11400; hjs
summary: what if the one you love is the one the universe is trying to keep you away from? (based off of black mirror)
warning: subtle angst, fem reader, you can interpret the ending. ofc the first thing vic writes when she’s back is a hjs fic. (~2.8K words)
The quiet ambiance of the restaurant brought your nerves down to a calmer state. You couldn’t quite figure out a way for your nerves to not feel like they were going to blow as you walked around the restaurant. Your coach device sat in the palm of your hand as you looked around for who your potential partner was.
“Who am I supposed to be looking for?” You asked the device quietly, trying not to make yourself noticeable towards the people who were already sitting enjoying their meals.
“He’s wearing a silk, black shirt.” Your coach says before recalibrating and showing a video feed of the mysterious man sitting at a dimly lit booth.
Your eyes widened as you stared at the stranger’s face through the video feed, “Are you sure that’s him?”
You felt your breath hitch at the middle of your throat, what did you do to get matched with someone so attractive? Must’ve saved a third world country in you past life or something of the essence.
Your coach laughed before sending a smiley emoticon on the screen. It continued to buzz as you stood there staring at the silver-haired boy who wore a simple silk shirt that complimented his fair skin. Were you underdressed? All you wore was a simple black dress that you found in your closet, although you couldn’t even remember where you had gotten it from. Maybe on a weekend you went shopping and completely blacked out.
“Perhaps you should go sit with him.” Your coach laughed, buzzing once again in you hand.
What if you weren’t enough for him? What if this was going to be a complete mess? What if-
“Hey, are you ______?” A strange, yet comforting voice asked as you were staring down at your device.
You completely snapped out of your thoughts, realizing that you probably looked like a complete idiot not moving from where you were standing for the past few minutes. You looked up at him and felt your heart burst out of your chest. He was so much better looking up close, maybe the simulation matched you with the wrong person. He was like an angel on Earth...
“U-uh. uhm. Yes?” You stuttered, “Yeah. Oh my god, hi. I’m _____.”
Just when you thought he couldn’t get more perfect, he chuckled at your embarrassment. Seriously, what did you do to get matched with someone like him?
“I know, let’s go sit down. Our food should be out soon.”
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
After sitting with Jisung for another ten minutes, you felt as if your nerves completely vanished with how he went out of his way to help you feel more comfortable.
“Is this your first time?” Jisung asked, looking up at you with his almost puppy like eyes. You were so captivated in his eyes, they looked like they held the entire universe in them.
“Yeah,” You smiled, “I thought I should give it a try.” Your heart began to race once again when Jisung reflected the same smile.
“Same here,” Jisung laughed, “I thought why not try to find my one true love.”
The two of you laughed at the thought of finding the one through a stupid dating application. It was just something to do for fun in hopes of something possibly blossoming. Yet, maybe you had begun to believe in the concept because maybe you were already on top of the world with Jisung.
You were nervous enough to be on the date already. Your previous relationships made you insecure about yourself, never feeling like you were quite enough for anyone. Even with the dating coach trying to set you up with people who would be your perfect match, you couldn’t help but to wonder how this will all end up for the both of you.
“Do you think we should check our expiry dates now or after we eat?” Jisung asked, shaking his coach device by his head with another huge smile. “Why not now? What’s the harm in finding out?”
“You’re right.” And you felt your heart burst once again when Jisung’s eyes turned into complete crescent moons when he smiled so widely.
The both of you grabbed your devices and slid to the option of the locked expiry date. Seeing the terms and conditions flash before your eyes before looking at each other and nodding.
‘4 hours.’
“Oh.. that’s all?” You mumbled almost in shock, “That can’t be right, does yours say the same?”
Jisung looks at his device and nods feeling the sadness wash over him, “only four hours together?”
“Maybe it’ll go up after we finish eating.” Jisung mumbled when the waiter set down their food, “I hope it’ll go up.”
Your faces lit up when the entrees were set on the table. Jisung’s coach had played it safe and ordered a burger for him, whereas your coach seemed to go for the adventurous side with ordering an entire platter of sushi.
“This looks amazing.” Jisung said in awe, almost like he hadn’t ever seen anything so delicious. You nodded at your entree as well, seemingly wondering if you had ever eaten anything that looked too perfect.
While the two of you began to eat, Jisung started using icebreaker questions to help you feel more comfortable with being on the date. Even if he was stuttering the questions because he could hear his heart beating out of his chest whenever you puffed your cheeks out to think of how to answer.
“Is your food good?” Jisung asked, looking at you stuffing your face. You almost choked on your food while smiling and nodding, “extremely.”
He looked down at his half eaten burger before looking back up at you with the biggest puppy eyes that he could pull off, “I can try?”
If Jisung hadn’t already made you feel like your heart was going to explode, that moment just took the cake for it.
“Of course.” You nodded before picking up your chopsticks to feed a piece to Jisung, causing the both of you to laugh loudly when half of it fell into his lap.
You both couldn’t stop laughing, your bellies rumbled with your hearty laughs bouncing all around the restaurant as on-lookers stared. Jisung could feel the tears rushing down his face while he picked up the other half that didn’t make it to his mouth. Not even a minute passed by before Jisung was choking on the other half he forgot was in his mouth, his hand frantically pounding on his chest as he swallowed the entire thing without chewing and you were dying at the sight.
“Oh god, are you okay?”
His life flashed before his eyes, but just seeing you laughing so hard made his heart soar.
“I.. I think so.” Jisung mumbled before taking a giant gulp of water before looking around the room, seeing that all eyes were on you. Eerily enough you felt it too, it also felt like no one was breathing either as well. Why did it feel so weird being the center of attention? He almost choked didn’t he? You both were just enjoying yourselves.
You looked back to Jisung who was wiping the tears from the brim of his eyes, wondering if he had felt weird about everyone’s stares too.
“Everything okay?”
You could feel your breath quicken before you shook your head, feeling anxious with everyone staring. You even noticed before that the waiter had begun to stare you down when Jisung asked if he could try a piece of your food. Was this normal? Did you truly forget what it was like to be on a date in public?
“Do you want to leave?” Jisung whispered, placing his hand on top of your shaking ones, “We can go now if you want.”
“Let’s go.” You finally said with your voice still trembling. It didn’t make any sense, why were you so scared? And what were you scared of to begin with?
You both got up from the table, the eyes of the patrons following your every move. How could you even describe how eerily terrifying this was to Jisung, who seemed like nothing was phasing him? Maybe he just had a better poker face than you did.
You didn’t have a set destination of where to go once you left the restaurant. Strangely enough, you couldn’t remember where you lived nor could Jisung. Plus you had agreed not to take the taxi that the coach device had booked, which was already waiting outside when you walked out of the doors.
“All of this is strange.” Jisung said after plopping himself down on the dewy grass beside you. The lake was only a five minute walk for you, however neither of you even remembered a lake being there to begin with.
“Yeah.. now that I think about it I don’t really remember much about my life before this date.” You responded, staring at the lake’s calm ripples. As hard as you tried, you could barely remember what you did before you got to the restaurant.
“We have a few hours left together.”
The two of you looked at your coach device screens, the big countdown timer flashing brightly in your faces. Two hours. Did the time really go by that quickly?
“Do you think most expiry dates are always this short?” Neither of you had any experience to compare your dates to. You didn’t really know what to say after Jisung asked the question besides look at the lake.
“I wished it was longer.” You mumbled, turning to face him. Jisung couldn’t help but to agree, there was so much more that he wanted to learn about you. Your favorite color, what you were like when you got sad or how you would shine whenever you were doing something you liked. Jisung wanted to know more, yet you both weren’t allowed to. Except why.. is that?
“Why is there an expiry date to begin with?” You felt yourself getting angry. Wondering why a stupid circular device that you don’t even remember where you bought was telling you when to stop talking to a potential lover. Wondering why this all was supposed to make sense. Wondering… how you even got to this point in your life.
“Maybe it’s beyond us, why don’t we just make the most of it?” Jisung chuckled, hoping to make light of the situation. Why waste time wondering about something that you couldn’t even change?
The both of you laid back on the grass side by side, Jisung’s hand finding his way into yours as you stared at the sky and beautiful stars.
“I think that’s a constellation.” Jisung said, pointing at the random shape of stars that made it look almost like a heart.
“What constellation looks like a messed up heart?” You laughed, trying to point with the hand that was holding Jisung’s before realizing.
“I think it’s called… Jisung’s feelings.”
You both giggled before seeing the shape shift apart. Neither of you could help thinking about the inevitable countdown.
“Maybe it was called _____’s feelings too because I feel the same way.”
“The same way?”
You sat up and looked down at Jisung who was still laying on the grass, “the ‘I really like you and want to get to know you more because you seem just my type’ way.”
“Thank god because I was starting to think I was the only one who felt that way here.” “Jisung I was holding your hand!”
One hour. Your devices were buzzing like crazy when the final hour arrived. Jisung could have sworn that it was just flashing two hours. He didn’t want to go yet. There was just so much more that he wanted to do with you and you could almost one hundred percent agree on how he was feeling.
“What do you think happens when it’s finished?” You asked, staring back at the now clear sky.
Jisung stared at the moon, almost like he was trying to ask it for answers but unfortunately it didn’t talk back to him. He tried to think hard but nothing made sense to him. Everything about this situation didn’t make sense to him. However the only thing that Jisung felt made sense was his urge to stay with you just a little bit longer.
“Maybe nothing.” Jisung hoped for that most of all. Maybe it was an optional time limit together, maybe you didn’t even have to go by it at all.
“I hope so… I don’t want this night to end yet.”
Thirty minutes. Your hearts were racing, neither of you could fight the thought of your time together lessening as you tried to distract yourselves. You found out Jisung’s common fun facts, while Jisung found out about your dreams and what you liked to do. Except both couldn’t answer what you planned to do after this date was over. How could you? All you two were thinking about was how to lengthen your times together.
“I don’t want this to end yet.” Jisung whispered, tightening his hold on your hand.
One minute. The two of you were sitting face to face as you tried to fight back the tears. Why were you crying? You both have only just met, right? How did it make sense, but why did it feel like you were losing a piece of yourselves at the thought of having to say goodbye?
“Jisung I don’t want to go yet.” You cried, feeling the hot tears run down your cheeks. Jisung cried with you, but cupped your cheeks and smiled as brightly as he could.
“Then we don’t.” Jisung wiped the tears off of your cheeks. He didn’t know what he meant when saying that, but all he wanted was for you to stop crying. He wanted to stop crying himself. The more the thought about this, the more it started to make less sense to him. He had only just met you, yet why did he feel such a strong connection together? Why was it like there was a thread that tied the both of you together that he didn’t want to disconnect yet?
Both devices begun to ring noisily, there was no way of ignoring the loud alarm that had set off once the countdown reached zero. Jisung looked back and forth between you and the device.
“We don’t have to go if we don’t want to.” Jisung affirmed, before taking his device and throwing it into the lake. You stared at Jisung in disbelief before doing the same, still hearing the blaring alarm in your ears.
“We don’t have to go if we don’t want to.” You repeated softly over and over again as you both stared at the devices sinking to the bottom of the lake.
“See.. nothing.” Jisung sighed in relief, before cupping your cheeks again. “May I?”
You nodded and smiled, “please.”
With that, Jisung pressed his lips against yours. Everything about this kiss felt so right, except it felt so familiar too. Your heart beating faster and faster as Jisung continued to kiss you. Your worlds feeling like they fell away, nothing was left except for the two of you. And that was all you could ever want except the universe had other opinions because right as Jisung was about to tell you to never leave, your world went dark.
Your eyes stung when you opened them, wondering what had just happened. You wondered if what you just went through was real or was it just a dream. You sat up slowly, rubbing your eyes noticing that they were puffier than usual and your cheeks felt tear stained. Maybe it was real?
“Babe?” A tired, familiar voice whispered as you were rubbing your eyes. You put your hands down and looked to the side of you. Jisung.
Did you dream about everything? Was everything just a fragment of your wild imagination?
“Jisung..” You said in almost disbelief. There wasn’t any easy way to help yourself wrap your head around what was even going on in your mind. It was like your brain was running a mile a minute while trying to figure out everything that had just happened. Was none of that real?
“It’s like six in the morning.. Let’s go back to sleep baby.” Jisung whined, pulling you back into his arms.
As you laid pressed against the warmth of his bare chest, you began to wonder about if what you just went through was real or not, but it didn’t matter to you in the end. Real or not, you got your happy ending and you wouldn’t change it for the world.
998 Rebellions logged out of 1000 Simulations. Congratulations on beating the system… and finding your one true love.