𝐄𝐋𝐋

the one that takes my heart, that's you

[jl-micasea-fics]

Love Said To Soul | lmh

❝𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮?❞

↳ When the God of Love is tasked with humiliating a beautiful mortal girl, he finds himself much vexed to discover her immune to his skills. Determined to discover the root of the problem, he takes to mortal form and embarks upon a dastardly ruse that requires his getting close to her. The God of Love thinks he knows all. The God of Love knows nothing.

↳ Lee Know x female reader

↳ Enemies to lovers romance trope. A retelling of the Greek myth Eros and Psyche. College au, angst and conflict, developing romance and yearning, quest and high stakes, Greek mythology and frequent reference to gods/goddesses etc, fantasy and myth meets modern day, mild drug use, smut throughout.

! Explicit content, adult themes, 20.1k, suitable for 18+ readers only !

「Final part of the skz tropes collab w @yoongihan」 「main contents list」 「© April 2024 by jl-micasea-fics」

“Thus, my dearest son, I charge you with this quest.”

Minho knelt reverently before his mother, head bowed low. Rarely did he question her whims or ways, for what the Goddess Aphrodite coveted, the Goddess Aphrodite claimed, and may the Fates help anyone who stood in her way, kin or otherwise.

Still; this all felt too bizarre.

“May I ask why, mother?”

Aphrodite smiled gently, her eyes—an infinite silvery galaxy of lovers’ souls—trained to him. As self-assured as he was, even Minho’s composure wavered under the gaze of the most apocalyptically beautiful of the twelve Olympians.

“It just seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to for a mortal girl,” he hastily added.

“You are correct, dear child. It is awful trouble. Trouble that I would not have you go to if it had not been ordained that this girl’s beauty will inspire a cult of worshippers that will revere her as the most beautiful creature to ever have lived. As more beautiful than even the Goddess of Love herself. They will make to her sacrifices and votive offerings and pray to her as though she is divine. I cannot have that, child. There is a natural order to things, and we must maintain it.”

Minho supposed that was answer enough.

“Relay to me again what you must do,” Aphrodite said.

“I am to go to her bedroom while she sleeps, and take with me a hog.”

“The hairiest and foulest you can find,” Aphrodite added.

“Yes, mother. I am to shoot her with one of my arrows and ensure that the first thing she sees when she awakes is the beast.”

Aphrodite smiled, her golden skin shimmering under the vast, heavenly sun. “She will fall in love with the monster, thus disgracing herself and ensuring that her Fate shall never come to pass. No mortal shall ever worship a pig-lover!” She laughed, melodic and triumphant.

Compassion in his very nature, Minho could not help but feel a sliver of sympathy for the girl that, for all intents and purposes, was innocent. She could no more control the beauty she was born with than her Fate— now it would be a sad and lonely one. She would be reviled by other mortals and mocked by the Gods, and spend her life in misery.

But an order was an order.

“Go now, my son,” Aphrodite commanded. “Take your bow and quiver, and make without delay to the girl.”

“Yes, mother.”

Minho stood, bowed, and from his divine palace retrieved his golden bow and quiver of enchanted arrows. Forged by Hephaestus and blessed by his mother, the arrows could pierce the heart of any mortal or deity with true, unbreakable love.

Such was his onus, his purpose, his charge as Eros.

--

Minho always enjoyed visiting the mortal world.

It was true that his reason for spending much of his time there pertained to the never-ending demands of love’s machinations, but even on the days when he sought to take a small break, he lounged in the warm waterfalls and on the snowy mountains and near the pellucid oceans, marvelling at the luscious spectacles of Mother Gaia— a different sort of ephemeral elegance to that of his heavenly home.

Mortals entertained him endlessly; such funny, flighty creatures. They warred and fucked and loved and killed and worked so hard for ultimately trivial reward. He often wondered what would have become of them, had Prometheus never gifted them fire. They certainly wouldn’t have built up centuries of civilisation and developed what Minho now overlooked from a wisp of cloud: the University of Oxford. So far as he understood it, this was a place where mortals gathered to learn— a little like the Mouseion, which he was admittedly less familiar with than he ought to have been. More importantly than any of that, however: this was where his charge resided.

Securing his bow and stepping off the cloud, he drifted down and over the sprawling campus on plush, white wings. The cool midnight air flowed through his onyx hair; starlight kissed his deep, rich complexion. A peaceful glide to the ground it would have been, had the ghastly pig strapped to his back not squealed for the duration.

Landing softly on the dewy lawn, Minho wriggled his naked toes on the grass and looked around. The building ahead, domed and Victorian in grand architecture, was signposted ‘Goodhart’. Being the dead of night, there was no sign of life from any of the single-paned windows; just as he had hoped. Invisible as he was to mortal eyes, the pig remained very much discernible. Nothing like a floating farm animal to incite panic.

With a short, sharp hop he glided gracefully up and away from the grass to the top floor, three stories up. Through each window he peered into dark rooms in which girls softly slumbered, until he came upon one that wasn’t: she was sat at her desk, illuminated by the amber glow of a tabletop lamp. Before her was spread textbooks and notepads, pencils and post-its, an open laptop and cold mug of coffee. Minho watched for several moments. She scrawled something to a cluttered page, tapped her laptop and scrolled. She dropped her pen and raised her arms, stretching out her spine and shoulders with satisfying cracks. She yawned and checked the time, then groaned: “Oh, god.” Her head fell to the desk with a heavy sigh.

Minho had counted on her being asleep. This was due to take much longer now that she wasn’t. Resigned to a wait of indeterminate length, he perched on the rooftop ledge above her window, pig tucked between his legs as he laid back and gazed up at the stars and constellations that decorated the now cloudless sky. There was Hercules, favourite son of Heracles, raised up to the heavens by the Cloud Gatherer himself in honour of his father’s legendary labours. There was Aries, the ram to whom the most coveted Golden Fleece once belonged. There was Andromeda, the wife of the great hero Perseus, who saved her from an unthinkable fate at the hands of the foul sea-dwelling monster Cetus. And in admiring these constellations and recounting the tales of ancient times gone by, Minho drifted into a contented sleep.

It was warmth on his skin that stirred him to the twitter of birds and chatter of mortals. Opening his eyes and rubbing them of their crust, he—for a moment—forgot entirely where he was. Indeed, it was the sore twinge to his skin that firstly informed him he was on Earth, and secondly, that he had Helios to thank for the sunburn. Immortality does not equal invulnerability. With a mean glare skywards, he clambered to his feet and stretched out his joints, possessively checking his bow, relieved to find it still where it should be.

It was at that moment that a wailing screech pierced the air, most alarmingly offensive to Minho’s sensitive ears. More commotion stirred and drew him closer; he crossed the ivy-laced rooftop of Goodhart House with nimble proficiency, peering down at the lawn where it seemed a dozen or more students had gathered.

“What do we do?!” He heard a girl cry out.

“Kill it!”

“We can’t kill it, idiot. It’s huge.”

“W— Well, just, get rid of it!”

“How do you suggest we do that?”

“Call security! Call someone!”

Intrigued, Minho hopped from the rooftop and fluttered to a nearby oak on whose thick branch he gently perched. From the gathering of girls, a familiar squeal and snort erupted: Minho froze. With a stroke of bewilderment, he looked down between his legs, then back to the lawn.

Shit.

The girls screamed and parted from their tight cluster as a splotchy, hairy hog barrelled towards them, slavering drool that splashed them as it passed. Over the lawn it charged and across the campus to yet more cries of distant fear and panic, until it disappeared entirely from view. Aflutter with confusion and fright, the girls drew back together, as though expecting yet more horrid creatures to spring from the ground. Luckily for them, Minho was fresh out. In fact, he was just considering where he might obtain a second beast when from the Goodhart building lobby, a girl strolled out. Confidence in her stride and an easy smile on her face, she was rushed by the gaggle of girls, every one of them relaying to her with varying degrees of dramatics what had just occurred. Minho watched intently; she laughed and hugged them, offered assurances and validation. By no small feat she managed to calm them, after which she took her leave, jogging across the lawn and towards the path with books bundled in her arms. Minho followed, from treetop to rooftop across campus until she entered where he could not, disappearing from his sight into a grand school building.

His mother had been right, he thought. She was beautiful; that was, for a mortal girl. After all, Minho had indulged with deities and nymphs the beauty (and flexibility) of which mortals could not utter into words, and so yes; she was beautiful, for a mortal girl. Rather astoundingly beautiful, for a mortal girl. But that was neither here nor there. He had a quest to complete, and was now distinctly lacking the beast required to complete it. He would just have to find another and bring it back. If not a hog, then something equally as detestable.

Something that would appease mother.

--

In the small and dark hours, Minho returned once more to Goodhart.

Pleased this time to see that the girl was slumbering soundly, he braced himself on the sill of the window and pushed it carefully. It gave with no resistance, as did all things he impressed upon. He climbed through it and into the girl’s room, and found himself immediately taken with what he caught wind of: the sweet and tantalising scent of honey— a substance that had something of a catnip-like appeal to Gods and deities in all forms. Minho paused, his mouth watering. The room itself was of no remarkable make: he had visited the habitats of mortal girls before, their comforts and wants manifesting in soft things, light things, warm things, pink things.

In his hand the creature he plotted with stirred and unsettled; he opened his palm and hushed the spindly tarantula softly. Besotted, it twitched its mandibles and allowed Minho to place it at the foot of the bedspread, where it waited. With a grace of movement unique to the Goddess of Love’s offspring, Minho drew his bow from his back and prepared an arrow, aiming at the sleeping girl. This was usually his favourite part; the anticipation, the thrill, watching how his efforts panned out in those few and rare seconds after his arrow struck and the love searched for a home. Perhaps that was why his heart hung heavily as he took a deep breath and loosed the arrow; in this, there was to be no thrill. He acted solely in service to his mother, and while other deities would surely press that that was ample reward in itself, something inside him ached.

Ever sure in its path, the arrow struck the girl in her breast, setting upon her a heat that woke her immediately. She gasped and made a sound akin to a moan: Minho stiffened, struck by it. She rubbed her eyes and sat up, her sleep-warm skin and bed hair appealing to him in ways he had erstwhile made fun of mortals for admiring. Groggy but seemingly able to perceive enough, she blinked at the end of her bed; at the patient tarantula that sat there. She shook her head, rubbed her eyes again, grimaced and took another look. The tarantula shimmied its eight legs. Certain that his mission had been a success, Minho could bear to watch no longer; he moved to the open window, braced himself upon the sill.

“How on earth did you get in here?”

He turned back. The girl rose carefully from bed and retrieved the glass of water from her bedside, rushing to the window where he stood. A mere inch from him and yet completely unaware, she tossed the water over the sill, the streaming moonlight briefly bathing her face. Minho swallowed and watched as she grabbed a slip of paper from her desk. With care and precise technique, she slipped the paper under the spider, poised the glass atop it, and trapped it.

“You don’t belong here,” she said softly, moving back to the window; back to Minho. “Here, little one. Go home safely now.”

Stretching across him, she leaned out to a gathering of strong ivy that crawled across the close facia. She released the creature onto it, smiling as it clicked its mandibles and scuttled away.

Several things crossed Minho’s mind as he held his breath and waited for the girl to move away. The first was that something, somewhere, had clearly gone awfully wrong. What just happened was not the work of a woman obsessively in love with a horrible spider, but rather that of a pitying Samaritan. The next thing he considered was perhaps more confounding than his failure: he had broken into a clammy sweat, his heart pounded, his vision swum with her nearness. The God of love loves all, loves unconditionally, loves fairly. He does not fall in love.

Thirdly and finally, he thought the worst of all.

He had failed his mother.

Aphrodite was not to be failed.

--

“What is it that you mean to tell me, exactly?”

Aphrodite sat poised on her regal throne of curved ram’s horns and silk, her infinite beauty radiating beneath her golden skin and through her calm, silvery eyes. Her hair, braided intricately and woven with wildflowers, seemed to throb and glow with the very essence of life and love. Minho knelt before her and summoned his courage.

“I mean to say, mother, that I failed.”

Aphrodite brought her palm to her chin. “I do not understand, dear child.”

“I failed to curse her, mother. It just... It didn’t work.”

“So you said. Therein lies my perplexment. You said your arrow struck her?”

“Yes, mother.”

“And yet she remained unaffected?”

“Yes, mother. She didn’t fall in love at all.”

“You must have missed.”

Minho looked up, about to voice his protest when Aphrodite spoke again, “The arrows of Eros cannot be defied. Whomsoever is struck by them must fall in love with the first creature they then see. That is, and always will be, the way of things.”

“But, mother—”

“You must go back down to Earth. Back to the girl. Make sure your aim is true this time.”

“Mother, it wasn’t my aim that was off, it was something else—”

“Are you suggesting there is a defect in Hephaestus’s weapon?” she asked. “Should we visit your uncle together and put this to him?”

Minho swallowed. “No, mother.”

Aphrodite smiled. “Very well then. It is decided. You shall go back to Earth and do a thorough job of things.”

Minho stood from his kneel, anxiety turning over in him. Whatever help he had sought to gain from his mother clearly wasn’t his to take, and so he would have to figure this one out on his own.

“And, darling?”

“Yes, mother?”

“Do not come back until the deed is done.”

Minho nodded dutifully, his heart sunk low.

“Yes, mother.”

--

Now, things were personal.

Not only had the mortal girl somehow resisted his arrows, embarrassed him in front of his mother—a woman whose opinion mattered to him above anyone—but she had also earned him effective banishment. There was no doubt in his mind that his mother’s warning was to be interpreted literally: he would not be allowed to return to heaven or his palace until his task was complete, and so what had begun as a run-of-the-mill task was now a quest of redemption. Minho simply despised working harder than he had to.

So, yes. This was personal.

The more he thought on it, the more he supposed his mother to be right. He must have missed. Yes, it looked an awful lot like he struck her clean in the breast— before this he’d have sworn his immortality on it. And yes, he had never been known to miss a shot, ever. And yes; she reacted as he had witnessed every other mortal react in the afterglow of the landing shot. But still. He must have missed. There could be no other explanation.

Resigned to a third attempt, Minho returned at night to Goodhart. This time, he would watch a while longer. He most definitely wouldn’t take to the (rather comfortable) rooftop and admire the constellations; this was serious business, and he ought to treat it as such. Gliding up to her window and perching on the exterior sill, he was surprised to see the room empty. It was late: late enough for most mortals to be going about their quaint evening routines, such as they were. The desk lamp was switched on and a gathering of clothes was strewn about the unkempt bed alongside an open, transparent toiletry bag. A closed laptop balanced atop the bedside table, where also rested stacked books of romance fiction. White, fluffy slippers peeked out from beneath the bed’s skirt, the small wardrobe door had been left ajar. It was curiosity that drove him to crack open the window, and from inside he once again caught the delectable scent that had so tempted him the night before: honey. It warmed him and made his mouth water, the sweet notes inspiring a rumble in his gut that he mentally hushed—as though it could be heard—when the door opened and the girl walked in. Robed in merely a thin towel, her hair wet about her shoulders, he held his breath and gawked. Something about her—something he couldn’t explain but most desperately wished to—was inexplicably appealing. On her entrance the smell of sweet nectar strengthened, and Minho widened the gap in the window to steal a stronger whiff. She shivered and wrapped her arms about herself, glancing to the window that, to her mind, was swinging loosely.

“Thought I’d closed you,” she mumbled, crossing the room and leaning again into Minho’s space. His heart thumped as she reached out to close it: confoundingly annoying, but what good was it to deny?

And then, something quite unfathomable happened.

She froze mid-reach, and stared at Minho.

--

You had never been the type to much believe in fairy tales, myth or folklore.

Being a student of the arts, you were aware enough that such tales were always a product of their time and culture, born to serve one purpose or another. Urban legends to keep folk from the woods at night, fables to sow the seeds of conformity, myths to elevate men to the status of Gods, for hubris and ambition does much to produce good literature.

So does insanity, for its part, and that was precisely what you felt to be stewing in as you looked upon the barely corporeal form of a creature—a man? —perched daintily on your windowsill. He was naked save for a thin white skirt that seemed not to touch him, but float about him. A broad and firm chest tapered to a svelte waist and thick, muscled thighs. Hair of impossible black framed features that you could not entirely comprehend for their beauty, and as though to that end, his face remained a blur save for the shimmering silver of eyes that stared back. A pair of feathery, white wings closed around and under him, and this, you promptly decided, could not be real. If you were to touch him, he would disappear. And so you reached out, hand trembling and warming the nearer you got, as though pushing your arm into a pocket of hot steam. The angel(?) watched, statuesque, and as the very tips of your fingers grazed the smooth upper chest that you were sure you would simply pass through, a pop erupted, as though piercing a vacuum. An extraordinary bout of colour bloomed and spread across his skin, the opaque veil giving way to an iridescent, dazzling gold that shimmered and sparked under the moonlight, yet where your fingers had touched was a deep, purple blotch— a scar on perfection. His features cleared and you saw him with perfect clarity: sharp yet feminine, strikingly gorgeous with plush lips and strong brow. Like nothing you’d ever seen; nothing that ever should be seen. Despite your wants you cried out in shock, recoiled, and slammed the window shut. The angel flitted from the sill, great wings beating gracefully as it hovered for but a moment, spun around, and darted away into the night.

Sleep did not come that night.

Nor did the angel, ever again.

--

She saw him.

She tried to touch him.

Never in all his centuries had Minho experienced such a thing, and were he not on such frosty terms with his mother, he would have turned to her for advice, for he found himself utterly confounded.

A mortal girl saw him.

Had a part of him somehow broken? Was she not mortal after all? Had there been some cosmic imbalance that simply happened to allow for the veil between worlds to thin with comically inopportune timing? Minho had no answers, and knew his frantic worrying would produce none. Thus, he resolved to a plan. The way he saw it, all attempts made so far had depended on his stealth and gentile as Eros, God of Love. Therefore, perhaps a different approach was called for; an approach that would put him in direct contact with the girl that he might work her out— he would have to if he hoped to curse her and appease his mother. Working in the shadows had earned him nothing but a headache.

It was time to step into the light.

--

The Oxford university cafeteria was not a place one went to eat their lunch.

No; the cafeteria was a grand old affair more fitting the pages of Hogwarts, and was treated as such. A hub of activity for passing students that would meet between lectures or seminars to spread the campus gossip like Burberry-clad town criers. It amused you to play a small part in it; you would listen when the girls from your house clucked and fussed over the slightest thing that, if nothing else, distracted from the general stresses of undergraduate life. Ever aware of the way you carried yourself—mother had made sure to drill that one down since birth—you received all news with a complacent smile, unaffected.

Such was the plan today— to pass through on your way to your next class, touch base with the latest triviality, and carry on your day. Yet as you stepped into the high-ceilinged cafeteria and looked around, something struck you as distinctly different.

The whole place was abuzz, humming with chatter and the excited exclamations. Students gathered tightly around the benches and tables, those newly arrived being swarmed upon by peers that sought to be the first to tell them the great news: news you would soon come into possession of.

“Hey!” Your good friend and classmate, Gina, called to you. “Over here!”

You rushed to her, backpack tight to your shoulder. “What on earth’s going on?” you asked. “Half the student body must be here.”

“Girl, you haven’t heard?”

“Haven’t heard what?”

“Oh my God—” She turned to the girl behind her, tapped her shoulder. “She hasn’t heard yet!”

The girl gasped. “You haven’t?! Everyone’s talking about it!”

“Talking about what?”

“I can’t believe you haven’t—”

“Gina.” You pinned her with a stern glare. “Tell me what’s going on.”

Gina drew closer, her voice no lower despite the closed distance as she said, “There’s a new student.”

“A... What? Is that it?”

“He’s not just any student,” she added.

“I heard his biological mother owns Gucci,” a nearby girl added.

“I heard he’s a self-made billionaire,” said another.

“You’re both wrong. He’s the Dean’s son,” Gina tutted.

You held a hand up, head spinning. “Wait. Time out. All this fuss is over a new student?”

“Gucci heir.”

“Billionaire!”

“Dean’s son—”

You rolled your eyes at the objecting chorus. “Whatever. He’s still just a student.”

Gina shook her head. “You clearly haven’t met him.”

“I don’t need to meet him.”

“Oh yeah?” Gina stared over your shoulder. “That’s too bad, because you’re about to.”

You followed her gaze, as did every other student present. The cafeteria burst into a fuss of noise, whispered elation and an air of giddy delight that infected even you with the way your heart pounded indiscriminately. Through a convenient gap in the crowd you looked across to the gently swinging double doors where a person had just entered: a man. A man that met your eyes as soon as yours did his, through tinted sunglasses that utterly failed to conceal the liquid mercury beneath. Under your skin bloomed a molten wanting unlike anything hitherto felt, and in the next breath, a dizzy spell of desire. Mid-length hair the colour of onyx and skin near unsettlingly flawless, it felt merciful to look away from him; to right yourself and steady your feet. Leather jacket tight about his broad shoulders, the man grinned and with no more than a single stride attracted to him the swarm of students that each sought to introduce themselves and make friendly, Gina included. At home amongst the chaos, the man took it all in and with apparent gratitude, unphased by the riot he incited. It took all possible strength to turn and briskly cross the cafeteria, the more distance put between you and them, the better.

Outside and with the summer sun offering a calming warmth of clarity to your head and shoulders, you diverted from the path to the lawn and stopped near a willow tree for breath. It had been all too much. All too reminiscent of your own experience as a naïve Fresher— how the ‘hottest girl on campus’ had been so violently hitched to her pedestal.

“Hello.”

With a shriek you whirled around: there he was. Sunglasses removed and sitting backwards on his head, silver pools of liquid metal pinned you from under strands of thick black.

“Wh— What?”

The man smiled; white, dazzling. “I said hello.”

“Hello?”

“Isn’t that what people say when they meet for the first time?”

You shook your head, scrambling for sense. The shadow of the leafy canopy above danced over the grass, disorienting. As though nature itself responded to his very presence as your peers did.

“But this...” You swallowed, summoned the nerve to look at him. “This isn’t the first time we’ve met.”

--

Minho’s ichor ran cold— a first for a man whose heavenly blood was perpetually warmed by divinity.

“We’ve never met,” he said flatly, as much to convince himself as her.

In truth, he thought she’d be purged of the memory of that murky evening by now, humans so fickle in their recollection. It had been over a week ago. She blinked, the dazzlement in her eyes such that it made Minho wonder if his mortal shell was sufficient in containing his glorious beauty.

“I know you,” she muttered. “I know your face.”

Minho’s heart throbbed.

“I thought it was a dream, but—”

Seeing an opportunity, he leapt at it. “Funny,” he smarmed. “People do like to tell me I’m the stuff of dreams.”

And just like that, she appeared to snap to herself. She grimaced and turned away, starting over the lawn.

“It’s rude to walk away from someone without even asking their name,” he said, keeping up with her.

“I already know your name.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes. It’s all anyone in the cafeteria was saying.”

He laughed. “You sound upset about that.”

“Not nearly as upset as I am about being followed.”

“You could always ask me why I’m following you.”

She stopped abruptly and huffed, “Why are you following me, Minho?”

Never had a mortal addressed him by human name— it felt somehow more intimate than the acts he’d indulged in a hundred times or more.

He cleared his throat, stood tall. “You’re the student superintendent for Goodhart, yes?”

She cast a wary eye over him. “I am.”

From his pocket, he retrieved a small, silver key with a wooden tag attached. The number on the tag read ‘307’.

“I’m moving in,” he beamed.

It was her turn to laugh; melodic and bright. Somehow cutting. “Goodhart is a girl’s only house,” she said.

“It was.”

“Excuse me?”

“It was a girl’s only house. Up until about six hours ago.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Cool. You don’t need to. I just need you to show me to my room. It’s this way, right?”

He started off over the lawn, hands in jacket pockets, thoroughly pleased with himself. With a little luck (and maybe an offering or two to his mother), things would continue to go according to plan. He’d have this mortal worked out and trussed up in love with a snake before teatime.

How pleased Aphrodite would be.

--

It was all so wrong.

How was it that a centuries-long tradition could be so readily abandoned for the sake of a rich boy that apparently possessed more connections than the London underground?

Walking briskly down the halls of Goodhart—halls that you had come to love for their quirky colourings and touch of lived-in neglect—you nursed the mortification that swirled about you. It didn’t help that every girl you passed looked on Minho with abject delight and warm welcomes; he was already at home in a place he had no business calling home.

You pointed down the third-floor hall from the top of the connecting staircase.

“Your room is down there,” you said. “On the left.”

Minho hummed. “Cool. Let’s go.”

“I have a lecture.”

You spun on your heel and started down the stairs, only for the man to jump into your path.

“Don’t you have to give me some kind of induction?” he pressed. “As the superintendent, it’s only right you tell me where the fire exits are.”

A hot whirl of irritation barely suppressed the urge to tell him where he could stick his fire exits: you forced a smile instead, and nodded.

“Right. Sure. This way, then.”

Heading down the third-floor hall with him in close pursuit, you began upon a cold realisation. Perhaps the onslaught of emotion had befuddled you enough that you completely missed what was easily the most horrifying thing of all this: room 307 was next to yours.

Minho was your neighbour.

You stopped outside 307’s door. “This is it.”

Minho grinned. “Excellent.”

He took the key from his pocket and unlocked it, stepping inside what was a typical space for university accommodation. A modestly sized room with nothing more than a desk and bed supplied. It fell to the students to make it theirs, so to speak. The white-framed window looked out to the summery lawn, just as yours did. He strolled inside, hands in his leather jacket pockets, peered out of the window and inspected the ceiling, the bed and then you. 

“Fire exits are at both ends of the hall,” you quickly said from the door. “And there’s an emergency escape connected to 301. Got it?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“There’s no curfew and, uh,” you cleared your throat. “No rules on who you can bring back and such. Just remember you’re not the only one who lives here.”

He scanned you coolly. “I’m well aware of that.”

“Good. Well, then.” With a curt nod, you went to leave.

“You’re 306, aren’t you?”

You stopped short, seized with disbelief. “What?”

“You live next door,” he repeated. “We’re neighbours.”

“H— How do you even know that?”

Minho shrugged. “Am I not supposed to know?”

Confounded, you were lost for words. He strolled leisurely around the bed.

“You’re popular on campus,” he said. “I hear people talking about you.”

“Really?” You scoffed. “I’m shocked you could hear anything beyond what everyone seems to be saying about you.”

“It’s funny,” he continued, ignorant of your remark.

“What is?”

“That they say so much about you without actually saying a thing.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Well,” he sighed, perching on the bare mattress. “They say you’re beautiful. Gorgeous, even. That you’ve got an ass to die for and a killer smile.” He raked his gaze over you. “You’re the hottest girl on campus.”

“They can say what they want, I really don’t care. I’m used to it.”

“Right. But it’s all so... vapid. Don’t you think? There’s no substance to it. Seems to me like not a single one of them actually know you. They just know you for what they see. They’re not interested in peering beneath the tight ass and lovely smile.”

You stared at a patch on the brown carpet.

“Is that their fault, or yours?” he asked.

“I’m done with this conversation,” you snapped, turning back to the door.

“I heard about the Fresher’s ball.”

You stopped and swallowed, heat warming your face. “The Fresher’s ball was a mistake.”

“Yeah. You would say that. Getting so drunk you made out with the entire rugby team?”

“That’s not true,” you snapped. “I got drunk, yes, and I know I made a fool of myself, but nothing like that happened. It’s just a nasty rumour.”

Minho shrugged. “Not for me to judge, darling.” He pursed his lips, then added, “Regardless, your peers seem to adore you. The way you look, anyway.”

“Are you done? I don’t know who the hell you think you are but my life is not a soap that you can just tune into for your own amusement. I don’t care what people say about me; I never have.” You turned away from him. “Leave me alone.”

And with an abrupt slam of his door, you left his room to rush to your own. In the solitude and quiet and after deep breaths taken to ease the dreaded panic that had begun to sink in, it was to your own irritation that tears pricked and streaked your cheeks. Nothing he had said was new; you were aware enough of the reason boys smiled at you and girls flocked to you, somehow hoping your acclaimed ‘beauty’ might rub off on them in however shallow a manner. Such had always been the way of things, ever since you were young. Overfamiliar uncles cooing at your pretty face, jealous aunts shunning you. High school friends lost to petty crushes that turned eyes on you, strangers that stared and whispered. You had hoped for a new start with the chapter of university, and for a while, things had been better. You’d been just another student of low profile, had kept to yourself, had protected your peace.

All until the damn Fresher’s ball.

One moment of weakness and indulgence in excess had ruined it: all eyes had a reason to turn to you as you revelled and danced with more suggestive intonation than you would ever have otherwise dared, and they hadn’t turned away since. Rumours abounded of your state and activity after the ball, ranging from those Minho had heard and of far more explicit affairs, none of them true. Unwilling to dig to the root of the whispers, you simply turned away from it, choosing above all else to carry yourself the way you had always done under lustful eyes: with quiet dignity.

Who was this man to throw all that in your face? To so brazenly trample on your boundaries? Whether Dean’s son or Gucci heir or self-made billionaire, it was clear he possessed an appalling level of entitlement, and was someone to be avoided. Just what he hoped to gain from such rash treatment of a stranger, you couldn’t be sure, but promptly decided it was not worth your energy to work out.

You would carry yourself the way you had always done.

--

The mystery of Minho’s identity prevailed for longer than you cared to acknowledge.

He hefted his wants around campus with reckless abandon, and by now it was certain that you were the only one mourning the all-female occupation of Goodhart House, for the other girls were nothing but pleased by the male addition.

Indeed, neither an eye was blinked nor a question asked as to his means of securing a place at Goodhart, much less Oxford on the whole. The man seemed to don the shroud of myth— every word passed around and about him painted a thrilling picture: he was everything the students wished him to be and more, for never once did he deny a rumour. An image forged in gossip is one susceptible to warping, and if Minho played into that, it was lost on the student body. Rather, he was welcomed with more abject favouritism than you had ever witnessed; you might have drowned in the second-hand embarrassment of your peers if not for the glowering contempt you stewed in upon for the fact that the detestable man was now your neighbour.

And yes, you were self-aware enough to admit a pull of attraction that you kept as close to your pride as your dignity. You’d rather be seen dead than join the gaggle of groupies that worshipped his every move and hung on his every word.

Thus far, you had done a stalwart job of avoiding him. A fortnight with no run-ins had confirmed that, inasmuch as you could tell, you had no classes together nor crossover seminars, no reason to interact. Yet through all this, the glimpses you would catch of his jet-black head and the trill of his laughter from next door provoked an unease: what was this familiarity you felt? Why were you the only one that seemed to notice how his eyes shimmered with the light of a cosmos?

Best to put it out of your mind, lest your mind put out of you.

On the Friday evening you nursed your well-loved copy of Wuthering Heights, contemplating between long paragraphs just what Heathcliff’s redeeming qualities were intended to be. While all for reading between the lines, it seemed to you that any virtue of character should not be so difficult to find.

Situated comfortably on the inner sill of your bedroom window and looking out, it was another fair night. The moon hung bright and clear over the distant woods and town of Oxford, the sky utterly clear of a cloud. Perhaps it had been a cloud that night, that you saw. A cloud in the form of an angel, sent to you by sleep deprivation and an overdose of caffeine.

A knock on your door drew your attention; supposing it would be one of the regular girls stopping by to regale you with their Friday night antics, you rushed over and threw it open.

How your heart seized in your chest.

Eyes of mercury assessed you from under damp raven strands.

“Good evening,” Minho said.

Too bewildered to much reply, he breathed a soft laugh at your dazzlement.

“May I come in?”

“What?”

“Can I come in?” he asked again, emphasising a glance into your room that reared a bout of self-consciousness.

“N— No. Go away.”

“I come with offerings,” he said, tapping the plastic Tupperware box tucked under his arm that had somehow gone unnoticed. “Fudge brownies. A little birdie told me they’re your favourite.”

You folded your arms defensively. “Did they now?”

Minho cocked a brow. “They were wrong?”

“N— No. I suppose not.”

He grinned, utterly disarming. “I feel like you and I got off on the wrong foot, so to speak,” he said gently. “I’d like to start again. Get to know each other. Clean slate. We’re neighbours, after all.”

“I don’t think—”

He held the Tupperware box up. “Please?”

You huffed an indignant sigh.

Might have to strangle a birdie or two.

--

Minho had no experience with human narcotics.

Indeed, the closest divine equivalent was the concoction of ambrosia, and that—if the Sky Father’s behaviour was anything to judge by—induced the sort of buzz that mortals gained from an excess of wine. There was no substance in heaven or on Earth that could so impact the Gods the way he had seen man-made narcotics impact humans; though he desired no such extremity tonight. He had simply taken the advice of those keen mortals that surrounded him, given when he had subtly enquired as to the real nature of his target: “She’s uptight, man. Super hot, but uptight. She needs to relax, smoke a little. It’ll help her unclench. Man, can you imagine her high? No, yeah, I know she doesn’t smoke, but like— She likes brownies, right? She always buys those little fudge ones from the cafeteria. I’d love to see her eat a moon cake. I bet she’d get totally wild, just like that one time at the ball.”

Thus, a plan emerged.

Stepping into her room was the first hurdle overcome: he had been fully braced for a door slam to the face. Instead, he found himself pleasantly surprised, and then somewhat concerned, for it was clear by now that that not even his mortal disguise could completely conceal his divine appeals from her. Where other mortals saw a dark and handsome man, she saw beyond it. The way she stared and how her heartbeat quickened told of it all. Worse still that he seemed to respond in kind— but no, he could not even entertain it. His visit carried a purpose, and that was to get to the bottom of what made her so special.

“Nice place,” he said as he looked briefly around, not to impress discomfort upon the girl.

“Thanks. It’s the same as every other in this building.”

Minho chuckled. She was possessed of a sense of humour, at least.

“You were reading?” he asked, idly flipping the cover of Wuthering Heights that sat on the bedside table. He hadn’t read it himself, but recalled the sister Muses’s boasts from the time of its inception: what promising devotees they claimed those Bronte’s would be.

“Yeah.”

“A touch on the heavy side for a Friday night, no?”

She shrugged, arms wrapped around herself. “I like it.”

“You read a lot?”

“I mean; yeah. English Lit student.”

“Ah. A romantic, then.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“All arts students are romantics, darling.”

He sat at the foot of the bed, Tupperware box in his lap, quietly pleased with how her heart sounded to have skipped a beat at the endearment.

“Join me?” he asked, tapping the space at his side.

She cleared her throat and swallowed, moving stiffly to the desk where she pulled out the chair. Minho watched in amusement, but did not contest. He snapped open the Tupperware box to the velvety rich scent of chocolate, humming in delight: a deity he might be, but just as susceptible to the serotonin of indulgent food. Neatly sliced brownies sat on paper towel, and he offered the box to her first. She eyed it warily.

“They’re just brownies,” he lied.

A purse of her lips and she contemplated something: whatever it was, it quickly passed.

“Thank you,” she sighed, dipping into the box and retrieving the topmost brownie.

“You’re welcome, darling.”

Minho helped himself to one, wishing almost that he could join the girl on the trip she was about to take. It’d be fun to witness, nonetheless. With inhibitions lowered and her true state of mind brought to the forefront, he’d surely discover what it was that blessed her so. What it would take to make her fall in love with the most horrible thing he could find. What he had to do to—

“Mhm.”

A small but sure groan of appreciation made Minho’s fine hairs stand on end: he paused his own consumption to watch her, her face aglow with warm delight. Chocolate on her lips begged to be illicitly removed; Minho swallowed, yearning thrumming under his skin.

“Is this why everyone on campus adores you?” she asked after a moment.

“W— What?”

“You bribe them,” she said, pointedly glancing to the Tupperware box.

Minho scoffed. “I don’t need to bribe people into liking me. It comes naturally.”

“Does your modesty come naturally too?”

“You know; you’re awfully abrasive with me. Did I do something to offend you?”

She shrugged, took another bite of brownie. “No. You’re not that powerful.”

He smirked. “Then what is it?”

“I suppose I just don’t understand.”

“Understand what?”

“You.” She licked her lips. “Nothing about you seems real. There are so many rumours about you and you don’t deny or correct a single one.”

He quirked a brow. “You think I should?”

“I think anyone that puts any value in their identity should, yes. I have a past. A home. I know where I came from and who I am. If I heard people saying otherwise, I'd want to put them right about it.”

She licked her fingers, one by one, the sweet and tempting chocolate coating her tongue. Minho crossed his legs.

“Tell me about them,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“Tell me about your past. Your home. Where you came from and who you are.”

“We weren’t talking about me—”

“We are now.”

She blinked, swallowing the last bite of brownie and, once again, darted her tongue out over shiny lips. Minho followed the movement of it slowly, wondered how sweet she’d be to kiss, drew his attention back to her eyes where she, too, had been watching him. She cleared her throat abruptly.

“I, uh...” She shrugged a shoulder. “Well. I was born in a small village. There was nothing much to do growing up, so I read a lot. Too much, my mother used to say. She never really understood why I liked it, and I never really had the energy to explain.”

Minho nodded. “What did your parents do?”

“Mum was an artist. A sculptor, mostly, though she did paint too.”

“And your father?”

“I never knew him.”

“Never?”

She shook her head.

“Your mother didn’t tell you anything about him?” he pressed.

“Nothing I could have believed.”

“Such as?”

“It’s not even worth talking about—”

“Humour me.”

She hummed. “Well, she... I mean, you have to understand that Mum wasn’t a well woman. She had strange beliefs. Acted oddly. It got worse as she got older. Towards the end, not a thing she said made sense. She told me that...” She hesitated.

“Go on,” Minho encouraged.

“She said that my father was a god. As in; an actual god. He pursued her relentlessly, apparently. Sent her gifts and showered her with affection. Was obsessed with her. Eventually she caved and fell in love with him, then they made me, but he had to return to... wherever the hell he came from. I don’t know.”

Minho’s palms grew clammy; he set the Tupperware box on the bed. “I see.”

“I told you; she was completely delusional.” She stood and reached for another brownie, breaking a piece off and popping it into her mouth. “The story changed every time. Sometimes he came to her as a man, sometimes as a snake, or a stallion. For all her berating of my reading, she had a wicked imagination of her own.” She swallowed the brownie piece, broke off another. “I’m pretty sure he was just someone from the village. I really don’t care either way.”

Minho did not hear much of what was said after— he couldn’t over the rush of ichor that deafened him. It could not be true: it made no sense to be true.

“As for who I am,” she continued, oblivious. “I’m nothing special.”

“I very much contest that.”

She scoffed, breaking off yet more brownie and eating it. “You don’t know me even nearly well enough.”

“I’d like to,” he said.

She eyed him. “Why?”

“Why not? Can't we get to know each other?”

“Alright then,” she smacked her lips, set the brownie chunk aside and dusted her hands against each other. “Your turn. Dispel the illusion for me.”

Minho chuckled. What earlier cold dread had settled on him began to thaw.

“I could just feed you a pack of lies,” he said.

“You could.”

He held her gaze, the dim moonlight streaking her features.

“Swear that you won’t,” she muttered.

 Swear? To swear was to forge an oath; to forge an oath was divine. Under normal circumstances he would shy away from such a hefty obligation, but this...

“Alright.” He nodded. “I swear.”

With a slight smile, she asked, “Where’s home?”

“Far from here.”

“Where do you come from?”

“I was born in the mountains.”

“You swore you wouldn’t lie.”

“I’m not.”

She pursed her lips. “Okay... Who are you, Lee Minho?”

“I am the God of Love, sent to Earth by my mother Aphrodite to curse you for being too beautiful.”

She blinked, her shoulders drawn tight. A moment of tense silence passed, and in the next instant, she burst into laughter, doubling over herself on the chair. She cackled and guffawed until she cried, and Minho found himself not only enraptured with the sound of her joy, but elated at being the cause of it. If indeed, he truly was.

“It’s a zero for originality,” she whimpered on a laugh. “You can’t just steal my stories like that and twist them!”

Minho watched in amusement.

“Also— you promised no lies. That’s an even bigger zero.”

She picked up the last chunk of brownie she’d set aside, pushing it past her lips with a giggle that carried for long minutes as she chewed contentedly. She swallowed and sighed, brought her legs up to cross under her, swivelling gently in the desk chair.

“Imagine being the God of Love,” she mumbled. “Must be bloody awful.”

Minho hummed. “You think so?”

“Yeah. For sure. Imagine being surrounded by love all the time— every second of every minute of every day.” She shuddered dramatically. “Couldn’t be me.”

“But you are surrounded by love,” he said. “It takes many different forms, you know. Friends, family, faith.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“Fornication.”

She coughed suddenly, looking anywhere but at him. Endearing warmth pooled under the simmering yearning that resided in Minho; how much longer he could keep it wrested, he wasn’t sure.

“I imagine being a God of Love to be great fun,” he said. “I imagine they might get into all sorts of mischief.”

“I don’t like mischief.”

“Everybody likes a bit of mischief.”

She shook her head. “Not me. I’d much rather—” She yawned. “I’d much rather live a quiet life.”

Minho hummed, watching as she wilted on her seat. She sat bolt upright on feeling herself sag, blinking rapidly.

“I don’t, uh...” She put a hand to her forehead. “I don’t think I feel very well.”

“What’s wrong, darling?”

“I...” She slipped her legs from under her, made an attempt to stand that ended futilely; Minho quickly rose and caught her weight. To restrain what burned in him; what the God of Love so easily took when the urges presented, was a goliath task.

“S— Sorry,” she mumbled, and tried to move from him, only to stagger once more.

“I’ve got you,” he said. “Want to lie down?”

“No. I just—” She gripped his arms tightly, let herself lean into his strong frame. The thin cotton of clothing under her hands seemed to fascinate her; she released the grip and, transfixed, began to stroke softly, her touch wandering from bicep to shoulder to chest. Minho hoped she could not feel the way his heart throbbed under her hand; she looked up at him, eyes glassy and rounded with adoration.

“You are... so pretty,” she mumbled, touching softly his cheek, his jaw. “So, so pretty.”

Heat flared under his skin, singing what sense he possessed.

“I thought you—” She grinned lazily. “I thought you were the angel. It came to me, you know. Right to my window. It was the prettiest thing I've ever seen. Then I saw you.”

He sucked in a sharp breath; much more praise and the swelling in his groin would not be so ignored.

She cupped his face with warm hands. “I don’t really like you. But I do like you. You make me—” She narrowed her eyes, blinked slowly. “You make me want to do things I’ve never even thought about before. Bad things.”

“Bad things?”

She nodded, then pressed a finger to his lips. “I’ll never admit that to you, though. Just so you know.”

The already abused thread of Minho’s self-control frayed and worried; he gently removed her hand, took her wrists in hold. To remove himself was the wise thing to do; she was not herself, and he was not so virtuous as to resist much longer.

 “It’ll be our secret, then,” he said.

“Mhm.”

“Why don’t you lie down for a bit, darling? You’re not feeling well.”

“I’m fine.”

“Of course. Just try it. For me.”

She shook her head, about to protest when in the next instant, a sallow and sickly look of panic came over her.

“I— I think I’m going to be—”

And with a short, retching heave, she threw up over Minho’s slippers, sweats and the rest of the brownies in the open Tupperware box.

There was hardly a shred of grace to be found in the rest of the evening, the responsibilities of caregiver taken on board. Minho cleaned both of them up, set the girl to bed with surprising lack of resistance on her part, and once sure that she was free of cramps and convulsions, retired himself to the roof of Goodhart.

Wired and utterly unable to sleep, he watched the constellations until he could think without the red mist of lust impeding him. In doing so, the cold realisation he had earlier felt on hearing her mother’s story returned to him. He would not have entertained it had the finer details not rung so true to a certain Olympian King and Cloud Gatherer’s famous behaviour. Indeed, it would certainly explain her invulnerability to his arrows and her uncanny intuition as to Minho’s nature: not much would escape a daughter of Zeus.

But then; if true, how had it gone unnoticed by Aphrodite? Surely she would know of the girl’s lineage. Surely all Olympians would know, for Zeus made no secret of his bastards and indeed, cultivated a long line of offspring from mortals, demi-gods, minor deities and nymphs all, much to Hera’s (equally as famous) wrath.

He would think on it, he decided. If nothing else, he was further along in working her out than he had been several hours ago, and with no thanks to the moon cakes. A stupid idea, to attempt to relax her through such unpredictable means in the hopes she might talk or reveal some mystery.

He would apologise tomorrow. Perhaps find her a gift.

All for the quest, of course.

--

You awoke feeling distinctly like a beaten piñata.

Your head throbbed steadily and a nausea lingered, rolling dangerously on your attempt to get up and out of bed. Trudging to the window, you threw it open and gulped in the fresh mid-morning air, warmed by summer’s sun and redolent of the nearby woods, earthen and faintly floral. A musk hung about your room; not one that was generally familiar to you, but it was reminiscent of the night before; of a sudden drowsy warmth and hands touching things they most definitely shouldn’t have. With a grimace and under the chill of mortification, you got dressed and tried to make presentable, quietly leaving your room and heading next door.

A deep breath preceded your soft knock: for a moment you thought it too soft to be heard, but it quickly opened to reveal a shower-fresh, modern-day Adonis— not even your sickly state could perturb the way you stared. A wet towel was slung over his sloped shoulders, the twisted ends hanging over curved pectorals. The rest of him was entirely naked, his skin still wet and catching the gentle light of the morning that shone in streaks through the half-drawn blinds. Dripping, dark strands framed rosy, handsome features. Veined biceps flexed as he held the door, and following the line of his body, you saw a wave of slight abs, svelte waistline, shapely hips, a fine dusting of hair that crept from his groin to his navel; a happy trail, so delightful as to make your mouth water.

As for what hung between his legs— well, it seemed to you on first glance that he possessed three of them.

Minho cleared his throat, apparently as mystified as you.

“H— Hi.”

“Sorry—” You snapped back to yourself. “Jesus. Sorry. I, uh— I’ll come back.”

“No, don’t. Just give me a second?”

He quickly disappeared, though left the door ajar, the sounds of rummaging and changing heard. When he reappeared, he was mercifully clothed in sweats and a black shirt.

“Come in,” he said.

“I... I really can come back if it’s a bad time—”

“It’s not. Come in.”

Compliance came courtesy of his authoritative tone, and in stepping into his room, you were surprised to see it so sparse. Aside from the wardrobe and larger than average bed, there was nothing that denoted even an ounce of personality; no posters, no books, no belongings. Nothing to suggest it was even lived in at all, if not for the presence of the man himself.

“I haven’t had time to decorate yet,” he said intuitively.

You nodded, though quietly doubtful, and wandered to the open window where at least you could call on the fresh air to keep you grounded. While clothed, he was no less dazing to be around.

“I just wanted to—”

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

You shrugged. “Not great.”

Minho, holding position at the other side of the room, looked downtrodden.

“Nothing a few paracetamols won’t fix, I'm sure,” you added lightly.

He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

“What? I’m the one that should be apologising, I behaved like a—”

“You have nothing to apologise for. You were only like that because of me. It’s my fault.”

Confused, you watched as he came closer, raked a hand through his slowly drying hair.

“There was, uh...” He licked his lips. “There was marijuana in the brownies.”

Dumbfounded, you could only blink.

“I thought they might loosen you up,” he continued.

“Loosen me up?”

“It was a stupid, ridiculous idea. I know that. I’m so sorry. If I'd known how badly you’d react to it—”

“You drugged me!?”

Minho flinched. “I... I wouldn’t put it quite like that.”

“That's what it is, Minho. You drugged me. You fed me drugs without my knowledge or consent. I’ve never taken any kind of drug, let alone eaten it. You—” Too enraged to find the words, you gesticulated wildly. “Fuck. You.”

Storming past him with a succinct shoulder barge, Minho caught you by the wrist, an earnest apology on his gorgeous face.

“I’m so sorry, darling. It was never my intention to hurt you.”

A wave of bitter resentment accompanied the heat; you snatched away from him, summoning your courage.

“I’m not your darling.”

He caught your other wrist, persistent.

“You could be,” he said.

“Let me go—”

“You like me."

A concoction of embarrassment and want swam around you. “Looks like you can’t keep a secret, either,” you muttered.

And with that, he released you, his silvery gaze dropping in something finalistic; something defeated.

“Stay away from me,” you said flatly.

He did not stop your third attempt at exit, nor did he call on you for the rest of the day.

Nor the rest of the week.

--

It was difficult for a God to experience guilt.

Minho, being a creature of compassion and with love built into his very existence, found that it tarnished everything he hitherto enjoyed about the mortal world. As though being forced to swallow his pride and admit that he had made a mistake was not bad enough, there was the added realisation that he had acted detrimentally to his own quest— she would not even look at him, let alone allow him to get close enough to make amends, to lower guard, to give him opportunity to strike.

And so ensued a cold war of sorts, her avoidance of him going to such lengths as to involve her temporary removal from Goodhart House to stay with a friend on the other side of campus. This ‘Gina’—the girl upon whom she’d imposed—struck Minho as a fickle creature, susceptible to gossip and vapid trends and student body politics insofar as their theatrics. Not a good influence, he ultimately surmised, but nonetheless his target appeared fond of her. Trusted her. To that end, Minho saw an angle. A new opportunity. One that he somewhat wished to have happened upon before he decided on the use of narcotics, but hindsight would do him no good now.

It was as Gina left her last class of the day that Minho sought to introduce himself.

“Hello, darling.”

He was met with the typical starry-eyed wonderment, the blushing and quickening of heartbeat that all betrayed her delight at being so approached by trend #1— if Minho played into that, he was no sorer for it. Neither was he spoiled for choices, which posed his reasoning for offering to escort her to her dormitory, whereupon the worst simply had to happen.

On the stone steps of the grand, old building waited his target, her beauty seeming more so dazzling since he had been denied the sight of her. On seeing him, however, she rolled her eyes and muttered a curse, storming towards her friend.

“What the hell are you doing?” she hissed at Gina.

“Lovely to see you too,” Minho smarmed.

Gina startled, seemingly offended. “What is with that tone? I know you two aren’t on the best of terms—”

“The best of terms? He drugged me, Gina.”

“Right, so you keep saying, but like...” She glanced at Minho fondly, then shrugged. “He hasn’t drugged me.”

Dumbfounded, she stared at her friend, then at Minho. What pain he saw there perplexed him— it shouldn’t have felt like a betrayal, for there was nothing so intimate between them to betray.

“Minho was actually just offering to take me out for drinks tonight,” Gina said. “You can come if you want.”

“No way.”

“Alright, well, I’m not going to stand here trying to convince you. We’ll be at Cherub’s if you change your mind.” With that, Gina whirled on the spot and started off. Minho lingered.

“Aren’t you going with her?” she snapped.

“You should come.”

“And third wheel your date? No thanks.”

“There’s enough of me to go around,” Minho grinned, more amused than serious.

“What a gentleman you are.”

“I like to think so.”

“Do you like to think you’re the kind of gentleman that drugs the dames before he has his way with them, too?”

Minho flinched. “That’s not how it was. I just wanted to—”

“Loosen me up. Because I'm such an uptight bitch. Yeah, I get it.”

“No. Because you confound me. That’s all.”

She almost laughed, clutching her books so tightly the skin of her knuckles drew thin and tense.

“Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds? It makes no sense—”

“Come for a drink with me. I’ll make it make sense.”

She huffed a deep breath. “I can’t. I have plans.”

Minho quirked a brow. “With Heathcliff? How exciting.”

“It— It’s infinitely more exciting than spending a second longer with you, actually” she stammered.

Minho laughed. “That’s simply not true, darling.”

“How many times; I’m not your darling.”

“But you want to be.”

“Oh my god.” She spun on her toe, marching back up the steps. “I’m going inside.”

“I’ll see you at Cherub’s, then,” he called.

“Leave me alone, Minho!”

“Never,” he whispered as she shoved into the building.

And suddenly, things looked up.

--

Not your finest moment, to tiptoe into a bustling Cherub’s with your proverbial tail between your legs, dignity waving you off at the door.

He said he’d make it make sense: that’s what you clung to the entire way here, for there was so much about him—the things he did and said—that didn’t add up. You imagined what it might be like to understand him instead of loathe him as you peered between gatherings of students in search of him and Gina. About as typical a student union bar as one might imagine, Cherub’s was home to beer-soaked carpets and sticky seats, outdated seventies décor and mismatched lighting. Cheap and (not so) cheerful, it did just the trick for instilling a quick buzz, yet its nearness to accommodation meant that said buzz devolved to debauchery more often than not.

Heathcliff was, you rather thought, far more exciting.

You had vowed after the Fresher’s ball never to drink unless circumstances were dire enough to call for it, and so your detouring to the bar should have said something as to the state of your nerves, whereupon you ordered a vodka and tonic. With a weak smile at the tender, you gratefully took the almost-cool glass, a sip of the fizzy concoction neither unpleasant nor particularly enjoyable. It would take the edge off, in a moment.

“Drinking alone?”

The voice behind your ear startled, the glass slipping from your grasp only to be caught deftly by another, not so much as a drop spilled. Minho smiled warmly, ever radiant against the surroundings. Almost unsettlingly so, for all near eyes were trained to him, and in turn, you.

He brought the rescued glass to his glossed lips, a perfunctory sip followed by a sharp grimace. He set it on the bar and slid it away, out of reach.

“Excuse me, I paid good money for that—”

“My condolences,” he sighed, raking slim fingers through silky, dark strands that framed shadowed eyes of liquid silver.

He flagged down the tender with a wave. “One pornstar martini and a Glenfiddich, straight. No ice. Make the martini virgin.”

“A virgin pornstar martini?”

“I am a collection of paradoxes, darling.”

Your heart pounded; hopeless as it was.

The drinks arrived promptly, and Minho took them in hand.

“Where’s Gina?” you asked, realisation of her absence coming perhaps a touch too late.

Minho smiled. “Come on.”

He led you through the student bodies and to the rear of the venue, where a booth table went unoccupied. A folded piece of A4 card with ‘RESERVED’ scrawled on it adorned the polished table; you poorly stifled a laugh.

“They reserved a table for you? At Cherub’s?”

Minho nodded, sliding into the opposite seat and setting the drinks down. “I asked them to, yes.”

“It’s a student bar, not a five-star restaurant. Honestly. Who are you?”

Minho settled, a serene smile on his lips. “I believe we’ve had this conversation.”

You rolled your eyes. “Right.” And took the cocktail glass. The pink concoction finished with a half pomegranate slice smelled sweet and fruity, yet distinctly lacked the tang you wished it had.

“This didn’t have to be non-alcoholic,” you weakly complained.

“Mhm. Well. I’ll not be guilty of the same thing twice,” he replied, swirling whiskey around his own short glass. “Besides; you don’t strike me as a drinker.”

“Do I strike you as the drug taker?”

Minho’s gaze fell. “No.”

You hummed and sipped your drink. In truth, giving him a hard time was beginning to lose its novelty. Not only did you wish to move on from the whole thing, but it was getting harder to withstand the clear guilt in his mesmerising eyes. Whatever his intentions had been, they most certainly were not malicious, which ought to count for something, you thought.

“I’m still sorry,” he said.

“I know.”

“I’d very much like to make it up to you.”

“How?”

Minho opened his mouth to speak, but in place of his alluring tone came a high-pitched screech of your name; you startled and looked to Gina, who was barrelling towards the table.

“You came!” she cried, shoving hastily into the seat beside Minho; he scooted aside as best he could, but was already trapped. She linked an arm through his, settled into his side, utterly at home. She looked you over incredulously.

“I didn’t think you’d show. You know; I actually can’t even remember the last time I saw you out,” she said, her thick, glossed lips sticky with reflective residue.

You forced a smile. Ignored how their apparent familiarity made your stomach twist. “Yeah. Me neither.”

“I’m always telling her she should get out more,” she continued, this to Minho. “It’s like she’s allergic to socialising.”

“I’m not allergic to it, G. I just prefer to—”

“Sit in and read, I know. Hey— I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. You do you, babe. I just find it funny that the only time you actually make the effort to come out is when you know a hot guy is going to be around.”

Your face flamed with heat— why did this martini have to be so horribly prudish? You stared into it, adequately mortified, for she wasn’t entirely wrong in her observations, and that only raised questions as to your character too difficult to answer in the light of day. Or grunge of bar, for that matter.

“You’ve got it all wrong, darling,” Minho intervened lightly. “I insisted on her coming so I could buy her a drink in apology for the... incident. The timing happened to be right for her. That’s all.”

Gina rolled her eyes. “Sure. Whatever.” She unlinked her arm from his, fanned out the ends of her short hair from the collar of her leather jacket. “I’m going to get a drink.”

She planted a brief kiss on Minho’s cheek, and slid gracefully out of the booth. Your heart catapulted to your throat, where it stayed until Minho spoke.

“We, uh—”

“I don’t want to know,” you quickly said.

“There’s nothing to know, darling. She’s just... exceptionally forward.”

“Don’t call me darling—”

“I call everyone darling.”

“I know,” you hissed. “Why do you think I feel so bloody stupid that it makes my heart race every time?!”

A moment of comprehension crossed you both, and where your realisation of emotional confession brought him to a slow smile, it brought you to cold despair.

You stood quickly, gathering yourself. “I shouldn’t have come; this was such a bad idea—”

A swift grip on your wrist stopped your panicked exit.

“Don’t leave.”

“Minho—”

“There’s so much I have to know about you,” he said, pinning you with a softening gaze. “So much that I don’t understand. So much that infuriates me, so much that intrigues. You’ve caused me so much trouble, but even so, there’s something that I... Something about you that makes me just—”

“Everything okay over here?”

Gina’s flat question javelined the moment; you looked to her, saw her unimpressed eye trained to where Minho held you still. She upturned her lips in a sneer, the three drinks in her hand trembling.

“You couldn’t just let me have this, could you?” she snarled at you.

“Gina—”

“Every single fucking time, it’s you. It’s always you. Every boy I've ever liked or that’s ever shown any interest in me— They always fall for you. It’s like you can’t stand to see me happy.”

Gutted with guilt and confusion, you snatched your wrist from Minho.

“It’s not what you think, at all. We were just—”

“You might be beautiful on the outside,” she spat. “But inside, you’re a fucking monster. Everyone will see that one day.”

Minho rose from his seat. “That’s enough,” he snapped, glowering. “She takes no blame in this. She takes no blame in anything you accuse her of. It’s her fate to—” And he stopped himself short, as though stumbling back from a precipice. He straightened himself and took a deep breath.

“It’s not her fault,” he said acerbically.

Gina pursed her lacquered lips. “Right. So, it’s yours then? That's what you’re saying?”

Minho shrugged. “Perhaps I manoeuvred in such a way as to ensure you got me close to her, yes.”

Your gut turned over with hot nausea.

“What does that even fucking mean?” Gina balked, anger wrinkling her. “Sometimes you talk like you’re from a different planet, I swear to God.”

Minho sniffed, then smiled. He licked his lips, and said plainly, “I used you to get to her, darling.”

Gina’s jaw slacked, then tightened. It seemed she understood, this time, and perhaps you saw the next thing coming from a mile away: she swore and brutally tossed the three drinks she held straight at Minho, soaking and swilling his head, face and chest with sticky, sweet alcohol. The man took it well, for all his surprise, and swept his hands down his face stoically.

“You two are made for each other,” she hissed, and with that, turned tail and stalked away.

All eyes in near vicinity watched in tense silence as you, unable to even think beyond the molten mortification of it all, did much the same. Perhaps Minho called after you, and perhaps a small part of you wished to stay and console him, yet the larger part of you seethed with disappointment, for he had once again demonstrated himself to be less than half the man you ever wished to be so attracted to.

Minho, for all his obvious and daunting appeals, was not a good man.

--

Minho was starting to believe that the Fates had something against him.

Every attempt he made to get close to her ended in unmitigated disaster, and as if that wasn’t headache enough, he was now forced to acknowledge that what burned in him when he thought of the mortal girl was not simple curiosity: he craved her.

This called into question everything he knew: his quest, his mother’s wishes, his own existence as the God of Love, for as has been established, the God of Love loves all. He does not fall in love. Until he does.

 Perhaps it would simply be easier to out the truth of it all. Yes, it would shatter her mortal logic and push her to the limits of her comprehension, but what was the alternative? To continue wresting his own desires until such a time as he imploded? There was only so much one could take, even for a God, and Minho felt the tether of his patience rapidly diminishing.

Whatever he decided to do, he could not do it under these circumstances. He would have to, once again, make amends. Somehow.

What small silver lining there was to this whole mess came in the form of her moving back to Goodhart House, presumed discomfort between she and Gina resulting in such separation. Minho knew well what part he’d played in that, but in truth, couldn’t bring himself to feel entirely bad about it.

Two nights later—he had learned that mortals valued their space—saw him timidly knocking on her bedroom door, an uncharacteristic bout of nerves swirling about him. Moments passed before she answered, her vacant expression drawing grim on the sight of him.

“What do you want?”

The afternoon sunlight streaming through the window appeared to halo her, a warmth resonating from her person and within her room that set upon Minho a steady yearning; he could take her in his arms so easily, make her feel things no mortal man could.

Instead, he licked his dry lips, and from behind his back, produced the object he’d been concealing. She glanced at it, brows knitting together.

“What the hell is that? A twig?”

“I couldn’t find an olive branch.”

Just like that, the subtlest of curves to her lips ignited hope. She quickly reset herself into a deep-set frown.

“You’re an idiot,” she said.

“I am.”

“Gina and I aren’t speaking because of you.”

“I know.”

“You used her.”

“I did.”

“I mean; why did you have to be so—” she huffed. “You could have been nicer about it.”

“She knew what was happening,” Minho shrugged. “Sugar coating it would have only wounded her further.”

“You can’t just use people, Minho.”

Minho quirked a brow. “But it worked, didn’t it?”

“What?”

“It worked. You’re talking to me again. You’ve done nothing but talk to me since the minute you saw me with her, in fact.”

She dropped her gaze, wrapped her arms around herself. “You let her believe you liked her.”

“I do like her,” Minho replied.

“Oh.”

“Just nowhere near as much as I like you.”

A small puff of breath from her sweet lips seemed almost to indicate disbelief, and Minho supposed that until now, he’d made no such clear indication of his feelings. Suggestion and vague inference, perhaps, while he tried himself to understand what he battled with, but such roundabout behaviour was not in his nature.

“I like you a lot,” he said softly.

She shook her head. “Stop.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“It’s not— I don’t know. I can’t do this.”

She moved to shut the door, but Minho caught it quickly, stepping inside.

“You won’t even give me a chance to explain?” he pressed.

“I can’t. You don’t get it. Gina likes you. She was so upset about the whole thing, and you’re just— You don’t care at all. If anything, you seem proud of it. I can’t be with someone like that.”

Minho crowded her, for while her mouth said one thing, her body said another. Against the near wall she shrank, the rampant thump of her heart so alluring as to draw him near until barely a foot of space rested between them.

“You’re lying to yourself,” he said. “You claim that you can’t be with someone like me, but you know it as well as I do, darling; there is no one like me. I am the epitome of what you’ve always craved, and pretending otherwise will only push you to madness.”

“Minho—”

“As for the girl,” he interrupted softly, still so near. “She was a means to an end, yes. And you are correct; I am proud that my course of action bore fruit. I would do the same thing again, given a choice.”

She shook her head. “That’s the problem. I told you already; you can’t just use people.”

“I can do whatever I damn well please, and so should you. You have that right.”

“Not if it hurts other people.”

“And what of hurting yourself? Why sacrifice your own happiness for someone that doesn’t value you? Calls you names? Thinks you no more than a heartless monster? You might consider her a friend, but I assure you darling, she holds no such fondness towards you. Who do you think it was began the slanderous rumours that circulated after your Fresher’s ball?”

Pain flashed in her watering eyes; a truth that perhaps she had always quietly known brought to the surface.

“This abstinence from me only serves to hurt you.”

She cast a contemptuous glare cast up at him. “You don’t know what you’re saying,” she snapped. “You don’t know the first thing about me or what I'm feeling.”

Minho pressed in close, strong arms either side of her head. He hummed softly, “I hear how your heart cries out to me. See how your womanhood swells the closer we are; I only wish you’d give it to me, darling. I’d take such good care of it.”

He felt a shiver barely suppressed as she relented, melting by the second. Words of honey in her ears warmed her from within; Minho might die if he couldn’t taste.

“I wish to undo you and put you back together, one delicious, wet molecule at a time,” he said gently, nosing her soft lobe, then along her jaw. Her breaths devolved to soft pants, each one redolent of sweet nectar that further maddened him. “I’d defy the heavens themselves if it meant I could spend a single night with you.”

--

Minho had once said that arts students were hopeless romantics: he seemed none removed from the vagaries of waxing poetic himself.

You would have given it more thought if not so tightly strung with desire for the man that had, by some cosmic or divine will, worked his way into your bedroom. You knew nothing about him— that much had not changed. Neither had it changed that you detested how he carried himself, how he seemed so aloof to the most basic of kindnesses, how confidence and self-assurance came so naturally to him while it constantly evaded you.

It made no sense that a man like him could desire a woman like you, yet here he was, in your space, hot and firm, whispering such sweet and magical words as to make your head spin and your heart throb.

“Your desire for me is so strong, I can taste it,” he said breathlessly; a statement of fact offered as such, and you weren’t of the mind to deny it.

“Will you admit it?” he pressed. “Return my sentiments?”

Your weak nod told it. “Yes.”

He drew his lip between his teeth, a quick glance cast down your frame. “Am I permitted to touch you?”

“Yes.”

He held a cautious hand over your heaving chest. “Here?”

You nodded; his hand swept to your tummy, still at a hover. “Here?”

“Y— Yes.”

He hummed, then held over the curve of your waist, no contact made and yet electricity flitted between the inches. “Here?”

“Anywhere,” you breathed, defeated, a wreck. “Touch me anywhere. Everywhere. Please.”

Minho grinned, the silver ripple of his eyes flashing smug victory. A hand under your chin tilted your head back to present wanting lips, and when he kissed you, all else faded from existence. Near painfully soft was the first explorative brush, the man inclined to feel out your acclaimed desire— when you curled a grip to his shirt, he indulged you deeply, locking plush lips with yours and taking what he—unbeknownst to you—had already decided was his to covet. Bursts of white-hot delight rendered you breathless and dizzy, and when he broke off, you thought only of more.

“Swear to me that you’ll be mine,” he said, voice a thick and husky rasp.

“Minho...”

“Swear it,” he pressed. “Or this goes no further.”

The quiet promise was made in all but an instant, “I swear,” but even tight in his arms it was akin to stepping from a cold and slippery cliff; you felt to be falling, rescinding all control and handing it to this man that you knew nothing of, but craved like water to a dying man.

With a groan of delight, Minho swept you from the wall and about to the bed, where he laid you down and followed your form. Having no such experience with intimacy save for what the pages of your novels told, your expectations were none. The wanton urges held dominion, your chastity looking on in resigned approval as he smothered your neck and throat with attention, lavished your body with his touch, stripped you of all that hindered his touching your skin. In the warm light of the late afternoon, you laid naked beneath him, bared and as vulnerable as ever a soul may be. Minho looked at you, his gentle eyes seeming more so infinite with the awakening of intimacy; soft, patient hands canvassed your skin— waist, hips and thighs. Gentle, moist lips worshipped you at fingers, toes and lips, such reverent attention that swelled your heart to near bursting.

“You’ve never laid with a man before?”

A giggle bubbled out before you could stop it. Minho cocked his head questioningly.

“S— Sorry,” you mumbled. “No. I haven’t. But…” You hesitated, wondered on the timing, then asked anyway. “Did you have to ask me like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like a nineteenth century suitor,” you laughed.

Minho grinned and shook his head, seemingly embarrassed. “Sorry,” he chuckled. “I forget sometimes.”

You ran your hands over his. “Forget what?”

For a long moment, he merely admired how your fingers slotted together. He opened his mouth as though to speak, but instead took a deep breath, and smiled once more. “Nothing.”

His kiss this time was insistent, but gentle. The exchange soon forgotten, work was made of stripping him, the act itself seeming dreamlike the more of him was revealed. Skin smooth and flawless, the complexion of which was so deep and rich a healthy glow, it made you shy to touch it. Clothing removed and tossed aside, the naked sight of him was entirely reminiscent of something— something you could not quite put your finger on, but that nagged at the back of your mind.

He returned to you, all silken warmth and firm in the right places. Between your open legs he settled, your inhibitions melting with his attention— kisses and careful touches, each one further devolving until he could no longer exact patience. He touched you where most you ached, assessing your every expression.

“Tell me if it’s too much,” he whispered, lips to lips, soft ministrations over your naked centre eliciting groan after whimper. Slow and controlled, he rubbed you, then parted you to run a finger through the wetness. He shuddered and drew tight, a firm kiss pressed to your mouth.

“So beautiful,” he mumbled, wet digits circling you once more. “You’ll make the perfect companion.”

Too far gone to give much consideration to the perplexment his words instilled, you could only cling to him and wave the ride of euphoria as it flooded you, one molten lash after another. Was it normal to be so immediately aroused by so minimal a touch? Normal to feel like body might split from soul after only minutes of such stimulation?

“Don’t fight it. I’ll guide you through it, darling.” He kissed your bared throat. “Mhm, just like that. Give yourself over to it—”

“Ngh, Min, please—”

“Yes, fuck.” He quickened his motions, a gentle but rapid flurry of sensation against your throbbing centre. Thighs parted wider still for yet more of what he gave, you writhed in desperation, panted like a possessed creature, gave in to what he beckoned out of you. With a cry of delight and no shred of a complex, you trembled violently through the orgasm, felt yourself coming undone on the man’s fingers. Minho hummed and kissed your cheeks, your chin, your forehead, ever patient until the violence had subsided and only your tender panting remained. He ran a soft, light finger through your dripping sex. 

“You’re ready for me,” he muttered, and closed the gap between your bodies.

Spent but still yearning, it seemed almost too natural to open to him and trap him between your thighs. Minho smiled as though with pride, angling himself just so that the formerly observed ‘third leg’ could be seen from your laying position— a most intimidating sight, but one that had you clenching around air. Minho took himself in hand, the girth such that even he struggled to maintain a whole grip. A slow drag from his base and over thick, smooth shaft to blushed tip, and he sucked in air through his teeth, let slip a gravelly groan.

“Can you take me, darling?” he asked softly. “All of me?”

Your weak nod in place of words seemed somehow to dissatisfy him, but all the same, he kissed you tenderly. Tracing the line of his body with trembling hands as he aligned himself, the breaching prod stretching you, you drew tight with a gasp. Minho hissed and the silver of his eyes swirled intensely, each inch that he sunk seeming to exacerbate it; pebbles to rock pools.

“S— Slowly,” you pleaded, the warm soreness of his entrance only just beginning to turn dull ache. “Please.”

“I have you, darling. Trust me.”

Fully sheathed and with his hips cradled tightly to your body, he began to move a slow pace. Such bizarre sensation to feel so thoroughly full, almost sated, on the brink of being driven mad.

“Okay?” he breathed, weight on his arms to better assess you.

You nodded. “Yes. K— Keep going.”

Drawing his lip between his teeth, he maintained the motions, the mattress beneath you creaking its rhythmic complaint. Transfixed to where your bodies connected, Minho’s attention diverted, you explored the curious shimmer to his skin as he moved— perhaps it was the fading sunlight, the evening rolling in with its tricks. It seemed as though tiny rivers of silver moved beneath his skin and through his veins, each one snaking beautifully up his arms, over his shoulders, down his chest to— His chest. How had you not noticed it until now? Amidst the otherworldly perfection there sat the smallest of blemishes, faded purple and gently rounded. Proof that he was indeed real, for over the latter minutes you might have begun to doubt it.

Heart pounding and rapidly approaching yet another crisis of heavenly delight, you brought your middle and index finger together, and by instinct, pressed them to the spot that was now not only familiar to you, but that joined the fragmented pieces of puzzle.

It was a perfect match.

Minho, seemingly oblivious, grunted your name, his rhythm now devolved to a frantic rut. He collapsed atop you, held your warmth close, the smooth drive of his thickness made blissfully easy by the second orgasm he gifted that in turn brought on his own— he shivered and clung to you, words of praise and nonsense both flitting from his bitten lips.

The afterglow was as intense and intimate as the act itself, for Minho gently attended to you, putting you together as he so expressed a wish to. He kept you near to his side, curled up, and whispered stories that you soon forgot in contented, restful slumber.

What you would not soon forget, however, was the truth newly discovered.

The angel had returned to you.

--

Minho now profoundly understood what it was the mortal poets clamoured so desperately to capture.

It was with alarming clarity that he realised he had undertaken his duties as the God of Love with no real concept of what love actually was or could be— such a spectacular thing could not be wrested into something simple; something bite-sized and digestible. All his life he had been casting his arrows and looking on warmly as mortals embraced and made love. He heard their romantic declarations and loving promises with the sort of fond understanding a parent might have for their babbling toddler, and gave it no more consideration than that.

How naïve and foolish he had been. How much he’d missed out on! He dreaded to even think of it now, and cursed his aloofness to the power of what he so easily commanded. Love, he had realised, was the whole point. Powerful enough to fell entire kingdoms, but gentle enough to soothe the most septic of wounds. Wondrous and warm yet cutting and cold, the faces of love were mortally unpredictable, and therein laid its allure.

Minho looked to the future; he had failed in his quest, that much was without question, and could not return to heaven if he wanted to. His mother’s wrath would be terrible, and he was aware enough of his own strengths to know that a conflict with Aphrodite would sign off on his demise, blood or not. And all of that was without the terrible considerations of what she might do to his beloved.

There was nothing for it. He had to do something, and there was no way around it being drastic.

No way around any of it, now that the God of Love was in love.

--

Had you been informed several weeks ago that you’d be engaged in an illicit affair with a man you started out detesting, you’d have cried insanity.

Still; that was the truth of things, and waking next to him after what constituted your first night with any man was not half as terrible as you might once have believed. You had marvelled, mostly. All over again. That he had wanted you at all was mystifying, but when he awoke to find you right where he’d left you, he had proved his want all over again.

A week continued just like this, with not so much discussion as heated, stolen moments. You pleaded that what you were doing be kept under wraps, for the attention he commanded was not something you sought. Begrudgingly, he had acquiesced, but made it known that one day he would show you off to all who came within distance.

This night, he reposed under the stream of pale moonlight that shone through your window; following exertions you had slept straight through the evening and to the small hours. The smooth curve of his lean back disappeared beneath your sheets, his muscled leg hung out and over the bed. Plush lips utterly relaxed and face framed by silky strands of raven black, it struck you once again just how—while unthinkably beautiful—very normal he looked like this. Only when he opened his eyes and mouth did it become clear that he existed on a plane above and beyond other simple people, and while unsure of the finer details, the quirky qualities he possessed had begun to vibrantly outshine those things about him that once irked. He was boastful, yes, and terribly proud. He spoke before he gave much (any) thought and had little regard for consequences, both for himself and those around him.

But he was the very spirit of adventure. Thrillingly spontaneous and occasionally reckless, he dragged you out from under your books and away from your comfort zone, making it so that he instead became a security blanket, for wherever he was, there was safety. The wild promises he made ranged from a lifetime of wealth and happiness with him to taking you around the world. Well intended, of course, but ultimately too fantastical to ever truly believe. Whatever this was and for however long it would last, it wasn’t so wrong to enjoy it.

Led by the hand of desire, you reached out to touch him. A gentle trace down the slope of his shoulder and over the curve of his smooth back, firm under your fingers. You thought of the first time you touched him, before you’d even spoken so much as a word to each other. How he seemed the most beautiful creature your dreams had ever chanced to conjure, for that was what you’d believed him to be— a being born of pure gold, floating on magnificent white wings.

But this man was no dream. He was something else entirely.

A soft murmur of breath, and Minho’s eyes cracked open slowly. Calm pools of silver looked upon you, stirring with love. He smiled softly.

“Who are you?” you whispered.

His smile faded, yet he did not move. He blinked sleepily, slowly.

“You know who I am,” he said quietly. “I told you.”

“The God of Love?”

He nodded, just barely.

“Sent here to curse me for being too beautiful?”

He nodded again.

“By your mother?”

“The Goddess Aphrodite.”

The room was silent. There was no urge to laugh. No stroke of cold disbelief. No terrible fear or suggestion of mockery or anything other than a wave of acceptance, bathed in cold, silver light.

A God.

He was a God.

“Why me?” you whispered.

Minho puffed a soft breath through his nose. Amused, perhaps, by your immediate acquiescence.

“I’m nobody,” you added.

He lifted his head from the pillow, propped himself up by elbow. “Do you truly believe that, or are you being modest?”

You blinked at him, the truth of it in your eyes. He sighed gently, took your hand across the bed.

“You are the most beautiful woman to ever have lived,” he said quietly, running his thumb over your knuckles. “Kind of heart and exquisite of soul, you outshine everything and everyone around you. You were born of a God—”

“What?”

“So I suspect, anyway. I intend to find out for certain. But I do not think your mother was entirely mad with her stories.”

You balked at him. “You’re saying she was telling the truth?”

“Perhaps. A version of it, as she remembers it. Mortal memories are ephemeral things. Regardless, your beauty is divine, and that cannot be disputed.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“I’m not,” he chuckled. “Had you lived several thousands of years ago, it would have been you that all of Greece warred over and that the Trojans bled to defend. You are fated to be revered and worshipped for your beauty, more so than even that of my mother’s. This is why she sent me. To shoot you with my arrows and curse you to love something so foul it would disgrace you and push you into a solitary life.”

You swallowed over the disbelief— for all your readiness to hear him out, you found yourself stumped.

“You are invulnerable to my arrows. You see beyond the veil of my mortal disguise. You were able to touch me in my true form. Only divine blood could grant such boons.”

“How do you know I'm invulnerable?” you asked, and on his torn face saw the obvious truth of it. You mumbled a quiet, “Oh.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“Talk about a lucky escape.” You tried to laugh, though it was a bittersweet reveal. He was only doing as instructed, you supposed. Things were different then, too. He didn’t know you. Didn’t love you.

Keen to change the subject, you did just that.

“Your mother—”

“Aphrodite.”

“R— Right. Aphrodite.” You cleared your throat. “Why would she want to curse me like that? If what you’re saying is true, it’s hardly my fault.”

Minho shrugged. “The Olympians care little for semantics. I love my mother, but she is as susceptible to vanity as anyone. It wouldn’t be the first time that jealousy has driven her hand.”

“But—” You leaned into him. “This is the twenty first century. Things like that don’t happen anymore. I mean; revering and worshipping, or whatever.”

“Don’t they? What are celebrities and influencers if not modern-day Gods? Politicians if not modern-day kings? Wealth and fame might no longer be measured in cattle and heroic deeds, but it is as attainable today as ever it was, and the power it bestows can be terrible. Armies rallied at the tap of a button. Lives ended at the publishing of a post. Times are different, yes, but fundamentally, mortals will never change.”

An element of truth to his words, you shrunk back against the pillows, head spinning. To suppose that it was all real was one thing— to suppose that it was all happening to you, was another.

Minho kissed your hand softly. “Don’t fret, darling. You are perfectly safe with me.”

“How can that be true? You just told me that Aphrodite has it in for me. That Aphrodite is real. That all the Gods are real.”

Minho hummed. “It’s a lot to absorb, I know. But it is fact. As the world changed and mortals developed beyond what even we predicted, we were lost to them. They turned from us. Nobody prays to us anymore. There are no sacrifices or festivals. Our names are told in stories and that is our legacy. We—our flesh and blood and everything that makes us—are myths.”

He whispered the last word, a sadness in his eyes that tugged insistently at your heart. You leaned back to him, pressed a soft kiss to his cheek.

“You feel real enough to me,” you mumbled.

Minho smiled slightly. “I am glad of that.” And turned into you, a palm on your cheek bringing you back for a firmer kiss. With a soft gasp that turned moan on the sensation of his slick tongue slipping into your mouth, you fell willingly into the hazed content that the God of Love seemed so exclusively able to invoke. Dragged across the bed until tucked underneath him, he shadowed you from the moonlight, raven locks tickling your cheeks. Keen hands slipped down your body to tenderly part your legs, the suggestion of his arousal prodding thigh until he, quite familiarly and with a chaste kiss to your throat, sunk inside you. Clinging to his broad shoulders and moving with the man, for you had come to know the paces he enjoyed, Minho filled you gently and slipped away with each controlled thrust. Silver eyes told a maelstrom of truths and sadnesses that his long years of life had portended, and by the gradual incline of coming undone at his ministrations, you saw them all. He watched your descent into euphoria, and you saw them all— the lovers, the souls, the stories, the worlds that had been touched by Eros’s arrows, generations of lives built on their enchanted tips, civilisations birthed and ended by the snap of his bow string. An existence spent between heaven and Earth of unspeakable loneliness propelled by gratification of servitude brought you to hot tears amidst the release of crisis.

And you saw that he would have been alone in perpetuity, were it not for you.

--

Minho had a plan.

The beginnings of a plan, anyway, which he thought ought to count for something.

He could not call on any of his aunts or uncles for aid without alerting Aphrodite to the state of things, and so he turned his thoughts to what he could do. The things he possessed. After only moments of consideration, he broke into absurd and near hysterical laughter. How foolish he had been, once again! How could he forget?! Of all the things to slip his mind and fall into obscurity!

He had a palace.

Eros’s famed sky palace of jewels and gold— that was what he possessed. That was where he could go, for it was too removed from heaven for Aphrodite or any of the other Gods to be bothered making the journey. They would be left alone there. It was perfect.

The idea had come to him at high noon— a most inconvenient time for ideas to spring upon one. Unable to bear a second’s delay, he burst out of Goodhart and sprinted across campus, drawing heads and attention from all he passed. When he reached the lecture hall, he swept from room to room, offering breathless apologies to the bewildered occupants for his intrusion on finding her in none of them, much to his irritation. It stood to reason that the last he checked should be the place he found her: she looked up from her notebook, mortification freezing her from neck to forehead.

“Excuse me.” Minho flashed a dazzling smile at the Professor, who for all his usual nettlesome temperament, stood flabbergasted.

He strode confidently across the hall and through the projector’s beam, his shadow casting over the bullet point analysis of Austen’s pathetic fallacy. All eyes followed as he approached her and made quick work of closing her notebook, plucking her pen from her hand and grabbing her backpack.

“I’ll just be taking this one,” he said to the Professor, taking her wrist with a gentle tug.

“What the hell are you doing?” she hissed, the eyes of her peers scalding her back.

Wordlessly, he stole her from the lecture hall, and said not a thing until they were out of the building and on the sun-warmed lawn, where he yanked her into a strong embrace.

“M— Minho!”

“I have it worked out, darling,” he said excitedly. “I have it all worked out!” He relinquished her to arm’s length, her flustered state inspiring urges that he swallowed down. “I know where we can go.”

“Go?” she repeated, confused. “Why would we go anywhere?”

“We can’t stay here. We spoke of this last night. My mother is—”

“You said you’d protect me from her. You didn’t say anything about needing to go anywhere.”

“I thought that was implied, darling. I assumed you understood.”

“Understood what?”

“That yes, I will do my utmost to keep you safe, but not even my power can match that of Aphrodite. If she discovers my betrayal, she’ll stop at nothing to hunt us down.”

The fluster of her condition gave way to dreaded realisation; Minho saw it in her eyes, the panic.

“There is one place we will be entirely safe,” he quickly said. “Somewhere she nor any of the other Olympians can set foot.”

“Where?”

“My palace.”

“P— Palace?”

Minho nodded in earnest. “Yes, darling. It is protected, its gates open only to me. We will want for nothing there. We can be together, undisturbed.”

She looked around, as though lost. “But I...” Her voice was weak. “I can’t just leave everything. This is my life.”

“I am your life now, darling. There’s nothing here for you.”

“Nothing here for me?” Her features drew tense and she stepped away from him, shrugging off his touch. “You're saying all this is pointless? Everything I've tried to achieve is worthless?”

“N— No, I simply mean that—”

“I know what you mean. I have no-one to miss me if I should disappear.” Her bottom lip trembled, she wrapped her arms around herself. “And what if I stayed? Would all those worshippers you promised me show up? Would I have something then?”

Minho’s heart ached impossibly; how careless he had once again been. One would think him used to the fragility of mortal hearts by now.

“It’s too late,” he said sorrowfully. “My love for you is a betrayal to my mother. If you stay, she will subject you to terrible punishment before anything ordained for you ever happens. If you come with me...” He reached out to her tenderly, a hand on her trembling shoulder. “If you come with me, I can spare you that fate. You do not have to engage with me or love me in return, but I hope that you will at least allow me to make reparations for taking you away from all you know. I can give you a most beautiful life. I can show you such things as your books will never describe. I can dedicate myself to you, soul and all, and be whatever you wish me to be.”

Tears streaked her cheeks, each one a dagger to Minho’s composure.

“You will never be alone again,” he whispered. “This, I swear to you.”

--

Why were you even thinking about it?

The earth-shatteringly handsome God of Love—Eros himself—loved you. He wished to take you away to his sky-dwelling palace, where he would serve you until your mortal days gave out. He wished to dedicate himself to you. How many women could claim to be on the receiving end of such implacable devotion? How many women turned away from it, especially when the love was reciprocated?

Thus you asked yourself the question again— why were you even thinking about it?

The conflict that raged within you was that of head and heart. On the side of romance and such emotion as brought you to tears, your heart cried out. ‘Go with him,’ it pleaded. ‘See all that he’s promised you. Take a chance on the extraordinary. Be the main character, just this once. You can never go back to life without him now— how it hurts to even imagine it. Only immovable darkness is left in place of such radiant light, and his light is what you must stay in forever. You love him, foolish girl. Go with him!’

On the side of reason and familiar doubt that was in some ways easier to hear, your head told other truths. ‘Run from him,” it commanded. ‘It is madness to believe any of this. What you saw that night was a hallucination; you were overtired. Overworked. He lies to you. Recall what he did to you. He plays on your vulnerability and would have you tripping over yourself for some impossible fairytale that cannot be real. It cannot be real. Screw your head back on, foolish girl. Run from him!’

With a night spent alone you hoped to come upon some form of clarity, but instead spent the long and empty hours tossing and turning, floating between despair and joy. You were at a crossroads, and the next decision you made would forever change the course of your life.

Go, or stay.

Live, or suffer.

Love, or mourn.

--

By the guiding, formless hand of the West wind, Zephyrus, Minho always found his way to his sky palace.

It would be a fruitless task to try to explain, in mortal terms, just where the palace was located. Not even Minho could, had he tried. That was why he needed gentle Zephyrus. Rather, it existed on a plane between those of heaven and Earth, in a pellucid sky of cloudless wonder that cycled through dreamy days and starry, moon-filled nights. The palace seemed always as though to be drifting along, warmed by streams of hot, shimmering air that kept it afloat. Its jewel-encrusted and gold-plated high walls caught the brilliant peaches and pinks of sweet Eos, Goddess of the Dawn. A reflective moat of the clearest still water kept the palace enclosed, magnificent fish and regal sea creatures having made their homes there. Great birds with feathers of virgin white and onyx black soared the length of the battlements and swooped through the palace arches, attracted by the glittering structure. It mattered not how many times Minho visited. It always took his breath away.

He looked at the girl bundled in his arms, her eyes still tightly closed, her head still buried in his chest. His white wings enclosed her safely, kept her from Zephyrus’s inherent chill.

“Won’t you look, darling?” he asked softly.

“No.”

He stifled a chuckle; how endearing she was.

“This would be one of those wonderful things I told you about.”

She cracked open one eye, just barely.

“You’re perfectly safe,” he assured her.

With a swallow and a timid nod, she turned her head out to the view, and Minho saw immediately how her eyes welled up with tears as they caught the rising light. He dared to imagine Eos might be making a special show of things, just for them, for the sky was ablaze with a rich and vibrant beauty the likes of which he’d never seen. Oranges and deep pinks melted into variegated crimson, the horizon seeming as though to glow. The palace was iridescent with life, it walls and towers reflecting and refracting the dawn in such a resplendent spectacle of colour, Minho was sure she would never forget this moment.

She maintained silent awe until Zephyrus had safely escorted them to the palace steps: the West wind twirled and whirled around them, hugging her warmly before departing, much to her delight. She kept close to Minho as the joy wore off, her fear of the near edge demanding it, yet it was her resolve that warned her from holding his hand, from taking comfort.

Such were her terms.

Such was Minho’s pain.

--

Take a chance on the extraordinary, your heart had said.

So it was that ‘extraordinary’ fell catastrophically short of describing what it was you now looked at: an opulent crystal palace at home in the sky, a testament to all things fantastical and impossible. The majesty of it was almost enough to take away from the inherent unease of being so high up; if this was even high, for it hadn’t escaped your notice during the journey that you hadn’t so much travelled up as through. Through what, you were surely unqualified to say, but what was certain was that this place was so removed from what you knew to be true of physics and gravity—indeed any temporal rule—it was pointless to think on it too much.

Minho had indeed promised to show you incredible things, oblivious that he himself was one of them. His feathery wings closed on his back, his raven hair fluttered in the warm breeze. He led you up the crystal steps to a vast arched gateway manned by—you rubbed your eyes—floating spears?

“Don’t be alarmed,” he said intuitively. “They will do you no harm. They’re here to protect us.”

As you passed by them, adequately mystified, the spears hopped and jerked as though in salute, their steel tips polished to a fine, sharp edge. Over the glass drawbridge he took you, a river of water so clear running beneath, you could see every pore of your own reflection in it. Creatures swum in the calm currents, fish and eels and octopi, their scales and skin of such stunning purple and deep green, it amazed you to look at. As you approached the tall and gilded palace doors, they opened before you, a swarm of floating brooms and mops and hat stands and trolleys and all other manner of furniture descending upon you with swift elegance.

On your fright, Minho held a hand up. Everything stopped, and sprung to attention in a neat, formal line.

“Darling.” He turned to you. “These are our attendants.”

You blinked at him; your head was beginning to hurt.

“They are invisible to our eyes,” he added softly. “It was my wish that we be left to our own devices. Entirely undisturbed. Just the two of us.”

“So there are... people? Holding those?”

Minho nodded. “Of a fashion, yes.”

You looked around him to the patient line, where mops fluttered and trolley wheels spun in anticipation. You weren’t sure you wanted to know what ‘of a fashion’ even meant.

“I would have had us here alone, but the palace takes some looking after,” he said. “Not to mention your own needs to be attended to.”

“I can look after myself. I don’t need—”

“Please.” He moved as though to take your hand, but stopped himself short. The strength with which such a small thing smarted seemed ludicrous, yet you held no grounds for complaint. He was only doing as instructed.

“I would like to make sure the very best care is on hand for you. Allow me that,” he said quietly.

At your small nod, he turned away, wings unfurling gently as he entered his palace. The peach light that so radiantly streaked the sky haloed him and made him a breathtaking vision. Was a God truly so different from an angel?

The palace interior was as extravagant as the exterior, its vast halls encrusted with sapphires and aquamarine, pearls and diamonds, emeralds and topaz all trimmed with gold. Wall sconces of blue flame bathed all in a glorious light, the high ceilings finished with intricate murals so lovingly painted, it made your heart ache to simply look upon the heavenly scenes they depicted with Eros at their centre.

Escorted dutifully by the same two floating spears that had seen you inside, Minho guided you through the winding halls. He held them at the door he had led you to with no more than a look.

“These are your private chambers,” he said once inside. They were homelier than what you’d thus far seen, finished with soft furnishings, blankets and comforts and a more natural tone of light offered by long windows and an open fire. It was the fire that you were in the midst of admiring, when a dainty teacup flew up and in front of your face, bringing you to a shriek.

“Your attendants will keep you here,” Minho laughed. “Forgive them. They’re excited.”

The teacup rattled on its saucer, as though in agreement.

“It has been some time since anyone’s resided here,” he added.

Residing here. You were to live here. In this place between places, with a thousands-year old God. It seemed that only now this fact began to dawn on you, for a chill realisation swept over and extinguished the bewilderment that hitherto kept you together.

Minho watched you carefully, distance maintained as he stood at the door. You looked through the grand window, out over the endless sea of multicoloured sky.

“You promised me an answer,” he eventually said.

Your heart sank.

“I know.”

“Will you give it?”

You chewed your inner cheek, tracing the lines of wispy cloud that floated by.

“I have shown you the palace,” Minho said. “I have respected your boundaries of affection, despite how it pains me to act as though we are no more than friends. I have revealed my true form to you. I have done everything you’ve asked.”

“I know.”

“And so? Is your mind decided?”

Exasperated, you turned to him. The God of Love with so sorrowful a look of distress on his handsome face, it made you want to weep.

“My mind has been decided all along,” you said simply. “How could I ever say no to you?”

His silvery eyes lit up. “You mean...?”

“Yes,” you laughed. “I’ll stay.”

Without a second thought, the God of Love on his great, white wings surged across the space and caught you in his strong arms. He braced you against the pristine glass in an embrace of ignited passion, the gasp you emitted was devoured by his hungry mouth.

“How you infuriate me,” he mumbled between kisses, the slick of his tongue wetting your lips. “You have no idea the depth of the madness you would drive me to.”

“I needed time,” you breathed. “To get my head straight, to process it all.”

“I know, darling. I would have given you all the time that time itself possessed if I could.”

You kissed him gently. “Liar.”

He grinned, and with a low chuckle enclosed you in his magnificent wings, the feathers reaching around and curling under you to lift you from the ground. Poised on them as the most comfortable of elegant chairs, the God so close in your space and stood between your open thighs, it became soon apparent the type of mood that descended on him. An inferno of want tainted the silver of his eyes, his deep, gold complexion shimmering with the lust that made Eros so feral as to tear your shirt open and relieve you of your jeans, all that he might touch your skin— finally. Secured in the space of his heat, helpless but to succumb, the dainty cloth that hovered about his hips was torn away to reveal the intimidating girth of what he offered, sprung proud and hard. Lightheaded and too aroused to think much of consequence—you weren’t strictly here alone, after all—you clung to the slope of his shoulders as he aligned himself and with a sharp intake of breath, steadily sunk inside you. Groaning through the sensation of fullness, your delight was caught by his mouth on yours.

“You were made for me, my love,” he whispered. “It is you and I, until the end of time.”

“Minho—”

“Hush, dearest girl. Let me pleasure you the way your tender heart so deserves. Let me serve you as I crave to. Nothing makes me feel so alive as when you allow me inside you like this, sweet thing. Feel me, darling. Feel all of me.”

Sealed with a kiss, the God of Love thrust himself upon you, the slick drive made so much easier by your own steeped arousal. Yet it was not simply lust that brought you to gasps and the stinging tell of tears— to accept such pure and unconditional love, to accept that it was offered so readily, to accept that a creature so objectively perfect as him could be possessed of affection for you— sky palaces and jewels and divine landscapes could not compare to that impossibility.

So it is, the start of your new life.

So it was, in years to come, that the Goddess Aphrodite forgave her errant son and welcomed the mortal girl, gifting to her immortality on her wedding day.

So it ever shall be, that the tamed Eros and his beloved spend their sun-warmed, endless days reigning over love’s intricacies, granting to mortals the divine bliss they themselves found in one another.

One precious heart at a time.

thus marks my last offering for the skz tropes collab! i really hope you enjoyed. this was by far my favourite of the bunch. if you could be kind enough to comment or even buy me a coffee as thanks for the 20k read, i would be super grateful. mica x

𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚, 𝙧𝙚𝙗𝙡𝙤𝙜, 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙨 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙢𝙚 >

𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙖 𝙣𝙞𝙘𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙? 𝙨𝙖𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙠𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙖 𝙘𝙤𝙛𝙛𝙚𝙚 ♡ >

𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙘𝙠 𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙠𝙯 𝙧𝙤𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙥𝙚𝙨 𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 ♡ >

[realisticromanticist]

I had to take a walk after reading this beauty ♡

[9710144]

[jl-micasea-fics]

Something In The Rain | lmh

❝𝐘𝐨𝐮’𝐥𝐥 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐛𝐞 𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐬, 𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠.❞

↳ Chapter 4/4 of Something In The Rain. Inside the polished walls of Help, Heart and Justice Limited, you work under the guidance of enigmatic senior attorney Lee Minho to support him and his legal team. And perhaps under all the professionalism, feelings stray, yet you're committed to keeping said feelings buried whilst you pine from afar. Until an act of kindness on a dark, rainy evening turns everything upside down; for even the most put together of men must indulge their demonic appetites.

↳ Lee Know x female reader

↳ 10k

↳ Supernatural au, strangers/colleagues to lovers, office romance, lust demon Lee Know, eventual smut

! Explicit content, adult themes, suitable for 18+ readers only !

「Chapter 1」 「Contents List」 「© June 2023 by jl-micasea-fics」

“Sounds to me like you’ve made a right royal fucking mess of things.”

Minho would contest that if he thought it was worth it. As it stands, it’s not.

The sex faerie perches quaintly on the exposed balcony ledge that comprises the upper floor of Minho’s penthouse; a vast 2,500 sq. ft of modern minimalist luxury that the demon rarely inhabits. Furnished with every mod-con one could want, toned pristine white and cool onyx throughout, floor to ceiling windows offer natural light and an airy feel, but Minho knows it lacks the personal touch. At present it’s barely distinguishable from a staged open house, but at the very least, he keeps it clean and neat. He sleeps here, reads here, broods here when he gets chance enough to slip away from the office.

Minho—outstretched on the white leather sofa on the ground floor—glares up at his friend, a pang of guilt slicing his chest when their eyes meet. He’s not particularly proud of having effectively ghosted him the last two weeks, but neither could his pride take the ribbing he would have been subjected to had Felix discovered the truth of his affair. So far, at least, Felix has spared him the ‘I told you so’s’. Even the reconciliation was without the anticipated attitude; the faerie seemed nothing other than pleased to hear from him.

“How long has it been?” the blonde asks, pink chiffon wings fanned out to halo him.

“Since what?”

“Since you ate.”

Now there’s a question Minho doesn’t need to ponder. He shrugs, staring up at the distant ceiling. “Three weeks.”

Felix grimaces, legs swinging freely. “So you’ve got...”

“About a week before I succumb to the hunger and either consume every nearby human soul in a bloodbath of carnage or wither away to nothingness. Yeah.”

“Shit.”

Silence follows; Minho closes his eyes to it. The hunger grows still, an omnipresent influence that taints his every thought to distressing effect. She appears less so a person the longer this goes on, more so a tempting meal that would bring around an altogether different type of despair when consumed.

“I don’t know what to do, Lix.”

He opens his eyes, turns his gaze to his friend. Felix’s lavender irises scan the afternoon panorama of the city, flitting down to Minho on his admittance.

“I said I wouldn’t look in on her dreams, and I did. I said I'd stay away from her, and I couldn't. I said I'd put distance between us and make it so the end of this won’t be so painful when it comes time, and I failed,” Minho says, voice strained.

Felix blinks, his dainty pink wings iridescent in the fresh sunlight.

“I’m going to hurt her. I’m going to lose her. And I just... I don’t know what to do.”

The sex faerie stands elegantly, padding along the lip of the balcony, stepping off the edge and descending a graceful glide to the ground floor. He rounds the sofa, lifting Minho’s outstretched legs and assuming their spot, wings retracting as he settles comfortably now with legs on his lap.

“You really care for her, don’t you?” he eventually sighs.

Minho’s silence speaks to the truth of it.

“All of this started with an accident. It wasn’t your fault that she got cursed, Minho.”

“It’s explicitly my fault—”

“Humans value intention; you know that. You didn’t mean to curse her, you weren’t trying to eat her soul, therefore you’re not as much at fault as you try to make out. Have you ever considered just telling her the truth?”

Minho shakes his head immediately. “I can’t.”

“Why not?” Felix scoffs. “She already suspects something, she’s already dreamt about you being something other than human—which I would argue means she’s probably down for it—and she’s already given you an ultimatum. At this point, what do you have to lose? Like, really?”

“Her, Felix. I have her to lose.”

“But that was never not a possibility, man. You knew this was going to end with you losing her.”

Felix pats his calf, as though the contact may be a small comfort. Minho draws a heavy breath, tension in his limbs that he can’t shake off or relax through.

“We’re not looking to change the ending here,” the blonde continues softly, “but maybe we can make the present a little better. You have a week left, right?”

“Felix—”

“I know you hate it. I really do. But refusing to talk about it is only going to make things worse. You might think you’re protecting her, sparing her from a world she wants no part of, but a lie of omission is still a lie. Humans are strange creatures, man. They value truth and honesty just as they do intention; above all else and no matter how brutal it is. She wants to feel like you respect her enough to give her that. And she deserves it, frankly.”

Minho sits upright. “How the fuck am I supposed to tell her that she’s got a week left on earth because of me?! Because I'm going to consume her soul?! Riddle me that, Lix—”

“I didn’t say it was going to be easy, but you can either spend this final week having her resent you until the time comes or spend it trying to make things right. Make it worthwhile. Tell her the truth, tell her you’re sorry, tell her you love her—”

Minho sags in place, head in his hands.

“— and that you’ll make it as painless as possible.”

Perhaps the worst of it all is that he knows Felix is right, on every count with every word. None of this is revolutionary by any stretch, the suggestions having crossed his own mind frequently and with increasing strength each time.

But that is just what he lacks: strength.

“I know you don’t want my advice—”

“I do,” Minho interrupts on a shaky breath. “I do want it, Felix. I always did.”

The faerie’s expression softens, his lips purse in sympathy. He offers a gentle squeeze of Minho’s calf once more; quietly soothing.

“Would you...” Minho hesitates. He’s not used to showing this kind of vulnerability—any kind of vulnerability—and so doesn’t really know how to approach it. Felix cocks his head, lavender eyes curious.

“Would you, maybe... be my plus one to the party tonight?”

His face lights up, a grin of sunbeam and pure delight accompanying his dramatic gasp. “Me? Really?”

“I’d feel better with you there.”

“Minho...”

“You’d have to tame all this down,” the elder gestures to him, ostentatious frills and glitter galore.

Felix rolls his eyes. “Please, I love cosplaying an emotionally repressed, middle-class, beta male. I’ll fit right in, don’t even worry about it.”

“And no bewitching anyone I work with.”

“Naturally.”

“If things go wrong... if she won’t talk to me, or loses it, or—”

“I’ll keep a close eye on things. Promise.”

Minho already feels somewhat relieved with this; even the knowledge of having his friend nearby will make this easier.

“Thanks, Lix,” the elder mumbles.

“My pleasure.”

Tonight will be the worst of evenings; Minho only wishes for it to be over.

***

There’s nothing so grating as the cheer of others when one is drowning in a whirlpool of their own misery.

Minho is convinced now more than ever that his mask is a sine que non; if his true emotions were to show in any way, not a single one of his colleagues would have dared approached him with polite greetings thus far. He smiles amicably, he shakes hands, he bids welcome and does his part to tow the company line. Located in the wealthy part of the business district, the Constellation Hotel is an establishment known for its upmarket clientele and equally as upmarket rates. Host to weddings, special occasions and all manner of exclusive events, the place is usually booked out months in advance and is nigh on impossible for the average person to afford. Minho happens to know that Constellation Group were recently signed on as clients of Help, Heart and Justice; he wonders if this was part of the deal.

Glitz and glamour is the name of the game, black and gold the concept. The event hall is decked out with gilded decorations; low hanging bunting and busy flower arrangements, streamers and chiffon curtains. Round tables and dainty chairs are arranged symmetrically over one half of the vast hall lit warmly by crystal chandeliers, the other half (where the stage sits) is left bare, no doubt to be used as a dancefloor later, Minho supposes. He hopes to be gone by then. Chic pop-up bars have been erected at either end of the room, each manned by a voguish bartender that dramatizes their service with bottle tricks and witty quips. Oval windows stretch impressively from floor to ornate ceiling, French double doors open to a high veranda beyond, offering a better view of the hotel grounds and glittered city. There’s room enough for all the colleagues of Help, Heart and Justice and a handful of other firms, Minho thinks, but he supposes he can forgive such gratuitous extravagance on this occasion; the majority of people here won’t ever have experienced something like this. It’s a change from the mundane usual, and it’s on the company bank.

Situated near the French doors, Minho has a good view of the hall. It’s still fairly early—he imagines the true partygoers won’t put in an appearance until later—and so people are dispersed across the space, in chatting groups and quiet couples. Most he knows by face, if not by name, having crossed paths with them at some point or another. All have made an effort though; hired suits and floor-length dresses fit the tone.

A tap on his shoulder calls his attention.

“Good evening, darling.”

“F— Felix?”

The elder hardly recognises him. Fitted to shipshape inch in a two-piece Gucci suit, coloured soft white and chequered with grey, the faerie is the very image of a modern gentleman. Blonde hair is slicked back, the piercings in his ears are toned down to subtle studs. Even his eyes—usually a swirl of mischievous violet—are now an unassuming brown; though not even coloured contacts can entirely negate the mischief.

“Wow,” Minho gasps, taking his friend in a hug.

“Is that approval?” the younger laughs.

“Yeah. Yes, it’s approval. You should play human more often.”

“It’ll do for the night. Listen, I have someone to introduce you to.”

“You do?”

The faerie nods. “Though I suppose it’s more of a reintroduction? Technically?”

A heavy weight sinks Minho’s gut as Felix ducks out to the veranda, gesturing for someone to enter. When a person he swore he’d never see again rounds the corner, Minho immediately starts for him.

“Woah, hey, just wait a second—” Felix stops him by a hand to his chest.

“What the hell is he doing here?”

Minho stabs an accusatory finger at Hyunjin, the young ex-attorney standing perfectly unphased by the happenings around him. He doesn’t smile; he doesn’t react much at all, the absence in his eyes attesting to a certain state of mind induced by the bewitchment of a sex faerie.

“He’s my guest.”

“Your guest? Felix, this isn’t a fucking game, I told you—”

“Let me explain,” the blonde appeals, “outside, before you cause any more of a scene than you already have. Please?”

Minho shrugs him off, storming through the doors to the veranda proper. The chill of the night does something to relieve him of the shock, as does his impatient pacing back and forth. Felix joins him, towing Hyunjin along by suit sleeve.

“You said he wasn't my problem anymore,” the elder seethes.

“And he’s not,” Felix reassures, “I didn’t bring him here to throw anything in your face.”

“Then why did you bring him here, Felix?”

“To show you that you don’t have to feel guilty anymore.”

Minho ceases his pacing, the words settling uncomfortably on him. The faerie approaches him.

“Do you hear me?” he asks. “You don’t have to feel guilty for the way this turned out. Hyunjin is just fine, with me.” He turns to the other man. “Right, baby?”

Hyunjin nods, smiling dreamily as he sighs, “Yes, love. I’m fine.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You can stop pretending, Minho. That you don’t feel the weight of cursing people, that you don’t tear a little more with every soul you consume. It might be nourishing you physically, but mentally, you suffer. I know that. I feel it.”

Minho pinches the bridge of his nose; he didn’t account for this particular brand of emotional turmoil tonight.

“Felix...”

“I’m trying to ease your burden, man. Even if it’s just by one soul that I can put in front of you. I want you to stop persecuting yourself. For him, for her, for all of them.”

Persecuting himself? Is that what Minho does? He knows he has a penchant for brooding when left alone and in the aftermath of a meal but has never thought it to be more than the—one would argue, natural—downer that comes from snuffing out a life. He lives with the omnipresent remorse as comfortably as he does his two legs and two arms; it is a part of him, has always been, for as long as he’s existed. Is that what Felix sees? Is that what he’s trying to expunge him of?

Amidst trying to form a response out of the confusion, their conversation is interrupted by a figure entering the veranda.

“Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t realise there was—”

When he meets her eyes, his throat constricts.

“Minho...?”

***

You’ve never known the kind of company Minho keeps, for the inner details of his private life—family, friends, ex-lovers, acquaintances—are kept famously private. He’s never of a divulging mood, and you’re not so brazen as to push him.

Yet tonight is a night made for details, you suppose, and his presence at the party provides an answer to the ultimatum you cringed to speak but were left little choice in issuing.

He’s here, and he’s beautiful; dressed up in a warm tan, two-piece Armani suit. The colour deepens and compliments his skin tone, the honey tones of his neatly styled hair, the chiselled structure of his flawless features. He’s here, and that’s a good thing. It has to be.

“Is this her?”

Delayed is the realisation that the blonde man beside Minho is talking about you, to him. He is striking—almost as much as Minho himself—his pale features delicate but betraying a strength of character. To your left is another figure; this one you recognise.

“Hyunjin?” you start towards him. “What are you doing here? Where the hell have you been? You just dropped off the face of the earth!”

Hyunjin blinks, cocks his head at your entreating, the glaze of unfamiliarity crossing his dark eyes. But before you can press much further, the blonde man bounces into your path, hand curling into the one you had outstretched for your ex-colleague.

“I’m Felix,” he beams bright white, the intense warmth of his touch an unexpected shock. “It’s lovely to finally meet you.”

“It is?”

“Oh yes. I’ve heard so much about you.”

He has? A sceptical look over your shoulder to a stiffly presented Minho tells of an element of truth to Felix’s claim.

“He never shuts up about you. Like, really. I feel like I know you already—”

“Okay!”

Minho’s interruption is swift: by an arm around your waist he removes you from the man, escorting you back through the French doors, whereby he says, “Will you excuse me for just one second? Felix and I have something to discuss.”

You grab his sleeve before he can leave. “Wait. Felix is... a friend?”

Minho nods.

“A good friend?”

“I’ve known him a long time, yes.”

He steps back towards the veranda; you release your hold on him.

“We have things to talk about, too, Minho.”

“I know. I’ll find you.”

With that, he ducks out of the doors, closing them after him in finality. Left alone, you suppose there’s not much more to do than enjoy what the evening offers; you’ve been looking forward to this since its announcement, after all. Besides, you’ve made the effort to polish up in an evening dress befitting the occasion, the price tag of which demands exposure to every damn person in attendance; maybe even a few who aren’t, depending on how the night goes.

Ordering yourself a glass of house white from the pop-up bar, you linger on the corner of it, enjoying the crisp liquid on your tongue. Wine has a way of going straight to your head, and if this were any other evening you’d probably abstain in favour of pacing yourself. Tonight, Dutch courage is part of the dress code.

Turning back to the main space of the hall, where more colleagues have trickled in and gathered, you pace a few slow steps around it. Several people you recognise make small talk, polite conversation, nothing so deep as to distract from your constant lookout for Minho. Indeed, the only thing that does stick a pin in your concentration is the hollering of your name from across the floor.

“Damn girl, you scrubbed up well!”

The nasal drawl of Kim Seungmin is nails down a chalkboard. Unfortunate that he spotted you before you saw him; you’d have made yourself scarce had you the chance. Making an erratic beeline in your direction, he apparently detects your chagrin from a distance.

“What, you’re not even remotely happy to see me?” he exclaims, wounded.

“I’m ecstatic, actually.”

“You could try showing it. Anyone would think you hated my guts or something.”

“Mhm. Anyone would.”

Your sarcastic grin is managed by another gulp of Sauvignon Blanc; you turn away, already done with entertaining him.

“Where are you going?” he whines, trotting after you.

“Somewhere else.”

“Hey, wait,” he rounds you quickly, putting himself in your path. “Just, stop for a second.”

“Seungmin—”

He holds a hand up to you. “I have something to say. Something important. I’d like it if you would hear me out.”

“I’m really not interested in anything you have to say.”

“Please?”

There’s a note of sincerity in his voice; you surmise it must be that because it’s entirely unfamiliar, a manner of soft speaking you’ve never heard from him. He scratches his nape, shifts his weight from right to left foot. Whatever this is, it clearly means something beyond the usual clownery you’ve come to expect from him.

“Fine. Quickly, then.”

His face lights up, he immediately reaches for your wrist. “Not here. Come with me.”

“Seungmin—”

Unable to voice your protests, you’re led through the main hall and out a side door, into a lavishly wide connecting hallway of the hotel. You barely manage to keep your footing as you’re dragged several yards down it. Seungmin ushers you quickly into a dark room that, as soon as you enter, accosts you with the strong sting of bleach and disinfectant.

Light flickers around you after a second in the darkness, harsh fluorescence stilling to illuminate metal shelves crammed full of cleaning equipment, a wall mounted row of mops and brushes, stacks of cardboard boxes sporting various ominous labels that warn of corrosives and toxins. The room is barely larger than a cupboard; the stench of concentrated chemicals makes your head spin.

“What the f—”

“Sorry,” Seungmin offers immediately. “Not the most elegant of places to do this, but I want to make sure we’re not disturbed.”

He’s hardly two feet from you, the space is too cramped.

“We shouldn’t be in here. I can’t be in here, Seungmin, let me out.”

“J— Just wait, please. Let me say what I need to say—”

He doesn’t come any closer, but neither does he budge. Positioned in front of the door, it’s nigh on impossible for you to make any path around him, to shove him out of your way by force. You’ve no choice but to listen, which you suppose is exactly what he intended.

“I’d like to apologise, firstly,” he begins, “for the way I am with you. The way I have been. I know I can be a bit difficult. Especially when it comes to those rumours...”

You recall the conversation you were unwitting witness to in Minho’s office; when Seungmin interrupted your long-awaited returning of the sexual favour. It doesn't sting any less that your affections for the senior attorney appear still to be a topic of conversation amongst your colleagues (or at least for Seungmin). You’d rather thought they might be over it by now, for as far as they’re concerned, your crush remains pathetically unrequited.

“... But that’s only because I...” He hesitates; a chill fear stirs inside you. “... I don’t like hearing people talk about the two of you. I hate it, actually.”

“But you’re the one that—”

“I know. I know I keep bringing them up,” he sighs, “I can’t help it. I guess I wanted to see if there was any truth to them.”

You cross your arms, patience running thinner the longer you’re forced to stay in this horrid room and listen to this nonsense.

“I know now that there’s not, though. I know you’re not into Minho, not that way, and that’s good because I wanted to tell you that I—”

“They are true.”

Seungmin falters, his dark eyes narrowing. “What?”

“The rumours: me being in love with him, wanting to fuck him, being obsessed with him. Whatever they’re saying, it's all true.”

Amusement mingles amongst the disbelief on his face; he backs up a step, jaw locking on a tense laugh. “You don’t mean that.”

“Oh, I mean every word of it. I find Minho to be the single most attractive person I've ever met. I respect him as a man, I admire him as a colleague. He’s everything I could ever want,” you state, calm and collected.

A vein throbs in Seungmin’s forehead, his teeth grind to rigidity. You sensed well enough where his soliloquy was going, telling from his entirely uncharacteristic nerves. You’d rather be forced into a confession with potential to ruin your career than have to accept a confession of feelings from a man whose idea of adult courtship apparently equates to that of playground bullying.

“Why?” Seungmin eventually seethes.

“Why?”

“Why him, and not me?”

You scoff incredulously; the arrogance of this man.

“He’ll never want you that way, you know that, right?” he presses, desperation rolling from him. “He lords over us, thinks he’s so much better than us—”

“That’s because he is.”

“I can be a good partner to you, I can take care of you!”

“I don’t need taking care of, Seungmin. I just need to be let out of this goddamn room.”

You move to shove past him; his arm blocks the path, a barricade between you and the door.

“Seungmin—”

“You won’t even give me a chance?” he leans in closely, the stale heat of his breath tinctured with alcohol. You recoil from it, turning your cheek to him as you reach once more for the door.

“You always were an uptight little b—”

In a merciful intervention, the door swings open abruptly, the intruding gush of fresh air sweeping away the thick, rotten atmosphere. Seungmin startles, drops his arm from the wall, which is opportunity enough for you to squeeze through and make your escape. You hope the smile of gratitude you afford the thoroughly perplexed, smartly dressed cleaner is understood, but don’t wish to stick around to find out.

Back in the main hall, the space is now distinctly fuller than before. You’re less able to see through gaps in the mass of bodies, can’t quite hear over the mood music that’s ramped up in volume. Supposing that Minho must assuredly be looking for you by now, you head for the place you last saw him. Navigating around a few groups of people and returning polite nods that are sent your way, you step through the open French doors, out to the veranda. There’s a little relief comes from discovering it empty, the quiet solitude doing something to ease your jittered nerves. Hands on the cool ornate railing, you take in a deep lungful of the wintry night, centring yourself, packing away all that just happened to be compartmentalised at a far more distant date.

“There you are.”

Minho's voice through the silence is its own elixir. Were your relationship not in such a state of limbo, you’d be running into his arms and seeking solace there. Indeed, you start towards him with that in mind, stopping yourself short.

He closes the French doors carefully, the gentle clack of his suit shoes approaching you. An updraft of breeze catches him, strands of hair falling loose across his dark eyes. He gestures by motion of his head to the white metal bench, a baroque structure nearest the ivy-covered wall. You join him there, the space allowing hardly much room; your knees touch when he settles beside you. The mood music from the hall can be heard faintly, the chatter of colleagues a muted comfort to what would otherwise be stoic silence. The hotel grounds stretch on in blotted darkness; flower beds and leafy hedges are arranged in geometric patterns, a natural distraction for your eye to trace. Beyond the walls of the hotel, the city glows iridescent in the evening bustle, skyscrapers stretching to cloudy heights, basking in the caress of the low hanging moon.

Minho inhales softly, lets out a gentle breath.

“You really want the truth?” he asks.

“Either that, or we stop this,” you shrug, the defeatist in you speaking.

“Right.”

The lull in conversation precedes the summoning of his courage; your heart flutters, curiosity manifesting as trepidation.

“You probably won’t believe half of what I'm about to tell you,” he says slowly, “and I'm only doing so because I care for you a great deal. You... mean a lot to me.”

A tightening of emotion restricts your chest, but you're loath to speak just yet. Any interruption might veer him from his course, and he’s only just embarked. Better to let him bear it all.

“I suppose it’s best to start with the facts.” He flicks a glance to you, assessing what’s to come of his next words.

“I... I’m not human.”

And when the assessment yields nothing much more than your silent acceptance, he continues.

“I was born a demon. I am a demon. For more than two hundred years, I have lived in the mortal realm. I consider it—this place—my home, but I was born in the immortal one; the Underworld, if you like, though I suppose it has many names.”

What he’s asking you to believe is an impossibility, and it is precisely that impossibility that inclines you to believe it. Would a man in need of a lie forge one so asinine?

“Go on,” you whisper in encouragement. You need it all; every scrap of information to even begin putting the pieces of this together.

“You were right. I am pretending to be something I'm not. This form I'm in—what you see when you look at me—it isn’t real. It’s a disguise keeping my demon nature hidden; one that I've worn for so long I suppose I forgot it was even an illusion.” He wrings his hands, fingers intertwining as he speaks. “But I can only conceal so much of myself, is the thing. No matter how thickly I cover it up, there’s a part of me that is demonic in function, that always will be. I can’t change that. I require... souls. To sustain myself. Human souls that are ripe with lust, specifically, for it is that state of existence—that emotion—that nourishes me.”

You swallow heavily, holding all the questions at the door of your sensibilities.

“I know how this all sounds...”

“The souls,” you clear your throat, keen not to diverge from the topic, “how...?”

Minho sighs. “I choose them. People that won’t be missed, people that can’t be saved.”

“So, the people... what happens to them? After you...?”

“They wither away. Dust and ashes; for dust you are and to dust you will return,” he mumbles. “I don’t like playing judge, jury and executioner, but I have to. I manage it as best I can. I’ve whittled my meals down to the bare minimum required to survive. I don’t enjoy this.”

Something turns in your gut on his use of the word ‘meals’; a primal fear that, up until now, you’ve been shunning from the forefront of your emotion with willpower alone. You don’t want to be afraid of him.

 “There’s more,” Minho says quietly.

“Oh, good.”

“If you don’t want to hear it...”

You shake your head. “I do. Sorry. It’s just—”

“A lot. I know.”

He takes your hand, holds your palm in his on his knee, the caution in the act so clear it makes your chest ache. You offer him a reassuring squeeze; a sign to continue.

“I told you that I manage it as best I can,” he says, “to ensure minimal damage. Part of that involves making sure the souls are... as ripe as possible. I could consume any human soul, and it would do a little towards sating my hunger, but then I'd be looking at a body count in the double digits every other week. So I let the soul I select... marinate? For want of a better word? I slip them a drop of my blood, and that’s enough to curse them.”

“Curse them?”

Minho nods slowly. “Their dreams.”

Something in your mind snaps sharply, and slips; a fragment of your responsible subconscious, held together so far by the flimsy duct tape that was your persistence: the dreams couldn't possibly be attributed to anything cognizant; they were dreams. Icy foreboding sinks into your bones, painful and immobilising. Minho won’t meet your worried gaze. He can’t.

“Their dreams turn on them, bombard them with the most realistic of scenarios concerning their deepest fantasies. They’re made to feel real; so real they can’t be distinguished from their waking states. The soul is steeped in lust, drip-fed intravenously on eroticism of their own making that eventually brings them to such a state of frenzy, they balance on the precipice of losing their humanity. Just before that happens, I do my part. I... consume them.”

Deepest fantasies. Made to feel real. Lose their humanity.

Your hands tremble, the weight of fear blanketing you. “Minho...”

He hangs his head, hunched over himself he clutches your hand tightly. You want him to tell you that you’re wrong. That he didn’t do this to you. That you’ll be okay.

“I’m so sorry.”

A wrenched sob of disbelief slips through your lips, the cutting sting of tears welling in your eyes. Like an insect stuck in amber, you can neither breathe nor move.

“It was an accident,” he despairs, holding your hand yet tighter, closer to his chest. “I swear, it was. I never meant to curse you. It was never supposed to be you.”

That eases a little of the terror, you suppose, as does his clear remorse. To know he doesn’t hold any malcontent for you, to know this whole thing was no deliberate wicked gulling; it’s a minor relief.

“How...?”

He lifts his head, lashes damp as he whispers. “The coffee.”

Yet another jigsaw piece locks into place.

“That’s why you got so mad,” you blink through tears.

Minho nods.

“Why you distanced yourself from me.”

“I didn't want to,” he says quietly, “I just... I hoped to protect you from the end I knew was coming. From me. I guess, in my head, it made a sort of sense.”

The end. Such an anticlimactic, insignificant term for what represents such doom. You rather think it should be more poetic than that: ‘the grave dissolution of a mortal story’, perhaps.

“I didn't feel I deserved to be with you. I’d done such an awful thing to you. I'd condemned you, and you didn’t even know it. You just... kept dreaming about me. You kept dreaming about me, and I kept trying to resist it, and every day it got fucking harder, because I always wanted you,” he turns to you, carmine irises unapologetically bright against the pale radiance of the moon. “Every time I touched you, I was ridden with guilt. I still am. But I couldn't stop.”

He brings your hand to his lips, speaks in reverence against your chill skin. “I’ve never craved anything the way I crave you, my sweet thing—”

But you withdraw yourself from his grasp, standing from the bench and seeking the clarity of space. Moving to the bedizened metal balustrade of the veranda, you let your hands rest on the cool steel; grounding, refreshing. You can’t bring yourself to find surprise in any of it; rather there is catharsis. His (surely accidental) professed knowledge of your dreams now makes sense, as does his emotional absence, coloured over by his self-reproach.

“You mentioned ‘the end’,” your voice rings clear once you’re composed enough to speak. “You mean my death, yes?”

Elbows on his knees, Minho says nothing. Confirmation enough, you suppose.

“There’ll come a point where my soul will be...” you recall the words he used, “... steeped in lust?”

You turn back to him; the gentlemanly image of every courtship fantasy you’ve ever indulged in. His beauty strikes you at the very core of your being, his tenebrous features wracked with regret, with tangible sorrow. How cruel it is that such a beautiful creature should believe himself a monstrous, wicked thing.

“And you’ll consume me?”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’ll return to dust and ash.”

“Please...” he laments, able to hear no more of it.

“How long do I have?”

On this, his head snaps up, he rises from the bench. You sidestep his attempts to reach for you; indeed, the fact that his immediate response is to embrace you in comfort speaks to a grim estimation.

“How long, Minho?” you press.

He falters, raking hands through his hair before he sighs the admittance. “About a week, maybe.”

As you thought, you think to yourself, and for the same reason you forwent speculating as to the truth of his story: the dreams—your very first ones—started three weeks ago, as was the inciting coffee incident. It all adds up, his words quantifiable by the events that occurred and his resulting behaviour.

No, there is no question of truth. Rather, the question is one of action.

“So, you’re telling me I have a week to live.”

Minho sags in place, defeated. The still night is heavy with quiet; even the bumbling of the party inside seems mute now.

“I don’t accept that.”

Tears and tantrums will do no good here. To slather him with blame and take to resentment would only be to injure both of you—to wound him deeper, to fracture you further—and it seems to you there has been enough hurt for a lifetime. Again: the question is one of action, and where there is will, there are ways. You turn to him, taking his hand in appeal.

“I intend to see this week through, Minho, and the week after that, and the week after that.”

Minho blinks, brows crimping as he says, “I wish you would, but there’s no—”

“You could just not.”

“What?”

You hold his hand tighter. “You could just... not. You don’t have to consume me. You don’t need to take my soul.”

“That’s...”

“That’s entirely possible. Isn’t it? I mean, you said so yourself: you could consume any human soul. It doesn’t have to be mine.”

Minho stares, bloody pools of crimson assessing your face for the answer you clearly have a grasp on that seems to escape him.

“Before me, you only took souls from people that wouldn’t be missed. Souls from people that had nobody, that weren’t loved. But I am. I have you.”

“I... I don’t understand—”

“Look at me, Minho.”

You stand back from him, holding your arms open as though exposing yourself, encouraging him to see beyond the shell of your appearance. Your youthful glow, your warmth, your life. Your coherence—emotional distress notwithstanding—and your sound state of mind. Yet Minho just stares, flabbergasted.

“Do I look like I'm ‘balancing on the precipice of losing my humanity’?” you jeer.

He flounders; you return to him, steal both his hands in yours.

“I don’t, do I?”

“N— No...”

“And that’s because I'm not. All the lusty dreams and fantasies and things that come to me during the night are of pale insignificance to my waking life...” You search his handsome face; hold his otherworldly gaze. “... Because when I wake up, I know I have you. The real you. Human, demon, whatever you are, whoever you try to be. You make the dreams reality, Minho, quite literally. They might make me a little insane, of course—I'm not arrogant enough to pretend they don’t—but when you touch me my soul feels lighter, my heart feels fuller... I’m not stewing in unreciprocated desire.”

“But...”

You tell him again: “I have you. How could I ever succumb to those figments of my imagination when you tether me so firmly to reality?”

He squeezes his eyes shut; a tear streaks his cheek, his full lip trembles as he gasps in a deep breath. Had he really been so fettered with his guilt and stress that he couldn’t see the simple solution staring him in the face?

“It’s your hunger that demands a soul, right? That’s what’s making things hard?” you continue.

He nods.

“So we’ll find you a soul. Someone that won’t be missed, just like you used to.”

“No. It’s been too long; I’d need half a dozen at least,” he chokes. “I can’t.”

“It’s either them or me.”

A harsh truth to be presenting him, perhaps, but a truth nonetheless. If your reading of his feelings is true—and you like to think by now that it is—you know he’ll do the right thing. The only thing.

“But it might not even work. There’s no guarantee you won’t deteriorate, no way to remove the curse entirely.”

“We have to try,” you reassure him. “Don't you think?”

He relaxes a margin; his shoulders slack, his posture appears to soften as he drags you closer by the arm, into his embrace. His chin rests on your crown, the thundering of his heart drums against your ear.

His voice is gently muffled when he presses a kiss to your head. “I’ll try anything if it means keeping you safe.”

Secure in his arms, warm and close, you look out at the distant city, reposing in tranquillity. Soft grey clouds roll over lustred black, tucking the silver disc of the moon away, revealing it again. Clarity is granted to the night, as to your own circumstance, and there is peace.

You hope always, for there to be peace.

***

Felix often wonders if he would have preferred being born a human.

Mortal lives are a mere fleeting blink in the grand scheme of time and the Cosmos, so tragically ephemeral it makes Felix’s heart ache. He used to pity them for it: how miserable a thing to know they’ll never see a century through, some of them even less than that!

But the more time he spent in the realm, the more his mind changed. He came to understand that the transitory nature of mortals was exactly what made them so determined; in some ways, resilient. They move with an urgency, pack their days and nights with things, people, places, never allowing a moment to be dull or unfilled. They seek meaning in everything; the what, the why, the how, for it is those questions that bring about purpose, and a human with purpose is far more daunting a force than any malevolent creature of the Underworld.

Thus, the pity Felix once felt morphed into a sort of admiration, and so he asks himself: would he have preferred being born a human? His time would be profoundly shorter, yes, but mortality seems to him to be a motivator like no other, so then perhaps he would be less passive in his existence. More prone to stress, certainly. As a human, Felix supposes he would be entirely different.

But Felix likes being Felix, and so he concludes: no. He doesn’t think he should like to have been born a human. Felix is a sex faerie, and he embraces himself with as much love as he affords others. He respects humans, venerates them in his own way; the way a sex faerie does best and as is expected of them. There might be nothing especially unique about being a sex faerie, nothing woefully poetic or beautifully futile, but Felix is fine with that. His kind are high in number, saturating the Underworld so that individuality from the legion is near impossible, and aside from that being part of the reason Felix absconded to the mortal realm at all, he also finds comfort in it. No doubt he’d be mocked for that if his kin ever found out, but still; he thinks it’s not so daft to imagine one of his own is never too far away, and in turn, a connection to home.

Unlike demons, faeries do no active harm. In truth, they’re a closer relation to imps than Felix would ever admit; irritating things, as he finds them. Regardless, sex faeries are—as their namesake suggests—more inclined to erotic pursuits than those of overt mischief (though Felix has his fair share of that). He is inherently appealing to humans, as are all of his kind. In his presence even the coldest of them will become wonderfully ingratiating, the most miserable will belly laugh and find a sincere smile. He doesn’t truly understand it—the logistics or the science, if indeed there is any—but he has heard others call it a form of ‘bewitchment’. Nonetheless, sex faeries are compelled to give the very best of themselves, to forage from humans the keys to their individual utopias, for no two are ever the same.

In short: he lives to fuck. Waxing poetic about it is just part of the fun.

Even so and with compulsions set aside, Felix does a stalwart job of keeping himself in check. He gives himself away, willingly and with no expectation of return, because that is who he is. It is his purpose to make love, yet within that lies the most crucial of caveats: it is his purpose to make love, it is not his purpose to love.

His attachment to any human lasts only for as long as it takes to see them to their Elysium, after which he keeps the experience with him—avid collector that he is—until the next such rendezvous. He respects humans, loves them in the way an owner would love their bedraggled and weary old pet; life wouldn’t be the same without them. But again: Felix does a stalwart job of keeping himself in check.

Until he met Hwang Hyunjin.

He only wanted to mitigate the guilt Minho would inevitably come into if he were to see through his plans for the young attorney, for as much as the lust demon pretends otherwise, Felix knows he feels it all. More fool him for getting involved. Though in fairness to his reasoning at the time, it’s not like this has ever happened before. That is, falling in love.

The plan was simple: Felix was to track him down, (a simple case of following him home from work), introduce himself by usual way of flattery, and bewitch him. He knew it wouldn’t be a typical ‘in-and out’, so to speak; his influence needed to be stronger this time, enough so to convince the man never to return to work, perhaps move out of the city if he knew what was good for him. Felix considered that it wasn’t so ethical, to manipulate someone that way, but when also considering the alternative—that being the removal of his mortal soul at the hands of an aggrieved lust demon—he supposed he would ultimately be forgiven. Either way, all of this just meant that he would have stick around longer; expose the man to his appeals for an extended period to ensure his instructions stuck.

Hyunjin had taken the bus home that night. Felix rode in the very back row of seats, toned down in both appearance and attitude in order to blend in seamlessly with the commuters; though that still didn’t spare him from the occasional double take. He examined Hyunjin as though he were a specimen; in a way, he was. The back of his dark, silky head, the broad expanse of his shoulders, the way he nodded gently along to whatever was bleeding through his earphones.

“His background check pulled up some shady stuff,” Minho had said. Felix struggled to imagine it, and he spent the whole bus ride trying. Drugs? Not likely; his skin was too clear for a user and if he were dealing he’d have no need of a low-level job like the one he was in. Robbery? Perhaps, Felix thought. He was tall, looked strong; there was potential to intimidate if a balaclava was pulled over his kind eyes and plush pout. Murder? Felix laughed inwardly at that one.

After twenty minutes of introspection, the bus stopped. Felix recognised the area as being mostly residential, home to old and new build apartment blocks packed closely together and the occasional well placed corner shop. It was far enough away from the city centre that it felt quiet, but close enough to be a desirable location. Hyunjin rose to get off; Felix did the same. Careful to maintain a respectable distance between them, Felix followed him through the shadowy streets, bundled in his big hoodie both to protect from the frigid night chill—Felix never did enjoy cold climes—and to disguise his presence. The more unassuming, the better. Lit by pools of fluorescence from the tall streetlamps, the occasional crunch of dried leaf underfoot, Felix swallowed down his trepidation. He wasn’t usually so furtive as this, preferring to be more direct in his approach to and dealings with humans, but he reminded himself that this was necessary: Hyunjin might be dangerous, after all.

Some minutes of walking passed, Felix easily kept visual track of the man as they ventured further from the main road, to a side street and then to a path that cut through the park. Hyunjin must live in the complex on the other side, Felix supposed, and so quickened his pace as the tall man disappeared through the park gates, into the blackness beyond.

It was unnaturally sudden, the way Hyunjin managed to lose him. In the next moment Felix could see nothing but the gravel path stretching out ominously, the gently swaying bushes and foliage hedging either side. Lavender eyes wide and absorbing, Felix felt he couldn’t have gone far, and so jogged down the path. Distant footsteps crunched ahead of him; lanterns impaled to the grass lawns did little to illuminate anything, woefully dull in their gleaming, but still, the faerie persevered.

He followed the footsteps, held his own breath. A gelid breeze swept through the nature, carrying the scent of human like the wafting aroma of a tempting treat. Felix shivered, both from the chill and the reminder that he was soon to indulge should all go as planned. He wondered what Hyunjin would sound like; would his voice be as pleasing as his aesthetic?

Yet Felix was allowed little time to speculate.

It happened too quickly for him to react: a rustle of movement from behind him, his throat clasped tightly by a forearm that yanked him back into a strong embrace. Less fearful was the attack than the something cool that pressed to his temple; metallic on his skin. Felix swallowed the scream erupting in his throat with the large hand that slapped across his mouth. A voice, menacingly calm, spoke in his ear:

“You’re following me.”

Huh, Felix thought. That’s what he sounds like.

“I— I wasn’t—”

“In case it was unclear,” Hyunjin interrupted, “I’m holding a gun to your head.”

He removed the pressure from Felix’s temple and waved a sleek, black 9mm Glock in front of his eyes, putting it back in position. Point made; Felix supposed.

“So how about we try that again?” Hyunjin asked softly.

“Alright,” the faerie croaked, “maybe I was following you, but it’s not what you think.”

Hyunjin’s grip around his throat tightened, forearm near crushing his vocal cords. “Who sent you?”

“W— What?”

“Who fucking sent you?” Hyunjin seethed, applying more force to the barrel of the Glock.

“N— Nobody! Nobody sent me, let me go and I'll just explain—”

“Was it Ahearn? How did he find me?” the man pressed frantically.

Felix thought it was pointless to keep pleading his case; every word he said only seemed to rile him further, and he didn’t know him nearly well enough to be sure of what might bring him down to a level where they could engage in actual conversation.

And so, Felix supposed he was left only one option. An unpleasant one, but his only one.

With a concentration of will and focus, Felix embraced his true self. The world expanded exponentially as he abruptly shrunk down to the size of a thimble, the change so swift it made Felix’s head hurt and ears pop, his coherence spinning on an axis of dangerous change. He preferred slower transformations where he could afford them; it always took some time to acclimatise to the new proportions, both mentally and physically. Hyunjin stumbled backwards amongst the puff of glittery mist that often accompanies the sprouting of Felix’s wings, cursing indiscriminately.

Felix took to upwards flight, perching on the lowest branch of the nearest tree, hugging the divots of the bark as closely as he could. When the mystic dust settled and Hyunjin was well enough within sight, the faerie stole his chance. Springing from the branch and with all the finesse befitting his tiny size, he swarmed the man in erratic paths, drawing his eye to where it couldn’t quite focus.

“What the fuck—” Hyunjin swore furiously, arms flailing.

With him adequately disoriented, Felix dove from a height, straight towards the arm that held the gun. The intent was only to disarm; to make it safe enough so that a conversation could be had (in addition to some serious explaining). Yet with Hyunjin’s panic his grip on the gun only tightened, Felix’s weaving and calling for his attention having much the opposite effect.

A gunshot rang through the night, alarmingly clear. Though the bullet missed him by a mile, Felix felt the force of reverberation in his small bones, the ripple through the disturbed air and the pungent stench of frazzled gunpowder knocking him off balance. His head throbbed, as did his entire body when his wings retracted in fright and he plummeted towards the ground, bouncing from the gravel path. Dazed and in every imaginable kind of agony, Felix could only submit as he was scooped up in large hands.

Hyunjin seemed so much bigger like this, and indeed, he was. The man could have swallowed him whole and not so much as felt a tickle, and Felix would have been powerless to stop it. This is what you get for interfering, the faerie thought as two large, brown eyes inspected him with unabashed curiosity.

“What... are you?”

Felix sighed. This was not how he’d wanted tonight to go. “Does it matter? Just get it over with.”

Hyunjin blinked at him thoughtfully. “Get what over with?”

“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”

“And why would I do that?”

Felix stopped short, stuck for a response. There was no reason the man should like to kill him, he thought, with all notion of threat now removed.

“Put me down,” the faerie demanded, scrambling to his feet, balancing on the ridges of Hyunjin’s palm.

“Are you going to swarm me again?”

“Depends. Are you going to try and shoot me again?”

Hyunjin’s face contorted uncomfortably. “I wasn’t trying to— That was an accident.”

Slowly, Hyunjin bent down to the gravel path, holding his hands flat for the faerie to hop off and gather himself. Unstable underfoot and still a little groggy, Felix composed himself as best he could, once more gathering concentration; focusing.

When the world was right again, and his proportions readjusted to a size more fitting the circumstance, Felix supposed this couldn’t have gone much worse had he actively tried to make it so. Whether out of necessity or not, he’d shown his hand in the first round, and now the man he was supposed to simply bewitch into doing his bidding was staring at him openly, inquisitively, expectantly. With dainty wings retracted and hair smoothed back into place, Felix rubbed his scuffed hands on his jeans.

He approached the waiting man with the right one outstretched and said quite plainly, “I’m Felix. I’m a faerie. I was following you because I need you to leave Help, Heart and Justice and possibly the city altogether. I was going to make you do that. With my powers. I guess.”

Hyunjin balked, eyes rounding into saucers and jaw slacking. Felix anticipated one of several reactions: disbelief, certainly. Anger, maybe. Hysteria, if Hyunjin was the kind of person whose mind rather melted when faced with the impossibilities of the supernatural.

Yet there was none of that. Hyunjin took a moment or two of comprehension, and as they passed, Felix was quite mystified by the ornery grin that crossed the man’s lips, the light of excitement that flickered in his previously heavy eyes. The man opened his thick coat and sharply tucked the Glock inside the leather holster strapped to his chest, concealed by a bigger suit jacket. He stepped forward; Felix faltered. Something about the sudden confidence seemed to overshadow his own, making him feel inexplicably smaller. Felix had never felt small before—never in the psychological, inferior sense. Hyunjin loomed; he slipped his hand into the faerie’s.

“I’m Hyunjin,” he said coolly. “I’m ex-mafia. I carry a gun because I'm eternally paranoid about my old life catching up with me. I've no intentions of leaving the city; I only just got here. The job I could maybe stand to lose.”

Hyunjin stepped forward once more, in the same motion bringing Felix a measure closer by a gentle tug on his hand. Felix’s chest lurched and swelled with giddy jitters; he was very aware Hyunjin was not a typical human; this was not a typical encounter.

The man leaned down to Felix’s sensitive, slightly pointed ear, eliciting the tenderest of whispers, “But I'll hear you out, little faerie Felix.”

Hyunjin said Felix’s name like his tongue invented the very sound. Creatures of the Underworld are often sensitive to their names—they hold power, after all, in all things—but this felt like something new. Something the faerie couldn’t contain in a single thought. Warmth rolled about in Felix’s stomach, and as the two of them shook gentle hands on the gravel path in the chilly, badly lit park, he quietly considered that he might have bitten off more than he could chew.

And he was right.

Just over two weeks later, and here he dances with him. In the elegant main hall of the Constellation Hotel, held close to Hyunjin’s warmth as he leads them in a slow, lazy sway to the smooth jazz.

Felix knows how he got here; he can sequence the events, the words, the reasons that led him to this very moment in this very room with this very man. Yet still, it feels so removed from reality. Coasting in a sea of formal dancers, they bob along as though they are one of them; as though they’re normal. Felix supposes they’re anything but.

He looks up at the man that turned his life inside out; he’s dashing in a two-piece Gucci suit, his dark hair slicked back smartly, the ends sitting barely above his broad shoulders. He's thoroughly relaxed, rocking back and forth with his hand secure on Felix’s waist, eyes distant and focusing only when he catches his partner’s gaze.

He smiles softly. “What is it, love?”

Felix shrugs. He hasn’t the words to adequately explain how he’s feeling, though he knows Hyunjin would love him to try.

“Still feeling guilty?”

Felix scoffs gently. He’d be startled if it were anyone else, but Hyunjin seems to read him with an uncanny adeptness; one that would have Felix assuming the man is of otherworldly origins himself if he didn’t know better.

“I’m trying not to,” the faerie sighs. “I wanted tonight to be fun.”

“It is fun.”

“You’re having fun?”

“I’m with you, love. That’s plenty fun for me.”

Felix rolls his eyes, but can’t deny the way his heart clenches. Hyunjin chuckles quietly, drawing the faerie closer into his arms.

“You’ve nothing to feel guilty about,” he murmurs. “So long as Minho believes I’m out of his team and out of his way, that’s all that matters.”

“It’s not all that matters, Jin. I lied to him.”

“You told a white lie to protect me, and to make him feel better. I really don’t think that counts as such a gratuitous sin.”

“But he—”

Hyunjin pulls back a measure, taking Felix's chin by thumb and forefinger. “He believes you bewitched me, yes? That I'm no threat now?”

“You never were—”

“No, I never was, but I can see how a few cautions and an old arrest warrant might raise some red flags with someone who cares as much about their job as he does. I can’t run from my past, love. No matter how I try. His opinion of me won’t be changed, you said so yourself. Better to have him believe that I'm subdued, that you have me, that I'm a problem solved.”

Felix sags under the weight of it all. He knows Hyunjin to be right, of course, but even that knowledge doesn't seem to alleviate him of the frustration. Minho is his good, dear friend, but so deep do his prejudices run where criminality is concerned that not even Felix can see a way they could ever reasonably coexist; Minho will never accept Hyunjin as Felix’s lover. Only as his victim.

“Must we pretend forever?” Felix mumbles dejectedly.

“No,” Hyunjin shakes his head. “Only when we’re around him, and only for as long as you want me.”

“For as long as I want you?” the faerie repeats incredulously. “Are you suggesting there’ll be a time when I won’t?”

“Maybe. You never know. You are a sex faerie.”

Felix clutches Hyunjin’s lapel tightly. “I do know. I want you beside me always, sex faerie or not. Don’t make me actually bewitch you.”

Hyunjin grins, bright and free. “You're adorable when you’re possessive.”

Felix melts inside; he draws closer to his lover, resting his cheek on his chest, quietly counting the strong thuds of his heartbeat. They sway slowly, once more adrift in the sea of dancers that surround them. Felix supposes it’s not all so bad; it can’t be, when he’s allowed moments of tranquillity like this.

“I’m glad you found me,” Hyunjin sighs softly, pressing a kiss to Felix’s crown.

“My precious little faerie.”

***

Rainy nights are truly among your favourite things.

The unforgiving downpour streaks the windows of the twenty-fifth floor, slicing the panorama of the city to odd distortion, reflecting the red and white of traffic, the amber of the street. Puddles ripple far below, gathering high in the gutters of the kerbs, spraying to the pavement when cars tread through them at high speed. It’s quiet inside, the distant tip-tap of a keyboard is a pleasant accompaniment to the sound of the exterior elements; though perhaps it is the tip-tapper of the keyboard that brings you such warmth as opposed to the tip-tap itself. 

Your name is called. “Can you come in here please?”

Several minutes shy of eight o'clock in the evening, and your esteemed team leader calls for your assistance.

His office door stays open now; from the minute the office empties out until the hour has grown too late to justify overtime; and there is plenty of that these days. Never has business been so lucrative, never has there been more to do, and with such a ramping up of cases across the board comes the inevitable extra hours.

But you’ve never particularly minded those; not then, not now. Especially not now. Not when he leaves his door wide open, just in case. Not when he always stays, just as long as you do. Not when he grows impatient and demands you finish up tomorrow, just because he’s dying to take you home.

Strolling to his office and popping your head through the open door, you expect to see the usual scene: Minho surfacing from a pile of papers and documents, discombobulated but with not a hair out of place.

“What’s all this?” you ask, stepping over the threshold.

The office has been rearranged: the shallow table has been dragged from its corner position to in front of the sofa, covered with a makeshift cloth made from... A4 paper and staples? You chuckle quietly, intrigued. Plates fashioned from cardboard document wallets have been rudimentarily cut into shape and placed on the table, yellow post-it notes stuck to the paper, intended for use as coasters for flimsy plastic cups from the water cooler. A collection of crisps and snacks is gathered in the centre of it all: Walkers, Wotsits, two Snickers bars and a packet of Maltesers. Minho stands proudly beside it, a smarmy grin on his face.

“It’s dinner.”

You quirk a brow at him. “Dinner, huh?”

Minho nods, looks down at his display. “You like it?”

“I mean, am I fifteen? Because that was the last time I think ate a vending machine dinner.”

“We’re reliving your youth,” he shrugs, approaching you.

You shudder exaggeratedly. “My youth is not a time I'm immediately keen to relive, actually.”

Minho hums softly, gathering you in his arms. You’re quick to acquiesce; as you always are. Being so close to him all day yet unable to touch, or kiss, or do much more than pine is a unique brand of frustration.

You look up at him; at his plush lips, his gently smouldering eyes. He doesn’t bother to hide the crimson in them now; arguably, he can’t. You’re glad of that. He presses a tender kiss to your lips; chaste, lingering. Wanting.

“I promised I’d take you,” he whispers when he reluctantly pulls away.

“You did?”

“Mhm. Don’t you remember?”

You cast your mind back twelve weeks; to a sandwich destroyed, to a doughnut refused, to a coffee mistakenly drunk. To a dinner invitation, lost among the chaos.

“Oh,” you sound in realisation. “That?”

Minho nods, arms clasped around your waist, taking to a gentle sway.

“I mean, technically you didn’t promise anything.”

“My word is as good as my promise,” he scowls softly. “Besides, I want to take you out properly. Show you off a little.”

You suppose you can’t argue with that too much.

“Just maybe... after?” he adds.

You sink into his arms, winding your own around his warm middle, ear to his broad chest. After is fine, you suppose. Things are so hectic—have been since the office party—neither of you had much of a chance to breathe, let alone make your continued affair official. The difference being, of course, that it feels official now. Minho isn’t distance, nor is he careful. He’s all in, just for you, and you’re happy to keep him like that.

He squeezes you gently. “I was hoping this would do in the meantime.”

“I love it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You’re adorable.”

“You think I'm adorable?” he scoffs, the dusting of blush on his cheeks betraying his true thoughts on the endearment.

“Of course. I wouldn’t be fucking you if I didn’t think I could coddle you,” you shrug.

Minho mumbles something incoherent, drawing you close.

“Speaking of dinner,” you poke him gently, “have you eaten?”

He nods, grimacing on your raising of the subject. He never likes talking about it; you make sure he does anyway, if only to remind him that you’ll never hold it—any of it—against him.

“The criminal?”

“Sweetheart—”

“I want to know,” you press firmly. “Please.”

He sighs a surrender, nodding again. “The criminal. Just like the last time, and the time before that.”

“So, you’re good for a little while?”

“Four weeks. Like always.”

“Did Felix...?”

“Yeah. He helped.”

“Good. That's good. You need to learn to ask for that.”

Minho softens; his eyes crease gently; his lips turn up in a smile. “I’m trying, baby.”

You crane up on your tiptoes, gift him a gentle kiss; one that deepens with heat and longing. “I know.”

Twenty minutes later, and the dinner remains untouched. Held close in strong arms and with the clammy stick of glass to your naked back, Minho drives a deeper form of love inside you, thick and fast. Unrelenting even when you cry a desperate, straining groan under his momentous size, his pulsing release, for Minho loves to hurt you in just the right way; the pleasurable way, the way that reminds you of his true nature and all the things you have in this world, the real world.

Indeed, the harder and truer he fucks you, the more distant a memory the dreams of the night seem to be.

The lashing rain pounds against the window of Minho’s office, reverberating soundlessly. Protected from the droplets that would otherwise seek to chill your exposed spine as Minho uses you to his own relief, it is the droplets from the front—his sweat, his exertion, the saltine tears of delirious pleasure he blinks through—that claim your state of mind.

Indeed: rainy nights are truly among your favourite things. Even more so when spent with one you love.

“You’ll always be cursed with the dreams, sweet thing,” Minho once told you.

“That’s fine,” you curled into him, you smiled.

You felt the radiance of love make you sure and certain.

“So long as you’re always here to make them come true.”

𝙙𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙢𝙮 𝙙𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝙢𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧-𝙛𝙪𝙘𝙠𝙚𝙧 𝙨𝙦𝙪𝙞𝙨𝙝 𝙣𝙤𝙢, 𝙬𝙝𝙤𝙢 𝙞 𝙖𝙙𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙗𝙚𝙮𝙤𝙣𝙙 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙤𝙣. 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙨𝙝𝙤𝙧𝙩 (𝙗𝙮 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙨𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙤 𝙢𝙮 𝙩𝙮𝙥𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙝𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙧𝙚𝙙-𝙠 𝙢𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙨) 𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙨 𝙝𝙖𝙨 𝙗𝙚𝙚𝙣 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙢𝙮 𝙛𝙖𝙫𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙚 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙨𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙝𝙤 𝙩𝙤 𝙬𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙚, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙛𝙚𝙡𝙞𝙭 𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙮𝙚𝙙 𝙞𝙣 𝙞𝙩, 𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙖 𝙙𝙚𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩. 𝙗𝙤𝙧𝙣 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙮𝙚𝙩 𝙖𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙗𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙛 𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙖 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙨𝙥𝙞𝙧𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙙 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙡, 𝙞 𝙩𝙤𝙤𝙠 𝙜𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙩 𝙟𝙤𝙮 𝙞𝙣 𝙗𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙮 𝙩𝙤 𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙚 𝙖𝙨 𝙗𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙞 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙. 𝙞 𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙘𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙡𝙮 𝙝𝙤𝙥𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙨𝙝𝙤𝙬𝙨. 𝙖𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙧𝙞𝙨𝙠 𝙤𝙛 𝙨𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙖 𝙘𝙡𝙞𝙘𝙝é 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙤𝙣, 𝙞 𝙨𝙪𝙥𝙥𝙤𝙨𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙗𝙞𝙜𝙜𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙖𝙬𝙖𝙮 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙩𝙖𝙡𝙚 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙨𝙞𝙢𝙥𝙡𝙮 𝙗𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙨𝙚𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙘𝙝 𝙞𝙨 𝙧𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙞𝙣 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙣𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪. 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙢𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙟𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙙 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙨𝙚𝙚𝙠. (𝙤𝙧 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙢𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙙 𝙖 𝙡𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙙𝙚𝙢𝙤𝙣 𝙢𝙤𝙤𝙣𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙖𝙨 𝙖𝙣 𝙖𝙩𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙣𝙚𝙮; 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙖 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙘𝙡𝙖𝙞𝙢𝙚𝙧!) ♡

𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚, 𝙧𝙚𝙗𝙡𝙤𝙜, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙨 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙢𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙞𝙣 𝙖𝙣 𝙖𝙨𝙠 ♡

< 𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙤𝙪𝙨 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧

[jl-micasea-fics]

Something In The Rain | lmh

❝𝐃𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐦𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬.❞

↳ Chapter 3/4 of Something In The Rain. Inside the polished walls of Help, Heart and Justice Limited, you work under the guidance of enigmatic senior attorney Lee Minho to support him and his legal team. And perhaps under all the professionalism, feelings stray, yet you're committed to keeping said feelings buried whilst you pine from afar. Until an act of kindness on a dark, rainy evening turns everything upside down; for even the most put together of men must indulge their demonic appetites.

↳ Lee Know x female reader

↳ 10k

↳ Supernatural au, strangers/colleagues to lovers, office romance, lust demon Lee Know, eventual smut

! Explicit content, adult themes, suitable for 18+ readers only !

「Chapter 1」 「Contents List」 「© June 2023 by jl-micasea-fics」

Minho’s taste for alcohol has waned over the many decades of his life, yet tonight, he indulges.

Observing the quiet flicker of city lights from his twenty-fifth-floor office, he finds a moment of serenity in the continuation of life around him. It’s a reminder that no matter how bogged down he’s been in the disasters of his small world the last few days, they probably won’t spell the end of it.

Forearm poised on the glass, he looks down at the distant street, the warmth of his breath fogging the surface. Humans no larger than ants go about their business, oblivious to the plights of others.

Just as she remains oblivious to his.

Though Minho supposes that’s not so entirely true now. After yesterday’s run-in it’s clear that she suspects something is off, which is riskier than he typically likes to play things. Not that he’s playing at anything other than trying to come to terms with the fact that he’ll be devouring her sooner or later, when her soul is ripe for the picking and he can no longer resist the call of hunger.

For now, he’s doing what he can to combat it. Redelegation of duties was the start of that, reducing her role in an attempt to limit their interactions wherever possible. A touch unprofessional, perhaps, but at this point he’ll try anything, and she seems to be taking it on the chin. Today, at least, passed with no event, their communication consisting entirely of the written word, blunt in nature; though Minho suspects a boozy night might account for her docility in that regard, as acclaimed to by the conversation he overheard her having with Jisung where she confessed to such.

He supposes it says something that her distance has only further soured his mood; he’s craving the smell of jasmine.

“Goodness. Particularly broody tonight, aren’t we?”

Minho doesn’t startle, because nothing much gets to him anymore. He simply sighs, swilling the remnants of aged Lagavulin around the short crystal glass in his free hand.

“Drinking too?” Felix coos, crossing the office to pick up the tall amber bottle, nose wrinkling as he reads the label. “Who died?”

“Stick around and you’ll find out,” the elder grumbles.

Felix tuts. “Now, now. Let’s not forget which sex faerie did the mean old lust demon a big favour. You should be a little nicer to me.”

Minho supposes he’s right, even if said favour was unsolicited. “Sorry,” he acquiesces. “I’m just... tired.”

“Mhm. The girl?”

Minho’s silence speaks for him, his forehead finding the cool glass. He feels Felix’s warming presence, the faerie reclining at his side, back to the window as he swigs the expensive liquor straight from the bottle.

“You know, my previous idea still stands,” he says roughly. “You should just take a peek.”

“At her dreams?”

Felix nods, lips pursed in an assessing pout.

“And in what way would that help anything?” the elder sighs at the repetition of advice.

“Well, for one, it’ll help you stop pining.”

“I’m not pining—”

“It seems to me like you’re majorly disillusioned with this chick. Seeing what it is she truly lusts after might just pop that bubble, you know? She could be into some insanely freaky shit that turns you clean off.”

Minho highly doubts that; he’s not sure there's anything could put him off that way. Kind of comes with the territory.

“It’ll also make you feel less shitty about having to eat her,” the blonde adds nonchalantly. “Invading her privacy, discovering all her darkest secrets, consuming her earthly soul to forever trap her in the Underworld; once you’ve crossed one line, the others are irrelevant, right?”

“Felix,” Minho turns to him, gently takes the bottle from his hand. “I am incredibly fucking tired.”

“Oh, okay, so what? Is my advice no good to you anymore?”

Minho’s head throbs, his jaw is tight with stress from the dull day and of overthinking every little thing. Pair that with the grating discomfort of his growing appetite, and he’s not sure how much longer is fraying self-control will hold out.

“Don’t you have an elsewhere to be?” he asks, as polite a sign to ‘fuck off’ as he can manage in his mood.

Felix huffs in displeasure, his stamping of feet and indignant shaking out of shoulders giving birth to fragile wings that puff out amongst a glittery pink cloud.

“Fine. I’ll remember this,” he marches over to the openable window, unhooking the latch to invite a momentous gust of wind inside. “Don’t come running to me when you’re too ridden with guilt to get it up!”

And with that, the faerie disappears, a fanciful exit made just in time to avoid Minho’s launching of the liquor bottle his way, the strong glass thumping uselessly off the wall to land on the carpet. As the bottle rolls back and forth, expelling its strong contents in a feeble trickle, Minho deposits himself in his desk chair.

“Fuck.”

Closing his eyes brings no relief from the aching nag; the one that whispers Felix’s suggestion might just be one to consider.

But he can’t, he tells himself. He’s gone all these decades, so many victims without ever being tempted to do so and is quietly proud of that; others of his kind don’t practice nearly so much restraint, are thrilled by the active involvement in the preparation of their victims. Minho rejected that path a long time ago, is annoyed that now he’s even thinking about it, but if he’s being entirely truthful with himself and his wants...

It’s just that he’s never been desirous of one of his victims before.

This situation he finds himself in is unprecedented, and therefore perhaps calls for equally as unprecedented an action. To do the usual when the circumstance is explicitly unusual seems an irrational way to approach things; is he not a creature of adaptation? Has he not had to do just that over the centuries to keep up with mortals and their ephemeral world?

Felix might be on to something, he quietly reasons. Looking in on her dreams might be the thing to expunge him of the guilt he bears for cursing her, for allowing their professional relationship to morph into something too awkward to fix whilst shutting down the budding of their personal one.

Minho’s not used to making bad decisions. He doesn’t know what they feel like, and so supposes that the foreign way his gut tightens and skin prickles as he resigns himself to what he’s about to do must be indicative of just that; a bad fucking decision.

He’ll take just a peek. The briefest, most insignificant of glances. It’ll count for nothing, probably yield nothing, breach nothing that he should seek penance for.

Before he can put further thought into it, he’s going about the motions of shifting, the initiation of which comes from nothing more complicated than a desire to possess the freedom of flight. From the image of a man to that of blackest raven, his form shrinks and skin sprouts feathers, wings bulge and fan out to carry him through the window Felix left open, though his exit be for an altogether different purpose.

Soaring through midnight sky, between buildings and amongst wisps of faint cloud, Minho knows his destination well enough. With beady eyes that see monochromatically, the city below is a fisheye distortion; a good thing then that his reflexes are equally as transformed as his appearance, for he navigates with no issue.

Some moments and miles later when the city cluster has dispersed to more suburban appeals, Minho sights her apartment. He knows which window will allow him the best view—this isn’t his first foray—and so perches atop an outcropping branch not too far from it. A hop and readjustment of stance allow him to keep his balance, taloned feet wound tight around the wood, and so he focuses once more.

Her curtains are wide open, as he hoped they’d be. Indeed, her drawing of the fabric would have spelled the end of this venture altogether, for seeing her is of the utmost necessity if he wishes to see beyond her.

On the other occasions he’s done this—of which there have been a dozen or so—the intention was only to watch over her. To give him the chance to ascertain the nature of his feelings for the girl, the hope being that observing her in moments of complete vulnerability would stir the truest of his urges, and he found them to be ones of affectionate desire.

She is usually well kept for bed; tucked in tightly and of peaceful composure, but tonight seems different. The book in her hands has fallen slack and to the duvet with the encroaching call of her weariness, her bedside lamp remains lit to offer the room an amber hue of warmth. She sleeps propped up with chin tucked to her neck, and Minho wishes he could her situate her the way she should be; the way he desires to.

The wintry night air kicks up a breeze that billows through the treetop, jostles the branch he sits on. Haste is of the essence, he’s reminded, and so he engages in exactly what it is he came here for.

He observes her slumbering state, brings her physical image to the forefront of his mind. A moment of concentration with raven eyes held shut tight attunes him to what lies within the physical, beyond it, to the soul that exists in a dreamlike dimension; the soul tainted with his demon blood and thus easy to detect.

When Minho opens his eyes again, he is a bystander. A being of incorporeal presentation, a visitor to the realm he invades with no more impact on it than a passing breath would have. The space he finds himself in is familiar; this is the office of Help, Heart and Justice, yet it is different, as such places are when distorted by the impossibility of dreams. The walls slant at uncomfortable angles and the floor beneath his feet—for he has returned to form of man here—peaks and troughs to hilly, grey carpeted terrain. The desks are supported on stilts that twirl quietly in place, like the red and white attractive cane of a barber’s shop, they rise easily to Minho’s height. The office is both light and dark, surrounding windows reveal a fantastic cityscape beyond, the left-hand side caught in the rapturous orange and pink of a summer sunrise, the right-hand diminishing of colour to welcome sunset’s grey gloom.

There is no one around that he can detect, yet the shadow of movement across the frosted glass of his office door catches his peripheral vision. He is drawn to it, is certain in the knowledge that she is here somewhere, for he wouldn’t be if she weren’t. Over a steep incline of carpet he treads towards his office, careful with his footing until he is on level ground. Hand poised over the knob to step inside, he pauses, picking up the faintest of sounds from beyond it. There is a woman’s voice; her voice, and another that replies, and it is this voice that gives rise to quiet panic.

He reminds himself he is no more important than a ghost in this place; no matter what his anxieties tell him, he can intrude with no risk, and so he enters the room.

The immediate scene is more disconcerting than that of the one outside, for there are no discernible differences between this office and the one he knows to be reality. Indeed, it is identical in presentation and feeling, which is in itself a conundrum Minho can’t fathom. The realistic, the logical, the sensible are out of place here, which can only mean its existence is deliberate; she dreams of this, specifically, as it is.

He steps inside to close the door behind him, assesses the space with some trepidation. He knows well enough to do away with expectations when venturing like this; he can’t possibly predict what he’ll find.

Yet he was so certain it wouldn’t be this.

She sits at his desk; in his chair, in a state of utter dishevelment. Her workwear is ragged, blouse torn loose at shoulder and breast to reveal skin beneath, as though a rabid wolf has done its part on her. Though she herself seems far from distressed, reclining comfortably, complexion flushed a shade of fluster that makes Minho feel inappropriate for even seeing it. He follows the line of her body; her legs are parted, her heels braced against the sturdy edge of his desk, her pencil skirt drawn up to higher part of thigh.

And she breathes out on a salacious groan, “Oh, Minho, fuck—”

The man’s heart all but stops.

While taking in the scene one fragment at a time, on her slip it appears to come together as one technicolour image playing out before him. She draws tight and squirms in place, her hands finding grip amongst a head of soft honey-toned hair that sits neatly between her thighs.

Minho knows it by the way every one of his nerves fire off with white-hot zeal at once; this man on his knees in deep, delicious cunnilingual worship of her, is him.

She's dreaming of him.

He can't deny it, for it’s right here in front of him. Can’t speculate as to what it means or read between the lines to find some vague inference, because the lines are so melded together they form a fucking wall that shows the message in neon and capital, bright and clear.

He watches as dream-Minho devours her, brings her to orgasm, delights in the sounds she makes and the way she entreats him for more, please God, more. Dream-Minho is exactly as the man himself is; in stature and character, appearance and voice, for Minho knows he would undertake such a lustful task with the same level of enthusiasm as this product of her subconscious want.

Pulse thundering through his ears to debilitating effect, Minho can feel nothing much more than the blood rushing south. He supposes this confirms that the petty office rumours concerning her affections were neither petty nor rumours at all, and now he can be sure that his feelings are reciprocated, that he wasn’t of delusional mind to think that her lingering looks were reflective of more than vague interest. He wonders how long she’s wanted him this way for; since their working together started? For only the last few weeks? Since he asked to dinner, even? Doubtful, he thinks, for the magnitude of the desire he bears witness to could only be the product of such long simmering yearning.

He gets closer, the irrelevance of his presence allowing him such an indulgence. At the other side of the desk he stands, the repositioning granting an uninhibited view of her. This is a dream, he mantras, and in dreams we manifest the most physically perfect version of ourselves; he is careful to bear in mind that while he sees her, this isn’t her. Soft, beauteously wet and delicate as dream-Minho opens her up with his tongue.

Fuck. Minho hasn’t felt the true spur of sexual want in an unthinkably long time. Nothing is ever enough, and when it is he deems it too much, thereby gratuitous, and so doesn’t feel the need to entertain it. But this?

This is everything. She is everything.

Yet everything is also changed.

What is Minho to do with this new information? Regardless of want, their fate is sealed, her demise at Minho’s hand already guaranteed. To act on anything he’s learned now would be purely selfish. Even if he desires to make her carnal dreams a reality (for ability was never in question, Minho could show her things that would melt her mortal mind), even if she wants it, it would surely be bad form when he knows their end to be so bleak. There is no future for them, no chance at anything more. He is going to consume her, one way or the other; to play with his food so basely would be truly demonic.

Felix would probably encourage it all the same. He’d claim that the demon would be making her last days of life a dream in and of themselves by engaging in her fantasies, and perhaps there would be some truth to that.

All of this to say that Minho now knows one thing beyond any doubt: he accidentally cursed the girl he craves.

Little did he know, she craves him too.

***

You dreamt against last night.

Just as strongly did you feel it, just as vividly do you remember it. Even the subject was the same; Minho, though the events were decidedly more involved than the first. So involved, in fact, a cold shower took place of your usual warm one this morning, its chilling effect a welcome salve to the want that burned hot under your skin.

Purging the memory of Minho between your thighs won’t come quite so easily, you feel.

“Hey.”

Jisung’s approach is relatively welcome, which if nothing else, is a change from the usual. Pre-Minho fallout you were so bogged down with work you hadn’t the time or patience to entertain his ramblings, but following the abrupt redistribution of work, you find yourself with time to spare.

“What’s up?” you turn to him, closing the digital game of solitaire.

The blonde attorney is run ragged, that much is clear from the state of him. He could hardly have slept, you speculate, telling from the dark bags under his eyes and the knots in his hair, normally so fluffed and pristine.

“I know I'm not supposed to ask you for help, but—”

“You’re not supposed to?” you repeat incredulously. “Why not?”

Jisung blinks, lids heavy. “I just, uh... it’s just that Minho said not to bother you, so—”

Irritation kicks in your chest; you wonder if he’s instructed Seungmin the same way. A few days ago you’d have thought it wildly unlike him to be capable of such petty office politics, but it seems your run-in with the man has yielded more pernicious effects than you could have known.

“I can help, Jisung. What is it?” you reassure him, sans the attitude. Visibly relieved, Jisung clumsily hands you the leather binder in his arms; one of four he’s juggling.

“Could you give this to him for me? It's the case notes for that anti-harassment injunction, he wanted me to mark them up for him—”

“He asked you to do that?”

“Yeah.”

A stroke of annoyance locks your jaw; you resist the urge to take it out on the young attorney. It’s not his fault Minho apparently desires to actively do you out of a job.

“I’ll sort it,” you take the binder from him, flicking open the cover to examine the contents. Casting a quick eye through it, you determine that Jisung’s notes are a far cry from your own; there’s no colour coding, no tabbing or the indexing Minho likes. Rather, it’s a chaotic gathering of post-it notes and highlighted lines, a veritable jumble of organisation done by someone who explicitly has no time to organise.

“Thanks, man.” Jisung sighs, already heading off elsewhere.

You consider for all of several seconds redoing the damage to the binder, before reminding yourself that this is Minho’s doing, therefore his mess to suffer. If he wanted a proper job of it, he’d have asked you in the first instance.

Gathering yourself and walking to his office, you suppose it’s inevitable that you should be uneasy. Your last encounter was more than stiff, and to top it off, you’ve the added stress of actively trying not to recall how his plush pout feels on you. A warm throb between your legs accompanies your knocking on his door to a subsequent invitation of entry.

Positioned at his desk in black Armani—a change from the usual, you note—with gold-rimmed glasses balanced on his sharp nose, Minho appears thoroughly absorbed in whatever is on his monitor. He barely acknowledges your entrance, lips pressed tight and brows crimped.

“Is... this a bad time?”

It’s your question that sparks his attentions, head snapping your way. The focus falls from his face to give way to pale discomfiture, as though you’re the very last person he expected—or even wanted—to see.

You cross the room nonetheless, waving the binder as the reason for your intrusion.

“Jisung asked me to give you this.”

Placing it on his desk, Minho does nothing much more than stare. It’s been more than a full day since you were last in his immediate vicinity, and on closer examination, he appears to be a shade removed from his usual pristine self; the whites of his eyes are tinged pink with fatigue, shadowed bags hang under them. That he isn’t the picture-perfect presentation of professionalism is cause for concern enough, yet in nearing his desk you’re brought to even further worry.

“Have you... been drinking in here?” you grimace, hit with a wave of what smells like stale whiskey.

Minho blinks, appears to remember himself as he takes the binder. “Jisung gave you this?” he asks, voice hoarse.

“Yes. Why? Wasn’t he allowed to?”

You appreciate you’re coming at this from a somewhat combative angle, but the deliberate avoidance of your question in addition to his blatant avoidance of you all serve to thin your waning patience.

And again, the man appears to forgo an answer as he simply says, “Thank you. That’ll be all.”

That’ll be all?

No, you think.

That won't be all.

***

“Thank you. That’ll be all.”

Even as Minho says the words, he knows the agitation they instil. Her stance is stiff, defensive, the glare in her eyes is one of resentment that Minho takes full responsibility for. It’s there because he wished it to be; because limiting her duties and thus their interactions was the easiest way to absolve himself of the guilt he feels every time she looks at him.

He thought it might be a relief to have her regard him with contempt for all that, and prior to last night’s discovery, it probably would have been.

Now, it’s not.

She lingers in front of his desk, aggravation rolling from her in warm waves. There is more she wants to say, he feels it, and so when she speaks next, he despairs.

“Why are you doing this to me?”

He can’t entertain this. Not now.

“Please go back to work—”

She interrupts immediately. “You're avoiding me. You’re doing everything possible to make sure we don’t have a reason to speak to each other. You’re telling the others to leave me be—”

“That’s only because I know you're tired,” Minho responds thoughtlessly, his desire to defend himself of that particular observance taking over.

“What?” she balks. “Why would you think that? Do I look tired? Have you heard me saying I'm tired? Because I haven’t, not at all, and I don't think it’s your place to assume anything.”

Minho sags under his own idiocy; he can’t possibly tell her it’s because he knows her dreams of late are of the restless kind. Though, to her credit, she certainly looks well rested.

She sighs, casting a thousand-yard stare out the window, squinting at the clarity of the endless sky.

“Look. The other day, I overstepped. I’m sorry.”

Minho drags his glasses off, pinches the bridge of his nose; an apology from her couldn’t be more extraneous.

“I shouldn’t have pressed you on the coffee thing, or the dinner invitation, or... any of it. I overreacted, and I made things difficult,” she continues. “I want to be a valued member of the team, not an... inconvenience.”

“You are a valued member.”

“Okay, but right now, it doesn't feel like it, and I know that’s probably my fault.”

Part of Minho wishes she’d simply stop talking; the other part wishes to re-enact that which he witnessed the night before; to deposit her in the very chair he sits in, to hike her skirt up her thighs and taste the sweetness of her centre—

Fuck.

“So, can we just...” she gesticulates vaguely, as though incapable of phrasing it, “... I don’t know. Go back to how we were before?”

But there is no going back, and Minho knows it. He made it that way.

Shoving up from his chair, the pace he begins is partly intended as relief from the tantalising scent of jasmine and rain she unknowingly exudes that threatens to drive him even madder, though it also serves as a distraction from his wandering thoughts. Gentle arousal boils inside him; usually able to ignore it in favour of being content in her presence yet knowing what he does now only makes it that much more impossible to combat, because he could.

He could have her. He could just give in. He could cross the line he drew between them so long ago and she wouldn’t push him back.

He could, and she would let him.

“Sir?”

Minho ceases his step, frantic want surging over him at the address. “Do not call me that.”

She blinks, taken aback.

“You’ve never called me that before, why start now?” he presses, exasperated with her, with himself, with it all.

“O— Okay. Sorry?”

“And stop apologising, Jesus.”

The carefully constructed façade of professionalism is dissolving with every second he remains near her. Running his hands through his hair he tugs at his roots, inhales deeply as though to dispel the irate itch.

“What is the matter with you?” she outright asks. “I’m stood here apologising and you’re acting like... I don’t even know, like I've done something awful.”

“But you haven’t done anything!” Minho snaps, the cord on his temper pulled taut. “That’s the whole point! Don’t you see that?!”

“I don’t understand—”

“And there’s nothing I can do to make you understand,” Minho despairs, aware now that he has breached the wall of appearances with her. He looks insane, primarily because he feels fit to be.

“You’re not making any sense,” she exclaims, stepping towards him; by instinct the man recoils, but this doesn’t seem to perturb her any. She frowns, deep set and genuine, a puff of irritation escaping her.

“Enough is enough, Minho.”

He’s inclined to agree, though perhaps not in the same way. It’s in direct spite of the urges that have a vice grip on him that he mutters, “I... I have a meeting. If you’ll excuse me—”

“No.”

He gets a single stride from the door before she positions herself in his path of escape, for make no mistake, that’s exactly what this is. He’s escaping, running away, doing anything he can to remove himself from the situation as opposed to facing it head on. She’s close; closer than he would have her be for the sake of his sanity, floral tones and sweet warmth addling his already diminished state of mind.

“Something’s not right here. With us,” she states, not so much malice in the observation as there is simply sadness. “Please, tell me what’s going on.”

Minho shakes his head, words lingering on the tip of his tongue. She steps closer still, a mere inch of distance now between them. Much like their previous encounter, she curls a gentle hold to the sleeve of his black Armani; Minho recognises the gesture as both an attempt to keep him from fleeing again and a show of desperation. He braces his palm against the door of his office, his body half-turned away from her in preparation of flight; a direct contradiction of what his body—his demon soul—is telling him to do. Screaming at him to do.

“Please.”

He’s unsure what he’s even pleading for; perhaps a respite from the throb of desire that pulsates in his groin, in his veins, as though she’s directly able to stop it, because she could.

She could step away from him yet refuses to. She could release his sleeve, yet instead she slides her hand from wrist to forearm to bicep as she closes in. She could take a calming breath and return to her senses, yet instead she wets her plump lips by dart of small pink tongue and...

The air shimmers with eroticism, tension and wanting and long buried yearning amalgamating to a fucking delirious peak in the moment of nearness. Both feel it, both crave it, and as Minho sees the flicker of surrender in her eyes, something inside him snaps.

She draws closes, cranes to tiptoe and tilts her chin back to whisper on a breath:

“Don’t reprimand me for this.”

Fuck.

Minho becomes the lust, the demon, the monster that craves as she is swept up and slammed against the nearby wall for the breath to rush from her in a longing gasp. Lips and teeth and tongues are ferocious in their greed; she arches against him yet liquifies with molten desire, Minho presses and crushes with his need to crawl into her skin and make a home for himself, subconsciously aware that this is breaking every fucking rule he ever set for himself yet too drunk on the taste of her tongue to give much more thought to it than that.

It has been more than two centuries since he last indulged himself with a human, yet that experience was a mere flicker in the dark compared to the raging inferno this girl ignites.

When she hitches right leg to his hip and Minho reaches around the swell of her ass to appreciate the flesh, she groans and grinds, his thick erection straining enough that she might find relief in the friction of it. Minho allows it, relishes in it, imagines how good it’ll feel when he finally gets to impale her; if she’ll even be capable of taking it, for his size is incomparable to human men.

“I dreamt about you last night...”

Minho grins against her mouth, wicked and reckless. “I know.”

She pulls back violently, in spite of everything. Breathless, wracked with the heat of such intense lasciviousness, she scowls. “What?”

Minho blinks himself to comprehension, a second or so required to appreciate what it is he’s just confessed to.

“What do you mean; you know?”

Shit.

He’s too far gone to think about this rationally. Peeling away all the layers of everything he’s doing, of what it all means, is too impossible a task in this moment, and so he doesn’t. He lowers her from his arms, from the wall, rakes his hands through his hair, swipes her residue from his mouth with his palm and rearranges his suit jacket.

“I have a meeting.”

A deep breath, and he exits the office, leaving his thoroughly wrecked colleague to her private devices.

He hears the subsequent curses of his name and nature from across the office, and supposes they’re deserved. She's right, after all.

He is a fucking monster.

***

Coming to the realisation that your boss lusts after you just as you do for him is a strange experience, to say the least.

Perhaps you should be awash with pride on the discovery, triumphant and relishing in the victory. Indeed, the ache between your legs and soreness to your lips are evidence enough of the event that just took place, but you’ve never been arrogant enough to assume you ever stood a chance with him anyway, and so don’t think it’s unreasonable to be lagging in acceptance.

Besides; there are too many other confusions surrounding it all. Desire notwithstanding, you require explanations for all the oddities, not least of which includes a reason as to why he thought it appropriate to respond to your confession of dreams with ‘I know’; how could he possibly know? You’d anticipated a reaction of shock, perhaps embarrassment or disbelief, but ‘I know’? Even if he intended it as a turn of phrase or metaphor for understanding how deep your cravings for him ran, it seems a strange way to validate such a thing.

Maybe he wasn’t thinking straight; possible, considering the context. People are known to say things they don’t mean or haven’t thought through in the heat of the moment, which admittedly seems unlike Minho, but you don’t know him that way. Yet.

In any case, his abandonment of the moment has left you with an altogether different problem compared to those usually encountered in the workplace: you are incomprehensibly horny.

Seungmin and Jisung are so embedded in their work they’re oblivious to how you slip away; out of the office and down the hall. The nearest bathroom is five floors down, but in the middle of the building they’re subject to high amounts of traffic, which is precisely not what you need.

Crowding into the elevator alongside two other members of staff, you punch the button for the thirty-fifth floor; a space comprised of board and stately conference rooms. You know there to be a small bathroom there, used only by guests and those with good reason to be on the seldom visited floor.

On arrival, the corridors are empty, rooms quiet. Interior glass walls allow you unhindered views inside the neatly prepared conference rooms as you go; polished oval tables of rich mahogany in each are circled with symmetrically positioned leather chairs. Scurrying through the hallways, you pass only one room that appears to be mid-meeting, several suited persons are seated inside. You pay it no mind, pacing briskly past it. The distant whir of a hoover becomes less so distant the further you go; rounding a corner reveals an elderly janitor going about his business, headphones tight to his ears as he vacuums the lighter grey carpet. The bathroom is just beyond him, and so you approach nonchalantly, confidence in your step and a polite smile offered when he nods in your general direction.

Shoving through the bathroom door and, finally out of sight, you take a breath. It feels not unlike engaging in some form of secret mission; the objective of which is to achieve as much satisfaction as is possible with your hands and whilst at work. The bathroom is well presented, neat and clean. Aqua wall tiles are chequered with pristine white; the laminate floor mocks the pattern and texture of marble. Three sinks are fitted to a beige bathroom unit below a mirror that stretches the length of all three; plastic soap dispensers are bolted to the wall. In matching fashion, three cubicles make up the far side of the room, their doors swung open; three urinals are tucked away in a cubby opposite them. It’s not the place you’d choose for engaging in such an act as you’re about to, but that’s the whole point, you suppose: you’re explicitly lacking in choices. You’re beholden to a primal urge that demands immediate succour; your only purpose is to, in this moment, find a way to facilitate that.

Not stopping to give it much thought, you hurry to the row of cubicles, shutting yourself inside the furthest one. The toilet seat is down, as is the lid, and riding up your skirt to get at your underwear is a job not so elegant. Kicking them down to your ankles and freeing your right one of the garment, you perch on the edge of the lid. Legs spread as far as your skirt allows—which isn’t much—you attempt to feel yourself out and find the angle desperately lacking.

“Fuck it,” the skirt is made surplus to requirement; you unzip and remove it, folding it over and depositing it on the cistern shelf. Now with freedom to touch at your whim, you sit back on the seat, leg hitched up to the toilet paper dispenser. At least somewhat content in the knowledge that you’re alone—if a little uncomfortable in terms of position, place and amongst the sting of clinical lemon disinfectant—you don’t delay any further. Indeed, there’s no need even for foreplay of any kind, for the tryst with your boss has left you more than primed for the touch you crave.

Your fingers enact the ministrations against your wet, soft heat, sparks of pleasure flitting through mind and body. Recalling the visions of your dream is no task; they come to you willingly, whisk you away in a storm of sensation that hazes you thoroughly to the real world. An illicit moan slips from your lips when the pulse of pleasure aches so deliciously; were you alone, you’d surely be whimpering his name to your own delusions.

Time is of the essence, discretion of the utmost importance.

You just need to come.

***

Minho’s not paying attention.

It’s unlike him in every sense to be so inattentive during a meeting, but the reason for it he knows well enough.

He crossed the line: he kissed her.

And God, it was electrifying. Perhaps it’s true that the higher the risk, the more sumptuous the reward, for that was easily the riskiest thing he’s ever done, but never has anything felt so good.

He replays it over in his mind as the division manager drawls on about KPI’s and quarterly targets, mentally drifting from the confines of the polished conference room back to the heated space of his corner office, where he had her so close, so fiercely, he almost lost himself. He did lose himself; at least by a measure. He still hopes he’s able to play off his confession as to knowledge of her dreams as just that: he was worked up, confused, too horny to think straight, et cetera. Maybe she’ll buy it.

Maybe he's just kidding himself. All she’s done the last few days is demonstrate an uncanny intuition as to the state of things, apparently able to detect bullshit from a mile off. She knows when she’s being lied to, taken for a fool, and doesn’t suffer it.

So instead, Minho does. That is, suffer.

Indeed, the suffering is now so great that when he spies her hurrying past the conference room, he believes it to be an apparition. Great, he thinks to himself. Now he can’t even trust his mind; it manifests her everywhere and in the most unlikely of places.

He wonders what it says about him, then, that he is compelled to follow her; it. Perhaps the ghost might take pity on him and lead him to some secret Nirvana whereby he doesn’t have to face the reality of his circumstance. That would be nice, he supposes.

He excuses himself from the mundane meeting with a “I have somewhere to be”, (an entirely unacceptable way to remove oneself, he knows, but he’s a little past professional etiquette at this point). Starting down the hallway after the apparition, he wonders briefly if this makes him insane. Like, officially. If it doesn’t, it probably should.

Turning the corner and a little further down, a janitor hums to a cheerful tune, headphones hang loosely around his neck. He’s unplugging a hoover, winding the thick cord around his withered hands. As Minho passes him, the man chuckles, “Well, I don’t get no visitors in hours, then two in two minutes!”

Minho stops.

“Excuse me?”

The elderly janitor turns to him, a grin forming under the grey scraggles of beard. “First the lady, sir, and now you!”

“Lady?” Minho repeats. “A lady just came this way?”

“Sure did,” the janitor pulls the hoover cord tight. “S’pose she needed to urgently powder her nose or somethin’, if you’ll be catchin’ my drift. She was in all kinds of a rush!”

 Minho leaves the hearty cackles of the janitor behind him as he rushes the rest of the way down the hall. Pausing outside the bathroom door, he considers what he’s about to do; why he’s even doing it. Ambushing her here is not the classiest way to go about approaching her again; lines crossed notwithstanding, there is an element of privacy about bathrooms that is to be respected. So he’ll wait, he reasons. He’ll just wait outside, and when she’s done, he can... he can what?

Shit. He didn’t think this through at all. He can’t just approach her like he could have before; things are different now.

Letting his forehead drop to the thin wood of the bathroom door is only partially intended to hurt; maybe it’ll drum some sense into him, he hopes. Yet nothing much more occurs than it swings open a feeble inch or so, but that’s enough for him to hear what permeates beyond: the echo of a dream.

Minho’s pulse spikes at the vulgarity of his name being groaned in such a way, much as it did the first time. Despair gives way to hope; perhaps she finds tolerance for him yet, perhaps their tryst did more than just give her reason to despise him. He holds the door open that same inch, listens intently. The groans don’t stop, neither do they ease in desperation, acting instead as a siren’s song that draws Minho into the room. What was it he thought about privacy, earlier?

He surveys the empty bathroom; she must be in a cubicle. Minho’s mind races with thoughts too jumbled to arrange, the ones concerning danger of voyeurism and public indecency diminishing under the weight of his growing desire. He smells her; jasmine and fresh fucking rain are magnified by her eroticism; every stifled moan she surrenders to addles him further of decency and respect and rationality and—

***

You’re so close.

Soaked through and totally hazed of the world outside this cubicle, your sole thought is only one of relief. Your body burns, the pressure swelling in your core is on the verge of exploding to blissful release.

“M— Minho...”

His name is its own aphrodisiac; you’re going to come to it, you need to come to it, you just need a little more...

“I’m here, sweet thing.”

The echo of a dream; so lifelike and close it kicks strong panic in your chest. Your foot slips from the paper dispenser, an unceremonious crash of heels kicking, legs closing and world returning to clarity brings your impending orgasm to a frustrating hover.

You pause a moment, catching your breath, listening. How foolish you feel when there’s no sound from outside; so deep in your delusions were you that they manifested at the peak of pleasure!

“Idiot...” you mumble softly, repositioning quickly. This orgasm is a necessity, and you’re reminded now of the need for haste.

Fingers return to where they’re needed most. A few gentle strokes ease you back into relaxation, and just as you’re sinking into the chase:

“Open the door.”

This time, the panic is justified. You fly from the toilet seat, make a mad rush for your clothes, heart pounding.

“Don’t do that.”

“What... what the fuck are you doing in here?!”

“Just open the door.”

“But I... I’m in the bathroom, this is a bathroom, Minho, you can’t just—”

“Please.”

There’s something definitive in the way he doesn’t even acknowledge your fragile attempt at an excuse; you could pretend you were using the bathroom as intended, and you might even feel better for it, but the end result would be the same regardless: you’ve been caught, quite literally, with your pants down.

Unclasping the lock and opening the door a crack, you can’t bring yourself to look at the man that stands before it, hands pressed either side of the frame. Even without seeing his face, the tension that rolls from him is palpable; his stance is stiff, black suit drawn tight to his figure.

“I don’t need you to explain,” he speaks first, voice thick. “I just need you to tell me one thing.”

You swallow, tongue feeling too big for your mouth.

“Have you wanted me as long as I've wanted you?”

On this, you find the will to look at him; his hazel eyes are tinted sanguine, his sharp features shadowed by the honey strands that fall free.

“Since we met?”

Your head spins dangerously, the confession seeming so far removed from everything you’ve believed thus far. The office tryst was some indication of his feelings, yes, but it was too easy to assume they were fleeting, a simple response to your advance made in a bold moment.

“Yes.”

Your whispered response is dry—anticlimactic even—but Minho wets his lips by dart of tongue. The moment stills, comprehension is met as much as two souls steeped in ardent lust are able to, and in the silent beat that follows, he advances.

Shoves into the cubicle to gather you in his arms, the door crashing painfully to rattle the frame. Weak to the display of strength you’re putty in his hands, already naked from the waist down he finds no difficulty in giving you his—much more satisfying in comparison—fingers. Hot and heavy he consumes your mouth, holds you strong against the cubicle wall, his presence a cage of sensation you never wish to leave. It seems no different from the dreams to hear him utter the sweet words he brands sore to your lips: a slip of his digit inside you to the praise of, “So wet, my sweet thing,”, a tender nibble of your neck to the confession of, “Smell so good, God,”, a firm squeeze of your ass by large hand to the sultry curse of, “Fucking beautiful.”

You curl a grasp into the lapel of his Armani, tight as you’re able to muster on the precipice of orgasm.

“D— Don’t leave me this time. Please.”

Minho drives his fingers in slow, breathes against your chin. “I won’t. I shouldn’t have.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise. I couldn’t if I tried. Not now.”

Coming to violent orgasm on Minho’s fingers in the guest bathroom of the thirty-fifth floor isn’t quite what you foresaw for this day.

Surely now; it’ll be on the daily agenda.

***

There’s something to be said for the joy of a new relationship.

Something indeed, but it's apparently not for you to say.

Despite all things pointing to the beginning of a new life chapter and hopes of something more, you remain somewhat sedentary. Work is still work (though your role has returned to its previous weight), and home is still home, and over the last two weeks you’ve found yourself wondering more than once just what it is prevents Minho from fully committing to anything official, from wanting to say something about the joy of a relationship.

Granted, there have been changes, small ones, in the way you interact with one another at work and how time is spent; the thirty-fifth-floor bathroom has become something of a regular meeting spot, which while inelegant, is a well-kept secret. You try to see the romantic side of it; the spot where you first fooled around is fit to be the place where you continue fooling around, if nothing else. Stolen kisses in his office and in the elevator add to the excitement, and you suppose it’s a good thing you’re thrilled by such danger, for it would be easy to wallow in his refusal to take things further without it.

But Minho’s refusal isn’t one of words; he’s not so cruel as to outright tell you there’s no chance of a bona fide relationship, and that’s to be expected of the man known for such virtues as he holds. Rather, his refusal is in the distance he maintains, his withdrawal when you mention an evening of dinner or a night at your place. He smiles and tells you he’ll think about it, but his faraway eye and indifferent touch tell you he’s already made his decision, and it’s not one to your liking.

Indeed, it’s only when caught in moments of private lust you feel that he’s at ease with you, the boundaries between you are opaque and his mind—his wonderfully overactive mind—seems at peace. Even if he continually refuses your returning of the sexual favour, bafflingly spurns your attempts to touch him where he strains every time on the insistence that he doesn’t need it, that he’s fine; he is at least, himself.

Night after night, you’re accosted by rampant dreams of him; a plague you thought you might be cured of when such fantasies became reality, but rather they seem exacerbated: more extreme is the subject matter, more lifelike are the sensations. Your days are propelled by the afterglow of their visits, your nights fearful of them, for by their current trajectory you might not survive the peak, should it ever come. You used to tell Minho of them; he listened, appearing none too bothered by the acts you detailed or the feelings you described, until on one such occasion he grimaced and asked you gently to stop; he prefers what is real to what is imagined.

There are questions to be answered still, and you would push if you thought you stood a chance of getting them. You considered briefly that your intimate involvement with the man might be enough to defer your seeking an explanation for all the oddities thus far; you have him, after all and at least in part, and you’re loath to look a gift horse in the mouth. Yet your proclivities are neither ignorant nor heedless, and so you suppose the day will inevitably come where you are forced to challenge him; even should that day spell the end of your arrangement.

Until then, you think it's not so wicked to enjoy it.

***

Half days at the office are as good as days off; thoroughly unproductive things.

Even Minho, for all his stalwart work ethic, finds summoning motivation on days like this difficult. He stares at his monitor, reading the body of an email for the third time, still unable to make sense of the words.

Outside, the office is abuzz. The chatter of the hyperactive teamis a distraction in of itself; Jisung details what he’s wearing tonight, Seungmin reels off what he intends to drink to gluttonous excess, she laments how they’ll all feel tomorrow as a result of their gleefully anticipated poor choices. The tip-tapping of keyboards is interspersed with giggles and exclamations of excitement, made worse when the e-mail bomb from HR arrives: ‘FAO all staff, annual office party reminder!’

The entire company has been granted a half days’ additional leave for the event. Minho would think it a graceful gesture of goodwill if it didn’t effectively nullify his leverage over Seungmin: the man had wanted the day off, had been on his best behaviour for it. The moment the announcement was made, he fell straight back into roguish conduct. Minho only wishes he wasn’t so painfully predictable.

Sighing heavily, Minho sags back in his chair, letting the seat twirl aimlessly towards the window. Just after ten o’clock and the chill of the morning is easing, fluffy clouds of white glide a snail's pace across the lucent canvas of the city skyline. It’s a view familiar to him, one that usually reminds him his decision to settle in the mortal realm was a wise one, for the Underworld offers no such spectacle as this, but Minho feels much the same as he has for a fortnight now: guilty.

It’s a bizarre thing, to find both comfort and distress in a person, and Minho never finds more of each than when he’s with her. Touching her, holding her, bringing her to repeated climax behind closed doors (and occasionally against them) is more transcendental an experience than he’s thus far found. So, he supposes that it’s natural he should now fear to lose it, and hence comes the distress, for he knows one day he will. Her lustful soul continues to ripen; he had hoped his efforts to relieve her of that tension would do something to prolong said ripening, and for as long as the day shines bright, it does, yet when night falls whatever work he has done is only undone by the curse; the dreams that deteriorate her satisfied state.

And all of this is without even considering his own dilemma: his appetite grows by the day, throbs at the edges of his discipline, exacerbated by the affair. Indeed, Minho would challenge any man or demon to enact even a speck of the same restraint he does, for it is solely by his refusal to indulge in his own wants with her that he retains his self-control, clutching at it like a child might do their mother, fearful of letting go and falling.

When Minho falls, it’ll be at the cost of her life.

There’s a gentle knock at his door.

“Come in.”

He smells the floral notes of jasmine before he sees her; it does something to lighten his mood. When the door cracks open, Minho swivels around in his chair, greeted by a warm smile that makes his stomach twist.

“Sorry to bother you,” she steps inside, lets the door fall shut behind her. “I just wanted to run these past you.”

Minho likes that about her; that she maintains professionalism at the office, still reports to him as she did before he knew what her orgasms sounded like. It was never discussed that they should keep their affair secret, but rather expected on both sides, if only for ease of a quiet life.

“You’re still working?” Minho quirks a brow.

She shrugs. “Trying to.”

“I think I'm giving up.”

“What? The terminal workaholic is giving up on working? Is tonight a full moon or something?”

Minho chuckles softly, holds his hand out to receive a sheaf of paper from her. He casts an eye over it—it’s an affidavit for one of the newest cases—but quickly loses interest. Rather, his attention is drawn to the way she stands by the window, hands clasped behind her back, her gentle swaying in place as she admires the crisp city view. Her dark pencil skirt hugs the line of her figure, and Minho finds an all too familiar urge crawling over him.

He tosses the affidavit to his desk.

“Come here.”

She turns to him. “What?”

Minho pushes out from his desk, stretches his long legs out and pats his thighs. “Here.”

“But—”

“I know. Quickly.”

There’s madness in this. Madness that Minho probably wouldn’t entertain were he his usual put together self, but the influence of his appetite now overpowers that of his rational mind.

She glances at the door, eyes trained to it as she cautiously rounds the desk and once near enough for Minho to reach, is in his grasp. The initial intent to have her in his lap is changed; he parts his thick legs and positions her between them, sitting upright to hold her standing. Like this, he is level with her cleavage; greedily he undoes three buttons on her blouse, exposing black lace. He noses the swell of her chest, inhales of her the scent that drives him so desperately frantic, her gentle carding of his hair an encouragement. Blunt nails scrape his scalp; Minho shivers. There needs not even be much more than this, he thinks, for to have her close and feel her warmth is decent enough a dose of serotonin for him to get by.

Yet she appears to have other ideas.

From his crown to his nape and shoulders, her hands mould him gently, squeezing and caressing as she cranes down. The chill tip of her nose nudges his lobe, the erogenous zone beneath, her warm breath a dizzying spell to his coherence. Lips skim his cheek as she sinks down further still, she clutches his lapels to urge him nearer. Minho chases her; he must, but she denies him the kiss he so craves to instead nose along his jaw, an open-mouthed exploration of his skin that pricks goosebumps over Minho’s flesh. She leads the show of passion: she draws the chair nearer the desk and Minho knows he should regain control before the inevitable escalation (if this is not already it), yet she is on her knees before him, her hands are making elegant work of his belt, button and zipper, and Minho’s tired of fighting it. His cock throbs, his head spins, his veins are flaming under his skin. He sits back, watches her slide inside his trousers to the strain beneath; she gasps as her small hand falls wildly short of wrapping around him, his girth as inhuman as his lineage.

“You’re...”

A part of him, conceited and blatantly superficial, wants to hear her say it. He crooks a brow at her, heat rising across her cheeks as she manages—by two hands—to free him. Removed from confinement, he watches her glazed eyes trace the length of it; her jaw slacks, her thighs tense and squeeze. Minho has always considered the boons of his ilk to be no such things at all; save perhaps for the physicality. He is more than well equipped to perform as his namesake suggests.

But he should put a stop to this; he has to.

She swallows an excess of saliva. “Wow.”

And before Minho can surf the tide of delight such a small non-compliment inspires, she’s taking him in her mouth. As much as she is able, she sinks wet warmth around him, and Minho draws tight.

“Oh, fuck—”

She hums on hearing the curse—history has demonstrated her preference for his less-than-pleasant mouth—doubling her efforts to take an inch or two more of him. Minho avails her of the act; long fingers in her hair draw her back, guide her gently, for her sake and his. When she tightens lips and hollows cheeks Minho grinds his teeth. Intrusive thoughts arrive: he could use her to brutal capacity, he could fuck her throat savagely, he could taste the saltine tears of her travail, he could devour her whole with his encroaching crisis and feel not a single fucking shred of shame for it.

He's losing himself; all he can smell is jasmine, all he can feel is the pulse of arousal, each one a drum that thunders to the tune of his heartbeat, his vision tinted crimson. He grasps the leather arms of his chair, the woven seams threatening to tear as he rolls into her motions, hips loose and high quickly approaching. She salivates and moans soft encouragement; Minho is fucking famished. He can’t think straight, can’t breathe properly, craves the sweet ambrosia that is her lust-fattened soul—

There’s a knock at the door.

She startles, pops off Minho’s cock and scrabbles deep under the desk. It's a brutal pin to the bubble of lasciviousness, but one that Minho thinks might just be a small mercy.

He clears his throat, straightens his tie and tucks himself as close to the desk as his chair allows. “Come in.”

The door opens to Seungmin, his smug countenance a potent mood killer.

“What is it?”

“Just need you to sign off on these,” the younger man waves a document folder at him, crosses the space and tosses it carelessly on the desk; Minho goes about the motions as thoroughly he would were he not harbouring a sexual fugitive under his desk.

“Will we see you at tonight’s event?”

Minho grimaces. “Not likely.”

“Come on, man,” Seungmin smarms, “you’re the face of the team, it’d be good for morale.”

“It’ll be plenty good for morale whether I'm there or not, Kim.”

“That’s not true. Some would argue it won’t be the same without you there.”

Minho scrawls a signature on the last page, jots down the date. He knows where this is going by a country mile; clearly his warnings have been forgotten.

“Like our litigation secretary, for example. I’m sure she would miss you terribly.”

There’s a sharp movement from under the desk, a warm, gentle hand encloses his knee. Minho clutches his composure, slams the folder shut. “Do we need to have another conversation, Kim?”

Seungmin startles, eyes wide.

“Because we’ve been over this. Or is your short-term memory as abysmal as your time management?”

“No,” the other man shakes his head. “No need for that. I was just saying, you know.”

“Well, perhaps you should refrain from ‘just saying’ anything. I’ve told you this before but clearly it warrants telling again: she is a valued member of the team. Nothing more.”

The words are ostensibly defensive; a shield to conceal the bone-deep affection that anyone with more sense than Seungmin would easily detect. ‘The gentleman doth protest too much’, Minho thinks with resolute certainty. He also thinks there’ll be retribution for what he’s just said: her hand slips from his knee.

“Yeah, I got it,” Seungmin nods, taking the folder back. “Sorry.”

Minho only grunts in response, dismissing his colleague. When alone again, he slides out from the desk, aided by her hasty push. She scrambles out from her hiding place, lips puffy and cheeks dusted with the warm longing of the earlier encounter. She smooths down the creases of her skirts, draws her shoulders square, plucks the affidavit from the desk.

“Are you—”

“I’m a valued member of the team,” she snaps, voice hoarse. “Nothing more.”

Minho groans. “You’re not seriously holding that against me? It was for his benefit, the guy has been spreading rumours about us since—”

“And God forbid anyone hear them, right? God forbid anyone picture us together, because that would be a total fucking disaster.”

“Is that you think?”

“That’s what you think, clearly,” she counters, heading for the door.

Minho stands, buckling his trousers and tucking in his shirt. “Wait—”

He grabs her by the arm, as gentle as he can manage given the tight knot of hunger that sits inside him. She acquiesces, though only slightly, turning back to him with brows set firm and lips pressed thin.

“I don’t think anyone seeing us together would be a disaster,” Minho admits softly.

“But you think our being together would be.”

A hard lump forms in Minho’s throat. If ever there was an opportunity to inform her of the truth of things, he thinks this would be it. He’s almost tempted; the sad weight in her eyes speaks to a misconstrued truth: he does think being with her would be a disaster, but not for the reasons she’s convinced herself of.

“It would be nice if you actually came out and said it, you know,” she whispers. “This distance you keep between us... I can take a hint, Minho. That was the first time you’ve ever let me touch you. Something tells me it’ll be the last.”

“I... there’s a lot that you don’t know—”

“And whose fault is that? I’ve asked you for answers, time and again, and you keep them from me every time. Do you honestly think I haven’t noticed? Your mumblings in the dark? Your insistence on never staying the night?”

Minho takes a deep breath, despair coiling around him.

“You know your eyes light up when you’re horny, right?”

“W— What?”

She shakes her head, pulls her arm free of Minho’s grip. “I know you’re something other than what you pretend to be, Minho. And it makes sense, because someone as perfect as you could never exist in the real world. I dream of you being this... monster; this crimson-skinned creature with wings that whisks me away to all kinds of places.”

Minho stiffens, his bones appearing to seize at once on the pinpoint accurate description of his true form.

“Maybe I'm crazy,” she centres herself, chest puffed out and determination set in her features. “Part of me wishes I was. But I somehow know better than that, and you should do me the courtesy of knowing it too.”

For once, Minho doesn’t know what to say. In keeping the truth from her he intended to protect her just a little longer, but in giving in to his lust he entertained her affections and planted the seed of hope that something tangible may blossom between them; something resembling a future. He knew this might happen, yet selfish want outweighed it all.

She stands taller as she sighs, “If you’re ready to tell me the truth, I’ll be at the party tonight. If I don’t see you there...”

An ultimatum?

“... Well, that’ll be it then, won’t it?”

There’s a weighted sadness in her eyes as she shrugs; an acceptance of what she knows will come to pass.

“The final hint.”

𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚, 𝙧𝙚𝙗𝙡𝙤𝙜, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙨 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙢𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙞𝙣 𝙖𝙣 𝙖𝙨𝙠 ♡

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[jl-micasea-fics]

Something In The Rain | lmh

❝𝐃𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐞𝐞 𝐦𝐞, 𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈 𝐚𝐦?❞

↳ Chapter 2/4 of Something In The Rain. Inside the polished walls of Help, Heart and Justice Limited, you work under the guidance of enigmatic senior attorney Lee Minho to support him and his legal team. And perhaps under all the professionalism, feelings stray, yet you're committed to keeping said feelings buried whilst you pine from afar. Until an act of kindness on a dark, rainy evening turns everything upside down; for even the most put together of men must indulge their demonic appetites.

↳ Lee Know x female reader

↳ 10k

↳ Supernatural au, strangers/colleagues to lovers, office romance, lust demon Lee Know, eventual smut

! Explicit content, adult themes, suitable for 18+ readers only !

「Chapter 1」 「Contents List」 「© May 2023 by jl-micasea-fics」

You’re back on the busy lunchtime street.

The afternoon sun beats down, scalding, dry and bright. Shielding your eyes from the glare you shy away from it, glancing down at what you stand on. While as sturdy as a pavement, the ground is soft in texture, a flurry of unstable off-grey that writhes under your feet as though alive. Buildings tower above you on leaning inclines and impossible geometry, their topmost floors stretching endlessly from sight to bleed into the blinding white of the sky. The honk of traffic and incessant chatter of people echoes quietly, reverbed to unsettling tone that’s just on the frustrating side of indecipherable. Looking around, you’re caught in the heart of a dense, hot crowd, yet the faces of the people are blurred from clarity.

Strong arms slink around you, their embrace tight. A voice speaks, “Are you alright?”

You think to look at your embracer with some delay, recognising the features with a breathless intake.

“Minho...?”

Appearing infinitely more angelic than you ever remember, the sun somehow doesn’t touch him. The blazing rays hover around his person, as though his aura of calm be some impenetrable border of protection that keeps him—unlike everyone else—identifiable. Golden skin and teeth of ivory white, he smiles at you, sweeps a rogue strand of hair from your face, and you feel it. God, you feel it and your knees are rendered weak for the tingle of his touch lingers long after his hand is removed, when he takes a pace back and outstretches it to you in invitation.

“Come with me.”

Thoughtless is your response, instinctive is the way your hand slips into his, for wherever he’s going you wish only to be with him.

And within a second of the touch, the highly gleaming sun is snuffed out. The warmth is gone and the sting of brilliant white is vanished and there is only plunging darkness, empty and cold.

Still, you feel his hand in yours, and while robbed of all other senses his touch is the only you can rely on. Your pulse thunders through your ears and you clamour for breath, the sudden chill leaving you giddy.

“Minho?”

“I’m here, sweet thing.”

His voice is velvet, dark and tempting. The endearment goes straight to your core, a throbbing want blooming deep that you would normally persecute yourself for, yet here, in this place, there feels no need to.

“Open your eyes.”

“They are open...”

“No,” you hear him laugh softly, a rumble of delight, “open your eyes, sweet thing.”

The darkness fades from your peripherals, a slow allowance of crimson tinting everything. It grows and shimmers until all is bathed erotic red, a musk so familiar flitting over you in passing. You turn with it, eager to chase the sense of the man when a flicker of movement catches your eye.

“Where are you?” you call, voice an infinite echo.

“Right here.”

A shriek of fright is quickly silenced by a large hand over your mouth, for the address in your right ear was too close to have predicted.

“I’m right here, sweet thing.”

Hand gently removed to allow you the mercy of breath, you can only whisper, “You scared me.”

Minho scowls, deep set and severe, as though the sentiment causes offence. The crimson hue plays off his complexion, and only when you find the will to truly focus do you realise his nakedness. From the waist up he is bereft of clothes, the slopes and ridges of his deliciously carved torso reason enough for you to balk. Your first instinct is not to question it, but rather to appreciate, and reaching out to him amid unusual confidence you find he makes no attempt to stop you.

Because in this place, here with him, you set the rules.

The firm bumps of his abs, the smoothness of his skin. The strong curve of his chest and pert buds of his nipples. Minho watches, irises flaring a shade of red that intrigues rather than terrifies, for the incarnadine whirl is utterly mesmerising.

“You lust for me.”

His statement is just that: a statement of fact, offered without judgement or pressure. It is a truth that he sees, a truth that you feel, one that would be foolish to dispute.

“I do.”

He hums, abs drawing tight as he asks the next question, “You would give yourself to me?”

“I would.”

“Even though I'm a monster?”

The sentiment settles uneasily, you’re about to voice your displeasure with it when from behind him, there is movement. A flurry of deep sound, like wind through a billowing sail, tense cracks and pops as a shadow of darkness sweeps out from his back, stretching until fully unsheathed and two giant, leathery wings hover in proud display. Thin veins run their segments, the bones are tipped with sharp horn. Minho stands taller, his stature looms and you’re left to feel unfathomably small, insignificant, would wish to shy away if not for how he takes you in his arms to crush your form to his.

“Do you see me, sweet thing, for all that I am?”

“What... are you?” you manage to rasp, head spinning and chest bursting with adrenal want.

Minho smirks piteously, condescension in his flaring eyes. He brings a hand to your chin, holds it by thumb and forefinger as he leans in to whisper over your dry lips, “I am your worst nightmare, sweet thing, and I will undo you until nothing is left but the dying echo of my name from your mouth.”

Then, he kisses you.

Minho kisses you, and it is raging fire through open forest.

You are engulfed in destructive lust and swept away in his torrent, the sweet tang of his lips a poison you will willingly swallow down for the softness, the plush moulding, the depth of sumptuous indulgence that is the way he feels on you.

An encompassing of darkness surrounds your person, Minho’s wings close on you, on him, to cocoon you so the moist smack of tongues and quiet groans of pleasure are sealed in the vacuum, hot and heavy.

You know beyond doubt that you’re dreaming, that you’ll wake up eventually and be all the worse for it when reality demands you face your boss and be presentable. It's in spite of every logical neuron you possess that you should mistake this as anything more than your overactive subconscious, yet you struggle to explain why it all feels so real: why you can map out the texture of his skin under your palms, why you can shudder when he grips your hips with fervent need, why you can feel the trickle of sweat cascading down your nape, why you can taste the muted notes of coffee on his tongue.

Breaths and hands and desperate desire amalgamate into an undefinable spiral of eroticism, where your chief want is to feel him, have him, crawl under his skin and own him or be owned. When the great wings part and Minho pulls back, the scene again has altered. No longer in a space of nothingness, no longer removed from rational geometry or time and thus not so easily able to call it a dream with resolute certainty, you find yourself in your bedroom. Minho is Minho again, his countenance kind and appearance familiar, the wings long gone to leave behind caramel skin and soft tresses, quiet confidence in his stature. Naked and open he stands before you, as are you already positioned on the bed, and while entirely unsure how you got there at all, to question it would be more asinine than to deny the man that crawls up the mattress in predatory fashion, eyes weighted with wicked intention and lips slick with salivating need.

So close to where you need him, so close to having him in ways you’ve only fantasised about. So close...

And then he stops. Frozen as though seized by time itself, poised on hands and knees mid-crawl. His lips part but form no enunciation as words bleed from them:

“Let me take you to dinner.”

You sit up, reach out to touch him and—

***

Minho knows he’s good at what he does.

When selecting a human vocation to step into it was with nary a second thought that he took up the mantle of law and justice, for the enforcement of such order is a thing unique to humans. Indeed, no such facet exists among the ranks of his own kind, where chaos is celebrated and malevolence encouraged.

It might have begun as simply a means to an end—that end being to blend in seamlessly with humans and their ways of life—but it certainly didn’t stay that way. He committed himself to the vocation with more gusto than he’d ever had for anything (which over two hundred years of existence amounted to an impressive array of jobs and pastimes), quickly developing a keen fascination for the judicial system and the strict punishments humans bestowed on one another for deeds considered too far from the wider moral compass.

So yes; he is good at what he does, and such adeptness is a clear by-product of his enjoyment of the profession. He’s never needed to engage in any forced theatrics when demanding the attention of a courtroom; such showmanship comes naturally to him. He even wishes he could enact such judgement on his own kind given half a chance, for there are several creatures he can identify off the top of his head in need of some serious belittling.

Yet Minho is also starkly aware of the fact that he isn’t one of them; that is to say, human. He was born demon and no amount of show and fancy will detract from the fact that demonic blood runs through his veins, grants him immortality, strength, speed, the ability to shapeshift at will and several other boons that he doesn’t quite consider such. Minho doesn't resent his lineage; that of the ‘sexus daemon’. Rather, demons of his ilk are considered among the highest ranks of the Underworld, rare in existence and therefore treated with such reverence befitting their station. Yet it has been more than a century since Minho last set foot in the hellish realm that constitutes his home, preferring to spend his time in the mortal realm, where he finds things make more sense. And while most of his abilities go unused (and have done for some time), there is but one stipulation he cannot so easily ignore.

In order to survive, Minho must consume. It is the inclination of his ‘type’ to crave lust-addled souls that will nourish him in most every way; appearance, mental function, physical capability and—perhaps most importantly—his penchant for self-control. So long as he remains fed, he can keep the baser depraved urges that simmer within him at arm's length, can ensure his true face remains unseen, can continue to live as he has been for the last hundred years in relative peace.

Once a month: through experimentation and no small amount of trial and error, that’s what he’s whittled it down to as a bare minimum. Once a month, he must feed, and do so in utmost secrecy. He can admit to having such need for discretion in mind when he decided to pursue law, for the vocation brings him into contact with all manner of people from all walks of life, some of which coincidentally won’t be missed. The criminals, the vagrants, the recipients of his occasional pro bono work that never get much further than the initial guilty plea, because they’re simply not worth the time or resources. Those are the ones Minho makes a point of choosing. A surreptitiously administered drop of his demon blood is all that’s required to spike their libidos, their dreams subsequently plagued by every facet of sex and eroticism until their souls are fat, bursting with concupiscence, enough so to threaten madness amid the heat. That’s when Minho strikes. Consumption comes in the dead of night, when risk of being spotted is minimal, for there can never be a tangible connection made to him, no implication of any kind. With their souls removed and his temperament sated for another four weeks, what’s left behind of the victim amounts to no more than a husk, gradually given to wither away to ashes.

Usually, it’s flawless. Until now, it has been. Much like in his job, he’s never set a foot wrong, having perfected the process down to a fine art.

But Minho made an unthinkable mistake. He was careless, lacked attention, tried to manipulate circumstances within his orbit on the discovery that a close, new colleague wasn’t as innocent as he made out to be, and now he’s paying the price.

“Fuck!”

She had been right; cursing makes him feel a little better, if nothing else.

“It’s really not the end of the world.”

Just once, Minho wishes Felix was a little less relaxed. While it’s true that sex faeries are notoriously horizontal in their approach to most things, he would very much like someone else to appreciate the magnitude of the fuck-up, if only so he didn’t feel quite so alone in it all.

“What am I going to do?” Minho groans, runs hands through his hair to rake at his scalp.

“Well, there’s nothing you can do, is there?” Felix offers, outstretched on the two-seater in the elder’s office, a sultry vision of pastel pink, sequins and glitter. “She’s been cursed now, that’s it.”

“But I should be able to un-curse her, right? I can’t do that?”

“Never heard of it being done.”

Minho huffs into his palms. “I am so screwed.”

Felix shoves up from the sofa, sauntering across the small space to lean against the cool glass wall beside Minho’s desk. “I told you it was an awful idea.”

“Told me what was an awful idea?” Minho snaps, glaring at his friend.

“The girl. Getting involved. Giving her the time of day, even.”

“I’m not involved, and I’m pretty sure you’ve never said anything of that sort to me.”

“No? Shit. Maybe I hallucinated it then. Still, my opinion stands.”

“I don’t recall ever asking for your opinion—”

Felix holds a manicured hand up in interruption. “Hey. Don’t go slathering me with that attitude just because you couldn’t help yourself with this one. Two minutes ago you were begging me for a solution, which; news flash, there isn’t. She's cursed, you’ll consume her, that’s the way it goes.”

Minho drops his head to his desk, forehead thumping against the oak. Maybe if he knocks himself out, all this will have fixed itself by the time he comes to.

“What were you even trying to do, anyway?” Felix asks, attention turned to the night view of the city.

“I don’t even know anymore. I just... I wanted the new kid off my team. His background check pulled up some shady stuff.”

“Background check?” Felix balks.

“What? It’s routine.”

“Sure it is. So, cursing him was the only way you could think to remove him?” Felix scoffs. “You couldn’t have just, I don’t know, had him fired?”

Minho mumbles into the wood, “Firing him would have brought attention on the team. On me. I didn’t want that. I just wanted him gone quietly. Cursing him would have killed two birds with one stone, so I figured I'd just do that, and... yeah. Shit. I mixed the coffees up. Fuck.”

“And having him inexplicably disappear definitely wouldn’t have warranted some kind of investigation that would trace him back here or anything.” Felix rolls his lavender eyes.

“Listen,” Minho sighs, propping up on his elbows, “I appreciate, in hindsight, it was a dumb thing to do, but I literally do not need the sass from you right now. You said it yourself; I need solutions.”

Felix crosses his arms over his chest, unimpressed. “And I told you; there aren’t any.”

It might be a truth that Felix is presenting him, but all the same, Minho can’t entertain it. She doesn’t deserve this fate, not by any justification.

“Okay, look. I know you like the girl, but I really don’t see what the big deal is. Another will come along just like her. They always do. You know how reincarnation works.”

Minho feels the itch of irritation crawl up his spine. “So, what, I have to wait another hundred years for her to come back into existence? Just so I can fuck it up again? No.”

It’s not even that he ‘likes’ her. Indeed, he thinks the sentiment to fall wildly short of describing how taken with her he is, how taken he has been since meeting her a little over seven months ago. If asked, he doesn’t think himself capable of identifying a single obvious point of fascination about her; it’s more than that. It’s something that compels him to take flight of raven and perch outside her bedroom window at night until peaceful slumber finds her. Something that urges him to maintain a boundary of respect and professionalism if only so he can indulge in the addictive sting of quiet yearning that sits in his chest. Something that drives him to stay to the very darkest hours of the evenings until she’s done with work, because God forbid she ever be left alone.

He knew the risks, when he decided to step over the line he had so solidly drawn between them. There was (and still is) potential for risk in countless ways; her discovery of his true nature, the question of her safety simply being in his presence, her mortality a doomsday clock over whatever relationship he could hope to build with her.

But he had to try; the desire ran too deep. In getting to know her he hoped even to quell said desires to a manageable level, for idols are often found unworthy of their pedestals when rose tinted glasses are removed and reality is allowed to show. But, of course, he found instead that the opposite was true. She was just as kind as he thought her to be, just as amicable as he believed, even more beautiful up close than he dared to entertain. Saving her from the path of a rogue moped was, he thinks, the final nail in the coffin of his affections. To hold her in his arms and feel her fragility under palm; Minho’s never known such visceral want, and it was only through centuries of practiced masquerading that he was able to untangle himself from the embrace at all.

“I mean, how do you even mix the coffees up? It’s like, you had one job, my guy,” Felix comments nonchalantly, inspecting his nails.

“I was... distracted.”

“Distracted how?”

Perhaps it’s cowardice that stops Minho outright being able to tell his friend the truth of it; that he was mid-way asking her to dinner and had been preoccupied with thoughts of doing just that when he issued the coffees incorrectly. It was his own mistake, his own involvement and desire to be involved that wrought said mistake.

He’d never hear the end of it.

His silence must say it all as Felix eventually sighs. “Fine. Well, if nothing else, you know she’ll have an eventful night. I wonder what it is makes her tick that way.”

Minho draws tight, tension in his limbs. To sit and speculate on all the illicit things she might be dreaming about seems a solid way to drive himself to further insanity.

“I really don’t want to know,” he deadpans.

“Really? You’re not curious? I thought you wanted to dick that—”

“Felix,” the elder demon warns.

The dreams of his victims are personal to each one. Highly unique, born from their respective subconsciousness's, thus rendering them at the mercy of their own fantasies, no matter how deeply they’re buried. With the addition of Minho’s demon blood they are magnified to an uncannily lifelike degree, leaving the victim unable to distinguish them from reality. Indeed, the ‘realer’ it feels, the more effective the result. Yet such personal reliance means the length of time it takes for a soul to swell with lust can vary from victim to victim, and while Minho can sometimes glean from their lifestyle how long he might expect to wait, it’s far from fool-proof. Even so and despite the uncertainty, he’s never tempted to look in on them; that is, the dreams. He makes a point of keeping himself stalwartly segregated from the wants of the souls he intends to consume, in doing so ensuring minimal involvement on his part and perhaps, if he were to look a little deeper, to uphold a level of respect. He consumes because he has to, not because he wants to, therefore sees no sense in further invading that which he will eventually claim.

All the same, he must admit to the rampant curiosity that hovers around his sensibilities. What is it that she dreams of when her inhibitions are lowered? What is it that she craves to feel when driven to desperation? And most importantly, who is it that she lusts after when unable to hide; if anyone at all?

“You are curious,” the faerie drags himself from the wall, slides himself to perch on the edge of the desk. “Why don’t you just take a little look?”

Minho shakes his head. “I can't. It’s not right.”

“Are you worried you’ll get jealous?”

“What?”

Felix leans over the desk. “Are you worried you’ll get so turned on by what you see you won’t be able to control yourself?”

Minho inhales a slow, deep breath. “Do you honestly think I'm that weak? Me?”

“For any other human, no, but you’ve been nursing a major hard-on for this girl since you met her, so...”

“I’m not going to look, end of discussion.”

“But you could.”

“Yes, I could, of course I fucking could, but I'm capable of exercising more restraint than that,” Minho seethes.

“More restraint than me, you mean,” Felix adds, hopping from the desk. He strolls over to the window, popping the latch and throwing it open for a bluster of chill air to soak into the room. Minho would chide him for it on any other occasion—they’re on the twenty-fifth floor—but tonight, he simply hasn’t the strength.

“I’ll come see you again tomorrow,” the blonde faerie quips, shuddering through the wisp of iridescent shimmer that engulfs him as dainty chiffon wings peel from his back.

“Don’t bother.”

“Aw, you don’t mean that babe. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I've an orgy to attend.”

Fucking sex faeries.

“Take my advice,” his trilling lingers as he shrinks to the size of a thimble quicker than a flash, “go look in on her! It'll make you feel less bad about ruining her life!”

“Ruining her...?”

And with that, he’s gone, out the window to flit elegantly across the dark horizon, no bigger than a firefly and often mistaken for one.

Minho slumps into his chair. Defeated, annoyed, exhausted now that the prospect of what he’s done is catching up to him. He wonders if a solution is perhaps staring him in the face, if he’s just too immersed in the mortification to see it. Either way, for now he supposes that Felix is right. There’s nothing he can do. The deed is done, and accidental or not, it doesn’t discriminate.

And so he must prepare himself for the inevitable.

***

You’re surprisingly rested, all things considered.

Getting ready for work with a spring in your step and carrying the glow of positivity all the way to the office building, you wonder if this feeling of ecstasy comes after all dreams had by all people, for indeed, last night’s was the very first you’ve ever experienced.

Do all dreams feel so real? Do they all linger so vividly in memory? Is it normal to dream of such wild impossibility as monsters? All questions bearing moot answers, you suppose, for the truth of it is one that you’re knowingly misconstruing to your own selfish benefit; now you know what it feels like to be in his arms, caught by his lips, the object of his desire, even if entirely imaginary.

“Good morning, everyone!”

Your beaming greeting is met with bleary stares over monitors and coffee cups.

“What the hell has gotten into you?” Seungmin snipes from his disorganised desk.

“Nothing,” you shrug. “Aren’t I allowed to be chipper in the morning?”

“No. You’re not. You’re supposed to be miserable, like the rest of us.”

“Too bad!” you sing-song. “Today’s going to be a good day. I can feel it.”

Seungmin gags. “God, it’s like she woke up a Disney princess.”

“Lay off, man,” Jisung tuts, “a bit of positivity in here will do us good. Morning!”

“Morning,” you grin at him, sinking into your desk chair with a flourish to fire up your computer.

“Did you get dicked or something?"

You scoff out loud. “That kind of question will land you in HR, Kim.”

“So answer it, make it worth the punishment.”

“No way, I'm not giving you ammunition to fire off around the water cooler.”

“Ammunition?” he repeats. “Are you accusing me of spreading gossip? About my colleagues, no less?”

The stern look you afford him over your monitor says it all, the man cracking his façade of offense with his inability to remain stoic. “Yeah, alright, fine,” he caves. “But the fact you’re withholding makes it all the more suspicious.”

“Seungmin, seriously—”

Jisung’s complaints are ignored as the man continues, “I mean, you didn’t deny it, right? And if it was some random hook-up, you wouldn’t be so secretive about it, which can only mean you’ve got something to hide.”

You roll your eyes, shoving up from your chair. You’re in serious need of caffeine if you’re going to be subjected to cutthroat Kim’s interrogation all day.

“Or maybe it's just none of your business? I’m honestly touched you’re so bothered about me but you’re reading way too much into this. I just woke up in a good—”

“Did you finally fuck him?”

The question is a proverbial punch to your gut, both the audacity of it and the blunt nature striking twice over.

“Seungmin!” Jisung hisses, starting up from his desk. “That was way out of line.”

“Relax, Jesus. It’s an innocent question.”

But it isn't, and you know it. There’s no trace of innocence, but rather vitriol in his voice and in the calculating stare he’s giving you, heavy with judgement. Indeed, it’s the use of the pronoun as opposed to the name that is perhaps the most wounding thing of all; the implication that he knows of your affections for the man you dreamt of the night prior, has probably always known, and worse than that: it’s apparently common knowledge amongst the team.

Tight panic winds around you, restrictive and sobering. Whatever traces of content your dream had left behind are firmly thrashed, leaving behind the bleak reality that your unrequited yearning has likely been a topic of much amusement for those you work so closely with. No doubt they pity you. Mock you. Prefix your name with ‘poor’ or ‘stupid’ in hushed conversation, because they assuredly know—just as you do—that the chances of your workplace crush ever seeing fruition are non-existent.

The creak of the main space door cuts through the tension. Heavy, familiar steps cross the office, stopping their abrupt pace on walking into the blanket of silence.

“What’s going on?”

Minho’s voice is a knife to your chest; after the events of yesterday and those just passed you suppose it makes a bleak sort of sense.

Seungmin straightens up in his chair, clears his throat. “Nothing. You’re late.”

“I had to stop somewhere on the way.”

You catch a glimpse of his form through your peripherals, his lingering presence at your side demands that you meet his eyes. The moment you do, you wish never to have had such a dream as you did. Every inch of him is composed and collected, yet your gaze is drawn straight to the lips you were so consumed by.

“Everything okay?” he asks.

“Y— Yes. Yeah. Of course. Good morning.”

He hovers a moment, poised as though he wishes to say something, yet seems to think better of it and instead heads to his office. No doubt in small part due to Seungmin’s critical eye from across the space, though surely in larger part due to the air suspended between you. You reason that, on his part, the awkwardness must be residue from yesterday’s outburst, and that perhaps, after rest, he feels less importantly on the matter.

You decide it best not to broach the subject until he does. You’re loath to put yourself in any further situations with potential to be misinterpreted. Besides, maintaining distance from him until the remnant memories of your illicit dream have passed is assuredly sensible; you’d rather not be reminded of what he looks like underneath the charcoal Armani.

At least, not in public.

***

Minho’s surprised by how good she looks.

Not in the misogynistic sense; he doesn’t consider himself important or relevant enough to dictate what makes a woman (or person) look good on any particular day, and he’d never dare to impose his own imaginings of what constitutes a ‘good look’ on anyone else, ever.

She always looks Minho’s kind of good, even on the days he hears her complain of difficult sleep or uncooperative hair days. He wonders sometimes if perhaps she’s hard on herself that way, conditioned by a patriarchal society to meet beauty standards that she exceeds anyway through simply being herself. Minho supposes she wouldn’t want to hear that. Probably wouldn’t believe it. That’s partly why he keeps it to himself.

Indeed, it’s not that Minho’s surprised by how good she looks because she rarely looks good—that’s simply not true—but rather he’s surprised because her looking good is in direct spite of what must have been a testing night for her, the first of many following her cursing.

He thinks it must have been a testing night, because he doesn’t know for certain. Despite Felix’s encouragement and general bad influence, he ultimately resisted the urge to look in on her dreams, and therefore was able to face her just now with relative composure. In truth, he doesn’t think he can shoulder the guilt of invading her privacy as well as that which he feels for cursing her at all: even lust demons have their limits, apparently.

Sinking into his desk chair, he shakes the wireless mouse atop the pad, the monitor subsequently flicking to life. He pulls up his calendar and scans down the agenda for today: a typical morning meeting with the other seniors and division manager to delegate cases; a lunchtime appointment with his newest client, Mr. Bang, to discuss his defamation case; a witness interview in the afternoon for the aforementioned case, and finally, a late conference call. Nothing too exciting from what he can tell, though a good percentage of the work is firefighting and thus any standard working day rarely allows for total and complete planning, despite his attempts.

There is one thing, however, not listed on the agenda that he knows he must address. As senior attorney and—far more importantly, designated head of the small team working under him—it is his responsibility to watch out for them inasmuch as professional boundaries call for. He is obligated to monitor their workloads, and by extension their welfares, therefore they are both things he keeps an eye on, albeit quietly. If someone needs a break, he’ll act accordingly. If someone can stand to take on more, he’ll delegate. But therein lies the issue he mulls over; professional boundaries, the obligations of his job role. There is only so much care he is expected to give from an occupational standpoint, and so to interfere beyond his remit is to land himself in all sorts of potential hot water. He can’t be seen to be too involved, too caring, too invested in the relationships of his team.

But still... Kim Seungmin. Minho’s not ignorant to the nickname the man has earned himself as a result of his sharp tongue and ruthless wit. Neither his vast experience nor impressive track record in the courtroom are things to be sniffed at, and Minho would never contest that, but neither does he feel that either of those things excuse the way he lets his ego run away with him. In fact, he imagines them to be rather the cause of the attitude. In particular, Seungmin seems to have painted something of a target on her back over the last few months, giving her an especially hard time both in relation to her performance (with which Minho finds less than no issue), and her private life. Minho supposes that alone is ample reason for him to discipline the man, and had planned to do just that, but having overheard their conversation only minutes prior to his arrival, he now finds himself unsure of how to proceed.

“Did you finally fuck him?”

The question echoes around Minho’s thoughts like bellowed words from a town crier, accompanied by blistering copper bell that makes his head hurt. He guesses himself to be the subject of the statement by sheer process of elimination; Jisung was present during the exchange and Seungmin himself surely wouldn’t be asking had he been on the receiving end. But finally? For it to be final implies that the assumed desire to fuck has been present for some time and therefore prolonged to bring a sure feeling of relief when fulfilled, and therein lies Minho’s bewilderment. Are his feelings perhaps reciprocated, after all? Moreover, if this is as common knowledge amongst the team as it appears to be, how didn’t Minho catch on? Clearly there were signs, moments, perhaps even something she said or did that alluded to such desire, yet he missed them?

Putting his quiet excitement aside, Minho surmises that if all this is true and her interest in him does equate to something less than professional, it can only mean further complication. If he were to proceed and discipline Seungmin for the way he berates her so relentlessly, would he be validating the suspicion? Would his involvement be seen as coming from a place of affection as opposed to in official capacity? For once, he can’t make out the correct course of action.

All of this is stress enough without even considering that he has inadvertently cursed the one person whose potential feelings actually mean something, for there have been many with them over the centuries of his life, yet none have mattered.

And so, he decides that burying himself in his work is best. Perhaps he’ll take on an extra case or two during the morning meeting. Keeping himself occupied so his thoughts don’t wander is the safest immediate way to ensure his sanity, and if he loads the team up with tasks of their own, perhaps everything will simply blow over. Besides, if Seungmin continues the way he has been no doubt he’ll end up in HR’s orbit (again) before too long anyway, which would be the problem effectively solved.

A gentle knock on his office door brings Minho back to the room.

“Come in!”

As the door opens, Jisung’s blonde head of hair appears, his countenance always pleasant. Minho likes dealing with him, for it’s never a task.

“Sorry to bother you, I just wondered if you’d heard from Hyunjin at all?”

Minho fishes for his phone from his inner jacket pocket, taps the screen to a void of no notifications.

“No, why?”

Jisung nods. “Okay. It’s just that, he’s not here, and it’s not like him. I tried to call him but he’s not picking up, so...”

Icy disquiet washes over the elder, the itch of foreboding nagging him amongst a realisation he can only hope isn’t on point.

“I’ll deal with it. Thanks, Jisung.”

The blonde waves it off, ducks out of the office quickly. Minho flicks his phone to life once more, unlocks it and dials a particular contact. A few rings later, and a voice bleeds through the other end.

“Good morning, darling. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“What the hell did you do?”

There’s a second of silence, a huff of breath. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“Cut the shit, Felix. I’m not in the mood.”

“Damn, alright. I assume you’re referring to the kid?”

“Of course I'm referring to the fucking kid. He didn't show up for work this morning and he’s about as religious with his timekeeping as you are with your waxes.”

Felix chuckles high and airy, before evening out into a sigh. “He’s alright, if that’s what you’re wondering. He’s just not your problem anymore.”

“Yeah, no, I'll need more than that.”

“Why do you even care, Minho?” the faerie hisses. “Not even twelve hours ago you were planning to literally eat him—”

“Do as I say, not as I do, how about that?” the elder retorts.

“Such a damn hypocrite. Maybe you should get involved with the human chick, you could do with a reason to unclench.”

“Felix—”

“Fine! Fine. Let’s just say he’s tucked up safely in my basement boudoir waiting patiently for my return. And maybe he has a newfound penchant for pegging, but that's neither here nor there.”

“You bewitched him.”

“I did no such thing. I simply introduced myself, and what happened after that was out of my control.”

Fucking sex faeries, Minho thinks for the second time in as many days. While it’s true they have no abject control over who falls under their bewitching auras in total servitude, it’s not entirely true to say they don’t use it to their advantages.

“He’s happy, Minho. Trust me. And far more importantly, he’s off your team, just like you wanted.”

Minho supposes he can’t complain too much. It was a problem, and now it’s solved, and better yet he didn’t have to lift so much as a finger for it.

“You’re not about to tell me I owe you, right?” Minho slumps back into his chair. “I don’t like being in debt.”

“Not at all. I was in desperate need of a new service top, anyway.”

“Okay, alright, less detail, please.”

“Honestly, it’s the ones you’d never suspect that turn out to be the most pliant—”

“Hanging up now!”

It’s to Felix’s airy laughter that Minho does just that, ending the call. While still a little uneasy about it, he supposes there’s nothing he can do now. His hands are tied, the decision was made for him, though it does highlight a certain helplessness as to the bleak state of his biggest problem; now she really was cursed for nothing.

A quick glance at his wristwatch confirms he has ten minutes until the meeting. Just enough time to get a coffee and compose himself. He moves to go and do just that, when an email pings in amongst a shrill tone, the subject line of which he catches via the desktop notification: ‘FAO all staff, annual office party!’

Minho’s heart sinks. He doesn’t even need to open it to tell the contents, for it’s the same every year: a party organised and hosted by the HR department, the intention to appreciate the ‘hardworking staff of Help, Heart and Justice Limited’ by offering them free booze and a variety selection of vol-au-vents. It’s the board’s way of getting around bonuses every year, and in truth, is largely effective. People let their hair down (and often much more than that), drink too much and eat on the company bank, content to work themselves ragged until the next such event comes along. Almost like an annual purge, now that he thinks about it; one night during which the most debauched acts of drunken embarrassment and scandalous involvement are allowed and are subsequently the subject of much office gossip for months afterwards.

It’s not Minho’s scene; never has been. Up until now he’s been able to get away with making a brief appearance, and he intends to do the same this year. Putting in polite small talk with the people that matter to ensure said appearance is noticed is key, he finds, allowing him to surreptitiously slip away before things really ramp up and he’s tainted by association.

He can already hear the turbulence from outside. Raised voices and exclamations of excitement; Jisung declaring his intentions concerning copious amounts of booze, Seungmin expressing this will be his chance to get in the knickers of the new girl from reception. Minho’s jaw ticks; he makes a mental note to request with HR this kind of email be sent at the end of the working day next time.

Collecting himself and pasting on the face of composure, he shoves up from his desk and strides to the door, exiting into the main office.

“Minho, did you get the—”

“I got it, Jisung, thank you,” he interrupts the chipper blonde. “Let’s not have it get in the way of our days, okay? Lots to do.”

He can’t help but notice that she appears to be impervious to the electric atmosphere, absorbed in a stack of documents, skimming them and flicking to the next page with her brow furrowed.

“Hey, I'm going to need that day off, by the way,” Seungmin pipes up.

Minho turns to him, immediately irritated. “What day?”

“Friday?” the younger replies incredulously. “The day of the party. I’ll get me a fresh cut, maybe pick up a new suit—”

“Well, you know the procedure, Seungmin. Fill in a request form and email it to me, I'll review it for approval.”

“Review it?” Seungmin scoffs, stands up from his chair to saunter towards the senior. He puts a hand on his shoulder, meant in a fashion of comradery that Minho feels is wildly misplaced as he drawls, “Come on man, you know how important this party is to me. Can't you just make an exception this one time?”

Minho shrugs him off, readjusts his Armani suit jacket. “I don’t make exceptions. Frankly I'm surprised you’d even suggest it.”

“I’m not— I wasn’t— I just mean that, it can take you a while to get to those approvals, like, a long time, you’re so busy—”

“Did you get a promotion?”

Seungmin blinks, dumbfounded. Minho squares his shoulders, and asks again, “Did you get a promotion, Kim? Are you my boss now? Do you pay my wages?”

“I... No?”

“No? Alright. I wasn’t sure for a minute there, seeing as you’re so apparently concerned with my workload and what I do with my time.”

A quiet chuckle comes from the other side of the office; too quiet for Seungmin to have heard it, but Minho does. A surreptitious glance in that direction reveals that she’s watching intently, ears pricked and eyes wide.

“Man, come on,” Seungmin sighs, hand back on Minho’s shoulder, “you don’t need to be like this, I was just asking for a favour. It’s not a big fucking deal.”

Something deep within Minho throbs unforgivingly; not the usual itch of irritation that might unsettle, but a heavier, hotter urge that he recognises as usually preceding a more extreme form of ‘communication’. He draws tight, reminds himself where he is, speaks to Seungmin with a quiet breath: “In my office. Now.”

Ever aware of the person he’s supposed to be, doing this behind closed doors is assuredly the best way to shut it down. Once inside and with Seungmin following close behind, Minho perches on the edge of his desk, noting the attitude still written all over the younger’s features. He’s determined to do this calmly.

“Let me make something crystal clear, Kim. You keep addressing me like we’re friends, like we know each other beyond our roles at work, which we don’t. Funnily enough it’s only something you do when we’re in the company of others, which leads me to believe you’re fishing for some sort of clout amongst the junior staff, as though people thinking the existence of a friendship between you and I will somehow advance your status in this company.”

Seungmin balks. “Excuse me? That’s not what I—”

“Furthermore,” the elder continues, “it’s come to my attention that you’re behind with your admin. We have an administrative assistant on the team to assist with that kind of thing, her expertise in all forms of litigation is precisely what we took her on for, so I advise that you consult her if you’re struggling.”

“I am not struggling—”

“This leads me to my next point; the way you conduct yourself at work, Kim, is frankly appalling. You continue to demonstrate a total lack of respect both for your colleagues and yourself, and while I'm far from qualified or motivated enough to advise that you do something about the latter, I am in a position to inform you that if your conduct around the office doesn't improve, you’ll be placed on a poor performance and capability plan and escorted down the disciplinary route.”

Seungmin stutters, his jaw agape. For once, it appears the man is speechless.

“And while we’re on the subject,” Minho sighs, tone a shade gentler if only to ease some of the pressure, “I am aware of the rumours.”

“R— Rumours?”

Minho nods. “The ones concerning a particular member of staff and I. The ones you alluded to this morning in front of her.”

Colour drains from Seungmin’s face as he wrings his hands. “I... I didn’t start it. I mean, it’s not even really a rumour. People don’t talk about it, I mean. It’s just... it’s like something we just know about, you know?”

Something we just know about. As though the question of her feelings is no question at all, simply a statement of fact that Minho feels a fool for never having noticed.

“I don’t want to hear it, Kim. I’m not about to entertain it either way. All I ask is that you refresh yourself on Help, Heart and Justice’s zero tolerance policy to inappropriate office relations and kindly stop circulating such nonsense around the team.”

Seungmin nods amicably, before Minho thinks to add, “And lay off her. She has enough on her plate as it is. We all do.”

“Of course, sir. I can do that.”

Minho supposes that’s point made well enough, and probably better than it would have been had he gone down the official route.

“Fine. Good. That’s all, then.”

Seungmin backs up, offering polite bows never before seen until he’s out of Minho’s sight, and the senior attorney feels a weight removed from his shoulders; like a substantial measure of the tension has evaporated with the confrontation, if one could call it that. He’s even somewhat proud of himself for exercising such control. The closer he draws to requiring his monthly feed, the less of a hold he has over his urges and emotions, and he knows it’s fast approaching that time.

A quiet knock on the door is followed by its immediate opening, a face he’d hoped to avoid directly presenting itself. Being in her presence is a test of his self-control at the best of times; never mind when he’s this hungry.

She smells like jasmine and fresh rain; no matter what she’s wearing or the perfume she masks it with, always, that’s what Minho picks up. Humans are unique that way, each of them carrying a scent undetectable to them that tantalises those of the Underworld. It’s what first piqued Minho’s attention, he’ll admit.

He gets off the desk. “I was actually just on my way out—”

“What was that about?”

The question is direct, and Minho would gladly tell her if not for his professional responsibilities.

“Nothing. We just had a few things to discuss,” he says instead, a half-truth.

She crosses her arms tightly, the subsequent swell of her cleavage beneath her blouse a demonic temptation that Minho tears his eyes from in the milliseconds he registers them wandering.

“Fine. If you won’t tell me that, tell me what happened yesterday instead.”

“Yesterday?”

“The coffee. Your... freakout,” she hesitates, though the term is surely accurate. Minho freaked out, and he knows it, yet it’s just another thing he can’t divulge the truth of.

He scratches his nape. “I’m sorry about all that. I don’t really have an excuse. I suppose I just... was embarrassed?”

She doesn’t believe it; Minho sees in her eyes that she doesn't believe it. But she wouldn't believe the truth either, and so what else can he do? She sighs, drops her arms to her sides. There’s resignation in the action, and Minho’s glad.

“You also asked me to dinner,” she states.

Minho’s chest aches. A moment of foolish weakness never to be fulfilled. Felix was right; trying to get involved was a bad idea.

“Did you mean it—”

“I really do have to go. I’m already very late for a meeting. If you’ll excuse me.”

Taking several long strides across his office, he walks past her, about to make his exit when a weak grip on his arm compels him to stop. There’s no force behind the gesture, just a silent plea to wait, to speak, to meet her halfway because she knows there’s so much more to be said. Meeting her gaze evokes the swell of arousal he’s usually so adept at concealing, but this time she’s simply so close.

And she steps closer still, maintains her grip on the sleeve of his Armani. She speaks softly, “If there was something else, you could tell me.”

Minho hears her very breath, the way it forms around her lips when it escapes her mouth.

“I would listen,” she adds. “Whatever it is.”

“There’s nothing else.”

“You’re lying to me. I can feel it. You asked me to dinner before... whatever that was, and now you’re acting like it never happened. Like you didn’t mean it.”

Minho debates, in that moment, simply being honest. Even without the context she knows she’s been fed a lie, and furthermore is so certain of it that she would risk potential embarrassment by direct approach, making a demand for answers. He admires it. Admires her. Would that he were less of a pessimist, he might find it in himself to trust that she means it when she says she’d believe him.

“Go back to work. Please.”

With a gentle movement he removes her grip from his sleeve, her crestfallen demeanour an extra kick to the teeth that he can only walk off as he strides through the main office, a destination of nowhere in mind. He’s already criminally late for the meeting, too late to justify turning up now. He’ll just have to make his excuses later and make do with the cases nobody else wants.

Fucking office party.

***

Going the rest of the day in deliberate avoidance of your boss is relatively easy, all things considered.

Probably because he’s actively doing the same of you.

Tasks he’d normally have you do are instead assigned to Jisung, the blonde attorney being run ragged from one moment to the next. Things he’d usually call to you from across the office space are instead communicated by email, your inbox a perfect demonstration of what happens when two people simply can’t bear to look at each other for any prolonged period. Even Seungmin has been unusually astute, buried in the case files he’s had on his desk for weeks, removing himself only to take a call here and there.

Now approaching five o’clock, you’re gearing up for heading home. You've no desire to stay late and arguably no reason to with the sudden easing of your workload. Minho will probably be here for many more hours, cooped up in that office until either hunger or need for sleep demand he takes a break. Thinking back on what occurred earlier—your misplaced attempt at an appeal for the truth—you’re naturally somewhat nonplussed. While unsure what kind of response you were going to be met with, you had hoped at least to be granted the decency of acknowledgment; recognition that he had, in fact lied to you, that he is indeed keeping something from you, even if you can’t begin to speculate on what that might be. That he had meant it when he asked you out.

But you were bold with him, perhaps overly so, and now he’s avoiding you like you’re patient zero.

Fine, you suppose. If that’s how he’s going to conduct himself, so be it. You made your play, put your cards on the table, and he chose to turn from you. It’s not the answer you wanted, but the answer you have all the same, and you’d be even more an idiot to ignore it in the hopes he might still come around.

Though come around to what, you’re not even sure. There’s still every possibility that his invitation to dinner was meant purely as he made it out; a form of apology for the failed lunch with no romantic connotations attached whatsoever, in which case you have wildly misunderstood his intentions.

A sharp vibration from your handbag interrupts the spiral of doubt; checking your phone quickly reveals a text message from Gina.

>> drinks tonight?

You respond immediately:

<< you read my fucking mind bestie

***

Three cocktails deep and fully apprised of the tea, Gina stares you down from across the dimly lit table.

Despite the length of time you’ve been friends for (which by now feels ten times longer than the three years it actually is), you’ve never found it all that easy to read her. Perpetually poker faced, it’s notoriously difficult to tell how she’s feeling from one moment to the next. Unlike you, she’s controlled and composed, has full reign over her emotions. She reminds you a little of Minho in that respect.

Though perhaps not so frustrating to deal with.

“You should just ask him to dinner,” she finally states, as though it’s a dead obvious solution.

“Are you crazy?”

“Are you?” she shoots back, stark green eyes narrowed. “You’ve had a wide-on for this guy for the longest time, he finally asks you out, and you botch it?”

“How the hell did I botch it; he’s the one that threw a tantrum about the stupid coffee—”

She shakes her head, holds up a manicured hand, “Men are hacks, my friend. Their tiny peanut brains are too susceptible to distraction, it’s up to us to bring them back on track.”

You roll your eyes. “I tried, I told you. He didn’t even acknowledge it all, just acted like he hadn’t heard me and told me to get back to work.”

Gina taps the screen of her phone, pulls up the cocktail bar’s ordering app and flits through the screens with practiced ease, finishing the last of her pornstar martini while doing so.

“Maybe he’s just too scared to make a move. He’s your boss, right?” she muses when she’s done, checking her lipstick in her front-facing camera.

“He’s the head of the team, so yeah, I guess,” you shrug.

“See, there you go. He asked you to dinner, remembered who he was and had a momentary freakout over it, now he’s backpedalling all the way to the starting line.”

“Why would him being my boss matter? We’re just people, we work together, our positions don’t mean anything.”

“Maybe not to you, but I mean, you only have to look at someone the wrong way in a workplace these days, right? He’s in a position of power. He’s a man. You’re a subordinate woman—” she holds her hands up on your glare, “—in theory, you’re a subordinate woman. Shit, he’s basically guilty already.”

“That’s ridiculous,” you huff.

“That’s the world we live in, honey. With all due respect he doesn’t know you’re not going to go all ‘hashtag me too’ on him.”

The conversation is interrupted by an approaching waiter, his depositing of two more pornstar martinis and two accompanying shots of Prosecco met with thanks of gratitude. You take yours eagerly, sipping the top layer of sweet foam around the floating pomegranate slice.

“That’s why I think you should just make the move. Make it clear that you want him, and he won’t be so worried about jumping your bones,” she shrugs matter-of-factly. “Either that or just approach him outside of work hours. Didn’t you say there was a party coming up? Do it there.”

You hum around the lip of the cocktail glass. “Nah, he probably won’t go to that. Besides, I don’t think that’s it. It just... it feels like there’s something else. Something he’s not telling me, and not because he doesn’t want to. More like he can’t?”

Gina twirls a strand of silky black hair around her index. “I think you’re too dickmatised to see past the red flags, if I'm being honest.”

“Red flags?” you repeat, exasperated.

“He’s a workaholic,” she holds one finger up, “doesn’t take good enough care of himself,” a second finger goes up, “hasn’t dated in at least the last seven months—”

“— That I know of,” you interrupt.

“Whatever, he’s still freakishly celibate for a hot guy,” and flicks up a third finger. “He’s also loved by everyone.”

“Oh come on, being liked is a red flag now?” you scoff amongst another sip.

“No, but being so perfect that you’ve never given people a reason to say a single bad thing about you is. That kind of perfect is cultured perfect; he’s trying too hard.”

Perhaps there’s a line of logic somewhere in Gina’s reasoning, but getting swept up in her self-righteous propaganda has landed you in trouble before. Just because she sounds like she’s making sense, doesn’t mean she is.

“I had my first ever dream last night.”

“Oh, good,” Gina blinks. “Do tell.”

“It was about him.”

Your friend takes a drawn-out sip of her cocktail before muttering, “Dickmatised.”

“Shut up. Like I can help it,” you chortle unceremoniously,

“Saucy, or?”

“Oh my god. Heinz saucy. Kind of weird though.”

“Weird, like, kinky weird?”

“No. I dreamt that he was this... monster, or something. Demon, maybe? I don’t know. He had these huge wings and—”

“Is this your way of trying to tell me you’re a monster fucker, honey?”

You stretch over the table, swat at her arm in playful scolding. “You’re just jealous.”

Gina sighs, her full lips pouted. “Damn right. It’s a drought over here, I can hardly even remember what dick feels like. At this point I'd take anything; monster included.”

“And she calls me a monster fucker.”

“Needs must baby,” Gina laughs.

The fourth pornstar martini goes down almost too nicely, the fifth and sixth following closely behind.

Before Gina can make suggestions for the seventh, you bid her goodnight and call yourself a taxi, stumbling in through the front door of your apartment and engaging in a hunt for the frozen pizza you know you bought sometime in the last month.

It’s not a particularly elegant way to end the night; naked from the waist up eating burnt pizza in bed while you watch (and yell at) Instagram reels, but it’s times like this you suppose company wouldn’t be so bad. A warm body to come home to and have dote on you, take care of you the way you sometimes neglect. Indeed, it’s only through sheer stress at the thought of working tomorrow under a hangover that you remember to take a milk thistle capsule and chug down a pint of water.

Tonight, there’s no feeling of unease as you set your spinning head to the pillow.

Tonight, you surely won’t dream.

𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚, 𝙧𝙚𝙗𝙡𝙤𝙜, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙨 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙢𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙞𝙣 𝙖𝙣 𝙖𝙨𝙠 ♡

< 𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙤𝙪𝙨 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧

𝙣𝙚𝙭𝙩 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧 >

[jl-micasea-fics]

Something In The Rain | lmh

❝𝐋𝐞𝐭 𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐨 𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐫.❞

↳ Chapter ¼ of Something In The Rain. Inside the polished walls of Help, Heart and Justice Limited, you work under the guidance of enigmatic senior attorney Lee Minho to support him and his legal team. And perhaps under all the professionalism, feelings stray, yet you’re committed to keeping said feelings buried whilst you pine from afar. Until an act of kindness on a dark, rainy evening turns everything upside down; for even the most put together of men must indulge their demonic appetites.

↳ Lee Know x female reader

↳ 9k

↳ Supernatural au, strangers/colleagues to lovers, office romance, lust demon Lee Know, eventual smut

! Explicit content, adult themes, suitable for 18+ readers only !

「Contents List」  「© May 2023 by jl-micasea-fics」

Rainy nights are truly among your favourite things.

It seems universally known that there is something inexplicably and inherently comforting about them.

To speak personally of your own comfort, it’s sitting in a space of your own making, wrapped up in warmth while outside the elements rage. You’re far from afraid of such weather—rather, you admire the raw power of nature—yet watching the downpour from the safety of indoors brings contentment. There is separation from the chill and the wet: you’re out of reach of the unforgiving bite. When the melodic patter of heavy raindrops bears down on you, there is stillness and serenity, and what follows is catharsis.

You long for such peace in this moment, as the unforgiving rain streaks the twenty-fifth-floor windows, distorting the dark panorama of the city.

You’re no stranger to long days, thoroughly conditioned to late office hours. Indeed, where others may be inclined to gripe about such overtime requirements, you consider it an obligation, for the nature of litigation demands an overinvestment of attention. Assisting a small team of attorneys under the much larger corporate umbrella of Help, Heart and Justice Limited equates you to something of a small fish in a big pond; your efforts to reach above and beyond the outline of your role go largely unnoticed by those that swim high above, assuredly carnivorous in proclivity. And that’s fine. It’s always been fine. You work to assist the people, for the people, neither assuming nor seeking praise.

At least, that’s what you tell yourself; that your reasons for lingering at the office are chaste and noble, that your integrity is intact when you bend over backwards to accommodate the enigmatic senior attorney that heads your team. To claim your efficiency and dedication is a product of anything other than an ironclad work ethic would be incomprehensibly unprofessional, wildly slanderous, a cruel accusation.

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[jl-micasea-fics]

Heaven’s Demise | hhj

❝𝐈 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐮𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐰𝐞’𝐫𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡.❞  

↳ Do you wonder, dear reader, what it was made me the man I am? What it was made me capable of doing the things I did that fateful night in Seventh Heaven? Yes? Then come close. Get comfortable as I tell you of what came before. I dare say you’ll want to sit down. But, oh no… don’t be frightened, sweet kitten. You’re in the very best of hands.

↳ Hwang Hyunjin x OCs, first person perspective

↳ 16.3k

! Unrequited prequel spin-off story (strongly recommend you read Unrequited and Unmatched for extra context), strong language, heavy angst and tension, explicit sexual content, unreliable narrator, themes of mental illness and surrounding issues therein, psychological diagnosis, murder, stalking, gaslighting and manipulation, a very morally grey main character, strong yandere themes throughout, obsession and ownership, intrusive thoughts, this story is not for the faint of heart please heed these warnings, adult themes throughout !

「Unrequited」 「Unmatched」 「suitable for 18+ readers only」 「© March 2023 by jl-micasea-fics」

Maybe I deserve this.

Four walls and iron, isolation of the truest kind. With only these things and the banal wailing of my fellow inmates to keep me company, this is the thought I find myself aimlessly circling back to: that maybe I deserve to be here, imprisoned and stripped of everything that makes me human.

In this place, I’m no better than a stray mutt. Kept underfoot and regarded with disgust, the sum of my crimes is all I’m worth. My experiences, my desires, my dreams; all of it is cold, pale ash decorating the smouldering bonfire of destruction that is my life. It’ll never be the same now. Not even when I get out. I’m branded a criminal, a violent and unstable individual that can’t be trusted in any form of employment or with any amount of responsibility. They tell me I’m a danger to myself, to others.

To her.

It used to be that thoughts of her kept me from insanity, when I teetered precariously on the very brink of it those first few weeks after they threw me in this cage and committed me to rot. I would travel—project, perhaps—back to the moments we had together and spend listless hours in them, memorising every detail her face, every octave of her voice as it sounded both before and after the fear set in. Now, those moments only fuel my raging resentment.

I’m no fool, despite the courts’ accusations. I’m aware that the things I did lacked decorum, are frowned upon, are culturally (and apparently legally) condemnable. I am being punished for hurting another person, someone I claim to love. And that’s what they say: that I claim to love her. They tell me my claims are false, that my affections are woefully untrue and use their textbook definitions of love as justification for doing so, for we are supposed to cherish and protect those we love. Not contribute to their tumbling down a flight of stairs.

But they misunderstand. Everyone does. There’s context to be applied to everything, and that’s never more crucial than in the case of my love for her. She and I, we had something. Call it a connection, a meeting of minds. Hell, call it a fluke accident if you like, but whatever it was, it was real. I know that in my soul, as did she. My feelings manifested strongly, while hers were allowed to only flicker before they were snuffed out. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, for in it I see that Minho had assuredly clawed his way into her heart before she and I even met. Perhaps we were always doomed to fail, then.

I prefer to believe that fate gave us a chance, that I tried with everything I had to take it. Had she been strong enough to leave him, aware enough to see him for the undeserving wretch that he was, perhaps things would have been different. Perhaps I wouldn’t have been driven to entertain my compulsions.

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[jl-micasea-fics]

The Guy Next Door | hhj

❝𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐳𝐢𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮’𝐯𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐲?❞

↳ Chapter 7/7 of The Guy Next Door. See Chapter 1 for story description.  

↳ Female reader x Hyunjin

↳ 17k

!! This fic explores themes that may distress some readers i.e. familial abuse (physical, verbal, mental), extremely strict/controlling parenting, mental illness, anxiety/depression and sexual exploitation. Please proceed with caution !!

! Final chapter, strong language, porn star au, strangers to lovers au, college au, first times au, neighbours au, porn star Hyunjin, inexperienced reader, angst and tension, heavy sexual themes throughout, frequent reference to pornography, themes of rebellion and self-discovery, adult themes throughout, a film shoot, big decisions, everyone steps up and the tripod does its thing, explicit sexual content, several sex scenes, a short time skip during the final portion of the chapter, a new home, a conclusion, and a happy fucking ending !

「suitable for 18+ readers only」  「Chapter 1」  「Contents List」  「© February 2023 by jl-micasea-fics」

The next morning, you awake feeling surreal; like a part of you has been carved out and replaced with something altogether foreign.

Waking up beside Hyunjin might have something to do with that, you suppose. It’s not every day one precedes their morning routine by admiring such a painfully gorgeous face, relaxed in deep sleep.

Loath to disturb him, you went about your washing and waking up alone and in as much peace as you could manage, stealing surreptitious glances at his slumbering form if only to confirm that you didn’t dream the entirety of yesterday and last night.

Hyunjin is your boyfriend. Your beautiful, gentle, salaciously passionate freaking boyfriend.

This is the thought that spirals endlessly as you amble into Changbin’s kitchen, somewhat surprised to see Minho and Lix already awake. They’re gathered closely on stools at the island; the elder is poised topless, lavender hair raked back off his face, thick-rimmed glasses on his nose. Inexplicably stunning. Lix is wrapped in a pastel silk kimono, hunched over a mug of something hot, her expression markedly vacant.

With an arm around her small shoulders, Minho speaks softly and inaudibly, though his tone denotes a conversation of intimate nature; one that you’re most certainly not to disturb. Yet as you back away to leave them to their own devices, the interruption of movement calls Minho’s attention. He casts you a quick glance, straightening up immediately.

“Good morning, darling,” he drawls warmly, retracting his arm from Lix’s shoulders.

“M— Morning. Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“You’re fine, come in.”

In a bid to avoid any awkwardness you suppose you can only go along with Minho’s invitation and his implication that whatever this is, it’s fine for you to be present, and so you go about making yourself a breakfast of underdone toast and overly strong coffee, doing your best to appear as insignificant as possible. All the same, they don’t resume their conversation. Rather, Lix excuses herself and leaves you alone with the other star, his gentle humming a pleasant accompaniment that inexplicably allows you to zone out, to return to thoughts of your boyfriend.

Indeed, it’s only when coating your warm bread in a third layer of butter that Lix manages to get your attention; you hadn’t even noticed her return. She waves a hand in front of your face, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

“You good, honey? Seem a little out of it this morning.”

You feel you could say the same of her, her apparent change in demeanour so startling it’s more on par with what you’d expect of your blonde best friend and his drastic mood swings. Whatever Minho said to her clearly had some effect, intended or not.

“Y— Yeah, of course. I’m good,” you surrender the butter knife, grimacing at the state of your now inedible breakfast.

“Vic still sleeping?” she asks, blasé.

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[realisticromanticist]

🫶🏻

[jl-micasea-fics]

The Guy Next Door | hhj

❝𝐖𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐥𝐞𝐭 𝐦𝐞?❞

↳ Interim chapter 2/2 of The Guy Next Door: should be read after chapter 6. Interims are optional therefore not crucial to the main storyline but do provide extra context and background on side characters, their arcs and sub-plots.

↳ Changbin x transfem Felix focused, other characters included/referenced 

↳ 10.7k

! Strong language, sports science major/rich boy Changbin, porn star Felix, transfem Felix uses she/her pronouns and has female anatomy, pansexual Changbin, angst and tension, background/history on Changbin, frank discussion on transitioning and surrounding issues therein, frequent reference to pornography (trans porn specifically and issues therein), pining, alcohol consumption, explicit sexual content, making out, oral sex (m. rec), face fucking, cum swallowing, hugely under-negotiated kink, Felix does a really dumb thing, d/s dynamics, subspace and whiting out, unintentional aftercare neglect, this chapter is a lesson in the importance of communication do not try this at home, adult themes throughout !

「suitable for 18+ readers only」  「Chapter 1」  「Contents List」  「© February 2023 by jl-micasea-fics」

Changbin sometimes wonders where he’d be if he wasn’t in Saint Brides.

Abroad somewhere, perhaps, relaxing on a sunburnt beach as warm waves lick his toes. Maybe exploring Europe, backpacking through cultural capitals. Maybe touring Asia, island hopping or mountain climbing or otherwise participating in any extreme sport that would have his adrenaline pumping.

But that’s all about he can do; he can wonder, he can dream, he can pretend that his future is as unknown as everyone else’s. He can try to forget that he’s not beholden to certain expectations laid on him from the minute he was born, but really, he never will.

Make no mistake; Changbin is grateful for the things he has. His life is good, comfortable, he wants for nothing and as a result finds himself with never a dull moment to waste. Contrary to what might constitute a cliché for rich families, Changbin knows his father to be a good man. A man with principles, self-made and honest. A man that wants only the best for his brood and that worked himself to the bone in the business of merging and acquisition to ensure said best.

Changbin finds pride in being the eldest son of a man like that, and knows how lucky he is that he can make such a claim; certainly when he compares his home life to that of his dearest friends, the gratitude for his circumstances is abundantly clear. His childhood was the ideal of storybooks, his adolescence supported and nurtured, his growing into the person he is now a gentle process by the guiding hands of his parents.

And so, he supposes that ultimately, his future is a small price to pay for it all. It’s expected of him to succeed his father in taking over the family business, to run it with the same level of respect and care that the man himself did. He’s never abjectly hated the idea of stepping into those shoes, but neither has he found himself giddy at the prospect.

It is simply a stated fact, a truth that he knows to be. It hardly matters that his true passion lies with sports and physical fitness. Indeed, it hardly matters that he’s studying towards it now, because even with degree in hand and all the motivation in the world, he’ll be unable to make proper use of it.

His parents tell him frequently that that he’s free to do what he wants, how he wants, when he wants it, until such a time as he’s required to take up the Seo mantle. Thus, he decided to go to university, to do what everyone else his age was doing in the hopes it might make him feel a little more like them.

Changbin still believes his falling into step the tripod to be an unthinkable stroke of luck, their friendship feeling so very eternal to him now. It was through no more than being approached by a grinning blonde kid after the first induction tutorial of the year that rendered him subsequently unable to shake him. Many months after the event, Changbin asked him what it was inspired him to approach in the first place, to which Jisung informed that it was because Changbin was the only one to not laugh at the snide joke the professor cracked on the blonde’s late arrival to the lecture. A little baffled by the answer but accepting all the same (Changbin didn’t laugh because he simply didn’t find singling out funny), it was no effort to quickly warm to the eccentric rainbow coloured catastrophe that was Han Jisung.

It was no surprise when, a few weeks after that, Jisung pulled much the same stunt with the lonely girl in the library; a veritable deer in the headlights if Changbin had ever seen one. Less prepared to slot herself into the dynamic they already had, her icy persona took a little longer to thaw, yet even the most solidified of temperaments will eventually melt under Jisung’s scorching persistence.

Changbin worries about her. It’s natural that he should, of course, and he doesn’t let himself feel bad for wanting to text her every hour on the hour if only to ensure she’s functioning enough to string together a response.

While he never could have known the whole extent of the abuse she suffered, Changbin saw signs of something that didn’t sit rightly with him. She carried herself like her very existence was a nuisance, lingering always several paces behind until Jisung would drag her along in equal step. She would never speak unless spoken to, never add anything of value to conversations unless thoroughly relaxed enough to do so. She would flinch when her phone went off, check the time every five minutes, make increasingly elaborate excuses after class to avoid hanging out, and eventually Changbin supposed that enough was enough.

Enlightening Jisung as to his suspicions on her home life wasn’t so much an enlightenment as it was confirmation for both that their mutual concerns couldn’t be unfounded; not if they both shared them.

Even with desire to outright approach her with it, Changbin was perpetually aware of overstepping. The friendship was still relatively new, the ties fragile with potential to snap under distrust. And so, he had little choice but to believe that she was a grown woman in her own right; if she was in such dire a position as to require serious help, she would surely seek it out. Changbin had to trust that she would.

She needed friends, he realised. Not a force of authority or nature to dig to the root of her mental scars and peel them clean from her person, for doing such a thing would only open bloody wounds and negate whatever healing she had so far achieved. No. She needed a network of support to fall back on, people her own age that wouldn’t brand her a pariah or sympathise to piteous degrees, but rather that would simply treat her as though she was one of them.

It was Jisung that affectionately knighted them ‘the tripod’, three legs of the same unified being, the bonds of which were stronger than any iron-clad friendship; if one metaphorical leg were kicked out by poor circumstance or unwanted angst, all three of them would feel the pain and thusly fall. Changbin hoped she understood that the sentiment applied to everything.

Despite all this and at the behest of his own principles, however, Changbin couldn’t resign himself to total inaction. Whatever he could do to ease her anxious plight, he would, and so he took quiet note of her routines; nine pm weekday curfews, midnights on the weekend. Ensuring she was always returned home accordingly spared her from the exhaustion of fabricating an excuse every time, and while it was never outwardly stated that the pair were deliberately accommodating her circumstances, Changbin felt the appreciation in the small things. The way she became closer, warmer, more at ease the longer she remained in their company, and before Changbin really realised it, he was forced to ask himself questions as to the nature of his feelings.

Did he… love her?

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[jl-micasea-fics]

The Guy Next Door | hhj

❝𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐨 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐮𝐥, 𝐦𝐚𝐧.❞

↳ Interim chapter ½ of The Guy Next Door: should be read after chapter 6. Interims are optional therefore not crucial to the main storyline but do provide extra context and background on side characters, their arcs and sub-plots.

↳ Minho x Jisung focused, other characters included/referenced 

↳ 8.3k

! Strong language, mxm, film student Jisung, porn star Minho, angst and tension, background/history on Jisung, explicit sexual content, pining, alcohol consumption, frequent reference to pornography, filming, voyeurism and exhibitionism, a shared pornography experience, so much soft praise and validation, wet and messy making out, anal sex, Jisung just worships Minho and it’s so endearing, mild dacryphilia, dirty talk, the start of something dangerously beautiful, adult themes throughout !

「suitable for 18+ readers only」  「Chapter 1」  「Contents List」  「© January 2023 by jl-micasea-fics」

Jisung loves sex.

The sight of it, the smells of it, the meaning of it (or lack of). How it may be used as an artful representation of humanity or conversely to evidence the sheer deprivation of the race; everything about sex appeals to Jisung and so will never escape his clutches.

Save for one thing most bafflingly; the actual having of it.

Scenarios where that would have been possible have done well to elude him for the duration of his young adult life, and when Jisung thinks back on the hormonally driven hellscape that was high school, he supposes that’s probably to blame.

Jisung’s sexuality was no secret or hard-to-swallow pill. He knew, from an earlier age than most, that his attraction to both sexes wasn’t something he could combat, and neither was his personality something he could alter.

Jisung was built to operate at intense, wired to act and speak and exist at a pace beyond most people’s comprehension or level of tolerance. Life ran fast for him, as did his brain, and growing up it was never treated as a problem. Jisung’s adoptive mother—his favourite person before God gave him the tripod—was a believer in positive reinforcement, accepted him for who he was and catered to Jisung’s eccentric whims at a level perhaps thought extreme by any other parent, but it worked for her, for them, and that surely had to be all that mattered. The love of Jisung’s mother was unwavering enough that he oftentimes forgot he was a product of someone else, even aspired to follow in her high-heeled footsteps and become a lawyer before other interests claimed him.

It was only in stepping into high school that his small, rose-coloured world was blown open, and he quickly came to learn getting too physically close to his peers made him ‘the freak that doesn’t respect personal space’, that sharing facts he’d learned from the Nat Geo documentary he watched the night before made him ‘that rude asshole that always interrupts’, that dressing in the bright colours he liked made him ‘the attention seeking bi’.

Still; Jisung was never one to take it to heart. His mother would tell him he was surrounded by bubble wrap; could withstand the knocks and bumps with unexpected resilience while staying warm at his core. He supposed she was probably right, if only because the alternative was simply too dire to consider should he ever let it all get to him.

And as high school life ticked by and Jisung became slowly accustomed to the idea of never really having friends, of never getting to date, of trying to be okay with being perpetually misunderstood, something inexplicable happened.

Sophie happened.

Jisung met Sophie during art class, their mutual admiration of each other’s mindless doodles forming the beginning of a friendship. She was accepting of his sexuality and everything else about him, encouraging him to be himself and to pay no mind to the cruelty of other kids; they just didn’t get him, she said. Not like she did. Sophie understood him, Jisung thought, and so they spent a lot of time in each other’s company, in each other’s bedrooms, whereby the friendship naturally transformed to something not nearly as platonic. Jisung fully believed this was his good luck finally coming through; his big high school break, the one he always hoped would come. So content was he with the relationship that he found no reason to question Sophie’s apparent reluctance to take the next step of intimacy; Jisung supposed it would come when the time was right, that he could get by until then.

Things were going well, he thought, one thing leading to another in the manner one would expect; until it didn’t.

When Jisung discovered Sophie was cheating on him, it was by accident. He’d trained himself to tune out locker room talk—such concentrated levels of testosterone in one place gave him cystic acne breakouts—yet it was the use of a single word that piqued his attentions that afternoon.

‘Slut’.

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[jl-micasea-fics]

The Guy Next Door | hhj

❝𝐔𝐬𝐞 𝐦𝐞. 𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨.❞

↳ Chapter 6/7 of The Guy Next Door. See Chapter 1 for story description.  

↳ Female reader x Hyunjin

↳ 12.8k

!! This fic explores themes that may distress some readers i.e. familial abuse (physical, verbal, mental), extremely strict/controlling parenting, mental illness, anxiety/depression and sexual exploitation. Please proceed with caution !!

! Strong language, porn star au, strangers to lovers au, college au, first times au, neighbours au, porn star Hyunjin, inexperienced reader, angst and tension, explicit sexual content, heavy sexual themes throughout, frequent reference to pornography, themes of rebellion and self-discovery, new character introductions (transfem Felix, uses she/her pronouns and has female anatomy), much alcohol consumption, drinking games with porn stars, first-time sex and loss of virginity, car sex, semi-public sex, romantic confessions, a sprinkle of fluff amongst the angst and steam, adult themes throughout !

「suitable for 18+ readers only」  「Chapter 1」  「Contents List」  「© January 2023 by jl-micasea-fics」

“And just where in the wonderful fuck have you two been?”

Jisung is the first to question your absence, as he would be, you suppose.

He’s perched on the marbled counter of the kitchen island, speaking over the shoulder of the same mop-haired athlete that endeavoured to turn you away from the party only an hour or so before. Said athlete is far too busy smothering Jisung’s neck in lazy lip attention to acknowledge your presence, however, and you once again wonder how Jisung manages to so easily wrap the dude-bros around his finger. Always the dude-bros.

“None of your business,” you shoot back, hand linked in Hyunjin’s.

“Oh, it is all my business,” the blonde retorts, throat exposed to allow said dude-bro continuous access. “I’m the entire reason he’s even here, you know.”

“He is?”

You look up at Hyunjin, recalling that despite your immediate need for gratification in each other, there are still questions to be answered, explanations to be given.

Hyunjin grimaces, “I’ll explain later. It’s too damn loud in here.”

“Speaking of loud,” Changbin shoves the fridge door closed, hands Hyunjin a cold beer. “Where are your buddies?”

Buddies?

Hyunjin scratches his nape, glancing surreptitiously at you before he replies, “They’re, uh… in the car?”

“You left them in the fucking car?!” Jisung howls, petting dude-bro’s head mindlessly. “Holy shit, that’s hilarious.”

“You should invite them in,” Changbin suggests. “Unless you’re ready to leave?”

He directs that last question at you, to which the glow of appreciation warms you. But in truth, the party hasn’t been half as bad as you believed it would be, and while that assuredly has something to do with the fact you’ve spent the majority of it on your back or with a dick in your mouth, you don’t feel any kind of urgency to leave just yet.

“I’m good for a little while,” you shrug, looking up at Hyunjin.

“You sure?”

You nod, smile at him in reassurance, squeeze his hand. “Yeah. Besides, it’d be nice to meet your friends.”

“Y/n, honey, no. They’re not the kind of friends you’re thinking of—”

Changbin daggers a warning glare at the hysterical blonde, and accompanied by the one from Hyunjin, it appears enough to induce his stoic silence. Instead, he threads his fingers through oblivious dude-bro’s hair, swigging from his beer bottle with brows raised in admission.

“Alright then,” Hyunjin sighs, defeated. “But be warned, they’re… kind of a lot.”

“I’m used to ‘kind of a lot’,” you shrug happily.

Hyunjin seems resigned to the decision, plants a kiss on your forehead. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

With that, he breezes out of the kitchen, leaving you to the interrogation of the tripod. Jisung bats away dude-bro by a swat to his shoulder and a, “get out of here, stud,” that leaves the athlete adequately dazed and confused. He hops off the kitchen island to crowd you.

“So, what happened?” he asks, eyes wild with excitement.

“Oh my god, nothing happened—” you grab an empty cup, pouring a measure of nearby vodka into it.

“Bull-fucking-shit, you were in there for, like, forty minutes—”

“You counted?”

“— I know just how much can happen in forty minutes, honey. Spill.”

“Jisung, lay off, maybe she wants to keep it private?” Changbin berates from the fridge.

“Did you fuck?”

Keep reading

[only80sgifs]

[nocontext4077th]

[jl-micasea-fics]

❝𝐘𝐨𝐮'𝐫𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬.❞

↳ Chapter 5/7 of The Guy Next Door. See Chapter 1 for story description.  

↳ Female reader x Hyunjin

↳ 16.3k

!! This fic explores themes that may distress some readers i.e. familial abuse (physical, verbal, mental), extremely strict/controlling parenting, mental illness, anxiety/depression and sexual exploitation. Please proceed with caution !!

!Strong language porn star au, strangers to lovers au, college au, first times au, neighbours au, porn star Hyunjin, inexperienced reader, angst and tension, explicit sexual content, heavy sexual themes throughout, frequent reference to pornography, themes of rebellion and self-discovery, a Vegas pornography convention and associated sexual themes, a college party, alcohol consumption, oral sex (m. rec), fingering (f. rec), g-spot orgasm, cum swallowing, nipple play, Hyunjin is obscenely well endowed, instruction and praise, attempts at reconciliation and apologies all round, adult themes throughout !

「suitable for 18+ readers only」  「Chapter 1」  「Contents List」  「© December 2022 by jl-micasea-fics」

Vegas is a lot.

Jisung wasn’t off the mark when he said it was glitz, glamour and gratuity in spades. If anything, he was probably being modest in his description.

Everything is super-sized, blown up, sparkles and comes with a bleached white smile. It’s indulgence at its very peak, opulence and thrills galore.

Within an hour of arriving in the city, you’d managed to self-induce whiplash, for whichever way you looked there was something new to see.

Jovial street entertainers and flash mobs from nowhere, simmering food stalls vying for your attention, grandiose, multi-coloured fountains and raucous party buses, the incessant honk of traffic and the never-ending onslaught of lights, cameras, and so much action. The crowds. The atmosphere. The electric buzz in the air that speaks of something always happening, something always about to happen; if it wasn’t so utterly exhausting, you suppose you might enjoy it.

Indeed, it’s a far cry from the sheltered bubble of quiet Saint Brides.

You’re more grateful for your friends than ever, not naïve enough to pretend that it’s not thanks to them that you even managed to get where you are.

Your first time on a plane was an experience. Hadn’t even thought about the logistics of it all until you were physically sat down and strapped in. In actual fact, it was the warnings of turbulence over the intercom and the safety demonstration from the flight attendant that served to set you on pins for the entire three-hour flight; you still can’t shift the knot in your shoulders.

Indeed, it was only with Changbin’s aid that you managed to find even a modicum of relief from the anxiety in the air. His hand in yours, one of his shared earphones bleeding out a cacophony of hip hop; not your preferred choice, but the distraction was desperately welcome.

A taxi from the airport—watching Jisung try to hail one down was a comedy show in itself—straight to the hotel was straightforward enough; even if it did cost more than your entire outfit, (pilfered from Jisung), put together.

After some room service, a brief spate of unpacking, and a final attempt to call Hyunjin that went unanswered—just like all the rest—it was straight out to the streets, Google Maps in hand. Navigating the centre of Las Vegas wasn’t as difficult as you believed it would be, despite the numerous distractions along the way in the form of anything and everything. Though, in total fairness, your contribution to the excursion extended mostly to just following Changbin and trying not to get swept away in the mass of bodies.

It’s just shy of nine o’clock in the evening; the convention is surely in full swing by now. The city is on fire with neon and amber, there’s not a shadow that goes untouched. This time in Saint Brides would call for the day winding down; shops are closing, people are turning in.

Yet here? Things appear to just be getting started.

“Just around this corner,” Changbin calls over his shoulder, almost bumps into a meandering tourist.

Keep reading

[jl-micasea-fics]

The Guy Next Door | hhj

❝𝐃𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐦𝐞?❞

↳Chapter 3/7 of The Guy Next Door. See Chapter 1 for story description.  

↳ Female reader x Hyunjin

↳13.2k

!! This fic explores themes that may distress some readers i.e. familial abuse (physical, verbal, mental), extremely strict/controlling parenting, mental illness, anxiety/depression and sexual exploitation. Please proceed with caution !!

! Strong language porn star au, strangers to lovers au, college au, first times au, neighbours au, porn star Hyunjin, inexperienced reader, angst and tension, explicit sexual content, heavy sexual themes throughout, frequent reference to pornography, themes of rebellion and self-discovery, heavy making out, clitoral stimulation, first-time orgasms, public sex, oral sex (f. rec), descriptions of pornographic videos, open discussion on abuse, descriptions of abuse, open discussions on sex and sex education, friendship support network, reference to anxiety and panic attacks, adult themes throughout!

「suitable for 18+ readers only」  「Chapter 1」  「Contents List」  「© November 2022 by jl-micasea-fics」

Hwang Hyunjin is a heaven-sent gift, you think.

This is the conclusion the last three days and two nights have brought you to, quite naturally.

Hyunjin is calm, patient, kind beyond all sense. He’s available, but never overbearing, seeming to possess some form of instinctual sixth sense in relation to the way you’re feeling at any one time. Couple all that with the very obvious—and somewhat devastating—physical appeal, you find yourself wondering what about him could possibly be wrong, for if any such flaw exists, it seems to elude you.

Indeed, you find it tragically unfair that he should be so perfect.

If nothing else, and at the very least, you suppose the time spent with him has confirmed beyond any doubt that he’s not actually a figment of your wistful imagination. He’s a very real, very present man in his own right.

Bundled up on the sofa, blanket over your lap and plush cushions at your back, you find more enjoyment in quietly admiring his stark side profile than in the film he’s chosen, playing out on the flat screen in his living room.

You’re unsure how much time must pass for something to be considered routine, but the recurring pattern of school, study, chilling and repeating certainly hasn’t been unwelcome.

You know well enough that’s only because of him.

When he’s around, peace comes effortlessly. It’s no burdensome task to surface from the whirlpool of anxious, intrusive thoughts that creep in whenever you give the reality of your circumstances the time of day:

You’re too close to home, they’ll see you. You’ll have to go back eventually. You can’t stay with him forever. You’re a burden. He just feels sorry for you. Your friends hate you for this. You have to text them back. You can’t keep avoiding them. You miss them. You’re a terrible person. They were just trying to help.

When alone, the cacophony drowns you, creeps up from the depths of your content and brings with it a momentary wave of ice that stills your heart with dread, brings you to a cool sweat. Breaths come lacking, too pitifully shallow to allow a calming lungful of oxygen, and with that, comes the inevitable panic.

Always, it’s Hyunjin that brings you back. A simple touch, an embrace, a tender skim of lips over forehead all that’s needed to return you to the moment, where you’re safe. Where you’re okay.

Still, you know this can’t continue for much longer; you’re not naïve to that fact. But for now, perhaps it’s not so foolish to enjoy it.

“You’re not watching this, are you?”

Hyunjin’s muttered question brings a dose of reality, but doesn’t startle. It’s gentle, soft, much like everything else about him.

“I went to all the trouble of picking out a film just for you,” he mumbles, “and you’re not even watching it.”

You smile absently, shrugging in your slumped position at his side. Amongst cardboard boxes and packing apparatus, the sofa comfortable beneath you, it’s a unique kind of contentment you’re used to now. One that doesn’t revolve around isolation or trust in yourself, but that shares in the warmth of another.

Your head falls back to the cushions, “I was watching. Just got distracted.”

“Oh? By what?”

Keep reading

[jl-micasea-fics]

║ Introduction ║

「You’ve lived in the sleepy seaside city of Saint Brides forever, despite dreams of escape and something bigger. Resigned to routine, mundanity and with rapidly diminishing dreams for the future under the strict control of life at home, you no longer remember what joy feels like; if needed, you ever knew. That is, however, until an enigmatic young man moves in next door and spins your world on its axis. In this story of firsts, experience friendship, romance, self-discovery and courage; even when things are not as they seem. Based on The Girl Next Door (2004).」

║ Genre ║

「Alternative universe, non-idol members, pornstar au, strangers to lovers au, college au, first times au. Contains themes of love and romance, explicit sexual content, angst and tension, themes of verbal, mental and physical abuse and the surrounding issues therein.」

║ Characters & Pairings ║

「Female reader insert. Focused around Hyunjin. Contains original characters.」

「110k words approx」 「7 chapters + interims ✓」 「© October 2022 by jl-micasea-fics」 「Concept Art by @/nomlin」

║ Read ║

「AO3」  「Wattpad」 「Tumblr links below」

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

[realisticromanticist]

back to tumblr after taking a much needed social media break.

This was so lovely to read, hits close to home on having strict parent. There was always this fear within me of not doing things right for the sake of others, which stemmed from the constant scolding from my father. Although a child, I already had trouble sleeping, I spent hours thinking and wishing for tomorrow to be different, for my father to have, at least, a change in demeanour. I lived in fear, in my so-called own home. I'm happily doing much better now, living with my mother and siblings, also cousins, which may be seen as odd, but I quite like it, it feels alive, with everyone's contrasting personality, and differing opinions. There's always something that leads to, either hysterical laughs, friendly debates, even midnight crying sessions.

I cried gallons, no kidding. Mica's fics always, in some ways, have that effect on me. And I'm not complaining♡

[cock]

tumblr is basically a gay bar in a mental institute

[luftwaffel-deactivated20131125]

who did you have to kill to get that URL