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Be My Groupie | hjs

❝𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐈’𝐯𝐞 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐝𝐨𝐧𝐞.❞

↳ You'll be there for him until the day he forgets you, his biggest and most dedicated fan. Only he'll never forget you. He just needs to tell you.

↳ Han Jisung x female reader

↳ Best friends to lovers romance trope. Established relationship, rockstar Jisung, essentially pwp, angst and tension, references to imposter syndrome and generalised anxiety, a deliciously smutty end.

! Explicit content, adult themes, 4.2k, suitable for 18+ readers only !

「Part of the skz tropes collab w @yoongihan」 「main contents list」 「© February 2024 by jl-micasea-fics」

The strikes across your calendar had all counted down to this.

A single night that would not only shape your best friend’s future, but that would validate the years of hard work he had dedicated to the pursuit of his music. You knew well of those, for you were there for all of them. The tears and the frustration, the euphoria in between; Jisung had poured so much of himself that was both emotional and physical into what he loved, and now, it was to come to a glorious head.

The hype around this concert had been your sole source of energy since Jisung excitedly informed you of it.

“I’ve struck fucking gold, baby!” he’d exclaimed, too giddy to catch his breath. “We’re playing Liberty!”

To tackle the biggest music venue in the city where the famed of the industry had played was no small achievement; a genuine concert hall, so far removed from the dive bars and pubs he was used to and that you were so accustomed to watching him in. Long hours you’d spent talking of his ‘big break’— when it would happen (because the likelihood was surely no question), what it would look like. Indeed, it was fair to say you wished for nothing more than your best friend to taste the rich delight of success and happiness. It was only what he deserved. Him, so giving and dedicated. Him, so stuck to you for so long. Him; so endearingly oblivious.

The nature of your friendship was such that, when you thought about it, you suppose you stood no chance of not falling in love. You were so close to him as to fail to picture life without him, and it had been that way since high school. Jisung was everything you looked for in a man, and whether the standards came before him or not, you had struggled to much compromise on them with others, and you’d tried more than once. He was so beautiful as to break your heart in the right light, so kind as to remind you what it meant to be a good person. So sweet and without a truly cruel bone in his body. So wildly unable to balance his moods, the peaks of his joy and depths of his despair as interchangeable as the weather. Though the time spent with him was done so with no ulterior motive, for you had made your peace with unrequited infatuation long ago, there was an inherent romance to the dark hours you spent with him, locked in his garage and much later, his studio, listening contently to the tracks he shared first and foremost with you, for your ears and opinion meant more to him than those of his own manager. Much privileged were you to be in such a position, and the joy of exclusivity threatened more than once to tip the scales of your self-control. To be allowed to see into the soul of the man before any other person alive; to witness his arms curl about his guitar and his lips part in sweet song and his eyes flash with all spectrums of emotion was one of the greatest delights of life. The strongest, if you were to admit it.

And you so see; you never stood a chance.

*

Maybe it was overkill to listen to his music as you got ready for the concert.

Maybe it made you feel like he was here with you, singing as he often did in your company, and not miles away in the green room of a concert hall preparing for the biggest night of his life. A part of you resented that you weren’t able to be with him; it didn’t feel quite right to be a bystander, no more involved than any other person that would see him tonight, but it seemed there was no accounting for friends when the professionals stepped in. You would support him all the same.

A final glance spared at yourself in the mirror brought satisfaction; you’d done your best with what little fancy wardrobe you possessed, settling on a black dress that Jisung had once complimented. A choker added to the look, and in a bid to complete it, you searched through your dressing table drawers for the birthday gift Jisung had bought you this year— a tube of high-end crimson lipstick. You’d thought it an odd gift at the time, never much being one for makeup or any such extravagance, but he’d insisted on the colour being his favourite, and made a wish to see it on you.

“It’ll bring out your eyes,” he’d said. “If you don’t like it, just toss it.”

He had been right, you supposed. It certainly did something to accentuate your pout, adding a flare of the dramatic to your otherwise perfectly plain appearance. And if Jisung liked it...

As you contemplated taking it with you, the shrill honk of a taxi’s horn sounded from outside. Grabbing all you needed in a rush, you made for the vehicle, relieved to find it warm inside against the chill of the autumn night.

Moments into the drive, your phone rang.

“What’s up?”

“Hey, you.”

Your smile was most immediate— he was wired, and rightly so.

“You on your way?” he asked.

“Just got in the cab. I won’t be long.”

“Cool. Come to the back entrance when you get here. There’s hell of a queue out front.”

“I can queue with the rest of the muggles, Ji,” you laughed.

“No way, man. It’s too cold out. I bet you’re wearing next to nothing.”

You glanced down at your bare legs.

“Right?” he pressed.

“I can handle a bit of wind. See you soon.”

“Yo, don’t you—”

It wasn’t your fault his penchant for overprotection warmed the basest parts of you, and it was with that justification that you nursed your glow of smug content. Not that it would last long, for it eventually always gave way to bleak reality, where you questioned the boundaries of friendship and wondered if he simply went out of his way to ensure everyone in his life was well fed and well cared for. On occasion the things he did felt to step beyond platonic realms—wrapping you in his hoodie when the cold became you, dragging you into hugs that lasted a second too long, kissing your temple or forehead with surely no more thought than he gave which socks to put on in the morning. All of this brought about more confusion, another bout of repression and a need to calm the heart, such as you now experienced, for you’d run away with yourself yet again.

You took a slow, deep breath. This was Jisung’s night, and you’d support him as you always did. As you did best.

As his friend.

*

When eventually the taxi arrived at Liberty, you had real trouble comprehending what it was you saw. A winding queue of people clustered tightly that stretched the length of the venue and down the street like a great, colourful snake.

Jisung hadn’t been joking, you supposed. He must be climbing the walls with excitement; seeing the thousands of people that streamed your music in person take up a great space must bring about a far superior hit of dopamine.

With jacket wound tightly around yourself, you made for the back of the queue, the walk so long that you cursed yourself for not thinking to leave a little earlier, though that would have required forethought that you simply did not possess. Standing in line, you shifted from sole to sole as the ache began to permeate your feet, the line shuffling along with all the haste of a snail in danger.

The sudden grip on your wrist that yanked you out of place would have had you shrieking if not for the speed of it. Jisung, ever stealthy, dragged you through a fire exit that he had opened part way, slamming it shut behind him before detection spoiled it all. He released you quickly, irritation about his features.

“Didn’t I tell you to go around the back?” he huffed.

“Didn’t I tell you I could queue with everyone else?”

His brown eyes softened and narrowed, a smirk of amusement playing on his lips. His gaze fell over you slowly, then swiftly back up, where it lingered on your mouth. Perhaps you imagined the blush that coloured his cheeks— he was in stage makeup, after all. Glitter around his eyes and smoked-out black liner made it difficult to know for sure. The red flannel he wore over black tank top and tight leather trousers, complete with gold around his neck and in his ears, also made it difficult to do much more than stare like a dumbfounded fool.

“You should get a good spot,” he said, voice hoarse. “We’re on soon.”

“I’ll be right in front,” you smiled.

He nodded, swallowing hard, the confidence you knew him capable of just shy of surfacing.

“Hey.” You took his slim, warm hand. “You’ll smash this. It’s all yours.”

He forced a smile. “Yeah. I know.”

“It’s your big break. Just like we always talked about.”

“Right.”

“Clutch it with both hands and suffocate the shit out of it. Got it?”

He huffed a gentle laugh. “Yes, ma’am.”

A soft squeeze of your hand willed your heart to misbehave, as did the sweep of his thumb over your knuckles. Hardly a touch, and yet you afforded so much meaning to it. So much attention.

“I’ll, uh, see you after the show?” You slipped your hand away.

Jisung nodded. “Yeah. After the show.”

A beat of silence settled, uncharacteristic of the both of you to be so awkward, and yet you couldn’t alight the tension to anything else. His stage nerves, your uncertainty, the magnitude of what was to come. All of it set the air to shimmer.

“I’ll go and get that good spot then,” you said, and with a few steps, began away from him.

“Hey,” he called.

You turned back.

“You look great. Just, you know, so you know.”

He hurried off down the corridor before another word could be said, leaving you to wander the wreckage of your dignity. You touched your painted lips gently.

*

How you’d dreamt of seeing him like this.

Presented before a few thousand people that chanted his name in adoring unison, bathed in strobe light and stage smoke, propelled into his fourth song of the night by applause and whistles and the eager eyes of all who watched him. The stage may well have been built for him, so comfortable was he in voice and demeanour; just for him.

You stood as close to the stage as reasonable limits would allow, none ashamed of the elbows and well-placed crushing of toes it had taken you to get there. To compromise even an inch of your line of sight was out of the question— you had to see him. You had to see this.

The flannel long abandoned, Jisung strummed his sleek, red guitar with the accompaniment of the band behind him, his black tank doing little to conceal the honey tone of his skin that, under the spotlights, appeared as though iridescent. With one arm raised he played to the hype of the crowd, the other flexing under the weight of his beloved instrument. Engorged veins decorated his tensed throat as he sang with all he possessed, his dark hair sodden with sweat that trickled in rivulets to the hollows of his throat and down his temples, from his chin. Only when his voice abated did you realise the screams of the crowd you stood in, and so vehemently did it feel like just reward for all the tears and endless worries the man had bled out before this night, it was enough to bring you to emotion. He deserved this. There was none more deserving. This would be the start of a long, wonderful journey for him.

What then, would that mean for you? Selfish to even consider it on a night such as this, but being only human you were hardly able to prevent such thoughts surfacing. You had always known that talent like his would not go undiscovered for long, but had not given much consideration to the aftermath.  Around you stood thousands of adoring fans, every one of them vying for a scrap of attention that would evermore vindicate their affection for him and make of them lifelong followers. Devotion like theirs would propel him to stardom quicker than any of your well-intended words ever could; would it be that he’d reach such lofty heights as to remain out of your grasp? Would he soon forget the girl that, in her small and quiet way—indeed, the only way she knew how—devoted herself to him when nobody else knew of how brightly he smiled or how angelically he sang? To brand the feeling that tightened your chest ‘insignificance’ felt too dramatic, but you could not well dispute that for as long as he stood up there, and you down here, you constituted just another face in the crowd.

Just another hopeless fool that loved him.

*

Outside the venue, where the chill of the night had turned to biting cold, you waited on the stone steps and watched the great masses of people leave with spirits so high they would surely reach heaven.

The pit in your stomach had not so much abated, and if anything now brought upon you a wave of nausea that spiked hot irritation— how could you be so miserable on the most special night of Jisung’s life? He looked to you as a pillar of support, and yet here you were, wallowing in lanes of bleak possibility and lamenting that which you had not even lost, for you never had it to begin with.

A vibration from your jacket pulled you from the thoughts, and you quickly moved to answer it, plugging your free ear to relieve yourself of the noise.

“Hello?”

“Where are you?”

“Outside. Needed some air.”

“Come to the fire exit, I’ll let you back in.”

Supposing compliance would be less testing than arguing with him, you trudged about the venue to the door he had dragged you through prior, surprised to see him already there, delight lighting his face.

“Quick, come in!”

He swiftly closed the door after you slipped inside, yet before you were allowed to congratulate or praise him as his performance so deserved, you were caught in an embrace. Held to his chest tightly, he curled around you with no effort, the strong and steady thump of his heart based beneath your ear, for he wore nothing but the black tank he had performed in. Everything about him radiated adrenal heat, so fierce as to warm you through.

“Ji?”

“Just let me have this,” he muttered. “Just a minute.”

Able to say nothing against that, though still fearful of what being in his arms would later mean for you, you acquiesced.

“I’m so fucking happy,” he said.

You smiled, hand curling around his bicep. “You did amazing. I’ve never seen you so in your element. It was incredible.”

He squeezed you gently. “Thank you for coming.”

“Come on. Wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

Moments longer you stood in silence, his arms locked about you as though they might never let go. Despite yourself and reasoning that he simply wanted to rejoice in the glow of his triumph, you could not help but silently yearn for the embrace to last forever. Who knew when the next might come?

When eventually it did break, Jisung did so with a sigh. At arm's length he examined you, his large eyes still rimmed with black searching for something you couldn’t be certain of. His gaze, once more and with intent, dropped to your lips. Heat flushed your nape and cheeks, self-consciousness becoming you.

“W— What?” you stammered.

“You’re wearing the lipstick.”

You nodded. “Well. Yeah. Special occasion and all.”

Whether your attempt at nonchalance bore success or not, you couldn’t well determine, for Jisung’s stare did not relent.

“It suits you,” he whispered, and in the next breath reached to sweep the pad of his thumb across the full swell of your bottom lip. Lit from within with a resurgence of desire and want, your knees near threatened to give out. Jisung blinked as though back in the room, his cheeks rosing over.

“I... uh...”

Unable to find the words, he sighed once more. He held your wrists and stepped close, the resigned apology in his eyes warping to a determination you most usually associated with his pursuit of music.

“Fuck it.”

With a gentle pull he brought you towards him, meeting your step with that of his own and in the motion, he caught your lips. If the rush of emotion that seized you with shock did not force you to keep your eyes open, you might have believed it a dream, for it did not simply end with a brushing of lips. He wound an arm around your waist, backed you up with guiding steps until flush with the corridor wall. Engulfed with his heat that seemed with the proximity only to exacerbate, you were helpless but to curl a grip into his shirt, to surrender to the careful kisses he alighted on your crimson lips. A gasp escaped you as he held your neck with both hands, gentle thumbs under your chin kept your head tilted such that he could taste you at all angles with slow, measured nudges. When too swollen with desire to contain your want to have him firmer, you grasped at him desperately; he broke the kiss with a lazy grin.

“That was just about the scariest thing I’ve ever done,” he mumbled.

“You just performed in front of thousands of people for the first time.”

“Yeah. I did.” Another soft kiss and he whispered to your lips, “Come to the green room with me?”

With a tentative nod, he led you on jellylike legs down the hallway and through another, approaching a door that he peeked around and, seemingly satisfied, pulled you into. No smaller than a particularly large closet, the room was furnished with a single dressing table framed by lit vanity lights and a mirror, with a two-seater sofa pushed up to the wall. The only light came from said vanity mirror, the white bulbs glowing softly enough that Jisung’s shadow cast over the door as he flicked the lock and stepped towards you.

“This isn’t just a concert high,” he said, voice laced with a rasp. “I need you to know that.”

You swallowed, pulse rabbiting with anticipation. “What is it, then?”

“It’s giving up. I’m giving up.”

He wound his arms around you, took you into them again.

“I’m done fighting how I feel about you,” he said. “You’re the only constant I’ve ever had. The only thing that makes me want to sing and write music. You’re my muse— my everything.”

“Jisung...”

“You kissed me back,” he whispered. “I know I’m not crazy about us.”

You nodded, quite unable to catch your breath. “You’re not.” You held his cheek. “You’re not, Jisung.”

Contrary to your first kiss, the passion in the second was tenfold. A release of all that you’d kept so far from the surface of everything; a volcano spilling over to scald all who stood in its way. In his fervour he walked you back to the dressing table, and quite suddenly, spun you in his arms to face it.

“Watch me,” he instructed, and with eyes so dark as to make your core throb, began to alight on your throat open-mouthed affection that made you shiver and tremble. His hands slid around you, over your stomach where they held a moment, then to your thighs, where he hitched the material of your dress with painful slowness.

When underwear was revealed, Jisung seemed as though to lose what remained of his fragile tether of restraint, groaning against your neck and lifting your leg, guiding your foot to prop the dressing table, thus revealing all of you in the mirror, much to Jisung’s pleasure.

“God, baby—” He stared unabashedly, and with gentle fingers, slipped your underwear aside. “Show me what you’ve been craving from me all these years.”

Too drowned in his heat to be much embarrassed, though mortification most certainly did something to propel your compliance, it was with a shaky breath that you brought your own uncertain hand to where you ached. Jisung’s eyes burned, anticipation shimmering the air.

“Touch yourself,” he whispered. “Perform for me, baby.”

With a groan you slid your wanting fingers through your wetness, unable to look away from the intensity of the man that watched you as illicit entertainment. Soft, slow stimulation over your throbbing clit eased you into delight, each spark of pleasure felt by the man at your back.

“More,” he instructed, and in so doing wrapped a gentle hand about your throat, no pressure offered but the weight of his touch that, in itself, rendered you lightheaded. You quickened the pace of your touching, fearful that you would not be long for orgasm at this rate. So it was that you reached the very peak of it, trembling seconds away from falling into euphoria, when he tore your hand away from your touching and closed his mouth around your slick digits, tongue hot and wet.

“Need to feel you,” he groaned when his oral worship was done, and turned you in his embrace. He lifted you to the surface of the dressing table and pushed your dress up to where it would not pose a nuisance, all the while allowing you the frantic task of unzipping his trousers, and frantic it was, for only when you freed his throbbing length and held him in palm did the reality of all you’d done sink in— This was happening. It was real. Jisung wanted you, and would allow you not even a second of breath now that he had you, for his lips were on yours and his hands were spreading you and his thickness was breaching you with slick ease and slowness and—

“Fuck, fuck—” he sighed, taking your hand and curling it into the mop of his dark hair where he encouraged your grip. “Hold on.”

His instruction not without reason, Jisung’s first thrusts were experimental; a consideration of your state in respect of the train he was promptly to run on you. So drunk on the heat of you, his pace was that of carnality, the slamming of desire wrecking the legs of the dressing table and the paintwork of the wall behind it, for the thump of furniture matched that of his rhythm. Each delicious plunge brought you to near tears, the pleasure such that you were unable to breathe or think or hear anything over the pounding of your heart. Lit by the white glow of bulbs, his flawless complexion burned with deep heat, his efforts and exertion seen in the tense draw of his body— you tore his tank from his head, keen to feel him under your hands, the soft planes of his middle and curved firmness of his chest.

“J— Jisung, I—”

“Yeah, baby.”

“Fuck, I can’t—”

He kissed your complaint away, and consistent with his thrusts, held through the violent onslaught of your toe-curling, earth-shattering, blinding orgasm. So snug and wet around him, what strength he had in reserve appeared to fade, his curses and the burying of his head in your neck preceding his tremors of release, his hips stilling and his cock leaking, throbbing inside you. You held him, kissed his temple, revelled in the afterglow.

“Holy shit,” he panted when the violence had passed. “Fuck, that was intense—”

As inclined to agree as you were, you found you could not say much of anything. Doubt had begun to gather as content subsided, and in his fucked-out state, Jisung would have been forgiven for failing to notice your dip of mood.

Still; this was Jisung.

“I meant it all,” he said, still catching his breath. “Everything.”

“Everything?”

He grinned lazily, kissed you softly. “You’re my muse, baby. Always have been. Kind of thought you already knew that.”

“I’m not that presumptuous, Ji.”

“You should be. You’re the best person I know. It might be selfish of me to ask this, but...”

“But what?”

“I want you by my side, through whatever comes next.” He took your clammy hands, put them on his chest. “Yours is the only face I ever want to see in the crowd. You’re the only groupie I want.”

You scoffed a laugh though forming tears, slapping him gently. “Fuck off. I’m not your groupie.”

“You know you want to be, though.”

“Shut up.”

“Never.” He chuckled, and as the moment passed, once more drew his thumb over your bottom lip, stained with the residue of faded crimson. “Loved that lipstick,” he sighed.

You hummed. “That lipstick loved you.”

“Oh yeah?”

You nodded. “Yeah. So do I, actually.”

A smile as bright as the spotlights that famed him alighted his face. He was so beautiful as to break your heart. So kind as to make you a good person. So sweet and so wildly unable to regulate his moods. So utterly perfect in most every way that mattered.

Perhaps you were his biggest groupie, after all.

𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚, 𝙧𝙚𝙗𝙡𝙤𝙜, 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙨 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙢𝙚 >

𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙖 𝙣𝙞𝙘𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙? 𝙨𝙖𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙠𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙖 𝙘𝙤𝙛𝙛𝙚𝙚 ♡ >

𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙘𝙠 𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙠𝙯 𝙧𝙤𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙥𝙚𝙨 𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 ♡ >

[jl-micasea-fics]

The Play of You and I | bc

❝𝐋𝐞𝐭'𝐬 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝…❞

↳ There is nothing time leaves untouched. It changes all, as it changed you and him, and though those sepia days of childhood seem so far now, you cling to them fondly. When sudden grief tears the man you know - the boy - from himself, it falls to you to bring him back. It was nice to play pretend for a while.

↳ Bang Chan x female reader

↳ Childhood friends to lovers romance trope. Angst and hurt/comfort, budding romance and yearning, grief and loss, referenced drug use and severe addiction/withdrawal the consequences therein, slow burn.

! Mature content, adult themes, 10.2k, suitable for 18+ readers only !

「Part of the skz tropes collab w @yoongihan」 「main contents list」 「© February 2024 by jl-micasea-fics」

Twenty-eight years

There once was a boy.

He wasn’t a remarkable boy. Wouldn't be recorded in the annals of history for any great feat of bravery or wonder of strength. He wouldn’t change the world or its archaic institutions. He wouldn’t break records or revolutionise or rally or do much of anything other than live his quiet, small life, because he was just a boy. A perfectly ordinary boy. And you liked him that way.

You liked his dimples and his mop of ochre brown curls and his Australian twang. You liked the games he invented and the ‘let’s pretend’ that would excitedly precede every occasion of play. Most of all, you liked the hour just after school where, from your childhood bedroom window, you would watch him trot across the sunlit street to knock on your door and steal you away to the treehouse his father had constructed in the very nearby woods, whereupon you lived in a world of carefree creation and make-believe.

It had always been just him and his father; a sad fact that as a child both confounded you and compelled you to quiz:

“But where is your mummy? You don’t have one? Why? My mummy says everyone has a mummy. She says I came from her tummy. Where did you come from?”

Chan only ever shrugged and ran off to play, as complacent of your questioning as ever he would be. As childhood faded and adolescence rolled in with all the gentile of a marching brass band, you learned that his mother had passed when he was a mere six weeks old. He told you that he was glad he’d never known her. He thought it spared him the pain of loss. You rather disagreed, and told him as much; wasn’t it better to have loved and lost?

“No way,” he had said. “I’d rather spend my whole life alone than lose everyone I love.”

“But you’re not alone. You have me and your dad,” you had argued.

Chan shrugged and took a drag of his cigarette— a habit you detested. “That’s different. I’ll never lose you two.”

Rain cascaded from the rim of your black umbrella, soaking the turfed and trimmed grass. Your heels sank to the softening ground the longer you stood.

“O God, who by the glorious resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light—”

The ache in your calves threatened cramp, but you found no real complaint in it.

“— Grant your servant Jaehyun Bang to your never-failing care and love, and bring us all to your heavenly kingdom.”

Physical pain took something away from the distress which you tried with utmost composure to conceal. He needed you today, of all days.

“Almighty God, we entrust all who are dear to us to your never-failing care and love, for this life and the life to come, knowing that you are doing for them better things than we can desire or pray for—”

To break down would be to fail him.

“— through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.”

Through tear strewn eyes you watched the boy you’d grown up with—now a man, tall and beautiful—step forward. Concealed by his own umbrella, he stooped to gather a handful of the moist, freshly dug earth, and tossed it atop the wet casket as it sank ever lower into the ground. The lump in your throat solidified. It seemed too cruel. Too cold. Too lonely. Jae deserved a better end than this. Chan deserved better.

And with a final blessing on the few gathered, it was all over. So many weeks of pain all amounted to this: walking with your childhood friend in a cold and quiet cemetery. The rain had eased to a fine drizzle and Chan had abandoned his umbrella. His fair brown curls were haloed with the frizz of humidity, his expression drawn vacant and haggard. He’d lost weight since Jae’s admittance. Even more since the terminal diagnosis. To think about it too much was to fall sick with worry. You’d already fallen once. A second time would make a fool of you.

“Shit day for it,” he sighed, hands in his cheap suit pockets.

“Yeah. Sorry.”

Chan tutted, and from his inner jacket pocket pulled a mangled, half-empty carton of cigarettes. Shoving one between his dry lips, he then offered the packet to you.

“When have I ever taken you up on that?” You laughed gently; as much as one may ever laugh after saying such a goodbye.

He shrugged. “Worth a try. Special occasion and all.” He lit the cigarette with a few preliminary puffs, the smoke disappearing behind his teeth. “I’m allowed to smoke in a graveyard, right?”

“I don’t think anyone will object.”

“No? Not even you?”

You shook your head. “Not today.”

Chan hummed, took a deep drag, the smoke seeping from his lips. Gravel crunched softly beneath your feet, the sky a great gathering of grey so lifeless it seemed to drain the very colour from the flower arrangements marking the headstones— peach roses gone dull, sweet freesias withered. Tributes to ‘MUM’, ‘DAD’, and ‘SON’ meant something to someone once upon a time; how sorely they’d surely upset to see them all so neglected.

“It was a nice service,” you said quietly.

Chan scoffed. “He would have hated it.”

“What? Why?”

“He wanted to be set out to sea,” Chan said, and then in a shockingly accurate impression of his father, “‘Shove me in a box and let the whales have me’.”

“He was never serious about that, Chan.”

He glared at you.

“Alright, maybe he was, but public health might have had a thing or two to say about us rolling a corpse out across the beach.”

Chan flinched; the briefest and only moment of vulnerability you had seen in him since this whole thing began. He hadn’t shed a tear. Hadn’t even choked back a sob. Almost as if it hadn’t been happening for him. Realisation of your blunder hit with the force of a bus. You stopped, reached for his arm.

“Shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

Chan shrugged you off. “No. Don’t be. That’s what he is now, right?”

He walked ahead and with the wisp of cigarette smoke curling around him like a comforting arm.

No doubt it was of more comfort than you.  

*

Sunday nights were reserved for the ritual of film, as they had been since you both were old enough to understand the attractive taboo of an ‘R’ rating.

B-movie horrors and predictably lacklustre ghost tales filled the late hours, as did a takeaway of Thai or Chinese. Never once had Sunday’s sanctity been interfered with; never a cancellation, never a back out. No matter how horridly busy the working week had been, so malicious as to keep you apart, Sunday night could be relied upon to reunite you.

Seven o’clock came and went.

Eight o’clock ticked by.

Nine o’clock approached, and sick with anxiety you could no longer wait. You texted him first:

<< everything okay? it's sunday

Thirty minutes with no response, and so you called him. It rang through to voicemail. “Hey, it’s me. Are you— You’re coming over, right? I’m waiting for you. Call me.”

And a further ten minutes passed with no sign. You video called him, startled by the image of your stressed reflection in the camera; you promptly turned it off. It rang and rang, each one a heftier weight on your worry, until the static of connectivity and flickering video announced him.

“Chan?”

The incoming video was dark, the indecipherable din so blaringly loud you grimaced to turn down the volume.

“Chan! Where are you?” you called, but to no more response than the phone tilting and shaking in his apparent grip, the video catching only thin streams of coloured light and anonymous silhouettes. You would get no sense from this, you knew. No sense other than the gut instinct that occasioned to tell you Chan wasn’t coming over tonight. Chan was otherwise occupied. Chan had defiled the sanctity of Sunday.

And that was merely the beginning.

*

Eight years

“Come on, quick!”

“Wait for me! Wait!”

Chan sprinted ahead, his trainers thumping the well-trekked earthen path that wound deep into the woods; not that you ever followed it that far.

The treehouse lived a few hundred yards beyond the woods threshold, nestled in a great beech tree with weeping branches that hung around and embraced the little structure in a leafy veil of green and brown. From the platform proper, you could see straight through the clearing of trees to Chan’s house: when the porch light flicked on, it was time to come home.

“The ladder!” You shouted up to the treehouse when you reached it; Chan always got there first. “Channie!”

A head popped out from over the deck, curls bobbing about. “What’s the magic word?”

“Please?”

“Nope!” He giggled.

“Pretty please?”

“Nope!”

“Pretty please with a cherry on top?”

“Nope!”

“Channie!”

“It’s a magic word!” He cackled. “You have to say it magically.”

You racked your brain, then said, “Abracadabra?”

Chan clapped and dropped down the ladder, the ropes and planks swinging wildly until you settled them. Climbing up was never easy; it never kept still, and so you strained and grunted your way up until close enough for Chan to grab. He took your hand and pulled you the rest of the way, dragging you into the warm, wood shelter. It was modestly decorated with blankets and old cushions donated by Chan’s dad, crayons and felt-tip pens with the lids off, magazines and crumpled newspapers and colouring books and toys and props and everything a child may want in their personal kingdom to allow for a litany of games and adventures.

Chan yanked a yellow plastic sword from the stack of cushions it was buried in— his very own Excalibur.

“Let’s pretend I'm a knight!” He beamed.

“Okay!”

“You can be the princess,” he said, running to a box chest and rifling inside. He pulled out a silky red cape (it once made him a superhero) and threw it at you.

“Can I have a sword?” you asked.

“No! Princesses don’t have swords.”

“Why not?”

“Because knights have swords.”

You pouted and put on the cape, buttoning it around your neck. “That’s dumb.”

“It’s a knight’s job to save princesses.”

“From what?”

“From—” He looked around, frowning as he walked to the window whereupon his face lit up. He hopped back to you and took your hand, dragged you to where he stood before. He pointed alongside your head. “See there?”

You followed his direction, squinting through the trees. “What?”

“There!” He emphasised, pointing harder. “On the hill!”

“It’s just a—”

“A dragon lives there,” he whispered. “A big, red scaly dragon that breathes fire and eats princesses!”

You gasped and stared at the quiet, distant hill, barely visible above the tree line. Chan’s descriptions brought to life a huge, red dragon, its scales glinting in the sunlight as it reared its long neck and puffed smoke from its gaping nostrils.

“I don’t want to be eaten!” You declared, but on turning to Chan, realised he was gone. “Channie?”

“Don’t be scared princess!” You heard him call. You ran out of the shelter and to the deck, looking down at the forest floor where Chan stood poised with his sword drawn towards the hill.

“I will kill the dragon!” He cried, hopping from one foot to the other. “It’s coming! It’s coming, princess!”

“Save me, knight!”

With a great cry of bravery, Chan leapt towards a nearby tree, thwacking and chopping his sword against the thick trunk. He dodged and rolled around it, picking up a pinecone and throwing it at the snarling beast.

“Look out princess! It’s coming for you!”

You shrieked in horror and ran back into the shelter, rifling through the chest and under pillows to find a weapon. Chan continued his assault, hacking and slashing at trunks as he ran after the beasts’ legs. “My sword isn’t strong enough!” He shouted. “I need something else!”

“Here!”

Over the decking you threw to him what you’d found: a plastic bow and arrow that to your mind, was the key. Chan cried out with joy, “Thank you, princess!” And threw his sword to the earth, dashing to collect the toy. He clumsily drew an arrow back on the string; it bounced harmlessly from the dragon’s back and dropped into a thicket, never to be retrieved. Chan huffed, but persevered. He ran about the treehouse for a better angle, and the second arrow he fired pierced its chest and elicited a thunderous roar from the creature: it reared and puffed plumes of smoke, its scaly body glowing a deep, threatening orange.

“I hurt it!” Chan yelled.

“You made it mad!”

“Hide, princess!”

He darted behind a blackberry bush just in time to spare himself from the molten heat of dragon’s fire: the monster bellowed and shook the earth as its destructive flames singed the forest and razed the soil, the residual heat scalding the very air. When it had passed, you shouted down, “Shoot him again!”

Chan scrambled out from the bush and clambered to his knees, frantically drawing an arrow and with a final yell of victory, shot the beast straight through the heart. It groaned and with its last breath, puffed thin wisps of flame that soon diminished. It fell to the ground with a terrible thud, alive no more.

Chan jumped for joy and laughed and ran to the treehouse, calling up, “Throw me the ladder, princess! It’s safe now!”

You quickly did so, watching in awe as your rescuer climbed up, his bow on his back.

“Thank you, knight,” you beamed, clapping. “You saved my life.”

“You need to give me a reward.”

“A what?”

“A prize. For killing the dragon.”

“Oh! Okay. Like what?”

Chan shrugged and looked at the floor. “Some princesses give their knights a kiss.”

“A what?”

“A kiss.” He tapped his cheek. “Here.”

You wrinkled your nose. “Do I have to?”

Chan shrugged again. “No.” He yanked his bow off and tossed it, glancing out of the small shelter window. “The porch light’s on,” he said. “We have to go back.”

“But your prize—”

“I don’t want it.”

He rushed out to the deck and stooped to the ladder, securing his feet on the first plank.

“Channie—”

“Dad’s making egg rolls for dinner. Bye!”

*

Twenty-eight years

He reeked of sickly-sweet fruit.

Each whiff you caught of it made your head hurt. It grated on your temperament like an incessantly dripping tap in total silence: much more and you’d be tempted to rip it from the basin.

Uncaring—or perhaps simply oblivious—Chan relaxed on the leather suite, legs kicked to the coffee table. Sporadically he would whistle a soft tune that further stirred your awful mood, as did his occasional chuckles. You watched him from the kitchen, as your open plan apartment allowed, and mindlessly bodged the simmering stir fry vegetables around the wok with tongs. You had no appetite. Just needed to keep yourself occupied.

“You can put limiters on those apps, you know,” you said flatly.

Chan frowned, glued to his phone. “What?”

“Time limiters. So you can only use them for, like, an hour a day or whatever.”

“Okay? And?”

You shrugged. “Just saying.”

Chan huffed, locked his phone, tossed it to his side where it landed with a plop. He rose from the sofa, stretched out his long arms and legs, the wide sleeves of his thin, black vest gaping to reveal the pale expanse of rib and lean muscle. You drew your eyes away, heat spoiling your nape.

“Smells good,” he mumbled as he approached and leaned over the counter. Even through the salty soy and tang of chow mein, he stank of it. Sickeningly sweet perfume.

“You can have it,” you said, knocking the tongs on the wok and setting them aside. You turned from him to open the fridge, glad of the subsequent embracing chill.

“You don’t want it?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Then why cook?”

“Habit.” You closed the fridge, having retrieved nothing. “You have a few of those yourself, so you’d know.”

Unable to meet his discerning gaze you fussed about the sink, rearranging nothing other than the discomfort that wracked you from head to heart.

“What’s the matter with you?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“You’re being weird.”

“No I'm not.”

“Yes, you are. You’ve done nothing but passively aggressively criticise me since I walked through the door.” He rounded the counter and leaned against the fridge with arms folded. “Did something happen today?”

You turned to him, meeting his defensive stance. “Why don’t you tell me what you did today, Chan?”

Witnessing in person the moment the colour drains from one’s face is as profound an experience as it is melancholy. Chan blinked as his complexion greyed, his tightened jaw loosening.

“I—” he began, then fumbled. “I told you what I did today.”

“Mhm. You visited the cemetery? Then picked up groceries?”

“Yes.”

“And did you stop by the women’s perfume aisle when you were at the store?”

Chan swallowed. His eyes morphed from the uncertainty of doubt to the surety of guilt, dark browns glistening. Such a small thing that only years of intimate acquaintance could tell of. That only a soulmate could tell of, by his estimation. Your heart sank to dismal depths.

“Didn’t think so,” you muttered, unfolding your arms and moving to the wok that sputtered erratically. You took it off the heat and set it to a cold ring, where it steadied and settled. With no more energy to quiz him or think of it any longer, you turned thoughts to fonder things.

“Did you talk to your dad?” you asked, yet before the question settled, warm arms encircled you tightly.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, breath warm on your nape.

A flurry of want so expertly tucked and buried surfaced in a burst of heat; to be held by him was to let yourself imagine a plethora of impossibilities, not one of them becoming of the decade long friendship. Yours was not an easy battle, but a successful one. You’d conquered the love. Squashed the desire. You had.

“I just...” he hesitated. “I was lonely.”

He came to you in a gale of sickly sweetness: a tell that he had never been yours, and never would be. He owed you no such romantic allegiance.

“Don’t. Don’t explain,” you said, voice cracking. “I shouldn’t have brought it up. It wasn’t my place to—”

He turned you in his arms, the counter a brace behind, his strong frame in front. Surely awestruck in any other circumstance but instead overpowered by the nauseating fruity concoction that lingered on him, you grimaced and shook your head. “Chan—”

“Are you jealous?”

“What?”

“She meant nothing. She was just a Tinder hook-up. I needed something to distract me.”

Your heart throbbed. “God, stop. I don’t want to know.”

“You do, though. I know you do. I know you.”

You shoved against his chest. It was too strong. Too sweet. Too sick. “Give me some space, Chan—”

He stepped back, some colour having returned to his blushed cheeks. His chest rose heavier on the next breath, and with a puff of what seemed like exasperation, he announced, “I should go.”

“Yeah.”

He turned on a step, raked his hands through his curls, then turned back swiftly. “You know, you could just—” He gesticulated wildly, then sighed. “Whatever. Call me when you salvage your head from your ass.”

Not moments after he’d left were you dumping and scraping the cooling contents of the wok into the bin, frustrated and on the brink of inexplicable tears. The apartment stunk of it for hours.

Better that than your childhood friend’s conquests.

*

Twelve years

“Let’s pretend we’re hunting for treasure.”

“We’ve played that game,” you complained.

“We’re playing again!” Chan exclaimed excitedly, darting across the treehouse shelter to the chest his dad had gifted him for his eleventh birthday, new and improved and twice the size of the old. Crammed with the all the old toys and fresh additions, Chan shoved through them until he retrieved a sturdy hardwood ship wheel polished to a fine shine, the rounded spokes inlaid with brass. One of his dad’s finer feats of craftsmanship, and his new favourite toy. Affixing it to a perfectly shaped and sanded branch that stretched out over the treehouse decking and through the shelter window (another feat of Bang senior), he gave it one great spin and watched with delight as the spokes blurred and melted into a rapid, satisfying flurry.

“Where’s my first mate!?” He cried.

Prior complaint forgotten, you hopped to your feet and into a salute. “Captain!”

“There you are!” He marched across the shelter and from the wall dedicated to crafts plucked a pinned pirate hat fashioned from folded newspaper, sporting a raggedy skull and crossbones drawn in black crayon. He unfolded the base and shook from it an eyepatch—also fashioned from coloured-in newspaper and string—which he tossed to you. He put the pirate hat on and with a gruff clearing of his throat, said, “I hear there be treasure here!”

“Arrr,” you replied, laughing. “So do I!”

“Shall we find it?”

“Aye, Captain!”

“I can’t hear you!”

“Aye, aye Captain!”

Chan burst into laughter and sang, “Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?”

“Spongebob Squarepants!”

A fit of giggles interrupted the play, and after a moment, when ribs ached and cheeks were sore, Chan went back to his wheel. “Okay, okay— Pirates, remember.”

“Yes, Captain.” You saluted.

He spun the wheel again, squinting against the broken beams of afternoon sun as he looked out through the forest.

“The sea be choppy today!”

“Choppy, Captain?”

“Aye!”

“What does that mean, Captain?”

“I, uh—” Chan shrugged. “I don’t know. I just heard it.”

You shrugged in return, then ran to the window, leaning over the wood and pointing to the ground. “There’s something shiny down there, Captain!”

“That’s the treasure!” He stilled the wheel and ran out of the shelter. “Let’s go! Bring the spades!”

As he clambered down the rope ladder you quickly threw the net sack of plastic buckets and spades over your shoulder and followed him. At the bottom, he took the sack from you, hastily emptying the contents.

“Here.” He gave you the pink set, took the blue for himself. “Remember; ‘X’ marks the spot.”

You crept a few paces behind him as you carefully scoured the forest floor. Through thin twigs and stray berries, conifer needles and pinecones you wandered, the sun beating down on your backs through the leafy canopies. The beech leaves had warmed from green to orange and yellow, the occasional one drifting quietly from the weeping branches to the ground on a strong gust of wind. One such landed on Chan’s shoulder as he hunted; you plucked it from him, blew it off your palm, watching as it glided lazily to the floor, whereupon it landed daintily over a formation of (more or less) crossed twigs, then tumbled away.

“Captain!” You called. “Look!”

Chan bounded over and on sight of your discovery, broke into a wide smile. “Well done, first mate!”

Both crouched beside the fated spot, you began to dig, burying your plastic spades into the earth that easily crumbled and gave way to your efforts. Some minutes of this revealed nothing much more than wriggly worms; Chan sighed.

“Maybe ‘X’ doesn’t mark the spot.”

“No, wait.” You dug your small spade into the soil, forcing it down and retrieving what had caught your eye; your brought it up on the tool and held it to Chan’s face.

“A lump of gold!” He whispered in awe, taking the unearthed acorn in his palm and clutching it tightly. “There must be more!”

With frantic delight he began digging again, discovering more and more acorns to add to the impressive collection you soon amassed. The spades were eventually abandoned and the search site widened until the immediate area surrounding the treehouse was littered with holes and small piles. How much time passed couldn’t be known, but with hands and nails encrusted with dirt, you counted your precious treasure in the treehouse shelter.

“One for you,” Chan gave you an acorn. “One for me.” And took one for himself. “One for you,” he continued. “One for me. One for you, one for me. One for you—”

“We’re rich, Captain!” you said.

“We can buy a new boat!” Chan laughed.

“New hats!”

“New eyepatches!”

“Aye!”

“Aye!” you giggled.

Over your shoulder, something seemed to catch Chan’s attention, his smile dampening. You followed his glance, and your heart sunk. Had it been that long already?

“Porch light’s on,” he mumbled.

“I don’t want to go home yet.”

“It’s okay,” Chan said. “We can play again tomorrow.”

“But tomorrow is so far.”

“Dad says if you go to bed early, tomorrow comes faster.”

“Really?”

Chan nodded.

“Alright,” you huffed, then hopped up, dragging your mucky hands over your shirt. “Let’s go straight to bed!”

You made a start for the decking, stopping just shy of the ladder.

“Can we play pirates again tomorrow?” you asked.

A streak of waning sunlight caught Chan’s irreverent grin in an amber glow.

“Yeah,” he said. “You can be Captain.”

*

Twenty-eight years

And the conquests became so many that it hardly felt apt to refer to them so. A full-scale occupation would have been more proper, and in truth, it offered you some amusement to think of it that way, albeit short-lived.

Less frequent his visits had become, Sunday nights and every other night that might have occasioned even a fleeting visit spent in dimly lit solitude. For all your lecturing as to Chan’s habitual Instagram addiction, you sheepishly took to the platform as a means of monitoring him: his feed had morphed from beautifully crafted reels of nature, music and pluviophile aesthetics to a dark and debauched affair. Selfies with strangers and drinks in hand, each one a deterioration of state that pained you to look at. Your texts went rejected and calls ignored, and on the precipice of sinking into debilitating fear, you recalled the most obvious, most basic of things.

Before the feelings or the murky boundaries or the longing or anything else, Chan was your friend. So intricately had he woven himself into your life, his presence made up part of the very basic fabric. Without him you’d be something less than whole, as would any who suffered a major loss. Chan had suffered a major loss. Chan was less than whole. He could feign togetherness, keep his eyes dry and his expression calm, but you knew better. Was it not your obligation as his friend and your want as his confidant to bring him back from the treacherous cliff side he teetered on? Would he not do the same for you? Do soulmates not go above and beyond for each other?

A shrill notification pinged your phone: Chan had updated his story. With a deep breath you tapped the pink circle, the seconds-long video loading with a torrent of bassline that brought you to cringe. A purple neon sign flashed bright: ‘Eden’. The bold white caption read: ‘#bestlife’. If ever there was a redder flag, you couldn’t have imagined it.

Resolved to action, you swept into the bedroom and changed into the most passable nightlife attire you possessed: a pair of black denim shorts and satin spaghetti strap top. Paired with heeled boots and finished with a dusting of makeup, you supposed that, at the very least, you’d not be turned away at the door.

You hoped.

*

Eden felt to you to be far from any sort of acclaimed paradise.

The weight of smoke both from cigarette and stage machine and the stale tang of alcohol overwhelmed what fraying nerves you had left, courtesy of the uncomfortably prolonged taxi ride. Bodies writhed on the elevated dance floor, an anonymous and unsettling orgy of sweaty movement that not a single part of you anticipated joining: you wished only to find Chan.

The garishly lit bar too packed to reasonably consider asking the tender if they had ‘seen this man’, you took to a sweep of the floor, navigating through the inebriated and keeping a keen eye out for a familiar head of curls; a familiar anything. Eden was deceivingly larger than the exterior suggested. It stretched far, far back and over three floors of height, each one boasting a unique theme. The ground floor appeared to be what most associate with a typical nightclub of sorts: strobe lighting, loud EDM, no inhibitions. The second—while equally lacking in inhibitions—eased on the strobe lighting in favour of a soft and constant pink hue. It retained an almost dreamlike quality with its binaural beats, those that occupied the booth seats engaged in chatter or rather more exhibitionist activity from which you quickly drew your eyes. None of it was him. Nothing beyond that mattered. On the third floor the music picked back up; not of electronica but a rather grungier scrape that oddly did something to comfort you. It inspired memories of teenage angst and nineties rock culture; a time in which both you and Chan happily thrived in black. Regardless, he wasn’t here, and so your search continued. If not inside, he must be outside. Following the signs for the smoking area led you up to the roof, where high chain link fences had been erected. Warmed by the glow of orange heat lamps at their backs, people huddled amidst great swathes of cigarette smoke and thought you of no more consequence than a passing fly as you walked among them.

Oh, Chan and his habits. You’d have smiled if not so burdened with cold dread. At the rear of the smoking area, your childhood friend sat on the rusted crimson metal of fire exit stairs. A black button-down buttoned down to his navel hung open on his svelte, trim physique, the smear of makeup not belonging to him glittered his cheeks and lips. On his lap was perched a girl, her dress so short it revealed dainty lace. She ran her claw-like nails through his curls, and he offered her a bleary-eyed smile around a burnt-down cigarette. He smiled at you that way when he was tired; when he’d been fed and watered and was content. Jealousy, hot and unashamed, wound around you to squeeze dignity from your person like warm toothpaste from a tube. Single-mindedly you stormed towards him, vitriol surging up your oesophagus—

If only your eyes hadn’t met. If only through the smog his soft browns, so eroded by pain of loss, had not been so clear. The cigarette fell from his lips and the girl was shoved unceremoniously to stand. “Clear off,” you heard him say, her compliance not without complaint. When close enough to address, he did just that.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“I came for you.”

“For— What?”

“I can’t watch you self-destruct anymore. Enough is enough.”

He laughed, dry and scratchy. “Self-destruct? Clubbing is self-destructive now?”

“It's not the clubbing, Chan.” You spat it like a dirty word. “You can dance and drink and fuck strangers all you want; it was never about the clubbing. It’s about you and me. You’re distancing yourself. I feel you slipping through my fingers. None of this—” you gesture around vaguely, “— is you. You’re not this person.”

“What would you know about the kind of person I am?” he hissed, stumbling forward. He steadied himself on the adjacent chain link, the height he had on you seeming more so with the hostility rolling from him. “You think you’ve got some— some special fucking connection to me just because we’ve known each other forever? Because we’re soulmates?” He drawled the word, stretched it, made it mean. “What a load of bullshit.”

Wounded, you drew your gaze from him. What pain had been in his eyes had warped to a defensive rage.

“You’re lashing out,” you said, voice thick. “You’re angry. You’re in pain. That’s normal. I get it.”

“You don't get it. How could you possibly get it?”

“Chan—”

“Go home,” he huffed, turning into the chain with both hands, his forehead pressed to it.

“Come with me.”

“Is that invitation?”

You swallowed, hesitated.

“Of course it isn’t,” he scoffed. “God forbid you ever tell me how you really fucking feel.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means what it fucking means. We’ve danced around this bullshit since we were sixteen.”

This bullshit.

“It’s like if either of us ever acknowledged that we— That there’s— That we’re not just—” He took a deep, frustrated breath, closed his eyes. “It’s like the world will end or something.”

“Chan...”

“At this point, I wouldn’t even give a fuck if it did.”

“Don't say things like that. We were... We were kids, Chan. Back then. We didn’t know—”

“Do not tell me that I didn’t know what I was doing. I knew damn well what I wanted. You’re the one that wanted to pretend nothing ever happened.”

“It wasn’t like that, Chan.”

“No? Then what was it like?”

“You were going through a lot. You know that. You and Jae started fighting so much, you were getting into trouble at school, you stopped coming by the treehouse. You just— You changed, almost overnight. It didn’t feel right to try to talk to you about... what we did. I didn’t feel like I could.”

“Right.” He shoved off the chain link, ran a hand through his curls. “So, it’s my fault we’re stuck like this.”

“That’s not what I said—”

“Go home. And don’t ask me to come with you again. Not unless you mean it.”

With that, he drew himself up and strode off into the smoke, leaving you to dissect that which he apparently knew to be true.

A shiver of chill took you, a sudden gale sweeping over the roof. You wrapped your arms around yourself and sank into the sadness.

A special connection indeed.

*

Sixteen years

The woods had shrunk since you were a child.

You walked the muddy, winding path with your hood drawn close, the patter of winter rain dampening your shoulders. A wild breeze picked up through the trees, a shiver of chill that pinched your cheeks and urged you to jog.

The great beech tree defied such elements as it always did, its bare branches a skeletal cage around the treehouse shelter. The rope ladder swung gently, knocking against the trunk; you grabbed and steadied it, bracing your foot on the lowest rung so as to test its strength. Confident that it should probably hold, you began a slow and unsteady climb to the top. Pulling yourself over the soaked decking and stooping to enter the shelter, you were glad of the protection from the rain, such as it was and despite the gaps of erosion that had worn the wood. Moth-eaten blankets and sodden cushions, forest debris and the musk of damp spoiled what had once been a childhood kingdom: so age infected all things.

“Didn’t think you’d come.”

Chan sat beneath the window, his long legs stretched out, an unlit cigarette tucked between his fingers. His damp, brown curls were drying out at the ends, his black hoodie concealed just how soaked he was.

You glared at him. “I said I would.”

Chan shrugged, popped the cigarette between his lips. From his jeans pocket he retrieved a lighter you recognised as belonging to his dad.

“Do you have to do that in here?” you complained.

“Relax,” he said around the cigarette as he lit it and took several puffs. “Second-hand smoke is a myth.”

“It isn't, but okay. I actually meant that you just shouldn’t smoke in our treehouse.”

“The wood’s wet. It won’t catch.”

“That’s not what I—” You sighed. “Whatever.” And sat at the opposite side where the toy chest once lived, its rectangular outline forever having marked the wood it rested on.

“We could have hung out at your place,” you eventually said, bringing your knees to your chest.

Chan shook his head. “Nah. Dad’s being a fucking asshole.”

“What happened?”

“He found my stash.”

You shot him a quizzical look, to which he tapped the cigarette in indication.

“Oh,” you muttered.

“I told him I’ll just quit when I get bored of it,” he said, wisps of smoke drifting from his lips. “He doesn’t get it.”

You said nothing, supposing he wouldn’t want to hear which side of things you landed on, because it wasn’t his. Watching Chan smoke was one of many new things you found yourself adjusting to since adolescence—awareness—had come around: the details of most everything about him you’d committed to perfect memory, and in your admiration, had come to quietly understand. You were in love with him.

“You sat by yourself at lunch today.”

You shrugged, drew your knees to your chest, wrapped your arms around them. “So?”

“So, where was your friend?”

“Sam.”

Chan rolled his eyes. “Where was Sam?”

“He was sick.”

“Oh yeah? What’s wrong with him?”

“He said it was a twenty-four-hour bug. He’ll be fine.”

Chan hummed, took another drag of his cigarette. “You should have sat with us,” he said after a while.

You scoffed. “With you and your merry band of minions? No thanks.”

“Rude. They’re not minions.”

“If you were so concerned you could have come to me.”

Chan blinked.

“But the minions wouldn’t have liked that, right?”

“Maybe they’re scared of you.”

“Scared?”

He shrugged. “You’re not the easiest to approach.” He rolled the cigarette between his fingers slowly. “You can be intimidating.”

“It’s called a resting bitch face. You have it too, Chan.”

“Right. I know.”

“So tell them that.”

“Thought you didn’t want anything to do with my merry band?”

“I don’t. I have Sam.”

Chan grimaced.

“What? You don’t like him?” you snapped.

“He’s not who I'd have chosen to be friends with.”

“We choose our friends?”

“I did,” he shrugged.

“Right. You did. You’re the one that went off and found new friends the minute we started high school. So don’t blame me for doing the same fucking thing, because I had no choice. Sam is there for me all the time. You’re only there when nobody else is watching.”

With that, you climbed to your feet and stormed out of the shelter, to where the rain poured relentlessly. A grip on your wrist dragged you out of the torrent and back inside, into Chan’s waiting arms. Not wishing to fight the embrace, you simply stood there, face buried to his cold, damp hoodie, reeking of cigarette smoke, heart yearning for that which it would never be allowed.

“I didn’t know you felt that way about it,” he said after a moment. “You should have told me.”

“Couldn’t,” you mumbled into his clothes.

“Don’t be stupid. You can tell me anything.” A hand soothed your hair, he dipped his head to speak in your ear. “I just figured that we see each other all the time, at home and after school. New friends couldn’t hurt. It’s not like they’d come between us. Not us. We’re soulmates.”

Your chest clenched. “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry I hurt you.”

“I know.”

“I’ll be more present at school.”

“Don’t force it. If you don’t want to—”

He pulled back, hands on your shoulders, brown eyes sincere as they searched your face. “I do want to. I want to be with you all the time.”

“Your minions might have something to say about that,” you laughed softly.

“They can say what they want. You mean more to me than anything they can even fathom.”

Oh.

You swallowed firmly; he was so close. Close enough to map out the pores on his nose. To trace the dry lines in his lips. To see the sparks of hazel in the chocolate irises.

“Sam is...” He hesitated, then asked, “You two are just friends?”

Confused, you nodded. “Of course.”

“Just friends.”

“Just friends,” you repeated, bemused. “Why do you—”

“I just wanted to be sure. That’s all.”

“Oh. Okay.”

The hands on your shoulders wandered down to upper arms, to elbow, to forearms, to your hands, where chilly fingers locked and held. Over the pounding of your heart you hardly heard the crack of branches succumbing to the stormy gust beyond the shelter, the downpour of torrential rain that whipped and lashed at all in its wake. Chan blinked softly, the pale of his cheeks warming with blush. A flick of gaze from your eyes to lips, then back again, an unconscious lean that you met with your own and in the next unthinkable moment: a brushing of lips so soft it hardly constituted a first kiss. Good thing that the second, after a wary moment of comprehension in which he searched your face, felt to be a truer account— a firm bracing as he caught you in his arms while the world outside raged war against the elements.

“Chan!”

A deep, worried voice carried through the trees, over the hiss of wind to let the world back in. Immediately, Chan released and stepped from you, his features hardening.

“Chan, are you up there!?”

He made no move to reply or give sign of presence, and so gathering yourself as best as possible, you offered him a small smile, hoping he saw the apology. Out of the shelter and over the decking you waved down to the wet ground, where Jaehyun Bang stood with a yellow umbrella.

“Hi, Mr Bang!”

What concern had been etched to Jae’s brow melted away. “Oh! Hi honey! Chan’s up there with you?”

“Yeah, he’s here. He’ll be right down.”

You turned back to Chan; he’d pulled his hood up, lit another cigarette. Without a word he stalked out of the shelter and stooped to the rope ladder, cigarette between his lips. Catching only the briefest glimpse of the storm that clouded him as he began his descent, a sharp kick of worry drove you to the edge, where you reached over and down to grab his sleeve.

He stilled on the ladder, gaze fixed downwards.

“You’re my soulmate, Channie.”

He looked up. You plucked the cigarette from his lips, and in an uncharacteristic bout of bravery no doubt encouraged by earlier heroics, kissed his cheek.

“Please be good for your dad.”

Chan’s eyes narrowed, his lips still parted in what you presumed to be annoyance at your thwarting of his habit. His cheeks warmed and he looked as though to say something, when—

“Chan! Come down here!”

His jaw clenched, and he merely nodded, climbing off down the ladder and out of your reach. On the ground you watched as Chan sheepishly approached his dad, who took him under his umbrella with an arm about his shoulders.

“Don’t be late getting home, kid! It’s about to storm!” Jae called to you.

“I won’t! Promise!”

The two started off down the path, until you could no longer see the yellow through the trees. Alone in the shelter, a weight began to encumber you. A cold melancholy too unnatural to be a child of winter churned your stomach and unsettled your feet with anxiety, and in a bid to shake it you began to pace, slow and controlled, the old boards creaking at their weakest joints.

On one such circuit from under a dirty, woven blanket, peeked something small and black. Bending down to inspect, you realised it to be a crayon: a smile came to you. Your inner child clapped with glee. You began to scribble on the wood: Chan had been right. It was too wet. And so you felt around the small structure with your palms until you happened upon a dry patch in the leftmost corner, protected from the elemental onslaught by a particularly hefty branch above. Pleased when the melty crayon stuck, you drew what your inner child, what your high school child, what every woman in love has thought of when the daydreams marinate in their mindless, warm content: your initials and his, ensconced in a heart.

“Let’s pretend I’m a knight!”

“Let’s pretend we’re hunting for treasure!”

You were skilled at pretending.

Perhaps you wouldn’t need to anymore.

*

Twenty-nine years

When next you saw Chan, it was entirely by accident.

For however much had changed since Jae’s passing, it seemed that even a year later, Chan remained a creature of habit, and so the shock that initially came upon you when you saw him in the quietest patch of the bookstore passed quickly.

Above him read the sign for ‘graphic novels’, its vibrant shelves and eclectic gathering of Mangas and comic books a stark backdrop to his all-black façade. He held a comic book open in his right hand and turned the page slowly with his left. His hood was drawn up tightly, his cheeks puffed with a faint smile. His tired eyes scanned the images and bolded words. His clothes draped him, and so deceived as to his welfare. From what you could glean, he looked entirely at peace: like he was far from the confines of the musty bookstore and in another place that occasioned to take him on one adventure after another, as he had so always loved. It was kinder to let him stay there; so you tried.

Confound your clumsiness, then, when your backwards step into a display pile of sale books sent them tumbling with some weight to the ground, disturbing all who perused nearby. Chan looked up and towards the ruckus: how his face fell on the sight of your apologetic scrambling. He pushed the comic into its slot on the shelf and approached.

“Need a hand?”

“Hey!” You hastily replaced the last book and gathered yourself. “Fancy seeing you here!”

Chan stared at the messy display, his hood concealing much of his face.

“How— How are you?” you asked.

He shrugged. “Better than ever.” And kept his gaze fixed elsewhere.

“Do you... What you have been up to? It’s been a— I haven’t seen you in so long.”

“Nothing.”

“Right. Okay.”

“You?”

“Oh, same. You know.”

He nodded. Every part of you yearned to wrap him in your arms.

“Would you maybe want to grab a coffee? Or something to eat? There’s a place nearby that—”

“Sure.”

*

Chan bodged the now cold sausage around his plate with a fork.

His hood served a purpose beyond simple comfort, you realised, as did his pointed avoidance of eye contact. What glimpses you had managed to catch of his features roused in you the sort of dreaded alarm you’d only felt on one other occasion, in a hospital room with consultants throwing around eight-letter words and percentages. Chan’s eyes were pink and polluted, so severely bloodshot it was a wonder he could see. Sunken into their sockets and decorated with brown, bruised bags, they were an accoutrement to the gauntness of his cheeks and the sallow, sickly, utterly deficient complexion of his skin, almost translucent when the light kissed it, and he only shied from that. Even his hands took to a tremble as he tried to eat, and what little he managed seemed to sit uncomfortably. Several times he excused himself to the bathroom, which only left you with time to wonder what could have caused such extreme deterioration. Had he done nothing but neglect himself for a year?

On his return you pasted back the smile, swallowed down the concern, bit back the welling emotion. Yet that was only until Chan returned to the table with his sleeves rolled up to elbow: he looked down and startled, hurriedly began dragging them down. Frantic enough was he as to draw your eye to where he fussed: to the scars and sore pinpricks that marked his once flawless forearms.

Bile rose in your throat. You reached over the table and snatched at his thin arm, extending it much to his protest, but too weak was he to physically withdraw. Disbelief sour on your tongue and hot, raging tears in your eyes, you breathed, “No.” You looked at him. He had closed his eyes, his head hung low.

“Tell me this isn’t—” You caught on a sob. “It’s not what I— what I think it is. It’s not.”

“Let me go.”

“Why?” Your heart throbbed, panic becoming you. “Why would you ever do something so—”

He snatched his arm back. Rolled his sleeve down. Sunk into his chair. “Because it’s easier this way.”

“Chan, fuck, no—”

“It takes me somewhere else. Somewhere I can see my dad.”

Incapable even of another word, you rose and moved to him, winding your arms around his neck and pulling the frail, cold figure against you.

“It’s fine,” you whispered against tamed hysteria.

“Everything is going to be fine.”

*

Here you slogged through what was easily the most trying six months of your life.

The issues ran deeper than you had ever speculated, but soon came to discover. What modest inheritance had been left to him from his father, Chan had spent with abandon. Tracking the online statement from the funeral to the present detailed a sad but sure spiral into destruction. Bar tabs and lavish venue bills, splurging on vanity, partying expenses in the thousands. Cash withdrawals grew in value and frequency until essential direct debits went unsatisfied, and so Chan had been quickly rendered homeless, evicted from his much-loved apartment to surf sofas and wander streets. It pained you to suppose that’s where the habit started; something to warm him on the chill nights, offered to him by an opportunistic hand that saw his vulnerability. Why did he not come to you? Was he so bent on destroying himself? The state of his mind and body attested to the truth all too clearly: his father’s death had broken him, and he had not the first on how to put himself back together.

And so it fell to you to. Under your roof and watchful gaze you nursed the man; sat at his bedside and held his hand tightly as for the first months, the violent sickness and cool sweat of withdrawal wracked his body with such implacable agony as you’d never seen; his screams and pleas for death would haunt you for years to come. He would threaten you and lash out at you, wail bloody murder for the torture you dared to impose upon him: “Just give me one hit, one fucking hit and I’ll be fine! Please, please! Make it stop! Make it fucking stop!” And never once did you seek to tell him it was for his own good. That he was healing. That he’d soon be free of the poison and would be able to walk without hunching, talk without stammering, eat without nausea. You would tell yourself, indeed. But not him. He heard nothing beyond what the demons of his plight whispered.

Two weeks ago, Chan had moved from the bed to the living room. He could do most things without assistance, though so used to being in his shadow you found it rather difficult to let go in that respect. For as horrid as it had all been, it felt nice to be close to him again. To be needed. Colour had returned to him with the nutritious, easily digested diet you kept him to, and the healthy swell of weight had begun to emerge around his face and through his middle. Not so much as to consider him fully healed, but enough to be content with. His hair regained a lustrous shine and curl, his smile—though rare—was familiar. Most gratefully, it was his eyes that gave the firmest embrace of relief. No longer bloodshot and sunken but clear and soft brown, they relaxed on the television as you prepared the evening’s dinner of soup and crusty bread. The hearty scent of simmering vegetables and stock filled the apartment, the mumble of the television a lull of background noise.

Throat dry and with an urge for the sweetness of white zinfandel, you reached into the topmost cabinet and retrieved the bottle you’d stashed away: better to keep it out of sight. Just in case. Winding off the cap and pouring yourself a glass, the first sip bathed your tongue with the refreshing, crisp notes of grape, and just like that, what tension perched on your shoulders began to thaw.

“Smells good.”

The soft voice from behind you startled; you turned to see Chan on the other side of the counter, arms folded as he peered into the boiling pot.

“It’s vegetable,” you said, approaching and lifting the lid for swathes of steam to escape and plume up. Chan hummed, looked at you through the steam, then at your wine glass, blinking slowly.

“Sorry.” You put the glass down. “I didn’t think—”

“It’s fine. Drink if you want to.”

“But I—”

“It’s fine.” He rounded the counter and opened the cupboard, pulling out another glass. He held it out expectantly.

You shook your head. “Chan—”

“I was a drug addict, not an alcoholic.”

“I—” You hesitated. “I know. I just... Will you be okay?”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “It’ll take the edge off. Just a little. I’ll be okay.”

Loath to press it, you tentatively poured him two fingers of wine, heart pounding as he brought it to his lips. He sniffed firstly, a deep inhalation. Eyes slipping closed he tipped the glass back and the first drops touched his tongue. A contented sigh and slight smile saw him relax: he opened his eyes again.

“Thank you.”

You cleared your throat. “Sure.”

Chan blinked.

“Go sit down, dinner won’t be long.”

 He set his glass down on the counter, took yours from you to do the same.

“What are you—”

And in the next moment he wound his arms around your middle, curling over you to hold you in the warmest hug he’d offered since you were but children. His chin in the crook of your neck and curls tickling your cheek, he kept you firmly locked, the strong thrum of his presence, his heart, his being, surrounding you.

“Thank you,” he said again.

So overwhelming was the surge of emotion that, immediately, tears pricked. Silently they rolled from your eyes as your chest caved under the weight of half a year of indefatigable perseverance and the belief that, no matter how he swore or kicked or screamed, it would be worth it in the end. A moment would come where he would smile and say ‘thank you’.

This moment would come.

You weakened in his arms and felt it all. The strength of joy and the ice of despair, the hopelessness and the endless, endless worry. The guilt for allowing him to slide so far, so quickly. The rage at his refusal to seek solace. The love you nursed for him so warmly and in silence. The desperate wish only for him to be happy as he once was, when everything was whole and well.

“Let’s pretend we’re somewhere else,” he said quietly. “At a posh hotel near the sea, but it’s just us. We have the best room. The nicest view. When we look out the window, we can see nothing but clear, blue ocean that glitters and goes on forever.”

He held you still. Gently. Your tears alleviated slowly.

“It’s just a few minutes before sunset, and the sky is streaked with orange and pink. Our room glows like it’s on fire. We’re getting ready for dinner. You’re wearing a dress that brings out your eyes. I dig out my old suit, but don’t hold a candle next to you.”

The ache of yearning pained you; you clutched him tightly.

“We go to a fancy restaurant on the nearby pier,” he continued. “We sit by the window overlooking the sea; it’s dark now, but the streetlights make it so we can still see how deep it goes when we look down. We joke that maybe fish-men will trudge out of it when we’re sleeping. You have the sea bass. I order the ribeye, medium-rare. We share a bottle of white zinfandel and a hot fudge brownie for dessert and stay until they’re turning chairs onto the tables and flicking on the lights.

“When we get back to the hotel, we order another bottle of wine. We sit on the deck; the night is warm. The air smells like sea salt. The sea doesn’t glitter anymore, but the waves that lap the shore turn an endless reflection of stars. We talk for hours. We talk about my dad. We talk about our treehouse and the dragons we slayed and the treasure we found. We toast to him and you... you tell me he’d be proud.” His voice broke sharply. “You tell me he’s looking down on us, raising his own glass. You can feel it. I tell you wish I could, too.

“In the small hours of the morning, we go to bed. You wish me goodnight and kiss my cheek. Just like you did when we were young. You smell like—” He breathed slowly. “Wine and chocolate. My second-hand smoke.”

He pulled back, his eyes wet and wide. He brought your hand to his cool cheek, lids fluttering against the touch. “My cheek is warm where you kissed it. I take it to bed with me, but I can’t sleep. I keep touching my cheek, tossing and turning. Just like I did when we were young.”

“Chan...”

“I think about how you smelled. I think about how beautiful you looked tonight.”

Your heart pounded painfully, chest heaving with shortness of breath.

“Eventually, I can’t take any more,” he whispered. “I get out of bed and cross the suite to your room. At your door, I raise my fist to knock, but...” He swallowed. “Something stops me. Fear. I know what I want and for how long I've wanted it, but I've never been sure of your feelings. Sometimes I... Sometimes I’ve thought that you felt the same way. Other times I've convinced myself it’s impossible. It’s crossing a line. It could destroy everything. We grew up together. There’s nobody so connected to me as you. We’re soulmates. Can I risk that?”

He searched your face, seeking his answer, and continued.

“As I'm hesitating, the door opens. You’re standing there. You’re right in front of me in sweats and moonlight and you’re the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. You look confused at first. I tell you I’m sorry, that I couldn’t sleep. You ask if I want to come in. I tell you that I can’t— I shouldn’t. I’m sorry.” He licked his lips. “I turn away and you grab me; just my wrist. You’re warm. Every part of me aches and I know this is it. I don’t have the power to resist.” He cupped your face with both hands. “I take you in my arms; you were always supposed to fit there.”

You could hardly breathe.

“I wait for you to tell me to stop.”

Immobilized. Captivated.

“But you don’t. You just stare at me, and in your endless eyes I see the reflection of a man so riddled with yearning I have no choice but to take pity on him. All he’s ever wanted is for someone to take pity on him.” He drew his thumb over your cheek. “What happens next?”

On a shaky breath you merely whispered:

“Let’s pretend they kiss.”

With a rush of wanting the man pressed his lips to yours, such a violent release of decade-long yearning that the only response was but to weep in his kiss. A maelstrom of heat and desire beneath what was a rapidly crumbling pretence had been allowed to fester for so long, it was only ever going to be painful. Only ever going to destroy you. Fortitude abandoned and allowed to finally, finally imagine that this could truly be, you wound your arms around his neck and felt the gentle brace as he turned you into the counter. Parting from you to catch his breath, Chan’s tear-streaked cheeks were in perfect symmetry to yours. 

“I’m so fucking sorry,” he breathed, his voice a pitch broken.

“So am I.” You cupped his cheeks and kissed him again; cheek, forehead, lips. “So am I, Channie.”

“I— I miss him.”

Warm tears rolled anew. “So do I.”

He choked a sob. “Please don’t give up on me.”

“Never.”

And he fell into an embrace, head buried to your neck. “Is he looking down on us?”

“Of course.”

He gathered himself, straightened and held your hands. A glance upwards and a deep breath, his teary eyes found their focus. As did his mind.

As did his heart.

“I love you. I have always loved you. And I don’t want to pretend anymore.”

𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚, 𝙧𝙚𝙗𝙡𝙤𝙜, 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙨 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙢𝙚 >

𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙖 𝙣𝙞𝙘𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙? 𝙨𝙖𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙠𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙖 𝙘𝙤𝙛𝙛𝙚𝙚 ♡ >

𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙘𝙠 𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙠𝙯 𝙧𝙤𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙥𝙚𝙨 𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 ♡ >

[jl-micasea-fics]

The Bodyguard | bc x lmh

A royal marriage of convenience. An unforeseen threat. A handsome, dangerous new addition to security. A king with a dark, sad secret. Not all is as it seems behind the gilded palace gates.

ao3 exclusive. registered users only. modern royal au. 18+.

this has been an incredibly long time in the making and while i estimate it'll be about ten chapters long, i am very much open to expanding as required. a lot of research went into this one in terms of the setting, tone and general faffing to get it feeling right, but ultimately, it's one big excuse to have king chrissy fucked in a crown. get comfortable and enjoy dear beans. i'm excited to share. feedback and after thoughts, as always, appreciated. mica x

“Your Majesty; may I present Police Sergeant Minho Lee.”

Christopher wasn’t sure what to expect when confronted with the man that was to be his personal bodyguard for the next however long. The ideas he’d had were of a man hardened by the years of military service detailed in the dossier, worn by the tours and rough around the edges.

Lee Minho wasn’t any of those things.

He followed Waites into the room, hands clasped neatly behind his back. Suited in smart black and white and with an earpiece that disappeared under a wave of chestnut coloured hair and into the collar of his shirt, he carried with him an aura unlike Christopher had ever encountered. It wasn’t quite intimidation—the delicately sharp features of his straight face weren’t up to that—but it was something so indescribable as to make Christopher’s stomach churn with anticipation the longer he looked at those focused almond eyes. He was broad across his shoulders yet slim through the middle, his chest padded with what Christopher assumed must be a vest of some sort underneath the crisp shirt.

The man bowed low, his back kept straight. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Your Majesty.”

His voice was surprisingly light; not one that Christopher imagined capable of barking orders at a platoon or anything so forceful. It had that foreign twang to it, where the pronunciation of the ‘L’ caught just a little on the tongue, and it warmed Christopher inexplicably.

Palms suddenly clammier than before, the king summoned his nerve and approached the man, hand outstretched to take it in polite greeting. Minho read the cue, met Christopher’s hand in a shake that was both gentle and firm, and Christopher said breathily, “The pleasure is all mine.”

When the handshake was done, Christopher felt the linger of warmth in his palm. Had he detected callouses, too?

Waites spoke then. “Sergeant Lee is to accompany you as your designated PPO, sir, from now until such a time as the police are satisfied the threat is passed.”

Christopher nodded, tearing his eyes from the man stood statuesquely.

“I should like to speak with the sergeant alone, if you please, Waites.”

“Of course, sir. Shall I inform Her Majesty of the—”

“No. I shall see Katherine later.”

Waites lingered, his face stern beneath the bush of his white beard.

“That will be all, Waites.”

The private secretary bowed, said, “Sir,” and took his leave.

Without the discerning eye of Waites burning through his confidence, Christopher felt he could finally take a breath. With the heavy thud of the door drawing closed, he sagged into one of the plush armchairs, his bones brittle with tension.

Minho stood, hands still behind his back.

“Do sit down, please,” Christopher said politely.

“I’d prefer to stand, sir.”

Christopher huffed a gentle laugh. “I see. Forever on duty?”

Minho nodded. “Something like that, sir.”

The king wondered if this was supposed to be as stilted as it was. Meeting new people wasn’t something he was generally adept at, but there seemed something of an ease to the way he’d watched Katherine do it. Then again, she was a social butterfly. He was more of a stagnant larva.

“Have you been shown to your quarters yet?” Christopher asked in lieu of being able to think of anything else. “I assume you will be residing on palace grounds.”

“Yes, sir. For the duration of this job, sir.”

“And they are to your liking?”

“I’ve slept in worse places than a palace, sir.”

“Quite. Of course. Sorry.”

read the rest on ao3 >

[jl-micasea-fics]

pos◦sess◦or | scb

❝𝐘𝐨𝐮’𝐥𝐥 𝐝𝐨 𝐚𝐬 𝐈 𝐚𝐬𝐤, 𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠?❞

↳ Possess (verb): to have and hold as property: own. To seize and take control of: possession. To control firmly: dominate.

↳ Seo Changbin x female reader

↳ Established d/s relationship, dominant Changbin, d/s dynamics and inherent principles etc, angst and smut

! Explicit content, adult themes, 5.3k, suitable for 18+ readers only !

「© October 2023 by jl-micasea-fics」

a/n: a purely self-indulgent rework of a very old fic. switch off and enjoy. mica x

<< are you in class?

<< call me when you’re done.

<< baby

<< you know better than to leave me on read.

<< this isn't how we play.

Others wouldn’t understand it; this thing you have with him.

It is far from a conventional arrangement that meets your needs and his, your many proclivities melding with such impressive simpatico you’ve rather forgotten what life was like before you gave him such caregiving charge of it. 

And of course, it is not incumbent on others to understand, as Changbin often reminds you. Whatever arrangements exist are yours and his alone, and so the judgemental glances from peers that detect something just a smidge shy of the typical representations of romance they’re so conditioned to accept are of no import. By his hand your skin has thickened to conceal that which the two of you understand with perfect clarity: you need him in every way.

Yet you also need to pass this term if you ever hope to graduate, and therein lies the reason for setting your phone on silent, Changbin’s messages relegated for the time being.

Assignments rapidly approach their deadlines and a group project (because nothing fosters true education like forced cooperation) is due at the end of the week, hovering over you like a rain-fat cloud threatening to burst. Changbin simply does too much to divert attention, your urge to be hand-held and led flaring when he beckons like a helpless moth to light. And yes, to ignore him is to technically disobey, to disobey is to defy all that your carefully constructed relationship balances on, but it is also crucial to the survival of your equally delicate concentration that he takes a temporary back seat. He’ll understand.

You hope.

The lecture is a murky and nonsensical flurry, your efforts focused on keeping up with the Professor’s pace so as not to miss anything. He talks at a speed that must be unconscionable to most here; you scratch away frantic notes that you’ll no doubt be incapable of deciphering later. When the hour has passed, exhaustion tightens your shoulders, exacerbated by knowing this is hardly the end. Gathering your things and idly wondering if there’ll be any room in the library this close to end of term, you move to leave.

“Hey, you.”

Almost colliding with the body that steps pointedly into your path, hands shoot out to gently grip your upper arms, steadying your fright. An oversized black shirt drowns pale skin and veined arms; looking up at soft brown, crescent eyes under a wave of blonde and irreverent dimples brings you to a smile.

“Hey, yourself.”

Chan looks you over— just once, very quickly, as he tends to do. Always sends a lick of heat up your spine, despite your better self.

“How are you?” he asks, slowly dropping his hands.

“Good. Busy. Tired.”

Chan laughs, free and airy. “That spiralled quickly.”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“No, I know how it is,” he says. “How’s your project coming?”

You grimace. “It’s not.”

“Ouch. Can’t say mine is much better, though. Slackers, man. Doesn’t help that this class meant to prepare us for it sucks certified ass.”

“Tell me about it. Pretty sure he went into a different language at one point.”

Chan sounds his agreement, then nudges you gently, a prod to the arm. “Shame we weren’t paired up, though.” The corner of his mouth curls into a smirk. “We’d have done a good job.”

And it’s the playful glint in his eye that forces you to break gazes, everything unsaid lingering behind it. You often think that if you weren’t with Changbin—

“How’s Bin?”

Somewhat startled by the mention, it takes you a moment to realign to the conversation and to further recall that they are in fact good friends, that they did in fact know each other before they knew you, that Chan is—in fact—the very one that introduced you.

“I haven’t seen him in a few weeks,” Chan adds, brows lifting expectantly.

“He’s fine,” you nod. “Busy with the gyms and all that. You know what a workaholic he is.”

Chan nods, purses his lips. “Alright, well, tell him to call me. We’re overdue a jam session.”

“Sure. I’ll remind him. I’ve missed listening to your music.”

“You and our other droves of fans.” Chan winks, the gesture infinitely weakening your state of mind. Still, you are present enough to feel your face flaming and take the sensation as your cue to leave before embarrassment (or something worse) comes upon you.

“I should—” You gesture vaguely towards the door. “Library.”

“Oh, shit. Of course. Sorry to keep you.” He sidesteps out of your path, the musk of his cologne wafting gently. “I’ll see you around?”

“I hope so. Might have to fight a senior to the death for a seat.”

Chan chuckles again, his nose crinkling. “I’ll put the school nurse on standby.”

“Please,” you giggle.

It’s with a small wave and lingering gaze that Chan watches you go, your heart thrumming guiltily until you’re on open campus ground and fresh air brings sense, where the reality of deadlines beats you with the sharp stick of urgency. You run the short distance to the library.

In your bag, your phone rings silently.

***

Warm. Quiet.

Lifting your cheek from your tacky forearm, blinking slowly to clarity, you rouse from an unplanned slumber. The crust of sleep clogs your half-closed eyes and you lick your dry lips as you take in your surroundings; the large window at your left hand looks out to a quiet campus, the once pellucid summer sky streaked with wisps of white and variegated orange. Your books and belongings are arranged on the table, laptop displaying the project slides you’d managed to complete before (you deduce) the lull of exhaustion took you. The seats to the right hand and in front—indeed, all along the table—are empty. Everything is slower now. Peaceful.

Until it’s not.

“Shit.”

A vague remembrance of a promise made in principle slaps you with dread; you were supposed to call him. It’s been hours. You fell asleep.

Shit.

Excavating your phone from the depths of your backpack in a panic, you fear to check it: fourteen missed calls, two voicemails, nine text messages. Do you dare read them?

<< classes done yet?

<< let me know if you’re going somewhere after. you know the terms.

<< call me. now.

<< why aren’t you picking up?

<< baby?

<< if this is a brat play, it isn’t funny.

<< where the fuck are you?

<< just let me know you’re okay, please.

<< coming to your school.

“Oh, fuck, shit, balls—”

A mad rush to gather yourself ensues, all things thrown into your backpack and a dash made for the library lobby. Adrenal fear and thick excitement propel you; you know well enough how seething he is likely to be, surely mistaking your innocent blunder as deliberate rebellion with no good reason attached. You’ll explain and set things right, no doubt be ordered to plead for the chance to do so, for the man’s temperament indeed defines him.

Through the library proper and into the lobby you run, juggling your phone to dial Changbin’s contact. It is a stroke of karmic humour that in your haste you should collide with a body, the strength of the impact punching all wind from your sails, phone flying and backpack falling as you reel backwards. A narrow avoidance of head bouncing from concrete is unthinkably lucky when it instead connects with your backpack, the hard surface of the laptop inside smarting against your skull.

There’s a genuine hiss and a, “God-fucking-damn it—” as the second injured party rubs the small of their back, turning abruptly to the heap you constitute on the ground.

“Oh, shit,” a familiar voice says your name.

In looking up, the backdrop glare of waning sunlight fuzzes the features of the person that reaches out; it is only by the tell-tale veins that run his strong arms that you’re able to know him with certainty. Too dazed to engage your limbs, you simply sit and stare.

“We should really stop meeting like this.” Chan squats at your side, arm slinking around your shoulders. “Do you always run like your life depends on it?”

It does, you quietly lament, though voice no such thing.

“You okay?” he then asks, concern crimping his features on your silence. “Here, lean on me.”

A strong arm hooked under you urges you to stand, Chan’s solid form a crucial support. Propped against his chest until your head levels out, there’s an uncomfortable dampness on his shirt, cold on your skin.

“Sorry,” Chan offers on your grimace. “Didn’t escape the splash zone.”

Peering ahead to the patch of dark, wet concrete finished with the remnants of froth and an empty paper cup that rolls sadly along, you realise you’ve done more than just bruise his back.

“Fuck, I’m so sorry—”

“Hey, no, come on. It’s all good.”

“I’ll make it up to you, I swear,” you urge.

“Sure,” he laughs softly, holding your arms as he looks you over for the second time this day. “Are you hurt anywhere?”

“I’m fine.”

“You can’t be fine, that was one hell of a bump.”

“I am, I’m—” You step out of his hold, steadying yourself when a slight sway threatens your balance. “Fine. See?”

Chan folds his arms, unimpressed, biceps tensing. He opens his mouth, but before he can say anything that might further delay you— “I have somewhere to be.”

Blame the overestimation of welfare for the abrupt spin that sends you promptly staggering from your heels with a bout of nausea to boot; a quick stride and Chan is once more at your side, catching you against his damp shirt.

“Alright,” he huffs. “I’m taking you to the hospital, concussion girl.”

“No. No hospital. I’m really, truly fine, I just need to—”

“Save it,” Chan interrupts. “This is happening whether you like it or not.” And then he bends down, picks something up off the ground. He hands the item to you with a grimace and apology in his eyes: your smartphone, now featuring a clean crack down the lower half of the screen. It flickers sadly when you tap it.

“For fuck’s sake...”

“I’m so sorry,” Chan offers, the arm still around you tightening. “I’ll pay to fix it.”

“You don’t need to. It was my fault—”

“Baby?”

Oh, how tone intonates so much.

Your heart thumps once, twice, threatens to stop when from up ahead you spy the one silhouette you would recognise even in total darkness. Changbin crosses the campus and stops in stride, his eyes a depth of fury that ices your veins and dries your tongue. A black muscle tee clings delectably to him, snug sweats show off his jacked thighs. His lanyard of keys hangs from his pocket, the weight of it hefting the waistband of his sweats; they sink low and tease a glimpse of skin. Your insides curl warm and wanting, so attuned are you to the presence of the man your body anticipates it already: the instruction, the reward.

But he sees you, sees Chan, sees the arms of another man so tight around your person.

“Changbin!” Chan beams, perpetually oblivious as he guides you a few paces closer to the stoic man. “Afraid I wasn't quick enough to rescue this one from getting up close and personal with the concrete,” he chuckles warmly.

Changbin’s gaze fixes to the curve of your waist, his jaw set firm. He says nothing.

“She’s okay, though. Right?” Chan pets your shoulder, all innocence and delight and truly it is a wonder that the blonde fails to detect Changbin’s volcanic stewing. Only when he promptly about-faces and strides off does Chan seem to realise the atmosphere.

“C— Changbin? Bro?”

Mortified, you fumble a vague excuse as to his wellbeing that you hope justifies the attitude, and Chan watches you hurry after him, unconvinced and reluctant to let you go.

The first steps by yourself are unsteady, but soon firm up as Changbin’s broad back begins to diminish from view. Carrot, stick.

“Bin!” you call, chasing him. “Stop!”

The man does no such thing, striding off campus and down the bricked street, passing under streetlamps soon to illuminate.

“Changbin! Please!”

A couple passing on the opposite pavement watch with intrigue, their hands linked loosely. You’re none perturbed by their stares when you call him again: “Just talk to me!”

His hands in his pockets, he maintains his swift pace. Your head spins slightly with the exertion so soon after a fall; perhaps Chan was right on the concussion front. You sway and steady yourself on the pole of a nearby streetlamp, watching as Changbin reaches the top of the street’s incline. Unable to keep up, you close your eyes and wait for the warping of vision to pass, nausea rolling through your gut as pain throbs in your temples. All at once the draining sun seems too bright, the outside feels too wide; you can’t stand by yourself, don’t trust in your strength.

A strong arm winds around your waist, hikes you up and to your feet. The soft press of muscle against your chilled body is warm and solid; you shrink into him, grateful, wanting.

“I just lost track of time,” you begin to explain until Changbin hushes you.

“You’ll explain everything when we get home,” he says acerbically. “Do you need medical attention?”

“No.”

“You’re not hurt?”

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t actively ignoring you. I fell asleep in the library and I just—”

His jaw ticks; he keeps his eyes trained forward, asks again: “Are you hurt?”

“Bin, please—”

He stops in place, the arm around your waist slinking up to the nape of your neck; at the base of your skull he gently grinds the heel of his palm, fingers stretching into your hair to take careful root. Well placed, delicious pressure to the sore muscle has your limbs weakening, mind blanking. Reminiscent of the many occasions he has directed you just like this; your mouth to suck, your frame to kneel, your throat to be bared for his pleasure.

Lips to yours in nothing resembling a kiss, he speaks slowly, clearly. “Are you hurt?”

How you resist the urge to liquefy is a mystery better left to deities.

“No,” you whisper. “Not hurt.”

Changbin hums, scans your face with dark eyes that give nothing of his affection away. Blunt nails against your scalp as he kisses the corner of your mouth; one single peck that leaves your skin sizzling.

“Home,” he says. “You’ll explain everything.”

***

“I literally ran into him.”

“People use the word ‘literally’ outside its actual meaning far too often.”

“Well, I’m not. I literally ran into his back as I was running from the library. I went down pretty hard.”

Changbin affords you a dubious glance, momentarily pausing his folding of the laundry from the basket on the bed. A way to de-stress for him as much as it is a convenience for you; one of many areas of domesticity he insists falls under the umbrella of his overarching role— why can he not cook, clean and fuck like a beast?

“And it really just happened to be Chan?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“It was pure coincidence?”

“Pure coincidence,” you emphasise, yet the silence that follows as he returns to his activity churns your gut uncomfortably.

“You don’t believe me?” you press.

Changbin frowns. “Don’t jump to conclusions.”

“What else am I supposed to do when you won’t talk to me?” You rise from the window seat, pacing slowly about the bedroom. “I thought this only worked with communication.”

And the man huffs pointedly, dropping the shirt he’d part folded. Pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut, the veins in his arms tense and throb. “How can you be so insightful, yet so completely dense?”

“Excuse me?”

“You know how Chan feels about you, right?”

You blink at him. “How he... what?”

“He’s down bad for you. Has always been.”

And worse than the statement leaving your trusted partner’s mouth is the utter lack of shock; a part of you has known this for longer than you care to admit. You feel it in the way he looks at you, sense it in his tone of voice, and you might have been inclined to explore it all if he hadn’t endeavoured to introduce you to the man that soon fulfilled you in every feasible way. Changbin is all you see; all you crave.

“Doesn’t matter how he feels about me,” you say. “I’m with you.”

“Except when you’re with him.”

“We take the same classes, Bin. What do you want me to do, stop going to school?”

Changbin’s eyes flash, the suggestion igniting something that you realise only too belatedly; he could ask you to stop going. You’d be compelled to obey. Such is the nature of your arrangement, the responsibility you consigned to him in pursuit of the unique peace attained only from a passive state of mind. With him, you turn it off. Your anxieties, off. Your mind, off. Everything off so he may take the lead and leave you only to follow, simple and warm. Changbin takes care of you. Changbin knows best. Changbin is your dominant, and should he want you to stop going to school—

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he sighs. “I just want you to be more aware.”

You swallow dry.

“He’s too quick to put his hands on you. I don’t fucking like it.”

“He was just trying to help me. There was nothing in it.”

Changbin stares at you flatly. “I promise you, Chan is nowhere near as selfless as that. Just because you don’t see the ulterior motive doesn’t mean it’s not there.”

And as if the man had heard his name spoken from across the city, your phone begins to ring from the bedside table, shrill and clear and as grating as nails down a chalkboard. Changbin’s eyes dart to it, then back to you as cool and dreadful instinct sinks upon you, your skin growing tacky.

“You should answer that,” Changbin says.

Your palms twitch with embedded urge to comply, yet the fear of it all stays your hand. Fear of what, you’re hardly even sure— you’ve nothing to hide, no wrongdoing to conceal. Chan’s feelings are his own. Why, then, do you feel so guilty?

“You’re not going to?” the man presses.

“I— We’re in the middle of a conversation,” you mutter. “It can wait.”

Changbin folds his arms over his broad chest. “Answer the phone, darling.”

“Bin—”

“I’m not going to ask again.”

Nerves thrumming, you shuffle to the bedside table, picking up your phone upon which Chan’s name dances in gentle LED light. Your thumb hovers over the screen, the tone still ringing clear.

“Go ahead,” Changbin instructs from the other side of the bed.

You send him a myriad of silent curses, and answer the damn phone.

“Hello?”

“Hey, you.” Chan’s voice is light and warm, perpetually matching his countenance. “That took a while. This is a bad time?”

“You know, it actually is. Can I call you later? Or I'll just see you—”

Changbin snaps his fingers, one sharp click calling your attention. He shakes his head, eyes dark and focused as he taps his ear. Chan calls your name curiously. Hardly brave enough to shoot Changbin the glare he so deserves, you bring the phone down and enable speakerphone, Chan’s second calling of your name far more concerned as it echoes around the room.

“Everything okay?” he asks.

Changbin juts his chin towards the phone.

“Yes.” You clear your throat, insides whirling tumultuously. “Sorry. Fine. Did you need something?”

There’s a pause before Chan says: “I was kind of hoping I could make good on that promise of yours.”

Changbin’s mouth tugs into a smirk.

“P— Promise? What promise?” you fumble, genuinely confused. If a promise was made your memory utterly fails you.

“The coffee?” Chan laughs gently. “You said you’d make it up to me.”

Shit. You did.

“O— Oh. The coffee.”

“You forgot already?” Chan ribs.

Changbin gnaws his bottom lip, starts a slow pace around the bed, fingertips dragging over the linen. At the foot he stops, scratches his broad chest over his shirt, a scowl etched to his features. On your silence, he looks sternly up at you: speak.

“Sorry,” you say, the word coming out a breathy whisper.

“It’s okay,” Chan says. “I figured you probably weren’t serious about it. I’m just shooting my shot.”

Changbin’s face scrunches, his hand travelling from his chest to slim waist. A sharp intake of breath and he’s removing his shirt, rolling it up and over his head to be discarded to the carpet. Your body throbs to illicit rhythm as you unashamedly take in the carved ridges of his abs, the slope of his hips, the rotund curve of his heaving pectorals. His body is the product of time lovingly invested, a hobby turned into a lucrative living that sees others frantically pursue his build—the perfect build—with his guidance. The dim light cast shadows down his frame, the dips and waves of his tanned physique inducing familiar white noise behind your eyes.

“There’s also, uh... something I wanted to talk to you about,” Chan continues.

Your tongue feels too big for your mouth when you next speak, “I really have to go. We’ll talk another time—”

“This can’t wait. Please don’t hang up. I’ve waited long enough.”

Changbin grins lazily, closing his eyes as he lifts his arms above his head and stretches carelessly, joints popping and cracking. You follow the line of his body, how his waist tapers deliciously and spine arches, how muscle so defined disappears into loose sweats now a shimmy away from falling down entirely. He cracks one eye open and beckons with two fingers. Compelled to obey yet sympathetic to the desperation in Chan’s voice, the walk to your dominant is beleaguered. When close enough to touch, he plucks the phone carefully from your hand, tosses it to the bed.

Your name is called again, riddled with static. “Are you there?”

Changbin nods at you.

“Y— Yes. I’m here.”

And he brings his knuckles to your cheek, a gentle skim over the skin that leaves it tingling. Dark and threatening eyes search your face, cataloguing every curve and expression when Chan says, “I think I... I like you more than I thought.”

Changbin grins, wolfish, white and wicked. God.

“As in... like, more than a friend,” Chan adds. “And I know it’s awful of me to drop this on you, especially as I was the one introduced you to Changbin, but I just—” There’s a huff of exasperation. “I can’t fucking help it.”

You only realise you’ve been holding your breath when your throat begins to burn, your chest tight. You anticipate the explosion, the rage, the declarations of ownership that Changbin has only ever made to you and in private, for as he continues to remind you, your business is your own.

Yet there’s nothing.

Chan says your name again; you remember to breathe only when Changbin’s musk washes over you. A hand at your nape and fingers in your hair direct your neck back gently for the man to lave a wet stripe over, from collarbone to chin. You bite back the groan that bubbles in your throat.

“Answer him,” Changbin whispers, all gravel.

Obedience is no question. “Chan, I...”

“You can’t be all that surprised, right?” he interrupts. Changbin scoffs gently against your skin. “I know you feel something between us.”

Hands glide down your back, dip under your shirt, drag the item over your head as calloused palms run your sensitive skin. With arms over his shoulders you let him manoeuvre your weight; he guides you back and up to the bed effortlessly.

“I— I’m with Changbin.” You manage to speak, the named man glossing lips down the centre of your exposed chest.

“I know,” Chan says. “That’s not what I asked. You can’t tell me you had no idea of my feelings.”

“Doesn’t matter if I did or not.”

Changbin runs his teeth over your nipple, just on the pleasurable side of painful. You hiss softly, carding fingers through his thick, raven black strands as he sinks yet lower down your body.

“It doesn’t matter?” Chan echoes, disbelieving. “How can you say that?”

“Because I'm with Changbin, Chan. How many times do I have to—”

“And if you weren’t?”

Changbin’s head snaps up, the intense smoulder in his eyes so rich and quietly threatening your heart somersaults and flips off the walls of your ribcage. Wanton heat pools where you ache most, the slow drag of your jeans down your thighs whispering a promise of attention from the mouth that hovers over your heat, his eye contact unwavering.

“W— What do you want me to say, Chan?”

Changbin huffs softly—a laugh, you think—and guides your legs up and apart once bereft of jeans. Underwear pulled aside and the man’s breath fans across your sensitivity; you keen and tense, every nerve alight.

“I want you to tell me that I'm an option,” Chan says. “Tell me that I’m not insane to imagine there’s something between us.”

A vein throbs in Changbin’s temple, the tender swipe of his tongue through your centre a most illicit distraction to what must be a sure moment of courage for the man on the phone. This time you’re not strong enough to swallow the moan of delight; it slips from you, fingers curling to the sheets as one soft lick after another edges your aching core.

“Are... you okay?” Chan asks, audibly stumped.

“I can’t— fuck, I can’t do this, Chan. I have to go.”

“But I just—”

The addition of the man’s thick finger has another pornographic slight bleeding from your lips; you fumble for the phone somewhere above your head, finding it by miracle and frantically ending the call. Sinking to the sheets, you return to the moment; Changbin ceases his ministrations, lips slick in a set smirk as he regards you.

“That was totally uncalled for—”

“Are you mine?”

The question punches sense from you. “W— What?”

“Are you mine?” he repeats softly. “My partner?”

“Yes. Of course.”

He pets your thigh tenderly. “Are you my submissive?”

Arousal descends like a thick fog, desire to please and bend to his will overwriting what scorn his little show had instilled. You nod weakly. “Yes.”

Changbin smiles, kisses your wet centre. “You’ll do as I ask, darling?”

“I will.”

“Good. Then tomorrow, I want you to go for a coffee with Chan. I want you to acknowledge his feelings; tell him you always knew he felt something, because that’s the truth. Isn’t it?”

Your pulse roars through your eyes. “Yes.”

Changbin hums, licks you softly— just once. He smacks his lips as you shiver and says, “I want you to tell him who you belong to, darling.” He runs his index through your tingling folds. “Tell him who makes you quiver with need.” And drags his lips along your inner thigh. “Tell him whose tongue you come on.”

“B— Bin, fuck—”

“Can you do that for me?”

“Anything,” you pant. “Anything for you.”

Thus his approval glows in the sultry glide of his lips and tongue where you yearn to be touched, where he’s played with you with such feigned diffidence— now the truth of the man’s abilities is apparent, your orgasm delayed by mere minutes.

“There’s my good girl,” Changbin coos, an accoutrement to the gentle fingering that sees you through your euphoric tremors. “So beautiful. So ready to please me, hm?”

He climbs over you when the violence of such intense pleasure has passed, situating between your thighs where his own arousal hangs thick and heavy. The rigidity against you ignites that which has yet to be sated; you are his, and so you should be claimed.

“Please,” you whimper, eyes locked to his in watery appeal. “Need you.”

“Need me how, darling?”

“Fuck me.”

Changbin hums softly.

“Fuck me until I can’t think.”

And he groans illicitly, the gravel of it tapering off when he kisses you with frantic need. Mouths stay connected, wet and hot when the easing thrust sees him breach you. You draw tight, gasping through the sensation of his impressive length impaling you; Changbin’s cheeks burn, his neck and chest splotched with colour that gives way to tracks of white when you run blunt nails down his skin.

A brutal pace set by the man punches out breath after broken breath, he inhales each and every one, chest rumbling strong against you when the snugness you offer overcomes him. “Fuck, darling. So tight. So wet and f— fucking tight—”.

He sits back on his knees, muscled thighs swelling thick against his calves. Lifting your legs back and pinning them to your chest allows the man an unhindered view of where you connect: his blushed and dripping cock disappearing slowly inside you, each glide stronger than the last until he fixates instead upon the sight of your eyes rolling back amidst your second orgasm.

“B— Bin—”

“Mhm, I feel you, baby. I feel it. Come for me.”

He cages you in to hold you through it, skin to skin for heartbeats to pulse in unison, strong arm around your back as his hips and muscled back continue their flexing thrusts.

“Oh, fuck—”

His broken curse comes as your clenching bids him to still; the friction of his smooth and rigid cock a damn prescription to your every ailment. He breathes low and against your clammy throat, skin slick with exertion. Lashings of pleasure render you dumb as the knot of volcanic heat expands outwards— from tummy to chest, shoulders and hands, the tips of your fingers to curled toes. And when the storm of it has passed Changbin lifts his weight and stands, abs iridescent with sweat and heaving—tight, loose—with his breaths so laboured. A sharp tug of your ankle brings you down the bed, somewhat vaguely aware of being repositioned to your hands and knees, the creased sheets warm under them, you allow Changbin to manhandle as he must. A soft caress of your presented rear soothes the sharp smack that follows; you whine and back into it, the sting of pleasurable pain zinging across your skin and returning some small sliver of coherence.

“A little more, darling,” he says. “Take just a little more for me. You can do that, can’t you?”

Spent as you are a weak nod is all you can manage. Changbin allows it, your exhaustion measurable by the soft puffiness he eases back into and continues to fuck like a man forever starved of intimacy. You know better: as he pulls you onto on his cock he brings you back from his own faraway imaginings; of you with another man, elsewhere, lost to him. As he tenderly smacks your supple cheek he reaffirms that the marks left on your skin are by his hand, tangible and enduring. As he finds his own release at the tight peak of his threshold he claims that which he truly, at his very core, fears to lose.

It confounds him endlessly, your blindness to the strength of your gentle submission— to give yourself to him in body and spirit is braver an act that he has yet to undertake. Indeed, the dominance intrinsic to his nature quakes every time you bend the knee and whisper nothing more profound than a heartfelt, “Please.”

For the simple truth is this: it is far from a conventional arrangement meets your needs and his, and still, you are so much more to him than he will ever have the mettle to say.

How tender is the true heart of your possessor.

𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚, 𝙧𝙚𝙗𝙡𝙤𝙜, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙨 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙢𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙞𝙣 𝙖𝙣 𝙖𝙨𝙠 ♡

[jl-micasea-fics]

Freak Show Talk | 3racha, lmh

𝙞. 𝙖𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙨 𝙥𝙖𝙨𝙨

↳ A famous rapper trio looking to open their relationship. A charismatic dancer looking to open your mind. A myriad of possibilities, none of them tame. In at least one thing, Chan was right. This can't end PG.

↳ 3racha x Lee Know x female reader

↳ All drabble chapters <1k

↳ 3racha au, fwb, free use, fujoshi reader, polyamory and enm, angst, smut, mxm, fxm, perceived mental illness, dead dove do not eat

! Explicit content, adult themes, suitable for 18+ readers only !

「Contents List」  「© September 2023 by jl-micasea-fics」

a/n: welcome to what happens when a commission gets out of hand. and that's probably putting this mess politely. i tried something new w this series, partly to attempt to address what seems to be a diminishing tolerance for longer chapters, but mostly to improve my style. this is shorter, but snappier. the challenges i faced w this story were some of the most difficult, the topics within some of the rawest. i like to think i got there in the end. (ty thea for putting up w my constant despairing). please heed the warnings and as much as you're able to: enjoy. dedicated to dear sanne, who initially commissioned a drabble. have eighty-five x

“Minho!”

Even with as much gumption as you put into the calling of your roommate’s name, the gush of water does more to drown out your voice; acquiescing to its power, you shut off the shower and try your luck a second time.

“Min, you there!?”

The trudge of heavy footsteps outside accompanies a gruff, “What is it?”

“Towel rescue, please!”

“Again?”

You swipe ticklish runnels of hot water from your forehead. “It’s not my fault a certain someone never thinks to replace them!”

“You can’t check before you get in the shower?” Minho gripes.

“I forget!”

Indecipherable grumbling carries off down the corridor. After a few moments, the bathroom door cracks open.

“I’m coming in.”

“Alright. Just don’t, like, look, or anything.” You tuck behind the glass shower door. Like it’s not made entirely of glass.

Minho steps inside, left hand shielding his eyes as his right offers out a clean towel. He can’t be long out of bed himself; shirtless with ash-blonde hair mussed and unkempt, loose shorts slung low around his shapely hips. Condensation mists the air and settles on his skin, his honey complexion glistening. A deep and heavy warmth throbs wantonly; as it has done every day since you met.

“Fuck me, it’s hot in here,” he puffs. “The shower has a temperature below scalding, you know.”

Well versed in concealing your infatuation, you roll your eyes. “Says the guy that only ever showers in ice water.”

“Cold showers are better for you. Healthier. It’s, like, proven.”

“So is spinach, but you refuse to touch that.”

Minho grimaces. “That’s different. Are you going to take this towel or what?”

“Yeah, I’m just— Can you come a little closer? I don’t want to get out.”

He shuffles forwards, socks sliding over the damp linoleum. “You forgot your slippers too?”

“Maybe.”

You crane around the glass, reaching for the towel. “I can’t— Minho, closer.”

He shuffles a bit more. You crane a bit more.

“Minho, just give me the damn towel!”

And his hand drops, thunder in his expression. He marches across the bathroom, not remotely nonplussed by your nakedness.

“Here,” he glowers, shoves the towel at you.

You snatch it breathlessly. “I told you not to look!”

“I told you to stop forgetting a damn towel.” He grins, abruptly about-faces to leave the room.

“Heathen.”

He stops at the door; you think your insult responsible until he says, “You do know I have seen you naked before?”

Breathless.

“W— What?”

He shrugs. “Yeah.”

“But— When? How?”

“Just, you know. Around. We live together, it was bound to happen.”

“Right...”

Minho scoffs, turns to leave, the broad expanse of his naked back rippling with movement. The crippling urge to run your nails down it leaves scratches on your soul. Red and sore. Pretty.

“If the mood ever strikes, I’ll make us even and show you mine,” he says, closing the door with a wink.

His on-brand maniacal cackle carries away, implications left to hover.

You spend another ten minutes in the shower, shame descending with every helpless whimper your bitten lips fail to contain. Does he know how he ruins you? How you’re forced to purge him from your system by your own hand? Two fingers full and yet not even close to stretched? And this time the urge was brought on by nothing more than a thoughtless joke.

Pathetic.

Minho lives under your skin.

You’ll never carve him out.

𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚, 𝙧𝙚𝙗𝙡𝙤𝙜, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙨 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙢𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙞𝙣 𝙖𝙣 𝙖𝙨𝙠 ♡ 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙧 𝙨𝙪𝙥𝙥𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙢𝙚 𝙤𝙣 𝙠𝙤-𝙛𝙞 ♡

𝙣𝙚𝙭𝙩 >

[jl-micasea-fics]

Saviour | bc

❝𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐲 𝐜𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐞.❞

↳ In a post-apocalyptic world where only the toughest survive, you have a singular purpose: find the leader of the mysterious gang that took everything from you, and end him.

↳ 15.5k

↳ Bang Chan x female reader

↳ Zombie apocalypse au, mafia au, mafia leader Chan, starring skz ensemble, strangers to lovers, romance, eventual smut

! Explicit content, violence, adult themes throughout, suitable for 18+ readers only !

「© May 2021, rewritten August 2023 by jl-micasea-fics」

Through the crumbling remains of the once vibrant metropolis of New York, you walk alone.

Feet sore and legs aching, the pain is a reminder of how long you’ve been wandering. Your clothes clings unforgivingly to your sweat-drenched skin, every breath you rake in is a scrape of acrid air down your throat. The backpack strapped tightly around you weighs considerably less than it used to, and that’s not half the relief it should be.

Passing a destroyed shop front, the sign of which reads a faded red ‘DELI’, you spy a stack of plastic crates. With the weight of exhaustion slowing you, you pause to sit down, unlatching the clasp of the backpack. It falls from your body with a thump; your shoulders thank you for the break.

It feels like summer now. The days are longer, nights warmer. You squint and look up; the encroaching sunset stretches hues of pink and orange over the derelict landscape, what little glass remains in the skyscrapers catches sharp rays of waning sunlight. Shrubs and wild foliage sprout amongst the broken concrete, the streets and buildings long since abandoned by civilisation for nature to reclaim, perfect habitats for the small animals that dart about the city scavenging for food. In that you are not so different. Structures that still stand do so with a dark and deathly quiet, their depths inhabited by undead nightmares that human reason was forced to comprehend when the world fell. Avoiding them isn’t too cumbersome a task; keep to the open streets, travel in daylight, sleep lightly and only when the insomnia will allow (for you’ve come to learn that the brain protects the body, and if it’s denying you sleep, it’s for your own good).

With some time left before sundown proper, you take a moment. Fishing inside your backpack, you retrieve your trusted water bottle, holding it to your ear and giving it a shake; your heart sinks. Water and food now a scarce luxury, you’ve seen one too many times how strong a force it can be in driving men to madness. Friends against friends, brothers against sisters; sometimes it’s hard to tell the creatures from the humans. You’re glad to be able to say you’ve abstained from such barbaric means. Indeed, you’d sooner give up what little you possessed than resort to hurting another in the name of survival. Something of an odd take in this world, you suppose, but integrity ought to mean something still, to someone. Identity ought to be worth more, when there is so little to be owned by so few— even if it’s likely to cost you something in this world karma has long since abandoned. You’ll pay the price.

But there are those who are not so prepared to; those like him and his gang of brutes that run from camp to haven, city to town, destroying and killing as they go. You know all too well the ease with which they rob the vulnerable of whatever they may and murder the weak. You still recall the smell of the blood; the sickly tang of iron in the air that welcomed your return to camp from a scouting venture. The bodies and the destruction, unable to identify the corpses of your friends from those of the dead ones, for there was no end to the gore. Caches of weapons upturned and emptied, food and medicine stocks raided, tents trampled to ruin. Yet amongst the despair that threatened to end you—for how could you possibly go on alone now? —there lingered a shred of hope: a tag of crimson graffiti, rivulets of the wet paint running from the great infinity symbol someone had left behind. It was a distinctive mark, one that inspired recollections of whispers about a gang that left such a bold sign in their wake: as much a deterrent to those that might challenge them as an indication of their victory. Rumour had it that the members of said gang sported the symbol on their skin, inked in permanence in what surely constituted some barbaric initiation rite. The leader, you’d heard, was the worst of them all: ruthless, bloodthirsty, a charismatic predator.

In the graveyard that was once your home, you vowed revenge by every oath you knew how to make. You would end him, his gang, his spree of violence and terror if it was the last thing you ever did; and part of you was counting on that.

A capable tracker and efficient scouter, following the infinity symbols had thus far led you to the husk of New York. That, paired with the signs of their presence that ranged from bullet casings to corpses of dead ones made for an easy trail. You just needed to pick it back up.

Scanning the wide street, you wonder how to do that. On your side, to the left and right-hand, there are more wrecked shop fronts, looted and abandoned. On the opposite side is an open area that branches out to a three-way junction, the gently swaying traffic lights creaking in the breeze. Rusted, mossy cars clog the roads, bus stop shelters advertise their years-old movies. As far as anything interesting goes, there’s nothing. Just like every other city you’ve passed through.

Taking the smallest of sips from your water bottle—enough only to wet your swollen tongue—you suppose you should keep moving. Something will turn up; it always does. Screwing the cap on your bottle and tucking it away, you gather yourself. Heading down the broken street and crossing into the road, you keep your eyes peeled for a sign; for anything.

Minutes later and as the stretching shadows of the towering buildings begin to inspire concern, an oddity catches your eye. A reflection in the water-stained glass of a bus stop shelter; you stop abruptly and double back, jogging to the structure.

Sure enough, though light is failing, you see it; great infinity symbols sprayed to a row of old, chained cinema doors, four in bold succession. Above them are neatly painted words, embellished by white outline: ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.’

Something always turns up, you grin.

***

“Shit.”

Boot tangled in another clutch of wild bramble, you stoop to free yourself.

A billowing breeze picks up and carries through the gaping underpass tunnel, redolent of dust and stale oil. Not the safest of routes to be taking this close to nightfall, but it’s the same reason that posed your decision for doing so; being under cover in the dark is objectively smarter than lingering on the open streets. Through the centre of the underpass runs a slowly trickling stream, the stillness of the surface eerie in presentation. No life thrives down here, in the dark, dank silence.

Untangled from the bramble with only two cuts to show for it, you start off once more, torch in hand. Sweeping it from left to right reveals the tunnel still empty; a relief. The crunch of silt and pebbles underfoot is louder than you’d like, echoed in the wide and empty space. To attract attention down here would be fatal, and so you keep your steps as light as possible, your pace steady, but not so slow. Exhaustion perches on your shoulders, weighing you down, ever the unwanted companion. You’ve gone too far to turn back; onwards you press.

And then you hear it: a singular solid thud. You freeze, breath catching, limbs seizing.

Thud. Thud.

You sink to a squat, hand smacking over the bright bulb of the torch, stunting its light as the cool sweat of terror sweeps you.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

It’s coming from above; from the road. On high alert you listen as the pace of thudding quickens to rapid sprinting, like frantic drums in the deep. A shrill, blood-curdling scream pierces the silence, shattering your composure for tears to run free. You hold still amidst the dreaded panic; the underpass shakes, loose debris falls to disturb the stream. Paralysed by terror, a course of action escapes you, every contingency plan you’ve ever committed to memory slipping through your trembling fingers. To fight or flight would see you in direct danger. If you can but remain unnoticed, they will soon pass.

The banal groans of the undead bleed down from the road, the stench of rot and decay rolling with it. Interspersed with wailing screeches of the creatures that have mutated beyond any form of humanoid, you find those to be the source of your true fear; there’s no outrunning them, no fighting them off.

Gut churning an unpleasant sickness of anxiety and in such a desperate state as praying normally calls for, you end up doing just that. Closing in on yourself, cowering from the monsters, circling a prayer to any deity observing that they will simply pass you by; that all will be okay.

It’s the sickening crunch of bones breaking that forces you to see what befalls you; peering down the underpass through the dim, a heaped figure rises from the ground, silhouetted by the last touches of natural light. You watch in unadulterated horror as it shambles unnaturally into the tunnel; the right leg is broken, the wrist contorted around, the neck snapped a clean ninety degrees for the head to hang uselessly. Hiding no longer an option, you rise slowly, careful steps backing away. It has yet to see you, and with a little luck, won’t at all.

Crunch.

A sharp snapping of twigs and brambles gives you away; your heart both sinks and rears with fear. The dead one stiffens with attention, its sickly yellow eyes trained on you like round bulbs through the darkness. A second of suspended stillness—

And you run for your life.

A hair-raising wail floods the tunnel, and you dare not look behind you to check on the creature’s shambling pursuit. Adrenaline takes hold, the atavistic terror propelling your sprint through the underpass, your screams of despair and pleas for aid barely contained by willpower, for they’ll do you no good. The dead one’s banshee cry draws attention from the horde above; bodies tumble from the road over both sides of the underpass, their figures plummeting to the concrete with nauseating snaps and—in the cases where the rot is severe—soft skulls and limbs explode to gore on impact. Panic stricken and beside yourself with fear, your desperation sees a route through the creatures ahead still recovering from their falls.

Run. You pant through the burning of your lungs. Run, and don’t stop.

Approaching the border of the underpass tunnel, you make quick (miraculous) work of dodging the creatures that claw and lunge for you, their bodies broken beyond sense, teeth like gravestones gnashing furiously. Crossing under the lip of the tunnel to the street beyond where you might find somewhere to hide, hope is in sight.

Until it isn’t. A brutal impact of sudden weight crushes you from above, winding you of breath. Pebbles scrape your skin, though the creature that’s landed on you is of far more concern; it squirms and writhes monstrously, mostly intact for your cushioning of its fall. No longer able to contain your screams, you struggle against its thin and putrid flesh, hands slipping throughthe thing as you try to keep it at bay. An opaque eye hangs from the left socket, black teeth and rotten gums exposed, for the lips have been chewed away. The stench is unthinkable; of death and bile, of things too horrible to imagine.

“Help me!” you cry frantically; it never works, but what else can you do? The creature gnashes and drools, teeth clicking inches from your face.

“Please, someone! Help!”

Your arms buckle under the weight of it, your strength dissipating. Dead ones crawl out from the underpass, guts trailing across the stone in dark streaks as they make their slow and menacing way towards you.

A thunderclap of sound through the area seems to you to be a product of the imagination; sudden bright beams of light slice the darkness to blind you momentarily. An eruption of gunfire shatters the air, the creature above you explodes into a fine mist of blood and chunks of brain. Smothered in gore and retching, you’re pulled from under the thing by a figure unseen.

“You okay?”

Too dazed to respond, you smear the blood from your eyes, vision tainted. The depth of voice suggests it’s a man that’s just come to your rescue; the white lights silhouette the sharp edge of his jawline, thick hair a mass of curls. You blink to further focus, clarity returning enough that you can make out a dirty red bandanna around his head, a strong, scarred nose and plump lips. He stares at you, brows drawn together. “Did you hit your head?”

His voice is attractive; warm, yet gravelly.

“I... Maybe?” you reply hoarsely.

“Can you walk?”

You look down at your legs. “I think so.”

“That’ll have to do.”

He raises the assault rifle slung around his shoulders, directing it at the approaching dead ones shambling from the underpass, their numbers doubled. It strikes you that this exchange occurred in all of thirty seconds; it felt so much longer.

“Changbin, left!” he shouts, directed at a man several feet away.

“Got it!” Is the response, said man cocking a fierce double-barrelled shotgun, firing blasts of pellets into the horde to tear limbs and skin. You squint and cover your ears, the boom of the weapon almost unbearable.

“Out of the way, lady!”

A second voice from behind you; you watch dumbfounded as another man strides confidently between you and your anonymous saviour, a pistol in each hand. His violet hair flutters with an uprising of breeze, his smile near maniacal when he lifts the weapons and fires consecutive, steady rounds into the dead ones; they drop like dominos, one by one.

“Minho, watch the ammo!” the bandanaed man warns.

The raging gunfire continues, the man beside you picking off those that get beyond the other two. It’s a picture book rescue, can’t be real. After a while—minutes, hours? —he calls to them, “That’s good enough, we’re out!”

At his order, they swiftly fall back.

“You’re coming with us,” he says, rifle swung to his back as he wraps an arm securely around your waist.

“Wait, what—”

Too weak to put up any form of fight, too discombobulated to protest with sincerity, you’re dragged along by his side, forced to keep up with the pace of jog he sets across the concrete, towards the source of the dazzling lights. The other men—Changbin and Minho—run yards ahead.

You wonder if you’ve been somehow desensitised to the imminent danger; all you really feel is his warmth of presence. How long has it been since you felt that?

“Pick it up, Hyunjin’s waiting!” Changbin calls. Minho stops, sending shots in your direction, putting down the dead ones that have enough left of their legs to keep up.

The bandanaed man braces you firmly against him. “Almost there.”

Parked on the roadside and with headlights the strength of industrial spotlights, a military truck waits. The driver revs the engine; Changbin hops into the open back, pulls Minho up by the arm.

“Quickly!” Another man wearing a backwards snapback cap shouts from the truck, his hands cupped around his mouth. “They’re right on your fucking ass!”

You’re hauled into the vehicle by the waist when you’re close enough; you grab the steel bars and pull yourself the rest of the way in, arms protesting the strength required.

“Hyunjin, go!” the bandanaed man commands as he dives inside, narrowly avoiding the lunge of a swift dead one. The snapback-clad man shoves his boot into its face, sending it sprawling to the ground.

“Han Jisung!” Minho swats him. “How many times have I told you not to—”

“Not to go near the dead things, yes, I know. Yo, I was helping! I helped!”

The truck shudders and roars amidst the cry of the blonde driver: “Let’s bounce, baby!”

Tyres screech against concrete, thick smoke of burning rubber pluming from the heavy wheels. Vehicle in motion, it tears off down the dark street, the horde gradually diminishing from sight. It’s only when their ghoulish groans die out and the stench of death gives way to fresh night air that you realise your state; trembling, aching, struggling to breathe.

The click of a pistol’s chamber sounds off beside your head; if you weren’t so thoroughly drained, you’d probably react.

“Minho, Jesus.” The bandanaed man rises quickly from his crouch. “Put that damn thing down.”

“Who the fuck is she?” Minho says calmly.

“How could I possibly know that? Put the gun down.”

“You’re the one that picked her up.”

“She needed our help, I made a call.” He steps forward, eyes darting to the gun. “I’m not going to tell you again.”

Minho’s jaw ticks, but he concedes, lowering the gun and clicking on the safety, an elaborate twirl back to the holster strapped at his thigh. The other two present watch, but say nothing.

The bandanaed man crouches before you. “Are you alright?”

You nod.

“No bites?”

You think about it, then shake your head. You don’t feel like you’ve been bitten. The man rakes a slow, assessing gaze over you, as though uncertain on the matter of trust. Valid, you suppose.

A moment passes, and he sighs. He holds his hand out for you to take, a warm smile offered. Something in your gut clenches; nobody’s smiled at you in years.

“Bang Chan.”

***

“Hey...”

A careful touch cascades over your arm.

“Wake up.”

Never truly capable of falling asleep, the instruction is no task. You crack your eyes open to hazel flecks and a smile of dimples.

“We’re here,” Chan says softly.

With his help, you rise from the bed of the truck, a litany of aches and pains immediately apparent. The brief rest you’d taken—on Chan’s advice and for your own sanity—seems to have made things distinctly worse; now you’re stiff and overtired.

“Where are we?” you ask, looking up at what appears to be some sort of vast hangar, long abandoned. From behind the filth encrusted windows is a dim glow of firelight, the impression of warmth from within.

“Headquarters,” Chan answers. “You’re safe here. Don’t stress.”

He climbs off the truck with ease and turns back, hands outstretched to help you down. You take them, glad of the aid in your fragile condition, yet when he opts instead to hold you by curve of hips and lower you slowly, closely, there’s an altogether different state of mind that’s inspired. Chan’s hands are steady, his physique strong; it’s entirely foreign to be touched so brazenly, but you can’t deny how nice it is. He settles you, and the seconds for which your bodies remain close is painfully brief.

He steps back, heads off towards the hangar. “You must be starving.”

You hadn’t noticed it with everything else going on, but now that you think about it, your stomach growls.

“I could eat.” You shrug.

Inside the building, you’re positively floored. While you’re unsure what a military operation or any such professional camp would even look like nowadays, this is about as close as you imagine it might get. Caches of guns are stacked in organised rows; weapons racks sport a range of perfectly maintained firearms from pistols and bolt-action rifles to semi-automatics. Ammunition cases are labelled appropriately, heavy padlocks and chains strapped to everything. Plasterboard has been erected to create sectional rooms, long, heavy curtains of mismatched patterns hung up and over the gaps in the name of privacy. Movie posters—both legible and not—are pasted to the steel walls amongst licence plates from various states and a collection of polished, painted hubcaps are arranged in a circular rainbow swirl; very art deco. Oil lamps perch on rudimentary shelving, open drums with quietly crackling fires lit inside them warm the hangar through. Aged dust holds in the air, the tang of petrol and old gunpowder lingers. In the centre of the space is a square metal table, foldable telling from the joints in the centre. Spread out on the surface and held down by sealed tins is a map of New York, its surface marked with blue and red ink—some circles, some scribbles—and pins of various sizes.

Chan observes you quietly as you take it all in, lips upturned in a smirk. When you remember how to blink, he gently nudges your elbow.

“Let’s get you something to eat.”

You follow him into the depths of the hangar until the smell of industrialism is diminished. He pulls aside one length of a paisley double curtain and gestures for you to enter; stepping inside what looks like a rudimentary mess hall, you’re once again surprised by the level of domesticity. A rectangular makeshift table constructed from timber is draped in a paisley cloth, smooth benches cushioned with foam at its either side. Plastic knives and forks are stuffed into metal mugs and presented centrally, alongside mismatched salt and pepper shakers and a blue porcelain vase of plastic peonies.

“Sit down,” Chan says. “I’ll just be a second.”

You comply, taking up residence at the table, the foam soft to sit on. Nice. Chan disappears to the back of the room, behind another curtain, and you indulge in a rolling of your shoulders. They ache dully, as does every part of you, and in raising your arm to stretch above your head, you’re subsequently hit with the wicked stench of body odour and grime; you gag unceremoniously, quickly lowering your limb. Your shirt is stained beyond salvaging, your hair matted beyond repair. A fine state to be in when meeting the first man worth looking at in years.

Chan returns moments later, a tray of bread, warm beans and tinned hotdogs in hand.

“Sorry it’s not much,” he says as he puts it down in front of you, yet the way your stomach growls in anticipation betrays your delight.

Chan grins. “Go ahead.”

Requiring no more than that, you invade the tray, an involuntary groan of relief slipping from you when the first mouthfuls of real, edible food warm you through. You can’t bring yourself to much care that Chan takes the opposite seat, that your voracious feasting is done so under his quiet, curious observance.

With hunger lessened and the last few crumbs marking the tray, sense returns to you. Dirty sleeve swiped over your mouth, you clear your throat to speak.

“Thank you.”

Chan blinks slowly.

“For this,” you clarify. “For saving me, too. I’m grateful.”

He shrugs gently. “Just tried to do the right thing. You needed help.”

“I know, but... there’s not many people that do that anymore. Help.”

“There’s not many people full stop.”

You nod heavily. “Right.”

“I know what you mean, though,” he sighs. “People are either out for themselves or their loved ones.”

You fiddle with side of the tray. “Which are you?”

Chan puffs a gentle breath. “Life’s not worth living alone,” he says. “My team comes before anything. I’d die for them.”

“And for a stranger, apparently.”

He smiles softly, irreverent hazel eyes finding yours. “You seemed worth it.”

And just like that; there’s a singular thump where your heart exists, an ache wildly unlike the others you’re so plagued with. You swallow dryly, tongue feeling too big for your mouth. Palms suddenly clammy, you drop his gaze.

“Can I ask what you were doing out there?” he eventually asks.

“Trying to find somewhere to hunker down for the night,” you reply, a morsel of the truth. Saviour though he may be, he’s still a stranger.

“In that part of the city? It’s overrun with dead ones.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“This is your first time in New York?”

You nod. “Passing through.”

“There are safer routes to take.”

You eye him dubiously. “Is there any such thing anymore?”

“Sure,” he drums his fingers on the table. “We made them.”

“You and your... team?”

He nods. “Establishing safe routes into the city was one of the first things we did when we settled here. We cleared the dead ones from main roads and the surrounding area, keep it that way with regular patrols. We aim to expand, of course. The more we can reclaim of our city, the better. That’s actually what we were doing when we came across you; we heard the commotion. Haven’t seen a horde that size in a long time.”

“So I’m incredibly lucky then, is what you’re saying.”

“I mean; someone had to be watching over you,” he laughs gently.

A moment of silence passes; Chan fidgets in place, on the cusp of asking something you’re not sure you’ll like.

“What is it?”

He grimaces. “You were really just passing through?”

You cross your arms; you didn’t think you were so easy to read. Perhaps he just has a knack for it.

“Don’t trust me?” you challenge.

“Just covering all my bases. I have people to protect.”

“Because I’m such a threat?”

He rubs his forehead over the dirty bandanna. “People are a threat.”

You take a deep breath, uncrossing your arms. If assuaging him will deter his pestering, perhaps it’s better to be somewhat transparent.

“I’m looking for someone.”

He quirks a brow, intrigued.

“A gang, more specifically, though it’s their leader I want,” you explain.

“What for?”

You swallow thickly, an anxious churning rising in your gut. “They took something from me. Something that can’t be replaced.”

Chan’s face falls. “Raiders?”

You nod. “My camp, my friends. The only home I had since the world went to shit. They destroyed it all.”

Amid your voice breaking, you pause, blinking away the sting onset by vivid recollections of who you once were, what you once had. You breathe in through your nose, collecting yourself.

“So, I’m going to destroy them,” you say sternly. “Make it right.”

Chan shakes his head. “That’s a suicide mission.”

Your silence speaks to your acceptance of that fact. Alarm sparks in the man’s kind eyes; he leans towards you in earnest. “I’m so fucking sorry that happened to you, but I guarantee it’s not worth throwing your life away over. Revenge isn’t what you need.”

“You don’t know me even nearly well enough to say that and mean it.”

He reaches across the table, hand hovering near yours. “I don’t need to know you to convince you that what you’re doing is foolish. Won’t you let me change your mind?”

And in the subsequent seconds where your gazes hold—sincerity meeting uncertainty—part of you wishes he would. In cementing the point, his hand lowers on yours, warm and strong. Another thump in your chest aches pleasantly; if he were to ask you to stay, to join them and find a new purpose, you might consider giving up your mission and seeking peace. You might, if only it didn’t mean that everything you’d done thus far would be for naught. If only it didn’t mean that the blood of your friends would go unavenged.

You withdraw your hand from under his slowly. “I have to do this.”

Chan huffs softly. “Alright. Then, we’ll help.”

“Wh—”

“Help with what?”

The question comes from a deep, gravelly voice; a man with silver hair cropped short enters the mess hall, his stature lean and slim.

Chan glances over his shoulder. “Felix, your damn hearing is out of control.”

“Yo!” Another voice shouts, this one you recognise from the rescue as belonging to Changbin. Now that you see him in proper light, he’s bulkier in physique than the others. He follows Felix, throwing a muscled arm around his shoulders. Strapped to his back is the same shotgun from earlier; a security blanket, you quickly consider.

“What’s up boss?” Changbin beams, the two men taking up casual seats at the table.

“My blood pressure,” Chan sighs. “I thought you were on watch.”

Changbin shakes his head. “Jeongin took over.”

“By himself?”

“No, man. Minho’s with him. Relax.”

And Chan does, visibly. Changbin unhooks his shotgun and slings it to the table, the carelessness of the motion setting you on cool edge. Felix drags his fingers down the polished barrel, eyes trained to you.

“Did you actually need something?” Chan asks.

“Just scoping things out,” Felix muses. “This the stray you brought back?”

“I have a name,” you quip.

Felix smirks. “A stray with claws. Nice.”

Changbin cranes awkwardly over the table, his sleeve rolling up as he outstretches his hand. “Welcome to the gang, dude. We wear pink on Wednesdays.”

You stifle a laugh, reaching out to take and shake it, eyes naturally dropping to the skin of his wrist exposed.

How funny that a second changes everything.

Inked on Changbin’s wrist in clear, onyx black is an infinity symbol.

In the moment of realisation, everything stops; your breathing, your heart, your ability to think rationally, despite what rolls around in your screaming mind. Changbin’s brow furrows; he follows your gaze to his tattoo, confused. Snatching your hand from his leaves him dumbfounded; even more so when you rise from the bench in a panic, stumbling back from the table.

Chan rises immediately. “What is it? Are you alright?”

“Don’t!” you cry when he steps towards you. “Do not come any closer!”

He lifts his hands in defence. “Okay. I’ll stay right here. What’s going on?”

“Show me your fucking wrist.”

“What?”

“Your wrist!” you yell.

Chan glances at Felix and Changbin; the former is still seated, the latter standing and primed for action.

“Okay,” he says softly, lowering his arm and peeling back his sleeve.

And it’s the same as Changbin’s; inked with infinity. Despair curls around you, so concentrated it’s enough to outweigh the rage you had hitherto nursed so well in preparation for this very moment. They killed your friends. They destroyed your home. They left you with nothing.

The moments that follow are an adrenal blur; you lunge for the shotgun on the table, mere milliseconds quicker than Changbin in retrieving it. A brief fumble with the weight of it—you’ve never handled a gun like this before—and you point the barrel at them, braced firmly.

Chan strategically (unconsciously) positions himself in front of the others, arms once more raised. His eyes are trained to the shotgun, then to you in all your distress.

He calls your name carefully. “I don’t know what’s happening right now. Would you tell me? Talk to me?”

“Talk to a liar?” you seethe. “To a murderer?!”

Chan balks. “What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about!”

“I really don’t. You’re the one with the gun, nobody’s pretending here.”

Changbin strides forward, past Chan. “Put my fucking baby down!”

You thrust it towards him. “Back off! Stay away!”

And Chan drags Changbin back by the shoulder, behind the shield that is his own form, the bigger man stewing in rage. Felix brings him close, arm linked tightly through his.

“You destroyed everything I had,” you exclaim. “Took it all from me! It was you.”

Chan pales, his stance faltering. “Why would you think that?”

You gesture with the barrel of the shotgun towards him; Chan tenses, eyes locked to it.

“Your wrist; the mark. The infamous fucking infinity tag of the gang that raids and kills as they please! There was a camp out west, just outside of Washington. My camp. You left that mark there like a... like a fucking victory sign for everyone to see, but the only one that saw it was me. I bet you didn’t count on there being any survivors, right?”

Weeks of wandering, weeks of nursing your hatred appear to amalgamate in a release of exhaustion so strong, your legs threaten to give out. You tremble violently, the shotgun rattling in your grip. Chan steps forward, his hands still raised. He clears his throat, his voice thick when he speaks.

“I don’t know how to explain this in a way that’ll make you believe me, so I’m just going to tell you straight up; I know which camp you’re talking about it, and we didn’t raid it. I swear to God, we didn’t.”

“You’ll say anything right now! I’m the one with the gun, and I’m not about to let you hurt anyone else—”

“We don’t hurt people,” he presses desperately. “I can’t bear hearing you say that.”

He steps forward again, dark eyes wracked with sincerity and despair. Something tight wrenches your chest; why did it have to end up being him?

“Your camp was attacked by the dead ones.”

“Bullshit!”

“I’m telling the truth. You didn’t see their corpses?”

You shake your head, unable to truly recall. There had been so much death...

“We were out scavenging when we heard the screams.”

“Why would you be scavenging that far out?” you snap.

He lowers his hands gradually. “We’ve picked everything nearby clean. New York is a wasteland. The more we need, the further out we have to go. That’s just the way things are.”

And it makes sense, something within you reasons.

“We tried to get to your camp, but we were too late,” he says, jaw ticking with the memory. “All we could do was put down the dead ones and make sure your friends wouldn’t rise again.”

The sob that escapes you is entirely involuntary; everything aches. Your grip on the shotgun slacks.

“As for the supplies; yes, we took them, but only because we thought there was nobody else left that could use them.”

“I could have used them!”

Chan’s arms fall to his sides. “I’m sorry. You’re not entirely wrong in blaming me for their deaths. If I’d just been faster—”

You can’t hear his apology amidst your own turmoil. Bracing the shotgun as best you can, you ask, “Why the graffiti? It’s not a warning?”

“No.” He swallows. “God, no. It’s stupid, actually.”

You wait for the elaboration. He scratches his nape, searching for the words, when Felix approaches his side, putting a hand on Chan’s shoulder.

“It’s a sign of respect,” the elfin man says softly. “Infinity is forever, right? In leaving our mark behind, we promise the people we’ve lost that they won’t be forgotten. That they’ll live on with us, through us, forever.”

Chan’s head hangs low. Changbin turns away, hands in his pockets. Felix drags his sleeve up, revealing the tattoo that set you to such hysteria.

“The ink reminds us of our obligation; to survive and keep fighting for the ones that didn’t make it.”

And in your heart of hearts, you know that what he says is the truth. None of these men are killers, none of their stories fabricated. Such a momentous misunderstanding cleared up should bring relief, yet you rather find that as the image of the murderous gang you’ve held central to your need for revenge melts away, you’re left with a weight of emptiness. Hunting them down was your sole purpose; without it, what have you left? A cruel, hellish world that takes the things you love and besets you with monsters.

You’re wracked with tears of the most excruciating making, the shotgun slipping from your grasp once more. Chan closes the distance, and with one hand deftly takes the weapon while the other draws you near, into chest so firm and embrace so secure. You hear rushed footsteps—Changbin and Felix? —then the swish of a thick curtain, and the tears come willingly, a surge of emotion finally unbottled for you to freefall through in the arms of a stranger that you cling to in your childlike fear.

“I’m so sorry.”

Strong hands soothe your matted mess of hair; you cry harder.

“What am I going to do?” You manage to speak in broken huffs for breath.

Chan says nothing, and holds you still, unwavering. After a suspended moment of silence, where your sobs have eased to stuffy sniffs, he allows you a little room. Searching your face, he says softly, “You should come with us on a run.”

You drag your sleeve over your sore eyes. “Like, a scavenge?”

His lips curve into a slight smile. “Something like that. It’ll take your mind off things for a little while. We can show you how we operate.”

“Would that be... okay?”

“Of course,” he draws you back into his chest. “You’ll be safe with us. With me.”

And your heart pounds despite yourself.

What does it say about the power of the man that, for the first time since the world fell, you feel able to trust in such a promise of safety?

***

“Okay, so—”

There are eight of them.

Eight men that appear to rally under the banner that Chan flies for them. Gathered around the map table in the main area of the hangar, he takes centre stage in addressing them.

“— Seungmin’s intel suggests that, aside from us, there are two other groups of major significance hunkered down somewhere in the city.” He points to a pin stuck in the west side of the map. “You think one of them is around here?”

A striking man with cherry-coloured hair nods. “That’s right.”

“So we would need to take this route to get to them.” Chan traces the map with his index.

“In theory, if the bridge hadn’t been destroyed,” Seungmin says coolly.

“Destroyed?”

“Oh, yeah. They’ve blown that shit right up, made themselves a legit safe zone. The only other way through is via the backstreets, but I guarantee they’ve booby trapped those to kingdom come.”

Chan’s jaw ticks.

“It wouldn’t be easy,” Seungmin adds.

“Is it ever?” Chan sighs.

“He’s right, boss,” Jisung pipes up. “You know we’re down for a challenge but if these people have gone to such extremes to cut themselves off, you’ve got to wonder if they even want help at all. We’d just be putting ourselves at risk.”

“We put ourselves at risk every time we go out there,” Minho exclaims nonchalantly from his side. “Makes no difference to me either way.”

That earns him a pout of disapproval from Jisung, and in watching the exchange; the way they all talk to one another, it strikes you that there’s connection behind all the organisation. Strong connection. As for Chan’s apparent objective—reaching out to another group to offer them aid? —you wonder on the intelligence of it. The dangers are apparent, the rewards shockingly slight. Still, Chan appears resolute. Such is the nature of the man; to help, to heal.

“I know it’ll be dangerous,” Chan says, “and yes, from the outside it looks like they don’t want any visitors, but they could just as easily be trapped in there with nothing. What starts as a haven can quickly become a prison.”

“Can I make a suggestion?”

All eyes turn to the youngest looking among them.

Chan nods. “Go ahead, Jeongin.”

He approaches the map, leaning over it to touch the marked east side. “Doesn’t it make more sense to run to this other camp? It’s easier to get to in the first instance, at least for us. I kind of think they must be more vulnerable too.” He taps a spot with his index. “They’re right next to sewers access here.”

“They’ll have secured that area, surely,” Chan muses.

Jeongin shrugs. “Maybe. I hope so. Not that they could ever totally secure the sewers though; they’re so infested it’s almost better to leave them alone altogether.”

You want to voice your agreement—the dead ones slink to the darkest and dingiest of refuges when the sun rises, the sewer system running under New York favourite among their haunts for its maze-like protection—but refrain from doing so. You’re an observer, you remind yourself. There’s still room for disdain among the group yet; you did pull a shotgun on two of them earlier.

After a moment scanning the map, then assessing the others, Chan collects himself.

“Alright. We run to this camp.”

The other men begin to shift to attention.

“Hyunjin,” Chan calls.

“Yes?” the leggy blonde responds, reclining across a bench.

“Get the truck ready.”

And he rises gracefully, offering a respectful, “Yes, boss.”

“Seungmin, Jeongin, start loading up the supplies. Medicine, food; whatever we can spare.”

The two men nod their understanding and head off across the hangar. Chan looks to his right at Changbin, the man’s shotgun cradled in his arms.

“Weapons inventory, please,” Chan says. “Load us up.”

Changbin grins wide. “You got it.”

Something about the efficiency of the operation awes you; all with their roles and responsibilities yet tethered to Chan at the heart of it all, ever calm and collected. Watching him instruct his team—people he’s spoken of as affectionately as one might family—tells of so much more than the most obvious leadership qualities. Chan is a spectacle; a rarity. A saviour in its purest essence.

With Minho, Felix and Jisung left around the table, Chan speaks to them sternly.

“You know I’ll never ask you to follow me out there. If you want in on this, it has to be your call. I’m as content as always to go alone.”

“Shut up,” Minho scoffs, “you’d crash and burn without me, and you know it. Count me in.”

Chan smiles weakly, the truth of it plain.

“Me too,” Jisung exclaims proudly.

“You’re staying here,” Minho deadpans.

“Wh— But I can help!”

“It’s not happening.”

“Minho—”

The elder then turns to him, hands gentle yet firm on his shoulders. “I won’t be able to focus if you’re there, babe. I know you want to help, but if anything ever happened to you...” He falters. “... If I couldn’t protect you?”

And Jisung weakly acquiesces, nods gently, and curls his arms around the man’s middle to hug him. Your chest tightens inexplicably; how unthinkable that love should still bloom in the wasteland.

“You’re not going without me!” Changbin croaks from across the hangar, weapon-stuffed duffel bags tucked under each arm.

“Alright,” Chan states. “Changbin, Minho and I will take point. Hyunjin designated driver. The rest stay here and hold down the fort.”

In apparent agreement, the group breaks off to make their preparations and conduct whatever rituals bring them the most peace. When alone, Chan turns to you and stands close.

“Ready for this?” he asks you quietly.

“I think so.”

“I don’t need to tell you how dangerous it’ll be.”

You shake your head, hyper-aware of and warm with his proximity. “You don’t.”

He hums, then reaches around to his back, pulling something from the belt of his jeans. When he brings it around, you’re admittedly surprised, and that must be written on your expression.

“Take it,” he urges, handing you the compact revolver.

“Are you sure?”

He reaches for your hand and upturns your palm, setting the weapon on it tentatively. The sleek metal is cool on your skin, but it’s pleasantly light. Definitely something you can handle with ease, you think.

“Better than a shotgun, huh?” He smiles.

You turn it over in your hands, checking the barrel. It’s loaded.

“Thank you,” you whisper.

Looking up at him so closely, you’re struck with a giddy swoop, tingles pricking on your skin. Chan shrugs softly; he returns your gaze, holds it.

 “Hopefully you won’t have to use it,” he mutters.

You swallow dry.

“Stay close to me when we’re out there.”

“Only when we’re out there?”

Chan searches your face intently, a brief yet subtle bite of his bottom lip betraying what tension you at first thought was one-sided. Whatever lives here, he feels it too. He puffs a gentle breath, then backs away a step, his jaw locked tight.

“If things get bad, you run, and you don’t look back,” he says.

And as he walks away across the hangar, you hope he doesn’t expect compliance with the final instruction.

You refuse to run from him.

***

Hyunjin navigates the ruins of New York like it’s his personal playground, and in that, there’s something to be respected.

You’re not sure you could commandeer a truck this size slowly through empty roads, let alone at top speed through ones strewn with debris and destruction, but Hyunjin somehow manages it with envious efficiency.

The rising sun crawls over and above the jagged skyline, its early light all too welcome. The darkness peels from the streets, the shadows retreat to their derelict homes to await cover of night once more, and it feels all that much easier to breathe. Still, Hyunjin keeps the full beam headlights primed, slicing rays of blinding white through the dim that sends nervous wildlife skittering back to the safety of their concrete refuges.

Chan and Minho ride with you in the bed of the truck, Changbin takes the passenger seat. They exchange few words—the few are quiet and abrupt—and it strikes you as odd given what you’ve gleaned of their natures until you realise the silence is for Hyunjin’s benefit; he drives with unwavering focus, and they’re loath to create any such distraction.

The steady thrum of the engine is married to occasional pops of the aged exhaust; it’s worse going over uneven terrain, but for as long as Hyunjin perseveres, so does the vehicle. The morning air is still pleasant, yet to adopt the acridity of summer. It feels nice through your hair, on your skin.

“We’re close, boss,” Hyunjin calls from the cab.

Chan straightens in his seat, readjusting the rifle strap taut across his broad chest.

“Ready?” He addresses everyone.

Changbin nods and cocks his shotgun, Minho secures his thigh holsters, the safety on his dual pistols disengaged. The truck turns into a long stretch of mostly clear road; abandoned vehicles appear to have been manoeuvred to the pavements, all obstacles and debris removed. Standing from your seat and craning over the cab, a few hundred yards ahead is a sturdy wire fence. Ramshackle signs are welded to the wire, warning off intruders and looters on pain of death, which only serves to further confuse when you’re near enough to tell the double gate that should be securing it is instead swung wide open. Beyond the fence is an overgrown lawn; a playing field, you think, telling from the rusted football posts that stand tall. The building that overlooks it all is vast in length and several stories tall, its rows of windows mostly intact as they catch the first morning’s rays. While structurally sound, the exterior still leaves something to be desired; ivy crawls with abandon and the once white pebbledash browns unpleasantly, stained by weather and neglect.

Hyunjin rolls the truck to a gradual stop. “What do you think?”

“Take it slow,” Chan calls, scanning the grounds.

Driving through the wrecked gates, it belatedly dawns on you what this place is.

“A high school?” You look to Chan.

“Once upon a time,” he mutters sadly.

Your stomach twists uncomfortably as you look upon the eerie stillness of the building that now seems so melancholy. A plastic bag tumbles lazily across the deserted playing field. Minho stands close to Chan.

“Something’s not right,” he says quietly, and in voicing the obvious, Chan’s face simply darkens.

Hyunjin pulls up gently before the apparent main entrance of the school, and a tickling of anxiety spikes as Chan and the others hop down from the bed. You follow suit as best you can, glad of Chan’s hand to help you. He rounds the truck, reaches through the front window to pat Hyunjin’s shoulder.

“Leave the engine running.”

“Got it.”

As a group, the three men traverse the few concrete steps to the main double doors, Changbin with his shotgun primed, Minho with his weapons still holstered, yet on clear high alert.

“It’s too fuckin’ quiet,” Changbin grumbles. “Why is there nobody on watch? We should have been shot at by now.”

Chan turns to you, pushing his curls back over his bandanna. “Stay close.”

Taking point, Minho pushes the nearest set of double doors open, the glass frame streaked with filth. A piercing creak whines from the hinges; he grimaces (as do you) and stops, breath bated. With no responding sound, he shoves it the rest of the way, making room for all to enter.

Inside, the light reaches nothing. Darkness reigns supreme, the entrance corridor stretching out endlessly to your left and right-hand. There’s a distinct odour of damp and rot that permeates the heavy air, puddles having formed on the pale blue linoleum, the distant trickle of a leak from somewhere. Tall lockers line the walls, some with their doors open, some with no doors at all.

Minho’s hands hover over his thigh holsters as he and Changbin start ahead, their pace slow and controlled. With silence so oppressive you pick up on one another’s very breaths, you can hardly hope to control the way your heart races with nerves. Several paces behind, you stay close to Chan, his presence a welcome comfort.

“Shit,” Minho curses, having peered inside an open classroom. He gestures to Chan. “Boss.”

To you, Chan hisses, “Stay here,” and rushes to Minho’s position before you’re given chance to complain. You can only watch as the man discovers whatever Minho just did, his shoulders sagging with apparent defeat, his hands raking down his face. Changbin joins them.

“Goddamn it.”

“Looks like it goes this way,” Minho says, pointing at the floor, then down the corridor to the adjacent room. In inching closer and focusing through the dim, you realise the pale blue is stained a distinct aged crimson. Fear seizes you, heart pumping.

A brief check on your state, and Chan follows Minho along the blood trail, the former bringing his rifle around while the latter unclasps his left thigh holster, drawing one pistol. Changbin takes up the rear, and as the three disappear into the quiet classroom, your mind races. This place was supposed to be okay.

Seconds of silence feel to drag out long minutes, yet what breaks it inspires clean terror.

“Boss, no!”

A deafening thunderclap destroys the quiet as a gun fires off, a bloodcurdling scream roots you in place. Up ahead, Minho throws himself out of the classroom, landing on his spine with a hefty thud, dual pistols drawn to tear holes through the dead one that follows him in a crazed lunge. It lands atop him in useless shreds; Chan and Changbin burst from the room, the former coated in blood. Changbin yanks the corpse from Minho to toss aside, offering him a hand.

“Fuck me,” Minho curses. “That was way too close.”

You rush over to them, your focus on Chan. “What the hell happened? Are you—”

But the man simply holds a hand up, his breath coming in rapid spikes. “Quiet.”

All comply, and everything stops.

You hear it before he does; the distant droning groans and gargles stirred by the chaos, initially faint yet growing at a volume so rapid it’s difficult to comprehend. The stench of death and decay rolls through, the resounding tumble of shambling sprinting. Panic curls around you, a cool sweat of terror pricking over your skin.

“Chan?”

The corridor shakes, the linoleum under your feet tremors, and from around the corridor’s end tumble the dead ones; a dozen or more. The creatures at the front smack and collide to the wall with their uncontrolled momentum for the ones behind to bounce off, an uncoordinated frenzy that funnels them in your direction.

“Run!”

Chan’s frantic instruction requires no thought; Changbin and Minho bound off immediately down the corridor. On his way past you, anchored in your fear, Chan grabs your hand to match his pace of sprinting. Instinct takes the lead, your mind driven as singularly as the horde’s behind you; theirs to feed, yours to survive.

At the end of the corridor the flight of stairs is taken two at a time to the second floor, the frontmost dead ones tripping over themselves at the obstacle. Your thighs burn with the exertion; you’d feel it were it not for the adrenaline pumping through your veins. Down the second-floor corridor you sprint as best you can, Chan’s hand still tight around yours.

Changbin points ahead to a set of heavy double fire doors. “In there, quick!”

Slamming shoulder to the bar for them to swing them open, once inside, Minho shoves them closed, propping himself against them. Changbin joins him, bracing for the horde’s impact which follows mere moments after.

A quick assessment of the area reveals it to be a gymnasium turned living space; the polished wooden floor is still marked with the faded white paint of an old basketball court; interior bleachers are stacked along the left and right sides. A walk-in storage cupboard sits at the back, its sliding doors drawn closed. Chan rushes to a stack of broken chairs, snapping one of the wooden legs under his boot with a sharp crunch. He tosses it to Changbin who wedges it under the door bars, locking them in place against the force of the intruding horde. They bend precariously when he and Minho carefully let them go, but ultimately withstand.

“Where the fuck did they come from?” Minho exclaims, dropping to a nearby bench.

“Guess it explains where everyone went,” Changbin huffs. “Jeongin was right; those things are from the sewers.”

“How could you possibly know that?” Minho sighs breathlessly.

“You didn’t smell them?”

“They always smell that bad.”

“Man, come on,” Changbin tuts. “They were so much worse than usual. Like, real shit.”

Wrapping your arms around yourself, you perch on one of the dusty futons. There are several more like it strewn around, old armchairs and splintered desks no doubt repurposed from the classrooms. Moth-eaten blankets are piled near the broken chairs that Chan so resourcefully made use of. In here, the morning sunlight is free to roam as it will, the multiple skylights allowing for such a thing. Dust motes swirl in the rays, disturbed by the first breaths that have been taken here in a depressingly long while.

The empty moans from behind the doors intensify.

“What are we going to do?” you ask quietly.

Chan, who had hitherto been pacing the room for an alternative route of escape, approaches and pulls you up from the futon.

“Might not seem like it now, but we’ll be just fine. We’ve been in worse spats than this, trust me.”

“I do.”

He blinks slowly. “Good.”

“I just don’t think I’ll ever get used to living in a nightmare.”

He takes your hand gently, squeezes it. “Wouldn’t want you to. We have to hope for more, right?”

“Yo, boss,” Changbin calls. Chan releases your hand; your heart sinks just a little.

“What is it?”

At the rear of the gymnasium, Changbin points to an outcropping of ledge just below the strutted ceiling, where a slim window rests open on the latch.

“There’s our exit,” he beams.

Minho strolls over. “That?” he scoffs. “And how do you expect to wriggle your beefy ass through that tiny gap, exactly?”

“No,” Chan exclaims, “it could work. We just need to reach it and we can loosen the latch.”

He looks around the gymnasium, then strides to the walk-in storage cupboard. Yanking on the door with some force, he disappears inside, and returns a moment later wheeling out a tall, wooden gym horse.

“Minho, help me—”

Together, they manage to drag it across the dusty gymnasium, the wheels squeaking unforgivingly when they angle it beneath the outcropping.

“I don’t think that’s going to be enough,” Minho pants.

“Hold up.”

Chan jogs to the broken chairs, rummaging through them until he finds one mostly intact (as far as the legs are concerned). Back at the gym horse, he balances the chair atop it, brow furrowing at the way it wobbles.

“That is precarious as shit,” Minho comments.

“It’ll have to do,” Chan says, glancing nervously at the doors that throb inwards with the growing force behind it. “We have to move. Minho, you first.”

With a deft hop, Minho springs to the top of the gym horse, the picture of elegance. Chan holds the chair legs steady as the man balances on it, reaching to the outcropping and pulling himself up with feline ease.

“Loosen the latch!” Chan calls.

“Get up here first.” Minho turns back, reaching down. “Come on.”

And with a final painful creak of bending metal and crack of splintering wood, the gymnasium doors crash open. Dead ones tumble over themselves in a bid to move as one wave of destruction, their numbers twice what they were.

“Go!” Chan shouts, grabbing Changbin and giving him a leg up to the gym horse, the man grunting with exertion when he’s then forced to balance on the chair. Minho cranes down to him, pulling him up the ledge.

Gunfire suddenly erupts; Chan rains a storm of bullets into the shambling crowd, his rifle held securely and propped against his shoulder. He picks off those closest, empty casings trickle to the ground in a steady stream, as does the blood from the dead ones torn to bits. You cower behind him in the face of it all, tucked into his broad back.

“Boss, come on!” Changbin yells.

“Her first!” He fires again; your ears ring painfully. Downing another dead one, he briefly turns to you, a gentle shove to your shoulder backing you to the gym horse. “I told you to run when things got bad.”

Run from the man that saved you? That’s trying to save you again?

A surge of defiance spurs you to action; determination to earn your place and prove that you’re so much more than a damsel in distress. You walked leagues to find this man and his crew, crossed cities and faced unthinkable danger in doing so. What happened to that girl? Where was she now?

Lost, perhaps, in the face of her turmoil. But no longer.

Gathering your courage, you draw the compact revolver from the band of your jeans, emerging from behind the man. Knocking off the safety and aiming as straight as trembling hands will allow, a single squeeze of the trigger sends a shot whizzing alongside a dead one’s rotten head.

Chan balks momentarily. “What the hell are you doing!?”

The dead one drags its feet, shambling still towards you.

“Will one of you just fucking move!?” Minho yells, drawing his pistols to fire systematically into the horde.

A second attempt to land your shot; a deep inhale and slow exhale, and a bullet straight between the approaching dead one’s eyes sends it sprawling to the ground in an explosion of gore.

“Chan, go!” You fire again, titillated in downing another. “I’m not going anywhere until you’re safe!”

Potentially very foolish, to stand your ground so vehemently in the face of such imminent threat, but desire to demonstrate your worth instils confidence as to your ability. You can do this. You can save him this time.

“Shit!” Chan curses with little room to argue much more, swinging the rifle to his back as he clambers up the gym horse. An impressive display of agility sees him skipping the chair entirely as he grabs for the ledge and pulls himself swiftly up.

“Alright,” he calls back, “I’m safe, now move it!”

Making a break for the gym horse, you haul yourself up, ears ringing tinny with the consecutive pumps of Changbin’s shotgun and the rhythmic shots of Minho’s pistols covering you. Dead ones drop to join the horrific mess on the gymnasium floor, one after another yet never seeming to make a dent in the horde.

Clambering to the rickety chair, it rocks under your weight. Chan reaches down from the ledge, strong arm outstretched.

“My hand, grab it!”

And you try; his hand is close, so reachable. Yet as the chair gives out beneath you and balance is lost, Chan’s outcry of panic is heard even over the wail of the dead ones.

With a sharp crack of skull and heavy thud of spine, you hit the gymnasium floor. The world spins, your head hot and vision white with the force of impact; you know you’re in danger, that you should get up and move from it, yet function eludes you.

What you think you see is Chan jumping down from the ledge; you think you hear Changbin yelling, “Yo, what the fuck!?”. Blasts of a shotgun take fleshy chunks out of the ones closest; they’re much closer now. Chan rushes to your side, gently helps you from the floor, your senses too dulled to really understand why he’s doing it.

“Get out of here, we’ll find another way!” Chan cries, arm around your waist to hike you up. You’re half-dragged across the gymnasium and into the walk-in storage cupboard; Chan settles you on a stack of gym mats and rushes back to the door to brace it.

“We...” you mumble, still dazed, “... we’re trapped?”

“We’re fine,” Chan grunts. “We’ll be fine.”

And of course, he’d say such a thing. The man who hopes for more, for better. The man who stands against the relentless gnashing of the dead ones at the door, and still maintains that everything will work out.

You might feel better if he simply blamed you.

***

Counting the seconds helps keep you awake.

Potential concussion aside, the numbers remind you that every second ticking by is a second longer that you survive; a good and bad thing in equal parts, you suppose.

The other benefit is, of course, tracking it. You’ve been trapped in the pokey confines of the cupboard with Chan for approaching two hours. The shuffling of the dead ones outside has quieted, their groans not quite so concentrated in frenzy. They’re probably wandering now, amidst the corpses and death. While the break from their onslaught is welcome, you’re by no means free from danger. The slightest sound will once again alert them.

Propped against the same stack of blue gym mats, you sit on the floor side by side. Silence has held for so long, you’re now loath to break it, but in stretching his legs out slowly, Chan does just that.

“How are you feeling?” he whispers gently.

“Better.”

“Your head alright?”

You nod, the ache now mild. You’re sure you’re sporting a wonderful bruise or two. Chan smiles, though it doesn’t reach his tired eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” you whisper. “I fucked things up so badly.”

Chan frowns, brows pulled together under his bandanna. “This isn’t your fault. I should have made you go first or made that dumb structure sturdier, or something.”

“You’re blaming yourself?”

He sighs. “Who else is there to blame?”

And in a thoughtless moment with intentions of giving comfort, you place your hand over his rested on his thigh. He looks down at it, then at you, turning over his palm to link your fingers carefully. Your pulse inexplicably picks up; you swallow dry.

“I know this wasn’t the ideal first run,” he says, voice a thin rasp.

“Understatement,” you laugh gently.

Chan grimaces. “Right. If things had gone better; like, to plan, I was going to ask you to stay.”

Your chest throbs again, warm and full.

“You were?”

He holds your gaze, his dirt-streaked cheeks pinkening subtly. “I’ve, uh... never met anyone like you. Which I appreciate is probably a lame thing to say given the state of the world, but still...”

Silences becomes him, the sentiment lingers. If you could find the words, you’d tell him that it’s mutual—the gladness for your meeting, despite wanting to kill him and everything you thought he stood for less than a day ago. Chan is heart and soul amongst the cold and dark; he’s everything the evil should have extinguished. Too big a task for you to put into words the tangible gratitude you feel not just for his existence, but for his unwavering virtues that foster a sliver of hope.

Fingers still linked and Chan moves carefully; his free hand lifts to caress your cheek, the tremble therein speaking of his trepidation until the warmth of his calloused palm stills over your skin. Your face burns—you wonder if he feels it—and you hold expectantly as he tilts towards you.

When he kisses you, your heart feels like it might burst. His touch is delicate, indicative of his worry concerning your still fragile physical state, but with the way you melt into him his fervour deepens. Lips brush softly and a sigh of content emits from him; the hand on your cheek slips to your neck, his gentle hold a guide by which he angles from left to right, noses bumping in the dim. Your palm firm on his thigh expresses your wanting, the growing swell of giddy desire he so easily inspires rendering you somewhat breathless. And amongst the delight, there is pain. The surrender of adrenal tension is a knife withdrawn recklessly from your chest, for so much fear and stress suffered for so long is now integral to your soul; you have learned to love the sting of it, the weight of it. How can it be fair that it is all soothed by so simple a thing—a connection?

When he breaks from you, it’s to tears streaking your cheeks. He swipes them away by gentle thumbs and kisses you again, forehead held to yours.

“I’ll never let anything happen to you,” he breathes.

You turn into his palm, kiss it softly, the tears dampening his skin.

“Ditto.”

***

“Boss?”

A raspy voice pierces the fragile haze of your dozing; you shoot upright, the dread of alertness returning to you.  

“Boss? You in there?”

A slumbering Chan at your side, you shake him gently. He rouses and groans a complaint, seeming to remember where he is with some disdain when he takes in the surroundings of the dusty storage cupboard.

He’s about to say something when the voice speaks again: “Yo, maybe they got out?”

Chan bounds to his feet, looking up and around until he spies a small rectangular vent in the upper reaches of the ceiling. He climbs over the gym mats and up to the mid-shelf of a rack, getting as close as he can.

“Changbin?” he hisses.

“Boss? Thank fuck, man. I was starting to stress out.”

Chan laughs low—not so much a laugh as a wheeze of relief—and promptly asks, “What’s the plan?”

There’s a second of silence, then Changbin says, “Uh, well, we kind of hoped you might have one.”

“What?”

“I suggested an all-guns-blazing approach, but Minho said we don’t have the ammunition for that. Or that was the polite version, anyway.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Another voice complains. “We have a plan!”

“Keep your voice down, dude,” Changbin warns. “We’ve been over this, your plan is dumb as fuck.”

“Jisung?” Chan chimes in. “Tell me.”

“Oh, it’s real simple; we blow a hole in the wall using that C4 we pilfered from the military base a few months ago. Get you out of there nice and quick.”

“And in multiple pieces,” Changbin deadpans.

Chan rakes a hand through his hair. “So, Felix is with you guys?”

“Right here, boss,” the low voice responds quietly.

“Alright,” Chan sighs, looking back to you from halfway up the shelf. “Give us a few minutes, then set the explosive.”

“You’re not actually considering this—”

“We don’t have much choice, Bin. There’s enough shit in here that we can barricade ourselves with. Just wait for my mark, okay?”

Hopping down from the shelf, he sets about manoeuvring equipment against the door, propping them firmly: springboards, a sturdy gymnastics vault, leather pommel horses. The speed of his working draws attention from the lingering dead ones that keep you prisoner, their bumping and shambling against the door flares up slowly. Aiding him as best you can, you drag the thick mats from their stack, supporting them between and in front of the struts of a climbing frame so it stands solidly. With eventual space made between you and the wall to be blown out, there’s a clear structure of protection: thick gym mats padded around the frame will take the brunt of the explosion, any scraps of debris should be caught by the foam.

Chan sinks between the mats, pulling you in the small space with him. Your back to his chest, his arms secure around you, he now shouts to be heard through the vent: “We’re covered. Ready, Felix?”

The door throbs with those who crave entry, thumping and groaning from the other side.

“Ready!” Felix calls back.

“Are you sure that’s secure? Man, this is such a bad fucking idea—”

“How about you leave the logistics to the demolitions expert and go take cover?” You hear Felix retort. “Jesus. I’m surrounded by divas.”

Chan casts a nervous glance at the door. “Getting hot in here, guys!”

There’s a moment of silence, and then, “Ten seconds!”

Yours ears are covered by warm hands; Chan hunches over you, his head tucked into your neck, his frame a solid shield surrounding your person.

“This is going to be loud,” he warns.

The seconds tick by painfully, breath held and drawn tight in anticipation, yet the thunderous boom you expect isn’t what you initially detect. It’s the shallow tearing of concrete that warps to a profound drilling crack, splitting the surface of the wall and sending shards of the structure inwards amongst billows of dust. The blasting impact pops your ears, a calamitous tremor of destruction that brings a rainfall of stone and metal, wire and mortar. A searing flash of heat scalds your skin despite the protection, and Chan tightens around you, sparing you from the singe of debris that makes it beyond the mats and padding. Dragging in a breath brings you to an instant coughing fit; the air too thick and acrid to take into lung, ears ringing and bones vibrating still.

Chan tries to stand, shaking himself free of the layer of powdered concrete that now blankets him grey. Helping you to your feet, the climb over the destruction is done in a daze.

“Come on, let’s go!” Felix cries from the other side.

Chan lifts you over a chunk of rock when your knees threaten to give out; the moment he does so, the cupboard door splinters and caves, giving way to the dead ones that so relentlessly pursue.

“Quick!” he urges.

Felix reaches through the fresh hole in the wall, your wrist grabbed when you’re close enough. Tugged through unceremoniously and out into unpolluted air, you’re left clamouring for breath on the moist grass; the rain on your skin is a relief, yet the darkness inspires dread. Nights shouldn’t be spent beyond safe walls.

Chan swiftly follows, and not a moment too soon as he narrowly avoids the lunge of a chomping dead one. Changbin—in all his bloodthirsty desire to help—pumps a single shotgun shell into the creature’s soft skull, the gore joining the mess of deconstruction.

“We should move,” he says.

Jisung helps you to your feet. “Come on.”

And what begins as a pace of walking hurries to a run as the shambling horde follows; their combined weight of impact is a wrecking ball against what parts of the wall still stand. Slabs of heavy concrete thud to the grass, the corpses that take them down falling with them.

“The trucks out front, just a bit further!” Jisung pants, arm around your waist. Changbin takes point, Chan and Felix right behind him, the former leaning on the latter in his still stupefied state. Down the length of the school the group runs, those of the emerging horde able to keep up doing just that in their wailing and gnashing. Your lungs burn with yet further exertion, the threat of death a constant incentive in willing your legs to keep pace with Jisung.

Rounding the building, the main entrance is in sight, whereby the truck sits parked with engine primed. Hyunjin, on sight of the group, bolts upright in the cab, headlights on full beam to slice through the night.

Changbin is the first to reach it, hauling himself into the truck bed to drag Chan and Felix up respectively. Jisung hands you off to the man who lifts you in with ease, darting off to dive into the passenger seat beside Hyunjin.

The truck roars to life with a veritable growl; the pursuing horde scatters amongst the blinding headlights, their screams as frantic as their contortions. With no time to turn around and in a smooth manoeuvre of reversal, Hyunjin backs the vehicle down the school driveway, past the playing field that sits in darkness. Once through the gates, he slams the handbrake for the truck to careen a clean one-hundred and eighty degrees (much to all passenger’s terror), and with a victory whoop, he tears off through the city.

“I cannot fucking believe that worked,” Changbin emotes, sagging beside a beaming Felix.

“I told you it would!” Jisung shouts from the cab.

Chan—despite his clear fatigue—pulls himself from the bed of the truck to sit beside you. A quick once over of your state, and he puts his hand on yours in comfort.

“You okay?”

You’re not even sure where to start.

“I’m in one piece,” you acquiesce.

He smiles weakly. “Good.”

“Hold up,” Felix interjects, a dubious look cast from you to Chan, then back again. “What is this?”

Chan frowns. “What is what?”

Felix gestures between you. “This.”

A wave of mortification accompanies the heat that crawls over you; Chan’s hand on yours suddenly feels ten times heavier. You move to slide it out, but he holds it firm, unrelenting. Felix grins from ear to ear.

“Love’s young dream, huh?” he smarms.

“Maybe.”

Changbin whistles through his teeth. “Damn. You better know how blessed you are,” he directs the statement at you, his tone sincere. “This man is the best of them all.”

***

When was the last time you felt even marginally like a normal girl?

A little, perhaps, during what essentially amounted to your first kiss in the dirty storage cupboard of an overrun high school. You can imagine well enough that that feeling of floating was probably what the old love ballads sang of, what the ruined romance novels wrote of. A shame that you can only relate to them after the fact.

This moment, you think, does something rather different towards making you feel normal. A shower. Yes, it consists of intermittent sprays of lukewarm water being dumped over your head from a salvaged and repurposed copper pipe, but still; a shower.

Changing into the loose cotton shorts and baggy shirt Jeongin kindly donated to your cause, the fresh clothes feel unthinkably good on your clean skin. The shirt looks somewhat ridiculous on you—it’s so long it conceals the shorts altogether—but it’s a welcome alternative to the grimy clothes you’ve been wearing for weeks. Inspecting yourself in the makeshift mirror fashioned from car rear and side-view mirrors artfully taped together, you suppose it stands to reason that you hardly recognise the girl looking back. She’s aged. Her skin is dry and mottled from sun exposure, her tired eyes have seen things that have left marks both mental and physical. She looks somewhat lost, you think, and that would also make sense given that her purpose until now was one of bloodthirsty pursuit. Without that, who is she? What does she do?

Shaking off the existential crisis and repacking it for another day, you leave the designated bathroom and pad through the vast hangar. Passing curtained rooms as you go, you catch signs of life: Jisung and Hyunjin’s muffled laughter, the quiet crackling melody of a gramophone to which Felix hums a low, smooth accompaniment. One of the curtains is left drawn open; on passing it, your name is called.

Changbin leans against the plasterboard that makes up his ‘doorframe’, arms crossed over his bulky chest. Takes you a moment to actually register that he’s shirtless beyond the initial shock, and once you notice it, you can’t pretend you don’t. He is built.

“Can I have a second?” he asks.

“S— Sure.”

He steps out of his room, for which you’re grateful; you’d rather not have to experience being in confined spaces with him looking like that. Regardless, his expression is stern as he approaches.

“What you did today,” he says sullenly, “it was real fuckin’ dumb.”

You say nothing, swallowing hard.

“I can’t imagine you don’t already know that.”

If he’s trying to spare you the embarrassment of having to admit to foolishness, it’s not working.

He takes a deep breath. “Look; this all only works when we know where we stand. When Chan gives an order, we damn well follow it. The others had to learn that, but for him and I it was like that even before dead people started getting up.”

He uncrosses his arms and gestures for you to follow, heading back into his room. You linger at the curtain, watching as he picks something up from the bespoke bedside table. When he turns back, he hands it to you.

“The ranks might not mean shit anymore, but a soldier’s mindset won’t ever change.”

The framed photograph is grainy and faded; weatherworn and creased down the middle. Still, you can make out men and women in military uniforms, grouped together in front of a stationary helicopter, their poses relaxed and faces bright. Front and centre of the gathering—the only one not smiling but rather more reserved in his stance—is Chan, his chest decorated with medals, his rifle strapped to his side. To his right-hand stands Changbin, tucked into uniform, the man’s arm slung around the person next to him in clear comradery. Part of you wants to ask where they all are now. The realist in you knows better.

“He’s a born leader,” Changbin says quietly. “I’d follow him into hell itself.” He scoffs a laugh then. “Shit, I guess I kind of did.”

You hand the photograph back to him, chest aching anew. He takes it, puts it back on the table carefully.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is that... Chan takes on a lot of responsibility; he did then, he does now. And he feels it, you know? Pulling the kind of hero shit you did today only adds to the load he carries. You forced him to go on ahead and that left you vulnerable—”

“I just wanted to prove that I could handle myself.”

“Right,” Changbin sighs, “and I respect you standing your ground, but there are other ways to do that. Safer ways. Ways that won’t make Chan feel like he has to risk his life for you.”

You hang your head. “I’m sorry.”

And Changbin scratches his nape amidst a grimace. “Shit. I’m really fuckin’ awful at this. I’m not trying to make you feel bad, I just... he means a lot to me, is all, and I figured you’d be sticking around now too, so you should know, like, why he does what he does. Felix says that’s called context. I think.”

A gentle hand finds your shoulder, a reassuring squeeze offered. “Just be safe, is all I’m asking. Then the rest of us will be.”

You nod, blinking away the sting that crops up in your eyes. While delivery might have lacked tact, the sentiment is clear; he wants to protect what little he still has.

“I’ll be more careful,” you vow. “No more hero shit.”

Changbin quirks a brow. “Occasional hero shit? In controlled conditions with backup?”

You stifle a chuckle of relief. “Sounds fair to me.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

“Please do.”

He grins, arms opening tentatively. “We good?”

And you step into them, returning the hug he offers, the warmth of his bare skin against you an inherent comfort. “Of course,” you whisper. “Thank you.”

When the hug breaks, his cheeks are a warmer shade. For all his surface intimidation and despite the jagged edges of his persona, he appears to care more than anyone.

“Chan’s in the main room, by the way,” he points in said direction as he backs up to his room, drawing the curtain.

 Feeling significantly lighter with air cleared, you head there immediately, finding the man precisely where stated. What surprises you are the conditions in which you find him; the central space is darker with lack of daylight, the oil fires in the few metal drums cast haloed rings of flickering amber not strong enough to reach the shadows that stretch across the depths of the hangar. Chan sits beside one of the drums, watching the flames, one knee propped up with his trusted rifle laid out in front of him. Approaching him feels like an interruption, but you can’t bear to be alone now.

He glances up when you’re close, the length of his gaze following your exposed legs. He turns back to the fire when you sit.

“Penny for them?” you ask quietly.

Chan sighs, the angular planes of his face lit softly. “Just thinking about today.”

You wait for the elaboration, which eventually comes when he mumbles, “I’m so sick of everything always ending in blood. Those people had a good thing; the school should have been safe, solid. Why was it overrun?”

He drops his knee, reaches for his rifle. One hand glides over the barrel to the stock, where it lingers. “Where were their defences? What was their escape plan? Did anyone survive?”

“Chan,” you turn towards him, taking his hand from the gun, “thinking like that will drive you to the worst kind of crazy.”

“But maybe if we had tried to reach out sooner—”

“Then what? You’d be down resources and they’d still have been overrun; you heard what Jeongin said, the sewers were right nearby them. No preparation would have been enough.”

He sags in place, fingers slotting to yours, warm and strong.

“You’ve done so much,” you whisper. “What you have here is incredible; these people are incredible, and they adore you. Be proud of that.”

“I am,” he stresses. “I really am. I just...”

“You can’t save everyone.”

He looks up at you, eyes dark. “I saved you.”

“Yeah. You did. I know I owe you my life.”

“You don’t owe me anything.”

You lean towards him, cupping his cheek gently. “I owe you everything, Chan,” you mutter, “and I want to spend whatever time I have showing you how grateful I am, not just for saving my life, but for giving me a new one.”

Chan swallows, the shell of his ears pinkening in the firelight. The kiss he leans into is meant with true intention; firm and wanting against your mouth, his inhibitions slipping with the descent into intimacy. He breaks off, his breath warm on your lips when he rasps, “Come with me.”

Pulled from the floor by his hand, rifle hooked to his shoulder, Chan leads you through the darkened hangar to the row of curtained rooms. At the end most cubby, he draws back the heavy velvet draping to reveal a cosy homestead: a neat single bed against the wall covered with blankets and soft pillows, a chest of drawers sporting ornamental knick-knacks. An acoustic guitar with the strings missing is propped in the corner, and beside that, a stack of vinyl records. A hanging oil lantern illuminates the weapon rack bolted to the wall; with one hand Chan unhooks his rifle and deposits the weapon on it, tucking the strap aside.

Having yet to release your hand, he turns back to you. His palms slide over your forearms, to your elbows as he closes in. Foreheads connecting, Chan takes a slow, deep breath.

“Spend the night with me.”

You nod amidst the thundering of your heart against your ribcage, allowing the man to once more capture your lips. Arms around his neck and manoeuvred gently to the bed, it strikes you how easily the intimacy comes; it feels so natural.

His form follows as you lay back to the soft cushioning of his single bed, your throat exposed to allow his lips the wandering they seek. Each slow brush is a spark under your skin, amalgamating arousal pooling deep and heavy.

“How do you smell so good?” he whispers, the question not truly requiring an answer; he’s lost in the moment, smothering the dips of your throat and collarbone with attention. Running hot with wanting, you urge him closer still by tugging his shirt. Hint received, a hand slips under your baggy clothing, the canvas of your side and navel explored by clammy palm. The contact is enough to elicit a strained gasp; Chan recoils, concerned.

“Sorry,” you quickly reassure him, “it’s just... it’s been a while. Like, forever.”

He chuckles amidst a breath. “Ditto.”

“I mean; this is my first time. Being touched.”

And Chan searches your face, his expression unreadable. He appears to falter, and in your brief disdain you cup his face to have him heed you.

“Please don’t read too deeply into it,” you whisper. “I’m here because I want to be.”

“I know. I just don’t want you to regret anything.”

At that, you must resist the urge to laugh. “Regret being with my saviour?”

Chan smiles, nose scrunching, head dropping to the crook of your neck. A show of embarrassment, perhaps, but either way the desire soon flares. The hand on your stomach travels up to breast; slower, this time, to allow you to acclimate.

“So soft,” he mumbles between kisses against your throat.

A sharp tug on his shirt and you breathe, “Off—”. Chan complies, sitting back on his haunches to drag the clothing up and over head, revealing a tight six pack of abs and pale, svelte form. A second tattoo is discovered: a crest on his right pectoral of knife and gun crossed over, the wings of an eagle backdropping them. He returns and hovers above you; you trace the shape gently.

“Was the crest of my squadron,” he explains quietly. Sadly. “We all had them.”

You place your palm over it, craning to kiss him. He need not explain further, and only when he’s ready. What details Changbin gave were sparse, and one day, you’d certainly love to hear how Chan remembers them all. But that day is not today.

Your kiss is returned and what clothing remains is swiftly—enthusiastically—removed. Being naked underneath him brings a wave of vulnerability such as you’ve never felt. He shields you with his physique, keeps what lives outside this small room at bay in more ways than he’ll ever comprehend. Legs spread and hooked around him, Chan makes no rush of exploring your body. Gentle fingers at your centre ease you open, the glide slick enough that the tender stretch is bearable; a minute or two of his focused ministrations and you find yourself burning with the build of pleasure.

“How is it?” he rasps, his own arousal apparent, hanging thick and heavy between you.

“Good,” you confess, “so good.”

A shiver trails down your spine when he withdraws carefully. Mistaking your tremble for a chill, Chan reaches back to drag a blanket from the foot of the small bed, draping it over his back and thereby cocooning you when he returns. He kisses you tenderly, weight supported by arms that flex deliciously.

“Comfortable?” he asks.

You nod, finding breaths to be shorter and less effective the longer he keeps you in suspense; the occasional prodding of his length against your wetness doesn’t help matters, of course.

He drops a hand between you, angling himself just so. When his velvety head catches on you, you tense. “Might hurt a little,” he warns, and you’re glad of it when the initial breach floods your lower half with licks of muted fire.

Chan eases on a slow, controlled thrust, his length and girth seeming endless in the way you’re shaped around him. Clutching his shoulders, you breathe through the moment, seconds seeming hours long. Chan groans inaudibly, his lips parting through broken breath; he draws tight in every muscle, the strain of wanting to sink into you overwhelming him. When finally connected, he assesses you with darkened eyes.

“Okay?”

“Yeah... fuck—”

The expletive comes as he sets a slow pace of thrusting, the rhythm of the drag so unthinkably good it renders you near delirious with pleasure from the onset. You groan helplessly; Chan puffs a low chuckle, lips against your ear as he says, “Into my shoulder, baby. Curtains aren’t soundproof.”

Mouth pressed against his firm, smooth skin, it does enough to muffle the litany of whines you fail utterly to control. Chan moves fluidly, his lips to your neck and jaw, occasional sharp, deep thrusts betraying the power you know lives behind the control he’s displaying. The baser part of you wishes he’d let go.

Clawing at his muscled back now slick with exertion, Chan reaches swiftly behind and grabs the blanket, drawing it up and over to cage the two of you in. The air shimmers with heat and lust; Chan pulls back.

“Want to hear you,” he urges, “moan for me.”

“Mhm, Chan—”

He groans listlessly, veins in his arms protruding as he fists the blanket down against the pillow, drives into you so firm and thick. Ramshackle headboard thumps the wall gently, the mattress creaks in complaint of Chan’s momentum; being on the receiving end is so fucking wonderful a sensation. Curls matted to his forehead, lips swollen and indented by markings of teeth, he’s a vision of the most lustrous making. Living proof that while things outside are dire, a world of your own can exist in his safety.

“Fuck— Close—” he breathes.

Brought to the peak of your threshold by the illicit fullness of his cock, so smooth and solid, you feel to be fraying at the edges of your consciousness when your vision whites and your core unravels, white hot sparks of euphoria sweeping you. Chan slows the pace, his arm slipping under and around your trembling form to keep you close. Clutching to him while inside you’re fit to liquefy, the pressure of orgasm tightens around his length; he curses and pants, “God, baby. That’s it—”

Only when the fit of your release subsides does Chan withdraw, the motion swifter than you’d have liked for losing the completeness of having him inside you, but the reason becomes clear when he props up and strips once, twice over his slick cock, throbbing in his palm. He comes with a sharp pant of your name, blushed from chest to ear as he coats your belly with milky, warm ropes of his release.

What follows amounts to blissful aftercare; you’re cleaned up with a towel retrieved from his drawers and offered something to drink. All you truly want is the man that so defiled you back at your side, to be held until the sun comes up.

With no room allowing for separation in his single bed, Chan enacts the bigger spoon, your nakedness tucked into his under the comfort of his blankets. His warm, steady breath on your neck encourages the exhaustion that you had hitherto kept at bay; now in post-coital heaven, you stand no chance of doing so.

“You think we’d have met if the world hadn’t ended?” he asks dreamily.

“I don’t see how,” you whisper.

“Washington’s not so far from New York. We might have bumped into each other.”

You smile warmly; what a thought.

“Maybe in a coffee shop or something. I’d have bought your latte for you and offered to take you to dinner.”

"Yeah?” you laugh gently.

“Mhm. I’d have embarrassed myself trying to impress you,” he sighs.

“You wouldn’t have needed to try.” You turn over slowly, pressed close to take in the softly flushed planes of his face. “I’d have been infatuated right away. I was.”

Chan blinks slowly, his lashes thick and dark. “I know you think it was me that saved you,” he whispers, cupping your cheek, the pad of his thumb sweeping your lower lip tentatively. “I can’t help thinking that’s all wrong. Like, twisted, somehow.”

“What do you mean?”

“I just... have this feeling; I’ve had it since I pulled you out from under that dead one. Like I can hope that everything will be okay again, and it’ll be because of you.”

You swallow over the rising lump of emotion, turning into his palm to speak against it.

“We’ll make everything okay for each other. Promise.”

“Then you’ll stay?” he blinks through damp lashes. “You won’t leave?”

You shake your head; how impossible a notion.

“Not even if the world was ending again.”

𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚, 𝙧𝙚𝙗𝙡𝙤𝙜, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙨 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙢𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙞𝙣 𝙖𝙣 𝙖𝙨𝙠 ♡

[jl-micasea-fics]

Dressing Down | hhj

❝𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐢𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬?❞

↳ A shopping trip with the gloriously attractive, delightfully oblivious man you've lusted after since time began? During a particularly lengthy dry spell? Definitely not a recipe for disaster.

↳ Hyunjin x female reader

↳ 5.8k

↳ Best friends to lovers, romance, mutual pining, angst and sexual tension with a happy ending, eventual smut

! Explicit content, adult themes throughout, suitable for 18+ readers only !

「© July 2020, rewritten July 2023 by jl-micasea-fics」

Twelve sharp, he’d said.

Be on time, he’d said.

Do not miss your alarm, he’d said.

And so it is that Hwang Hyunjin, ever a paragon of hypocrisy, is running late. You’d be surprised if it wasn’t so utterly on brand.

The last message you sent him says something towards your growing impatience:

<< where the fuck are you hwang

Feeling (and looking) not unlike a spare dick at a wedding, you loiter outside the mall entrance, glancing up and down the busy street for any sign of the honey-blonde head you fully intend to forcefully remove from the shoulders. It’s warm today—nicely sunny, the sky is a pleasant powdery blue—which posed good enough reason to dig out the summer wear from the deepest recesses of your wardrobe set for autumn. Days like this, you rather enjoy; waking up to unexpected warmth, the universal lifting of moods that, in your case, at least lasted until your best friend soured it with his tardiness.

Perhaps it wouldn’t irritate so much if he hadn’t pressed so hard against your insistence on picking him up in favour of driving himself, yet the reasons for that were plain enough: he’s just purchased a brand-new BMW convertible, billiard red and as garish as garish comes. Quite how a second-year college students affords such an expense continues to elude you, but where Hyunjin is concerned, flamboyance is par for the course.

Just as you’re about to send a second (far more graphic) threatening text, the distant growling of the engine you’ve been conditioned to loathe carries from down the street. The glaring red chassis approaches, catching sharp angles of sunlight. You shrink into yourself, more so embarrassed by the thump of the obnoxious EDM track that blares from the thing unfiltered. When he pulls up curb side, all Ray-Bans, white grin and windswept blonde tresses, you hurry over, leaning through the drawn down window.

“Do you have any idea how much of a wanker you look right now?”

He kills the ignition, the gratuitous music dying out. Passers-by double take, their faces awed. You wonder which is doing it; the car or the man. Hyunjin pouts, Ray-Bans sliding down his nose.

“Also, you are so fucking late,” you hiss. “I can’t believe you.”

Unable to bear being the centre of attention any longer, you about-face and march towards the mall, through throngs of people. You hear the abrupt slamming of a car door, the electronic beep of its locks, rushed footsteps that catch up just as you make it to the revolving entrance.

“Are you, like, seriously mad?” He grabs your shoulder.

“Yes! You were the one that went on so hard about being on time, blah, blah fucking blah, yet I was the one left waiting like a tool. Then you have the nerve to make an entrance like that?” you gesture vaguely towards the BMW. “It’s so—”

“Man, I’m sorry,” he pouts again, now holding both your shoulders. “I didn’t think I was that late.”

You roll your eyes, shrugging out of his grip, stepping into the revolving glass segment that he quickly hops in with you. He guides your paced steps by hands on your shoulders—again—and once out of the spinning death-trap, slips his arms down and around your waist from behind, pulling you against him.

“Don’t be mad,” he coos, “I’m super sorry. I’m the sorriest I’ve ever been—”

You struggle half-heartedly. “Release me, demon.”

“I’ll make it up to you?” he speaks into your neck, squeezes you tightly, and despite yourself, you laugh (squeal)? Staying angry with Hyunjin is about as feasible as ice cream withstanding the sun.

“Please, kitten?”

And your struggle ceases momentarily; in all the years you’ve known him, he’s never addressed you like that. Something base and wanting throbs in your chest, and while it’s far from the first time you’ve experienced such a sensation in his company, it is the first time it’s caught you off guard. He unwinds himself from around you; you step away quickly, glad of the space.

“Fine,” you clear your throat. “You’re forgiven.”

Hyunjin grins, smug with his victory. “Knew you couldn’t stay mad.”

“Shut up.”

You start walking; he falls into pace with you. The mall is as busy as one expects it should be, and while you definitely have an objective for today, you’re not averse to looking around. Anonymous jazz plays quietly over the mall speakers, shoppers go about their business in groups or alone, the bravest of them with kids in pushchairs or toddlers on leads. Teens outmanoeuvre the elderly when there’s a crowd jam—usually nearest the shop fronts—and the scent of commercialism hits in targeted waves: perfume at the beauty outlet, fresh cookies at the bakery, soap at the hipster store.

Your name is called as Hyunjin nudges you. “I, uh... didn’t actually look like a wanker back there, did I?”

“Kind of.”

He grimaces. “Wasn’t what I was going for.”

You scoff into your palm. “Should put that on a bumper sticker: ‘this car makes me look like a wanker, sorry.’”

“Oh yeah, you’d love that, huh?” he laughs.

“It’d be a marked improvement.”

He glares at you, the glint of mischief in his dark eyes. The nature of your relationship never up for debate when you’re with him like this; easily, comfortably. Whatever struggles come from taking in the angular planes of his stunning face are yours alone.

“Jerk,” he deadpans.

You poke your tongue out at him. “Bitch.”

***

“Hyunjin!”

You can only reason that clothing shops make their chairs so goddamn uncomfortable by deliberate design: buy something and get the fuck out, is the key takeaway. Sat on the horrid plastic thing and calling Hyunjin’s name into the men’s dressing room, you wonder if he’s ignoring you on purpose.

Taking mercy on your posture and rising, you call to him again. “Are you done or did you find Narnia?”

Inside the dressing room is a long row of cubicles draped by dark velvet privacy curtains. Chic spotlights beam down from the ceiling, leaving white spots in your eyes when you leave them focused for too long. You rub them when just that happens, resigned to action. That shirt should not have taken this long to try on.

The end most cubicle is the only one drawn over; you head to it, detecting the grumbling grunts of a struggle the closer you get.

“Everything alright in there?” you ask dubiously.

“Wh— Why are you in here?” Hyunjin complains from inside. “I’m fine!”

“Doesn’t sound like it.”

More struggling resounds from beyond; there’s a thump against the wall. You bite back a laugh.

“Do you need help?”

“Why do people just fucking lie about sizes?” he whines, and after a moment, the chaos stops.

“Okay. I’m coming in.”

“Don't you dare—”

And in pulling back the curtain to slip inside, what awaits you is not quite what you expected. Having tangled himself in something of a makeshift strait jacket, the man’s right arm is elevated uncomfortably, the shirt constricting him by bicep and shoulder. His left hand holds the hem that’s ridden up his torso, too small to apparently drag over his chest. Quite how he managed it, you can’t begin to imagine, but regardless, he’s thoroughly stuck.

“Well...”

“Don’t,” he sighs. “Just help me.”

His complexion tinctured a rose shade of mortification, he begrudgingly allows you to assess the state of things. Force seems like the most obvious solution, and so you instruct him to turn around. Now facing the floor-length mirror, he grimaces when you tug the back of the shirt, the material pinching his skin when you drag it up.

“Ouch, damn it, be careful!”

“How the hell did you even get this on?” you huff, his temporary discomfort an afterthought at best.

“It has a zipper, but it got stuck. Fuck, watch it!”

“Oh, you better stop complaining, Hwang Hyunjin. I’ll leave your ass here to rot.”

He whines exaggeratedly. “I don’t want to die like that. I’m too young and pretty.”

Which he is, but validating that would be a fatal mistake. It’s not like you’re ignorant to the toned planes of his muscled back.

“Where’s the zipper?” you ask, giving up on force.

He turns awkwardly, the dressing room hardly allowing for such manoeuvring.

“At the front. Here—” with his free hand he tugs down the collar, exposing the locking mechanism.

“Need a gentle touch with these things,” you mutter, stretching out the fabric to allow for a straight pull. A little easing and working of the zipper, and it budges slightly.

“It’s coming. Just a little more—”

“God, please,” Hyunjin wails.

Thoughtless is the way you brace your other hand against his abdomen, firm and warm under your palm, more so than is probably usual in light of his self-inflicted stress and tension. Your eyes meet for a brief second—a fleeting recognition of the touch, of the sensation—and you bring focus back to freeing him. A final guided pull of the zipper brings it sliding from chest to hem, the relief immediate as the shirt falls open on him. His arm comes down and he sags against the mirror, and in his blissful reprieve he must not notice the way you unashamedly take in the way he looks half-dressed: the sheen of exertion on his tan skin, the ridges of his abdomen relaxing and contracting with his heaving breaths, the glow the spotlights cast on him. For the simple fact is that Hyunjin is a model of a man, his beauty enough to render the busiest of minds an empty void. And in that void, when robbed of sense or shame, you’ll admit to seeing to the matter of your own relief, the last such occurrence being when, shower fresh, he opted to walk around your flat bearing nothing but a damp towel slung low around his svelte hips. You were fully (and unwittingly, on his part) apprised as to the impressive endowment of your best friend, and with the emergence of such information, a date with your toys was a given.

“Thank fuck for that,” Hyunjin groans, rubbing his sore shoulder.

You pull yourself together. “You’re welcome.”

“What would I do without my little kitten to save me, huh?”

Your swift escape from the dressing room is somewhat cowardly, but with your composure already in so fragile a state, stopping to address the sudden use of this infernal pet name doesn’t strike you as the wisest of choices.

“Meet you outside,” you call over your shoulder, your rushed pace through the clothing shop matching that of the pounding in your chest.

Back in the mall proper, the arousal lingers, setting you on cool edge. Sure enough in yourself to know that nothing outside true relief will ever alleviate it, and you’re not likely to get that until you’re home alone, you settle on pacing. It helps somewhat; staying in motion, not stewing.

When Hyunjin emerges from the shop empty handed some moments later, he’s all smiles once more.

“Where next?” he asks brightly.

Focus is good, you suppose.

“Need new shampoo,” you sigh.

Falling into stride, you walk the upper floor of the bustling mall, knowing vaguely the route to the nearest beauty outlet. It’s warmer up here, you think. Hard to tell what’s responsible for your sudden flustering.

Hyunjin frowns at you pointedly.

“What?” you ask.

“Why new shampoo?” he pouts. “I like the stuff you use now.”

Not particularly taken with the idea of explaining that your current drugstore brand appears to have an unholy drying effect on your ends, you simply shrug.

“Just feel like a change. Do I need your permission?”

And in the moment that follows, you’re drawn close into a sudden embrace secured by his hand around your nape. Standing a head taller than you, it’s no task for him to take a deep inhalation from your crown, the sensation a bolt of hot lightning down your spine. When he breaks away, you shove him by the chest, albeit weakly.

“What the hell was that?” you gripe, heat in your cheeks.

“You smell good.”

“What?”

“Your shampoo,” he presses, “makes me feel some kind of way, I swear. Don’t change it.”

You wonder how much of what he’s saying is true, how much is purely for the gag. He finds no small amount of pleasure in teasing you, such has always been the case, but when his ribbing crosses the boundaries of physical space, things get murky. You ache for validation from him on a level too intimate to entertain, and when he so recklessly manhandles and compliments and asks things of you...

“Don’t sniff me,” you deadpan, turning from him and pacing ahead, unable to summon the cool collectiveness of character that nonchalance requires.

He catches up quickly. “So you’ll keep it?”

Your silence attests to your surrender. He hums in knowing victory, a gentle elbow nudging you. Would he find such delight in it all if he knew how sorely you pined?

Several minutes of walking—you stroll straight past the beauty outlet—and a particularly intriguing shop front comes into view.

“Hold up,” you poke his arm, then point. “Want to go in there.”

He follows your direction, his face drawing notably vacant. Valid, you suppose. It’s not every day one visits an ‘adult store’, and when one does, they’re probably not with their bestie.

“You, uh, don’t have to come with if you don’t want.”

His brows pull together under blonde locks, hands shove into his pockets. “What do you need in there?”

“I just want to see,” you reply honestly, having had it in mind to forgo the sex toy section in favour of perusing the lingerie; a few nice bras never go amiss, and on the vibrator front, you’re as stocked as is needed. Yet in light of Hyunjin’s apparent trepidation, an idea altogether mischievous dawns on you.

“Wait out here, man,” you laugh, pat his shoulder. “I appreciate it’ll be a little much for you.”

Hyunjin sneers, “Fuck off. I’m coming in,” and with that, strides into the adult store without so much as a falter. Not even remotely surprised by his rising to the presented challenge, you follow him inside.

A little revenge for the suffering he’s inflicted, perhaps?

***

Never one to unnecessarily primp and preen, the sensation you find yourself amidst is decidedly foreign. It feels like confidence—tall and strong, it has your back unwaveringly—but is tinctured with a giddy anticipation that has you reaching for your phone to take a picture.

You look indescribably good. The thin black straps of the lace bralette criss-cross neatly over your chest, the deep plunge accentuates your cleavage. Dainty frills run the hem of the item to decorate your upper ribs, as they do the matching silken thong it comes with. The band pinches your hips in just the right, appealing way, offering a satisfying snap against your flesh when you pick at it, intrigued. Such extravagance isn’t in your nature, but even you possess a level of self-awareness when it comes to knowing one’s strengths; lingerie might just have to join them.

A steeling breath in, and you peek beyond the dressing room curtain, glancing up and down the empty room.

“Hyunjin?”

His name carries through the space, but no response comes. You shift nervously.

“Hyunjin!”

“What!?” he hisses.

“Could you come here?”

A second of silence, then he whisper-shouts, “You lose the last of your marbles? That’s the women’s dressing room!”

“There’s nobody else here, just come through! I need your eyes.”

“No way.”

Irritated, you resort to dirty tactics.

“Fine. Forget it. Guess I don’t really need a second opinion on this lingerie.”

Something of a gamble to hinge his compliance on a promise of seeing your semi-naked form; there’s nothing to say he’s even remotely interested enough to be enticed. And if he is, what questions does that raise? Amid this minor—terribly belated—crisis, Hyunjin appears from around the corner.

Oh, God.

Too late to tell him to turn back, he hurriedly crosses the room, darting into the cubicle and drawing the curtain back with a sharp drag. Pressed to the wall to make room for his entrance—this one is even smaller than the last—it’s only when the rush of stealth passes to leave the muted sound of your combined breaths that you realise the proximity; the gravity.

Hyunjin visibly swallows. Close enough that you see the way his pupils dilate when the moment stills and he rakes a gaze from your toe to top, lingering where the lingerie clings snuggest. His jaw locks firm.

“What do you think?” you whisper, unsure if his looming is intentional or not.

He wets his bottom lip by brief dart of tongue and shakes his head. “You really want my opinion?” he asks, his voice a tone of gravel hitherto unheard.

He steps forward inasmuch as the space will allow; more of a shuffle, a readjustment of stance. Your body throbs when his arm props beside your head; caged in and feeling every inch the prey to his predatory nature, your knees all but threaten to give out.

“I think you know exactly how fucking hot you look.”

And his other hand steadily drops to the curve of your waist, a touch so featherlight it may well pass for hovering. Desire curls around you, and in its wake you arch from the wall, seeking closeness to him. The corner of his mouth is pulled up in a grin, your breath catches tight in your throat. It’s equal parts mercy and wickedness when he touches you with intent, a glide from waist to hip that settles at the band of your thong. An inaudible sigh when he picks carefully at the thin strap, your lips parted in such voracious wanting of the man, yet he gives nothing so obvious away. In snapping the material against your flesh, you all but whimper, for as slow and controlled as this is—as he is—it still feels to be happening too fast.

He drags in a heavy, shuddering breath; arm removed from the wall, both hands travel up your sides, across your prickling navel, to your chest where he traces the lace of the bralette with fingertips.

“Hyunjin...”

Your whisper falls to another whine when he cups your breasts gently, the swell of your cleavage so appealing to him. In pushing them up and together, the bralette tightens, and he watches with so intense a darkness you can hardly stand to keep from throwing yourself at him. The ache between your thighs is now so unbearable you wonder how you’ll even make it home at all; he leans to your ear, soft blonde tickling your feverish skin. Lips against your lobe, he speaks softly:

“Did you think you could get one over on me, kitten?”

And he drops back, all contact lost. The sting of neglect is so brutally sharp, you’re too stunned to consider what his knowledge of your trivial gulling even means. In the light of day, it might suggest that he’s well aware of the effect he has on your libido and state of mind, that he acknowledges what sexual tension lives between you; what just transpired certainly attests to that.

“Meet you outside,” he states coolly, surreptitiously readjusting his groin before he throws back the curtain and steps out.

It takes a moment for the bleak reality of it to settle: your best friend has just left you so high and dry, you’ve never nursed such concentrated arousal, such thick and heavy wanting. If he had asked, you’d have given yourself to him. You’d have let him have his way in any and all manners.

Was the point of that exercise not to regain a sliver of power? How had it backfired so badly? How had he so easily turned it on its head? How much longer will you dance around admitting that you crave him?

Dressing yourself in a daze, you suppose falling back on old faithful is about all that’s left to do.

You’ll never let you down, after all.

***

Saying a frosty goodbye to Hyunjin was far from pleasant, yet utterly necessary.

You hadn’t even required excuses by which to take your leave of him; he didn’t question it. It had crossed your mind that he might be aware of how severely he’d overstepped this time, and his reluctance to press you on the matter of your departure was a direct result of that. At some point then, could you expect an apology? Would you even want it, considering the precedent you set for the tense back and forth?

Too highly strung to give reasonable thought to any of that in this moment, once back in your apartment, the plan extends to nothing much more complicated than aided masturbation; you’re going to fuck yourself until you can no longer feel your legs, and that should bring you back to a semblance of coherent self.

Spread legged on your bed, you’re almost halfway there. The silicone of the vibrator is inexplicably smooth inside you, the drag so delicious (even if it is lacking in ways only the real thing can manage). A self-taught expert in edging to the closest degree of release, the steady hum of the toy takes you to the precipice: you drag yourself back from it by total removal, accustomed to traversing the peaks and valleys of your pleasure threshold. Some might say it’s a lonely affair, and in the most obvious ways, it is, but when needs come knocking and all one has is their own enthusiasm, what else can one do but fantasise about their best friend and play back how it felt to be touched by him?

Fully absorbed in your own tryst, you don’t hear the gentle knock on the door. Neither do you hear its creak when it opens, nor the steps that you would otherwise recognise well.

Your name is called softly; opening your eyes to the visage of your best friend in your room, the response is one of panic. Senses returned, you startle to a shriek that sees you scooting up the bed.

“What the fuck!?”

He lifts his hand, a set of keys dangling from them. Right; you did give him those.

“What are you doing here?” you breathe, registering beyond the shock that he’s wearing the same jeans and shirt you saw him in earlier. Did he even go home?

“Thought I’d check in on you,” he says, that same tone of gravel laced deeply. “Seemed a little off today.”

“Get out.”

He shakes his head. “Can’t do that.”

“Seriously, you need to leave, I’m—”

“What?” he cocks his head. “Fucking yourself?”

As if requiring the blunt observation to even remember you’re holding your vibrator, it falls limply from your hand amidst the choke of mortification. Hyunjin perches on the end of the bed, thoroughly unfazed by your semi-nakedness.

“This is why you ditched me?” he asks coolly.

You swallow, unsure how to answer. Telling the truth of it would give so much more away than he knows.

“Because of what happened in the dressing room?” he presses. “The little game you tried to play with me?”

“It wasn’t a game.”

“What was it, then?”

“I... I don’t know.”

He skims a hand through his loose blonde locks, a huff of breath through his nose. If nothing else, he seems at least to be amused as he sighs, “Do you think you’ll ever be honest with me?”

Your heart pounds unforgivingly. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” he stares you down, “the way you try to hide everything. Do you really think I can’t tell when you’re keening for a fuck?”

You can only watch in disbelief when he repositions on his knees, a few crawled paces bringing him to your feet where he stops, hand poised expectantly over your ankle. He searches your face for the nod; when you give it by the subtlest of motions, he wraps a grip around it, stretching your leg out to drag you to the mattress proper. He crawls over you, his frame so deliciously all encompassing.

“Always wondered what you’d look like underneath me,” he muses, knuckles skimming your cheek. “Fantasies didn’t come close.”

“Hyunjin...”

“Why didn’t you just tell me?” he breathes. “Why did it have to come to this?”

You puff a resigned laugh, thoroughly humourless. “How was I supposed to do that? You’re my best friend, Hyunjin. Best friends aren’t supposed to want to fuck each other.”

He lowers himself, the space between your mouths so infinitesimal you feel the way his lips shape the words when he whispers, “Says who?”

And when he kisses you, it’s a spiral of immediate wanting. The brushing of lips melts to tongues slick and hot, such pent-up yearning as you’ve nursed for so long manifesting in the way you open yourself to him so readily. Futile to attempt concealing the scalding degree of your desire, your thighs open and legs hooking around him draw him close. He holds his weight on his hands, pushing back and away with tender pillowy lips that curve into a smile of wicked intent. He disappears down your body, repositioning between your legs still opened for him; one hand pressing your navel, the other guiding left thigh up and apart. On eye level with that which he craves most, his curse is one of unadulterated appreciation:

“Fuck, kitten. So pretty.”

The climb to orgasm already underway and with Hyunjin’s knowledge of such intimacy, he’s slow to get you there. Gentle fingertips part you and explore, the soft flick of his tongue an unhurried glide that edges you carefully. The relief comes in tangible waves that, though so desperately wanted, threaten to crush you: so it is that the cap of a shaken soda bottle will explode so violently.

“God... taste so good.”

“Hyunjin—”

He hushes you softly. “I know.”

And the coil of pleasure tightens to straining as he suckles with lips formed snug around your throbbing clit, as he eases middle finger inside you to stimulate the wet tenderness therein. Your reaching for the pillow to clutch at and whine into is intended to spare you from further mortification; your best friend is moments away from making you come brutally, and he knows it.

“Oh my god— ngh—” your muffled cry is encouraged to fill the room when Hyunjin reaches up, snatches the pillow to toss it aside.

“You’ve made me wait this long and you’re going to try and hide from me?” he scoffs, a particularly deep plunge of his slim digit drawing a heavy moan from you. “That’s better. Just like that.”

His mouth returns to where you need it most, and just as your body is wracked with the first tell of orgasm: everything stops.

Confused, defeated as the promise of release tragically diminishes, you look down at the man still poised between your thighs.

“What are you—”

He kisses your inner thigh, eyes hooded. “Didn’t think it was going to be that easy, did you?”

And perhaps you should have foreseen this; his nature has always been to tease, to lead, to draw out. Why should he be any different where matters of sex are concerned? Even more so when the events leading to this very moment were themselves steeped in such illicit chasing?

While you consider yourself a self-taught expert in the craft of delayed gratification, Hyunjin appears to have been taught by certified masters. Some period of time later and the man has thrashed all sense of coherence from you with the repetition of bringing you to near-orgasm, only to pull it out from under you with a promise of more. With this one, you don’t mind admitting to balancing on the verge of tears. Your body aches, your muscles a mess of involuntary trembling that Hyunjin soothes by reassuring touch.

“Hyunjin, please—”

He quirks a brow at you, detaching mouth from your centre. “But you’re doing so well, kitten.”

“I— I can’t... can’t take anymore—”

A lazy finger stretches you and roams your sensitivity, the glide comically easy with your sopping arousal.

“You should give yourself more credit,” he rasps, “four ruined orgasms and you’re still keeping it together.”

“I’m not,” you plead, “I’m really not. Just let me come, please.”

“Love the way you sound when you’re this desperate, kitten.”

“I need it so badly, fuck—”

 Instinct brings your hand down to offer yourself some relief; it’s promptly swatted away, Hyunjin’s disapproving tut follows.

“You want to come?” he taunts. “Fine.”

And the assault on your aching core comes with such swiftness you can hardly withstand it. Caressed by tongue and smothered by puffy lips, the euphoria that starts as the slow unravelling of your very fibre is no longer denied; it gains momentum and drops you from a breathless height, vision starring as you liquefy amongst the most powerful orgasm you’ve ever had.

Quivering form held in place by hand still over your navel, Hyunjin drives you through it, the slow, steady pump of his fingers indicative of his unwavering attention. Even as the comedown calls to you, he perseveres.

“Hyunjin—”

What should be post-coital content is instead steamrolled; Hyunjin is relentless, his ministrations unforgiving. Unable to gulp down a breath or keep your limbs from trembling, you clutch the sheets beneath you.

“It’s too much, it’s too— ngh, fuck—”

A searing second orgasm plucks your soul from body; Hyunjin grins against you, even the hot of his breath proving to be too much in all your overstimulated state. Thrown from pillar to post, the void you’ve so often visited alone in your stupors of lust settles over you like a heavy blanket; you’re present, but unthinking beyond the man that, in this moment, owns you.

“Good fucking girl,” he praises, mercy given when he rises from between your legs to kneel over you. Unsure when he even removed his own clothes, you’re thoroughly taken with the sight of him naked; his cock hangs thick and heavy, and it seems to you an unreal prospect that you should be expected to take it.

Not that you won’t give it your utmost, soldier that you are.

“Turn over for me,” he instructs.

Breathless, boneless, you make some form of attempt to do. On your weakness, Hyunjin guides you to your front, a whispered reassurance offered, “You’re doing so well, kitten.” Hands and knees imprinting the mattress, a drag of large palm down your spine arches you just so. Presented to him, for him, the initial breach is grounding in ways you hadn’t anticipated: Hyunjin is ludicrously well endowed, and every inch he sinks, even despite your blatant arousal, is met with bated breath. He draws tight when he bottoms out; your knees buckle, he keeps you suspended by curve of hips.

“So soft,” he groans, “fuck, you fit right around me—”

And the pace he sets is one of acclimatisation, steady and firm as he finds familiarity in the way you take him, as you melt into the way he drags in and out. Mattress creaks accompany the soft smacks of skin, your broken sighs an encouragement.

“Harder—”

Hyunjin hisses, your presented cheeks are squeezes appreciatively amidst a snap of hips.

“Don’t stop,” you press, “you feel so good—”

He groans low. “Fuck, yeah. Keep talking.”

“You’re so hard, so fucking big—”

He preens, reaching over you to slide a gentle grip around your throat. He pulls you up and back against him, his snapping forcing each staggered breath from your lungs.

“Do you like getting split open, kitten?” he pants in your ear. “Like it when I fuck you raw?”

“Mhm, feels so nice, please—”

He releases you for you to fall to the mattress, and where your knees buckle again, this time there is no assistance. He follows atop you, the pressure of his palm over your shoulder blade keeping you pinned. Fucked into the bed with such fluid strength you’re rendered unable to speak—much less think—the new angle allows for a deeper penetration, a third strong orgasm when the drag of his length gets you there. Somewhat mercifully, yours brings his, the tremble to his form and blush of his complexion indicative of his surrender.

“Oh fuck, fuck— I’m going to come so hard—”

“Inside me,” you plead as his strength fails and he covers you with his body, his chest to your back and your shoulder subjected to open-mouthed attention. Buried into your skin, he fists the sheets beside your head, throaty groans of his unfiltered desire accompanying his sharp, shallow thrusts that fill you up.

The moment of stillness is occupied by your laboured breathing, the respective pounding of your hearts. Silence holds as he rolls from you, and while you would normally seek to engage in much-needed clean-up, you can’t even stand to move. It’s a surprise, then, when Hyunjin rises and disappears to your en-suite, returning with a towel. Too exhausted to entertain embarrassment when he firstly dries the sweat from your skin, then parts your thighs to dab up the worst of what leaks from you. He does it wordlessly and with a tenderness you thought him incapable of; when he’s done, he returns to your side.

Unsure what to say now that the urgency of lust has passed, you’re glad when Hyunjin speaks first.

“That was pretty unreal.”

You gently laugh your agreement. “Yeah.”

He turns to you, seeking your gaze. When you give it, the sincerity there is yet another unexpected turn of his character.

“I’m glad,” he says softly.

“You are?”

He nods. “At the risk of sounding like an arrogant prick, I always kind of thought this would happen. You could cut the tension between us with a blunt spoon.”

“You say that, but I thought it was just me that felt it.”

He quirks a brow, amused.

“You give absolutely nothing away,” you explain. “Until today, I was resigned to forever pining after my best friend.”

“Well,” he sighs, pulling you into his chest, “now you can forever pine after your boyfriend.”

Warm in his embrace, against his skin, there’s something almost elegant in the way he so nonchalantly presents and decides on the status now shared between you. From bestie to boyfriend, in so simple a sentence as that. And why dispute it, when the idea brings you to such delight? To be able to call him more than just a friend is a fantasy hitherto ignored. Now it’s your reality.

“Need to go back to the mall tomorrow,” he mumbles among the calling of sleep. You look up at him, confused.

He grins lazily, the very picture of mischief. A soft kiss pressed to your forehead, his nose brushing down your temple when he whispers in your ear:

“You and I have unfinished business with that lingerie, kitten.”

𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚, 𝙧𝙚𝙗𝙡𝙤𝙜, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙨 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙢𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙞𝙣 𝙖𝙣 𝙖𝙨𝙠 ♡

[jl-micasea-fics]

I Really F**king Like You | bc

↳ Tinder matched and subsequently ghosted by the hot guy that lives across from you, you’re mostly resigned to singleton life, dejected and somewhat fed up. That is, until a screwed up delivery turns things around, in the most unexpected of ways.

↳ Bang Chan x female reader

↳ 10.7k

↳ Strangers to lovers, DILF/single dad Chan, neighbours au, online dating au, romance, angst with a happy ending, eventual smut

! Explicit content, adult themes, suitable for 18+ readers only !

「© August 2022, reposted May 2023 by jl-micasea-fics」

Flat 2.

As in, the accommodation between flats one and three.

As in, the residence opposite yours.

As in, the living space occupied by him.

You’d had a good day, up until this point. Work had been relatively peaceful, save for that one particularly stubborn customer that simply couldn’t grasp the concept of needing proof of purchase for a refund.

You suppose that in this moment, you know how that customer had felt. Looking down at the neatly strung brown paper parcel in your hands, you’re confused, concerned, and more than a little annoyed.

The label on the box reads, stark and clear, ‘Copper Court, Flat 2’. Yet here you are, having retrieved it from your pigeon hole; and your pigeon hole most certainly isn’t labelled ‘Flat 2’.

Your first thought is to shove the parcel in his pigeon hole, and you would, were it not already stuffed full to the brim with letters and magazines, spam leaflets from the local takeaway offering twenty percent off pizzas on a Tuesday.

A good neighbour would just take it up to Flat 2. A good neighbour would empty the pigeon hole of its current postal nightmare and take that up too, hand delivering it with a smile.

But here’s the thing.

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[jl-micasea-fics]

Something In The Rain | lmh

❝𝐋𝐞𝐭 𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐨 𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐫.❞

↳ Chapter ¼ of Something In The Rain. Inside the polished walls of Help, Heart and Justice Limited, you work under the guidance of enigmatic senior attorney Lee Minho to support him and his legal team. And perhaps under all the professionalism, feelings stray, yet you’re committed to keeping said feelings buried whilst you pine from afar. Until an act of kindness on a dark, rainy evening turns everything upside down; for even the most put together of men must indulge their demonic appetites.

↳ Lee Know x female reader

↳ 9k

↳ Supernatural au, strangers/colleagues to lovers, office romance, lust demon Lee Know, eventual smut

! Explicit content, adult themes, suitable for 18+ readers only !

「Contents List」  「© May 2023 by jl-micasea-fics」

Rainy nights are truly among your favourite things.

It seems universally known that there is something inexplicably and inherently comforting about them.

To speak personally of your own comfort, it’s sitting in a space of your own making, wrapped up in warmth while outside the elements rage. You’re far from afraid of such weather—rather, you admire the raw power of nature—yet watching the downpour from the safety of indoors brings contentment. There is separation from the chill and the wet: you’re out of reach of the unforgiving bite. When the melodic patter of heavy raindrops bears down on you, there is stillness and serenity, and what follows is catharsis.

You long for such peace in this moment, as the unforgiving rain streaks the twenty-fifth-floor windows, distorting the dark panorama of the city.

You’re no stranger to long days, thoroughly conditioned to late office hours. Indeed, where others may be inclined to gripe about such overtime requirements, you consider it an obligation, for the nature of litigation demands an overinvestment of attention. Assisting a small team of attorneys under the much larger corporate umbrella of Help, Heart and Justice Limited equates you to something of a small fish in a big pond; your efforts to reach above and beyond the outline of your role go largely unnoticed by those that swim high above, assuredly carnivorous in proclivity. And that’s fine. It’s always been fine. You work to assist the people, for the people, neither assuming nor seeking praise.

At least, that’s what you tell yourself; that your reasons for lingering at the office are chaste and noble, that your integrity is intact when you bend over backwards to accommodate the enigmatic senior attorney that heads your team. To claim your efficiency and dedication is a product of anything other than an ironclad work ethic would be incomprehensibly unprofessional, wildly slanderous, a cruel accusation.

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[jl-micasea-fics]

Perfect Distraction | lfl

❝𝐈 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐬𝐚𝐰 𝐲𝐨𝐮…❞  

↳ Felix is the perfectly untouchable man you can only long for from the back of the college lecture hall; until a chance encounter and offer of distraction brings those yearnings closer than you ever thought was possible.

↳ Felix x female reader

↳ 8.6k

! Strong language, college au, strangers to friends to lovers, mutual pining, angst, slow burn, explicit sexual content, vanilla sex, oral sex (f. and m. rec), body worship, praise, use of pet names, sexual discovery, adult themes throughout !

「suitable for 18+ readers only」  「© July 2020, rewritten April 2023 by jl-micasea-fics」

Felix’s back was a profound thing.

It was where you found your gaze most often lingering when the monotony of lectures led your mind to wander, and perhaps that was natural; it stands to reason that one should firstly see what’s right in front of them. Perhaps the heightened interest with which you examined him day after day was also just as natural.

Or perhaps not.

Still; the extraordinary demanded your undivided attention. And that wasn’t to say it was Felix’s back itself that was extraordinary. By all accounts, it was a perfectly normal back. Rather it was the feelings that cropped up when examining said back with a slow and appreciative eye that it made it so special.

There had been changes since the term started; imperceptible to anyone else, you were sure. The span of his shoulders was broader now, the fit of his shirts a little snugger. The outlining curve of his shoulder blades had strengthened, his hunching over desk or rising into a stretch offered glimpses of the toned muscle beneath the cotton. The days where he ran late and thus rallied to make lectures in time were your favourite, for on those days the silver tresses usually gathered neatly at his nape were damp with the sweat of exertion, the pale skin beneath blushed. Occasionally he might scratch his neck, and you would wonder if he felt the tickle of your gaze burning so bright a hole into him, the prospect equal parts needlessly giddying and mortifying. Thoughts would roll around your mind, and arguably, were best kept there: would he be soft to touch? Perhaps he’d be surprisingly firm. How would his back look in the absence of a shirt?

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[jl-micasea-fics]

Wrong For You | hrj

❝𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐮𝐩 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐦𝐞.❞

↳ He's been your best friend since college, and you've been in love with him just as long. Procrastination can only get you so far; now he has a girlfriend, and she's so very, very wrong.

↳ Renjun x female reader

↳ 8.6k

! Strong language, friends to lovers, bestie vs. gf, themes of rivalry, gaslighting, insecurities poked at, gf is an unpleasant individual beware, mutual pining, tension and angst, explicit sexual content, so much making out, dirty talk, angst w a happy ending, adult themes throughout !

「suitable for 18+ readers only」  「© April 2023 by jl-micasea-fics」

Today, the city is grey.

The sky is a blanket of heavy, dark cloud, the winter rainfall is dense and unforgiving. Gathered puddles on the pavements spill over to the roadside drains, collecting in dips and cracks of concrete. Passing cars kick up waves of surface spray, their windscreen wipers frantic. Pedestrians huddle under their umbrellas—the only sight of colour around—rushed in their paces and keen to get out of the cruel weather.

Staring listlessly through the rain-streaked window of the second-floor café, you try to recall what the city looked like basking in the warmth of sunshine. You miss it; this winter has felt especially endless. Two months until spring comes.

Renjun snaps his fingers in front of your face. “Hello?”

Pulled from your daze, you blink back to clarity. Renjun frowns at you from across the table, his pout a tempting swell of glossy pink. His two-tone black and blonde is swept back from his forehead, his white jacket finished with the blue beads around his neck.

“Might as well have come here by my damn self,” he grumbles.

“Sorry,” you sigh. “I’m so out of it today. Hate this weather.”

He hums, stirring his cappuccino with a dainty teaspoon. You know he agrees; he’s a sunshine bug too.

“We should go on a trip,” you suggest.

Renjun pauses his stirring; he looks at you incredulously over his silver rimmed glasses.

“Like we used to,” you press. “Remember the hot springs? God, they were so fun. It’s been too long.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

“Your enthusiasm is staggering, Jun. I can go by myself.”

“No, sorry. I didn’t mean to be a downer. It’s just... things are complicated now.”

Complicated. You wonder if he knows that’s not how most guys refer to the existence of their girlfriends.

“Right,” you nod, looking back out the window, heart sinking.

Renjun’s finding of a girlfriend was as unexpected as it was painful; when he’d announced he was getting on the dating apps, you’d put no real stock in it, knowing from experience how difficult it was to form any tangible connection amongst a sea of people simply looking for short-term thrills. That was never Renjun’s thing. He’d get bored and move on eventually. Yet if anyone could find and catch a coveted rainbow fish, it would be him, and he’d done just that. Hence the unexpected.

As for the painful...?

“I, uh, actually have something to tell you on that front,” he says.

You quirk a brow at him, none too keen to hear anything related to his relationship, yet resigned to the fact that you’ll have to if you wish stay in his life.

“Zara’s coming here.”

Your throat constricts amidst a surge of dread.

“Like, any minute now,” he adds.

“You’re ambushing me?”

He shakes his head. “I’m not, I swear—”

“Jun—”

“I just want you meet her, is that so bad? I’ve been trying for weeks! I talk so much about you and she’s curious, you know? I’d love for the two of you to get on—”

“You should have told me,” you seethe.

“So you could make another last-minute excuse to get out of it?” he challenges, dark eyes determined, and in that, you suppose he’s not so wrong. His attempts to introduce you have so far failed at every turn, and if you really look to reason you can see why desperation might drive him to such a pincer movement as this. His intentions are good; he wants the people he cherishes to come together, and any sensible individual couldn’t possibly resent him that. Indeed, you don’t. You simply resent how much it all hurts.

Moments pass suspended in tension, and when Zara eventually arrives, she does so looking every inch the early ‘Gen Z hot girl’ that she is. A cropped white tee reveals tan skin and the makings of abs, fitted flares accentuate her hips and thighs. Her blonde mane is tamed by a silk scrunchie, her makeup minimal, but still somehow statemented. She turns heads—literally—and you go about making rapid, unhealthy comparisons as you rise and greet her, the hug you offer turned handshake by her subtle recoil.

Renjun glows as she settles beside him; you feel not unlike an alien specimen being examined by the very standard of beauty itself, male and female, perfect and untouchable. It strikes you that, at least aesthetically, they appear made for each other. Couple goals; is that what they call it?

“Want something to drink, baby?” Renjun asks her.

Your gut churns uncomfortably. Zara looks around the café, at its quaint, rustic décor and charming ornaments.

“No, thanks.”

“Hungry?”

She shakes her head, linking her arm through Renjun’s. Yet more churning.

“It’s nice to finally meet you,” you say after a beat of silence, keen to fill it. “Jun talks about you a lot.”

Zara smiles; it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Ren-ren talks about you, too.”

Ren-ren...?

“You both mean a lot to me,” Renjun says innocently. “It’d be cool if we could do more stuff together.”

“Totally,” Zara appears to agree. “Do you work out? We could go to the gym.”

“Oh, well, no,” you reply, suddenly self-conscious. “Not so much. With work and everything—”

“Yeah. Thought not. You should totally start.”

Oh.

“That’s actually how Ren-ren and I met,” she turns to him, closing into his side. “It was love at first squat.”

Renjun scoffs, a blush rising over his cheeks; you’ve never seen him blush before.

“That’s sweet,” you force.

Renjun looks at you sheepishly; you wonder if he detects anything outside his bubble of apparent bliss. If he does, he doesn’t give it away.

“You and I met in college, right?” he then says to you. “Feels like forever ago.”

“Yeah. It really does.”

Zara’s nose scrunches; she looks around aimlessly.

“She actually works in publishing,” Renjun tells her, oblivious to her waning attentions. “Worked her way up from an internship to assistant editor. Awesome, right?”

“Sure,” Zara smiles, pulling her phone from her pocket. “If books are your thing.”

“Books are my thing, actually,” you exclaim, stewing in disbelief. Snide quips on your physical state aside, your profession is not for belittling. For everything else about your life that might be vague, work explicitly isn’t. You did get the dream job, and you’ll die on the hill that is protecting it.

Zara stares vacantly, then unlocks her phone. “Cool.”

And she spends the remainder of the time on it, scrolling through whatever social media platforms she no doubt reigns supreme over. You detect Renjun’s consistent discomfort; he scratches his nape, his leg bounces beneath the table, he surreptitiously slances at her phone and attempts to engage her in the conversation. It’s painful to watch.

Parting ways from the café comes as a relief; you bid them goodbye and decide that the manuscript you weren’t going to look over today suddenly doesn’t seem as daunting a task as it did two hours ago. Some time after the event, a text from your best friend comes through.

>> what do u think?

Never being one to abstain from honesty with him, you reply to that end.

&lt;< Not what I expected.

The response comes instantly:

>> meaning?

<< She’s just not who I thought you’d end up with.

>> who did u think i'd end up with?

And it seems that being irrevocably in love with your best friend has a way of filtering every thought and word to cautious extremes. It overshadows everything, drives your decisions and your actions. Your hitherto avoidance of his girlfriend, your reluctance to accept that she is it for him, your inability to find love elsewhere. Part of you miserably concedes that if anything romantic were to occur between you, it surely would have by now, after so many years spent together. Another part—irritatingly naïve—clings to hope that things may yet change. There are moments; fleeting occurrences where gazes linger and a weight of anticipation shimmers, where his hand hovers in stillness over yours, and you’re so sure that if you tried to cross the boundary of friendship, you wouldn’t suffer rejection. It would be your name on the tip of his tongue, your arm linked through his.

But timing is a fickle mistress that suffers no procrastinators, and now he has a girlfriend.

***

Renjun and Zara are a package deal.

That’s what you’ve learned over the last four weeks. Getting him alone is an impossibility, for wherever he is, there Zara lingers. Impromptu dinners and last-minute coffee catchups are a thing of the past; Renjun needs notice now, and ample of it. On the occasions you do see him, invitations are naturally extended to his girlfriend; he says she has a ‘thing’ about best friends of the opposite sex, to which you’re too dumbfounded to argue. Equally as dumbfounding is the suddenness with which he’s become so unavailable; prior to your meeting, his girlfriend was never a problem. Now, she seems to be the obstacle central to everything.

So: Renjun and Zara are a package deal. Fine. You can tolerate it, if it means making Renjun happy. You most certainly prefer having him like this than not at all, which is the only other alternative save for his ending of the relationship, and as things stand, you think Hell is likelier to freeze over before that.

Still, you feel his absence. It’s worse at night, when memories of time spent huddled over popcorn and in the company of a Netflix thriller encroach on your loneliness. A glutton for punishment, you find yourself scrolling through his Instagram; a once sparse but artistic affair turned a hub of grand romantic gestures and #couplegoals monochrome reels; his arms around her, his hands on her, their love edited to perfection. Your follow request to Zara still pends approval.

First impressions count for everything, and yours of Zara was far from rosy. Ever the optimist you sought to give her the benefit of the doubt; first meeting nerves can taint one’s character, a lack of confidence may manifest obnoxiously. It soon became clear that your doubt was misplaced; Renjun is kind and conscientious. Zara is not. She’s wrong for him.

She’s wrong for him, but he doesn’t see it. He’s in love, you muse silently, watching as the pair stroll ahead down the street, gathered close under a black umbrella. He talks to her with a gentile tone that makes your stomach twist; she giggles and stays close. Occasionally, when Renjun looks elsewhere with attention diverted, she’ll glance back at you, the eye contact pointed. She does the same to others that pass by, every one of their stares injects her ego, and still, he doesn’t see it. If you were being kind, you might draw her nature up to a symptom of her generation; she craves the attention, wants to be wanted, is only validated by the longing gazes of others, and by that reasoning can’t help the way she seeks it out. If you weren’t being kind; well, you’d get in trouble for that.

The destination is the restaurant down the street; a newly opened vegan place that claims its food tastes ‘just like the real thing’, and really, you can’t help but think that’s doing vegan food an overall disservice. Still, when Renjun texted you two nights prior suggesting dinner, you jumped at the chance. It’s been over a week since you last saw him. You have yet to say much more than ‘hello’ to him; Zara hanging from his side makes it difficult, as is customary now.

 Approaching the restaurant, umbrellas are drawn down and Renjun holds the door open, firstly for Zara, then for you (to her pouting disapproval).

“Thanks,” you offer him a timid smile, unable to meet his gaze.

“Sure.”

Inside, you’re shown to a table near the rear of the venue. The whole place smells distinctly herby, though not unpleasant, the décor colourful without being too garish. Adequately hipster, you suppose. When seated, it’s the same affair as usual: Renjun and Zara versus you. You realise now that she waits for you to sit before positioning herself directly opposite; you’d thought it was coincidence.

Renjun picks up a menu and hands it to you; Zara takes it. He smiles awkwardly. A pierced and tattooed waiter takes everyone’s orders (you rush to choose the first thing you really see thanks to Zara’s menu-hogging), and all that remains is to wait.

Silence falls over the table.

“How have you been?” you eventually ask, chipping away at the iceberg. Your question is directed at Renjun.

“Great, thanks for asking,” Zara replies.

Renjun clears his throat. He puts a hand on Zara’s, which seems to placate her. “Good, yeah. You?”

“Good,” you lie.

“How are things at work?” he asks, dark eyes trained to you. In risking a glance up at him, you realise the gauntness to his cheeks, his sallow complexion. Alarm sweeps through you in a hot wave; you reign in the urge to hug him.

“Fine,” you mumble. “Busy, you know. As always.”

Renjun smiles. “Right.”

“I, uh... I actually read a manuscript the other day that made me think of you. You’d have liked it. It was about this—”

“Oh my gosh, where is this food?” Zara suddenly complains in a huff.

Irritation ticks your jaw. You take a slow inhale and continue, “It was about this artist that's been having a recurring nightmare since childhood. He decides to try and understand it, and paints it, and basically gets—”

“I am starving.”

Renjun cringes, but does a good job of hiding it. He pats Zara’s hand. “It won’t be much longer, baby.”

He turns back to you. “Go on.”

Gathering the fragments of your worn patience, you try to collect your thoughts again. “Uh, so, he’s been having a nightmare, and he paints it hoping it’ll help him figure out why he’s having it. It becomes this massive work, spanning over several canvases, and he can’t control it. He can’t stop painting. It ends with him—”

“Ren-ren, could you get me a water?”

And you snap.

“Do you not hear me talking?”

Zara blinks at you nonchalantly, thick black lashes fanning over her cheeks. “Excuse me?”

“I’m talking,” you repeat sternly, “you keep interrupting me.”

She scoffs and shrugs. “Well, damn. I’m just out here emoting, honey. You don’t have to get so—”

“Could you maybe emote in silence?”

Renjun looks frantically between you.

“I’m sensing some aggression that I’m not enjoying,” Zara states patronisingly. She turns to Renjun. “You need to get her under control.”

“Okay,” you rise from the table, collecting your bag as the chair skids across the tiled floor. “I’m done.”

Renjun calls your name. “Wait!”

But you’re already halfway across the restaurant, and it’s surely a mercy that you don’t see the dainty wave Zara affords after you or the smugness on her face.

Outside the venue, it’s pouring down; in your eagerness to leave, you’d left your umbrella behind. Looking up at the grey sky, you once again lament the sunshine. One month until spring comes.

Starting down the street at a rage-fuelled pace, you hope to walk it off if the downpour doesn’t dampen it first.

A voice from behind calls your name again, and in the next moment, a breathless Renjun catches up to appear before you, umbrella raised over your head. You expect the shrill cry of his girlfriend to follow mere seconds after, yet it doesn’t.

“I’m so sorry about her,” he pants, rain cascading from the rim of the umbrella. Patches of damp stain his white shirt. “She can be a little feisty sometimes.”

You balk at him. “Feisty?”

Renjun blinks cluelessly, and you suppose so many weeks of withholding is long enough.

“You really don’t see it, do you?”

His brow furrows. “What?”

“Her,” you point back in the direction of the restaurant, “the way she is. She’s a bad person, Jun.”

He rolls his eyes. “I know you’ve had a falling out, but isn’t that a bit extreme? You can come back from it—”

“Come back from it?! Don’t you see the way she treats people? The way she treats me? Like I’m dirt on her shoe?”

Renjun stares, seemingly dumbfounded.

“I have tried to be amicable for your sake,” you continue, “but I can’t anymore, Jun. She’s the most self-absorbed person I’ve ever met. She’s the total opposite of you in every way that matters, which makes me wonder what it is you even see in her past the obvious.”

“I... I’m with her because I love her.”

“I refuse to believe that.”

“It’s the truth.”

“It can’t be, Jun, because your being in love with her would mean you’re a bad person too, and that’s simply not true.”

Renjun’s jaw locks; he drops his gaze to the puddles at your feet.

“You are my best friend,” you speak over the din of rainfall, “but she doesn’t respect that. She doesn’t respect either of us. Maybe I should have told you all this before she drove a wedge between us, but I wanted you to be happy. I thought you were.”

“I am—”

“Don’t lie to me. I have eyes, I see the state of you. Even if I didn’t know you, I’d think you looked like warmed up shit.”

He scoffs, but it’s far from amused.

“It’s not my place to tell you what to do, but I’ll still call it as I see it. She’s so wrong for you.”

Renjun tips his head back, his breath condensing on the chill air. He looks at you, the ends of his two-tone black and blonde dripping water.

“And you’re right for me?” he says.

Your heart seizes. You try to say something when he steps forward, concealed from the world under the umbrella that he lowers over you.

“Is that what you’re implying?” he presses, his voice an octave lower. Something warm and heavy swoops through your gut; he reaches to your chin, gentle thumb and forefinger tipping your head back to his view. It gets harder to breathe.

“After all this time?”

Gaze flicking from your eyes to parted lips, it defies all sense that this should be happening now. Even in moments past where you thought something could have happened, it’s never been like this; so heated and apparent. He’s never been so—

“Ren-ren!”

And the fragile knitting of the standoff is shattered.

Returned to self, you shove him by the chest, snatch the umbrella from his grasp, and take off down the street.

You can't discern the tears from the rainfall.

***

Watching the slow-moving bicycle icon trail across the tracking map with a concerning intensity, your stomach growls impatiently.

“Cycle faster, you shit,” you grumble.

Ultimately conceding that staring at the delivery driver probably won’t make food come any quicker, you toss your phone to the sofa. Immediate problems are a decent enough distraction from the events of the day, especially when easily solved: you didn’t get to eat earlier, thus are wasting away, therefore require sustenance in the form of the saving grace that is Deliveroo. Easy.

The problem of your best friend, however, requires rather more thought. If before there had been uncertainty surrounding his feelings for you, you suppose there isn’t now. It’s crossed your mind that his earlier advance may well have been a product of the momentary turmoil; that wouldn’t be out of the realms of possibility, if a little harder to swallow than the pleasant, preferred alternative.

Either way, you suppose the ball rests in his court. Whatever happens next should be down to him; you’ve said you piece and made your feelings on his girlfriend clear. When he ends it, that’ll at least be a weight removed from your shoulders.

A sharp buzz resounds from your side; you scramble for your phone. It’s not the delivery driver.

You answer the call, tapping loudspeaker. “Hello?”

“Hi.”

His voice always deepens when he’s tired. You wait for him to speak.

“Did you, uh... make it home alright?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. That’s good.”

Silence passes; anxious anticipation curls around you.

“I wanted to apologise. Like, properly.”

“For what?”

“For... what happened earlier. For trying it on with you like that. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Oh.

“So, yeah. I’m sorry.”

“Okay,” is all you can manage with the lump solidifying in your throat. Renjun clears his and speaks again.

“Zara wants to apologise too.”

The anxiety warps to sickness.

“We talked things through. She didn’t see what an asshole she was being. I know you have your... reservations about her, but I really think if you just hear her out, you’ll change your mind.”

Tears prick and streak down your cheeks; there’s no reasoning with him now, you realise.

“I gave her your number. She said she’d call so... heads up.”

“Okay.”

“I hope that was okay to do.”

“It’s fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Jun, I have to go. Food’s here.”

“Alright. Well, I’m sorry, again. See you soon?”

“Sure.”

It’s the first time you’ve ever actively sought to get off the phone to your best friend; the first time you’ve ever been relieved to do so.

Food arrives twenty minutes later, which is time enough for you to regain a sliver of composure. You pay the cyclist, and tip him well.

A shame that it goes cold on the table.

***

The next day, you’re so buried in work you don’t have a spare cell capable of affording thought to anything else.

Meetings with authors first thing and manuscript approvals mid-morning, lunchtime is worked through responding to emails and early afternoon is spent reviewing submitted redrafts. Late afternoon is yet another meeting with a partner publishing house, and as early evening ticks over, you’re brutally reminded by a dizzy spell and mercifully brief spate of double vision that you’ve yet to consume anything other than coffee in more than sixteen hours.

Checking your phone on the way the café down the street brings a dose of reality: seven missed calls from an unknown number, two from Renjun, and a text from the unknown number that reads:

>> hihi, it’s Z, call me x

Better to do it before there’s food in your stomach, you suppose. You’d rather not have to see it again. Dialling the unknown number, it rings only twice.

“I have been calling you, like, literally all day.”

Your gut twists uncomfortably; even the sound of her voice manages it.

“Yeah. I work.”

She makes an obnoxious sound of realisation. “Right! The magazine?”

“If by that you mean the publishing house, then yes.”

“Hey, so, Ren-ren wanted me to call and say sorry for yesterday or whatever but I figured it’d be cooler for us to meet up.”

“Zara, this is all kind of pointless. You don’t actually want to apologise and I’m not—”

“Awesome, I’ll text you the deets. You’re free tonight, right?”

“I actually have quite a bit of work to do—”

“Cool! TTFN honey!”

And just like that, the line dies.

Simmering in irritation all the way to the café, not even the sweet delight of a chocolate muffin can lift the funk. Back at work, you reschedule everything you’d planned to do that evening, supposing there’ll be overtime tomorrow instead.

You begrudgingly google ‘TTFN’.

Do people just say acronyms now?

***

The bar Zara instructed you to meet at is further from your part of the city than you really like to venture; you’re far too jaded by now to believe the inconvenience isn’t deliberate.

An hour-long taxi ride later and nursing sufficient anxiety for being in unfamiliar territory, you send her a text:

&lt;;&lt; I'm here.

The message reads as delivered and seen, but no response comes. Scrolling up the sparse messages to check the name of the bar she sent you beforehand, you’re sure you’re in the right place; the slick stainless-steel sign above the door reads ‘Hub 069’. Supposing that loitering outside won’t do you any good, you gather the scraps of your courage and head in.

It’s immediately apparent that this isn’t a place in which you belong. If money had a tangible aesthetic, the décor of Hub 069 would be the epitome of it; glass and sleek metal curves into furniture, the low lighting is deep blue and white to compliment the sultry atmosphere. Tall poles stretch from floor to spot lit ceiling, several with empty, open cages built around them. There’s no obvious dancefloor, but there is an elevated stage of sorts, its curtains drawn over and floor dark. The consistent hum of a low track plays over the space; it’s too anonymous for you to make out anything other than the occasional bass drop, but it fits the vibe regardless.

You spot a back bar that’s quiet save for two others propping it, the shelf behind it mirrored and lined with vintage liquors on opaque shelving; it gives the illusion of going on endlessly. Heading over to it, you attempt to carry yourself with the self-assurance you know you would have if you were anywhere else, striding through the mix of beautiful people both stood and seated.

Approaching the bar, it takes a moment before you’re noticed; even ordering a double vodka and tonic makes one feel inferior. With no sign of Zara anywhere, you check your phone again and send her another message.

&lt;;< I’m at the bar. Where are you?

Twenty minutes later, a familiar voice spikes your already shot nerves. Glancing over your shoulder, you see Zara entering with two others; a man and a woman, both dripping glamour. Zara herself is wearing the shortest little black dress you’ve ever seen, finished with thigh-high platform boots and a thick chain choker. She looks around, spots you, says something to the man who affords you the most judgemental thousand-yard stare you’ve ever been subjected to before ushering the other woman off across the floor. Zara approaches you; you knock back the rest of your vodka tonic.

“Hi, honey,” she breezes, smelling as expensive as she looks.

“You’re late.”

She pouts dramatically. “I know.”

Rooted in disbelief, watching as she orders a drink, it strikes you just how deeply you don’t want to do this. Nothing about Zara is likeable or relatable; at least not from where you’re standing. You’re chalk and cheese, oil and water. The best friend and the girlfriend.

“So, I’ll keep this short, because, like, my friends are waiting,” she says, “but I’m not here to apologise to you.”

You resist the urge to laugh—as though you hadn’t known that—and instead manage a stilted, “Okay.”

“You and me don’t vibe, like, at all,” she continues. “I know you’re Ren-ren's bestie or whatever—”

“No,” you interrupt her, “not ‘whatever’. I am his best friend, Zara. I have been for a long time, and I’ll continue to be whether you’re in his life or not.”

She blinks, her thick, fake lashes fluttering. “Right. Whatever. But, like, the thing is, we don’t vibe, and so I’m going to need you to leave him alone.”

This time, you don’t resist the urge to laugh. Zara—for the first time—falters, her face dropping.

“I don’t know why that’s, like, funny to you—”

“Funny? It’s fucking hysterical.”

“I’m not joking. You really need to stay away from him.”

“Okay,” you try to compose yourself, “let me just make this clear, because you obviously didn’t hear me the first time. I will be in Renjun’s life whether you like it or not, as his best friend, as his support, as whatever he needs me to be. Nothing is going to change that. The sooner you make your peace with it, the better.”

Zara huffs, her overly glossed lips pressing to a thin line. “People shouldn’t have friends of the opposite sex. It’s weird.”

You gesture across the bar. “Didn’t you just come in here with a man?”

“Doesn’t count. He’s gay.”

“Right,” you laugh, thoroughly exasperated. “Sure. Are we done here?”

You move as though to leave, retrieving your bag from the bar. Zara grabs your arm, stopping you in place.

“Get your damn hand off me—”

“You’re in love with him,” she deadpans.

Momentarily stunned, your face must give away the truth of things when your heart plummets. Zara sneers, her lips curling back over white teeth.

“Knew it.”

 You snatch your arm out of her grasp. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re really going to pretend?” she presses. “It’s, like, so obvious, the way you pine after him.”

Defensiveness rears its ugly head. “My feelings for Renjun are my business, Zara. They’re not for you to poke fun at.”

“They totally are though.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, like, what else am I supposed to use against you?” she shrugs.

You stare at her, horrified.

“I mean, imagine hanging onto someone since college hoping they’ll notice you one day,” she giggles, “it’s totally pathetic.”

A lump of emotion solidifies in your throat. You’d known she was a bad person, but this? Zara leans in, her voice dripping vitriol.

“News flash, honey. If he didn’t want to fuck you then, he doesn’t want to now. He never will. It’s giving super desperate.”

“How dare you—”

“Aw,” she coos, “does the truth hurt? It must, right? Because, like, you’ve been so delulu all this time.”

Upset warps to seething rage, and before you do something you know you’ll regret, you’re storming out of the bar, leaving the high-pitched cackles of Zara behind.

Outside Hub 069 is when you remember you’re an hour away from anywhere familiar; too tightly strung to even entertain despair, you simply start walking. Through darkened city streets until your feet begin to blister and your soles ache; until you start to feel the downpour, already soaked through to the skin. Until the heat of anger has subsided so that it gives way to hopeless weakness; until you finally start crying, taking refuge under the striped canopy of a brightly lit convenience store.

What hurts the most about it is that nothing she said is too off the mark; none of it you haven’t considered yourself. There was a time when you were certain your feelings would be perpetually unrequited, in fact. That you and Renjun would never be more than just good friends. Now, however? Things are different. You’re different.

Dragging your sleeve over your tear-streaked cheeks, you fumble for your phone, pulling it from your bag. Dialling Renjun’s number comes easily; it’s muscle memory by now.

After a few rings, he answers.

“Hello?”

“Can you come and get me?”

“Wh—” there’s ruffling from the end of the phone. Was he in bed? “Weren’t you meeting Zara?”

“Yeah. I did.”

Silence; he takes a breath.

“And?”

“And I need you to come get me. Please.”

You wonder if he hears the torrential patter of cascading rain, or the distant sounding of a car horn. Does he hear the billowing of wintry breeze that inspires you to a shiver?

“Drop me a pin. I’m on my way.”

***

Renjun’s car is warm.

It’s also a chaotic mess of empty bottles and aged art supplies; but it’s warm.

Holding your hands by the dashboard vents that blast out hot air thaws the winter chill from your bones; your sodden clothes still stick uncomfortably to your skin. Renjun hasn’t said much aside from instructing you to get in and throwing a blanket from the backseat over your legs; he drives now in stoic silence, his face drawn sombre.

Through the car window, the nightscape passes by in wet streaks of red, white and amber. The steady swish of the windscreen wipers fills the silence; they squeak against the dry glass when he passes under a bridge. The engine hums when in motion and rattles when at a stop, indicative of a problem he ought to look at, perhaps. It wouldn’t be the only one.

After half an hour of silence, you can’t take anymore.

“Thank you for coming all this way,” you say quietly.

Renjun hums. “Sure.”

“I appreciate it.”

He nods, eyes trained to the road. “I know.”

Stuck for something else to say, you’re grateful when he finally sighs.

“Why would she drag you right the way out here?”

You only realise he’s not looking for a genuine answer when he speaks again.

“It’s like she’s trying to be awkward,” he huffs.

Despair curls around you. Why must you be forced to be the bad guy?

“Pull over, Jun.”

He glances at you. “What?”

“Stop the car.”

“O— Okay.”

He pulls into a side street, then around again into a small car park fenced off by thin chain-link; there’s only one streetlamp that burns brightly in the centre of it, several other dark, empty cars are parked up.

He switches off the ignition, stares down at the wheel. Part of him must know what’s coming.

“Zara didn’t meet me because she wanted to apologise,” you sigh. “She warned me off you.”

Renjun’s brow furrows, his already tired eyes narrowing. “Warned you?”

“She told me to stay away from you. To get out of your life.”

He shakes his head.

“You don’t believe me?” you press.

“No, I do. I mean, I know you wouldn’t lie.”

“Yeah. I wouldn’t.”

He rakes his hands down his face, his exasperation rife. “I don’t know why she’s being like this.”

“She’s a bad person, Jun. I told you this.”

“Is that really it?” he mumbles, hands dropping to his lap. “Why don’t I see it?”

“Because bad people are good at manipulating others,” you confess.

“You think I’m being manipulated?”

You shrug. “I think you love her, and it’s hard to see past that.”

Renjun’s head falls back to the rest of his seat. He stares through the windscreen that’s just beginning to fog over.

“Do I love her?” he mutters.

Another question he doesn’t want an answer to, you suppose, but the opportunity seems as good as any you’re going to get. A diversion, perhaps.

“Can I... ask you something?”

Renjun’s head lolls towards you; he nods.

“The other day, outside the vegan place...” you assess his reaction on mention of the event. He doesn’t look away from you. “What was that?”

He puffs a small laugh. “Who knows? Another one of our moments, probably.”

Your chest seizes with the ache of hope.

“Moments?” you press.

“What, you’ve never noticed? We have moments.”

He turns towards you slightly, angling so he can stretch his left arm over the back of your seat, his shirt pulling tight across his broad chest. Heat rises up your nape, blooms in your cheeks.

“I’ve noticed.”

He quirks a brow. “Yeah?”

You nod. “I thought it was just me.”

“It wasn’t. It’s not, I mean.”

Misty condensation crawls over the windscreen, the eerie glow of the streetlamp casting strong shadows down the planes of Renjun’s face, the smooth length of his neck.

“Have you ever thought about us? In that way?” you ask.

Renjun swallows. He wets his bottom lip, gaze drifting to your mouth. “What way?” he rasps.

“In the way that friends shouldn’t.”

He smirks gently. “Yeah.”

A heavy swoop of wanting renders you somewhat lightheaded.

“But you never made a move,” you breathe.

“I was never sure. Had a lot to lose.”

“Are you sure now?”

It’s stunted, the realisation that during this whole exchange, he’s been gradually closing in on you. When the next words roll from his lips, they’re inches from yours.

“So sure,” he whispers.

And the connection you’ve been longing for is made; Renjun kisses you, softly and with a tenderness that clutches the fibre of your being and forever tethers you to the man. When he breaks off carefully, it’s a mere second to allow for acceptance; you clutch his shirt and drag him back.

The rain bounces off the hood of the car, relentless in its tinny rhythm. The blanket of darkness outside, the tangible weight of heat in the car makes this a secret so far removed from what you had hitherto believed; that your best friend was never a realistic option. Now, with your lips on his and your groans on his tongue, it feels pretty damn real.

He breaks away again, flushed across cheek and chest. “We should stop.”

“No—”

You kiss him again, a clashing of lips and momentum that Renjun counters with his weight, leaning over you to press back against the creaky seat. His hand closing around your throat, gentle and clammy, sends a wave of voracious wanting straight to your core; you hold his wrist, urging him closer, licking into his mouth.

“Jesus,” he pants breathlessly, “you taste even better than I imagined—”

You groan softly. “You can’t say things like that to me, Jun.”

“Why not?”

“Because it makes me crazy.”

He grins against your mouth. “I don’t mind a little crazy, baby.”

***

Back at your apartment, things move quickly, and perhaps that’s for the best.

In the dim of your living room, Renjun strips the wet clothes from your skin, the sliver of moonlight bleeding through the curtains bathing your complexion. Every hitch of breath and wanton sigh feels deafening in the silence; it’s vulnerable, to be so open and bare like this, but all the more natural.

There’s a conversation to be had, you know, and were you not the victim of years’ worth of crushing longing you might pause to entertain it. As it stands, you’re far from able to tear yourself away from the man. Better then, that it appears to be mutual.

He likes the way you taste; he’s told you as much. He likes the way your lips feel, an apparent glutton for kissing every inch of your mouth. His are swollen now, temptingly plush. They travel down the column of your throat, a tingling trail left on your skin. The nearest hard surface is a chest of drawers tucked near the television unit; you’re backed to it, lifted to it, legs spread for him to stand between. His shirt discarded to reveal broad chest and a gentle wave of abs brings you to near frantic delight; your hands roam over him, appreciating every curve and blemish.

“It’s so weird,” you mumble quietly.

Renjun watches you. “Weird?”

“To touch you like this; like I've always wanted to. I feel like I should be reprimanded or something.”

He curls a grip around your wrist, bringing your arm around his neck. His lips close on yours as he whispers, “That can be arranged, baby.”

Arousal pools silken in your core; with one hand he lifts your right thigh up and apart, with the other he traces a teasing touch over your naked centre, the expanse of his palm cupping you warmly. You grind instinctively against him, the desire for friction demanding it.

Renjun grins and says on a staggered breath, “So pretty right here.” He isolates his middle finger, dragging it through your folds. “So wet.”

 “Jun, fuck—”

“Want my big cock, baby?” He palms over the swell in his jeans, guides your hand to do the same. The thick impression under your fingers sends butterflies in your gut to soar; you make quick work of his belt buckle and zipper, tugging the clothing down his thighs until he takes over. When free, he strokes himself slowly, tightly. Gripping the lip of the furniture you’re perched on, your core throbs with wanting on the suggestion of being filled, for Renjun’s lengthy appendage promises such satisfaction.

“Well?” he quirks a brow. “Do you want it?”

You nod weakly.

“Can’t hear you.”

“Yes, Jun. I want it. God.”

“Better,” he rasps, a step forward connecting your bodies for him to angle just so. By the curve of your ass, he drags you sharply to the edge of the furniture, his blushed head catching on your entrance when he aligns. You hold your breath, arms thrown around his neck, so much more than prepared for this.

He locks your lips when a gentle ease of his hips guides him inside; every nerve ending fires off and white static descends over your consciousness, your whimper of delight in taking him so deliciously dying out on his tongue. Renjun draws tight, holds so until the relief of being sheathed inside you allows him to relax. Connected on most every level two people may be, he breaks away to lift your chin with thumb and forefinger, attaching his mouth to the underside of your jaw as he whispers, “Hold on tight.”

And his warning is not unfounded; Renjun fucks you with a vivacity you thought him incapable of, the rhythmic drive of his hips strong and pointed on every thrust. The thump of the drawers against the wall accompanies the litany of expletives falling from your lips, bruised and bitten from his enthusiasm. Held spread by his hands hooked under your knees, Renjun moves with a steady fluidity that sees you stimulated in the deepest reaches.

Over his shoulder, the darkened window of your living room reflects the moonlit scene back at you; the toned muscles of his back and thighs that wave like an artform, the rigidity of his stance that speaks to his seemingly endless stamina, the thin coat of sweat that renders him almost iridescent.

“Jun,” you whimper hopelessly, “I can’t—”

“You can,” he hisses, “you can, baby. You’re doing so well.”

Slinking from him to rest against the wall, Renjun releases your knee to drag an appreciative touch down your clammy chest, to your navel.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs, then guides your thighs up and spreads wide, exposing your tender centre for his viewing pleasure. He watches with smouldering intensity as he disappears inside you, coated in your arousal, the repeated entry slick and easy. He manages what length of his throbbing cock is given to you; sometimes the inches of his tip and one more, sometimes the full seven.

“J— Jun,” you claw at his chest, “I’m coming—”

“Yeah, fuck... good girl.”

When your orgasm hits, it brings his. Removed from physical constraints of the body, you float boneless through the euphoria that is having the most incredible sex of your life. The sight of Renjun falling apart amidst praises of your name is one you won’t soon forget; hopefully won’t have to.

Swaddled in bed with him after the clean-up, (he insisted on showering with you), it strikes you that this is how it must feel to cross a line you’ve been tiptoeing along for so many years; like fulfilment. Uncertain, but somehow complete. Your best friend naked at your side, you turn to him and take him in. His plush lips relaxed in content, his eyes closed as sleep crawls over him. His black and blonde hair freshly washed and towel dried, the gentle rising and falling of his still blushed chest.

“Jun?”

He opens his eyes slowly.

“We did a thing,” you whisper.

He smiles lazily. “Yeah. We did. A good thing?”

“It feels like a good thing.”

He hums his agreement. “It does.”

“You’re a talker though, huh?”

“You knew that about me.”

“I guess. I didn’t think it extended to everything though.”

He eyes you dubiously. “You don’t like it?”

You shake your head. “Didn’t say that.”

“Good. Because there’s still scope for that reprimanding you wanted.”

Silken warmth blooms in your core; this is certainly a side of him that’ll take some getting used to where your sanity is concerned.

“So... you’d want this to happen again?” you ask, somewhat timidly.

His brow furrows. “Would I want to have the best sex I’ve ever had, again? Are you kidding?”

“I mean—”

“I know what you mean. Yes, I do. I’d like it to happen a lot, actually.”

You swallow over the lump in your throat. Renjun taps his chest, opening his arm for you to snuggle beneath. In doing so, you’re almost as confused as you are thoroughly delighted; this is all so new.

He kisses your crown softly. “I’ll get things straightened out with Zara in the morning,” he speaks into your hair. “I know this wasn’t the right way to do things, but I’m glad it happened all the same.”

“You are?”

“Yeah. If it didn’t happen now, it might never have.”

“It would have,” you whisper. “I’d have made sure of it.”

Renjun laughs gently, the vibrations in his chest under your ear.

“You were always supposed to end up with me, Jun.”

He sighs listlessly, his fingers soothing through your hair.

“I know.”

***

Five weeks ago, in this very café, you met someone who had everything you wanted.

Now, you sit opposite that same person, and her countenance is just as icy as it was back then. Yours, however, is decidedly lighter. You don’t look at Zara and see all the things she has that you don’t; you look at her and simply see her for what she pretends to be.

And in the spirit of pretence, you place your phone to the table.

“What is it that you wanted, exactly?” Zara huffs, arms wrapped around herself as though fearing she might catch a disease from the rustic venue.

“I wanted to thank you.”

Zara scoffs. “What?”

“I wanted to say thank you,” you repeat.

“I don’t get it.”

You smile sweetly. “If it wasn’t for you, I never would have had the courage to go through with telling Jun how I felt.” You pause, pleased with the vacant gloss that crosses Zara’s face. “Or, I suppose, showing him how I felt.”

Her mouth opens, then promptly closes. It reminds you of a pufferfish.

“You gave me an epiphany, Zara.”

“A what?”

“After your attempt at blackmailing me yesterday, I figured I had nothing to lose. Why was I keeping my feelings to myself? I mean, I’d always had an inkling that if Jun and I ever tried to cross that line of friendship into something more, we’d hit it off big time. I guess I was super right.”

Zara leans across the table. “What the hell are you saying to me? What happened?”

“Well,” you speak thoughtfully, “after I left the plastic club, I called Jun. He picked me up, and we talked, and then...” you look around sheepishly, then pull down the collar of your sweater just enough that the mark of Renjun’s passion is exposed; perhaps you exacerbated it with some brown eyeshadow.

Zara’s cheeks turn a strange, beetroot colour. “You’re trying to tell me you screwed my boyfriend? Like, you?”

You nod triumphantly.

“There’s no fucking way,” Zara laughs, “like, look at you. Look at me. He’d give up prime fucking steak for a mouldy old hamburger? Be serious right now—”

“Best sex of his life, I think he said.”

“You’re a fucking liar!” she rises from her chair. “I’ll totally destroy you, bitch. You think Ren-ren would even look at you? That he would cheat on me!? I knew you were delulu but this is giving psych ward—”

And at that moment, the venue door opens, inviting the street chill inside. Still sitting calmly, you glance over your shoulder. Renjun, having just entered, holds his phone to his ear, his expression sombre. The colour drains from Zara’s face.

“Ren-ren...?”

He lowers his phone, holding the screen to her. Your caller ID dances across it; you tap the screen of your phone, still positioned face-up on the table, and promptly end the call. For Zara, the pieces click into place relatively quickly.

“You... heard all that?” she mutters.

“She told me you were a bad person,” Renjun says coolly. “I didn’t want to believe it.”

Zara starts across the café towards him; you rise quickly from your chair, stepping into her path. She falters but doesn’t push it.

“You blackmailed my best friend,” he continues, “belittled her. Dismissed her at every turn. Made her feel like she was worth nothing; like her feelings were worth nothing. What has to be fundamentally broken in a person to make them capable of doing that?”

“You’ve got it totally wrong, Ren-ren—”

“Enough!” he hisses. “Just stop pretending, Zara. For once, be real.”

And something in her demeanour appears to snap; like the mask falls away to reveal the rot beneath.

“You know I have, like, three other dudes hanging off me, right?” she sneers. “I’m not short on attention. Guys trip over themselves trying to get to know me. My DM’s are so packed it’s like the fucking Superbowl in there.”

You breathe out a laugh, unable to withhold it.

“What? That’s funny to you? You wouldn’t even know what attention feels like, how good it feels to be wanted—”

“Oh, I know how good it feels to be wanted,” you smile saccharine.

“You’re nothing,” she continues.

Renjun takes your hand, seemingly done with the display. “Come on.”

You nod at him, turning away from the first person you’ve ever seen spiral into their own built-up delusions in real time.

“You’re a pair of fucking nobodies!” she cries.

You wonder if there might have been another way to do this. Not so publicly, perhaps. Does a bad, brutal person call for a bad, brutal comedown in every case?

“You think you got one over on me!? I don’t get cheated on; I do not get dumped!”

You turn back to her as Renjun opens the door for you. A snide wave and a smile of genuine delight, you simply say:

“TTFN.”

***

“Oh, fuck, Jun—”

Among your plans for this Sunday afternoon, getting your back blown out wasn’t quite on the list. Having said that, it’s a welcome addition.

Renjun holds you at the curve of your hips, the rhythmic smack of skin timing to his brutal thrusts. He groans your name and curses aloud, the thick length of his cock driving every staggered breath clean from you in a litany of whines and moans.

Five weeks since the incident you’re mutually calling ‘the great breakdown’; spring is finally here.

Life is a level of blissful you hadn’t thought was achievable. You’re not sure there’s such a thing as moving too fast when you’ve both suffered such longing; there’s been talk of him moving in with you, talk of meeting parents, talk of future plans that—while somewhat daunting for the most obvious reasons pertaining to change—are inexplicably exciting.

“God, you’re so good baby. So good at taking me—”

And as Renjun still talks, your susceptibility to his filth has only grown.

“Want it,” you whimper, “want all of it, Jun, please—”

Blonde strands fall into his eyes amongst the black as he doubles over you, close to crisis. Hands and knees imprinting the mattress that creaks steadily beneath you, Renjun’s appreciation for your body manifests in the handprints on your ass, the soft teeth marks over your shoulders, the dainty blooming of colour on your throat. He flips you over—a somewhat clumsy affair until limbs are situated and he’s back inside you—and the final drives of his hips bring him to release.

When he comes, he does so while consuming your lips, for that’s yet another thing you’ve discovered of his nature; Renjun feels never more connected than by a kiss, the need to feel your lips a crutch on which his pleasure rests.

Good thing you’re more than happy to oblige.

Amidst post-coital content, strewn out naked under the sunny spring rays that cast through your bedroom window, Renjun sighs softly.

“Still want to take that hot springs trip?”

𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑'𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄: Thank you to the individual that commissioned me to do this; I had a lot of fun with it. It's not often I get to write a stereotypically bad character, so this was nicely cathartic in that way. I hope it made for pleasant reading! Mica xo

Please consider reblogging this if you enjoyed it! Reblogs are the core function of Tumblr and help spread content across the site!

𝐅𝐀𝐍𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓: ➡

𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐋 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐊: ➡

𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐕𝐄 𝐌𝐄 𝐅𝐄𝐄𝐃𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊: ➡

𝐃𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐎𝐑 𝐁𝐄𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐄 𝐀 𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐇𝐋𝐘 𝐒𝐔𝐁𝐒𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐁𝐄𝐑: ➡

𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐖𝐀𝐘𝐒 𝐓𝐎 𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐒𝐔𝐏𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓: ➡

[jl-micasea-fics]

Heaven’s Demise | hhj

❝𝐈 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐮𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐰𝐞’𝐫𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡.❞  

↳ Do you wonder, dear reader, what it was made me the man I am? What it was made me capable of doing the things I did that fateful night in Seventh Heaven? Yes? Then come close. Get comfortable as I tell you of what came before. I dare say you’ll want to sit down. But, oh no… don’t be frightened, sweet kitten. You’re in the very best of hands.

↳ Hwang Hyunjin x OCs, first person perspective

↳ 16.3k

! Unrequited prequel spin-off story (strongly recommend you read Unrequited and Unmatched for extra context), strong language, heavy angst and tension, explicit sexual content, unreliable narrator, themes of mental illness and surrounding issues therein, psychological diagnosis, murder, stalking, gaslighting and manipulation, a very morally grey main character, strong yandere themes throughout, obsession and ownership, intrusive thoughts, this story is not for the faint of heart please heed these warnings, adult themes throughout !

「Unrequited」 「Unmatched」 「suitable for 18+ readers only」 「© March 2023 by jl-micasea-fics」

Maybe I deserve this.

Four walls and iron, isolation of the truest kind. With only these things and the banal wailing of my fellow inmates to keep me company, this is the thought I find myself aimlessly circling back to: that maybe I deserve to be here, imprisoned and stripped of everything that makes me human.

In this place, I’m no better than a stray mutt. Kept underfoot and regarded with disgust, the sum of my crimes is all I’m worth. My experiences, my desires, my dreams; all of it is cold, pale ash decorating the smouldering bonfire of destruction that is my life. It’ll never be the same now. Not even when I get out. I’m branded a criminal, a violent and unstable individual that can’t be trusted in any form of employment or with any amount of responsibility. They tell me I’m a danger to myself, to others.

To her.

It used to be that thoughts of her kept me from insanity, when I teetered precariously on the very brink of it those first few weeks after they threw me in this cage and committed me to rot. I would travel—project, perhaps—back to the moments we had together and spend listless hours in them, memorising every detail her face, every octave of her voice as it sounded both before and after the fear set in. Now, those moments only fuel my raging resentment.

I’m no fool, despite the courts’ accusations. I’m aware that the things I did lacked decorum, are frowned upon, are culturally (and apparently legally) condemnable. I am being punished for hurting another person, someone I claim to love. And that’s what they say: that I claim to love her. They tell me my claims are false, that my affections are woefully untrue and use their textbook definitions of love as justification for doing so, for we are supposed to cherish and protect those we love. Not contribute to their tumbling down a flight of stairs.

But they misunderstand. Everyone does. There’s context to be applied to everything, and that’s never more crucial than in the case of my love for her. She and I, we had something. Call it a connection, a meeting of minds. Hell, call it a fluke accident if you like, but whatever it was, it was real. I know that in my soul, as did she. My feelings manifested strongly, while hers were allowed to only flicker before they were snuffed out. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, for in it I see that Minho had assuredly clawed his way into her heart before she and I even met. Perhaps we were always doomed to fail, then.

I prefer to believe that fate gave us a chance, that I tried with everything I had to take it. Had she been strong enough to leave him, aware enough to see him for the undeserving wretch that he was, perhaps things would have been different. Perhaps I wouldn’t have been driven to entertain my compulsions.

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[jl-micasea-fics]

The Guy Next Door | hhj

❝𝐃𝐢𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐚𝐰?❞

↳ Chapter 1/7 of The Guy Next Door. You’ve lived in the sleepy seaside city of Saint Brides forever, despite dreams of escape and something bigger. Resigned to routine, mundanity and with rapidly diminishing dreams for the future under the strict control of life at home, you no longer remember what joy feels like; if needed, you ever knew. That is, however, until an enigmatic young man moves in next door and spins your world on its axis. In this story of firsts, experience friendship, romance, self-discovery and courage; even when things are not as they seem. Based on The Girl Next Door (2004).

↳ Female reader x Hyunjin

↳ 12.6k

!! This fic explores themes that may distress some readers i.e. familial abuse (physical, verbal, mental), extremely strict/controlling parenting, mental illness, anxiety/depression and sexual exploitation. Please proceed with caution !!

! Strong language porn star au, strangers to lovers au, college au, first times au, neighbours au, porn star Hyunjin, inexperienced reader, angst and tension, explicit sexual content, heavy sexual themes throughout, frequent reference to pornography, themes of rebellion and self-discovery, adult themes throughout !

「suitable for 18+ readers only」  「Contents List」  「© October 2022 by jl-micasea-fics」

“In everything, satiety closely follows the greatest pleasures” - Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Mhm, sure Marcus.”

It’s not that you don’t believe he’s probably right. Indeed, most are inclined to chomp on the pearls of wisdom from the famous Roman orator; a man that lived so many centuries ago who appears to possess a more informed grip on life than you suppose you ever will.

All the same, your begrudging mumble rather encapsulates your inability to relate to the ancient sentiment in any way.

Thumb to the next page of the classical history textbook, scan down the paragraphs and over cramped font, barely absorbing Cicero’s autobiographical information. Twirl your favourite biro between your fingers, chin propped lazily in the palm of your hand, wondering if all these hours of study have yielded anything other than the beginning pulses of a headache.

You’ve never particularly enjoyed this part of studying; the gratuitous reading, committing to memory a multitude of chronological historical events that jumble haphazardly until you can—with relative ease under pressure—single one from another.

It’s the juicier parts of classical history that piqued your interest back in high school, that subsequently determined your route of higher education. The betrayal, the political turmoil, the deceit and the drama; all of it read like a soap opera from antiquity, where law was flexible at best and the end almost always justified the questionable, bloody means.

Understand why others might perceive it mundanely, yet you never have. Those people, you surmise, just don’t know what they’re missing, are unaware of the joys of getting to know historical icons, coming to understand them, discovering how they shaped the course of civilisation and ultimately met their untimely, (usually grisly), ends.

It’s a niche sort of joy, you’ll admit, but a joy all the same. And you’ll take those wherever you can find them.

Scrawl out another quote between the stark lines of your new notepad—because fresh, clean stationary is the only healthy way to stimulate the intellectual juices—your flow is interrupted by the heavy vibration of phone against wood. There’s a text message that reads:

>> is there a reason you’re not at Changbin’s rn

Your heart sinks; you knew this was coming. Turning down Changbin’s offer of movie night at his place was never going to go down well with Jisung, fluttering socialite that he is. Not that you had any say in the decision itself.

<< studying

Send the blunt reply, eye roll at the near instantaneous response:

>> again

>> is there a reason you’re not here

This text, you decide, doesn’t warrant your coming back to him, and so you shove your phone aside, face down on the desk; only for it to start ringing after several minutes. Debate not answering it, and wouldn’t if Jisung’s mammoth persistence weren’t a factor. But it is, and so you must.

“Hello?”

“Don’t leave me on read, bitch.”

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[jl-micasea-fics]

Hell Hath No Fury | ljn

↳ The life of a demon hunter is solitary, dangerous, steeped in truths too deranged for the human mind to comprehend. Jeno pities humans, fragile creatures that they are. All of them require a rescue; few will get it. Yet it is one of those very humans, one of those very rescues, that threatens to turn everything he knows inside out… including him.

↳ Female reader x Jeno

↳ 9.5k

! Demon hunter Jeno, hybrid demon/human Jeno, supernatural au, heavy angst and tension, strong language, themes of caregiving throughout, descriptions of injury, violence, graphic gore, religious connotations and references, explicit sexual content, oral sex (f. rec), knife play, blood play, wet and messy, blood as an aphrodisiac and drug, frequent reference to drug-induced states, blood consumption in supernatural terms, creampie, themes of possession, strength kink, size kink (my guy is just big), breeding kink, this one is not for the faint of heart please heed these warnings, adult themes throughout !

「suitable for 18+ readers only」  「© September 2022 by jl-micasea-fics」

At night, the streets are alight.

Jeno doesn’t know what it is. Maybe anticipation of the dark, perhaps the heavy cover that comes with extinguished light. Could be purely statistical, nothing more complicated than the increased likelihood of finding an inebriated human when the lights go down and the bars flicker to life; for those without their wits are vulnerable, and even more so in the dark.

Jeno gave up on trying to understand the ways of demons long ago. Learned the hard way that to apply logic and reason to their antics is an industrial strength kind of folly, for the malcontent demons spread bears no sense. They hate for the ease of it. Hurt for the thrill of it. Ensnare humans with their vitriol promises and saccharine sweet temptations, to an ultimately grisly end.

There are clear cut lines that Jeno follows. Always, he knows where he stands. There is light, and there is dark, and the only ones existing in the limbo between are those ignorant of the world beyond their own; the victims, the normies, the humans.

Refers to them as though he isn’t one of them; a human. And strictly, he’s not. His blood is tainted, impure, neither human nor demon entirely, for the sins of his mother live perpetually in his veins. Took many years to embrace himself, the stigma of his heritage a foul and burdensome weight on his shoulders that refused him acceptance to either—to any—kind of circle. But Jeno knows how to be alone now. Prefers it.

The perks are few to be counted, but nonetheless, exist. In his hybrid blood lives abilities that mould him into the strongest of demon hunters. Immunity to demon powers and glamours, clarity to their ways. Heightened senses to detect the faintest sound, the tang of salted sweat in the air. Speed to run, to catch, to bound between shadows when the hunt calls him, and it does so every night. So he knicks the flesh of his wrist, drinks of himself, allows the boiling surge of power to sweep him away until eyes are blood red and he knows nothing but the urge to vanquish the evils of hell, and perhaps, if he were to be entirely truthful, a piece of himself every time. It’s far better than heroin; knows from experience. Indeed, no earthly narcotic comes close to the sizzle and pop of his own blood on his tongue, the sensation of his head full of cotton yet everything is loud, bright, alive.

Saving humans from the clutches of demons comes with no reward. Rarely, he’s thanked for it. Understands that the nobility of selfless bravery should be its own vindication, but never is. Still, he dresses himself in the black weight of thick leather and raises his bandana to cover nose and mouth to combat the scents of city night that can overwhelm him when high. Rosary wrapped tight around knuckles, crucifix plain to chest. Silver dagger sheathed and strapped to thigh for ease of access, covered by heavy overcoat. Jeno abhors guns; prefers the solid weight of metal in hand, suspicious of mechanisms that could chance to fail him in the direst of moments.

At night, the streets are alight. Tonight is no exception.

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[jl-micasea-fics]

But We Loved Too Young | jjk

↳ Jungkook is everything you’re not, the ying to your yang. Your tight knit friendship nurtured from childhood survived the major life events that most don’t, and to that end, you suppose you’re fated to be together, until unrequited longing is eventually noticed, and boundaries are forever crossed.

↳Female reader x Jeon Jungkook

↳ 10.4k

! Strong language, childhood friends to lovers au, lovers to strangers au, big timeskip au, college to adulthood au, inexperienced Jungkook, inexperienced reader, angst and tension, explicit sexual content, themes of first-time sex and virginity, clumsy sex, premature ejaculation, masturbation, oral sex (m. rec), fingering, voyeurism, mutual pining, strength kink, size kink, creampie, thigh riding, sexual development, themes of possession, themes of abandonment, references to anxiety and insecurity, adult themes throughout !

「suitable for 18+ readers only」  「© September 2022 by jl-micasea-fics」

Jeon Jungkook.

It is difficult to put into terms the nature of your relationship with him, for how does one encapsulate every little thing about a person and what they mean to you in a few base words?

On the surface and when asked by others, you’re friends.

You grew up together, on the same street amongst the same circle of people. You went to the same nursery, reception and primary school, joining high school at the same time and navigating the complicated weavings of prepubescent hormones and the dreaded onslaught of examinations.

Your relationship with Jungkook, by and large, typical of those where two people know each other ludicrously well. Jungkook knows your ways and mannerisms, how the volume of the car radio must be set to even number, lest the world end. He knows your likes and dislikes, how you prefer summer over winter, iced beverages over warm. He knows how to bring you down when emotions take you particularly high, and how to push your buttons in a bid for the opposite. With him, you can be quick to either anger or laughter, and it’s dependant entirely on him which you get.

Yet even so, for as much as Jungkook has engrained himself into your life, and you his, the passage of time leaves nothing untouched.

High school graduation was the first time you felt it. The first time you’d even thought about it, in truth.

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[jl-micasea-fics]

↳ When bad days bring insecurities to settle and nerves are anxiously aflutter, there’s only thing that can bring you down.

↳ Female reader x Lee Know

↳ 3.3k

! Strong language, established relationship, essential pw/op, soft dominant Lee Know, body insecurity and dysphoria, themes of weight insecurity, explicit sexual content, dirty talk, body worship and praise, body positivity, conditioning, breathplay, use of ‘slut’, creampie, adult themes throughout !

「suitable for 18+ readers only」  「© September 2022 by jl-micasea-fics」

“You about done in there, baby?”

Minho’s voice echoes lightly through the apartment, permeating the gently gushing flow of warm shower water that cascades from the silver head.

Work definitely wasn’t kind to you today. Indeed, it seemed to make an explicit point of kicking you about and neglecting the aftercare as one obstacle after another materialised on your already packed schedule, endless additions crawling atop the impressive mountain of paperwork on your desk. Couple that with the depressive state of your lunch more befitting a grazing rabbit than an actual human, your resulting mood left you irritable, fed up, and kind of done with the world.

If it wasn’t for the joy you knew awaited you at home—a slick, suave boyfriend that just happens to have a thing for all the curves and lumpy bits you’re specifically trying to shed with said rabbit diet—you’d be well on your way to the deepest recesses of a bottle of Rioja by now.

For the relief Lee Minho brings is far more effective than any alcohol or narcotic. Indeed, he is the perfect fucking sedative to days like this, and best of all, he knows it.

As an aside, Minho’s never made any secret of the fact that your more abhorrent moods turn him on. Your scowls, your pouts, the extra layer you throw on in your desire for comfort only sparks his desire to rip it all off, to dig beneath and feel the plush, soft canvas of your skin under his hands.

Though you have no need to today, you suppose you can admit to exaggerating your moods here and there. Putting a macabre face on when perhaps you’re not all that tetchy, pouting a little harder when you seek to garner his attentions. And why shouldn’t you, when it works every time? You’re far from noble enough to abstain on throwing a tantrum; especially when the end result is so delicious. Indeed, over the years you’ve been together, Minho has yet to fail in his efforts to lighten your moods, for they are nothing if not fucking enthusiastic.

“Almost,” you call back, sweeping your hands through your sodden hair, spinning slowly under the water, eyes closed in the blissful warmth of relative content.

“Well pick it up, dinner’s ready.”

That’s enough to get you to open your eyes.

“Wh— You cooked?” you balk.

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