NOVA

─ ˚✧ ﾟ.⋆✦ A personal space for my reblogs

[novalpha]

𝙈𝙚, 𝙈𝙮𝙨𝙚𝙡𝙛 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙉𝙤𝙫𝙖

🕊﹕─ She/her ⁺‧₊ 19

This blog is filled with my reblogs and recommendations of fics i've read so far. Do drop some recs for me to read and my inbox is always open so feel free to talk :)

Seventeen fic recs masterlist

[belovedgyu]

"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 ⚬ 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!!

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 malfunctions 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

permanent tags:

@mellowamour @lovelylonelinesssvt @gyuguys @scoupscious

@jicheolsol-lover @sumzysworld @lllucere @seungcheolsblackcard @wakandabiitch2

@helloiliketits @J3nnch3ls3a @princessjazzyjazz @livelaughloveseventeen

@sousydive @izzyy-recs @livmarauder @vwintershire @cherrymayz

@novalpha @honglynights @eskoupe

[belovedgyu]

normal people || kim mingyu part two

pov: you're the girl being sung to and sung about in 'glimpse of us'

PART 1 (you can't skip reading it lmao)

⚬ pairing: architect! kim mingyu x med student fem! reader ⚬ word count: 18k ⚬ warnings: alcohol, drinking, food, spice/nsfw mentions and smut, slight corruption kink, body worship, mentions of sexual trauma, harassment, revenge porn and other mature themes MDNI ⚬ genres: acquaintances with benefits (lol), forbidden romance, slow burn, angst, one sided pining, hurt/comfort, autumn in nyc, corporate!au ft. Joshua, Vernon, Lisa and a few OCs.

mingyu's playlist <3 sure thing by miguel (main) whataya want from me by adam lambert somethin stupid by frank and nancy sinatra too much to ask by the arctic monkeys fade into you by mazzy star

reader's playlist </3 clementine by halsey (main) love hangover by jennie and dominic fike midnight rain by taylor swift virgin veins by coma cinema 

author's note <3 apart from the characters' playlists, i have added one/two songs i'd recommend you to listen to after you're done reading that chapter for maximum vibes lmao.

this fic deals with heavy discourses about sexual harassment and the trauma it inflicts. please refrain from reading this one if that triggers you, pls take care and i love you!

P A R T  II   T H E   S U B W A Y   G I R L

CHAPTER 10 || love at first sight, heartbreak at second song recommended: roslyn by bon iver and st. vincent

(Autumn, four years ago)

Mingyu would never take a seat in the subway. 

With a frame that tall and sturdy, and the train being packed with commuters at the rush hour of the evening, it was the most gentlemanly thing for him to do. 

He would just lean against the cold pole, pull his phone out and simply answer a few emails. One less thing to stress about the next morning with bitter coffee sloshing around his mouth. 

He seldom looked up because he knew what he’d see if he did—long faces as tired as his cursing life behind pursed lips yet coursing through it regardless. 

But that day, when the train halted at a particular station, something twisted in his chest. Something primal, unexplainable, tugging at his soul that if he didn’t lift his eyes up now, he might forever lose a part of himself. 

So he flipped his gaze up. 

And God, it almost knocked him out. 

A girl, maybe the same age as him, got up just when the doors were about to slide close. She didn’t hurry though, just lingered like she’d be fine either way if she had to wait for the next one. 

It wasn’t like she was the prettiest woman ever with a face moulded in perfect symmetry or a skin which glowed ethereal even in the sterile shadows of the subway. 

She was quite simple. Just there. An existing collage of everything Mingyu had ever adored. 

Her face was softened with exhaustion, long hair damp from the mist and frayed in a messy braid. She tugged at the sleeves of her coat, checking with an old man if it would be alright for her to occupy the vacant seat next to him. Mingyu watched how even the wrinkles around the old man’s temples crinkled deeper with a newfound kindness. 

A faint shadow rested under her eyes. 

Mingyu blinked, as if that could clear the unreal shimmer his mind had concocted around her image. 

‘She’s just a girl.’ Except, she wasn’t. 

Mingyu was never the one to believe in “love at first sight.” The idea was too fickle for him—to just look at someone and decide “this!...this is who I will worship all my life.” 

Unfathomable. Ridiculous. Unrealistic. 

Love, to him, was Mayella’s endless caring disguised as nitpicking or Lisa’s unnerving self-confidence which hid her fear of mediocrity or Hansol’s armor of non-chalance which dusted into a veil of panic when no one was looking. All this love only came to him with time spent around their humanity. 

Love was familiarity. Not fantasy. 

So this fluttering feeling in his chest…one which felt like it was going to wreck all his beliefs and faiths, leaving him with a void shaped like a woman he was currently, unabashedly, staring at—it couldn’t be love, right?

The world always tilted its head when Mingyu walked in. Polite giggles of the baristas when he had to duck through the door of a coffee shop, greetings from clients which didn’t have to be so warm, personalized gifts on his birthdays from friends he had known for less than a year…way too many numbers from women at the bar scribbled on scrunched up napkins, lying forgotten deep in his pockets. 

Even the old man in the subway had tipped his hat politely when Mingyu smiled at him. 

But the girl? She didn’t even spare him a glance. She just sighed, leaned back in her seat like the exhaustion set deep in her bones was knackering her spine. Her eyes fluttered close with silent defeat. 

Mingyu took a single step closer, palm gliding over from one strap handle to the next one. 

Barely an inch nearer to the girl than he was before. 

But he could gauge the movement of her irises behind her closed lids, the warmth of her shuddering breath settling like dew on her faintly glossed lips. 

She drew in another slow inhale, this one slumped her shoulders—briefly—before they straightened back up, like she was carrying the entire sky on them. Only now, the weight of a single cloud had dissipated with that one exhale that followed. 

But her expressions were stoic, not even a hint of emotion tugging at them. 

He couldn’t tell if the girl just had a frustrating day, a tiring argument, a disappointing interview or just a heavy life in general. 

His grip fluttered around the strap handle, itching to reach out to rid her of that density. With a friendly hug? Perhaps a joke? Maybe a slight compliment?

Finally, her cheeks puffed with air of one last breath. Deep and audible. 

Had she looked up from the tangled fingers in her lap to her slight left, she would have seen a guy who towered above everyone else, looking at her with a devoted curiosity—like she had told him that the stars he saw in the night sky were her earrings and he believed her. 

But she didn’t. 

Instead, she pulled out a book from her tote bag and immersed herself into the dark smudges on the weathered, browned pages. 

She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. It wasn’t even blocking her view of the book, but she seemed like the type of person who would smooth a hand over a crisp, blank paper before she could begin writing. Undisturbed and meticulous. 

Before Mingyu could register it, there was a slow, easy curve dipping his smile. 

He almost forgot how to blink while memorizing her—how her posture sank further into the seat like she was trying to shrink herself small, how her forehead furrowed with a tiny wrinkle when she read something interesting and then flipped the previous page to reread it again. 

She seemed to be in a timeline of her own. No rushed fingers gliding across a screen, no judgemental analysis of the people around her. 

She was a deep sigh personified with soft hair and those large, doe eyes in a world which panted. 

Pitch black took over the orange evening curling inside through the glass windows when the train entered a tunnel. It began rocking to a slow, tender halt like a harrowing wave calming down to kiss the beach. 

The girl began shuffling in her seat, ready to get off. She stretched the tote bag open, searching for something. Her eyes skimmed through the entirety of its contents several times before she pulled it back over her shoulder, displeased. 

She must’ve been searching for a bookmark for her book, Mingyu concluded. Because she then took off one of her actual earrings, one which had a big tear shaped ruby dangling off of it, and hooked it over some twenty odd pages she had finished reading. 

Of course, she would rather use a gem to mark her book instead of just dogearing it like normal people would. 

Tucking the leatherbound copy under her arm, she got up and Mingyu’s breath clogged in his throat. He wanted to speak to her, say anything.

But his voice betrayed him. 

A gush of air brushed over her face, causing the wisp of loose hair curling over her forehead to flutter, when the doors slid open. A nauseatingly familiar wave of crowd cut in around her. 

Mingyu’s chest tightened, he made the rash decision of getting off on this platform which was two stations before his actual destination. 

But then—as if even God decided to turn his back on Mingyu—the doors closed right in his face, just when he bumped himself through a pack of stuffy bodies. 

The old man chuckled, going back to reading the newspaper like the boy in front of him wasn’t just exalted to the delights of heaven and then pushed down back into the hellish realities of life in a matter of minutes. 

—————

The second time Mingyu got a glimpse of her was the following week. 

Right after he had given up on all hopes of seeing her again.Right after he had convinced himself that he wasn’t, in fact, haunted by her in his dreams every night. 

Same route, same tired girl. 

Only this time, her hair was let open, cinched half up with a butterfly shaped claw clip. A large blue knit sweater had replaced her pale coat.

It was a particularly chilly early-November evening. The teeth of a little boy pressed close to the icy metal pole, clutching a juice box, chattered every time the doors slid open. 

And then, too sudden, too quick. “Oh no!”

Occupied in their same old mundane, no one paid much attention when the little hands of the kid shivered too hard from the cold and the juice box slipped down with an audible thud. Yellow liquid seeped out on the floor in defeated spills from the straw. 

Someone tsked as the spurts of juice got on their snow dusted shoes. Another boarder kicked the half empty box, still stabbed with a sad plastic straw, to the side to avoid any accidents. The subway cart was already wet enough from all the melting snow their heavy boots carried in. 

Mingyu felt bad for the child when he hung his head low, heavy tears dripping down his cheeks on to the floor, right next to his spilled juice.

Had he been standing nearer to the kid, he would have reached out, patted him on the head and consoled him with a “hey buddy, it's alright” or “chin up little guy.” 

But the crowd had fattened at the subway girl’s platform and the only reason Mingyu could even see what went down was because of his advantageous height. 

So he averted his eyes from the kid and back to who seemed like the center of the universe now. Her. 

Surprisingly, she was already on the move.

She had also seen the boy drop his little snack. 

And unlike Mingyu, or the other commuters, who just swept their eyes over the kid instead of comforting him with a hope that softness existed even in the frosty, suffocating cars of a subway, she was already spearing through the bodies like the first beam of sun. 

Mingyu watched when she crouched as best as she could, muttering something to the boy. Her palm gently wiped over his puffed up wet face. 

Reaching down in her purse, she pulled out a glossy pack of something sweet. The crinkle of that wrapper was louder than the robotic announcements booming across the train. 

The boy beamed up to her, the kind of smile only kids can offer—unashamed of gratitude, untouched by guilt. 

The girl smiled back, ruffling the kid’s hair. 

The cold settled between Mingyu’s fingers dissipated. The calm under his ribs bloomed. Because that smile—it unraveled Mingyu right then and there.  

Before he could scrounge for his senses back and build them up into coherence, it was already the time for her to leave him behind, again. 

This time, though, Mingyu moved. 

Or, at least, he attempted to.

His hand unfurled from the handle, foot wrestling against the legs planted steady and unmoving in front of him. When he couldn’t find space to walk after her, he called out. 

“Hey!” But there was no name for him to accompany that with. 

Even if there was, the girl wouldn’t have heard him over the hissing of the doors which shut with a cruel finality. The train jostled harshly into motion, catching him off balance. 

Mingyu blinked. He lost her. Again. 

Stupid. Stupid. How utterly stupid. 

He exhaled exasperatedly, craning his neck up to look outside the glass panels, hoping to see even a shadow of her. 

But the sea of humans outside seemed to have swallowed her whole. Not even a single strand of hair fluttering in the wind. Not even a glance. 

Just…nothing. 

She was there one moment, radiant and real—and then the world caved in around her like some sacred, fleeting secret. 

Mingyu stood there with his fingers curled into his palms and his jaw clenched over everything he should have said. Everything he could have done. 

A soft giggle broke him from his trance.

Mingyu glanced to see the little kid—the one with her sticky chocolate smeared all over his mouth—trying to muffle his snark under his sleeve. 

He gave the kid a sheepish grin, crooked and flustered, like he didn’t have the courage to admit what he just lost.  

The kid shook his head. Almost with…pity. 

Mingyu only blinked down at the kid’s brave audacity, walking back to the cold metal of the pole to ground himself. He couldn’t believe his pout was more prominent than that of the kid when he spilled his juice.  

Love at first sight wasn’t real, he used to think.

But heartbreak at second? Maybe that was the only kind that ever really was.

—————

Mingyu didn’t lie to anyone about the third time he saw her.

He simply concealed the truth and let his friends believe that it must’ve been the subway again. 

But the reality was sharper. Quieter. More permanent. Far away from the fleeting bumps of destiny or the nauseous rattling of the tracks. 

Mingyu saw her two years after the subway. 

And since then, he has never been able to sleep without cursing himself through hell and back for ever befriending Mayella. 

For the girl he could have risked everything for, was the girl forbidden away from him.

CHAPTER 11 || not yours to take song recommended: happier than ever by billie eilish

(present day)

“Watch out asshole!” you call over your shoulder, not caring if that curse landed on a random fratboy or some chemistry professor. 

Because to you, whoever had just bumped into your shoulder and made all the contents of your bag spill over on the concrete was, indeed, the human equivalent of a diarrhea dispenser. 

You crouch down, hurrying to shove everything back in as you wait for your call to connect with Mingyu through the phone clutched between your ear and shoulder. 

A passerby almost steps on to the little packet of sweet treats that you always carry in your bag for sad children or crying girls. You push at his shin, making him tumble and saving the chocolate successfully. 

The same couldn’t be said about the paper clip on your assignment though. 

You bunch up the loose sheets in your hands, flipping through them to set them in the right order when Mingyu picks up the call. 

“Hey nibblebug!” He chirps. 

Had you not been so horny, you would have ended the call and blocked him right then and there. “You’re three strikes down for calling me that.”  

“Doesn’t change the fact that I had to give a presentation with a visible bite mark on my cheek at eight in the morning.” He retorts.

“Well, I told you I bite under pressure but you insisted on discussing my residency plans in the morning so who’s the one at fault here Mingyu?”

You undid one of your earrings and hooked it over the loose sheets in your hands. 

It was an old habit, one you didn’t even think much about until you realized one of your earrings was missing only to find it tucked between some book, serving as a bookmark. 

“Guilty as charged.” he chuckles, “So, what’s the plan?”

“Just got free after three painful lab hours. I need your dick like right now.” 

“Right now?” he repeats.

“Yeah, right now. You should appear right in front of me and dick me down here in this quad full of miserable med school losers.”

A warm laughter reverberates through the phone. Expensive and smooth, just what you prefer to hear all night after a day as stressful as this one. 

“My place?” He asks and you hum affirmative. 

You both prefer the vast space and warmth of his apartment anyways—you don’t even remember when was the last time you spent more than half a day at your own one. 

Especially not since that particular night over a month ago, one which Mingyu had to spend huddled on your flimsy bed talking about the character arcs of your plush toys until three in the morning. 

“Great! I booked you a cab. It should be waiting outside for you by the time you walk out.” he informs. 

“Wha—you didn’t have to!” You begin to start a losing argument. 

“I know,” he insists, “but I wanted to.”

It is just a small, vague gesture—one you can’t even argue over, one that doesn’t feel like smothering. Just gentle, stable support. Maybe that’s why you’re always more than eager to spend these drained evenings with him. 

“If only I had a car,” You sigh, almost dreamily. “you wouldn’t have to—”

He cuts you in immediately, “If only you knew how to drive a car.”

“Well, teach me then.” You banter.

“I tried to, and you ran us into a mailbox.”

The corners of your mouth tug upwards at the memory of his driving lessons from last week. 

Speaking of tugging, something—or rather someone—catches your sleeve. 

“I–” you whip around to find Julianna holding you hostage in the buzzing parking lot of the campus. 

“Hello?” Mingyu’s voice fades, not because he’s speaking slow, but because your phone has started to slip off from your hands which are trickling with sweat all too suddenly. 

“I…uh, I’ll call you back.” You blurt, ending the call with a haphazard click. Exhaustion hisses from between your pursed lips, masking the nervousness that you don’t want to show.

“What do you want, Julianna?”

You retrieve your hand back with more force than necessary. 

She instantly drops it, folding her fists over her chest instead. Like she doesn’t know what to do with them. You scoff at this odd display of innocence from her, like she isn’t the reason you haven’t stepped a foot into a club since the last three months. 

“Please, just hear me out.” she begs. “I just need two minutes.”

“You had three months.” You snip.

Her lower lip wobbles, “I came to your house...”

“You barged into my house. That too, in the middle of the night.” You correct her, “What were you expecting, Julianna? That I’d hug you? Give you some closure that can kickstart your sorry ass redemption arc?”

Her fist uncurls to press over her brows instead, her expressions teetering on the edge of utter distress. 

“Yes, no, maybe! God, I don’t know…I just never know with you. Nobody does. You’re so hard to read.” she admits, her voice hoarse. “No, scratch that. You’re unreadable!”

Her rant catches you off guard. You blink, then let out a hollow laugh–one which scrapes at your throat. 

Your reaction stings her, but she goes on regardless. “You know what people see when they look at you? You’re…you’re this web of lies. Someone who never even treats her classmates like humans but goes out to drink with them on a random Friday—”

“Julianna don’t you dare turn this around—” 

Her voice rides over yours, “My name isn’t even Julianna. It's Juliette. But you decided one random afternoon that it was Julianna and that’s the only one you acknowledge me by.” 

You stagger behind, just by an inch, too stunned to even comprehend this newest piece of information. 

It is her time to scoff now. She shakes her head like she’s pitying your petty ignorance, “You’re this impossible puzzle…one which none of us can ever solve. You act like we’re all beneath you but then you smile and flirt.”

Her words tumble out now, brittle and broken. “You stare daggers at Rory like she ruined your life but then you go around gifting her YSL lipsticks. You look at me like I am some monster for not apologizing earlier but the second I do, you’re holding this gun to my head.”

You let her words hang in there, until they die down under the distant shouts of two guys throwing frisbees at each other. 

The faint rot of autumn invades your lungs when you inhale. “So that’s the reason why you assaulted me, Juliette. Because I am this mysterious girl you can’t wrap your head around…so I have to be broken to be understood, like a toy?”

Her breath catches, she almost gasps. “Wha—no, no! I was drunk, it was a mistake. I misread the signs and—”

“Save it Julianna.” You mispronounce her name, dragging it longer, with purpose this time. “Because whatever you’re gonna say, trust me, I have heard it before. Verbatim.”

A lone tear slips down her cheek when Juliette realizes that you’re not going to place a crown on this gravestone. That she has to live with it forever. 

And as if to hammer your point home, you continue. “I don’t care that you hate yourself for the rest of your life. I only care that you made me doubt my own signals for a night.”

You look at her, really look at her, and you see a girl crumbling under a burden that isn’t entirely hers. A burden that has a darker history that dates way beyond that night in that stingy alley three months ago. 

You exhale, it comes out like steam. “The only relief I can give you is this—I am not broken. Not by you. Not by the hands before you. I survived that night and will keep on surviving them all. So you can free your conscience of having ruined some girl’s life because I never gave you that power to.”

Your phone buzzes with an unknown number, it’s the cab Mingyu ordered for you. 

You glance at Juliette briefly, watching your rant seep deep into her veins, replacing blood and painting her white. 

There’s a steady press of soothing peace in your chest. Clear as a summer sky in the middle of a cloudy autumn. 

Those are the last words Juliette would ever hear from you because your forgiveness—like everything else she ever wanted from you—was never hers to take. 

CHAPTER 12 || give up forever to touch you song recommended: mia and sebastian’s theme from la la land

There’s a slight possessive edge in your voice when you complain. “I still hate the fact that you don’t have a wall of fame which has the name of every girl you’ve slept with. I wanna see what model I’ve replaced as your go-to.”

Mingyu’s shoulders slump at your crass greeting as he shuts the door behind you. 

“Why is objectifying yourself your sole coping mechanism?” He asks, raw curiosity dripping more than sarcasm in his voice.

You let him take your bag off your shoulder and hang it neatly over the coat-rack right by his Armani blazer. 

His apartment is as clean as you remember—not sterile, but not stinking with a sweaty jacket draped over a chair or a bowl hosting its own ecosystem in the sink. 

It is well organized, but not in a curated way, not with an intention to flaunt. 

There’s genuine care and warmth that exists between these beige walls. It's in the kitchen counters which are always wiped clean. Or the fresh pile of laundry, fragrant with detergent, half folded on the couch.

It comforts you more than you would like to admit.

“Oh I am sorry, is self deprecating humor not sexy anymore?” 

“It never was.” He laughs, soft and low, before dipping his head down to place a chaste kiss on your temple. 

You don’t want to alert him that now, your other temple aches for a kiss too. 

So you avert your eyes from his too endearing ones and clear your throat, toeing off your shoes. 

“Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Have your ‘Nicholas Sparks novel’ moment.” You place a hand over his chest, trying to swallow the smile that threatens to break. 

“I wasn’t aware forehead kisses were copyrighted by emotionally constipated paperbacks.” He snides, nudging your side playfully. 

As you walk past him, he silently sets your boots upright before padding behind you. 

You crash on his couch, burying your nose into the faint sweetness of fresh washed linen. 

“Want some wine?” He calls out from the kitchen. 

It’s not much of an offer when you can already hear the clinking of the glass and the telltale sloshing of your favorite cherry liquid. 

“Give it to me before I combust.” Your voice muffles under the heap of fabric.

“Only if you drink it away from my laundry.” 

With the type of day you’ve just had, you deserve to chug down the entirety of whatever no-price-tagged-bottle he just poured you a teeny-tiny sample from. But you know Mingyu wouldn’t take you to his bed if you were intoxicated. So you settle for the mere two sips of the wine he offers you. 

His nose scrunches up with disdain when you snatch the flute from him, sit on your haunches right by his very white and recently ironed shirts, and clink your glass with his scotch. 

You roll your eyes, huffing and puffing like you do when you are talking to your grandma and scoot away before Mingyu bursts a nerve from you drinking red wine near his white cotton shirt—one which he owns at least seventeen replicas of. 

When he sits down on the single love seat, you don’t think much before getting up and settling down on his lap like it's your right. 

His arm curls around your hips before your legs can fold over his thighs. He pulls you in, tucking your head under his jaw like this moment is exactly what his limbs were made for—to hold you before you can even ask him to. 

“Rough day?” He questions, freeing your now empty flute from your unwilling grip and setting it down on the mahogany coffee table. 

You suck on the skin of his exposed collarbone you had just nipped at before detaching your lips for a brief moment. 

“How d’you know?” you mumble with a pout you don’t even know you have.

He smiles at you, it brims with endearment, before tucking back a loose strand of hair behind your ear which is missing an earring. He doesn’t question you about it, like he knows exactly where it might be—holding some important pages for you.

“Well for starters, you haven’t stopped biting me ever since you walked through that door Miss Chompette.” He corks his brows at you. 

Your eyes flicker down to the shallow teeth marks over his exposed forearms, the recent one on his neck, then back at him. 

You didn’t plan on speaking anything remotely relevant to what happened earlier, but his inviting warmth just cajole the words out of your throat before you can gulp them down. It is scary, to be honest, how he unravels you by just being there. 

“Do you think it's weak to not forgive someone?” You murmur, almost embarrassed. 

“Depends.” he shrugs, savoring the last sip of his drink. 

He sets the glass down next to yours with a soft clink, then leans his until his cheek rests over the crown of your head. 

“On what?” You press. 

His arm tightens around you. “On whether that unforgiveness turned into a grudge. Because grudges weigh you down, unforgiveness flows.”

That prompts you to think, do you hold a grudge against Juliette? 

“What if…what if you just don’t want to forgive them?” You prod after carefully considering your true emotions about this whole ordeal. 

His breath fans over the wisps of hair on your forehead as he takes his time to ponder. 

Then, softly, he asks. “Well, why don’t you want to?”

“I dunno…maybe because it didn’t feel sincere? Like, even while apologizing, she tried to put the blame on me.” You burrow your cheek further into his neck, silently praying that he didn’t hear your slip up and decode that you were talking about a girl. 

“Well, then it's not weak.” There's a clear finality in his tone when he says that. 

You pull away to look at him, searching for any signs which indicate that he’s just trying to make you feel better. There’s none. “You think?” 

“Yes.” He nods, “It would have been a grudge had you denied her forgiveness just to hurt her. But it seems like the apology didn’t feel real to you. Forgiveness isn’t some holy grail—it's a tool. If it isn’t useful, you don’t need it.” 

His words land at your chest with a thud. So matter of fact. So earnest. So Mingyu. 

You laugh even when there’s nothing funny because you’re at a loss of words which could mean something here. Unbeknownst to you, there was moisture building up under your lids and this sudden movement only jerks it out, spilling tears on your cheeks. 

He doesn’t therapize you further, he knows he doesn’t need to. Not after you’ve got the assurance you wanted. 

All you need now, is some warmth after surviving all the icy lashes that this day has rendered on you. And he gives you that, no questions asked. 

Even if it means cradling you here on this chair all night long, then so be it. He’ll hold you until his arms go sore, and when they do, he'll still hold you even after life begins draining out of them. 

Because there was once a time where he longed for even a glimpse of you for two whole years. Then, he ached some more to be able to touch you.  

And now you are on his lap like a blessing he never expected but always prayed for. 

He knows not to make a home out of borrowed moments, but he still lines the walls of this one with the softest parts of himself—secretly hoping you’d decide to stay even when you’ve convinced yourself about the fleetness of this…arrangement.

The nimble fingers toying with the collar of his shirt dull until they weigh down with sleep on his chest, your breath steadying as you slip into slumber. The creases around your eyes relax like they do only when you’re hiding away from the world in a safe corner.

Mingyu wonders if you know just how sacred you are. He wonders if you know that he’ll wait here on this very chair to hold you like this everyday, till the end of his days. 

He kisses your temple—the other one—the one he didn’t kiss before, and feels the thudding pulse finally relax under his lips. Content. Satiated. 

CHAPTER 13 || i see a woman || explicit smut warning song recommended: virgin veins by coma cinema

“I just never know with you. Nobody does. You’re this puzzle that none of us can solve.” 

You should be focusing on the sweet sounds of pleasure eliciting out of Mingyu’s parted lips as you drag your tongue across his abs. 

But your mind keeps on drifting back to the quad. To the day before yesterday. To the complaints you’ve heard several times before, just expressed in different words. 

Mingyu’s hand buries in the mess of your hair, not to push you down but to pull you up, make you straddle his lap on the bed. 

It is his turn to savor the smooth expanse of your skin now. 

He flips you around so that you’re on your back now, hair sprawled over his pillow like midnight while he hovers over you like a full moon. 

It distracts you for several seconds, the way his teeth scrape down on the marks he had left earlier—reigniting them with need and just the right amount of pain. 

But then his lips brush over a specific spot on the swell of your breast, the one which still hosts the ghosts from that wretched night. The one which Juliette had thought was hers to claim. 

Your breath hitches…the guttural sound makes Mingyu halt altogether. That wasn’t a moan of pleasure—it seemed to him like you just choked on plain air. 

He pulls back, just by an inch, the haze of want still wrapped around your bodies. 

“All well?” He asks.

“You’re so hard to read. You’re unreadable.”

Juliette’s voice rings without an alarm. The statement must be true–everyone you know has said that to you at some point. 

But then again, if you’re so hard to read, why is it that Mingyu can read a single skipped breath of yours like it's the only language he ever learnt?

You attempt to nod in answer, but the overwhelm has already settled in your spine like frost on a mountain’s peak, leaving you frozen with trauma on the spot. 

Your eyes flicker away from his, down to the mark on his collarbone, the one you had left with your teeth earlier. You rest your palm flat over it, tracing its border, and then with a voice that’s barely above a breath, you ask him. 

“What do you see when you look at me, Mingyu?”

Not–’how do I look?’ Or, ‘do you want me?’But ‘do you see me?’

The slight jerk of his head tells you that he hadn’t anticipated you to ask that. 

Honestly, you didn’t either. 

It is a question you have never voiced because you’re afraid you already know the answers—’a complicated child’...‘a girl too independent for her own good’...‘a woman unfathomable’. 

What’s worse is the fact that you cannot even turn to your mother to ask who you are, or your father about what makes you, you. 

Because you don’t have them. You don’t know them. 

Everyone else would just give you some generic answer, some well rehearsed nursery rhyme. But something chafes at your lungs, this nervous thrill wrapped in hope, which tells you that Kim Mingyu is about to read you like a fucking sonnet. 

He takes a deep breath, the way he does when he’s about to give something of himself he can’t take back. Then he leans down, still holding your eyes. His breath comes closer to you, becomes one with yours. 

He murmurs, almost as if addressing someone sacred, “I see a woman who always wears bangles, anklets, as many rings as she can…and those dangly earrings, which get caught in my sheets.” 

He shifts, brushing his thumb over your wrist where a single, thin silver chain jingles faintly. “I love that your body sings when you come to me.” He hums. 

Your eyes widen. 

Mingyu is nowhere near finished though. 

“I see a woman who is so easy to catch in a lie.” He chuckles, “Because you always reach out to touch things around you when you lie, as if feeling something solid would make it real, turn it into a truth.”

The coffee cup at the brunch when you lied about losing your virginity. The decorative vase that you reached out for at Mayella and Josh’s villa when you lied to him about being okay. Thistle being choked between your fingers when you told Mingyu that you weren’t scared the night he spent in your bedroom. The deathgrip over his gear in his car when you said you didn’t see him, see this, as anything beyond a source of stress relief—soulless and safe. 

Oh God. He saw right through you all those times? He knew you were lying all along…?

The air shifts into something lighter when he watches you squirm under the captivity of his watchful gaze. He tries to lighten up the intensity. “I see a woman whose teeth itch when she’s having some intense conversation. Like right now, I know you’re dying to bite me, nibblebug.” 

He laughs, sitting up to gaze down at your semi nude self. A curved finger of his drawls lazily between the valley of your breasts, trailing all the way down to your navel where he rests his palm. Heated with desire. This…this is where he gets to give you all he has. This is how deep he touches you when he’s buried inside you. 

“I see a woman who hates nicknames yet loves the sincerity of a real one—who names her teddy something profound and meaningful.”

He softens, “I see a woman who embodies Persephone in Lisa’s art studio, who is spring wrapped in a cotton dress. Who can even make the ruler of the underworld yearn for a glimpse of her.” 

His knuckles brush over your cheekbone like a secret before he tucks back your hair behind your ear so delicately that you think you imagined it.

“I see a woman who longs for open gardens, but has to make do with Manhattan’s concrete jungle. Someone who thinks Maye’s friends are stupid, yet sticks around with them to not disrespect her cousin.”

You cut in, “I don’t think you’re stupid.”

He places his hands on either side of your head, caging you down on his mattress with his body. 

“I know,” he whispers against your cheek, his lips pressing a blurred kiss there. “But I am…so, so stupidly in lo—”

You turn your head around before he can finish that sentence to capture his babbling lips between yours. No warning. No space. 

The heat of your kiss melts his words into a puddle which dribbles down one side of your mouth. It is messy, hungry and brimming with the weight of things unsaid. 

You slide your hands to hug his shoulders, but he laces his fingers with yours and pins them back down on the mattress by your ears, disallowing you any pleasure of feeling his rippling muscles. 

A whimper flutters past your throat when he pushes your eager tongue back into your mouth, overpowering you. 

There’s no rhythm to it, not this time around. 

Just passion, desperation and need—all slathering up both of yours’ raw bitten lips which refuse to part even when your chests burn for air. 

He kisses you with the frustration of being disrupted mid-speech. With the fervor of every moment he has to restrain himself around you. With the patience of every night he has longed for you. 

Like if he kissed you just hard enough, you’d know how much he needs you. Like it would make up for the time lost with him deliberating over how to touch you without scaring you with the passion he harbors for you. 

He allows you some mercy of a breath by pulling away, his wet mouth gleaming with your spit more than his own. 

His fingers curl around your hips like they have multiple times before, but this time they are a little frantic—digging in deeper. Like he was afraid you would slip away from his hold like a thread of smoke. 

Shifting a little lower, it's your abdomen that faces the heat of his kisses now. 

You sink further down into the bed, as if it’ll engulf you like water and save you from this fire he is igniting. 

Mingyu is relentless tonight—wouldn’t loosen his grip in the slightest even when you begin to writhe under him. 

“Mingyu…” you plead, unsure what exactly you are begging for. 

He isn’t being cruel or harsh on your skin, it’s just this…love…pouring out of him that is tightening your heart with jagged knots. 

Or maybe, there’s a slight possibility that you’re the one emitting that love. Does it even matter who is lighting up who?

You don’t know anymore. There’s a choking smoke billowing all around, soot filling up lungs until all that once mattered suffocates. Until all the water is murked and the air polluted. Until all the norms of survival collapse.

When a forest burns down, who stops to ask where the initial spark of fire came from?

Your back arches off the bed when he licks at your navel and he uses that opportunity to reach around your chest and clasp your bra open. He tugs the garment off your arms like he despises the mere existence of it. 

When he busies himself with palming your naked breasts, his jaw loosening with wonder as your nipples go taut at the slightest touch, you unbutton your jeans, pulling them down as far as you can. 

He helps you out by jerking them off your ankles and throwing them somewhere on his beige rug. Your fingers wrap around the waistband of your underwear next but his longer digits curl right above yours. 

“These are mine to take off.” He warns, stretching the elastic of your underwear, “Always, mine.”

Fleeting moments like this one make you think that Mingyu is possessed by something sharper than lust. A phantom, old and aching, which constantly claws at his skin to be let out; but he restraints it back. 

The darkness seeps out regardless—sometimes as this heady possessiveness, sometimes as his eagerness to corrupt you.

You meekly nod, retrieving fisted palms back to your chest as he holds your eyes with his hooded ones, peeling off the soiled fabric in a smooth motion. 

“Open your legs for me, baby.” is his next command, spoken slowly, with care. 

It leaves you a wreck. Not because he's asking you to do something unusual, but because it's his palms which are always in charge of parting your thighs. 

You stare up at him, breathless and bewildered. There’s no challenge looming over his sinful expressions, just a tiny hint of wonder about whether you’ll do as he says. 

That hint morphs into an amused smirk when you follow his command and shift your thighs further away from each other. 

It's barely a few inches, but he doesn’t expect you to turn into a bold mess within a single night. 

Large, calloused palms glide down your pliant thighs, pulling them further apart to expose your blushing core for him. 

“Only I get to see this…” It is a question. It is a prayer. It is a poem. It is gratitude. All tied together in a hushed whisper. He speaks it more to himself than to you.

“Tell me to stop when you need to?” He mumbles the usual protocol. 

“Yes, yes I will.” You pant, barely strumming your words together because if you don’t vocalize your consent, you know he won’t proceed. 

“Thanks darling.” he whispers, a gentle smile at his bruised lips. 

His fingers begin teasing the delicate folds between your legs, another palm mapping out every inch of your body with shuddering curiosity. He watches you keenly as you dip your head further into the plush pillow, soft sighs flowing out of your lips like symphonies of his favorite opera.

And when his thumb encircles your clitoris, his fingers sliding up and down gathering all your moisture, and you mewl, he instantly coddles your face with his free hand. 

“Shh, sweetheart, s’okay.” he croons, continuing to stroke your cunt—even though your thighs tremble, threatening to close. 

He knows that it's just a false alarm, that you wouldn’t shy away from him and continue to take it like the good girl you are. 

You prove him right—relaxing your hips after a few more flicks, the heels of your feet digging into the sheets but never pushing him away.

Your fingers are bunching his duvet, knuckles draining white as he continues working magic over your swollen petals. He hasn’t even touched your entrance yet beyond a brief brush of his thumb, but it is already leaking with heat and drenching the sheets below—clenching around nothing. 

Mingyu sees that, of course he does. 

Slowly, very carefully, he slips a finger inside with such elaborate patience that it draws a gasp out of you. Your body welcomes him with eager hunger, walls tightening around him with a sure insistence, refusing to let go when tries to slide it out. 

He chuckles low, “Baby, relax. We have all night.” 

That promise eases you almost instantly. You lean into him even more—a sudden gush of liquid warmth spurting around him when he adds a second finger. 

He stretches you out, rubs your clitoris with his thumb, praises your everything, all while keeping his focus trained on your face. He memorizes every crook of his fingers that makes you mewl, every hard push that scrunches up your face painfully. 

Soon, the rough digits jutting in and out of you become slick and slimy with your arousal. A sinful squelching sound, constant and loud, overpowers your moans. 

That’s when he pushes further in until he’s knuckles deep, flirting with that one specific spot that always makes you forget your own name. 

Your lower body bucks and thrashes, eyes flying open when he begins fucking you open with his fingers. An unintentional kick from you lands over his bicep when he rams into that gummy spot repeatedly. 

“Behave!” He reprimands, free hand catching your flailing ankle and using it to hook your leg over his hip. 

“Sl-slow down…” You choke. 

He instantly obeys, but not without adding to your predicament by introducing a third finger. He doesn’t shove it in, but you can feel it prod around your hole, coaxing to be let in. 

To help you take it, his lips wrap around your puffy nub, flicking it with his tongue before proceeding to suck on it like a man gone animalistic. 

You’re crying with pleasure, opening yourself more and more until all three of his fingers sit snug inside your warmth. It is truly impressive how much your cunt stretches and lubricates to adjust to him. 

He contributes to your wetness by spitting down on your sensitive folds before diving back in, allowing the embarrassing mixture of his saliva and your juices to soak you both in a sheen of carnal hunger. 

At a particular thrust of his fingers, some liquid splutters past his fingers, landing on his face. 

“Mingyu!” You cry out, mortified at what just happened. 

He’s looking at you, wild eyes upturned to you and wet smirking lips clamping down on your abused clit. 

“You just squirted baby.” He groans right against your cunt, like he couldn’t remove his lips from you for even two seconds to speak properly. 

The vibrations only make you release another spurt. Your jaw has widened to a point of dislocation, yet he keeps going, free hand rubbing warmth over your tummy like he’s asking you to give him some more. 

Unlatching one of your hands from his head, you brush back the loose hair falling over his eyes. He makes you weep some more by making you take his third finger at a new faster pace he sets, but he knows it's necessary to prepare you for what is to come. 

You recognize the telltale signs of your orgasm—it brims in your belly chasing down south until you fall apart for him with a blubbering sob of his name.  

Mingyu is busy digging into your flinching hole trying to scoop out all your wetness—wanting to drown in it. He slurps and sucks every bit of it, fingers unplugging out of you so that his mouth can take over your sopping entrance. 

Once he has sucked you clean and there’s nothing more that you can give him without getting overstimulated beyond your limit, he leaves you be. Wet. Ruined. Aching. 

He doesn’t want to tire you, or scare you away. Not yet. Not tonight. 

Your body begins to panic when his warmth departs but then it lulls back when he hovers above you, his broad chest and shoulders blocking the view of anything that isn’t him. 

You don’t care that his fingers are still soaked with your musky arousal when they cup your face, nor do you mind that his lips carry the heady scent of yours when he leans down for a kiss. Instead, you find yourself enjoying tasting your remnants on him. 

Mine. You affirm. 

“You did so good sweetheart,” He praises, “Keep yourself relaxed for me, will you?”

Your thumb traces the edges of his lips as he waits for your answer. 

With shy eyes blinking the tears back in, you ask him. “Yeah, but…can we try something new?” 

Usually the one to follow his lead, this the first time you have asked him for something in bed. Pride shines in his grin when he quirks his brows at you. “Go on?”

Thorns scratch at your throat but your voice is honey when you speak. “Is it okay if I turn around?”

There is no personal grudge or a vehement disdain that Kim Mingyu harbors towards the position you’re referring to. He just doesn’t want to be unable to see your face when he makes love to you. He can’t kiss your tears that way. 

It is part of a reason why he has tried almost all the basics with you by now—taking you against the wall, making you ride him until you cried, showing you that your legs can sure as hell reach your ears. 

But your face…those ruined eyes, those plump lips, that flushed skin—a unique shade every time—is where he draws the line. He physically can’t get himself to push you down, to muffle your moans, into a pillow. 

But tonight isn’t about him. And he recognizes that. Swallowing his protests, he helps you turn over on your knees. 

A giant pillow is stuffed right under your hips as a precaution while you’re given the liberty to do whatever you want with your arms—elbows or palms, mattress or the headrest—he even offers to hold them for you behind your back if you want to. 

You resort to folding them under your forehead instead, fists bunching up the sheets below. Once you’re settled comfy, back arched, sensitive breasts smushed down on his duvet and knees spread and stable, he reintroduces his fingers to open you up into this new position. 

It’s a new sensation, but not an unwelcome one. 

He digs at new angles, finding new spots that make you moan before he finally locates his favorite one—the one that makes gushes of liquid splurge out of your body.

You sigh and hum, knowing that now that he can’t see your face, your sounds are the only ways you can tell him what works and what doesn’t. You gave up on words the moment he laid you down on his bed anyways. 

Once he is content with what he sees and the pillow under your hips has a damp spot beginning to grow, you hear the telltale sound of the rustle of his tee being discarded followed by the unzipping of his pants. 

There is some kind of sick, twisted pleasure Mingyu finds in touching your naked body while he’s fully clothed for as long as he can. 

He lines himself up with you, nudging his hardened dick up and down your quivering cunt and collecting your slick. 

It was a mutual decision of yours to not use the condom given that you’re on the pill. Yet he makes sure. “Want me to use a condom?” 

“No, no!” you keen, shaking your head frantically. 

His palm smoothes down over your back, a gentle assurance. “Alright.”

The blunt tip of his dick presses down on your entrance and unlike his fingers that had to coax you to be allowed in, your hips thrust back on their own—taking his cock halfway in. 

A feminine gasp echoes throughout his bedroom, followed by his painful hiss. He tries easing himself out, but you have him in a vice grip. 

“God, baby, you’ll hurt yourself.” He cajoles—warmth in his words, reverence in his palms kneading your soft flesh. “Calm down.”

You trust him, you really do. Your shoulders sag and your taut hips slump on the pillow, letting him decide the pace. 

He begins to push in, with more patience than you ever could, making you feel every drag of his veiny girth. 

The pure white of his sheets is a harrowing contrast to the hollow stars blurring your vision. So you clench your eyes shut, breath stuttering through clinched teeth as he settles in full, defined hips pressed against your plump ass. 

“Feelin’ good?” He asks, rubbing your lower back. 

You nod, hoping he’s looking at your head, because you can’t do anything else. If you open your lips now, you’ll sob from the overwhelm and that might cause him to stop. 

“I am gonna move baby.” His voice sounds strained like he is having a hard time giving the naive girl in his bed all these warnings instead of just fucking her however he wants. 

And as if reading through his pain; “Do whatever you want, Mingyu.” You whisper, tears pooling down over your hands. 

That was all he needed. 

His fingers dig inside your hips, holding you down, as he pulls out until only the tip remains. Then, he leans forward until the cold metal of his chain pools down on the hot skin just under your hairline, and he slams back in. With just how strong Mingyu is, even the slightest of force is brutal on your body. 

“Ahh!” You puff out, scrambling to chomp down on the skin of your own arm to not alert him about the painful pleasure you’re experiencing. 

But he stalls, only moving again when you begin to whimper with complaint. 

He sweeps your hair to a side with a swift motion of his hand to expose your sweat slicked neck for his wet lips to feast upon. 

Another drag out, another thrust in. Careful yet precise. 

This time, with his arms locked around your waist while his mouth burns a hickie between your shoulders. 

“I love the way you stretch to take me.” He drawls, his words vibrating against your skin as you tremble under him. 

“And I…I love the way you m–make me feel, Gyu.” You hiccup. It might be the most honest thing you have ever said to him, and for once, you’re not holding anything in your clammy hands. 

He answers you by running his large palm over the expanse of your back, picking up a curated rhythm which feels good to you both. Slow and deep, like he wants you to enjoy it to your heart’s content tonight and then never ask him to take you like this ever again. 

But you whine with your face buried into his bed. “Go harder, Gyu.” It is muffled, but doesn’t go unheard when he is practically pressed flat on top of you.

His hips begin to snap rough against your bottom, lewd smacks making your head spin. Your knees give out the moment he hits your sensitive spot and you fall flat on the mattress—sandwiched between his heavy, hard body and the poor, squished pillow. 

“No baby, you gotta stay up on your knees.” He mocks. “You were begging to be fucked like this, you don’t get to lay back down.”

With his hands locked around your waist, he hauls you back up until you’re sitting—back pressed firm to his chest, lips never leaving the sweet spot he’s suckling on. 

The heat burning into the g-spot in your walls that he brushes over and over, oozes out across your core. Your insides are burning for him as he carves out a not so small space for himself. Each thrust aimed with an intention of etching himself on your very soul. 

You get it why people go crazy over backshots—it just hits different this way. 

His coarse fingers come down on your abused clit, rubbing it over and over like he’s polishing a scrap of metal. God, you love it when he loses control and just goes wild on you.

“Feels s’good Gyu!” You cry out, digging your nails into his forearms. The same forearms press down on your belly when he fucks you deeper, making you keen.

Every single inch of your body that can be stimulated is being given all the love and attention by him—the spot he keeps on bumping inside your walls, the scarlet folds stretched for him being soothed by his fingers, the skin on your neck that is never left unblemished by his lips and teeth. 

You’re aware of it all. In fact, too aware to a point that every fibre of you begins pulsing with what he’s giving you. He senses your orgasm before you do and begins syncing all his movements with practiced care, merging them whole to push you past your tipping point.

You are silk in his rough hands—lush and slippery. But he contains you like you’re his salvation. Grounding you here, calling you back. 

The brilliance of a thousand stars explode at once behind your eyes when you fall apart for him. Wet lips mumbling incoherent prayers to the Gods you abandoned years ago. Nails digging into him like he’s the sole reason you haven’t lost all faith.

He doesn’t falter, just holds you upright through it all, even when your knees lose all sensations and strength. Your arms fall loose over his, head slumps down over his shoulder, too fucked out to even open your eyes. You just nuzzle your face under his jaw as he chases his own release now. 

“Baby, you with me?” He asks, slowing down for a beat.

“Y-yes…don’t stop…please don’t stop.” You gurgle, a streak of drool dripping down your chin when his hand grabs one of your bouncing tits. 

He doesn’t even get the chance to reply to you when a scream cracks through the air and you orgasm for the third time tonight. This time, you clench around him so tight that he follows suit, staring down at how your forehead scrunches up with desire which teeters on the edge of agony. You’ve ruined his ability to be able to come undone without seeing your face. 

Warmth floods inside of you when he fills you up with ropes and ropes of his hot semen. It is so much, so messy—even trickles down your legs onto the bed. 

“Don’t spill it.” He tsks, laying you down gently. 

His hips don’t stop rutting, but they’re lazier now, tuned in with each hiccup of yours. 

You thought being unable to see his face tonight might make it easier. 

But Mingyu’s devotion will find you even when you turn your back to him, curling over and sweeping under every wall you put up. It is terrifyingly inevitable…like doom.

(a/n: to the anon who said that mingyu being observant and clocking reader’s fake nonchalance in pt 1 scratched their brains right, i hope you’re happy with this one lol)

CHAPTER 14 || a sketch, a girl, a subway (a/n: i really recommend listening to midnight rain by taylor swift after reading this chapter)

Mingyu never said that you can’t tour around his house while he sleeps. 

So you’re technically not swooping when you find yourself in the middle of his study with one of his satin sheets wrapped under your arms like a wedding gown. 

Just a curious gal trying to see what goes on in his head when a lovesick architect in New York City designs homes with random subway girls in his mind. 

Besides, Mingyu had been so weird in bed tonight, humanizing you and what not. He deserved to get his privacy invaded for making you feel loved like that.

You start slow, harmless. Just flipping through the unfinished blueprints on his study, reading the incoherent notes scribbled in the margins of each map, digging through the drawers stuffed neat with stationary. When you find nothing more than indecipherable mathematics and precise angles in his main work folder, the investigation picks up pace. 

You try not to voice out what it is that you’re actually looking for. It is embarrassing. But there’s a silent prayer perched on your pursed lips, “Show yourself subway girl.” 

You almost flinch at your own reflection when it catches in a mirror you hadn’t spotted before. 

There is maroon splashed all across your body, spluttered in patches and marked by teeth. The sweet amber of his citrus and berries shampoo, from the bath he gave you just a couple hours ago, still lingers in your hair. The post-coital glow on your skin is his doing, too. 

Your heart squeezes, the rhythm of your breath falters. From each wet thread of your hair dripping with his perfume to each patch of skin stamped with his name, you are utterly, and completely—his. 

And it is tragically pathetic, honestly, that you’re here searching for the woman who, in turn, owns him. Whom he would forget your entire existence for if she knocked at his door right now.  

You look away before you can berate yourself even more and go back to distracting your mind with this demeaning pursuit. 

A slew of loose papers fall down like hail when you accidentally knock a book over. You crouch down, the fabric on your body rustling as you try to gather those sheets back in order. 

When you try to get up, you can’t. Something hinges at the corner of your makeshift dress. You tug at it, only to be replied back to by a threatening sound of satin ripping. 

The only source of illumination in this wood panelled room is the soft moonlight of a full moon streaming in from the large, open window. You try feeling around what hooks your sheet, fingers wrapping around what feels like a knob. 

You pull harder. 

This time, your sheet comes loose, but so does what appears to be a hidden drawer at the bottom of his bookcase. 

You wait for a beat for a mouse to jump out. When it doesn’t, you reach in to see what buried treasure Mingyu hides here. 

The surface you graze is rough and sturdy, thick with glossy pages. You pull it out to examine it better—its a photo album. 

With quivering fingers, like your body knows the importance of this moment, you flip it open. 

There are things so inexplicably pure and delicate in this world, that they slow time down. Like the large, glassy eyes of a baby Mingyu staring back at you when you turn the first page over. Cheeks puffed out with something sweet and sticky, little fingers curling around the hem of his pink pajamas that swallowed him whole. The picture stuck adjacent to it pulls at your heart even more—a toddler in a lion costume. Hands stretched out into paws, lower lip caught between teeth as he pours all his concentration into the performance he is in. Then one in his mother’s arms, another on his father’s shoulders. Kissing the forehead of his newborn sister, proudly flashing a giant A+ on his first report card. 

The album is heavy, not with the photographs, but with the love it holds. The stories it carries. 

Childhood skips into teenage in a matter of seconds with a few flips of pages—awkward sometimes, rowdy the most. The sweaty and spent soccer squad throwing fries at their man of the match, the clumsy robot which bagged third place in nationals, the smug grin squished into the fair cheeks of the blonde girl he took to prom, a vacation to the Bahamas where he scowls down at his sister—snapped mid eye roll. 

A proud father standing outside the main gate of a prestigious university with his chest puffed out next to a son who just got accepted to study architecture there. 

Mayella makes an appearance before anyone else does. Her hair is dyed electric green—sophomore year—as she attempts to strangle a laughing Mingyu at some party, a clump of spaghetti on her shoulder. On the next page, Lisa, surprisingly without her curtain bangs, is sandwiched between them in a polaroid, beaming wide with a trophy. The fading note scribbled with a dark marker below it reads: ‘me and maye coddling li for winning @ the art exhibit.’ 

The page turns and takes you to New York with Mingyu. Hansol and him before the Empire state building, buff arms slung lazily over each other’s shoulders. Chiseled by time and tanned deeper with the toils of adulthood, Mingyu looks firmer now. His smile is easier, more natural and mature, not burdened with the weight of pleasing his parents, or charming his high-school girlfriend, or impressing his uni peers. This air of self assurance serves him well. 

There are fewer pictures now, there ought to be. Once real life takes over, one forgets to pause and catch moments behind the lens. 

But still, Mingyu’s attempts to cherish his life don’t stop altogether. There are a few fragmented shots here and there—Hansol mid laugh on a rooftop bar, the smudge of paint on Lisa’s blazer as she greets the Mayor, the entire squad with Mayella and Joshua immediately after the proposal. 

You’re in none of them. You don’t expect to be. You always step away into a corner the moment someone pulls out a camera. 

The sigh you let out is laden with the weight of the life you’re carrying in your arms. A life so majestic, so full of love. How vain it was for you to think that this man relies on a single woman for inspiration when he is surrounded by homes all around. 

A lonesome tear you didn’t even know was drenching your lashes finally slips down when you shut the album close. The droplet lands on a frail sheet of paper which was tucked in between the last few pages you didn’t explore and has slipped out in your lap like it couldn’t bear not being looked at. 

You pick it up, thinking it's just a loose page, but the faint beam of moon pools over it at an angle that highlights the faint smudge of charcoal on the other side. 

There’s a tug-of-war between your gut and your heart in the split second which ticks just before you turn the sheet over. Like what lies on the flip side of this paper is about to hit you like an uncontrolled truck on slippery asphalt. 

But you turn it over regardless. 

The moon hanging low outside Mingyu’s window crashes down on Manhattan’s concrete with a loud bang. Or maybe that was just the sound of your gasp. 

A sketch. A girl. A subway. 

The drawing drips with reverence like even before he knew her, Mingyu somehow figured out the subject of his sketch hated cameras. 

He had to capture her from memory and sight alone because he couldn’t bear not including her in this kaleidoscope of his life. So he drew her and kept her here, away from his overbearing childhood, away from his rowdy teenage years, away from the mares of his adulthood. Guarded and cherished. 

Ruby earrings—shape of a tear. Wuthering heights, with a spine colored silver clutched between ringed fingers. Her eyes downturned. Her lips glossed cherry, half hidden under her soft scarf. 

You. 

Unmistakably. Awfully. Truthfully…you. 

——————————————

(4 years ago)

Mayella loved her family name more than she loved breathing. It came with history, studded with honor and followed by a legacy to upkeep. So it was truly a stupid decision for you to purchase a ticket to New York after everything that went down. 

Thankfully, you hadn’t told her that you were here because if you did, she would have insisted you stay with her. 

And then what would you tell her? 

“Hey sis, so in true bastard fashion, the adopted daughter of the family finally botched its reputation. I hope grandma still sends me her ugliest sweater this Christmas because the prettiest ones are always reserved for her true grandkids, the ones who share her blood.”

Or, “Maye, I am here because everyone is practically spitting at me. I know it should die down, it's the last semester after all, but I don’t know.” 

Or simply, “How do you survive being the campus slut?” 

You didn’t even have your luggage with you, had left the moment you stepped into your friend’s place and found that video playing on a laptop balanced between her and her two roommates like it was some harmless prank on YouTube. Like it wasn’t a skin splitting humiliation you had never signed up for.

Your friend had halted mid giggle when she saw you, gave some excuse like “it was already playing when I got here.” 

You didn’t fight, you didn’t scream, you didn’t even snap back when one of her roommates jutted out a tongue against his inner cheek and made the vile gesture of sucking a dick at you. 

You just ran. Ran away to New York and hid there for a month. 

You didn’t go to Mayella. Didn’t even let her know you had found a month to month sublet in the Lower East Side and spent your days stitching yourself back together, piece by piece.

It smelled like piss and paint thinner in the stairwell there. The lock on your door stuck. There was one window that barely opened, and the radiator screamed like a dying animal every few hours. 

But at least no one here knew your name. No one called you the girl from the video. No one watched you and saw a punchline.

You once came across a rat on a random street. It looked at you with beady eyes full of challenge. Then, it scurried away. There wasn’t much difference between you and that rodent. Both filthy and disgusting. 

Only it had the guts to hold the eyes of potential danger. While you had just run away. 

You rode the subway once or twice, here and there. The train always rattled harder than your chest, it weirdly put you at ease. You could always excuse the shivering in your calves to the icy interior of the subway instead of the overdose of fear in your nerves. 

Too wary of being stared at, you had perfected the art of folding into yourself. Shoulders tucked, eyes withdrawn, Heathcliff and Catherine your only company. 

You didn’t even meet your own reflection in the transparent glass windows because every time you did, all you could see was the face of a girl pixelated in shame.

Had you succumbed to the warmth that brushed you, or your heart that twisted…you would have looked up from your book and could have seen a guy—too tall to not hover, broad enough to lean against the pole without even truly leaning—watching you like you were the first fairytale he had ever known but forgotten. 

You should have looked up. But you never did. 

CHAPTER 15 || annoying roomie rory

song recommended: twin by jennie 

Rory is a girl who tries hard. 

Academically, socially, mentally (yeah, try juggling med-school with a raging ADHD before snickering at her). 

But her attempts often flop. 

She scrapes by each term, thanks to the last minute flashcards of her roomie. She is the one whose memes get ignored in a group-chat. She needs a twenty minute stretch routine and a five minute gratitude meditation to be able to sleep. 

She doesn’t expect visitors. Ever. So when a frantic knock at the front door at three in the morning echoes around her modest apartment, Rory shrieks and stumbles down her bed, tangled in coarse cotton sheets and even coarser panic. 

Looking around, she grabs the nearest thing that could double as a weapon—a single badminton racket which she stole from her friend Seungkwan. Her socks betray her twice by making her slip on the way from her bedroom to the front door. She can’t even blame her roomie for the water splashes near the couch, she hasn’t seen her face in over two weeks. 

Rory peeps through the keyhole, but instantly flinches back because whoever is on the other side chooses that exact moment to rap the wood harder than before. 

The odds of it being a serial killer behind the door? Likely. The odds of her next door neighbour Mr. Gibson hearing her screams? High. The odds of her being saved by Mr. Gibson? Quite low.  

Maybe her mother was right. Maybe Rory should have stayed back in her humble hometown in Wisconsin instead of moving here to the lair of hobos and druggies. 

Another round of knocks. She gulps, rehearses her 911 call. Offering what could be the last few prayers to the lord almighty, she unlatches the door and opens it just enough to peek out with one eye. 

A man, tall and tanned, heaving like someone scooped at his chest with a blunt spoon and took his heart out. His shirt is half buttoned, angry scratches disappearing down his collar. The scarlet in his eyes isn’t a result of heavy drinking, but stress behemoth enough that it bursts veins. He is almost doubled over, like someone shattered his ribs. Maybe he was crying. Maybe he was screaming. Maybe he ran here with half his organs missing. 

Rory recognizes him from the occasional luncheons her roomie has organized at their apartment. She always thought he looked handsome, now he just looks like a roadkill. 

“Mingyu?” She asks, brows furrowed. “Wow, you look…terrible.”

He ignores the condescending observation. “I-is she here?” He stammers, barely keeping his breath stable to sound like a human. 

“Who? Roomie?” Rory questions. Mingyu nods urgently, hope flashing all across his face. His grip on the doorframe tightens, like he is holding himself back from pushing Rory to the side and searching the place himself. Rory digs her feet deeper into the carpet to avoid being ambushed when she admits, “I haven’t seen her in days.”

Mingyu deadpans, “Days? And you weren’t concerned about her?”

Rory blinks, unsure on how to respond to that. “I am not her babysitter. Maybe you should check with her cousin.”

“She’s not at Mayella’s.” Mingyu quickly dismisses it. “Anyplace else she could be at?” 

Rory sucks at her lower lip, now fully awake, yet her brain spends a considerable amount of time to sync with her thoughts and memories. 

“None that I can think of…” she trails, realizing just how irresponsible she sounds. She quickly defends, more to herself than to Mingyu, “I mean, she never really tells me where she’s going, what she’s doing.” 

Mingyu sighs, exhausted and spent. From the looks of his state, one could easily tell that he has already searched half of Manhattan at this crazy hour. 

Rory’s heart twists, she hates being of no use. Especially when a situation at hand involves someone she truly cares for. 

When her fixation over Mingyu’s devastation fades, dread grips her. You were missing. Her roomie, a young beautiful woman, was missing in a city which came with a warning siren blaring all over it. 

“Maybe if you–if you give me more details.” Rory can slowly feel her brain alerting, continuous streaks of adrenaline pumping throughout her small body. “Like, did you guys fight? Why was she with you in the first place? I thought you didn’t like her. Mingyu, did you—”

Mingyu’s jaw clenches, then unclenches. “We didn’t fight Rory, not exactly. But I think…I think I upset her.”

“Upset her by doing what?” Rory’s blonde hair looks like ice under the feeble blue light streaming in from the hallway. Her skin, dry and patchy, tightens with angry frowns as Victoria ‘Rory’ Alberhasky gears herself to take down a six foot two man with a single badminton racket if he admits to having hurt you. 

Mingyu scratches at the skin above his left brow. “It’s complicated, Victoria.”

The badminton racket moves an inch. “Un-complicate it.”

“You can put the bat down, I didn't harm her.” Mingyu sighs, startling her even further. 

Oh, of course, he saw the bat clutched behind her back…motherfucker was literally looming above her like the ghost of the statue of liberty with all that height. 

Rory meekly lets the racket drop, it lands with a hollow clatter. But her grip on the door tightens, ready to slam it in his treacherous face. 

“I just…well, I think she figured out I love her.” Mingyu can’t believe your annoying roommate is the first real human being he is confessing his true feelings for you to. 

Rory blinks, blindsided. “I’m sorry, what?” 

Mingyu pinches his nose bridge, looking away from the ghastly grey eyes of the girl, but the crimson is already flushing his sweat sheened skin. 

“She found this sketch I made of her…”

“Where?”

“At my apartment.”

“What was she doing at your apartment?”

“Um…”

“Mingyu,” Rory folds her arms before her chest, he curls into himself even more, “you tell me she’s missing. And that she was at your place last. What. Was. She. Doing. There?”

Mingyu mumbles something jumbled. Rory prides for a brief second—she has never caused a man to cower like that. 

“I can’t hear you.” she reprimands. 

Mingyu takes a deep breath, making peace with the fact that when he finds you—and he is certain he would, even if it means he has to flip New York upside down—you are going to kill him for letting your annoying roommate Rory in on this. 

“We were sleeping together.” He states. 

“Like, cuddling or…” she trails, her brows arching up with each drawl.

“We were having sex in my apartment, Victoria.”

“Oh,” She flinches, “oh yeah. Yes, of course.” she clears a web of awkward tension in her throat. “You mentioned a sex—I mean, a sketch?” 

Mingyu prepares himself to sound like the most pathetically down bad man awake in Manhattan right now. 

“She was snooping around my place after I fell asleep. She found this sketch I made of her four years ago—”

“You didn’t even know her four years ago.” Rory scratches at her head. 

“That’s why I said it's complicated, Victoria.” Mingyu exhales. This entire back and forth feels pointless—Rory hasn’t given him anything that could help him search for you…she’s just standing here, eager to gobble whatever juicy gossip he throws her away. “Anyways, that sketch is missing now. So is she. Any idea where she could be?”

“What I’m getting is that you overwhelmed her.” Rory mumbles, “She doesn’t handle it well.”

Mingyu’s head dips down with shame. “I know.”

“I am sorry, Mingyu. I really am.” She begins, “But roomie just shuts herself away whenever it's too much. I don’t know what goes on in her head at times like these. She doesn’t talk about that stuff. It’s her pattern—emotional overload equals radio silence.”

Mingyu’s clutch on the door tightens like that alone could steady him while a whirlwind knocks at his ribs. The possibility of you being out there somewhere, hurt and numb, all alone in a city too dark is too grotesque for him to even think about. 

He closes his eyes, life wilts behind them. 

You were shut out—but not in the safety of your room, not even in the sterility of Mayella’s house. 

He did this. He tried breaking your walls, but ended up destroying your home instead. 

“What if she’s unsafe, Rory?” He voices out. 

It hits Rory like a cold gust. She wants to deny it, call it paranoia, tell him he’s being dramatic—but the raw desperation in his eyes isn’t something one can fake. Not when his voice breaks at every third word he speaks. 

Rory flinches like an oracle who just received a divine epiphany from the heavens. 

“You should look near water.” She speaks as soon as that idea hits her, doesn’t even consider how ridiculously terrifying or mystical it sounds.

His head snaps up, blood drained and frozen. “What?”

“Water. It's just a wild guess and maybe a hopeless venture…but I have observed that she always takes longer showers when she’s overstimulated. And when I was going through a rough breakup, she even suggested I go take a walk by a lake or something. She says water washes away unwanted emotions.” 

Rory wanted to go on about the significance of water and how it made spiritual sense for you to do so, but Mingyu is already on his feet, booking it down the hallway. 

His heart hammers in his ears, he almost tumbles over nothing. The night was so dark. So cold. And you were near water. 

You didn’t even know how to swim. 

The icy night air bites him through his jacket but it’s nothing compared to the dread that must be pinching at every single inch of your soft skin.

What if your feet slipped…what if there was no light near you…

Water and air, how many tragedies have they concocted when they wear each other’s skins at dark nights like these. 

When a forest burns down, no one stops to ask where the initial spark came from. But the one who lit the match must live with the blood of a thousand scorched birds on his hands.

(a/n: rory is actually based on my real roommate lmao and unlike in this fic, my rory and i vibe to the moon and saturn. love you riri, even though you’re not reading this <3)

CHAPTER 16 || to build a home songs recommended: wanna be yours by the arctic monkeys (lmao i am so corny and basic BUT TRUST ME)

The night is a long, long one for everyone. 

For Mayella, who calls everyone she knows, barely masking her panic, as she asks them about you. 

For Rory, who sits back in the apartment, eyes wide and a cup of water sitting idle on the coffee table, waiting for you. A discolored ring of condensation stains the wood under it. 

For Lisa, who refuses to trust Rory’s instincts and takes it upon herself to look for you in a different neighbourhood altogether. “She always goes to the Bronx.” She insists. 

For Joshua and Hansol, who are on the same page as Lisa and search for you in the places you frequent, not in a theory your roommate pulled out of her ass. 

But Mingyu has a hitch, he trusts you to succumb to the embrace of nature–the flow of water, the calm of trees, the cleanse of wind. 

So he drives even when his fingers shake, slips on the coast of East river, stumbles over a rock near Astoria Park. 

“Please be safe…please come back.” the prayer loops in his mind like a mantra. 

A body of water. A girl who can’t swim. 

The roads turn into rivers before his bleary eyes—every turn a tsunami sized wave. 

A few girls dressed in sequins and stilettos stumble out of a nightclub and attempt to hail him like a cab before dissolving into bubbly giggles. Somewhere, an old man has already begun opening his shop—dusting the counters with a rag as old as the street itself. The world turns around Mingyu like it usually would, even when his own has been blown into smithereens. 

His chafed palms burn when he presses them tight over the steering wheel. A rusty smudge of sweat and blood wipes over the leather. The slight discomfort of his scraped palms or bleeding knees sticking to the coarse denim of his jeans are nothing compared to the you-shaped hole in his chest, though. That cavity has been bristling ever since he registered the absence of your warmth in his bed, when he found out that his nose had been nuzzling into the pillow which smelt like you instead of being buried into your plump chest. 

A full exhale hasn’t succeeded his shaky inhales ever since he saw your clothes missing from the chair he had put them on. 

The moon is a forgotten sticker plastered on the lilac sky when the sun begins to come up, bright and full, mocking his sleepless night. 

He pulls over to an unnamed, ungrailed park near some bay. Doesn’t even bother checking what the tattered signboard fixed outside says. The noise of a city waking up thins out behind him, leaving him with the unbearable knocking of his pulse. 

The wild grass looks too inviting to his stiffened legs. His lids weigh down, seducing him to surrender. 

On the other side of the city, Mayella’s phone has died and Joshua is urging her to return back to bed, assuring that you’ll come back well. Hansol is driving back on a deserted road to his place after dropping Josh off. Lisa doesn’t even bother returning, just books a room for six hours at a shady motel to crash in. Rory is curled up on the couch—the spot you never let her sit down on because it was yours—and has dozed off with the lights open. The glass of water waits for you regardless. 

But Mingyu continues to walk by the shore. Every snap of twig under his own boots makes his head jerk, thinking it's you. Every gust of wind sounds like your whispers muffled in the crook of his neck each night. 

It is only six in the morning, but the sun is streaming down at him with an intent to burn him or to blind him—like you instructed it to keep everyone away from you. 

But when have your attempts at running away from facing the truth ever stopped Mingyu? You can bring whatever suns and moons you want in his way, and he’d simply offer you every inch of his skin to bite on until your teeth sink into his bones. 

He will ensure to make you know that this isn’t the insincere, soulless manner he wanted to confess his love for you in.  

The park is essentially deserted, devoid of any joggers or dogwalkers or marathon trainers even at the break of dawn. One might doubt his judgement of wasting his efforts here. But ever since the first time in the subway, Mingyu has learnt to trust his gut when it tells him to look in a certain direction when it comes to you. 

His steps falter when his vision tunnels over a swan. Or maybe it's an angel. 

All the stone benches are empty…so it doesn’t really make sense for the girl to be crouching down on the mud. Her cardigan and jeans already sullied to a point that it's impossible to ascertain what their original colors were. 

Well, impossible for anyone who isn’t the man who had peeled those clothes one by one off the girl’s body with reverence and care. 

“You…” He begins, but his voice betrays him at that exact moment by clogging up with all the unshed tears. The thought of never being able to see you again had begun creeping up in his head some thirty minutes ago. For once, Mingyu is glad someone proved him wrong. 

You are only a few steps away from him. The half side of your face visible to him is tired and streaked with tears that dried hours ago, the other side turned away from him masks the bruise from when you fell down somewhere. 

The single sheet of paper—the sketch— which etched a rift of a thousand miles between you both still flutters in the morning winds under your palms. You had long stopped caring about it, don’t even put any pressure to try and prevent it from being carried away by the wind. 

But Mingyu’s art is as stubborn as him—wouldn’t leave you when the gust blows strong. Even the wind refuses to steal his love away from you.

You get up, pulse thundering with anger. Anger that makes you want to screech at him for being so stupid. For driving all night looking for you. For not cursing your name when he found his photo-album splayed open on the floor. 

For still standing here like a fucking saint and looking at you like you’re the beginning and the end of this thing called love.  

“You’re not supposed to be here.” He finally speaks, voice hoarse. 

“No, I am not supposed to be here.” A lifeless fist extends the scrunched up sketch to him. Then, a jab of your finger thrust with all your strength at his chest, right where his heart pumps, “Or here.”

Mingyu doesn’t flinch at your rage, lets you stab at him, claw at him, call him names. And once you’re done, caving inside of your own self until you’re nearly doubled down, he just reaches out to brush the fresh bruise on your cheek. A single blade of grass is still clinging on to the skin there. He plucks it out gently. 

“Too late,” he mumbles, “you’re already in every fiber of my being.”

“I never asked for that.” 

That lands worse than any slap. “I know, and trust me, I have only ever tried to give you whatever you asked for.” 

“Then why—”

“Because love isn’t something you can hold back…it breaks, it spills, it—” 

“You don’t even know me, this isn’t love.” Your voice begins to rise, frustration lacing each word that echoes out.

“Really? You were always the one to cheer for me, root for me, whenever someone mentioned the subway girl. ‘Pure, patient, devoted love’—that’s what you called it. But now that it turns out that she’s you, it isn’t love anymore?”

“It is not!”

“Why?” His voice booms, just by a beat.

“Because you love her!” You scream, “The prettiest girl on the commute, the elegant girl who is studying medicine, Mayella’s cousin with a reputable last name.” 

Your breath hitches like your body is contorting you to not speak what you’re about to say next. But he needs to hear it. 

“You don’t love the girl who hates cameras because her boyfriend made her go down on him, recorded her without consent and then leaked it when they broke up. You don’t—you don’t love the girl whose grainy face appears on the screen when you search ‘amateur college girl gives her first blowjob’ on Pornh…” the cruel word fractures in your mouth. 

Reciting this incident still makes you gasp the way it did all those years ago. Like the air must be forced into your windpipe through your mouth for you to be able to breathe. Like your lungs are shrinking until they collapse. 

You can’t even meet his eyes anymore, just buckle on your knees. “You don’t love the girl who stopped existing the day a man turned her body into some cruel content.” 

Your body prepares itself to hit the ground and be unable to support the fall. But that never happens. Mingyu is there—catching you with a splinter of grief lodged in his throat. He doesn’t know what to do other than to hold you, to contain you while you fall apart in his arms. 

Your breath returns when he touches you. Steady. Fast. Familiar. 

The air is thick with the perfume of sweet grass and late lilacs frothing white and magenta along the unruly shore. 

A broken gasp of your name is all he can manage, like he is in as much pain as you are. Albeit your agony is laced with tragedy, his emerges from rage. Deep seated, primordial rage. 

“I didn’t know…I—I am so sorry.” His voice breaks around your name. “You were carrying all of that all alone?”

You never thought that you’ll ever let Mingyu, of all people, in on the darkest parts of your life let alone anticipate what his reaction would be to it. You’d expect him to flinch, perhaps double take or even accuse you of lying. Maybe pity you? 

But there is no disbelief in the way he cradles you. No pity in his question. More than anything, he seems to be moved by your strength of still standing here even after having gone through hell and back. 

“I never wanted to be alone.” You say flatly, emotionless. It is the only way you can say it. “I reached out…cyber cells, peers, staff…but they told me it was an internet thing. Anonymous. Viral. That they couldn’t do anything to help me.”

You gulp dry, fingers curling tighter over the fabric of his hoodie. “My friends gave up on me, they couldn’t bear the shame that came with my name, I don’t even blame them. I begged him, Mingyu…begged him to take it down, to stop it. But he never acknowledged that he was the one behind it.”

Mingyu’s jaw tightens. He presses you closer to his heart, like he wants to safekeep you in there, like he wants to cleanse you of all those memories, wring your soul dry of any heaviness and then have you rest on his chest. 

You don’t stop. Your voice has sat dormant for long enough…four years, to be exact, because everyone was busy watching—the girl on the screen, the girl crying outside the library, the girl pleading to her ex on her knees. Always watching. Never listening. 

“Some girls would recoil when they saw me, some would get angry because their boyfriends wanted to record them too. I was a trend on campus. Some would pity me but worse were the ones who ignored it when I’d scream in my dorm room. Like I was an apparition, a ghost, haunting their dormitories. All the boys snickered, asked me to help them out with this ‘videography assignment’ and those who had the decency not to, just looked away.”

The silence that follows after you’ve let out a beast that had been gnawing at your insides for four whole years is strangely peaceful. 

You breathe, taking in the fading scent of lemons on his skin. Your lips are chapped and aching from the harsh winter and an even harsher truth.

Strong arms circled around you are steady and stable. They don’t falter—not even when you recall the most grotesque details out loud. 

It is so safe with him. So warm in the misty morning air of October. 

But when have you ever not shredded every cocoon that could wrap around you, afraid that you’ll suffocate in it? So you push at his chest.  

Your nose has turned pink. You sniffle and wipe some thick tears with your sleeve so that your vision unblurs, looking up at his wrecked expressions with your big, watery eyes. 

“I am not telling you this because I want your pity…or because I want to fight you for loving the idea of me. But because you deserve to see this version of the girl you’ve spent half a decade pining for. The version that picks all her load alone, even when her back breaks, because she didn’t have anyone to give her a shoulder when it mattered.” 

You weep for that girl, “The version that will always feel like filth—rotten and discarded. No amount of medical degrees or accolades will ever make up for that title of a whor—”

Mingyu hasn’t interrupted you throughout your speech. But that one word. Cruel and ugly. One that no woman, not even the one who sells her body, deserves to hear with such contempt. That’s where he draws the line. That’s where he has always drawn the line. 

A finger presses down on your lips before you can even finish those two syllables. 

“Don’t.” His voice dips lower, “Don’t ever disrespect yourself like that…you’re saying this about the woman who helped you survive it all. Who carried you through it.”

“I was the one who put myself in that situation in the first place.” You argue back, your lips quiver under his finger. 

“The situation of trusting someone you loved…in what world does that deserve this cruel repentance?” Then, he softens, like he is carefully undoing a knot in your brain. A knot that shouldn’t have been there in the first place. “When we reach out to help a wounded animal, and that animal bites us back, it’s not the kindness in our heart or our tender humanity that should be blamed. Stop burdening yourself with the shame of his sins.”

His palms on your waist, his heart on his sleeve, you stand there stunned. 

His words settle like dust in the air, but a part of you—the one you have disserviced and dehumanized for so long—wants him to continue speaking. 

And so, he does; “Those versions that you keep talking about, I want to see them all. Meet them all. Spend all my evenings talking to them. From the wilted subway girl to the exhausted doctor in the making—call me greedy, but I want them all. You think I fell for your beauty all those years ago?” He laughs, like those were the most ridiculous words to have ever come out of his mouth. 

“How do I tell you that it was your softness towards a heartbroken kid that I was trying to etch on paper when I was sketching you—not the perfect symmetry of your eyes. Even in your worst times, you carried the grace of a thousand Gods.” 

He cups your face to redirect your attention to his honest words when you begin to avert your eyes from him, “Push me all you want. Lie to me all you want. Bite me all you want. Call me your fuck-buddy and hide me from your friends like a secret. I don’t care. But don’t give up on the possibility of us just because you think I wouldn’t be able to find beauty in your scars. You’re not a myth, or a muse. You are my whole religion. All my beliefs start at your lies and end at your sighs.”

A gush of cold wind blows between the two of you like a farewell. All of a sudden, there’s only heat around you. Not the kind that singes and burns, but one that nurtures life. 

You choke onto a sob and throw yourself at him. 

Mingyu is aware that it isn’t just a girl who smells like salt and exhaustion that is crashing on to him—but a lifetime of abandon, of neglect, of betrayal. He carries her like an honor he has earned. 

Your head thuds down on a shoulder—strong and reliable, like that of a father you never had. The bruise on your cheek rubs against the coarse wool of his hoodie, he instantly reaches out to soothe it…soft and careful, like the touch of a mother you have never known but read a lot about in poems. Home is in his heartbeat thrumming between your mashed chests, mellowing out your frantic one gently. 

And on a frosty morning at the shore of a forgotten bay in New York, surrounded by the autumn rot and the hush of a shy winter approaching, spring blooms for the first time in a barren heart.

“I don’t love you.” You mumble in his collar. 

You both know it is a lie by the way you clutch onto him when you say that. Tremor in your fingers, sweat in your palms. Like touching something physical would make it real, turn it into a truth. 

“That’s okay,” He chuckles, cradling your head, “I love you enough for the both of us.” 

“I don’t know how to stay,” you whisper, voice barely above a breath.

He nods, forehead resting gently against yours. “Then I’ll come look for you every time you leave. And when I find you, I’ll build a house for us to stay wherever you are.”

New York never stops for anyone, but even the city seems to hitch for a moment and smile at him with a breeze that sweeps at his cheek like a kiss. Your possessiveness flares, the honey skin glistening under the golden morning rays is only yours to kiss. 

You stretch on your tippy toes, even as your entire form trembles. His grip tightens when you struggle, but softens like clay the moment a delicate peck is pressed on the corner of his mouth. 

He doesn’t kiss you back, not because he doesn’t want to. But simply because he can’t do anything but revel in your softness. He shatters when you kiss him again, this time on the edge of his jaw. 

When his eyes meet yours, heaven sighs. Nothing has changed in those brown irises, even when you showed him the devil residing in your veins. 

“That was intense.” He remarks, then his tongue pokes playfully inside his cheek. “You wanna bite me, nibblebug?”

You snort, not caring about the snot and saliva that blubbers from your nose. “I am gonna gobble you whole.”

(a/n: did it clock to you guys that i was standing on business when i told you to listen to ‘wanna be yours’ while reading this??)

CHAPTER 17 right here|| When a forest burns down song recommended: i’m just ken by ryan gosling (lol)

(Six months later)

Calling Lisa’s art show a success would be an insult when she has the most elite art collectors and the most refined billionaires of the New York High Society warring with each other over the bids. 

You’d rather call it a phenomenon. 

The center piece, the one you and Mingyu posed as Hades and Persesphone for, sold out within the first ten minutes. Which is stunning to say the least considering ten minutes is barely enough time for someone to walk in from the entrance of the gallery up to where the painting actually hangs. 

You clink a flute of champagne against her wine glass and hug her tight while you have the upper-body mobility to do so. Because you know that the moment he comes back with the assortment of snacks you sent him to hunt for, Mingyu will coil himself around you and whine every ten minutes if you don’t pat him on the cheek. 

Well, that might be an exaggeration. 

But courtesy to you, the group gets to see the rare sighting of a lovestruck Mingyu in a relationship. And god is he annoying. 

He hovers, he lingers, he clings, he whimpers.

His face almost never leaves the curve of your neck and when it does, his hands are all over you. It is like he is magnetized to your very soul. 

And as much as you’d love to flaunt your “boyfriend <3” in public, today is the first time in a long, long while that you’ve been able to get together with your friends—your brutal residency schedule is to blame. 

“Have you been able to adjust to the rotations yet?” Mayella asks, swirling her rosé. 

You press your lips and squint your eyes at the dome glass ceiling, pretending to think. 

Then, you hum, “My dinner last night was Rory’s half finished birthday cake which later also served as my pillow when I dozed off on the kitchen floor—you tell me.” 

Lisa chuckles, then lowers her eyes like she has found the perfect opportunity to help strengthen Mingyu’s case and shamelessly grabs it. “Well, not to play the devil’s advocate, but if you accepted his offer of moving in together, you’d always come back home to fresh meals cooked by Mingyu.”

Mayella rolls her eyes, “Stop pressurizing her, their relationship is still new.”

It is still taking time for Mayella to adjust to your relationship. 

She’s skeptical, afraid that if you guys break up, it might cause rifts within the friendgroup, might force them to choose. Lisa almost fought with her when she expressed that concern. 

But you’re not cross with your cousin for saying that. You know it doesn’t come from bitterness, but a place of total protectiveness. Though, it would be nice if she stopped being so pessimistic for once. Man, fuck wall street for turning all the investment bankers in the world into a bunch of skeptics.

“Ladies, we are not failing the bechdel test by discussing boys.” You laugh, awkwardly swatting your palm through the tense air. Then you tip your head at Lisa, “Besides, I love living with Rory.”

The artist scoffs in her wine, “Please you only like her because she lets you dominate her.”

“Kinkyyy…” Hansol drawls, joining in with Joshua in tow. A shiny flask sways in his hands. “Although, you do know loverboy will let you dominate him too, if you wanted to.”

You shoot Hansol a sharp look, trying not to laugh. "Why are you like this?"

He shrugs, utterly unbothered, and takes a dramatic swig from his flask. “I’m just saying, don’t sleep on the benefits of dating a simp. They’re loyal, they’re soft, and they probably come with a Costco-sized emotional support subscription. Ask Maye, when was the last time Josh let you do your own laundry?”

Mayella finally breaks into a reluctant smile, tries to mash her cheek on her fiance’s blazer, and the tension in the air loosens like a knot coming undone with a single mention of love. “You guys are so immature.”

Your inbuilt radar goes off when the giant pup, towering above anyone and everyone in the room, spots you from across the room. 

Balancing a plate of fancy cheese and crackers in one hand and mini crostini in the other, he makes his way towards you with a grin that can light up a billion galaxies. You smile back, melting already. 

“Hey.” He breathes, beaming down at the love of his life.

“Hi.” You whisper, glossed lips pressing to his jaw. 

It is a new feeling when he wraps his arm around you in front of everyone, insisting on making you try the smoked gouda with his own fingers. Good, new. 

There used to be a time when your glances towards him at group hangouts like this were stolen at best. And his concern towards you undetected under the radar— an aloof napkin passed towards you when the pizza crumbs bothered your fingers, a detached shrug ‘I’ll drive her home’, greetings lukewarm at best. 

But now?

Now he presses your back to his chest like it is the only place for you to be while you talk to your friends, feeding you bites of cheese in between and wiping off the corners of your lips with his thumb—carefully not to smudge your lipgloss. 

His passion flames like a dormant volcano which was suppressed since the beginning of times and which erupted when a single lily fell in and triggered its core. Now, the fire promises to burn till the end of times. 

“Bro, you’re not even looking at us!” Lisa exclaims, a threatening wrist angled at Mingyu in a way that implies she is not afraid of painting him red with a splash of her wine. “So inconsiderate.”

Mingyu’s fingers, which were threading your hair from behind, pause mid stroke. He scoffs, “Look who’s talking?”

Lisa rolls her eyes, “You still hung up on a single dot? I told you I wasn’t going to paint your faces on those figures.”

He takes a deep, sharp breath. “I posed for you, for free, with little miss torture here in my lap…the only thing I ever asked in return was for you to include my nose mole in the painting, and this is how you repay me?”

You know Mingyu is just being annoying, not actually arguing, when there’s that slight lisp lilting his voice as he rambles. 

“Oh get over it, you didn’t even know you had a mole until I pointed it out in freshman year.” Mayella joins forces with Lisa to take down a common enemy. 

You let them banter back and forth and turn to Hansol instead. 

“I don’t even have a mole on my face.” You shrug. 

Before Hansol can reply, Mingyu pauses mid-speech, drops down his attention to you. “Yes you do,” He ascertains, quickly pecks a patch of skin beneath your left ear, “right here, a little red mole.”

“You know you could have just pointed at it like normal people instead of slathering her with your DNA.” Joshua rolls his eyes.

And just like that, Mingyu goes back to holding his fort down against his catty friends, unaware of the fact that he just added another item on the list of a million things you love about him.

He delivers some dumb joke. No one laughs, you don’t mean to either. But something about the way he tries to suppress his smirk, so proud of saying what he said, so unapologetically and unabashedly, him—that it slips out of you before you can stop it. He lights up like a winter carnival, like your validation was all that mattered. 

The day fades, the bidders leave, the artificial lights have to be brightened, but you stay there, bubbling with laughter in a corner among the only people that matter, with the arms of your universe wrapped around you. 

There’s no rush to compete in stories today, no panic to hide what flourishes. Just here, a calm love cushions your life. 

When it is finally the time before someone asks you all to get the fuck out with the most polite poshness they can manage and when the dim stars begin dotting the azure sky, someone suggests you all take a group photograph. 

Hansol naturally extends his digital camera towards you out of habit, like he has done several times. 

You always insisted on not being photographed and were happy being on the other side of the lens, telling your friends to smile as you clicked them. But today is not the same as the days that preceded it. 

Your fingers almost flutter, reaching out to take the camera, but then you hesitate. 

Mingyu notices, he always does. 

“Uhm, actually…” you begin, voice small and unsure, “Is it okay if someone else takes the picture today? I want to be in it.”

You’re staring at Mingyu the entire time, like the pools in your eyes are drawing strength from the stars in his. 

No one reacts. The sheer purity of this moment, the subtle strength of it, is enough to render them wordless. Mingyu’s hand only tightens over your hip, his smile softening — not in some big dramatic gesture. Just naturally, instinctively. Like something built into him.

And then, he flicks Hansol’s forehead. “The fuck are you waiting for? Go take the picture.” 

No one makes a huge deal of it, though their bumbling bodies give away their excitement of being photographed with their youngest, most adored, friend for the first time. It is in the quiet way Mingyu tucks you under his arm, your bodies slotting so perfectly together. It is in the way that Lisa instantly plops down on the floor in front of your legs, not caring about the dust garnering on her expensive Louis Vuitton dress. It is in the way Joshua looks over Mayella at you, his way of saying he’s proud. It is in the stability of your cousin’s shoulder when you lean your head down on her, like she’d still trade all your ugly sweaters for her pretty ones sent by Grandma. 

It is in the soft curve of Hansol's smile when he chokes, “Say cheese!” 

Outside the gallery, you all find an old man walking back home with a little boy hopping beside his cane. Mingyu thinks he has seen them somewhere. But you guys don’t pay much mind to his pondering, not when they serve as the perfect opportunity to include Hansol in the photograph too. 

The little boy clicks an unfocused picture of your group. The old man clicks a blurry one with his weak fingers that seem to have a shiver settled deep in them. But the preciseness of it doesn’t matter, you all still grin and thank them both. 

Mingyu excuses himself from the group when you’re all busy pouring down on the shiny screen of the camera, checking the pictures out. He jogs up to the old man and the little boy, catching up with them just in time under a magnolia tree on the sidewalk. 

“Excuse me, sir!” he calls out, slowing down. The sweet summer air ruffles his hair, his dress jacket crumpling at the elbows. 

The two tiny humans—one hunched over and another trying to wobble in the shoes which might be a size too big—turn around with spirited smiles. “Yes, mister?” 

Mingyu can’t help this tingling feeling of familiarity knocking at his temples. “Have we met before? It seems to me that we have.”

The little boy looks up in the weathered, wrinkly gray eyes of the old man. The old man winks down at the little boy’s glassy ones. 

And then, they both break into a fit of soft giggles. 

Mingyu stands there, dumbfounded and lost. Like there was some secret canopy of flowers and fairy-lights around them, one which Mingyu was barred from entering just yet. 

The little boy puts his palm up to his forehead, shaking his head with disbelief and pity as the old man waddles towards Mingyu, each step surer than anything Mingyu has ever known. 

And then, he pauses just in front of the tall young man. Something about those three seconds which stretch with silence tells Mingyu that whatever the old man is about to say is something he should remember. Always. 

“Son,” the old man sings like he is delivering a sermon, “sometimes when a forest is riddled with decay and the death of the heavy roots which once were, it has to be burnt down to make way for life to flourish. And when it does, the man who ignited that first spark of fire doesn’t have blood on his hands, but the nectar of the first honeysuckles that bloom there.” 

All the subways in New York sway with elation that night. All but the one taking you back home where you sleep with your head lolled on Mingyu’s shoulder.

Yours just glide through time like it doesn’t even exist. 

taglist: @mingyubaguette @belongstoheeseung @ameliamirabela @ffarchivesvt @ninigyuuu @babycaratdeul @ana-marais98 @yewshi @boxsmil3 @mnnnnnsvt @producedbyjeon @hye-na03 @gyuiebabie @hayeojhebal @myun9ho @cerisecherrie @gyuwoosbabie @thevirginsuicidenotes @drunkdazedstuff @governmentnameredacted @gyuldaengie97 @yekkaebsong @lovelylonelinesssvt

TEASER FOR MY UPCOMING FIC "LOST SAINTS"

MASTERLIST

Author's foot note <3

MINGYU THROUGHOUT THIS ENTIRE FIC:

jk, but i always make a moodboard for all of my long fics, here's the one for this one:

also, here's the dress which gave me the idea for that Lisa's painting plotline (pc: sophia birlem on instagram)

on a more serious note, pls consider reblogging this.

i always appreciate your reblogs, comments and messages in my DMs or inbox. while the reblogs help me reach more readers, your messages just fill my heart with love so if you enjoyed reading this, please please please help me out by sharing this fic and your thoughts about it. i work really hard on them :)

TEASER FOR MY UPCOMING FIC "LOST SAINTS"

MASTERLIST

lemme know if you'd like to be added to my permanent tag list, i am planning to write a few short fics (around 3k-ish words for other members in the meantime)

now i will go hibernate (study the coursework i have been avoiding lmao) take care, i love you, never think twice before reaching out <33

[belovedgyu]

normal people || kim mingyu part one

pov: you're the girl being sung to and sung about in 'glimpse of us'

fic art created by @mellowamour <3

Part 1 -> PART 2

⚬ pairing: architect! kim mingyu x med student fem! reader ⚬ word count: 24k (part one), 18k (part two) ⚬ warnings for part one: alcohol, drinking, food, spice/nsfw mentions and smut, mentions of sexual trauma, violence, harassment and other mature themes MDNI warning for a very specific chapter: there's a scene where an OC misreads the signals and attempts to get physical with the fmc without proper consent. there is no prolonged graphic description of the violence of it and the fmc stops (something that the oc complies with) before anything deeply traumatic/violent can happen. please read at your own discretion. again, there are no romanticization/graphic descriptions of such scenes and their aftermaths. ⚬ genres: friends (??) with benefits, forbidden romance, slow burn, angst, one sided pining, hurt/comfort, autumn in nyc! au ft. Joshua, Vernon, Lisa and a few OCs.

playlist for part one <3 glimpse of us cover by mingyu champagne problems by taylor swift crazy in love by eden project pretend by cnco you and me by lighthouse souvenir by selena gomez

author's note <3 - i cannot emphasize how central sexual trauma is to this story. though, i have not written any explicit scenes depicting assault and have tried to handle it with utmost care, i'd still advise you to refrain if it is a sensitive topic. pls take care, i love you. - pls be a decent human and don't steal my work - pardon any grammatical errors, i still refuse to ask people to beta read my work because i am shy and sensitive :3

PROLOGUE 

The first thing Mingyu notices after waking up is the silence—not the type that emerges from wordlessness, but one which falls down on his chest, choking out any sound he wants to make.

It's like someone has stuffed sand in his throat.

Even while he’s half asleep, he doesn’t want do something that might stir the girl lying on his pillow, a curtain of midnight strands sprawled over half her face and and cascading down the smooth slope of her shoulders.

You. 

Your small hand is outstretched, too far from your own chest, too close to his, but not touching. Like you wanted to reach out for him sometime during the early hours before daybreak, but even in your sleep, you knew not to. 

Mingyu wonders if you had any sleep last night, not that he was hyper aware of the winces you made whenever your hips moved even a little on the bed. Or the way that your other hand was lying idle over your pelvis, as if it had gone tired soothing the area. 

He took all the precautions, not just sexual but once that could shield you both emotionally, last night. Then why is his heart clawing at his ribs every time your chest rises with a breath deeper than the one before?

In theory, he should be smug…maybe even pat himself on the back. This was you whom he had successfully bedded.

You, who would make strangers stumble on their words each time you smiled that soft, disarming, guarded smile of yours. You, whom half of his friends were already knee deep in love with. 

The untouchable, and untouched. 

But no such cheap pride flutters within him. 

Mingyu might be a player, a flirt, someone who loves attention which comes without any strings attached. But he’s not cruel.

No matter how much people try to box him in the same category as those fuckboys, he can never think of any girl being a milestone to achieve or a mere name added to his list. 

And this was you, after all. 

He debates if he should wake you up to ask if you have classes today, it's almost ten already. But then he decides to mind his own business.

Flinging his legs off the bed, he fluffs the duvet around your periphery, not daring to touch or disturb you in any way.

He fishes for the shirt he wore last night from the tangled heap of fabric on the floor, not for himself but for you.

Then, he places it carefully next to your ripped dress on the bed, as if offering you to put it on if the tear on the hem of your dress was too bothersome. 

Your single anklet with little hearts charms, the one you had almost broken when you attempted to climb on his lap and got tangled in the duvet, looped reverently on top of the clothes. 

An invisible cloud of citrus and fresh shower follows as he pads out to his kitchen—grey sweatpants riding loose on hips and wet hair flopped over his head, almost getting in his eyes. The scratches on his back, courtesy to you, sting a little when he stretches in front of the open cabinets to grab two ceramic mugs. 

He pulls out the remaining two eggs from his refrigerator, thinking how would you like them. He rakes his head for a memory of any of your several hangouts with him which should give him the answer to the dilemma of making it scrambled or boiled.

So far, nothing turns up. 

Sure, he knows what cuisine is Lisa’s favorite, what mushrooms cause Joshua to flare up, what brands of instant ramen Vernon places superior to Buldak. But he has no idea about you. 

Not because he doesn’t listen to you even when he’s pretending not to. But because of your casual guardedness.

You give what you want to give, never succumbing to peer pressure of the group hangouts where it's a competition to see who says the most interesting thing. 

“What are you even doing? Remember, this is casual, right?” A voice in his head, which sounds suspiciously like you, but more mature…like a ghost of you from decades ahead, travelled past in time to whisper that in his ear. 

The haunted rebuke jerks him out of this daze. The scent of you from last night invades his senses. 

He slams the refrigerator door and flinches at his own reflection. There it is, that ghost of you. Not in your shape or physicality. But in the lovebites blooming on his chest where you had buried your teeth over and over. On the trails of dug and drawn out nails that start from his back and end on the broad expanse of his shoulders from when you had tried to cling on to him as he drove in and out of you. 

God, he thinks, it seems like someone plucked the now twenty six year old Kim Mingyu out of his current timeline and chucked him to a random Saturday morning at his frat during college days. 

He should put on a shirt before you arise.

With that thought, he creeps back into his bedroom, carefully enough to not cause any commotion. 

But you are already stirring up—rubbing your closed eyes with one curled palm while the other latches on to the bunched up sheet on your chest. Even unguarded, you do not fail to knock all the air out of his system with your beauty.

Something in his gait shifts.

He seems taller now, his demeanor more lousy—a stark contrast to the caution with which he had entered. 

Its like a switch flipped within him.

He hides his strange nervousness around you under curtains of fake indifference.

“Sleeping beauty’s finally up, I see.” he can’t help but mumble with all the nonchalance in the world. 

But it isn’t enough to veil how unnecessarily hard he is gripping the door of his closet. Or how his fingers tremble when they grab the first shirt they can feel. 

“Morning…” you almost whisper and it takes everything in him not to whip around and check if there’s anything lingering on your face which could indicate regret.

“I hope I didn’t snore.” your voice sounds clearer now and it makes the ache in his chest dissolve with the next exhale. 

Good, at least you’re still talking to him. 

His smile is lopsided when he’s done unnecessarily smoothing out the fabric on his abs. “I would have thrown you out if you did.” 

He instantly regrets saying that.

You don’t look too hurt, your face doesn't fall, but you laugh like you’re unsure about how to respond. For some reason, he doesn't like that he confused you, even with a joke.

For a moment, he considers ridding you of any possible future confusions about last night by leaning down and kissing your forehead. By telling you just how much last night meant for him and he doesn't want you to think it's casual.

But Kim Mingyu hasn't done the "not casual" in a long, long time. And the last thing he wants you to be is an experiment, a trial, a guinea pig.

Besides, didn't you tell him that you didn't want this to mean anything? That you just wanted to borrow one of his nights?

Then why is he even thinking about overwhelming you by complicating this?

You wouldn't even believe him if he told you the truth, though.

He pretends to not even see you when you're around, never responds to your jokes, never asks for your opinions. He shuts up about his problems the moment you walk in the same rooms as him.

You'd think its because he doesn't want to share his life with you. He knows that its because he doesn't want you to see the ugly parts.

So he chooses to focus on pretending to be enamored by something else, again. This time, the clasp of his watch.

"I...uh, I gotta go, work thing."

There is no ‘work thing.’

You nod, tucking your hair behind your ear, not even a sliver of dejection on your face.

"Do you want me to call you a cab?" He offers, then quickly adds, "You can stay as long as you want. There's some food in the fridge."

You smile at him, the soft, honest one which brought him here in the first place. "I need to do some studying."

"Yeah, right." He nods, grabbing his car keys from the dresser beside you. This is the closest he has been to you since the morning.

You turn around, watching his every movement. Not curious, not nervous. Just there. Like you had been there several times. But you hadn't.

"Mingyu," you mutter, "...thanks for last night."

"Anytime." He smirks, allowing his hand to ruffle your hair.

On his way out, he switches off the kettle simmering next to the two ceramic mugs he had pulled out earlier. Dumping the tea bags, your favorite earl grey that you ordered at every brunch, he pretends not to listen to his heart thudding in his ears.

CHAPTER 1 || the anatomy of kim mingyu

With guilt poking at your ribs like a spear, you pick up the flashcards you had slammed against the wall. 

It wasn’t the fault of the poor inanimate object that all your neurons have fused together into an useless coil rendering your brain nothing more than a lump of jumbled thoughts. 

Anyone would struggle focusing on revision after a week of daily eight hour lectures, two hour labs and a constant slew of flashbacks of the salacious night spent in Kim Mingyu’s bed. 

Mingyu. 

Just the memory of his name makes you huff out louder than you should. 

It took around three full days for the marks he had left all over your body to fade. Four days for you to forget what brand of detergent his warm bed smelled like. 

But the ache incited by even the most feathery touch of his fingers still lingers on your skin. 

You settle back on your seat, rumpled up flashcards glaring at you from your polished table. 

Your thighs clench instinctively on the plush chair, trying not to remember his knuckles brushing under your arms as he whispered, “you sure you wanna do this?” 

Turns out, just clenching your thighs isn’t enough. You have to actually cross your legs, tighter, and take deep breaths…focusing on each inhale and every exhale, until your mind redirects itself towards the anatomy of the thorax from that of Kim Mingyu’s. 

It helps, a little. You talk yourself out of it, for a while. 

You are a medical student, after all. You know that it is a rush of blood down in your pelvis, induced by your racy thoughts, which is causing you this agony. 

It is not like your body needs him fundamentally. 

You spend another hour of this specific Saturday evening making notes and doing revisions surrounded by the smell of wet ink and coffee gone cold. 

You don’t have to. There were no lectures or quizzes scheduled on weekends. And while your peers are indeed always studying like one would expect them to, they also tend to take these two days off. 

Not you, though. Never. 

Even if you were hungover, you’d still crawl into your desk in the morning, trembling like a zombie and retching whenever something even remotely pertaining to “bodily fluids” popped up in your text books. 

But you’d never shut it until you crossed off a major chunk of your to-do lists—assorted meticulously into days and weeks on your Notion. 

The only Saturday morning, in the last two years since you started med school, which wasn’t spent with you pouring over your books was the one last week. Because that was the Saturday when you had woken up in a bed stiffer than yours, wrapped in a duvet heavier than yours, in an apartment much more expensive and neat. 

You blink at the pending chemistry reading. You were supposed to finish it off seven days ago instead of ogling at his abs while Mingyu peeled his shirt, button by button, holding you captive with his eyes. 

Someone taps at your door twice, effectively diverting your mind back to the current timeline. 

The first tap is hesitant, like whoever is on the other side is questioning if they should even be there. 

You would have ignored it, refocusing your eyes on the thick binder. But that second round of knock startles you. 

It sounds more determined, like she is not going to relent until you cave in.

The chair creaks as you drag it behind, your fuzzy socks almost causing you to slip on the uncarpeted floor. 

The metallic bangles hugging your wrist clink with a balked symphony when you unlatch the door and open it just enough to reveal half your frown. 

The overwhelming lilac of her perfume wafts in before her words do. 

“You promised you’d come.” Rory, your flatmate, gets straight to the point like she was expecting you to turn her away instantly if she began with the usual ‘hey! What's up?’

People who don’t know you tend to act prudently around you. 

But this little mouse has been sharing your apartment for eight months now. 

There is no reason for her to be flinching when you turn around to check the rustic wooden clock hanging above your bed. 

It isn’t like you are going to shove her or slam the door in her face. 

“It's time already?” You sigh, dangly earrings clinkering against the wood when you lean against the doorway. “I guess I got too carried away studying.”

You eye her up and down—blonde hair curled in soft ringlets, a hint of something shimmery under the layers of her heavy polka dotted coat, lips painted red with a single faint coat of the Saint-Laurent lipstick you gifted her this summer like she knew it was gonna get wiped off eventually but put it on regardless because it complimented the orange undertones of her skin. 

“Seems like you’re already all dressed. It would be a waste for you to wait on me while I get ready…” you say, and her shoulders begin to slump like she knows exactly where this is leading. 

“How about you go without me?” You finally suggest. 

“But roo—” 

You glare at her before she can finish that word. 

You’ve had this conversation with her before, multiple times, there is no reason for a grown twenty five year old woman to address another grown twenty five year old woman as “roomie”. 

She corrects herself quickly with an apology and your name. “You said you’d come so I didn’t invite anyone else, and I can’t go to a basement party alone.”

“I didn’t make any promises, I said I’ll consider it.” you cross your arms, “Besides, why did you even agree to it in the first place, Rory? Those guys are like five years younger than us.”

“And cute!” she quips. 

“And sophomores at NYU. I am so sure there is a new strand of chlamydia floating around somewhere in whatever dungeon they’re hosting this thing in.”

“But it could be fun and we don’t ever really do things together…” Rory’s voice trails off getting dimmer and dimmer with each word until, “...nevermind, I am not rich or interesting like your cousin and her friends. I am sure you guys only hangout at restaurants that have months long wait lists or go clubbing with actual models—”

It makes you roll your eyes with a huff and cluck your tongue against your teeth, signaling her to stop already. 

You were running on a mere four hours of nightly sleep for the whole week and it has really started catching up on you—everything itches. It is the kind of overstimulation that stiffens your neck muscles like your head weighs a hundred pounds, and no amount of craning or cracking helps. 

Your hair feels too greasy, the claw-clip holding it up pulls at your scalp vindictively, and what remains of the candle lit in your room smells more like burnt wick than vanilla. 

The last thing you need is for Rory to manipulate you. 

She shifts her weight from one heel to the other, gnawing at her stained lips, as she waits for you to do what she expected of you—relent. 

“Fine.” You grumble, “Give me twenty minutes.” 

With that, you turn around. 

Rory flinches, almost breaking her heel, when you slam your door on her face. 

CHAPTER 2 || didn’t say no content warning: sexual trauma, harassment, mentions of knife

The party is exactly like you thought. Tacky. 

Thumping like a heartbeat from under the earth in someone’s basement that you had to climb down a rattly iron ladder for. 

There are burnt out cigarette butts littered everywhere around the floor, the remnants of their smoke still slumping fresh on the sooty walls. 

You knew it was going to be like this—chaotic and muggy so you came prepared with a phone fully charged, a razor sharp pocket knife and a powerbank all tucked neatly in your clutch. 

Though what you didn’t prepare yourself for, was to come face to face with Rory’s blatant lies. 

The only reason why you even put on this ruby mini dress and paid around two hundred dollars for a cab was because she had given you the impression that she would have to go alone if you didn’t tag along. 

Turns out, the very first sight you see, before your eyes can even adjust to the dim green lights of the place, is Rory hugging her friends. 

Bodie, Amerie, and Julianna greet you one by one while Rory avoids your eyes. 

You consider leaving the moment Bodie hands you an unopened can of beer with a grimy slime coating. But that would mean clambering up the rusty, wobbly, iron stairs fixed haphazardly under the manhole-like entrance of this place—all on your own. 

Your ribs were still recovering from the unnecessarily tight grip of the guy who had helped you and Rory descend. 

So you wait for a cue. 

You smile along to whatever was being said about Professor Derby, add on to a few of Amerie’s puns and go as far as taking a hit from the blunt Julianna rolls and offers to you. 

It gives Rory the impression that you were finally allowing yourself to open up—talking to people who aren’t your cousin Mayella’s friends. Showing off to people just how witty you could be, laughing along and shattering their impressions of you being what they called ‘a cold bitch who thinks she is better than everyone.’ 

You and the group are huddled together in a corner, clearly standing out as a much older chunk amidst the swarm of overenthusiastic NYU undergrads. 

The crowd seems to increase by the minute as dusk settles deeper outside. The dancing throng of drunk, sweaty bodies inches closer and closer to where you are standing. It pushes your group until your back is pressed to the wall. Your right arm squeezes to Rory’s left while Julianna is standing facing you, a hair’s breadth worth of difference between your chests. 

At this point, with everyone standing mouth to ear with each other, you don’t have to yell out loud if you want to say something. 

The place reeks of desperation and recklessness and thumps with music you don’t recognize. 

The temperature in the bunker rises, natural and slow. If only the lights here were a bit brighter, the fumes of body heat swirling above the dance floor could be visible. 

It makes you want to take your heavy, fleece jacket off. And maybe even peel your skin out, if that’s possible. 

Resisting the grotesque image from getting more vivid in your head, you wriggle around a little to rid your arms out of the sleeves of the coat. 

Julianna notices you struggling against the dense fabric and helps you out. You smile at her thankfully, wrapping the coat over your elbow. 

When she announces that she’ll step outside because the blunt was starting to make her heady, you offer to come with her. 

Not because you care about Julianna. But because it is the cue you had been waiting for all night to leave this place, once and for all. 

Julianna grabs your hand, even when you don't offer it—her grip around your wrist tight with a strange possession. 

She pulls you along, expertly navigating your ways in the crowd until it grows thinner and eventually disappears behind you. 

“Climb up.” she orders, clutching one side of the rickety ladder. 

The sudden change in her demeanor is alarming, it forms this uncomfortable fog around you which smothers you down. 

You put on your jacket regardless, avoiding her red rimmed eyes which are watching you like a hawk. Flicking your hair out of the collars, you wipe the sweat pooling in your palms against your skirt before beginning to climb up. 

Julianna should have waited a bit more before climbing up behind you to not make this inappropriate. But she doesn’t. 

From her position, she can easily see whatever is hiding under the short skirt of your dress. Her breath fans against the back of your thigh, too high up for your liking. 

It makes a breath hitch in your throat and no matter how much you try to get it out, it doesn’t unclog. 

By the time you’re up and out, you’re panting like a dog—nervous and wrecked. 

The straps of your heel tied around all the way up to the knees slice into your skin when you scramble on your feet, trying to put as much distance as possible between you and the girl behind you. 

Julianna emerges out with a smile wider than a barn door, dusting the rust off herself. 

You don’t mention whatever the hell that was—the unnecessary violation of your personal space—thinking that maybe you just imagined it. 

Maybe she didn’t mean to leer up your skirt. Maybe she miscalculated the height. 

The gravel crunches under your heels when you try to get far away from the weird place and an even weirder situation. 

You don’t want to stop, not until you’re out of the dark garage and in the alley. A neon “open” sign pulses from top of a building somewhere in a puddle. The alley, a stuttering wash of red and yellow. 

Your steps slow down on their own because the street is too uneven, littered with discarded plastic scraps and aluminum cans threatening to roll under the flimsy sole of your heels. The purple sky, devoid of any light from the newly emerged half moon doesn’t help either.

The phone shakes, even while you’re clutching it with both palms, as you try ordering a cab for yourself. 

It almost slips out of your grip when an uninvited palm lands on your butt with a tight slap. Under your skirt. 

“Planning to leave already, princess?” The taller girl leans down over your shoulder, the earthy smell of pot on her breath making your insides recoil. “Or is this all an act to make me chase you?”

“Wh…what are you doing?” You take a step away, but it only puts you into a much riskier position because you find yourself bumping into the wet brick wall. 

“Gosh, you’re so pretty when you act innocent like that.” Julianna’s eyes rave all over you, demeaningly, as she smiles.

Her blown out pupils are the last thing you see before she plunges into your shrunken body. 

One of her hands grabs at the collar of your jacket, shoving it aside with such a force that you actually stumble over your legs. Her other hand comes down to grab your waist to prevent you from falling while her cold lips start laving at your collarbone she just exposed. 

You freeze like your own limbs have betrayed you, the scent of sweat and weed clogging your senses. Your eyes bulge out as she continues to stick wet kisses all over your skin, pulling at it with her teeth while cooing the same compliments you have heard way too many times before. 

You want to dig your fingers down your throat, thinking that it’ll elicit some kind of sound out of you. 

Sound of disapproval. Sound of help.

Nothing comes out, you just reduce within yourself even more. Not even daring to touch her. Your nails are clawing at the wall behind you, can’t she see you’re actually repulsed by this? That you don’t want any of this?

“God you smell so expensive…you rich girls…you’re just something else.” 

Julianna’s lips depart from your chest momentarily as she bends down on her knees, tugging at the fabric of your safety shorts. 

The accidental scratch of her acrylics over your hips when she grunts at the tight material, is what jolts your lungs to open up. 

This can’t be happening. No. Not here in this alley. Not again. 

“No, no no no!” You are shouting as soon as your throat regains its ability to produce sound. 

Julianna jerks, instantly dropping her hands away from your shorts. 

She stumbles back, or maybe it's you who shove her…but you get the room to stagger to your side, pulling at the hem of your dress and wiping away her disgusting spit off your body. 

It's not the loud snap which tells you that you’ve broken your heel. It’s when you scramble around for your dropped clutch, twist your ankle and thud down on your knees, that the imbalance registers. 

Julianna, baffled by these recent turn of events and horrified by the blood seeping out of one of the nails you cracked, picks your clutch up and hands it over to you. 

This should assure you that she didn’t intend for this to turn out how it did. But you don’t care. 

Anger is still blooming over your skin in patches of shame wherever she has touched you. And it makes you pull out the pocket knife from your purse without a second thought. 

“Don’t come near me!” You yell, uncaring about a group of asian ladies who are peeking at your commotion from the end of the alley. 

“Don’t you dare touch me…I’ll slice you up, bitch!”

“I won’t!” Julianna instantly puts her hands up in surrender, “I won’t!” 

She should leave. It's not like she did something really bad to you other than kissing your collarbone. But something about your wild eyes, your hysterical heaves and the disgusting, moist ground muck smearing your palms and knees urges her to stay until you aren’t as vulnerable as this. 

Julianna just stands there, shaken and small, like she didn’t just cause your body to malfunction so violently that your breath still hasn’t evened out. 

Your heart is exerting itself to drain out the adrenaline and pump blood back in your limbs. Slowly but surely, life comes back to you as your skin prickles with the gravel digging at your knees.

“I…I didn’t mean to force you into this.” she gulps dryly, “I thought…I thought you were hitting on me inside the club all the time...the blunt, the smirks—”

“Hitting on you!?Julianna, I was just being polite for fuck’s sake!” your voice booms, like the volume of it can create a protective shield around you. 

You rip at the knots of the heel straps on your calf, leaving it pink and raw. Finally, you get up, covered in sooty mud, your hand clutching the knife still outstretched in a menacing warning towards her. 

“You…you were rubbing yourself on me in there…” As soon as those words leave her mouth, Julianna realizes just how stupid they sound. 

Of course, your body was mushed with hers, there was no room inside for you to prevent that from happening. 

You don’t answer, just watch the mental machines whirring behind her horrid eyes. You know that it has dawned on her that she mistook her own underlying lust for you as sexual advances from you. 

But that makes her a villain. A predator. And she wasn’t going to wear that title so easily. 

“You didn’t even protest when my face was practically buried inside your ass on the stairs!” Her voice regains conviction, she crosses her arms under her chest. 

“You could have said no many times, but you didn’t! And as soon as you did, I pulled awa…”

“Go get fucked, Julianna.” You scoff humorlessly cutting her sorry explanation off. 

It is so evident that she’s saying all that not to apologize, but to persuade herself that she wasn’t in the wrong. 

You continue, “You saw me calling a cab, wanting to leave, but you thought it was some sick game. So yeah, go get fucked Julianna. And maybe try looking for someone who consents.”

Her legs wobble when she steps farther away. She really didn’t want it to result into this…she wishes she could rip her heart to show you that. But not even a simple sorry echoes out.

You pull your jacket back over the shoulder she had exposed, it bristles. You’ve been here before. Different hands, same bile. 

Julianna just walks backward, slow and cautious, until she’s on the far end of the alley. She watches you call the cab and considers telling Rory about her grave misunderstanding before you get the chance to present your version. 

Only if she knew you…Only if Julianna knew that you had learnt to carry nights like these in your bones, ages ago. 

That night, your scowl deepens more than it ever had. The cab driver doesn’t even attempt to start a conversation, leaving you be. Nervously glancing at his rearview mirror every two minutes—he’s so obviously scared of you. 

Good, you think. 

You’d rather have people confuse you for a psychopath with ice in your veins than have them think you’re a delicacy for them to rip and sink their teeth in. 

CHAPTER 3 || a brunch of lies

Imported ivies curling over the unsmudged glass windows and wooden interior which looks like it was varnished just this morning—its a type of place where one might spiral if they accidentally squirted a drop of ketchup on the embossed linen. 

But you don’t have to care about the faint blemish of mud caused by your boots. Not when your friend Hansol’s aunt owns this place. 

The ones who argue that coffee tastes the same everywhere clearly never had a cup somewhere like this—a cafe where the aroma of it is never burnt, where cinnamon isn’t just dusted over the sugary desserts for aesthetic, but actually balanced with other spices and golden butter in every bite.

You observe Lisa’s pensive expression which borders on glorious boredom as she converses through her Dior encased iPhone with her assistant. Besides her, your older cousin Mayella sits slumped back in the plush chair. Her shapely nails gliding over her work laptop with such smoothness that not even a single tap is heard. 

Mayella is sly like a cat, when she’s busy. It's hard to remember she’s even there. The giant diamond sitting on her ring finger, courtesy of her fiance Josh, is more noticeable than her entire existence these days. 

A trio of caffeine rich drinks, which was ordered without any consultation from you because the older girls already knew your preference, steams on the artsy table top. 

After the recent rendezvous in your life—where you were almost assaulted by your roommate’s friend outside a club after having committed the incestuous act of sleeping with a friend (you doubt if you can even call Mingyu that), all in the span of ten days, it's a wonder that you still agreed to this brunch. 

But Lisa is back in the city after two whole months of nursing a killer tan and trying to find her inspiration in Athens and Rome. How could you say no when she called you up, right at the airport, before the New York sun could even graze her skin?

The phone is held precariously between Lisa’s manicured fingers, like she doesn’t care if it shatters down on the marble floor. Even though there is enough distance between the two of you, and she’s talking in fluent Thai, you can make out that it isn’t a pleasant call based on her languorous drawls and eyerolls. 

The call drops dead after a sigh too grave from your friend’s lips indicating you can finally peel your eyes from the arduous document you have been pretending to read on your iPad. 

“I am gonna be unemployed soon.” Lisa muses, finally warranting her coffee worthy of some attention as she wraps her fingers around the now cold ceramic. “Who’s coming to apartment hunt with me in the Bronx?”

“You’re not moving to the Bronx.” Mayella’s jaw sets into an unamused line as she takes a long sip of her vicious black drink. “Just put out some of your old work to make up for what's not there.”

It was Mayella who introduced you to her friends of over half a decade when you first moved to the city for med school. So, it's baffling to you just how little she knows them. 

Lisa is someone who would cancel her entire sold out art exhibition if even a single light fixture flickered dimmer than the rest at the gallery. 

And here, Mayella is suggesting she disrupts her meticulously curated dream project by putting some random old art for a centre piece. 

Lisa’s jaw locks, she raises a perfectly sculpted brow at your cousin. 

“Oh?” Only Lalisa Manoban could make a single syllable sound so challenging. 

Mayella has no choice but to meet it. “Come on, Lisa, there’re artists who would kill to get their works at that gallery. All your other paintings are nothing short of genius, and you wanna risk years worth of preparation over an unfinished centre piece?”

Lisa prickles at that but doesn’t push. Mayella has had one moment of bliss in a long, long time after having booked her dream wedding venue, and Lisa doesn’t want to rain on that by starting a cat fight. 

She rather shifts her attention to the revolving door. 

You don’t have to follow her gaze to see him enter, the shift in the energy is enough for you to know that Mingyu’s here. 

Since the very start, your body had developed this strange radar just for him. And now that you’ve experienced his touch, it seems like that radar has bumped up its efficiency. 

Your shoulders drop down on their own and your gut relaxes. A smile threatens to tilt your glossed lips when you realize he has no choice but to take the only vacant seat available at the table—the one next to you. 

Lisa has her long arms already suspended up in the air to greet her best friend after two whole months. “Where’s Hansol?” she quips as soon as Mingyu is a foot away from the table.

“Stuck at a meeting, running late.” he answers, removing his sunglasses and tucking them in between the collar of his blue linen shirt, “You know you can’t just pull us out of work in the middle of a weekday?”

Mayella works from home most days. Lisa has all the flexibility that only comes with being an independent artist. And while you’re arguably the busiest of them all, they still treat you like a college kid. 

Fair enough. 

Lisa rolls her eyes, “Oh come on, it's not like a little time off work for brunch with your favorite ladies is gonna dent on your clientele, Mr. Kim-most demanded architect in the New York high society-Mingyu.”  

A chuckle, that rich gentle one, fills the tensed spaces between the girls as he gives them both hearty, half hugs–one by one. 

When it comes to you, he just nods, lips pressed into a polite smile that only appears for a second or two. 

Kim Mingyu greets you like he’s greeting one of his clients. 

He takes the seat next to you, but not before shifting it away just by an inch, like he couldn’t even risk brushing his elbow against yours. 

The girls notice but don’t comment. They stopped trying to cozy the two of you up a long time ago. It just was never gonna happen—Mingyu chooses the people he wants to befriend. He wouldn’t buddy up some girl just because she was his friend Mayella’s cousin. 

But then, when Lisa gets busy asking a waitress to reheat her coffee and Mayella is struggling against the excel file that won’t download, Mingyu’s long legs stretch under the mahogany table as he adjusts in his seat. 

And your knees, tucked elegantly together to a side, brush against one of his. 

You wait for the humiliating withdrawal that should follow—a quick apology under his breath and the instant retraction that occurs everytime he touches you on accident.

But it never comes. 

Mingyu’s knee stays there, pressed lightly with yours. 

You’d like to amend your earlier statement: Kim Mingyu greets you like he’s greeting one of his clients whom he fucked last week. 

“Bad day?” He asks.

You ignore that question because it is so obviously addressed to Lisa who is wearing dejection like a pearl necklace. 

When it goes unanswered for five more seconds, you look up to find all three of them waiting for you to reply. 

Oh…? Oh.

“Me? I am fine.” You chuckle, unsure and disbelieving. 

You set your coffee cup down before its dainty handle snaps between your fingers. Clearing your throat, you further prod, “Why’d you ask?”

Mingyu shrugs, like it is the most normal thing in the world. Like he isn’t the first person—friends, roommate, cousin, peers and professors included—to ask that in a long, long time.

“You look…tired.” He says. 

It isn’t a statement, it's not even a question. It's more of an observation from him—an observation that he is open for you to call wrong if you want to. 

“Med school being brutal, the usual.” You try to play it off, shrinking yourself in the corner so that the spotlight can shift back to Lisa or himself. 

Truthfully, your insides are burning with more questions. You want to ask him what makes him say that you’re tired. Is it the undereye bags? The slouchy posture? Do your limbs look too loose?

It's not like sleeping with you has unlocked some newfound sympathy for you in his heart and this isn’t the first time Mingyu has looked out for you. 

Not that it would matter to you if he didn’t. But Mingyu’s borderline nonchalance towards you couldn’t be mistaken for unkindness. 

In the past, he has passed you napkins when no one else noticed that the breadcrumbs on your fingers bothered you. He has driven you home when he thought that a mere flute of champagne was too much for you to hail a cab alone. In fact, he was the one out of all your friends who made that grocery store run when you got your period while hanging out at Hansol’s bachelor pad.   

But this time isn’t like the rest. Because this time, it matters more than you’d want to admit. It makes you want to climb onto his lap and cry, for some reason. 

Mingyu is unconvinced by your answer, like he can see through that blatant lie, but he doesn’t smother you further. Just looks at you with inquisitiveness…like you’re some enigma he’d give all his hours to crack, but then contradictorily averts his eyes to the menu within seconds. 

Yet, there’s this air settled around you now—warm and fragrant, like his cotton sheets from days ago—assuring that you can tell him what bugs you, if you want to. He just gives you that space where you can decide for yourself. It's like he knows how much you value your freedom, your agency and respects it. 

“And what’s ruining your day, Li?” he turns to Lisa who is scowling unimpressed at her torn apart muffin. 

Lisa exhales, freer to have this conversation with Mingyu than Mayella. “Not even two months spent in the hearts of my subject matter could give my dense brain an idea for the centre piece.” 

“It’ll hit you when it hits you.” Mingyu shrugs, “Don’t push yourself too much, you still have time.”

That eases Lisa to some degree. She gives a small smile to Hansol and Josh, who have just walked in. A few cheek pecks and back pats are exchanged while a waiter arranges two additional chairs at the table and another brings out your eggs benedict with parsley and pepper. 

Maybe it's just your imagination, but you think Mingyu eyes your order rather curiously. 

Josh and Hansol don’t need a disclaimer or a heads up to know what the ongoing conversation is about—Mingyu’s stance matching that of a therapist and Lisa’s somber eyes are enough to tell them that her European quest didn’t give her the revelation she was looking for. 

“I just want it to fit perfectly, y’know?” Lisa sighs. 

It's Hansol’s turn to join the conversation, “Sounds suspiciously like what I told the girl I was losing my virginity to. Needless to say, that didn’t go well.”

That earns a chortle out of the group. Not you, though. 

Because you brace yourself for what’s about to ensue—another inherently competitive discourse where everyone shares their “first time stories” trying to one-up each other’s experiences. 

And as if she was right on cue; “Mine was with a guy who didn’t know where to put it in and I had to point it out for him.” Lisa laughs like she’s talking about something as casual as seeing someone trip over air on the street. 

Joshua would have steered clear of this mildly crass discussion had he not been coerced to spill his guts by your cousin’s frosty glare. “I…uh, yea it was weird for me too, man. It was in college, we were both kinda drunk, I ended up puking in her fishbowl.” He flushes. 

“Fishbowl?!” Lisa and Mingyu are practically wheezing at this point. 

Joshua just scoffs it off, but his ears pinch pink. 

“Yeah? Tell me about it,” Mayella chuckles dry, “At least it wasn’t your high school girlfriend trying to shove a dildo lathered in coconut oil up your vagina.”

“Oh my god, Maye!” you almost choke on your latte. 

The group might laugh, because it's just another tale for them. But you knew the girl your cousin dated in highschool—you even went shopping with them in Milan. So that image that Mayella just put in your head is plain inconsiderate and distasteful. 

“Oh come on, stop being such a prude. What was your first time like?” Mayella turns the tables on you with a single flick of her manicured fingers under her pin straight hair which flail like a whip over her smooth shoulder. 

And just like that, there are five pairs of eyes staring daggers at you. 

You wish the wall next to you could swallow you whole, but you don’t let that reflect on your face. 

Tucking your hair behind your ear, you let your finger encircle the rim of your empty cup as you speak. “Just some guy I dated for a month during pre-med. Sophomore year, his dorm room, pretty standard stuff.”

Everyone just nods, like they expected such an answer from you. You’ve never given them something scandalous, or even slightly interesting for that matter, to talk about anyways. Sometimes you wonder if they only keep up with you because you’re Mayella’s cousin. Always plain and boring. So they believe your story. 

But not Mingyu, though. Not when his bare hands had washed your blood off his sheets just a few days ago. My little liar, he thinks to himself, a smirk concealed by his tea cup.

CHAPTER 4 || a wish granted

It seems to you that Mayella wasn’t all too satisfied with the way most conversations during the brunch were centered around Lisa’s artblock crisis. Because within twenty-four hours of it, you had received an invitation from her and Josh to come see the wedding venue they have finalized. 

It was some aristocratic estate in Hudson Valley, renovated and remodeled less than a decade ago by the same firm that Mingyu now works for. 

Mayella claims that it was Mingyu who had helped shrink the waiting list to accommodate the date your friends wanted to book it for. 

Large iron gates, black and sturdy, open to reveal a mile long drive lined with cypress trees and luminous marble statues of little singing angels. At the end of it, the manor stands like a symbol of Victorian aristocracy—fresh ivy entwining around perfectly symmetrical honey hued stone columns. 

Inside, the ceilings soar high in a dome adorned by intricate paintings—an egoistic American’s rendition of the Sistine chapel—as you call it. 

That earns a deep chuckle from Mingyu.

Hansol bailed out and Lisa hasn’t arrived yet so it's just the two of you trailing behind the engaged couple as they bore you with all the details. 

Like the fact that the chandelier hanging above the mosaic marble of the grand foyer was salvaged from an abandoned Venetian opera house. 

“We don't know who they are,” Josh laughs pointing to the gilded portraits of imagined ancestors, “but they looked expensive, so we adopted them.”

“Maye, are you okay with the portraits of random strangers overlooking your matrimonial rites?” Mingyu asks, an amused grin dancing along his lips as he watches your cousin’s face turn paler under her perfect concealer. “What if one of these is haunted?”

“You think?” Mayella, who is sunshine personified today in a rayon yellow dress and a loose braid fraying apart over her shoulder, seems like she has already seen the ghost Mingyu is talking of. 

Looking at the distressed furrow of her brows activates the maid of honor instincts in your gut. Before you can even think it through, you are swatting Mingyu lightly on his bicep. 

“Don’t scare her, you know she gets anxious about the paranormal.” You scold. 

This is the most physical touch you’ve had since that night, and it seems to affect Mingyu much less than it does to you. Unlike you, he isn’t shaken at all—his eyes just flicker from his bicep to the tiny palm that hit it, a crooked smile slanting his mouth. 

And as if he really enjoyed that smack and wants another one, he juts his tongue against his inner cheek before adding— “Maye, what if the whole place is haunted by these dudes?” 

“Mingyu, come on, stop being a dick,” Joshua sterns, before turning to his fiancee who is now eyeing one of the oak paneled rooms to shift the portraits in. 

“Baby, you’re seriously gonna let a man, who thinks the subway girl is his soulmate, convince you that these paintings are haunted?”

Mingyu’s smile falters at the mention of this supposed soulmate. 

Ah yes. The subway girl. 

Mingyu’s only lore that was ever made known to you. 

That too, because you had walked in, unannounced and still half asleep from your nap, to the drawing room where the group was teasing Mingyu about his one true love—her. 

As the lore goes, some four years ago—way before you met any of them, a 22 year old Kim Mingyu had just moved to Manhattan for his first job. He had bumped into this girl on a subway during one of his evening commutes. 

Initially, he thought she was beautiful—just a random subway crush you spot one day and forget about the other—and wished only if he could see her again…ever. 

That wish must have landed on a falling star because he did see her again, after a few days. Same route. And then again…for a third time. 

All the three times, she got off just two stops before him. All the three times, he just stood there glued to his pole, dumbfounded. 

Mayella said he had been so insufferable throughout that fall. That regret and desperation of not chasing what he wanted had seeped into the icy winters which followed. 

And as Mingyu rotted in despair from October to January for this mystery woman whom he never saw again, your friends stated that it was so shallow of him to fall for someone just for their looks and hook himself on the idea of spending his life with a pretty stranger. 

Eventually, Mingyu recovered from this love coma by February of that year. He even took a girl from work out for dinner on Valentine’s day. 

But they broke up—didn’t even last three months. 

His next relationship fell apart at an even shorter notice. 

When you moved to NYC to start med school and met Mayella’s friends—Mingyu included, he was two weeks into his third breakup in the last sixteen months. 

When they were telling you this story, around two years ago, everyone began teasing him again. Then they turned to you, to see what insane insult you could throw at him for being such a simp (because of course, that conversation had been a competition too). 

You just shrugged and said that it was such a Ted Mosby thing to do. 

That had them amused, with Mayella going as far as to pat you on the back for this apt comparison of Mingyu with “TV’s most pathetic male lead ever.”

You just sipped on your beer. With it, you gulped down your verity that to you, Ted Mosby, in actuality, was a dream come true. 

You sometimes still think about Mingyu and the subway girl when you think too deeply about love at midnights…and you can’t help but be jealous of them both, actually. 

Of her, because just how majestic her presence must have been to strip a guy off all his senses just by being in his vicinity for less than an hour. 

Of him, because how can someone carry so much love in his heart for someone he doesn’t even know the name of? 

Mingyu often laughs it off whenever ‘subway girl’ is mentioned now, and it's more of a running joke than a belief. But his eyes still warm up, just by a degree, like he’s witnessing the first snow of his life and his smile still falters, like it just did, at the mention of her. 

And for some reason, what used to be this simple observation now boils bile in your throat. 

Because you don’t think anyone could ever perceive you that way…like you’re the purest stream flowing through life–untouched, unguarded and holy. 

You’re the girl whose smile is seen as a flirtatious invitation to be touched. 

You know it's not your fault that the world is such an evil place to exist as a woman. But it's also not fair that you’re licked by lewd eyes who view you as just another body to be owned, used, watched and discarded. While there are women like the subway girl who are worshipped by men like Mingyu for just breathing in a corner. 

At this moment, right under the painting where Adam reaches out for God’s hand in “the creation of Adam,” your gluttony takes over you. You wish that Mingyu never sees her again. 

You pray that it lands on some falling star somewhere—like Mingyu’s wish did all those years ago. 

But before you can finish that prayer, Mingyu is calling out for your name. 

“Hey!” He snaps his fingers in front of your eyes. 

You flinch, blinking rapidly. The subway fades and the villa materializes around you again. The gloss on your lips has completely evaporated and there’s a slight sheen of sweat slicking your nude back, making strands of your open hair stick to it in uncomfortable swirls. 

Mingyu is staring down at you with deep creases between his brows. He’s standing close, too close. And it's only when it drops down, leaving a trail of blazing goosebumps behind, that it registers to you that his arm has been on your shoulder. 

“Uhm…uh, wh-where are…” you rummage your brain, but no name other than Mingyu pops up. 

“Mayella and Josh went to the open terrace to see if they should have the string quartet play there.” Mingyu answers, still standing close to you, though there’s no physical touch involved anymore. 

Your body wilts at that. 

His tongue darts out to wet his lips before explaining, “I stayed behind because I thought you were still checking out the paintings…but you’ve been staring at the wall for five minutes now.”

“Oh.” is all you can muster.

“Seriously though, are you okay?” he asks with earnest sincerity in his eyes. 

It isn’t the casual question that Lisa or Mayella might ask you when they see you dragging your feet and then drop it once you answer that you’re just tired from med school. 

It is firmer and silently demands honesty. Like if you wanted to share what bothered you, he'd sit right here, next to you, on the marbled floor and listen to you. 

But if you lied to him by telling him all’s well, he would see right through it and be disappointed. 

“I am okay,” You lie, regardless. “…just tired ‘cause of school and these brunches and hangouts never stop.”

You try to laugh that off like a joke—coming to visit the place your cousin plans to tie a knot of forever with the love of her life shouldn’t be an errand. 

Mingyu doesn’t reciprocate it though. It seems like he stopped listening once he noticed your nimble fingers tracing the rim of a vase since you said ‘I am okay.’

You retrieve your arm back and let it fall by your side, your fingers cinching over the fabric of your dress instead. His observation follows like you’re some lab rat under his unwavering study. 

Why the hell is he staring at my arms? You think. Your fingers aren’t even shaking and the color, the skin, the texture—everything looks pretty fine. 

Thankfully, he drops it. 

The sole of his shoes are soundless against the marble as he gently steps back. With a tilt of his head, you’re wordlessly ordered to follow him out of the hall. 

Mingyu slides his shades off, points it towards the ceiling before tucking it between his collar as he asks, “So what do you think of the remodeling?” 

“It’s pretty neat.” You nod, “Almost as if a historic church had an affair with Athens and birthed this place.”

A chuckle, balmy and with amusement curling around its edges, reverberates through the dome ceilings. The smiles of the angels painted up above you deepens when Mingyu laughs. 

“I can never get tired of hearing you describe buildings.” He looks at you, gaze lowered to yours. 

His pace slows down to match your feeble steps. The tension radiating from you is so thick that you’re worried it is going to weigh him down, too, even when he’s trying to put you at ease with these casual conversations. 

Pressure builds up in your throat, choking you and forcing you to say something witty yet easy in reply. Though, nothing but a puff of air with a low hum of fake laughter comes out. 

You just hope to join Mayella and Josh soon and rid Mingyu from the herculean task of trying to keep this boat afloat. But Mingyu drags open a large wooden door instead of leading you towards the spiral staircase. 

“Wait, are we not going to the terrace?” You ask. 

He holds the door open and looks over his shoulder, “Not unless you wanna hear Maye and Josh argue over their playlist for the ceremony.”

He says that, like for him, hearing his friends discuss wedding music is equivalent to a million nails scratching against thousands of blackboards at once. 

Tipping his head towards what lays outside, he ropes you along to have you see what he wanted you to see. Mingyu pushes the door ajar, unveiling the view of the backyard lawns. 

You don’t know what chills your spine more—the gush of cool breeze that swishes past your skin without a warning, or the view that hypnotizes your very soul.

Lush green gardens separated by rows of flowering shrubs and pinched by specks of polished ivory which you assume must be little statues fixated in between tiny fountains. The afternoon sunrays frolic lazily from one pool to another, draping the garden and everything within it under its shawl. A stronger gust wind causes the flowers to lose a petal or two, but the breeze that follows it is like an apology—whispered yet devout. 

This is a scene plucked out of Eden and dropped here on Earth. 

Your mouth falls ajar…were humans ever supposed to witness something as magnificent as this? 

It is the same sun, the same breeze, the delightful yet familiar scent of vanilla dipped honeysuckles that you can come across at any well kept garden anyday. 

Yet, witnessing something so beautiful today just feels ethereal. Maybe the man standing next to you adds to the charm of it all. 

You don’t know because you are already tearing up. The view blurs, like you're viewing it from behind a piece of polished glass.

“Oh my god.” You whisper, already entranced. 

CHAPTER 5 || today, you’re prettier than yesterday 

Mingyu stays behind, with hands pocketed in his dark jeans. 

He watches your glassy eyes reflect the little rainbows dancing over the sculpture of a baby cupid shooting arrows in between the small pond in the centre of the lawn. His breath mellows down looking at you because he’s afraid that any slight disturbance—even that of his breath—might break the sanctity of this moment. 

He waits for you patiently with stars in his eyes, breaths held and a smile that stays sincerely tugged at his lips instead of being suppressed until it fades.

Today, you’re more beautiful than yesterday—he thinks that everyday. 

Wearing a pearly maxi dress which cascades over your body, hinting at your curves only when you move. A glint of gold of the frail chain hung loose over your hips flirts with the sunlight one moment, then shies away the other.

He doesn’t even know how to feel about the fact that the color of your dress matches his shirt which he had put on thoughtlessly in the morning. It is when you take a step forward, leaving him behind with nothing but the jangle of your large earrings, that he feels like dying—the dress is practically backless.

Its back neckline scoops down until it kisses your lower waist, pooling around just above the curve of your butt. 

Even though he had held you just for a night, if handed wet clay, Mingyu can sculpt out the form of you with his eyes closed. 

He doesn’t have to push away the curtain of your open hair to recall the positions of the dimples on your back. 

You don’t notice any of that though. Of course you don’t. 

The gardens are a wonderland…dotted with classical sculptures, private pavilions, and an actual reflecting pool shaped like a lyre. He knew you’d love it as much as he did the moment he proposed this place as a prospective venue to Mayella and Joshua. 

Such places always charm you, he has observed. Like how a robin perched on top of a branch above her head fixates you more than Lisa’s rambling ever could. 

It relieves him to finally see you breathe easier today. 

He doesn't know what went wrong, but you have been frowning more these days. At first he thought it was because of the night you spent with him, but that possibility deflated when he felt you lose up around him instead of stiffening or recoiling like he expected. 

Now to your defense, you have always been cagey like you are holding something discreet in your ribs—something that doesn’t belong there. Coming up with obvious lies and fake tales, only speaking what you wanted to be known…not even a single dent on the iron walls you have built around yourself. 

But since the last two weeks, it has gotten worse. He can feel it in his bones. He can see it in how you’re barely keeping it together…like someone forcibly shattered those walls and now you’re holding them up together with wet glue. 

Your eyes, though always cold, seem more distant. You barely ever smiled your true smile, but it is even rarer now. 

And only God knows the lengths Kim Mingyu would go to just to get that smile to blossom back on your face. 

Because he just did. 

Even if it took him scrounging through his firm’s database to look for the details of the client whom this villa was renovated for. Even if it took him several desperate emails and calls to set an appointment with that said client. Even if it meant him begging Mr. Kaiser, the owner of this estate, to book this venue for Mayella and Joshua. Even if it meant him offering a hefty down payment, the amount of which was unknown to the couple, for this place…

Kim Mingyu would do that all over again, time and time again, if his toils transpired into this view before him—the view of you smiling like the moon and sun were dancing in circles around you. 

A particularly frosty wind carrying shrapnels of that October cold brushes past you, but you’re too focused on admiring the bulbs of yellow flowers on round bushes to soothe the goosebumps on your skin. 

Mingyu peels his jacket off and, without a second thought, puts it over your shoulders. His knuckles graze your naked skin. 

The goosebumps that his touch elicits are nothing compared to the ones caused by cold. You shiver at that, he mistakes it for a flinch and quickly apologizes. 

“No, no, thanks. I was freezing.” You hum, curling your fingers tighter at the edges of his coat and pulling it tighter over your chest. Reaching mid thighs and burrowing your entire upper body, it's almost a second dress to you. 

The silhouette of his jacket on you is like that of his shirt from all those days ago, which he had laid out for you besides your ripped dress. You had put it on, even buttoned it all the way down, almost. 

But then you were reminded of the promise you had made to yourself…that you wouldn’t drag yourself through hell again. Borrowing his shirt would mean coming back to return it. And if you went back to him, you were so sure you’d end up getting addicted to him. 

You couldn’t do that… …not when you were still a shadow of yourself, trying to piece yourself together one by one… …not when you knew that Mingyu’s heart belonged to someone else. 

“This place was meant to be one where lovers come to unite.” You comment just as you reach the largest pavilion in the lawn. 

Wooden and rustic, draped with little light bulbs and lilies, this is where Joshua and Mayella will be cutting their wedding cake. 

“It is,” Mingyu speaks, almost too low for the usual strength of his voice. 

You feel his breath fanning over your hair when he steps forward, points at the glass ceiling from over your shoulder and whispers, “look…”

The glass is a stained heart cut, crystal patches of red and white. Even the sunrays seem to pad over it with caution and featherlight steps. 

You avert your eyes before you can turn around and kiss Mingyu right under it. 

“Seems like the architect who designed this was a hopeless romantic.” You chuckle, now taking note of all the heart motifs plastered all over the woodwork in the pavilion. 

Mingyu laughs, “He is, actually. I worked under him on my very first project at the firm…he told me he remodeled this villa right after getting married. Hence, the romanticism.” 

“What about you, Kim Mingyu? Have you designed anything with your subway girl in mind?” Your mouth feels chalky when you utter that last phrase. This is the first time you have teased him about her. 

You expect him to bark out a laugh or roll his eyes and ignore that question but, "I have.” He says, his voice lower than before. 

There’s no shame in it—just reverence that makes your skin prickle.

Not even a single ounce of timidity on his face. It feels like you’re getting to know mingyu all over again, the man he is under that devil-may-care smile…the man who admits to building houses with a voiceless girl from four years ago as his muse. 

Before you can ask him more about this unrequited devotion, you hear a distant gasp ringing from across the lawn. 

———————

Lisa arrived some ten minutes ago, toured around the villa and for all her inner turmoil, looked temporarily cured by the grandeur of the place. 

But it is the scene in front of her at the moment that has revived her. 

Her eyes, once worn and weathered, are shining with a newfound purpose as she charges towards the pavilion, practically sprinting towards the two of you. 

Instinctually, you step away from him, like you’re afraid that the unusual lack of space between Mingyu and you might alarm her with a hint of what went down at his house two weeks ago. 

Mingyu is already walking down the stairs, brows knitted in confusion at this bizarre surge of enthusiasm in Lisa. He catches her by the elbow before she can tumble over the slippery grass right outside of the pavilion. 

“God, Lisa are you okay?” 

You hurry down to hold her too. 

“I am fine, I am fine.” She heaves, clutching her stomach with her free hand, while tapping at Mingyu’s bicep with the other. 

She then turns to order you, “Take off your coat.”

“Huh?” you raise your brows at this strange demand. 

“Just take it off!” She steps forward, her breath coming out as a white puff of cloud in the cold air. 

You do as you’re told, gingerly slipping the outer layer off and handing it back to its owner. Your face flushes when Lisa’s eyes follow the movement of your hand and the shade only deepens when Mingyu’s finger tips stroke your palm when he accepts his jacket back. 

“Good, now you two, step closer.” She commands again. 

Mingyu and you exchange a look, his leans more towards bewilderment while yours is mortified. Does she know…

Regardless, Mingyu stands closer to you. You feel the ghost of his presence icing up the air around you until you choke.

“There it is…” Lisa claps her hands under her chin, grinning ear to ear. The breeze whips the short hair haphazardly over her beaming face. “My center piece…You two. My studio. Saturday, 5 pm.”

CHAPTER 6 || a myth retold

Apparently, the view of you sauntering those heavenly gardens in that particular white dress with Mingyu by your side had struck Lisa like a thunderbolt charged with everything she had been searching for. 

As you look around her studio, it is so evident that Lisa’s zeal had gone blue. 

It's not like she was drawing stick figures or monochromatic messes hoping it would land. 

But she had just drawn hands. And nothing but hands. For months straight. Sketches of lopsided fists, gnarled and crooked fingers are strewn all over the room. 

But according to her, these hands are about to get their bodies—ones inspired by the forms of you and Mingyu. 

“It is because the two of you are never together so it never hit me just how well your bodies compliment each other.” Lisa remarks, adjusting a canvas two third of her own height on the wide easel. 

You are unsure how to answer that, so you just lean further back into the giant window sill, tucking your knees beneath your body, relaxing under the fizzling out warmth of a setting sun. Thankfully, there’s a shawl warped over your upper body for now, or you’re so sure you’d freeze to death in her airy art studio. 

Mingyu is standing a few feet away from you, arms crossed over his chest, unamused and obviously finding this entire thing bogus. 

“You couldn’t find two models?” he almost scoffs, but the underlying fear of Lisa, has him hold it back in. “I mean, Maye and Josh are arguably the better choice if you wanna draw some romantic marble statues, Li.”

Regardless, that earns him a glare for Lisa. 

“Despite what the internet might try to tell you, no two bodies are exactly alike so no, models who look like the two of you won’t cut it.” Lisa explains, “Besides, I want there to be that subtle awkwardness in my reference for this one, one that exists between the two of you.”

“We’re not awkward around each other.” You jump to clarify, but the refusal of your gaze to meet him doesn’t help the case.

“Yeah, right.” She doesn’t even deem it worth her time or energy to argue with an unbudging opponent. Once she has her several pencils lined in the correct order, like a ferocious warrior gearing up her spears, Lisa orders the two of you to huddle around her. 

When you’re both on either side of her tall stool, she pulls out her phone to show you an image of a marble statue and the different angles she has clicked it from. 

The white sculpture is that of a distressed woman restrained, almost held up in the air, by the tight grip of a muscular man while her arms push him away—an unmistakable depiction of some sort of struggle or abduction. 

The details of the flesh of her waist and thighs oozing out from between his strong palms, the flutter in her stone carved toes as her delicate legs are lifted off the ground, the strain on his knees as he hoists up her entire weight on his waist and the bulge of his veins…it is all so beautiful yet grotesque. 

“‘The rape of Proserpina’ by Bernini?” Mingyu questions, recognition glinting in his eyes as he studies the images closely.  

You flinch back, gulping dry as your skin suddenly begins to crawl. Mingyu notices your sudden discomfort. 

“Rape as in rapture, or kidnapping…” He quickly explains, a gentle soothe lacing his slow voice as he watches you ease up. 

“Exactly.” Lisa switches off her phone, darts her feline eyes between the two of you, then speaks, “The theme for my show is a contemporary reimagining of stories as told by these ancient statues. I use the original structures, but I also wanna depict something else entirely—with color, with their eyes, even if it's a slightly different slant of their mouth.”

Mingyu nods, a slight hum of approval reverberating through his neck as Lisa’s vision dawns on him. 

“I don’t understand.” You mumble, it's almost a whisper like a single off key note in the middle of a symphony. 

You’re painfully aware of how little you understand as the two older, much refined, friends talk in brushstrokes and marble—a language you never learnt. Lisa softens, then signals you to come closer with a crook of her index finger. She taps vigorously on her screen. 

“Have you seen Michelangelo’s David?” she asks and when you nod, pushes the screen in front of you. 

It is a painting of Michelangelo's David in color. The posture, the resemblance, the angles, it is all there. But somehow, it is an art which couldn’t be further away from its reference. 

Maybe it’s the lines—breezy and tranquil, or maybe it’s the placid expression on his face or maybe the pastel and serene colors but…Lisa’s David, as opposed to Michaelangelo’s heroic and burly one, looks like just some other dude. 

It’s a disorienting visual, honestly. So familiar, yet so bizarre and clearly deliberate. 

Lisa points to your agape mouth like your bewilderment is the highest honor you could have bestowed upon her, “That right there! That confusion is exactly what I want to see on my audience’s face on the day of the exhibition.”

Mingyu rolls his eyes, again, almost. Then straightens up like he remembers who he is talking to. “And how are we supposed to help you pull that off?”

Lisa places a hand over his shoulder for leverage and jumps off the high cushioned chair, gesturing you both to follow her back to the window-sill you were sitting on. “I just need the two of you for the initial lines, don’t worry, I am not using your facial features, just the bodies…and that slight apprehension that exists between you both.” 

Mingyu and you, trailing behind her turned back, exchange a look. The air between you weighs down with something thicker. The last time your eyes had flickered to each other this way was around a month ago after the last guest of his small party had departed from his house. 

Lisa whips around, places a firm palm over Mingyu’s chest, guiding him to sit down where you were sitting a few minutes before. “You, Pluto or Hades, are not the almighty abducting God of the underworld. You’re sitting down in leisure, waiting and amused, instead of standing up with a woman trapped between your hulking arms.” She directs.

Mingyu sits down, awkward and stiff. 

“Gyu, losen up!” Lisa scolds. 

His shoulders sag, barely. 

It's your turn to receive her instructions now. “You, Proserpina or Persephone, are not the damsel or some victim. You’re his descent. You are the dare.” Lisa turns you around until you are standing in front of Mingyu, your back blocking his view. 

Eyeing you up and down with nothing but appreciation, she continues. “In that waterfall-like dress, that rose blush on your cheeks and that golden sunlight undertone of your skin, you are the spring.” 

Then, she shoves you. 

You land on Mingyu’s lap–on his left thigh, to be precise–a soft yelp escaping your lips. His arm lifts on its own to clutch your waist, to stabilize your fall. While his other arm lands over your thighs to hold you from slipping down. 

There’s a slight flutter in his fingers when they recognize the skin they’re touching, they had mapped it out thoroughly for hours in the past after all. But his stronghold doesn’t waver. 

Swift. Fierce. Sure.

Mingyu’s gaze softens around the edges when your breath shudders. Sensing your overwhelm, he removes his hand from your thighs and turns to Lisa. “So…she’s not the one being taken down?”

“Nope.” Lisa smirks, reaching for his arm and placing it right back on your thigh. “There’s a subtle shift in the power dynamic here. Not entirely, she’s not a seductress. But the depiction of abduction becomes one of rebellion. And what bigger rebellion there is than love?”

She turns to you, moves one of your hands to Mingyu’s face and whispers, “You’re not pushing him like in the original statue, rather caressing him…but don’t make it look inviting, either.”

“Lisa, I really can’t follow...” Embarrassingly, you know just how much you’re tensing up right now. You nearly recoil from him like you’re torched. 

“Just pat him like he’s your dog.” She grumbles. 

Your fingers find their way over his jaw again, like even they couldn’t bear to stay apart for much longer. 

All of a sudden, his thumb is brushing circles over your hip. Like he is coaxing you to relax. To trust him. And you do… allowing yourself to sink deeper down into him. 

Your other arm has draped itself across his shoulder on its own accord. Or perhaps it was your body’s reaction to stabilize you. 

But it’s there, hugging him like a garland or a rope—it’s really hard to tell when he’s holding you like a promise but burning holes in your eyes as you hold his face. 

He is either extremely turned on. Or incoherently repulsed. You can’t tell. 

“I will add the details in the eyes, the expression, the smiles…you two, just hold this posture for a bit.” Lisa’s heels are already tapping away from you, knocking dully against the polished floor. “Gyu, adjust your stance…your free knee should be slightly bent in motion…like you’re about to be led somewhere.”

“I want the tension still there,” she continues. “But it’s the tension of choice. Desire. Risk. Not violence.”

Mingyu blinks twice, thrice, before shifting his eyes away from your parted lips and adjusting his legs as per Lisa’s instructions, like even that requires him to compose strength. The back of your thighs sink deeper into his firmer one when he moves. A sudden gush of air fans over the hair on your neck when he exhales in this embrace. 

“How long do we have to hold this for?” he clears the web of hesitation clogging his throat, “can’t you just click a few pictures from different angles?”

“She doesn’t like getting a camera pointed at her.” Lisa mutters, pointing at you with a conviction that leaves no further room for argument. 

She grabs a thick charcoal pencil from behind the canvas, stares at the two of you with an intensity that makes a tiny wrinkle crease her otherwise perfect brows, then gives her chin a little scrub before she begins scratching black on the canvas.

Chapter 7 || woman scorned || explicit smut warning

Sexually frustrated and feeling utterly rejected, you were a woman scorned. 

It has been a month. 

A month since you came on to Mingyu and offered him your virginity on a silver platter. A month since he hovered above you on his bed, silver chain gripped between his teeth to prevent it from hitting your face as he rutted his hips against yours. A month since your knees brushed against his under a mahogany table and forgot how to support your weight. 

A whole week since Lisa pushed you onto his lap like that was the most sensible place for you to be and your body hasn’t stopped craving his touch ever since.

What’s worse is that you seem to be the one bearing the brunt of it alone.  

You’re so sure Mingyu doesn’t even think of you when he wants to satisfy himself…probably just calls some modelesque woman off the roster he presumably has, pretends she’s his subway girl in the dark and be done with it. 

That is one harmful assumption to make, considering you don’t even know him that well. But it's also true that you haven’t seen him be in a single relationship in the last two years you’ve been around and you’ve never seen him frustrated. 

It is safe to say that he has his own channels of relieving those frustrations beyond just a game of tennis with Mayella here or a night at the bar with the boys there. 

For a moment, this conceited feeling of consciousness slithers up your mind. Was it not as pleasurable for him as it was for you? 

Did you fail to satisfy him the way he satisfied you? 

Before she got engaged to Joshua, Mayella would always gloat about the men and women she hooked up with and how they were always frothing at their mouths to have her back. 

It makes you doubt your sexual prowess and if your inexperience disappointed Mingyu. 

It shouldn’t matter this much, you think. You’re not selfish, but you also know that you deserve at least some grace for keeping up with him that night. He was well endowed and way above average in every aspect that matters. 

You thought your thirst for Mingyu would die down by now. Spoiler alert, it hasn’t. 

And now, it's almost midnight when it dawns on you that you’ve become the thing you feared the most—an addict of his touch. 

You are heaving after another gloriously tanked attempt at satiating your carnal desires. 

Sheets rumpled up in one corner of the bed and a pillow lying puckered up in the other, the salacious moans of the porno you had put on, unrealistic and gross, fill the dark hollows of your room. 

Your good old humping pillow just doesn’t cut it anymore. 

Not when you’ve had the real deal (that too, one of the finest specimens) ram inside you with such expert precision and at a pace which rearranges one’s guts. 

His skillful tongue, his callous fingers…his big, thick, veiny cock had made you produce sounds you didn’t even know your throat was capable of making. 

But it has been so many days, and the memories of his touches are becoming hazy under the weight of all the study material you’ve had to cram. 

Yesterday, while you were at it again, with the memories of his face and body plastered hot behind your closed lids, you had failed to satisfy yourself for the fourth time this week. What echoed from your room was a grunt so animalistic, you’re sure that’s what pushed Rory to pack a bag and leave to stay the weekend at one of her friends. 

You don’t even bother putting on some other pornographic movie (not just because it disgusts you, but because you know its not gonna be enough—not when you’ve been fucked so thoroughly by Kim Mingyu) and just text him the dreadful two words. 

You: You up?

It's humiliating. 

It's desperate. 

It’s the first text you have ever sent him. But it is what it is. 

If he doesn’t reply in fifteen minutes, you are considering blocking him and buying the best reviewed sex toy on Amazon. 

It takes him seven minutes to reply. 

Kim Mingyu: Yeah, just got home Kim Mingyu: Is everything okay?

You don’t even wait seven seconds to text back.

You: all well…tho do you mind if I come over? Kim Mingyu: at this hour? 

You’re at a loss for words. Is that blatant rejection or…

Wait… 

Did he just misinterpret your text? Does he not know the implications of the infamous you up and come over? 

Before you can combust what remains of your brain cells after the brutal lab work today, your phone pings with another text. 

Kim Mingyu: its almost midnight, better if i drive to your place instead…what do you think?

Your heart shouldn’t be drumming in your throat like that. It is just an offer, similar to the one you made. Albeit yours was crass and direct, his is coated with careful consideration. 

…almost midnight…better if I drive to your place…

He’s just being decent, there are no underlying subtexts to be looked for and interpreted here, you tell yourself. 

You: cool…rorys not here either.  Kim Mingyu: Perfect

You practically fling out of the bed when that one word lights up your screen with a ping. 

Scrambling on your feet to change out of your sullied oversized tee and into the silk nightie that you only wear when you are ovulating and feeling like a Goddess of skincare and femininity. 

The slinky dress pools around your thighs like a satin fountain. 

You brush your hair, spritzing a floral mist into it then ruffle it up again—an illusion of effortless elegance. 

A few dabs of vanilla body oil on the inside of your thighs, under-breasts, and wrists are enough to make the pressing weight of not having thought this through vaporize out of your open window. 

You fluff your pillow—the one with the silk case for your head—and discard the old one which had spent an embarrassing amount of hours being squeezed between your thighs. 

But then you remember how Mingyu had put a pillow under your hips the first time you did it, and it makes you wonder if he has a preference for that. 

So the cotton pillow, traumatized and squished, stays put under the now straightened blankets. 

The wick of your newest rose scented candle barely flutters with a nascent amber flame when a sharp knock from the front door fractures the silence. 

Every single dormant goosebump on your skin jolts back to life. 

Three deep breaths is all you allow yourself before putting on your matching robe and padding barefoot towards the front door where your sinful indulgence for the night, something other than a greasy pizza for once, awaits. 

Your heart pounds in your fingertips as they undo the latch and pull it open to reveal him. 

Mingyu is already leaning against the doorway with a sunny smile slanting his lips lopsided. 

A hint of knowledge dilates his pupils when he takes in the image of you…like he knows that the smooth strand of hair curled over your collarbone and disappearing in the valley between your plump breasts isn’t entirely unintentional. 

He’s not wearing a linen button down today, a rare occasion. But the white cotton tee stretched over his sturdy chest and hidden under the rugged leather of his dark jacket isn’t lacking either. 

You gulp down when he straightens up to his full height, the sheer enormity of him never fails to twist your gut.

He is still smiling down at you like he’s here to play darts and drink some beer. 

Seriously, doesn’t the fact that you two are about to hook up again make him nervous in the slightest bit?

But then you remember what followed the last time he was towering over you so close…this is like expecting your mathematics professor to be scared of an eighth grade level differentiation problem.

“Hey,” you mutter, suddenly feeling your lips parch and lash with deep ridges under those seven layers of gloss you just lathered. 

He only hums in response, slowly bringing up his knuckles to your face. They linger there, an angel’s kiss away from your cheek, like they’re hanging in the abyss awaiting your permission. 

You tilt your face down, quietly approving and surrendering to his touch. 

He lets his fingers graze your face, tucking a stray lock of hair behind your ear before he fully presses his palm to your softness. 

Cupping one side of your lolled head as he whispers. “God, you make me wanna get down on my knees and pray right now.”

Whoa, whoa, whoa. 

That’s not a common response to hey. Whatever happened to - hi? Good evening? Hello? 

Your response is a laughter–unsure and breathy like it always is when your brain is malfunctioning. 

You step aside when his hand drops from your cheek, letting him in with a single motion of your neck. 

“You actually drove all the way up here from your place?” You ask, attempting to make small talk—anything to mask the tension crackling between you. 

You’re so sure that if not distracted, you will pounce on him in the very next second. 

Or he will, on you. 

With his eyes storming a hurricane of emotions you have yet to learn the names of, you don’t know whose patience is going to crack first. 

“Of course, why would I expect you to leave your house for me at this hour?” he replies, not steering away from you for even a moment as he shimmies out of his jacket. 

The leather is still slightly damp from the melted frost of the outside wind, so he drapes it over your crowded coatrack. 

“I guess I am just so used to men being assholes that a decent one surprises me.” You chuckle but there’s no humor behind it, more designation than mirth. 

The boyish amusement drains from his face for a brief second when he nods in acknowledgement. 

Then, his calloused palms find you again, this time, finding purchase on either of your shoulders. He looks at you, really looks at you, then speaks softly, like he’s promising a vow. “I’ll drive here whenever you want me to.”

The answer to a promise like that exists only in a kiss as delicate as the little flake of snow perched over the tip of his nose, just by his red mole. 

Your toes stretch up with the shaky elegance of a novice ballerina at the same time as his head dips in reverence. 

Your fingers curl around his biceps while his loop over your waist, pressing you closer to himself. Like if he doesn’t bridge even the slightest of distance between the two of you, he’ll forget how to breathe. 

The brush of your lips is eager against his gentler ones, like someone starved of tenderness is now overdosing on it. 

Though it doesn’t take him long to match your fervor once he’s fully aware of what’s happening. The fingers around your waist shift to sprawl possessively across your back and head as he wedges his lips deeper with yours. 

Your breath, warm and shallow, fades into his—cool from the night air yet laced with the smoke from the bar he must’ve been at. 

He pulls away, just for a moment, to quickly peck the corner of your mouth like he doesn’t want even a single pore of yours to feel ignored or unappreciated. 

But you take that moment to collect your thoughts and place a palm over his pecs, a silent plea for some space. 

Disappointment flashes across his eyes but it's gone as soon as it came. Only a calm, breathless hollowness remains when he breaks the kiss. 

One of his hands is still buried in your hair like its home, while his other is massaging the small dip of your back just above the arch of your butt. He lingers there, just an inch apart, stunned and burning under your spell. 

“Everything alright?” He asks, pressing his forehead to yours. 

You nod. Lashes, still wet with the single stroke of mascara, fan over your cheeks when you close your eyes to seek strength from the void behind your lids. When you open them again, they’re glossier than before—you can feel it in the pearl of moisture that begins to form in the corners. 

You thought Mingyu’s hold on your body couldn’t get any gentler, but it does when he sees vulnerability overtaking you like mauve in the evening sky. 

His palm is cradling your head now, like he’s holding a porcelain Russian doll—rare and hauntingly beautiful. 

“I need to know that you also want this…that I am not the only one desperate for—” you almost choke with shame but his thumbs are already over your blushing cheekbones, pressing circles. 

He looks utterly wrecked. Even the notion of you believing that he wouldn’t want you like this slices him open. 

“Shh,” he whispers, too softly for a man of his height and build. 

Then, he bites his lips like what he originally wanted to say might be too dangerous. 

After a full second of careful reconsideration, he murmurs, “You don’t know how much I’ve wanted this since after the first time…and even more so when I had to sit there with you wearing that dress on my fucking lap.”

You exhale like the memory of the day still singes you like burning coal. The reminder that you have to be there again stabs your inside like an icicle. 

“I don’t know how am I supposed to do it again tomorrow without wanting to take you right then and there.” he mumbles, this time, much closer to the periphery of your lips. 

Already too drunk on the scent of his citrusy cologne and raw musk, the heat from those words is what finally tips you over the edge until you’re wet mud in his hands. 

You reclaim his lips with a low moan—wetter, hungrier, much more unabashed than before. He kisses you back with the intention of consuming everything you’re giving to him, and then some more. 

Your fingers slither up from his shoulders to his hair when you feel his hands travel down your spine to settle over the back of your thighs, leaving trails of hot lust behind.

Then, with a tug that is a much rougher contrast to this otherwise benign moment, he hauls you up in his arms for his own convenience. 

Your legs wrap around his slim waist like an instinct. 

He doesn’t have to bend down now that you’re exactly where he wants you to be—eye to eye, heartbeats bumping in uneven rhythms between your mashed chests. 

The hem of your little dress rides higher. There’s nothing delicate about the way the flesh of your ass folds into his hungry palms when he gathers your entirety into his embrace. 

You move your much plushier hips around his defined ones to find a position that isn’t as nerve wrecking as this one—one which comes with the daunting realization that Mingyu is carrying all your weight and his breath hasn’t faltered even once. 

This casual testament of his physical strength should scare you, but it only turns you on. 

Unbeknownst to your naive ignorance, you just grinded mercilessly against his hard on. The rigidness poking the expanse of your pliable thigh gets harder, more defined. You shift again to relieve this discomfort. 

This time, he breaks the kiss with a wince, pressing his eyes shut. 

“Mingyu, remove your phone!” you complain, wriggling in his arms for the third time as the hard thing digs deeper in your thigh. 

His forehead creases with lines so deep that it looks like he’s being made to walk through a burning forest. 

He groans, “That’s not my phone for fuck’s sake.”

Oh.

Your movements halt at once. 

Your left leg—the one which has to face this bullying from his hard dick—threatens to unwrap itself from around his hips. 

But his iron grip over your ass keeps you still. Your uneven, hot breaths fill in the awkward spaces. 

“S-sorry, so sorry.” You stammer, helpless and confused. Anything you do in this position is going to make him pull that agonizing face again. 

“It's…okay,” he exhales, moving his lips over your cheek instead, “just don’t grind on it like that already.”

You meekly nod, trying to still your hips and endure that ache the best you can. 

His kiss darts to your neck when he walks, taking you further into the house. 

Bits of the apartment whirl around your half lidded eyes like objects in a washing machine. The only audible sounds are the faint, wet smacks of your lips and the feeble jingle of your lonesome bracelet decked with innocent charms. 

Your legs around him tighten, ankles crossing over each other on his lower back making your chest smush closer to his. He can feel the drag of your erect nipples over his pecs through the flimsy silk and cotton of your clothes. 

That makes him almost whimper against your thrumming pulse…no, scratch that almost… That was most certainly a whimper; why else would the nerve on his neck be thrumming under your fingers shudder like that? 

Regardless, he is quick to suppress it by grinding his teeth over the skin under your ear instead. You shiver when he nips at you and sigh when he laps over it to soothe the bruise. 

You feel the wind from the quick jerk of your bedroom door behind your neck, his sweeping arm displacing the air. 

He closes the door before sliding you down against the wall next to it. 

His hands come on either side of your head as he traps you there. Dark eyes hooded with lust rave at your body. A grunt reverberates through his throat watching you bat your lashes at him, all doe eyes and flushed cheeks, lower lip trembling with anticipation and desire.  

He stares at the hair tangled in your ruby earrings, then your disheveled body which can’t stay still. 

“God you’re so hot.” 

One side of your robe has completely come undone, barely hanging from the curve of your elbow. It lays open, exposing your silk nightie–the treacherous strap of which has slipped uselessly over your shoulder, leaving the upper half of your breast open for his starved mouth to feast on. 

Your fingers are still fisting the fabric over his shoulders as you try to stabilize your breathing. 

“The hottest woman ever…” he hums, trailing the back of one of his palms over your ribcage tentatively, like he’s afraid the invisible ink on his hand will smudge a beautiful painting. 

Mischief, the kind that only sprouts when you’re alone with him, bubbles in your guts as you blurt out. “Well, now I feel bad for your subway girl.”

The sharpness of his jawline is lethal under the hazy bedroom glow. Dangerous, even, when it locks with the slightest clench.

“Thinking about another woman while I am fucking you with my eyes?” he corks a brow at you, a corner of his mouth lifted up in half a smile, “I feel offended, darling.”

He punctuates that last word by bringing both his hands over the soft mounds on your chest, thumbs already finding and pressing teasing circles over your nipples before you can even think of a catty comeback. 

You arch yourself more into his touch, surrendering your body like an offering. 

The other sleeve of your robe slips off too leaving the material to flop silently on the floor. Your head slumps to the side, eyes finding a corner of your dimly lit room. You don’t have it in you to face his intensity anymore. 

Your breath stutters out in broken sighs and almost whimpers as he continues worshipping your upper body with his lips and fingers. 

Collarbones peppered with wet kisses, neck splotched with blooming red that gets darker every moment, nipples erect and impossibly sensitive from all the tugging and rubbing. 

One of his palms cups your cheek, gentle yet steady, as he redirects your gaze back to himself. You last a total three seconds before clenching them shut again. 

It is impossible, you decide, to see dark desire hooding his stoically tame eyes and knowing that you’re the reason behind it. 

His breath hovers over the shell of your ear again, this time to ask a question. 

“I’m gonna take this off, okay?” 

One of his hands skims the hem of the dress dangling inches below your hips while the other holds your waist, grounding you back into the moment. 

When you nod, he places a chaste kiss over your exposed shoulder and bunches the dress in his hands, dragging it up to your hips. 

Surprisingly though, he halts there. 

You feel the curl of his fingers hooking around the waistband of your underwear instead. 

“Mingyu,” You blink at him, startled and gone. “Wh-what—”

But he’s already on his knees before you. Just like his greeting on the door.

The ruined panties are dragged down your thighs and it hits you that it wasn’t your dress that he wasn’t referring to when he said ‘I’m gonna take this off’. 

The dainty fabric swishes down from between his fingers onto the carpeted floor.

“Is it okay if I kiss you here?” 

He is fucked out already. Holding your hips like it's his anchor, barely holding his senses together. His mouth is slightly ajar, eager to lave at your arousal the moment you give him the permission to. 

You nod, breathless yet ready. The sight of him on his knees, lips parted and hair tousled as he studies your each shiver and smiles at every approval, is jarring to say the least. 

It makes your head spin–the most intimate parts of you are so exposed to his lips, his breath, his gaze while your dress rides halfway up your hips. 

Your knees buckle, but his giant palms are already stabilizing your stance by splaying over your upper thighs. 

“H-how are w—” it dissolves at the back of your throat when he loops his fingers around your thighs, slightly pushing the flesh apart. 

You feel, and he sees, a mortifying pearl of liquid roll down from your core in a silent weep. 

“God…you’re literally dripping.” he observes like you’re a miracle unraveling before his eyes.

You wish you could turn into a puddle right there. 

Your body bucks harder this time—falling weaker into his stronghold. 

He nuzzles his nose in your hip, rubbing his forehead on your stomach like the sight of what he just saw drove him to insanity and now it is taking everything in him to crawl back. 

Then, he pinches a corner of your dress between his fingers and jerks it up to you with expectant eyes, “Hold this up for me, please?” 

You do as you’re told—the shyness transforming into curiosity that ebbs in your lower body, sending waves of warmth and wetness down your core. 

Another tear slips down from between your legs and with it, Kim Mingyu’s patience. 

Large palms grab either sides of your hips with firmness substantial enough to keep you unmoving even through a fucking earthquake as his face buries between your thighs. 

An explosive sensation that you’re yet to familiarize yourself with bubbles in your abdomen and leaps out of your lips with a scream. 

One of your hands finds home in his lush hair. You clutch at his locks at first when he’s placing open mouthed kisses all over your cunt but then you start pulling at it when his tongue darts out, licking you across your slit in repeated motions. 

The left side of your face presses harder against the wall, your moans partially muffled by your mushed cheek. 

Your thighs clench, effectively warding off his invasion even when you don’t want to. 

Kim Mingyu is a possessor of insurmountable persistence though—keeps on nudging at your folds with his cold nose and velvety tongue soaked with spit and your slick. 

He smooches at your fluttering fold, an almost french kiss down there, and gauges your reaction with upturned gaze only to find you struggling with silk in both hands—of his hair, of your dress. 

Then, his lips pucker up around your oversensitive clitoris with a gentle yet firm suction. 

Your head finally detaches from the wall, a loud gasp slipping out with all the air in your system when you catch the mirror in the corner of your room which reflects every single detail of this debauched act. 

Your hand shivering over his hard skull, fingers buried deep into his dark hair as his face digs deeper and deeper into you like it’s his pillow. 

You can’t see the expert flicks and flat strokes of his tongue in the mirror from this angle, but lord, do you feel them. Every single one of them. 

You don’t know what’s more blasphemous—the hand holding up the skirt to give him all the access to your body he wants, or the way his knees are planted on the ground as he worships you like you’re the last holy shrine on Earth and he’s the only man who knows how to pray. 

Mingyu has the nerve to pause like he catches you looking in the mirror, then darts his pink tongue out with a smirk to circle your nub at the same time as he winks at you, a sinister promise glinting in his orbs. 

Your lower lip is seized between your gnashing teeth. With the intensity of the liquid that gushes your mouth, you think that you’ve drawn blood. But there’s no metallic taste on your tongue. 

Oh, you’re just drooling like a dog watching him suckle on your cunt. 

His lips leave your lower ones with an audible, wet smack that sends humiliating chills down your spine. 

What's even more shameful is the string of saliva that is stretched lewd and lazy between his lips and your cunt—still linking the two of you even when he’s inches away. 

It's like your body refuses to let him go. 

He’s heaving, watching you whine at this sudden loss, a thick sheen of gloss smudged all over his lip, saliva dribbling down his chin…slick smudged even on the tip of his nose. 

“You keep on trying to hide away from me.” he huffs, but doesn’t sound like he’s complaining. 

It is rather an explanation for what he’s about to do next. You try to relax more. 

But Mingyu has a more permanent solution—the fingers, which were earlier massaging you, circle around one of your knees as he throws your right leg over his shoulder, another hand splayed over your stomach to steady you. 

“Baby, as much as I’d love to continue kissing these thighs,” he says, pressing his cheek deeper into the plushness, “I’m gonna need you to part them if you wanna cum.”

You squeak, almost losing balance from the sheer shock and embarrassment of this position, of his unfiltered words. 

But his palms travel up and catch you in a flash. His mouth goes back to town—kissing, sucking, lapping, and moaning as you gush with cream more openly than before. 

The squelching of your dripping cunt against his tongue is louder than ever now that you’re practically stretched open for him. 

Instead of trying to shove his head away, you feel a slight tinge of shock through the haze when you boldly cradle his head closer to your core, shame thinning along with your vision. 

Every single vein, every single nerve trembles with the heavy pressure that shoots from your cunt at his licks. 

You’re nothing but a puddle of intense heat and breathy moans in his hands as his tongue explores the untouched nether regions of your body. 

You’re practically leaking against his mouth, soaking the lower half of his face with an arousal so thick, so salacious that it is unbelievable you did it…and that too, in such quantity. 

Your needy moan intensifies until it morphs into a desperate cry. 

Your chest arches away from the wall and the blush in your face flows down south until your breasts, your abdomen, and even your cunt are all colored red when he goes wild against you, desperate to taste your orgasm. 

There’s no technique to it now, just plain old sucking and nibbling. His head moves from side to side as he parts the petals leaking for him. He increases the speed, getting more merciless, when he feels you edge closer to your unraveling on his tongue.

The leg hooked over his shoulder shakes so hard that it almost slips down when you come, your back sliding down the wall as the cry turns into a loud sob. 

But he holds you up for his own pleasure—continues to taste the fruit of his efforts as it spurts with sweetness around him. 

Obscene waves of lust which he happily consumes and revels in, doesn’t even let a single drop touch the ground. 

With cold and drained tips of your fingers, you caress his scalp and let him suck and kiss you clean to his heart’s desire. 

The skirt that had slipped from your hold long back now cascades over his head like a curtain, providing him a more intimate privacy with your cunt. 

You sigh, barely keeping afloat in the ocean of white, hot lust he has plunged you in. 

Your body tightens when you realize this isn’t the end of it when his nose nudges against your folds, again. The tip of his tongue prods at your entrance, already slithering up. It eases back, then slowly presses forward again. 

This time around, you lean into him, threading his hair and encouraging him to go deeper. 

“Mingyu…” you sigh, about to say something but all your thoughts thrash violently down your throat when a loud tapping at your door halts his movements. 

“You in there roomie?” 

The moment Rory’s grating voice reaches you, the heel of your palms push deeper into his head with restraint. 

He detaches his lips from you, brows tangled in confusion, bleary eyes as unfocused and disheveled as his hair. 

You’re about to shoo her off, tell her to go away before she can further ruin the mood. 

But then, after a hesitant beat which crumbles under heavy discomfort palpable from the wall away, “Jules is here too, she needs to talk to you.”

CHAPTER 8 || stay

A chilling frost overtakes all the heat Mingyu had flamed within you. 

Your head whips around, hair lashing over your almost naked skin like leather whips. 

All of a sudden, everything is too overwhelming, too overstimulating. Your leg falls off his shoulder almost hysterically, and you scramble away from the door, almost hitting him with your knees when you do.

Mingyu begins to get up, the grooves on his forehead deepen further as he watches you pale whiter. 

His eyes dart towards the door at another round of knocks. 

An almost hushed whisper of your name succeeded by a plea; “We should talk…we really should.” 

It's a different voice than the one before, still feminine but loaded with skepticism and…guilt?

But this is not the place for Mingyu to be practising his favorite pastime hobby of psychoanalysing people and their tones. 

Not when you’re nearly hunched over in a corner, hair cascading wild over your shoulders, shielding you away. 

You look so small and it mauls at his chest. 

He gingerly picks your robe back up from the floor and is about to put it on you when you flinch at the brush of his knuckles. He pauses, simply extending it to you instead of trying to wrap it on you.

You try to focus your eyes on him, mouthing a soundless thank you, afraid that even the swishing of the fabric in your hands might alarm the girls outside of your presence. 

He steps back to allow you room, running the back of his palm over his sticky lips to tidy up as much as he can while you stitch back your fallen dignity, thread by thread, with shaky fingers. 

God, you don’t want to look so dismantled, not in front of him. Not when he has given you, so selflessly and generously, what you had been craving for weeks. 

No matter how hard you try to straighten up, there’s this primal urge in your body that keeps on clawing under your skin, telling you to shrink more. 

But this isn’t some endless wilderness and you’re not a prey of Julianna. 

You hold onto his strapping shoulder, sweaty palms instantly crinkling his t-shirt but by the surety with which he circles your wrists, keeping them there, he doesn’t seem to care. 

“Do you want me to tell them off?” he whispers, so slow that despite the close proximity, even you have to take several moments to comprehend him. 

“No, God, no! Don’t say anything.” you beg, “let's just wait it out until they leave.”

A nod as his lips purse into a thin line, “I’m here.” 

He bends down a little, and there it is again—that openness, one which screams that he will sit here, holding your hands, and listen to whatever that is distressing you. Even if it takes forever. 

But it's hard to picture him doing that, simply because he has never done that for you before. Though, it is also true that you had never been as wrecked as you seem now. 

Physical exhaustion looks so different from the one induced by emotional trauma. 

You should know that.

Right now, your eyes must be hollow and dry from all the screeching images of the night at the club–Julianna–continue to flash past them like jolts of thunder. 

Your breath mustn’t be normal–either too rapid and shallow, or not there at all… Wait, are you even breathing? And why can’t your fingers stop trembling even when you’ve clenched them in fists over his shirt? 

“Look at me,” Mingyu is inches away from your face when your consciousness touches the present. 

Both his hands are holding you now, gentle yet firm. He wouldn’t let go, not until the temperature of your skin drops back to normal.

“Breathe.” He commands. 

The fragility of your mind is clear to him, so he demonstrates what he wants you to do—takes a deep breath with you and then lets it out through pursed lips, urging you to do the same with his eyebrows raised in encouragement. 

Another deep breath, taken together—nice and slow. 

Good, this feels good. 

Your clutch over his shirt loosens and you gulp. Too many emotions, too little time to process them. But a shaky breath that moves in tandem with his grounding one.

A small flame of gratitude flickers in your heart, it feels better to have him here. 

You’re clinging on to him, emotionally and physically, even when your psyche screams at you not to. Depending is always a bad idea. Always. 

So you push him away, rubbing the pad of an unsure finger between your brows, scratching at the skin that doesn’t even itch. 

“Uhm, bathroom’s that way,” you nod faintly towards the en-suite, “you can go wash up if you want.”

Mingyu studies you for a moment longer, concern etched across every frown on his face. “You’ll be alright?” 

“Yeah, yeah, I might change into something more…” you trail off, arms flapping by your sides at the sweat sodden clothes which are barely hanging on your frame. 

“Okay.” He whispers, quiet and reverent. 

The honeyed glow of your soft bathroom lights cast over him as he looks at you over his shoulder once, before the door clicks shut. 

As you scurry around your room, dimming the lights and digging through your drawers for clean clothes, your ears tune to the muffled clinking of cutlery in the living room. 

They're still out there, lounging around as if nothing’s happened.

Probably sharpening their claws to rip apart what remains of a once ecstatic evening. 

You grit your teeth, pulling a clean sweatshirt over your head with more force than necessary. 

The clinking of china and cutlery reaches your ear. 

You don’t know if Rory is aware of what went down, but Julianna is. 

Hell, she is the orchestrator of it. 

And it is beyond baffling that she can have the guts to just waltz into your home, knock on your door with a voice dripping in counterfeit regret, and then go snack in your kitchen like it’s her right. 

Like she didn’t just detonate the last fragile bit of your peace.

Bullshit. 

You’re brushing your hair, silently seething in rage after hearing another muffled giggle from the living room when Mingyu walks out, droplets of water clinging on to the edges of his face. 

His t-shirt is damp in patches, hugging the curve of his collarbone. His hair, tousled after being run through with wet hands, sticks to his forehead with curled rivulets. 

It feels significantly more familiar this way between you two—no lip bites, no lustful gazes, no begging, no tension teetering on the edge of collapse. 

Just him, stripped of seduction. And you, stripped of performance. 

Quiet. Worn down. Human.

For the first time in what feels like weeks, you're not navigating a minefield of glances or decoding the heat behind his hands. 

You're just two people sitting with the aftermath. No pretending. No scripts.

And it’s a strange sort of comfort.

His lips, still a bit bitten and raw, tug into a polite smile. 

“I should get going.” He suggests.

You immediately protest.

“They’re still out there,” and then, you pause for a beat as he lingers, “I don’t want to deal with them and I don’t want them to know you’re here.”

Lie. You want to prolong his company as much as you can because it feels safer this way. Not just because of his reliable physique, but also the ease that comes with him; one which smells like lavender and linen. 

“Okay, that’s…reasonable.” he clears his throat before saying out loud the same conclusion that had been storming both of yours’ minds, “Do you want me to stay here?”

“I don’t mind if you do.” You give him a subtle shrug, one which comes with a wry, pathetic smile. 

“Cool.” He says, seemingly unfazed by this out of character request from you. 

You’re someone who always has one foot out the door whenever another human is in the room. Yet here you are, asking him to stay. That too, so deep inside your safe space. 

He leaves no time for you to second guess your decision when he settles down on your bed. 

The room shrinks now that he’s here—too tall, too present. The mattress dips dangerously low.

“Woah, you really sleep on this marshmallow?” he quips when the bed creaks. 

He carefully pulls his legs up, resting his elbows on his knees. 

You can’t help but snort, not because there’s an obvious 6’2 center of gravitation on your bed pulling everything in for a collapse. 

But because you really fluffed your bed, lit up the candles and pulled out your best sheets thinking that he would be able to fuck you on your twin bed without breaking his back or the frame. Or both. 

Once your hands are fully lathered with the honey scented lotion, you pull out another blanket to join him. 

Settling in front of him, you offer him the fresh blanket which he throws around his shoulders in a swift motion, and wriggle your legs under the unmade duvet you share with him. 

The bed squeaks even more and it cements you frozen, afraid that it might give up under your weights combined. 

But then a laughter bubbles out of you. His low chuckle mirrors yours like a shadow. 

He scoots further back, even though he doesn’t have to, and pushes most of the duvet to cover your legs, even if it leaves half his knee poking out. 

The boy is surveying your room with the same curiosity that he maps your body with. Inquisitive. Interested. Eager. 

The book collection on your bedside table is approved with an appreciative dip of his head. An extra moment spent staring at the spine of your old, withered copy of Wuthering Heights. He reaches out to trace the indented flower pattern on the spine, tiniest speck of its original silver catching the amber of your fairy lights. 

“It was a gift from the supervisor at my orphanage when, y’know, Maye’s family adopted me.” You explain. 

His finger retrieves like it has been singed by something sacred. It is obviously a sentimental relic to you and he doesn’t want to malign it with a thoughtless touch. 

You almost laugh at that. 

You don’t mind mentioning that you’re adopted, or talking about the things that follow that topic. But it is something almost prohibited to be brought up—simply because it upsets Mayella. 

Sometimes you wonder if Vernon and Josh are even aware that you’re not bound to her by blood. 

She has made her distaste about you still not fully claiming her family’s name very evident. 

I literally know you more than I know my own mother, she often says. 

“It’s a thoughtful gift.” he remarks. 

Mingyu shoves his hands back into the duvet like he’s tucking away a secret he just touched, the blanket wrapped around him slipping over one shoulder.

Another loud clang from the living room which stiffens you for a moment, the ‘thank you’ on the tip of your tongue meant for his compliment vaporizes like acid. 

Mingyu has gotten a hold of this situation now. 

You’re beyond bothered by the presence of the girls outside and there isn’t much he can do to distract you other than talking to you. 

“I like your room,” he says like it is the quickest thing he could whip up. Simple yet sincere. 

“I try to make it mine.” you beam, voice barely audible. 

His attention sweeps from the vintage lamp basking your half finished notes in soft gold on the study table, over the delicate persian rug upturned in a corner, all the way to the blinking little bulbs of string-lights hung in haphazard patterns over your bed. 

You’re proud of the comfort of it. Warm, cozy, lived in…faint scents of rose and eucalyptus wafting in batches from the candles in the corners. 

But at the same time, you don’t want him to read too much into it—notice the torn pages smudges with ink shoved under your leatherbounds, or catch a glimpse of the half empty bottle of sleeping pills on your shelf which you need more often than you’d like to admit. 

So you turn the intimate inspection on him. 

“Mingyu, the other day, at the villa, when I asked you if you designed a place with the subway girl as your inspiration…you said you did.” 

The rampant fidget of your thumbs over the hem of your sweatshirt is concealed from him under the duvet. 

“Do you mind if I ask what you designed?” You finally ask.

His eyes are trained on you, making you lose your train of thoughts even more. Then, he breathes, a faint smile streaking his face like purple in the evening sky. 

“A home.” Mingyu exhales, “One where the windows are low, so that she can watch the sun set down the horizon for as long as she wants. One where every room can have a bookcase, because she was always carrying something to read each time I saw her. Warm lights and open spaces…somewhere that feels like waiting for someone who might never arrive, but you keep the porch lights on anyways.”

Your breath catches, you weren’t expecting that at all. 

You avert your eyes from his passion to your lap…even death would turn its eyes away from the patience he bears for her then what are you but a mere human?

“Wow, that’s unbelievable.” You mutter, “Do you own that house? Like, is it waiting for the day you…you bring her there?”

He leans back over his palms, shaking his head with denial. “Oh come on, I am not that delusional. It was for a client…sold to a family of four—parents, a toddler, and their mean pet cat. I was just thinking about her a lot when I worked on it.”

“Makes sense.” Even though it doesn’t—not at least to you.

“So,” he stretches his hands over his knees as he pins you down figuratively, “what’s the deal with tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum out there?”

You roll your eyes. “That’s just my roommate and her friend being annoying.” 

His brows lift, amused. “Why were you so scared of them?”

“No, I wasn’t.” 

His eyes fall to the plushie you’re pinching between your arms then back at you and he smirks. 

“Yes you were.”

“Please,” you scoff, “It's Rory who loses her voice if I glare at her for even a split second.”

“Well, that doesn’t discard the fact that you looked like you had seen a ghost when she knocked.” He shrugs. 

You stare at him. “Maybe I was just taken aback because I was in the middle of a hookup and didn’t expect them to be home?”

Mingyu looks unconvinced but doesn’t argue, just files it away. 

He yawns, leaning his hands back again. The duvet rustles between you both. 

“Didn’t think your bed would survive us both.” He murmurs, voice tendered with tired humor. 

You snort, your words flooding out before you can think them through. “Yeah, I wasn’t really thinking about the structural integrity of it when I lit up the candles and queued a playlist.”

His eyes light up like Christmas. “There was a playlist?”

You roll your eyes again but there’s that familiar warmth creeping up from the warmth of your chest to the cold of your cheeks. 

“Of course there was. It's my first time having a guy over, you think I wouldn’t vibe it up a notch?” You quip.

He just chuckles, head hanging low. Then points to the purple teddy cradled between your arms. “And how are these innocent plushies contributing to setting the mood?”

You should have put the soft toys away, you realize, but you quickly cover it up. 

“Sex education.” You shrug, then stare down at the button eyes of your favorite teddy, “Thistle was gonna watch mommy get railed tonight.”

Mingyu immediately winces at that like he didn’t expect that crudeness. But the laughter erupting in his chest is too strong to be suppressed. 

“I sometimes forget it, but that sailor mouth keeps on reminding me that you’re related to Maye.” He reaches in your lap, patting the weathered violet fur of the plump bear. “I’m assuming this is Thistle?”

You nod, a strange tenderness settling in your chest as you watch Mingyu hold the small toy too carefully, with nothing but reverence and awe, between both of his enormous palms. 

The sight is comical, to say the least. 

“Yeah…had him for as long as I can remember, named him after the flower because of the color.” You say. 

“You’re such a dork.” Mingyu snorts before proceeding to place Thistle next to himself on your bed. 

Unlike him, you don’t hold back your laugh watching the two of them sit side by side—a towering man with damp hair and feet too long for your bed, and a little violet teddy bear slouched against his thigh like a weary witness.

“Okay,” you wheeze, “that visual is cursed.”

“I don’t know,” Mingyu muses, tilting his head at Thistle like he’s genuinely considering it. “He’s got a presence. Kind of a ‘seen some shit’ vibe. Very alpha.”

You argue. “I literally had to stitch him with dental floss once.” 

“See? He’s a survivor.”

You grin fondly at your little buddy. The glimmer in his round plastic eyes dulled over time, but the comfort radiates the same. He truly is a survivor, you want to elaborate, he stuck with you during a time when even the breeze refused to enter your muggy room.  

But you don’t want to weigh this moment down, so you tuck it back into a pocket in your mind which is already stretched full of words unsaid. 

You shift a little closer without meaning to, like your bones made the decision before your mind could veto it. 

Your knee brushes his, and Mingyu doesn’t move away.

“Thanks for not asking too many questions,” you murmur.

“Thanks for letting me stay,” he replies just as softly.

Thistle flops sideways in the middle of the bed, landing against Mingyu’s thigh. He gently picks the bear back up, then looks at you with a crooked smile.

(a/n: i just realized while editing this that this is the first chapter where these two talk for real…yikesss)

CHAPTER 9 || coping mechanisms

The convertible Aston Martin stands out in the sea of white in Lisa’s cathedral sized garage for three reasons:

One, because it is the only thing not drowning in pastel. It is sleek, dark and smells like warm cedar and cinnamon as opposed to the usual flowery, vintage cadillacs Lisa collects like shoes. 

Two, because it is almost too pristine. Unscratched, engine serviced just last week and almost as good as new, it doubtlessly belongs to Kim Mingyu. 

Three, because unlike the rest of the cars which are resting put in the darkness, this one’s shivering with movement.

Today was the third sketching session at Lisa’s art studio and a tamer, more comfortable one than its predecessors. 

You didn’t move around much in his lap, or rub yourself against his hard on like you would in the first two sessions. This borderline dry humping would earn you a grasp so savage that the imprints of his fingers would blush red for hours over your hips and thighs. 

Though, for being on your best behavior today, he had thanked you even—a faint note of gratitude sung under his breath towards the end of the session, muffled effectively by the scratching of Lisa’s easel against the marbled floor as you got off his lap. 

Your “you’re welcome” was your tongue shoved down his throat the moment you got inside the secure privacy of his car. 

And now, his wet lips pepper the soft edge of your jaw with eager hungry kisses. You sigh, tracing his cheek with the fingers of one hand while the other buries deeper into his hair. 

The driver seat is warm, humming and trembling with the weight of two bodies which aren't supposed to fit on it. But clinging on to him like a koala, you somehow make it work. 

“It tickles!” You laugh, knees sinking deeper into the leather on either side of his thighs when he nips the soft flesh just under your ear with feverish precision…he has already memorized what patches of skin trigger your loudest moans. 

“I know,” he says, and does it again anyway, grinning into your skin with a playful smirk and a tighter grip under your ribs. 

His lips trace the dip of your neck. 

Damp, urgent. 

Your eyes flutter shut, your fingers bury deeper at the nape of his neck.

Your knees dig deeper into the leather, straddling him, spine arching with a jolt. Your naked back presses against his steering wheel when you lean back—the cold, hard leather biting your spine. 

But he doesn’t let up. Not even in the slightest as you squirm. 

His breath never hovers further away from you—always there, warm and reckless, it continues tickling the goosebumps on your collarbone. 

He embellishes your skin with two more lovebites, pink for now but bound to ripe maroon by the night, before he pulls away after placing a soft kiss in the valley between your breasts. 

This pause isn’t appreciated by you. Neither is the rational responsibility of the words that follow. 

“We should talk.” He says suddenly, voice too low and shaky, like the thought had just sprouted in his mind. 

You blink, your expression teetering at the edge of desperation at this sudden loss of his body heat. “About what?” 

“About whatever this is.” His hand gestures between your bodies, low voice treading through the chaos crumbling into the calm. 

All of a sudden, a dark, heavy cloud is engulfing the sun you were looking forward to bask in for a few more minutes. 

He begins sliding up the sleeves of your dress which he undid as soon as you stepped into his car…now reaching not for your body, but for answers. 

Cold sweat begins to replace the dotted goosebumps. You gulp, nervousness and reluctance lodging in your throat like dry wood. 

And then, an idea strikes you like a thunderbolt. 

But you have to be sly and careful, don’t wanna alert him about the tried and tested trick under your sleeve. 

So you loll back, eyes turning up to the ceiling of the car like you’re thinking about an answer to his query. 

Finally, after enough time has passed in this act of you deliberating over nothing and his body is off-guard, a sigh emerges from your exhausted mouth. 

You snake all ten of your fingers behind his skull and coax him forward with a jerk until his face is smushed between your breasts. 

The words still teetering on the edge of his throat are muffled against you. 

His tongue reacts on an instinct, lips wrapping around your perked up nub, teasing it between his teeth with gentle deliberation. 

Good. You both love this—he gets to suck on your pretty tits while you get to escape his surveillant eyes. 

But Kim Mingyu is armed with the patience of a saint today…won’t let you take a breather for long. 

He parts away from your aching nipple with a wet pop, his rough thumb replacing his tongue to continue stimulating the raging nerves over your sensitive mounds. Lazy in motion, yet focused.

There’s no urgency in his movements like it doesn’t matter to him how much you squiggle if you don’t let him finish what he wants to say.

“We can’t keep doing this without knowing what it means. Let us act like adults for a moment, not some horny teens who just discovered the concept of making out.” He almost scolds.

You can roll your eyes at him, shuffle off his lap and out of his stupid car simply because you don’t want to talk. 

But the fierce tenderness in his voice pins you still in your place—straddling him like he’s your comfiest chair. 

You scoot back, which is comical because between his huge body and the sturdy steer, there’s not much space for you to do that. 

“What do you want?” You huff.

The drag of his palm over you as he puts the top of your dress back in its place over your chest is almost religious—like the final fragile showers of rain kissing the earth goodbye at midnight with a promise to return with the next sunrise.  

His focus is pinholed on you, “I wanna know what does this mean to you…if you—” 

“There is no meaning to it.” 

The quick eagerness of your reply throws him off for a bit, but you just run a hand through your hair and continue. 

“Look, Mingyu, we both enjoy this. It takes the med-school edge off from me and you don’t have to follow the whole protocol—you know, jumping through hoops—dinner, dates, sweet-talking someone into bed. This skips all of that.”

He visibly winces at the sheer sterility of your rant but doesn’t interrupt you to dust up his reputation—that of a gentleman who doesn’t take a girl out with the sole purpose of bedding her. 

So you continue with a shrug that doesn’t quite convince your own self, “This…arrangement, it's efficient for the both of us. We’re both emotionally unavailable—I got all my stuff and you have your unrequited love or whatever—so let’s just enjoy this till it lasts. Till one of us either eventually gets bored or finds something, or someone, better.” 

Maybe it's the rose colored sheath tinting your vision, nerves still buzzing with pleasure, but he looks gutted. 

There’s an unsure movement in his lower jaw, like he wants to correct you but doesn’t know how to. 

He lets your words fuse with the cedar fumes emerging from the diffuser as the fog on the window glass condenses. 

His hand drops from your shoulder to the space between you, like he’s letting go of more than just contact.

Then, he nods, like that’s the only thing you’ve left him capable of.

His face falls visibly–the sharper lines softening until they’re gone, a corner of his mouth drooping down ever so slightly that if you weren’t staring at him, you’d miss it. 

You glance away. 

Because you hate that there’s a possibility that you just misread this situation. 

That you didn’t let him finish first before basically asking him to be your glorified fucktoy and hoping he’d share the same page as you. 

Maybe that was too much. Too fast. Maybe you should’ve let him speak first, instead of defining this thing in bloodless terms and expecting him to nod along like it doesn’t affect him.

But that was smart—the thing you just did, right? After all, it is the truth that you haven’t allowed yourself to think about relationships after the absolute shitshow that was your senior year at pre-med. It is equally a fact that Mingyu still longs for his subway girl like the sun longs for the horizon. 

You see it in the evening when he doesn’t feel like himself and leaves early to catch the subway instead—like he would do that a million times every day if it meant he could see her once again. 

You see it when it's autumn—he joins you all for coffee and there’s charcoal on his fingers, like he was busy etching that face from four autumns ago on some discreet canvas. A ghost. A muse.

You’ve never been anyone’s muse. Just a reprieve. A body.

The closest you’ve gotten to a reverence like that was when you had crawled into Mingyu’s bed that night and begged him to take you. 

And maybe it was this jealousy towards the faceless woman or the image of a wounded Mingyu yearning for her that was smoldered into the edges of your brain that night, but just before he had kissed you for the first time, you thought his eyes contained the glimmer which was reserved only for his subway girl. 

Or maybe, worse—Mingyu was trying to look for a glimpse of her in you, just like he did in every other girl. 

Well, that hurts. Insulting, even. 

But you will take it in fragments, even when it’s not meant for you. Even if you’re just another stop on his way to her. Even if his reverence, his touch is owned by someone else…

…you’d still take it second. 

Because before Mingyu, and even after him, no one has ever touched you like you are worth the effort—the effort of being carried up a flight of stairs in a careful embrace, the effort of being driven for in the middle of the night, the effort of calming you down when even your own breath betrays you. 

You have been groped at, clawed on, pushed and pulled. Never held. 

Maybe what you just suggested was selfish. Or desperate. 

Maybe the mention of her name, and the label you just stuck to his head—the one of emotional unavailability—a tad too cruel. 

But that seemed like the wisest definition you could offer him at the time. And he wouldn’t relent, so you had to. 

He’s quiet for a long time. You can hear his breath. Feel the tension rolling off him.

Then, softly, “Is that really how you see this?”

You nod, then lie. “Yeah.”

You are unaware of the death grip your fingers hold over the console, knuckles draining white. 

But he catches it and there’s a subtle shift in his face. 

The sag of his jaw, an unreadable light which flicks but then dims within the same second in his eyes. A crack cratering polished stone. 

Like your hold over the gear, those fingers cupped tight, just spoke more to him than your words ever did. 

He looks straight at you, blinking slowly like your soul has unraveled before him...all through the tips of your cold fingers. 

“Okay,” he murmurs, a ghost of a wry smile dances over his pink lips. The window glass fogs around the singular word.

His fingers drop down like the weight of them might be too much on your shoulders and he instead laces them with yours turning bloodless over the gear. 

He cups your shivering palm in both his hands, warm skin kneading your colder flesh, before he brings it up to his lips. 

“Okay.” He whispers, lips moving over your nimble fingers when he kisses them like he is confiding his deepest secret in your pulsing veins, hoping they carry it to your bitter heart. 

Something falls deep in your gut, and the descend is eternal, cursed. 

You nearly flinch your fingers away from him, but he only presses a more sincere kiss over them before returning them to your chest. 

If your veins didn’t carry his message, he himself would. 

The intimacy of this moment roars with a flame hungrier and higher than the fire that burns at the friction of your naked bodies. 

God, this man is too disarming for his own good. 

And you, well, you don’t handle overwhelm particularly well. 

There’s that itch in your teeth. Air catches in your throat, and a ridiculous, familiar pressure building in your jaw.

“Can I bite you?” You blurt out before you can swallow those juvenile words. 

His head jerks back slightly and he blinks, almost breathless. “Come again?”

It is too late to back out now, he certainly heard you. “Just a little nibble.” You mumble.

“D-do you mind if I ask why?” He raises his brows, still processing. 

You try to describe to him that you bite on things when emotions surge higher than the height of your own physicality. 

“You might think that this is weird but...” you reply, thick liquid brimming your eyes, “this was the most intense conversation I have had in a long, long time…and now I just need to chomp down on something.”

A pause too long to dissolve the humiliation in the air until it's knocking against the windows of the car. 

Shock wars with adoration in Mingyu’s eyes. 

“Oh…” He chuckles, the laughter soft but disbelieving. “Well, a better coping mechanism than lighting up a cigarette, I suppose.”

You shake the urge off with your head and look anywhere but him as you begin climbing off his lap and on to the passenger seat. “Nevermind, that was so creepy. Forget I said anything—”

His hands fly back to your hips to still you back down on his lap before you can slide off fully. 

“Hey, hey vampire princess, no–stay.” And then, he tilts his head towards you, exposing the tanned curve just above his collar like an offering. “Go on, if it helps.”

“Really?” you sniffle, tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear, eyes skimming the freshly exposed citrus scented smooth skin with disbelief. 

He nods, hesitant and cautious, but he nods. “Just, not too hard…well, I trust you s—OW!”

You grin, placing a chaste kiss over the recent, faint, pink imprint of your incisors on his neck. Then, a gentle soothing massage follows. 

“There, there. You finally have the official seal that certifies you as my fuck-buddy.” you giggle.

....to be continued.

PART 2

tags: @mingyubaguette @belongstoheeseung @ameliamirabela @ffarchivesvt @ninigyuuu @babycaratdeul @ana-marais98 @yewshi @boxsmil3 @mnnnnnsvt @producedbyjeon 

COMMENT DOWN BELOW/REBLOG/DM ME/FILL MY ASKBOX RAHHH I LOVE TO YAP <3333

[belovedgyu]

and if you were my little girl || KIM MINGYU

what's a girl supposed to do when the only protective figure in all twenty three years of her existence has been her hot bodyguard?

<3 pairing: bodyguard! mingyu x heiress! f. reader <3 word count: 7k <3 warnings: heavy daddy issues and daddy kink, mentions of food, multiple orgasms, cock riding, fingering, manhandling, spanking, creampies, smut and other nsfw content, reader is mentioned to be a bit smaller than mingyu, MDNI <3 genres: forbidden relationship, one shot.

author's note: inspired by this fic request from anon and @mingyuisthevictimofsvt

Had he stopped thinking about it?

You hadn’t stopped thinking about it. 

But, had he? Did it matter to him as much as it did to you? 

The skin over your ribs was still burning with fire left in the wake of his cold fingers from earlier. Even as you peeled the dress off, the cotton swishing over your particularly sensitive flesh, you couldn’t escape the heat surging from your lower belly and raging through your every nerve. 

Hell, your fingers were shivering—but Mingyu’s hadn’t. 

Not when you had pulled him in a corner and asked him to help you with that wardrobe malfunction. Not when you told him to hurry up, afraid that your dad would never let you live it down if he found you lacking in any way…

You see, just a few hours ago, you had been at the orphanage your father had made a major donation to. A charity to the world, just another tax write-off for him. 

Per your father’s instructions, you were supposed to be the one to inaugurate the latest additions to the orphanage’s infrastructure which was made possible because of your enterprise’s generosity. 

It was his way of trying to get you, his sole heiress, gradually into the spotlight. 

The polished perfect daughter of the owner of the largest media enterprise of the nation, the girl titled by several magazines as the country’s most eligible bachelorette on her twenty-third birthday. You. 

You had made sure to wear your finest custom dress—appropriate and modest, kept your hair neat and makeup light. Without the crowd of your usual six member team hoarding you away from the eyes of the public, you came across pretty approachable and kind. 

You crouched down, letting the kids kiss your cheeks, allowed them to put stickers all over your face and shoulders, even let a girl with puffy cheeks and even puffier curls to latch on your lap the entire time you were there—away from the constant nagging of your managers, yet silently protected by him who followed you like a shadow. 

Mingyu, the chief of your protection team and your personal bodyguard. 

Some kids had found their fancy in him, making a sport out of who could climb ‘the tall, buff man in suit’ the fastest. Mingyu had just shaken his head, removed his glasses and let them press their little watercolor stained palms all over his pristine suit. 

But then when the kids began circling you with paint on their fingers and bubbling with an eagerness to decorate your palms, you bent slightly too far—and felt it. The soft, unmistakable snap of your bra unclasping beneath the fabric.

Panic surged. Horrified, you stood up almost too suddenly startling a kid who tripped over his feet. Hastily apologizing to him, you ducked to the nearest washroom only to find a long line of kids waiting outside. 

Turning to the orphanage supervisor, you explained in a whisper what had happened. She nodded, eyes glazed with worry, but not for you.

The photographers waiting outside were growing restless. There had been a mix-up with the media list, and now tempers were flaring. They were on the verge of storming in or worse…penning damning articles about the chaos. She was distracted, overrun.

No one could comprehend why you were making such a huge deal out of it. 

“You’re fine, no one can see anything. Just stand straight, and don’t move much…just a few pictures.” The supervisor rubbed her sweaty palm over your back. 

But you were squirming with discomfort, brows pulled up in absolute devastation as you searched for a way out before the vultures with cameras hunted you down. 

Mingyu had watched it all go down from the corner of the room, his palm tightening over his fist behind his back when he saw you frowning with worry, obviously distressed about something, but the people around you just kept on brushing you off like an inconvenience. 

It didn’t sit right with him, but it was also beyond his duties to approach you unless there was some tangible danger looming around. 

He held himself back until he couldn’t. 

Walking up to you with certain, sure steps, he held your trembling elbow and pulled you out of the chaotic room into the hallway outside. The jumbled screeching of the kids muffled in the bright corridor. The smell of bleach and soap filled your overstimulated senses. 

“What’s wrong?” His voice was far away from the clipped, professional tone he used with you, like he was genuinely concerned about that scowl making a home on your beautiful little face. 

A trail of goosebumps lit up your skin when you realized he still hadn’t let go of your arm. 

“I…I–can’t…I can’t face the paparazzi like this.” You stammered, lowering your eyes as you admitted this defeat out loud. 

What a shame. 

You expect him to roll his eyes or mumble something about the princess having yet another tantrum under his breath like everyone else. But instead of some cruel comment, it's his other palm that meets you when he cups your chin to focus your gaze back on him. 

“Why? You’re doing so well, you don’t have to be nervous about them.” He shook his head, talking to you with a reverence that is laced with everything but judgement. 

At twenty-eight, Mingyu was five years your elder, but he often understood you like he had met every version of your soul that has ever existed. He could predict your queasy reactions before you could even realize them yourself. 

He was always there to step in closer at each unsure flutter of your feet, to wrap an arm around you when your breath hitched, to guard your hotel room gate the entire night—even when that wasn’t a part of his job—after a photographer almost managed to get a picture up your skirt in Milan last year. 

The words which tied your tongue in front of most people would spill out before him without much thought. You gulped the tears threatening to choke your throat before you confessed. 

“My bra got unhooked. I’m afraid the paps are gonna catch some weird angles…my father would be so angry at me for being lousy.” You mumbled, thoughtlessly sucking your plump lower lip between your teeth like you often did when you’d get overwhelmed. 

The thumb resting under your chin came up to pull your lip back out, you let it go with a wet pop. 

Almost everyone you’ve narrated your problem to at that point had assured you by blurting out some variation of ‘it's fine, i can’t even tell your bra has come off loose.’ or ‘the photographers are professionals, they won’t publish something awkward deliberately.’ or ‘your father’s not gonna zoom in on your chest and see anything.’...except for the fact that he would. 

He always micromanaged every image that came out of his family. 

It was the reason why your baby brother always had the butler carry three additional pairs of sneakers to his soccer games so that when his shoes got ‘too muddy’, he could change into something more picturesque for the cameras which were always looming around your family. It was the reason why your loose bra strap peeking out repeatedly from under the short sleeves of your dress was such a huge problem. 

But Mingyu was here. He could make it right…he would always make it right. 

His thumb hovered above your bottom lip, sticky with the gloss and your spit, but he didn’t touch it. 

What seemed like shuddering breath escaped his slightly parted lips before he murmured, “C’mere.”

He had held your paint soaked hand and pulled you into a small closet full of cleaning supplies. He bolted the door shut, letting the small space drown in darkness, the only source of light being a small crack in the vent abovehead. 

“Can you do it yourself?” He asked. It was of no use. Not when the paint on your fingers was still wet, not when he had purposefully joined you inside the room knowing that you very much can’t do it yourself. 

“No.” You answered, unable to see just what emotions were swirling in his eyes in the pitch black. 

“Okay.” He sounded closer than earlier, a faint warmth lingering over your shoulder, “I’ll help you, alright?”

You pressed your lips and nodded, even though he couldn’t see. He stepped in closer until the front of his leather shoes nudged against the back of your kitten heels. 

A gentle motion of his hands pushed your hair over your shoulder with a soft swish. Your hair felt cold when you pressed your cheek over it. Mingyu sucked in another sharp breath because what you just did made the curve of your neck more visible to him…almost inviting. 

The level of self control it had taken him to keep his fingers gentle over the delicate zipper of your dress was astronomical. 

You felt his nail graze the smooth skin of your back as he unzipped your top. It made you shiver. 

“Are you cold?” He asked, you didn’t miss the smugness dripping in his tone. 

“N-not really.” You dabbed the back of your wrist over the bead of moisture over your brow. “Can you hurry up? There’s people waiting.”

Up until now, Mingyu was trying his best to not touch any lines he couldn’t contractually cross. 

But that snippy attitude that just leaked out of you as you hissed at him like a cat? Yeah that snapped something within him. 

You felt his tall height loom over you more dangerously when he got closer, wedging your heels between his shoes. Just a little movement and your ass would have rubbed right against his crotch. 

But he didn’t let that be your concern for long because the very next moment, his giant palms had slipped inside your dress gaping open in the back, held up only by the thin sleeves. 

His fingers were unbearably exciting on your skin as he explored around to search for the hooks of your bra. And when he finally did, he tugged at them with much force than necessary. 

One of your hands instinctually flew up to your chest at the impact, your nipples burning from the harsh rub of the bra cups, courtesy to him. 

A breathy gasp escaped your lips. He wanted to hear that again so he deliberately looped the lock over the furthest hook. 

“Too tight…” you hissed and heard him tut under his breath in response. 

His body shook a little, like he was silently snickering. 

But he obeyed you, loosening it up to your comfort. He looped the straps back into place with excruciating slowness even when you told him you could do it on your own. 

"Keep your hands down," Mingyu commanded, his voice smokier than you’d ever heard it, and laced with something you weren’t quite ready to name. 

He moved your hand away when you reached to adjust the straps on your shoulders gently but firmly, letting it fall to your side. “Let me do it…you’ll ruin your dress.”

You should’ve snapped at him. You should’ve reminded him that this was completely out of bounds. That your father's company had a policy longer than your arm about inappropriate staff conduct.

But you didn’t. You stood still under his orders. Because the way his breath kissed your bare skin turned your limbs limp. Because the way his fingers fastened the hooks back into place— slow, deliberate, possessive— made your lungs tighten like they were forgetting how to function.

“There,” he whispered, lips so close to your ear that you could feel his words licking your skin. “All fixed.”

You turned your head just slightly, enough to glance over your shoulder, to catch the outline of his face in the faint shaft of light dancing in from the tiny cavity. 

God, he was already looking at you, lust warring with confusion in those dark orbs. 

And yet, his hands didn’t leave your waist. Not even after your bra was fastened. Not even when the silence between you started pressing against your ribs like it wanted out.

The perfect pictures, the drive back home where Mingyu kept on looking at you from the rearview mirror, the call with your father where the old man kept on hovering around the edges waiting for you to admit a mistake you made—it was all a blur post whatever rendezvous that was in a poorly lit closet of an innocent little place. 

And now, you were sitting on the edge of your bed, unbelievably bothered and flushed in nothing but your underwear, trying not to think much about the silk lined memory from earlier. 

You tucked your knees closer to your chest, resting your face on them as you waited for your friends to respond to the text you had sent them hours ago—a text inviting them for a movie night at the in-house cinema in your mansion. 

Your heart was pulsing in your gut, moisture prickling behind your lids with a painful knowledge—none of them were gonna show up, they would if you invited them for a shopping spree at Dior, but a lame ass movie night? Pass. 

You knew that too well…it was the reason why you hadn’t even bothered to put something on. 

No one was gonna join you tonight. No one had the time to talk to you when you weren’t the daughter of one of the nation’s wealthiest. It had been like that for as long as you could remember.  

Yet you waited with a little invisible ball of hope cradled in your lap like you always did. On the dining table, hoping your father would finally drop his phone call and see the butterfly you drew. In the galas where you’d wait for him to talk to you when cameras or some special guests weren’t around. In the board meetings where you wished he discussed things with you like a daughter instead of addressing you like the rest of the board members. In the company’s head office, where you waited for him to train you to take over his work, his name, his legacy, instead of having his meticulously crafted management mould you into a perfect doll. 

The mobile phone thunked on your imported rug carelessly. A giant droplet of moisture, dripping from your lashes, plopped right on to it. You hastily put on some old t-shirt and padded down the stairs to the kitchen.

The oven was still warm when you grabbed the entire tray of cookies that you had your chef bake for the movie night and made your way down to the in-house theater. 

A single flick of your finger on the remote jerked the sterile room to life. The space drowned in palettes of gore—harrowing greys and nauseating reds flooding the darkness as some old school horror movie looped into action. 

You scarfed down another cookie— your third…fourth…fifth…in the last thirty minutes— who cared?

Maybe the cookies were laced with weed, or maybe the air was particularly cold, because you felt something brush your naked calf which was stretched on the seat ahead. 

You ignored it first, focusing back on projecting your father’s face onto that of the evil villain’s who left his daughter to rot in a haunted villa as some sacrifice. 

Then, there was slender warmth pressing on your shoulders. Somebody’s fingers. 

You yelped, jumping out of your skin to look who it was. You tried hard to squint. A male body, tall and broad, hovering above you from behind your seat. Was it your friend Bayani finally deciding to show up? Damn, when did he get so buff?

“Bayani?” You questioned, “Ian?” 

Just then, lightning flashed in the movie, and the brightness made the face of the newcomer visible to you—a face straight out of your wildest dreams. 

“Mingyu?” Your voice when you said his name was much more meek than when you were barking out those of random boys. “What are you doing here?”

Your eyes had adjusted to the shallow darkness by now, you could clearly see his hooded ones. Something which you couldn’t name shadowed the hard lines of his face. 

“You called me.” He answered.

“I didn’t.” 

His reply was to hold up his phone screen right in front of your face, there was still a call connected from your device to his. Oh, you must have accidentally called him or pressed the emergency button when you dropped it. He was your emergency contact after all. 

He finally ended the call, swinging his long legs over from behind to occupy the seat next to you. His hair was still dripping from the shower he must’ve taken. “I thought you were in some trouble, searched the whole mansion for you.” 

He lived in one of the rooms in the east wing of your bungalow. But you had never seen him dressed like this— just his sweatpants hanging loose over his hips— his golden skin flushed from all the running around to look for you. 

“Oh.” You managed, trying hard not to ogle at his abs for longer. 

But the defined ridges on his abdomen seemed to have their own gravity, they kept on pulling your eyes back towards themselves. 

“Stop staring.” He scoffed. 

“‘M not!” You defended. 

“You so are.” He laughed, reaching forward to steal a cookie off your plate and inhaling it whole at once. 

“I’m not a pervert like you.”

“Oh really? What did I do to earn that title?” Lips smeared with a melting choco-chip, he quirked his brows at you. 

You couldn’t believe you were having this slow, lax conversation with Mingyu while he ate your cookies. Almost like you were talking to a friend. 

He wasn’t even that older to you, but perhaps the severe nature of his job, that strict protectiveness he held over you, made him appear so much more mature in your head to a point that seeing a movie with him while being so scantily dressed seemed like a sin. 

You weren’t touching, but it felt like you were. 

Yet you eased up. You always eased up around Mingyu. Even when he was confusing you with all these blurred lines of professionalism, comfort and intimacy. 

“You think I didn’t notice what you did earlier?” You threw him a nasty glance sideways, putting your legs down and stretching your t-shirt around your upper thighs. 

You thought you heard him groan in displeasure, or maybe it was just the ghost of the rotting girl screeching on screen. 

“And what might that be?” He pressed, now looping an arm over the backrest of your seat making his fingers brush over your shoulder. He leaned down just a bit to hear your soft voice better. 

You dusted the cookie crumbs off your fingers. Maybe if you didn’t look at his perfect sculpted face while confronting him, it would be less mortifying. “You pulled at my bra, deliberately hard, like a perv.”

You kept your eyes anywhere but at him—the cookies, the screen, the shadows dancing on the smooth, exposed skin of your tanned legs— anywhere but that riveting cheek mole. 

To your surprise, he barked out a laugh, low and dry, like you didn’t just accuse him of something inappropriate. 

Your face blushed a deeper shade of maroon. You twisted your body to face his shaking one. "What's so funny about sneakily—”

“Sneaky?” He asked, his chuckles dying down in exhausted fits, “Baby why would I have to be sneaky when I know I can play with your tits whenever I want to and you’d let me. Every. Single. Time. Mhmm?” 

The way he enunciated that last word was so sweet, almost deceptively saccharine, with a smile so harmless and pure.

But it didn’t stop your body from reacting to this sudden change in his demeanor with a jerk. Yet you didn’t inch away from him, just stared at him. Mouth agape, eyes wide, breath coming out in short, silent pants. 

It wasn’t his crude observation—yes, observation because you knew what he was saying was true—that elicited that reaction out of you. It was the fragile nickname spoken before it. 

Baby. Almost too quick, too feathery, that it would have slipped from between your fingers like smoke had you not been clinging onto his every word. 

Baby. No one had ever called you that. Romantically or unromantically. Not even your own parents. 

Baby. You'd like to hear that again. And then again. Maybe loop it like a broken record forever. 

“Cat got your tongue?” he jutted his tongue against his cheek, a smirk dancing over his luscious pink lips, “Or are you too scared to face the truth.”

He was still being flirtatiously playful, completely unknown to the pandora’s box of deep seated emotions he had unlocked. What’s worse was that he hadn’t unlocked it all too suddenly tonight, he had been working around, loosening its edges for a long, long time without even realizing. It was that word, that nickname, that landed like the final hammer. 

“You shouldn’t…” you sounded like you had just run a marathon, “you shouldn’t speak those things, Mingyu.”

“You mean, I shouldn’t speak the truth?” His other arm, the one that wasn’t snaked over the back of your seat, glided over the armrest to trace the edge of your jaw with a crooked finger, “Tell me baby, would you stop me if I touched you right now?”

All your rationality melted into the touch of his palm the moment he cupped the plushness of your face in it. You wanted to tell him just how jeopardizing this was to his job, that you didn’t want him to be in a risky position because of you because then it would mean he won’t be there to take care of you when you needed him to. 

But all you could do was squirm in your seat and close your eyes, pressing your face deeper into his warmth. His arm slipped from the back of your seat to coil around you, maybe he just wanted to hold you like that. But you surprised the both of you by clutching his shoulders and leveraging your weight on them to climb over his legs. 

You didn’t care that your t-shirt bunched all the way up or how his eyes had widened at your bold maneuvers. Because right the next second, that shock melted into appreciation and his palms were already cupping your upper thighs. 

You were straddling Mingyu's lap like it was the most sensible place for you to be.

And he was holding you there like he echoed that notion. 

You leaned in, but it was him who initiated that kiss by capturing your lips between his own. 

The kiss was like finally coming home in the evening after running out in the belting rain all afternoon in the winters. Warm, comforting, yet alive with a tremor settled deep in your spine from the frosty lashes from before. 

You shivered, whimpered, moaned as his silken tongue explored every curve of your mouth. He mumbled some compliments when you smiled, licked the remaining gloss off your rosy buds, pushed your tongue back into your mouth when you tried dominating the kiss. 

Your fingers dug into his shoulders with all your weight. When he didn’t seem phased by the crescent marks of your nails on his skin, you slithered them to his scalp to tug at his hair. He groaned into your mouth, still refusing to part. 

His hands were all over you, new yet familiar…like he had done this several times in his dreams. 

And when you tried to pull away for a moment to catch your breath, he kissed you harder like he was punishing you for making him wait for so long when you had been just as ready as him all this time. 

He kept on pulling you closer until your front was practically mashed with his, breaths mingling and heartbeats thumping in wild rhythms, which one belonged to you which one belonged to him—you didn’t know. 

When you finally parted, a fragile string of saliva still connecting your lips like your bodies didn’t like the idea of letting go, you babbled without a second thought.

“I was so lonely,” you whispered, hands still buried in his hair but instead of pulling at it to get a reaction from him, you were letting the silky wisps trickle your fingertips, “and you always take such good care of me.”

It shouldn’t have sounded like such a pathetic, desperate sonnet of gratitude, but it came out as exactly that. 

You clenched your eyes shut, like doing that would make him disappear and erase his memory of seeing you so needy. 

“Baby, look at me.” He cooed, coaxing you to open up and for some reason, your body followed his command like an instinct. Like your own mind wasn’t even in charge of it anymore. 

He cupped your little palms between his giant ones, full of care, not even a trace of pity in his touch, “Hey, look, beautiful…I’ll always be here whenever you feel alone, okay? Just gimme a call and I’ll come.”

“No, Gyu!” You shook your head frantically, almost on the verge of tears, “You don’t get it. I’ve always been so alone until…until you came. Just like you did tonight. Here, in the theater.  But that’s also true about everything else. Am I making sense?”

You weren’t, not at least to him. But sincerity softened the lust in his eyes until it turned into something deeper—a craving to see you, not just your physicality, but to really see you. 

A wave of patience crashed against his raging system and while just moments ago where he couldn’t think of anything but fucking you open in every position possible…now, all he wanted to do was listen to you, help you sound more coherent. 

If he confused you by making you feel protected and turned on at the same time, you confused him even more by triggering something so primal, so deep within him that he couldn’t even call it desire anymore. 

“Gyu, can you kiss me while I complain?” You suggested out of the blue, a hiccup rupturing the heady silence between your buzzing bodies. 

He blinked, “Would that make you feel better, baby?” 

You nodded urgently. 

Without any further ado, his lips began peppering the exposed skin of your collarbones with the sweetest, most gentle kisses ever, as you began your rambling. 

“I called my friends for a movie date but none of them showed up.” You breathed, clutching his head as he nibbled the skin under your ear. “They only want me when I take them shopping. I don’t even like shopping. Serena, my stylist, chooses better clothes for me anyways.”

Giant hands cinching over your waist tightened. But it wasn’t enough. The cotton, even though only a delicate barrier, was annoying. You wanted to feel him closer. 

And so, in a swift motion, you pulled your shirt over your head, the fabric rustling in your arms as he watched you undress for him in utter awe. 

To you, this wasn’t some performance of seduction but a need to lay everything bare before him. 

Maybe if you showed him everything that hurt, he’d make it right? Mingyu always made it right. 

“But then you came here and joined me like you always do.” You pulled his face back into your skin, this time, he licked the newly exposed valley between your breasts. “You’re my only constant, y’know?” 

His eyes flickered up to meet yours, earnest adoration brimming in those honey pools. Even when the rest of his body was busy worshipping yours, his eyes were focused on gauging your reactions and his ears perked up to not miss a single word from you.

“You’re the first one ever to give a damn about me.” You confessed—no filters, no brakes—like you didn’t need to hold yourself back in front of him. 

“Even my father, he has never taken care of me like you do.” His kisses halted right above the swell of your breast when you blurted that out. 

Uh oh. 

“Baby…” He breathed, pulling back by a beat. 

Your hands slid down his hair to his chest as you pushed your flesh closer over his lap, afraid that he might freak out and leave. 

Who knew that it would be you who’d freak out when your core brushed right over his hardened shaft. 

Instantly, you attempted to scoot away, not because you wanted to but because it was the modest lady-like behavior that was forced down on you which prohibited you from grinding on men’s hard-ons. 

But his palm came down on your butt, too quick, too sharp. One large hand anchored you in your position around your lower waist, another splayed across your thigh. 

“Don’t run away from me.” He murmured, it sounded like a plea more than a command. “Whatever you feel around me is valid, baby. Let me show you just how good it can be.” 

Your nails raked down on his bulging biceps—the strong, rippling muscles that picked you up and carried you back home when you sprained your ankle in the garden just last month. 

His gaze burned into you. “Do you trust me, baby?” 

You weren’t even thinking when you answered him, hazy thoughts divided between the rigid body in your hands, the hardness digging at your sticky crotch, and the giant fingers playing with the hem of your cotton panties. 

“Yes daddy.”

Your hands moved instinctively, one cupping the side of his neck while the other gripped his wrist. You were still batting your lashes at him, the weight of your words hadn’t crashed down on you. 

He processed them before you could, and by the time your eyes widened with absolute horror, he was already massaging the nape of your neck, gentle yet firm to keep you from turning away now. 

“It’s alright, sweetheart.” He crooned but you were gasping for an apology. “Baby, no…you don’t have to say sorry. No, no I don’t mind.”

A stray tear rolled down your cheek. You sniffled, “you don’t?” 

His response was a kind smile teetering on the edge of playfulness. “Why? I can call you baby but you can’t call me daddy?” 

“Daddy…”  you tested the foreign word out, thinking it would brittle, but it only soothed you over like a mellow balm. 

“Daddy.” you tried again, this time, holding his eyes gleaming with pride. 

Prior to this night, you had never realized just how alien that word was to you. You always addressed your father as ‘pa’ when you were a kid, or simply ‘father’ when you grew up.

The two syllables were a whole new territory for you—one you trudged with unsure steps. But Mingyu pulled you in deeper when his body reacted to you calling him that in a manner that could be only described as feral. 

The fingers skimming the edge of your underwear were now tugging at it with a strength that could rip them off any second, his other hand already working its way to free your aching breasts from the cups of your bra. 

A firm tongue met your large nipple, sucking the sensitive bud until you grabbed his hair, pulling harder than you normally would have for some other guy, but every bit as hard as you would for Mingyu.

He just chuckled softly. You had heard it before—knowing, quiet, like he knew a secret no one else did.

His hand roamed over your velvety body again, finding its way inside your panties. When he finally cupped your leaking mound, stroking the dark curls between your legs, your breath caught. Fingers slipped between your lush lips, finding your creamy wetness. Your legs spread of their own accord above him, giving him more access to your body. 

The scene on the screen behind you changed into a sunny summer day, casting a halo of warm yellows and muted greens around you as you ground on his fingers.

“Baby you’re so fucking beautiful…such an angel.” He hummed with utter reverence masking a fierce hunger.

His eyes raked over the slow movements of your hips on his hands, almost like a dance and he wanted to devour you whole. But his touch? As delicate as heaven’s kisses. 

He stroked the pulsing bunch of nerves between your legs in repeated swift motions, his thumb rubbing certain circles over your clitoris. You were so wet that it didn't take him much cajoling to slip a finger in, then two. Thick digits exploring your quivering cunt as you kept his skull buried in your chest. 

In true spirit of that word, he was indeed, playing with your tits.

His hot tongue would press flat over your perked up nub or flick it sensuously, then his lips would pucker around it the very next second. And then he sucked, god, he really sucked your nipples so hard until they bloomed red. 

All while his fingers were jerking in and out of you, knuckles deep, as you drenched his palm. Each time he thrust in, they’d come out slicker than earlier. When he tried easing another finger in, it was met with some soft resistance. 

He let go of your nipple with an audible pop, “Baby, relax. I need to open you up for my cock, no?”

“Yes…yes daddy.” You gasped, eagerly pressing your knees further apart. 

“Good girl.” He grinned like his fingers weren’t drilling in and out of you at a debauched speed, filling the room with squelching noises that echoed louder than the screams from the screen. 

Your waist had started to hurt now from all the squirming and wriggling, but his iron grip fastened around you cemented you there as he made you take all three of his fingers. 

You were already on the brink of your inevitable orgasm when he hit the spot. It only escalated everything, pushing you over the edge and muddling all your senses until you were a blubbering mess of leaking heat and a single word riding your lips like a prayer. 

Your face smushed over his hard chest, mouth hanging open and drooling all over his skin. 

Mingyu eased his soaked fingers out of your ruined folds, you almost didn’t let him go when you clenched around him. It was only when he promised to make it better that you relaxed. 

He somehow managed to get you out of your panties and slide his own pants down just enough to ease out his rigid cock all while you rutted on top of him, still under the throes of the orgasm he had given you. 

A strong hand slid to your rounded ass, cupping your supple cheek firmly and angling your completely nude body against his. The blunt head nudged at your wet opening. Winding your arms and legs around his hard body, you squeezed him as hard as you could—your way of telling him to just put it in. He groaned into your neck, letting his cock sink deeper into your tight cunt despite his worries of not having prepped you enough. 

“You sure you okay, babe?” He asked, pausing. 

“Yeah, yeah…” You nodded into his neck, “I think I can manage this, just gimme a moment.”

You felt his body stiffen under yours. “Baby I’m only halfway in.”

You froze, mewling at first, but your determination soared higher at the challenge. 

He attempted to distract you from the fact that he was destroying you for any other man after tonight, by scraping at the soft skin on your shoulder with his teeth. It was all so hot—uncomfortable one moment, exhilarating the next.

You had been so horny and you needed him fully inside of you so badly. But he held you up like a doll, only moving you at a pace he knew you could handle. 

“Oohh…” you mused with each additional inch, arching your back and effectively pressing your sensitive tits deeper into his hard body. Raw nipples rubbing against his sweaty muscles. 

You felt so vulnerable suddenly—stretched way beyond your limits, bodies tangled so close that it was incomprehensible what trickle of liquid was his sweat and what was your drool, as he began spearing up inside you with steady, sure movements. 

When he nudged that sensitive spot again, your cunt spamsed around him, bathing his shaft in steamy heat. Your arousal trickled out around the base of his cock. 

“Fuck, baby…you’re so hot like this.” Mingyu grumbled. 

You shuddered at the complement and buried a moan in his shoulder. His cock massaged your tingling cunt as he slowly began fucking you. All the time, you clung on to him, trusting him with all your body at your most vulnerable. 

His tanned skin glistened amber under the flickering lights of the movie rendering him looking like a succulent, sweet treat. Your tongue darted out to taste his warm and salty skin like you were licking a popsicle on a hot summer night. 

“Yummy…” You giggled when he moaned low. 

That only made him twitch harder inside of you, his patience was running thin and you kept on teasing like the little vixen that you were. Gone were his consideration to keep it slow and steady enough for you to adjust. He wanted to…no, he needed to fuck you harder. 

You hiccuped when his thrusts became longer turning your crotch into liquid heat which melted around his hard rod moving at a sensuous pace inside your warm cunt. You turned your hips a little desperately, trying to add to the pleasure but Mingyu was too focused on fucking in and out of you to stop you from playing around. 

When his tongue sank into your mouth again, you gasped, scratching your nails down his broad, sweaty back.

“Fuck yeah baby, go wild.” Mingyu smiled—crooked, ruined, reveling in your animalistic reactions to his cock drilling your cunt. 

Your hips jerked, doing anything and everything to match his vigour. He decided to show some mercy on you by hooking an arm around your waist to make you ride him in a manner that was pleasurable to you both instead of just bouncing on him hungrily. 

“Daddy is so deep inside of me.” You spoke to yourself, it was music to his ears. 

With fingers digging into the back of your plush thighs, he lifted you up and lowered you down, causing your back to arch even deeper. God, it would ache worse than your pilates classes tomorrow morning.

But all your focus was on the inescapably huge bulge swelling inside your wet cunt. 

“Am I too heavy?” You whimpered when his biceps flexed as he manhandled your body on top of his own. 

“Not at all, baby.” He assured, firmly pressing you closer and jerking you faster than before just to prove his point. “Why do you think I go to the gym everyday?” 

Every movement of his hips sent his thick cock rubbing that sensitive spot inside of you. You began lifting your ass even without his assistance, sliding your juicy cunt up and down his shaft over and over again. He fastened his plunges, his hands roamed everywhere—your heavy breasts, your smooth belly, your quivering thighs.

That little smile curling his lips hadn’t disappeared for even a single second and it only sent a hard shudder of need throughout your body. And when a sudden touch of his fingers pressed down on your aroused clitoris, you screamed. 

Waves and waves of pleasure crashed down on you until you had soaked his lap.

Trembling fingers which were digging on his shoulders curled around him, locking behind his neck in an inseparable hug. You were beyond overstimulated, but you didn’t want to be even an inch away from him. 

He hugged you back, but his cock hadn’t stopped bullying your tender pussy nor had his fingers slowed down from fondling your ripe breasts or your overused folds. You thrashed in his arms, beginning to sob from the overwhelm. 

“Such a nice little pussy.” He murmured, encouraging you to continue taking him in your sopping cunt even after you had orgasmed. “Taking everything I’m giving you like the nice obedient girl that you are.”

“Just nice, daddy?” You hiccuped, determined to drive him as crazy as he had driven you by squeezing around him. 

“No…the best pussy ever, fucking amazing, I wanna cum inside of you all night long.” He grunted. 

Your cunt rippled around his cock yet again, your thighs began squeezing his hips. His meaty cock plunged out until only his tip remained, then he forced you down again until he was nestled as deep as he could. He kept on repeating that, fast and hard, knocking the very air out of your lungs. His strokes were longer than ever, driving into you with almost no regard for your sensitivity now. 

“I wanna fuck you everywhere baby…on every surface of this house, lick every crevice of your body.” He panted, breathless, strained with need, “I wanna fuck you until the only thing you can remember is me, until every inch of your skin is covered with me. I wanna give you all that I have and then I wanna see it running out of you as you lie there, fucking worn out and satisfied because you’re so little to keep it all in. Aren’t you?”

You wanted to protest, wanted to tell him that you could, in fact, take him all in. But you were so sensitive after coming twice, way too sensitive to do anything but nod with a 'yes daddy' mumbled against his skin. 

You were in a fog, hazy and hot, and so unreal. The chair underneath you both squeaked like it would give out any moment now. But you only spread more, urging his cock to go as deep as it could because you were practically frothing to feel him come inside of you. To prove him wrong that you couldn’t keep it in. 

It surprised you both when his palm landed harsh over the plumpness of your bottom. Mingyu had just spanked you.

And the hitched moan you let out at the impact, glassy eyes wide and bitten lips parted in shock, it triggered his own orgasm.

Heavy groans turned into soft sighs with the final few jerks of his hips as he pumped his load deep inside of you. 

He was right, you couldn’t take it all in. Because that same moment, as he emptied inside of you, you came again, making the sinful mixture of both of yours cum to dribble down his shift and slickening your conjoined bodies. There was a thick puddle of wetness right on the seat underneath. 

“Daddy you came so much.” You managed to gasp, writhing on top of him as he hugged you tight, not letting you move even a single inch. 

“Blame yourself, baby.” He chuckled, pressing a kiss to your sweaty temple. 

The air around you was less frantic now, but no less hungry. The kind of hunger that lingered until it turned into longing during midnights like this. 

His grip over your body loosened, but you slumped right on his chest, too exhausted to even lift your hips when he tried to pull out.

“Lemme cockwarm you.” You insisted, sucking at your lower lip again. God, you were so uncharacteristically bratty and demanding around him.  

“Damn, you got crazy daddy issues.” He guffawed, flushed and spent, but still conscious enough to pull your lip from between your teeth. He didn't want you to bruise it, that was his job now.

“And you have a raging daddy kink.” You argued back, nestling impossibly closer to him. 

a/n: This is what I mean when I say my writing fell off since i wrote normal people….luna in her flop era i should just kms :((

had to channel the energy of absolute mother @madeforgyu for this one iykyk

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Only for Love || Mingyu - Epilogue

Pairings: Mingyu x Fem!Reader

Genre: Angst, Fluff, Smut, Husband!Mingyu, Cold Wife!Reader, Arranged Marriage au, Contract Marriage au, Divorce au

Synopsis: When an accidental discovery has your perception of happy married life crumbling down, you do what you think is the best for everyone involved. Naturally, your opinion of the best doesn't cater to your husband's. So what happens when things spiral out due to unforeseen events?

Warnings: divorce, reader is pregnant and having it hard, emotional baggage, tears and profanities, mentions of throwing up, morning sickness, lot of banter.

Word Count: 7.8k

[ Svt Masterlist ] [ Svt Flick - Fic Masterlist ]

Teaser | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Epilogue

Mingyu didn't get a wink of sleep, neither did you. It's something given.

What's not given for him is the way you're waiting for him with the luggage by the door.

"No...", Mingyu says to himself, as he eyes the bags and then takes a look at your face. He then scurries off to the guestroom only to find all your belongings gone. He goes to the bedroom and same, the house has no traces of you left.

And once you leave, no one would be able to tell if you were ever here, not even Mingyu himself.

He comes back, devasted.

"Please, don't leave.", he pleads, his voice coming out in cracks, "Not when I have so many things to tell you, so much to confess."

You bite your tongue and while trying to maintain the poker facade, you say, "I'll sum it up for you. Our marriage is based on a contract between you and my uncle. And even after over 2 years of the marriage, you find it difficult to be with me because I'm..", you suck in a deep breath, "not Sora. I'm not like her."

Mingyu looks at you with tears in his eyes, wanting to retort everything you're saying but he knows nothing he says would make you believe him. After all, trust has been compromised.

"And I'll never be her, Mingyu.", you say, your voice giving out the dejection, "So I'm freeing you from this marriage. We'll get divorced. You can be with whoever you want. And I will lead my life as how it was supposed to be."

"How was your life supposed to be?", Mingyu asks, his heart thumping as he close the gap between you two.

"Alone.", you answer him, unwavering.

"God, no", he holds you gently, "You belong with me, Y/N. I known I have been dishonest with you when you had clearly warned me beforehand. And I know I've hurt you so much over the span of our marriage but please believe me when I say that I'd not do it with anyone else, it'll be always you."

His gaze tears the shield that you have guarded yourself with, your grip on the trolley loosens for a moment.

And before you give in, you brace yourself.

"We're done talking, Mingyu. I'll have my lawyer set a date with you and yours.", you say removing his hands, "As I said, you can have everything you want--"

"But all I want is you, Y/N."

Your heart beats erratically in your chest. Your senses start to behave abnormally and your mind almost discards the rationalities. But you know you couldn't afford all these, that for him to be well, you'd have to let go.

"Except me, anything you want.", you say in a strained voice, your hands itching to wipe those tears from his face, "I know you're ambitious so that's why I don't think our divorce would weigh much on you. If you respect and value the time we spent together, for the sake of those, divorce me. I beg you, I want nothing else."

And Mingyu stands exactly where you have left him. It's a been a week and he's miserable.

His parents are not in talking terms with him, the moment they knew about the contract which is leading to the divorce.

And Minhee, she's has been taking the worst hit. And now, she understands if you never want to see her again after what her brother has done. But doesn't mean, it'd hurt less.

Unlike her brother, she was not popular with people. Majority approached her just get a whimp of her brother and that's why she had trust issues, leading her to be cautious of people. She does have genuine friends she's close with but you, you are different.

Minhee admires you, proudly calls you her family and loves you because she has noticed it all. How you have accommodated yourself and been a part of the family. Not big with words but bigger with actions. And maybe Mingyu can be dumb but the entire family knows that you love him, it's so painfully obvious.

"Hey", a soft voice breaks her reverie. She turns to look and finds Soonyoung.

"I don't want to see you.", she tells him, "So leave."

Soonyoung sighs, "But you're upset and I can't see you like this--"

"Why do you care suddenly?", she glares at him, "Look, I don't like you anymore okay? I can't believe you all knew about that contract but didn't stop him. What kind of friends are you?"

Soonyoung just sits, head down and listens to her reparimend him. At least, he gets to see her.

"What do you want?", you ask, checking your watch. There's an unfamiliarity in your tone.

"Can you please reconsider and withdraw the petition?", Jeonghan asks politely.

"No.", you flatly deny.

He runs his hand through his hair in frustration, which is rare.

"Mingyu is not doing well, Y/N. He has shut out everyone.", he says, "That day, Sora took Mingyu with her to visit me because she thought I'd not meet her if she comes. And it was totally work, nothing else Y/N. Mingyu doesn't have feelings for Sora, he likes--"

You raise your palm up and Jeonghan shuts up. There's nothing much to say, not anymore. So you just give him an ultimatum before leaving.

The day comes fast and hits harder. Mingyu sits frozen with the pen in his hands, his vision dazed, mind blank. It's happening and it's a matter of time then you'd be denounced as husband and wife.

As you sit in front of him, you can't help but notice Mingyu's state. You can tell he's been having it hard, he looks lost. He hasn't spoken except when urged since he arrived, he seems like an entirely different person.

Mingyu can't bring himself to sign the papers. He can't bear to look at you. And since the universe have decided to bite him back with karma, he does it.

A single drop of tear wets the paper, just below the line where he signs his name.

The formalities are done and it's official. Though there's a cool off period both sides know that it's of no use.

Your lawyer leads the way out, solemnly announcing the outcome of the meeting.

"Y/N", Mingyu calls and you dismiss your lawyer waiting for him to catch up.

There's a devastatingly sad smile on his tear stained face and your breaks at the sight of him.

"So it's ends here.", Mingyu says trying to hide the quiver in his voice, "I'm sorry for everything, Y/N. I have been a failure and I can't do anything to fix it. But I wish you healing and a peaceful life ahead."

He quickly wipes the tears and continues hesitantly, "If ever my name comes to your mind, please contact me. I'd come if you want help in something minimal, I'd listen if you wanna curse me out. Be it anything, all you have to do is drop a text or call me and I'll come to you. We can't be friends but I'd like to just pretend."

You don't think you can hold your tears anymore so you let them fall. Mingyu is surprised and his hands almost touches your face in worry but he remembers that it's not his place anymore.

"Live well, Mingyu.", you tell him, "Take care of mom, dad--", rectifying it quickly, you continue, "aunt, uncle and Minhee. We all mistakes, make sure to learn from them and treat others rightfully."

Mingyu understands the weight behind your words. Times seems to have frozen as none of you make a move.

You take the initiative to break the reverie. Because even if Mingyu thinks it's the end but you know you'd have to see him again.

"The sunset is beautiful, isn't it?", you smile through your tears, looking up at the sky then back at him.

And just as you predicted, Mingyu doesn't get the meaning of your words because he's distracted and you're relieved.

Your apartment still feels foreign. It shouldn't be as you've lived here for most of your life and now you are sitting alone, lost in the thoughts.

Whenever there is too much on your plate, you'd call your uncle. Just listening to his voice soothes you so you quickly fish out your phone. But just as your thumb hovers over the call button, tears stream down because you remember that you won't be able to hear his voice ever again.

You've started showing a little since the second trimester has started and you are thinking of ways to tell Mingyu, scared at wits remembering how everything went down everytime you've tried to let him know.

But you know you've to let Mingyu know about the baby and it has to be soon.

Stress is eating at you and nausea has become your best friend. Morning sickness loves you and you can barely eat any food without throwing out. Minghao has been attentive, trying his best to help you out but there's a limit to he can do.

You are not feeling particularly well today while you're at work. For some reason your chest feels like vacuuming out, your head spins a little.

You have been doing great at hiding the uneasiness until you're addressing the people about some requirements in the character design involving all the teams and your legs gives up. Your vision spars and suddenly your eyes shut, causing you to loose consciousness.

Minghao lurches forward, catching you in time saving you from the impact of fall. He doesn't waste any time picking you up and rushing to the hospital, himself being drained out in fear.

Soonyoung immediately follows and while he drives behind, he makes a bunch of calls.

The lights from the ceiling are blinding enough to cause irritation even if your eyes are closed. There are murmurs at the backdrop but they're low not quite reaching your ears. Your left hand feels heavy, you think there's a weight on your stomach.

You squeeze at whatever was enclosing your hand and a very familiar voice calls out your name. But you can't figure out who it is. There are repeatative calls but your eyes are so heavy that you're finding it difficult to open them.

You feel a touch on your cheek, a soothing rubbing of thumb on it and you're able to open your eyes finally.

And you came across his face. Eyes red, lashes wet and hurt etched on features. His eyes are fixated on your face.

"Mingyu", you say grabbing his hand, "Where am I?"

Mingyu sighs in relief and kisses your forehead, his lips lingering on your skin as he speaks, "You're in the hospital. How are you feeling?"

"What happened to me? Why am I feeling so tired and sleepy?", you ask, as you hold his face, rubbing your thumb against his cheek gently, "Take me home and hold me to sleep please."

Mingyu worries at your state but he knows that it's an after effect of concussion and you'll be back to normal after some time.

"Is the baby fine?", you ask with a quiver in your voice.

Mingyu's eyes water with tears again at the mention and he backs away for a moment wiping those. He takes deep breathes and returns by your side.

Gently, caressing your bump he answers, "The baby is fine."

"Don't tell uncle that I'm here, he'd be worried.", you say and his heart breaks.

He nods at you wordlessly, choking back his sobs.

There's a smile on your face, "I can't keep my eyes open."

"Rest well.", he says, stroking your head, "I'll be here when you wake up."

"How's she?", Minhee asks as soon as Mingyu steps out of the room.

"She just woke up.", he informs, "She's suffering from concussion. She was asking for her uncle."

Mingyu's steps stumble as he seats on a chair. When he received the call from Soonyoung, he rushed to the hospital only to see you lying unconscious on the hospital bed.

And on asking the doctor, the first thing he discovers is that you're four months along in pregnancy. As the timeline aligns, it kills him to belatedly know that you dealt with your uncle's death, the divorce all by yourself being pregnant.

"Why didn't she tell me?", Mingyu ponders out loud, tugging on his hair forcefully.

"Maybe she was waiting--", Junhui is cut off.

"She had tried to tell you three times in exact.", Minghao pitches in, his voice stern and accusatory, "The first time, at the office event but you decided that going somewhere with ex-girlfriend was more important."

"You should tone it down. It's not what you're thinking.", Jeonghan chimes in his friend's defence.

"Oh I'm not talking to you.", Minghao glares at him, "And I know what is what and not."

His gaze directs back at Mingyu, "The second time was when she returned home only to find you bitching about her to these guys over here.", he gestures at group standing scattered in the area, "She was nervous about how to crack the news to you, that was the only reason she returned."

Mingyu sits frozen in place as Minghao hammers the nail on his heart one by one.

The final blow punctuates brutal and hard, when Minghao says, "The third time was", he pauses for a moment before continuing, "The day uncle died. If you remember, she had asked you come home earlier, it was because she wanted to tell about the pregnancy."

"She must have been so scared. It must have been so hard for her.", Minhee whispers, choking on tears, "We have been so ignorant. We don't deserve her."

Soonyoung runs to her side but Minhee steps away from him, drawing a line.

Minghao nods solemnly, "Even after that she tried but her mind succumbed to the thought that something bad would happen again if she reveals about the pregnancy. She is indeed scared."

Hansol walks up to him and pleads, "Tell us if there's anything we could do. I don't care, be it anything, please."

Minghao scoffs, "You should have done something when your friend was going to marry her because of a contract which she wasn't even aware about.", he jabs his finger at his chest, "you should have knocked senses into your stupid friend when he chose his ex-girlfriend.", another jab, "you should have fought back when he was bitching about his own wife."

He sweeps his sharp gaze across the faces, "You could have done a lot of significant things but you chose not to and now there's nothing left to salvage."

"You're right.", Seokmin resorts to resignation, "We, as a bunch are awful. All of us."

Minghao is all riled up with pent up frustration of months bouncing off, he walks over to Mingyu grabbing his collar and pulling him up on his feet. When others try to pull them apart, Mingyu shakes his head, a sign asking them not to interfere. His head bowed down throughout.

His voice drips with venom when Minghao says, "How could you say that she didn't change? How could you not know how bad her morning sickness is? Why did she have to deal with everything and suffer alone while you lived with her?"

Minghao has so much to say, so much to let Mingyu know but he cannot. He doesn't have the right to do so.

He grabs the collar tighter, with much force, enough to draw lines of abrasion on the later's neck, "Don't think she's alone. She has me, she'll always have me. And you must have heard the rumours going around since you have a spy at our office.", he says looking at Soonyoung and back at him, "I'll tell you the truth. I love Y/N."

All pair of eyes widen at the declaration, even Mingyu's. Minghao's eyes are teary as he speaks his heart out, "I will always love her. Even if she never reciprocates, my feelings for her won't change."

Mingyu's parents who have been listening to the conversation, without announcing their presence decide not to interfere.

Later when you woke up, you didn't let anyone else meet you apart from Minghao who also completes the formalities for your discharge.

But when Mingyu almost barges in, you tell him to visit your apartment the next day if wants to talk. He simply obliges.

"I have tried to tell you about the pregnancy--"

Mingyu shakes his head, he doesn't meet your gaze, "I know now and that's what matters."

You scrutinize and everything about him screams that he is not doing well. Physically evident, mentally also as his body language gives it out.

"This wasn't planned and I'm keeping it so if you don't want to be a part of it, this will be the last time we're meeting--"

You don't get to finish the sentence as Mingyu lunges forward and kneels at your feet.

"I was a bad husband and I understand if you don't have any trust left in me. But we made it, Y/N. Of course I'll be there through the rest of the pregnancy and after that. We'll raise the baby, our baby.", he tries to convey his sincerity through his words, "I failed to be a good husband but I promise I'll try to be a good father."

"I'm sorry, you had to find out this way.", you say, your hands finding its way to wipe the tears that stained his cheeks.

You have been awfully swayed, your emotions are a mess and you can't mask your real emotions anymore. Pregnancy hormones are being tough on you and what you're scared the most about is letting yourself loose in Mingyu's presence. Something you cannot afford.

Mingyu is also quick to catch the changes in your demeanor. He knows you're being vulnerable and you'll be trying your best to conceal it but he makes a promise to himself that he'll protect you, take care of you. Even if you push him away, he won't scurry away this time.

Another episode of Mingyu's crying happens when you show him the sonograms from all the previous checkups and he carefully pockets the copies you give him, promising to accompany you for the checkups, memorizing the dates by heart from your calendar.

"What have you been eating?", he asks, padding into the kitchen. You follow him.

Concern grasps at him on hearing that you cook for yourself now and Minghao sometimes bring in his cooked food but you throw up more than you can eat. You tell him that you've been having trouble sleeping which caused the fatigue.

"I'll cook for you from now on.", he says determined.

"I appreciate it but you don't have to do it. It'll be a hassle--"

Mingyu dismisses you as he scans through the kitchen and makes the notes of the groceries that needed restocking, "My hassle, I'll handle it. Anyway, I used to cook for us."

"That's what.", you interject, "You used to. We're divorced now."

Mingyu freezes at the mention of divorce but quickly regains his composure, "I'm doing this for our baby. You can't tell me otherwise, I'm sorry but expect to see me a lot more from now on. And though I know it would make no sense to you but you can rely me."

You don't respond to that rather making a lame excuse, walking back to the bedroom.

Since then, it's been a rollercoaster ride for the both of you.

Whenever you try to draw a line, Mingyu erases it before it could even take a prominent shape.

"No, you don't have to drive me to work everyday.", you say sternly, "I can drive and if not Minghao can take me with him. He does that sometimes."

It's wrong of him to get jealous but when has the heart ever sided with him, "Minghao lives in the opposite direction, Y/N. It'll save all of us time and effort if you let me drive you."

"You also live in the opposite direction.", you snide, "Don't try to outsmart me."

Mingyu smiles sheepishly, "Anyways, I have to drop by to give you the lunchboxes. Now on, I'll just come early and cook here itself. My office starts later than yours so it's fine."

And no matter what you couldn't win over him. Hence, he now knows the passcode of your apartment.

"You're not allowed to barge in anytime without my permission. Always drop a text if you're coming. Don't misuse the privilege.", came your strict instruction with those 4 digits.

As another month passes by, your cravings start to get weirder. The urges always are to have something which you think no sane person would ever think about eating. And the timings, well random, no patterns.

Mingyu's heart drops when he's cooking one morning and you emerge from your room with a big patch pasted on your forehead.

He rushes to your side but you pretend to not notice him, roaming around the house aimlessly. And after a lot of tailing, Mingyu finally corners you.

The proximity almost makes you go berserk. His smell overpowers you causing you to nudge him to widen the gap.

"Lately, my cravings have been you know....", you trail off embarrassed, "It always hits at dawn hours."

Mingyu listens to you with utmost attention.

"I was craving candied pickles and I didn't have them at home so I went to the convenience store at 4 am."

You hush him when Mingyu opens his mouth, wide eyed, jaw dropped.

"I couldn't find the car keys and it was only there blocks down so I walked there and on the way back, I bumped onto a pole. It was dark, I missed it.", you whine rubbing your face in embarrassment and wincing when you accidentally rub on the cut.

It's a reminder to Mingyu of how you have been having it difficult and a string of regrets  making him ponder that if the divorce didn't happen he could have been doing all of it for you, without having asked to.

He grabs your face, making you look at him, "From next time onwards, please call me, no matter what time. I'll bring you what you're craving. It's not safe alone out there, more when you're pregnant."

And he knows that even though you'd agree on his face but you'd never bother him out at odd timings. Scratch that, he wants you to contact him even for the simplest things but you don't. Every time his phone pops up a notification he wishes that it's you. But that never happens.

So one night when your cravings got to your head and you decided to make a quick round to the store, your heart leaped out of the chest on opening the door.

It's Mingyu, sitting by the threshold, well sleeping against the door. As the door opened his body fell inside, waking him up as the result of the impact.

You quickly stand him up on his feet and take him inside.

"What are you doing here?", you ask him flabbergasted, "Why were you sleeping at the door when you know the passcode?"

Mingyu, still groggy, answers, "You told me to not enter your house without informing you. And I didn't want you to go out alone."

Your heart twinges at his words. You should be having emotional turmoil but something unexpected is happening and you absolutely hate it. The cravings for food have suddenly subsided and now you're craving for something else.

Rather someone else. You're suddenly craving for your ex-husband.

How can he look so tempting, wearing just a simple t-shirt and trackpant while being sleepy. Blame it on the hormones and those r-rated scenes in the movie that you watched this afternoon.

"Don't pull something like this again.", you say, rubbing your neck, "Just punch the code and get in, anytime."

And Mingyu is left confused when you maneuver him to the other room asking him to sleep there before rushing into your bedroom because another moment he is in your vicinity, your control would snap.

Domesticity comes handy with Mingyu. He is the kind of person who could effortlessly blend into your life under any circumstances.

So one day when you stand oogling your shoes wrack with doe eyes and curled down lips, Mingyu comes searching for you.

"What did those shoes do so bad to make you upset?", he asks with a hint of humour in his voice.

You huff before craning your neck to look at him. You pull him beside and point at the topmost shelf saying, "Those are my favourite pair of stilettoes, it's been so long I've worn them. And that pair of ruby scarpin, I can hear them calling my name."

Mingyu knows about your admiration of heels which explains the huge collection you've accumulated. Staying with you, has also made him accustomed to the clacking of heels whenever you walked swiftly wearing them.

So he understands that pregnancy doesn't actually leverage you from wearing heels, but you don't wear them just to maintain safety and avoid prolonged effects.

He takes your hands with a mischievous smile, "Wanna experience the feeling of wearing them?"

"You know I can't."

He hushes you, pulling you closer. He gestures you to slip out of the sliders and straightens himself, "Hop on my feet."

You look at him confused, "You'll get hurt, plus even if I try my belly won't allow me to do so."

"Just trust me, okay?", Mingyu says coaxing you and you do give in.

As you can't see the ground beneath your belly, Mingyu guides you and as soon as your feet are on his, he adjusts them making sure that both of your heels are in the air. Once making sure of the position, he places your hands on his shoulders and secures his tightly around your waist.

He starts walking around the house with you.

"See, same same.", he grins, pecking your forehead.

You laugh, lolling your head back, "Getting creative now, are we Mr. Kim? I'll give you points for the height."

Mingyu swears that he'd walk you this all the time, that your feet won't touch the ground even for a second if you want.

One day, he accidentally discovers that phoenix_726 is actually you when he wanted to play a game but it's been so long that he has forgotten his credentials so he decides to play using your account.

"I thought you're a man!"

"I used voice modulator with my headset because creeps started hitting on me as soon as they I'm a female."

"I can't believe, we've talking to each other, played along so long without knowing the real identity."

"Remember, I'm a much better player than you, Kim Mingyu."

"You wish, Y/N. I'm obviously better."

That debate never ended.

This isn't supposed to happen. You stand by the kitchen counter, watching a very familiar scene unfold in front of you.

"I can see the gears turning, you know?", Minghao says as he stands beside you.

"How did I agree upon this?", you sigh, "What's wrong with me, this isn't supposed to happen."

His features soften, "Because though you were able to hide your emotions previously, now you couldn't do that anymore. They are here because you've missed them, it's because you love them and want to spend time with them."

You know he's speaking the truth. And your eyes tear as the words hit you. Minghao pats your back when he sees you wiping your eyes frantically hoping for no one to see you like this.

"Thanks for letting us meet you.", Minhee smiles as you both sit and enjoy the company, "I missed you."

"Me too, Minhee.", you look at her, returning that smile. You turn only to find Junhui humouring Minghao, the latter actually smiling at the antics which is rare. Seokmin and Jeonghan are seemingly scolding Soonyoung. And Hansol is talking about something real serious with Mingyu's parents.

And your breath hitches when your gaze locks with Mingyu, he has been looking at you the whole time.

"He misses you the most.", Minhee says, "But he's been happy now, keeps yapping about how he gets to see you everyday. Goes on for hours about how much more beautiful you've gotten, the pregnancy looks great on you. Cries every time, he realises you two aren't together and it's because of him."

You turn back to look at her, shaking your head. It's overwhelming.

You had a good time. Minghao gained new friends and Mingyu stayed back while everyone else left. It's because he knows you too well. He has noticed you caressing your protruding belly more than usual.

"It's just the usual spasms.", you tell him when he asks repeatedly, "Maybe because I moved around way too much today."

"I'm taking you to the doctor, tomorrow.", Mingyu says, "No objections. But for now, what can I do to make you feel better?"

"There's nothing to do, Mingyu. It'll go away."

Mingyu nods just to go back and hug you from behind. You freeze at the sudden action. His hands snake down from your waist as he gently tries to hold up the weight of your belly. And it's somehow soothing. He dips his nose on your nape to inhale your scent and you subconsciously lean back on him.

That night when you have trouble sleeping again, Mingyu spends it reading the books on parenting devotedly until you fall asleep in his arms, on the couch. But you wake up on the bed the next morning.

"What does this mean, anyone knows?", Soonyoung asks as the guys hang out.

Mingyu is involuntarily present as Minhee kicks him out of your apartment, declaring girls day. He has been sulking since then.

"The sunset is beautiful, isn't it?", Soonyoung adds, "This."

The phrase rings in Mingyu's ear as he tries to figure out its familiarity.

"Who said that to you?", Seokmin asks amused.

Soonyoung gulps, he can't reveal that Minhee had said it to him so he brushes it off.

Seokmin cocks his brows but tells nonetheless, "When someone says this, it's a way of them telling you that they love you, but they're letting you go."

Soonyoung freezes and so does Mingyu.

Seokmin looks at both of them lost while Hansol quickly catches on.

"By any chance, did Y/N say that to you?, Hansol asks and before Mingyu could answer Jeonghan stirs up.

"She did.", he confirms, "On the day they got divorced. I was there and heard it as well. Thought it was unusual of her to say something like that given the situation. But it makes sense now."

Junhui gasps, "Oh my god", he slaps his hand covering his mouth in shock, "She loves you, goddamn it. She loves you!"

Mingyu sits frozen. His mind is empty, no thoughts at all.

"Min?", Seokmin tries to shake his friend out of the trance.

"Gyu", Jeonghan calls calmly, "There's something I have been meaning to ask you for some time."

And when he does so, Mingyu does show a minimal movement. And of a sudden his empty mind from before starts filling up with all sorts of thoughts. His head and heart teams up to concierge him.

Mingyu looks at him robotically.

"You had kept the contract papers in the locker right? Did you even tell Y/N the passcode?", he asks.

Mingyu shakes his head, "No. She doesn't know."

"Then how did she get the papers? Did you check the locker again?", Hansol asks further.

"All she said was that she got the papers from my office. And while in the hassle, it didn't occur in my mind to check the locker again.", Mingyu answers.

"If my hunch is right, then I'm guessing it's a lie.", Jeonghan says, "I think she already knew about the contract, sometime after the marriage."

"How did she know? Her uncle never wanted her to know so he wouldn't tell her.", Junhui asks, "And even if she knew then why did she use it to get a divorce?"

"Only Y/N has the answer to these questions.", Jeonghan says, "Gyu, just go and check the locker and if you find your copy of the contract papers then just go and confront her. I'm sure she has her reasons so know them and see if there's a chance of reconciliation."

You notice that Mingyu has been acting quite out of character for the past few days. He seems like lost in thought. There's something different about the way he looks at you now.

The day before when you both went out to buy clothes and stuff for the baby, unlike other times he remained absent minded. You chose not to bother him.

But as the pregnancy progressed towards the end of the last trimester, it has been giving you one kind of hell. You are pretty much lost without Mingyu, feeling like a liability who's useless without him. Your emotions are a mess and you're always tired.

Mingyu wishes he could do anything to soothe your pain. He cries in the bathroom at nights when he hears your groans and sees those tears streaming down your eyes. There's another turmoil that's whirlwinding inside him, he has so many questions he wants answer of but he couldn't, just didn't wanna cause of any more of stress.

After a lot of negotiation and convincing, Mingyu now gets to hold you to sleep. His warmth visibly helps you to sleep better. What's bothering him is how you tremble in your sleep at night, there's always some incoherent murmuring before you are crying which prompts him to wake you up in the middle of night. And no matter how many times he asks, you never utter words about those reoccurring nightmares.

One night when Mingyu instinctively wakes up just to check on you, he finds you looking at him. His heart drops when he finds you sobbing.

"Gyu", you caress his cheeks, "there's something I want to tell you."

Mingyu holds your hand that lays on his face, giving a nod.

You lean in, faces merely an inch apart, "I love you."

You feel him go stiff under your touch. But he doesn't look at you as if you've grown another head rather there's calamity in his features.

"I'd have regretted if I didn't say it to you.", you admit, "There's a favour I want from you."

"What is it?"

"If there's a situation comes while I give birth", you voice quivers, "where you could save either me or the baby. Choose to save the baby, please."

Mingyu can't believe what he's hearing. He can't fathom loosing either of you.

"Where is this coming from?", he croaks as his hand ascends to protectively rub your belly.

"I have been dreaming of banshee, everynight. It signifies that someone would die in the family. I don't have anyone else from the baby so please promise me you'll protect our baby."

Mingyu pulls you closer, trying to keep his tears at bay, "Nothing such will happen. You both will be safe and healthy. I'll protect you both."

There's a moment of silence before Mingyu decides to speak up, "I found the copies of the contract in the locker. You never got those in hand. Since when did you know about it and why did you lie?"

You knew he was bound to find out someday so you decide to come clean because it's suffocating to keep everything within yourself for such a long time.

"That was the copy uncle had. I found out about the contract after a year since we got married. Came across the papers accidentally in uncle's office while I was visiting and confronted uncle. He confessed everything and I felt so betrayed.", you look up at him, "But I couldn't even think about leaving you. That's when I realised that I had fallen in love with you."

You press your finger on his lips when Mingyu tries to speak.

"But I also knew that you weren't over Sora, your social media still had all your pictures with her. It made me think if we should go through this marriage. My fault, I just couldn't let you go, I wanted to believe that you'd eventually come to me. Can you blame me though? You are my first love, of course I was being stupid and pathetic."

You laugh through your tears and it cracks his heart. Mingyu is rendered speechless by now.

"Then I decided to forget about everything because I thought we were making progress. Well, atleast I thought that we're happily married, alongside hoping that you'd fall for me. More confident because the pregnancy came along. It wouldn't be really hard to develop feelings for the mother of your child right? That's what I pondered over every night. But then a string of incidents happened."

Your voice tones down flat, the sadness returning in it, "When Sora came back, I knew you were just helping her. But I was just afraid because I can fight all the people who want you but I can't fight that one person whom you want. Sora was your first love after all."

You shift, creating a tiny space between you and him, "I wasn't mad at you when I heard you saying those things about me to the guys. Your mind was clouded, your first love had returned, now wanting you back where on the contrary you were married to someone whom you didn't love. I know it all came out because you knew you'd never fall in love with me and it's because I wasn't exactly the wife material. You couldn't think of ending the marriage because a lot was at stakes, yes, the contract, it ends with the end of the marriage."

"But still I chose to be selfish because of the baby and thought of working our marriage. Then my uncle died.", you shudder, recoiling, "And that was the last straw or you can say the indication I needed. I realised that I'm cursed. People around me or associated with me keep dying. So it's better to cut off the ties. I brought up the divorce using the contract papers because that was only way to protect you. Losing you as a husband is far better than losing you entirely."

Mingyu exhales sharply. If he felt like a jerk before, he feels absolutely trash after your confession. The man who had always taken pride in himself for being perceptive and empathetic, termed as their ideal type by many has his pride crumbled down, been to put to place.

He's simply a buffoon who couldn't even understand his wife. Just because you are not verbal, doesn't mean that you don't care. You cared more than anyone else, selfless enough to let go just to protect your love.

In a world where all these people think love's for show, you are the type to die for your beloved in secret.

"Mingyu", your voice pulls him out of the reverie. Mingyu thinks you've enchanted him, otherwise how could it make sense that you're glowing under the moonlight that's peeking in through the windows. Your smile melts him into a puddle, you're looking so divine.

When his gaze locks on yours, you say, "Stop feeling bad. It's not your fault, feelings can't be controlled. And people do go through unhappy marriages and opt for separation. It's quite normal. Also, you don't have to go beyond your capacity to accomodate me. I know you feel and are responsible for the baby but it's okay. Co-parenting is surely difficult but we will make it work. Don't miss out on love and life because you feel guilty towards your ex-wife. I'll be fine."

Mingyu has enough. He gently pushes you on your back and suddenly grabs both of your hands and pins them above your head. He hovers over you, careful of your belly and says, "You're doing awfully bad for someone who has such great perceptive skills."

Then he proceeds to rest his forehead onto yours. Your eyes widen and you try to free your hands but your strength is nothing as compared to his.

"Please, please kiss me or I'll go insane.", Mingyu whispers against your lips, freeing your hands.

"We shouldn't be doing this.", comes your meek response.

"And what if I say that I love you?", Mingyu nudges your nose with his, kissing your chin.

"Don't say something you'd regret later.", you say inhaling sharply.

"I'd regret if I don't confess now. I have already made a lot of mistakes, I can't afford to make any more."

He kisses your forehead, "I admire you in all the aspects. The way you're managing work and life while carrying a life inside you, amazes me."

Kissing on top of your eyes, he says, "I know you're independent and efficient but you can lean on me when things get rough."

He smiles as he kisses your cheeks, "You're so beautiful. You were a different kind of beautiful before the pregnancy, your beauty is unfathomable now and you will still be aphrodisiac post pregnancy."

Another kiss on your nose, "You're gaming skills are better than mine. But we conquer more when we're teaming up. So please take me in. I promise I won't let you down."

"I love you.", you shudder when his lips ghost over yours, "And I'm not confessing on just some whim or impulse. I mean it and I'll do anything to earn your trust. Even if it takes the lifetime I'll spend it making up to you."

He then waits patiently.

"I'm not responsible for my actions, the hormones are making me do this.", you anmounce before closing the gap.

Mingyu holds your face, kissing you slow and deep. Smiles when he feels your hand puckering on his shirt. Doesn't pull away until you're tapping on his arms for a breather. Latches back onto your lips after a second because he has been craving them so bad and now that he got the taste, he can't get enough.

The venue for the wedding is decorated beautifully, the lightings and flowers are complimenting each other in the best way.

You smile, sitting quietly as you resort to watching from a distance. The flute of champagne remains untouched.

Mingyu looked great when he walked to the altar. He looks beautiful on the stage. Seeing him donning the suit once again reminded you of your wedding. What if your marriage worked out?

Sora looks beautiful as well. Given, that she's the bride, all eyes are on her.

It's time to exchange vows, the priest announces. You don't remember all the vows you read during your wedding but you surely have some of them memorized. You wonder if they'll read the vows of similar wordings.

As the ceremony ends, your eyes move back and forth, studying the crowd when you feel the seat beside you being taken.

"Your presence on the stage was quite captivating.", you say boringly, "Someone could have mistaken you as the groom."

Mingyu laughs, "Actually I do want to get married but the woman I'm pursuing doesn't seem much interested."

You roll your eyes, "Then pursue someone else."

Though you don't look at him, you'd clearly sense the pout on his face, "But she's the love of my live and the mother of our son."

Your lips threaten to break into a smile. It's been over a year since you gave birth to Minjae, your son.

"Minhee had called.", you tell him, "She told that she'll be keeping Jae for another day, so no need to drop by her house."

Mingyu nods, "Minhee never lets him go easily. Jae seems to be fond of his aunt too. I'm sure Jae is perched on Soonyoung now."

You snort, "That's a given. I need your help on choosing the engagement gift for Minhee and Soonyoung. Hao will also join. When are you free?"

"For you, I'm always free.", Mingyu gives you a flirtatious smile, "Can Hao not come with us, I'll help him out separately."

"Let me go and congratulate Sora and Jungin quickly. We can leave after that.", you sigh at his antics and get on your feet, walking towards the newlyweds.

Sora, tired of her poor choices, sought out to her parents for arrange marriage and that's how she met Jungin and dated him for a while before tying the knot. You weren't exactly sure of attending your ex-husband's ex's wedding but Sora made you promise her and so you somehow ended up at the ceremony while Minhee took care of your son.

Not much has changed over the year. After your son's birth, Mingyu has become brazzen. He has become an absolute loser in love. And that loser has been courting you since then. You're always on your toes when around him because you have no idea what he'll pull. He is unofficially cohabitating with you in the name of parenting. You know better, even if Minjae grows up overnight and moves out, Mingyu would still not stop showing at your door with a bouquet in one hand and that damn smile.

You are unbothered when instead of dropping you off and leaving, Mingyu follows you into the apartment.

"Jae is not even here so what are you doing here?", you ask and take off your sandal.

And as you take another step, you're suddenly swept off your feet. You're not even surprised, your reflexes have grown immune. Mingyu effortlessly carries you to the bedroom and drops you on the bed, drops the blazer on the floor before joining you.

"I don't know about you but I need to change, can't sleep in this dress."

You whine when his grip around your hips tightens.

There's a goofy grin on his face, "I love you so much that my heart might explode someday. Thanks for giving birth to our son and for raising him with me. Thanks for being there for my sister and scaling that Soonyoung when he was confused about his feelings and being an absolute idiot. I like how happy both of them look together. Though you don't owe anything but I'm grateful as you always make sure to attend my parents' anniversary or birthdays and help them out when I can't. Thanks for being a great companion to my friends even after knowing how intolerable they can be."

You squint your eyes at him, already catching on.

Mingyu sits up and fishes out the very familiar velvety box.

He takes out the ring and asks, "Will you marry me?"

"No.", you say and get up, beelining into the bathroom to to get changed.

Mingyu smiles as he watches you. Here goes his 156th attempt of randomly proposing you and you rejecting him.

As Mingyu too gets changed and plops onto the bed, he whispers in your ear pulling you close to his body, "You know right, I won't stop asking you to marry me until you agree or find someone else which I pray for to never happen."

"What if I never say 'yes'?", you ask sleepily, feeling his lips giving feather kisses on your neck.

"I promised to wait a lifetime for you.", Mingyu answers in a heartbeat.

You drift off to sleep and Mingyu remembers something you had said a month or two ago as a part of your late night sleepy rambles.

"I'll marry you, after Jae turns three. I want him to be the flower boy at our wedding."

He still feels giddy, whenever he remembers your words. He doesn't know if he should account for something you said subconsciously, he's not sure if you are yourself aware of these words either. But what matters, what gives him hope is that deep inside your heart you've left him space.

So even if you agree to one of his random proposals, he'll prepare a grand proposal for you just before Jae's third birthday and will marry you right after his son turns three if you say yes.

Mingyu has planned out everything, he'd make Jae walk you down the aisle along with him. Though he's not sure if his heart will be able to handle such a sight. Marrying the love of his life in the presence of his family and friends, what else he could ask for.

Because in the end, everything is worth only for love.

→ Do not copy, re-post, translate, or share any of my works on other platforms! All stories are copyrighted, joonsytip.

[novalpha]

OMG I waited so much for this and had gone ia and came back to see this so late 😭

Anyway, I loved this fic so much 🩷 Thankyou for this

[joonsytip]

Only for Love || Mingyu - Part 3

Pairings: Mingyu x Fem!Reader

Genre: Angst, Fluff, Smut, Husband!Mingyu, Cold Wife!Reader, Arranged Marriage au, Contract Marriage au, Divorce au

Synopsis: When an accidental discovery has your perception of happy married life crumbling down, you do what you think is the best for everyone involved. Naturally, your opinion of the best doesn't cater to your husband's. So what happens when things spiral out due to unforeseen events?

Warnings: character death, mentions of pregnancy, Mingyu acts dumb, reader goes through a whole lot of emotional turmoil, mentions of divorce, tears, profanities, major angst.

Word Count: 5.7k

@wongyuuu thanks a lot for brainstorming out this with me & happy birthday, love! 💕🎂

[ SVT Masterlist ] [ SVT Flick - Fic Masterlist ]

Teaser | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Mingyu returns to an empty house. He waits for you for an hour, two hours and when the clock strikes midnight his mind clouds with concern. He fishes out his phone and ignoring the series of notifications that keeps on popping up, he calls you.

But with all his calls remaining unanswered, Mingyu surges in panic and calls Soonyoung who's extremely pissed and shows his discontentment through a dry, edgy reply.

"She left with Minghao."

That's the only line Mingyu hears before getting hung up. And Soonyoong does not pick up his call again.

And now he sits rooted to the couch, tapping feet in anxiety and worry with no idea about your whereabouts and who the hell is Minghao?

His thoughts bounce off the walls and he decides to take his car and drives off to find you aimlessly. He goes to your office only to be greeted by the security. He goes to the café you are regular at, knowing very well that it would be closed but he makes a round just for his sanity. He knocks on your apartment door but it's empty just like the house was.

Dejected he fishes out his phone to call your uncle when the notification of your name flashes on the screen.

'Meet me at home within fifteen minutes.'

There's no way he's gonna get home within the said timeframe but just as he rushes towards his car, his phone vibrates again.

'Half an hour. Don't run the red lights, don't run over people.'

Mingyu listens to your advice and thankfully he reaches you in one piece.

But he stands frozen as he sees you in the hallway carrying a duffle bag.

"Where were you?", no greetings, you ask checking your watch.

Mingyu knows you know and you know that he knows that you know.

"I had to leave with Sora."

"And who's she?"

Mingyu bites his tongue before answering, "My ex."

"What made you go somewhere with your ex rather than watch your wife getting felicitated?", your voice is calmer than usual and it scares your husband to the bones.

He stays silent. And you wait for him like you have all the time in the world.

"I can't tell you right now, Y/N. I'm sorry.", he answers quietly, lowering his gaze.

"Okay.", you say and Mingyu looks at you flabbergasted. Before he could speak, you add,"I'm going to stay at my uncle's."

Mingyu feels electrified, the sensation which burns his whole body, itches on his skin and scratches at the throat.

"I'm sorry, I know it is an unacceptable behaviour of me but please trust me. I haven't done anything to be ashamed of.", Mingyu grabs your hands and blabbers, "You can stay with your uncle but please tell me when you are going to return, that you're going to return."

You pull back your hands from his grip, "I don't think I'll be returning anytime soon.", you say sternly, "I had something to share with you but this isn't the right time."

"Y/N--"

"Before I leave, tell me one thing. Are you going to keep seeing her?"

Mingyu flares at this, "I'm not seeing her for fucks sake! I would never do something bad, I'm your husband."

You stare at him for a solid minute, "You didn't answer my question. Anyways, I'm disappointed. Keep yourself in my shoes and give it a thought."

"Let me drive you, it's late.", he offers.

"You don't have to worry about me, Minghao is already waiting with his car."

Mingyu twitches on hearing the name for the second time, "And who's that?"

"I can't tell you right now, Mingyu. I'm sorry.", you mimic his words from before and just as you are about to cross the threshold, you whisper shaking your head, "You can't even put yourself in my shoes..."

Mingyu watches you leave with a grim heart.

It's been a two weeks since you've been living with your uncle. And though you've left home in despair, Mingyu has somehow made it a mission to win back your trust.

But who's gonna tell him that you never doubted him, you were just mad, just like a teenage girl who can't keep her act straight in front of her love.

He calls you every night. For the first week you didn't pick up his calls but when your anger started to subside you entertained his calls but never spoke much, just listened to him telling how his day went. He asks every time if could visit you, getting a straight no as reply. He might be obedient but he's sneaky as hell because most of the times when you're getting off work you somehow see him engrossed with some conversation with Soonyoung at the parking.

What is he doing at your workplace almost everyday, when he could crash at Soonyoung's place. Why does Soonyoung have to call out your name every time when you're walking past them, roping you into some small talks.

Soonyoung is the imposter.

And why does everytime aa you are about to take leave after the conversation, Mingyu asks you the same question, "When are you returning?"

You never answer.

"You've gotta be kidding me!", Seokmin yelps. They all have gathered at Mingyu's place because everyone is stressed and wants to know what is actually happening.

"There are all sorts of rumours at the workplace. And I wanna punch everyone in the face.", Soonyoung says dejected, "Minghao and Y/N went to the same university so some are saying that they have dated during that time." he takes a chug from the can and continues, "And since Mingyu didn't show up at the event last time, it has sparked the speculations."

Mingyu sits head lowered, rubbing his hands all over the face.

"I'm sure Minghao likes her. I can tell by the way he looks at her.", Soonyoung puts it down.

"What about Y/N?", Mingyu asks his heart beating in his chest rapidly.

"What do you think dumbass?", Junhui glares at him.

"Woah, I'm offended now that you asked that question.", Hansol speaks in distaste.

"It's been a month without her.", Mingyu sighs, his lips curl down, eyes filled with concern, "I think everything was going back to normal, assuming by the way she responded, I felt like she'd be coming back anytime but she has gone radio silent suddenly. For the past two weeks she isn't responding to my calls or texts, she is even working from home."

"Yeah maybe Minhee can tell something", Junhui suggests, "But I doubt she'd spill anything if Y/N has told her not to."

The evening bleeds into night and the guys keep on chatting when suddenly Jeonghan who hasn't been much involved decides to speak.

"Now that Sora is back? What are you gonna do?"

The laughters die down and room falls silent with all the eyes on Mingyu.

"What's going on guys? Is there something we don't know?", Seokmin asks in fear.

Jeonghan leans back on the couch and looks at Mingyu, saying, "I think it's time, they should know. I'll go first, that day Mingyu left with Sora to meet me. Apparently, the guy Sora had left Gyu for turns out to be a douch. Won't go to the details but he kept blackmailing her, so desperate to save herself and afraid that I won't be meeting her if she went alone, she took him with her. I'm skipping the legal parts and that guy has been sort of taken care off. But that's not where it ends.", he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, "The problem is that Sora wants him back now."

Gasps erupt through the room.

"Why did I see it coming though?", Seokmin says, "You have said no straight to her face right, Min?", he asks Mingyu.

The silence that follows horrifies every other one present in the room.

"Don't tell me...", Hansol trails off, eyeing his friend in utter disbelief.

"It's not what you're thinking.", Mingyu frowns, "I haven't said anything to Sora. But I have loved her for so long it's rolling back like a habit.", he hesitantly looks up and sees a bunch of disappointed faces, "But if it had been the previous me, I'd have gone to her in a snap but I'm changed now."

Mingyu gives a wry smile when looking at the relief washing over his friends.

"Here's the real deal begins. We have been married for over two years, in a few months we'd be hitting the three year mark. It's a long time right?", he sweeps his gaze across the large wedding frame of you both on the wall, "Instead of being a couple, I feel like living with a roommate. No feelings involved. She's stoic, nonchalant and even inconsiderate sometimes, even if I think that there's something between us, her actions act as bucket of cold water on those thoughts. I understand that not everyone is the same and I agree that Y/N has changed but somehow we're still at the starting point and it's starting to tire me out. Maybe I shouldn't have agreed to this marriage--"

There's a sudden thud and all the necks turn in unison only to find you standing by the hallway and your bag on the ground.

Heartbreak is one thing but the humiliation is another form of descend you're currently facing. You return your home only to find your husband shit talking about how unhappy he is in this marriage to his friends.

And the biggest loss turns out to be how you're the only one who thought that it's a happy, perfect marriage. Your husband isn't wrong when he said that you're inconsiderate.

Tears prick at your eyes but aren't you stoic, nonchalant so why should the people infront of you get the leverage to see you vulnerable? They shouldn't, so you pick up your bag and walk past them going straight into the guest room.

There are continuous knocks on the door. Your phone keeps ringing but you pay mind to none. Your mind only reels the words of your husband from before.

The previous you would have stomped out of the house but now, you can't. The situation has changed, the circumstances are different and you are totally lost.

Because there's a life is growing inside you. The reason you decided to return home tonight but your second attempt at letting Mingyu know that he's gonna be a father cracks again. The first attempt was the night where Mingyu chose Sora over you. He doesn't want you, would he want to raise a child with you?

Maybe you shouldn't have gotten married, maybe you shouldn't have fallen in love with your husband and maybe she's better, the previous you who knew you're undesirable, who knew that people like you are unlovable, who very well knew how to maintain a boundary.

You have lost the track of time but you sure can hear voices from the other side of the door. You think attachment is something you can't effort, you are not people's people.

So that's how what Mingyu had said, you turned into his roommate. Since that day, you have settled in the guest room. You don't get out of your room unless it's an emergency. You leave for work early and return home at late hours.

You haven't spoken to Mingyu since that day. You've rejected all his advances of striking a conversation. But you're thankful to him for making you food everyday because you can't eat anything else, it makes you nauseous.

"Hey, are you okay?", Minghao asks worried as he takes a sit beside you at the cafeteria of the office, "You have been throwing a lot."

You nod your head, avoiding his gaze, "I'm fine."

Minghao doesn't buy your words but you both settle in the comfortable silence and until he gasps.

You cock brows looking at him.

"Are you pregnant?", he gasps, "Oh my god."

You freeze and slap your hand over his mouth and proceed to tell him everything that has been happening.

"So Mingyu doesn't know yet. And he's being a jerk ever since his ex-girlfriend returned.", Minghao says in anger. He sweeps a gaze across your face and his eyes soften, "You love him, don't you?"

You avoid his gaze again, you don't answer him.

A sad smile graces on his lips as he reminiscences the past. How he had practically clinched himself in your life. How he had fallen in love with you but knew that you wouldn't reciprocate, the reason why he disappeared abruptly from your life years ago. The apologies are always on the tip of his tongue for leaving you alone, for creating the safe place but also leaving it void.

"You know you shouldn't be taking stress. I know it's not easy but I'd suggest for you both to sort things out, atleast for the baby.", he says patting your back in a comforting manner, "If Mingyu does anything to hurt you again, tell me I'll beat him for you."

"Thanks Hao.", you say smiling.

"Also let me know if Soonyoung bothers you. I'll handle him as well."

You shake your head laughing, "He insufferable Hao, you'll give up."

"We'll see that.", he smiles softly, "But do plan on telling him. Uncle also needs to know, he'd be so happy."

"I want the baby's father to know first. Then I'll tell everyone.", you assure him.

Mingyu knows he went overboard. He knows he was being an absolute asshole when he uttered those baseless words in your favour.

Maybe he should never have compared the type of relationship he had with Sora with the one he's having with you. It's a grave mistake and the lack of your presence is taking a toll on him. But he understands if you need space or even don't want to see his face. He's willing to give you all that but he plans to apologise to you and if you don't forgive him, he'd understand.

Work is hectic but the situation at home is feverish. He has been getting earfuls from all of his friends and family, specially Minhee. She has been giving him shit routinely.

His reverie breaks when he receives a text from you. Hurriedly opening the text, his eyes widen with a mixture of horror and anticipation.

'Come home as soon as possible. I have something to tell you.'

His mind could only hint at it being something ominous.

You pace around the entire house nervously.

"Mingyu, I'm pregnant. You're gonna be father."

You shake head at the selection of words.

"Congratulations! You're going to be a dad!"

Sounds too exciting for an unplanned pregnancy.

"You're pull out game was weak. Guess what I'm pregnant."

Too snappy, rejected.

"Kim Mingyu, you're pregnant, I will be-- wait what no-- I'm pregnant, we're expecting."

You sit down pulling your hair in frustration.

After another hundred million failed rehearsals you sort to say whatever your heart would feel like at the moment in his presence.

But where's Mingyu? You check the clock, it's past his work hours. Maybe he's running late for some reason. It's your third attempt to tell him about your pregnancy and you hope that you'd succeed this time.

Your phone rings and you would never have guessed that your world would come crashing down.

You stand with head your head bowed down the entire time at the funeral hall. The band wrapped around your arm acts as a constant reminder that you're the chief mourner. You don't raise your head, not ready the see the picture that's kept on the board.

The heart attack was so brutal that it claimed the life of your uncle without a chance of revival. When you were informed he was already gone.

No last words, no goodbyes. Now you're left with only his photo and memories. You walk into the room where his body is kept as you've made a special request to let you meet him before he's taken into the coffin.

He's almost unrecognisable as you sit beside the body. Gently caressing his head, you finally let the tears fall.

"You were so eager to meet everyone that you left me alone here.", you sob, "What do I do without you now?"

You caress his cheeks gently, "Whatever I have become it's because of you. Even though I was the reason they died, you took me in and raised me like our own."

"I have something to tell.", your hands place themselves back on his head, "I'm pregnant. You're gonna be a grandparent. Tell mom, dad and aunt that I have grown up. Tell Sejin that he's gonna be an uncle."

You spend some more last moments with your uncle before there's a knock on the door. You quickly wipe the tears and look up to see Mingyu standing at the threshold.

"It's time.", he says solemnly.

You nod and look back at your uncle saying, "Thank you for everything. Have a nice reunion with everyone up there. Forgive me if I have been a bad daughter. Goodbye comrade."

You don't like the pitiful look everyone throws at you. You hate it, it claws on your skin and you feel like throwing up. Running into the washroom, you sit down opening the lid to empty your stomach when you feel your hairs being pulled back in gentle grip.

It's Mingyu, you know even though even without seeing him. He doesn't care about entering a ladies washroom when he has to look for you.

"Here, drink some water.", he uncaps the bottle and offers it to you.

He's presence is somewhat comforting, he makes things bearable. Your uncle is laid beside the rest of your family and you request everyone to be left alone. It's night time when you leave the place only to see Mingyu waiting for you.

There's silence throughout the ride back to home, no words spoken when he makes you eat something he cooked when you were showering, unspoken words when you go back your room and he goes back to his.

You mourn for days and while you do so you take notice of a lot of things.

"Y/N, I'm sorry for that day. I didn't mean anything I said, I was just being an idiot.", Mingyu  says after barging into your room one night because he had enough. He decides he won't let you suffer alone anymore.

You nod your head, "It's okay.", your short and curt reply doesn't settle well with your husband.

"I know one apology isn't enough and I understand if you won't forgive me but please let me be there for you.", he pleads closing the gap and taking your hands within his. His eyes searches for your face and his brows crease when he finds you avoiding eye contact.

You pull back your hands out of his grip, "I can take care of myself, Mingyu."

Your call of name rings oddly in his ear. It's rare for you to call him by name, it's always husband when throwing banter or Gyu while being affectionate.

Affectionate? His mind reels in the moment. Aren't you unexpressive then how could his mind produce that word in your wake?

"I'm tired. Let's call it a night.", you say poised, "There's no need for an apology. Everyone has the right to voice out about anything they don't like."

Mingyu feel like he's not your husband rather an office colleague. Your tone is so formal and dry. Your words cut him like a dagger. He wonders if he has caused damaged beyond repair.

It's so fucked up that he wants to hold you sleep, say sweet nothings to calm your senses but he's afraid to ask you to come back to the master bedroom.

So he lets you bask in your own company. He'll interfere with your personal space for sure one day, hustle in forcefully if you don't let him, no matter how rude and irritating it is, he'll mend the broken bond.

His heart breaks when he notices that you don't look him in the eyes anymore. You always had a strong lively gaze, but they are now hollow. You don't call him when you're struggling to open the jar, you don't ask for him when you can't reach something kept on the top shelf.

His friends are all dejected at how you don't indulge them anymore, they're sad at how they don't get to see you nowadays.

Mingyu had attempted to gauze you out of the coop by inviting the guys to the apartment. But you had locked yourself in the room the whole time.

His parents lament on how he ruined something so beautiful, his sister cries at how you don't communicate with even her nowadays.

He's already going crazy and Sora's pestering him by showing up outside his workplace often or making thousands of phone calls almost everyday, makes him ponder upon how was he even in love with her at some point.

He regrets again, now that he can clearly see the difference. You are you, the actual indifference you're showing is now and it's driving him crazy.

He wants to fix this. He needs to fix both of you because he needs you.

You're in the middle of some paperwork when there's a knock on the cabin door.

Soonyoung enters and the look that you give him is sharp enough to scare him off.

"How have you been doing?"

"Breathing fine, alive."

He should have taken the clue and left but it's Soonyoung and he lives as if he has nine lives.

"We miss you, please stop ghosting us."

"I'm not ghosting anyone."

"Minhee is miserable."

The writing stops, your hand halts for a moment before continuing. Soonyoung knocks on the table demanding your attention on him.

You sigh, having no option but look at him.

"You can be mad at your husband but we didn't do anything, Y/N. I don't even know Mingyu, I'm your friend."

The corner of your lips threaten to curl up. Your heart twinges and you smile sadly, "It's better to be prepared ahead so that you all will get accustomized to it later. Attachments are always painful."

Soonyoung looks at you quizzically, "What do you mean by that?"

"Nothing.", you drew yourself back in the papers, "I have a meeting in ten minutes, I need to go over these documents before that."

Soonyoung maybe callous at times but somehow seeing you and hearing your words today makes him bothered.

Another weak passes and you are packing your bags the entire time little by little, unknown to Mingyu because your door is always locked. Your office room is almost empty except for the systems. When Mingyu's not at home, you roam in the bedroom, swaying in the memories you both made there. You lay on the bed, sniffing the pillows because they smell like him.

You crave his touch all the time and him being in your vision doesn't help at all when you could sense the longing in his eyes.

Mingyu doesn't know that you've stolen one of his shirts and a hoodie. He should never find out.

Your soul knows. It tells you that it’s time to distance yourself from those who no longer align with you mentally, emotionally or physically.

"I can't stay here.", you whisper to yourself as you continue to pack rest of the items.

"I'm cursed.", you frantically wipe your tears, "People related to me keep dying."

Your body shakes, eyes producing another batch of fresh tears, "No one should be associated with me. I need to cut everyone out of my life for their sake. Without me, they'd be safe."

You heave a breath, in an attempt to calm yourself, "Mingyu doesn't like me anyways. I'm just a burden. He'll be free once I leave, he can be with Sora.", you rub your chest as it stings, "He'll be happy and that is what I want."

Your gaze instinctively lands on your belly, hands gently rubbing circles, "I promise, even if we won't be together, me and your dad will try our best to raise you. I can't wait to meet you, to hold you."

Mingyu, on the other hand is set on winning you back. He knows you don't like anything extravagant, so he plans to surprise you out a romantic date at home. He's ready to go to the lengths to make you forgive him. He craves your presence, your touch, your shy smiles, the way you call him when you want something from him.

He wants to love you, wants to make love to you. He has been dreaming a lot about starting a family with you. He wants the little versions of you both running around the house. When his friends took the initiative to show him how he has changed and it's for better he knows that it's true. He wonders if all the frustrations were because his heart wasn't ready to seek out the real feelings.

But now he has figured it all out, he likes you, likes you a lot. So he wants this marriage to work out.

He hopes for you to like him back. So who's gonna tell him the truth?

Some free time at work and he's watching new recipes to cook for you. Before going to bed, he's open the phone gallery and goes over your pictures, the pictures which are candid, the ones in which you posed, the best where he's with you in them.

Would you like it, if he throws pebble at your window and serenades you at the middle of the night? Would it be a good idea if goes down on his knees because he hasn't done it before and know he wants to.

Mingyu is all giddy making up scenarios in his head. He wishes to watch them all happen successfully.

"Are you having mood swings?", Jeonghan asks him one day when everyone gathers at the former's home, "Or do you have dissociative identity disorder? You were regretting getting married to her some weeks back and now you're saying that you like her?"

Junhui is grumpy, he takes a look at Mingyu and smacks him hard on his head causing the later to scream out in pain.

"He claims he is the most closest to Y/N and he is grieving because she is not responding to his texts.", Seokmin clarifies and eyes Mingyu in disbelief, "Seriously dude, what's wrong with you? How can you mess up this bad?"

Before Mingyu could speak up, Hansol interjects, "How hard it is to sort out your feelings? How could you even utter such ridiculous things about her when you know how difficult it had been for her, the whole life. Now she even lost her uncle. Imagine listening to your husband yapping about how much he dislikes you when you think he is one you can lean on? And that too instead of voicing out your mind to her first, she heard you telling it to us."

Hansol is a calm man, he never loses his cool except for some situations and this being one of it.

"It's not only me and Jun. Everyone is upset.. I know I'm making it sound bigger, we know that she is your wife, first and our friend, second but we can see that even though she never shows it she cares a lot. I'll tell you no one has ever entertained me constantly to help me, not even you guys. She even suggested me tools that she thought might help me with the editing though she had to invest time on getting to that point. She gifted Jun a diffuser as the previous one was causing him throat irritation but he was too stubborn to discard a newly bought machine."

Seokmin adds up to Hansol, "Didn't she help you with the paperwork late at night even though you both work in an entirely different industry? I'm sorry but did Sora ever do that being in the same line of work? No right. If you would have noticed she has always tried to accomodate herself within us even when it was difficult, it was all new to her."

Mingyu sinks his face into the palm of his hands, as he says regretfully, "I made a huge mistake. I let my intrusive thoughts win and ended up hurting her."

"What if it's too late to fix things?", Soonyoung speaks, his vision dazed as your words from before keeps reeling in his mind, "You should resolve the matters before it's too late."

The following week is hectic for Mingyu. The clients are visiting and everyone has to stay late attending them. It's a whole damn hustle, draining the employees out. The week goes on and out with him spending most of the time in office when all he wants is to go home just to see your face.

It's the last day of the visit and Mingyu thanks the heavens. He's usually patient but now all he wants is to avail the comfort of his home.

It's around one at night but unlike other times the hallway is lit in dim lights flooding  into the dining. There's an eerie silence and something unpleasant awaits.

"Let's get divorced."

When Mingyu came home late at that night to see you awake and waiting for him, there was an uncanny feeling that settled within.

Your hands are crossed, face void of any expression. He almost misses your words. If not for your next words, he would think he's hallucinating.

"We can decide on the terms and clauses, all as per your convenience.", you stress, "I do not expect any trouble from your side."

Mingyu finally registers everything you have said till now and everything hits him all at once.

"W-What are you talking about? Why do you want a divorce all of a sudden?"

Your monotonous tone rather asks him another question, "We have been married for over two years, nearing its third anniversary. Do you really want to be tied in this marriage?"

Though Mingyu thinks he doesn't know you well enough but he knows you enough to catch the wind of your words. He knows its not because of something he had said that day.

A familiar set of papers lying on the table catches his attention. His gaze then turns towards his office room and his suspicion confirms to be correct when he sees the door opened ajar.

"Why did you enter my office? I had clearly warned you about not doing so.", he says in a strict voice.

"That doesn't answer my question.", you say getting up, "Anyways it doesn't matter anymore. I'll get a lawyer, you get one too and proceed with the divorce. Oh, you already have Jeonghan."

As you turn back, you feel your husband's hand wrap around yours.

"How are you so calm? Why are you not asking me anything? Do I really mean nothing to you?", you hear his voice laced in frustration, "We are married for almost three years now and your cool headedness after, I'm assuming, knowing everything makes me aware of the fact that I really don't know you."

You jerk your hand out of his grip and turn back to look at him, "And how is that my fault? Maybe you've never tried to know me.", your voice drops another octave, "You can stop with the doting husband act now that I know the truth."

Mingyu doesn't miss the way your eyes show vulnerability for a moment. Your words strike a chord within him.

"You signed a contract with my uncle in exchange for marrying me.", you chuckle bitterly, "All you wanted was the stocks of the company uncle owned, a goddamn promotion, this house, everything else but me. I was never on the list. I was just a pawn. I don't know what my uncle saw in you to desperately marry me off to you. I hope all of this was worth it. The stocks must have passed down to you smoothly as it can only be acquired by someone working in the company. You can keep this house, keep everything."

"Y/N--"

"I don't wanna hear anything. I was waiting for you to come back so that I could make you aware that you're busted. I'll to go bed."

Mingyu reaches out for you again but you lay out a hand, "Please, I'm tired."

"O-Okay.", Mingyu backs down noticing the resignation in your demeanor, "But we're gonna talk it out tomorrow morning.", he sounds sincere when he says, "I'm sorry. I hope you'll give me a chance to explain everything."

But little does he know, you've already closed the room for any diversions, that you've decided to part ways with the person who has betrayed your trust.

→ Do not copy, re-post, translate, or share any of my works on other platforms! All stories are copyrighted, joonsytip.

[joonsytip]

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[novalpha]

Made me cry a river OMG 😭😭😭

It's 3 AM here

[secretetherealbeing]

[wongyuseokie-deactivated2026010]

Exile | k.m.g

Summary: You two were high school sweethearts, and your love story was something only found in the scripts of a shitty teenage rom-com, but he was a jock, and you were shy and quiet. It shouldn’t have worked, but somehow it did. Now, fast forward ten years, and things aren’t the same. Your lives aren’t the same; he’s stuck in the past, and you only focus on the future. Neither of you has your priorities straight, and neither realises that your present is a complete and utter mess. You won’t let him go because he’s all you’ve ever known, and he won’t let you go because you’re the only thing right in his life, but will love and high school promises keep you two together?

☆ 18+ minors dni |☀︎fluff | ☁︎ angst | ♕smut | ♥ completed works

Word Count: 20,221 words

Pairings: Kim Mingyu x Female Reader Genre/Trope(s)/AU(s): Slice of Life AU! Fluff, Angst, Smut (the holy trinity, if you will) 

Content Warnings: Slice of Life AU! (don’t say I didn’t warn you; this won’t be a nice one, or will it hee-hee). Yelling, swearing, crying, arguments. Couples counselling–do note I am not an actual therapist. I just write fiction. Incredibly angsty. Body insecurities and mentions of blood are not much or graphic. Smut Warnings: unprotected sex (don’t do this). Fingering, oral (male and female receiving). Multiple orgasms, squirting, hand jobs. Use of sex toys. Hickies. Dry humping. Mingyu cums in his trousers (but like, what can I say? He’s in love). Shower sex.  

Authors Note 1: This is a Seventeen rewrite of an old fic of mine, so if it looks familiar, that’s why hehe. 

Author’s Note 2: Thank you to my darling @the-boy-meets-evil for beta'ing this despite being so busy. I love you dearly.

Taglist: @dkluvrsclub @wooahaeproductions @stayinhellevator @aaniag @ressonancee @seungkwansphd @tomodachiii @gyuminusone @bitchlessdino @zezedoesshit @ohmygodwhyareallusernamestaken @joonsytip @noiceoofed @wonwoos-wineparty @persnyako @deobienthusiast @gyuwoncheol @shuadotcom @the-boy-meets-evil @multi-kpop-fanfics @ourdawnishotterthanourday @thegirlwhoimagined @highvern @starlight-night0 @dreamsbloomout @aaasia111 @wongyuuu @ana-marais98 @gaslysainz @cherrylita @soonyoonswoo Part of the Broken Illusions Stories

© wongyuseokie 2024. All rights reserved.

“Okay, I kept my mouth shut the entire dinner, but honey, this is the fifth time you’ve been back home since you and Mingyu moved in together, and I still see no ring. No signs of a marriage, nothing,” your mother started to say as she sipped her wine, making you groan as you took a large gulp of yours. 

“Can we not ruin every trip back home with this?” You moaned, and your mother shrugged. 

“I’m ruining nothing, but honey, ten years, and you two still aren’t engaged or together. As a mother, I want to know you have stability,” your mother spoke, looking down at the red-coloured liquid in her glass. 

“I don’t need a husband for stability,” you bit back, making your mother raise her brow in disapproval at you with your tone. 

“I never said that, but how long do you two just plan on dating? You two have moved in and been together for ten years. Now? Honey, he hasn’t even come back to visit the last two times you came,” your mother continued explaining, making you groan. 

“I’m thinking he dodged a bullet,” you mumbled, earning a sigh from your mother. 

“Besides, he hasn’t even proposed, so why should I pressure him?” You suggested, and your mother frowned at you. 

“You could ask him?” Your mother offered gently, and you sighed deeply.

“Or are you like him? Dragging your feet?” Your mother questioned, and you shrugged. 

“We’re comfortable. Why is that not enough for you?” You asked, genuinely wondering why your mother always brought this topic up.

“Is it enough for you? To be comfortable? If that’s what you are willing to settle for, then sure, but my love, comfort is fine, but it’s dangerous. When you’re too comfy in a relationship, you take every second for granted, and you think it’ll last forever, and you get lazy,” your mother lectured, making you roll your eyes at her. 

“Can you stop projecting your marriage or failed marriage onto my thriving relationship?” You asked immediately, feeling guilt surge through your veins at your harsh words. 

Your mother only ever wanted to help you. 

“Mum,” you started to say, stopping when she held a hand up to stop you. 

“It’s because of my failed marriage I can spot the warning signs from a mile away. I’m not saying you and Mingyu will be a repeat of what your father and I were, but if you don’t get clarity on where you two stand, you’ll always be in the grey with him,” your mother explained before finishing off her drink. 

“I don’t need him to prove anything to me, but when was the last time you spoke about the future?” Your mother asked, and you fumbled to give her an answer and came up blank, making your mother only sigh more. 

“Get some rest. You have an early train to catch tomorrow. This is food for thought,” your mother said kindly before standing up to hug you and heading upstairs. 

You sighed deeply, took in the night sky, and thought hard. 

You and Mingyu stopped discussing the future when he kissed you at sixteen. Sure, you two were young, but you knew in your heart he was the one. But as your relationship progressed, Mingyu seemed to hold onto the past, and anytime the future would come up, he’d change topics and walk away, and if he tried to reminisce, you’d walk away. 

You two were in different tenses, but neither of you ever wanted to acknowledge the present. 

The present, where the last time you two had a date night was five months ago, and the last time he made love to you—properly, not just a quick fuck or a sloppy blowjob—but the last time he was intimate with you, was also five months ago. The present you and Mingyu shared looked like a foreshadowing of a hollow future. You let out a frustrated groan. 

You and Mingyu had to talk if you wanted to save whatever you two had, but why did it feel like a part of you had already let go?

“Sweetie, the wine may have made me too bold, and I apologise for overstepping. Your relationship is none of my business,” your mother apologised for the fifth time that day, and the most recent apology was in the car on the way to the train station. 

“It’s fine. I guess you’re not wrong. You did give me a lot to think about. I got defensive because I’ve felt distant from him, we’ve both not had the time, and I guess I felt like you were calling me out when I know that’s not the case,” you admitted, and your mother gave you a soft smile before turning back to look at the road. 

“It’s like a bandaid; maybe he feels the same, and a talk will help, but keeping it in your head, where your demons lie, that’s the worst, so just rip it off and let the wound heal with time,” your mother said wisely making you smile. 

“If anything goes wrong, I’m always a safe place for you to come home to,” your mother added, and you nodded at her, thanking her profusely as you hugged her goodbye. While you appreciated her offer, you did not want to be back here sobbing and seeking refuge in a week. 

 You shook your head, trying to free yourself of the thoughts taking over your mind, taunting you, that you and Mingyu were destined to end. 

You two would be fine; you both survived high school and university and would continue to do so in the long run, but one question kept plaguing your mind. 

Why was the main aim to survive? 

Why wasn’t it to rekindle the flame? 

Why did it feel so desperate, and why did he feel so far away? ~~ Warning Signs  ~~

It felt weird. That’s the first thing you noted the minute you placed your hand on the doorknob of your apartment. You usually didn’t notice such insignificant details, but the doorknob felt cold.

Was it a preemptive sign that you’d be greeted with coldness from Mingyu? 

Or was it the frost that had settled over your relationship that made everything you touched feel cold?

You drew in a deep breath for courage, something to face him. You knew him forever and didn’t know where the sudden apprehension came from. Why did it all feel so difficult? 

“Baby!” You were greeted with Mingyu yelling. His arms moved to wrap around your waist and carried you as he planted a soft kiss on your lips. 

“Missed you,” Mingyu mumbled against your lips, making you smile, but that moment was short-lived when you saw the state of the house. 

“What’s wrong? I know I didn’t do anything, considering you just walked in?” Mingyu joked, placing you down on the floor. 

“The house is a state. You knew I was coming home today. Why is it such a mess?” You complained, and Mingyu frowned, following you into the living room. 

“Why don’t you nap, and I’ll clean up?” Mingyu offered, and you shook your head. 

“How would I sleep if you’re cleaning up? It’d be noisy, jeez, Mingyu. You know it’s not rocket science to keep a household together,” you nagged, making him frown at you. 

“Why are you like this? You just walked into the house and started bitching, I thought you’d update me about how the trip was, but instead, you’re here kicking up a fuss,” Mingyu threw back, and you rolled your eyes at him. 

“A fuss? Mingyu, there’s nothing to update. All I got was the third degree about why my boyfriend of ten years can’t commit to anything more. Coming home, I realised her concerns were warranted because you’re still that kid, Mingyu. You wanted to be composed and strong, but even vocalising a future without him hurt you. You need to grow up because I don’t know how long I can keep doing this,” your voice faltered at your last words. 

“Wow, why don’t you tell me how you feel?” Mingyu mocked sarcastically, and you knew what he was doing. He was using his pride to cover his hurt, and you hated this quality of his. It made him annoying and standoffish. 

“I’m so over this. When you want to grow up and have a conversation like an adult, find me, but I’m taking a nap, and once I’m done, I’ll clean up; don’t bother helping. I’m used to cleaning up your messes for you,” you spat, knowing your words hit Mingyu hard. There is so much venom lacing your comments, piercing Mingyu’s heart. 

“The bedroom, you should sleep in the guest room. It’s a mess in our bedroom,” Mingyu mumbled, and you rolled your eyes at him, scoffing. 

“Of course it fucking is. What in this house isn’t a mess?” You asked, making Mingyu look down to the ground. You knew you had gone too far, but you had to make him hear you, and sadly, he only heard you when you were like this. 

“Whatever, I’m going to take a nap,” you mumbled, not having the energy to fight any longer as sleep started seeping into your bones. 

You awoke a couple feeling extraordinarily guilty and groggy, but Mingyu should have known better. You never needed the house to look perfect, but it should have been clean. Or livable, like adults.  

You groaned, deciding to get out of bed and shower before starting the housework. At least it’d wake you up a bit. Since you were in the guestroom, you couldn’t find anything else to wear except one of Mingyu’s oversized shirts, and while you wanted to be petty and not put on anything that resembled him, you knew you were taking it too far. 

You sighed, putting on his shirt, smiling at you wrapped up in his clothes, taking in his scent. You never told him, but it always felt like he hugged you tightly, keeping you safe whenever you wore his clothes. They were like a security blanket, one you needed desperately because the owner of the clothes lately gave you no assurance about the relationship. 

“Mingyu?” You spoke as you stepped out into the hallway and walked into the living room. It was neat, clean, and tidy, and you immediately felt guilty. Mingyu didn’t deserve your harsh words; he would eventually get the job done, but that’s the problem. It was inevitable, and you didn’t know if you could wait any longer. 

You walked towards your shared bedroom to find Mingyu fluffing the pillows and jumping slightly when you touched his back, startling him. 

“Sorry, you woke up early, nearly done,” Mingyu rambled, and your heart broke when you heard his voice crack and took in his swollen, red eyes and puffy nose. 

“Baby,” you cooed, and Mingyu glared at you, jerking away from your touch. 

“Don’t call me that. I’m not a fucking kid,” Mingyu spat as he threw the pillow onto the bed and walked over to his side of the bed and sat down, and you crawled onto the bed and sat between his thighs, making him look at you.

“I’m so sorry, I was frustrated,” you apologised, and Mingyu scoffed. 

“You used all my insecurities, our past, and the fights we’ve had against me, and that sucked. You called me a kid. You insinuated that I couldn’t keep a household together when I’ve fought tirelessly for us for the past ten years,” Mingyu exclaimed in annoyance, his words making you snap. 

“No, you didn’t fight for us; you fought just to have the idea of us, but you got comfortable, but that’s all you’ve ever done. You’ve never taken the next step,” you cried out, and Mingyu groaned. 

“You’re insane. I fought, kept up with your life, adjusted mine, and did all that because I love you, but I don’t know what else to do because clearly, nothing I do is enough for you,” Mingyu answered, his voice getting softer. 

“You’re right, you did, but you stopped and got comfortable fuck, Mingyu. I don’t know if you see a future with me. You’ve given me no indication,” you started to say, earning a glare from Mingyu. 

“What do you want me to propose?” Mingyu asked, making you glare at him. 

“Not like this, and not because I forced you,” you added, and Mingyu groaned, getting off the bed and fiddling around in the drawer next to you. 

“I was going to do it tonight,” Mingyu admitted calmly as he tossed a black velvet box onto the bed. 

“What?” You asked, and Mingyu rolled his eyes at your confused expression. 

“I was going to give you forever tonight, but you never fucking wait, do you? You always rush into the future without caring for what you leave behind. You’ve been five steps ahead of me for so long, and forgive me if I slipped up somewhere along the way, but I got tired of running after you when you’re so ready to let go of me,” Mingyu answered tearfully. 

Mingyu plopped down on the bed, his back to you, his head hanging low. You could hear him take in shuddered breaths, and your heart broke because you knew you had hurt him this time. 

“Mingyu,” you started to say, moving simultaneously to place a hand on his shoulder, making him look at you with teary eyes as he turned around to sit on the edge of the bed to face you. 

“I know I’m not everything you want in a partner. I just thought our love would be stronger. That it would conquer everything, that you’d love me harder than our problems? I know I did, but I guess that’s how immature I am because I guess that’s not reality,” Mingyu lamented, and even though you knew his words could be misconstrued to hurt you, that wasn’t the case. He was thinking out loud. 

“Mingyu,” you repeated, making him sigh as he moved back to sit against the headboard, patting the space between his thighs again. This time, you moved to sit between them quickly, your hands moving to pull him into a tight embrace.

“I’m so sorry,” you mumbled into Mingyu’s hair as you patted his back, moving as he cried into the embrace. 

“For what?” Mingyu mumbled, his voice thick with emotion. 

“For ruining a proposal?” Mingyu asked, letting out a dry laugh as he pulled away from the embrace, wiping his tears away and staring at you. 

“You didn’t. I guess this fight was bound to happen fuck. I knew we were falling apart, but I foolishly thought that if I ignored our problems or loved you harder, then it’d be okay, we’d be okay,” Mingyu admitted, placing a hand on your cheek and wiping away a tear. You hadn’t realised you were crying until he wiped away the tears. 

“But I only did one thing. I only ignored our problems, and I know I only ignored you. I love you more than life, but I failed to show you how much, and now I’m hoping that a shiny ring will fix it all, and I know it won’t,” Mingyu continued to speak, taking a deep breath before speaking. 

“I’ve used up all my good graces, that I’m sure of, but can we try? One more time? Please? I don’t think I can let you go, not yet. I don’t think I can ever let you go, but if you give me one more chance, my love. I’ll try, and if it’s over, I’ll let you go. Don’t give up on me,” Mingyu begged, and you nodded. 

“Mingyu, I’m so sorry. I should have conveyed my feelings to you in a healthier manner instead of simply yelling. Everything I heard from my mum this weekend was in my mind, and I couldn’t get it out. I just kept going over it, again and again, and I hated it, and I guess I just took it out all on you, and I’m so sorry,” you apologised, cradling his face in your hands. 

“No, it’s okay. I think we both saw this fight coming. I guess it’s easier to rip off the bandaid?” Mingyu joked, a sad smile adorning his handsome face. 

“I just felt so far away from you, so distant, and I guess when everyone questioned me about the integrity of my relationship. It just annoyed me, and instead of talking to you, I lashed out, and I’m sorry for that,” you apologised, meaning every word. 

“I love you; I do. I know I haven’t been good at showing it, fuck, our last date was five months ago,” Mingyu started to say, and you knew he’d begin to spiral if you didn’t shut him up in the best way you knew. 

“Mingyu,” you said softly, making him look at you as you inched closer and crawled onto his lap, his hands naturally finding your waist. 

“We’ll talk, and we’ll be okay,” you encouraged before placing your lips onto his, making him melt into your touch. His hand moved from your waist to rest on the hem of your shit, well, his shirt, but he didn’t care.

“Fuck,” Mingyu groaned as you moved your lips away from his to latch onto his neck, kissing the soft skin, gently nipping it, leaving faint marks, and running your tongue over the spots you bit. 

“Baby, if you keep doing that,” Mingyu started to say as you pulled away from his neck to peel the shirt off your body, leaving you in your underwear. 

“I know we have a lot to talk about, and sex isn’t going to fix anything, but I do, for once, want to feel close to you again. I want to be loved by you,” you admitted, and Mingyu nodded, understanding what you meant as he got off the bed and peeled off his clothes. 

“You’re so fucking hot,” you blurted out, making Mingyu laugh. 

“Ten years and you still think I’m hot?” Mingyu asked, and you smiled fondly at him. 

“You’re always the most handsome man to me, doesn’t matter how many years,” you admitted, making Mingyu smile at you. 

“Lie down on your back, princess. I need to show you just how much I love you,” Mingyu instructed, and you nodded, quickly adjusting yourself until you were lying down on the bed, head on the pillow, making Mingyu grin at you as he crawled between your legs. 

Mingyu leaned forward, wrapping his lip around your nipple while his other hand massaged your other breast. Mingyu moved his mouth to your other breast and flicked and licked your nipples until they were hard. 

Mingyu gave them a final flick, earning a whimper from you.  “Oh, the sounds you make for me. I like them,” Mingyu praised as he reached for your panties. Mingyu pulled them off and threw them across the room. Mingyu rolled his eyes and parted your legs, and placed a soft kiss on your clit, making you buck your hips into his mouth. 

Mingyu ran his tongue along your slit. He wrapped his arms around your thighs, interlocking them at your stomach. Mingyu smirked against your pussy, knowing that he could eat you out for ages in this position, and you wouldn’t be able to move, and all you could do was fall apart on his tongue repeatedly.

This is precisely what Mingyu intended to do as he flicked your clit with his tongue, then wrapped his mouth around your clit, his tongue tracing circles along the swollen nub. Mingyu kept licking you, his pace never faltering, and his rhythm never changing. 

“Fucking hell,” you moaned as you threw your head back in pleasure. 

“So good,” you praised, making Mingyu smirk, continuing his movements, making you shake in his grip. 

“Mingyu,” you cried out in pleasure as you fell apart on his tongue, but Mingyu didn’t stop just because you came. He kept going, sucking on your clit as you rode your orgasm on his tongue. 

“Fuck, Mingyu,” you whimpered as he kept licking you, you were sure you were wailing, but you didn’t care. 

Not when you were on the precipice of your second orgasm. Your second orgasm hit you harder, and your hands moved to his head as you gently pushed his mouth away from your cunt. Mingyu smiled at you, taking in your fucked out expression.

You sat up abruptly, reaching out to touch his hard cock, but Mingyu stopped you. 

“Not tonight. I need to feel you, my love,” he said as he took his cock in his hands and moved to line it up along your pussy. 

“Fuck,” you gasped out as he entered you. It had been, so you two had sex, so the stretch was a slight shock but one you’d gladly welcome.  “Baby, you’re so tight, fuck,” Mingyu hissed as he pushed in further, making you clench around him immediately. You moaned as Mingyu bent down to pull you into a kiss as he started to thrust into you. 

You groaned and babbled nonsense as Mingyu pounded into you, moving his hand down to rub your clit as he fucked you. 

“Fuck,” you choked out, holding onto his toned arms. 

“Cum, pretty girl,” Mingyu encouraged as his fingers moved faster against your clit, making you shake and tighten on his cock. 

You held onto his muscular arms, “cum, baby,” Mingyu spoke breathlessly, making you shake and tighten around him. It felt incredible, making Mingyu groan as you came around him. 

“Fuck, fuck,” Mingyu chanted as he pounded into you, groaning as he buried his head between your breasts as he came. Mingyu placed a soft kiss on your lips, slowly pulling out of you. 

“That was amazing,” you muttered. Mingyu smiled as he laid down next to you and pulled you into his toned chest,

“I’m not saying this to avoid anything, but I know I skipped every step to make things right,” Mingyu said, pulling away gently from you.  

“Look, you’ve had a long journey home and a shitty welcome back. I ordered dinner. It should be here soon. Help yourself. Why don’t we chat tomorrow?” Mingyu offered, and you nodded at him. 

Mingyu smiled softly as he moved closer to you and kissed your forehead softly. 

“We’ll be okay,” he said with a smile, except you didn’t know if you could believe him. 

Despite the mind-blowing sex, you had just opened a bandaid that held in ten years of hurt. 

Now it was open. You would have to feel every burn and sting before you two could heal, and what if that wound was too far gone to recover?

 What if there was no saving you two?

~~ You Were My Crown  ~~

“Morning,” you mumbled to Mingyu the following day when he walked into the kitchen, hair wet, fresh out of the shower, handsome as always. 

“Hey,” Mingyu replied, walking over to kiss your forehead, smiling fondly at you as he sighed, sitting down on one of the counters by the kitchen island. 

“So, I was thinking that after last night, as amazing as it was, we should talk,” Mingyu said, and you pouted, nodding. 

While you did want to just bask in the bliss and romance of last night with him, you knew if you kept pushing your feelings down, then there would be no saving you two, so you decided to sit across from him, making him grin as he placed a business card on your lap. 

“A divorce attorney? Hate to break to you, but we aren’t married,” you joked as you picked up the card. 

“Oh, couples counselling?” You said aloud, reading the card, and Mingyu nodded at you. 

“I got this from one of my Hyung. They said that when they were about almost to call it quits with their partner, they went here, and even if it was painful and made them feel vulnerable, it’s the only thing that kept them together,” Mingyu explained, placing a hand on your knee. 

“You think we’re that far gone that we need professional help?” You asked with a dry laugh, and Mingyu shrugged. 

“I don’t think we’re too far gone, but we’ve been together for so many years that I don’t think it’d be too shocking if we’re both holding in a lot and not being straight up with each other, at times and I don’t want what happened last night to happen again. I don’t want us holding things in and exploding,” Mingyu answered calmly. 

“Even if the sex was amazing,” Mingyu added, making you smile at him. 

“Okay, shall we sort out an appointment or what?” You asked, making Mingyu smile sheepishly at you. 

“I kind of already sorted a slot out for us. They open early. They got us a slot today at 4 pm. Is that okay?” Mingyu asked, and you nodded at him. 

“Should I take it as a good sign that you’re so eager to fix us? Or a bad sign that you’re so ready to vent about me?” You joked, making Mingyu pout at you. 

“A good sign; I love you so much, and I’ll be damned if I let you go without a fight,” Mingyu answered. 

“Let me go?” You repeated.

“I mean if you want out and realise you deserve better after all this, I guess I’ll let you go,” Mingyu mumbled, unable to look at you. His answering, albeit genuine, made you scoff at him. 

“Wow, nice to see your resignation already,” you muttered, making Mingyu sigh deeply. 

“I’m not giving up, but tell me you don’t already have one foot out the door?” Mingyu asked, making you baulk at him. 

“Why would you even think that?” You asked, and Mingyu rolled his eyes at you, letting out a humourless chuckle. 

“You weren’t here, but a gift hamper did arrive from your boss, and while I never snoop, the card was stuck on the hamper. It was a card nudging you to take the plunge and be a manager. Across the world. Might I add? When were you going to tell me?” Mingyu asked, and you sighed. 

“You said you didn’t want to hear about work at home, remember?” You fired back, and Mingyu groaned. 

“I told you that five months ago when I had just lost my job, I wanted you to be able to speak to me. I don’t want surprises like that,” Mingyu gritted, and you sighed. 

“So I’m meant to be able to read your mind?” You asked, and Mingyu shook his head. 

“It’d be so much easier, wouldn’t it? You never give me a warning ever. You just fucking blindside me, you did this with this apartment, and you did it with this possible promotion,” Mingyu fumed, making you blink at him. 

“Look, can we just save this for the therapist?” Mingyu said, inhaling deeply, and you nodded at him, unable to speak. 

The apartment? You thought to yourself. Mingyu was elated when you brandished the new keys three years ago. Just how much had he held in, and for how long? 

You were ignoring Mingyu for the rest of the day. Even when he came to get you to go to the therapist’s office, you glared at him, ignoring his outstretched hand, walked past him to your car and waited impatiently for him to get in so you could drive to the therapist’s office. 

“Can you at least wait for me to put my seatbelt on? Before you start driving?” Mingyu asked sarcastically, annoyance lacing his words. 

“Not my fault you’re fucking slow,” you bit back. You weren’t even sure what you were mad about, the fact that the gift ambushed him and didn’t give you a chance to explain. You felt guilty, and instead of speaking to him about that, you thought it’d be best to mask your hurt with insults. 

“So, fucking slow,” Mingyu muttered, buckling himself in, and you started to drive once he was safely fastened. 

“So, fucking slow, I’m always behind, aren’t I? I never know what you’re up to, or maybe that’s because you’re too fast,” Mingyu spat out in annoyance. 

“I waited for you to put your seatbelt on, right?” You retorted weakly, making Mingyu scoff at you. 

“That’s the only time you’ve waited for me, and if killing me wasn’t a crime, then I’m sure you would have driven off without a care for me,” Mingyu fumed, making you cower in your seat.

Is that what he thought of you? 

You tried not to let it show. You tried not to let the hurt show, but you couldn’t hold it in once you were in the parking lot of the therapist’s office. 

“We can get out, you know?” Mingyu sassed, earning a choked sob from you. 

“Is that what you think of me? I’m so busy trying to move ahead that I’d leave you for dead?” You asked, staring at Mingyu; your eyes blurred with tears, and your heart ached at Mingyu’s words. 

“Y/N, I’m sorry, I just fuck. I got frustrated,” Mingyu started to say, earning a glare from you.

“I get frustrated too, and you know, especially with you and our situation, but I have never once wished that you were dead. I wish we’d stop fighting and we were on the same page, sure, but dead? Fuck you, Mingyu,” you cried out, making Mingyu frown as he reached over to undo your seatbelt and pulled you across the console onto his lap. 

“I hate that you even could think of that. How could you think I would even want you dead?” You asked, smacking your fists childishly against his chest, making him pout as he took your hands into his. 

“I’m sorry, I am. I did misspeak. In some shitty way, I feel like if you do ever leave me, then it sure as shit will feel like death,” Mingyu admitted making you frown. 

“Why are you so hell-bent on the idea that I will leave you?” You asked, annoyed at his rhetoric, that you’d leave him. 

“I don’t know. After last night, the way you lost it, I don’t blame you, but damn, can you blame me. As I said, the way you reacted last night hurt. While I’m not shocked, I can’t deny that it hurt, but that wasn’t an excuse for what I said,” Mingyu answered, and you nodded at him. 

“You’re damn right it wasn’t,” you choked out, making Mingyu smile softly at you. 

“How’s this when the therapist asks what my downfalls are? I’ll explain that I’m not great at filtering my thoughts?” Mingyu offered, cradling your face, and you pouted, nodding at him. 

“No, that’s unnecessary, just don’t say stupid shit like that,” you pouted, and Mingyu nodded, kissing your lips. 

“I won’t, I promise. Now shall we go before someone thinks that we’re fucking in the car?” Mingyu asked, a smile creeping onto his handsome face, and you nodded, giggling at him. 

“Would that be so bad?” You teased, and Mingyu smiled as he pulled you in for a kiss. 

“No, it wouldn’t, but our appointment is in ten minutes, so shall we?” Mingyu asked, and you nodded, placing a final kiss on his lips. 

“Let’s go,” Mingyu said, sneaking another kiss as you finally climbed out of the car. 

“Please make yourselves comfortable, and Doctor Kwan will be out to see you both in a minute,” the receptionist at the therapist’s office instructed you and Mingyu, and you both nodded before plopping onto the sofa. 

“This is so oddly comforting. I mean, the room, I thought it’d be like a doctor’s office, but it has a sofa and tissues and flowers on the wall,” you rambled nervously. 

“Yeah, I guess therapists want you to be comfortable, especially when you’re about to be very vulnerable for them,” Mingyu offered lamely, unable to come up with a proper answer. You saw him fidgeting and took his hands in yours. 

“Breathe. We’re here to work on ourselves. We’re going to be okay,” you said calmly, not entirely sure if what you said was a lie, but right now, you didn’t care if you had to lie to him. He was too jumpy.

“Mr & Mrs Kim, please accept my apologies. I just wanted to prepare the notes before we begin our session,” Dr. Kwan said as he sat across you two. 

“Well, you might want to apologise again. We aren’t married,” Mingyu said with a smile, but his voice had no real humour. You were prepared to ignore Mingyu’s quip until you saw him shoot a glare in your direction. 

“Oh, but we would have been, but tell me, Dr Kwan, am I meant to say yes when someone tosses a ring at me?” You shot back, and Mingyu scoffed, letting go of your hand and sinking into the couch. 

“We need your help because nothing I do is ever enough for her,” Mingyu spat out, making you groan. 

“Well, good to know what I’m walking into, Mr Kim. I should tell you that I most certainly knew you weren’t married. Often, couples hide their pain from their therapists, pretend it’s all good, and then tear each other apart behind closed doors. It was, hmm, call it a trick? This way, I can understand how temperamental and fragile this situation and I can provide and facilitate a safe space for you, too,” Dr Kwan explained, making Mingyu glare at him. 

“So, you made me insult my girlfriend for science?” Mingyu mocked, and you sighed. 

“No, he just pushed a button that I’d push, and you’d do the same behind closed doors, too, so instead of embarrassing me further, can you please shut up and let him work?” You asked curtly.  

“Okay, let me set a few ground rules before I get to work,” Dr Kwan started to say as Mingyu shot you a sad look. You immediately felt bad for snapping at him, but you couldn’t forget how ridiculous he was. 

 “Y/N, is it okay to address you by your first name?” Dr Kwan asked. You nodded.

“Mr Kim, is it okay to address you as Mingyu?” Dr Kwan asked, looking at Mingyu, and he hummed in response. 

“Perfect,” Dr Kwan said, leaning back. 

“As I was saying, rules. While I’m giving you guys a safe space to work things through, you must also be committed to ensuring this space stays safe. I appreciate anger, annoyance and frustration, but snarky, underhanded digs will not be tolerated or helped. Telling the other to shut up won’t help either. You can disagree and provide your perspective, but you will not interrupt or ignore each other and talk over one another. Can we agree to that?” Dr Kwan asked, staring at you both, and you nodded immediately.

“Good, now, let’s start. What made you fall in love with Mingyu?” Dr Kwan asked, immediately jumping into the session. You found it a little unorthodox but liked that he didn’t waste time with small talk. 

“We started dating in high school, months before graduation. He was a kind guy, and while he could have fit the bill of a stereotypical jock, he didn’t. He was humble, kind and grounded. I guess he was a jock with a heart,” you smiled softly, recalling that Mingyu was indeed just that. 

“He and I were paired up for a project, and I guess after we got our grades, I gave him a big hug, and somehow that hug turned into a kiss, and I guess, ten years later, here we are, in therapy,” your sweet tone fading and turning into a biter tone as you looked at the floor. 

“See, this is what she does, thinks of something nice and then fucks it up by following it up with some realistic bullshit. You were doing so well just reminiscing, and you couldn’t just stick to it?” Mingyu asked, his voice rising. 

“Another rule, no yelling,” Dr Kwan warned, making Mingyu groan. 

“She never lets us be happy long enough. She must always bring up something that kills the moment,” Mingyu added bitterly. 

“Then why are you with me if I’m such a killjoy?” you taunted, making Mingyu wipe away a tear. 

“Because I fucking love you because you’re so amazing and sure you’re persistent. The need to always think about the future is a pain. But I’m okay with it because I assumed I was part of that future, but I’m not sure if I still am recently,” Mingyu mumbled, making you groan. 

“You two need to hit reset. There’s a lot here, I want to see you both separately and together, but I need you two to try something for now. Throughout therapy, we will uncover a lot, a lot of love that you two have for each other, but we will also uncover a lot of pain and hurt, and I don’t want either of you not to have a space to cry it out, so can I suggest that for the next three months, we try something?” Dr Kwan offered, and you both nodded. 

“Anything to save us,” Mingyu mumbled, and you scooched over closer to him, placing your hand on his thigh, making him smile sweetly at you. 

“Ten years is a long time, and sometimes, you become accustomed to each other, which is wonderful, but it also means you hold in a lot. Anger, resentment and hurt, but because you’ve been together so long, you often suppress these emotions and hope they’ll go away, but they don’t. Instead, they linger like bad perfume, and it gets too much, and that’s where you two are now. I can see you are trying your best to hold onto the relationship, but you’re also scared, to be honest, for fear that it’ll go away, so here’s what I suggest,” Dr Kwan explained, pausing to take a sip of his water. 

“So, here’s what I propose, separate bedrooms for the next three months. You two can talk and kiss and be cuddly, but no sex because sex, as good as it may be, undoes a lot of the work, so if you two slip up, I won’t be mad, but it’s more work on your end. This process will take a lot out of you both, therapy, and it’s going to be new adjusting to a new dynamic, but it’s to allow you both a safe space to vent and to be you two have been with each other you’ve lost yourselves along the way, it’s time to find what you two are as individuals before you two can be a couple again,”

 “We never broke up. You know that, right?” Mingyu said, glaring at Dr. Kwan. 

“I’m aware, but you two are also just holding on, and I’m guessing that’s not enough?” Dr Kwan challenged, and Mingyu huffed out. 

“So, what we move out? Or one of us does?” Mingyu asked, continuing to glare at Dr. Kwan. 

“We have three bedrooms; we can just separate our stuff. We can each move into one of them for now,” you suggested, placing a hand on Mingyu’s thigh and making him look at you with sad eyes. 

“I just, I get that this is therapy, but why does it feel like you’re making us break up before we even have a chance,” Mingyu answered sadly, making you smile softly at him. 

“I’m telling you two to hit reset. You both need a fresh start, not away from each other, but you two need a break,” Dr Kwan answered softly, and Mingyu sighed, nodding. 

 “It’s three months, and we will evaluate every week. Is that good?” Dr. Kwan asked, and you nodded, noticing that Mingyu nodded slowly. 

“Three months, and we’ll be, okay?” Mingyu asked, turning to face you. 

“Yeah, we will,” you answered, unsure if you two would be, but you had to try.  

You had to try for him. 

For you.  ~~ I’m Not Your Problem Anymore  ~~

“So, that went well?” Mingyu said slowly, making you roll your eyes at his words as you kept driving. 

“The digs, the underhanded comments, you think that went well?” You asked, and Mingyu frowned. 

“You weren’t exactly a saint either,” Mingyu mumbled, and you sighed deeply. 

“Can we deal with this once we get home? I don’t fancy fighting while I’m driving,” you asked, and Mingyu hummed in response as he stared out the window, trying to pinpoint where it all went wrong. 

“Talk,” Mingyu practically demanded the minute you shut the front door behind you. 

“Why the hell are you speaking to me like that?” You asked, and Mingyu groaned as he kicked off his shoes before sitting on the couch. 

 “You said some shitty things, and while I admit so did I, you acted like a child,” you started to say, stopping when you saw Mingyu’s hardened expression. 

“What is it with you calling me a child? May I remind you that we’re the same age?” Mingyu asked, glaring at you. 

“Then act like a fucking adult, you don’t talk, you lash out, and you just hope that love fixes everything, but it doesn’t. It’s not enough to keep two people together when they’re breaking apart,” you exclaimed, frustrated at yourself for being unable to maintain your calm and at him for never being realistic. 

“You always said that love will keep us together, that our love was stronger than anything out there. What happened to that girl? What happened to the girl who made wishes upon stars, kissed me goodnight, and hugged me whenever I was down? I fell in love with her,” Mingyu lamented, making your heart drop. 

“So, you don’t love me anymore?” You whispered, afraid of his answer. 

“I do, my love, but I’m just not sure you do,” Mingyu said, moving to wipe away a tear that fell down your cheek. 

“Why do you keep suggesting that?” You asked, shrugging his touch off, making him pout. 

“Well, you just moved away from my touch, in general, over, I don’t know, the last two years you’ve been in the future, and you’ve left me in the dust; you left me all alone. I mean, hell, I was the happiest when you told me you wanted to move in with me, but you didn’t even bother asking me to view a place. You just got the keys and showed up at my doorstep. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful, but it always felt like you’d cut me out of the process whenever you could,” Mingyu explained, his eyes getting glossy. 

“I know you wouldn’t intentionally make me feel unwanted, but that’s what it felt like. I felt like an understudy, waiting in the wings for you to consider my opinion,” Mingyu said. 

“I didn’t know,” you said lamely, and Mingyu nodded. 

“You wouldn’t, I never told you, and you’re not a mind reader, nor do I expect you to be. It would have been nice to know that you still cared for me even if everything went bad. Hell, the night I lost my job, you just kissed me and told me it’d be alright, and I get it, it’s a hard thing to comfort someone about, but my love, you didn’t even try, and granted, I’m sure there have been moments where I haven’t done my bit. Still, we were the couple that annoyed others with how mushy we were and how much we adored each other. Now it just feels like we tolerate each other,” Mingyu finished standing up, and you stood up and reached for his wrist, making him turn around to look at you. 

“Can you not walk away?” You asked, not a shred of anger in your voice. You just wanted to hear him. 

“I’m not. I am, however, getting some wine because I think we’ll need it,” Mingyu replied, pulling you into his chest and placing the softest kiss on your forehead. 

“Okay, so let’s talk,” you said, not wasting a second as Mingyu returned to the couch with two glasses of wine. 

“You waste no time, do you?” Mingyu asked, chuckling, and you shrugged. 

“I’d rather fix us sooner than later,” you commented, and Mingyu shrugged.

“Don’t good things take time? Besides, this isn’t something you can rush; didn’t you always tell me that patience is a virtue and that all good things take time?” Mingyu mumbled as he sipped his wine, making you glare at him. 

“What is with you and reminding me of everything I once did? Is that what you want? The ‘old’ me? The one you fell in love with ten years ago?” You snapped, making Mingyu frown. 

“You keep missing the point, I don’t yearn for the ‘old’ you, but I yearn for your love. It just seems like you’re putting up with me. I only remember the ‘old’ you because no matter how much we fought, I at least knew that you loved me,” Mingyu mumbled, making you frown at him. 

“Don’t fix it by saying that you love me. I know you do, but I wonder if you’re still in love me because that’s a big difference. I mean, some I know you do, but other days I feel like I’m watching you, unsure if I fit anywhere in your life, but what scares me most is that I’m not so sure I fit in your heart any longer,” Mingyu admitted taking a deep breath, before looking at you with teary eyes. 

“Can you tell me when I’ve hurt you? I’m sure it must have been many times with how you feel, but maybe the most recent example?” You asked, unsure how to respond to the fact that Mingyu poured his heart out to you, and all you could do was make him relive a moment where you had hurt him. 

“Not hearing about the promotion, that sucked, like I had to find out because of a present. Why didn’t you tell me?” Mingyu asked, nothing but hurt and genuine curiosity etching his features. 

“I guess when you told me you didn’t want to hear about work, I just stopped telling you. I didn’t want to make you upset,” you admitted lamely. 

“My love, I got over being let go. If I’m not wrong, I said that once, and a month later, I remember being fine and asking you to tell me about work and the hardships or the bad days at work, but you never did. You decided you wouldn’t share that part of your life with me. While I can understand why you thought I would continue holding a grudge, do you think I’d hold it until it broke us in two?” Mingyu asked, and you shrugged. 

“Would you have taken the job?” Mingyu asked, and you shrugged. 

“I don’t know,” you admitted, and Mingyu nodded at you. 

“Well, for what it’s worth, I’m over it, and if it’s something that’s in the past, I’m okay never to bring it up again,” Mingyu offered, and you smiled at him. 

“I’d like that a lot,” you answered. 

“I acted out of line with what I said in the car, and you’re right. I did act like a kid at the therapist’s office, but it’s just when it comes to the idea of possibly even losing you? Then my ability to think straight and act rationally goes to shit because there’s nothing rational about love, but you find that balance, and I’m willing to work on myself but wait for me? While I try and catch up?” Mingyu asked, making your lips tremble, and your tears fall. 

“I think for so long,” you started to say, pausing to wipe your tears away. 

“For so long, I thought you didn’t care. I thought you got comfortable, wanted to leave, or be comfortable enough to stay but not be with me. So I kept pushing on with my life because I didn’t think you wanted me to be in your future,” you admitted, staring into the wine glass. 

“Y/N, you and I. I guess we’ve both been living in different tenses. I’ve been too busy reminiscing our past, and you’ve been running into the future. It’s left our present a fucking shit show,” Mingyu observed, making you giggle at his description. 

“Let’s try? I want you to have the most amazing future, but can I ask you to slow down? Ever so slightly? To let me find my footing. I want to catch up with you so we can have a future. Together?” Mingyu asked, pulling you closer to him. 

“I can, and I’m sorry,” you apologised, and Mingyu shook his head. 

“It’s okay, from here on out, what we’ve both done, it’s forgotten and forgiven these next three months. Let us make a real go at this? At fixing us?” Mingyu asked, and you smiled in agreement. 

Mingyu grinned, pulling you into the softest kiss ever. 

“I know we are meant to separate rooms and all that, but can I just have you in my arms tonight?” Mingyu asked, kissing your forehead, and you nodded at him. 

You agreed because you didn’t know what the next three months would bring about, so for tonight, you just wanted to lay in his arms and forget the hurt and the reality because you’d never admit it like Mingyu would. Still, the thought of living in a world where he was no longer yours was enough to make you break your heart into a million pieces. 

“We’ll be okay,” you mumbled into Mingyu’s chest as he held you, and he responded with a kiss on your forehead. 

You frowned into the embrace. You just hoped it would come true if you said something repeatedly. 

If you kept saying that you and Mingyu would be okay, you would be.  ~~ Balancing on Breaking Branches ~~

“Moving day, huh?” Mingyu joked, making you grin slightly at him. 

“Barely, we’re just diving up rooms and our stuff. It’s just three months,” you answered as you walked over to your closet and mentally sorted out what articles you wanted to take.

“Actually, you can just stay in this room. Besides, I don’t have much stuff anyway, just some clothes and my computer has always been in a separate room,” Mingyu offered, and you smiled at him. 

“Thanks, it’d be a nightmare if you made me move all my things out,” you laughed, making Mingyu smile. 

“Besides, it’s all temporary, three months, and I’m back to cuddling you every night and sleeping,” Mingyu smiled. 

“What are you smiling about?” You asked Mingyu as he grinned to himself, looking around the room. 

“Just kind of thinking how we broke into this room and every other room and surface in this apartment,” Mingyu said casually, a blush creeping onto his face as he recalled the memories, making you smile shyly. 

“Sex in every corner of the house. I still can’t believe we did it in a storage closet, of all things,” you recalled, smiling but shaking your head at how you and Mingyu had really come through on the idea of breaking into every part of the house. 

“But the sex was pretty good, wasn’t it? A tighter space meant that I had to hold you closer to me and fuck you harder,” Mingyu teased, his voice low, dangerous and teasing. 

“Mingyu,” you warned, unable to keep the smile off your face, as you moved away from the closet and sat on the bed. 

“Besides, I’m just recalling fond memories, especially when we have a sex ban placed on us for three months,” Mingyu explained with a pout, making you smile. 

“Anyways, do you know where I keep my phone charger? I usually use yours, so,” Mingyu trailed off, and you nodded at him, knowing that he never bothered because you were always there, and it just wouldn’t be the same for the next three months. 

“Yeah, this drawer,” you gestured to the bedside table beside you. Mingyu nodded, rummaging through the drawer, and you noticed he kept searching for a while. 

“Did you not find your charger?” You asked, turning to face him, your eyes widening when you saw what he held in his hand. 

“Mingyu,” you started to say, making him smirk at you.

“Is that what I think it is?” Mingyu asked, and you groaned, cursing yourself. Mingyu walked over and grabbed the device. 

“A vibrator in plain sight?” Mingyu teased.

 “Can you give it back?” You groaned, and Mingyu grinned at you.

“Is this the one we bought and took with us on our trip to Bali? Where you couldn’t get enough of me?” You gulped, and you felt your mouth water.

“Not my fault you were shirtless for the entire trip. It’s hard to behave when you look like that,” you huffed out as Mingyu walked back to the bed with the vibrator in his hand. 

“So I’m hot?” Mingyu asked with a smirk. 

“You know you are,” you mumbled, and you knew you were about to undo all the therapist’s work with your one movement, but you couldn’t help yourself. 

Not when Mingyu was looking at you like that, wetting his lips as he caressed the vibrator in his hand. 

“Oh, do I?” Mingyu asked, making you glare. 

Instead of answering, you grabbed him by his shirt, pulling him into you. Mingyu pulled you into a kiss and pushed you down, one hand moving to your jeans and undoing them. 

You kicked off your jeans and panties, and Mingyu’s knuckles met with your wet folds.

“You’re soaking wet,” Mingyu muttered against your lips, and you nodded.

“Wait,” Mingyu instructed as he pulled your shirt off, 

“Beautiful,” he praised as he took in your nude state. 

“Pretty,” Mingyu muttered, moving his mouth along your body as he ran the vibrator along your folds. 

“Fuck,” you hissed as the cold metal touched your swollen cunt. Mingyu pushed two fingers into you and switched on the vibrator. You felt your eyes roll back as he started thrusting his fingers in and out of you. While the vibrator constantly pulsated against your clit.

 “Fucking hell,” you groaned, grabbing his muscular forearm. 

“Good girl, you take my fingers so well,” Mingyu moaned, praising you as you fell apart under his touch. You let out whimpers, biting your lips to stop yourself from screaming in pleasure. 

“Fuck,” you groaned, and Mingyu smirked at you, pulling his fingers out of you and bringing them to his lips. 

“Can’t we just, I guess, call that goodbye sex? Or something,” Mingyu asked as he stared at your fucked out expression.

“We could, but I think we need to tell our therapist,” you breathed, making him pout, “as good as that felt, we just took a few steps back,” you added, making Mingyu sigh as he leaned over to kiss you. 

“Three months, and we’ll be okay,” Mingyu claimed before placing another kiss on your lips. 

“This is just a little mistake. You wanted to honour his wish, but you also knew that lying would do you two no good. No need to tell the therapist,” Mingyu repeated, making you nod slowly at him. 

So, you did what was right. 

“Okay, Y/N, what you did wasn’t odd or unusual. Maybe couples slip up, especially when it comes to sex and trying not to have it, and I get it. You two have been together for ages. Giving up sex isn’t easy, nor exactly is it meant to be,” Dr Kwan clarified, but you couldn’t help but feel like you were undoing everything. 

“You’re human. It’s normal to slip up, but being honest and working from that is important,” Dr Kwan added. You nodded. 

“Well, still, I’m sorry,” you apologised, making Mingyu scoff. 

“You kissed me; may I remind you that? So, stop acting like you’re wronged or something. You make me sound like a dick,” Mingyu spat out, and you were about to respond when Dr. Kwan cleared his throat, stopping you. 

“Well, Mingyu, you might have just given us the material for our first session. When do you two think it all went wrong? Between you both? Mingyu, I’d like to hear from you, and then you, Y/N,” Dr. Kwan suggested.

“Y/N’s been gifted, so good at everything she does, and I guess I’ve gone with the flow, but being an adult in this unforgiving world, that’s not enough. Not even, and it seemed like every time she was successful or achieved something, it made me feel smaller and like I wasn’t enough,” Mingyu rambled, making you look at him. 

“I know she never did it on purpose, but that’s how I felt, and I guess I stopped trying to be better for her because it always seemed like she was too far away for me to catch up to, and so I was just happy being in her life, as a spectator,” Mingyu finished letting out a deep exhale. 

“I don’t begrudge her for succeeding. I wished that sometimes she could look away from the blinding lights of success to notice me, just for a second at least,” Mingyu added, shrugging. 

“Did you ever wish for her success to go away?” Dr. Kwan asked, and Mingyu shook his head. 

“Never, I only wished that maybe I could do half of what she did, maybe then I’d be enough for her, but I know that’s not what she ever thought, but I internalised her success as a sign of my failures,” Mingyu answered.

“Y/N, is there anything you’d like to add?” Dr. Kwan asked. 

“I don’t know what to say. I didn’t realise he felt like that,” you answered lamely. 

You didn’t realise that Mingyu felt the way he did. He was always so guarded with his response and just quiet and silently supported you no matter what you did.

“I never told her to be fair,” Mingyu interjected, and you sighed at him. 

“I can’t read your mind. How do you expect me to understand if you don’t tell me something?” You asked, and Mingyu stared at you in disbelief. 

“The way I read your mind about a proposal?” Mingyu asked, and you groaned. 

“Okay, you two, we need to hit pause. There’s too much here to not cause a massive fight,” Dr. Kwan said, interrupting you two. 

“She didn’t even tell me that she got an opportunity for a promotion or anything. She keeps so much to herself and then gets mad when I can’t read her mind,” Mingyu added, and you sat in annoyance, but you stayed quiet, knowing that he wasn’t wrong with his judgements. 

“I lost my job five months ago, and since then, she’s never really told me about her success and in her defence, I did tell her not to talk about it, but I know that after a week or so, I told her that it was okay, but she just kept everything to herself,” Mingyu added. 

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” you started to say, turning to face Mingyu.

“I know you said it was okay, but you always put others before you, and I didn’t want to be another reason for you to suppress how you felt,” you explained, placing your hand on his, and he responded in kind, moving his hand to lace them with yours. 

“I see that love is not lost between you two. You need to figure out how to communicate. In a relationship as long as yours, it’s easy to assume that the other party knows or should know. Still, the truth is, all the familiarity and knowledge in the world is never enough to predict how humans will behave,” Dr. Kwan said wisely. 

“I went to visit my mum; the night before, we had a huge fight which led us here; she kept pushing and asking if something was wrong with us because it had been ten years, and there was no proposal. So, I kept trying to diffuse the situation, but unfortunately, her words sowed a seed of insecurity in me. I lost it and snapped at Mingyu, which caused him to reveal the fact that he was going to, in fact, propose to me that night,” you rambled, explaining what you thought was the final breaking point. 

“I see, Y/N. Mingyu, is being married something you two have always wanted to be? Or is that something that you two have never discussed?” Dr. Kwan asked. 

“We discussed it, I think, after our first year together. Mingyu brought it up,” you recalled, smiling at you fondly and starting to explain the memory.  ~~

Nine years ago

“In my defence, their vows were touching, and that’s why I ended up crying like a baby,” Mingyu defended, making you laugh as you wiped his teary eyes and kissed his red nose. 

You both were in the powder room, helping Mingyu look more presentable after he cried his eyes out at your cousin and her husband exchanging their vows. 

“But I also started to imagine, what if it was us up there? One day? Look, I always found weddings boring in the past because I was like fuck this. I’m always watching other people find their ‘happily ever after,’ but I have wanted that for us since you came into my life. Our happily ever after,” Mingyu declared, making you smile at him, your eyes holding but love and fondness for your boyfriend.

“Okay, I know we’re only 19 and legit, maybe way too young to decide the future now, but I know this for sure, regardless of when that moment happens. I just know that there is no one else I want to spend the rest of my life with; only you complete me, and a life without you, well shit, that’s just miserable, isn’t it?” Mingyu spoke, making you swoon at him. 

“How’d I get so lucky?” You asked as you pulled him into a soft kiss, making him smile into the kiss. 

“I think it’s me. I’m the lucky one,” Mingyu mused. 

“How about we’re both lucky?” You added, and Mingyu smiled. 

“Lucky to have found a love like this; yeah, we’re pretty fucking lucky,” Mingyu agreed as he pulled you into another kiss. 

~~

“Huh?” You asked as you felt Mingyu’s fingers on your face and realised he was wiping away your tears. 

“It was so much easier, and I just want that back,” you cried, and Mingyu, out of instinct, moved closer, pulling you in closer to him. 

“Y/N, you two were younger, and the world is kinder to two kids in love than adults in love. Nothing like taxes, societal expectations, or work threatens the tenderness and beauty of love. Still, with patience and dedication to fix the relationship, you can get through it, and it doesn’t seem like Mingyu wants anything else but the same thing as you,” Dr Kwan explained, making you smile through the tears and placing a kiss to Mingyu’s cheek, making him blush. 

“I’ll schedule you two for a week later, but let’s keep up the same routine. No sex and kisses are fine, but keep it to that. When you two filled out the form, I think you mentioned that your first date was at a dive bar? Why don’t you two, over the weekend, go to one, not as a date, but go and maybe rekindle the memories, remind yourselves that the pain of therapy is worth it,” Dr. Kwan suggested, and you both nodded. 

“We can do that,” Mingyu answered, and you smiled at him. 

Maybe this is why you two needed someone to guide you both through all the pain, and today felt like a breakthrough, and perhaps that’s what you both just needed, someone to help you get through the shitty parts to get to the good part. 

You two weren’t broken but bent, and someone needed to straighten you out. 

“We can. We can be okay again,” you mumbled, but you knew Mingyu heard it with the way he squeezed your hand softly. 

“We will,” he whispered in your ear. 

~~ Never Learned to Read My Mind ~~

You and Mingyu really did try hard. The kisses were kept to a minimum, almost so much that Mingyu got frustrated with you. He eventually pouted enough one evening. It ended up in you two having a thirty-minute make-out session. 

“We shouldn’t,” you mumbled as you continued to kiss him. 

“See, you say that, but you’re kissing me,” Mingyu replied, moving his lips away to speak, only to place them back on yours within a second.

“Mingyu,” you warned, pulling away and making him sigh at you. 

“Fine, but can you blame me? This is the first time you and I have spoken and kissed in two weeks, and no, that goodnight kiss three nights ago doesn’t count. I just get that Dr. Kwan said we should try to find ourselves and all that, but it feels like you’re acting like we’ve already broken up or something,” Mingyu admitted, frowning. 

“I’m giving us space to grow,” you defended, and Mingyu nodded. 

“I get that, but shouldn’t it foster an environment of encouragement? The space you’ve created is cold and uninviting, like hell. Your room door is always closed,” Mingyu added, making you pull away from his touch and sit next to him instead of on him. 

“I’m working, Mingyu. I don’t have as much free time as you, so forgive me if I want some peace and quiet while I work,” you sassed, and Mingyu pouted. 

“Free time? You mean unemployed?” Mingyu joked, but you glared at him. 

“Stop putting words in my mouth. You know that’s not what I meant to say,” you huffed, and Mingyu nodded. 

“Okay, forget it. I only say that because I wanted to show you something the other day, and your door was closed,” Mingyu explained, and you nodded at him. 

“So, show me now?” You suggested, and Mingyu nodded, pulling up yet another photo he took of a cake that served as inspiration–he’d been taking pictures of cakes, cookies and many other baked goods for the last few months, telling you it was for something unique. Still, to you, it just seemed like he was building up his ‘cakes I like’ Pinterest board.

“See?” Mingyu asked excitedly.

“What am I meant to be seeing? Another cake? All you do is take pictures of the cake. Where is this going?”

“You could have bothered to ask more about it instead of dismissing it entirely. I don’t dismiss things that excite you,” Mingyu mumbled. 

“Fine, show me,” you asked, and Mingyu shook his head at you. 

“No, because you’re asking because you feel bad, not because you care, forget it. You’re right it’s just cake. How would you notice? How would you notice when you haven’t noticed anything about me in the last few months?” Mingyu spoke, making you groan in frustration. 

“Sorry, that was unnecessary. Look after work tomorrow. I made reservations at a dive bar for us, I’ll send you a location, and you can head over after work?” Mingyu asked, and you nodded at him. 

“Night,” Mingyu mumbled, kissing your cheek as he got up and sulked as he walked to his room. 

You felt terrible. Since when did you stop caring about the little things, especially him? He was always doing much more, but you didn’t know why. It never felt like it was enough for you. 

“Hey!” Mingyu greeted you the following evening as you approached him at the dive bar. 

“This place is quite nice,” you commented, and Mingyu nodded. 

“Are you drinking?” Mingyu asked, and you shook your head. 

“I drove here,” you replied, and Mingyu pouted. 

“Let me drive and have a drink. I have a scratchy throat, so I can’t really drink,” Mingyu offered, and you looked at him in shock. 

“When did you get a cold?” You asked, had you really been so unkind and caring to not even ask your boyfriend if he was unwell. 

“Nah, just a tickle, don’t worry, I got meds, and I’m on the mend,” Mingyu added, ushering you away, and you frowned at him but decided against pushing further. 

You were glad you were tipsy, but you weren’t exactly happy at the scene unfolding in front of you an hour later. 

A random girl decided to approach Mingyu to gush about how handsome he was and how incredible his biceps were and even went so far as to trace his arms, and that was it: you saw red. 

You hated how he didn’t stop her, either. Instead, he giggled and flexed a bit more.

“Miss, do you always with other people’s boyfriends?” You spat out, and the girl stepped back in fear upon hearing the venom in your voice. 

“No, oh my god, I’m so sorry. You just didn’t look like you were his girlfriend. You just sat there, far away from him, and you two barely spoke, so I thought it was okay to appreciate it, but I’m so sorry,” the girl apologised, but you couldn’t help your anger. 

“So even then, you just flirt with anyone you see?” You asked, embarrassing the girl, and Mingyu turned to face you with a hardened expression, apologising to the girl first. 

“What the hell was that?” Mingyu 

“Home, now,” you answered, and Mingyu sighed as he paid for the bill while you stormed out of the bar. 

You stormed into the house, and Mingyu followed you into your room. You saw red. There was no other colour in the world, only red. You couldn’t believe Mingyu giggled and smiled at the girl like he did. 

The way he would with you.

“That was so uncalled for,” Mingyu started to say, making you whip your head to look at him. Your eyes were red and watery, and Mingyu immediately wanted to put the fight to bed and hold you in his arms. 

Mingyu mentally slapped himself, but all he did was laugh and smile at the girl. She complimented him, and for a second, he lost his mind and indulged because it had been so long since he felt good about himself. So long since someone called him handsome, and hell, you stopped acting like you were interested in him, but it was wrong and stupid, and he caused you to cry. 

“Right, me telling a girl to back off my man is wrong and pushing her away was uncalled for? Did you like it then? The way her tits pressed up against your chest. Is that why you didn’t pull away when she wrapped her arm around yours? Would you have backed away if I didn’t push her away, or would you have gone home with her?” You accused, ranting and firing away accusations at Mingyu, who paused to frown at you, but he knew he didn’t have a reason to defend himself. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t stop her, but I would have never cheated. I just got caught up in the attention, it has been so long since you ever showed me any affection, and I liked it, thinking that, oh, I don’t know, at least I’m not chopped fucking liver,” Mingyu fired back, making you shrink. 

“You couldn’t tell me that? You had to get some leggy chick to get your validation?” You asked, your voice trembling. 

“You don’t make it easy to speak to you. You’ve taken this ‘break’ so seriously that I feel like you’re just practising for the real thing. Last week, I got a new cookbook, and. In the past, you’d always be excited to see if I could replicate any recipes, but now? You didn’t even care to see it. I got a new shirt for our date night, and you didn’t compliment me. I’m not saying I need to be coddled, but you act like my presence is a bother, so forgive me if I wanted to seek out someone’s compliments because you know what? I can’t recall the last time you ever said I was good at anything,” Mingyu scoffed, making you standstill. 

“You have so many cookbooks; how is it different from the dozens you have? How was I meant to notice just one?” You asked, and Mingyu stared at you. 

“That’s not the point. Whenever I want to share anything with you, you act like it’s the biggest inconvenience or you don’t care. Either way, it doesn’t make me feel good about myself,” Mingyu sputtered out, his anger bubbling, and he knew he had to stop this fight before he said something he regretted. 

“Look, we’ve both had a lot to drink. Maybe we should talk about this later?” Mingyu offered, as he tried to guide you to the bed, to help you sleep so you wouldn’t continue this drunken rant. 

“So, you entertained her because she gave you attention, or was she prettier?” You asked, immediately feeling your eyes well up. You tried not to break in front of him. He was the one flirting with another woman, not you, but you couldn’t help how insecure it all made you. 

Was he done with you? Was this his subtle way of telling you he wouldn’t care?

“Hey, no, don’t you dare,” Mingyu interrupted your thoughts as he cradled your face. 

“No one is more perfect than you. I’m sorry for giving in to the attention. No matter how bad we are, it’s not an excuse,” Mingyu explained as he wiped away the tears that fell down his face. 

“But she noticed what I didn’t. Maybe deep down, that’s all you want, and I wish I were better for you,” you replied tearfully, making Mingyu’s heart ache with how you tore yourself apart. 

“Mingyu!” You squeaked when you felt him carry you and sit on the bed. 

“Take this off,” you mumbled, pointing to his shirt, and you stared at him for a second as he peeled his shirt off. 

You leaned down to kiss his shoulder, then another, until you reached his neck. 

“Y/N, baby, you’re drunk,” Mingyu groaned, trying to suppress a moan, hoping his body wouldn’t betray him as he melted under your touch. 

“We’ve had sex drunk before. I’m pretty sure our first time was when we were both drunk,” you spoke as you moved to kiss his jaw, making him wrap his arms around your waist. 

“Baby,” Mingyu groaned as his hands moved to rest above your ass. 

“Hm?” You asked, looking at him, pausing before your lips connected with his. 

“Let me show you just how much I love you,” Mingyu said, giving in to your touch as he stood up and swiftly placed you on the bed. Mingyu usually would at least take some time peeling your clothes off, unravelling each bit of your body to him, but he couldn’t wait tonight.

“So fucking pretty,” Mingyu praised as he laid between your thighs, your dripping cunt at his face. 

Mingyu slowly moved his finger inside you, “do you want to cum? You’re already clenching my finger so nicely, baby,” Mingyu praised as he rolled his thumb over your clit. You nodded. Mingyu pulled his finger out of you, making you whine. 

Mingyu smirked at you before latching his lips onto your clit. 

“Fuck,” you moaned at the contact.

“Mingyu, wait, stop,” you said, making him sit up immediately. 

“Did I go too far?” Mingyu asked, worrying, lacing his handsome features. You shook your head and moved your foot to his growing bulge. 

“Please fuck me, just I need you,” you begged, and Mingyu wasted no time in peeling off his clothes and positioning himself between your legs and pushing into you, making you moan and hiss at the stretch.

Mingyu placed your legs on either side of his shoulder. He pushed in and fucked you hard and deep. His pace was relentless, and you whimpered at his pace.

“Fuck, Y/N, baby, I’m so sorry, but I need to cum,” Mingyu moaned as he pounded into you.

 “It’s okay, fuck me, Mingyu.”

Mingyu removed your legs from your shoulder and flipped you onto your hands and knees. He pushed into you, his hands gripping your hips. You nearly collapsed at how deep he was hitting inside you.

“Fuck, more, please. Mingyu.” He bit down on your shoulder then kissed and ran his tongue over the area.

 “Fuck, fuck,” Mingyu cursed as he came inside you, moaning as his cum filled you. You felt him flip you over again, his mouth latching onto your cunt again, licking and cleaning you, making you cum again in the process, and you pushed his head away gently as you came again. 

“No more baby, too sensitive,” you moaned, making Mingyu smile sweetly as he placed a soft kiss on your trembling pussy. 

“Wait, stay, please,” you asked, pouting at him, making him smile. 

“I will. I was just going to clean you up properly and give you a shirt. You always get cold after sex,” Mingyu said, making you smile. 

“Stay here,” Mingyu said, kissing your forehead as he headed out to grab you a shirt. He returned with a wet towel and gently pressed it against your throbbing pussy, smirking at your reaction. 

A few minutes later, you were clean and dressed in one of his shirts. 

You were already nodding when Mingyu’s arms wrapped around your waist, pulling you into his chest. Mingyu moved his hand under your shirt and placed his arm around your waist. 

You moaned softly as he drew small circles into your skin. You gently pushed his arm away and turned to bury your face in his chest, making him smile.

“I love you,” Mingyu mumbled, and you weren’t entirely sure if you heard it, but for a while, you didn’t mind falling asleep in his arms, pretending that you two were alright.

~~ I Think I’ve Seen This Film Before ~~ 

“So, you two had a fight and fixed it with sex,” Dr Kwan summarised, and you and Mingyu looked to the ground. 

“Look, we’re barely three months into this, and while I like that you both love each other enough to be intimate, it seems like you use sex as a coping mechanism to put actual issues on the back burner until they inevitably blow up in your face,” Dr Kwan added. 

“It was a misunderstanding,” Mingyu defended. 

“A series of misunderstandings has brought you two here, and right now, you two are giving in too quickly,” Dr Kwan added. 

“Maybe three months is too long. Can we try a month, no intimacy, nothing, please? Then we can revisit this issue?” Dr Kwan suggested, and you both nodded. 

“Dr Kwan, can I request one thing, though? Can I ask that my lovely girlfriend and I go for one more date, like a proper one, the way we used to be before we tried the full-on ‘break’ thing?” Mingyu asked, and Dr. Kwan nodded. 

“Y/N?” Dr Kwan asked, and you shrugged. 

“I don’t see why not,” you answered, making Mingyu smile, and you noticed how his smile reached his eyes for the first time in so long. 

“We’re here!” Mingyu announced as he parked the car outside a carnival, helped you out of the car, and held your hand like he always did, complimenting you from home to the carnival gates. 

“It’s crazy empty?” You asked him, and he smiled.

“It opens next week, but I pulled a few strings; I wanted to enjoy this with you and only you,” Mingyu admitted, a blush creeping onto his face, making you smile at him. 

“Shall we?” He asked you nodded. 

He took you to nearly every booth, and with each new game, your smile grew, as did his. You didn’t think it was possible to fall in love with him all over again, but here was proving you wrong. 

“Hey, you okay?” Mingyu waved his hand in front of your face. You were both finally back in the car after a night of kisses, jokes and games, and you smiled at him. 

“Yeah, just thinking,” you answered. 

“About?” Mingyu asked, and you turned to face him, 

“I didn’t think it was possible to fall in love with someone again, but tonight, with you. I think I may have just fallen in love with you all over again,” you admitted, making Mingyu smile as he leaned over to pull you into a kiss. 

“I love you,” Mingyu said as he pulled away from your lips. 

“I love you too,” you answered, making him grin. 

“We’re okay, we’ll be okay,” Mingyu assured as he took your hand and drove home. 

However, when he said it, you didn’t find any comfort in his words because you knew that you were about to hurt him, not because you wanted to but because you had been reflecting and noticed that all this time. 

Mingyu had been bending backwards to become the version of a man you supposedly wanted. Still, all this time, you only complained and poked holes and found flaws; he loved you despite all this. His love for you was too forgiving, too great, and one you didn’t think you deserved any longer. 

So you could only do what you did best, and that was to hurt him before he broke himself trying to fix the both of you.

~~ You Were My Crown  ~~

Mingyu was fuming. Well, not even raging would do justice to how angry he was. It was almost comical. He thought smoke would come out of his ears like a cartoon character. It would have almost been funny. 

Almost. 

However, nothing about this moment or the letter in Mingyu’s hand was funny; none of this was funny. 

“Hey,” you chirped as you walked into Mingyu’s bedroom. He was late for dinner, and your smile dropped when you saw his face and then recognised the paper in his hand. 

“Mingyu,” you started to say and stopped as he held a hand up to stop you. 

“Dear Y/N, you’re incredible, and I want you to consider this position again. You have insights that set you apart from everyone else. I think you could do an amazing job helping us set up our offices in Japan,” Mingyu read out the letter, his voice fading into a whisper at the mention of Japan. 

“I thought we were past this?” Mingyu asked, and you immediately felt yourself become defensive.

“No, I only said that to calm you down, but Mingyu, this is my career,” you protested, making Mingyu scoff. 

“I’d never stop you from pursuing your dreams. I know you’re good at your job. I’d encourage you to take this position, but you lied, and you got this three days before the date night and didn’t bring it up? It fucking hurts, and when I asked you if you were happy, you said yes? But kept this from me? What were you going to do, just fucking pack up and leave me?” Mingyu asked, raising his voice, making you roll your eyes at him. 

“Don’t you dare give me an attitude! You hid this from me. Why?” Mingyu asked, tossing the letter onto the floor. 

“We can still talk about it, and then we can figure out a way with schedules, and maybe I can save and fly out and visit you,” Mingyu rambled, making you bite your lip as you knew what you were about to say next would break him. 

“I accepted the job,” you whispered, but Mingyu heard you clearly. Your voice rang in his ears, four words taunting him, haunting him. 

“Mingyu,” you said, trying to approach him, and he moved away from you. 

“You did what?” Mingyu asked, not wanting an answer. 

“I just didn’t think us doing these three months did us any good, yes we got to get our issues out in the open, but Mingyu, we still broke the main rule, we had sex, we couldn’t be bothered to make it work without fucking,” you defended, each word piercing Mingyu’s heart deeper and deeper. 

“Doesn’t the fact we couldn’t stop loving each other show you how tethered we are to one another? How much we need each other?” Mingyu asked, and you shrugged. 

“Yes, a crippling need,” you answered, making him breathe deeply, trying to hold back a sob. 

“So, you just decided to do what you do best? Hurtle into the future without a fucking care for me? I gave up everything for you to make you happy, and you’re fucking running?” Mingyu taunted, making you snap.

“I never asked you, but you were so fucking stupid to have walked away from friends. Friends who could give you a job or something, and now, you’re here begging me to stay because you didn’t get your shit together,” you spat out, knowing that none of your words held any truth. 

Still, you needed him to stop fighting because you weren’t sure if you could anymore. 

“You didn’t ask me because I thought it was you and me against the world,” Mingyu yelled. 

“Well, it’s not! Grow up! Get a job, plan your future instead of ruining mine just because you don’t have a planned future,” you fumed, stopping yourself, but you knew it was too late. 

“No, you’re right. I don’t because I thought you were my future, but now, you’re gone, so I guess you’re right. I don’t have a future, so please leave,” Mingyu asked. You couldn’t help yourself, but you knew if you comforted him now, you’d give in, and you couldn’t. 

“Mingyu, this is my apartment, so why don’t you step right out?” You mocked, making Mingyu let out a broken sob. 

“I can’t waste my time and cry for you any longer. There’s no more crying that I can do for you,” you added as Mingyu pulled out a suitcase and started to throw his things in. 

“You can leave in a week or something. There’s no rush,” you mumbled, feeling nothing but shame and guilt. 

“You were my homeland. You were my safe space, and now that you’ve gone and thrown me out, put me in exile, what’s the point? This isn’t my house anyway, and clearly, I’ve overstayed my welcome,” Mingyu answered tearfully as you watched him pack. 

You stood and watched him pack and remove the necklace you once gave him and place it on the bedside table. 

Mingyu took another look around the room and then wiped his face before grabbing his passport and documents out of a drawer and stuffing them into the suitcase. 

“Where will you go?” You asked, and Mingyu shook his head. 

“That’s none of your concern, I’ll be fine, but you,” Mingyu paused to steady his voice. 

“You’ll be fine, excel at everything, and do so well, my love, shit sorry, Y/N. You’ve always been amazing, so thank you for the last ten years of my life, and oh, when you fall in love again, tell him to be good to you,” Mingyu rambled, pausing to smile at you through his tears. 

“But please apologise to that guy because if there’s a weepy guy at your wedding, oh fuck, never mind, why would you invite me. Fuck I’m babbling. You don’t want this. I’ll be on my way,” Mingyu paused his ramble to kiss your forehead. 

“Please stay safe,” Mingyu said before practically running out the door. You waited for him to leave until you couldn’t hear his footsteps in the hallway break down. 

“Fuck!” You cried out, you felt so much pain engulf you, you felt as if someone had snatched your heart out of your chest, you felt as if you had a thousand cuts all over your body and that each second, someone was pouring salt into every wound. 

You didn’t know pain like this. You fell to the floor sobbing, unable to withstand the pain, letting it engulf you. So, you let it. You did this, and you deserved to be hurt. 

“I’m so sorry,” you apologised to the empty room. You broke him and yourself, but you weren’t his problem. You lost the right to care when you threw him out. 

So, you’d do what you do best, push through, ignore the pain and push into the future because if you ran fast enough, you might forget the present and perhaps the pain wouldn’t catch up to you any longer.  6 Months Later

Your method wasn’t foolproof. 

Simply running away from your problems only brought you temporary comfort. 

It allowed you to plaster a fake smile and get things done. It brought you false hope when you told your mother that you had let him go. 

Your method was like a ticking time bomb. You’d hold off only for so long. You knew your pain and your actions would catch up to you. 

Eventually, you took steps to prolong it. You had blocked Mingyu on every possible social media site. You even put all his things in storage and scrubbed the apartment clean, and when you were done, there was no proof that he ever existed in your life. 

You acted like he was a ghost because, somehow, it was easier believing that in some twisted way than picking up the phone and apologising or checking in. 

It was easier this way. You put a bandaid on a wound that had cut through every part of you, foolishly hoping it’d be enough. 

That stupid bandaid got you through your life in Japan. You’d find moments where you’d think of Mingyu, wondering how he’d love certain foods and sights, but you would push any thought of him away, and you were doing a good job. 

Until you were going through your things and found a black journal. You were familiar with it the moment you opened the journal. You wished you could have gone back in time and undid everything because opening up the journal made you feel like you just ripped open the bandaid. 

It was Mingyu’s journal. 

A journal dated the day you two started therapy. You knew it was wrong to read his innermost thoughts, but maybe you’d get closure. So, you got a bottle of wine and began to read.

Most of the entries did nothing but break your heart repeatedly until you came across the last one. 

It was dated the night of the date, your last date with him. 

“I can’t wait to surprise her tonight. I think we’re going to be okay,” Mingyu wrote. 

Your heart stopped. 

A surprise, he was planning something that night. 

What was it? 

You had to find out. 

You had planned most of your life down to the last detail, so randomly catching a plane, after calling your boss and randomly quitting, and landing back home after six months felt odd. 

This was home, so why did it no longer feel like it? The way you had shut your heart to Mingyu, had this town also shut you out, decided that someone as heartless as you didn’t deserve another chance?

You had unblocked Mingyu on socials in a feeble attempt to try and find him, and you saw that he frequented a bakery often. It was a shot in the dark but your only shot. You hailed a taxi from the airport and gave him the address to the bakery. 

You ran into the bakery, huffing as you lugged two suitcases. 

“Can I help you, miss?” A beautiful girl asked you, and you stared at her. 

“No, but you have a frequent customer, Mingyu?” You asked, causing the lady to laugh. 

“Customer, honey, he’s the owner? Do you have an appointment with him, or would you like a consult? He’s got a free evening, so I can pencil you in. Just walk all the way, and when you see a white door with golden roses on it, you’ve found it,” the lady instructed, and you just moved on autopilot as you reached his door. 

Your knuckles trembled as they knocked against the door, his door. 

“Come in!” A cheery voice you yearned to hear for so long, a voice you missed every day and every night replied. 

You pushed the door open and noticed that Mingyu was too busy sketching to look up, and he continued drawing. 

“Just take a seat, make yourself comfy. Sorry, just finishing up a sketch,” Mingyu said mindlessly, and you stood still. 

Taking him in, his hair was longer, he’d coloured it too, a light brown, and he looked handsome, but also he looked healthy like he was sleeping and resting and happy. 

You noted how focused he was on his work. Mingyu was always handsome to you, but even more so when he was doing something he loved. 

“Seriously, it’s okay. Make yourself up at home,” Mingyu started to say as he got up from his chair. 

“Y/N?” Mingyu asked as he finally noticed you. 

“Oh my goodness,” Mingyu broke into a broad smile as he rushed to hug you, and you could feel the tears pooling in your eyes. How could he? 

How could he look at you with so much kindness after what you did to him?

“Oh my gosh, how are you? You look well. How’s Japan, and how’s the job?” Mingyu asked a question after making you stare at him. 

“I found this,” as you moved away from his embrace, practically slapping the journal against the chest. 

“Oh, I’m guessing you read it?” Mingyu asked with a smile. 

“What did it mean, the surprise?” You asked, and Mingyu smiled at you. 

“Can you spare me some time? I don’t want to have that conversation here, but if you can wait a few minutes, we can return to mine, and I’ll explain every word you read?” Mingyu offered, and you nodded at him. 

“Babe!” The same girl from the front desk walked into Mingyu’s office. 

Babe? 

You felt your blood run cold. It made sense for him if he moved on, but her? The woman who looked like she was everything you weren’t, maybe that’s why he wanted her. 

“Sorry to interrupt, but I just wanted to check what you wanted to do for dinner tonight. If you want, I can make pasta?” She kept speaking, each word twisting the knife in your chest deeper. 

“Yuna, this is Y/N, a good friend,” Mingyu introduced, and you forced a smile for her. 

That’s all, but what would he introduce you to her? A friend? His ex, the one who broke his heart? 

“Oh, you guys were friends in school, right? Nice of you to visit, so I guess raincheck on dinner? Oh, babe, please don’t forget we must go to the dress store. I need you to pick out the suit for the wedding,” Yuna said as she gave him a peck on the cheek, shot you a smile and left the room. 

Mingyu had moved on so quickly? A wedding? He waited ten years to propose to you—sort of—but with Yuna, only six months, maybe he wasn’t the problem. You were, you saw her, pretty, friendly, and she seemed to make him smile. Something you failed to do for so long. 

So, it made sense that he’d see a future with her and not you. 

Mingyu could hear your overthinking, and he wanted nothing more than to comfort you right now, but he’d do it the minute you two were in his house. Alone and in a safe space. 

“Shall we?” Mingyu asked, and you nodded, following him, not saying a word during the entire car ride back to his apartment and the walk to his apartment. 

“I’m going to take a shower and freshen up. If you want, you can use the guest room. I can grab you some clothes,” Mingyu offered, and you followed him into the guest room, not saying a word. 

 Mingyu poked his head into the bathroom when he noticed you hadn’t emerged in a half-hour. Worried, he entered, and his heart broke when he understood what you were doing. 

“Hey, no, stop that,” Mingyu said, poking his head in at first and then entering the bathroom when he understood what was happening. 

“Just wanted to see what I was missing,” you admitted, making Mingyu frown as he helped you sit on the countertop. Mingyu grabbed a towel, wet it, and gently wiped your face with it. 

“She’s pretty.” You muttered, and Mingyu sighed, placing the towel on the counter.

“She’s got a nice body,” you continued to speak as you were apart. Mingyu stared at you in disbelief, and he hated how you were tearing yourself apart. 

“Can you shower? Or manage on your own?” Mingyu asked; he didn’t want to leave you, but he was very aware that you were naked and crying, and he didn’t want to upset you any further. 

“I guess you found the one you love, and I’m here like a moron because I thought you still loved me. I selfishly thought you still loved me,” Mingyu shook his head and snapped, and his hands found your face and pulled you in for a kiss. You gently pushed him away. 

“Don’t pity me,” you muttered Mingyu glared at you. 

“None of this is out of pity.” Mingyu moved his hands to your neck, gently tracing your skin until he reached your lower back and pulled you closer to him. 

“I’m going to ask you again; can you manage to shower alone. Or do you need me to help you?” You sighed and pushed your body against him.

“I need you,” you answered. Mingyu nodded before moving away and stripping. 

“Fuck, see, you have a nice body,” you said to Mingyu, making him glare at you as he helped you into the shower. 

“So do you, and fuck, I’ll be damned if you don’t feel the same by the time I’m done with you,” Mingyu said as he turned on the shower, and you sighed in relief as the warm water poured over you.  

Mingyu reached over for the shampoo and moved his hands into your hair. You moaned as he massaged your scalp, and for a second, you stopped thinking about how crap you felt. You allowed Mingyu to wash you, and you were ready to leave the shower when Mingyu gently pushed you against the wall. 

Mingyu moved his lips from your forehead until he reached your lips and captured them in a sweet kiss. 

One which had you swooning. 

It was so soft and yet deliberate. You moaned as you felt him deepen the kiss with his tongue. Mingyu kept kissing you until the need for air became too urgent, and he gently pulled away. 

Mingyu moved his lips to your neck, slowly sucking and gently nibbling the skin there. He left a trail of marks on your neck, all shades of purple and pink. Mingyu moved his hands to your breasts, massaging the soft skin, tugging and pinching your nipples, making you moan. 

Mingyu pulled away from your body and got down on his knees in front of you. He dove into your cunt, licking your folds, and your hands moved their way into his wet hair. 

Mingyu didn’t move a muscle, only his tongue as he glided it up and down your cunt. He moved slightly and pushed his tongue into you, making you gasp in pleasure. Mingyu groaned as he tasted your arousal, pushing his tongue in further. Mingyu moved his tongue back to your clit and flicked the now-engorged nub while pushing two fingers inside you. 

You were whimpering and gasping in pleasure as Mingyu fingered you until you came. Mingyu held your thighs in place as he continued to lick you through your orgasm. He was focused on making you cum as many times are he could with his tongue. You shuddered when Mingyu continued, never stopping. 

Mingyu moved his hands to grab your ass and pulled your ass cheeks apart, making you groan. 

Mingyu’s lips never left your clit. You could only mewl and let out sobs of pleasure as he licked you. You were gasping for air as you reached your second orgasm. Mingyu’s mouth never moved from your clit as he licked you through your orgasm. 

Mingyu moved his lips away from your cunt, and moaned when he saw your state. 

“You look so fucking good like this, swollen pussy, mouth open. You look gorgeous when you cum,” Mingyu praised, and you clenched your thighs together at his words. 

“Turn around, face the wall,” Mingyu instructed, and you weakly turned around as you trembled. 

“If anything is too much, tell me, okay?” You mumbled a yes, and Mingyu pushed his fingers into your cunt.

“Good?” You choked out a yes. The new angle with which he entered your cunt had you seeing stars. 

“Fuck, I’m going to cum.” You mumbled as your legs started to shake, Mingyu simply hummed against your wet folds, and that’s all it took for you cum again. 

“Please, fuck me,” you begged, and Mingyu slowly got up, held your body close to his, and pulled you in for another kiss; you were so immersed in the kiss that you failed to register him lifting you in his arms and aligning you with his hard cock. 

“Can I?” Mingyu asked, and you nodded at him.

 “Fucking hell, you’re so tight,” Mingyu groaned as he pushed himself into you and started to pound into your cunt. 

 “Fucking hell,” you groaned as you bit down on his shoulder as fucked you into your fourth orgasm. 

“Fuck, I won’t last long,” Mingyu choked out.

“Cum inside me,” you begged him.

Mingyu smiled at you, “gladly,” he said as he thrust into you harder, making you shake and clench around him each time. You moaned when you felt him finally still and cum inside you, his warmth coating your walls. 

Mingyu slowly placed you back down, “fucking hell,” you groaned, grabbing Mingyu’s forearm as he started fingering you hard. 

“One more baby, one more,” Mingyu coaxed as he fingered you to another orgasm. You nodded as you felt yourself cum simply based on his command Mingyu didn’t stop until you came again. This time he finally moved his fingers away from your cunt. 

You were so fucked out. All you could do was hiss slightly when Mingyu finally washed you up, wrapped you in a towel, and carried you to his bed. He towelled your hair dry, put his shirt on you, and pulled you into his arms, wrapping the blanket over you two. 

You turned in his embrace to place your head on his chest, “cuddly,” Mingyu noted with a soft smile on his lips, and you returned a smile back to him, making him bend his head down and capture your lips in a gentle kiss. 

You opened your mouth to speak, and Mingyu held a hand out to stop you. 

“Tomorrow morning, please,” Mingyu pleaded, and you nodded. 

You could do that.

Pretend for one more night.  ~~ Second, Third and Hundredth Chances  ~~

“Morning,” Mingyu greeted you as you entered the kitchen the following day. He stood by the kitchen island, poured himself a cup of coffee and another one, and pushed it across the island, nudging you to sit and face him after six months. 

Six months. That’s how long you went silent on him, blocked him out, and suddenly showed up at his door because of a journal. 

All his life, Mingyu knew you as a planner. You always had a backup plan, so for you to show up unannounced seemed so odd. Maybe you were passing by. Or you just wanted the last word, but after six months. 

Seeing you again, Mingyu felt pain, anger, and hurt, but more than anything, he still felt love. No matter how badly it ended, you were so much more than his ex-girlfriend. You were the woman he once wanted to spend the rest of his life with. It didn’t matter what would transpire; you would always be unique to him, and he could only hope he held a similar position in your heart. 

“So,” Mingyu started to say as you sipped the coffee. 

“I made you cheat. I’m so fucking sorry,” you mumbled, making Mingyu laugh. 

“Right, I didn’t cheat when I was with you, and that’s not something I’m going just to start doing because I’m with someone who isn’t you,” Mingyu said, and you stared at him, confused. 

“But Yuna?” You asked. 

“When you threw me out, I couldn’t find a place that late at night, so I ended up at a bar and cried my eyes out to Yuna. She ran the bar that night and felt sorry for me, so she took me home,” Mingyu explained, pausing to gauge your reaction. 

Mingyu felt slightly cruel for testing you like this, but with the hell, you put him through for six months, this was nothing, and he wanted to see if you still loved him or just got upset because you thought you had some right to him. 

“Yuna and her fiancé, they both, I guess, let me crash and nursed me back that night and just let me mope in their house for a solid month,” Mingyu explained, making you exhale. 

“She calls everyone babe and kisses everyone’s cheeks but only kisses her fiancé’s lips,” Mingyu elaborated, making you sigh in relief. 

“I think it was month two of moping over you, and I was, you know, useless and jobless,” Mingyu continued to speak, hurting you, knowing that you used the exact words when you broke his heart. 

“I was baking a lot, and Yuna’s husband is a famous pastry chef, and he saw me swiping through my Pinterest board and asked if I wanted to do something with my life or just cry over you,” Mingyu chuckled, recalling the memory. 

“So, for four months, I poured all my efforts into my craft, and I picked up everything quickly, and I guess I’ve been lucky, and the bakery is doing well and honestly. I thought I was finally moving on, but then, you showed up at the place I created to get away from the hurt you caused me,” Mingyu finished, his tone now serious and stern. 

“So why are you here, after all these months, and don’t tell me it’s because of a fucking journal. You wouldn’t randomly get on a flight and show up without a plan, so tell me, did you come here to reopen all the wounds I tried so hard to heal?” Mingyu asked, and you fumbled. 

“Do you know what you did to me? That night, you not only assumed that I was an unsupportive boyfriend, but you equated my ability to love you down to the fact that I was unemployed and directionless, and that is fucked up. Like beyond fucked up. So when you threw me out, I honestly believed I was worth nothing. I didn’t think I was enough. While I still want the best for you, you broke me when I needed you most, and seeing you here now, when I’m just getting my shit together, it fucks with me because a part of me wants to kick you out the way you did to me, but a part of me wants to kiss you and try again so tell me Y/N which part should I listen to?” Mingyu fumed, making you cry. 

“Why did you do it? Because what we kept breaking the ‘no sex rule’ or did something else happen? After that date, you said you fell in love with me again, and three days later, you did that. Was it because you accepted the job offer and you felt guilty? I know I’m not perfect, but I broke myself trying to be the man you deserved, and it still wasn’t enough, so I think I am at least owed something, some explanation,” Mingyu implored, his voice softer, and you couldn’t stop the tears from escaping. 

“Fucking speak, will you? You had no problem tearing me apart, so why are you quiet now?” Mingyu asked, frustrated. 

“Because you were bending over backwards, you did so much, and I did nothing. Mingyu, I got mad at you because another girl gave you the attention I didn’t. You were focused on fixing us, and I was focused on just fixing you, and yes, you’re right. The fact that I accepted the job without a second thought for you made me realise what a selfish person I was. I was ashamed, and then you took me out on that date,” you paused to take a breath before continuing. 

“I felt like a failure. I failed you because I was so willing to fix us. Still, I didn’t want to go through the pain because I was scared that at the end of it all, you’d realise that you were better off, and I couldn’t deal with that, so I thought it’d be easier if I made you hate me,” you blubbered out, and Mingyu looked at you in disbelief. 

“I ran away because it was easier. I took the easy way out because the tables had turned. You were succeeding in fixing us, doing the work, and all I could do was watch you put in so much, never expecting anything in return. I couldn’t do that to you, so I just let you go in the worst way possible,” you explained through your tears. 

“I know what you wanted to do the night of the date. I found a velvet box, and I just wanted to confirm that when I flew down here and walked in, it didn’t feel like home. It felt cold and distant, and I didn’t fit here anymore. I saw you happy, glowing, and you had started fresh, and me? I’ve been on autopilot, working, coming home and trying so fucking hard not to think about you, and that journal was an excuse because I couldn’t stay away anymore,” you sputtered out. 

“I knew you wanted to propose, and I ran because while it was everything I ever wanted, I wasn’t the woman you deserved, and I don’t know what I’m doing here because I’m certainly not the woman you deserve now. So, thank you for last night, and I’m sorry that I rehashed old wounds, and it was because I was selfish. I was selfish that night, and I’m still the same,” you cried out. 

“Selfish?” Mingyu repeated as he walked over to you, holding your face. 

“Scared, not selfish,” Mingyu said with a sad smile. 

“How do you not hate me; how can you still be so kind and loving after everything I did to you?” You asked as Mingyu wiped your tears away. 

“Because I still love you, hell you fucked with me, but when I saw you yesterday, it felt like a missing part of me was found, and while it hurt, because I got used to that missing piece, I felt alive, seeing you, and I know that the last time I gave up because I thought that’s what you wanted, but after last night. I know it’s not; it can’t be. So, tell me, did you come back to ask me about a journal entry or because you love me?” Mingyu asked, and you sighed. 

“I left everything. I was looking for something to bring me back to you because, after I left, I didn’t think I had a right to face you again, so the journal was my excuse,” you answered, and Mingyu stared at you. 

“Everything?” Mingyu asked. 

“I quit and packed my shit and came here and handed over the keys to the apartment in Japan to my landlord, and I guess I came here, hoping to come home and selfishly hoping to come back home to you,” you answered, biting your lip unable to look at Mingyu. 

“But your promotion?” Mingyu asked, and you shrugged. 

“It took me six months to realise that no promotion, no success in the world meant anything to me if you weren’t by my side, and it felt hollow. Every applause and pay cheque felt worthless because, in a room full of praises, I only ever wanted to hear your voice and come home. I always hoped that you’d be there, and I’d run into your arms and kiss you, and we would both sit and tell each other about our days, and then at night kiss each other and make love to each other, but all I got was an empty house,” you rambled making Mingyu smile tearily at you. 

“Can I ask you for a favour?” Mingyu asked, and you nodded, looking at him. 

“This time, I don’t care how difficult it is, how serious it is, how big or small the issue is, you come to me, no matter if it’s a small issue or a big issue, you’re coming to me, you don’t kick me out, and you don’t fight with me, but you fight for us,” Mingyu explained making your eyes widen. 

“After all I did to you. You’ll take me back?” You asked, and Mingyu smiled at you. 

“I was always going to come back to fight for you. I just needed time to be strong enough to do so, but yes, because if there’s anything these six months taught me, it is that I’d rather spend six months going through this pain a hundred times over, provided that each time the outcome was the same, you back in my life,” Mingyu explained making you cry even more.

“How can you love me so much?” You asked, making Mingyu laugh. 

“You stole my heart in a science class when you threw a paper at my head for being too loud in class, I was yours then, and I’m yours now, so tell me, my love, will you be mine again?” Mingyu asked, and you cried, nodding. 

“If you can forgive me?” You cried out, and Mingyu smiled sweetly at you. 

“I forgave you long ago. I was hurt, but my love for you is paramount, and it’s easier to love you than to be mad at you,” Mingyu explained, hugging you. “The perk of knowing you for so many years is that I know, despite your harsh words, you get defensive and deflective and often, what you do instead of saying the truth is act and lash out.”

“I don’t deserve a love as understanding as the one you have for me,” you admitted, and Mingyu shrugged. 

“We didn’t have the most perfect few years, but maybe that’s what we needed. Maybe Dr Kwan’s separation therapy worked because six months of radio silence was more painful than when we were fighting. After all, at least I could see you hug you, and talk to you, but not hear a word from you, not knowing anything that was nothing short of torture. I don’t want to go through that again,” Mingyu explained.

“It took me losing you to realise how much I love you,” you answered, pausing to wipe your tears, “and if you let me, Mingyu, I’ll never let you go again. I’ll love you the way I always should have, and I’ll never let you go because losing you was like I lost my ability to breathe, but here in your arms. I feel safe, loved, and at home, and I don’t want to lose my home again, and I-” Mingyu’s lips cut off your speech on yours. 

“Sorry, but I had to,” Mingyu said sheepishly, making you smile. 

“This will sound weird, but Y/N, will you go on a date with me?” Mingyu asked, making you smile as you burst into a wide smile and hugged him tightly. 

“I’d love to,” you answered. 

“Good, Tuesday night? I’ll pick you up. It’s a surprise,” Mingyu asked, and you nodded furiously. 

All those times you thought it’d work, you always were still unsure, but today, right now, you knew that you’d love him because loving him allowed you to see the world in colour and losing him took away all the colour and joy in the world and this time you didn’t want to fix it for the sake of it. 

You wanted to fix it because you loved him. 

The Finale: What I Should Have Said

One Year Later  

“Oh, for the love of God, please do not break,” Mingyu muttered as he set up the decorations for  your anniversary date on the balcony. At this moment, he was yelling at a bouquet to stand still. 

“Mingyu? What is so urgent? I’m home?” You called out, and Mingyu pouted, glaring at the faultless flower bouquet. You were back and early, 

“In here!” Mingyu yelled out. 

You walked into the house, noticing all the lights had been dimmed. There were flower petals everywhere. You smiled. You knew Mingyu was going to do something for the anniversary. You just weren’t entirely sure what. 

“Hi,” Mingyu looked up to see you, smiling at the decorations. He walked over to you and kissed you. 

“Happy Anniversary.” He mumbled against your lips.

“Happy Anniversary to you, too,” you said. You smiled as he held your hand and pulled you to the sofa. 

“Ooh, cake!” You exclaimed, making Mingyu roll his eyes at you.  

“I’m a three-course meal, and you are salivating over a cake?” Mingyu complained, but you laughed.

“Oh, get over it,” You kept laughing, and Mingyu sliced a piece out for you. He was oddly precise and took a long time to slice the cake. 

“Dude, just give me the cake,” you muttered, and Mingyu scowled.

“Did you just dude me?” Mingyu asked dramatically. You smiled at him as you took the cake from him and immediately scooped a piece into your mouth. You felt something sharp in your mouth; you tasted blood and metal and glared at Mingyu. 

“What did you do? Accidentally leave a fork in the cake?” You glared, and Mingyu gasped in an attempt to bite back a laugh. 

“Why don’t you get cleaned up and find out?” Mingyu offered, and you looked at him strangely. However, it was your turn to gasp as you ran to the bathroom and pulled a ring from your mouth. 

You washed the ring and returned to the balcony where Mingyu was frantically pacing. 

“Mingyu?” You asked, holding out the now-washed ring in your hand. Mingyu took it from you and knelt down. 

“I waited too long last time, I waited for a sign, the right time, all that bullshit, and I’m not saying that if I had done it earlier, our problems would have never occurred, but I know waiting sure as hell didn’t help. I know I wanted to marry you when I was 19, and now, more than ten years later, I still want that, except this time, I don’t want to wait to find the right time, place or anything. I don’t need any of that. I just know that I need the right person, and I have that with you, my love,” Mingyu declared, making you tear up. 

“The last year has been a lot for us. We found each other again and worked together to fix ourselves, and you know what? I’d do it all over again if it meant fixing us, and if it meant that a year later, I’d be here proposing to you, so what do you say, Y/N? Will you be mine forever, and will you love me forever the way I know I will love you?” Mingyu asked, and you nodded, unable to say much but give him a muffled yes. 

Mingyu slipped the ring onto your finger, pulled you into his arms, and hugged you tightly. 

“When I said we’d be okay, this is what I meant, I knew it’d hurt, and it’d take fucking a lot of time and patience, but I’d do it all over again a thousand times even if this is the ending, I get each time we’re done,” Mingyu spoke, and you looked up at him smiling. 

“Me too. I’d lose you a thousand times over if it meant being back in your arms at the end,” you replied, making Mingyu smile. 

“I love you,” Mingyu said, and you smiled at him, “I love you too, so much you loved me despite all my flaws and imperfections”, you replied.

“I saw those ‘flaws’ and ‘imperfections,’ and I fell in love with every part of you. We’re both imperfect, but the way we love each other, now that’s fucking perfect!” Mingyu replied, holding you tighter. 

You knew this was your home; with him in his arms, that’s where it was no longer cold; it was warm, safe, and it was home. 

He was home.

[novalpha]

This made me cry do much 😭

[joonsytip]

Only for Love || Mingyu - Part 2

Pairings: Mingyu x Fem!Reader

Genre: Angst, Fluff, Smut, Husband!Mingyu, Cold Wife!Reader, Arranged Marriage au, Contract Marriage au, Divorce au

Synopsis: When an accidental discovery has your perception of happy married life crumbling down, you do what you think is the best for everyone involved. Naturally, your opinion of the best doesn't cater to your husband's. So what happens when things spiral out due to unforeseen events?

Warnings: NSFW, virgin reader, cunnilingus, consensual and penetrative sex, couple uses protection (you do too), mentions of past accident, workplace politics allusions, mentions of getting stalked and periods.

Word Count: 6.1k

Minors DNI! Minors DNI! Minors DNI! Minors DNI!

[ SVT Masterlist ] [ SVT Flick - Fic Masterlist ]

Teaser | Part 1 | Part 2

It's been half an hour since your arrival to the party and the lack of interaction between you and Mingyu starts to raise some brows.

Mingyu stays rooted to the same place, his eyes fixated on you as he realises that it was wrong of him to totally wring you out and knowing your temperament he's not brave enough yet to place himself in the periphery of your vision.

"The marriage is really a sham, afterall."

Mingyu scoffs, not bothering to look at the source of the voice.

Kim Hanjun has been demoted under the obvious reason of underperforming and it's boiling his blood having to work under Mingyu because being a man with connections and boasting about it openly would have eventually come to bite him back given he's not even good at his job.

"Your wife isn't even interested in you it seems."

Fisting his hands, Mingyu decides to mute out his words.

"Oh so you're not gonna speak because you might accidentally spill something?"

But there's a limit to how much one can endure. Even though he has the patience of a saint, Mingyu just can't tolerate this obnoxious colleague of him.

Just as he opens his mouth to retort, he feels a hand circling his arm. It's you.

"You must be Kim Hanjun?", you say with a poker face, "You're quite the infamous one around here."

Both the men are caught off-guard by your presence.

"Now if you could excuse us.", your grip tightens on your husband, "I have some making up to do, as you can see husband's upset is at me for not spanning attention to him."

Hanjun is rendered speechless when you step forward and say in a dangerously low tone, "If I see you pestering my husband one more time, you might not find your company ID working while swiping."

The man is suddenly sweating and you cross over your arms with a smirk, "I usually don't interfere but sorry to break it to you, if we come down to this, I'd like you to always remember what position my uncle holds in the company. You're not the only one who can exert connections."

Mingyu looks at you in awe. He wants to record this on his phone so that he could watch this again and again. His wife is standing up for him and that's the absolute hottest you've looked.

Once Hanjun leaves, you also turn on your heels to do so but Mingyu doesn't let you.

"I'm tired.", you say turning to look at him, hand trying to scuffle out of his strong grip, "I'm leaving."

"We're leaving.", Mingyu says leading the way, hands still held together.

While it's a sight for others to finally see the couple, might be romantic to some as well by the way Mingyu is not letting go of you but you know the truth so does your husband.

The car ride back home is silent because halfway neither of you speak and for the rest of the path, you somehow fall asleep.

You wake up in Mingyu's arm as he carries you to the bedroom.

"Let me down.", you say tiredly.

But your husband only sets you down on the bed and once he does he starts spilling the apologies.

"I was mad at you and thought you won't come if I asked you.", he says lowering his gaze, "I'm sorry."

"It's okay.", you say not meeting his gaze either and fumbling your fingers, "You should tell me if any of my behaviour has hurt or is bothering you. I can't read minds, Mingyu."

There's a pang in his chest as guilt consumes him. His mind lingers back on how he had been ignoring you for the past few days. And now that he looks at you, he realises the chronic tiredness ghosting over your features.

"Now if you could please move so that I can get changed.", you say, hands gesturing the way out.

Mingyu swears he hasn't had a drop of alcohol present in his body at the moment so why is he all of a sudden, seeing and feeling things differently?

Why are you glowing in the poorly lit room? Since when did you have such deep beautiful pair of eyes? How are your lips looking so luscious?

Mingyu loosens the tie round his neck, clearing his throat. As he has been crouching, he stands up and sides himself so that you would get out of sight because somehow though it's chilly but by doing absolutely nothing you've managed to heat him up.

You walk upto the closet and after searching for a while you turn around to look at your husband.

"Can I wear something of yours?", you ask, leaning against the door, "I think all of my comfortable nightwears have ended up in the laundry."

The man chokes, he wonders if the stars are plotting against him tonight. He settles with a subtle nod, looking everywhere but at you.

You mumble a thanks and grab the first thing that looks comfortable, going into the bathroom to change.

Mingyu rushes out of the room grabbing a pair of clothes and proceeds to wash himself in the guest bathroom just to cool off. He watches his red tinted cheeks in the dazed vision in the mirror, notices his heavy breaths and eyes down to the semi grown tent in his pants.

Something's wrong with him. He can't comprehend his state. His mind lingers back to the moments when you were defending him against Hanjun. His heart beats erratically when he remembers the accidental view of your cleavage through the dress when he was carrying you inside. The slit of your dress wasn't helpful at all as he could see your trained thighs on display everytime you moved. And your long manicured nails, he's sure that they would look beautiful running through his nape and back.

Mingyu slaps himself twice on both the cheeks, he takes a cold shower.

But he's just a man afterall, so when sees you standing in front of the dressing table in his shirt and shorts he breath hitches and he gasps. Loud enough to catch your attention. As you look at him, he looks at your collarbones peaking out because his shirt is too loose on you.

And before you could say anything he's already laying on the bed hurriedly facing away, pulling over the covers to hide the re-emerging boner.

You follow his actions, laying beside him but facing his back. You wonder if you should sleep at the guestroom because your husband is still mad at you. And his actions are clearly saying so as the person who can't sleep without hugging is maintaining the distance, not bothering to even face you, like he has been doing for the past days.

With a heavy sigh, you tell him, "I'll sleep in the guestroom. We can talk when you feel like you can bear to look at me again."

Just as you turn on your back to get up, you're being held back and within a span of seconds your husband is hovering on top of you.

"I'm sorry, I can't control myself anymore."

And admitting that he crashes his lips onto yours. You gasp grabbing his arms before sighing into the kiss. Mingyu sucks onto your lips pacing them slower now. His hand roams up to rest on your neck, gently rubbing along the column, the sensation of his touch eliciting another gasp out of you.

His tongue enters your mouth and it's lewd in the way they slotting perfectly on each other. His mouth descends to press kisses on your chin and collarbones.

The one time he detaches his mouth off you to unbotton your (his) shirt, you're tapping on his forearm. His gaze follows your hands which are now covering your eyes.

There's a bit of silence. Mingyu wonders if he's forcing himself on you, without your consent and with the thought just as he prepares himself to get off, you say something that wracks his head.

"This will be my first time. I've never been touched before.", you say shakily, evidently embarassed enough to not uncover your eyes until Mingyu does so.

Though Mingyu has his mind too clouded to be pondering over anything but the first question he asks with those eyes now turned soft, after urging you to look at him is, "Do you want to do this? Is it okay for me to proceed? Tell me if you want me to stop."

"Please don't stop.", you breathe out immediately averting your gaze which causes you to miss the smile your husband directs at you before placing his hand under your head to raise it swiftly to kiss you.

"I'll make it worth, Y/N. I'll make you feel good.", he whispers in between the kisses.

You lay naked, all bared out under him as after spanning enough attention to your boobs, Mingyu shifts all his focus on your wet, leaking core.

"Gonna prep you first", he says in his husky voice, "and let me know if you want me to stop."

His tongue laps a long stripe against your cunt and you grip the sheet underneath desperately to hold onto. He keeps tonguing your cunt, holding your legs apart as they try to close off, his nose bumping against your clit making it impossible to hold your moans anymore.

You are squirming under the mercy of yoYir husband and his tongue. There's a knot tightening in the pit of your stomach and you could do nothing, not even speak out any coherent sentences.

"Cum for me, Y/N.", Mingyu urges you and that's the push you need before pouring out the juices all over his face. You're catching breathes when sensitivity hits you as your husband licks you clean off the juices.

You are biting down on your arm when Mingyu decides to prep you a bit further by scissoring his long fingers in your hole until it's oozing out for the second time.

Mingyu presses a soft kiss on your forehead before scurrying away for a few seconds and coming back holding a bunch of condoms in his hands.

"You had those?", you ask propping yourself on your elbows, genuinely amused.

Mingyu cocks his brow, "Not sure who it was but one of the guys has kept them in the drawer at one of the times they visited."

He climbs on the bed, straddling over you as he tears the wrapper with his teeth and rolls up a couple of condoms up his girth, "I didn't even know until all of them sent the same picture in the group chat."

You nod in silence, looking at his big veiny cock and it's red tip that's leaking precum, wondering if it's gonna even fit inside of you.

Mingyu hovers over you, pressing another soft kiss on your forehead.

"It's gonna hurt a bit at start but it's gonna feel good, okay?"

You nod again letting Mingyu hold your hands over your head, intertwining the fingers. He slowly pushes his length and sensing your ragged breathing he stills for sometime before continuing until he hilts all the way inside.

Tears roll down, as you try to adjust and your husband does nothing but kiss you softly trying to soothe you, divert your mind from the pain.

"Let me know when you want me to move."

He waits patiently and once you ask him to move, he thrusts ever so slowly, his lips never leaving yours.

"Gyu, faster please.", you say breaking the kiss.

And who is your husband to deny your wishes. He picks up his pace steadily thrusting in and out, as both of your moans fill the room.

Mingyu fiddles with your nipples by taking them into his mouth while his fingers rub your clit at a fast pace.

You're too dumbified by the way your body is reacting. Your legs are shaking, your stomach is pitting a knot again, your hands are gripping onto your husband for dear life and you swear you're seeing stars.

"Y/N?", Mingyu calls you out, seeing your dazed vision, "Are you okay?"

Your reply comes as another moan as your nails dig crescent shapes onto his back deeper, running through the back of his neck, grabbing onto the hair on the nape.

"Can you hold on for a bit more?", he coaxes you once he realises your gummy walls are clenching harder around his cock, "Let's cum together, can you do that for me right?"

Mingyu looks at the juncture where the bodies are meeting, where your cunt is swallowing him wholly. He groans at the sight of white foamy ring around his cock and kisses you hard making you squeak into his mouth.

"Let it go, Y/N.", he encourages you, his calloused fingers now rubbing your sides as his thrusts turn sloppy, "Cum for me."

Both of you are catching breathes. You lay eyes closed, not feeling your body at all. Mingyu lies looking at you, admiration laced in his eyes, his heart doing dibs thinking about how you trusted him enough to give your firsts to him. He realises that unlike him, you're not vocal so he has to focus on your body language to understand your needs. He also makes his mind to have a conversation with you like a descent person in the morning but before that--

"You need to pee.", he tells discarding the condom in the bin and while you groan he continues, "And we need to wash up. I'll run the bath, clean us up and change the sheets so please don't fall asleep till then."

You are incapable of registering his words so you just let him do whatever he wants to do with you.

Late in the morning, the conversation gets shelved until evening because Mingyu fucks you again because he is insatiable and so are you. Well, you both end up being each other's breakfast in bed.

It's the day, you dread the most. It was the same day sixteen years ago when you lost your family. It's your birthday.

If only you hadn't thrown a tantrum about not wanting to celebrate the day at home as it had been done for all the years. Birthdays had always been a great deal to you. You wanted the celebration to be a bit grander which led all to unanimously decide to go the soaring picnic spot, inviting all your friends as well. Uncle being your favourite person, the rest of the family drove the to venue as it was an hour drive away a little earlier to set up things while you and your uncle drove in a van along with all your friends.

But instead of the picnic spot, you ended up in the hospital with your uncle identifying the bodies. The collision of two vehicles were severe enough to claim the lives of all present in them.

Though your uncle had never expressed anything as such but you know you are to blame for everything. You wondered if seeing you was even bearable to him. The guilt and regret changed you whole as a person. After the incident you distanced yourself from everything, everyone.

Birthdays mean nothing to you now. Unlike for other workers, no one receives your birthday mail as you have requested to the officials. No one knows, no one asks, no one cares and that's perfect for you.

It's been a long day, with you driving successive review and checkpoint meetings. One of the rare days where you want nothing but to fall to the comfort of your bed.

Just as you enter the house, you see a string a shoes lined one after another. You enter the hallway and come across the faces of your in-laws, your husband, his friends and your uncle.

Gatherings on any other day is always welcomed but not today. You have this look of disapproval on your face and the entire flock of people freeze. Without a word, you disappear into your room and it's about half an hour when you don't come out, Mingyu assures everyone and goes into the room.

"What are they doing here?", you ask as soon as he enters.

"Why? Are they not allowed to visit us?"

You glare at him, "They are. But why today? And you always inform me beforehand if anyone is coming so why's there an exception today?"

Mingyu sighs but walks upto you, "Y/N, they're just here to spend sometime with us. But if you want then I'll tell them to leave and trust me they'll leave instantly."

"Tell them to leave then. I don't want to entertain anyone today.", you say stoicly.

Mingyu nods, "All of them have brought something they've cooked for you. Hansol cooks occasionally and almost burnt his house but he came in so proud, bragging how he was able to cook something for you that's edible. And oh", he raises his finger plastered with a bandaid, "I've got a cut while chopping the vegetables. So are you gonna atleast eat them or should I tell them to take those back as well?"

There's a pang in your heart, it's constricts within your chest. Your eyes glistens with tears, the resolute within you starts to dissolve but you could never afford to do so. You don't deserve to be celebrated.

"It's the death anniversary of the people I love.", you say helplessly, "I don't remember them vividly, each year the memories of them are fading away. I can't bear to look at uncle without feeling guilty. He lost his son, his wife, his brother all because I wanted to celebrate a stupid birthday."

You are sobbing now and Mingyu holds you in his arms, letting his own tears fall. He hates that there's nothing he could provide to soothe you.

"There are so many words on the tip of my tongue but they're all meaningless.", he says and bites on his tongue to stop those tears from spilling, "I'm sorry but I won't let you wallow in sadness, I won't leave you all by yourself."

After staying quiet in his embrace, you tell him, "People are waiting for you, you should go. I'll be fine, I'm used to this."

Mingyu pulls away and holds your face gently, "Do you trust me?"

Your eyes say a lot, even if you hadn't given a nod, your husband would've known the answer.

"Then let's go and spend time with them.", Mingyu coaxes you, "They wouldn't do anything to make you uncomfortable, if they do, I'll send them back."

You ponder over for sometime. Past years have always been the same, you wanting the day to pass by anyhow. You've preferred to be alone but you think you'd make an exception for your husband and all those people who are waiting for you outside knowing they genuinely care for you.

When you both step out of the room, you could see the worried faces and it makes you feel bad.

"We're are really sorry for barging in.", Seokmin breaks the silence as he stands up and following his suite everyone does so well, "We'll get going."

And there's a lot of shuffling. Everyone is off their seats and packing the stuffs when you decide to interrupt.

"I'm hungry", you say everyone halt, "And I'm bored of eating his cooking.", you point at your husband who gasp in offence but smiles nonetheless.

And that's how the dinner table was set with everyone sitting together eating and chatting happily. No one wishes you birthday, none of them have bought you gifts and it does seem like another normal gathering except for the subtle wishes of wellbeing they launch softly at you.

"You are beautiful, Y/N, inside out.", Minhee says as she secures the seat beside you, "I hope to see you healthy and beautiful always."

Sometime later, when the topic of work is brought up, Soonyoung slickly tells, "Y/N is handling such a big project.", and looking at you he speaks with a mouthful, "I know it'll be a huge success. Hope we get to see you achieve many more milestones in your career."

And throughout the dinner you recieve such praises and wishes from every single one of them. You didn't want to send them off but you had to with a heavy heart. First time, in several years you feel like you have a family, you want to hold onto people, want to expect certain things and be a part of them.

First time in several years, your birthday didn't haunt you rather it gave you a reason to smile.

Lying the bed, tired after a long day when you feel an arm drape around your waist, you turn to face your husband, snuggling closer in the comfort of his embrace when he opens his arms for you.

His eyes droop in sleepiness but he strokes your hair saying, "I wish you to be happy.", smiling sheepishly he adds, "Thanks for trusting me."

And when you watch your husband drift off to sleep, stroking his hair with a hesitant hand, you whisper, "Thanks for tolerating me."

Your relationship with Mingyu progresses steady but it's beautiful in it's own way. To you, Mingyu hasn't only been a good husband, he has been a great companion. He takes care of you, knows your limits and shortcomings, never makes you feel weirded out and makes sure to sort things out to be on the same page.

Your calendar previously which had only meeting dates marked on them are now filled with many more events such as your anniversary, Mingyu's birthday, Minhee's birthday, your uncle's birthday, your in-laws' anniversary etc etc. A smile appears on your face when you reminisce how late you were to your second anniversary party and how pissed Mingyu was at you, avoiding you the whole night until after the party was over and you had stripped yourself naked in front of him which worked to dissolve his anger as you let him fuck you dumb till the dawn.

You have a best friend now and her name is Minhee. You've always liked her and over the years you two have grown closer. Mingyu's friends, well more of yours, are not scared of you anymore, they've dropped all the formalities to pit long ago.

Junhui shares every funny thing he sees on the internet, on appointment days he rants to you about patients and work. Soonyoung now shares table with you during lunch and eat your ears off. Seokmin calls you randomly during work and if you don't pick up, he just sends you a candid picture of your husband with a caption 'thought you'd be missing him, so here's your husband. Don't thank me, just name one of your gaming character after me.'

Hansol is the most random of all, he just pings you any fact he learned out of the blue without any context. Sometimes when on asking when you confirm that you're free he sends you a bunch of pics telling you to choose the best among the lot. Jeonghan is the quietest among all, he'd only talk to you during the gatherings.

You have started calling Mingyu's parents as what Mingyu calls them because you are comfortable to call them so. They've blended into your life making you feel as their own. These changes in your life have helped you bond better with your uncle as well.

It's been over two years and you think you're happy. You think your married life is perfect and you're in love with certain things.

You love the back hugs, love those forehead kisses, love the smell of coffee that hits the house in the morning, love the way his mouth opens and closes in sleep, love when the fangs graze his lips as he smiles wide, love when his hand sneaks to wrap around yours on a busy road.

You're in love.

In love with your husband because how could you not, he's so easy to love. Though you feel there's still a lot you both need to discover about each other, you hope he'd also love you one day. He's your first love after all.

You are in the middle of a meeting when your phone keeps vibrating continuously. Trying to ignore it, your brows knit in agitation but that soon turns into worry when you check the caller ID. It's Minhee. Excusing yourself, you call her back.

And now after a drive of an hour you find yourself in front of the park, near her apartment.

"It's okay, I'm here now.", you say patting on Minhee's back, "Once you feel better, tell me everything."

And after some moments Minhee does relay everything. There's a thug-like guy who has started visiting the café she regulars at because somehow Minhee has piqued his interest. Even though she didn't notice at first, it started to strike her that she has been seeing a face almost everywhere she visits.

He has been following her to and back from the school she teaches in. He's been bold enough to get in the way and ask her to sleep with him for a night, if she wants to stop getting bothered by him.

Minhee has had enough to slap him straight across his face, even threatening to report him to the police. And that seemed to work because he didn't appear before her for a whole week until today.

As she describes it terrified, he had an ominous gaze, when he had given her an ultimatum to be compliant or be ready for the worse.

"I was so shocked and scared. I could only think about calling you. If Gyu knows about this he'd kill that guy even before police knows about him and would never let me work here. I don't want that.", Minhee says, "I am planning to go to the police today."

"You're so brave", you tell her as your gaze sweeps across the surrounding, "Let's deal with that guy now. Is it that guy standing over there?"

And Minhee now ponders over if it would have been safer to call her brother because the stalker guy, all bruised from the beating he got from you is kneeling in front of you both with hands up in air.

You've called the police and as soon as they arrive, that guy is mumbling confessions of all the harassment he did and tried to perform on Minhee.

"Did I tell you, I'm trained in taekwondo?", you ask her frowning, "Uncle also made me take specialization classes on self defence.", you suddenly hiss because of the bruises inflicted on you during the hassle and look at her.

Minhee engulfs you in a hug, "Thank you so much. You're a lifesaver."

Your lips curl up and you say pulling away, "Let's go to the station and complete the formalities and then we'll have to inform Mingyu and mom & dad as well."

Minhee hesitates but she knows she'll eventually have to so.

"Let's do that.", she agrees, "I have something else to tell you."

Your brows quirk up questioning as you both head towards your car.

"I have developed a liking towards Soonyoung.", she smiles looking at your flabbergasted demeanor, "No ones knows except you and him."

You swear, your head spins at this.

And as if she could read your mind, she adds, "I don't know how he feels but he said he'd never date me because I'm his friend's sister and that's against bro code."

You scoff, how typical of Soonyoung.

When Mingyu stumbles upon his sister's apartment that night, he finds her sleeping peacefully in her room. And when he goes searching for you, he finds you in the bathroom clutching the slab. Your eyes are red, forehead glistening with sweat.

"Oh god, Y/N...", Mingyu rushes inside as the door was open and holds you up on your feet, "what happened?"

"Stop shouting, you'll wake her up.", you say groaning, "and why do you care anyways?"

Right, you both rarely fought but when you did it would go on for days, like now. It started with a simple matter but escalated real quick causing Mingyu to lash out on you and give you a silent treatment. You tried to talk to him twice, which was more than you think you have done but were met with radio silence. He went as far as being petty enough to not even wait for you at dinner table or sleep facing you. And that's how you decided to shut him out as well. It's been a week since you both talked.

As Mingyu holds your waist to support you, you cry out in pain. You tried to resist but when he glares at you, you give up. He unbottons your top and his eyes almost gauze out on seeing the cut on your waist.

"How did it happen?", he sits you on the counter and pulls out the first aid box.

You stay quiet.

"Y/N, I'm asking something.", he uses an authoritative tone, looking at you.

"I thought we are not talking.", you snark at him but gasp when he dabs the cotton with antiseptic gel on the cut. He does several other sorts of things which makes you think he's a trained nurse before pasting the adhesive.

"Y/N, please.", he gets up and holds your face, "I know I have been an asshole and I'll keep apologizing to you until you forgive me. But please tell me are you hurt anywhere else? Did that bastard do this to you?"

You sigh and peel his hands off your face, "Yes, he was swinging his knife at me so while tackling him, I got that wound. And I got some bruises but Minhee treated those, didn't want to worry her so hid this one. You should be worried about Minhee. I'm fine."

Mingyu looks at you with so much admiration. His heart swells within his chest when he thinks about how you saved his sister and handled the situation well while he was being a jerk to you.

"The first thing Minhee asked on calling me was how did I manage to marry someone as amazing as you. That I should have seen you, you were looking like a superhero fighting off the evil.", he smiles pinching the bridge of your nose.

You bite your lower lip, your brows crease and Mingyu instantly deflates noticing the obvious signs.

"Are you on your periods?", he asks concerned.

"The cramps are killing me."

"You should have told me sooner.", he immediately lifts you up and takes you to the guestroom and lays you on the bed, "I think I know what all things Minhee uses for her cramps and where they are kept. I'll be back."

"I was supposed to sleep with Minhee tonight.", you say frowning.

"No, you're sleeping with me", he smiles, crouching to peck your forehead, "Minhee rotates around the bed all night in sleep. Doesn't matter though, I won't be letting you out of my sight."

And while he spends the whole night making sure you get a good sleep, in the morning he makes you apply for sick leave. He scolds Minhee for not calling him sooner as it could have been dangerous for you both but in turn gets scolded by you.

He doesn't take his car, rather drives your car back home because you were scheming on sending him away first, not wanting to go with him. He sulks throughout the way back because when he leans in to you, in the guise of helping you putting on the seatbelt just to give a kiss, you slap a hand over his mouth. But that doesn't stop him from not letting you go to your office room the whole day and spend the time in taking rest.

It's an important day for you. It's a success party of the new game launch and playing the key role in leading back to back projects you're going to get felicitated at the party by the director herself.

You have informed Mingyu beforehand and he has promised to reach the venue before time, also squealing for days on about how he'd capture everything and show others, that how proud he is of his wife.

Your eyes boringly scan through the crowd, waiting for your husband.

"How am I looking?", Soonyoung's voice startles you.

As he takes a seat beside you, you tell him, "As usual. Are you supposed to not look like a human but something else?"

He scowls, "Wow, you're really doing this to me."

He brings over a glass of wine from the waiter who was passing and says, "I heard there have been some changes in the management and they'll be announcing it today."

You take a candy from the bowl kept on the table, "I'll be reporting to someone who has joined the company recently. My previous boss is gonna take over the strategy planning unit."

Soonyoung laughs, "There are rumours about him being eccentric."

"Let him be anything, I don't care as long as it doesn't hinder my work.", you tell him, eating the candy and checking your phone, "They're gonna start soon. Any idea when your dear friend is gonna arrive?"

"He was supposed to leave from work early", he tells you, "Don't worry he's punctual."

Mingyu curses when he checks the time. He's late.

"Min, I think you should leave as soon as possible.", Seokmin says as he helps him pack his bag, "You'll go home, get changed and then leave for the venue, right? You're running late by almost an hour already."

Mingyu is hot on his heels as he hurriedly takes his bag and rushes out of his cabin.

"Be careful!", Seokmin yells seeing Mingyu's fleeting demeanor, knowing how clumsy he can be and as he takes the keys to lock the cabin as requested by his friend his gaze falls on the USB drive which he knows Mingyu would need to work on some presentation.

Seokmin rushes to catch him so that he can give him the USB just in time. As he punches out his employee card, he sighs in relief as he recognises Mingyu standing still just outside the main door.

He pushes through the door and is just about to call him, something catches his eyes from the periphery of vision.

Just like Mingyu, Seokmin freezes on spot.

Because it is Sora who's standing in front of them.

Seokmin doesn't know what or if they had any conversation prior to his arrival but he grabs Mingyu's arm when he sees Sora open her car door and his friend heading in the se direction.

"Min, don't go.", he speaks the next part in louder tone, "your wife is waiting for you."

"I know what I'm doing, Min.", Mingyu frees his arm, "Trust me on this."

Seokmin watches helplessly as the car drives off to who knows where.

You are dejected. Even when recieving the award your eyes kept scanning the crowd just in hopes of seeing your husband's face. And still now doing so you keep on checking your phone, too upset to call or text him.

"I'll call him after they make the announcement.", Soonyoung says equally upset, "I'm sure something really urgent came up otherwise he'd have not missed it."

Everyone is asked to stand near the stage where they announce the key changes in management.

You are shocked when you hear a certain name being announced, see a certain figure taking the centre of the stage.

Xu Minghao is going to be your boss tomorrow onwards.

Minghao seems to have taken notice of you as his smile widens, his gaze locking on you.

Soonyoung has noticed the change in your demeanor, has followed the gaze of Minghao. He observes quietly before motioning you to come with him to a quieter place.

He then calls Mingyu putting his phone on speaker who doesn't pick up. There's an uneasy feeling settling at your chest and hope that your husband is fine wherever he is.

Soonyoung then calls Seokmin and regrets putting the phone on speaker because you hear what he says.

"Mingyu left with Sora and I can't reach him."

Your heart sinks because even though no one has ever talked to you about her, you know that name very well. Your husband's ex girlfriend whom he to marry.

"Trouble in paradise?"

Both you and Soonyoong turn to see Minghao standing, his gentle gaze bestowing upon you.

You decide to forget any other thoughts and wear a tight lipped smile, "Been a long time, Hao."

→ Do not copy, re-post, translate, or share any of my works on other platforms! All stories are copyrighted, joonsytip.

[novalpha]

OMG OMG OMG jzjsjKzjskKxkixkdkakxkxkdid

This was so good 😭 i can't wait for part 3 now

[joonsytip]

Only for Love || Mingyu - Part 1

Pairings: Mingyu x Fem!Reader

Genre: Angst, Fluff, Smut, Husband!Mingyu, Cold Wife!Reader, Arranged Marriage au, Contract Marriage au, Divorce au

Synopsis: When an accidental discovery has your perception of happy married life crumbling down, you do what you think is the best for everyone involved. Naturally, your opinion of the best doesn't cater to your husband's. So what happens when things spiral out due to unforeseen events?

Warnings: This part is SFW, Reader is cold & blunt but also shy, Mingyu is gullible and impulsive, lack of communication, profanities, heartbreak, breakup alluding to emotional cheating.

Word Count: 6.5k

[ SVT Masterlist ] [ SVT Flick - Fic Masterlist ]

Teaser | Part 1

The sun is shining brightly in the clear sky with white, fluffy clouds drifting across in it. Just like the clouds, Mingyu has been drifting away in his pool of thoughts. As he sips his favourite beverage which he decided to get before starting work for the day, the smile on his lips never leaves.

Life has been good to Mingyu lately. His boss has boosted to him about the surety of him being promoted to the Head of Brand Marketing, a position he has been eyeing for a long time, which would also mean an upgrade in paycheck so he could contribute more in the care of his parents, pampering his sister a bit more even though they have always been content.

A notification breaks his blissful reverie and the contact name on the screen widens the stretch of his lips. It's a text from Sora, his girlfriend of five years. But his lips curl down as he reads the message stating she's extending her stay at her home for some reasons again, for the third time. A frown sits on his face at the thought of spending another series of nights in his empty shared apartment without being in the embrace of the love of his life.

Mingyu wears his heart on his sleeves. He can be defined as a pure romanticist, an absolute sentimentalist. He's liked by everyone. Apart from sculpted physique and height, he's lovable because of his nature as well.

It's a daily routine, he walks into his workplace and a swarm of bee like people come to greet him, some wanting just a glimpse of him, some wanting to get running guidance on how to maintain work-life balance, others just to confirm that Kim Mingyu isn't just a myth but an actual existence.

It's also evident that Mingyu is popular not only because of looks but also how he always helps his coworkers, a great leader to his subordinates, an outstanding resource to his bosses and a reliable asset to the company. The year-end performance evaluation knocks around the corner and everyone is busy to clock details, set the impression right. Mingyu has a good feeling about it.

He isn't much of a private person, he flaunts everything he is proud of, never to rub off arrogantly but with a sincere smile and soft eyes. But only his family and group of close friends know that he's planning to propose to Sora once she returns, that he has already bought the ring that sits hidden in his apartment closet.

After work, he decides to visit the Game Parlour where he can't be dimed as a regular but he definitely visits it often. Mingyu had a knack for gaming since childhood, he was a pro gamer during his university days often being called to participate in the championships, winning many of them. Though he would have loved a career in the gaming industry but that teenage boy wasn't courageous enough to take the risk.

The first thing he seeks after logging into his gaming account is for a specific Id. As soon as he sees the green dot beside he puts on his headphone and pings in the chatbox.

phoenix_726 is another gamer whom no matter what Mingyu is never able to beat nowadays. He always bags the second position and when they team up, it's a given no other can be the winner.

Mingyu often throws banter to the gamer, to whom he assumes is another closely aged man from the voice he has heard while gaming. They stay anonymous to each other and share bits and frustrations of life. No one else knows but Mingyu has another friend in form him, whom he ocassionally confides in, there's an sense of goodfaith. Having a great sense of humour and gaming skills, he definitely helps Mingyu shake off his worries and have a good time. So Mingyu casually slips that he's gonna propose to his long time girlfriend soon and invites him to the wedding already. All giddy, he says he can't wait for the day to come.

Mingyu is a crying mess when that day finally comes. He's inconsolable. He feels like his world has collapsed. Not only did Sora slap a rejection to his proposal, she also had admitted to emotional cheating on him before leaving. Another batch of fresh tears stream down his cheeks when he remembers her words from before.

"I'm sorry Gyu, I can't do this anymore.", Sora says urging him to be off his knees, closing off the ring box, "I don't love you anymore, I've outgrown you."

Mingyu stands frozen. He can't believe his ears, none of the people present believe what they're hearing.

"I had gone back home to take a break from everything, to sort out my feelings. Your presence was overwhelming, it was suffocating me.", she says tearily, "And I realised a lot of things. The reason I kept delaying my return is because I was preparing myself to tell you the truth."

Mingyu snaps out and quickly grabs her hands, "I'm sorry. Please give me another chance, I'll be better.", he swears in tears, "I'd not bother you much, let's start afresh, I'm willing to do everything you want me to.", he begs, "Please, just don't leave me. I love you, I can't live without you."

Sora's sobs echo throughout the venue, "I can't, I have developed feelings for someone else. So please let's end it."

That served as the last nail in the coffin. Mingyu stands straight looking at her and says in hollow voice, "Go. Empty the apartment before I get back. And never show yourself again."

"Come on buddy, let's go my to place.", says Jeonghan, trying to get Mingyu up but failing nonetheless, "What are you doing? Come help me.", he side-eyes and hisses at Soonyoung.

The said man quickly scrumbles on his feet and they both manage to take him to the car.

"Seokmin & Hansol have gone to drop uncle, aunt & Minhee. And now we'll head to my place not Jeonghan's.", Junhui says as he waits in the driver seat patiently for the other three to settle in, ignoring the protests from Jeonghan.

Mingyu takes a whole week off, which is something he has never done before. He also hasn't got his heart crushed before so....

The guys regularly check upon him, dropping by casually. There are some calls from his family and they always keep it short. Everyone hopes for him to be okay but the pain in his chest never subdues. The whole apartment reeks of Sora. The memories flash before his eyes and he hates that he wants them back, wants to go back to the time when they were happy, when there was only love and bliss. He checks his phone every now and then in hopes of getting a text or call from Sora saying it was a mistake and she wants him back but that never happens.

Mingyu thinks he might die from this heartache.

But he tries, tries his best to go on with his life. People notice the change in his demeanor but they don't pry because of the respect they have for him.

Seokmin, one of his closest friends and also colleague visits his cabin to check upon him.

"You don't have to babysit me, Min.", Mingyu sighs as he looks at the chocolate box, his friend places on his table.

"I'm not, Min. But you don't exactly look good currently and I'm afraid more people will come for me now that my rival is lacking.", Seokmin dictates dramatically.

Mingyu laughs, "Yeah sure. The throne is all yours. Don't you have work?"

To that Seokmin instantly deflates, "I'm knees deep in work.", and looks at him with expectant eyes, "We're gonna crash at Jeonghan's tonight."

"Oh, does he know that we're gonna crash at his place for the whole weekend?", Mingyu snorts already knowing the answer.

"Why does he have to know?", Seokmin says, "We're just gonna barge at his place, that guy's bitchless so that shouldn't be a problem--"

Seokmin bites his tongue but it's already late.

"So am I", Mingyu tries to joke smiling sadly and looks at him, "You don't need to feel bad, I'm getting used to it."

The second betrayal comes to him in succession and rather quickly after a month and half later, when in the year-end evaluation it was announced that it's not him but Kim Hanjun, the relative of someone who works in a higher slash powerful position, gets promoted as the Head of Brand Marketing. His hardwork and dedication gets defeated against connections.

Since that day, Mingyu is a changed person within the work space. Once a bubbly personality now is nothing but aloof employee who comes to office and is off his desk as soon as the work hours are over. He doesn't indulge in conversations or attend adhoc works. He already has a resignation letter drafted and saved in his laptop.

Kim Mingyu wishes nothing but misery for the people who have wronged him. He wants nothing but healing for himself.

Your trained gaze alone is enough to send the person lining infront of you six feet under.

"I gave you a whole month to come up with the concept of character design and you bring this to the table.", your tone is dangerously low, "Am I supposed to show this to the Design Director?"

The girl is sweating, as she manages to speak, "I-I'm sorry, I'll get back to you with new inputs."

"How long?", you ask.

"A week. I'll make sure to complete it in a week.", she says with scared eyes.

You sigh, taking your glasses off, "We have a deadline, keep that in mind. You can reach out to Kwon Soonyoung of Art and Naration Department for guidance. Don't bother him much, he's a busy man."

Before she leaves, you add, "Mail me the initial drafts and also coordinate with Dowon, the main characters should complement each other in the terms of their appearance, weapons etc."

Your walking out of the cabin, silences the whole office. As you pass by, all people do is bow to you, they never dare to look at you, nor do they dare to strike a conversation.

Neither are you interested in indulging in any kind of talks with these people who are plain gossipers and can only think of judging people by materialistic bases.

'Ice Princess', that's the cliche nickname you've acquired, which still confuses you but you could care less. All you could care about is work and getting it done.

The day continues and it's during the lunch hour that you get a call from your uncle. And you'd have never imagined, this meet-up would lead him to say something so bizarre, something that would change your life.

"You're getting married.", he says, with all seriousness making your stomach churn.

And before you could open your mouth, he continues, "Trust me this once. You know I would never compromise your happiness with anything less."

Next day, you suddenly find yourself sitting in front of the guy you're supposed to marry.

It's strange and beyond awkward, with neither of you clearly having no idea of what to talk about, where to start and above all how did it come down to something like this.

"Did my uncle threaten you to marry me?", you stay poised, voice stone cold, eyes looking out through the window glass.

Mingyu almost chokes on air but he's quick to regain composure, "Well hello to you too and no, he didn't."

"Then why did you agree on marrying a stranger? I'm sure you don't even know me."

Mingyu sighs, "You should know that your uncle is one of the Senior Executives in the company I work for and I respect him a lot. When he came to me with the proposal, I was taken aback but you sure are beautiful and independent and I have been also meaning to settle down so I couldn't find myself refusing it."

You scoff, "Do you know what you're getting into? I'm not easy to handle, I'm more than capable of making you rip out your hairs."

You continue further, "I don't treat the concept of marriage as some sort of joke or treaty where two involved parties would make a deal or whatever. Uncle has been nagging since forever asking me to get married but I have been pushing it back because...", your voice drops and gaze wavers, "Nevermind. I'm not doing it."

Mingyu gasps at your words before gruffing out, "No please, give me a chance. Look, I have been in a rough patch for past months. I want this marriage to happen just not to bridge connections or to push through any other motives, I want to start afresh."

You squint your eyes at him, "Doesn't sound sincere at all. But I trust uncle and he must have a solid reason if he chose you and you're good looking so it's a bonus. Hence, I'm willing to give it a chance."

You get up from your seat and walk up to him, one hand on the table, other on the armrest of his chair. Hovering over you say, "Kim Mingyu, I have already warned you, if I find any discrepancy after getting married, you'll be a dead meat. I can tolerate anything but betrayal."

Mingyu instantly breaks in cold sweat.

"You're gonna do what?", Minhee asks, in case she has heard it all wrong from her brother.

Mingyu sweeps his gaze across the faces of his parents, his sister and all his friends. They all echo the same expression, they all are utterly dumbfounded.

"I'm getting married", he repeats again, "to Lee Y/N."

"And who's that?", asks his father.

"What do you mean by getting married so suddenly?", this time his mother raises her voice, "Aren't you still silently moping over that girl?"

Silence falls upon the room, until Soonyoong's loud gasp erupts through the room.

That's not something abnormal for Soonyoung to do but Mingyu exactly gets the reason behind it and gestures him to keep his mouth shut.

"Do you know her--", Jeonghan gets cut off.

"Do you have a pic of--", Hansol gets cut off.

"Did you even meet her--", Junhui gets cut off.

"Does Y/N even knows that you're marrying her?", Soonyoung is the one who gets to finish his question.

Mingyu heaves a breath after getting bombarded with non stop questions. His head spins and he hasn't even started yet.

Seokmin is unusually quiet. There's seriousness ghosting him which is rare. Once Mingyu goes out to send off his family, it's Seokmin who tells the others about the whole situation because apart from Mingyu and your uncle, he's the only one who has the grasp of the situation to the fullest.

When Mingyu returns he sees a bunch of disappointed faces except one. Soonyoung is eyeing him with uncertainty, something one could mistake as remotely scare.

"I think Soonyoung needs a breather.", Junhui says, "Because he works with Y/N, not directly but he knows her well enough."

The said man throws a very curious gaze at Mingyu saying, "Nothing is making sense to me. You two are polar opposites, Gyu. And not the kinds that fit in the criteria of opposite attracts."

"I don't support it.", Jeonghan retorts, "This is wrong. If this ever gets out, you're so gonna regret it."

"I have made up my mind.", Mingyu tells him with all certainty, "This wedding is going to happen and I'm not letting anything get in the way to my happiness anymore."

And that's how the preparations of the wedding starts.

You and your uncle meet Mingyu and his family. Though you had expected it to be another one of the awkward meetings but it turns out rather pleasing. His family is welcoming, especially his younger sister, Minhee. While everyone inside discusses the date of engagement and wedding, Mingyu slips you out of the conversation.

You both take a stroll in the neighborhood.

"How was it, meeting them?", Mingyu asks.

You walk straight, not meeting his gaze, "I like them, they have an amiable aura surrounding them.", you suddenly halt and look at him, making him halt as well, "But not you."

Mingyu creases his brows, "You'll come to like me, that's me, I'm lovable."

You scoff, crossing over your hands, "We'll see about it."

The engagement date is set to a month later, followed by the wedding.

You gradually sink back into work and it's a relief that you don't hear from Mingyu but that's cut short when you receive a text from him a week later.

So that's how you landed in your soon to be fiancé's apartment. You sit quietly, gaze constantly sweeping back and forth on the new faces.

Mingyu takes a seat beside you and starts introducing his friends. The text Mingyu had sent primarily stated something along his friends wanting to meet you, which you had bluntly rejected. But when he called you immediately after, saying that they're his extended family and it's important for you and them to get along because it's them you're gonna have to deal with more than his own family, you scolded him for good five minutes for blocking your time during workhours before agreeing on a meet-up.

So far, you've learned that they all belong to almost same age group. Seokmin is a childhood friend who works in the same company as Mingyu, practically indicating that the two are inseparable. The rest are his friends from university days, some he acquired while playing tournaments, others from being a regular at the same game parlour etc.

Jeonghan is a lawyer and eldest among all. Junhui is a dentist and you're immediately setting an appointment with him. Hansol is a photographer who tells that he's gonna manage all the shoots starting from the engagement to the wedding.

And the last one is a very familiar face. You would rather introduce him well to the others because he works with you. And that's the reason he's seated stiff throughout.

"Am I making you uncomfortable?", you ask Soonyoung.

Yes, Soonyoung wants to say this but rather he settles with it a subtle shake of head. He breathes a silent sigh of relief when he feels your gaze off him.

"I guess Soonyoung has already made all of you aware of my reputation. But that's how I am at work.", you say smiling wide.

The rest all relax and exchange smiles before going stiff again when you add, "I'm exactly the same off work as well."

Mingyu nudges your elbow but you don't bother to look at him.

"Stop scaring them.", he says in a hushed voice and you quip back immediately.

"I'm just letting them know that I may not be the perfect sister-in-law they want or picturing me to be. When expectations are less, people on both ends won't get hurt."

The atmosphere turns rigid, the room turns silent.

"What about your parents, Y/N? Do you have any siblings--", Mingyu is late to hush Junhui's failed attempt to wave off the tension. Jeonghan is about to knock his friend's head when he remembers that Junhui was absent the last time when this topic was brought up.

"I'm sorry, Y/N.", Mingyu is quick to aplogize.

You look at a very confused Junhui and tell him, "My uncle is my only family. Sixteen years ago, I lost my parents, aunt and my cousin in a car accident. Since then it's me and uncle. We do have some distant relatives but they're not in touch. Hope this resolves your query."

Checking your watch, you get up, "I'll get going."

"So soon? Please stay till dinner", Seokmin requests, "We all have cooked for you."

Your eyes go wide for a brief moment, as you accidentally speak out your mind, "No one has ever made an effort to cook for me except my uncle."

And before you could slip out, you're almost being dragged into the dinning space. There's no denying that you haven't had this good food recently. And though you say that you've no shame but you don't meet anyone's eyes when you tell them to pack some of the leftovers for you.

You sit silently, watching the crowd, observing the people. You have just been engaged to Mingyu and though it was meant to be a private ceremony, you realised how you quantify it might be completely different from your fiancé.

The only person from your side who's attending is your uncle and it'll be the same in the wedding and all other ceremonies as well. But as you have counted there are a total of thirty people who can be deemed close by Mingyu and are attending the engagement ceremony.

And you can see that it's not a bluff. Everyone is smiling wide, dancing and singing to their hearts will. What made your heart swell once again is that you can sense how each one of them congratulated you both with goodwill and sincerity.

The corner of your lips are twitching to stretch in a smile as you watch your would-be father-in-law being successful in dragging your uncle to the dance floor. It's been long since you've seen him laugh heartily, enjoy wholly.

You wonder if that's what having a family feels like. To be always surrounded by the people you love, who loves you unconditionally. To always have someone to lean onto. The trauma has led you to suppress the memories but you do remember vaguely something similar, a familiar backdrop, smiling faces and warmth.

Your heart suddenly constricts within your chest and you find yourself in the balcony catching breaths. Staring into the abyss of darkness, you don't notice the tears those stream down your face.

"Found ya.", you hear your now fiancé's voice and as he situates beside you. You try to discreetly wipe away the tears but Mingyu sees it.

He doesn't evade your space though, he just stands beside you, speaking nothing which is unlikely but you get what he's conveying and you're thankful to him.

The pre-wedding shoot is a headache, you think. You should be working on finalizing the designs and launch dates of the game but rather you're here at a beach, all dolled up and in a beautiful dress, hues matching to the shirt Mingyu's wearing.

You hate how warm the weather is. You hate how calming the sounds of sea waves are. You hate how soothing the gentle breeze is. You hate how beautiful Mingyu is looking just donning a polo shirt and chinos.

"You're staring a little too hard."

You get startled and crane your neck to see Hansol now changing some settings in his camera with a teasing smile on his lips.

Clearing your throat, you ask, "How long would it take?"

"For how long do you want it to go on?", Hansol enquires back and you want to duck his water underwater for acting smart with you.

A lot of things happen during the shoot. The remarkable ones are you being too shy to hold an eye contact with Mingyu for which you knew you're gonna get teased. Mingyu being scared off by some bugs, shouting, cowering behind you which settles the score, neither of you are getting teased by the other. You are almost whacking Hansol every time he takes a little too long to click the shots when you both are posing, smiling ear to ear, arms linked or hugging each other.

"I'll kill your friend.", you say through gritted teeth while smiling.

Mingyu controls his laugh as his eyes turn into slits, "Be my guest."

Hansol suggests a shot where Mingyu is standing in the water as waves graze his feet while he's cradle carrying you in his arms.

"We're done for now!", Hansol shouts, "Let's get going to the next location."

You immediately link your arms strongly around his neck when Mingyu tries to settle you down.

"My legs are aching.", you say resting your face on his shoulder, so that he doesn't get to see your face.

Mingyu squints his eyes, saying teasingly, "I thought you didn't like me?"

"Correct. I don't like you", you tell him, "I'm tired. Plus what's the use of those muscles if you can't carry me?"

Mingyu doesn't reply rather he sprints towards the rest of the people making you scream for you life as you hold him tighter.

The whole team cheers and shouts and Hansol does what he does best, takes thousands shots of you both throughout.

You open your eyes to hushed murmurs and coos only to find all eyes on you as you wake up nestled in Mingyu's chest as he's still sleeping unaware of the disastrous, as you would state, state you both are in. Your gentle push wakes him up and they inform that they're at Mingyu's address and he drops off by asking Hansol to take you home safely.

"He's good guy, Y/N.", Hansol says as the van heads towards your location, "Not saying because I'm his friend but genuinely, he's keeper."

You just give a subtle nod, choosing not to say anything.

You hate your personal space being evaded but for some reasons it's tolerable as you watch your would-be mother-in-law cooking in the kitchen of your apartment while Minhee aids her.

You stand quietly by the counter, eyes quizzically moving along with the movements of the two people present along with you.

"I have cooked enough for you to last a week.", Mingyu's mother tells you, "Stop eating those instant, frozen, junk food.", she says unimpressed as she clears out the cupboards.

"Don't tell him that I said this but my brother's a great cook, have him cook for you both everyday.", Minhee telltales.

The three of you have chat where they're the ones mainly speaking and you become an ardent listener. It feels nice, you think, to have people care for you, to evade your space when you say you hate it but actually want them to have around you.

That night when they try to head off back to home, you don't let them go, rather you insist them to stay the night and they do stay back. It's not another usual lonely night at your apartment.

Your uncle gifts you both a new apartment, ignoring your protests. He insists, you both need to start afresh, on the right foot. Jokes about your own apartments to be cool off place to crash in if you both have fights.

"Why do I have to be here?", you ask sitting unfazed along with Mingyu's friends (yours as well but you won't admit yet).

Mingyu whines, "Who else would finalize on my wedding suit? They're of no use", he points at his friends who jokingly throw hurls at him, "And I don't trust her choice.", he says pointing at his sister who's too used to his antics to be bothered.

"Such a baby", you roll your eyes, "I have a meeting at 5. Be quick."

Oh you did well in muffling the gasps every time the curtains raised and Mingyu appeared in trying the attire.

Let me buy them all, is what you wanted to say. But sadly, you had to settle for one. But Mingyu doesn't get the privilege to choose your wedding gown.

He sees you walking down the aisle along with your uncle. Mesmerizing would be an understatement he's beyond that. He is nervous and shows. You're nervous as well but as always you're a master in hiding it. The vows are exchanged and as the crowd chants, your lips meet for a brief moment.

Your uncle starts off with teary speech, making you and almost all others cry silently. You walk up to him hugging tight because he has the only constant throughout your life, raising you as his own child, to be present and cheering on you on every important event of your life.

Mingyu has a long list of people lining up for giving speeches for him but what surprises you is even though they share tales about him, they include you in bits and your heart feels at ease thinking about how you might have found a family and people you can call them as your own. Which also leads Soonyoung to get too comfortable, almost getting an earful from you in front of the guests if Mingyu didn't intervene for daring to challenge you for a gaming match with all cockiness. Man lives as if he has nine lives.

You meet his colleagues and he gets to meets yours as well. Mingyu wonders, he has been wondering for as long as he has known you that where did you seek solace on hard days. How come you had no friends, not even one. Or maybe you had, but somehow you've lost touch. He can only speculate.

The first week for the newlyweds goes by settling into the new space. Everything sets in fine and you both divide the duties. Mingyu would be in charge of cooking, you'd do the groceries and he'd join in too obviously. You'd both would be aware of the each other's whereabouts and respect the spaces.

"I'm fine with everything and I want to make this marriage work.", Mingyu's tone changes to a defensive one, "Also, please never go to my office room, no matter what.", he says pointing towards the same, "It's a request and I hope you'd respect it."

You nod understandingly, you're also not a big fan of people messing or evading into your workspace so you agree.

Mingyu has gotten used to it but not the others so when his friends gather at your home one night to catch up they're gurgling out the drinks they're having when you hear you speak.

You call Mingyu, Husband.

"Husband!", you call him seated on the couch. Ignoring the turning of heads, as soon Mingyu comes in your sight, you say, "I have ordered the takeout, none of you needs to spend time in kitchen, rather spend time with each other."

Everyone smiles wide. The rest throw a knowing glance at Mingyu. You take it as a cue to give them space and get up to leave the room.

"I'll take a walk outside. Have fun catching up.", you say stoicly, already beelining towards the passage, "Will be back once the food arrives."

"You're one of us, Y/N. We don't need any space but if you do, then please go ahead..", Jeonghan says making you stop in tracks.

You turn back and sweep gaze among the faces, specially your husband's for any disagreement and when you find his pleading eyes, you see yourself beelining back to your seat.

Work's hectic as ever and you both try to adopt into the change of lifestyle. But what's not happening is work - life balance. With the new gaming launch event nearing, you are expected to stay in the office till late. It's nothing new but something is actually new.

And that's Kim Mingyu. You're still getting used to receiving texts asking about your expected time of return, extending the offer to pick you up if needed. It's also nice to have food served on the table when you reach home.

It's warm when you sleep into the sheets quietly but your husband somehow finds you, holding you in his arms albeit of his sleepy state.

"Why are you hugging me?", you ask with your voice muffled against his chest one morning.

Mingyu has just stirred from his slumber when your voice reaches him. He gets to look at the top of your head and cranes his neck to see the tangled limbs.

"You were spooning me as soon as I got into the bed.", you further add.

His eyes widen, as he tries to untangle himself mumbling apologies, "I'm sorry. I have a habit of clinging while sleeping. I'll try to be careful from today onwards."

And he misses to notice that one of his hands circling your waist is now in your grip, "Who told you to retract?", you down your head further into his so he doesn't get to see even an inch of your face, "I was just asking."

Mingyu goes silent. He's not in love with you and he knows neither are you. But moments like this make him realise something.

He reminiscences another fairly recent memory.

"There's something bothering me.", you come into his view as he pauses the movie he was watching.

Your eyes don't meet his, "I have noticed how your parents deflate whenever I call them uncle and aunt."

Mingyu listens, unsure of where this monologue is going.

You now turn to the front facing the television, your back facing him as your voice toning down as you continue, "I know being their only daughter-in-law they have some expectations. But I'm not good at coining terms, especially the terms like mother and father since I haven't... When I haven't--", you pause sucking in a sharp breath.

Mingyu gets up and turns you to face him, "You don't have to try so hard. Be easy on yourself. There's plenty of time and my parents do understand where you're coming from. And trust they're not disappointed or anything."

And he proceeds to do the most assuring thing, he knows of. He softly pecks your forehead.

Your eyes widen and you grab his arms gaping at him.

"Do it again.", you blurt out and though he smiles a grim realisation gnaws on Mingyu.

Many of the basic acts of proximity and affection, you're experiencing them for the very first time, hence it always comes to you as a surprise. Mingyu's heart constricts in the chest because as a person who has been surrounded by love and people, he can't fathom how you have managed to live on your own, in your lone company.

You're six months into the marriage and things have changed. Changed for good, you think.

You think being in the office and being at home are not the same anymore, it does make a difference. It's not bad, having someone checking upon you. It's not all bad having someone cooking for you. It's absolutely amazing to hear someone rant out, eating your ears off about work and whatnot and not expecting any words of comfort in return.

That someone being your husband. You think your husband is bearable, maybe a little more than bearable.

Mingyu sits still with the phone in his hand as his eyes trace over the photo repeatedly. There's an ache in his heart, he can feel his chest tighten. There are tears pooling in the corner of his eyes, throat closing up suffocating him.

During the lunch break, just to kill some time Mingyu decided to scroll through his abandoned social media account, the ones he hasn't bothered to check since the breakup. And he it turned out to be a mistake as the first picture that popped up on his feed was of the one Sora posted flaunting her new man.

And as he clicks on her account, it breaks his heart to see all of the photos they've posted together or if them clicked together were gone. As if it never happened, as if none of that were true whereas his account is still all about her and their memories.

"It's time for you to delete those pics as well."

He hears Seokmin's say.

"Are you seriously wasting your energy on her?", Seokmin takes a seat beside him, "When you're married and have a such a wonderful wife waiting for you at home?"

Mingyu gives melancholic smile, "Home? Sora was my home, Min. It was supposed to be her waiting for me at the end of day."

"You're sounding like a loser. And I might throw hands at you for uttering nonsense.", Seokmin gets up abruptly making the chair screech, "Don't ruin your present by living in the past."

Dealing with you is not easy and Mingyu had decided to marry you knowing all ifs and buts. At the start it felt more like living with an uncooperative roommate. Then, as days passed he became aware of your habits. Nowadays he thinks you've become habituated to him and it's a good sign but what tires him out is it's only him who's trying.

"I got promoted, Y/N!", Mingyu says all excitedly as soon as you're back from work and into his sight.

"Oh, congratulations.", you say plainly.

He waits with expectant eyes for you to say more but you don't. You don't pat him, neither do you smile. You just simply saunter towards the shared bedroom to freshen up. Eyes turned dull, heart heavy, dejected Mingyu goes to bed empty stomach, his appetite now gone.

You're still cold, to the extent that it's freezing a strain on the relationship. You don't open up, you never appreciate his efforts openly, neither are you interested in his matters. All that matters to you is work.

"Mom was asking if we could visit them anytime soon. As you know their wedding anniversary is approaching and I was thinking if we could spend some days with them around that time?", Mingyu asks you on a call one day when you had to work at office on a weekend because of some changes in timeline.

"You can go.", you tell him, "I don't think I would be able to attend the anniversary party."

"Could you please try? It would mean a lot--"

"Mingyu, you know I can't. I'm sorry.", you say hanging up.

Mingyu doubts if he'll ever love again, he doubts if he'll ever love you. And being a person who wears his heart on his sleeves, he wants being vocal and receiving affirmations, you do neither. Though he knows there are many things which you're experiencing as a first but that doesn't justify anything when he's trying, you should try as well. He contemplates every night if made a mistake by marrying you, if he was too much consumed by greed.

The company's hosting a dinner and everyone's expected to bring a plus one. Some take the opportunity to introduce their partners to their colleagues, for others it's free dinner and socializing. For the past years Mingyu attended the event just to flaunt his partner, Sora and make her aware how much he's looked upon at his workplace. He liked the way people worshipped them, deemed them as the perfect couple, he lived for the vibe of it.

But this year though there's a lot of anticipation about him bringing his wife, Mingyu attends the party alone. He hadn't informed you about the party, simply because he doesn't want you to be here. He's still disappointed at you, plus he knows you wouldn't even care to come even if he asked so to save his dignity from another rejection he decides not to inform you. And if your uncle asks, he'd make some excuse.

The dinner party swings on and it's kinda mundane for Mingyu with Seokmin also not attending because he's out of town until he hears everyone applauding. His gaze follows the crowd when he sees your uncle entering.

And he instantly freezes on the spot when he sees you walking behind.

→ Do not copy, re-post, translate, or share any of my works on other platforms! All stories are copyrighted, joonsytip. ©️

[novalpha]

I'm in love with this fic 😭

Waiting for part 2 huhu~

[novalpha]

I'm alive 🙃 I'm sorry for going inactive for like... almost a year

I've yet to update many fic recs sorry, I've been so busy with my exams. Idk if I'll be active from now on, i may ghost this app again until I'm free from my exams. I'll be active for a few days here and there prob

Please bare with me hehe 😅

Anyway, take care everyone ♡

[novalpha]

hello, do u perhaps know this one wonwoo fic where he comes back from war, and lives at ur home. he isolates himself in his own room for a while and u go about ur own chores and ur mother nags at u to get a husband and stuff. it’s a while before he comes out and helps u with the chores and stuff and that’s when u guys fall inlove. if u know it please PLEASE LET ME KNOW TOO I’M GOING CRAZY TRYING TO REMEMBER IT THANK U

AHHH I HAVEN'T READ THAT FIC YET

And now in also going crazy to read it T-T

[novalpha]

OMG I'M SEEING THIS ONLY NOW?? I'M SO SORRY..... I'M SO INACTIVE ON TUMBLR

And I miss you too 😭

[sugurugetos]

JEONGHAN APRIL SHOWER, FOLLOW TO SEOUL 2023

[novalpha]

This is just 2 different genres to process 😭

[novalpha]

I always make ship recs instead of finishing the individual member recs 🧍

Another ship recs coming soon...