💋Who: Kim Mingyu (Seventeen) x female reader
💋What: Friends to Lovers. Smut (18+). Fluff. They are in LOVE okay. Some Humour. Birthday boy Gyu 🎂
💋Word count: 9.8k
💋Warnings: Profanity. A single solitary thigh spank. Oral (female receiving). Gyu gets a little possessive over reader for a second, but it's more amusing than anything. Fingering. PIV sex. Protected sex, and a discussion about birth control beforehand. Quick mention of leaving scratches on his back. Some cockwarming. Just very wholesome stuff really, even the smut.
💋Summary:
The intention is to sneak into Mingyu's apartment, set up banners and balloons ready for when he wakes, cook him a meal like he's been asking you for ages, and then give him his birthday gift. You don't really have a plan for what happens after that; you assume you'll just hang out.
You really don't expect a love confession and to end up in his bed.
Minors do NOT interact. I WILL block any account that interacts without an age indicator in their bio. I also block blank blogs.
Masterlist
A/N- This was originally on my old account @/whipped-for-kpop-fics, but I’ve decided to private a lot of stuff on that account and just move it over to here after some editing, where I can actually track it all properly.
- Originally written for Mingyu's 2024 birthday.
Honestly, it's a little worrying just how easy it is to sneak around the apartment without detection.
You have known that Mingyu is a heavy sleeper for quite a while now, but it still concerns you that you manage to enter his room, tidy the little mess, set up decorations, then leave the room, all while he sleeps obliviously in his bed with his mouth wide open in a sign of good sleep.
Still, it makes everything all that much easier.
“Oh my god, Wonwoo!” The thrilled gasp, edged with a just-awake roughness, alerts you to the fact that Mingyu has finally woken and spotted the decorations in his room. A few seconds later, he’s stumbling through the apartment in search of his flatmate yet instead finds you in the kitchen. “Oh, you're not Wonwoo,” he mutters dumbly with eyes wide. Yours are too, but mostly because he’s wearing rather skimpy little, black boxers and nothing else.
“I'm not,” you confirm, staring without blinking at the extensive beautiful skin exposed to your eyes. Not that you’ve never seen Mingyu topless before, or even in shorts, but this is something else entirely. Something that you have only dreamed of until now.
Suddenly, Mingyu realises what he’s wearing, or more specifically what he isn't wearing, and squeaks as his hands dart down to cover his crotch before he rushes off with an embarrassed blush burning up his neck and cheeks.
When Mingyu returns ten minutes later, he’s freshly showered and fully dressed, much to your disappointment. But at least he isn't just in sweatpants and a hoodie like you had expected. He's pulled on his nicest jeans and a crisp, plain black t-shirt that clings to his torso, and is perhaps more devastating than seeing him bare. At least when he was bare it was less like being teased with something just out of sight. Either way, he’s out of reach in every way.
The outfit choice makes you tilt your head a little in puzzlement. “You put on your date outfit,” you comment, knowing that the jeans and t-shirt combo is a very common choice for Mingyu when he's going on a casual date with someone.
“You look nice, I thought I should too,” is his simple response as he shrugs and walks over to put his arms around your waist from behind and finally greet you as you usually greet one another; with a hug that is perhaps a little too lingering for the nothing-more-than-friends status you both claim to have.
Which is true, nothing has ever happened between you two that passes platonic. It's just the fact that you want it to, and if your mutual friends can be trusted, so does Mingyu.
“You said you like this dress,” you inform while turning back to the food that you’re working on. “And regularly complain that I never make an effort when I hang out with you. Seeing as it's a special occasion, I figured I should grant your wish, birthday boy,” you tease, and feel him grin happily against your neck where he’s still tucked down into like he favours. It always amazes you how such a giant man will shrink down for extended periods just to give affection to those he cares about. “Go sit at the table, this'll be ready soon. Your breakfast, my lunch,” you muse, pointing out that it is already almost 1 pm, but you had honestly expected as much. Mingyu is notorious amongst your friends for sleeping into the afternoon on days when he doesn't have to get up. And he always takes his birthday off to allow that luxury.
“Ah, you’ve finally agreed to cook for me,” he coos, and squeezes you happily before letting his arms unwind, hands sliding over your waist in a way that has you suppressing a shiver. Either he doesn't notice your little shaky inhale or simply chooses to ignore it as he relocates over to the dining table.
“I asked what you wanted for your birthday; you said you wanted me to cook for you,” you remind and glance over as he gasps and picks up the little ribbon-wrapped box on the tabletop while he sits down.
“Is this for me too?” He looks over at you with big eyes full of innocent excitement. He's so fucking cute that it is honestly a giant problem for your ability to keep a level heartbeat.
“Mm, of course, do you see another Mingyu here?” You raise an eyebrow, and then he notices the tag with his name on and giggles embarrassedly. “Happy birthday, Gyu.”
“Thank you,” he breathes out, looking at you fondly for a few long seconds, and then turns down to the box. “Can I open it now?”
“Whenever you want, it's yours,” you confirm simply while turning off the heat to dish up the food onto two plates.
“Ah, after food,” he decides and puts down the box to jump up with every intention of helping you; though you tut disapprovingly, causing him to lower back to his seat like a scolded puppy.
“It's your birthday, let me dote on you.”
“You dote on me anyway.” He pouts slightly as you carry the plates over to put on the already cutely laid table, which includes a little vase with fresh flowers in it. Mingyu has obviously noticed them and knows they're from you, Wonwoo wouldn't buy flowers for their apartment after all, but Mingyu does not have the mental capacity to point them out. It's too much for his poor, smitten heart to handle after waking up to birthday balloons and banners and then seeing you looking so beautiful cooking in his kitchen domestically. If he's forced to voice anything in regard to the appearance of his favourite flowers, he’s pretty sure he'll do something stupid like confess his undying love for you and ask you to never leave.
“Yes, and you do it too, but today is about you, birthday boy,” you retort and make a move to sit down. Mingyu is on his feet before your ass even touches the chair, just so that he can tuck you in like he always does. You let him have this one and just roll your eyes at his inability to not take care of you, even on a day entirely about him.
Soon, Mingyu is making happy sounds in his seat on your adjacent left as he thoroughly enjoys every mouthful of food. As much as Mingyu is a foodie and savours his food in general, he still tends to practically inhale whatever is in front of him when he hasn't eaten in a while, but he is genuinely taking his time to absorb every flavour and texture of this meal. It makes your heart flutter to see the genuine appreciation he has for what you cooked for him.
It occurs to you as you take a photo of him enjoying his food to send to the group chat, that the scene very much looks like a date. Your friends all know what Mingyu tends to wear for dates and if they know your own outfit of the day, which Wonwoo at least does from letting you into the apartment on his way out as planned, then they will also know that it's one of your own date looks.
You stare at your screen for a second, then lock the device as you decide against sending them anything despite having agreed to send update pictures. You’ve already sent photos of the decorations in Mingyu's room though, so that will be enough, right?
You know that it most certainly is not enough where your nosey friends are concerned. Still, ignorance is bliss.
For the first time perhaps ever, you finish eating before Mingyu, so just sit back and watch him contently. He knows that you're watching him and keeps grinning closed-lipped at you, not at all bothered by your attention.
He isn't a hypocrite; he’s watched you eat his own cooking in such a way many times before and will continue to do so. Mingyu knows exactly how wonderful it feels to witness anybody enjoying your own cooking, especially those you care about. And Mingyu knows that you care about him an awful lot. He’s just kind of in denial that the care had long ago stretched way past platonic territory.
As soon as Mingyu puts his cutlery down on his empty plate, you jump up to take the dishes away making him whine. “I was about to do that!” he complains while pouting at you with his left hand wrapped around his glass of water, which he had barely managed to touch before you darted away with the dirty dishes and distracted him from his drink.
“No, you weren't, birthday boy,” you sing-song, already rinsing off the dishes to put in the dishwasher ready for later in the day when it will be full enough to warrant being turned on.
“Are you really going to do everything for me today?”
“Yep, whatever you want, I'm at your disposal, Gyu.”
“Whatever I want?” he mumbles, more to himself than you, which is good because you don't hear his voice over the gentle clatter of dishes being placed into the dishwasher.
All he can think about is getting the one thing he’s wanted almost since the very day he first laid his eyes on you. Your lips. Your hands. Your body. You in your entirety. You by his side always so that he doesn't have to face the ache of watching you walk away ever again. But he can't ask for that, not even on his birthday.
After washing your hands, you return to your place at the table and lean onto your elbows on the tabletop. You don't notice the way the position accentuates your cleavage, but Mingyu certainly does. It takes everything in him to not look down at your chest.
“Are you going to open your gift now?” you prompt, nodding towards the little box.
“Oh, yeah!” He perks up and reaches out for it. “Though you really didn't have to get me anything, you already cooked for me and that's the best gift I've ever received.”
“Don't be ridiculous, Gyu, it was just a meal. Not even a particularly exciting one either, you regularly cook much more extravagant meals for me.” You pout a little, feeling guilty about the meal you made for him.
You spent weeks trying to come up with something special to cook for him. You even made a secret group chat with some of your friend group, who you thought would be helpful and not just ignore the chat, to send recipes and ask opinions. It had actually been Seokmin in the end who had not quite snapped but got fed up with your consistent worries over the planned meal and told you that Mingyu wouldn't give a single fuck what you cooked, he just cared that you cooked it. Seeing Seokmin speak up like that made you finally listen to the reason the entire chat had been trying to talk into you, so you stopped looking for something fancy and just cooked something you’re confident in already.
Still, you wish you did more. Something more deserving of Kim Mingyu.
“It's not about that,” Mingyu insists, looking at you earnestly. “It's about the act itself; cooking something for me no matter what it is, shows you care. That's what I care about, not the meal itself. Though it was delicious and I really hope you cook it for me again.” His smile turns cheeky by the end, making you let out a soft laugh.
“Mm, just say when,” you agree, smiling when his whole face lights up. You playfully scrunch your nose at him. He returns it without hesitation.
A moment passes between you, not a new moment, but one you have both felt many times. A moment with something meaningful floating in the air between you. But as per usual, neither of you are brave enough to reach out and capture it.
At the same time, you both look down at the box still in his hands to redirect your attention to something that doesn't feel quite so big in your chests.
Carefully, Mingyu pulls on the ribbon to untie the bow that you had spent a good half an hour trying to perfect that morning, so that he can then pluck the lid free. After moving the tissue paper aside, Mingyu's eyes land on the jewellery within. His expression melts along with his posture. With a cautious hand, he reaches out to touch one of the silver chains.
“I hope they're what you wanted. You were very vague when you said matching bracelets. I don't know who you intend to wear them with, but I hope you both like them. And that the design isn't entirely opposite to your intention.” You worry a little at the end, your own gaze settling on the little double hearts on each somewhat dainty chain.
Jeonghan had given you a look as if you were crazy when you had shown them to him last week; he insisted that Mingyu would break the chain within the first day of wearing it. But you know they are much more resilient than they look, after extensive testing on them both. You’re confident that even Mingyu's accident-prone self won't destroy the chains, yet even if he does, you'll just buy him more. Any many as he wants. So long as he's happy, you'll buy him anything his heart desires.
“I just know you like love heart designs and everything else didn't really suit you in my mind,” you explain.
“They're beautiful,” he breathes out, then scoots closer to you and holds his left arm out over the tabletop. “Put it on me, please?”
“Sure,” you agree, even if you're confused about why he isn't waiting until he gives the matching one to whoever his intended recipient is. Still, you pluck one of the bracelets from its secure seat in the box to wind it around his wrist and clasp it in place. Your fingers trace over the chain and his skin for a second before you start to pull back. But Mingyu quickly, though gently, grasps your right hand to tug it closer to him. “Gyu,” you murmur with widened eyes when he pulls the remaining chain from the box. “Gyu, I didn't buy it with this intention,” you explain rapidly, worried that he thinks that you expect him to give the other to you purely because you had purchased the matching pair.
“I asked for it with this intention,” he admits, eyes focused on the chain he ties around your wrist. “Why do you think I asked you to get me matching bracelets if not to share with you?”
“I don't know. I've bought you stuff to match with the guys before.”
“Mm, true,” he agrees and looks up at you, though his fingers remain on your wrist tenderly. “But I wanted these for us. Something I can wear every day and have a reminder of you; so that I can look down and feel better because I'll be thinking of you.”
“Gyu...” you murmur in a breathless exhale.
His words hold far more weight than anything the pair of you dare to utter to one another; like he has finally reached out and caught onto that thing between you, and now he’s offering you the chance to reach back out. But you don't know what to say, how to reach out without risking the weight of his words not being what you hope.
He stares at you for a moment, lip between his teeth as he chews on it a little with nerves filling his chest. He's already said it; there no going back now. So, he decides that if he can't go back, he should keep going forward and take that leap that he truly hopes with everything in him will end in your open arms.
“You said whatever I want, right?” he recalls. It takes you a second to understand what exactly he means, but then you nod. “Well, I have something that I've wanted for a really long time, something only you can give me. But I don't want you to give it to me just because I asked and it's my birthday. Okay?”
“Uh, okay?” you reply, confused yet very hopeful that whatever his request is, it will be enough that if you reach out, your hand will find his own doing the same. “What is it?”
“Will you kiss me?” Your eyebrows lift in surprise as your heart races in your chest. “And not...not just because kissing is nice and you haven't kissed anyone in a while so you're happy to kiss for that reason.” You don't even care that he’s bluntly mentioned your lack of any kind of action in the past months, you’re more interested in where he’s going with this. “But because you want to kiss me, and not because I'm one of your closest friends, or just for a sexual thing, but because you like me and want me the way that I want you.”
Your voice is barely a whisper when you respond. “And how do you want me?”
“By my side from now until forever as mine, and me as yours entirely.”
“Really?” your voice is choked and there are tears in your eyes from his sincere words.
Mingyu's own eyes look as if they are gathering tears too. Though his aren't wet just because of the rapidly growing cloud of something between you with his hands deep inside as he tries to direct it to your own touch. He's fucking petrified that he’s ruining everything between you, yet he hadn't been able to stop talking and let his truth flow free. He will never forgive himself if his honesty pushes you away; he'd rather have you as nothing more than a friend than not at all, so long as you're still such a big part of his life.
“Yeah, I-I'm kind of really in love with you,” He admits with a weak chuckle. He tries to lighten the mood with a smile but it's much too shaky to do the job.
Luckily though, you don't notice, you're already darting forward to lean over the table and kiss him, far too utterly overwhelmed by his confession and the swell of your heart to have the mentality to voice anything in response. You hope your lips against his will suffice until you have your full faculties back.
For a handful of seconds, Mingyu remains frozen solid in his seat, eyes wide on your own closed ones closer to his face than you’ve ever been before. He had hoped you'd react positively, but he hadn't dared to expect it. The hope itself had seemed like a dream. So, it takes him a few seconds to fully register that you’ve just fucking kissed him despite all he said. You two have such a solid mutual respect for one another that he knows that you will never play with his emotions in any way. It's that mental reminder that has him jerking back to reality. His hands fly up to cup your face as his eyes close and he finally kisses you back with a soft groan.
Considering that the kiss had been rather one-sided at its start, it isn't a sweet kiss by any means. It's passionate from the first second that his lips press back against yours; both of you are full of so much emotion for one another for so long that it's being released all at once.
You don’t intend to get carried away in the way Mingyu's tongue caresses your own, or how he regularly lets out little low sounds from the back of his throat to show how pleased he is with the way that your mouths move with this same pure need for one another, but you do.
Only when you find yourself on his lap, table edge pressing into your lower back and his erection grinding up between your spread legs, do you actually recall that you hadn't meant to do more than just kiss the man until you gain your mental clarity back. Not that you do gain your mental clarity back, but you've both pulled apart to desperately refill your lungs, even without stopping your hips moving against each other.
“Gyu,” you manage, holding his face firmly and looking into his heavy gaze. He licks his lips but doesn't respond verbally. He's at least staring at you intently enough that you know he will hear you even over the lust thick in his veins. “I'm in love with you too.”
All at once, Mingyu falls still and blinks at you in dumb surprise. He hadn't expected you to say as much; even if you do feel the same way, he thought your return confession would come later. You know, after he's fucked you until you can't walk without thinking of his cock every single step.
“You are?” he asks, not because he thinks you'd lie, but just because his blood is not circulating around his brain enough for him to have the ability to decipher if it's just a horny hallucination fuelled by his own love for you.
“Yeah, have been for a while.”
“Oh.” Another few empty blinks at you, before he beams and wraps his arms around you in a tight embrace. “I love you so, so, so, so, so much, sweetheart. You'll be mine, right?” He leans back to look at you with big eyes full of love and a hint of pleading.
“Yeah, yeah, of course,” you agree, beaming right back at him with your arms around his neck. “For as long as you want me.”
“How does forever sound?” Mingyu offers with a cheeky smile.
You take a moment to just admire him, admire the man who owns your entire heart and soul. “I'm not sure it's long enough.” You will happily dedicate an eternity to loving Kim Mingyu but even then, you aren't sure that it's long enough in comparison to the devotion he deserves.
“But it's a start.”
“It's a start,” you agree with a single nod.
He smiles adoringly at you then lifts one hand from around you to cup your cheek tenderly and leads you into a kiss. This one isn't like the other, there's no lust in this, even if it still burns in your very blood, and clearly in his too based on the bulge still pressing against you. All the kiss contains is pure, unfiltered love, and you hope to have many more like it in your future together. You're positive that it’s going to be a long and happy future.
The longer the kiss goes on, the more the lust trickles back in. Soon enough, you're grinding against each other looking for friction and to feel one another closer.
“Baby,” Mingyu pants out, gripping your hips tight to force you to a stop. You pout at him, confused and rather offended. “There's something else I want. For my birthday.”
“If it's to fuck me, you have my very enthusiastic consent,” you reply immediately, and try to move back in to reunite your lips, but he holds you still, making you whine. “Gyu.”
“No, it's not. Well, I mean, I do want to fuck you, a lot, but that's not what's on my mind right now.”
You pointedly look down at the borderline obscene bulge in his jeans, then back up at him. He giggles a little, kind of shy and very out of place, but so fucking cute that you can't help but smile in return. “Okay, what do you want, birthday boy?” you coo, brushing your fingers through his hair.
“To eat you out.” You raise a surprised eyebrow at him. You thought he'd ask for a blow job if anything, not for him to go down on you. Not that you're against that at all. “Can I?”
“Mm, sure, baby, whatever you want,” you agree. He grins, then abruptly hoists you up onto the table, making you yelp in alarm at being manhandled out of the blue. Once again, not that you're against it at all.
“I've wanted to get my mouth on you for so long,” he admits breathlessly as he watches his hands smooth up your spread thighs in front of him. “Thought about how you'd taste, dreamed about it.” He slowly pushes the skirt of your dress up, and up, and up, until it's bunched at the crease between your thighs and hips.
You watch him stare at the seat of your panties for a moment, his fingers pressing into your thighs and mouth open. “For someone who's wanted this for so long, you're taking your time getting to it, baby,” you tease, tapping his chin, causing him to snap his mouth shut embarrassedly while flicking his eyes up to you.
“Shut up, I'm overwhelmed,” he mumbles, tilting his head towards your hand so that you cup his cheek. Your thumb brushes over his lips, so he presses a kiss to it without thought.
“Overwhelmed in a good way?”
“The best way,” Mingyu confirms, nodding in your hold. “I just found out that you love me, and now I get to touch and taste you. It's a lot. I'm not sure I've even absorbed that you love me yet.”
“Will it help if I say it again?” you tease, leaning down towards his face. He straightens as you lower, as if drawn to you without him even needing to consciously move his body. You’ve only just come together but already, it's so natural to you both.
“Only one way to find out.”
Instead of saying the words, you press your lips to his. You kiss him softly, slowly, in a way that makes his breath hitch, and his fingers tremble a little against your skin. With just a hint of sweetness. “I love you, Mingyu, more than I can put into words.”
“I can't either,” he agrees and brushes his nose against yours softly before pressing a flutter of a kiss to your cheek, and then another a little lower. “I'm not good with words-” another kiss below the last “-I never have been-” he continues to speak in between creating a trail of his lips over your jaw and down onto your neck, trying his utmost to carve a path of his love into your skin in hopes of it reaching your very centre and finding a home there. “-And I'll spend my whole fucking life trying to find them for you.” His lips are at your collarbones by now, with little flashes of his tongue to taste every inch of you he can. It sends your stomach both fluttering and burning. “But for now, let me try and show you instead.” He pulls his mouth from you to stand up and hover over you, with both of his hands finding your face to direct your gaze up into his own.
You nod a little in agreement. “Show me, Gyu,” you encourage in a whisper, before his lips are back on yours, tongue sliding into your mouth as he encourages you to lay back against the tabletop without once breaking the kiss.
And then, in true Mingyu fashion, once you are flat against the wood and he reaches up to prop himself up over you, he knocks over the vase of flowers. He shrieks and flails his arms out to try and catch them, but the vase topples over, spilling water out over the wood, and thanks to his failed correction, in your direction.
You just stare dumbly at him. It all happens so fast. One second, you're making out with your boyfriend and the next, you're soaked and not in the ideal area. Luckily, it actually isn't an awful lot of water but having it over half of your face and chest really is not enjoyable in any way.
“Oh my god, I am so sorry, baby,” Mingyu rushes out when he looks at you instead of the mess of stems and petals over the table amongst the water. “I didn't mean to get you wet!” You raise an eyebrow with a suggestive grin. Instantly, his worry goes and he laughs. “This is the wrong kind of wet,” he muses and plonks the vase down so that he can wrap his arms around you and pull you upright against his chest. “Will you be upset if I ignore the flowers you bought me to take you to bed and make you wet in the other way?” He wiggles his eyebrows.
“I think I'd be more upset if you focused on the flowers.”
“Good.” Mingyu lowers just enough to get your thighs up around his waist and his hands under them securely before lifting. “Always wanted to pick you up,” he admits off-handedly as he traipses through the apartment.
“Why?”
“Because...you let Seungcheol do it that time, but no one else.” He pouts and you giggle, absently playing with the hair at his nape where your fingers lay comfortably. “Don't laugh at me,” he whines. The slap of his palm against the underside of your thigh isn't hard and doesn't hurt at all, but the point gets through. Even if it is entirely contradictory behaviour to his sulking.
“Yes sir,” You reply, a tease, but your voice is serious. The only sign of the playful response is in the way your eyes sparkle on him. He gives you an unimpressed look but quickly breaks and smiles.
Though seconds later, the smile turns into a smirk, and he tosses you onto his bed. “You look good in my bed.” He grins, eyes darkening as they roam you from where he stands at the side of the bed with his hands on his hips.
“Look better with you on top of me, come on.” You settle with your head on the soft pillows and spread your legs invitingly while pulling your skirt up higher.
Mingyu is between your thighs in seconds, chest flat to the mattress and face alarmingly close for the speed at which he moves. For a second, you really think that he's going to harshly collide with you. Although you have wanted Mingyu's mouth on for a long time, that would certainly not be how you fantasised.
“Oh my god, I thought you were going to faceplant my vagina for a second,” you admit with a relieved exhale. He snorts a laugh, then shuffles a little closer so that he can press a kiss at the crease of your inner right thigh over the edge of your panties.
There aren't any further words exchanged between you, just a moment of heated eye contact before Mingyu adjusts his position and pulls aside the seat of your panties to expose you to him. He takes a few seconds to burn this image of you all slick and bare for him in his mind; something for him to look back on when he misses you.
Because he knows he will. He missed you before he even had you, and now that he has you? Good luck ever going a day without him whining for you in some way.
You let him look even if it makes you blush and squirm a little, half shy, half aroused at the intensity of his burning gaze locked between your spread thighs. He isn't even holding your legs open, just resting his left hand on your inner thigh without any pressure while his right keeps your panties aside. If he was anyone else, your thighs would've closed already, but this is Mingyu, the man you hope to spend a lifetime with, so you figure you shouldn't be shy with him. He'll see it all eventually anyway.
Just before you can change your mind and try to encourage him either verbally or by reaching out and pulling him in, he leans down and licks a broad stripe over you, pulling your wetness onto his tongue and making you inhale sharply at the sudden, wet touch. He groans deeply and his eyes almost roll back as he sucks the flavour of you from his tongue to swallow down. And then he's back, diving right down with his left hand moving to use his thumb to hold you open and give him easier access to lap at the arousal trickling from your hole.
He doesn't really give you any chance to think, just grip the sheets below you with your mouth open and eyes shut while he devours you with more enthusiasm than you could've ever expected. If you didn't think it before, you certainly do now; Kim Mingyu is the personification of your wettest dreams. The way his tongue travels over your folds hungrily, lips joining to suck and kiss wherever his heart desires, is so fucking sinful in the best of ways. You think he may very well suck your soul out of your clit at this rate, and you'll thank him for it.
“Gyu,” you finally manage to make a sound beside the whimpers and moans he skilfully pulls from your throat in a way nobody has, not even yourself, and you truly thought you know your body through and through by this point. But boy were you wrong. And for the first time, you're very fucking happy to be proven incorrect.
Though apparently, calling his name out of the blue is not a smart move, because he immediately leans up to look at you with wide eyes of concern. “Yeah, baby? You okay?”
“Don't fucking stop!” you wail in complaint, reaching out to knot your fingers into his hair and force him back down. Though he's more than willing to get his mouth back on your dripping pussy and lowers easily under your hands with a pleased groan. “Don't stop,” you repeat in an exhale, watching him devour you as if it's his sole reason for existing. You wish you could watch him for longer, but your neck quickly starts to hurt from the awkward angle, so you flop back down and let your eyes close again.
Mingyu glances up at you for a second, then also closes his own eyes with a self-satisfied smirk. He’s imagined this so many times before; how you'd taste on his tongue, how you'd feel against his lips, but nothing he imagined can hold a candle to the haven he's discovered between your thighs. He knows he could happily spend all day with his head between your thighs and his tongue buried in your pussy. He wonders if you'd let him. Not right now, he thinks that would be too much for your first day together, but in the future for sure. Tomorrow? Yeah, he'll ask to do it tomorrow, you can both call in sick to work as far as he's concerned.
Honestly, Mingyu is too lost in his own actions to register the way your legs are pulling in either side of his head and your moans changing in pitch and frequency. He only notices when suddenly, he has a thigh pressed to either side of his head and you're pressing down against him with a call of his name. His eyes fly open to watch you arch off of the bed as your orgasm shocks through your body. He doesn't mean to groan lowly where his lips are wrapped around your clit, but he does, and the vibration is too much when you're barely through your climax, so you scramble to push his head away.
“Sorry, sorry,” he pants out, crawling up the bed to hover over you while you slump down, eyes closed and chest heaving. He lowers onto his elbows on either side of you to kiss your neck softly while he waits for you to catch your breath back. He isn't expecting anything more than this and will be happy if you want to just leave it here for today, but he's sure as shit hoping you'll let him put his cock in you, even for a moment.
At this point, he's sure it won't take more than just a moment or two for him to cum anyway, his dick is throbbing in his boxers, pressing against his jeans in a way that he's only now realising is actually a little painful.
The second your breath is back, you tug him up to lock your lips together. His are a little damp and sticky still, but you find you don't mind tasting yourself when it's on Mingyu's tongue.
You don't wait long at all before reaching down for the hem of his t-shirt to pull it up. He leans back to give you a questioning look, more to make sure you're certain than anything else. You continue to pull it up, so he manoeuvres to allow you to remove it from his body.
“You're insane, you know?” you murmur out awed as you take in his defined torso. For the first time, you can touch him to your heart's content, so you run your palms over his newly exposed skin, memorising the warmth, the dips, and ridges of him.
“What?” He laughs confusedly, looking between your bodies and taking in how your hands look against him, how your skin tone compliments his own perfectly. Like you were made to complement each other. For each other. As he looks up at you and observes the reverence on your beautiful features, he thinks perhaps you were. It's that thought that has him lowering back to your lips again before you can even answer his question. He has the sudden urge to love you in every way he possibly can. Not that he never does, but right now, it's less of the usual consistent buzz, and more like a heated thrumming right under the surface of his skin.
You let out a little surprised 'mmh' against his lips, yet don't hesitate to kiss him back. Your hands first lift to hold his face, but then they move back down, over his pecs and abs all the way to the waistband of his jeans, where you tuck your fingers underneath in a silent request. He groans a little and presses forward against your hand in wordless consent, so you quickly open the button and pull down the zipper, so that you can snake a hand underneath and palm at him over his boxers.
Mingyu immediately pulls out of the kiss with a hiss and a low curse. “Baby, I'll cum if you touch me,” he warns, locking pleading eyes on you. You can't quite tell what he's pleading for though. Not when his words say one thing and his hips rolling against your palm tells you another.
“Isn't that kind of the point?” you muse, lifting a teasing eyebrow.
“I don't want to.” He pouts. Without hesitation, you pull your hands away and hold them to yourself. “No, I didn't mean to stop,” he whines.
“What the fuck, Mingyu?” you complain, pinching his nipple, making him yelp and squirm away a little, but only for a second as he returns right back. Always drawn to you and unable to hide it anymore, he doesn't want to hide it anymore. Wants the world to know if at all possible.
“I mean I don't want to cum like “that,” he explains, soothing your displeasure with a few sweet kisses to your forehead and temple. “I really want to be inside you.”
“Oh.” Your expression swiftly shifts into understanding and then delight. “I really want you inside me too, Gyu.”
“Yeah?” It's kind of comical the way his eyes light up in pure excitement. It’s more like he’s been offered his favourite food, not to fuck you. Well, considering the enthusiasm with which he ate you out earlier though, you may very well be his new favourite thing to eat.
“Yeah, so get naked,” you confirm with a giggle that only grows when he scrambles off of the bed to shed his clothes. He stumbles multiple times in his haste and honestly, you're too fucking endeared and in love with this giant, clumsy idiot to do anything but sit and watch him with a stupid grin on your face.
He only notices that you haven’t done anything but sit upright when he turns to climb back on the bed entirely naked and spots you watching him. “You're not naked,” he comments, a fresh pout pursing his lips.
“I got distracted watching the man I'm in love with,” You explain smoothly. Mingyu's cheeks flush as he smiles at your words, his heart swelling with his own love in his chest. He's not sure he'll ever get used to hearing you admit to your love for him. He doesn't think he wants to get used to it.
He climbs up onto the bed further and reaches out to the hem of your skirt. You get up onto your knees in front of him and lift your arms. He presses a soft kiss to your forehead before removing the dress from your body to toss it to the floor carelessly. Later he’ll worry about the creases in it from being on the floor, but right now he can't think about anything but you.
“You're so beautiful,” he exhales heavily as he roams his gaze over your bra and panty-clad body. You're glad you wore one of your nice matching sets today, you think he deserves to see your nice lingerie for your first time together at least.
“So're you.” You reach around your back to unlatch your bra. Mingyu's eyes widen in interest for a second, then he moves in and pulls the straps from your shoulders so that he can also discard that piece of clothing, leaving you in your damp, slightly stretched-out panties. “How do you want me?” you ask as you hook your thumbs in the waistband, but Mingyu bats your hands away gently so that he can have the honour of stripping you naked.
“On your back,” he murmurs as he works the material down your thighs.
“Don't want me to ride you?” You offer.
Mingyu’s eyes snap up to you and he goes very quiet and still for a few seconds as the mental image of you bouncing on his cock assaults his mind. And then he's shaking it away with a physical shake of his head and nudging you down to your earlier position on your back, so that he can remove the last item keeping you from being as bare as him. “Not right now, I'll cum too fast,” he admits, settling between your thighs on his knees and just looking at you with his hands on your inner thighs just above your knees. “Might cum too fast anyway,” he confesses in a mumble, making you choke out a laugh at his abrupt confession. “Will you break up with me if I cum as soon as I feel your pussy on my cock?” he asks, looking genuinely worried at the thought and like he seriously wants an answer.
So, you take a breath so that you don't laugh again and shake your head a little. “No, Gyu, I won't break up with you if that happens.”
“Promise?”
“I promise,” you assure, squeezing his hands a little. His left moves up to grab yours in return and lace your fingers together on your thigh.
“Okay.” He relaxes as he accepts your words as truth then looks down to focus on his right hand as it moves from your thigh and to between your legs. “I should've stretched you earlier when I had my mouth on you,” he realises, prodding at your entrance with his lips slightly protruding in concentration and a little regret at his lack of forethought destroying his plans of sliding into your pussy any second.
“Do you want me to do it?” you offer. Two of his fingers slide into you in answer, making your breath catch, but then you laugh a little at his reaction.
“No, nobody touches this pussy except me,” he argues firmly, already working to move his fingers within you, in and out, while scissoring them with his only goal to stretch you enough to comfortably fit his thick cock inside.
“I-I can't even t-touch my own body now?” you ask amused, but his fingers in you feel too good for you to actually put any emotion into your voice. You vaguely hope he doesn't take it the wrong way and does understand that you're trying to joke with him, but mostly you don't care how he takes it so long as he keeps stretching you out in that way.
It's a rushed job, you know that; you can tell that he obviously only wants one thing right now and this isn't for giving you any pleasure, but it still is. Maybe it's the way he's being a little rough about it without actually being rough; he's giving you the chance to adjust to his fingers, but he's already adding a third and jabbing them into you sooner than you would yourself.
“Not like this,” Mingyu answers, eyes still on his task between your thighs, though now he's seeing the way you're leaking even more, and he's sort of clicking back into the fact that he should consciously be making this good for you. Though the slick sounds mixed with your laboured breathing and intermittent soft moans tell him that he doesn't really need to try to make this good for you. But next time, next time he'll make you cum until the sheets are soaked down to the mattress before he puts his cock in you. “Are you on birth control?” the question feels entirely out of the blue so you can't be blamed for not answering and just blinking at him for a second. He slows his hand to a stop and lifts his head when you don't answer. “I really want to cum in you,” he explains.
“Oh, uh, no. I kept forgetting to take it,” you answer and feel genuinely bad when his expression falls. He looks kind of heartbroken. “I plan to get something else soon though, so in the future, you can.”
“Okay.” He smiles agreeably then removes his fingers from you to reach over to his bedside table, open it and rummage inside to find a condom.
“You'd have more luck if you let go of my hand,” you muse, watching him struggle to open the foil packet with one hand, the corner of it carefully held between his front teeth.
“No,” he refuses though closed teeth. There's a victorious sound from him when the foil rips open. He spits out the ripped piece of the packet to the side, and you watch the corner flutter away, knowing he’ll be annoyed at himself for littering his floor later. “Uhm,” his lost mutter draws your attention back to him. He's kneeling there, the tip of the condom pinched between his fingers as he stares between it and his erection. Clearly, he did not think this through.
You huff a soft almost silent laugh before you sit up and move his hand to his dick so that he can hold the condom and allow you to roll it down his length. He bites his lip and tries to not let your touch get to him.
“Teamwork,” Mingyu giggles when you lean back and look up at him. “We make a good team, right, baby?”
“Mm, the best,” you confirm, tugging him down by the back of his neck to connect your lips.
Mingyu's free hand brushes appreciatively over your arm before he starts to lean forward, urging you back slowly until you're against the mattress and he's over you with his right arm holding him up, his left hand still locked with yours, but now it's by your side.
You can feel his erection against you, the latex sliding against your thigh until you lift your legs to nudge him over a little by his hips. He presses down, gliding his cock over your folds and catching on your clit. He can't really get the position right like this though, not to slide into you.
Mingyu lifts your connected hands up to the pillow beside your head so that he can move his weight over to his left elbow and get his right hand between your bodies. He grasps his erection loosely, just enough of a grip to line himself up with your dripping hole. “Ready?” he breathes out after leaning up enough to look down into your eyes. You nod without hesitation, so he pushes in. He's only an inch into you and he's already convinced that your pussy is the greatest pussy that has ever or shall ever exist.
As Mingyu gradually feeds his thick length into you, you have the honour of watching his face contort beautifully in pained pleasure. He's trembling and his gaze is unfocused, even as he stares back down at you with his mouth dropped open wide without a single sound coming out. You're not even sure he's breathing, and honestly, you're not sure you are either.
The stretch of his cock against your walls is utterly mind-numbing. You've had your fair share of sexual partners in the past, and plenty of sex toys to keep yourself happy otherwise, but nothing, absolutely nothing has ever felt the way Mingyu feels tucked up snug inside of you. You're not sure if it's because his cock is just that good, big in all the right ways without being too big, or if it's just that you're in so fucking deep with this man that anything he does feels ridiculously good. You're leaning towards the latter, though you’re pretty certain that he has the most perfect cock to have ever graced this earth, if not the universe.
When Mingyu's hips finally press up against you, signalling that he is fully sheathed within you, you're half certain that you can feel him in your stomach and absently press down with your left hand just to test that theory. You can't feel him, but you can imagine it all the same and wrap your arm back around his neck loosely.
“You okay?” you whisper when he remains that way, eyes still unfocused on your face and both hands on either side of your head, where his right is gripping the pillow with everything in him.
“No,” he chokes out, finally blinking alert. “Feel so good,” he slurs. “Don't wanna cum yet, wanna stay in you forever.”
“You don't have to pull out right away.” You soothe your hand over the back of his neck, fingers digging into the muscles a little in an attempt to calm your overwhelmed boyfriend. “And I don't have any plans today, so we can spend as long as you want in bed, and you can fuck me again later when you're ready.”
“Really?” He perks up a little. “N-no plans?”
“No, baby; I wanted to be available for whatever you want to do today. Granted, I thought it might be a drive or trip somewhere, not sex.”
“Would you rather the trip?” he teases with a little smirk as he slowly pulls his hips back, dragging his cock along your walls that try to keep him in place. His smirk wavers.
“No. Fuck me,” you reply firmly, knowing that he really can't hold out anymore. You really don't want him to either. He nods and thrusts back into you.
You expect him to move fast and frantic; to chase the pleasure he has been dancing along the precipice of for a while now. Yet Mingyu fucks you slowly, rolling his hips deep into you, and then all the way out until his tip is barely in you, before sliding back in. He fucks you like he's got something to prove. It reminds you of his earlier words, that he wants to show you what he doesn't yet have the words to say.
“I love you,” you blurt, suddenly overcome with the urge to say it.
Mingyu stills for a second, then surges down to kiss you passionately, spilling his response into your mouth wordlessly as his hips return to work. Now though, he barely pulls out before fucking back into you. It's more of a grind than anything, his body pressed close enough that his pubic bone is applying pressure to your clit in a way that is shattering you from your mind to your lower stomach.
Very quickly, the pleasure is too much for either of you to make your lips work further, so Mingyu leans up, propping himself up on his right elbow on the pillow, his fingers threading into your hair to hold you as his body continues to make your body burn brighter with every passing second.
His forehead presses to yours for a few seconds before he lifts his head and looks to his left. You look over too, wondering what could possibly be drawing his attention right now when he's fucking you like no one ever has before.
At first, you don't understand at all, all you can see in his line of sight is your hands. Which is nice, sure; the sight of your fingers locked together as he shows you how much he loves you with his cock buried deep within you and grinding against more sensitive spots than you ever knew you had before, though you don't understand his laser focus.
But then, you find the matching silver chains on your wrists, the hearts almost pressed together with the angle you’re holding each other, and you understand.
Those bracelets were always supposed to be a sign of love for him, even if you didn't know it. He had asked you to pick out bracelets for you to wear together so that he can always have a piece of you with him, and you a piece of him. You’ve exchanged hearts metaphorically, and quite literally now with the physical representations tied securely around your wrists.
Something about that very thought sends you tumbling into an intense orgasm without you realising it's going to happen until the blinding pleasure is washing over you. Your hands both grip Mingyu, one in his hand and the other around his back and drawing red lines into his shoulder blade. You're not even aware of it, of how you call his name and clamp down around his cock as you gush over it, promptly sending him spiralling into his own mind-numbing orgasm.
It's minutes before either of you return back to earth.
You're back first, blinking away the tears that you hadn't realised formed until now. Mingyu is pressing up against your chest with his head on your shoulder; the only movement of his body is the rise and fall of his back as his breathing starts to even out.
It hits you that you missed his orgasm; you’ve always wanted to know what he looks like during such intense pleasure, but you missed it thanks to your own. You frown a little, though a quick glance at your still connected hands reminds you that you are his and he is yours, therefore, this will not be your only chance to see his handsome features contort with pleasure.
“I love you, but I also love breathing,” you point out after a few minutes of tracing patterns on his back with your left hand. At first, his weight on you hadn't been too much, but it seems that your gentle trails on his sweat-sticky skin have made him relax a little too much and let his muscle-thick frame lay heavier on you.
“Mmm, can we still cuddle?” he requests, making no attempt to get up, though he does do his best to lean more onto his right elbow again, even without lifting up from your shoulder.
“Of course.” Though he still doesn't get off of you. “Are you going to move, Gyu?”
“But then I won't be in you.” You can hear the pout in his slightly muffled voice, even if you can't see it. “You're all warm, s'nice.”
“So, you'd rather cockwarm than let me breathe easily?”
He hesitates, then giggles when you tug on his ear with an offended gasp. “I'm joking, I'm joking!” He leans up entirely onto his elbow, freeing your torso from him. “I will always pick your health.”
“I should hope so.” He scrunches his nose at you playfully. You return it without hesitation.
Although he hadn't wanted to get up initially, Mingyu goes to the effort once off of you to go all the way to the bathroom once he has disposed of the soiled condom, where he fetches a warm damp cloth and a dry towel to clean you up first, then himself. You expect him to return to your side, but he saunters off again, allowing you to once again marvel at his exposed ass as he walks away, and returns with a couple of water bottles and an armful of snacks.
The water makes sense, you think, but the mass of snack packets is a little questioning, so you raise an eyebrow at him while you shuffle to sit up against the headboard and accept one of the bottles.
“What?” he innocently replies, putting the other bottle down on the side table to free his hand and allow him to set up the various snacks there too. “You said we can spend as long as I want in bed, I just want to be prepared, sweetheart.”
And well, you can't really argue with that, nor his cheeky, endearing smile, so you just laugh softly and hand over the open bottle to let him swallow down some of the cool liquid himself before he climbs up onto the bed and wraps his arms around your body to hold you in the way you’ve both wanted for so long.
Later, when you both have your energy back and Mingyu is no longer constantly on the verge of cumming too soon, he presses you back down against his bed all over again, so that he can see every expression on your face as he takes you apart piece by piece, just to see how you work at your very core. He learns all of your curves and edges so attentively and allows you to learn his in return.
By the time you're once again laid side by side much later, tucked up in each other's arms tired yet sated, you're certain that somewhere along the way, your pieces got mixed up and Mingyu found himself a permanent home in your chest. He’s taken a piece of you for his own and given you a matching piece of him in return.
You can't see it, but it feels an awful lot like his heart.
Silently, with nothing more than a soft kiss on his shoulder, you vow to him that you will spend your life protecting it with everything in you. And you're confident that he will do the same with yours as his lips press to your head in return.
Don’t forget to reblog if you liked to help spread the story and let others read it too! And don't be shy to leave comments or send an ask so I can see your thoughts 🥺 💖
I just read this story and I fear… I might be in love with THAT girl.
No because Mingyu??? baby I love you but MOVE. Step aside. Let me be with the baddie for a second because EXCUSE ME??? isn’t she a 10/10??? Like??? Come spoil me too??? I can be cute, I can behave, I can act right 😩 I too would like someone to spend their time AND money on me, especially on my birthday, thank you very much!!!
But anyway—FOCUS.
This was actually such a good read. Like I genuinely enjoyed it. The friendship?? Don’t even get me started. Had me giggling, kicking my feet… and then immediately remembering I need friends too. Someone help.
And listen, I wasn’t even giggling because of Mingyu (shocking, I know). It was HER. The way she was so caring??? So soft??? I fell HARD. That’s my baby now, sorry.
Also I have to agree with Mingyu on ONE thing: sleeping is PEAK. Elite activity. Top tier. If my house is on fire just know I’m not waking up, I’ll see you all in heaven because being a heavy sleeper is not a joke.
And I just love the energy of the whole thing. It’s not perfect, it’s not polished like some clean choreography—no. It’s clumsy, messy, soft, chaotic… and that’s exactly why it works so well.
Now I’m just sitting here wondering how Wonwoo is going to react when he comes back and sees the remains of that flower and the vase…
💬 0 🔁 26 ❤️ 151 · Naive - L.C · 💡Who: Lee Chan (Seventeen) x female reader
💡What: Best friends to ??? Angst. Thriller. Soft moments. Dark
I need everyone to understand that I read this fic LAST SPRING and I am STILL not over it. Like at all. It is still sitting in my brain like an unpaid bill.
The story is called “Naive.”Which is honestly a little funny because I was the naive one for thinking I was about to read something normal.
I will not spoil anything because I refuse to rob anyone of the deeply traumatic spiritual experience that is reading this story for the first time.
But I started it like a FOOL. Like an innocent person. Just sitting there thinking “oh this looks interesting 😊”.
And then the plot said: you thought.
THE PLOT TWIST?????
HELLO????????????????????????????????????????
EXCUSE ME???????
I actually had to put my phone down and stare at the wall like someone had just told me the earth was flat and gravity was optional.
How is the writer just… alive??? Walking around??? Buying groceries??? Answering emails??? After committing psychological crimes like this???
Because that brain needs to be studied. Immediately. For science.
If this was a movie I would be yelling about the acting. Like “THE PERFORMANCE!!! GIVE THEM EVERY AWARD!!!” but this is a FIC. WORDS. JUST WORDS. And somehow I went through the five stages of grief in three paragraphs.
Denial.Anger.Bargaining.Depression.Acceptance. Then immediately back to WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT???
I finished it and just sat there in silence questioning my life choices.
⚬ pairing: cinema worker! hansol x fem! reader
⚬ word count: 9.8k
⚬ warnings: (pls read carefully) mentions of food, alcohol, homophobia, misogyny, themes of lavender marriage and class divide, major mentions of war (world war I) and war related injuries, main character death, smut.
⚬ genres: psychological horror, tragedy, romance, 1920s nyc setting.
credits: to @strangergraphics for the dividers, to literal angels on earth @gyuswhore and @shinysobi for being the best beta-readers ever!!
This fic is written for the puttin on the ritz collab by @studiosvt, forever grateful to the team for coming up with such amazing collab ideas and being the most supportive fam ever! <3
playlist
- lo vas a olvidar by rosalia and billie eilish
- exile by taylor swift and bon iver (!!)
- safe and sound by taylor swift and the civil wars
author's note: part of my valentine's day event, lmk if you'd want to be tagged :)
i really recommend reading this one very carefully akshually there are a lot of easter eggs i left hehehe
Prologue
1918, the western french front
He somehow stumbles into a makeshift safe-house. The bullet that had pierced his upper chest is still lodged somewhere between his rippling flesh. Warm, sticky blood oozes out of the deep cut slashed across his chest, splitting his skin apart.
Outside, it is a cacophony of shots being fired and the constant thuds of bodies that follow. He doesn’t remember when was the last time he inhaled air that wasn’t saturated with soot and the metallic scent of blood…or when was it that he looked up and saw a clear sky instead of the orange fumes of fire, death and decay.
There is no sensation in his left leg anymore...just angry violet skin hosting several broken bones within. The iron smell of his own blood and that of others around him swarm his senses as he waits it out.
Just a few more hours.
Ceasefire for the day.
Someone would come and help him. They ought to.
For now, he must find some way to avoid attracting attention with his garbled moans of pain. His fingers shake, or perhaps it’s his vision wobbling with intense agony, as he reaches down in his pocket to retrieve a long, sweat soaked strand of wool. It must’ve been white someday, but now, it is more rusted from dirt, blood and overuse. Yet he holds it reverently between his fingers and begins looping, spinning and tangling it between his digits. The machine guns dull, his vision clears and through the dense war around him, something soft and pure envelopes him.
Between his fingers is now stretched a smiling string figure. A doll. The tear that clings to his lower lash is thicker than the rest, heavier with meaning and memory and love. He carefully bunches the thread up and places it back into his pocket. His chest feels warmer now.
Or perhaps, it's just his shirt soaked with his blood.
(three years later)
Manhattan, New York, 1921
The woman in the turquoise cloche hat rolls her eyes when her weepy husband demands yet another napkin from her. She reaches for her purse regardless, shoving another bunched up piece of clean fabric in his fist for his damp cheeks.
“Keep it down, will you?” she hisses, embarrassed eyes darting around apologetically when he sniffles again.
But the man grumbles something fleetingly unkind about women and their inability to interpret and empathize with art, and ruins another one of her lacey handkerchiefs with an abhorrent mixture of snot and tears.
The woman only shakes her head.
He has always been like this—loudly and pretentiously emotional over things that might barely jerk a half-hearted wince out of her at best.
Now, before one labels her apathetic—she has tried...heavens know how hard.
For him, she has pretended to laugh until her cheeks hurt at the unfunny displays of rowdy caricatures of foreigners at the theaters.
For him, she has dabbed corners of her drier-than-the-Arizona-summer eyes after his colleague’s daughter’s revoltingly off-tuned piano recitals.
For him, she has ooh-ed and aah-ed at the paintings of things that don’t matter simply because he rejoiced when someone validated what he deemed was the reasoning behind the choice of a certain hue by the artist.
But it’s not the early 1900s anymore and she’s no longer his shy, teen bride. They’ve been married for over twenty years, and even the most skilled actresses can perform for so long.
Now she only waits for his seemingly endless sobbing to halt so that she can focus on what remains of the film casting greys and blacks on the ivory sheet.
The movie—sensational among the crowds of her husband’s likeness, and laced with a very predictable ending—that plays in front of her is named ‘Fool’s Paradise.’
What an appropriate name, she thinks to herself while eying her husband clench the fabric in his wrinkled fists and stare wide-eyed at the screen as if it were some holy revelation.
She grows wary of the sight pretty quickly, and returns her focus back on the screen only to be ambushed by the sudden appearance of half a dozen alligators whom the once blind hero tries to fight to win over his lover.
Exasperated, the woman wrings her head away from the screen, from her husband, from the lazy reconciliation that’s bound to happen on screen, counting down minutes until she can leave her seat.
A rosy valentine’s evening—wasted.
As she mulls over her fate, still soured over the now wasted tickets to a new and emerging jazz singer from the orient, Lee Seokmin's show that she had wanted to attend instead of coming to the cinema, a brief movement outside the flapping wooden paneled door catches her eye.
The figure looming outside is hidden under a huge hat, an enormous tweed coat and looks fragile and small…perhaps a young boy?
Strange.
It’s the last show of the day. Then what is he waiting outside for?
His occasional peeping through the gaps puts her on alert. Something about the jittery energy, the nervous fidgeting, the constant hiding and seeking makes her conclude that it must be a pickpocket—there have been way too many of them in Manhattan lately.
The thunderous round of applause, the final few sniffs and the spluttering compliments as the movie ends drown out the alarms ringing in the woman’s head. But she’s already on her toes, determined to corner the supposed crook before he can wipe his hands on the bulging wallets of New York’s nouveau elite.
“Hey, you!” she calls out as soon as she bursts out.
She gears up her throat to scream for help in case the figure attacks her or makes a run for the exit. But her angry exclamation only makes him flinch. He buries his flushed face deeper into the scarf.
Behind them, the cinema-goers have already begun milling out of the stuffy, dark room—immersed deep into the discourse about the actress’s beauty and blissfully unaware of what’s unfolding at the entrance.
The woman takes a closer look, or attempts to, because her captive is already fleeing. But instead of running away, he seems to be sliding towards where she has just emerged out of.
Taking advantage of his lithe body, he attempts to slip inside the now emptying room—no visible solicitation of theft or mischief.
But the woman is smart enough to grab onto the sleeve of his coat, even though he begins wringing his hand.
Something is not right about the person in front of her.
It takes her a moment to realize what it is that grated on her about this overenthusiastic attendant in the first place…the softness of face, the swell of chest under the low buttons of the coat, the doe-eyes…
No.
That’s an absurd thought.
The community here is still too conservative for that.
So she presses on:
“The show has ended.” She exclaims, “you cannot go inside now.”
Another short lived struggle. Another hand tightening over the coat. The flesh under her fingers seems too soft to belong to a…
“Let me go.” The person grumbles.
Any doubts that were holding the woman away from believing what her gut had concluded melt away the moment her captive lets their voice slip out. The person in the woman’s stronghold isn’t some naughty pickpocket or a bony little servant—but a young girl dressed in a man’s clothes.
The woman lets her go at once, and when she does, a soft strand of the girl’s hair escapes from her hat which she quickly tucks back in and disappears inside the dark room leaving the woman more confused than she was before.
The projector inside the room is dying slowly—nothing more than a haggard glow trembling in the stale air—and her husband is glancing impatiently at his pocket watch as he waits for her outside the theater.
“What was that about?” He asks, only having witnessed a sliver of the encounter. “Who was the boy?”
“Pippa’s son.” The woman lies, tightening her shawl over her shoulders. “Told him to say hi to his mother for me.”
⸻
You look around one last time.
Fifty odd seats. All empty.
Still, just for precaution, you crouch down and search underneath them too.
Once you’re satisfied that you’re alone in the room with a flickering projection of ‘Thank you!’ on a washed blanket, you finally clutch the hat in one hand and the scarf in another and free yourself from the claws of their itching, swampy heat.
Your skin sighs deeper than your lungs, the scarlet flush watering down to a faint pink as you begin unbuttoning the coat several sizes too big on you. The air inside the room is stagnant and salty with all the tears it has witnessed today, but it seems as good as a fresh morning’s breeze when it settles in your hair.
Maybe it’s the freedom from your hefty paraphernalia, maybe it’s the tingling, funny feeling beginning to climb its way from the butterflies in your stomach to the fireflies in your chest—but you find yourself giggling mere moments before he creeps up behind you to cage you and pull your back flush to his chest.
“Hansol!” you laugh, even when nothing about the little kiss he presses against your temple is funny.
But perhaps laughter is the only sound of homecoming.
“You almost got caught there.” He remarks, resting his chin over your shoulder and slipping his fingers over your own to undo the last few buttons of your coat.
You help him take it off you by shrugging your shoulders out, “I thought she was about to screech and cause a scene.”
“Well, you are unchaperoned and cross-dressed in Raymond’s cinema house.” He drapes the coat over a seat lazily, “and if that’s not scandalous enough, you’re trespassing at midnight.”
“Oh, please.” you huff out, plopping onto the cushiony seat and tapping the one next to you for him, “there’s women out there finishing off their evening shifts right now and having a smoke in the parlour next door. Not my fault your employer is still stuck at least half a century behind.”
Hansol tries his best to block your view of the giant pamphlet peeling off a corner on the side wall that reads, ‘NO UNCHAPERONED WOMEN ALLOWED PAST SIX IN THE EVENING’ among other outdated rules.
But you read it out loud, like you do every night you come and visit him. Always alone. Always disguised.
“You know Raymond only keeps that up because he’s terrified his clientele will complain…the people around here are still too traditional about stuff like that,” he mutters, sinking down beside you. “If it were up to him, he’d let dogs and ghosts in, so long as they paid.”
“And yet,” you say, plucking an invisible piece of lint from his lapel with theatrical delicacy, “here I am. A woman. A scandalously unaccompanied one at that. And your ghosts-and-dogs-loving boss would have a fit.”
Hansol brushes a hand, warm and careful, against your jaw.
“You aren’t unaccompanied. Not anymore.”
“That’s what makes it worse,” you tease. “I’ve been accompanied by a criminal.”
“A criminal?” He blinks.
“Aiding and abetting, Hansol. Harboring a fugitive in your cinema of all places.”
He laughs quietly—soft, pressed-through-his-teeth, the kind of laugh he only ever lets out when he knows the walls won’t listen. The lamp behind the projector sputters one last time, dimming the room into an amber-tinted hush. Outside in the street, taxis honk and someone shouts a drunken goodbye; the world moves on without knowing you’re here, perched between shadows and the sweet leftover scent of celluloid.
He leans back, shoulders touching yours, knees angled towards you like he’s always been pulled by your gravity. For a long moment you listen to the projector cool, clicking and shrinking as metal contracts.
He reaches for your fingers—tentatively, as though asking without words—and you let him lace them between his.
“You looked so terrified when she held you,” he murmurs. “Sure you’re alright?”
“I am…now,” you assure him, resting your head on his shoulder. The rhythm of his heartbeat under your cheek slows your blood down. His shirt smells faintly of the oil used on film reels—sharp, metallic—but underneath it is something familiar, something that always softens the parts of you the world keeps trying to harden. His shirt brushes your jawline as you curl instinctively closer.
He adjusts you slightly in his arms, like it is nothing and everything all at once.
Hansol hums. “I hate that you have to hide like this…by dressing up like—”
“A man?” you supply. “I think I make a fine one.”
“You make a terrible one,” he corrects, grinning now. “You’re too pretty for it.”
That makes you kiss him. Just a quick peck—short, but oh so sweet.
“Happy Valentine’s day, Hansol.”
You begin to pull away, but his hand cups your face—calloused yet gentle—stationing you nearer for him to kiss you better. Deeper. Tentative yet passionate at the same time. His breath shudders before it mingles with yours, warming every single fibre of your physicality.
The kiss is slow…so slow that it makes you feel every single movement, every single touch, with such profoundness that it almost aches. Almost. Because Hansol has this way of dulling every pain that exists in your being until it withers down into nothing but a blossoming warmth in your spine.
And just like that, something scarlet blends into the night-sky.
“Happy Valentine’s, my love,” he mumbles against your skin. And then, as if the kiss was still unfinished in his books, he recaptures your trembling lips with his scorching ones. This time, more territorial and surer, like a dying flame leaping right back onto a new, diesel drenched log. Your knuckles shiver as they graze his jaw, too stimulated by his kiss.
By the time your bodies detangle, your toes hurt from curling too much inside your shoes and the perfume on your wrists has fully bled into his collar.
Instinctually, you suck your bottom lip in, wanting to soak whatever it is of him that’s lingering on them.
An affectionate titter escapes him at the sight of you so wrecked and gone by a simple kiss. He cradles your head, resting his forehead against yours, “I need to show you something.”
You take a moment to catch your breath before whispering:
“Go ahead.”
The knot in your belly tightens with anticipation when he gives you another little kiss, gets up and disappears behind the seats. You hear the familiar whirring of metal and plastic as he skillfully loads a strip of film on the reel, adjusts the apparatus and after a few short minutes, the once ghastly white sheet in front of you is drenched in sepia tones again.
“Is this some new movie?” You ask when he reappears.
“Yes, I want you to be the first one to see it.”
“Oh, lovely,” you squeal, winding your arms around his bicep when he leans closer to you, “what’s it called?”
“Rites of Passage.”
Displeased, you scowl, “what an unfortunate name.”
You had expected it to be a romantic melodrama—they’re all the rage these days.
As if sensing your unease, he assures, “it is a love story.”
“I hope it doesn’t have a tragic ending.”
Hansol stays silent at that.
And then, “it ends the way it needs to.”
“Do they find happiness in the end?”
He smiles, “yes…yes, they do.”
“Then I have no qualms with what happens in the rest of the story.”
Before you, the first flicker of a vibrant amber light quivers on the makeshift screen. Dust motes drift lazily through the projector beam, catching gold as the picture sharpens into focus. You lean further into Hansol’s chest, watching it half-heartedly, expecting the familiar grand opening shot—rolling hills, a train station, something suitably dramatic.
But the opening is rather quaint and even though it is a new one, you feel like you’ve seen this film before.
A serene shot of a garden tucked somewhere between a row of terraced houses—narrow, almost secret, the sort of place only two kids would know how to find. The projection is all black and white, like new movies always are before they rot into sepia. But you think you know just exactly what the color of flowers that the little boy picks in a little basket is, or what shade of green is the little girl’s coat. There is no sound, but you’re already in on the jokes the boy tells to make the girl laugh.
Not like an imagination. But like a memory.
Hansol rests his cheek on the crown of your head, his warm breath brushing over the wisps of your loose hair.
The boy on the screen tangles a long strand of wool between his little fingers, spins it around skillfully, and in a matter of seconds, conjures up what seems like a string doll between his stretched palms.
“Remember when you used to perform these string tricks?” you ask him, fondly remembering all the different stars and animals and figures he’d entertain you with.
He laughs, soft and balmy, “yes, and you’d always ask me to make a doll at the end of them all.”
“I loved the string-dolls you’d make.”
“I know, dolly.” You feel his fingers tighten over your shoulders when calls you by the name only he ever calls you by.
Before you, childhood matures into teenage—an uneven mix of awkward yearning and silent confessions. Distances grow, but so do the depths of feelings. Glances in public squares or intense staring under the old pine tree on a hill-top—as if the juvenile hero wishes to etch every curve and blip in the heroine’s face into his psyche.
It is so saccharine, so dreamy.
Yet you feel a build-up…like any moment now, the bubbling potion of love is going to tip over and spill into a dark, rotten goo. Like every little dream that floats over a cloud for so long, this one too is about to meet its scorching fate when it crosses the sun.
Your breath hitches and with the sudden tension in Hansol’s jaw, you wonder if he feels it too—this near dread.
But before anything could happen—a villain bursting in and kidnapping the girl, or the ground splitting open by some ancient curse and swallowing the hero whole and leaving her to embark on a quest to bring her lover back—the reel stutters.
The sound is jarring, like something snapping between the rusty metal but refusing to let up. A rhythm of defiance to break, but also a refusal to let the pictures move forward leaving you stuck with a static scene where the hero is halfway through a door as the heroine holds his hand back.
“It’s stuck.” Hansol announces, gently unwrapping you from around him to go examine the projector, “I guess we overused it.”
“But we couldn’t even make it until the intermission.” You pout, a bit too upset over not finishing a movie you had no intention of seeing in the first place.
“Next time, dolly,” he promises, still fiddling with the film-strip.
You stay at the cinema for a little while after that, carefully vigilant yet carelessly in love at the same time. You whisper the happenings of your weeks to him so softly that even the room seems to shrink smaller for the walls to be able to hear you clearer. But the very next moment, you fail to swallow in your overenthusiastic squeaks when Hansol shares just what new movies Raymond plans to showcase at the theater next week.
He shushes you, barely controlling his own beaming smile at your fanatic spirits.
“Ah, Rudolph Valentino is so charming in the posters,” you exclaim, clasping your palms together, “I’ve heard it got a background score so romantic that it makes the audience weep!”
“We plan on handling the weeping by playing the new movie of that Chaplin fella right after,” he says, “what’s it called…’the kid’?”
“Oh Hansol… I feel so alive these days.” You have no idea where it comes from, but the sparkle in your eyes is enough to light up the whole midnight. “These films…these flickering little miracles—they’re not just stories. They’re… they’re the city.”
He tilts his head, and you lift your hands as if sculpting the feeling out of thin dust motes drifting through the projector beam.
“New York is growing so fast I can hardly ever catch my breath. Every week there’s a new building stretching higher, a new crowd pushing through Times Square like they’ve been summoned by some invisible conductor. And these movies…they move just like the city moves. Quick. Restless. Unafraid.”
You turn to him and aren’t surprised when you find his face mirroring the utter reverence your words hold for a place that others might brush off as nothing more than an amalgamation of concrete and blinding lights. Maybe this is why you hold all your words, all your thoughts within yourself all day long—as excruciating as it is—because you know no one that’s not him would ever listen to you with this relevance.
There seems to be this invisible thread that ties the centre of your chest with his and syncs your heartbeats until they’re nothing more than a background score for the movie that is the city you both grew up in.
“Sometimes I think New York is dreaming right through us. That she’s sitting in these seats with us, humming along to the Valentino score, laughing with Chaplin. She’s becoming something bigger than any of us can grasp, and the cinema… it’s the only place I can hear her properly.”
Hansol watches you, the corners of his lips tugging upward with a quiet awe. You feel a blush rise, but you continue, unable to stop now that the words have burst open.
“I love this city like I love you,” you confess. “Like a friend, or a secret, or something I’m afraid to lose. And when I watch these films…these new, daring, impossible films, I feel like I’m watching someone I adore so deeply grow up in front of me.”
Outside, a distant streetcar clangs its bell—sharp, urgent, alive. The sound threads into the stillness of the empty theater.
“Ah,” you breathe, sitting back with a little laugh. “Hear that? That’s the city reminding us she’s awake. She never sleeps anymore.”
“She never sleeps,” he agrees, something softer than mere amusement in his eyes…deeper and more sincere, like devotion. “But I know she sighs when you talk about her like that.”
Your lips dip into an irrepressible smile. He always does this—effortlessly putting these profound conclusions to your spirited ramblings as if putting a final bow on a bunch of randomly picked wildflowers and turning it into an expensive bouquet.
It only motivates you to carry on with a discourse that many would brush off as nothing more than a nonsensical love letter penned by a dramatic, young girl towards something so inanimate. “People say the rush in the veins of this city is unbearable now…this maddening passion—they think it's ruinous.”
“Isn’t that exactly what they used to say about us when we were growing up?” Hansol prods, “it is always unnerving for them to see life stretch and expand in its own skin. The city, just like kids, isn’t pliant anymore…you cannot hold it back from chasing what it seeks.” Finally, his eyes settle on yours, “just how they couldn’t hold us.”
Your lashes flutter shut, your face inching further closer into the curve of his shoulder. Your voice is half muffled into his sweater when you speak, “I wish we were as brave as New York. I wish that we didn’t have to hide, that we could just run wild like her.”
Hansol doesn’t immediately answer, he lets your rueful grief settle down in the air around you—breathing it, soaking it. And once he can feel the shallowness dissipate from your inhales, he speaks, “you know why the lights here shine so bright now?”
There are a hundred logical explanations to that, but you’re aware that logic is long forgotten in this exchange between you and him.
He continues, “you light a flame to illuminate something. But it also means you’re casting a shadow at something else at the same time—something you don’t want to see. It only makes you think, there could be so many secrets New York nurtures in these shadows behind its bright lights.”
“Just like us?” You ask.
“Just like us.” he affirms, his low voice the only evidence of his existence in the pitch darkness that envelopes you.
You wonder what would happen if someday the spotlight tilts and shines directly at the two of you, when no matter how hard you try to outrun it and seek the shadows, it catches up to you. Because that’s what light does, doesn’t it? Finds and blinds.
But for now, you choose to hide here—shadowed enough that the world can’t quite catch you, yet bright enough that he can.
⸻
Lee Seokmin’s birthday arrives every year with a reminder of whom he shares it with.
He tries to cheer up, attempts to brighten the gold in his smile even more on this particular day, answers all the letters and cards he receives. But always, in the back of his mind, there’s the shadow. His shadow. It’s been over three years, yet there’s no escaping the truth behind the life that he lives now. The ring on his finger. The woman who resides in his guest-room.
On this particular day, she sleeps until late noon.
Good, he tells himself as he pretends to read through the details of the show he is supposed to sing at the upcoming week, it’s good that she’s resting.
The flimsy curtains do little to stop the breeze that carries the remaining frost of the East-coast winter inside his townhouse. Seokmin stutters, contemplating shutting the glass-panels up, but ends up deciding otherwise and rather walks towards the open balcony to feel the sun on his skin.
It’s a serene neighborhood, safe, suburban and saturated with greens—of nature, and of money. The houses all around are occupied by people like him, people whose life flourished when the city began flourishing a few years back. Bankers, performers, business owners, hoteliers…he’s the only celebrated Jazz singer around, though.
So celebrated, in fact, that the glimmer of his raw talent and the honey in his voice drown out the color of his skin. There’s white men begging him for tickets to his shows now—can you imagine?
He should gloat and yet, he doesn’t. Because Seokmin, before anything else, is someone who is aware. He worked hard for this, trained until his throat felt akin to sandpaper, sang like a madman at gigs that paid him in half a loaf of bread. But he also knows that all that talent, grit and experience can only mask so much about his identity that the people in this country are ‘willing’ to tolerate.
His fame and riches helped him gloss over his foreignness, but he can never overlook the significance of the attribute that the woman fast asleep right now adds to his life.
Slotting himself into the New York high-society as a Korean man with nothing but sheer luck and acumen to back it up is one thing.
Trying to explain why he had no wife or fiancee or any romantic inclination towards women without painting himself red like a target is another.
Thus, there’s nothing for him to gloat about without first acknowledging the lifeline he has been given by his ‘wife’, even if it means that he has to—
“Good afternoon,” your voice is softer today, yet strong enough to pull his attention back inside the house, “and happy birthday, Mr. Lee.”
You’re all dressed up already. A giant coat that hides whatever it is that you’re wearing, only a hint of your stockings and the new pair of your low-heeled Mary Janes visible for him. Despite all the color that you’ve dusted over your face, the softened edges of your features and the droplets of water still clinging on to the tips of your hair make you feel strangely unfinished. Like a painting waiting for its final stroke.
“Thank you,” he smiles, clearing his throat.
This…arrangement, carefully crafted and deliberated on by the both of you, has allowed the two of you to co-exist for almost half a decade now. Yet, he still finds himself at a loss of proper words that he can say to you. Where are the lines here? What are the oddities?
You seem more at ease around him than he does, though. Because you’re beaming, extending something towards him. That’s when he notices it—the tray full of little sweet treats clutched between your palms.
“Oh, right.” he stutters, quickly grabbing the first dessert his fingers reach and scarfs it down whole.
Thank God, they had been on the cooling rack for a while, or else he would have put himself out of business for a week by burning his throat with molten sugar straight out of the oven.
That makes you laugh. This awkward, nervous energy which you’ve tried to soothe out of him through repeated assurances and affirmations. You always tell him that you feel safe around him and that you can just exist like friends. Perhaps, siblings?
But he finds it hard to come around.
And considering just how grave his situation already is when it comes to definitions and labels, you let him be.
You place the tray back onto the counter but box two pieces of cakes into a tin container, clearly planning on taking it out with you.
“It’s his birthday too, you know?” You inform Seokmin, even though he doesn’t ask.
Seokmin considers his words for a long moment, still standing in the middle of the room, his hands sticky with the powdered sugar.
“Ah yes,” he finally says, “I remember. Vernon—”
“Hansol,” you correct him sharper than you intended.
Seokmin blinks, watching you uncertainly as this strange rage surges and ebbs within a split second between your brows.
“I…I’m sorry,” you stutter, “he just…Hansol is his true name, you know?”
“Yes,” Seokmin nods, “yes, indeed. We ought to respect that.”
“I am glad you understand.” You lower your gaze, feeling impossibly ashamed of your little outburst.
The next few moments pass in thick silence as you press the lid shut and move towards the coat-rack to fetch your hat.
Seokmin tries to ease what just happened there.
“It’s a bit too obsolete,” he points at your enormous hat, clearly teasing, “don’t you think?”
You scrunch your nose in faux annoyance, “but I love it. Even though it's a thing of the past.”
Seokmin’s smile flutters at the corners but you miss it completely, too busy smoothing over your outfit one last time before you leave.
“Things of the past…” he mumbles, strolling back inside the kitchen. “Things of the past.”
⸻
You meet Hansol again on his birthday, four days after the eventful valentine’s evening. This time, you don’t have to crossdress as a man to enter Raymond’s cinema-house.
‘I took special permission to have you here today.’ Hansol had told you, while gearing up the projector to reload the movie, ‘The rite of passage’, that you had left unfinished from your last meeting.
Strangely enough, the reel ended up getting stuck again, this time, a mere thirty minutes before the ending. That wouldn’t have dejected you as much had you not been left hanging at a rather depressing part of the story—a scene where the boy gets drafted to be shipped off across the Atlantic for war.
Turns out, the plot twist whose dread you could feel in your bones ever since the movie began only took a mere five minutes to play out on the screen. A letter, a summon—decisive and final.
A crest in the budding romance. A tearful goodbye. An anxious audience.
Uncharacteristically, you had burst into tears…not when the scene played out, but when it got stuck on the creased forehead of the heroine. Almost like you were being made to wait with her for her lover’s return.
“Do you…do you think he’ll come back?” you ask, the wet patch under your temple on his sweater beginning to dry now that you’ve gotten a better hold over your tears.
Hansol’s voice reverbates under your cheek pressed to his chest, “people do not always return from wars, dolly.”
“But you did,” you whisper, “you came back.”
You begin to sit up, the damp strands of wild grass poke into your skin through the flimsy fabric of your stockings as you shift from his lap and onto the ground.
Hansol follows you, sitting halfway up and leaning back against his palms planted over the mud.
The hillside he brought you on for a stroll after seeing just how wrecked the abrupt interruption made you is a mere blip against the New York skyline. The city throbs below you like it is preparing for bed, muted pastels washing over every building as the sun begins to soften. The skyline stands tall, quiet and sure, like it has seen generations of lovers unravel and rebuild on the very patch of soft foliage you are sitting on.
He watches the infamous city-lights begin to flicker to life, one-by-one, before finally answering you.
“I came back, but not the same.”
You shift to look at him, but he’s staring into nothingness, like he’s also still remembering that movie scene from before. The frozen moment of grief suspended in dim light. A soldier arrested in time, a girl paused at the edge of loss.
You don’t know whether he’s thinking of his own war that shaped him, or the years between then and now.
But after a moment, he turns to you, eyes gentler than his voice.
“Not the same…” you hate the way his words tremble, like he has to forcibly wring them out and leave them to find their own meaning.
So far, your lives have been shaped by circumstances so colossal and way beyond your control that persistence is not just a trait, but a mechanism of survival. It is the only way you know how to keep moving—through grief, through joy, through the quiet, brittle moments that fall somewhere in between.
Thus, even in the fragility of this dipping evening, your persistence to make this better stands its stubborn ground.
“Things don’t have to remain the same for them to be good.” You eagerly cup his face between your cold palms, “don’t you always say how change is the only constant?”
That reminder of hope, of those tid-bits of philosophy that have somehow succeeded in not letting his smile succumb to the horrors that life has thrown at him—it gently guides him back to you.
The veil of the past grows thinner and thinner over his eyes, and it only encourages you to distract him more.
“I mean look,” you laugh, trying your best to mask the nervousness as you begin unbuttoning your coat. “You always make fun of me for wearing those drab, shapeless garments, don’t you?”
The coat slips off your shoulders, pooling around your knees pressed on the soft grass. Underneath, the curves of your body sway shyly under a weightless fabric that, surprisingly, ends at your mid-thighs.
You had felt too brave putting it on earlier in the day. The dress, a gift from your friend Mildred who insisted it was all the rage these days, was so unlike your usual tailored attires of long skirts and lace-colored blouses. The thin straps barely holding the attire together make you feel so naked to a point that the blush on your cheeks flushes down and settles over the exposed skin of your shoulders, prickling it with this strange sense of heat.
“It’s the flapper look,” you explain to his gawking eyes as Hansol watches you as though you’re something holy and forbidden. “I thought it was time for some change in myself.”
For a long moment, he says nothing. Just looks.
His throat bobs. Once. Twice. Like he’s trying to swallow down everything he’s feeling in the moment—wonder, fear, longing, the aching edges of a man who doesn’t know if he’s allowed to want something soft again.
Finally, quietly, he murmurs, “You look like trouble.”
You huff a laugh, pretending it doesn’t shake. “Good trouble, I hope.”
“The best kind,” he says, more like a revelation to himself than a confession to you.
Your fingers brush over the loose fabric skimming your hips. You curl them into fists, trying to subdue the itch which makes you want to grab your coat and put it back on and just bolt away—but not before making Hansol promise that he’d forget what he just saw…what you made him witness…what you just offered...
But his fingers work faster than yours, curling over your waist and pulling you flush until your chest mashes against his. Little knots of burning desire bunch up and explode all at once in every single inch of your body when he does that. Your lips part at the audacity—of his, and that of yours—and the sight of you like this…shell-shocked and wild-haired twists something carnal in him.
Instead of pulling you out of this state of collapse, he only submerges you deeper when he kisses you like he has never before. Hungry, open-mouthed, lustful. You don’t even attempt to fight it when his tongue slips inside your mouth, stealing away the sweetness that lingers inside of you.
And that act of submission only seems to fuel him further into searing his touch deeper into the form of you.
“Divine,” he pulls away just enough to whisper that, his voice dark and hoarse, “that’s what you are.”
He worships you with his words and his tongue some more before he’s pushing you around until your back meets the ground with a harsh impact. It’s not enough to hurt you, but just right to make you moan.
“Hansol,” you plead.
For what? You have no answer.
His lips come down on whatever trembling flesh he can find—your wrists, your collarbones, your shoulders, the slight swell of your chest.
He moves lower and lower until your thighs press together with the foretaste of what’s about to follow.
No matter how many times you’ve been here in this exact state, the sight of his face pressed between your legs—curious eyes gaging every little scowl, every little whimper that escapes you while his parched tongue laps at you, prods against you, cajoles you to let him in deeper—never fails to ravage your sanity.
Hansol can’t help but grin when the much shorter, looser skirt pools around your hips on its own. His fingers have already worked through the layers of fabric that shield you from him and when the slickness that has gathered at your apex coats the tips of them, his head spins.
“Oh, heavens,” he huffs out, dipping his finger deeper into your fluttering walls. The warmth, the soft clench, coupled with how you clasp your eyes shut but the tears still roll down—it almost undoes him right then and there.
His breaths turn ragged with every plunge of his fingers that make you convulse and arch off the ground. Air, he needs some air in his brain to better remember what is unfolding before him until eternity. He half-heartedly unlatches his fingers from your weeping core after a particularly passionate stroke against your nub to remove his sweater. All through it, you continue to tremble on the ground, cold mud clinging onto your skin as you attempt to reach out for him with your arms.
“Hansol,” you call him back, “please…”
“I know, love, I know.” He muses, still lost in the fierce gravity of you.
You feel something small and hard pelt against your skin—the buttons of his shirt as he wildly rips it open.
The white linen finally gives way for your vision to settle on his skin—taut with labor and illuminated just by the moonlight under this pine tree.
The need to touch him that emerges out of you is so palpable, that it makes him lean down a bit, allowing your fingers to rake all over the hardened ridges on his abdomen to the smooth expanse of skin over his chest. His heartbeat turns chaotic and relentless when your touch lingers on the long, scarlet scar that runs across his sternum—a ghost of his skin that they took away from you.
“You’re perfect,” you admit, regardless.
“I’m yours.” He echoes, like that somehow concludes the whole truth of him.
You don’t falter, “then make me yours, too.”
A guttural sound escapes from the back of his throat as he half undoes, half rips your undergarments and kisses you down there with this undeniable hunger. You can only arch further into him, offering more. The taste of you never ceases to tip him over the edge of control.
He eats you out greedily, alternating between long stripes and shameless, open-mouthed kisses to a point where every exhale of yours comes out with a desperate moan. He sucks you so hard that you feel he intends to break you.
Your fingers fist around the strands of something—his hair or the grass, you can’t discern anymore. As a matter of fact, you don’t want to. Because that would mean shifting a part of your attention from him towards something that’s not him. And you don’t want to do that, not even for a split second.
“I wish you could see how you look right now,” he mumbles, the vibration of his voice amplifying your pleasure tenfolds. “So ruined already…yet begging for more.”
That prompts you to imagine—your body, lying dishevelled and open on a patch of grass somewhere so public as clay accumulates underneath your fingernails while he buries his face deeper and deeper between your legs like a parched man searching for an oasis.
You feel your limbs beginning to go limp under his ministrations, a telltale sign of the arrival of something that snatches all your coherence away from you and leaves you a blushing, blubbering mess of Hansol. He makes you welcome it with open arms with a final, scorching kiss on top of your aching folds, right over the little root of pleasure that has been bearing the delicious torment of his calloused fingers.
By the time the coil of tension snaps, you are sobbing. Tears flow freely down your face, collecting the dirt that has gathered on your face from the struggle.
A molten blush crawls up from the column of his neck and flushes throughout his face when he re-emerges from between your legs that lie listless on either side of his body. From one side, the city lights cast just enough illumination across his face for your half-lidded gaze to catch the thick arousal that coats his gleaming lips.
The sight makes you shut your eyes close for good before you lose your mind.
Strong hands wrap around your thighs, angling your ankles to settle around his waist while he holds you down with his body weight. Your lips part with an involuntary moan as humiliation of reveling in the feeling of being overpowered this way begins shrouding your mind.
Hansol calls your name under his breath, then his hand departs from fondling your chest in favor of his rock-hard length.
He lines himself up with your entrance, the blunt head positioned right by your gaping, quivering hole. He nips at your skin once, perhaps to distract you from the overwhelming pleasure laced with pain as he pushes deeper into you.
But the ache doesn’t subside, not when your hips gyrate against him eagerly, effectively pulling him halfway inside of you.
You mewl, suddenly too aware of the fact that you can never get used to the feeling of that first stretch, that delicious ache.
“Doll…be patient.” He begs.
“N-need you…Hansol.”
“I know, love, it’s written all across your body.” He slots his fingers with yours, “breathe for me, go on, breathe.”
You obey, or try to. Because every single one of your inhales crests, and every single exhale splutters. The only thing you can do without struggling is calling out his name again and again.
Hansol whimpers when you cry, the pressure of your walls around him an intoxicating bliss. He plunges his remaining length inside of you with a breathless gasp causing your vision to blur.
The fact that you can’t determine where pain melts into pleasure and where you end and he begins is already so nervewrecking. So when he begins rocking in and out of you, gentle one moment and reckless the other, you find yourself scrambling for control before Hansol can drive you to utter lunacy. You don’t know how it happens, but you succeed in pushing him until he’s on his back. His length slips out of you in this brief tussle, making you whine. But you don’t stay at loss for long because the very next moment, you’re climbing on top of him. His whole body jerks as he pants and the only thing that makes sense is for you to push him back inside your sensitive core.
The lust on his face makes you shiver when you brace your hands on top of his broad shoulders for support.
Grass and dirt dig deeper into your knees as you begin moving up and down over and over again on his hard length. Your entire body convulses with every debauched plunge, your breaths breaking before they can even make it out of your throat.
Below you, Hansol watches you with actual stars in his eyes, his mouth still wet and pupils blown out yet gleaming with the brilliance of a thousand moons even in the exhausted darkness.
It is a trance—nothing more, nothing less.
He smoothes his palms under the hem of your dress to clutch either side of your waist, providing you additional support with your erratic movements. The action aids you gain better control, but your desperation is no less frantic.
You clench him like you’re proving some claim. You call out his name like that’s the only prayer you ever learnt.
You begin to find a rhythm in how to roll your hips in a way that pleasures you both, but your lover offtracks your entire train of thoughts when he begins angling his hips to meet you halfway up. Even from underneath you, he dominates this sinful act as he begins pistoning in and out of you, forcing you to adjust to the pace he sets for the both of you.
You have no choice but to clamp your drooling mouth over his and oblige. His grip over your waist tightens like a punishment as he penetrates your tight heat, making you succumb entirely to his mercy.
This isn’t just sex, this isn’t some fleeting desire.
This is love, finally given an act…and boy does Hansol make you perform.
The hot, white daze rapidly expanding from the corners of your vision quickly overtakes your senses, choking you with overwhelming pleasure as he continues to sink in and out of the messy wetness between your thighs. You shatter with a broken gasp on top of him and like he had been waiting for just that, he quickly follows suit. Warmth and bliss bloom into something tangible and thick inside of you as he fills you with all he has to give you in the moment.
“I love you,” you break apart, sure and unwavering even when his eyes turn into a shade of onyx that you cannot recognize—such is the intensity of this moment.
“I love you,” you drawl, your eyes rolling behind your lids as your bodies sway in tandem in the aftermath of this heat.
“I have loved you,” he says, long after your world has suspended. “And I will always love you.”
⸻
The water instantly turns murky with dirt when Seokmin rinses the washcloth in it.
The household helper changes the basin almost instantly, bringing in another set of fresh towels before leaving the couple in the privacy of their bedroom.
Seokmin tries again, softer this time. The water is warmer, but the grime plastered behind your ear is impossibly stubborn—won’t come loose unless he applies at least some pressure against your raw skin.
Your face scrunches up in pain and you hiss, the sound is so soft, so little, that it shatters him all at once. He pauses, letting you shift into a more comfortable position. There are no visible injuries on your body, just a weary kind of damage.Your skin is chilled to the touch, still holding onto the bite of a cold night’s wind even though you’ve been inside for nearly an hour. Tiny goosebumps pebble your arms and legs, never fully settling. The dirt isn’t just on your face; it’s dusted throughout your hair, accumulating under your nails and in the little crevices of your arms.
“Shall I?” he asks, long fingers fisted over the damp, warm towel.
Meekly, you nod.
He pats your skin with utmost tenderness, wiping away the little trails of mud with his thumbs, picking the dried bits of dead leaves and shriveled flowers from your hair. The tactile act provides the benevolence needed in this moment against the things that hang heavy and unsaid in the air between you two.
“Staying out all night like that,” Seokmin finally thaws the uncomfortable ice, “I thought you were smarter than that.”
The light rebuke isn’t that of annoyance, but rather disappointment. Your lashes cast down with a prickling sense of shame.
“Your temperature is abnormal,” he continues, quite concern weighing his expressions down, “there’s a possibility that the scratch on your knee is infected…we need to—”
“It’s not fair.”
Your voice comes out so hoarse and jagged and you immediately wince when your throat burns.
Your statement startles Seokmin. What exactly is unfair—his rightly placed concern? The cruel gossip amidst the servants outside?
“What is not fair?” he asks quietly.
Your lips part, but your voice betrays you—still too raw to be overused.
Seokmin shakes his head pitifully, offering you a cup of warm water and honey. But you don’t even attempt to reach for it—your wild eyes focused in a corner of the room where the carpet peels off the floor.
Just when he tips the cup closer towards your cracked lips:
“It’s not fair that Raymond keeps him away from me all the time,” you begin to complain, “he had to leave for work before I could even wake up.”
The cup almost slips out of Seokmin’s grasp, but he quickly recovers. By now, he is very well versed with the drill.
You barely even notice that though, because you’re already off on a tangent of your own.
“I must talk to Raymond about this,” you declare, fumbling with the blanket draped over your knees, “this is simply cruel and inhumane!”
Your resolve doesn’t falter when you finally look at a very stoic looking Seokmin with this impervious hope, “say, Mr. Lee, you’d employ Hansol to work for you, won’t you? I don’t know how that never crossed my mind—”
Before he responds to you, he abruptly gets up from the bed and asks the servants waiting for his next orders outside of the room to just take it off for the day.
Then, he marches back into your bedroom and opens the curtains wide.
You squeeze your eyes shut at the onslaught of sunlight, your lids flutter as they struggle to adjust to the sudden brightness. They feel impossibly dry, yet brimming with tears at the same time.
Seokmin calls out your name—not like a command, but more like an urge. He’s holding your elbows, you realize. By the time you finally recover, the first thing you gage is the absolute anxiety over Seokmin’s face. This pale look of utter horror and discomfort like he’s choking onto something—perhaps his own words.
“Mr. Lee,” you whisper, it comes out like a question. “Why are you holding me back? I need to—”
Seokmin says your name again, softer this time. And then, “please, listen to me.”
“But it’s—”
“No, please. Just breathe for a moment.”
“But Hansol—”
“Isn’t here anymore!” Seokmin didn’t mean to blurt it out like that, but he does.
And with how the color drains from your face, he instantly regrets it.
He can see the truth that you’ve stitched deep inside your bones, in an attempt to forget, curl its way up your spine and towards your head. But there’s still that stark defiance that your heart pumps in your very veins—one that you’ll let yourself be blinded by, even if it means never seeing even a speck of light ever again.
Seokmin tries to fight it on your behalf, “he isn’t here…hasn’t been for years. Ever since—”
You jerk your arms away from his hold.
“Stop lying!” you scream, “all you do is lie. Your entire existence is a lie!”
Seokmin knows exactly what’s happening—this provocation, this reflection of pain turned outward because your mind cannot hold it in any longer. It’s the same script every time, but it never gets easier to watch.
“You just…you just don’t want me to be with him because that ruins your perfect little plan,” you speak more to yourself than to Seokmin now, “because if Raymond lets him go, you’re afraid you’d lose your pretend-wife and hence, your reputation. People will know you only married me to save face! That you prefer men over women!”
“Hansol is not here,” he repeats, barely audible. “You know this. You do know this, even if you—”
You press your palms over your ears, cheeks completely soaked with hot, uncontrolled tears.
“Stop it! Stop lying to me Mr. Lee…” you stumble off the bed, away from him, “for the love of God, stop being so cruel!”
Seokmin can feel his own composure beginning to fracture, but he pushes through it, because someone has to stay steady. And it will never be you.
He takes a step forward as you struggle to put your coat back on, his hand carefully extended towards you. But you gasp with sheer horror, your eyes bulging wide as you flinch away from him like he’s your predator.
“I can’t—I can’t do this anymore.” You shake your head frantically, “I can’t stay married to you to save your face while the love of my life rots away in a dingy cinema-room loading and unloading love stories that he might never get to live.”
Seokmin watches you helplessly as you put your shoes on with this haphazard urgency. Like if you don’t act now, something precious and pure will once again be swallowed into the belly of the Earth. A vicious act of thievery, a cruel annihilation of love.
“I need to finish watching the movie…” you repeat, “I must finish watching the movie…”
Seokmin knows better than to stop you right now, so he waits for a beat until you disappear down the stairs and then, he follows you to the theater where your childhood sweetheart Hansol once worked before getting forcefully conscripted into the army half a decade ago.
⸻
Raymond sees her every time when she pretends to sneak in, but never stops her. His weathered, grey irises are full of sorrow for the poor girl.
Today, she rushes in unabashedly. No disguise. No attempt to be invisible.
Her steps are erratic, her coat half unbuttoned. Her hair sticks to her sweaty forehead in rivulets and if anyone saw her eyes, they’d be flinching away from her as if she were a rabid animal.
Raymond considers going after her when she barges inside an empty cinema-room, one that she always slips into. The same one that her lover once helped operate.
Sometimes, she stays there for a few minutes.
Most times, she spends hours.
Just when he’s about to check in on her, a hand clasps his shoulder. Lee Seokmin, the jazz singer…her husband.
“Please…just, let her be.” He pleads, reaching inside his pocket to settle whatever loss this interruption would cause Raymond.
Raymond doesn’t accept the wad of cash.
Just walks up to the chalkboard and erases all the schedules for the day.
⸻
The screen is already drenched in the images stuck where you had left them. Hansol must’ve loaded the projector already. Hopefully, this time, it won’t stop…even though you wish it did.
“Hansol…” you call out in the dark, this little beacon of naive hope shadowing what you already know—that perhaps, now, he won’t show up.
Persistence—the language of your love letters to him.
You try to wield its powers again. “Hansol, love, don’t hide now. I have enough saved…even if Mr. Lee refuses to help us, we can go—”
A loud screech, the tell-tale sound of plastic reel spinning against metal.
The movie…the rite of passage…begins to play again.
What a grotesque name.
You refuse to acknowledge it by prying your eyes away from it even though the faces on the screen begin morphing into the ones you recognize. Yours. His. Seokmin’s.
You try to run away, but something cements you on spot.
‘I need to show you something…’
Lovers severed by war and tethered by longing.
‘...it is a story of love…’
And one of loss, too.
‘...it ends the way it needs to…’
An ending stripped off contentment for anyone involved.
You feel a strange sensation—something whirring inside your ears and making your focus wobble…a weird vertigo. Almost like you’re peering down the edge of a cliff, your naked feet sweat-slicked and taut over the loosening sand.
The world seems like a single flip away from something irreversible…yet, inevitable. Time. Like you’re one with the clock. No coming back. No bringing back.
On the screen, the hero is plucked out of his lover's arms and given an anglicised name.
Vernon, a name that traces back to an alder tree. Hansol, a name linked to a pine tree.
Did everyone who ever named him felt his presence akin to a balmy shade of a tree as well? Away from the blinding lights…a soft life that tumbles and giggles in the shadows.
At the end of the movie, the hero dies.
The heroine goes mad.
The once opaque, ivory sheet of the projector turns into a mirror.
There’s a gap inside of you now…like something scooped out of you. Something akin to a sweet poison which had to be sucked out or else it would have melted your insides.
You wonder if you would have liked that gradual necrosis. If that heaviness that seems to have been vaporized out of you was the only thing harnessing you here.
The hinges of the door creak when it opens and Seokmin enters, the matured yellow of the afternoon sun slanting its brilliance on you.
But you don’t shrivel away anymore…you don’t close your eyes.
paring- best friend junhui x terminally ill f! reader
genre- non idol au, angst, coming of age, hurt/comfort, terminal illness, friends to almost lover, unresolved mutual feelings, right person at the wrong time and fluff prolly.
word count-6.6k
synopsis- You are terminally ill and your best friend stays. He brings coffee, jokes, and promises about the future about the places you'd go with him and food you'd eat with him. You smile, hide the truth, and love him quietly hoping he never learns how close goodbye really is.
trigger warnings-terminal illness, hospitalization, medical procedures, major character death, grief, emotional distress, unfulfilled romance.
a/n- so...ig I cried at this myself. in case you like it, please make sure to reblog it. Your feedbacks and appreciation are always appreciated.
playlist- silent boarding gate by Jun, what kind of future by woozi, end of the day by Jonghyun, time lapse by taeyeon, I won't give up by jason mraz, stay with me by Sam smith, fix you by cold play, this town by niall horan.
By the time your chart was marked with phrases like advanced progression and limited response to treatment, you had already stopped asking what stage you were in. Third or fourth depending on which scan they trusted more, depending on how optimistic the attending physician felt that morning. The disease had settled deep into your body, no longer something to fight aggressively but something to manage, to slow, to negotiate with. They spoke about quality of life now. About time.
You learned to read the room before anyone said anything. The careful tone. The way doctors stood farther from the bed. The pause before answers. You understood that your days weren’t numbered in certainty, only in probability, and that made it worse somehow. Unfinished. Unpredictable.
The hospital room was crowded with proof that your body no longer functioned on its own. An IV line stayed anchored in your arm, delivering chemotherapy and steroids in controlled doses that left your mouth metallic and your muscles trembling hours later. A second line fed fluids to keep your blood pressure from dipping too low. The heart monitor beside you blinked steadily, tracking every beat like a quiet witness. There was a blood pressure cuff that tightened without warning, a thermometer that beeped too often, and a portable infusion pump humming at your side even when the room was dark.
You were grateful for the absence of an oxygen mask. Your lungs were still doing their job, even if everything else felt borrowed.
Pain came in waves, sometimes sharp, sometimes dull and exhausting. Nausea lingered no matter how many antiemetics they gave you. Sleep came in fragments, broken by vitals checks and alarms that went off for reasons no one ever seemed concerned about except you.
And still, someone believed this would all mean something.
Moon Junhui arrived every day like he was part of your treatment plan. Same time, same quiet knock, coffee in one hand and snacks in the other even though you weren’t supposed to have it but you did cause he wanted to well to be precious he was your childhood best friend, officially. The person who knew how you took your sugar, who remembered your favorite foods, who sat too close and stayed too long.
He believed in the medications. In the physical therapy that left you shaking. In the minor surgical procedure that they framed as “preventative,” even when it took weeks to recover from. He talked about when, never if. When you were discharged. When you feel better. When this would be a story you told instead of a reality you lived in.
He promised you that once you got out, he’d take you somewhere real. A proper restaurant. No bland trays, no portion control. Anything you wanted, as much as you wanted. He’d pay. He even laughed and called it an impromptu date, like the word itself wasn’t something you carried quietly in your chest.
You laughed with him, because it was easier than explaining.
You had loved Junhui for most of your life—slowly, deeply, without urgency. And now, when time felt thinner than ever, you wanted to confess more than anything. But you didn’t. Because loving someone who was already losing you felt selfish. Because you didn’t want to become a wound he had to live with. Because you couldn’t predict the future, and hope felt dangerous in a body that was already failing.
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
You’re staring at the ceiling when Junhui knocks.
Not the doorframe that he never does that but the wall beside it, two soft taps that sound more like a habit than a request. You don’t turn your head. The ceiling tiles blur together, cracked lines forming shapes you’ve memorized over the last few weeks.
“Guess who,” he says, voice light, deliberately casual.
Your throat feels dry, but you answer anyway, quiet and familiar. “If you say it’s anyone else, I’m calling security.”
He laughs before he even opens the door. “Wow. That’s how you treat your favorite person?”
The door swings open and he steps inside like he belongs there. Coffee cup in one hand, a plastic bag in the other which was crinkling loudly despite his effort to be quiet. You finally turn your head, and when you do, his smile softens like it always does when he sees you awake.
“Morning,” he says. “I brought contraband.”
“Again?” you murmur. “You’re going to get banned.”
“Worth it,” he replies easily. He sets the coffee on your side table with practiced care, nudging it just far enough from the edge. The bag follows, and you watch him pull out snacks one by one like a magician revealing tricks: the soft bread, packaged fruit, things he’s checked twice to make sure you’re allowed.
He drags the stool closer and sits, knees angled toward you. “How are we feeling today?”
You shrug. “Alive.”
“I’ll take it.” he nods.
He says it like a joke, but his eyes linger on your face longer than necessary, searching for signs you’ve gotten better or worse. You smile at him too easily, and that seems to satisfy him, because his shoulders relax like he’s been holding something in.
“I saw the nurse give you that look earlier,” he says. “The don’t-you-dare look.”
You snort. “You mean please stop encouraging her look?”
“Yeah, that one.” He grins. “I’m charming. It scares them.”
He stands and reaches for the controls on your bed. “Okay. Sit-up time. I’ll help.”
You shift slightly, but he’s already there, one hand hovering near your shoulder, the other braced at your back. He hesitates. “I promise I’ll be careful this time.”
You glance at him. “You barely hit my head last time, Jun.”
“I still hit your head,” he insists, offended. “I can’t believe you trust me after that.”
“It was a small hit, Jun.” You reassured him.
“That’s not the point.” He helps you sit up slowly, movements cautious, deliberate. “I’m not allowed to hurt you. Ever. That’s a rule.”
You don’t argue. You just smile, because the way he says it makes something tight loosen in your chest.
Once you’re settled, he grabs the tray and opens one of the containers. “Alright. Today’s menu: something vaguely edible and something that tastes like regret.”
“Wow. Five stars.” You say.
He picks up the spoon. “Open.”
You do, obediently, and he feeds you like it’s the most normal thing in the world. Like this hasn’t become routine. Like your body hasn’t learned to lean into his presence because it feels safer that way.
“You’re going too fast,” you say softly after a few bites.
He slows immediately. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” you add quickly. “I’m not mad.”
“I know,” he says, but his voice is gentler now. He wipes the corner of your mouth with a napkin, careful, his fingers barely brushing your skin. “Still.”
He keeps feeding you, talking about nothing in particular. It was random but something funny happened at work, a dumb video he watched on the bus, a story you’ve heard before but don’t mind hearing again. His thumb taps absently against the edge of the tray, close enough that you could touch it if you wanted.
You don’t.
When you finish, he sets everything aside and stays where he is, elbow resting on the bed. “See? You’re doing better already.”
You meet his eyes. “You say that every time.”
“And one day I’ll be right.” You grins with a smile
There it is again that certainty that hope he carries for both of you but more for you hoping everything will be alright.
He reaches out, adjusts your blanket, fingers warm against your wrist for half a second longer than necessary. You let them stay. He doesn’t pull away.
“Rest,” he says softly. “I’m not going anywhere.”
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
The ward is quieter at night.
The lights are dimmed, machines speaking in softer beeps, footsteps careful and distant. You’re halfway through an argument when Junhui hears you.
“At least let it have some flavor,” you insist, voice low but stubborn. “I’m not asking for spice. I’m asking for seasoning.”
The nurse sighs, already tired. “It’s prepared that way for your health.”
“My health is offended.” You sulked.
Junhui doesn’t even think before speaking. “For the record,” he says lightly from the doorway, “I’d also be offended.”
Both of you turn. Your eyes find him instantly, and the irritation on your face dissolves into surprise then relief. The nurse looks between the two of you.
“I’ll feed her as usual,” Junhui adds, stepping closer. “I’ll make sure there’s no problem.”
The nurse hesitates, then hands him the tray with a warning look. “Slowly.”
“Always,” Junhui promises.
She leaves, and the room feels warmer somehow.
“You’re late,” you say, watching him set the tray down.
He shrugs out of his jacket, draping it over the chair. He looks tired because his hair was slightly messy, sleeves rolled up, the kind of tiredness that settles into the shoulders. “Work ran long.”
“You okay?” You asked softly.
“Define okay.” He pulls the stool closer and sits. “Open.”
You obey, even though you don’t want to. The food tastes exactly like you expected. Junhui watches your expression carefully.
“I know,” he says apologetically. “I’m sorry.”
“You owe me real food for this.” You said.
He exhales a laugh. “Again?”
You swallow and glare at him weakly. “You’re hurting my feelings.”
He raises his hands in surrender. “Okay, talk, ma’am.”
You smile, triumphant, and shift against the pillows. “First, coffee. A small café. The kind that smells like baked bread.”
“Mm-hm,” he murmurs, feeding you another bite.
“And croissants. Real ones. Flaky. None of that diet stuff.” You added to your words.
He nods, like he’s committing it to memory.
“Then we walk to the park,” you continue, warming up. “There’s a cart near the entrance that sells hot dogs. We share one.”
“Share?” he repeats.
“Don’t get greedy.” You weakly nudge him.
He chuckles softly. “Alright.”
“And on the way back,” you say, eyes bright, “we get street food. Tacos. Or sweet potatoes. Whatever smells best.”
Junhui’s hand pauses mid-air, spoon hovering. His gaze is fixed on you, not the food. In his mind, you’re already there just walking beside him, laughing, alive and whole. He’s certain of it. So certain it almost hurts.
“Sounds perfect,” he says quietly.
You glance at him, noticing the way he’s gone still. “Jun?”
“Hm?” He blinks, snapping out of it. “Sorry. Zoned out.”
“You always do that,” you tease. “Thinking about food?”
“Obviously,” he says, too quickly.
He feeds you the last bite, sets the spoon down, and leans back in the chair. “Work was boring,” he adds, like he promised. “Same meetings. Same complaints. Exhausting.”
“You should quit.” You suggested him jokingly.
“And do what?” You shot back.
“Come eat real food with me.” You said playfully.
He smiles at that very softly in a way fond of you but also filled with care. He doesn’t say what he wants to. Not here. Not now. He won’t let you think his feelings are born from pity or sympathy. So he just sits there, listening to you talk, watching your lips move, not realizing he’s been staring far too long.You’re still talking when the nurse appears at the door.
“I’m sorry,” she says quietly, already glancing at the clock. “Visiting hours are over. It’s quite late.”
Junhui straightens immediately. “Oh—yeah. Of course.” He stands, already reaching for his bag, movements practiced like he’s done this too many times before.
You watch him pull on his coat, the room suddenly feeling too big again. He slings the strap of his bag over his shoulder, then pauses, hesitating like there’s something unfinished in the air.
“Get some rest, okay?” he says gently.
Before he can turn away, you reach out.
Your hand barely makes it, fingers catching weakly at the sleeve of his coat. The fabric bunches under your grip, and it takes more effort than you want him to see.
“Jun,” you whisper.
He’s already moving. He drops his bag back onto the chair and lowers himself beside the bed, crouching until his face is level with yours. His expression softens immediately, concern replacing everything else.
“What is it?” You turns at you.
You swallow. Your throat feels tight. “You’ll really take me,” you ask, voice small but steady. “To all those places. If… if things go back to normal.”
He doesn’t hesitate.
A smile curves across his face but not playful this time, but warm and filled with certainty. He lifts his hand between you and extends his pinky.
“Promise,” he says softly.
You look at it for a second, then hook your finger around his. Your hand trembles slightly, but he steadies it with his thumb, gentle pressure grounding you.
“I promise,” you whisper back.
He squeezes once, firm but careful, like sealing something sacred. “We’ll eat everything you want,” he adds. “Coffee, croissants, street food. All of it.”
“And you’ll pay,” you say, trying to lighten the moment.
He chuckles quietly. “Always.”
Your fingers stay linked longer than necessary. His other hand comes up instinctively, brushing your knuckles, then settling there as if he belongs. Your foreheads nearly touch when he leans in, close enough that you can feel his breath.
“Get better,” he murmurs. “Come back to me.”
You nod, even though the words sting. “I will.”
He helps tuck the blanket around you once more, fingers lingering at your wrist before slowly pulling away. He stands this time, reluctance in every movement, and grabs his bag again.
“I’ll be here tomorrow,” he says.
“I know.” You said, as if it was a ritual.
He hesitates at the door, glancing back one last time before leaving. You watch him go, your pinky still curled slightly, as if holding onto the promise a little longer. And when the door finally closes, you close your eyes, holding that warmth in your chest like it might be enough to last the night.
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
The days begin to blur together after that.
Junhui still comes every day. Sometimes twice, if work lets him. Always with the same coffee, even though you only ever take a sip now. Always with a plastic bag of snacks he insists on checking with the nurse first, like he hasn’t memorized the rules by heart already. He sits in the same chair, pulls it close to your bed, leans in like the distance matters.
At first, you keep pretending.
You talk about recovery like it’s inevitable. About how you’ll complain less once you’re better, how you’ll stop making him sneak food into a hospital room like a criminal. You tell him which café you want to go to first, even though you’ve described it to him so many times that he could find it blindfolded. He listens like it’s new every time, nodding, smiling, asking questions.
“Window seat or outside?” he asks one afternoon, stirring his coffee slowly.
“Outside,” you reply. “If it’s not too cold.”
He hums thoughtfully. “I’ll bring my jacket.”
“You always do.” You said.
He grins. “Exactly.”
You knew that clinically and realistically there is no recovery waiting for you. You feel it in the way your body resists even the smallest movements now, in how eating exhausts you, in how the pain returns faster and sharper no matter how they adjust the medication. You overhear enough whispered conversations to understand what the doctors aren’t saying out loud anymore. And yet. When Junhui is there, something inside you loosens. You let yourself imagine it. A miracle. A sudden turnaround. A life that doesn’t end in this room. With him beside you, hope doesn’t feel foolish, it feels almost reasonable.
Your health declines in ways too subtle to dramatize at first.
Your hands shake more. Your voice gets quieter. You start sleeping through his stories, waking up to his presence like it’s a constant you can rely on. The nurses raise the head of your bed higher now, bring medications more frequently, check your vitals more often.
Junhui notices everything.
He stops teasing you about how little you eat and starts celebrating every bite. He adjusts your pillows without being asked. He lowers his voice automatically, as if loudness alone might harm you. When he helps you sit up now, his hands are steady, reverent, like he’s handling something fragile and irreplaceable.
“Too fast?” he asks, even when you haven’t complained.
You shake your head. “You’re fine.”
He doesn’t believe you. He slows anyway.
Sometimes he talks. Sometimes he just sits there, holding your hand, tracing small circles with his thumb like he’s grounding himself as much as you. He never says he’s scared, but you can hear it in the pauses between his words.
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
One evening, you ask him what he wants to do once you’re better.
He looks startled. “Me?”
“Yes. You always ask about me.” You question him.
He thinks for a moment. “I don’t know. I guess… take a break. Travel a little.”
“Where?” You added.
He smiles softly. “Wherever you want.”
You laugh, weak and breathless. “You’re bad at answering questions.”
“I just know what I want,” he says.
You don’t ask him to say it out loud.
The machines become louder as your body grows quieter. There are days when the pain medication makes everything hazy, and Junhui fills in the gaps by telling you what day it is, what you talked about last time, reminding you gently to drink water.
He never complains. Not once.
One afternoon, he brushes your hair back from your face and freezes like he’s crossed an invisible line. “Sorry,” he says quickly.
“It’s okay,” you whisper. “I like it.”
So he does it again. Slower this time.
There are moments when you almost tell him the truth. That you’re tired. That you’re running out of time. That you love him and always have. The words sit heavy on your tongue, waiting.
But then he smiles at you like the future is a given, and you swallow them down. Because Junhui believes so fiercely that it makes you want to believe too. Because in his presence, dying feels like a distant possibility instead of an approaching certainty. Because if this is how it ends, you want it to be gentle.
At night, after he leaves, the room feels emptier than before. The hope he brings lingers like warmth long after he’s gone, and you hold onto it, knowing it won’t last forever.
But for now, he comes back. Every day. With coffee, with stories, with hands that never let go.
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
Junhui realizes it in the quietest way possible.
Not through alarms or urgent voices, but through absence how you stop asking for help before he offers it, how your laughter fades faster, how your hand feels smaller every time it curls into his. One afternoon, he reaches for you automatically, fingers closing around yours, and freezes.
You’re cold.
“Are you cold?” he asks, already rubbing your knuckles between his palms.
“A little,” you admit.
He pulls the blanket higher, tucking it around you with care that borders on reverence. His hands linger, thumbs brushing over your skin like he’s memorizing the shape of you. He doesn’t let go right away.
“You’re getting tired faster,” he says quietly.
You don’t deny it.
He swallows. “Does it hurt more?”
You look at him then, really look, and for a moment you almost tell him everything. Instead, you say, “It’s manageable.”
His jaw tightens. He shifts closer, sitting on the edge of the bed now, knees touching the frame. His shoulder brushes yours, and neither of you move away.
“You don’t have to manage it alone,” he murmurs.
Your heart aches. “I know.”
The machines hum steadily, filling the silence neither of you can. Junhui lifts his hand again, this time not hesitating. He cups your cheek gently, thumb warm against your skin. You lean into it without thinking, eyes closing.
The room feels too small for everything you’re not saying.
“I’ve been thinking,” he starts, voice unsteady. “About… later.”
You open your eyes. “Later?”
“After,” he corrects. “When this is over.”
Your fingers tighten around his wrist, grounding him there. “Yeah?”
“I just—” He laughs softly, breathless. “I don’t know how to imagine it without you.”
The words settle between you, fragile and exposed. Your breath catches. This is it, you think. This is where everything changes.
You reach up, your hand sliding over his, holding it against your cheek. “Jun,” you whisper.
He leans closer, forehead nearly touching yours. You can feel his breath, the tremor in it. His thumb strokes your cheek once, twice, slow and tender.
“I care about you,” he says, barely above a whisper.
Your heart pounds. “I know.”
“I’ve always—” He stops himself sharply, eyes closing for a second like he’s bracing against something. When he opens them again, there’s fear there. Not of you but of what saying more might do to you.
His hand drops away.
“I shouldn’t,” he says quietly. “You need rest.”
You understand immediately. He’s afraid you’ll think it’s pity. Afraid you’ll think he loves you because you’re dying, not because he always has.
So you let him pull back.
“It’s okay,” you say softly, even though it hurts. “I get it.”
He nods, jaw clenched, standing too quickly. “I’ll come back tomorrow.”
“I’ll be here.” You said.
After Junhui leaves, the room feels too empty to ignore.
You press the call button and ask the nurse for a bag. She returns with a small one—canvas, plain, nothing special. It feels strange how little space your life seems to need now.
You pack slowly.
Your phone goes in first, screen smudged from too many anxious swipes. The charger follows, cord neatly wrapped the way Junhui taught you to do years ago so it wouldn’t fray. You hesitate before adding the folded notes half-written reminders, lists that never got finished, names scribbled in the margins. You tuck them into the side pocket, where they won’t wrinkle.
Then the clothes.
The ones you wore before all of this. Soft fabric, familiar weight. You smooth them carefully, as if they can still remember you healthy. At the bottom, you place your pendant, the one you stopped wearing after the IV lines made it inconvenient. You let it rest in your palm for a moment before setting it down.
When the bag is full, you zip it closed.
Later, the doctor comes.
They speak gently, carefully. “We need to operate tomorrow. The condition is worsening rapidly.”
You nod.
“The chances are very low.”
A clipboard is placed in front of you. A pen. You sign with steady hands, even as your chest tightens.
Before they leave, you ask quietly, “Tomorrow… before the surgery. Could I spend a little more time with someone?”
The doctor smiles sadly. “Of course.”
When you’re alone again, you stare at the ceiling, Junhui’s almost-words echoing in your mind. You don’t know if you’ll survive.
But tomorrow, you decide, you’ll hold his hand a little longer.
Just in case you don’t make it.
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
Morning comes too quietly.
Junhui steps into the room already mid-sentence, coffee balanced carefully in one hand, snacks tucked under his arm. “You would not believe how long the line was—”
He stops.
The bed is empty.
His breath catches sharply. The cup tilts just a little, coffee sloshing dangerously close to the edge. His eyes dart around the room, heart racing.
“Hey—?” His voice rises. “Where is she?”
He turns toward the nurse’s station, panic bleeding into every step. “Did something happen?” he asks, words tumbling out too fast. “Is she okay? Where did they take her?”
Before anyone can answer, you speak.
“Jun.”
He freezes. Slowly, he turns.
You’re seated a little to the side, in a wheelchair. IV drip attached, monitors clipped carefully against your body, wires neat and deliberate. A nurse adjusts something behind you, a doctor checking notes nearby. You lift your hand weakly and wave.
For a second, Junhui just stares.
Then he rushes to you, dropping everything onto the nearest table without care. He crouches immediately, hands hovering like he’s afraid to touch you too hard.
“You—” He exhales shakily. “You scared me. I thought— I thought something happened.”
You glance quickly at the nurse and doctor, giving the smallest shake of your head. They understand.
You smile at him, light and gentle. “Nothing happened. I just wanted some fresh air.”
“Fresh air,” he repeats, letting out a broken laugh. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”
“You’re exaggerating,” you say softly.
“You weren’t in bed,” he replies. “That’s not exaggerating.”
You nod toward the coffee. “Thought we could have it somewhere nicer. The garden. You can be my volunteer today.”
He looks at you for a long moment, worry still tight in his eyes, then sighs. “You’re impossible.”
He shakes his head, but his hands are already settling on the wheelchair handles. The nurse gives instructions and then at slow pace, careful turns and steps back.
The garden greets you with cool air and quiet space.
Junhui pushes the wheelchair slowly, carefully, like every crack in the path might hurt you. When you reach the open area, you inhale deeply. The trees are almost bare now, leaves scattered across the ground. The air smells faintly of cinnamon and baked sweets, like the world is preparing for something warm.
“Smells like Christmas,” you murmur.
Junhui hums softly. “Yeah. It does.”
You shiver, barely noticeable, but he notices immediately. Without asking, he shrugs off his jacket and wraps it around your shoulders, tugging it close.
“You don’t have to,” you protest gently. “You’ll get cold.”
“I’ll survive,” he says firmly. “You won’t.”
You don’t argue. Instead, you lean into the warmth, letting yourself rest. Your head tilts naturally, coming to rest against his side. He stiffens for half a second, then relaxes, arm coming around you instinctively.
He brushes your hair back from your face, thumb tracing your cheek softly. “Better?”
You close your eyes. “Much.”
He opens the snacks and coffee, sitting beside you. He feeds you slowly, carefully, wiping your lips when needed, his touch tender and unhurried. Every movement feels intentional, like he’s afraid of wasting even a second.
“You know,” you say quietly, “this feels like a date.”
He pauses, spoon hovering. “Does it?”
“Yeah,” you say. “Just without the awkward part.”
He smiles softly. “Guess we skipped ahead.”
You look at him. “If I get better,” you say lightly, “you still owe me everything.”
“I know,” he replies immediately. “All of it.”
Your fingers slide into his hand. He squeezes gently, thumb brushing your knuckles. You rest your head fully against his shoulder now, eyes closed, listening to his heartbeat.
He stays still, letting you take what you need.
“You’re quiet,” he says softly.
“I’m listening,” you reply. “To everything.”
He swallows. “I wish I could fix this.”
“You already did,” you say. “You stayed.”
He leans his head lightly against yours, foreheads touching for just a second. Neither of you speaks.
Footsteps approach.
The nurse stops a few feet away. You feel it before you see her. Time tightening again.
You straighten slowly, forcing a small smile. “Alright,” you say briskly. “That’s enough romance for today.”
Junhui frowns. “Hey—”
“You should go,” you say teasingly. “Be productive.”
He hesitates. “I’ll come back later.”
“You better,” you say. “And bring the same food.”
“The same?” he asks, confused.
“Yes,” you insist. “Don’t change anything.”
He nods. “Okay.”
He stands slowly, then pauses. He gently lifts the jacket from your shoulders, folding it over his arm before slipping it back on. The distance between you suddenly feels too big.
He stands a few steps away now, hands shoved into his pockets, watching you like he’s memorizing the sight.
“I’ll see you tonight,” he says.
You smile. “Tonight.”
Junhui nods, but he doesn’t move right away. He shifts his weight, hands still buried in his jacket pockets, eyes fixed on you like he’s afraid to blink.
“You know,” you add casually, tilting your head, “if you’re late again, I’m telling everyone you ditched me.”
He lets out a weak laugh. “You always threaten me with public humiliation.”
“It’s effective.” You said.
You pause, then say the thing you’ve said since you were kids—the words that used to mean see you after school, see you tomorrow, don’t disappear.
“Don’t forget to come back you knucklehead
Something flickers across his face. He swallows, forcing a grin. “I never do you gremlin.”
His eyes glisten despite himself. He looks away quickly, scrubbing at his cheek with the back of his hand like it’s nothing.
You notice.
“If you keep crying like that,” you say lightly, lifting your hand, “don’t bother coming tonight. I won’t let you see me.”
He snaps his head back toward you. “Hey.”
You make a small throwing motion with your hand, like you’re about to toss something at him. “I’m serious. I’ll throw my pillow.”
He steps back dramatically, raising his hands. “Okay, okay. No violence.”
“Then behave,” you say, smiling.
His laughter cracks this time, but he nods anyway. “Fine. I’ll come tonight,” he promises. “And I’ll give you a proper scolding for scaring me this morning.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
He hesitates once more, then gives you a small, familiar salute the same one he used to do before running off as a kid.
“Don’t go anywhere,” he says.
You smile again. “I won’t.”
He turns and walks away, shoulders squared, pretending he’s not afraid.
You watch him until he’s out of sight, the nurse’s hands steadying the wheelchair behind you.
And only then do you let yourself breathe.
Like you’re holding onto the last moment that still feels normal.
The hallway back to the prep room is cold. The wheels of the stretcher hum softly beneath you, IV pole rolling alongside like a shadow. The nurse walks beside you, hands steady as she checks the monitors clipped to your body. For a while, neither of you speaks. Then she does.
“You talked to him like you were certain,” she says gently. “Like you’ll be back.”
You turn your head slightly, eyes fixed on the ceiling. “Did I?”
She hesitates. “I just meant—” She stops, then exhales. “I’m sorry. That came out wrong. I didn’t mean… you know.”
“That I might die?” you finish calmly.
She flinches. “The chances are fifty–fifty,” she says quickly. “You still have a chance.”
You nod slowly. “I know.”
There’s another pause before she asks, quieter now, “Why didn’t you tell him? About the surgery. About how serious this is.”
You think of Junhui’s smile. His hands. The way he tried so hard not to cry.
“Would you?” you ask softly.
She blinks. “What?”
“Would you tell the person you love,” you continue, voice steady, “that today might be the last day they see you?”
She doesn’t answer.
“I wouldn’t,” you say. “I’d want them to leave smiling. I’d want their last memory of me to be warm. Normal.” You swallow. “I don’t want him carrying the sound of goodbye for the rest of his life.”
The nurse’s eyes shine. “He means a lot to you. Don’t he?.”
“He’s everything,” you say quietly. “Friend. Family. Home.” A breath. “Maybe something more that I was never brave enough to say.”
She nods, understanding now.
“There’s something else,” you add. “If I don’t make it… there’s a small canvas bag. I packed it last night.”
“Yes,” she says softly. “I saw it.”
“If he comes tonight,” you continue, “and I’m not here then, please give it to him. Don’t tell him right away. Just… give it to him.”
She places a hand gently over yours. “I promise.”
The doors to the prep room open.
They move you carefully, efficiently. The lights are brighter here. Colder. Someone asks you your name, your date of birth, what procedure you’re here for. You answer automatically, like reciting facts about someone else.
As they prepare you, the noise fades into a dull background hum.
You close your eyes.You whisper, barely moving your lips.
“Please come back tonight.”
You pause.
“Even if I can’t.”
The anesthesiologist speaks softly. “We’re starting now.”
The operating room is too bright.
Cold lights glare down as your body is transferred onto the table, sheets adjusted, arms extended gently outward. Electrodes are pressed against your chest. The heart monitor begins its steady rhythm, sharp and precise. A blood pressure cuff tightens around your arm. Someone counts quietly as an IV line is flushed, medication entering your veins with a faint sting.
“Deep breath,” the anesthesiologist says.
The mask lowers. The world narrows.
When the surgery begins, everything is methodical. Incisions are made carefully, layers of skin and tissue separated with practiced precision. Suction hums softly, clearing the field. Gloved hands move in coordinated silence, instruments passed without words. At first, your vitals hold—heart rate stable, oxygen saturation acceptable.
Then they don’t.
Your blood pressure drops without warning. Alarms cut through the room, sharp and insistent. Someone calls out numbers. Medication is pushed quickly through the line. A surgeon adjusts, working faster now, movements urgent but controlled. There is bleeding they didn’t anticipate. More suction. More gauze.
“Pressure’s not responding,” a voice says.
Your heart struggles, rhythm faltering. The monitor stutters, jagged lines replacing the steady beat. Chest compressions begin, firm and relentless. Time stretches, seconds folding into minutes. They work without stopping, cycling medications, restarting compressions, trying again.
“Come on,” someone mutters under their breath.
But your body doesn’t respond.
Eventually, the efforts slow. The room stills. The monitor settles into a flat, unbroken line.
The time of death is called at 11:49 am.
The lights remain bright, unforgiving, as the team steps back with hands heavy and voices quiet in regret. Your body is cleaned carefully, respectfully. Tubes are removed. Sheets are drawn up and then take me to the cold room.
The fight ends not loudly, but completely. And outside the operating room, the world continues completely unaware that something precious has just slipped away specially for Junhui.
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
The night felt unusually cold today.
Junhui walks down the hallway, still thinking about that morning about the way you teased him, the way you made him promise to behave. He smiles faintly to himself, muttering under his breath about how he’ll get his revenge, imagining scolding you just like he planned.
He reaches your room and pushes the door open, coffee and snacks in hand. “Alright, you little—”
The room is empty.
A jolt of panic hits him, sharp and immediate. He drops the bag to the floor. “Wait—what? Where—where are you ?” His voice shakes.
The nurse steps forward gently. “Junhui… I need you to come with me.”
He stumbles backward. “What do you mean? She’s—where is she? Did something happen?” His heart races.
She exhales, soft but firm. “You can see her, but… only for a little while. And please, just let me guide you.”
Junhui barely registers her words. He follows numbly as she leads him down another hallway, past sterile lights and echoing footsteps, to a colder room at the back of the hospital. He still doesn’t understand, still imagining she’s asleep in a different room, waiting to scold him for being late.
The nurse opens the door slightly and steps aside. “I’ll wait outside,” she whispers. “Just for a few minutes. Then you have to come out.”
Junhui’s steps are slow, hesitant, as if each one brings him closer to something he doesn’t want to accept. And then he sees you.
You’re lying there, still. Too still. Your lips parted faintly, skin pale, eyelashes resting softly against your cheeks.
He freezes. Then he’s moving, faster than he thought he could, across the cold floor. He bends over, wraps his arms around you gently at first, almost afraid, like he’s holding something fragile that could disappear with the slightest pressure.
“No,” he whispers, voice breaking. “No… no, don’t do this to me.”
His forehead presses against yours, tears spilling down without restraint. One hand cups the back of your head, the other holds your shoulders. He rocks slightly, as if rocking could wake you, as if the motion could bring you back.
“I—I didn’t tell you. I wanted to,” he sobs. “I wanted to tell you everything, but I was scared. I thought… I thought you’d think I only love you because of this… because of this sickness.”
He shakes, broken, hugging you tighter. “I love you. I’ve always loved you. From the beginning… from the first day we met. And I didn’t say it. I didn’t say it because I didn’t want you to think it’s pity. I just… I just wanted you to know… I love you.”
Tears fall freely, soaking your shoulder. His lips press lightly to your hair, whispering through the sobs. “I love you. Please… just let me… let me stay with you for a little while. Just a little while.”
The nurse knocks softly on the doorframe. “Junhui…” she whispers. “Please… just a few minutes. Then we need to go.”
He doesn’t respond immediately, holding you as if letting go could break him. His body shudders, his chest heaving, hands trembling as he strokes your hair, wipes his own tears against your cheek. “I promised,” he whispers, voice cracking. “I promised you… I’ll always keep the promise. Even if… even if you’re gone.”
He leans back slightly, still holding you, and lets the weight of grief wash over him. “I should have told you sooner. I should have… I should have kissed you, held you… said the things I always wanted to say. And now… now it’s too late. But I love you. Always. I always will.”
The nurse gently touches his shoulder. “Junhui…”
He doesn’t let go, not yet. He sobs quietly, whispering confessions over and over, broken words strung together with gasps and tears. His forehead remains pressed to yours, hands clutching your body like he’s trying to memorize every detail, every curve, every inch he’ll never see again.
Finally, trembling, he nods slightly, reluctantly loosening his grip, just enough for the nurse to guide him to the door. He carries your presence in every shuddering step, tears still streaking his face.
The nurse hands him the small canvas bag you prepared last night. His fingers close around it, gripping tightly, as if it could somehow bring you back. He doesn’t speak. He can’t.
Outside the cold hallway, he takes a shuddering breath, pressing the bag to his chest. Every muscle in his body aches. He whispers your name over and over very soft, broken, barely audible as though speaking it keeps you with him for a fraction longer.
And in that moment, he knows nothing will ever be the same.
I don’t even usually cry—not at sad movies, not at dramatic scenes, not easily at all.
And yet here I am, writing this with swollen eyes, a sore throat, and a heart that still hasn’t quite settled.
This was my first time reading a fic centered on Jun—truly, fully—throughout my entire time as a Carat. I’ve read many beautiful, breathtaking pieces of writing before, but this one carved out a very specific place in my heart. Quietly. Permanently.
It was also my first time reading a story featuring a sick reader, set largely in a hospital, written with feelings so pure it almost felt intrusive to witness them. I didn’t expect it to affect me the way it did. I didn’t expect my chest to feel tight, my heart to pound, my insides to twist in that strange, almost painful way that only happens when something reaches too deep.
Scene after scene, I cried.
Sometimes I had to stop reading just to breathe—to gather my thoughts enough to keep going. The experience was overwhelming, odd, devastating, and somehow gentle all at once.
I’m not an expert reader, but the author’s writing style makes everything feel accessible—simple without ever being shallow. Each line pulls you forward, urging you to stay, to feel more, to sit with the emotions instead of escaping them. There’s a rare balance here: humor and sadness, banter and pain, restraint and tenderness. Even the smallest moments linger—quiet gestures, unspoken care, the kind of details that make characters feel real rather than performed.
The connection between Jun and y/n felt… genuine. Not loud. Not exaggerated. Just deeply human. Their comfort with each other, their softness, their resilience—it made me think. It made me want to be someone like that. Someone another person could lean on when everything is falling apart.
This was my first encounter with this author, and I didn’t expect to feel something so intense afterward. But here I am—still thinking about it, still carrying it with me.
I won’t explain it. I won’t analyze it.
I just think this is one of those stories you should experience for yourself and form your own opinion.
All I’ll say is this:
it hurt, it healed, and it felt a little bit magical.
Okay so — let me be honest, i’m not saying short fics, cute drabbles or blurbs are bad 😭 that would be so hypocritical of me because i’ve read so many that were absolutely divine. some of them genuinely stayed with me.
it’s just that sometimes… they end too soon. i get attached, blink once, and boom — it’s over. so for the past few weeks, i’ve been spending my free time scrolling through tumblr, searching for a long Seokmin x reader fic, something that feels like a whole novel — but honestly? it’s like trying to catch smoke with your bare hands ,like looking for a star in the broad daylight ,like finding WiFi in the middle of the desert ,like spotting unicorns 😭 (got it?)
so i’m here humbly begging you guys for help — do you know any longer fics (15k+, or just long enough to make you lose sense of time) featuring Seokmin, or honestly, any member, that made you feel something?
i’m open to basically everything as long as it’s an alternative universe (no idol AU, please). smut or not, violence or not, fluff or heartbreak — i don’t mind. give me longing, tension, slow burn, laughter, pain, confusion — just something that feels alive.
i love stories that feel raw, natural, intense, and unexpected. something that surprises you halfway through, that makes you pause and go “wait, what just happened?”
first person, second person, full prose or not — doesn’t matter. i just want that thing that makes you forget where you are for a second.
and just to be clear — i’m not an anti, not a solo stan, not trying to start anything weird 😭 i’m just a reader who wants to feel something again. so please, if you have any recommendations (especially Seokmin x reader) or hidden gems, drop them here 🫶
thank you in advance — i owe you my next serotonin boost.
