forever caught in its own biology.

Dimly, as hard tiles smash into the back of his head with an audible crack, Changkyun can hear a scream fill the sterile space of the room. He struggles to breathe, eyes lolling as he swallows past the raw pain ripping through the tender glands in his throat, and another sound echoes. It’s him - the savage, baying cry is stringing itself out from his mouth, wordless and desperate as he begs for something outlined just so in his mind’s eye, hazy around the edges with the flickering black spots of his vision. Syllables and rational sentences are hacked to pieces by his locked jaw, spat out instead as heaving grunts and sharp whines as he claws at empty air, searching blindly for the very thing he can never have.

An a/b/o au but alphas are a dangerous thing - if one is allowed into a full rut, may very well result in death - for both the alpha and their mate. Treated as an immediate danger by the government if unbonded.

Childhood friends jookyun - grew up together in an orphanage. W changkyun’s skinny frame always expected a beta - but well, fate loves playing cruel tricks.

The moment changkyun’s blood test comes back as alpha (+) he loads himself w suppressants. He’ll never let himself be ruined by something so arcane, so animalistic - he’s not like those criminals on tv, the insane characters locked up in various shows - he’s just a person w his own goals and dreams.

The moment the rut forces itself through - jooheon can’t just stand by and let his friend claw himself open and bleed to death - calling the police isn’t an option either, not if he wants to see changkyun again - and so he does the only thing he can think of.

A haze is all changkyun can see through, but everything else is too vivid - the taste of jooheon bursting so sweet and alive against his tongue, the mixed musk of sweat, semen, and jasmine somehow - embeds itself within his nose, the too easy give of flesh under his digging nails.

The next morning might as well be a horror scene, he’s so shocked and disgusted w himself. Bites, scratches, red welts, bruises, littering all over jooheon’s still body - sleeping though, face calm, breathing peacefully through swollen lips as changkyun shakes, taking in the consequences of what he’s done. He looks down, burgundy crusting w a tang of iron underneath his uneven fingernails, hissing as he runs his fingers down raw scratches over his back - still nothing compared to the violent aftermath painted onto jooheon in varying shades of muddy yellows, greens, and plum ripened purples.

Dead men are heavier than broken hearts - askbangtansound

Lilili yabbay - “the dance of the thirteenth month, the dance that leans on the moonlight, my vision is only at you” “open up the time where only both of us can exit (exist)” - a tale spanning centuries, generations.

sin - “ a vitiated state of human nature in which the self is estranged from God ”

Like the remnants of ancient ruins, his body is lain among the flowers coated in creeping moss and the dust of past centuries, desecrated and forgotten in all his lovely holiness. The grecian statues stand, embedded in a guarded ring of supple limbs and twisted bodies made with incomplete too-perfect flesh as the growing grass of a fresh spring runs over their arcane stone bases. The mausoleum, the holy temple rises as a remnant, prostrated before the cruel chains of fate.

When jooheon kisses him, love flashes - green, clicking, immediate - across changkyun’s mind. When jooheon kisses him, it flashes love like a string of codes through changkyun’s mind.

In which jooheon and changkyun fumble around each other like a set of overheated, spluttering computers whirring on overdrive.

"Don't forget about me. On a good day, I'll call you once again. It was beautiful meeting you, who bloomed. - from new moon jbj

“I’m fine, but i’m not okay.”

https://bisexual-changmin.tumblr.com/post/173622718463/changmin-yunho-source-source - concept is satan’s son flirting with a very beautiful vampire

(the devil’s) satan’s youngest son woos a very handsome vampire.

“Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.” Their Eyes Were Watching God.

If i had a flower for everyday that i thought of you, both my garden and my life would be in full bloom.

Hyungkyun - changkyun is sure he’s in love with the coolest boy in school.

Featuring - deceiving appearances, murder, betrayal, and tragic teen romance

Hyungwon wears his ears pierced - how many, changkyun can never keep track of. He dyes his hair too - right now he likes the sharp blonde look that never seems to fade even under the summer sun - and of course, his signature leather jacket always slipped around his shoulders - it’s garish over the school’s blazer, but it’s handsome, it’s so cool.

I mean he just looks so... in that leather jacket - until he finds it splattered and smeared with blood, bone, and other bits. Hyungwon offing people for the sake of it - or really for changkyun’s sake.

The teeth-gritting grind of bone and blood, the smooth tear of skin - the hissing pull of a person’s entrails - a splatter of red viscera.

Admiration to disgust once he finds out what kind of person “he really is.” “did you really fool yourself into thinking that?” as if you have any right to accuse me of deceiving you - come on, tell me the truth - you tricked yourself.

A potential addition to fingers around your throat universe: hyungkyun version

In time, Changkyun meets his own mysterious suitor of the night.

A surgeon in residence who makes a bit extra on the side with some black market operations - and soon, a strange patient comes under his knife.

He wants his upper canines removed - they’re oddly sharp changkyun thinks. A familiar bitterness coils in his throat.

He hasn’t had much training in dentistry, but he gets to work anyway. He just has to remove them right? Easier than having to fill in empty spots. Somehow, he thinks, clamping the pliers around the tip of the tooth, it doesn’t seem like it would hurt the man either way.

It’s a failed operation. Hyungwon still has enough of his teeth left to tear through skin and bone to blood anyway.

Fantasy - fei inspired:

The boy of his dreams. The boy beckoning him from inside the screen. It’s all a beautiful fantasy. But Minhyuk wants it, wants it bad, wants it more than anything he could wish for in the whole wide world.

“I love you.” He smiles, eyes crinkling shut, his mouth pulled into that familiar, lovely invitation. “You don’t know me.” He meets his eyes dead on, a glistening doe-eyed stare, and all Minhyuk recognizes is a dreadful sense of emptiness.

He’s a stranger and Minhyuk is in love with a complete stranger.

The boy in real life has plain brown hair. The coloring has already faded into thin strands of gold, straw-turned-silk, a dirty shade drained out from the inside of a stained club sink.

He smiles, sitting directly across from Minhyuk, eyes glistening with the same secretive understanding. “Not the same right?” and he taps his head with that pointed tilt. The same finger, solid flesh and warm in daylight, holds Minhyuk’s attention captive just the same.

His single finger is capable of holding all of Minhyuk’s attention poised and captive.

This time his hair stays that golden shade of brown, ordinary beyond imagination. Minhyuk doesn’t know what he was expecting - but really, he shouldn’t have been in the first place.

“I believed that this was love. Now I know you aren’t real but that attracts me even more.” - artificial love, exo

imperial au: scraps and planning

Potential title - Strategy is best discussed over a cup of drink

Chap. 9: things to keep in mind

In General: All the PORN scenes???? + tenderness, growing possessiveness and a rediscovery of each other within the context of a physical relationship.

He’s wearing the most simple of hanboks - stripped down to a single color, the glow of his skin see-through under the fine ramie sokjeogori covering his chest. Every movement, every shift under the warm candlelight, leaves Changkyun mesmerized.

Wearing a thin veil across his face - enough to barely obscure his features - somehow the outline of his lips, the shadow of his cheeks are even more alluring beneath it. Jooheon unties the single ribbon at the back and it falls loose. They meet eyes once again, face to face, just the two of them under the hush of the night in Changkyun’s room.

Fumbling with each other’s robes, caught in the heat between their bodies, friction between their tongues. Of course, didn’t come prepared, so Jooheon fingers himself open in front of Changkyun impromptu with some candle oil or something. It’s messy and slow, but Jooheon guides the prince through it, controlling the pace by riding him until Changkyun comes with a muffled cry. The concubine hasn’t come yet, and goes to leave because it’s usually only about pleasuring the client first and your own climax comes second, but Changkyun drags him back done and jacks him off, jooheon protesting sweetly all the time, but comes faster than he ever has in the past under the touch of his prince.

UNEXPECTEDLY DEEP VOICE - a tender awkwardness b/t them as they discover all these things - jooheon gently guiding him through it all.

Slow exploration of each other - disrobing, hands shaking as they touch every new exposed inch of skin. Changkyun watching him, open-mouthed wonder and arousal as Jooheon stretches himself open before him - tentatively slips his own fingers in and Jooheon encourages him, falling apart slowly at the same time - changkyun can’t believe it, to be the one to make Jooheon like this, to strip him bare and make him lose control, it makes him dizzy - slow riding and changkyun’s hips move on their own, afraid to hurt him as Jooheon shivers, wordless - but jooheon teaches him a few new things ;), inadvertently marking him with little bites.

“Don’t worry, my prince. You’re more than adequate.”

Looking at the bruises on his body, he runs a tentative hand over them. “I-I hurt you-” but Jooheon’s eyes curve into the sweetest smile. “No, never.”

The whole, Changkyun wakes to the other’s half clothed back, illuminated softly in the morning sun. The concubine is busy adjusting a fallen earing, robes still haphazardly draped across his shoulders, and the prince can’t resist leaning over and pressing a kiss against the bare skin. Jooheon jumps in surprise, earring momentarily forgotten, and looks back with amused delight. “Up so early, my prince? You should be resting after a night like that.” Changkyun squints at the bright light, and buries his face shamelessly into the other’s shoulders. “As if you have any right to talk.” He hugs the concubine tightly around the waist, attempting to pull him back to bed. “If I should be resting, then you should do so with me.” (emphasis on the beauty of the morning after: woken up side by side, they trade kisses, blindly mouthing at each other - an easy intimacy, soft under the morning light. against the rising dawn, the world disappears - only jooheon is held within his eye. (twitter pic ref) - insert changkyun poem at some point.)

After the first time - breathlessness - they didn’t know what to expect from each other, from this new physicality - and suddenly it’s like a wall, one that had never even existed, is gone - and they’re reaching for one another again. Something’s been set off between them and the impulse to reach out and touch has never been more tempting. So Changkyun succumbs, again, and again, and again. Like holding your breath underwater and letting go - Changkyun finds it against Jooheon’s gasping lips.

The new and sudden impulses and desires awakened within him - the broken sounds falling from Jooheon’s lips, the bruises in the shape of his hands - something arises in him that almost scares him - an indescribable desire to hide him within his palms, be the only name that falls from those lips.

Changkyun’s interaction beyond just jooheon - Jooheon and minhyuk, a noticeable closeness (the glances he caught of them wound around one another in the rain, and now one whispering, the other laughing - both of them seated side by side in the audience) - changkyun is suitably jealous of the other man, concubine or not.

Also changkyun’s deep voice - make an appearance somehow - more apparent, the small things about each of them that they notice the more time they spend with each other????

That one thing about ck being competent on the throne - really shakes jooheon up - all “grown” up, makes him feel flustered.

They spend more and more time together - jooheon spread out on changkyun’s floor, diligent in his own work. A leg propped up as he contorts himself over a loose scroll. There’s a dish of ink sitting precariously at his foot, and ever so often he wets his brush across the side. Changkyun watches, and decides he’s completely unaware of how he looks - graceful as he’s lost in his own thoughts. He wants to break it just to tell him that - if not something more.

under the warm lamplight during cozy nights, changkyun writes poems with smooth ink along jooheon’s bare skin. Changkyun makes tangible what was only words, thoughts, and longings before with adorations and worship upon jooheon’s skin.

Their daily meetings together - ever unspoken have become their shared secret.

in the palace’s ever-increasing maze, this is only a single corner, forgotten and rediscovered - and their unspoken secret from then on. they bring books, light instruments - even food and drink

walks together, past hazy verandas, under filtered sunlight and passing under the eyes of solitary columns - changkyun reaching out to do so beyond his hesitance. The sight of it, a bright jewel in his hair, gives him a tempting idea.  changkyun is always slightly unsteady about their height difference, even the slightest dip of an eyelash between them sends his head spinning back in vertigo - maybe it’s the shoes, the extra weight of a gihye’s heel - but even so there’s the smooth slope of jooheon’s shoulders, broad in a way that gives him the silhouette of a waterfall, relaxed in a manner of eternal grace and majesty.

where changkyun lets his princely impulse get to the better of him - concubines are already draped in jewels and finery, but to see jooheon in his own choice piece - it’s an exhilarating sort of feeling, somehow a secret excitement and satisfaction for him - to see jooheon preened over in public, wearing just that simple hairpin/comb, from him and him only. it feels like a declaration somehow, changkyun wouldn’t want to presume - but it’s their little secret, wide open yet just between the two of them - the giving of the gift marks something between them.

the two of them wandering down the bank, steep and loose earth rolling underfoot. there are no man-made impressions dug and shaped out of the ground, so Changkyun slides down first. there are tree roots and weeds dragged between his fingers, ripping in protest, and he scrapes himself against rolling stones too. but in the end, he looks up, bold, and offers a hand to Jooheon and the concubine arrives, pressed safely to his side - jooheon’s little gasp of shock, the widening of his eyes - but he bends down and takes ck’s hand within his, gripping tight and changkyun shakes under his weight - but he doesn’t let go.

Leads into a wild affair in the rain - soaked wet as they fall upon one another on the steps of the pond - jooheon’s robes spreading across the water, sticking against his skin. He shines, translucent in the rainy mist. Cheeks rosy from the cold, he looks at changkyun with soft, damp eyes - “you’ve ruined me my prince.” - a tender beckoning - Changkyun can’t help it, he kisses him until his lips go numb. Water rushes between them, filling the spaces of reaching fingertips, eager bodies - Jooheon’s cheeks are smooth with dew, a gentle smearing from his lashes, pink blurring the curve of his mouth.

historical equivalent of composing raps together - changkyun finally musters enough nerve to bring his compositions to their little haven - of course jooheon is the perfect piece and always manages to provide the closing line he needs

there’s something of a difference b/t knowing and truly understanding - and only now, with the reminder of another, the mark and strain of someone else worn upon his expression, does changkyun really think about the implications of jooheon’s nightly occupation. it’s a shocking kind of realization, the sensation yanks him back, cold and flat against the earth. he wonders, burning with curiosity and want - but he keeps quiet again. still, the itch builds without relief and he finds himself paranoid to an obsessive extent - when beneath beautiful smiles, mornings played out in shades of pink, and soft confessions, all he can see is the perversity of his own imagination playing out the worst and most explicit scenes before him.

Changkyun’s nagging awareness - even with jooheon here with him nightly - the reminders of others being able to touch him like this - it gets to the better of him one night -> the payment, “be wholly mine” - jooheon almost angry and yet he concedes to changkyun’s stubborn earnestness.

Also a way for hyungwon and ck to repair their relationship - deal brokered b/t them.

conversation: there’s lighthearted ones, but the very nature of their roles - prince and concubine meeting like this everyday - turn the conversation towards more melancholic tones. “Do you know why they call it the forbidden palace?” jooheon turns to him, smiling. this time the curve of his lips doesn’t reach his eyes. changkyun shakes his head, silent. the concubine looks to the lake instead, brushing a loose hair from his brow as the wind picks up. light flecks of greenery swirl past, dandelion powder and fallen petals in the air. spring perfume permeates the little bank before him. jooheon turns to him again and through the screen of glittering blossoms, his smile is bitter.

“on the contrary - it’s very easy to enter. really anyone could come in whenever they’d like.” He pauses, eyes trailing the stem of a peony floating above head. changkyun knows what he’ll say next, almost dreads the sound of it enough to steal the words from jooheon’s lips. but he keeps his quiet.

“it’s the concubines who are forbidden from ever going out.”

after that, the only conversation between them is lost to the whispers of the wind.

After Jackson’s arrival:

scene: imported cocoa beans from the west - traded with silks and scrolls for a single bitter brown nut. changkyun sneaks a handful from the imperial stock and they brew their own amateur cocoa tea - smoky and rich, the steam practically dripping down their throats. jooheon is thoroughly enamoured w this strange taste and changkyun, addicted to how the concubine’s smile folds so sweetly over each and every cup.  

[happycakestories]

some old k-fic in general -- tying up loose ends

recent sins au based off of shoot out

https://twitter.com/leeminhyikes_/status/1054690362361556992 - symbolism and background ref

Pride: hyungwon

envy: changkyun

wrath: shownu

lust: minhyuk

greed: kihyun

sloth:wonho

gluttony: jooheon

“the feelings that keep us: don’t hesitate to burn it all” ”someday - it will be even more brutal”

hell is a hot steamy studio, filled with piles of flora, spilling over the lips of their glass cages.

Miscellaneous televisions scattered around the room buzz with static, nonsensical voices that beg for attention. Wrath kicks a foot against a knob, dialing it down until the cries fade into a dull hum.

Gluttony writhes in his lap, biting, sucking a glossy bruise onto his neck with tangible hunger. Wrath wraps his hands around his waist and digs in with his thumbs, pressing down hard.

Gluttony jerks away, throwing back his head, shivering. His mouth falls open and he laughs, gulping in breaths of maddening ecstasy. Wrath grinds up against him, and Gluttony’s head snaps back, staring him down with those odd brown and blue eyes.

It’s unnerving - Gluttony looks at him without a flicker of emotion - only pure intent. It’s as if he intends to swallow him whole.

The air in the room curls, searing to a boil. Wrath can taste the heavy vapor, breath in the stifling heat beneath his tongue. All around them, the lights pulse red. Wrath can feel his eyes begin to bleed black as he sees his own haze of red.

He digs into the scorching body in his lap, and Gluttony returns the favor with a vicious bite of his own. Somehow, because Wrath hates himself, he comes, tasting his own blood from the corner of his mouth.

Gluttony arches back, mouth glistening and open in rapture. His eyes are glazed over - a cat momentarily sated with a bowl of warm milk. When he meets Wrath’s stare, he licks his mouth, sticky trails of blood pulled thin between his lips, and he has the audacity to ask for more.

Wrath has never been one to hold back.

The lights sear so bright and red, it’s practically blinding - but he doesn’t need to see to feel the pulse of flesh beneath him, gripped in handfuls, bruising beneath each fingertip, torn and bleeding between his teeth.

“Am I too late?” Sloth sighs, perched against the stairs, half in and out of the shadows reaching from above. He grins anyway, good-natured with every one of his visits.

Gluttony smiles up at him, lips plush and blood-red, and fits the leather muzzle back around his mouth, snapping the straps tight at the nape of his neck. Through the mask’s glistening bars, there’s a flash of white teeth.

Wrath reclines on his solitary chair, looking no worse for wear - save for the raw bites on his neck. Beneath the hem of his shirt, a purple clot blooms, fresh against his collarbone. On his lap, Gluttony reclines, satiated. He allows his legs to dangle, loosely spread over Wrath’s own, and he stretches the thick line of his neck back with a noise of contentment.

“You’re just in time.” Wrath’s hand closes lightly around Gluttony’s neck, and he keeps him there, prostrated, an offering for the devils. He presses down, just hard enough for Gluttony’s breath to catch. Wrath meets Sloth’s stare, and his own eyes bleed black and bold.

Sloth watches. He allows his lids to fall, half-closed. These two - they’re the only ones he can stand. No promises of veneration, no desperate begging or pleading for their final heavenly salvation. Wrath and the irony of his damn pride would never go back on his own sentence of eternal damnation. And Gluttony? The taste of sin will never be enough.

The stairs grate beneath him, twisted metal trembling with every step. The further he descends, the more the heat seeps in, filling him to the brim with red. The railing sears into his palm, and Sloth can taste the iron, charred smoke at the back of his throat.

Gluttony’s odd blue eye flicks over as Sloth rests a hand against his cheek. He strokes his nail against the woven edge of the leather, feels the rough catch of it over smooth skin. Gluttony murmurs something beneath his muzzle, the sound of it low in his throat, and he lets his eyes flutter shut.

An unnecessary precaution, Sloth thinks, leaning down to fix a loose earring. The upside down cross shines, as bright as an angel’s prayer against the black leather. Gluttony sleeps on, docile.

They all know why he wears the mask. The hunger isn’t something to be restrained, but Sloth likes to think of it as a warning, useless but there for a reason.

Truly, he decides, brushing a soft lock of orange hair back from his brow, at least Gluttony is honest with his desires.

“slowly, just turn my body”

Beyond the light - Envy wonders, if there is anything ever beyond those sharp slits teasing through the closed shades of his window. He hasn’t peered out of them for a good part of the century.

But today, it’s a Sunday morning. He pushes his fingers through the slats, and peers through with a shaking stare.

It’s fingers reach out to him, touch him, white, pure, and empty. Blinding and cruelly just, there is never anything or anyone there for him. Envy pulls away, and draws his sleeve over his eyes. The black silk cools against the bleeding heat, calms the pulsing behind his eyes.

He remembers the last time there had been a beautiful smile there, waiting just for him.

“Looking out your window again?”

He turns, and Pride looms, just around the corner of his study. The glow of solitary candles casts his expression into an undecipherable darkness. Envy stumbles away, ripping his hand away from the glass pane. A ghosting touch tingles at his fingertips, lingering for a moment and then trailing away with the wisps of smoke. He presses his hands behind his back, squeezing them together until he can feel the creaking of bone.

“What does it matter to you-” he mutters, retreating to a corner, “Prince.” His lips curl around the word, tasting of cold revulsion.

Pride, ever so slowly, follows, hands tucked into his pockets, a wicked smile cut across his lips. “Poor little envy. I thought you’d be lonely is all.”

Envy’s knees hit the edge of a seat and he falls back. The musty cushion of a couch materializes under him, and the burnt smell curling off it makes him gag. Pride’s hands slide around his neck, dry and smooth like the underbelly of a snake. Softly, slowly they press into the tender skin there.

Envy tilts his head back. Pride hums in approval and continues his path down his chest, flicking open every button along the way.

Envy shudders. Pride’s hands on his skin, opening him up, baring him before the light - it makes him dizzy with warmth. He hasn’t been touched like this for a long time. Underneath the smoothness of skin, he feels the stain of filth.

“Sit up,” Pride hums, placing a kiss at the nape of his neck. The silk slips from his shoulders with a hush. Envy clutches the thin fabric to his chest, curling in on himself. He bends over, the knobs of his spine pointed upwards, spires of devoted prayer. The shirt tangles around his elbows, keeping him there.

“It’s - you’re growing,” Pride breathes out. He traces a finger across the ripple of his spine, cold hands on smooth scales. He touches Envy carefully like he’s something holy, a veneration, made for worship among the saints. His skin feels too raw beneath Pride’s touch, as if he’s being peeled apart in strips of flesh, taken apart into soft bits of bone.

Envy buries his face in his hands, afraid of the sounds bubbling up inside of his throat. Pride’s whispers snake over his bare shoulders, a litany of filthy lies, beautiful promises, and in the end, a sob is pulled from his lips.

The couch dissipates, the room is snuffed out with a sudden exhale, and Pride’s arms wrap around him, binding them together, back to chest. He cradles him close, shuddering, shaking, holding him like they mean something to each other. When Envy peeks out through his fingers, the light of the only window is faint and far.

“Don’t cry,” Pride soothes, an absolution. “Don’t cry,” he repeats, running his lips down the side of Envy’s cheek. “Don’t cry,” he whispers, opening Envy’s shaking mouth beneath his own.

“I’ll always be here with you,” he promises, and this time, Envy tastes the lie like a mouthful of freshly spilled blood.

Envy is slowly turning. His body, beneath the shaking of his own fingers, is becoming something else. The scales, the skin sloughing away into a disgusting smoothness - it’s not him. Inside, beneath, within, his mind is being twisted into something that is distinctly not right.

-

“my absolution”

“come on and hurt me more coldly”

the birth of the sins - gluttony

The ashen fields surge with newborn flame, and Wrath can feel them in the turn of his stomach. Creaking upon his rotten throne, he sighs and the lethargy seems to settle for an eternity. Centuries pass, and it’s all too easy to forget himself within it, under it, a drowsiness reserved for Hell alone.

Still, the fires burn hot, and from the hollows of his bones, Wrath stirs.

the sins die like comets upon earth - streaking through the sky, tearing their way through the world in violent delight. a white, orange, red that bleeds through the cool blue of heaven, shards of molten rock that stick like thorns as their final offense against god.

death is inevitable, but they find their own joys in the perversity of life before it is taken from them.

and like the snake that swallows its own tail in vain, they are reborn, dragged out of the fire by the heavy chains of man.

sin like death is forever. and so they live on in eternity, painful and decadent.

see you space loser - space au: some roughs and unused ideas/musings

Minhyuk: bgrd on earth - a kind of rigidity to him - masks worn but always something tensed inside as if he’s always holding onto something - his dream? Never fully realized as it should be - that’s his nerve point - to accuse of him falling short when he’s tried for so long - in not that his dream is unattainable but that he’s taken it from himself.

They always told him he was so driven - to the point of it being too much. That look in his eye was always so intense.

Something frazzled, unstable -like your face cupped in your palms and your eyes bulging through your fingers.

He had a life planned out. A completely ordinary dream, but it was his, and he was going to make it happen after he got back. And it is the loss of that potential, that he had held so closely, that he had worked so hard for - it’s what sends him into the empty black space of his own head.

When he is left on the space station for the first few days - is it days at this point? Sure he can track it but what’s the point - it feels like simply a time caught between sleep and awake - between floating away and then trapped again in his own mind. Time is truly only a human concept and minhyuk is the only one left to think of it.

An anger - maybe he should tear it all apart - drain the reserves and let it all go faster - throw himself into the vacuum or maybe even better - explore a black hole for once.

He admits it might be easier multiple times if he just killed himself. Float into space and let the stars imprint into his eyes, compress his body into fine viscera - another vein of the universe - nothing and something beyond.

He blinks and wipes at his eyes. He looks through the window, at the empty call of darkness. He can almost see himself, a white dot meeting the singularity point, the flat horizon between it all. The force outside his helmet would be so great he would be gone in a second. A dusty period smashed in a library of words.

Instead, he latches himself to the bed and closes his eyes for another fevered doze.

Sad space feelings - that even in the wide infinite expanse of space, where he can do anything, anywhere - there’s nothing left to do - and somehow, the feelings in his chest just stay stuck there. An ugly lump pulsing it’s way to an inevitable death. (a feeling of constriction, yelling into the open expanse - and it simply shuts him down. Shouldn’t he be allowed something - a tear, a sob, a scream - but here he is, in the vacuum of space, with nothing more but a rotten ship and eternity shoved down his throat).  

Changkyun: contrasts him - lax, blunt - if to the point of being uncaring - but he regrets as well - his dream? Contemplative, as if not lost - but he feels it just as much if not more - always been a solitary person (minhyuk makes a bitter comment here, “well now you have me trapped here for the rest of the time”)

A solitary life for him - it’s not that he was incapable of it, but that by the time he had finally looked back, most of life had passed him by already. “But now I have you.” and his gentle smile is so genuinely happy Minhyuk’s disgust flares. “Just because we’re the last two left, doesn’t mean you get to use me as a dump for your repressed feelings.”

Maybe that’s why Changkyun seems to be taking it so easy - was there anyone left on earth for him anyway? (But everyone’s happiness is different. Changkyun mourns in his own ways - over the children’s park abandoned at sunset, the slides and swings still warm and inviting in their little swaying motions. He misses the sounds of his apartment, the tapping of stray street cats at odd hours on his roof and the hum of his computers, always on some kind of mission. Rain over the slick city skyline, his glasses fogged over as he had nursed a cup of coffee. The earth was good to him as well.)

“What are you, a dumbass?” in response to changkyun’s tentative attempts to foster something between them - an old olive branch.

Trying to get him to work out so his muscles don’t atrophy - and minhyuk watching changkyun go about it - eat, sleep, exercise, work - it’s a sickening routine and it makes him want to push the other man out the window and see him fall into the curved gaps of the black space. “How can you just go on like this?” motioning to him, sweating away at the upright treadmill like he has nothing better to do than exhaust himself for hours on end.

“I don’t know,” he replies a moment later, taking out an earphone. “But I can’t just stop trying.”

“But what’s the fucking point.” Minhyuk doesn’t know why he’s fuming, why changkyun panting on the treadmill with his dumb space suit rucked up to his waist and a stained tanktop swaying across his skinny chest is getting to him.

Eventually there’s a change - a shift - maybe changkyun is right after all. There’s absolutely nothing to do here - but he can try.

“I have no idea what day it is anymore - or even how many it’s been since then.” It’s the first time they’ve talked since Minhyuk tried to untether him from the outside railing. Changkyun bitterly, still feels sorry for him. He sits slouched over, with his spine jutting out against his skin like he’s already been hollowed out completely.

“We can start over.” Those dead eyes shift in their sockets to meet his, and Changkyun has to convince himself to keep going. “We’ll work. We’ll clean, eat, exercise, sing, and sleep. And when we wake up, it’ll be you and me and the start of the New Day.”

“We’ll call it Day 1.” Minhyuk incredulous, drained, and absolutely hopeless, looks at him and finally concedes with an uneven blink. “I suppose we could try.”

“Hey.” Minhyuk looks up from his perpetual roost over the tiny port window, where he can still see the floating bits of earth circling one another in a semblance of a sphere.

Changkyun waves a gloved hand at him. There’s an odd patchiness to his face, and as he steps closer, Minhyuk realizes he’s dusted in a light sheen of dirt. Earth.

He holds out a tiny pot. Minhyuk, begrudgingly, unsticks himself from the window and peeks over the lip. In the center of it, sits a bright green nub peeking out of the rich soil. Changkyun rubs a stained glove over the pot’s edge. “I wanted to ask you if you wanted to take a look at its cells with me.”

Unwittingly, Minhyuk finds himself saying yes.

As he scrapes a piece of tissue from the stem, Changkyun’s low voice fills the open walls of the lab. How the plant grew so quickly, why it suits the purpose of space travel so well - he even points out every little detail currently pulsing under Minhyuk’s eye.

The silence that falls when Changkyun finally leaves is strange thing. An insistent thought buzzes at the nape of his neck, and he looks up quickly from the slide.  

Later that night, watching the moon revolve around the ruins of a giant, he thinks about how he caught Changkyun’s eye only for it to disappear in the next blink. He rubs his eyes. The moon shines on, a cold spotlight in the gentle darkness of space.

Maybe he’s seeing things after all.

Anger - volatile - at who exactly? But it’s all minhyuk can summon to keep going - and changkyun is a punk bastard who’s flat face does nothing to soothe him.

Frozen and cold atmosphere - some days where they work around another with nothing to say. W the only human contact here, it’s stifling.

Terse and even vulgar sometimes - too bad you weren’t a girl - guess we can’t fuck to restart human civilization. He spits it out like a rotten tooth, a single expletive that resounds through empty space for all to hear.

Think of routine and busy work?

Moments of quiet and acceptance - “not so bad after all” - with the earth dead but now they watch star showers light up the eternal spread of darkness and minhyuk could never live this close to the stars before as much as he wanted to in a high rise apartment and sleep in front of the balcony windows every night -

(https://www.wired.com/2007/11/why-cant-stars/) - “always said the stars from space were less bright (always said you couldn’t see the stars from space) - but now, i think they’re the most beautiful this close.”

What was your life like? Do you regret anything? Do you miss anyone? Did you have anyone?

Psst jooheon :)????

Music - changkyun hums out a low rap and minhyuk pretends like he can sing as easily as he could when he was in grade school, a raspy out of tune farewell.

Video games b/c boys.

Do you know what happened? What were you doing at the end of the world - Minhyuk swallows a laugh, it makes him sound like he’s choking “i was listening to indie rock.”

Ah what a way to go - and despite it all they laugh until there’s tears fogging up the helmet.

“What about you?” “Ah-” Changkyun turns away, “I think I was... sleeping.” That gets another tearful sigh out of them. Because really, it seems that it all did end then - not with a whimper but with a muffled bang. The both of them, idiots, and somehow the only ones left to look after the world.

“What do you think happened” “does it matter” “i’d like to think so, at least we’ll always remember it”

“You always look so worried.” Minhyuk automatically tenses. “It’s the end of the world you know,” Changkyun shrugs and dangles his booted feet across the black chasm of the world - “you can let go a little.”

“Think of our legacy.” Changkyun looks to the stars. They scatter across the glass surface of his helmet, a bloom of dim phosphorescence through the darkness, and Minhyuk wishes they could take off their helmets and watch the way the lights dance across their faces, reflect between their eyes.

he could see them reflected in his eyes.

“The whole history of the human race behind us huh,” Minhyuk turns to him and Changkyun simply faces him with that blank helmet. In the silence, Jupiter turning with his 79 moons to noble dust, it feels like the pressure on their shoulders has lifted, just a little.

The confession (or a platonic equivalent of it) - “if it hadn’t been for your voice that day through the transmission” - “i am who I am” changkyun snorts, playing with that old line as the tip of his tongue sticks out, an unconscious admonishment. “But i am glad i found you in time.” A declaration of identity and self in space - minhyuk has never met anyone who felt more real in that moment -

Their last trip - a unanimous vote from the two top crew members. Minhyuk transfers his remaining supplies over to Changkyun’s transport and between them, they record approximately a week.

There’s no hurry to finish. They float, chained to the railing, and wonder at the blue-black space where earth used to be. Now the black seams have turned in and sewn themselves back together.

Those pieces of earth are still out there, becoming filtered dust with the rest of the universe. It’s never lost - matter and the like. Even here, life still goes on.

A crackle over the radio and Changkyun’s faded voice comes through the line. “Think we’ll find some aliens?” Minhyuk snorts inside his helmet. “I think we’re the aliens here.”

The end - a deafening acceptance - swallowing something bitter - (ambiguous) - but they continue floating into space - without controls or a set route - “maybe we’ll find a wormhole and prove all those old physicists wrong” - it’s not much. But it is enough for the moment, for the moment where the universe revolves around them and as Changkyun sets the satellite for one last course - Minhyuk closes his eyes and grips his hand as he feels sound rush past him.

And as they reach past the suns and stars, moons and earths, sleeping titans and fallen angels -

the world is quiet here.

Quiet loneliness of space devoid of sound.

Alternative End:

By all the random chances of the universe, statistical probability combined with the everlasting spite of some god out there, there they are - floating in perfect calm

Minhyuk hums an empty tune and Changkyun floats back and forth with new additions to the greenhouse in his arms. Mundane for them. Outside, the black horizon meets a blinding white-blue line, unchanging as always.

Then, utter disaster. A collision without warning. Before they know it, the entire station in shutdown, red lights screaming panic and Minhyuk can only take one look at Changkyun’s eyes widening in his face, shadows flashing on and off - and it’s disturbing how easy everything falls apart for a third time.

Red creeping into his sockets, black sunken into his cheeks, his body jerking beneath the collapsed section of the interior wall. And slowly, silently, below the cacophony of it all - the silence begins and Minhyuk can hear the the odd rhythm of some kind of music start up again.

He drags himself over to Changkyun, his left foot rolling awkwardly behind him. The light flickers, red, red, red just like when they first met. Changkyun’s head lolls in his arms, his eyes glued shut, the pallid color of his skin mixing with the red so every signal flashes yellow, yellow, yellow in curve of his cheek.

The universe is without order, without defined sequence. Every event is one that happens without prior meaning, but Minhyuk had met Changkyun and they found the stars in empty space again, and he should have run out of bad luck at this point by all divine purposes.

Red, red, red - he presses his face into Changkyun’s shuddering chest and watches, waits for the pulse of green.

Breathe Minhyuk, one, two

Three.  

The silence fills his mind, numbing deafening cotton and he realizes, he can hear them again. Rough guitar riffs, voices humming in time to his own frenzied beat - sleeping titans, fallen angels with their torn feathers slipping through his palms

(Red light flicker-beats and the song plays on)

Minhyuk closes his eyes and holds Changkyun close without a second thought.

The station groans and calls in an ungodly voice, but cradled in Changkyun’s arms, the world is quiet again.  

hello, hello, hello, hello (my love at last) - tvxq homin domestic getting together au

Tags: alternate universe - modern day, bookstore, bookstore clerk yunho, chef changmin, domesticity, soft, fluff, feel-good stuff, (love at first sight and romantic cliches - destined to be with you, soulmates, etc - but slow burn - the little spark is there, but realistically they take their time truly developing that into a nice simmering flame)

hello, hello, hello, hello (my love at last)

Changmin visits his local bookstore on an indescribable whim, and he finds himself returning over and over again, driven on by that same intangible feeling. (Invariably, Changmin finds himself returning to the same bookstore over and over again just to see a familiar face).

~

featuring bookstore clerk yunho and chef changmin.

On his one off day of the month, Changmin walks the familiar crossroads of his city-town’s provincial streets.

Rising Sun Reading Inc - it’s brand new, opened just at the curving slope of the street, right between a local pastry shop and the single road that leads down to changmin’s long-term drinking hub. It would’ve been impossible for him to miss it - having lived here for 5 years and all, treading over the same picturesque, well-worn streets with the same pair of worn-in feet.

Changmin glances at the unfamiliar building again, looming cheerily up ahead, and takes it as a sign that he hasn’t been out enough.  

The faint red of its logo flashes bright even under the heavy rays of the noon sun and changmin, admittedly, is caught by the easy loop of its font - the curl of the ‘g’ as it molds itself into a smooth depiction of a sunrise, a smiling half-circle peeking out from behind a plump, bolded body.

For the lack of a better term, he decides it’s kind of classy - except in the jarring, off-putting way it decidedly plants its existence in the middle of his little neighborhood, popping up in between the quaint cornerstones, uneven stalls, and knobbed walkways of his easy life to announce itself with a buzzing shock of red and an all too-smooth city-slick script.

-

Somehow, somehow, Changmin’s life has become the script of a romance movie and Yunho, of course, plays the part of the most beautiful cliché.

And so now, they’re caught out in the rain, soaked, on what was an otherwise perfectly pleasant day.

Perhaps, Changmin thinks, God has a terribly cruel sense of humor.

-

Somewhere between x and x, Shim Changmin falls in love with Jung Yunho.

-

(yunho making eyes at the overpriced arcade plushies, changmin is smitten anyway)

Atop the ferris wheel at its perfect apex, with the sunset at its final height and its rays soaking into their backs - this is the closest Changmin ever comes to making an official proposal. This time the kiss, with his mouth pressed numb against Yunho’s and the sunlight draped across his shoulders, lasts an eternity under the fading sky, with the world at its quiet climax.

Yunho sucks in the quiet gasp of breath between them (from who - neither of them are sure) and cradles Changmin’s face with reverent brushes of his thumbs, tucking them beneath the sharp crook of his jaw. Changmin swallows, cheeks aching with a tang of sour and sweet, and he holds tight, filling the empty spaces of his palms with Yunho’s solid warmth.

“I love you”

- and Yunho laughs - obnoxious, infectious, and bursting with light - and returns the confession wholeheartedly.

flower shop au -- but moreso an exploration of a relationship by seasons, how it grows, flourishes, and eventually fades. thoughts on ideals and imperfections explored w/i one relationship

daffodils pale-yellow

As a child, Hyungwon’s dreams were like stars in the night sky. Unattainable glittering things that he would one day cradle in the pool of his palm. Even now, he reaches for them in the form of flower petals, fallen under the gaze of a sad, gentle stare.

An exploration of ideals, illusions,  and the imperfections within.

(Jooheon reminds him of his dreams of his childhood - the idealism of it. And that’s where it all blooms and fades away).

It comes on a day at the tail end of summer.

(And before he knows it, it leaves in the same season, just a year later).

Hyungwon hears the chime of the bell as he lays across the counter, hours, minutes, seconds drained away with the sweat slicked down his back.

He can’t help but close his eyes and imagine how it would feel, to have cool grass tickling against his neck, the sun plastered on his skin.

The feeling of it stays with him, a flash of a moment, and then there’s the numbing air-conditioning and a pair of soft hands placed neatly before him.

“Hello?”

He follows those hands. Small fingertips, curled knuckles, bone tucked neatly against skin. When he blinks, squinted eyes meet his own.

“Hello, I’m here for the new job.” The stranger smiles with a kind of gentle ease. Hyungwon feels like he’s seen him somewhere before, met him in an incarnation of fleeting spring or summer winds.

It’s odd. Hyungwon doesn’t remember most things beyond the catalog for the store and his laundry basket on Friday evenings.

“I’m Lee Jooheon.” One of those soft pale hands rises, now directed toward him.

Hyungwon blinks. “Chae Hyungwon.”

They shake hands and it’s off-putting the way their palms slip into the empty space goether. He lets go a little too hastily, but Jooheon’s smile persists.

The air-conditioning blasts above head, and Hyungwon surreptitiously wipes the sweat on his jeans.

“You said you were here for a job?”

Jooheon’s eyes shift towards the glass front of the store. “It says you’re in need of a part-time cashier.” Indeed, there is the tattered poster from months ago taped up by Hoseok in the dead of winter. Hyungwon had forgotten about it behind the new display of purple irises.

He fingers the loose strings hanging off of his t-shirt, and contemplates how desperate he is. The shipment of fresh gardenias are a string of golden figures before his eyes, and Kihyun already has his back stuck in a perpetual hunch. He scowls enough as is. Hoseok won’t be back before the winter season hits, and by that time, well-

A burst of cold air cranks out from the vent, and Hyungwon finds a familiar pain jumping at the corner of his eye.

He contemplates Lee Jooheon. Soft hands and a daffodil-yellow jacket puffed up around his shoulders. Thin eyes that could look mean on first impression. A smile that he’s seen before.

Hyungwon gives way with a sigh. “Do you know anything about flowers?”

“Sure do.” He says it with a lilting sing-song. Hyungwon feels his head pound again.

“The manager is out for now, but-” how should he explain this, this thing shared between Kihyun, Hoseok, and him. In the end, he settles for scratching his head, and looking at anywhere but Jooheon’s knowing stare.

“You’re hired anyway.”

Jooheon folds his pale hands behind his back and bows neatly. “Thank you!” The curl of a dialect is a thick and unfamiliar sound on his tongue.

Hyungwon returns it with his own awkward fumbling, wondering when the last time it was that he actually bowed to another person like this.

Jooheon only laughs and bows even lower.

In the heat of summer, an odd feeling suddenly strikes him like an ice pop stuck on the back of his neck. This time, when Jooheon reaches for his hand again, Hyungwon makes sure to shake with a steady grip.

Still, it leaves him all the more unsettled.

In the evening, after a simple timetable arranged for later and an exchange of numbers, Hyungwon sprawls across his bed and makes a long-awaited phone call.

-

“You should come back already.”

He can already hear Kihyun tch from a whole season away. “I actually answer for once and this is the first thing you have to say to me?

Hyungwon shifts on the bed. A drowning sunset filters through the slits of the blinds and his entire body groans in response. “We have a new employee.”

“You have a new employee. I don’t have anything but temperate fall weather and daily walks to the park for impromptu poetry readings.”

“-and yes,” Hyungwon closes his mouth, “I do like poetry now.”

“You never struck me as the type to scroll through Rupi Kaur’s instagram and cry about all the mean boys in your life at four in the morning.”

He can already hear Kihyun’s eye roll. “That’s because she doesn’t actually write poetry, idiot.”

Hyungwon shrugs half-heartedly, as if Kihyun could see him. “I don’t think either of us are qualified enough to say what poetry is or isn’t.”

“Well, I’d rather cry over Lucille Clifton any day. The mean boys in my life aren’t worth a single drop.”

Hyungwon raises a hand to his mouth and there’s a crooked smile already digging into his cheek. In all honesty, he can’t wait for summer to end.

“If you don’t cry about all those mean boys how will you get over them?” He gropes for a pillow. Pushing it under his chest, it occurs to him just how warm the setting sun is.

“As if I haven’t already.” Kihyun sounds so extremely proud of all the non-existent men he’s dated and sequentially, dumped.

Hyungwon tucks his chin against the pillow. The heat is warm enough to put him to sleep immediately. “They’ll just have to cry over you then,” he concedes.

Kihyun laughs, a single abrasive ha! “I suppose they will then.”

Hyungwon’s eyes are already closing. It’s not particularly soothing, but the crackle of boots through gravel and Kihyun’s dry voice distorted by static are a familiar comfort on days like these.

“Come back soon.” He murmurs, a thickness to his throat.

Kihyun hums noncommittally. A few more steps through brittle leaves and the creaking of wrought iron. “You know I will.” He sounds muffled, like steam overflowing from a boiling teapot.

“Besides, that new employee of yours can keep you company.”

Hyungwon thinks of Lee Jooheon again. The sunset has dropped beneath the last row of blinds, and the heat curls, a docile lapcat at his back. The more he remembers the shape of his smile, the more his head fills with thick cotton.

He falls asleep with Kihyun humming in his ear and something like deja vu creeping over his bones.

-

Hyungwon’s the only one out of them who’s been able to stand the summer.

And even now, it’s just barely enough. So he supposes, what with the new helping hand and all, he should be grateful.

He’s gotten used to it though. The store flush with everlasting green, potted topiaries guarding the door and his own personal daisy wilted underneath the countertop. The drone of the vents at the back of his head has him nodding off more often than not.

He didn’t mind it. Still doesn’t particularly even with the occasional headache that arises. In the dead hours between lunch and 2 pm, it had been a dead tune for him to tap along to.

Today, the humming silence falls flat in the most unflattering way.

Ding!

Hyungwon checks the clock. The red analog letters tell him two seconds and a minute to 12. Of course - he’s early.

“Hello.” Lee Jooheon ducks past the topiaries - and there’s that smile pulled across his dimpled cheeks again. Hyungwon knows he’s at least twenty, but he’s got the kind of spunk and softness that makes him younger than he has any right to be.

The clock ticks, an even beat to 12. “You’re early,” Hyungwon tells him anyway.

“Am I?” Jooheon shakes back the same puffy daffodil-yellow jacket and glances at a thin watch-face. “I thought I should make a good impression on the first day.”

He’s already made quite the impression, but Hyungwon’s not sure what to make of it himself. That odd feeling jumps like pulse at the corner of his eye again. Beyond Jooheon’s cocked head, the noon sun seeps through the door in drips of sticky syrup.

God, it’s really getting to him.

The air conditioner renews its efforts to tunnel through the back of his head, and Hyungwon wants to duck under the counter for just a few precious seconds.

He glances at Jooheon’s placid expression. Maybe, given long enough, he’ll just leave. It wouldn’t be the first time Hyungwon has scared off other people. He swears it’s a complete accident, but most of life has been a stumbling imitation of a partner dance anyway.

Kihyun’s always told him he needs to be more proactive. Hyungwon forgets what he means by that, but Jooheon is practically bouncing off the floor and he needs to get out from under this air.

“Come on,” he slips off his stool and motions for Jooheon through the maze of green. “We’ll get you your apron.”

 -

 “Careful-” jooheon continues cutting away, snip-snip-snip right up to the edge of his pale curled fingers, “hey - hey, I said careful.” Hyungwon hooks his fingers through the scissors handles and yanks them away.

“Do you really know how to handle roses?”

Jooheon simply grins up at him, and the scissors shining a wicked a reflection of his glimmering eyes. “They’re my favorite.”

Hyungwon eyes his fingertips. Rounded and short with soft bumps for knuckles and valleys tucked into the flat of his palm. His nails slope gently over skin. Curled and folded against each other - Hyungwon has never seen Jooheon reach urgently for anything. Always measured and tendered as if time was only his to treasure.

Even now, as Jooheon goes back to trimming the thorns, snip-

Hyungwon can feel his thoughts slow to a lazy hum

-snip.

In the interval between, the edge of the silver blade pressed into the stem, a painful slit of green peaking through, a jagged thorn slips free.

“Have we met before?”

Jooheon’s lips curl, and he looks up at Hyungwon. Anyone would think he was simply teasing, but it’s not quite a smile. His stare is a brittle thing - a discarded thorn waiting underfoot. “Have we?”

“You’ve never been?” he suddenly pushes over the counter, those enigmatic eyes opened wide and excited.

He grasps Hyungwon’s hand in his own, lacing their fingers together and tugs him out the door. “Let’s go then!”

It occurs to a secretive part of hyungwon’s mind that this could technically count as a date. It occurs to him again that maybe he should speak up now and clarify for the sake of his own tender feelings.

And yet it seems as Jooheon strides on with that look in his eyes, he’s simply in want of a companion. Someone to match his steps and stay quietly at his side.

Hyungwon’s doesn’t know what he wants either. He’s okay with that.

-

“What’s your favorite flower?” It’s the cheapest question to ask each other in a situation like this. Bouquets of half-finished arrangements sit between them with pastel wrapping paper crinkled in sharp folds. Petals, stems, and leaves stick out at all kinds of angles.

Hyungwon tilts his head - in this light, the colors are all too loud.

“I like roses.” Jooheon purses his mouth, a tiny pink bud closed, and goes back to fiddling with a roll of ribbon. It’s only after a few moments of quiet rustling that he glances back at Hyungwon.

“You?” A half-lidded stare, it’s practically dismissive.

“Daisies for me.” Hyungwon is unfaltering in his decision.

“Really.” Jooheon peeks over the staggering mountain of fragrant paper. His slender eyes are drawn up in light interest. “Everyone else says they’re so boring.”

“I think we owe them more than that after all the meaningless torture they go through.” Loves me, loves me not - why force a poor flower to indulge in your own miseries?

“They’re simple.” Hyungwon slips a calla lily into a late spring arrangement. It’s gaudy lip spills over the paper’s edge as if it can’t stand the rest of its companions. Hyungwon shakes his head and scolds it silently in his mind.

“Simple, like the sky on a clear day, or the grass, green beneath your fingertips.” He closes his eyes and turns his face away for a moment. Wind brushes through his hair, fragrant with the dew of faraway lands. “They just live on like that, belonging without bothering.”

He twirls a cut stem in his fingers. It’s remaining leaves curve out in a mimic of an embrace. “I’d like to leave them as is.” Small and simple, quiet and content. Life goes on for daisies like that.

“That’s awfully lonely though.”

Hyungwon startles. Jooheon looks at him with his chin tucked against his palm and gold caught in his eyes, sun quivering on his lashes. He talks with a low hum as if he might fall asleep at any second, but he doesn’t move from his tilted angle atop the stool.

“A life doesn’t always have to be like that.” He holds Hyungwon’s stare earnestly with his cheeks puffed up against his palm. In the slow burn of the afternoon, they’re dusted pink.

“You shouldn’t have to live like that.” His eyes seem to say something that Hyungwon should understand. He doesn’t, and somehow it makes his heart ache even more.

For the first time since meeting him, Hyungwon decides Jooheon is, above all else, gentle.  

“It’s a cruel thing,” he finally says, stroking the lip of a long tiger lily, “to give someone flowers.”

“How so?” Hyungwon blinks back a sudden bit of sun in his eyes. Still, even as the dust settles, a shard remains stuck, barely there but adamant at the edge of his vision. An incomplete mosaic, a piece of stained glass, beautiful in its infinite broken refractions.

“It’s always a gesture of some sort, well-meaning.” Jooheon sounds almost apologetic. His lashes brush over his cheek, a soft whisper that passes quick as it came.

“Love, grievances, apologies, reunions” the bud falls open beneath his fingers, its pink pistils puckered together as if awaiting a kiss. “All lovely things.”

“But the flowers always die in the end. No matter how long you care for them, no matter how much you love them, it’s inevitable.” He holds the lily, pressed between two fingertips. It’s a touch so gentle Hyungwon’s heart aches with yearning. “You’ll have to throw them away, dash those feelings into dirt. And you can’t even apologize to them afterward. ” A wry laugh, a recollection of something bitter and familiar.  

“To promise someone forever like that,” he finally turns and meets Hyungwon with a smile. The flower is cradled like a child over his lap. “Don’t you think it’s cruel?”

“Is that what you want then?” A promise of forever echoes, golden bells and empty wind blowing through Hyungwon’s mind. He’s dreamt of lofty treehouses built on the foundations of centuries-old roots, its walls spun from entwined branches and the inside filled with the silk of their leaves. Now, the breeze seems to run through his hair with cool palms, and the stars are almost apparent in the night sky.

He’s so close he almost, almost reaches for them.

Jooheon looks away again, a gentle stare out the window to chase the birds down the street. The crook of a smile remains over his lips. “I’d like that.” His fingers itch, spinning the stem in a flurry of colors. “An eternity all to myself.”

“The promise of forever-” Hyungwon’s breath hitches, and the sun streams through the windows, a burst of heaven with midday showers.

“Yes, I think so.”

Jooheon eyes are high and clear. Hyungwon looks on unblinking. Jewels on crowns, the regal dust clouds of glowing nebulae, they fit their blunt edges and bright fractures, tucked tight beneath his skin. It’s impossible and beautiful, and Hyungwon wants to watch the brilliance in full.

“Promise me a forever where the flowers will bloom, and that-” he sighs, pressing the lily to his lips, “will be my heaven on earth.” He inhales, exhales, and releases something akin to the breath of his entire body. Rising and falling, a quiet song that sings to the wide, lonely magnificence of the universe.

Impossible — but Hyungwon thinks of heaven too, of white lilies awash in a sea of blue and white foam. He thinks of Jooheon’s tender words, considers the impossible and then just a bit more.

As much as he seems more suited for summer and flowers, Jooheon tells him with snow perched on his lashes, that he loves winter the most.

They visit a harbor far from the city, one that overlooks the very edge of the land as it meets the sea - per Jooheon’s request as usual. A field of snow covers the beach, and as Hyungwon tracks each set of loping footprints, they all seem to disappear into the water.

Somehow, it surprises him that the ocean is still pushing up against the shore, moving like a body pulsing, still alive, still awake.

In the midst of it all, the snow fallen upon them in shared silence, the sea calls to them with a deep, aching tenderness in its voice.

Hyungwon watches the tiny flecks melt like stars in the sky. He takes Jooheon’s hand, and he holds on tight. Through his knitted gloves, an impression of warmth blooms through the cold.

-

In the winter, Jooheon’s hair makes its nest in intricate curls around his ears, over his brow. In the winter, his skin glows like cold marble or empty eggshell, and with his dark crown of hair stark against the white, it looks like he might freeze at any moment.

Lips parted around half-formed words, his fingers plucking at a flower - a second will blink by and he’ll simply have stopped. A picturesque statue caught in time.  

Hyungwon catches those moments more than he’d ever like to. Jooheon’s voice becoming a muffled hum, drowsy as the cotton clouds in the sky. His lashes are frosted with snowflakes, and every blink stutters under the weight of them. When he tends to the flowers, it’s only with the very fingertips. The rest of him is curled, tendered and numbed with sleep and cold.

When the temperatures drop that much more, and his own breath rises to meet him in the morning, Hyungwon picks up steaming congee from the street vendors and tucks them into the delicate space between Jooheon’s cupped palms. It soothes him when the steam seeps into those palms, and they grow soft with a spring blush. His fingers unfurl, if only for a moment to graze over his own.

Jooheon thanks him with his scratchy, sleepy voice, and Hyungwon can hear the warmth pouring from him, ambrosia for the cracked earth.

The next day he picks up a steamed bun to go with the congee. Jooheon gives him a smile scattered like gold across the snow.

-

Jooheon taking hyungwon around to visit places - places with no names, no real address, little gardens, frozen beaches, muffled bookstores tucked into the grooves between cobblestones - little pockets of space hidden from the bustle of universe and time that always passes too quickly - places where there’s always a whisper, a roar, a gentle song in his ear and he feels that perhaps the world is so much more than morning alarms and takeout for lunch - where he can pretend there is the illusion of eternity - “how have i not come here before?” jooheon’s smile is a glittering secret “you haven’t really gone out and seen the entire world have you?” “and you have?”

“I’ve found its little nooks and crannies at least.” enigmatic as ever, a half-raised shoulder, a close-lipped smile. Irresistible.  

“An eternity is an awfully lonely thing to spend by yourself.” Jooheon’s smile is as beautiful as ever, but it leaves a bitter taste in Hyungwon’s mouth when he swallows. “It’s been a while since I’ve found someone like you.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m sorry.” The apology is so sincere. Hyungwon wishes he were colder, as cold as winter on the beach, colder than the silent grove with their misshapen bodies and slender fingers. He wishes Jooheon would lash out like those waves that were reaching so frantically for the sun.

Instead, he’s still smiling, with his cheeks glowing spring-pink, flushed and alive. When the spring truly comes, he’ll just pop into a halo of flowers, covered in his soft daffodil-yellow jacket and leave Hyungwon alone again.

Hyungwon wishes, just for once, someone would cry for his sake.

Daisies - plain, a little lonely, but all the more endearing

Lilies - yellow ones symbolize beauty and innocence - but truly there’s only lies and deceit. The flower itself is one big lie.

---- in which the more i write, the more i find i seem to like to approach conversations in abstract metaphor lol

oasis - exo love shot au - about searching for something that doesn’t exist, which is only an excuse for trying to get back to what you once had - a relationship with history, told once again past the break. you can’t return to the past, but you can goddamn try

Love shot inspired - with inspo drawn generally from the two albums.

Oasis - Exo: on this endless road, just a bit further, on this road with still a ways to go -  chasing (you) the sun

On the road, Jondae drives with the car windows open. The air rushes by in waves of heat, no real wind to speak of. Every time he blinks, the sun sticks like shards of glass glossed over his lashes. He can taste the sand on his tongue, in his mouth, coating his throat. It feels too strange to swallow.

Jongdae hates it, but the air conditioning is a lost cause in his scrap metal piece-of-shit car. So they drive on, just a bit further.

“Where do you want to go?” he asks. They’re all on this road for some reason, all going somewhere. Baekhyun and Jongdae are there too, but Jongdae - well, maybe he shouldn’t be.

Here he is anyway.

Baekhyun looks over from the window with a shift of his stare, not bothering to lift his head. Jongdae meets his eye out of the corner of his own, still coasting down the highway.

The other man holds his gaze for a moment, something flickering across his expression. Frustration? Jongdae can’t tell these days with him.

Quick enough, it passes and Baekhyun’s back to staring out the window, a knuckle propped against his closed lips.

An audible sigh fills the space between them, and Jooheon looks back towards the road, flexing his fingers around the wheel. The leather feels tacky against his palms, but it’s all he can do in the moment to keep going, to keep driving towards whatever they’re chasing - to the place Baekhyun had begged him to go.

Next to him, Baekhyun traces a finger across the window, pointing towards the sun.

-

Jongdae remembers that day, when it had felt like they would always be young and angry (and they still are) and the world was theirs to burn.

Jongdae remembers the way Baekhyun had said his name, the way he held it in his mouth, let it curl on the tip of his tongue, how he had pressed it between his lips as if he liked the way it tasted.

Jongdae still remembers the look in his eyes as they made their promise.

“Jongdae,” he had said, whispered it against his lips as they both laid awake into the eve before dawn, side by side with their legs tangled together, “promise me-

“Anything.” Jongdae had, of course, so foolishly, so earnestly agreed.

“Promise me that no matter what, even if this goddamn world turns on me, on us, you’ll always be here - be here by my side.”

Baekhyun had grabbed his hand, pulled so tightly Jongdae’s knuckles felt bruised, but there they were, side by side, ready to follow each other to the ends of the earth.

Stay with me. Their lips brushed together, dry kindling to be lit from the friction in the night. The look in Baekhyun’s eyes was one of desperation, glistening like a pool of moonlight.

What else could Jongdae have said? Of course, he had said -

“Yes”

He had promised an eternity.

(and look at him now, still following Baekhyun to the fucked up ends of the earth with his love caught like a bad fever after cold rain).  (like a bad bug in his throat).

When they find Chanyeol, the first thing he does is pull that ridiculous synthetic gun on them.

“Idiot,” Jongdae grumbles, pushing at the stubborn car door with prolonged effort. “It’s us,” he yells, stepping out with his arms up in half-hearted surrender. Baekhyun does the same, glowering and still silent.

“Oh-” Chanyeol pockets the gun immediately and sprints towards them with his lopsided grin. “Jongdae! Baekhyun!”

“Hi,” Jongdae mumbles, his mouth muffled against Chanyeol’s shoulder as he’s picked up without further delay and spun around in a vice-hold. Behind him, Baekhyun leans back against the car, hands clenched closed inside his pockets.

When Chanyeol releases him, Jongdae finally has a chance to step back and look at him. With his hair curling over the gangly point of his ears and a leather jacket swept around his broad shoulders and bare chest, he’s more Chanyeol than Jongdae ever remembered. People change and people stay the same; Jongdae wonders if the same could be said for him, for them.

“I’m so glad you guys came!” Chanyeol speak-shouts, already stepping around Jongdae with his arms opened towards Baekhyun. Even without looking, Jongdae can already feel Baekhyun bristling silently.

“Yeah it’s great,” he butts in, slotting himself over Baekhyun’s side and effectively blocking Chanyeol’s flailing assault. The taller man makes a confused noise, arms still half-raised, and Jongdae has a strange feeling that he’s kicking a puppy when he doesn’t step aside. He glances away, a wordless indication, but Chanyeol backs off, tilting his head as if he was reprimanded.

The mood is dead at this point. Baekhyun looms behind Jongdae, practically hiding against his shoulder, barely acknowledging Chanyeol with even a nod. Chanyeol, as he does, only fidgets in front them, his curls almost bouncing off of his forehead with the same energy. Jongdae, stuck between them, shields his eyes from the perpetual sun as he feels a headache coming on. It’s not the most ideal reunion, but he never expected one to happen in the first place so he reluctantly takes it in stride.

“So,” he sighs, breaking the stale air between them, “do you have room for two tonight?”

-

Chanyeol’s trailer is left behind the gas station, more of a shitty parking job than any real attempt made to blend in. No one uses the gas station anymore anyway, he tells them with a sad shake of his head.

“At night it looks pretty cool though,” he mentions, perking up. “The lights all along the front,” he motions to great overhead bulbs hanging over the gas pumps, “they always come on for some reason.” Chanyeol turns away from his impromptu tour to smile at them. “I’ll show you guys tonight. It’ll be our own little oasis from the dark.”

Baekhyun halts behind Jongdae, the tip of his shoes catching against the grit and sand. Jongdae pauses too, looking back. He extends a hand, a silent question on his tongue, and waits for Baekhyun to catch up.

When Baekhyun raises his head, there’s that strange look on his face again. Under the fading sunset, it casts him in a contrast of shadow and violent orange light. It looks like the world is burning around him and maybe a bit of him is breaking off with it too. Jongdae reaches his hand out further, desperate for Baekhyun to take it.

There’s a moment when Baekhyun’s eyes meet his and something desperate seems to twist in the darkness, a spiderwebbed fracture splitting further and further - but it’s gone under a passing shadow. He’s brushing past, and Jongdae is left with his open hand clutching at nothing but dust.

Chanyeol’s distant shout comes for him to catch up, and Jongdae throws one last look to the sunset soaking the line of the horizon in red before hurrying away.

-

The trailer is a shoddy, run-down old thing that Chanyeol lovingly calls his “darling” without hesitation. The three stripes of color lining its body are so stained with decay and dilapidation that Jongdae has a hard time telling they were anything other than a rusted shade of brown.

Still, Chanyeol slaps its side like an old dog when they reach it. Jongdae’s just about to ask him if he lost the key to to his own trailer, when he reaches into his back pocket and slaps that dumb gun against a panel on the body. The outline of a door appears in the otherwise smooth metal, lines syncing in and out as a small hiss sounds.

“Really.” Jongdae crosses his arms, deadpan. “Did you really sync your lock to your goddamn fake gun?”

Chanyeol looks back, faking a pout. “Come on, it was convenient! They’re both made of the same fiber.” He swipes a finger across the side of the barrel, and the clear glass immediately fades into black paneling as if it was simply flipping over to another side. “See,” Chanyeol smiles, looking too cheery for someone holding a knock-off Glock 19 to his own head, “no one would suspect a thing.”

Even Baekhyun lets out a little scoff from behind them.

Still, Chanyeol sweeps a broad hand out. “Come on in!”

And they eventually do, with Jongdae turning towards Baekhyun as he brushes past without a single word from his lips.

Jongdae sighs.

“Thanks Chanyeol.”

Chanyeol’s slings an arm around his shoulders, the smile on his lips unfaltering, infuriating.  

-

Tonight, on Chanyeol’s couch, lumpy with spilled stuffing and ripped stitches from years of improper usage, Jongdae dreams about a thunderstorm.

(Baekhyun had taken the floor without question).

In his dream, he finds himself standing on a beach. The sky is roiling with grey clouds above head, and the air itself is filled with the color - grey, tight, tension. Jongdae looks down and his hands are outstretched as if awaiting something.

Rain perhaps? His fingers only tense in response.

He looks up again and light booms from a distant world. It’s soft, strangely muffled in its impact. Jongdae watches the light flicker erratically across the sky, waiting for it to hit somewhere, somehow. The wind passes by like a quick slap, ruffling his hair, his clothes, tearing at his skin.

He waits with his arms straining upward. He waits for his breath to come back to him. He waits with something wild and alive, raw and uncontrollable sparking through his veins.

He waits for the lightning to finally strike.

His gasps awake just as his eyes slip closed. There are Lichtenberg figures, patterns, fractures, broken flowers seared in pale blue beneath his closed lids. He gasps, breathless, tasting the clean bite of ozone in his throat.

And then there’s Baekhyun, hovering over him with his mouth open around half-formed words.

Jongdae can’t see his eyes like this.

In the shadow, everything is diluted, thoughts slipping, intentions blurring into one another. No one has to be honest hidden under the cover of their greater selves. Jongdae likes the refuge it offers, a stillness, a muffled quiet where every hard outline traces its soft edges and dreams take on the air of something real. In his dreams the light is always bright, but when he looks into it, it doesn’t hurt in the same way.

And now, in the passing moment where the dream is barely fading beneath his eyes and the night is still vivid between them, Jongdae feels like he could reach out and touch Baekhyun. And maybe this time, Baekhyun might touch him too.

But Baekhyun’s mouth moves again, a closed line, a refusal to anything more than this, to the distance kept between them. Jongdae’s hands slip around the space around his cheeks, silk ephemeral as air. Night is only a whisper between them.

The quiet becomes a brush of dust, grains scattered across a dry desert where the moon shines eternal, a world that is simply calm, cool, guarded in loneliness. Under it, if he had reached out a hand, there would be no one there to take it. Baekhyun refuses to say another word, and he retreats to his spot against the floor.

Jongdae can’t see his eyes, but he wishes that he could have.  

“Gooooood morning sleepyhead.”

The sunlight reaches for him again, bright in sight and sound. Jongdae is suitably annoyed by both.

“You missed the night lights,” Chanyeol pouts, perching himself on a couch arm as Jongdae fusses with his blankets. “Even Baekhyun got up to see them with me.” He mentions it as if it was only a casual, throwaway remark, tapping his mouth with a long finger.

Jongdae blinks. Baekhyun’s eyes in the dark, inscrutable between the haze of dream and shadow, and Jongdae waiting for that something again, a word, a touch, a whisper drawn out between them. Strange that he had fallen asleep right after. It had felt like Baekhyun had been right there, the shape of him still breathing through the fabric of the night.

“Did he now,” Jongdae says and the words are clunky in his mouth. He doesn’t know what to think, what to ask, what he wants. Baekhyun hasn’t let a thing slip from those thin lips of his.

In the end he settles tentatively, carefully. “Did he like them?” He wants to be aloof, but even he can hear the raw dumb yearning in his voice.

Chanyeol’s eyes are soft under the light, quiet and yet louder than the rest of his large, obtuse self. He looks at Jongdae with something gentle that overwhelms the dawn itself. Jongdae can’t quite understand it.

“I think so. He told me it reminded him of you.”

-

Baekhyun and Chanyeol talk in hushed whispers over the kitchen table, and Jongdae is left to sulk on the trailer steps, watching the dust run across the road. Like a murmuration of starlings, each passing trail forms its own inscrutable pattern as they reach somewhere beyond the shimmering horizon. There’s a meaning to the way they circle and dance around another; what exactly, Jongdae’s looked long enough that he doesn’t care to find out.

They travel with such intention though, he supposes there must be a purpose behind it.

On the road, he loses himself so easily. If only he was a grain of dust, tangled into strands of wind, born out of a breath of sun and a bit of gold, he thinks he’d be satisfied to go from road to road forever.

The steps groan beneath him, and he glances up to see Baekhyun at his side. He’s a kind of strained shadow, hiding so faintly from the sun’s warm embrace. He raises a bare arm, and he shields his eyes from the sky. There’s a bone-stripped chill to his skin, and he shifts like a ghost who’s slipped out of his place from the world. In the quiet ache, in the curve of his lips, Jongdae senses a flower straining as its roots dry up within the earth.  

“Let’s go?” Jongdae stands and steps away before Baekhyun can get any closer, before the silence can spill into something greater.

Baekhyun nods, his fingers still clutched over his pale eyes.

When they leave, the engine sputtering to a fine tune that sings all the way from stomach to throat, Chanyeol waves at them from the rear-view mirror.

Jongdae keeps an eye on him until he becomes another speck of dust on the horizon. Then he simply disappears with the rest of the world, long gone behind them.  

-

-

In the morning, a dawn where the light is as bright as the heavens above and yet it seeps into him, a slow wonderful awakening. Jongdae opens his eyes and it’s refreshing like a breath of ocean wind. A cool mist that wipes away the haze on the horizon. The world around him is saturated in full color, the silk between his fingers shifts with a tangible sensation. It’s vivid enough for him to feel real.

Baekhyun is there at his side, framed casually in the morning sun. The dust settles on his shoulders, on the tips of his hair, and he is adored in gold.

He turns to Jongdae with a kind of half-lidded stare, the kind that catches the light with a slow blink. It’s a soft gesture, coiling with sleep and an ache, bone-deep. One that is held, treasured and tendered within someone.

Jongdae can’t comprehend it, but Baekhyun only continues to look at him like this, like it should mean something between them.

-

“Why do you always look at me like that?”

-

Main conflict: Xiumin and Baekhyun and the fallout from it and how it hurt Jongdae.

-

“You should give up - stop expecting rain in a desert”  - you should give up your promise to me, stop thinking you can love someone like me

-

Jongdae’s empty oasis ringing out through the valley of stone - curves, grooves, ridges smoothed by the wear of ancient oceans - a remnant of what had seemed eternal.

High and clear, his song soars into the bleeding sunset - a desperate beautiful cry for something even he can’t voice as words.

-

“Me? I’m just a getaway driver by convenience. Don’t take my words to heart.” But Jongdae knows better than to believe Kyungsoo when he says things like this. The other man’s lips are soft and already curling into a smile he attempts to hide against his knuckles, the other hand still clutching the wheel.

Kyungsoo cares for people like his flowers, fragile things to say goodbye to eventually. But he cares, at least enough in the moment. 

“Thanks Kyungsoo,” Jongdae grins, his cheeks hurting.

-

Lay somewhere? Somehow?

-

The final resolve: a sunset sinking into a beach stretching until the end of days - there they find their oasis at the end of the world. The sun is an egg that has boiled over, spilling itself into the sky with a violent wash of color. Beneath the setting sky, they’re bathed in shadows of orange and red as well. Jongdae’s skin buzzes, a spontaneous combustion reaction waiting to take place. Reactants, oxygen, fire, the explosion and he is remade in essence.

Baekhyun meets his eyes and their hands find each other, intertwine, inseparable as the water laps at their toes.

They walk into the sea together, and stare into the sun, feel the water dashed against them, over them, until they’re soaked and dried out in eternal repetition.

It is there that Jongdae presses Baekhyun into sand and sea, kissing him with salt and water staining their lips, stinging their tongues, filling their mouths. His fingers slip over Baekhyun’s wet cheeks, and his knees sink into the sand, but Baekhyun loops his arms around his neck and doesn’t let go.

It is there that Baekhyun makes his promise again, drowning under the setting sun, washed over by clear waves, the world a backdrop of fire behind them.

“Stay with me to the end of the world?”

Jongdae, of course, replies -

“yes.”

http://happycakeycake.tumblr.com/post/176887891626

hacker/programming nerds au

the wires tangle around changkyun’s ankles, buzzing intermittently with surges of heat. they trace paths of tingling electricity over his curled toes, matted like a nest of disgruntled bees under his bare heels. his fingers itch with the same sensation, pinging with low clicking hums with every line of cyphers writing themselves across the screen.

when jooheon leans against his side, the bed dips - along with every rubbery wire, half-inserted plugs, burnt out flash drives, and changkyun’s automatic attention.

when they work, it’s always warm. the green halo of the screen infuses them with some kind of magnetic energy that leaves Changkyun with plum bruised lids and Jooheon with blotchy red cheeks the next morning. Changkyun understands to some extent that when you live 24/7 surrounded by thrumming hardware - the electricity seems to begin flowing through your own veins. It’s a buzz - maybe even a high - that he’s used to. Just an itch at the back of his scalp, pick it for a few days and it calms into a steady current, waiting at bay for another tide.

The heat Jooheon provides is another story entirely. he can’t (and doesn’t) want to call it an itch - not when he can’t even bring himself to scratch at it. so he let’s it simmer, bloom like a deadly pollen under his skin, until even the light press of a shoulder sets him off. jooheon thinks his jumpiness is amusing - cute he had murmured, voice slurred with 4 am exhaustion, and dropped his head entirely against changkyun’s bony shoulder - but it makes changkyun feel like a frayed circuit, hiccuping out of control until he’ll eventually burst in a delightful shower of nervous golden sparks. lethal and brilliant seems to be a fitting way to describe his inevitable death.

that’s not to say jooheon doesn’t feel the same way.

when they kiss, limbs knotted this way and that on their bed of pulsing wires and beeping lights, a strange sound always escapes from his mouth.

changkyun tells him it sounds like he’s crying, and presses closer, kisses harder.

but surely, he knows jooheon isn’t sad right? in the same way that a string of keys and codes will trigger an automatic command, he responds on instinct when it comes to the younger man.

he wishes though that his emotions could be serialized into easy numerics. they’re here, defined for one second and gone the next, as effervescent as the petal of a spring flower mourned by sentimental poets. jooheon imagines fitting each hazy, inscrutable ball of ideas and compulsions into a solid, square, little key and tapping it repeatedly into a blank page until the strange sound he makes and the roiling heat in his stomach become neat little 1s and 0s on his screen. he wonders if he printed it out, flattened his fingers against the black curves of the 0s and the slightly grey indents of the 1s, if they would bleed seamlessly into him and replace every lump in his throat, every involuntary twitch, and every wrenching pull with the simple pattern of clicking code.

 he pictures it for a moment, a stream of numbers mingling so quickly it looks like mottled black running through his veins - and decides against it.

 he tucks his fingers against changkyun’s stomach, lean under layers and layers of coats and shirts of various lengths, and slowly absorbs the lull of warmth that grows under his palm. a foreign sensation bubbles inside his throat again, and this time he releases it as a nervous mix between a laugh and a sigh.

when changkyun fits his knuckles between jooheon’s own, knobby and awkward and slightly grating, jooheon kicks the thought of that easy little key right into his mental scrap bin. he returns the same ungainly hold, reaching his fingertips to meet changkyuns’ in a tight, tight grip.

-

the first time they watch porn together, changkyun soils his pants with a silent grimace.  there was nothing in the video (teen boys first-time anal fuck - they had both snorted at the title) that was particularly interesting or even arousing, but the moment his mind had replaced the gasping mouth on screen with another - well, that was the spark for his metaphorical loose wire.

 -

ck + kh sex talk

lap sitting and embarrassing handjobs - first times and slow experimentation into human touch

missionary?

 When jooheon kisses him, love flashes - green, clicking, immediate - across changkyun’s mind. When jooheon kisses him, it flashes love like a string of codes through changkyun’s mind.

In which jooheon and changkyun fumble around each other like a set of overheated, spluttering computers whirring fast on overdrive.

def_love: (?)

01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101 00111111

tvxq atla au

firebender yunho: no doubt about it, born w the fire flaring in his veins and electricity alight upon his skin - great store of energy and control for lightning benders but even w the lack of restraint or technique yunho succeeds (and exceeds) through his sheer passion and power alone

changmin - either firebender or waterbender - waterbender for more cliche route, water to my fire, two parts of one whole - plays to the calmer, introverted side of his personality - understands stronger sense of balance, if yunho is all brash courage then changmin meets him in  full with calculated moderation, like the push and pull of a wave he knows when to give and take.

Firebender - the gift of the rising sun, the fate of two phoenixes reborn forever - fated to live and die in cycles around one another - tvxq as a whole, strong roots within the fire nation (east asian chinese/japanese) - regal elegance and unbridled power in an everlasting lineage - changmin and yunho reborn as the incarnations of the great phoenix - forever split in perfect halves

- prince changmin and general’s first son yunho - within two years the priests have sought the guidance of the sun and it is obvious as to who the great phoenix has chosen.

- prince is reserved, quiet, just shy of extreme introversion - but his bending capabilities are unanimously hailed by his teachers - in fact, by the time his 9th year passes the core of his flames begin to burn blue and lightning plays on his fingertips. when the priests find the two of them, laughter bouncing off the walls, interspersed with the gentle crackle of electricity, the room flashing on and off with brilliant light, the general’s first son is taken to be trained personally alongside the prince.

- if yunho is a burst of raw force, changmin is a fine streamline of well-tuned energy - somehow that works out perfectly - calm, calculated, methodical,  his cautiousness and reservation during battle is simply a mask for his critical eye - when the time comes to strike, he surely would not hesitate.

                          - scarring lessons - changmin loses control for the slightest second and yunho gains a sliver of a scar beneath his eye - changmin learns fire is not to be played with - formative event for the both of them, changmin’s hands shake for weeks after, the possibility of hurting yunho scarred within the lines of his palms and yunho spending nights staring at the empty space of his room, replaying the deep pain in changmin’s dark eyes over and over again - he doesn’t ever want to be the cause of such pain ever again.

- an untouchable bond, yunho sticks fiercely to changmin’s side - before the little prince even required a guard, yunho was his first self-appointed protector - during their teenage years, almost isolated from the rest of the palace - the two of them retreating to the sole company of only each other, lanky bodies ablaze on the training grounds long after the halls fall hushed in sleep - not a single person sure of what they get up to - just the two of them, locked in the training halls without another soul awake to hear, see, or judge.

                          - the descendants of the sun have always shared a close bond - friends, sometimes family, and even lovers  - and yet this pair are bound beyond blood - truly the missing halves to one whole - desperately, they cling on and complete one another.

- reservations and distance that come with age - changmin is of course expected to continue to royal line and to rule and yunho has his own duties to abide to, for his aging father and the country - the yearning only grows painful with time, and in their silence, their distance, they ache for one another -  despite it all, duties, rules, expectations,  fate works on its own agenda.  

- yunho shipped off to war and changmin truly feels something dim within him, an ever-present thrum that simmers to a low and then it just - stops. the metaphorical flame is blown out, muffled, and he spends his days stuck in cold and gray.

                          - and when they reunite, of course, it is the re-ignition of passion, the most  brilliant clash of sparks, the very essence of fire burning liquid hot between them - the universe has never seen anything more beautiful, more human.

- death inevitable, a promise to meet again - bring it back to modern universe, changmin again by yunho’s side, the strange fairy tale nudging something deep within them awake once more.  “it was so tragic, inevitable too” “but ...don’t you think they met again? that they found their happy ending  once more?” it strikes something so raw, it twists at the bottom of his stomach, the tender hope in yunho’s voice, something about the tale hurts - “i hope they did.”

[happycakestories]

graphic for rusalka au made by a friend :) i still love the feeling of order offset by the lure of a deep, wet earth i get from this photo

[happycakestories]

old mx fic dump pt. 7

some particularly notable aus --  they stand out for the imagery/themes or how much i personally invested in the story

rusalka au - still love the idea of a drowning kind of love, myths of alluring water creatures, and the wet, decaying rot of old eastern european mansions - the kind that still seem to grow, wholly alive, within the marshes

cowritten w a friend who made a cool graphic :)

honey’s mom is a rusalka and his father is a korean ambassador or whatever, she was supposed to lure the dad in and kill him but she falls in love with him and gets married to this mortal, he builds a house for them near the lake she came from, she hears the voices of her brothers and sisters calling her and telling her to go back, slowly driving her insane the longer she keeps away from the water

This undead rusalka is not invariably malevolent, and would be allowed to die in peace if her death is avenged. Her main purpose is, however, to lure young men, seduced by either her looks or her voice, into the depths of said waterways where she would entangle their feet with her long red hair and submerge them.

when honey is born she gets remorseful bc he’s half a fae and she condemned him to be shunned and also his nature is supposed to be inherently dangerous so she tries to keep him away from bodies of water of any kind

but rusalki need water to live so she has to stay in the tub for a loong time very often

lots of childhood memories of him grabbing a stool and scooching to the edge of the tub as she blew pink bubbles at him

honey wonders why he’s not allowed to go near water bc he’s a child and children are nosy and during a family outing when his mom is distracted he explores and gets lured into the water bc the other rusalki kinda want to kill him to get revenge on his mother but he’s half fae and he manages to escape

when he comes back he’s changed, he has blue eyes and her fears are confirmed

so that night after saying goodbye to her husband and son she goes back to the lake and makes a deal with her brothers and sisters, she goes back with them but they must promise they’ll leave her son alone

everybody tells honey his mother drowned, but he’s suspicious bc she never went near any body of water, so he investigate and approaches the lake and sees young, beautiful rusalki floating under the water, his mother is there too but she looks so different and totally not human, he runs away in fear  and after this he develops a terrible phobia  of water bodies

every night he hears his mother sing and call him, trying to lure him in, so his father for fear of his mental health decides to move, but everywhere they go in russia, honey’s mother finds them and haunts him, so his dad decides to go back to korea, where he marries hyolyn who is the daughter of some fancy ass noble family and honey comes to love her like a good stepson but he cant forget about his mom, who is like a ghost to him, and he cant help but wonder if the memories he had of her before she drowned are even real

then he’s introduced at a fancy ass party, and honey is super shy bc he doesnt know anybody and his korean isnt that good, but at the party there’s ck too, the son of a general, and he’s a little nerd and also doesnt have many friends and he sees this super pretty boy with the most unusual eyes

and he notices this super pretty boy with the most unusual eyes

and he's shy bc his korean isnt too good also living in russia he doesnt have any friends here

who is looking around nervously since he doesn't know anyone or the language well enough

and ck falls in love at first sight bc he's shy too and a bit nerdy and doesnt have many friends

for the first time he's the one that approaches someone else

he goes over coughing out an awkward "hi" as he leans against the wall next to the other boy

blue eyes perk brightly at his prescence and the other boy also lets out a soft hi in return

it's thick and clumsy and ck immediately recognizes the slavic accent

he takes a chance and switches to russian, re-introducing himself again in the other language

he's immediatly bombarded by rapid fire russian, the blue eyed boy jabbering away with relief in his eyes AND LIKE IM IMAGINING THIS 1910's SALON YKNOW, and the two boys huddled in a corner speaking in russian

and i was thinking that they become friends and ck notices his friend is weird, he doesnt want to go swimming in the pond in summer and sometimes he looks at water with authentic terror in his eyes

but he doesnt know he's afraid to see a face under the surface

i'm figuring they're around 12-13 at this point?

jooheon's still fully draped in a high colored blouse and pants

manyeo0

YES and at first he didnt want to let ck go into the water because he was afraid his mother would snatch him

happycakeycake

won't even take off his shoes near the water

OOH GROWING UP TOGETHR

but Ck is also so genuinely enthusiastic about going to swim

so he decides to follow him to at least watch over him

but he is NOT GOING IN

"i don't understand, i mean its just pool water..." changkyun mutters even as instant regret fills his chest at the other's shaking form

happycakeycake

there has to be a scene where jooheon totally looks feral and ck is actually scared

i want dangerous jooheon sorry woops

manyeo0

that we can get man, maybe the one time honey (as an adult tho) gets into the water

and ck is scared and turned on at the same time

happycakeycake

omg DUDE what if he almost gives into his instinct

and drowns ck

manyeo0

also my dude i want this fic to be FILTH Y

happycakeycake

but he snaps back in time

manyeo0

and then cue underwater sex like in movie

happycakeycake

to push ck back to the surface and onto the bank

manyeo0

s

happycakeycake

HOHA

manyeo0

yes man

i want the filth

manyeo0

romantic, pretty filth

happycakeycake

AND HE LOOKS UP INTO BRIGHT EYES, PUPILS SLITTING INTO THIN LINES OF BLACK

LIKE AN IDLE BOAT DROWNED INTO TWO ENDLESS POOLS

HE CAN'T LOOK AWAY

manyeo0

YES

happycakeycake

BUT HE GREW UP SO MUCH

manyeo0

WAHAHAH AND THATS THE ONE TIME JOOHEON ISNT THE SUB

happycakeycake

OH POWERBOTTOM JOOHEON COUGH

manyeo0

OOOH MAN

manyeo0

YES

happycakeycake

OMG OF COURSE

manyeo0

fucking on the riverbank

happycakeycake

like reeds and fallen petals from the water clinging to his body as he pulls onto the bank

pushing ck down onto the mossy ground

he can feel the wetness sinking in through his clothes but he can't bring himself to move

not with jooheon sat naked and wet as the day he was born, staring down at him

manyeo0

joklkllflfklfkfdlkd

happycakeycake

and then he gets ridden an inch withinhis life woops yep i can't write porn anymore

manyeo0

AND HE'S LIKE "I SHOULD BRING U TO THE RIVER MORE OFTEN WHOOPS"

happycakeycake

and all he gets in a response is sharp teeth against his neck, biting harshly before pressing a soft kiss against it

he shivers but makes no move to shrink away

manyeo0

my aesthetic for this fic is lots of water and lots of filth

happycakeycake

i love that please

and dark green moss

dark woods with decaying trees sticking out of rivers

manyeo0

maybe ck gets sent to one of those military schools

happycakeycake

nooOOOOOO

omg but when he comes back

manyeo0

and honey keeps studying at home and they only see each other when ck is back home but they write letters

happycakeycake

both of them would 've changed so much

YES

and ck gets progressively worried as the letters become rambled and messy

manyeo0

MGMGD

happycakeycake

jooheon's thoughts jumbling into conflicting opinions about the rivers and lakes

JOOHEON KINKILY DROWNS GUNHEE

happycakeycake

there's something so satisfying in the way the other man's eyes dull and his heartbeat lulls to a stop against jooheon's own chest

manyeo0

IOFOFJSMSMDN

he'd be horrified if he knew man

also i posted the thing

happycakeycake

he can't hold himself back from stealing the man's last breath of air with a searing kiss

swallowing his last gasp and sealing their mouths together until he grows completely limp in jooheon's hold

happycakeycake

oh my god but like what if changkyun totally saw that poor man walk into the lake

manyeo0

OJJDJDDDKKS

happycakeycake

and jooheon rises out of the surface, only able to whisper out a "hi" as changkyun's eyes widen in horror

and then the whole sex scene happens

manyeo0

OGHH HIT

YES

happycakeycake

except he totally forces him during it to promise to forget about it

i just want a scene of jooheon reveling in the extent of his full powers, breathing in the scent of the waters as the moon drapes across his skin

and changkyun can only watch to the side, terror and awe all mixed into one

-----------

The dry gravel gives way under Changkyun’s boots into the ever-familiar softness of wet moss, as he makes his way back home.

Hoseok always jokes that he’s going to become a forest hermit one day, but what with the continually mounting stress at work, the younger sergeant is starting to seriously consider it as a viable option.

Even the annoying scratch and tug of wild branches against his uniform seems almost playful and comforting this evening. His uniform coat, brocaded with a once-flourishing embroidery of a yellow bird, is slung casually over his shoulder as the forest gives him its usual clinging welcome.

It wouldn’t be quite an exaggeration to say that he was forest-dweller, since he had literally settled down inside a patch of quiet, secluded woods, easily buying up an acre or two of unused land to live on.

The dense underbrush finally opens to a quiet grass bank. It’s perpetually secluded - the forest hunching inwards like a mother, leafy arms spreading wide to block out almost all traces of sunlight. Everything flourishes in the dark, moss and mud squishing wetly underfoot as they appear in larger and larger pieces towards the pond.

Well, it’s more of a lake than anything: deep and dark enough to hide any man’s secret. Dilapidated trees, raised half mast in the water, reach with stiff branches for any kind of light, even as they inevitably rot deeper into the water with each passing day.  

And all of this is Changkyun’s home.

He plops down at the edge of the bank with a content sigh, relaxing fully even as freezing wetness seeps through his trousers. His reflection is clear and unbroken when he leans over the water, a perfect mirror image of serious brows and slim cheeks.

He leans closer, enough so that his nose could kiss against his mirror self’s, his hair could dip against the dark surface, and his lips could press a cold greeting to his home.

His face is only a millimeter away from touching the lake when he’s grabbed and pulled face-first into the water, pale wrists and outstretched palms flashing across his vision to latch onto his collar.

The initial panic and breathlessness soothes over when a familiar softness fastens itself wetly over his frozen scream. His vision shadows over, and Changkyun can’t tell if his eyes or closed or if it’s the unreachable darkness of the water.

Either way he pushes back, hands coming up to grope for full cheeks and bare shoulders as he bites against a plush mouth. A gasp comes out, muffled into tiny air bubbles, rising and popping towards the lake surface.  

In a few seconds he follows, gasping and collapsing onto the bank, mouth raw as it’s assaulted by the chilling air. He sits up as quickly as possible, lungs protesting and limbs groaning when he raises himself up to glance toward the water.

Vectored ripples streamline across the surface, flowing into a direct stop in front of his dangled legs. The bottomless reflection breaks into a pale face and lake-slick hair -  slitted pools of blue that sit atop of round cheeks which bunch into dimpled glee.

“Darling!” pierces through the air as a happy shout from pink lips, cupid’s bow arching in obvious delight. The cooed syllables roll off in thick Russian, curling gutturally through a taut throat.

“How was your day?” Changkyun replies simply, switching abruptly to Korean and exaggerating each word teasingly as he watches his lover frown in immediate discontent.

“I- miss - missed you,” Jooheon slowly replies, choosing each word with careful consideration as he forces away the Slavic sounds fighting to escape through his throat.

It all started many, many years ago, in Russia, Vladimir district, in a villa next to a lake.

---

The thing Jooheon liked the most about his mother was her hair.

Most of the time she wore it pinned on top of her head, or coiled in elegant braids that framed her face. When she let it down it fell in heavy, wavy tresses, red and shiny as polished copper. She let him run his little hands through the silky locks, and sometimes he helped her untangle the most stubborn knots with her favourite silver brush. It was difficult to choose the thing he loved the most about her, because in his mind Mother was absolute perfection: she was beautiful and wise, she had strong and nimble hands and the softest voice he had ever heard.

Jooheon had inherited her pale hair and pale skin and her heart shaped lips, but the cut and shape of his eyes, their colour, those were like his father’s, Mr. Lee. He was an ambassador from Korea, which was very far away from Russia, and didn’t look like his wife at all. He even spoke a different language, and hired a teacher who taught Jooheon how to write and speak it correctly. It sounded strange to Jooheon’s ears, and so different from the lazy drawl of Russian, but he did his best because it made Father proud and Mother happy.

Not that his father was home much: he spent most of the year in Moscow to tend to his business, which made Jooheon’s mother sad, though she tried not to let it show. She wasn’t very happy in that big wooden villa all by herself, with only her little son, his teachers and a couple of maids to keep her company. Jooheon was very young at the time but he understood that his mother felt lonely and he always tried to do his best to cheer her up.

She especially got a wistful, far-away look in her eyes when she glanced at the lake next to the house, which was strange, since she never even walked close to it.

In fact, she seemed to have a deathly, unbreakable fear of all bodies of water, not just the lake, but rivers and small streams too. Jooheon was forbidden to go near water, not even on hot summer days when he would’ve loved to take a swim in the mossy lake to refresh himself. His doctor had suggested it once and Mother had been so upset she had almost thrown the poor man out of the door.

One day, Jooheon had asked her about it. He was sitting on the cold tiled floor of her bathroom, his fingers idly tracing the shape of one of the bath’s clawed brass feet, while his mother blew rose-perfumed bubbles at him. “Mother, why are you afraid of water?” His mother had let out a very unlady-like snort “Why do you ask that, pchelka? I’m taking a bath in water right now, am I not?” Little Jooheon had scoffed, knowing she didn’t intend on answering his question seriously. “I don’t mean that! I mean, why are you scared of the lake, or the streams and rivers? Why don’t you ever want to go swimming in the lake?”

This time, his mother had glanced at him through narrowed, impossibly blue eyes, so different from his own, and he had felt a sort of chill go through him. It felt like looking down a well full of icy cold water, knowing it could suck you in at any moment.

“I’m not scared of anything, pchelka. I just don’t like moving water too much. You never know what’s hiding beneath the surface. Something might grab your pretty little foot while you’re swimming and you’d never see the light of day again!” She had started tickling him then, his laughter bouncing through the tiled walls, and every thought about water and its mysterious depths was momentarily forgotten.

-

It all came back to him one day, a couple of years later.

At seven, Jooheon was still a small, pudgy boy with round dimpled cheeks and curly blonde hair. His mother and all the maids doted on him, they called him pchelka, solnyshko, angel. His father - those rare times he saw him, for he still spent the best part of his time in Moscow - wasn’t as affectionate, but he seemed satisfied with his progresses and always brought him presents from the city, such as intricate egg puzzles, imported sweets and books.

Mother received silver combs shaped like dragonflies, silk dresses that floated around her figure like gentle waves, and more diamond necklaces and earrings than she could possibly wear in that secluded house in the forest, where nobody could see them. Her only chance to show her off where the fancy parties Ambassador Lee attended in Moscow. On some occasions, he brought his family along, his wife (“my lovely Dar'ja” as he would introduce her) as radiant as ever, his little son adorably awkward, nervous from all the attention he would get as a mixed child born of an Asian man and a Russian woman.

Jooheon didn’t like those parties much, they felt so fake and stifling, and he was always immensely glad to be back to his quiet villa by the lake, with its creaky wooden floors and the fading paintwork on the walls.

There was something about the perpetual wetness of the wood - the way it creaked and gave way underfoot, as if the water in it had made it alive, shift, and grow with every slap of his chubby feet.

The city maids always shook their heads at the mess, stomping their heels in disgust at clumps of rich moss creeping up in damp corners and whispering about how it’s not good for the mistress nor the young master, for that matter, to be in these kinds of conditions. For all their hard efforts though, one rainy day later and the lake would be back to its original state: creaky, wet, rich, and alive.

As much as his mother guarded against lakes or any form of wild contact with water, Jooheon can see the unfiltered want behind the frenzied fear in her pale eyes. He understands the feeling - the same pull rising up within him every time his bare toes gripped dewed grass, every time the splatter of rain on his windows sent him into a panic, nerves driving him into a state of suspended alertness.

It’s these moments where he and his mother sought each other out, simultaneously as if on instinct. She would cradle his pulsing head to her chest, wrapping her own thinly clad, nightgowned body around his own, their hearts pounding to the same erratic rhythm. It’s the only thing that can calm him down enough to sleep: the fiery curtain of his mother’s loose, long hair soothing him safely back into the land of dreams.

"pet” / mafia au

GENERAL AESTHETICS:  “it got her on her knees like religion” “every saturday night i get dressed up to get ready to ride for you baby” “movie stars and liquor stores and soft decay” “so imma care for you, you, you, you, yeah” “if i cannot move heaven, i will raise all of hell for you”

PET AU: jooheon’s a quiet pet but he watches everything his master does with wide, brown eyes. They say he’s too docile, too vapid, too silent, but well - he just wants to be good for the man he loves.  https://ton.twitter.com/1.1/ton/data/dm/920057578448670730/920057561562451969/D8Lvlc_K.jpg:large

https://ton.twitter.com/i/ton/data/dm/920750240050933765/920750232492822536/3Wm36U-f.jpg:large

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Playlist: “le noir” by bap, “ribbon in the sky” by bap → only for action scenes maybe, “Galaxy” by Ladies Code, “All about You” by Taemin → beginning 1st part of video  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEURku1dTfU), “move” by taemin, “in the night” by the weeknd, “Wires” by the neighborhood-Minhyuk?, “White Noise (Chinese Version)” by EXO - in Jooheon’s absence, MAYBE TAEMIN STUFF IN GENERAL (Press It album - song → sexuality→ Until Today (it's perfect!!!) → Ace → Experience), “Burning Desire” by Lana Del Rey, “Gangsta” by Kehlani, BANKS MUSIC,

Scenes:

Confrontation: “We only wanted to rough him up a little for show,” Minhyuk sighs, nudging a hard toe against the soft, pale flesh of Jooheon’s thigh. The pet whimpers, warbling and desperate, and tries to shuffle away on bound, bloody knees. The same shiny black dress shoe comes stomping down over bare skin a second later, dragging out a raw cry of pain from between Jooheon’s torn lips. Jackson digs stinging half-moon crescents into his palm with the bloody tips of his blunt nails. Still, he stays silent.

“But, well-” the slender man kneels down on one leg, all coiled grace and deadly power as he takes Jooheon’s stained cheek in hand with feigned tenderness. “He made it a little too hard for us in the process,” a thumb digs into the exact spot where Jackson knows a dimple would sit during a deep smile, and Minhyuk smiles benevolently, “didn’t you pet?”

Minhyuk + jooheon interactions:

The bargain: Jackson reaches for the man, the leader’s outstretched hand, making sure to keep his fingers strong. Judging from the other’s pointed grimace, it’s a little too much. He bares his teeth in a smile anyway.

“Welcome, Wang Jia Er.” He keeps his expression open. “Please, call me Jackson.” Whispers arise immediately, like the chirping of crickets on a late summer’s night, and a laugh bubbles in the back of his throat. Jackson finally relaxes his grip, smile poised even as Howon’s hand comes to wipe casually against his fitted trousers. It’s bargain day, he reminds himself.

Howon nods, the cutting edge of his jawline turning to jerk towards the second room, bordered by the casual exoticness of an imperial era styled door, intricate lace-like designs carved out of fine mahogany and painted a fading red. Red for luck, his mother’s voice twines like threads of yarn knit with slender fingers through his hair. Red for marriage, his father’s crumbling visage breathes from behind his shoulder, the choking smoke of cigarettes winding a loose remnant around Jackson’s throat.

Red for power, he tells himself, a quiet echo within the blank space of his own mind.

He’s led into the intricately designed room, two rows of men flanking him loosely from both sides in a uniformed wall of black lapels and sharp white button-downs as they go. Inside, his nose is invaded by the curling scent of smoke, sweeping him into a momentary lapse of forgetfulness as images of decadent 19th century opium dens rip off from his wrinkled textbook pages and balloon inside his mind. Jackson huffs out a heavy breath at the decaying pictures, tasting the filmy sensation of marijuana clinging like a summer’s cup of sugary lemonade against his tongue.

The sunken-eyed, emaciated stare of poppy-drugged prostitutes have been replaced by the straight backs of bare-legged pets, kneeled so obediently in front of their masters Jackson’s arrival barely turns any of their steady gazes. He can’t say the same for his own impulsive curiosity.

Howon strides forward with calculated, casual steps, weaving past stained upholstery and scattered silk cushions until Jackson finds himself presented before a simple rectangular table, bare, save for a spotless china ashtray, surrounded by wood-backed recliners that all boast the same exotic design carved into the doorway border. They’re grouped into seats for two at the short sides of the table, then a seat for four lined up against the top edge, and finally a single chair placed directly on the opposite side to finish up the quadruplet seating. The hard tip of Howon’s shiny dress shoes stop right at the edge of the rigid circle, the rest of his men flocking behind him like a pack of well-dressed deadly penguins.

Jackson carefully seats himself in the single chair, spreading his legs and leaning forward with his elbows against his knees, shoulders relaxed and open. The wood of the chair shakes and creaks loudly on its spindly legs.

A pause. Howon’s dress shoes click in deliberate movement.

Howon’s penguin men begin shuffling in, taking up their invisible spots around the table with waddling gaits as their boss stalks among them, a panther among their midst. They all settle into the same position, legs bared, smiles plastered, all leaned in towards Jackson as Howon places himself directly opposite of him, hooking his legs together with a quiet shift of slightly too-tight fabric. Jackson notes the way the other man’s slacks pull and wrinkle like a fan’s folded edges around his crotch. He twitches testily within his own seat, looking up to catch Howon’s glowering expression with his cheery own.

Finally, the fine china of the untouched ashtray seems to come into use as the other man lights a simmering cigarette, roiling smoke unfurling from the slit of his mouth as he takes in a choppy inhale, releasing it in the same brisk manner. Smoking was always absolutely prohibited when training with weapons, but Jackson admits he quite likes how hazy it makes Howon appear in the seedy lighting of the underground den. Now, on his father’s harsh breath, that’s a completely different story. He keeps his smile pleasant, eyebrows rising just a fraction in surprise when a waft of cancerous fog brushes his way. He waits, and the cigarette is stubbed out against white china with a sizzling hiss, the red of its embers fading into black tar that spreads itself out along the pristine bottom of the previously untouched tray like a malignant tumor.

“So,” Howon puffs out one last trace of wispy smoke, “What’s your deal?”

Jackson can’t stop his smile from twitching, widening just a fraction across his face. He leans forward even more, back curved, fingers interlaced loosely at the knuckles as he rattles off every detail from the tip of his tongue: “167 shipments of illegal firearms to your district the minute our supply arrives from overseas on the first of each month - that’s roughly around 2000 per year entirely for your group alone. Free access through our subway tunnels for anything you need, and of course - solidarity for any-” Jackson flicks a hand at some invisible dust mite in the air, “-power struggles.”

Howon sits there, eyes grey, legs poised in his too-tight pants as he works down the last bit of smoke in his system. Despite everything, Jackson can see the purring glimmer of satisfaction in the other’s stone-cold gaze. “

And?” The other man prompts, shifting forward, hands clasped in front of his thin lips as he finally faces Jackson. “What do you want from me?”

Jackson’s words rattle off his tongue, smooth and rehearsed: “Complete and free movement through your district, all the way past the Gyeonggi-do station.” Howon’s single arched eyebrow reads something akin to that’s it? and Jackson’s mouth immediately gets the better of him as he finds himself blurting out, “Maybe one your pretty little pets as well,” motioning towards the boys and girls, lounging, supple and silent, outside of their tense bargaining ring.

Howon’s straight mouth finally twists, the man unable to keep the amusement off his face at the younger man’s brazen request. “Why not?” he chuckles dryly, bending deep at the waist before pushing himself upright on strong thighs. “A symbol of our union: your guns in exchange for a warm body to keep you company on cold, lonely nights.” He smiles openly for the first time since their meeting, teeth straight and canines sharp. Jackson has the distinct feeling he’s being made fun, but well, Howon isn’t exactly wrong.

This time, it’s Howon stepping out first through the ring of carved chairs, all his men rising to follow, leaving Jackson to exit last. He’s led through another rigid set of dusted hallways, only made worse by the rotting tapestries draped over the walls with fading beauties clad in kimonos, hanfus, and the like. Jackson has to admit, the other man’s sense of appropriation is quite elegant, even though it lacks something to be desired in the cleaning department. He keeps his pace even, lagging towards the bottom end of the group as he watches Howon pull a man forward, conversing with him in hushed tones and subtle motions. There’s nothing left for Jackson to be worried about, but he finds himself anticipatory for the first time in the long months since his assumption.

The room they come to must be the heart of the den, Jackson considers, stepping inside, practically pushed towards the middle of the circle by an imperceptible pressure. It’s covered entirely in silk drapery, tapestries and knotted curtains slipping down the walls onto the floors, floors that are a pool of various cushions and round beds, barely a hint of grey cement able to peek through the garish colors of the silk. Jackson wrinkles his nose for the barest of seconds; the musk of sweat and perfume permeates like a fog throughout the room.

“Namjoon,” Howon’s voice echoes throughout the room, nodding slightly at the man Jackson watched him converse with before. “Bring them in.”

The other man-Namjoon, bends almost imperceptibly at the waist before striding out the room, slipping out through an easy chink in the circle’s armor. Jackson blinks once in vague surprise, and the circle is formed once again, no weaknesses to be found. Howon turns toward him with a patient grin, and Jackson shoots back his own tight smile.

The mind-numbing incense of the pressure in the room grows, and he shoves his hands into his pockets, steadying his fingers against sweaty palms. He waits.

-

The familiar tap of dress shoes sound, muffled over the scattered layer of cushions on the cement floor. Jackson looks up, hands tensed within his pockets to see the penguin ring rearranging itself into lumped bunches as Namjoon re-enters the room, the hard pound of his boots followed by an unfamiliar string of soft brushing footsteps, the imprint of their sound pressed like dandelion dust into silk by light, bare feet.

Bare feet, long legs, all pale flesh on show as Jackson watches, breath caught, as a line of collared boys and girls kneel onto the floor of cushions, turning to him the open edge of their cheek with wide eyes and ramrod straight backs. The last one files in, presenting himself in the same fashion, but, huh - the entire curve of his porcelain collarbones to his arched throat is noticeably bare of any thick bands of leather. He lingers, just for a moment, on the pet’s bowed head and turns back to face Namjoon with a relaxed smile plastered over his face again. It’s time to negotiate.

“This is it?” he prompts, leaning back a little, rolling his shoulders ever so slightly in the tight confines of his suit jacket. The other man responds to his jibe with a quick flash of short canines, light dimples dipping into an angled jaw as he casually pushes the starched sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows. Tattoos, Jackson notes, with a jaunty raise of an eyebrow. The Virgin Mary winds her way up the man’s veined forearm in a picturesque coloring of black and grey, save for the sickly green tears rolling down her 2D cheeks. Religious? No can’t be it, Jackson decides, dampening a snort as he notes the two stark lines that form the upside down cross adorning the knuckle of Namjoon’s middle finger.

“I’ll have you know,” Namjoon comments, calm and frank, stepping beside the first pet and lightly running the crook of his finger over her cheek, “our pets are trained thoroughly in all aspects of behavior.” A response comes almost immediately as she dips her head back against his touch, the perfect picture of pretty obedience. Jackson’s stomach jumps at her unreadable glance. Satisfied, the other man lifts away his tattooed hand, straightening himself with a smug, dimpled smile.

“Of course, that’s not to say they don’t have any personality - isn’t that right Youngjae?” He moves onto the next pet, a boy with pink, perked lips who shoots Jackson a puffy, dark glare as Namjoon’s inked fingers come to rest under his sharp chin. Instead of following the tilt of the man’s hand, the kneeled pet bites, jerking a tan digit into his glossy pout, catching it in a hard flash of white teeth. Still, Namjoon only chuckles, wrenching back his thumb and wiping it casually up Youngjae’s flushed cheek in a long, possessive motion. There’s barely a hint of the bite against the skin of the other man’s finger, and Jackson watches the pet settle back down against the cushion, lidded gaze once again fixed upon the silk in front of him without a sound of protest. What a show, he considers carefully as Namjoon moves on to the next kneeled pet.

Of course, he’s thoroughly interested, perhaps even fascinated by these pets, almost inhuman creatures that bare themselves so transparently before an entire room of black-eyed men, before his own stare without a moment of hesitation in their absolute submission. Even for the ones like Youngjae, feigning at spitefulness, the automatic reaction of their bodies when Namjoon approaches, quickly gives them away in their convincing play. Still, to give credit where credit’s due, Jackson can’t help but wonder, just exactly how the other man has got all these wispy, pretty things turning towards him like he could somehow hand them the moon on the string with just a simple brush of a blasphemous finger at their jaws, under their throats, through fluffed hair, and against pouted cheeks. He can’t say his own pocketed hands haven’t begin to itch, urged, just slightly to touch, with the careless affection Namjoon gives and inexorably receives with every passing pet.

It’s been too long on his own, too cold without at least the casual embrace of another human body. Jackson had thought himself stronger without it, but, scanning over the blatant display of soft, bared flesh before him, he considers the possibility of self-sabotage.

The end of the chain of murmured introductions finally reaches the last kneeled pet, and Jackson looks down, a short spark of remembrance tripping in his mind. He was the only one without a collar, Jackson notes, eyes traveling over the open skin along a pale neck all the way down to exposed collarbones. The pet wears the same half-unbuttoned dress shirt, spread across wide shoulders to show off an expanse of unmarked flesh, paired with black silk shorts, barely a hint of its hem peeking out beneath draped linen, and the rest of it practically swallowed by the thick muscle of bared thighs. He looks up at Jackson now, gaze a hazy mix of brewed coffee, hazelnuts, and a clear night’s sky, and Jackson swallows around the sudden lump in his mouth. He does his best to stare back, steady but not demanding, and all he receives is a dreamy blink from sleepy fox eyes.

There it is again - the twitch in his fingers, the hot irritation against his palms. Peach round cheeks call for the lightest of pinches, the glossy curve of a sharp cupid’s bow tempt an errant finger. Jackson has never met a cherub with such inky black hair, swirling in wisps of silk across gently fluttering eyelashes. The pet tilts his head, baring the translucent vein of his collarless neck in the dusty yellow lighting of the drug den, and Jackson is compelled to cover the spotless skin there with his own calloused, scarred palms.  

What is something so vulnerable, so soft doing here, trapped, in a place like this?

The compulsion grows stronger, to do more than watch - rather to touch, to cover, to protect, and Jackson realizes it’s too late when Namjoon’s gone silent, when the whole room has fallen into a smoky hush because somehow, suddenly, there’s a warm cheek pillowing itself into the curve his palms, black silk nuzzling over his jumping pulse, and the innocent brown light of two upturned orbs drawing him in like a silent siren’s song. He can’t breath for an eternity of uncountable seconds.

“I see Jooheon has already introduced himself to you.” Namjoon’s deep baritone rings through Jackson’s jumbled thoughts, and his hand inadvertently flinches against the lenient curve of the pet’s - Jooheon’s - proffered flesh. A soft chirrup echoes over his palm, and his attention is drawn down to a pair of full lips, pulled into an expression Jackson would call a strangely petulant pout.

“Feeling forward today, hmm?” the other man hums, so sweet it’s like a mother cooing to her baby, and Jackson watches the same tattooed hand that had caressed so many others, thread itself into gleaming locks, pressing and kneading until Jooheon’s porcelain neck is arching backwards in plain submission. His own hand falls empty to the side, only a heated imprint left along its flattened palm.

Jackson forces himself to speak, to keep up an unfazed pretense, even as Namjoon’s ink-stained finger begins winding its way down the stretch of Jooheon’s bared neck, the upside down cross of his middle knuckle pressing against the hollow indent at the base of the pet’s collarbones. “So,” he prompts, voice raw and rough, “why no collar?”

It’s like he hasn’t been heard at all as Namjoon’s reverent touches continue for a few moments, arched gaze completely focused on the slight part of the pet’s supple mouth. He’s about to dislodge the awkward cough in back of his throat, when finally, the other man straightens with an age-old sigh, hand slipping, reluctant, from Jooheon’s unmarred throat. He slips the same hand into his pocket, shoulders flat, a perfect mirror of Jackson’s posture as his voice hardens into the same deep register from before.

“Simply put, he doesn’t talk.” He glances back down, meeting Jooheon’s diaphanous gaze, eyes softening for the barest of moments before looking up again. “We know he can understand us, but ever since we found him three years ago, he hasn’t uttered a single word. The clients are, to say the least, a little put off by his muteness.” Namjoon sighs again, body depressing with the strong exhale as if from some sense of personal disappointment, and Jackson’s heart picks up pace again as he picks through the hidden implications behind the other man’s statement.

Broken, not good enough, a simple piece of decoration, abandoned, pushed off to the side - and perhaps his for the taking.

“I want this one.”

Jackson is brazen, unflinching as he steps forward, the remnant of heat on his clenched hand drawn, magnetized, to Jooheon’s tilted stare, and he boldly declares his newfound intent with his gaze directly on Namjoon’s and his grip at the side of the pet’s sluggish pulse. A vibration sounds against his palm, and he finds himself stroking his thumb absentmindedly over the edge of a rounded jaw, soothing away what suspiciously sounds like whines under the rough pad of his finger.

Namjoon’s sharp gaze shifts minutely towards his boss, who’s lit up another acrid cigarette between his stern lips, some kind of invisible assent passing between the smoke curling through the room before he’s turning back to Jackson, eyes narrowed with an unpleasant twist to his mouth. “Don’t be brash. I mean, I’ve just told you what’s wrong with him - are you absolutely sure?”

An ugly twitch convulses through Jooheon’s previously smooth pulse, and Jackson tightens his grip around the back of the pet’s neck until the minute shaking finally subsides into his touch. “Of course.” He smiles, baring his teeth in what Kihyun calls his absolutely shit-eating grin.

Namjoon frowns, a dark shadow flitting over the hard edges of his expression, and Jackson tenses in preparation for another growled protest, but then Howon’s cold-steel voice is ringing through the thick air between them, dispelling the argument with the sharp incense of his smoking cigarette.

“Let him have what he wants. After all-” he takes another drag of the burning cancer stick, its flaring embers illuminated in his dead gaze, “what more could you want than a pet that would never talk back to its master? Perhaps,” he blows out another trail of gray smoke, pinched eyes turning on Jooheon for a second, “maybe even more should learn from his example.”

Jackson smiles, the lines of his face tight, and he nods his silent thanks. Howon returns it with a minute twitch of his own lips, and motions with a careless sweep of his hand for everyone to file out of the room. His men blend into an amorphous grouping of plain back as they sweep out the door, and the pets rise to their bare feet, following after them in a line of pure white. Jackson strains his neck, catching Jooheon’s hazy coffee and stardust eyes with an attempt at a genuine grin. He receives a slight perk of lips, complete with a hint of dimples, before Jooheon (pet, his mind whispers) is gone, the curled crown of his jet black head melting back into a sea of black and white.

Namjoon stares as he stalks past Jackson, the last one out of the room save for Jackson himself and Howon. His stringent gaze is unreadable, and the young boss watches the hunched lines of his back disappear out through the carved doorway before deciding to wipe away the worry in his mind for other much more pressing thoughts. Namely, thoughts about his newly acquired pet with the face of a cherub, the stare of an oracle, and the voice of a trapped songbird. Jackson is determined to hear him sing somehow.

Howon flicks the cigarette to the floor, grinding it into ash with the heel of his shoe as he regards Jackson with something akin to acceptance as he finally strides towards the empty doorway. “He’ll be sent your way shortly. Please feel free to wait outside.”

He gestures with an upturned palm towards Jackson’s direction, and they shake hands again, meeting each other’s gazes with unfiltered intentions. Howon smiles, broad lines indenting themselves into each cheek, the top row of his teeth glinting like a full moon on a dark night.

“It was good doing business with you.”

Sleep with me: (it’s after the first afternoon of the bargain)

Jackson's brought Jooheon home, got him all soft and settled in his room with a big fancy upholstered bed as he sits behind his desk to finish up some work, quietly observing the pet occasionally the entire time. Jooheon is technically allowed to roam free, but he only sits at the foot of Jackson's bed dozing with his head and arms propped against a corner, looking up ever so often out through the open windows and over at Jackson. Jackson gets up every 30 minutes or so, just to squat down next to the pet, looking him in the eyes only to receive a sleepy blink and he can't help but run his hands through fluffed locks as Jooheon coos contentedly into his hand. He always wonders if Jooheon needs anything, if he ever wants to get up, but it doesn't ever seem like it so the come and go kinda cycle continues until it's dark and Jackson's stripping messily out of his jacket and pants to go to bed - all nightly rituals forgone for today due to the big deal. And there's Jooheon, still propped against the bed, watching him out of the corner of sleek eyes, pale thighs a creamy contrast against the dark wood of his floor and jackson's plodding over on bare feet, squatting again for a last time, patting lightly at chubby cheeks as Jooheon props his head up to smile at him and Jackson's like "...I'll be going to bed now"

And Jooheon's plain smile only continues, nodding a little as Jackson begins slipping under his covers, and of course Jackson can only sit there, warm and suffocating in bed as he watches Jooheon's dark head lay back down against the corner of the mattress, legs still coiled against the cold hardwood floors - and it its him, he hasn't given permission yet. So then he's throwing back the covers, and scooching to the edge of the bed and cradling his palm under Jooheon's cotton soft cheek again, lifting the pet to look up at him and there's little red wrinkles of sheet imprints against Jooheon's round cheeks and jackson's heart twinges w such a sore ache he doesn't know how to reach out without immediately forcing himself onto the pet and scaring him off. Jooheon just blinks at him, brown eyes liquid and hazy with sleep, almost pouting indignantly. and Jackson, just reaches the same hand through his hair, smoothing back rumpled bangs, over and over again, scratching lightly at the pet's scalp as Jooheon's neck arches in his grasp and he's wiping a thumb over the red marks on Jooheon's face as he whispers "Sleep with me?" patting lightly at the silk clad body of his bed. Jooheon's cocking his head for a few seconds, staring at Jackson with soft open eyes and the older man is almost scared he wasn't understand - but then there's a sleeved hand pulling around his arm and he's automatically hauling up jooheon by his waist, the light weight of arms looping around his neck as the sweet scent of warmth and strangely dried flowers blooms through his nose. Jooheon's cradled in his lap, smooth legs curled up over his tanned own and jackson looks wonderingly down at his hands, practically melting into the curve of Jooheon's waist (Ref: https://ton.twitter.com/i/ton/data/dm/920418165968003077/920418148964212736/eph4Vr04.jpg:large ) All curled in Jackson's lap, wisps of hair brushing against the other's cheek Jackson is casually just holding Jooheon, feeling the way a warm soft body is shifting against his and of course Jooheon is still clad in the "uniform" of the other pets a plain loose white dress shirt and a pair of fine silk shorts. He's roughly fingering the edge of said shorts, looking over when a breathy whine comes past his cheek and he hikes the pet up higher in his lap, securing both hands around his waist and asks slowly, calmly "what kind of clothes do you like Jooheon?" He's receiving that same tilted stare again, eyes slit in an unreadable moment of consideration and jackson finds himself stroking casually at the pet's flank, some kind of strange reassurance he supposes. (like even getting a pet in the first place was only a power play, but now that he has one that's so soft...he's not sure how to handle him) Then there's a rounded finger poking, tracing down his bare chest and he has to stop himself from reacting at the sudden thrill that runs through him, following the pet's lidded gaze towards his own bare chest and he can't help but sigh, even as he tightens his grip around the other's supple waist like "You really don't talk, do you?" but the finger keeps poking, insistent, and there's a high whine reverberating at the edge of his cheek as Jooheon adamantly pushes up against Jackson's bare chest and Jackson really doesn't understand, no clothes? His chest? Naked? But then frustrated, a little huff of breath tickles along the column of his neck and the finger turns to point at the scattered pile of loose t shirts on the back of a dressing chair at the other corner of his room and Jackson tentatively tries "...My clothes?" and suddenly there's a happy coo of approval, sliding like silk over his collarbones and Jooheon's dark head of hair is bobbing eagerly as he re-situates himself back into the cradle between Jackson's legs. The next morning Jackson is pulling a droopy Jooheon by a limp wrist over to his closet and opening the entire thing as he gently pushes Jooheon in front of him  and he's stating calmly into Jooheon's ear, lips brushing past wayward curls, pressing the center of his palm into the small of the other's back like “Choose whatever you want" and then there's a small sound of wonderment in the back of Jooheon's throat and he's carefully approaching the vast closet. Pushing and pulling things aside so slowly if Jackson closed his eyes he wouldn't be able to hear a thing, but he waits, patient, watching as he carelessly rifles through his own suits and pulling a pair on. But when there's finally a soft pair of footsteps behind him, he looks over to see Jooheon clad in one of his old, ratty oversized winter sweaters, collarbones entirely on show, still bared neck too vulnerable in the warm morning light. The hem of the sweater is most definitely too long, falling midway to bare thighs that all jackson can see is leg and more leg, he gets the cocked head look for the third time since the bargain, and all he can focus on is the long stretch of skin at Jooheon's neck. The only thing he can do to distract himself from Jooheon's suddenly more scandalous choice of fashion, is to draw the pet close, wrapping the callused skin of his palm over the other's dimpled cheeks as he mutters "We've got to get you a collar soon." in which he receives a purring sound of approval sleeved fingers come up to clutch gently at his wrist, keeping his hand there as Jooheon presses himself happily into Jackson's grip.

Outside perspective: Word spreads fast that the boss is entirely enamored, even obsessed, with his new pet. Kihyun notes the daily gossip with a blank face and open ears. He can’t refute it; Jackson practically brings Jooheon with him wherever he goes - regardless of societal propriety.

You like sweets?:

He needs glasses: probably kihyun again?

A pet for a pet: kitty

“You really don’t talk, do you?”: probably the whole “jackson” “master” thing

What else would it be used for?: kihyun being mean

“I need to be careful tonight - for you”: the party

--- cowritten with and conceived with the brilliant @deardystopia

Blind/mute magic au

in one of those fantasy universes where everyone happily coexists and the humans live well in the world w/ other magical creatures

and jooheon's just your typical neighborhood witch

but what if he was cursed somehow when he was younger and so he's blind

but he still manages to get around well enough and every week there’s a delivery boy to help get him materials and to send off the charms he makes

its like a quiet and domestic life but what if his usual delivery boy gets switched for someone else

because they're doing their new spring reshuffling thing so older employees get a new route and the new ones get to learn the old ones

and so changkyun is one of the new delivery boys and its one of the few jobs he feels safe enough doing w/ his disability - he's deaf

and so the old delivery boy knew about Jooheon's disability and knew how to work with that, knowing which wards on the door he should purposefully set off to let the witch know he was there

RIGHT LIKE IM JUST IMAGINING jars with dried flowers and crystal sunlight filtering through open windows as jooheon makes some tea for ck

ok so like usually jooheon's used to the right wards going off and so the delivery boy will just leave the package and then take the already pre-wrapped and pre-set charms to ship off

but like this time it feels completely different and so he gets up to go an d check

so like ck standing there awkwardly cause he doesn't see a doorbell and decides to knock on the door but then it swings open on its own to reveal the owner of the house

i kinda think jooheon would wear like soft browns and whites, like a white turtleneck probs

and changkyun probably layers w/ a ton of jackets and plaid and jeans?

that’s what i was thinking

like this kinda look w/o the kiddy stuff for jh and ck's hairstyle for that too

ck would totally wear a ton of hoodies and loose jackets

this hairstyle w/ the middle part for jh

soft flower witch jooheon

omg yesss

yeah the middle part is what i was thinking

and like a simple silver necklace or smth w/ a little bee charm

or a flower i honestly can't decide

i think it'd just be really cute to have a scene where jooheon gently feels around changkyuns face to get an image of him and he doens't realize he's kinda looking directly into ck's eyes and is a little too close

i totally want them to go for a walk together on a rainy day

and jooheon puts a charm on their umbrella so nobody gets wet

its cute and ck taps against his wrist to guide him away from big puddles

and whispers lowly because he totally wants to describe how pretty it is outside to jooheon even though he doesn't usually like to speak cause he doesn't know what he sounds like

delivery boy outfit totally needs a snapback

dude but like what if ck always wears a ton of layers and pulls his hat down low cause he always feels so unsure of himself w/ his disability and tries to shield himself w clothing

but after meeting jooheon

and seeing how open and happily he lives w/ his disability, always smiling and never hiding his eyes even though he can't see

he kind of starts gaining his own confidence

like one day he comes and like jooheon always physically greets him to makes ure its the right person and he's like "oh, no hoodies today?" cause the fabric under his hand is usually thick, but today its just bare skin

and changkyun just smiles shyly and taps out "yep" against jooheons wrist

THIS IS THE TEA JOOHEON MAKES FOR CK IN THE OTHER AU WITH CRUSHED PETALS OR SMTH, And Changkyun s like asks you're blind and yet everything you do is so beautiful

Jk wait that's too early

Like "the tea and the cup match so well" and jooheon just laughs tapping blindly at Changkyun s head and just says "witch senses", the words flowering beautifully across Changkyun’s charmed board as jooheon settles down with his own cup, AND FLOWERS TOTALLY RESPOND WELL TO HIS TOUCH AND IT WORDS SO NATURALLY HE JUST STICKS TO THAT AREA

Like turning up their faces just subtly everytime he walks by, Responding naturally to him and it's very easy for him to use flowers, more so than any other material

Ck would totally be able to see all this sitting at a table and he's just so lovestruck watching the flowers crowd adoringly for Jooheon's attention, Omg what if he usually makes packages of homemade tea with some simple spells integrated to help w sleep or relaxation, Yeeeesssssss but they work really well so he has a good customer base

And also KIHYUN helps design an online page and process Orders

And takes a ton of sample photos to put up on the page

Also in the like about section there's a cute pic of jooheon doing a peace sign w muddy fingers next to some flowers and that's like the only pic of him ever, And there’s definitely an online group dedicated to his tea, like freaking out when a new sample comes out

And also like screaming about how there's only one pic of him but definitely a confirmed cutie bc there handwritten notes that are shaky and messy but super sweet in every package

Ok but like what if minhyuk was blessed w the gift of visual arts so of course he draws

But he also loves running his aesthetic blog and he posts artsy pics of his drawings and cafes and shit

And like one day there's a pic of him and at the corner is boy with softly curled hair and a pink sweater, facemask pulled below his chin as he cups both hands around his cup of coffee, sipping it through a straw as he looks blankly to the side, And his fans are like ???!?!?! And someone is LIKE OH FUCK THAT’S JOOHEON YO

And then minhyuk’s secretly laughing about how adorable jooheon looks and didn't know he took a pic

When his phone suddenly is just like blowing up w alerts, And jooheon sighs "hyung please check your alerts"

And minhyuk is like wtf is going on

And he's getting DM s like

OMFG THATS JOOHEON

YOU KNOW JOOHEON?

PLEASE POST MORE WITH JOOHEON

And then minhyuk Fits the phone against Jooheon's palm, And jooheon can feel the phone continuously vibrating like not stopping at all and he's like "hyung what's going on"

And minhyuk just chuckles at the lost look on his face and says "my followers love you"

And it's the 2nd time he's only ever seen jooheon this red

Followed only by the first time minhyuk had teased him about that new delivery boy and his oh so deep voice, And so jooheon face bursts into flames as he squeaks out "what!!?" before snatching his hand away and desperately sucking at his coffee adamantly ignoring minhyuks guffaws

jh would have this phone case

When Jooheon gets knees deep in fresh spring earth he of course has to change into more suitable clothes. He doesn’t actually know the material or (ha) color of those nice sweaters Minhyuk always forces him to buy, but they’re beautifully soft against his skin. He wants to keep them that way, and as much as he loves the press of wet dirt under his fingers, his sweaters probably wouldn’t appreciate it to the same degree.

So one day Changkyun comes on his usual delivery route, and there’s a note left in Jooheon’s blocky script, I’m out back! with a round creature resembling a bee drawn at the bottom. He finds the witch completely kneeled on the ground on all fours, dressed in tight leggings and a black hoodie, as he digs at an already  significantly deep hole. He taps lightly on the ground with his foot, alerting Jooheon of his presence.

“Changkyun?” Jooheon immediately looks up, eyes blindly flickering towards his general direction. The delivery boy hums lowly and taps again in affirmation, and Jooheon’s smile widens even more, eyes crinkling shut into thin slits, the indents of dimples forming like two shadowed ponds on his cheeks.

Once he’s sure of the right person, the witch turns back to the task at hand, fumbling for the shovel as he starts digging again. The pit’s deep enough Jooheon has to sink his upper body forward, raising his lower half in the air in a meager attempt to keep balance. Changkyun’s eyes are inevitably drawn to his pert bottom, tightly clad in leggings he’s never seen before.

He shuffles over and sits down next to Jooheon, clearing his throat as he prepares to speak. “I’ve never seen you wear this before,” he comments casually as Jooheon pauses to pay attention to his words. “That’s right,” the witch ponders, and the shape of his mouth corresponding with the letters scrawling across Changkyun’s charmed board. “I don’t usually wear this kind of….” he grimaces, searching for the right word, “tight clothing?”

He sighs, ruffling dirt crusted fingers in his hair and Changkyun watches, scrutinizing as the wet earth sticks adamantly to shining locks. Their disabilities make them sensitive towards certain forms of contact, and brushing the other’s cheeks clean of dried earth would definitely be a violation of Jooheon’s comfort zone. He keeps his fingers clenched and still against his lap.

“My friends alway watch out for me, bringing me clothing and such. This one,” he gestures at the lycra stretching over his legs, “was from a friend who modeled for an exercise brand. I guess he thought he would send me some to try…” He plucks at the fabric, letting it snap back against his skin, laughing nervously. “It’s not really my kind of thing, well as much as possible to figure out what “my thing” is, but at least it's good for dirty labor?”

Changkyun laughs at his vaguely apologetic expression, the sentence ending itself on his board with a question mark, and he nods sagely in response, tapping once to show his agreement. “You look, you look good.” he forces out, his voice catching tightly in the middle. He doesn’t need to look at his board to understand Jooheon’s reply, all of it completely apparent in the pink in his cheeks and the “o” of his mouth before fumbling quickly into a “thank you.”

Like "you look amazing in pink" and jooheon sighs "I don't know what it even looks like" and minhyuk just flounders to describe it "it's just light, and soft, and....pink??" He ends up stubbornly pushing a pile.of sweaters into Jooheon's hands anyway

Maybe like cursed when he was still in the womb or smth

Cause eventually I want like a scene where he and Changkyun are hanging and he just realizes how happy and comfortable he is w the other and he blinks

And the next moment piercing rays are flooding his eyes and it hurts so much he hides his face in his hands as tears leak out uncontrollably

I need a good reason for why he got that kind of curse put on him tho

Then he gets to match a voice to a face when Changkyun urgently asks, "are you okay"?" leaning over to grasp his wrists

Pink lips pressed into a worried line and almond eyes gazing directly into his own tear stained ones, jooheon can't help but cry even harder

Changkyun flails in panic, wrapping an arm around his back, trying to soothe him as he asks again "what's wrong?"

His board stays empty for a few moments more before they fill with 3 words that leave him perfectly stunned

“I can see.”

Changkyun immediately goes to draw away, some part of him panicking at Jooheon's newfound sight

But the witch turns and immediately lunges to embrace him, both of them landing harshly against the ground as the other hides his face in changkyuns neck

I want to like do something where ck gets to hear like they're made for each other and them being together breaks it but hmmmmm. Changkyun stays still, relaxing his body as Jooheon shakes against him. His neck is wet with tears and its soaking through to his jacket, but he only pulls the other man closer to himself, wrapping both of his arms around the other's middle. Suddenly, something is filtering into his brain, the ever static silence interrupted by pin pricks of hiccuped cries. It can't be, he panics, hands leaving Jooheon's middle to cup around his ears. He can hear the echo of sound against his palms, and curls up, completely overwhelmed. Jooheon sits up confused at the sudden shift of the body below him, and sees with his newfound sight, Changkyun's face scrunched in pain as he turns away from him. Jooheon hurriedly wipes away the gathered moisture, before leaning over to shadow over Changkyun's prone form. “Changkyun, Changkyun-ah! What happened?” He whispers urgently, completely forgetting the other’s charmed board. Neither of them realize it for a moment, when Changkyun looks up at him, comprehension immediate in his eyes.

“I...I can hear,” he stutters, hands dropping incredulously as a world of sounds flood through his ears; the chirp of birds, the whistle of the wind, but most importantly Jooheon’s shocked gasp as he sits up, toppling back onto the ground.

The witch presses a hand over his mouth, muffling any other sounds that could unwillingly escape his throat. It’s silent between them, but for Changkyun it’s more than he’s ever heard all his life.

Jooheon waits hesitantly, before asking as quietly as possible, “Is...is this real?” His voice, light and almost whiny, fits perfectly with the curved script that had written itself across Changkyun’s board many times.

“It,” he chokes at the low rumble of his own voice, “it is.” The shock sets in for the both of them, Jooheon still squinting furiously at all the colors and shapes passing rapidly through his retinas, and the echo of sobs still bouncing in Changkyun’s ears. They lock gazes, newfound senses tingling with every movement, and it’s not definite who moves first, but they simultaneously meet in the middle, bodies crashing in a locked embrace.

[happycakestories]

old mx fic dump pt. 6

more aus from a certain period 

rich heir ot4 au - cowritten with @deardystopia :)

“Fuck,” Jooheon whines, digging the heel of his foot into the bare arch of Changkyun’s back. “Come on - hurry up, already.”

“God, you’re needy-” Changkyun mutters with a choked moan, scrabbling to keep Jooheon’s wriggling body pressed against his.

“You love it,” Jooheon gasps as he arches up against the younger man, connecting their bodies together in one searing line of sweat and skin. His brain is melting, pooling directly out of his ears, but in the best ways possible.

Changkyun bites off a swear against the plushness of Jooheon’s glistening bottom lip, closing his eyes as he slowly melts into the soft heat that shifts beneath him, surrounding him like the steam from a hot, winter’s day bath. There’s a slow simmer coiling in the base of his gut, pulsing with every dragging thrust into the other’s tight warmth, and Changkyun isn't sure if he can hold out for much longer.

But well, judging from his frantic writhing, that’s exactly what Jooheon is aiming for.

Changkyun pushes in, sloppy and loose, swallowing down the sweet cry that trembles against his gasping mouth in response as the oncoming waves of release begin to unravel within him when-

“...I’ll take one more step to you, I’ll only look at you, even if I lose my everything, I won’t regret it…”

They both pause, Changkyun shuddering on the very edge of his string-tight control, Jooheon clenching and unclenching hazily around his length as the ballad-y ringtone of a certain familiar someone blaring through the speakers of his facedown phone finally registers through the haze in his mind. In a moment, Changkyun goes from practically melting in a sleeve of tight heat to suddenly tumbling back onto his bare ass, cock bobbing upright and undisturbed against the flat plane of his stomach.

There’s the bruising impact of a careless kick pulsing along his bony shoulder, and he sits up gloomily, pressing a velveteen pillow over his painfully hard crotch. The older boy pays his sulky demeanor no mind, casually resting on propped elbows as he stretches across the maroon sheets for his buzzing phone. Changkyun swallows impulsively, eyes glued to the shining slickness between Jooheon’s rosy, perky cheeks. Liquid heat shoots up his stomach again, and he presses the pillow even tighter over his weeping length, nevermind the fact that the 14k won embroidery over fine velvet will presumably be ruined beyond salvation by tomorrow morning.

“Yeah..hyung...yes! I’m staying over at Changkyunnie’s place...no, no we’re fine...okay, okay! Don’t worry...I have it set up already…”

Jooheon’s murmured (and sometimes whined) words blur into a background of soft noise, and Changkyun decides to focus on the pout of swollen lips as they meld smoothly into various syllables instead. The sloping arch of the elder’s back curves into the supple flesh of his backside, with only a slight indentation before a tight ass meets an equally impressive set of thighs, quickly blending into strong calves and pointed feet that kick nonchalantly back and forth through the air. If Changkyun looks hard enough he’s sure Jooheon would be twirling a plastic telephone cord around a pointed finger, strawberry-flavored bubblegum blown up with a pop! between glossy, pink lips as he rolls his eyes in the exaggerated manner all teenage girls in 70’s chick flicks do.

“Alright, see you tomorrow!” Changkyun swears there’s an audible click of phone in receiver as well.

Finally, Jooheon is turning back to him, still spread so easily over Changkyun’s 800 thread-count Egyptian sheets, the maroon of the fabric seeping into the flushed heat of his bare body. Brown eyes glimmer, slim and amused when the younger’s only response is to hunch over his aching crotch and glare.

Suddenly, the smooth line of his body is coiling and arching, the sheets slipping into decadent ridges as Jooheon crawls towards Changkyun on all fours, ass high in the air like a playful cat. There’s the same teasing smile pulling across his dimpled cheeks, and the younger boy defensively places his hands against the Gucci pillow.

“Come on Changkyunnie,” Jooheon coos, batting aside Changkyun’s interlaced fingers like a thread of loose yarn before settling the cool imprint of his mouth in a searing kiss against the boy’s inner thigh. He huffs out a wet breath, laughing with a hint of sharp teeth over the shivering flesh there and grins, flashing his signature dimples up at the younger boy’s sulky frown.

“Let me make it up to you.”

The pillow is forgotten for the rest of the night.

-

It’s almost 9 a.m. as Changkyun opens his eyes slowly, his body hyper-conscious of the fact that soon, breakfast will be delivered by the housemaid like it is every morning. The sound of some peaceful, slow breathing and the disgustingly sweet honey-scented perfume that lingers in the air, makes him remember the unforgettable night he had.

Jooheon is for sure not a morning person, Changkyun knows it, but looking at him feels like being awake inside a vivid dream. His erotic figure is enhanced by the draped maroon sheets, covering him like a second skin until his broad pale shoulders are the only strips of skin emerging out from them. Arms coiled under the Gucci pillow, Jooheon rests upon on it with his left cheek facing Changkyun’s side of the bed, a smile lingering, innocent and serene upon those sinful heart-shaped lips, curved with a hint of a dimple. Changkyun can’t stop looking at him, the young model’s gaze going from the outline of the other’s butt cheeks to the nape of his neck, connecting to the curled locks of white hair.

His black roots showing through look absolutely adorable and it definitely doesn’t stop Changkyun from stroking and interlocking his fingers between them, feeling the softness of Jooheon’s hair.

“Hyung? Are you awake?” Of course he isn’t, but a man can dream.

“Hyung?” Changkyun tries again, now caressing his cheek.

No signs of life, but with a knock and then a respectful greeting, the housemaid leaves a tray full of delicacies on the luxurious bed, near the model's’ feet. She goes the same way she entered, leaving them alone once again.

“Jooheon hyung, wake up!” Changkyun stamps a hard kiss on the other’s head “There’s breakfast...?”

It seems he said the right words because a pair of shimmering eyes meet his, looking quite lost for a moment. That disorientation melts away a few moments later as the smell of fresh Gaeran toasts, pastries, and an extremely hot americano completely take over.

The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, isn’t it? Changkyun considers it with a hint of smugness as Jooheon gets up with a smile and stretches an arm over to steal a piece of chocolate cake. His mouth is smeared with it, crumbs carelessly falling onto the sheets.

“Who called you last night, and why was it so important for you to answer?” The younger model has to ask out of the curiosity, harbored and eating him up from the inside ever since yesterday. Jooheon blinks, mouth full - was that a hint of jealousy?

“It was Kihyun hyung - you know I have to answer at all times when it’s him.” Jooheon mumbles with his mouth full, more crumbs dropping from sticky lips.

“Your tutor?” Something finally clicks in Changkyun’s early morning mind “…When will your father stop controlling you?”

Jooheon pouts at the blunt remark, immediately retorting, “When will you start modeling like a pro?”

“When will you start modeling on an actual schedule?” Changkyun snaps back, entirely dry wit, which quickly earns him a small slap on the back of his head.

The older model sighs and pouts adorably, crossing his arms against his chest and looks at the the younger boy like he wants to slap all over again.

He doesn’t really want to talk about his work, or this situation - Changkyun knows it.

For sure though, he’s always highly requested at the agency for his, lightly put, “unique” features –  at least that’s what the photographers say all the time - or, most likely, because that exact model agency is owned by his father. So he’s never short of work when casting calls come out, but everything is just so incredibly complicated and boring, he absolutely hates having to explain his own messed up thoughts.

“I just want to do what I want.” … Well maybe it wasn’t that complicated to explain. “Working full time is boring and I need some moments, maybe many many moments, to relax between shoots, do all the shit I like and everything. I basically have no freedom, and I have to stay there all day… And honestly, I don’t understand how you do that to yourself.”

Well, maybe because I need to work to maintain my life – Changkyun wants to say, but he bites his tongue knowing how touchy Jooheon gets about literally anything that involves himself.

“I don’t know either hyung,” he mumbles as his final answer, rolling his eyes in an exaggerated motion. He then sits up to reach for a Gaeran toast, preferring savory things in the mornings to start the day.

Jooheon doesn’t notice the eye roll, distracted immediately after his answer by food again, now attempting to shove a Vanilla Long John into his mouth, fragrant cream filling bursting onto his tongue with each small bite.

“I think… last night wasn’t enough for you to be forgiven” Changkyun’s smile shimmers while he crawls over to the older model, toast tossed back on the tray, shortening the distance between them as he imagines dipping his fingers into the drowning chocolate pools of the older boy’s eyes.

“Mh…?” Jooheon raises one eyebrow, looking at him, perplexed.

A hand comes to wipe off some cream from the right corner of his cherubic lips, and Changkyun nonchalantly licks his own fingers clean, holding Jooheon’s sharp gaze. His gesture says more than any words could.

Jooheon doesn’t look impressed at all though.

Awkward silence starts. The vanilla Long John still held in mid-air as the younger model’s heart beats faster and faster, flickering back and forth between fear and expectations.

Jooheon smiles, but it’s not the smile Changkyun was waiting for. It’s tilted and overly sweet, mocking him.

The asshole’s mocking him? Is this because last night he couldn’t hold himself much longer after the phone call…?

“I guess I’ll be forgiven another time, then.” He snorts and finishes his vanilla pastry in one bite, getting up from the bed stark naked and heads to the bathroom with his clothes in one hand and his phone in the other.

Changkyun sighs, appetite lost and his crotch aching with the same phantom pain from last night. Nothing will be the same anymore, the night before was such a lie.

The bathroom door suddenly opens, and his expectations perk up again, thinking that maybe Jooheon just wanted to joke around with his ‘situation’ and was just being a bit of an asshole in general.

“Ah, you’re coming tonight at the club, aren’t you?” Jooheon asks casually.

“Yes…?” Changkyun’s heart skips a beat.

“Ok! Just asked cause the hyungs were asking in the group chat. Check it sometime, okay?”

The bathroom door closes.

Everything is a lie.

-

CLUB SCENE

-

“Where’s Jooheon?” Kihyun asks with a serious gaze, eyebrows furrowing even more than the usual, stopping a maid in the corridor coming down from the opposite side of the hall.

“The young master is currently sleeping sir. He asked to not be disturbed,” she replies with an apologetic look, nodding slightly. Both of them knew that Jooheon didn’t ask to not be disturbed, he shouldn’t really be sleeping at this hour of the day with his daily schedule, but at this point, nobody ever tried anymore to wake him up after various “incidents.” A person was even bitten on their hand, but luckily they survived and only a few stitches were needed. In the mornings he tended to be quite irritable, no joke. Especially after massive hangovers from clubbing all night with his model friends and coming home at impossible times in the dead of the night.

“I see.” The young master’s tutor sighs and pushes his glasses on the ridge of his nose with the help of a pointed index finger, eyebrows still furrowed “You can carry on with your tasks, I’ll wake him up myself.”  

Here it is now, one of the thoughts that usually never leaves his mind and comes and goes whenever things like these happens. And they happen maybe too many times during a full week. He’s definitely not getting paid enough for this.

Kihyun dismiss the maid with a simple hand gesture, she bows respectfully to him before leaving through one of the adjacent hallways as he march straight into Jooheon’s room.

The model’s room is the last one down the corridor and one of the biggest on the floor, consisting of a big main room with his bed and various amenities, an entire room designated as closet (that would turn anyone pale from how many clothes, accessories, and shoes he has) and a small “studio,” where in reality everybody knows he just uses it to watch porn on an expensive Apple computer.

The tutor’s pocket watch points to 12.30 pm. It was LATE. Terribly and unfashionably LATE.

Clam down Kihyun, calm down. He repeats the mantra a few times in a whisper to himself to keep a cool head and enters the beast’s lair.

Everything was like he expected it to be. The room is in complete darkness, all the curtains closed and shut completely as to not let even a small crack of noon sunlight illuminate the mussed bed. A deep and relaxed snore breaks the silence periodically, signaling that the beast is indeed there.

Before calling him by his name, knowing that he wouldn’t even obtain a response, Kihyun takes out his tablet clenched under his left arm and takes a few flash photos where the bed would be. Then, he goes straight to the windows and with a simple push of a button situated near them, the curtains rise up automatically.

Suddenly the room is filled with hot and bright light and the pained vampire screeches.

“Jooheon, it’s not my job to wake you up and force you to go to work. You’re almost 23 years old, you disgrace.”

As Kihyun moves closer to the bed, the tablet still in his hands to catch every moment of the encounter, Jooheon whines and covers himself completely, hiding under the pastel blue blankets to not have sunlight in his face.

“Hyung, my head hurts and I’m tired, let me sleep in peace please,” can be heard from a muffled voice.

Kihyun ruthlessly shoots more photos of the blanketed lump as he speaks “You had a photoshoot at 11:00, almost two hours have passed! The agency called me, asking me what happened and why you weren’t there with them! At the end they decided to reschedule it for tomorrow. But don’t you have any idea of how much time and money you made your father lose with this behavior?”

“No,” the same muffled voice answers from under the blankets “He has a lot of money and I don’t think he’ll go bankrupt from this.”

“It’s true, he won’t go bankrupt for a missed photoshoot, but he will lose his credibility with his associates and his workers. Any other model would have been fired in your position. You’re still here because your father is the owner of the agency. Didn’t you tell me that you wanted to try and prove yourself to the others to show that you’re not there just thanks to him?”

That morning Kihyun didn’t want to spare any words or prep the pill sweetly for Jooheon. He wanted to make him feel guilty… And it was without a doubt working, that was the only way to make him understand his responsabilities.

The blankets become a mess and settle after a while with Jooheon sitting cross-legged on the bed, only his white-haired head peeking out from them, but he still holds them around him as a temporary hood. His expression was that of a kicked puppy and nobody could resist it, except Kihyun that became immune after knowing him for years.

“Hyung…yesterday it was really a strenuous night and I didn’t hear the alarm clock, ok? It’s not my fault.” He sighs, lowering his head, but looking up at Kihyun’s eyes as if he were one of those little puppies behind a shop window, trying to break his stone-cold heart “Also my watch was set for another time as I forgot to change it after I stepped down from yesterday’s flight.”

The tutor looks at him as if he were inside an episode of The Office. He was immune at that point to Jooheon’s pleading gazes.

“It is your fault, why would it be due to an alarm clock? An inanimate object? Also I won’t comment about your watch… You have to be responsible at your age, but since you’re acting like a child, I’ll treat you like one.”

“What- What do you mean hyung?” Jooheon frowns and pouts, not understanding what Kihyun had in mind, but seeing him taking more photos with that damn tablet, and afterwards, writing something on it, it didn’t made him think of anything good.

Kihyun doesn’t answer, still tapping his fingers on the screen, not even looking at him for a second and using a dramatic pause after the bomb he just dropped to let stew Jooheon for a while as he deserved it.

“Hyung…?”

Only after a few minutes does the tutor raise his gaze from the tablet screen to meet the model’s, scrutinizing him from head to the toes peeking out from under the blankets.

“Tonight you won’t go out.”

“But-“ Jooheon’s protest dies fast, dominated by Kihyun’s angry voice, ready to scold him some more.

“Tonight you won’t got to the club, you’ll stay here at home and you will go to bed early. Tomorrow morning I want to see you at the agency doing your photoshoot professionally, and I don’t want to hear any complaints.” He purses his lips rearranging his glasses on top of his nose, steaming a bit. “I will give instructions to the servants to not let you out.”

“But I have to meet with Changkyun… It’s important!” Jooheon pleads with a low whine.

“I’m not soft like your father is with you. This decision won’t be discussed any further.”

Without giving him any more time to whine about it, Kihyun turns around and exits the room,  maintaining a general aura of severity about himself.

Jooheon rubs a hand down his face, then wearily ruffling through his bed hair. He couldn’t easily get out from that situation. Kihyun was kind of an “adoptive mother” to him, he could enforce his authority in any way, while with his father, a pleading look was all that was needed to win him over with any stupid request. Even though, now he didn’t feel like confronting him on his tutor’s decision. His father was probably disappointed with the re-scheduled photoshoot… But one way or another he would have still gone out.

He promised it to Changkyun the night before… Maybe. He doesn’t remember clearly, but he is sure that they definitely talked about something important.

In the end he did fail to get out, not even by disguising himself dressed as a servant.

Also he discovered later on that he and Changkyun, the night before, half drunk and wasted, talked about perfume scented toilet paper. Like, why do they make vanilla or spring flowers scented toilet paper? You use it just for a task and the effort in making it scented is practically not needed??  

Kihyun that morning, or shall we say afternoon, wrote a complete report of what happened in the forenoon to Mr.Lee, attaching some of the photos he shoot of Jooheon.

Dear Mr. Lee,

I writing to you today for the weekly report about your son. I prefer to send it earlier than the end of the week, when we usually get in touch, because today certain problems came up.

This morning it came to my attention that the young master didn’t attend the photoshoot that was scheduled for today at 11:00 am . All the workers and photographers waited for him, but as he never showed up, there was a delay between other shoots causing the schedule of the entire agency a bigger delay.

As you may see, after many reprimands he lacks responsibility and I hope today we can set up an appointment to talk about it.

I already have in mind a solution to solve this situation and make him understand what is really important in life.

My considerations and proofs are attached. I look forward to speaking with you soon and will call later to set up the appointment.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Yoo Kihyun

Attachments: Report10/11.doc , Blankets_photo1.jpg , Jooheon_In_Blankets_photo2.jpg , Jooheon_In_Blankets_photo3.jpg , Jooheon_In_Blankets_Not_Sorry _photo4.jpg

dirty crime + police thriller au - also with @deardystopia

“All nearest units to warehouse 14, five meters off the bay, I repeat-”

Changkyun snaps out of his mental doze, blinking rapidly as he comes back to himself, parked, stationary in his speeding watchout spot next to a completely desolate street. A string of coordinates is blasting out of the receiver perched on his dashboard, and Changkyun scrambles to input the numbers with tense fingers into his gps.

A map pulls up a minute or so later, and Changkyun scooches forward to make sure of the route, heart in his throat as he realizes - among all the units, he’s the closest one to the location by far.

Well, whatever the emergency call is, he decides pulling on his seatbelt, setting his fingers in a clenched grip around the worn leather of the wheel as he pushes hard on the acceleration, it’ll be far more interesting than watching an empty road for speeding cars ever could.

-

Warehouse 14, Changkyun reads silently, the words echoing like a threat inside his mind. The ‘w’ of the first word is fading, dripping down the side of the grey building like the thick mucus of stale yogurt. The rest of the word isn’t faring too well either, the ‘14’ included. What must have been a clear, sharp outline has been weathered into an inscrutable grey by a combination of seagull excrement and the salty ocean breeze.

Changkyun shivers, the same breeze brushing through his open sleeves and out his popped collar, seemingly leading right into the slight crack in the propped open door of the building. If the sight of the creaking warehouse alone wasn’t ominous enough, then he would surely be on edge by now. Emergency calls don’t come often, and they rarely ever lead to completely abandoned docks stations with entrances opened ever-so-slightly.

Changkyun pulls a handgun out of his holster, cocking it at the ready in one hand as he edges towards the warehouse. At the door, he hesitates before thumbing off the safety with a heavy click and a burning intake of breath as he tries to prepare himself for whatever is inside. No matter what it could be, he considers grimly, pushing open the metal door with a grating scream of rusted metal, gun whipping straight into the air, something is definitely up.

The dim light of the warehouse flickers spottily, like something out of an old timey interrogation scene, and Changkyun has to squint through the dancing shadows, looking past the barrel of his gun to see if there’s anything truly there.

A wet cough sounds, followed by something Changkyun could only describe as a broken moan, and he immediately whips his gun over to the source of the sound, edging towards it with slow steps, one foot in front of the other as he peers into the dirty corner of the building. It must be fate’s cruel play because the buzzing of the spasming lightbulb finally settles into a steady spotlight for enough bare moments that Changkyun can finally identify exactly what the emergency call was made for: strung up, blindfolded and gagged from underneath an industrial hook.

His partner, Lee Jooheon.

The handgun loosens, slipping out of its cocked position as Changkyun’s hands shake, their owner in absolute shock as he takes in the scene before him.

And what a scene it is.

Jooheon’s hands are bound, twisted in mid-air as if he were prostrated in prayer, but there’s a distinct lack of religious purity from the black blindfold tied across his eyes and the rough gag forced into his mouth. A soft moan makes itself known again from swollen, shiny lips and Changkyun can’t help but continue to stare, looking over the rest of his partner’s bound figure. Jooheon is practically forced into a half-kneel, legs spread apart as his upper body is pulled taut from the looped knot on the industrial hook swinging overhead. His thighs tremble minutely from what must’ve been prolonged effort, holding his body up in a limbo that’s neither quite upright nor a relaxed sit. The warehouse light glances over the two men, lighting up the flashes of red on Jooheon’s tensed thighs, and Changkyun’s eyes widen just a fraction further as he looks over slashed slivers on pale soft flesh, the thin expanse of it marked up, if barely, by paper-thin knife cuts.

The bay wind howls with laughter outside as Jooheon shifts, attempting to press his legs together, and the warehouse’s spotty light calls Changkyun’s numbed attention to a distinctly dark shadow on his partner’s crotch - a wet spot, his mind whispers without a moment’s hesitation.

Slashed pants, unzipped fly, popped buttons and a bare collarbone - Changkyun’s shaking pupils rove over Jooheon’s hair in  complete disarray and the blotchy flush in his cheeks and - oh God-

“..lease,” comes desperate and muffled through the gag stuffed in Jooheon’s parched mouth, and Changkyun snaps out of his shock, quickly flicking the safety back on and shoving the handgun back into his shoulder holster as he removes the knife clipped to his belt. A questioning sound winds out from between Jooheon’s stretched lips, vulnerable and soft as he feels the rope binding his hands beginning to swing erratically, and his heart skips a beat, daring to hope for a rescue again.

Seconds later his bindings are snapping and his thighs automatically give out, so he forces his eyes shut under the blindfold, bracing himself face-first for immediate impact against the cold cement of the warehouse floor. However, the only impact that comes is the warm length of a human arm, wound securely around his chest in a steady hold as another hand, assumedly from the same mysterious savior, yanks off the stale strips of cloth pulled over his eyes and mouth.

“-kyunie, Changkyun-” Jooheon stumbles over his own swollen tongue in his attempt at exhausted gratitude as he looks into a pair of familiar hazel eyes, directed upon his own gaze with a shade of obvious worry and something else he can’t exactly read under the trembling shadows. None of that matters now, he decides, mouth working around broken sounds as he tries to utter his thanks to his partner’s tense stare. In the end, he settles for closing his aching eyes and throwing his arms around the younger man, knocking the both of them to the ground with a resounding oomph.

There’s a pause, Changkyun tensing under his shaking body in pure surprise before a hesitant touch is sliding over his back, slowly returning Jooheon’s erratic embrace in his own quiet, careful way. The older man sniffles, attempting to ignore the cold wetness smeared over his cut thighs, the throbbing ache around his bruised wrists, the ghosting of dry touches across his bared collarbones - choosing to bury his nose into the crook of Changkyun’s warm neck instead, into the familiar scent of hasty aftershave and sharp cinnamon as he tries to forget every terrible thing that was done to him - forced upon him - this stormy afternoon.

Creak - there’s the same sound of the warehouse door opening again, followed then by a series of firm footsteps, plodding steady, fast approaching, and they both look up, still locked in an unflattering embrace across the dusty warehouse floor, as a figure comes to tower before them.

Hoseok smiles, the tail end of his investigator’s coat just barely brushing against the ankles of his pressed slacks as he stops before the junior policemen sprawled together on the ground. Jooheon makes eye contact with his own distorted self in the tip of the older man’s glimmering dress shoes and immediately winces at the wide-eyed, teary reflection blinking back at him in the flickering yellow light.

Hoseok hooks his fingers into his pockets, tilting his crinkled, half-moon gaze sideways in regards to the strange scene before him. “So,” he chances to ask, a chuckle bubbling at the top of his throat, “what did I miss?”

dystopian mafia verse - or as i had so lovingly coined it  "A TENSE PLAY OF DECEPTION AND POWER" haha

District 11C’s street lamp flickers as Jooheon crosses through to 12D. It’s much less official than it sounds: a hop over scraggly wire fences and he’s in.

bruh i was kinda going towards B like

ck would be like relatively new to joining the mafia

so he wouldn't understand jooheon's position in things and keeps trying to find him or make him stay, which like disturbs the balance of things

but obviously jooheon has to try and maintain his position or else he's in trouble so eventually people start to notice that little bias he has for ck's group and shit starts to go down

and then they totally start hunting him down because then what he knows is now dangerous and he can't be trusted to be a neutral messenger for all sides

so obviously ck takes advantage of the situation

o like when changkyun keeps chasing him down for apparently no reason

lol what if he sends his own men like "a message for the messenger" and its like something like small trinkets like gov't banned books or an earring or smth

no that like has to be part of his original outfit

makes him reconizable

and like eventually when jooheon has nowhere else to turn changkyun lets him in w/ no question not demanding anything and it’s so soft and warm jooheon must be dreaming

until the day ck tells him he has to be marked with their x, "kinda like that cross you wear" he laughs adorably in the way that Jooheon has seen him smile about small kids or baby kittens, but his statement is nothing innocent

*his statement contains nothing innocent about it

"what" he whispers mouth dry in shock, and changkyun casually lays back against him as if they're just two school boys hiding a shared secret from dumb teachers

"it's nothing much, im just thinking..." and he pulls jooheon's still thin wrist across his eyes speculatively, "something here would be good" as he traces two curled lines across the shuddering pulse

" i wear mine with pride," he grins as he pulls down his shirt collar, Jooheon shaking minutely as changkyun touches his fingers to the tattoo

"it's not that bad is it?" as the other claps a hand over his mouth to hide his gasp. "other gangs do so much worse" he comments carelessly, "ours is just some ink on skin" pressing harder on jooheon's running pulse

dystopian mafia verse au!

A world run on corrupt politics, where the true power lays in scattered gangs that run certain areas.

You either work for the government and police or for the mafia if you want a secure spot in society, and of course those caught in between aren’t so lucky.

Jooheon’s one of those people, caught in the middle with no other place go. He’s a messenger of sorts, between gangs, between police, between anyone really that has something they want to pass on.

There’s nothing else he can do, but joining either one or the other would surely result in his death, so he continues on in this in between state. It’s worked out well enough for him over the years, enough to eat, enough to wear, enough to survive.

The same ratty combat boots and oversized striped black jacket are what he’s become known for, the mafia members cheerily sitting down with him for a cup of coffee and the police turning a blind eye when he needs to huddle a bit for warmth in their stations during the winter.

He’s forever on the move, never able to settle down in one place; otherwise how else could he ensure everyone gets their messages delivered?

Most of the parties on both sides know who he is and his general neutrality, so as long as he stays in this double sided position, his life will never truly be in danger.

Still he’s been proposed to before. A pretty pet on the arm of a mafia boss, or an inside informant for the government with a clean uniform and steady wage. He shudders at both options; he’d rather keep his ratty jacket and rootless homes than become either one of those things.

He’s satisfied with where he is, he thinks. The streets are cold at night, but someone’s always open to share, and today he guesses it’s the local mafia.

He’s recently delivered a message to them about an important arms deal, so they’re generous today, beckoning him in from inside a local club. The offer him an stripper’s room that’s not booked today and he takes it with no question. Better than the streets where anyone can get to him; he’ll take the stained cushions gladly over that. He passes out with his coat tucked around him and cheek pressed uncomfortably against the armrest.

Now, it’s no secret that everyone knows who he is: the messenger, the informant, but he’s got another kind of reputation too. Thick thighs, full cheeks, and pouty lips: people notice things after a while. It’s definitely not helped by those tight leather pants he insists on wearing all the time, the women coo, and the men banter about seeing what he’s hiding underneath that big coat of his.

To be honest, Jooheon hadn’t been able to afford anything else when he first started the job. The pants were cheap and uncomfortable, but they’re durable enough, and that’s all he needs. His coat, one of the few gifts he received in return for his work. He had shuddered helplessly in the cold, and had turned away to vy for a sleeping spot in a nearby police station, but one of the men he had just passed a message to tossed a brand new coat at him before he could leave.

“Without your delivery today,” he nods coldly, “we would have all died. So, thanks.” He turns without another word, face dimming into the darkened street, and Jooheon quickly wraps the coat around himself. It seems too good to be true: the coat is brand new and heavily lined, if only a bit oversized. The other man had been tall and lanky, like one of those grinning fashion models he sees stamped in color throughout distributed magazines, but his face was terribly grim, lips drawn into a frown.

He’s forever indebted, but it’s likely he’ll never be able to pay him back. Jooheon doesn’t bother to wonder about what happened to him.

OPTION B: ck is the son of a mafia boss and he befriends honey

WHAT IF IN THE AU HE KNOWS ITS STUPID BUT THERE'S A STILL PART OF HIM THAT TRIES TO HOLD ON TO THIS PURE BELIEF THAT A GOD ON HIGH CAN HEAR HIS PLEAS

AND SO HE WEARS THAT CROSS EARRING

AND WHAT IF EVERY FEW DAYS HE FINDS A RAMSACKLED CHURCH TO PRAY

its like spread by word that sometimes you can spot a hunched figure praying in the church, same black jacket and ratty boots, earring glinting in the light of the stained glass windows

f course that means jooheon doesn't get to do it very often so he treasures it when he can, thinking about his mother and father as he clasps his hands tightly in prayer

its like really emotional for him, and what if ck actually finds him there one day, deciding to fool around with whispered rumors

"so it's true" he murmurs in awe. jooheon still hasn't noticed him, head bowed in prayer but he jumps at the echo of steps behind him. his eyes are wet and changkyun slowly kneels down beside him, something he hasn't done in years. "do you really believe in this kind of stuff," he questions

Jooheon rubs his eyes and looks away. "It's the only thing I have left to hold onto."

changkyun sits down, dust settling into his clothes as he waits for the other to finish

when jooheon finally finishes with a whispered "amen" he dares to speak.

His voice is a little rough from staying silent for so long and it resonates deeply against the hallowed walls as he says, "does this make you happy, doing this with no one to hear you and no acknowledgement in return?” "yes," the other replies, no hesitation at all, "we all believe in something after all." Changkyun hums as he considers his options. "I think," he picks his words carefully, "you'll be safe to pray here anytime you like." the messenger whips his head around, earring flashing silver in the light. "what do you mean?" he questions desperately. "It means come here whenever you want. Don’t worry about being spotted either," Changkyun says as he stands and dusts off his pants. He walks away leaving jooheon kneeling confused on the floor, as he plans out how quickly he can acquire this piece of territory in order to attract a certain little blackbird back to him.

bruh i was kinda going towards B like

ck would be like relatively new to joining the mafia

so he wouldn't understand jooheon's position in things and keeps trying to find him or make him stay, which like disturbs the balance of things

but obviously jooheon has to try and maintain his position or else he's in trouble so eventually people start to notice that little bias he has for ck's group and shit starts to go down

and then they totally start hunting him down because then what he knows is now dangerous and he can't be trusted to be a neutral messenger for all sides

so obviously ck takes advantage of the situation

"A TENSE PLAY OF DECEPTION AND POWER" - The Times

since jooheon's always been on the run like he doesn't have lasting human contact

yes i write like an old wordy white guy

so like when changkyun keeps chasing him down for apparently no reason

lol what if he sends his own men like "a message for the messenger" and its like something like small trinkets like gov't banned books or an earring or smth

oh oh i just thought of somteh

what if like ck's gang is obviously mx and so they have those tattoos right

and like eventually when jooheon has nowhere else to turn changkyun lets him in w/ no question not demanding anything and its so soft and warm jooheon must be dreaming

until the day ck tells him he has to be marked with their x, "kinda like that cross you wear" he laughs adorably in the way that Jooheon has seen him smile about small kids or baby kittens, but his statement is nothing innocent

*his statement contains nothing innocent about it

"what" he whispers mouth dry in shock, and changkyun casually lays back against him as if they're just two school boys hiding a shared secret from their classmates

we'll say wrist cause more deep potential that way

im checking, the hoe has his on his chest

ck has it on the neck i know

" i wear mine with pride," he grins as he pulls down his shirt collar, Jooheon shaking minutely as changkyun touches his fingers to the emblazoned X

"it's not that bad is it?" as the other claps a hand over his mouth to hide his gasp. "other gangs do so much worse" he comments carelessly, "ours is just some ink on skin" pressing harder on jooheon's running pulse

so like: finally jooheon whispers out, "why - why would you put it on a place like this?" and Changkyun looks at him with hooded eyes, " isn't it obvious? my life for my work, for my members my family" he stresses fiercely

he laughs again in the same childish manner, but this time it seems too cold, too cruel, and jooheon starts to pull away

(can u believe it's so hard to find these blasted marks? in one scene kihyun has it behind his ear, in another he has it on the hand, the others are impossible to find)

changkyuns own thin fingers tighten again and he asks with amusement in his voice, "you know hoseok," at the other's silence he continues casually, "well he calls himself wonho," and he pauses to snort at the ironic meaning, "with the exhibitionist that he is, i can't believe you haven't noticed yet,"

(dude yeah like wtf i was looking for them too and some of them are so inconsistent)

"his tattoo?" Jooheon breathes out quietly, and changkyun skates a finger right under his protruding collarbones. "It's over his heart," the other boy states simply, "cheesy right?" and he giggles again

there: "it's basically over his heart, at this point," and he giggles childishly, "cheesy right?"

"you're obligated for only two little marks, think of it like a cross" he says eyes shifting to watch Jooheon's glinting earring

"that's it" he finishes monitoring the other's doubtful look

"of course, that doesn't mean you can't get any more of your own free will," he adds on subtely, finally releasing the other's wrist

"it's quite the form of art, don't you think, mixing ink into your own blood?" and he undoes his cuff to reveal a swirl of cherry blossoms creeping up his arm. "i think it suits the kind of business we do perfectly"

Jooheon stares transfixed. he can't take his eyes away from the way the petals dip into the curves of the boy's arm, how the branches snake perfectly across his veins, and the way the whole tattoo seems to ripple and shake, as if coming alive with the shifting of changkyun's muscles

"it's pretty, isn't it," he whispers as Jooheon drifts closer, pulled in like a moth to the light.

"shame we don't see anything that pretty anymore in this world," hooded gaze on the back of jooheon's pale neck. The other nods dazedly in agreement, because its true; flowers don't bloom here anymore, killed by the heavy industrial smoke and the constant press of machines

"well maybe that's not all true," changkyun hums more to himself than to the other boy. jooheon jerks up and out of his reverie, brows furrowed in silent question

the cherry branches suddenly press themselves against his cheek as Changkyun angles jooheon's face toward his own, "your lips have always reminded me of peony petals,"

"more delicate than any flower," he murmurs, eyes shifting over his stunned face, before hardening in determination. "I can't let you fade like they did"

fingers digging deeply into his skin, before he surges so closely Jooheon almost goes crosseyed at trying to keep eye contact

"let me keep you" he whispers, breath curling against his lips, "flowers die out there" the words themselves seeming to hurt him as he says them with a grimace,"it’s safer in the wolf's den than out in there in the wild" and his fingers curl softly as they run through his hair. "I can protect you here, if you stay with me."

jooheon jerks out of his grip trembling as he shrinks away from Changkyun. the other boy goes to follow him, cherry branches growing rapidly, but he stops, his dark expression fading into a sulky pout

"i'll give you some time to think about it," he sighs, standing up and rolling his cuff back down, the blossoms shrinking back into the dark sleeve

jooheon stays hunched away, too scared to look into changkyun's eyes, afraid of what he might see. "Just know," he feels the words brush disconcertingly close, as if right behind his ear, "there's nowhere else to go.

the air whooshes with his steps and the door clicks closed behind him, but jooheon stays frozen, the words still crawling across his skin

its only until he's sure the retreating footsteps are gone that he dares to move, dropping like a rock against the bed, pulling his jacket tightly around him

yeah like i was imagining jooheon resting in his room and ck coming to visit him, and he's like kinda a kid so jooheon didn't think anything of it when he flopped down next to him moaning about boring gang duties

also i was planning on jooheon to wake up from the strip club couch to a face looming above his and he like totally panics and drops to the floor

cause new gang in town and guess who just took over the area

and he's like "who are you? what group are you part of"

and jooheon's like "none" and ck's eyes sharpen as he steps over Jooheon, "don't tell me you're part of the police?"

suddenly a slim hand reaches from behind the boy and pulls him off of Jooheon.

It's him. the cold, pretty man from before who had thrown him the coat. "don't bother" he states simply to the other man, "he doesn't belong anywhere."

the shorter one squints in confusion and jooheon fumbles to get up, grabbing the coat while he does it. 

[happycakestories]

old mix fic dump pt. 5:

various aus i was interested in over the years

greek gods au

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDXeTV2S1RI

1607143 cut Monsta x: gods/goddesses au- hyolyn and hyunwoo are overarching rulers of the universe for millenias. A political marriage between the gods for balance of power, a daughter of the old gods and one of the new ones. Hyolyn knows of the prophesied child that is born once every 20 centuries, and this time it’s Jooheon. It’s the gods’ responsibility to take the oracle under their wing and make sure he’s properly trained to help the human race.

Jooheon: that means he’s the child that spans the gap between the spirit and the material one. He can communicate with spirits about important things; if they’re living the connection is a lot more dull because they’re attached the material world, but if they’re dead then the connection is a lot stronger because they’re freely “floating” to say, easy to reach out to them. Can connect much stronger with spirits than normal priest/priestesses. When Changkyun dies as a kid, he unknowingly unleashes his power, causing his home to burn down. Hyolyn rescues him and sees that he is indeed the next oracle and puts him in one of her temples to be trained.

One rule of oracles is that they can’t fall in love; their lover would have too much power over the entire world. But what is the case of that if their lover is potentially a god?

All legitimate priests/priestesses have to go to mount olympus to be officially recognized and initiated. Of course that means Jooheon eventually goes up there as well. Certain pools where they are bathed to figuratively give themselves over to the gods. Hyunwoo basically wants to sneak around to see if he can have a fling with some pretty priestess or handsome priest, but instead he happens upon Jooheon stripping down and putting on traditional ceremonial bathing robes, (which are super loose and basically covers nothing), and he instantly falls in lust. Thin fabric slits open to reveal thick, smooth thighs and shapely calves. When he immerses himself into the pool and comes out, most unintentionally erotic thing Hyunwoo has ever seen. Fabric completely sticks to his skin, showing off perky nipples and when he turns around Hyunwoo can tell he’s definitely not wearing underwear, because he can see every crease and curve of his backside. A very full backside to be exact.

That night he dreams of the young priest bathed in a pool of ambrosia, the golden liquid so viscous and thick that Hyunwoo can trace every drop running down the boy’s figure, staining his pale skin gold. He cups a handful of the nectar up to his lips and lets it slowly trickle into his mouth and down his neck. The boy, Jooheon, runs a finger down from his mouth to his chest tracing the path of the golden liquid and slowly lifts that finger to his lips to lick off the excess ambrosia.  

Shies away so innocently that hyunwoo feels the need to pursue him and ruin him at the same time.  

Aphrodite is still truly the god of love so she decides to pity Jooheon and tells him if he truly wants to prove hyunwoo’s love, then on the night of the festival he should make himself as pretty as possible, and if Hyunwoo shows up he should leave with him. If he should ask you to lay with him, reject it, but express the fact that you do love him. If he should still happen to stay with you then it would be true love. However, if he coldly leaves you then...you know that means he would’ve only wanted you for your body.  Of course she pities him and only reveals this to him because she knows what will happen, that hyunwoo is a God who acts on base impulses and would never be able to resist Jooheon looking like that.

In the local city they are having a festival and the temple takes pride in hosting and providing for it. Sometimes some gods even descend to visit, and hyunwoo sees jooheon all decked out in gold jewelry, loose pants that cuff at slim ankles, a thin midriff baring shirt that jooheon has tightly wound a red shawl around so that only small slivers of pale skin show through. His normally curled hair is swept cleanly up away from his forehead, accentuating smoky eyes smeared with red paint and flushed cheeks; To hyunwoo he looks like sex incarnate. The previous priestess finishes up her dance and pulls Jooheon in to take her place. Starts off slowly, but escalates with the music into elaborate turns and sensual movements. His body bends and flows like water and the curved line of his back as he links his hands above his head when he rolls his shoulders has Hyunwoo questioning just how innocent the young priest really is.  When Jooheon turns, he suddenly meets Hyunwoo’s hooded eyes and what he sees reflected in them makes him bite his lip in nervousness. As he lowers himself to the ground, he slowly spreads his legs and he shows off the curve of his back when he rolls foward to grind against the tiled floor below him. and he turns his head sideways to bare the pale line of his neck. Hyunwoo can’t look away as he turns his head to bare the pale line of his neck, while slick lips part to let a pink tongue peek through to wet them. The boy on the ground looks as if he’s gasping for air, and that combined with his (compromising) position leads the god’s mind to less innocent places.  It’s the most erotic look hyunwoo has ever seen, which is surprising because it’s coming from Jooheon, who is (or at least was) one of the most naively innocent people he’s met. Gold bangles jingle and flash as he pulls himself off the ground with a series of complicated turns on bare feet, and Hyunwoo quickly grabs the end of his red shawl to pull him flush against his body. He looks down at the boy below him and murmurs, “I never knew you had a side like this…” Jooheon pants heavily in exhaustion as he looks up to see it’s exactly who he expected to show up. “How do I look then?” Some strands of his previously coiled hair have fallen loose against his forehead and up close hyunwoo can see the cherry red sheen of painted lips. All of this combined with the way the firelight reflects off of Jooheon’s sweat slicked skin makes him look as if he’s just rolled out of bed after a proper fuck, and the mere thought of it makes Hyunwoo’s gut pulse with possessive need. “You look as if you should be whisked away to the heavens above,” he whispers against Jooheon’s cheek.  He can feel Jooheon shift beside him before a barely audible whisper reaches his own ears. “Then, will you be the one to take me?” The god swears he’s never been turned on this  quickly before, and he settles a hand against the small of the boy’s back and leads him away from the waiting crowd before anyone else can  notice the stirring heat in his stomach.

At first hyunwoo only wants to bed Jooheon and the other gods/priests/priests warn him against the other god’s frivolous intentions, but Jooheon is so purely in love that he innocently believes everything hyunwoo tells him. Rejects everyone else when they try to tell him to be careful. Even though hyunwoo courts him only with the purpose of fucking him, slowly falls in love with Jooheon’s smile, his heart, and his mind. Finds himself searching out Jooheon with just the simple purpose of being able to be with him. However, denies that he, a god, would ever fall in love. Of course, aphrodite loves games and she plays along with hyunwoo’s farce, telling Jooheon that of course his love will be reciprocated. Jooheon’s first love, falls so deeply, that his heart is completely broken when he receives a vision about hyunwoo’s intentions. Completely cries himself numb, he feels so betrayed, and only converses with spirits for days on end. Can’t bring himself to look everyone in the eye after.

chobits au

So it's basically set in the Chobits universe, which is a manga by Clamp, though I assume you already know it. If you don't it's basically like a futuristic society with really advanced robots that are marketed products for cleaning, cooking, and basically even a companion. These robots are super commonplace and considered normal in society, even common to fall in love with them and make them a life-long companion

So Changkyun

is one of the

leading scientists/engineers

who works in a production company

testing/programming

and

basically

making the leading models everyday

Of course he loves his work, having spent

years and years training and learning for it. In that process, he had met Jooheon, a kindergarten teacher who had fed him through his days as a starving student, and eventually they had moved in together. At one point he had even proposed, which was happily receiv

The problem is that over time, Changkyun's too involved in his job, not realizing how to prioritize work over personal life, and he comes home later and later each weak. At first, Jooheon had only been slightly worried, gently asking ck about it, but as changkyun's habit gets worse they fight often about it, leading to sleeping on a cold bed with an empty stomach. It gets to a point where Jooheon forces the younger man to promise, on the sake of their relationship, to at least try to come home earlier than 4 in the morning

It goes horribly wrong the next day, with  Changkyun losing track of time and coming home at 4:30 in the morning again. This time he finds Jooheon passed out on the living room table, having stayed up so long that even their electronic cat has run out of battery, and is blinking red as it lays silent on the carpet. He tries rousing his fiance gently, slinging an arm around him to drag him to the bedroom, and jooheon dazedly follows, mind still hazy.

It's when Changkyun lays him down and starts pulling off his clothes to help him change into pyjamas, that he becomes aware of the situation. He asks for the time, and the other man pauses before muttering out an honest answer. Jooheon can only pull away from his touch, curling up in disappointment. He's casually broken his promise again, and had the nerve to even answer so bluntly, no shame or hesitance at all.

Changkyun slips in behind him, pulling up the covers over them. Jooheon doesn't scooch away from him, but he doesn't lean back into him either. "I don't think this could work out" comes soft and almost inaudible from the dark. The younger man sighs, trying to calmly mask the desperation he feels at his lover's words, and creeps his hands around the other's middle, "I'll try harder next time, okay?" nuzzling against Jooheon's cold ear.

Their bedroom falls silent for a minute, then two, then ten, until Changkyun's dozing off when Jooheon finally asks, "when is next time?" He never receives an answer. Changkyun doesn't reply.

The next morning, it's 6:30 am when Changkyun sneaks out of the house, letting Jooheon sleep in, having already called his workplace and cancelled the other man's work day for him.

By 9:45 am he realizes there's no way he'll make it home before 12 at night, so he aims for 2, throwing himself into his work with everything he's got. He's in such a concentrated state by 11 am, the repeated ringing of his phone doesn't register until even his sleepy-eyed coworker blinks awake enough to alert him to his blaring phone.

He answers it with a clipped tone, frustrated at being yanked away from his projects, but immediately freezes when it's a cold, clinical voice asking him to verify himself as Lim Changkyun.

Immediately, he confirms it, answering  all types of security questions with ease, some of which are most definitely Jooheon-written: his favorite brand of coffee (americano, what kind of person he is (a tiger person!), what his favorite mixtape is (Agust D for life of course)...

"You've been listed as his number one emergency contact. Please head to Seoul-Sector 1, Yongsan-gu station, as Lee Jooheon is in critical condition."

Everything's forgotten: projects, clock-out times, work, annoying coworkers. He drops everything immediately, rushing to the police pod already stationed outside the company entrance. Even with its blaring sirens and magnetically gliding transport system, they arrive too late.

Critical condition is a complete lie. Jooheon is dead, his body smashed and mangled by an oncoming subway. A subway which has been cleaned as quickly as possible, all the bloody remains sanitized and all the passengers refunded as it now continues, uncaring, on its way.

Changkyun takes one look under the medical blanket before he retches his meager breakfast, banana chunks sickly pulling its way through his stomach. A blue eyed robot smiles mechanically, soothingly pulling a blanket around him and leading him to sit down on the ambulance. He's still shell-shocked when he's approached with a digital tablet, dazedly signing form after form, verifying himself as main of kin, agreeing to non-disclosure for whatever reasons he can't bring himself to care about.

The non-disclosure agreements come into play when a video pulls up, a security feed showing a grainy image of Jooheon rushing through the streets. Changkyun almost throws up again at the moving image of his partner, too real and whole after seeing the mangled mass of flesh beneath the blanket.

The Jooheon in the video feed looks frantic, squinting as he tries to push his way through morning traffic. He never told him about his impromptu day off, Changkyun watches with growing horror, as the figure steps right into the way of a high-speed subway going 141 km/h, slamming him into a smeared speck of black into the edge of the camera.

The video closes there, the robots smiling blankly as his non-disclosure agreement scrolls through their eyes. He nods mechanically as they repeat the statements to him again, silent affirmations of his silence at viewing closed footage.

He accepts to take Jooheon's body, setting up a closed casket funeral outside the city sectors, where it's empty, undeveloped dead land. He calls in a month long break, easily attained after his hours overtime.

The funeral is silent, attended only by Minhyuk, Jooheon's long time friend, Hyunwoo, their long time landlord, and himself, a long time idiot, apparently. There's no long-winded speeches or whined sobbing. Minhyuk doesn't hide the tears dripping down his cheeks, and Hyunwoo rubs roughly at his eyes, but Changkyun stays stone faced. He had cried out every drop of moisture in the first day, and then again the second, the third, and the fourth. By the end of the week, his lips are cracked and his face is rubbed raw.

He had slowly cleaned himself up, taking a shower and rubbed healing gel (Smooth Honey! Verified 100% organic!) across his cheeks, sniffling at the stupid scent. The only clean clothes happen to be Jooheon's, and he spends another day draped in an oversized sweater and sweatpants, laying meaninglessly in bed.

The next day he finally charges they're completely battery dead cat, Tapioco whirring and meowing back to life. He eats a bowl of packaged cereal and watches the morning cartoons. His phone buzzes with emails and alerts, but for the first time in his life he completely ignores them with no difficulty at all. He scoffs into his cold bowl, the irony at that all too apparent.

The cat nuzzles against his leg, "Jooheon?" buzzing innocently across it's face before switching back to the standard :3 face. He shuts it down, taking two hours to reprogram its system to only include him. Every single file of memory he saves onto a computer, calling it :3 for a moment before deleting it and leaving it blank.

He spends the afternoon downloading every picture, every video, every audio file off his phone and saving it into the same nameless folder on his computer. He goes to sleep that night with Tapioco flashing only "Goodnight Changkyun!" as it settles down into a doze next to him. He turns away from it and falls asleep.

They dig a burial site on their own for Jooheon, Hyunwoo doing most of the work as Changkyun and Minhyuk pant in exhaustion. They finish eventually when the sky falls dark, satellites blinking like stars in the sky. Changkyun's barely aware of it when Hyunwoo hikes him into his back and Minhyuk gathers the shovels and they stumble back into the city. They both wrangle him into his room, having the kindness to remove his sneakers and pulling the unwashed covers over him.

In his half-awake state he hears Minhyuk whisper, "if only we could somehow extract Jooheon's memories and upload it into an artificial model." He's rebuffed a by a low shh!, Hyunwoo's low baritone echoing his own thoughts "that's a terrible idea. you know it'll make him delusional."

Changkyun wakes up the next morning,  Minhyuk's words bouncing in his mind. He can't extract Jooheon's thoughts and memories, but what he can do is form a similar program, a very complex program, that will adhere as accurately as possible to the other man's personality based off of analytics from numerous photos, text messages, phone calls, anything he can upload digitally to write its program.

The nameless file comes into use, and he saves it onto an old drive, grabbing his access card as he finally heads out. His coworkers duck up surprised at his early return, but he waves them away, the excuse of catching up work on his lips. Some of them glare in disgust, the apparent rumor of his uncaring facade for his partner's death having spread like wildfire around the company.

It doesn't matter. He'll need to use the rest of his days off for anyway for this project. The system runs for days, sorting through visual and auditory content to program emotion and personality into lines of code. He stays for days at work, nothing able to pull him away now, until the program finally writes itself into a completely functional  system. He combines it with a basic robot behavior base, going through the code himself to try and personalize it as best to his partner's quirks. Unfortunately, he can't do much and most of it he leaves open and vague to the robot's own eventual development, hoping he'll be able to help fill the gaps in with human interaction.

He does the same thing with the basic male model, letting the program do most of the work as it runs through analytics gained from his millions of pictures of Jooheon smiling, pouting, sleeping, clothed, naked, etc.

The formation chamber is deactivated and completely empty at 3: 46 am and Changkyun takes advantage of that to make his own highly personified, illegally manufactured robot. It strikes him that he could lose his job if anyone from work discovered this, but the twisting black hole in him rips it apart, crying out for more.

The chamber whirrs to life as he inserts his keycard, "welcome, user 1994106! please upload your program or choose a setting!" he does as told, clicking the tablet with his custom made program into place and pressing his palm into the user section as a final authorization. With a cheery "please step back!" the chamber swishes shut, the sound of whirring and clanking beginning to emit from the inside.

He never realized how loud or fast the process was, only memorizing it as numbers charting the companies key to success before. Now, it seems like anyone could find him in the dead of the night and he huddles into a ball in front of the chamber, shadows playing with his mind as the rise like waves from the glowing blue light of the machine.

It whirrs to a stop and he hears the pad of a body set gently to the movable floor of the chamber. The user table alerts him with a beep, a hand print flashing as it asks for his palm to authorize the opening of the door.

He runs over, joints creaking as if on the verge of giving out and he slams his palm to the table, pressing harder as if it could make the chamber open faster. He waits as it does, every second drawn out to an hour and he's ready to squeeze his way inside when the smoke finally clears and the door has completely opened

The model lays curled up on the floor, completely new and battery completely empty and Changkyun rushes to it, nearly incoherent as the kneels by its side.

Even with its eyes closed, Changkyun can already tell the model is Jooheon to a T. Everything matches perfectly to his memory: the beautiful ratio of the thickness of his thighs, the soft flesh of his arms, and even the almost unnoticeable freckle on the corner of his left eye and the pale mole in the center of his forehead. All re-captured perfectly through digital imaging and computer analytics.

His hair is longer than he last remembered, most of the pictures coming from before their period of conflict where Jooheon clipped his hair into short curls. Now it parts down his forehead, curling around his forehead, and Changkyun can't help but brush it out of closed eyes with a trembling hand.

He collapses to the floor exhausted at his genuine success, almost passing out, before he realizes he has no way to get the model home. He has no car, he hasn't brought any other clothes and there's no way he's bundling a naked Jooheon home on the subway, and he's too weak to even attempt to carry Jooheon out the company, much less back to their apartment.

The only option left is grim and inevitable, so he phones Hyunwoo at 4:27 am, his friend and landlord picking up after only 4 rings. "Changkyun-ah? What's wrong?" he mutters, voice still thick with sleep. "Hyung," he whispers, rush desperate in his tone, "I need your help, please-"

Hyunwoo cuts him off, immediately alert, "What? Where are you? I'll come immediately." Changkyun shakes, suddenly nervous about the other's judgement, "I'm at my lab, hyung, I-I fucked up, I shouldn't have but I made a model, I manufactured Jooheon into a robot, please I know i shouldn't have, but I need you to help me get him back-hyung please."

The other line is silent for a moment and he winces in preparation at the sharp breath from the other side, when hyunwoo finally mumbles "I'm coming with my car, try and get down to the front ok?" Changkyun nods soundlessly before realizing his own mistake and croaking out what must be "yeah" into the receiver. The line clicks shut and he drops his head into his palms in relief.

He gets up and packs as quickly as possible, grabbing a standard charger for Jooheon, some random files, and his keycard as he turns to lift the model into his arms. He's still entirely naked and so Changkyun strips off what's technically now robot Jooheon's hoodie and pulling it as best he can over his curled figure. Like that he huffs the model against his chest, his backpack over one shoulder and steps into the elevator.

hyunwoo arrives minutes later, looming against the closed doors as Changkyun keys him in, dumping Jooheon in his arms in the process. He takes a moment of shock to marvel at the robot in his arms, before hurrying to place him safely in his car. Changkyun logs onto the administrative account from the front desk, erasing all activity and camera work from 3 am to 5 am and runs out the door at 4: 57 am, driving away at 4:59 am.

so obviously he gets him back and charged and when he wakes up he immediately lunges into Changkyun, embracing him sweetly as every programmed action recognizes him as safe:love:happy. Changkyun starts crying and hyunwoo has to pull the model off of him, trying to both soothe and reprimand the younger man for his actions. Of course, Jooheon barely recognizes hyunwoo, staring widely at him with unfamiliar eyes and the older man kinda wants to cry to. So of course they get settled somehow, Jooheon having to stay in the apartments at day while changkyun goes to work, and minhyuk and hyunwoo coming to entertain and take care of him.

The only thing programmed into him was his memories with Changkyun and so almost everything else is new. Ck comes home to find him scrolling through thousands of songs, twice and then drake blaring through his old tablet. It makes ck realize how everything about this jh is defined by ck's view of him, made to fit to his view when there must've been millions of things he didn't know about jooheon.

"I like momo the best right?" and ck sits down silent, that exact conversation playing through his head. It had been completely sarcastic when he suggested it and jooheon played along in text agreeing, when it was actually dahyun. The jooheon before him now cocks whirring brown eyes at him, expression innocent and hopeful as he asks casually.

he can only painfully whisper yes as jooheon goes back to dancing along to momo's call me baby dance cover.

woops got sidetracked again ok uh so obviously robot jooheon is totally not exactly like real jooheon, and ck has the total dilemma of if he's actually loving me or if this is some terrible situation where he's being controlled by the programming. but i want to fill it in with povs from robot jooheon where he fills in the gaps of coding with his own formed opinions about ck, growing fond in his own way. this is totally going to end angsty but hopeful with Jooheon asking ck to erase every bit of programming and starting him over with a clean slate to let the two of them actually fall in love. what's going to be strange is that once ck wipes him clean somehow something holds on. he can't delete his own name from the system, the line embedded deep within tangled lines of coding, too hard to extract. when he reactivates jooheon his first word is changkyun's name. yesim done

Originally since Changkyun left a lot of open holes in his programming, when he's left without ck a lot of times hyunwoo would take him out to explore the city and re familiarize himself

And so I was considering that robot jooheon forms sentient emotion but for the older man who takes him out so kindly everyday

And it starts messing with his system, his own actual feelings conflicting with the pre set program

But he doesn't want to let go of his affections for ck even though hes unsure of what they are

So he slowly starts malfunctioning, mixing phrases and memories together until he eventually loses the ability even identify the right person

And Changkyun is forced to make a decision

But yeah I think ck would probably choose to wipe away his set of memories

BECAUSE robot jooheon deserves to find happiness in his own life without the remnants of something that wasn't even truly him holding him back

Ck can't deactivate him, he has no right to do it after Jooheon's basically grown so human and so he let's him go

They still they live in the same apartment building tho like yay?????

Yeah he would probably end up wandering to the city center too late at night and sees job offers scrolling through alleyway bulletins

So of course he signs in for the ones requiring no background, citing they only need to be able to pose for pictures

His drive is filled with thousands of pictures of himself in all states of dress and undress so he decides it's probably normal for this to be a job

It's moments later when the alley door slides open two black eyed women leading him inside

So he gets welcomed so kindly, ladies crowding around him cooing about how precious and perfect he'll be,

Basically they're an underground distributor of raunchy pics, selling them off cheaply in mass bulk. It's those pictures that people stand by busy road sides advertising and handing out that basically end up stepped on after being discarded

Yeah so w Changkyun s work he ends up having to walk through those places most times getting home

He usually ignores them but a robot with flashy earphones and light up ears loudly pushes a small card into his hand, citing it as a free gift after seeing his moody glower

"looks like he'd be your type" winking as she bounds away

Changkyun would laugh at the blatant comment on his sexuality before he looks down at the actual picture

To his complete surprise it's jooheon, shot from a top down angle. He's looking up at the camera wth wide eyes lips set in a pout he must've photographed a million times on his own.

He's wearing only a loose shirt and it's pulled barely enough over his lap that even with the shitty picture quality he can see the supple line of his inner thighs peeking out where his crotch would be

It's lewd but it's not exactly that has ck shocked. It's entirely too similar to morning photos he had of jooheon after a long night, too many to count

He immediately rushes home all kinds of questions running through his head to find jooheon at their stovetop, eyes glowing blue as he scrolls through various recipes

"hi!" They dim back down to brown, soft humming as his system cools down. He gives Changkyun such a loving look he almost decides to drop the issue right there

Instead he forces himself to slip the card out with clammy fingers, sliding it onto the countertop. "jooheon, what is this?" He tries asking with as much calm as possiblr

The robot replies instantly, "work" nodding cutely with what could only be satisfaction at the picture

"what?" Changkyun can only ask with dry mouthed surprise. "they only ask to take pictures. Doesn't everyone take those kind of pictures?" Jooheon asks innocently

"well-" Changkyuns face burns at having been inadvertently called out about his creepy habit. Jooheon's eyes glow for a second as he scrolls through his picture files, "approximately 1356 digital images can be categorised as [sexy] out of 2678 pre set pictures"

His irises switch back to brown, and then he frowns, "at least, very common in my imaging files"

Changkyun wants to be swallowed by the earth so he can get away from Jooheon's too innocent too questioning look. Instead he tosses the card into a shredding bin, sadness flickering through the robot's eyes seeing his hard work gone to wastr

Changkyun almost regrets it, almost would have let Jooheon keep his own weird card to keep him smiling. But, this is for his own good, he justifies quickly. He tries to come up with a good explanation, stumbling through his words the entire time, "These kind of photos, um i guess sexy photos, you don't let strangers take them of you, okay? Not even for work. Never for work."\

"Then when? Who's supposed to take them then," Jooheon asks, system whirring as he tries to figure out why his database has so many.

"I mean, it's really only if you're close and comfortable enough with another person. If you're partners, per say. Lovers." The robot takes a moment to consider that, numbers running into code, and code into thought. It clicks and he reaches for Changkyun's clenched hand.

"Are we lovers then?" he asks happily, dimples on show as he grins.

he can see it, the moment changkyun's metaphorical system breaks down, his mouth dropping and face exploding in color. "I, ah, I mean, uh, you-"

thousands of phone calls with the same adorable stuttering pulls them onto loop inside his head and Jooheon pulls him into a hug, squeezing the boy tightly to his chest.

changkyuns hands flail for a moment before settling themselves gingerly around the robot's waist. "what do you want" he hears muffled into his hair and he answers automatically "for you to stop going to that creepy place for work"

Jooheon pulls back, lips falling open in bubbling laughter. he's laughing so hard, he has to lay on the counter, howls bouncing off the clean metal. "I-I meant for dinner!" Changkyun squats down, cursing his apparent lack of brain to mouth filter and squeaks out, "is it too late to ask for fried egg rice?"

Jooheon shakes against the counter for a few moments more before squatting down next to Changkyun and patting him on his bowed head. "It's a yes to both?" The young scientist is so mortified it's only later as he picks his way through his perfect bowl of fried egg rice, does he realize that the old Jooheon, the living one was a shit cook.

The bowl before hi m is perfect in every way, and he scarfs it down, avoiding the doubtful thoughts in his head as best as possible. Still that night, as he watches Jooheon play with Tapioco, uncertainty lingers on.

murderer au

Changkyun meets the love of his life soaked in tears, dirt, and gore under a trash-ridden bridge in the dead of night.

----------------------

Or alternatively, the one where Changkyun commits murder as a hobby, and he finds Jooheon along the way.

PLEASE WRITE IN A NIGHT UNDER THAT SCATTERED SKY WITH THE MOON YOU SAW-climax/ending

Vixx fantasy: we made a wish (under the bloodshot sky), the end of you was me, please take me anywhere, i promised to be your angel, you need to have me, i need to have you

the end of you was me

“...and on that change of topic, did you hear about the new body found along the edge of the Gyeonggi-do province?”

A gasp crackles through the open speakers, faltering with dramatics. “Oh my, Seolhyun! The dead man with glass embedded in his stomach, right?”

“That’s right Mina! How horrible, right?” A faux exclamation bursts through again, and Changkyun squints at the broken knob on his stereo. Attempting to turn it down only results in a deafening haze of static, so he settles back against his chair, sentenced to sensational news reporting for the rest of the hour.

“Ooh, a new body, huh?” Minhyuk pops his head in through the open door, trailing his words into a ghostly whisper. He wiggles his eyebrows in feigned interest as he settles his hip against the side of the stereo.

Changkyun only sends him a blank stare.

“Oh come on, don’t act like you’re not thrilled!” The older man flails his hands, fingers flying, motioning to indecipherable ideas that he can somehow pluck out of thin air through the sheer will of action alone. “People don’t just ingest glass bottles and wander half a mile from the bar to die under some deserted overpass!”

“Hyung-” Changkyun starts, so many things jumping on the tip of his tongue. He settles for massaging the twin indents worn into the corners of his eyes, dislodging already slipping glasses into a far-off corner. “I don’t think thrilled is the right word for this situation.”

Minhyuk’s mouth immediately opens, the light of his eyes firing in protest - but Changkyun raises a steadfast hand. It’s bordering on the last half-hour of his shift, and the stack of shoddy research papers in his lap is the last shackle chaining him to his tiny oddity of a work cubicle.

Besides, people do crazy things all the time. After the whole tide pod fiasco, Changkyun wouldn’t be surprised a drunkard decided to go the extra step and throw back the entire beer bottle.

Nothing humans do ever makes sense anyway - and murder is just one in an infinity of nonsensical actions. He’s come to that definitive conclusion on his own by now.

Besides people do crazy things all the time - after the damn whole tide pod fiasco, murder is just another one in an infinity of nonsensical events. Changkyun knows that well enough on his own by now - is intimately familiar with that concept by now. (Of all people, he knows this best by now - he should know this by now - or at least he should).  At this point, a drunkard deciding to go the extra step and throwing back an entire beer bottle is nothing new - not to him at least.

https://www.quora.com/Which-are-the-acids-that-can-burn-human-skins - acids and bases and how it affects human skin

https://happycakestories.tumblr.com/tagged/murder%20au

Changkyun’s new to the life of murder and crime, but there’s no way he’ll settle for any other lifestyle. Sure, he knows he’s messy, brutal, and arrogant, but this is the most enjoyable thing he’s ever done.

Besides, if he’s going to be caught one day, he might as well enjoy it as much as he can.

As he heads home from his boring teaching job, he tastes the sharp night air and decides that he’ll go out hunting tonight. He quickly enters his meager apartment and changes into a nondescript hoodie and black jeans. Changkyun quickly appraises himself in the mirror and deems his outfit (murder)worthy. He slips on a traditional surgical face mask, thick leather gloves, black baseball cap, and he’s off to hunt.

Today, he’s decided to scour the alleyways of the downtown city for his new victim because he’s just not in the mood for cleanup tonight. Everyday people are found dead in the alleyways, and the officials have given up on trying to solving the millions of cases of people found drugged, stabbed, and raped in the alleyways.

humans are just numbers anyway, says their government

  Changkyun happily agrees to that thought, because his crimes will just be another tick in the statistics, another pin lost in the trillion straw haystack.

He’s not sure what he’s specifically looking for tonight, but what he finds when he peeks around a corner is definitely not it.

It’s just another typical drunkard in an alleyway beating on an innocent passerby. Changkyun sees and meets thousands of them each day, and nothing about them interests him enough to kill them anymore. There are so many of them that killing one . He kills for his own satisfaction and gain, and these idiots stir no interest from him.

However, these days people have started to become wary of the alleyways at night because of the lack of government supervision and the everyday murders that go uninvestigated. This, of course, makes it harder for Changkyun’s little hobby, and he can’t be quite as picky with his victims anymore.

Before he moves on, he glances out of the side of his eye to see if what’s going on could somehow be worth his time. There’s a large, burly man struggling to hold down what appears to be a crying-

angel

(is what Changkyun’s stunned mind supplies with him with)

Even as the angel cries with dirt and tears running down his face, Changkyun doesn’t think he’s ever seen anything as pretty. The sobs falling from plum-colored lips are sweeter than any of the screams he’s torn from his victims’ mouths, and the moon’s bone-white light sliding over the angel’s skin is prettier than the sight of blood and guts running down dead bodies.

The adrenaline is pumping through his system and all he wants to do is kill, kill, kill, over and over, again and again, until he realizes those squishing noises are coming from his hand and that the bloody mass in his hand is the drunkard’s head that’s been repeatedly bashed into the alley wall.  

Changkyun knows he’s made a mess again, and this time cleanup will be harder than usual, especially considering who just witnessed his kill.

He can’t help but feel a little angry at himself. That pig deserved to be butchered in the worst ways possible, and Changkyun chides himself for not torturing the man for longer periods of time.

A quiet rustle brings him out of his thoughts, and he turns to the left to see the angel shakily sliding down the wall. His big winter coat has been yanked down off of his shoulder (presumably from the previous struggle), and above the angel’s ripped button down, Changkyun can see an ugly purple blossoming like a flower around his neck.

The marks make Changkyun irrationally mad - that somehow someone as disgusting as that swine had been able to taint something as pure as this angel, (who is currently sitting limply against the wall), with his festering hands. His feet shuffle against the ground, and he finds his body slowly moving independently of his mind.

The angel slowly looks up at him through puffy eyes, and his full cheeks are stained with mixed tracks of dried tears and dirt.

At a closer distance, Changkyun notices that along with the tears and grime, there’s also blood and gore splattered all over the angel on the ground.

He looks almost better this way.

(heavenly, in fact)

Really, he looks like a veritable angel of war and death; one who has waded through seas of gore to crown the victor. And as the self proclaimed victor, that’s definitely the only kind of angel Changkyun wants to meet.

He lowers himself to crouch at eye level with the boy, and he slowly inches forward on the balls of his feet. Changkyun himself is never affected by the aftermath of murder and death anymore, but he’s positive he’ll need to comfort the angel somehow.

(don’t ask him why normal people can’t handle gore and guts, he doesn’t understand either)

For the third time today, his body is moving without thought, and he finds himself placing his palm on the angel’s cheek and gently wiping away the mixture of grime and blood with his thumb.

His cheek is as soft as it looks, and Changkyun can feel the overwhelming amount of heat radiating from it, even through his thick gloves. The angel makes a high pitched noise of surprise in his throat and tries to shift away from his hand. Changkyun feels a surge of displeasure, and he grabs the other cheek harshly with his right hand and continues to clean the angel’s face, but rougher this time.

He can feel the angel tremble under his fingers, and he thinks, angrily, that it serves him right. Changkyun was the one who found him, the one who saved him, the one who protected him, and now the one who’s cleaning him. He shouldn’t flinch away from Changkyun; he shouldn’t be scared of him, and he should never turn away from him.

Changkyun wants to keep him.

He wants to take care of him.

and as Changkyun rubs at a particularly stubborn spot of gore and grime under the angel’s eye

(he winces adorably as Changkyun’s thumb digs in a little too harshly, blood-stained lips inadvertently forming a small pout and hands clenching tightly into cute fists)

Changkyun realizes he’s in love.

Ch. 2 please, take me anywhere

What a revelation.

Has Changkyun ever fallen in love before? The closest he’s felt anything resembling love has had to do with killing. He doesn’t know if the intense pounding of his heart right now is the same kind he feels when he’s cracking someone’s head open, or if it should be completely different.

He’s never been in love before.

It’s mesmerizing and obsessive. Is this what it should be? When he looks at passing commercials and empty couples on the street, nothing’s ever reflected the burning intensity he feels now.

It’s strange, and yet….

He doesn’t think he wants to let go of that feeling anytime soon.

The angel’s started to tremble, shaking harshly under him, and his gut tells him to bundle him up and take him home.

And his gut’s never led him astray before. Never, even through the most dangerous of kills and even from the many times he’s almost been cut.

And now he’ll listen to it now.

Now that the angel is fully clean and lit up, Changkyun can finally get a proper look at him.

(and he feels his heart beat a little faster looking at him again for the 3rd time)

The angel’s slim eyes have high arches that slope down smoothly into slightly lifted corners

(they must crinkle when he laughs)

Their elegant shape seem to highlight the fullness of his cheeks, and Changkyun thinks he can even see the faint lines of (what must be deep) dimples on his cheeks.

Irrationally, to him at least, Changkyun finds that he wants to see him smile much more than he wants to see him cry (again).

From the short time of their interaction together so far, the angel’s lips seem to be perpetually stuck in a pout. Now in the soft light, Changkyun can see how swollen they’ve become

(probably from all the crying he’s done).

The color of his lips looks as pink as the softest parts of the human brain,

(at least of what Changkyun has observed in his still growing collection of kills)

and he has the most prominent cupid’s bow changkyun has ever seen on any person.

(well, then again, he’s never met an angel before).

All of these traits combined with his ever perpetual pout makes the angel’s lips seem so irresistibly kissable that Changkyun physically has to rip his eyes away from them before he actually decides to ravish him silly.

(however, if he asked, changkyun would gladly give in)

His brown hair curls gently on his forehead, soft and airy in contrast to the dark, sweat-matted strands that Changkyun had seen in the alleyway. The ambient light makes some strands even look a rusted red, and he wants to step even closer to figure out every unfamiliar detail about the angel curled up on his bed.

Logically, Changkyun knows that he can’t actually call the boy “angel” to his face,

(but that doesn’t mean he’ll ever stop calling him that in his head)

so he slowly approaches him, and asks him:

“What’s your name?”

His intention was never to scare or intimidate, but his voice comes out too roughly, and he watches the angel shrink against the bed like a cornered animal.

He clears his throat and tries it gentler this time.

This time, the angel lifts his head and acknowledges him with watery eyes and a trembling pout.

“J-Jooheon”

“Family name?”

“Lee”

Changkyun watches as the angel’s (Jooheon’s) eyes dart around nervously before finally settling on his own face.

“W-What’s yours?”

Changkyun decides to tease a little.

“My what, huh?”

The ang-Jooheon looks scared again, and Changkyun quickly volunteers his own name.

“I’m Lim Changkyun.”

newcomer mafia au - i can give you the world (if only you would come to me)

lyrics from  - Heize: And July

It’s ass o’clock in the morning and Changkyun’s been dragged out of bed to meet with his new boss, for whatever kind of business that needs to be conducted at this kind of time. He honestly has no idea what to expect, especially with this new shift in power. Some old agreements had been broken, and so some heads of certain groups had their necks broken as well. From the bloodbath, a newer group had emerged the obvious winner, and the new recruits had all immediately headed for that gang. Naturally, Changkyun knew where to follow, and he had joined the sea of men literally bowed before the new boss’s door. They had all been allowed into the territory by a small, pink haired man and a smiling, white haired one. Rooms were distributed and they were left with the instructions to wait on a call from the head himself. And so, Changkyun had settled down in his room for a long, relaxed week before the pink haired man from before had stalked him down yesterday and had given him an address and an order to be there 4 am sharp.

Now at 3: 30 in the morning, Changkyun yawns as he pulls on the sharpest suit he owns, and a pair of slightly scuffed oxfords. He wasn’t given any instruction on what to wear, but he decides that it’s better to be overdressed rather than underdressed. He hesitates slightly at the thought of taking a weapon, but decides against it in case it’s seen as a sign of distrust or disloyalty to carry a weapon before the boss.

There’s nothing else left to do now, but head to the address given to him. He’s actually quite familiar with it. In his week of relaxation, he had spent his time traversing the shops and cafes in the downtown area of the territory. It was behind a quaint flower shop, that Changkyun could see a large mansion sitting regally atop a well-managed hill. It was pretty obvious that the mansion would be the boss’s home, and the address now confirms it. At most, it should be a 25 minute drive, and he should be able to arrive there with some time to spare.

When he walks out of the shared dorm, the city is bathed in a pale swathe of fog and it oddly reminds him of a bowl of watered down milk. He breathes it in slowly through his nose, before blowing it out, and he thinks he can see his breath disperse into the milky air. It’s almost like a scene in some old film noir when he sees two yellow headlights slowly emerging through the mist and drawing closer towards him. A sleek black car pulls up beside him and a man with faded blue hair pops his head out and smiles brightly at him.

“You’re the one meeting the boss today, right? Hop in, I’ll be your personal chauffeur for the morning!”

As Changkyun gets into the car, he can’t help but to think that the the boss’s choice in men are very strange: dyed hair, unnaturally happy attitudes--well except for the short, pink haired one. He can’t complain about free rides and lodging though, and nobody’s threatened violence or any other extreme initiation rituals on him, so these unnaturally happy men are the least of his concerns.

The car purrs smoothly as they drive through the fog, and Changkyun wonders how this guy can see where he’s going. They roll through empty streets and cross through deserted intersections with no trouble, while the fog finally starts lifting away like loose dandelion tufts. When they finally reach the familiar flower shop, the mist has become marginally better and Changkyun can actually see the huge mansion behind the shops in the background. They pass the shops quickly and the road quickly separates into two paths, and the car swerves sharply to the left, jostling Changkyun into the side door. His personal chauffeur laughs brightly before apologizing. “Sorry, sorry, I forget how quickly the road breaks off. You did wear your seatbelt right? Little kids need to properly follow safety rules.”

Changkyun glowers at the back of the head seat and he mutters, “I’m twenty years old, and I’m definitely not a kid if I’m joining your gang, asshole.”

The other man only laughs again and replies, “We’ll let the boss decide what you are alright, little recruit?”

Changkyun can only seethe in the back of the car as he tries to tell himself kicking the seat in front of him would most definitely not be the best way of proving his maturity to the blue haired driver. Instead, he settles for making eye contact with him in the rearview mirror and flipping him off. Of course, the driver only smiles charmingly at him and shifts his attention back to the uphill road, instead of falling for Changkyun’s very mature master plan to make him show an emotion besides unnatural optimism.

When they pull up in front of iron wrought gates the true magnitude of what Changkyun’s here to do hits him like a brick. The sleek model of their car contrasts sharply with the antiquity of the mansion, and truly the house is old, almost like something out of a storybook. The grounds surrounding the house are filled with evergreen trees, seemingly stretching on forever and blending into the horizon as a sea of green. The whole house looms out at him through the dissipating fog; its windows blinking in and out as if keeping a watchful eye over him. Changkyun feels his neck prickle and he keeps himself from turning around to see what would logically be the back of a leather seat. Even as he looks away from mansion he can’t shake off the paranoia he feels. It sets him more on edge than any other fight or drug deal he’s been part of-scares him more than any murder he’s committed. There’s something in that house; something strange, something that managed to sneak in like a cat, but emerged as a lion instead. This was the gang that was virtually unheard of until a few weeks back, but it somehow took over all the major territories and established itself as the top of the metaphorical food chain, so to speak. No kind of rookie group rises to power that quickly. Ever.

And yet what he feels before him proves every semblance of his logic wrong.

Changkyun better have made the right decision or else he really might not make it out of that mansion with his life today.

It’s as if the house can sense his panic, because the gates ominously creak open right then and there. He almost wants to jump out of the car and run all the way to the airport and hop on the nearest plane, but instead he sits there with a doomed feeling sinking in his stomach as his blue haired driver pulls through the gate and into the circled driveway.

Outside the door the pink haired man from yesterday stands with a pinched look on his face. Once they stop in front the door he rapidly walks up to them and taps rapidly on the driver’s window. Changkyun’s driver only good naturedly rolls it down and leans out with an almost adoring look?

“Kihyun-ah! What brings your pretty mug out to see me this morning?”

The other man, Kihyun apparently, leans back with crossed arms and jerks his head at, oh shit, Changkyun in the back seat. The glare of his phone when he opens it informs him that apparently it is 4:05 am, and he is 5 minutes too late. Kihyun looks fucking pissed as he stares toward the backseat, and Changkyun hurriedly fumbles with locked door.

It clicks open, and as he trips out, the blue-haired driver calls out a farewell. “Goodbye, little recruit! Let’s hope meet again sometime.”

If meeting the driver again meant acceptance into the gang, and of course his own following survival, he’d gladly see the other’s round, blue haircut everyday for the rest of his life. Of course, that chances of that happening again disappear before his eyes, as he morosely watches his only escape route cheerfully hand a packet of papers over to Kihyun before rolling up his window and speeding away from them.

Kihyun briskly walks towards the house and slams it open before disappearing inside without waiting for Changkyun to follow. The recruit can only run after him with growing annoyance. The members of this gang seem to be on the far spectrum of emotions - either being way too happy or too angry all the time, and he doesn’t understand why the boss doesn’t just hire some normal people.

Well, as normal as people working in the mafia can get anyway.

He rushes around a corner to see the other man standing at the end of the hall impatiently. Wow, apparently the asshole does have a shred of common courtesy in his cold,dead heart.

Some college aus

I don’t have any plans yet (but I feel so good)- EXO CBX hey mama

Ch. 1 I don’t have a plan yet,

Please put in Jooheon with seulgi or something, hyunwoo talking with hyolyn, jooheon getting jealous when he sees hyunwoo talking with momo

Maybe in shooting jooheon has to dress up and he wears this long cross earring that catches eyes every time he moves.

Jooheon announces his presence in their shared dorm room with a loud whine:

“Why will no one love me?”

Kihyun barely looks up from his textbook before replying,

“Is it because of your inopportune habit to dab in any situation, no matter how innapropriate it is?”

Jooheon only looks mildly offended and continues to whine,

“No, but why is it that whenever anyone remotely attractive becomes friends with me they basically run away when i ask them out?”

Kihyun sighs, “Honestly, I really have no idea, but it probably has something to do with…”

As he says this, Kihyun feels two glares burrowing into his forehead and he looks up to see Hyunwoo and Changkyun hovering over Jooheon in the most intimidating manner.

A lightbulb goes off in his head,

Of course!

Jooheon can’t get any dates because of a stony faced bear and a mature looking but barely-out-of-his teens idiot, respectively son hyunwoo and lim changkyun, who, instead of trying to get up their courage to confess to their childhood friend of 12 and 8 years like any normal person would, choose to chase off anyone who seems even remotely romantically interested in Jooheon.

Now that Kihyun thinks about it, changkyun and hyunwoo should really be more worried about each other. Logically, instead of chasing other “suitors” off, if one of them focused their attention on wooing Jooheon first this whole mess would be solved much quicker.

But then again Jooheon is actually so oblivious that there’s no way he would notice their (pathetic) attempts at flirting unless they actually announced their undying love to his face through a megaphone, and then proceeded to passionately make out with him to celebrate the end to 100 years of sexual tension.

Kihyun is not exaggerating

As it stands this has literally been going on for years on end so the quicker this gets solved the better because Kihyun is so fucking done with these 3 dumbasses that if he has to be the one to get the ball moving, then so be it.

“Kihyun hyung? Are you okay?”

At Jooheon’s question, Kihyun snaps out of his mental monologue to see one worried glance and two threatening ones directed at him.

“Mmmhmmmm perfectly fine”

Jooheon starts to look even more worried and hyunwoo and changkyun glare even harder.

“Hyung, are you sure you’re okay? Because my dating troubles suck, but you really don’t need to be that worried about me.”

Jooheon’s sweet, but there’s no way Kihyun is going to tell him that all his rejected dates are because of his two childhood friends’ combined efforts to chase them off.

First of all, there’s no way Jooheon would believe him,

And second of all, judging from how hyunwoo and changkyun seem to be progressively getting angrier, Kihyun might actually die.

“Jooheon-ah, hyung just had the revelation of his life and he feels better than great right now, so don’t worry your fluffy head about it”

“Well if hyung had such a great revelation then maybe he should share it with the rest of us,” Changkyun mutters as he shoves his head into view, while he wraps both arms loosely, but possessively around Jooheon’s shoulders.

“Yes, Kihyun, please share it with all of us.” Hyunwoo joins the fray by (not) subtly shoving Changkyun’s left arm off of Jooheon’s shoulder and replacing it by hooking his chin tightly onto Jooheon’s shoulder and winding his arms around Jooheon’s middle.

Of course Kihyun sees all of this: how Jooheon seems to unconsciously lean into their hold, how hyunwoo and changkyun each tighten their respective grips, and how they each try to pull him towards themselves.

It’s all so obvious to him now, and he questions how has he never noticed this before??

Kihyun needs to stop having these amazing mental revelations in the middle of conversations, because once again three pairs of eyes are turned on him, and he’s being forced to reveal what he’s been thinking about again.

“You know what guys, Kihyun actually wants to keep his amazing revelations to himself for now. Also, Jooheon-ah don’t you have that tutoring session with that cute rapper called Jackson in the library?”

Jooheon’s eyes widen in surprise and he rips himself out of hyunwoo and changkyun’s tentacle-like grips to run to the door.

“Oh my god hyung thank you so much, I’ll see you guys later!”

Once Jooheon’s out the door, Changkyun immediately turns on Kihyun and hisses,

“Who the fuck is this Jackson and why is he tutoring Jooheon?”

Kihyun smirks,

“Well, just so you know, Jooheon is actually tutoring Jackson.”

Changkyun pinches his face together (which makes Kihyun think he only looks 50% more constipated than his resting face already makes him look) and continues asking about Jackson.

“Ok whatever, i don’t care about the schematics of whoever tutors who. Big deal. What I do care about is who this Jackson guy is.”

Silently, in the background, Hyunwoo nods his assent to Changkyun’s statement.

“Well, why should I tell you? Is it suddenly your business now to know about Jooheon’s very attractive students, hmm?”

Changkyun only pinches his face even harder as he tries to think up a retort, and Kihyun’s just about to recommend he go to the bathroom before he shits himself, when Hyunwoo speaks up.

“Kihyun-ah, you know why it’s important to us. Please?”

Aaand, this is exactly what proves Kihyun’s theory about Jooheon’s (nonexistent) love life correct. Because, usually if Changkyun is just being a little shit then, whatever, but if hyunwoo somehow joins in on it then it’s definitely somehow involved with Jooheon.

Kihyun can’t keep himself from smirking even more than he already is, and he knows he probably looks like a weirdo, but having his theory proven 100% correct is the best ego boost ever. This is why he’s the (self-proclaimed) brains and beauty of this group.

Of course, it’s Changkyun who murders his victory monologue by exclaiming,

“Ew you weirdo, stop making that face. You look kinda gross.”

Now, Kihyun knows he’s older and he should demonstrate his wisdom and great personality by not retorting with the rudest insult he can think of, but he knows on multiple occasions women and men alike have told him he has the face of an angel and this little shit has no right-

“Yeah well, at least I don’t look like I’m constipated 24/7 in front of the guy I’ve liked for basically my whole life.”

Shit, there goes Kihyun’s responsible-calm-respectable-loving-hyung image. He’s exposed himself as a savage-hyung instead.

Wait no, he takes it back. Watching Changkyun’s face slowly become a tomato is entirely worth throwing his nice-hyung image away. Besides being savage is not something to be looked down on either.

Kihyun only starts to rethink his words when Changkyun seems one millisecond away from actually launching himself at his face and biting it off like an angry puppy.

Before Changkyun can commit his first murder, hyunwoo quickly stops him with a large hand on his shoulder and pulls him back (with no effort at all) onto the couch.

On a good day, hyunwoo will say five sentences and 3 out of 5 will be directed toward Jooheon. Today, God must love Kihyun because hyunwoo proceeds to say his second sentence to him:

(but then again it basically concerns Jooheon so maybe Kihyun shouldn’t be so proud. Technically, though it is being directed toward Kihyun, so he’s still counting it as a point for himself.)

“Kihyun, please stop teasing Changkyun, and tell us about Jackson already.”

Alright, well since hyunwoo asked so nicely, he supposes he owes them the truth already. Well, the truth with just a few embellishments, because while Jackson is actually pretty amazing, there’s no way kihyun is going to miss out on free entertainment by riling hyunwoo and changkyun up with a few exaggerated truths.

“Wow, well, with Jackson Wang where do I even start? He’s one of the best rappers on campus, he’s a transfer student from Hong Kong, he’s an olympic level fencer and martial artist, and, I recently heard he and Jooheon went out for dinner a few days ago. Also, he’s super fit and basically shows off his body all the time at the gym.”

Hyunwoo flexes his arm as if trying to compare himself to some man he hasn’t even seen before and Kihyun mentally snickers because his embellished truths (lies) are working perfectly.

Truthfully, Jackson was a great fencer in hong kong, and he is part of the unofficial group of rappers that run the student led college hip hop station, but Jackson actually doesn’t consider himself a rapper. In his own words: “I’m a guy that raps, but I’m not actually a rapper.” Nobody really understands what that means, but Jackson always insists on saying that every time he’s challenged to a rap battle so people just assume it’s him being modest.

The dinner thing was technically true too, but it had also been a meet-up with two other students for a class project. So, basically the only full truth is that Jackson does have a great body, and everyone  knows about it only because of how much he blatantly shows it off all the time.

Kihyun drops his final bomb by whispering: “I’m pretty sure his type consists of cute, dimpled rappers too.”

That one is definitely true and the only reason Kihyun knows it is thanks to Hoseok’s accidental spying, who basically just happened to fall into the bush right outside the diner with Jooheon, Jackson, Eunbi, and Dahyun, and had seen just how smitten Jackson was during the entire dinner. Kihyun won’t even question how hoseok not only managed to trip right into a bush, but somehow remained there for the entire dinner without ever being discovered. Obviously, this is the main reason why they’re friends.

With that revelation, Changkyun shoots up straight from his previously fallen position against the couch and hurtles to the door.

Kihyun shouts after him, “Wow, Kihyun hyung thank you so much for graciously telling me all this information about my rival in love. I’ll be indebted to you forever, you’re the best hyung ever, I love you so-”

“Thanks Kihyun,” hyunwoo mutters to him as he sprints out the door after changkyun.

Kihyun feels inordinately smug about the flimsy plan he basically thought up about what, 5 minutes, ago?  He plans to lay back with some popcorn to watch the seeds he’s sown come to fruition. He’s such an amazing genius and that’s just him being humble. He should be getting an award for ending what’s about a decade of romantic tension at this point.

This time chasing off the rival definitely won’t be as easy for Changkyun and hyunwoo as their past competitors because his inside sources (again wonho eavesdropping in a bush) say that Jackson is actually crushin’ hard on a certain sweet-cheeked cutie. From what he’s seen, Jackson may also be just as stubborn as the both of them.

Either way, no matter how it turns out, this isn’t going to be an easy battle for anyone.

Kihyun cackles to himself inside the dorm, and the three men after Jooheon’s affections find themselves sneezing simultaneously.

Ch. 2 so why don’t i call you

It’s almost 10 minutes past five and Jackson clicks his pen nervously as he waits for Jooheon’s arrival.

He looks around the library to see multiple glares pointed at him, but somehow he can’t bring himself to care enough when the bigger problem is that his crush may have potentially bailed on him on their second date.

Well, not exactly date. He had asked Jooheon out under the guise of a tutoring session. But, then Jackson would totally count that group dinner as a first date because he’s sure there was definitely some romantic tension between them. At least when he had been intensely admiring Jooheon’s pretty profile and it had turned toward him, Jooheon had shyly made eye contact with him and giggled at his laser-focused vision instead of flinching away in rejection.

Jackson may be making a slight assumption, but he’s sure that somehow this study session can be turned into a make-out session, based on evidence from their previous “date.”

He’s always bluntly gone after what he’s wanted; after all he traveled all the way from Hong Kong to Korea and threw away his future career in fencing just so he could pursue music. This time is no different, except that, well, Jooheon’s a man, and in the past he had only pursued women. Hopefully, his flirting tactics with women will work just as well with men, especially with one Lee Jooheon.

-------------------------

When he had first met Jooheon a few weeks ago, it was in their early morning class concerning theories of knowledge and learning. Nobody was ever actually awake enough for this kind of theoretical bullshit, so Jackson had blindly fumbled for his mug of coffee to provide him with some semblance of comfort. In his drowsy struggle, he feels his elbow hit a soft lump beside him, presumably a fellow suffering student bundled up in the same old hoodie and sweatpants combo. As Jackson deliberates whether or not he was truly awake enough to apologize, the lump next to him shifts slightly, and he hears a mumbled “sorry.”  He instantaneously feels bad, since he, as the owner with the offending elbow, should’ve been the one to apologize, and he rubs roughly at his eyes to try and wake himself up, before turning to the other student to apologize. What he sees lodges his apology in his throat and rips away the veil of sleep from his eyes. The boy beside him is nestled into an oversized, purple hoodie, and almost his entire being is hidden from view, except for the ends of his fingers, which are peeking out of the end of frayed sleeves as small sweater paws. A head of curly brown hair emerges from the hood and Jackson takes in elegantly slanted eyes that still seem to be fluttering in drowsiness, and he finally manages to cough out his delayed apology.

“Uh, sorry man, I mean I was the one who elbowed you and everything, so you shouldn’t have apologized to me or anything. So yeah, sorry for my intrusive elbow.”

The other man grins up at him with half moon slits and ocean deep dimples, before replying in a light voice. “Hey, it’s no problem. Without coffee I’m basically incapable of basic coordination in the morning too, so you’re good.”

At this point Jackson is completely awake and paying the most amount of attention he’s ever paid all semester long. Granted, it was already pretty low to begin with, but at least for once he’s actually fully awake, instead of dozing off and composing strange raps about donkeys in his head.

(yes that was a thing that happened and he is not ashamed one bit to admit he actually wrote and recorded that rap later when he was fully awake).

Jackson swears he’s already “discreetly” checked out everyone in his class already, so he’s completely in a state of disbelief when faced with the fact that he’s somehow never noticed someone this pretty in his class for at least half a semester. There’s no way he’s going to lose track of this cutie, so he quickly seizes the opportunity to introduce himself.

“Hey, I don’t think we’ve ever met before? I’m Jackson, 22 years old, born in March, and your resident East Asian foreigner that just happens to speak 5 languages.”

The other man muffles a laugh into his sleeve, and Jackson swears if he does anything else this cute his heart will literally explode.

“Well, Mr. I-speak-5-languages, I’m Jooheon and let’s just say i speak 1.5 languages. I’m also 22, but I was born in October, so I guess you’re my hyung! ”

Now, Jackson’s never thought of himself as a particularly kinky or vanilla kind of guy, but Jooheon’s highly pitched hyung brings up images that definitely have nothing to do with formal korean speech. He’s not ready to deal with this newfound kink, so he asks about Jooheon’s apparent 1.5 languages instead.

“Sure, I may speak 5 languages, but I’ve never met anyone who can speak 1.5 languages. Are you sure you don’t just mean 2 languages?”

Jooheon scrunches his face up in thought and mumbles out, “I can’t speak English not well?” in a distinctly American accent. His attempt makes Jackson think of small toddlers, and it only makes him want to squish Jooheon’s full cheeks (even more so than he already does) and coo compliments at him.

Instead he scoffs a laugh and replies in English, “Yeah, I can see that.” However, he finds Jooheon’s efforts at mimicking a typical American speaker are entirely too endearing, (much like the rest of him). At Jackson’s perfect English, Jooheon’s eyes widen in surprise, and he exclaims, “You speak English? Oh my god that’s so amazing! I’ve always wanted to learn it, but there’s so many confusing parts that don’t make any sense.”

To Jackson, it had never seemed as confusing as Korean with all its strange syallbles and bubble-shaped characters. It had taken him a year to reach the level of basic fluency and literacy he is at now, but sometimes his accent still comes through, making his Korean a bit rough on the ears. Still, when Jooheon calls him amazing he can’t help but want to boast a little bit. There’s something about his wide eyed look that does wonders for Jackson’s ego.

“What? English is easy compared to Korean. I’ll rap for you sometime and you’ll be able to see the difference in how easy they are me.” Logically, Jackson really isn’t the best at writing Korean raps (except for his donkey one of which he will always be proud of), but he just wants to show off a little bit to impress the cutie in front of him.

Jooheon abruptly sits up from his previously sprawled position on the desk and stares at him with a scrutinizing gaze before asking, “Wait, are you the Jackson Wang? The one who helps run those weekly music livestreams? Dude, your weird rap about that donkey was absolutely hilarious! Based on that, your korean really isn’t half bad then.”

See! Jackson fucking knew that rap would come in handy one day, no matter what his  stupid “friends” had said about them. When (not if) Jooheon inevitably falls for him, it will be thanks to this, what he would like to call iconic, rap. And his great looks, obviously.

God bless you Michael for getting me a cute boyfriend, and he internally lifts two fingers to the sky in thanks to said donkey who probably has no idea how much of an effect he has had in Jackson’s life.

He’s snapped out of his celebration when he sees Jooheon fumble for something out of the corner of his eye. Jooheon silently offers him a white earbud (with adorable sweater paws), and Jackson slowly takes it with a raised suspicions. The other boy grins at his confused expression, and whispers as if he’s telling a secret: “I rap too.”

 Jackson has no time to reply as Jooheon immediately clicks play on his computer and a powerful beat fills his ears. The way that it seems to ricochet back and forth is so sick that Jackson feels absolutely compelled to dab. So he does. And so does Jooheon.

Oh my fucking god he’s found his soulmate, this absolutely proves it. That’s it Jackson is going to propose right--

As he opens his mouth to declare their engagement, Jooheon quickly claps a sweater clad hand over it and glares at him. His actions become clear when the song stops with a loud announcement of “JOOHEON” before flowing into a rap that’s so distinct from the high pitched voice, to the pounding beat that it has Jackson completely impressed. The rapper’s aura is nothing short of powerful, and the dynamics of his voice are so complex, continually shifting from short yelps to drawn out syllables that all echo with impact.

By the time it’s finished all Jackson can do is stare at the computer blankly in shock. The flickering timestamp tells him what he just listened to was only a minute long, and the track still seems to be messily layered. So apparently the song that blew his mind was only a demo.

An unfinished demo.

“What the fuck.”

Jooheon only looks up, expectantly smug at him, before slyly asking, “Is that all you have to say?”

The other student can only sputter as he tries to come up with the words to describe the mess that is currently his state of mind right now. It was an absolute surprise that someone so soft could spit such fiery raps of the intensity he just listened to. Honestly, Jackson is still trying to process it. It almost doesn’t correlate, but there’s something about the glint in the other man’s eyes and the pull of his lips that hints to the abundant energy he had heard in the demo.

NOT SURE WHERE BUT AT ONE POINT WRITE ONE WHERE JOOHEON HAS PROBLEM PUTTING ON MIC OR NAMETAG OR SOMETHING AND THEY ALL RUSH TO HELP HIM. OR HE RUSHES OFF STAGE SWEATY AND ALL THREE FLOCK TO HIM.

ALSO JACKSON RUSHING AT JOOHEON AND PICKING HIM UP.

Did i find someone I like? That person is different from anyone else, bright and innocent. It’s like...when i see them...my heart keeps….anyways it’s like that.” Drinks water to divert embarrassment away for himself.

speaking/changing to calling jooheon informally. Calls him honey/babe instead.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLOF4WMWoKU

Jooheon and hyunwoo partner dance- inspired by sunmi 24 hours

Or like they have to film something and he gets really embarrassed when the camera zooms up close.

Omg everyone gets really jealous when jooheon and seulgi have pure friendship, obviously can’t chase off a girl so they try to slightly intimidate her, but she’s so sweet and she already  knows.

Maybe it’s absolutely adorable when Jooheon is jealous of hyunwoo’s relationship with hyolyn.

Jooheon hanging out with friends: jin, rapmon, suga, chanyeol, etc…

Jackson inviting jooheon onto his talk show, and by proxy hyunwoo and changkyun, and then insert scene of helping him with the mic.

During october scene, haunted house scene where they all drag Jooheon into a haunted house with the goal of getting to protect him and being able to wrap an arm around him. Of course ends up arguing about who gets to go with him and in that process actually loses him in the maze. End up looking for him for forever and eventually have to leave. Of course, leave the maze stressed and tired and sees jooheon talking with some guy with red hair and big ears. Hilarious if Chanyeol actually ended up getting a date with jooheon.

Jooheon w/ his stage outfit, “what do you guys think of my earring?” and shows it off adorably

Kihyun photographer: jooheon and hyunwoo together to advertise some clothing? That one where they’re back to back

stay right next me (so i won't let you go) - abo au

“I find you oddly hot when you get mad?? I’m sorry???”

He’s never seen hyunwoo this mad before, and, shit, it’s kinda hot?

In which hyunwoo and jooheon have been long term friends, and hyunwoo’s the sweetest, least aggressive alpha ever. Except that he suddenly punches a guy, and, shit, jooheon finds it kinda hot??

A/B/O fic with alpha hyunwoo and omega jooheon, have known each other for a long time, and hyunwoo’s always been the sweetest, most docile alpha jooheon’s ever known so he’s completely surprised when one day he actually punches a guy behind them in line with no warning at all.

It’s fall season, and that means Jooheon will do anything to get his cup of very much needed coffee for his upcoming exams. He shivers in his threadbare hoodie as he waits for a certain tall, muscled alpha to arrive, and hopefully, pay for his americano. Who will, apparently, also be 5 minutes late according to a notification from Line. He pouts crossly at his phone and sends back a rapid fire sticker, expressing his discontent with a screaming bunny. The wind whistles through the air again and Jooheon hunches over in discomfort as he feels it flow through his thin clothing and creep past his stomach. His heat’s coming up soon, and he really doesn’t think standing in the cold is the best way to make the tight cramps in his abdomen go away. He swears if Hyunwoo doesn’t show up right now he’s just going to leave and go back to his warm dorm without telling him at all.

Then he can come and wait on his own and feel how terribly cold it was for Jooheon out here. He takes some sadistic pleasure at that thought and people stare as he chuckles to himself, crouched alone in front of the coffee shop.

Just as he’s about to text Hyunwoo again, he’s suddenly encompassed in soft warmth and he looks up to see said man draping a jacket around his shoulders. It smells so good and safe to him, like vanilla candles lit by the fire, that Jooheon can’t help but to wrap it just a little tighter around himself.

The other man quickly herds him into the warm cafe before scolding him. “Why didn’t you wait inside for me?” before worriedly whispering, “I know that you’re close to heat. You shouldn’t have even been outside waiting by yourself.”

It warms Jooheon’s heart that his friend knows his own heat cycle even better than he does himself, and he can’t help but want to bask in the warmth of his love a little more. “Why should I be worried when I know there’s a strong, manly, oh-so-amazing alpha right here to protect me? Or am I wrong about that?”

Said alpha only looks mildly disgruntled before telling him, “Flattery will get you nowhere,” but then quietly adds, “you know I’d do anything to protect you.”

It’s so sweet of a reply that it makes Jooheon’s sappy little omega heart pound so hard that he ducks his face into Hyunwoo’s arm to hide his probably apparent embarrassment. “Thanks daddy, you’re so sweet!”

The alpha tenses his arm before asking him with a strangled voice, “Do you have to keep calling me that?”

It’s honestly become kind of an inside joke within their friend group: Kihyun’s the mom and Hyunwoo’s the dad, and they take care of everyone else as the kids. Of course, it’s only a thing because Kihyun somehow does all the chores and cooking, and Hyunwoo emulates the silent, responsible father figure. Kihyun’s actually mated to Hoseok, and Hyunwoo and Kihyun are definitely not an official couple, or else there’s no way Jooheon would be actually okay with referring to Kihyun as mom. He doesn’t want to make Hyunwoo uncomfortable though, but he never seemed to care when the others called him dad or daddy in jest. Is he just annoyed with Jooheon?

The omega unconsciously nuzzles into his arm, as if trying to reassure himself and the alpha, before quietly mumbling, “If you’re annoyed, you can just tell me to stop. I’m sorry if me calling you that makes you feel uncomfortable. It’s just, you’ve never been mad at the others calling you that?”

And it’s true. Changkyun will teasingly call him old man in the mornings and all Hyunwoo will do is grunt affectionately at him. Minhyuk can eagerly yell out a “dad, I’m leaving” and hyunwoo will automatically reply with a simple “ok. Have fun.” But whenever Jooheon does it the alpha always looks tense or strained and usually will stay painfully silent. Jooheon can’t help but to tease, but sometimes he secretly wonders if Hyunwoo dislikes him or something.

Hyunwoo sighs heavily before running a hand roughly through his hair, and Jooheon is terribly distracted by how good he looks that he misses the other’s quiet reply.

“Wait, what, sorry I wasn’t listening. Could you repeat it again? Please?”

The other man only looks soullessly into the distance before telling him, “Nevermind...it’s really...not that important.”

Jooheon only yanks stubbornly on his arm because there’s no way he’s letting this go unsaid. “So? Are you mad at me or something?”

The alpha gets a strangely determined look in his eyes before quickly turning to Jooheon and vehemently tells him, “No, there’s no way I’d ever be mad or annoyed with you.”

This answer doesn’t satisfy the omega at all and he only whines even more. “Then why? You’re being so vague! Can’t you just give me a specific reason?”

Hyunwoo starts to look guilty and he starts mumbling out a reply. “Well, i mean, it’s not, or at least directly, not your fault. It’s just kind of an issue that’s, um…”

Just as he’s about the spill the beans Jooheon feels someone harshly knock into him, which causes him to trip onto Hyunwoo, knocking them both back a few steps. The other man has his hands securely gripped onto Jooheon’s arms to keep him upright, which would usually make him giddy with joy, but really, at the moment, he just wants to give the asshole who pushed him a piece of his mind. And his fist. Maybe.

As Jooheon is about to go fucking fight this guy, Hyunwoo suddenly pushes him behind his back and approaches the guy instead. He can only stand there with in surprise because literally hyunwoo has never been the guy to approach conflict. The asshole only smirks cockily and whispers something between them before gesturing lewdly towards Jooheon and laughing. It must be just be another rude, self-entitled, alpha who thinks omegas exist solely for their sexual pleasure and Jooheon almost sighs at how mundane this is. Honestly, this is probably some stupid battle concerning alpha ego and dominance, and Jooheon almost feels disappointed that Hyunwoo wasn’t actually defending his honor or something. Almost.

He decides it’s better that it’s probably better no fights break out, and heads toward the two alphas who appear to be engaged in a staring contest to yank his away so they can actually do what they came here for. It looks like the two might have settled things on their own as the one that pushed Jooheon turns to walk away, but not before he mouths a derogatory “bitch” towards the omega. It’s absolutely disgusting and Jooheon definitely would have walked up to him and beat his ass if hyunwoo hadn’t immediately grappled the guy onto the floor and punched him straight across the face.

Jooheon can only stand there in complete shock as he watches Hyunwoo beat the living shit out of the alpha on the floor. There’s ringing in his ears and oh my god is he having an out of body experience? Everything seems to blur out around him and all he can focus on is the blood rushing through his ears and the crack of hyunwoo’s knuckles against the other man’s face. This is the first time in his 22 years of life he has ever seen the other alpha engage, much less commence, in any sort of violence, and he realizes that there is no protocol for what to do in the event that hyunwoo beats someone up. The look of pure rage on the alpha’s face makes his head spin and suddenly his stomach cramps up in a surge of pain and heat, and in the next moment he realizes that somehow he’s no longer standing on two feet, but planted with his butt on the ground.

The thump of Jooheon’s fall finally brings Hyunwoo out of his raged frenzy and he looks up to see the omega flushed and shaking against the floor. Every ounce of anger drains out of him, and he rushes off of the other alpha without even looking down to press his palms against Jooheon’s cheeks. They’re unnaturally hot, even against Hyunwoo’s torn knuckles, and the omega looks almost delirious. Hyunwoo leans forward to press his forehead against Jooheon’s to check for fever, and in that moment, his nose brushes just a little too closely to a scent gland, and, shit, he literally has to use every ounce of his self-control to will an erection away because right now is neither the appropriate time nor place for him to admit his attraction for the omega, and preferably not for the first time to be through his dick either.

Jooheon immediately leans towards him and lets out a low pitched moan when he breathes in Hyunwoo’s own heightened scent. The scent of honey and daisies grows even stronger, and all the alpha wants to do is to bury his face deep into Jooheon’s neck and lick into the scent gland there, because he’s convinced the omega will taste just as sweet as he smells.

However, logically, reasonably, Hyunwoo knows both of them are high off of an induced rut and heat, and he would never do anything to the other man without his explicit consent.

And right now, with glazed eyes and flushed cheeks, he really doesn’t think the omega is capable of giving it to him.

The best thing to do now would be to rush Jooheon back to the dorms, hand him off to Kihyun and Hyungwon, and then lock himself in his room and contemplate his every single mistake in life, while also hopefully working through his rut to thoughts of the omega in the shower.

Hyunwoo moves to stand up, and Jooheon immediately latches his arms around his neck to pull him back down, so he just lifts him up entirely by the waist and sets him down on his feet. Jooheon in heat must apparently find this absolutely hilarious, and he giggles sweetly into the alpha’s ear before pressing a soft kiss against his cheek. Hyunwoo uses every last string of control to hold on to his sanity and restraint, and he gently unlatches Jooheon’s arms from around his neck and takes a single one in hand to lead him out the door. Everyone stares pointedly at them, and he resolves that it’s probably best that neither of them ever come back to this cafe ever again.

Just as he feels the cold wind whip against his face through the open door the asshole on the floor lazily shouts after him, “Can’t take care of your bitch well enough? Why don’t you hand him over to me, and i’ll show him what a true alpha can do.”

Hyunwoo feels every bit of anger rush back up to his head again, and he impulsively turns with a raised fist in challenge, but suddenly Jooheon’s in front of him. And kissing him. With his mouth. On his mouth. Oh God.

Shit, this wasn’t supposed to have happened like this. Hyunwoo was supposed to have declared his love on a starry night, and Jooheon was supposed to have told him yes a million times, and they were supposed to have consummated their bond together like a pair of mature and consenting adults.

Fuck he just took Jooheon’s first kiss (at least with him) under the mess of heat didn’t he?

(Hyunwoo’s a terrible, terrible, person and an even worse friend for enjoying this kiss as much as he is right now.)

It’s wet and messy, and it’s obvious Jooheon doesn’t know what he’s doing, but Hyunwoo can’t help but lick deeper into the omega’s mouth chasing the sweet taste of honey and caramel. His mouth feels just as soft and full as it’s always looked, and Hyunwoo finds himself biting down softly on a plush bottom lip. Jooheon mewls lightly and the alpha finally manages to tear himself off of his lips when a wolf whistle emerges from a crowd that has apparently gathered behind them in the cafe.

Hyunwoo makes the mistake of looking down, and the other man looks absolutely ravished with swollen, red lips that are still parted as if asking Hyunwoo to kiss him again. Jooheon looks up towards him with wide, innocent eyes and takes a plush bottom lip between his teeth before releasing it with an audible pop.

Enough. Hyunwoo’s control is seriously going to snap if he keeps looking, so he physically turns away, gropes for the omega’s wrist, and marches them out of the cafe and into the cold, autumn air.  

The door jangles behind them and he can only grimace as he hears a “have good day” called out to them.

----------------------

The entire way back to the dorms, Hyunwoo resolves NOT to look back no matter what. As long as he never lets go of Jooheon they should be able to make it back without something else happening. The omega trots docilely behind him, occasionally catching up enough to nuzzle against his back, or releasing whiny calls of “Hyung wait,” or even worse “Daddy, slow down!”

Really, he had never been annoyed at him for calling him that. He’s never been mad even. All he’s felt is a confusing stir of heat in his gut every time Jooheon had addressed him that way - with a pleading pout or a dimpled smile. He swears he’s never been into this kind of kink before, but there’s something about it when Jooheon calls him “Daddy” that makes him want sweep the omega into his arms and pledge to protect him from the whole world.

Yeah, that’s not extreme at all, is it.

(fuck he’s got it bad).

It’s even worse when the others join in on the teasing because then all Hyunwoo can literally think of is Jooheon calling him “Daddy”, echoing through his mind and producing mental images that he does not need to see at 3 a.m. when he shares a room with 3 other people, thank you very much.

The stop at a crosswalk and Jooheon immediately latches himself onto Hyunwoo’s arm and intertwines their fingers tightly together. He’s always been physically affectionate, but the way he rubs against his arm speaks nothing of friendly attraction now. The longer they stand here, the heavier Jooheon’s scent grows and the more heated glances he attracts from surrounding alphas. Hyunwoo can feel his own alpha internally responding to the challenge and he unconsciously releases more of his own musk to try and cover up the omega’s sweet scent. The other guys immediately turn away, and he almost feels guilty for staking a claim like this on such an unaware Jooheon in public. But he reminds himself this is for the other man’s good. The stares had been covetous and leery, so he had only made a scent claim to protect Jooheon from them.

When he looks down at him, the omega’s smiling happily up at him, and he exclaims in his signature aegyo voice, “Thank you for protecting me daddy!” Everything about it is so fucking adorable, and it only makes Hyunwoo feel worse about how he’s taken advantage of Jooheon’s situation. Granted, it was all situational and unintentional, but still. Still. He’s so pure, so sweet, and he doesn’t deserve to have to be freezing in the cold with such an irresponsible alpha. He internally mutters an apology to jesus and god and whoever he offended in his life to deserve this. Jooheon only obliviously presses himself even closer, as if he’s trying to get rid of any space in between them.

After what seems to be an eternity, the light finally turns green and Hyunwoo wrenches his arm out of Jooheon’s octopus grip and drags him across the street with their still intertwined hands. There’s no way they can stay in such close contact for much longer without something going wrong - like, per say, hyunwoo’s control snapping and he’ll somehow end up forcing himself onto the omega, who, under heat, obviously won’t be able to say no. The simmering burn in his stomach finally goes cold, at least for a moment, at this chillingly realistic circumstance, and hyunwoo can only quicken his steps and hope they’ll reach the dorms before time runs out.

After what seems to be two million crosswalks, the omega dorms finally come into view, and Hyunwoo can finally breath a sigh of relief. Their dorms allow inter-orientation mingling as long as there is clear consent on all sides. Unfortunately, this may be the only time he takes advantage of Jooheon’s confused state, if only to safely get him upstairs.

At the door he quickly stops to text Kihyun and warn him about the oncoming bundle of emotional, loud, and about-to-hit-heat omega he’s going to have to deal with for the next five days. Hyunwoo knows that Jooheon’s only been this calm for so long because of his presence, and, no, he’s not some overconfident asshole, but it’s because at an instinctual level the omega is soothed at the fact that there’s an alpha that’s already present to take care of it, even before its peak heat has hit. Of course there’s nothing wrong with a beta, or another omega even, but an alpha’s knot has always been the fastest and simplest way to break heat. That’s just a simple fact, and Jooheon’s free to choose whoever he wants to spend his heats with as long as he’s happy. Not that Hyunwoo hasn’t imagined, during 3 am delusions, pressing himself into the omega’s tight heat, biting a bonding mark against a taut, pale throat, or just waking up to see Jooheon with a bed-head, cuddled up against him, bathed in early morning rays.

Nope, not at all.

His phone pings and pulls him out of his (terrible, terrible) thoughts, and he sees that Kihyun has finally decided to reply.

Kihyun: wait are u fucking serious right now

Kihyun: nvmd of course you are why would i expect you of all people to joke about          that

Kihyun: has anything happened between you two??????

Why is Kihyun asking about this now, when they should be immediately rushing Jooheon upstairs? Hyunwoo grits his teeth in frustration and frantically sends a text in reply.

loving husband: should that matter right now?????????? When he’s literally about to go into heat?????

loving husband: please i need you to get him upstairs before something bad happens

Hyunwoo can only pray Kihyun doesn’t decide to keep nagging and actually come down and help him. He doesn’t trust himself alone to bring Jooheon upstairs to a room that smells entirely like him, that would probably also happen to contain a bed that’s soaked in his scent, and not be pulled in to do something horrible. The least he can do now is, he decides, is that they can wait in the lobby area, where there will be some semblance of warmth.

He pulls in a limpet-like Jooheon into the building, and the girl at the counter smiles knowingly at them. Hyunwoo tries to raise his arm in protest, but Jooheon only pushes closer against him, and she coos cutely at them. Just as he’s about to raise his voice to correct her assumptions, the elevator dings, and he sees a pink head among the group of students exiting the elevator. The pink head identifies itself as Kihyun, and he swears this must be what the disciples felt when they saw Jesus resurrected because thank the lord Kihyun’s saved him from committing what would probably be judged as sexual assault.

Finally, Kihyun manages to separate himself from the crowd and Hyunwoo, and by proxy Jooheon, stride up to meet him. He’s just about to hand the omega off to Kihyun and then be free to go return to his room and contemplate how terrible his choices are, when he sees that the other omega looks vaguely amused.

“What are you finding so funny about this?”

Kihyun only grins wider and answers his question with his own. “The fact that he probably tried to kiss you and that you’re definitely still freaked out about that.”

His statement is terrifyingly accurate, and Kihyun takes his shocked silence as an affirmative that he was right.

The other alpha can only mumble out, “He tried and succeeded. Twice.”

The pink haired omega erupts into obnoxious laughter, and it’s apparently hilarious to everyone except Hyunwoo, because he can even feel tiny giggles from his arm, where Jooheon’s still latched himself onto.

Kihyun exaggeratedly wipes a tear from his eye and teases, “Why do you look so glum about it then, Mr. I’ve-loved-Lee-Jooheon-for-more-than-2-years-but-I’m-too-chicken-to-admit-it, hmm?”

Just remembering the kisses in the cafe makes Hyunwoo’s heart clench, but they were carried out under the frenzy of heat, and there’s no way of knowing for sure whether he truly meant those or whether he was just desperate for human contact. He tells Kihyun, “In his state, Jooheon would probably kiss anyone at this point, even you.” He grimaces at that image, because just no. Please no.

Kihyun only glares back up at him and hums out, “Yeah, I definitely don’t think so, “ before sighing and almost muttering to himself, “and you would realize this too, if the two of you weren’t so terribly oblivious.”

Hyunwoo chooses to ignore Kihyun’s quip because he’s pretty sure from the way Jooheon smiles at that alpha Jackson, or even the way he melts into Changkyun’s hugs, that there’s no chance for him.

“Either way can you just take him upstairs and make sure he safely rides out his heat?”

(It’s cruel of him, but a small part of him thinks “preferably alone.”)

Kihyun only has to take one glance at how tightly attached Jooheon is to the alpha’s arm before shaking his head. “No way. You know he only made it this far because you were there, right? If I had to separate him on my own, I’m pretty sure one of us might actually be maimed in the process. You’re definitely coming up with me, and we’re probably going to need Hyungwon too.”

They pile into the elevator and Hyunwoo texts the other omega to meet them in front of Jooheon’s room, praying to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, and any other deities he can think of that Hyungwon isn’t asleep.

Thankfully, the Lord decides that he’s had enough of torturing Hyunwoo for one day and his phone quickly pings back with a reply:

Hyungwon: wait why

Hyungwon: are you guys finally overcoming ten thousand years of sexual tension and actually fucking it out

Hyungwon: congrats (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ but i’m good. I don’t need to see it in person please

Hyun(g)woo ʕ•͡ ᴥ•͡  ʔ: no please he’s about to hit his heat and there’s no way kihyun and i can separate him by ourselves

Hyun(g)woo ʕ•͡ ᴥ•͡  ʔ: help

Hyungwon: omg ok fuck i’m coming

They finally reach Jooheon’s floor, and the omega shifts restlessly against his arm seeming to know that it’s reached the metaphorical mating place. They find Hyungwon fidgeting nervously in front of Jooheon’s door, and Hyunwoo mentally braces himself for the oncoming struggle. Kihyun unlocks the omega’s door, because apparently he has a copy of everyone’s keys like the mom he is, and the other two omegas herd Hyunwoo and Jooheon into the room.

Hyunwoo immediately feels his senses cloud up with the sweet scent of honey, and he seriously just wants to sit down and bask in it for hours, but Kihyun quickly slaps him harshly on the neck to bring him out of it. The three of them make eye contact and mentally agree on the count of three to separate Jooheon from his arm.

One: Kihyun and Hyungwon slowly start to move toward an unsuspecting Jooheon.

Two: Hyunwoo carefully angles himself towards the door as the other two omegas position themselves on either side of the one attached to his arm.

Three and everything falls into chaos.

Hyungwon and Kihyun grab Jooheon by the waist while Hyunwoo simultaneously rushes toward the door. However, they all underestimate the strength of a desperate omega in heat, and the Hyunwoo swears he’s pulled back so hard that he hears a pop. Kihyun and Hyungwon try to grab tighter onto Jooheon’s waist, but then Jooheon only latches on even harder to Hyunwoo.

The omega looks up at him with, oh no, teary eyes and whimpers, “Please, daddy stay with me?”

The other two look at him questioningly, and he shakes his head subtly as if to say “please don’t ask me right now.” For once, Kihyun decides to not to take advantage of Hyunwoo’s moment of weakness, and instead he uses his mom voice to try and soothingly convince Jooheon to let go.

“Please, Jooheon-ah, we need you to let go of Hyunwoo-hyung, ok?”

It completely backfires because Jooheon only lets out a fierce “No!” before pulling even harder on Hyunwoo’s arm. It turns into a back and forth between three omegas and one alpha, and Hyunwoo has a moment where he blankly stares off into space at the realization of how silly this must all look. Imagine one overly lanky omega along with a terribly short one, both tugging at one that’s absolutely hysterical, who all the while is yanking onto a adamantly resisting alpha, and you have the exact picture of what is happening right now.

Suddenly, Jooheon let’s out a pained moan, and his grip quickly loosens, and the other two gain the leverage they need to pull him back off of Hyunwoo. However, at the last second the omega manages to recover, and he grips harshly onto the alpha’s broad hand to try and pull him back. At this point, the scent of honey and daisies is so strong in the room that Hyunwoo can feel his knees start to grow weak. He doesn’t think he can stay in here any longer without giving in to his instincts, so he does the only thing his delirious mind can think of right now: he kisses Jooheon.

It’s terribly angled and their teeth clink and noses bump, but it’s just as perfect, if not better than the one in the cafe. The omega is stunned into stillness, and his grip finally loosens enough that Hyunwoo can slip his hand away. Jooheon moans sweetly against his lips, and Hyunwoo tells himself he has to stop before it gets too far. He licks into the other man’s mouth one last time before finally pulling himself away and actually sprints towards the door. Just as he steps out and turns around to close the door behind him, he sees the look on Jooheon’s face, and it makes him feel like a terrible person all over again. The omega’s eyes are filming over with unshed tears, and he looks positively heartbroken to see Hyunwoo leave him like this. The alpha only tells himself it’s just biology, and that this is for Jooheon’s own good before decisively clicking the door shut. He repeats this mantra over and over again to himself all the way down to the lobby, even as the omega’s watering eyes flash through his mind every time he tries to think of anything else. He feels his gut churn with guilt, only getting worse thinking about the kiss that just happened, because deep down he admits he didn’t do it as a distraction technique, but simply because he wanted to. He wanted to ravish Jooheon silly, kiss him for hours until their lips become bruised and bitten, and then continue to kiss him even more until they both lose track of any sense of time.

The girl in the lobby looks up in surprise at his arrival and asks, “Leaving so soon? I thought you were spending heat together.” Hyunwoo can only shake his head in reply, not trusting his voice to give away just how terrible he feels right now. The girl can only look meekly apologetic before squeaking out, “Well, um, better luck next time right? Plenty of fish in the sea and all that...” The alpha nods blankly because that’s what he’s been trying to tell himself for years, but, nope, he is still definitely very much in love with one Lee Jooheon.

And probably will be for a long time.

--------------------------------------

It’s chilly on the way back to the dorms, and Hyunwoo realizes he’s left his jacket with Jooheon. He can only imagine the state he would get it back in: his scent intermingled so heavily with the omega’s own that no amount of bleaching and washing would ever be able to get it out again. Hyunwoo’s mind wanders and the image of Jooheon swathed in his jacket with nothing else on, writhing against it in the throes of heat, calling out- no, nope, he’s going to stop himself right there before he manages to give himself an aneurysm. Jooheon’s most likely miserable right now and he’s probably long ditched any semblance of clothing to relieve himself, one of which would include Hyunwoo’s jacket. That jacket had been one of his favorites, and he almost regrets losing it like this, but when he thinks back to the omega shivering in the cold he knows he would give it away again with no hesitation at all.

He finally reaches his dorm, and as he passes the lobby to head upstairs, the usually dozing supervisor snaps his head up with surprising alertness. He whips his head around to see Hyunwoo and cranes his neck to check if someone’s behind him.

“Where’s the omega?” he asks suspiciously, as if Hyunwoo is secretly trying to smuggle one into the dorm.

“There isn’t one.” Hyunwoo growls out angrily because if he has one more person assuming something about him and Jooheon he’s seriously going to snap.

The other alpha raises his hands in a placating manner and shrinks back against the counter. “Yo, ok, sorry, calm down. I wasn’t trying to imply anything, but, like, you should know that you literally smell so strongly of honey right now I’m pretty sure an actual bear would come after you.”

He puts a hand up to his mouth and leans in to faux whisper, “I’m just saying, a lot of guys will be coming back around this time, and you should really get rid of those clothes if you don’t wanna get mauled.”

Oh shit, Hyunwoo hadn’t thought about that at all. Jooheon had been attached to him all afternoon, and he had eventually gotten used to being covered in his sweet scent, but there’s no way at least one alpha in a whole building of them won’t notice the distinct smell of honey mixed in with their usual alpha musk. Hyunwoo really doesn’t want any alphas tracking Jooheon down, especially during his heat week, and he resolves to rush upstairs as quickly as he can. He nods in thanks towards the receptionist, and he receives a thumbs up in reply along with an exclaimed “hurry!”

There’s already three alphas standing in front of the elevator, so he quickly turns to the stairs instead. Hopefully, all his years of dancing have given him the stamina he needs to sprint up three flights of stairs, and he quickly starts his run up to his room. He occasionally encounters a lone alpha leisurely walking down who’ll stare strangely after him, but it’s probably due to his rushed running rather than the scent of honey clinging to him. Hyunwoo finally makes it to the third floor and he pushes open the stair door to reveal a silent hallway. Thank the lord because after three flights of stairs, he really doesn’t think he can run any longer. As he walks down the hallway he fumbles his pockets for his room key, but he just can’t seem to find it.

Shit, it was in his jacket wasn’t it.

Fuck fuck fuck he swears if Changkyun isn’t back he’s going to have to go hide in the dorm’s public restrooms for hours. He doesn’t know if it would be better to bang at the door or to actually text the other man. Changkyun is often terribly selective about when he chooses to reply to his texts, but he doesn’t really want to risk bringing attention to himself by banging the door.

Text it is then.

old man: hey open the door i’m back

old man: fucking now i’m not joking today

Hyunwoo swears he will ram the door through if he has to, and he angrily taps his foot against the door.

Changkyun: jeez ok ok what’s got your panties in a twist

The door finally clicks open and Hyunwoo roughly pushes his way in, accidentally shoving Changkyun to the side in the process. The smaller alpha angrily slams their door shut and growls out, “Jesus christ, what’s wrong with you today? You’re not usually this much of a fucking asshole most of the time!”  

Hyunwoo can feel his own hackles rise at the unintentional challenge, and he uses his height advantage to loom angrily over the other man. He rips off his old hoodie and angrily thrusts it into Changkyun’s face. His roommate opens his mouth as if to ask “what the fuck do you expect me to do with this”, but he suddenly snaps his mouth shut and takes a long drawl in through his nose.

The other alpha rips the piece of clothing from his grip and buries his nose into it, breathing in the lingering scent deeply. The entranced look he gets in his eyes makes Hyunwoo’s stomach pull possessively at the thought of allowing another alpha to breath in Jooheon’s scent, and he quickly grabs his hoodie back from Changkyun. The other man shakes his head as he snaps himself out of his scent-induced trance, and he blinks slowly up at Hyunwoo.

Changkyun opens and closes his mouth a few times and finally seems to recover his ability of speech and asks, “That was Jooheon hyung right?” before drifting closer to Hyunwoo and inhaling again with closed eyes. Hyunwoo tries to pull away, but Changkyun grabs onto his arm with surprising strength

and bites his shoulder.

Ok, Jooheon’s scent apparently does crazy shit to people because never in his life did Hyunwoo ever think Changkyun’s mouth would be anywhere near his shoulder. Changkyun’s tongue is wet and slimy and disgusting, and Hyunwoo asks what the fuck he ever did to deserve this, as he abruptly pushes Changkyun’s face off his arm.

The other alpha looks mad for a second before finally realizing what he just did, and he buries his face into his hands with a muffled scream. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me, but your arm just smelled really good from far away.” The awkward silence that follows leaves both of them considering whether or not they should request for a roommate change, but they both individually decide against it on the mutual basis to protect Jooheon’s scent from other alphas.

It’s kind of obvious, except to Jooheon of course, how much of a crush Changkyun and Hyunwoo have had on the omega ever since their little group got together in college. Of course everyone also knows just how adorably smitten Jooheon is with Hyunwoo.

Except for Hyunwoo, of course.

It’s honestly painful to watch, especially for Changkyun who’s acknowledged that he has about, let’s say, a zero percent chance with the other omega.

However, in moments like these, surrounded in Jooheon’s scent, he thinks about selfishly breaking the omega’s heart and then recovering the pieces for himself.

It’s cruel and horrible, and Changkyun hopes he’ll never do something like that as long as Hyunwoo hopefully manages to realize his own idiocy before he’s punished for it.  

He fidgets and blushes before looking away and mumbling, “You should really take a shower,” before pointedly looking at the fallen hoodie, “I could take care of your clothes while you wash…”

Hyunwoo squints suspiciously at him, and Changkyun sputters to correct him. “NO, that’s not what I meant. Like, I’ll throw them in the washing machine for you, ok? The scent should still be able to come out, so I’ll just use more detergent than normal.”

The stare intensely at each other, one questioning the other’s motives, and the other bitterly laughing at the other’s idiocy. Knowing Hyunwoo, Jooheon probably rubbed himself all over the other man, but he probably just thought it was the omega caught in the thralls of heat. No omega, no matter how desperate, would ever allow themselves to be so vulnerable during heat with an alpha they didn’t trust. The fact that Jooheon’s scent is all over Hyunwoo should’ve shown him just how willing the omega had been.

He wants to scream at the other alpha for being so stupid, because if it was him in his position there’s no way he wouldn’t be back there helping Jooheon through his heat, instead of standing here like a dumbass. Of course, if he decides to tell Hyunwoo that, they’d probably end up coming to an exchange of fists, and Changkyun would definitely not come out of that one with all his limbs intact.

The only person Hyunwoo would truly listen to is Jooheon, and the omega is just as painfully oblivious as he is.

Hyunwoo finally nods his assent and he strips off his shirt and pants and hands them over to Changkyun’s waiting arms. Changkyun decidedly looks away from the alpha’s toned body and focuses on taking the clothes instead.

He’s always been bitter about his short stature and lanky shape. Imagine his surprise and following disappointment when he tested affirmative as an alpha, yet completely stopped growing altogether in bulk and height. It’s even worse when he has to compare himself to his roommate, who besides looking like the stereotypical alpha just also happens to have the heart of the omega he loves.

(And he doesn’t even know it)

When he looks their way sometimes, they always look so perfect together: Jooheon tucked perfectly against Hyunwoo’s side, Hyunwoo being at the perfect height to press his lips against the omega’s forehead, and the omega’s frame encompassed nicely by Hyunwoo’s own broader one. His heart hurts at the sight because they look so happy and completely made for each other, and Changkyun wishes, he pleads, that it could be him.

But when he embraces Jooheon he always has to look just slightly up, and the omega’s build has always been a tad too broad to fit comfortably in his skinny arms. His gloriously thick thighs look equally as magnificent in Hyunwoo’s lap, but so inadequate set against Changkyun’s own.

Don’t get him wrong, he likes, even loves himself, but next to to an alpha like Hyunwoo, he just isn’t enough. The most unfair part is that Hyunwoo refuses to acknowledge any of this, of how perfect he and Jooheon would be for each other, and Changkyun feels rightfully petty in admitting he would actually kill to be in the other alpha’s place.

It doesn’t matter at this point, he thinks as he unceremoniously dumps the lump of clothing into the machine and pours in a sloppy amount of detergent. He angrily punches a random setting in, and the washing machine slowly rattles to life underneath him. The scent of honey still lingers on his hands and he can only think about how that scent got to be on him in the first place.

Through another alpha.

And never directly from Jooheon himself.

He plops himself onto the washing machine and waits, the smell of honey still adamantly clinging to his skin. It’ll come off easily, but he decides to stay here a little longer and let himself bask in it for a while more.

After all, what other chances does he have?

---------------------------------------------------------

The hot water beats rawly upon Hyunwoo’s skin as he scrubs into it with as much force as possible. The muggy heat along with the scent of honey floating in the air sets his head spinning, and he sways dangerously in his upright position. He can’t tell if he’s actually cleaning the pheromones off of him, or if they’re only getting stronger and lifting off of his skin to fill up his and Changkyun’s shared bathroom. Either way it’s making his stomach turn in the worst ways possible, so in an attempt to cool his burning body and mind, he squeaks the shower handle all the way towards the right to turn the water freezing cold.

The crappy showerhead fizzles at the sudden temperature change and the spray becomes more of a trickling stream as it tries to adjust from hot to cold water. After a few moments, it finally changes back into a angle that’s wide enough to meagerly cover the breadth of his shoulders, and Hyunwoo forces himself to step under the freezing water.

The immediate shock of the first drop against his skin battles effectively against the simmering skin under his skin. However, as it goes on

That face with jooheon looking up longingly at shownu and shownu not noticing, and vice versa later. Pulling him down and giggling into his ear, both seem lost in their own worlds, and changkyun can only look on bitterly.

During heat, jooheon hallucinates riding and fucking himself on hyunwoo’s cock, resting his hands on a muscled chest, feeling ripped arms tighten around him, holding him down. It gets him soaking wet like nothing else, and there’s no way he’ll ever be able to innocently look Hyunwoo in the eye again. Also, the sheets are definitely going in the fire because even after a thorough wash they’re most likely going to be stained with his slick forever.

[happycakestories]

old mx fic dump pt. 4:

that one hybrid au i deleted but uhhh here it is in its unfinished form

Chapter 4: it’s so typical to say i like you (but i do) / everyday you make my heart race (but you can’t find out)

Title of series - to be young and in love

Series summary: a cheesy monsta x hybrid au

First work - hold my hand (I’ve been waiting for you)

Work summary:

“I mean what I said, you know.” Minhyuk utters calmly, finally interrupting Jooheon’s croaking laughter. “Like I don’t really see it, but you have the right to date whoever you want to at this point.”

Jooheon rolls his eyes, light pink dusting across his cheeks as Minhyuk brings up the same embarrassing topic from before. Still, the elder can’t stop himself from teasing again. “Even if he is a messy college student who orders the weirdest drink in the entire cafe. Your choice, I guess.” He shrugs lightly, purposely glancing away from the other’s progressively reddening cheeks.

-----------

The monsta x hybrid au no one asked for where honeypup find love through messy coffee dates and angry work conflicts.

Ch. 1 - coffee talk (caramel macchiato and iced americano)

Summary: Waking up late for early morning coffee warrants choking and cuddling - in that exact order.

“...on the outside I’m a bad girl, on the inside I’m a good girl-”

Jooheon awakens from the dredges of sleep to the sound of Miss A’s Bad Girl Good Girl blaring nonstop from his phone. He blindly gropes around until his fingers finally close around a vaguely solid object, and he retracts it quickly back under warm covers.

The blue glare of the call notification barely tells him anything except that it is way too early for anyone to be awake and calling him.

No one except for Minhyuk, of course.

Before the more reasonable part of his brain can stop him, he swipes the phone icon across the screen, answering the call.

“Hyung, why.” Jooheon cringes at the drag of his own voice, still rough from sleep. God, why does he sound so much like a chainsmoker?

A tinny, ever familiar voice rings through the speakers, so loud Jooheon’s ears immediately try to curl in on themselves. “Is that any way to greet your favorite person in the morning?”

“Actually, Hoseokie hyung is my favorite so you’re out of luck.” He grins to himself, already picturing Minhyuk huffing in feigned anger.

Seconds later, a burst of static rumbles through the speakers and a low mutter of “I can’t believe I put up with this level of disrespect!” floats across from the background. Jooheon turns his face into his many pillows, gasping as he muffles his giggles into the soft cotton.

The call crackles with static again before Minhyuk resumes speaking normally. “Well, I’m about to become your favorite hyung when I pay for your iced americano at 2Jae’s, so you’d better get your bunny butt out of bed! And yes I know you’re still in bed so don’t try to pretend you even have one foot out on the floor.”

“Hyung-”

“No buts, get moving before I actually come in there and drag you out by your perky ears! You do remember I have your apartment key right?”

“Yes, hyung - I was the one who gave it to you,” he sighs, a noise-induced headache already spreading through his brain.

“Ok, well - whatever, I’m going to be outside your door in 15 minutes and you’d better answer it dressed!” The call ends immediately after Minhyuk’s last syllable, and Jooheon collapses against his pillows, ears unfurling slowly when quiet surrounds them again.

He lets the phone slip loose from his fingers and slide down into whatever dark crevice that awaits it. He just needs a few moments to calm down from that rushed (and very loud) conversation.

Just five minutes. Maybe even seven. He’s gotten ready in less time than that before, so it should be completely fine. Minhyuk won’t even be able to tell whether he’s dressed up or not. Sweaters and sweatpants are acceptable, right?

Right. Ten minutes then to take a little rabbit nap.

--------

Jooheon blinks awake to the sound of his phone going off for the second time that morning.

And, of course, it is once again Minhyuk.

Who is pissed, according to the rapid stream of texts pinging into his inbox.

aka Minhyukuuu: i am literally right outside your door

aka Minhyukuuu: one minute carrot face

aka Minhyukuuu: istg lee jooheon

aka Minhyukuuu: 36 seconds and i am coming for your rabbit ass

Jooheon flails up, head spinning with vertigo as he scrolls frantically, dread building up with every pixelated word. His phone dings just as he reaches the last text, signalling another incoming message.

aka Minhyukuuu: 15 seconds

Fuck. He’s screwed isn’t he?

The phone is thrown onto the bed, bouncing away, discarded as Jooheon panics to stumble out of bed as fast as possible.

He trips over clothing strewn across the floor (sweaters, cardigans, and a suspicious pair of leather pants), and he plops down onto the carpet, pulling on whatever item is the most closely available as frantically as possible.

He’s got one leg in a pair of paint-stained jeans when an ominous thud echoes from the living room, followed immediately by pounding footsteps that roll towards his room like impending thunder.

Jooheon resumes his struggle with increased fervor, even though in the back his mind he’s already acknowledged his doomed fate. His panic grows even more when his tail refuses to cooperate, stubbornly clinging to his back instead of slipping through the specially designed hole at the waistband.

He’s about to give up and just yank it through by hand when his bedroom door slams open with bang, and he’s suddenly met with an angry, slitted stare.

His puffy tail chooses this exact moment to cooperate, and he quickly slips his jeans to his waist, buttoning and zipping up the fly before standing upon cramped legs. “Well, I’m technically ready now…” he grins weakly, faltering when Minhyuk only continues glaring, black ears twitching minutely in the morning light.

In a flash, his friend is no longer standing in front of him, and he’s suddenly flat against the ground again. He looks up to see the cat hybrid positioned over him in a hunched straddle, dangerously close with his hands caged around his head. Minhyuk’s eyes are still slitted forebodingly, but there’s a glimmer in his dark pupils that tells Jooheon he’s safe from actually being dragged out by the ears.

He pulls his ears flat against his face, pouting up at his friend with puppy, or in this case, bunny eyes. “Hyung,” he whines in his signature baby voice, “I’m sorry. Please,” he dials the puppy-bunny eyes up another notch, widening them as much as possible and squeaking out, “forgive me?”

His plan seems to have worked when the hands near his head start lifting away, and he breathes a sigh of relief, ears immediately springing upright back to their original position.

Unfortunately, he celebrated a bit too early.

Minhyuk’s hands dart back down around his face and lock on like two iron clamps, forcing Jooheon back down against the floor. Suddenly, his head is being lifted up and swung down in rapid succession, back and forth, back and forth, until all he can see is a blur of colors, like some violence induced acid trip.

When he’s finally dropped down, his ears are ringing in pain, and he folds them flat against his face, curling his hands gently over them. Minhyuk sits back (mind you, still on top of him) looking like the epitome of the cat who’s gotten the cream.

If the cream was a bunny in pain, then yep, that saying fits perfectly to the situation right now.

“Was that really necessary?” Jooheon whines, hands clenching over his still-ringing ears. Minhyuk only smirks back, lips curling up in pure satisfaction as his long tail waves lazily in and out of the corner of Jooheon’s eye.

“I suppose not…” he remarks, casually picking at a well-manicured finger, “but what would be the fun in that?” He turns a blindingly bright grin towards the rabbit hybrid trapped under him, feigning the perfect image of angelic innocence.

Jooheon splutters, and starts wriggling like a fish out of water until he displaces the man on top off him with an oomph. Fortunately, Minhyuk drops to the floor with all his grace intact (curse his cat genes) and barely bats an eyelash as he rolls elegantly into an upright position.

Jooheon huffs, disgruntled at his own messily sprawled state after their little morning tousle. Minhyuk only cocks an eyebrow at him, preening lightly through his hair as he directs a silent question towards the hybrid on the ground. Jooheon shakes it off, blinking away from the other’s stare. When he sits up, he can already feel a crook in his ear, and he reaches up to fiddle with it for a few minutes before the appendage finally straightens out on its own.

Slender hands come to card through his hair, scratching across his scalp to rest gently at the base of his ears. They start massaging smoothly at the curved bone there, caressing with well-placed touches until the bunny hybrid is a melted puddle of nerves.

Minhyuk allows Jooheon to rest against his chest, only twitching minutely when fluffy ears brush across his face. It’s a silent apology, his stubborn way of saying sorry for wrestling his childhood friend of many years to the floor and choking the life out of him.

It’s good enough for Jooheon, the event already forgotten in a hazy sea of neurons and synapses, each one after the other firing off bright signals of pleasure through his bunny brain. He makes some sort of purring sound, a rumble deep in his chest as Minhyuk’s fingers continue to work their apologetic magic up to the tips of his ears.

“Are we good?” the cat hybrid murmurs quietly, slitted pupils following the pale curve of the other’s closed lids as he awaits an obvious answer.

“Yeah,” Jooheon hums, revelling in the tingling across his scalp. “Yeah, we’re definitely good.”

Skilled hands are replaced by a soft pair of lips that plant a quick peck on the crown of his head as arms circle around his neck in a warm hug. Jooheon returns it just as affectionately, clinging to the arms around him and snuggling contentedly against them.

“Good,” Minhyuk sighs out in relief, his breath disturbing wisps of curled blonde hair in the process.

“You’re still buying coffee for me though,” Jooheon grins up at his friend, who rolls his eyes in acceptance.

“Fine,” Minhyuk grimaces, knees popping as he pulls both of them to their feet. He smooths down invisible wrinkles on his black turtleneck, re-tucking it around skin-tight jeans. “But I get to pick our orders.”

“Good enough for me! Free coffee is free coffee.” Jooheon concedes, eyes crinkling in amusement as he watches Minhyuk’s inner cat preen through his barely rumpled clothes and hair.

Minhyuk finishes smoothing down the fur on his ears, his cat side temporarily satisfied, and marches towards the door. He automatically grabs onto Jooheon, latching onto the other’s fraying sweater sleeve and pulls the bunny hybrid to his side. Jooheon follows accordingly, catching up to Minhyuk until they’re shoulder to shoulder, eye to eye, and ear to ear.

He can’t resist reaching over and giving a gentle stroke to the cat hybrid’s perked ear. It twitches slightly under his fingers, but he persists, slowly stroking the fur in long petting motions. Minhyuk raises a brow, but he’s clearly not resisting so Jooheon gets a few more pets in before reluctantly dropping his hand.

“Your fur is nice…” he mumbles by way of an explanation, immediately blushing and fiddling with the hand that had been touching those soft, soft ears.

Minhyuk looks over, watching heat stir in the other’s cheeks over something so menial, so innocent in its intent. He reaches over and pinches Jooheon’s downturned nose, eliciting a surprised yelp.

The bunny hybrid turns toward him, clutching his nose with more shock than actual pain. “What was that for?” he muffles out from behind his hand.

“It was for being too cute,” Minhyuk replies haughtily, turning his face up towards the ceiling. Jooheon laughs, used to the other’s hot-and-cold attitude, but there’s still a smattering of pink dusted on his cheeks.

This time they walk out even closer than before, arms linked as happiness buzzes warmly through them. Jooheon leans into the crook of Minhyuk’s shoulder, and Minhyuk lets furry ears tickle against the side of his neck without complaint.

----------

2Jae’s is still relatively empty when the two arrive, save for a few truly early businessmen and the bleary eyed baristas.

They enter with a light ding of the bell on the door and are instantaneously immersed into the world of coffee, indie beats, and terrariums overflowing with lush greenery.

It’s one of the best places in town.

The recommended specials are always drawn cutely with colored chalk onto a blackboard tacked behind the counter. Today they read: vanilla sweet brew, almond milk macchiato, honey lemon tea, and “full love impact.”

The last option has been on there for months at this point, so much so that it should no longer be a daily special. However, there seems to be some kind of feud between the two owners of the cafe over that drink; something about it being too indecent for the public eye and a disgrace to the cafe that it’s even available as a potential order.

(It was screamed from the back of the cafe so distinctly one day that no one could pretend they hadn’t heard it. At this point, there’s some kind of unspoken consensus for it to be ignored among all the workers and customers)

Today, it’s been rewritten in pink chalk with excessively shiny hearts doodled around it. Really, whoever has to do this everyday should be paid extra for this kind of trouble. In fact, it must be the worst waste of supplies because who even has the nerve to order a drink called “full love impact” ?

Minhyuk ignores the last option as usual and goes ahead to order his usual caramel macchiato and Jooheon’s iced americano. Their cashier smiles charmingly at a familiar face, already typing in the order before Minhyuk can even open his mouth.

“Thank you Youngjae-ssi,” Minhyuk nods his head slightly to the part-time cashier and full-time owner of the cafe. He decides to wait at the counter, seeing as no one else is up in line right now. The machines whir soothingly as Youngjae mixes the drinks, and the cat hybrid watches dazedly from his flopped position in front of them.

It’s nice enough he almost dozes off, but he catches himself just in time to accept the drinks fresh off the press. He grudgingly pays for both, Jooheon’s dimpled smile keeping the promise fresh in his mind.

With both drinks in hand, Minhyuk turns to leave before an errant thought catches him in his steps. Compulsively, he turns back to Youngjae, who glances up from the register at his return.

“Youngjae-ssi,” Minhyuk hesitates, question wildly running through his mind before he brashly continues. “Why is that last order still up as a daily special after all this time?”

He’s met with a deafening silence that seems to spread throughout the whole cafe. Even the birds outside quiet for a moment, perhaps in mourning of Minhyuk’s inevitable fate after this question.

Youngjae’s wide smile is still plastered across his face, but there’s something about it that doesn’t reach his eyes, nor the rest of his usually cheery demeanor. His half-rounded, pebble brown mouse ears have started twitching minutely, and Minhyuk thinks he can see a skinny tail slowly rising up from behind the cafe owner’s back as well.

“You’re right Minhyuk, why is it still up, huh?” The words grind out from between pressed lips, and the cat hybrid almost flinches at the suppressed rage hidden within Youngjae’s rhetorical reply.

The cafe owner’s expression immediately drops, becoming apologetic at Minhyuk’s shock. His tail relaxes slightly, but the line of his lips is still slightly strained. “Ah, I didn’t mean to take out it on you Minhyuk. It’s just been a bit of a, how would you say this, point of contention between my mate and I.”

By that he means Jaebum, a panther hybrid who makes up the second half of the 2Jae duo, resident sweetheart, and Youngjae’s husband of 3 years. Also, the apparent perpetrator of the cursed “full love impact” drink.

Minhyuk is still relatively confused, but there’s something about Youngjae’s words that prompts him to close his big mouth to any further questions. Youngjae and his husband have always been a model example of a successful marriage - complete with love and financial success - so it leads the cat hybrid to wonder what kind of divisive conflict could be behind such a simple drink.

He’s cut off when Youngjae’s apologetic mask immediately switches into one of placid professionalism when he glances past Minhyuk. It’s another early morning customer - a college student at first glance. He’s got short, choppy hair, bangs ruffled most likely from a night without sleep, and Minhyuk takes pity on him as he remembers his own schooling days.

He steps aside, reluctantly letting go of his question for the sake of being polite. He finally heads back to Jooheon with their drinks dripping wet from condensation, smiling fondly when the bunny hybrid shoots up eagerly from his previously sprawled position. He makes grabby hands at the drink, flapping his oversized sleeves in the process. Minhyuk hands over the iced americano without a moment’s hesitation.

He slides onto the high-topped stool across from the other man and starts sipping at his own drink as well. The sweet flavors hit his tongue with a gentle familiarity, and he sighs at the rush of caffeine through his system. The sun hits his entire right side at the most perfect angle, and Jooheon grins cutely at him over his own straw.

Yeah, it’s a good morning.

His “moment” is interrupted when hissed whispers arise from the counter, his sensitive ears immediately snapping towards the direction of the sound. Jaebum’s arrived behind the register, and he’s receiving the college student’s order with a tight smile on his face; all the while, Youngjae is muttering what must be insults behind his mate with fury simmering in his eyes.

“One order of Full Love Impact to go?” The college student nods noncommittally, seemingly unaware of the tense conflict taking place behind the counter.

Minhyuk is still in shock over the fact that anyone would order that drink out of their own free will, much less a sleep-deprived student who should be living off of pure black coffee at this point in his life. Jooheon’s ears have also perked towards the counter, eyes widening comically as he takes in the scene before them.

The ridiculous drink is prepared with little to no effort, and before long, the boy has the drink in hand and is sipping at it without a care in the world for the struggle he’s incited. God knows what’s in that beverage, but something about it makes his previously dead stare melt into an adorable smile, complete with crinkles at the edge of his eyes. Combine that with his tousled looks, and there’s suddenly an attractive sense of boyish handsomeness about him.

And it looks like Minhyuk’s not the only one who’s noticed this either.

Jooheon’s lips have dropped open around the straw, too distracted by the view to even remove his mouth from the plastic appendage. His eyes track the college student’s movements all the way to the front of the cafe, only blinking away when the boy is no longer in sight. There’s a high flush on his cheeks as he resumes sucking away at his drink, and his ears have started quivering down towards his cheeks.

Pink lips have pulled themselves into a pointed pout around the straw, and Minhyuk can already tell the plastic around the tip is going to be shredded silly once Jooheon decides to remove his mouth from the tube. He’s always had a bad habit of nibbling at things and this time, it’s of no exception.

The cat hybrid reaches over, gently pinching a soft cheek to get his friend’s attention. Jooheon finally comes out of his flushed trance and lifts his mouth off of a wilting straw. He looks up at his friend with innocent eyes, slowly lifting his ears away from his face as his embarrassment fades.

“You know, you weren’t being obvious at all when you were checking out that kid.” Blood immediately returns to the his cheeks, long ears snapping back down rapidly to hide his face.

“Shut up, I was not-”

“Yes, you were.” Minhyuk cuts him off bluntly with a dead stare. “Look, you’re doing that thing with your ears again-” The rabbit hybrid’s ears immediately snap upwards. “Don’t even think you can attempt to fool me at this point Lee Jooheon. Are you trying to insult our lifelong friendship?”

“No…” Jooheon quietly pouts, “but you don’t have to be harsh about it.” He glances around furtively, pupils twitching nervously as he takes in the still-empty cafe and breathes a sigh. He automatically starts fidgeting with his ears again, pulling the furry tips towards his cheek.

The cat hybrid scoffs, languished as he leans back against his seat and tipping his chin towards the ceiling. It’s decorated with finely painted wood beams that host clear, bell-shaped lamps dangling down from smooth, black cords. If he stares long enough at the soft lighting maybe Jooheon will stop being the adorable mess that he is on too many occasions - including right now.

“There’s no way anybody noticed that you had the hots for a messy college student,” Minhyuk comments, still stretching backwards. “Besides me of course.” He smirks proudly when he hears “of course you did” muttered almost indistinguishably across from him.

“But really,” he pulls himself forward, curling his tail around a chair leg to steady himself, “what did you see in that guy? I mean he was cute and all, but really, that drink choice would’ve ruined it for me.”

Jooheon sticks out his tongue, narrowing slim eyes at his so-called friend. “First of all, you’re not me. And yes -” he continues quickly as Minhyuk opens his mouth to argue, “there is a difference between knowing someone for most of their life versus actually living their life and generally existing as them, okay?”

The older hybrid huffs a breath as he pointedly looks out the window, defeat sullenly written across his face. He shouldn’t be so worked up about Jooheon’s little outburst, but something about it irks him to an indescribable degree. It’s the fact that they’ve basically known each other since birth, grew up together, and have seen each other at their absolute best and worst - shouldn’t they be close enough that Jooheon should have no reason to freak out about a little crush, even less so in front of his best friend?

He’s just a little angry is all. (Besides who was the one who paid for their drinks today?)

Jooheon watches as his friend continues glaring moodily out of the window, and he swears he can see the literal gears turning in the other’s head. The bunny hybrid has already started biting his lip nervously, regret for every word of his previous outburst coursing uncomfortably through his body.

It’s an understatement to say that Minhyuk may be a bit of a diva, but his own sharp remark was probably uncalled for. That boy though...something about him had tugged on Jooheon, pulling his gaze to him as if there was taut string between them. It was his scent maybe, a sharp, almost cinnamon tang with a sweet undercurrent of apple. It had made his head fog up within seconds of smelling it, muffling all his senses until it had finally drifted out of the cafe and away from him.

It’s been years since he’s been in a serious relationship with anyone (Minhyuk not-included), so the sudden surge of attraction he had felt shocked him to some degree. Coupled with the fact that the boy was a complete stranger and his best friend’s immediate teasing, he couldn’t stop himself from exploding a little.

Still, his lifelong friendship has lasted too long to be broken up by something like this. Besides, looking at Minhyuk’s frowning face is starting to make his insides twist pitifully. If this tense silence continues any longer he might start crying a little.

“Ah, hyung,” he starts quietly, waiting for Minhyuk to acknowledge him. The elder inclines his head, ears turning slightly towards his direction, even as he pretends to feign interest in something outside.

Jooheon pulls his sleeves to the tips of fingers, picking at the already-frayed tips and lowering his gaze to the scratched wood of the table. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles through an exaggerated pout. “It shouldn’t have been such a big deal to me. Besides...” he trails off at a sad thought before admitting it with a sigh. “It’s not like I’ll ever see him again.”

In the second it takes for him to stop picking at his sleeve and to look up from the table, Minhyuk has somehow left his seat and appeared right beside him. He can barely utter a sound of surprise before he’s engulfed in rib-crushing hug. For such a skinny guy, Minhyuk has a surprisingly immovable grip around him. Jooheon makes a few half-hearted attempts at loosening it, but his friend’s arms stay locked around him like an iron cage. Eventually, he succumbs to the hug, nuzzling his face into Minhyuk’s sleek shoulder.

He takes a deep breath, heart settling as an ever-familiar scent of cherry blossoms winds through his system, tingling pleasantly along the way like the burn of a shot of whiskey. It’s so soothingly comfortable, he could fall asleep like this.

Which is why he forces himself to pull away, tearing his face away from Minhyuk’s beautiful scent. “So,” he clears his throat, looking up through his lashes. “I’m forgiven right?”

The cat hybrid scoffs, removing his arms from the younger’s middle to run a hand roughly through unbrushed blonde curls. It only makes Jooheon’s hair puff out even more, and he whines cutely for Minhyuk to stop. It only makes the older mess it up even more, revelling at the way the other’s nose twitches with every sweep of his hand.

Of course he can’t stay mad, not with the adorable sight displayed before him. He finally removes his hand and holds it out to Jooheon instead, pulling the rabbit hybrid to his feet when their fingers interlace. He grabs both of their empty cups in his other hand, stretching long fingers around cold, wet plastic in a delicate balancing act.

Hand-in-hand, he pulls Jooheon along with him to the door, automatically tossing out the cups on the way. When they finally step into the direct sunlight, Minhyuk finally deems Jooheon’s previous question with a reply.

“Of course I forgive you.” The other boy looks over, eyes wide in surprise. When he registers what the answer is for, curved eyes crease into tiny half-moons and deep dimples form out of soft cheeks.

“Oh, that.” he states plainly even as his smile grows across his face. It’s terribly infectious, and Minhyuk can already feel the same expression mirroring across his own face.

“Yes, that!” he retorts without any bite, his grin growing so wide his cheeks ache.

Jooheon tries to muffle a laugh at the other’s feigned anger, but he ends up snorting directly into Minhyuk’s face. The elder responds with sharp pinch to his nose, cuffing it between two bony knuckles.

The rabbit hybrid jerks away, rubbing gingerly at his nose with the edge of a frayed sleeve. It hurts, but the pain is already fading away to make room for the laughter bubbling up uncontrollably in his throat. When he looks at Minhyuk, he can see the same amusement glittering in brown eyes and hiding behind tightly pressed lips.

It erupts moments later, and he’s cupping his face in sleeved palms as they both stumble down the street. There’s an occasional passerby that tosses a questioning glance at them, but the bunny and kitty are too lost in each other’s idiocy to even pay attention to any social norms.

When they’ve finally gasped out every ounce of laughter, Minhyuk attempts to adopt a serious expression as he turns to face Jooheon. It comes out more like a squinty pout, and the younger boy bursts into giggles again. The cat hybrid attempts to appear exasperated, but there’s a deep ache in his cheeks and stomach that makes him want to curl up under the sun for a long (cat) nap. It’s soothing in the most exhausting way.

“I mean what I said, you know.” he utters calmly, finally interrupting Jooheon’s croaking laughter. “Like I don’t really see it, but you have the right to date whoever you want to at this point.”

Jooheon rolls his eyes, light pink dusting across his cheeks as Minhyuk brings up the same embarrassing topic from before. Still, the elder can’t stop himself from teasing again. “Even if he is a messy college student who orders the weirdest drink in the entire cafe. Your choice, I guess.” He shrugs lightly, purposely glancing away from the other’s progressively reddening cheeks.

Before Jooheon’s head can explode from the amount of blood flowing to his face, Minhyuk links the pinkies of their left hands together, pulling them up to rest in the space between their cheeks.

“Just remember, I was here first.”

He curls his pinky even tighter around Jooheon’s, so tight that he can see the younger’s finger straining awkwardly to stay looped around his. It must hurt a bit, but Jooheon easily allows Minhyuk to pull his hand along. He’s still smiling - brilliant and excruciatingly bright in the dewy sunlight.

“Of course, you always will be.”

Ch. 2 - smile at me now like you did then

Summary: Often good intentions are misunderstood through the lack of nuance through text. However, the subject of selective wording is unfortunately something that is completely lost on Minhyuk.  

Jooheon’s phone woke him up for the second time that week. However, rather than a deafeningly loud ringtone, this time it was a series of vibrations that he felt from his pocket that jolted him awake. Becoming more alert to his surroundings, the sleepy rabbit hybrid noticed two things. The first being the pressure of a small body crushing his left arm and the second was that currently, there were fluffy ears brushing softly against his right cheek. Blinking in confusion, Jooheon proceeded to register where he was. Looking around from his spot laid on the floor Jooheon could tell he was surrounded by brightly coloured walls plastered with crudely drawn artwork and crafts. This signified that he was at none other than Sunnyside Care: the daycare that he spent every Monday through Friday for the last two years working at. Which meant Jooheon must have fallen asleep during nap time, again, rather than helping the other teacher, Shin Hoseok, clean up the afternoon snacks and begin setup for the daily playtime until the parents came to pick up the kids. Now fully recognizing where he was Jooheon had a few ideas about the small body currently crushing his arm. Glancing to the left his suspicions were confirmed as the bunny hybrid was greeted with the sight of comically oversized fluffy ears that belonged to the young bat-eared fox hybrid known as Sanghyuk. Which meant the ears tickling his right cheek must belong to none other than Jungkook. Upon investigation Jooheon confirmed that it was indeed the small boy whose ears were slowly ghosting over his skin with every small breath that he took. This did not surprise him. Although most of the children attending the daycare tended to cling to their two teachers, Jungkook was always much worse in this regard. Hoseok had guessed before that it was due to the fact that they were the only rabbit hybrids in the young boy’s life. Suddenly, feeling his phone vibrate against his leg again Jooheon sighed remembering why he was suddenly awake. Hoping not to wake Sanghyuk, Jooheon lightly pushed the four year old off his arm. However hearing a soft whine of “Teacher Honey” he knew he had been unsuccessful. Holding his breath for a second he let out a small sigh of relief once the young hybrid’s breaths had slowed down signifying that he was once again asleep. The last thing Jooheon and Hoseok needed was a crying child waking up the whole room in the middle of naptime. (Although Hoseok loved Jooheon as if he was his own child, Jooheon knew between causing such a scene and not helping with cleanup, the other rabbit hybrid would definitely be plotting his death. Or, knowing Hoseok’s kind hearted nature, it would be more like planning to “forget” to bring Jooheon lunch one day. However, being someone who was not able to cook was a fate almost as bad, if not worse, than death itself). Feeling one final vibration against his leg Jooheon scrambled towards the door, almost tripping over their sleeping lion hybrid, Taekwoon, on his way. Once safely outside the classroom he slipped his phone out of his pocket, and from one glance at his lockscreen he could see four text notifications from Minhyuk. aka Minhyukuuu: i’m home aka Minhyukuuu: i mean at your apartment, but like technically my home anyways aka Minhyukuuu: either way you should definitely come home straight after work aka Minhyukuuu: don’t mess around with kids and stuff ok? Leaving them all on read Jooheon let out an annoyed huff as he locked his phone and stuffed it into his back pocket. As Jooheon was fuming over the demanding texts, Hoseok, who had been in the daycare’s kitchen cleaning dishes, was walking down the hall and saw the annoyed twitch of the other rabbit’s ear. The elder merely raised an eyebrow in a wordless question. “Minhyuk,” Jooheon explained in an exasperated tone. That was all Hoseok needed to hear before he was nodding in understanding and mumbling something about “young mates and their problems” as he walked back into the classroom. Not bothering to argue that he and Minhyuk were not mates unlike Hoseok (and his mate Hyunwoo) seemed to believe for some reason, Jooheon proceeded instead to walk into the classroom behind the other rabbit hybrid to finish helping set up the classroom. --------- Only a few hybrid children were left in the daycare. Most had been picked up by their parents after the deafeningly loud playtime. Now Jooheon was just reading a story to Yugyeom and Jungkook as Hoseok was sending off the children with the  parents who had already arrived.   As he was reading to the two of them he smiled softly seeing the young bunny hybrid cuddle into the kitten hybrid’s lap. These two best friends always reminded Jooheon of Minhyuk and himself which made him particularly fond of the two. (He hated to pick favourites, however he definitely did have a weak spot for these two). Minhyuk and Jooheon had met at around the same age as Yugyeom and Jungkook in a classroom much like this one. He just hoped that the two would have as much luck as Minhyuk and himself in staying friends for so long. However at the thought of Minhyuk the rabbit hybrid began growing bitter again due to the demanding texts from earlier. As much as he loved him, Minhyuk often managed to get on his nerves at the worse possible times.   “Namjoon and Seokjin are here,” Jooheon heard Hoseok call from the hallway. Knowing that was his cue to bring the remaining hybrids into the hall Jooheon put the book away before leading the kids out by their chubby hands. Taking the bunny hybrid’s backpack and jacket off the wall hanger Jooheon helped zip Jungkook securely into his fluffy jacket. Once zipped he ruffled the young hybrid’s black hair before letting the boy run over to his father, Namjoon. After the russian blue hybrid had greeted his son, Seokjin picked the younger up as they left. Jungkook, of course, proceed to tug on his father’s antlers which caused a small laugh to escape Jooheon’s lips as he watched the scene before him. Seeing Yugyeom leaving hand in hand with his parents, Jackson and Kunpimook, the rabbit hybrid knew it was now time to start heading home himself. Collecting his bag from the break room Jooheon walked into the main hall and saw Hoseok who was now joined by Hyunwoo. “I’ll see you on Monday,” Jooheon said softly on his way out. “Do you need a ride home?” Hyunwoo questioned. The bear hybrid always offered, but he usually received the same answer as he did today that “no thanks he was fine.” Jooheon felt bad and some days he wished he would accept the ride however Hoseok and Hyunwoo already did so much for him that he did not want them going a few miles out of their way for him as well. After yelling back his usual response the rabbit hybrid promptly left the building to join the rush to get home.  

---------

Jooheon’s phone vibrates continuously against his leg as he makes his way home, but he resolutely decides to ignore it just to spite his friend. Honestly, he’s a full-grown adult, so what right does Minhyuk have to demand him to do anything, especially in his own home at that?

None! He huffs angrily, stomping his way to the subway line. Nearby passengers turn to look at him questioningly, but the rabbit hybrid only plops down with a loud thump onto the nearest bench, immediately pulling his ears down to shield his face. He’s aware of how silly he looks - long white ears manually pulled down with his hands as he slouches against a pillar behind the bench. Still, he’s so on edge about Minhyuk’s stupidly demanding texts he might explode if anyone decided to confront him about his strange image.

Thankfully, the subway pulls up just as Jooheon is seriously considering chucking his phone onto the rails. He resolves to keep it in his pocket, satisfied to leave the messages unseen and unanswered.

The doors open with a woosh, and Jooheon prepares himself for the ensuing battle. A stream of passengers exit through the open doors, a conglomerate mass that eventually diffuses into separate bits once it gets far enough through the station. The amount of passengers leaving is becoming less concentrated with every second, and Jooheon decides now is the right time to strike.

He bumps his way through the crowd like a pinball, hunching over to make himself as small as possible. Still, he can’t avoid attracting a few rude looks and muttered curses, which only worsens his already dark mood. Were subway passengers always this rude?

It’s unfair, but right now he feels spiteful enough to push the blame onto Minhyuk. If it hadn’t been for his texts maybe Jooheon wouldn’t have to deal with all these assholes roughly pushing into him. It must be the law of the universe that one terrible thing has to coincide with another or else he wouldn’t be wedged into a cramped corner of the train, head spinning as a disgusting cocktail of scents settle into a thick fog around him.

(It’s usually much easier when he rides the subway with Minhyuk. The cat hybrid’s scent is so overwhelming, Jooheon can’t smell anything else but the sweetness of whiskey-tinted cherry blossoms. Besides, the older hybrid is shameless enough he’ll make his own path through a crowd, all the while towing Jooheon along securely behind him).

But no, stuck behind a mess of scents and sweaty bodies, Jooheon decides he’s fine by himself. As a full-grown adult, this is completely bearable, and he’s fully capable of dealing with it.

As the ride continues, the heat only seems to get worse as Jooheon is progressively pressed closer to the wall. It becomes bad enough that he eventually turns to his usual coping method of pulling his ears down to cover his face. It’s the only way to block out the haze of different smells invading his space. His own scent is too vague to truly do anything, but in this situation even the lightest hint of something familiar is enough to get the job done.

He spends the rest of the ride in this manner, with his ears pulled tightly around his face like some fashionable fur collar, except he’s pretty sure people who wear such things aren’t usually on the brink of a complete meltdown. Jooheon twitches uncomfortably, burying his face even deeper into soft fur when something warm and distinctly hand-like brushes up against his tail. If anyone has the nerve to grope him again, they’re definitely earning a hard stomp to the foot whether they like it or not.

Finally, his torture comes to an end when a yellow dot lights up on the eighth station of the mini-map above the closed doors. Jooheon reluctantly releases his ears from his sweaty grasp, preparing to make a mad dash the moment the subway stops. The departing rush is always the worst, and wedged in the corner of the train, he really doubts he’ll be able to make a smooth exit today.

The press of bodies becomes invariably more unbearable when the subway hisses to a stop. Jooheon can only allow himself to be dragged along as a tiny speck of dust within a roaring sea of oppressive waves, not able to even retain a semblance of personal control. He’s spit out like a single ball from a rotating bingo machine, rolling into the station at an uncontrollable speed on borrowed momentum until he’s finally stopped by a stationary pillar.

The rabbit hybrid takes a moment to hunch over and catch his breath, every inch of his skin tingling from being jostled around so roughly. He carries out a quick pat-down of his body, making sure that his phone, keys, and wallet are safely on his person. His phone stays rigidly silent in his back pocket, and for some reason that makes his insides twist uncomfortably with an indescribable mix of feelings.

(Would Minhyuk really have given up that easily?)  

He shakes the stupid thought away, choosing instead to exit the underground station through a well-worn route. He emerges onto a large, bustling road, pushed to the very edge of the crumbling pavement with swelling crowds of hybrids rushing past each other with the same degree of urgency. Jooheon joins them readily, melting into the flood with the ease of a single water droplet. He’s carried away quickly by the ever-moving sea of familiar strangers, sliding down twisting streets on the crowd’s collective energy until he’s finally deposited at the mouth of his apartment.

Jooheon shivers in front of the complex, trying to shake off the ghost of clinging touches against his body. It should be mundane at this point; after all, he’s been doing this for more than two years. However, the feeling always sticks like a layer of heavy grease along his skin, and all he really wants to do is relax with a warm bath, complete with bubbles and flower petals.

But alas, he must first deal with Minhyuk’s bullshit.

Jooheon sighs, slapping himself lightly on the cheeks before marching into the apartment building with renewed vigor. He’s tired, gross, and starving beyond compare and the faster he gets through with Minhyuk’s demands, the faster he can get his aching, kid-beaten body into a soothing bath.

(Really, Jooheon loves each and every child at the daycare, but unfortunately, he’s not getting any younger these days).

He flips past the scratched honeybee keychain (courtesy of said children) to find his nondescript apartment key and inserts it into the lock, twisting until he hears a distinct click.

Inside, the rabbit hybrid immediately spots a recognizable pair of triangle black ears peeking up from above his hideous orange couch. They instantly perk up at his entrance, swiveling a quarter way towards the sound of a key in the lock. Jooheon promptly molds his face into a frown, adamant that he won’t back down from an argument today.

However, when Minhyuk leaps up from the couch his plan is slightly diverted when he notices something in the cat hybrid’s hands. As he walks excitedly closer, Jooheon finally realizes it’s a pot of healthily growing lavender flowers - and a rather large pot at that.

He gently catches the pot as Minhyuk drops it into his automatically open palms, too stunned to do anything otherwise. The younger hybrid gapes down at the flowers, brain slowly processing that this is what his friend must have meant when he had demanded that Jooheon come home without any delay. Of course, only Minhyuk could have been this sweet and misleading at the same time.

Still, the plant is flourishing so beautifully Jooheon feels his stomach turn at the fact that he was originally going to completely chew his friend out for being such an asshole - when in reality, Minhyuk was just being his amazing, thoughtful self, albeit not without his usual rudeness as well.

Jooheon sets the flowers down with as much restraint as possible before letting go and pouncing onto Minhyuk with the tightest hug he can muster. The older hybrid stumbles back with a surprised oomph, but he quickly returns the embrace in full, wrapping his arms around the younger’s middle and burying his face into the other’s neck.

The rabbit hybrid breathes deeply as his friend’s strong scent settles around him like a comforting blanket, completely clearing off the tar-like mix of odors that had been adamantly clinging on from earlier. He closes his eyes for a moment and dreams of being able to stay like this forever, of being held safely in Minhyuk’s steady fingers and sweet scent for an eternity.

Unfortunately, Jooheon’s straining heel catches on the edge of the pot of flowers, and both hybrids immediately spring apart when the clay scratches loudly against the floor. It almost tips over, but not quite, instead choosing to rock back and forth dangerously like a badly made top before finally settling flat onto its bottom.

They both breathe a sigh of relief, and Minhyuk sags against the couch as Jooheon bends down to locate his newly acquired child to a safer spot than the living room floor. He settles temporarily on the nearby ledge of his kitchen table, and he gently runs a hand through the bobbing flowers before returning to the prone figure spread-eagled on the back of the couch.

“Hyung,” he steps over to the front of the couch, looking down at Minhyuk from the opposite side. “Thanks for the gift.”

The cat hybrid preens under Jooheon’s appraisal, turning his head to the side as he pointedly waits for more compliments. Jooheon rolls his eyes, but he willingly obliges. “You’re the best most wonderful hyung anyone could ask for.”

Minhyuk’s pupils glint craftily. “Even better than Hoseok hyung?”

Jooheon pouts, turning to rustle in his bag for the tupperware container Hoseok had given him earlier at work. He displays it apologetically to the other hybrid before sheepishly muttering, “Actually, gift-wise you guys would be on the same level by now.”

Minhyuk rapidly shoots up from his previous position to aggressively swipe the container from Jooheon’s hands. Of course, Hoseok manages to one-up him again by giving Jooheon the one thing he can’t: homemade food. Inside the tupperware are steamed buns that must have been made with dough from scratch and were lovingly shaped by hand into the cute round mounds he sees before him now.

He’s suddenly hit with an irrational surge of envy, but also with the immediate urge to stuff as many buns into his mouth as possible. Jooheon watches Minhyuk’s internal struggle with a quiet smile on his face, laughing at the way the cat hybrid’s pupils shift nervously between each and every bun, all lined up in pretty rows along the container.

“Why don’t we heat those up and eat?” he suggests to put Minhyuk out of his misery.

“I guess,” the older boy says, tearing his eyes away from the food. “If you’re that hungry, I suppose we have no other choice but to eat Hoseok’s buns, do we?”

Jooheon immediately scrunches his nose in distaste at Minhyuk’s wording, and he quickly snatches away the tupperware and heads to the microwave before any more innuendos can be made. Even through the constant whirr of the machine, he swears he can hear a familiar cackle trail through from the other room.

When he gets back, steam buns actually steaming in hand, Minhyuk innocently looks up with half of a chicken wing sticking out of his mouth. Jooheon stares blankly, unimpressed, as he sets the buns out onto a platter in front of the still-frozen Minhyuk.

“I was hungry okay?” The cat hybrid rushes to defend himself, spitting out a perfectly cleaned bone.

“Mmph,” Jooheon replies, mouth already stuffed full with a bun as he pointedly looks at the open takeout box on Minhyuk’s lap.

“I happened to pick this up on my way over here,” The older hybrid protests, flailing oil smeared hands in the air by way of explanation. “Also,” he wipes off a sliver of cabbage stuck to the rabbit hybrid’s cheek, “don’t talk with your mouth full.”

Jooheon mumbles something that suspiciously sounds like “not my mom,” but he finishes chewing and swallowing slowly before attempting coherent speech again. “You could have picked something up for me too,” he whines, directing a pathetic look at the glistening container of fried chicken. “You know I can’t eat meat…” he trails off, pouting at his half-chewed bun.

“Wait,” Minhyuk yanks Jooheon’s hand to him in order to inspect the ingredients of said bun. Upon closer investigation, it is indeed entirely vegetarian, filled only with various types of cabbages and dotted with sesame seeds. He should have guessed, seeing that it was Hoseok, another rabbit hybrid, who had made these. As someone who has to eat meat at least once a day, Minhyuk really has no idea how Jooheon (or Hoseok) has managed to survive this far on flimsy greens alone, but the last time he had snuck a piece of chicken into the younger hybrid’s salad he had been pointedly ignored for an entire week. So, he’s definitely learned not to judge at this point.

He goes to shrink away, sticking out his tongue in distaste at the vegetables, but not before he gets a bun shoved into his own hand. Minhyuk tries to push it back, but Jooheon widens his eyes imploringly, asking his friend to at least try it. The elder sighs, but he raises it to his mouth and reluctantly nibbles delicately at the raised tip.

Suddenly, hearty flavor explodes onto his tongue, and now it’s his turn to talk with his mouth full. He exclaims something that sounds like “meat?” as he takes another huge bite, groaning when the pungent taste of fried pork fat drips onto his tongue. Jooheon looks on happily, eyes pressed into slits as he watches Minhyuk gobble down the tiny bun.

“Hoseokie hyung made a separate batch for you too,” he comments when Minhyuk has slowed enough in his ravenous quest to fit as much in his mouth as possible.

The cat hybrid swallows the current bit in his mouth before looking over with surprise in his eyes. “He did?” He looks guiltily at the bun in his hand, appetite suddenly lost. Jooheon hums lowly, dimples still pressed sweetly into a smile.

“I guess I have no right to compete for best hyung when I can’t even cook…” Minhyuk sighs, popping the last bit into his mouth, letting himself savor the flavor one last time.

“I’ll be sure to tell Hoseok hyung he’s won then.” Jooheon replies aloofly, feigning disappointment at Minhyuk’s loss even though he knows there’s no way the cat hybrid will ever concede his own made up title.

As he expects, Minhyuk immediately protests. “No way! I totally came here today on the basis of being the best and the most caring hyung so you can’t hand that title off just yet!”

Jooheon frowns, confused at what the older hybrid means. “You mean coming over and eating takeout, like we do basically every day?”

“No, no,” Minhyuk flaps his hand dismissively, “I actually wanted to talk about something with you. Something serious.”

At Jooheon’s amused expression, he scowls, squinting his eyes and muttering, “If you say anything about me not being capable of having serious talks I’m never buying coffee for you again.”

The rabbit hybrid raises his hands in mock surrender, quietly allowing Minhyuk to continue. The older hybrid clears his throat loudly, angling his body to fully face Jooheon’s. “Your heat is coming up in about a month right?” Of course Minhyuk would know, Jooheon thinks exasperatedly, but he nods along anyway.

“I just think,” the cat hybrid hesitates, tail waving about nervously behind him, “it might be better for you to find an alpha to help you through your heat this time.” He stares, unblinking, at Jooheon, pupils wide as he apprehensively awaits his friend’s reaction.

“I don’t see anything wrong with you helping me through it again,” the younger hybrid mumbles, reaching up to pull hesitantly at a long ear. “Unless,” he pulls harder, using it cover his cheek, “you don’t want to do it anymore.”

He’s hunched over and looking downward, but Minhyuk can tell that Jooheon might just start crying, and he instantly regrets his brash words. He pulls his friend towards him with as much urgency as possible, pushing the rabbit hybrid’s face into his chest as he runs a hand soothingly through the younger’s hair. “You know that’s not true at all,” he whispers, pressing his lips to the crown of Jooheon’s head.

“Then why?” The boy in his embrace retorts with an unfamiliar tone of hostility in his voice. Minhyuk only tightens his hold, burying his hand even deeper within the other’s unruly curls.

“You know how much longer it takes to pass through heat without an alpha. Plainly speaking, with two omegas there’s just too much risk at stake,” he admits softly into a twitching ear. When Jooheon doesn’t reply, he adds bitterly, “It’s not like I really want to find an alpha either.”

“I just want to keep you safe,” he sighs, and suddenly Jooheon is reminded of all those times in highschool where Minhyuk had pledged the exact same thing with the exact same fervor burning through his dark pupils. They had somehow survived those years together, and Jooheon realizes he had always known somewhere in the back of his mind that it was all because of Minhyuk’s unextinguishable spirit and nothing else.  

He buries himself into the other’s solid embrace, emotion welling up in his throat at his own selfishness. Of course, Minhyuk wouldn’t have brought it up for any other reason than genuine care for his own well-being. Just the thought of it makes him want to cry even more now. Really, what kind of friend is he?

“Do you understand now?” The cat hybrid asks, slowly loosening his grip around his still-silent friend. A muffled “yes” warms his chest, and Minhyuk can’t help but let loose a deep sigh in relief.

Jooheon gingerly pulls back, rubbing roughly at reddened eyes while avoiding Minhyuk’s gaze at the same time. He mumbles, “I’ve never been with an alpha before, and I definitely don’t know where I’m supposed to find one to pass heat with so how do you propose I even go about doing this?”

The older hybrid pulls away Jooheon’s harsh hand to replace it with his own, calmly brushing away stray tears along raw skin with his thumb. “Maybe,” he teasingly grins, “we could find that messy college student from last week since you seemed to take to him so quickly.”

Jooheon instantly stops crying to glare up at Minhyuk with watery eyes. “Don’t-”

“Agh, I got it, I got it, don’t worry okay?” The cat hybrid soothes urgently, lightly pinching a blotchy cheek. “For sure, we’re not signing you up for any of those weird online services or creepy dating advertisements.” They both think of popups announcing “hot alphas ready to fuck five miles away from your location” and simultaneously shudder at the thought of meeting someone through those kinds of advertisements.

“Then what?” Jooheon sniffles doubtfully as every possible option seems just as bad as the last.

“Well,” Minhyuk grins confidently, leaning back with his hands behind his head, “there is such a thing as a club.”

“No way.” Jooheon glowers with a red-rimmed glare.

Minhyuk pleads with big eyes and a jutting lower lip, ears folded to the side to frame his cute expression. “I’ll be with you there the entire time?”

Jooheon hesitates, especially at the other’s imploring aegyo. “You have to promise then,” he reluctantly agrees, jabbing a finger pointedly into the other’s chest.

Minhyuk makes a face at the sharp poke, but he catches the younger hybrid’s wrist, keeping him in place. “Of course, when have I ever broken one of our promises?” He grins widely, canines glinting brightly in the light.

“Fine.” Jooheon plops down against the cat hybrid’s side, resigning himself to his fate. “When are we going out then?”

Minhyuk’s sharp grin grows disturbingly sinister in the soft afternoon light. “How about tomorrow night?”

Chapter 3: the club is the best place to find a lover (so that is where I go)

Summary: A lot of times things tend to go quite smoothly with good intentions - but well, it’s a bit more complex with matters involving love. A club is definitely not the first place to work those things out at, but fate somehow makes it happen against all odds anyway.

“No,” is the first thing Jooheon says upon stepping into his apartment, not even looking up as he toes off his vans at the door.

“Oh come on!” Minhyuk exclaims from his position behind the couch, crouching over what he had thought were well-hidden potential outfits for the night. He scans over them casually, proud approval pinging warmly through his stomach because he had personally chosen every piece with the intention of making each outfit look damn good and boy do they look good now, even against the garish orange of Jooheon’s couch.

“I’m not putting my lower half into anything that could potentially cut off my circulation,” Jooheon retorts, brushing past a sulking Minhyuk to the already open door of his bedroom.

As he begins rummaging through his closet for something he would actually be able to fit into, a distant “your ass would look great in these” comes floating in from the living room, prompting Jooheon to bury his head into stuffy cotton, muffling his ears into heavy sweaters and loose sweatpants.

Finally, among all of his aforementioned sweaters and generally comfortable pieces of clothing, he finally manages to dig out the one shirt he owns that is vaguely acceptable for club wear. It’s a plain black tee that’s just tight enough to show off what Minhyuk refers to as his so-called “curves,” but not to the point of becoming a second skin. Which are, unfortunately, the majority of the clothes the older owns and has currently laid out along the couch to force him into for the night.

He grabs his favorite pair of black jeans, tossing them casually onto the bed next to the plain shirt, huffing minutely as he looks over what he personally deems a perfectly adequate clubbing outfit. The jeans beckon welcoming in all its faded, ripped glory, well-worn and stretched out from years of loving use. He also has to admit, ears twitching bashfully just at the thought, he’s gotten more than enough compliments in these, especially from Minhyuk himself.

“No way,” Jooheon jumps, jerking out of his fond reverie, to see said person leaned against the doorway, arms crossed as he bluntly stares down the younger’s outfit choice. His face is blank, lips slightly pulled into a frown as he glares at Jooheon over the rim of his round glasses with a distinct sulk. Even from this distance he can already tell how boringly conservative the other’s combination of clothing must be, and he strides forward, every part of him ready to change that.

“The shirt…” he reaches over onto the bed, fingering the hem, considering it critically as he pictures how it would look on Jooheon. It’s not bad, and at least it’s tighter than the usual baggy sweaters the younger hybrid pulls on during the week, so he moves on, grudgingly allowing the offending article to stay.

It’s a different story when he reaches the pants, though. He knows this pair of jeans well; too well as he’s the culprit for making Jooheon like them so much. He’s guilty - he admits to it, but the way the tight crease of those pants sticks to Jooheon’s already perky backside always compels his mouth to begin moving before his brain can even register what it’s saying. He sighs, slightly bashful as he confronts his own self-afflicted mistake, running his eyes over the pair of old jeans flopped sadly before him, heart twinging when he’s hit by a wave of pathetic pleading. Minhyuk acknowledges it with a minute, knowing nod, but sacrifices must be made.

It’s all for a higher cause he tells himself, averting his eyes from Jooheon’s woeful pout as he pushes the pants aside, leaving them in a rumpled pile on the darkened corner of the bed. While they do paint the rabbit hybrid’s thighs on full, glorious display Minhyuk knows they won’t even be able to compare to the view tonight when he forces Jooheon into the pair he’s already chosen and laid out against the couch. Trust him, he knows it’s going to be one of the most breathtaking views he’ll ever have the pleasure of witnessing, and his everyday job involves him literally getting into the faces of Korea’s top models so he’s speaking the plain, honest truth here.

However, when he looks over, Jooheon is anything but supportive of his genius idea, the younger man’s expression flattening in obvious distaste. Still, even as a surge of defensiveness flares through him, Minhyuk still can’t stop his heart from melting just a slight bit at the minute twitching of the rabbit hybrid’s perked nose. It’s really just an automatic movement, an appeal to the nervousness of his animal side, but the innocent worry in his eyes and the adorable wrinkle of his cheeks are part of the small list of things that are always able to make Minhyuk grow willingly weaker inside every time he chances upon their precious display.

Tonight though, he holds strong with an iron grip around his soft, fleshy heart as he forces himself to think of all the alphas who will thank him for making Jooheon wear something else besides ratty old sweaters and saggy sweatpants. Not that he can’t appreciate that kind of view on a lazy, rose-tinted Sunday morning, snuggled in layers of thick blankets-

Minhyuk flicks an ear jerkily, shaking himself out of his abruptly derailing train of thought, exasperated at his own apparent lack of focus on the situation at hand. Which is currently plopped before him, unmoving and stubbornly refusing any of his thoroughly planned out outfit choices with a pointed pout. The cat hybrid stares him down, one leg bent, tapping out a muffled rhythm with socked toes, but otherwise remaining just as still.

“I’m not going to-”

“You don’t even know how good-”

They both begin at the same time cutting into each other’s sentences with brisk surprise, but it’s Minhyuk who takes advantage of the quick pause to interject the remainder of his rushed words.

“You don’t even know how good you’d look in the pair that I picked out for you,” he argues defensively, cocking his hip to the side, black tail swishing through the air in wide, agitated circles.

“Yeah well, not when they’re your pair of extra skinny, size zero, boot-cut, leather casings of pure torture!” Jooheon protests, edging away from Minhyuk’s slowly advancing figure, fine terror bleeding into his slanted eyes.

“Wait,” the cat hybrid jolts to a stop, temporarily stunned into pausing his single- minded journey in making Jooheon fit into the aforementioned pants, because apparently he already knows which exact pair they are, down to the size and even the cut of the hem. He voices his surprise out loud, eyes widening incredulously as he asks, “How did you know which pair it was?”

The rabbit hybrid’s face immediately fills with color, blooming across his round cheeks in pink patches. He pulls his ears down to hide his blush, muffling his embarrassment into the cottony down of his rumpled fur. He breathes in and out in uneven drawls as he tries to muster up his voice, hidden somewhere in the tiny crevice of his chest, barely managing to squeak out “Because you wear them a lot and -” before looking down and gluing his eyes to the edge of the bed as he mumbles the rest of his sentence so indistinctly, Minhyuk can barely make out the jumbled bits of sounds and syllables.

“What’d you just say?” he leans forward, an undeniable sense of glee creeping into the amused curve of his lips.

Jooheon still refuses to look up, ears twitching numbly against his burning cheeks. “I said,” he starts, catching a glimpse of the cat hybrid’s mirthful expression before immediately clenching his eyes shut and letting his confession tumble out of his mouth in a runoff stream of rushed words, “that you always look really good when you wear those pants out okay?”

It’s deathly silent for a moment with Jooheon smooshing his hands over the sweaty mess of his rapidly heating face mixed with the suffocating cling of his fur. If he could choke himself into non-existence right now without any lasting pain he would gladly take that opportunity. On the other side of the wall of silence, Minhyuk is still, but for completely different reasons. There’s a kind of warm excitement tingling through him, seeping from the tips of his twitching ears to his toes as he realizes just how much of an absolutely precious being the blushing bunny in front of him actually is.

Which is why he hurriedly crosses the miniscule space left between them with no intention of letting anymore bothersome obstacles stop him in his way again this afternoon. He’s right there, feet planted firmly in front of the younger’s hunched figure, but when Jooheon finally glances up, pulling himself out of his mortified stupor, he’s suddenly gone in, knocking into the other boy with a forceful hug, pushing the both of them onto the bed with a bouncing thump and a groaning squeak. The cheap mattress quivers upon the sudden impact, and Jooheon thinks numbly in the back of his mind that this will be the day his bed finally throws in the towel and gives in to its inevitable fate after two years of very loving use.

Thankfully the creaking eventually desists, and Jooheon releases the breath he was holding into the trapped space of Minhyuk’s smothering embrace. He tries to wiggle around discretely, testing the hold around him and completely failing as the cat hybrid doesn’t even allow a semblance of movement from his position locked around and above him. Jooheon’s hands are still pressed securely between their bodies, and he wonders what is the point of cuddling like this if he can’t even return the embrace. He settles for doing what he can, nuzzling lightly into the hazy mix of Minhyuk’s shampoo combined with the sweet hint of cherry blossoms, patting awkwardly at the other’s shoulder with what limited mobility he has. A slim ear flicks slightly against his face, but otherwise Minhyuk continues on, undisturbed, with rumbling purrs and rubbing whatever inch of clothing and skin he can get his clingy cat hairs onto.

Jooheon is slowly dozing off into the snug space, coddled in the warm blanket of Minhyuk’s scent, so familiar and soothing around him. Unfortunately, his trapped arms are numbing into a state of paralysis in their awkwardly bent position, but the solid weight of another affectionate body on top of his own is all that’s needed to quickly woo him into the land of dreams. Cuddling has always been his kryptonite, and even as uncomfortable as the position is now, he gives in just as softly as every other time in the past.

His mind is detaching whimsically from his body, crawling sleepily through the melted sea of his consciousness, when Minhyuk’s deep purrs haltingly change into gently murmured sentences. He tries to pull himself out of his blurry dreams, blinking away dancing cabbages and talking cups of coffee to hesitantly push against the older man’s smothering embrace. “I can’t hear what you’re even saying,” he gasps tumbling onto his side and flailing his arms out loosely as he’s finally released from the other’s iron hold.

Minhyuk watches adoringly as Jooheon runs his fingers worriedly through the tangled length of his twitching ears, feeling his way sulkily through new knots in his already messed up fur. Minhyuk props himself up onto his elbows, still flopped against the bed as his slitted pupils track every delicate movement of the rabbit hybrid’s curled fingers.

The minute Jooheon deems the state of his long ears vaguely satisfactory, dropping his hands away from his head, Minhyuk immediately rolls into the empty space next to him and tucks their faces together, cheek to cheek, his rusty brown locks intermingling with Jooheon’s strands of blonde.

“So you admit you were looking, huh?” he sighs, eyes curled shut in lazy satisfaction as he noses into the soft skin at the base Jooheon’s ear, breathing in a sweet fog of honey and lavender.

A white ear twitches slightly against his own sharper one in vague acknowledgment, and Minhyuk giggles breathily, his laugh tickling the sensitive nerves in the furry appendage. Jooheon shivers, face scrunching and relaxing in tiny increments as he tries to not curl up into a ball at the acute prickles running across his skin.

He fails two second later, an uncontrollable snort tearing its way out of his mouth, as he jerks into a fetal position with Minhyuk’s breath still squished into the bare crook of his tensed neck. “Yes, yes, you looked great in them okay? Now let me -ah-” he gasps, words breaking as a soft puff of air is deliberately blown into the pink cavern of his poor ears. His drawn out shriek of “stop!” is futile in the face of Minhyuk’s asphyxiating smother.

“You’re so fucking adorable,” the cat hybrid mutters, pressing as close as physically possible. The erratic beating of his heart is accelerating wildly as the intoxicating smell of honey saturates the air, tinged with a bitter edge of panic. It’s the latter scent that pulls him out of his frenzied cuddling, forcing him to extricate his heavy limbs from around Jooheon’s soft body and the inviting incense of pungent lavender and rich honey.

It’s practically dripping out of the air, viscous amber weighing down the space around them with the denseness of a hot summer’s storm as Jooheon sits up with angry red cheeks and glazed over eyes. Minhyuk stands back, head spinning woozily with vertigo and something more primal as he feels heat seep through his own face. Jooheon stares up at him, open and vulnerable, smelling like he’s ready to be presented before the whole world on a lavish platter.

Minhyuk coughs shifting his gaze sharply to the side and away from the other’s lost gaze, gentle brown pools that are melting all of his hard angles and edges as they beseechingly pull him in for some kind of help. He inevitably obliges, his feet automatically dragging him to stand in front of the still sitting rabbit hybrid, presenting himself before the other’s searching gaze.

Jooheon immediately burrows his face into the tight plane of Minhyuk’s stomach, winding his arms around the other’s middle and clenching his fingers desperately into the flat fabric of the elder’s button down, hoping to ground himself in the hard familiarity of his friend’s presence. He takes a deep breath, the fire in his gut simmering low as the overpowering bite of whiskey and cherry blossom dissipates the heavy cloud of honey and lavender in the air.

The cat hybrid runs his fingers through light curls, back and forth in a slow hypnotic motions as trembling breaths shakily dampen the thin fabric plastered against his stomach. “Do you think you’re ready to get dressed now?” he hums, placing a steady hand at the back of Jooheon’s bared neck, spreading his fingers across it in a loose anchoring hold.

Jooheon nods, face still hidden in Minhyuk’s shirt, reluctantly untangling his clawed grip from around the other’s waist. He sighs, sitting back, ducking his slightly overheated face down towards the safety of his lap. The warm hand gripped gently around his neck slips away, and Jooheon immediately misses its heated imprint against his skin. He breathes in the air, finally free of his own thick, viscous scent, and runs his hand over the back of his neck, over the ghost of Minhyuk’s touch, to try and jerk himself out of his feverish haze and back to grounding reality. “I think so,” he murmurs cautiously, a trail of pink dotted in an unfamiliar constellation over the ridge of his cheeks as he begins fiddling with the curls scattered across his forehead.

“Good,” Minhyuk leans down, giving a quick peck to the younger’s fingertips as they busy themselves with untangling messy blonde strands. “I know I look good in those pants,” he laughs lightly, reaching a hand out to pull a still blushing rabbit hybrid to his feet. “But wait until we get them on you,” he murmurs, a playful light glinting through the graceful curve of his eyes again.

Jooheon’s cheeks rapidly color, honey and lavender spiking wildly in the air for a second time, but he stays docilely silent, only laying his head softly against Minhyuk’s shoulders as he allows himself to be led to the certain death of his nether regions.

After all, he sighs, returning the steadfast grip around his hand, it’s only for one night. How bad can it really be?

---------

It’s pretty bad.

Jooheon swears under his breath, already losing feeling in his tightly bound calves as he tries to pull the edge of the pants over his ass. His poor boxer briefs are doing everything in their power to shield his lower half from the world, but with every inch of the tight leather slipping over his butt, the more his underwear rides up into dark unspeakable places.

Finally, he pulls the waistband over the fullest part of his backside with an audible stretching of the seams. His puffball of a tail is just a little too big to fit through the slim back-end hole made for the long sleekness of a cat’s tail, so he manually yanks out the furry bit stuck under the tight fabric, whining loudly when bits of fur literally tear off into his palms.

By now, his underwear has rucked so far up his ass, he might as well be going commando at this point. He turns the thought over in his head, deliberating the decision as his fingers linger hesitantly over the front zipper. Sure, it might give him a slight breath of comfort in this leather hell, but he knows the second he peels off his second, much tighter layer of skin, there is now way in all the high heavens he’ll ever be able to fit himself into it ever again. Half-thong it is then, he grimaces, sentencing himself to his fate for the evening as he zips himself into his leather cage.

Just as he pops in the last button, holding his breath as he removes his hands, waiting for the inevitable moment every single stitch rips apart, a whiny “are you done?” floats in from outside the sweltering closet.

“Yeah,” he shouts back, eyes rapidly flickering back down to his waist to make sure he’s still decent and not just covered in ripped tatters of cloth. The pants stay valiantly fastened around him, the waist line squeezing painfully into the soft flesh of his stomach. There’s definitely going to be red marks later.

“Yeah?” Minhyuk mirrors his answer, loud and lilting. “Why don’t you come out then?” Jooheon gulps, his voice failing him as he looks down at his leather-clad legs again. The thing is, while he may have been able to wrestle these things on, he’s not sure if he’ll even be able to walk in them, much less grind in them at the club.

Not that he’ll be doing any of that, he panics, mortified at his own traitorous conscience.  

“Jooheonie?” Minhyuk’s teasing call comes again.

“Coming,” he sighs, tugging his shirt down over the curve of his stomach, shielding it with his hand for a hesitant moment as he thinks about all the different, less revealing and actually comfy sweatshirts he could change into right now. The brisk metronome of Minhyuk’s tapping foot filters in, and Jooheon’s long ears immediately turning towards the sound, sensing the impatience in the other’s erratic rhythm. He sighs, abandoning the thought as he takes his first few waddling steps towards the closet door.

Minhyuk sits up rapidly from his lounging position against the bed, pupils growing wide and round as the closet finally squeaks open. His tail cuts through the air like a black scythe, flicking agitatedly with audible swishes as he waits anxiously for his first glance of the other hybrid.

Two white tips bob out from the dark interior, followed by a cautious head of blonde curls as shaking brown irises shift over to Minhyuk for a second before quickly attaching their gaze to the ground instead. The cat hybrid takes in a deep silent breath, not daring to make any sounds in this tense moment of hesitance. Eventually, Jooheon shuffles entirely out of his shadowed haven, reluctantly stepping his tightly clad body into the light and revealing himself before Minhyuk’s wide gaze.

When an eternity seems to pass without even a sound from the older hybrid, Jooheon resorts to pulling his ears down over his rapidly burning face, shuffling his socked foot against the ground as he muffles a silent scream of utter mortification into his tangled fur. After emptying out the full extent of his lung capacity, he peeks past the hazy edge of his ear, trying to carefully gauge Minhyuk’s expression.

The other hybrid’s gaze is hooded, eyelashes almost dipping to his cheeks as he looks over Jooheon with slow, half-lidded appraisal, a deep silence overtaking the space between them as quickly as the shadows crossing his slitted pupils. He places his chin on the edge of his curled palm, leaning his elbow on the sleek line of his crossed legs as he tilts his head minutely to the side, looking almost sleepy in his quiet deliberation. Under curved lids, though, is a look that’s nothing if not vividly awake, the silky want threading through his dark gaze making Jooheon’s poor rabbit heart jackhammer even harder against his rib cage.

“Turn.” Minhyuk utters the single word, the sound of it echoing so loudly around the room after what had only been prolonged heated silence for so long.

Jooheon hastily obeys on instinct, his body aching to move after being locked in place for what had felt like hours on end. He shuffles around in an awkward circle, still scared that the moment he steps a little too far out from his center of gravity, his ears will immediately be met by a dreaded sequence of ripping noises. He ends up finishing the turn more of a waddle than an actual spin, long ears still unknowingly pulled against his pinking cheeks as he keeps his eyes glued to the taut fabric that’s still somehow wholly intact around his bound legs.

“Damn,” Minhyuk breaths out with a soft whistle, too low to register in Jooheon’s extremely flustered mind. Forget every big-eyed, stick-thin model he’s ever worked with: the tight creases accentuating the round curve of the younger man’s ass are more impressive than all the shows he’s worked combined. Even the minute movements of shifting from one foot to the other pulls the fabric so perfectly across his thighs, Minhyuk seriously questions why he’s never gotten Jooheon to do this before, because he’s honestly having an out-of-body experience just looking at the smooth shift of thick muscle encased so tightly, so perfectly under black leather.

Yeah, he thinks, jumping to his feet, bounding across the floor with rushed steps and smug appreciation coursing hotly through his veins - this was definitely a good idea.

He reaches Jooheon, who’s still suffering with his face smothered in the furry cage of his ears, and he cups his palms over the back of the other’s unmoving clenched hands, massaging over them with slow sweeps of his slightly cooler fingers. “I’m sure you think otherwise, but holy shit,” he coos, breathlessly, reverently, “you look good enough to eat in these.” He clicks his teeth together in a playful whisper of a soft purr against Jooheon’s covered cheek.

A pair of brown irises blink up over the pink curve of two flushed moons obscured by tufts of white fluff, a myriad of emotions glistening through them with the fractioning multiplicity of a kaleidoscope. Among sheer embarrassment, confusion, and anxiousness Minhyuk can see a piece of reluctant acceptance reflecting the lazy satisfaction on his own face, He strokes his thumb over a strip of exposed, heated flesh, the edges of lips curling into a smile as the hands under his slowly uncurl, letting twitching ears spring back to their towering position atop Jooheon’s head. Minhyuk hums happily, pressing his lips to the younger’s forehead as he envisions the rest of the night illuminated in bright violet flashes of club lights and the heated fog of clamoring scents.

He can’t wait, he thinks, running his hand through loose curls, scratching distractedly at the base of the soft bone in tall ears he eventually encounters in his habitual petting session.

Jooheon shifts forward, opting to hide his face in the older hybrid’s shoulder, wrapping himself around the other’s slim figure as he pushes his head needingly into the other’s bemused touch. Minhyuk snaps out of his his dreamy daze when a head of soft fluff bobs obtrusively into his face, reminding him of the task still left at hand.

“We’ve got to style your hair too,” he murmurs, pressing long, knowing fingers to all of the rabbit hybrid’s favorite spots, blowing floating flecks of short fur like dandelion puffs away from his face.

“Wait, what -” Jooheon suddenly jerks up, dislodging Minhyuk’s pleasurable touch from his prickling scalp, vague regret pinging in the back of his mind as the soothing spark in his nerves begins fizzing away. “I thought making me put this on,” he motions to the tight line of his body, “was enough for the night?”

“I just have a feeling okay?” Minhyuk grins, eyes curving into slits as he drops his hands to grab Jooheon’s hanging pair, linking their fingers together and swinging their interlaced grips between their bodies like a playground swing.

“Does this feeling include anything else?” Jooheon squints suspiciously at Minhyuk’s innocent smile, too sweet and plain for him to not have any hidden intentions. Either way, he allows his hands to be tugged along, long fingers tangling around his shorter own, until his whole body has ended up in front of the old dressing table, spilling over with Minhyuk’s various makeup, face, and hair products.

“Hmm, I don’t know?” Minhyuk murmurs, injecting an air of questioning wonder into his steady voice. “Maybe some eyeliner,” he reveals warming up some hair gel between his palms. “Some eyeshadow perhaps,” he whispers, low, Jooheon shivering as the first cool stroke rakes back the hair across his sensitive scalp. “Then, just a touch of pink lip gloss,” the cat hybrid hums, sweeping back soft bangs with a few quick experienced flicks of his fingers, laying each blonde strand exactly where it should be.

“And then that’s it?” Jooheon sighs, dropping his gaze to his lap to watch his fingers intertwine nervously, pulling and pressing at each other as the wet gel hands finally slips out of his now stiff bird’s nest crown of hair.

“Well,” Minhyuk pauses to take in his work, a deep rumble of satisfaction rolling up from his chest to his throat. “I have a pair of boots and a jacket that I want you to try on with this outfit.”

Jooheon groans cupping his face in his hands, ignoring the uttered protest of “hey!” as his errant fingers mess up the gelled crown piled above his forehead. “Do I really need to be dolled up to this extent?” He catches a quick glimpse of himself in the mirror, and he instantly shifts his gaze to the side before his brain can truly register the strange reflection staring back at him. “It’s not like anyone is going to be looking anyway,” he mutters faintly, obscuring his words into this cheek as he squishes his face against his palm.

Minhyuk’s ears flick sharply at the younger’s last statement, a semblance of annoyance flashing off his face as quickly as it appeared. He chooses to leave it hanging in the air, unacknowledged, preferring to fiddle meticulously with the fallen strands of Jooheon’s styled hair instead. When he finishes, personally deeming his masterpiece satisfactory, he leans his upper body over the back of the chair, sprawling his arms lazily over Jooheon’s shoulders and hooking them together in a tight embrace under the younger hybrid’s chin, forcing him to look up and meet his own reflection squarely in the eye.

Minhyuk presses the side of his head to Jooheon’s cheek, locking his elbows in stiff angles under the pretense of giving the other man an affectionate hug, intentionally trapping the rabbit hybrid’s gaze in place. “I think,” he declares, voice easy and unfaltering, directly meeting Jooheon’s shifting eyes in the mirror, “if I tell you that you look good enough to eat, then you should know just how many people are going to be noticing you at the club. Trust me,” he grins wide, long canines on show, flicking his sharp ear against a round cheek, “nobody paying attention to you is going to be the least of your problems for tonight.”

He finally extricates his limbs from around Jooheon’s body, allowing the younger to slump away from his own exhausting reflection. He steps to the front of the chair, fast and light on the balls of his feet, sweeping an eye over the pile of products before picking out a stick of liquid eyeliner from his innumerable collection. “Now,” he looms over Jooheon, tool dangling loosely but readily in hand, “let me do your makeup.”

The younger hybrid releases a long suffering sigh, but he willingly turn his face up into Minhyuk’s fluttering fingers, closing his eyes and surrendering himself to the other’s confident touch for the night.

As cool fingers line, smear, blend, and paint across his face with absolute precision, Jooheon tells himself no matter how odd, how unfamiliar he ends up looking, Minhyuk will be there with him for the entire night. That thought quiets the buzzing voice of doubt in his heart, and he takes a dragging breath, preparing himself for all that could come.

It’s just a club, he tells himself, lids fluttering as a wet line is drawn smoothly across his skin. A place for an adult like him to do adult things with other adults. He can do this, he thinks, chanting it like a mantra, envisioning the words as silent ripples in an endless sea, I can do this.

---------

“What are you looking for?” Changkyun mutters from under his hooded layer of blankets, barely glancing away from his laptop screen to actually figure out what his roommate is up to.

Sehun groans, crouched on all fours, bushy tail perked high in the air as he sticks his neck awkwardly under their bunk beds, trying his hardest to keep his face from making contact with a floor that hasn’t been cleaned for God knows how long. “My scent enhancer,” he sighs, crawling back out and collapsing onto his side when he finds nothing but dust balls and discarded candy wrappers, courtesy of Changkyun of course.

“Why would you even need that?” Changkyun questions flatly, eyes still glued to his computer screen, two blue rectangles imprinted in his round pupils.

“Unlike you,” Sehun sits up with an audible pop of his back, wincing as he ruffles the wild fur of his triangular ears, “some of us actually go out to have fun, instead of-” he collapses onto the bed with a heavy bounce, dislodging the edge of Changkyun’s blanket just a slight inch off his head as he wedges his face past the younger hybrid’s disgruntled shoulder to get a glimpse of the video that has the boy so entranced.

“-watching ‘Bang to the Up [Yongkuk x Jongup BAP] Moments’?” He reads the title of the video word for word, incredulously poking a finger at the screen to point out the unfortunate misspelling and consequently blocking out the miniscule hint of Yongguk and Jongup holding hands at the very corner of the window, forcing Changkyun to immediately drag the progress bar back by two extremely important seconds. He ends up having to watch the trail end of a previous clip, but he doesn’t mind re-examining the grainy 360p resolution look in Yongguk’s assumably gentle gaze as he takes Jongup’s hand in his own in their practice room during a V live stream.

Sehun continues watching out of sheer curiosity, chin hooked over the blanketed crook of Changkyun’s shoulder, watching the younger wolf hybrid spend at least twenty minutes (if not more) pausing and rewinding a ten minute video to stare silently at the still images, scrutinizing them for any hidden signs of affection beyond the platonic kind.

“I can’t believe this is how you like to spend your free time. Is this what you stay up to four a.m. doing on school nights?” Sehun questions after the cheesy and completely unfitting music dies down as the screen fades into a wall of recommended videos, three of which are Yongguk and Jongup compilations and the other three being various B.A.P member fancams. Now Sehun vaguely recalls somewhere in the back of his mind Changkyun had mentioned something about running some fan account that he made sure to update daily for his fellow “Bangup shippers.” Sehun’s not sure of the username, but he knows it’s definitely beyond cringeworthy.

“Actually, I’m up to four writing my lab report on school nights,” Changkyun replies, unblinking, as he hovers his mouse over the thumbnail of a Jongup fancam, ready to figure out the true extent of flexibility in the dancer’s hips. “But otherwise, yes.”

The heavy bass of Try My Luck immediately begins blasting out of the laptop speakers, and Sehun sighs, body unwillingly swaying along to the familiar beat. He admits, purely from a technical perspective, he can appreciate the way the idol dances with full control over every single muscle in his body, moving exactly as he wants to be seen without a moment of fault nor hesitation. Sehun is rightfully impressed, but the intense focus in Changkyun’s unmoving gaze contains something way beyond plain admiration. “You’re kind of scary, dude. Are you sure you’re not obsessed?” he whispers, automatically flinching back when a flat glare pierces through the pile of blankets towards his impulsive mouth.

Changkyun stares him down for a moment longer, black eyes still and emotionless as the blankets shift slightly atop his twitching ears. It lasts for a few torturous seconds more before he decides he’d much rather preoccupy himself with watching Yongguk’s Yamazaki MV for the tenth time, so he turns away from Sehun’s braced-for-impact expression to drag his mouse up to the search bar. He barely gets the first five letters in before Youtube’s drop down hint of suggestions has exactly what he’s looking for as the first item, highlighted in purple. He allows himself a victorious grin, tightening his make shift cape around his shoulders as the eerie twang of a traditional gayageum starts up, a red warning sign flashing gaudily across his screen.

“Come on,” Sehun whines, shrinking back from the intense visuals blaring brightly from Changkyun’s laptop. “Wouldn’t you rather come out and dance for one night instead of watching-” he motions shakily at the screen, “a chicken get its head chopped off?”

“You like grinding up on strangers, and I like supporting my favorite idols, okay?” Changkyun retorts shortly, tail thumping compulsively against the bed to the fast-paced beat.

The violent music video finally draws to a dramatic close, Yongguk’s handsome face stained with bloody streaks, flashing in red and black for one last epileptic moment before fading into darkness. Sehun shivers, every hair from the tip of his tail to his ears standing on end at the remnant of the low growl from the rapper in the video. He stretches his arms above his head, scooching his back willfully against Changkyun’s hunched own as he yawns loudly to try and dispel the goosebumps prickling over his exposed skin.

As a feeling of normalcy eventually settles back into his scarred psyche, he turns around only to see Changkyun’s mouse poised and ready to click on another B.A.P video. He takes in a deep, bated breath and decides, right then and there, as a fellow and older wolf hybrid he’s got to take some responsibility to get the younger boy out there and at least improve his currently nonexistent chances of finding a mate.

“Are you sure,” he stresses the last word so hard, his head bobs slightly with its strong inflection, “completely sure that you don’t want to come with me and potentially meet someone?” Changkyun nods lightly, a single eyebrow raised as if saying “are you seriously asking me that question right now?”

Sehun collapses back against the bed with a frustrated huff, blowing his bangs into a scattered fan across his forehead. He tugs on a few strands absentmindedly, reminding himself he definitely needs to style them up before going out as he grumbles casually, “Have you ever even taken interest in anyone besides your perfect idols?”

He asks that question rhetorically, more out of pure frustration than actual curiosity because he fully expects the answer to be an immediate “no.” However, when the pause that passes is a little too long for Changkyun to be rationally considering an answer, he rolls over onto his stomach, ears perked in surprised curiosity towards the younger’s blanketed figure. He scooches forward, lanky elbows digging into the mattress until he’s close enough to look up and see Changkyun’s half-cloaked face.

The younger hybrid has a completely blank look glassed over his eyes, and his hand has paused over the tracking pad, B.A.P video temporarily forgotten. What really tips Sehun off to the fact that he may have actually been wrong in his assumption is the light dusting of pink over what are usually flat, undisturbed cheekbones. Changkyun blinks, pensive and hazy, slowly slipping out of his fleeting thoughts, dazedly unaware of Sehun’s sly gaze trained on him from below.

“So,” the older hybrid prompts, casually sliding his elbows onto Changkyun’s sweatpant-clad knee, knocking the other boy’s computer off his lap in the process. “You do have someone in mind.” He grins, canines peeking out against his bottom lip.

When the younger hybrid chooses to stay silent, opting to fumble for his dislodged laptop instead, Sehun’s toothy grin only grows wider. He can already see his plan taking on a plausible form, even as Changkyun goes back to hiding behind his badly edited Yongguk and Jongup shipping videos, rapidly clicking on a random one without even reading its title to cover up his rising panic.

“So,” Sehun starts again, talking over the loud clamor of the video’s background music because he knows Changkyun is listening, despite his uninterested facade. “Do you wanna come with me to the club and potentially meet that someone again?”

“No,” the younger wolf grunts, pulling his blanket down further to cover the short, furry points of his ears. “Because there was never anyone in the first place.” He thinks silently, bitterly, to himself, what are the chances of seeing that person again tonight, at some random club, anyway? It must be statistically impossible, and so there’s basically no point of him risking that chance and potentially making a fool of himself, when he could just stay safely in his bed all night with a definite zero percent chance of embarrassing himself there.

Sehun feigns disappointment, scrunching his face into an exaggerated pout as he sits up, leaning his shoulder against Changkyun’s. “Wolf-to-wolf,” he says, voice low and silky, “haven’t you ever felt that urge our ancestors succumbed to every month under the bright moon? To chase, to hunt, to catch our mates and press them down onto the raw earth and bond with them there for life.” He slings a heavy arm around Changkyun’s shoulder, the causal weight of it pulling off the younger’s blanket hood, revealing ears alert and turned towards his direction, ears that have heard and absorbed every one of his murmured words.

“Stop,” Changkyun mumbles, immediately angling his ears downwards as he scratches at a nonexistent itch on the side of his head. “That’s so dirty…and ancient,” his protests trail off as he struggles to make one last futile comment, “and uncivilized…” He goes quiet, all kinds of explicit images flashing across his pupils, forcing the coarse hairs on his tail and ears to rise in some kind of unspoken anticipation to Sehun’s primitive suggestions.

“So,” the perpetrator suggests for the third time, looking more like a shrewd fox in the moment rather than a wolf, “you’re legal right?” He nudges his body playfully against the younger’s, gripping him roughly around his bony shoulder.

“Yeah,” Changkyun unwillingly replies, “I’m only two years younger than you, okay?”  

“You certainly don’t look like it,” Sehun mutters to himself, sliding his arm off from around the younger’s shoulders and ducking under the top bunk to rise to his full slender height.

“You’re only jealous because I’m actually more mature than you,” Changkyun quips calmly, throwing off the rest of the blanket and sliding his socked feet onto the cluttered floor. He wobbles up, shuffling over to his open closet, computer screen fading to black as the Bangup video sits finished and forgotten.

Sehun narrows his eyes at the comment, pressing his lips together tightly before he says something that completely destroys his hard-won victory. He settles for a few slow, meditation-type breaths, pulling and pushing from the depths of his stomach as he searches for something calm and not offensive to say about Changkyun’s measly height out loud. He settles on a vaguely satisfied, “So you’re coming after all?” directed at the other’s turned back.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Changkyun replies noncommittally, rifling through well worn hoodies and ratty old high school t-shirts that are somehow still a size too big on him.

Sehun keeps his mouth shut, expression flat and unimpressed as he preoccupies himself with finding his bottle of scent enhancer before he gets sassed again with more sharp words. He swears he’s searched in every plausible, and even some implausible places already, but so far, no sign of a tiny glass bottle filled up halfway with clear unassuming liquid. He rotates slowly on the spot, not exactly sure where to proceed from this standstill point.

“Hyung,” a deep voice calls from behind him, and Sehun pivots quickly, his long tail batting against his leg as he sees Changkyun fully changed and dressed with something dangling between his forefinger and thumb. He immediately propels his body into action, striding forward until he’s close enough to yank the small bottle up to his eyes and confirm that, yes, it is indeed his lost scent enhancer.

“Yeah, you’re welcome,” Changkyun supplies dryly, filling up the silence when Sehun only continues gawking, open-mouthed, at his weird perfume. “I’m guessing you tossed it into my closet when you came in at like three in the morning last Wednesday or something.”

Sehun’s lips form a plain o of realization as he dimly recalls getting roaring drunk at some sorority party and having to stumble through multiple campuses to get back to his dorm. At this point, he only remembers slurring something incomprehensible to the worried RA and tripping over rolled posters, presumably of Changkyun’s Korean idols, and slamming face first into his pillowless bed. At some dark, unconscious point, he assumes he must’ve used whatever little motor skills he had left to take off what he could and toss it into the vicinity of the nearest closet. Which was, apparently, Changkyun’s.

“Thanks,” he hums simply, quickly uncapping the bottle and rolling the wet tip in three small swipes over the back of his neck.

Changkyun scrunches his nose as Sehun’s musk immediately fills the air, weighing the air down with the heavy moisture of coming rain before a great storm. “I still don’t understand why you use that. I mean, you stink loud enough without it on a daily basis already.”

One of Sehun’s ears flicks sharply against his head, pulled by an exposed nerve as he tries to ignore the younger’s casual insult. “If you’ve ever even been to a club,” he pauses, pointedly stating a silent implication towards Changkyun’s unimpressed stare, “you would know just how hard it is to pick out a single scent in the mixed mess there. This,” he holds up the bottle between them, “is basically a necessity if you want a potential partner to recognize you again.”

Changkyun blinks, eyelashes flickering in a rapid sequence of understanding as he absorbs the surprisingly logical information streaming out of Sehun’s usually bullshit mouth.

“Which is why,” the older wolf smiles charmingly, suddenly stepping behind him and placing an iron grip on his shoulder to keep him from running away. “I think it would be a good idea for you to use some of it as well.”

When Changkyun only remains tensed and silent underneath his hands, Sehun tightens his grip, pressing hard with thin fingers and then completely letting go. He pats the still-raised shoulder with a gentle push, sighing with an air of defeat. “Well, if you don’t want to, I’m not going to be the one to force you out of being a stupid young pup.”

Changkyun bristles at the demeaning name, ears pressing flat against the back of his head as he rapidly turns, snatching away Sehun’s scent enhancer in one lightning strike and swiping it on in broad patches over the back of his neck. They’re both hit by the consequence of his brash actions almost immediately on the spot, both of them staggering backwards in a fruitless effort to escape the truly overpowering haze of the younger boy’s pungent scent.

“I think I put on a bit too much…” Changkyun supplies by way of an apology as the older hybrid glares at him, clear across from the other side of the room.

It’s Sehun’s turn to be blunt and sarcastic as he bites out, “Yeah, no shit sherlock, are you trying to woo every single omega in the club back to our dorm?” Even opening his mouth to talk allows the smell of bitter cinnamon to coat the entire interior of his throat, so he snaps his jaw shut with a loud click and pulls the loose collar of his shirt up to his nose.

Changkyun glares back, just as unamused, but possibly suffering even more as the charred smoke of cinnamon and apples settles slickly, like a sheen of oil, over his skin. He crumples to the flavor, dropping his head into his hands as he rests his elbows on raised knees. In a moment, he begins messing with his hair, dragging black strands away from his forehead with little success as they only curl back to their previous position, albeit slightly more rumpled.

Sehun quickly disappears into the bathroom, rummaging around with worrying clacks of various bottles against the crowded sink, before re-emerging with wet wipes in one hand and a bottle of styling gel in the other. He slowly approaches the younger boy’s hunched figure with stilted steps, breathing in and out through his mouth the entire way.

As soon as he’s close enough, he kneels down and begins scrubbing furiously at Changkyun’s lax neck until all five wipes are dirtied with the slick remnants of the pseudo-perfume. He gingerly takes a meager breath through his nose, releasing a deep breath he wasn’t even aware of holding when he isn’t immediately assaulted face first by the acrid scent of cinnamon. Admittedly, it’s still too strong for him to breathe openly, but it’s a far cry from the disaster that had filled the air just minutes ago.

Changkyun looks up, taking his own careful sniff as his ears twitch in response to the quick change in the air. Sehun meets his gaze, plain relief pooling in his eyes as he holds out a handful of crumpled wipes. “Sorry, I guess you won’t be taking home the entire club after all - you’ll just have to make do with only two-thirds of it instead.”

The younger wolf coughs out a choked laugh, rejoicing too much in being able to actually breathe clearly again to spare any thoughts to how bad the other hybrid’s joke was. Sehun rolls his eyes, a laugh bubbling up through his own throat as Changkyun throws his head back in a full on chortle, face relaxed pleasantly as he lets every snort and giggle pass freely out of his mouth. The older boy’s cheeks ache as he fights to keep his amusement contained, and he turns to squeeze some gel into his palms instead.

“Hold still,” he grits out from between clenched teeth, yanking the other’s bouncing head still between sticky palms. When Changkyun eventually quiets down and calms, he starts to style the younger’s bangs into high arches, curving them gracefully around his sloping forehead in a lifting middle part. It’s a little hastily done, but by no means rushed, and when Sehun is finished he thinks it’s not bad at all, never mind the fact that Changkyun’s hair will probably be as stiff as a marble statue’s for rest of the night.

“Let’s go,” he grunts, rising to his feet, tail swishing back and forth in agitated excitement as he yanks the younger boy up with a hard tug to the collar of his black jacket. The other wolf mumbles something indistinct disgruntledly under his breath, but otherwise he lopes after Sehun towards their dorm door.

As they toe on their respective clubbing shoes, Sehun sliding on a pair of shiny oxfords and Changkyun lacing up his scuffed creepers, the older hybrid leans over conspiratorially, whispering with feigned secrecy, “Don’t worry, I’ll definitely teach you how to twerk tonight.”

Changkyun chokes and he stands up with a hard shove to the other’s lanky back. Sehun grins, canines glinting like curved eggshells under the light, hooking an arm around the younger’s neck and hauling the both of them out the door with an already drunken stumble.

Without a doubt, it’s going to be quite the night.

---------

“Why are we skipping the entire line?” Jooheon whispers, worriedly glancing at the stretching line of mottled people, head after head turning back to look at him and Minhyuk with a mix of incredulousness and blatant anger.

“Because,” Minhyuk grins, the round apples of his cheeks red from the spring chill. “There’s a bit of a favor that I’ve been meaning to use here.” When Jooheon’s eyebrows flatten disapprovingly, bottom lip automatically drooping out in a pout, the cat hybrid’s grin only grows fondly, and he turns around to yank the younger forward by the hand, pulling him along to his own quick, stumbling pace.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Jooheon murmurs, voice low as he reluctantly follows, ducking his gaze downward and tightening his grip around Minhyuk’s. The long line of judging eyes bore into the back of his neck, making the thin hairs dusting along it rise up in an innate survival instinct. He shivers, shrinking back against the collar of the jacket Minhyuk forced him to wear, the irrational disappearing the moment his exposed skin is shielded from any piercing gazes - or from any predators, his tiny hindbrain whispers as he makes a moment of chilling eye contact with a pair of dark heavy eyes in the waiting crowd. Jooheon almost immediately trips on the spot, floundering as he’s instantly tugged forward, Minhyuk’s grasp forming an unbreakable rope stretching between their bodies and yanking him out of his frozen panic into a leather clad shoulder.

He pulls his face away, scrunching his nose slightly from the brief moment of hard impact, only to see the stiff face of an unamused bouncer and the entire line of waiting guests completely behind them. The girl at the front turns to them, round ears flicking lightly as her eyes widen just an inch in surprise at the sudden appearance of two random newcomers in front of her.

“Wha-” Minhyuk cuts her off with a blinding smile, temporarily charming enough to cart past her, pulling along an apologetically bowing Jooheon to his side. Suddenly, the situation is way too real because the stony faced bouncer is right in front of them with his sharply angled eyebrows and chiseled cheekbones, arms crossed in a thick barrier across the tight black shirt bound over his muscled chest. Jooheon automatically shrinks back, every ounce of him relieved for Minhyuk’s steadfast presence providing an unflinching shield between him and the bouncer. If it wasn’t for the older hybrid, he would have literally turned tail and run back to the nearest subway station without a moment's hesitation.

Actually, he wouldn’t have done any of this - squeezing into the tightest clothes humanly possible, going to a club and cutting the entire line there, making eye contact with random strangers - without Minhyuk’s sharp-tongued persuasion, and he doesn’t know whether he’s thankful for it or extremely regretful. Probably the latter he decides as he ducks behind the older man’s shoulder to avoid the bouncer’s blank stare.

“Xiao Xiang! How’re you doing?” Minhyuk asks brightly, shoulders squared as he stands ramrod straight in front of the glaring man, not in the least bit intimidated.

When he doesn’t receive any form of response, not even a slight tilt of the other’s head Minhyuk only strides closer, tipping up the edge of his chin without any intention of backing down. “Remember your beautiful $20,000 wedding? And how I helped save $500 of that $20,000 by agreeing to help out with your husband’s and his bridesmaids’ makeup for the day without any charge?” His phone buzzes in the skin-tight confines of his back pocket, and he pulls it out with a sly grin, unlocking it with a few quick taps of his fingers before displaying the contents of the message to the unmoving man in front of him with an air of proud satisfaction.

“Sangmin says hi,” he reads off the screen slowly as if the bouncer’s eyes weren’t already glued to the message and scanning over every word with rapid fire speed. Minhyuk then clicks on the attached file, zooming in on a blurry selca of Sangmin staring into the camera with big eyes, bangs streaked messily across his forehead as he tugs slightly on his bottom lip with the edge of his teeth. Despite all appearances, the bouncer’s proud bear ears are already drooping, a deep rumble rolling through his chest just as the sight of his mate. Minhyuk watches the hard diamond of his black eyes melt into mushy chocolate, and he knows he’s already won.

“Sangmin also says you should let us into the club first,” Minhyuk comments, casually closing his phone and tucking it into his back pocket as he yanks a bewildered Jooheon forward who lets out an audible squeak once he’s placed directly in front of the slightly disoriented bouncer.

Xiao Xiang looks down at the cowering rabbit, who’s being held tightly in place by the defiant cat, jaw set in an obvious challenge as his eyes blaze with a dark fire, just daring Xiao Xiang to refuse him. Fuck it, the bouncer decides. He technically got to see his mate before the night has even started and that leaves him sated and comfortable, a low warmth settling into a comfortable buzz inside of him. Besides, he wouldn’t put it past Minhyuk to try and get back at him somehow if he turned him and his friend away tonight. He grudgingly steps aside, his mate’s pleading eyes flashing through his mind.

“Thanks,” Minhyuk chirps, the sly satisfaction on his face demonstrating the very epitome of the cat who got the cream. He drags an incredulous Jooheon in with him, making sure to call over the back of his shoulder, “I’ll make sure Sangmin knows about this.” He finishes with a playful wink and turns away to the coat check with a spring in his step.

Xiao Xiang frowns, unable to erase the horrible image of Minhyuk winking at him from his retinas. He sighs, sentencing himself to his fate for the rest of the night, holding out a hand for the next guest’s ID. He really hates his job sometimes.

---------

“Here, I’ll take your coat - well mine technically - over to the coat check,” Minhyuk murmurs, letting go of Jooheon’s hand to turn around and silently motion for him to hand his jacket over.

The rabbit hybrid hesitates, pulling the lapels close around himself for a moment before stripping it off with slow reluctance. He gives Minhyuk the flimsy, glittering piece of clothing with a deep ache in his body, already tired before the night has even truly begun. Without the thin layer of fabric between him and the club, in his already exposed state, Jooheon can feel every brush of hot air against his body from a passing club goer, and it makes him curl in on himself, crossing his arms loosely around his tightly clad middle.

Just as he’s starting to seriously consider hiding out in the bathroom for the rest of the night, Minhyuk comes bounding back, also divested of his own jacket. The ties of the red silk choker around his neck float free behind him like the ribbons on a bonnet on a windy day, and the loose collar of his shirt has slipped down even further to reveal the smooth curve of his collarbones and just a hint of his bare chest. Jooheon feels like he should cover his eyes as Minhyuk crashes into him, pressing heated skin to the barely there fabric of his shirt sleeve and linking their arms together by the crooks of their elbows. He does it without an ounce of hesitation, guided by a familiar instinct to keep Jooheon close by his side, no concept of personal boundaries ever crossing through his mind.

The younger hybrid remembers it well from childhood, to his teens, and to now, of how much Minhyuk loved (and still loves) any form of physical affection. Really, he loved giving it, and he would always be touching Jooheon somewhere, pressing their shoulders together, absentmindedly stroking his fingers through the rabbit hybrid’s twitching ears - it never really mattered to him what he was doing as long as he could feel the warmth of the other boy’s body somewhere along his own.

To be honest, Jooheon’s gotten just as bad. He’s so used to Minhyuk’s unfiltered brand affection he finds himself feeling just a tad off whenever he’s gone too long without a casual peck on the cheek or a full-bodied hug. Even now, in such an unfamiliar environment, he can  already feel his fluttering heart begin to calm with Minhyuk’s reassuring cherry blossom and whiskey obscuring his senses and his clenched but steady grip holding him grounded to this new, dizzying setting.

The other hybrid pulls him through the crowd in a winding path, dancing around flailing bodies with graceful steps, almost as if he already knows where to go. Some innate cat sense, Jooheon supposes blithely, barely avoiding being backed into by another clubgoer. He’s never been here before, and he swears neither has Minhyuk, and yet the cat hybrid has somehow managed to cross a perfect path to the bar without even taking one errant step in the wrong direction.

The bar is barely visible from over the massive crowd gathered around it, everyone jumping for a chance to start off the night with a heavy drink. Minhyuk pulls the both of them in, melding into the shifting mass with the smoothness of someone's shadow as they wait for the makeshift line to shorten. Jooheon isn’t much of a heavy drinker, really not much of a drinker at all as he would prefer a cold can of peach soda to a skinny glass of cocktail any day, but the simple tilt of the cat hybrid’s pink smile is enough for him to agree to a light beer. Besides, if he didn’t stay with Minhyuk there would be a very strong chance of him getting lost and smothered among the heat of bodies on the flashing dancefloor.

The boom of the bass drops with an electric shudder, immediately transitioning into the distinct beats of the current hit track, “you’re so beautiful” ringing out in the clear pitch of the singer’s stable voice as whoops of approval spread throughout the club. The music rises, accelerating at a rapid speed as the addicting instrumental overtakes the stuttering breakdown of “too beautiful to handle” before another stomach dropping changeover switches the song to a different loud electro-pop remix, the pulsing cadence of Beautiful still mixed rhythmically under the current beat. Even standing in line, Jooheon’s ears automatically begin twitching to the quick-paced cadence.

The track ends with a high-powered diffusion of noise, the final note falling with a shuddering roar as the DJ jams his fist victoriously into the strobing violet air. “Thank you everyone!” he yells, “This has been DJ H.One on the track for your first hit of the night. Let’s hope you won’t be Alone like Sistar for the rest of it!” High-pitched screams rise in a collective wave as the beginnings of the classic song filters through the club’s audio system.

Jooheon presses close to Minhyuk, who’s happily rolling his body along to the sensual beat, no regards to the other people around him. The rabbit hybrid loves dancing along to this song as much as anyone else, but preferably in the comfort of his stained carrot pajamas without any stranger’s eyes on his less-than-sexy dance moves. He can’t stop himself from slightly moving along though, the rhythm resonating so intimately with his inner post-breakup schoolgirl that even in the stiffly binding leather, his hips still manage to find some leeway to sway back and forth in a pale imitation to the iconic dance.

He slowly begins to enjoy himself despite the dragging process of the line and the general suffocating pressure from the collective presence of sweating bodies around him. He’s really loosening up, letting his muscles relax with the sultry crooning of Hyolyn’s high notes, laxly moving his body along in small waves as all thoughts of shame and embarrassment melt away under the flashing colored lights.

That is until something decidedly hard and warm and not accidental at all firmly brushes up against his tail. Jooheon literally jumps off the ground for a good second, a terribly high-pitched sound peaking at the top of his throat. He jerks around on the spot, all dance moves forgotten as he quickly wraps his hand gingerly around his errantly twitching tail.

The assailant in question grins, sharp and dangerous, down at him, his unfamiliar eyes glinting with unreadable intentions. From his growing scent, stinking up the air with the musk of a wild swamp after a night’s heavy rain, Jooheon is already stepping back, tensely angling his body away with as much calm as his pounding heart can muster.

Alpha flashes through his panicking hindbrain in bold, blazing red, and he clenches his teeth together to muffle the pathetic whimper trying to escape from his frozen vocal chords. It’s been too long since he’s encountered an alpha, unknown passersby on the street notwithstanding, because he spends most of his workdays with only omegas and soft, scentless children. The fact that he’s with Minhyuk on most, if not all, of his free days doesn’t help the matter either as the cat hybrid, surprisingly, also presented as the same orientation during their teenage years together.

Which is why he keeps backing away, mind clouding with a fog of incomplete thoughts as the urgent alarm of run! and danger! squashes any possibility of him forming any coherent sentences in his rapidly degenerating human brain. The unknown alpha presses closer, a solid black shape blocking out any hint of the neon lights in the club, and Jooheon unwittingly feels the low weight of his ears flattening themselves firmly to the top of his head.

Any moment now, he thinks gritting his teeth in grim preparation, some indistinct muscle in his thigh will twitch and he’ll be bolting out of there, as fast as a track runner sprinting off the starting blocks once the gunshot pierces through the air. Except this time, losing the race could have much deadlier consequences than letting down your fellow high school teammates. Something definitely much worse than that, Jooheon shivers tensely as the cold, glinting gaze of the alpha roves over his body.

He’s about to take off early because fuck it why wait around for imminent death, when another harsh grip suddenly comes down around the roundest, fleshiest part of his backside. This time he can’t control the loud squeak that tumbles out of slack lips, immediately jerking in place as he tries to identify his second assailant.

When he glances to the side of where the offending grip is coming from, he’s so surprised his eyes almost pop out of their sockets, he’s staring so hard, pupils widening hastily in that single millisecond of jaw-dropping silence.

His already hazy brain can’t take in such a quick shock to his numbed body, so he stands, melded to the spot as Minhyuk hisses up at the alpha, iron fingers digging into the soft flesh of Jooheon’s ass. “Back off,” he growls out, voice so low it’s almost a whisper, but the alpha definitely hears him without mistake because he halts with an almost audible squeal of his shoes against the floor. Minhyuk hisses again, lips curled back around his sharp canines in a feral snarl, the veins in his neck imprinted under a tight sheen of violet and blue painted over his exposed skin.

The aggressive stranger finally takes the hint and backs away, retracing his heavy steps as he melts back into the moving shadows of the dancing crowd. Minhyuk droops, mouth relaxing back into its usual flat position, and releases a drawling breath of relief as-

-Jooheon suddenly slaps his already loosening hand away from his ass with an uncharacteristic amount of force. Minhyuk can only watch, mouth gaping open, as the rabbit hybrid stumbles away, distancing his backside as much as possible, preferring to turn it to the open crowd than have it be near the other hybrid’s invasive touch again. Minhyuk automatically reaches after him, hand stretching through the dense air after Jooheon’s shadowed silhouette.

He’s only pushed away again, his touch batted down with the same desperate force, however with considerably less intensity as the younger hybrid ducks his burning face to the floor. Blotchy red is mixing with the neon blue of the club to make a dark maroon splotch of humiliation splatter over Jooheon’s cheeks that Minhyuk can still easily make out even as the younger man tries to hide his face in the flickering shadows of passing strangers.

“Why are you so mad?” he questions urgently as he hunches over to try and look the fuming rabbit in the eye.

Jooheon finally looks up with a glare, glistening and wet, threatening to spill over at any moment. The scare of the brooding alpha is still rushing with nervous adrenaline through his veins, and on top of that, Minhyuk’s infuriating actions only make it pulse that much faster. “You - you didn’t have to do that,” he grits out, struggling to flatten out the rough tremors in his voice.

“And what,” Minhyuk states flatly, brows furrowing, “let you bolt out into the dark where he could corner you against the wall, where no one else would be able to see you?” His voice rises, raw fear bleeding into the quick anger of his biting words. Maybe what he did was a little extreme, but that alpha was not going to back off until he staked a visible claim, even if it was a fake one. “It was for your own good,” he finishes, mouth pressed into a line of decisive silence.

“No,” Jooheon retorts immediately, rubbing his palm roughly along a flushed, twitching eyelid, pressing down until he sees dotted stars as he tries to stop his body’s jerky twitching. “Don’t you understand? I was already so scared, doing that only made it worse…” he sniffs, covering both of his welling eyes with shaking hands.

“I don’t want to be touched like that,” he adds, a soft broken murmur drifting out into the ignorant clamor of the club.

Minhyuk heart breaks, but the line is steadily moving up without them, so he tries settling his hand on Jooheon’s hunched shoulder, gifting him with a familiar touch. “Let’s go, the line’s already moving, we have to stop holding it up,” he mutters, hushed and tense.

Jooheon jerks away, as if he’s been burned by the other’s touch, eyes flashing in a blazing arc of vulnerable anger. He stumbles back, and back, and back, until he’s left an empty hole beside Minhyuk. “You can stay in your precious line then,” he bites out, before careening away on jittery legs, letting the thriving crowd swallow up any traces of blonde curls and white ears.

Minhyuk watches Jooheon disappear, choking on his own tender heart, but he doesn’t chase after him. For once, he lets him go alone.

---------

“Sorry,” Jooheon mutters, blundering past solid bodies that only seem to move more into his direct path the harder he tries to avoid them. He doesn’t take a moment to pause though, not when his heart is still pounding from the bleeding panic of the black-eyed alpha, from the feral glint of Minhyuk’s needle-point fangs.

He can’t think, can’t see clearly, not with the mosaic of images piecing themselves together in the high-strung web of nerves in his brain. Each colored block takes a turn plastering itself over his flickering irises, pulling him over and over into a torturous trance as he relives each and every scarring detail from the rapid-fire exchange from just a few minutes ago.

He bumps into each and every writhing mass on his unknown route through the club without Minhyuk’s instinctual grace to guide his stumbling pace. He grimaces, swiping the heel of his hand over a ruddy cheek, surely smearing the painstaking effort that was put into lining the slim edge of his burning waterline.

Minhyuk’s painstaking effort of course.

He internally chokes on the name, eyes watering with the most acidic intensity as his jittery hindbrain, on reflex, pulls up gentle images of Minhyuk smoothing color lovingly over his cheeks with the soft pads of his fingers, of his pink tongue poking out just barely as he had directed wide bright eyes over the plain palette of Jooheon’s face, and after all that, how he had, naturally, finished with a habitual peck to the younger’s exposed forehead, free of its usual entrapment of tangled curls.

Not now, he repeats in a mantra, over and over in his head as a telltale lump wedges itself into the inside of his throat. Crying is never a particularly good boost to his already wilted pride, but there’s something especially unredeemable about doing it in a club, in the view of adults who are doing adult things as he whimpers away in the corner, like one of the three year olds in his daycare. Something wet bubbles up, tickling surreptitiously against his lower lashes, and he quickly tips his chin towards the inscrutable ceiling, opening his eyes wide enough that he can feel the rush of hot muggy air flowing past his sockets and temporarily drying up the welling liquid there.

He drops his head back down, lolling it this way and that as he stands frozen trying to peer through his unfamiliar surroundings. It’s a complete wall of heated flesh around him, a mottled splattering of hybrids of every species writhing and grinding up on one another in a shared attitude of careless abandon. Jooheon squirms in place, watching anxiously as his invisible ring of no-touching, personal space is progressively encroached on by wayward feet, elbows, and unfortunately, butts.

As the chances of him magically finding the door in the three seconds it will take before a bobbing tail can come into contact with his arm are practically zero to none, he prays to whatever god that’s out there to open up the ground and swallow him whole right here. He’s never really considered the possibility of hell, but now the option of falling into Satan’s raging inferno is a much preferred alternative to the disgusting, musky heat of the club slowly seeping through his goosebumped pores.

Sadly, Satan doesn’t instantly drag him down onto a steaming pile of skeletons at his desperate plea, but what does happen is that in his distressed searching he happens to spot a path, completely unobstructed by any bodies, to a wall occupied by a few chatting bystanders, but otherwise devoid of any sweaty, grinding persons. If he can’t leave through the front door or his own convenient portal to hell, a dark filthy corner in the wall of the club will suffice.

He sidesteps the stranger’s bobbing tail by a literal hair's breadth and bolts for the open path, the edge of it already beginning to blur with the formless shadows of mindlessly dancing clubgoers who have no idea that their indecent flailing is cutting off his only road to safety. For once, his animal genes come into play and he finds himself weaving through the crowd with a light step, tilting forward on the balls of his feet with speed he hasn’t used since racing down the dusty red track around his high school's turf field.

It’s more of a workout than he needs at the moment, but he makes it the wall just as the writhing black mass closes up around his one clear trail with the finality of a flood. There’s a possibility he’ll have to fight his way through those waters when he leaves this blasted place, but he maintains the mindset that he’ll deal with the panic only when it comes inevitably later tonight.

For now, he feels his way along the wall, fingertips sliding over months of congealed dust and grime as he waits to hit a dead corner. Finally, he slips into a sharp indent, pressing his shoulder into the hard stone of a protruding wall, perpendicular to the one currently pressed against his back, and he knows he’s managed to successfully back himself into the corner.

Perfect, Jooheon sighs, letting himself slump into the skinny space, all according to plan. Now, just to wait out the rest of the night here, hopefully unnoticed, until-

Until Minhyuk comes to get me, his brain follows through without a second’s pause, even as everything within Jooheon comes to a screeching halt before the thought can finish completing itself. His heart aches, and it’s only now that he realizes how truly alone he is.

In a club with people everywhere, the affection in the air so heavy it’s practically oozing, he’s without anyone even remotely near his side. There’s no never-ending buzzing from his back pocket, no shoulder nudging against his side, and no suffocating arms winding fast and spontaneous around his unguarded throat. Screw it, he blurts out into the stubborn space of his own mind, why go looking for some alpha when all he wants is for Minhyuk to hold him in his demanding, desperate way again.

Alphas suck anyway, he sniffs quietly as he recollects all the knobby-kneed, braces-bound teenagers that had taunted him for the soft curve of his barely developed, adolescent’s waist and the uncharacteristic sweetness of his scent in the torturous, age-old locker room. His childhood opinion had only gone stale after being immersed in the extremely omega-friendly environment of his workplace, with Hyungwoo being the one exception to his bland distaste of alphas.

Today’s experience has only brought the terrible prejudices of his youth back in full force, and so, huddled tensely in a shady corner of the club, he has no problem promising himself he’ll never willingly seek out anything to do with alphas ever again - not even for the risk of heats. He’s still alive and functioning relatively well without ever having been with one for the last twenty-four years, so he doesn’t know why he can’t just continue on for the rest of his life with toys...and Minhyuk.

Minhyuk, god, he misses him so much. If Jooheon hadn’t rushed away like a hot-headed idiot, they’d be dancing together without a care in the world by now, and he would be cushioned in the sharp, comforting familiarity of Minhyuk’s cherry blossoms with a mild shot of whiskey.

Now, he tries to recall the complex, beautiful nuances of that scent, but all he inhales are dust mites and the flat musk of his own sweat. Despite the layers of ancient cigarette ash and ticket stubs cemented into the ground, his pathetic self-pity is whispering very persuasively into his inner ear about how good of idea it would be if he slid to the floor, leaned his head onto his knees, and spent the rest of the night sighing his heart out into the curved space of his constricted chest. Jooheon admits, it’s the best idea he’s had all week.

He’s about to readily follow that tiny voice, knees slowly buckling in their leather confines as he voluntarily lowers his gaze to the ground, when the sense of lazy pity is suddenly replaced by every hair on his body and head standing straight and electrified by a blue lightning strike of fear. He raises his head with aching difficulty as if weighed down by a clanking bowling ball, each joint in his neck creaking at the forced movement, and he freezes halfway when his gaze meets the looming presence stopped in front of him.

It’s the same alpha from before, his bowling ball brain supplies with a devastating knockout of all ten metaphorical pins. Jooheon recognizes him with immediate horror, recognizes those black eyes and terrible white fangs glinting through the dark haze in a wide smile meant just for him. His thoughts begin to fall into plasters again, buildings razed into thin pieces that fly without abandon out of one ear and disappear upon contact with the hellfire of the club’s burning atmosphere. Out of the raining dust and cement bits flickering behind the sheen of his lids, he’s barely able to pick out one short, complete thought.

Wolf, the rabbit in him cries, and the man’s furry ears perk minutely as if they somehow picked up on his internal panic. They’re sharp, a blunt triangle shape, almost dog-like, but undeniably belonging to its wild brother from the woods instead - the mark of a predator. His pale crescent moon grin grows, and Jooheon bolts, cutting through the sliver of space between the man’s right side and the wall, hoping to make a break for it.

Hope isn’t strong enough because an iron chain fastens around his wrist, slamming him back against an equally hard wall of flesh with breathless intensity. Literally, he’s gasping for air as a rough hand wrenches his arm backwards, forcing him to relax against the rising chest behind him if he doesn’t want anything potentially damaged or broken. Another hand slithers around his middle, tucking its fingers with the intent of bruising into the supple curve of his waist.

Something hard and undeniably warm grinds past the twitching fluff of his puffy tail and into the thong-like seam of Minhyuk’s borrowed pants. He squeaks upon the intrusive contact, thrashing in the other’s hold as he tries to separate his lower half from the alpha’s front, clawing at the veined arm around his waist without a hint of fighter’s grace, but definitely with all the ferocity he can muster from his soft body. It’s raw animal panic, and with every red line that cuts into the stranger’s skin, the more Jooheon realizes his wild flailing is doing absolutely nothing.

“Where did you think you were going, pretty bunny?” A wet swamp breath blows across his fear-flushed cheeks and Jooheon only holds his breath in silent defiance. Suddenly, he cries out in pain, almost a scream, as his captive wrist is forced beyond its usual capacity for movement, bent to the very limits of the joint’s elasticity. He goes limp from the vivid stream of pain coursing from his arm through the rest of his body, shuddering as the alpha presses up to him in a skin-tingling line from chest to thigh.

Hysterically, he realizes in his messy hindbrain, from any random passerby’s perspective, it’d look like two people willingly grinding up against each other for a dirty night of heated passion. His panic kicks into overdrive, struggle beginning anew as the true severity of the situation he’s gotten himself into dawns upon him with a bleeding orange sun of absolute horror.

The alpha only chuckles, dark and disgusting, into the pink fold of his ear, cutting off his resistance with one hard dig of his thumb into the racing pulse point of Jooheon’s bent wrist.

Christ that hurts, the rabbit hybrid shudders, clenching his eyes closed and tensing up every fiber of his muscles at the new wave of pain. He just needs some help from someone, from anyone - he doesn’t care whether it’s an alpha or not, please, anything would work, just, someone find him before he’s irreversibly swallowed up and forgotten in a dusty, barely-lit, shadowy club corner.

---------

“Fuck,” Changkyun swears lowly under his breath as Sehun climbs onto a nearby table and pulls his shirt up with inebriated confidence to flash the screaming crowd of women and men already gathering around him. There goes his chance of having someone to spend the rest of the night with, drunk and stripping on top of a stained club table.

He sighs, turning away from Sehun’s pasty abs and slouching with a disappointed but expectant shuffle to his lazy step. Unless he joins the currently half-naked wolf hybrid on top of the chipped table or starts grinding up against complete strangers, of which he’ll definitely do neither, what he had predicted pessimistically will completely follow through without fault for the rest of the night.

First, he’ll wander through the club without aim nor direction, bump into some people, apologize, maybe take a gross shot or two, smash into some more random clubgoers, be too drunk and rude to apologize by that point, get whisked home by one of the invariable friends Sehun will somehow end up making by the end of the night, and finally collapse face first into his unmade bed with the epic beginnings of B.A.P’s Noir album on perpetual shuffle. He runs through the tentative schedule through his head once more, angling his body into the narrowing gaps of the crowd, and decides that, yep, everything sounds about right.

Might as well get the night started now, he decides with the form of someone who’s already resigned himself to the inevitability of his gloomy mindset. He edges into the mishmash of indistinguishable bodies, dragging the soles of his creepers past intruding feet without any real idea of where he’s currently heading to. For a moment he stills, pulling languidly at some loose fur on his ears as he tries to remember the exact reason for why he was at least vaguely willing to come here, when standing here, alone, like a complete loser, he has no clue as to what he actually wants to do.

His ear twitches, ticklish and sensitive from the overheated environment, and Changkyun decides, hazily, that again, he really has no idea. The wall to the close left of the room, though, is appealingly bare of any frenzied grinding, and it seems to be the perfect place for him to contemplate the welling self-pity in his heavy heart and also how much money he could potentially burn on B.A.P’s next comeback album. (Spoilers: it’s a lot).

He pulls on his flattest, don’t-talk-to-me expression that Sehun calls his “old-man bitch face” (he’s only jealous) as he begins pushing his way to the beckoning wall with the barest semblance of courtesy. These people could stop attempting to twerk for one second, he thinks huffily as a pointed tail flops without shame into his path, slapping audibly against his leg.

Changkyun dusts the back of his hand over the numbing spot, breaking his passive mask with a curl of his lip in vague disgust. He’s not really a germaphobe or anything; anyone could see that from the current state of his room, but he has half a mind to immediately incinerate these pants the moment he can get his hands on some alcohol and a burner in the chemistry room. Trust him, it won’t be hard at all.

He jots a mental reminder in the back of his mind as the throng of swaying clubgoers finally clears up enough for just the moment he needs to cross to the sliver of empty space between the nebulous edge of the crowd and the wall. Changkyun hikes to his feet and strides into the parted sea, eyes set only on the flat, shining wall glimmering and beckoning before him. He reaches it with an echoing thump of his foot on the ground, internally cheering for his one small victory of the night: finally, he’s alone.

Well close, at least, he corrects himself grudgingly because off to the side is a couple grinding awkwardly up against each other in the same empty space Changkyun has currently taken up residence in for the night. If the twerking from before had seemed awfully cringy, the scene in front of him is infinitely worse. It’s so bad he can’t even qualify the broken movements as anything close to the relative definition of dancing, and that’s coming from someone who may or may not have dislocated his hip attending his first and very last free dance class with an eager Sehun. (He’s never going to attempt a body roll that hard ever again).

The twin bodies suddenly jolt, breaking from its unified black mass into two twisting lines in an almost violent manner. Changkyun is horrified, but strangely drawn to the frantic wriggling that’s taking place, completely lacking in any attempts at rhythm nor romanticism. Really, what’s going on, he wonders, magnetized as his legs unwillingly pull him closer through the shadowy haze for a closer, curious look.

He’s five steps away, still leaned unassumingly against the wall, when the taller man appears to yank his partner back, melding them back to front again with such intense force the smaller one quickly loses his footing and slips in place. He shuffles fruitlessly, trying to regain his lost balance with a dragging scratch of his heels over the ground. It’s strange, because, Changkyun narrows his eyes, peering through the neon purple strobes - it almost looks as if he’s trying to get away.

The other hybrid holds him captive, crushing him into the hunched cage of his thick upper body, until all Changkyun can see of the smaller man are the swaying white tips of what he assumes to be his ears. In a surprising show of agility, the white-eared hybrid lunges forward, tight legs kicking out with a volatile snap as he finally shifts just a fraction out of his partner’s shadow and into Changkyun’s blurred view.

He whips around frantically, as if he was trapped, lashing a pale arm out past the heavy blackness of the body behind him. Something happens out of Changkyun’s range of sight, and he hears an audible intake of breath, piercing dry and sharp through the catchy electropop as the smaller hybrid throws his head back, letting it fall against the other man’s shoulder with a loud thump.

Changkyun turns his head, looking over on an unspoken impulse, and their eyes meet with an electric jolt of lightning, magnetized in a moment of indescribable recognition. Jooheon freezes in his sudden struggle and Changkyun does as well, taking a moment to catch his own breath at the soul-deep sensation.

Bunny, is the first barely coherent thought his muddled mind conjures up on the spot, the rest of the sentence lost to the glassy pools of the other’s fixed gaze. The second full thought that follows is a loud exclamation of oh shit, because the other hybrid is obviously in need of some help.

Even in the flickering neon shadows of the club, the wet desperation glinting in slim eyes is only accentuated by the flashy lighting, highlighted into two bright streaks that pull Changkyun in with the most magnetic urgency. He follows their distinct call, hazily tracing his feet over some unknown path on complete mindless instinct.

It’s like he’s watching someone else operate his body because it’s practically unbelievable when he somehow places firm, unshaking palms on the tensed bodies of the two hybrids and rips them apart with a forceful locking of his elbows, to the speechless surprise of all three people present, himself included. He’s not sure if the steady thrum of noise pounding through his head is the never-ending bass of the club or his own internal panic taking form in high-pitched screaming and incoherent babbling.

It’s the club’s music, he tells himself as the cottony static begins dying down to the slow steadying drawl of his breaths. He still feels like he must be dreaming because there’s no way, he, Im Changkyun, avid B.A.P fanboy and unassuming biochemistry major who’s worked out for a total 0.1% of his life, somehow managed to go up against some guy twice as wide as him and come out of it completely unscathed. Sure, he might’ve had the element of surprise, and the guy’s back was kind of turned to him, but this is coming from someone who seriously thought he had osteoporosis the minute his back started hurting from staying hunched up in bed for more than two days. Given the circumstances, Changkyun counts it as his second firm victory of the night.

It becomes less surreal and extremely real when he realizes he’s somehow latched his hand around the rabbit hybrid’s slim wrist and has pulled him to rest slightly behind his left side, enough so that the hulking creep glaring down at them would have to push past Changkyun first in order to get to the softly shaking bunny. He’s slightly taller than me, the younger boy observes thoughtlessly as a warm breath wavers past the top of his cheek. He tightens his grip, an unspoken message of reassurance, and subtly angles his body even more between the looming alpha and the trembling rabbit behind him.

“Leave him alone,” he grits out as the stranger steps forward, insides jumping at the strange timber of his own voice. He gently pushes his palm back against the other man’s stiffened wrist, motioning slightly for the both of them to begin backing away.

“He’s mine,” the man growls, eyes flashing, and Changkyun is hit with the stink of a swamp on a hot summer’s day, rotting with dead fish and sewage. Even a sweaty, post-dance class Sehun smells ten times better than the muck currently forcing its way through his nose and coating his tongue with the taste of vomit. He considers covering his face with his jacket sleeve, but a light tug to the hem of his shirt and a practically indiscernible whimper stops him in his impudent actions, waking the wolf in his hindbrain with a loud, possessive rumble instead.

“Doesn’t look like it,” Changkyun bites out, rigid and short, each word twitching jerkily against his clenched jaw.

“And you would know?” The other man’s eyes flash a sick yellow, and he steps imperceptibly close, close enough Changkyun is too surprised to push the terrified rabbit behind him away and out of reach. He stills, so frozen in silence even the minute palpitations of his breath turn to ice. Up close, lit by violent strobes, he realizes he’s up against another wolf - it’s an issue of a plain challenge for dominance. The stranger’s grey ears are pressed back, flat against his head, and Changkyun mirrors the same expression with his own identical black pair. He bares his canines, snarling only with the haze of red-blooded victory in mind.

“More than you ever would,” he utters, each syllable ripping so gutturally through his throat he can feel the echoes of the vibrations of the words in the pit of his stomach. He pulls the rabbit hybrid close, pressing their linked arms together in a searing line of bare flesh against heated leather. A honey-sweet scent slyly wafts up from behind him, so inexorably familiar, Changkyun almost immediately drops to his knees from the way it strikes him so pleasurably in the gut.

He forces away the heat creeping into his mind with a deep shuddering exhale, holding his breath quietly as he turns back to the task at hand. Namely, the alpha in front of him, paused in his advances with his head tilted to the side like an innocent young pup, something unnamable wavering in his dark gaze. Changkyun growls, low in the back of his throat, the action making his stomach twist with a strange sensation.

“Back off,” he bites out, the scent of lavender rapidly bleeding and mixing viscously with honey already floating through the air. Changkyun almost chokes on his spit, and this time, he can’t stop his knees from wobbling just the slightest bit.

Somehow, between his dead glare and the weakening of his legs, the other alpha appraises his false claim and somehow deems it convincing enough to let them go, melting back into the crowded shadows of the club with the deadly silence of a snake.

Changkyun turns slowly, hesitating as some sort of jittery wave of anticipation begins building up within his body, overtaking his body with a sea of nerves. When he’s finally fully facing the other hybrid, their eyes meet in a flash of understanding, the same idea clicking alight between them with the volatile flick of a lighter in the midst of a cloud of methane.

Before a single second has ticked by, their hands come to fumble together, fingers slipping and pressing with frantic urgency into the waiting space between each other’s curved knuckles, hands interlacing with a slightly sweaty, heated kiss of palms.

It’s not apparent who sets the first foot forward, but all of a sudden, they’re jilting into action, moving unsteadily with one will as if cooperating in a perfectly timed three legged race towards some vague finish line neither of them have any knowledge of at the moment.

At some point, they’re both outright running, sprinting with reckless abandon through the pulsing dancefloor, all logical regard for manners and appearances thrown away to the fire burning in their shared touch and the same thought sparking alight through the neurons in their brains. It must be animal instinct, some dormant sixth sense that’s come to life now and has somehow led them without a single false turn to a backdoor and out into a deserted alleyway.

The cold night air delivers a sudden shock to their bodies, dousing the liquid heat in their veins with the effectiveness of sticking your head into a bucket of ice. Their hands separate with a harsh rip, every burning feeling of shame and embarrassment returning with the realization of who are you and how are you doing this to me that floods into them from the ashy, cigarette-laden air.

A dull emptiness immediately sets in upon the loss of each other’s touch, an emptiness filling up Changkyun so entirely it makes him want to reach out and touch again without the intention of ever letting go. He chances a glance to the side and loses his breath for the second time that night.

The bunny is actually a full-grown rabbit, mature, with two long white ears sprung proudly upright from atop a head of wavy blonde locks. A few bright strands have fallen loose, the wind stroking them gently across the curve of his bare forehead. The other man tucks them back with a careless backwards combing motion, and Changkyun’s attention is irrationally caught on how small his fingers seem, the tips curved like the delicate petals of a lily in its short-lived prime.

A night draft whistles through their desolate alleyway, and the rabbit hybrid ducks down with an unexpected sneeze, his small squeak promptly grabbing Changkyun’s otherwise distracted attention. Without even a moment’s thought, he strips off his jacket and drapes the warm leather over hunched shoulders, letting the cold air wash over himself instead.

He gets his first direct look at the other’s face in return, and the same weak feeling in his knees returns in all its full, destructive glory. Changkyun discretely leans casually back against the brick wall, propping himself there with folded arms and a cool, detached attitude. Internally, of course, the high pitched screaming has also made a comeback.

The other man’s sleek eyes slope over the full curve of his cheeks with all the sophistication and elegance of a finely painted line of Chinese calligraphy, making him look more like a fox than anything else. However, the minute twitching of his sloped nose and the natural pink of his heart lips give him away as only a bunny (besides the obvious pair of ears), but it seems from the soothed rumbling emanating from deep inside of him, Changkyun’s wolf wouldn’t have it any other way.

It doesn’t make much sense, but on first instinct he wants to say the other hybrid reminds him of the moon: supple and full in sky as it watched over him and his worries with such an unspoken understanding he had pledged to pluck it out of the sky in order to take it with him to school as a pup. Now, his hand twitches in the the confines of his elbow with the same phantom yearning.

The surprise from slim eyes eventually fades into a childish pout, lips perking with the ripe sheen of summer cherries as the other man attempts to pull the leather jacket fully around his body. The piece of clothing attempts to stretch further, pulling past every seam with one-hundred percent effort, but there’s just not enough give. Jooheon gives up and leaves it to flap loosely around his shoulders, tucking the bare edges of his arms into the silky interior to the best of his ability. “It’s a little small,” he admits, hastily meeting the other hybrid’s silent gaze.

Changkyun’s stupid mouth moves too fast for his brain to even process the words coming out of it. “What, no ‘thank you?’” he asks in a tone that is entirely too rude to use with beautiful strangers who remind him of his first rocky, inanimate, outer space love.

Instead of reacting as people, namely Sehun, usually do to his automatic snark, the rabbit hybrid’s cupid lips only form a perfect o before softening into a small, genuine smile, the curves of his mouth still fully accentuated in the sloping dip of his shapely upper lip. “Thank you,” he replies hesitantly, his own embarrassment forcing his face into a nervous grin on reflex.

Changkyun barely registers it in the muted static of his thoughts because all he can focus on at the moment are the two deep welts forming on either side of the other hybrid’s shy smile. Dimples, he repeats brokenly to himself, he has dimples, and they’re deeper than anything he’s ever seen in his meager twenty years of existence on this Earth. Forget the moon’s sea-razed and comet-scarred craters, this guy’s dimples could fit the entire Milky Way into their creamy folds. His fingers twitch wantonly,  and Changkyun jams them painfully into his arm before he does something terrible like reach out and poke one.

“I’m - I’m Changkyun, Im Changkyun,” he stutters out brokenly, disconcertedly determined to keep the nonexistent conversation alive - also to keep those pretty imprints in the other’s cheeks from fading back into smooth obscurity.

“Lee Jooheon,” the rabbit hybrid offers quietly, still too absorbed in the slurred timbre of the boy’s deep, cavernous voice to introduce himself with all his attention and manners intact.

“Like honey?” Fuck, there goes his mouth again. Changkyun is entirely too ready to lock himself into a muzzle and dump the key into a landfill without any intention of ever retrieving it the hypothetical day he gets his brain-to-mouth filter under control. He’ll probably look like he’s into some weird stuff, but at least that way he can stop himself from offending a real life cherub.

“Agh,” splotchy heat blooms lightly across Jooheon’s cheeks, “I’m too old for those kinds of jokes anymore.” Minhyuk has made that one too often in regards to his scent, and just the thought of the cat hybrid makes his heart pang sorely with homesickness.

Changkyun notices the minute drooping of the other’s ears, and he automatically opens his mouth to let it run its natural course, praying that something hilarious and vaguely reassuring comes out. “What are you, like eighteen? Actually wait, seventeen?” Well...that works he supposes; at least it’s not outright rude.

Jooheon’s ears perk again, and he looks up, the corners of his slight eyes crinkling in incredulous disbelief. This kid, he thinks, strangely fond and exasperated, attempting to suppress the whisper of a giggle from escaping his mouth. “Twenty-four actually,” he replies, voice a little wobbly from the choking laugh threatening to spill over at the boy’s frozen expression of pure surprise.

Oh wow, Changkyun was only playing, but damn, he was way off. Twenty-two at most had been his guess. “I guess you’re my hyung then because I’m only a twenty year old suffering college student,” he sighs sagging slightly against the rough brick wall.

Jooheon scans his gaze lightly over the other’s lax figure, taking in the slight sallowness of the younger boy’s cheeks, the bruised bags under his eyes, and decides sadly, college hasn’t changed at all since he last graduated only two years ago. Despite all that, the student is still very handsome, from the slim line of his legs stretched out before him in an accidental display, to the sharp angle of his finely drawn jawline.

Jooheon tries to blink away the heat rising behind his eyelids, attempting to skip over that clear-cut fact, throwing it behind a pile of junk cardboard boxes in the deep recesses of his mind. He forces himself to focus on an innocent topic instead, something he’s sure that he and Changkyun have in common, determined to wipe away his embarrassing moment of utter denial. “So, is it still 2Jae’s coffee that gets most of the sleep-deprived college students like you through the day?”

Changkyun perks up, a small voice of suspicious suggestion lilting into his ear and through his mind. It can’t be...because really, what are the chances? He takes a cautious step off the brick wall, mind and body on complete alert now. He decides to test his miniscule doubts, injecting a tone of innocent curiosity into his casual question. “I’ve only started going there last week, but so far it’s done for me than any of Starbuck’s shitty frapuccinos ever could.” He slips his hands into his pockets, only the light forward slouch of his back betraying his intense interest in Jooheon’s answer. “So, do you go there often?”

The rabbit hybrid smiles in nostalgic reminiscence as Youngjae and Jaebum’s muffled bickering starts playing like a vintage record in the back of his mind. “Yeah, I’ve been going there almost everyday for…” he pouts cutely, trying to grasp a number out of the immutable stars glimmering in the night sky, “at least a year and a half now? Seems about right.” He nods minutely, re-confirming the answer with himself.

Ah, Changkyun’s heart aches at the sight in front of him; it’s so adorable. The fact that Jooheon has started mumbling lowly as he tries to count the years on his fingers proves that, yes, it’s indeed the most precious thing Changkyun has ever lain his eyes on. (The picture he has of Jongup wearing a flower crown at a fanmeeting is rightfully excluded from judgement).

He forcefully shakes himself out of the pure fluff-induced daze to analyze and evaluate Jooheon’s answer. No doubt, it does bring him closer to confirming Changkyun’s suspicions, but - it’s just not enough, not if he wants to wipe away every mark of doubt in his mind.

There’s only one option left, and in his current state of mind, with Jooheon open and unsuspecting in front of him, Changkyun feels emboldened enough to blurt it out.

“I know this is sudden,” he begins gingerly, taking a step closer, then another, until Jooheon blinks up in surprise to see Changkyun standing directly in front of him. The younger hybrid holds his hand out in front of him, palms up in plain honesty as if delivering an offering of trust. “But could I scent you?”

The words take a bit of time to sink in, not because Jooheon was preoccupied by the blunt thickness of Changkyun’s long fingers or anything, but as he slowly comes to comprehend them his face erupts into a rash of color, spreading so uncontrollably it feels like a pandemic disease, forcing him to press freezing palms to red cheeks in an attempt to calm the overheating flesh there. At this point, he thinks on the edge of delirium, he might as well just die from a heat stroke before he can ever get out of here alive.

Changkyun fumbles, flustered at the other’s multiple shades of mortification and his own mistake as he realizes the terrible implications of his request. “No, I meant, uh-” he waves his hands in front of him in what he hopes is an innocent and placating manner, “-like, platonically, kind of?” When Jooheon’s face remains steadily covered, he injects a light plea, maybe even a whine, into his voice. “It’ll only be on the wrist, I promise.”

The only response he receives is a bare wrist shoved into his general space, and his wolf rolls onto its haunches, sitting at attention with its ears pointed in sharp anticipation.

Jooheon’s proffered wrist is much like the rest of him, terribly soft and unmarred by any possessive bonds, delicate and innocent before Changkyun’s greedy eyes. He’s almost scared to touch, as if somehow a light tap of finger could immediately scar the translucent flesh in front of him and cause the rabbit hybrid to be whisked away in a sudden, blazing storm of electricity and ions in order to shield him from Changkyun’s abundant, not-at-all-platonic thoughts.

He absentmindedly rubs a thumb over a thin vein just to make sure, regretting his actions the moment Jooheon jumps a little, almost twitching his hand out of Changkyun’s tingling grasp.

The wolf hybrid holds the other’s wrist straight before him as clinical and technical as a piece of laboratory equipment before letting his base instincts take over. His eyes naturally fall closed as he presses his nose to a fragrant, warm pulse, nuzzling into tender skin - and then, he breathes-

It goes black for a second, his mind, his vision, his senses, before he blinks slightly and realizes he’s in the café he stopped by in last week. His body begins moving on its own, legs carrying him to the door with an already ordered cup of coffee, before he promptly stops in place. This time, in the metaphysical universe of his own mind, he looks around, mouth slightly opened because he swears he can literally taste the vivid scent of honey and lavender in the air and against his palate; it could only be a hair’s breadth away.

Dream-him takes a step forward, and someone at the nearest table turns, blonde curls blazing like a halo in the imaginary morning sun. Changkyun’s eyes widen-

-and they snap open, face to face with the blank skin of Jooheon’s tensed wrist, nerves and tendons rising up like hardened pottery molds under an opaque layer of flesh. Changkyun closes his eyes and breathes in deeply again.

He can smell the ever-present lightness of sweet honey and strong lavender, but there’s so much more - the petrichor of the musky rain on fresh, wet earth - the raw clearness of the air on the night of a full moon - the wolf in his blood sings and howls of home. There’s no doubt about it: it’s the same scent that had whispered to him you’re mine, I’m yours, and we were made for each other from the moment of the universe’s conception the day he had made his brisk exit from the café he had visited on a random whim last week.

Changkyun slowly looks up from the wrist below him, an odd heaviness in his mouth. Somehow, he’s lost his breath again for the nth time this night. When he meets Jooheon’s lilting gaze, there’s the same exhilarated, terrified, heart-pounding recognition in those brown, glistening, bottomless pools. He opens his mouth, jaw popping and creaking from the strange weight of his unfathomable desire. He wants to throw himself into those gentle waters and drown himself in their never ending seas.

“Oh-”

“-it’s you.”

---------

Minhyuk slides into the edge of the bar, friendless, and very much in the mood for a strong shot or two. Maybe even three - just enough for him to forget the way Jooheon had flinched away his touch as if he had hurt him more than any stranger ever could.

They’ve been together, through every momentous occasion and even through most nondescript, forgettable ones, for so long Minhyuk wonders, idly pushing at the tiny glass in front of him, sloshing the amber liquid inside it, if he’s lost his sense of reasoning entirely. Being with Jooheon, it makes his heart ache with the uncontrollable urge to protect, and he contemplates the intense feeling as he slowly swishes a gulp of searing whiskey against his heavy tongue.  

If only he had been born an alpha instead, he considers, letting the bitter liquid slide down his throat and coat his insides with thick soporous oil. After all, that is what they had originally come here for, and at his own urgent suggestion too. Well, it’s going so well he’s somehow gotten himself ditched and drinking alone, while Jooheon is probably off fending away crowds of alphas with flushed cheeks and perpetually pink lips.

Minhyuk feels the same flush seep through his own face, and he frowns, squinting lightly when a face begins to appear in the glimmering puddle staring up at him from the concave bottom of the shot glass. He thinks it’s Jooheon’s wobbly visage for a moment, painted with liquid amber into a look of teary betrayal, but when he puts his eye to the rim, there’s only the blankness of the hazy liquid.

He raises his head up from his scrutinous examination and promptly decides he’s not drunk enough. If the shame from acting like an absolute idiot is still burning under his skin, then he needs more vice flowing through his veins to flush it out.

By the time he’s nursing his sixth shot, he’s begun nipping at the already minute amount of liquor as if he was partaking in the finest of wines. In truth, he’s nearing that point of the night where his thoughts are turning into fine mush, along with the disappearance of his already barely existent inhibitions. The alcohol suavely washes away all his worries about Jooheon, glibly dulling the large part of his brain that’s wholly dedicated to his unflinching sense of protectiveness over the younger hybrid, and he begins to wonder, cheerily, why isn’t he out there on the dance floor enjoying himself yet?

The masochistic cat in him unfortunately jumps to attention, reminding him with a sly swipe of its paw past lazy ears, it’s because he would rather not see possessive hands running themselves all over Jooheon’s soft body, squeezing him out of Minhyuk’s trembling reach. He’s never seen it, but the obscene imagery conjured up by his overreaching, unbound mind is more than enough to cause an unpleasant churning to rise from his empty stomach, turning the taste of his mouth sour. He glances at the glowing amber liquid, and suddenly, it doesn’t seem quite so tempting anymore.

He’s about to discretely hide his still very full shot glass behind the growing collection of already drained, clear ones, when the stool next to him screeches aside and a lonely shadow slips into the now-empty space. Minhyuk jolts to a minute standstill, whiskey shot poised in the loose hold of his sluggish fingertips as he watches the stranger with shifting pupils. For most of the night, he hasn’t had any silent drinking partners, and he was more than okay with that - well, up until this guy had shown up of course.

The lighting in the club alternates between neon blasts of color and a cheap kaleidoscope of swinging lasers from a myriad of free lightsticks. Minhyuk’s slurring brain hisses against the random flashes of offensive brightness, but he has no difficulty mapping out the solid silhouette of the man next to him, pupils automatically dilating to eclipse the dark suns of his irises as he takes in the view before him. His seat partner pays him no attention, gaze unmoving and silent, even as he sets down the shot glass with a disruptive clank.

Instead, the other man tips slight fingers under his chin in a terribly sober move, lips pursed into a small point as he waits for the bartender to arrive with his drink. He looks like the fussy type, Minhyuk observes with a sense of vague annoyance. Definitely the fussy type, he confirms, narrowing his eyes as the guy huffs out a short breath, reaching back with his pale, pink-tipped fingers to smooth back a few perfectly neat strands of ink-black hair.

A crisp movement draws Minhyuk’s attention to the top of his head, where two triangular ears stand tall, mildly twitching against the invisible flow of air traveling throughout the club. They're actually almost oval, Minhyuk decides, sliding his eyes up from their rounded bases to the black needle-point tips.

He scooches minutely closer, unspeakably drawn to them through some kind of loose curiosity. Through further observation, he can see how polished they are, sleekly matching the smooth color of their owner’s gel-styled hair, differing only by a ruffle of rusty brown inside their barely curled interiors. He’s a domestic puppy, Minhyuk realizes with a surge of irrational glee. One that likes to take care of himself too, he scoffs internally as the dog hybrid smooths his fingertips along the finely shaved sides of his head.

The drink finally comes, to expectant alertness of both men, and Minhyuk watches eagerly as his neighbor takes it politely with outstretched palms. It’s in a tall, clear glass, the drink sloshing around lightly with no discernable color to speak of. For a moment, Minhyuk is convinced it’s a mojito from the fresh bite of citrus floating through the sweaty musk of the club, but a neon ray of yellow passes over them, and sees with a start this guy only ordered a simple mint soda.

The proof of his realization fans tauntingly at him from over the edge of the dripping glass with a searing green pungency. Sure, there’s a slice of lemon stuck at the bottom of some ice cubes, but the drink itself is tinted with a deep shade of emerald, and Minhyuk blames his failing sight on the whiskey drugging his system with the tempting promise of a limitless high.

For some reason, the fact that this guy got all dressed up, all dolled up, only to come out this entire way just to order a plain soda irks him beyond all logical thought - so much so, he gropes for his once-forgotten shot of half-drunken whiskey and upends the rest of it into his waiting mouth with an audible gulp. When he sets down the glass this time, even louder than before, the other man’s eyes are finally on him, straw perched loosely against a lush bottom lip. Minhyuk begrudgingly wonders if he’s wearing lip gloss.

“So, what’s a guy like you doing here ordering that kind of drink?” he asks impulsively, lolling his head slackly against a propped palm as he shifts his gaze pointedly to the offensive glass of mint soda.

The guy takes a long sip from said drink, pursing his delicate lip-gloss lips around the tip of the straw in slight surprise. “I’ve got an early day of work tomorrow,” he replies lightly, but he tips the non-alcoholic beverage just an inch away with a graceful shove of two small fingers, as if primly saying I’ve had enough of this for now anyways.

“Then what are you even doing here tonight?” Minhyuk accuses bluntly, nevermind the fact that he has a five a.m. shoot to work tomorrow morning. This guy doesn’t doesn’t need to know that.  

“I’m actually friends with the DJ,” the dog hybrid sighs, throwing a furtive glance towards the source of the pounding bass pulsing through the club. He turns back to Minhyuk, arched almond eyes focusing precisely onto the other’s blurry gaze. “He said he would come find me once he’s switched out for the night, but well…” he glances towards the booming DJ station again, “looks like the other guy still hasn’t arrived yet.”

“So what,” Minhyuk hums, tone lilting and light, tracing his finger around the wet rim of his emptied sixth shot, “you’re just going to here all prim and pretty and let some handsy alpha come claim you for the night?” He can’t stop the words from tumbling out of his mouth, nor the teasing indignance from bleeding into his tone. The whiskey has made being rude objectively hilarious, and when he gets like this, all he wants to do is mess with the impassive masks of people like this frowning guy before him.

“I’m an alpha, actually,” the other man answers, taciturn and calm, only betraying a sense of clinical distaste with a slight raise of a single neat brow.

Minhyuk blinks once, twice, hazy and languid, showing no surprise at all. He had suspected as much; at first glance, the dog hybrid had seemed tiny, almost delicate in stature, but there was something undeniably proud and compact in the set of his narrow shoulders, giving him the sleek presence of someone twice his size. Minhyuk won’t admit to it out loud, but unconsciously he does the same thing, albeit for entirely different reasons.

He feigns light surprise, just vaguely pulling his brows up past his bangs before pursing his lips into a flat line of easy acceptance. “Certainly wouldn’t stop them,” he throws out, casually giving the other man a very noticeable once-over.

“Certainly isn’t stopping you,” his drinking partner replies, eyes finally flashing with an emotion that isn’t exasperation or unimpressed-ness, if those even qualify as valid forms of human expression. Minhyuk thinks he can hear a faint growl in the other’s clipped tone, and he shivers with an odd sense of exhilaration.

He pulls himself forward, heated attraction making the air unbearably thick between them. He isn’t even thinking in full sentences anymore, only recognizing and following the red pulse of tease and provoke in the back of his mind. “So,” he breathes, knocking his knees into the open v of the other man’s spread thighs, “the puppy has some bite, huh?” He smirks, popping his canines into full view, ready for a challenge.

What he isn’t ready for are the dog hybrid’s eyes suddenly streaking with an intense burst of heat, a black hole burning hotter than the largest sun in the galaxy as he yanks Minhyuk forward with a punishing grip around his choker, muttering, “I’ll show you puppy.” This time there’s a definite growl, rumbling past his lips as he crashes their mouths together with a raw clack of teeth ripping over skin.

Minhyuk’s cry of surprise is swallowed by a demanding tongue that licks urgently into his slack mouth, pressing past his lips without a moment of courtesy. Liquid fire sears through his stomach, and he drags the stranger to him with a rough hand cupped to the back of his head, intentionally yanking on the neatly styled locks with unrestrained violence. Another growl rolls out of the stranger’s mouth, this time melding into the heated cavern of his throat as his mouth is thoroughly explored and invaded with implacable dominance.

He hisses, asserting his own control, tightening his grip on the other’s head to the point of yanking out a handful of fine black hairs and biting down into the dog hybrid’s glossy bottom lip none too gently, pressing with the harsh edge of his canines. The groan he swallows down only sets the lowly simmering heat in his stomach ablaze with the subtlety of a bomb, and he lunges forward, using his height to his advantage to force the unyielding stranger into temporary submission.

It’s been so long, an eternity almost, since he’s made out with someone to this extent of ferocious violence, neither of them providing a shred of care for the other’s pleasure as they each chase after their own, only dumping gasoline onto the catching wildfire in each other’s veins. Minhyuk can’t even tell if he’s breathing anymore, the tight ball in his chest growing more grand with each moment of wet, willing suffocation as their teeth meet with a painful click. He’s never had it like this before, this rough, this good, not even through his shared heats-

(his shared heats with Jooheon. Jooheon who’s so soft, too soft, ever since childhood, and Minhyuk just left him, forgot him, to the cavernous beast of the club, where there’s no way he could ever fend for himself, not against all those alphas no-)

He rips his mouth away from its tangled, intimate embrace, spit-slicked lips parting in a desperate gasp for air. The other man frowns up at him, the same wetness staining his bruised mouth, body tensed and braced in feverish pleasure against the bar. His hair is artfully mussed and parted messily with a few thin strands tickling his half-lidded gaze of hooded want. Minhyuk shivers, ears pressing back against his head as he takes a few slow steps, backing out from between the dog hybrid’s splayed legs.

“I-I have to go,” he stutters, ducking his gaze down to a pair of polished dress shoes. Before his mistake of the night can reply in that steady, sharp voice of his, Minhyuk turns tail and runs, far, far away, without a single glance backwards to the mess he’s left stunned behind him.

He clenches his eyes shut, dodging around wayward bodies with wobbling, but still intact grace. His only consolation for the night is that he’ll never have to see this delicate, domineering stranger ever again. Minhyuk runs away and pretends that it doesn’t hurt at all.

---------

“Ah-” Jooheon gasps, breathily, breathlessly, when Changkyun noses down the fine line of his twitching pulse, hot exhales of Saharan wind stripping across the flat plain of his wrist. The younger hybrid’s eyes have slipped closed again in a translucent fan of hazel eyelashes, fluttering, trance-like, against the hard edge of his cheek.

Jooheon watches, caught in his own flushed stupor as Changkyun traces over his proffered arm with a sense of slow, shaking reverence, carefully patient in his holy quest to memorize every subtle nuance of the scent arising like a breath of warm perfume from the fragrant wrist before him. He inhales again, another long drawl, dragging the breath harshly against the roof of his mouth, tasting the scent of pure sweetness as it dissipates in a mind-numbing fog through his nose and into the rest of his body. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to think in coherent sentences after introducing his brain to this opioid. He sighs, tireless, and takes in another deep impassioned drawl of pungent lavender and lavish honey.

Jooheon reddens, heart shaking, heat spreading when Changkyun shifts his captive hand over a smooth cheek, cradling his twitching palm to the curve of his own face with the gentility of a long-lost kitten. He tucks himself into the soft flesh of the older hybrid’s palm, yearning to bury himself into the very depths of the velvet aroma emanating from cotton-cream skin.

Jooheon deliberates, hand twitching, unbidden, at the other’s unfathomable expression. He’s just a kid - a pup, the jittery rabbit in his mind supplies, and yet here they are: complete strangers, pushed together in this affectionate, deeply implicating position in plain view of an open alleyway. Changkyun noses into the delicate folds of skin under his cheek, huffing out a ticklish exhale, and Jooheon’s poor heart jumps so hard he starts to see the bright stars of the sky begin flying past the dirty yellow light of the street lamps and embed themselves into the black crown of the younger man’s bowed head.

It’s all a dream, a heat induced hallucination, he tells himself, the fire from Changkyun’s prolonged touch melting him into a frenzied pile of mush. Still, when a soft cheek presses insistently to his stiffened palm, the better part of his brain is too ruined to stop his hand from reaching back and reciprocating with a gentle swipe of a thumb to the delicate ridge of a high cheekbone hidden under a set of glimmering, flickering lashes. They brush, so light, so frail, against his finger, and suddenly, Jooheon is all too aware of the same pink heat trailing itself across the slender edge of Changkyun’s slack face.

Oh, he stills, thumb paused mid-way in its affectionate ministrations. He doesn’t quite know what to make of that realization nor what he should do with it.

Fortunately (or unfortunately), he never manages to consider any potential options because a heavy force is crashing into him, dragging, pulling, and squeezing with the unstoppable will of a six ton truck ramming into an unsuspecting deer at its full violent velocity.

“Minhyuk hyung,” Jooheon breathes out with trembling lungs, hands twitching uselessly at his side, arms pinned in the other’s unrelenting embrace.

“You dummy!” Minhyuk immediately leans back, frantically scanning blown black pupils over Jooheon’s face and body for any sign of harm or assault. All he finds are pink cheeks, and in a moment of cold, exhausting calm, he hastily attributes it to the night chill.

The sudden appearance of Minhyuk’s terribly familiar brand of merciless affection, complete with sharp words and lovingly oppressive touches - it sends a surge of desperate relief through Jooheon that he had never even realized was trapped inside of him, fluttering in erratic beats in the cage of his heart. He falls a little now, knees buckling as he throws himself into Minhyuk’s steadfast embrace with a crying whimper of “hyung.” His eyes finally slip closed, and the heat in his veins simmer down as the fresh, cooling scent of cherry blossoms with a biting hint of whiskey once again surrounds him in a protective cloud of safety.

Minhyuk never lets their bodies separate, only rearranging his arms around Jooheon’s quivering self in order to squeeze around him even tighter. He strokes one hand in a slow rhythm down the swaying curve of the younger’s back, while the other grips tightly at the base of his neck, fingers alternating between scratching through the outcropping of fine hairs there and just pressing at the soft flesh under them, spreading open to their full length in order to encompass and feel the entire span of Jooheon’s neck. He presses his nose into the crook of the younger hybrid’s mellow jaw, taking in a deep breath as he reassures himself with the very loud and very fast pounding of the other’s pulse.

The entire time he doesn’t allow his gaze to wander from the solitary figure who has been staring at them with such unblinking focus, it only makes Minhyuk hold Jooheon to him that much closer.

He doesn’t break eye contact with the boy, staring him down with slitted pupils even as the other hybrid slowly kneels to pick up a discarded jacket. Even in his bent position, he still manages to glare up at Minhyuk with the same strange intensity, crouched and ready as if waiting for a fight. The cat hybrid compulsively buries half of his face into Jooheon’s neck, who automatically makes room for him, tilting his head to the side in an accidental show of vulnerability. Minhyuk watches with his one unobstructed eye as the boy’s expression of gloomy placidness immediately darkens into one of unmistakable jealousy, and he decides on the spot that he doesn’t approve of him one bit.

Eventually, the silent battle between them fades, too tense to be continued as Jooheon shivers in the cold night air, so Minhyuk pulls the younger man back with a firm but gentle hold at the scruff of his neck. “We should go,” he states with quiet aplomb, and without even lending him a moment to reply nor to protest, he yanks Jooheon to him with a crushing grip and begins marching the both of them out of the whistling alleyway.

He’s completely aware of it when he passes by the silent boy, feeling the unsettling chill of the other’s unshakeable glare on him, but he resolves to walk past with his head held high, no intention of conceding even a bit at the tail end of this impromptu battle.

When the pale edge of the boy’s slim face slides out of view, his heart surges with a loud pitter-patter of triumph, that he’s gotten out of here with everything he needs intact (pride, victory, Jooheon), until he’s jerked to a stumbling stop, knees knocking, feet shuffling into the broken gravel.

He whips his head around, teeth furiously bared in a ready hiss, before he jolts to a frozen pause to observe the scene before him. The kid has somehow managed to grab Jooheon’s free hand with his scrawny arms and is currently holding it captive with both hands in a way that is entirely too familiar and intimate for someone Minhyuk has never met before, let alone someone he’s ever seen Jooheon hang out with.

The boy looks up, whispering something inaudible and clandestine, jealousy melting into the recognizable tenderness of the beginnings of loving infatuation. The edges of his mouth perk up in a crooked smile, and Minhyuk grudgingly admits it’s a good look on him. The nameless stranger finally breaks his lovesick eye contact to rummage for something in his skin-tight pockets, skinny hand emerging seconds later with a simple sharpie twisted between his fingers.

He hunches over, spreading Jooheon’s fingers open gently as he scrawls out what Minhyuk assumes to be his number in bold strokes of black, pressing each line without hesitation into the pale impression of the rabbit hybrid’s skin. Minhyuk sees himself ripping his frozen friend away, entirely aware of how loose the strange boy’s soft hold must be, and ruining the looping numbers with a jagged streak that would cross out any last remnants of his meager existence in their lives.

He stops though, compelled by some nameless impulse to at least wait for the other to finish his yearning, desperate task. Common courtesy is what he’ll call it for now.

However, the moment the wet felt tip of the pen lifts from Jooheon’s palm, Minhyuk is turning on the spot, resolutely dragging the younger man away, unwavering in his decision of never seeing this stranger’s slender, crookedly grinning mug ever again.

Jooheon stumbles along, heart aching with a deep, deep reluctance, and he raises his head back above his shoulder for one last farewell look. Changkyun is sliding on the small jacket he had lent him earlier with a casual shrug of his narrow shoulders, smoothing down one of the leather lapels with a blunt grip between his forefinger and thumb.

There’s something indescribably confident about it, something that makes it so undeniably attractive, that all Jooheon can do is let a flush overtake his face and raise his hand in a weak attempt at an innocent goodbye.

Surprisingly, Changkyun returns his wave with full fervor, and this time, Jooheon definitely isn’t hallucinating the tilted handsome smile that glints across from the far side of the receding alleyway. The burning embarrassment abates just enough for him to shoot back his own bright grin and enthusiastic wave, much to Minhyuk’s irked chagrin.

---------

“So do you forgive me yet?” Minhyuk grunts lowly as he focuses on lathering organic, herbal-scented shampoo into Jooheon’s plastered, wet hair. The “all-natural, vitality enhancing” label is really just some sly advertising tactic, a money trap for gullible omegas because of course rubbing some unknown flora into your scalp somehow works the wonders that your biology can’t. Minhyuk doesn’t believe that bullshit for one second, but for some reason Jooheon seems to be taken with how pungent and aromatic the smell of the cheap shampoo is.

Personally, he suspects the younger uses it as a makeshift scent dampener for the overwhelming sweetness that emanates from him in every possible manner - but that’s really neither here nor there; not when Minhyuk considers the bare fragrance of the other’s neck, softened by the healing morning light after a long night of heavy rest, free of any bitterness from the artificial scent of soap or body wash, but sweetened just so from a natural sheen of sweat from being coddled up under warm blankets and an even warmer embrace - it’s undeniably his favorite thing in the world.  

“Hmm,” Jooheon hums, tipping his head back into the Minhyuk’s impromptu massage, completely unaware of the gentle ramblings going through his head right now. Skilled fingers deliver a particularly hard dig to the flat plain between the two ridges of his dripping ears, and he can’t suppress the groan that flies out of the deepest part of his chest, melting into the steamy air with a resonating rumble that fades into something akin to a slight purr.

“Yeah, yeah you are until the end of time if you do that- “ Another circling stroke presses into the exact same spot again, and Jooheon sighs contentedly, letting the last word slip out fruitlessly in an attempt to complete his thought, “again.”

Minhyuk obliges silently, putting his elbows into the work as he goes through a systematic process of digging with the tips of his fingers here, kneading with the hard bone of his knuckles there, until Jooheon’s head is lolling loosely in his smooth hands, complete mush in his open palms. He cradles the rabbit hybrid’s slippery nape with a tight, secured hold, groping to the side of the tub for the pump bottle of “lush, skin-softening” body wash.

Again, Minhyuk believes none of it. Besides, Jooheon is already too soft on his own to need this kind of commercial exploitation. He pushes down on the flat top of the bottle anyway, squeezing the gelatinous liquid into his cradled palm and pushing it around with messy strokes of his fingers inward to try and warm up the cleanser. The scent of some indistinct plant floats into the humid bathroom to join the similar aroma of the shampoo, and Minhyuk suspects Jooheon of shopping for toiletry supplies with a very limited perspective.

It’s terribly precious, he decides with an aching tug in his gut, subtly tightening his grip on the younger’s nape as he gently urges with a push of his fingers and a press of his palm for Jooheon to sit up. The rabbit hybrid obeys, albeit with dragging reluctance, flopping his spine forward into a hazy slump the moment  his upper body slumps out of the foamy water.

“Hey,” Minhyuk reprimands, slapping his open palm over the hunched back in front of him with a resounding smack. The dozing rabbit immediately snaps up, whipping his head around with a few flying droplets of water to glare at the older hybrid. “Don’t fall asleep on me now.” Minhyuk ignores the other’s indignant stare and begins lathering up his back, starting another impromptu massage. Jooheon’s expression quickly fades into sleepy complacency again, dewed eyelids drooping as warm fingers soothe away the tenseness under his skin.

“You,” Minhyuk promptly notices and pinches the loose skin of the rabbit hybrid’s curved neck with a stinging pull. “Stop falling asleep - I still have to take off your makeup, okay?” He gives one last harsh pinch to Jooheon’s spasming nape, soothing a palm of body wash over it immediately afterward as a quiet apology.

When the only answer he receives is a slightly straightened bare back, he assumes the younger hybrid has vaguely comprehended his instructions and busies himself again with the task at hand. He’s so fixated on lathering up the translucent curve of Jooheon’s back, he almost misses the muted whisper that floats back from the haze of soap, bubbles, and lukewarm water.

“What about you hyung?” the other hybrid murmurs, voice filmy with the cottony down of oncoming dreams. In a lower tone, softer, but no less subdued, he offers with a jerky stutter, “I could - help you-” He falters, pausing at his own raw vulnerability, quickly tacking on an “ if you want” at the end to make his request seem less desperate.

Minhyuk’s wizened heart skips a beat, and his hands still for a moment in their tender ministrations. He wobbles back into action seconds later, resuming his cleaning with slow circles of a damp towel. “I don’t know Jooheonie,” he breathes out in an unsteady whisper, “you know the whole wet cat in water thing, not the biggest fan of sitting in a pool of my own filth for too long.”

The glimmering back in front of him slumps, and he can already see the childish pout forming over the other’s pink cheeks. He sighs, long and inevitable, and against all rational thought, he supplies apprehensively, “But a bath once in awhile couldn’t hurt, especially tonight I suppose.”

Before the last syllable has even left his lips, two dripping wet arms have fastened themselves around his neck, a slippery cheek pressing against his own frozen one, heated flesh bunched up in round apples of pure joy. Minhyuk immediately draws in one himself, fur shocked straight into the air as generations of animal instinct imbedded into him screech in fierce protest.

There’s already soap-laden water tickling down his neck, seeping into the collar of his ruined silk nightshirt as Jooheon tugs eagerly, without a hint of malice, at the drenched fabric. “Come on in hyung,” he exclaims, fingers frantically making quick work of of tiny, slippery buttons. Minhyuk can only sit back and allow his shirt to be jerked this way and tugged that way until a soothing touch slides the silk off from around his pointed shoulders. Despite the humid bathroom air, he finds himself shivering as a draft of nerves pass through him.

Fortunately, Jooheon backs off after divesting him of his shirt, waiting with a watchful gaze as Minhyuk slithers out of his pajama bottoms. His apartment is the typically overpriced and cramped dream of desperate millennials with one exception: the bathtub. It’s a plain, round, pool-shaped structure with a removable shower handle that can fit up to two people, three for a tight squeeze, and Jooheon has never been more thankful for his off-handed choice of a particular living space until now. Minhyuk rarely, if ever, subjects himself to prolonged contact within water, so he looks forward with inordinate glee to the moment he can dump a fistful of the offending liquid over the older man’s flattened ears.

“Don’t even think about it,” the cat hybrid bites out, sucking in a breath as he lowers himself into the rippling surface inside the bathtub. His tail, upon dipping a hair into the water, arches high into the air, dampened fur pressing itself to the straight, rigid line of his spine in a futile attempt to avoid the indefinite fate of being completely drenched.

“Hyung,” Jooheon sticks out his bottom lip, raising his hands up in an act of innocent surrender. His fingers are twitching, tips wrinkled and slightly pink from the steam, and Minhyuk has a moment of a terrible premonition, of him sopping and pathetic, ears drooped and dripping with the promise of a cold the next day.

“Fine,” he grits out, teeth grinding as his bones reluctantly creak and groan, shifting to expose his bare, goose-bumped back to Jooheon’s keen and ready hands.

Surprisingly, thank god, he isn’t immediately doused with a lukewarm wave, but instead with a rough towel that gingerly acclimates his clenched insides to the sensation of having a perpetual layer of liquid dripping across his usually dry skin. Jooheon cleans him in this slow, careful way, making the least of his discomforts with inaudible murmurs of reassurance and the soft, warm press of ethereal, airy fingers.

He moves on in the same manner to the elder’s scalp, taking special care with the other’s flicking ears. Even as they twitch at the unfamiliar cold wetness pooling inside sensitive caverns, the lathering hold of delicate strokes around the thin flesh surrounding his fragile bones almost relaxes Minhyuk enough for him to begin nodding off. Yeah, he concedes with a sigh, feeling the shampoo balloon into suds as affectionate fingers scratch the lather rhythmically in short strokes against his scalp. He can definitely see how Jooheon almost fell asleep multiple times to this kind of heavenly treatment.

After pushing his foamy head under the beating spray of the shower head, keeping him still there with a steady grip on his hunched shoulder, it’s finally Minhyuk’s turn: his turn to clean Jooheon’s supple complexion of all its smudged remnants of teary eyeliner and sticky patches of lip gloss and leave him glowing in all his bare-faced glory. He’s not going to lie, warming up a quarter of milky face wash in-between poised palms, he’s been looking forward to this.

The younger hybrid closes his eyes calmly, lashes fluttering and sticking in silken strings to each other as he entrusts himself entirely to other’s primed and ready touch. Minhyuk goes through the motions of this everyday with tight, emotionless professionalism for himself, for others, but it’s always been different with Jooheon. He takes his time, reserving all the clinical meticulousness for models on the rush of the runaway, leaving him only with a slow, aching tenderness for dreamy moments like these.

The flick of light lashes, clean of all drudging traces of mascara, the slow press of his fingers into the easy give of malleable cheeks, and the plumpness of peach-pink lips as he wipes away every last bit of gloss, thumb mild and soft in its careful touch - it’s all more than enough to make his heart twist with the most pleasurable ache.

He’s too entranced, vision blurred, mind hazy, to notice Jooheon’s lilting whispers playing like the relaxing crackle of a fiddling radio in the background of his consecrated ritual. It’s only when a strong murmur of “Changkyun,” injected with a burst of excitement, brushes past his cheek, does he snap out of his trance.

“Who?” Minhyuk questions snappishly, rubbing off the last layer of facial cleanser and internally mourning the inevitable end of his silent worship.

“The guy with me in the alleyway?” Jooheon replies, already slipping out of the tub and cinching a spare towel around his waist. The wet curve of his exposed hip glints above the rough white texture of the flimsy fabric, and Minhyuk wonders if it would be an appropriate time for him to saunter over there and pinch the supple flesh on innocuous display. From the other’s waiting glare, he supposes not.

“Oh, you mean that random kid slobbering all over your hand in the alleyway? Yeah, sure I remember him,” Minhyuk replies lightly, wrapping his plastered hair in a loose turban of cotton. The bath was vaguely fun while it lasted, but he’s entirely ready to never do that again, the provided exceptions being if his legs are literally broken and he physically isn’t able to stand up for a shower or if Jooheon simply asks him again. The chances of the second option, are unfortunately, quite high.

“He saved me in the club earlier from that creep in line, okay?” The rabbit hybrid protests, words muffled into the worn fiber of an old college t-shirt that he slips on over his head. “It was the least I could do in return - besides it was just some light scenting on the wrist,” he reasons, fiddling with the loose edge of hem so that it falls over his flushed collarbones.

“Sure, that’s obviously the thing you let an absolute stranger do to you when you’re out in an abandoned alleyway,” Minhyuk mutters under his breath from the next room over, rummaging around for a suitable shirt to replace his ruined pajama top. By the time he’s found one rumpled up under a pile of fallen bedding and blankets, his mood has considerably soured. Sleep deprivation is kicking in, along with the dread of working a five a.m. shoot tomorrow, and just thinking about the infuriating stranger from the club tonight is rapidly causing the onset of an ear-splitting headache to begin. He soothes a hand over the damp fur of his disgruntled ears in a cautionary preventative measure.

Jooheon pads over from the bathroom, barefoot, shuffling the tender skin of his inner thighs together as he leans a clothed hip against the door frame, gazing over at Minhyuk with bright eyes yearning to tell a story. “Let’s talk about this tomorrow,” the cat hybrid throws out decisively from his curled position on Jooheon’s meager twin-sized bed, eyes glued to his blank phone screen.

“Yeah, I’m going to text him tomorrow,” Jooheon throws back, interpreting Minhyuk’s excuse to suit his own purposes. He grabs his phone, the bunny charm hooked on the edge tinkling sweetly against his marked hand, the black numbers still stark and bold over his skin. There’s already a small smile perking over gloss-free lips as he plops down on the occupied bed, resting his back against Minhyuk’s stretched out figure. He saves the new contact with a nervous tapping of his fingers, spelling out changkyunnie after a moment’s deliberation.

Unbeknownst to him, Minhyuk has not been editing aesthetic shots for instagram the entire time, but he’s actually peeked over the length of Jooheon’s arm and taken down Changkyun’s number in his phone for his own indefinite plans that are rapidly taking form at this very moment. Strange alleyway sniffer is definitely receiving a text from him tomorrow as well.

Unaware of his friend’s plan, Jooheon sets his phone down with a content flutter of his inner schoolgirl’s heart and rolls over, pressing himself to Minhyuk’s drowsy heat. The cat hybrid slips his own phone under their shared pillow, five a.m. alarm already ticking down to his eventual shoot of actual death, and turns to tuck the younger’s soft, swollen, half-asleep face to his chest. Jooheon breathes in the fresh spring of cherry blossoms with a hint of whiskey, Minhyuk noses into clean curls of honey, wrapped in the sharp fragrance of lavender, and they both fall asleep intertwined in and around each other’s bodies and scents, all plans and schemes put off until the next dawn.

In the warm solitude of the night, they hold each other close, and that’s all they need for now.

[happycakestories]

old mx fic dump pt. 3

a very self-serving highly gratuitous twins au -- unrealistic but very fun in the moment - cowritten with @deardystopia

God, why couldn’t he have just suffocated? He needs to work on that - for next time hopefully. (If there even is a next time, the pessimist within him groans loudly).  

First Chapter : Hotter than hell

Literature class never felt so slow to Jackson as it does today, he decides, grumbling and writing notes in his chicken scratch handwriting of what the professor is saying. None of it is helping to make the minutes pass faster. Nor is sending playful and stupid messages to his best friend, typing fast on the phone screen hidden behind a tall student sitting disinterested in the row in front of him. Okay no, it helps just a bit, but reading Tolstoy also feels like being punched in the gut over and over.

Usually they would be together whispering and chattering like two old grandmas for the entire lecture, but Jooheon didn’t arrive today on time. When he showed up as the class was starting, he literally looked so lost and confused like he had just gotten out of bed, but it wasn’t surprising as this was the first class of the day. He was sporting messy dark chocolate curls, a bordeaux adidas hoodie and a pair of black sweat pants that probably were the first things he fished off of his room’s messy floor – he was the messiest person, really – to get dressed fast, and by the time he had gotten there, almost no seats were left. Jackson couldn’t have kept the reserved spot any longer as more sleepy students were already dragging themselves into the various rows of seats in class, occupying everything too fast.

Also, Jackson would have been late as well if it wasn’t for his noisy roommates returning to the dorm at 6 am in the morning - God knows what they were on about - and let’s not even talk about the constant pressure he felt being the New Exchange StudentTM. He moved to study in Korea one and a half months before, to start sophomore year in Seoul thanks to an international exchange program hosted by the college. He must also admit that if it hadn’t been for Jooheon’s bright smile, incredible charisma and that charming pair of deep-set dimples that made him the most adorable human to ever exist, he would have felt completely alone. Some people weren’t so welcoming at the time they found out he was a Chinese exchange student, even if prejudices were based on old history for some communities, it was hard to let things go, but with Jooheon all that was needed to get to know each other was a simple smile during the first day of the class they were now always attending together.

Uh, usually you don’t think something like that about your best friend… But nobody could resist Jooheon’s smile in any way and Jackson was definitely pining over him since they met, always dreaming of being able to touch and caress those dark chocolate curls of his and kiss those pink plush lips. They probably would have tasted just as sweet.

Anyway, today’s messages’ topic was: What happens when you get ‘scared half to death’ twice?

Last night Jooheon’s brother insisted on entering one of those terrible and scary houses… Because, why not? He said everything would be fine and that those ‘monsters’ were just people working and doing their job, so there was nothing to be worried about, right?

Jooheon wasn’t entirely convinced as he was telling Jackson, all his friends knew that he gets scared easily and maybe it’s one of the reasons they enjoy frightening him at all times – his reactions are the best really -, but there was his brother too with him, so he decided to go inside and face all his fears.

‘Face’ is a strong word, “Suddenly this guy with a big bloodied chainsaw and a freaking mask started to scream and chased US! BUT I FELL (☼Д☼)” Jackson is reading the story unfolding on the messages and lets out a small giggle as he keeps going on “I wanted to run but my legs went numb and my BROTHER DISAPPEARED (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ”

“He abandoned you there??”

“YES!?”

“Why? What happened then? What did you do?? （・□・；）”

“I cried,” Jackson must hide the big smile that is emerging reply by reply by sliding down more on the chair, he doesn’t want to get scolded by the professor as he tries to imagine Jooheon crying on the ground of this warehouse with a masked man threatening him “And the chainsaw guy took off his mask, put his hand on my shoulder, kneeled to talk to me, and APOLOGIZED ‧º·(˚ ˃̣̣̥⌓˂̣̣̥ )‧º·˚”

“WHAT щ(゜ロ゜щ)”

Okay, Jackson now has to bite his bottom lip hard to not laugh out loud in class. How much would he have payed to see that scene in person? Probably his entire tuition.

“I KNOW” Jooheon answers in caps “And he led me to the exit by my hand!!! That shit was too scary tbh. Remind me to NEVER go again inside of one of those houses lol”

“I guess he actually felt bad about scaring you like that ahah. But at least you didn’t have to endure the entire house till the end ┐(´∀｀)┌”

“Maybe? But you know who wasnt sorry about leaving me to die in there? MY BROTHER (ノಠ ∩ಠ)ノ彡( o°o)” there were more dots under Jooheon’s name on the chat, signaling he was typing something more “HE WAS WAITING FOR ME OUTSIDE AND WHEN HE SAW MY FACE HE LAUGHED HIS ASS OFF!! HE CRIED ABOUT MY PAIN. He is SO MEAN really. I don’t know why we’re still brothers??”

“You can’t change your relatives, I know something about it… But if it was me I would have bought you sweet pastries and a hot coffee to be graced by your forgiveness ahah”

“You’d be a better brother for sure ♥”

Did he just…get bro-zoned? You got yourself into this situation Jackson. You did this to yourself.

Jackson mentally slaps himself as he tries to change the topic to something entirely different in order to stop where all of this is going to lead before it happens. Besides, as he thinks about it, he actually hasn’t met Jooheon’s brother at all, his best friend told him only that the first year was really tough and messy. His brother was never home or attending classes, and lots of fights happened between them when he wouldn’t even say where he was spending most of his nights. Jooheon kept worrying over him, stressing over him, almost reaching a point where he almost failed two classes, but since the start of the sophomore year, everything was getting better slowly, his brother started to attend classes more and seemed “more tamed” as Jooheon described it.

“Do you have another class after this? (´・ω・｀)”

“Yeah, man. Gotta attend linguistics, sad stuff (;´□｀)”

“Oh!” You’re probably going to hell for this small lie as you’re typing it and for all the times you thought about your best friend in not the most innocent ways, Jackson thinks, biting his lying tongue, “Can I walk you over there? I’m going in the same direction.  (◡‿◡)/”

“I’ll wait for you outside then! ♥”

It went smooth. But why does he keep sending those hearts? Is he using them with his other friends as well? Is it a Korean thing? Probably - Jooheon most likely replies like that to everyone, but Jackson can’t and won’t stop his hopes from soaring higher than they should as he slips his phone into sleep mode and slides it back inside his jean’s back pocket.

Finally, the longest literature class in history ends, and Jackson’s heart starts to pound faster as he prepares to approach Jooheon waiting out in the packed corridors. Most of the time it’s not like this, but today it’s different for them, Jackson will ask him out. Or try, at least.

He gathers all of his books, his favorite blue squid-shaped pencil case and his literature notebook, throwing them inside his blue backpack before high-tailing it out of there.

“Jooheon-ah!”

When Jackson calls to the red hooded lump leaning against the corridor’s wall, Jooheon raises his chin up and looks directly at him, sweet eyes accompanied by that irresistible deep dimpled smile that drags everyone into a utopian paradise. Jackson’s heart painfully skips a beat for a long moment.

I’m going to die, he thinks as he moves forward to his best friend, attempting to reciprocate with a small smile and hoping to not seem too obvious about his crush for him.

“Hey! All good?” Jooheon chirps fondly, moving off from where he was leaning to walk side by side with his friend, fiery red backpack dangling wearily from one of his shoulders as the weight of culture made itself apparent.

“Yep,” the Chinese student starts, bending his head slightly toward the ground as he doesn’t feel so confident in his self-restraint when those angel-kissed dimples are there. “Though, what about you? You seem quite, uh tired this morning? … Don’t tell me it’s because of the House of Horrors you went to yesterday?”

“Well, that definitely helped! But when it was like 2 a.m. I was about to doze off, my mind was literally blank… And then the thought of Lit’s midterms results coming out today HIT me so hard that I couldn’t stop thinking about it.” Jooheon makes a startled face, giggling at an invisible thought, gesticulating to make it less abstract. “Like, it’s the first exam this October and I want to pass it so bad?? I don’t want to repeat last year’s grades seriously.”

“What?! You shouldn’t be this anxious! I’m sure you got a straight A with a full score.” Jackson pushes jokingly at the other’s shoulder, almost making him trip on his feet. “We studied together, I know what you’re capable of. Don’t worry too much! And if it’s not what you hoped for, we’ll get through it together.”

Was he being too extra with the compliments? But at the same time…why is that when he said I know what you’re capable of, it made him think about totally different things that were incredibly out of context?

He know his best friend is a great student, a slow learner but with enough time he could analyze and understand things way better than others. Also, Jackson got help from him many times with Korean language misunderstandings – and there were many of these times - but Jackson wouldn’t have minded knowing what Jooheon was capable of in other contexts. Contexts where Jackson imagined himself on top of Jooheon, bodies pressed together on unmade and crumpled sheets as he drinks himself drunk on each one of those wet and incredibly sweet kisses, as their fingers intertwine together. He could almost make out the stunning sensation of Jooheon’s soft, ruddy lips on his.

“Thanks man, we will see later I guess…!” His best friend’s cheerful voice feels like a bucket of freezing water thrown over him.

Jackson, chill. Literally. Also, maybe it’s time to ask him about… “Oh, yeah… Later I-“

“Ugh. I really want a Smoochie right now, in this exact moment. Like right now.”

But it seems that his best mate didn’t hear his mumbled words as he was groaning and pouting like an adorable child in need of his daily sugar intake to keep functioning.

Still, what the hell was a Smoochie? Was he talking about a literal smooching session or what…? Would Jooheon ever be so forward with him? Did he notice Jackson’s embarrassing crush for him?

“A Smoochie is one of the best smoothies in town, you know?” Jooheon laughs again, probably from the confused look on the Chinese student’s face. He had to explain.

“Ah.” No kisses involved, then.

“It’s made with hibiscus flowers! It’s one of the seasonal drinks they prepare in that nice coffee shop near the campus, Flower Café, you know?” He seems so eager to explain the entire story of the drink to Jackson, that if he didn’t know him, he’d honestly assume he was some kind of amateur food enthusiast. And honestly, knowing him as he is, the fastest way to his heart was definitely through his stomach. “It’s so colorful and it smells amazing…You should try it sometime! Even though, I think they changed the menu to fit the Autumn theme by now.” With a deep sigh he keeps going on, “It’s a pity I couldn’t go before the end of September, there was no time to breathe with this midterm coming so fast…”

Jackson lets out a nervous laugh as he musters up the courage to say what could only be an incredibly embarrassing thing, his mind completely blank and unable to think. His brain decided to not function anymore at the word ‘hibiscus’ for some reason.

“Hibiscus flowers symbolized, in the Victorian Europe, ‘delicate beauty’” - stop - “In China their meaning is related to wealth and fame.” - STOP BRAIN - “I think it’s the type of drink that fits you perfectly, you know for your bea-“

“OH NO!” Jooheon shouts, his mouth hanging open for a moment as the sudden realization hits him hard “I forgot my essay for linguistics!”

God maybe is real, maybe not, but Jackson owes him at least for this. He was definitely saved in the very last moment before he made himself look like a fool. He bites down on his upper lip hard, thankful he didn’t finish what he was going to say.

“I’m sorry man, I’ll catch you later, ok?”

Wait.  

“Sure, but about tonight’s party would you- “

But Jooheon already rushed through the other side of the corridor, running for his life as he probably had to get back to his apartment near the campus, fetch the essay and come back to the same building and arrive late for his class.

Jackson remains by himself, talking alone and completely out of the range from his next class. He accompanied Jooheon just to be able to talk with him about the party, but his plan to ask him out completely failed. Sure, if there’s time they will meet later at Jooheon’s apartment, so he might try to gather the courage to try to ask him out for a second time, but…

“You can do it, Jackson.”  

-

“...called you, but your cellphone is down - but workin’ on weibo what you think I’m blind? Playin’ hard to get, I know you want me too-”

Jackson looks up from his own phone, pulled away from his temporary distraction by the uncanny timing of the party’s booming music. Working on weibo huh, he thinks, echoing the lyrics in his own mind, smiling slightly at the out of context reference. The DJ tonight must be Chinese, he guesses. Maybe he should pay them a visit at the end of the night, strike up some conversation, and leave the party with another friend. He strides across the dance floor, empty messages already forgotten in his excitement at the chance of finding someone from the motherland. First and foremost, Jackson Wang has always been a social butterfly and not even a language barrier can stop that.

Unfortunately, the complexities of texting etiquette can, and he’s nervously clicking his phone open again, scrolling through a string of messages he’s read over at least three times. Writhing bodies mill around his own, an awkward unmoving block that sits smack dab right in the center of the party, but Jackson can’t bring himself to care about the hastily bumped shoulders or rude murmurs. It’s not like he can understand them that well anyway.

What he can understand is the fact that there seems to be no sign of Jooheon replying to the messages he sent over thirty minutes ago. Earlier this morning, he had stood there in the crowded hallway with his tongue swollen in his mouth as Jooheon had gone on and on about a terribly named drink. It had been on his mind the entire time, nine simple words, do you want to go to the party together, reverberating over and over in his throat and practically on the tip of his tongue for the entirety of the conversation. Casual, friendly, and entirely platonic - nothing could have gone wrong with him just asking outright. And yet, the words had sat fat and swollen in his mouth, souring like spoiled milk from being exposed to the rot of his cowardly disposition. Now remembering Jooheon’s innocent rambles about sugary drinks as he had considered a multitude of things less than pure brings a flush of heat to his cheeks, and the bitter taste from earlier bubbles in his mouth like acrid vomit as he scrolls again through his messages.

Sent 9:17 PM. The time reads 10 by now, and still no reply.

Getting to know the potentially fellow Chinese DJ suddenly seems much less appealing now, and Jackson considers trekking all the way back across campus again so he can eat away his feelings in bowls of Szechuan-style chicken as he cries his eyes out to old imperial dramas in his tiger print pajamas. Why yes he is a fully grown functioning college student, why do you ask?

He’s already retracing his steps back through the disgruntled crowd, picturing in his mind’s eye the exact arrangement of pillows he’ll set up on his bed for the night, when a familiar stare forces him to a sudden stop. Slim eyes, usually so soft and gentle, are lined to a knife-like point with perfectly flicked curves of black. Still, it’s unmistakably Jooheon’s stare pinning him like a taxidermied butterfly right where he stands, rooted motionless against the far wall of the lobby floor. Even from clear across the room, Jooheon’s gaze burns so intensely Jackson feels it down to the very marrow of his bones. Oh, and also directly in his crotch.

The unflinching stare draws closer and closer, never removing itself from his wavering own as its owner weaves his way effortlessly through the shifting crowd. The bass pounds up through Jackson’s locked legs, flowing through his blood and right into his brain, elevating his current consciousness into a state of lucid drunkenness. Maybe that’s a good thing, he wonders, especially if Jooheon keeps staring at him like that, there’s the very high chance his brain will leak right out of his ears and plop right onto the neon patterned dancefloor. Not very attractive, Jackson, he thinks, grimacing at the sudden appearance of the explicit imagery inside his swirling mind.

In his panicked what-ifs, Jooheon has somehow already stalked his way across the floor and is standing in front of Jackson with his dark, glittering stare, looking as if he’s absolutely ready to party the night away. All thoughts about melting cerebrums and drunken bass beats fly out of his mind as Jackson blatantly ogles the entirety of Jooheon’s too tight fashion. Not that he doesn’t appreciate his friend’s frayed hoodies and sagging sweatpants, but just - goddamn - they really don’t hold a candle up to the rips situated dangerously over gloriously thick upper thighs and the rest of his legs bound in skin-tight black jeans. The shock hits him again in another breath-sucking punch as he looks up to see a leather choker buckled dangerously around a pale neck, so thin and stiff Jackson faintly wonders how Jooheon is breathing with that on.

Then again, how is he breathing with anything he has on right now?

The DJ shifts songs, switching to something smoother with the same pulsing backtrack, and Jooheon sidles right up into Jackson’s space in perfect timing with the beat. Oh god - Jackson is really holding his breath right now, staring right into slitted orbs that blink lazily at him almost as if in wait. When raucous silence passes by for a few nerve-wracking moments, Jackson finally summons up his lost voice and says in a very manly, very steady tone, “When did you get here?”

Jooheon’s gaze flows like liquid mercury, dark and inscrutable as he tilts his head to the side in a movement that Jackson has seen an infinite amount of times before under innocent sunlight in hazy cafes. This time though, it’s so...predatory, Jackson is gripped by an irrational fear for his life.

No ripping teeth or hungry growls come though, only the same smooth, elegant smile dipping over the other’s full cheeks and revealing a very familiar set of dimples. “Just now, you?” he murmurs, stepping even closer, practically tangling his toned legs around Jackson’s own.

The Chinese student muffles an indistinct sound in his throat, something suspiciously resembling a choking cough as he unintentionally inhales the scent of heady jasmine mixed with a strange smoky sweetness from Jooheon’s upturned cheek. In what universe has Jooheon ever been this forward, this alluring? He admits it, he may have slightly dug his face a little too deeply into past hugs and it’s always been the soft, curling scent of warm cotton and fresh spring detergent, but right now the only way he can describe the perfume curling off of Jooheon’s skin in waves of heat is - pure sex.

“Uh, like uh thirty minutes ago, but no worries - woah-” Jackson’s reply is cut off with a definite sound of him choking on his own spit as Jooheon presses himself to the panicking man’s front in a smooth serpentine arch, pushing their chests together in a searing line of flesh. A light hand traces down his jacket clad arm, before loosely circling around his wrist and fitting Jackson’s locked fingers into the curve of a warm, supple waist.

Abort. Repeat. Abort. Hand. Jooheon’s waist. Chest. Jooheon’s chest. There are spots dancing over his vision, and he knows these ones aren’t from the neon beams. If he passes out now, at least he can go out with the perfect sight of Jooheon’s face burned into retinas as he descends into Hell.

“I’ll make it up to you,” Jooheon hums, practically purrs, pressing over Jackson’s twitching fingers with his own cool hand as he continues staring up at him with sharp eyes. They’ve changed though, still two pools of inscrutable ink, but the predatory glare has faded into something more silky, more inviting. And Jackson, with his shaking heart and pounding head, who is he to say no?

It’s as if Jooheon mentally heard the automatic response within Jackson’s head, and he’s backing out of the other’s space, leaving the air around him suddenly so cold. Still, Jooheon keeps one hand curled watchfully around Jackson’s wrist, tilting his chin towards some dark corridor in the furthest recesses of the dorm as he mouths “come on” to the stunned man with a shiny, pink smile. The moment he turns, strutting confidently through the flickering shadows, Jackson is tripping into action, allowing himself to be pulled along by the heated tether between them.

Now, Jackson doesn’t know what he expected his first time with Jooheon to be like (if he ever even expected a first time at all), but it most definitely did not include being pushed up against a wall and being kissed within an inch of his life. Jooheon’s lips are locked glossily over his own, and already there’s a tongue licking into his mouth, draining every shocked moan right out of him with its skilled workings. By the time Jackson comes back enough to the real world to begin reciprocating, there’s already fingers dancing down his jeans and popping open his fly without a second of hesitation or struggle.

The mouth over his own is suddenly gone, leaving him panting at empty air as Jooheon’s dark head situates itself right at crotch level. Jooheon. On his knees. For him. Jackson is definitely going to hell after tonight.

Jooheon sends him a sultry glance up through delicate lashes, complete with a hint of a tongue peeking out over spit-shined lips as he proceeds to maneuver Jackson’s rock-hard cock out of his boxers without a hint of hesitation. Jackson swears he’s already shaking down to his very bones, but the tremors only escalate another level further when Jooheon’s hands grip soft and steady around him, stroking gently up and down with deft fingers that smear beads of pearly precum over every inch of his painfully red cock.

“You don’t have to-” he starts, wincing at the sound of his own cracking voice, but Jooheon only puts a wet finger to his full mouth before swallowing Jackson down in one go.

Jackson bites his tongue, clamping a sweaty palm over his mouth for good measure as he tries to hold in every embarrassing sound as a tight, wet heat begins working itself over his cock in a quick, unforgiving rhythm. The slick noise of flesh against flesh echoes lewdly within his ears, and Jackson knows, no matter how much control he has over his 3-pack abs, if Jooheon continues at this pace he’s going to come like an eager middle schooler discovering the wonders of porn for the first time again.

Somehow, Jooheon seems to read his mind for the second time, and he pulls of Jackson’s now purpling cock with a sucking pop! There are trails of white smeared around his lips, and he makes direct eye contact with Jackson as he openly licks away the droplets and swallows them down with a distinct bobbing of his throat. Jackson automatically swallows his own spit at the sight and feels his tortured cock twitch happily in response to the sight. Somehow, Jooheon has twisted him into a complete masochist tonight, but with the way he’s straightening in front of him with further promises flashing within his slitted eyes, he can’t say he has a problem with that.

And without warning, complicated lacings of combat boots are being pulled loose and kicked to the side, and Jackson watches, flabbergasted, as Jooheon shimmies out of those skin-tight black jeans with a wiggling of his hips, his underwear quickly following until he’s standing thighs bared before Jackson, head cocked again as if in wait.

This time Jackson stands, absolutely frozen in place with no idea what to do, so Jooheon takes the initiative and slips forward, grinding himself up against the other man’s front as he pulls Jackson to his lips with looped hands around his neck. The moment their mouths connect, Jackson is shocked back into awareness, and it only hits him now that this is real, that Jooheon is willing to kiss him, willing to let him fuck him, and oh, how badly he wants it, how badly he needs it and how he needs it now.

Jooheon is the one being slammed back against a wall now, releasing a shuddering breath into Jackson’s all too eager mouth as he latches on even tighter around the other’s neck. Jackson hikes his hands up under the crook of bent knees, winding them around his waist as he lifts Jooheon off the ground entirely, and a surprised moan brushes sweetly over his lips as a reward. Maybe all those years of professional fencing are finally paying off now, he thinks deliriously, digging his fingers into the soft, full flesh of Jooheon’s ass.

He’s ready to move on, to take it to the final point, to take Jooheon as he’s presented so enticingly before him, but a realization suddenly douses his entire body with cold water. Jooheon senses it too, hands cupped around his cheeks as he separates his mouth from Jackson’s, a clear trail of spit hanging between their open lips. Jackson’s gaze catches on that erotic sight for a moment too long, before he knocks himself out of it with a stuttering whisper of “condoms?”

Jooheon gives him a squinted stare that strangely makes Jackson feel like folding to his knees and begging for forgiveness in a deep bow. “Why, are you not clean?” he asks bluntly, digging a foot into the curve of Jackson’s back.

The Chinese student splutters, pushing Jooheon further up against the wall in an effort to avoid dropping him. “No, no, I am, but shouldn’t we be safe?”

The hallway is almost entirely encased in shadow, but he swears he receives an immediate eye roll in response. However, the weight latched around his waist disappears as Jooheon steps down without shame, hips swaying confidently, over to his discarded pile of clothing. He bends over, Jackson trying and failing to not gawk over his full ass, and returns with a shiny packet in hand. He slips into the space between the other man and the wall and tears open the condom with a quick snarl of teeth before discarding the silver packet to the side.

Hail Mary, Jesus, and Joseph, Jackson might as well die from a brain aneurysm now. The sight of Jooheon opening a condom in a flash of white teeth and pink lips is the only thing he ever wants to remember for the rest of his life.

He shivers as Jooheon roughly rolls on the latex sleeve over his curved cock, biting his lip when a hooked finger pulls it tight with a snap right at the base. Jooheon straightens, seemingly a pout on his face as if asking ‘satisfied?’ Jackson swallows guiltily as heat begins roiling in his gut again, and an idiotic surge of bravery courses through him as he crowds Jooheon back up against the wall with his own body.

Soft hands slip smoothly over his shoulders in response, curling along the column of his neck in vague threat that has Jackson obeying immediately. He’s in the middle of hiking thick thighs up to his waist, when Jooheon laughs, high and lilting. Jackson pauses, rightfully confused and a little lovesick as he stares at Jooheon’s dimples on complete display. “Come on,” he murmurs, “don’t you want to try for the shoulders instead? Or can you not handle it?”

Oh it’s on. Jackson’s never known Jooheon to be so cocky, but if he’s asking for it, then Jackson is going to give it to him.

“Sure I can,” he smiles, purposefully letting his rough syllables roll low off his tongue as he immediately hooks bent knees to sit at both sides of his neck in a quick, steady hold. Jooheon blinks, appraising him perhaps, before grinning wickedly and seating himself down over Jackson’s cock in a single smooth push.

Velveteen heat encases him in an immediate vice, and Jackson chokes on the feeling, at the realization that Jooheon decided to come prepared. The image of Jooheon spreading himself open at home just for this, for him, flashes through his brain, and he has to grit his teeth to not come from that sight alone. For once, the other man finally shows signs of breathlessness as his mouth drops open in a silent o from the full drag of Jackson’s cock within him. The slight gasps dropping out of Jooheon’s shaking lips are doing wonders for Jackson’s already self-assured ego.

When it seems like an eternity has passed with them connected together like this, Jackson dares to move, pulling back with a slick sound of flesh and pushing back in with a simultaneous moan from the both of them. Jooheon immediately clenches around his cock and kicks his foot into Jackson shoulder, glaring up at him with a very obvious command.

Jackson obeys with another burning pull, dragging it out even longer just to feel that sparking friction from Jooheon’s fluttering insides. Another hard kick digs into back of his head, and Jackson slams in without warning, the force of it knocking Jooheon so hard against the wall he arches his throat up in a cry of breathless surprise.

The air fills with cut off moans and yelps as Jackson picks up pace, drilling Jooheon onto his cock over and over again as he chases after the oncoming wave of absolute ecstasy. Jooheon’s bare legs bounce uselessly over Jackson’s shoulders with every thrust, no resistance left for any bruising kicks as he can only cling to Jackson’s tensed body to keep himself from falling.

Jackson’s close, too close, and the sentimental idiot he is, he wants to come with Jooheon’s lips on his, crying out the other’s name, so he blindly gropes for Jooheon’s face in the darkness with his own. Like a magnet, plush lips fit themselves over his, and they’re messily making out as Jackson pistons erratically in and out of Jooheon’s wet heat.

It’s here, the wave, the final build up in his stomach, and Jackson groans out his final confession against Jooheon’s gasping breath. “Jooheon, I, I’m going to-”

A bruising force slams into his shoulder, and Jackson literally has the breath knocked out of him as he falls back onto his ass. He can only gape, jaw dropped, as Jooheon stands above him, glare raining down all of the fires of hell upon Jackson’s prostrated body. The other’s cock still bobs proudly, its head tinged pink against his black shirt, and there’s a hint of slick dripping down his pale thighs. Jackson’s traitorous cock twitches heartily against his stomach at the sight.

Jooheon steps right between his spread legs, and leans down, a strangely gleeful smile pulled across his dimpled cheeks. “I’m Hojoon. Jooheon’s twin.”

And with that he’s spinning on his heel, the same confident sway in his walk as he collects his clothes and disappears past the corner without even a backwards glance.

Jackson sits there, fly down, dick hard as he considers whether or not he still has enough dignity to drag himself back to his dorm tonight. Jooheon’s twin’s - Hojoon’s - words ring over and over again through his mind, and Jackson prays to his dear grandma’s heavenly soul this won’t come back to bite him in the ass tomorrow.

-

Jooheon keeps glancing wistfully now and then at his blacked-out phone screen because of course he had to forget the portable battery charger in his room. Before coming to the party, when he got back from afternoon classes, he didn’t think of plugging it in at home as eating pizza had seemed much more important at that time. In his defense, he was starving after being out for the entire day, and then his brother was talking about having a “fast” match on Overwatch, so he needed to participate even if “fast” matches usually lasted hours. That was because Hojoon kept whining things like “Fuck no, we need to do another one! It can’t end like this” – “I need to beat this person’s ass again!” or “My reputation completely depends on destroying this Hanzo for one more match.” Jooheon wasn’t really into gaming as he actually sucked at anything related to hard competition, but he was glad they usually played in groups with some of Hojoon’s internet friends. They won most of the times against strong parties, and he couldn’t really complain when he was carried as Mercy - plus it was funny to see his brother flame people and talk rubbish into the voice channel.

Sometimes playing was a good distraction from college-related work, annoying parents, and just moments when he felt like not talking to people for some reason.

Though, it was almost 10 p.m. when he noticed what time it was after getting sucked into eleven more matches, and just a few hours before he promised himself to not be late again on Jackson, like how it had happened this morning during Literature class and a few other times, but he was already breaking his promise as they had to meet around 9.

When he arrived at the party, almost thirty minutes had passed, and along the way he even lost his brother somewhere into the mess the dorm had become for that festive and liberating night at the end of midterms.

“I’ll help you search for your friend,” he said with a smirk before disappearing, without giving Jooheon a chance to answer, as the younger twin would have probably suggested that they look for him together, since his phone was basically dead in its electronic grave at this point. Hojoon knows what Jackson looks like, Jooheon talked about him and showed him their countless dumb selfies they took during classes, so he’s sure his brother will be able to recognize him… But if they can’t communicate in some way, how can they meet? He can’t stop his mind from thinking about those comic strips with different characters chasing after each other, opening more and more doors without being able to come across one another.

Jooheon slides his lifeless phone into one of his black sweatpant’s side pockets and keeps looking around in search of familiar faces, still everything seems to be the same on every dorm floor - people dancing, drunk people dancing, beer pong matches, and yep, just more people drinking and dancing -  Ah, if only he could chug down drink after drink like everybody does and be carefree. With just half of one of those he knows would start to ramble about random stuff (nobody would want to know how bees could actually recognize human faces) and dance in every possible awkward way, unlike Hojoon, who has the tolerance of a devil (or at least that’s what people say) and can drink straight for an entire night, ending it though with a massive killer hangover in the morning that Jooheon has to take care of...

He is about to change floor and go up the stairs when he sees his brother coming down from the same stairway as he zips his fly up, buttoning his pants with a smug look on his face. His parted hair, which had been styled so effortlessly, is now completely messed up into a dark tangled nest, the laces of his combat boots halfway tied, and his black shirt slightly rucked up to show a slight outline of his hip bone.

“Had fun?” Jooheon asks when Hojoon sees him and stops for a moment, probably thinking about what just happened, before keep going down the stairs with a now tensed smile.

“Uh, nothing special really-” He starts saying, stopping then in front of him at the end of the stairs as he fixes himself, sliding down his black shirt, “but I haven’t found your friend and this party sucks…sooo shall we go?”

The younger twin pouts, furrowing his brows as he looks at his older brother with defeat. “But hyung, we just arrived! And I- “

“Yes, you promised him and everything,” Hojoon imitates him with a slightly more high-pitched tone than his own, completely it with an exaggerated eyeroll, gesticulating in an exasperated mocking way. “By this time though, he probably went back to his dorm since you had to meet him almost-” he then looks down, annoyed at his own phone, the time showing up on the lock screen with a simple tap of fingers, “-two hours ago.”

Jooheon finds no fault with his reasoning as he catches himself sighing loudly, head slightly drooping, lolling to one side while glancing at his brother sideways, with all the sadness in the entire universe at once.

For sure Jackson is mad at him right now, thinking about how blatantly careless his friend is or how stupid he is when he’ll tell him about the phone charging problem. Like, what kind of irresponsible adult forgets to charge his phone when he knows it has 10% of its battery left?

He kind of regrets now playing Pug’s Quest during afternoon classes, but after some time he had to occupy his mind differently as some sort of a break, since he couldn’t really focus for more than forty minutes straight at his teacher’s boring tone without seeing double or getting a headache.

He definitely needs to apologize to Jackson soon, he thinks, sighing loudly again.

Hojoon, knowing him better than anyone else, comes closer and graps his lukewarm hand into his own colder one for a moment, before pulling him lightly into the direction of the hallway which is even more crowded than where they’re currently standing.

“Come on Jooheonie, let’s go home.” He pulls again with a bit of more strength. “You’ll see your friend tomorrow.”

Jooheon just nods silently, looking more most miserable than he ever has while following his brother around, hands still locked together, and Hojoon can’t stop himself from letting out a small amused laugh at seeing him react like that.

“Hyuuung, don’t laugh at my pain!” a pleading whine comes from behind him, making him laugh even more.

“I’m sorry, your face is just too funny,” the older twin shakes his head as he tries to contain the amusement Jooheon always causes with his childish behavior – even if his younger twin thinks the same of him (and whenever that happens they can’t help but physically ‘fight’ about who’s the stronger one. Hojoon always wins by pinching ruthlessly Jooheon’s thighs, ending up as maybe the more childish one, but definitely the winner).

“Then your face is funny too.”

“Did you just sass me?” the older twin asks glancing back at Jooheon for a moment, before he keeps pulling him through wasted people overdoing the celebrations just a bit too much, as only the midterms period passed. It wasn’t like it was finals ending.

“Maybe.” Jooheon murmurs with a small smile, following his brother through the crowd…Oh. He stops for a moment in front of a bulky and muscled guy, and with his free hand he grabs the plastic cup in the guy’s very intimidating grip and chugs it down in one fast go. A deep “hey!” can be heard from above, but when Hojoon drinks the entire cup, he only replies with an overconfident glance, chin tilted up in a manner that seems to dare the man into saying anything else.

At that look, no more protests can be heard, and the older twin pulls the younger one again into a silent march aimed into getting them out of here.

Before leaving, Hojoon throws the empty cup somewhere into the writhing mess, satisfied.

End of the first chapter

Second Chapter: Here come the regrets

-

“Hyung, I’m worried,” is the first thing Jooheon says, pouting as he plops himself onto Hyunwoo’s lap.

The older man blinks, glasses slightly skewed over his nose, as his English report is entirely replaced with Jooheon’s sullen visage. A pen dangles halfheartedly from between his thumb and index finger, the next sentence more or less forgotten. The warm weight in his lap wriggles needily, and he sighs internally, dropping the pen with a light clatter as Jooheon scooches further and further up along his crotch. Hyunwoo wraps his newly freed arm around the younger boy’s waist, hiking him up to his chest (like a baby, his sleep deprived mind coos), keeping him still against his lap. Jooheon pouts again, but he ceases his squirming and plops his head softly against his boyfriend’s shoulder, nuzzling at the threadbare t-shirt there. Hyunwoo makes direct eye contact with the other’s wide, puppy-dog gaze, and he swears something is melting within him. Most likely all his internal organs, but Jooheon tends to have that effect on people.

“What’s up?” he asks simply, stroking a hand over the curve of the younger’s sweater-clad waist. Jooheon smiles at the gentle touch and takes to wriggling again, burying himself in the other’s all-encompassing warmth as he settles into story-mode.

“So, Hojoon, my brother you know-” Hyunwoo nods sagely at Jooheon’s questioning tone, and the younger continues, deeming it satisfactory, “he’s been coming home with a lot of...bruises.” Hyunwoo watches Jooheon press his pink lips open and closed, a perpetual sheen shining across the soft curves, and he almost doesn’t register the implications behind the younger’s murmured statement. When “bruises” and “Hojoon” finally register in his distracted mind, he physically jolts at his realization. Hojoon is Jooheon’s perfectly identical twin and the idea of him covered in bruises...well, Hyunwoo’s mind is certainly going places.

Jooheon’s voice pierces through his haze, and Hyunwoo blinks back into focus only to see genuine worry in the younger’s eyes. “I just, he started dating a new guy recently…” Jooheon sighs, gaze wandering, cheeks bunching as he tries to find the right words, “and he always comes back the next morning with um, hickies? But like-” he gestures with his hands, grasping for an image Hyunwoo can’t see, “they’re always so intense I end up calling them bruises in my head…”

He trails off, eyebrows scrunched in a light furrow, and Hyunwoo presses his thumb over it, smoothing out the wrinkle with a gentle swipe. “Who is your brother dating again?” he asks, bouncing his legs and jostling Jooheon in his lap, attempting to dislodge the frown from the younger’s face.

“Um-” Jooheon’s voice hitches with each bounce, and he pouts up at Hyunwoo to stop. The older man muffles a chuckle against his cheek and ceases the movement, patting affectionately at Jooheon’s waist. His boyfriend scooches up against his chest, resituating himself in Hyunwoo’s lap before muttering, “Kihyun, I think?”

Kihyun. Hyunwoo knows that guy: round cheeks, pinched mouth, always ready to yell at someone somehow. Also, he goes around with a head of bright pastel pink hair. Hyunwoo shrugs because hey, at least he rocks it better than the students from the art department. Hyunwoo has passed him in the hall a few times, and other than a casual nod, they don’t talk at all. Basically, he assumes he’s an alright guy, if not a little uptight.

He voices his belief out loud, pressing it in a whispered kiss against Jooheon’s curtain of bangs. The scent of soft baby powder unfurls into his nose, and he nuzzles deeper into messy brown curls. He’s pulled out of his reverie when sweater-clad hands yank at his neck, and he’s met with Jooheon’s round cheeks, puffy and flushed with dissatisfaction. He sits up straight, hands flapping over Hyunwoo’s back as he tries to make his point.

“But, but bruises hyung! Bruises! I don’t want to question him, but...don’t you think it might be unhealthy?” He lips curve out again into a pout, and Hyunwoo’s heart does a row of backflips all the way down from his chest to his stomach.

“Jooheonie, I think,” he pauses, considering his words carefully, “it’d be best if you asked your brother directly instead of assuming things here with me.” At the younger’s unmoving pout, he presses a chaste kiss over soft lips before pulling back with what Jooheon calls his “half-moon smile,” humming a light “okay?” as his final nudge for the younger man to do the right thing.

Jooheon sighs, deflating against his chest, before stealing a quick, sweet kiss from Hyunwoo’s lax mouth and springing out of his lap. “Thanks hyung,” he smiles, pecking the older man’s cheek on his way out, a hopeful spring in his step.

Hyunwoo waves until Jooheon is disappearing behind the door frame and turns back to his English assignment, drooping back against his chair as a wave of lethargy instantly overtakes him. He forces the pen back into his cramped fingers and continues the lost sentence, lips and cheek still tingling from the force of Jooheon’s casual affection.

-

Hojoon rummages for his apartment key, shouldering wayward bags of groceries and books up from his fatigued arms. The key fits into the lock after much stubborn jamming, and he pushes roughly into the room shoulder-first, paper bags shifting loudly against one another as they slip at the sudden movement.

*

“Fucking-” Kihyun swears, muffled, as he fumbles at a wall of flesh, scrabbling down tensed thighs that encase his face completely from all sides. There’s the heady taste of salt and something more dripping down his mouth, but there’s also the distinct lack of air flowing through his currently crushed nose. He claws again down the curve of Hojoon’s bare ass, digging his fingers into the soft flesh there, knowing exactly how the marks will look on the other’s backside in the morning and not regretting a moment of it - not when he’s actually choking from his boyfriend’s very supple and heavy weight.

He audibly makes a noise of distress when said weight only bears down even harder, crushing with the force of a two ton truck against his cheekbone as Hojoon grinds down without mercy against his spluttering mouth. Alright, enough, Kihyun may love it when his partner makes him lose his breath during sex but to the point of absolute suffocation? That’s a discussion for another day entirely (safewords!!! the last functioning part of his brain screams).

He says it just so as he musters every ounce of strength back into his jelly limbs, launching the scorching inferno off of him in a sudden toppling motion, gasping air into his soaked mouth like a drowned man. Which, to be honest, he almost did...under the absolute wonder of his partner’s thighs that is. Again, absolutely appreciated, just no literal choking please.

Hojoon doesn’t seem to get the message though as he rolls onto all fours in a perfectly unruffled landing. Like a cat, Kihyun thinks, replaying all the videos of children dropping their cats from terrible heights just to see them land upright without any trouble. Even still, after landing like a cat, Hojoon follows through with the attitude, glaring over at Kihyun’s gaped expression with a cocked chin, legs coiled tense against the bedsheets. Silence ensues and in his oxygen-deprived brain, Kihyun almost expects the younger man to begin grooming his curled black locks in a prissy manner.

Hojoon only glares harder, turning so that his back is entirely facing the end of the bed before yanking a blanket over his bottom half. There goes the fresh laundry of the week. Not that Kihyun expected anything on the bed to last after tonight, but what with the way Hojoon is cocooning himself with that goose down blanket...it’ll be awhile since they use it again.

“Quoting you,” the younger man begins, still sulking darkly as he rests his cheek on raised knees, “ ‘Please fucking choke me with your thighs, that’s how I want to go tonight.’ “

A sharp heat pulses through Kihyun’s gut at hearing his own explicit words uttered out loud, and he presses his lips together into a thin line. Hojoon arches a neat brow at his silent reaction and scoffs, turning his glare to a loose feather stuck among the bed sheets instead. “Don’t tell me you regret it now...”

His words trail off, and the atmosphere between them immediately chills, filling with a kind of murky lull where all Kihyun can discern from Hojoon’s errant sheet-tracing is a tinge of quiet bitterness.

[happycakestories]

old mx fic dump pt. 2

an old christmas gift from me to you :) @deardystopia

Kihyun wakes, slow and steady, lashes tangling with sleep as his breath escapes from him in a long languid sigh. The warm body next to him shifts, spine stretching like a cat’s under a strip of glowing sunlight, but it does not stir. Kihyun releases another sigh, quieting it against the wrinkled imprint of his head in the pillow, and he fits himself to the curve of his lover’s back, molding himself to Hojoon, skin to skin, chin to shoulder, lips against neck.

December 22nd, he considers silently, the date floating in white blocks through the dark haze of his mind as he gingerly nuzzles into the short scruff of the sleeping man’s undercut. There’s the recognizable musk of jasmine, faded and tinged with sweat from last night’s activities, and Kihyun finds himself closing his eyes for the briefest of moments, trying to catch the barest flashes of Hojoon’s mouth on his, thighs locked unspeakably tight atop his own, a bared neck stretched out long, pale, and glistening through the darkness-

The body next to him shifts, chilled skin pressing dryly back against Kihyun’s frozen lips, as if somehow awoken by the sheer indecency of his thoughts alone. Kihyun stills, wiping the outline of shadowed memories from his mind as soft flesh drags across the tips of his fingers, turning at an achingly slow pace to face him.

“Morning sleeping beauty,” he greets, a teasing tone already weaving its way into his hoarse morning voice.

Hojoon’s first instinct is to frown, dark eyebrows already drawing together as he attempts to see through the piercing white light with sleep-heavy eyes. However, a light touch is smoothing itself up across the ridge of his nose, pressing away the wrinkle without a moment’s hesitation. Hojoon’s never been good with affection - not in giving it nor accepting it - but he blames it on the drowsy curtain of sunlight, on how it seeps so gently into his aching muscles, and not the tender warmth next to him, never the familiar touch that reaches into the very bottom of his shriveled heart and pulls, pulls so faintly Hojoon can’t help but fall.

“What’s that look for?” Kihyun asks, arching his fingers across the fine line of Hojoon’s forehead, brushing away the messy array of tangled black silk. The younger man only continues staring, eyes boring into his as two dark pools of unreachable emotion. There’s never been another sea Kihyun would be so willing to throw himself into, to bathe himself so thoroughly in its waters he’ll eventually drown in its dark loving embrace. The unreadable gaze shifts away, Kihyun’s fingers slipping unwillingly from supple cheeks, and he wonders if Hojoon would ever allow him to, if he’d ever slip the key to his gloriously tangled mind into Kihyun’s irreverent palms with a kiss and a whispered confession.

I love yous have never come up between them, not once in these past four months that have felt like an eternity. Kihyun wonders how he could’ve ever forgotten to say such a thing, but then he remembers - the words catching, Hojoon’s swirling gaze shuddering, the guilt rushing in on a waterfall of cold cowardice. Every time, he swallows down three sweet sugar cubes turned daggers and promises himself the next day, the next night, he’ll surely find the same emotion in Hojoon’s piercing stare.

So far, nothing. His throat is raw from every unborn confession clawing to free themselves from the cage of his mind, and he swears the next time he backs down, it will be blood that’s dripping down his throat.

“Nothing.” Hojoon mutters, his words ghosting with a chill across Kihyun’s bare chest. He looks up, dark hair catching the sunlight in rays of burning silk, and Kihyun is immediately reminded of far less innocent times Hojoon’s head has found itself buried in places beneath the sheets. Pink lips pull themselves into a knowing smirk, and Kihyun knows he’s been read to easily. “Now who’s the one making the face,” Hojoon prompts, pulling himself up as smooth as a snake, until his bare legs are straddled over Kihyun’s skinny waist in a perfect reenactment of last night’s escapades.

“Just thinking,” the older man murmurs, the pain of past failures still weighing on his mind and subduing the usual surge of emotion he’d feel at Hojoon mercilessly crushing his soft, supple body against Kihyun’s shaking own.

“About what?” The younger man is relentless, pressing close in such a deliberate way Kihyun goes cross-eyed trying to focus on the man above him. Light streams out from behind Hojoon’s gloriously bare body, illuminating his wild hair in a heavenly halo, dancing across his half-lidded stare in flecks of shimmering gold. The angel smiles, as sinful as the devil, and the thought is slipping free from Kihyun’s parted lips before he can even register the sound of his own voice.

“Do you want to spend Christmas together?”

Stunning is still the only way Kihyun could describe Hojoon, lovely in his shock as his unblinking gaze turns the older man into a pile of numbed mush. Angelic satisfaction has turned to confusion, the frown from before making its way across the younger’s face in its full intensity, and Kihyun’s hands clench uselessly around soft thighs, wishing they could reach up and smooth away that little wrinkle again.

“Why?” Hojoon’s always been blunt, and this time is of no exception. The single word hits harder against Kihyun’s chest than any past childhood fight or highschool rejection, and he struggles to breathe over its twisting impact. The three sugar cubes sit sweet and tart on the very tip of his tongue, urging him with surges of saccharine adrenaline to pop them free into the air.

Maybe it’s the too-warm winter morning sunshine. Maybe it’s the raw vulnerability of Hojoon’s suddenly too-wet stare. Maybe Kihyun’s finally gotten tired of his own bullshit excuses. Either way the confession threads itself skillfully through his lips, snaking into the air and nestling itself into Hojoon’s cold dead heart as if it’s found its first and last home there.

I love you

Dark pools become literal as silent drops tangle nebulously amongst themselves between furiously fluttering lashes. “Don’t cry,” Kihyun whispers, his own heart breaking as he sits up to wipe away every wet trace of wordless rejection. “You don’t have to. Don’t ever tell me yes if it’s going to make you cry like this.”

Hojoon shakes his head, black hair whipping vigorously through the floating dust, catching each speck alight with tips of gilded sunlight. Kihyun’s heart mends itself as quickly as it tore, sinews of muscle re-threading through pumping blood and irrepressible strands of hope as he dares to whisper his unbelievable affirmation.

“Is that a yes then?”

Hojoon kisses him wordlessly. It’s a start.

Kihyun presses back, breathing in sweat, tears, and desperation, and it begins to feel like a promise.