repeat after me (for my fellow control freak shifters)
❝ 𝒾 surrender to the shift. i surrender even if things aren’t perfect. i surrender even if i’m not always sure what comes next. i surrender because i am safe regardless of if i am in control or not. my security is not dictated by any one reality. i am safe anywhere i go. i surrender because i am my anchor, not any one reality. i surrender to the shift because i deserve connection. i surrender to the shift because this is what i truly want. ❞
I'm Chinese, so I wonder if non-Chinese understand
that in the Chinese version of Disney’s Mulan, the fake name she gives is “Ping”, but her family name “Fa” in English is “Hua” in Chinese, therefore her full name is “Hua Ping”, which is literally “Flower Vase”, and that’s why Shang is so bewildered because it’s a silly name.
Hi 👋, My name is Mohammad, and I’m reaching out in a moment of desperate need. I’m a father of three young children living in Gaza, and we are caught in the midst of a catastrophic war. Our home is no longer a safe haven, and the future here seems increasingly uncertain. 💔
I’ve launched a fundraising campaign with the goal of raising $60,000 to relocate my family to a safer place where my children can grow up in peace and have a chance at a brighter future.
Unfortunately, my previous fundraising efforts were abruptly halted when my account was terminated without explanation. However, I remain determined to keep fighting for my family’s safety and well-being. 🫶
If you could take a moment to read our story, consider donating, or simply share our campaign with others, it would make an incredible difference. Every act of kindness, no matter how small, brings us one step closer to safety and a new beginning. 🙏
Thank you for your time, compassion, and support. ❤️🩹
https://gofund.me/fd1faea2 🔗
this ask just reached me, please take the time to read it and support him and his family. If you are unable to donate any money please reblog the post so others can read it. Thank you🙏🏽
While children around the world enjoy the summer holidays within the safety and comfort of their homes and plan fun beach trips with their families, our kids' childhood has been reduced to securing the bare minimum of food and water, fending off swarms of disease-carrying insects, and enduring the stifling heat inside the hellish tent. Seeing them fill water containers and struggle to carry them with their tiny hands breaks my heart into a million pieces. Our babies fall asleep drenched in sweat and keep waking up crying and gasping for breath. What makes it even more unbearable are the plagues of flies and mosquitoes that keep torturing their little fragile, malnourished bodies, increasing the risk of contracting infectious diseases, with no medical care available. They also face a very real and imminent threat of dehydration due to water and formula scarcity.Their older siblings are encumbered by burdens way beyond their years. They think it is their responsibility to fill heavy water containers and protect the newborns, but the truth is they are as vulnerable to the same threats that keep growing every day. No child should live in such a hostile environment. Rubble, garbage, and the smell of death are all around.
Our kids used to have a beautiful spacious home built after years of toil and sacrifice, just to be turned into ruins in the blink of an eye. Now, they are given no other choice but to be confined to the tight airless space of a makeshift tent swarming with all sorts of insects. Even if they go outside the only things that await them are the scorching sun, the hot summer air, and foul smells all day long. The summer nights are often equally suffocating depriving them of desperately needed sleep.
Using a wood-fired self-made stove to cook is beyond torture in such heat. It is also very dangerous to the children who keep going close to it. My heart sinks each time I see pictures of them next to the fire. Even preparing a baby bottle,if ever available, is an ordeal in such conditions but my family have no other options. They have been enduring unfathomable, relentless suffering for nine months straight, and they have been more than resilient but they are now way beyond exhausted. They have been daily fighting for their very survival but there's no guarantee of safety anywhere in Gaza as not only what is left of the buildings but also the tents are being indiscriminately bombed every single day. Even going to the beach to escape the sweltering heat has become a perilous journey for my family, and countless others, since civilians keep being targeted with airstrikes there too.
My family were not allowed to have even the slightest respite since the beginning of this waking nightmare. They have been striving to survive bombing, malnutrition, disease, the cold winter, and now the deadly heatwaves.
When I left Gaza shortly before the war, my dream was to build a brighter future for my loved ones. I have never imagined, once in my life, that I would be raising funds to literally save their lives. Now, my only wish is to keep them alive and as safe as possible, given the circumstances.
Your support is their only hope and solace amidst all the pain and loss. Please do whatever you can to help me save them from this brutal literal decimation of our people. Every contribution counts! Keep our babies in your thoughts and prayers 🙏 And Please donate any amount you can spare and reblog as often as you can. It is beyond words to say how grateful I am to everyone standing with us 🙏
Hi everyone,
I am Bilal, 22 years old, from Gaza, Palestine. I am reaching… Bilal salah needs your support for Help Evacuate My Family f
summary: fake-dating, basically (and also, felix falls in love with you along the way because why not lmfao)
pt. 1
＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ ˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊
"for the last time, y/n, you'll be fine. my family won't hate you. just be yourself, yeah?" felix rests a hand on your thigh, squeezing the soft flesh gently to assure you. the drive was awfully long, much to your delight. you didn't want to arrive in saltburn at this point, in fears of being hated or rejected by felix's family, which felix tried to shrug off and clear from your mind.
"we're here," felix declares not long after. your heart starts to beat faster than earlier, at the same time your mind does nothing to assure you that everything's fine.
your eyes widen at the sight before you, a huge mansion you can mistake for a palace. saltburn, as felix called it. "your house is a fucking palace," you tell felix as your eyes scan around the whole place. sure, you expected felix to have a mansion of some sorts, but this? this was way beyond your expectations. which made you more anxious about meeting his parents.
for a fake girlfriend, you seem to be more nervous than... a real one.
"you'll get used to it," felix says before the doors swung right open. a butler, you assumed, was waiting for you and felix.
"felix, we've been expecting your arrival today," the butler announces. you didn't know if it was his tone or apperance that made you feel uneasy around the man, but you tried your best to look at ease.
"duncan! so good to see you," felix pats the man— duncan, on his shoulders and gave him a smile. "and this is y/n, my...” felix trails off, as he scratched the back of his neck and tried to find the words to introduce you as his—
"girlfriend?" duncan finishes for him. the man stares at you, his face devoid of emotions. once again you try to smile at him, but nothing happens.
"yes, my girlfriend." felix replies before taking your hand. "i'll take it from here, please do tell my parents i arrived. but leave the girlfriend part out," duncan ends his statement with a polite nod before looking at you. "let's go?"
ᯓ★ 𐙚⋆ ࣪. ⩇⩇
felix gave you a tour of the whole place first. the whole time you observed the place in awe, and felix who looked so proud of his home.
"and this," felix drums his hand against the doorframe, "is your room." it was no surprise that the room, like any other area in the place, is fucking classy.
you stepped in after felix, sighing as you took in the surroundings. "thank you, felix." you looked back at him before sitting down on the edge of the bed.
"thank you so much for agreeing, y/n. i owe it all to you." he smiles at you. "do you want to rest for a bit? you look tired."
now that he'd mention it, you were in fact, tired. and quite uneasy knowing the fact that in a few hours time, you'd have to act as felix's girlfriend.
"i am, actually." you mutter. "right, well... dinner's at 6PM, and you need to dress up. i mean it's stupid, who the fuck needs to dress up for dinner when-" felix cuts himself off when he notices your worried expression. "what's wrong?" he asks.
"i'm scared, okay? i don't know how i'll be able to pull this whole thing. even if i'm not your real girlfriend, i'm still afraid of your mom and dad's judgement. i'll have to deal with their criticisms for as long as i'm here." tears formed in the corner of your eyes, while you tried your whole best to not let them fall.
"i told you it's going to be okay. i may not know or relate to what you feel, but i hope you remember that my parents' judgement won't matter because you're you. nothing they say would change your personality. and you have a good one." felix holds your hand and caresses it with his thumb. the action somehow calmed your nerves, and you could say it helped.
it was to your surprise when felix used his free hand to wipe your tears, which you didn't realize that fell anyway, despite your hardest efforts to maintain from falling. "okay," you whisper softly. that response was meant to assure felix, but somehow it felt like you were assuring yourself too.
you can do it, you're helping a best friend. nothing more, right?
・*:..｡o○
it was time for dinner, and holy shit. felix wasn't kidding when he said that his family dressed for dinner, because his mother and sister were dressed in shiny dresses that could fit as an outfit for an event.
you were sat beside felix, thank god, or else you would've decided to walk out on dinner on the spot and never show up in saltburn again.
your heart started pounding again, totally not helping with the clashing thoughts in your mind. felix could sense your anxiety from under the table, which he managed to ease by placing a hand on yours. he looks at you with a smile, before whispering, "you're good. my mom seems to love you."
which is true, elspeth surprisingly seemed to like you. she would smile every time you accidentally look at her. hell, she even showered you with compliments the first time she saw you.
"well, aren't you a beautiful lady!"
"you have such lovely eyes, i could see why you you got felix."
"you have a lovely smile,"
the same went with felix's father, james. he approves of you. if anything, the pair thought you and felix looked great together. which lifted the weight from your shoulders, since you won't have a hard time pretending.
you could say that felix was right, it's all going to be okay. it was just your thoughts that kept you uneasy and nervous.
✭・.・✫・゜・。.
"we nailed it!" felix greets you with a toothy grin as soon as the pair of you were back in your room. he held his hand out for a high-five which you gave to him. "i told you it's going to be okay. now, get that frown off, and replace it..." felix touches your eyebrows, trying to flatten it.
"...with a smile." felix smiled, and you can't help but mirror his exact expression. how can you not, when his happiness is contagious?
"see? you look better when you smile."
✭・.・✫・゜・。.
"felix, i wanna go there!" you point to a chanel store. it was your... sixth shop today? maybe seventh but felix couldn't care less.
he took you out for shopping today, as part of the deal you two made.
"you like that one?" felix points to a black purse that's on display. "holy shit, you have good taste," you say in disbelief. you rushed to the area where the bag was and grabbed it, your actions earning an amused smile from felix.
"you look like you're enjoying yourself."
"damn right." you reply with a grin.
the last store you and felix went to is a bookstore. felix knew how much you loved books, so he suggested you go to one. you insisted on the fact that saltburn has a huge library, but felix didn't listen and took you to buy books that you would actually be interested in.
it's no surprise that you picked out a lot, which he didn't mind paying for. what he did mind though, was the alarming amount of bags he now has to carry.
"i think you should help me here, lovie," felix ends his plea with a grunt. the sudden use of nickname had you blushing, but you tried your best not to mind since you two were... pretending.
you just rolled your eyes at him playfully before grabbing three of the bags he's carrying. "all good?" he answers you with a nod.
the final destination for today was a small coffee shop, one that felix liked visiting when he's on summer vacation.
it didn't surprise you how much felix can be quite simple despite his personality at oxford. that was one of the things you loved about him.
"i love this coffee shop, i always go here when i want to get away from farleigh and venetia," felix states while chewing on waffles. "yeah, the place is nice. i like the decor too," you reply.
"thank you by the way. for all this stuff you bought for me, i just hope your parents won't say anything against all this." felix shrugged your statement off and chuckled. "my parents don't mind if i spend money on stuff. especially stuff for you. they'd even be more thrilled that i'm spoiling my girlfriend."
you scoffed at his comment, dismissing him and went back to drinking your coffee.
it turns out that being felix's fake girlfriend wasn't that bad.
・．.・・．.・
the henry's, which are the catton's close friends were coming over for dinner today. as expected, you and felix were to act like you two were dating.
felix informed you of this three days ago, giving him enough time to introduce you to each of his family's friends. one of them was a girl, who was paired up with felix once by his mother.
a weird feeling bubbled up in your stomach at the mention of her.
felix sensed your suddenly grim expression so he tried his best to assure you that him and the girl were now over.
the henry's are sophisticated people, to no surprise. the way they interacted with the cattons seemed so... practical. which caused you to feel uneasy once again.
at this point, feeling like you didn't belong happened ever so often to the point when you can't even bring yourself to go to the family meals sometimes without felix.
and as usual, felix noticed your slightly frowned face, which he tried to fix by holding your hand.
and again, the action worked.
"don't be afraid of them or whatever they try to say to you. whatever happens, i'm here. okay?" felix whispers gently, his words calming down your nerves. you looked at him and nodded, meanwhile gripping his hand tighter to ease your anxiety.
the two families were now engaged into a conversation they found interesting, all ears pricked up at what each other had to say. until one of the henry's decided to talk to felix.
"felix, my daughter's kind of... lonely lately. would you be kind enough to accompany her sometimes?" it was the mother of felix's old fling who spoke. the girl smiled at felix, practically batting her eyelashes at him which made you feel nauseous. (duh, because you're supposed to be the one doing that to felix.)
usually felix would try to put on a fake smile and approve because of his single status, but now...
"uh, about that. i already have a girlfriend, i'm off the hook."
elspeth's eyes brightened at the mention of you. "right! she's here, actually. y/n, darling, would you be kind enough to introduce yourself to everyone?" elspeth asks.
"i'll do it," felix interrupts. he clears his throat for a moment before continuing. "this is y/n, my girlfriend. now before all of you even ask, we met in oxford and we've been together for months now. hopefully that's enough information to keep me away from set-ups, right?" everyone chuckles at the remark. everyone except felix's old fling.
you eventually learned that the girl and felix had been a little close at childhood, knowing that their parents are too. sudden jealousy burst out through your whole mind at the idea of her being original.
hold up, you were not supposed to feel this way.
the girl would sometimes glare at you, which didn't go unnoticed by felix. he just told you to let her do whatever she wants because he'll be there to protect you.
for the remainder of the dinner and the post-dinner activities, felix kept you close to him, making sure you won't leave his side. he even had you sit on his lap one time, which was probably for the better since his ex-fling didn't bother to look at you anymore.
now, to make the whole "fake-dating" thing more convincing, felix would sometimes hold you by the waist and kiss your cheek after talking about something. from the corner of your eyes you saw elspeth and james, and technically farleigh and venetia smiling at the sight of the two of you.
you smiled at them before focusing on what felix was whispering this time.
"earth to y/n, are you even listening to me?" he asks. "i am, but can you repeat it?"
"i said, we're nailing the whole thing. you're a great fake girlfriend," felix reaches out to caress your cheeks this time. you found yourself leaning in closer to his palm as the touch was comforting.
"and you're a great fake boyfriend," you reply back.
you didn't know if it was the heat of the moment or you just got carried away when you kissed felix's lips softly. not too short, but the kiss was short enough to keep him wanting more. "do that again," felix whispers, his eyes half-lidded as if he's under a spell.
you complied and crashed your lips against his, no longer caring about the people surrounding you both. "is that good?" you ask.
"that's probably the best kiss i've ever had my whole life."
＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ ˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊
a/n: I AM SO SORRY THIS TOOK SOOOO LONG 🥹 i just had the first week of vacation so i only had the time to finish this part when it started. anyways i hope u love this part because i rlly lost my braincells trying to figure out what's the best plot for this one LMFAOOO
(p.s: i know this is not the best attempt at fake-dating but pls bear with me)
pairing: obsessed!down bad!felix catton x fem!reader
summary: felix's lack of control over his deep feelings for you, his revisions partner, begins to spiral him into a sick and twisted sense of keeping you as his.
warnings: explicit language, sexual tension & content, themes of purity and corruption, use of cigarettes and alcohol
wc: 2.1k+
Maybe Felix Catton wasn’t the mindless pretty boy at Oxford like everyone had chalked him up to be. Maybe he was, at least until he saw you.
At first, he wasn’t exactly the most excited when he found out his revisions partner was you, a scholarship girl. A first-class student. Always buried in textbooks nonstop, always holed up with nerdy little books doing your nerdy little homework. He never found people like you any fun, so he braced himself for a snoozefest as you plopped down into the armchair beside him.
But Felix couldn’t have ever been more wrong about the pureness that was you. Sickly sweet, serene you. Skin tantalizingly covered by whatever shoddy arrangements Oxfam provided. Black-rimmed glasses with a prescription so high, it made your bambi-like eyes bulge out of your head. Voice so sugary, he could taste it on the tip of his tongue. You were a prude by all means, but you made it look so damn good. God forbid the tutor asked him anything about your essay, it was fuck all in his brain. And god forbid anyone asked him to make sense of what he felt for you.
And so he eagerly showed up to each revision. It started with the simplest of gestures. Holding the door open for you, carrying your books. He noticed you always walked home alone after each session at night, so he took it upon himself to escort you back to your dorm safely.
And then it was gifts. Things that he could nonchalantly pass off as having extra of. Packaged sweets from the dining hall, an extra No. 2 pencil. He even tried to offer you a cigarette as the two of you strolled across campus. Of course, being the modest girl you were, you refused. He was glad that you did. You were responsible, you were good. He loved that about you.
But it wasn’t enough. Those brief, one-hour sessions were far from enough. Being the workaholic you were, you were hard to find around campus; that bit irked him. The whole “girl” thing was second-nature to him. They came to him in swarms, in fact. Why were you never there? That was fine with him, he liked the chase. He’d find a way.
“Tutor you? Felix, I think you’re doing fine–” “Codswallop, and you know it. You, on the other hand…you’re exceptional.” “I don’t think I’m exactly qualified enough-” “I do.”
And these newfound tutoring sessions were far better than what he had been getting. He never thought he’d look forward to being in a tutorial for hours in a stiff library chair, but the very thought consumed his waking days. Because it was you, dressed in your hand-me-down school jumper, brows adorably furrowed as you hastily scribbled notes across the margins of his essays. He wasn’t exactly the best at writing, but he occasionally found himself misspelling words just to see you get irritated with him.
“Sometimes it slips my mind that you’re a rich kid. Until I remember we’re at Oxford and this is what you wrote,” you had said one time. Had it been from anyone else, he would’ve blown a fuse. But it was you, who always snuck in bites of your Crunchie between each sentence. You were so genuine, so oblivious to the world around you. He could never be upset with you.
Which is why he felt responsible for you. But how could he protect you when you were so elusive? He considered himself blessed if he found you at King’s Arms on the weekends, or anywhere at all. And blessed he was, on a Friday night, just before Oxford let out for the holidays.
It was you, accompanied by your trashy roommates. “Come on, just once before you go home,” they had whined as they pushed you through the doors. Upon this rare sighting, Felix decided that the story he was entertaining his table with was pointless, ceasing his conversation. It was like he was in a trance, the way he stood from his seat and gravitated toward you. Wordlessly, he plucked you away from your roommates. He figured you were better off with him.
It was clear that you weren’t used to any sort of bar culture, and while he found that endearing, he made sure to look over you. He booted a girl from his group just so he could seat you next to him, all while making sure you didn’t see the nasty glare she gave you.
Assigning himself as your drink-sitter, he carefully scrutinized whatever you ended up drinking. Any strong liquors that came your way were quickly confiscated, much to Farleigh’s disdain (although he was placated once the extra shots were passed along to him). All you had to your name was a modest mug of beer, which you sipped at tentatively as you tried to make sense of the conversation around you.
You had gotten through one beer, though you were struggling about halfway through your refill. Despite that, Felix was in awe of you. The whining as he took the cup away, the mindlessly giggling at a joke one of the girls told, the fidgeting with the hem of your jumper. How could someone make drinking look so innocent?
“My face is hot.” “You’ve got a buzz going. It’s quite a look.” “A good one or a bad one?” “A bit of a naughty one.” He quickly earned a punch in the arm from you.
And this was far better than the revisions or the tutoring. To finally discuss something other than academics with you was refreshing. He found himself recounting all of his stories, even the ones he had already told that night, just so he could hear you laugh at everything he said. It was a melody in his ears, a tiny bell jingling beside him.
Once the company began to fall out, Felix took you to get a breath of fresh air just beside the entrance of the pub. “D’you need anyone to take you home?” “Nooo, my roommates are heading back anyways.” “You sure? I can–” “Oh, you’re too kind. Why don’t you have a lover yet?”
The question was so forward and sudden, he couldn’t help but be surprised. You were definitely tipsy. “Huh…haven’t given much thought to it.” “Well, you should.” “And that means?” “They’d be lucky.”
Felix couldn’t help it; he was out of control, cradling your face into his hands as his heart threatened to leap out of his chest. They were indeed hot, you weren’t lying about that. There was silence, anticipation with a bated breath, and then your lips were all that he felt. If anyone was watching, and they most likely were, it was like he was holding himself back. Jaw tensed, muscles taut, brows scrunched. It almost looked like he was in pain.
And he was in pain, his restraint being tested every second he kissed you. Trying so desperately to not have his way with you, to take you home and screw you into his dorm mattress. That’s not the type of person you were.
But boy, did you make it difficult. The mere act of placing your hands against his chest, pressing your body against his. Again, painfully obvious this wasn’t something you did often, but that made it all the more perfect to him. He intended to keep you that way, which is why he let go.
The confusion that overtook your features made him regret his decision more and more, twisting his insides with guilt for leaving you hanging. Your lips, donning a soft shine, mouthed his name, but any sound went fuzzy in his ears. The more he stared at them, the more that forbidden feeling stirred inside of him.
Mumbling an apology, he abruptly stepped back, not even sure of what he was even doing. He had to get away, head home. It was ironic, to long for you so deeply but to hold himself back from indulging in you. He was never one to shy away from what he desired; it was his very nature, his reputation. But he couldn’t just use a girl like you to scratch one of his sexual itches, how could he bring himself to?
And so, Felix turned his back on you, not uttering another word. He pushed through the crowded walkway in a blind frenzy, ignoring the people who tried to strike up conversation. Never once looking back.
Soon enough, he heaved the grand doors open to his hall, ready to sleep off the feeling until a sultry voice called to him from his right. Annabel. Apparently she had been waiting for him.
It wasn’t long before she was straddled across his lap, basically eating away at the lower half of his face as she eagerly fumbled with his belt buckle. That’s what turned him off about her. Too eager, too annoying. It played a part as to why he had kept his distance from her, but for that night, she was better than nothing.
As she slipped off his lap to kneel on the messy floor of his dorm, his mind drifted elsewhere. The desperate girl in front of him disappeared, then you were there, just as he left you. Staring up at him behind your obnoxious glasses, your bottom lip trembling. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Would you even know how to do this sort of thing?
If he allowed himself, he’d guide you, gripping a part of your hair. Not tight enough to hurt you, of course, just enough to get leverage. He’d watch as your pretty lips parted to take him in, taking your sweet time. Your mouth would be soft and hot, your tongue shifting about awkwardly underneath him. He bet that you’d have it down quickly; you were good at most things, being a quick learner. Perhaps there would be a few scrapes from your canines as you bobbed up and down, if he were to be realistic. But the sting was more than alright with him.
Felix always prided in himself for his ability to give a girl a good, long time. Why else would they flock to him by the dozens? So what was so different about you that made him feel like he was already about to burst the seams?
Because it was still you, sickly sweet and serene you, lips wrapped around him and devouring him like the candy you always loved. Your eyes would water, but he’d gladly wipe away each drop that managed to escape. It left him a whiny mess. Sweat prickling at his forehead, ragged breaths heaving his shoulders up and down, white-knuckling your hair.
And when he’d come close, he’d let you know. You didn’t like being caught off-guard. Your heavy disdain for pop-quizzes or his endless pranks of sneaking up behind you made that apparent. But he prided himself in knowing these things about you, that he was able to gather it all from your little ramblings.
You liked American reality TV. Disliked gel pens. Loved your chips overdone. A ridiculous query crossed his mind. Would you like spitting or swallowing? Or would you rather it all over you? From how your lips were glued to him, it seemed like swallowing. But that made him hesitate. You would never like such a thing. You were squeamish around anything sticky or slimy. Cough syrup, oily or tacky lotions…you hated them. As much as it dismayed him, why would this be any different?
Because it wasn’t you. And as soon as the girl he had taken back to his dorm reappeared, he knew that she could never be you. Nobody could. He was disgusted with himself for dirtying that memory of you. He had turned something so innocent into something so grossly erotic, and he knew he had crossed a line. How could he ever see you the same way again?
He was also disgusted with how Annabel seemed to not care despite his disillusion. She might have been the only girl he had seen that got off on merely sucking someone off. It was genuinely pathetic. Her head was swiftly yanked up, her lips making a “pop” sound.
“Alright, get out.” “What? But we’ve barely done anything, Fe–” “I don’t fuckin’ care. Piss the fuck off!”
Felix thought he would feel bad about kicking Annabel out, especially after she left in tears with her clothes haphazardly buttoned. But he could genuinely not have cared in the slightest; he was already preoccupied, mind filled with guilt after what he had done to you. But did he feel regret? No. That’s what ate at him the most. Someone like him shouldn’t have gone for someone like you.
Perhaps it was better to try and forget that he kissed you. Kissing you meant opening the floodgates of his feelings, his debauchery. He had to keep that closed so that you could stay as pure as you always were. His perfect girl.
And he would do anything to keep you that way.
to be continued!
a/n: dutifully fulfilling this request by my lovely anon. i wanted to delve more into the selfish, savior complex that he was and i DEFINITELY intend to take it deeper for the next part. again, thank you for the ask!
co-written by @hellb4ts! leon, thank you for the many wonderful ideas. and you're welcome for introducing you to saltburn <3
inbox is open for any asks or reqs !
Tatsächlich Liebe (Love, Actually)//jun x fem!reader (smut included)
Tags: cute single dad!boss!jun with a crush, mini-wen involved, office romance, shower sex, public sex, sort of cheating bc you have a sort-of-boyfriend, pining i suppose?, jun with a crush, went a little ANGSTY, Bestie!minghao
You’re the wide-eyed, clueless-but-on-top secretary to Wen Junhui, and it all starts, with one new year’s kiss… well, new year’s fuck.
Mr. Wen likes you. It should have been obvious, whenever he seemed to forgive your inadequate work ethics and frequent unfailing mishaps, and how much he trusted you, no matter how many mistakes you made, how much he hated hearing about your life with your boyfriend… and what kind of boss goes shopping for their employee, privately, anyway?
Warnings: y/n is incredibly seductive and more dominant and a bit of a fuckgirl, anxious Jun, cheating, Guanhang from nct is here as your very mean and distant bf
W.c.: 11k
~~~~~
You might not be very good at your job. And you realize this when you spill Jun’s coffee for the fifth time since you started working (6 months now). That was 0.8 coffees per month.
Times 2, and 3: You forgot to cap the coffee all the way right, after opening it because you FORGOT to ask for the sugar and you had to open it, put a packetful in, stir and cap it again, and Jun spills it on his shirt on his first attempt to drink it. Your penalty: Jun offers a tight lipped smile and caps it himself. “That’ll be all, thanks, Y/n.”
Time 1: you didn’t lay the cup right on his desk. It only spilled maybe 4 drops. Yay. That’s a win, in the book of Y/n. Penalty: nothing.
Time 4, the worst of them all: YOU SPILLED IT ON THE DOCUMENTS HE HAD ON HIS DESK. You don’t even know how, but the full fucking cup spilled. Penalty: “I got it, thanks,” Jun said (thanks for what? He lost documents and three quarters of his coffee) “could you print these again?”
Time 5: this time the coffee didn’t even make it onto his desk, you trip and spill it on yourself. To be fair, you were carrying the lunch orders of the others in your office, so it was a precarious situation.
“I’ll go get a new one!” you called out, since Jun was watching from behind the foggy, half translucent glass door of his office, where he could definitely see you from the way he was angled, but you only saw a part of his dark oakwood table.
There would be a line at the cafe, it was lunch time. But you were determined to make yourself important and cut in line, no matter what it took. “I WORK FOR THE BOSS” would be one thing you could say.
As you head back for the elevator, Jun’s head peeks out of the aforementioned glass door. “y/n,” he called—you like that he never called you like he was demanding your presence, like a rude guest you were waiting on, but rather… softly. Jun just had a softness to him. “Hey, actually, forget the coffee, if it’s not here—can you go get one of those donuts with sprinkles on it?”
“Pink,” came a very boyish little voice from behind the door.
“Pink, with sprinkles, like Homer Simpson eats.”
You walk back to the office, and open it wider, so the little boy could finally appear to you. “Hey, mini-Mr. Wen. Would you like to walk there with me, so you can pick what you’d like?” Jun was very paranoid, but also a very at-ease parent. Meaning: he did let his son go places without him, with other guardians, but also had a terrible anxiety that left him imagining all the worst scenarios until the boy was back in front of his eyes. And yet, you still asked, because you knew Jun was busy. He couldn’t be watching the kid right now.
Hao—that was his name, ‘inspired’ by his father’s love for his best friend, although Jun would say he lost a bet and that’s all it was—nodded, but he wasn’t walking on his feet: he immediately extended both arms out for you to carry him. “Alright, buddy! Let’s go!”
Jun managed a half-absentminded, half-grateful smile at you, mouthing his thanks. And then the door closed.
“Donuts,” Hao says quietly.
“Yes, donuts! We’re getting donuts, getting donuts…” you sang as you walked towards the elevator.
.
Today Jun’s aforementioned best friend and trades partner was in the office with him, because he wanted to come see his little namesake. As Minghao talked business and life with Jun, he saw how relaxed Jun usually was, rather than be the ball of anxiety he turned into whenever his son was somewhere in public not holding onto his own hand.
“You actually trust that intern,” Minghao drew his conclusions.
“She’s permanently employed!” Jun says with a smile. “Do you want me to text her and tell her to bring you a coffee?”
“Where’s yours?”
“She…” There was no way to sugarcoat this in a way that Minghao would feel sympathetic towards you. “Kinda spilled it.”
“... You permanently employed a secretary who couldn’t even bring you coffee.” Seeing Jun’s shocked eyes (how dare you bring that up, Minghao! He was probably thinking), Minghao continued: “didn’t she cause that delay with that shipping company because of her other-and-frequent mishaps, and you had to ask them to deliver the papers all over again? Why would you keep her after that?”
“I don’t know,” Jun says, pondering on his systems himself, “I’ve been through a lot of short-term interns, but I just employed her permanently because, I don’t know, it’s actually became a chore sifting through new secretaries, and she just feels right.”
Minghao cocked an eyebrow. Pushed his glasses up to his forehead. “Feels… right…” Jun did not return any ripostes to the accusations Minghao’s raised eyebrows were throwing. “But I’ve never seen you trust anybody with little Hao this much.”
“Y/n’s a natural around Hao,” Jun’s praise of you came lightly, and he broke into a smile. “Hao loves her.”
“Jun… just because she’s good with your kid doesn’t mean she’s good at her job.”
“Give her a chance!” Jun says with a nudge of his elbows. “She gets my order just right—I swear, no one gets the sugar-to-coffee ratio as right as she does.”
“Maybe because she’s the one delivering it. You know drinks taste sweeter when you like the person serving them.”
Jun groaned. “Hao…” Suddenly red in the cheeks, Jun brought his hands to cover his face, feigning that he was yawning or scratching his cheek or something. But Minghao saw through everything.
“All I’m saying is, I wonder if she really is good at her job—”
The door opened, and you and the Mini-Wen peeked through, with the little boy holding two cups of coffee. “I got your orders!” you say. “Well, Hao got them! I’ll keep watching him, if you want?”
“But I wanna sit on papa’s chair–!”
You grabbed the little boy gently. “Papa’s in a serious talk with uncle Hao, do you think we can hang out at my desk? I have games!”
Minghao shot a look at Jun, as the two of you walked back out of the office. He reached for the cup of coffee with ‘Xu’ written on its side, handing Jun the other. “Anyway,” he says, “back to our ‘serious discussion—” He took a sip of his drink, and suddenly looked completely apprehensive, like he wanted to spit it out.
But under the light of Jun’s alarmed gaze, Minghao slowly swallowed it, and then placed it back on the desk. “This is… this is not my order.”
“She just can’t tell between everybody’s orders,” Jun offered. “She’s still learning!”
Minghao took another sip. “I think this is oatmilk… I can sort of get behind it.”
.
.
.
Today was Christmas, which was why Hao was at the office: he was going to be picked up by his mom to go to her parents’ house, where he would spend the holidays. Jun and the mom never really interacted, or so says everyone at the office–you had never met her. Jun preferred that the handing away of the kid be done through third parties, from babysitters who would text as soon as she had come to take him away, through secretaries, or even through the office receptionist. Whatever it took to not see her.
You’re not good at your job. You’re clumsy, distracted, inadequate, and most of the time you gossiped away, or at least listened to all the gossip instead of concentrating on your job. What you’ve heard about the matrimony of Jun and his ex was: there wasn’t even a wedding. They got pregnant, they became engaged, apparently the wife got cold feet before the wedding and just decided she didn’t want to be a mother and a wife forever. She asked that one of her flings take her away to somewhere exclusive before the ceremony—someone says it was to the swiss alps, someone says they holed up at an air bnb just out of town—and never even showed up for the wedding planning and the ceremony had to be canceled.
As the story goes… her family had been glad, thinking Jun wasn’t the right person to get settled with. Back then he was handling the up-and-coming company, but they didn’t have faith in his line of work—they did, however, want their little grandson, and the custody battle turned ugly, which added to why Jun didn’t want to see his ex or hear anything about them. Ultimately he got full custody, as the mother didn’t even really want Hao.
Whenever you saw the almost-Mrs. Wen, she was incredibly cool, hiding behind oversized sunglasses. You’d have an actual sense of respect for her, if only her mere presence didn’t make her own son’s face fall like someone had taken his sweets from him.
But today she had her hair in bunches, and she impatiently took the little boy into her arms, and thanked you. “Tell your boss pick-up time’s 5 p.m. on the thirty-first,” she told you. “Or sooner, that’s fine too.”
As she walked away, you were in awe of how much she seemed like Jun’s type: sexy, but cute, and cool. She knew how to dress, for sure. You wrote down the pick-up time: 6 p.m., did she say? And tried to go back to work. You should clear his schedule on New Year’s Eve, but in the office it was still a work day, although the general consensus had decided to have a party in the office, going til midnight. You didn’t know if Jun wanted to stay, since usually he spent holidays with his son.
You see someone in flashy colors sashaying towards your desk, and erect your head, expectant.
“Heyyyyy!” It’s Arin, from the reception. “Guess what?” she says, bringing out the box she was hiding behind her back. “Look! You have a good boss.”
As you took the present and the card—where it was simply written ‘Merry Christmas, Y/n’ and nothing more, thank God because if you knew just how many drafts Jun went through—you leaned over the desk and into Jun’s office, where you saw a blur of his silhouette.
You unwrapped it messily, with as much expertise as you always have on the job, and out comes three bottles of perfume. You press the communications button to Junhui’s office. “I got the presents!”
“That’s great, you’re welcome.”
“Thank you, Jun!”
Minghao, in Jun’s office, watched as Jun got flustered, blinking the shock away. “You… you never call me that,” is what you hear over the speaker.
“Damn. When did he shop for these?” You press the button again. “When did you shop for these, Mr. Wen?! I’m meant to be doing your shopping!”
“Uh, just back in November!” The red light of the device wasn’t alight anymore, which meant the conversation was over. (Jun turned to Minghao in the office. “I may have done this in September, and also had a whole personal-shopper ensemble help me.”)
“So,” Arin says, sitting on your desk now, “you got your boss giving you gifts! What about that boyfriend of yours?”
“Guanhang?” Your expression turned a little sour. “He’s got a big family, so we went shopping for like, the six of them back in November, but he never got one for me? I figured he didn’t want to buy anything for me in front of me, but—oh, bye, Mr. Xu—” Jun and Minghao had come out of the office, as Jun parted from his best friend— “but I never woke up to presents. I mean, it’s only Christmas. I guess I can wait until he remembers?”
Arin grimaced. “Uh-uh. Today’s the deadline.”
“On Valentine’s day he just ate me out each night for the entire month and said that was his present,” you say quietly.
Arin laughed. She made a joke about cunnilingus or something or the other, which brings you to howl with laughter.
“I mean, it is a good gift, if only he didn’t pick the shortest month of the year to do it!” You’re about to go on about more of Guanhang’s antics when—
Jun’s shadow loomed over Arin’s figure, and sensing his presence, she moved over.
“Get back to work, please,” he told her. “Especially you, Y/n, your… work…” he fumbled over his words, before settling with: “is inadequate. And careless. And messy. I… expect better.”
You pouted up at him. Jun looked away before it could affect him more than he liked. “Back to work, please,” he repeated, “And Arin, your job is at the desk, which is like, thirty feet away.” The glass door to his office half-slams, particularly loudly that it sounded like it would shatter.
“Must be in a bad mood,” Arin adjudged. With a sigh, she just left the remaining files and letters designated towards you and Jun at your desk. “Text me about the boyfriend things, alright?”
Feeling sort of shamed (you sucked at your job and you didn’t like being reminded of it), you silently go through the files, not even unpacking Jun’s perfumes out of their boxes. When Jun asks of Hao later, you just tell him he’ll be home on New Year’s Eve, omitting the part where he has to be picked up.
.
.
.
“Mei.” Jun pretended to multitask, going over his documents while on the phone, but in truth he was getting nothing done. What a shitty day to come into work. “Mei, please. Don’t do this to me. Please bring him back home, at least.”
“Jun, I’m not going to drive to your apartment, there’s traffic and I have an appointment with someone! I literally told your assistant the pick-up time—Pick. Up. I never said I’d bring him. Didn’t she tell you?” Jun felt like kicking himself, he looked out the blinds into the street, and yes, absolutely there is traffic. They’re closing up roads for the city’s new year’s party, fireworks inclusive. “How useless is that secretary?”
“Of course she told me!" He snaps defensively. "I’m just busy all of a sudden. Can’t your parents drive him?”
“Papa just had cornea surgery, Jun. Mama has to be with him at all times.”
Jun hits himself. “Fine, fine, can you leave Hao with your parents, then? Just go to your party—we’ll pick him up at home.”
“It’s not a party, it’s an appointment.” But Jun heard heels clinking, sighs, yelling to her parents, a car door opening. “Fine. I’ll hear from you on Easter or something, then.”
Jun immediately pressed the button to call your desk in, before the call even ended. Soon enough, you’re walking in, taller than he remembers you, but he distracts himself from looking at you (it wasn’t healthy for him to look at you, he gets heartburn). “Could you pick my son up?” he asked. “Take my car. After that I swear you can take the day off, just come back to bring my keys b—”
His eyes finally land on you, and there’s silver sequins peeking out from under the blazer. He leans over the table, trying to look at your footwear: heels that made you taller than Mingyu from sales. “Um… is that for the party?”
“I’m going clubbing!” you answered. “With my boyfriend.”
Jun looked away from you. The sequinned dress was low-necked, distractingly so. “Alright, well… Hao’s usual sitter will be home, so you can just ring the bell.”
“I know the code to your door, anyway,” you say. “See ya, Mr. Wen!”
.
.
.
The New Year’s party was starting, with the attending employees taking advantage of every resource in the office: speakers blaring music, the main lights dimmed and LED lights strewn across the walls so carelessly it looked like they were there by accident; everything was a total mess. There wasn’t a reason to stay there anymore if he wasn’t celebrating, but Jun couldn’t leave: he needed his car.
It’s almost ten when you come back, and as much as it was long-awaited, it even felt unreal that you’d come back.
“Y/n!” He didn’t realize how his anxiety had crept up on him, even when concerning you—he knew Hao was safe home, but you were his main concern. Sort of weird, that it’d be that way. “I’m so glad you’re okay!”
“Bad news,” you say as you come into his office, basically screaming over the music, “I barely escaped when I came, but they’re blocking every street around here for the parade.”
Jun stood over his tiptoes to see the state of the roads: the parades were already setting in, and the roads were blocked everywhere. The only other option would be to wait it out, until it’s past midnight and everyone is back home in their beds.
He sighed. “I think I’ll have to stay until the end of the party.” He pulled out his phone, urgently texting the babysitter.
But Jun immediately turned into his usual anxious character, not being able to get home at his son’s bedtime. He paced around the party, sometimes paying attention to the music, although it was just grating for him at some point, and, not wanting to return home drunk, refused all booze and decided to chaperone the party.
He finds you at the hard liquor corner, during his many rounds around the office. You’re leaned back and sipping out of a full bottle. Jun hasn’t drunk in a while, because hangovers and being drunk in general made him unable to parent. He knows moderation looks different to everybody, but you weren’t it.
“... all I said was he spends a comically high amount of time with that girl from work! And he’s like, you’re always tailing after Jun, and I’m like, yeah, that’s my job? And then he says, I'm not his girlfriend, I just live with him, he can do whatever he wants.”
You take another mouthful out of the straight bottle. “What’d you say?” Arin edges you on.
“Told him that’s rich coming from the guy that was balls deep in my—”
Jun cringes with scrunched and avoidant eyes, as he comes over to take the bottle away from you. Setting it down on a desk behind him, he notices that the people around had started to clear out, not wanting a chaperoning boss to ruin the fun. They rushed to the windows and the balcony.
“I thought you were going clubbing on your night off?” he asks you, standing two feet planted in front of you. You were holding yourself really horribly, and ended up resting your head on his stomach without a thought in your head. If you had thought it through, maybe you wouldn't have done it.
“Fight,” you explained. “With the guy I live with.”
“I see…” Jun tenderly combed his fingers through your hair, but only used it to pull your head off his stomach. “Well, I guess office party’s just as fun, huh?”
You snorted as a reply.
“Last sixty seconds, guys!” someone yells. They’d opened the windows so the sounds of the parade in the street were full-blown blaring distantly, and you were about forty stories up in the air, the night breeze blowing with a vengeful cold.
You’re tired, your feet hurt and you just wanted to collapse into your bed. Unable to hold yourself up any longer, you fall face-flat into his stomach, again. Your arms wrapped around him, as if you were imagining him as a body pillow.
You feel Jun still, and you almost think he’s just uncomfortable being so close to you, but then you… realize something.
Mr. Wen likes you. It should have been obvious, whenever he seemed to forgive your inadequate work ethics and frequent unfailing mishaps, and how much he trusted you, no matter how many mistakes you made, how much he hated hearing about your life with your boyfriend… and what kind of boss goes shopping for their employee, privately, anyway?
You’re suddenly more awake than you were five seconds ago. You stand up, and there’s commotion—everyone’s crowding around the window, yelling the countdown as loud as their voices went. You look into Jun’s eyes. Sober, clean, worried.
“Do you think we can kiss, Mr. Wen?” you asked.
Jun stilled. Palms sweating, there was a moment where he swore his heart stopped, before he remembered how to breathe and regain all brain-control functions again. It might be what people call ‘skipping a beat’ meets ‘brain freeze’. “What?” he basically mumbled, unable to talk very loud, but you heard.
“We’re the only ones with no date,” you told him. “Everyone’s partnered up.” It was true, even people without dates had struck up deals for a new year’s kiss.
“It–it’s just not a good idea,” Jun stuttered.
“It’s a kiss for luck!” Every step you took towards him, Jun stepped back from you until his back hit a desk. Pouting, you add: “I want to have lots of luck next year.”
You must have had a lot of those schnapps and shots from the reception, Jun concludes, but too late: right after he takes the steps backwards, you had pulled him towards you by his tie. Hungry eyes, if he’d ever seen any. “Y/n,” he breathed out against your lips, which came close to him with every passing second, “we can’t.” You pull him in even closer, controlling him by the tie.
You do whatever the fuck you want when you’re drunk, Jun concludes. But it’s setting him into a full-blown panic. “Y–Y/n.”
The countdown starts, and you’re right—everyone’s gathered at the high-rise windows, looking at the parade under the office. No one’s looking back at you, and even if they were, they wouldn’t be able to tell who you were from the mere blue silhouettes of your bodies. At best, they’d just be able to see his white shirt. His entire body shrouded you.
Three!
You’re in every single part of Jun’s senses. He can smell you wearing the perfume he gave you, he can hear the low hum of your breath in his ears, he sees you, he sees the flimsy little dress with the spaghetti straps that keep dropping down to reveal more and more, he just…
Two!
He just has to taste you.
One!
He’s the one that takes the step to meet your lips, and now you’re kissing. You taste like soft cream and feel like good sleep. His tongue darts out, and you welcome it in your mouth.
Jun let out what he thinks is a sigh, but really was more of a moan, a sound that went unsuppressably past his throat and vibrated across your tongue. He thought you looked killer, the spaghetti straps of your dress would sometimes fall just a bit that he could see so much… flesh… from the side, but he won’t think about it, he won’t even look, he won’t be that pervert, the older guy that wants what he can’t have because you’re too shiny and spectacular and just the personification of a starry night, especially in this dress—and he can’t have you! He needed to get that through his head.
You had a boyfriend, you were literally about to go clubbing with him, you were taken, so what was he doing, what was he doing?
When he’s panting post-kiss, he doesn’t know if it’s the kissing making him breathless, or if it’s all his thoughts tiring him out.
“Wanna continue this?” you whispered to him, eyelashes hooding your expression. Jun doesn’t understand why you’d want to—yes, he wants to, but why do you—?
But he nods. He’s the one that grabs your hand, and walks over to his office, and you’re following him. Every time he told himself this was it and there’s no way you’d go further, you do. What the fuck.
The office is almost unrecognizable in the dark, with only the fireworks outside to light it up. You locked the door, and he realizes it hadn’t even crossed his mind.
You push him against the window, and for a second you looked over his shoulder at all the fireworks. He watches them reflect in your eyes, and the sight of you is just haunting.
And then you’re kissing him, his hands are on you again, this time peeling the spaghetti straps off, feeling your bare shoulders, just the feeling of your skin—he hadn’t been with anyone in a long, long time, too busy with his son or work, and to finally have this–with the person he’d been pining for so long…
He almost rips the dress off you, but restrains himself. Your lips feel soft and healing against his own, and then they’re on his neck. He doesn’t even stop you to tell you you can’t leave hickeys–it doesn’t even occur to him. His nose is just buried in your hair, as you trail kisses down his chest—when did you even undo the buttons?—and, when he messes with the straps of your dress again, it just drops to the floor at your feet.
He doesn’t even have the chance to take your form in, in just your strapless bra and panties. You’re rubbing him over his pants, and he’s hard, he wants it, yes, but he’s also dead sober and he couldn’t even stay drunk on you that long.
“Wait,” Jun says, holding up his hand, perhaps to keep some distance from you. “You’re drunk, we can’t go that far.”
With a lick of your lips, you’re undoing his belt and flinging it over your shoulder. When you can’t kiss him the way you wanted, you simply pull him by the tie so he’s on top of you, pinning you down on his desk. You want to kiss, you want his hands on you again, but he’s hesitant, only coming where you pull him.
“Y/n,” he gasped. “Y/n, please—this is a lawsuit.”
You giggled. “I’ll sign an NDA, if you want.”
Jun sighed, heavily breathing. “That’s not the problem.”
But he wants you, and if you want him now, there isn't a choice but to give in. Your naked legs wrap around his waist, and he just trails his hands down them, until they reach your heel-clad feet. It’s so hot, the way he’s allowed you to entrap him.
Jun is fervently kissing down your chest, your bra pulled down, as he enters you. He’s so hard, so bothered, and wet with precum. So hot it could sizzle. You throw your head back and let out a pornographic moan, but he cups his hand over your mouth, wordlessly reminding you that you were only a wall separated from a whole party of people.
Jun hadn’t been this way with anyone in a long time. There had been dates from time to time, but never with someone he actually truly liked. Trembling, his hips stutter, so does his lips, which are moaning your name. He tries to be as quiet and composed as he could, but he feels like he might let the loudest grunt, alerting everyone outside. He bites down on his lip.
He hadn’t been doing this in a while. This makes him impossibly sensitive, and he might release, even if it’s just too soon. You sense it in the stutter of his thrusts and immediately slip off him, and he’s glad, because he knows he can’t cum inside you, but also it was embarrassing to have to tell you. You kneel in front of him, open-mouthed, and he could spasm from the mere sight, before you take him in your hands.
Jun hisses sharply. “Do you see how it’s so white, you were so wet around me—” He interrupts himself with a sharp inhale.
But you’re going slowly, as if you were inexperienced with your tongue, or just wanted to drag the torture out for him. Jun’s hand grip at the table behind him.
“Please,” he moaned. “It hurts.” When he reaches out to touch you it’s fervent, hot. You’re the only thing in the world that could ease the pain and quench the thirst. His hands wrap around your hair, although to him it’s more like you hair had come alive and entangled themselves all over his digits. Your mouth feels so—fuck!
He’s cumming down your throat. Jun whimpered as the sensation of you never truly left him, you take care of him. Until the last of it spills onto the carpet. And he’s just watching you through his eyelashes, tired and giddy. He speaks your name.
You look up for a moment, before your gaze turns towards the door. Someone else was calling your name.
“It’s Arin,” you observe carefully. “You should count to like, three minutes before you come out, maybe more. I’ll go first, okay?”
He wondered if you’ve done these things before, as you strutted outside. The lights were back on outside in the hallway, and he shrouded himself in the shadows, feeling embarrassed but not ashamed.
When he exits the office later, locking the door behind him, there’s a man at your desk, figure defined by a dark puffer coat over a pastel hoodie. “Sorry I missed the kiss,” he was saying.
“I got kissed already,” you told him, avoiding eye-contact.
Guanhang didn’t believe you one bit, especially when you couldn’t meet him in the eye. “Yeah?” he says. “Who was it?”
“Arin,” you say plainly. Guanhang laughs. He grabs your hand.
“Wanna go watch the parade? I’ll put you on my shoulders and everything.” He looked past you, and sees Jun, and offers a tight-lipped smile. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your boss?”
“I don’t see why you’d need to, you’re just some guy I live with, right?”
You grabbed your handbag and strutted towards the elevator, but later Jun hears that Guanhang did put you on his shoulder to see the rest of the parade.
.
.
.
The second of January and business is back, you sit down at your desk after an uncomfortable subway ride and check a day’s worth of missed emails. When Jun comes to work, finally, you offer a smile, but don’t meet him in the eyes. He wasn’t looking at you, either.
“Good morning,” he basically grunted, clearing his throat. He knew it was impersonal, but he didn’t want to say your name, because whenever he spoke your name there was an embarrassing adoration in his voice.
“I’ll get you your coffee,” you told Jun.
You’re beating yourself up while waiting for the order, and you pull out your phone. These were words you couldn’t literally say to him, but on text you felt brave, hiding behind a screen. Not having to read his expressions.
You: hi, i just wanted to tell you…
It’s immediately read, although he doesn’t reply. He's waiting for you.
You: if you can just forget everything! It would be cool
You: what happened that night, I mean
You: I can’t be doing this, I have a boyfriend
Mr. Wen: we can do that.
Mr. Wen: i’m sorry, by the way
You: don’t be.
You: I liked it
Jun tries to forget.
.
.
A few days after New Year’s was Jun’s European business trip, and you were glad you wouldn’t have to see him after all. And yet, sitting at your desk two feet away from the office where it all happened made you feel weird. As all your drunk escapades make you feel.
He’d been gone since Monday, and was due back today, to land in the evening. But as you check in with him, you find out his flight’s been delayed.
“There’s engine issues,” he told you. “I don’t know, fingers crossed I make it in time before Hao’s bedtime.”
But an hour later he called you in a panic. “Y/n, fuck—what do I—I don’t even—” When you ask him to tell you, slowly, he tries to calm down. “The babysitter! I told them my flight’s delayed, and she can’t stay all night—I don’t think my plane will land until dawn. Now she’s mad I’m demanding too many hours, because she stayed all night on New Year’s, too…”
You cringed, thinking about New Year’s night.
“I don’t know what to do, can you go to my apartment? I already called Seungkwan, and then I tried Joshua, but—”
“Of course I’ll do it!” you interrupt. “You can’t call your friends, they’re busy men… I’ve got nothing going on, it’s fine. I’ll go.”
Jun sighed in relief. “You sure?”
You looked over at the make-shift dining room table in your apartment. Guanhang promised to be home for dinner, but he hadn’t come home at all. “Yeah,” you told him. “Just try to have a safe flight, okay?”
.
.
.
Hao’s crying, and the babysitter is panicking when you come into the apartment. You quickly explain the situation to her, and she’s soon excused, leaving you and the sobbing boy alone, but at least seeing you, who he associated with his dad, calmed him down a little.
“Your dad’s at the airport,” you explain to the little boy patiently. “You remember airports, right? You’ve been there with daddy?”
He pulls out a plane and asks if Jun is in a similar one, and you answer yes.
“But papa’s always here when I go to sleep,” Hao whined. “And I need someone to watch my back, so the monsters don’t creep up.”
“Do you want me to put you to sleep?” you asked. “Hey, why don’t we sleep in the master bedroom, huh? So you can surprise daddy when he’s home.”
Jun’s giant apartment actually had an office and three bedrooms, but the master bedroom was his, the other was Hao’s—with a little kid-sized bed—and he turned the third bedroom into a playroom, so guests were never expected. You decided once you put Hao to bed, you would go sleep on the couch in the living room, wake up and go home once Jun’s home, you get a day off, anyway.
.
.
.
Jun took a taxi back home. The sun wouldn’t rise for hours. He’d been microdosing on first-class flight champagne all night, and it only made him feel sleepy and unsharp. Plus, he’d been up for an entire day.
He’s stumbling into his apartment, not even taking his shoes off—if he sat down to do it, he’d fall asleep immediately—and only takes them off when he’s in his bedroom. He hears Hao’s little breaths and sniffles, and concludes he’s in his bed.
But when he turns to finally look, you’re there, too, lying on the blankets, not under them. You must have fallen asleep putting Hao to sleep…
Jun tucks you into bed, intending to keep you and Hao there and sleep in the living room, but he can’t deny the welcoming pliability of his bed, so he would just rest his head, on the familiar navy pillows, just a blink, just to shut his eyes…
.
When you wake up, it's because there’s something in your hand. You blink the sleep out of your eyes, to see that you were holding onto Jun’s hand, held over his sleeping son’s chest.
You flinch away, and with the rustle of the bedsheets, he’s awake.
You’d been sleeping, forehead to forehead and holding hands over the sleeping boy, like you were a family.
You murmur your apologies. He excuses you, and tells you you can keep sleeping for a bit, he’s going to take a shower anyway, he’ll make you and Hao breakfast and then you could leave.
You’re having this whole conversation still lying on the bed like a mom and dad, and he reached over, patting your head. Your hair’s messy, and still had clips in it, never having taken them off. He pets you as if you were something beloved—but you pulled away. Cleared your throat. “Um. You should go shower.”
He’s so tired he doesn’t even know what he’s doing, whole body running on autopilot until he wakes up watching the steam rise out of the showerhead. Jun lets the warm water rush all over his body, pitter-pattering over his closed eyelids and down his broad shoulder. He sighed. He’s travel-weary, and jetlagged, and everything sucked. And he was embarrassed, because of the way you had flinched away from his touch…
Suddenly he heard footsteps outside the bathroom, and despite the sounds of the water, he heard everything (damn you, expensive rich-people shower!).
“I was home until 10, and you’re the one that didn’t come home!” He realized you were screaming, and you were near the bathroom because you had to scream—it was the farthest from where Hao was sleeping, so a blindspot.
“Heng, I had work!”
“Don’t give me that work bullshit, how is there work at fucking midnight?!” Damn. He could hear it despite the call not being on speaker, and also through the sounds of the water. Guanhang could yell, for sure.
“There just was! I’m an assistant–I’m sorry, alright, I’m sorry! I tried to call you last night—”
“Stop fucking calling me, then, fucking leave me alone!” You went quiet, which made Guanhang snap: “why aren’t you saying anything?!”
Jun hears you groan. He tries to tune it out, until at one point he can’t hear anything anymore. It must be over. Hao must still be asleep, although he bets not for long. Jun weighs his options, what he could make for breakfast for the three of you. He lets the warmth of the shower and the prospect of good food lull him into a another open-eyed nap.
Your whereabouts in the house were unknown to him, until he sees your figure enter the bathroom, through steam-mist shrouded silhouettes. He doesn’t say anything, letting you get ready on your own for the day—but you open the door to the shower.
Jun basically jumps back, but sees that now you’re in your tank top, the one you wore under your sweater, and… panties. His eyes don’t linger that long there.
“I wanted to shower, too,” you told him. He doesn’t say anything, half in shock, still tired. But he does watch everything, the way you peeled the pieces of clothing off of you so slowly, and then, under his gaze, felt strange and so cover your breasts with your arms. You look like a pin-up girl, which makes his brain chemistry go woah. You join him under the water, looking as if you didn’t even realize he was there, focused on wetting all of your hair, with closed eyes concentrated on the feeling of the water.
Can he touch you? Jun decided not to bet on it, and leaned back, watching you, dazed. He didn’t even understand what was happening.
You pull him in by the back of his hair, making him lean down to kiss you. As soon as that awkward seal broke, Jun’s on your skin, kissing your naked chest, trying to cover more ground than the water does. But you need his lips on your own, stat, so you yank his head up with a sharp, painful pull of his hair. He winces, but finds he likes the pain—like your coffee, everything you give him is sweet.
“This time you can cum inside of me,” you say raspily against his ears, which makes him feral, turning you around and pressing you up against the glass walls of the shower. He lets out a low growl, reminiscent of his days as a bachelor, before his ex, before Hao. He felt like he was just dripping in that youth again, being inside of you.
It doesn’t occur to him how weird it was. Why would you not even let him pat you on the head, but kiss him naked in the shower? Of course, he came to a conclusive construct in the end: Guanhang. Every time your own boyfriend disappointed you, you came to him.
.
.
The next morning, right before he set out to drive to work, came the text:
(2) New messages from Y/N
Forget about yesterday, please
I feel really bad. We shouldn’t have.
.
.
.
Jun would wait. Until Guanhang makes you feel unneeded again, he would wait. He didn’t see it as taking advantage of your sadness—in fact, it was a sadness mutualism. He was there for you when you felt down, and he… Well, he was always sad. You made it worse when you left, but when you were around it felt like heaven.
Guanhang spends nights out, and you wanted to limit your meetings with Jun to just that, but sometimes, you’d take his car to his apartment, fuck, and then he’d drop you off, right before Guanhang comes home from work or whatever he does. You never get caught—Guanhang doesn’t expect you back so quickly. There were nights you spent completely at his apartment, where you’d talk more than you’d fuck, and also play house with Hao, like a little family, and Jun’s never had that, that he begins to actually fool himself. He knows it’s insane, of course, but sometimes between sleepover nights and making you breakfast, he wishes you were Hao’s mom. He thought he’d given up on that a long time ago, but you made him revisit what it feels like to be young and in love.
At the office, you act naturally. You never even show half a glimmer of interest in him, you do your job. No one catches on. Your acting was genuinely convincing, that he’d wonder if you even liked him at all, but once work is over and he’s driving you back, you’re all over him.
He knows, of course, that it all depended on Guanhang, agonizingly so—you only paid attention to Jun when Guanhang wasn’t paying attention to you. And sometimes Jun gave you presents here and there, shopping trips and premium subscriptions—and one time you wanted to give Guanhang a video game as a present, so you siphoned off Jun’s money for that. He knows it’s wrong, you’re stringing him along, but sometimes he knew no better. He chose to know no better.
“She’s just a user,” Minghao told Jun when he finally admitted to it. “If she only comes to you when her boyfriend has off-days, I’m sorry, she’s a user. Nothing more to it.”
Jun knew you didn’t love him, of course, but it’s hard to imagine you completely indifferent to him. You were nice when you’re together.
“Either way,” Minghao says, “It’s a dangerous game. What if she extorts you?”
“She wouldn’t!”
“She has a boyfriend, what if he finds out and blackmails you?!”
Jun admitted to the possibility, but told Minghao not to worry. He was willing to go down for you, although he didn’t dare admit it to his friends.
But Jun let you in every time you knocked, until you became as familiar to him as the back of his hand.
.
.
.
“I’m taking Tuesday afternoon off,” Jun says as he lazily thrusts into you, “We’re trying to get Hao into one of those high-end nursery schools, next year.” He moved in you, and it’s tight and wet, but for you it just feels full, with no movement. You feel a little crazy.
If you weren’t trying so hard to cum, maybe you could have made a joke about how high-end nursery schools can be. But you just nod, peeking at him through scrunched eyes. “Uh-huh!” you squeaked. He’s moving again, and you throw your head back and moan.
“I think I’ll need you there,” Jun says. “I mean, I’ll need to look important and be hands-on, it’s nice to have an assistant there.”
You shiver around his cock, he’s moving but only minimally, and you need the full violent, bottom-out-and-thrusting-in action. You whine.
“Y/n? Are you getting this? I’ll meet you at the office, alright?”
You simply groan, pushing him back and trying to find… whatever was the pussy equivalent of ‘footing’. You try to gain leverage on the desk behind you and bounce, fucking yourself on his cock, and it’s still not enough.
Jun laughs. You are not getting it. You’re basically going feral from the withheld orgasm. Giving you what you wanted, he goes faster, and you nearly scream, gripping onto his white oxford in bunches, lewdly bouncing on his cock. “Want me to touch you?” he questioned, and you nod vehemently. “Yes, yes, yes, yes—”
.
There must be like 20 kids running around at this party. (“oh my god, triplets!” you whispered to Jun as you first stepped into the garden) Hao’s shy, and wants his father to carry him, preferably back into the car, but Jun refuses, making him walk. He doesn’t cry to protest, which is what you love so much about Hao. “Go play with Hoon,” Jun suggests, dropping to his knees to talk to his son. He pointed the familiar little face out. “Go on, make new friends!”
“He’s a bit like you,” you told Jun as Hao wandered off into the playpens.
Jun turned to you, curious. “How so?”
“He’s shy, but… he makes it work.” You’re back on your phone again, double-checking your boss’s schedule, checking all mail, confirming meeting times and topics. Jun waits for you on a bench until he couldn’t anymore.
He snatches the phone from you. “Work later,” he says. “I’m just like Hao, and I need you to be tailing me at all times so I can have a sense of security.”
“A false sense of security,” you say. “Wait, security from what?”
“The parents’ committee…”
So you’re the one that meets the fear-striking bunch of parents, rich trust fund kids breeding more trust fund kids, whose only purpose was to take care of their children. They might be problematically prideful and impossibly picky, but they made up for it by having an overly welcome demeanor. The triplets’ mother led the committee and also the waitlist to the nursery school, and as you pointed Hao out to her, she gushed over how cute the little guy was. Jun stands demurely behind you, not even accepting the compliment himself.
“He really is a sweet boy,” says the woman, “well it’s no wonder, when his parents are so cute!”
Jun looked at you, wanting to cut in, but he never speaks soon enough, and you’re the one that goes: “thank you!” with a grin. He doesn’t say anything anymore after that.
It’s winter, and when the party’s over the sun had set. Hao’s extra tired, from climbing up walls and running around with the other kids. When you look back at him, a few minutes after having strapped him into his little child seat, he’s out like a light. “He’s kaputt,” you informed Jun.
“Yeah?” He smiled. “Good… hey, I mean, when they thought you were his mom—”
“I hope you don’t mind!” you say. “I just… didn’t want to go through the whole I’m-actually-his-assitant and then they ask where the mom is and then the whole divorce story…”
“I’m actually grateful.” Jun’s lips are tightened but upturned in a little :] smile. “I… never like talking about his mom.” You nodded. After a few minutes of silence, he goes: “well, I mean, if they ask next time where his mom is, and you’re not there…”
“Of course I’ll be there!” you put a hand over his thigh, and squeeze. “Maybe you can keep saying that, I’m gonna be with you guys for a while, aren’t I?”
.
Jun’s the one that carries his son out of the car and into the apartment, and you follow him upstairs—he promised to make you dinner. As you get into the elevator, you text Guanhang you’ll be eating somewhere else, if he cares.
Guanhang: Where? Maybe I can join you
You: just somewhere with the girls from the office :) girls’ night?
You look up from your phone as little Hao wakes up, cheeks puffy against Jun’s shoulder. “Y/n,” he says sleepily.
“Hey, little guy. We’re home.”
“You’re home,” Hao says with a yawn, and maybe he just said it because he was half-asleep, but you stop in your tracks. You realize you’d been spending more time at your boss’s house than you do in Guanhang’s apartment.
You ran Hao a bath, and you and Jun bathed the little guy together, complete with bathbombs and bath toys. There’s sand from the garden everywhere in his scalp, which you patiently wash off.
“I want Y/n to be my mommy,” Hao says as you gently wet his hair, occasionally dunking him, which he’s patient to.
You let out a laugh, it was just awkward and you didn’t know what to say, how to parent.
You’re not the parent though, and Jun took the little boy into his arms, growing sterner. “Hey, you don’t say things like that, okay?”
“Why not?” the little boy pondered.
“Well, because she’s still young and she might not like—I mean, son, listen, motherhood—I mean, it’s just—you’re cute, don’t worry, you’re the cutest thing ever, but—you can’t just say that to everybody you like!”
“I don’t say it about everybody,” Hao says. “I just say it about y/n!”
You offer a tight-lipped smile, and Hao’s still not done: “I looove y/n. I like her more than mama. Mama’s mama, and Y/n is mommy!”
“I didn’t teach him that,” Jun says quietly. “I swear, I did not teach him that.”
.
Later when he sends you home, he’s still apologizing profusely. And then, he lights up with a smile. “It’s good he likes you, isn’t it?”
You shrugged. “I mean… yeah. I like that Hao likes me, it’s part of my job.”
.
.
.
Jun presented a little promise ring, a silver band encrusted with diamonds. Minghao sighs. “You cannot be…”
“It’s for Y/n!”
“I thought she wanted no strings attached?” probed Minghao.
Jun frowned, thinking deeply about it. “But…” he sounded as innocent as his own son as he said it, “we’ve come far enough that we can define our relationship. You don’t know what she told me.”
“What?”
“She said, she’ll be here with me and Hao. For a long time.”
“Jun,” Minghao says, sighing, “don’t… don’t do this to yourself or little Hao. Don’t play with someone that obviously doesn’t care about your feelings.”
“I don’t know, Minghao,” Jun sighed. “I think this might be it. I feel like she could… be in my life. Permanently.”
“She’s a user!” Minghao pointed out. “If she comes to you whenever her boyfriend lets her down, and takes advantage of you and your money because you’re needy with a kid, she’s a bad person.”
“She’s never asked for anything from me,” Jun says sadly. “I think you’re wrong.”
“She never denies your gifts, either.”
“Why would she refuse something I’ve already bought her?”
Minghao groans, head in his hands, his friend was not getting it—he’s just not getting it! “Listen,” he told Jun, “you are not asking someone that flaky for a real relationship. You won’t like what you get.”
“Why—”
“She’s still living with a guy!”
“You’re right,” Jun says. He sinks back down into his chair. “I’ll just ask her to move out, first.”
Minghao throws his hands up in the air and lets out the most strangled groan he’s ever made his entire life.
.
Jun can’t pop the question. It’s hard to just ask someone about their lovelife, even someone he considers to be as close as you. Of course he, with his small circle and busy life, thought you were close, and you knew everything about his life, but did you consider the same of him? He didn’t even know so much about you.
Plus, you never talk about your feelings. The only time you’d ever come close to that were the times where you talked about Guanhang, times when he eavesdropped, just to know what it’s like to be someone you loved, except it wasn’t him, and he could never imagine it being him.
So he thinks that’s where he should start: Guanhang. If you loved him, then you must hang onto him, and if he gets a straight answer about it then he’ll stop the pining. Plus, it would mean he has no chance.
He picked an evening where you were in your feelings. The sky’s a certain shade of blue, from all the citylights polluting the darkness, and it would never dim; you rolled down your side window and stared out, sometimes enjoying the velocity breeze but he just kept getting stuck in traffic, so the car was often still. “Y/n,” he says quietly, voice almost blending in with sounds of the city, “how’s Guanhang?”
“Oh, you mean the guy I live with?” you snort. You rolled your window up so you could hear him better. “He’s fine. Now that he’s taken up a second job we have less time to fight.”
“Do you love him?”
You gasp. “What?”
“Do you even believe in love?” Jun wondered. “I feel like you don’t really act that way.”
“I didn’t use to,” you answered honestly. You sounded so wise to him, he’d never heard you this way before. “But… one day, you know, Guanhang works at a studio, and I listened to one of the stuff he produced—there were like, 30 guys singing on a backtrack, but I knew immediately when his voice was in it. I could just recognize it.”
Jun’s heart clenched in his chest, and if he weren’t driving he’d double over. He hadn’t had his heart broken in so long… not since his broken engagement.
“And,” you say, “one night, Guanhang ‘borrowed’ his friend’s car and we went out of the city, to stargaze. We just had the radio to listen to, so we spent the entire ride driving past the suburbs screaming the lyrics to every song we knew. It was like a competition—and then, at one point, I stopped screaming. I just listened to him. I realized then that’s what love is? If that makes sense? Love is shutting up while you’re singing in the car because you want to hear their voice. And that’s the day I said it. ‘I love you.’ I’ve never said it to anybody before in my life.”
You looked over at Jun. “But now he’s just some guy I live with.”
Well, that wasn’t a straight answer. But he knew he could never ask you now. Guanhang was someone you’d always want to hang onto. With his ex, it had been black-and-white, she didn’t want him and he gave up. But Guanhang was always going to string you along, and he… knew he couldn’t compete. He’d never felt good enough for love, ever since his ex and the wedding debacle.
.
.
There’s a letter of resignation on his desk, a few days after that night. You had been growing cold towards him, nights where you slept over grew seldom and seldom until you just stopped. But you give him his coffee every day still, perfectly, even, without spillage, and it always tastes just as sweet, as sweet as only you could make it.
So it’s a shock to him as he read the letter, right in front of your eyes. “Why?” he demanded. He got so fired up he started speaking mandarin. “Wèishéme?!”
“I just…” you say, blinking tears away, “I just can’t do this anymore, and seeing you every day at work like we aren’t something is just...”
“Is it Guanhang?” he demanded.
“No,” you say. “No, I just… I just want positions I deserve. And I feel like I got here because… you liked me.”
“You’re here because I like the way you work,” Jun insisted. You don’t believe him. “No, I—I had this assistant that would color-code everything with custom stickers, but they were all pastel and I basically turned colorblind trying to read them, I had another guy assistant that kept asking questions and making me confirm everything myself, I had this other intern, right before you, that took pictures of me and Hao because he wanted to put it on his blog—Y/n, you’re great. I like that you don’t overcomplicate your systems, you sometimes spill things and trip and fall, but I don’t mind. It’s small flaws I never even saw—I didn’t hire you because of some… sexual ulterior motive. I like you. I like the way you work first, and then I just… fell for the rest of you.”
You looked conflicted, you watch him through your eyelashes. “I want to transfer,” you say, resolute but soft enough. “To Mr. Choi’s company—you know I’m more into that line of work, it’s what I studied. I just think a position there might be better.”
Jun tries to convince you to stay, but he was never a believer in his own self.
You leave, two months later, after treating him just like a stranger whose schedule was the only thing you knew about him.
.
.
.
Jun still has the promise ring, and it’s always somewhere in his pocket, although he hopes that one day he could just lose it, more or less accidentally, but the little velvet box always stayed somewhere in the pockets of his coats or trousers. He didn’t even know why it mattered to him, it’s not like you’d even touched it in your entire life. And yet… when he holds it in his hands, it feels to him like that sweet daydream that never became reality—he never got to touch it, but still, it’s so vivid.
Hao keeps asking why you’re not around, and Jun never knows how to answer. He explains the concept of resignation to the little boy, patiently, and Hao sort of begins to get it.
“So Y/n’s somewhere? In this city? And we just can’t see her?”
It’s supposed to be spring, but the wind still blows harsh and northern like the middle of winter, and it reminds him of you, because all the months you’d worked for him were so cold. He remembers you in your little trenchcoats and woolen things, trying to text with a smart glove on…
“Do you want to see her?” Jun asked Hao. “Maybe we just pay a little visit, for the last time?”
So him and his son are parked in front of the complex he always dropped you off, and he presses the bell for 3A, which you shared with Guanhang. When it buzzes in, Jun takes the little boy on his shoulders.
Guanhang’s waiting at the door, not knowing what he’s being visited for. “We just wanted to see Y/n,” Jun says, awkward because that was his rival he was talking to. “The little guy missed him, is it okay if he—”
“Y/n moved out,” Guanhang says plainly. “A month ago.”
But that was when you resigned. “Do you—know where?”
“That receptionist friend she had,” Guanhang says. “Moved in with her. I don’t fucking know. Don’t look at me like that, I tried to make her stay, too.” The door slams.
Jun calls the personnel office in his car with the engine on, as Hao swings his little legs on the seat. This was a revelation to him—you ended it with Guanhang, and even with him, and everything’s just so clear to Jun, now: you wanted things you deserved. You were starting over. You wanted to work for things yourself. He just wanted you back in his life, he wasn’t bad for you, he would prove it.
The phone comes through. “Hey! Good evening, it’s Jun—I just need to know where Choi Arin lives.”
“For something good, like a bonus, I hope,” replies the man working at the office.
.
Arin lives in another complex, closer to work this time. The apartment was on the third floor, and Jun climbed the stairs with Hao on his shoulders, once again, only for Arin to come out and tell him you didn’t live there anymore.
“It was just temporary,” she said. “She wanted a real place she could rent—I think Mr. Jo from security hooked her up with a free space in his flat.”
.
“Hey, Jun again… could you give me the address of Jo from security?”
.
.
.
He doesn’t know which floor you lived on, or even which side of the terrace. He tries door after door, and nice ladies here and there wanted to accompany him for the rest of the search. Then another man wants to see it through, too, and Jun entrusts that his son was grabbing the tail of his coat at all times, following him.
He’s gathered a bunch of people following him when he arrives at the new side of the terrance. He almost loses the motivation to go around asking a whole neighborhood if they knew you, when…
He could hear music, faintly coming from a ground-floor window. He followed it, knowing the melody well—you would hum it all the time, it was your favorite.
He knocks on the door it leads him to.
You come out with a bowed head, and you’re more beautiful than he remembers, although you looked even more tired. If you were living here but working at Seungcheol’s company, you must be waking up so early just to make it there at 9 a.m. Jun reaches out to touch you, as if he had been fooled and you’re just a mirage.
“Y/n!”
You extend your arms to the little boy, and he climbs up. Your laughter is light. “Hao! What are you guys—Jun? What is this?”
He doesn’t know how to start this. He fumbled around with the pockets of his paddington coat, and there were just too many pockets. After going through each of six pockets twice and coming up with just stray used tissues and car keys, he checks his pants, and there it was. He pulls out the little velvet box; a bunch of people gasp. You just mumble, “he wouldn’t.” But you don’t know if he would.
But there is a ring, although at closer inspection you notice it’s not for engagements. A simple promise ring, which you putt out to inspect, and ‘1.1. 00:00’ is engraved on the inside.
Your first kiss. You look up at him, and just when you’re about to speak, Mini-Wen wraps his arms around you. “Missed you, Y/n.”
“Y/n,” Jun starts, “I just—I—I wanted to ask you to be mine. But I was just—I was just afraid. I’ve had this phobia against relationships ever since Hao’s mom left me, and…” (the crowd ‘aww’ed) “I was afraid of getting close to someone again, if they might break my heart, and well, you did–you did, you left. But… I found out it doesn’t even matter. I’m happy to be loving you and getting my heart broken by you. I think you’ve got your fair share of broken hearts, too, but if you trust me—” you’re looking up at him with a brand new look in your eyes. He falters, splutters, as he always did when you look at him. “I can promise you I’ll always be here for you. I’ll keep your place for you, I’ll always protect you, I’ll—”
With Hao still in your arms, you step in and kiss Jun. For a second he forgets to close his eyes, and he just watches you, lips sinking into his. He knows exactly what he feels for you, except he’s just too scared to say what it is.
“Did my speech move you into kissing me?” He murmured against your lips.
“No, but there’s just too many people watching I felt the need to perform.”
Hao plants a kiss on your cheek, and suddenly you and Jun are kissing him back, on each cheek—Jun had imagined showing his son love with this, but it was only you that made it possible.
He brings you and Hao closer into him, warm and padded inside his coat.
“I think I was too preoccupied to tell you on New Year’s,” Jun says. “I hope you have a good year, Y/n.”
Warnings - Sex used as a coping mechanism so it’s just. Sad, lotsa tears, mental breakdown, panic and chaos, manipulation, reader gaslighting herself, mentions of blood, many timeskips, character death.
You find Hyunjae in the middle of the dancefloor where you left him. He’s dancing carefully with an older company manager that had long retired before you knew Sangyeon. She was the sweetest– you were told– but only when she wasn’t poisoning people that interfered with her work.
An ill timed misstep, a mind too preoccupied in screaming for help– suddenly you’re falling into Hyunjae’s arms.
The lady uses it as a sign to make her exit. She doesn’t have time for emotional drama.
“Woah- hey! Are you okay? You’ve gone cold,” his eyebrows pinch together in worry, “What happened with Sangyeon?”
A forced breath tells him all he needs to know.
“We can’t do this anymore,”
Five words and your resolve shatters into pieces. You don’t even consider how Hyunjae’s taking the news, only that your heart is in your throat and your hands won’t stop shaking.
“What?”
You can’t look him in the eyes.
“Sangyeon–”
Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. Don’t faint.
“Sangyeon’s angry beyond repair. I fucked this up for myself and I won’t let you bear the consequences of my actions,”
His own sweaty hands come to cup your chin and then your eyes meet his.
“Did he hurt you?”
He’s gentle with his tone and the consideration almost has you crying like a baby in his arms and telling him all the ways your life has done you wrong. No, Sangyeon never hurt you physically. But your heart was never left without a bruise.
“He didn’t– I–” it’s hard to gather your thoughts when all you want to do is run away.
“Hyunjae, you have to go,”
“I don’t quite like that idea,” he chuckles in spite of the rigid atmosphere, “I have a feeling if I leave, I won’t get to see you again,”
Once again, your silence tells him everything.
Hyunjae’s face turns stoic. Arms straightening on his sides, his answer is resolute.
“No.”
Your chest tightens at his refusal. You had hoped this wold be easy. That he wouldn’t make it harder than it needed to be. But this entire situation had become too complicated for anything to go smoothly.
“Please don’t make this difficult,” you clutch his collar in your hands.
He pulls them off, entangling his fingers with yours. Hyunjae’s face is softer now when he sees you truly worried about whatever Sangyeon threatened you with.
“I’m not leaving just to let you waste your life with that psychopath,”
“I chose this life,” you breathe in his scent to ground you, “I’m not gonna let you become the receiver of the punishment meant for me,”
“It’s over, Hyunjae,”
It kills you to say it and it kills you to step away from him. But you do. Despite your heart weighing you down colossally, you turn around to start your walk of shame to your husband.
Your trance is broken by heavy footsteps running towards you. A hand wraps around your wrist like vines and suddenly you’re pulled around.
Soft lips are pressed to yours in urgency. The hall lights up with a collective gasp and suddenly all eyes are on you.
Then everything happens too quickly.
The pressure slightly increases on your lips and is suddenly gone. Hyunjae is ripped from your arms and Sangyeon enters your vision. His fist lands on Hyunjae’s face and breaks the side of his lip open. The second blow is blocked by a man bigger than Sangyeon who keeps yelling at him to calm down.
Hyunjae’s laughing on the floor even with his lip busted open. He mocks Sangyeon with his nonchalant behaviour and the audience silently revels in the buildup to inevitable destruction taking place before them.
Anxiety builds up in your chest once the shock wears down. Your head pounds and you choke on your breath. Sangyeon stares at you– eyes ignited with the fire of detestation at your disrespect– when you shove past him and drop next to Hyunjae.
You don’t wait for anything to happen next. With your ears ringing, you can’t really hear whether anyone is calling you or what they’re saying. You quietly pull Hyunjae behind you and walk out of the hall.
With Sangyeon’s eyes stuck to the back of your head, you can’t seem to figure out how you keep digging bigger holes for yourself.
Cleaning Hyunjae’s lip takes surprisingly less time than it should considering you’re at his house which is unfamiliar territory and he doesn’t seem to be too enthused about letting you fuss over him when he can cuddle with you and take a nap.
Besides his soft snores pressed into your chest, there’s silence in the room. Not even his clock is making any noise.
The silence registers as eerie in your mind. Your nerves remain unsettled, cold sweats breaking out. It’s hard to sleep when your mind keeps running reels of how it would be easy for Sangyeon to track you all the way here. How easy would it be for him to break into Hyunjae’s home and kill him.
You think about how much trouble you’ve put Hyunjae in. You truly believe that had it been just business, Sangyeon would’ve let Hyunjae off easy. Because he wouldn’t have found him.
Sangyeon only found out about Hyunjae because of his constant detours into your room.
You consider it silly to fall asleep when Sangyeon’s absence is as loud as his presence. He looms over your head like a threat. His fear settles into your lungs like thick tar, drowning you from the inside out.
Sighing, you force yourself to think of something else, anything but Sangyeon. The first night you met Hyunjae pops into your brain. He had come to your house during one of Sangyeon’s mandatory New Year’s parties and snuck his way into your husband’s study on the second floor. The plan was to come and go in five minutes. However, he had been uninformed that Sangyeon’s wife uses the same study as a sanctuary to hide from her superficial life.
After a whole night of being shown off as a mantle piece, an addition in one of his infinite winnings, his trophy wife, you were irritated enough to not give a fuck about why Hyunjae was there. All you wanted was a few moments of peace and Hyunjae’s presence was wasting your time of solitude. He told you he came in search of a file with Sangyeon’s recent supplier documents. You had no idea where he kept documents like these but knew it had to be in that very room, so you had told him to try his luck and get out as soon as possible.
It wasn’t very soon.
The file had been hidden away meticulously and it took Hyunjae two hours to find it. You had rolled your eyes at him when he left with a “see you soon, cherry-cheeks,” and left a flying kiss in your direction. Your hands came up to touch your face after he left and cursed the several glasses of wine for enhancing your already pigmented blush.
Later in the night, you found yourself searching through all your husband’s drawers to remember where he kept what. You tried to convince yourself that it was to ensure that Hyunjae would leave you alone as fast as possible, shoving away the idea that maybe, in the hours that you spent together, you had quickly grown fond of him and wanted to help him.
You forlornly smiled to yourself at that. You always trust people so quickly, and love them so deeply.
And then the insecurity creeps in.
Hyunjae has never told you if he wants anything to do with you beyond ruining Sangyeon– beyond finishing his job. You think to yourself whether he’s just using you as a ploy to get information about Sangyeon and the thought makes your chest ache.
The boy in your arms stirs himself awake while you tussle with your brain.
“What are you thinking about?” He mumbles into your skin.
“You,”
He sleepily giggles at that, still coming to consciousness.
“So obsessed with me,”
His teasing has you shoving him away from you. Which only makes him laugh harder.
“How’s your lip?” You ask once he presses himself against you again.
“Hmm… it’ll be way better if you kissed it,” he peaks out at your face with one eye.
Upon seeing your halfhearted smile, his cheeky demeanour immediately falters.
“What’s wrong?” A twitch in his brow bone gives away his worry more than his tone.
You don’t answer him, only bend over to kiss him.
“Do you love me, Hyunjae?”
A sharp intake of breath. And then silence.
Through a close lipped smile, he forces out a “yeah,” to quell your worry.
It doesn’t work.
But you pretend it does.
Your hand grabs his arm and before you know it, his body is pressed on top of yours.
“Then make love to me,”
Hyunjae knows Sangyeon’s fear is eating you alive and he realises that having sex might not be the healthiest way to make you forget about your husband. But it’s the least he can do after so vividly shattering your heart.
No words are exchanged when he unbuttons his shirt away from your chest and kisses down your neck. His mouth encloses around a perked nipple, coercing out a shaky huff from your throat. His teeth pinch the sensitive skin and his tongue lathes around the indents. As his hands reach your bottoms, he switches attention towards your other nipple.
Insisting on not bothering with foreplay, you pull his sweats down to his knees. Your tears flow when he inserts himself inside you. When his cock nudges inside your walls, you realise Sangyeon left a significant amount of damage inside.
However, you power through, hell bent on torturing yourself in search of an orgasm reached on your conditions.
Hyunjae tries to break away from your grasp but you don’t let him. Pushing your nails into his shoulder blades, you tighten your legs behind his hips so he’s forced into a slow grind inside you.
It’s depressing, the way you’re willing yourself to cum. Depressing and overwhelming. You start sobbing when the pain gets too much and Hyunjae tries to distract you by kissing your face.
He tries again to move away but you plead him to make you cum, letting your legs fall open besides you. Hyunjae starts a generous pattern, not too fast to drive you into panic but not too slow to leave you unsatisfied.
Soon, he pushes your legs onto his shoulder with your permission. His motion is steady and calculated inside you as his hands twist and pinch your nipples.
His orgasm comes before yours and the lubrication helps the slide feel easier than before. Noticing the shift in your attitude, deft fingers start rubbing your clit in tight circles.
You spasm against him when you climax. Still, it’s unsavoury and leaves the burn in your belly more charged than it was initially.
The frustration makes you start weeping fully. Hyunjae tries to distract you again by kissing your face but your cries are loud and make it difficult for you to breathe.
As soon as he takes his cock out of you, you’re pushing him off. Your legs tangle in the sheets and you don’t make it far away from the bed before toppling on the floor in hysterics.
Hyunjae’s quick to push his sweats back up his hips and join your shivering frame on the ground.
“I-im s-sorry,” every breath of yours ends in a boneshaking hiccup.
“You don’t have to be sorry for anything,” it kills him to see you so broken.
You mumble something but it’s mixed between your sobs, inaudible.
“What, darling?” He cups his face to make you look at him.
“I still love him,” you force the ungraceful confession out through sniffles and heaves, “ but he doesn’t love me,”
Hyunjae wraps his arms around your shoulders and rocks your body with his.
“And you don’t love me either,”
He stills entirely at that.
Does he love you? He definitely cares for you so much. But how can one love a person when their only interactions had been sexual? He truly did believe you despised him so wasting his time thinking of a potential romance with you never crossed his mind.
But can’t care blossom into love?
Hyunjae supposes it can.
He pulls you to his chest and you try to match his breathing.
“I’ll take you away from here,” you close your eyes and melt into his skin, “We’ll go where no one will find us. We’ll build our own home, our own family,” his grip tightens on you, “I’ll love you the way you deserve to be loved,”
One final deep breath and you’re nuzzling your face into his skin.
“Okay,”
Hyunjae smiles wistfully at your quick agreement.
Yet, you detach yourself from him.
“I have to go home,”
He startles at your choice.
“What? Why?” Hyunjae searches your eyes for anything beyond fear but emerges empty handed.
“He’s waiting for me,” you’re resolute in your choice.
His laugh is short and apathetic. “You don’t know that,”
Your eyes show no signs of retracting your decision.
“I do.”
“After all the disrespect,” Sangyeon turns your way when you make your presence known with a knock, “You’re back where you started,”
He shakes his head when you refuse to look at him.
“Are you happy now? Did you have fun insulting me like that with your little toy? Is he happy that he could use you in so many ways?”
“He’s not a toy,” your eyes shoot daggers at Sangyeon, “He’s shown me more humanity than you have for the past ten years,”
“You think he cares for you? Please,” he scoffs in your face, “He only cares about his mission. Once I’m out of the picture he’s gonna leave you in the dust,”
Your heart clenches at his words.
Sangyeon strides towards you with an air of arrogance, dropping a sealed folder at your feet. Your cheeks flare red when you have to bend in front of him to pick it up.
He doesn’t give you a chance to read every single word– not that you wanted to anyway, and narrates the contents of the pages.
“Lee Jaehyun, alias Hyun-Jae. Very idiotic choice if you ask me. Shuffling the syllables around? Really?”
You’re skimming through the pages, only your ears paying attention to Sangyeon, so he continues.
“Twenty Four years of age. Six years in the field, started at eighteen years old. Works for some agency of douchebags that keep shoving their noses in other people’s lives. Listed as the best of the best… agency-wide at least. Very doubtful of that,”
Chuckling at your scowl, he keeps up his condescending tone.
“Favourite method of attack: Seducing spouses, partners, escorts, anyone that shares intimacy with his target. Once he gets close enough, he steals their information to infiltrate his target’s business, leaving the poor seduced souls in the dust,”
Your breath hitches and Sangyeon picks up on it.
“How often is this method used? Ninety nine percent of the time,” He scans your face, noticing your bottom lip wobble.
Sangyeon moves closer to brush the strands of hair away from your cheek and cups it.
“I suggest you don’t put too much trust in him. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you fall in the remaining one percent. He only cares about asskissing his boss. You were in his way and what madman would give up the opportunity to get their dick wet when a slut like you is opening her legs at first glance?”
With eyes closed shut you finally find the courage, brushing away the derogatory words, to ask him the question that’s been eating away at your brain.
“Why did you fall out of love?”
“I realised my passions are not with you,”
He’s quick with his answer, not caught off guard as you’d hoped.
A single tear drops from your eye. You can’t begin to comprehend why, after everything, you were expecting him to console you. To tell you he just pretended to hate you so you would leave Hyunjae. But that was clearly a futile fantasy.
He clicks his tongue at you when you refuse to look away from the file.
“I have some things to take care of,” Sangyeon announces, “You’re free to read through the entire file. Do burn it afterwards though,” a kiss is placed on the side of your head, “Don’t want it falling in the wrong hands now do we?” A wicked chuckle escapes his lips and then he’s moving away.
Sangyeon closes the door behind him when he leaves the room and you immediately fall to the floor. Hours are spent with your head in your hands, crying out your misery, your helplessness.
How could you be so stupid to believe a man who’s a deceiver by profession?
How could you let yourself be swayed by a few fucks?
And why did you still care for him after the facts had been laid out right in front of you?
He couldn’t even say he loves you god damn it!
After wailing your heart out and running out of tears for the night, you lay down on the floor to bask in some peace. But Sangyeon’s voice doesn’t leave you alone even then.
Yet, for the first time in your life, you’re happy that it came.
A whisper from far away, only a dusty memory now.
“I never let disrespect go unpunished,”
Hyunjae is in danger.
How could you expect mercy from Sangyeon?
When you burst into Sangyeon’s office you find him leaning against his desk. But the thing that breaks your heart is Hyunjae, a few feet away from him. He’s tied and kneeling on the floor, head leaning down. You can’t see his face because he’s facing Sangyeon, but the blood splatters surrounding him and Sangyeon’s untouched body scream that Sangyeon sent his men for him.
“Stop this madness,”
Sangyeon smirks at your arrival and your bravery. Hyunjae’s head whips around at your voice and you can finally see his face. His nose is bleeding and several cuts are littered on his face. His mouth is also tinted red as if he devoured a whole bowl of cherries. But you know, in Sangyeon’s presence, that’s an impossible scenario. Not even your imagination would dare to run that reel.
You rush towards him, ignoring Sangyeon.
“Oh Hyunjae,” you tear up again when he tries to smile at you but stops at the pain it causes.
“I’m okay,” he nuzzles into your palm caressing his face.
Sangyeon rolls his eyes behind you.
“So you can do whatever you want but when I try to take rightful revenge, it’s a problem?”
“You’re fucking insane!” You bellow at his absurdity.
“I told you to get rid of him,” Sangyeon starts calmly, “I told you what was at stake. You chose to disregard my warning. I don’t care what you think I am, I will do as I say,”
His unwavering stare challenges you to move away. But you don’t.
“I’m not gonna let you kill him,” you stand protectively in front of Hyunjae.
“You’re gonna choose him over me? Really? You’re gonna give up all the luxuries of your life for this sloppy piece of shit?” Sangyeon raises an eyebrow at you and you grimace back at him.
You’re about to defend Hyunjae when he interrupts.
“You think you’re the only clever person in the entire world,” you both turn to face Hyunjae when he speaks up but he’s still looking at the floor, “I was so sloppy because Sangyeon was so well hidden under the veil of his connections and all the cyber security,” he looks only at you, “We couldn’t penetrate the cave so we made the predator uncover himself in his foolish urge to “catch” the prey. You remember the file I came for a few weeks ago? The one you told me where it was?”
You nod lightly, unsure of why that matters now.
“Those stock codes weren’t gonna be used as evidence. We used them to act as intruding entities in his system. In his attempt to find and attack us, Sangyeon’s system revealed him. The gloves, the hacking, me showing him my face, all of that was just bait,” he turns to look at Sangyeon now,
“I was the bait. You think I was the only one scaling your house? That I was the only one at that stupid party yesterday? I was the fucking decoy. I was just a trap. We made you come to us, now you’re an open wound,”
You can hear Sangyeon snarl in the distance, his heavy footsteps charging towards Hyunjae.
“Give it five minutes,” Hyunjae keeps provoking him, “Your files are gonna be displayed everywhere. Everyone will know that their charitable Sangyeon has been murdering people and has been upkeeping his father’s legacy of drug and human trafficking,”
The monologue ends with Hyunjae spitting out blood on the marble floor right as you shove yourself between him and an unimaginably fuming Sangyeon.
“You’re a fucking rat,” Sangyeon seethes at you, “I thought you were keeping his cock warm but you were willingly feeding him my information?”
“Sangyeon–”
“I thought he was using you to annoy me, to embarrass me,” he laughs in disbelief, “You fucking bitch–”
Terror slithers up your spine when he grabs you by the neck but he doesn’t get a chance to do much before he’s getting punched in the nose by Hyunjae– the crack of his bone resonates in the room.
It’s hard to calculate when he untied himself with both you and Sangyeon alert in the room but you figure that he’s got more tricks up his sleeve than any of you realise, if his monologue has informed you that much.
You watch them fight with your blood pounding behind your eyes, Hyunjae mainly with the upper hand. With rapidly quickening breaths, you look around the room to find something of help. If you call security then they’ll only support Sangyeon– so that's a hard pass to security.
It’s entirely up to you to intervene.
It’s when Sangyeon throws Hyunjae on the table that you snap out of your panicking stupor.
Now.
You have to do something now.
The decision you make next is less thought out than you had preferred it to be, but it’s your only hope.
You reach for the garter in your thigh and assume position. Sangyeon stops all movement when he hears the click of your revolver getting ready to shoot.
“I knew I shouldn’t have gifted that to a dumb whore like you,”
Sangyeon laughs in disbelief when he turns around to face you. Hyunjae coughs up blood behind him and tries to move up.
While your body remains rigid, your lips are trembling. You blink your eyes to clear the tears continuously finding home in them and huff in frustration.
“Get away from him,”
To your surprise, Sangyeon does get away from Hyunjae.
However, he surprises you again by unsheathing his gun from his pants and cocking it at your head.
“You don’t get to live if I die,”
Why did it have to come to this?
Closing your eyes, you let yourself feel the heartache and you let yourself sob at yourself, at Hyunjae, at Sangyeon.
“Don’t make me do this Sangyeon,” a final shaky plead, “Just let him leave,”
“Can’t do that I’m afraid,” he calibrates his weapon, deathly calm.
Heart aching at facing off to the man you once surrendered your entire life to, you try your luck again.
“I love you, Sangyeon,” it’s painful, but it’s true, “I have always loved you,”
The man in question snarls at you.
“F–forget about him. I’ll go away, okay? I’m the problem right? I’ll let you lock me up wherever you want. I– I’ll,” you have to blink to clear your vision as your heart rises to your throat again, “I’ll let you punish me however you want just please,” a shameful cry for mercy,
“Please let him go,”
“Too late for that darling,” is what Sangyeon whispers before he takes his aim.
Defeat overtakes your body and you close your eyes.
And then two shots are taken.
And two bodies fall.
But not yours.
Not yours.
A blood curdling scream bounces off the pristine walls of Sangyeon’s office before your knees hit the ground.
Pain.
Pain.
Pain.
All you see it white anguish.
On account of your closed eyes, you hadn’t seen Hyunjae move forward. Although your bullet struck Sangyeon right in the head, the bullet meant for your heart pierced through Hyunjae’s instead.
An unfortunate decision on his part, to move between you and your punishment when you had nothing left to live for without him. It seems to follow him everywhere– misfortune– pushing him between you and Sangyeon again and again.
You don’t get to yell at him for being so stupid. You don’t get to tell him you love him in spite of what he really wanted from you.
You don’t get to run away with him, for him to get a chance to love you, to start a family.
For you to tell him you understand why he hesitates and you don’t hold it against him.
For you to tell him you love him despite all that he can’t give you
You just stand still in the mess of blood and bodies as two pairs of blank eyes stare at you.
Left with incomplete promises and destroyed plans. The weight of a million responsibilities on your neck, slithering around your spine like a mocking snake– like Hyunjae’s blood pooling under you and tainting your skin, like Sangyeon’s smile even when his eyes are devoid of anything.
It was when you had made peace with death, that Hyunjae damned you to life.
A life of loneliness, the one thing you were running away from.
A/N - Well. It comes to an end. You’re allowed to yell at me in my inbox if u would like
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