what to know: bang chan x gn!reader, sfw but suggestive themes, getting together, fwb's, kissing, chan's a nerd of an interesting variety, mentions of sex, very little dialogue, contracts and legal jargon
one day I'll write a bangchan one shot that isn't just a 'getting together' plot, but today is not that day
word count: 3.0k
recommended listening: what if love - up10tion
"I thought the NDA was the only thing I needed to sign?" you asked, sliding the binder—a literal binder with three rings and tabbed dividers and was this all color-coded?—closer to yourself to flip open.
The first page was mostly blank, save for a title.
Private Partnership Agreement
Below it, in much smaller text, was:
Revision 7.0
You wondered if he'd known it would be this serious from the very first draft. You wouldn't put it past him.
The next page held a table of contents, and even that was no light reading with headings and subheadings galore.
"The NDA protects me," Chan answered as you skimmed. "This isn't really the same thing."
"It looks pretty similar," you muttered. Only difference was that he'd chosen a far better font.
"I promise it isn't," he swore. "The NDA is there because of my job. This would've existed even if I wasn't an idol."
You glanced up at him briefly, acknowledging that, before flipping to the next page where a Purpose heading stared back at you.
The purpose of this agreement is to establish expectations, boundaries, responsibilities, and procedures regarding the private relationship between the undersigned parties...
(To be honest, you skipped most of the rest as it turned into legal jargon. If it was truly important, you trusted that Chan would put it in bold or underline it.)
The Background section began on the next page. Just at a glance, you could tell it was long. You peeked at the following pages to see that it spanned at least three. Even without reading you could tell Chan had recorded and written down every single little thing that had led to this moment. You were simultaneously horrified, impressed, and endeared.
"I'll let you read," he said after clearing his throat, pushing himself away from the table to go busy himself elsewhere. "Let me know if you have any questions. I'll just be... around."
He walked out of the dining area, presumably to pace around and likely clean things that were pretty spotless to start with. He did the same thing whenever he sat you down to listen to his working tracks. For all his accolades, he still struggled with being judged.
You sighed and looked back down.
The parties have maintained a close personal relationship for approximately three years and seven months. During that period, said relationship has evolved beyond the parameters of a typical friendship while remaining undefined in nature.
You snorted.
(He'd go to his grave refusing to say the words friends-with-benefits.)
Over the last twenty-two months, the parties have developed a pattern of communication significantly exceeding that of a conventional friendship. Relevant examples include but are not limited to:
• A daily average of 127 text messages exchanged over a twelve-month period.¹
No wonder your battery was always dead.
You read the associated footnote:
¹ This figure excludes social media interactions, shared videos, and communication conducted through group chats.
Jesus Christ.
You made a mental note to ask how he'd calculated that later.
• The parties have established a pattern of prioritizing one another during periods of personal, professional, or emotional distress.
He provided in depth examples that led you on a nice stroll down memory lane.
There was the time he'd driven an hour out of the city because you'd texted him that your tire was flat. He hadn't known how to change said tire, but you learned together on YouTube once he got there.
The time you'd left a family gathering early because he'd had a rough week and sounded exhausted over the phone. This one had been for mostly selfish reasons, if you were being honest. You'd needed a good excuse to get away from your meddling aunts and uncles. But Chan had clearly thought it was a knight-in-shining-armor moment.
The time he'd cancelled plans with half his friend group to sit in an emergency room with you for six hours after a particularly unfortunate encounter with a paring knife (‘Who even uses those?’ he’d asked you). You remembered that one particularly well, mostly because you still had the scar and also because he'd spent the entire night arguing with the nurse about whether you needed more pain medication. The nurse had eventually started addressing questions to him instead of you.
Additionally, both parties have repeatedly engaged in behavior generally inconsistent with established social expectations regarding platonic relationships:
• Consistently selecting seating arrangements that resulted in unnecessary physical proximity.
• Maintaining physical contact for extended periods without apparent necessity.
• Utilizing personal pet names not commonly employed when addressing other friends.
• Sharing most, if not all, streaming accounts across personal devices.
• Repeated instances of third parties incorrectly assuming the parties were romantically involved.²
According to the footnote, apparently there had been twenty-three separate incidents (that you guys knew of).
While the aforementioned behaviors may individually be explained through circumstances, context, or existing friendship dynamics, the frequency and intensity of such behaviors has increased significantly within the last six months.
Over the previous six-month period, the parties have spent an average of four nights per week in one another's residences.
Four? That couldn't possibly be right.
But the more you thought about it... yeah. Yeah, you did spend quite a bit of time 'round his, and he at yours.
The parties have increasingly demonstrated an expectation of access to one another's personal space without prior arrangement or invitation. Examples include entering residences without knocking, possession of spare keys, and taking up space in refrigerators and dressers without permission.
The parties have repeatedly defaulted to one another as primary companions for events, activities, and experiences generally associated with romantic partners.
Documented examples include, but are not limited to, the following:
a. June 18, 2025 – Kim Family Summer Barbecue
The Second Party attended a family event hosted by the First Party despite having no familial obligation to do so. The Second Party remained at the event for approximately eight (8) hours and was subsequently included in multiple family photographs.
Note: Three (3) separate relatives later inquired as to the status of the relationship. The parties elected not to answer directly.
b. October 27, 2025 – Halloween Event Attendance
The parties arrived at the event separately but departed together. Additionally, the parties coordinated what could only be described as a stereotypical 'couples costume'.
Photographic evidence attached in Appendix C.
c. February 14, 2026 – Valentine's Day Dinner
The parties attended dinner together after both independently claimed they had "no plans." The reservation was made three (3) weeks in advance. Neither party acknowledged the significance of the date.
The drafting party believes this avoidance was deliberate.
d. April 6, 2026 – Coastal Weekend Trip
The parties traveled approximately four (4) hours to attend a weekend festival. A total of six (6) hotel rooms were available to the larger group. The parties nevertheless elected to share one (1). When questioned regarding this decision, both parties stated it was "easier."
No further explanation was provided.
You turned the page.
The next divider was blue and the tab sticking out from the side read: Current Relationship Status.
Following a review of the circumstances outlined in Section II (Background), the drafting party has determined that the current state of the relationship is no longer sustainable in its present form.
The relationship currently operates within a space that informally incorporates many of the benefits, expectations, and behavioral patterns commonly associated with romantic partnerships while simultaneously refusing to acknowledge or define said arrangements.
The drafting party further notes that continued reliance on phrases such as "we're just friends," "it's not like that," and "don't make it weird" has become increasingly ineffective.
While friendship remains a significant component of the relationship, it is the opinion of the drafting party that friendship alone no longer accurately describes the current circumstances.
Furthermore, existing attraction between the parties has been acknowledged repeatedly and by both parties. Recent events have rendered continued ambiguity increasingly impractical.
On May 14, 2026, the parties mutually agreed to pursue a physical relationship.
Subsequent discussions resulted in a mutual decision to explore said relationship in a manner intended to preserve the existing friendship while allowing for physical intimacy. The drafting party acknowledges that this arrangement was initially viewed as a practical solution to circumstances already present.
However, further review has revealed several concerns.
Primary concern: The proposed arrangement assumes the existence of a friendship capable of remaining unchanged.
Accordingly, the drafting party believes it would be irresponsible to proceed under the assumption that physical involvement represents the sole objective of this agreement.
The next heading read:
Risk Assessment
The drafting party has identified several risks associated with proceeding under the framework of a purely physical arrangement.
Risk #1: Existing Behavioral Patterns
The parties already engage in activities commonly associated with romantic relationships. As a result, distinguishing between "friends engaging in physical intimacy" and "romantic partners" may prove operationally difficult.
Risk #2: Escalation
The drafting party has concerns regarding the assumption that feelings, expectations, or attachment levels will remain static following the introduction of physical intimacy.
Historical evidence suggests the opposite outcome is more likely.
Apparently "historical evidence" referred to every previous attempt either of you had made to draw boundaries when every single one had failed. The friendship had simply absorbed the boundary and kept moving.
No overnight stays. Failed.
No calling after midnight. Failed.
No introducing each other to family members. Failed.
No becoming emergency contacts. Failed.
No kissing. Failed (spectacularly).
You found yourself smiling, mostly because you'd forgotten half of these were supposed to be boundaries in the first place. They were just a part of who you were together now.
The drafting party respectfully submits that the relationship has demonstrated a troubling tendency to become more serious whenever efforts are made to prevent it from doing so.
Risk #3: The Drafting Party
The drafting party has attempted to evaluate this proposal from a practical perspective. This effort has been largely unsuccessful.
The next divider was green, and the tab read: Conclusions and Recommendations.
Following review of the circumstances outlined herein, the drafting party submits the following conclusions:
Conclusion 1: The relationship ceased to qualify as a conventional friendship some time ago.
Conclusion 2: Existing emotional investment between the parties exceeds that which would reasonably be expected from a casual physical arrangement.
Conclusion 3: The introduction of physical intimacy is unlikely to simplify the relationship and may, in fact, complicate matters considerably.
Conclusion 4: The parties are already operating under many of the expectations commonly associated with a committed romantic relationship.
Recommendation:
That the parties discontinue efforts to maintain an artificial distinction between friendship, physical intimacy, and romantic attachment, and instead acknowledge the relationship for what it has already become.
You turned the page. The final sheet was almost entirely blank with a short blurb at the top.
Proposed Agreement
The undersigned parties hereby agree to enter into an exclusive romantic relationship and to approach said relationship with honesty, communication, mutual respect, and a willingness to stop making things unnecessarily complicated.
For a moment, you simply stared at it.
The entire binder had essentially been building toward this, and you'd figured that out pretty early in the game. Twenty-something pages of supporting evidence only for Chan to arrive at the pièce de résistance that could have easily fit into a text message. He had never been the type to do anything halfway, though, and apparently that included asking someone to be his girlfriend.
Anyone could buy flowers. Anyone could plan a fancy dinner. It took a very specific kind of person to create a thirty-page report proving he had feelings for someone.
Your gaze drifted further down the page.
The signature section occupied the bottom half. There were lines for signatures, dates, and initials, naturally. You would have been more surprised if there hadn't been.
The left side had already been completed.
You recognized Chan's signature (and not the one he used for autographs—his true signature), the familiar looping handwriting sitting neatly on the line beneath his printed name, Christopher Chahn Bahng. Next to it sat the date he'd signed it, which was yesterday, presumably the day he'd printed it all out. Below that, pressed into the corner with bright red ink, was a dojang stamp.
The only blank line left was yours.
Your eyes lifted toward the kitchen. He was out of sight, but you could almost sense him freaking out in there, probably biting his fingernails down to nubs.
"Is this why you never let me play games on your laptop?" you called, flipping through the appendices that followed the signature page. You smiled, seeing screenshots of text threads, pictures of you both engaging in what was indubitably PDA, and even a transcript of a drunken voicemail you left him (he really had no mercy). "You were afraid I'd see this sitting in your docs?"
Chan appeared in the doorway, and you nearly laughed in his face.
You'd known him for years. You'd seen him perform in front of thousands of people. You'd seen him handle interviews, negotiations, deadlines, and more stressful situations than you could count.
And yet, you had never seen him look quite this embarrassed.
His face was bright red, from his ears all the way down to his neck.
"You know," you said, resting a hand on Exhibit E-7 (a scan of a photobooth strip where you kissed his cheek), "most people just ask."
"I know." Chan rubbed the back of his neck. "In my defense, I wasn't planning for it to get that long. The first draft truly was just about sex."
Your interest piqued as you straightened brightly. "Can I read that one?"
"Absolutely not."
You'd read it someday, with enough needling. But that could only happen if you signed the new dotted line he'd provided you with.
Poor you.
You picked up the fountain pen he'd dropped off with the binder earlier, and you saw his eyes follow your hand. You leafed through the pages with deliberate slowness, letting the them fall into place until the signature sheet was visible again.
You brought the pen down near the signature line. The tip touched the paper for half a second, and you felt his breath catch in a way he probably didn't realize was audible... and you lifted the pen again, leaned back in your chair, and smiled to yourself.
He closed his eyes for a brief moment, and you knew he was physically trying to remain patient. When he opened them again, he looked more resigned than anything else. "If you have a question, just ask it."
You glanced up at him. "Just one?"
"I will answer as many questions as you like," he said kindly, though his smile looked strained.
You considered that for a moment and proceeded to abuse the privilege.
"Okay. First question."
Chan nodded.
"What changes?"
His expression softened slightly, probably because that was a real question. "Not much, honestly."
"Christopher." You raised an eyebrow.
"I'm serious." He stepped further into the dining room, resting a shoulder against the wall. "We already spend most of our time together. We already know each other's families. We already have keys to each other's apartments."
"All true."
"We already act like..." He trailed off.
"A couple?" you supplied.
"Yeah," he admitted, the word visibly giving him a shiver. "That. It’s merely an official label."
"Okay." You smiled to yourself and looked back down at the signature page. "Follow-up question."
"Go ahead." He sighed.
"If not much changes, why does this matter so much?"
That wiped the amusement clean off his face.
Yes, okay, you were aware that your words were unnecessarily combative. But you were always told to get all the info before signing anything to avoid scammers (of course, Chan was not a scammer, but the it’s the principle of the thing).
For a moment, he was quiet. Not because he didn't have an answer—he always had an answer. But he was probably writing it out in his head, reading it over and fixing typos.
Eventually, he exhaled. "Because the whole point of a casual arrangement is that it's temporary. There's an understanding that it isn't permanent. Maybe someone starts dating someone else. Maybe feelings change. Maybe life gets busy. Maybe somebody decides they're done."
You stared at him and he stared right back.
"I don't want to build something with an expiration date." He practically stared right into the depths of your soul. "Not with you."
"You think I'm going somewhere?" you asked through the raging beat of your heart.
"I don't wanna risk it," he said.
You stared back at him for a moment, and then another. And somewhere between one heartbeat and the next, the smile that had been threatening at the corners of your mouth finally won.
Chan must have noticed with the way his shoulders loosened considerably. The poor man had probably been monitoring your facial expressions the same way he'd monitored the rest of your relationship. You'd have to tell him to take it easy once in a while, seriously.
You picked up the fountain pen again and held it over the page. You debated asking one teeny tiny last question, but finally deciding you'd tortured him enough for one evening, you lowered the pen to the paper.
You took your time. Partly because fountain pens were difficult, partly because if you were going to sign a relationship contract, your signature was going to look nice. (It was never too early to practice for the marriage license, right?)
The nib glided across the paper, and by the end of it, your name sat neatly next to his.
For a moment, you simply looked at it.
At his name.
At yours.
They looked good together.
You leaned back in your chair, admiring your work for a second more before reaching for the cap of the pen, when suddenly the chair lurched and scraped backwards.
You yelped, unbalanced.
"What the—"
Chan had somehow crossed the entire room in a single instant, one hand gripping the back of your chair as he dragged it away from the table with the strength of a hundred men.
"Chris!"
The laugh barely made it out of your mouth before he was kissing you, and any witty comment you might have had disappeared immediately.
You and Chan had kissed plenty (particularly in the last couple months, but even before then too), so you thought you were familiar with his kissing, with his lips, by now.
Oh, how wrong you were.
He was hungry. Just utterly starved. That was the only way you could describe it.
He kissed you deeply, completely, as though he intended to make up for every moment he'd spent second-guessing himself over the last few months.
His hand slid from the back of the chair to your jaw, thumb brushing briefly against your cheek as he leaned down further.
The angle forced your chin up, and he followed instinctively, deepening the kiss until your fingers (which had long since dropped the pen somewhere on the ground) found the front of his shirt just to steady yourself. The fabric twisted beneath your grip, but he didn't seem to notice. If anything, he leaned into you more, crowding you in the chair until the dining room, the binder, the table—all of it—fell away.
You could feel the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth even as he kissed you.
When he finally broke away, it lasted all of half a heartbeat before he was back again, stealing another kiss that was somehow softer than the first without being any less consuming. You laughed quietly against his lips, the sound muffled between you, and he answered with another grin you could feel more than see.
Somewhere in the back of your mind, a thought surfaced.
Sealing deals must really get him going.
permanent taglist: @niku0704 @irikara (wasn't sure if you wanted to be on the general taglist or just for the seungmin series so erred on the side of caution lol lmk if you don't want to be on this taglist)
what to know: kim seungmin x gn!reader, sfw, getting together, friends(?) to lovers(?), crushes, reader's oblivious, seungmin is hopeless, they're both awkward, tiny bit of miscommunication, mature conversations, reader is best friends with all the guys pretty much
there's a chance there'll be more parts to this... I'm undecided. anyways, this is sort of based on a true story between me and a friend!
word count: 11.3k
recommended listening: blah - 1the9
Kim Seungmin wasn't your friend.
Well actually, if some outside party said to you something like, "your friend, Seungmin," you would not correct them or anything (and this happened often). He was not not your friend. He existed in that strange in-between category reserved for people you saw too often to call acquaintances but somehow not often enough to know properly.
A friend once removed. A friend of a friend. A friend of several friends, actually. Really, by all accounts, he should be your friend.
You were not entirely sure why the two of you never really crossed the line into actual friendship considering you shared practically the same social ecosystem.
Maybe it was because you only have separate text threads with everyone else. Minho sent you blurry photos of "ugly" dogs he sees on walks (you were in a long ongoing battle to prove to him that dogs weren't inherently ugly). Chan forwarded you songs at two in the morning with captions that sounded existential for someone who claimed he was "of sound mind and body" when you checked in. Changbin only communicated in gym selfies and spontaneous invitations to dinner. Hyunjin treated your private messages like a curated museum of things that reminded him of you, and also things that didn't, and vice versa. Jisung had taken to using your thread as a personal reminder app (which you found slightly inconvenient when it went off at all hours of the day and especially at night). Jeongin popped in every now and again to vent about his members, trusting you wouldn't snitch. And Felix and you currently had a steady stream of TikTok links between you.
Seungmin, meanwhile, existed exclusively in the group chat.
Well.
Mostly.
After checking, you did technically have a private message thread with him. Except every single message had been sent by Felix borrowing Seungmin's phone after his own died or was out of reach.
So, yeah, maybe the problem was that you guys were terrible texters.
Or maybe it was because the two of you had never once suggested spending time together one-on-one. All the others had breached that pretty early into getting to know each other.
Maybe Seungmin was simply harder to get close to in groups. Everyone else in the group demanded attention naturally, however unintentional. Seungmin slipped around the edges of conversations and spaces, quiet until he had something worth saying, and then he was suddenly the funniest person in the room for exactly three seconds before retreating again.
It was unfortunate, really. He seemed like a super cool guy.
He drove people places when nobody else wanted to.
He was always first to start tidying up after a get-together.
He sighed when he was tired in the same pathetically cute way old dogs did before laying down.
He got oddly competitive during board games, though rarely, if ever, against you... which you actually took as a bad sign. Not because you desperately wanted Kim Seungmin to crush you at Uno or anything. But he treated everybody else with a certain level of casual familiarity and mockery that you never quite seemed to unlock.
Instead, you received politeness and kindness and patience.
And all that meant in your head was that he still thought of you as "someone else's person" rather than one of his own. You were not to be made fun of in his eyes.
The point was simply that your dynamic had fossilized over time into something weirdly formal despite the fact that you had collectively spent hundreds of hours in the same rooms. Like, seriously, he didn't even use informal speech with you!
Sometimes you thought he seemed comfortable around you. Enough to occasionally sit next to you even when another spot across the room was free, at least. Enough to offer you a ride or two home after outings (even if you never really ended up needing them because the trains were so convenient and it was always somehow out of his way).
Then the next time you saw him, all you would get was a nodded greeting and silence on the western front. Back to square one... if there was even a single square to start with in the first place. A circle was probably more representative of what you had going on, always ending up back where you started, only to loop again.
The most annoying part about all this was that you genuinely could not tell whether the distance between you existed because Seungmin preferred it that way or because neither of you knew how to move past it anymore without it seeming strange. Because you certainly didn't prefer it this way. Who would?
You weren't friends, you and Seungmin. You were certain of this fact.
Which was why you nearly inhaled foam the next afternoon when you mentioned this all offhandedly and Hyunjin casually said, "Oh, it's because he likes you."
You coughed violently into your iced latte... and a little onto the table.
Across the tiny café table, Hyunjin didn't even flinch. He simply watched you, perhaps looking a little grossed out by the little dribble that fell down your chin. He subtly nudged the napkin container closer to you with a knuckle.
You stared at him right back, cleaning up your face.
"I'm sorry," you said slowly, because clearly he had suffered some kind of neurological event on the walk over here and goodness knew he couldn't risk losing more brain cells. "Because who likes me."
"Well, Seungmin." The only thing missing was a little duh at the end, but his tone and eyebrow raise got that across just fine.
You blinked at him, then snorted once, because genuinely what else were you supposed to do with that information? He was pulling your leg for sure.
"No, he definitely doesn't."
"Uh, he definitely does." He frowned indignantly. And that's how you knew he was just arguing to argue now. He was the sort to die on a hill, even when he knew the hill was a lie.
"You are making shit up," you informed him, pointing accusingly with your dirty napkin. "You tend to do that, you know. Sure, it's fun to pretend sometimes, but this is your friend you're talking about."
Emphasis on the your.
"I'm not making anything up!" He had the gall to look offended. "Seungmin has had a thing for you forever."
"That is an insane thing to say." Could you imagine? Seungmin, the one who hardly ever smiled at you—much less looked at you—into you? Please.
"It really isn't."
"Yes, it is," you said, leaning forward across the little table to really instill this point in him. It rocked, rattling the dishes you shared. "Did he explicitly tell you that he does?"
"... No... but trust me, I know Seungmin," Hyunjin said, eyes flicking away. "And I know yearning when I see it."
Classic Hyunjin, the utter romantic, of the delusional and hopeless variety. You pitied him, honestly, it must be hard to live like that as a single man.
"Then why hasn't he done anything about it?" you said finally, humoring him out of that pity.
"Who's said he hasn't?" he rebutted.
"Uh, me?" You looked around, as if it could be anyone else. "He hasn't expressed any interest like that at all to me."
"Because he's scared." He shrugged lightly.
You barked out yet another laugh. "Kim Seungmin is not scared of me."
"Not of you, of feelings," he stressed.
"If he liked me, surely at some point in the last several years something would have happened." Surely, if it was anything serious (or even true), there would be signs.
"You are severely underestimating that man's ability to avoid a situation." Hyunjin snorted.
You shook your head, still laughing a little because the whole conversation felt absurd enough to circle back around into entertaining. Honestly, Seungmin liking you was such a bizarre concept. Sure, you'd never heard tell of him liking or dating someone else as you had with some of the other guys over the time you've known them. But you chalked that up, again, to you not being close enough to be let in on that sort of information.
Hyunjin was crazy. And that was nothing new to you, so you let it go. Let him be delirious if it helped him keep his whimsy in the world. The conversation never came up again with him, anyway.
It did, however, come up with someone else coincidentally...
"Hey, do you know if Minnie-ah is going home to visit family next weekend?" Changbin asked over dinner a couple weeks later.
"Uh, I don't know," you said slowly. You did do him the courtesy of going through your memory to see if that had ever come up, but it should surprise no one that it didn't. "Why would I know that?"
"Oh, I just figured he might have mentioned something to you," he guessed.
"To me?" you echoed.
Changbin blinked at you from across the grill.
"Yeah?" he said uncertainly.
You stared right back at him. "Kim Seungmin to me?"
His confusion deepened. "...Yeah."
"Seungmin-ssi and I... don't really talk," you drew out. You thought everyone was aware of this. Was everyone not aware of this?
"What do you mean." He frowned.
"I mean," you said, "we talk in group settings. Same as everybody else. But we do not... privately communicate. Especially not about plans that don't involve each other."
Even just saying it felt wrong (but that was probably due to the extremely odd wording you used).
"You don't?"
"No?"
He leaned back in his chair, deep in thought. "Interesting."
It was clearly said in a way that suggested he found it less-so interesting and more-so weird (and did you detect an ounce of concern?).
You blinked away your own confusion, wondering if Hyunjin had maybe said something to him to make him think things were different than they really were. You wouldn't put it past the guy to start waxing his fabrications to his roommate.
"Why?" you asked.
"Oh, I heard he was debating on going back sometime soon," he answered, getting back to his food. "Just curious."
"No, why is it interesting that we don't talk?"
He paused, chopsticks halfway to his mouth, said, "I think maybe I've said too much," and then stuffed his cheeks full.
On the contrary, you thought, he hasn't said nearly enough.
"Oh come on," you groaned. "Did someone say something to you? Did Hyunjin-ah blab about our conversation the other day?"
"Hyunjinnie? What did you guys talk about?"
"Don't avoid my question," you said.
He looked sufficiently caught. His mouth opened and closed, gaping like a fish. "Nobody didn't tell me anything."
"Don't confuse me with double negatives and incorrect grammar," you hissed.
"Look, okay, I can't," he muttered finally. "When someone tells me something in confidence, I like to maintain that. My lips are sealed on this one. Sorry."
And he stuck to it, unfortunately. He masterfully changed topics every time you tried to steer it back to Seungmin—something you really weren't versed in. You cursed how loyal he was.
Having those two conversations under your belt by this point, you were getting oddly nervous. What were these guys seeing that you weren't? Had you been misreading things? Could it really be misreading when there was hardly anything to read?
It was inevitable that you got into your own head about it.
You became extremely hyperaware of how you acted around the group, and especially hyperaware of how Seungmin acted around you.
One Friday night found the whole group crowded into Minho and Jisung's apartment for a homemade meal and a movie nobody was actually paying attention to. Jisung and Changbin were arguing over the correct ranking of characters of a totally different franchise to the one playing. Hyunjin was stretched across the floor, watching them and contributing nothing. Chan kept disappearing into the kitchen to join Minho every ten minutes because sitting still was physically impossible for him and he wanted to help out in some way but Minho kept turning him away.
And you? You were just acting weird, and you knew it.
Every time Seungmin so much as moved in your peripheral vision, you tensed. It was starting to make you cramp up, and that was just making you more irritated.
Worse still, he was behaving exactly the same as always.
Where was this supposed longing? This pining? This allegedly years-long crush Hyunjin—and possibly others—seemed convinced existed?
Seungmin had greeted you with his usual polite smile when you arrived. He'd asked if you wanted anything to drink while he was up, and that was the sum of all you'd conversated. He'd spent most of the evening bickering with Jeongin over something you couldn't hear from across the room.
That was it. And that was normal.
At one point, he laughed hard enough at something Changbin said that he leaned sideways into the couch cushions, eyes squeezed shut for a long second.
You stared, having not been listening. It was an objectively nice laugh, you'd always thought so, and what was that? Was that... jealousy? Jealous that you had never made him laugh in this way? That you likely would never be able to due to your emotional, and most times physical, distance?
Since when had you cared about that? You made all the others laugh just fine, wasn't that enough for you?
No.
You needed that laugh.
You hated Hyunjin with your whole being. You hated Changbin too, no matter how undeserving he was of it. They had infected your brain with utter nonsense and now you were seeing Kim Seungmin differently.
As if sensing your thoughts, Hyunjin glanced over from his spot on the floor. Then his eyes flicked between you and Seungmin once, and the bastard smiled.
You narrowed your eyes at him, trying to channel your every hate-filled thought into his brain; however, his single brain cell was incapable of such telepathy beyond what he'd just accomplished, and he merely turned away.
You'd kill him one day.
"You okay?" Felix asked beside you quietly.
You nearly jumped out of your skin.
"Jesus Christ," you hissed. "Where did you come from?"
He blinked at you owlishly. "I've been sitting here."
Right. He totally had been, for at least twenty minutes or so. He'd even massaged your hand at one point because you'd been clenching it into a fist from fried nerves.
You were genuinely losing your mind.
"Sorry," you muttered, rubbing at your forehead.
Felix studied you for a second, then looked toward Seungmin (you hadn't even been looking over there!) briefly before realization visibly dawned across his face.
"Oh," he said.
"Oh my god," you muttered, pushing yourself off the couch. You were not about to entertain yet another demented individual. "I actually cannot deal with you people tonight."
Felix sat up immediately. "Wait, wait—"
You waved him off and headed toward the kitchen area before anyone else could stop you, muttering a quick excuse about needing water despite the fact that you still had the drink that Seungmin had grabbed for you in your hand.
Behind you came the sound of Felix scrambling upright.
"Wait!" he whisper-shouted again, certainly garnering the attention of everyone in that room for a moment.
Of course he followed you. You just made him think you were annoyed with him, and he was the sort to resolve that immediately or perish trying, kind soul that he was.
"Hey," he whisper-called as he trailed after you into the kitchen. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong," you whispered back aggressively, which probably undermined your point somewhat.
He looked unconvinced. "Did I do something?"
"No." The thought of Felix ever doing something to truly piss you off was inconceivable.
"Did Seungmin-ah do something?"
You stopped so abruptly near the counter that he nearly walked into your back.
"There it is again," you hissed, spinning around to face him. "Why does everybody keep bringing up Seungmin-ssi?"
For a moment, he looked a little lost as to why you'd even ask that. It almost seemed like he wanted to say, Why wouldn't I?
"...Didn't he...you know...?" he asked instead.
"'Didn't he'... what?"
He visibly scrambled for an escape route to the conversation, clearly sensing something off with his calculations. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't nearly so word savvy as Changbin when it came to stuff like that.
"Based on that response, I'm going to go with no," he said carefully. To himself, he muttered, "He's such a lying loser."
"Lying?" you repeated sternly. "Felix."
He dragged both hands down his face, muttering something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like, "Lord, forgive me."
"What," you demanded quietly, "did Seungmin-ssi say?" Or not say, rather.
Felix looked genuinely torn, but he did give in rather easily. You almost felt a little bad, practically scaring him into giving you answers.
"You cannot react," he whispered first, looking back at the way you'd come from the living area. "And you cannot tell anyone that I told you this."
You'd think he or Seungmin had killed somebody, he was so dead serious.
"I'll react however I want depending on the information."
"That's exactly what I'm worried about. Please."
"Spill." You crossed your arms.
He exhaled heavily through his nose, before finally getting to it. "A while ago," he started carefully, "Seungmo told me he was gonna tell you he liked you."
You just stared at him. If there was a thought or feeling in the whole of your body, it was unknown to you. Was this what going into shock felt like?
He was yanking your chain, surely? Just like the others had? ...But Felix wasn't like that. Sure, he joked and teased and told little white lies for the bit, but he wasn't so cruel as to spread a fake rumor like this. Could it be that these things weren't totally unfounded?
Your face felt hot. In fact, your whole body was sort of on fire.
You desperately gulped down the last of the drink in your cup, and yet your mouth dried right back up.
"And then after that," he kept going quickly, like a cascading waterfall with no end, "every time someone mentioned you, he acted all weird and sort of mopey, and then today you were acting so strange and quiet and you—you even snapped at me!—so I kinda assumed..." He trailed off weakly.
"...Assumed...?"
"That he had told you and it didn't go so well."
You blinked once, perhaps twice. Again, the sensations in your body were a little fuzzy to you, a little delayed. "He did not tell me he liked me."
"Yeah." He winced. "I gathered that."
"Oh my god." You turned away briefly, pressing both hands against your forehead. This was insane. Not only had Seungmin apparently liked you for who even knew how long, but he had also liked you enough to announce his intentions to confess those feelings to his friends.
Behind you, Felix made another nervous noise. "You won't tell him that I told you, right?"
"And everyone knows this?" you asked instead of answering.
He paused to think. "I think only a couple of us know for sure. The rest just suspect it. Kinda obvious."
Obvious? Obvious?! Was that supposed to be a dig at you?
Changbin, he had to be one of the few who knew for certain, what with the way he talked about confidentiality and trust. And Hyunjin only assumed, and assumed correctly, if Felix was to be believed. But what reason would he have to lie?
"You guys just act so awkward around each other," Felix continued, literally unprompted (rude), and sounding a little pained himself. "I was hoping he'd actually do something to maybe break through it and save us from all this unresolved tension."
"There is no tension!" You whipped back around.
From behind you came a snort, and both of you startled violently. Minho stood there holding a dish towel, having very clearly tuned in sometime during the meltdown.
"There's definitely tension," he informed you.
You pointed at him. "Why are you here."
"I live here. And you came into my kitchen." His eyes drifted toward Felix over your shoulder. "He finally told her?"
Minho knew?!
Felix looked at him blankly for a second before sighing. "...No."
There was a beat of silence before Minho barked out a laugh so sudden he had to grab the counter. "Oh, Kim Seungmin is pathetic," he wheezed.
You were beginning to think so, too.
And you, you were equally as pathetic!
Quite the duo you two made, huh?
A longer silence settled over the kitchen for a second after Minho's outburst, broken only by the muffled sound of Jisung yelling from the living room about someone having "zero media literacy."
You stared blankly at the countertop. Then, another thought occurred to you. "How long ago did he say he was going to tell me?"
Felix's winced so hard that his whole body twitched, probably regretting the fact that he told you.
"Like a month ago?" he guessed, and then added, "But he's been hint-dropping for awhile."
"How awhile."
"...Last fall?"
"Last fall," you echoed faintly. The peak of summer had just passed. "That was almost a year ago."
Some of these guys had been sitting on this for a year?! Since when had they gotten so good at keeping secrets? You couldn't even get Jisung to keep track of his own wallet for twenty-four hours, Chan accidentally spoiled surprises because he got excited, and Hyunjin treated secrets like they physically burned holes in his pockets (which was probably why he hadn't been told explicitly).
That wasn't even the part bothering you most, though.
Honestly, once the initial shock wore off, it made perfect sense why nobody had told you. It wasn't really their secret to tell. If Seungmin had confided in them, then of course they'd keep it to themselves. They owed it to the guy for being their own personal rock and secret vault whenever they needed.
No, what bothered you was that they'd apparently spent months living with an entirely different understanding of reality than you. You'd been the only person missing a piece of the puzzle. And that was more than a little embarrassing, to be honest.
And now your recent interactions with Seungmin were replaying in your head with horrifying new context.
The time he'd lingered after everyone else left a café, awkwardly tapping his fingers against his cup while you gathered your things before plucking up some sort of nerve to offer to walk you to the station. You'd declined because you figured he was asking out of some sort of gentlemanly responsibility and not because he wanted to.
There had been one evening where everyone else got caught up talking in the parking lot after dinner while you waited slightly off to the side scrolling through your phone. Seungmin had wandered over after a minute. Not to start a conversation, because you guys didn't really have those. Instead he'd just stood there next to you in silence. You remembered glancing up eventually and trying to engage him by showing him something dumb on your screen. He'd looked at it, laughed quietly, and stayed beside you until everyone else was ready to leave.
There had also been that time you'd invited your (at the time) talking-stage-situationship-complicated-mess to a hangout to introduce him to the group, just to see how he meshed... Well, he hadn't meshed very well at all, with Seungmin least of all for some reason. Back then, you'd been surprised by the instant curtness each side showed each other and when you asked the talking-stage-situationship-complicated-mess about it later on, he'd merely said, 'He's the one you guys refer to as a dog, right? It makes sense.'
(Thank goodness you left him.)
The version of Seungmin that existed in your head was someone polite and thoughtful and generally kind to you (which, again, was not how he acted around his close friends). None of those moments had ever felt remarkable enough to question, other than that last one, you supposed.
And it was... a little sad, actually. Because if Felix was right, then every one of those moments had probably felt much bigger from Seungmin's side than they ever had from yours.
What you couldn't understand was how a person could apparently like someone for that long while simultaneously giving every impression that they were trying very hard not to be liked in return!
If Seungmin liked you, shouldn't he have wanted to get closer? Closer, at least, than this?
Finally Felix spoke, and it was like he had read your mind.
"Seungmo cares a lot about how you see him."
You looked up from where you'd been staring at the marble counter. "What does that mean?"
Felix looked toward Minho, as if silently asking for help.
Minho sighed. "You're surrounded by men who tease you."
"...Thank you for that horrifying sentence."
"Seriously, though," Felix laughed, agreeing. "Think about it: Binnie-hyung teases you, Hannie teases you, Hyunjin teases you, I.N teases you. Half the conversations you have with Minho are arguments."
You and the man in question glanced at each other and shrugged. It was true.
"The point is, Seungmin sees all that."
"Okay?" You frowned.
"Okay," Minho repeated dully. "And none of those guys are your boyfriend."
Eugh, just the thought sent shivers down your spine. Sure, some of them would probably be pleasant partners, but something about that...
"I think Seungmo just..." Felix rubbed the back of his neck, "never wanted to be grouped in with everyone else."
That made you pause. Grouped in?
"As another friend," he clarified at your silence. "From his perspective, you already had that. You already had people making you laugh. People teasing you. People texting you all day. If he wanted to be important to you, then he couldn't just be another version of what you already had."
Your attention drifted inward then for some much-needed self-reflection.
The teasing had always come easily with the rest of the group because it had never meant anything. Or rather, it meant friendship (that wasn't nothing obviously). And it came with the certainty that nobody was trying to impress anybody.
Half the time your conversations with those idiots sounded like active hostility to an outside observer. If a stranger overheard some of your exchanges with Minho, they'd probably assume you despised one another. And that couldn't be further from the truth; you were quite fond of each other. But, again, you did not consider any of those guys dating-pool material.
The uncomfortable truth was that you'd never actually spent much time thinking about what you wanted from a relationship. Not in a serious capacity, at least. It had always existed as a vague future concept. Something that would happen eventually if the right person came along—like the movies.
And even when you did think about it, you never imagined yourself with someone... completely different from your friends.
You liked teasing. You liked banter. You liked laughing until your stomach hurt over absolutely nothing. You liked people who could be honest with you and call you out when necessary.
You wanted to genuinely enjoy being around the person. You wanted to choose their company even when there was no romantic context attached to it.
It wasn't that Seungmin lacked qualities you found attractive. Quite the opposite, actually. He was thoughtful, reliable, funny when he chose to be and even when he didn't. If someone had handed you a list of traits you valued, he would've checked a surprising number of boxes. He was a shiny-dime of a catch.
Too bad he'd self-sabotaged himself and made himself out to be someone who wasn't those things to you.
And you weren't clear of blame, either. Never noticing his many (pitiful) attempts, how unobservant could you possibly be?
Well... this was ridiculous.
You were both adults!
There was no reason to continue running on assumptions when the person in question was literally sitting twenty feet away in the next room.
Before either Felix or Minho could register the resolve in your expression, you pushed away from the counter.
"I think I need to talk to him."
The words had barely left your mouth before Felix's eyes widened in alarm.
"No."
You took another step.
"No, no, no."
One second you were heading toward the doorway. The next, Felix had wrapped his arms around you and caught you around the middle in an effort to physically redirect you.
The problem was that he committed far too much momentum to the maneuver. With a startled yelp, he practically spun both of you in a half-circle and nearly toppled you both over.
"Felix!"
"Careful!"
The reprimands came from you and Minho at the same time.
Felix froze, and so too, did you in his arms.
Minho lowered the dish towel he was still holding and stared at him.
"You idiot," he said flatly. "You are the one person in this apartment who should not be tackling people."
"Seriously?" you added. "What happened to all those warnings your physical therapist gave you?"
Felix looked momentarily chastened. Then his panic reasserted itself. "My back won't matter if Seungmin kills me."
No one, not even Seungmin at his most angry, would ever hurt a hair on Felix's head, but you understood why he was so adamant about this.
Honestly, he'd done you a solid, being so forthcoming tonight when the others hadn't been. You owed it to him not to fracture the trust he had with his roommate.
"So... what?" you asked. "What am I supposed to do then?"
"Drop hints that you like him back?" Minho suggested blandly.
"Whoa, what makes you so sure I like him?" you balked.
"Do you not?" Felix asked, and you realized he hadn't really let you go, perhaps still fearing you'd dash away to confess what he'd done.
To answer his question, though... you didn't know.
It wasn't that the idea repulsed you—far from it. The revelation had been shocking, yes, but nowhere in the last hour, and even over the past couple weeks, had you experienced the overwhelming certainty that it could never work. There had been confusion and embarrassment and a healthy amount of existential suffering, but not rejection.
But you'd never let yourself ask whether you could like Seungmin because you'd assumed the answer didn't matter because it was unfathomable that he could ever like you back. The question had never seemed relevant.
Now, all of a sudden, it was the only question anyone cared about. You included, if you were being honest. Now, if only you could answer it...
"I don't know," you admitted finally.
Felix and Minho didn't say anything, and you exhaled slowly.
"I think..." You paused. "I think I could."
Felix's arms slightly squeezed around you and he released the tiniest of happy sounds, seeming delighted over just a mere possibility of an inkling of an iota of a feeling. You couldn't help but shake your head and roll your eyes fondly.
And at that horrible, terribly timed moment, the universe sent a big fuck you (perhaps as karma for Felix betraying a friend and you for being naive) and Seungmin, the man of the hour himself, walked through the doorway.
His gaze landed on the three of you reflexively. On Minho standing by the counter. On Felix. Then finally on you. Or rather, on Felix and you in what was a pretty embrace-y position.
You jerked away, and Felix let go so fast he nearly stumbled backward into the island. Belatedly, you realized that probably looked worse than if you'd simply stayed where you were. Everyone got hugs from Felix from time to time, why'd you have to go and make yourselves look guilty about it?
For the briefest moment, Seungmin's eyes just flickered between the two of you.
And because of everything you'd learned tonight, because every interaction you'd ever had with him was currently being dragged back through the mud of your memory and reexamined under a microscope, you caught something you probably would've missed before (or something you would have dismissed as his discontent for others' PDA).
A tiny tightening around his eyes. A brief downturn at the corner of his mouth.
It was gone as quickly as it had appeared, smoothed over as he dropped his gaze down and away to look at Minho pointedly.
He took a deep (and dare you say, long-suffering?) breath before asking, "Wasn't food supposed to be ready like fifteen minutes ago?"
Minho's eyes widened, and he turned around to head back to the other side of the kitchen, fiddling with pans he'd left unattended.
This left Seungmin alone with you and Felix, and just as you were about to say something—anything—to smooth over a misunderstanding and break some sort of ice, he turned his back to you and walked to the table to find a seat. A very clear dismissal.
You and Felix shared a look, and he mouthed an emphatic apology to you. You just waved him off.
Everyone was eventually called into the dining area to eat. And despite Jisung's whiney complaints of, "It's so burnt, hyung!", it wasn't actually that bad. Maybe slightly crunchy when it shouldn't be, and smoky when it should be spicy, but still edible.
No one dared suggest they order takeout or redo it, though, lest they risk Minho getting even more upset. And at present, there was already too much of a sour atmosphere to add to that.
Seungmin was in a bad mood. And because of that, Felix was in a bad mood knowing he was at fault. And Felix's emotions were notoriously known for being contagious, so everyone—unknowingly or not—was affected.
And unfortunately, Felix's guilt manifested in the most Felix way possible. He kept trying to do little things for Seungmin—asking if he wanted more of a side, offering to refill his cup, starting conversations that specifically mention his special interests—only for the guy to reject the efforts with increasing levels of annoyance. It wasn't enough to start an argument, but it was enough that anyone paying attention would notice.
And people were always paying attention.
Changbin, particularly, was one of the most observant people you knew when it came to interpersonal dynamics, even more so where these two were involved. He often pretended otherwise, but he cared quite deeply for his younger members. You watched the realization slowly dawn on him over the course of the meal.
His eyes lingered on Felix for a moment before they drifted toward Seungmin, then toward you, then back again. A subtle frown formed between his brows. It lasted all of three seconds before some sort of understanding settled in.
What he was understanding exactly when he didn't know the full story, you couldn't be sure.
Unfortunately, Changbin wasn't the only person at the table capable of doing that.
Hyunjin had always been strangely in tune with him. Maybe it was because they spent so much time together. Maybe it was because both of them were annoyingly invested in everyone else's business. Whatever the reason, you watched his attention snag on Changbin's expression and then follow the path of his gaze, toward you and Seungmin and Felix.
A smile threatened the corners of his mouth, and you kicked him under the table. Now wasn't the time for his ego or teasing or told-you-so's.
The kick to his shin accomplished absolutely nothing. If anything, it seemed to amuse him and he nudged you right back.
You watched on in growing aggravation as he leaned over and muttered something into Jeongin's ear. The younger boy frowned as he listened, head cocking in surprise before his eyes glanced at you and then at Seungmin.
You shook your head, not absolutely sure what you wanted to convey with it other than 'Keep your mouth shut.'
He was a far better listener than Hyunjin, thankfully, and he obediently returned to his food.
Across the table, Chan had been mostly focused on his own meal, but even he eventually picked up on the fact that half the table seemed preoccupied with something and his gaze swept over everyone while he took a sip of water.
Changbin.
Hyunjin.
Jeongin.
You.
Then finally Felix, who looked so sullenly at his roommate, begging silently for forgiveness.
Chan's eyes narrowed slightly. You'd known him long enough to recognize that expression. The man practically raised seven children; nothing escaped him for long.
The only person still completely oblivious in the end was Jisung, and you hoped it stayed that way because he was the only one talking to you like normal. Or at least what passed for normal where Han Jisung was concerned (he was regaling you with the plot of a childhood dinosaur movie).
While he spoke, your attention drifted. Partly because you'd heard this plotline before, because he talked about The Land Before Time often, partly because your nerves were making it difficult to focus on anything that wasn't seated three chairs away from you. And partly because Felix had gone very quiet. You glanced toward him.
The blond was hunched slightly over his plate, gaze lowered. At first you assumed he was simply pouting, but then you caught the faint glow of a screen against his shirt coming from beneath the table.
A moment later, your phone buzzed in your lap, and buzzed like five million times subsequently.
Felix eventually looked up so the two of you locked eyes.
He looked batshit terrified.
Slowly, while Jisung launched into a fresh spiel about a song from the franchise about eggs, you slipped your phone from your pocket and angled it beneath the table.
Sure enough.
FeFe
im gonna tell him
i have to
he'll hate me but its better that it comes
from me
and i really cant stand him thinking we
were doing anything romantic earlier
not anything against you but im not a
homewrecker
ur lovely but ya know
You stared at the texts. This was what you had wanted. It was what you had set out to do when Felix had stopped you in the kitchen. Seungmin should know that you know. This meant that things could progress forward, for better or for worse.
That all didn't stop your heart from racing.
Get a grip!
You typed back.
You
godspeed soldier
FeFe
what do i say even?????
You
can start w the truth?
you can say i pressured you
throw me under a bus
FeFe
he'll say im weak for folding😭
You
well if the boot fits
FeFe
HAHAHAhaahHahahHah
ur so funny😐
You
tell him i don't think any differently of him
FeFe
ok
wait
do you mean that in a friend way or???
Before you could decide how to answer (because you weren't sure), a shadow fell across your screen, and you looked up to find Chan standing beside the table with an empty water pitcher in hand.
His eyes flicked from your phone to Felix very obviously on his own phone, then back again.
"...Are you two texting each other from four feet away?" he asked.
You immediately locked your screen, and Felix practically shoved his phone under his butt to hide the evidence.
"No," Felix said.
Chan stared at him. You stared at him, too. Dude couldn't lie for shit.
Felix visibly deflated. "...Yes."
"Thank you," Chan said. "That was a much more believable answer. Y'all are weird." With a small shake of his head, he continued toward the kitchen to refill the pitcher.
Somewhere to your right came a dramatic gasp. "And don't get me started on We're Back."
You blinked. Jisung was still talking about old dinosaur movies. He hadn't noticed a single thing.
Remarkable.
Truly remarkable.
You wanted to preserve him in amber.
Your attention drifted away from him and back toward the other side of the table, toward Seungmin.
His gaze had settled somewhere vaguely in your direction before glancing at Felix, and you read off his lips an, "Unbelievable."
And there it was: that tiny tightening around his jaw, the way his teeth briefly clenched, the almost imperceptible roll of his eyes before he lowered his attention back to his plate.
Your stomach sank, and the small amount of room-temp food you'd managed to swallow threatened to come up. You'd never felt this stressed out before.
You knew Felix was seconds away from throwing himself on a sword for the sake of honesty. But Seungmin didn't know any of that. From where he sat, all he'd seen was you and Felix disappearing into the kitchen together (and he might have even seen Felix giving you a hand massage previously). Then he saw you two hugging each other, and then he saw you guys texting each other through dinner and acting suspicious when caught.
God.
Maybe Felix was right.
Maybe he really was about to die.
Across the table, Felix stared at you for another few seconds. Whatever internal battle he was fighting seemed to reach its conclusion because his shoulders squared slightly.
He took a breath, nodded once at you, then looked directly at Seungmin to say something quietly.
It was clear that Seungmin didn't really want to give him the time of day, but he still tilted his head to acknowledge him. And they communicated in that way that only two roommates who had been living together for years could without words, only needing a few head shakes and eyes twitches.
Then, for one horrible second, Seungmin's eyes drifted toward you. The look wasn't accusatory. If anything, it looked resigned.
He clicked his tongue before standing up and leaving the room without ceremony, Felix joining him, glancing over his shoulder at you with a comically panicked expression.
You gave him the most subtle thumbs up you could, hoping he lived to see tomorrow.
The pair disappeared down the hallway, and the moment they rounded the corner, Hyunjin practically threw himself over the table. He asked you something, probably related to the exact dilemma you were in, but your attention remained fixed on the hallway long after both men disappeared from view.
You couldn't hear anything.
Couldn't see anything.
Couldn't do anything.
And unfortunately your imagination was far more active than reality.
What was Felix saying? How had he started the conversation? Was Seungmin angry? Embarrassed? Mortified?
Had Felix already admitted everything? Had he mentioned you? Had he mentioned the kitchen?
Had he mentioned the fact that you'd said—
Hyunjin seemed to figure out you weren't going to humor his teasing or conversation or whatever he was attempting, because he moved on to talking to Changbin.
That didn't stop the next person from leaning over, though.
"You okay?" Chan asked quietly before amending it, "Are they?"
You nodded. Then shook your head. Then nodded again.
"Convincing."
"Thanks."
"You want to talk about it?"
"No."
"Okay."
Bless him; he left it there.
Just when you thought you could calm yourself down enough to take a sip of water, the front door slammed, the sound cracking through the apartment like a gunshot.
Every conversation at the table died instantly, heads all jerking up and around.
Your chair scraped loudly against the floor as you stood. Across from you, Chan was pushing back from the table too, concern written plainly across his face as he muttered a, "What in the world..."
Nobody spoke for a second, perhaps waiting for another slam of the door.
None came.
Instead, shuffling footsteps echoed from the hallway and Felix appeared.
The sight of him made something in your stomach go sour, and it didn't mix well with the burnt meal.
He wasn't crying, but he looked dangerously close to it. His eyes were glossy under the dining room lights and his mouth was pressed into such a tight line that it looked painful. He kept his gaze lowered as he walked back into the room, shoulders slightly hunched, hands shoved into his pockets.
Chan was already standing, so he reached him first.
"Mate," he said softly in English, one hand landing on Felix's shoulder. "You 'kay?"
The question seemed to be Felix's undoing. For a moment, he just stood there staring at the floor. Then he laughed wetly once through his nose, though there wasn't anything remotely funny about it.
"No." His face crumpled. "He hates me."
Chan pulled him in for a hug. "Oh, Minnie-ah doesn't hate you."
Everyone else piped up with sentiments to that same effect—well, all except Jisung.
"Uh, I'm a little lost," he said, raising a hand sheepishly.
Hyunjin gave him a light smack upside the head. "Felix spilled the beans on Seungmin's crush, pabo."
Felix groaned at the reminder, face still turned into Chan's shoulder.
"Pabo?!" Jisung sputtered, trying to smack him right back. "How was I supposed to know?"
"Isn't it obvious?"
Changbin got involved, pointing an accusatory finger in Hyunjin's face. "From what I hear, you spilled the beans first!"
"Hey now!" Hyunjin raised his hands up defensively as everyone turned on him. "I played it off as a mere hunch, and this was before he told us he was going to do something about it. I was just trying to get the ball rolling."
You didn't even have it in you to be mad that Hyunjin had clearly lied to your face back at the café, claiming Seungmin hadn't explicitly told him when that clearly wasn't true. At this point, that particular betrayal barely cracked the top ten.
More importantly, it wasn't helping the current crisis.
"What exactly happened?" you asked, your eyes finding Felix again.
The room quieted.
He finally pulled back from Chan's shoulder and scrubbed both hands down his face. The gesture did nothing to make him look less miserable.
"I just explained everything," he said, frowning, his face scrunching up sadly as he recalled it. "Ugh, his face. I'm so awful. I'm a terrible friend."
Chan pulled him back in for a bear hug.
You sighed heavily, feeling strangely at fault. Why had you pressed Felix? You should have pressed Hyunjin or Changbin; they would have cracked eventually and they would have handled Seungmin's reaction much better.
Actually, why had you pressed at all?
If you'd just stayed confused for one more night or maybe forever, none of this would've happened. But then where would you be? Still oblivious and in that same old loop with Seungmin?
Hyunjin looked from Felix to you, and he huffed. "Okay," he said, pushing away from the table. "This is stupid."
Before you could react, he walked over and gently but firmly took hold of your shoulders, steering you toward the front door.
"What are you doing."
"You are going to go talk to him."
"Absolutely not."
"Absolutely yes."
"This is not one of your dramas."
You dug your heels in, going so far as to ragdoll, but he merely held you up and kept carrying you forward with infuriating ease.
"Hwang Hyunjin, stop."
"It's for your own good," he said. "And just think of poor Felix."
Changbin passed you both by to open the door. Traitor.
"Guys, seriously—"
"You don't have to confess anything," Chan said from somewhere behind you, and your jaw dropped. Out of everyone, you would have thought he'd stop them from manhandling you. You would have thought he'd be reasonable. "Just talk to him. Hear him out?"
"Please?" Felix chimed in.
Your resolve wavered. Unfortunately, Hyunjin noticed this and used the opportunity to steer you the last few steps to the doorway.
"There we go."
"I still don't know what I'm supposed to say," you cried.
"You're smart, figure it out on the way down," Minho said from over your shoulder, sounding far too entertained by all of this, the jerk.
The door was now open and cool hallway air drifted in.
You looked at the exit, then back at the group who'd followed you to the foyer, all of whom were watching you with varying degrees of expectation.
Hyunjin gave you one final nudge over the threshold. "Go before he drives away."
"Fighting!" The boys called just before the door slammed shut for the second time.
You stood in the hallway for half a second, heart racing.
Then, with a muttered, "I can't believe they're making me do this," you headed for the elevator at a near jog, hoping Seungmin was still somewhere in the parking garage and not already halfway down the road.
The elevator took entirely too long to get to you, and then it took too long to open, then too long to close.
You jabbed each button more than once despite knowing full well that wouldn't make it move faster. The numbers crawled downward, and by the time the doors finally slid open, your nerves had worked themselves into a state.
The underground parking garage was quieter than usual when you stepped out. Cold, too, considering how late it was.
You stepped out, looking for the car you knew he'd driven here (with Felix, who would probably have to find a different ride home if this all didn't work out). You found it, parked several rows over beneath one of the overhead lights.
The engine wasn't running, the headlights were off, and the driver's seat was empty.
You approached anyway, peering through the windows as if there was a chance he'd somehow folded himself into the backseat. Nothing.
With a sigh, you turned away from the car and started walking.
The apartment complex wasn't huge, but it had enough outdoor paths and little communal spaces that someone determined to be alone could accomplish it fairly easily. You checked the small seating area near the entrance first. Then the side courtyard. Then the path that wrapped around the building.
Nothing.
By the time you'd completed nearly a full lap around the property, your hands were freezing despite being buried in your pant pockets. Your toes, too, were getting a little icy—you were still wearing indoor slippers with a pair of thin socks.
This was exhausting.
And every minute that passed gave you more time to think about the conversation waiting for you. How exactly were you supposed to start it? An apology of some sort seemed in order, but then what?
You groaned and tipped your head back toward the night sky.
The universe, apparently deciding you had suffered enough, finally took pity on you.
As you rounded the corner of the building, your eyes landed on a small overlook area near the edge of the property.
There wasn't much there, just a railing overlooking the street below and a couple of benches nobody ever used. And standing at the railing was Seungmin.
Your steps slowed, and for a moment, you just stared.
Both his hands rested on the metal railing, shoulders slightly hunched (maybe due to the temperature, but you had a feeling it wasn't). The wind tugged at his hair every so often, and in the glow of the nearby streetlights he somehow looked younger—more vulnerable—than usual.
The sight made something uncomfortable twist in your chest. You'd been the cause of that, no matter how indirect or unintentional. Shame on you.
You took a breath, then another, and finally forced your feet to keep moving. The crunch of your soles against the pavement was enough to announce your presence and Seungmin turned his head.
The second he saw you, you watched his entire body stiffen.
For a second, neither of you said anything. Which, admittedly, was very on brand for the two of you.
You stopped a few steps away from him and shoved your hands deeper into your pockets.
"So."
Brilliant start!
Seungmin looked away first, a faint laugh escaping through his nose, the kind people did when they didn't know what else to do, when things definitely weren't funny.
"Yeah," he said quietly, turning away, and yet another silence ensued.
You glanced at the railing, then at him, then back at the railing. He was clenching and unclenching his grip, sort of mirroring what your own hands were doing in your pockets.
How was this going to be the first real conversation you'd ever had?
The silence stretched another few seconds before Seungmin cleared his throat.
"Did they send you?"
You sighed, knowing the answer probably wouldn't make him feel better, but he deserved honesty. "Shoved me right out the door."
He glanced over, and his eyes traveled from your face to your shoulders, down your arms, and then lower. A small, displeased frown appeared.
Right, of course. He probably didn't want to be having this conversation, especially not with you. He'd just gotten blindsided by Felix, fled the apartment, and now here you were showing up uninvited to continue the humiliation.
You looked away, wondering how much worse this situation would get if you just left right now.
"Sorry," you muttered. "I know you probably don't really—"
A sharp click of his tongue cut you off.
"Idiots couldn't even send you out with a jacket and proper shoes."
Then, before you could stop him, he shrugged out of his own coat and held it out toward you.
"Seungmin-ssi—"
"Take it."
It was probably the most demanding you'd ever heard him.
You stepped closer, now within a step of him, and took it from his hand. "Thanks."
You slipped it on without arguing; there didn't seem much point. The temperature difference was jarring, and judging by the way his shoulders relaxed slightly, he seemed relieved you hadn't fought him on it.
The coat smelled faintly like his detergent or cologne. Whatever it was, you liked it.
"Not going to offer up your shoes, too?" you couldn't help but ask. Anything to lighten the mood.
In response, he kneeled down, fingers moving to mess with the knots on his shoes.
You balked, hands shooting out to pull him up by his arm. "I was joking."
He straightened, clearly fighting a smile. He'd been joking, too (at least you thought so based on what little you knew of his expressions).
His eyes dropped to where your hand was still wrapped around his sleeve.
Only then did you realize you hadn't let go, and you immediately released him.
"Sorry."
"It's okay," he assured.
You took half a step back and shoved your hands into the pockets of his coat, feeling his car keys (welp, at least he wouldn't be able to run now). The motion made him look away, though not before you caught the faintest hint of amusement on his face.
Things were looking up, the mood wasn't totally awful, you guys were joking around... now was the time to make your move.
"Don't be mad at Felix—"
"I didn't mean for—"
The words crashed into each other and both of you stopped... then proceeded to talk over each other again:
"Sorry—"
"You go—"
And again:
"Oh, I just—"
"Seriously—"
Was this why you never talked to each other? Because it was doomed to be a mess?
He held a hand firmly up in front of your face and you took that as a cue to just shut your mouth, but then he gestured for you to speak while he zipped his own lips.
"Um," you blinked, "Felix feels awful, really."
"Serves him right." He shrugged.
You rolled your eyes at his indignation. "He thinks you hate him."
The corner of his mouth twitched: not quite a smile, but not quite a frown. Something caught between affection and exasperation.
"He knows I don't."
The certainty in his voice made you pause. Of course he knew. Because unlike some people (namely, you), Felix and Seungmin actually talked to each other.
The thought arrived uninvited and it irritated you. You weren't even sure why. It wasn't exactly fair. Felix and Seungmin lived together. They'd known each other forever. It would be stranger if they didn't communicate well.
Still.
Why was it so easy for them to understand each other, even through crisis?
"He really does feel bad," you said again, softer this time.
Seungmin sighed through his nose and turned back toward the street below. "I know."
The annoyance in his voice had dulled considerably.
You studied his profile for a moment.
The streetlights painted soft shadows across his face, and without the usual distractions of seven other people occupying the same space, you found yourself noticing things you normally wouldn't. The slight crease between his brows when he was thinking. The way his jaw tightened before he spoke. The way he seemed incapable of standing still even while technically standing still, fingers tapping once against the railing before going still again.
The more you looked at him, the more bizarre tonight felt.
This was Kim Seungmin.
You'd known Kim Seungmin for years.
How was this the first time you'd ever really, truly looked at him?
You'd been missing out.
The wind shifted again, carrying the distant hum of traffic from the street below. Beside you, Seungmin remained quiet, his attention fixed somewhere beyond the railing.
For a while, neither of you spoke. You weren't sure whether it was because you were both trying to figure out what came next or because neither of you wanted to be the one to take that step.
Eventually, Seungmin exhaled deeply.
"You know," he started, eyes still fixed ahead, "you don't have to worry about it."
"Worry about what?" You frowned.
His fingers tapped once against the railing before going still. "About what Felix said."
Your first instinct was to deny it.
You weren't worried.
Were you?
(YES.)
You watched him carefully, trying to parse out his own thoughts on the matter.
His expression remained neutral enough, but there was something restrained about it. Something that reminded you of all the years you'd spent thinking Kim Seungmin simply didn't have much to say.
Now you suspected he'd always had plenty to say. He just picked and chose what escaped.
"We can just..." He shrugged one shoulder. "Forget it happened."
You stared at him. Surely, you were mishearing, right?
"Forget it happened," you repeated blandly.
"Yeah."
"What?" you asked, confused.
"Well, you've heard all there is to say. Cat's out of the bag, the dam's broken, my cover's blown." You watched as he steadily worked himself up before he took a deep calming breath. A faint, sad smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "If it's going to make things weird, we can just forget it happened."
This caught you off guard, and you'd already been quite off-kilter.
Part of you understood why he was offering. You weren't stupid. This was simultaneously giving you an out, a way to return to normal without having to reject him, and giving him a way to spare himself from hearing an answer he might not want.
The realization made your chest ache.
"That's dumb." The words slipped out before you could stop them.
"Excuse me?" he sputtered.
"I don't want to pretend this never happened."
"Why not?" he asked quietly.
Because those moments you'd spent replaying meant something now. Because now that you knew, you couldn't unknow it. Because the idea of going back to avoiding each other in rooms full of mutual friends felt strangely disappointing.
"I just..." you blew out a breath, "I know I don't want things to go back to the way they were before."
His eyes flicked to yours, and you continued before you could lose your nerve.
"I think I'd like y—" You stopped yourself. "I think I'd like to actually get to know you. I'd really like to try being... friends with you first. Real friends?"
The second The Word left your mouth, you regretted it.
It became clear to you by his reaction that he'd heard the word friends and shut down. Panic surged through you.
"No, wait," you backtracked. "I didn't mean let's be friends and that's all."
The sentence hung between you, and you forged ahead.
"I meant maybe we start there? And see where that takes us?" you offered and your voice softened. "Maybe nowhere. Or maybe we figure out there is something."
You shrugged helplessly, flinging your arms out in a way that made the folds of his jacket fan out, and you saw him smile.
"I don't know." A small and nervous laugh escaped you. "But I'd like the chance to find out."
Seungmin didn't answer right away.
He looked at you for a second, then away again, attention catching on something distant near your shoulder before drifting back. His fingers shifted against the railing once, twice, like he was weighing something he didn't want to say out loud.
You almost filled the silence just to save yourself from it, but then he spoke.
"We weren't friends?"
It came out flat enough that you took it for genuine offense.
"No!" you laughed in his face. "What we had before was not friendship."
"I know, I know." His subtly growing grin turned amused. "I'm messing with you."
Right, you'd have to get used to that. The teasing he was known for, his friendship trademark. The thought made you jittery, if you were being honest.
And what he said next made it so much worse:
"If friends is what you want first, I can do that. I want to try that," he assured before pausing. "But I also need you to know it won't always feel like that for me. I like you... a lot—Yongbok may have even downplayed it a bit—and I'd understand if that thought makes you uncomfortable."
His gaze flicked briefly to your face, then away again, giving you space in the most literal way possible without actually moving.
You huffed out a breath, a little disbelieving, and fanned your face despite the nippy chill.
"You can't just say things like that," you muttered.
Seungmin let out a quiet laugh through his nose first, like he wasn't entirely sure he was allowed to, and then it turned into something fuller and brighter and maybe even uncontrollable when he saw your stunned expression.
You cheered internally, recalling how much you'd wanted this earlier. Victory sure was sweet.
You watched him for a beat longer, waiting for his chuckles to taper just enough, before responding to an unspoken question.
"I'm not uncomfortable," you said simply.
His eyes lifted to you again, a little more focused now, but still warm at the edges.
"But I'll tell you if that ever changes," you added. "And you can do the same?"
Seungmin's laughter faded slowly and he exhaled through his nose, still smiling faintly to himself as he looked away for a second, collecting whatever composure he had left. Then his attention came back to you.
"Yeah," he agreed. "Of course."
The wind shifted again, colder this time, slipping between the space you were both pretending wasn't different than it had been ten minutes ago. You pulled his coat a little closer around you out of instinct, and his eyes flicked to the motion before returning to your face.
He shifted, pushing off the railing.
"We should go," he said, but there was no real urgency in it.
"Yeah," you agreed with a nod, though you didn't necessarily want to leave this little bubble that you'd made for yourselves either.
But the cold insisted on being a cockblock.
The walk back started the same way it had ended outside—quiet at first, the kind of silence you'd always had with him before, except now it didn't feel empty in the same way. Even still, you didn't let it stay silent for long. If you guys were going to be friends, you guys needed to pick up the pace.
"You're going to get yelled at," you said after a while, glancing ahead.
Seungmin didn't even pretend to misunderstand. "For what."
"For making Felix cry."
"He cried?" His head swung to look at you.
"As good as," you said.
He groaned to himself and you smiled.
The rest of the walk filled itself in without effort after that with small things, the blooming friendship things that you guys needed to speedrun:
He asked if you were still cold, and when you said "a little," he didn't comment—just shifted slightly so you were walking on the side of the path that wasn't catching the wind as badly. (This may have been a little more than friendly, but you decided you were okay with it.)
You asked him something about Minho's food, if he'd even gotten the chance to eat it, to which he replied honestly that he'd had no appetite. You apologized, but he waved it off by saying it looked burnt beyond belief, anyways.
You learned that Seungmin remembered an alarming amount about conversations you'd long forgotten having. Meanwhile, you had to repeatedly admit that you had absolutely no recollection of certain interactions. (This was not a flattering look for you, but he seemed to find it more amusing than anything.)
By the time the apartment door came into view, you felt very confident in your decision to try out the label of friends first. Kim Seungmin was a super cool guy, just like you figured.
When you walked up to the door, he reached for it first, holding it open without looking at you.
You passed him, shoulder brushing his just slightly in the narrow space.
Many pairs of eyes turned to you from the living area beyond.
Perhaps it was because they saw you wearing Seungmin's coat or just because you had come back together (which could only mean one thing in their small brains), but cheers went up around the room, all sounding congratulatory.
You and Seungmin glanced at each other, sharing an awkward look.
You did your best to tell him silently through your expression that you did not want to be the one to break the news. Lucky for you, he understood perfectly.
He sighed and lifted a hand before the noise could build any further, palm facing outward in a quiet attempt at control.
It worked only marginally. The volume dipped, but not the enthusiasm.
"Relax," he said. "We're starting as friends."
The room paused for half a beat, likely thinking about how best to react.
"Oh." Jisung was the first to break the silence. "I mean, oh! Friends are cool. Yay for friends!"
"With benefits?" Hyunjin just had to ask, and Changbin smacked him upside the head.
Your face went hot and you thought you saw Seungmin's ears go a little pink, too, but he rolled his eyes. "No."
"And..." Chan started, eyes flicking between you and Seungmin. "You're both... okay with that?"
"It was mutual," you answered with a nod and the guys all seemed relieved by this.
Hyunjin, however, was still not done. Of course not.
"So, friends," he said again, now grinning. "Sharing jackets is a little cozier than friends, in my opinion."
You fiddled with the sleeves of Seungmin's coat. You probably could have taken it off before coming back inside to avoid exactly this situation. And you probably could take it off now that you were inside, but something inside you wanted to keep it on.
"We share clothes all the time," Jeongin muttered. You appreciated him so much.
Hyunjin opened his mouth, probably to escalate further, but Chan lightly tapped him with the back of his hand before it could spiral.
"Leave it," Chan said mildly.
"Fine, fine," the man heaved and whispered something suspiciously like, "Friends to lovers is peak, anyways."
As things finally started to die down, Felix made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a sob. Then, without warning, he crossed the room and flung himself at Seungmin.
"I'm sorry," Felix said immediately, voice muffled against Seungmin's shoulder. "I will never tell another one of your secrets ever again. I'm the worst. I'll make it up to you, I swear."
Seungmin went still for half a second. Then, slowly, he exhaled through his nose.
"Yongbok," he said flatly.
"I know," Felix mumbled immediately, still half-buried against him. "I've disgraced myself as a human being and a friend and as a roommate too."
"That's not what I was going to say."
"It's fine, you don't have to be nice to me. I deserve honesty right now."
Seungmin paused for a beat. "...You're going to suffocate me if you don't move your head."
Felix finally pulled back just enough to look at him, still holding onto his sleeves like letting go would make everything worse again.
"It's fine. I'm fine," Seungmin insisted, and his eyes glanced up over his shoulder to catch your gaze. "More than."
Your stomach swooped, and your jaw kind of dropped at that. His eyes remained on you, the small upward twitch at the corner of his lips returning as he noticed your shock.
Felix was still clinging to his sleeve, still talking softly about how he was going to "repent through acts of service for the rest of his life," but neither of you really reacted to that part. Your eyes broke apart as Felix's voice dropped low again:
"I'm still sorry," he said again.
"I know," Seungmin replied. Then, after a beat, "Now stop talking about it."
"Okay." Felix nodded rapidly. "Yes. Silence. I will be silent. Like a monk."
"That's not—never mind."
You couldn't help it—you laughed then.
It slipped out before you could decide whether it was the appropriate emotional response to the situation, and Seungmin's eyes flicked to you again at the sound.
The corner of his mouth twitched just slightly.
Something settled in your chest after that. Not completely. You doubted it ever would. Not tonight, anyway. There were still too many things to think about, too many things to figure out, and an insane amount of retrospective embarrassment waiting for you the second your head hit a pillow.
(You were going to spend at least three hours staring at your ceiling and reliving every interaction you'd ever had with Kim Seungmin, because you were sure there were more hidden in the crevices of your brain. This was a guarantee.)
Life carried on.
Funny how it did that.
Because despite how monumental tonight had felt, despite how much it seemed like everything had changed, tomorrow would still arrive. The day after that, too.
There would be group dinners, movie nights.
Long conversations, short conversations.
There would be awkward moments and comfortable ones and moments where neither of you were entirely sure which category you belonged in anymore.
You'd spend the next few months learning things about Kim Seungmin that probably should have been common knowledge by now.
He'd learn things about you, too.
Some of those discoveries would be meaningful; others would be completely useless.
You'd learn how he took his coffee.
He'd learn that you couldn't be trusted with directions (he now drove you pretty much everywhere, even if it was out of his way).
The friendship part, it turned out, wasn't nearly as difficult as you'd expected.
The everything-else part was another story.
Kim Seungmin wasn't your friend.
Not really.
Even after everything you'd discussed on that overlook. Even after all the mutual agreements and sensible decisions and mature conversations that followed.
Friend didn't feel quite right.
Not before.
Not now.
He existed somewhere in that strange space beyond it. A place without a proper label yet. A place neither of you seemed particularly interested in rushing.
Who do I have to beg, bribe, or pray to for a skz x linedancer!reader?? My friends and I have been going out to line dance, and I’ve been hit with the country music bug, for better or for worse
Like just imagine them going to a honky tonk bar ✨for the experience✨ with their new cowboy hats and boots (because, of course, you need to fit in), and they see reader instructing the crowd or leading the group. And reader has got that southern charm and helps them out?
(If this already exists, please direct me to it. I’ll be eternally grateful.)
what to know: lee felix x afab!reader, nsfw, fluff/humor, switch (in every sense of the word), est. relationship, dry humping, fingering, handjob, p in v (protected! bc safe sex is hot too!), lube, petnames (baby & angel), aftercare
once again, i cannot write serious smut to save my life, so there's lots of humor thrown in
idea came to me after seeing this x post: "need to sit in his lap while he yaps about his nerdy little interests and his hands wander all over me" (i think the x account is suspended...)
word count: 3.9k
recommended listening: air - yeji
"And linear switches are the best for gaming."
His fingers pressed into your thighs as if he was pressing into the very keys themselves. Though, perhaps with a bit more force, because, according to him, pressing too hard repeatedly caused "accelerated wear and tear".
"Uhuh," you breathed, "and why is that?"
You should be applauded for being able to multitask as you kissed at his neck and rolled your hips against his. You should be awarded for staying focused. Being an active listener in these conditions was a talent.
Felix exhaled through his nose, a sound that wavered just slightly when your lips trailed against his skin with the lightest pressure. He tilted his head to give you better access without even seeming to notice he was doing it, his body responding to you while his mind kept trying to stay on track. He should be applauded for that, too. A very talented couple, you two were.
"Because," he continued, voice a little lower now, "there is no tactile bump. So your inputs are smoother.”
You hummed softly against his neck, half in encouragement, half just to feel the way he paused for a fraction of a second when you did it.
"Tactile switches," he added after a soundless gulp, "have a bump. You feel it every time you press, so it slows down rapid input. But it is nice for typing."
"And what's the third one again?" you asked quietly, mindful of your proximity to his ear as you grazed your teeth along his earlobe.
"Clicky," was all he managed.
"Those are the ones I like?" you whispered.
"That's right, baby," he practically purred, hands drifting upwards till his thumbs were pressing into the crease at your pelvis. "You like to be heard."
And could you truly be blamed for losing your grip on the conversation after that? His voice, so deep and sexy and passionate, carried on, but you were wholly focused on where your bodies were interlocked. Who needed applause and awards anyway? This was the ultimate prize.
His splayed fingers assisted in your rocking motion absentmindedly, guiding you at a pace far slower than you wanted to go. Even with most of his attention on speaking, his grip was firm enough that there was no escaping the rhythm he had set, even when you tried to shift against it for something more. He did not seem particularly concerned with your impatience, only with keeping you exactly where he wanted you, exactly how he wanted you moving.
You could feel how hard he was beneath you, insistently pressing and dragging against your core at every angle. Through the layers between you, you felt every inch so clearly, but it wasn't nearly enough. Luckily, you knew he'd break concentration sooner or later with a little bit of coaxing. He always did.
You brought your hands to his front, resting your palms on his chest to push yourself slightly back for just a moment before dragging back to target his tip. You knew it was successful by the way he jolted and grunted, bucking up.
You tuned back in just in time to hear him say, "...causes strain to bottom out."
"Bottom out, you say?" you echoed, not masking your amused tone.
Felix's chest was heaving now, his heartbeat beneath your fingers racing. He still chuckled out, "I meant on a keyboard, ya gutter brain."
"Hm." You slowly dragged yourself over him once more, adding more pressure this time around before telling him, "Join me in the gutter?"
"Don't you know I'm always there?" His grin was bright, his red cheeks bunching up as he caught your eye. "Gutter's my home-base."
"Then you should be giving me a tour," you said, dropping a featherlight kiss to his lips and lingering there while you repeated your earlier motions to feel the sudden exhale through his nose. You breathed in, obsessed with the way he smelled.
"Ah, right," he shivered. "What sort of host am I?"
He leaned further back against the headboard as you kissed him again, his fingers creeping up to spread against your ribs beneath your shirt, so warm against bare skin, and the soft sound he made when you shifted against him again went straight through you.
You knew your panties were completely soaked at this point, and it was only a matter of time before it would start seeping through to your shorts, as well. Eventually, he'd get uncomfortable with the friction and ask (beg, really) to reduce—if not completely erase—all barriers between you. But he was as much a fan of this teasing as you were, so he always held out until it became somewhat painful. And even then, he sometimes stuck it out—the utter masochist.
His hips suddenly hitched upward, and he choked on a breath as his tip very obviously caught in the seam of your shorts. You lurched forward, forehead resting against his shoulder as you stifled a groan of your own.
"What say we lose all this?" Felix predictably asked, his fingers dropping to curl into the waistbands of your shorts and underwear (Why waste time and pull them off separately? he'd once asked, and you hadn't a single reason to argue).
"I have no objections," you panted, and punctuated it with swinging a leg off of him to rid yourself of the offending garments.
He did the same, lifting his hips to shove his shorts and underwear off. You're not sure where they ended up as he kicked them pointedly far away and off the other edge of the bed. Clearly he had no intention of getting back into them any time soon. You had no objections to that, either.
You were straddled back over his lap before he'd even resettled himself back down. He smiled up at you so sweetly, slinging an arm around your waist to guide you closer as he shifted around to get comfortable.
That smile was too innocent for the thoughts running through your head—through both of your heads, you knew. He truly wasn't lying when he said his home-base was the gutter, the things that came out of his mouth sometimes... shameless. Innocence was a fantastic look on him, especially when you knew it was a farce.
You rested one hand on his shoulder, feeling the tickle of the ends of his hair on the back of your palm.
It was getting so long.
...You couldn't wait to pull on it.
Your other hand found its home between you, taking him into a loose fist. He hissed gently, eyes falling shut as his head knocked back into the headboard with a thunk. You could tell he wanted to chuckle at himself for it, but the way he was biting his bottom lip kept him quiet.
He was so velvety smooth in your hand. Really, every part of him was so soft and silky (we don't mention the fried hair), and you always found yourself envious of that fact. From the many products in his bathroom, and from the few he left around yours when he stayed over, you knew it took great effort to maintain a body like this. You could run your hands over him forever and never tire of it.
You're certain he'd be on board for that idea, too.
"Just like that," he grunted.
See?
You continued stroking him, your thumb swiping over his tip intermittently just to watch him jolt each time. At this angle, you knew your forearm would begin to hurt any minute and you'd have to adjust, but you loved this position. You on top with your faces only breaths apart (seriously, you could not stress enough just how much you craved the smell of him), what wasn't to love?
Well, maybe one thing:
"I can't touch you like this," he complained, his hand pointedly trying to reach between you but just bumping into your own work.
"Sure you can," you disagreed, using your free hand to bring one of his up under your shirt to your chest.
You knew he wanted to argue and say this wasn't what he meant, but beggars couldn't be choosers. What sort of lunatic would protest feeling up some tits, anyway?
And feel them up he did.
You knew it was an ongoing tease among his groupmates and his other friends that he had small hands. Dainty, even. But he knew how to put them to work. What did they say? It's not the size of the boat, it's the motion of the ocean? It's not the size of the wand, it's the magic in the spell?
Your stomach swooped as his fingers swiftly bypassed your bra to cup your breasts, and he squeezed gently, though the pads of his fingers once again pressed more firmly into the flesh. Maybe he was still thinking about his keyboards. His thumbs lightly grazed your nipples, circling them twice before going back to tweak them again.
You shuddered, faltering in your stroking. Despite the sudden hiccup in his own pleasure, he grinned, knowing he was responsible.
"Sensitive?" he cooed.
With no immediate response from you (because you knew that he knew the answer already, why state the obvious?), he switched to pinching.
You moaned, and feeling it only fair that you return the favor, you squeezed around him while applying more pressure at the head.
He hunched forward slightly, grunting. And when he lifted his face back up to look in your eyes, you could tell he was trying to be exasperated but losing the war. He enjoyed the back and forth too much to be truly displeased.
It was a wonder how you both ever got to the main act when this part was so entertaining.
"I'll take that as a yes," he muttered.
You shook your head, amused, and he brought you back in for a heated kiss. Such was his way of releasing the mild exasperation in a conducive way. His tongue traced along your bottom lip, hardly waiting before he welcomed himself in to lick every cranny of your mouth.
French kissing was to Felix as oxygen was to breathing. As catnip was to cats. As sunlight was to sunflowers. As in, once he started, it was nearly impossible to get him to stop. Again, only crickets from you on the objection front.
You returned back to your rhythmic stroking, and every time your fist reached the base of him, you brushed against the hem of his shirt all bunched up by his waist. It was a flattering shirt—not that there was a single shirt out in the world that would look unflattering on him—but you needed it off him.
Unfortunately, you didn't particularly want to separate from him, nor he from you. Instead, when you tugged at his shirt, he merely pulled one hand away from your chest and helped you to get it out through a single arm hole, lifting it over a shoulder to expose golden skin inch by inch.
Your free hand roamed happily across his stomach and chest, raking nails gently over the ridges, and he trembled beneath you in response.
Instead of returning his second hand back to your chest to re-join the other, he settled it over yours where it moved against him. Not to stop you, just to feel it. Well... until his hand tightened around yours slightly.
“God,” he mumbled against your lips.
"Not quite," you couldn't resist, "but I do answer prayers on the occasion ."
"Well, if you're taking requests..." he said.
"I'm listening, angel," you hummed, feeling the nickname was only fitting.
He seemed to think so, too, smiling wholly with his flushed cheeks. His head dropped to trail a blaze of kisses along your neck before saying, "Let me on top?"
Of course, you'd grant this wish. Your forearm had long since begun to feel sore and your hips had started grinding unconsciously without any true friction to relieve you. You also wanted him on top.
But where was the fun in giving in so easily?
Felix must have sensed the incoming resistance immediately because he lifted his head just enough to look at you, eyes narrowed.
You chuckled slightly, not feeling the slightest bit cowed by this attempt, the sound breaking slightly when he retaliated by dragging his teeth gently against the sensitive spot beneath your jaw.
“Baby, I asked nicely.” He pressed another kiss there afterward like an apology. Or perhaps a threat. “Have a heart.”
It was because of your heart that you gave in so easily after that.
"Fine," you huffed, releasing your hold on him and backing up off his legs. "Approved."
He grinned so brightly it nearly became the cause of your death, like the sun exploding.
“Thank you kindly,” he said, already guiding you backwards onto the mattress.
He hovered above you only briefly before dipping down to kiss you again, clearly unwilling to waste even a second of his newly earned victory.
The thing about Felix being on top was that he always got this little power trip about it (something he would argue with you to the moon and back about). The second he had you beneath him, something in him preened.
When he was above you, he did not seem to feel the need to perform confidence the same way he usually did. As if being able to see you fully under him gave him a kind of reassurance he did not get anywhere else. Felix was usually all movement and humor and scattered softness, but in moments like this he became focused in a way that felt almost reverent, as if the act of being allowed this close to you was something he did not take lightly even when he was teasing you about it (an honor to be here, he'd said during your first time).
He sat back on his heels, shuffling closer on his knees as his hands ran up and down your thighs on either side of his waist.
"Thank you so kindly," he repeated, eyes roving over you.
What a goober, you thought fondly, only to have it abruptly flee from your mind as his thumb suddenly swiped through your folds.
"Oh fu—" you gasped.
He hummed contentedly as he let his fingers trail over your entrance a couple of times before taking the slick and bringing it up to your clit.
"Warning?" you heaved once you caught your breath, not entirely sure a warning would have even sufficiently prepared you in the first place.
"Uh, no?" he said distractedly.
"That was not a yes or no question," you got out through gritted teeth as he continued circling your clit.
"Sorry, I have the literal prettiest pussy in the world in front of me," he said, showcasing some of that shamelessness. "You can't expect me to handle anything more than a yes or no right now."
Fair enough. You'd been struggling to handle his rant on keyboard switches, and you'd both been fully clothed then. Expecting him to think properly while you laid completely bare before him (apart from the shirt that was likely just going to stay on for the duration of this) would be hypocritical of you.
"Carry on," you conceded.
And you didn't have to tell him twice.
He slid two fingers inside you, curling them slightly as he slowly pistoned in and out.
You reached down with both hands, holding onto his forearm. Just to feel, like he had done with you. What was that you had said about boats and oceans and magic? An understatement.
"One more prayer?" he asked, and you felt a third finger join the others.
"It better be what I'm thinking," you said, eyes opening to peer down at him (you couldn't even remember closing them).
And because you always seemed to be on the same page about everything, of course it was. It went without saying.
Felix practically toppled on top of you to reach over to his bedside table drawer. His hair flung into your face making you sputter, and you could feel the hard length of him press into your side, and a sweat droplet definitely slid off his neck onto your arm. You couldn't be happier.
He sat back up, condom in one hand and small bottle of lube in the other.
"There's only a couple left," he mentioned as he tore into the condom packet.
"Hm," you hummed lowly, finding it so strangely attractive how he rolled it on. "I can grab some more after work tomorrow."
Because an idol getting caught buying contraceptives was cause for global outrage, apparently. Your faves... practicing safe sex... the horror!
"Thank you," he said, leaning down to kiss you lightly. "Remind me to give you some cash for it."
It wasn't really needed; you had a job, and you wanted to have sex just as much as he did, but he always insisted. (It's a man's job, for sure, he'd said.) It helped that he always gave enough money for both the condoms and a sweet treat.
He tossed the wrapper off to the side and popped the cap of the lube open. Once upon a time, you swore you didn't need it and never would need it—some sort of pride thing, but also because he always made sure you were wet enough and prepared. But there had come a day when you'd been going for what felt like hours after he'd returned from a long time away on tour, unable to keep your hands off each other, and you'd tried it out. Suffice to say, it was life-changing for you both.
He lathered just a small bit on himself, collecting the excess to run it over your folds, making you shiver. He used the shirt sitting diagonally across his chest to clean off his hand because you'd once complained about how it made you feel sticky and tacky wherever he grabbed you.
You hoped the shirt he was wearing wasn't one of those uber-expensive designer brand ones. He was typically pretty good about keeping those pristine, but again, his thoughts seemed to take a backseat in these moments.
"Ready, baby?" he asked, using his clean hand to hitch your knee higher.
You hooked your calf around his lower back to pull him closer. "What do you think?"
You made sure it was a yes or no question this time.
His hand dropped between you, fingers so easily gliding in and out of you with a squelch.
"Mmh. You're ready."
The pressure of him slowly sliding into you was so delectable, it always was. Like puzzle pieces, you fit together so perfectly.
"You're so perfect," he groaned. "So perfect for me."
Same wavelength, as always, you smiled, head thrown back.
"Look at you," he continued, his head dipped down so he could fixate on where he disappeared and reappeared. "Look at us."
You loved how chatty he got in these beginning moments. Soon enough, he'd go quiet so he could concentrate, but for now his every thought left his lips.
"Touch me," he said. "Anywhere. Just touch me."
And who were you to deny him something that you both wanted? You brought your hands up and over his shoulders, fingers entangling in the hair at his scalp. And you tugged, just like you'd wanted to do from the very beginning.
"Harder," he gasped.
You pulled again, though some distant part of you truly was concerned about his delicate hair.
His next moan came out more like a whimper, and he punctuated it with a thrust. You couldn't help a sound of your own, wondering if you'd ever get used to the feeling of him reaching so deep inside you, and he chuckled breathlessly in response.
The rhythm he'd previously set sped up and he brought a hand down to press on your bundle of nerves. With every circle he made over the bud, he timed a thrust, and with a quiet cry, your hips bucked up into him, seeking more, more, more.
When you looked up at him, you noticed his tongue caught between his teeth, which normally meant there'd be no more talking from him. Too focused on your pleasure, too focused on making sure there was a steady climb to the peak for both of you.
Eventually, a familiar heat built and built in your gut and your arms began to shake.
"Lix," you simpered, "I'm close."
"Uhuh," was all he got out.
He was close, too.
You yanked at his hair as the fire in your stomach finally crested and a full-body tremor wracked through you. Behind your eyelids, there were literal sparks of light, fireworks of pleasure. His head fell to your shoulder as you felt your walls pulse and clench around him in your comedown.
"F—uck me," he stuttered, managing a couple more thrusts before he tipped over the edge right after you.
He amazed you—everything he did amazed you—but something about the way he unraveled was mesmerizing each time. Mesmerizing even as he plopped down on top of you, not even fully removed yet, sweaty and limp and heavy.
You had just enough energy and breath in your lungs to giggle.
"Laughin' at me?" he rasped against your neck, but you could tell he was also seconds away from laughing.
"Yeah," you answered honestly, letting the tight grip you had on his hair loosen to gently comb through the knots. "Who cums saying 'Fuck me'? Little late for that, don't you think?"
He let out his own chuckle at that. "Slipped out."
"Such a dirty mouth," you said, kissing his head. "Should wash it out with soap."
"You like my dirty mouth," he defended, leaning up on an elbow to provide him with the space to kiss up and down your jaw pointedly. And, because he likely couldn't help himself, he smushed his face deeper into your neck and blew a loud raspberry.
You sputtered out into laughter, cringing away from him.
"Right?" he asked, sparkling eyes grinning down at you.
'Twas true, you sighed with a nod. You liked everything about his mouth, from how pretty it was all the way down to how vulgar it was.
Finally, he leaned all the way off you, and you felt the almost-ticklish feeling of him sliding out of you. You felt so empty without him... and sticky, too. He turned away slightly, scooching off the bed to dispose of the condom in the attached bathroom.
You bit your lip to hide a grin as you watched his bare backside disappear from view. Sure, he was sexy beyond belief, but he was also just so cute. Especially with his shirt still goofily hanging off him.
When he returned, he brought with him a warm, wet washcloth, a dixie cup of water (that he typically used for his mouthwash), and a tube of lip balm. He handed you the cup and chapstick as you sat up just slightly to drink, and then sat beside your thigh to begin wiping you down.
After taking a few sips of the water, you held it out to him to drain the remaining gulp's worth, and he smiled, letting you tilt the cup for him. You set the empty cup down on the bedside table, applied some of the lip balm, and merely watched him.
You wanted him in every way. How was that possible? How could you want someone you already had? Someone you already had in the most intimate way you could have someone, in fact. You'd never get enough of him.
You brushed your hands along his shirt, not wanting to ever be separate from him. One of your fingers brushed a dry, flakey spot and you whinged, subtly creeping one hand up and around the collar to look at the tag.
"Ugh, Felix," you chided. "You got lube on Louis?"
He threw his head back as he cackled. "Not lube on Louis!"
You lightly smacked his shoulder.
"It'll come out," he swore, finishing up with the washcloth. He leaned over and smeared his lips against yours, stealing some of the lip balm you applied, and patted your leg. "Now go pee so we can cuddle."
"What, you're not going to continue building your keyboard?" you asked, looking over to the desk where a deconstructed mechanical keyboard was surrounded by switches.
"That can wait," he asserted, waving his hand flippantly. "Cuddling cannot."
And, once more, who were you to deny him something you both wanted?
what to know: han jisung x gn!reader, sfw, fluff, no mention of ages but i imagine this takes place just a couple years after skz debut, jisung is a little bit of a creep?, reader is an idol in a different jype group, jisung is an anxious overthinker
backstory: I wrote this years ago for an oikawa tooru fan fiction, and since it will never see the light of day, i decided to revamp it. anyways, if you're familiar with haikyuu, you may see the resemblance
word count: 2.8k
recommended listening: hikariare - moonlight version by burnout syndromes
Jisung has a grand total of three pictures of you.
At some point, he had a whopping record of eleven, but Chan made him delete a collection because they were candid shots that you had no knowledge of. You weren't doing anything in them, just eating at a table in the company cafeteria or chatting with your members in the lobby before a meeting. Mundane things that he couldn't help but want to memorialize forever.
Because everything you do seems like something to cherish.
And right now, he really wishes he still had those photos, no matter how creepy Chan said it made him out to be.
He's going through another redecorating phase in his room... as one does when they're stressed out or procrastinating. He's been tacking up new posters, reorganizing his cluttered shelves, moving around old trophies and awards, printing out pictures of his friends and family for the past hour or so and hoping the changes will give him some inspiring perspective.
(It doesn't.)
Just as he's figuring out the most pleasing formation of the photos in a collage, he realizes that the three pictures of you get lost too easily in the sea of his other friends and family. Even putting them front and center isn't enough to shine a spotlight on your face. And that just won't do.
He wants to call up the company's marketing team and ask if they have any extra pictures of you that weren't used in the last campaign. But then he thinks about the names Hyunjin would shout while smacking him silly. Something like 'stalking weirdo' or 'pervert.' And Jisung does not want to be labeled as such. Terrible for his image. Social ruin, instantly.
Maybe you'll just offer some up if he asks? Or if he starts sending selfies, you might send some back voluntarily?
Deciding to test his theory, he pulls his phone out and quickly snaps a picture of what is supposed to be his 'good angle.' He proceeds to stare at it until he hates it, and repeats that process about twenty more times before finally taking one that doesn't make him want to shrivel up and die on the spot. It's one of his goofier smiles, with his lips a little pouty. Friendly, but not too friendly.
Good enough.
'How was practice? :))'
[IMG_4031]
He chucks the phone across the room onto his bed (a bed that's covered in clothes and random trinkets), immediately wishing he could unsend that. The regret sits heavily in his stomach.
But even if it were possible to take back his impulsive choice, he's sure you have already seen the text and image. You're always strangely attentive to your phone when not sleeping or at a schedule. Right on time with this thoughts, three short pings echo around the room. He leaps head first onto the messy bed, attacking his phone to see the messages.
'It was good!
How was yours?
:)'
He waits: one second...two seconds.
No pictures come through.
"Agh!" he wails while flopping over onto his back, briefly registering the sound of stuff toppling over to the floor. He thinks about suffocating himself with his pillow.
You didn't even address the picture. You probably hated it. Probably laughed at it, too. Maybe he should apologize for sending it, or say that it was actually meant for Minho. Ah, but then the text wouldn't make much sense, would it? A different friend then! From a different group!
...
Does he have any of those?
Nothing will undo any of the damage he's caused. He's made himself look like a complete nincompoop. He needs a whole stupid time machine to stop his stupid past-self from making stupid decisions!
After a while of hitting his forehead with the pointy corner of his phone as punishment, he decides he should probably answer you if he wants any chance of recovering the situation—if there is any.
'Great! We're working on something new'
Maybe if he ignores it and distracts you with stimulating conversation, you'll forget about it faster.
'Oh cool!
Planning a comeback?'
'yeah but that's in the far farrrr future
there's still so much to do'
'oof I feel that big time
ours is coming up but still so much work left'
'Fighting!
I'm excited for you! :D'
'THX!! I'm excited for your stuff too!
Talk more about it this week?
I've gotta go help out with dinner'
'For sure for sure
Make something delicious ^w^'
'I'll do my best :P'
[IMG_174]
Jisung practically jumps out of his skin when the last text pops up. He doesn't think his thumb has ever moved as fast as it does when he goes to open the attachment. A little gray loading symbol shows up, and he has to force himself to not shout with impatience as it slowly spins.
When the image finally takes up each corner of the screen, he again has to force himself not to shout, this time from utter delight. Your face takes the entire focus of the frame, but you've got a little peace sign held up by your mouth. And you're smiling. And not the smile you reserve for polite encounters with strangers, but the one you use when you're genuinely happy (no need to ask him how he's so well-versed in this knowledge). Happy because of him?! Oh, his heart.
If downloading photos was an Olympic sport, there's no way anyone would be able to compete against him. He's got that picture in his camera roll, sent to his email, put as your new contact photo, and he's one click away from making it his wallpaper. But some logical thread inside his brain tells him there's a high chance you'll see it in passing and get the wrong idea. Or, goodness forbid, the guys see it and laugh in his face.
He runs over to his desktop, speeding through the process of downloading the photo to a new thumb drive. But it's all for naught when he remembers the nearby convenience store that he goes to to print off the photos is closed at this time in the evening. He throws his head back and groans.
But his mood very quickly clears up when he remembers he has a new photo. He pulls the picture up on his computer and his phone because that doubles the consumption surface area. He turns the brightness up on both, wanting to get the full effect. It's not as good as the real thing, of course, yet it's still enough to make his heart race.
Clicking off the photo on his cellphone, he opens a message stream.
'Lee Know-ssi
I think I'm having a heart attack'
Minho's response time is a whole lot slower than yours, so he decides to sit at his desk, just gazing at his computer in rapture. He can totally make it his desktop background; there's a very low chance of you seeing it in here. However, there is a very high chance Minho or Hynjin will hit him and call him pervy when they inevitably see it.
A ping.
'That's nice'
'Have you no care for a dying man?!'
'Not if it's you'
'...
:'(((('
Jisung waits for a response to his sad text. He doesn't really expect to get one. Whenever he sends any sort of emoticon with no words, the man takes that as the conclusion to the conversation. So he's surprised when his notification goes off a few minutes later.
'Why are you having a heart attack?'
'I knew you cared, Minho-yah
'So informal -_-
I just need to know what I should tell the authorities when they find your body'
'You can tell them Han Jisung dropped dead after receiving a selfie from his crush'
'...
That's it?'
'What's that supposed to mean?!
It was cute'
'You see them almost everyday
why is it so crazy that they sent a photo?
...
It's not a nude pic, is it?'
Jisung almost drops dead for real this time. His phone practically slips from his fingers in his haste to reply.
'NO!
nonono no no
nothing like that
Lee Know-ssi, why you gotta be so vulgar?
It was only a selfie of their face'
He kind of wants to send it to the guy to prove its miraculous existence, or to show off. But he also just wants to keep it to himself. The picture was sent to him, and him alone. He wants to be the only one to see it for a while—or maybe forever. It's his to treasure.
'Only you would die from just a pic of their face
Pervy-Sung'
'Ack!
You're so mean to me'
In truth, Minho is probably being reasonable in his jibes; Jisung is acting a little dramatic over such a small thing (even though it feels like a totally monumental thing to him). He just really thinks this is a huge step in the desired direction he has for them. It is an incredible stride for your (hopefully up-and-coming) relationship. Before he knows it he'll be buying an overly priced engagement ring or checking out those cute baby clothes that have cheesy slogans on them.
And there he goes again, huh, being unnecessarily dramatic. Getting ahead of himself. Raising his own hopes. He just likes living in the future rather than the present. Skipping the hard parts of life to prematurely enjoy the fruits of labor he hasn't even done yet.
It's fine when he catches himself doing that kind of stuff in the comfort of his own room. No one is there to judge his dazed eyes and lopsided smile.
Not like at schedules or practices or lunch.
Too many times, he's been given a slap on the wrist for zoning out—staring out the window or across the room to daydream. Luckily, he can just use the very valid excuse of being an overworked idol who didn't get much sleep. That seems to get him out of some of the harsher punishments. Plus, whenever he fesses up to being 'tired,' you will go out of your to get him a canned espresso drink from the company's vending machine.
You're just too sweet.
(He makes sure to always repay your generosity by supplying you with the peach-flavored tea you seem to favor.)
He sighs in blissed-out relief and looks around. He really doesn't feel like finishing the work around his room, anymore. But it's such a mess.
He groans and shoves the pile of laundry and stray nick knacks to one side of his bed. He only needs half of it to sleep on anyway. He'll take care of the mess tomorrow (he will not).
Jisung pulls out his phone again, rereading the short text thread exchange he had with you.
His thumb hovers over your contact photo before he taps it again.
The image expands across the screen instantly now that it’s downloaded, no loading symbol in sight. Your hair looks a little damp around the temples, probably from practice. There’s a hoodie bunched up around your shoulders, sleeves covering part of your hands. The fluorescent lights in whatever room you were in wash the whole picture in a pale glow, but somehow you still look warm.
He zooms in a little without meaning to.
Then immediately zooms back out because wow, okay, calm down.
“Get a grip,” he mutters to himself.
He sets the phone on his chest and stares at the ceiling.
The thing is, Jisung doesn’t even know when this all got so bad.
At first you were just...nice. Easy to talk to during overlapping schedules. You laughed at his jokes even when they bombed horrifically, and you never made him feel weird for rambling too much or talking too fast. Somewhere along the line, his brain started categorizing every tiny interaction with you as important. A vending machine drink became a meaningful act of devotion. A passing shoulder bump in the hallway became enough to keep him smiling for three hours.
And now here he is.
Nearly crying over a selfie.
He presses the heels of his palms into his eyes with a groan.
This is pathetic.
A ping interrupts his self-loathing spiral.
His hands scramble for the phone so quickly he almost elbows himself in the face.
Another text from you.
'Wait omg
I forgot to ask
Was that your room in the selfie?'
Jisung sits bolt upright.
His room?
He tries desperately to remember what was even visible in the background of the picture he sent. His mind flashes through possibilities at terrifying speed.
The laundry mountain.
The overturned plushies.
The stack of lyric notebooks.
The—
Oh no.
Oh no no no.
He opens the image he sent you and zooms in behind his shoulder. Pinned to the wall in the background, slightly blurred but still recognizable if someone looked hard enough, is one of the printed group photos from a company dinner a few months ago.
One where you had accidentally leaned into his side while laughing. One where he had very intentionally cut everyone else out except the two of you. And one where, because apparently God enjoys seeing him suffer, he had drawn a tiny heart next to your head in silver marker.
Jisung feels his soul leave his body.
He actually goes fully still for a moment, staring blankly at the evidence of his own downfall.
Then:
'no'
A second later:
'yes sorry'
He throws his phone onto the bed again, horrified.
Three dots appear. Disappear. Reappear.
He thinks he might pass away.
'It looked cozy :)'
Jisung stares at the message until the words stop looking like words. Then his brain, being the cruel and overactive thing that it is, starts supplying possibilities.
Maybe you genuinely didn’t notice the picture. It was blurry and tiny, partially hidden behind his shoulder. You were probably more focused on his face than the background.
(That thought alone nearly kills him.)
Or maybe you saw it and just didn’t realize it was cropped.
No, wait. The silver heart. A tiny silver heart that he’d drawn during one particularly humiliating late-night yearning episode while listening to sad music and pretending he was performing in front of a crowd of a million you's.
Would you have been able to see that from the blurry background?
He zooms into the selfie again until the image quality turns grainy and awful.
You definitely could.
It’s faint, but visible enough if someone looked closely.
Jisung folds in half with a noise of pure suffering.
And now there are only two options.
Option one: you didn’t notice.
Embarrassing, yes, but survivable.
Option two: you absolutely noticed and chose not to say anything because you were trying to spare him from humiliation.
Which is somehow worse. Because that means you know. You know he’s weird about you.
Not weird weird, hopefully. Not enough to get HR called on him. But enough.
Enough that he stares at selfies like a Victorian man seeing a woman’s ankle for the first time.
Now, in hindsight, there should have been shame. Mountains of it.
Jisung drops backward onto the mattress and drags both hands down his face with a groan so dramatic it nearly echoes around the room. The ceiling stares blankly back at him while his thoughts continue to spiral deeper and deeper into catastrophe.
Because if you did notice, then what?
Would you start acting differently around him?
The thought alone makes his stomach twist unpleasantly.
He really does not want to lose what he already has with you in exchange for some awkward awareness hanging between you both. That’s the worst part about liking someone this much, he thinks. Every good thing suddenly feels fragile. Every text becomes something to overanalyze. Every kindness feels dangerous because he can’t tell whether he’s imagining meaning where there is none.
And yet, despite all of that, despite how mortifying this entire situation is, there is still a stupid hopeful part of him that keeps whispering:
But what if?
What if you noticed the heart and didn’t mind it?
What if you noticed and thought it was cute?
The possibility is so terrifying that he immediately rejects it on instinct.
You are kind to everyone. Warm with everyone. He has seen firsthand how easy it is for people to mistake your attentiveness for affection. He promised himself months ago that he wouldn’t become one of those people (and yet here he is, doing just that).
Maybe that was why he kept trying so hard to contain this whole thing inside himself. To keep it small and manageable and private. If he never said anything aloud, then he could continue existing exactly like this forever—hovering comfortably in your orbit, close enough to enjoy your company without risking the possibility of ruining it.
Because he likes this. He likes you greeting him first when your groups cross paths in the hallway. He likes sitting beside you during company dinners because you always steal bites from his plate without asking first. He likes the way you unconsciously seek him out in crowded waiting rooms, settling into the seat beside his as naturally as breathing.
If he reached too far and lost all of that in return, he genuinely thinks it might kill him.
Maybe he is getting ahead of himself again. Maybe this still means absolutely nothing. Maybe tomorrow you’ll greet him exactly the same way you greet everyone else, and he’ll once again have to remind himself not to build entire futures out of breadcrumbs.
And tonight, at least, things are still okay.
More than okay, even.
You had sent him a selfie because you wanted to.
You had kept talking to him afterward.
And whether you noticed the tiny silver heart or not, you hadn’t run away from it.
what to know: hwang hyunjin x fem!reader, sfw, fluff, she/her pronouns used, first date, reader has parents, little bit of a language barrier but it leads to cute interactions, hyunjin is an over-thinker, hyunjin lasagna incident
this is the second installment of a previous oneshot. you don't necessarily need to have read part 1 to enjoy this one, there are just references to what happened in the first one
and a tag for the one who encouraged this 2nd part: @beppybeesnuggets
word count: 8.3k
recommended listening: the first time by damiano david
pt. 1
Hyunjin was pretty sure spontaneity was the backbone of romance.
At least, that was what every movie he had ever loved had taught him.
The best moments always seemed to arrive unexpectedly or accidentally. A missed train that led to a chance encounter. A wrong turn that became the right one. A stranger who was not supposed to matter and then, very suddenly, did. All the best love stories, real and fictional, began with a bang, surely.
He believed in that. He really did.
He just hadn't ever thought it would apply to him.
Hyunjin, for all his appreciation of romance, had always been a little too careful, a little too good at watching something beautiful unfold and convincing himself it was better admired from a distance. Like a famous artist's painting or a sculptor's marble statue. Grand love stories weren't for people like him, despite his many daydreams and wishes.
But then he'd seen the light, so to speak. The light being you, of course.
Which was a little dramatic, even for him, but he was willing to stand by it.
Because yesterday had not felt like something that belonged to him at all. It had been wild in a way his life rarely was (ignoring the familiar chaos of idol-life, of course), something that usually only existed on screens or in books. If he had to categorize it, it would have been an action film, maybe something bordering on a heist or crime story.
Not his preferred genre, really. Too stressful on the mind and heart, and not always a guaranteed happy-ending.
It was only later that day, when he'd been recounting the story to his members and their reactions had been more fearful for his insane choices than awed by his heroics, that he realized a lot of what occurred had been driven by adrenalin. He certainly had been hopped up on something when he very forwardly hit on you—which, in hindsight, felt a little bit like watching himself in third person and wondering who, exactly, had handed him that kind of confidence or audacity.
Because that version of Hyunjin was unfamiliar.
That version had not stopped to consider whether it was appropriate to offer to buy a stranger a new phone, or whether suggesting he be the first contact saved in it might come across as absurd, or—worse—unwelcome. That version had simply seen something he wanted and reached for it without overthinking the outcome.
Not that the outcome was a bad one. It was actually really good. And he didn't regret it.
...But the adrenaline had long since worn off.
And what remained was him.
Just him.
Which, unfortunately, was a far more self-aware creature.
He dragged a hand through his hair again before he could stop himself, fingers catching slightly in the strands, and immediately frowned. That had been the fourth time in the last minute alone, and he was beginning to suspect he was actively undoing whatever precious effort had gone into making it look good in the first place.
He had double checked everything before leaving, too.
The shirt—pressed. The fit—good, according to the chorus of opinions he had sought out. The overall look—apparently "effortless," which he knew for a fact had required far too much effort to qualify as such.
(His members had been really supportive. After scaring them with his 'horror' story, he'd followed it up by saying he was set to go on a date with the recipient of the new phone. After they'd gotten over that emotional whiplash, they'd congratulated him (which kind of seemed like a weird thing to do before going on the date?) and offered to help him get ready the next day. And he'd accepted because eight pairs of eyes had to be better than one, right? And he did need some honest help in actually planning the date itself, and with drafting texts, and with breathing exercises, and with—okay, you get the picture. This date was a big team effort.)
He dropped his hand, then shoved both into his pockets, forcing himself to leave his hair alone for at least a few seconds. Felix would kill him if he found out he'd ruined all his hard work before the date had even started.
The fabric of his shirt clung faintly at his back, and he became horrifyingly aware that he might actually be sweating through it. God, why did he have to sweat so much? And why did this place have to have such pleasant, warm evenings?
And where, oh where, was that version of him from yesterday?
The one who had spoken without filtering every word.
The one who had chased a literal criminal.
The one who had looked at you and thought, why not, instead of what if.
He wanted that version back.
He needed that version back, expeditiously. Before you got here, at least. Please.
He let out a quiet breath through his nose, somewhere between a laugh and a sigh, and forced himself to drop his shoulders. This was ridiculous. He had performed in front of thousands of people, traveled across countries, handled interviews, cameras, expectations—yet somehow, standing on a street waiting for one person felt infinitely more nerve-wracking.
He glanced down the street, then away, then back again like something might have changed in the half-second he wasn't looking. But it was still the same stretch of pavement, the same warm streetlights, the same low hum of conversation drifting from storefronts and restaurants and pedestrians.
You had texted a few minutes ago that you were on your way, so why was his brain suddenly trying to convince itself that you were going to stand him up?
You hadn't seemed like that sort at all. Especially not through the texts you'd shared through the past day and a half. Despite your initial rejections of the free phone, you had been rather open to the idea of a date and had even expressed your eagerness that morning (to which all the guys who'd been helping him come up with responses back at the hotel had cheered). So why was his brain determined to cause a panic?
This was what happened when he had too much time to think.
Given enough silence, his brain had a remarkable ability to take something simple and stretch it into a full narrative, complete with worst-case scenarios and tragic conclusions. He knew that about himself. He had known it for years. It was the same instinct that let him imagine entire worlds out of nothing, the same tendency that made him notice small details other people might overlook.
It was great for artistic expression and inspiration.
Terrible for self-esteem.
A couple walked past him, mid-conversation. Someone laughed from across the street. A car rolled slowly by, headlights sweeping briefly across the pavement before continuing on. And then another car approached, slower this time, the turn signal clicking softly as it edged toward the curb a few feet in front of him.
The interior light came on as the car shifted into park and he counted three figures through the windshield.
He recognized you almost immediately, even from that slight distance, seated in the back with your head stuck over the center console, finishing whatever you had been saying to your parents. It was sweet of them to come drop you off... but now Hyunjin had to think of something to say to them.
I'll have her back by ten. No, that sounded like he was seventeen.
We'll be careful. Of course they would be careful. That was implied and expected and too jinx-y after what happened the day before.
Nice to see you again, sir, ma'am, I will return your daughter in the same condition as I received—okay, absolutely not.
He barely had time to settle on anything before you shifted out of view, reaching for the door.
He lurched forward quickly, circling the car and catching the handle just as your hand brushed it from the inside, pulling the door open before you could. Your surprised, yet thankfully smiling, face appeared, and the other hand he'd preemptively outstretched to help you out tensed.
He had seen beautiful people before. He worked with them, performed with them, lived around them constantly.
And yet, he was disarmed by you anyways.
You looked the way a good moment felt.
Like something bright and fleeting and worth paying attention to the second it appeared, before it had the chance to pass him by. Like something you looked upon fondly once it disappeared. Like something you couldn't wait to see again. A good moment, present, past, and future. And suddenly, all the nerves, all the overthinking, all the careful preparation from earlier twisted into something else entirely.
Something that left him a little breathless... which caused his "Hello" to come out a little wobbly.
You didn't seem to mind.
If anything, your smile widened just slightly at the sound of it, and then your hand slid easily into his. Your fingers were warm and so soft, and Hyunjin had just enough time to relish in the contact before you stepped forward, letting him guide you up onto the curb.
You let go once you were steady, turning toward him with a grin that hadn't faded since the moment the door opened.
"How chivalrous," you said, a hint of teasing in your voice.
Hyunjin blinked. He wasn't sure what that word meant or if he'd ever even heard it before, but it sounded positive.
"I—yes," he said, deciding that agreeing with you was the best course of action. "Thank you."
He would absolutely be texting Felix about that later.
You seemed satisfied with the response, or at least entertained by it, because your smile lingered as you adjusted your bag on your shoulder and brushed out the wrinkles by your thighs.
Behind you, the soft mechanical hum of a window rolling down pulled his attention away from where he'd been unconsciously watching your hands.
Your mother leaned slightly out the open window, her expression kind and eyes as sparkly as yours, while your father shifted across the front seat so he was visible too, one arm resting along the back as he looked at Hyunjin. They were also dressed up, and Hyunjin guessed they were going out on a date of their own.
He bowed lightly, staying lowered so he was eye level with them. "Good evening."
"Evening," your father returned easily. "Nice to see you again."
"And thank you again," your mother added, her tone warm but sincere in a way that made it clear she meant it beyond simple politeness. "For yesterday."
Hyunjin shook his head almost immediately. "It's really—it's no problem," he said, because deflecting praise had become second nature. "It was only right."
Beside him, you let out a quiet breath that sounded almost like you were holding back a comment. You'd bickered back and forth into the late hours the night before about the phone thing, and there hadn't been much of a conclusion other than Hyunjin's, 'too late to return now¯\_(ツ)_/¯'.
His mouth twitched before he could stop it, the corner lifting just slightly as he glanced at you, catching the look you gave him. Stubborn on the subject even now.
Your father noticed the exchange, something in his expression easing further.
"So," he said, shifting his arm along the back of the seat as he looked between the two of you, "what've you got planned tonight?"
Hyunjin hesitated for half a second—not because he didn't know (Chan and Minho had drilled the plan into him for hours), but because suddenly saying it out loud felt strangely important.
"Dinner," he said, then added, a touch more certain, "and maybe walk after. If that's okay."
It felt oddly formal once it left his mouth, like he was asking permission for something that had already been given your OK (and, again, he wasn't seventeen and neither were you), but your father didn't seem to mind. If anything, he looked faintly pleased by the straightforwardness of it.
"Sounds good," he said with a small nod. "Nothing wrong with keeping it simple."
Hyunjin suddenly felt a kick of inadequacy, even with the compliment. Simple... right. Where was the magic in simple?
Your mother glanced at you then, her expression softening in a way that looked so sweet and maternal that it made Hyunjin miss his own mom.
You gave a small nod, clearly sensing an unspoken question.
"I'll text when we're heading back," you added before they could say anything.
"Appreciate that," your father said.
Your mother's smile lingered as she looked between you and Hyunjin one more time.
"Have a good time," she said, almost teasingly.
"You too," you replied automatically, already stepping back slightly as the window began to roll up again.
The car idled for a second longer before easing away from the curb, merging back into the slow line of traffic and disappearing down the street.
Hyunjin watched it go for a moment, not out of obligation, but because it gave him a second to breathe.
Because now—
Now it was just the two of you.
He turned his head slightly, glancing at you to find you were already looking at him.
"You look..." he started, then paused, because his English had suddenly decided to abandon him at a critical moment.
He cleared his throat lightly, trying again with more care.
"You look nice," he finished, and immediately felt that it was insufficient for what he actually meant.
Because it wasn't just "nice."
It was the same problem from earlier in a different form—his brain insisting on turning simple things into something almost too large for him to handle or convey. He wasn't sure how to explain that you looked 여신처럼 (like a goddess) without losing something in translation.
So he didn't try.
"You do too," you said, giving him an appraising up and down.
"I tried." In reality, eight people had tried, some more helpful than others.
That made you actually laugh this time. "You succeeded," you said.
There was a pause after that, not awkward exactly, but full enough that neither of you rushed to fill it.
He shifted his hands into his pockets again, then out again because he'd once been told that was a clear sign of insecurity, then settled for just letting them hang at his sides because he couldn't decide what else to do with them.
"So," he said eventually, tilting his head slightly toward the street ahead, "dinner?"
You nodded, already turning with him as he began to walk.
"Dinner," you confirmed. Then, after a beat, you glanced sideways at him. "Are you always this nervous, or am I just special?"
Hyunjin didn't even pretend to think about it or deny it. Anyone with a pair of eyes would have caught onto his nerves.
"You are special," he said, then immediately realized how that sounded and added quickly, "I mean—this is... not normal situation for me."
"If it helps," you started, "this is not normal for me either."
It did help. "Good," he said quietly, almost to himself, before catching it and adding, "I mean, not good that you are nervous. Just... good that I am not alone."
For a few steps, the two of you walked in a comfortable sort of rhythm, the noise of the street filling in the atmosphere—cars passing, distant conversations, the faint clink of dishes from somewhere ahead.
Hyunjin let it be for a moment.
Then another.
And then, because he just recalled something Changbin had asked him earlier that had made him have a mini freakout:
"Can I ask something?" he blurted.
You glanced over at him. "Sure."
"When you said yes to this date," he started, preemptively wincing, "you didn't just say so because I bought you the phone, right?"
He could still hear Changbin's voice from earlier, blunt and entirely too perceptive for his own good. "You're sure she's not just saying yes because she feels bad? Or because you bought her a whole phone?"
"What, like repayment?" you asked.
He nodded.
"No," you said simply.
Hyunjin glanced at you again.
"No," you repeated, a little more clearly this time. "If I didn't want to be here, I wouldn't be. And I did say I was looking forward to this, didn't I? In our texts?"
You did. With a smiley face emoji, too.
But Changbin had a good point, you could have just been playing it up to make him feel better. And, you could still be doing that now.
Hyunjin let that thought pass through his head and then, miraculously, let it go. Because if he kept chasing every possibility, he was going to talk himself out of something that felt—so far—very real.
He studied your expression instead, the way you looked at him like the answer had been obvious, like the question itself hadn't even occurred to you before he said it out loud. That helped more than anything.
"Great," he said after a moment, settled.
And he meant it.
A tension that had been quietly sitting in the back of his mind since yesterday finally eased, replaced with something lighter, anticipation rather than worry.
The two of you kept walking, your pace matching as he shrunk his stride down, conversation dipping in and out of smaller topics now that the heaviest one had passed. Hyunjin found himself listening more than speaking for a stretch, not out of nerves this time, but because he liked the way you talked. Your accent was cute, and you liked using big words—some he didn't understand and he had to stop to ask you what they meant, but you seemed happy to enlighten him.
So lost in conversation were you both that you passed right by the restaurant by a couple meters before you seemed to look up and realize.
"Is this not it?" you asked.
Hyunjin looked up and nodded with a chuckle. Thankfully one of you was paying some attention.
You both backtracked and he made sure to hold the door open for you, aiming to be chivalrous again... whatever that meant.
"After you," he said.
You dipped your head just a little as you passed him, smiling, and he followed close behind, letting the door fall shut with a quiet click.
Inside, the restaurant was exactly what he'd hoped for—warm without being overwhelming, lively without being loud. Because, as Chan and Minho had said, "You'll want to be able to talk to her and get to know her, but don't make it so private and stiff that it's forced, you know?"
A hostess stepped forward with a polite smile. "Hi, do you have a reservation?"
Hyunjin stepped in just slightly behind you, close enough that he was definitely invading a personal bubble without quite touching you, the faintest hint of your perfume catching when you shifted. Floral, sweet, he liked it.
"Yes," he said. "Under Sam."
The hostess glanced down at her list, scanning for a moment before her finger stopped. She nodded. "Perfect. Right this way."
She grabbed two menus and stepped out from behind the stand, gesturing for you both to follow.
Hyunjin fell into step beside you as you moved deeper into the restaurant, weaving past tables. He didn't think too much about being recognized. Over the years, he'd found that the more he tried to hide, the more attention he grabbed. Better to just be normal (and hope for the best).
Somewhere between the hostess leading and the table coming into view, Hyunjin's brain latched onto an actual problem.
Should he pull your chair out for you?
You could tease him for it, laugh, call him old-fashioned. Or worse, the people around them could notice, give him that look like he was doing too much.
Jeongin had told him to just feel it out when he'd brought it up, wondering about the general cultural do's and don't's.
Well, this was him, feeling it out. And he was feeling unsure.
This wasn't a five-star, white-tablecloth kind of place. People weren't pulling out chairs around them as far as he could tell. No one would expect it. But he had been raised a certain way, and he thought again of those big romance movies.
He weighed everything for all of half a second more before deciding that, frankly, there were worse things to be than someone who tried.
He stepped ahead as the hostess stopped at the table, her hand gesturing lightly toward the two seats.
"Here you are."
Hyunjin reached for the back of your chair before you could, pulling it out smoothly. And you did laugh, as he assumed you might, but it was only a little surprised chuckle as you sat down. He helped push you in before rounding to his side to take a seat.
The hostess had her own little grin playing at her mouth as she handed the menus out.
"Your server should be over shortly to wait on you," she said before turning to head back to the front.
As Hyunjin flipped to the back of the menu to peruse the drinks (would you consider it too presumptuous if he ordered a bottle of wine? Did you even drink?), you asked, "So... Sam? We didn't just hijack someone else's reservation did we?"
"No, no," he laughed, "it's my English name."
"Ah," you grinned, and he got the feeling that you had figured that out on your own already. "You prefer Hyunjin, though, right? It's what you put in my phone, so I assume so."
"Hyunjin is good," he assured, feeling oddly jittery over you saying his name. He got the same way when millions of fans chanted his name, too. Crazy how just your singular voice equalled their combined power.
"You didn't put a last name," you noted.
At this, he froze just a little. He'd foregone the surname yesterday, knowing there was a possibility of you looking him up on socials. It wasn't like he planned on hiding his career from you. In fact, he intended to tell you by the end of the night if things went well. But you hadn't even gotten drinks yet!
However, based on the fact that you hadn't recognized his face nor his given name, you likely wouldn't know him even with his surname. And there was a low chance of you popping out your brand new phone to search him up once you did know while actively on a date.
"Hwang," he supplied.
"'Wang'?" you tried.
Hyunjin smiled, happy to be the one with a language lesson now. "Hwa—more in throat."
"Hwa," you repeated. "Hwa."
He nodded encouragingly, setting his menu down to just watch you.
"Hwang. Hwang Hyunjin," you finished.
Gosh, the jitters had turned to full blown vibrations. That was cute; you were cute. And he appreciated the effort (wow, bare minimum, much? his brain scoffed, have some standards).
A waitress walked up to the table and introduced herself while placing a bread basket and dish of olive oil down, and Hyunjin quickly opened his menu back up. He hadn't asked you if you'd like to share a bottle with him, he wasn't ready.
"Can I start you off with something to drink?"
He glanced up from the menu, then over at you, silently offering the choice first. It felt like the safer move. Also the more polite one. Also the one that bought him three more seconds to decide if suggesting wine would make him seem sophisticated or insufferable, romantic or trying too hard.
"Um," you said, scanning the drinks section quickly—you had been distracted, too, "I'll just do water for now. Thank you."
"And for you, sir?"
Sir, he almost laughed, hardly.
"I'll do some water, as well," Hyunjin started, and then bit the bullet, "and a bottle of wine?"
He tilted the menu so the waiter could see the page with him as he scanned it quickly. His eyes landed on a name he actually recognized—not because he was particularly knowledgeable, but because Chan had ordered something from the same region recently, and he recalled it being pretty good.
"This one, please," he said, tapping the line and doing his best to read out the helpful English written beneath it. "The... Chianti Classico."
Not the cheapest option on the list, but comfortably below the ones that felt like they required a suit jacket and generational wealth to justify.
The waitress nodded easily, jotting it down. "Of course."
Hyunjin thanked her, the faintest exhale leaving him once the decision was out of his hands.
"Great, I'll be right back with those."
Once the waitress left, Hyunjin finally looked at you to see if he just ruined everything with that one decision. But you didn't look phased. You hadn't reacted at all, actually, just a quiet return to your menu, scanning over it.
He leaned forward slightly, resting his forearms against the table, tilting his head just enough to catch your eye. "Do you drink?" he asked.
You blinked up at him, and then a faint smile pulled at your mouth as you caught on.
"Oh," you said. "Yeah, I do."
You studied him for a second longer, then your smile grew just a little, something amused slipping in.
"Were you worried?" you asked.
Instead of answering verbally, Hyunjin squinted and held up a hand to make the gesture for 'a little bit.'
You chuckled under your breath at his gesture, shaking your head a little as you dropped your gaze back to the menu, and Hyunjin felt some of the tightness in his chest ease. He really needed to chill out before he forced a hernia or something.
"I'm not a connoisseur, but I had a couple wine snob—sorry, enthusiast," you correct, smiling privately at what he guessed was an inside joke of yours, "friends. I'll drink anything."
Yet another word he had to guess through context.
"Good to know," he said, quieter now, almost to himself, mentally checking something off a list he hadn't realized he'd made. Not that drinking was a dealbreaker for him or anything, but he did like to indulge in it, and it would be nice to have a partner who shared in that with him.
He picked up his menu again, more for something to do with his hands than out of any real urgency to decide, though this time he actually tried to read it. 'Tried' being the key word. His eyes traced the same line of text for the third time without absorbing a single word as his attention kept drifting—back to you, where else?
"What are you thinking?" you asked after a second, not looking up yet, but clearly aware of the way his focus had stalled.
He was dragged back just enough to answer, his eyes flicking down to the menu again.
"I was thinking..." he started, dragging it out just long enough to skim the page without actually processing it, "lagana."
You looked up slowly.
"...Lagana?" you repeated.
"Lagan—" He tried again, knowing he said it wrong. Why can he never say this damn dish? "Laga—lagana."
You seemed to understand what he was getting at by the next attempt. And you patiently waited for him to throw in the towel, which he did promptly with a dry frown.
"Pasta cake," you offered.
Hyunjin guffawed, louder than he intended to be. You were funny. He liked funny. He hoped you thought he was funny, too, even through all his bumbling.
"Yes, pasta cake," he agreed.
"It's a hard word," you said consolingly.
"Help me?" he asked then. Because if he was going to order it, he was not going to tell the waitress 'pasta cake'.
And for the next few minutes, you coached him through the pronunciation, only taking a breath to thank the sommelier who came by to pour two glasses of wine and drop off the bottle.
Hyunjin was not too proud to admit he played up his struggle, seeing that it made you laugh when he got it really wrong. Eventually, though, he had to get it correct, and you quietly cheered when he did.
He lingered on the small victory of your smile for a second longer than necessary. It felt disproportionate, the amount of satisfaction he got from something so minor, but he didn't question it. He was beginning to understand that most things involving you were going to feel that way.
When he asked about what you were planning on getting, you said something he'd never heard of before but sounded delicious when you read out the description. He wondered what the rules were for sharing on a first date.
The waitress came back to take your orders, not even batting an eye at Hyunjin slowly (but correctly!) ordering the Pinwheel Lasagna. Once she'd disappeared, taking your menus with her, he finally reached for the stem of his wine glass, and he lifted it slightly, hesitating only for a fraction of a second before tipping it toward yours in a silent suggestion.
You caught on easily, raising yours till they clinked. "Cheers."
"건배 (Cheers)," he returned.
It was not bad. Maybe a little dry for his tastes, but he wasn't going to stick his nose up at it. He looked to you for your reaction. You had said you weren't a conne—coines—whatever the word was, but maybe you were being modest. Maybe, with friends like yours, you had more refined tastes.
You were nodding absently, lightly swirling the glass before going in for a second sip and Hyunjin found himself copying you. You clearly knew more about drinking wine than him.
Your lips pressed together lightly after, and then, almost without thinking, your tongue flicked out, catching a trace of it along your bottom lip. And, maybe he could blame it a little on the wine, but his mouth and throat ran dry.
"It's good," he saw your mouth say, hearing it only belatedly.
He physically dragged his attention to your eyes. "Yeah?"
"Mhmm." You nodded. "Good choice."
Another big win for the book.
After that, Hyunjin chose from the many topics the boys had suggested for him. He asked about what you studied in school, and after you explained, the big words you used all made sense. In return you asked him a little bit more about his 'music industry' job, and he tried to be as forthcoming as he could. Again, it seemed like he was still on track to break the news to you about his fame at the end of the night; no need to scare you off now.
He asked about your trip so far, a continuation of your conversation from the day before, and you brought out your new phone to show him the pictures you'd transferred over overnight. You let him just scroll through them as he listened to your stories. Whenever he came across one that your parents must have taken of you or that you had a stranger take of you and your parents, he zoomed in on you to admire your wide grin before moving on. He wanted to take a photo of you before the night was over, maybe another with him in it, too.
Eventually, he reached a photo that wasn't from the trip; it was one from your graduation, if your cap and gown and big bouquet were anything to go off of. He admired this one, too, daydreaming about what his own life would have been like at a university, meeting you as a normal guy, maybe sharing a class with you (though he figured he would not be smart enough for the classes you mentioned). What a different sort of movie that would be.
He swiped back to the previous photo and handed your phone back.
You told him about your friends next: brief snapshots of personalities, inside jokes he wasn't fully in on but could still appreciate from the way you told them. He liked the way you talked about people. He talked about his friends, too, explaining they were all more like brothers. By this point, he felt comfortable enough to confess to you how they'd helped him out with his outfit and with choosing this restaurant. You seemed to find that endearing, thankfully.
At one point, you asked him what he did when he actually had time to himself.
He didn't have to think too hard, he got this question often.
"Sleep," he said at first, which made you laugh.
"Be serious."
"I am serious," he insisted, smiling. Then, after a second, "But... I like staying in. I draw, sometimes. A lot of art."
Your interest piqued at this.
"You draw?"
He nodded, suddenly a little more aware of himself again. "And paint. I started, um... pottery, too."
"Do you have any on your phone?" you asked.
"Yeah," he said, already reaching for his phone. He unlocked it quickly, thumb hovering for just a second as he debated what to show you.
There were plenty of options. Pieces he'd already shared, things people had seen and praised and picked apart and loved in ways that still felt a little surreal to him sometimes. He could've pulled one of those up easily, something he already knew people liked that might impress you.
But instead, his thumb drifted past them.
He opened a different folder. This one was full of half-finished sketches, photos of canvases at odd angles for him to ponder on, things he hadn't quite decided what to do with yet. He looked through these, wondering what might move you the most, before he chose one. The lighting in the photo was uneven, and there was a corner where the paint hadn't fully dried yet when he'd taken it. But he remembered the way it had felt to make it, what he felt when he looked at it. It felt similar to the way he had felt yesterday, full of adrenalin and sparks. Maybe you'd connect to it in the same way.
He turned the phone toward you, angling it so the glare from the overhead lights wouldn't wash it out.
"I made this one recently," he said. "I didn't finish it."
You leaned in over the table to look.
Hyunjin found himself watching your face, absorbing the small shifts in your expression as you took it in. He tried, briefly, to guess what you might be seeing in it, but gave up halfway through. You weren't predictable like that.
"Wow," you breathed. "This is beautiful. You said it isn't done?"
He shook his head.
"It's already so amazing. Do you plan on finishing it?" you asked.
Again, he's reminded of what it felt like yesterday, running into you. His inspiration for this piece was at an all time high. He glanced at the photo, smiling to himself. "Yeah, I will keep working on it. I've only just started."
You didn't catch on to his double meaning, not that he was expecting you to with how many layers there were to it. It had been more for himself than anything else, anyways.
The waitress returned not long after, balancing your plates as she set them down in front of you both, offering a quick smile and a polite, "Enjoy."
With his phone still out, he took a quick photo—if not to post later then to brag to Chan who mentioned he'd been craving it recently. You watched him, smiling lightly as you sang a little, "Camera eats first."
He must not have hidden his confusion fast enough, because you clarified, "It's just a thing people say nowadays. Like, taking a photo of your food before you eat."
"Ah," he chuckled. "Yes, my camera always eats first. Greedy thing."
You sputtered on a harder laugh, covering your mouth with a hand, and Hyunjin—traitor that he was to his own appetite—completely forgot about the food in front of him.
It wasn't even the sound of it, though he was sure to hear that in his dreams to come. It was the way it took over your whole face, the way your eyes squeezed just slightly, shoulders lifting as if you couldn't quite contain it.
And the realization that he'd been the one to pull it out of you did give him a bit of a confidence boost.
He cleared his throat softly, dragging his attention back to the table before he stared too long and gave himself away.
"잘 먹겠습니다 (I will eat well)," he said under his breath, more out of habit, just as you brought your fork up.
Your fork hovered midair before lowering slowly back to your plate, your gaze lifting to him with curiosity instead of confusion.
"What was that?" you asked.
He blinked, then smiled, a little sheepish but more pleased than anything. "Oh—just something we say before eating," he explained, straightening slightly. "It means... 'I'll eat well,' kind of? Or... gratitude for the meal."
You nodded, already trying to shape the word in your mouth.
"Jal... mok...?" you attempted.
He laughed softly, shaking his head, leaning forward just a bit. "Jal. Meok. Get. Seum. Ni. Da," he broke it down, slower this time, watching you follow along.
By the third attempt, it was close enough that he smiled, genuinely impressed.
"Perfect," he said, even if it wasn't entirely.
You seemed satisfied with that, picking your fork back up with a small nod to yourself before finally taking your first bite.
The conversation didn't stop, but it lost its consistent flow as you both started eating. It came in smaller pieces now, slipping between bites and reactions. Hyunjin found it almost... comfortable. Not forced, not something he had to keep actively building.
When you reached for your wine again and found your glass empty, he noticed before you said anything, already reaching for the bottle.
"More?" he asked, though he was already tilting it.
You gave a small nod, and he poured for you and topped his up. You thanked him quietly, taking a sip before setting the glass back down. And then, without any prompting (and he hopes he hadn't been making any eyes at your plate), you cut a small portion from your meal and set it onto the edge of his bread dish.
He looked from the food to you, a small, almost disbelieving smile tugging at his mouth.
"You read my mind," he said.
"Good things should be shared." You just shrugged lightly, though the corner of your mouth lifted just a bit.
He didn't comment further, just picked up his fork and tried it, because there was no world in which he wasn't going to. And, unsurprisingly, it was just as good as it looked. Maybe better.
And because he was a gentleman, Hyunjin reached over a second later and carefully cut off a portion of his own lasagna, transferring it onto the edge of your own bread plate. You happily took the bite, humming at the taste and thanking him.
Plates slowly emptied between conversation that wandered wherever it pleased, dipping from light teasing to small, sincere answers and back again without ever feeling jarring. He learned little things about you in pieces: preferences, habits, the way you swayed in your seat amidst a happy story. You learned things about him, too, though he kept some details vague, tucking them away for later when they would make more sense to share.
At some point, he stopped thinking about what to say next altogether.
The wine disappeared gradually, refilled without ceremony, the bottle growing lighter as the night stretched on. The initial edge of nerves had long since worn down into something soft, something he didn't have to monitor or manage.
Time passed in that bittersweet, blink-of-an-eye way it only ever did when it was being spent well.
Eventually, plates were cleared, and the waitress asked about dessert.
Hyunjin glanced at you the moment the question was asked and didn't even need to wait for you to answer; your expression mirrored his. Of course you wanted dessert. It was quickly decided that you would share something considering how full you guys were. No need for two when one would do just fine, and in your own words, "Good things should be shared."
It was brought out with two spoons, and Hyunjin found it exceedingly cute and domestic whenever they would bump together going for the same bite.
When the check was eventually dropped off at the table, Hyunjin grabbed it and you spent all of one second trying to protest (you stubborn thing... with affection, of course). The phone didn't need repayment, and this dinner certainly didn't. He'd have to assure you that he wasn't in the habit of paying for everything just to gain favor or brownie points; Felix had warned him that some might see that as 'love bombing' or like he was trying to get in your pants.
Just like he'd told your parents, Hyunjin took you on a post-dinner walk. He figured, based on all the photos he'd seen, you would like to look at the old architecture with him. And based on the way you wanted to stop every once in a while to snap a pic, he knew he was right.
You wandered your way to a wide, cobblestone alley with string lights overhead, a building with ivy creeping up one side, and a window glowing warm against the dark. Out of all the places to stop, this one, to him, was the most picturesque.
"Would you like a photo?" he asked. "Of yourself?"
You finished capturing the scene and looked up at him with wide, pretty eyes before nodding. "Oh yeah, thanks!"
"I'll hold on tight to it this time," he promised as you handed him your phone.
You moved to stand a few steps away, and he made sure to get a few candids of the laugh you let out in response. Hyunjin often took photos of his members, just like they did for him, and they all had the experience of knowing what poses to do. You kept it simple, and he found himself grinning as he messed with light settings and angles.
He walked up to you afterwards, thumb pressing the button to switch the camera to front-facing.
"Selfie?" he asked. "To remember."
You nodded with a bright smile, letting him sidle up next to you, only then realizing the angle would be awkward from his height. After a brief pause, he handed it over.
"Here," he said simply. "You take it. I'm too tall."
You took it, extending your arm out while angling the camera just enough to get both of you in frame. He leaned in slightly on instinct, close enough that his shoulder brushed yours, and you tilted your head just a little toward him
There was a short pause, just long enough for him to register how natural it felt to stand there like that, so close to you, before you snapped a few photos in quick succession.
He didn't move right away after; neither of you did.
You glanced down at the screen first, flicking through them, and he watched your expression more than the photos. There was something gratifying about the way you seemed to approve of them.
"That one's cute," you said after a moment, tapping one lightly.
He leaned in just enough to see. It was cute, you were cute together, and he liked that you recognized that as well.
"Send it to me?" he asked.
"Already on it," you chimed as you pressed the share button.
Hyunjin felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and smiled.
You continued the walk, a little more reflective on the day and date itself.
"You know, broken phone aside, I'm glad yesterday turned out the way it did," you said. Your voice turned a little sheepish. "The camera on this phone is phenomenal, and I've—I've had a really great time with you. This was nice."
Hyunjin felt his whole body light afire, glancing down at the pavement before looking back at you. Could you see his hands shaking?
"Yeah," he said. "It was... really nice."
A small pause.
"I'd like to do it again."
You smiled at that, something genuine and warm, but it fell just slightly after.
"I would too," you said. Then, after a beat of your own, "But..."
He knew what you were going to say before you got the words out.
"You live halfway across the world."
"I do," he conceded. He bit his cheek; it was now or never. "And that's not all."
Your expression didn't change much, still just as attentive as before.
"And I won't—" he started, "I won't hold it against you if it changes anything. It doesn't... change how much I've liked tonight."
He sighed, buying himself a moment to get the words he wanted to say in the right order.
“I’m... in a group,” he said finally, lifting his gaze back to you. “A Korean pop group. That's my music job.”
You blinked, processing that. There was no immediate spark of recognition, no shift into something starstruck.
“Oh,” you said. “Okay.”
He almost smiled at that.
“It’s called Stray Kids,” he added, watching for any change.
There wasn’t one. Your expression stayed open, thoughtful, more like you were filing the information away rather than reacting to it.
“I don’t think I’ve heard of them,” you admitted, a little apologetic.
“That’s okay,” he said quickly, and he meant it. There was something about the lack of recognition that made this easier. “We’re... pretty active around the world, but not everyone listens to that kind of music.”
You nodded, accepting that easily enough. But then your gaze changed again, something more cautious slipping in as you looked at him a little more closely.
“Wait,” you said, slower now. “So... when you say you travel a lot and perform...”
He gave a small nod. “Yeah.”
“...you mean you’re famous.”
He let out a quiet breath, not quite a laugh. “I guess that’s the easiest way to say it.”
Your brows pulled together slightly.
“Oh.”
And then, almost immediately after—
“Am I supposed to have signed something?”
“What?” He blinked.
Your hand lifted vaguely between the two of you, gesturing at everything. “I don’t know how this works. Like... interacting with someone who’s... you know.” You let out a small breath, looking a little self-conscious now. “Am I allowed to have taken photos? Am I going to get in trouble for this?”
For a second, he just stared at you. Not because it was a ridiculous question—it was actually a really good and considerate one—but because it was so far from what he had expected that his brain needed a moment to catch up.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “No, you’re not in trouble.”
You still looked uncertain.
“I promise,” he added, gentler now. “There’s no contract. You didn’t break any rules.”
Your shoulders eased, but only a little. “I just... don’t know the etiquette,” you admitted. “I feel like there’s always rules with stuff like that.”
“There are,” he said. “But not here. Not like this. I didn’t tell you earlier, because I didn’t want it to change the way tonight felt. I wanted to meet you as just... me.”
His gaze flicked to you, careful, searching.
“And I know it might still change things now,” he added. “That’s fair. I just didn’t want you to feel you agreed to something without knowing.”
You were quiet for a moment after that, and Hyunjin let you have that space, even if part of him was getting crushed on the inside.
Finally, you looked back at him. Your eyes narrowed a fraction, something almost amused slipping in as you studied him again. "How famous?"
“That’s hard question,” he admitted. He hesitated for half a second, then reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone again. “This might be easier."
He unlocked it and opened his Instagram before turning the screen toward you.
You took it, more curious than anything, your fingers brushing his briefly as you did.
Hyunjin watched your face again instead of the screen.
Your brows lifted. Then a little higher. You scrolled. And scrolled.
“—You’ve met Donatella Versace?!” you choked, looking up at him so quickly he jolted out of a stupor.
“...Yeah,” he said, a little cautiously. “A few times.”
Your gaze dropped back to the screen, then up at him again, then back down. You handed the phone back to him after another second, like you’d reached a temporary limit on how much you could process at once.
“Okay,” you said, exhaling a little. “So... you’re really famous.”
He took his phone, slipping it back into his pocket, watching you carefully.
“I guess so,” he said again, softer this time.
Eventually, you exhaled, a small sound, and shook your head once like you were clearing it.
“Okay,” you said again. “I mean... this doesn’t really change my opinion of you. You clearly wanted to be your authentic self tonight, and I enjoyed getting to know you.”
Something in his shoulders loosened at that, even if only slightly. Because it would have been easy for this to crumble. For everything you’d built over the last few hours to sour. He’d seen it happen before, that change where people stopped looking at him and started looking at what he represented.
“But,” you added, and there it was.
He nodded a little. “Yeah.”
Your mouth pulled to one side in a slight frown. “I was already thinking about the distance. That felt like a lot on its own.” You glanced down the street, then back at him. “And now there’s... more.”
He didn’t argue with that. Who could?
“There is,” he said.
And there was. Entire continents between you. Days that would slip past where one of you would always be just a little out of reach of the other. And layered over that, a life that was never entirely his own. Schedules that shifted without warning. Eyes that followed. Expectations that didn’t leave much room for something as sweet and simple as this.
It complicated things.
But standing there with you, he couldn’t bring himself to see it as something that made this not worth a struggle.
And maybe that was reckless. Maybe it was too much to assign meaning to something that had only just begun. But he wasn’t good at feeling things halfway. Never had been.
“I don’t need you to decide anything right now,” he continued. “I just...” He paused, searching for something. “I’d like the chance to keep knowing you... if you'd like that, too.”
Because if this was going to be anything at all—
He wanted it to be something you chose, too.
You didn’t answer right away. But he saw it, the way your expression softened and the way your cheeks flushed. Something about the way you looked at him lightened, too.
You told him you’d like that.
And Hyunjin swore he practically levitated.
From there, you had a rather mature conversation about what this could be moving forward. You would keep talking. Keep texting the way you already had been for the past day. Calls weren’t off-limits, just something to figure out between time zones and schedules. FaceTimes, too, eventually, when it felt natural.
There were no promises about where it would go, no expectations about how it had to look.
Just... continuing 'knowing each other'.
He didn’t feel the need to secure anything more than that. Didn’t try to pin it down or make it certain. Because for the first time that night, uncertainty didn’t feel like something working against him.
And when he walked you all the way to your hotel entrance at the end of the night, and you asked if he was the sort to kiss on the first date and he gave a most enthusiastic 'Yes!', it didn't feel like a goodbye or an ending of any sort.
mostly real i, too, wonder how I've managed to make it this far, but my mom debates I more..... (#loredrop) (do NOT ask further about my mom)
💟 no pressure tags bcs i need to see my moots n their tropes : @woniefication @shyoko @yooniso @myuviis @koiiq @chrrific @blooddlusts @seobluuu @luvmahae etc
what to know: bang chan x gn!reader, sfw, getting together, fluff, love confessions, crushes, friends to lovers, chan pov, silver hair chan, reader knows their worth and knows what they want
word count: 4.3k
recommended listening: it's you by henry
It's not a question he can avoid.
At some point, no matter the interview, no matter the country, no matter how different everything else is, it always comes back to the same thing. The phrasing changes just enough to keep it interesting and to maybe get a different answer, but it's never enough to make a difference fundamentally.
What is your ideal type?
Chan used to think about it a lot more when he was younger—back when questions were actually tricks in disguise and his answers needed to be simultaneously meaningful and clever and yet still relatable. Thankfully, by then, he was smart enough to know that 'it's what's inside that matters,' was the correct answer.
After being pressured once or twice (try two hundred times) to elaborate, he eventually had to retire the old answer. It sounded heartfelt once, but by now everyone said that to stay out of hot water. Now they want him to be original, to be controversial, to stir drama. They want him to get into the nitty gritty of what exactly he likes about someone's insides, if you'll pardon the terrible phrasing.
Now, his go-to answer is a solid, "I like who I like. I don't really have an ideal type."
Sure, it's a non-answer, and it kind of shines a cagey light on the subject, making it awkward for any follow-up questions. But he likes it that way. It keeps the heat off him while letting everyone else wonder and speculate. And really, that's the whole point. His type is nobody's business but his own.
When he's alone, when there's no one to impress or cater to, the question will sneak back. Not the question exactly—it's the answer that haunts him. He tries to imagine it: someone patient, someone understanding, someone... not him, basically (not that he isn't those things, but he definitely does have to make an effort sometimes). Someone who can handle all the ongoing chaos of his life without wanting to run screaming in the other direction. It's what he's supposed to want and what would make sense.
But when he tries to picture them—really picture them—there's nothing there. A blurry figure, he supposes.
Want to know what is there, though?
Your face.
He's not particularly bothered by this fact—your face is quite nice.
However, it confuses him a little.
For one thing: you're impatient. You look up the endings of movies before they're even halfway done, and he still doesn't understand why because you also don't understand why. You start eating before your food has fully cooled down, and then you have the audacity to complain about a burnt tongue.
For another thing: you interrupt perfectly normal conversations because someone says a word that reminds you of a song, and suddenly you're singing it and you won't stop until you get to a lyric you can't remember. The same thing occurs with pop culture quotes, and Chan really has a difficult time keeping up with those, especially when you and Felix start rebounding off each other.
And you're not... always understanding.
You don't fill in the gaps for him or assume the best possible interpretation just to keep things comfortable for everyone. If anything, you tend to assume the opposite first, not out of malice but out of some part of you that likes to chronically overthink and be realistic.
It makes things harder.
And sometimes, if he's being honest, it irks him.
You don't let him get away with things other people would let slide. You don't accept "I'm fine" when it's clearly not true, and worse, you don't let him redirect the conversation when it starts drifting into territory he doesn't feel like navigating.
There was a night—there are a lot of nights, but this one comes back to him often—where he'd shown up to your scheduled catch-up already worn thin. He hadn't said much at first, which isn't unusual, and you hadn't pushed immediately, which is. You'd let him settle, let his silence stretch out between you while you leaned against the side of your car, tracing absent patterns into the condensation on your drink while telling a story about a coworker.
It had almost worked.
He'd almost managed to sit there and let his quiet do what it usually does with everyone else.
And then, out of nowhere, you'd glanced over at him, eyes narrowing just slightly. "Are you here with me?"
He hadn't even looked up. "Huh?"
"Well, I'm talking to you and you're nodding, but I could probably replace you with a cardboard cutout and get the same results."
"That's harsh," he'd muttered, a faint smile tugging at his mouth despite himself.
"It's true," you'd shot back, entirely unmoved. Then, after a beat, quieter but no less direct, "What's wrong."
It was just a statement, dressed as a question that implied he didn't get to avoid it.
"I'm fine," he'd said automatically, because he's quite good at those two words.
You'd stared at him with a patience that felt almost ironic coming from you, considering how quickly you lose interest in anything that doesn't immediately hold your attention. (Maybe that should have been an early sign to him, that you never seemed to get tired of things that involved him.)
"You're not. You know, you could just say you don't feel like talking about it," you'd added after a second, shifting your weight, your voice losing a bit of its edge. "That's allowed. I'd respect that. I just don't like being lied to."
You don't always understand why he makes the choices he does, and you don't pretend to, but you're not unreasonable. You don't demand more than he can give. You just expect him to be honest about where the line is, instead of pretending it isn't there at all.
"I'm just tired," he'd admitted finally, the words coming out guilty.
You'd watched him for a second, as if weighing them, deciding whether they were enough.
Then you'd nodded once. "Okay. Let's call it then. You should go home and sleep."
"But I just got here," Chan had nearly whined, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck as he finally glanced up at you. "And we've had this scheduled for so long."
By the time he'd made it to you that night, the hangout had already been pushed back twice. Once because he'd run late at the studio, again because something else had come up that he couldn't get out of.
And then he'd gotten there—
—and he'd been too tired to be any good to you.
He couldn't just go home.
"We've been here for nearly forty minutes," you'd corrected, and it wasn't all that gentle. "You've just been zoning out for most of it."
He'd shifted his weight, jaw tightening just slightly, not in anger but in something closer to frustration—at himself, mostly, though it didn't feel that clear in the moment. It had just felt... off. The whole night had felt off in a way he hadn't wanted, not after how much he'd been looking forward to it.
"I don't want to go home," he'd said after a second.
"Why?" you'd asked.
The answer should have been simple.
Because he'd made the time.
Because it had taken effort to get here.
Because it felt like a waste to leave now.
All of those things were true.
But none of them were what came to mind first.
He'd glanced at you, then away again, as he searched for something that sounded reasonable enough to say out loud.
"I just—" he'd started, then stopped, exhaling softly. "We barely see each other as it is."
"That's not really the point," you'd said, though your voice had lost some of its earlier firmness. "Seeing each other doesn't count if you're not actually... here for it."
"I am here," he'd insisted, a little more quickly this time, as if saying it fast enough might make it true.
"You're here physically," you'd corrected, just as quick. "Mentally? Questionable."
He'd just sort of shook his head, not sure how he was supposed to argue when you were definitely in the right.
"You don't have to be 'on' all the time," you'd continued. "If you're tired, you're tired. That's fine."
"That's not really fair to you."
"Why not?"
"Because you wanted to hang out," he'd said, and there was something more in it now, something that edged closer to frustration again because he'd also really wanted to hang out.
You'd tilted your head slightly at that, studying him for a second longer than usual.
"I did want to hang out," you'd said slowly. "I still do. Just not at the expense of you being miserable."
"I'm not miserable."
"You look miserable."
He'd exhaled again, longer this time, shoulders dropping just a fraction as the argument circled back to the same place it had been sitting from the start.
You weren't going to budge on this, he could tell. You don't budge on most things, you stubborn thing.
It was decided, after that, that you would take a raincheck (which then later turned into another raincheck before he'd finally gotten a whole day to just dedicate to hanging with you).
He'd been happy to get an extra few hours of sleep that night, and his body thanked you the next morning, but the rest of him hadn't quite followed suit. You'd made a reasonable call, one he would've encouraged anyone else to make in your position. He'd been tired. He hadn't been present. There wasn't anything to argue there.
And yet he found himself thinking about it... and thinking about it... and thinking about it some more.
You hadn't bent to meet him where he was, hadn't adjusted your expectations to accommodate the version of him he'd shown up as that night. You'd taken one look at it and said, no, this isn't good enough—for either of us.
That's the part that he ruminates on most.
Because it isn't just that you'd noticed—people notice things about him all the time. His job is to be noticed. People comment on how tired he looks, tell him to rest, suggest he take care of himself in ways that are easy to ignore because they follow it up by asking him to work more.
You'd asked him to leave, to give something up in the moment for the sake of something better later, even if that meant disappointing himself right then and there. You hadn't let him settle for half-present. You hadn't let him offer you something incomplete and call it enough.
And, more than that, you hadn't let him convince himself it was enough.
It's irritating, when he thinks about it too long.
There's a part of him that still resists it, that bristles slightly at the memory of being told what to do, of having the decision taken out of his hands even when he knows, logically, that it hadn't been about control. It had been about care. About achievable standards. About the quiet understanding that what he needed and what he wanted weren't always the same thing—and that, sometimes, someone else had to be the one to hold that line when he wouldn't.
He's not used to that.
He's used to managing himself, to pushing through, to deciding what he can and can't handle without much interference from anyone else. He's used to people accommodating him, adjusting around him, accepting whatever version of him he has to offer at any given moment.
You don't do that.
You never have.
And that should be a problem. A big one.
It should clash with everything he's told himself he should want—someone easy, someone understanding in the way that means they don't push too hard, someone who doesn't make things more complicated than they need to be.
You don't fit neatly into the version of an "ideal" he's been repeating for years. You don't sound perfect when he reduces you to traits and qualities and hypotheticals: someone who calls him out, someone who doesn't let things slide, someone who makes him stop when he'd rather keep going.
And yet when he tries to picture the alternative, when he tries to imagine someone softer in those moments, someone who would've let him stay, let him sit there half-engaged and call it time well spent just because it was easier and it was what he said he had to offer, it doesn't sit right.
All the traits he thought mattered, all the things he's been repeating for years because they sounded right... they don't hold up against something that already exists.
Because he's not comparing you to anything.
He's comparing everything else to you.
And nothing really comes close.
He could sit here and build the perfect person from the ground up. He's done it before: picked out every trait, every quality, every detail down to the last eyelash that should, in theory, make someone exactly right for him or for anyone subjectively. And he'll even tack on the face and body of a celebrity crush to sweeten the pot...
And still... it wouldn't be you.
Which is strange.
Strange that something imperfect, something a little messy, something that doesn't follow any of the rules he set for himself somehow feels more right than something designed to be flawless. Strange that all those small habits, all those little things that should make him pause, are the very things he can't imagine being without.
He can picture perfect.
He just doesn't want it.
Not when it means losing you.
The answer he's been giving all this time circles back: he doesn't have an ideal type. He just likes who he likes.
And who he likes is you.
He almost laughs at himself for not seeing it sooner.
It definitely explains a whole lot.
You're halfway through a story when he tunes back in, something about a café and a barista and a misunderstanding that you'd already told him about a month ago.
Not that he says anything.
He just watches you, elbow resting against the table, head tilted slightly as you talk. You're animated about it, hands moving a little wildly as you explain. It's yet another cute habit of yours to add to his long list of nonnegotiables.
He's a bit betrayed by his heart and mind for figuring this all out right now. It would have been far more convenient earlier this morning, or last night, or any time before now—he could have rehearsed, given himself a pep talk, even brought flowers.
God, he hadn't even bought your coffee for you! And he seriously can't remember if he held the door open for you when you entered. Did he walk on the correct side of the pavement as you came down the block?
You set your drink down and stick him with a certain look. "What?"
He blinks out of his mini panic, half expecting you to get on his case about being half-present again. "What?"
"You're staring."
"Not sure where you expect me to look when you're talking if not at you," he says slowly, almost defensively, though there's a little twitch at the corner of his mouth that betrays him.
"No, no, you've just got a funny wrinkle between your eyebrows," you say, reaching over the table to dig a thumb into the spot you're talking about. "You only get that when you're a little upset... What's wrong—oh, have I already told this story? I have, haven't I? I'm boring you. Why didn't you say anything?"
Chan blinks at you, a little caught off guard by your flurry of words, but the twitch in his mouth spreads into a soft, almost embarrassed smile. He reaches up slowly, hesitating for a fraction of a second before gently pulling your hand down from his face. He doesn't let go, just lets it rest lightly on the table, cradled in his own, deciding he'd test some waters.
"You're not boring me," he assures, choosing not to say anything about the repeat story. "I didn't know I get a wrinkle when I'm upset. You sure it's not just proof of my aging?"
You wave him off with your other hand, keeping the one in his perfectly nestled there (which is a good sign). "You're not getting old," you say firmly. "Stop talking like that."
"I've gone completely grey," he says, pointing up at his dyed hair.
You laugh, and he's pretty proud of himself for thinking of that on the fly, even if that joke is technically recycled from Seungmin.
You settle back in your chair after a moment, still holding his hand lightly.
"Are you... sure you're not upset about something?" you ask, studying him.
He gives a small, wry shrug, trying to keep it light. "Upset? Me? Nah... I'm fine."
Before you even say anything, he knows you'll call him out on it. He should really learn that 'fine' is a trigger word.
"Chan."
There's a certain tone about it that only you're capable of. He recalls the many instances where he'd shivered over it, immediately caving in. Honestly, how hadn't he realized sooner?
"...I was just thinking," he starts, already feeling the mistake as the words leave his mouth.
"A dangerous pastime," you sing, quoting Beauty and the Beast.
"I know," he sings along in stride, channeling his best Gaston.
"What have you been thinking about?" you ask, and your attention drops to his hand, your fingers starting to play idly with the rings he's wearing, turning one slightly, then another. And, unfortunately, that derails him, so he doesn't get a chance to steer the conversation to safer waters. At his silence, you glance up, a little grin already forming as you jokingly ask, "About me?"
You're clearly waiting for him to deny it to get him to talk about what he was actually thinking about.
But he just... looks at you.
"Oh," you say, quieter now.
Your hand stops moving completely, but you don't pull away.
"What about me?"
He's not sure why you sound nervous. If he's thinking about you—and clearly he is, it's all that's been on his mind today—why would it be anything but good?
His thumb brushes lightly against the side of your hand, almost absent, but grounding enough to keep him from overthinking himself into silence again.
"...Everything, I think," he admits.
"Everything." You laugh it off quietly, the answer clearly not what you were expecting. "Why was that so deep so suddenly?"
Because it is that deep.
"Sorry, sorry," he chuckles. "I think I just had an epiphany."
"...about me," you finish, blinking in confusion.
"About myself, actually," he corrects.
"You're losing me," you say. "Is this about you or me?"
"Both?" He sheepishly grins, tilting and ducking his head. His ears are starting to burn.
You stare at him for a second like you're trying to decide whether he's being serious or if this is some elaborate bit you're not in on, and he does feel a little bad that he's confusing you with his hesitation.
"It's—" He stops, presses his lips together briefly, then tries again. "It's about me realizing something. And the thing I realized just... happens to be about you."
"Is it..." you search for a word, frown growing, "bad?"
"Bad?" he repeats immediately at the inconceivable word. "Why would it be bad?"
You swallow. "I mean... have you realized I'm annoying? You realized you find me intolerable, didn't you?"
He smiles, shaking his head. Jumping to conclusions, as always. Intolerable, pfft, after so long knowing each other?
"I don't think I've ever been more certain of the opposite actually," he says, watching you and your reaction carefully.
You don't look convinced, and he feels a little sad because this shouldn't even be a question.
"I was thinking about how I've been answering a question wrong for years," he says, still choosing to beat around the rosebush.
Your expression shifts, confusion again overtaking whatever else had been there before.
"What question?"
He huffs a quiet breath through his nose, glancing down at your hand for half a second before looking back up.
"My ideal type."
"That you don't have," you supply, because you do know that much, at least.
"Right," he says.
"Okay," you say slowly, drawing the word out as you sit back just slightly in your chair, though you don't pull your hand away. "And why—exactly—were you thinking about that while I was talking about a barista?"
"Good question," he admits.
"Chan."
"Sorry, I'm a little nervous," he chuckles.
"You're nervous?" you ask, brows knitting. "You're freaking me out a little."
"Well, watch me freak you out some more," he says, heart jumping out of his chest. "I like you. A lot."
"..."
You don't say anything right away.
Which, for you, is basically like screaming.
Your grip on his hand loosens just slightly—not enough to let go, just enough that he notices.
"Chan," you say finally, and his name sounds different in your mouth right now. "What?"
"For a while," he continues, not sure what else to say in response.
"...For a while," you repeat slowly.
"Yeah. Just thought you should know..."
Like he's pointing out that your shoe is untied. Can you tell he hasn't done this before?
You stare at him long enough that he starts to feel it in his shoulders, like a weird muscle tension. Your silence really is never a good sign, but your grip on his hand tightens again, and that's the first thing that tells him he's probably misreading your silence.
"As in..." you start, then stop and retry. "You like me. Like—like me."
"Yes," he says immediately, because that is now old news. "I do... is that okay?"
"'Is that okay'..." you mutter to yourself, perhaps mocking him a little. "Bahng Chahn essentially tells me I'm his ideal type, an answer that has eluded millions and millions of fans and stumped interviewers, and he asks if that's okay."
Chan blinks at you, caught somewhere between embarrassed and a little amused. You're trying to make him sweat, that much is clear. And it's working, unfortunately.
"Would you like to change your question or are you going to stick with that?" you ask, one corner of your mouth pulling up with a smirk.
See, nothing can ever be easy with you.
"I'd like to change my question," he says.
"I'm listening."
Despite how much he wants to shrink back and continue skirting around this, he knows you'd like a straightforward approach. He just needs to man up and do it. Fighting.
“Would you go out with me?” he blurts, biting his bottom lip and bracing for some sort of mental or emotional (or, knowing you, even physical) impact.
Your gaze drops briefly to his mouth where he’s still biting his lip, then back up to his eyes. He tries to read your mind, something he's tried on multiple occasions with little success, and the only thing he's able to think in that moment is: how have I never noticed how pretty those eyes are until this moment?
"Okay," you say rather simply, knocking him out of yet another stupor. "I'll go out with you."
"Just like that?" he asks, stunned.
"Were you hoping for a different answer?" You tilt your head.
"No!" His hand grips yours, tugging it to his half of the table. "No, that was the ideal answer. Just... I know we've been friends for a while, and it's a big deal to change that to something romantic?"
"True." You nod, agreeing with him. "It is a big deal. But the fact that I have known you for so long is exactly why I know you’re not asking this lightly."
His throat moves as he swallows, your certainty somehow making him more nervous instead of less.
“And?” he prompts carefully, because he can feel there’s more.
“And,” you continue, “if we’re being honest, I’ve been waiting for you to figure yourself out for a while.”
That makes him freeze.
“...What?”
You raise a brow at him. “Don’t look so shocked.”
“I— I am shocked,” he admits, voice a little unsteady now, because now he's trying to re-evaluate every interaction you’ve ever had. "I'd only just realized it myself."
He sneakily looked at his watch. Yeah, he only figured it out maybe half an hour ago.
“...Are you really surprised I figured it out before you?” you ask.
“...No,” he admits after a beat, and there’s something mildly resigned in it. “You’re not... you’re not easy to hide things from.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
He huffs a small laugh, but it doesn’t fully hide how overwhelmed he still is, sitting there with your hand in his and the entire conversation feeling a bit out of his breadth.
“You always notice things before I do,” he adds. “It’s kind of your thing. I think you’ve probably known what I want or need before I even do, most of the time.”
"It probably helps that I was actually looking for the signs," you say.
He stares at you, blinking, and he sees the corner of your mouth lift, just slightly.
“I wasn’t exactly subtle either, Chan," you admit.
“...Wait,” he says slowly. “You..."
"Let's just say, I've never been confused about my type," you say. And now it's your cheeks and ears that are turning a lovely shade of red.
“So,” he says, mind reeling, “just so I’m understanding this correctly...”
You sigh. “Channie.”
“No, no,” he insists, though there’s a smile creeping in now that he’s not trying to suppress. “I just want to make sure I’m not hallucinating the last five minutes of my life.”
You roll your eyes, but you don’t pull your hand away or interrupt him again.
He takes that as permission to continue.
“You’ve known how you feel,” he says, pointing vaguely between you, reconstructing a timeline in his head, “and you’ve known how I feel. And you’ve just... been sitting on that information.”
"I can't do everything for you," you chuckle.
“I feel like I should be more embarrassed,” he confesses, his free hand coming up to hide his face.
“You probably should be,” you say, laughing as you pull his hand away.
“Thanks.”
He realizes fully, then, that this is what he must have been trying to describe all those times he gave vague answers about not having an ideal type. It was not avoidance. It was misdirection, because he had been looking in entirely the wrong direction for something that was never hypothetical to begin with.
There is a strange kind of relief in that, threaded through with a lingering disbelief that it took him this long to recognize something that had been sitting in front of him the entire time.
He glances at you again, still seated across from him, very much real in a way that no imagined version of his perfect match could ever manage to be. And it occurs to him that nothing he could have constructed in his head would ever live up to this.
what to know: lee felix x gn!reader, sfw, getting together, fluff, based on karma trailer, adult language, injuries and medical talk, felix is forced to be arrogant, sports tournament, takes place in the future, medical terminology, toxic industry, felix’s butt?, the sports aspect of this is a little confusing bc that's a whole other can of worms
y'all don't understand how crazy i am for karma trailer felix. hate on the eyebrows all you want, i think it's so attractive
if there's more love for this than i think there's going to be, i may consider writing other stuff in this universe for the rest of the kids. like motorsports for hyunjin? boxer changbin? soccer/football han? whatever the heck chan is?
word count: 7.0k
recommended listening: ceremony by stray kids
The year is 2081, and Felix has achieved his dream—or rather, he's become the dream.
That's what the league says, anyway, so it must be true.
KARMA Sports runs the headline on every surface it owns—which must be most of them by now, he thinks: tower screens, transit glass, holograms, refrigerator screens, and personal feeds on every kind of social media app.
In the decades since its conception, KARMA Sports has grown beyond the idea of competition. It is no longer just athletics, no longer just entertainment. It is a media empire, a data harvest, a storytelling machine that turns real people into fictional characters. Some people compare it to the American WWE of the past with all the patriotism of the World Olympics, and even that is a weak and over-simplified way to describe it.
The Champions Tournament of 2081 looms ahead, marketed as the pinnacle of KARMA Sports: past winners from every year brought back to compete once more... all because Felix made one stupid comment during his 2080 victory tour that he's regretted ever since:
"I don't care if you dig them out of retirement or out of the ground," he'd said, grinning into the broadcast drone. "Line up every champion KARMA's ever crowned, I'll still walk out on top."
It had been meant as a joke, a throwaway comment, a good laugh. It had been meant as branding. Anybody with a lick of sense would have known that. Unfortunately, sense—both common and good—was hard to come by in this day and age.
The cameras had loved it, and the crowd had lost their minds. KARMA's analytics team had probably started drafting the press release before he'd even left the arena's press room. The present king who dared the past to come and kneel.
By morning, the headline was everywhere followed by a petition to make it a reality.
LEGENDS STACKED AGAINST LEGENDS.
THE CHAMPION WHO CHALLENGED HISTORY.
And now, in 2081, they were actually doing it.
Felix stands alone in the preparation wing beneath Arena Prime, hands braced against the cool steel of a locker that hums faintly with power. Somewhere above him, the crowd is already gathering—hundreds of thousands in the stands, millions (maybe even billions) more watching through lenses and implants and KARMA's ever-hungry network.
His face, right now, is being projected on hundreds of towers across the world right beside the faces of his past idols. Yet another dream come true, he supposes, and he can't even fully enjoy it.
Of course, they all had the option of turning down the tournament. None of them had to come out of retirement if they didn't want to. But, in this line of work, when a challenge like this is issued, it's an unspoken rule that turning it down is cowardice, it's an admittance of defeat. He wonders if any of them hate him for it—for dragging them back into the spotlight. Seungmin had been the only one to personally reach out and ask him what the actual fuck he'd been thinking.
The honest truth was he hadn't been.
God, Felix wishes he'd never made that comment. He never should have gone off-script—even if the line he was force-fed by his management wasn't much better. How is he meant to face these guys knowing there are still posters pinned up in his childhood bedroom with some of their faces on them and their trading cards in his old laminated binder?
He drags a hand through his hair and laughs under his breath, soft and humorless.
"Nice one, Lix," he murmurs to no one other than himself. "Real genius move."
The door hisses open behind him, and he straightens and schools his expression.
"Don't tell me you're nervous, Champ."
His shoulders loosen before he can stop them from doing so, and he turns.
You're standing just inside the doorway, tablet tucked against your side, credentials glowing faintly at your collar against the neutral slate uniform of KARMA support staff. It's not the most flattering silhouette, meant to shove away attention so the athletes stand out more, and yet...
His eyes frantically scan over you, looking for the little touch you always add, for that single pop of color that he knows is there somewhere. And, hidden in the shadow of your sleeve, he sees it and instantly calms down. There's a metallic blue—his trademark metallic blue—weave bracelet looped around your wrist.
It's only because of that that he's able to snort and say, "Me? Never."
"Uh-huh." You arch a brow, unconvinced, and step closer, letting the door hiss shut behind you. You jiggle your tablet pointedly. "That's funny, because your heart rate monitor says otherwise."
Traitor, Felix tells his heart, willing it to slow down as it speeds up even more at your approach.
He clicks his tongue and looks away, jaw tightening for half a second before he smooths it out again. When he looks back at you, the cocky grin is back in place.
"Can't blame a guy for getting excited," he chuckles.
"Excited..." you echo.
"Don't worry," he says, gaze following the blue on your wrist unconsciously, "I'm kind of undefeated."
"Hate to break it to you, but so are these guys," you mutter. "Sort of the whole point this year."
"True, true," he concedes, well aware of this fact. "Hey, just tell me one thing..."
You hum, listening.
"Who do you have winning your bracket?"
"You know I'm not allowed to gamble on official KARMA events," you tell him.
"I know," he says. "Making the bracket itself doesn't involve gambling, though. And I know you made one, because everyone makes one. Now tell me, who's winning your title?"
You smile, glancing away, and he's got his answer, even as you lie and say, "I've always been a Hyunjin fan."
"Twerp," he mutters under his breath, not nearly as quiet as he thinks.
"What?" You grin, utterly unrepentant. "He's very talented. The 2078 season was peak."
"He is not the one standing in front of you right now." Oh God, did that sound too whiney?
"You're right," you agree sweetly. "Which is a shame; I could have asked him for autographs early."
"You are unbelievable." He stares at you, aghast. "Threatening to flirt with my competition five minutes before I go fight for my life. You want me to lose!"
"Oh, please." You roll your eyes. "If I wanted you to lose, I'd tell you I bet my entire savings on Changbin."
He clutches a hand to his chest, the other coming up to support his weight on the locker, and he uses that as an opportunity to lean closer into your space. Seizer of opportunities, he was.
"Changbin-hyung?" he gasps weakly. "You're trying to kill me before I even get out there."
You laugh, tilting your head back slightly as he crowds your personal bubble.
He squints at you, wondering if you laughed like this when he made that lame ass joke about the past champions, the joke that caused all this... No, he's certain you just rolled your eyes and called him an idiot under your breath. If only you'd been in the briefing room to tell all those stiff ratbags to piss off.
His gaze flicks briefly to your wrist before meeting your eyes again.
"I suppose this is the moment you ask me to throw the competition so you can have a perfect bracket," he says, pouting.
"The odds of a perfect bracket are actually astronomically low," you say, and Felix resists his growing grin as you proceed to talk nerdy (dirty) to him. "Even knowing all the current stats, it's still roughly one in seventy-five point four billion. Humans are unpredictable like that. If you look at the historical matchups..."
He watches you with open fondness. Somewhere overhead, a ring of holo-lights flickers to life, bathing the locker room in slow-moving bands of gold and blue as KARMA's systems begin syncing the broadcast everywhere all around the world.
"God," he murmurs, shaking his head softly. "Listen to you."
"What?" you ask, still half in your own head.
He laughs quietly at your cluelessness, eyes flicking once more to the blue at your wrist before drifting back to your face.
"Hmm," he hums, leaning his shoulder more fully against the locker, effectively boxing you in without quite touching you. "You know, if you had asked, I might've considered it."
"Felix," you say, tilting your head, "your ego would never let you do that."
For a moment he just studies you, trying to decide how offended he's supposed to be.
"My ego," he repeats slowly. "You think I have a big ego?"
"...Is this a trick question?" you ask, looking around as if on candid camera.
He follows your gaze automatically, like he might actually find a drone tucked into the ceiling vent recording the moment.
Then he looks back at you, affronted.
"Hey," he says. "No. I'm serious."
You lift a brow that clearly says, So am I.
"I do not have a big ego," he insists, straightening a little.
"Not sure who you're trying to convince," you say. "Because just last month you told a commentator on live television they should thank you for boosting the league's ratings. Oh, oh! And last week you argued with the training AI because you placed second in the simulation!"
Both of these are gross oversimplifications, and all it serves to do is remind him that you don't know the real him. The commentator thing was yet another scripted line that he literally had no say in, plus the commentator himself was in on it; and the other was just a stupid moment of frustration after three straight hours of simulations where the AI kept misreading his movements mid-run. Anyone would've snapped eventually.
But that's not what you saw.
What you saw was just what you were allowed to see, the one the league liked to sell, so he can't really blame you for that. As his biometric analyst, your job starts and ends with his body and not his mind. His heart rate, his oxygen saturation, his muscle output and neural response times. You sit in a control booth during matches with a dozen other technicians, watching graphs climb and fall across translucent screens. You're the one who flags when his vitals spike too high, the one who warns the med team if his body starts pushing past safe limits.
You see everything his body does.
But none of the rest of him.
You're not there during the endless training sessions when the cameras leave. You don't hear the producers in his earpiece feeding him lines before interviews. You don't see the quiet moments when he's just some guy leaning against a railing outside the training complex at two in the morning, trying to breathe through the imposter syndrome.
For a second he considers explaining it, telling you about the scripts and the producers. The way half the things that come out of his mouth during interviews aren't even his words (he likes to think he's a bit more of a smooth-talker than they've made him out to be). But explaining that would mean pulling back a curtain he's technically not supposed to touch.
So he lets it go.
Lets you believe he's a little insufferable if that's the version of him you've been handed. Because the truth is, if the only version of him you've ever been allowed to see is the one KARMA broadcasts... then yeah. That guy kind of does have an ego the size of a small planet.
The entire league is built around making their champions larger than life, and he's played that role pretty damn well. And arguing against it is just going to drive that narrative further.
"Alright," he admits after a second, lifting a hand in surrender. "Point taken."
You look faintly surprised by the lack of a comeback, and he almost laughs. You're so cute.
His gaze drifts back to the bracelet around your wrist again, the metallic blue thread catching the slow sweep of the corridor lights.
His color.
You've worn something with it to every match this season as far as he knows.
You wouldn't wear that thing if you actually thought he was some unbearable narcissist, right?
Right?
His gaze lingers a moment longer on the bracelet before he pushes away from the locker, straightening up again.
The tournament will play out however it plays out. Champions fall every year in this league—sometimes spectacularly. He knows better than most how thin the margins are between a gold medal and a career-ending loss.
So maybe the better plan isn't after he wins.
Maybe it's just... after.
Win or lose, once the cameras stop chasing him and the producers aren't hovering over his shoulder and he's become officially 'washed up', he'll figure out a way to show you the parts of him that don't make it into the broadcasts.
You can decide what you think of him then.
You shift your tablet under your arm, expression changing in that little way he's come to recognize as you sliding back into work mode.
"Alright," you say, stepping closer again, "hold still, breathe evenly."
Felix sighs, but obliges.
You tap the sensor band at his wrist, syncing it to your tablet. A soft chime confirms the connection and a cluster of biometric graphs flicker to life across the screen.
As you read through them, tilting the screen so he can follow along if he wants, he watches you instead, the faint glow reflecting off your face.
"Resting heart rate's still elevated," you say after a beat.
"Excited," he assures again, knowing the real reason behind it is entirely due to how close you are to him right now.
"You know, nervousness and excitement are biologically driven by the same hormones." you explain. "The difference is just mental perception. It's kind of fascinating that..."
As you continue, Felix holds back from telling you that he is overcome with an entirely different type of hormone. Probably not the best way to start showing you his true colors.
"...so people could honestly just convince themselves they're excited over something when they were initially nervous," you finish, still scrolling through the data. "Respiration's steady, though."
"As easy as breathing," he jokes.
You ignore that.
"Any congestion?" you ask.
"No."
"Soreness?"
He twists his torso about to feel it out.
"Little tight on the lower left side," he admits after a second.
"The old injury?" You make a note without looking up. And then suddenly your hand is reaching around him to press fingers into the sensitive area, going under his warmup jacket but over his shirt.
Felix tries not to flinch away because then you'll pull back and stop touching him, but it really is tender.
"Here?" you ask as you watch his vitals spike. He's sure his blood pressure is rising, and maybe that's partly due to the pain... but it's mostly not.
"Mhmm," is all he manages, to both questions.
You palpate a few more spots before retracting your hand and adding more notes. Felix can finally breathe again, and he watches the meter for his oxygen level return to normal.
"Stretch it again before warm-up."
"Yes, doc."
You finally glance up at him through your eyelashes. "I'm not a doctor."
"Right," he says, nodding. "You just monitor my heart, lungs, muscle strain, hydration levels, cortisol spikes, and, like, seventeen other things that I don't understand."
"Right," you say brightly.
Felix stares at you for a moment, lips twitching.
"My actual doctors do less."
"That's because your actual doctors only see you when something's wrong," you reply, already tapping through another tab of data. "My job is to make sure nothing gets that far."
"Hm."
He leans slightly closer to look at the scrolling vitals, even though half the information means absolutely nothing to him. Lines of numbers, colored graphs, predictive modeling curves—things that apparently translate to success in your world.
"What's that?" he points to a meter he hasn't seen before.
"Heh," you huff out a laugh, "that's your bladder level. Neat, huh?"
Neat? He holds his wrist with the sensor to his chest protectively, wondering how technology has come so far that you can see that. It's a little invasive, no?
"What could you possibly need that for?" he asks.
"Medically? Probably nothing," you answer. "But we don't want you pissing your pants on the world stage."
Fair enough, he wouldn't want that either.
Your tablet gives a soft alert, and you glance back down.
"Alright," you say after a second. "Vitals are good. Hydration's fine, respiration's stable, cortisol is... high but not concerning."
You flick one last screen closed and tuck the tablet against your chest.
"Your floor call is coming up," you add.
He nods once, more to himself than anything else. When he looks back at you, you're already stepping toward the door and out of his space.
"Stretch your back again during warm-up," you remind him. "Cobra, cat-cow, bridge, triangle, the works, alright?"
"Yes, doc."
You don't even dignify that with a response this time.
The locker room doors slide open for you in response to your badge with a soft hydraulic hiss, spilling the gold-and-blue wash of the arena corridor inside. The distant roar of the crowd is louder now, the vibrations in the floor stronger as thousands of people settle into anticipation.
You pause right in the doorway, facing him and pulling something up on your tablet again.
"Try not to do anything stupid," you say absently.
"That really narrows down my options."
You make a small mhm noise while tapping the screen and you pinch the display and zoom in.
Felix watches you, curious.
A second later you turn the tablet around so he can see.
It takes him less than half a second to understand what he's looking at, because he looks at these things almost 24/7. It's a filled-out tournament bracket; the entire lineup of athletes branching through the rounds. And at the very center in the championship slot:
FELIX
"See you out there, Champ," you say and turn around just as the doors slide shut behind you.
Felix presses his lips together, failing miserably to contain the smile as he drags both hands through his hair. His shoulders loosen, the earlier tightness completely forgotten as adrenaline begins to hum through his system in a way that feels a lot closer to excitement than nerves now, just like you said.
He's not arrogant enough to assume anything about how this tournament ends. The bracket is brutal and he knows it. Any one of those fights could go sideways if he's not careful.
But the thought of letting you down scares him a lot more than the thought of losing.
Felix makes it all the way to the semi-finals running on sheer willpower.
It's not effortless the way the highlight reels will make it look later; it's actually rather difficult. His predecessors are truly no joke, the cream of the crop, the best of the best, not that he ever doubted that (despite what the-joke-that-shall-not-be-repeated might imply). Even being away from the arena so long, they've given him a run for his money.
But he gets there.
Of course he does.
Because anything less would mean stopping.
And stopping isn't an option—not when there's still one name left on his side of the bracket that he hasn't crossed out yet.
Hyunjin.
They are good mates, to be honest, closer than some of the others in the champion pool. Felix has learned exactly how Hyunjin moves through their many joint training sessions. He knows the rhythm of him, the tells, the way he likes to bait before committing. There's comfort in that kind of knowledge.
But there's also danger. Because Hyunjin knows him just as well.
Still—
Felix is going to beat him...
I've always been a Hyunjin fan.
Because that's just not going to fly.
He's going to show you the better choice; he's going to show you why you call him Champ.
He exhales slowly through his nose, rolling his shoulders as he circles. His back twinges—low on the left side—but he ignores it, the same way he's been ignoring it for the last five minutes.
It's fine.
It's fine.
He's fought and played through worse.
An opening presents itself—or maybe he forces it into existence. It's hard to tell anymore, everything moving just fast enough to blur around him. He has to blink a few times to reorient himself before he makes his next move.
And that's where it goes wrong.
It's small. It's so stupid, so fucking stupid because he stretched just like you told him to! And still—
His foot plants just slightly off, his torso twists to compensate, and something gives. It starts as a dull pressure, and then there's a rising heat. Then, as he takes another step, there's a sudden, sickening pull that yanks tight through the left side of his lower back and his leg. It goes half-numb in the same breath the pain spikes, sharp and electric as it shoots down from his spine.
He can work around this, though.
He just needs to—
"Felix," your voice cuts through his earpiece. "Is it your back?"
He doesn't normally hear your voice in matches, which he thinks is a good thing. Far too distracting, and if not that, then too soothing. Your updates are normally filtered through to his managers and strategists, and they will relay on the important things; however, when things need to be taken care of immediately, you do have a switch that can bypass the coaches to reach him.
"'M fine," he mutters under his breath, barely moving his lips. Too many lip readers nowadays.
"Don't lie to me."
Oh, so now you can tell when he's lying.
"...Just tweaked it," he concedes, voice low. "It's nothing."
There's a brief pause on the line, and in that split second of quiet, he can practically see you on the other end, narrowing your eyes in that displeased and disbelieving way that you sometimes give him when he's a little more sassy than normal.
"Felix," you say, and now there's an edge to it, almost urgent. "I'm seeing latency in your left-side response. Your stride just shortened—don't brush me off."
Whatever latency means.
"I said I'm fine," he murmurs. He needs to win.
"I need you to either call a timeout or adjust your movement," you ignore him. "Reduce rotational strain. Play more defensive—if you keep loading that side, you're going to—"
There's a soft click in his ear and the channel welcomes a few others onto the frequency. It's not just you and him anymore.
"Status," his head coach says.
"Lower back strain, left side," you report immediately, though that was likely meant for Felix. "Possible nerve involvement. I'm seeing disruption down the leg—"
"Severity?" another voice interjects, interrupting rudely.
Felix's fingers curl faintly at his side as he keeps moving, keeps his body in motion because Hyunjin is making his next move.
"Undetermined without physical assessment," you reply, "but his response time is already showing measurable delay. His gait is compensating and—"
"He can continue," his head coach says, cutting clean through the rest of it.
You inhale sharply, and he hears it, which means the others do, too. You're frustrated, and though he's never known you to blow your top, he also knows these guys on the other end of the line, and he knows they're rather good at bringing out the worst in people.
"He can, but he shouldn't maintain current output levels," you counter, and there's a new edge creeping in now. Not unprofessional—never that—but firmer. Less willing to bend... which is likely just going to make the coaches push harder. They're used to pushing athletes to their limits. "If he keeps forcing torque through that side, you're risking escalation. He needs to adjust or take a timeout. You've got two left."
"Negative," comes the immediate response. "We are not burning a timeout here."
Felix's jaw tightens harder this time, the muscle ticking as something frustrated and restless curls low in his chest, not for himself and for his own health and safety, but for you. It's one thing for them to treat him like shit, it's something else entirely for them to come for you while you're doing your job.
"Then adjust his strategy," you insist. "He needs to reduce rotational strain immediately—"
"We cannot change strategy mid-sequence," the second voice cuts in, sharper now, more force behind it. "He has the advantage. Let him compete."
"Your 'advantage' disappears if his leg or back gives out," you snap back. "His stability is compromised. I'm flagging a risk threshold breach and going to med team—"
"We see the metrics."
"Then you're either ignoring them, or you're just incompetent and can't understand them."
The line goes dead quiet for half a second.
You shouldn't have said that, not to them. But Felix, for just a split second while he deflects Hyunjin's move and cringes at the ache in his muscles, feels so proud.
"...Excuse me?" the first coach says finally, voice low and measured in a way that Felix knows is worse than if he'd snapped.
His stomach tightens and he adjusts his footing again out of necessity, the movement sending another flare of pain up his spine, but it barely registers compared to the tension now coiling through him for an entirely different reason.
"If you're seeing the same data I am," you say, every word clipped, "then there's no justification for maintaining current output. His left-side stability is compromised. This isn't a matter of preference—it's a matter of preventing further injury."
"You're out of line," the second coach cuts in, sharper now, whatever restraint had been there before thinning rapidly. "And you need to watch your tone."
"My tone is appropriate for the situation," you reply, and there's nothing wavering about it. Not a hint of apology. "I'm doing my job."
"Your job," the first coach echoes, slower this time, "is to report metrics. Not to make strategic calls. Not to override coaching decisions. And certainly not to insult senior staff over an open channel."
"With all due respect," you start, and Felix can hear the effort it takes to rein yourself in, to pull your tone back from the edge you'd let it slip over just seconds ago, "if the strategy results in preventable injury, then it becomes a medical concern. And that is my jurisdiction."
"We are well within acceptable thresholds," the second coach replies, clipped and dismissive. "You've made your recommendation. It's been noted."
"I need—he needs more than 'noted'," you shoot back immediately. "If you wait for a full failure—"
"That's enough."
The first coach again.
"Effective immediately," the coach continues, voice cool and impersonal, "your direct line to the athlete is revoked for the remainder of this match. You will route all communication through the designated channels. And we will be discussing your conduct after this round."
You don't even get to respond before there's a click and Felix makes a guess that you've been kicked from the channel. He's not even sure how that's legal, considering you're there to protect him. But, then again, you could probably say that about a lot of things in the League.
Felix stares straight ahead, but for a fraction of a second, he's not seeing the arena. He's seeing you and the future closed-door conversations, the thinly veiled warnings, the reminders about "role boundaries" and "professional conduct." Maybe worse, depending on how badly they decide you embarrassed them.
His grip flexes at his side, fingers curling and uncurling once to try and shake the thought of you and the repercussions out of his system. He can't.
He exhales slowly, forcing the air out through his nose as he drags his focus back where it needs to be.
You're right.
You are.
But—
He can't take a timeout.
He just... can't.
Not in a semi-final match where the margins are already razor thin and the difference between advancing and going home comes down to moments exactly like this. Burning a timeout isn't just a pause—it's a break in momentum, a window of opportunity, a shift in pacing that someone like Hyunjin knows exactly how to exploit. Felix, as an athlete, is too prone to getting iced out with breaks, and his coaching staff knows that about him.
And changing strategy to protect himself would mean throwing away everything that's giving him the edge right now.
His lips press together, something resolute settling in his chest, heavy and immovable. He'll deal with the consequences later.
With his back.
With whatever conversation is waiting for you on the other side of this.
With all of it.
But right now—
Right now, he needs to win.
And this—
This is how he does it.
He doesn't remember the walk off the floor, if you can even call it a walk.
It's there in pieces—flashes of color and sound, though the sound booth had courteously turned down the background music and the crowd had fallen a little stunned silent. The feel of hands on him, picking him up, shifting him around, not giving him much of a choice in where his body is going. His leg almost buckling once that had been enough for them to stop asking and start moving.
"Easy—watch the step—"
"I've got him—"
"I'm fine," he had said at some point out of some sort of instinct, or at least he thinks he did, the words slurring together with a breath that didn't come out easy. It hadn't mattered. No one slowed down.
The doors to the medical wing had opened before he even fully registered where they were taking him, and now he's on his back.
Or—half on his back.
They've got him angled awkwardly on the cot, something beneath him adjusting with a low mechanical shift so they can get to his lower spine. It forces his torso just enough off-center that there's no position that feels neutral, no way to fully relax without something pulling wrong. He must look so embarrassing, posted up this way.
"Stay with me, Felix."
Like he's about to go somewhere.
He huffs out a breath that almost turns into a laugh, except there's no humor in it. "Where else am I gonna go?"
A hand presses against his shoulder, keeping him from trying to sit up when instinct tells him to. Another is already at his back, fingers pressing into the exact place that's been lighting up his nerves for the last—what—ten minutes? Twenty?
"Tell me where it hurts."
He stares up at the ceiling, jaw tight, eyes squinting slightly against the brightness.
"Everywhere?" he grunts before realizing he's being cruel to people just trying to help him. "Lower back. Left side."
"Radiating?"
"Yeah."
"How far?"
He swallows, shifting just enough to test it—and immediately regrets it.
"Down the leg," he admits through gritted teeth. "Comes and goes."
"Okay. Don't move."
He almost rolls his eyes at that, and then rolls his eyes at wanting to roll his eyes.
Maybe he truly is a cocky shit.
Someone lifts his shirt just enough to expose skin, and something cold presses against him, followed by the firm placement of electrodes along his spine, and he sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth before he can stop himself. The sensation is strange—cool adhesive against overheated skin, the faint tug of wires being connected, the soft, steady beeping of monitors coming online around him.
"Try not to tense up," someone says near his shoulder, though there's a faint edge of distraction in their voice, attention already split between him and whatever's lighting up on their screens.
"Bit late for that," Felix mutters, but he forces his body to loosen anyway, or at least tries to.
"On three," another voice says from somewhere near his lower back. "We're going to press again."
"One—two—"
Felix's breath punches out of him, his back arching a fraction before the hand at his shoulder steadies him again.
"Yeah," he exhales, eyes squeezing shut for a second. "Yeah, that's—that's the spot."
"Okay."
There's a brief murmur between them, low enough that he doesn't catch all of it. Just pieces.
"...inflammation..."
"...nerve involvement..."
"...we'll need imaging..."
He lets his head fall back again, staring up at the ceiling as everything starts to settle into something slower. The rush is fading now; the adrenaline that carried him through the end of the match bleeding out of his system, leaving everything else behind in sharp, uncomfortable clarity.
His gaze flicks toward the door without him meaning it to.
You're not here.
They wouldn't bring you in right away—not when there are protocols to follow, reports to file, people to answer to in the chain of command first. But you'll be here soon enough. They'll need you to walk through it, step by step, to explain exactly what happened and when and why.
To explain what you told them, what they ignored.
He just hopes he's not still in such a compromising, vulnerable position when you do get here.
He shifts slightly, trying to get more comfortable, and immediately sucks in a breath when the movement pulls wrong again.
"Don't," someone says, not unkindly. "Stay still."
"Yeah," he murmurs, staring back up at the ceiling. "Working on it."
He isn't sure how long he lays there before they finally decide to give him pain medication. The pain makes it feel like ages. And then the meds just have a way of making everything feel syrupy slow.
He swears a whole year passes before he finally senses that you've arrived. He's not facing the door, so he can't see you, but he knows it's you... somehow. Some sort of gravitational, magnetic, unseen force.
He doesn't turn his head right away.
Partly because he can't without it tugging something sharp down his spine, and he's already learned that lesson the hard way.
But mostly because—
God.
He knows what he must look like right now, now that they've got him stabilized the way they want him.
He's still twisted onto his side, propped in a way that makes access easier for them but does absolutely nothing for his dignity. The back of his jersey is practically torn open, fabric peeled up and out of the way so they can keep attaching sensors along his spine. His waistband has been tugged lower than he would ever allow under normal circumstances, and there is definitely—definitely—a draft up near his asscrack.
If he wasn't already flushed from the pain meds slowly working their way through his system, that alone would do it.
He's half-exposed and half-aware. A little too out of it to fix it, but not nearly out of it enough to not care.
His eyes flick toward you as you walk around the foot of the cot with a doctor, mid-conversation.
"—onset was mid-sequence," you're saying. "Initial compensation started approximately twelve seconds post-injury. There was a measurable delay in left-side response before that—"
You don't look at him, which he's sort of grateful for considering his compromising position but he figures that you must be angry. You have every right to be.
You told him what to do, and he ignored you. Chose to keep going per his coaches' directions. Chose to end up exactly where you said he would.
Of course you're pissed. Of course you're not looking at him.
His fingers twitch against the cot, the digits feeling tingly and slow, like the signal has to travel a little farther than it used to before it actually reaches his hand.
He should say something.
He knows he should.
Call your name, maybe.
But even forming the thought feels slow, wading through the hot tar in his head. The medication is doing its job—taking the sharp edge off the pain—but it's dragging everything else down with it. His head feels full, slow, and unfocused in a way that makes it hard to hold onto a single thought for very long. Well, other than the thought of you. That's a pretty permanent fixture.
He just needs—
Your attention.
He outstretches a heavy arm out in your direction, letting it wobble about.
Your gaze absentmindedly flicks over as you listen to the doctor tell you something, and you do a double take.
Felix makes a grabbing motion with his fingers, at least, that's what he intends to do. He's unable to tell whether they actually listen to him.
You exhale quietly and turn away from the conversation.
"Sorry," you say. "One second."
You step toward him, and Felix watches you the entire way, eyes following you with more focus than anything else in the room has managed to hold. His arm wavers once, and he almost lets it drop, but then you're close enough that he doesn't have to hold it up anymore.
The second you're within reach, his hand closes around yours.
His fingers curl loosely, just enough to keep you there, because he's afraid if he doesn't hold on, you'll walk away again. His pointer finger feels around for the woven bracelet around your wrist, making sure you hadn't ripped it off in your anger.
He sighs in relief when he feels it. Thank goodness.
"I—" he starts, and immediately loses it.
His brows knit together faintly, annoyed at himself for not being able to get the words out properly. He tries again, slower this time, because he has to pick each word up one by one and make sure they're actual words.
"Y'were right," he manages, sounding miserable. "I know. You can tell me I told y'so. I just—"
He trails off again, breath catching somewhere in the middle as his thoughts slip sideways.
"Sorry," he finishes instead.
Your hand adjusts in his, holding him back just as much as he's holding onto you. And your other hand comes up, and for a split second, Felix tenses—because he's scared you might probe his back, too—before your fingers slide into his hair.
Sweaty strands stick slightly under your touch, but you don't seem to care, pushing them back from his forehead, nails dragging lightly against his scalp.
His eyes flutter shut and his breathing stutters out, making some machine beep frantically for a moment or two.
"Hey," you murmur. "I don't care that I was right."
Your fingers scratch lightly at his scalp, slow, soothing.
"I just care that you're okay."
He lets out a soft breath, something close to a hum slipping out before he can stop it, his grip on your hand going a little slack.
"Never been better," he mumbles, words slurring together at the edges, his mouth barely keeping up with the thought.
It's a terrible lie. But his head tilts slightly into your hand, chasing the feeling as your nails move again, and he exhales like it's the best thing he's ever felt.
His eyes crack open just enough to find you again, looking a little hazy around the edges. And since when were there two of you? How awesome is that?
"...Y'know," he starts, a hint of something almost amused slipping in, "pretty sure—"
He shifts slightly, and immediately regrets it, a quiet huff leaving him before he settles again.
"Pretty sure my ass is out," he mutters. "Sorry 'bout that, too."
You laugh and his lips twitch, something small and pleased pulling at the corner of his mouth even as his eyes stay half-lidded.
"At least it's a cute ass," you say.
His heart rate monitor starts beeping fast enough that a couple of the doctors look over in concern. It evens itself out after a moment, but his face still holds the evidence of what you've said. He's got a lopsided grin and flushing cheeks to match.
"Y'think so?" he asks, and there's something almost boyish in it, something completely unguarded that would never make it past a camera.
His thumb drags faintly against your hand again, the movement slow and absent. You're so soft, or his fingers are so numb.
"Good," he adds after a second without you confirming nor denying, more to himself than to you. "Good..."
His eyes slip shut again, his head leaning just a little more into your touch without him realizing it. The tension in his body keeps easing in small increments, each pass of your fingers through his hair pulling him further under, further away from the sharp edges of everything else.
His grip loosens more, not because he wants to let go, but because he's losing the strength to hold on the way he was before. Still, his fingers stay curled around yours, just enough to keep contact.
"Hey..." he murmurs again, barely audible this time, his words starting to drift together.
He doesn't even know what he was going to say.
It slips away before it can fully form.
"Go ahead and rest, Champ," you tell him quietly.
Felix exhales, long and slow, the last bit of tension leaving him with it.
His fingers give one faint squeeze around your hand, and then he lets himself go.
Both of your careers, in a sense, were over. At least in the way the League defined them.
Felix no longer competed in the way he used to, no longer forced his body past its limits for the sake of ratings or adoring crowds, no longer had to bow to god-complex managers or coaches who measured him in numbers rather than humans.
In hindsight, leaving the League had been the best thing that could have happened. It was liberating, in a way he hadn't fully allowed himself to imagine before. He got to be himself all the time—the real him, and the world actually found him relatable and amusing.
And you... well, you were blacklisted from the League. In Felix's opinion, that had been the cooler way to go out. The League couldn't handle someone who put human safety above spectacle, and you had made sure everyone knew exactly how far the coaching staff had pushed him—how far they'd pushed both of you.
Sure, you'd won the court settlement in the end, and your name had been cleared legally, but the League wouldn't hire you again. Not that you cared. You were thriving at a physical therapy joint now, your own little corner of the world where the metrics weren't about entertainment or money, where people actually cared about the bodies in front of them—and Felix was the happiest client you'd ever had. Because of the discounted rates, of course, but mostly it was just a convenient excuse for him to linger in your presence during the work day.
Felix had settled into this life quickly, with a kind of lazy joy he hadn't realized he'd been starving for. He could sleep when he wanted. Eat when and what he wanted. Walk around in sweatpants and a ratty hoodie if he wanted. And most importantly, he could be himself around you without any filters.
And you... well, you knew exactly how deeply he'd felt for you for a while. Every spike in his heart rate when he came near you, every tiny pause in his muscles when your hand brushed his arm—you had seen it all. You'd known he was into you long before he'd realized it himself, apparently. You did know his body better than himself, after all.
And with the separation from KARMA Sports, Felix had finally shown you everything he was capable of being: not just the champion on the bracket, not the cocky, larger-than-life persona the League broadcasted, but the soft, anxious, silly, loving, slightly reckless person who had always existed behind the numbers.
And maybe he did have a little bit of an ego, because he knew it was only a matter of time before you came around to him and fell just as deeply in love.
Now, he lay sprawled on your therapy table, one leg draped lazily over the side and his back twinging faintly from yesterday's adjustments, and he reached a hand for yours without thinking. Your fingers wrapped around his immediately, warm and firm, and he could feel the familiar ease of your presence seeping through him as his thumb caught on the blue gemstone of a ring adorning one of your fingers.
He had lost the League, but he had gained everything that truly mattered.
what to know: hwang hyunjin x gn!reader, sfw, meet-cute, fluff, reader has parents, hyunjin getting robbed sorta, little bit of language barrier but it's very minimal, probably will have more parts but i think it's also cute as a standalone
happy birthday hyunjin!!
word count: 6.3k
recommended listening: lover by hyunjin
pt. 2
Hyunjin almost walked straight past you.
He had been told very clearly—repeatedly, actually, to the point where it started to feel a little personal—not to linger around this area.
Managers, security, local staff; everyone had repeated the same warning since they landed. The landmark was beautiful and famous and worth seeing, yes, certainly, but it was also one of the worst places in the city for pickpockets, hawkers, and vendors who could smell a distracted foreigner from halfway across the plaza.
The advice given to him had been plain and simple:
Walk swiftly through it if he wanted to see it so bad.
Do not stop.
Do not, under any circumstances, let anyone pull you into a conversation. Not even children.
(That one had felt especially ominous.)
So he was doing exactly that: walking, hands tucked into his jacket pockets, gaze lowered just enough to avoid unnecessary eye contact while still taking in everything in soft, peripheral glances—when you stepped directly in front of him. And he'd needed to stop completely lest he run straight into you, and that would have been a spectacularly embarrassing way to draw attention to himself in a country he didn't live in.
He looked down at you, alert for the half-second it took his brain to run through all the scary warnings again. This could absolutely be the setup they had described: a pretty face stops you while a secondary accomplice else lifts your wallet. Classic.
His gaze flicked briefly over your shoulder, scanning the crowd in a way he hoped didn’t look like scanning. People moved about normally, and nobody hovered too close. No one looked particularly interested in him as far as he could tell.
Suspicious.
Or... not suspicious?
He couldn’t tell anymore.
For all he knew, you had already stolen something. He subtly shifted his wrist inside his sleeve just to make sure his watch was still there.
When he looked back at you, though, you were holding your phone out slightly in front of you in what was a universal sign among tourists.
"Excuse me," you said in English.
Your voice was polite, a little tentative, like you were still deciding if he was the right person to ask. You tilted your head slightly, gesturing behind you, and Hyunjin followed the motion. Two people stood near the monument a few steps away, already half-posed with a readiness that said they had done this exact thing at least twenty times on this trip.
He glanced back at you.
"Would you mind taking a picture for us?"
If this was a scam, it was the most attractive one he'd ever encountered.
“Sure,” he said, reaching out.
Your fingers brushed against his as you handed him the phone, the kind of contact that should have meant absolutely nothing. But you smiled at him simultaneously, looking truly grateful before he had even done anything, and for some reason that was the part his brain decided to hold onto.
(It did not, however, stop him from subtly checking that his watch was still on his arm and wallet still in his inside jacket pocket. Just because being pretty did not make you innocent.)
“Thank you,” you chirped, already turning and jogging back toward the other two.
Hyunjin looked down at the phone for a moment, noticing the camera app was already open, the screen smudged faintly with fingerprints that caught the sunlight. Then he lifted it again.
You had slipped neatly into place between the other two, near perfectly, like the space had been made for you specifically (though Hyunjin was confident you could fit into any space like that). The man’s arm came around your shoulders automatically, pulling you in closer, while the woman leaned in from the other side with a cheery smile.
He watched the three of you for a second longer than necessary.
Parents, he decided after a moment, seeing the resemblance—the toothy smile you shared with your mother and the sparkling eyes of your father that somehow shined brighter than the sun. A very pretty family, he decided next, before telling himself to focus.
He stepped back a little, adjusting his position to fit the monument cleanly into the frame. He couldn’t help it. The light was good, the view was beautiful... as was the subject—this could actually be a nice photo if he tried.
And he did try.
“Uh,” he called out.
All three of you looked at him.
“Can you stand a little closer together?” he asked, lifting one hand to gesture the idea, fingers curling inward in a universal scoot in motion just in case his wording wasn’t perfect.
The man reacted heartily, pulling both you and the woman further inward to his side. You laughed as you were squeezed between them, the sound bright enough that Hyunjin could swear he physically felt it.
For a moment, you forgot about the camera entirely.
Your head tipped slightly toward the woman as you laughed, your eyes crinkling at the corners, sunlight catching in your hair in a way that made the whole scene feel oddly cinematic. Hyunjin almost thought some of the buskers across the plaza played louder in that moment, flooding his ears, but then he realized it was just his brain playing tricks on him.
He shook his head and crouched slightly to adjust the framing.
Now the monument rose behind you with the three of you centered perfectly in the shot.
Hyunjin only managed to tap the shutter button a couple times when the phone suddenly vanished from his hands.
For a split second, his brain simply refused to process it. His fingers were still curved around where the phone should have been, his hand suspended uselessly in the air as if the device might somehow reappear if he just waited long enough.
A blur of movement cut across the edge of his vision, and he turned his head just in time to catch sight of a man already sprinting away, your phone clutched tightly in his hand.
Pickpockets and thieves, right.
Management had not been exaggerating. Nor had they been wrong about him being a perfect target. How embarrassing.
For the remainder of the split second he simply stood there, staring after the fleeing figure as the thief wove between clusters of tourists who had no idea what had just happened. The whole exchange had been so fast that it left a strange, suspended silence in its wake.
Then he looked up and your eyes found his instantly.
You were staring at him with the same stunned expression he probably wore himself, the two of you locked in a moment of mutual disbelief.
Beside you, your parents were also frozen in place. The man still had his arm half draped around your shoulders as though the picture were still being taken, while the woman blinked rapidly in confusion, jaw slack.
Hyunjin opened his mouth, the apology already forming on his tongue. He didn’t even know what he was going to say yet—I’m sorry felt too small, I’ll fix it felt too vague—but the thought had already taken shape in his mind. Whatever was on that phone—photos, messages, small pieces of your life you probably hadn’t thought twice about until now—he would replace it. He would make it right.
"I—"
You moved before he could finish.
You turned sharply and took off straight into the crowd in the exact direction the thief had disappeared.
The reaction surprised him enough that it delayed his own, and for a moment, Hyunjin just watched you go. Most people, when their phone or wallet was stolen, would shout or freeze or look around helplessly for assistance before going to the authorities to let them handle it. You, apparently, had decided that the correct solution was to chase the guy down.
You were crazy.
And definitely fast, but the thief already had a significant head start and clearly knew how to navigate the crowd. He moved with the kind of confidence that came from doing this before, slipping through gaps between groups of people who barely noticed him passing.
And Hyunjin—
Not only had he ignored every piece of advice about stopping for strangers in this plaza, but he had also somehow managed to become personally responsible for the theft of someone else's phone.
And now that someone else was chasing the thief.
This was somehow worse than if he'd been robbed himself.
He exhaled sharply through his teeth, the frustration coming out in a quick breath.
"Wait—!"
The word barely left his mouth before he was already moving, leaving your parents behind.
Hyunjin pushed forward into a sprint, weaving between startled pedestrians as he followed the path you had carved through the crowd. It only took him a few seconds to close the distance between you, partly because you had been forced to slow down slightly to avoid colliding with a family dragging two enormous suitcases across the walkway.
He reached you just as you recovered your stride, head turning to glance at you.
“Hey,” he said, a little breathless but still clear.
You twisted toward him immediately, your eyes wide with urgency.
"My phone—" you started.
“I know,” he said quickly, already looking ahead.
He could see the thief now.
The man had glanced back over his shoulder, probably expecting no one to bother chasing him through a crowded plaza. The moment he realized that not one but two people were gaining on him, his expression shifted from cocky confidence to visible irritation.
Hyunjin looked at you again.
“You should, uh... probably stay here,” he said, the words coming out a little less authoritative than he intended.
The look you gave him made it very clear that you had absolutely no intention of doing that.
“Okay,” he muttered under his breath, more to himself than to you.
He leaned forward and accelerated, his pace lengthening as he cut through the crowd with far less difficulty than the thief likely expected. Years of dance training had given him an unusual awareness of his body in motion, and right now that sense of balance made it almost effortless to slip through narrow spaces between people.
The distance between them closed quickly.
The thief darted sharply to the right, trying to lose him by weaving through a souvenir stand where a group of tourists had gathered around racks of postcards and keychains. Hyunjin followed without breaking stride, slipping through the same gap with enough momentum that the vendor barely had time to shout in surprise.
The man glanced back again, and this time his eyes widened.
Hyunjin was only a few strides away when the thief abruptly changed tactics. Instead of continuing to run, the man suddenly flung the phone behind him, cutting his apparent losses.
The device hit the stone pavement with a sharp clatter and skidded several feet across the ground. Hyunjin stuttered to a stop as he nearly overshot it, lunging forward to grab it before someone accidentally stepped on it in the confusion.
When he straightened again, the thief had already disappeared down a narrow side street that branched away from the plaza.
He stood there for a moment, catching his breath as he looked down at the phone in his hand. The bottom right corner of the screen had shattered along with the screen protector, but it still turned on to show the lock-screen (a very picturesque photo of a sunset, and thankfully, his brain unhelpfully cheered, not of a boyfriend) when he tapped it.
He turned around just as you came jogging toward him through the thinning crowd, slightly out of breath but still looking ready to continue the pursuit if necessary. You were tenacious, he'd give you that.
Hyunjin lifted the phone slightly.
"I believe this belongs to you," he said, holding it out toward you.
You took it quickly, relief flashing across your face so openly that it almost made the entire chase feel worth it. But then you looked down, and your expression crumpled.
Your thumb brushed carefully along the cracked corner, turning the device slightly so the light caught the fractured glass. The damage was not catastrophic, but the spiderwebbing sure was ugly.
Hyunjin felt himself wince before he could stop it.
You looked up immediately afterward, your gaze flicking past him toward the street beyond, scanning the crowd as though you expected to find the crumpled body of an apprehended villain. Your eyebrows lifted slightly.
“Where—?” you started, gesturing vaguely over his shoulder. “Did you catch him?”
He rubbed the back of his neck, already feeling the faint embarrassment of a disappointing answer coming. He didn't feel all that heroic.
"Not exactly," he admitted.
He jabbed a thumb loosely over his shoulder.
"He saw I was getting close and... threw it," he explained, miming the motion. "I think he decided... not worth the trouble anymore."
Your expression shifted through a brief sequence of emotions as you processed that information. First surprise, then mild disappointment, then a quiet sort of acceptance that suggested you had realized tackling criminals in the middle of a crowded tourist plaza might have been a slightly unrealistic expectation.
Still, you glanced once more toward the street the thief had vanished down, as if half hoping he might reappear so you could get some of your own licks in.
No such luck.
You looked down at the phone again.
"Ah," you murmured.
Hyunjin braced himself for frustration, maybe anger, maybe that awkward moment where you reassured him it was fine while clearly not meaning it.
But instead—
“Well,” you said after a second, turning the phone in your hand, “at least I still have it.”
“You are... not too upset?” he asked, a little unsure.
You gave a small shrug.
“I mean, I’m not thrilled about the screen,” you admitted, tapping the cracked corner with your nail, “but it still works. That’s better than losing everything.”
Your tone carried the kind of pragmatic optimism that surprised him, because he had to reconcile that with the version of you he had just watched sprint after a thief like your life depended on it.
“Plus,” you added, glancing up at him with a small, almost sheepish smile, “that was kind of exciting.”
Hyunjin had to physically stop himself from saying the first thing that came to mind, which was that it had been significantly more dangerous than exciting and you were, in fact, a little insane (yeah, insanely hot! his brain choked out).
Instead, he just let out a quiet breath.
“Right,” he said.
“Anyways,” you continued, slipping the phone carefully back into your bag, “thank you. Really. You didn’t have to do that.”
The sincerity in your voice made the small knot of guilt in his chest tighten rather than disappear. Because the truth was that none of this would have happened if he had simply held the phone tighter, or if he had noticed the thief a second earlier, or if he had not stopped in the first place.
He glanced at your bag where the phone had just disappeared, then back at your face.
He hesitated for a second, running a thought through his head before deciding it was a perfectly reasonable solution.
"Listen," he said.
You looked up again.
"The screen needs to be replaced," he continued, nodding toward your bag. "And that's my fault."
Your eyebrows lifted immediately. "Oh, no, it's not—"
"I was holding it," he pointed out. "If I notice faster—"
"You couldn't have known," you interrupted quickly.
Hyunjin tilted his head slightly, considering that, but not fully accepting it.
“Maybe not,” he said after a moment. “But I still feel... responsible.”
He paused briefly, searching for the right phrasing, something that wouldn’t sound too blunt or too excessive.
“It wouldn’t really be a problem,” he added, “for me to get you new one.”
The suggestion hung between you for a second.
You blinked at him.
“A new phone?” you repeated, clearly caught off guard.
He shrugged lightly, though his attention flicked between you and your bag again because the cracked screen ruining the pretty photo of the sunset was still visible in his mind. He didn't want to think about the two pictures he'd captured of you and your parents shown through a cracked screen.
“Or... at least repair,” he amended quickly. “There’s maybe... a shop nearby.”
You studied him for a moment, as if trying to decide whether he was joking or simply being far more generous than the situation required, or maybe you were just misunderstanding him with the language barrier.
Behind you, the sounds of the plaza continued: tourists chatting, cameras clicking, someone laughing loudly near the monument where your parents were likely still waiting or maybe freaking out that you had just dashed off in a foreign country with the possibility of not being able to contact them.
You shook your head after a second.
"No, really, it's okay," you said, lifting a hand in a gentle dismissal. "You already helped me get it back. That's more than enough."
He frowned slightly.
"It's not really okay," he said. "I mean," he continued, "I was holding it when it got stolen."
"That doesn't make it your fault," you replied.
Hyunjin gave you a small, doubtful look.
"Maybe not for sure," he said. "But I'm still the last person who had it."
You let out a soft, amused breath. "I promise it's fine. The screen's cracked, but it still works. I'll deal with it when I get home. I'm only here for another few days."
That piece of information settled something in his mind rather than discourage him.
"Then that's even more reason to fix now," he said.
You opened your mouth to object again, but he continued before you could.
"You're traveling," he pointed out. "You need your phone."
You hesitated.
"Well, yeah, but—"
"Maps," he added, holding up one finger.
You paused.
"Translation apps," he continued, lifting another.
You pressed your lips together, already seeing where this was going.
"Camera." Another finger.
The smile you shared with your mother started to reappear.
“Contact your parents,” he finished, gesturing lightly over his shoulder toward the monument. “If you run away again.”
Your gaze flicked back, like you had just remembered that you had, in fact, left them behind in a crowded spot after chasing a criminal.
“And if the screen gets worse,” he added, softening slightly, “maybe you can’t use it properly.”
You looked down at your bag again, clearly imagining that possibility.
“It’s not that bad,” you said, though there was less certainty in it now.
Hyunjin watched you for a second, then reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.
“Let’s just check something,” he said.
You watched him with visible curiosity as he unlocked it, though there was still a polite resistance in your expression that suggested you had not fully accepted his offer yet. Hyunjin did not comment on that; instead, he opened the map application and zoomed in on the area around the plaza, his thumb moving across the screen while he searched.
For a few seconds, he didn’t speak. And from the corner of his eye, he could see you shifting your weight, glancing once toward your parents and then back to him, clearly torn between staying and going. He reached out his other hand to stop you should you try and run off again.
The cracked screen of your phone had clearly bothered him more than it seemed to bother you, and now that he had decided he was going to fix the situation, he had no real intention of letting the idea go.
"There," he said quietly after a moment.
He turned the phone so you could see the screen.
Several small location markers appeared along the nearby streets, clustered within a few blocks of the plaza.
“Two repair shops,” he explained, tapping one, then the other. “And... electronics store here.”
You leaned slightly closer, reading the names but he could tell you were mostly doing it to be courteous.
“All walking distance,” he said.
"Phone repairs are expensive," you said, crossing your arms loosely.
Hyunjin blinked once, mildly caught off guard by how quickly you had pivoted to that argument.
"Sometimes," he replied.
You shook your head immediately. "These days? Everything's expensive."
He exhaled quietly through his nose, slipping his phone back into his pocket. He could feel the conversation shifting now, away from logistics and into something else entirely.
"Sometimes they charge so much that you might as well just deal with it until you upgrade," you went on.
He tilted his head slightly, listening more carefully now. The more you spoke, the clearer it became that this wasn’t just you being polite—you genuinely didn’t like the idea of someone spending money on you unnecessarily. But it wasn't unnecessary! he wanted to shout.
When you finally paused, he spoke.
"Money isn't really an issue."
At your sudden eyebrow raise, he realized how that probably sounded. Cocky bastard.
"I mean," he amended, rubbing the back of his neck for a second as he tried to phrase it in a way that sounded less obnoxious, "it's not something I would... struggle to cover."
That didn’t sound much better, idiot.
He resisted the urge to sigh at himself.
You looked at him for a second longer after that. Your gaze dipped, slow and thoughtful, tracing over details he had never really considered noticeable. The line of his jacket, the stitching, the small metal accent near the collar. Then lower, toward the watch on his wrist that had caught the light earlier.
Hyunjin held still without meaning to, suddenly very aware of the way he was being looked at. Your sudden attention was intimidating, and he resisted the urge to fix his hair, even though you weren't even looking at that.
Your eyes came back up to his.
"Money isn't an issue," you repeated lightly, mimicking his earlier tone. "Okay, hotshot."
His head drooped at the tease, the faintest hint of embarrassment warming the back of his neck. It wasn’t that you were wrong—it was just that hearing it out loud made it very obvious that he was trying to impress you.
"I didn't mean it like that," he said, fibbing a little.
"I know," you replied easily.
And, to your credit, you did not sound particularly offended. If anything, you sounded amused.
You glanced back toward the monument again and sighed. “Let’s just... go let my parents know we didn’t die chasing that guy,” you said. “They’ve probably already assumed the worst.”
You started walking before he could respond, and he fell into step beside you without thinking, his pace naturally matching yours.
The plaza felt different on the way back. Maybe it was the adrenaline still lingering, or maybe it was just the awareness of you walking beside him now.
He glanced sideways at you, thoughtful.
You hadn’t actually agreed. To his repair or the replacement.
He tucked his hands into his jacket pockets as you approached the monument again, already considering his next move. Because if convincing you had proven difficult, he wondered if convincing your parents might be easier. Parents tended to care a lot about things like working phones when their child was traveling in a foreign country.
By the time you reached them, your father had already spotted you weaving through the crowd.
“There you are!” he called out immediately, relief cutting through his voice as he stepped forward. “What happened? You took off after that guy—”
Your mother's eyes moved quickly between you and Hyunjin, piecing together a story without words. "You're okay?" she asked, a slight edge of worry in her tone.
“I’m fine,” you said quickly, waving a hand as if to brush the whole thing off. Then you gestured toward Hyunjin. “He got the phone back.”
Both of them turned to him immediately, and he inclined his head politely, straightening slightly without even realizing it.
“He threw it,” he explained. “I just... pick it up.”
Your father exhaled, the tension leaving him visibly as he ran a hand through his hair. “Well, thank you for that,” he said, his tone sincere.
“Yeah, thank you,” your mother echoed.
You reached into your bag and pulled the phone out again, holding it up for them to see.
“The screen cracked a little,” you admitted, tilting it so they can see the damage.
Your mother leaned in, grimacing slightly.
“Oh,” she murmured.
“It still works, though,” you added quickly, tapping it to wake the screen, as if that alone should settle the matter.
Hyunjin watched the exchange quietly, his gaze moving between the three of you. He could see it—the way your parents processed things differently than you had. Less dismissal, more concern.
This was good.
He took a small breath and stepped in.
“There’s repair shop... about four minutes walk,” he said. “We stop there so they can fix the screen before it breaks more. I can cover the costs.”
He watched your mother's lips press together for a moment, a polite little hesitation that spoke volumes. She clearly wanted to decline, to spare him the trouble, the expense, or perhaps simply to uphold the kind of courtesy you seemed to have inherited. He smirked just slightly to himself, thinking that trait clearly ran in the family—it explained a lot about your stubborn refusals.
"Just down the street, you said?" your father asked, though.
"Yes, sir," he said smoothly, inclining his head toward him.
Your father's eyebrows lifted slightly, the corners of his mouth tugging into a small, approving smile. "That's... thoughtful of you, son," he said. "I think we should go ahead. It makes sense."
"Dad," you mumbled, exasperated. But with a single look from the man that Hyunjin did his best to copy when you glanced back at him, you gave in. "Whatever. Fine."
"Perfect," he said simply, already turning to lead the way. "We go now."
He glanced at you occasionally, noting the way your bag bounced lightly against your hip as you walked, the slight tilt of your head when you looked around to still do your tourist-y thing like you'd come here to do.
"So," he said after a moment, falling into step beside you, "where are you from?"
You answered without looking at him at first, your gaze still moving over the street ahead, but your tone came easily, conversational in a way that felt natural despite everything that had just happened and your clear disdain for his offer. You gave him your name, too, and he repeated it once under his breath to make sure he had it right, earning a quick glance from you that looked like amusement.
In return, he offered just enough about himself to keep the exchange balanced: where he was from, how long he would be in this country, though he kept it vague in the way he had learned to do. You clearly didn't know him by name or face, but that didn't mean you couldn't figure out his status through context.
He learned quickly that this was the last stop on your trip, that you had been traveling with your parents for a while now as a way to celebrate graduating university, and that up until today, everything had gone smoothly.
"It was probably overdue,” you said lightly. “Feels like we were getting away with too much.”
Hyunjin huffed out a quiet laugh.
“Then I’m... sorry I was the one to break the streak,” he said.
You glanced at him then, the corner of your mouth lifting just slightly, like you were deciding whether to let him off the hook.
“I don’t know,” you said, tilting your head. “You also chased the guy down and got it back. That feels like it cancels out.”
He considered that for a second, his lips pressing together as if he were genuinely weighing the math of it.
“... Half credit,” he decided.
That earned him a quiet laugh from you, softer than before but just as bright, and he found himself a little entranced before forcing his attention forward again.
The street narrowed as you walked, the crowds thinning just enough that the hustle and bustle of the plaza turned into something more manageable. A few storefronts came into view, their signs layered in languages he still wasn’t fully comfortable reading at a glance, but the familiar glow of screens behind glass made the destination obvious before he even checked his phone again.
“There,” he said, nodding slightly toward a shop just ahead.
It wasn’t the kind of place he was used to.
There was no towering glass façade, no perfectly curated minimalist displays, no staff in coordinated outfits waiting to greet and attend to you the second you stepped inside. The store was smaller, a little cramped, with bright overhead lighting and a window crowded with various devices—phones, tablets, chargers, cases—arranged in a way that was more practical than aesthetic or showy.
But it looked legitimate and the reviews had been good.
He held the door open, letting you and your parents step in first before following behind.
A small bell chimed overhead and a far off voice welcomed them inside in English. A few people stood near the counter already, speaking with an associate, while others browsed quietly along the walls.
You moved toward the counter after a moment, clearly ready to wait your turn, your parents following close behind as you adjusted your bag on your shoulder. He stepped in, finding a spot just behind you, feeling a little awkward, if he was honest. It was more than obvious that he was the outlier in your small group.
Your father, apparently feeling the same awkwardness, turned to him. “Where are you from?” he asked.
Hyunjin straightened just a fraction, instinctively polite.
“Korea,” he said. “Seoul.”
Your mother’s eyebrows lifted slightly, interest sparking immediately.
“Oh, that’s a long way from here,” she said.
He smiled a little, nodding.
“Yes,” he agreed. “Very far.”
“And you’re just traveling?” your father asked.
Hyunjin hesitated for the briefest moment, not long enough to be suspicious, but long enough that he could choose his next words carefully.
“For work,” he said. “But... some free time.”
That seemed to satisfy them, but you tilted your head slightly, looking at him over your shoulder.
“What kind of work?” you asked.
He glanced at you, something almost playful flickering across his expression.
“Performance,” he said, deliberately vague. “Dance. Music.”
Your eyebrows lifted.
“Oh,” you said, a little more impressed than you probably meant to sound. “That’s cool. Makes sense.”
He shrugged lightly, like it wasn’t a big deal, even though a small (big) part of him—somewhere—was quietly pleased by the reaction.
“It’s... busy,” he added.
“I bet,” you said, smiling faintly.
The line shifted forward, and the four of you stepped up together.
Time passed easier after that.
Conversation came in pieces. Your parents asked him more questions, the kind that came from genuine interest rather than obligation. Where he had been so far, what he liked about traveling, when he was set to head back home.
He answered as best as he could, his English occasionally stumbling but never quite failing, and when he couldn’t find the exact word, he substituted something close enough, watching the way you seemed to understand him anyway.
You asked things too, though yours were more specific, which he appreciated, frankly. Favorite food places. How long he'd been learning English (which you complimented him on!). Whether he’d ever gotten lost somewhere completely unfamiliar.
“Yes,” he admitted, smiling slightly. “Many times. My friends, too. We are always lost."
Like stray kids, he internally snickered.
The line moved again.
And finally, you reached the counter.
The associate greeted you, and you stepped forward, pulling your phone out of your bag. The cracked corner caught the overhead light again as you handed it over, explaining what had happened, though you left out the action-packed story of how it got thrown in the first place.
The associate nodded, turning the phone over in his hands, inspecting it. He tapped at the screen, pressed lightly along the edge where it had hit the ground, then glanced up.
“The screen is damaged,” he said, his English accented but clear. “But also... there may be internal issue.”
“Internal?” you repeated.
He nodded, turning the phone so you could see as he tapped again. The display flickered for half a second—hardly noticeable, but definitely there making an unnatural line appear on the sunset.
“Impact like this,” he continued, “sometimes affects... inside components. It still works now, but...” He gave a small, apologetic shrug. “Could stop later.”
“Oh,” you said quietly.
Your parents exchanged a look behind you, the kind that spoke without words.
“And... to fix?” your father asked.
The associate hesitated, then gave a number and a timeframe.
Hyunjin watched your reaction more than he listened to the price. As soon as he saw the corner of your lips even tick downward, he had to step forward.
“How much,” he said, “for new one?”
You turned your head toward him immediately, shaking your head in his peripherals.
The associate blinked a little in confusion, likely confused by him joining the conversation. “New?” he repeated.
Hyunjin nodded once. “Same brand,” he clarified, gesturing toward your phone. “Latest model.”
The associate nodded, pointing to the display across the store.
“We have,” he said. “I can show you.”
“Yes, please.” Hyunjin inclined his head.
The associate stepped out from behind the counter with a small nod for you all to follow him across the store. Hyunjin fell into step easily, his attention flicking once toward you as he moved, just to gauge your reaction.
You were still shaking your head.
He pretended not to see it.
The group drifted toward the display together, but somewhere along the way your parents slowed near a separate section toward the back, drawn in by a row of cameras and lenses.
“Wow, look at these,” your father said, already veering off slightly.
Your mother followed, curiosity catching just as quickly. “Oh, those are nice,” she murmured, leaning in closer.
And just like that, it was only you and Hyunjin continuing forward with the associate.
The associate stopped at the display, unlocking one of the newer models and placing it carefully into Hyunjin’s hand before picking up another to demonstrate. Hyunjin stepped closer to you so that you could both look at and play around with the phone; you kept your hands to yourself, but that was just fine.
“This is latest version,” the man explained, tapping lightly at the screen. “Better processor, better battery, camera improved—especially low light.”
Hyunjin nodded along, his attention split in two.
One part of him listened, genuinely interested despite knowing he did not need a new phone.
The other—
That part was very aware of you standing beside him and the look you were giving him.
He caught it the moment the associate glanced down to adjust something on the display and then every time the man would turn away. Hyunjin just met your gaze every time and smiled. He found this whole back-and-forth—this silent argument, this refusal you were clinging to—a little endearing.
He turned back to the associate.
“Can we... see color options?” he asked.
The associate brightened immediately at the question, turning toward a lower drawer beneath the display and pulling it open with a soft click. Inside, several boxed units were arranged neatly, each labeled with small color indicators. He began setting a few out on the counter, lining them up.
“We have these,” he said, opening one partway to reveal the finish. “Black, silver, blue... and this one is new color this year.”
Hyunjin picked one up, turning it slowly in his hand.
It was a softer color than the others. Not flashy, but not plain either. For a second, he didn’t say anything. You were watching him again, he could tell. Those shining eyes had a weight to them, and he couldn't say he hated all this attention, even if it was mostly out of frustration.
“This one,” he said, holding it up for you to see. “Nice.”
The associate nodded, clearly pleased. “Very popular,” he assured.
“Storage?” Hyunjin asked, tapping lightly on the box.
The associate began explaining again, numbers and options, differences in capacity, while Hyunjin listened just enough to follow along. At some point, the associate had to grab something from behind the counter across the store, leaving the two of you in a brief pocket of quiet.
You didn’t waste it.
“You are unbelievable,” you muttered under your breath, just loud enough for him to hear.
Hyunjin didn’t even pretend to misunderstand.
“You are still saying no,” he presumed.
“Yes,” you said immediately.
"Yes?" he parroted, grin tugging at his cheeks.
"No!" you whispered. "I mean, yes, I am still saying no."
"Why?" he asked softly.
You exhaled, looking away for a second, then back at him. “I can’t let you do this,” you said. “It’s too much.”
Hyunjin studied you for a moment, the humor in his expression easing just slightly into something more thoughtful.
“It’s not too much,” he said.
“It is,” you insisted, firmer. “I don’t even know you.”
Unfortunately. “That’s true,” he said.
For a second, neither of you spoke. Then Hyunjin glanced down at the phone in his hand, turning it once more before setting it gently back on the counter.
“Then we fix that,” he said.
“What?” You blinked.
He shrugged lightly, like it was the simplest solution in the world.
“You don’t know me,” he said. “So... we know each other a little.”
You stared at him for a second, clearly trying to decide if that made any sense at all.
“We talk,” he continued. “Now we are... acquaintances.”
Your lips parted slightly, like you were about to argue the definition of that, but he kept going before you could.
“And if I am acquaintance,” he added, a little more carefully, “then it is less strange.”
Hyunjin’s mouth curved slightly at the edges, but inside, his chest was doing flips and somersaults.
“Also,” he added, like an afterthought even though it was perhaps the biggest forethought he's ever had, “you can repay.”
Your brows pulled together.
“I just said I can’t.”
He shook his head once, slow and certain.
“You can,” he said again.
“How?” You narrowed your eyes slightly.
Hyunjin shrugged, easy and relaxed, though his heartbeat was anything but.
Instead of answering straight, he reached out and picked up the same phone again, turning it over in his hand as if he were just considering it, though his attention had clearly shifted back to you. The screen lit up under his touch, bright and white, reflecting a faint, distorted version of both of you standing there.
Then he glanced sideways at you, needing to see your reaction.
“When you set up new phone,” he said, “I am first contact.”
For a second, you just stared at him, and he felt a little triumphant in the silence, though his chest was still doing that quick, nervous fluttering thing.
Then your eyebrows lifted, and something like disbelief flickered across your face.
“That is not an equal trade," you said.
Hyunjin shrugged, the motion loose, unbothered.
“Seems fair to me,” he said.
He watched the way you pressed your lips together, the faint crease in your brow as if you were concentrating on not laughing or smiling or whatever this was. He studied every line of your face in that moment, the way your jaw flexed slightly as you debated silently with yourself.
“You’re very convincing,” you murmured, finally, and he caught the lift of your shoulders, the tiniest tilt of your head, the way your nose crinkled. A thrill ran through him at that little concession, even if it was only the tiniest acknowledgment of his cleverness.
“I know,” he said, savoring the taste of victory.
In the end, you walked out of there with a pristine new phone, a comically protective phone case that your parents had insisted on, and Hyunjin’s number tucked safely into the contacts. And Hyunjin walked out of there with the promise of a hot date the next night, which was... well, honestly, more thrilling than the high-speed chase earlier.
what to know: seo changbin x gn!reader, kind of suggestive but nothing explicit, est. relationship, fluff, reader is a fitness influencer, changbin loves domesticity and trashy television, making out, just lots of body admiration
going to be honest, this was going to have an actual thought-out small plot, but then it just devolved to reader and changbin being cute
word count: 3.0k
recommended listening: hold me tight by twice (y'all already know i needed a gg song for changbin)
Changbin knows it's cliche. How could he not, with his members in his ears constantly telling him so? Dating a fitness influencer as a certified gym rat himself... yeah, fine, predictable, unoriginal, done before.
He's happy, okay? Sue him.
Happy to fetch you your dumbbells as you wait patiently on the bench and talk to the camera about your next set. Happy to load and unload the barbell as needed, always double-checking the collars. Happy to fill your water and shake up the protein shakes and pre-workout you sip on. Happy to take control of the camera when you need a different angle—all those vlogs and Talkers have trained him well for it.
He takes this "job" serious. Who wouldn't, getting to watch and film your hot partner doing hot stuff? That's a dream job if he's ever heard of one.
And, most of all, he is happiest to spot you.
"Okay, okay—drive through your heels. Yup. That's it. Give me one more." And when you grind out the last rep, barely managing to rack it, he grins.
Sometimes you shoot him a look that says don't you dare, because you know exactly what's coming (you know him too well by now)...
"You wanna drop set?" he asks, not waiting for your answer before saying, "Yeah, you do."
You swat at him for that and he just laughs, taking the bar back off the rack for you to continue till you're jelly.
He's happy to be there when you review and snip the videos, too, even if the majority of your time editing is spent editing him out. Of course, revealing to the world that you're dating a famous idol would likely boost your viewership, but that... wouldn't really be yours anymore, would it?
You've said it before—before you both started dating, actually—you don't want your name forever attached to his as an asterisk. You worked too hard for your platform to let it get swallowed whole by someone else's fame, even if that someone else is your favorite person in the world (your words, not his).
Changbin gets it. He admires it, actually. Your independence and ambition are just a couple of the many, many reasons he loves you.
So he sits beside you while you edit on a laptop with a reality television show on in the background, arm slung over your shoulder, watching as you drag clips into the timeline and surgically remove him from existence.
It's funny, being edited out doesn't sting the way people might assume it would. There's no ego about it. There's actually something intimate about being a mystery, about knowing thousands of people can tell someone is there with the way you glance off-camera and smile, the extra plate appearing on the bar like magic, you speaking to somebody with no response back, and his arms appearing in frame for spots.
But they don't get the full picture. They don't hear the dumb jokes he whispers between sets. They don't see the way he pats your bum for encouragement before stepping away. They don't see you collapsing into his chest afterward, exhausted and ready for him to drive you both home.
That's his.
He shifts slightly, sliding lower into the couch until he's half-reclined, gently tugging you with him without interrupting your workflow. You go easily, back half settling against his chest, laptop still balanced carefully on your legs. His hand moves from your shoulder to your waist, fingers splayed there, thumb absently rubbing slow arcs through the fabric of your shirt.
He presses his lips gently to the curve where your neck meets your shoulder, and you tilt your head slightly to give him better access without looking away from the screen. He smiles against your skin, loving how your autopilot is so pliant to him.
You huff softly. "Binnie."
It's half a warning, half a laugh.
He hums, mouth still warm at the base of your neck, arms tightening just a little, testing his luck.
"Just a few more minutes," you murmur, eyes still locked on the screen as you drag the last clip into place. "I need to make sure your voice isn't in any of the clips."
Changbin hums quietly into your shoulder.
His arms flashing through frame? Fine. His hands sliding plates onto a barbell? Totally deniable. The internet is full of buff dudes with veiny forearms and a suspicious willingness to help with gym equipment. For all your viewers know, he could be some random gym bro who wandered over and decided to be helpful.
But his voice?
Immediate game over.
You lean forward and stretch to the coffee table, grabbing your noise-canceling earbuds before slipping them in and pressing play. Your brows knit in concentration as you listen carefully, scrubbing back a few seconds to replay something.
Changbin watches the little waveforms bounce across the screen and can't help the small smile tugging at his mouth. He remembers when the audio part of editing used to drive you absolutely nuts.
Before you started dating, you were using that free editing program that looked like it had been designed in 2008 and then abandoned by its developers shortly after. The interface was clunky, the tools were limited, and you couldn't isolate specific sounds.
He'd watched that struggle for about two weeks before he finally cracked and told you the neolithic software was holding you back.
"But it's free," you'd pouted.
"Exactly."
Which, look, he respects the hustle, he really does; building a platform from scratch means using what you have. But he also spends a majority of his life in recording studios surrounded by producers who treat audio editing like an Olympic sport. He's seen the good stuff. He'd started you off easy on trial versions of professional software, and you'd liked those enough to go with the full licenses. He still remembers the first time you opened one of the more advanced programs and just stared at the interface.
"There are so many buttons," you'd whispered.
Changbin had grinned, knowing he was about to show off and flex his skills. "I know right? Lemme show you something."
You'd been an exceptional student.
He'd fully expected to play the cool mentor for at least a few weeks. Maybe lean over your shoulder, guide your hand on the trackpad, drop a few studio wisdom nuggets here and there. Really milk the whole experienced producer soon-to-be-boyfriend thing.
Instead you'd picked it up in, like, three sessions.
He'd show you something once—once—and the next time he saw you editing, you'd already mastered it. Part of him had been impressed. The other part had been offended that you were making his "look how cool and knowledgeable I am" demonstrations last about three minutes.
Now, watching you work with your earbuds in, brows pinched slightly as you scrub through the clip, he feels that same mix of pride and disbelief all over again.
It does something weird to him, honestly. Like this low, steady hum in his chest while he watches you do your thing... it's hot.
But you're busy.
And Changbin, despite what his members might say about him, actually has self-control and patience. He gently presses a soft kiss to the top of your head, and you make a quiet sound—something to acknowledge it without breaking your concentration.
He takes that as his cue to move and slips his arm away from around your waist, pushing himself up from the couch, stretching briefly before wandering toward the kitchen. If you’re going to be buried in editing mode for a while longer, he might as well make himself useful instead of hovering over you, though he did like doing that.
He fills the space with small, practical tasks: rinsing out the shaker bottles from earlier, washing a couple dishes that had been left in the sink, stacking them neatly on the drying rack once they’re clean. Every so often he glances back toward the living room. From the kitchen he can just see the back of the couch and the top of your head as you lean over the laptop.
He shakes his head fondly and turns his attention to the fridge.
Inside are the usual suspects—some thawed chicken, a couple containers of vegetables, things that could easily turn into meals for the next few days if someone took the time to actually put them together (you both loved the idea of protein-packed meal prep, but actually doing it?). He deliberates on it for a moment before he pulls them out, grabbing a cutting board and a knife before getting to chopping.
Halfway through prepping the vegetables and sealing them in containers to be cooked up at another time, he wipes his hands on a towel and inevitably wanders back toward the living room. You had such a gravitational pull about you, and who is he to resist?
He leans over the back of the couch just enough to peek at your screen. It looks like you're still mid video, so he reaches down and presses another quick kiss to your hairline before straightening again.
This time you lift one hand to grab his hand and squeeze his wrist for a second before returning to the trackpad.
He heads back to the kitchen after that with a sated smile, cleaning up the mess of scraps he'd made. He takes out the chicken to season and throws into a big container of premade marinade that you both love. After that, he wanders to the opposite side of the apartment to toss a load of laundry into the washer before wandering back to wipe down the counter. Anything to pass the time faster and get his final steps of the day in.
Every once in a while he'll drift back toward the couch, leaning over just long enough to see how much longer you’ve got left before he goes back to whatever chore he’s assigned himself. By the time he’s wiped down all of the kitchen counters, unloaded the dishwasher, and dusted a shelf in the hallway that definitely didn’t need dusting, he’s starting to feel a little lousy and neglected.
And then, finally—
click.
The soft sound of your laptop closing carries down the hall.
Changbin pauses immediately, the cloth in his hand hovering halfway up the bathroom mirror. For a second he just listens, making sure he didn’t imagine it. Then he hears the faint plastic snap of your earbuds going back into their case.
That’s enough confirmation for him.
He throws the cloth in the hamper and hustles back toward the living room. No need to be inconspicuous when he knows that you know that he's been waiting.
When he rounds the corner, you’re sitting where he left you, laptop now resting on the coffee table. You’re leaning back into the couch cushions, stretching your arms up over your head and rolling your shoulders after being hunched for so long.
You spot him standing there and grin a little sheepishly.
“Sorry,” you say, the word coming out half-laughing as you lower your arms. “That took longer than I thought. We were extra chatty today.”
You open your arms toward him in invitation, and a bright little giggle slips out of him—the kind his members always tease him about—and he crosses the room in quick strides. You barely have a second to brace yourself before he drops onto the couch with you and pulls you down into the cushions with him.
It’s not a hard tackle, more like a warm collapse of limbs and weight as his arms wrap around you and squeeze tight. The couch gives under the sudden shift, a quiet oof leaving you before you start laughing.
Changbin just buries his face against your shoulder. “Finally,” he breathes, like he’s been freed from a long and terrible ordeal.
He feels the vibration of your laughter through your shoulder as you brace your hands against his shoulders.
“Do you know how many chores I completed while waiting for you?” he says, voice full of mock offense.
“Oh, please,” you scoff. “You like doing that stuff. Besides, I didn't tell you to do any of that."
“That’s not the point.”
The retort falls apart almost immediately when yet another giggle slips out of him. He leans back down toward you and presses a quick kiss to the apple of your cheek, then the other, then the bridge of your nose, which makes you scrunch up your face. Needing to see it again and again, he drops three more kisses between your eyes. His hands rise to cup your face, thumbs brushing across your cheekbones, and he peppers light, rapid kisses along every possible spot he can reach.
“Bin—” you start, trying to push at him as he lets more and more of his weight go limp, but he ignores the half-protest entirely. Any attempt to move simply gives him a new path to trailblaze with his lips, kissing the corner of your mouth and the bottom of your chin before finally claiming your lips.
He presses against you, a hand sliding down to rest at your waist, firmly gripping the muscle of your abdomen. The first kiss is slightly crooked, laughter still lingering between you, but he adjusts quickly, tilting his head and letting the motion deepen.
His other hand moves to the back of your neck, tangling in your hair. He can feel the tension in your body melting against his, the way you relax into him, arms wrapping around his shoulders as if you’ve been waiting for this as much as he has. The crook of the couch presses into his side, but he doesn’t care. Nothing matters except the heat of your mouth on his, the way your breaths mingle in the small space between you.
Changbin’s lips pull back just slightly, enough to trace teasing nips along your jaw, dragging soft teeth across the sensitive skin there. He hums low in his chest at the small shiver that runs through you, and it only encourages him.
Every little reaction from you is a spark, fueling the fire building inside him, and the couch feels too small for how much he wants you pressed against him.
He lifts his head slightly when he hears your breath hitch, the word slipping out: “Bedroom?”
“Bedroom,” he echoes immediately, because if you hadn't asked, he would have. Not the most romantic of propositions, he admits to himself, but after being with someone long enough, who needs grand speeches or candlelit setups?
He shifts slightly to slide off the couch, one hand still at your waist, the other brushing down your side as he guides you toward the bedroom, leaving the flickering tv behind. The short hallway seems to stretch, and every brush of skin, every press of shoulder to shoulder, sets off pinpricks along his nerves.
Once through the door, he pulls you back against him, craving the closeness. His hands roam over your back and sides, memorizing every curve and ridge, reacquainting himself with familiar terrain before pressing you into the bed smoothly. He pauses for a moment, letting his forehead rest against yours, just admiring you admiring him. This part never gets old.
His fingers flex and curl into the sheets, the texture grounding him while his other hand slides upward, tracing along your arm, the pad of his thumb rubbing lightly over your skin, mapping the subtle movements and shivers. He leans in to press his cheek against yours, brushing his nose along the line of your jaw before letting it drift lower, all the while feeling the press and warmth of your body under his.
He shifts slightly, rocking a little against you, pressing his body closer without committing. His giggle slips out quietly as he notices the little responsive flinch and lean toward him, and he grins, letting himself enjoy the small victories.
His hands linger a moment longer at your sides, memorizing warmth and curves, before slowly drifting to the edges of your clothing. He hesitates just enough to meet your eyes, reading the quiet permission there, then lets his fingers tug at the hem of your shirt, peeling it upward in one smooth motion. The fabric slides over skin and pools around your elbows, and he presses a quick, satisfied kiss to your shoulder as he sets it aside.
Leaning back just slightly, his hands fall to his sides for a moment, and he takes a breath—not that he needs one, but it gives him a second to really look. The soft glow of the room hits your skin, tracing every curve, every line of muscle he knew so well yet never tired of seeing.
He unashamedly lets his eyes roam, memorizing the obvious strength in your arms, the line of your waist, the gentle flex of your abs as you shift slightly against him. He presses a hand lightly to his heaving chest while the other explores slowly over your exposed torso ribs, pausing occasionally to savor the simple perfection of what he’s seeing.
It’s all his to admire.
“I want to see you too,” you murmur, voice low and teasing.
Changbin grins, not a hint of hesitation, and slips his own shirt over his head, tossing it aside with a small, playful flourish.
He lets out a quiet, breathless hum as your hands lift to explore him as if discovering it all for the first time, trailing slowly over the planes of his chest, the curve of his shoulders, the subtle lines of muscle along his arms that he's worked so hard for. Your fingers tease along the edges of his pecs, tracing small circles over the taut skin there. One hand drifts lower, resting briefly at the curve of his oblique before sliding upward again, lingering at the line of his ribs. He shifts slightly, pressing insistently closer into your hands, enjoying the soft squeeze of your fingers.
You tease along his chest with your fingertips again, pausing at the center for just a second longer, pressing with playful insistence before your hands move to his arms, tracing down to his biceps, squeezing gently. He flexes for you, grin tugging to match yours before he swoops and takes one of your hands in his.
He presses a light kiss to your palm, intertwining his fingers with yours at his chest for a brief moment, and he thinks, not for the first time, that he could get used to this—could get lost in this—forever.
As he looks down at you, feeling your hands on him as he traces yours along every curve and line, he doesn’t care in the slightest what his members say. So what if it’s cliche? So what if it’s obvious? Two fitness geeks, getting a little hot and bothered over what they’ve built in themselves and each other—he’s happy. Completely, unabashedly, perfectly happy. Sue him.
what to know: yang jeongin x fem!reader, nsfw, est. relationship, fluff, ragebaiter x ragebaiter, oral (f. rec), slight kink negotiation, mentions of bdsm things, gagging (as in using cloth in someone's mouth), reader is a yapper, princess used as a nickname
first smut, kind of nervy :) I couldn't write a serious sex scene to save my life, so there's lots of joking around and funny business
word count: 4.5k
recommended listening: sweat by haiden henderson
"You're so foxy."
"First of all, are you fifty?" Jeongin asked, turning away from the mirror where he'd been messing with his hair. "Second of all, is that supposed to be a play on my skzoo?"
"First of all," you mimicked in a nasally voice, raising a finger, "you wish I was fifty, you freak. Second of all, can't a girl just compliment her boyfriend without getting attacked?"
"First of all," he mimicked in a higher pitched voice (what is this, mimick-ception?), "I told you I don't have a milf kink—please, can we let that rest? Second of all, isn't 'foxy' used for women? Third of all—"
"No no, you can't have a third! You have to wait your turn!"
"Third of all," he repeated, smothering your face with a hand to shush you, "attack you? I did no such thing."
You licked his palm right before he released you, making him gasp in disgust. You watched on with a smug smile as he wiped it off on your shirt, wrinkling it.
"Foxy can be used for anyone," you defended. "Reject gender normative verbiage, embrace foxiness—I mean, honestly, why are you even arguing right now? It means sexy, for crying out loud!"
"Then just say that! Just call me sexy!" he cried.
You blinked at him.
"...So you're saying you want me to call you sexy."
"I didn't say that, don't put words in my mouth," he scolded immediately, standing up straighter. "I'm just saying if that's what you mean, use accurate terminology."
"Accurate terminology?" you muttered. "Are we in a board meeting? Talk about ruining the mood, geez."
"What mood?!" he laughed. "The one you set by being a weirdo?"
"I was flirting," you huffed.
"We both know you can do better than that." And he had the gall to say that with a smirk.
"That was actually some of my best work. You were just the wrong recipient, clearly."
"Wrong recip—" he sputtered. "No one else better be a recipient. You can't go around calling anyone else foxy."
You gaped at him. "What, so I can't call you foxy, and I can't call anyone else foxy, either? You're just taking the word away from me?"
He thought about it for a moment, before he nodded with a smile. "Yeah."
"Who are you, the Word Police? I'll say whatever I want to," you said, turning your chin up. "Foxy, foxy, foxy, you're so foxy, foxy, foxy, foxy Innie, foxy hot babe, foxy hot babes in your area—sorry, is this triggering you?—foxy, foxy, foxy I.N, foxy, foxy people with foxy faces, fine foxy felines flipping flapjacks, foxy women, foxy men, foxy, foxy—"
He lunged forward, clapping a hand over your mouth again.
"Stop," he hissed, eyes wide. "Stop saying it!"
You muffled against his palm, still trying to chant, "Fff—ffxy—"
"I swear—" he started, half laughing, half horrified. "Why are you like this?"
You stopped, catching your breath through your nose, and shrugged innocently while fluttering your eyelashes up at him. He scoffed and rolled his eyes, all while he loosened his hand and used his fingers to squeeze your cheeks till they puckered your lips.
"You're—" he started.
And then he leaned down and pressed a quick kiss to your squished mouth.
You blinked.
He pulled back just enough to speak. "—so—"
Another quick kiss.
"—annoying—"
Kiss.
"—when you—"
Kiss.
"—do that."
You made an indignant noise against his fingers, which only made your lips pucker more.
"You look ridiculous," he informed you blankly... and proceeded to kiss you, again. Ridiculous enough to still find kissable, apparently.
"I pay you a premium compliment and you call me ridiculous," you said, words slightly slurred.
"Oh please."
He narrowed his eyes slightly, squeezing your cheeks again just to hear the offended little sound you made.
"Say it again," he dared.
You tried. It came out as a warped, "Foh—"
He kissed you mid-syllable.
You froze for half a second before melting into it, hands coming up to grab at his wrist.
He pulled back, looking triumphant.
"You can't just interrupt me like that," you protested weakly. "That's censorship."
"Consequences."
You tried again, determined. "Fo—"
He kissed you again, longer this time. And when he pulled away, you were frowning (which was very forced, considering how happy you were).
He smirked, clearly pleased with himself. "You were saying?"
You opened your mouth—
"Fo—"
He kissed you again, but this time his hand slid from your cheeks to cup your jaw properly, thumb resting just under your chin. Your attempt to finish the word dissolved entirely on your tongue as his touched yours, as if he stole the word from your brain entirely.
When he finally let you breathe, he stayed close, forehead almost brushing yours.
You stared at him for a second, staring lovingly up into his eyes, then—because you were his bane before his lover—deliberately inhaled like you were about to start the chant all over again.
You barely had time to yelp before he'd hooked an arm around your waist and hoisted you clean off the ground.
"Hey—!" you shrieked, laughing despite yourself as you were unceremoniously flipped over his shoulder. "Put me down!"
"No," he said calmly, already walking.
You smacked lightly at his back, but it was useless—he had you secured easily, one hand firm at the back of your thighs to keep you from sliding.
He reached the couch after spinning you around twice to hear some giggles forced out of you, and dropped you onto it with a soft bounce. Before you could scramble upright, he was there with one knee braced against the cushion beside your hip and one hand catching your wrist before you could escape.
"You're soooo triggered," you taunted him breathlessly.
"You're about to lose your ability to speak," he replied.
"Oh? Is that a threa—"
He cut you off with a searing kiss.
You tried to recover enough to mumble something sarcastic against his mouth, but he shifted closer, caging you in fully, and the words dissolved into a soft sound instead.
"Still wanna chant?" he murmured against your lips.
You attempted to speak, because yes, in fact.
He kissed you again before you could, likely knowing what your answer was going to be. Your hands came up automatically, gripping at his shirt, tugging him closer instead of pushing him away.
He made a low, satisfied sound at that.
"Thought so," he muttered.
You gathered what little composure you had left. "You're—mm—cheating."
"How so?" he asked, trailing a kiss along the corner of your mouth, then back again.
"You're distracting me."
"That's kind of the whole point?"
His hand slid from your waist to your side, fingers curling into the small of your back, tugging you impossibly close. You let out a breathy laugh, trying to wriggle, but his grip was firm and unyielding.
"You're not going anywhere," he murmured against your ear, his lips brushing it softly, sending shivers down your spine.
"Jeongin—mm," you tried to protest, but the sound devolved into a straight moan as his mouth trailed from your ear to your jaw, nipping and sucking gently.
You tried to form words, you'd take any at this point, to tease him back, to even start a sentence, but his lips and hands were relentless and he always made good on his promises. One hand moved from your waist to cup your thigh, fingers clenching just enough to drag it up and around his hips, and you pressed against his back in response.
He pulled back just enough to catch his breath, forehead resting against yours for a second, eyes dark and intense as he stared into yours.
"Can't believe I'm dating the biggest rage-baiter on this planet," he muttered, voice low.
You bit your lip, a teasing gleam in your eyes despite the heat of everything before, and whispered, "I guess you could call me... a master-baiter."
The words barely left your mouth before Jeongin's eyes went wide, and he pulled back so swiftly that your leg flung down off of him and the side of the couch, making your foot hit the ground with a loud thud.
"Ouch," you muttered.
"Now, why would you say that?" he asked, arms crossing as he looked down at you.
"Oh, come on," you drawled, grinning. "It was funny."
"Your face is funny," he said in response. One of his hands, seemingly with a mind of its own, reached out and brushed a few strands of hair off your forehead gently, even as he glared at you. "That was truly god-awful."
"But not god-awful enough to stop kissing me, right?" you asked, narrowing your eyes when there wasn't an immediate answer. "Right?"
He gave you a look, lips pursed tight, and you gaped.
"You're pulling the emergency brake on the kissing because of an—admittedly hilarious—pun?!" you asked, propping yourself up on your elbows.
"Well, I'm not going to give you positive reinforcement for it," he said. "Your actions have consequences, and sometimes punishment is necessary to stop bad behaviors. This hurts me as much as it hurts you, Princess."
"Why couldn't you be into the kinky kind of punishment?" you grumbled. "Like spankings or tying me up or something?"
It was a throwaway comment, another joke. Honestly, you partially expected Jeongin to retreat even further for it, like he often did when it came to things like that. For all his teasing and big-talk, he got a bit shy over actual sex and sex-talk in practice. It was a non-issue to you, because you found it endearing (and because the sex was still bomb, vanilla as it was). You truly meant nothing by what you just said, about the punishments and such. Jeongin's kinks, or lack thereof, did not bother you.
So you felt awful as you took in his expression and realized he actually internalized it rather than laughed it off.
"Do you... want me to do those things to you?" he asked slowly.
"I'm pretty sure a big part of that kink is that you don't admit openly that you want to be punished..." you answered slowly in a rather roundabout way. "Do you want to do those things to me?"
You fully expected a vehement 'no' here, by the way.
But he must have been feeling particularly bold, or horny, or just so fed up with you, because he thought about it for a moment before nodding and shrugging. His eyes didn't meet yours as he did it, choosing a far more enticing target in your lips.
"I don't know about the... spanking," you smiled as he whispered out the word, "I don't think I could ever hit you. But I don't hate the idea of tying you up in some way."
The hand he'd used to delicately brush your hair aside migrated slowly down to your mouth, fingertips trailing burning lines along your cheek. Instead of doing the stereotypical hot thing of pressing a thumb or two fingers into your mouth, he pinched your lips together with his pointer finger and thumb.
"Or preventing you from running your mouth."
Your cheek muscles fought against his fingers as you smiled. Maybe this was setting the women's rights movement back a couple decades, but you were all in favor of him forcing you into silence—despite what your constantly-running mouth might say.
"Would you like that?" he asked, fingers still clamped.
You dropped your smile, deadpan eyes conveying what you hoped he read as Like I said, I can't openly admit that, but duh.
And like always, he understood you perfectly.
His fingers loosened, but only so he could trace the shape of your mouth with his thumb instead. It dragged slowly along the seam of your lips, thoughtful, almost absentminded—but the look in his eyes was anything but. And because you knew him just as well, you knew he was thinking rather deeply.
His hand slid from your mouth down to your jaw, then to your throat—not squeezing, not even close. You were sure that was another line, like the spanking, that he refused to cross.
You could feel your pulse flutter beneath his touch, and by the slight twitch of his lips, you could tell he felt it, too.
“You’re awfully quiet now,” he observed.
“Trying something new,” you said.
"Hm," he hummed thoughtfully. "Suits you."
"Excuse you," you gasped. "Hey—!"
Likely to avoid your scolding—because that was clearly an insult—he bent and slipped an arm beneath your knees and yanked you up. A small, involuntary sound left you as you became airborne again, your hands coming up to brace against his shoulders. He gathered you securely against his chest, adjusting his hold as though you weighed nothing at all.
"I suggest you let it all out now and say your final words," he said, walking down the hall.
"You're making it sound like I'm about to get murdered," you said. "So unsexy."
He did not break stride. “Oh, so now you want to use proper terminology.”
"Foxy is proper terminology," you scoffed.
He pushed open his bedroom door with a foot and stepped inside, apologizing quietly with a chuckle as he nearly bonked your head on the doorframe. He then lowered you onto the mattress with care, but you barely settled before propping yourself up on your elbows, still talking.
“And another thing—”
"No," he shook his head, tapping your chin, "no other things."
"Just one more?" You pouted.
The pout, which normally worked wonders, failed you as he shook his head solemnly. But you didn't have much time to feel upset over this as his hand snuck slowly under the hem of your shirt, pressing flat against your lower ribs and using that leverage to push you down fully onto your back. Could you have resisted? Absolutely. Did you? Of course not.
His forearm nudged the hem upward, dragging his hand along the soft fabric, bunching it into a neat roll. He worked slowly, revealing your bra and your heaving chest as he lifted the shirt further, over your stomach, over your ribs, and finally past your chin. The fabric pulled slightly under your arms, but the shirt was baggy enough to not cause any painful chafing.
All the while, his eyes never left yours, checking, just once, to make sure this was truly something you wanted. You let your mouth fall open pointedly, a silent signal that you were entirely in his hands.
He smirked at the gesture, fully aware that you could simply spit the shirt back out of your mouth if you wanted. There would have to be a measure of trust and want here. You trusted him not to push things further than you’d allow, and he trusted you to respect the game he was playing.
Finally, he tucked the end of your shirt gently between your teeth. You clenched around it instinctively, a soft sound of amusement escaping you as his eyes danced with satisfaction.
“I could get used to this,” he murmured, shifting up on his knees between your legs.
You only rolled your eyes, and muffled a laugh into the fabric.
If there was one thing Jeongin was not shy about when it came to your bedroom activities, it was touching you. You still remembered that first time with him, where he was confident in absolutely nothing except for the way his hands roamed your body. Today was no different.
His fingertips skimmed your collarbone, exposed from your lifted shirt and you stuttered a breath through your nose as your body jolted. He liked the way your body would cave and twitch with shivers as he used featherlight pressure.
His pointer finger traced the edge of one of your bra straps, hooking beneath it to pull it slightly against where your shirt held it down before letting it gently snap back in place. Instead of reaching under you to undo the clasp at the back, he merely pulled on the band to pull it down to rest over your lower ribs.
Both of his hands came up now to cup both of your breasts, kneading them for a moment before using the splay of his fingers to clamp around your nipples. Your back arched off the mattress as he tugged and twisted, and a soft moan dissolved into your shirt.
"Huh? What was that?" he asked, tugging again as he grinned.
Your own hands, which were free to do as they pleased, lightly smacked his biceps for teasing you.
"You'll have to speak up, Princess," he taunted as he moved one of his hands down to below where your bra now sat. Using a single finger, he traced lines just above the waistband of your sweatpants, dipping below the hem teasingly before returning to the surface.
The familiar swoop of your stomach made you keen.
"You're normally so talkative," he muttered in confusion, finally dipping down to lavish your chest in open-mouthed kisses.
He always started with three just above your heart, because, according to him, he needed to 'honor the god of this temple, first and foremost'. It made your heart soar every time, dorky as it was. His devoted worship only continued as he made a bee-line path to your nipples, using his warm tongue to flick at their peaks.
Your hands traded out clenching the bedspread to twist into his shirt, likely stretching the material in a permanent way, not that either of you could be bothered to care at this point. You could practically feel the heat of his tongue and hands enter your bloodstream and travel all the way down to your core.
Pulling back with a slight squelch from saliva, he blew a stream of air onto your nipple.
He was so cruel, and you would have told him so, if you had that ability. Instead, you bucked your hips up and knocked his thighs with your own.
"I feel like you wanna tell me something," he said, brows furrowing even as he let his fingers curl under your waistband again. He pulled on it before letting it lightly snap back in place like he had with your bra. "But you just can't for some reason."
You seriously considered yanking your shirt out of your mouth for just a second to tell him off, but that was what he wanted. You were sure he was just testing your own resolve, and you would not give in.
He smirked, clearly sensing your stubbornness return.
He shifted down the bed, pushing your legs further apart to accommodate his torso. Gosh, he was getting so big, you marveled distantly. No wonder it was so easy for him to haul you around earlier. You'd have to remember to tease him about steroids being bad for his liver and sex drive.
His lips pressed patterns into the soft skin of your stomach, moving down close to where you'd kill to have him before coming back up to hover around your diaphragm.
"What does this spell?" he asked, softly tracing his lips around the expanse of your abdomen.
You honestly tried to focus, because this was a game you guys often played by tracing on each other's backs with your fingers after trading massages. You truly did try to focus, but your stomach kept bursting with tingles and his hot breath ghosting over the sensitive skin was throwing you off.
He pulled back after the final dash, giving you an expectant look.
Even if you could have answered him, you had no clue.
"One more time, then," he chuckled and brought his mouth back down.
This time, you forced yourself to pay attention. You had to think about the hangul mirrored, which was an added challenge, but after the first few strokes, you realized he was just writing his name... followed with a possessive particle.
'Jeongin's'
You huffed as he backed up again to look you in the eye, and you nodded enthusiastically.
Yes, you were his. Whatever he wanted of yours, was his.
Now, if only he'd just take it already.
You were halfway to just yanking your own pants off, and that was no fun.
He had mercy on you, thankfully. Sitting back on his heels, he pulled your sweatpants down, lifting your legs to slip them off your ankles, leaving you only in your panties (and your off-kilter bra and shirt, you supposed). His hands ran over your knees and your inner thighs in soothing strokes as he simply took you in.
"You're so pretty," he muttered reverently. "So sexy."
He looked you straight in the eyes, then.
"So foxy," he whispered.
You shouted into the gag, unsure if you were happy or not about him using the crux of this whole situation to tease you.
You had to remember, then, that you may be an expert rage-baiter, but so was he.
He chuckled to himself as he let a hand follow the contours of your thigh and waist down to your underwear. His masterful fingertips played with the edges of the fabric here, too. Inch by inch, he worked your panties off, slinging them off the side of the bed.
"Can I touch you?" he asked, almost breathless.
Typically, this would be the moment you told him that he had already touched you hundreds of times to get to this point, so why bother. Instead, all you could do now was nod.
His thumb was the mastermind here. He dragged it through your folds, slipping easily through the slick that's been building. You watched as he was wracked by his own set of shivers, and out of all things, that was what made you moan and roll your eyes back into your head.
You watched his free hand palm the bulge in his pants, and you lamented that we was so far from the reach of your hands.
Your teeth ground into your shirt as his thumb circled your clit, pressure so light that it made your legs twitch at each pass he made. His other four fingers and palm splayed over your pubic bone, digging into the flesh and holding you down as your hips threatened to push up for more friction.
You tried to say something to the effect of "Innie-ah, please" or "You jerk, stop playing with me".
Those would have likely given you two very different results depending on his mood.
As it was, you sounded garbled and unintelligible, and his hand pulled away entirely... which was perhaps the worst possible outcome.
"You say something?" he asked, eyes glinting.
You propped yourself up on your elbows for a third time that day, giving him your best unimpressed face. You simply grunted, chin nudging in his direction.
"I didn't get that, sorry." He blinked. "Use your words."
"You suck," you said around the shirt, knowing full well the tone would have to do the explaining for you, "and not the good kind, unfortunately."
And, as if he read your mind, he promised, "I'm getting there. Be patient."
His fingers returned to you, this time with a lot more vigor. Jeongin was a little shit, everyone who knew him could admit it, but he wasn't so evil that he would leave you wanting for too long, even if this was technically supposed to be a punishment.
You squirmed as he pressed two fingers slowly into your heat, thumb still working its magic at your bundle of nerves. His shoulders were slightly hunched as he craned his neck to fixate on where his pointer and middle fingers disappeared and reappeared at your entrance. In his focus, his tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth, bitten between his teeth, and you let yourself flop back down onto your back.
You loved when he did that; you just loved his tongue, in general.
And you always told him so.
Now you had to suffer with those thoughts kept to yourself.
You could feel him curl his fingers suddenly, hitting the spot that always made you see stars. Your moans were muffled, but clearly loud enough for him to hear and smile at.
Just as you were about to start rolling your hips in time with his rhythm, he pulled them out.
Sadist, you thought silently, knowing his brain waves would somehow pick up on it. You were just synced up like that.
You didn't curse him for too long, though, because he shuffled down until he was eye level with your heat, and using the hand that wasn't completely covered in your juices, he pulled one of your knees up and over his shoulder. And, again, he made good on his promise.
Now, anyone who has shared a meal with Jeongin knew that he practically inhaled his food. He must have been a snake in a past life, the way his jaw basically unhinges to fit three bites of food into his mouth at once. He eats as if he's never had food before and never will again.
He was no different here.
Your hands found his hair as he lapped at your folds with enthusiasm. The hair he'd been messing with when you'd said his favorite word and set off this whole chain reaction. The hair that was tickling your lower stomach. Your fingers tangled into the slight curls, pulling as he gave a particularly harsh lick.
You heard him shamelessly moan in response, pace picking up.
He brought his hand back up to your entrance under his chin, long fingers curling inside you once more. And as he sucked on your clit and pressed into that soft spot that he's come to know so intimately, you practically lifted off the bed, back bowing. He licked you all the way through it, speeding up as you reached your peak and only slowing when your body finally went slack, collapsing back into his sheets.
You hardly felt the three kisses he left on each of your inner thighs, they were buzzing so much.
He crawled up and hovered over you, clean hand coming up to pull your shirt back down.
Your jaw ached, but it was a pleasant kind of pain, and your tongue felt dry, all your spit having soaked up in the bundle of your shirt that now felt cold against your chest.
"Talk to me?" he asked quietly, wiping a thumb across your lower lip and chin where drool had dried.
"You called me foxy," you rasped. "You hypocrite."
He rolled his eyes fondly, smile growing as he smothered you in kisses.
Later, long after you two had showered and you stole one of his shirts to replace the one that was covered in your own slobber, you both sat at the kitchen table eating takeout when Chan walked in the front door.
"Ah, hey guys!" he greeted with a grin, toeing off his shoes and coming to inspect the haul. "Smells good."
"We've got plenty to share if you want some?" you offered.
"Thanks," he said brightly. "Maybe just a bite or two, I had a late lunch. Let me go clean up real quick."
You both nodded, moving things around to make space for him for when he came back. But before he could leave the kitchen to head to his bedroom, you called out to him.
"Hey, Channie!"
He turned to look at you, eyebrows raised.
Now, Chan had clearly just come from the gym after a long day at the studio, wearing a black tank top and sweatpants. You'd be blind to say it wasn't attractive. All of the guys were flawless, and you'd be a liar to say different. However, even if Chan had been wearing rags and looked a mess, you would have still said what you did next:
"You look foxy today."
Chan's jaw dropped visibly, and he ducked his head. A deep pink blossomed across his cheeks, and he let out a quiet, almost shy giggle. "Ahah, thanks!"
He straightened just enough to give a small shrug, still avoiding eye contact, before heading down the hall toward his bedroom. His steps were quick, almost like he wanted to escape the attention he had just received, but there was an unmistakable spring to them, a subtle joy that came from being flattered.
Once he disappeared, you turned to Jeongin, raising a single brow and giving him a pointed look. “See? That’s how you react when someone tells you you’re fo—"
Before you could finish, his chopsticks darted forward, snatching a bite of food and pressing it into your open mouth.
“Mmph!” you muffled, blinking at him in surprise.
With a quiet huff of amusement, he leaned closer, tilting your head back just enough to make sure you swallowed, then jabbed another bite in.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he murmured, a smirk tugging at his lips. "That's enough out of you."
what to know: lee minho x reader, sfw, angst, hurt/no comfort (sort of), breakup, avoidant attachment vs anxious attachment themes, mentions of past abusive relationships, misunderstandings, minho and reader still love each other very much and that's the only comfort
i didn't intend to post an angst fic so soon, especially as we come up on valentine's day, but the heart wants what it wants. i am navigating a similar dynamic irl, so i'm projecting a bit in this one oops
if people like this one enough, i may consider a happy-ending pt 2., but for now, it is just a cathartic piece
word count: 3.8k
recommended listening: hate you by jung kook
You don’t hate Lee Minho.
You just hate that he didn’t try harder.
That’s what you tell your friend, anyway.
The café is far too warm for your liking. Or maybe you’re just flushed from talking too much about yourself despite trying to change the subject for the past ten minutes. Your hands are wrapped around a cup you haven’t actually sipped from yet, fingers tight enough that your knuckles pale.
“He didn’t fight for me,” you say, shrugging. "Simple as that."
How could you do that? Shrug it away as if it was just a mildly disappointing fact? Claim it was simple when it was still too messy and convoluted for you to understand?
“You said the breakup was mutual.” Your friend tilts her head, seeming confused, and for good reason.
“It was," you defend.
That part is... technically true and truthfully not.
“So why does it sound like you wanted him to argue?”
You let out a soft, incredulous laugh that borders on a scoff. “I didn’t want him to argue.”
You wanted him to stop you. You wanted him to say, Don’t do this. You wanted his voice to crack. You wanted proof that leaving would ruin him, that it would hurt him a little, at the very least.
Instead, he had just looked at you and given you a very complacent and dull, 'Okay.'
It was the same voice he used when you needed to cancel dinner plans or needed to take a rain check on certain things, which you both did plenty of, mind you. Despite the imbalance in every other facet of your relationship, that, at least, was balanced.
You stare down at your untouched coffee.
“He was just...” You search for the word (detached, indifferent, cold, unloving). “Different toward the end.”
“In what way?”
You hate that you don’t have a clear answer even as your brain supplies the worst of them. All of them sounding like lies.
“He stopped texting first.”
Your friend raises an eyebrow.
“And he didn’t get jealous anymore.”
“Jealous?”
“When I talked about work. Or other guys.”
"Uh," she blinks, “isn’t that... healthy?”
You look away.
It had felt healthy... at first. You'd felt very mature, dating Minho. That wasn't to say you were immature before him, but something about the way he treated you felt grown. He trusted you, and you trusted him.
But then one day you mentioned a male coworker who’d walked you to your car, and Minho had just nodded.
Good, he’d said. I’m glad you weren’t alone.
That was it.
Where most of your ex boyfriends would have gotten up in arms about such a small thing, he'd merely expressed uncomplicated relief that you'd been safe. Where most of your ex boyfriends would have demanded you never interact with that coworker again, he'd actually suggested you thank him on his behalf for it.
At the time, you’d smiled. You’d even leaned over to kiss his cheek, teasing him for being so mature about it, unlike your previous partners.
Later, lying awake in your own bed, you’d stared at your ceiling and thought:
Why doesn’t he care enough to be upset?
You’d told yourself it was stupid and immature. You’d dated jealous men before, men who checked your phone “as a joke,” who bristled at male names in your notifications, who called possessiveness protection.
You’d hated that. You’d sworn you’d never tolerate it again.
So why did Minho’s calm feel so... hollow?
You'd turned onto your side, phone lighting up the dark with old messages.
Did you eat?
Text me when you get home.
A picture of Soonie because he misses you.
With your exes, jealousy had been proof. It had been loud and ugly and exhausting, but it had been visible and almost tangible. Something you could point to and say, See? He cares.
Minho's love didn't burn hot like that. In fact, it often felt quite chilly. And you often couldn't see it, not in the way you'd learned to spot it through your many relationships, both romantic and familial.
You'd pressed your phone to your chest and tried to name the feeling twisting under your ribs.
You didn’t know what to do with a love that didn’t try to cage you. You didn’t know how to measure affection without friction.
If he wasn’t territorial, was he invested?
If he wasn’t afraid to lose you, did he believe you were worth losing?
The logic was flawed — you knew that even then — but you thought it all the same. You thought about how your exes would’ve reacted. There likely would have been an interrogation, proceeded by sulking on both ends. A fight was sure to have followed, with a chance of becoming physical.
That had felt suffocating, but it had also felt intense.
And somewhere in the quiet of your bedroom, you mistook peace for indifference. You mistook safety for lack of passion. You mistook maturity for distance.
“He used to stay up with me,” you say, foregoing any response to her 'healthy' comment, because you couldn't twist that in your favor. “Even if he had early practice the next day.”
“And then?” she asks, kindly letting you sidestep.
“And then he started falling asleep on FaceTime.”
She gives you an odd face at this, unsure how this meant anything significant, but she didn't get it.
She had never seen his face on your screen, angled slightly wrong, lashes casting faint shadows against his cheeks. She'd never heard his voice slowing mid-sentence. She'd never witnessed the quiet, steady sound of him breathing after he drifted off.
You used to think it was sweet.
Toward the end, it felt like abandonment.
You’d stare at the screen and think, If he really wanted to, he’d stay awake.
You never said that out loud. Even you knew how unreasonable it sounded.
Your friend leans back in her chair. “Did you tell him you felt that way?”
You hesitate.
You could lie and say yes. You could say you’d communicated clearly and maturely and given him every opportunity to fix it. In retrospect, you wish you had done that, and sometimes you dream up scenarios where you did and you write yourself the happy ending because it truly was within reach.
Instead, you trace the rim of your cup with your thumb and admit, “Not like that.”
Her expression softens, but she doesn’t let you off the hook. “So what did you say?”
You exhale through your nose.
“I told him he wasn’t trying anymore.”
The words sound far less harsher now than they had then.
You can still see it — the way his brows pulled together slightly, not in anger, just confusion. You’d been standing by the window in your apartment, arms crossed like you were bracing against cold. He’d been near the kitchen, hands tucked into his pockets.
'I’m here every day when I can be,' he’d said.
And he was.
He showed up and called when he couldn't. He texted and sent single emojis when words were too tiring. He asked about your day and remembered the names of people you complained about. He sent you pictures of the cats and dumb memes at three in the morning when he couldn’t sleep.
But he didn’t perform love the way you’d grown used to recognizing it.
'That’s not what I mean,' you’d snapped.
Even now, sitting in this café, you struggle to articulate what you had meant.
Your friend waits.
“I just... wanted to feel chosen,” you say finally.
“By him?”
“Yes.”
“Or in a way that looked dramatic enough to convince you?”
You look at her, startled. “What does that mean?”
“You keep describing all the things he didn’t do." She shrugs and starts holding up her fingers. “He didn’t get jealous. He didn’t argue. He didn’t beg. But you’re not telling me what he stopped doing that actually mattered.”
You open your mouth and promptly close it. Because the truth is, he didn’t stop doing much of anything.
He just grew quieter. Or maybe he’d always been that quiet, and you’d only just noticed.
“When I said maybe we were growing apart,” you continue, pressing forward before you can admit yet another major flaw to your side of the story, “he just... accepted it.”
“How?”
“He said, ‘If that’s how you feel.’”
Your friend blinks. “That’s it?”
“He didn’t fight,” you repeat, stubbornly clinging to the one solid complaint you have. “He didn’t even try to change my mind.”
You don’t say how you’d waited after you said it. How there had been this long pause, and you’d almost taken it back. You'd almost laughed and said you were being dramatic again. You'd almost crossed the room and buried your face in his chest.
But you’d needed him to move first. You needed him to close the distance.
But he hadn’t.
He’d just studied you, gaze unreadable, like he was trying to wrestle with something internally.
Then he’d nodded once.
'Okay.'
You stir your drink now, though there’s nothing left to mix.
“I thought if he loved me enough, he wouldn’t let me walk away.”
“And what if loving you meant respecting your choice?” Your friend’s voice is careful.
You look up sharply.
“That’s not—”
But you stop.
Because that is exactly the kind of thing Minho would believe. You know him just enough to know that.
Early on in your relationship, you'd talked about the reasons none of your past relationships had worked out. And he'd been patient and kind and a steady shoulder to cry on as you talked about those cages called love. He'd promised to be different, swore it to you.
Love isn’t possession.
Love isn’t pressure.
Love isn’t trapping someone in a room until they promise to stay.
He would rather swallow his pride than make you feel cornered.
And you—
You had wanted to be cornered. For some reason.
You sink back in your chair.
“I just wanted him to prove it,” you say quietly, and your throat feels sore from holding back the emotions.
“To prove what?”
“That I mattered enough to fight for.”
Your friend’s gaze doesn’t waver. “Maybe he thought you mattered enough not to.”
Silence stretches between you.
The café hums around you — espresso machines hissing, chairs scraping, someone laughing too loudly near the door. It all feels so far away.
You think about that night again.
The way his voice hadn’t cracked the way you'd wanted. The way his hands had stayed in his pockets. Now that the thought had planted seeds, all you could see in him was indifference.
Your throat tightens.
“I don’t hate him,” you murmur.
“I know,” your friend says softly.
You stare down at the full cup.
Hating him would’ve been easier.
If he’d yelled, you could’ve pointed to that. If he’d accused you of things you didn’t do, you could’ve built a case. If he’d slammed the door on his way out, you could’ve told yourself you escaped something volatile.
But he hadn’t done any of that.
He’d just let you go.
And you'd let him.
Aren't you the little hypocrite?
____
Lee Minho does not beg.
He has never been the type to raise his voice just to feel heard, never been the type to grip something tighter simply because it feels like it’s slipping. He learned early that the harder you close your fist, the faster sand slips through your fingers. So he doesn’t beg. He doesn’t plead. He doesn’t trap.
But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel.
It’s late when he finally gets home from practice. The kind of late where the city outside his apartment has dulled into a distant hum instead of a roar. He toes off his shoes by the door, sets his keys down in the shallow dish on the foyer table, and stands there for a moment longer than necessary.
There is a silence now that wasn’t there before.
It isn’t uncomfortable, just... unshared.
The cats weave around his legs, impatient and unaware of the shift in atmosphere that comes with his moods. He bends automatically, scooping Soonie up with one arm while reaching for the food container with the other.
“You’re a brat,” he mutters to the cat when Soonie bats at the scoop like he hasn’t been fed in weeks.
He fills the bowls and refreshes the water. He wipes the counter where a few stray pieces scatter. He moves through his kitchen in the regimented way he always does, but his thoughts don’t stay contained to the room.
They wander back to you.
They always do.
You said he didn’t try anymore.
The sentence replays in his head not as an accusation, but as a puzzle. He turns it over the way he might analyze choreography: where did the step go wrong? When did the timing fall out of sync?
And though this conversation happened a couple weeks before, he thinks about the coworker.
You’d mentioned him so casually that night. He remembers the way you’d glanced at him afterward, like you were waiting for something specific.
He had noticed that glance.
He notices everything when it comes to you.
But instead of asking who the guy was or why he’d walked you to your car, his first instinct had been relief. Relief that you hadn’t been alone in a dark parking lot. Relief that someone had been decent enough to make sure you were safe.
'Good,' he’d said. 'I’m glad you weren’t alone.'
He’d meant it.
Later, when he was lying in bed, staring at the faint glow of streetlights filtering through the curtains, the moment replayed with a different undertone. He’d wondered if he should have asked more questions. Not because he didn’t trust you — he did, completely — but because maybe asking would have made you feel... more wanted, in some twisted way.
He rolls his shoulders now, tension creeping in where he usually keeps it contained.
With you, he had tried to be careful and intentional. He knew what jealousy looked like when it went sour. He’d seen it in friends, in stories, in the way some men confused control with devotion. He never wanted you to feel monitored or doubted, not like he knew you had been in the past.
He thought trust was the highest form of love he could offer.
Maybe he was wrong.
He walks to the living room and sinks onto the couch, elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped loosely together. The apartment feels larger than usual, though nothing has changed.
You said he didn’t try.
He thinks about the FaceTime calls.
The nights he forced himself to stay awake because you were mid-story, because you were laughing about something that had happened at work, because hearing your voice unwind at the end of the day felt like something steady in his otherwise chaotic schedule.
Toward the end, he had started falling asleep.
Not because he didn’t want to stay, but because he was tired.
Because rehearsals ran longer.
Because his body had limits.
Because your voice was a smooth balm that he'd conditioned his brain to feel most at peace with.
He remembers waking up once to the faint sound of you still breathing on the other end, the screen dimmed but not disconnected. He’d smiled, whispered your name softly just to see if you’d stir.
You hadn’t.
And he had felt content, knowing you'd both fallen asleep together.
When you said, 'You don’t even try anymore,' he hadn’t felt defensive. He’d felt confused.
'I’m here every day,' he’d said.
And he had meant that literally.
He was there. He answered your calls. He adjusted his schedule when he could, sometimes even when he couldn't. He showed up when he said he would, because he kept promises.
But maybe you hadn’t meant presence.
Maybe you’d meant performance.
The night you told him you thought you were growing apart is etched into him in a permanent way. An itch he can't scratch, a scar he can't cover, a hurt he can't soothe.
You stood by the window, arms folded tight like you were bracing yourself against something invisible. You seemed close to shivering, and he only just held himself back from offering his hoodie. Because he’d known, before you spoke, that something was very, very wrong.
'I think we’re growing apart,' you'd said.
He remembers the way his chest tightened so sharply it almost made him wince. He'd kept his hands in his pockets not because he didn’t want to reach for you, but because he was afraid that if he did, he wouldn’t let go. And you'd said once that you never wanted to feel smothered in that way again. That you never wanted to feel tied down.
He could have argued.
He could have listed every small thing he’d done, every quiet way he’d tried to love you. He could have told you that love didn’t have to be loud to be real.
Instead, he'd said, 'If that's how you feel...'
And he wishes he'd made it clearer that he'd been giving you space to change your mind, that he'd wanted you to change your mind.
You didn’t.
There was a pause — long enough that he thought you might step toward him. Long enough that he almost broke his own rule about begging.
But you didn’t move.
So he'd nodded.
'Okay.'
He told himself that loving you meant respecting your decision, even if it gutted him.
Now, sitting alone with the soft weight of a cat settling against his thigh, he wonders if you heard that “okay” in the way he'd meant it.
He hadn’t meant fine.
He hadn’t meant I don’t care.
He had meant, If you are unhappy with me, I will not trap you here.
But words, he’s realizing too late, are fragile things. They fracture differently depending on who holds them.
The apartment is dim except for the lamp near the bookshelf, casting a warm, uneven glow that leaves the corners in shadow. Soonie shifts, kneading absently at his sweatpants before curling tighter against him. Minho rests a hand over the cat’s back without really thinking about it, fingers moving in slow, repetitive strokes.
He leans back against the couch and tips his head toward the ceiling, eyes tracing the faint cracks in the paint he’s memorized over the years. He tries to pinpoint the exact moment things started slipping. Not the obvious fights — there weren’t many. Not the night by the window, but earlier than that.
Maybe it was the first time you went quiet after he encouraged you to go out with friends.
He’d noticed it — the slight tightening around your mouth when he’d said, 'You should go. You’ve been working hard.'
He thought he was being supportive. Thought he was proving that he trusted you, that he didn’t need to monitor where you were or who you were with.
You’d stared at him for half a second too long before saying, 'You don’t mind?'
And he’d laughed softly, confused. 'Of course I don’t mind.'
He wonders now if that laugh had sounded dismissive instead of reassuring.
He never learned how to perform jealousy. It felt dishonest to pretend he was threatened when he wasn’t. You’d never given him a reason to doubt you. You were affectionate, communicative, open about your day. You mentioned male coworkers the same way you mentioned female ones — as people who existed in your orbit, nothing more.
He trusted you.
He thought that was the point.
But he remembers a night — late, after rehearsal — when he’d been scrolling mindlessly through social media and stumbled across a clip from an interview. A host had asked him about relationships, about whether he was the jealous type.
He’d answered honestly. 'If I can’t trust someone, I shouldn’t be with them.'
At the time, he’d felt proud of that answer. Now he wonders if you’d watched that clip and felt something else.
Maybe you heard: I would walk away easily.
He sits forward again, elbows on his knees, and exhales slowly through his nose.
You said he didn’t fight.
He replays that night with excruciating clarity.
The way your voice had trembled; the way it only ever trembled when you talked about your terrible exes. The way your arms were folded like armor. He’d wanted to step into your space, unfold you gently, press his forehead to yours and say, Tell me what you need. Tell me how to fix this.
But he was afraid of asking that question.
Afraid the answer would be something he couldn’t give.
He's not sure how he forgot in that moment how he would get you the moon, the sun, and all the stars if you asked.
You’d said he felt distant.
He’d asked, 'What changed?'
You’d hesitated. Then: 'I don’t know. It just feels like you’re... not as in it anymore.'
Not as in it anymore.
He had been exhausted, yes. He had been quieter. There were weeks where his schedule swallowed him whole, where rehearsal and travel blurred together until he wasn’t sure what day it was. But through all of that, you had been the constant, the only constant. The person he called when he finally crawled into bed. The voice he fell asleep to because it was the only thing that slowed his mind down.
How had that translated into absence?
Maybe because he never said it out loud.
He rarely told you how much he needed those calls. How sometimes, when you rambled about something mundane — a rude customer, a funny comment from your friend, a new café you wanted to try — he would close his eyes and let the sound of your life anchor him to something normal.
He thought showing up was enough.
He thought consistency was romantic in its own quiet way.
Soonie shifts again, climbing higher onto his lap, pressing small, warm paws against his chest. Minho lets out a quiet huff of air that almost becomes a laugh.
“I did fight,” he murmurs to the cat.
He fought the instinct to grab your wrist when you turned toward the door that night, because you mentioned once how you bruise easily and your previous boyfriend had left plenty.
He fought the urge to say, Don’t do this. Please don’t do this. Because words have the power to trap and manipulate just as much as muscle.
He fought himself — the part that wanted to make you feel guilty for leaving, the part that wanted to remind you of every memory you were about to abandon.
Because love, to him, had never been about winning.
It had been about choosing.
And you had chosen.
He presses his thumb against the heel of his palm, grounding himself in the small ache there.
Maybe he should have told you outright: I am tired, but I am not tired of you. Never of you.
Maybe he should have admitted that sometimes he assumed you knew how deeply he felt because it seemed so obvious to him.
He’d never been good at dramatics. Never felt comfortable raising his voice just to prove intensity. Passion, to him, was steady. A low flame that didn’t flicker wildly with every gust of wind.
But maybe you’d grown used to bonfires.
Maybe steady warmth felt cold by comparison.
He doesn’t resent you for it. Everyone learns love differently. Everyone measures it by the tools they were handed. He just wishes he’d realized sooner that you were still using a different ruler.
The clock on the wall ticks steadily. Each second feels louder in the quiet.
He wonders if you’re thinking about him too.
Wonders if you’re telling someone he didn’t fight hard enough.
Wonders if you’re lying awake questioning yourself the way he is now.
He reaches for his phone on the coffee table, hesitates, then picks it up. Your chat is still pinned at the top; he hasn’t moved it, hasn’t archived it, hasn’t deleted anything.
His thumb hovers over your name.
He could type something.
But explanations after endings often sound like excuses.
And he promised himself, even now, that he wouldn’t beg.
So he locks the screen instead and sets the phone back down.
what to know: kim seungmin x dentalhygienist!reader, fluff, sfw (teeny tiny hints of dirty thoughts), getting together, seungmin pov and he is the king of self-deprecating humor, i promise i don't see him in the way he portrays himself here, i hope some of you find him relatable, probably inaccuracies about dentistry
this idea came to me when i discovered seungmin has a song in the k-drama 'hometown cha-cha-cha', and i was fueled by the sheer love i have for his smile
word count: 3.0k
recommended listening: here always by seungmin
The dentist's chair was a deeply unkind invention.
There were few situations in life as humbling as lying flat on your back under fluorescent lights with your mouth forced open, sharp metal tools poking and prodding at your gums to the point of making them bleed, and absolutely zero control over where your tongue went.
And, horrifically, it offered an unfiltered view straight up the patient's nostrils.
Objectively speaking, it was the ugliest and most compromising position a person could be in. All this while fully conscious, too, mind you.
And as fate would have it, Seungmin was currently living in it.
This, unfortunately, was not a new experience.
He'd been coming to this same dental office for years now—every six months on the dot, as was recommended. Sometimes more often, if we were being honest (being a celebrity meant people cared a lot about how straight his teeth were and how white his enamel was, apparently). Which meant that, statistically speaking, he had spent an unreasonable amount of his adult life in this chair.
You hadn't always been the one hovering over him in this god-forsaken dignity-stealer. At first, you'd been stationed safely behind the front desk: answering phones, checking him in, handing him a clipboard with a happy and rather pretty smile (honestly, Seungmin wouldn't be surprised if they put you at the front desk as a sort of self-advertising tactic, what with your magnetic grin). You'd mentioned, offhandedly, that you were still in undergrad for microbiology then. He'd nodded, made some appropriately supportive comment, and then gone home and looked up what the requirements were for that just to see how much smarter you were than him (the answer was 'immeasurably'), and to maybe have something more to talk about at his next appointment.
Somewhere along the way, you'd graduated and gotten into dental school. You swapped the desk for gloves and a mask and a role that put you directly in his personal space.
He was really hot and cold on how he felt about this.
Because now, more often than not, when his name was called from the waiting room, it was you he followed down the hall. You who prepped the chair and tools and x-rays. You who asked him how he'd been since his last visit. You who got to see him so, so utterly ugly and vulnerable.
But then, there was the one silver lining to this bleak, undignified existence:
For the next forty-five minutes, he got to look at you.
Granted, you were wearing a mask that hid half your face, along with clear protective glasses that caught the glare of the overhead light. The lamp positioned directly behind your head made you more silhouette than person, a blinding halo that ensured he couldn't see you properly. You really could have been anyone for all he was able to tell.
Still.
He could see the way the corner of your eyes crinkled slightly when you smiled down at him. He could see the intense focus in the way you worked, could feel the gentleness of your hands, the way you murmured reassurances he couldn't respond to even if he wanted to because your literal fingers were in his literal mouth.
In any other context, that would have been... well.
Hot, probably.
Instead, he was forcibly reminded that this was a dentist's office.
Nothing about this place was sexy (bar you in your purple scrubs, his brain unhelpfully chimed). Not the squeaky chair, not the smell or the sounds, and certainly not him.
Whatever appeal he might have had had been left in the waiting room, or more likely, back in the car.
"Suck," you said.
And his brain went places it absolutely shouldn't, even in this unsexy hellscape.
Still he closed his lips around the suction hose and felt his mouth dry up instantly with an obnoxious sluuuurp.
God fucking dammit, why couldn't you have been a bartender, or a florist, or literally anything other than his fucking dental hygienist. At least then, he could feel like he had a fucking chance.
He stared at the ceiling, cheeks warming, as you continued scraping plaque off this teeth and hosing it down.
After you finished that, you picked up the small box that held the floss twine. Seungmin watched as you cut off a long strand and started winding it around your fingers.
"Still flossing everyday?" you asked.
Seungmin didn't have to lie when he nodded. Not to brag, but he took great care of his teeth—for the obvious benefits of personal hygiene, but also because he didn't need the added humiliation of you judging him for not being able to keep one simple routine.
"Great!" you beamed. "You know, I think you're one of my most diligent patients when it comes to flossing and using mouthwash, and it definitely shows. You have amazing teeth."
Seungmin swore he levitated off the chair for just a moment there, he was so easy when it came to you.
The floaty feeling dissolved, though, as you told him to open up again. Next thing he knew, your hands were back in his mouth, and he felt his tongue brush the latex of your gloves every other second as you worked.
Eventually, mercifully, finally, you pulled back.
"Alright," you said, voice bright. "You can rinse."
Seungmin practically leapt at the opportunity. He closed his mouth and accepted the little paper cup you handed him. He swashed the water around, spit into the basin, wiped at his mouth, and exhaled slowly through his nose, regaining something resembling composure, if such a thing even existed here.
The chair whirred softly as you raised it upright and helped take the bib off of him. You peeled off your gloves and tossed them neatly into the bin with the bib, already moving away to scribble something onto his chart.
"Honestly, this was one of the easiest cleanings I've had all week," you said offhandedly. "You make my job very pleasant, Seungmin-ssi."
He blinked.
"Oh," he replied, aiming for nonchalant so he could maybe salvage some of his stolen dignity. "Yeah. I mean. I try."
"That's all we can ask for." You laughed softly at that, glancing up at him. Suddenly, you paused, eyes caught on something as you stepped back over. "Oh, you've got a..."
With your gloves removed and the bib gone, there was nothing immediately at your disposal to use as a wipe. This didn't deter you at all, however (thank god), and you swiped a thumb across his lower lip to brush away what felt like dried fluoride.
"Sorry about that," you sheepishly said.
Sorry?
Seungmin could list over a hundred things that he wanted from you right then, but an apology was not one of them.
He shook his head, willing himself to get a grip while he still could.
You stepped aside to tidy the station a bit more, and Seungmin swung his legs off the chair, stretching his jaw. He stood, smoothed a hand down his shirt, and resisted the urge to check his reflection in literally anything reflective to make sure there were no other lingering fluoride stains or that his hair wasn't sticking up all weird.
"So," you said, turning with his chart in hand, "same time in six months?"
In another world, where Seungmin was a more suave individual, he would take this opportunity to ask to see you sooner.
In this one, he let the opportunity pass him by wistfully.
"Yeah," he said as he slipped his hands into his pockets to clench them in jealousy over the alternate dimension version of himself. "Six months sounds good."
"Perfect." You smiled. "Let's get you back on the schedule before it fills up."
He nodded and followed you out into the hallway, wondering how weird it would be to walk beside you rather than behind you in this narrow hall. Of course, he didn't test this, because that was something only Suave Seungmin would do.
As you approached the front desk—conveniently vacant for the time being—and rounded behind it, you glanced back at him. "Same day as usual?"
"Uh, yeah," he replied. "Or whatever you've got open."
You nodded, taking a seat to access the online calendar. Seungmin spun around in a circle slowly, glancing around the waiting room to make sure nobody was waiting for their turn with you. It was empty, thank god. That meant no audience just in case this next bit went south.
"You're here most mornings, right?" he asked. "I feel like I always end up on your schedule before noon."
"Yeah." You glanced back at him, smiling. "I prefer mornings. Frees up my evenings."
"Thought so," he said lightly. "You seem like a morning person."
"Do I?" you laughed. "I promise I'm not."
Fuck. How stupid could he be, making a wrong assumption about you?
"Could've fooled me." He smiled nervously, scrambling to think of anything else to say that might make you laugh again to distract from his mishap. But he knew he wasn't bizarre in a funny way like Han, and he wasn't chronically online enough to know all the funny pop-culture references like Felix, and he wasn't a comedic story-teller like Bangchan. Really, all he had were his sarcastic one-liners and those were sporadic at best, and very environment-driven. Hyunjin might have thought he was the funniest person on earth, but that guy was messed up in the head, so it was not really a confidence-booster.
You turned back to the monitor, finishing up the booking, and Seungmin watched you for a moment. When you paused again, he took the opportunity.
"Are you still taking classes on the side?" he asked.
You glanced up from the computer, a little surprised, then nodded. "Yeah. I'm in my final year now."
"Almost done," he said, genuine awe slipping into his voice before he could stop it. "Wow."
"Yeah." You smiled, and he genuinely thought you were born for this career with a smile like that. "I sometimes forget that you've been coming here for so long and have basically witnessed my whole university career."
He wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, so he conveniently skipped passed it.
"Are you excited to be done?" He tilted his head, already knowing the answer, because duh.
"Definitely excited," you said, predictably. "I've been in school for so long that the idea of not having assignments or deadlines feels weird, but I'm excited to see what full-time work actually looks like. Less excited for board exams," you added, grimacing slightly. "Which I'm trying not to think about too much."
He winced in sympathy, gathering from context that these must be important exams. He would have to look it up later just to remind himself how crazy genius you were again.
"So," he said, careful to keep his tone light, "I'm guessing that means you're pretty busy these days. Studying a lot?"
"Pretty much nonstop, honestly." You nodded.
"Sounds exhausting," he said.
"It is," you admitted. "But I think it'll all be worth it in the end."
He hesitated for half a second, then added, casually enough, "Do you at least get time off? Or does school kind of... own you right now?"
You laughed. "A little of both."
That was too open-ended. Not a no, but not very telling. Very lukewarm. Seungmin wasn't great with lukewarm.
He nodded, hands still relaxed at his sides, pretending his next question was purely conversational and not a quiet assessment of his odds, chances, and literal future.
"Anyone keeping you sane through all of that?" he asked.
When you looked up at him, there was a brief, unmistakable moment of recognition in your expression.
"You mean," you said slowly, "like a boyfriend?"
Seungmin held your gaze, resisting the instinct to laugh it off or retreat.
Oh, what the hell. Couldn't get any lower than rock bottom, right?
"Yeah," he said, biting a figurative bullet and hoping it didn't somehow explode in his freshly cleaned mouth.
You watched him for another second, lips pressed together in thought, before shaking your head.
"No," you said. "No boyfriend."
The relief hit him immediately in an overwhelming wave, and he was grateful for the years of media training that allowed him to keep it from showing. Outwardly, he simply nodded, expression neutral, as though he hadn't just been handed the best possible answer.
"Good," he took a chance.
You studied him for a moment, clearly deciding whether to accept that as a slip of the tongue or read into it further (please, please, read into it further—he did not want to spell it out more than he already had). Whatever conclusion you came to, it seemed to amuse you.
"Good?" you echoed, and he took it as a positive sign that your lips threatened to inch into a smile.
He nodded once, buying himself half a second to think, which his brain immediately used to zero in on your slight smirk and fawn over it.
"So, I don't know," he floundered, "when school stops terrorizing you and you're done with boards—congrats in advance, you totally got that—I was wondering if you'd want to get out of here."
All in one breath, by the way.
"Out of here?" You raised an eyebrow.
Idiot, what kind of phrasing was that?
"Far away," he said, then amended, "Okay, not far far. Just... somewhere that isn't... here. Somewhere I'm upright and marginally more attractive."
That finally did it. You laughed, shaking your head.
"I don't know," you said. "You're pretty attractive already."
"Aw man," he said, letting his mouth run faster than his brain (what did he say about it being sporadic?), "does the whole supine-and-mouth-wide-open thing get you going? Cause maybe I'll have to reevaluate."
Just as he contemplated straight-up walking out of there to go find a hole to die in, another series of laughs burst from your mouth. And Seungmin honestly thanked every god he could think of that you seemed to be as messed up in the head as Hyunjin.
"No. No, absolutely not," you said after a breath.
"Okay, good," he said immediately, relieved. "Because that would've been a dealbreaker for me. Personally."
"Fair enough," you conceded. "If it helps, when someone gets in the chair, they kind of turn into just a mouth? Like, back there, I didn't see Seungmin with his mouth open, it was more like, Seungmin's mouth."
He could appreciate an attempt at alleviating his anxieties, even if it failed.
"That sounds just as bad," you admitted. "At least it's a nice mouth?"
"I'll take it," he said, feeling that floaty sensation take over again. "And, I think we can end on that high note."
Lest I go and ruin it all with my big (nice) mouth.
"I didn't even give you an answer about taking me far away from this place yet?" you asked before he could remove himself from the conversation and the office and maybe even the world. "Or is that off the table now?"
"It is definitely still on the table," he rushed out.
"Oh good." You smiled. "Because I think I'd like to take you up on that."
How one person could go from absolute rock bottom loser to ascending to godhood in the span of an hour was beyond Seungmin, but he just lived it. He was definitely going to go buy a lotto ticket on his way home—luck was on his side.
"After boards, though," you added, practical to the end. "I don't think I'd be much fun before that."
"And when are those?" he asked, failing to cover up his eagerness.
"I should be done with them right around the time of your next appointment actually," you answered. "So about six months. Think you can wait till then to see me?"
"I've been doing it over and over again for the past five years." And there went his big (nice) mouth, just like he feared.
"Five years, huh?" you asked. "And only just now saying something?"
"It just always felt like there was this power imbalance? What with me just laying there and you staring down at me," he said, mostly as a joke (because he actually quite enjoyed that part). "And the dentist is probably the worst place to shoot your shot, so..."
“That didn’t stop you today.”
“Yeah, well,” he said, “I finally reached the point where the fear of another six months of regret outweighed the fear of being rejected.”
“That’s very brave of you,” you teased.
“Desperation and bravery look very similar in practice,” he replied easily.
You laughed, shaking your head, and Seungmin decided that if this all fell apart later, at least he’d gone down being funny.
“Well,” you said, clicking a pen for something to do, “I guess I’ll see you then.”
“Yeah,” he replied, taking the clear hint. This was your place of work, after all. “Looking forward to it.”
He turned toward the door before he could say anything else that might undo this miraculous turn of events. He absolutely bought a lotto ticket on the way home. It didn’t win, but honestly, he felt like he’d already used up his luck for the decade and that was just fine with him.
Six weeks later, he was back.
At the front desk, he claimed tooth pain. It was complete bullshit; his teeth were fine. But desperation and bravery, as previously established, looked very similar in practice.
You raised an eyebrow when you saw his name on the clipboard and looked up to see him in the waiting room.
“Everything okay?” you asked.
“No, everything's awful,” he lied. “I thought it was best to consult a professional.”
You laughed, and somehow, between “checking on the tooth” and “just to be safe,” the two of you ended up sharing digits. Which turned into getting coffee. Then dinner. Then another coffee squeezed in between study sessions and rehearsals and life.
He learned to work around your schedule, and you with his.
By the time your board exams rolled around, he was sitting across from you at a small table, quizzing you with flashcards and handing you snacks when you got something right (and just as often when you got something wrong, because your pout was as magnetic as your smile).
When you passed, he was the first person you called.
When you graduated, he was sitting in the crowd.
And, years later, when you finally opened your own practice, Seungmin was your first patient. And though he figured he still looked horrifying grotesque on that chair (despite your many attempts to tell him all you saw was a mouth—whatever that meant), he could be comforted by the sight of a wedding ring dangling from a necklace around your neck.
what to know: han jisung x reader, est. relationship, fluff, suggestive but sfw, ‘girlfriend’ is used once for reader, inspired by "bro you've got to stop stretching your arms over your head and exposing your midriff i'm going to lose it", reader is a simp but so is jisung
word count: 1.7k
recommended listening: love talk by wayv
Lord, he was just unloading dishes (which was a sexy sight in itself), and, yet, all you wanted to do was gnaw at the bars of your enclosure or—better yet—gnaw at the strip of flesh above the waistband of his sweats that kept peeking out to say hello whenever he reached up to the top shelf of the glassware cabinet. You dearly hoped there was an infinite supply of drinking glasses in the dishwasher so that he was forced to stretch up and expose his midriff forever.
Eventually, though, the glassware supply did run dry, and he moved onto the pots and pans. These were in a lower cabinet, which was disappointing... for all of three seconds before you realized that when he bent over to slide a pan into place, his shirt rode up his back just enough to flash that soft strip of skin at his lower spine.
You wondered, idly, if he'd let you give him a tramp stamp made entirely of hickeys.
"—so I told him to do a flip!"
Jisung turned toward you with bright eyes and a grin so wide it looked like it physically hurt to hold it in, clearly waiting for your laugh.
And you realized you missed the entire lead up to what was probably a great punchline.
His smile slowly wilted when you didn't immediately burst into laughter.
"Tough crowd," he muttered, turning back to the dishwasher.
And that just made you feel awful, like you just kicked a puppy or something.
"Jisung—wait, sorry," you said quickly.
He paused with a bowl in his hands, glancing back over his shoulder. "What?"
"I wasn't ignoring you," you said. "I just zoned out for a sec."
He hummed, not offended exactly, but clearly a little deflated.
"It's okay," he said lightly, though it was far duller than the last few things he'd said.
"I'm really sorry," you sighed.
"No, no." He turned more fully toward you now. "It's fine, really."
"It's not," you said. "I missed the whole story."
"Yeah, but it wasn't that good, anyway."
"It probably was," you disagreed; then, before you could stop yourself, added, "I was just distracted."
"By what?"
Your eyes flicked to the 'object' of your attention unconsciously before glancing back up to his face.
Now, your boyfriend wasn't the most observant of fellows. This was the same man who once walked around for half a day with his shirt inside out and did not notice until Chan pointed it out. The same man who routinely lost his phone while actively holding it. The same man who, after weeks of you dropping hint after hint after hint, was surprised you returned his feelings.
Which was exactly why you assumed your half-second glance would go entirely unnoticed.
Except, unfortunately, it didn't.
Because even if Jisung missed obvious things on a daily basis, he was painfully good at catching changes in you.
He had learned, over time, the difference between the way you looked at your phone when you were distracted and the way you looked at the wall when you were thinking too hard. He could tell when you were about to laugh before you made a sound, and he always noticed when you were about to say something and decided not to.
He followed the line of your gaze almost absentmindedly, and his eyes landed on his hem.
"Aw man, is there another stain on my shit?" he asked. He tugged on it to see what was so captivating.
You were tempted to say yes, just to watch him adorably struggle to find one for the next few minutes.
"No," you answered, mercifully. "Just... have you worn that before? Not sure I've ever seen it."
Which is criminal, you thought absently.
"Hand-me-down from Felix," he explained.
You'd have to have a nice chat with the guy about giving all his old cropped tees to your boyfriend. Anything revealing, really, you wanted Jisung to have it.
"I see, I see," you said, nodding. "Well... it looks good."
Everything underneath it looked good, too.
"You think?" He grinned and held his arms out proudly, and like the sun peeking through the clouds, that delicious sliver of skin reappeared for just a moment.
You couldn't even say what sort of face you must have made at the sight, but it was clearly noticeable as Jisung dropped his arms and frowned. You quickly did your best to school your expression into something he'd consider normal.
"What was that?" he asked.
"What was what?" you returned, feigning innocence, even as your brain licked its metaphorical lips.
"You're not slick," he said. "I know you. I know your faces."
"Is that right?" you asked, intrigue overriding the possibility of embarrassment. "What was that face then?"
If he managed to get this...
You waited, watching the gears visibly begin to turn behind his eyes.
He opened his mouth, and then closed it again. Brows knitting together, he rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly very invested in the mixing bowl he still held in his hand.
“Well,” he started, then stopped. Cleared his throat. “It was, uh...”
You raised an eyebrow, silently urging him on.
“It was... kind of like...” He gestured vaguely in the air, as if the right word might float down to save him.
“Like?” you prompted sweetly.
He glanced at you again, then very pointedly away, ears already starting to pink before he’d even said anything.
“It kind of looked like...” he began carefully, “…the face you make when you’re... um...”
His jaw worked, clearly fighting with his own vocabulary. Imagine that, a supposed lyricist struggling to find words.
“When you’re,” he tried again, lowering his voice for no reason at all, “thinking about something that you... like.”
You bit your lip to keep from laughing.
“And,” he continued, getting visibly flustered now, “specifically when that something is... me.”
He was so cute.
He rushed on, words tripping over themselves. “Not like— I don’t mean— I just mean sometimes you look at me like you’re—” He made a helpless little noise, then waved his hands again, bowl nearly knocking something off the counter. “Like you’re considering... activities.”
You burst out laughing.
He groaned and covered his face with one hand. “I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“No, no,” you said, still laughing. “Please. Keep going.”
He exhaled, defeated, and finally dropped his hands. The bowl smacked against his thigh. “It looked like the face you make when you want to kiss me.”
That was... far more PG than where his brain had clearly been headed and where your brain was already situated.
“That your final answer?” Your smile softened despite yourself.
"I'm locking it in." He nodded, hopeful and terrified at the same time.
You considered him for a moment, then shrugged. “Close.”
"Close..." he echoed, and sputtered out, "Close—close—clo—how? How close? Close in what direction? Relative to what?"
You laughed softly, because watching his brain buffer was one of your favorite things to do.
You stepped away from the stool and rounded the kitchen island slowly until you were standing just in front of him. Close enough that he went quiet, eyes tracking you with something like disbelief.
"Put the bowl away," you said quietly.
He blinked, nodded, and turned toward the cabinet with haste to obey. He bent at the waist to slide it into the lower shelf, and the damn shirt rode up again just like you knew it would. That familiar, infuriating strip of skin flashed you.
Your hand shot out to brush your fingers along his exposed midriff, and you wanted to melt at the smooth texture.
In response, he jumped so hard he smacked the back of his head against the counter with a sharp thunk.
“Ow—what—” He staggered, clutching his head. “Cold hands!”
You burst out laughing, your hand coming up to cradle his head instead. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“You attacked me,” he whimpered faintly, but he stared at you for a second longer, then very slowly seemed to process what had actually happened. "What were you doing?"
"Showing you the right direction," you answered simply.
You were still holding the back of his head, fingers tangled gently in his hair, thumb brushing along his temple in an absent, soothing motion. He leaned into it without thinking, eyes half-lidded now, gaze flicking down to your mouth.
“...I might still be a little lost,” he said quietly, lying plainly. "Like I know the direction. But I feel like I need... visual aids. Or a map. Maybe GPS.”
“Jisung.”
“Turn left at ‘kiss your girlfriend,’” he continued, playing to the bit because of nerves, “continue straight for approximately... thirty seconds, and then—”
You cut him off by leaning in and kissing him.
He made a small, startled sound into your mouth before melting into it, hands coming up automatically to your waist, pulling you closer. The kiss started soft and sweet until you tilted your head and kissed him again, slower this time.
His breath stuttered and you pulled back just enough to smile at him.
“Found the route?” you asked.
He merely nodded, without words to spare.
You laughed quietly and kissed him again, once, twice, letting your lips wander to the corner of his mouth and then along his jaw. He tilted his head for you easily, giving you easy access, and when you pressed a slow kiss to the side of his neck, he inhaled sharply.
Your hand slipped back down.
Right where this all started.
Your fingertips traced the warm skin just above his waistband and he went very still before a sudden shiver shook him, a soft noise slipping out of him before he could stop it. You loved how reactive he was to every stimulus.
“Still lost?” you asked innocently, brushing your thumb along that spot again.
“No,” he said immediately. “No, I know exactly where we’re going.”
“Good.”
You nipped lightly at the skin below his ear, not enough to hurt, just enough to make him shiver, and he laughed breathlessly, forehead dropping to rest against yours.
You tugged gently at the front of Felix's old shirt, guiding him backward toward the hallway. He followed without protest, hands never leaving your waist, letting you kiss him between soft laughs, your fingers tracing lines of bare skin whenever fabric shifted.
After that night, Jisung wouldn’t wear anything that showed even an inch of skin around his waist for a solid two weeks—and if anyone ever asked why, he would very carefully not explain the constellation of faint bruises hidden right where your hands and mouth had refused to behave.
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