The Proposal
Mingyu x Wonwoo
Mature | Explicit | Smut | MDNI
A quiet post-concert night in an overseas hotel room leads Mingyu & Wonwoo to uncover a life-altering truth neither expected to reveal.
The cold water hit the back of Mingyu’s neck and he didn’t flinch. Three hours of lights and bass and twenty thousand screaming voices still rang in his bones, a phantom vibration that the showerhead couldn’t wash away. He leaned forward until both palms pressed flat against the tile. The ceramic stole the last heat from his skin. Good. He needed the numb.
His shoulders rose and fell. Droplets traced the line of his spine, gliding over the dimples just above his hips before gathering in the crease where his backside met the wall of muscle above his thighs. Steam thickened in the walk-in shower, swallowing the edges of the bathroom, turning the hotel into a gray dream. He didn’t hear the door open. He didn’t hear the soft pad of bare feet on wet stone.
Two hands settled on his waist.
Warm. Not startling. Fingers that knew the exact architecture of his hipbones, that had traced them a hundred times in dark rooms and green rooms and backseats between cities. Mingyu’s breath left him in a long, quiet rush. He straightened but didn’t turn.
Wonwoo pressed close behind him, his chest flush to Mingyu’s back, his forehead settling into the valley between Mingyu’s shoulder blades. His arms snaked around, one hand spreading flat over Mingyu’s stomach, the other curling over his ribs. The water found them both now, ricocheting off Mingyu’s shoulders onto Wonwoo’s hair, his glasses already somewhere on the counter, his bare face buried in Mingyu’s skin.
“You’re cold,” Wonwoo murmured, mouth moving against the ridge of a vertebrae.
“The water’s cold.”
“That’s stupid.”
A short breath, almost a laugh. Mingyu let his head drop forward, chin to chest. Wonwoo’s arms tightened. The hug wasn’t tight enough to trap, just enough to remind. Muscle memory from a hundred backstage hallways, from nights when words were too heavy and only the press of one body against another said anything worth keeping.
They stood like that for a minute. Maybe two. The water slowly warming as Wonwoo’s hand drifted up over Mingyu’s chest, not grabbing, just mapping. Collarbone. The hollow of his throat. The sharp turn of his jaw.
Mingyu turned.
The movement was slow, deliberate, his body twisting inside the cage of Wonwoo’s arms until they were face to face. Wonwoo’s back met the glass shower enclosure and he sucked in a breath at the cold shock of it. Mingyu crowded him there, one hand bracing beside Wonwoo’s head, the other finding his hip and pressing, thumb sinking into the shallow groove beside the bone.
Their mouths met.
Not hungry. Not rushed. The kiss unspooled like a thread, slow and full, lips parting just enough to share a breath. Wonwoo’s hands smoothed up the planes of Mingyu’s back, feeling the muscles still twitching with leftover adrenaline. Mingyu hummed into his mouth, a low sound that vanished into the steam.
When they broke apart, their foreheads touched. Water ran down Mingyu’s nose and dripped onto Wonwoo’s cheek.
“You need to wash,” Wonwoo said, voice a little rough.
“So do you.”
“Then do it together.”
Mingyu reached for the bottle of body wash on the shelf. The scent of ocean and sea salt cut through the steam. He squeezed a generous amount into his palm, worked it between both hands until the lather bloomed white and thick. Wonwoo watched him through half-lidded eyes, leaning back against the tile like he had nowhere else in the world to be.
Mingyu started with his shoulders.
His soapy hands glided across Wonwoo’s collarbones, down over the lean cuts of his chest, tracing the faint lines of his ribs. He took his time. The soap suds trickled down slowly. Wonwoo’s breathing shifted, deepening, his stomach tensing under Mingyu’s touch. When those hands swept lower, skimming the sharp V of Wonwoo’s hips, his head tipped back against the glass and a small sound escaped him.
“You’re not washing,” Wonwoo managed. “You’re just touching.”
“Same thing.”
“It’s not.”
Mingyu’s hands paused. He met Wonwoo’s eyes. The dark, heavy-lidded gaze that had stared down cameras for a decade now looked utterly undone, pupils blown wide, lips parted. “Do you want me to stop?”
“No.”
One word. Barely there.
Mingyu dipped his head and kissed him again, deeper now, his tongue tracing the seam of Wonwoo’s lips until they opened. The taste of mint and exhaustion lingered. His hands never stopped moving. Soap slicking over Wonwoo’s stomach, his sides, his back, pulling him off the tile and flush against his own body. The friction of wet skin on wet skin sent a shudder up Mingyu’s spine.
Wonwoo’s hands came up between them, soapy now too, and began their own journey. He started at Mingyu’s throat, thumbs tracing the muscles that flexed when he swallowed. Down over the broad expanse of his chest, the swell of his pectorals, the ridges of his abdomen that tightened under every pass. Mingyu’s hips jerked forward involuntarily.
“You need washing too,” Wonwoo whispered, and the corner of his mouth lifted.
“I’m dirty?”
“Filthy.”
Laughter, soft and breathy, lost in the space between their mouths. Wonwoo’s hands rounded Mingyu’s hips, sliding inward. Mingyu’s forehead dropped to Wonwoo’s shoulder. His breath came faster. The water beat down on both of them now, washing away the suds in patches, leaving clean skin that Wonwoo’s fingers rediscovered immediately.
Mingyu’s thigh pressed between Wonwoo’s legs. The contact was deliberate, gentle. Wonwoo’s sharp inhale was a reward. His fingers dug into the meat of Mingyu’s hips, pulling him closer, and for a moment they just moved together, slow grinding. No urgency, just the ancient rhythm of two bodies relearning each other after a long day.
“I missed you,” Mingyu mumbled into his shoulder.
“We were on the same stage.”
“You know what I mean.”
Wonwoo’s hand slid up into Mingyu’s wet hair, cupping the back of his skull. “I know.”
The soaping ritual resumed, more focused now. Mingyu’s hand found Wonwoo’s length and wrapped around it with the gentleness of someone handling something sacred. Wonwoo’s whole body seized for half a second, then melted back against the glass. His eyes squeezed shut. A thin, high sound leaked from his throat.
Soap made the glide smooth. Mingyu moved his hand in a slow, steady rhythm, watching Wonwoo’s face the entire time. The way his jaw slackened. The way his brow furrowed like he was solving an impossible equation. His breath came in hitched little bursts, lips forming words that never made it to sound.
“You’re so—” Wonwoo choked on the sentence, swallowed, tried again. “Mingyu.”
“I’m here.”
Wonwoo’s hand descended, mirroring the act. His fingers encircled Mingyu, and the taller man’s hips bucked into the grip. A groan rippled out of him, deep and resonant, vibrating through Wonwoo’s chest. They found a rhythm together. Hands working in tandem, mouths crashing and retreating, breathless little confessions whispered against each other’s lips.
Mingyu moved faster. Wonwoo’s free hand clung to the back of his neck, nails dragging lightly. The sound of water and slick skin and broken moans filled the shower.
“Close,” Mingyu gasped.
Wonwoo’s reply was to tighten his grip, to press his forehead harder against Mingyu’s, to match his pace. The tension in their bodies coiled to a wire-thin point. Mingyu’s whole frame went rigid, a shudder rolling through him like a wave, and he buried his face in Wonwoo’s neck as he spilled over Wonwoo’s hand, into the flow of water that carried everything away. Wonwoo followed seconds later, mouth open against Mingyu’s shoulder, a silent cry lost in the noise of the shower.
They stood there, foreheads together, breathing hard. The water began to run lukewarm. Neither moved.
“We should finish before it goes too cold,” Wonwoo finally said.
“Probably.”
Neither moved for another long moment. Then Mingyu kissed him once more, soft and quick, and reached for the shampoo.
They washed each other’s hair next, fingers working through wet strands, gentle and unhurried. The intimate quiet of it settled over them like a blanket. Mingyu rinsed Wonwoo’s hair, tilting his head back carefully, shielding his eyes from the suds. Wonwoo returned the favor. By the time they stepped out, the bathroom was a sauna and the mirror was a foggy blur.
Wonwoo handed Mingyu a towel. Mingyu tossed one back. They dried off in comfortable silence, stealing glances that held more than words ever could.
Half an hour later, they sat across from each other at the small hotel table, clad in oversized plush robes that swallowed them to the wrists. The room service cart sat between them, two plates of steak and a scattering of side dishes. The Tokyo skyline glittered beyond the window, a sprawl of neon and bridge lights and the distant dark hump of the bay.
Mingyu cut into his steak. Medium rare, just the way he liked it. The exhaustion sat deep in his bones now, a pleasant heaviness. Across the table, Wonwoo ate quietly, his glasses back on, his damp hair curling at the temples. He wasn’t looking at his food. He was looking at the city, or maybe at nothing, his expression distant and calm.
Mingyu’s phone was propped against the salt shaker, playing fan-taken clips from the concert just hours ago. The tiny screen showed a sea of lightsticks, a wave of choreography, his own face frozen mid-note. He watched with a small smile, chewing slowly.
“They got your high note,” Wonwoo said without turning.
“Mm. The sound is terrible though.”
“Doesn’t matter. They’ll remember it anyway.”
Mingyu’s smile widened. He set his fork down and reached for his water. The silence between them wasn’t empty. It was the silence of two people who had shared a decade of hotel rooms and green rooms, bus bunks and literally a house. They didn’t need to fill every second with noise.
Wonwoo finished his steak first. He pushed his plate aside and nodded toward the cart. “There’s dessert.”
“Didn’t see it on the menu.”
“I added it.” Wonwoo’s voice was even, but his fingers tightened around his napkin. “For you.”
Mingyu raised an eyebrow but reached for the covered dish anyway. The silver dome was cold under his hand. He lifted it with a flourish, expecting chocolate or crème brûlée or whatever fancy pastry the hotel kitchen had.
The plate was empty except for a single velvet ring box, deep blue, sitting dead center.
Mingyu’s breath stopped.
His eyes went wide, fixed on the box, then snapped to Wonwoo. Wonwoo, who was still looking out the window, his profile unreadable, his jaw set in that way that meant he was bracing for impact.
“Mingyu,” Wonwoo said, and his voice was so quiet it barely crossed the table. He looked at Mingyu and simply said, “Marry me.”
The words landed like stones in still water.
Mingyu didn’t answer. Couldn’t. His chest constricted. His heart slammed against his ribs. He stared at the box, then at Wonwoo, then at the box again. His chair scraped back before he knew he was standing. His legs carried him across the room to the bathroom door, and he closed it behind him with a soft click.
Wonwoo was left alone with the ring.
He didn’t move for a long time. Then his face crumpled, just for a second, before he hid it behind both hands. His elbows hit the table. The city lights blurred against the window. You idiot, his mind screamed. You ruined it. You pushed too hard. You should have waited.
The minutes stretched, elastic and cruel. Wonwoo’s breathing stayed uneven. His heart hammered in his ears. He replayed the moment on a loop: the way Mingyu’s face had blanked, the way he’d stood up, the way he’d walked away without a word. Years of quiet devotion, of backstage whispers and stolen hotel nights, and he’d thrown it all at a dessert cart like a fool.
Just as he was about to stand, to do what, he didn’t know. Maybe knock, maybe apologize, maybe beg. The bathroom door opened.
Mingyu stepped out.
His face was flushed, his eyes red-rimmed but bright. He walked toward Wonwoo with a strange, determined grace. Then, right there in front of the table, he lowered himself to his knees.
Wonwoo’s mind went blank.
Mingyu’s hands came up. In them, a matching velvet ring box, nearly identical in shade, but slightly smaller. He opened it with trembling fingers. The ring inside was simple, elegant, exactly Wonwoo’s style.
“I’ve been carrying this in my bag for three weeks,” Mingyu said, voice raw. “I had a whole plan. Rooftop at the end of the tour. Tokyo Tower in the background. I was going to get down on one knee and give you a speech about how you’re the quiet center of my whole noisy world.” A wet laugh escaped him. “And you beat me to it with a steak dinner and a chocolate cake that wasn’t even there.”
Wonwoo just stared, mouth open.
Mingyu’s smile broke wide, that puppy-dog grin that crinkled his eyes and showed his canines. “Jeon Wonwoo. Will you marry me?”
The room held its breath.
Then, the silence broke into wet, breathless laughter. Tears spilled over as they called each other complete idiots, the overwhelming relief washing away every bit of their exhaustion.
Mingyu pulled Wonwoo into a tight, grounding hug, lifting him slightly off his feet before capturing his lips in a deep, affectionate kiss.
When they finally pulled back, they opened the velvet boxes on the table. With trembling hands, Mingyu slid a ring onto Wonwoo’s finger, kissing his knuckles, while Wonwoo slid the matching band onto Mingyu’s hand. They stared at the gleaming metal on their joined fingers, smiling through emotional tears before collapsing back into each other's arms.
Our Days Apart
Bang Chan X f! Reader
MDNI | Mature | Explicit | Fluff
Separated by an ocean and trapped in self-doubt, you connect with Chan over an intimate late-night video call that rekindles your bond and restores your sense of security.
Part 4
The days blur together.
A month under the Senior Manager's watchful eye has changed every errand into a calculated task, every trip outside into a whispered negotiation. You've stopped asking to leave. The apartment has become your entire world. The kitchen island where you eat every meal, the couch where you curl up with an ipad, the bedroom where you sleep alone most nights.
Seven months now. Or almost.
The bump is impossible to ignore. It precedes you into every room, a constant weight that pulls your lower back into an ache by midafternoon. You've taken to wearing Chan's oldest, baggiest hoodies—the ones that hang past your hips, the ones that might, if you squint, be mistaken for simple laziness rather than covering up.
The ipad glows on the coffee table.
You've spent three hours this afternoon building a registry under a fake name. Tiny onesies in muted earth tones. A crib that converts into a toddler bed. A rocking chair upholstered in cream linen. You click through reviews, compare prices, add items to a cart you'll never purchase from this IP address because the manager warned you about digital footprints.
A set of plush toys catches your eye. A rabbit. A bear. A small wolf with oversized ears.
Your hand drifts to your belly. The baby kicks. A sharp, insistent jab against your palm.
"Hi, baby," you murmur. "You like the wolf?"
Another kick. You take it as a yes.
The apartment hums around you. The refrigerator cycles on. A plane traces a distant line across the sky visible through the window. Somewhere out there, life continues. People rushing to work, friends meeting for coffee, couples walking hand in hand without calculating the distance between themselves and the nearest camera.
You put down the ipad.
The hallway mirror catches your reflection as you walk to the kitchen.
You look away.
You've been avoiding that mirror for weeks now. The woman who lives in it is a stranger. Swollen ankles, rounded face, breasts that have grown two full cup sizes and sit heavier on her chest than anything she's ever carried. The stretch marks have started appearing. Thin, silvery lines tracing across your belly like rivers on a map.
Chan says he loves them. Chan says he loves all of it.
But Chan isn't here.
His side of the closet hangs empty, a row of hangers where his shirts used to be. He packed five days ago, a single suitcase, his face drawn with guilt as he zipped it closed.
"I shouldn't go," he'd said for the tenth time.
"Chris." You'd handed him his charger. "It's a music festival. A major one. You can't skip it."
"They don't need me. They have—"
"They need their leader." You'd kissed him, soft and quick, before you could let yourself linger. "I'll be fine. The manager has people watching the building. I won't even leave the apartment."
"That's not the point." His hand had found your belly, his palm spreading wide. "The point is I should be here. With you. With her."
"You'll be back in a week."
"A week is forever."
He'd kissed you again, deeper this time, his forehead resting against yours when he finally pulled away. And then he'd walked out the door, and the apartment had swallowed you whole.
The first two days were fine.
You cleaned. Organized the baby clothes Hannah had mailed from Australia—tiny pink onesies and yellow blankets that smelled like her fabric softener. You rearranged the nursery three times, moving the crib from one wall to another before deciding the original spot was best.
Day three, the silence started pressing in.
Day four, you watched the festival livestream.
The quality was grainy, the audio lagging by several seconds. But the camera found Chan easily, his presence too magnetic to ignore, even through a screen. He moved across the stage with the kind of effortless command that made thousands of voices rise to meet him. His voice filled the arena. His body pulsed with the music, sweat glistening on his arms, his shirt sticking to his chest.
He looked alive. Electric. Untouchable.
The comments section scrolled beside the video feed.
OMG CHAN IS SO HOT
LOOK AT HIS ARMS I'M DECEASED
DADDY CHAN COME HOME
You closed the ipad.
Your reflection stared back at you from the black screen. Hair unwashed, face pale, wearing a hoodie that had once been his but now stretched tight across your belly. The contrast hit like a physical blow. Chan on stage, surrounded by lights and beautiful people. You in an empty apartment, your body swollen and strange, counting the hours until he returned.
Tears burned behind your eyes.
You blinked them away.
Day five, the cracks started to show.
You found yourself standing in front of the open refrigerator at 2:00 AM, not hungry, just staring at the shelves. You caught yourself checking your phone every few minutes, even though you knew he was performing, knew he wouldn't reply for hours. You lay in bed at night, your hand on your belly, feeling the baby kick and roll, and tried not to think about all the effortless, younger women who probably had access to him backstage.
You tried not to think about how easy it would be for him to find someone who wasn't trapped in an apartment. Someone who could go outside without a disguise. Someone whose body still looked like it belonged to a twenty-something, not a soon-to-be mother.
The voice in your head was quiet but relentless.
He's breathing fresh air. He's living his life. He's on the other side of the world, and you're here, alone, growing bigger every day, and what exactly do you bring to this equation now?
You pressed your palms against your eyes until you saw stars.
Your phone buzzed.
And buzzed again. And again. A FaceTime request, the caller ID lighting up with the name that made your chest ache.
Chan.
You stared at the screen for three full rings, your hand hovering over the accept button. The tears were still wet on your cheeks. Your voice would crack the second you spoke.
The call went to voicemail.
A text appeared immediately after.
Call me. Please. I need to see your face.
You wiped your eyes with the back of your hand. Took a shaky breath. Hit the callback button before you could lose your nerve.
He answered on the first ring.
His face filled the screen, exhausted, his hair still damp from a shower, a plain black tank top clinging to his shoulders. The hotel room behind him was generic, beige walls and a lamp casting warm light across his features. But his eyes, those dark, searching eyes, locked onto you with an intensity that made your breath catch.
"Hey," he said softly.
"Hey."
Silence stretched between you, filled with everything you weren't saying.
Chan's brow furrowed. He leaned closer to the camera, his thumb brushing the screen like he could reach through it. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing. I'm fine."
"You're crying."
"I'm not—" Your voice cracked. You pressed a hand to your mouth.
Chan's expression shifted. The exhaustion remained, but something else surfaced beneath it—a tenderness so fierce it looked almost like pain. "Tell me. Please."
"I watched the festival footage."
He blinked. "Okay."
"You looked happy. You looked... alive. Like you were exactly where you were supposed to be." The words tumbled out before you could stop them. "And I'm here. In this apartment. In this body that doesn't even feel like mine anymore. And I know it's stupid, I know you love me, but I look at you on that stage and then I look at myself in the mirror and I just—"
The tears spilled over.
Chan's face crumpled. He shifted closer to the camera, his voice dropping to a rough whisper. "Baby. Baby, look at me."
You forced your eyes to the screen.
"I don't care about any of that." He held your gaze, unwavering. "Those lights, that stage, all those people—they're noise. They're static. They don't mean anything. Do you understand me?"
"Chris—"
"The only thing that matters is you. You and our daughter. Every girl out there, every fan, every staff member, every person in that crowd—they don't have you. They'll never have you. They'll never know what it's like to fall asleep with your body against mine. They'll never feel our baby kick under their palm. They're not the ones carrying my child."
His voice roughened, a tremor running through it.
"I've been sitting in this hotel room for six hours wishing I was home. Not because I don't love performing. But because I love you more. Because you're my home. You're my family. And I hate that you're sitting there feeling like you're not enough, when you're the whole damn universe to me."
The tears came faster now, but they felt different. Lighter.
Chan's eyes traced something on the screen—the camera angle, the shadows in your room. "Show me."
"What?"
"Show me." His voice was low, almost pleading. "Let me see my girl."
Your breath hitched. "Chan—"
"Please." His hand moved beneath the frame, disappearing under the edge of the hotel sheets. "I need to see you. All of you. I need to remind myself what I'm coming home to."
You hesitated, your fingers trembling as you reached for the phone. You propped it against the headboard, adjusting the angle until the camera framed your body. Your hand hovered over the hem of your top.
His top, you realized. You were wearing his clothes even now.
"It's different," you whispered. "My body is—"
"Let me see."
You lifted the fabric.
The full curve of your belly emerged. Seven months of growth, round and heavy, your skin stretched tight over the life growing inside you. The stretch marks caught the lamplight. Your breasts sat fuller beneath the fabric, the changes of pregnancy impossible to hide. You felt exposed, raw, every insecurity laid bare under the camera's lens.
Chan's breath audibly caught.
His hand moved beneath the sheets, a slow, deliberate motion. His eyes traced every inch of you, from the swell of your belly to the curve of your hips, the new softness where your waist used to be.
"You're so beautiful," he said, his voice ragged. "God, you're so fucking beautiful."
"Chris—"
"I mean it." He swallowed hard. "I've been thinking about you every second I've been gone. The way you look right now. The way your body's changing. The fact that you're growing our daughter inside you." His hand moved again beneath the sheets, a subtle rhythm. "You have no idea what that does to me."
A heat bloomed in your chest.
"Touch yourself for me."
The words landed like a spark on dry tinder.
"What?"
"Put your hands where I want mine to be." His voice dropped, commanding and dark, stripping away the distance. "I've been imagining this for days. Imagining you. Your fingers sliding down your belly. Sliding lower. Letting me watch you come apart."
Your hand moved before you fully decided to. Your fingers traced the curve of your ribs, sliding down the slope of your belly, the fabric of your shorts rough against your palm. Your fingers slipped beneath the waistband, finding the slick heat waiting there.
Chan's breathing changed. Sharpened. His own hand moved in tandem beneath the hotel covers, his gaze fixed on your face, tracking every flicker of sensation.
"That's it," he murmured. "Let me see what you do when you think about me."
Your fingers found your clit, circling slowly. The sensation sent a jolt through your body, your hips pressing up into your own touch. A soft sound escaped your throat.
"I think about you every second," you breathed. "Every single second."
"Tell me what you think about."
"Your hands." Your fingers moved faster, the rhythm building. "The way you touch me. The way you hold me when you're inside me."
Chan groaned, low and desperate. His hand moved faster beneath the sheets, his hips shifting against the mattress. "Fuck. Keep going."
The baby kicked—a sharp, insistent flutter against your palm. It pulled you back to the present, grounding you in the reality of your body, of what you were doing. Your other hand came to rest on your belly, protective, tender.
Chan caught the movement.
"Don't stop," he said, his voice breaking. "God, please don't stop. I need to see you. I need to see you let go."
Your fingers pressed harder, the tension coiling in your core. Chan's voice guided you through it—low, raspy, telling you how beautiful you were, how much he loved you, how he was going to come home and worship every inch of your body.
The orgasm hit like a wave.
Your back arched, your mouth falling open, a moan escaping your throat as the pleasure crested and broke. Your fingers worked through it, riding the sensation until the last tremor faded.
Through the camera, you watched Chan's face contort with raw, unfiltered desire. With a heavy breath, he pulled the sheets back, his gaze locking onto yours as he guided his large, hard cock into full view. His hand gripped his shaft tightly, stroking himself in long, desperate pulls while keeping his dark eyes fixed on the screen, letting you see every inch of his arousal.
His breath came in harsh, ragged gasps as his hips twitched upward. A low growl escaped his throat as he followed you over the edge, his knuckles turning white around his length before his body tensed and he spilled heavy, warm release all over his hand and stomach, letting you watch every drop fall before he finally sank back, completely spent against the pillows.
The silence that followed was thick and intimate. Just breathing. Two sets of lungs rising and falling across an ocean.
Chan brought his face close to the camera. His eyes were soft now, the intensity faded into something warm and aching. He traced the screen with his thumb, right over the spot where your cheek would be.
"Don't ever hide from me," he said, his voice a whisper. "I love every single inch of you. Every curve. Every change. Every part of this body that's carrying our daughter."
"Chan—"
"I'll be home soon." He pressed his palm against the screen, a gesture so tender it made your chest ache. "And when I get there, I'm going to hold you for about three days straight. I'm going to kiss every stretch mark. I'm going to thank you for everything you're doing. And I'm going to remind you, every single day, that you're the most beautiful woman in the world."
The tears came again, but they were different now. Cleaner.
"I love you," you said.
"I love you more." He smiled, that dimpled smile that made your heart flip. "Get some sleep. I'll call you before the show tomorrow. And if you feel yourself slipping again, you text me. No matter what time it is. Understood?"
"Understood."
"Good girl."
The call ended.
You lowered the phone to your chest, staring at the ceiling, your other hand resting on your belly. The baby kicked once more—a gentle reminder that you weren't alone. That you'd never be alone again.
The distance still existed. The ocean was still vast, the apartment still quiet, the world outside still filled with cameras and whispers and the weight of secrecy. But the doubts had quieted. The voice in your head had been silenced.
He'd done that. With his words. With his voice. With his unwavering, impossible love.
You closed your eyes, your hand cradling your belly, and let yourself believe it.
When the clock struck 1:00 AM in Seoul, you were still awake, still smiling, still tracing the path of his thumb across the screen.
The Smell of Nothing
Choi Seungcheol X f! Reader
MDNI | Mature | Slow Burn | Smut
An unannounced visit to thank you for unspoken kindness turns into a breathless encounter that threatens to shatter all your boundaries.
Part 2
The white room hummed with its usual, quiet sounds—the whisper of the climate control, the steady tick of something metallic, and the low bubbling of the distillation unit. You'd arrived at 6:47 AM, forty-three minutes before your usual time, because the alternative was lying in bed staring at your ceiling and replaying Friday night on a loop.
Monday. A fresh start. A clean page.
Your charcoal-grey silk blouse sat crisp against your collarbones, the top button secured exactly at the hollow of your throat. Your glasses sat straight. Your hair was neat. The armor was back in place, and this week, it would stay there.
You pulled on your glovesand reached for a rack of sterile pipettes. CSC-1 through CSC-5 sat lined up on your workstation, the five vials you'd delivered to his apartment. He hadn't contacted you all weekend. No follow-up from his manager. No acknowledgment from Director Park beyond a curt email Saturday morning confirming she'd received word from his agency that he was recovering.
Fine. Good. The project would proceed through proper channels from now on. No more locked doors. No more whispered provocations. No more feverish hands gripping your wrist in the dark.
Your phone buzzed against the lab bench.
The receptionist's code number flashed on the caller ID. You peeled off one glove and pressed accept.
"Director? There's a delivery for you at the front desk."
"I'm not expecting anything."
"It's, um." The receptionist paused. A muffled sound, like she'd covered the receiver with her palm. When she came back, her voice had shifted into something carefully neutral. "It's flowers. You might want to come up here yourself."
The lobby smelled wrong the moment you pushed through the glass doors.
Your building's ground floor maintained a carefully controlled fragrant environment. A custom scent diffuser pumped a subtle blend of white tea and bergamot through the AC system at all times, designed to convey calm competence without overwhelming visiting clients. You'd formulated it yourself three years ago.
Now the entire reception area reeked of gardenias.
The bouquet sat on the front desk like a floral monument. Massive. Headline-grabbing. A dense cloud of white petals and glossy green leaves spilling over the edges of a crystal vase so heavy the receptionist had placed a protective mat beneath it. The stems were wrapped in cream silk ribbon. The arrangement must have cost more than your monthly grocery budget.
"What in the world," you breathed.
The delivery courier stood by the desk, tablet in hand, expression bored. "Signature required."
"Who sent these?"
He pointed at the small card tucked into the stems. Thick cream stock. Heavy weight. The kind of stationery that cost more than the flowers.
You pulled the card free. The envelope wasn't sealed. Four words in sharp, heavy handwriting that slanted across the paper with the confidence of someone who'd never second-guessed a decision in his life.
Thank you. — CSC
The panic hit like a chemical reaction. Instantaneous. Irreversible.
Your fingers crushed the card against your palm as the receptionist leaned forward, her eyebrows climbing toward her hairline. "Is that from a client? It's gorgeous. Who's CSC?"
"Nobody. A vendor. Thanking me for a rush order." The lie came out clipped, clinical, and you didn't wait to see if she believed it. You grabbed the crystal vase with both hands, the weight of it straining your wrists, and practically sprinted down the hallway. You didn't want anyone else to see it, to avoid office banter or teasing.
Water sloshed over the rim. A gardenia petal detached and fluttered to the carpet. You didn't stop. Past the elevators. Past the break room where two junior chemists were refilling their coffee mugs. Past Director Park's office, mercifully dark, her door still closed.
Your private office sat at the far end of the corridor, a small windowless room you'd claimed three years ago and never surrendered. You shouldered through the door, set the vase on your desk with a heavy thud, and locked the door behind you.
The click of the deadbolt echoed in the silence.
You stood there, back pressed against the door, staring at the bouquet. The gardenias seemed to pulse in the dim light, their fragrance thickening the air until you could taste it on your tongue. Sweet. Heavy. Completely inappropriate for a professional workspace.
He'd sent you flowers. Choi Seungcheol, a global idol, man who'd rejected every generic sample pushed at him by the marketing team, man who'd whispered against your ear in an empty boardroom and gripped your wrist in a feverish bedroom, had sent you a bouquet the size of a small child.
Not just any flowers. White ones. The kind that made people talk.
Your phone buzzed in your pocket.
You ignored it. You had work to do. Formulations to adjust. Data to analyze. Professional boundaries to rebuild brick by brick.
The gardenias watched you from the corner of the desk like a fragrant accusation.
Lunch came and went. You ate a protein bar over the sink in the private bathroom attached to your office, unwilling to risk the break room and its inevitable questions. The bouquet had been impossible to hide. By now, half the building probably knew the weird perfumer from the basement had received flowers from someone who signed his name in initials.
Your phone buzzed again at 1:47 PM.
Not a call. A text message. An unknown number flashed across the screen, and the preview made your stomach drop.
Unknown Number: did you get them?
Your pulse spiked. You could feel it in your throat, at your wrists, a sudden hammering that had nothing to do with caffeine. Your thumb hovered over the message, and you told yourself you didn't know who this was. You told yourself it might be a wrong number. You told yourself a dozen lies in the space of three seconds.
You opened the message.
You: How did you get my number?
The reply came faster than should have been possible. He must have been holding his phone, waiting.
Unknown Number: got it from your manager pls don't be mad at her, i insisted. i just wanna thank you for last time
Your jaw tightened. He'd compromised your manager. Director Park, who'd spent eighteen months respecting your boundaries and your basement sanctuary and your pathological need for professional distance, had handed over your personal number like it was a business card at a networking event. You'd have words with her later. Sharp ones.
But first—
You: oh ok. the flowers were too much, but you're welcome.
You stared at the screen, thumb poised over the keyboard. The typing indicator appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again. He was composing, deleting, recomposing. The image of Choi Seungcheol, a man who had dismissed his entire entourage with a single gesture and locked a boardroom door without breaking eye contact, struggling to find the right words in a text message did something complicated to your chest.
Cheol: did you like it?
Four words. Simple. Direct. The same way he'd asked about scent profiles and longevity expectations, lacing every question with double meanings.
Your thumb hovered.
Then you put the phone face down on the desk.
The screen went dark against the wood. No response. No typing indicator. Just silence, and the heavy sweetness of gardenias, and the distant hum of the compounding room's climate control cycling through its phases. You decided not to reply to not let him continue with what he's trying to do. Keep it professional you tell yourself.
By 5:30 PM, the building had emptied.
The overhead fluorescents in the main laboratory dimmed automatically at five, triggered by motion sensors that hadn't registered movement in the corridors for twenty minutes. Only your workstation remained illuminated, a pool of warm task lighting that cast long shadows across the stainless steel benches.
You sat at your desk, finishing documentation that could have waited until tomorrow. The gardenias had begun to drop petals. Three of them lay on the wood beside your keyboard, white against dark grain, and you hadn't been able to bring yourself to sweep them into the trash.
The heavy security door clicked open.
You heard it through the wall, the distinctive hiss of the laboratory's main entrance disengaging. Footsteps crossed the compounding room. Slow. Deliberate. Not the hurried clip of a junior chemist retrieving a forgotten phone. Not the measured stride of Director Park coming to demand an update on the CSC formulations.
You knew those footsteps.
You'd heard them on the executive floor, crossing mahogany and wool carpet. You'd heard them in his apartment, muffled by the designer rug in his living room. You'd heard them in your dreams for five nights running.
Seungcheol walked into your office like he belonged there.
No entourage. No manager. No garment bag or stylist or agency representative trailing in his wake. Just him, in a casual grey hoodie and dark jeans, his hair slightly messy and damp from the humid evening air. The idol armor was gone. The sharp jaw and broad shoulders remained, the dark eyes and the mouth that curved into a slow, knowing smile the moment he saw your phone lying face down on the desk.
"Leaving me on read, Director?"
His voice was low. Amused. The same voice that had curled around the words let's do more next time and left you checking your collar for phantom buttons.
"I had to come make sure you didn't choke on the fragrance of those gardenias." He gestured at the bouquet, still massive, still fragrant, still dominating the corner of your desk like a floral monument. "The scent is pretty strong. Thought it might overwhelm your sensitive nose."
"I'm fine." Your voice came out flat. Controlled. The armor was holding. "You didn't need to come here."
"Maybe not." He set the padded black sample box on your desk, right next to the vase. Your sample box. The one you'd left on his console table Friday night, five glass vials nestled in foam, labeled in your precise handwriting. "But I wanted to return these in person. And since you weren't answering my texts..."
He let the sentence hang. His eyes tracked across your face, your high buttoned collar, your perfectly straight glasses, and the smirk that pulled at the corner of his mouth was the same one he'd worn in the boardroom. The same lazy, knowing acknowledgment that he saw your walls and found them charming.
He opened the box. Ignored the official evaluation sheets clipped to the lid. Slid two specific vials forward across the wood.
CSC-2. The dark leather. The heavy one.
CSC-5. The one with his synthesized skin scent. The one you'd been nursing for six weeks before you even knew this project existed.
"I want these two," he said. "Modify them. Combine them."
He walked over, his heavy boots slow and deliberate on the carpet. He swivels your seat a bit to face him before he leans down to plant both of his large hands firmly on the armrests of your chair. He trapped you completely, crowding your space until the faint scent of the gardenias vanished, replaced entirely by him. He was close—so close you could feel the radiating heat of his skin. Underneath the clean scent of his soap, that faint, warm cedar note you’d catalogued in the boardroom mixed with the raw salt of his skin, overwhelming your senses until you were forced to look straight up at him.
"Make it something that stays on the skin." His voice dropped into the lower register. The one designed to bypass ears entirely. "Long after I leave the room."
The words echoed. The same ones he'd spoken across the mahogany table, his forearms resting on the wood, his dark eyes catching yours and holding them. Don't you agree, Director?
Your hands moved before your brain approved.
You grabbed his arms. The muscle beneath the hoodie was solid, warm, and you shoved him backward with more force than necessary. He stumbled half a step, surprise flickering across his features, and you used the space to stand up from your chair and walk across the room.
"I got it." The words came out clipped. Professional. "I'll work on your request."
You turned to face the filing cabinet on the far wall. Your back to him. Your fingers found the handle of a drawer and pulled it open, and you began scouring through papers you had no business looking at. Old formulation records. Equipment maintenance logs. Anything to keep your hands busy and your face hidden and your pulse from betraying you the way it had in the boardroom.
You heard him move.
Not toward the door. Toward you.
The footsteps were slow. Deliberate. The same unhurried confidence with which he'd approached you at the mahogany table, cutting into your personal space like he had every right to be there.
His hands found your waist.
Warm palms settled over the silk of your blouse, fingers curving around the shape of your hips with a gentleness that contradicted the size of them. You went rigid. Every muscle locked. Your hands froze on the papers in the filing drawer, and you could feel him behind you, the heat of his chest radiating through the thin fabric of his hoodie, the length of his body a solid wall at your back.
His face lowered to your neck.
Not touching. Not quite. The space between his lips and your skin was measurable in millimeters, and your breath stopped entirely as his exhale ghosted across the sensitive skin just below your ear.
"For a perfumer," he murmured, "you kind of smell like nothing."
The words registered somewhere deep in your chest. Your fingers tightened on the papers.
"Which is nice. Natural."
You tried to speak. Failed. Tried again.
"Mr. Choi—"
"But really." His voice changed. Dropped the teasing lilt. Dropped the playful confidence. The hands on your waist tightened fractionally, and when he spoke again, the words came out stripped down to something honest. "Thank you so much for Friday night. You didn't have to. But you did."
His forehead lowered. Rested against the crown of your head, a gentle pressure, and the intimacy of the gesture hit you harder than any whispered provocation could have.
"I could have died that night. And no one would have known."
The silence that followed was absolute. No humming climate control. No ticking stirrer. Just the thud of your heart against your ribs and the warmth of his breath against your hair and the impossible weight of his hands on your waist.
"I— I was just doing my job." Your voice came out steadier than you felt. Professional. Detached. The same wall you'd rebuilt every morning for months.
Seungcheol lifted his head.
"That's not part of your job though Miss."
He was right. You both knew it. Perfumers didn't make house calls. They didn't apply cold compresses or cook ramen or let feverish idols clutch their arms in the dark. None of that was in the job description. None of that was professional.
You didn't know what to say.
The silence stretched. His hands stayed on your waist. His breath stayed warm against your neck. The gardenias breathed their heavy fragrance into the room, and somewhere in the distance, the building's AC system cycled through another phase.
Then he leaned down further, his lips brushing the hyper-sensitive skin right against your ear. His voice was a low, steady whisper. A promise, a threat, and an invitation all at once.
"I know you're just trying to keep it professional. I get that" His thumb traced a single arc across your hip bone, the barest pressure through the silk. "When you decide to break that..."
He stepped back.
The sudden cold at your back made you sway. Your hands caught the edge of the filing cabinet, bracing yourself, and you heard his footsteps retreating toward the door.
"You've got my number."
The hiss of the security door. The soft thud of it closing. The silence of an empty laboratory settling around you like a held breath.
Your knees buckled.
You didn't choose it. Your body simply surrendered, the tension that had been holding you upright snapping all at once, and you slid down the side of the filing cabinet until your thighs hit the floor. Your back pressed against the metal drawers. Your hands trembled in your lap.
The realization hit you slowly. Gradually. A warmth spreading low in your belly, a dampness against the silk of your underwear that you'd been too tense to notice until this exact moment. Your thighs pressed together, and the pressure sent a jolt through your nervous system that made your breath catch.
You were wet.
Soaking. Drenched in a way that had nothing to do with the humid summer air and everything to do with his hands on your waist and his voice in your ear and the impossible, infuriating, devastating way he'd said when you decide to break that.
Not if.
When.
Your head fell back against the filing cabinet. The metal was cold through your hair. The gardenias bloomed on your desk, dropping petals one by one, and your phone lay face down exactly where you'd left it, his contact information glowing in the dark screen you couldn't see.
The laboratory hummed its quiet, steady symphony.
You sat on the floor, knees pressed together, pulse hammering at your wrists and your throat and between your thighs, and let the silence swallow you whole.
HBD
Matt x Bestfriend f!Reader
Mature | Smut | MDNI
Trying to force himself to just be your best friend as you requested, Matt cracks under a wave of intense jealousy.
Part 8
The phone buzzes at 7:14 AM.
You’re still barely awake from a dreamless sleep, the kind that comes after days of emotional exhaustion finally catch up with your body. The vibration rattles against the nightstand, sharp and insistent, and your hand fumbles blindly across the wood surface until your fingers close around cold phone.
One new message.
Your thumb swipes across the screen before your brain fully registers what you're doing. The brightness sears your eyes. You blink. Refocus.
Matt: OK.
Two letters. No punctuation beyond the period. No follow-up. No explanation.
The phone slips from your fingers and lands face-down on the mattress. Your heart, which had lurched into your throat at the sight of his name, now sinks somewhere deep into your stomach. OK. Just OK. The letter you poured yourself into, the desperate plea to salvage your friendship, the raw admission of your cowardice, all of it met with two letters and a period.
Your fingers are already typing before you can stop yourself.
You: OK?
The response comes immediately. So fast you know he must have been staring at his phone, waiting.
Matt: The letter from Nick, i read it. OK.
No capitalization on the I. No warmth. No indication of what's going on behind those dark eyes. Just a confirmation of receipt. A digital nod. Message delivered. Contents noted. Have a nice life.
You stare at the screen until the words blur. Then you lock the phone and roll over, pulling the blankets up to your chin. The ceiling is the same ceiling you've stared at for the past week. The same cracks in the plaster. The same dust motes floating in the morning light. Everything is exactly the same, except now you have two letters and a period to add to your collection of things Matt has given you that you don't know how to interpret.
You don't reply.
The conversation dies right there, buried under the weight of mutual confusion, two people who have spent years talking around the thing that matters most, now reduced to single syllables and lowercase letters.
The next three days pass in a haze of forced nothing.
You don't leave the house. You don't answer texts beyond the bare minimum required to keep people from showing up at your door. The group chat buzzes constantly. Chris, doing what Chris does best, filling the silence with nonsense.
Chris: yo did anyone else see that pigeon outside the studio today
Chris: it was HUGE
Chris: like genuinely concerningly large
Chris: nick said it was normal sized but nick is a liar
Chris: anyway we're filming tomorrow if anyone cares
Chris: which you should because the concept is actually sick
Nick sends a thumbs-up emoji. Matt sends nothing.
You send nothing.
The chat goes quiet for a few hours, then Chris starts again.
Chris: update: the pigeon is back
Chris: i think it's watching me
Nick: It's a pigeon, Chris.
Chris: a MENACING pigeon
You read every message. You don't respond. Your thumb hovers over the keyboard more than once, but what would you even say? Hey guys, just so you know, your brother and I had sex and then he found years of obsessive love letters I wrote to him and now we're not speaking and I'm pretty sure our friendship is irreparably damaged. Anyway, what time is filming?
The phone stays locked. The silence stays heavy.
Your birthday arrives on a Saturday.
You wake up to the smell of something baking downstairs. Your mother, already in full event mode, has been planning this for weeks. "It's not every day my baby turns another year older," she'd said, ignoring your protests that you didn't want a party, that you didn't want a fuss, that you just wanted to survive the week without completely falling apart.
The house transforms by noon. Folding chairs appear from the garage. A tablecloth you've never seen before gets draped over the dining table. Your mom enlists two of your cousins to hang a banner that reads Happy Birthday! in gold script, and someone produces a truly alarming number of balloons.
You move through the preparations like a ghost. You smile when people talk to you. You accept hugs from aunts who comment on how thin you look, how tired, are you sleeping okay? You lie and say you're fine. Just busy. Just stressed. Just anything other than what you actually are, which is a woman whose entire emotional existence has been reduced to two letters and a period.
The doorbell rings at 2 PM.
Chris bursts through the door before you can even reach the handle. "BIRTHDAY GIRL!" His voice echoes through the entryway. In his hands is a massive foil balloon, it's a giant green pickle wearing a striped party hat. The text on the body of the pickle reads, in bold letters: Another Birthday? NO BIG DILL!
A laugh tears out of you. Genuine. Surprising. The first real laugh in days.
"Chris," you manage, "where did you even find this?"
"The internet is a beautiful place." He grins, shoving the balloon weight into your hands. "Also, you're welcome. I spent actual money on this."
Nick slips past his brother, shaking his head with the long-suffering patience of someone who has spent his entire life dealing with Chris's antics. He's holding a neatly wrapped present, rainbow paper with a silver bow. "Ignore him. Happy birthday." He pulls you into a hug, one arm wrapping around your shoulders while the other keeps the gift carefully balanced.
His voice drops to a whisper against your ear. "Are you okay?"
The question, so simple, so direct, almost undoes you. You swallow hard. Nod against his shoulder. "I'm okay," you whisper back. And for a moment, pressed into Nick's steady, grounding presence, you almost believe it.
Then you look up.
Matt is standing in the doorway.
He's wearing dark jeans and a simple white box crop tshirt. His hair is the same. His face is the same. Everything about him is exactly the same, except for the careful, deliberate distance in his eyes. The way he's holding himself back. The way he's watching you watch him.
And then, like someone flipped a switch, he smiles.
It's his classic smile. The easy one. The best-friend smile. "Hey," he says, stepping forward. "Happy birthday." He hands you a wrapped present with a card tucked under the ribbon, and his fingers don't brush yours. He pulls back before they can.
The card features Sandy Cheeks winking inside her scuba dome on the front, arched beneath the words howdy partner happy birthday. Inside, his handwriting, familiar, the same handwriting you've read on set lists and grocery notes and the back of receipts for years fills the page.
Homegirl,
Happiest Birthday. All the best! Thanks for always being there.
— BBF Matty
P.S. I'm sorry.
Your eyes catch on the postscript. The rest of the message is so casual, so flippant, so perfectly constructed to sound like nothing has changed. But those three words at the bottom, tucked under his signature like an afterthought, undo the entire performance. I'm sorry. Not sorry for the card being late or sorry I forgot to wrap it better. Just I'm sorry. Vast and vague and devastating. Also you couldn't help but notice the subliminal messaging, Sandy, Spongebob's iconic girl best friend.
You look up. Matt is watching you read, his expression carefully neutral. But his jaw is tight. The muscle at the corner of his mouth twitches.
"Thank you," you hear yourself say. "This is really sweet."
"Of course." His voice is steady. Performed. "You know I've got you."
You know I've got you. The words land somewhere deep in your chest and ache. He's being normal. He's being exactly what you asked for in the letter, the best friend, the safe one, the one who doesn't talk about what happened or what he read or what he said when he pinned you against the door and called you his. He's giving you what you asked for.
So why does it feel like a knife between your ribs?
The party swells around you.
Your mom has outdone herself. The dining table groans under the weight of food. Sandwiches cut into triangles, a cheese board, a vegetable platter, something involving puff pastry that your aunt brought and everyone is politely not eating. Your cousins have taken over the living room. High school friends you haven't seen in months circulate with paper plates and cups of punch.
You move through it all on autopilot. Smile. Hug. Thank you. Yes, another year older. No, I don't feel different. Yes, the pickle balloon is ridiculous, Chris picked it out.
Matt stays in your orbit but never enters it. Every time you glance across the room, he's there, talking to someone, laughing at something, sipping his drink. But his eyes keep finding you. Brief glances. Quick cuts. Like he's checking to make sure you're still there. Still real. Still his, even if he's pretending you're not.
The doorbell rings again past 4 PM.
August is standing on your porch with a bouquet of flowers. Simple. White daisies and yellow roses, wrapped in brown paper. His smile is warm and easy and completely unaware of the emotional minefield he's walking into.
"Happy birthday," he says, handing you the flowers. "Sorry I'm late."
You hug him. It's natural. It's what friends do. But over his shoulder, across the crowded living room, you see Matt's expression flicker. The mask slips for half a second. Something dark and sharp flashes in his eyes.
Dinner is a loud, chaotic affair.
Every seat at the table is filled. Your mom has dragged in the extra chairs from the garage, the mismatched ones with the wobbly legs that no one ever uses. You're wedged between one of your cousins and Nick. Across the table, Matt sits next to Chris. August at the far end.
You're halfway through your second plate of food when August stands up.
He taps his fork against his glass. The clinking sound cuts through the chatter. Conversations trail off. Heads turn. Your cousin elbows you and grins.
"Alright, alright," August says, his voice carrying that easy confidence he always has. "I'm not big on speeches, but I couldn't let today pass without saying something."
Your stomach tightens. You glance at Matt. He's perfectly still, his fork paused halfway to his mouth.
"I've known this one for a long time," August continues, gesturing toward you with his glass. "And I've watched her be the most selfless, most loyal, most quietly incredible person in every room she walks into. She's the kind of friend who shows up. Every time. No questions asked. No thanks needed."
Your cousins are swooning. One of your high school friends makes a teasing "aww" sound.
"She deserves the world," August says, his eyes finding yours. "And I'm so lucky to have her in my life. Happy birthday. To the best."
Glasses raise around the table. Voices chorus, "To the best!" Someone claps. Your mom dabs at her eyes with a napkin.
You force a smile. Force a thank you. Force yourself not to look at Matt.
But you feel him. You feel the exact moment he pushes his chair back from the table, the scrape of wood against wood. You feel the silence that follows as he stands, as he walks out of the room, as the door swings shut behind him.
The empty chair gapes at you. Accusing. Awful.
Nick catches your eye from across the table. His expression is carefully blank, but something flickers there. Something that looks a lot like confirmation. Like he's been waiting for this particular shoe to drop all afternoon.
You stare at Matt's half-eaten plate. At the fork resting on the edge of the porcelain. At the napkin crumpled beside it.
The green-eyed monster has finally reared its head.
You excuse yourself five minutes later.
"Just need to grab more napkins," you say, to no one in particular. To everyone. To the void where Matt used to be sitting. No one stops you. Your mom is already deep in conversation with your aunt about some neighborhood drama. Your cousins are arguing about something on their phones. The party has swallowed the moment whole, moved on without noticing the absence of one person.
The kitchen door swings shut behind you.
The hum of the refrigerator. The distant laughter from the dining room, muffled now by the wall. The bright overhead light reflecting off the countertops. And Matt.
He's standing by the sink, his back to you, his hands braced against the edge of the counter. His shoulders are tight. His head is bowed. He doesn't turn around when you enter.
"Hey." The word comes out smaller than you intended.
"Hey." His voice is rough. Worn at the edges.
The silence stretches. The refrigerator hums. Somewhere in the dining room, Chris laughs loudly at something. The sound feels like it's coming from another planet.
Matt turns around.
His face is unreadable. That careful blankness he's worn all afternoon, all week, all the long days since he walked out of your bedroom and left the spare key on your nightstand. But his eyes are different. His eyes are burning.
"This is what you wanted, right?" He asks it quietly. Not accusing. Just tired. Just hollow. "To just forget about everything. For you to have your best friend back."
You stare at him. Your brain snags on the words. What you wanted. He's talking about the letter. The letter Nick delivered. The letter where you begged him to pretend the box had never been found, the sex had never happened, the confession had never left his lips. You asked him to forget. You asked him to shove everything back into a box and lock it away.
And he's been trying. All afternoon, with the easy smile and the casual card and the deliberate distance, he's been trying to give you exactly what you asked for.
Tears prick at your eyes. Hot. Immediate. You can't let him see. You can't let him watch you break again. You turn around, facing the counter, pressing both palms flat against the cold surface. The chill grounds you. The smoothness of the granite. The faint smell of dish soap.
"Maybe this will be better for both of us." Your voice trembles. You can't stop it. "I don't know, Matt. Maybe better for the friendship—"
The words die in your throat.
Heat. Sudden, solid heat pressing against your back. His arms wrap around your waist, pulling you into his chest. His face buries into the side of your neck, his breath warm and ragged against your skin.
"I tried."
His voice cracks on the word. Shatters. The pieces of it scatter across the kitchen tiles.
"I tried, but I can't anymore. I can't fake it."
Your hands are still pressed flat against the counter. Your knuckles have gone white. His arms tighten around your waist, holding you like you might disappear if he lets go.
"You have no idea how selfish you were." His lips move against your neck, barely a whisper. "Keeping all those letters to yourself. All those years. All those things you never said."
"I'm sorry." The apology chokes out of you, wet and broken.
"Don't be." His grip tightens. "Don't be sorry. I'm the one who's sorry. I'm sorry for not looking at you. For not seeing what was right in front of me."
A shaky breath shudders through his chest. You feel it against your spine, the rise and fall of it, the way his body is trembling almost imperceptibly.
"Finding that box, those letters" he continues, his voice low and rough, "completely flipped my world. I didn't—I had no idea. All this time, I thought I was the only one struggling. The only one with these messy, confused feelings that I didn't know what to do with. And then I found those letters and realized you were doing the exact same thing. In the dark. By yourself. For years."
His face presses deeper into your neck. You feel the scratch of his beard. The wetness that might be tears or might be your own or might be both.
"You were right there," he whispers. "The whole time. Right in front of me. And I was too stupid to see it."
He turns you around.
His hands slide up from your waist, over your ribs, until they cup your face. His thumbs brush the tear tracks on your cheeks, wiping them away even as new ones fall. His eyes are dark and wet and unbearably open.
Then he kisses you.
It's different from the rainstorm. Different from the frantic, desperate collision in your bedroom. This kiss is slower. Deeper. A confession pressed into your lips, your tears mixing together, salt and heat and the faint taste of the punch he drank at dinner.
He pulls back, breathing hard. His forehead rests against yours. His thumbs are still stroking your cheekbones.
"Seeing you with him," he breathes, "I can't take it."
You blink through the tears. "Who? See me with who?"
The kitchen door swings open.
August steps inside. His expression shifts instantly, the easy smile evaporating as he takes in the scene. You, crying. Matt's hands on your face. The tension in the air thick enough to choke on.
"Is everything okay in here?" August steps forward, his posture straightening, his shoulders squaring.
Matt drops his hands from your face. The warmth disappears. The cold rushes back in.
He turns around.
Walks right up to August.
Almost chest to chest. Eye to eye. The height difference is negligible. The tension is not.
"Yeah, dude." Matt's voice drips with defensive venom. "Everything's okay."
The air crackles. Neither of them moves. Neither of them blinks. You're frozen against the counter, your back still pressed to the cold granite, your hands still shaking.
The door swings open again.
Chelsea walks in. "What's up?" She glances between the two men. Her brow furrows. Then, as if deciding the testosterone standoff isn't worth her attention, she walks right past both of them.
"Happy birthday, babe. I'm sorry got caught up with work." She wraps you in a hug, her sundress rustling, her perfume light and floral and completely at odds with the chaos of the moment. She pulls back, studying your face. "You okay?"
You nod. Numb. Automatic.
Chelsea turns around. Walks right up to August. Throws her arms around his neck. Rises onto her toes.
And kisses him, a peck on the lips.
Soft. Brief. The kind of casual peck that comes from years of intimacy. "Babe," she says, her hand resting on his chest, "is everything okay?"
August's posture softens immediately. His hand comes up to cover hers. "Yeah," he says, his eyes still on Matt. "Everything's fine."
The kitchen goes silent.
Matt stands frozen. His eyes are wide. His mouth has fallen slightly open. He's staring at Chelsea's hand on August's chest. At August's hand covering hers. At the easy, obvious intimacy between them that he has somehow, impossibly, completely misread.
You watch the realization crash over him in waves. The furrow of his brow. The slight shake of his head. The way his eyes cut to you, confusion and disbelief and something that looks terrifyingly like hope all tangled together.
"Wait." His voice is barely a whisper. "You two are—she's your—"
"Girlfriend," August says. Flat. Direct. "Chelsea. My girlfriend." He pauses, and understanding dawns across his face. Understanding of exactly what Matt has been assuming this whole time. "Did you think—"
He doesn't finish the question. He doesn't need to.
Matt's face crumples.
All the jealousy. All the rage. All the sleepless nights and the desperate confrontations and the who the fuck is he and the are you sleeping with him and the way he's been tearing himself apart watching you with August. All of it, built on a foundation of absolutely nothing.
"Chelsea," you manage, your voice still shaky, "this is Matt. Matt, this is Chelsea. August's girlfriend."
Chelsea extends her hand. "Nice to finally meet you. I've heard a lot about you."
Matt doesn't take it. He's still staring at August. Still processing. His jaw works, like he's trying to form words and failing.
Then he looks at you.
And the expression on his face is so raw, so utterly exposed, that it steals the breath from your lungs. He looks like a man who has just been handed a pardon at the gallows. Like someone who spent weeks drowning only to realize the water was three feet deep.
The kitchen door swings open again. Nick pokes his head in, his eyes scanning the scene—Matt frozen, August and Chelsea united, you pressed against the counter with tear-streaked cheeks—and sighs.
"Of course," he mutters. "I leave you people alone for five minutes."
Our Discovery
Bang Chan X f! Reader
MDNI | Mature | Explicit | Fluff
An unexpected visitor threatens to shatter your fragile secret, forcing you to confront the suffocating cost of the life you are hiding together.
Part 3 Part 5
The penthouse hums with a lazy afternoon quiet. Sunlight spills through the floor-to-ceiling windows, warming the pale oak floors, casting long golden rectangles across the furniture. A faint trace of Chan's cologne still lingers in the air, the scent he'd worn when he kissed you goodbye this morning, his lips brushing your forehead, his hand lingering on your belly.
"Track list meeting," he'd murmured, still half-asleep. "Won't be long. Stay in bed. Rest."
You'd watched him dress in the dim, the muscles of his back shifting as he pulled on his shirt, the way he'd paused at the door to look back at you, his expression soft and aching. Then he was gone.
Now the apartment belongs to you and the silence.
You pad barefoot into the kitchen, the cool marble floor a relief against your warm skin. The tank top you're wearing is one of his, an old black one that used to hang loose on him. On you it's started to strain at the seams. The fabric stretches taut over the curve of your belly, the five-month swell round and prominent, impossible to miss. No shirt can hide it anymore. Not that you've been trying.
You reach for a glass from the cabinet, fill it from the filter, bring it to your lips. The water is cold and clean, and you stand there for a moment, one hand resting on the counter, the other cradling your stomach, feeling the quiet flutter of movement deep inside.
A kick. Soft. Testing.
You smile.
The apartment is safe. The apartment is yours. The world outside though, the cameras, the schedules, the contracts, the impossible weight of secrecy, feels distant, like sound through water.
Then the front door beeps.
Your hand freezes on the glass.
Three sharp tones. The keypad code being entered correctly. You check the clock on the microwave, one-forty in the afternoon. Too early for Chris. Too late for any scheduled deliveries. Hannah's flight back to Sydney left thirty-six hours ago.
Your heart kicks against your ribs.
The door swings open.
She steps inside, already scanning the room with the methodical precision of someone who owns every space she enters. Her suit is light gray today, sharply tailored, her hair pulled into that tight, severe ponytail that seems to pull her features even sharper. A tablet is tucked under her arm, her heels clicking against the marble floor with deliberate, unhurried authority.
The Senior Manager.
Your glass clinks against the counter as you set it down too fast. Water sloshes over the rim, pooling on the granite, but you don't move to wipe it up. You can't move.
Her eyes find you.
The kitchen is bright, flooded with afternoon light. There's nowhere to hide. No jacket to grab, no hoodie to pull over your head. The tank top clings to every curve, every swell, every impossible line of the body you've been keeping secret for months.
Her gaze drops to your belly.
The silence stretches, thick and suffocating. One second. Two. Three. She doesn't gasp. Doesn't flinch. Doesn't do any of the things a normal person would do when confronted with the impossible sight of their top artist's secret girlfriend standing in his kitchen, five months pregnant, wearing nothing but a thin piece of black cotton that does nothing to conceal the truth.
Instead, she closes the door behind her. The click is soft, final.
She sets her tablet on the console table by the entrance. The sound of it settling against the wood is loud in the stillness.
Then she walks toward you.
Her heels mark a slow, steady rhythm against the floor. She doesn't stop at the kitchen island, doesn't put any furniture between you. She walks all the way to the counter opposite you, places her hands flat on the granite, and looks at you with an expression that makes your blood run cold.
Not anger. Not shock. Something worse.
Understanding.
"So," she says, her voice low and even, "this is what it is."
Your mouth opens. Nothing comes out.
She tilts her head, studying you the way a jeweler studies a flawed stone. "I knew there was something. He's been different these past months. Distracted. Unfocused. Late to rehearsals, zoning out during meetings, staring at his phone with that dopey look I haven't seen since he was a trainee with his first girlfriend."
Her eyes drop to your belly again. Hold there.
"I thought you were just a fling. Something he'd get out of his system. Idols do that sometimes you know. They find a person, play house for a while, then reality catches up and they come back to work." She pauses. "But this isn't a fling, is it."
It's not a question. You answer anyway.
"No."
"How far along?"
Your throat is sandpaper. "Five months."
"Five months." She repeats the words like she's testing their weight. "Five months. That means you got pregnant right around the time of the award show. Right around the time I found you two in the editing suite."
Your stomach drops. She knows. She's always known more than she let on.
"I warned you," she says, her voice dropping lower. "I told you to be careful. I told you what was at stake. I told you that if this got out, it wouldn't just be his career on the line—it would be the whole group. Every schedule, every contract, every endorsement. Years of work. Decades, even. All of it at risk because you couldn't keep your legs—"
"Don't." The word comes out before you can stop it, sharp and trembling. Your hand presses flat against your belly, protective. "Don't you dare."
Her eyes narrow. For a moment, something flickers in them—surprise, maybe, at your defiance. Then it's gone, replaced by that cold, calculating stillness.
She walks around the island. Slowly. Deliberately. She stops three feet from you, close enough that you can smell her perfume—something floral and expensive, utterly at odds with the menace radiating from her posture.
"I'm not going to allow any of this ruin him," she says quietly. "Not yet. Not today."
Your breath catches.
"But I need you to understand something." She leans in, her voice dropping to a whisper. "I know about this now. I know about you. Every doctor's appointment you make, I'll know. Every time you leave this apartment, I'll know. Every whisper that reaches my ears about a pregnant woman spotted near the JYP building, I'll connect the dots. I will be watching. Both of you. Closely."
She straightens, adjusts the cuff of her blouse.
"If this secret gets out, it will be the end. Not just for him. For me, too. I've spent years and years building my reputation in this industry. Years managing scandals, protecting artists, keeping the machine running. If it comes out that one of my biggest stars has been hiding a pregnant girlfriend for half a year, that failure lands on my shoulders. My career goes down with his."
She holds your gaze.
"So I have just as much invested in keeping this quiet as you do. Which means I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure no one finds out. But that also means you need to do your part. No more mistakes. No more slip-ups. No more midnight ramen runs that get photographed. No more careless whispers to friends or family. You lock this down tight. You make sure the only people who know are the ones who absolutely have to."
Her eyes bore into yours.
"Can you do that?"
You nod. It's the only thing you can do.
"Good." She takes a step back. "Then I'll be on my way. I have a meeting with the creative directors in an hour, and I need to figure out how to explain Chan's sudden interest in family-friendly scheduling without raising suspicion."
She turns toward the door.
The front door flies open.
Chan stands in the doorway, chest heaving, phone clutched in his hand, his face pale as bone. His eyes are wild, scanning the room with desperate urgency until they land on you. On your belly. On the Senior Manager standing three feet away.
For a moment, no one moves.
Then Chan is moving, crossing the space in four long strides, his body sliding between you and the manager with a speed that makes you flinch. His arm extends behind him, palm open, reaching for you. You take his hand. His fingers close around yours like a lifeline.
"She doesn't know anything," he says, his voice ragged, desperate. "She's just a friend. She was helping me with—with a project. She's not—the baby isn't—"
"Chris." The manager's voice cuts through his stammering like a blade. "Stop."
He falls silent.
She looks at him with an expression that's almost pitying. "I know everything. She told me. Five months. Pregnant with your child. And you've been hiding it from me, from the company, from everyone."
Chan's grip on your hand tightens painfully. His jaw is set, his whole body rigid with tension, a caged animal ready to fight.
"Before you say anything," he starts, "before you do anything—"
"I'm not going to do anything." The manager's voice is calm. Terrifyingly calm. "Not yet. I've already given her the same warning I'm about to give you."
She steps closer, close enough that she's nearly touching Chan's shoulder. He doesn't move. Doesn't back down.
"Keep this quiet," she says softly. "Keep her quiet. Keep yourself quiet. No more risks. No more mistakes. If this gets out before we have a plan, I won't be able to protect you. And trust me—no one else will either."
She holds his gaze for a long moment. Then she steps back, smooths down her jacket, and walks toward the door.
At the threshold, she pauses. Turns.
"Congratulations," she says, her voice carrying a strange, bitter edge. "Both of you. I hope you know what you're doing."
The door clicks shut behind her.
The apartment is silent.
Chan’s hand is still gripping yours, his knuckles white. His breathing is harsh, uneven, his whole body trembling with adrenaline that has nowhere to go. You stand there, in the kitchen, in the light, your belly pressing against his side, the ghost of her perfume still hanging in the air. Neither of you moves.
Then, the suffocating quiet finally snaps.
Chan’s shoulders cave inward as he spins around, pulling you desperately into his arms. He buries his face deep into your hair, holding you so tightly it almost hurts, his large hands trembling against your back.
"I'm sorry," he chokes out, his voice cracked and thick with a raw, agonizing guilt. "I'm so sorry. I stood right there and I... I didn't say anything to her. I wanted to scream it in her face, but I just froze. I let her look at you like that."
He pulls back just enough to frame your face, his dark eyes glassy with unshed, frustrated tears. "I’ve spent my whole life playing their game, and in front of her, I felt like a trainee again. I'm sorry for trying to deny you, for keeping us in the dark, for not shielding you the way I should have. You and our girl deserve so much better."
You place your hands over his, feeling the frantic pulse in his wrists, and gently lean your forehead against his.
"Hey, look at me," you whisper, your voice steady and warm. "I understand, Chris. I do. You aren't a coward. You're protecting us the only way you know how, and I know what’s at stake. You don't ever have to apologize to me for trying to keep us safe."
His Natural Scent
Choi Seungcheol X f! Reader
MDNI | Mature | Slow Burn | Smut
An unexpected turn of events during a private delivery to Seungcheol's home brings you into a vulnerable and highly intimate situation that completely blurs your professional boundaries.
Part 1 Part 3
The compounding room felt wrong.
Four days had passed since Seungcheol whispered against your ear and left your pulse hammering in the executive boardroom. Four days of telling yourself the encounter was nothing, a momentary lapse, a professional anomaly you'd dissected and catalogued and filed away. Four days of throwing yourself into the skeleton formula on your workstation monitor, tweaking the heart notes obsessively, chasing something warm that breathed.
The Hedione trial failed. Again.
You stared at the blurry lines on the test printout and finally admitted the truth: the formula was fine. You were just distracted. The memory of his scent, leather and warm skin, kept hitting you out of nowhere. You thought about it while working in the lab, and while lying awake in bed at 2 a.m.
"The top notes fade too fast when the skin gets warm." That’s what you had told him. Except you hadn't said it across a desk. You'd said it right against his neck, with his hand pressed into your back.
Your fingers tightened on the printout.
The intercom on your wall crackled. "Director? Conference call in five. The SEVENTEEN project timeline briefing." boss's assistant, clipped and efficient. "I've forwarded the Zoom link."
You smoothed your blouse. Checked your collar. Every button fastened, as it always was. You'd checked obsessively for days.
The video call window populated one by one. Your boss appeared first, her office backdrop immaculate, a piece of abstract art angled precisely behind her head. Then two brand executives you recognized vaguely from the Christmas party, Marketing and Strategic Partnerships, both wearing the kind of expensive neutrality that meant they'd already decided everything before the call began. An agency representative whose name you missed. A stylist who seemed to be dialing in from a car.
You positioned yourself in front of your office's neutral wall, laptop angled to show only your face and the collar of your blouse. Professional. Untouchable.
"Let's wait for Seungcheol-ssi," one staff said. "He's joining in a bit."
Your cursor hovered over your notes. A spreadsheet of timeline projections. A list of formulation milestones. You'd prepared for this call the way you prepared for everything: exhaustively, systematically, leaving nothing to chance.
Seungcheol's window blinked to life.
Your brain registered the image in fragments. First, the motion—a steady, rhythmic pace, his shoulders rising and falling. Then the setting: gym equipment, a wall of mirrors, the metallic glint of weight racks. Then him.
He wore a tank top. White. Soaked through.
The fabric clung to his chest and shoulders like a second skin, dark with sweat, translucent in patches where it adhered to the hard planes of muscle beneath. His hair was damp, pushed back from his forehead, and his skin glistened under the gym's fluorescent lights. He gripped the treadmill's handles loosely, his breathing controlled despite the obvious exertion, and as you watched. Frozen, cursor motionless, he reached for a small towel and dragged it across his jaw.
"Sorry." His voice came through slightly breathless, the microphone catching the ambient hum of the machine. "Packed schedule. Didn't want to miss the call."
The brand executives exchanged pleasantries about dedication and commitment, but before diving into the data, your boss cleared her throat.
"Before we look at the numbers, a quick reminder," she said, her eyes scanning the room. "Everything we discuss today stays inside this room. This project is strictly confidential, and absolutely nothing leaves this table."
With that, she launched into her agenda. Your eyes stayed fixed on the screen, on the way the sweat traced a line down the side of his neck and disappeared beneath the sagging collar of that tank top, and somewhere in the back of your mind a clinical voice noted that his epidermal temperature must be significantly elevated right now, the volatile compounds in his body chemistry would be off-gassing at an accelerated rate, his natural scent profile would be—
"Miss Director will walk us through the initial skin-chemistry findings."
You blinked.
The Marketing executive was looking at you expectantly. Your boss's expression had gone sharp, the way it did when she suspected someone wasn't paying attention. On screen, Seungcheol's treadmill slowed to a walking pace, his head tilting toward his laptop camera, and even through the mediocre resolution you could see the corner of his mouth twitch.
"Director?" she prompted. "The findings from your analysis."
Right. Yes. The analysis.
You cleared your throat, fingers finding your notes with the muscle memory of a thousand presentations.
"The subject, Mr. Choi, has a natural skin chemistry that works perfectly with warm, earthy base scents. The initial mix of musk and ambergris blended seamlessly with his skin oils in less than two minutes. This proves his skin is a great match for richer, heavier fragrances, which usually have a hard time sticking to people with cooler or drier skin types."
You didn't pause for breath. The words came faster now, the intellectual autopilot engaging, your voice steady and clinical.
"His skin runs a little warmer than average, about a degree or so. That heat makes the light, fresh top notes vanish quickly, but it actually pulls out the deeper, middle scents. It creates a sort of 'chimney effect'—the perfume spreads really well and carries far, but you have to balance the citrusy and fresh notes carefully so they don't just burn off instantly. I suggest we lean into those leather and warm-skin scents, while using synthetic musks to help the whole fragrance stick around longer and fade out smoothly."
The stylist made a note. The agency rep nodded with the slightly glazed expression of someone who wasn't following but trusted the science. Boss looked satisfied.
On screen, Seungcheol grabbed the front of his tank top and tugged it away from his chest, fanning himself. The movement was casual, unconscious—the gesture of a man too hot to care about decorum. You saw a flash of his stomach, the hard line of muscle above his waistband, and your next sentence died in your throat.
"Additionally," you continued, forcing the word out, "the subject expressed a distinct aversion to aquatic notes and a preference for scents that dry down into something intimate rather than projecting aggressively. He specifically used the phrase 'something that stays on a person's skin long after I've left the room.'" You paused. The cursor blinked on your screen. "I've documented these parameters for the formulation phase."
One executive leaned toward her camera. "Excellent. That aligns perfectly with the campaign direction. We're positioning this as SEVENTEEN's first solo scent collaboration, highly confidential, completely bespoke. The exclusivity will be the selling point."
Your boss nodded. "Which brings us to timelines. Director, you'll prepare an initial set of five distinct base scent concoctions. We've locked the follow-up testing session for Friday."
Friday. Four days from now. You calculated the hours in your head: ninety-six, minus sleep and existing obligations. Tight but feasible. You'd need to source fresh absolutes, probably expedite an order from the supplier, but the foundations were already mapped from the skin-chemistry data.
"That's manageable," you said. "I'll have the samples ready by Thursday evening for quality control."
Seungcheol unmuted.
The subtle click of his microphone activating cut through the call. His treadmill had stopped entirely now, and he'd stepped closer to his camera, his face filling the screen. Still glistening. Still breathing slightly hard.
"I can't wait for Friday." His voice was low, rough from exertion, and the smile he flashed at the camera was distinctly, unmistakably cheeky. "It's been too long."
The comment was directed at everyone. It was a generic statement of professional enthusiasm, the kind of thing any celebrity might say to placate a boardroom of executives.
His eyes found the camera. Found you, through the glass and the pixels and the miles between his gym and your office.
The flush hit your cheeks before you could stop it.
"We're all looking forward to it," the boss said smoothly, oblivious. "Let's reconvene after the testing session. Director, keep us updated on the formulation progress."
The call dissolved into closing pleasantries. You mumbled something appropriate, waited for the windows to blink out one by one, and then sat staring at your blank screen for a full minute. Your face in the dark reflection was pink. Your collar was still buttoned.
ou built all five bases while you were almost completely blacked out.
The compounding room became your entire world for seventy-two hours. You arrived before the cleaning staff and left after the security guards changed shifts. Meals were protein bars eaten over a sink. Sleep was a negotiation you kept losing.
Thursday evening, you capped the last small bottle and lined up all five on your desk. The bright overhead lights caught the glass, making each one look like a different shade of gold. You didn't give them fancy names. You just labeled them CSC-1 through CSC-5. Nothing romantic. Just data.
Your back ached. Your eyes burned. You felt hollowed out and strangely satisfied, the way you always did after a completed project.
Friday would be fine. A professional testing session in the executive office. You'd present the samples, record his reactions, gather data, and leave. No locked doors this time. No whispered provocations. Just science.
iday arrived gray and humid, the kind of summer day that made the air feel thick enough to drink. You packed the five vials into a padded carrying case, double-checked your notes, and spent the afternoon reviewing the formulation data until your eyes crossed. You are ready to take it upstairs to the meeting room.
At 4:47 PM, your phone rang.
"Director." Your boss's voice had that tight quality again, the one that preceded bad news. "There's been a change of plans. Seungcheol can't make the office appointment."
"Oh."
"Something urgent. His manager didn't specify."
You felt the release before you could stop it, the loosening of muscles you hadn't realized were tensed, the exhale that had been waiting in your chest since the Zoom call. "Should we reschedule for next week?"
"No. He needs the samples tonight. The campaign timeline is too tight." Papers shuffled on her end. "You'll deliver them directly to his private residence."
The relief curdled. "Can't we use a courier? The company has a confidential delivery service for exactly this situation."
"Absolutely not. These are unreleased, proprietary formulations tied to a contract worth more than our annual salary. You cannot risk the samples falling into the wrong hands." Her tone left no room for negotiation. "A private driver is waiting downstairs. The address is already programmed in the GPS."
"Will he even be there?"
"His manager says he's "caught up" with something, probably still at a shoot. The apartment should be empty." She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice had softened a fraction. "Just drop off the samples and leave. We'll have them video record his reactions and comments to the scents. You'll be back home by dinner."
An empty apartment. A quick drop-off. No confrontation, no tension, no dark eyes watching you from across a mahogany table.
"Fine," you said. "I'll do it now."
Thluxury condominium complex rose from the streets of a quiet neighborhood like a monument to discretion. No signage. No street-level branding. Just a sleek glass tower behind a guarded gate, the kind of building designed to be invisible to anyone who didn't already know it was there.
The driver pulled into the lobby drop-off. You turned to him and told him he could head out and leave for the night. Your apartment wasn't very far, so you'd just grab a taxi home later.
After he drove off, you walked inside and checked in with the ground-floor receptionist. She was expecting you. Your name was already on the list, your ID was scanned, and a digital keycard was pressed into your palm with practiced, impersonal efficiency.
"Twenty-sixth floor. Room 2615."
The elevator ascended in silence, the mirrored walls reflecting a woman whose charcoal-grey blouse was buttoned to the throat, whose glasses sat perfectly straight, whose expression betrayed nothing. You held the sample box against your chest like a shield.
The twenty-sixth floor hallway was carpeted in dove grey, the walls hung with abstract art that matched the building's architecture perfectly. Room 2615 sat at the end of the corridor, a heavy wooden door with a discreet brass number.
You knocked three times.
Silence.
As expected. You swiped the keycard, heard the lock click open, and stepped inside.
The apartment was dim. Not dark, a single lamp burned somewhere deeper in the living room, casting long amber shadows across the entryway. The air smelled clean, slightly herbal, with an undertone of something that reminded you of the Le Labo candle sitting on the console table ahead: sandalwood and cedar and a trace of smoke.
The hallway was narrow, elegant, dominated by a long console table that served as a shoe cabinet. Dried flowers in a ceramic vase. A gold metal dish holding a set of keys. The candle, half-burned, its wick blackened. Everything arranged with the precision of someone who employed a very good cleaner.
You set the sample box on an empty spot beside the candle. Five glass vials, padded in foam, labeled in your precise handwriting. There. Delivered. Done.
You turned toward the door.
A cough echoed from inside.
Rough. Heavy. The kind of cough that scraped its way up from somewhere deep in the chest and left damage behind. You froze, one hand extended toward the door handle, every instinct screaming at you to leave.
Another cough. Wet this time. Followed by a weak, shuddering inhale.
"Mr. Choi?" Your voice came out softer than intended, swallowed by the darkness of the hallway.
No response.
"Mr. Choi?" Louder now, a thread of concern weaving through the professional tone.
The only answer was a third cough, rasping and exhausted, and then a faint rustle of fabric that sounded like someone shifting under a heavy weight.
You stepped out of the hallway.
The living room opened before you, vast and minimalist, floor-to-ceiling windows facing a river's distant glitter. A massive sectional sofa dominated the space, and on it, buried beneath a thick cream blanket, visibly shivering despite the summer humidity, was Choi Seungcheol.
He looked nothing like the man who'd locked the boardroom door.
His face was pale beneath a sheen of sweat, dark hair plastered to his forehead, his lips dry. The blanket was pulled up to his chin, but you could see the tremor running through his shoulders, the way his fingers clutched the fabric like it was the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth. His eyes were glassy, bloodshot, rimmed with red.
"Mr. Choi." You crossed the room without conscious decision, your heels sinking into the plush carpet. "You're sick. Should I call your manager? Do you need—"
"No." The word came out hoarse, barely audible. He shook his head weakly against the cushion. "Don't call anyone. Please. They'll worry, and the schedule—" Another cough swallowed the rest of the sentence.
"Emergency services, then. You need medical attention."
"No." Stronger this time, almost desperate. His bloodshot eyes found yours, and even through the fever haze, there was something fierce in them. "Please. Just... don't."
You hovered at the edge of the sofa, torn between protocol and something deeper, something that had nothing to do with corporate procedure. He looked so diminished. So human. The formidable idol reduced to a shivering, sweating mess on his own couch.
Your hand moved before your brain approved the decision.
His forehead burned against your palm. The heat radiated through your fingers, shockingly high, the kind of temperature that should absolutely warrant medical intervention. His skin was dry and hot and papery, and beneath your touch, he let out a small, involuntary sigh—the sound of someone so desperate for coolness that even a stranger's hand felt like relief.
"You're burning up," you said. "I need to get your temperature down."
Standing at the threshold of his private bathroom moments later, you registered the collection before you registered anything else. His cologne stash sat on a sleek black shelf above the sink, bottles arranged with the care of a museum exhibit. Dozens of them. Niche houses and designer classics. Tom Ford. Byredo. Le Labo. Diptyque. A few you didn't recognize, probably limited editions or overseas exclusives.
Your hand was reaching for your phone before you could talk yourself out of it. One quick photo. Just for research. Just to understand his true preferences, the scents he actually wore when no one was watching. This would help the formulation. This was data.
The phone camera clicked.
You grabbed a small face towel from the rack and turned to find a basin. No basin. A quick survey of the bathroom revealed nothing usable—just a sleek vessel sink, too shallow to fill properly. You returned to the living room, veered into the kitchenette, and pulled a large ceramic bowl from an otherwise empty cabinet.
The water ran cold from the tap. You soaked the towel, wrung it out, carried the bowl back to the couch.
Seungcheol's eyes were closed now, his breathing shallow and rapid. You sat on the edge of the cushion, the same way you'd sat at the mahogany table, inches from him. You pressed the damp cloth to his forehead. He flinched at the cold, then relaxed, his jaw unclenching by slow degrees.
You wiped the sweat from his temples. His cheekbones. The hollow of his throat where his fever was most intense. The cloth came away warm, and you dipped it back into the cold water, wrung it again, laid it across his brow.
"Do you have a medical kit? Thermometer? Anything?"
He shook his head weakly.
Of course he didn't. A man who worked himself into illness and begged you not to call his manager wouldn't have bothered with basic medical supplies. You stood, brushing off your trousers.
"I'm going down to the pharmacy. You need fever reducers and a proper thermometer. I'll be back in twenty minutes."
Before you could take a single step, his hand snapped around your wrist.
The grip was startling, hot and strong and desperate, entirely at odds with the shivering weakness of his body. His eyes stayed closed, but his fingers locked around your bones with the force of a man who'd decided something.
"Don't leave." The words came out raw, scraped clean of the playful charm, stripped down to something honest. "Please."
You stood frozen, his hand burning against your skin. Your pulse hammered beneath his grip, the same wrist he'd touched in the boardroom, the same spot his thumb had traced while he murmured about your cold hands.
"Mr. Choi—"
"Please."
The second time, it broke something in you. Something professional. Something walled-off. You sat back down on the edge of the sofa, and the moment you did, Seungcheol shifted. He pulls your forearm against his chest, tucking it under his chin like a child clutching a stuffed animal, his body curling around your arm as though you were the only anchor in a storm.
His other hand found your pulse point. Fingers gentle now, resting there, feeling the beat. Grounding himself.
His heartbeat thrummed against your skin through the thin fabric of his shirt. Slow. Steady. The rhythm of a body fighting to heal itself.
You sat trapped on the edge of the leather cushion, your arm locked against the furnace of his chest, and watched the lights of the river glitter through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Almo an hour passed.
The city darkened beyond the glass, the city skyline resolving into a scatter of neon and orange. Seungcheol's grip on your arm never fully released, but gradually, little by little, the tension bled out of his fingers. His breathing deepened. The shivering stopped. The fever held, but the worst of the chills seemed to pass.
When his hand finally went slack, you slipped free with the slow, careful precision of a bomb technician.
The kitchenette was barely stocked. You opened cabinet after cabinet, finding nothing but a few packs of instant ramen, some tea bags, and a jar of honey crystallized at the bottom. No vegetables. No rice. No evidence that anyone actually lived here.
The ramen would have to do. You filled a pot with water and set it to boil, adding the seasoning packet, the dried vegetables, a generous pinch of red pepper flakes from a jar you found wedged behind the honey. Spicy, hot, hydrating—exactly what a depleted, sweating body needed to break a fever.
The broth steamed in the ceramic bowl as you carried it to the living room. You set it on the coffee table and knelt beside the couch, touching his shoulder with the lightest pressure.
"Mr. Choi. Wake up. You need to eat something."
His eyelids fluttered. Opened. Those dark eyes found you through a haze of exhaustion, and for a moment he looked confused, as though he'd forgotten you were here, as though waking to find you kneeling beside him in the dim light was a dream he hadn't expected to have.
"Director," he rasped.
"Sit up a little. Just a little." You slid your hand behind his shoulders, helping him shift against the armrest. He was heavy, his body dense with muscle even in illness, and the heat of him radiated through the blanket. "I made ramen. It's not fancy, but the spice will help."
You lifted the spoon, blew on the broth until the steam thinned, and held it to his lips.
He swallowed. Winced at the heat. Swallowed again.
The color seeped back into his face by millimeters, not the flush of fever, but something closer to life. His cracked lips pursed, accepting another spoonful, and another, and his eyes never left your face.
"Thank you," he whispered when the bowl was half-empty. His voice was gravelly, scraped raw by coughing, but the gratitude in it was unmistakable. "Thank you, Director."
You sethe empty bowl on the coffee table, the ceramic clinking softly in the quiet room.
"Come on," you whispered, looking down at him. "You’ll be much more comfortable in a proper bed than cramped up on this sofa."
He grumbled something unintelligible but didn't protest as you reached down.
The bedroom was dark. You'd navigated the hallway by touch, one arm wrapped around Seungcheol's waist, his arm draped heavy over your shoulders, his weight threatening to drag you both down with every step. He stumbled. You caught him. The master bedroom door swung open, revealing a king-sized bed with tangled grey sheets.
"You'll rest better here," you said. "The couch is too short for someone your height."
Three more steps. The edge of the mattress pressed against your thighs.
His knees gave out.
You felt him crumple before you saw it, the sudden dead weight. The way his body surrendered to gravity and exhaustion. His hand caught your blouse on the way down, fingers twisting in the charcoal-grey silk, and you didn't have time to brace yourself.
You landed squarely against his chest.
The mattress swallowed you both. His arms came around you automatically, one forearm wrapping around your shoulders, the other resting on your lower back, and in the darkness of his bedroom you were suddenly, completely enveloped. His chest rose and fell beneath you. His heartbeat, still slow and steady, pulsed against your sternum.
And his scent.
Without the laboratory filters, without the buffer of glass vials and scent strips, his natural smell hit you with the force of a physical blow. Deep and heavy. A raw, masculine musk that had nothing to do with cologne. Underneath it, a fading trace of citrus that must have been whatever he'd worn before the fever set in, now altered, intensified by his radiating body heat. It was warm. It was alive. It was the smell of a man stripped down to his most essential chemistry.
Your breath caught. A tiny hitch, the same stutter you'd made against his throat in the boardroom.
He noticed. Even through the fever, even through the exhaustion, his arms tightened fractionally around you.
"Thank you," he said again, and his voice was different now. Not the idol. Not the flirt. Something real. His bloodshot eyes found yours in the darkness, inches away, and his gaze dropped to your lips for half a heartbeat before rising again. "Again."
The distance between your faces was dangerously small. His breath ghosted across your cheek. Your heart hammered against your ribs so hard you were certain he could feel it through both your chests.
"I—" You scrambled backward, breaking his grip, your heels catching on the carpet as you stumbled to your feet. Your cheeks were on fire. "I'm going to get medicine. Actual medicine. From a pharmacy. I'll be right back."
You fled.
The pharmacy was a ten-minute walk through the quiet streets. Cool night air hit your burning face, and you walked faster than necessary, the rhythm of your heels on pavement matching the frantic pace of your thoughts.
A digital thermometer. Extra-strength fever reducers. A pack of cooling patches. Heavy-duty cold medicine. You paid with shaking hands and carried the plastic bag back through the condominium's silent lobby, up the elevator, to Room 2615.
The apartment was still when you swiped back in. Silent except for the distant hum of the AC. You crept into the bedroom and found Seungcheol buried under his duvet, the shivering finally stopped, his breathing deep and even.
His face in sleep was different. Softer. Younger. The sharp lines of his jaw and the commanding presence were still there, but muted, relaxed. He looked like a man who'd finally surrendered to his own limits.
You placed the pharmacy bag on his bedside table. Arranged the thermometer, the water glass, the medicine where he'd see them when he woke.
For a long moment, you stood in the shadows, looking down at him.
Then you slipped out of the apartment, the heavy front door clicking shut behind you. The scent of his skin clung to your blouse all the way home.
The elevator descending toward the lobby was mirrored, and in the reflection you saw yourself: glasses slightly askew, cheeks still flushed, collar still buttoned to the throat. But your hand rose to touch it anyway. Just to check.
On the taxi ride home, you called his agency. You let them know how he is sick and alone in his unit.
SOS
Matt x Bestfriend f!Reader
Mature | Smut | MDNI
After Matt discovers your hidden love letters and panics, you send him a final note through Nick, begging to forget everything and save the friendship.
Part 7 Part 9
The first thing you register is the cold.
Not the temperature of the room—the lamp is still glowing, the air still heavy with the scent of vanilla and sex and him—but the cold of the space beside you. The mattress where his body had been. The sheets that had tangled around both of you hours ago, damp with sweat and tears and other things, now stretched flat and empty where he once lay.
You shift.
The rustle of fabric against skin. Your body protests, muscles sore in places you'd forgotten could ache. The lamp on your nightstand is still on, its amber glow carving the room into soft shadows and darker corners. The curtains are still half-drawn. The window is still a black mirror reflecting the bed, the rumpled blankets, the shape of you propped on one elbow.
And the shape of Matt on the floor.
He's exactly where he was when you first opened your eyes. Back against the closet door. Knees pulled up. The box. The one you've kept hidden under the old blanket for years. It sits open beside him, its worn cardboard corners catching the lamplight. Letters are scattered around his bare feet. The pages curl at the edges, some yellowed with age, some still crisp and new. His name stares up from every envelope.
He doesn't look at you.
He doesn't move.
The silence in the room is suffocating. Heavy enough to press against your eardrums. The only sound is your own breathing, shallow and uneven, and the far-off hum of the AC. And then—
Matt's voice.
Rough. Hollow. A sound pulled from somewhere deep in his chest, scraped raw by hours of reading and years of revelation.
"The way she looked at you tonight made me want to scream."
You freeze.
He's reading. His eyes move across the page of the letter in his hands, crumpled notebook paper, the ink slightly smeared where your hand dragged through it years ago, and his voice carries the words into the dark like a confession.
"You didn't even notice me across the room. You were too busy watching her. And I was too busy watching you watch her, memorizing the way your smile crinkled your eyes, the way your thumb rubbed the edge of your glass, the way you leaned into her space like gravity had shifted and she was the new center of your universe."
The letter. You know which one it is. The night of Chris's birthday party, two years ago, when Matt spent the whole evening with a girl with jet black hair and a laugh like wind chimes. You'd worn a blue dress, the only nice thing you owned at the time, and he'd said "You look nice" without ever really looking. You went home and wrote seven pages. Seven. Front and back. The ink had bled through to the other side.
Matt reads the last line aloud, his voice cracking on the final syllable.
"I keep telling myself that someday you'll see the girl in front of you. But I've been saying that for years, and I'm starting to think I'm invisible."
The letter drops.
His fingers release the page like it's burned him. It flutters to the floor, landing among the others, and his hands come up to cover his face. His shoulders hitch. The amber light catches the tear tracks glittering on his cheeks, the wetness in his beard, the way his jaw clenches and unclenches like he's trying to chew through something too big for his mouth.
He doesn't look angry.
That's the worst part. Anger you could handle. You could deflect anger, match it, throw it back at him like a weapon. But this, the devastation carved into every line of his face, the guilt that seems to be physically crushing him into the floorboards, this you don't know what to do with.
"I was just looking for a blanket."
His voice is barely a whisper. His hands drop from his face, and his eyes finally lift to meet yours. The contact is a physical blow. Your stomach knots.
"You were shivering." He says it like an apology. Like an explanation. Like a defense he's already given up on. "In your sleep. You were shivering, and I didn't want to wake you, so I got up to find another blanket. In the closet. The top shelf. I wasn't—" His voice breaks. He swallows. "I wasn't snooping. I wasn't trying to find anything. My hand just caught on the corner of the box when I reached for the shelf and it all came down and I saw my name and I—"
He stops. Breathes. His hands are trembling again.
"I'm sorry."
The words hang in the air. Small. Inadequate. A pebble thrown into an ocean.
You can't speak. Your throat is locked. Your tongue is a dead weight in your mouth. You're frozen in the bed, the sheets pulled up to your chest, your bare shoulders exposed to the cool air, and all you can do is stare at him—at the wreckage of him—and try to remember how to form words.
He doesn't wait for your response.
His hands move. Slow at first, then faster. He gathers the scattered letters, stacking them with a care that seems almost reverent. The one he dropped—the one with seven pages and smeared ink—gets folded along its original creases. Another, the angry scrawl from the night he left your room after the flu, gets tucked into its own creased folds. One by one, he places them back into the box.
You watch.
You can't do anything else.
"This." His voice comes out strangled. "All of this. All these years. You were—" He can't finish. His hands pause over the box, trembling. "You helped me. Every time. Every girl. You proofread my messages. You told me what to say. You smiled and hyped me up while I was—" A sound tears from his throat. Not quite a sob. Something sharper. "While I was destroying you."
Your lips part. Nothing comes out.
"I don't—" He shakes his head. His hands resume their work, placing the last of the letters into the box, closing the lid with careful, deliberate pressure. "I don't know how to fix this. I don't know if I can."
He stands.
The movement is shaky, unsteady, his legs clearly stiff from being sat on the floor. He's still wearing only his boxers, his chest bare, the skin you'd clawed hours ago now marked with faint red lines. The lamplight catches the curve of his shoulder, the dip of his waist, the vulnerability he never shows anyone.
He crosses to the nightstand.
The heavy metal spare key. The one your mom gave the triplets years ago. It's been sitting there since he let himself in, a silent accusation. He picks it up. The metal clinks against the wood.
And then he sets it down. Deliberately. Carefully. Right beside the lamp, so you'll see it the moment you wake.
So you'll know.
"I'm sorry," he says again, his voice scraping through the quiet room as he bends down to scoop his shirt from the floor. He jerks it over his head, the movement tight and stiff. "For everything. For tonight. For what we—for what I—"
Another swallow. Another crack. He reaches for his pants, shoving his legs into it with a rough, defensive finality.
"You were vulnerable. You were upset," he continues, his voice steadier now. Emptier. He doesn’t look at you as he picks up his jacket, his fingers trembling against the sleeves. "And I just—I came in here and I—"
He can't say it. Can't put words to what happened hours ago—the confrontation, the confession, the frantic sex that followed. He hooks the heavy metal spare key from the nightstand and sets it down flat with a soft, definitive click, relinquishing his access to your space.
"I shouldn't have," he whispers, grabbing his sneakers and backing toward the door. "Not after reading those. Not after knowing. I should've just left."
He stops. His hand drops from the key. He doesn't look at you.
"Take the key. It's yours. I don't deserve it."
And then he leaves.
The door doesn't slam. It clicks shut, soft and final, and then there's just the sound of his footsteps in the hallway. The front door opening. Closing. The distant rumble of an engine turning over.
Then silence.
Pure, absolute silence.
You don't sleep.
You don't move. For hours, you don't move. You lie in the tangled sheets, staring at the ceiling, your body a foreign thing that someone else inhabited hours ago. The letters. The box. The key on the nightstand, gleaming in the lamplight like a dare.
He knows. He knows everything. Every thought, every fantasy, every pathetic, desperate admission you've ever scribbled onto paper. The anger, the want, the jealousy, the hope. The letter from the night after the rainstorm, the one that ended with I'm done, the tear that smeared the ink. The letter from the night of the villa, I hope my face is the only thing you see in the dark. All of it.
He knows.
And he left.
The sun rises pale and gray through the half-drawn curtains. You watch the light change, watch the shadows shift across the floor, watch the empty space beside you remain stubbornly, impossibly empty. Your phone lies on the nightstand, face-down. You don't check it. You can't.
When you finally drag yourself out of bed, it's nearly noon.
The box is still there. On the floor by the closet. Closed now, the lid pressed down, everything neatly tucked away. Matt did that. Even in his devastation, he was careful with your secrets. He put them back exactly where they belonged.
Your body moves on autopilot. Shower. Clothes—an old hoodie, the softest one you own, the one that smells like nothing but laundry detergent and loneliness. You don't brush your hair. You don't look in the mirror. You shuffle to the kitchen, pour a glass of water you don't drink, and stand at the counter staring at nothing.
Your phone stays face-down.
The first text comes at 1:07 PM.
Chelsea: You alive? Gus said you were radio silent. Brunch was epic tho. Call me when you're conscious.
You stare at the screen. The words blur. You type back something brief, something meaningless—I'm fine, just tired, talk later—and then you turn the phone over again.
The second text comes at 2:43 PM.
August: Hey. Just checking in. Chelsea's worried. I'm worried. You good?
You don't answer.
The third text comes at 3:15 PM. It's not from Chelsea or August.
Chris: yo you alive?? matt's been a nightmare all morning. locked himself in his room. won't talk to anyone. we were supposed to film today. did something happen at the party??
The phone slips from your fingers. Lands on the couch cushion. You stare at the screen until it goes dark.
He's locked himself in his room. Refusing to talk. Being a nightmare.
The words circle your brain like vultures. He's not ignoring you out of anger. He's not pretending nothing happened. He's hiding. Just like you. Just like you've both always hidden, from each other, from yourselves, from whatever this thing is that's been burning between you for years.
You think about calling him. You think about texting. Your thumb hovers over his name—Matt—and you can see the last messages from before all of this, before the rainstorm and the villa and the letters, when you were still his safe, comfortable friend who gave him advice about other girls.
You can't do it.
The day stretches on. Gray afternoon light bleeds into gray evening light. Your mom comes home from her weekly grocery run, calls out a greeting, and you respond with something automatic. She doesn't notice the cracks. She never does.
You eat dinner. Or you sit at the table while food is in front of you. Same thing.
The phone stays silent. No texts from Matt. No calls. Nothing.
You go to bed. The sheets are cold. The pillow still smells faintly of him.
You don't sleep.
Monday morning. Sunlight. The ceiling. Dust motes floating in the golden beam cutting through the curtains. Your body feels like it's been hollowed out and filled with lead. Every movement takes deliberate effort. Every thought is a weight you have to drag behind you.
The key is still on the nightstand.
Your phone is still empty of him.
Another text from Chris. Seriously what is going ON. Matt's like a zombie. Nick won't tell me anything. Are you guys fighting???
You type back: I don't know.
It's the most honest thing you've said in days.
Tuesday passes in the same gray haze. You don't leave the house. You don't answer calls. Chelsea leaves a voicemail—"Okay, seriously, you're scaring me. Call me back or I'm sending August over there with snacks and questions"—and you text her some excuse about a migraine. August sends a string of emojis that you assume are meant to be supportive.
Nothing from Matt.
Nothing from Nick, either, which is almost worse. Nick always knows. Nick notices everything. The fact that he's been silent means he's either respecting your privacy or completely in the dark about what happened, and you're not sure which option is more terrifying.
Wednesday morning.
You wake up and something has shifted. The numbness has curdled into something sharper. Not anger, not yet, but a desperate, clawing need to fix this. To bridge the gap before it becomes a canyon. To salvage whatever scraps of your friendship might still be intact.
You reach for your phone. For a long moment, you stare at his name. Matt.
Your thumb presses the call button before you can stop yourself. It rings. Once. Twice. Three times.
Voicemail.
You hang up.
The terror that floods your system is immediate and paralyzing. He's avoiding you. He saw your name on the screen and let it ring. He doesn't want to talk to you. He's done. He's completely done. You've lost him. You've lost everything.
Your fingers are shaking as you scroll through your contacts. You need to talk to someone. You need to tell someone. You can't carry this alone anymore, can't keep it locked in your chest like another unsent letter, another secret burning a hole through your ribs.
Nick.
He picks up on the first ring.
"Hey." His voice is cautious. Curious. Not surprised, exactly, but guarded. "Everything okay?"
"No." The word cracks down the middle. "No, Nick. Everything is not okay. I need—can you—are you busy? Can you come over? Please? I need to—I have to tell someone—"
"Whoa. Hey. Slow down." The caution in his voice shifts to something firmer. Something protective. "I'm not busy. I'll be there in ten minutes. Just breathe."
He hangs up before you can thank him.
Nine minutes later—you count—the doorbell rings.
Nick is standing on your porch in his usual effortless uniform: dark jeans, a crisp t-shirt, his hair perfectly tousled like he just rolled out of bed looking like a magazine spread. But his eyes are serious. Focused. The way they get when something actually matters.
"Hey," he says again. Softer this time.
"Hey." You step aside to let him in.
The room is a mess. Blankets draped over the floor. Empty water glasses on the bedside table. The remnants of three days of barely functioning. Nick doesn't comment on it. He just sits on the bed, rests his elbows on his knees, and waits.
You sit opposite him. For a long moment, neither of you speaks.
"He found the letters."
The words fall out of you. Simple. Direct. No preamble.
Nick's eyebrows lift. "Letters?"
"The box." Your voice is steadier than you expected. "The box on my closet. The one with—" A breath. "With years of letters. To him. Unsent. Every thought, every feeling, every pathetic fantasy I've ever had about him. All of it. He found it."
Nick doesn't say anything. His expression doesn't change. But his eyes—those sharp, calculating eyes—are working overtime.
"When?" he asks.
"After the party. After I came home with August. He was here." You swallow. "He'd let himself in with the spare key. He saw me with August and he—he lost it. We fought. We yelled. He said—" You can't repeat it. You're mine. It feels too raw, too private, too precious. "And then we—"
"Okay." Nick holds up a hand. "I don't need the details of that part."
"Nothing happened." The lie is automatic. "I mean—nothing that—we just—" You stop. Take a breath. "He found the box while I was asleep. He read them. All of them maybe, I'm not really sure. And then he left. He hasn't spoken to me since. He won't answer my calls. Chris says he's locked himself in his room and won't talk to anyone."
The silence stretches.
Nick leans back against the headboard of your bed. His gaze drifts toward the window, toward the gray morning light filtering through the curtains. When he speaks again, his voice is quieter.
"God, that explains why he's been so incredibly cranky the past few days. He's been locked in his room since the party. Refusing to talk. Refusing to eat. Chris tried to drag him out for a video shoot and he just—" Nick shakes his head. "Nothing. Wouldn't even open the door."
"He hates me."
"He doesn't hate you." Nick's response is immediate. Certain. "He's terrified. There's a difference."
"Terrified of what?"
"Of losing you. Of what he did. Of what you wrote in those letters, probably." Nick's eyes find yours again. "How long?"
You blink. "How long what?"
"How long have you been in love with him?"
The question lands somewhere in your chest. It's the first time anyone has said it out loud. The first time the word love has been spoken in relation to you and Matt by anyone other than yourself, scribbled frantically onto paper in the dark.
"Years," you whisper. "Since the beginning. I liked him since I can remember. I don't even know when it started. It just—was. It's always been there."
Nick nods. Slow. Thoughtful. "And you never told him."
"Every time I tried, he'd show me someone new. Some girl he was into. Some dream girl he was too scared to DM. And I'd look at them—polished, confident, everything I'm not—and I'd think, what's the point? He doesn't see me like that. I'm just—" Your voice catches. "I'm just the safe one. The comfortable one. The best friend who helps him write messages to other girls."
"Until the villa."
"Until the villa."
Nick is quiet for a moment. Then he leans forward, elbows on his knees, and fixes you with a look that's softer than his usual sharp assessment.
"For what it's worth," he says, "I've never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you. Not ever. Not even close."
Your throat tightens. "Then why did he leave?"
"Because he's an idiot. Because he feels guilty. Because he just found out that the person he cares about most in the world has been silently breaking her own heart for years because of him." Nick's voice is gentle but firm. "That's a lot to process."
"Or maybe he's just done. Maybe he realized this isn't worth it. The drama. The letters. Whatever this is." You gesture vaguely between yourself and the empty air where Matt should be. "Maybe he decided the friendship isn't worth saving."
Nick doesn't answer right away. He looks at you. Studies you. Then he says, quietly, "Do you want to save it?"
"Yes." The word is immediate. Raw. "More than anything. That's all I want. I don't care if he never—if we never—I just want my best friend back. I can't do this. I can't live in this silence. It's killing me."
"Then tell him that."
"I tried. He won't answer."
"Then try differently."
The words hang in the air. Try differently. You think about the box. The years of letters. The secrets you've been keeping. Every confession you've ever made has been on paper. Every truth you've ever told him has been with ink instead of your voice.
Maybe that's the problem.
You stand up.
"Where are you going?" Nick asks.
"I need to write something."
The desk in your room is exactly as you left it. The notebook. The pen. The vanilla candle burned down to nothing. You sit. You pull out a fresh sheet of paper. For a long moment, you just stare at the blank white space.
This isn't like the other letters. The other letters were secrets. Confessions meant for no one but yourself. This one—this one has to be different. This one has to bridge the gap.
The pen touches paper.
Matt,
I'm sorry. I'm so incredibly sorry for being a coward.
The words come slowly at first, then faster. The pen scratches across the page, and you don't stop to think, don't stop to edit, don't stop to second-guess.
I should have spoken the words aloud years ago instead of hiding behind ink and paper, leaving you to piece together a puzzle you didn't even know you were playing. I locked those letters away because I knew the truth: I am so very far away from your type. I watched the girls you chose, the girls you fell for, and I knew I could never compete with that. So I stayed in the dark, choosing to be your safe, comfortable backup rather than risking losing you entirely.
But please, if you can find it in yourself, just forget about the letters. Pretend you never found the box. Pretend you never read a single line. And please... let's just forget about everything else that happened in my room. The things we did, the lines we crossed—the things best friends should never have done. Let's push it all away.
I don't want to destroy what we have. More than anything, I just want to save our friendship. Please don't let my cowardice cost me my best friend.
You don't sign it. You don't need to. He'll know.
The pen clatters to the desk. Your hands are shaking. But this time, the shaking isn't from fear. It's from something else. Something that feels almost like hope.
You fold the paper. Once. Twice. Your fingers are steady now. Deliberate.
When you turn back toward the bed, Nick is still leaning against the headboard. He looks up as you step closer, his eyes dropping immediately to the folded paper in your hand.
"This one you're sending," he says. Not a question.
"This one I'm sending." You hold it out to him. "Can you—will you give it to him? Please? I can't—he won't—"
Nick takes the letter. His fingers brush yours. "Of course."
"Don't read it."
"I wouldn't." He tucks it carefully into his jacket pocket. "I'll make sure he gets it. Today."
"Thank you."
He stands. Crosses to where you're standing. For a moment, he just looks at you, those sharp eyes softening into something gentler than you've ever seen from him. Then he pulls you into a hug. Quick. Firm. Brotherly.
"Whatever happens," he murmurs, "you're family. You know that, right? No matter what."
The tears you've been holding back for three days finally spill over. You bury your face in his shoulder, just for a moment, just long enough to let yourself break. Then you pull back, wipe your eyes, and nod.
"Go," you say. "Before I lose my nerve."
Nick squeezes your shoulder once. Then he's gone, the front door clicking shut behind him, the letter tucked safely against his chest.
You stand in the living room. In the silence. In the gray morning light.
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