nana @nn20x - Tumblr Blog

"FAN"cast || kim mingyu

⚬ pairing: actor! kim mingyu x author fem! reader ⚬ word count: 15.7k ⚬ warnings: (pls read carefully) mentions of food, alcohol, smut warnings: sex against a wall, squirting, oral (f. receiving), v minor possession kink, he repeatedly calls her a sweetheart hehe, switches to his POV sometimes MDNI ⚬ genres: fluff, romance, tiniest bit of angst but not really, not to toot my own horn but i fink i just wrote a killer romcom. jungkook, @jakedustry and @livmarauder make minor appearances!!

synopsis <3 as a serious author who has been trying to earn a serious repute in the industry, romance rumors with a superstar is never really a good news. and when the said superstar leans into those rumors, it gets even more annoying to deal with - especially when you have to shoot a movie with him!

not beta read and written in a single day cause im cray cray like that, dont judge!! pleek support authors by REBLOGGING and reviewing our works!

credits: to @strangergraphics for the pretty dividers <3

playlist - - robbers by the 1975 - borderline by tame impala - stargirl interlude by lana del rey and the weeknd

author's note: part of my valentine's day event, lmk if you'd want to be tagged :)

There is something about the scalding airport coffee, that you over-saturate with at least double the amount of sugar than what you would usually go for, that always screws all your exhaustion-weighed muscles back into your place and gives you that additional skip in your step as you checkout.

That, when paired with the radiance on your skin and your self-satisfied grin as you feel the weight of your recently completed manuscript tucked proudly under your arm, would make no one suspect that you have just gotten off a sixteen-hour long flight. After a full summer of nursing tans under the West-coast sun and enjoying the Californian lifestyle, it feels so good to be back with yet another story that you want to eagerly share with your team and eventually, your readers.

Talking about the readers…it is definitely strange just how many of them have recognized you and asked for your autograph today. While you do expect such a reaction when something new comes out, it is definitely uncalled for when you’re just simply returning from a vacation. Your latest book was published over a year ago and though it was a best-seller on every lists that matter, the frenzy had since died down only to be reignited again this winter when your fans began fancasting famous actors and actresses when they caught wind about one of the prominent production houses acquiring rights to adapt one of your books on screen.

You didn’t know much about the social buzz, you had learnt better than to go online to gauge fan-reaction when it comes to your art. But you do know the name that often seems to pop up when it comes to the dream casting of the male leads of your books.

Kim Mingyu.

Arguably one of the most sensational names in the current cohort of young actors with an unimaginable fan following across all social media platforms and a generational talent backed by critical acclaim.

People—your readers—always tell you just how similar he is to the romantic leads that you write.

Take the current one for example, who is hovering near baggage claim with a dog-eared paperback of one of your best-sellers while you sign autographs for her and her sister.

“Any news about the cast for ‘The Art of You’?” she asks.

You politely shake your head, even if there is some news about it, you are yet to turn your work phone back on to read the texts or emails from Hunter, your manager, pertaining to the subject.

“It’s still in the talking stages.” You answer, accepting another paperback to sign from the guy beside her.

“Well I don’t know if you saw…but Kim Mingyu was seen wearing this coffee-stained white cable-knit sweater at dinner that totally reminded me of Matthias from that first date scene in ‘The Art of You’ when Allie spills coffee over him,” she squeals. “He had the classic Matthias tortoise-shell glasses on too!”

Your fingers stutter around the pen, it is such a peculiar outfit—the sole reason why you decided to write it in was the distinct nature of it and its relevance to that specific scene and storyline. It is certainly odd that someone with a full team of stylists would be caught wearing something like that in a similar setting.

“Oh,” you give her an awkward laugh, “is that so?”

When she nods eagerly, expecting you to say more with her camera pointed right in your face, you feel yourself flush even deeper. This—the recording, the unforeseen prodding—this is exactly what you did not sign up for when it comes to being a published author.

You lug your bag over your shoulder, watching your manager Hunter drawing closer and closer to you behind the sparse huddle of ten odd people that have surrounded you.

“That’s a weird coincidence.” You mumble to the girl who is still expecting a better response from you, before adjusting your sunglasses and letting Hunter pull you closer to herself.

But before you can fully walk away from them, you catch a round of murmurs between the girl who was recording you and her friend.

“She totally got flustered when you said his name!” “I know right? I think it’s true.” “What a fairytale if it is…”

⸻

You don’t even wait for her to fasten her seatbelt before you ask Hunter, “What was that about?”

She clears her throat. Odd. Because Hunter never clears her throat like that.

“Just some fans…y’know, excited to see you.”

“No, that was definitely very strange,” you say, already unlocking your work-phone to go through any important emails or texts that you must have missed. There are none. “Awh, come on Hunty, just tell me what it is! I don’t see anything specific in the mail.”

Hunter peels her eyes off from the road, only momentarily, to give you this very plastic, very fake grin.

“I think it’s best if you hear that from your beloved publicist.”

Instantly, you feel all the radiance and heat that you had nurtured under your skin on your vacation perspire at the back of your neck.

“Is–is it something serious?” you ask, “No, but…Jungkook would tell me if something terrible happened on the publicity front, won’t he?”

Hunter sighs, rubbing her brows with this given-up look she gives you each time you show even an ounce of trust towards your friend and publicist Jeon Jungkook.

“All I’m gonna say is this,” Hunter says, slowing the car down at the red-light, “you trust that bunny-teethed boy way too much.”

Your head oscillates from Hunter, your manager, on your right to Khadija, your literary agent on your left before finally setting on your publicist whose ears are turning pinker with every moment passed without any words from you.

You try to exert authority in the room—you are their employer after all—by tightening your posture and holding your head high, but your sigh betrays you by shuddering right before you speak.

Three pairs of eyes turn to you, concerned and anticipating.

“A dating rumour.” You repeat Jungkook’s last words from before his smile had disappeared, bit by bit, as you sank down on the seat you are currently seated on when he said: ‘Oh, nothing serious. Mingyu has been spotted wearing and doing shit that is so much associated with you and your works that people think something’s going on between the two of you. Just a dating rumor.’

“A dating rumour.” You let your head fall back, contemplating consequences.

Beside you, Hunter snorts. “Except it isn’t “just a dating rumour” when the studio wants to milk this by casting Mingyu in the lead role for ‘The Art of You’.” She turns to you, “See I told Jungkook to control this when it started…I knew something like this would happen.”

In front of you, your publicist scoots closer, trying to garner your attention away from your manager before she fully convinces you to fire him.

“But think about it!” Jungkook insists, “these are just fan-made theories from your readers that have no validity to them…it only stirs up interest among public and if the studio does decide to cast him, that only means more sales for us because his fans would certainly be rushing to their nearest bookstores to get your books to look for ‘clues’.”

Jungkook gives you an expectant look, before conclusively adding with a shrug. “His fans will gravitate to benefit you, your fans are already doing him a favor by hyping him up as Matthias—that’s basically cross pollination. What’s the harm?”

Beside you, Khadija quips in, “The harm is, Jungkook, that I am trying to have the literary industry take her seriously. Dating rumors with a world renowned actor only brings unwanted attention to her personal life…and while it might work for actors, it is never favorable for authors.”

Hunter, who has been quite beside you for far too long, rests her head on her fist and sighs, “You can never write a character that’s an actor if this gains more wind than it already has. Scandal, scandal. Drama, drama.”

“Not just that,” Khadija adds to it, “in fact every book you write about romance will be taken by the public as a morsel of your love-life. It’ll be all ‘oh did she write this about him?’ and nothing more.”

You stare at Jungkook with a worried frown, waiting for him to present something more concrete than just ‘higher sales’ in defense of these very valid concerns about the long-term consequences of this little rumor.

Jungkook straightens in his chair like he’s been waiting for this exact cue, palms pressed to his knees, eyes wide and earnest.

“Okay, okay,” he says quickly, holding up both hands before either ladies on your side can berate him more. “I hear you. I do. And you’re not wrong. All of that could happen. But it also doesn’t have to.”

Jungkook powers through anyway. “First of all, no confirmation. No denial. We don’t say a word. We let it fizzle on its own because people on the internet have the attention span of a goldfish with Wi-Fi.”

“That’s optimistic,” Hunter mutters.

“It’s strategic,” Jungkook shoots back, then turns to you again. “Second, this isn’t a scandal. There are no blurry photos, no secret dinners, no leaked texts. The man wore a sweater and drank coffee like a civilian. That’s not dating, that’s…autumn.”

Khadija’s eyes widen with disbelief. “That is not the only thing that has happened, you—” she turns to you, “he’s only mentioning the sweater incident because you heard about it at the airport. There have been far weird consequences…it’s almost like Kim Mingyu is campaigning to get the lead role for all your books.”

“Yeah, tell me why did that man have a whole magazine photoshoot wearing a pink linen shirt with blue orchids in a museum out of all places like that’s not exactly how Nathaniel proposed to Evie in your book ‘Method loving’.”

Jungkook jumps in to defend the guy like Hunter just personally offended him, “okay that magazine photoshoot was not—”

Hunter cuts him off, “she’ll always be known as the silly little romance author who—”

“Okay I am going to stop you there because I have so many opinions about the phrase ‘silly little romance author’.”

“Oh get over it, you know what I meant.”

“Enough you guys!” You finally stand up, your hands firm around your hips. “I have heard enough.”

You bite your lip as your team shifts around you uncomfortably.

“I don’t think this—me being linked to a superstar romantically—is a good idea. It has too many long term shortcomings.”

You cross your arms before your chest, fixing Jungkook in his place in front of you, “Kookie, this should have been handled way before it snowballed to this extent. But bygones are bygones, I want you to handle the narrative before my new manuscript gets green-lighted to be released and before the production for the movie begins.”

Jungkook slumps a little, but nods regardless, already pulling his phone out to make calls and do what he does best. Hunter gives him that ‘told you so’ smirk meanwhile Khadija has already forgotten the discourse as she flips through what is going to be your next best-seller.

It has been such a weird day. And while you were basking in the sunshine trapped deep inside your skin and the feel of the warm beach sand loose under your toes just a few hours ago, now all you want to do is take a suffocatingly hot shower, draw your curtains tight and sleep all the jet lag away.

But before you leave the living room as your team scrambles to handle the slight damage and prepare for all the big plans that would soon begin unfolding now that you’re back in business, you turn over your shoulder to give them one last verdict.

“Call the production house and tell them that I request them to cast literally anyone as Matthias but Kim Mingyu.”

Turns out, it is not so easy to just pick and choose the actors of your choice for your own story when a studio that is about to invest millions into it is involved. Especially not when the smarty-pants with finance degrees from Harvard and Yale at the said studio have already made predictions about the potential hefty gains that a particular casting would bring in based on the current metrics.

After a whole week of back-and-forths with the studio representatives over emails and calls that lasted for hours to no avail, they have invited you in for one last-ditch attempt to convince you about Mingyu because a sole disagreement is definitely not worth stalling such a profitable project over.

You enter the elevator in a daze, mumbling a quick 'thank you' to whoever was holding it for you without looking up from the freshly painted pink ribbons on your nails as you contemplate.

When you had spoken with the director and the casting manager some four days ago about considering someone else apart from the popular fan-vote by citing the example: ‘I mean, everyone wanted Sabrina Carpenter to play Rapunzel but that didn’t happen, how about we consider someone else too? Someone new?’, they had tried to make peace with you by saying they’ll be casting a new face for the female lead.

And when you still insisted, they had told you that upon your earlier request, they had reached out to the agents of the actors whom they deemed would be a good call but all of them were either unavailable or nervous due to Kim Mingyu’s interest and his name being associated with the project for so long—which was just a professional way of saying that the (not so) little shit was most probably threatening other actors from taking the role.

Your nails dig into your fist at the very thought of such blatant bullying.

You are supposed to meet the director along with Kim Mingyu today to work out whatever it is that is worrying you. And even though there is a certain stubborn part of you that is convinced that there’s no way you can be at complete peace with this casting, you are open to the possibilities.

The elevator door opens with a ping and you realized you never pushed the button for the floor that you were supposed to be on. Yet, here you are regardless. Perhaps the person in the elevator was also going to the same floor as you.

Whatever.

You begin walking out of the elevator and towards the director’s office, feeling how the weight of someone’s presence around you still hasn’t shifted. You clutch your bag hard, not because you think it is about to be snatched in this multi-billion dollar building, but because you are intrigued about the person who has been walking just two steps behind you. Perhaps they are going to the room adjacent to the one you are supposed to be in, that would explain it. But you are too shy to look up and see for yourself who it is…an awkward eye-contact, that tight-lipped smile and a stuttered ‘hi’...you’re doing everything to avoid it.

By the time you reach the director’s office, you expect your companion to keep walking further. But a bigger, strong hand grabs the doorknob, twists it and opens the door for you. It is then when you blink up, confused…only to be greeted by a watered down version of the dazzling smile that has been a staple across billboards and advertisements ever since his debut in a blockbuster hit.

Kim Mingyu.

An unmistakable shiver runs down your spine at the sight of him so close to you. You look and feel so small compared to him. Not just in size, but the very charismatic and open warmth of him that is so large that it feels like a hug even though he isn’t touching you.

He smirks, tilting his head just slightly and the world tilts towards him—you feel your own gravity tipping further and further into him to a point that you have to clutch the doorway to station your balance.

“After you,” he mumbles in a gentle voice.

Your head jerks from his face, to the empty office, to the elevator then back to him.

“You were…in…” you point to the elevator, “oh my gosh I’m so sorry I didn’t notice.”

“Yeah, you have pretty poor spatial awareness.” He laughs, nudging you in and once you are both inside the office, he closes the door behind with a soft click.

You wait for him to say something else, or give you a cue…anything. But he doesn’t. He simply walks around the small table, eyeing the several magazines and begins flipping through the one that has his face on its cover.

So cocky.

“I guess we are both before time.” You mutter under your breath, checking your wrist-watch before slipping your bag off your shoulder and taking a chair.

As if just like you, he had been waiting for a cue as well, you hear a chair scrape against the floor as he sits down after you.

Is he nervous?

You get the answer to that question when he slumps back with that comfortable kind of ease that makes the office seem like his bedroom. The way his legs stretch on either side of your tightly pressed ones, almost bracketing them under the table without touching doesn’t go unnoticed by you. It is such a simple gesture, but it eases you nonetheless.

You busy yourself with nothing on your phone, just opening and closing your text messages, trying your best to conceal the shiver in your fingers from him. You don’t look at him, not properly at least, but the two times that your eyes were able to make it past his broad chest and onto his face, you caught that soft smile as he watched you.

“So,” he says lightly, finally breaking the silence, “why don’t you want me to be in your movie?”

The question prompts you to look at him, your eyes wide and mouth slightly parted at the directness. Before you can rush to smooth this over by throwing some half-lies and diplomatic reasons at him, you notice the amused twitch in his lips and that playful glaze in his eyes. It makes you stare at him, for some reason, like it is irresistible not to.

Perhaps that is why he is such a successful actor—one cannot simply not look at him.

And because you are staring with such rapt attention, you finally catch it.

The slight mullet.

The linen white shirt.

Your mouth drops open…because he looks very much like a medieval Prince who has been cursed to live in the current timeline where he falls for an eccentric librarian who believes that her aunt’s forgotten library is a time portal in itself—which is exactly the plot of the book that you have just finished writing on your vacation and which is currently being edited to be released.

If someone had photographed him coming here looking like this, or if he decides to grow the mullet even more and lean into that Princely look, you’re going to have problems. A very specific, a very personal one because this would only stir the already overheated pot more.

And here he is asking you why don’t you want to be associated with him?

Stupid.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid!!

You realize the intensity of what kicking an actor as big and influential as Kim Mingyu might entail only after you have already hit his shin—hard—with your wedged heel.

He instantly recoils his leg away from you with a confused scowl. “Did you just…” he blinks, “what was that for!?”

“It was an accident.” You hiss.

“No it wasn’t! You totally kicked me deliberately.”

“Well maybe stop spreading your legs in other people’s spaces!” You can only wish he realizes the metaphor hidden in your statement—you need him and the mention of his name around you to be gone.

Whatever banter that could have happened soon dissolves when the door creaks open and the director Izabelle, her assistant and the casting director join you with their polished smiles which are enough to tell you that they have come armed with all the tricks they can use to make this work.

But you are a tough cookie—at least that’s what you tell yourself even though you are unable to scowl strictly, like how you planned to, and end up smiling at them instead.

Mingyu is already in a much better place confident-wise as he reaches forward to give them all friendly side hugs asking questions about their health, family and things that only people who have worked closely together might ask.

You feel awfully a lot like an outsider in a room of people who are meeting to discuss something that you created.

Thankfully though, Mingyu doesn’t mention your weird behavior, just shrugs and ropes you into the conversation by saying ‘yeah we were just talking about that’ on some topic that you definitely weren’t talking about.

Once everyone is seated, you feel the energy shift a little. The discussions go on for a better part of the next hour with not a lot of inputs from Mingyu beyond an occasional grin that he shoots your way every time you talk about Matthias. So far, the discourse has yielded nothing concrete because you stand your ground about wanting a new actor to play Matt and Izabelle presents pretty compelling arguments against that.

So you re-strategize.

“If he’s casted, then people will just see Kim Mingyu, not Matthias Knight.”

The director’s assistant intervenes with the stats he must have jotted down on his tablet. “Uh actually, our social media intern Olivia ran surveys and arrived at the conclusion that people are very much against anyone who isn't Kim Mingyu to play Matthias.”

Across from you, the actor shoots you a wink.

“You believe your interns more than the writer of the story herself?” You feign offense.

The assistant’s eyes widen as he scrambles to apologize. “That’s not what I—”

“So are you concluding that I can not play Matt without even seeing me act?” Mingyu interrupts, straightening his spine up to appear more serious, “I would say you are making unfounded assumptions against me if I didn’t know any better. Do I not ‘look’ like Matt to you? Because I have read him, and I know I can act like him.”

You roll your eyes, “Why are you even here, Mingyu? Shouldn’t it be your agent doing these negotiations while you go try to start new rumors about us.”

A weighted silence engulfs the room. You didn’t mean to rip that band-aid off unwarned, you wanted to give him the benefit of doubt…but you’re also tired of everyone tiptoeing around the obvious elephant in the room.

Mingyu blanches, scratching the back of his neck and shrinking a little. “Is it that bad?”

The director Izabelle's eyes oscillate between you both, then to her assistant. “Wait, am I missing something?”

The casting director purses her lips tight, gesturing between you and Mingyu in this specific way with a quirk of her brows. Recognition flashes across the director’s face.

“Oh…that,” she gulps, turning to you. “Glad you brought that up. We actually sensed that the recent gossip might have been the reason behind your aversion. But we actually have some solutions that we’d like to suggest.”

You shift in your seat, ignoring the weight of his eyes from across the table.

Izabelle's assistant takes the cue to start explaining. “Before that, we have some clarifying questions. Are you both dating anyone currently?”

“No.” You both speak in unison.

You weren’t expecting Mingyu’s answer to put you at ease—but it does. Maybe because it makes you worry less about some random partner of his hating your guts for how the internet swoons over the mere idea of you and him.

“And you are vehemently against the idea of people linking you with him romantically?” The question is directed to you.

“Precisely,” you answer, your tone clipped, “it is too damaging for my career in the long term.”

Before the assistant can speak further, Mingyu interrupts him.

“Scared of the spotlight?” He teases, circling the ring on his pinky with his thumb.

“No.” you deadpan, “scared of the reputation of being an ex-girlfriend who writes sad books about how a superstar broke her heart.”

“Why are you betting against us? You could be the girlfriend who writes happy books about how love triumphs all.”

“We aren’t dating, Mingyu.” You draw that line. “I write about fictional people. Not you. Not me. Characters. And I’d rather remain that way.”

You know he was only teasing, but watching his smile fade by a beat makes you feel a little triumphant.

From your right, the assistant clears his throat drawing both your attention towards himself, “so, circling back to the issue at hand…since you are so against being associated with him, we are planning to crush out that rumor not by remaining silent or making any major statements, but through something that feels genuine and believable.”

Mingyu’s fingers stop thrumming against the table, and it is only when it halts that you realize that whatever tune he was playing against the wood felt so relaxing to your ears.

“How so?” He asks.

This time, it is the director who answers, “How about the two of you present yourself as these really great friends to the public? We can push the story that you two met at a party and became friends, she began reaching out to you to ask you questions about the acting industry and your experiences to research for a book she was writing and you got close. That’s it. Don’t act like lovers, but don’t try to avoid each other either.”

The assistant adds, “yeah our intern Olivia, also concluded from her research that any hushed out narratives only fuel the general public’s intrigue and if you both appear as ‘just friends’, the interest might soon die down.”

“To seal it shut,” Izabelle says, “we can also have Mingyu romance the actress we cast as a publicity stunt. The chemistry between the two leads will intrigue the public more than that between the actor and the author.”

You feel a pang of something hot and heavy drop down in your gut when she says that, even though it shouldn’t.

Mingyu shakes his head slowly as he gives his first serious input since this meeting started, his tone heavy with that sense of finality that leaves no room for negotiations.

“I don’t do P.R. relationships.”

Oh…so this is where he draws the line? He has problems being shipped with his co-star which is often harmless and even motivated—but not a single one when he was giving the internet all that fodder by cosplaying your characters.

“That’s fine,” the director raises her hands in surrender, “whatever makes the two of you comfortable. Just let us know if this sounds good?”

You wrap your arms around your midriff, slouching a little. You fiddle with your pendant, trying to make sense of your thoughts and make a decision amidst this unspoken tension that has settled in the room and weighs down on you most of all the others.

The director tries one last ditch attempt. She calls your name softly, “Look…we really want to make this movie and this issue is very fickle and manageable. The production house is dead set on casting Mingyu as the male lead, it’s too profitable to ignore.”

“And I really want to act in this movie.” Mingyu adds sincerely, his voice not at all authoritative, but a kind plea instead that pulls at your heartstrings.

Usually, you are very good at sensing things of that nature, but nothing in Mingyu’s soft request is accompanied by any ulterior motives. If anything, it seems like he is an honest admirer of your stories who wants nothing more than just to grab a chance of being a part of it when the opportunity has presented itself. Even though you know the production house is certainly being a little manipulative in this case, you are also aware of the truth that saying no to this might disappoint a lot of people—fans, investors, him.

But would it disappoint you? You, who had no real visions about a dream cast or things of that nature when the offer of turning your book into a movie was made to you. You don’t harbor a grudge against him, not really. In fact, you would be lying if you said that your heart didn’t surge with this warm, fuzzy, prideful feeling for a second when you got to know that the biggest actor in the scene right now was interested in and being considered for the role.

You draw in a deep breath, and hear someone slide something towards you. Mingyu passes you a glass of water with a low smile. “I swear I am not that annoying of a company…you just have to hangout with me a little and lie about being my bestie who lets me proofread her scripts and asks me for insider information.”

That manages to pull an honest smile out of you. You wrap your trembling fingers around the glass, cold condensation settles like relief over your sweaty palm.

“Fine,” you mumble into the glass, an act that causes some of the water to slip past your lips and onto your chest.

Your eyes flick up to him, only to find his own unreadable ones slipping over the curve of your chest as the drops roll down and disappear into the sweetheart neckline of your dress.

You feel your skin heat up under the warmth of his attention and you fluster.

“I can work with that, but only if he loses the mullet.” You announce, but the words aren’t yours…they're hypnotised, curious, needy as you continue staring at him.

Mingyu doesn’t reply to that, just gives you that casual nod with his lips caught between his teeth that makes your stomach clench.

The fourth time you meet him for these orchestrated hangouts is two months into the production. It is one of those high-end cafes whose clientele includes anyone who is a someone. Playback singers to pop icons, all stripped off their usual glam and performance just sipping on the ridiculously overpriced matcha for brunch.

You’ve never been to places like these before—you never had to. Even if they might have your book waiting face down on page 203 back home, anyone who isn’t a superfan of yours passes you without as much as a second glance for they don’t recognize you by face.

But it is different with Mingyu. With him, you cannot simply go to the local sandwich shop to ‘catch-up’. Because one, it is too performative and raises suspicion against the two of you only doing this to make a point when the pictures come out. And two, it is impossible for him to not get swarmed in public.

So Jungkook, your publicist, along with the public-relations team hired by the production house is tasked with searching for places like these where the paparazzi are always on the curb at some distance waiting like vultures with cameras while the indoors are private and quaint enough for no one to really bother you.

“I like this place because of the ambience.” Mingyu says, scarfing down the scrambled eggs you couldn’t finish and wordlessly slid towards him.

Your fingers don’t pause at your keyboard as you continue reworking the prologue for your final draft.

“I like it because I don’t have to pretend to talk to you here.” You hum, remembering how your cheeks ached after all the fake smiling you had to do when you last hung out with him in public knowing full well cameras were pointed at you.

It is rare for the two of you to do this alone—usually, you have Hazel, the actresses cast against him as his love interest, along with you as you pretend to be just a bunch of friends hanging out after work and bonding over common interests.

But today, Hazel bailed last minute citing a mean headache that made her want to rest until her next schedule.

So here you are, hanging out with the guy you were rumored to be dating. The social media intern was right though, the rumor did die down when it lost all its heat because the real spice—the hidden signs, the speculations, easter eggs and drawing links—is all gone, vanished into thin air.

So far, only Mingyu has been the one who was asked about it directly during one of his press tours because Hazel is too new to be getting interviewed in the industry and all the rare interviews that you give usually stick to the literary theme and is often approved by Jungkook before getting to you.

Mingyu handled it well, you’d give him that. Such a great actor, his body language didn’t falter, not even once, while he gave them the parroted story about your friendship with enough charm and ease that it convinced most shippers to leave their accounts vacated.

Across from you, he finishes the last of your bagel before making a low sound that is akin to a whine.

“Why are you so mean? This is the third time you’ve gone for me, unprovoked, in the last hour.”

You sigh, adjusting your glasses up your nose, “why are you so loud? This is the fifteenth time I’ve told you to shut it.”

That shuts him up. For a full two minutes.

“What are you working on?” His voice comes out muffled as he rests his cheek on one of his fists.

Your lips twitch as you steal a glance at him from over your laptop—cheeks stuffed full of food as he chews soundlessly, eyes curious and expectant as he waits for you to answer. You had never really pegged him to be so cute…but he is, in that effortless way that makes him so endearing that it annoys you.

Because you shouldn’t be feeling like this.

He is not your friend, not really. If anything, he is just another task, another meeting listed on your Google calendar that you have to mark off every two weeks.

“Wish I could ask you the same but you never work.”

“Come on don’t be like this,” he insists, dabbing a napkin across his lips. “We are supposed to be friends.”

You don’t think twice before blurting out. “You’re not my friend.”

He flinches a little, just a slight twitch and all of a sudden the wall is back between the two of you—up and rigid.

You didn’t know it was possible for a six-feet-two man to look like a kicked puppy, but the heartbreak on his face makes him look so small and harmless.

And it splits you open.

Because you hadn’t meant to hurt him like that…especially when he has been nothing but cordial to you.

“Look, Mingyu…I’m sorry,” you say, a little embarrassed and disgusted at your own snide as you slowly shut your laptop to face him fully. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just…I always choose my friends. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have chosen you; but just that we met upon such unfortunate circumstances and this was thrust upon us. I need some time to make sense of this, that’s all.”

Something delicate flashes over the hurt in his eyes when he nods. You feel his thumb drawing small circles over the back of your palm and you realize that you had reached forward to hold his hand with both of yours while talking to him.

This.

This lack of control over your own emotions and reactions is what has made you so wary of the people around you and the relationships you have with them.

Especially people like him—foolishly open and honest. Those who make life feel so simple and fluid. Those who know how and when to speak something and to whom.

Meanwhile with you, it is all or nothing. You either open your heart to them at moments like these or shut them out so cruelly before they can get a chance to perceive you and have some sort of understanding over you.

Because having someone know you makes you vulnerable. You hate being vulnerable.

You gingerly retrieve your palms away from his.

Maybe it is just a trick that your eyes and the dim lighting of the place plays on you…but you think you see his long fingers stretch a little at the loss of your touch, almost as if he wanted to chase it and hold your hand between his bigger, more comforting one once again.

With him, and his eyes, touch and attention always pulled towards you, you feel magnetic.

“I get it.” he mumbles, drawing and undrawing the strings of his hoodie. “We don’t have to do this so often if that makes you uncomfortable.”

“I think it is the public aspect of it,” you reply, folding your arms under your chest on the table, “I have to put on this act of having known you for so long even though I barely know you, and I know it is so silly because this brunch is precisely the type of opportunity for me to get to know but I…”

You sigh, rubbing the heels of your palms over your eyes. “I am sorry I am complicating this.”

“No you’re not,” he shakes his head, “acting can be draining, especially if you don’t feel the part you are assigned.”

You can see this additional layer of carefulness around him now… it is truly admirable how quickly he was able to adapt himself to make this easier for you once you told him what the problem was. You can hear caution laced in everything he says, like he is afraid of saying something that might push you further away from him and into a shell that people around you try to break all the time. But he doesn’t.

The two of you work in silence for a few minutes after that—him reading and replying to some emails on his phone while you struggle to put what you feel and what you want the readers to feel by proxy in words. You haven’t written anything worthwhile in a long, long time.

Occasionally, a few people stop by your table for a brief conversation with him as they come in or leave. All of them from the industry, all of them Mingyu’s friends. You do not stare at them, not obviously at least. But you do steal glances, your fingers pausing over your keyboard here and there to focus better on their effortless conversations. Pleasant and light and almost joyous.

Maybe it is just him making it easier for people around him to come talk to him, to adore him.

Or maybe it is just everyone except for you who realize that not every relationship is bound by rules and expectations…that sometimes, things just flow.

You give up when no matter how hard you rack your brain, you still can’t come up with a proper opening.

Watching you begin to pack, Mingyu signals for the attendant and after paying for the meal and a hefty tip, he wordlessly slides your bag bulging with your books, planners and computer over the table and slings it on his shoulder.

He doesn’t really reach out for you beyond his usual moony smile.

You halt before he can open the door, placing your hand over his own at the doorknob.

“I want to feel the part.” You say, watching his brows dip in confusion. So you clarify, a bit slower this time, “what you said earlier about not being able to act if you don’t feel the part…well, I want to do it, feel like your friend, I mean.”

You can’t stop fiddling with the sleeves of your oversized jacket, but he looks so cool like he always does. No weird tension, no big deal at your little dramatic rant that could have just been a ‘Mingyu I want to be your friend but I hate that we have to do this for cameras.’

He just reaches down for your hand, squeezing it between his long fingers like telling you without words that he is very glad you asked.

“I’d love for you to feel like that.”

You don’t try to remove your hand from his hold this time. “How about lunch at my place this weekend?”

(mingyu’s pov)

When you had invited him for lunch, it slipped your mind that you already had plans with Khadija, Jungkook and Hunter to go out for drinks on the weekend.

But this was your first attempt at forming something meaningful out of this situation that was birthed from chaos and mess. So you decided to meet with him anyways and after a full noon of cooking together and eating just half of all the dishes you had experimented on with him, you find yourself rushing to get ready in your room while he lounges outside on the couch in the living room, finishing the last bit of hummus that he had to salvage after you messed it up twice.

“I am so sorry for doing this Mingyu,” you huff out, getting out of your room in the shimmery pink scarf that you have tied for a top and your favorite pair of denim that hugs the soft dips of your curves without suffocating your flesh.

He peers his head over the armrest of the couch as he half lies on it, his mouth slightly parted with his long, dark hair falling messy over his head. You snort at his pleading doglike longing stare as it follows you around while you search for your strappy heels.

If you hadn’t been so busy and actually looked at him watching you, you would have seen him shift uncomfortably at the sight of you—undone and dazed. Like you had done something to strip him of all of his senses just by getting all dressed up in a cheeky outfit and encasing a blushing joy under your skin.

Unaware of the effect you have on him, you flop down on the couch beside him, picking up the two earrings you had been debating between all day long and placing them on either ear before turning to him, “Which one?”

He clears his throat, sitting up straighter and answers in a low voice, barely above a whisper. “This one.” He smiles, pointing to the one with the pearls.

You sigh, satisfied that he chose the one you were leaning towards and put it on. Then, you loop the long chain of the matching pendant between your fingers and begin fastening it around your neck. Or at least, you try to. The lock keeps getting stuck in your strands or you keep losing hold of it.

He watches you struggle, this look of half amusement, half admiration at your little frustrated grunts before scooting closer to you. You feel his longer fingers enveloping your skin as he pulls at the chain and offers, “Let me.”

Wordlessly, you turn your back to him, bunching up the loose waves of your hair in a ponytail. Some of it manages to escape your hold, cascading down over his hands softly. He hitches for a moment, letting himself breathe in the scent of your floral shampoo—just one, little inhale that feels like a homecoming after eons of yearning. In the middle of your bare back, there’s that big knot of fabric tied together holding your top in place and digging a little into your soft skin.

His eyes almost flutter shut, but he clutches the delicate chain of your jewelry and focuses on the little red mole below your left shoulder, using it as an anchor out of his dream where everything is suspended and senseless except for the idea of you in his arms while he kisses that mole over and over again.

“I’m sorry for cutting our day together short.” You mumble that apology again even though he has told you multiple times that it’s fine and you should go have fun. “I should be here spending time with you instead of running around getting dressed and ditching the afternoon we planned.”

“Don’t apologize, really.” He says, placing his palms on your bare shoulders to signal that he is done. “Besides, after getting scolded by you last time I brought work to keep myself busy.”

He flips the script that he has to memorize for the scheduled shoot by Tuesday.

You beam up at the sight of it, “oh, what scene are you guys filming?”

“The one with Matt and Allie’s first kiss.”

“I wanna see what it looks like…did they change it significantly from the books?”

“Uh, not really.”

But you are already practically glued by his side, reading the screenplay held in his hands. The press of your tender body against his rigid one makes his head spin as his mind floods with all the other places in his body that he’d love to feel you against. Your beautiful face between his hands, swollen lips stretched in that shy smile of yours as he kisses you. Your cushy chest mashed against his own—heavy with need as you make out with him on top. Your smooth waist and how good it would feel to hold it while he—

“Show me how you’re going to act this.” You beam up at him with this wonder in your eyes that makes him almost feel guilty of imagining you in ways that speak to the raging desires of the most depraved parts of his mind.

Almost.

Because Kim Mingyu likes you very much…and he doesn’t want to feel shy about wanting you.

If he did feel shy, he wouldn’t have asked around to find out more about you, read every single interview you ever gave and every single book that you ever wrote after getting blown out by one of your novellas that he had read once on set just to pass time. If he did feel shy, he wouldn’t have asked his long term friend and your publicist Jeon Jungkook for intel about your upcoming books so he could alter his appearance to fit whatever characters you were falling in love with through your words. If he did feel shy, he would have used his much stronger connections in the industry to shut down the dating rumors long, long time ago. If he did feel shy, he wouldn’t be so persistent about pursuing you after getting his ego bruised by your sharp humor multiple times.

On the contrary, he’d do anything to make himself deserving to be your lover.

Even if it means acting his ass off and delivering an Oscars-worthy performance in your living room just cause you asked him to, then so be it.

“Sure,” he smirks, “but I need a partner to act this scene out.”

“Yeah I can do Allie’s lines,” you reply, tucking your hair behind your ear and gearing up for the job seriously, like you do not realize that this is a kissing scene he’s talking about…

He hands the script over to you, telling you that he has already memorized his dialogues.

“Don’t expect me to be a professional, I am just going to read this.” You give him a disclaimer, even though your shoulders are practically jumping with your bubbling excitement.

“Alright, let’s go…whenever you’re ready.”

⸻

(the reader’s POV)

You make a show of clearing your throat and begin reading the description of the scene where Matthias is walking Allie back to her dorm from the library during an autumn evening, their last one on campus together.

Your voice slips into a softer cadence as the scene takes shape and Allie finally speaks, “Matt, do you ever feel like different moments of our life have different weights to them?” Your eyes flick up to Mingyu, you don’t have to read this from a script, it is a dialogue that is etched forever in your heart. “Like if you let some of them slip along with the others, something will shatter when they fall?”

“Matt slows down,” you continue, eyes skimming the page, “like he’s afraid if they reach the dorm too fast, something will end before it has even begun.”

Mingyu shifts closer, like the blocking is already written into his bones, and speaks without the paper, without any hesitation. “Sometimes…but then I remember that it is us who assign meaning to these moments and not the other way around, y’know? ‘Define the circumstances, don’t let them define you’ theory.”

Your breath hilts. For half a second you forget you’re supposed to be reading as he continues staring into your eyes. All the worries that you had about Mingyu not being to emulate Matthias evaporate that very instance because this man in front of you… he isn’t the playful superstar basking in his hard earned glory and demanding what he deems fit. He isn’t the skillful actor who has managed to convince half the world that he has been your close confidant for ages even though you have barely known him for two months. He isn’t the clingy guy asking for attention in sneaky ways and finishing off your food with a pout like he was born to.

This is a man in love. With all the hearts bursting pink behind his eyes and that honest smile weighed down by devotion towards the woman in front of him…he is Matthias who has been in love with Allie for as long as he can remember.

They weren’t lying when they said Mingyu is a generational actor because holy sh—

“I know I am gorgeous to stare at, but read your lines!” The mask slips.

“Oh okay,” you splutter, recovering your scattered thoughts. “Allie glances at him…she wants to joke, but she doesn’t. Her mouth parts, but no sound comes out. Then, finally, after they’ve stopped fully, she whispers, ‘I want to define this evening with you Matt.’”

You lift your gaze again, meeting his. The room has shrunk down into a cocoon of warmth and force…a force that is making the two of you shift closer and closer.

Mingyu is near enough now that you can see the tiny crinkle near his eyes when he speaks. “I want to define it too.”

⸻

(Mingyu’s POV)

Matt and Allie are supposed to kiss next. But Mingyu had stopped following the script way back when he forgot he is supposed to be acting after your big, kohl-lined eyes bound his soul and nudged it out of his ribs and into your palms some five minutes ago.

He doesn’t lean in and continues to speak out of script, wondering at what point would you tear your wide, glassy, entranced eyes away from him and onto the script to notice that Mingyu has gone wayward from it.

“I am tired of pretending to be normal about you,” he says, his voice breathy and careful as he wonders if you think this is him improvising Matthias. “I am tired of acting like I don’t want to give this a better name. I am tired of pretending to be just your friend like every inch of my skin doesn’t ache to feel you closer than friends ever should.”

He thinks…no, he knows that you have caught onto him because your lips part with a broken gasp of his name. How can you not? This is your story, your characters, of course you know Mingyu isn’t Matt anymore. He hasn’t been since that very first dialogue.

He didn’t even try to be.

He waits for you to react by shifting away from him like you always do, by scolding him for crossing a boundary you have carefully put around yourself.

But you don’t.

Instead, he feels your fingers shiver like they always do when you’re overwhelmed as they curl around the collar of his dark hoodie and you pull him towards yourself until there is no space left between the two of you.

Your lips, softer than he imagined and slippery with a thick coat of your tinted pink gloss, glide against his own slowly at first. So tender and bashful, like you’re not sure if this is something you should be doing.

But it is precisely what he wants you to be doing.

So he winds his arm around your waist while cradling your head into the other as he deepens the kiss. You blink, startled, when he pulls you so close that you’re sitting on him more than on the couch. But then, he feels you thaw against him as your body slumps over his harder one in surrender. Your strands tickle between his fingers as you continue to explore his mouth with your lips. Eager and hurried one moment, then fragile and uncertain the other.

He feels it in his very bones when you mumble his name against his lips like a prayer right before he angles your face to kiss your cheek and jawline better, your eyes fluttering close at the feeling of your own gloss on his lips now ruining your makeup.

Those same eyes fly open when in a fit of passion, his fingers dig into the flesh of your bottom with this steady heat and he gives it a firm squeeze before flipping you so that you’re flush on your back on the couch as he hovers above you—all ragged breaths and stained mouth.

The cold metal of the pendant he helped you tie gathers under your chin.

Mingyu eyes it with his lidded gaze before dipping his head down and kissing the little pearl encased in its golden shell, effectively planting a hot, open-mouthed kiss on your throat. He moves down to kiss each swell of your breasts as you writhe before returning back to your face to make out with you again.

Your breaths tangle together like hot steam meeting unforgiving fog leaving everything around itself wet and parched at the same time.

For a second, he worries that he’s crushing you with his body-weight—you are so much smaller than him! But you whine like you’re complaining, your brows furrowing with this needy urge when he shifts away. You wrap your thighs around his waist and pull him back closer, all while keeping your mouth attached to him.

Just when you’re beginning to rut against his hips—a small, stuttered movement that refuses to be contained in your shy body—you both hear the loud gasp of someone else in the room.

Mingyu is quicker to recover than you as you simply freeze in this utter mortification, your fingers hooked over his shirt with such intensity that you might rip the fabric off. Mingyu doesn’t pull away from you instantly, but he does make the both of you sit upright, gathering you in his warm arms as Hunter’s eyes bulge out of their sockets.

“Wha…you…wait…” She stammers while you shrivel up.

You’re still tangled with him with your thighs pressed against his and his arm looped around your upper body keeping you straight up as you continue brushing nothing out of your hair.

“I called you but—”

You put an end to the awkwardness when you manage to pull your reluctant limbs away from him, grabbing your purse out of the chair and jog over to her, dragging her out with yourself.

“I was just helping him rehearse a scene!” You explain before disappearing out of the door.

Mingyu wants to call out your name to tell you to enjoy the evening… or maybe that this kiss was nothing short of ‘everything’ for him… or maybe to tell you that you are leaving your house unlocked with him still inside of it.

But the heat of the kiss and of the moments that led up to it has already melted all his words and senses.

Mingyu spends the rest of the evening—all five hours that you’ve left him here alone—cleaning up your space. Of course, he doesn’t dare touch your bedroom. But he does wipe the kitchen counter clean off all the sauces you spilled while cooking with him. He washes the dishes, carefully wiping every single one of them with clean towels before storing them methodically in the cabinets before packing up the leftovers in glass dishes and aluminium foils in your refrigerator. He organizes all the books you were showing him earlier back into their place but not before dusting the entire small library of yours clean. He vacuums the rug in the living room and then sprays disinfectant around all the surfaces just for good measure.

Once the place breathes fresh and smells like a clean home where you could relax better, he allows himself to slouch down on your couch. The same couch where you had held onto him like he was your anchor in that kiss that hit you both like a tsunami. The same couch where you had said his name, moaned for him, like it meant something. The same couch where you told your friend you were just helping him practice his lines at.

The memory of your flustered self blurting out that excuse makes him chuckle.

Do you even realize just how unintentionally sexy you are?

Because if practicing his lines with you always entails the scorching make-out session that had followed, he’d fire all his acting instructors and work with you full time for that little reward.

He hears the fragile giggles and the unfocused click-clacks of heels hitting the tiles behind it before he sees the front door open as you practically spill inside. Your hair is messy and catching between your lips, a kohl on your right eye smudged at the heel of your palm and those little laughs that bubble straight out of your chest, making the entire home throb with a pulse of its own.

With you, life returns to every inch of it and it no longer matters how clean or messy your apartment is.

You try kicking your heels by the door like one would do with their sneakers, getting frustrated with each passing second when they don’t come off. You lean against the doorway, trying to lodge your fingers into them and jerk them away, forgetting that they’re the strappy kind whose straps you had tied all the way up your shin.

He walks over up to you with a smile that is impossible for him to hide and crouches down. One of his large hands comes up to hold your waist as he stations you in place, meanwhile the fingers of the other one work around the thin knotted ropes on your legs, carefully tugging it open. He runs his palm reverently over the imprints it left on your skin and you sigh when your blood flows normally again under the warmth of his touch. Then, he proceeds to do the same with your other leg all while you remain clutching his hair to maintain your balance.

Just as he places the heels in a tidy corner, Hunter enters your apartment too after paying the cab below. Not as drunk, but definitely buzzed.

“Oh, you’re here.” She mumbles, too embarrassed from the earlier encounter as he straightens up and you slump against his chest. “She didn’t drink as much as it seems like, she’s just very lightweight.”

Mingyu feels you smush your face deeper into his cushiony chest, your hot breaths graze through his shirt as you continue taking deep drags of his perfume. He rubs your back like you are something so precious to him at this moment and doesn’t even ask you if you can walk. He simply goes ahead and lifts you in his arms, containing you like you’ve never been before.

Upon Hunter’s instructions, he carries you to the ensuite in your bedroom. She tries to make you stand up straight and brush your teeth while he makes your bed and fluffs your comforter outside. When you continue insisting against it, refusing to coordinate and demanding your computer because you just had an insane idea about a new story, Hunter walks out, clutching her forehead.

“It’s okay, you rest. I’ll take care of her.” He offers without even thinking twice.

Hunter considers it for a moment, but the raging headache makes this seem like an offer too generous to pass. She slips into your bed that he just made, leaving some space for you.

“I helped her change into her pajamas.” Hunter hums, “just make sure she brushes her teeth and drinks some water.”

When Mingyu walks into the bathroom, leaving the door ajar to ease her concerns if Hunter had any, he finds you sitting on the lip of the bathtub, swaying a little while narrowing your eyes to focus on the glaring screen of your phone while your fingers furiously type in your notes app.

Your spectacles are pushed up against your hair, which is obviously making it harder for your eyes to focus. He wraps an arm around you to still you before you can slip into the bathtub and pulls the glasses back in front of your eyes. Instantly, in his embrace, you relax, forgetting whatever new novel you had begun working on as the phone skids out of your fingers and onto the bathroom rug.

He places it back on the sink as you slur, your lips pressed close to his shoulder, “Head is hurting.”

“Then let us take this off.” He says, removing your glasses. “How does washing your face sound right now?”

“Tempting,” you hum, “but it's so cold….”

“We can use warm water baby.”

“And will you hold me? I love being held…especially by someone big and warm, like you. But I live alone so I have no one to hold me.”

Mingyu’s brows jump up in awe as you pout and complain. In your dynamic, he has always been the clingier one, the one who overshares random facts about himself to you at midnight citing the necessity of friends knowing these little details about each other, something you often ignore and leave on read.

You are the smarter one, the wittier one with dry sarcasm and hard set boundaries that you make sure everyone around you knows and respects. Variant and resolute and oh so beautiful even when you hide that bewitching smile by pursing your lips hard.

The fiercely intelligent writer who writes about love like she’s the only one who understands the concept of it. A master of stories who speaks about the underlying themes of her tales that not a lot are able to grasp but when they do, it leaves them aching to create something akin to her works.

But like this, so open and small in your teddy-printed pink pajamas as you stare up at him with your expectant doe-eyes, it makes you look so heartbreakingly human.

And yet, his devotion only surges as he carefully helps you up and makes you stand against the sink between his arms on either side. He doesn’t trap you, he contains you. He keeps you from falling over nothing by holding you by your waist with one arm and brushing your teeth with the other.

“There you go,” he praises when even in your dazed state you follow his command of spitting the froth out.

But instead of rinsing your mouth with the water cupped in his palm, you turn to him, lips still stained with the toothpaste as you grumble, displeased.

“Are you going to do that with her too?”

He blinks, “who?”

“Hazel,” you pout, “are you going to kiss her like you kissed me too?”

A low laugh escapes out of his chest, he brings the water closer to your lips and you obediently comply while he assures. “No sweetheart, never.”

“You are always laughing at me.” Your words come out garbled as you swish the water lazily around your mouth.

“Okay, no talking until we’re done here,” he states, “and I only laugh because one, you are adorable and two, laughing is my nervous tick and you make me nervous.”

He gently splashes the warm water over your face and you clench your eyes shut, letting him wipe your skin with his careful palms before dabbing it with an equally cozy towel.

“Me? I make you nervous?” You ask as he puts little drops of moisturizer over your skin before rubbing it in with his gentle fingers. “Stop shitting me Kim Mingyu, you basically run this world.”

And yet I malfunction when it comes to you, he wants to say—but doesn’t. Because the more his fingers massage the knots in your shoulders while rubbing your vanilla scented lotion into your skin, the more you doze off against him.

By the time he finally gets you into bed with Hunter, his muscles feel heavy from the confession he has stitched deep inside of himself. It hits him like something inevitable when your breath grazes his fingers as he tucks the comforter over your chest and he realizes just how badly he wants days and nights like these to become a regular occurrence every day. Till the end of his days.

(the reader’s POV)

Things have been weird between you and Mingyu since he hung out with you for lunch and ended up taking care of you when you returned home drunk. You don’t expect it to be back to how it used to be between the two of you, not after you dragged him in for a kiss and almost dry humped him on your couch.

But you also didn’t expect him to bail out on this little picnic situation with you, Hazel and Izabelle, calling it ‘too phony.’

His demeanor towards you hadn’t changed though, not even a bit. But the two of you have since spent only some time together, here and there, on the set and in private, away from the cameras. And when you had steeled your nerves enough to ask him if he regretted kissing you, he had just tilted his head and said no.

That should have been the end of it.

You initiated a kiss in the heat of the moment—he is an attractive man and you were acting out a very romantic scene. And then he kissed you back in an even hotter moment—because you were all dolled up and again, he was too acting out a very romantic scene.

But it’s not.

Because it feels like things have been left unsaid and incomplete…a painting of something beautiful abandoned midway through.

So, when he texts you, inviting you for this get together he is planning with the team at his place to celebrate the filming being finished halfway, you don’t think twice before letting him know that you want to come earlier than the rest to help him set up and return the favor of him cleaning your apartment and tending to you in your drunk state.

You smooth over your dress one last time before pressing the doorbell to his penthouse expecting a smiling assistant or his manager to open the door. But it is the sight of all six-feet-two of him in a lemon-printed apron dusted with flour that lets you in with his usual grin.

‘I only smile so much because you make me nervous.’

You aren’t sure if he actually said those words to you or if you read them somewhere and dreamed it up.

Regardless, you feel your confidence shrinking with every step you take inside of his house. You are unable to meet his eyes when you hand him the champagne you brought in and only give him a faint, fake smile when he thanks you for it.

What made you think you’d be able to order him around or be sarcastic with him like you used to after you practically used him like your lipstick remover the last time you two were alone?

But this is Mingyu, and this is what he does…making people feel at ease around him is almost a skill inherent to him.

So he works around you without any tense glances or snide remarks, just brimming with joy as he asks for your opinions about what tablecloth would look better with the flowers he had chosen.

You’re both cutting up the fruit for the decoration of the enormous cake he has baked, two hours until the guests start arriving, when your resolve breaks.

“Why do you not come to the scheduled outings anymore, Mingyu? And don’t tell me it’s a ‘schedule thing’ because we had this planned months ago.”

His knife pauses midway through the strawberry. He presses it harder when he answers, “I told you, I think we’re overdoing that now.”

Then, he turns his back to you to open the fridge and check up on the iced-cake even though he did that not more than five minutes ago.

“We’ve made our point,” he says, “no one, other than a handful of obsessive fans who will always be there, is shipping us anymore. It's a forgotten buzz, they won’t even hint at this during the press tour.”

You ignore his explanation. “Is it because I kissed you? Is that why you’re avoiding me?”

He turns around, an unmistakable confusion etched deep into the creases of his face. “What? Where’s that coming from?”

“You tell me.” You snap, pressing the lemon you’ve been squeezing for the meringue harder than you need to. “We only meet in private now—on set! Did I act…did I act inappropriately when I was drunk? Oh God, no…don’t answer that—”

You try to stop the tears but they’re there— fluid, hot and stubborn. You make the mistake of wiping your eyes with the same fingers that you were working on the lemons with. The sting is an instant burn, making you cry out more in pain.

“Oh fuck.” Mingyu is by your side in a flash, leading you to the sink and washing your eyes for you. “It’s okay…it’s okay, just let it out…it’ll subside.”

But it doesn’t. Because your eyes aren’t the only organs that hurt. Your chest has been caving in since that very day, hollowing your ribs and wringing you inside out.

Mingyu helps you until the sour pain dissipates, carefully washing your eyes and wiping your face with a towel—an act that brings back the memories of the night you ruined everything with him by failing to control your extremes.

This is why you don’t let people in. Because whenever you try to, you ruin whatever pure thing you could have had with them by acting reckless.

You bite the inside of your cheek until you feel the metallic taste of blood burst on your tongue—anything to prevent any more tears from slipping out.

But they do and Mingyu only hugs you close into his chest, holding you away from the world, away from your own ruinous thoughts until your breathing evens out. You clutch onto his hoodie harder, because if he didn’t hate you earlier, you know that he definitely does now. He might not even want to hangout with you in private after you just ruined his merry plans for a hearty get together by putting him in an awkward spot and crying in his kitchen just hours before it.

You try to press yourself closer into him, trying to overdose on the feeling of him, on the scent of him before you lose the right to consume it. Before he decides never to speak with you.

You feel his breath fan over your hair when he speaks, “You didn’t do anything wrong…God, how could you ever? I am so sorry for making you feel that you did, sweetheart.”

His palm rubs over your back.

“You’re lying,” you hiccup, “it’s okay, you don’t have to. Just tell me—”

“Shh, listen to me.” He pulls you away so that you can face him and immediately winces at the sight of your red-rimmed eyes and creased forehead. “I wasn’t…I wasn’t improvising that day when I said all those things to you.”

Your fingers curl over his wrists as he cups your face.

“I wasn’t acting. I wasn’t playing Matthias.” he confesses, “everything I said that wasn’t in the script, and even what was in there, it was me talking to you.”

He licks his lips before resting his forehead against yours, “I am not normal about you.”

The image of him from that day on your couch, moments before the kiss, saying those same words that entranced you to act on your suppressed desires towards him, flashes behind your fluttering lids.

“I haven’t been, for long.” He says, “ever since I read the way you write about love. Ever since I saw you lost in your own thoughts in that elevator, too occupied by your own worries to give a damn about who else was in there with you—”

“You didn’t even make a sound!” You interrupt, laughing through tears.

“Because I was too afraid to disturb you,” he smiles, “I held my breath all the way up.”

“Oh God…”

“I am a goner for you…desperate and pathetic…I ache for you to touch me and smile like stupid when you consider me worth talking to because I’m nervous of saying something stupid in front of someone as smart as you. Like even right now, I don’t know if I am able to express my love for you as well as the leads in your books do.”

A broken, ugly sob emanates out of your lips, filling the floaty space between you both. His thumbs come up to catch your tears before they fall onto the ground, like even they are precious to him.

“Words aren’t my thing,” he says, “but theatrics— that’s what I am good at. Good at pretending to be like the characters from your books. Good at pretending to be fine with just being your friend. But not anymore…not after I’ve experienced what holding you feels like. Not after I have felt your body slump against mine, all unguarded yet safe…I can’t—”

His voice dies down, and you sense how it is not always easy for Kim Mingyu to talk, just like how it is not always easy for you to finish all your stories.

But you want to give this one the happiest ending, you want to see the boy with the moons in his eyes in front of you smile like he did when you had kissed him stupid.

So you stretch up on your tippy-toes and bury your fingers into his hair to pull him closer. The kiss this time around is nothing like its predecessor. While your first kiss with him had felt like a test, moody and unreal, this one hits you like an explosion. A confirmation of everything your soul had suspected each time you’d find him looking at you with those dreamy eyes. Like the final bow on a Christmas present that you spent all year thinking about.

Your lips move a little frantic against him, like your body is having a hard time processing this new onslaught of information. Kim Mingyu is in love with you? The idea makes you smile against his lips.

His arms explore the length of your waist before travelling down to wrap around your thighs and then, he pulls you up, making you lock your legs over his hips and behind his back. That deepens the kiss like never before, making your bodies slot so well against each other that your heartbeats begin to sync on their own.

He kisses you like he is completing his confession directly against your tongue, and you respond to it with an eager understanding. The haze he concocts around you is so thick that you don’t even notice it when he has you pressed against a wall.

Only when he removes his lips from yours, and begins to take a step away from you that you feel your back slide against the cold, hard brick surface. His breathing is uneven and hot against your wet lips as he visibly strains himself from something.

But it seems like you are on an agenda to break his resolve when you hook one of your legs around him again, pull him closer and moan against his jaw. “More, Mingyu…please.”

He doesn’t speak, but his hands do wrap back around you like a reflex, grounding you in the present moment. This quiet, surreal tension sits heavy behind his ribs. He knows so well that by “more” you don’t mean that you just want him to kiss you more, but everything that follows too.

Yet, he wants to hear it from you. You can see that desperate plea in his eyes as he hovers around you, not quite touching, giving you space to gather your thoughts and just ask.

Always the gentleman, always so careful with you...especially with you.

“Mingyu,” you breathe, “can we…please?”

“Right now?”

“Right here.” you gulp, “please…I really want to.”

“Fuck sweetheart, don’t beg. I could fucking die for you if you asked me like that.”

“I’ve dreamt about you taking me up against a wall far too many times than I should admit,” you mumble bashfully, feeling the blood rush to your face, but nothing can seem to stop you anymore.

You feel his fingers tighten over your hips as he closes his eyes and sucks in a sharp breath. When he opens them again, the heat from his gaze locking with your needy one sends something dangerous to curl around in your veins and settle into your abdomen like a low flame.

A flame that transforms into a wildfire when places a feathery kiss over your lips before falling onto his knees before you. He kisses you all over your hips, your upper thighs while his palms slide up and down over your smooth legs, making you whimper as heat pools in your core. He keeps his eyes steady on you while hooking his fingers around your underwear which has gotten so wet that it is practically useless and slides them off your legs and stuffs them into the back pocket of his jeans.

You don’t even get a moment to breathe before he is burying his face under the skirt of your dress and kissing your core harder than he has ever kissed your lips.

Your head hits the wall with that first, long swipe of his tongue over your swollen folds and you find yourself bucking your hips in a confused motion when he repeats it over, and over again.

His lips gently wrap around your pulsating clit and he sucks, knocking whatever air was trapped inside your lungs out of your body with a hitched cry.

One of his freakishly long arms comes up, mapping your skin on its way, before settling over your abdomen in a way that keeps you from losing balance as he makes you put your thighs over his shoulders—all while eating you out like a starved man.

“You’re so fucking sweet baby,” he groans as his tongue caresses more wetness out of you, “sweeter than I ever imagined.”

The fact that he has imagined this too makes your head spin, leaving you at a loss of coherent words.

"I think I am going to get addicted to this."

You feel his fingers tighten over your flesh when upon a particular pressure of his tongue over you, you squeeze his face inadvertently between your thighs.

“Mingyu—” you gasp, feeling him place a lazy, open mouthed kiss over your clit before his mouth travels down a little, now teasing your opening with his slick tongue while his nose nudges against your thrumming nub.

He grunts even louder when his tongue slips past your entrance and the sound of it, raw and rough between your thighs, sends you over the edge earlier than you were anticipating. He continues to lick you, throughout your shuddering release, and even as black begins dotting your wide-eyed vision, you trust him to not let you fall as you succumb to this raw pleasure as he continues worshipping you with his tongue to his heart’s desire.

⸻

(Mingyu’s POV)

By the time he is able to convince himself to detach his mouth from your sweet, drenched core, you have gone listless and sweat-soaked above him. Holding himself back from kissing you—any part of you—he realizes, isn’t his strongest skill. He carefully places your legs back on to the ground, holding you by your waist because you keep on quivering, he barely manages to wipe his mouth clean with the back of his palm before you’re slumping against him like you always do when you let your guard down around him to let him unravel you like a miracle only he gets to witness.

You squeeze him hard between your arms, mumbling little ‘thank yous’ and ‘mine, all mine’ while his hands explore your curves, slow and trembling.

He can’t believe he just got to do that…what did he ever do to deserve to have you fall apart in his arms, right on his tongue, like you just did.

His fucked out smile is so full of glee as he buries it in your neck. The tent in his jeans strains harder than ever and judging by how you are basically coiled around him like a second skin, he knows you feel it too.

So it isn’t much of a surprise when he feels your hips begin jerking against him, desperate and erratic. He lodges his thigh between your own, making you yelp as you feel the rough fabric of his denim right against your naked folds. It is so rough and harsh, but you can’t stop rubbing yourself against him, not even when a patch of it begins staining with your glossy wetness.

He lets you rut against his thigh, his tone encouraging when he whispers, “Go on baby, ride me like that…take all that you need from me, it’s all yours.”

You bury your tears-soaked face between his collarbones, your nimble fingers working unfocused over the buttons on his shirt as your second release inches nearer. You are so close to coming that you feel it soak every single nerve in your body, gliding past all twitching muscles as they clench around nothing. Your fingers twist around his shirt, your teeth clamping down on his skin and your nails dig at his biceps but right before the band snaps, he jerks his thigh away and replaces it with his fingers.

The crash is so confusing and overwhelming that you don’t realise he has slipped two fingers past your entrance as the orgasm spirals through you like angry waves lapping the edge of an overflowing sea.

It is only when you clench around him almost suffocatingly that it hits him of how unprepared you are—even after two orgasms—to even handle his two fingers inside of you.

“Babe…” he whispers in your hair, almost apologetically, “are you okay?” He pulls apart, just an inch, to look at your face. “Am I…am I hurting you?”

You shake your head vehemently, “no—no, god, no. Just…slow, please?”

“Of course,” he nods, wiping your tears with his thumb, “of course baby, we go how you say.”

With that, he begins pumping his fingers in and out of you, slowly and steady, until you sigh with the stretch instead of whimpering because of it. He massages your clit with his thumb in tight, controlled circles to ease it even more. And once you’ve stopped flinching each time he scissors his fingers inside of you, he begins setting a maddening tempo and curling his fingers against your walls to find the spot that makes you shake the most.

You double over at a certain brush of his fingers while he’s playing with your fragrant tresses between his free hand. The reaction makes him repeat it, just to test it out…and this time, you choke on your own breath. He smiles realizing that it’s this spot that he should be aiming for when he buries himself inside of you next and pulls his fingers out of you to avoid further stimulating you.

He allows you to catch your breath as much as you can while he slowly undoes the zipper of his denim, keeping his eyes locked on your glazed ones. He’s smiling again, and this time, you know it’s not because he’s cocky, but because he’s nervous of somehow doing something wrong with you.

One of your arms comes around to soothe his neck assuringly as he pulls himself out of the restraint of his clothes meanwhile the other wraps around his length. You move your wrist over it in slight, jerky movements, feeling it twitch and leak at the tip with precum and your mouth visibly waters. His lips part in wonder when you spit on it without a warning, jerking his cock even more before looking up at him with those same, begging eyes.

He swiftly removes your dress in a smooth motion, undoing your bra shortly after to join the rest of your clothes on the floor. His own shirt follows suit, but then he runs out of patience and hoists you up by the curve of your thighs.

It is admirable, how your bodies synchronize in this harmony because you are following all his cues without any instructions by wrapping your arms tight around his shoulders, feeling your sweat soaked skin slide against his tanned muscles.

“Sure you don’t want me to take you to bed?” he asks one last time, sliding his length up and down your folds, coating himself with your excess wetness that leaves no requirement for a lube.

“No, do you?” You reply, before adding in a smaller, more worried voice, “am I too heavy for this?”

“Sweetheart, I can stand here carrying you all day, all night and then some more if it means that I get to bury myself in that irresistibly tight cunt of yours over and over again.” He whispers, kissing you sweetly as you blush, “I was just asking to see if you’re comfortable like this.”

“I am,” you tell him with an honest smile, “now please…just, fuck me.”

His laugh comes out raw and hazy, like smoke when he says, “always so polite, my sweet girl.”

⸻

(the readers POV)

That is the last thing you are able to hear before you feel him angle his cock in a way that just the tip of it enters your fluttering hole. He isn’t even halfway in, but fresh tears are beginning to gather around your lashes because the stretch is a burn you’ve never felt before.

“You okay?” He asks, his voice strained.

“Ye…yes,” you blabber, “don’t stop, Mingyu. Keep…keep going. It hurts more if you stop.”

You think each time you open your mouth, it undoes some latch within him that unleashes something ferocious and dangerous in him. You make a mental note of being vocal with him—it’s not like you have any choice when you can barely keep anything in as he continues filling you with all the glorious length of him.

And once he is fully inside of you, flushed with hips pressed hard against yours, you feel your nails drag against his back as you struggle to make sense of it all sandwiched between his hot, rigid body and the cold tile.

Your ankles lock tighter over the waistband of his jeans when he pulls back only to thrust back in harder. There’s an unspoken urgency now as the clock ticks behind you—one which makes you meet his thrusts by bouncing the best you can while pressed down like this. Hard muscles flex under the tanned skin of his biceps as he aids your movements while fucking you raw against the wall.

His mouth finds yours with a fierce gravity while your bodies move against each other in a drunk tandem of their own. Midway through the kiss, he hits that spot again—the same one that had made you see stars just a few moments ago and this time, when it’s the bulbous tip of his dick that bullies it over and over again, you find yourself squirting all over the place.

He breaks the kiss midway to stare down where your bodies are connected, watching your overused folds stretched out around his thick cock while you continue to drench him.

“I am sorry…I am so…so sorry,” you cry out but do nothing to stop yourself from drowning in this sea of hot white lust.

“Sweetheart, never apologize for that,” he says, his own stomach clenching when you grasp him tighter, “I wanna see you make a mess, it only means I made you feel so good, didn’t I?”

“Yes Mingyu,” you bite down on his shoulder as his fingers come down to fiddle with your clit, “you make me feel so…so good.”

“Then take it baby, take it all like the sweet girl you are.”

It shouldn’t turn you on to the point of insanity when he calls you a sweet-girl while bullying your cunt with his dick until you feel him in your very guts. But it does. God—it does to a point where you lose control over everything when you fall apart again with the prayer of his name riding your lips like it is the only word you ever learnt. In that heady, charged space that reeks of sweat, sex, him and you, he follows suit too, half in you and half out of you as he slips out, jerking himself rough until his hot semen makes a mess between your thighs and over your abdomen.

You whimper at the sticky, warm feeling and the sound twists something carnal in his chest. Your toes barely touch the hard ground below before he is turning you around and having you arch for him bare with your sweaty palms planted over the wall.

You think he is going to fuck you again, like this, from behind. But he just kisses the mole you know you have below your left shoulder and kneels back down. You feel his steamy breath over your ruined core.

“You’re so pretty baby,” he whispers, and you feel his words against your skin as he parts your flesh to reveal the evidence of what just happened to his lustful eyes, “and you’re mine…all of this, all mine.”

(a year later)

You brush your fingers through his hair as he cuddles closer to your chest after your night routine of him helping you put lotion over your body. It is the night before a major literary award show of yours as you relax together with him in your hotel room, barely catching any sleep.

Not because of nerves or excitement, but because your heart keeps doing somersaults inside your chest remembering that little clip you saw before. You’re itching to see it again and you know Mingyu hasn’t dozed off either judging by the little kisses and his attempts to suckle on your nipples through the silk of your nightgown.

So you break your own rule of no phones in the bed after seven in the evening by grabbing it from the dresser and quickly searching for it to play the clip again. You smother him with your chest in the process, but he’d be the last one to complain in this scenario as he grins like an idiot, pulling you closer.

The screen flashes with a bright light in the dark room and he whines when it pierces his tired vision. But you don’t care, you want to hear the pride in his voice again when he had said that…you want to see the way a light pink blush had settled right under his eyes at the mention of it.

It is a short clip plucked out of an interview he gave at the red carpet of an award show last month. The interviewer asks him in a cheery voice towards the end of the segment, “Any celebrity crushes right now, Mr. Kim?”

And without missing a beat, he gives the camera his honest smile, the one he often only shows around you—unpolished, real, nervous, before answering.

“Yeah, my missus.”

Someone snipped it out of the whole interview and posted it across different platforms where it has now garnered millions of views and hundred-thousands of comments. Each time you look at it, you can’t help the warm giggle from bubbling out of your lips as you read through the comments which are all overwhelmingly positive.

‘Never seen him like this!’‘ They tried to cancel us for speaking the truth, but we clocked his tea so hard more than a year ago 😭’ ‘We’ve BEEN telling you guys they were a thing!’ ‘Wait are they married?? Why is he calling her his missus? Someone explain, English isn’t my first language.’ ‘imagine finally getting to marry the guy you’ve always written books about, girlie is living everyone’s dream 🤩’

“Okay I am reporting that one for false information because that was the other way around!” You seethe, sitting up as best as you can with his strong arms caging you. “You should hold a press conference to tell them about our love story.”

“Or,” he suggests, propping his chin over your chest, “you can write a book about it.”

“I told you Mingyu, I write about fictional people. Not you. Not me.”

“But don’t you think the world deserves to know our fairytale of a love story?” “Mhmm,” you hum, sliding your glasses on and pulling your laptop onto your folded legs like you used to all those years ago, “maybe I’ll write a short fanfiction on Tumblr about it. Fifteen thousand-ish words?”

mark zuckerberg, now this is how u do meta.

REBLOG HOES <3

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