Hi friends! Thanks for visiting me. It's pretty simple around here. I write SKZ fanfiction: sfw, fem!reader, currently all happy endings. I am also open to writing some simple slice of life stuff with just the boys being goofy/platonic!reader. I'm a little newer around here, so we'll see how things progress.
I will gladly take requests, but I can't promise to be speedy about it 😭 I reserve the right to deny any request I don't feel okay with writing for whatever reason. But by all means, shoot your shot. Worst I can do is say no lol
Anyway, working on more individuals, but this is what I got rn. Enjoy!
Content: 🩷 - fluff ❤️🩹 - hurt/comfort 💔 - angst 🩵 - platonic/slice of life
OT8
Error: Brain Not Found 🩷
He Takes You On Tour 🩷 (minus Changbin and I.N.)
Their Kid Cries When They Leave 🩷 (see individuals)
Summary: They have to leave when their kid starts crying for them not to go - Innie edition
Word count: tbh forgot
Content: fluff!
A/N: FINAL PART!! I finally finished 🥲 I feel like these floated further from the original prompt as I went but whatever. As long as y’all like it, I’m good.
Masterlist
~~~~
You wake up feeling absolutely terrible. Your sinuses are so clogged it feels like your head is about to explode. Every light is too bright and every noise is too loud. You turn to the side and realize that Jeongin has already left for work, leaving you alone with your son, Insu. You groan knowing you will have to drag yourself out of bed to take care of him. Not that you don’t want to take care of your son, rather you don’t know that your body can handle getting out of bed. Reaching blindly for your phone, you manage to grab it off the bedside table in order to text Jeongin.
Y/N: I woke up feeling like absolute shit. I think it’s a sinus infection, hopefully not anything more. Can you get me some medicine when you come home later?
Hubbie: Oh no! I’m so sorry, love. I will bring you something during my lunch break.
Y/N: I married the right person
Hubbie: Haha, I would hope so. See you soon ❤️
You flop onto your pillow with a sigh, relieved that he will come sooner than you asked. Your relief doesn’t last long though because you hear a sudden shrill wail come from your son’s room, causing your head to throb in pain. Using all your strength, you manage to haul yourself out of bed to go get your son. Hopefully Jeongin has an early lunch break.
Jeongin opens the door to your home to find all the lights off and curtains shut. He pinches his brows in confusion, wondering if you are even home. That’s when he hears the familiar sound of his son laughing from the playroom. He makes his way over to find Insu in a play pen on the floor, happily playing with blocks while you sleep in a rocking chair off to the side. Jeongin softens when he see’s your puffy eyes and red nose. Insu spots him and immediately gets up to grab at the edge of the play pen.
“Appa!” He reaches up for Jeongin with eager hands.
Jeongin leans down to pick him up, doing his best not to disturb you, “Hey buddy.” He whispers, “Are you being good for Eomma?”
Insu babbles incoherently, patting his little hands against Jeongin’s face. Jeongin squints as the tiny hands come far too close to poking his eyes, earning a loud laugh from his son. You startle awake at the sudden noise, but immediately relax when you see your husband holding your son.
“Hey, love.” Jeongin comes over and hands you the small bag in his hand. “I got you some medicine. How are you feeling?”
You shake your head, your voice sounding hoarse and exhausted, “Not good. My head is killing me and I can hardly keep my eyes open.”
“I’m sorry.” He leans down to press a soft kiss to the top of your head. “I don’t have super long, but can I make you tea or food maybe?”
“I had a little bit to eat, but tea sounds nice.”
He smiles and nods, moving to put Insu back in the play pen, but Insu squeals as his father tries to let go, causing you to wince from the loud noise. Jeongin quickly pulls Insu back into his arms. “Okay, guess we’re both going to the kitchen.” He takes the little boy with him and makes you some warm tea. Carefully, he manages to make the tea with one hand and hold Insu with the other. Putting the hot liquid into a closed cup (so Insu won’t accidentally spill it), he brings it back to you in the play room where you are already half asleep again.
“Love?” Jeongin gently taps your shoulder to wake you, “Here’s your tea.”
You gratefully sip down the drink, the warmth soothing your raw throat. You sigh, “Thank you.”
Just then, Jeongin’s phone buzzes with an alarm. “My lunch break is almost up. Is there anything else you need?”
“Clear sinuses.” You joke.
“I would give you mine if I could.”
You shake your head with a small smile, “You’ve already done a lot. Thank you.”
He presses another soft kiss to your forehead, “Of course.” Insu happily sits on his father’s hip, chewing on the random toy he’s holding at the moment. Jeongin turns to his son, placing a quick kiss to his head. “Alright, time for Appa to go.” He attempts to set Insu down, but incurs a sharp cry from him, once again causing you to wince. Jeongin crouches down with his son, doing his best to calm him down, “Shhh, it’s okay buddy. Appa will be right back.”
You rub your temples, the high pitched crying feeling like a blade to your head. Looking for a quick solution, Jeongin picks Insu back up, almost instantly calming him down. You naturally relax as the room gets quieter.
“Sorry,” Jeongin whispers to you.
“It’s fine. Just comes with the territory I guess.” You huff, knowing it won’t be the last time you hear Insu cry today. “Just go. He’ll eventually stop crying.” You try to weakly stand up and reach for your son, but the slight falter in your step concerns Jeongin.
“Love, sit back down. I’ve got him.”
“You have to go back to work. I can take him.” You try to pull Insu from his arms, but Insu clutches onto his shirt again, crying out in protest. You pinch your eyes shut in pain, but don’t let go, “Come on. Come to Eomma.” Insu shakes his head violently, tears pouring down his little cheeks. You sigh, exhaustion washing over you, “Come on buddy, please. Eomma is so tired.” But unfortunately Insu doesn’t budge.
Jeongin takes a step back, removing your hands from Insu, instantly calming the boy down. “I’ve got him.”
You sigh, “Innie, you have to go to work.”
“I’ll take him with me.”
“You can’t just take a kid to work. I can take care of him just fine.”
“You are wincing every time he cries and me leaving is making him cry. I don’t want you to be in pain.”
“I carried him for nine months and then pushed him out, a headache is the least pain he’s caused me.” You take a step towards him, but Jeongin backs up again.
“It doesn’t make your headache hurt less. But I can. Let me take him with me and then you can sleep the rest of the day.”
You put a hand on your hip, your brain too foggy to argue.
“I can take care of him just fine. Plus, I’m sure the hyung’s would love to help out.”
You huff, much too exhausted to fight him. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, love. I’m sure.” He lightly grabs your hand and guides you out of the play room into the bedroom. “Now go sleep. I’ll take care of him all day, so just focus on getting better.”
You wait another second, double checking if he means it, but when he doesn’t back down, you give up, flopping face first onto your bed.
“Goodnight,” Jeongin chimes closing the door. You barely manage to throw your hand up before completely giving in to the sleepiness clinging to you.
Jeongin quickly packs up Insu’s stuff, including his pack and play, food, diaper bag, etc. before heading back to the company. Obviously the boys are excited to see their nephew, but Insu is practically glued to Jeongin. Every time one of the boys tries to snag him, he starts crying and reaching for his dad. Obviously everyone melted over the not-so-young maknae taking care of his kid. At first the clinginess was cute, however it proved difficult when doing certain things, like recording. Jeongin tries to hand Insu off to step into the recording booth when he starts crying and reaching for Jeongin. Taking Insu in his arms, he tries recording while holding him, but between his giggling and hitting random things, including the mic, almost destroying Bangchan’s ears, recording proves to be much too difficult. He tries dance practice, but he doesn’t have the stamina or precision to hold Insu and dance. Eventually, he manages to set Insu down for longer than a second before he starts crying again. Insu takes a special interest in Felix’s bright demeanor, making Jeongin think he’s finally adjusted, but as soon as Insu turns back to look at Jeongin and realize he isn’t exactly where he left him, he runs over and cries, hugging around his leg “Appa!” “It’s okay buddy. Appa’s right here.” He gently soothes Insu, earning a collective ‘aww’ from everyone else. The rest of the day is a chaotic mix of Jeongin trying to keep up with his child while still doing his job and the boys trying to not get distracted by the cuteness. Meanwhile, you are sleeping soundly at home because you married the sweetest boy ever.
hii i was wondering if you could do chan x reader where reader accidentally deletes something important off of chans laptop and feels insanely bad over it
love your fics!!
Omg thank you for the request!! I'm sorry it took me so long 😭 I got busy and then I was struggling with the ending for some reason. Anyway, I hope you like it!
~~~~
Bangchan x fem!reader
Word count: 6,935
Synopsis: What happens when you accidentally corrupt Chan's file right before an important deadline?
Content: Angst to fluff, Swearing, Chan says some pretty mean things to reader but apologizes later so it's all good, some heavy guilt and anxiety on readers part, mentions of Chan not taking care of himself (per usual)
A/N: I did a lot of research for the tech side of things, so don't come at me tech nerds. I'm doing my best 😭 Also I put the equivalent of USD to Won in parenthesis. They aren't actually saying that, it's for your reference. Please send me more requests! This was fun :)
Masterlist
~~~~
It is a lovely morning as the sun shines through your open windows and soft music plays off your speaker. You had a nice breakfast with Chan before he left for work and now you are taking some time to clean the apartment. You walk into Chan’s studio, knowing there are usually dishes left on his desk, when you notice his laptop sitting open on his desk. Your brows furrow with confusion since Chan rarely goes to work without his laptop. Checking the time, he only left about an hour ago so maybe he hasn’t noticed its absence yet. You pull out your phone to give him a quick call.
“Hey, baby. I’m a little busy. Is this super important?” You can hear lots of chattering in the background.
“I was just wondering if you meant to leave your laptop here.”
He curses under his breath, “Shit, no. I actually really need that today.” He groans and you can hear the stress starting to build up in his voice. “Damnit, I don’t know when I’m going to have time to come back for it. Ugh, I, uh can probably get it over lunch but I really need it before that if I can.” He is more talking to himself at this point, his brain going a million miles an hour to try and problem solve.
“If you’re busy, I can bring it to you.”
“No, no. You’ve probably got other stuff you have to do. I don’t want to make you come all the way over here.”
“Channie, I really don’t mind. I needed to go out to the store today anyway. It’ll just be another stop on my list.”
He lets out a tired sigh, hesitating. You know how much he hates feeling like an inconvenience. Plus, he is always touchy about who he lets handle his computer. You hear someone call his name from the background and you can practically feel his stress through the phone. “Are you sure you can bring it?”
“Yes, I am sure. When would you like it?”
“Whenever you can…but sooner would be better.”
“Of course. I’ll get dressed and bring it over.”
“Thank you, baby. I love you so much.”
“Love you too.”
With that, he hangs up and you get ready as quickly as you can. You close his laptop, removing the hard drive plugged in, and slip it all into his laptop bag. Grabbing your shopping list off the counter, you head out to bring Chan his laptop.
You crack the door open to the studio and look in to see 3RACHA sitting around the sound system. You knock softly, “Laptop delivery.”
Chan turns and his shoulders drop when he see’s you, “Y/N, perfect timing.” He stands up and pulls you into a hug. “Thank you so much.”
“No problem.” You slide his bag off your shoulder and hand it over. While he sets up his laptop, you greet the other two boys.
“Y/N?” Chan’s voice sounds tense again. “Where is the hard drive I had plugged in?”
“It’s in the bag.”
“You unplugged it?”
You are confused as to why he sounds so stressed by that fact. “Yeah, why?”
He looks at you with a tense gaze, “Was the file done uploading?”
You furrow your brows which does not help ease his tension. “I didn’t check. I just closed the laptop and unplugged it.” His eyes go wide as he frantically sets up his laptop, swearing under his breath. “Why? What’s wrong?”
He doesn’t answer, but scrambles to plug the drive into the sound system, slinging the headphones over his ears. He hits play and you watch as his face contorts at whatever he hears through the headphones. Han and Changbin seem to exchange a glance like they know what is wrong, leaving you in the dark. Chan mumbles to himself, “Shit, no no no.” He clicks through the file, desperately restarting it and fast forwarding. After a moment, his hands stop moving as he just slowly leans back in his chair. Slipping his headphones off, he stares blankly at his computer screen, “It’s ruined.”
Han and Changbin groan with a pained look while you still stand confused.
“What’s ruined?”
Chan lets out a controlled but frustrated sigh, his head slowly turning to look at you with a scarily neutral expression. “The audio file that was on the hard drive. It’s corrupted.”
“What? Why? I didn’t do anything.”
Apparently that was the wrong choice of words because Chan snaps. “Didn’t do anything? Yes, you did! You unplugged the hard drive!”
“Okay, so?”
“So? SO, the file wasn’t done uploading when you unplugged it and it corrupted the export. Now the track is ruined.”
“I—I didn’t know unplugging it would mess it up.”
“Why did you mess with it at all? God, do you know how long that track took?! Weeks! And it’s due by the end of this week. Four days! I have to redo weeks worth of work in four days because of you.”
You feel yourself start to shrink at his raised voice, guilt settling in your bones. “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t…I was just trying to help.”
“Yeah, real helpful weren’t you?” His sarcastic tone hits like a knife. “God, what am I gonna do?”
“Is it totally messed up?”
Chan looks at you like that was the dumbest question you could have possibly asked. He unplugs his headphones and hit’s play on the track. Suddenly, a loud mix of digital noise and sharp static comes out of the speakers. Chan turns it off and just stares at you. “I don’t know, what do you think?”
At this point, tears are brimming in your eyes and you are looking anywhere but him. “Is it not still on your computer?”
“No, because I was exporting the final mix and deleted the raw session to save space. Normally, that’s not an issue unless someone interrupts the file upload. God, I can’t believe I trusted you.”
You feel your heart drop to your feet, tears trickling down your cheeks. “I-I’m sorry. I’m really really sorry.”
“Yeah well sorry doesn’t fix my track.” He starts pacing, stepping into problem-solving mode. “How the hell am I going to fix this in time? I’m gonna have to totally redo the mix. Shit!”
The other two boys have been quietly hiding in the corner up until now when Changbin finally speaks up. “Maybe we could take it to a technician. See if they can fix it.”
Chan just shakes his head, “No, that’ll take too long and isn’t even guaranteed to work. It’ll be faster for me to just redo it, but it’s still gonna take a while. God, I can’t believe this happened! And right before the deadline too.”
You feel horrible for screwing up his track and genuinely want to help, but you have no idea what to do. “Can—Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Yeah, you can leave. I can’t even be near you right now.” He doesn’t look at you, but just stares at his laptop. The air is charged with tension as you stand there for a minute, wondering if he is serious. When he doesn’t move to change his mind, you quietly grab your bag and move towards the door. “Oh, and Y/N.” You turn around, hoping he might say he didn’t mean it, but instead he just tosses the ruined drive at you. “Throw this in the trash while you’re at it since it’s totally ruined now.” He turns his back to you, cold and unapologetic. Han looks like he is about to say something to Chan, but you stop him with a simple shake of your head. You leave, the door clicking shut behind you as you trudge down the hallway, your feet carrying you faster and faster away from the studio. As you speed back to your apartment, your shopping list totally abandoned, clouds start to cover the friendly sun from this morning. You shut yourself into the apartment, hot tears streaming down your face as you sink deeper and deeper into guilt. Chan’s voice keeps playing on repeat in your head.
It’s ruined…because of you.
I can’t believe I trusted you.
I can’t even be near you right now.
Sobs echo throughout your apartment as you spiral into guilt and shame, fearing you damaged more than just his track.
Chan doesn’t text you nor does he come home, but you know where he is. In the studio, working on trying to salvage the mess you made. You cry until you have no tears left and then you sit in silence, guilt heavy on your chest. The next morning, you wake up to a cold, empty bed, reminding you of how royally you screwed everything up. Still no contact from Chan. You manage to drag yourself out of bed, your bones aching from lack of a good nights sleep, and make your way into the kitchen. You open the fridge to make breakfast but nothing looks appealing, so you opt to go back to your bedroom. You pass Chans office and pause in the doorway. Countless hours you have watched him work in here and you managed to delete it all within less than a minute. He is probably hunched over in his chair at the studio, drinking his umpteenth cup of coffee, exhaustion rimming his eyes. You wouldn’t be surprised if he stayed up all night working on that track. You desperately want to text or call, just to make sure he is taking care of himself, but you are respecting him and staying away.
Your morning goes much slower than usual as you feel like you’re wading through molasses. You end up taking a shower, trying to rub away some of the guilt, but run out of shampoo in the process. You groan, remembering why you needed to go to the store so badly yesterday. After your shower, you dig through your purse to find your shopping list when your hands clutch around something smaller—the ruined drive. You stare blankly at it, the feeling of it burning your skin. You begin to move towards the trash when you hesitate. Now, you aren’t a tech nerd by any means (clearly), but surely there is some way to fix it. You’ve heard of file recovery before, surely there is someone in the large city of Seoul who can fix this hard drive. Suddenly filled with determination mixed with shame and a tiny bit of hope, you start desperately researching. You deep dive into everything you can, trying to find the best technician. You call several places, getting a mix of quotes and responses. After a long chain of “I can’t do it, but maybe try this person,” you stand outside a small technician’s shop, clutching the ziplock bag containing the drive to your chest. The bell dings on the door as you step into the tiny shop. The front of the store is small, nothing much besides some chairs and a front desk. The lights are dimmed as deep purple and blue florescent lights line the wall. It smells like clean linen with a faint hint of soldered metal. A middle aged man steps out from the curtain separating the back of the shop and gives you a small greeting.
“Hi, how can I help you today?”
You step up to the counter, holding the small bag like it’s the most fragile thing in the world, “Uh, hi. I have this hard drive with a corrupted file and I was wondering if you can restore it for me?” You gently place the drive on the counter.
“Do you know anything about how it was corrupted? Is the drive damaged?” He takes the drive out of the bag, inspecting it for damage.
“Uh, I don’t think so. I unplugged it while it was uploading an audio file and now the file is messed up.” The man continues to inspect it, his nose scrunched in concentration. “Can you fix it?”
He sets it down with a sigh, “It’s not physically damaged, which is good, but it’ll take some time to inspect it. Do you know anything else about the file? Is there more than one on here? Maybe the size?”
“I think it’s just the one. I don’t know about the size. It is my boyfriend’s drive, so I’m not sure. He said something about a final mix and a raw session.”
He nods, “So this is probably a final mix of a song which means the file is probably pretty large. It’ll take me a few hours to see what actually got written on the file. After that, I can tell you whether we are talking quick repair or longer reconstruction.”
“Well, this is kind of really important and I’m on a deadline. Is there any chance you can have it done within the next day or two?”
He takes in a slow breath, tentatively clicking his tongue, “First, I want to say that I cannot guarantee anything. Right now I can't tell if it's just a broken header, incomplete transfer, or something more serious. Best case scenario, most of it is intact and we can rebuild it. Worst case, maybe some fragments are recoverable. So, if you want this to be done in a few days and not a few weeks, you’re looking at an expedient recovery and…that’s not cheap.”
“Realistically, what is the best timeline you can give me?”
“Realistically…” He sighs, running a hand through his hair, “The initial analysis can take anywhere from 30 minutes to a few hours. Depending on what’s wrong and how big this file actually is will change how long it takes. I’ll have to clone it for backup, check the structure, see how badly it’s damaged—“
“Respectfully,” You politely cut him off, “I don’t know much of this jargon. I really need the time line is all.”
“Initial analysis could be done by end of day.” Your shoulders drop a bit at that. “Depending on what I find, recovery could take hours or days—and it’s not guaranteed. That’s also assuming anything is recoverable.”
You nod, determined to fix your mistake, “But there is a chance?”
“Maybe.”
“Good enough. How much to have it done in a few days?”
“An expedited rate is going to be much higher than a normal one. Are you sure you want that?”
You lean forward, eyes wide with determination and exhaustion, “Please, you have no idea how important this is.”
“Okay, in that case, you’ll have to pay a deposit to prioritize the recovery. Once we've potentially got the data back, you pay the remainder before we release the file. But again, I cannot stress enough, that there is no guarantee that we can get anything. You’re paying for priority and time—not certainty. I won’t have a final quote until I’ve analyzed it, but you’re looking somewhere between 2.5 million won and 4 million won ($1,700-2,700).”
You feel the air catch in your lungs. You knew it would cost a lot, but that is way outside of your budget. Taking a moment to think it over, you feel that lump of guilt settled in the bottom of your stomach. You hear Chan’s voice again, the one he so rarely raises, yelling at you. You see him hunched over the sound board in the studio, eyes bloodshot from the lack of sleep. That rock of guilt suddenly becomes oddly grounding as you make your final decision. You look the man in the eyes, “Done.”
He raises a brow as if to double check that you heard him right, but when you don’t move he just nods. “Alright, I’ll get working on this immediately and I’ll need that deposit from you. If you can leave your contact information, I’ll get back to you before the end of the day with my analysis.”
You grab a pen and fill out the information sheet while he takes your card and swipes it through his reader. You slide the paper back and he stops as he goes to hand back your card, “Remember, this is analysis, not repair. I don’t promise good results, only quick ones.”
“I know.”
He nods, handing back your card. You leave the store, the stone in your gut rolling anxiously. Your entire body is shaking from a mix of exhaustion and nerves. The entire way home you keep repeating to yourself, “There’s no guarantee. Don’t get your hopes up.” You spend an hour staring at your phone when you decide it’s too much for you to sit around waiting. You end up finally going shopping, but making sure your ringer is on so you can immediately pick up calls. As you browse the shelves for your shampoo, you feel your phone buzz and practically jump out of your skin. Opening your messages, you see nothing from the technician, but you do see one from Han.
Jisung: Hey, have you talked to Chan at all today. I know yesterday was…rough
Y/N: No, I figured he was with you guys.
Jisung: He has been locked in the studio all day and no one has heard from him. No one has gone in or out and I don’t think he had any food in there. I thought maybe if he contacted anyone it would be you, but…
You feel your throat go dry. He’s spiraling, locked in the studio for hours with no food and probably very little water. His phone probably died a while ago and the likelihood of him having slept is low. Your instinct tells you to run to the studio and break the door down, but you know that wouldn’t help. Your best hope now is that technician. Your grip tightens on your phone as you suck in a deep breath to try and calm yourself.
Y/N: If he still hasn’t left by this evening, please break in and give him some food and water.
Jisung: You want me to disturb the beast?? Why can’t you do it??
Y/N: Because I’m the one who angered him.
Jisung types…deletes
Jisung: Right, sorry.
Y/N: It’s fine. It’s your track too, so I should be apologizing. Please take care of him for me.
Jisung: We will
It’s about an hour later when you get a call from the technician and you almost drop your phone trying to answer, “Hello?”
“Y/N?”
“Yes, it’s me.”
“Good news is it’s not a total wash. There is still raw data on there, so we can attempt recovery. Bad news, I still can’t guarantee success. I can run a few reconstruction attempts, but there is still a chance it won’t work.”
“Do whatever you have to. Run every test, use every tool, I don’t care what it takes.”
“I can run deeper reconstruction overnight and use several tools. I can also do manual reconstruction as well as reattempts, but that will drive the price up.”
“I don’t care. Do what you have to.” Your resolve is steely. If there is even the tiniest chance of hope, you will take it.
“If you insist. That will put your final quote up to 3.7 million won ($2,500) and I can give a better timeline in the morning after overnight construction, but you’re looking at another day or two, at best.”
You have three days until his deadline, so it might be cutting it close, but this is the best chance you’ve got. “I understand. Thank you so much.”
“You are sure about this?”
“Yes sir.”
He huffs a surprise and almost impressed laugh, “Alright, I’ll get to work on this and let you know what I can do.”
“Thank you.”
You hang up and though the guilt and anxiety isn’t gone, it’s now mixed with a little bit of hope.
The next 24 hours are brutal. You wake up the next morning and immediately check your phone. There is no word from the technician yet. There is also no word from Chan which you expected. You try to go about your day normally, but every time your phone buzzes, you rush over like a madwoman. It’s about three in the afternoon when your phone starts buzzing with a call. Frantically you check the caller ID and pause when you see it’s Han.
You hesitantly answer, “Han?”
“Hey, I just wanted to let you know that we managed to get some food in. He wasn’t super happy to be bothered, but I think he appreciated it in the end.” You feel some tension release from your shoulders. “But he looks…bad.”
Your breath hitches, “Bad?”
“Yeah, like I haven’t seen him like this since…well since before he met you.” Normally, you would feel a bit comforted knowing he has been better since knowing you, but now it just makes your stomach turn knowing you were the one who made him revert into this state. Han sucks in a breath, hesitating over his words. “Are you sure you won’t come see him?”
“You heard him the other day. He doesn’t want to see me, so I’m going to respect that.”
“Maybe he didn’t mean it. This is Bangchan we’re talking about. He never shuts up about you. He would probably glue himself to you if he could.”
You shake your head, tears brimming in your eyes. “Maybe, but,” You let out a shaky breath, your voice a bit more watery, “Maybe not. I don’t want to upset him any further, so I’m going to let him come to me.”
The line goes silent for a moment, both of you sitting with the weight of the situation. You both care about Chan and neither of you know what to do right now. Han eventually sighs and gives a small, “okay.”
“Thanks for taking care of him. You guys are his family and he really needs you, even when he doesn’t say it.”
“He needs you too.”
You choose not to respond to that. “Sorry for getting you into this mess. I really hope you can fix the track in time.”
“You didn’t know any better. Does it suck? Yeah, but we’ll figure it out. We always do.”
You nod, feeling reassured that Han is the more grounded one for once. “Thanks Han.”
“Yeah, bye.”
He hangs up, leaving you in the silence of your apartment. You lean back on your couch as tears slowly start coming back. He looks bad. You know exactly what Han meant by that because you’ve seen it, when you first started dating. Chan would spend countless hours at the studio working himself to the bone. He would forget food and water and when you would see him again, the bags under his eyes were darker, his cheeks were a little thinner, and his shoulders sagged a little more. Eventually, you started bringing him food and water, forcing him to take breaks, telling him that it’s okay to not be working all the time. It was slow, but you made progress. He tried to be better, to come to you when he needed help, to eat and drink and sleep. Now, he has spiraled back into that state because of your careless mistake. This is about more than just a track. This is about his work, his time, his effort, his family. You messed with the one thing that has kept him going all these years. You know how important producer meetings are. You know how much time and effort he puts into tracks and how hard he is on himself about it. The person who was supposed to be his safe space, the one who didn’t put him under pressure and deadlines has now put him under one of the most stressful deadlines of all.
You pull your knees close to your chest, quietly sobbing on your couch as your thoughts spiral deeper and deeper. Your phone doesn’t go off for the rest of the day and you end up falling asleep early, tired out by all the anxiety of the day.
You blink your eyes open as you hear a buzzing from the table next to you. Reaching blindly for your phone, you answer, voice still groggy. “Hello?”
“Good morning. Sorry to bother you so early, but,” He lets out almost a disbelieving laugh, “We managed to recover your file.”
You immediately shoot up in bed, eyes wide, “Really?!”
“Well, most of it. It’s not perfect, but it’s about as good as you could get.”
“When can I pick it up?” You are already out of bed, getting ready.
“Anytime you are available. I’ll be in the shop all day, so you can just come by and grab it.”
You are rushing around your apartment, almost tripping over your own feet, “I’m on my way right now!”
“Oh, okay. I’ll have it ready then.”
“Thank you so much!” You don’t even wait for a response before hanging up. In record time, you are ready and out the door, practically sprinting to the tech shop. You come barreling in to see the technician already waiting at the desk.
“Wow, that was fast.”
“Do you have it?” You ask, a little out of breath.
He hands you a small bag with the drive in it. “Here you go.” You grab it gently, terrified of ruining it again. “Now, I need to warn you, the file has some tiny imperfections, but it is almost completely restored. You have no idea how rare that is.”
“Thank you so much.” You feel like you could cry, holding this tiny drive that contains the very remnants of what you ruined. You frantically hand him your card, not even bothering to ask the price.
He hands you back the receipt, a bright smile on his face. “Your boyfriend is one lucky guy.”
You look back at him with a half smile, “I don’t know about that. I’m the one who messed it up after all.”
“A lot of people mess things up. Very few go through the trouble of fixing it. He’ll be happy, I’m sure.”
“I hope so.” You give one last thank you before rushing out, praying and hoping that this is enough to help Chan reach his deadline.
The studio is quiet, save for the soft hum of the sound system. Chan sits with his headphones on, staring at the same computer screen he has been for the past two days. The track mix sits open, staring back at him with a taunting gaze. His deadline is in two days and he hasn’t even hit the second verse. With the click of his mouse, he replays the end of the chorus for the millionth time in a row, listening closely. But as the track plays it feels like his ears have stopped working from listening to it on repeat so many times. He pulls off his headphones, his hands slamming on the desk in frustration. He stands up and starts pacing—as he often does when stressed—his hands gripping his messy hair. His eyes are wide and bloodshot as his brain spirals at a million miles an hour and yet comes up with absolutely nothing.
“Why can’t I get this mix right?! I did it once before, shouldn’t I be able to do it again. So why does it sound so wrong?!” He checks his watch and falls back into his chair with a groan. “Damnit! I’m never going to get this done in time.”
Suddenly, there is a sharp knock on the door and Chan almost flinches at the sudden interruption.
He rolls his eyes, standing up to open the door. “Han, I told you not to bother me—“ He is stopped when he opens the door to see no one standing there. Has he gotten to the point of hallucinations? He looks down and see’s a take out bag and a water bottle. With another confused glance around the hallway, he brings the items into the studio. Setting the bag on desk, confused as to why the heck Han is ding dong ditching food, he slowly opens it, pausing when he see’s a note attached on top.
“I know this doesn’t make up for everything, but hopefully it can help. Please take care of yourself <3”
It’s not signed, but he can tell it’s your handwriting. His brows furrow when he see’s sitting under the note is the drive from before, the one he told you to throw away. What in the world is going on? He checks the bag for anything else, but it’s just food (from his favorite restaurant no less). He has no idea what’s going on, but hesitantly, he plugs the drive into his computer—separate from his current track. A track pops up on his computer and he carefully presses play, bracing for impact. However, instead of the expected static noise, his final mix plays through the speakers. As the song ends, he is left in silence, staring in disbelief at his computer. It’s not perfect. There are a few balance issues and some missing parts here and there, but it’s almost exactly how he had it. Genuinely unable to comprehend what just happened, he unplugs the drive, plugs it back in and replays it, just to make sure he isn’t hallucinating. Sure enough, the same track plays back again and he sits frozen in his chair. As he comes out of the shock, he abruptly stands up and slaps himself on the face. “Nope, not dreaming.” Turning back to the door, he opens it and scans the hallway. No sign of anyone. He turns back around to his computer and still is not convinced, so he speeds down the hall to where he knows some of the boys are practicing. Whipping open the door to the practice room, he about scares the pants off of Changbin, Han, and Seungmin.
“Hyung? You are out of the studio?” Changbin questions, but Chan doesn’t answer.
He just looks at them with crazed eyes, breathing a little heavy.
“Uh, hello? Earth to Chan? Are you okay?” Han waves his hand in front of Chan’s face before gasping. “Oh my gosh. He’s catatonic!”
“That’s not how that works.” Seungmin deadpans.
Chan suddenly grabs Hans shoulder, scaring him half to death. “You.”
“Me?” Han shakily points at himself, terrified of FrankenChan.
“Did you? Who left it? Did she?” None of his sentences are coherent, confusing all three of the boys, so he takes a different approach and drags Han with him to the studio.
“Help! He’s going to kill me!” Han flails as he gets dragged down the hallway, a confused Changbin and intrigued Seungmin following behind.
“He’s not going to kill you.” Changbin responds.
“Yeah, he’s just going to sacrifice you to the sound gods.” Seungmin shrugs, making Han let out a squeak.
They all arrive back in the studio as Chan presses play on the track and lets the song fill the room.
Han nods, “You finished the track.”
“No.” They all stare at Chan confused as the almost finished track continues playing. “I didn’t…this is the original.” He points at the drive plugged into his computer and their gaze lands on the mysterious device. Sure enough, it’s the same drive from before. They all exchanged confused looks.
“So, you fixed it? But I thought you gave it to Y—“ Seungmin elbows Han before he can finish your name, unsure how that will go over in the moment. Han rubs his ribs, side eyeing Seungmin.
Chan shows them your note, “Did you know about this?”
They all shake their heads, just as confused. Chan just huffs, confused and bewildered by it all. How did you? When did you? It’s not easy to fix a corrupted file and it definitely isn’t done in two days. Plus it’s way too expensive. Surely you didn’t…
“So, does that mean we can meet the deadline.” Changbin’s words snap Chan back into reality, remembering that he is still on a time constraint. Quickly, he slides back into his chair and throws his headphones on. “Or don’t answer. That’s fine too.”
As if they aren’t even there, Chan immediately starts working on the now fixed track, making sure to copy it first. Seungmin just shrugs and leaves, Changbin following not long after. Han also leaves, grumbling about being scared and dragged down a hallway, leaving Chan alone in the studio again, but this time with much more promising prospects.
It’s the day of the production meeting and you haven’t heard anything from Chan. Not that you expected him to immediately come running to you, but it makes you anxious not knowing if it was actually helpful or just salt in the wound. Too afraid of messing it up, you never listened to the track, so you have no idea how much was actually restored. Now, you stand in your dimly lit kitchen, mindlessly chopping vegetables as you zone out from trying not to think hard. You are snapped back into reality when you hear the unmistakable sound of keys and the opening of the front door. Almost on instinct, you set down the knife and run to the entryway, stopping when you see a very worn down Chan. He looks the worst you’ve seen him in a while. His hair is messy, clearly not having been washed in days and disheveled from running his hands through it. His under eyes are the darkest you’ve seen in a long time and his eyes are red rimmed with exhaustion. He is hunched over from the weight of stress and fatigue as his sweatshirt hangs loosely off of his body. His face is pale in that way that makes it clear he hasn’t had enough food or water and you feel your heart shatter at the sight of him. You make eye contact and for a moment you both stand there, the air between you tense. It’s clear you haven’t been doing that well either. You aren’t exactly put together and your eyes are red rimmed with tears and sleep deprivation. You are the first to break the silence, your voice coming out much smaller than you intended it to, “How did the meeting go?” It’s the only thing you can think of saying.
He just gives a small nod, “Good.” You feel your heart drop at the sound of his voice—scratchy, dripping with exhaustion. You nod, unsure of what to say next. This time he breaks the silence. “I got the drive.” Your breath hitches. “That really saved my ass.”
You feel a little relieved knowing it was helpful, but you aren’t relaxed yet. “Good.”
Silence stretches as the tension of the past few days fills the space between you. Chan lets out a shaky breath. “Thank you.”
You blink, a little caught off guard, but respond nonetheless. “Of course.”
He takes a step forward, the tension tightening, “It couldn’t have been easy…or cheap.”
You shrug, “It was nothing compared to what I ruined. I know it doesn’t make up for what I did, but I hope it was helpful.”
“It really was. I wouldn’t have been able to reach that deadline without you.”
“You wouldn’t have had to without me.” You mumble as your gaze drops, the guilt crawling back up your throat.
He takes a beat…another step forward. “I’m sorry.”
Your head snaps up, eyes wide, “What? No. You don’t need to apologize. I was the one—“
“No, I do need to apologize.” He sucks in a sharp breath. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that.”
Your voice goes smaller, “It’s fine. You were upset. It’s understandable.”
“No, it’s not fine. I said some…pretty terrible things.” He winces, remembering what he said. “Being upset doesn’t give me the right to take it out on you.”
You look down, fidgeting with your fingers as tears start brimming your eyes. “I don’t blame you. I ruined the most important thing in your life.”
“That’s the thing,” He takes another step forward, now only a foot or two away. “It’s not the most important thing in my life. You are.”
You suck in a shaky breath, turning your gaze anywhere but him as tears now stream down your face. “But-but I ruined your track. I made you have to redo it and put weeks of work into four days.”
“You made a mistake that anyone could have made.” He sighs, internally kicking himself for lashing out at you. “Look, that day in the studio, I said a lot of really mean, really dumb shit. I blamed you for things that weren’t your fault. I took my stress out on you. I said terribly hurtful things and I am so sorry.”
“I’m sorry I ruined your track. I shouldn’t have messed with anything. I should have just done what you asked and brought the laptop and not unplugged anything. I’m really really sorry that I caused you so much stress and anxiety.” Tears are fully streaming down your face now, your voice shaky with guilt.
“It’s okay. You don’t need to apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong. I should have told you to check if the upload was done or told you not to take out the hard drive. It was on me for not giving more direction.”
“You were busy. It’s understandable that you forgot.”
“But that doesn’t justify my anger.” He sighs, running a hand through his messy hair. “God, Y/N, I am so sorry. I was a jerk to you and you didn’t deserve that. I can’t imagine how terrible I must have made you feel.” He looks down at the floor, his eyes starting to fill with tears. “And then you still went through so much trouble to help me. I’m really sorry.”
“Please don’t feel bad. You were stressed and it was the least I could do.”
“But I shouldn’t—“ He takes in a shaky breath, his body finally breaking down.
“You’re right, you shouldn’t have yelled at me.” At this point, you are both sobbing. You gently cup his face to look him in the eyes. “I forgive you.”
He collapses into your arms, wrapping his tightly around your waist. Your hand moves to rub soothing circles on his back as you both hold each other and cry for a moment. Once his cries die down into sniffles, he pulls back to look at you, “I need you to know that I really love you a lot and that I can’t imagine my life without you.”
You give him a watery smile, your hand gently cupping his jaw. “I love you too.” You lean in and press a soft kiss to his lips. He immediately melts into you, one hand moving to the back of your head to deepen the kiss. It tastes like regret and forgiveness mixed with your tears. He pulls back and rests his forehead against yours.
“I really don’t know what I did to deserve you.”
You huff a small laugh, “I could say the same thing.”
He presses his lips to yours again, his arm snaking around your waist to pull you impossibly closer. As you hold each other for the first time in days, both of you exhausted and worn thin, you finally feel whole again. You pull back and Chan rests his head in the crook of your neck, letting out a long breath he didn’t realize he was holding. You gently run your fingers through his hair. “You want to go sit down?”
He nods before picking you up, eliciting a startled squeak as he moves you towards the couch. He flops down, pulling you on top of him and you gladly snuggle into his warmth. For a while you both stay that way, content to hold each other, but Chan’s stomach has different plans. It growls and you sit up to look at him, “When was the last time you ate?” He looks anywhere but you which is the telltale sign that he hasn’t eaten all day. You sigh, brushing your thumb across his cheek, taking in his tired features. “Look at you, you are so pale and worn. Baby, you have to eat.”
“I know, I just…” He trails off, not having a great excuse.
“You were busy, I know and I’m sorry I was the reason you were so busy.” He shakes his head, but you keep talking before he can. “But you can’t neglect your health. It is only going to harm you and your work.” You sigh, moving to sit up. “Even when I stress you out or make you mad, please don’t neglect yourself. You don’t have to call me, but at least call someone. You know the boys are there for you and I’m always here for you, even when we fight.”
He sits up, “I know and I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize, just take care of yourself.”
“I’ll try.”
You nod before grabbing your phone to order takeout. “I’m going to order us food and you are going to go take a shower. Then we are going to eat and sleep. No objections.”
He puts his hands up, “Yes ma’am.”
He takes his shower and then eats a full meal for the first time in days before cuddling up with you in bed. As he feels the familiar weight of you in his arms, he feels the tension slowly start to drain out of him. You both still have a lot to learn, but you are learning together and in the end, that’s what really matters.
~~~~
Bonus:
Chan ends up paying you back for at least half of the cost of the drive, even though you very much protested. He also takes time to teach you more about his tech and how it works to avoid future miscommunications. It may not seem like much, but Chan letting you into this part of his life means the world to you.
Summary: They have to leave when their kid cries for them not to go — Binnie edition
Content: fluff!
A/N: Sheesh, sorry I disappeared for a second there. I promise I'm working on I.N.'s part for this, I've just been busy and tired 😭 I'm also working on a request and some other things, but ya girl has work and is going out of town, so it'll be a second before I can get those done. Anyway, hope y'all enjoy this one.
Masterlist
~~~~
It’s 5 in the morning when you are woken up by the sharp sound of your daughter crying. You roll over with a groan, ready to go comfort her when you feel your husband’s hands on your shoulder.
“I’m already up to go to the gym. I’ll take care of her.” Changbin kisses your forehead. “Go back to sleep.”
You mumble a thank you before rolling back over to sleep.
He tiptoes over to your daughter’s bedroom and quickly scoops her up in his arms “Good morning my sweet Ahri. What’s wrong, princess?” He coo’s, lightly bouncing her up and down. She stuffs her face into his shoulder and her loud cries turn into soft sniffles. Eventually, she calms down and falls back asleep in Changbin’s arms, her small cheek pressed against his shoulder. He tries to gently lay her back down but as soon as he tries to let go, she starts crying again. Immediately, he picks her back up, not wanting to wake you again. “It’s okay, princess. I’ve got you.” He gently bounces her again and it doesn’t take long for her to fall back asleep. This time he waits for a solid minute of her sleeping before trying to set her back down. Once again, as soon as she leaves his arms, she starts crying, as if she has a sixth sense for it. He pulls her back up, “Shhh, you’re going to wake Eomma.” He sighs, “Okay, I guess we get ready together.”
Changbin carries her with him to the bathroom while she sleeps contentedly in his arms. Nothing seems to bother her, not noise nor lights, as long as she is in Changbin’s arms, she is fine. However, Changbin is not fine. He is struggling. Brushing his hair? Not difficult. Brushing his teeth? A little clunky but also not too hard. Trying to get dressed? That’s where things get a little tricky. Looking between Ahri and his clothes, it seems like she is knocked out cold. Despite the moving, noise, and lights, her head sits softly against his shoulder, even breaths escaping her slightly parted lips. Surely he can set her down for a second to change his clothes, right? So, he grabs his clothes and brings them to her nursery so he can set her down in her bed for a moment. With the utmost precision, he lays her down, his hands not leaving until the very last minute. As her body rests against the bed, his hands still lightly around her waist, he waits. She doesn’t make a noise. With a sigh, he lets go and immediately the waterworks start.
“Appa!” She cries, making grabby hands for Changbin.
He melts and immediately picks her back up, “Shh, it’s okay sweet girl. Appa is here.”
As soon as he holds her, the cries calm down and she soon goes quiet. Changbin sighs, feeling exhausted before he has even done anything. Staring at his gym clothes on the floor, he decides that this morning is going to have to be a little more inconvenient. So, with great difficulty, he manages to shift Ahri around enough without ever putting her down to shimmy into his clothes. She seems completely unbothered.
“Seriously? I do a whole acrobatics routine to get ready and it’s only when I stop touching you that you wake up?” He huffs at her and she doesn’t respond, but continues to sleep in his arms. The sight of her tiny adorable face immediately melts Changbin’s frustration. He kisses her head, “It’s okay. I forgive you because you are just too cute.”
He finishes out his morning routine, with greater difficulty than usual, and goes to the kitchen to grab his pre-made smoothie. Now he is stuck. He has to go to the gym soon or else he’ll be late for work, but if he sets Ahri down, clearly she is going to cry. Caught in this dilemma, he checks the time and sighs. He has already taken too long to get ready. He has to go. So, he gives it another go on trying to set her down. Before placing her down, he gives her a soft kiss and whispers, “Please stay asleep.”
She doesn’t listen. As soon as she feels the weight of his hands gone, she starts wailing.
Changbin leans down and brushes his finger against her cheek, “Shhh, it’s okay. I’m still here. Just go back to sleep for me, yeah?”
“Appa!” Her tiny hands reach for him and he wants to pick her up so badly, but that won’t fix the issue.
“I know, princess. Appa is still here, see?” He smiles and that only seems to make her more upset. He tries to make silly faces with voices to make her laugh, but that doesn’t work either. He is practically pleading with her to quiet down when he hears you behind him.
“Could you be any louder?” You grumble, your face scrunched with grogginess.
He looks at you with wide eyes, “I’m sorry, but she won’t stop. Every time I put her down she just kept crying.”
“I heard.” You glare, moving past him to pick up Ahri. “Come here, sweet baby.” You pick her up, but she squeals and squirms in your arms, reaching for Changbin.
“Appa! Want Appa!”
“I know, but Appa has to go.” You try soothing her but it doesn’t seem to work. She just keeps fighting against you to try and get to her father.
“Look, princess. Appa is right here.” He tries waving, but it only seems to make her upset. You imagine it probably feels a little like being taunted to her.
You shove Changbin towards the door. “You need to go otherwise she won’t calm down.”
“What? The whole issue is that I’m leaving.”
“The issue is she still thinks you’re an option because you are still here. Now go.” It’s early; you are tired and holding a screaming child who is actively fighting your grip. You aren’t in the mood for games. Changbin grabs his gym bag, but stands in the doorway, looking sadly at your daughter. His bottom lip juts out in a pout, looking like he is about to start crying himself. You roll your eyes, “Seriously, go.”
“But-but she’s so sad.”
“And you aren’t helping, so unless you plan to take her with you, you need to go.”
As if your words prompted the greatest idea ever, Changbin perks up and runs to the nursery. Your gaze follows him, confused while Ahri screeches once he is out of sight. Not even a minute later, he comes running back out of the nursery with the baby carrier on. He stands in front of you proudly, but you shake your head. “Oh no.”
“Oh yes.” He nods with a big grin.
“You are not taking her to the gym.”
“You were the one who suggested it!”
“I was being facetious.”
“Why can’t I take her?”
“How do you plan to work out while holding a baby?” Before he can answer, you quickly add a caveat. “Without hurting yourself or her.”
He scoffs as if that is the most preposterous thought ever, “It’s just a little extra weight. I’ll put her on my back for most of it, but I can easily switch to the front if I need to.”
He sounds like a promotion for the functionality of the baby carrier. You pinch the bridge of your nose, still fighting to keep Ahri in your grasp, “I just don’t know if it’s a good idea.”
“Why?”
“Because I…she is still so little and I don’t want her to get hurt.”
Changbin steps forward, putting his hands on your shoulders and looks at you gently, “Darling, I promise I will be super careful. I would never do anything to harm our precious baby. I won’t use anything super heavy or confining. I will constantly check that she is safe and comfortable. I promise she will come back in one perfect piece.”
As if trying to agree with him, Ahri wails directly into your ear and grabs Changbin’s arm. You wince, your patience being worn down. “Fine. Take her, but don’t come back complaining to me about it. And I swear if she comes back with even a bruise, you will never carry her again.”
Changbin quickly takes her out of your arms and suddenly, the room gets 10 decibels quieter as her crying stops as soon as Changbin grabs her. Both of you sigh, relieved from the sudden quiet. “See? Everything is gonna be great.” He tucks her into the carrier against his chest, letting her head gently rest against him. He grabs his gym bag before turning back and placing a quick kiss to your lips. “I promise, she will be okay.”
You nod, trusting him to take special care of your daughter. He leaves for the gym, allowing you to crawl back into bed for a few more minutes of sleep.
Changbin does indeed take special care of Ahri. His workout is much less of a workout and a little more like play time. As he goes through his routine, half the time using her as his weight (in a responsible way of course). He is talking to her the whole time, earning various looks from the people around him, but he couldn’t care less because his wife is sleeping soundly and his baby girl is content and that’s all he could ever ask for.
Summary: They have to leave when their kid cries for them not to go — Minho editon
Content: fluff!
A/N: This one ended up being the softest out of all of them. It's just Minho being a good dad and knowing how to calm down his son.
Masterlist
~~~~
You bounce Jum on your hip as you ride the elevator to give Minho his lunch. This morning, he woke up late and in his rush to leave, he forgot to take his lunch. Knowing your husband all too well, you know he won’t eat if he doesn’t have food to remind him. So here you are, reminding him. The elevator door dings open and you step out with a very shocked Jum. He looks around at the unfamiliar building with wide eyes. Anytime you pass someone, he leans a little further into you, watching them with the same cat like stare as his father. With a light knock, you step into the dance studio to find the boys all sprawled out across the floor, chatting and resting after practice. No one having noticed you yet, you gently set Jum down and point towards Minho who is looking through his bag, probably for his missing lunch. Jum locks on target and waddles over to his father, clutching onto his leg with a happy squeal. All eyes turn to Minho who slowly looks down, incredibly confused. Jum just looks up at him with grabby hands.
“Am I hallucinating?” He bends down to pick up his son who happily nuzzles into his neck.
“How did he get here?” Hyunjin questions.
“Did Y/N let him come by himself?” Han gasps like he figured out a conspiracy.
You laugh from your spot in the doorway, turning all eyes on you now. “Han Jisung, do you really think I would let my child walk all the way here alone?”
“I don’t know! Maybe it’s some new parenting trick you were trying out.” Han holds his hands up in defense, earning an eye roll from about half the room. You walk over to your husband who is slightly less confused, but still unsure as to why you are here, not that he is complaining.
You hold up the bag in your hand, “You forgot your lunch.”
“You didn’t have to come all the way here.” He leans forward and presses a kiss on your lips.
“No, but I know you prefer homemade food to cafeteria food and I had some extra time. Plus Jum is being extra clingy today, so I thought he might enjoy seeing you.” You rub your sons back who is still snuggled into Minho’s neck.
“What did I do to deserve you?”
“You’re just lucky I guess.” You smirk, pressing another lingering kiss on his lips.
“Can you take your PDA somewhere else please?” Seungmin groans from the corner.
“Jealous, Seungmin?” Minho teases.
“Disgusted, actually.”
You grab Minho’s hand and lead him out of the studio to find a quieter place to sit and eat. You have a nice lunch together, Jum never once leaving Minho’s arms. Walking back into the studio, you are about to leave when Chan stops you. “Hey Y/N, wanna watch our practice real quick? You can give us some pointers.”
You laugh, “I don’t know how much help I’ll be, but I’ll never say no to watching you guys dance.”
“You mean watching me dance,” Minho corrects.
You roll your eyes and reach to take Jum out of his arms, but he stubbornly stuffs his face into Minho’s shoulder and clenches onto his shirt. “Stubborn like your father.” You shake your head and try to take him again, this time earning a squeal from him.
“Hey, look buddy, it’s okay. I’m still right here.” Minho steps back, but gives a little wave to show he isn’t going anywhere. Jum gives a more confused squeal as Minho moves towards the middle of the room. You sit back against the wall with Jum in your lap who is still trying to fight your grip and get back to his father. As soon as the music starts and Minho turns around to get in formation, Jum starts wailing. You try bouncing him on your knee.
“It’s okay. Look, Appa is just dancing.” You point to where Minho is standing, but as he weaves in and out of your line of sight, Jum get’s more confused and frustrated. You feel bad for having a screaming child in a very echoey dance studio, but before things get too out of hand Minho swiftly passes you and picks up Jum before sliding back into formation. The music continues and everyone keeps dancing with the addition of your son giggling as he sits on his father’s hip. Minho being the professional he is keeps formation without jostling his son too much. Everyone looks confused as they realize there is now a child involved, but Jum is having the time of his life. With every turn and slide, Jum lets out a giggle and claps with the music or as close as he can get for a toddler. You smile as you watch Minho dance with his son, a bright smile on both of their faces. The song ends and Minho looks at Jum with mock seriousness, “I’ve got some notes on your timing. For starters, you were totally clapping off beat.” Jum just looks at him with a happy giggle and claps again. Minho nods. “Better. We’ll work on it.”
You walk over to them with a loving smile, “Are you already turning our son into a professional dancer?”
“Oh, please. Have you seen how he dances at home? It’s in his blood.”
“Then you can be the one to drive him to all the dance lessons.”
“Drive him? I’m going to be the one teaching him.”
“We’ll see about that.” You reach to take Jum back, his eyes drooping as the afternoon crash starts to hit. “Looks like it’s time for someone to take a nap.”
“Sounds like a great idea.” Minho yawns, leaning his head against your shoulder.
“Not you.” You shove him off and take your son out of his hold. Jum’s head perks up and a half cry comes out as he sleepily looks around for Minho. Despite leaning his head on your shoulder, he still makes grabby hands towards his father and gives a half hearted cry.
“Even in his sleep he prefers me.”
You lightly hit Minho on the chest, “I’ll remember that statement next time he wakes up in the middle of the night.”
Jum gives half hearted cries and sniffles as you leave the studio. Minho kisses him on the top of the head earning a soft broken, “Appa!”
Minho doesn’t often melt, but when he does it is because of his son. He turns away, “Go, before I keep him for the rest of the day.”
You laugh at the rare sight of your husband being a softy and begin to exit the building. Jum lazily reaches over your shoulder towards Minho when his hand flops as sleep finally takes him.
“Night buddy. I hope you have good dreams about dancing.” Minho blows him a kiss before stepping back into the studio to finish practice.
Summary: They have to leave when their kid cries for them not to go —Lixie edition
Content: fluff!
Masterlist
The company car pulls up to the departure drop off at the airport and you hop out of the car to help Felix with his bag. He has a Louis Vuitton event and will be in Paris for a few days. As both you and Felix step out of the car, your daughter, Rina, starts whining from her carseat. “Hey, sunshine,” Felix reaches in and unbuckles her, “It’s okay. Eomma is just helping with my bag.” He places her on his hip and she happily snuggles into his neck. Felix hugs her closer, his hand stroking her hair, “Oh I’m gonna miss my snuggles.”
“It’s only a few days. You’ll be back in no time.” You hug him, squishing Rina between you two and Felix takes a moment to just breathe his family in. He pulls back a bit to look at you.
“I’m gonna miss you too,” He says, placing a soft kiss on your lips. You melt into him, gently kissing him back. You could live in this moment forever, but Rina is impatient. You feel her tiny hands press against both of your faces, as if trying to push each other apart. Felix just laughs, his deep voice vibrating Rina, “Someone’s a little jealous. Don’t worry, I’ve got plenty of kisses for you too.” He peppers kisses all over her face causing her to giggle.
“Excuse me,” the driver calls to you, “I don’t mean to be a killjoy, but they won’t let me sit here forever.”
Felix sighs before placing one last kiss on Rina’s cheek and your lips, “I guess that’s my cue.”
“Go on before you miss your flight.” You reach to take Rina from him, but as you wrap your hands around her waist she squeals. “Come on baby. It’s time to go.”
She clenches her fist onto Felix’s shirt and starts screeching as you try to pull her away. Felix gently pries her hands off of his shirt so that you can hold her and tears start streaming down her face. “Appa!” She reaches towards Felix, her tiny voice cracking with sobs. She has the same big boba eyes as Felix making her look even more pitiful when she is sad. As she sniffles, taking in shaky breaths, Felix feels like his heart is being ripped out.
“Can’t you walk me in?”
You shake your head, “The driver can’t wait here that long.”
“But it’ll only take a minute.” He looks at you with sad eyes, forcing you to stare down two pairs of pleading boba eyes. You weren’t originally planning to walk him in because you never know who is waiting around in the airport and having a small child makes the possibility of ambush infinitely more terrifying, but looking between your crying daughter and almost crying husband it’s hard to say no. “Fine.” You look at the driver, “Can you make a loop? We’ll only be a minute.” He nods before driving off to make a loop around. You hand Rina back to Felix which instantly calms her down. She stuffs her little face into his shirt, a content sigh leaving her lips. “Come on, let’s be quick.” You grab Felix’s bag before heading into the airport.
Luckily, there doesn’t seem to be that many people around who recognize him. Maybe having a kid is a turn off for mobs. You walk with Felix to check in, Rina happily against him the whole time. He goes to check his bag and as he pulls out his passport, Rina tries to grab it and put it in her mouth. Felix quickly snatches it away, “Nope. That is not edible. That passport has been a lot of places. Who knows how many germs there are.” She huffs at him for taking away her chew toy, but gets over it pretty quickly. Once he has his ticket, you walk with him over to security, stopping right outside the line.
“Okay, time to go for real this time.” You reach out the grab her but Felix turns away.
“Hold on. Let me cuddle a little longer.”
“Felix, you can’t hold her forever.”
“I didn’t say forever. I just said a little longer.”
You roll your eyes, but let him take a moment. He hugs her close, nuzzling his face closer to hers. For a minute he just sits there, swaying slightly back and forth as he holds her close. Then he kisses her head, “I’m gonna miss you.” Kisses her cheek. “My little sunshine.” Kisses her nose. “Appa loves you very much.” And with one last squeeze he steps closer to you in order to hand her off. “Okay, take her before I end up buying a second ticket just for her.”
You snort, “You do not want to travel alone with a baby, trust me.” You reach to take her and she once again screeches as you pull her from Felix’s grasp. You manage to get her in your arms, despite her fighting against your hold. She makes grabby hands towards Felix, “Appa!”
“I’m sorry baby, but Appa has to go.” He blows her a kiss, not trusting her or himself to get any closer. “But I promise I’ll be back so soon. I love you so much.” He slowly starts backing up towards security as you try to calm Rina down. Her wailing echoes through the airport, drawing some attention and sympathetic looks. Felix keeps his eyes on you both for as long as he can, blowing kisses the entire time. Once he is finally out of sight, you go back to the car that is making its way back around, Rina now more upset than ever.
“I know baby.” You gently bounce her up and down as you rub soothing circles on her back, “I’m gonna miss him too, but he’ll be back before you know it.” She stuffs her face in your shirt, her little sobs vibrating against your shoulder. She doesn’t stop crying the entire way home and you feel terrible for your driver. By the time you make it home and get her upstairs to your apartment, she has cried so hard she tuckered herself out. As you pull her out of the carrier, she lets out a big yawn, a tiny whimper following it. “Aw, my sweet baby. I think it’s time for a nap.” You go to put her down to bed and she immediately reaches for her Bbokari plush, curling tight around it. With a tiny sigh, she squeezes her plush tighter and falls asleep. Of course you take a picture of her asleep with her Bbokari and send it to Felix.
As he is about to board the plane, he receives your text. Opening it, he see’s the picture of Rina cuddling Bbokari and feels his heart melt. He sends back a quick message
My sweet girl 🥺 give her lots of snuggles from me and I’ll be back as soon as I can.
We’ll be waiting 🥰
I love you both. See you soon, my beautiful sunshines 💛
Summary: They have to leave but their kid starts crying, not wanting them to go — Seungmo edition
Content: fluff! a little existential (?) moment for Seungmin
A/N: rip Seungmin. Bro just wanted to go to the bathroom
Masterlist
You are sitting on the floor playing with your son while Seungmin sits on the couch reading. It’s a calm Sunday afternoon where the three of you can relax as a family. Soft music mixes with the sound of Taeho laughing as he knocks over his block tower for the third time. Seungmin takes a sip of his coffee only to realize it’s empty. Setting his book down, he gets up to refill his mug. As he rounds the corner into the kitchen, the sound of crying and a loud “Appa!” sounds from the living room. Seungmin’s heart stutters as he worries something bad happened that made his son start wailing all of a sudden. He quickly steps back into the room with wide eyes and looks at you sitting in the same spot you were a moment ago. Nothing seems out of place. The block tower is halfway built, Taeho is sitting where he was, so far unharmed. You look fine and maybe a little confused. Almost immediately Taeho stops crying and calms down again, looking at Seungmin like he saved the world from certain doom.
“What happened?”
You shrug, “Nothing.”
You both look at each other and then at your son who is contentedly playing with his blocks again. Shaking off the confusion, Seungmin goes back to grab his refilled mug, but as soon as he is out of sight Taeho starts crying again. Seungmin quickly makes it back into the living room which seems to sate his son’s crying. Without much thought, he returns to the couch and reads his book again.
Maybe 30 minutes later, Taeho has now switched to sitting in your lap as you read to him, leaning against Seungmin’s legs, who is still reading his book.
Seungmin taps your shoulder, “Lean forward, I gotta run to the bathroom real quick.”
Not breaking your concentration on reading to your son, you lean forward, allowing Seungmin to stand. As he moves to walk down the hallway, Taeho loses focus on the book and watches his father. As soon as Seungmin is out of sight, Taeho immediately gets up and starts waddling after him. As he clumsily rounds the corner, Seungmin is stepping into the bathroom and closes the door. Taeho waddles as fast as he can down the hall as he starts to call out, “Appa!” His tiny hands press against the bathroom door as tears start falling again. As his tiny cries ring through the hallway, you try to comfort him.
“Hey, it’s okay. Appa is coming right back.” You try to pick him up but that seems to only upset him more, earning a high pitched scream from him. Seungmin opens the door, looking incredibly confused as his son topples against his legs, tiny tears soaking his pants. Taeho makes grabby hands at him, little whimpers escaping his lips.
Seungmin scoops him up and Taeho stuffs his face into the crook of his neck, “Pup, what’s wrong? Appa was just going to the bathroom. It’s okay.”
Taeho shakes his head against Seungmin’s shirt and mumbles, “Appa not go.”
Seungmin visibly melts at his son’s tiny words, hugging him closer to his chest. “It’s okay pup. I’m not going anywhere.”
Carrying Taeho back into the living room, you three end up back on the couch. Seungmin is now reading the book you were halfway through when your son ran after him. Taeho sits in his lap, clutching onto his shirt as you snuggle into his side, enjoying the sweet moment with your family. The rest of the day Taeho is practically glued to Seungmin. Anytime he would get out of line of sight, Taeho would start crying and run after him. So, you decided it would be best to just keep them with each other all the time which made taking a shower very difficult for Seungmin. You try to put Taeho to bed so that Seungmin can shower and change, but once again, as soon as line of sight is broken, the waterworks start. Seungmin ends up holding him against his chest, swaying back and forth while humming a lullaby before Taeho finally falls to sleep. After making sure that he is asleep, Seungmin tucks him in and finally gets ready for bed himself.
As he exits the bathroom, finally having achieved his shower, he flops on the bed next to you. You reach over and run your hand through his wet hair, “He’s really attached to you.”
Seungmin hums, his eyes closing as he leans into your touch, “I don’t think he has developed object permanence yet.”
“I think he just loves you.”
“I never said they were mutually exclusive.” He pauses, his voice getting a little more guilty, “I wish I didn’t have to be gone so much for work.”
“Hey, don’t start with that. You are here plenty for him.”
“Yeah, but not like other fathers. I don’t have the typical 9-5. I travel and feel like I see him half the time through a screen.” He sighs, leaning his head on your lap.
Your fingers play with his hair, knowing it helps relax him, “Just because it doesn’t look the same as other people, doesn’t mean you are a bad father. You are more present in his life than a lot of fathers who do have a typical 9-5 and never travel. His crying has nothing to do with your work. He just hasn’t figured out that walking around a corner doesn’t mean disappearing forever.”
Seungmin snorts, “His life must be terrifying then.”
“Maybe, but that’s why he runs after you, because you are his safe place.”
He tilts his head to look at you, a small smile gracing his lips, “I hope so.”
You lean down to press a kiss against his lips, “I know so.”
As if on cue, the sound of high pitched wails floats down the hallway, “Appa!”
You smirk down at him, “Duty calls.”
Seungmin sits up with a groan and goes to get his son in the nursery, “Coming pup! Appa is still here, I promise.” Despite his tired voice, Seungmin gladly holds Taeho until he falls back asleep. As he looks down at his son sleeping peacefully in his arms, he presses a light kiss to his forehead and whispers, “Appa is always here for you, no matter what.”
Summary: They have to leave when their kid starts crying, not wanting them to go — Jinnie edition
Content: fluff!
Masterlist
Today is the awards show performance and you are backstage with Hyunjin and your daughter. Jiye is wearing a sparkly red dress with a fluffy skirt and a small tiara she refuses to take off, even at home. You blame Hyunjin for her dramatics. Speaking of which, Hyunjin is currently showing her around the dressing room, narrating like it’s a zoo tour.
“And here we have an ancient relic, Channie-hyung.” Hyunjin points while standing a safe distance, as if Chan is a dangerous animal, which he probably would be if Hyunjin wasn’t holding Jiye. “Look at how old he is. Don’t look if it’s too scary.” He covers Jiye’s eyes, but she just giggles and pulls his hand away.
“You’re lucky there is a child present,” Chan grumbles.
Hyunjin moves to stand near Lee Know but before he can say anything Lee Know gives him a death stare and Hyunjin wisely decides to move on without a word. As he rounds the room to where you are sitting, he lets out a small gasp. “And here we have the most beautiful creature you’ve ever seen. Look at how elegant and effortlessly gorgeous she is. It’s enough to make anyone who looks too long faint.” He dramatically puts his hand to his forehead like he is about to faint.
“Do not faint while holding my daughter,” You tease.
Hyunjin leans in to “whisper” to Jiye, “And she has a sharp tongue too. Isn’t she the best?”
Jiye squeals and claps in agreement, pulling a wide smile from you.
Suddenly, there is a knock on the door and their manager pokes his head in, “You’re up next. Time to get in positions.”
The boys nod and file out to go stand backstage. You stand up with a stretch and reach for your daughter, “Alright, time for Appa to go.”
She pouts and clutches onto Hyunjin’s shirt, violently shaking her head no. Hyunjin clutches his chest with wide eyes, “Do you see that? She doesn’t want to let go.”
“Yeah, but she has to, unless you plan to bring her on stage with you.” Hyunjin looks like he genuinely considers it for a moment. “You are not bringing her on stage.”
He sighs, “Can she at least stand backstage until I go on?” He gives you the biggest pout and boba eyes he can muster. You roll your eyes, unable to resist two pouting princesses.
“Fine.”
Hyunjin beams, making Jiye also very happy, even though she doesn’t really understand what is going on. All she knows is she isn’t being taken from Hyunjin and that’s all that matters. The three of you walk backstage where the other boys are already waiting. Jiye looks around at all the people and equipment with wide eyes. She pats Hyunjin on the face and babbles something, pointing towards the stage. Hyunjin nods as if he can understand her, “Yes, that is a stage. I know it looks a little scary but once you are out there, it’s super fun.”
Jiye babbles something in response.
“Yes, Appa is going to perform there, but you can’t come with. You are too young to be on stage.”
You watch fondly as he responds to her babbling back and forth while unconsciously swaying her back and forth. The manager comes by again to give the five minute warning and that is your cue to take Jiye away. “Alright, time to go for real.” You try to grab her out of his arms, but she immediately clutches onto his hair and squeals.
“Ow, ow, ow.” Hyunjin pulls her back in his arms before she can rip his hair out. Holding her against his chest, he carefully removes his hair from her tiny fists. “Are you trying to ruin our stylists hard work?” You can’t tell if he is talking to you or Jiye.
“Hyun, you have to go. Let me hold her.”
He defeatedly tries to hand her over, but she doesn’t accept defeat so easily. She holds as tight as she can to his shirt as you try to grab her from him. Her screams echo through the backstage and you wince, trying to shush her, but to no avail. You get a proper hold on her, but she is still holding onto Hyunjin’s collar, pulling him inches from your face. Instead of being any kind of helpful, he just looks at you with a smirk, “Hi beautiful.”
You let out a frustrated sigh as Jiye lets out another squeal. “Would you stop flirting and help me?”
He locks back into the situation and gently removes his daughter’s hands from his shirt, but she clutches onto his fingers instead. “Appa!” She cries and you see Hyunjin break at the sound, on the verge of tears himself.
“It’s okay, princess. I’m right here.” He coo’s, gently rubbing his thumb over her tiny hand.
“Hyunjin!” Chan calls from behind him, “2 minutes!”
You see panic in Hyunjin’s eyes as he is torn between his crying child and his job. You secure Jiye with one hand and remove hers from his with the other. Thoroughly upset with you now, she sobs even harder, her tiny face turning as red as her dress. You start to back away towards the exit, “Go on stage. She’ll be fine. We’ll watch you from back here.”
Hyunjin stands frozen with glossy eyes, his hand still reaching towards his screaming daughter. She lets out another cry and tries to squirm out of your hold, but you exit back into the dressing room before she can which doesn’t make her or Hyunjin feel any better. Chan ends up having to yank Hyunjin over to stand in position. “You good man?”
“I think my heart just shattered into a million pieces,” Hyunjin whispers.
Chan puts a sympathetic hand on his shoulder, “You’ll be back with her in no time. This performance is maybe 6 minutes max and then you get to go back to her.”
Hyunjin nods and locks into his stage mindset. You are back in the dressing room trying to calm Jiye down who is still wailing. You bounce her up and down while walking circles in the room. Luckily there is a TV that is streaming the performance so you can still watch Hyunjin perform. The lights dim and music starts playing as the boys take their positions. You direct Jiye’s attention to the screen and it seems to help a little bit. Her wailing dies down to soft whimpers as the lights come up on stage. “Look, do you see Appa?” You point to where Hyunjin is standing on stage. She lets out a soft whimper and leans her head on your shoulder, eyes turned towards the TV. As soon as Hyunjin’s voice comes through the speakers, she perks up.
“Appa?” She reaches towards the screen that is now focused on him. As it zooms in on his face, she claps and lets out a happy screech at the sight of him. You let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding as she finally gets excited instead of upset. It hits Hyunjin’s dance break and she goes still, eyes wide as she watches him with awe. You manage to get a picture of her watching the screen, knowing Hyunjin will want to see it later.
As the performance ends and the lights go down, Hyunjin books it off stage back into the dressing room. He bursts through the door to find you happily dancing around with Jiye. You turn and Jiye locks eyes with him. She lights up and immediately reaches for him. He crosses the room in three steps and scoops her up in his very sweaty arms. However, Jiye does not like that he is sweaty and pushes back against his hold. She scrunches up her little nose in disgust, shaking her head, “Appa icky.”
Hyunjin looks at her, utterly betrayed, as you burst out laughing. She whines, reaching back to you and you gladly take her in your arms.
Hyunjin pouts, “What is this? One minute she’s crying over me and the next she doesn’t like me?”
“That’s kids for you,” You shrug, “She doesn’t like that you’re sweaty. Rinse off and then I’m sure she would love for you to hold her.”
Hyunjin quickly changes and wipes off the sweat, spritzing on some cologne. Once he is finally clean enough for Jiye, she happily collapses in his arms. Throughout the rest of the night, Hyunjin holds Jiye close and when they win an award, she proudly sits in your arms clapping and squealing for him, excited to join her father in his accomplishments.
Summary: They have to leave when their kid cries for them not to go —Hannie edition
Content: fluff! Han being dramatic
A/N: I am fully aware of the pun I made with his child's name. It was intentional. I do think Han would be the kid of person to make his kids name a pun.
Masterlist
It’s your son’s first day of preschool and Jisung is more nervous than him.
“Okay, does he have his juice?” Jisung asks, nervously pacing back and forth
“Yes.”
“His snacks?”
“Yes.”
“What about his favorite blanket. Oh! Maybe a change of clothes too.”
“Why would he need a change of clothes?”
“What if he falls and gets mud all over himself. Do you want him walking around in muddy clothes? All of the other kids will laugh at him and he’ll be scarred forever. You know what? This was a bad idea. He’s staying home. We’ll put him in next year.”
“Ji!” You grab your frantic husband by the shoulders. “Calm down. He will be just fine.”
He sighs, “It’s just…it’s a big deal. I want him to be okay.”
“I know you do, but I promise everything will be fine.”
He nods, not seeming fully convinced, but you’ll take what you can get. You guide your son, Duri, out of the playroom to the car and buckle him in. Han is tapping the steering wheel so hard the entire drive that you think his fingers might fall off. As you pull up to the preschool, Han looks like he is going to throw up. You gently place your hand over his, “Hey, it’ll be okay.”
He takes a deep breath before stepping out of the car. You unbuckle Duri as Jisung grabs his Han Quokka backpack. As you enter the building, your son toddling in next to you, his eyes light up at all the bright colors. The walls have murals of animals and plants in fun colors while the chairs are all different patterns. It looks like a clown threw up on everything, but Duri seems enraptured. After talking to the lady at the front desk, you walk Duri back to his classroom, Jisung holding his hand the whole way. As you approach the classroom, the teacher is waiting to greet you.
“Hi! Welcome to your first day of class.” She crouches down to look at your son in the eyes, a bright smile on her face. “And what’s your name, little guy?”
“This is Duri.” You answer.
“Nice to meet you!” She tries to give him a high five but he just stares at her bewildered. She shrugs, standing back up. “That’s okay. We’ll get there eventually. I assume you’re his parents.”
“Yes, hi. I’m Y/N,” You stretch out your hand to greet her. “And this is Han.” The teacher reaches out her hand to him, but he is too caught up scanning the classroom. “Ji!” You elbow him in the side and he locks back into the present.
“Oh! Hi.” He shakes her hand a little frenetically.
The teacher just smiles at him, “First time, huh? It’s okay. Most parents are nervous. You can look around the classroom if you’d like.”
“Yes!” “No.” You both say at the same time. Jisung looks at you, a little betrayed, but you just ignore him. “I’m sure everything is fine. This school had amazing reviews, so I’m not worried.”
She nods her head, “Well, if you have any questions, just let me know. I can take any of his belongings and we’ll get started with class soon.”
You hand her the backpack after basically ripping it out of Jisung’s grip. You pick up Duri, who has been hanging onto Jisung’s pant leg up until now and lift him over the baby gate into the room. As soon as his feet touch the floor, he starts sobbing. Jisung basically lunges to grab him before you have to stop him from picking your son back up.
“But he’s crying!” He pleads, looking like he is about to cry himself.
“If you pick him up, he’ll never get comfortable here.”
“It’s very normal for kids to cry their first time.” The teacher smiles as if that is supposed to calm Jisung down, but it only makes him feel worse.
“I would cry too if my parents abandoned me with a stranger locked in a prison.” He dramatically crosses his arms before you hit him on the shoulder.
“This is not a prison, it’s preschool.”
“Same difference.”
“Ji, stop it. You’re being rude.”
“It’s okay.” The teacher reassures, “Parents are always more nervous than the kids. I promise he will stop crying and adjust soon.”
Meanwhile, Duri is sobbing and making grabby hands for his father, “Appa!”
Jisung looks at you with his biggest eyes, but you don’t budge. He looks between you, the teacher, and Duri, his heart broken in two as his son cries two feet away from him and he’s not allowed to do anything. “Can I give him one last hug please?”
You sigh, “Fine, but make it quick and don’t pick him up!”
Jisung nods as he step over the baby gate to crouch down next to his son. Immediately Duri collapses in his arms and starts sobbing into his shirt. Jisung hugs him tight against his chest, placing a kiss on his head, “I know buddy. Me too. But we’ll get through this together. We have to be strong for each other, okay? I’ll be back before you know it.” He squeezes your son one last time before letting go and stepping back out. Duri lets out another high pitched wail as his father turns his back. Jisung gives one last longing look to Duri before fully turning to leave. He grabs your hand and starts pulling you away, “Let’s go before I change my mind.”
You give one last thank you to the teacher before leaving down the hallway. Your son grabs the baby gate crying after you, and Jisung flinches when a broken “Appa!” echoes down the hallway. As you get back in the car, Jisung slumps down and you swear there are tears in his eyes. “I’m a terrible father. I’ve abandoned my son. I turned my back on him when he needed me most.”
You gently turn his head to look at you, giving the most reassuring smile you can, “You are not a terrible father. You didn’t abandon him. Like the teacher said, this is super normal. He will adjust and be just fine.” You press a reassuring kiss to his lips and some of the tension drains from his shoulders.
“Okay, but if he is crying when we get back, I’m never leaving him behind again.”
“Noted.” You nod before pulling out of the parking lot.
~
You get back that afternoon to pick your son up and Jisung is practically running down the hallway.
“Duri!” He steps in the room, scanning for your son. His eyes land on Duri playing with some blocks in the corner. He walks over and crouches down with his arms open, “Duri, look! Appa is here!” However, your son ignores him and keeps playing with his blocks. Han’s brows furrow with confusion. He moves so that he is more in Duri’s line of sight. “Buddy? It’s me.” But Duri keeps playing with his blocks. Han’s face drops as his son is clearly less hurt about the separation than he is. He scoops him up in is arms, earning a whine from Duri who was not finished with his block tower. His chubby fists reach back down for the blocks, despite Jisung trying to get his attention. “Duri, buddy. It’s me. Your Appa! The one you were crying about this morning.”
You walk over, trying not to be too teasing. As soon as Duri see’s you, his eyes light up and he reaches towards you, “Eomma!”
You can’t help the laugh that escapes you as you take your son from a very betrayed Jisung. “Guess you missed Eomma more than Appa, huh?” You coo, slotting him against your hip. He just gives a gummy smile and starts playing with your hair, “Or Eomma’s hair apparently.” You walk back over to the teacher and sign him out, “I’m guessing he adjusted well?”
“Stopped crying after about five minutes,” She smiles back, grabbing his Han Quokka bag.
“He forgot about me,” Jisung pouts next to you. “It’s because I abandoned him. He’s traumatized and blocked me out of his memory.”
You roll your eyes at his dramatics, “Yeah okay. Grab his backpack.”
“Reduce to his bag boy. What kind of father am I?” He takes the tiny backpack and slings it over his shoulder, best he can.
“A dramatic one. Now, let’s leave our nice teacher to clean up her room.” You drag Jisung back down the hallway, Duri still playing with your hair. Jisung continues muttering about his son forgetting him and how he is mad that you abandoned him this morning. It takes Duri finally acknowledging him when you get home for Jisung to snap out of his dramatics and back into his energetic personality.
Summary: They have to leave when their kid starts crying, not wanting them to go — Channie edition
Content: fluff!
A/N: Part 1 of a lil ot8 series. Sorry I disappeared for a second but now that finals are over, hopefully I can cook up some more stuff. Got a big one I'm almost finished with 😈
Masterlist
~~~~
Your daughter is eating her breakfast when Chan comes out from the bedroom.
“Good morning, princess.” He kisses her on the head. “Good morning, love.” He kisses you on the cheek. He grabs some lunch you pre-packed him and puts it in his backpack. As he moves around packing his things for work, your daughter watches him like it’s the most interesting thing she has seen.
“Eomma! All done!” Yuna throws her banana covered hands up for you to come take her out of the high chair.
Grabbing a wet wipe, you walk over and clean her hands and face before settling her on your hip. She whines as you wipe her face, unaware that you are trying to help her and not smother her. Chan comes over and takes her out of your arms, “Looks like you missed a spot.” He places a big kiss on Yuna’s cheek where a stray piece of banana sits, eliciting a laugh from her.
“Did you pack everything you need?” You ask Chan who is lightly throwing Yuna in the air.
“She’s flying!” He coo’s, earning a satisfied laugh from Yuna.
You shake your head, knowing he is too caught up with her to hear you right now. You let him be and double check his work bag yourself. Rummaging through his backpack, you make sure he has extra food, snacks, water, liquid IV, charger, laptop, and all of the things he always seems to forget. Zipping up his bag you walk over to where he is now dancing around in a circle, rocking Yuna side to side on his hip.
“Alright, dance party is over,” you say, holding out Chan’s bag to him.
“Five more minutes,” he says, eyes locked on your daughter.
“You’re gonna be late to work.”
He sighs, stopping his dancing. He looks at Yuna with a pout, “Eomma is no fun.”
You roll your eyes, “You could quit your job.”
His eyes snap to you, “absolutely not.”
“Mhm, that’s what I thought. Now go before you are late and I get flooded with messages from the boys.”
He slings his backpack over his free shoulder as you reach for Yuna. As soon as you try to take her out of his arms, she starts wailing. Her tiny fists clutch onto his shirt sleeve. “Appa! No!”
“Come on, baby. Appa’s gotta go to work.” You try to pry her away from Chan, but her tiny grip won’t let go. Her face goes red as she cries with all her might. Chans heart immediately breaks at the sight of his daughter so upset.
“Oh princess,” He takes her out of your hands and pulls her back against his chest. Almost immediately she calms down, her head resting in the crook of Chans neck. “It’s okay baby.” He coo’s, gently rubbing her back.
You let him hold her for a minute before checking the time with a sigh, “Chan, you can’t hold her forever. You have to go to work soon.”
“I know.” His voice is a little broken, “Let me hold her just a second longer please.”
You listen, knowing it breaks his heart every time she is upset. Once she has finally calmed down, he kisses the top of her head and whispers, “Appa has to go to work now. But I’ll be back before you know it. Can you go with Eomma?” You reach your hands out for her but she shakes her head no. “It’ll be okay. I promise” Chan gently hands her over to you and she immediately starts fighting back. You manage to actually get her out of Chan’s hold, but she is fighting hard against you.
“It’s okay baby. He’ll be back so soon.” You try soothing her but she just wails and reaches for Chan. He stands there for a moment, looking utterly broken at the sight of his baby girl crying for him. You give him a reassuring smile, “She’ll be fine. I promise. The sooner you go, the sooner you can come back.”
He nods, swallowing down the urge to just stay home for the day with her. He steps forward and kisses Yuna on the head, making sure not to let her grab hold of him.
“Appa!” She wails, trying to squirm out of your hold.
“Appa will be back soon, okay princess. Be good for Eomma.” He turns and places a quick kiss on your lips. “Sorry I have to leave you like this.”
You peck his cheek with a soft smile, “We’ll be fine. She’ll find a toy in 5 minutes and forget all about it.”
He laughs, “Good. Glad I can be replaced by a toy car.”
You roll your eyes, “You know that’s not what I mean.”
“I know.” He takes one last look at his sobbing daughter and turns to leave before he can think any better of it. He closes the door, leaving behind a very upset Yuna and that shatters his heart into pieces. As soon as he gets to the studio he gets a message from you.
Turns out you are replaced by a teddy bear, not a toy car.
Attached is a picture of Yuna, content on the living room floor with a teddy bear almost as big as her. Chan smiles knowing his baby girl is happy again, but he will definitely be finishing work early to return to her as soon as possible.
Summary: When your relationship with Chan gets leaked, suddenly the world comes crashing in and there's no where to hide.
Content: hurt/comfort, angst, icky stalker fans behavior, some pretty mean comments, insecurities, lowkey scared for your safety breakdown moment, distressed and angry Chan, company not being helpful as usual, tried to throw in some nice stays cuz I would hope not all of us suck, silly moment with the boys
A/N: So idk what it is with me and Bangchan and getting mobbed by fans. Or I guess all of SKZ for that matter. Idk guess I just like the feeling of being protected. Anywaaaay, if the boys ever do end up in relationships, please for the love of all that is good and holy, don't be terrible stalker people. Leave them alone and let them be happy. Thank you for coming to my ted talk.
Masterlist
~~~~
As you grab your bag and head out the door, you send Chan your usual good morning text.
You: Morning! Off to work. Have a good day at the studio 😘
Channie: Have a good day at work, love ❤️
You look at his response with a contented smile. You’ve been dating for almost a year now and you couldn’t be happier. You were worried at first with all the sneaking around and hush-hush about it, but as you’ve settled into this lifestyle, you find it nice. It’s like you and Chan have your own little bubble, untouchable by the stressors of the world. As you walk out of your apartment, heels clicking on the floor, coffee in hand, you hear something odd. Something that sounds like a mob of people. You walk to the nearest window and almost drop your coffee. A crowd stands outside your apartment building. Photographers, fans, people yelling and holding signs that range from “Please tell Bangchan I love him!” to “Go to hell, gold digger!” You are impressed with their coordination. They stand out of the way of cars, along the sidewalk, keeping fairly quiet, so as to not cause too much trouble. That is, until the apartment building door opens. The crowd rushes forward with cameras at the ready. They push past each other, trying to see who it is. When they see it’s some random guy, there is a collective sigh and they move out of the way.
Your heart stops. Who are these people and how did they find where you live? Surely they aren’t here for you…
You audibly sigh, knowing that is a stupid thought. Unless there is some other girlfriend of some other famous Bangchan in this building, they could only be looking for you. You scan the crowd, looking for your car. Of course. They were directly between you and your car. Maybe they don’t know what you look like. Maybe you could smile and wave and they would move out of the way for you…
You pace back and forth, pinching the bridge of your nose. What are you going to do? You check your watch, “Shit.” You’re going to be late for work at this rate. Glancing between your apartment and the crowd, you make your decision.
—
As you climb down the fire escape, you start to regret your decision. You had to leave your coffee behind and take your heels off in order to shimmy down the ladder. Finally reaching the bottom, you land in a pile of trash. Some rats squeak and run away as if offended by your intrusion. You drag yourself up, slipping your shoes back on. “Great, now I’m late, uncaffinated, and smell like trash.” You brush yourself off and quickly but cautiously make your way to the bus stop.
Climbing into the packed bus, you reach for your phone to text Chan, but your hand hesitates. You aren’t sure who those people are or how they got your information, but now you feel on edge, like everyone is watching you. You decide it’s for the best to not text right now. You don’t want to get caught and accidentally cause him trouble, well more trouble than you probably already have. Plus, his company is on top of things, so they probably figured it out and have it handled. Chan is busy with work, trying to finish up for the holidays and you would hate to stress him unnecessarily. If you text him about this, you know he would drop everything to come see you at work, even if it’s just to ask how you are. You feel a small smile spread across your lips at the thought.
The bus screeches to a stop and you pile out with the rest of the passengers. You take a deep breath in, the cold winter air filling your lungs, and make your way towards work. Your boss is already going to be pissed at you for being late, let’s not add any unneeded stress right now. You can deal with this problem later.
—
Later has arrived and you aren’t sure you’re ready. You step off the bus and stare up at your apartment building looming over you. Curse being on the 4th floor. If you were on the first floor, you could just climb in the window. Alas, you have to find another way in. The fire escape is far too high for you to reach and you aren’t sure the rats will let you back over there again. You inhale deep, tuck your head down and walk towards the front of the building. Surely they haven’t been here all day. As you round the corner to see the mob (albeit slightly smaller) still there, you quickly hide behind the wall.
“What the hell am I supposed to do?” You mutter to no one. That’s when you get hit with an idea. A risky one, but maybe your only option.
You pull your hat lower and pull your scarf to cover your mouth and nose. You’ve never been more glad for freezing weather. Hopefully, it won’t look too suspicious to walk in like this. You wait until someone comes out of your building. As the crowd surges forward, you join the lump and push to the front. While all their attention is focused on whoever is coming out the door, you slip inside and book it for the stairs. You make a note to give your elderly neighbor, Mr. Hintachi, some thank you cookies later, even if he doesn’t know what he did.
You quickly slam and lock your apartment door, your chest heaving from running up four flights of stairs with heels on. Your bag slips off your shoulder making a loud thud against your wooden floor. You kick off your shoes, not even caring about putting them away. Looking around your apartment, it suddenly feels too open, like there is no place to hide. The air feels heavy and static, like the calm before the storm. You heave a sigh, picking up your things to go to your room. You shower and change into some comfortable clothes, resigning yourself to the couch. You pull out your phone to call Chan to let him know what’s going on, but you get distracted. People are blowing up your phone. You open your social media to see hundreds of notifications. All over your feed is a blurry picture of two people laughing together over coffee. You remember that moment. That was a few days ago when you and Chan went to grab coffee while on lunch break. You have done so before and he always does his best to disguise himself. You are careful to not order together (although he ends up paying you back for it every time) and to not hold hands. But someone recognized him and shot a blurry picture that has broken the internet. You open the comments to see thousands of fans spiraling through theories, asking for your name, and bashing you without even knowing who you are. You open your notifications to see hundreds of people tagging you on these posts. Somehow they figured out who you are and found your username. Now every post has it pinned in the comments. Your inbox is filled with message requests. You know you shouldn’t look through them, but you can’t help yourself. Fans are messaging you. Some are very sweet, wishing you the best and asking how you are. But most of them are people bombarding you with hate.
“You’re just doing it for the clout.”
“Go back to wherever you came from whore.”
“Our Channie deserves better than you.”
And those are the mild ones.
As you spiral deeper into this hole, you find more pictures. People posting pictures of you just walking around, the comments flinging hate. Videos of people explaining why you are ugly or are ‘only in it for the fame’ and how Chan deserves better. There are even posts where people have edited you into them, making it look like you were places you never actually were. Your heart stops when you come across a recent post. It’s a picture of you, on the bus, today. You feel your breathing getting shallow, pulling your knees closer to your chest. Suddenly you feel like you’re being swallowed by your apartment. There is too much space. Too many eyes. Too many ways for people to see into your life.
As worried as you feel, it isn’t until you see comments about Chan that you finally break. People have started ruining his reputation too. Posts and comments keeping saying things like, “I never liked him anyways. Maybe this scandal will finally get rid of him,” or “Guess he isn’t good enough to get anyone better than a gold digger.” People hating on you may be hard, but you could handle it. But people trying to tear down Chan and Stray Kids is what gets you. You close social media, deciding you’ve had enough when a message from your friend pops up. She sends you a blog article asking if it’s you in the pictures. Against your better judgement you read the article. It is a post talking about you and your personal life. Where you work, where you’re from, and all the reasons you aren’t good enough for Chan. You practically slam your phone down, deciding turning it off completely is the only way to get yourself to stop reading everything. Tears are streaming down your face, your breath shallow. You feel like the world is pressing in on you. You frantically get up and close all your curtains, double checking that windows are locked. You double check the lock on your front door and balcony door. You shut off all the lights and retreat into your room, shutting the door behind you. It feels like there are a thousand eyes watching you, waiting for you to emerge, just so they can tear you down. You hear the faint sound of sirens. Likely the police finally coming to kick these people out, but you couldn’t care less. You hide under your blanket, pressing a pillow over your head as if that will drown out the noise of the world. Curled up into a ball, making yourself as small as you feel, you hide away in the dark. Maybe if you stay here long enough the noise will go away. Maybe they will all forget and leave you alone.
Or maybe Chan will realize how much trouble it is being with you. Maybe this will be the breaking point and he will decide he has had enough. The confidence you had this morning in your relationship is shattered by the crushing weight of the comments. You don’t doubt that Chan loves you nor do you think comments will suddenly change his mind. Rather, you spiral thinking about all the ways being in a relationship with you is going to ruin his career, ruin the group…ruin him. You can’t do that to him. You can’t be the reason his world falls apart. So maybe, just maybe, if you hide away long enough, he won’t have a choice but to forget about you and his world will stay intact.
—
Chan sits in the studio, staring at his laptop under the low lights. He runs a tired hand over his face. It feels like he has been in here forever. But he is determined to get everything done before the holiday break so that he can give you his undivided attention. He checks the time and sighs: 5:12pm. He wanted to be done at a reasonable time today so that he could go have dinner with you, but it seems like work has a different plan. He moves to pick up his phone to text you when Han, Felix, and Hyunjin burst through the door behind him. He whips around in his chair, confused. The three boys are bent over trying to catch their breath. They start talking over each other, their rambling hard to understand.
Chan cuts them off, “Oi, slow down. One of you at a time please.”
Han starts, “We were making videos for tiktok and stuff right and we went to go upload it when the feed it was filled with pictures and videos and all this stuff and it’s bad.” His rambling is cut off by Felix, “It’s not just tiktok. It’s everywhere. The internet, Instagram. Even Facebook!”
Hyunjin continues the ramble train, “We know you’ve been in here most of the day so you probably haven’t seen anything but you gotta do something!”
Chan stares at them confused, “What?”
That’s when the rest of the boys show up. Lee Know hits all three of them. “Pabos! You didn’t even say what was wrong.”
“Don’t hit us!”
“At least we cared enough to run.”
“Yeah, I didn’t see you rushing over to do anything.”
They start bickering, forgetting all about Chan who still has no idea what’s going on.
“Hey!” Chan raises his voice over the noise, “Will someone tell me what’s wrong?!”
“It’s Y/N!” They yell in unison.
Chan is immediately on his feet, “What? Where is she? Is she okay? What happened?” His mind starts running through all the possible answers. He grabs his phone to see a bunch of notifications. Social medias blowing up, blog articles, texts, but nothing from you. “What the hell is going on!” His voice is strained, desperate.
Seungmin finally explains everything to him. The pictures, the comments, how they know your apartment building and they are worried your unit number will be next. Chan goes white, his brain static. What picture? He’s been so careful. You rarely go out in public and when you do, you are so careful to not be obvious. He keeps himself from holding your hand or calling you nicknames. He doesn’t kiss you goodbye or say that he loves you in fear of this exact thing. When the boys finally show him the picture, his blood starts to boil, “That’s not even clear! That is a blurry picture. How the hell did they get information off of that?! We’re just getting coffee. What, I can’t get coffee now?!” He explodes, unable to fathom how people can be so cruel. The boys try to keep him from seeing more posts or reading comments, but he beats them to it.
“She’s such a whore.”
“She’s not even that pretty.”
“Why would he ever like someone like her. She’s a nobody.”
His grip tightens on Hans phone as he reads through all the heinous things people are saying about you.
“Hey, you’re gonna break my phone.” Han squeaks, trying to pry it out of Bangchan’s hands.
It’s when he see’s a picture of your apartment building that he finally cracks. His vision tunnels, all his anger suddenly laser focused. He shoves Hans phone back in his hands before moving to grab his stuff. He shoves everything into his bag, not even caring that it’s unable to zip up. He turns to leave, but the boys are blocking the doorway. “Move.” His voice is low, calm but angry. Felix, Han, and I.N. shrink back from his anger.
Seungmin steps forward, “Hyung, you can’t leave right now.”
“I have to go see her.”
“There are fans flooding the street. You can’t even get out of the building.”
“I’ll go out the back. Now get out of my way.”
Lee Know speaks up, “He’s right. I doubt the company will let you leave anyway.”
“To hell with the company!” His voice is laced with venom, “I need to see Y/N.”
“It’s not safe!” I.N. pipes up, gaining some courage back.
“What, so I’m supposed to stay safe, locked up in here while she is thrown to the wolves? That’s the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard!” His tone is sharp with anger.
“I-I’m sorry.” I.N.’s voice is small, the little confidence he had shattered.
“Hey! Don’t talk to him like that.” Changbin steps forward, putting a hand on Chans shoulder, “Hyung, look. I know you are angry and scared, but you can’t lose your head right now. I know you want to help her. Trust me, we do too. She may be your girlfriend, but she is our friend too. You can go out there and storm past all the fans to her apartment, leading them all there and fan the flames. Or you can stop and gain some composure. Talk with the company and see how they plan to handle this.”
Something about Changbin’s steady presence breaks Chan. His eyes go glassy, “But what about Y/N? She’s all alone out there. I just want to help her.”
“I know you do, but right now that looks like damage control. We need to clear things up and get this under control before giving them more things to say about her.”
Chan looks into Changbin’s eyes and gives him a small, understanding nod. Tears start streaming down his face, “Can-can I try calling her?”
Changbin looks at the others for support. Lee Know nods, “Unless there is some genius hacker wiretapped into your phone, that should be fine.”
Chan sets his bag down and grabs his phone. He pulls up your contact: no messages, no calls, radio silence. He sighs, pressing the call button. It rings…and rings…no answer. He runs a hand through his hair, pacing now. He tries again, the boys watching him with desperation. No answer. Three times he calls you with no answer. He frantically starts texting you.
Baby?
Baby are you okay?
I’ve seen the posts. Don’t listen to them.
Please answer the phone.
I love you.
Baby please answer me.
I need to know you’re okay.
Love? Y/N?
Tears start pouring down his face with every text left unread. Felix hugs him.
Chan starts shaking with sobs, “What if she’s not okay? What if something happened? What-“
“Hey, listen. It’s gonna be okay.” Felix’s deep voice is calm and soothing, “Nothing is going to happen to her. This is Y/N we’re talking about. She can take on thousands of people alone.”
“But she shouldn’t have to. I should be taking them on. I’m supposed to protect her.”
“You couldn’t have known this was going to happen.”
Chan is wracked with sobs, hardly able to breathe now when suddenly his phone rings. He immediately scrambles over to answer, almost knocking Felix over. He doesn’t even check the caller ID before answering. “Y/N?!”
“Um, no.” A male voice responds over the phone. Chans face drops as he looks at the caller ID and see’s that it’s their manager. “Look, I assume you’ve seen the posts by now. We need to have a meeting immediately.”
Chan wipes his face, trying to sound professional, “Yes sir. I’m at the company if you want to meet now.”
“That would be perfect.”
—
Chan walks out of the meeting around 8:30PM, his face unreadable. The boys stand up, awaiting the results.
“So?” Hyunjin carefully asks, nervously shifting his weight.
“They want us to not see each other for a few days until they can gain some control.” Chans voice is tight, barely keeping his composure.
“What?!”
“That’s stupid!”
“Let me talk to them!”
Several of them chime over each other.
“Guys, chill.” Lee Know turns to Chan, “What are you going to do about it?”
“They said we’ll talk more when they get it under control, but I kept saying I wasn’t gonna break-“
Lee Know cuts him off, “That’s not what I asked. I asked, what are you going to do about it?”
Chan blinks, confused, “What do you mean? I can’t do anything.”
“Oh really?” Lee Know cocks an eyebrow, “Because you were ready to tear down the whole city just a few hours ago.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Do you want to go see her?”
Chan pinches his nose, “You know I do, but I can’t. Fans are swarming the front and they are sending a car around to the back for us to leave.”
Seungmin smirks, “Do you trust us?”
“What did you do?”
The boys give each other a knowing look. Felix lowers his voice, “We may have come up with a plan while you were in there.”
This should be interesting.
—
This plan was…chaotic to say the least.
Step 1: block the road.
Their brilliant idea is to use the fans to block the drivers exit. How? Hyunjin and Felix “casually” walk around the side of the building while Han pretends to be a fan and yells, “Oh my gosh look over there! It’s Hyunjin and Felix!” Of course the fans go running after them, directly into the road that the driver needs to get out.
Step 2: switch cars.
Now that the road is blocked by fans and security, the car has no where to go. This is when Seungmin knocks on the car window.
“They’ve got another car. Quick, let’s go!” He pulls Chan out of the back and shoves him in a different company car. This car, however, is being driven by Lee Know with I.N. in the backseat.
Step 3: Get to Y/N’s apartment.
While the rest of the boys divert staffs attention, Lee Know, I.N. and Bangchan make their escape.
Han gives a salute as they drive off before being dragged back inside by concerned staff.
—
They pull up to your apartment, the streetlights making the snow on the ground glitter. It’s quiet outside your building, thank goodness. I.N. hands Chan a hat, glasses, coat, and mask.
“Thanks guys. I really appreciate the help.” Chan turns to I.N. “And I’m sorry for how I spoke earlier. You didn’t deserve that.”
I.N. gives him that signature dimple smile, “It’s okay, hyung. You were upset so I understand.”
“I know, but still-“
“Ya! Do you want to see Y/N or not?” Lee Know scolds through the rear view mirror.
“Right,” Chan steps out of the car giving one last thanks to the boys.
“It’ll be okay! You’ve got this.” I.N. encourages.
“Don’t screw it up.” Lee Know encourages in his own way.
Chan races up the stairs praying that you are okay.
He knocks once, twice. No answer. He pulls out the spare key you gave him and gently opens the door. “Baby?” His voice is soft as he peaks in. Silence. “Y/N? Are you here?” He calls, slipping off his shoes. No answer. Your keys are here so clearly you are here somewhere. He looks around at your apartment. A place that is usually welcoming and warm, lit with soft light feels cold and empty. All the curtains are closed and lights are off. Every possible entrance or window is blocked in some way. His heart breaks realizing that you were trying to shut out the world, get rid of the prying eyes. He should have been here. He should have come immediately. Before he can spiral, he see’s your phone sitting on the coffee table. He walks over and picks it up. You turned it off, understandably.
He sets it back down and wanders down the hallway, the silence feeling heavier as he goes. He notices your bedroom door is closed and gently knocks, “Baby?” His voice is tiny. After a second, he slowly opens the door and the sight before him is crushing.
Your room is completely dark while you sit curled up under your blanket, a pillow pressed over your head. You aren’t sure how long you’ve been like this, time blurring in the darkness. It’s been long enough that you can’t physically cry anymore. Once your body ran out of tears, it resigned to profusely shaking with shallow breathing. You are exhausted, your whole body aching, but you can’t even close your eyes. If you do, you fear all the prying eyes will finally break through. So you’ve kept them open, staring into blackness for hours. Your room is so quiet that you can hear your own rapid heartbeat.
Suddenly you hear soft footsteps in your room. You stiffen, terrified. Who got in? How did they get in? You should have locked that door. You don’t have your phone so you can’t call the police. You feel the weight of a hand on your shoulder and immediately shoot out of bed, falling on the floor. You quickly grab the nearest thing (it happened to be your heels from this morning) and scramble to turn around.
“Y/N?”
You look up with wild, bloodshot eyes. Your ears recognize the voice before your vision can catch up. “Chan?” Your voice is broken and hoarse, barely audible from the hours of crying. Bangchan’s heart shatters at the sound of his name. Your voice shaky, laced with fear and desperation. “Channie, is that you?” You feel like you are hallucinating. Did you finally fall asleep and now your mind is playing a cruel trick on you?
Chan carefully steps over to you, “Yes, baby, it’s me.” He kneels down in front of you and reaches for your hand. You flinch, making his heart break, the fear and exhaustion radiating off of you. He tries again for your hand, this time you don’t move away. As soon as you feel his warmth against your skin, you collapse. He swiftly catches you, scooping you into his arms. You start sobbing, your body somehow finding enough water to make tears. Your whole body shakes in his arms as heart wrenching cries fill the room. Chan holds you tight against him as if his hold is the only thing keeping you together. Tears start pouring down his face, “Shh, baby. I’ve got you. I’m here now.” His voice is soft and comforting, touching the inner most parts of you. One hand gently strokes your hair while the other rubs soothing circles on your back. Your face is pressed into his chest; your knuckles white from gripping his shirt.
“They know-they know where I-I live-“ You choke out through the tears, hyperventilating.
“I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” His hold on you tightens as his tears soak into your hair.
“I-I’m scared.”
“Shhh, I’m here now. It’s okay. You’re going to be okay. I’m not going to let anyone touch you.” His voice is laced with tears and determination. You know he means it and that starts to shine a little bit of light into the darkness.
You sit there in the dark, holding each other on the bedroom floor. Time fades into the background as your tears mix together. Eventually your body gives out and your sobs turn into weak whimpers. You’re still shaking with exhaustion, but some of the tension has released.
Chan carefully speaks, his voice barely a whisper, “Baby?”
You just press against him tighter in response.
“Can we move onto the bed?”
You give a small nod and Chan very gently adjusts his hold on you. He lifts you up into his arms and carefully sits on the bed. Your grip never loosens on him. He slowly adjusts so that you are lying down with your head on his chest, pressed close to his body. He pulls the blanket up to cover you, wrapping you both in a small cocoon. His hand moves back to gently stroking your hair. Slowly your breathing syncs with his, your heartbeat slowing to a regular pace. You feel the exhaustion hit you like a truck and your eyes start to feel heavy. It doesn’t take long for you to fall asleep in Chans comforting hold.
—
You pry your swollen eyes open feeling the deep ache in your bones. You look over to see the spot next to you empty. You immediately start to panic, head shooting up to look around, “Chan? Chan?!” Your voice is desperate. Was it all a dream? Is your mind really that cruel to you?
Chan quickly runs in, his eyes wide with concern, “Hey, it’s okay! I’m still here.” He climbs onto the bed, pulling you into his lap. You immediately latch onto him, your heartbeat slowly relaxing against him. “You’re okay baby. I’ve got you.” He kisses the top of your head, lightly rocking you back and forth.
You press your face into his chest, “I’m sorry.”
Chan immediately pulls back to look at you in the eyes, “Hey, no. You don’t need to apologize for anything.”
“I just woke up and you weren’t there and I thought,” You feel the tears prick at your eyes, “I thought it was all a dream and you weren’t actually here.”
He gently wipes the tears from your eyes, “I’m sorry, love. I was just going to get you some food and water. I didn’t mean to scare you.” He pulls you back into his chest. “You’ve used up a lot of energy, so you need some nutrients. Is it okay if I go grab you some food and water?”
You know you should say yes, but you can’t bring yourself to let go of him. The thought of letting him go even for a second makes the anxiety grip your chest. “I-I really don’t want you to let go.”
Chan feels his heart squeeze at the sound of your small voice, “Okay, then can I take you with me? Is that okay?”
You give a small nod expecting him to set you down. Instead he picks you up, so that you are straddling his waist. Your face is pressed into his shoulder while your hands wrap around his neck. He carries you effortlessly to the kitchen and grabs a plate of food and glass of water without ever setting you down. He walks back into your room and, setting the food and water on your bedside table, he settles back onto your bed. He gently moves your head to look at him. His heart breaks as the effects of yesterday are written all over your face. Your swollen, bloodshot eyes sag with exhaustion. Your face is pale and tear stained. He gently presses a kiss to your lips, the taste of salt lingering from your tears. “You’re dehydrated from crying. I need you to drink some water for me, yeah?” His Aussie accent thickens with care. You nod, not having much strength to speak. He gently brings the cup to your lips and helps you drink some water. “There you go. Good job.”
He helps you drink more water and eat a little bit of food, although you can’t stomach much. His attentiveness and gentle touch slowly puts you back together. You spend most of the day sleeping in his arms. It isn’t until later that night that you finally have enough strength to talk.
“Channie.” Your voice is hoarse, but Chan smiles nonetheless. He’s just glad you have enough strength to talk.
“Yes, baby?”
“I’m sorry.”
His smile drops. “Why are you sorry?”
“Because I caused all these problems and you had to spend all night with me.”
He gently tilts your face to look at him, “Don’t say that. This is not your fault. And I can’t imagine being anywhere else than by your side.” His voice is firm, but gentle.
“But now everyone hates you…because of me.”
“I don’t care what anyone else thinks. As long as you love me, that’s all that matters.”
“But your career. Everything you’ve worked for. The boys…” your voice breaks at the thought of hurting them with all of this.
“Hey, listen.” He leans his forehead on yours, “This has nothing to do with you. This entire thing is because of stupid people being horrible and jealous. They are rude and hide behind anonymity to hide their insecurities. It’s not your fault. You are my whole world. My career, the fans, it all means nothing without you. You didn’t ruin anything or hurt anyone.”
“You shouldn’t call STAY stupid.”
“Anyone who hurts you is not a STAY because to hurt you is to hurt me and if they were truly STAY’s, they wouldn’t do that.”
Your chest tightens at his confession. You lean in to kiss him, all your fears and worries releasing. He pulls you closer deepening the kiss. You breathe each other in, all of the hurt and fear melting away. You pull back, looking him in the eyes, “What are we going to do?”
He tries to keep his voice steady, but you can hear the slight shake of fear. Yet his eyes hold a sort of determination, a protectiveness that lets you know he won’t go down without a fight. “I’ll figure that out. But first you need to rest and recoup. I’m not doing anything else until you are better.”
“But-“
“But nothing. You are my top priority. Everyone else can wait.”
You melt into him, your confidence from yesterday morning coming back. Because you were right. He did drop everything to make sure you are okay and you know he will every time.
—
It takes a few days for you to finally recuperate. Chan never leaves your apartment. Unless one of you is in the bathroom, you are always connected. Whether holding his hand while he cooks or sleeping next to him in the bed, you are practically glued together.
Chan informs the boys about everything and they promise to cover for him at the studio, although the constant messages from his manager shows they aren’t doing a great job.
You’re sitting on your couch, your head resting on Chans chest when his phone starts ringing for the fifth time today. “Channie.”
“Yeah, baby?”
“You should answer that.” You hand him his phone.
“They can wait.”
“They’ve been waiting for days. At this point, they’re going to send security to come and get you.” You scold him, but he just smiles, glad that your energy is back.
“I dare them to try and take me away from you. Over my dead body.” He tightens his hold on you, causing you to giggle. The sound of you laughing makes his whole soul happy.
“Well, I don’t want you to die, so could you please answer it. For me?” You give him the biggest puppy dog eyes you can muster.
He rolls his eyes, but the smile on his face gives him away, “Fine.”
He calls his manager back and ends up in a very long phone conversation. You don’t want to eavesdrop, but it’s hard not to when he’s sitting right next to you. They go back and forth about meetings and how he needs to come back to the company to figure this out. As stubborn as he is, he doesn’t want to totally disrespect his manager. He ends up settling on going back to the company to figure things out and promises to be back by dinner.
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” He asks for the umpteenth time.
“Yes, I promise.”
“And you will keep the door locked?”
You can’t help laughing at his protectiveness, “Yes.”
“And you will text me if you need anything?”
“Oh my goodness, yes. Now go before they get even more upset with you.” You lightly shove him towards the door. He catches your hand and presses a kiss to your palm. He peppers kisses up your arm until you are in a fit of laughter. “Baby, you need to go.”
He pulls you in for a proper kiss, not silly or playful, but deep and intentional. He pours all his love into it as if it might give you some protective shield. It is a reassurance that he is here and will protect you, no matter what. He pulls back a little to look you in the eyes. “Hey, I’m serious. If you need anything, just call.”
“I will.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
He leaves the apartment, pulling on his disguise, even though he’s just walking down stairs to a company car waiting for him. He wants to be extra cautious and that makes your heart flutter. His sincerity and determination to protect you is the reason you can feel okay without him there. You know that he means every word of what he says. He will fight for you, no matter what.
—
Later that day a notification pops up on your phone. You’ve been hesitant to check any social media since this whole thing began, but the notification says ‘Bangchan has started a live.’ You click on the notification, brows knit with confusion. Chan pops up on your screen. You didn’t realize how exhausted he looked until now. In the light of the studio, over the phone, you can see the toll that all of this has taken. You feel a slight ache in your chest knowing that you had something to do with that, but it quickly goes away as his voice comes out of your phone.
“So, as I’m sure you have all noticed, there has been a photo going around.” The comments start going crazy. “I am here to put all of your questions to rest.”
You feel your heart twist a little, that insecurity popping back up, telling you that he is about to say you don’t exist. Which is fine. That’s what you want right? To keep your little bubble intact.
“That picture was of me. I was in that coffee shop that day. As for the person sitting across from me, that is my girlfriend.” Your eyes go wide, not actually expecting him to say it. The comments explode. “She is very important to me and if you are truly a STAY you will treat her as such. Anything harmful you say about her, you are saying about me. I will not tolerate any sort of rude behavior or harassment. I will not hesitate to bring in my lawyers if I need to. So, treat her with the respect she deserves. Because she is beautiful, smart, funny, kind, and my entire world. If you care about me or Stray Kids at all, you will treat her with the respect and kindness she deserves. You understand? Good.” He ends the live without another word.
Your jaw is dropped to the floor. You aren’t sure what you were expecting, but that was not it. You decide to wait for him to come back before saying anything.
—
The door creaks open and Chan is almost knocked over by you hugging him. “Woah, hey there.”
“Christopher Bahng. What is wrong with you?!” You scold him, lightly hitting his chest.
“I’m getting mixed signals.” He jokes.
“You went live to all of STAY to tell them you have a girlfriend!?”
“Did you want me to do something different?”
“Yes! I mean, no. I mean—I don’t really know what I expected, but that was not it. Does the company know?”
“Yes, they know. They will release an official statement soon with rules about defamation and what not.”
You are taken aback by that, “Wait really?”
“I told you I’d protect you, didn’t I?” He kisses your forehead.
“So, does this mean we get to go out together and like not have to worry about people seeing us?” You sound a little too excited.
“We can even hold hands.” His big dimpled smile breaks across his face.
You launch into his arms, peppering kisses all over his face. Tears start forming in your eyes, but this time they are from happiness, “I love you so much.”
He spins you around before giving you a long kiss, “I love you more.”
Summary: A particularly hard week only gets worse when you let hate comments get to you while Felix is out of town.
Content: HEAVY insecurities, hurt/comfort, angst, haters, Felix being the sunshine he is, period mentioned, some swearing I think, kinda trash people taking things out of context, reader is sarcastic and teasing
A/N: So this one is a bit messy cuz it's hard to accurately show social media comments and responses in just text. Also, very personal to me because I am sarcastic and show love via teasing. I have that RBF and get people calling me mean and what not a lot. I can really feel insecure about it sometimes, especially when around my sunshine friends. I feel like a wet blanket. All of this to say, don't take stuff out of context. Don't judge a book by it's cover. It's okay to show love differently than others. This one really is for me more than anything lol
Masterlist
~~~~
You wake up late and don’t have time to make coffee. Of course your hair doesn’t want to cooperate and you don’t have time to mess with it, so you end up going to work looking like a slicked back rat. When you finally get to work, you are chewed out by your boss for being late. It is pointless to argue, so you just stand there while the whole office stares at you getting chewed out. When you finally have a break, you go to get break room coffee, but of course, there is none left. You want to cry right then and there.
“Are we out of coffee?” You turn to see your coworker holding her own empty coffee mug.
“Unfortunately.” You sigh.
“Man, I was hoping to refill mine.”
“I was hoping to get my first cup of the day, but apparently the world hates me and won’t let me have caffeine.” You lean back on the counter, throwing your sarcastic tone at the ceiling. Maybe looking up will hide the frustrated tears forming in your eyes.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” She sounds genuinely hurt for you.
You tilt your head to look at her, a tight smile on your lips, “It’s okay. The coffee isn’t that great here anyway.”
She gives you a small laugh and leaves the room. You sigh, your shoulders slumping forward, “It’s fine. I’ll just eat my lunch and go back.” You open the fridge and it hits you; in your morning rush, you forgot to grab food. You slam the fridge door shut with a groan. On the other side of the door is the same coworker who just left the room. She’s staring at you a little perplexed.
“Oh I’m sorry. I just realized I forgot my lunch at home.” You rub the back of your neck sheepishly. “It’s been…a day.”
She gives you a small smile, “It’s okay. I get it. This morning, my cat woke me up an hour before I needed to be up and I was so frustrated. We all have hard days. Sometimes we just have to take a deep breath and refocus our minds.” She gives you a bright smile and you swear her pep-talk only made you feel worse. But you know she is just trying to help, so you take her advice and take a deep breath. You give her a small smile, “Thanks. I’ll try and remember that.”
She gives you a nod and hands you her empty coffee mug. You look between the cup and her, confused. It takes a minute for her to say anything, “Can you put that in the sink for me?”
“Oh, yeah. Sure.” You let out a small laugh, unsure why it took her so long to ask. She has always been an odd person. You can’t tell if today it’s helping or hurting. Regardless, you put her cup in the sink and exit the break room. Trudging back over to your desk, you try to take a few deep breaths and focus. You start hacking away at your assignments, hoping that you can get enough done to go home early.
-
To your surprise, you are allowed to go home early. As you exit the building, giving tight smiles and small waves as you pass people, you trip over literally nothing and fall flat on your face in front of the front desk workers. For two seconds you question just staying there until you decompose, but one of the workers rushes around the desk to help you.
“Miss, are you alright?” A guy comes and helps you up, his eyes laced with panic, “Are you hurt? Are you bleeding? Do you need a doctor? An ambulance? Should I call someone? You didn’t break anything did you?”
His panicked rambling just about breaks your last nerve, “I’m fine!” You snap a little too quickly causing him to back off a bit.
“Oh, okay. I’m sorry. I was just trying to help.” His voice gets smaller.
You feel a pang of guilt in your chest. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. I’ve just had a hard day and this was icing on the cake.”
“Oh, well I’m sorry. I hope your day gets better.” He gives you a genuine smile that could power the building. Now you really feel bad for snapping at him.
You give back the best smile you can manage, “Thanks. It can only go up from here.”
He moves to hold the front door for you, giving a small wave as you exit the building. Despite having fallen on your face in front of a bunch of your coworkers, that young guys energy made you feel a little less bothered.
That positivity lasts all of about two seconds. The longer you walk, the more you can feel a small pain in your ankle. Nothing bad, definitely not worth a doctor’s visit, but just enough to be uncomfortable. You must have twisted it when falling. Great. Just another thing to ruin the day. You heavily slump into your car, practically chucking your bag in the passengers seat. You can feel the fatigue and frustration bubbling out of you. If you can just get home, everything will calm down and it will be fine.
-
The rest of your day is quiet, mostly because you refuse to do anything else. After showering, you curl up on the couch and doom-scroll on instagram. You aren’t sure how long you sit there until you hear the front door click open.
“Hi angel,” you look up to see your boyfriend, Felix, smiling at you and all the troubles of your day have totally melted.
“You’re home early.” You smile, genuinely, back at him.
“Is that an issue?” He jokes, making his way over to you.
“No, just unexpected is all.” You open your arms, motioning for him to join you on the couch. He practically lays on top of you, enveloping you in a warm hug. The warmth of his touch combined with the faint smell of cologne and studio melts all the tension out of you. You let out a sigh, moving to play with his long hair. He must feel your release because he pushes himself up a bit to look into your eyes, “You alright?”
You give him a tired smile, your hand cupping his face, “I’m better now.” You lean in to give him a soft kiss, the faint taste of his chapstick sweet against your lips.
He mumbles against your lips, “Are you sure you’re okay?”
You nod, leaning your forehead against his, “Just a bad day, but I don’t wanna talk about that right now. I just wanna sit with you.”
He smiles that soft sunshine smile, “I can do that, but can I take a shower first? I probably smell terrible from practice.”
“I quite like the smell.”
“Of sweat and worn off deodorant?”
“Of hard work and passion.” You press a kiss to his nose. “But yes, you can take a shower. I’ll make something for dinner.”
He squeezes your hand as he moves to stand up, “You’ve had a long day, I’m not gonna make you cook. We can just order something.”
You could cry at how much he cares for you. Even when he has been working all day at the studio, he still thinks of your needs first. You give him a small nod and he goes off to shower.
You spend the rest of the night cuddled on the couch and when you both get tired, you move to cuddle in your bed. Falling asleep in Felix’s warm embrace makes you forget about the horrible day that lay behind you.
-
You groan as the Saturday morning sun shines in your eyes, moving to grab your phone to check the time. Before you can reach it, you feel arms pull you back. Felix tightens his hold around your waist, “Don’t go.” His deep morning voice vibrates through you, never failing to send chills up your spine.
“I’m just checking the time silly.” You whisper to him.
“No need. Too early.” He pulls you flush against his chest and nuzzles his face in the crook of your neck.
You laugh at your sleepy boyfriend, “Okay, but don’t blame me if you end up sleeping all day.”
“Sounds nice.” You can feel his smile against your skin. You move to play with his hair, knowing it’s one of his favorite things. You both lay there, basking in the golden glow of the morning sun. It’s rare that Felix has a day off, so it’s not uncommon for you to sit around just holding each other when he does.
You probably sit there for about an hour when your body betrays you. You hear a loud grumble come from your stomach, indicating it’s probably past your breakfast time. Felix looks at you, down at your stomach, then back up at you. You both start laughing.
“Guess that means it’s time to get up.” He says, the grogginess heavy on his voice.
“You can stay here. I’ll go make some breakfast.” You move to get up but he grabs your wrist.
“You stay here. I can make it.”
You give him a small smile and press a kiss to his forehead, “I appreciate it, but you don’t need to do that. You’re tired and should get some rest.”
“You’re tired too.”
“Not as tired as you. You have been working hard for your comeback. I just had a below average day. Which means I win. You rest.”
“Just because your day is different doesn’t mean you can’t be tired.”
Your chest squeezes at his kindness, “Then what do you want to do?”
He thinks for a moment, “Why don’t we go out for brunch. We can get some coffee and just spend some time together.”
“That sounds perfect.”
-
“One latte,” Felix sets your coffee down in front of you, “Since I love you…a latte.” He looks at you, brows raised, mouth open in a wide smile, awaiting your laugh.
You snort, “That was so cheesy.”
“But cute right?” He wiggles his eyebrows.
“I guess.” You sip your coffee with a teasing grin.
“You never appreciate my jokes.” He pouts but the fondness in his eyes gives away his teasing.
You just roll your eyes, utterly smitten with your silly boyfriend.
“So,” He laces his fingers through yours across the table, “You want to talk about your day yesterday or just forget it and move on?”
You sigh, the frustration still heavy on your mind, “Oh my gosh. It was just one thing after another.”
You go on to recount your trials of the day before, wild hand gestures and all. Felix listens intently, providing fun commentary along the way.
“Then I fell flat on my face.”
Felix chokes on his coffee trying not to laugh.
“Lixie! Don’t laugh at my misfortune.” You whine.
“I’m sorry angel. It just caught me off guard. Are you okay?” His expression shifts to concern.
You soften, knowing he isn’t actually laughing at you, “I’m fine. I think I twisted my ankle, but it hasn’t been hurting too bad today.”
“You should have told me.” His boba eyes shine with worry. “I wouldn’t have let you walk.”
“What are you going to do? Carry me?”
“Yes.” He answers matter-of-factly.
You stare at him over your coffee, “Seriously? That’s a bit dramatic.”
“Of course. I can’t let my angel hurt her feet.”
“It’s my ankle, ‘Lix.”
“Same difference.”
You teasingly roll your eyes, heat creeping up your face at his sweetness.
You finish recounting your day when two girls approach your table. You recognize immediately that they are fans wanting to talk to Felix.
“Um, excuse me. We don’t mean to interrupt, but we are really huge fans of Stray Kids and just wanted to ask if we could have a picture?”
Felix puts on his signature sunshine smile and you are sure it could blind half the cafe. He looks at you for a second, then turns back to the girls, “Sorry, but I’m trying to spend some time—“
“Lix,” You cut him off before he can finish, your hand on his, “It’s okay. I’ve got to run to the bathroom anyway.”
He looks at you, silently doubling checking. You give him a reassuring nod as you excuse yourself to the bathroom. You are used to fans interrupting your dates with Felix. Most of them don’t mean any harm, so you try not to make a big deal of it. Can it be annoying? Yeah, but it’s better for his image if he interacts with them instead of rejecting them. When you come back to the bathroom, the two girls are saying their thank you’s and walking off. You slide back in your seat and he immediately laces his fingers through yours.
“I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“For us getting interrupted…again.” He looks down, feeling guilty.
“Hey, don’t be sorry. They are your fans and just want to say hi. How can I be mad at people loving you?” You squeeze his hand reassuringly.
“You’re really understanding you know that?”
You look down, shy, “Well what do you expect me to do? Gatekeep you?” You switch your voice to be a higher, sarcastic pitch, “Hello Stays who love and support my boyfriend, please back off because only I can love him.”
Felix laughs at your sarcastic comment, “So protective.”
“I think that’s call possessive.” You soften your voice, “Seriously, don’t feel bad. I love that people love and support you. You work really hard and deserve recognition for that.”
He gives you a soft smile, the one that he reserves just for you. He presses a soft kiss to the back of your hand, “You ready to head home?”
You nod, walking home with him hand in hand.
-
A few days later, you sit on your bed with Felix’s suitcase open on the floor.
“Do you have to go?” You pout.
He lets out a soft laugh, “Yes angel, but I will be back in a few days.”
You give a fake sniffle, “Okay.”
He walks over and places a kiss on your forehead, “I wish you could come, but you have to work. I would hate for you to lose your job because of me.”
“It’s not that great of a job anyway. I’d take you any day.”
His eyes soften, showing every emotion he holds. You can tell that he wants to agree with you, but would never dare encourage you getting fired. So he settles for a quick kiss and mumbles against your lips, “I love you.”
You wrap your arms around his neck and pull him towards you, throwing you both backwards on the bed. “I love you too.” You kiss him again, but way less gently. In order to not crush you, he immediately rolls you over so that you’re lying on his chest. His hands land on your hips, rubbing mindless patterns against your jeans. Your hands find their natural place in his hair. No matter how many times you kiss him, it always makes your head buzz. The world goes static and it’s just you and him. His soft lips moving against yours, the faint taste of his morning coffee, it all makes you feel light headed. He pulls back for air, the weight of you on his chest making it harder to breathe.
“I should-“
Before he can say anything else you catch his lips again. You can feel him laugh against your skin.
“Angel,” He mumbles against your lips.
“No.”
“I need to finish packing,” He manages between kisses.
You just shake your head, refusing to stop. He resorts to drastic measures: tickling. You yelp as his hands move up to your sides, forcing you into a laughing fit.
“Stop, I can’t…” You say between laughs.
He stops, but pins your hands down so you can’t pull him back into a kiss. “Angel,” He raises an eyebrow at you, “I love you, but I need to pack.”
“Just one more kiss?” You give your best pout.
He laughs, shaking his head, “I can’t.”
“What? You don’t want to kiss me?”
“I do. That’s the issue. If I start again, I don’t know that I can stop.”
You feel your face heat up at his comment. He stands up to start packing again when suddenly you throw your arms around him from behind, your face pressing into his back. “Y/N-“
“Just let me hold you for a second?” Your voice is softer, more vulnerable.
His hands rest over yours, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I just…”
“Just what?” He turns and kneels so he is eye level with you. His hand gently cups your face and you instinctively lean into his touch.
“I just really love you and I want you to know that.”
He gives you a tender smile, “I know you love me and I love you too. I know it’s not easy to work around my schedule and I wish I didn’t have to be gone so often.”
You feel your heart clench at that, “Don’t feel bad. I’m so proud of you and I love that you have these opportunities. It’s just a little sad that I can’t always be with you.”
His lips meet yours, but this time with more tenderness as if promising he will always be with you, no matter how far away he goes. “I promise to call you every day and I’ll be back before you know it. Why don’t you help me pack for right now, yeah? Then we can cuddle and watch a movie.”
You nod, taking his hand to stand up. He’s gone on trips before, ones longer than this, but sometimes it just hits a little harder that he is going to be gone. You help him finish packing and spend the rest of the evening huddled together on the couch. As you fall asleep in his arms, memorizing his warmth, you tell yourself everything will be fine. It’s only a few days and you’ve survived longer. He’s right. He’ll be back before you know it.
-
These past two days have been rainy, as if the weather is mocking you, reminding you that your sunshine is gone. You don’t mean to be dramatic. If you are being entirely honest, you aren’t sure why you are so lonely this time around. You try your best not to be clingy because the last thing Felix needs on his plate is a clingy girlfriend begging for attention. And you do fine…most of the time.
You stare down at the single dish in the sink with a gloomy expression, perfectly matching the clouds covering the sky. You heave a sigh, “This is ridiculous. It’s been two days, pull yourself together.” You flick yourself on the forehead with frustration. You decide to make the best of your evening by building a cozy environment. Dimming the lights until the room is covered in a soft orange glow, you make some hot chocolate and curl up on the couch in your coziest blanket. Your comfort show plays in the background while you doom-scroll on your phone. Sliding across your feed is a picture of Felix and you feel your heart flutter at the sight of him. As you read the comments, pride bubbles up in you as people compliment your boyfriend. He is incredible and it makes you unbelievably happy when others recognize that. As you are scrolling, a random comment catches your eye.
His girlfriend is pretty damn lucky. I would kill to date THE Lee Felix.
“I am lucky,” You smile to yourself.
Lucky for her. Unlucky for Felix lol
You knit your eyebrows, confused.
She’s kind of the worst lol. Can’t you see he’s been more tired lately? Clearly she takes more energy than she gives, but the threat of a dating scandal makes it hard for idols to break off relationships. Who knows, maybe he was forced to date her by the company lol
You immediately close the app, knowing better than to indulge comments like that. There have been plenty of people who make comments like this. It was especially bad when you first went public with your relationship, but it’s been a while since you had seen one. Taking a deep breath, you try to shake it off. It’s just some random person being unnecessarily rude online. They don’t know what they are talking about and their opinion does not define your worth. You decide to put away social media and spend the rest of the evening binge watching some random anime.
As you are settling into bed, you hear a familiar ringtone on your phone. You immediately pick up to be greeted by Felix’s beautiful face.
“Hi angel. I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“No, I was just winding down for the night.”
“That’s good. I can’t talk for long because I have to get ready for the event but I just wanted to check in on you.” His deep voice vibrates your hand through the speaker.
“I haven’t done much. Went to work, watched some anime, the usual.” You shrug.
“You didn’t watch the new episode without me did you?”
You laugh at his soft, puppy dog eyes, “No of course not. I just found some random one and binged that.”
“Any good?”
“Not in the slightest.”
You’re both laughing when someone calls for Felix. He swears under his breath, “I’m sorry, it seems I’m being called upon.”
“That’s okay. Your job is more important.”
“Than you? Never.”
Your heart flutters at his comment, “Don’t say that in front of staff.”
Before he can say anything else, the same voice calls again. He calls back, “I’m coming.” He gives you a soft, tired smile, clearly worn out from the travel, “I thought I would be able to talk for longer. I have the event tonight, so I’m not sure when I’ll be done, but if the time lines up, I can call again tonight.”
“It’ll be like 5am here by then.”
“I can stay up until you wake up.”
“Don’t do that. I’ll be okay. We can just call tomorrow.”
“You sure?”
“Yes Lix, I’m sure. Go have fun at your event. Knock ‘em dead.”
“Yes ma’am,” He gives you a fake salute with a soft smile.
“I love you.”
“Love you, goodnight.”
You hear staff calling after him as he hangs up the call. You snuggle under the blanket, the bed feeling a little less empty as his voice plays on repeat in your head.
-
The next morning while waiting on your coffee, you come across some more comments about you on social media.
Literally who is this girl? She lowkey looks mean 🫣
I feel so bad for our Lixie, getting stuck with a rando like that. #freeFelix
Before you can spiral any deeper, your coffee maker beeps, snapping you out of it. You close your phone and try to shake it off. You’ve dealt with people hating on your looks, status, and every move for a while now. You can’t let every little comment get to you. Coffee in hand, you put it behind you and focus on the day ahead.
After work, you go to the store and buy some things to make yourself a nice dinner. As you sit alone at your dining room table, you’re on autopilot, scrolling through your phone. A notification pops up about a post from Felix and you immediately open it. Pictures from his event and various selfies he has taken pop up on your screen. You slide through, each picture taking your breath away. He is styled in a Louis Vuitton suit, his long hair falling just right. There are several selfies of him in his hotel room with a simple t-shirt and shorts on. Whether on the red carpet or in a hotel mirror, he never fails to stun you. Your muscle memory kicks in and opens the comments. You’re immediately greeted with more comments about you.
Look at how happy he looks. We love our sunshine smile
Probably cuz his girlfriend isn’t with him lol
Right?! He always looks so much happier in pictures without her
He’s looked more tired lately. You don’t think it’s cuz of her is it 👀
Suddenly your apartment feels bigger, more empty. You know you shouldn’t indulge these people, but being alone at night makes you do dumb things.
You come across another post that has a video of you and Felix. It’s from the other day at the café where those girls asked for a picture with him. There are slides of different video clips. One shows you teasing him, calling his joke cheesy. Another is you recounting your previous bad day to Felix. Your voice plays back as you sarcastically call him dramatic. One clip is cut so that it only plays a joking remark you made,
“Hello Stays who love and support my boyfriend, please back off because only I can love him.”
That was meant to be a joke, but the video is edited to make it look like you really said that. To compound on top of your sarcasm, there are pictures of you sitting at the table while Felix ordered your coffee. You look angry even though you weren’t. You’ve always known you have an RBF but it’s never mattered…until now. Of course the comments are filled with more cruel words. You know you shouldn’t read them. Maybe you are looking for someone to defend you or maybe you’re just stupid, but you feel every insecurity hit as you read.
Being a burden:
She’s dimming our sunshine
Was it just me or did he look scared when apologizing to her?
Poor boy is too nice to breakup with her. Talk about toxic relationship
Being clingy:
No way she just mocked those poor Stays.
Why is it always the best people who get stuck with clingy partners smh
Imagine being so insecure that you get mad at someone asking for a picture. It takes like two seconds, chill.
Your RBF and sarcasm coming across as rude:
Why she look so angry? Girly really can’t handle him being around other people.
Bro why is she so mean to him 😭 He was just concerned for her safety and she called him dramatic. Like what? Leave our poor sunshine alone
“Lixie!” OMG she is so whiny. He was being so cute and nice and she really threw it back in his face 🙄
Toxic
Clingy
Mean
Each word cuts like a knife. You have always tried so hard to be a good girlfriend. You know how much Felix has to deal with and you do your best to not add on to that load. When you first started dating, you felt like an imposter. Like you didn’t deserve to be around him. He is so positive and practically glowing and you are pessimistic and sarcastic. You tease and joke. You roll your eyes and have the worst resting face possible. You have always been scared of dragging him down and now these comments feel like your worst thoughts come true. You feel your heart beat faster, chest squeezing tighter. You press your palm into your eyes, trying to push back the tears before they fall. “It’s not true. They don’t know you.” You try to convince yourself. That’s when a particular comment catches your eye, a reply to someone calling you mean.
Omg no way. I literally work with her! Can confirm, she is lowkey mean. The other day she was in the break room and was so rude and dramatic. She was going on about how the world is against her just because she wasn’t able to get coffee that morning. When I tried to say sorry she just looked at me annoyed and said the coffee was terrible there anyway. I didn’t know what to do so I laughed and walked off. When I walked back in she literally slammed the fridge and was yelling at no one…She said she was having a bad day and I tried to be nice and tell her it was okay cuz I had a bad day too. That we could get through it together but she just looked so annoyed and passive-aggressively told me she would “try to.” To top it off, she was literally blocking the sink, so I asked her to put my mug in there and she looked so pissed. As if she was too good to be putting dishes in a sink. This was all in one day…
Confirmed: the girlfriend is a bitch
All in one day? Sheesh. A bad day doesn’t mean you get to be a jerk
Reply: No because it was literally just that she didn’t have coffee…and she was late…so like, whose fault is that??? Got told off for being late and just stared at the boss like he was the one in the wrong
Does she act like that all the time? Cuz I would quit if I were you.
Reply: I want to give her the benefit of the doubt but honestly I stopped trying after she yelled at our new secretary. She was leaving work and fell by the front desk. Our newest secretary (a like 20 year old guy) rushed over to help and she yelled at him. Like he is literally the sweetest person ever and was just trying to help. She barely acknowledged people as if she was too high and mighty to associate with ‘the lower folk’
Leave the secretary alone 😭
How entitled do you have to be to get pissed at someone for helping you?
Someone needs to save our Lixie before it’s too late
Your phone falls to the ground as you suddenly feel nauseous and run to the bathroom. Collapsing on the floor, you start dry heaving, the bathroom tile cold against your knees. Tears are spilling down your face as a million emotions swirl through your head. You try to tell yourself it’s not true, but you can’t seem to believe it anymore.
“They don’t know you” but your own coworker just wrote a paper on how terrible you are
“You were having a bad day” That doesn’t mean you get to be a jerk.
You slump against your bathroom wall, shaking with sobs. The past week starts playing on repeat in your head. You think about how you snapped at that poor secretary who was just trying to be nice. Your coffee date with Felix and how you spent most of the time talking about how horrible your day was, how you dismissed his jokes and kept making sarcastic comments when he was trying to be nice. The other day when Felix was packing and you wouldn’t let him finish, how you acted like a child about him leaving. You complained about being away from him for less than a week…that’s pathetic. The pictures of him at his event, him over FaceTime flash through your mind. People are right, he does look tired. He has been tired. He says it’s because of work but what if it’s because of you? Instead of resting on his day off, he went out to brunch with you. He wasted his few minutes of break calling you. He was going to stay awake until you woke up so that he could call you. Why? Why do you have to be so damn clingy?! You bang your fist on the tile, your cries echoing in the bathroom. Have you been justifying everything this whole time? The smile he has on camera versus the one with you: you always thought of it as a tender smile reserved for you but maybe he is actually just tired. Maybe his genuine smile is the one he has without you around. You lose track of how long you sit on your bathroom floor sobbing. The air feels thick, the salt from your tears tastes like guilt. Your throat is sore and dry, no more water left for tears. You have slumped over so that your face is pressed against the cold bathroom tile. You feel your body giving out and attempt to drag yourself up. Stumbling to the living room, you collapse on your couch, your bed feeling too big for you right now. Time seems to blur beneath the tears. You aren’t sure if you keep falling asleep or zoning out. If anyone else were to see you, they would probably think you are dead. As you fade in and out, the world turning to static, you don’t even hear your forgotten phone buzzing on the floor.
-
The next morning you wake up feeling like hell. You feel hungover despite having zero alcohol in your system. The afternoon sun burns your dry eyes. Even the sound of your own shallow breathing is too loud. You know you should get up and drink water, but you aren’t even sure your legs work. Plus, you fear if you drink more water, it’ll just make you start crying again. Your hair is a mess as part of it sticks to your dried tears. You don’t know what time it is and you aren’t sure you care. There is no way you are going to work knowing that your coworker and probably everyone else at your job hates you. At this point, you wouldn’t be surprised if everyone around you hated you. Despite your lassitude, you still want to try and maintain at bare minimum a professional relationship with your boss. You grab your phone, the device heavy in your hand, and email your boss that you won’t be coming in today. When you close the email app, your wallpaper—a picture of you and Felix—stares back at you. Gosh, you want nothing more than to be held by him right now. You pull up his contact to see 4 missed messages and 2 missed calls.
My Sunshine ❤️:
Yesterday, 10:13pm: I tried calling but it didn’t go through.
Yesterday, 10:43pm : Hope you are doing okay, sorry we couldn’t talk today. Sleep well ❤️
Today, 12:31am : Headed to the airport, text me when you can.
Today, 4:03am: Boarding the plane. Won’t be able to text or call for about 13 hours. Love you. I’ll text when we land.
You check the time—12:18pm. You throw your phone down, conflicted about what to do. You can’t get those comments out of your head. The interaction with your coworker plays on a loop. You sit there analyzing everything you did in the conversation and conversations before that. You think through every interaction, word, facial expression. Felix will be home today and you don’t know what to do. Part of you wants to cry and ask him to hold you, but the other part of you doesn’t want to be clingy or a burden. Your brain is too fried to think rationally. A headache starts pounding against your skull as your thoughts move too fast to process. You peel yourself off the couch and stagger to your room. Shutting out all the blinding light and popping some aspirin, you sink into your bed, hoping that sleep will take you before these spiraling thoughts can.
-
“Y/N, I’m back.” Felix calls as he opens the front door. No response. His brows twist in confusion. “Y/N?” Surely you’re not still at work. There’s no sound of water running, so you aren’t in the shower. He peaks in the kitchen and living room, both of which are empty. As he slowly opens the bedroom door, his voice softens, “Y/N? Angel?” The light from the hallway faintly illuminates the dark bedroom. Sitting curled up in the duvet, is a you sized lump. “Angel?” Felix lightly sets his bag down, gently walking over. Your back is turned to where he can’t see your face. He lightly places a hand on you immediately jolting you awake. As soon as you whip around to look at him, his face drops. Your eyes are red rimmed and puffy, tear stains still on your cheeks. The exhaustion hangs heavy under your eyes. His hand gently cups your face, “My love, what’s wrong?”
His warm touch and deep soothing voice is all it takes for you to break. You practically leap into his arms and bury your face in his shoulder. He gently holds you close, his hand moving to stroke your hair. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, but just holds you while you wet his shirt with tears. He carefully moves so that he is sitting on the bed with you in his lap. With every sob, Felix can feel his heart break a little more. He hates seeing you so hurt.
Your muffled broken voice vibrates against his shoulder, “I’m sorry.”
He knits his brows in confusion, “For what, love? You have nothing to be sorry about.”
You shake your head against his shoulder, your breathing heavy and uneven, “Ye-Yes, I do. I-I…” You start hyperventilating.
Felix gently moves you to make eye contact, his hands cupping your face, “Y/N, I need you to breathe.” He takes a deep breath in, “With me.” You take a shaky breath in. “That’s it. In and out.”
He slowly breathes with you until you eventually stabilize. Your voice comes out tiny and rough, “I’m sorry.”
He looks at you with confused and concerned eyes, “Why, my love?”
“Because I-I’m a bad girlfriend,” You sniffle.
“Why would you ever think that?”
“Because I’m clingy and I am mean and I dim your sunshine...”
His expression shifts between confused and frustrated at whatever made you think this, “Angel, what do you mean? You aren’t clingy or mean. You are my sunshine.”
“No,” You look down, guilt and insecurity spilling out of you, “I’m not your sunshine. I’m not anybody’s sunshine. I’m sarcastic and pessimistic. I do things like call you dramatic and cheesy. I am so judgmental and only see the worst in things. But you are so kind and bright. You have a smile that lights up the room and you love everyone and are nice to everyone. You care so deeply about people. When you are tired after a long day at the studio, you still think of me instead of yourself. I’m like a shadow, a leech sucking the light out of you. I took away your one day off by making you go to brunch. I acted like a child when you were packing to leave and I distracted you, not letting you go. You took your few minutes of rest to call me and you were going to stay up to call me. You already do so much and work so hard. I’m just adding to that burden.” You finally look up at him to see tears sliding down his cheeks. You wipe them away, more tears falling down your own cheeks, “And look, now I’ve made you cry.”
“Oh my lovely angel,” His voice is soft, barely a whisper, “I love you so much. I hate that you see yourself this way because it is so not true.”
“But it is true. You have been so tired lately and I can’t help wondering if that is my fault.”
He leans forward, placing a quick but lingering kiss on your lips. The taste of salt evident from both your tears, “You are the only reason I have energy. You aren’t a shadow or a leech. You are a beautiful, caring, amazing woman. You are the one who insists on cooking at the end of a terrible day. You are the one who makes sure I eat, even when I don’t feel like it. You are the reason I can survive hard days, the reason I have any energy at all. You say my smile lights up a room, but yours lights up my whole world. You say I’m kind, but you are the one who puts up with my schedule and job, who works so hard to take care of me, despite how you are feeling. You care deeply about people too. Your sarcasm and jokes are part of what I love about you. I know you don’t mean it and despite how much you try to hide it, I can see the smile tugging at your lips every time. I see the way your eyes linger and your features soften. You know what I think whenever I look at you? I think, wow how am I so lucky to have such a beautiful and amazing girlfriend.”
“But I take up your time, your breaks.”
“You aren’t taking away my break or rest. You are my break and rest. A single hug from you is more refreshing than any time off I could take. You aren’t a burden. You release all the burdens from my shoulders. Coming home to you after a long day is the only thing that keeps me going. One touch, one smile from you and I feel like my whole world is calm and right again.”
“I’m so clingy though.”
“You’re clingy? If one of us is clingy, it’s me. You think I don’t want to constantly be around you? Or constantly hug you?”
“When I’m interrupting you, like when you were packing. You asked me to stop but I didn’t.”
“You know why I asked you to stop? Because I would have given up that entire trip to sit in your arms for days: to hold you, kiss you. When you touch me, I have to hold myself back otherwise I’ll never let you go. I feel the absence of your hand in mine, of your presence. I had trouble falling asleep these past few days because you weren’t there.”
Your eyes snap to look at his, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong. In fact, you did everything right by becoming my safe space. With you, I don’t have to pretend. I don’t have to always be happy and smiley. I can have hard days. I can be tired. I know that I can come home and you will be waiting for me with open arms, no expectations, but only love and understanding. Without you, I have no sunshine. Without you, part of me is gone. You are my love, my light, my whole world.”
“You’re mine too,” your voice is barely a whisper.
He gives you that soft smile and now you are sure that it is meant for you and you alone. He closes the distance, his lips landing on yours. The kiss tastes like salt and passion. A promise to be each others forever. He pulls back, leaning his forehead on yours, “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
-
Later that evening, as you lie together in bed, limbs tangled with each other, Felix speaks, his deep voice soft, “If you don’t mind me asking, was there something that made you feel this way.”
You bury your face in his chest, slightly embarrassed now that you have gained some composure, “It’s a long story.” You end up essentially summarizing the entire experience, comments, your coworker.
“I take back what I said. You should quit your job.” You look up at him, confused. “You shouldn’t have to work with people like that.”
“Well where am I going to work?”
“I mean, you don’t have to work. I make enough to support both of us.”
You freeze, part of you seriously debating his offer, “I couldn’t do that to you.”
“Do what? Free up your time? You could come to the studio with me and go on trips with me. We would never have to be apart.”
You look up at him, your teasing slipping back in, “Whose clingy now?”
“It’s always been me.” He says, pressing a kiss to the top of your head, “But you love it.”
“I do.”
“But I’m serious. If you are okay with it, I would love for you to not have to stress about work and be able to do more things.”
You hum into his chest, the exhaustion starting to catch up with you. Your mouth speaks before you can stop it, “I would like that. Spending more time with you sounds nice.”
He tightens his hold on you, “Consider it done, but know that you are never going to be able to escape me.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
You snuggle deeper into his chest, all of the previous comments, insecurities, and stress melting away in his warm embrace.
Summary: A request for a quick dance lesson quickly turns into something much more
Content: fluff, bro gets a little distracted, like two swear words, I don't even know if this counts as spicy
A/N: I've been posting heavier stuff so I thought I would throw this drabble in for a lighter vibe. Ehehehe
Masterlist
~~~~
“Hey babe,” You sit next to Lee Know as he takes a water break during his practice. “Can you teach me how to dance?”
He cocks an eyebrow at you, “Why?”
“Because it looks fun and you’re really good at it.”
“I don’t know.”
“Why not?” You pout.
“I just,” He sighs, running a hand through his sweaty hair, “I don’t think I’m that good of a teacher.”
“You’re a great teacher! I watch you teach others choreography all the time.”
“Yeah, but that’s different.”
“Different how? Because they’re better dancers than me?” You cross your arms.
“No, that’s not-“
“Then why? Come on, please!” You grab his arm, giving your biggest puppy dog eyes. Lee Know avoids eye contact, so you shake his arm like a little child. “Please, please, please.”
He sighs, “I don’t know. I need to practice some more.”
“Fine. If you’re so busy, I’ll go ask Hyunjin to teach me.” You stand up, starting to walk away when you feel his hand around your wrist. You smile to yourself, knowing you won.
“Don’t you dare,” His voice is low, the way it gets when he is jealous.
You turn back around, mock offense on your face, “You were the one who said you were too busy.”
He sighs, defeated, “Fine. I’ll teach you.”
“Yay!” You clap, pleased with your jealous boyfriend.
You aren’t sure why he was so reluctant to teach you because everything seems to be going well. He explains the moves very clearly and demonstrates for you. He is patient and doesn’t make you do anything you aren’t comfortable with. You come to one move that you just can’t seem to get right.
“I don’t get it,” You groan.
“Here watch.” He demonstrates the move again, but it still doesn’t click.
“I’ve watched you do it and I still don’t get it. How do you even move your hips like that?” You try the move and fail, again.
“You’re too stiff.”
“I’m not stiff.” You move your arms and legs to demonstrate.
He sighs, “Not your arms, your hips.”
“What do you mean?”
He moves behind you and places his hands on your hips, “You need to loosen here.” His voice is low and warm against your ear. You feel heat creep up the back of your neck from his touch. “Do it again.” You do the move again as his hands guide you with gentle pressure. “Good.” His voice is barely a whisper, a breath against your neck. “From the top.”
You start the dance over, but his hands never leave your hips. He moves with you, guiding you through all the steps, even if you don’t need it. Neither of you say anything, but just move together. You can feel the warmth of his chest against your back and the weight of his hands on your hips. As you finish dancing, you make eye contact in the mirror. His gaze is intense, the air heavy with tension. You’re breathing harder, despite having barely done anything.
“Better?” You ask, breathless.
“Much,” His lips brush against your ear, sending a shiver down your spine. He kisses right behind your ear, then the back of your neck and down your shoulder. Each kiss is slow and reverent, like he is savoring every moment. He spins you around in his hold and kisses you on the lips. Your hands immediately move to play with his hair, earning a contented grunt from him. The kiss is slow, but hungry, like you are his last meal and he is savoring every bite. He kisses the corner of your mouth and along your jaw.
“I don’t think this is practicing,” You breathe out, but there is no real complaint in your tone.
“I warned you this wouldn’t go well,” He whispers against your lips before closing the gap again. He is less gentle now, his breathing becoming more shallow. Your hands move to the back of his neck to deepen the kiss, the taste of salt faint on his lips. His grip on your hips tightens, pulling you flush against him so there is nothing between you. When you break apart, you are both breathing hard.
“Is that what you call teaching?” You joke.
He laughs breathlessly, “I can’t help that you distract me.”
You look at him with a teasing glint in your eye, “Maybe I should go ask one of the other boys to teach me then.”
“Don’t you fucking dare.” You can see the jealousy in his eyes.
“Jealous are we?”
“Damn right.”
You laugh, “Good because that means you have to teach me more dancing.”
Summary: While walking through the airport with Chan, the giant crowd breaks past barriers and separates you from Chan, leaving you in a scary position.
Content: Angst, hurt/comfort, scary mob moments, saesangs lowkey, some blood and bruises, a very very distressed Chan, pushy reporter, some heavier moments lowkey, swearing (?)
A/N: DON'T MOB PEOPLE!! Big crowds can be seriously dangerous and people have straight up died because of it. This is a dramatic situation obvi, but some of the fan mobs I see in airports be getting a little too close to this. Be respectful and leave idols alone please.
Masterlist
~~~~
This is your first time traveling with the boys and it is nothing like you expected. There are security barriers from the car to the security checkpoint where carts wait on the other side to take you to your gate. You are surrounded by staff and security while a sea of fans pushes and screams behind the barriers. You freeze looking at the chaos and Chans grip tightens on your hand as he leans to whisper, “I know it’s a lot. Just stick close to me. It’ll be over before you know it.”
You nod your head, practically glueing yourself to his side. You begin walking forward, Chan on your left, security in front and behind. Several reporters are walking along side you on the inside of the barrier. Chan had mentioned that press was allowed inside the barrier, but can’t touch you and security has every right to move them out of the way. You make it halfway with no accidents other than your ears being blasted with high pitched screaming. That’s when a dispatch reporter comes along side you and Chan and starts bombarding you with questions, shoving his camera in your face.
“Y/N, tell us about your relationship with Bangchan. Why are you going on tour with them? How did you meet? How long do you plan to be together? Do you plan to get married? If so, how are you going to work around Bangchan’s career? What is it like having to deal with the schedule of an idol?” With each question he pushes further into your personal space bubble. Chan had told you not to answer any reporters or fans, to just keep your head down and walk forward, but the more pushy he gets, the harder it becomes to ignore. Chan moves his arm to hook around your shoulder, pulling you closer to him and further away from the reporter. But the reporter keeps pushing, “What is it like dealing with the pressures of dating an idol? Is it too much? Do you think this relationship is sustainable?”
You can see Chans jaw tense at the questions, despite his wearing a mask. He steps slightly forward to move you to the other side of him, but in the process you accidentally trip, stumbling towards the barriers. You end up close enough that a fan is able to grab hold of your bag and pull you towards the crowd. You fall backwards, straight into the barrier, knocking it over thus opening the floodgates. Immediately people rush forward, the mass sea of people being too much for security to hold back. You hear somewhere behind you Chan yell your name and swear as the stampede begins. Whoever was holding the strap of your bag practically throws you down, letting you go in favor of rushing forward. You fall to the floor which is about the worst place you can be in a situation like this. Absolutely no one cares that you are there. They all charge forward, leaving you no room to get up. As the chaos ensues, you hear security begin shouting and distantly Chan screaming your name. His voice is broken and desperate, filled with anger and panic. You try to follow the sound of his voice, but everything is so loud and you are disoriented, caught up in the crowd. As people are storming past you, your bag gets caught on someone’s foot, yanking your arm back with it. You yelp as it strains your muscle. Before you can do anything, someone else comes tumbling over you, catching your shirt on some part of their outfit or bag and your sleeve rips. Tears are pouring down your face, making everything blurry and more confusing than it already was. You try to move with the crowd, grabbing on to anything you can to stand up, but you end up accidentally taking someone else down with you. The girl shrieks as she falls on top of you. She whips around to start yelling at you, but stops when she see’s your face. You think for a split second that she is going to help you, but that’s when you see her expression shift to something you can only call terrifying.
“Oh my gosh, it’s Y/N! Chans girlfriend! She’s over here!!” She screams into the crowd around her. The mass of people that catch that immediately turn their attention to you, causing a shift in the flow of traffic. Suddenly a smaller mass starts rushing and crowding you. The one girl you accidentally pulled down yanks you to stand up with her which you would’ve been grateful for, if it wasn’t for the horde of people coming towards you. Suddenly hands are all over you. People are shouting things in your ear; you only catch a few sentences here and there.
“Oh my gosh Y/N! Sign my Wolfchan!”
“Leave Channie alone you bitch!”
“Please introduce me to Bangchan!”
“You can’t have him!”
The comments range from asking for autographs to saesangs threatening you. The larger crowd around you is still rushing towards where you think you were originally walking in—it’s hard to tell in the chaos—causing the smaller mob to shift with it. You are being pulled in all different directions as people fight to grab you.
The longer you are in the mob, the more you feel your chest tighten. Your breathing is shallow and strained as tears pour down your face. The only reason you are still standing is because the crowd is practically holding you up. You don’t know where Chan is. You can’t see or hear anyone. You don’t know how far away you have been carried and you have no idea how to get out. As people continue to press in, making it harder and harder to breathe, you think that there is a real possibility of you dying in this crowd. In a desperate attempt to be heard above the raging crowd, you use all the strength you can muster to scream, “CHRISTOPHER!” You are hoping that using his English name will cut through the cries of the fans. “Christopher please! Help me!” Your voice is hoarse and broken, filled with panic and desperation. Your chest is heaving as you try to get enough air back into your lungs. You can feel your vocal cords scratch as you scream, but you couldn’t care less. You keep screaming praying that someone will find you.
~
Chan freezes as he sees you ripped into the crowd, knocking over the barrier. He tries to lung towards you, but is pulled back by security and subsequently pushed further back by the crowd. Two security guards come to his side, attempting to drag him out of the crowd and away from fans, but pulling him further from you in the process. “Y/N!” He starts fighting against the security guards, “Let me go! I have to get Y/N! She got taken by the crowd!”
“We will find her, but we have to get you out too.” One of the security guards responds.
“No! I can’t leave her. I won’t leave her!” Hot tears run down his face as his vision goes red with anger. How could he let this happen? He was supposed to protect you, but instead you got sucked into the mob and are lost in the sea of chaos. The security guards manage to pull him into a circle with the other boys, successfully blocking the crowd, but still having to fight to keep up the barricade.
“Where is Y/N?!” Changbin calls over the noise.
“She got taken by the crowd. I have to go find her.” Chan tries pushing past the security guards, but they won’t let him. Felix and Seungmin grab Chan to stop him. “Let me go! I have to go find her!”
“You going out into that crowd is not going to help anything.” Felix grunts, struggling to hold back Chan.
“What am I supposed to do?! Leave her to be trampled?”
“No, we will move as a unit to find her.” Seungmin says, immediately passing along the instruction to the security team around them.
The team nods, understanding the assignment. The circle begins to move, shuffling through the crowd. Security is focused on keeping fans back while the boys begin yelling your name. Chan is jumping as high as he can to try and see over the crowd, but he can’t see anything. They continue to desperately yell your name, searching for any sign of you.
“We can’t keep this up for much longer,” one of the guards says.
Before Chan can fight back, he hears it, your voice. A cry for help that sends a shiver down his spine.
“CHRISTOPHER!” He hears his full name and knows immediately that it’s you. He can hear the broken desperation in your voice causing his vision to tunnel. He pushes the circle of people towards your voice.
“Follow that voice!” He commands, “Come on baby, keep yelling so I can find you.” He starts yelling louder for you, prompting the rest of the group to do so as well.
You continue to cry out for Chan, your voice starting to give out. Just as you are about to give up, you feel a strong arm grab you from behind and pull you back. The crowd disappears as you are pulled into a circle of security guards. Strong arms wrap around you from behind as a voice whispers in your ear, “I’ve got you.”
You whip around at the familiar grip and tone to see Bangchan staring at you. You break down, your body fully giving out. He immediately catches you, holding up all of your weight. “It’s okay love. I’ve got you. You’re safe now.” He picks you up bridal style, your arms wrapping around his neck. You bury your face into his shoulder, tears pouring down your face, your throat aching with every sob. Your whole body is shaking with fear and adrenaline. Chan is also crying, his tears wetting your hair as he presses soft kisses to the top of your head. He keeps repeating in soft whispers, “It’s okay. I’ve got you. You’re safe now.”
The security moves the group back through the mob, successfully making it to the security checkpoint where they can shut people out. You are all ushered down a hallway into a back security room. As the door shuts behind you and you are finally free from the mayhem, Chan sinks down to the floor, his grip never loosening on you. He fully breaks down, hugging you as close as possible to him. He presses his cheek to the top of your head, lightly rocking you back and forth, “It’s over. We’re safe now.”
You both sit there, clutching each other until a paramedic finally comes in the room. After checking everyone else, she very gently approaches you, “Excuse me.”
You flinch, holding tighter onto Chan. He immediately rubs your back soothingly, “It’s okay. It’s just the paramedic.”
“I need to examine your injuries.” She gently touches your arm, causing you to pull back.
Chan starts rocking you back and forth again, “Love, I know you’re scared, but she needs to check you.” You shake your head against his shoulder, pressing further into him. He hugs you tighter, letting you know he is there. “I promise I won’t let you go. Please love, this will be the last thing, I swear.” He gently cups your face, leaning you back slowly to look at him. His heart breaks at the sight of your face. Your eyes are swollen and bloodshot with tears still pouring down your cheeks. Your lip is bleeding from where you must have bit it on accident. He looks at you with watery eyes and the softest voice, “Do it for me? Please?”
You swallow back some tears, your breathing still fragmented and uneven. Unable to manage words, you nod your head causing a small sigh of relief to escape Chan. He gently positions you so that the nurse can check your injuries. His eyes finally catch up with reality making his breath hitch at all the injuries you sustained. Your knees are a dark purple, large bruises already forming. More bruises line your legs, along with a few scrapes. Your wrist and arms are beaten and bruised from where people had grabbed you. There are clear scratch marks from peoples nails. Where your sleeve had ripped, there is also a cut bleeding down your arm. As the nurse is checking you out, she pushes on the shoulder that was carrying your bag and you wince, feeling the strained muscle. Chan goes tense seeing you so hurt. He feels rage start to boil up inside of him. If you weren’t sitting on top of him, he would storm out right now and hurt everyone who hurt you. The nurse patches up your cut and gives you some ibuprofen, “It’s not bad. You’ll be sore for a little bit but other than that, you should be just fine.” She gives a polite smile and leaves you alone.
You immediately lean back against Chan, tears slowly falling silently now. He gently strokes your hair, “I’m sorry.” His voice is watery with tears.
You pull back to look at him, your hand cupping his cheek, “It’s not your fault.” You wince at how hoarse your voice sounds.
Chan sniffles, shaking his head, “It is my fault. I shouldn’t have let you go. I should have stopped that reporter sooner. I should have immediately gone after you.”
Your thumb strokes the few tears that fall down his cheek, “You didn’t do anything wrong. You tried to pull me away from the reporter-“
“And sent you flying into the barrier.”
“That wasn’t you. I tripped and someone else pulled me into the barrier.”
“I should have gone after you.”
“You know you couldn’t have done that. You would have gotten swarmed by everyone.”
“I don’t care about that. I would get mobbed a thousand times if it meant saving you.”
You give him a watery smile, “You did save me. You didn’t stop looking for me. You heard my voice and found me. If it weren’t for you, I would be trampled on the floor right now.”
“If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have been here in the first place.” His voice is shaky with tears, his mind running into overdrive again, thinking through every thing he could have done differently. “Maybe we should—“
You cut him off with a kiss, his eyes widening in surprise before melting into you. You pull back to stare at him, “Don’t you dare finish that sentence. There is nowhere else I would rather be. Whether you like it or not, you’re stuck with me. I’m not going anywhere.”
For the first time since this whole thing started, Chan gives you a small smile, “Good, because I’m never letting you go again.” He pulls you closer, pressing his lips to yours again. It’s slow and gentle, a total contrast to the crazy situation. It’s an apology and a promise; a promise to protect you and never let anyone hurt you again. Your tears mix together as his grip slightly tightens on you. You go to move your hand up to his hair, but wince when your shoulder moves too far. Chan immediately pulls back to look at you, concern lacing his features. You press a quick kiss to his lips to try and ease his fear, “It’s okay. Just a little sore.”
“I’m going to protect you, I swear. No one will ever touch you again.” His gaze is full of determination and passion.
You lean into him, nuzzling your head into the crook of his neck, “I love you.”
He kisses the top of your head, “I love you too.”
“And channie”
“Hmm?”
“Thank you for saving me.” You finally release some tension and relax into him, feeling safe in his hold.
He wraps his arms around you in a gentle, but secure embrace, “Always and forever, my love.”
Summary: You're trying to meet Lee Know backstage when a new security hire mistakes you for a saesang
Content: Angst, hurt/comfort, protective Lee Know, the slightest bit of physical aggression, Lee Know punching trash security guard, breakdown, some insecurities
A/N: apparently I'm in my SKZ being protective era. Reader is fairly confident in herself, but most people would prob freeze up in this situation. Lee Know is a little dismissive, but text can be deceiving. Also realizing I write A LOT for Lee Know and Chan when they aren't even my bias lol
Masterlist
~~~~
You go through the arduous process of making it to the staff side entrance of the venue. After various ticket checks and security checkpoints, you finally reach the staff entrance. As you approach, you see a large security guard standing in front of the door. It has always been a hassle getting backstage by yourself. That’s why you prefer to just show up with the boys, but you had to work today and wasn’t going to be off in time to come with them. Lee Know told you it would be fine, as it usually is, and that their staff knows you. It takes having a vip pass to get in anyway, so there should be no reason to worry. Easy for him to say. He’s not the one staring down a security guard who is twice your size and carrying weapons. You walk up to the security guard and before you can even say anything, he sticks out his hand to stop you, “You can’t enter here.” His voice is scruffy and deep, the kind that makes you feel smaller than you already feel.
“I have a vip pass.” You don’t get a chance to show it before he is responding to you.
“Vip seating is the other way. This is staff only. Please move along.” His tone makes it seem final, like you have no chance at arguing.
Being Lee Know’s girlfriend (and just badass in general), you will definitely argue, “Sorry, I don’t mean vip seating. I have a backstage pass.” You pull out the pass, your hands shaking more than you like to admit.
“Staff only,” he doesn’t even look at your pass.
You furrow your brows, “You didn’t even look at my pass.”
“Don’t need to. Didn’t you hear? It’s staff only. You’re not staff.”
“You didn’t look at my pass.” You repeat, firmer.
He lets out an annoyed grunt and rips the pass out of your hand. He looks at it condescendingly, “Not staff.” He shoves it back in your face.
You don’t take it, “If you would read it, it says backstage pass. Last I checked, this is backstage.”
“Well you checked wrong because as I keep saying this is staff only.” He almost yells the last word at you, “Now leave before I have to take drastic measures.”
“I am not leaving because I know that I have the right to be here.” You put your foot down and that does not make him happy.
“You have the right? Who do you think you are?”
“Lee Minho’s girlfriend. You know, one of the performers that you are working for.”
He lets out a large laugh, startling you a bit, “Yeah right. Like I haven’t heard that one before.” His voice goes low, the previous laughter completely dissolved, “Look here, my job is to keep crazy fans like you from being places they aren’t supposed to be, so I will warn you one last time, leave.” He towers over you, making you back up. You aren’t sure what to do. He won’t take your pass and he doesn’t know you, so of course he doesn’t believe you are Lee Knows girlfriend. Why would anyone believe that? You start to feel panic rise in your chest. You retreat back, moving out of sight of the guard. You pull out your phone and call Lee Know, but he doesn’t answer. You get a text instead.
Minho: Can’t call, what’s wrong?
Y/N: The security guard won’t let me in.
Minho: Do you have your pass?
Y/N: Yes, he said I’m not staff, so I can’t come in. I don’t know what to do.
Minho: I told security you were coming. Did you tell him who you were?
Y/N: Yes, I told him I am your girlfriend.
Minho: Kitten, your name…they aren’t just going to take your word for it.
Minho: I have to go, but try telling them your name this time.
You feel a pang in your stomach at Lee Knows dismissal of the situation. He’s busy. You know that. He doesn’t have time to deal with this. And he’s right. Of course they won’t take your word for it. How could you be so dumb as to forget to tell them your name? You take a deep breath and walk back to the security guard.
He sighs as soon as he sees you, “Look lady, I told you to beat it.”
“Y/N.”
“Huh?”
“That’s my name, Y/N. Minho said he told you I was coming.” You try to stand confident in yourself.
He just scoffs, “Yeah nice try. I’ve never heard that name before.” You feel your confidence deflate like a balloon. Did Lee Know forget to mention you? “This is your last warning, leave.”
You pull one last ditch effort and pull out your phone. You pull up the texts from Lee Know and shove them in the security guards face, “Look!”
“What is this supposed to be?”
“My messages with Minho. You can see his contact and that he said he told you about me.”
“You do realize how easy it is to fake texts right?” He looks at you unimpressed. You feel tears start to prick at your eyes. Nothing you do seems to convince him and Lee Know is too busy to help right now. “Now move it.” He grabs your arm and starts to drag you away. You squirm in his grasp, but his grip is way too tight on you.
“Let me go!” Tears start to well up in your eyes.
He tightens his grip, “You should have left when I told you to.” He practically throws you towards the exit with enough force that you fall to the ground. You wince as your knees hit the hard concrete floor. “If you come back again, I won’t be so nice.”
He walks back around the corner to go stand at his post again. You sit on the floor, rubbing where he gripped your arm. Seeing no one around in the empty hallway, you sit up against the wall and let the tears softly fall. You have never had this much trouble with security before. Normally, you don’t mind the hassle. You appreciate people being thorough in their job and making sure the boys are kept safe, but this was a different level. You want to call Lee Know, but you are worried about bothering him. So you sit on the cold floor, back against the wall as tears slowly slide down your face.
About 15 minutes later, you feel your phone buzzing. You look to see Minho calling.
“Kitten?” His voice feels warm through the phone, a contrast to how you feel right now. “Where are you?” You try to keep your voice steady, but you only get two words out before he notices. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” You wipe your tears, trying not to cause a scene, “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not fine. I can hear it in your voice. Where are you?” His tone is more serious.
You sigh, giving up on trying to act natural, “I’m still at the staff entrance. I tried telling the guard my name and when that didn’t work I even showed him our text thread. He said I was faking it. He got angry and kicked me out. I’ve just been sitting in the hallway.”
“Why didn’t you call me sooner?”
“You seemed busy and said you couldn’t talk. I didn’t want to be a bother, not right before a performance.”
He sighs, “Kitten, you are never a bother. Hang tight, I’ll come get you myself.”
He hangs up the phone and you feel a small sense of relief knowing he is on his way. As you stand to brush yourself off, you notice bruises already forming on your knees and arm where he had grabbed you. Hesitantly, you walk back down the hallway, not rounding the corner until you know Minho is near. You feel your phone buzz and see a text from him.
Minho: Coming out now.
You take a deep breath and round the corner. Immediately the guard locks eyes on you and you see the anger flash across his face.
“Hey! I told you not to come back.”
You keep walking forward, holding your breath. Minho is coming. He’s almost here. He’ll be here any second. That’s when the door behind the guard swings open and you feel like a weight is lifted off your chest. On instinct you move towards Minho, but the guard stops you. He shoves you backwards, hard. You lose balance and fall to the floor.
“Yah!” Lee Knows vision goes red. He runs over and despite the guard being a head taller than him, Lee Know manages to knock him off balance. He pushes the guard out of the way and immediately kneels in front of you, “Kitten, are you okay?” His eyes are wide with worry.
The guard regains his balance behind you, “What the hell?”
Lee Knows head snaps, eyes going dark. The security guard shrinks under his gaze. “Who the hell do you think you are?” His voice is low, stone cold.
“I work for security. Keeping you safe thank you very much.” Somehow, he has the audacity to be snarky with Lee Know, but that is a losing battle.
Lee Know stands up and walks over to the guard, “How is shoving people to the ground keeping me safe, huh?!”
“I wasn’t trying to shove her. She lost balance, that’s all.”
“Lost balance? I saw how hard you pushed her.”
“I’m just doing my job.”
“By hurting my girlfriend?”
The color drains from the guards face, “I-I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t know? She showed you her pass. She told you her name and showed you her texts and it didn’t even occur to you to at least ask someone about it?” The guard is speechless. “I don’t know who you are, but I can guarantee that you will not work here by the end of the night.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Watch me.” Lee Knows tone is firm, leaving no room for argument. He moves back to you and his demeanor does a total 180. You don’t realize you are shaking until his hand gently takes yours to calm you down. “It’s okay. I’m here now.” His voice is soft as he wipes a stray tear from your eye. “Let’s go inside now, yeah?”
You nod, as he helps you stand up. He bends down to grab your purse and notices the bruises on your knees. His hands hover over them, afraid to touch it and make it worse. He looks up at you, his gaze filled with concern. “Did he do this to you?”
“Yes, but please I just want to go. I don’t want to cause a scene.” You try to plead, but Lee Know stopped listening after ‘yes.’
His eyes go dark as he stands up. He calmly walks over to the security guard and punches him square in the face.
“Lee Know!”
He slips his arm around your waist and calmly pulls you towards the door as if nothing happened, “Let’s go.”
The security guard is holding his face, the beginnings of a bloody nose forming.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” You scold.
“No one hurts my girl, ever.” His voice is clear and firm. It’s like being in the eye of a storm, watching the hurricane from within.
“You are going to get in trouble for that.”
He shrugs, “I think Chan will understand.”
You make it backstage where the staff and boys are waiting. Lee Know is quick to take action, doing what he has to in order to get that guard fired. The boys help you out, bringing you snacks, ice packs, and water. Han and Hyunjin refuse to let you stand up, insisting they do everything for you. You laugh at their theatrics, your heart glad to be with everyone again. After a little while Lee Know comes to sit with you, shooing away Han and Hyunjin. You immediately lean into his side, feeling safe in his arms.
He kisses the top of your head, “I’m sorry.”
You pull back to look at him confused, “For what?”
“For not coming the first time.” He sighs, clearly disappointed in himself, “I shouldn’t have dismissed you or made you feel like you couldn’t call me. I should have come for you first thing. Maybe then you wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”
You cup his jaw, your thumb rubbing gently across his cheek, “It’s okay. You were busy. I should’ve thought about telling him my name first before bothering you.”
He shakes his head, “No, you shouldn’t have to justify yourself. They changed security around and so the person I told wasn’t the one at the door. It wouldn’t have mattered in the end.” He moves his gaze back up to you, his hand cupping your cheek, “But I promise, next time, I’ll come running as soon as you call.”
You smile and press a soft kiss to his lips, “I know you will.”
He hugs you close and holds you for a minute. “I got him fired.”
You laugh, making Minho feel lighter at the sound. “That didn’t take long.”
“I told you, no one messes with my girl.”
“Or else they will get punched apparently.” He shrugs trying to act nonchalant, but you can see the slight pink tint across his cheeks. You kiss the tip of his nose, “It’s okay. I thought it was pretty hot.”
He smirks, “So what you’re saying is I should punch people more often.”
“Absolutely not!” You lightly shove his chest, your playful spirit coming back.
“Fine. I’ll only punch people who deserve it.”
You roll your eyes, “Yeah whatever tough boy. Let’s get that fist cleaned up before you go on stage.”
“I thought you said it was hot.”
You press a quick kiss to his cheek, “It is. That’s why no one else gets to see it.”
He pulls you against his lips, kissing you deeply. It’s an apology and a promise; to protect you, no matter what.
Summary: You go with Felix to a Louis Vuitton event and suddenly realize just how out of your depth you are.
Content: Angst, hurt/comfort, some fluff, trashy reporters and people, it's giving met gala photographers, insecurities, bit of a breakdown and public embarrassment
Masterlist
~~~~
You have been dating Felix for a year now, only half of that time being known to the public. It’s been a bumpy ride but you’ve made it through. Felix had gotten an invitation a while back to a Louis Vuitton event, which is not out of the ordinary. What is out of the ordinary is that you were invited as well. Nicolas had personally written an invitation with yours and Felix name attached. Of course you accepted and as you step out of the car onto the red carpet, you begin to regret your decision. You have never been one for the spotlight. You knew going public with Felix would mean eventually stepping into this world, you just didn’t realize how truly overwhelming it can be. As cameras flash and voices fill your ears, your feet seem to be stuck to the floor. It’s the gentle tug of weight in your hand that brings you back to reality.
“Are you alright? You don’t have to come.” Felix’s voice rumbled low in your ear, his hand holding yours tighter.
You thickly swallow back the anxiety with a new determination. It’s just people. Rich, highly influential people, but still people. Nothing could be as brutal as the some of the fans you had to deal with when you first went public with your relationship. You look into Felix’s soft brown eyes, “I’m great. Let’s do this.” You take the first step forward, Felix quickly falling in line, a proud smile lining his face.
As you walk up the stairs into the venue, fans and photographers crowd behind security barriers. You hear Felix’s name in high pitched screams as people shove forward papers and what not for him to sign. He nods with a grateful smile, unable to interact any further. You hear one fan scream over the others, “I love you Y/N!” followed by a few others shouting ‘you look nice’ and ‘we love you’ and other things along those lines. Compared to the criticism that yells at you across social media, these voices outshine them all. With a new found confidence, you stand up straighter ready to face whatever is behind that door.
As the doors open into the event space, your jaw drops. The red carpet continues into the open space in front of you, a path clearly lined with photographers and interviewers. The room itself is a grand foyer with marble floor and high arched ceilings decorated with paintings and golden crown molding.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Felix loves watching how your eyes sparkle with fascination. You simply nod in response. “Well there is plenty more to see. Let’s go.” He gently tugs you over to walk through the line of photographers. He prepped you before hand on this part. He wasn’t lying about there being so many cameras that it’s almost blinding.
“Don’t try to look at all the cameras, just pick one or two to focus on and move on.” You remember him saying.
“How should I stand? Should I smile? What if I mess it up?” You paced, biting your lip nervously.
He let out a soft laugh, “Love,” He gently grabbed your shoulders, pulling you to look at him, “You will be fine. Just be yourself. You are beautiful the way you are.”
You sigh, holding on to his words. Despite his reassurance, you had still went to do some research about how to look at a red carpet. Wait your turn, smile for the cameras, move at a steady pace. Stand simple and confident. In other words (slightly more blunt than Felix), be the natural, professional version of yourself. Your years of speech and debate felt as though they were coming in handy. As you step up to the first set of camera’s, Felix slows down, his arm looping naturally around your waist. You lean into him, causing a natural smile to appear. As he adjusts, so do you. He grabs your hand and moves you to the next stopping point. As you walk, you see a younger female photographer smile at you with a thumbs up. You notice her camera strap has the stray kids logo and you can’t help the big smile that spreads on your face. You didn’t expect people to be so kind and encouraging. You stop in the middle of the line where the bulk of photographers are standing. People are yelling all kinds of directives, asking people to stand a certain way or turn. Some interviewers throw out random questions to various people.
“Felix, over here!” You both turn in the direction of the camera that called his name, seeing several photographers lined up for shots.
“Let’s get one without the girl!”
“Give us a solo shot!”
“She’s not even wearing Louis Vuitton.”
Several voices call out among the crowd of photographers. You feel your smile drop at their comments. Felix’s hand tightens in yours, his face remaining neutral, but you can see how his jaw tightens. He tries to ignore them, but they keep calling out.
“Come on, it’s just for the promotion!”
“She messes up the shot.”
One photographer points at you, “Move over. You’re covering his outfit.”
You can feel the tension rise as these photographers continue to call his name. You let go of Felix’s hand, causing him to turn to you. “What are you doing?”
You give him a soft smile, not wanting to cause an issue, “It’s okay. I’ll go ahead of you.”
“You don’t have to do that. We can go in right now.”
You shake your head, “No, you need to get promotional shots. Don’t worry, I’m fine. I was feeling kind of thirsty anyway.” You step away from him and move towards the entrance to the ballroom. As you walk away, you can hear several photographers calling various things.
“Yeah, that’s the shot.”
“Now we’re talking.”
You take a deep breath. This is what you expected. The side glances, harsh comments. You knew what you were getting into when you started dating Felix, but as much as you try to brush it off, some things manage to break past your barrier.
You step through the large double doors into the ballroom and you are once again in awe. Warm light shines down from giant chandeliers hanging from the vaulted ceiling. More of the molding and art from the foyer lines the walls and ceilings in here. There are tables lined up across the polished floor. Hundreds of people mingle around with each other as waiters rush around with drinks and hors d’oeuvres. As the sound of glasses clinking, soft music, and cheerful chattering fills your ears, you feel a hand on your wrist. You whip around to see who touched you and relax when you see it’s just Felix.
“Are you alright?” His soft eyes are filled with concern.
You nod and smile, “Yeah, I’m good.”
“I’m sorry about them. They were rude and shouldn’t have said those things. If you are upset, we can g—“
You cut him off, “Felix, really, I’m okay.” That was only half true. Hearing him defend you does make you feel better, but you still feel the sting of their comments. How they talked as if you are a bad accessory or a handbag that didn’t match. It makes you angry and humiliated all at once. But then you remember the fans outside, shouting how much they love you; the young camera lady who silently cheered you on; and your boyfriend, who is willing to leave for you, who is looking at you with so much care. It all warms your heart and gives you a bit of a boost. Even if it’s not enough to overcome everything, it helps you stand a bit taller than before. “Let’s go inside, yeah?”
Felix smiles and nods, his grip tightening as you head into the fray.
-
The evening seems to be going quite well so far. Felix mingled with countless people, some faces you know, others you don’t. Most people acknowledged you and when someone didn’t Felix made sure to introduce you. As the evening goes on, you find yourself actually enjoying the event. At one point Nicolas finds you and Felix.
“Enchanté! So glad you could make it.” Nicolas hugs Felix with a bright smile. You step back, assuming they will want to have a conversation without you, but Nicolas turns to you, “Ah, and you must be the lovely Y/N I’ve heard so much about.” He takes your hand and places a kiss on the back of it. “I’m so glad you could make it.”
“Thank you so much for inviting me. I am very honored.”
“Of course! Felix talks about you all the time and I just had to meet you.” You feel heat cover your face knowing that Felix talks about you, even in professional settings. “Thank you both so much for being here.”
“Thank you for having us.” Felix replies with a bright smile, his arm looping around your waist.
They have a conversation about fashion and what not, things you aren’t too knowledgeable about, but enjoy hearing about nonetheless. Felix is laughing at something Nicolas said when a lady comes up to join the conversation. She looks to be not too far off your age, probably mid-twenties. She is tall with long auburn hair and is wearing a loose fitting, green, silk dress with a sparkling flower design. Her makeup, shoes, nails, and jewelry all blend perfectly with her outfit, not standing out too much so that the dress is the highlight of the outfit. She greets Nicolas with a huge smile, “Darling, so good to see you again.” She kisses him on both cheeks, a common greeting you have seen throughout the evening.
“Good evening, I’m glad you could come.” He turns to you and Felix, “Felix, Y/N, this is Josephine. She has modeled for several of our shows.”
She turns and greets Felix with the same kiss on each cheek, “Felix, was it?”
“Yes, a pleasure to meet you.” Felix smiles in response.
“A pleasure to meet you. Are you a model? You seem familiar.”
“I have had the honor of being able to model a few times, but I am a global ambassador.”
“Oh, how wonderful. What is your main profession?”
“I’m part of a musical group, Stray Kids. We are idols in Korea.”
She gives a small gasp, lightly placing her hand on his arm, “Wow! How impressive.”
You have stepped back again, feeling out of place in her presence. Felix turns slightly to lace his fingers with yours and pulls you beside him, “This is my girlfriend, Y/N.”
Josephine turns as if she forgot you were there. She looks you up and down and her smile drops a fraction, “Nice to meet you.” She says politely and immediately looks back to Felix. “I love this ensemble you’re wearing!” Her hand trails slowly down his arm, “This design is wonderful. Very flattering.” She turns to Nicolas, her hand remaining on Felix’s arm.
You feel your stomach twist in jealousy. You try to take a deep breath. She hasn’t done anything wrong. She is just being nice, maybe a little flamboyant, but that’s not automatically a bad thing. People in the fashion world often are that way. Josephine turns back to you, her eyes scanning you. You feel yourself shrink under her gaze. “This dress, is it from a new collection? I don’t remember seeing this design.” She asks the question, but you can tell in her tone that she already knows the answer.
You feel your throat go dry, that photographers words from earlier ringing in your ear. She’s not even wearing Louis Vuitton. You internally scold yourself for your outfit choice. Of course you should have worn something Louis Vuitton, but it’s not like you can afford that. So you picked the nicest dress you owned. Your hands start fidgeting with the material, “Uh, no it’s not Louis Vuitton actually.” Your voice comes out shakier than intended.
The corner of her mouth twitches, clearly fighting a smirk. Instead she gives a fake look of surprise, “Oh. Well, what designer is it?”
Your gaze drops to the floor, “I…I’m not sure. I didn’t check.”
“Oh my, I can’t imagine not knowing what brand I’m wearing.” She gives a fake laugh, as if her comment was supposed to be funny. “I guess that’s just the model in me. I forget regular people aren’t as concerned about their clothes.” Her tone is light but that word hits hard. Regular. That’s what you are. No one. Simple. Out of place. Of course you are because who comes to a fashion event without knowing what dress they are wearing? Why would you wear anything but the designer brand? Why did you bother coming at all?
Suddenly, the space feels too crowded. The loud laughter of Josephine becomes piercing. You are hyper aware of the people standing around you, the air beginning to feel warmer.
“I need to run to the bathroom.” You mumble, removing your hand from Felix’s.
“Are you alright?” His eyes fill with that same concern from earlier.
“I’m fine. Just had too much to drink.” You lie, quickly moving away.
Felix goes to move after you, but Josephine stops him, “Oh let her be. Us women just need a moment sometimes.” Her voice echos behind you as you weave through the crowd. Your vision tunnels. Your dress feels itchy despite it being soft fabric. Shallow breaths escape your mouth, the air feeling thick and heavy. Frantically looking for an exit, you don’t see the person in front of you until you run right into them. As you stumble back, you feel champagne spill down the front of your dress.
“Hey, watch where you’re going!” You look up to see one of the photographers from earlier, the distain still heavy in his voice.
“I’m so sorry.” You feel tears begin to prick at your eyes.
“You should be. Who do you think you are anyway?” He looks you over, understanding dawning on his face. A smirk lines his lips. “You’re that girl from before. The one that stuck out like a sore thumb.”
“I’m sorry.” You try to walk away, tears beginning to build up behind your eyes. As you try to move away from him, you feel your dress catch on something and you fall to the floor.
“Oh no, guess the floor is slippery.” He says, flatly. You bow your head to the floor, trying to hide the tears now falling down your cheeks. “Maybe next time you shouldn’t make someone spill their drink. Although there probably won’t be a next time after this story. You should have just stayed at home instead of trying to be a part of a world you don’t fit in.”
You can feel a bunch of eyes on you as you cause this scene. Suddenly, a shadow looms over you.
“Put the camera down.” You hear the familiar deep rumble and look up to see Felix standing over you. He stepped between you and the photographer who was about to take a picture of your sad figure on the floor.
“Chill, man. I’m allowed to take pictures of whatever I want.” The photographer smirks.
“I said, put the camera down.” Felix steps closer towards the man, his deep voice low enough that only he can hear him, “You should leave before I do something I might regret.”
The man shrinks under Felix’s gaze, clearly terrified of the quiet anger radiating off of your boyfriend. The man scoffs, backing off, “Whatever.” He walks off, quickly disappearing into the crowd.
Felix immediately crouches down next to you, his entire demeanor softening. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
You shake your head, trying to keep yourself from audibly crying. He tries to turn your face to look at him, but you fight him, not wanting to show your ruined makeup to the pristine people around you. He looks around, realizing why you won’t look at him. He pulls you against his chest so that your face is hidden from everyone and he can feel your muffled cries. “Let’s get you up.” He helps you stand up, your face never leaving his chest. The people around you start to go back to what they were doing, not wanting to disturb you any further. Felix finds a side room and closes the door behind you. As you hear the lock click, you immediately breakdown into full sobs, your whole body giving out. Felix swiftly catches you in his arms, moving you both to sit on a couch. He holds you close against him, rubbing soothing circles on your back. He lets you sit there and cry it out before saying anything. “I’m sorry.” He whispers into your hair.
You finally look up at him, your makeup clearly smudged, “No, it’s not your fault. It’s my fault. I should have paid more attention. I should have chosen a different dress. I should have just stayed at home.”
Felix heart breaks at you thinking you are the one to blame, “Angel, no. Listen to me.” He gently cups your face, his soft boba eyes locking with yours. “This is not your fault. You did nothing wrong. People have been rude and disrespectful and I should have said something from the very beginning. I should have protected you better.”
“No, don’t say that. You have to protect your image and act professional. If you got upset, it would cause backlash and you might lose your ambassadorship.”
“It’s not worth it if it means hurting you.” A tear rolls down his cheek as his heart hurts for you.
You reach up to wipe the tear, “Look, now I made you cry.” You look down and see foundation where your face had been against his chest. “And I messed up your shirt.” You feel the tears starting to fall again. “I’m sorry. I’m just ruining everything. I-“
Felix cuts off your spiral by slamming his lips against yours. You melt into him, all of your feelings spilling over. Your tears mix with his as he holds you tight against him. He kisses you like you might disappear if he stops. You eventually pull back for air, but lean your forehead against his.
His hand gently cups your jaw, his thumb rubbing your cheek, “You are not ruining anything. You make everything better just by being here and I am so lucky to have you standing by my side.”
“But I’m nobody. I’m not some gorgeous model or famous celebrity. Everyone’s right. I don’t belong here. You deserve someone better to stand by your side.”
“I don’t want anyone else by my side. I don’t want a model or a celebrity. I want you. You aren’t a nobody. You are everything to me. You are prettier than any model, shine brighter than any star in Hollywood. You are the only person I want and nothing will ever change that.”
“Even though I can’t afford to wear Louis Vuitton.”
Felix huffs out a small laugh, “I don’t care what brand you wear. You could wear a trash bag and you would still look gorgeous. I don’t care about money or status. I care about you.”
You let out a shaky breath as some of the tension in your shoulders releases. Felix kisses the end of your nose, “Let’s go home.”
“But the event-“
“Is not more important than you. Nobody will even notice I’m gone.” He gently pulls you to stand up, “Plus, if I see that photographer again, I may not be able to hold back.”
You let out a small laugh and Felix relaxes at the sound. “You, getting angry? That’s a rare sight.”
“Nobody messes with my girl.”
You head home and as the adrenaline fades, you feel yourself begin to crash. Felix helps you remove your makeup and get ready for bed. As you snuggle close to him in bed, his warmth wrapping around you, you feel the last of the tension leave your body. In his arms you feel safe. As sleep begins to overtake you, you whisper against his chest, “I love you.”
He places a soft kiss to the top of your head and as you drift off to sleep you hear a soft, “I love you too.”
-
A few days later, a package from Louis Vuitton comes in the mail. It is addressed directly to you. You open the card and see a hand written note from Nicolas.
Dear Y/N,
I am so sorry to hear about the accident that transpired the other night. That was unprofessional and not up to the Louis Vuitton standard. We give you our sincerest apologies and will make sure something like this does not happen again. I hope this will not keep you from future events. Felix is lucky to have someone as kind and strong as you by his side. I wish you both the best. Please take this gift as a sign of good will.
Sincerely, Nicolas Ghesquière and the Louis Vuitton staff
You open the box to see a Louis Vuitton dress, bag, and scarf. You turn to Felix who is standing in the doorway, “Did you have anything to do with this?”
He pushes himself off the doorframe with a smirk, moving to loop his arms around your waist, “I may have told him what happened.” He places a kiss on your forehead, “And that I wanted that camera man fired.”
“Felix!” You lightly his chest.
“What? You think I’m going to let someone get away with treating my angel like that?”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yes I did,” He gives you a soft, lingering kiss, “Because nobody gets to disrespect you.”
“I like this protective side of you. It’s kind of attractive”
He smirks, “Oh yeah? How attractive?”
You lean in, your lips ghosting over his, “Very attractive.”
He closes the gap between you, sealing his promise to always love and protect you no matter what.
Summary: What I imagine it would be like for SKZ to change a tire
Content: slice of life (?), comedy, just the boys being their dramatic hilarious selves
A/N: came up with this while changing my tired because ya girl had to phone multiple friends and look it up...I have changed a tire multiple times before this btw. Anywaaaaay, I wanna make a note to say that I think all of the boys are very capable and smart. This is just funsies. Also probs the only time I will write a non-romance fic lol
Masterlist
~~~~
It’s a beautiful summer day, sun shining, warm breeze blowing through the open windows. Music blasts on the radio while Hyunjin drives, looking cool as ever. His Versace sunglasses sit on his nose as his long hair blows in the wind, framing his flawless face. Next to him, Felix leans his head back against the seat, his eyes closed in satisfaction as he feels the summer breeze. In the back seat, Han dramatically sings along with the radio, his hands dancing wildly.
“AND IIIIIIIIIIIIIII WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOOOOOOOOU!” Han practically yells into his imaginary microphone. “Your turn!” He puts his fake microphone up for Hyunjin to sing into.
Hyunjin leans over to halfway sing into the fake microphone, “And I will always love you.”
“Felix!” Han turns to Felix as the key changes, making the notes even higher than before.
Felix peaks one eye open with a smirk. Dropping his voice the octave, he bellows, “And I will always love you!”
The other two laugh, having expected him to try the high note, but equally as entertained with the switch. As the car fills with laughter, the three suddenly feel the tires roll over something and then gradual bumpiness. They furrow their brows as Hyunjin pulls to the side of the road to check the issue. He steps out of the car and sees the back left tire is suddenly flat.
“What’s wrong?” Felix calls out.
“A flat tire.”
“Really?!” Han jumps out to see the tire as if it’s a new toy. Felix also gets out and rounds the car to join. The three stand there staring down at the empty tire.
“Oh man, we’re going to get in so much trouble.” Hyunjin sighs.
“Why? It’s just a flat tire.” Felix questions.
“This is a company car…that I didn’t exactly ask before borrowing.” Hyunjin looks away, suddenly finding the hem of his sleeve very interesting.
“You didn’t ask?!” Han panics.
“There wasn’t anyone around to ask and I had the keys. I figured it was fine since we use them all the time. We weren’t supposed to be gone that long anyway.”
“Oh man, Chan’s going to kill us.” Han starts pacing, worry flooding his features. “What are we going to do?”
“We can just change the tire.” Felix is already moving towards the trunk where the spare tire is.
“Do you know how to change a tire?” Hyunjin follows.
“No, but it can’t be that hard, right?” Felix’s famous last words.
The three of them stand around the various tools, having no idea how to use any of them. Hyunjin picks up a crossbar, his face scrunched in confusion, “Why is this so big? I thought all you needed was a wrench.”
“Why is there a triangle block?” Han muses, holding said item.
Felix huffs, “I think we are going to have to call Chan.”
“No!” Hyunjin yells.
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to get in trouble. We are grown men. We can do this ourselves.” Hyunjin stands taller, holding his crossbar high. He crouches down to the flat tire and puts the crossbar up to it. He tilts his head, one eye squinted as if he is taking a picture. After a moment, he stands up and turns back to the other two, “Yeah, we need to call someone to help.”
“Well who are we supposed to call?” Han whines.
The three ponder through their options, when Hyunjin snaps, “I’ve got it! We can call IN-ah.”
“Why him?” Felix questions.
“He knows how to do things. Our Busan boy surely knows how to change a tire.” Hyunjin pulls out his phone and texts I.N.
Come quick! *sends location
Jeongin sits in his empty dorm, lazing around on a rare day off when he gets a text from Hyunjin. His brows furrow at the cryptic message.
He quickly replies, already moving to pull his shoes on.
Are you okay?
No reply
Jeongin panics as he drives to their location. It’s in the middle of a road. What happened? Did they get into a wreck? His palms start sweating as his grip tightens on the wheel. Every red-light ups his heart rate. Finally arriving, he quickly pulls to the side and see’s Felix, Han, and Hyunjin standing around the car. No signs of blood or damage yet. He gets out and races over almost as fast as his pulse, “What’s wrong?!”
Hyunjin waves, “IN-ah!”
Jeongin practically crashes into Hyunjin, grabbing his shoulders, “What happened? Are you okay?” His eyes are wide with panic.
“We’re fine.”
“Eh? Then why did you message me ‘come quick’ with nothing but your location?”
Hyunjin cocks and eyebrow, “Are you worried about me?”
“Yes-wait, why am I here?”
Hyunjin didn’t hear anything past ‘yes.’ He throws his arms around Jeongin, “IN-ah was worried about me! He loves me so much!” Hyunjin squishes his faces making cooing noises at him.
Jeongin pulls back, attempting to peel out of Hyunjin’s grasp, “Ya! Why am I here?”
“Oh, right,” Hyunjin stops, remembering the reason he called the maknae to begin with. “We got a flat tire.”
Jeongin freezes in disbelief, “A flat tire?”
“Yeah.”
“You called me out here for a flat tire?!” Jeongin runs a hand over his face, frustrated with Hyunjin.
Felix finally speaks up, “Do you know how to change one?”
“Why would I know how to change a tire?” He stares at his hyung.
“You’re from Busan!” Han yells.
“What does that have to do with changing a tire?” Jeongin yells back.
“I don’t know!” Han admits loudly.
Felix groans, “Great, so this was pointless.”
“Why don’t you just call Channie-hyung?”
“Because he stole the car,” Han points accusingly at Hyunjin.
“You what?!”
“I didn’t steal the car!” Hyunjin yells directly into Jeongin’s ear, “I just borrowed…without asking.”
“That’s stealing!” All three boys chime at once.
Hyunjin clutches his ears, ever the dramatic, as if he has been deafened, “We don’t need him anyway. He’s probably stuck working on something in the studio. It would be rude to bother him.” Hyunjin crosses his arms as if he made a good point.
Felix matches the sass by crossing his arms and cocking a brow, “Then who do you suggest we call?”
“Maybe we shouldn’t let him pick, considering his choice didn’t work out.” Han gestures to Jeongin.
“Says the one who can’t even drive.”
Han dramatically clutches his pearls in mock offense, “How dare! Everyone knows that I am a passenger princess!”
“Why don’t we call Lee Know?” Felix suggests.
“Of course! He definitely knows how to change a tire,” Hyunjin claps Felix on the back like a proud father, “This is why you’re the smart one.”
Han grabs his phone and dials up Lee Know, putting him on speaker.
“What did you do?” The monotone voice answers through the phone.
“Why would you assume I did something?” Han squeaks.
“Because you went to hangout with Hyunjin and Felix and now you’re calling me out of the blue.”
“Well I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Yes you did!” Hyunjin chimes in.
“We need help with a flat tire.” Felix adds.
“I didn’t pop the tire!” Han whines but no one listens, totally ignoring the fact that he can’t drive.
“Will you come help us?” Hyunjin pouts.
“No.” They can hear the blank expression on his face.
“What?!”
“Why not!”
“Please!”
A chorus of whines and pleads echo through the speaker, straight into Lee Knows ear.
“Ya! Stop yelling in my ear!”
“Not until you help us.” Han pouts
“Then I’ll hang up.”
“No wait! Please come help us. I’ll buy you pudding.” Han gives his best puppy dog eyes even though Lee Know can’t see them.
There is a pause while Lee Know weighs the effort of helping with the worth of pudding. “Fine. But I want double the pudding.”
He hangs up, leaving Han no room to negotiate.
Lee Know shows up, clearly unhappy to be there. “Which tire?”
The boys beam running over to the flat tire as if it’s a trophy. “Thank you hyung! You’re the best.”
Lee Know shrugs, “I know.” He notices Jeongin lingering, “Why are you here?”
“They asked for help without context. So when I showed up and didn’t know how to change a tire, you became the next victim.”
Lee Know sighs, “Gather around children. You need to learn how to do this so that I don’t have to help you again.”
Lee Know gathers the tools and lays them out in front of him. He stares at each one like it personally offended him.
“What’s wrong?” Felix asks.
“I don’t remember how to do this.”
“WHAT?” Han screeches. Jeongin loses it and is on the ground laughing. “I thought you said you knew how to change a tire?!”
“I did. At one point in my life.”
“We need that point to be now!” Han crumbles to the ground, Hyunjin dramatically falling with him. They hold each other, fake crying, “We’re doomed! Stuck here forever.”
Hyunjin wails, “We’ll never be saved.”
Jeongin stands up after recovering from his laughing fit, “Maybe if you weren’t such a bad driver.”
Hyunjin whips his head in offense, “It wasn’t my fault! I didn’t see anything in the road.”
Felix pats his back gently, “Maybe next time, don’t steal a car.”
“You stole this car?!” Lee Know’s tone is simultaneously shocked and confused, “I didn’t know you were smart enough to do that.”
“Says the one who doesn’t remember how to change a tire.” Hyunjin quips.
“You can’t change one either.” Jeongin reminds.
Lee Know puts the pieces together of this pathetic situation, “So because you stole a car, you called me instead of Chan-ah.”
“No….yes.”
Lee Know just scoffs, pulling out his phone to text someone. Hyunjin immediately stands up, “Who are you texting?”
“Chan.”
“No!” Hyunjin leaps for the phone, but Lee Knows cat-like reflexes are quicker.
“Too late.”
Hyunjin melts into the ground, “My fate is sealed. I’ll be put in jail for the rest of my life.”
“So you admit you stole the car?” Felix asks.
“What does it matter, if I’m already doomed?” He sighs dramatically, his flamboyancy always present.
Not too long after Lee Know sent the text, yet another car joins the caravan. Out steps Seungmin. “What a pathetic sight.”
“Seungmin?” Felix questions, “Why are you here?”
“Lee Know texted me.”
Hyunjin, who had been lying ‘dead’ on the ground, jerks up to look at Lee Know. The mischievous cat just shrugs with a teasing smirk.
“So none of you idiots know how to change a tire, huh?” Seungmin stands triumphantly, clearly enjoying the sight.
“Do you?” Jeongin probes, not trusting anyone anymore.
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
Han, Felix, and Hyunjin are beaming. Han runs up and hugs Seungmin, bouncing up and down, “Our hero!”
“Let go of me,” He shoves Han off, brushing his clothes like they got dirt on them, which they probably did since Han had just been dramatically lying on the ground.
“So are you going to help us?” Felix asks.
“For a price,” Seungmin smirks.
“Nah uh, not again!” Han immediately cuts in.
“Fine. Then I’ll leave you to your misery.” Seungmin begins walking back to his car, but Felix grabs his arm.
“No, wait! I’ll bake you brownies or something.”
Seungmin thinks on it for a moment, “Do dishes for a week.”
Felix sighs in defeat, “Fine.”
Seungmin looks at Jeongin and Lee Know, “Why are you two still here?”
“I felt bad leaving them alone.” Jeongin kindly replies.
“I wanted to watch them suffer,” A very Lee Know answer.
Seungmin gets to work. He places the triangle block in front of the opposite front tire and sets up the jack for when they will need to lift the car. Grabbing the cross bar, he sets it in place and stands up, “Turn it.” He commands Hyunjin.
“Why me?”
“Because it’s your fault. Turn it.” Seungmin gestures again.
Hyunjin pouts, but follows orders. He turns the bar clockwise with great effort, but little success. “This is too hard.”
“You barely tried.” Seungmin complains.
“Then you come do it, if it’s so easy!”
“Not my problem.”
Felix taps Hyunjin out, “Let me try.” Felix puts his foot on the bar pushing down, while pulling the other side up. Breaking a sweat, he barely gets it to move.
“Oh come on, it can’t be that hard.” Han complains, “Let me try.” He immediately jumps on the bar. It moves a bit, but he trips and falls face first on the ground.
Hyunjin collapses to the ground laughing. Felix makes sure he is okay before also laughing.
Lee Know scoffs, taking a picture for blackmail later, “Pabo.”
After many attempts by the three musketeers and several refusals from their ‘helpers,’ they manage to move the bar one whole rotation. Han lies on his back, sweat starting to form on his face, “This is hopeless. We’re too weak.”
“I should have gone to the gym more.” Hyunjin whines.
Felix has a lightbulb go off, “Guys, we should call Changbin. I bet he could easily turn this thing.”
Once again, the boys retreat to their phone, calling in more calvary. Of course Changbin agrees, because why wouldn’t he take the chance to be the heroic muscle. When he shows up, he is already flexing, “Here I am! Your hero.” He claims dramatically.
Seungmin rolls his eyes, “This is going straight to his head.”
Changbin drops his voice lower for thematic effect, “Where is the issue?” The boys point to the now very deflated tire where Han sits pulling on the bar, but not actually trying. “Step back little one.” Changbin clears the space around him, stretching like he is about to run a marathon. With one last flex on his muscles, he grabs the bar and pulls. The screw slowly but surely starts turning causing the group to gasp. He manages one rotation before the bar stops turning. He lets out a small laugh before pulling again. No luck. He makes several more attempts with increasingly odd positions before falling back to the ground.
“NOOOOOOOO” Han falls to his knees, crying out, “I thought you were supposed to be strong.”
“Hey! It took all three of you to turn it one rotation.” Changbin complains.
“We’re doomed! We should just give up. Leave the car for dead.”
“We can’t! It’s a company car,” Felix reminds him.
“What are we going to do?” Hyunjin looks to the others for help.
Jeongin puts a hand on his shoulder, “I think you know what you have to do.”
Hyunjin’s shoulders slump in defeat, “I know.”
Chan is sitting in the studio, listening to the half done melody for the third time when his phone rings. He looks to see Hyunjin FaceTiming him. Picking up the call, he is immediately bombarded by Hyunjin frantically apologizing while Felix comforts Han who is fake crying in the background. The chaotic scene is so much and so very Stray Kids.
“Woah woah, slow down. What is going on?”
“Well, you see, it’s a long story,” Hyunjin says with the most innocent look he can manage.
“No it’s not!” Lee Know chimes from off screen.
“They got a flat tire,” Seungmin adds.
“And no one can fix it,” Jeongin peaks in frame.
“What are you all doing there?” Chan is throughly confused now.
“They’re cowards,” Lee Know calls, refusing to move from his seated position.
“Hey! That’s mean.” Han pouts.
“And Changbin is weak,” Seungmin unhelpfully adds, earning an angry yell from Changbin who is also off screen somewhere.
Chan sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. Clearly getting a straight answer was not going to happen. “Send me your location. I’ll be there in a minute.”
The call ends, Chan letting out a half laugh, half sigh. He saves his work and heads off to their location.
When Chan finally arrives, it looks like chaos. Seven grown men are scattered around a car on the side of the road, five separate cars lined up behind each other. Hyunjin and Han are hiding behind Felix, who still doesn’t understand why Han is scared. Lee Know sits against the non-flat tire, clearly amused by the situation. Changbin is still arguing with Seungmin over his earlier comment on his strength and Jeongin stands around like a tired mother.
“What on earth is going on?” Chans Australian accent is thick with confusion. Several of them start speaking at once, prompting Chan to cut them all off again. “One person at a time.”
Han pushes Hyunjin forward as if sending him off to an execution, “We got a flat tire.” Hyunjin says sheepishly.
Chan looks through the chaos to see the tire in question. “And it took seven of you to change it?”
“No,” Jeongin adds, “They haven’t changed it yet.”
Seungmin slaps his hand over Changbin’s mouth, successfully shutting him up, “Excuse me? I’m the only one who actually did anything.”
Changbin shoves his hand off, “Not true! I turned it.”
Seungmin covers his mouth again, “And look at how that turned out for you.”
Chan shakes his head in disbelief of his kids. “Alright, settle down.” He walks over to the tire, placing his hands on the cross bar.
“I don’t think that will help,” Changbin calls.
“If Changbin-hyung can’t get it, you probably can’t either,” Han uselessly adds.
Chan begins turning the bar counter-clockwise. He pulls the bar two full rotations before stepping back with a heavy breath, “You weren’t kidding when you said this was hard.” He looks up to see all the kids staring at him. “What?”
They break out into a mixture of laughter and outrage.
“Are you kidding me?! We’ve been turning it the wrong way this whole time?!” Hyunjin yells.
“No wonder it didn’t budge.” Jeongin muses.
“So that means I’m actually really strong because I made it even tighter.” Changbin stands proud, reassured in his strength once again.
Seungmin and Lee Know are laughing at the bunch.
“Did you know this?” Felix accuses.
“You didn’t?” Seungmin replies.
Hyunjin’s eyes go wide with rage, “You told me to turn it!”
“I never said which direction.”
“Why didn’t you say anything,” Han purses his lips.
“Because it was funny watching you struggle,” Lee Know smirks, “Plus it meant you had to call Chan-ah.”
Felix gasps, “You set us up!”
Lee Know just shrugs, looking innocent, “Not my fault you’re a pabo.”
Chan just looks on at the chaos and laughs. That’s his family alright.
Chan changes the tire with ease (after undoing Changbin’s unnecessary tightening), his dad mode switched on. Wiping off his hand he turns around to be bombarded by the three boys who started all this.
“Thank you, hyung.”
“You’re the best.”
“What would we do without you.”
“Not change a tire, that’s for sure,” Chan teases while gently patting each one on the head. “Why didn’t you call me first?”
Felix and Han immediately pull back, choosing to be unassociated with the issue.
Hyunjin moves his gaze to the ground, guilt pricking at his chest, “I took the car without permission. I thought you would be upset if you knew I messed up a company car.”
Chan knits his brows, “You had permission.”
Hyunjin’s gaze snaps up, “What? But I didn’t ask anyone.”
“Yes you did,” Chan reaches in his pocket to grab his phone. He pulls up a text thread between him and Hyunjin, “Remember, you asked me if you could take it and I told you the staff said it was fine.”
All eyes turn to Hyunjin.
“Are you serious? We could have avoided this whole mess and called Channie-hyung first?” Felix voice drops into that low register that makes him sound scarier than he is.
The extra four members breakout laughing.
“I told you I didn’t steal the car!” Hyunjin puts his hands on his hips triumphantly, despite not having won anything.
“That would have been nice to know IN THE FIRST PLACE,” Han grabs Hyunjin by the shoulders, his debut personality starting to show. “How could you do this to me? Do you know how hungry I am? It’s been hours and we could have been done in 30 minutes.” Han is fully shaking Hyunjin’s shoulders, the fake crying coming back.
“How long have you been out here?” Chan asks.
“Like all day,” Felix estimates.
“And you have all just sat out here, doing nothing?” Chan looks at the extra four members, “why?”
“It was funny and I had nothing better to do,” Seungmin honestly answers.
Chan looks around at his chaotic family, Hyunjin getting scolded by Felix and Han. Lee Know and Seungmin laughing at them. Changbin and Jeongin help put away the tools and switched tire. Here, on the side of the road, eight grown men being dramatic, six cars lined up, and one (finally) changed tire, it’s a total mess. Chaotic, weird, and so perfectly them. This is Stray Kids and Chan wouldn’t have it any other way.