This is my first Zuko x Reader, Iâm sorry if its bad! This gif isnât mine but please enjoy! I got a bit carried away! Please request!
Word Count: 2489
â
You stared out at the sky where fluffy clouds were scattered within it, your (h/c) hair whipping around your face. Here you sat, with your knees tucked underneath your chin, on your third day of nonstop travel with the rest of the Gaang. The cool wind felt nice against your hot skin, but sitting on Appa for three days straight was starting to get to you. Everything started to get irritable. Katara and Sokka bickered for what it seemed like the millionth time that day for whatever reason, something about food or something which would make sense because Sokka always seemed to be hungry.
Warnings: fluff. established relationship. domestic fluff.
Summary: Due to his schedule, Yunho had to cancel plans with Y/N for what felt like the hundredth time. When he comes home late one night, ready to sleep alone, he finds a welcome sight wrapped under his sheets.
Ateez Masterlist
It was one o'clock in the morning when Yunho and Yeosang finally returned to their dorm. They had been at the company all day preparing for their latest comeback, and all Yunho could think about was his bed. The past few hours had dragged on, and Yunho couldnât concentrate on much; none of the members could.Â
Yeosang muttered a quiet âgoodnightâ to him before he shuffled into his own room, closing the door behind him. Yunho took his phone from his pocket. He felt awful. He had originally planned to spend the evening with Y/N, but dance practice had gone on longer than he had originally anticipated. He had sent her a message letting her know hours ago, but he had never received a reply.Â
It was the fourth time within two weeks that Yunho had to cancel plans. He felt awful about it. Y/Nâs schedule had recently become less hectic as she hadnât needed to work any overtime, so she now had regular days off from her job. Every time she would plan something for her and Yunho to do, even if it was something as simple as ordering food and playing video games, Yunho would have to cancel due to his schedule. Anytime they would see one another in recent weeks, it would be a quick meeting, exchanging a few touches or lingering kisses before either one of them was out the door ready to go to work.Â
As Yunho shuffled to his bedroom, he heard the quiet sounds of a television. He deduced that it must have been their manager who lived with them, but as Yunho got closer to his room, a soft light emitted from the crack below the door. He pocketed his phone before pushing the door open, and his heart pulled at the sight.Â
The programme playing on the television was completely ignored as the figure in the centre of the bed peacefully slept. The familiar hoodie Yunho recognised as his own wrapped around her body like an embrace. The brightness from the television lit up the room with a soft light; half of Y/Nâs face was cast in shadow.Â
Yunho closed the door softly behind him, a soft smile pulling at his lips. He wasnât expecting to see Y/N until at least the weekend, so seeing her now filled him with happiness. He felt bad about disturbing her sleep, but he couldn't help himself as he walked over to the bed. She was wearing a pair of his joggers, the hem bunching around her ankles. Her own jeans were folded neatly and placed next to her bag beside the bed.Â
As he sat down on the bed, Y/N slightly stirred at the unanticipated dip of the bed. Yunho hovered over her and brushed the hair away from her face.Â
âY/N,â he whispered, his other hand caressing her arm.Â
Y/N mumbled as she stirred again, and Yunho settled more comfortably on the bed. Yunho leaned forward and peppered kisses across her cheek and jaw as he wrapped his arms around her. The scent of his own body wash clung to his skin, indicating that she had showered before she went to sleep.Â
âWhat are you doing?â Y/N muttered as she forced open her eyes.Â
âLoving my girlfriend,â Yunho muttered as he manoeuvred his body again so he rested comfortably on top of her, his lips pressed soft kisses against her neck.Â
A quiet groan left Y/Nâs lips as she wrapped her arms around him. âYou're heavy.â
Yunho ignored her as he planted his arms on either side of her so his face hovered above hers. Y/N forced her eyes open once more as her hands planted themselves on the sides of Yunhoâs jaw.Â
âI look awful,â Y/N muttered as she brushed his hair away from his forehead.Â
Y/Nâs hair was a mess amongst the pillows, and she had a small amount of mascara smeared under her left eye that she hadnât bothered to wipe away before passing out.Â
âYou look beautiful,â Yunho muttered before connecting their lips.Â
It wasnât hard to make Y/N melt into his kiss as her body was still heavy with sleep. Her arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him closer. Yunhoâs right arm kept him propped up over Y/N so he didnât completely crush her, while his other snaked around her waist, pulling her body closer to his.Â
âIâm sorry I had to cancel tonight,â Yunho muttered against her lips.Â
âYou cancelled?â Y/N questioned.Â
âI sent you a message hours ago,â Yunho replied with a soft chuckle. âItâs one in the morning.â
âIs it?â Y/N said. âHuh? Iâve been asleep for nearly five hours.â Y/N pressed a kiss against his cheek. âHow was today?â
âTiring,â Yunho replied with a sigh. âWeâve gone through the dance so many times, I can do it in my sleep. I swear the past few hours, Iâve been on autopilot.â
Y/N wrapped her arms around Yunho once again and pulled him into a hug, and this time, Yunhoâs body melted into hers. The exhaustion had quickly caught up with him, and all he wanted to do was close his eyes, but he wanted to savour these few moments with Y/N. Who knew when they would be able to spend more than a couple of hours with one another again?Â
âI need to change,â Yunho said despite not making the effort to escape Y/Nâs embrace.Â
Y/N's fingers raked through his hair, lightly scratching at his scalp. Whenever Y/N would do it, Yunho's body would always instantly relax. Even now, he could feel his body get heavier as his body gradually eased further onto hers. Yunho didn't know if they could get any closer.Â
âYou know I typically work on Saturdays?â Y/N questioned, her voice quiet and still heavy with sleep. Yunho hummed a quiet response as his eyes closed. âWell I asked to swap shifts with my coworker so I'm not working tomorrow so if you still have a day off, I'm yours all day.â
Suddenly, Yunho was fully awake. He pulled back from the embrace; his eyes were bright and wide. âReally?â
Y/N nodded, her eyes still threatening to close. âI wanted the whole day with you, not just a quick goodbye in the morning then days on end with barely a phone call.â
âI love you,â Yunho said before firmly pressing his lips to Y/Nâs.Â
Yunho knew that dating him wasnât easy. His schedule was demanding, and despite the company not enforcing a dating ban, he still wanted to remain private about his relationship as he knew what some possible reactions could be, and he wanted to shield Y/N from that as best he could.Â
âI love you too,â Y/N whispered against his lips.Â
For a brief moment, Yunho pulled away to quickly change into more comfortable clothing, the first he pulled out of the drawer. Y/N only flipped the covers up and rolled onto her side, discarding his hoodie in favour of him. Yunho quickly slipped under the covers, immediately pulling Y/N into his arms, her back pressed flush against his chest.Â
Yunhoâs energy was depleting the longer he forced his eyes open. Y/Nâs breathing became shallower and shallower as she relaxed deeper into Yunhoâs hold until he was sure she was asleep. Even in her sleep, Y/Nâs hand still held firmly onto the arm Yunho had wrapped around her waist. Yunhoâs eyes closed as he pressed a gentle kiss to the back of her head, his senses being invaded by the familiar scent of her shampoo, a scent that always comforted Yunho. Soon enough, Yunhoâs body fully relaxed with Y/N wrapped tightly in his arms as he drifted off to sleep.Â
"Like I said, I am warm-" you smack his chest before he could finish.
pairing Âť ateez jeong yunho x fem!reader
trope/au Âť non-idol au, established relationship au
genre Âť fluff with a hint of hurt/comfort
word count Âť 3241
warnings (lmk if i missed anything!) Âť sickness, kissing, ...they're lovesick, not proofread
navi/masterlist!! đ¤ ateez masterlist
I DIDN'T REALISE I NEVER POSTED THIS ONE AND THAT I WAS I DIDN'T POST LAST MONTH đđ hope you enjoy this one as i try my best to post a longer yunho fic đ¤
"Y/N! Thank goodness!" Mrs Jeong immediately embraces you, not waiting for you to shake off any snow on your outfit. "Thank you so much for coming."
"Of course. I wasn't doing anything important anyway, so thank you for calling me." You're not lying about that. You didn't think that preparing for tomorrow's blind date was important, at least not more important than Yunho.
The woman called you a few minutes ago, asking you to come over and take care of his bedridden son. From Yunho's insane schedule, you couldn't say that you didn't know this wasn't going to come. You warned him through text messages to dress warmly and to drink hot beverages against the cold weather. Your best friend said that he would do all those things, but given how you're here now, you wonder how much of it was actually true.
"I really have to run to the hospital now. I'm so sorry, sweetheart."
"No, please. It's okay!" You reassure her. As you hang your winter coat, you retrieve hers. "I hope everything is okay at the hospital. Drive safety, Auntie."
She's already halfway out the front door as you finish your greetings, but she turns back with a kind smile on her face. "Let me know if Yunho brings you real trouble. I'll smack him awake when I get home."
You shake your head playfully, watching her start the engine and driving away with a waving arm out the window. The front door closes with a reassuring click. Scanning the house, you clean the slight mess in the kitchen before checking up on Yunho. Besides, if you want to cook a hearty meal for him, it would be good to work in a cleaner space.
Across the hall, where the feverish boy lies under his blanket, he stirs awake at the mumbled engine. Yunho's eyelids feel especially heavy, and so does his back as he attempts to sit on his bed. The only light source was from the slightest crack on the bottom of his bedroom door, and despite that, his eyes squinted as if the room were on fire.
The poor boy pouts and sniffs before throwing his legs to the side of the bed to aim for the kitchen. He could tell that whoever is in the space is trying to keep their noises down as much as possible, and he smiles weakly at the consideration. He slides his feet across the wooden floor until he catches your familiar back on the sink.
His eyes are now better adjusted to the light, taking in the view in front of him: his childhood best friend, whom he has been in love with for so long, cleaning the familiar bowls and cutlery of his dinner from an hour ago. You hum lightly, shoulders swaying gently side to side to a rhythm. Yunho leans against the wall, eyes closing in relaxation to your voice. He could slumber back asleep at your singing, and the weakened state of his body only welcomed your tune even more.
"Yunho?" His name from your lips came as a calm whisper, but your frowning lips say otherwise. "I'm sorry, did I wake you?"You abandon the sink to skip towards him.
The boy shakes his head. "Did my mum call you here?"
"The hospital needed her urgently, and she was worried about leaving you alone, so she called me." As soon as you finish, your concerned look is replaced with a disapproving one. Your arms crossed against your chest, and an eyebrow rises. "Did you really keep yourself warm like you supposedly said you would on text?"
"Well, technically, the fact is that now I am warm so-"
"Yunho!" You exclaim. "I'm serious! Stop joking around! Your boss overworks you, and you don't know when you take breaks yourself. You wake up early and voluntarily stay towards the end to help your team members, which is fine, but not at the expense of your own health! Then I get texts from you," you whip your phone out, waiting for this moment:
golden puppy
don't be mad but
i got sick :((
BUT IT'S NOT SERIOUS OR ANYTHING
IT'S JUST A FEVER AND COLD AND COUGH
I'LL BE FINE SOON I PROMISE :((
"And mind you, that was four days ago, and the fact that your mum wouldn't leave you alone means that you're not at all better yet! Yunho, I told you to-"
Your rant is interrupted when Yunho can no longer keep his lips together. A snort came out from him, and if it's not the situation, you would've made fun of him. Realising his mistake, Yunho slaps a hand to his mouth, blinking innocently at you.
You roll your eyes, arms rising in exasperation. "I can't believe you. You're sick and all you're gonna do is laugh?"
"No, no," he puts his hands together, head hanging low. "I'm sorry. It seemed like I worried you a lot. I really did try to take care of myselfâŚ"
You exhale at his apology, knowing well that there's nothing much that you can do now. The prevention stage was a failure, and now you need to focus on helping Yunho recover as fast as possible.
You reach for his forehead against the back of your palm, your lips turning down at the temperature. "You're still really warm, Yun."
"Like I said, I am warm-" you smack his chest before he could finish.
"Go back to your room and sleep, you giant puppy." You uusher him out of the room by his shoulders and turn him around to the direction of his bedroom. Yunho didn't push against you, secretly needing you for energy anyway.
As soon as you turn the doorknob open, you can tell he's been living in there for the past week. The curtains are slightly opened, possibly to let a relaxing amount of sun in during daylight, but he never got to put away his laundry properly into his closet. There's a half-empty cup of water on his bedside table, and you could tell he fell asleep while gaming with his phone on his bed. You're reminded of Yunho's condition when he coughs beside you, hunching over as you pat his back with a knit between your eyebrows.
"Okay, come on," you guide him to the bed, making sure he slowly sits on the bed. You found his medicine checklist for the day, seeing that he hasn't checked off one after dinner. You wanted to scold him, but backed down when he looked over at you apologetically. You pop the aluminium cover of the medicine, dropping the pill into his palm. "Here," you kneel next to him and pass him the glass. "No, finish it," you tilt the cup back to his lips.
Yunho sighs in relief, regarding a soft smile. You brush his bangs to the side of his face calmly. He relaxes to your touch, reaching for your other free hand to hold. In the act, he pulls you closer and slots you between his legs. He rests his head on your chest, indulging himself in your familiar scent.
"Did I worry you that much?" He mumbles.
You hum, "You always make me worry."
"Yeah?" He pulls away slightly to see you properly, mischief written all over his eyes, "Are you worried about me, or are you worried about how no one can pick you up if you're in trouble?"
"Hey! I'm very capable of taking care of myself."
Yunho tilts his head in contemplation. "Tell me that again when you miss your bus."
"Shut up!" You ruffle his hair in laughter, whilst he tries to grab hold of you. "Fine then, next time I won't call you and you can explain to my mum why I would arrive home later than I should be!"
Yunho chuckles, "As if you wouldn't call me!"
The room blossoms with laughter until Yunho clears the itch down his throat. Your bottom lip juts, eyes looking over his pale face. "Alright, let's get you resting, okay?"
Stubbornly, he shakes his head and resorts to hiding his face in your chest. Without notice, an arm slithers to the back of your knees, and his other supports you back. You yelp as Yunho places you onto his lap and buries his face in the crook of your neck.
"Yunho?"
He inhales, "You should go before you get sick." But even though it's his suggestion, he only held you tighter. His thumb soothes the side of your knee, and you swear your heart skipped a beat or two. "Thank you for coming."
"Of course," you acknowledge. "You know I always would."
You're reminded of what you were doing before rushing over to Yunho's house. Your potential dresses for the date were all over the bed, and you were passing through your makeup bag aimlessly when none of the outfits felt fitting. You sent some of the pictures to Mingi, who was the one to set you up in the first place, but the man didn't offer much help. To be honest, Yunho would've been better for this kind of advice, but other than the fact that he's under the weather, you were scared of what he would say to you.
When Mingi rushed to tell you about the blind date excitedly, Yunho was next to you. He was silent throughout the whole time Mingi was filling you in on the details: about how he was showing a group picture with you in it, about how Mingi told his friend you're single, and that Mingi would let him know if you would be down for the date. You hesitated at first, and you stole a glance at Yunho, who stared off into the distance. He didn't tell you not to go, but he didn't encourage you either. All he did was playfully nudge you by the shoulder and indifferently say, "Well, whatever you choose to do, I support you." And for some reason, that should've comforted you, knowing that your best friend would always reliably support you. But as much as he's your best friend, he's someone that you love more than just friends, and his 'encouragement' hurt more than ever.
As if he read your mind, Yunho comments tiredly, "Are you excited for tomorrow?"
Unconsciously, you grip onto his arm, "I guess? I don't know this guy other than he's Mingi's friend."
"I'm Mingi's friend too." The comment was supposed to be kept in his head.
"I know�" You furrow your eyebrows.
"So, you're only going because it's Mingi's friend?" He completely pulls away from you this time. His eyes lost the glimmer from the light moments a few minutes ago, and he looks into your orbs delicately. "Are you really going tomorrow?"
"Well, I have no reason not to go," you gulp.
Yunho's shoulders visibly slump, and he nods defeatedly, "I see."
The hand on your back moves to pat your head. Whilst Yunho already looks away, you couldn't help but keep your eyes on his side profile. Your eyes trace his cheekbones to the slope of his nose. The way his lips slightly parted as he breathed warmly against your skin. You had to forcefully turn your head away.
"Let me know if you need me to pick you up after."
You shake your head. "I doubt you'll be better by tomorrow."
"But if you ask me to, I would do it regardless."
Tell me not to go, you wanted to tell him. You want him to tell you that the date isn't worth it. That the date won't be fun. That he's sick and that you should take care of him instead. You wanted him to tell you to stay the night, so that you'll have a better excuse of coming to the date late or better yet, to not show up at all.
"Okay," is the reply you settled on. You will yourself to look at him one last time before walking away for him to rest. Yunho looks back at you when you poke his moles. "They're cute."
"I remember that time you said that you wanted to bite me because they looked like chocolate chips."
"I was a kid and I was craving chocolates!" You try to reason.
"And then you almost burnt the house down trying to bake some."
"We almost burnt the house down. Don't leave yourself out of the situation!"
You finally hop out of his embrace, already missing the stability that Yunho gave. But you knew that if you didn't, Yunho would never get the rest that he needed. Understanding you, Yunho finally lies down whilst you tuck him in.
"I'll be here until your mum comes back. I'm just in the living room if you need anything."
"Alright."
Making sure he's tucked in, you finally lift yourself off the bed. "Sweet dreams."
Your intentions to leave the room were so that he could rest, but your absence only made Yunho toss and turn around the bed. His mind wanders to how your hand could be interlaced with someone else. How you might tell him about your life stories, and if he would come up in the conversation. If you would fall in love with him, the same way that he's fallen in love with you all these years. And if he told you now, would you not go? Would you stay with him to make sure he would recover properly? Or would saying anything only make you turn away and never look back? He couldn't imagine losing you over a petty confession, but could he deal with the consequences of a possible successful date that you go to that's not with him?
"No," he concluded. "I can't deal with it."
Deciding that reason alone is enough, he kicks his blanket away and yanks his door open. If you left, he would've known since he wasn't asleep, but if you did, he knew he wouldn't be able to stop you properly. At the approaching footsteps, you swirl your head back to see Yunho behind the couch. His face is slightly flushed, and he hurries over to the other side to face you properly.
"I'm in love with someone." Yunho gulps as you blink at him wordlessly.
"O-Okay?" You stutter despite the sharp pain against your chest. "Who? Do I know her?"
"Y-Yeah, I'll tell you after your date tomorrow." With that, he begins walking away.
You raised an eyebrow, taken aback at the response. "You're telling me all that, but you're not telling me the full story?"
"R-Right, no. You're right, uhm," Yunho fidgets in his spot. His fingers push against each other, eyes wandering around everywhere but you. It's probably a good call for you too because you're unsure of how to face him after the information drop.
Eventually, seeing the troubled boy, you could only smile somberly. You've been prepared for this moment your whole life. The way that your eyes aren't welling up is a miracle. Pushing your feelings away, you shuffle closer to him, landing a soft touch on his forearm. The boy widens his eyes at the hug you offer. The pats on his broad back is slow, and unknowing of your heavy emotions, he found reassurance in them.
"Yun, we can talk about this later, you know?"
"No, we can't," he shakes his head. "Because what if you fall in love tomorrow?"
"I doubt it, but we can still talk about your love life even if I do-"
Yunho pulls away, a firm hold on your shoulders. "Don't go tomorrow. Please don't fall in love with someone other than me."
Your eyes widen and with the stunned look at your face, Yunho contemplates laughing his words away. But the thought of losing you made him gulp his nervousness away. The hands on your shoulders slide to your hands, holding them gently. His gaze settles upon you, taking in the way your lips have parted.
"I know it's unfair to say this, but I just can't see the girl I've been head over heels with fall in love with someone she's met in a day." Yunho's voice grows quieter with each word, but had no intention from stopping. "If you want to go, I won't stop you. You know I'll always support you," he chuckles timidly. "But I wish you wouldn't goâŚI wish you would selfishly just stay with me. Y/N, I-" he exhales, "I've always only seen you. I've always loved you as a friend, but more than that for the longest time."
You didn't mean to stumble back at that moment, and Yunho steps forward to break a potential fall. But he retracts in the last second, scared that you needed space. He looks down to the silly pattern of his socks, lips trapped between his teeth in defeat.
"I'm sorry if this made you uncomfortable," he begins again. "I'll justâŚ" he throws a thumb behind him, beginning to walk away. It's when he turns away that you stop him, an arm around his middle and your cheek against his back. "Y-Y/N?"
You shake your head, figuring out the words that you want to say. "I didn't mean to back away at that moment, Yun. I-I'm just shocked that you like me in that way."
Yunho just looks at your intertwined hands. "You don't have to answer. And if you don't feel the same way, we can still be friends-"
"I don't want to be friends, Yunho."
Something in Yunho breaks apart. His chest pangs in hurt, and he has to suppress the growing tears. When you let him go, he had to force every muscle within him to move. You step infront of him before he could do so, pressing a sure kiss onto his chin. Mirroring your previous look, his eyes widen, the tips of his fingers touching where your lips were on his skin.
"I love you more than friends, Yunho."
He spent no time in getting your presence closer to him, cradling you into him. Your head to his chest while a hand combs through your hair. His other arm supporting your lower body to slightly lift you so that he could press a tender kiss to your forehead.
Disbelief washes over him, "Y-You're not joking, right?"
Your eyebrow raises, "What can I do to convince you?"
"Kiss me," he replies. "Not on my lips because you might get sick but just kiss me again-"
You didn't listen to his worries. If you got sick, then you could stay in with him; given your parents would let you out the house. So, you tiptoed as you gently nudge his nose with yours and hugged his bottom lips with yours. Yunho melts, his shoulders relaxing and chest full of love. The corner of his lips rises, only fueling the intimacy of the moment.
"Now, couldn't you guys have waited until after Yunho is healthy?" The introduction of the new voice is teasing but the only thing breaking apart is the kiss. "Okay, Yunho, sleep," his mother points deeper in the house. "Y/N, there's mouthwash in the bathroom for you to use."
"Mum!"
He hates being sick because it would always keep him away from you. And, now that he's had a taste of your sweet lips, he can't risk another sickness. He's too lovesick for you. And that's the only 'sickness' he could approve of.
navi/masterlist!! đ¤ ateez masterlist
join/remove from the taglist here Âť @eighteez-net @k-films @kflixnet @k-vanity @starlit-network @blossomnet @pirateeznet @k-records @haneul-and-clouds @svzllts @chanheescafe @ffenjoyerdazme @wooyoungqueen @stxrrywoo @redemptions @minkieater @moooonandroses
(â˘Ë â˘ă.á || He thought the concert was the summit of his existence, the moment nothing would ever surpass. But while he was bowing to applause, his wife was bleeding out in a hospital room forty-five minutes away, choosing their daughter's life over her own, and waiting for a husband who never came.
It vibrated through the stadium speakers, through the floorboards of the stage, through San's own chest as he held the mic to his lips with both hands, his eyes squeezed shut, his entire body bent forward like a man in prayer. The high note, that high note, the one he'd spent months terrified of, the one that had haunted his rehearsals and stolen his sleep, poured out of him with a purity that felt almost holy. It rose and rose and rose, impossibly high, impossibly steady, until it wasn't just sound anymore. It was light. It was heat. It was the sum total of every sacrifice he had ever made, distilled into a single, transcendent vibration.
Then the band cut out.
The silence that followed lasted exactly one heartbeat. One perfect, suspended heartbeat where San opened his eyes and saw sixty thousand faces staring back at him in stunned, reverent silence.
And then the world exploded.
The roar hit him like a physical force. It was deafening, a wall of sound so immense and so consuming that he actually stumbled back a step, laughing in shock. Confetti cannons fired from the edges of the stage, spraying gold and silver into the air until it looked like the sky itself was shattering. The lights went wild, sweeping across the stadium in great arcs of blue and white, illuminating a sea of light sticks that pulsed in perfect synchronization.
San stood at the edge of the stage, chest heaving, arms spread wide as if he could embrace every single soul in that stadium. Sweat dripped from his hair into his eyes, but he didn't wipe it away. His body ached. His throat burned. His legs were trembling from three hours of relentless performance. And he had never, never in his entire life felt this alive.
This is it, he thought, the grin spreading across his face so wide his cheeks hurt, so wide he probably looked unhinged, so wide he didn't care. This is the peak. Right here. Right now. Nothing has ever felt this good. Nothing ever will.
He laughed out loud. The sound was swallowed by the crowd's roar, lost in the avalanche of noise, but he felt it in his chest, a giddy, euphoric, almost hysterical burst of pure joy. All those years of training. All those early mornings in the practice room, dancing until his feet bled. All those nights he'd laid awake in a cramped dorm room, staring at the ceiling, wondering if he was good enough, if he'd ever make it, if it was all worth it. All those moments of doubt, of fear, of wanting to give up and go home and disappear into a normal life where no one knew his name.
This moment was the answer to every single one of those questions.
The music swelled again, the closing instrumental, the final build that would carry him to the end of the show. San jogged across the stage, his movements lighter than air despite his exhaustion. He was running on adrenaline now, pure and clean and intoxicating. He pointed to different sections of the crowd, making eye contact with fans who screamed and waved and cried. He blew kisses. He pressed his hand to his heart. He mouthed the words thank you, thank you, thank you until his lips felt numb.
At the center of the extended stage, he stopped. He stood there for a long moment, just breathing, just looking, just trying to memorize every detail. The way the light sticks looked like a galaxy of stars. The way the confetti drifted down like snow in slow motion. The way the screams rose and fell like waves on an ocean. He wanted to freeze this moment, to press it between the pages of his memory like a flower, to keep it forever untouched and perfect.
Well, he amended, a softer thought surfacing through the euphoria, maybe not nothing will ever feel this good. That's not fair. That's not right.
He touched his wedding ring.
It was a subconscious habit, something he did without thinking, his thumb twisting the simple platinum band around his ring finger, feeling the cool metal against his flushed skin. He'd worn it for two years now, and it still felt new sometimes. Still surprised him with its weight, its presence, its quiet reminder that he was more than just an idol on a stage. He was a husband. Soon, he would be a father.
Seeing her walk down the aisle, he thought, the grin on his face softening into something smaller, something private. That was different. Quieter. But just as perfect in its own way. And the baby. Holding our daughter for the first time. That'll be... that'll be its own kind of miracle. A different mountain. A different summit. But I'll get there too. I'll climb that one next.
He believed it. He genuinely, naively, with all the confidence of a man who had never known true loss, believed that life had a hierarchy of joy. That the beautiful moments were stacked like stepping stones, each one leading to the next, each one waiting patiently for him to arrive. He didn't know yet that the summit he was standing on was made of glass. He didn't know that in exactly seventeen minutes, his phone would buzz with the weight of four hundred missed calls. He didn't know that while he was laughing and waving and basking in the glow of his greatest triumph, his wife was lying on an operating table forty-five minutes away, bleeding out, alone, making a choice that should have been his to make.
He didn't know any of it.
And so he was happy. Genuinely, completely, blissfully happy. The last happy moment of his life.
The ending ment was his favorite part of any concert.
The lights dimmed slightly, signaling the transition. The backing track faded to a soft, ambient hum. The members, his brothers, his family for the past decade, stepped back, giving him space. They knew this was his moment. They'd watched him pour his soul into this show, and now they stood in a loose semicircle behind him, proud and protective, letting him have the spotlight one last time.
San lifted the mic to his lips. The crowd quieted, but only slightly. He could still hear individual screams cutting through the murmur, fans calling his name from different sections of the stadium.
He didn't mind. He loved their voices. He loved their energy. He loved that they were still so full of emotion after three hours of singing and crying and losing themselves in the music.
"I don't..." he started, then stopped, laughing at himself. The crowd screamed louder, as if trying to give him their words, their love, their everything. "I don't have the words."
He did, though. He always had the words. He was the one who stayed up late writing in his journal, the one who poured his feelings into lyrics and poems and rambling letters that he'd never send. But right now, standing here, looking out at the galaxy of light sticks and tear-streaked faces, the words felt too small. They felt like trying to catch the ocean in a cup.
"Every single one of you." He gestured broadly, sweeping his arm across the entire stadium. "Every face I can see and every heart I can feel. You made this. You made me. This moment is ours. Not mine. Ours."
His voice cracked on the last word. He wasn't ashamed of it. He let the tears well up in his eyes, let them spill over his lashes, let them trace clean tracks through the sweat and makeup on his cheeks. He had never been afraid to cry in front of his fans. It was one of the things they loved about him, his openness, his vulnerability, the way he wore his heart on his sleeve like a badge of honor.
"I've dreamed about this night for so long," he continued, his voice growing steadier, more earnest. "Since I was a kid. Since I first saw a stage like this on television and thought, I want to be there. I want to stand there and feel what that feels like. And now I'm here. And it's... it's more than I ever imagined. It's bigger. It's brighter. It's more."
He paused, his hand drifting unconsciously to his wedding ring again. The camera caught the movement and projected it onto the massive screens flanking the stage. The crowd screamed. They loved the ring. They loved what it represented, the softness beneath the fierce performer, the private love story behind the public persona.
"This," San said, his voice dropping into something quieter, something intimate, "is for my universe."
The screams hit a fever pitch, but San kept going, his eyes fixed on a point just above the cameras, as if he could see through the lens and across the city to wherever you were watching.
"You know who you are. You're probably at home right now, watching this on your phone with your feet up because your ankles are swollen and you keep texting me to stop jumping around because it makes you nervous." The crowd laughed, a warm, knowing ripple. "But you also told me to go out there and give it everything. You told me to shine. So this... this is me shining. This is me giving it everything. For you. For our little one. For the family we're building together."
He pressed his hand to his heart. The ring glinted under the stage lights.
"I'll be home soon," he said. "Wait for me."
The crowd erupted. The members behind him stepped forward, wrapping their arms around his shoulders, pulling him into a group hug that was part celebration and part comfort. San laughed, the tears still streaming down his face, and let himself be held.
He didn't know that the livestream you were supposed to be watching was playing to an empty hospital room. He didn't know that your phone was sitting on a table in the operating wing, its screen cracked where it had fallen, still connected to the broadcast, his voice echoing unheard through the sterile hallways. He didn't know that your mother was clutching your phone in both hands, sobbing, trying to get through to his manager, to anyone, to someone who could reach him before it was too late.
He didn't know any of it.
He just bowed, deep and long, letting the roar of the crowd wash over him one final time before he turned and walked off stage.
It was always chaos after a show like this, but tonight it felt different. Bigger. More electric. Staff members were running in every direction, their faces flushed with adrenaline and exhaustion. Stylists descended on him the moment he stepped through the curtain, unclipping his mic pack, dabbing at his forehead with towels, handing him a bottle of water that he grabbed gratefully. The members were scattered around the backstage area, some collapsed on couches, others still bouncing with residual energy.
San was floating.
That was the only way to describe it. He felt like he was walking six inches off the ground, his body buzzing with a joy so pure it was almost unbearable. He accepted the water, took a long drink, then threw his head back and laughed.
"Did you hear them?" he said to no one in particular, to everyone, to the universe. "Did you feel that? I can't believe we pulled off that high note. My throat is absolutely wrecked. I need honey tea. No, I need a whole gallon of honey tea. Someone get me honey tea. Does anyone have honey tea?"
A staff member laughed and promised to find some. San grinned and clapped him on the shoulder, then turned to the nearest manager.
"Did someone record the ending? I need to watch it back. I think I blacked out for a second. I think I ascended to another plane of existence. I think I saw the face of God and it looked like a sea of light sticks."
The manager laughed, typing something into his tablet. "We've got multiple angles. I'll have the editors send you the rough cut by tomorrow."
"Tomorrow's too late. I need it tonight. I need to show-" He stopped, his grin widening. "I need to show my wife. She's going to kill me for making her worry about the high note, but she's also going to be proud. She's going to be so proud."
He was rambling. He knew he was rambling. But he couldn't stop. The words were spilling out of him like water from a broken dam, all the joy and relief and exhilaration that had been building for months finally finding release.
A junior staffer approached him, holding out his personal phone. She looked young, an intern, maybe, or someone new to the team. She was holding the phone carefully, almost reverently, like it was something precious.
San glanced at it and waved her off with a grin.
"Give me five minutes," he said. "Let me breathe first."
The staffer hesitated. Something flickered in her eyes, uncertainty, maybe, or unease, but it was gone before San could register it. She nodded and stepped back, still holding the phone.
San didn't notice the way her hands were trembling slightly. He didn't notice the way she exchanged a quick, nervous glance with the manager. He was too happy. Too high on adrenaline. Too completely, blissfully unaware.
He turned away and headed toward his private dressing room, already unbuttoning the stifling stage jacket as he walked. The fabric was heavy with sweat, clinging to his skin. He couldn't wait to shower. He couldn't wait to change into something comfortable. He couldn't wait to call you and hear your voice and let you tease him about how dramatic he'd been on stage, how many times he'd cried, how he'd almost tripped during the second song and tried to play it off like a dance move.
It was small but comfortable, furnished with a couch, a vanity, a rack of spare outfits, and a mini-fridge stocked with water and snacks. The walls were soundproofed, which meant the chaos of the backstage area was reduced to a muffled hum. The lights were dimmer here, softer. It smelled like lavender from the diffuser someone had set up earlier.
San closed the door behind him and let out a long, shaky breath. The adrenaline was starting to fade now, leaving behind a pleasant, heavy exhaustion. His muscles ached. His throat burned. His feet were killing him. But he was happy. He was so, so happy.
He collapsed onto the couch, letting his body sink into the cushions. The stage jacket, a glittering, custom-made piece that had cost more than his first car, was half-unbuttoned, hanging open over his sweat-soaked undershirt. He didn't bother taking it off. He just lay there, staring at the ceiling, a lazy grin still tugging at the corners of his mouth.
I did it, he thought. I actually did it.
He thought about the high note. He thought about the roar of the crowd. He thought about the confetti falling like snow. He thought about the way the light sticks had looked, a galaxy of stars, an ocean of light. He thought about the ending ment, the words he'd spoken directly to you through the camera, the promise he'd made.
I'll be home soon. Wait for me.
A flicker of something soft and warm passed through his chest. He let his eyes close, just for a moment, and imagined you watching the livestream at home. You'd be curled up on the couch, probably, with your favorite blanket and a cup of the herbal tea the doctor said was safe during pregnancy. Your ankles would be propped up on pillows because they'd been swelling lately, and you'd be rubbing your belly absentmindedly, the way you always did when you were focused on something.
She probably fell asleep halfway through, he thought, and the fondness in his chest swelled until it almost hurt. Pregnancy exhaustion and all that. I'll tease her about it tomorrow. I'll kiss her forehead and tell her she missed the best part. She'll roll her eyes and say she saw the important bits, and I'll demand to know which bits those were, and she'll list all the parts where I almost tripped or messed up a lyric.
And then I'll kiss her again.
He smiled, his eyes still closed, and let himself float in the fantasy for a moment. The domesticity of it. The ordinariness. The way the greatest night of his professional life could end with something as simple as coming home to you.
This is what happiness feels like, he thought. Not just the stage. Not just the crowd. But the quiet moments too. The moments no one else gets to see. I have both. I have everything.
He was so wrong. He was so catastrophically, heartbreakingly wrong, and he didn't know it yet.
The junior staffer was still standing outside his door, holding his phone. She was staring at the screen, her face pale, her eyes wide with horror. The notifications were still coming in, a relentless, screaming flood of calls and texts that had been piling up for over an hour. She had tried to give him the phone. He had waved her off. Give me five minutes, he'd said, grinning like a man who had everything.
She didn't know what to do. She was just an intern. She wasn't supposed to be the one delivering news like this. But the phone wouldn't stop buzzing, and the messages on the preview screen were getting worse, and she could hear San's muffled laughter through the dressing room door, and she didn't know how to tell him that his wife was dying.
So she stood there, frozen, clutching the phone like a grenade with the pin already pulled.
And San, blissfully, mercifully unaware, reached lazily for his own phone, the backup he kept in his bag, the one he used for music and notes and mindless scrolling when he couldn't sleep.
He pulled it out, still grinning, still floating, and swiped it open.
For a long moment, too long, an eternity compressed into the space between two heartbeats, San simply stared at the screen. His brain refused to process what it was seeing. The grin stayed frozen on his face, but it had become something else now, something hollow and confused, the smile of a man who hadn't yet realized he was in free fall.
473 missed calls.
That couldn't be right. That was a glitch. A phone error. Maybe his number had been leaked and fans were spamming him, or maybe there was something wrong with the network, or maybe,Â
He looked at the caller ID list.
"Mom-In-Law â¤ď¸" , the heart emoji you'd added to her contact years ago, because you said she deserved it, because she was the sweetest woman you'd ever met and you wanted everyone to know it.
87 missed calls.
His stomach dropped. A physical sensation. A cold, sickening lurch that made his fingers go numb around the phone.
His own mother. 41 missed calls.
Your sister. 56 missed calls.
Numbers he didn't recognize. Dozens of them. Some with local area codes. Some with the hospital prefix he'd memorized during your first prenatal visit.
The text notifications were worse.
They crowded the preview screen in truncated fragments, each one a shard of a nightmare he hadn't known he was living. He couldn't read them all at once. His eyes could only catch pieces, jagged and horrifying, bleeding into each other.
Pick up pick up pick up
Baby in distress
Where are you San please
Emergency C-section NOW
They need you here
Please god please answer
She's asking for you
Losing her
San where are you
She waited
They're asking her to choose
She said you're not here
She said you're not here to decide
Where are you
Where are you
Where are you
The towel, when had he grabbed a towel?, fell from his face. He didn't remember putting it there. He didn't remember anything. The world had lost all sound. The triumphant cheers still echoing from the stadium, the muffled chatter of staff outside his door, the hum of the air conditioning, all of it vanished, replaced by a high-pitched ringing that filled his skull like a scream.
His hand started to shake.
He tried to unlock the phone. His fingers slipped on the passcode, once, twice, three times. A simple act made impossible by pure, unadulterated terror. He couldn't breathe. His chest had turned to concrete. The glittering jacket he was still wearing, the one that had felt like armor on stage, was now suffocating him, a costume of a person who didn't exist anymore.
He finally managed to open the phone. His hands were trembling so badly he could barely hold it steady. He pressed your mother's contact and lifted it to his ear.
She picked up on the first ring.
She wasn't crying.
That was the first thing he noticed. She wasn't crying. Her voice was a raw, hollowed-out shell, the voice of someone who had been screaming into a void for over an hour and had nothing left to give. It was worse than crying. It was so much worse.
"San."
Just his name. That was all she said. And in that single syllable, he heard everything.
"Eomma." His voice, the voice that had commanded a stadium full of thousands, was barely a whisper. It cracked on the second syllable, splintering into something small and terrified. "What... what happened? What's going on? Is she okay? Is the baby-"
"She waited for you."
Your mother's voice cracked, but didn't break. It was beyond breaking.
"As long as she could. The labor started early. There were complications, the placenta, something about the placenta, I don't-" She stopped. Swallowed. He could hear her breathing, ragged and uneven. "They had to do an emergency C-section. She was bleeding too much. They... they asked her what to do if it came down to it. If they could only save..."
She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't have to.
San's vision went white at the edges. The phone was slipping in his sweaty grip, but he couldn't tighten his fingers. He couldn't move.
"She told them you weren't there to decide."
The words landed like a physical blow. He felt them in his chest, in his stomach, in the back of his throat where a scream was building that wouldn't come out.
"What does that mean?" His voice was rising now, hysteria clawing at the edges. "What does that mean, what do you mean she told them that, what happened? What happened to her?"
"The baby is in the NICU."
The baby is in the NICU.
Not they're fine. Not she's resting. Not everyone is okay, just get here when you can.
The baby is in the NICU.
"And-" He couldn't say it. He couldn't form the words. His lips moved around your name, a name he'd whispered a thousand times, a name he'd laughed into pillows and sung into microphones and prayed into the darkness of early mornings. But the sound wouldn't come. It was stuck in his throat, trapped behind the concrete that had filled his chest.
There was a long, terrible silence on the other end of the line. A silence that told him everything he needed to know. A silence that confirmed the worst thing he had never imagined.
"I'm so sorry, San."
The phone slipped from his hand.
He didn't drop it. It just... fell. His fingers had stopped working. It clattered onto the floor, face-up, the screen still glowing. Your mother's voice was still speaking from the speaker, distant and tinny, words that he couldn't hear anymore over the roaring in his ears.
He sat there on the couch in his dressing room. Still in his stage clothes. Still covered in the sweat of his greatest triumph. Still smelling of confetti and adrenaline and joy. The glittering jacket hung open over his undershirt. His hair was damp and disheveled. His makeup was smeared from the tears he'd cried on stage, happy tears, grateful tears, tears of pure, overwhelming joy.
Those tears were still wet on his cheeks.
He could see himself in the vanity mirror across the room. A man in a beautiful jacket, sitting on a couch, staring at a phone on the floor. A man who had been a god ten minutes ago. A man who had stood on the summit of his entire existence and thought, Nothing has ever felt this good. Nothing ever will.
He had been right about one thing.
Nothing would ever feel that good again.
The high-pitched ringing in his ears grew louder, drowning out everything else. The muffled chatter outside the door. The distant thump of music from the after-party he was supposed to attend. The tinny, faraway sound of your mother's voice still calling his name through the phone on the floor.
San. San, are you there? San, please say something. San,Â
He didn't answer.
He couldn't.
He just sat there, frozen, a boy in a glittering jacket, drowning in a silence louder than any ovation.
It was the junior staffer, the intern who had tried to give him his phone earlier. She was still holding it, his personal phone, the one with 473 missed calls. Her face was pale. Her eyes were red. She had been crying.
"San-ssi?" Her voice was small. Trembling. "I'm so sorry. I tried to, earlier, I tried to give you, I didn't know-"
She stopped. She didn't know what to say. There was nothing to say.
San didn't look at her. He didn't move. He just stared at the phone on the floor, at the screen that was still lit up with your mother's contact photo, a picture of her smiling, holding a plate of the homemade dumplings she'd made for his birthday last year.
"She's gone," he said.
It wasn't a question. It wasn't even really a statement. It was just... words. Sounds. His voice was flat, empty, completely devoid of the emotion that had poured out of him on stage just minutes ago.
The staffer didn't answer. She didn't have to.
San bent down, slowly, mechanically, like a man moving through water, and picked up the phone from the floor. Your mother's voice was still coming through the speaker, but it had dissolved into sobs now. He pressed the phone to his ear.
"Eomma," he said. "I'm coming. I'm coming right now. Just, tell her I'm coming. Tell her to wait for me. Tell her-"
Tell her I'm coming. Tell her to wait.
But she had already waited. She had waited as long as she could, alone in a sterile room full of strangers, bleeding out on an operating table, making a choice that should have been his. She had waited, and he hadn't come, and now there was nothing left to wait for.
"San." Your mother's voice, thick with grief and exhaustion. "San, she's already-"
"I know." His voice broke. Finally, completely, shattered into a thousand pieces. "I know. I know. I just, I need to see her. I need to see her. Please."
He was already standing. Already moving toward the door. The staffer stepped aside, pressing herself against the wall to let him pass. He walked out into the backstage chaos, the same chaos he had laughed and floated through just fifteen minutes ago, and this time, no one tried to stop him.
They saw his face.
They saw the phone pressed to his ear, the tears streaming down his cheeks, the glittering jacket still hanging open over his sweat-soaked shirt. They saw the man who had been a god on stage just minutes ago, and they saw what he had become.
No one said a word.
The car was waiting outside. Someone must have called it. Someone must have known. San didn't remember getting in. He didn't remember the doors closing or the engine starting or the city lights blurring past the window. He just remembers the phone call. Your mother's voice, still on the line, still saying his name, still trying to reach him through the impossible distance between joy and devastation.
"It's a girl," she said, her voice cracking. "The baby, it's a girl. She's so small, San. She's so small. But she's alive. She's fighting. They said she's a fighter."
A daughter.
He had a daughter.
You had given him a daughter.
And you had died alone, without him, because he had been on a stage, bowing to applause, thinking about how nothing had ever felt this good.
He pressed his forehead against the cold window of the car and closed his eyes.
Wait for me, he had said on stage, just minutes ago, a lifetime ago. I'll be home soon. Wait for me.
But you couldn't wait. You had tried, god, you had tried, but the choice had been yours to make alone, and now the waiting was over.
And all that was left was the silence. The empty seat beside him. The city lights blurring past in streaks of gold and white. The distant, echoing roar of a crowd that was still cheering, somewhere far behind him, for a man who didn't exist anymore.
The hospital rose out of the darkness like a monument to everything he had already lost.
San didn't remember the drive. The city had blurred past the car window in streaks of neon and shadow, headlights and streetlamps bleeding into each other like watercolors left out in the rain. He had pressed his forehead against the cold glass and closed his eyes and tried to breathe, but every inhale felt like swallowing shards of glass. The phone was still clutched in his hand, your mother's voice long gone, replaced by silence and the distant, tinny echo of his own heartbeat.
Now the car was stopped. The engine was still running. The driver was saying something, We're here, sir, this is the entrance, do you need help, should I park, but the words didn't reach him. They were sounds without meaning, floating in the dead space between one moment and the next.
San opened the car door and stepped out into the night.
The air hit him first. Cold and sharp, smelling of antiseptic and exhaust fumes and the faint, sweet rot of garbage from the alley behind the emergency bay. It was nothing like the air on stage, the heat of the lights, the smoke from the pyrotechnics, the sweat and perfume and electricity of sixty thousand bodies pressed together in adoration. That air had been alive. This air was sterile. Hollow. The air of a place where people came to die.
He was still wearing the stage jacket.
He realized it distantly, the way you realize you've left the stove on or forgotten your keys. The glittering, custom-made jacket that had cost more than his first car, the one that had felt like armor under the spotlight, was still hanging open over his sweat-soaked undershirt. The sequins caught the fluorescent glare of the hospital entrance, winking obscenely, a mockery of celebration. He should take it off. He should have taken it off in the car. He should have changed into something normal, something human, something that didn't scream. I was just on stage while my wife was dying.
But he couldn't stop to take it off. He couldn't stop at all. If he stopped, even for a second, he would have to think about what was waiting for him inside. And if he thought about it, he would shatter. And if he shattered, he would never be able to put himself back together.
The automatic doors slid open with a pneumatic hiss, and the full fluorescent assault of the emergency room hit him like a slap. White walls. White floors. White lights that buzzed faintly at the edge of hearing, a sound like insects trapped inside the ceiling. The waiting area was half-full, a woman clutching a crying toddler, an elderly man with a bloodstained bandage wrapped around his hand, a teenager slumped in a plastic chair with her hood pulled up over her face. They all looked up when he walked in.
He saw the moment recognition flickered across their faces. The double-takes. The widening eyes. The whispered murmurs. Is that, no, it can't be, wait, is that Choi San? What is he doing here? Why is he dressed like that? Is that stage makeup? Is he crying?
He didn't care. He didn't care about any of it. Let them stare. Let them whisper. Let them pull out their phones and take pictures and post them online with captions like OMG Choi San just walked into the ER looking WRECKED, what happened?? None of it mattered. None of it would ever matter again.
He walked straight to the front desk. The nurse behind the counter looked up, her professional smile freezing on her face as she registered his appearance, the glittering jacket, the smeared makeup, the wild, desperate look in his eyes.
"Sir, can I help-"
"My wife." His voice came out as a croak, raw and shredded from three hours of singing. "She was brought in. Emergency C-section. Her name is-" He said your name. Your full name. The name he had whispered on your wedding day, the name he had written in the margins of his lyrics, the name he had shouted to the stadium just an hour ago when he told the world that you were his universe.
The nurse's expression flickered. Something passed through her eyes, recognition, pity, dread, and she turned to her computer, her fingers flying across the keyboard.
"Are you family?"
"I'm her husband."
A pause. The keyboard stopped clicking. The nurse looked up at him again, and this time her professional mask slipped. Just for a second. Just enough for him to see the sorrow underneath.
"Sir, I need you to wait here for just a moment. I'm going to call someone to come speak with you."
"No." The word came out harder than he intended, edged with something dangerously close to fury. "No, I'm not waiting. I've been waiting. I've been-" He stopped. Swallowed. His hands were shaking again, gripping the edge of the counter so hard his knuckles had gone white. "Please. Please just tell me where she is. Please."
The nurse hesitated. She looked at him, really looked at him, at the tears cutting tracks through his stage makeup, at the trembling hands, at the glittering jacket that suddenly seemed obscene in the harsh hospital light, and something in her face softened.
"Third floor," she said quietly. "Maternity ward. Room 314. But sir-" She reached out as if to touch his arm, then thought better of it. "There's a family waiting room. Your mother-in-law is there. She's been waiting for you."
San didn't thank her. He didn't say anything at all. He just turned and walked toward the elevators, his footsteps echoing on the linoleum, the glittering jacket catching the light with every step.
The doors closed, sealing him into a small metal box with mirrored walls and a Muzak version of a song he vaguely recognized but couldn't name. The music was soft and cheerful, utterly indifferent to the fact that his entire world had collapsed. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirrored wall and almost didn't recognize the reflection.
His hair was disheveled, plastered to his forehead with dried sweat. His stage makeup, the smoky eyeliner, the subtle contouring, the lip tint that was supposed to look natural under the lights, was smeared and streaked, turning his face into a grotesque mask. The glittering jacket hung open over a shirt that was soaked through with sweat, clinging to his chest and stomach. He looked like a man who had been to a party and stumbled into a nightmare.
He looked like a man who had been celebrating while his wife was dying.
The elevator dinged. The doors slid open. San stepped out into the third-floor hallway and immediately saw your mother.
She was sitting in a plastic chair outside a waiting room, her posture rigid, her hands clasped in her lap like a child waiting for punishment. She looked older than he remembered. Older than she had looked two days ago, when she'd come over for dinner and helped you fold baby clothes and teased San about his inability to assemble the crib. Her face was pale and drawn, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen. She was still wearing the same clothes from earlier, a simple blouse and slacks, now wrinkled and stained with something dark that San's brain refused to identify.
She looked up when she heard his footsteps.
"San."
Her voice was barely a whisper. She stood up, her movements slow and unsteady, like a woman who had aged ten years in a single night. She reached for him, her hands trembling, and San, San, who had been holding himself together by the thinnest of threads since the moment he'd seen those 473 missed calls, felt something inside him crack.
"Where is she?" he asked. His voice was still flat. Still empty. He couldn't let the emotion in yet. If he let it in, he would drown. "Where is she? I need to see her."
Your mother's face crumpled. She pressed a hand to her mouth, her shoulders shaking with a sob she was trying desperately to suppress.
"They're... they're still..." She couldn't finish. She took a shaky breath and tried again. "The baby is in the NICU. She's... she's so small, San. But she's alive. She's fighting. They said she's a fighter."
The baby. His daughter. The child you had carried for eight months, the child you had talked to in the quiet hours of the night when you thought he was sleeping, the child you had promised to love and protect and raise together. She was alive. She was fighting.
But you,Â
"And my wife?" San's voice cracked on the word, splintering into something raw and desperate. "Where is my wife?"
Your mother looked at him. Just looked at him. And in her eyes, he saw the answer.
"No," he said. The word came out before he could stop it, a reflex, a denial, a prayer. "No. No, she's, she was fine, she was fine when I talked to her, she told me to go, she told me she'd be okay-"
"They did everything they could." Your mother's voice broke completely, dissolving into tears. "There was so much blood. The placenta, it detached, they said. They couldn't stop the bleeding. They had to... they had to get the baby out, and by the time they..."
She couldn't finish. She didn't have to.
San felt his legs give out. He didn't fall, not quite, but he stumbled, his shoulder hitting the wall, his hand reaching out to brace himself against the cold, sterile surface. The hallway tilted. The fluorescent lights flickered. The Muzak from the elevator was still playing somewhere in the distance, soft and cheerful and utterly indifferent.
"She asked for you." Your mother's voice came from very far away, muffled and distorted, like she was speaking through water. "Before they took her in. She was scared, San. She was so scared. But she kept saying... she kept saying you needed to finish the show. She said this was your dream. She said she'd be fine. She said she'd wait for you."
Wait for me.
That was what he'd said on stage. I'll be home soon. Wait for me.
And she had waited. She had waited as long as she could, alone and terrified, bleeding out on an operating table while strangers shouted and monitors screamed and a choice was made that should have been his. She had waited, and he hadn't come, and now,Â
"Where is she?" His voice was a rasp, barely recognizable. "Where is she now? I need to see her. Please. Please, I need to see her."
Your mother wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She nodded, a jerky, unsteady motion, and pointed down the hallway.
"Room 314. They... they cleaned her up. They said you could see her whenever you were ready."
Ready. As if there was any way to be ready for this. As if there was any amount of preparation that could make it bearable to walk into a room and see the person you loved most in the world lying still and silent and gone.
But San didn't say that. He just pushed himself off the wall and started walking.
It was an unremarkable door, the same pale beige as every other door in the hallway, with a small placard that read 314 in plain black lettering. There was nothing about it that suggested tragedy. Nothing that hinted at the devastation waiting on the other side. It was just a door. An ordinary door. The kind of door you might walk through a hundred times without ever thinking twice.
San stood in front of it and couldn't move.
His hand was on the handle. He didn't remember putting it there. His fingers were wrapped around the cold metal, but he couldn't make them turn. Couldn't make them push. Couldn't make himself cross the threshold from the world where you might still be alive to the world where you definitely weren't.
Because as long as he stayed on this side of the door, there was still a chance. A tiny, irrational, impossible chance that this was all a mistake. A misunderstanding. A nightmare that he would wake up from any second now, gasping and disoriented, reaching for you in the dark. You would stir beside him, warm and sleepy and alive, and you would murmur what's wrong and he would say nothing, just a bad dream and you would curl into his chest and fall back asleep and everything would be okay.
But the door was real. The handle was cold. The fluorescent lights were buzzing overhead. And when he pushed the door open, there would be no waking up.
Not the absence of sound, the hospital was full of sounds, the distant beeping of monitors, the muffled footsteps of nurses in the hallway, the soft whoosh of the ventilation system. But this room was silent in a way that had nothing to do with noise. It was the silence of absence. The silence of a space that had been emptied of something irreplaceable.
The second thing he noticed was the light.
The overhead fluorescents were off, replaced by a small lamp on the bedside table that cast the room in soft, golden shadows. The blinds were drawn, blocking out the city lights and the distant glow of the stadium where, somewhere, the after-party was still going on without him. The room was dim and quiet and almost peaceful, like a chapel. Like a tomb.
The third thing he noticed was you.
You were lying on the hospital bed, your body covered by a clean white sheet pulled up to your chest. Your arms were arranged at your sides, your hands folded neatly on top of the blanket. Someone had washed the blood away. Someone had brushed your hair and arranged it on the pillow. Someone had closed your eyes.
You looked like you were sleeping.
That was the cruelest part. You didn't look dead. You didn't look like a body, a corpse, a shell emptied of its soul. You looked like yourself, the same face he had kissed a thousand times, the same hands he had held in the dark, the same lips that had smiled at him through a video call just hours ago and told him to shine. You looked like you might open your eyes at any moment and smile at him and ask how the concert went.
But you wouldn't. You wouldn't open your eyes. You wouldn't smile at him. You wouldn't ask him anything, ever again.
San didn't remember crossing the room.
One moment he was standing in the doorway, frozen, his hand still on the handle. The next moment he was beside the bed, his knees hitting the cold linoleum floor with a thud that he felt in his bones. He reached for your hand, your hand, your beautiful hand, the hand that had held his on your wedding day, the hand that had rested on your growing belly for months, the hand that had waved at him from the video call and blown him a kiss and signed off with an I love you that he hadn't known would be the last.
It was cold.
Your hand was cold.
San had held your hand a thousand times. He knew the warmth of it, the way your fingers would curl around his, the way you would trace patterns on his palm when you were nervous or thoughtful or just wanted to touch him. He knew the calluses on your fingertips from years of writing, the small scar on your thumb from a kitchen accident, the way your knuckles would crack when you stretched your fingers in the morning.
He knew your hand better than he knew his own.
And now it was cold. A cold that had nothing to do with the hospital air conditioning, nothing to do with the chill of the room. It was the cold of absence. The cold of a body that had stopped being a body and become something else. Something empty. Something gone.
"No," he whispered.
He pressed your hand to his cheek, cradling it against his skin as if he could warm it with his own warmth, as if he could pour enough of himself into you to bring you back.
"No, no, no. Please. Please. I'm here. I'm here now. I came as fast as I could. I'm sorry I'm late. I'm sorry. Please wake up. Please. Just... just open your eyes. Please open your eyes. I need you to open your eyes. Please."
He was begging. He was on his knees on a hospital floor, still in his stage clothes, still covered in the sweat of his greatest triumph, and he was begging your lifeless body to wake up. He was pressing kisses to your cold knuckles, your cold palm, your cold wrist where there was no pulse and never would be again. He was sobbing, ugly, gasping, animal sounds that tore themselves out of his chest without permission, sounds he didn't recognize as his own.
"I should have been here. I should have been here. You told me to go and I went and I should have, I should have stayed. I should have told them to cancel the show. I should have been on the first flight home the moment you said you weren't feeling well. I should have, I should have been here. You needed me and I was on a stage. I was singing. I was bowing. I was so happy, I was so-"
His voice broke. Shattered completely into silence. He pressed his forehead to your cold hand, his tears soaking into the white sheet, and he couldn't speak anymore. There were no words for this. There was no language for the magnitude of what he had lost.
He stayed like that for a long time. Minutes. Hours. An eternity compressed into the space between his heartbeat and your silence. He held your hand. He pressed kisses to your cold fingers. He whispered your name over and over and over like a prayer, like an incantation, like if he said it enough times you might hear him and come back.
But you didn't come back. You couldn't. You were gone, and he was here, and the distance between the living and the dead was one he would spend the rest of his life trying to bridge.
At some point, he didn't know when, he started talking.
Not to anyone in particular. Not even to you, really. Just... talking. The words poured out of him in a broken, halting stream, fragments of memory and grief and guilt all tangled together.
"I'm sorry I didn't come sooner. I didn't know. I didn't know, I swear I didn't know. They didn't tell me. My phone was off. I was on stage and my phone was off and I didn't, if I had known, I would have, I would have been here. I would have been here. You know that, right? You know I would have been here?"
He paused, as if waiting for an answer. The silence that followed was its own response.
"The high note," he said, and a hysterical laugh bubbled up in his throat, choking and wrong. "I hit the high note. The one I was so scared of. The one I've been practicing for months. I hit it. I hit it perfectly. The crowd went insane. They were screaming so loud I couldn't hear myself think. And I thought, I thought this is it, this is the best moment of my life, nothing will ever compete."
His voice cracked. The laugh turned into a sob.
"Nothing will ever compete. That's what I thought. I thought I was at the peak. I thought I had everything. And the whole time, you were, you were here, you were alone, you were-"
He couldn't finish. He pressed his forehead harder against your hand, his shoulders shaking with the force of his sobs.
"They asked you to choose." His voice was barely a whisper now, muffled against the sheet. "They asked you to choose, and I wasn't here. You had to make that choice alone. You had to decide alone. And I was, I was taking a bow. I was waving at the crowd. I was thinking about how happy I was."
He lifted his head. His eyes were red and swollen, his face streaked with tears and smeared makeup. He looked at your face, your peaceful, sleeping, impossibly still face, and he felt something inside him splinter.
"It should have been me," he said. "If someone had to... it should have been me. Not you. You were going to be such a good mother. You were already a good mother. You talked to her every night. You sang to her. You read her stories even though she couldn't understand them yet. You loved her so much. You loved her so much and now you'll never get to hold her and it's my fault. It's my fault."
He was shaking. His whole body was trembling, his hands still clutching yours like a lifeline, like the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth.
"She's beautiful," he said, his voice breaking on the word. "Mom, your mom told me. She's beautiful and she's small and she's fighting. She's a fighter. Just like you. You would be so proud of her. I'm going to... I'm going to take care of her. I'm going to raise her. I'm going to tell her every day how much you loved her. I'm going to show her pictures and videos. I'm going to make sure she knows who you were. I promise. I promise."
He pressed a kiss to your knuckles. Then your palm. Then the inside of your wrist, where your pulse should have been.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry. I love you. I love you so much. I'll never stop loving you. Never. Not ever. You're my universe. You were always my universe. Not the stage. Not the crowd. Not the lights. You. Only you. And I didn't... I didn't tell you enough. I didn't show you enough. I spent so much time chasing that stupid dream, and the whole time, the only dream that mattered was you."
He fell silent. The room fell silent. The whole world fell silent.
And in the silence, San knelt beside your bed, holding your cold hand, and let the weight of everything he had lost settle over him like a shroud.
Time had stopped meaning anything. The clock on the wall ticked on, indifferent, but San couldn't hear it. The only thing that existed was your face, your hand, the unbearable stillness of your chest. He memorized every detail, the curve of your eyebrows, the sweep of your lashes against your cheeks, the small scar on your chin from a childhood fall. He memorized them because he was terrified of forgetting. Terrified that one day he would close his eyes and not be able to picture you exactly as you were in this moment.
He was still there when the door opened.
He didn't turn around. He didn't acknowledge the soft footsteps, the quiet click of the door closing, the gentle throat-clearing of someone who didn't want to intrude but had no choice.
"San-ssi?"
A nurse. Her voice was soft, kind, the voice of someone who had done this many times before and knew there was no right way to say what she needed to say.
"I'm so sorry to interrupt. But the baby... your daughter... the NICU team is asking if you'd like to see her. She's stable. She's doing well, all things considered. And we thought... we thought you might want to meet her."
His daughter.
The baby you had carried for eight months. The baby you had talked to and sung to and loved with every fiber of your being. The baby whose life had been bought with yours.
He should want to see her. He did want to see her. But the thought of leaving this room, of letting go of your hand, of walking away from you, of accepting that you were really gone, felt like a betrayal.
"I can't," he whispered. "I can't leave her."
The nurse was quiet for a moment. Then she stepped closer, her shoes making soft sounds on the linoleum.
"She'll still be here when you come back," she said gently. "We'll take care of her. I promise. But your daughter... she's been waiting to meet you too."
She's been waiting.
The words hit him like a punch to the chest. You had waited for him. You had waited as long as you could, and he hadn't come, and now you were gone. But your daughter, your daughter was still waiting. Your daughter was still alive. Your daughter was still fighting.
And she deserved to meet her father.
San looked at your face one more time. He memorized the peace in your expression, the way your lips curved just slightly at the corners, as if you had fallen asleep in the middle of a happy dream. He pressed one last kiss to your cold forehead, letting his lips linger there for a long, trembling moment.
"I'll be back," he whispered. "I promise. I'll be back. Wait for me."
Wait for me.
The same words he'd said on stage, a lifetime ago. The same words you couldn't keep. But he would keep them. He would come back. He would sit beside you until they made him leave, and then he would come back again, and again, and again, until the day he could finally join you wherever you had gone.
He let go of your hand.
It was the hardest thing he had ever done. Harder than any choreography. Harder than any high note. Harder than any of the sacrifices he had made to become the man standing on that stage tonight. Letting go of your hand felt like letting go of gravity. Like he might float away into the void without you to anchor him.
But he did it. He let go. He stood up on legs that barely felt like his own. He turned away from your bed and walked toward the door, where the nurse was waiting with sad eyes and a gentle, pitying smile.
"Take me to her," he said, his voice raw and empty. "Take me to my daughter."
San followed the nurse through a maze of hallways and elevators, his footsteps mechanical, his mind somewhere far away. The glittering stage jacket was gone now, someone had found him a plain hoodie, a pair of sweatpants, something that didn't scream I was just on stage while my world ended. He didn't remember changing. He didn't remember who had given him the clothes. He didn't remember anything except the cold of your hand and the silence of your chest and the way your lips had curved just slightly at the corners, like you were dreaming.
The nurse walked a few steps ahead of him, her shoes squeaking softly on the linoleum. She didn't try to make conversation. She didn't offer platitudes or condolences or empty reassurances. She just walked, steady and calm, leading him toward the one thing that might still tether him to the world.
The NICU doors were heavy. Reinforced. They swung open with a low pneumatic hiss, and suddenly the air changed. It was warmer here, more humid. It smelled different too, less like antiseptic and more like something soft and clean. Baby powder. Sterile blankets. The faint, sweet scent of new life.
"Your daughter is in Bay 7," the nurse said quietly. "You'll need to scrub in before you can hold her. I'll show you where."
The scrubbing-in process was methodical. Familiar, almost, in the way that routines could be comforting even in the midst of devastation. Warm water. Soap up to the elbows. A disposable gown over the hoodie. Gloves. A mask. The nurse talked him through it with the practiced patience of someone who had done this a hundred times, and San let her voice wash over him without really hearing it. He was somewhere else. He was still in room 314. He was still holding your hand.
But then the nurse led him through another set of doors, and he stepped into the NICU proper, and everything else fell away.
The room was dim. Not dark, but dim, soft lighting designed to mimic the womb, to ease tiny bodies into a world they weren't ready for. The walls were lined with incubators, each one a small plastic box filled with wires and tubes and monitors that beeped in quiet, constant rhythms. Parents sat in rocking chairs beside some of them, their faces exhausted and hopeful and terrified all at once. Nurses moved between the bays with quiet efficiency, checking vitals, adjusting tubes, murmuring softly to babies too small to understand.
And there, in Bay 7, was his daughter.
San stopped walking.
His feet simply stopped moving, rooted to the floor like the linoleum had risen up and swallowed him whole. He couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. He could only stare at the incubator, at the tiny creature inside it, at the life that you had given him at the cost of your own.
She was so small.
That was the first thought that broke through the static in his mind. She was so impossibly, terrifyingly small. Her body was barely longer than his hand, her limbs thin and fragile, her skin so translucent he could see the faint blue tracery of veins beneath it. She was swaddled in a tiny blanket, a knitted cap pulled over her head, and her eyes were closed, fused shut, the nurse had explained, the way premature babies' eyes often were.
But her chest was rising and falling. Her tiny fingers were curled into fists. Her mouth, a rosebud, a perfect miniature bow, was pursed slightly, as if she was dreaming of something important.
She was alive.
After everything, after the hemorrhage and the emergency surgery and the frantic fight to save them both, she was alive. She was fighting. She was here.
"Would you like to sit down?" The nurse's voice came from somewhere far away. "You can hold her, if you're ready. Skin-to-skin contact is very beneficial for preemies. It helps regulate their heartbeat and temperature. And it helps with bonding."
Bonding. The word felt foreign. Alien. He was supposed to bond with this tiny creature, this beautiful, fragile miracle, while you lay cold and still three floors below. He was supposed to hold her and love her and be her father, when the only thing he wanted to do was crawl into the bed beside you and never get up.
But she was your daughter. She was the last piece of you left in the world. And you had chosen her. You had made the impossible choice, alone in that operating room, and you had chosen her.
He owed it to you to hold her.
He owed it to her to try.
"I'm ready," he said. His voice was a stranger's voice. Hollow. Distant. But steady.
The nurse helped him settle into a rocking chair beside the incubator. She showed him how to position his arms, how to support the baby's head, how to keep the wires and tubes from tangling. Then she reached into the incubator, carefully, so carefully, and lifted his daughter out.
She placed the baby in his arms.
For a moment, San forgot how to breathe.
She weighed nothing. Less than nothing. She was lighter than a microphone, lighter than the rings he wore on his fingers, lighter than air. If he closed his eyes, he might forget she was there at all. But he didn't close his eyes. He couldn't. He was staring at her face, at the tiny nose, the delicate lashes, the rosebud mouth that was now opening and closing in a silent, instinctive rooting reflex.
She was looking for you.
The realization hit him like a freight train. She was looking for her mother. She was looking for the voice that had sung to her every night, the heartbeat that had lulled her to sleep, the warmth that had surrounded her for eight months. She was looking for you, and you weren't here. You would never be here. She would grow up without ever knowing the sound of your laugh or the touch of your hand or the fierce, boundless love you had felt for her from the very first moment you knew she existed.
And it was his fault.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. He didn't know if he was talking to the baby or to you or to the universe itself. "I'm so sorry."
The baby stirred at the sound of his voice. Her tiny fist uncurled, her fingers stretching out, reaching for something she couldn't name. San watched, barely breathing, as her hand bumped against his chest and then stilled, resting there, right over his heart.
She was so small that her entire hand covered less than a fraction of his chest. But the weight of it, the weight of her existence, her survival, her impossible, fragile life, pressed down on him with a gravity that threatened to crush him.
He thought about the concert. He thought about the roar of the crowd, the confetti falling like snow, the high note that had felt like touching heaven. He thought about how he had stood on that stage and believed, with every fiber of his being, that nothing would ever feel as good as that moment.
He had been wrong.
He had been so catastrophically, humiliatingly wrong.
Because this, this tiny hand on his chest, this fragile heartbeat fluttering against his own, this life that had been bought with the blood of the woman he loved, this was bigger than any stage. Louder than any crowd. More important than any dream he had ever chased.
And he had almost missed it. He had almost been somewhere else, somewhere far away, bowing to applause while his daughter took her first breaths without him.
A sob tore out of his chest. Then another. Then another, until he was crying openly, his tears falling onto the baby's blanket, his shoulders shaking with the force of a grief too immense to contain. The nurse, discreet and practiced, stepped back to give him space. The monitors beeped their quiet rhythms. The other parents, lost in their own private joys and sorrows, didn't look up.
And San held his daughter, your daughter, and wept.
Time had stopped meaning anything hours ago. It might have been minutes. It might have been hours. The world outside the NICU, the after-party, the headlines, the fans who were just starting to piece together that something had gone terribly wrong, didn't exist. The only thing that existed was the baby in his arms and the cold, still body three floors below and the impossible distance between them.
At some point, the nurse came back. She checked the baby's vitals, adjusted a wire, smiled at him with gentle, professional sympathy.
"She's doing very well," she said softly. "Her oxygen levels are stable. Her heartbeat is strong. She's a fighter."
A fighter. That was what your mother had said. That was what everyone kept saying. She was a fighter, just like her mother. Just like you.
"What's her name?" the nurse asked.
San looked down at the baby. At her tiny nose, her rosebud mouth, her fingers still curled against his chest.
You had picked the name together. Months ago, curled up on the couch with a baby name book balanced between you, laughing at the ridiculous suggestions and arguing over the serious ones. You had settled on it one night, lying in bed, your hand resting on your swollen belly.
If it's a girl, you had said, I want her to have your mother's name. And mine. Together. So she'll always know where she came from.
San had kissed your forehead and told you it was perfect. And it was. It was perfect.
He told the nurse the name. Your name, woven together with his mother's, a legacy of love and loss and everything in between. The nurse smiled and wrote it down on a small card, which she tucked into a slot on the incubator.
"That's a beautiful name," she said. "Welcome to the world, little one."
Your mother came to the NICU at some point. Her eyes were still red, her face still pale, but there was something different in her expression now. Something that looked almost like hope. She sat beside San in a second rocking chair, and together they watched the baby sleep.
"She has your nose," your mother said quietly. "But her mouth... her mouth is all her mother."
San looked at the baby's rosebud lips, pursed in sleep, and felt something crack open in his chest. She was right. The baby had your mouth. The same curve, the same softness, the same way of pursing her lips when she was dreaming.
He would see your face in hers every day for the rest of his life.
"She waited for you," your mother said after a long silence. Her voice was barely above a whisper. "At the end. She was in so much pain, but she kept asking for you. She kept saying your name. She wanted you to know... she wanted you to know that she wasn't angry. She wasn't scared. She just wanted you to be happy."
San closed his eyes. The tears were coming again, burning behind his lids.
"She said to tell you," your mother continued, her voice breaking, "that she loved you. That she would always love you. And that she was so proud of you. So proud of the man you'd become. So proud of the father you were going to be."
He couldn't speak. He could only nod, his throat too tight for words, his hands trembling around the tiny bundle in his arms.
Your mother reached over and placed her hand on his. Her skin was warm. Alive. A reminder that not everything had been taken from him.
"She would want you to hold onto this," she said. "This little girl. This miracle. She would want you to hold on and never let go."
San looked down at his daughter. At her tiny chest rising and falling. At her fingers curled against his heart. At the mouth that was so perfectly, painfully yours.
"I won't," he whispered. "I promise. I won't let go."
You would have wanted it that way, San told himself. You had never liked being the center of attention, ironic, given that you'd married an idol. You preferred quiet dinners to fancy galas, intimate conversations to grand gestures, the soft and private moments that no one else got to see. So he kept the funeral small. Just family. Just the people who loved you most.
The baby couldn't come. She was still in the NICU, still fighting, still growing stronger every day. But San brought a photo of her, a small Polaroid the nurse had taken during one of his skin-to-skin sessions. He tucked it into the pocket of his black suit, right over his heart, and he carried it with him to the cemetery.
The service was a blur of white flowers and soft music and words that people spoke into a microphone that couldn't capture the weight of what had been lost. Your mother gave a eulogy. Your sister read a poem. San didn't speak. He couldn't. Every time he opened his mouth, all that came out was silence.
But he wrote something.
The night before the funeral, sitting alone in the hospital room beside your empty bed, he had taken out a pen and a piece of paper and written you a letter. He folded it carefully, sealed it in an envelope, and tucked it into the pocket of the dress they had chosen for you to wear. A dress you'd picked out months ago for an awards show he was supposed to attend. A dress you'd never gotten to wear.
The letter said everything he hadn't been able to say. Everything he would spend the rest of his life wishing he'd said sooner.
You were the best thing that ever happened to me. Better than any stage. Louder than any crowd. You were my dream. The only one that ever mattered. And I'm sorry I didn't tell you enough. I'm sorry I spent so much time chasing everything else. I'm sorry you had to make that choice alone.
But I promise you, I promise, I will spend the rest of my life honoring it. I will raise our daughter to know who you were. I will tell her every single day how much you loved her. I will show her pictures and videos and the letters you wrote her when she was still in your belly. I will never let her forget.
And I will never forgive myself. But I'll try. For you. For her. I'll try.
Wait for me.
He watched them lower your casket into the ground. He watched the white peonies, your favorite, the ones he'd given you on your first date, fall from the hands of mourners onto the polished wood. He watched the earth claim you, inch by inch, until you were gone. Until all that was left was a headstone with your name on it and a hole in his heart that nothing would ever fill.
And when it was over, when the mourners had drifted away and the cemetery was quiet, San knelt beside your grave and pressed his palm to the freshly turned earth.
"I'll be back," he whispered. "I promise. I'll come back. Wait for me."
The awards ceremony was the same one he'd performed at the night you died.
San hadn't been on a stage since then. He'd thought about quitting. He'd thought about it a thousand times. Every time he looked at a microphone, he saw your face on that video call, telling him to go. Every time he heard applause, he heard the echo of the moment he'd realized you were gone. The stage had been his dream, his purpose, his reason for being, and it had become a monument to his greatest failure.
But he hadn't quit.
He'd written instead. In the dark hours of the morning, when the baby was sleeping and the house was too quiet and the guilt was eating him alive, he'd sat at the piano in the study and let his fingers find the notes. The songs that emerged were raw and broken and beautiful. Songs about love and loss and the impossible weight of an empty chair at the dinner table. Songs about a little girl who smiled like her mother. Songs about you.
The company had suggested he perform one at the ceremony. A tribute, they called it. A way to honor your memory. A way to show the world that he was still here, still standing, still fighting.
He'd almost said no.
But then he'd thought about his daughter, your daughter, who was now a year old, who had your eyes and your smile and your fierce, stubborn spirit. She was healthy now, thank god. She'd spent two months in the NICU before they let her come home, and those two months had been the hardest of San's life. Harder than training. Harder than debut. Harder than the night he'd knelt beside your bed and held your cold hand and begged you to come back.
But he'd survived them. And she'd survived them. And now she was a year old, toddling around the house on unsteady legs, babbling words that weren't quite words yet, laughing at the cat and the curtains and the way her father made funny faces to make her smile.
She was the reason he got up in the morning. She was the reason he kept going. She was the reason he hadn't given up.
Backstage at the awards ceremony, San stood alone in a dressing room that looked almost exactly like the one from a year ago. The same couch. The same vanity. The same mirror on the wall. For a disorienting moment, he felt like he'd stepped back in time. Like any second now, he would pull out his phone and see those 473 missed calls and everything would happen all over again.
But it didn't. The phone was silent. The dressing room was quiet. And San was not the same man who had stood here a year ago.
He was thinner now. There were lines around his eyes that hadn't been there before, silver strands in his hair that he was too young for. He smiled less. Laughed less. The easy, carefree joy that had once defined him had been replaced by something quieter. Something heavier. Something that looked almost like wisdom.
But he was still here. Still standing. Still breathing.
And in exactly ten minutes, he was going to walk onto a stage and sing a song he'd written for you.
His phone buzzed. He pulled it out of his pocket and saw a text from your mother. A picture. His daughter, your daughter, was sitting on your mother's lap, wearing tiny pajamas covered in stars, her dark hair sticking up in every direction. She was grinning at the camera, her rosebud mouth stretched wide, her eyes sparkling with the fierce, stubborn joy she had inherited from you.
Underneath the photo, your mother had written: She's watching. She knows it's her daddy. She's pointing at the screen and saying 'Papa.' Make her proud.
San stared at the photo for a long time. His thumb traced the curve of his daughter's cheek, the same curve he had memorized on your face a thousand times. Then he tucked the phone back into his pocket, took a deep breath, and walked toward the stage.
They hit him the moment he stepped through the curtain, a wall of white and gold that made his eyes water. But he didn't look away. He walked to the center of the stage, the same stage, the same spot where he had stood a year ago and believed he was standing on the summit of his life.
The crowd was silent. Respectful. Waiting. He could see their faces in the first few rows, fans with tears already streaming down their cheeks, light sticks held high, a sea of stars that stretched into the darkness.
He lifted the microphone.
"Last year," he said, his voice rough and raw in the silence, "I stood on this stage and I said that this was the greatest moment of my life."
A pause. A breath. The silence was so complete he could hear his own heartbeat.
"I was wrong."
He let the words hang in the air. He let them settle into the hearts of everyone listening.
"The greatest moment of my life wasn't on this stage. It was in a hospital room, holding my daughter for the first time. It was in the quiet of the morning, watching her smile. It was in every second I got to spend with the woman who gave her to me. The woman who gave me everything."
His voice cracked. He didn't try to hide it.
"She's not here tonight. But she's watching. I believe that. I have to believe that. So this... this is for her."
He sat down at the piano that had been placed at the center of the stage. His fingers found the keys, muscle memory taking over, and the first notes of the song filled the auditorium. Soft. Simple. Aching.
And then he sang.
He sang about love. About loss. About the impossible weight of a choice made alone. He sang about a little girl who smiled like her mother and laughed like the sun and reminded him every day that life was worth living even when it hurt. He sang about promises and guilt and the long, slow road toward forgiveness that he was still walking.
He sang for you.
When the final note faded, the silence that followed was absolute. A held breath. A suspended heartbeat.
And then, slowly, the applause began.
It built like a wave, rising and rising, thousands of people on their feet, tears streaming down faces, hands pressed to hearts. It was the loudest ovation he had ever received. Louder than the concert. Louder than the peak he'd thought he'd reached that night. Louder than anything he had ever known.
But San didn't hear it.
He was looking up, past the blinding lights, past the ceiling of the venue, past the stars that were hidden by the city's glow. He was looking for you. And in the silence between the applause, in the echo of the final note, in the ache of his own breaking heart, he thought he felt you there.
A warmth. A whisper. A promise.
I'm proud of you.
Wait for me.
San closed his eyes. And for the first time in a year, he smiled, not the wide, brilliant smile of the man he used to be, but something smaller. Softer. Something that looked almost like peace.
He pressed his hand to his heart, where his wedding ring still hung on a chain around his neck, right beside a tiny Polaroid of a baby with rosebud lips.
"Always," he whispered. "I'll wait for you. Always."
Shinsou and his s/o both getting hit by a de-aging quirk at the same time and shinsou is just chasing a crying kid!y/n around and shinsou is screaming "I WANNA MARRY YOU!!!!!!!" Fluff?? Thank you đâ¤ď¸
YES OMG đ
Aizawa found you two in a car after the attack. You were crying and Shinso was patting youre back trying to get you to stop. You both looked to be about 7 when he saw you guys.
âSensei, they wont stop cryingâ
âI see that Shinso.â Aizawa put his hand on youre head making you look at him. âThis wont last too long Y/N . I promiseâ
You nodded glancing at Shinso jumping and crawling to Aizawa into his arms.
âWhats wrong? â he asked standing up holding you. He held his other hand out and Shinso took it hopping out of the car. He started walking .
âHis hair is scary!!! Its so big!â You whined peaking over Aizawaâs shoulder at the purple haired kid. Aizawa chuckled and Shinso looked uninterested.
âSensei, where we going?â Asked Shinso
âThe park. Let you guys blow off some steamâ he answered .
Aizawa put you down and Shinso grabbed youre hand running to the sand box . You whined fighting him but he just kept going. When he got to the sandbox he pulled you in sitting down.
âHeyâ he said startling you
âWhat..!?â
âYoure really cute.â
You blushed looking away and Shinso grabbed youre hand looking in youre eyes. âLets get marriedâ
âWHAT?!? No!! Youre hair is scary!!!â You jumped out of the sandbox crying running all around the playscape .
Shinso hopped out chasing you yelling âlet me marry you!!!!! â
âNoo!!! Sensei!!!!â
Aizawa rubbed his face watching you two run around screaming at each other. âI hope this week goes by fast..â
Luke x reader where a girl, daughter of Aphrodite, flirts with him and insults the reader, causing her to avoid Luke, but later he manages to find her and confesses that he actually likes them... I don't know if they should already be together or not, but I believe in you!!! you write very well :ooo
Sorry if the idea is bad or you wouldn't want to write something like that, if that's the case please pretend you never read this đ¤Ąđ¤ĄđŤś
true colours; luke castellan
wc + pairing: 3.6k, luke castellan x child of iris! reader
synopsis: everyone wants luke castellan, including you. curse your mother for getting your hopes up.
warnings: friends to lovers, reader is very insecure, bullying, lee fletcher & will solace cameo!! some angst with a fluffy ending
notes: thank you for the request!! as always this is longer than i anticipated but hope you like it :) i also combined it with another request for a child of iris reader (i also identify as a child of iris sometimes so i lovee writing for them) also iâm pretty sure lee + a lot of parts of this are ooc sorry but i havent read the books in about a year so hopefully everythingâs fairly accurate!đ
You knew this summer would be different because your mother sent her wishes twice as much. On the first day of July, when children flood into Camp Half-Blood like a hive of wild bees, a rainbow always lights up the sky.Â
This year, there were two.Â
As a child of Iris youâre technically supposed to be in the Hermes cabin. But your love for art, for music, for fun, has made you a particular favourite of the Apollo cabin. Most of your friends are there. They tolerate you singing in your soft, often unsure voice. They love when you catch sunlight and filter it into prisms of colour on their cabin walls.Â
Youâd probably move in there permanently if it werenât for Hermes. Or rather, his son.
Over the last few months, in the sticky summer heat, your mother knew you would fall in love.Â
It's not any surprise you love Luke. Everyone loves Luke. A fact that's becoming more obvious every passing day.Â
It used to bother you less. Youâve always been his meagre, hopeless friend, never any real competition to these girls. Youâd basically taken yourself out of the running and instead decided to pine after him in the very back of your mind. A safe, deluded fantasy that would never happen.Â
Until recently, where it seems less like a fantasy and more like a terrifying possibility.Â
Over the past few weeks Luke has gone out of his way to be sweet to you. Or at least you think so. Heâs spent extra time talking to you at lunch, laughing at your half-formed jokes almost in earnest. At bonfires he saves you a seat, grabs you a marshmallow on occasion. You even made him a friendship bracelet of sortsâadmittedly a little uglyâbut heâs never taken it off. Not since the day you gave it to him.Â
Not to mention helping you last week before the archery competition. His hands lingering over yours as he steadied your bow, the curls of his breath on the back of your neck when he stood behind you.Â
âDonât be nervous,â he says, a tinge of mirth in his voice. âYou just steady your aim and first is as good as yours.â
(You came in fifteenth.)
You donât want to say that itâs him weakening your aim, making your pulse beat out of your neck. His nose brushes against the back of your jaw as he leans forward and you smell the pine on his skin. Is this friendly? Is he this close on purpose? Are you delusional?
Itâs all youâve been thinking about these past few days. So when Luke Castellanâs endless admirers come to the forefront of your mind, you feel like all those moments of potential buildup have been ripped away.Â
âYou alright there, sunshine?âÂ
He takes you out of your spiral with a teasing lilt you love. When you look at him, his face is a shimmering warmth, complete with boyish smile.Â
âYep,â you reply, trying to ignore the nickname making your insides flutter even though you know heâs saying it ironically.
Youâve always had a gift for identifying colour. Itâs the thing you pay attention to most. Something inherited from your mother, you suppose. So youâve memorized the way Lukeâs eyes melt in the sunlight. How his scar blends with his pinking cheeks when itâs hot outside. You never told him, and you probably never will, but youâve painted him from memory quite a few times in the Apollo cabinâalways with the excuse that you were practicing. It's so blatantly obvious you're in love with him there's no point in your friends bringing it up. Â
The two of you are meandering around camp before dinner, a tradition Luke started early on in the summer. You talk about high points of your day (mostly you) or share nuggets of gossip youâve heard around camp (mostly him). It's the thing you looked forward to every morning. A time when his words are just for you.Â
Idle chatter flows as you keep walking. Sometimes your arm brushes his and you have the embarrassing urge to tug yours away. You do your best not to stare at him too long or laugh too loud at his jokes.Â
âHey, Castellan!â Someone calls.Â
Lukeâs head turns. Your heart plummets. A beautiful girl, Aphrodite cabin, you think, is heading towards you. Sheâs all honey-spun hair and dazzling pink lips, and itâs obvious she knows it. You donât know her name. But Luke does.Â
They fall into conversation the second she arrives. Itâs just greetings, pleasantries, but thereâs a coy smile on the girlâs face that betrays any sense of disinterest. âHeard youâre not too keen on pairing up with us for the Chariot Race next week. What gives?â Her tone is pouty and playful as she taps Lukeâs shoulder. She side-eyes you, lips curling imperceptibly. âIâm sure youâll have a better chance with us.â
He lets out a strained chuckle. âDunno, just thought it was fine to switch it up.â
Just like that, youâre out of the loop again. More of her friends flock after her, and soon Luke is tangled in a whole other world. Theyâre all glowing with a kind of righteousness you only get when youâre popular. You know Luke has friends, tons of them. He's the leader of the cabin with the most campers. Not to mention assertive and gorgeous. His presence is so inviting itâs a challenge not to fall in love with him.Â
So you canât blame this girl, the one that keeps touching his arm and giggling. Itâs not like youâve staked your claim on Lukeâno one even knows you exist. As much as you want him to be yours, you know youâll never stop someone from taking him first. Itâs your fatal flaw, you think. Cowardice.Â
You end up sidelined completely. Watching him swathed in people more charismatic than you plants an ache deep inside you. All your wishful thinking feels sour now, a pipe dream, a bedtime story to help you sleep better. Somehow it hurts more knowing that itâs nobodyâs fault but yours. These people canât be doing this on purpose. Itâs just who they are. Itâs who you areâalways a step behind, always daydreaming. You are your motherâs daughter, after all. Just a prism reflecting everyone around you.Â
Eventually, one of the boys in the group takes notice of you. Heâs not nearly as captivating as Luke isâyou donât find the colours of his eyes hold as much depth. Thereâs also a haughtiness when he looks at you. He sneers, âWhat the hell do you have on your face?â
It draws the attention of others in the group. You feel like a naked sculpture in an art gallery. âUh, what?â You stammer.Â
Some of them purse their lips. The girl with Luke lets a laugh slip. Youâre pretty sure you look like an idiot, waiting there with your brows wrinkled in a daze. Their gazes keep flicking over to your cheek, so your hand flies up there before you can delay any more. When you press your fingers to the side of your face, they come away tacky and pink. Mortification constricts you.
Paint. Itâs leftover, half-dried paint. The colour of Lukeâs cheeks in the sun.Â
âOh,â you say dumbly. Itâs drowned by snickers. All you can do is find Luke, the only face you know, and ask, âWhy didnât you tell me?â without sounding too hurt.Â
You know you failed when your voice comes out wrong and his ebony brows push together. âI thought it lookedââ
He never gets to finish because the golden girl laughs a little louder, the pink tones in her face a little darker. âOh my Gods, youâre that Iris kid thatâs always singing, right?â She giggles sharply, cornflower eyes darting between her friends. Thereâs something in there you canât quite pick up on, until it flushes the pupils of all her friends, and they all grin with a secret knowledge they want you to see. âYouâre, like, really good!â The girl simpers, but her bottom lip pulls between her teeth to soften another laugh.Â
âOh, so good!â Another friend piles on.Â
Their passive-aggressive chuckles start to sound like hail on a window. You shift further away from them. Dirt slides beneath your shoe, and you long to kick up more of it, displace yourself, disappear.Â
You donât look at Luke. The giggly, flaxen girl has already turned back to him, and youâre sure heâs enthralled once more. You try to stir up the image of Lukeâs closeness during archery practice, the lilac bruise on his knuckles when he angled your bow, but it doesnât take. Now, it feels like youâve dreamed it.Â
Out of the corner of your eye, you see Luke leaning down to catch a whisper from the Aphrodite girlâs ear. The boy that first commented on your cheek leans closer to you again. Heâs suffocatingly smug when he grins, âWhy are you still here? Shouldnât you go ⌠wash that off? You donât want to look like that at dinner.â He snorts. âFor an Iris kid, you really arenât good at taking a message.âÂ
If you were a more confident person, maybe youâd point out how that didnât really make sense, or how stupid it sounded coming out of his mouth. But the sentiment of it wounds you, and youâre weak enough as is.Â
"Guess you're right," you mumble. You wipe your face of paint as you leave. The memory of Lukeâs skin stains you until you wash your hands off in the sink.Â
You havenât talked to him since.Â
Itâs been a few days of you avoiding him, and itâs hard to explain to anyone why youâve been doing it. How do you tell the truth? Luke Castellan is a work of art and you are ⌠a weird doodle, or something. Despite your adoration, you know thereâs no reason he should feel the same for you. Everyone loves him for a reason. Everyone must ignore you for one, too.Â
âWhy havenât you been talking to Luke?â
The question breaks your concentrated silence in the Apollo cabin. Youâve been sitting here for a while now, humming to yourself over a mostly blank canvas. The cabin is dusted with a lilac haze, thanks to your manipulation of the light streaming through the windows. Helps you feel less like youâre at camp and more like youâre in a fairytale.Â
âHelloooo, lady, I asked you a question.â
You begrudgingly look up. Lee Fletcher, head of the Apollo cabin, is at the mouth of the cabin, gazing at all your supplies strewn about the floor like theyâre a bunch of unsavoury substances. âIt looks like a hurricane came in here. Now why arenât you talking to Luke?â
âHow do you know Iâm not talking to him?â You mutter as Lee sits beside you.Â
âUh, because youâve been sleeping here multiple nights in a row and you never do that. And you donât sit with him at dinner. And whenever we see him you drag me in the other directionââ
âLee!â
âIâm just saying, you should probably talk about it. My beautiful voice can heal wounds, yes, but not of the heart.â He splays a hand across his chest in mock theatrics.
You donât say anything. The familiar weight of the brush against your fingertips is far more comforting than trying to talk, so you busy yourself with your canvas again. âHe waits for you, you know,â Lee continues, quieter. âIn the morning. And before dinner. He always asks if youâre here.â
âOh,â you say, and your wavering voice betrays your expression. But you think of everyone else at camp, their gleaming smiles and their celebrated parents, their own cabins and friends and dreams, how you donât seem to have any of those. You think of the girl whispering in Lukeâs ear. All her shades of beauty. You know itâs wrong to compare yourself, to be jealous. Youâre just ⌠sad.
The cabin darkens from a lilac to an imperceptibly gloomier shade. A blue sort of longing gets caught in your throat, blurring the colours on your canvas. But you keep your brush steady, focused on the scratch of its bristles so you donât have to hear what you say next.Â
âI think I love him, Lee.â And then, âBut I donât think he loves me.â
Thereâs no sound except the scraping of your brush when itâs run out of paint, and a sniffle when a tear rolls down your cheek.Â
âOh,â Lee fills the silence the way you did just moments before. Then he says your name, laced with pity, and hugs you on the floor of his lavender cabin.Â
âYou want to help me lead the bonfire song tonight?â He asks after a minute. âOr at least ⌠come to the bonfire song?âÂ
âNo to the first, yes to the second.â
You wish you said no to both.Â
The spot you choose after dinner is right next to the fire so you can distract yourself with the golden flecks of flame. Fire is so fluid, so complex, from a colour perspective. But no matter how close you get, the searing warmth canât hide Lukeâs gaze peering over the embers.Â
He will not. Stop. Looking at you.Â
The singing from the Apollo kids usually soothes you but tonight itâs just making you anxious. All this attention so close to you. Will Solace has been sitting next to you this whole time, your unofficial assigned companion for the night thanks to Lee. One of his siblings beckons him over, and he shoots you an apologetic look, hesitating. "Just go," you wave off kindly. "It's all good." He's not entirely convinced, and you aren't either, but he squeezes your shoulder with thanks and leaves you anyway.
Now youâre acutely aware the space next to you is wide open. And so is Luke, it seems. Thereâs an awkward moment where your gazes slide over each other and he weaves out of his current crowd towards you. So you do the most mature, sound thing you could possibly do in this situation:
You say you have to go to the bathroom to no one in particular and get out of there.Â
Itâs dark, but youâve got sharper eyes than most. Soon the noise of the campfire is behind you. You traipse through the camp towards the bathroom,but you donât get far before you hear something that makes your stomach drop in the worst and best way.Â
Luke, calling your name.Â
At first you think you can get away with not hearing him. Then he calls a second, a third, a fourth time, punctuated with, âCome on, I know you can hear me, can you just turn around?â
Heâs got longer legs than you so the next time he speaks itâs practically in your ear. âHey, just look at me. Please. I want to talk to you.â
Thereâs something so tender in his voice that it makes you cave immediately. But you already feel so fragile, you can feel the tears behind your eyes. You know you wonât have the strength to talk to him.Â
His hand curls gently around your wrist and it sends warmth all the way up your arm. He says your name again, softer, and you love the way it sounds. You canât meet his eyes, but you already know what he looks like. Even in the dark you picture him crystal clear.Â
âLook at me,â he repeats. âI justâI need to know what I did wrong.â
His dark eyes are full and apprehensive when you heed him. You notice how much youâve missed studying his faceâthe slight bunch of his brows, the tensing in his jaw. And you almost delude yourself that heâs missed you just as much, the way he squeezes your wrist and rakes over your expression.
âWhy are you ignoring me?â He asks.Â
âIâm notââ
âYou are. I know you. Just tell me why.âÂ
He looks so sweet, so earnest, and it kills you. You think of the way he looked when all his friends made fun of you. It all comes up before you can help it.Â
âDo you always let me walk around looking like an idiot?â You ask bitingly, staring at the floor. âThe thing, with the paint on my cheekâwhy didnât you tell me? I looked so stupid and all your friends just laughed at me!âÂ
His face falls. âI tried to tell you, I thoughtââ
âItâs okay to say you donât like me, or that youâre embarrassed, or whatever, but I âŚâ You swallow, tears thick on your lower lashes. âEveryone makes fun of me. I donât know why you donât.â
âBecause I do like you,â he states, hand moving up to your forearm.Â
âDonât say that,â you whisper. âYouâre so much ⌠better, you know you are, and I donât want your pity, or your spare time. I justâI made something up in my head that wasnât there and I only noticed it the other day after you talked to that girl and that guy made fun of me and Iâm really, really sorryââ
âIt looked cute. I was trying to say I didnât tell you about the paint because I thought it was cute.â
Thereâs a lull.
âWhat?â You blink stupidly.Â
âI know I shouldâve told you about it, but I swear I was going to before dinner, I didnât think weâd run into anyone before then.â His cheeks tinge red. âI had this whole dumb thing planned out where Iâd wipe it off your cheek and tell you how cute it was once you got embarassed. I was waiting to tell you. I was thinking about it the whole time.â
His hand on your arm is a frighteningly grounding thing. You're dumbstruck by that alone. Your lips part, but all that comes out is, âWhy?â
A gentle laugh tumbles out of his throat. âWhy do you think?â
His other hand comes up to brush your cheekbone, where the paint had been, and you can imagine him doing it to you on that day. How you'd probably react just the way he said you would, the way you are now. A warm orange glow blooming in your chest. âBut the girlââ
âShe tried whispering to me how much she liked my bracelet,â he smiles fondly. âTold her you made it for me. It shut her up. I donât know what that guy said to you but I chewed âem all out the second you left. They knew I wasnât happy. I tried looking for you but you were gone. I don't like them, you know."
You donât know what to say. Itâs too difficult, too uncertain for you to jump the gun on this. So you just stare at all the shifting colours on his face as he moves closer to you. All this time going over his every detail, and there's still more to be enthralled by.
âI found the paintings,â he says, voice so close you can feel it brushing your skin. âThe ones of me. I was looking for you in the Apollo cabin a week ago and you left one out. I knew it was yours because ... I mean, thereâs no one in the world that can make me look that ⌠beautiful.âÂ
The last word is apprehensive but itâs spoken with an unimaginable tenderness. He looks a little teary himself. You think youâre dreaming. âI knew I had to tell you after that. Iâve been trying to tell you. But you started pulling away from me so I thought I was making it all up.â
âTell me what?â Itâs a ghost of a question between you, an impossible thing, but the hand on your arm slips around to your back and he presses it there with such certainty.Â
âYouâre really gonna make me say it?â He cocks his head, but you nod. âIâm in love with you, I think.â
The words cascade over you in ribbons of warmth. Your brain feels fuzzy, seperate from the rest of your body. Your mouth opens multiple times but you canât seem to control what comes out. âLuke, are you joking?â
âNot even a little.â
âBut youâve got so many otherââ
âI want you.â
âI am literally the most incompetent person alive; I canât sing, I canât talk to people, I have a weird kneeââ
"Your knee is fine!"
"I'm just saying, this makes no sense from an outsider perspective, it'sâ"
âOkay, clearly the telling thing isnât working so I guess Iâm just gonna have to kiss you.â
It happens so quickly you donât have any time to think (probably for the better). You let out a surprised âohâ before his mouth silences you, stopping every other thought. Heâs gentle, thumb still rubbing your cheekbone, other hand still firm at your waist. You want to panicâwhere should you put your hands? How do you know youâre doing this right? But he steadies you, the way he always does, and you give in.Â
He starts to smile against your lips. Youâre almost positive the intensity of your heartbeat could summon a storm. When he pulls away, he kisses the corners of your mouth and you think youâre going to evaporate. âI donât think Iâm very good at this,â you whisper.
âYouâre perfect.â He grins a little when your hands tentatively tug at a curl on the nape of his neck. âAnd none of that stuff you say is true. I mean, youâre definitely a better singer than me.â
Leaning close to your ear, he warbles out a song you know but gets the words horribly wrong anyways. You canât help but laugh. âOkay, maybe you have a point.â
He hums and chuckles with you. You swear the moon gets brighter when he wraps his arms around your waist to kiss the side of your face. âNext time you paint me, I want to be there when you do it.â
You blush harder than you ever have in your life. âOnly if you try painting me,â you say quietly.
âOf course. Youâre very pretty, so Iâm sure my horrible artistic skills wonât even make you look bad.â
Luke lets you press your face into the crook of his neck. You soak it up for all itâs worth.Â
In the morning, you wake up in the same position. Your nose tucked against his collarbone, the shade of pink you love freckled across his cheeks. You can't wait to paint him again.
When you look out the window, you say a silent, grateful prayer to your mother.
Road trips are always eventful. But, road trips with Bakugou Katsuki? Thereâs nothing more eventful than that. If Y/N was honest, it had a been far more peaceful than expected. Light music playing as she stared out the window of the car, Bakugouâs eyes deadset on the road as they drove past. Theyâd left earlyâ per Bakugouâs request to avoid traffic and his need to get to their destination before Izuku. The entirety of the former Class 1A would be meeting up after their busy first year as sidekicks.Â
Except Y/N hadnât been a part of Class 1A.
Sheâd gone to middle school with the two boys, and it had been nostalgic seeing Bakugou just as competitive as heâd always been. Though Y/N couldnât deny that she was proud of how much heâd grown as a person, it had been a while since she saw Izuku. Y/N had only kept in contact with Bakugou, due to the strong bond between their parents that had always forced them to have weekly dinners together.
The recipe said 30 minutes, sounds simple. Unfortunately, Yunho knows how to turn 30 minutes into over an hour. You just pray the cookies are worth all the hard work.
Warnings: Suggestive ending, afab reader, yunho x reader, fluff, they have aâŚmoment, yunho discovers something about himself, he may or may not suck a finger who knows, established relationship
note: not me starting a posting streak (approximately 2 days long) just hope i can keep this up. I write mainly fluff/angst so im experimenting with suggestive-y stuff, not sure ive got it in me to write full blown smut LMAO. As always guys, please enjoy!! (not proofread but you guys alr know that)
âYunho,â You groan as you try to rummage through the cupboards looking for ingredients, he hums against your neck, arms wrapped tightly around your waist in a bear hug. âI told you to stand over there,â
He shrugs against you âYou were taking too long,â He mumbles, a long arm reaching above you to grab something from a shelf you couldnât reach âAnd youâve been looking for flour for so long, i could see it above you this whole time,â He smirks against your skin as he sets the bag of flour on the counter in-front of you. âPainful watch.â
You roll your eyes with a playful smile as you turn around to face him. âYou are beyond irritating, you know that?â
Yunho can only smirk âWithout me you would never have known we had flour,â he squeezes your hips gently.
âBack up a bit,â you smack his chest softly as you grab the bag of flour, pushing past him to the kitchen island. He follows like a lost puppy, standing next you as you announce the ingredients to him.
âSugar..?â You hum, reading off the ingredients list
âGot it.â Yunho affirms.
âEggs?â You ask, eyes glued to the screen.
âEggs.â He confirms.
You repeat the process for the rest of the ingredients, slamming your hands down on the counter in determination. Yunho can only chuckle at how endearing he finds you, eyes fixated on how your features glow under the ambient lighting of your kitchen. He suggested using the main light to help you both see a bit better but he was quickly shut down by your adversity to the âbig lightâ. He didnât bother fighting back, he valued his own life too much for that.
âYou ready baby?â you glance at him âgonna be the best cookies ever,â you nod, reassuring yourself.
Yunho nods, spoon at the ready ânever felt more prepared,â He grins.
The two of you begin, the recipe said preparation time was no longer than half an hour, but when you have a 6ft puppy of a boyfriend who cannot keep his hands to himself, it took a-lot longer to prepare.
âYunho paws off,â You mumble as you try to stir the mixture, you can feel his pout on your neck as his large hands envelope yours.
âIâm helping,â he mumbles, guiding your hand as you fold the chocolate chips into the batter âSee?â
You shake your head with a small smile.
After a few seconds, he decided his help was no longer needed, and that he would be far better off trailing kisses up and down your neck as you attempted to prepare the batter for the oven.
âYunho.â You warn, but it comes out sounding like something adjacent to a soft sigh, the sound only makes him hold you tighter, his lips unrelenting on your skin.
You were like an addiction to him, your scent, the softness of your skin, the gentle heat that radiated off of your body, it was like a drug, one that he couldnât ween himself off of even if he wanted to.
He did consider making himself more useful, but then again, he values his life. One slip up in making your Michelin star cookies and he was done for. He could at least get away with being annoying, he knew exactly how to make that up to you anyway.
âOh would you look at that..â you smile, staring at the bowl of batter in-front of you, you dip a finger in, scraping some off of the sides, you bring your finger to your lips, tasting your creation. âOh its perfect,â You hum. Yunhoâs ears perk up.
âWanna taste,â He asks, mumbling into the cook of your neck. You turn to face him.
âNo please? very disappointed.â You tut at him playfully.
He pouts âPleasee,â He drags out the word.
Like a reflex, you take another small scoop on your finger, and bring it to his lips. Without hesitation, as if it were an innate behaviour, he wraps his lips around your finger, maintaining eye contact the whole time.
You donât miss the jolt of heat that shoots through you, your breath hitches slightly, he catches it. He always does.
He smirks as you pull your finger from him, before you can even register what you just witnessed, he leans in, lips gracing yours in a quick kiss.
âYum,â He grins. âtastes amazing,â
âThereâs always more,â You match his grin, âand you taste like cookie batter.â You lean in.
âOh really?â He hums against your lips âdidnât notice.â
You cup his face âDo you ever shut up,â You chuckle as you close the gap, eliciting a low groan from Yunho, his hand spreading across the small of your back, pulling you in like you were about to slip through his fingers. You taste the cookie batter on his lips, and itâs hard to miss the shit eating grin plastered on his face, happy that heâs getting all the attention that you were previously giving to those cookies.
He pulls away for a moment, his breath fanning your lips.
âYou want more donât you,â You tease, hand already dipping into the bowl behind you âWhat can i say? I am a phenomenal baker,â
Yunho just groans softly in defeat âStop talking,â
You can only grin at him as you bring your finger to his lips again, he opens without a word, letting your fingers slip into his mouth, you donât miss the low, muffled moan that comes from him. You also canât ignore the heat pooling in your stomach as you let your free hand tangle in his hair, watching him with hungry eyes, you tug his hair gently, a sound between a groan and a whine rumbles deep in his throat as he pulls off of your finger.
âWeâre gonna have to talk about that,â you mutter against his lips.
Yunho was too far gone to even reply, just mindlessly nodding his head as you gently moved a few stray strands of hair out of his face. He doesnât know what he had just discovered about himself, and he was absolutely certain you wouldnât let him live this moment down. Note to self, heâs never baking with you againâŚunless you ask of course, heâs not one to ever say no to you.
âThey need to go in the oven,â Yunho whispers hoarsely, attempting to clear his throat.
You nod âYou gonna let go of me?â You whisper âyou look a little dazedâ you smile.
âOh yeah of course,â Yunho backs away awkwardly, stumbling over his own feet briefly as he steadies himself, making way for you to put the cookies on the tray, ready to go in the oven. âIâm not dazed,â He shakes his head âJustâŚi donât even know,â he sighs, failing to find an excuse.
You laugh as you place the cookies on the tray, before popping them into the oven to bake. You immediately walk over to Yunho, cupping his face.
â20 Minutes,â you say to him softly âWhat do you reckon?â You smirk.
He nods eagerly, wasting absolutely no time to scoop you up into his arms and practically fly out of the kitchen.
Safe to say, the cookies were a little overdone. Yunho would argue he already had his favourite cookie, so he wasnât too disappointed when the others came out of the oven a little burnt around the edges.
Love you to the Moon and to Saturn @louweasleymalfoy - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
