hi everyone, i have decided to leave tumblr. this was not motivated by anyone or anything in particular—just feeling like i haven't had meaningful creative output or energy in a long time, and this community has meant a lot to me, but i think the time has come for me to take a step back. i'll be taking down my blog within a few days. thank you for the good times/memories/community 💕
edit: for anyone who actually cares why i left, not that it really matters—it's a mix of personal reasons, but first and foremost it's burnout. my job is wearing me down / more demanding than ever before, i barely have time for my friends and family anymore, and honestly everything i've written in the last year or so has felt so painfully forced. the words don't flow the way they used to. and enjoying and keeping up with kpop has felt like a chore lately. i still love and will always love (barring any unforeseen circumstances) bts and seventeen—i just don't have the space for it in my life atm. i've also decided to keep my blog up just so i can remember all the good times i had here :)
hi all. just dropping in to say i miss you all and i still lurk on here to read my friends' fics. as an update, in the 6 months-ish since i've "left" tumblr i have traveled to korea, gone to a bunch of baseball games, turned 28 and had impure thoughts about vernon. i am still at my horrible job but it's gotten a bit less horrible with each passing day. pls leave a note if you so wish, i would love to hear how you all are doing xoxo
→ pairing: baseball player!chan x f!reader (exes-to-lovers)
→ warnings: angst; smut (minors DNI); crying; breakup and makeup; a small injury; oklahoma slander; mental health issues; mentions of alcohol/drunkenness; soonyoung is a shithead.
→ word count: 9.4k
→ note: for the aju league collab! this is officially the longest fic i've ever written and it is abundantly clear why i don't write fics longer than 4k but please be nice i'm trying my best </3 thank you to our illustrious general managers @sailorsoons and @100vern for hosting this dream collab! and thank you especially to halison for answering my million qs about baseball. also this fic is dedicated to @daechwitatamic who loves chan and baseball (in that order). sorry we stole edwin diaz. i miss baseball (mostly i miss the dodgers burying everyone else and everyone else complaining about it). chan is heavily inspired by hyeseong kim who is currently my favorite player. please check out all the other collab fics here.
——
January 2025
Los Angeles is loud.
Chan feels it the moment he steps off the jet bridge and into the bustling international terminal at LAX. Conversations echo in the cavernous space—a flustered mother corralling her small tribe of children, a gaggle of teenage girls wearing matching school uniforms, an older guy in a suit barking into a smartphone. It's overwhelming, and a stark contrast to the near-silence of the first class lounge at Incheon, where he'd sipped an iced americano and ignored the trays of pasta and steak and salad, nerves knotting his stomach.
He's used to noise. Baseball games in Korea—they're a spectacle. Rowdy. The muffled quiet of his car always felt stifling after an evening surrounded on all sides by clamoring, drunken fans, everyone from infants in protective earmuffs to senior citizens reliving their glory days. He lived among them, once. He'd choke down fried chicken with sips of Chilsung and scream himself hoarse in the stands for his favorites—Ryu Hyunjin, Lee Daeho, Oh Seunghwan. He'd let himself get swept away by the spectacle of it all. Would head straight to the batting cages after the last inning of each game, aching to feel the crack of a baseball bat buzzing in his own hands.
He's the spectacle now. He stops short just a few yards from the point of no return, stymied by the sight of his own face plastered across a row of televisions above the arrivals board.
"... Dodgers are placing their bets on twenty-five-year-old Chan Lee from South Korea. Stacy, what can you tell us about Lee? I mean, the last big Dodger we had from South Korea was Hyunjin Ryu—Chanho Park, before him—it's been quite a while since we've had this much buzz over a Korean player, hasn't it? Hyunjin Ryu was the first to make the leap from the KBO, and that was already almost a decade ago."
"That's absolutely right, Chuck, and it might be too early to say, but Lee is worth every bit of buzz floating around the league. MLB scouts have had their eye on this kid since he was eleven years old. He was drafted right out of high school into the KBO by the Kiwoom Heroes, and had a brief stint in the KBO minors before a steady rise to the top in the years following—"
"—I mean, Stacy, it's not often we get major stars from Korea, right? We have Ohtani and Yamamoto and Sasaki from Japan, all in the last year alone, but historically Korean stars have been harder to come by."
"That may have been true in the past, Chuck, but I sense a shift in the league's attention. I think Chan Lee shows incredible potential, and scouts have been overlooking South Korea's immense talent pool for far too long. Only time will truly tell, but I think Lee's got what it takes to make a huge splash in his debut MLB season...."
"Chan-ssi?"
Chan's head snaps to the left. Some guy—Korean, by the looks of him—in a black leather jacket waves frantically in his direction, holding up a sign with his name (in Korean and English) printed on it. His agent told him to look out for the Dodger rep-slash-translator who'd meet him at LAX and help him get settled, and this guy looks like he fits the bill.
The guy sinks into a deep bow the second Chan approaches—flustered, Chan hurries to mirror the gesture. "I'm Kim Mingyu," the guy says, breaking into a megawatt smile. "I—well—I'm your tour guide for the day. And, like, for the rest of your career with the Dodgers, too? Are you—here." Mingyu reaches over, clumsily grabbing the pull-up handle of Chan's carry-on. "You checked your bags, right?"
Chan dissociates for a second. The noise inside the terminal threatens his sanity, but once he walks out past TSA, it's flat-out unbearable. The chaos increases by an order of magnitude out here, with the addition of non-travelers, gate agents arguing with passengers, and the violent grating of suitcase wheels against the tile. He blinks, just barely keeping up with Mingyu's stream-of-consciousness chatter as they wind their way through the crowd and to the baggage claim.
There was a time he envied America. He had classmates, relatives, neighbors growing up who were in his life one day and gone the next—their visa applications finally approved, off to start a new life across the Pacific Ocean. Back then, America was the land of opportunity. Korea felt so small. Limited. Monolithic. A speck of a country, too small to contain any dream worth having.
It's still beautiful, America. In its own way. Every KBO player had once aspired to the MLB, if even for a fleeting moment. He loved the Heroes, loved playing games in sweltering July humidity. When he played in Korea, he looked out at the stands and saw his people. He was making his country proud.
In America, though? Brushing elbows with international superstars, the chance to clutch a World Series trophy in his hands, playing among the best of the best, top recruits from all over the world, players he'd followed for nearly a decade? He'd be a moron to pass that up, even if it meant leaving everything behind.
Everything.
He looks up when the monologue suddenly falters to a close and finds Mingyu staring at him. Amused, because Chan clearly wasn't listening, but also a flicker of something else. Sympathy, or pity, maybe.
"It's a lot out here, huh?" Mingyu looks back at the luggage carousel, which has yet to creak to life. "I miss it, too. But you get used to it, being out here. There's a huge Korean community of Dodger fans, you know. Almost feels like home after a while."
Chan doubts it. It felt like a dream to be signed by the Dodgers, to a city full of Korean food and direct flights to Incheon. He asked for accommodations in the Hollywood Hills for its proximity to Koreatown, the pulsing, glowing heart of the city, where he could drop by noraebangs and sooljips and hear the soothing, rounded syllables of his native language.
Really, though, he knows it'll never feel like home.
Not without you.
——
March 2025
Your apartment is so damn silent.
There are lots of people to blame for you sitting alone in a Seoul officetel on a Thursday afternoon, sweating your ass off from the humidity and wrangling your life into a laughably tiny set of boxes from the moving company. Yourself, for starters. If you just hadn't mouthed off about your client mid-meeting, fed up with the endless iterative pitches and email chains with "constructive feedback"… well, you might not be out of a job. You might be employed—suffering, perhaps, but employed nonetheless—and in a blessedly air-conditioned office building in Yongsan, sipping an iced americano. Of course you'd make the rent. Why wouldn't you, with that sweet paycheck hitting your bank account so often it's become a foregone conclusion, the way the Han River freezes over in the winter and mosquitoes will come calling in the summer?
If you were still employed, you probably wouldn't be stripped down to a camisole and boy shorts, trying to force a lid shut over the last of your kitchenware. You wouldn't be ignoring the massive and ever-swelling lump in your throat at the idea of moving back to Incheon—back to your parents' apartment, back to square one. You wouldn't be casting your gaze over the bare, shoebox-sized space of your studio and wondering how the hell everything went so wrong, wondering at how pathetic you've become now that he's not here and you don't have him to prop you up, to drag you along, to keep you warm at night.
He's far away now. Even further than before. Try as you might to block everything baseball out of your existence, mentions of it—mentions of him—still manage to filter through once in a while. This time, it came through your high school alumni Kakao room. Have you heard, signed to a $12.5 million contract, starting spring training soon, who knew Dongsan High School could produce such a star.
He's rising, stratospheric, finding his place in the world the way you knew he always would, and he left you behind, and you're much worse for the wear, and part of you wonders if maybe he sensed something that you didn't. If he could tell you wouldn't be worth keeping around when he ascended, so he ended it before either of you could waste your time to find out.
Before you can stop yourself, you're thinking of everything again. Furtive glances across a high school classroom. Holding hands on playground swings. Staying up late to exchange texts and falling asleep with your phone under your cheek. Cold beers and chicken by the Han River, the soft drunken heat of his body in a batting cage, cheering in the stands at Gocheok Sky Dome and waiting until you got to the car before kissing him silly, pouring everything into him—affection, pride, the entirety of your heart.
Your life began with him, your adolescent memories all colored by his cheeky smile, and you wonder sometimes if it ended when he left. You want to blame him, too, for the current state of affairs.
If only he hadn't broken up with you. If only he had broken up with you earlier, before you upended your plans to study in America to go to college in Seoul, just to be with him while he found his footing in the big leagues. If only he had ended things before the two of you became inseparable in your mind, a planet orbiting its star—wherever you go, he goes, and vice versa.
Untrue, though, isn't it? You had gone wherever he went, but his career always came before you. When he got sent down to the Futures after his first six games, it was you he pushed aside to devote his life to getting back up. Date nights and sleepovers and midnight phone calls moved to the back burner while he worked his ass off in the minors, and only once he was called back up to the Heroes did he make space for you again.
You were always the planet. He was always the star, and at the time, you didn't mind. You didn't think twice about it, because he was the single great love of your life and you were just honored to bear witness to everything he was. His success was your success. Everything he did felt like an achievement of your own.
Even now, you don't feel resentful. The ache that pulses deep in your chest now could be called a lot of things—anger, hurt, concern—but never hate. You want to hate him, want to feel relief now that he's out of your life for good, but you don't.
Instead, like always, you just miss him. Which is infinitely worse, and infinitely less bearable. It's been three months since he up and walked out of your life forever, and everyone had told you that time heals all wounds, that the pain would lose its sting, but three months later it still feels fresh. The memory of him, and the life he left behind, and it'll take more time than this to stitch up the gaping hole in your chest. Several lifetimes' worth.
You're yanked out of your spiral of misery by the sound of your door lock beeping—someone punching in the passcode. The lock emits a cheerful little tune, and before you can even wonder who it is, Soonyoung is marching through your door. Wonwoo in tow, looking disheveled and reluctant.
"Hey! Sorry, I know I'm technically banned or whatever from letting myself in but I figured you might want company and it's like pulling teeth getting you to admit you want me to hang out with you and since you haven't bothered to change the code even though you keep threatening to I think it's okay to let myself—oh, what the fuck."
You glare up from your cross-legged, and objectively pathetic, position on the floor. "What."
"You're crying? Again?" Soonyoung sighs and casts his eyes helplessly around the room, as if looking for a tissue. Wonwoo just stands in the corner, resembling nothing so much as a coat rack. Useless, per usual. "Look, like I said last week, Mr. Kang's a dick. And, yes, we possibly could have chosen our words more carefully, but in the end they were really just looking for an excuse to reduce headcount. You know the economy's not good. Or whatever."
"It's not about that, moron."
"Okay, rude?"
You wipe your eyes with the hem of your camisole. You're too tired to care if you're flashing your bra at Soonyoung—he's the opposite of interested, disgusted at best. You might care about Wonwoo another day, but—well, you're moving out. Moving to Incheon, for good probably, and you'll most likely never see him again. Soonyoung either, for that matter, and Soonyoung's now undoing all the hard work you'd put into packing the kitchenware, rummaging around for a washcloth or a paper towel, but the thought of giving up Friday night chimaek and hangover stew at Yunho Kitchen for an indefinite period of time still prompts a fresh wave of tears.
You like to think you won Soonyoung and Wonwoo in the divorce, fair and square, but in reality they were stuck with you by default when Chan made the leap to the MLB. They were Chan's seniors from high school baseball, though they'd all taken different paths afterward—Wonwoo went to SNU and bagged a software engineering role at SK, and Soonyoung played U-League for Hongdae before moving onto a marketing and publicity role for the Kia Tigers. (You have no idea who let him run their Instagram, but you were practically forced to hit follow at gunpoint and, given the unbecoming memes he's taken to posting, it's a miracle he hasn't been fired yet.)
It had always been the four of you. Three at the start, maybe, because Chan had befriended them first, but you and Chan had been attached at the hip by the time he met them.
And now, three again.
"Here. Here." Soonyoung moves to sit on the floor beside you, a roll of kitchen towel in hand, and gingerly pats your back. "I don't know what you're sniffling about but please don't get snot on my shirt. It's Acne Studios and it cost practically an entire paycheck."
You roll your eyes. "Noted. Now get the hell out of my apartment."
"Not yours for much longer, though, is it." Soonyoung plucks the roll out of your hand. "Wonwoo and I decided, out of the goodness of our hearts and the purity of our souls, to help you pack up your belongings. On the condition that you buy us lunch. Nothing cheap like jjajangmyeon, either. I want Italian."
Say what you will about Soonyoung—and you've said many things, choice words that would scandalize your grandmother into an early demise—but his methods are effective. As in, every ounce of melancholy you were feeling two seconds prior has been erased instantly, replaced by a unique, simmering rage. A begrudgingly affectionate kind of rage, but rage nonetheless.
"I didn't invite you over," you point out.
"I know. I heard your cries of distress. It's like the bat signal, but only I can see it."
"What about Wonwoo?"
Soonyoung looks over at the couch, where Wonwoo is currently blinking at the pile of books you gave up sorting halfway through, and sighs. "He's here for emotional support."
"He's not being very supportive."
"I meant emotional support for me. I can't possibly deal with you by myself."
You whack him with a cushion. "Don't you have a full-time job you're supposed to be at?"
Soonyoung just sighs again, world-weary. "PTO, babe. Paid time off? Have you already forgotten how the corporate world—oof."
You bury your face in Soonyoung's shoulder, squeezing him tight. He might be the world's biggest pain in the ass, but he's your pain in the ass. You wonder if this is how divorced mothers feel about their kids: The breakup was awful, gut-wrenching, but at least you got something good out of the relationship. Something worth saving.
Anyone else would have cut off ties, whether slowly or all at once, but not Soonyoung (and, you suppose, Wonwoo). You don't know if that makes them dumb or loyal. Either way, you appreciate it.
Wonwoo clears his throat. "Look, this is really sweet and all, but we actually came here because—"
"Oh. Yeah." Soonyoung peels you off of him. "We're here to help you pack, but you're not moving back to Incheon."
"Shut up. You know I can't afford to stay here. Not unless you've got a job offer for me."
"You're not staying here."
Soonyoung has a funny look on his face. One that gives you almost immediate indigestion and has you picturing every worst case scenario—all of which end with you dead, seriously maimed, or both. Wonwoo's eyes dart between the two of you, lip quirked up like he knows something you don't, and you feel the sudden urge to whack him again.
"What," you say, heat prickling at the back of your neck. "What in God's name is so funny—"
"Well, you are going to Incheon." Soonyoung digs around in his back pocket. Comes up with a piece of paper, a folded-up printout of something that he hands to you, looking pleased as punch.
You unfold it. With some apprehension.
"Just not, like, to your parents' house."
All you have to read is Flight Details before you're crumpling it up and chucking it back in his direction. "No. Absolutely not."
"Look, he's not doing so great out there—"
"Bullshit." You stalk over to the kitchen to re-pack your things, hands itching for something to do. Anything. "He's literally signed with the Dodgers. One of the best teams in all of baseball. He's living in Los Angeles. Why the fuck would he not be doing great."
"He won't say as much, but—come on. You know Chan. He doesn't like to talk about things. He didn't do so well in spring training—"
"He's new. What, did he think he was going to show everyone up the second he got there?"
"Y/N."
You can count on one hand the number of times Soonyoung's taken that tone with you. The first being when you tanked a midterm junior year, got drunk, and had Chan find you passed out at a bar after hours of missed calls—Soonyoung stopped by your dorm and gave you an earful then, screaming about how inconsolable Chan had been, how worried all of them were, how you were absolutely not allowed to scare any of them like that again. Another time, he abused his Find My Friends privileges to discover you walking on the Banpo Hangang Bridge at midnight in a fugue state, a week or two after Chan dumped you. He found you standing just a bit too close to the railing, mere feet away from the government-operated suicide hotline phone, and assumed the worst. Dragged you home by the collar of your sweater and camped out in your living room until he was convinced you wouldn't do anything drastic, that you were through the worst of it.
You're sure there have been other instances Soonyoung spoke to you like this—his voice dropping in volume, eyes softening with a mix of pity and frustration. Like he can't quite figure out how to get through to you. You find yourself staring at the floor, unable to bear the weight of his gaze.
"I know you hate him," he says, slowly. "I know—I know what he did, I know it was really tough on you—"
You look up, heat rising in your chest. "Tough on me?"
Soonyoung takes a step back, eyes wide, hands up in the air in surrender. "Hey—"
You're a firework. Lit up. Beyond stopping. "Yeah, I do hate him. Know why? I loved him, and I thought he loved me, too. Until he left me with no warning, because he was going somewhere big—somewhere bigger—and he didn't want me there with him."
"Y/N, that's not—"
"He didn't want me. He made that more than clear. I don't know what the hell you're playing at, but I don't think going to the city where he lives when he's already in the trenches is going to help. At all."
"Y/N. He only broke up with you because—"
You're on the verge of tears again. "I don't care why he broke up with me! He broke up with me! There's nothing else to it! He didn't want me!"
"Please, would you just—"
You turn your back to him, your waterline threatening to overflow. "Get out."
Soonyoung huffs a sigh. "I am not—"
"Out. Both of you. Please, just get out of my apartment and leave me alone."
A few beats of silence pass, but eventually they oblige. There's the creak of the couch as Wonwoo gets up, the gentle shuffle of their socked feet against the floor. The tritone beep of your front door as it opens. Then:
"I left the flight details on your couch. And the boarding pass is in your inbox." Soonyoung sounds resigned. And serious. Two things you're not used to hearing—not from him, at least. "You don't have to, but you should go. If you can. I really do think that would help—both of you. Not just him."
A brief pause, and then something unexpected. Not from Soonyoung, but from Wonwoo.
"He really does miss you, Y/N."
Before you can respond, the door shuts behind them with a soft click.
—-
May 2025
All things considered, Chan could be doing better.
Spring training had gone like shit. He remembers stepping off the plane in Arizona, that first hit of arid, white-hot wind—so unlike the wet warmth of Korea, the waterlogged air he was used to in early spring. Barely keeping his head above water, struggling to stay afloat in an ocean of English. Everything from the food to the smell of the detergent on his sheets putting a pit in his stomach, an uneasy feeling he couldn't quite shake.
And then the announcement last month. He knew it was coming, the way he'd struggled with the bat in spring training. Against southpaw pitchers, especially. Found out all too quickly that back in Korea, he'd been a big fish in a small pond. Among the true greats, the superstars he'd fervently admired and followed from Korea, he wound up being nothing but a shrimp. Krill. Plankton.
Still, it stung when the final decision was made, after an all-too-brief conversation with Mingyu and his manager—he'd start off the season in the minors. He tried to convince himself that a stint in Triple-A would end up being a bump in the road. A dozen or so of his teammates said as much, stopping by at dinner or his accommodations to clap a hand on his back and tell him to keep his head up. He stayed up late scrolling through biographies of his favorite players, reminding himself of the countless names who'd stumbled for a season or two before going on to establish themselves as legends of the game. This was a possibility he'd accepted when he signed the one contract that he was offered without a no-minors clause—he wanted to be a Dodger, even if it meant time out of the limelight.
A steep fall, going from four-time KBO Golden Glove winner to a relative unknown in a ballpark built for a tiny audience, in a flyover state over a thousand miles from his initial destination. Against the flashing lights and pounding heartbeat of activity in LA and Seoul, Oklahoma City feels even smaller and quieter. Sometimes, when he's feeling extra pathetic, he taps over to the Dodgers' Instagram profile and scrolls down to the post they'd made back in January, back when he first signed, to welcome him to the team. Just to remind himself that it was real—that the feeling of triumph, of having finally made it to the top, wasn't a fever dream.
The most agonizing part? In the all-consuming silence of his stale, pre-furnished luxury apartment, all he can think about is you.
The feeling of someone stepping on his chest, crushing his lungs under their heels, reminds him of the night before his Heroes debut, back in 2017. When you stayed the night at his place and cooked him food that reminded him of home—soy sauce-braised beef, stir-fried anchovy with pine nuts, fluffy purple rice with chickpeas mixed in. Held him tight against yourself to lull him to sleep, whispering memories into his hair: Remember our senior trip to Gyeongju and sneaking in through the windows and playing spin the bottle after our teachers fell asleep. Remember texting each other under our desks at hagwon and staying late to mop the floors because we got caught. Remember that night at the batting cages, when you kissed me and I tasted like Terra beer, the first drink I'd ever had. Remember when you got drafted and our lives changed forever.
Our lives. Like it was obvious. Like your threads being intertwined forever was inevitable, an obvious outcome, ordained by a higher power.
Long after you fell asleep, the rhythm of your breath evening out under his cheek, he couldn't. The rapid-fire of his heartbeat kept him up, made him feel like a caged animal with a gun pointed through the bars, and after some time he slipped out of your arms and went to sit cross-legged in front of the window. He'd moved into a sparsely furnished studio in an apartment complex for young professionals, on a quiet block between the Sky Dome and an elementary school. On a night without fans and vendors packing the venue, silence blanketed the streets.
He didn't know how long he sat there before you joined him, a soft hand coming to rest on his shoulder. You didn't say anything. Just sat down beside him and patted your lap, and he laid down on the floor with his head on your thigh and fell asleep like that. He slept until the sun came up, and the next night he played an entirely unremarkable game, but it didn't matter because after the stands emptied and the crowds went home and the dust settled around home plate, you were there. Waiting for him with the biggest smile he'd ever seen, racing to throw your arms around his neck, and he could have sworn you were an angel.
Now, he scrapes whatever's left of the cucumber kimchi out of a styrofoam cup before remembering it doesn't matter here—Americans all throw their trash out in the same place, and he doesn't have to separate food from plastic or styrofoam or anything else. It became a ritual of his to eat Korean food before an important game, but something about the meal that arrived at his doorstep felt all wrong. The gochugaru caking the cucumber didn't look the same shade of red it did back home; the beef bones hadn't boiled quite long enough for the broth to take on a milky, collagen-sticky consistency. He got about five choked bites in before the nerves closed up his stomach.
He has got to relax. It's not the first time he's been to the minors. Happened when he was on the Heroes, too, just six games into the season. As a rookie, he played too dirty, too hungry. Too unpolished. With a less-than-impressive start, the powers-that-be decided a stint in the farm league would do him good, and it did, and now look at him.
He's just decided to call it an early night and attempt to sleep when his phone rings, the cheerful, insipid tune that signals a Kakao call. 7 PM in Oklahoma City is 9 AM in Korea. His mother will sometimes call around this time, even though he's usually at batting practice or in the middle of a game outright. He lets it go unanswered—his chest feels too tight to speak, and if he picks up, he knows the dam will burst—knows every pent-up, buried moment of insecurity will come pouring out of him, and tonight doesn't feel like a night for—
The ringtone, again. Chan frowns. It's not like his mom to call twice in a row. He walks over to where his phone sits on the counter and flips it over.
The name on the screen has him choking. Has him hitting the button to answer the call in blind panic, though if he had any sense of self-preservation he'd let it go unanswered again.
"Hello?"
"Chan?"
It's you. It's your voice. It's you. Chan's breath stops. Sputters to life again.
"Lee Chan!"
"Um—um. Hi. What—?"
"Let me in, will you? Soonyoung's a moron and he gave me your building's address but not your apartment number, and the bitch isn't picking up his phone, and did you know there are zero direct flights to fuckass Oklahoma from Seoul? I didn't even know Oklahoma was a state until last week. I had to fly to Atlanta, and then Oklahoma. Back in the opposite direction. I swear, you make my life so difficult even when you're trying so damn hard not to be a part of it. By the way, who's Will Rogers and why'd they name an entire airport after him? Americans make everything so complicated. How the hell are you supposed to know that the Will Rogers International Airport is in Oklahoma if you've never—oh. Hi."
Chan bursts through the front door of his building, gasping for air, and there you are.
You're standing on the sidewalk in sweats, looking distinctly rumpled from what he guesses was over fourteen hours of travel. Your hair's falling out of a scrunchie and you're not wearing a bit of makeup and you're in those glasses that swallow half your face, but still—
You're an angel.
He moves, as fast as he can go, and the next thing he knows you're back in his arms, and everything's right again.
Finally.
——
It was hard not to pick apart the breakup.
Didn't feel real, at least for the first few nights. You often wound up not seeing him for days, sometimes weeks, at a time—when baseball season picked up, or when final exams came around, time apart became inevitable. You were used to a few days of silence, a few nights without him next to you in bed.
It was only when Soonyoung came around with delivery chicken and beer, pretending he just wanted to hang out when in reality you knew he was checking to make sure you were alive, that everything hit you, all at once. That the words Chan said—moving onto different things, don't know what my future looks like, you deserve a life free from all of this—sunk in, and the magnitude of it brought you to your knees.
He wasn't coming back. He left you, and the relationship was over, just like that. He could pack the grenade in as much pretty wrapping paper as he'd like, could claim all the charitable excuses in the world, but in the end nothing would shield you from the explosion.
You could see, as misguided as it was, how Chan would think breaking up with you was the kindest thing to do. He'd always been like that, self-sacrificing to the point of stupidity. But you loved him enough to try. Even if his MLB salary wouldn't have been enough to support both of you, you would have found a job. You would have moved back to Korea and visited Chan when you could. Done something, anything, as long as it meant not losing him.
Perhaps he just didn't love you enough to do the same. Maybe that's what he was trying to tell you, with honey-coated words that didn't ease the sting—that he didn't want to keep going, that this was over for him.
And that's what you told yourself, too. Until the date on Soonyoung's flight printout rolled around, and on pure impulse you left a note for your parents, hopped on a taxi to the airport, and—seventeen brutal hours of travel later—finally landed at the illustrious Will Rogers International Airport.
Anyway. You've spent plenty of the last few months thinking, enough to drive you mad—mad to the point of flying to America for the first time ever, just to see your ex-boyfriend, who you're not even sure wants to see you. Enough thinking, because you've got a mission at hand.
There's only one Korean market anywhere near Oklahoma City, and it's tiny, and it still has the word "Oriental" in its name, but it'll do for tonight. They have thinly sliced brisket and doenjang, anyway, and that'll suffice until Chan gets back to playing in a real city.
"Do you have any vegetables at home?" you ask. Sigh at the blank, distinctly terrified look on Chan's face. What did you expect, really. "Okay. That's a no. Zucchini and enoki mushrooms, then? And a Napa cabbage, too?"
You were aghast at the state of Chan's apartment. Most of his meals are delivered or eaten with the team, true, but you have never seen such bare cupboards in your life. Not even a box of Pop-Tarts. No rice cooker, either, so microwaveable white rice it is, even though it smells and tastes like plastic.
"You're paying for all of this, by the way." You roll the cart to the checkout. "I just got fired from my job, so—"
"Fired?" He finally looks up at this, forehead wrinkled.
Yes, and you would have known if you hadn't gone no contact. You smile at the ahjusshi standing at the register. "Yeah. Fired. Take out your wallet, all-star."
Chan's eyebrows are still knit together by the time he calls a Lyft to take the two of you back to his building. On instinct, you reach across the middle seat to smooth out the crease in his forehead with your thumb.
Chan's always been one to worry, if quietly. You remember with vivid clarity all those nights he couldn't fall asleep for one reason or another. In high school, before big games that scouts would come to watch; before he was drafted to the Heroes; before the start of the 2022 Asian Games. You'd stay up late on the phone in high school—then, as you got older and moved out of your parents' houses, you'd hold him in bed and gently run your fingers through his hair.
You wonder how he's been faring all this time, one big night after another without a single familiar face to soothe him, an entire ocean and then some away from everything he knows. Away from you.
To Chan's credit, he manages to hold in his questions until you're set up in his kitchen, water boiling while you work the world's dullest knife through a head of cabbage.
"How—why are you even—how are you here?" he manages. He's sitting on a bar stool on the other side of the counter, eyes trained on your hands. "Why are you here?"
"Soonyoung." You stir a heap of doenjang into the water. You'd use a sieve to work out the chunks of soybean, but Chan doesn't have one on hand. "He bought the plane ticket and everything."
"What about your job?"
You shrug. Drop in the zucchini. Throw a couple of cheongyang peppers in there, too, for good measure. "Like I said. I got fired. I mouthed off to my supervisor and that was the end of it. I was—I'd packed up my stuff to move back to Incheon, but Soonyoung said—well, it just seemed like a good time to come here, instead. Ow, fuck—"
The stupid dull blade caught the side of your index finger. You immediately drop the knife and bring your hand up to inspect it, but Chan's faster. He's standing up and pressing a paper towel to your hand before you can even get a good look at it.
You try not to think about how close he is. How warm his hands are. How nice he smells.
"Damn it, Y/N," he mutters. "Hold it there for a second."
He disappears into the hall closet. Emerges with bandaids, Neosporin, an antiseptic wipe. He's gentle as he cleans and wraps your cut, brow furrowed again in concentration, and it takes everything to keep your hands to yourself, to stop from reaching over to smooth it out again.
Because here's the thing you love most about Chan—present tense, because it sinks in just then that you do still love him, so much that all of this, being near him without really having him, sends a pulsing, raw ache throughout your body. You love how careful he is with you, how softly he speaks to you, how he treats you like you're something precious. He's an athlete, yes, but he's not like most of the guys you know from childhood. He's never been hypermasculine, has never raised his voice or slammed a door. Just carried himself with a quiet, soothing confidence, soft but unyielding.
It's why you fell in love with him, you think. And it's why you fell so hard when he left.
"There," he says. He releases your finger, satisfied with his work. "Go sit down over there. I'll finish up with this."
You snort. "I have a cut, Chan. I haven't broken my hand."
He pauses for a moment, and then takes a step back. "Okay," he says quietly. "If you're sure."
He's so serious. Nervous, even, moving slowly and carefully like his every move is under scrutiny, and maybe it is. The Chan you're used to is lighthearted, unburdened, easy to smile and even quicker to laugh, and to make you laugh. This Chan has a constant wrinkle in his brow, tension pulling his shoulders taut. You frown a little before turning back to the stove.
Dinner comes together quickly after that. Chan sets the table, and helps you carry over the boiling pot of doenjang jjigae, and for a minute it feels like nothing's changed. You and Chan at a table, sharing the food he claimed to love so much—your cooking. In a city full of delivery apps and convenience store meals, all he ever wanted to eat was the food you made in your tiny kitchen. The dishes you made time to prepare between classes and club meetings and Heroes games because you loved him, and wanted him to feel loved.
In a way, nothing has changed. You're still here, albeit thousands of miles away from that kitchen, because you love him. You're making an entire meal with a pathetic assortment of tools and ingredients because you want him to feel loved. Even when he doesn't love you.
Christ, you're fucked.
You watch as he takes the first bite. Then another, and then another, all in quick succession, until he's nearly halfway through his bowl.
"Slow down." You get up, grab a water bottle from his fridge, and hand it to him uncapped. "You're going to get indigestion."
Chan takes a sip of the water. "He was a comedian."
"Who?"
"Will Rogers." He pokes around the little kimchi dish. He only likes the leafy pieces, which is just as well because you only like the crunchy ones. "He was a comedian. And an actor, I think. He was a performer, writer, everything—he was really famous. Everyone loved him. Really old, though. Like, he died in the 1930s or something."
You nod, taking this in. It's so like Chan to remember something you'd said in passing and to circle back to it. So like him to cling to every word, no matter how flippant.
"So… are you going to tell me what's actually going on?"
"With what?"
Chan looks up. Smiles a little. There he is. "With you."
What is there even to say? You watch, your own bowl going cold, as Chan picks his spoon up again. I've been miserable? I've been sleeping and eating like shit? I've been doing so bad at work I managed to get myself fired? I've been waking up in the middle of the night looking for you when you're obviously not there?
Yeah, no. You take a bite of rice to avoid answering. A second later, you slide your bowl across the counter, because you realize Chan's finished his already.
"It's not a trick question."
"You go first, then."
"Okay. I missed you."
They're the words you've been wanting to hear. And yet.
"Chan—"
"Wait. Please—just. Hold on."
You run a hand over your face and sit back in your chair. "Okay. Sorry. Go on."
"I—I mean, this obviously isn't what I wanted, right. I knew it would be a possibility, and I knew there would be an adjustment period, but—this?" He gestures around him. "Being in the asscrack of nowhere, even if just for a little while? This is what I was afraid of, baby."
Baby. The pet name slips out, almost unnoticed. His breath catches for a second, but he presses on.
"You know Soonyoung called so many times. Left me dozens of texts a day. Gave me hell for what I did. Still does. And trust me, I know I deserve it. I—I know it was bad, I just—please know it wasn't because I stopped loving you."
You hate crying. Add that to the list of Chan's crimes, you suppose.
"You have to know that I thought I was doing what was best. I knew that I was going to America, but then what? What if I never left the minors? What if I got released, or traded, or just never took off the way I wanted? I couldn't do that to you—I didn't want to leave you hanging in Korea, or worse, have you come with me only to never settle down anywhere. It's—life on the road, life as a major league player, it's not easy. I loved you too much. I couldn't do it."
"But I would have," you say, voice shaking. "I would have been okay as long as I had you. I would have made it work. You should have let me decide that for myself. It's one thing if you just didn't want me anymore—"
"Never," Chan chokes out, looking stricken. "Never. I have never, ever stopped loving you."
He reaches for your hands. Desperate to hold you, to touch you, to pour into you every emotion punched tight into his chest. But you pull back, hands curling into tiny fists.
"This is so—so unfair, I can't even—" You draw an uneven breath, burying your face in your hands. "I never once thought about leaving you, because I knew my life would always be something I did with you. Do you know how insanely fucked up it was to find out you didn't feel the same way? That between baseball and me, you wouldn't even try to choose both? Chan, I get choosing baseball, I get choosing America, I get putting yourself first, but you left me so easily—"
"Easily," he interrupts, bristling. "You have no idea how much it killed me to leave you—"
"Then why did you do it?"
"Because I loved you! And trust me, leaving was anything but selfish. I wanted you to do better than what I could give you. I wanted you to have a life that didn't get uprooted every year or even every other year. And this isn't even including all the nights I'd be halfway or all the way across the country and leaving you, and not being able to spend time with you—baby, I wanted you to have the life you deserve, the career you deserve—I wanted you to have everything that I knew I couldn't give you."
You look right at him then, feeling so heartbroken. So devastated that the person who knew you so well seemed not to know you at all, after all. "Chan-ah," you say, so soft. "It wouldn't have meant anything without you."
You get up. You weren't sure why you ended up taking that flight, but it dawns on you now that you came to get answers. And now that you've gotten them, it feels like you've reached an impasse—Chan's vision of the future so polar opposite yours, so stunningly incompatible that you wonder how the two of you shared a life in the first place.
You wipe at your face, smearing your tears all over your cheeks, and walk over to your bag by the door. You didn't even bring a suitcase—just a carry-on duffel with a few changes of clothes, unsure how long you'd be staying, as Soonyoung conveniently hadn't purchased you a return ticket.
"Wait."
Chan wedges his body between you and the front door. It's a dumb thought to have in this moment, but you have to swallow down the realization that his shoulders have gotten so broad that you can barely see the door behind them. You look down, down at your shoes, at the beat-up bag that you used to carry on overnight trips to Busan and Daegu with him. Anywhere but directly at him.
"I can't let you leave like this. I—"
He chokes, faltering. You look up, and he's startlingly close.
"I don't think I'll survive it if you leave. The last—the last time, I was the one who left, and it almost killed me then. I—" He draws in a shaky breath. Reaches across the tiny gap between you to tuck a loose bit of hair behind your ear.
The way he always used to. He'd brush the fringe out of your eyes. Have you walk on the inside of the sidewalk. Slip his hand between your hip and the countertop, or your head and the cabinet door. He had always loved you like that, in the tiny seconds tucked between roaring baseball games, press conferences, commercial shoots. Gasps, starts of affection. Quick, but you'd only miss them if you weren't looking.
He loved you.
"I love you. Not past tense." Chan's lip trembles, rare tears welling up in his waterline. "Please say that you love me, too. Please love me."
You lean forward and capture his mouth against yours, drowning out whatever's left of his pleas.
And, oh. It's like no time passed at all. It's like you're sixteen again, making out under the bleachers after a home game. It's like you're in a grimy Itaewon bar at nineteen, kissing him silly while your new college friends boo and throw balled-up napkins across the table. It's like you're twenty-two and brazen, your sneakers sinking into the molten dirt of a rained-on field as you run between the drops toward the dugout.
Chan. It's him. You're home.
He kisses you back. Hard. Seemingly to communicate everything he hasn't been able to tell you over the last half year or so, his tongue working your lips apart, his hands trailing a heated, haphazard pattern down the lines of your body. Small pops of electricity burst under your skin at the feel of his fingertips—the rough ridges and raised calluses from years of gripping onto bats and balls. The still-delicate curve of his fingers fitting perfectly against the dip of your waist, like you were made to accommodate him. Like you were made for him.
In a way, weren't you? Hadn't it always started with him? Hadn't he written nearly every single chapter, left his mark on every part of your mind, your personality, you? Hadn't you grown up with him, learned and laughed and fought, formed yourself in the context of him?
Planet, meet star. Planet, meet the goddamn galaxy.
His mouth works urgently down your neck, his hands greedily slipping under your crewneck. He makes a broken, pathetic noise when he slips further up your back and realizes you're not wearing a bra. You loop your arms around his neck and tug him closer, closer, can't get him close enough because he's intoxicating, smells and feels just like you remember even though he lives on an entirely different continent. You grip onto his shoulders as he tugs down the neck of your sweater and litters kisses over your collarbone. Skate your reverent fingertips over the expanse of muscle you find there, familiar but not. An old tune in a new key.
You break apart long enough to yank each other's clothes off, your sweats puddling with his jeans on the hideous beige tile of his entryway. He wastes no time tugging you through the half-open door of his bedroom. Laying you down against the cool cotton sheets.
He raises himself above you on his elbows, every part of his body pressing against yours, every single nerve ending bursting into flames. Every cell in your skin aches for more, more of him, and he's so close but you could drink him in forever. You think you understand what people mean when they say beholden, because you feel ensconced by his gaze. You think you could stare back at him the way he's staring at you—wistful, swollen with desire, a million apologies swimming in his irises—forever.
"I love you," you say back, finally. You press a hand to his jaw and he closes his eyes, leaning into your touch. "I love you. Not past tense."
He shudders. Kisses down your throat, retracing his steps down to your collarbone and going further down. You sigh, carding your fingers through his hair—his thick, gorgeous hair, ink-black against his sun-infused skin. Dampness pools between your legs at the sight of his back rippling in the dim light from the hallway, his muscles working as he kisses down between your breasts, over your belly button, to the tops of your thighs.
"Chan," you breathe, squirming under him. "Chan-ah—"
He brushes his fingers lightly over your opening, breathing a soft laugh at what he finds there. "So beautiful."
He sinks one finger in, and then two. It's been so long since you've felt any part of him inside you—felt anything inside you, your libido dying right alongside your will to live—that you have to fight not to come on the spot. You whine as he starts to work them against your front wall. Moan when he immediately digs into your g-spot.
You've almost forgotten how well he knows you. Of course he knows where to find you—he always has.
"Chan," you choke out. The pressure of his touch inside of you is delicious. You feel so full. "I'm… close."
He kisses back up your body, his lips leaving third-degree burns in their wake. His fingers work furiously into you, the heel of his hand pressing against your clit, and you gasp for air. "I love you." He presses the words into the side of your neck, behind your ear. "I love you."
It's all you need. It's all you've ever needed. You shatter around him in ecstasy, trembling, his name scraping its way out of your throat.
The whole time, he holds you. The whole time, he never stops saying it—
I love you. I love you. I love you.
——
September 2025
Dodger Stadium is deafening.
You bounce on the balls of your feet, nervous, posted up near the side entrance. The sun beats down on your scalp. It hadn't been too bad over the summer, you kept hearing—the heat only appeared with a vengeance at the start of September, prompting heat advisory warnings and lazy afternoons by the pool. A bead of sweat rolls down your back, soaks into the waist of your jeans. You check your watch again.
Next to you, Soonyoung won't shut the fuck up.
"And, like, thank god you guys kissed and fucked and made up, you know? I was about to haul ass all the way to America alone just to visit this guy! And then I'd have to come home to you and pretend that I didn't want to talk about it, or talk about him, and you know I have a hard time not talking about anything. So, like, what I'm really trying to say is that you should be on your knees right now. Thanking me. Taking me out for drinks. Popping champagne in my honor. It's really thanks to me that we're all here today. In fact, when Chan wins World Series MVP, I'll be sure to listen for my name in his speech. Because who knows what would have happened if I hadn't shoved you on a plane—"
"—Soonyoung, I swear to god, if you don't shut the hell up—"
"Now, now." He pats your shoulder. Patronizingly. You grit your teeth in an effort not to shove him into a nearby planter. "Is that any way you should be speaking to your hero? The person to whom you owe your very happy relationship? Anyway, as I was saying—"
"He's here."
Wonwoo points, and you look up, and there he is.
You've only been to a few games, a few photoshoots, but you think you'll never get tired of seeing him in his bright white Dodger uniform, the team name emblazoned across his chest in royal blue, the red number—your birth date—nestled just under it. The fabric hugs his bulging muscles as he strides past a row of parked golf carts toward the three of you.
Still, the most stunning thing about him is his smile. That, and the way he looks at you every time. Like it's a miracle you're standing in front of him.
Soonyoung launches himself into Chan's arms, cackling maniacally. "Dude, you look good!"
Chan laughs. Shoves Soonyoung off despite the gigantic, goofy grin all over his face. "You act like you didn't just drop me off at the field this morning."
Soonyoung pouts. You roll your eyes. "Well, yeah, but it felt like forever. You see, your cruel, miserable girlfriend hasn't showered me with sufficient gratitude for everything I've done as a dear friend, the future godfather and namesake of your first child—"
"Watch it," you snap. "Or else I'm leaving your ass here after the game and you can walk back to our place."
Soonyoung doesn't falter for a second, unfazed by your attitude. "Anyway. Can you believe it? Major League Baseball. The fucking Dodgers. Hey, will you sign my jersey for me? It says 'Ohtani' but if you sign it, I think I could still sell it and retire whenever you become famous."
Chan sighs, world-weary. "I'll give you a signed jersey to take home, alright? Here." He turns to where Mingyu is just emerging, official staff badge swinging from his neck, and beckons him over. Behind you, you feel Wonwoo stiffen. "This is my interpreter, Mingyu—Mingyu, this is Soonyoung and Wonwoo."
Mingyu flashes a disarming smile and bows a polite greeting. You look over your shoulder to find Wonwoo petrified—eyes rounded, unable to move a muscle. Soonyoung smirks and rolls his lips together, swallowing the observation you know is itching to come out.
"Mingyu, could you take my friends up to the team suite?" Chan says.
You start to follow the group up the steps, but Chan grabs you by the wrist and whirls you back around to face him. His eyes soften when they meet yours, all the tension melting out of his shoulders.
"Hi," he murmurs, pulling you closer. "I missed you."
"Hi," you whisper back. You loop your arms around him. "I missed you more."
He drops a soft peck on your mouth. "I'll see you after the game?"
"Obviously." You return the kiss on his left cheek, right on the tiny, faint freckle there. "Kill it, superstar."
"I will." He holds you for just a second longer before taking a step back toward the entrance. "Try not to kill Soonyoung."
"No promises!" you shout.
The sound of his laugh echoes around you, and you think it might be the sweetest sound you've ever heard.
Note: This author does not need to get back to me or respond in anyway. I want to be able to appreciate the author's work.
Well, I was going through blogs and seeing which fics I wanted to review in the near future, and I saw this lovely writer was leaving the platform. I thought I should just go ahead and review this fic as a little goodbye to them. I would have waited a bit, but I saw they were going to be taking down their blog - therefore I'm reviewing and releasing this today.
I'm sad I didn't get to review more of their works, but I wish them the best. Thank you for being a lovely writer on this platform, you will certainly be missed.
Funnily enough, this was posted while I was doing my fic reviews, so I haven't been able to read this. I'm honestly really excited my first and last fic with them will be Dino. I had this fic in my drafts for a while with the intentions to review, so im extremely happy I was looking at blogs holy shit.
I didn't proof read this, I'm sorry if theres any mistakes in it.
January 2025
Los Angeles is loud.
I love the start to this. The first two paragraphs were so interesting to read, the flow was amazing. I just kept reading and I was like "man i need to find a place to grab and comment on it". I just really enjoyed the start to this.
scream himself hoarse in the stands for his favorites—Ryu Hyunjin, Lee Daeho, Oh Seunghwan
I literally searched it up to see if these guys were baseball players - and indeed they were. This was such a lovely detail to add. Of course Chan would have baseball idols, I like how they are real people. Sure it could have been a bit of a "my baseball idols" and then not name people - i enjoy the extra step of them being named.
... Dodgers are placing their bets on twenty-five-year-old Chan Lee from South Korea
!!! COMMENTARY!!! I LOVE COMMENTARY IN FICS! I don't watch baseball, but I am a Formula One enjoyer, commentary is what makes the sport watchable in some aspect - i LOVEE that you had the extra commentary. It provides SUCH an interesting way to look at a character. It solves the problem of "how do I tell the reader about this character without just dumping information" using a commentator is SOOOO SMART!!! I LOVE IT!! THISS DHWJKDH
I will go on for five years about this, so I will stop here. Just know i love you for this detail!! it was so beautiful!! Commentators do this all the time! I need to stop...
"I'm Kim Mingyu," the guy says, breaking into a megawatt smile. "I—well—I'm your tour guide for the day. And, like, for the rest of your career with the Dodgers, too? Are you—here." Mingyu reaches over, clumsily grabbing the pull-up handle of Chan's carry-on. "You checked your bags, right?"
Oh Mingyu... I love you. I love when folks add the other members of seventeen in fics. Its such a little detail I adore.
Really, though, he knows it'll never feel like home.
Not without you.
I also REALLY love this section. The way its written just makes me realize I've read half way down the page and have everything to say, but Im unsure how to say it. I love how we are in Chan's head during this, we get to see all the little things Chan is thinking about without him ever speaking in this.
I love how the reader is someone established in his life. It's a bit of a mystery who the reader is, giving us just enough information to tell us about his relationship with them, but not enough to understand what happened. Did they separate due to distance? Were they ever in a relationship to begin with? Are they just friend? I don't know, I guess I'm reading to find out.
March 2025
Your apartment is so damn silent.
I love you. Thank you dear author. I love you. Los Angeles is loud to Chan whereas the reader's office is quiet. THE PARALLELS!!! AHHHHH!!! I'm also a fan of switching POVs, I love when it happens and i LOVE when we start with the member. It's so wonderful to see both of the characters in their situations, how they view everything.
I also love the time jump. It's so interesting to see. Its been about 3 months since Chan left. I'm sure the silence is driving her crazy.
wondering at how pathetic you've become now that he's not here and you don't have him to prop you up, to drag you along, to keep you warm at night.
Another moment for the writing. I love how we ABSOLUTELY know who this is because of the detail at the end of Chan's fic. The parallels set up with the time, how everything is loud to chan and everything is quiet to the reader. I'm sure that the absence of sound / the overwhelming amount of sound has to do with the other. Chan brings the sound to the reader's life, whereas the reader is the quiet and calm in his life. It's really such an amazing detail and i LOVE how you set it up. Amazing. I have no words (i guess i did but whatever)
If he could tell you wouldn't be worth keeping around when he ascended, so he ended it before either of you could waste your time to find out.
Well... I have news for you sweet reader. I don't think he's of the same mind as you. It's not like I've been in his head or anything.
If only he hadn't broken up with you. If only he had broken up with you earlier, before you upended your plans to study in America to go to college in Seoul, just to be with him while he found his footing in the big leagues. If only he had ended things before the two of you became inseparable in your mind, a planet orbiting its star—wherever you go, he goes, and vice versa.
I say this in the BEST WAY. This possibly is the worst way this could have happened. Oh my god, fucking Chan broke up because he didn't want to hold her up and make her wait for someone in Korea. Whereas the reader was anxiously making plans to move to America with him.
oh GOD i hate this so much. I think it's interesting I had a bit of a gut feeling Chan and the reader were either together or exes and I completely credit this to the writing. The way it's written - the way Chan and the reader mention one another in their head, it feels as if they have always been together. I love the detail, I LOVE THIS FIC
I'm getting more and more sad this is the first and last fic I'll ever read by them.
Date nights and sleepovers and midnight phone calls moved to the back burner while he worked his ass off in the minors, and only once he was called back up to the Heroes did he make space for you again.
I'm sure this is the reason he broke up. He feels a massive amount of guilt about the way this went - that he didnt have enough time when he was in Kore, how will he when he's literally 16 hours away in time. He could probably see how it was weighing on the reader as well. Oh,,, maybe lets have conversations first...
The memory of him, and the life he left behind, and it'll take more time than this to stitch up the gaping hole in your chest. Several lifetimes' worth.
Sometimes loving someone is worth all the trouble they put you through. I'm sure Chan is in hell right now, but his future above someone he loves. At the same time, people who are in professional sports don't particularly have the luxury of choice in the beginnings of their career. Chan had to put the work in, had to cancel dates and move things around because it was his future. Sports is taxing and I think the reader feels resentment at the sport and not Chan because if there was a choice, he would choose the reader.
"You're crying? Again?" Soonyoung sighs and casts his eyes helplessly around the room, as if looking for a tissue.
Gotta love Soonyoung huh. He's so lovely GJKLFGWKJF
Anyone else would have cut off ties, whether slowly or all at once, but not Soonyoung (and, you suppose, Wonwoo). You don't know if that makes them dumb or loyal. Either way, you appreciate it.
Really depends on the relationship. Something tells me that Chan and the reader are probably unable to cut the other completely off. Sometimes when you are friends with the same people, you stick with them throughout the break up.
"Look, he's not doing so great out there—"
And I was right. Chan is talking with Soonyoung and Wonwoo. Makes sense all things considered, but I'm glad Soonyoung and Wonwoo are making her go to America. Out of all the decisions, this might be the best one. Between America and living with parents, I'd choose America any day.
"He's literally signed with the Dodgers. One of the best teams in all of baseball. He's living in Los Angeles. Why the fuck would he not be doing great."
There's absolutely no way in hell Soonyoung has no idea. HE KNOWS. Thats why he's sending the reader there, so they can figure their shit out. He can see they are wayyy worse off without the other in their lives, so he's acting like the ignorant middle man and trying to get them back in the same area.
May 2025
All things considered, Chan could be doing better.
The time jumps are really so interesting. It's putting the situation Chan and the reader into perspective. I do believe that Chan 100% broke up with the reader and then got onto the next flight to America. I do 100% believe that the reader traveled to America because of the time jump. I think she misses him a bit too much to let this opportunity float by.
The most agonizing part? In the all-consuming silence of his stale, pre-furnished luxury apartment, all he can think about is you.
This entire part has me feeling HORRIFIC for Chan. Oh my god. I feel like needing to work up again to playing Major League Baseball must seem like such a failure. Chan did everything in his power to get where he was and now he's playing for 'an unknown team'. In his mind, his life in Korea was good, he was in love and happy with friends. Now he's in a country he can't communicate properly in and ruined almost all the relationships he had in pursuit of this dream. This is a massive stumbling block in his career he worked so hard for and now he must climb his way back up again.
You could see, as misguided as it was, how Chan would think breaking up with you was the kindest thing to do. He'd always been like that, self-sacrificing to the point of stupidity.
I think this is another reason why the reader doesn't hate Chan. She understands why he did it - to save her from the trouble. He just didn't know the reader was trying to be with him. She's a bit misguided when she says he probably didnt feel the same. He 100% didn't want to hold her up anymore and broke up with her.
Dinner comes together quickly after that. Chan sets the table, and helps you carry over the boiling pot of doenjang jjigae, and for a minute it feels like nothing's changed
THE ONLY THING THATS CHANGED IS THE STATUS OF YOUR RELATIONSHIP. CANT YOU SEE THAT?
You're making an entire meal with a pathetic assortment of tools and ingredients because you want him to feel loved. Even when he doesn't love you.
I'm going to WHACK the reader. Sincerely, I will do it.
"Chan-ah," you say, so soft. "It wouldn't have meant anything without you."
Ohhh parallels, how you come to bite me in the ass. WOW I hate this entire conversation. They are both speaking to one another and putting EVERYTHING on the table, but due to their own thoughts and opinions, they think the other is lying to them. They think the other person doesn't mean everything they are saying - BUT THEY DO!!! Chan is telling the reader he still loves her and the reader saying she was happy with uprooting their life. However, they both believe the choice they made was for the best. SURPRISE ITS NOT
The sound of his laugh echoes around you, and you think it might be the sweetest sound you've ever heard.
ooohhh... :( I'm about to cry, genuinely. What a beautiful fic. I genuinely loved the ride this took me on. It was such a lovely read. It makes me incredibly thankful I was able to review this fic before they left. Most of my thoughts have been summed up but truly anm hour and a half passed like it was nothing. i LOVED this fic and the ride it took me on. Chan and the reader had endlessly relatable problems and I love how the language barrier factored into Chan feeling misplaced. LA is scary enough for someone new to the country, but I cannot imagine being sent to Oklahoma, theres no way that there would be a big Korean community there. It must have been such a struggle for him. I genuinely LOVED reading this so much and Im sure I have many many more thoughts about everything, but I'll leave it here.
I don't know if the author is reading this, but this is a note for them.
Hello, I'm so sorry this is the first fic I've ever read from you. I'm mourning that fact a bit while I'm writing this, this was such an amazing read. I'm completely awestruck with the writing in this, it felt like i blinked and it was done. I completely respect your decision to delete your blog and I'm extremely happy I caught your goodbye before you did so. This has been in my drafts for about two weeks? I wanted to review it for such a long time, but time kept getting away from me. I'm so delighted I finally had the time to read it today. It was genuinely such a beautiful and well thought out fic. I loved the POVs, I love hearing what Chan and the reader were thinking - how the both of them were so stuck within their head. How they interacted with one another and how the loss of their presence was so felt throughout the text. You are such an amazing writer. Thank you. If you want to, I'll be able to go on more when I'm a little less sad.
Thank you so much for sharing this fic and the rest of your fics to the world. Truly, it was such a magnificent leave and I'm sure your absence will be noted in the community. I'm so glad this was the fic I was able to review from you, I'm genuinely so happy. Thank you again and I hope you have a lovely life :) .
thank you so so much josie 🫶 i cried reading this review—thank you for taking the time to read it and leave such kind words for me!! i felt so seen by you and appreciate your close read of my writing. i am so grateful for this community and it will always have a special place in my heart regardless of whether i am here or not. thanks again and i hope you have a lovely life too 🫂
hihi mj! i saw your post abt leaving the platform last night and i just wanna say im gonna miss seeing you on here overall just your own post abt things you enjoy the books u read and of course your writing, it all has a little place in my brain now! i know we just became mutuals (you are actually my only mutual :')) but the interaction we had abt baseball was fun and just overall you just have a very welcoming presence!! i hope you will eventually find something that motivates you to write what you enjoy again, even if it isn't something that brings you back to tumblr but its fulfilling to you! you have an incredible talent for writing, i will always remember it :) i wish you nothing but the best in your future! 🫂
thank you so much lil 🫶 you have been so kind to me during my time here and even though we've only been mutuals a short time, i'm so grateful to have known you and interacted with you. i won't completely foreclose the possibility of returning in the future but i wish you all the best too 🫂
SUMMARY. Every Christmas, since you were six years old, Jeon Jungkook gave you a kiss under the mistletoe. But when you were fifteen, you were replaced by a revolving door of girlfriends. Thus began your decade-long aversion to the holiday—this year, however, you’ve been tasked with hosting the annual Christmas soirée, and there’s no telling what might be waiting for you under the mistletoe this time around.
pairing. jeon jungkook x reader
word count. 23.8k
warnings/genre. childhood best friends to lovers (aka idiots to lovers if you squint!!!), slight angst, fluff, reader is the grinch reincarnated, jungkook is oblivious, alcohol consumption, smut, oral and fingering (f receiving), multiple orgasms, big dick jungkook bc what else, unprotected sex sorry she’s on the pill, crying during sex (but in a cute way), it’s all just really cute i kinda hate them
note. welcome to the dreamersparacosm golden era… two one-shots over 15k words in one month. my fingers are tired. but it’s all fine n dandy bc it’s the HOLIDAYS!!! and what better way to celebrate than with a friends to lovers fic? believe it or not, this was originally going to be enemies with lovers, but i had a long talk with myself and realized that theres no way in hell i could ever do justice to a e2l in under 304949k words, but rest assured there is enough pining and angst to keep you well-fed 🥰 oc is yearning final boss, jungkook is a slowburner who’s also an idiot. my favorite kind of couple! i hope you all had a wonderful holiday! p.s: stay tuned for an extra special treat from these two later today :)
▶︎ •၊၊||၊|။|||| last christmas by wham
banner creds | masterlist | epilogue blurb
The Grinch has always been your favorite Christmas movie.
Not because it’s particularly funny or thrilling, but because you can relate to that pessimistic green ball of fur. He despises the holiday just as much as you do—and that’s generous, considering your animosity towards the day has reached unfeasible levels. You might be worse than the aforementioned ball of fur.
There’s really no one else to blame for your aversion to the holiday… besides Jeon Jungkook.
Jeon Jungkook has been your best friend since cradle. Your mother and his shared a room at the hospital, and since then, have kept a tight-knit relationship. Growing up, you and Jungkook shared more life experiences than siblings would. Conjoined birthdays, first day of school, puberty, heartbreak. It was hard not to imagine him in your life, when he had already invaded every part of it with his infectious smile and doe-like eyes.
Every Christmas, since you were six years old, Jeon Jungkook gave you a kiss under the mistletoe. It started innocently enough, with your parents cooing sweetly as he pressed his little lips to your warm cheek. Your face burnt like a volcano shortly after, your hand pressing up to touch the spot where his lips met your skin every few minutes.
When you were nine, he upped the ante. He grabbed your face with his grubby hands, and smushed his lips onto yours with a peck. It was precisely three seconds and two milliseconds long (you know because you held your breath). When he pulled away, he smiled that big bunny smile and ran off to play with your toys. Life continued on as such, leaving you behind to pick up the pieces of everything you thought you knew.
At the age of fifteen, he got his first girlfriend, Haeun. They met in Science class, paired up by accident, but the crush he had on her was with such certainty it took you by storm. That Christmas, he didn’t give you a peck on the lips or the cheek. That year, your body felt empty. That fateful holiday, you watched as Jeon Jungkook gave Park Haeun a big, sloppy, romantic kiss under the mistletoe, one that rivaled any one he ever gave you.
And so, Christmas went from your favorite day of the year, to your nightmare.
Even when his and Haeun’s puppy love died out by high school graduation, she was swiftly replaced by Eunji. And then Chaeyoung. And then Sana…and the list went on, and on, and on.
So, yeah. Christmas. Not your best day. In fact, it’s pretty low on the totem pole, right next to the anniversary of your grandfather’s death.
All this to say—this is why you’ve been ignoring your best friend’s pleas for the past thirty minutes on hosting the annual Christmas soiree at your apartment. Your humble abode. Your sanctuary. There’s no way in hell you’ll be stringing red and green lights from your ceiling, singing ‘ho, ho, ho’ and passing around jell-o shots that were crafted by the devil himself. And you most definitely, certainly, will not hang up a mistletoe.
“But why not?” Jungkook whines again, bouncing up and down on your couch cushion like a puppy. His bottom lip juts out slightly, which would be endearing if he was a teenager and not a 28-year old man.
“Because I don’t want to. I don’t like Christmas.” You ignore him as best as you can, thumbing through your Instagram feed. Engagement posts, pregnancy announcements… god, the holidays are the worst. No, you won’t be blowing ‘baby dust’ to your friends trying to get pregnant.
“Since when?” He gawks, pausing his movements to stare at your side profile intently.
“Since forever. You know this,” you say calmly. “The Grinch is my favorite movie.”
He scoffs. “So? It’s mine too. That doesn’t mean I hate Christmas.”
You don’t have the heart to tell him that your abhorrence for the holiday stems from his inability to give you a kiss since the age of fifteen. Thirteen years later, you can’t help but want one still.
You roll your eyes. “You don’t hate Christmas because you like giving gifts and receiving them.”
“That’s not true,” he argues, snatching your phone out of your hand and tossing it on the coffee table. You finally turn to look at him, and he’s all red cheeks and wide eyes, and it makes you want to die. “You have the nicest apartment out of all of us. We can’t do Namjoon’s because they just had the baby, we can’t do Jisoo’s because Tae is allergic to dogs, and we can’t do mine because I’m renovating. Yours is the best option.”
All true points, but none that you want to confront head-on. “Might it also be that you don’t want to do yours because then people will know you haven’t moved on from Hana?”
Jungkook’s face contorts, and for a split second, you feel guilty for sinking that low. You didn’t mean to, but it’s true. His most recent ex-girlfriend, Hana, doesn’t live in that apartment anymore, but it almost feels like she does with the amount of her stuff lingering around. They were together for a year, but mysteriously broke up after Christmas last year.
“Not cool,” he mumbles, playing with his sleeve.
“I’m sorry,” you sigh, “I just really don’t wanna host, Koo.”
“C’mon, do it for me,” he pouts, and it becomes even harder to say no to him. You’re putty in his reliable hands.
“What will I get out of hosting?” You cross your arms over your chest. A hint of a smile creeps onto his face as he realizes you’re slowly beginning to cave. You always do when you start asking questions.
“Namjoon and Dahyun will cook. Taehyung will make the drinks. And I, your trusty best friend, will task myself with decorating the entire place,” he says proudly, chest puffed out like he’s the Superman of Christmas or something equally as idiotic.
“Jeon Jungkook is going to decorate my apartment?” you question, dumbfounded. “The one who put the star on upside down last year?”
The memory plays as vivid as ever, a reel of images flashing through your mind of Jungkook proudly grinning at the miniscule tree he helped construct in your living room. The lights barely worked, the ornaments were hanging on by a thread, and the star was upside down, but he swore Michaelangelo would’ve thought it was abstract art.
He rolls his eyes. “Why can’t you let anything go?”
“And tangled the lights so bad Namjoon had to come over and cut them with scissors?”
Jungkook pouts the same way he used to when he was three. “But—”
“And ate the gingerbread house before we could even display it?”
Jungkook’s mouth opens to defy you, but decides it’s best not to go up against your vicious truths. “I was hungry and you had nothing but expired Chinese food in your fridge,” he grumbles. It’s annoying how easily he can disarm you when he’s boyishly upset at the world.
In the grand scheme of things, hosting the Christmas soiree at your house is nothing. Nada. Zilch. A blip on your radar. It’s not like he’s asking you to loan him a million won, or donate a kidney to his brother (albeit those are all things you would do for him). He’s simply asking you to open your home to your closest friends to spread holiday cheer.
Somehow, some way, it feels like the hardest thing you have to do.
Maybe because in the grand scheme of things, you’re also hopelessly, relentlessly, disgustingly in love with Jeon Jungkook, and the word no is not one that leaves your lips often when he’s around.
“Fine,” you relent. His entire face lights up, and your heart does the same dance it always does. “I have conditions, though.”
“Anything you want.” He scoots closer. You can smell his cologne, a pine and bergamot scent he wears for the holidays. “I’m at your service.”
“We’re gonna do classy Christmas. I’m talking silver decorations, maybe some gold. None of that tacky red and green shit from the dollar store.”
“Uhu.” He nods. “Aligned, captain.”
“All the food will be catered. I’m not making poor Dahyun cook. She has enough on her plate already.”
He salutes you, which makes you snort.
“Lastly, and most importantly, no mistletoe.”
His smile falters. Tips downward so that it’s almost unrecognizable. The light in his eyes dims, and now you almost feel guilty. “Wha—why not?”
See, if this were a Christmas romcom broadcasting on Hallmark, this is the pivotal moment where you’d confess everything. How you’ve been in love with him since you were old enough to feel that feeling of warmth in your chest, how watching him kiss other girls made all your kisses seem foolish, how every Christmas without his lips on yours (even platonically) makes you want to move to a foreign country. He’d probably gasp, pull you close, and kiss you right there on your sofa while snow fell cinematically outside your window. Credits would roll over a montage of you two ice skating and baking holiday cookies, all set to some Kelly Clarkson cover of “Last Christmas.”
But this isn’t a Hallmark movie, and you’re not that brave.
So, instead, you say, “It’s tacky and overdone. I don’t want it in my apartment.”
Jungkook seems genuinely concerned, as though you just informed him you have four days to live and your final wish is to jump out of a plane. “But it’s tradition. Every year, there’s a mistletoe.”
You huff, hugging the blanket wrapped over your legs tighter to you. “Well, I don’t care. That’s my conditions. Take it or leave it.”
He watches quietly for a moment as you inspect the fibers of the blanket. He knows you well enough to not pry further, but he also knows that he’s the only one you’ll talk to if he does decide to investigate. There’s no sound except the rattling of your heater and the sound of cars honking past your window. The television screen remains paused on a scene from The Grinch you could probably recite by heart.
“Okay,” he finally says. “No mistletoe.”
“Good. Glad that’s settled.” You stand up, desperate for distance. “Now get out. I have work to do.”
“First of all, it’s Sunday. Second of all, we’re watching the Grinch. That’s not work,” he points out.
“I’m sure I could find something to do. I’ve been meaning to dust my bookshelf,” you counter.
“Oh, really? You walking your squirrel after that?” he teases, smirking.
“I am actually.” You cross your hands over your chest, the signal you make when it’s time for him to exit your apartment.
He stands, stretching his arms above his head. His shirt rides up slightly, exposing a sliver of toned stomach, and you have to look away. You’ve been down this road too many times.
“I’ll text you tomorrow about picking up supplies,” he yawns, heading for the door. “We’ll need to grab stuff from my place anyway. I’ve got extra string lights in storage.”
You trail behind him. “Fine.”
He pauses at the threshold, turning back to look at you. “Thanks for doing this. I know it’s not your favorite thing.”
Oh, If only he knew it was his fault. “Yeah, well. You owe me.”
“I always do,” he grins, and then he’s bounding down your staircase, leaving you alone with the Grinch and the hollowed feeling in your chest that never really goes away.
When you’re certain he’s finally gone, you lock the door and sink back into the couch, pressing play on the remote. On screen, the Grinch is plotting to ruin Christmas, and you can’t help but think to yourself, same, buddy. Same.
He’s probably got the right idea. If you steal all the decorations before he can hang them, accidentally forget to buy eggnog, or come down with the Black Plague on the day of the party, you could ruin the whole thing.
But you won’t. Despite everything, you can’t actually hurt him. You’d host a thousand Christmas parties, hang a million strands of lights, bake cookies until your hands cramped, if it meant making Jeon Jungkook happy. That’s the real bittersweet tragedy of your situation. Not that he doesn’t love you back, but that you love him enough to pretend you don’t.
Jungkook likes to call his apartment his ‘modest mancave.’
He’s called his bedroom that since you two were old enough to be in school. However, one spring day during Sophomore year, you’d barged in unannounced and found him scrambling to hide a bottle of lotion and suspiciously large pile of tissues. He came up with some daft excuse about allergies, but you knew what the option meant. He knew that you knew. It became just another shared moment in the encyclopedia of your friendship, because that’s what you two always did. You witnessed each other’s embarrassing moments and life continued on.
Which is why his apartment’s state right now doesn't deter you. It's a little messy (okay, a lot messy) with random moving boxes he’s never unpacked stacked haphazardly in corners and furniture pushed against walls at odd angles. There’s a pile of paint swatches on the coffee table, each one a slightly different shade of beige that all look identical to your untrained eye.
He had texted you earlier in the day to get started on Operation: Un-Grinchify Christmas, as he referred to it. You weren’t really up for it, but he sent you three crying emoji’s and then you were halfway out the door with mismatched socks on.
Jungkook swears he has a box of light-up reindeer somewhere when you first arrive to his home. Something about them looking like they’re having a seizure when they’re plugged in. He's so entranced in his search he’s completely forgotten about your own holiday dilemma.
“Koo?” you yell down his hallway. You venture down, stepping over a stack of books and what appears to be a broken lamp, following the sound of muffled cursing.
You find him in his bedroom, halfway inside the closet, ass up in the air. Boxes and random junk are scattered around him—old magazines, a deflated basketball, what looks like his matching Halloween costume with Hana from two years ago.
“I know it’s here somewhere,” he mutters, voice echoing from deep within the closet. Leaning against the doorframe, you cross your arms over your chest, utterly amused by his same old childish ways.
“Need help, or should I just enjoy the view?”
“Shut up,” he says, but you can hear the smile in his tone. “I’m finding an ancient artifact.”
“How ancient is it? We talking middle school? Elementary?”
“I don’t know, all I know is—aha!” He backs out, brown hair flopping around, and cracks his head on the closet rod with a thunk. “Fucking fuck—ow—”
You can’t stop the giggle that falls from your lips, and it turns into full-blown laughter when you catch wind of his appearance. He’s rubbing his head, hair sticking up in five different directions.
But then you see what’s in his hands, and all laughter ceases with a wheeze. It’s the most hideous collection of green and red tinsel garland you’ve ever witnessed. It looks like it’s gonna shed all over your home, and there’s no way you’ll let your cat named Ginger anywhere near that.
“Ta-da!” He holds it up proudly, grinning brightly.
“Are you insane?”
“What?” he gawks, inspecting it for himself. “This is the epitome of Christmas.”
“Jungkook, I said classy Christmas. Elegant. That looks like a drunk elf threw up.” You gesture at the…thing, deeply perturbed at the fact he would even show it to you.
He shakes the garland at you like it might change your mind. “But Christmas needs a little green and red! That’s literally the symbolic colors of the holiday.”
“I don’t care if it was sent down by Santa himself. It’s not going in my home,” you argue.
“But why?” he pouts, and you can already tell which direction this conversation is going. But you’re standing your ground this time, because if you don’t you’ll fold like papier mache.
“It looks like it has dust mites from 2014,” you grimace.
He moves closer, forcing you to look at the grimy strings. “C’mon, just one strand? For your old pal?”
“No.”
“Please?”
“I will leave, Jungkook.”
He sighs, defeated, and holds the garland out to you anyway. “Fine. But you have to be the one to throw it away. I can’t bear to part ways with her.”
Rolling your eyes, you take it from him, and your fingers brush his. Softly, gently, barely even there to the naked eye. You doubt he even notices it. But heat crawls up your spine and nestles a home in your chest.
You snap out of it, tossing the garland in the trash in his bedroom. “Why do you even have that anyway?”
“It was Hana’s.”
You freeze in your tracks, hand hovering over the trash bin. When you look back at him, his ears are pink, eyes trained on some shadow on the wall behind you. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” He clears his throat, rubs the back of his neck. One of his nervous tics from childhood. “I’ve been meaning to get rid of her stuff. What you said yesterday... it kind of stuck with me.”
Guilt settles in your bones. “Koo, I didn’t mean—”
“No, you’re right.” He finally catches your gaze. “I’ve been holding onto things I shouldn’t. Not even because I miss her, really. It’s just—I don’t know. Easier to keep it than deal with it, y’know?
You do know. You know all too well. You’ve been keeping your feelings in a box for years for the exact same reason.
“But I’m trying now,” he continues. “To move on. Actually move on, not just say I am. It still feels weird, throwing away a part of my life. Even if I know it’s the right thing to do.”
Throughout your life, you have continuously kept a square of people in your life that you care about. It mostly consists of your parents, Jungkook, his parents, and your friends. You don’t ever really rearrange it to make space for others, because you already have the ones that matter. You hope that when Jungkook rearranges his square, maybe removes Hana, you take up a bigger chunk of it.
“I’m proud of you,” you smile. Even if the selfish part of you has been waiting for this moment since last Christmas.
He returns your smile with a feeble one of his own. “Thanks.”
For a moment, you two stand there, soaking in the silence. But just like that, it always falls back into place the way it’s meant to be. “I need your silverware for my kitchen, by the way. I’m not using mine for this party.”
“What? Why not?” He furrows his brows.
“Because I don’t want Taehyung's drunk ass dropping my good forks down the garbage disposal like last New Years.”
Jungkook rolls his eyes. “He apologized and paid for new ones.”
“But it wasn’t the same exclusive ones I had,” you sing-song, leading him back down the hallway to his kitchen. “Show me what you’ve got, mister.”
For the next hour, you two bicker over everything. He wants to bring the fork set with wooden handles, but you object with the fact that they look like they belong in a cabin in the forest.
Then it’s the string lights. He’s insistent on multicolored ones, big bulbs of green, yellow, and red that would look outdated against the rest of your apartment. You opt for the warm white ones, and he sticks his tongue out at you and says you’re boring.
He’s a child. You make sure to tell him that about five separate times. On the sixth time, however, he retorts, “You take that back.”
“Make me.”
He waves a serving spoon at you. “I’m not playing with you, young lady.”
“Oh, please,” you wave him off. “You’re the one who begged me to host.”
It’s comfortable, the way it always is. The bickering, the back-and-forth, the way you can read each other’s expressions before the words even come out.
At some point, while you’re debating whether his punch bowl is too tacky (it is), he wipes his hands on a dish towel and tosses it over his shoulder. “You should check the closet in case you see anything else you wanna take.”
“The old shit in there?”
He smacks you with the towel. You yelp, leaping back a few inches. “There’s goodies in there too, I’ll have you know.”
“Sure, Koo. Goodies, otherwise known as old shit.” But you’re already laughing, walking back into his room and diving into the closet.
You push back the ugly garland’s former neighbors. There’s a box of tangled charging cables, some old textbooks from college, a pair of busted headphones. It’s very standard Jungkook chaos. His mind is also disorganized, so it’s no wonder he has the room to match.
You rummage around a bit more, sighing as you wave the dust from your face.
On the top shelf, shoved way back in the top corner, you come across a box.
Small, cardboard, duct-taped on the bottom half into oblivion. There’s a piece of paper taped to the front, and even in the dim closet light, you can make out your name written in his messy handwriting. [Y/N].
For a moment, you blink at the box, heart pounding, and then realize you have no idea what to do.
If you open it, maybe he’ll know. Then you’ll look like a stalker. On the other hand, he’s been your best friend since birth, so finding out you have stalker tendencies might not be a dealbreaker.
You stretch up on your toes, tugging the box toward you just enough to peek inside. A flash of worn brown fur catches your eyes, and then you see the teddy bear ear flopping out. Your teddy bear. You lost it in middle school, and you assumed it was gone forever, donated or thrown away during one of your mom’s delirious cleaning sprees.
He kept it.
“Find anything good?” Jungkook’s voice migrates from the kitchen. You jolt, almost dropping the box. Your hands shake as you shove it back into place, blood whooshing through your eardrums.
“Nah,” you call back. Your voice sounds a bit shaky, but you hide it behind several coughs. “I was right. Old shit.”
You back out of the closet, closing the door carefully. What else is in there?
Later that night, when sleep proves itself to be unfeasible, and you’re tossing and turning underneath your comforter, you ponder what else might be in the box, and if he keeps it for the same reason you’ve kept every birthday card he’s ever written you. Tucked away in your own closet, in your own box, with his name on it.
Apparently, hosting a Christmas soiree is not as straightforward as you’d hoped it would be.
First, there’s Jisoo, who texts a novel about how she’s trying this new clean eating thing and can there please be gluten free and dairy free options? You respond with a thumbs up, and then run to text Jennie to see if she’s actually serious. She sends back a skull emoji, which 1) you’re not sure what that implies and 2) you guess it’s confirmation that yes, she’s serious, but also yes, she’ll quit and eat regular food after two glasses of wine.
Then Taehyung calls to inform you he’s trying to maintain a vegetarian lifestyle, and not the kind that occasionally eats fish, but the kind that will know if you used chicken stock in any recipe. You add “vegetable stock” to your growing shopping list, since catering cost more than your rent, and resist the urge to bang your head against the counter.
Namjoon sends his regrets that he and Dahyun can’t stay long because baby Haewon is ‘in turmoil right now,’ which translates to ‘we’ll be there for an hour max.’ You’re not even annoyed about that one—you’ve seen the bags under Namjoon’s eyes, and honestly, you’re impressed he’s coming at all.
The point is, you’ve given up. By Wednesday, your Notes app looks like a grocery list written by someone having a mental breakdown, and you’re seriously reconsidering this whole thing.
To his credit, Jungkook tries to help as much as possible. Inevitably, this means dragging him to your apartment on weekends, even though you do that often enough already. Saturday morning, he shows up with boxes, four different sets of more lights, some ornaments, all of them white, all of them looking functionally identical.
“Okay,” he says, holding up the first strand. “Which one screams ‘this is a classy Christmas’?”
You squint at it from the couch, hugging your mug of hot chocolate. “Hmm. I don’t know. That one kinda screams dollar store.”
“Cut.” He drops it and holds up the second. “This one?”
“Hmm, uglier than the first.”
“How can someone be so picky?” He holds up the third, and you can see him struggle to hold a straight face. “Fine. This one. Final answer.”
Tilting your head, you study it. It has a warm hue, the bulbs delicate and tiny. It’s kind of pretty, sans the scratches on some of the bulbs. “I think we have ourselves a winner.”
“Sold.” He drops the others in the pile he’s been gathering. The ones on the right are the takers, the ones on the left are getting deposited in your dumpster at 5PM sharp. “See? This is why we make a good team.”
You have to fight not to let your mind wander off when he says things like that. “Barely. When we were five, we were on the same team for kickball and you nearly broke my ankle.”
He frowns, “Okay, but then I patched you up good as new with a Hello Kitty bandaid. That shit wasn’t easy to find.”
It was over two decades ago, but still remains a permanent fixture in your brain. You were sprawled on the playground, crying so hard you’d given yourself hiccups, convinced your ankle was shattered and your legs would be cut off. Jungkook had run to get the teacher, but came back before she did, sliding on his knees beside you like some action hero. He’d pulled a crumpled Hello Kitty bandaid from his pocket (you have no idea why he had it, he’d never explained) and stuck it on your ankle with the utmost seriousness, tongue poking out in concentration. “All better,” he had promised. Miraculously, you’d stopped crying. It wasn’t because the bandaid helped, but because Jungkook looked so proud of himself, you didn’t have the heart to tell him your ankle still hurt.
“You’re still a pain in my ass.”
“Yeah, yeah, but who’s doing this home renovation for free? Me.”
You can’t argue with that.
He continues pulling things from the boxes. More tinsel, garlands, ornaments in muted golds and silvers. Each item gets held up for your approval, and you find yourself less focused on the decorations and more on him. His cheeks flush crimson when you compliment one of his choices. A bright smile overtakes his features when you agree to something halfheartedly just because it makes the smile grow tenfold.
You’d fallen for him a long time ago, but even now you realize how far down you’ve already gone.
“Oh shit,” he exhales, freezing midway through a box. “No way.”
“What?” You shift excitedly on the couch, trying to peer into the box.
He pulls out a photo album, the edges frayed and the cover dusty. You recognize it as soon as you see it. It was one of the many your moms had compiled over the years, chronicling every significant (and insignificant) moment of your joint childhood.”
“I forgot I even had this,” he says incredulously, flipping it open. He moves to the couch, dropping down beside you, and his knee brushes yours.
Your body knows to jerk back instinctively, heart jumping into your throat. He doesn't notice, too absorbed in the photos, but your knee burns where it touched him.
“God, look at us,” he laughs, pointing to a picture of you both at around 7 years old, covered head to toe in mud. “Your mom was pissed at us.”
“Yeah, she was pissed because you pushed me into the puddle,” you remind him.
“And then I got you out of it.”
“You said ‘watch this’ and then did it. I don’t think you really won brownie points with Mom,” you laugh at the memory.
He flips through the book, oohing and aahing everytime you stumble across a cute picture. They’re reminiscent of a time when everything was easy, when you didn’t have to worry about adult things like taxes and bills and groceries. It was just you and Jungkook, conquering the world one playdate at a time.
Jungkook flips to the next page. There’s a photo taped to the page, with your mom’s handwriting underneath. “Christmas, 9 years old, Busan.”
You're both standing under a mistletoe that looks comically large above your small heads. His lips are pressed to yours in that brief, earth-shattering peck you still think about once in a while (or more precisely, when it’s late at night and you’re missing his presence).
You take a deep breath. Your chest feels tight, like someone’s tugging on it by the ends of a string.
Jungkook stares at the photo for what feels like forever, an unreadable expression crossing his face. “I remember this,” he quietly says.
You can’t speak. Your tongue feels like deadweight.
“You held your breath and everything,” he reminisces, and you suddenly feel breathless. Like you’re drowning and gasping for air, but even when you hit the surface, it’s not enough.
He flips the page again, and there's another one. Age 10. Same mistletoe, different living room. It was the year your parents moved homes, but remained down the street from Jungkook’s. You’re wearing a red dress your mom made you wear, and he’s in a sweater that's too big. His hand is on your cheek, and you can see, even in the photo, how red your face was.
“We did this every year,” he notes, and there’s a nostalgic edge to his voice that wasn’t there before.
“Yeah.” The word comes out hoarse. You clear your throat. And then the words are out before you can stop them, tinged with wistfulness, "Until we didn’t.”
Jungkook doesn’t acknowledge that. Just flips again. Through age 11, age 12, age 13, age 14. Each photo is a documentation of a tradition that meant everything to you.
Then he turns the page, and the mistletoe is gone. Age 15. You’re standing stiffly next to Haeun, who’s tucked under his arm, beaming at the camera. You look like you want to disappear.
“Hm,” he hums, frowning. “I guess we stopped here.”
It’s so juvenile, so high school it’s almost embarrassing. He hadn’t cared for the absence of your kiss. For him, it was a silly thing your families let you partake in. “You had Haeun. The mistletoe thing was for kids anyway”
“Was it though?” He studies the photo, and you wish he would stop, wish he would close the album and move on to anything else. The question isn’t meant to be flirtatious but a selfish part of you wishes it was. “I always thought it was fun.”
“Our parents got so excited over it.” He flips back to the earlier photos, running his finger over the vintage picture. “We’d be right under the mistletoe and she’d count down with her camera ready like it was the New Years countdown.”
“She was probably hoping to plaster us on some kids’ Christmas ad.”
“It was cute.” He lands on the photo from when you were six—the very first one. His tiny self kissing your cheek, your hand frozen mid-reach to touch the spot. “Look how tiny we were. Little babies.”
He says it so innocently that something inside you stumbles.
You cover your face with your hands, as if he could see the adoration written all over your face. But even if he could, he probably wouldn’t say anything “I’m mortified. I didn’t realize my mom took so many pictures of us kissing as kids.”
He scrunches his brows, looking over at you. “Was it really that bad?”
Yes. No. It was the best and worst thing that ever happened to you. “Kinda. I mean, I survived, didn’t I?”
“Barely, from the looks of it.” He taps the photo, where baby you looks seconds away from a panic attack. “It’s not like I had cooties.”
You smile. “Oh, yes you did. If anyone had cooties, it was definitely you. You ran that playground like it was your personal dating pool.”
“Rude.” He bumps your shoulder, turning the page slowly, lingering on each mistletoe photo. “I can’t believe we did this for almost a decade.”
“Used me for practice?” It doesn’t feel like there’s enough air in your apartment, even with the window cracked open. It’s taking tremendous effort to breathe.
“Worked well for us, I think.”
“Why’d you stop?”
Oh god, you’ve really done it now.
Surprisingly enough, the embarrassment comes belatedly, but it settles in your stomach all the stronger.
Surprise flashes across his face. “What?”
“After Haeun. I guess… I don’t know. You never—” You wish you could say the words, wish you could be brave, wish you could be six years old again with Jeon Jungkook’s lips on your cheek. “Why’d it just… end?”
He’s quiet. The sound of your space heater rattling and Ginger purring fills the room, but not enough to quell the anxiety that’s rumbling in your stomach. He’s going to let you down gently, you hope. Quick and painless, like a bullet to the head.
“I don’t know. I guess I thought you didn’t want to anymore. We were older. I thought it would feel weird to you.”
Weird.
And this whole time, for you, his kiss was nothing short of ethereal.
“Plus,” he continues, oblivious to the way your heart is splintering, “I figured it’d be uncomfortable doing it once I had girlfriends. Like it would be... I don't know. Inappropriate or something.”
He was being considerate. Somehow, and you know you’re being irrational, that makes it worse.
“It makes sense.” You force a smile. “Relax, Koo. I’m not writing sonnets about your lips every night.”
He snorts. “Oh, please, you wish you could have lips as luscious as mine.”
You push his shoulder, and then it’s just you and Jungkook again. Nothing more, nothing less.
He flips through a few more pages, ogling at pictures even you’d never seen before. He points to one where you're both wearing matching reindeer antlers. “Now, this should be on a Christmas card.”
“I’m shocked my mom didn’t have cards made. I would’ve burned them”
“You’re such a Grinch.” He closes the album but keeps it in his lap, fingers tracing the worn cover. Jungkook is quiet for another moment, and you catch the look on his face, the one he makes when he’s struggling to choose his words correctly. Decisively, he says, “Did you really hate it? The mistletoe thing?”
Your heart hammers. This is it, you think. This is where you could tell him. Where you could say actually, I loved it, I lived for it, I died a little every year you stopped.
But he’s looking at you with curiosity, as if he’s pondering what your favorite color is or what you had for breakfast. As if the answer doesn’t matter beyond satisfying his momentary interest.
You lie. “It was fine. Just a stupid kid thing.”
He sets the album aside, wiping his dusty palms on the front of his pants. “Yeah. Totally.”
Jungkook moves back to the decoration boxes, and you remain frozen on the couch. You grip your safety blanket as tight as you can, until you think you feel your blood flow cutting off. You just want to feel numb.
“You know what is crazy, though?” He pulls out a string of garland, examining it for tangled bits. “You used to be obsessed with Christmas.”
Your stomach does a somersault. “I was not.”
“Yeah, you kinda were.” His eyes linger on the garland, although you’re certain it’s in perfect condition. “You made us watch Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman on repeat. You also made us build snowmen every single time it snowed, even when it was like, two inches.”
“Everyone loves those things when you’re a kid.”
“Yeah, I guess.” he sighs. “But I don’t know. You had a countdown, you’d call me everyday in December to tell me how many days were left. That was your favorite holiday, and now I’m the only one who likes it.”
You shrug, hoping to come across as nonchalant, but you know he can read your face like an open book. “People change.”
“When did you even stop liking it?” He picks up a few string lights, untangling them as he’s doing to you currently.
Your throat tightens. “High school, maybe?”
“Cause of stress or something? School shit?”
“Sure.”
“It’s a yes or no question.”
“That’s the answer you’re getting.” You really, really wish there was a sinkhole that could swallow you entirely right now.
He studies you, and you can see him thinking, piecing together something you don’t want him to figure out. But despite it all, he just shrugs, letting it go. “It's depressing. You used to light up the whole room when Christmas came around. Now you look like someone killed Ginger."
She purrs in the corner.
“Sorry, Ging.” He throws the lights to the yes pile. It’s surprisingly larger than the no pile. “I just want you to be happy this Christmas. That’s all I care about.”
You half-smile at him, nodding. You don’t know how to tell him that you could be happy, could be ecstatic, if just this Christmas, you felt his lips on yours again.
Turns out, it’s a lot easier to throw yourself into party planning when you’re trying to distract yourself from something.
This whole debacle makes you realize you’ve never actually hosted a Christmas party. You actively avoid Christmas. What made you think you could pull this off? (Granted it’s all Jungkook’s fault, but that’s neither here nor there.)
The group chat you made for the attendees is already chaos—Jisoo asking about the playlist, Taehyung confirming he’s still vegetarian (yes, still, it's been four days), Dahyun asking if she can breastfeed in your bedroom. Your anxiety spikes with every notification.
So it’s no surprise that the day before the party, you wake up in a cold sweat at 6AM with the horrifying realization that you have no idea what you’re doing. By the time Jungkook arrives at noon, you’ve managed to rearrange your furniture three times and stress-clean your bathroom until it’s sterile enough to perform surgery in.
“Wow,” He steps inside, taking in the boxes of decorations you’ve laid out for him to tackle. “Did you even sleep?”
“I would, but Jisoo and Jennie are blowing up my phone like this is the fucking MET Gala or something.” You huff, not pausing your incessant scrubbing of your kitchen sink.
“They know it’s just the annual Christmas party… right?”
You puff another exasperated breath. “Yes. But none of that matters to them because they’ve sent me 30 different outfit options like I’m going to be judging them personally or something.”
He bites back a smile. “It’s time to call in the big guns. Where can I get my hands dirty, sergeant?”
You really are grateful he’s here. And exists. And all those other sentimental things that your heart sings about constantly.
You two go full decorator mode, moving through your apartment like a well-oiled machine. He hangs the garland while you untangle lights, arrange the ornaments while he figures out how to make your bookshelf look “festive but not icky.” His words, not yours.
It’s disgusting how much Christmas is invading your space. Your minimal, clean apartment now looks like Santa threw up in it. There are silver bells on your kitchen counter, a wreath on your door that's so aggressively pine-scented you can taste it. There are candles labeled things like “Winter Wonderland” and “Cinnamon Craze” that you know will take weeks to burn through after this is all said and done.
But you keep going, because if you stop, you’ll think. If you think, you’ll remember the photo album, the mistletoe pictures, the dumb kid thing.
“Alright, I need my harshest critic.” Jungkook motions to you to survey the living room.
Standing beside him, you inspect the damage. Warm white lights are strung along your windows and wrapped around your bookshelf. A garland drapes elegantly across your mantle (you don't have a fireplace, but the decorative mantle suddenly feels worth it). There are small golden ornaments scattered tastefully on your side tables, and the wreath on the door is admittedly very pretty, even if it does smell like a forest.
“Not too shabby, Jeon.”
He looks offended. “Yeah, no shit. I deserve better than that.”
“Subpar at best.”
“I’m gonna punt Ginger like a football.”
“I think the lights are nice,” you finally concede, because they are. They make your apartment look warm, cozy even.
“Told you I was good at this." He's grinning like a Cheshire cat, that proud, bunny-toothed smile that makes your chest hurt. “Admit it. I crushed this.”
You roll your eyes. “You did alright.”
He gapes, blinking frantically. “Okay? Okay? I turned your Grinch lair into a winter wonderland!”
“My abode is not a lair.”
“It was before I arrived.” He sticks his tongue out, and you shove his shoulder.
“I think we're done,” you say, more to yourself than to him. “This is... yeah. This is enough.”
“Well… almost.” Jungkook looks like a kid who’s just been told he can’t have dessert before dinner but is already plotting how to sneak a cookie anyway.
Your stomach sinks. “What do you mean almost?” you ask, even though you think you already know.
“I have a surprise.”
You protest, “Jungkook—”
“Wait right here.” He holds up a hand, jogs back toward the entryway where he’d dropped his bag earlier. You stiffen like you’re made of ice, the only thing moving in your body being your heartbeat that thumps along the walls of your ribcage.
Please don’t be what you think it is. Please don’t be what you think it is.
He turns around, and your heart sinks lower than where your stomach sat.
In his hand, dangling from a red ribbon, is a mistletoe.
It’s small, crinkled, fake plastic leaves bent at weird angles like it was shoved in the back of his closet for years. It probably has been.
“No,” you object immediately.
“Come on—”
“No. This is a hard no, Jungkook.” And you know you’re being harsh, but it’s the only way you’ll get him to stop whatever efforts he’s decided are worth his time.
“You said no mistletoe in the apartment,” he argues, walking toward you with that stupid sprig held up. “Technically, this is going above the doorway, which is a threshold. Not in the apartment.”
“That’s the worst logic I’ve ever heard.”
“But it’s tradition!” You can see the hope in his eyes, the genuine excitement, and it makes you want to rip your hair out. “Every Christmas party needs a mistletoe.”
“Not this one.”
“Especially yours. Ours.” His voice softens, and that's worse somehow. “For old times’ sake?”
You hate the tone in his voice, the guilt-tripping, the pity.
“I don’t want it,” you repeat. “I told you this already.”
His smile falters as he realizes you’re truly serious. “Why not?
“Because it’s stupid and outdated and I don’t want people making a big deal about it.”
“Why would any of our friends make a big deal—”
“Jungkook,” you plead, crossing your arms, putting a physical barrier between you and that mistletoe. “I said no.’
He just stares at you, confusion and hurt flickering across his face. “I don’t get it. It’s literally just a mistletoe. It’s supposed to be fun.”
Fun, weird… a list of words that describe the opposite of what mistletoe makes you feel.
“It’s not fun for me.” You burn holes into your floor, refusing to look at his puppy eyes that would make you feel more guilty than you already do.
“Why not?”
Because everytime I look at it, I think about you kissing me when we were kids. Because it reminds me of when Christmas was my favorite day of the year. Because seeing it in my apartment, above my doorway, at my party, will make me think about all the Christmases you kissed other girls and not me.
“Because I don’t like it,” you decide upon, “Can’t you just respect that?”
An awkward silence spreads amongst you two, punctured only by Ginger purring in the corner. Jungkook's hand drops to his side, mistletoe dangling limply from his fingers.
“Fine,” he murmurs. “No mistletoe.”
“Thank you,” you sigh in relief.
He walks back to his bag and shoves it inside, and you should feel relieved. You should feel like you’ve won. But instead, you just feel like you’ve punched him square in the face.
“I should probably go,” he says, not meeting your eyes. “Let you rest before the big day tomorrow.”
“Oh, uh, yeah.” You shift on your feet awkwardly.
He gathers his things timidly, and you know he’s giving you time to take it back, to say you’re sorry, to explain, to undo the angst you’ve created.
At the door, he pauses before reaching for the doorknob. Jungkook turns, clutching his bag strap so tightly his knuckles resemble those of a ghost. “I really don't understand what's going on with you.”
“Nothing’s going on,” you mutter.
“That’s utter bullshit,” he snaps, and you raise your eyes to meet his. The usual warm chocolate shade of his orbs now shifts to onyx. “You’ve been weird about this whole Christmas party thing since day one.”
“I said, there’s nothing going on. I don’t want to talk about it,” you repeat, hoping it’ll stick.
“But I do!” His voice rises, and you flinch. Jungkook doesn’t yell. Not once in your lifelong friendship has he ever raised his voice or laid a finger on anyone. You were never involved in any of his relationship arguments, but you imagine he never argued with them like this. You suddenly feel dizzy, like the world is spinning too quickly for you to catch your breath. “I’ve known you forever. You’re my best fucking friend, and something is clearly wrong, so just tell me.”
Frustration coils in your stomach. Why can’t he ever leave anything alone? “Stop it. Please, just stop. Why can’t you just respect my boundaries? I said no mistletoe. I said I don’t want to talk about it. Why isn’t that enough for you?”
“This obviously is not just about the fucking mistletoe, [Y/N].” He tugs at his hair, rage rolling off him in waves. “Since the moment I brought up you hosting, you acted like I was attacking you.”
“Because you are!” None of it makes sense, not one bit, but you can’t tell between anger and panic and all you can see is red. “Maybe because you just bulldoze through my life, rearranging things, making decisions, assuming you know what's best—”
“We’re best friends. We help each other with everything,” he grits through clenched teeth.
“I’m not Hana, Jungkook. I won’t just let you decorate my life and pretend everything's perfect.”
For a moment, Jungkook seems taken aback by your outburst, recoils a step, landing with his spine against the front door. His face goes pale. “Wow. That’s fucking low.”
“Is it?” You're on a roll now, unable to stop even though you can see you’re hurting him. Maybe you just want him to hurt the way you do. “Because when you kept all of Hana’s things, when your apartment was basically a shrine to her, I never said a fucking thing about it. I just let you deal with it however you needed to. So why can’t you give me the same courtesy? Why can’t you just let this go?”
“Hana and I broke up!” His voice cracks, eyes glassy, “That’s so different and you know it.”
“How is it different? Enlighten me.”
“She was my girlfriend. And it hurt, okay? It hurt to let her go. But I did it. I'm doing it because it’s over and I don’t miss her that way anymore. And you’re the one who pushed me to. So don’t—" He pauses, jaw clenched, and you can see he’s trying to swallow his tears. “Don’t throw that in my face like I’m some pathetic asshole who can't move on.”
Fuck. “Koo—”
“No.” He holds up a hand. It’s shaking. “You want boundaries? Fine. Here’s one: don’t call me until you figure out what the fuck is actually going on with you. Because this isn’t you. The you I know doesn’t make me feel like shit for trying to care about you.”
You swallow around the lump forming in your throat. “Jungkook, I’m so sorry—”
“Save it.” His voice is quieter, and you miss the yelling, because at least then he still cared about you. He’s given up. “I’ll still come to the party tomorrow because I told everyone I would. But after that… maybe we should take a break from each other or something.”
“Oh.”
Throughout the duration of your friendship, you and Jungkook have only ever fought once. It was known as The Great Argument of 11th Grade, and it was so juvenile that even your parents got involved. Now, you don’t really remember the specifics of what went down or who started it, but you do remember that it only lasted a day, because Jungkook said, “you know I can’t stay away from you for too long.”
The concept of space from him is one you’ve never considered.
He leaves before you can say anything more, the door clicking shut with finality, echoing through your decorated apartment.
You stand there, frozen, staring at the space where he was. The mistletoe is still in his bag. He took it with him.
The rest of your unfortunate day is spent spiraling about your argument with Jungkook. You sit on the couch, crying to some stupid Hallmark movie where the girl gets the guy and everything works out perfectly. Then you cry in the shower, the water mixing with your tears until you can’t tell which is which. You go so far as to cry in your car on the way to the grocery store, because you two were supposed to go together to prepare for this stupid party.
Even the supermarket is taunting you. There’s couples everywhere walking around gleefully, hand-in-hand, debating between red or green napkins like it’s the most important decision of their lives. Meanwhile, you’re shuffling through the aisles in a massive oversized hoodie that’s doing nothing to hide your puffy eyes and red nose.
Sniffling, you round the corner to the next aisle, looking for Taehyung’s stupid vegetable broth. Your cart collides with someone else’s with a loud clang, and you’re thrown, apologizing like crazy, “Ohmygod, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t paying attention—”
“[Y/N]?”
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Hana.
The last time you saw Hana was last January after the breakup. She was collecting her things at Jungkook’s apartment, and you’d shown up at the wrong moment. Her eyes were bloodshot, movements solemn as she shoved books and clothes into a duffel bag. She’d barely looked at you, just mumbled a quiet “hey” before brushing past you in the hallway. You had felt guilty then, even though you had no reason to be.
At least now, she looks radiant. Her skin reflects off the luminescent overhead lights, cart stocked full of fancy cheeses and wine bottles and overpriced crackers. She looks like someone who has her shit together. Someone who’s moved on.
Unlike you, apparently, who looks like you’ve been crying in your car. Which, by all means, you absolutely were.
“Hana,” you slap a smile onto your face, although you’re 99 percent certain it looks strained. “It’s good to see you.”
“You too!” She seems actually happy about the encounter. It’s not like you two ever had a bad relationship, but you weren’t besties by any means. “It’s been forever.”
“Yeah, almost a year.” You’re too hyperaware of your puffy eyes, your ratty hoodie, the fact that you probably look like you’ve been hit by a truck. But of course, she looks like she just stepped out of Vogue.
“How have you been?” she asks.
“Good. Busy. You know, the holidays,” You nod at your cart, which contains three different types of cheeses, ten bags of chips, and a bag of chocolate chips for yourself because you need to eat your feelings when you get home.
“I do,” she laughs. “Work has been insane lately. I barely have time to go outside.”
“Right, you’re at that new marketing agency now?” You remember Jungkook mentioning it once, back when talking about Hana was therapeutic for him.
“I do.” she nods. “It’s a lot but I love it. What about you? Still at the magazine?”
“I am. I actually just finished a pretty big piece, so that’s good.”
“That’s amazing,” she earnestly responds. You want to hate her—it would be easier if you could hate her—but she’s always been kind. Even when you wanted to despise her for being with Jungkook, she made it impossible.
There’s a lull in conversation, and you debate making a run for it until she asks, “How are you and Jungkook?”
You furrow your brows. She could just ask you about Jungkook. You wouldn’t judge her for wondering. “What do you mean?”
“I just—” A crimson blush creeps onto her cheeks. “I mean, how are you guys doing?”
Why would she ask about you both together? Granted, it’s not that unreasonable. You and Jungkook are attached at the hip; everyone knows that. “We’re… good? He’s good.”
“Cool,” she says, but she doesn’t even look convinced by your answer.
You don’t know why you feel the need to overshare, but it all comes tumbling out like word vomit. “Yeah, he’s actually been helping me plan this Christmas party. Total nightmare, honestly. He’s been at my place basically every day this week, decorating and—”
She cracks a smile. “That’s so cute you guys are still inseparable.”
“I mean… “ you trail off, slightly confused by her angle. “We’re best friends. So yeah.”
“Of course,” she rushes to say. “Duh. Silly me.”
“Is that... weird?” You clear your throat and shift on your feet. You don’t even know what she’s trying to get at anymore, and honestly, you really need to get as far away from this supermarket (or Seoul) as fast as you can.
“No! No, not weird. I think it’s sweet, actually.” She pauses before adding, “I'm really happy for you guys”
Either you must be braindead, or she’s undergoing memory loss. “I’m sorry Hana, I don’t think I’m following.”
She laughs softly, but it’s not mocking. “Come on, [Y/N]. You don’t have to pretend with me.”
Your stupid heart skips a beat, your brain struggling to make sense of her words. “Pretend about what?”
“That you and Jungkook aren’t together, obviously.”
Have you entered an alternate universe? Did you accidentally drive into another dimension in all your sadness, missed the supermarket completely?
“What?” you sputter. “No, we’re not—oh my god, no. We would never, I mean—we’re best friends.”
She reaches out, placing a warm hand over your own. You’re going to die. It’ll be a painful death, but you’ll make it work. Anything to get out of this. “No, it’s okay. You can tell. Honest to god, I’m seeing someone now. I’m not like, jealous or anything.”
It’s confirmed. You’ve entered an alternate world where you’ll soon grow a second head and become the queen of a make-believe land.
“Hana, I’m dead serious. Jungkook and I are not dating.” You need her to believe you. You need someone to believe you, because if Hana thinks there’s something there, what the fuck does that mean? “We’ve never dated. We’re just friends. That’s all we’ve ever been.”
She studies your face, searching for the lies. Confusion replaces her certainty. “Wait, really?”
“Really.”
“But you…” She trails off, shaking her head. “Wow. Okay. I genuinely thought you guys had finally gotten together.”
Your throat constricts. “W-Why would you think that?”
“Because,” she stops, biting her lip. “Nevermind. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed.”
It gives you pause for a minute, and your heart—that idiotic organ of yours that can never let go of anything—trembles in your chest.
“No, what were you going to say?” You’re not sure you want to know, but you can’t let it go now.
She casually flicks her hand. “It’s nothing, I swear.”
You exhale a breath you didn’t realize you were holding. “Hana. Please.”
She sighs, shifting on her feet. “It’s just... when Jungkook and I were together, it was always pretty clear that you were the most important person in his life. Which, like, I totally respected! I did, I get it. But it was also kind of hard sometimes, you know? Like I was always competing with this... ghost. This idea of what you two had.”
Ever since you were young, people had this tendency to group you and Jungkook into this category of fate, as if the universe had done you both a favor by placing you in adjacent hospital cribs. It was always “you’re lucky to have each other” and “what a gift to be so close,” that you had never stopped to consider that your luck, your fate, your happiness, your shining star, might cast shadows on the people who tried to love him.
“Hana, I never meant to—”
“No, no,” she rushes to say, “Trust me, it wasn’t you. You did nothing wrong. Neither did he, really. He tried his best. But I could always tell his heart wasn’t fully in it. At least, not in the way it should have been.”
Words fall short of what you want to say. Hana and Jungkook’s relationship had always felt like something out of reach to you. An enigma. The plot of some braindead romance novel. They met at a concert, an underground indie band that only the two of them liked. He had stumbled home that night with a smile on his face that couldn’t be erased, eyes bright as exploding stars, talking so fast his words tripped over each other. You remember thinking this is it, the real thing, the love that rewrites him. You had never imagined that magic would ever run dry.
“Anyway,” Hana continues, “I just assumed that once we broke up, you two would figure it out. The way he talked about you, the way he’d light up when you texted... I don't know. I thought it was inevitable.”
“Well, it’s not.” The words prick your tongue like thorns. “We’re just friends.”
“Oh. Well, that’s still cool,” she offers, but her eyes have gone all soft.
For a while, it’s quiet. She’s staring at you intently, chewing on her lip like she has more to say but needs to mash it down. But you really just want to grab Taehyung’s stupid vegetable broth and get the fuck out of here.
“It was great to see you, Hana. I need to go and—”
“[Y/N], wait.” She latches onto your arm before you get a chance to escape.
You stare at her, wide-eyed, heart racing, mouth dry.
“I probably shouldn't be telling you this. Maybe it should be him, I don’t fucking know," she says, rolling her eyes. "But clearly he hasn’t grown the balls yet. Well, that, or his peanut brain hasn’t pieced it together. But I’m gonna tell you anyway.”
Your hands grip the cart handle. “Tell me what?”
There’s a long pause, and you can feel her weighing her words. Until, finally, she admits, “Last Christmas, when we were under the mistletoe… when Jungkook kissed me.” She takes a deep breath. “He was looking at you.”
Your first reaction is to laugh. Which you do, actually, loud enough to bounce off the cans of corn on the shelves. At the sound, Hana raises an eyebrow.
“What are you talking about?” you giggle. “No, he wasn’t.”
She’s watching you now with something that resembles pity.
“We were under the mistletoe at your friend Jisoo’s apartment. Everyone was there, all your friends. And he kissed me, but…” Hana swallows thickly. “When we pulled apart, his eyes were open, and he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking across the room at you.”
You think you’re going to die in this godforsaken supermarket.
“I didn’t say anything that night. I thought maybe I’d imagined it, but then it kept happening. He’d be with me, but he’d be watching you. Listening for you, waiting for you to text or call.” She laughs dryly, but you’re not sure either of you find this funny. “On New Years, I asked him about it. I asked him if he was in love with you.”
Bile rises up in your throat. You don’t even think you want to hear the rest of this. If she’s right, if it’s true, if you’ve missed this, if, if, if..
“What did he say, Hana?”
“Obviously, he lied and said no. He said you were just friends, and that I was being ridiculous. But then we broke up two weeks later. We both agreed we needed space, and I said that he wasn’t ready for something serious. And maybe that's true, maybe I was reading into things." She finally meets your eyes again. "But I don’t think I was.”
Last Christmas, you were so drunk on Jisoo’s eggnog that you hardly remember anything. You try to piece together the snippets of the night you have. There was dinner, which you scarfed down in under a millisecond. Then you all played pin the cock on the Santa (not suitable for kids, but luckily, baby Haewon only lived in Dahyun’s uterus at that point). You barely even remember the mistletoe portion of the night. That’s got to be some kind of trauma response to the stupid little leaf.
“Why are you telling me this?” Your voice sounds far away, like it belongs to someone else.
“Because," Hana’s lips curve upwards into a soft smile, “I spent a year loving someone who was in love with someone else, and it sucked, but you know what sucks more? Watching two people who are meant to be together waste time pretending they’re not.”
She reaches out and squeezes your arm. “I’m not bitter about it anymore. I’m happy now. I want him to be happy too. I think... I think he could be very happy with you.”
You want to argue. You want to tell her she’s wrong, that she’s misremembering, that she too was poisoned by Jisoo’s eggnog, that there's no way Jungkook feels that way about you.
But then you think about the box in his closet with your name on it. The teddy bear he kept. The way he’s been trying so hard to make you love Christmas again. The mistletoe he wanted to hang in your apartment.
No. It can’t fucking be.
“I gotta go,” you say abruptly.
“[Y/N]—”
But you’re already moving, abandoning your cart in the middle of the aisle, heart pounding so hard you can feel it in your throat. You make it to your car before the tears start again, but this time they’re different. This time, you don’t know if you’re crying because you’ve been in love with someone who doesn't love you back, or because you might've missed the entire thing completely.
There’s not enough wine in this apartment, nor this world, that will get you through this Christmas party in one piece.
It feels like the world is moving around you but you’re just glued to your kitchen, gripping your glass of white wine so tightly you’re surprised the stem hasn’t snapped. Surprisingly enough, everyone arrived on time—even Namjoon and Dahyun, balancing poor baby Haewon on their hip, her tiny Santa hat slipping over one eye. There’s enough alcohol floating around to feed a bar, courtesy of Taehyung’s overenthusiastic mixology skills.
It’s truly a splendid evening. A roaring success. Everything going exactly as planned.
Except, there are two minor (major) insignificant, soul-crushing details that are fucking up your perfect evening:
Hana’s words have been playing on loop in your brain all day.
When Jungkook arrived, he looked at you for exactly 0.5 seconds, said absolutely nothing, and spent the last hour charming everyone else in the room.
Other than that, splendid evening. Gatsby would be seething with jealousy if he saw the kind of party you were throwing.
Jungkook had walked in, present in hand for Haewon (because he was her godfather and she practically got whatever she wanted when he was around), and he’d met your eyes before looking away. No smile. No “hey.” Not even a nod of acknowledgment.
Naturally, since torturing you seems first on his agenda, he chooses this night to become the town jester. Jennie has been laughing at his jokes for what seems like ages, her hand on his arm, her head thrown back in delight. Taehyung keeps pulling him into conversations, clapping him on the shoulder. Even Dahyun, who normally has her hands full, is more entranced by Jungkook than her own daughter.
It’s what you deserve, you know that, but your heart is cracking at the seams and your brain isn’t faring any better.
You feel ill. Fucking ill.
Turning to the kitchen sink, you brace your hands on the counter. Breathe in. Breathe out. You’re fine. You just need to get through the next few hours without having a complete breakdown in front of all your friends.
“You alright?”
You jump, releasing an exhale when you see it’s just Jisoo. She’s holding a glass of red wine, matching with her burgundy turtleneck, eyebrow raised in that knowing way of hers that says she sees right through all your bullshit.
“Oh, yeah,” you reply. “Just taking a quick breather.”
“Mhm.” she eyes you up and down, leaning against the counter. “You’re basically hiding at your own party.”
“Could’ve sworn you did this last year at your Christmas party when your lasagna came out burnt,” you point out.
Jisoo deadpans. “This isn’t about me. We’re talking about you.”
Damnit. You were hoping she would let it go.
“I’m just here making sure everything’s to perfection. Y’know, Taehyung with his… vegetarianism..”
Jisoo takes a slow sip of her wine, “You wanna try that again, or should I just cut to the part where you tell me what’s actually wrong?”
Your heart falls to your ass. Jisoo is the one friend on this planet who has consistently read you down to the bone. She’s going to see right through any lie you try to feed her, so you’re wondering if it’s even worth it.
It’s worth one last shot.
“Nothing’s wrong—”
“Bitch just tell me.”
You close your eyes and try to imagine a beach, somewhere tropical with waves kissing your ankles and sand that burns your feet. Try to imagine a world where you don’t have to answer Jisoo's question, where Hana never ambushed you in the grocery store yesterday, where your feelings for Jungkook stayed frozen at age nine, still innocent and within reach.
Unfortunately, when you open your eyes again, you’re at a Christmas party—your Christmas party, in your annoyingly red sweater—and Jisoo is staring at you expectantly.
“I fucked up.”
Jisoo doesn’t look surprised in the slightest, which, okay. Rude. “With Jungkook?”
You raise an eyebrow. “How did you know that?”
“I mean, you’re not having a fight with any of the girls, or I would’ve heard an earful. That and he won’t glance in your direction and you look like you’re about to throw up. Doesn’t take Einstein.” She places her wine down. “What happened?”
Keeping it bottled up has never done you any favors, so you steady your voice and explain everything. How you didn’t want to host the party in the first place because Christmas makes you miserable. How Jungkook kept pushing about the mistletoe. How you snapped at him, brought up Hana, threw his grief in his face. How he left and told you he needed space and you haven’t spoken since.
You probably could’ve told her more, but you don’t want to tell her about the mistletoe tradition. You don’t tell her about being in love with him for thirteen years. Those truths feel like just yours.
When you finish, Jisoo is quiet for a long moment. Then, she sighs, levels you with a look, and says, “That was a low blow.”
“I know.”
“Like, really bad.”
“I know.”
“He was just trying to help, and you basically told him he’s pathetic for not being over his ex.”
“I know, Jisoo. Trust me, I know.” You press the heels of your palms against your eyes. “I feel like shit about it.”
“Have you apologized?”
“He said he needed space. Hence why he won’t look at me.”
“I mean, space doesn’t mean you can’t say sorry.” She picks up her wine again. “Look, I get it. You were overwhelmed. The party planning, the decorations, whatever else is going on in that head of yours. But Jungkook didn’t deserve that”.
“I know he didn’t.” you reply, now having trouble controlling your voice. “I just... I don’t know how to fix this.”
“The word you’re looking for, my dear, is sorry,” she smiles sympathetically.
You nod, even though the thought of approaching him right now makes you want to crawl into a hole.
The party outside seems to pick up in volume, and through the crack in the doorway, you see Jungkook holding baby Haewon, cradling her carefully against his chest like she’s made of glass. He’s wearing a dark green sweater, the color of mistletoe, and his skin looks golden under the string lights he helped set up. He’s cooing at the baby, making ridiculous faces, and Haewon is giggling, her tiny hand reaching up to grab his nose.
Dahyun is standing next to him, saying something that makes him laugh, and the light sound carries over the music and chatter. It’s his real laugh, the one that crinkles his nose and shows all his teeth, the one you thought you only got to see.
And suddenly you can picture it with perfect clarity: Jungkook, a few years from now, holding his own baby. His and someone else’s, some girl who isn’t you, who doesn’t have years of baggage and unspoken feelings weighing her down. Someone who can give him the uncomplicated love he deserves.
You didn’t even realize Jisoo was talking until you feel her hand on your arm.
Blinking out of your daze, you snap back to the kitchen, to the party, to reality. “Sorry, what?”
But it’s too late—Jisoo isn’t looking at you anymore. She’s following your gaze to the dining room, to Jungkook and the baby, and understanding dawns across her face.
“Oh,” she says.
Who knew a single syllable could carry so much weight?
“How long?” Jisoo questions.
“How long what?”
“Do not play dumb with me, missy. How long have you been in love with him?”
You’ve been tiptoeing around the truth for a long time. But you’re so tired of pretending, and the wine has loosened your tongue, and Jisoo is looking at you with such gentle understanding that the truth just spills out.
“Since I was a kid.”
Jisoo's eyes widen. “Jesus Christ, [Y/N].”
“Yeah,” is all you can offer.
“Does he know?” She lowers her voice, leans more into you like he might somehow hear across the room.
“Absolutely not,” you retort. “He can’t, and he won’t. It would ruin our friendship.”
She opens her mouth to protest, to probably give you some grand speech on how love wins above all, but you hold your hand up to stop her. “I’m serious, Jisoo. You can’t tell him. Pinky promise me.”
She studies you for a long moment, and you can see her debating whether to push. Finally, she sighs and holds out her pinkie. “I promise. But for the record, I think you’re an idiot.”
“I get that a lot.”
From the dining room, you hear Jungkook laugh again, and it feels like someone’s wrapped barbed wire around your heart and pulled tight.
“You really should talk to him, though,” Jisoo repeats. “Like tonight, before it gets worse.”
It’s already worse.
“I can’t,” you disagree, taking a gulp of wine. “You saw him. The man won’t even look at me.”
“Because he’s pissed, not ‘cause he hates you.” She squeezes your arm. “This is Jungkook we’re talking about. Your Jungkook. He’s probably just as miserable as you are.”
The words your Jungkook make you shiver. He’s never actually been yours in any way that matters. But god, the way Jisoo says it makes you want to believe it. Makes you want to crawl inside those two words and live there, in a world where your Jungkook means he’s yours the way you’ve always been his. Completely, irrevocably, in every way a person can belong to another.
“I don’t know, he seems to be the fucking class clown tonight,” you mumble into your wine, and Jisoo snorts.
“I promise you he’s waiting for you to make the first move. He said he needed space, but that doesn’t mean he wants the space. You know how he is—he’s a loverboy. Gets all up in his feelings and shit.”
You do know. You’ve known Jungkook long enough to recognize all his patterns.
Either way, you know just what to say to appease Jisoo. “Maybe later.”
“Later as in tonight, or later as in you’re going to avoid him until you two just forget about it and move on?”
Yeah, exactly that.
“We’ll see.”
Jisoo gives you a look that says she knows exactly what “we'll see” means in your vocabulary. “What’s your therapist’s name again? I want to give them a call.”
You hold up your middle finger.
“It’s gonna be a loooong night,” she exhales a loud breath.
And truly, she must have magical powers or something, because it is nothing short of a treacherous evening for you.
It all starts with Dahyun intercepting you, forcing you to hold Haewon. “Can you hold her for a sec? I need to use the bathroom and Joon’s three drinks deep trying to explain some conspiracy theory to Taehyung.”
You’re halfway through your protest when she just plops Haewon into your arms. She settles against your chest with a little coo, her Santa hat askew. She smells like powder, milk, and Dahyun’s perfume. Her tiny fist curls into your sweater, and despite the trainwreck that is your life, you smile brightly.
“Hi, pretty girl,” you murmur, adjusting her weight. “I bet you don’t know what it’s like to be in love with someone who doesn’t love you back. Because everyone loves you, since you’re perfect.”
Bouncing her gently, you two sway in place, and she makes a happy gurgling sound as if to say “yes, I know I’m perfect.” Someone has put on Nat King Cole, and the crooning voice of “The Christmas Song” fills your apartment with a nostalgic warmth you’ve been trying to avoid all month.
Haewon has the cutest little fingers and even tinier toes, and it amazes you how someone so utterly perfect could exit your friend Dahyun’s body. Before she met Namjoon, she was nothing short of a party girl, but now, her days are filled with Mommy & Me yoga classes and supermarket runs.
It’s your dream life, you think. One that you would give anything to live with Jungkook.
You’re so focused on this fantasy, the one you’ve conjured up in your head and dreams for years, that you don’t even realize Jungkook is blatantly staring at you.
He’s standing near the drinks table, a bottle of beer frozen halfway to his lips. You meet his eyes, and it’s just you and Jungkook (and Haewon).
Haewon squirms in your arms, breaking your gaze. You look down at her, adjusting her hat, heart hammering against your ribcage. When you look back up, Jungkook has turned away, saying something to Taehyung that you can’t hear over the blood whooshing in your ears.
But his knuckles are white around his beer bottle.
Later on in the night, after you’ve tended to Taehyung’s vegetarian needs and listened to Jisoo rant about how clean eating relates to consumerism, you retreat to the kitchen under the guise of refilling the snack bowls. No one needs more chips—there are three unopened bags on the counter—but you need a moment of reprieve.
You rip open a bag of pretzels, and a few go flying everywhere, but you manage to catch them in your hand.
“Need any help?”
Your body goes rigid. You’re certain even your heart has stopped its beat.
Jungkook is standing in the doorway, hands shoved in his pockets, looking anywhere but directly at you. The green sweater really is unfair. The golden undertone of his skin shimmers under your fluorescent light, makes his eyes look lustrous.
“All good here,” you retort. “I’m just restocking.”
He makes a noise of acknowledgment, shuffling closer toward you.
You pour pretzels into a bowl with more force than necessary, and several bounce onto the counter.
“The party’s a hit,” he offers.
“Yeah. Everyone seems happy.”
“The food’s really good too.”
“It was all Namjoon and Dahyun,” you snort. Your dream of getting food catered pretty much died immediately. Then you tried cracking open a recipe book and nearly fainted.
This is excruciating. You’ve never done small talk with Jungkook. Never needed to.
“Listen—”
“Jungkook,” you say in unison.
Words cease to exist. You both stop. A dreadful, awkward silence fills the kitchen.
He clears his throat. “I want us to talk later after everyone leaves. If that’s okay with you?”
Where the idea of talking to him used to excite you, is now replaced by a pit in your stomach that won’t budge.
Hana’s words crash back into your consciousness. He was looking at you.
But what if she was wrong? What if she saw something that wasn’t there because she was hurt and wanted an explanation that made sense? What if you let yourself hope and it destroys you?
“Maybe, Jungkook.”
Disappointment flashes across his face. He nods slowly. “Cool, yeah, uh, just let me know.”
He turns to leave, and you want to say more, want to stop him from leaving.
Your mind runs back to the grocery store, Hana’s words.
You open your mouth—to say what, you don't know. Sorry. Wait. I need to tell you something.
“Jungkook.”
Jennie pokes her head into the kitchen, oblivious to everything. “There you are! Tae’s trying to make everyone play some weird drinking game. You have to come referee before I murder him.”
Jungkook looks back at you, a question in his eyes.
“Go ahead,” you smile. “I’ll join in a sec.”
He hesitates for just a second, then follows Jennie to the party.
By the time you make it back to the living room, Taehyung has indeed corralled everyone into some drinking game involving Christmas trivia. You slide into an empty spot on the couch next to Jisoo, who gives you a pointed look that you ignore.
“Is this a joke?” you ask.
“Tis not, Christmas hater,” Taehyung jokes. He explains the rules of the game, most of which you spend picking at your fingernails. The game begins with Jennie getting a question wrong about Rudolph and has to take a shot of tequila. Dahyun argues that her answer about Home Alone is technically correct. Jungkook keeps score attentively, tongue poking through his teeth.
You're almost starting to relax when Namjoon, flushed from wine and dad-exhaustion, looks around your apartment with squinted eyes.
“Wait,” he says loud enough to make Taehyung’s and Jisoo’s current feud halt. “Where’s the mistletoe?”
Last Christmas by Wham is blaring from your speakers, and you can hear traffic from the street below, but a barrage of red alerts blasts through your brain.
Shit.
Your throat goes dry.
“Yeah!” Dahyun laughs, adjusting Haewon on her lap. “Where is it? I thought mistletoe was like, mandatory at Christmas parties.”
“Maybe she forgot,” Jennie offers, and you could kiss her on the lips.
“Feels like a crazy thing to forget,” Jisoo chimes in, and you shush her with a glare.
“I didn’t forget.” You can feel Jungkook’s eyes on you, but you don’t look at him. “I just didn’t put one up.”
“Why not?” Taehyung interrogates, crossing his arms over his chest. “It’s tradition.”
Tradition. That stupid fucking word.
“It’s not really my thing.” You shrug.
“Since when?” Jennie arches a brow. “In college, you made us all kiss under the mistletoe in Jihyo’s dorm.”
You were obliterated and desperately trying to create some scenario where kissing Jungkook would happen again, even as a joke. It hadn’t worked. He’d kissed Jisoo on the cheek and you’d kissed Namjoon and everyone had laughed and moved on and you’d gone home and cried into your pillow.
“I was drunk,” you argue.
Jisoo is studying her drink intensely, and by the sheer force of mind reading, you beg her not to say something.
“I think it's nice,” Dahyun says, attempting to ease the awkwardness. “More elegant without it, you know? Like out of an Ikea catalogue!”
You throw her a grateful look.
“It does save people from those awkward forced kisses with people they don’t want to kiss,” she adds, and multiple other people nod in agreement.
“Exactly! That’s exactly it.” You practically leap out of your seat.
But you can still feel Jungkook looking at you. You chance a glance in his direction and immediately regret it. He’s not trying to hide his expression anymore. He looks visibly hurt, with his jaw tight and lips twitching.
“Should we keep playing?” Jennie asks, and bless her for it.
“Yeah,” Taehyung shuffles his trivia cards. “Alright, next question is for Jungkook.”
The game resumes, clockwise around the room, but even then, neither you or Jungkook care about anything else but each other.
Jungkook’s not sure when it happened.
There wasn’t a single moment, no dramatic revelation where the clouds parted and you were all grown up. It was more like watching a sunrise, so gradual that he didn’t even notice it was happening until the entire sky was painted in vivid bright colors. One day you were his best friend, the girl who knew all his secrets and laughed at his dumb jokes and fell asleep during movie nights with your head on his shoulder. Then, somewhere along the way, you became something more—flourished into a beautiful flower.
He thinks it might have started in high school, when you showed up to junior prom in that light blue dress that complemented your eyes. Your mother spent thirty minutes poking and prodding at your dress, noting that you were ‘filling out nicely,’ and it had taken all of Jungkook’s might not to ogle at your growing chest.
It could’ve also been in college, after you went through your first breakup and decided the proper next step was to cut your hair short, revealing the curve of your neck. He had stared for the better half of a week, and luckily, it went away once winter rolled around and you wore turtlenecks.
It could have been last year, when you laughed so hard at one of his stories that you snorted wine out of your nose, and instead of being grossed out, he’d thought it was the most endearing thing he’d ever witnessed.
Maybe it’s always been there, lurking underneath your friendship.
The thing is, Jungkook has always been sure he’s not in love with you. He’s never let himself think about it in those terms, never let the thought fully form before shoving it back down where it belongs. You are his best friend, have been since before he understood what friendship meant. You’re the person who knows him better than anyone, who’s seen him at his worst and somehow still shows up. You’re the constant in his life, the thing he’s never had to question.
But in the quiet of his own mind, he can acknowledge that you are utterly and thoroughly beautiful.
You’re brilliant too, in ways that constantly surprise him even after knowing you for years. Sharp and funny and creative, with this ability to see people that makes everyone feel understood. You remember things, stupid little details about people’s lives that they mentioned once in passing. You’re the kind of person who makes playlists for your friends based on their moods.
You made one for him last month. Called it ‘when koo is in his feelings.’
He listened to it on the way to the Christmas party.
And yeah, okay, maybe he thinks about you more than a best friend probably should. Like when he’s dating someone, there’s always this small part of his brain remembering things to tell you later, moments you’d find funny or interesting. Sometimes, he compares every girl he dates to you without meaning to… it’s just the way they laugh never quite measures up, their sense of humor is always slightly off, their understanding of him remains surface-level.
But that’s all normal friend stuff, he thinks.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
Namjoon sidles up beside Jungkook, hugging a beer bottle tight to his chest. It’s the first time he’s drank in a while, and Jungkook resists the urge to laugh at just how drunk he looks.
Jungkook takes a long sip of his beer, watching you over the rim of the bottle. You’re laughing at something Jisoo said, but it doesn’t reach your eyes. “It’s nothing.”
“Shut up.” Namjoon leans against the wall for stability. “Tell me what’s up.”
“Nothing’s up.”
“Shouldn’t you be out there, making my wife laugh harder than I have?”
Jungkook rolls his eyes. “I’m tired.”
“You have the energy of a bunny, so I doubt that,” Namjoon snickers. “C’mon, fess up. I never get involved with drama anymore after Haewon. Enlighten me.”
Jungkook considers deflecting again, but what's the point? Namjoon's going to stand here until he cracks. “We got in a fight. Me and [Y/N].”
“Oh shit, for real?” When Jungkook meekly nods, Namjoon takes another swig of beer. “What about?”
“I wanted to hang up a mistletoe for the party and she said no.” God, saying it out loud seems so stupid. “I pushed it and then she…”
“She what?”
“She said some mean things, then I said some things. It got messy.”
“This sounds kinda dumb,” Namjoon jokes, and Jungkook levels him with a piercing glare. He knows it’s dumb, knows this whole thing is stupid, but he can;t shake the feeling that there’s something unresolved lingering underneath. “You’ll be fine.”
“Yeah.”
“That was not a confident yeah.”
“I mean, I told her we should talk after the party. She said maybe,” Jungkook laughs dryly. “Chances of us talking are looking pretty low right now.”
“Dude,” Namjoon exhales a breath. “She’s not going to stay away from you. That girl loves you.”
“I don’t know…”
“You know where she lives. You have a key, for god’s sake.”
Jungkook does have a key. In his defense, you have one to his place too. It’s never not been a thing—you’ve been trading apartment keys since college, back when you lived in that shitty studio with the broken heater and he needed to water your plants when you went home for your mom’s birthday.
“I think she really wants space this time, though,” he frowns. He doesn’t like the idea of it, but it’s part of his fault you’re even in this predicament right now.
“You guys are idiots.” Namjoon stares at him. “Why do you look so sad about this? It’s just a little fight, right?”
Jungkook opens his mouth to agree, but he chokes on the words forming in his throat. His eyes find you across the room again. You’re holding Haewon, swaying gently, and the baby's grabbing at your hair with her tiny fists. You smile down at her, and even from here, he can see the softness in your expression, and how you’ve adjusted your hold to support her head.
He doesn’t really know why, but his heart seizes.
“Yeah. I think so.”
Namjoon hums. “It’s not like, …anything more, right?”
Jungkook furrows his brows, tearing his gaze away from you. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Y’know what I mean…” Namjoon starts doing some weird vague gestures with his hand, and Jungkook’s beer-soaked brain struggles to keep up. “It’s not like that with you two?”
Oh.
“No, no. It’s not like that with us,” Jungkook denies quickly, almost too quickly. He knows it’s not impractical for someone to suggest. Ever since he was a young boy, he’s been curbing questions regarding your relationship status. It never annoyed him; in fact, it filled him with pride knowing people thought he was worthy of what sunshine you had to offer. “She’s my best friend.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“Excuse me?”
Jungkook’s chest feels tight.
But Namjoon doesn’t note the way his face goes pale, or the way his fingers flex around his bottle. He continues on, “Bro, I’m not trying to start anything. But I’ve known you since college, and I’ve watched you do this thing where you date someone, it gets serious, and then somehow it always ends. And you know what the common denominator is?”
He really doesn’t want Namjoon to say anymore. Doesn’t want him to vocalize what might actually be true, but has been something Jungkook has been mashing down for decades of his life. Naked, unmistakable fear courses through him.
“Her.” Namjoon points with his beer bottle. “Every single time, you come back to her. You text her more than your girlfriend, or you cancel dates if she needs you. You measure everyone against her without even realizing you’re doing it.”
Jungkook can’t speak, because it’s true. He knows it’s true. He’s done it countless times, like when it was he and Sana’s one-year anniversary, but you had the flu, so he dropped everything to take care of you. Or when Chaeyoung got upset with him because he had responded to your text before even giving hers a second glance.
He can’t help it.
“You’ve been dragging her through your relationships for years,” Namjoon says, “At some point, you need to ask yourself why you keep coming back to her.”
“But she’s my best friend!” Jungkook protests petulantly. “We always show up for each other.”
“Yeah, but do best friends look at each other the way you’re looking at her right now?’
Jungkook hadn’t even realized he’d been staring again. You’ve handed Haewon back to Dahyun and you’re laughing at something, a hand flying up to cover your mouth in that way you do when you think your laugh is too loud. It’s not, Jungkook thinks, It’s never too loud.
“What do you want me to say?” Jungkook mumbles, averting his eyes to his scuffed-up shoes.
“I feel like you should just be honest with yourself, Kook.” Namjoon claps him on the shoulder. “I’m willing to bet money on the fact that your fight wasn’t really about the mistletoe.”
“I don’t think so,” Jungkook scoffs. He hopes he looks nonchalant, but his hands are trembling.
Namjoon doesn’t utter another word, and for a moment, Jungkook thinks it’s over. Namjoon will let it go and they’ll move on. He shifts weight onto his other foot, taking a swig from his beer.
“Jungkook.” Fuck, if the way Namjoon’s looking at him right now is any indication of what’s to come, he’s so fucked. “You know she’s in love with you, right?”
It’s out in the open, and he can’t believe Namjoon just said it, doesn’t know where he even got that idea, but he does know that it must be the truth. It has to be, because he would never suggest otherwise. And the notion should be earth-shattering, world-tilting, but it’s not.
Maybe Jungkook knew this whole time.
“No-No, she’s not—we’re not—”
But the more he ruminates on it, he realizes: you can’t be. You’ve never—there’s never been any indication—you’ve never said anything or done anything or—
In all the years he’s known you, you’ve never dated someone seriously. Like living together, talk of engagement. Sure, there were a few guys here and there in college, but nothing that stuck. Nothing that lasted more than a month or two. He’d always figured you were just picky, focused on your career, not interested in settling down.
Was there more to that? Jungkook’s heart jolts in his chest.
Oh god. Oh fuck.
How long? How long have you been carrying this? Since you were kids? Since high school? College? How many years has he been obliviously parading girlfriends in front of you, kissing them under mistletoe, talking about his relationships, asking for your advice about girls who weren’t you?
His hands are shaking. He sets his beer down on the nearest surface before he drops it.
“I think, maybe, you’ve always known.” Namjoon’s voice sounds like it’s coming from far away.
All those times he came back to you after dates that didn’t go well. All those nights you stayed up listening to him talk about his problems with whatever girl he was seeing. All those moments he chose you over them without even thinking about it because being with you was easy and comfortable and right in a way nothing else ever was.
He can never remember half of those girls’ names. Can’t remember what he saw in them or why he thought any of them were worth it.
But he remembers every Christmas with you.
He remembers all of it.
Jungkook looks up, searching for you in the crowd, and finds you emerging from the kitchen with Jisoo.
Panic claws up his throat. “But she’s never said anything—like, we never—”
“If I were her, I wouldn’t say anything.” Namjoon shrugs.
Jungkook feels like he can't breathe. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re just—you’re guessing—”
“I am assuming, but I know enough. Dahyun has me watching a ton of kdramas, so I know when someone’s pining.”
His credentials are questionable.
“That's—” Jungkook runs a hand through his hair, tugging hard enough to hurt. “Fuck. Why wouldn’t she tell me?”
“Probably because you introduce her to new girlfriends everyday.” Namjoon’s words are blunt, but his expression is sympathetic. “Think about it. When has she ever had the space to tell you?”
Never. The answer is never. Because he’s always been with someone or getting over someone or talking about someone, and even when he wasn’t, he was busy treating your friendship like it was sacred.
Jungkook was so busy protecting what you had that he never stopped to think about what you could be.
“I didn’t know,” Jungkook admits weakly.
“It’s fine. You do now.” Namjoon takes a massive gulp of his beer, placing the empty bottle on the nearby table. “By the way, why did you care so much if she hosted? Why did it matter if it was at her place? You knew Dahyun and I didn’t mind.”
Jungkook’s guilt wraps around him like a hug. He does feel guilty about lying, he truly does, but he doesn’t have a good answer. Namjoon’s place would have worked fine, baby or not. Jisoo’s apartment was an option despite Taehyung's dog allergy. They could have figured something out.
But he had told everyone secretly that you needed to host this year.
For a long, long moment, Jungkook is silent. He pushes through the fear, the nerves, the voices in his head telling him otherwise. He tells Namjoon, “Because Christmas is ours.”
To no one’s surprise, Namjoon and Dahyun are the first to make their exit. Haewon is already fast asleep on her father’s shoulder, snoring peacefully. Then Jisoo leaves, who gives you a long, meaningful look and a whisper of “text me later” that you have no intention of following through on. Taehyung and Jennie linger for a little before they realize they have more pressing matters to attend to (read: their new vibrator they ordered).
You’re certain Jungkook slipped out sometime in the middle of the exodus. You don’t see him leave, but you hear the door close a final time and feel the absence of him.
Wonderful. You can clean up in peace and spend the rest of the night spiraling about Hana’s words, the talk you never had with Jungkook, and how quickly you’ll be able to move countries and change names.
You’re elbow-deep in soapy water, scrubbing at a wine glass aggressively, when you hear footsteps behind you.
What the fuck. Did you leave your door unlocked?
It’s definitely Taehyung. With a gulp, you crane your neck to see behind the doorway.
And then you scream.
You drop the glass into the sink, whirling around with your wet hands up like you’re going to fight off an intruder with dish soap.
Jungkook jumps, hands flying up in surrender. “Oh my god, sorry! Sorry, sorry, I’m sorry—”
“Fucking hell, Jungkook!” Your heart tries to escape from your body. “I thought you left!”
“I was in the bathroom.” His eyes are wide, looking genuinely distressed at having scared you. “I didn’t mean to—I thought you knew I was still here?”
Soap suds drip down your arms. He’s pressed against your bookshelf, trying to camouflage into your books. It’s ridiculous, but it’s so like you both that it makes you giggle.
It’s a soft one, but he notices it and snorts in response. And then you two erupt into endless laughter, your heart soaring at the familiar sound of his timbre. His chest shakes with each laugh, and tears fall from your eyes.
But after a few seconds, the laughter finally fades, and you two stand there, sizing the other up.
“What are you still doing here?” you ask, reaching for a dish towel to dry your hands.
“I wanted to see if you were open to talking.”
You turn off the running water, pivoting to face him fully.
“I am.”
He takes a deep breath, swallowing thickly. Jungkook does this thing where his tongue presses against the inside of his cheek when he’s struggling to find the right words. You’ve seen him do it countless times.
His tongue pokes the inside of his cheek.
“I’m sorry.” Jungkook says. “About the fight…about pushing you to host…and the, uh, the mistletoe thing.” He runs his fingers through his hair. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just—Christmas has always been our thing since we were kids. It was always ours, and I don’t know… I guess I didn’t want that to change.”
With him, things are always stagnant. They’re stable, trustworthy, and you know they’ll always be there. You’re not sure where his childlike wonder went—all those times he would drag you to unknown places to explore, or made you try new foods even if you knew you’d hate it.
But maybe you’re not worth the risk for him.
“Me neither,” you agree quietly.
You swivel back to face the sink, tears brimming your eyes. Reaching for another glass, you flick on the water, dousing your hands in soap. The water is frigid but you plunge your hands in anyway.
“Hey,” comes Jungkook’s calm voice.
You keep scrubbing.
“Hey.”
His fingers wrap around your arm, and you let out a sigh.
“That’s it? That’s all?”
You can’t look at him. If you look at him, you’ll break. “What else do you want me to say? I forgive you? I do. Jungkook, this is stupid.”
“I don’t know. Something. Anything.” His hand lingers on your bare skin. “Don’t shut me out. We had one fight and for some reason, it feels like I’m losing you and I don’t—” He stops, takes a breath. “Talk to me.”
There’s so much you could say. You could tell him about the mistletoe tradition and how it’s haunted you. You could tell him about watching him fall in love over and over with people who aren’t you. You could tell him about Hana and the grocery store and how you haven’t been able to think about anything else since.
But most importantly, you could tell him the truth: you’ve been in love with him since you were a child, and every Christmas since you were 15 years old felt like getting stabbed repeatedly.
Jungkook’s eyes are red-rimmed, lips quivering. He’s still tethered to your arm, unable to let go as if you’ll disappear. You’re disgustingly terrified of this moment, not of losing him, but because he’s never even been yours to lose. Everything could change. You could say the words and watch your friendship shatter. You could tell the truth and have him look at you with pity, or worse, he’ll look at you and apologize, say he doesn’t feel the same towards you.
What if what you need to move on isn’t to ignore it, but accept the rejection?
You can do that, you think.
You swallow, “Jungkook—”
“Please,” he pleads, “I can’t fix it if I don’t know what’s wrong.”
You finally turn to face him, and his hand slides down from your arm but doesn’t let go completely. His fingers catch yours, wet and soapy as they are, and hold on.
“I don’t even know where to begin,” you admit.
“Start anywhere.” His thumb brushes against your knuckles, and you don’t even think he realizes he’s doing it. “Maybe… start with why you don’t like Christmas anymore.”
That’s the question, isn’t it? That’s the thread that, if pulled, will unravel everything.
“Do you… remember our mistletoe tradition?”
He furrows his brows. You had just reminisced on it a few days ago, but somehow it feels like a lifetime. “Of course.”
“Do you remember when it all started?”
He looks at you like you’re an apparition. “Yeah.”
“We were just kids… but you kissed my cheek and I thought it was the most magical thing in the world. We did it every year, every year until you finally kissed me on the lips.”
Jungkook inhales audibly, nods once, and squeezes your hands tighter.
“It became my favorite day of the year,” you continue, and you sound out of breath. “It wasn’t because of the presents, or the food, or Santa. It was those three seconds under the mistletoe with you. I lived for it. Counted down the days to it. And when we were 15, you got your first girlfriend.”
Understanding starts to dawn on his face, and it’s almost worse than if he didn’t get it.
“You kissed her under the mistletoe that year.” You swallow back the sob that climbs up your throat. “I watched and I stood there and you gave her this real kiss, this romantic kiss, and I realized that all those years… they were just a game to you. A tradition.”
He opens his mouth, most likely to object, but you speak over him.
“It just kept happening. There was always someone there, someone who wasn’t me. I smiled and pretended I was happy for you while I was watching you fall in love with people who… who…” Now or never, you think. “....who got to have what I wanted.”
Tears begin to blur your vision, muddling Jungkook’s features.
“I’ve been in love with you for god knows how long, Jungkook. And every Christmas since I was 15 is just a constant, giant, unavoidable reminder that you don’t love me the way I love you.”
The tears are falling freely, hot and fast, painting your cheeks.
“That’s why I didn’t want to host. That’s why I didn’t want the mistletoe. Because I can’t—” Your voice breaks. “I can’t watch you kiss someone else under it again. I can’t do it anymore. It’s killing me.”
You remove your hands from his, wiping furiously away at the wetness on your face. When you blink, you notice Jungkook’s also crying. Cheeks ruddy and chest heaving, lips trembling. “[Y/N]. I-I… how come you never said anything?”
“You’re my best friend, Koo.” You wrap your arms around yourself, self-soothing the ache that’s built in your chest. “If you don’t love me like that, I completely understand. I do. You’ve never given me any indication that you feel the same way and that’s okay, that’s fine, I’ll get over it eventually—”
Jungkook’s face falls, softening. “[Y/N]-”
“I don’t want to lose you. I can’t. You’re the most important person in my life and if telling you this means you’re going to look at me differently or feel weird around me or—”
“Stop.” he firmly says, and his hands come up to cup your face. His thumbs wipe at your tears and you know you look like a wreck, but he’s looking at you as though you were sent from the heavens above. “Just stop for a second.”
You hiccup, trying to catch your breath.
“Can we stand in the doorway?” he asks.
You deadpan. “What?”
“The doorway,” he repeats like that’s supposed to clarify anything for you. He takes one of your hands in his, peeling you away from the counter. “Can we stand in the doorway?”
“I–what? Why?”
You blindly follow him, like you always do. Let him lead you out of your kitchen. Your living room is a mess—empty glasses and crumpled napkins, remnants of your Christmas party.
Jungkook positions you in the doorway between your living room and hallway. His green sweater brings out his sparkling eyes, and your heart flutters in your chest.
“Jungkook, can you just reject me quickly so we can move on—”
“Look up.” He smiles.
With shaky breath, you crane your neck.
Hanging from your doorway is a mistletoe. There’s a red ribbon tied around it, dangling back and forth to the tune of your oscillating fan.
You snort out a snot bubble, but neither you nor him seem to care too much. “When did that even get there?”
“Well, I had to wait till the end of the night,” he remarks sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck that iss now flushed crimson. “I thought you might rip my dick off or something if I did it earlier.”
You sink your fingernails into your palms to keep yourself grounded, to keep yourself from leaping paces ahead. Behind your ribcage, your heart stumbles.
He’s the first to laugh—it’s wet and graceless, body shaking in tandem. You’re laughing too, but also crying.
Your heart soars like it’s trying to escape your chest and fly around the room.
Jungkook settles down, and something softer crosses his expression. When he speaks next, his voice is steady, sure of himself.
“You think I don’t feel the same way?” His voice breaks. “You think—Jesus Christ, [Y/N], you’re all I think about. You’re all I ever thought about.”
“Really?” you whisper, voice so feeble you think he can’t possibly have heard it.
But he nods.
“I wake up, and the first thing I do is check my phone to see if you’ve texted me. I go through my entire day remembering things to tell you later—stupid shit, important shit, all the stuff in between. When something good happens, you’re the first person I want to tell. When something bad happens, you'’re the only person I want to see.” He wipes a stray tear that’s made its way down his cheek. “You’re the first person I think of when I wake up and the last person I think of before I fall asleep, and most nights I dream about you too.”
“You…” you trail off, shake your head. There’s no words to describe how you feel, no proper sentence to show how your entire body feels like it’s on fire.
“Let me say this because I should have said it years ago. A decade ago. I should have said it every single Christmas instead of being with people who weren’t you and pretending that was enough.”
Jungkook takes a step forward. His scent envelops you, makes you feel at home. Like you’re six years old again and anything is possible.
“I kissed you under that mistletoe when we were kids because if anyone was going to be my first kiss, it was going to be you. I didn’t even really understand what kissing meant. But I knew I wanted it to be you.”
He lets out a breathy, quiet laugh. And it feels like you’re kids again, standing under the mistletoe, pulling into each other like magnets.
“I kept doing it every year because—because those three seconds were mine. They were ours. It didn’t matter that I was too young to understand what it meant or why it made my stomach feel weird or why I’d think about it for weeks afterwards. I just knew that kissing you under the mistletoe was the best part of Christmas… the best part of my whole year.”
“You know, I was never able to understand why my relationships never seemed to work. Why no one ever wanted to stay with me for the long run. And it took me a long time, but I’ve got it all figured out now.” He has to stop to clear his throat, and it’s then, and only then, that you see the tears glistening in his eyes again. “I think… I think I’ve been looking for pieces of you in every girl I meet.”
Your feet remain frozen to your floor. If you pinch yourself, you’ll wake up from this dream, and you want to live in it as long as life will allow.
“I’d find a girl who had your hair color, or a similar sense of humor, or the way you scrunch your nose when you’re thinking, and I’d think ‘this is it, this is the one.’ But it never was, because they weren’t you,” he says. “I would be on dates, and think about what you’d say about the restaurant, or the movie, or the conversation. I could be kissing someone and wonder why it didn’t feel the way it felt when I kissed you when we were children.”
He takes another step, hardwood floor creaking beneath his weight.
He’s so close you can almost taste his woodsy scent.
“I’m a coward, [Y/N]. I kept dating people, kept trying to make it work with someone else, because I thought if I could just find the right person, I’d stop being in love with you.”
“Koo,” is all you can manage.
“But there is no right person for me. There’s just you, there’s only ever been you. You’re not a piece of the puzzle, [Y/N]. You are the whole fucking puzzle. Every piece, every corner, every goddamn edge. And I’ve been trying to force other pieces to fit for years, but they don’t. They can’t.” His tears are moving faster than he can stop them, and he lets them pour out of his eyes onto his sweater.
“The only reason I stopped kissing you under the mistletoe was because I was falling in love with you.” He’s grinning through his tears. The kind of grin you’ve been the only person to extract out of him. “I was a stupid kid who was falling in love with their best friend and the first thought I had was: what if you didn’t feel the same way? What if I told you and you laughed in my face? And I know I’m stupid, but I stopped because I needed to tell myself I was over it, that it was a phase, that we were just friends.”
Jungkook takes one final step forward until you’re practically nose-to-nose.
His voice is no higher than a whisper. “I never got over it, though. I never stopped loving you.”
Your head is spinning. Jeon Jungkook. Your best friend, your platonic soulmate, your everything…
“You… you love me?”
“I love you so fucking much,” he confirms. “I love the way you sing off-key during all our car rides together, and the way you cry during commercials with pets. The way you remember everyone’s birthdays, even if they don’t remember yours. I love how you scrunch your nose when you’re concentrating and how you chew your lip when you’re nervous. I love your terrible jokes and your beautiful laugh and how magical everything suddenly feels when you’re around.”
Inevitably, you’re sobbing too. Not in a pretty way, but you don’t think it matters anymore. Nothing matters but this.
“I love that I was lucky enough to be born the same day as you, that the universe knew before we knew that there was no me without you. I love that I know everything about you—your favorite color, your biggest fears, how you like your tea. I love that you know me better than anyone else in the world.”
His hands go to cup your face. “So, yeah, I do love you. And I know I wasted time, but I am telling you now with utmost certainty. If you'll let me, I want to make up for all the time I wasted being too scared to love you the way you deserve.”
Your hands come up to cover his, pressing them harder against your face.
“I want you to be mine and I want to be yours, in every way possible, [Y/N].”
And you really, really need to stop crying, but it’s impossible. They well up, like all those emotions you’ve been mashing down for decades, ballooning into something too large for your body to handle.
“Those are happy tears… right?” he chuckles.
“Yes,” you sob. God, he’s never going to let you live this down. “I love you. I love you so much—”
“I love you too.” He kisses your forehead, cheeks, the tip of your nose. “I love you, I love you, I love you. I'm going to make sure you never doubt that again.”
You laugh, a watery bubbling sound.
You look up at the mistletoe hanging between you two. It’s a small piece of plastic and ribbon, but somehow it represents years of longing and heartbreak and fear that just needed time to blossom into something ethereal.
“You still remember the tradition?” Jungkook tucks a stand of hair behind your ear.
You couldn’t forget even if you tried. “When you’re under the mistletoe…”
“You must kiss the person you’re with,” he finishes.
His thumbs linger over your cheekbones, gazing into your eyes. They’re still the same from when he was little. Wide-eyed, full of childlike wonder and innocence. His pupils are blown.
“Can I kiss you?”
You stupidly smile. You nod just as he gets the last syllable out. Nodding so hard and so frantically it’s almost manic, tears streaming down your face, your hands coming up to grip the collar of his green sweater—that goddamn green sweater the color of mistletoe.
“Yes,” you breathe, “Yes, please, yes—”
He kisses you.
And oh.
Oh.
You hold your breath, counting the seconds in your head. It’s longer than three seconds and two milliseconds.
Your knees buckle under the weight of his kiss, with his hands cradling your face gently. Your fingers twist tighter in his collar, pulling him closer, closer, never close enough.
The salt of both your tears mixes on your lips, can feel the way his breath stumbles against your mouth. One of his hands slides into your hair, angling your head just so, and you make a sound you didn’t know you were capable of making. You’re pliable in his arms.
His tongue outlines your bottom lip, and you grant him access immediately, needing to feel more of him, any part you can grasp to know this is real. You’re both still crying—you can feel fresh tears sliding down your cheeks—but you’re also smiling, laughing into the kiss like idiots because this is insane.
Jungkook’s tattooed hands slide down to your waist, pulling you close to him until there’s not an inch to spare between your bodies. Your apartment, the mess of cups and plates scattered around, the snazzy Christmas decorations you’ll throw away tomorrow—it all fades away until there’s just this. Just him.
“I love you,” he murmurs against your mouth, and then he’s kissing you again before you can say it back. “Love you so much, I’m a fucking loser, I—”
“Shut up,” you giggle. “Shut up and kiss me.”
You don’t know how long you stand there, kissing under the mistletoe like teenagers who just discovered what kissing is. It could be seconds or hours—time feels irrelevant when his mouth is on yours, when his hands are holding you.
At some point, you know it’s not enough. You want more.
Finally, you think to yourself.
You’ve never wanted someone this bad. Never craved someone’s brain, heart, and soul like this.
He’s possibly thinking the same thing as you, and if the way he holds you is any indication, you’re the luckiest girl in the world. His hands travel over your waist, until they reach your thighs. In one smooth motion, he picks you up, and your legs wrap around his waist instinctively.
Jungkook is stronger than you though, even though you know he goes to the gym everyday, even though you’ve watched him rearrange the furniture in your apartment on a random Tuesday after work. But feeling him hold you up effortlessly while kissing… your panties might drop before you even reach the bedroom.
You kiss him as he tries to navigate with his eyes closed, stumbling slightly down the hallway, both of you giggling between kisses like drunk teenagers. He nearly crashes into the wall, overcorrecting and spinning you both around.
“Smooth operator, hm?” you tease.
“Shut up,” he mumbles. “I swear to god you switched where your bedroom was.” And then he’s kissing you again, and you forget about his horrible navigation skills.
Miraculously, you make it to your bedroom. Lays you down on your bed, following you down until he’s hovering over you, weight balanced on his forearms on either side of your head. The lamp on your nightstand casts soft shadows across his features. He chews his lip anxiously.
“Do you, um—” He stops, tries again. “Do you wanna maybe—”
You can’t help but giggle. Your hand comes up to cover your mouth when you see the way his face falls. “Koo. I know you’re not a virgin.”
“Oh my god.” He drops his forehead to your neck with a groan, and his face is burning hot against your skin. “I know. I know I’m not. But it’s you, it’s so different. I’m nervous.”
Jungkook is experienced—far more than you, that’s for certain. You were never bothered by the difference. You had lost your virginity solely as a means to an end, to just say you did the damn thing so you weren’t a complete and total loser. But Jungkook has plenty of notches on his belt, and your heart melts at the thought of you being the one to dismantle him completely.
You slide your fingers into his hair, tugging until he lifts his head to look at you. His eyes are dark and vulnerable, full of love it makes you want to cry all over again.
“Hey. It’s just me, Koo.”
“Well, that’s kinda the problem,” he gruffs, playing with the necklace around your neck. “It is you. It matters a lot.”
“It matters to me too,” you rush to agree, cup his face with both hands, thumbs brushing over his scarlet cheeks. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. We can just—we can just lie here. We can talk. We can—”
He kisses you, cutting off your rambling. Slower, assured. “I want to. I really, really want to. I just… I want it to be good for you.”
Your fingers trace the constellation of moles on his face, and there’s just so much of him you want to uncover, so much golden skin and muscle. “It will be.”
This time, when his lips meet yours, he relaxes into it, earlier nervousness melting away. Your hands slide up under his sweater, feeling the bare skin, the sculpted abdomen you’ve sparingly seen. Your fingers find the hair at the nape of his neck, playing with the soft strands there, and he makes a sound—half-sigh, half-groan—that strikes straight through you. His hips shift slightly, pressing against yours, and now it’s your turn to gasp into his mouth.
“Still nervous?” you mutter.
“A little,” he says through a moan as you roll your hips to press against his growing length. “What if you think I-I’m, fuck, bad in bed?”
“You won’t be.” You kiss down his sharp jawline, down the vein that protrudes from the side of his neck.
“You don’t know that. I could be really bad at this.”
You laugh, tugging him closer, wrapping your legs around his waist. “Jungkook, you’re not going to be bad at sex.”
He nuzzles into your neck, inhaling the scent of gingerbread cookies that still lingers on you even after hours of burning them. “But what if I am?”
“Koo. I love you. I wouldn’t care even if your dick was 2 inches.”
He lifts his head from your neck. “Okay, don’t push it.”
Jungkook kisses you, warm tongue swiping against your bottom lip. His calloused hands slide up your red sweater, feeling the black lace bra underneath. His breath stutters at the realization, fondling your breasts in the way he’s always dreamed of.
Messily, hungrily, your sweater comes off first, then his, a tangle of fabric and laughter as he fumbles with the back of your bra. Jungkook apologizes against your lips, but you don’t care in the slightest, just want more and more and more. He flings your bra across your bedroom, greedily taking your nipple into his mouth, sucking the hardened nub. And you’re so wet, can feel it pooling in your panties, soaking through the fabric. Every roll of his hips, every flick of his tongue sends shocks of lightning through you.
“So fucking pretty,” Jungkook groans, readjusting your body higher on the bed until your head reaches the pillow. He unclasps your legs from around his waist, making room for himself to wiggle down in between them.
You can’t stop the familiar swell of nerves racing through your body, even as he kisses down the valley of your breasts, down to your stomach, past your navel. His lips hover over the button of your jeans, delicately undoing. Taking his time as though not to miss a single moment.
You weirdly get the urge to cover yourself, to hide under the strength of his burning gaze. What if he compares me to all the other girls? you think. What if I’m not as beautiful as Sana or Eunji or Hana?
And then Jungkook says, “You’re so beautiful, baby. Most beautiful girl I’ve ever known.”
Tears threaten to appear again.
He tugs your jeans off, his hair tickling your inner thigh as he goes. His lips follow, pressing chaste kisses along your naked skin. The mattress dips as he adjusts himself, wraps his arms around your thighs and tugs your clothed, soaking cunt to his face. You gasp, your walls clenching around nothing. “Relax, baby,” Jungkook bites your inner thigh, soothing it with his tongue. “Gonna take care of you.”
“Please,” you beg, and you don’t even know what you’re begging for, but when you meet his eyes you know exactly what. More of him, more of his mouth, his tongue, his lips.
He pushes your panties to the side, and without preamble, you’re spreading your legs further.
Immediately, Jungkook’s eyes go to what lies between them.
“So wet, baby,” He lets his pointer finger gather your arousal. “You always get this wet for your best friend?”
You gasp, eyes trained on his. His voice has gone husky, eyes hooded and dark. He presses into your sensitive nub, and you jolt forward, hands tightly gripping the sheets underneath. “Answer me.”
“Y-yes, Koo. Always wet for you, just for you.”
That seems to be enough for him. He leans forward, dragging your underwear down your legs until they’re no longer his concern, and then his mouth is on you.
“Fuck!” You practically scream, body lurching forward, humming violently underneath him. It’s been a while—maybe more than a while, possibly years—since you’ve had someone willingly eat you out, and by the way Jungkook does so, he seems enthralled to get a chance to enjoy the taste of you. His tongue strokes through your folds, wet and wide, working its own rhythm that has you withering underneath his grasp. His hands press into your hip bones, stabilizing your movements. He buries his whole face in it, lets himself soak up every last bit of arousal you’ve produced. Two minutes of this and you’ll be a goner, but you don’t want this to end, not now, not ever.
“Tastes so sweet, baby,” Jungkook moans into your wetness, licking a long stripe from your hole up to your clit. “Been hiding this from me, hm?”
“I-It’s yours, Koo. Always has been,” You squeeze your eyes as tight as you can, stars blooming in your vision. He taps your thigh, and you know he wants you to look at him, but you can hardly breathe or think or speak.
He wraps his lips around your clit and sucks, and your fingers fly to his unkempt hair, tugging and pulling until you’re certain it’ll come off his scalp. Without warning, he pushes one finger into you, testing you. He watches as you keen, profanities falling off your lips. Jungkook’s finger crooks into you at an angle you thought only you could reach, and you’re putty in his unrelenting hands. “Fuck—oh my god, yes, right there Koo, oh, yes—”
“Feel good, baby?” He gathers his saliva, spitting onto your clit and letting it drip down to his fingers, a second digit entering you. “Talk to me.”
He’s gentle about it, tentative, as though he’s trying to learn you, teach himself the new side of you he’s unlocked.
“M-more,” you keen. “Faster, please.”
And he’s so willing, so ready. It’s so wet, unlike anything that happens when you touch yourself. His tongue and fingers fuck you through it, squelching sounds echoing against the thin walls of your bedroom, sweat slicking down the valley of your breasts. You feel your walls clench around him once, twice, and your legs tremble in his hold. You can feel it dripping down your inner thigh, onto your sheets, onto his chin.
“So tight around my fingers,” he groans, and you watch as his other hand travels down to his belt buckle, furiously trying to undo it. “So hard just thinking about bein’ inside you.”
“I-I want that,” you reply breathlessly. “I want you inside me.”
“Fuck,” he grunts, working his nimble fingers quicker, tongue vacuum-sealed around your clit, milking you entirely. “I want to feel you cum for me. I want to taste it.”
You nod, bunching your bedsheets into little fists of agony. When you look up, you can see Jungkook’s hair spread across your lower stomach, tattooed biceps straining. His free hand strokes his cock, and a swarm of butterflies release in your stomach at the sight. You’ve made him so desperate that he has to touch himself. You have.
And the sight is just too much for you to handle. “Aghh–Koo, fuck, I’m gonna—I’m gonna cum.”
He doesn’t say anything, just lets his tongue continue at the same pressure, same speed, until you’re coming undone all over him. You feel it everywhere, in your chest, in your core, in your toes. You arch off your mattress, legs quivering and locking around his head. It feels like time is a myth, Jungkook fucking you through your orgasm until you almost collapse.
You tap him on the head with your foot, falling back onto your pillows tiredly.
Jungkook peers up at you, still the same wide-eyed expression on his face, except this time, your arousal is glistening on his face, scarlet lips swollen and wet. He presses a few kisses on your thighs, stomach, before dragging himself up on his biceps to hover you. He kisses you, letting you taste yourself on his tongue, and you can’t help but moan into his mouth. It’s so dirty, so scandalous, sends a shock through your spine.
“I want you to fuck me,” you whisper between kisses.
His cheeks turn red.
“M-me too. I want to be inside you,” he stutters, kissing down your neck. “But I might need a second.”
You furrow your brows, suddenly self-conscious. “Why?”
He kisses your jaw, avoiding eye contact. “BecauseIcamealready.”
“What, Koo?”
Jungkook sighs, dropping his forehead to your shoulder. “Because I came already.”
Oh.
Your heart won’t be able to handle this much affection tonight. You just know it.
You giggle, unable to hide the smile on your lips.
“Stop,” he groaned into your neck. “Don’t laugh, I’m humiliated.”
“No, I’m not—” you laugh, “I’m not laughing at you. You’re so cute, Koo. I love you.”
He grins toothily. “I love you too.”
And then you laugh again, and he laughs with you, and it feels like your heart is blooming, petals unfurling in your chest.
You wrap your arms around his neck, tugging him to you as close as humanly possible. You kiss him and try to make him understand—through the press of your lips, the desperate grip of your hands—just how completely he owns every part of you.
You use your weight to roll him over, straddling his buff thighs, letting your soaked cunt linger over his growing length.
“Hi,” he smiles big and wide, peering up at you like you hold the entire universe in your palms.
“Hi,” you repeat, kissing his cheeks, forehead, jawline.
Behind you, you reach to grab his length in your hands, trace the veins that protrude. His mouth gapes open, watching as you realize… holy fuck.
You’ve always been respectful of Jungkook’s boundaries. Never once peeped on him or seen him in his boxers. The farthest you ever got was a pair of grey sweatpants, and even then, it didn’t reveal much. There was no way to prepare yourself for this moment.
But as you stroke his cock languidly, you realise one thing for certain: that is not going to fucking fit inside you.
You don’t even need to vocalize it, because he’s already saying, “We’ll work with what we can. But I think you can take it, baby.”
Gulping, you nod. You want to take it. Want to feel every inch inside of your gummy walls, want to hear him wither underneath you.
He’s hard again too, you note. You could cry, knowing just how bad he wants this. Wants you.
You align his tip to your sopping hole, jaw slack as you gather the juices to hopefully make it easier. And then you’re sinking onto him, inch by inch, curses falling from his lips, hands gripping your hips tight enough to bruise. “O-oh fuck, Koo.”
“Keep going, baby,” he moans, guiding you onto him until your clit meets his pubic bone. “Just like that, all the way.”
A sound rips free from the very core of you, both hands landing on his stomach to steady yourself. For a moment, you just sit there, trying to accommodate his length inside you. Feels so painfully good, stings just right.
“You okay?” He reaches to brush a strand of wet hair from your face.
“Yeah,” you exhale, rocking your hips gently, back and forth, figure-eights. You can feel him in your stomach, can see the bulge protruding from your body. His eyes lock onto it, bottom lip tucked behind his front teeth. “Feel so full, Koo. It’s so deep.”
“Fuck, baby.” His fingers dig deeper into your hips, directing your movements. A swell of confidence runs through you, and you brace yourself, lifting yourself off his cock to slam back down on it. He all but screams, thighs quaking beneath your weight.
“You’re a fucking goddess,” he moans, head lolling back against the pillow. “I love you so much, my sweet girl, my best girl, fuck.”
“I love you too, Koo.” Your fingernails scrape down his chest, leaving red marks in your wake.
You can see his abdomen muscles rippling with effort as he tries not to come undone too fast, jaw clenched tightly. His tattoos are slick with sweat.
Your orgasm sneaks up onto you, but you don’t want it to end, don’t want to know the feeling of separation from him. Falling forward, you bury your face into his neck, and he wraps his arms around you, fucking up into you.
His cock hits just where you need him, and your moans bounce off the walls, your headboard creaking with each thrust he makes to meet your movements. “I-I’m so close, Koo,” you moan.
“Me too, baby,” he says. His cock plunges greedily into your wetness, and you whimper. “I love you so so much, can’t live without you.”
You can’t help the tears that stream down your face. It’s too much—not just the sex, but that it’s sex with him. Jeon Jungkook, your best friend since birth, since before you knew anything else. You love him so much you don’t know how your heart will contain all this. It might burst any second.
He feels the tears on his skin, and he’s slowing his thrusts, whispering, “Are you okay, baby? Did I go too fast? Want me to—”
“No, no. I want you to keep going.” You look into his eyes, and his expression softens. “I just—I love you. I can’t believe this is real.”
He kisses you, barely more than your mouths slotting together, and then his thrusts continue, more desperate and sloppy but still full of the same devotion. “I love you,” he murmurs into your mouth. “I-I know I’ve said it so many times tonight, but I love you so fucking much.”
Your warm, wet heat clenches around him. Little moans and whimpers escape you, teetering on the brink of another orgasm. “I know,” he gasps, and he’s crying now too, his whole body shaking. “I know, baby. Me too. I’ve got you.”
You stop moving completely, letting him take over, and the sounds are filthy, but the love that runs between you both is anything but. “My baby. Mine, you’re mine,” His teeth sinks into your shoulder as he thrusts up into you, wetness dripping onto his cock and the sheets below. His hands cup your ass, slamming you up and down his girth.
“Yours,” you cry, clutching him.
He pulls back just enough to look at you, and his face is soaked with tears, eyes red and swollen and so full of love it physically hurts to witness. “I’m never letting you go,” he says, crying so hard he can barely get the words out.
“Me too,” you promise, “I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here.”
“Shit, I’m gonna cum, [Y/N], I can’t—”
Your fingernails dig into his biceps, mouth ripping open to moan out his name along with i love you i love you jungkook please please, and you feel him release inside you, spurts of his cum painting your walls as you tighten around him. You milk him dry until he can’t take it anymore, until you feel so full you think your DNA has been adjusted to match his.
You all but collapse onto him, staying like that with your hearts thrashing against your ribs, reaching for each other through flesh and bone.
You want to stay here. Right here, in this specific moment, where his arm is around you and his breathing is shallow and you feel like you’re at home.
It’s a ridiculous thought. Childish, even.
You’ll have to get up soon—your bladder is already making demands, and reality is waiting just outside this bed. But not yet. You’re not ready yet.
Jungkook sighs into your hair. “I don’t wanna move.”
“Me either.”
“Do you… do you want this with me?” His chest rumbles with the question.
“What do you mean?”
“I just… this meant something to you, right? The fact that we had sex?”
“Of course it did.”
You prop yourself onto your shoulders, brushing the hair out of his eyes. They twinkle and glow underneath your low light. He gulps before speaking, “I want us to be together. Or, at least try. I want us to take the risk because you’re worth every goddamn risk.”
Every birthday candle since you were a child was dedicated to him. Every shooting star, every 11:11 on the clock, every stray eyelash, every penny thrown into a fountain. You wished for this—for him—so many times you lost count. Wished for him to look at you the way he’s looking at you now, like you hung the moon and painted the stars.
You almost want to pinch yourself. But his hand is warm on your waist, heartbeat steady under your palm, and when you dig your nails slightly into your thigh, you don’t wake up to your blaring alarm. This isn’t a dream.
“I want that too. I want to wake up next to you and fight about whose turn it is to do the dishes and learn all your weird habits I don’t know yet.”
“[Y/N],” He cups your face in his hands. “You literally know all my weird habits. Even the fact that I collect Captain Underpants original copies."
“Well yeah but I want to learn the new ones,” you shrug.
He chuckles. “I can’t wait.”
Jungkook kisses you again. When he pulls back, he’s smiling that bunny smile that’s been your undoing since childhood. “Your party tonight was awesome, by the way.”
“It was all you.”
He smiles. “We’re really doing this.”
You know he’s not talking about Christmas anymore.
You laugh, resting your forehead against his. “Having second thoughts already?”
“Not even a little.” He pauses, then his eyes go wide. “Oh my god. Your Christmas gift!”
He shoots up, still naked, peppering your face with a hundred tiny kisses. Forehead, nose, cheeks, chin, eyelids, everywhere he can reach while you dissolve into giggles.
“Koo, what—”
But he’s already scrambling off the bed, running to where his bag is discarded by your front door. You hear his feet padding against your floor as he runs back, jumping onto the bed with enough force to make you bounce. He’s grinning so wide it must hurt, holding something behind his back.
“Close your eyes,” he demands.
“Jungkook—”
“Close them,” he whines.
You do as he says, and you feel the bed shift as he settles in front of you, feel his warmth as he leans close.
“Okay,” he softly says. “Open.”
Timidly, you open them.
He’s holding a teddy bear. Your teddy bear. The one he kept in a box with your name on it.
It’s exactly as you remember—worn brown fur, one ear more floppy than the other, the tiny red bow around its neck that you’d tied when you were 7. He even kept it clean, maintained.
“Oh my god,” you exhale. Tears form in your eyes until they’re streaming down your face as you stare at this piece of your childhood, this tangible proof that he’s been carrying you with him all along.
His face falls. “Oh crap, do you not like it? I thought—I mean, I kept it because I thought maybe one day I could give it back to you, but if it’s weird or—”
“No, no.” Shaking your head frantically, you reach for the bear with trembling hands. “I love it. I fucking love it, Jungkook.”
His smile returns, like’s 6 years old again and just kissed you for the first time under the mistletoe.
Jungkook nuzzles into your neck, and you both burrow under your comforter, teddy bear clutched between you. His arms wrap around you from behind, pulling you flush against his chest, and you’ve never felt safer. Never felt more loved.
It’s quiet for what feels like eternity. His breath syncs with yours, fingers tracing illegible patterns on your hip.
“What was in that box in your closet, by the way?” you quietly wonder aloud as you stroke the bear’s fur.
He pauses. Goes completely still.
“You saw that?”
“It has my name on it.”
He’s quiet for a long moment, and then he presses a kiss to your shoulder.
“Everything I love about you. That’s what’s in there.”
You hug him (and the bear) tighter to you.
After about an hour or so of intertwined limbs and lazy kisses, his breathing begins to slow, face buried in your hair. Sleep always comes easy when he’s around, and your eyes hang heavily.
“Can we watch the Grinch tomorrow?” The words come out slurred with exhaustion.
In the darkness, you smile, tangling your fingers with his over your stomach.
You’d curled up with that green, bitter creature every year, finding solace in his hatred of the holiday because at least someone understood. At least someone else knew what it felt like to watch everyone around you celebrate something that only brought you pain. You’d watch him scheme and plot and try desperately to steal Christmas away, and you’d think yes, exactly, take it all. Because if you couldn't have the Christmas you wanted, the one where Jungkook kissed you under the mistletoe and meant it, then what was the point of any of it?
The Grinch was safe. The Grinch was yours. The Grinch never asked you to be anything other than bitter and broken and sick of watching other people get their happy endings.
But that girl who needed the Grinch, she’s gone. She got her happy ending, her Christmas miracle.
Plus, the Grinch is overrated.
“Actually,” you whisper, “I’m thinking we watch Frosty the Snowman.”
٠࣪⭑ pairing: pitcher!vernon chwe x f!reader
٠࣪⭑ for: the aju league collab! hosted by @sailorsoons and @100vern
٠࣪⭑ chapter summary: you and vernon grow a little too close for comfort.
٠࣪⭑ genre: fake dating au! exes to friends to lovers. comedy, fluff, eventual smut, a little angst (sorry but it's not fake dating without it)
٠࣪⭑ chapter: 2 of 5 (complete), posting weekly
٠࣪⭑ rating: explicit. minors do not interact, i'll block you.
٠࣪⭑ chapter warnings: kissing, a therapy session, talk of divorcing parents, reader has a shopping addiction, lack of baseball/nyc knowledge from author (i tried!), and an unrealistic amount of free time for vernon as a result (oops). weird family dynamics, and overly-involved friends who love each other deeply, please forgive them! unbeta'd, because this got so fucking long and i can't ask my poor, wonderful, friends to read all that for me.
if you think i've forgotten anything please let me know so i can fix my post!
٠࣪⭑ chapter wc: 9.6k, fic total 60k+ (may change while editing)
٠࣪⭑ a/n: happy soft launch day! thank you for all the love so far! i appreciate you <3
٠࣪⭑ thank yous: enormous thank u 2 hali and jewel for hosting the collab! and double thanks to jewel for making this banner, she always makes such fun ones! go check out the rest of the aju league fics!
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
“Have you been using the exercises we discussed last time?”
“Hm. Uh– no?”
You hate this room, in its inauthentic neutrality. Off-white walls, bleh coloured carpet, decor that is so obviously mass produced and overpriced for the sad beige aesthetic. You suppose it was designed as such so it’s less distracting for people looking for joy in their lives.
Wonwoo pushes his glasses up his nose, and looks at you blankly. He does this a lot, the psychology trick manipulators use to make idiots talk. You’re no idiot.
“Okay so the thing is,” you say quickly. “I actually don’t need therapy for my shopping addiction anymore. I’m cured.”
“You’re cured?” he says, tilting his head.
“Yes,” you say. “I came here to break up with you.”
“Oh,” Wonwoo says. “You don’t actually need to do that, you could’ve sent me an email.”
“You want me to break up with you via email? Isn’t that rude?”
“Not when it’s your therapist. I’m not your partner.”
“Huh–” you say. “Well then I owe my ex an apology.”
Wonwoo almost laughs. Damn, so close.
“Last time we saw each other you were pretty anxious about your debt, and how you couldn’t stop spending. What makes you think you’re cured?”
You fiddle with the stress toy, the same one Wonwoo had pressed into your hands in your first session. Some beige (of course), silicone, squeezy, poppy thing. “Well my friends cut up my credit cards.”
“Okay?”
“And then my other friend paid off all my debt. I didn't ask. He offered.”
“Wow,” says Wonwoo, and it’s obvious he doesn’t believe you. “That’s very generous.”
“He’s mega rich. Like crazy insane rich. It was like pocket change for him, probably.”
“Would this be the new boyfriend?” Wonwoo asks. You stare at him. You’re 99.99r% sure you hadn’t mentioned Vernon in the last few minutes. “I didn’t mean to pry. My girlfriend reads gossip sites, and she tells me everything of interest.”
“Hm. Yes, okay–” you say, a little reluctantly. Wonwoo has been known to pull secrets from you that you haven’t been ready to admit. “Vernon paid off my cards.”
“I don’t quite understand how this equates to you being cured.”
You blink at him. “Uhhh. Well I don’t have access to my credit cards so–”
“But are you spending from your checking account?” He asks, and you’re at a loss for words. That’s money you already have. That’s not something you’ll have to pay back with interest. “Is that a new bag?”
You curse yourself for bringing it. A like-new secondhand Balenciaga bag is still a Balenciaga bag. “I had the money,” you say, defensive.
And ever so gently, Wonwoo reminds you– “You also had the urge to buy it.”
The silence in the room feels suffocating. Just for you, you presume, since Wonwoo looks as comfortable as ever, and you feel like you're being throttled. Because he's right. Yes, the debt is gone. Yes, you feel a little (lot) freer. And yes, you still can't walk past your favourite stores without going in. Yes, you're still scrolling on Depop for a vintage Burberry bag that'll go perfect with your fall trench coat. Yes, you're still looking for little thrills that come with the confirmation of purchase email notification.
"We've touched on the underlying reasons for your shopping addiction before," Wonwoo says. "How have things been with your parents lately?"
You swallow. Turn to stare out the window and watch the sway of the treetops outside. "We haven't talked much."
Talking about them proves difficult, still, because doing so feels a little like a betrayal. They weren't bad parents. You were fed and clothed and loved, in their way. They just have their issues, like everyone else on earth. In truth, you know your issues stem from theirs. Bearing witness to their fights meant finding solace in your bedroom, in your few toys, in the headphones your cousin gave you, that only got loud enough to drown out the noise if you pressed them really hard against your ears. Your collections started on your desk. Pokemon cards, beanie babies, special pens. Mostly bought by your favourite grandmother, a collector in her own right. Those moved underneath a loose floorboard when your parents stopped seeing it as quirk and made loaded comments about frivolity and wastefulness, and which one of them you inherited that trait from. And while you were lucky, in a way, that their anger was never directed at you, it never made you feel less responsible for it.
Talking to them proves worse. The messages remain unread, because opening them means opening other cans of worms like 'when are you coming to visit?' and 'you're coming to mine for Thanksgiving this year, right?' Because they love you, deeply, but can't stand the mention of the other, it always seems like they're in secret competitions for the favourite parent award. And though you love them too, being caught in the middle isn't a position you'll put yourself in again.
"Are they happy for you, about your new relationship?"
You pick at a loose thread on your sleeve. It's an old sweater. Needs replacing. "I'm sure they are," you say. "They always liked Vernon. More so, now that he's famous."
"They knew him before that?"
"We grew up together. And we dated in high school, too."
"Why do you think they like him more now that he's famous?"
You shrug. "They like status, I guess. Or like, achievements they can attach themselves to. Is that narcissism?"
Wonwoo pushes his slipping glasses back up his nose. "It can be a trait, sure. What other sorts of things do they do that makes you ask?"
You chew on your lip. Wonwoo's got you talking, again.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
Vernon comes straight from his game on Saturday. He's freshly showered, hair a little damp and sticking up funny when he takes off his cap. He'll buzz it soon, you imagine, but he suits it this length. There's a chorus of hello's from the living area as he toes off his shoes, and you're at the counter pouring chips and salsa into bowls and this time, you're prepared. This time, he texted you while he was on his way over, and said:
nonie [21:18] so should i kiss u when i get there
You [21:20] 🤢 i guess
nonie [21:20] be more disgusted
You [21:20] 🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢
So yeah. You're mentally ready to be kissed by Vernon. It's fine. NBD flashes in neon behind your eyes. It'd look weird if you weren't the one to kiss him as he came through the door, which is exactly why you've been busying yourself in the kitchen for the last five minutes, just for an excuse to be too busy to make out with your 'boyfriend'. So when he makes his way over to you, plants a chaste kiss on the corner of your lips, you press one back against the corner of his, and it's totally fine. It's like kissing your grandmother, if grandmother were a hot baseball pl–
Whatever. The problem is Lara. "Are you fucking nuns or something?"
"I haven't fucked a nun ever," Vernon retorts, and a laugh bursts out of you.
He grins sidelong your way and winks. You can feel everyone else in the room staring at you, Joshua in particular.
"Ha ha," Lara deadpans. "What's up with the church kisses?"
"We decided earlier that instead of watching Speed, we're gonna stand in front of the TV and make out," you say, as Vernon takes his seat on the couch next to Seungcheol. With Lara sprawled on the floor, and Joshua in the armchair by the window, that leaves little room for you. Usually you'd take the couch, and whoever arrived last would share the floor cushions with Lara. But that's not what'd happen with a boyfriend and they all know it. "Y'know, since y'all wanna see it so bad."
"That's probably hotter," says Seungcheol.
"Pervert," you rebuke, setting the bowls down on the table, and Joshua presses play.
There's the briefest moment of hesitation. Vernon's looking at you expectantly, Joshua's eyes narrow, and Seungcheol glances up at you hovering there and says, "Are you gonna get out the way or–" so climbing into Vernon's lap is the only thing you can do. Okay. It's fine. It's No Big Deal that one arm wraps around your waist and the other under your thighs, so he can manoeuvre you into a more comfortable position on top of him.
Usually, with a partner, you’d already be draped over them like a decorative scarf. Limbs tangled, fingers toying with their hair, mouth too close to their neck, whispering things you don’t even mean in their ear just to elicit a reaction. You’re tactile, you’re clingy, and you’ve been called a menace one too many times, and everyone in this room knows that. So when you settle on Vernon’s lap and just… sit there, hands in your lap and ignoring the way his own rests awkwardly on your knee, it’s all wrong. Joshua’s eyes flick from the TV to you again.
And so you adjust. Sling an arm around his neck, fingers brushing the short hair at the nape. It's safe territory. Something almost familiar. You lean back into him like you should belong there, like you always do this, and Vernon stiffens for exactly half a second, but he catches on quick. His other hand slides down your middle, palm warm and firm over your ribs, thumb slipping just under the hem of your top. Less familiar. It's been a decade since this familiar. On screen, the security guard is beefing it, but Vernon's hooking his chin over your shoulder to see better, and his breath tickles your neck. Out of the corner of your eye, you catch Joshua turning back to the TV.
"Good job," Vernon whispers into your ear, and the feel of it runs a shiver down your spine.
You turn to face him, offer a sweet smile, and he eyes you with suspicion. You lean in close, huff a harsh breath against the shell of his ear just to see how he likes it, and you're rewarded with a full body shudder. Makes you laugh under your breath but the noise still draws pointed looks from Seungcheol.
Time moves in slow motion, watching Speed, acutely aware of Vernon, absentmindedly drumming his fingers against the seam of your sweats. Keanu's first scene, rescuing the staff in the lift has you and Joshua exchanging waggling eyebrows.
"He's the only cop I'd ever fuck," Lara says, handing you the popcorn.
"Real," you sigh dreamily, taking the bowl and angling it toward Vernon, who pops a few pieces in his mouth. "He's so fine."
"Respect your honesty, babe," he says, dryly.
"Relax, babe, he's in 1994."
This earns his fingers prodding into your middle, and a sharp elbow to the chest for him. A sharper gasp, and a whispered "asshole" has you working to school your sardonic smile into something affectionate.
The movie gets more intense, the bus won't slow down but time in this room barely moves. Seungcheol, bless his heart, is painfully oblivious of the way you and Vernon just aren't into each other, but you keep catching Joshua and Lara looking, with scepticism written all over their faces. You're gonna have to convince them.
Tipping your head back against Vernon's shoulder gives you access to his neck, and you follow the way his eyelashes fan down, carefully watching the way you move. In his ear, you whisper "they're looking?" He nods once. "Okay. Tap me if you want me to stop."
Vernon swallows, audibly, as you press your lips to the juncture of his jaw, just below his ear. It's a controlled, barely there touch. You linger, then move again, kissing along the line of his jaw. Beneath you, he stills, fingers going slack at your waist, to move them would be overkill.
You kiss him a little lower. Slow, and deliberate. Giving him just enough time to shift away, to refuse your touch. Your lips keep finding skin, testing where he’ll let you go, waiting for the tap of his fingers but it doesn't come– instead Vernon tilts his head, just enough to allow it without fully participating.
On screen, the bus is hurtling toward the gap, Joshua gasps at the screen. Lara sits up straight. Seungcheol leans in, and Vernon doesn't move a muscle. You brush your lips against his neck again, and his fingers flex against your side. This is it, you think, he's telling you it's enough, but the way he turns his head catches you off guard. He meets your eyes, flashes down to your lips and back– asking permission? You jut out your chin, and Vernon shifts closer, catching your lips with his in a brief, closed kiss. God, it's so strange, but can't stop now. Your hand moves to his cheek– it's warm– to draw him back in for another.
"Trust me?" you murmur under your breath, the tip of your nose brushing his.
"Uh-huh," he whispers, breath fanning over your lips.
Your eyelids flutter closed as presses his mouth against yours again, his lips parting without hesitation, and you try to hide the surprise in your gut as you follow suit– sliding your other hand up his chest. His tongue drags over yours, and a pleased sigh escapes your body before you can register it, only realising when Vernon smiles wide into the kiss. Asshole.
Pulling away is exactly what he wants you to do, so fuck him. Instead, you match his energy, sliding your hand into his hair just to tug at it, and nip at his bottom lip with your teeth. Your prize comes as the briefest groan, and his mouth goes firm against you, tipping your head up just to let him in deeper, leaving you breathl–
"Ugh–" Vernon breaks off. You've been interrupted with a smack to the face with a cushion, and laughter from your friends.
"Lara!"
"You're being so gross," she complains, settling back into place. You throw the cushion at her back. "Thanks," she says, tucking it underneath her.
Vernon's suddenly tapping your back, sliding you off his lap to the side, and you're scrunched up between him and Seungcheol, who shifts over to make room. You tilt your head at Vernon, silently questioning. "Need the bathroom," he explains, quickly standing, and disappearing out of the room all while avoiding your eye.
You pick up your drink and take a long sip, eyes fixed on the screen. He's only gone a minute when Joshua asks “He good?”
“He’s fine,” you say.
“Pause it?” he offers.
"Nah, he's seen this a hundred times," you say.
After another five, Lara says, "What's he doing in there?"
"Taking a shit, probably." You yawn, glancing at the clock– it's nearly eleven.
"More like jerking off," mumbles Seungcheol, and you nudge at him with your foot, ignoring the way your face goes hot. Of course he fucking isn't.
It's ten minutes before he's back, with his hairline a little damp, and cheeks just slightly flushed. Did he wash his face? You stand to let him back in his place, then drop back down without hesitation, curling your arm around his neck. He adjusts you, hands careful but firm, shifting you from his leg to the space between them.
"Sorry," he whispers, a little hoarse, into your hair. "My leg was falling asleep earlier."
"S'okay," you whisper back, tucking your arm back to your side. You rest your cheek against his chest, sag your body against him, and his arm circles around your waist a little tighter, to keep you from slipping.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
Your name is called quietly. Feels like there's water in your ears. It comes again, firmer, paired with the steady rub of a hand down your arm.
“Wake up,” Vernon says. “Say bye.”
You make a small sound and shift, cheek still pressed to his chest, before the room comes back into focus. His hand slows but doesn’t stop.
“The movie’s over,” he adds softly. “They’re heading out.”
You blink a few times, eyes heavy, brain lagging. The TV is off and Lara’s at the door, doubled over and fighting with her boots. Seungcheol’s standing nearby, jacket on, stretching out his arms after sitting for so long. Joshua’s hovering with his phone in hand.
“Oh– shit,” you mumble, sitting up too fast. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
Seungcheol grins immediately. “Saving your energy for your man, huh.”
“God, you’re such a fucking pig,” Lara scolds, smacking him hard between the shoulders. “Shut up.”
He laughs and stumbles forward as she pushes him toward the door. They’re still bickering as they leave, voices trailing down the hall. The door shuts before either of them remembers to say goodbye.
Joshua lingers. His eyes dart between you and Vernon, who's taking a sip of his drink, then back to you. "This room has a weird energy."
"Yeah, well we're waiting for you to leave so I can get dicked down ten ways to Sunday."
Vernon chokes on his coke.
"Gross," he says, lip curling. “Are you playing at home this weekend?"
"Uh," Vernon replies, clearing his throat. "Yeah."
Eyes on you again. "Are you going?"
"Oh. Uh–"
"Yeah–" Vernon takes over. "You're coming on Sunday, right?"
You stare at him blankly, hoping he can mind read you saying what the fuck shut up Vernon no I'm fucking not shut up because you were supposed to be catching up on work from the comfort of your bed.
"Can I come?" Joshua asks.
You still haven't blinked, but Vernon ignores your would-be-death-stare-if-Joshua-weren't-looking-directly-at-you. "Yeah, man, that'll be cool."
Joshua calls your name. "Is that okay with you?"
A false smile plants itself on your face almost automatically. “Yeah. Yeah, of course. That’d be so nice.”
He smiles, a little stiff, and waves goodbye as he lets himself out, and the apartment settles into quiet.
"What the fuck, bro?"
Vernon frowns. "What?"
"I had plans on Sunday!"
"You said you were gonna bed-rot."
"Duh!" you exclaim. "Productive bed-rotting."
"I've literally never heard of that."
"This is anti-woman, Vernon, I swear to God."
Vernon lifts his hand from your waist to drag it over his face, and groans– the vibration of it making you suddenly aware you're still on him. You shift to where Seungcheol was sitting and lean back against the armrest. Vernon half turns toward you.
“So,” he says, clearing his throat. “Uh.”
You wait, but he can't seem to get his words out– can't seem to look you in the eye.
"About earlier?" you ask.
“Er– yeah,” he agrees, fixing his gaze on the blank TV screen. “The…uh. Us kissing.”
His jaw is set but not tight, mouth in a neutral, casual line. Everything about him is perfectly unbothered, apart from the way he's talking.
“Do you feel weird about it?" you ask, quietly wondering if you took it too far.
"No," he says, voice thin. He picks at his cuticles. “Do you?"
“Nah. I mean– no. It was just, like, part of the bit.”
A stagnant pause. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Yeah. Pretty convincing.”
"You crushed it," you say, nodding. And then you tack on– “Joshua definitely bought it."
Vernon snorts. “Yeah. He was watching like a hawk.”
Another pause stretches between you, thicker still.
“I should probably head out.”
You nod. “Yeah. It’s late.”
He grabs his jacket, moves toward the door, pulls on his shoes, then hesitates. Turns back.
“We’re good?” he asks.
You give him a tiny smile. “We’re so good.”
“Cool,” he says, not an ounce of relief in his tone. “Cool.”
The door closes behind him, and the apartment feels too quiet, too big, now you're all alone.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
You're laying face down on your bed, ready to yell into it, when you hear the click of the front door again. Bolting upright, heart racing, you call out– "I have a gun!"
Vernon snorts. "You don't have a gun."
You scoff. "Dude, you scared the shit out of me."
"Sorry." He comes to stand in the doorway to your bedroom, leaning against the frame. "They're all outside still, waiting for a cab or something. I didn't want them to see me leave so soon."
You frown. Joshua doesn't live far enough to waste money on a cab, and Seungcheol usually walks Lara home, stopping at a bar along the way. "Oh. That's odd."
"So can I hang out here?"
"Go wait by the elevator."
His eyebrows fly up. "Are you s–"
"No, idiot. Go put on a movie."
He laughs and shucks off his jacket once more, and when he moves out of view of your bedroom, you drag your pillow over your face and silently scream into that instead. You lie there for a full five seconds, face mashed into your pillow, before you hear the TV click on in the other room. Something tinny and familiar filters through the wall– a late-night sports recap, Vernon defaulting to muscle memory. You peel the pillow off your face and stare at the ceiling.
Get up. It was just a silly, fake kiss with your friend, and it's not like you've never kissed him before. Get up.
You roll onto your back, then your side, then finally swing your legs over the edge of the bed. When you step out into the room, Vernon’s on the couch again, legs stretched out, one arm slung over the back. He looks up when he hears you.
“Hey,” he says, casual.
“Hey,” you reply, equally measured.
You hover for a moment, then drop onto the opposite end of the couch, leaving a deliberate gap between you. The TV is loud enough to fill the space, but not loud enough to drown out the awareness of him being there.
“So,” Vernon says, testing the waters. “I lied earlier.”
“Oh God, me too,” you say far too quickly. You clear your throat. “It's so weird.”
“Yeah,” he agrees, nodding his head. “I thought I was gonna vomit.”
"Wowww," you say, laughing. "I didn't know I was that gross."
Vernon's eyes blow wide. "Oh– no, not like that. You're not– I just– you're not."
"I'm not?"
"No. You're good."
"I'm good?"
He slumps backwards. "Are you making this painful for me on purpose?"
"A little," you grin. "You're a good kisser too."
Oh, bless him, he actually flushes. On screen, the commentator gets excited about a play neither of you is watching. After a moment, Vernon holds the remote out for you. “You can put something else on if you want.”
You reach for it, your fingers brushing his by accident. If Vernon notices, he doesn't show it, so neither do you. You scroll aimlessly, land on something dumb and familiar, and let it play. A few minutes pass.
Eventually, without looking at him, you say, “Do you think we should actually practice? So we won't get carried away again."
He smiles at that, small and crooked. “You got carried away?"
You scoff. "Don't flatter yourself. I haven't made out with anyone in weeks and I love kissing. If a cactus put its lips on me I'd let it."
"Sounds spiky."
You glance at him then. He’s watching the screen, not you, fingers laced together in his lap.
“So do you think we should?"
Another pause.
"I guess. But not tonight."
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
Sunday rolls around far too quickly, and Joshua is seated next to you in a jersey that was so clearly just taken from the plastic, and although you don't quite know his reasons for being here, you've missed hanging out with him by yourselves.
“You look like a plant that hasn’t been watered yet,” you tell him.
He grins. “I got it from some guy on Mercari.”
“It smells like plastic.”
“That's eau de polyester.”
You snort and lean back as Vernon winds up. The smack of the ball in the catcher’s mitt makes half the stadium groan, but your cheer as loud as you can without your lungs giving out. The sun warms your skin, you're with your oldest friend in the world, and watching your second oldest friend pitch for the Yankees, and it's just so nice. You buy the fries, Joshua buys the beer, Vernon smiles your way once or twice.
“So why are you coming to all of these? ” he asks during a lull.
“I figured since I’m dating a baseball player I might as well be supportive,” you say lightly.
“Ah. So gracious of you.”
“Isn't it,” you deadpan.
He smiles, watches the field for a beat. “Vernon’s doing well.”
“He usually does,” you say.
Joshua hums. You can feel the shift before it happens.
“So,” he says. “Can I ask you something?”
You brace. “I’m not burying a body for you, I've got a pedicure this evening.”
“When did it actually happen?” he asks. “You and Vernon.”
You glance at him. He’s still looking straight ahead, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. Casual. Too casual.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” he says. “You don’t just wake up and decide to start dating your ex from high school within thirty minutes. There’s usually a… lead-up.”
You let out a breath through your nose. “We ran into each other more. Hung out. He told me he liked me again. It wasn’t dramatic.”
Joshua tilts his head. “You’re being vague.”
“That’s because it’s boring.”
He finally looks at you. One eyebrow lifts. “Try me.”
You shift in your seat, eyes back on the field. Vernon’s on the mound, adjusting his cap, jaw set.
“It wasn’t some big moment,” you say. “No lightning strike. We just, like, slipped back into it.”
Joshua’s quiet for a moment. Then, gently, “You don’t do boring. You don't just slip back into something comfortable. You have a habit of starting a fire and letting it burn you.”
You roll your eyes. “Oh my god. Are you my therapist now? Do I owe you money for this session or is the first one free?”
“I’m just saying,” he shrugs. “Last time you two dated, it was messy and over the top and all your feelings are out there. This time it’s like–" He throws his hands up looking for the word. "Choreographed.”
“We're not kids anymore.”
“Sure,” he agrees. “But you?” A pause. “You're usually more in the moment than you have been around him lately.”
You open your mouth to argue, then stop. Vernon throws. The batter swings. The crowd is overwhelmingly loud in your ears.
“Why do you care?”
Joshua smiles a little. “Because you’re my friend. And because Vernon’s my friend. And because I don’t want our group getting all fucked up because you two are being weird around us. It doesn't feel real.”
You wipe your thumb over the condensation on your cup. “We are real.”
He studies you. “Okay.”
Another pitch. Another crack. "You don't believe me?"
Joshua slips his arm around your shoulder. “I don't know. I want to. I always thought you were great together.”
You glance back at the field, at Vernon rolling his shoulders, readying himself for the next batter.
“Yeah,” you say quietly. “We were. We are.”
After the game, Joshua doesn't hang around– he's visiting his mother this afternoon, so you wave him off with instructions to give her your love. The stadium clears out slowly, and after a while scrolling on your phone, the janitors come out to clear up. You're not sure here is the best place to wait for Vernon, so you shoot him a text.
You [19:13] where do i go?
nonie [19:14] u wanna come up?
You [19:14] sure
nonie [19:15] i'll send mike down
nonie [19:15] hate asking but can you kiss me in front of the guys
nonie [19:15] they think ur fake
You chew on your bottom lip, fighting your smile from your face.
You [19:15] depends. is mingyu kim there? i don't want him to think i have a boyfriend
Mike– you assume, because he doesn't actually introduce himself– is a squirrelly young intern who exudes anxiety. "Are you Mr Chwe's girlfriend?"
Mr Chwe, haha. Sounds so formal. "That's me."
"He wants me to bring you to the Clubhouse. It's this way."
"Oka– oh!" He's running off before you've finished gathering your things. "Wait, wait, I'm coming."
You stumble after him as he leads you through the stadium, punches the code into the keypad, and you're taken aback by how put together this place is.
The clubhouse smells faintly of sweat, and something citrusy. There’s music playing from a speaker in the corner, a few guys already changed, sweat soaked jerseys tossed into the bins in the centre of the room. Most of the guys in the room don't register your arrival, used to the comings and goings of colleagues and family members, but you notice the eyes of a couple of the other girlfriends. You offer your friendliest smile, and they smile back easily. Thank God.
Mike skids to a stop. “Uh– he’s in the showers. You can– um. You can wait over there.” He gestures toward the canteen area before bolting.
You take a breath. This is fine. You’ve been in locker rooms before. Just… not by yourself. Not ones full of professional athletes and an army of staff and their families. Your locker room experience is sneaking kisses after school finished, laughing into Vernon's neck at the thought of being caught where you're not supposed to be.
At the counter you grab a drink from the self-pour machines, and look for the checkout.
"It's free, don't worry," comes a soft voice behind you.
"Oh, tha–" you start, turning to be startled by Mingyu Kim. Fuck, he's so much taller up close. "Thanks."
"I'm Mingyu. You're Vernon's girlfriend?" He smiles, then tries your name like a question.
"That's me," you say, sticking your hand out to shake. His hand is heavy and warm. "It's very new."
Mingyu tilts his head. "You wouldn't think so, with the way he's talked about you."
You laugh airily. "Well we've been friends since we were little."
"That makes sense," he says, that smile of his almost blinding you.
"Uh-huh," you say. "So how long have you been with the Yankees?"
"Just a few months, got traded in the spring."
"Where from?" you ask, plucking a straw from the counter and stirring your drink.
"Atlanta," he says. "Still getting used to New York."
"Big change, huh."
"No shit. I miss my car," he says, ruefully. "Vernon said you both moved here for college?"
"Yup," you say. "But we grew up in New Jersey."
"Lakewood, right?"
"Wow," you say with a laugh. "You know so much about–"
“There you are,” comes another voice behind you. Vernon's arm circles your waist and he tugs you close to him. His hair is barely towel-dry, wetting your skin as he leans close to press a firm kiss to your cheek, his t-shirt clinging to his skin in patches. "Thought you'd got lost."
"It's okay," you say. "Mingyu here was keeping me company."
"I can see that," he says, hand sliding down your waist to thread his thumb through your belt loop, fingers resting against your hip. "Thanks, bro."
"No problem," says Mingyu with an easy expression. "It was nice meeting you."
"You too! Listen, if you ever need a guide for the city–"
Mingyu smiles wide and soft. You like the way it reaches his eyes. "Yeah– I'll, uh. I'll hit you both up."
The buzz in your stomach flattens immediately. Oh yeah. You and Vernon. As like, a unit.
As Mingyu leaves you turn into Vernon, slot both your arms around his neck, he wraps his arms around your waist, and you lean in press what would look to anyone else like a would-kiss-you-more-if-all-these-people-weren't-here type of lingering kiss to Vernon's lips. You pull back a little to whisper against his mouth– "That okay?"
"Uh– yeah. That should do it."
"Alright, so you have to set me up with Mingyu when we're done faking."
"No fuckin' way, dude," he murmurs, still a hairs breadth from your mouth, can feel the heat of his breath on your lips.
You pout. "Why not? Thought you said I'd like some of the guys. I like that guy."
"I meant like, other guys," he whispers. "Not my teammate."
"What's the difference?"
"If you hook up with any one of those, I'd never stop hearing about it and I like my sanity."
"So?"
"So I don't wanna hear about all that."
You laugh. "All that what?"
He sighs, frustrated. "Like. Locker room talk. I don't wanna hear about you like that."
You swallow, lower your voice even further. "Does Mingyu talk about that stuff?"
"Not yet," he admits. "But most do."
"Do you?"
He levels you with a look. "What do you think, considering who I last–"
"Right," you mumble. "Yeah, sorry."
Vernon pulls your arms from around him, slots a hand into yours and links fingers. “C’mon. Let’s get out of here before they start asking questions.”
He grabs his bag from his locker on the way out, and leads you back toward the exit, with choruses of goodbyes from around the room. Once the door shuts behind you and the hallway swallows the noise, he exhales hard.
“Thank you,” he says. “Seriously.”
You smile. “Anytime, Mr Chwe,” you say, mimicking Mike.
He groans. “Don’t ever call me that again.”
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
Monday is when all things go to shit. Work is hell, something something merger. Something something acquisitions. It's all fucking bullshit and you won't know if your job is secure for at least the next three months. Seokmin and you hold hands under the desk in the meeting room, while the powers that be go over details you struggle to listen to through the sound of the blood pounding in your ears. Working in the same role, you wonder if they'll have room for both of you.
There's a text in the group chat at lunchtime.
lara [12:24] IM BEING FUCKING EVICTED IN 3 WEEKS
lara [12:24] FUCK MY FUCKING CHUNGUS LIFE
cheol [12:32] ??????
shua [12:34] Wtf happened?
You [12:36] omfg??
lara [12:36] MY ASSHOLE ROOMMATE DIDNT PAY THE RENT FOR FOUR!!!! FOUR MONTHS!!!!!!!!!!
lara [12:36] i can't believe ts
lara [12:36] where tf am i gonna go
cheol [12:36] You can stay at my place
You [12:36] you live in a fucking shoebox cheol 😭 don't be stoopid
You [12:37] lara stay with me!! we'll have girl nights and do facemasks and have girl dinners and watch girl movies!!!
shua [12:37] You're welcome to stay with me too, if you don't mind the pullout
nonie [12:39] u can have my place too. 3brs n i'm hardly ever there neway
lara [12:40] i fucking love u guys wtf 😭😭😭
lara [12:40] cheolie can i stay with you?
You [12:40] ????
shua [12:41] Yeah?? What she said???
cheol [12:41] 😎 I'm the favorite. Suck it losers
You [12:41] i'm literally so offended
You [12:41] this goes against the principles of feminism
nonie [12:42] bro you've gotta stop saying that about everything you don't like
lara [12:42] 🤷🏽♀️ cheol's place is closer to work
Vernon texts you separately.
nonie [12:43] 20 bucks says there fucking
You [12:43] *they're. and you're on. there's no way she'd let him see her tits
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
You get home and you're hit with a sense of unease as soon as you step onto the fifth floor. Unease and like, a really soggy carpet. Unease, and there's water dripping down the wall outside your apartment. Oh fuck. Oh fuck fuck fuck.
The air is all different– thick and damp, and your foot lands in the entryway with a slosh, the water seeping through your shoe to your skin.
You freeze.
“No,” you breathe. "There's no fucking way." Wishful thinking.
The floor is soaked. Soaked-soaked. Water has filled the room, almost an inch deep across the floorboards, darkening them. It’s achingly quiet except for a faint, steady sound of spraying water coming from farther in. Your chest tightens. You move faster, heart in your throat, following the sound toward your bedroom. The door sticks when you push it open.
Water– water everywhere. Your dresser– water streaking down the front, puddling underneath. Clothes are strewn where you must’ve tossed them this morning, looking for an outfit suitable for the morning meeting with your VP, now plastered to the floor. On the bed, sheets heavy and dark, sagging in the middle, rubble and wet dust scattered over it.
And then– the gaping ceiling. A jagged hole, ugly and raw, crumbling away at the edges into the wreckage of your room. The exposed pipe spraying into the gap between floors, must have been going long enough to ruin every little thing you can call your own.
This is too big. Too much for the day you've had. Your brain can't catch up while looking at your things– your things that are everywhere, destroyed, and the waste of it all lands in your chest like a brick. It's not just clothes, or furniture. Everything in this room are pieces of you. All the polaroids tacked on your vanity mirror. All the books with silly notes in the margins, from when you tried to start a book club with your friends. The vintage made-in-England Doc Martens that you finally managed to thrift last year. Your very first Tamagotchi. The embroidery on the walls, made with love by your grandmother. The stupid, sentimental shit you've collected all these years that could never be cast aside.
Your vision blurs as you fumble in your purse for your phone, and it takes a second to realise you’re crying. Silently, you wipe away your frustrated tears, and your hands shake as you fumble the passcode for your phone twice, and the screen is all but swimming as you try to find Lara’s name.
She answers on the second ring. “Hey– what’s up?”
“My apartment,” you choke. “There’s– there’s water everywhere. My things–” You can’t finish it. You press your hand over your mouth so hard it hurts.
“Hey, hey,” Lara says immediately, calmly snapping into place. “It's okay. Breathe. Are you safe? Is it flooding right now?”
“I– I think a pipe burst. My bedroom ceiling is gone, Lara. My bed is ruined– everything is ruined.”
“It’s not everything,” she says firmly. “Call your landlord. Take pictures. Can you start moving stuff?”
"Yeah– yes," you sniff. "Okay."
"We’ll figure it out, don't worry. I'll get Cheol and we'll come over now. You call Joshua."
You nod even though she can’t see you, wiping at your face with the back of your hand and smearing your make-up even worse. “I don’t– I don’t have anywhere to sleep.”
There’s a pause on the line. Just a beat.
“Why wouldn’t you stay at Vernon’s?” she asks, confused.
The question hits you sideways.
“I–” Your throat closes. You hadn’t even considered. “I didn’t– he has practice."
“Is he on his way?” Lara asks. "Did you call him?"
You swallow hard, a sob catching in your chest. “No.”
Another horrifically long pause. Lara doesn’t say anything, but you can hear it in the way she exhales, the mental note she's making.
“Okay,” she says instead of questioning you further. “Call him. Right now. I'll be there soon.”
"Thanks, Lara."
Your hands are still shaking when you call Vernon.
He picks up almost immediately. “Hey."
"Hi," you say, voice thin and wavering.
He must hear it. "What's wrong?"
"Are you done with practice?"
"Yeah, I'm just about to shower, why?"
“My apartment flooded," you say, your voice breaking completely. "Can y–"
“Yes,” he says, cutting you off. You can hear him rummaging for something. A locker closing. “Yeah. I'm leaving right now. Should I call the guys?"
"I already called Lara. She's calling Seungcheol."
There's a pause. "Joshua then?"
"Yeah. Yeah, thanks," you murmur, wiping the still falling tears from your cheeks.
"I'll be there soon," Vernon says, and you sigh, still only slightly reassured.
You hang up and move on autopilot. You call your landlord, who's sending emergency maintenance. Joshua texts to say he's stuck at work but he'll get there asap. You take pictures for renters insurance– thank God your lease required renters insurance.
You grab trash bags, your suitcases and a duffel from the miraculously dry closet, anything that’ll hold what isn’t already ruined. You peel wet clothes off the floor, wring out the water in the shower and toss everything into the laundry basket. The living area is mostly dry, save for what you tread in, seemingly unlevel with the rest of the apartment. It becomes a mess quickly, piles of your life stacked haphazardly, salvaged from the flood.
You're quickly soaked through yourself, with the water still spraying into your bedroom, and it takes everything in you not to start crying again– but that's when you find your photo albums inherited from your grandmother, a record of the childhood you wished you had all the time. Most of them damaged, of course, but there's a few pages in the back that are still unharmed. They're from the first summer she came to stay, your parents freshly divorced and your mom finding it hard to find the time to work as a newly single parent. There's the day she took you to Six Flags, and the day you got frozen custard on the coast, and the days when Joshua came around– his parents, too, needing help over the summer. Sometimes Vernon would tag along (anyone is welcome when Grandma is in charge) and he's in a few of these, so serious at first glance, even back then.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
The last time he found you this small, this broken, was in the midst of your parents divorce– but you were just kids then. You're on the couch, knees drawn up, and you're blinking at him in surprise– the look of embarrassment etched across your face, at being caught while sobbing into your crossed arms.
"How'd you get here so fast," you say, voice hoarse.
"I got a ride," he says. Not quite true. More like cornered Shaun, one of the clubhouse assistants, and urged him to drop everything and drive him to your building.
"I'm sorry–" you sob, wiping at your red-rimmed eyes. "This is so embarrassing. It's just stuff."
Vernon crosses the room in a moment, drops his bag on the couch and pulls you into him, tight and sure, one arm wrapped around your shoulders, the other coming up to cradle the back of your head. And you melt into him. Your face presses into the crook of his neck, your hands clutching the fabric of his T-shirt, and the heat of your tears soaks through the fabric onto his skin.
“It’s not just stuff,” he murmurs. “It'll be okay.”
You shake against him, breath hitching, muffled and unintelligible words tumbling out between sobs. He presses his lips to your temple without thinking and you cry even harder, holding him tighter, before he remembers he shouldn't be doing that at all. Vernon holds you til you settle, whispering reassurances in your ear, and you suck in a heavy, steadying breath.
There's another knock at the door, and it's Lara and Seungcheol. "Heeeeyyyy," they say in unison. They stop short when they see you wrapped around Vernon, your face buried in his neck, his arms tight around your body. Lara’s expression softens instantly. "Oh babe."
You push off him, and he finds himself almost reluctant to let you go as you wipe your eyes and offer a small, sad smile at your friends.
"Fuck– this is– Jesus," says Seungcheol, poking his head into your bedroom. He whistles. "Holy shit."
Your face cracks again as soon as Lara draws you into a hug. "I'm so sorry this happened on your bad day."
"Girl shut the fuck up," Lara admonishes you, and surprised, wet laugh bursts out between your tears.
After a minute, the group gets to work. Vernon and Seungcheol make runs downstairs to your car with everything salvageable, but as it fills, Vernon wonders if he could get Shaun to bring him a car over too. Or where he could hire a van from this late.
Maintenance arrives after the third trip downstairs. He can't do anything right now except shut off the water, and tells you to call him back once you've moved your stuff out so he can tape up the bedroom.
"I'm sure that's like a code violation or some shit," mutters Seungcheol, dragging out the heavy dresser to add to the stack of things in the living area.
Joshua arrives next, eyes bugging out and whispering "Holy shit," at the sight of the ceiling.
And between the five of you, it gets done quickly. As much as can be expected, at least. It'll be inspected for repairs tomorrow, but it'll be a while before it's liveable again, so Vernon is fully expecting you to take up Joshua's offer when he says you can stay with him, but Lara is staring daggers at him over your shoulder. Oh.
"Aren't you staying with me?" he asks quickly.
You blink at him. "Are you sure that's okay?" You say, obviously without thinking, but you catch your slip– "I mean, since you'll be in Philly this week."
"Yeah, it's cool," he says, trying to sound cooler than he feels. "I'll get you a key."
Seungcheol, from under the bed, calls your name, his tone laced with something like awe.
“What?” you ask.
“Do you–” Seungcheol pauses, until Lara kicks at his leg. “Do you have a fucking gun?”
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
Vernon keeps his fingers wrapped around yours as he guides you through the lobby. You’re quiet again, wrung out, mouth down-turned. The doorman nods, discreet as always, eyes flicking once to your damp hair and red eyes before looking away. The elevator ride is silent except for the hum as it climbs.
When the doors open and he lets you step out first, you slow, turning in a small circle as you take in the apartment once more– with its floor-to-ceiling windows, the furniture that's bought brand new and hardly used, and the city far below, awash with colour.
“I forgot how big this place was,” you say, quietly.
He exhales through his nose, an almost bitter laugh. “Yeah.”
"Where's the bathroom again?" you ask.
“There's one in your room, third door on the left,” he says, gesturing toward the long hallway. “I’ll have your things brought up."
God, he sounds like a dick.
“Okay, thank you.”
Vernon waits until the door clicks shut behind you before moving again. He calls the doorman to get your car unloaded, thanks him too many times and presses large tips into the hands of the three people he brought to help. He carries your bags into your bedroom carefully, as if the placement alone could make it feel less like you've lost so much, like at least this empty, soulless place could feel a little like home for you.
You clear your throat as he's lugging the last bag in, and you’re standing in the doorway to the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, your bare skin still wet and steaming. "I– uh. Sorry, Vernon, you've already done so much but I don't have any dry clothes."
Oh. Yeah- duh.
“I’ll grab you something,” he says, feeling so stupid for not having thought of that himself.
He opens his closet and stares for a full minute. You don't like his clothes, you've teased him for it endlessly. He's got nothing you'd ever want. He swallows, thick. Shakes the feeling away. Grabs a soft, blue t-shirt. You always look nice in blue. A hoodie, oversized enough to swallow him, hopefully you find it comfortable. Sweatpants with cuffed ankles, so you don't have to roll them. Thick, white socks. He pauses, bites at the fat of his cheek, then reaches into a drawer and adds a pair of boxers to the pile, feeling faintly ridiculous and also very aware that not doing so would be worse for you.
“Thanks,” you say, relief clear in your tone, when he hands everything to you.
You close the bathroom door behind you, and Vernon leaves for the living room and scrolls on his phone aimlessly while he waits for you to join him, but he doesn’t hear you come back out.
A little later he orders Chinese food– too much of it, really, for just two people, but he wanted to get all your favourites at once. And when the food arrives, he sets it out on dining table, steam fogging the air, and finally knocks softly on your bedroom door,
“Hey,” he calls, already stepping away. “Food’s here.”
A moment passes before you pad out to join him. You look a little ridiculous now. The sleeves way too long, crotch of the sweatpants too low, face still puffy and tired. You look so much emptier than you did yesterday, the day you've had scraped something out of you and didn’t put it back.
He swallows.
“You wanna talk?” he asks, gently.
You shake your head. “Nah, I'll be okay,” you say, voice rough. Then you huff a weak laugh. “I needed new content to pay off my therapist's mortgage anyway. All that parent shit is getting reruns.”
He snorts.
You gasp as you look at the food. "You got orange chicken and beef with broccoli?"
"And crab rangoons," he adds.
"Dude," you say seriously, eyes meeting his for the first time in hours. "I literally love you."
He grins, the weight shifting off his chest. You'll be okay. You've always been good at bouncing back. "Uh huh. Tell me that again when you love me more than you love Lara."
"Tonigh–," you say, already stuff an egg roll into your mouth, and you have to mumble around it to get your words out. "I-def-luh-oo-ore-an-Lara."
Vernon curls his lip. "You're disgusting."
But it makes you laugh, and for that, Vernon is grateful.
"When do you leave for Philly?" you ask, when your plates are empty and you're folding the lids back over the boxes.
Vernon swallows, and wipes his hands on a napkin. "Tomorrow morning, pretty early. I'll leave you a fob and text you the door code."
"You sure it's okay that I'm here?"
"Why wouldn't it be?"
You hesitate, and the silence makes him look up. His shoulders sag. Vernon hates when you look so sad.
"You've never invited me here before."
"I have." He hasn't.
You level him with a look of disbelief. "You haven't. Not since you moved in."
He never wanted this. Not really. He wanted somewhere in Bushwick– like his old place while he was at NYU, with the brick walls and crooked floors, and the threat of bugs if anyone forgot to leave the drains plugged. He wanted somewhere loud with people and lived in. But his agent had frowned so hard it formed an almost permanent crease in his forehead. His manager had downright refused, and suddenly it was all security and controlled access, rooftop pools he'd never use, spare rooms he'd never need, and buildings with names instead of numbers.
Thank fuck it’s only a rental, he thinks, for maybe the hundredth time, because this place never felt like home. It's why he loves your apartment so much. Sure, it's old, and now quite literally falling apart, but it has a charm about it, and the people who live there are far more interesting to him than those who live here, with far more money than sense. He supposes he's counted as one of those people, too, now.
"It's not about you," he sighs. "Your apartment is just, like, way better."
"Are you joking?" You wave your arms at the luxury around you. "Not a single hole to speak of here."
He pauses, unsure how to phrase it. What he likes about your home is that he feels at home in it. He likes how you've filled it, with everything so uniquely you. Feels a little like a piece of him, too, given the framed posters on the walls are artists he shared with you, and the photos on the fridge, stuck to your mirrors, littered across the walls in mismatched frames feature his own face, alongside yours and your shared friends. Vernon loves how he feels unchanged there, like him being rich and famous doesn't matter to you in the slightest, because to you he is just Vernon, just some kid you've known forever and will stay in your life as long as he can.
"It's– ugh. I dunno, bro. It's just easier to feel like a real person there."
You smile. "As opposed to the robot sitting right in front of me?"
His lips twist around a smile. "Beep boop." He's rewarded with your first laugh of the night, one that reaches your eyes, and his chest swells.
You take his plate, stack it atop yours. "C'mon," you say, slipping out of your chair. "You load the dishwasher if you can find it."
"How'd you know I have a dishwasher?"
You lower your chin, stare at him under a furrowed brow. "Dude…"
Right, yeah.
"I'm picking the movie though," you say, already walking toward the kitchen. "I deserve it."
You do. You deserve it all.
Vernon trails you into the living room, switching lights off as he goes, the apartment settling into that soft, city-lit glow it always does at night. You drop onto the huge leather couch and immediately curl in on yourself, knees tucked up, hoodie swallowing your hands.
“Jesus,” you mutter. “Your TV is, like, the size of my entire wall.”
“It’s stupid big,” he agrees. “I didn’t even pick it.”
You grab the remote, switch it on and start scrolling. He sits in the middle, deliberately leaving space between you, one arm draped along the back of the couch. You don’t look at him as you select Atonement, and toss the remote in the gap between you.
“Oh, come on,” Vernon says, groaning. “You want to be more depressed tonight.”
You turn, incredulous. “Excuse you?”
“You just had the worst day of your life and you pick–” he gestures helplessly at the screen “–this shit?”
“This shit–" you mimic. "–helps me process. And you said I could choose.”
"You said you could choose," Vernon complains. "I just didn't fight it. I didn’t know you were set on emotional devastation.”
“That sounds like a you problem,” you say smugly. “Apathy is a form of acceptance anyways. No take-backs.”
He sinks further into the couch with a sigh. “You’re a masochist.”
“I wear many hats.”
For a while, it’s quiet. The movie pulls you both in, the score filling the room has his hairs standing on end, the city outside reduced to a glow beyond the glass. Vernon keeps his eyes on the screen, but he’s aware of you in that constant, low-level way he always is– your knee bouncing, the way you tug your sleeves over your hands, just to roll them up to your elbows again. You never could sit still.
It isn’t until James McAvoy’s character is being marched off to war that he notices the sound. It’s small at first. A hitch in your breath. A sniffle. A sharp, broken inhale. He glances over. You’re crying again. Silent, even though your shoulders are trembling as you swipe uselessly at your face.
“Oh my God,” you choke, trying to feign a smile, embarrassed as you catch him staring at you, his mouth slack. “It’s all so fucked up!”
He doesn’t think about it for a second longer. Vernon is beside you in one swift move, and draws you into him by your shoulder. You make a distressed sound but don’t resist, collapsing into his side as he smooths his hand over your arm, then your shoulder, slow and steady.
“I know,” he murmurs. “It's okay.”
You curl into him, your head resting on his collarbone now, and your tears slowly ease. Without thinking– without checking himself– Vernon leans down and presses a soft kiss to your temple, and the second you feel it, your body stills.
You blink up at him, eyes glassy and red, and for a brief, terrible moment you lean closer instead of away. You’re right there, so close. His heart pounds in his ears, as he realises, with a jolt up his spine, that he can feel the warmth of your featherlight breath against his lips. Before he can do anything, before he can close the gap, you jerk back.
“Oh my God,” you blurt, bringing your hand to cover your mouth. “I’m so sorry. I forgot we were alone.”
Your laugh comes so high. Vernon laughs too, immediately, a little too loud. “Yeah,” he says, too fast. “Yeah, no, same. Me too.”
You both turn back to the screen, sitting too straight now, a careful space between you again, but the swirling feeling in the pit of his stomach doesn't stop bothering him until long after he goes to bed, and is present still when he wakes the next day.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
thank you so much for reading! the taglist will be added on the next reblog.
all interaction is appreciated more than you could know, so if you liked this chapter, please consider reblogging with any thoughts to help get this fic seen outside my following!
Harry Potter is trending at #1 on tumblr so I thought I’d take the opportunity to say fuck JKR, fuck transphobes, fuck her stupid books, her theme park, her endless landfill fodder merch slop, and her fucking castle on a hill. Read another book yall!! Read another book!!!!!!!
just wanted to thank you for being so vocally against ai. it’s so disheartening to see so many creators use it here whether to write or using ai photos of idols, and then to have people support and defend them and say that “everyone does it” as if that makes it okay. such a relief to have writers like you who still get it.
hi friend ❤️ thank you for taking the time to write to me. yeah, fuck AI. i'm so grateful to be part of a community of fans/writers who understand that you cannot have a moral backbone AND use AI. beyond harmful uses in online fandom spaces, AI is polluting the environment, being used by men to threaten the (online) safety of women and children, and contributing to a rapid decline in media literacy and critical thinking skills. it also raises issues re intellectual property theft and endangers creativity and originality. it's horrific because AI continues to be foisted upon us by every social media platform, government and educational authority, and capitalist shill out there, so much so that NOT using AI or opting out of it is considered a genuine disadvantage. objecting to AI these days truly feels like an emperor's new clothes situation.... but glad to see there are people who recognize that AI will only serve the interests of the uber-rich by enabling them to undercut the working class and continue to extract and exploit common resources for personal financial gain 🥴
