Hey yall. I’m backkk I haven’t posted in a long time so I feel like this is poop…
Summary: After Hyunjin cancels their plans for the second time, an argument spirals into hurtful words, leaving you wondering if you’re relationship is worth fighting for.
It was one of those days, where everything was just too much. It was so hot that you felt like some bread in a toaster. People at the restaurant were anoying, because according to them they were super thirsty because of the heatwave, but somehow you should be imune and run to fetch them their drinks. And if all of that wasn't already enough, you started your period and cramps had been torturing you all afternoon.
So by the time your shift is done, all you want to do is take a shower, grab a quick snack and throw yourself into bed. But that was not what Chan had in mind.
You get home and the smell of pancakes already fills the air in your apartment. The moment he sees you he runs towards you, spatula in one hand towel in the other and he pulls you into the tightest hug. "Welcome home babe, I made you some pancakes."
He sways you a bit from side to side and places a quick Kiss on top of your head, than one in your neck and finaly a soft one to your lips. "How was your day?" He is already walking back into the kitchen, checking on the batter that is mixing inside the kitchen robot. Chan grabs your hand and pulls you against him, wrapping his arm around you waist and giving your butt a cheeky squeeze.
You can't help but pull away from him. "Chan for the love of God, can you please stop touching me for one minute." You imediatly regret your outburst when you see the sorry look on his face. His fingers toying with the hem of his shirt.
"I'm sorry love, i realy had a shit day and i'm not feeling to well." You bump his arm to get him to look at you instead of the batter. "I shouldn't have snapped at you." His shoulders rise and fall as he gives a dramatic sigh. "Okay, why don't you take a shower and change into something more comfy? I'll finish these and then we can do whatever you want, even if it involves no touching you."
"You're not mad at me?":your eyes scan his expresssion looking for an answer. "Ofcourse not, i understand, we all have those days. I would do anything to make you feel better." You can't help but smile at how sweet he is. "Even hug me after i just told you you couldn't?" You can't even finnish your sentence, because he is already opening up his arms, inviting you for a warm big hug.
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Sorry no time to proveread, because i'm writing this inbetween 2 shifts🤣
warnings: just a bit of cursing - but nothing horrible!
authors note: loved writing this! felt so much more comfortable than last fic, thank goodness! I think I'm going to try and keep my fics music based, they give me the best inspo i think, but we shall see! enjoyy~
.・゜゜・ . ˚◞♡ ⃗ *ೃ༄ ・゜゜・．
It was late, almost one in the morning by the time he was finally walking up to the door of their apartment, after a long day of work, training, production, and just over all stress all he wanted to do was slip under the covers beside her, entangle their feet together and listen to her wake up a bit to grumble at him that his feet were cold before she would turn over and curl into his chest.
As he opened the door he heard soft music coming from the kitchen. He kicked his shoes off by the door, a bit confused. What is she doing up this late? He thought to himself as he reached the end of the entry way, peering around the corner to see her in the kitchen dancing to Look After You by the Fray. Well, she wasn’t really dancing, more so swaying and shuffling to her feet as she made her way around the kitchen, cleaning and picking up school supplies she had left strewn across the small island in her kitchen.
He made his way farther into the apartment, putting his keys into the little ceramic bowl Hyunjin had painted for her when they had first moved in together as a house warming gift. At the jingle of the keys he saw her head snap back to look at him, a smile quickly over taking her features. She quickly put the pencils and pens she had just been carrying into her bag before walking over to him, taking his hand and pulling him into the center of the kitchen area.
Her hands wrapped around his neck as he wrapped his arms around her, his forearms resting on the curve of her waist. He let the comforting smell of her wash over him, sandalwood because she preferred cologne over perfume, the jasmine scented lotion he had given her for her birthday, the smell of her freshly washed sweatshirt (technically his sweatshirt but he wasn’t one to complain about her wearing his clothes), just the smell of her.
He let out a deep sigh as they swayed to the song together. She let her face rest against his chest while he tilted his head down to tuck his face into the curve of her neck. The coconut smell of her shampoo wafted up into his nose as they swayed, entrapped in each other's presence.
This was a moment he knew he wasn’t going to ever forget. The smell of her, the feel of her, everything about her would forever be engraved in his memory. Her name forever carved into his soul, a special piece of his heart she would always lay claim over.
You’ve begun to feel like home, yeah
But what’s mine is yours to leave or take
What’s mine is yours to make your own
Our song, he thought to himself, this is our song. He loved music, always had and always will. Just take a look at what he does for a living, the time and effort, the sleepless nights, the lack of eating when things were really stressful, the amount of shit he has had to go through, but he would do it again ten fold because he loves it.
But a song and its lyrics had never hit him right in the heart like they did in that moment. With her arms around him, he had this overwhelming feeling of something he couldn’t describe. It was a mixture of a lot of things, happiness, gratitude, contentment, but most of all love. He knew from that moment on, he would never move on from her. It didn’t matter if hell froze over, if she left him, he would love her for the rest of his life.
He wasn’t usually one-hundred percent certain about things, he knew more than anyone, it doesn’t matter how much you think something is going to happen, and how much others tell you its going to happen, life has a way of messing things up. But he was certain of her. Of his love for her.
In a world where he was surrounded by uncertainties, she was his constant. She was his home. His life. His love. His everything. His.
✿ Summary: Falling for a friend sucks. Falling for the leader of your band is a little bit worse. When said friend gets into a relationship with a girl? That is possibly as bad as it can get.
✿ Pairing: Chan x m!reader (9th member)
✿ Word count: 8.1k
✿ Tags/Warnings: 9th member au!, mxm, angst, eventual smut - MDNI!!!!, drinking, struggling with sexuality, 'I wish you were a girl' trope, cheating, minsung canon in fic - bi! Jisung, did I mention ANGST? (From one queer person to another, I apologize in advance)
✿ Author’s note: my first m!reader fic! This was definitely different from the other things that I usually write, but I had been wanting to do this for a while! I really hope that you all enjoy (:
Platonic intimacy is a concept that has always wracked your brain.
What touches are friendly?
Does it still count as innocent when gentle touches and glances linger a moment longer than they are supposed to? You still weren’t clear about what was normal or not, but you could always tell when something felt different.
That’s how it was with Chan. It had always been that way with him.
You aren’t sure what it was, but every time that Chan would wrap his arms around you after a long practice, your chest tightened in a way that never happened with the other members. You always shrugged off Hyunjin’s sweaty embrace, but you always welcomed your leader with open arms. Maybe it was the way that the hug settled with you longer after Chan left. Maybe it was something deeper — but that couldn’t be true.
The other members noticed this too. The boys always joked about Jeongin having favorites when it came to skinship, but the jokes quickly shifted once you joined the group. You were known as ‘Chan’s favorite,’ both within the group and amongst the fandom. Sure, Chan naturally gravitated toward you with affection, but the way that you exclusively melted under his fingertips is what truly made the jokes explode and the shippers go crazy.
Fans started calling you ‘Chan’s last but first baby.’ You were the last member to join the group, but it was obvious that the bond that the two of you had outweighed his relationships with the others. Chan says that he doesn’t have a favorite, but everyone has heard that all so familiar lie. It’s the same lie that parents around the world share from birth.
Even as Chan denied his favoritism, the whole ‘baby’ thing started to catch on to him as well. It didn’t affect you much when the fans would refer to you as being his baby. However, the moment that pet name left his lips, you were in complete shambles.
“What are you going to order, baby?” Chan asked casually, leaning over to peek at your menu as if it wasn’t the same one that you had.
Immediately, you choked as your brain processed his words.
“Chan!” you whisper-shouted at him.
“What? Are you still deciding what to get?” his brows furrowed in confusion, but you took note of the playful glint hiding in his eyes.
“You can’t just call me that. Especially not while we are recording!” you scolded him, still maintaining a quiet enough voice to not draw the attention to the two of you. By now, the tips of your ears were already turning crimson. The last thing that you needed was to go viral for being flustered in this moment.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Chan shrugged with a slight pout on his lips. “I personally think that Stay would love the nickname.”
“You are so annoying,” you teased, lightly bumping him with your shoulder. “You just want to torture me for the fans’ enjoyment.”
“Torture?” Chan mocked offence. “If anything,” Chan smirked before tucking a strand of hair behind your ear, “I think that you are enjoying this, baby.” The pet name rolled off of his lips again, this time in a teasing whisper.
“I hate you,” you groaned, slumping into your chair, trying to shrink away from Chan. Even as you were covering your undeniably warm face, you could tell that all eyes were now on you.
“No fighting at the dinner table, boys,” Minho stifled a laugh at the sight of your crumpled figure.
It is safe to say that the fans were fully fed with that minute of content. There were many speculations about what had happened between scenes when recording. One moment the camera was focused on Seungmin, and then the next you were shown furiously blushing beside an overly-giddy Chan. A decent amount of people made accurate predictions as to what made you flustered when Chan called you baby a few more times throughout the video.
A few months after that recording is when you finally came to terms with the fact that you had feelings for Chan.
As much as you did not want to feel that way about your leader, he made it nearly impossible to not swoon every time that he walked in the room. The pet names were only the beginning of the ever-growing flirting coursing through Chan’s veins.
The thing that started all of this mess is what affected you the most: physical touch.
With each passing week, Chan grew bolder with his touches. During dance practice, his hands would always find themselves lingering on your skin. He swore that he was trying to guide your movement, but Minho insisted that your form looked great the first time.
Any time that the other boys had a chance to get close to you, Chan always found a way to squeeze himself in. Jisung wants to sit next to you during movie night? Not a chance. One time, Chan used the excuse of needing snacks to steal Felix’s spot curled up into your side. You couldn’t tell if your heart was reacting to the sad pout on Felix’s lips when he returned or if Chan alone truly had that much of an impact on your wellbeing. You later decided that Chan was the sole culprit of your arrhythmia when your pulse continued to skyrocket as the man beside you slowly drifted to sleep. Even in his sleep, Chan somehow managed to tighten his grip on you, his fingers melting into the sliver of skin on your hip exposed from your bunched up hoodie.
The cherry on top of it all were the innocent pecks he scattered across your body.
Sure, Chan had also started giving tiny kisses to the other members as well. There was the occasional shoulder kiss when he swayed with Han. There was that time that he kissed Jeongin’s cheek on his birthday — much to Jeongin’s dismay. However, none of those moments compared to the way that Chan approached you. Each feather-like kiss felt dramatic and intentional.
Of course, you still have to assume innocence in his actions. He wasn’t making any grand gestures. He was simply placing a kiss to the top of your head, your cheeks, your temple — places that could easily be excused as friendly.
Though, why were you the one that received this skinship the most?
That was a question that you didn’t linger on for too long. While you had accepted your feelings for Chan, you also acknowledged that misreading his actions could be detrimental to your friendship. So, instead, you stayed quiet.
You instantly regretted your silence the moment that Sol was hired onto the team.
Once your regular makeup artist had to take a few months off for maternity-leave, Sol was hired to fill her space for the time being. Chan immediately reacted to her presence, and you hated every bit of it.
Chan was a natural flirt, but it always felt different with you. The moment that you saw him interact with Sol, your heart stumbled at the familiar energy flowing with his words. Sitting side-by-side as Chan was getting his makeup finished, you couldn’t help but feel nauseous at the blatant flirting occurring beside you. When you dared to sneak a glance at the man beside you, you instantly recognized that playful pout adorning his lips.
It hurt to see that his eyes weren’t on you — they were on Sol, the beautiful woman who was definitely doing more than her job entailed to ensure that Chan was pleased. Chan clearly wanted a reaction, but — unintentionally — the biggest reaction of all seemed to be the pain that lingered in your chest with each passing word.
You knew that things were going downhill when you started spotting Sol outside of her scheduled work hours.
Like many times before, you had found yourself wandering around the dorms with nothing to do. With it being super late, most of the members weren’t even awake for you to bother. Though, there is one man who is always awake at the most ungodly hours: Chan.
Scuffing your shoes with each step up the stairs, you felt a sense of nervousness that was foreign to this routine. You often visited Chan in the studio late at night; you weren’t sure why you felt anxious now. In hindsight, your body was likely warning you for what was to come.
The moment that you reached the familiar door to the studio, you hesitated. Your hand slightly hovered over the doorknob as you heard faint voices through the hardwood.
Was 3racha working on something tonight? You could have sworn that you saw Changbin earlier today.
Shaking off your confusion, you wrapped your fingers around the doorknob, the cold metal bringing you back to reality. Cracking the door open, you wished you had stayed at the dorms instead.
Rather than interrupting a production-session, it seemed that you interrupted an intimate moment between Chan and Sol. The two of them were nestled on the couch in the back of the room, sitting way closer than any two coworkers should.
“Oh, shit. Sorry,” you immediately apologized, already wanting to flee the scene.
Chan coughed and adjusted his posture, “Nah man, you’re good. What’s up?” The tone of his voice carried a clear message: ‘I am establishing that we are just bros.’
Man? Chan hadn’t called you that since your debut. It was obvious that Sol was causing him to act differently toward you. Not that she was intentionally doing anything to persuade him — she just brought an energy that Chan clearly gravitated toward.
“You good?” Chan snapped you back into reality.
Raising your eyes to look at him once more, you were met with Chan’s confused face and Sol’s bright, beaming smile.
Shaking your head in an attempt to ground yourself, you murmured, “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I was just heading back home.” A lie that Chan saw right through.
“Alright, bro. If you say so,” he chuckled, Sol giggling alongside him. “Get home safe.”
You couldn’t bother to reply as you sulked your way out of the room. The bubbly laughter that followed your departure only caused the pain in your chest to grow stronger.
You didn’t go back to the dorms that night — you couldn’t. You didn’t want to know what ungodly hour Chan finally crept back home. Instead, you snuck into the dance studio down the hall where you ultimately cried yourself to sleep. Chan never texted to make sure that you had made it home safely. It wasn’t until morning that Minho discovered your frail body curled against the polished floors, cheeks stained with tears from the night before. He didn’t ask any questions.
At first it was subtle, but Chan’s isolation eventually became hard to ignore. He was pushing you away so that he could continually grow closer and closer to Sol.
What hurt the most is that Chan wasn’t distancing himself from the other boys — only you. He still snuggled up to Felix, Hyunjin, Changbin — literally every member but you.
You tried to convince yourself that it wasn’t intentional, but you knew that wasn’t true. On top of avoiding you himself, he also dismissed any skinship that you tried to initiate as well. That couldn’t be excused as simple negligence. It felt as if you were being replaced — which was silly from an outside perspective, but it definitely hurt nonetheless.
Eventually fans started to notice your gradual relationship decline. All across social media, people speculated the many reasons why Chan no longer even glanced your way in content.
Being in this industry for so long, you knew better than to read the comments. Under these circumstances, you couldn’t stop yourself from hours of endless scrolling.
Are Chan and Y/N in their divorce era?
Why are my dads fighting? I don’t like this :(
Did you all see the look that Chan gave Y/N? That was harsh.
On top of the speculations, a decent amount of hate comments sprouted as well. All of them were targeted toward you. Many fans struggled to accept the addition of a ninth member once you joined the group, so it was understandable why you were the easiest to target in a time of confusion.
Y/N had to have done something. Team Chan!
When I find out what Y/N did to break Chan’s heart, I swear —
Why is he still in the group? Clearly even Chan is put up with him these days.
Comments like that couldn’t bother you, because you were already thinking about those things yourself. It was hard to pretend that you started to feel unwanted in your own group. Especially when you witnessed Chan defend the other members constantly. Yet, now that you were the victim of online-tormenting, Chan’s bubble was complete radio-silence.
On one of your days off, you allowed your self-doubt to fuel your day. You had initially planned to use the day to clear your mind, but the universe had other intentions for you.
Late into the evening, you had managed to drink yourself numb. While your tears had stopped a while ago, it was clear that you had spent most of your day drowning in your own sobs. When Chan returned home earlier than usual, he found you curled up on the couch, one too many empty bottles of soju sitting on the coffee table. Upon seeing the red staining your cheeks, Chan instantly came closer, concern written all over his face.
“Y/N…” he pouted, “What happened?”
When Chan placed his hand on your arm and started rubbing reassuring circles against your skin, you lost it again. The alcohol had only inhibited your ability to cry for so long. The feeling of Chan’s skin against yours for the first time in weeks was enough to trigger the dam hiding behind your eyes again.
Wordlessly, Chan scooped you into his arms as your sobs continued to get louder.
“I can’t do this anymore,” you managed to blubber through your drunken tears.
“What? Can’t do what anymore?” Chan tried to get you to talk through whatever storm was happening in your mind.
“This — the band — I don’t know,” you hiccuped in between your babbles.
“The band? You’re not thinking of leaving are you?” For a moment, you could have sworn that the look in Chan’s eyes was one of pure fear. You couldn’t decipher if it was genuine or a result of your drunk mind grasping for any glimpse of hope.
“The fans hate me,” you sobbed. “They keep telling me to leave and I think they’re right.”
“You know that isn’t true,” Chan tried to reassure you. “There are so many people that love you.”
“Not you, though.” Your words were barely above a whisper, but Chan heard them. He immediately stiffened at your mumbling.
“What?” Chan treaded slightly as he asked for clarification. You could already tell that he was slowly trying to back away without making it obvious.
“You hate me, Chan. You’ve made it so clear,” you sniffled as his warmth slowly faded away.
Chan harshly grabbed your shoulders, forcing you to make direct eye contact with him.
“What are you saying, dude?” His brows were furrowed and his body was tense — he knew exactly what you were talking about.
“That!” you exclaimed pitifully. “‘Dude.’ What happened to ‘baby’? Huh? You used to be so sweet to me.” Your lip quivered as you watched his face turn in disgust.
“Don’t-” Chan tried to dismiss you.
“Don’t what?” you immediately retaliate. “Don’t point out the obvious? Everyone knows that you are pushing me away, Chan. The other members, fans, me! Everyone had noticed.”
“You’re just drunk, man,” he sighed.
“No. You don’t get to do that.” For once, your anger was starting to point toward him rather than yourself.
“Do what?” Chan scoffed.
“Hurt me over and over again and pretend like I am insane.” Chan slightly flinched at your words, but you couldn’t even notice in your state.
“I didn’t say that you were insane. I said that you were drunk,” he tried to justify his words, but there was no use.
“Me being drunk doesn’t take away the fact that you can’t even look at me anymore. When was the last time that you hugged me? Kissed my forehead when I needed it?”
“I’m not ignoring you on purpose, man.” Chan rubbed a hand over his face, trying to lie his way out of this conversation.
“Bullshit,” you spat through clenched teeth. “You are replacing me with her and you know it.”
“Oh my God. Is that what this is about?” Chan’s voice rose with disbelief. “You’re mad that I am talking to Sol?”
“Everything that you used to do with me — I see you doing them with her,” you hiccuped, growing smaller under Chan’s intense glare.
“Don’t make this something that it isn’t. Nothing that I used to do with you even begins to compare to how I treat her.” This argument pierced right through the anger protecting your feelings.
“So now you aren’t even going to deny it? You’re treating me differently because of her,” your voice shook as your breathing grew short.
“She is different,” Chan grimaced, pointing a finger toward you. “You need to lose whatever this shit is, man. I’m not putting up with it. Quit being so fucking weird.”
With that, Chan abruptly stood up and stormed out of the dorm. You aren’t sure where he was headed, but you had an inkling.
As you were left in silence, all that you could do is focus on his last words to you.
“Quit being so fucking weird.”
What was weird? Calling him out? Falling for him? Assuming that he felt the same way?
The next morning, Chan called for a meeting before everyone’s solo-schedules. You were slightly terrified that this was the end of idol-life for you. Surely Chan had reported you to management and he was about to announce your departure from the group.
Unfortunately, you would have rather heard that than what Chan actually had to announce.
Walking into the studio, all of the other members were already present. There were nine people in the room all staring at you; your eight members and her — Sol.
Chan didn’t wait long to announce that he and Sol had decided to make their relationship official. He clarified that he wasn’t hiding anything from anyone and that this step in their relationship was fresh. They had only started dating the night before — presumably after he stormed out of the dorms. His whole reasoning was that he didn’t want to hide any secrets from the boys, but you knew better than that. While Sol smiled around the room, Chan’s eyes were solely locked on you. Chan only wanted to announce this to the group to get under your skin. Boy, did it work.
Other than Chan’s eyes burning a hole in your head, you felt another person glancing your way. Minho, somehow managing to read your mind, gave you a sad look as he noticed the devastation in your eyes. After everyone else had left, Minho was the one to stay behind and comfort you as you cried yet again.
You aren’t sure how Minho connected the dots, but you were glad that he did. Many times after Chan and Sol became official, the minsung dorm became your place of solace. Han never questioned why his hyung was suddenly sleeping on their couch rather than his own bed. For that, you were grateful.
Over the next few weeks, Chan’s presence in your shared dorm slowly increased. It’s not that he wanted to be home more — he clearly was just trying to get under your skin. Between nonstop giggles and moans, you were losing your sanity.
Another tell-tale sign of his intentions was revealed once you started leaving the moment that you heard him come home. After a while, you knew when to leave before Chan even began his shenanigans. The first time that you decided to storm out at the sight of Sol, you noticed Chan’s brow twitch in the slightest; it was miniscule, but undeniable. It affected him that you were leaving, whether he would admit that or not.
Eventually, you got in the habit of going straight to the minsung dorm rather than your own. You had enough of your belongings there that it practically felt like your own home. The love and warmth that flowed from their dorm was something that had been completely drained from your own living space.
Minho and Jisung never made you feel guilty for taking up any space. Regardless of how many nights you spent sprawled out on their couch, they always greeted you with a gentle smile the following morning.
The only thing that made you feel any sense of guilt was Jeongin. You felt bad for leaving the younger boy in the dorm to deal with Chan’s overbearing love life. On many nights, he’d send you pleading texts that simultaneously brought bubbling laughter and heartache.
⭑ Ayen ⭑
Hyuuuuuuung
Why did you abandon me :(
How am I supposed to play overwatch when all that I can hear is performative moaning
Save me
I think that I might feed Channie hyung the hair that I keep finding in the sink if he doesn’t quiet down
“That’s gross,” is all that you could reply with a faint smile adorning your saddened face.
Chan didn’t reach out. At least, he didn’t at first.
Deep down, a part of you knew that he had grown to love mind games with you. Yet, it was obvious that Chan was too afraid to actually confront you with anything. Since the first and last confrontation, it’s been nothing but exploitation from the sidelines. The more hurt you seemed, the happier the relationship was.
Maybe this is why you were surprised when Chan texted you late one night.
It was a weekend, everyone was supposed to take an off-day, but you know how Chan is. Much to your surprise, he actually took the day to rest.
Well — maybe rest isn’t the best term to use.
Chan used this Saturday to drink away the stress constantly carried with him. It started out as one glass of wine with Sol to celebrate all of his recent hard work, but one glass quickly turned into two. Two glasses quickly turned into three. By the end of the night, Chan had downed a whole bottle (and a half) of red wine all by himself.
It had to have been the liquid courage that motivated him to message you.
Chan ♡
Y/N..
Inwish you were hwre
Sol made samgyetang
Your favorite
When you didn’t reply, Chan carried on.
You don’t even use your own bed anymorr
You’ve been spending too much time with Minho and Jisung
I sont like it
You simply replied with: “I am not your boyfriend.” Your message wasn’t read until the following morning. Unexpectedly, your message was left on open.
Filming content started feeling like a chore rather than your job. The weekend-long skzcode that the company had planned for the summer was something that you had been dreading since the initial debriefing. The plan was to have you all film a survivalist-style show while you camped in the great outdoors. In reality, the nine of you would be staying in a cushy cabin right outside of view of the cameras.
The cabin only had four rooms for ten people — the additional person being none other than Chan’s other half, because God forbid they are apart for three days. Two of the rooms had multiple beds, similar to a primary school sleepover. The other two rooms had solo beds, one of which was already guaranteed to sleep Chan and Sol. With that being said, sticks were drawn to see who else would luck out with the other solo bed.
Much to your disdain, Minho and Jisung were paired together with Hyunjin and Jeongin. However, with the rest of the drawings, you somehow managed to luck out with the solo room. Based on your expectations for this schedule, this may have been the best outcome anyway.
The recording itself wasn’t the worst experience. You had easily learned to plaster a smile on your face and stick closer to any member other than Chan. Sure, the company may give you shit for your actions later down the road once they read the fans’ reactions, but you preferred your own sanity for the time being.
Once the night had fallen and the filming crew had gone to their respective hotels, that is when the dread really started to kick in. It was too late in the night to escape outdoors, but also way too early to excuse yourself to sleep. Instead, you settled next to Minho and pretended to actively listen to whatever story Hyunjin was retelling for the hundredth time.
In reality, all that you could focus on was her — Sol.
This was the first time you truly sat down and experienced her personality outside of work. Any other time, you ran from her unless she wielded her makeup brushes. However, sitting here and subtly watching her just exist, your guilt began to gnaw in a different manner.
Every time that Hyunjin made some dramatic gesture during his story, Sol lit up and burst into laughter. With each bump in the story, the expressions on her face were nearly cartoonish. She was so authentically herself, and you understood what Chan saw in her.
Based on the way that Sol interacted with the rest of your members, you couldn’t hold any resentment towards her. How can you hate someone who reminds you so much of yourself? Sol is practically everything you are — but Sol is a girl, something you’ll never be.
Overthinking on whether it is your fault or Chan’s that your initial bias formed, you hadn’t even realized that everyone had moved on to closing out the night. It wasn’t until Minho nudged your shoulder that you were snapped back into reality.
“I’m going to grab a few drinks. What are you feeling?” Minho mumbled just loud enough for you to hear. You didn’t miss Chan’s lingering glare as you leaned closer.
“Whatever you’re having. I definitely need it about now.” The two of you shared a sad, knowing smile before Minho retreated.
“You want anything, baby?” Chan spoke loud enough for you to hear, but he was speaking directly to his girlfriend. Hearing the pet name shattered your spirits a little more, knowing that’s what he used to call you before all of this mess.
When Sol smiled and kissed his cheek, Chan stood and followed where Minho and the others had gone. All that was left was you and her.
“You doing okay?” she asked with a gentle, sweet voice.
When you looked up, there was genuine concern etched on her face. You wondered what her perspective of this whole situation is.
“Oh, yeah. I’m just tired,” you shrugged off, avoiding this conversation to the best of your ability.
“Oh, okay. Chan’s just been pretty worried about you,” Sol tried to comfort you, but sadly only made things worse. You still respected her attempt at kindness, nonetheless.
The awkward silence didn’t last long as the sound of Han’s bellowing laugh and clinking glass filled the living area. Slowly, everyone filled the room once more, and then the night truly began.
By the end of the night, one too many people had drunk themselves sick or asleep. Minho barely managed to convince Jisung to head upstairs to sleep for the night.
While you were rather drunk, you weren’t nauseated or sleepy enough to justify leaving the crevice of the couch where you had spent the last few hours. Instead, you watched as people disappeared one by one.
Eventually, all that remained were you and your least favorite couple. Sol was already knocked out, snoring on her boyfriend’s shoulder. The only conscious people in the room were you and Chan — if you could even call yourselves conscious.
Getting flashbacks of your last drunken encounter with Chan, you made the smart decision to head to your room, even if you weren’t all that tired. Knowing that you had more recording to do tomorrow evening, it was best that the arguing was saved for another time.
Thankfully, Chan seemed to be on the same page as you. The second that you started your stumbling journey across the room, Chan followed suit, scooping Sol into his arms effortlessly. You’d always glorified his strength.
Shaking your head, ignoring the slight tinge of blush on your cheeks, you made your way into your room. You didn’t have time for thoughts like that.
The only thing swimming in your mind was Chan. As much as you despised the way he treated you, sometimes you still miss the way things were before his relationship. The physical touch, the kisses — all things that he now gives to someone else.
You felt shameful as you thought back to the way his muscles flexed when he lifted Sol onto his shoulder. You had always wondered what it would be like for him to manhandle you in that same way.
Rubbing your hand over your face, you decided that forcing yourself to sleep might cure the thoughts running through your brain. You couldn’t bother to properly prepare for bed, so you instead opted to simply discard of the clothes you had on. You were sleeping by yourself anyway.
Just as you were throwing your shirt to the corner of the room, you heard a rustling sound outside your door — someone was messing with the door knob. Before you could ask who was there, Chan drunkenly stumbled into the room, finally getting the door to cooperate.
“Chan? What are you doing?” you asked, brows knit with confusion. The door clicked behind him.
“I miss you,” he pouted, face completely flushed. Whether that is from the alcohol he consumed or something entirely different, you couldn’t be sure.
“I- You don’t get to just say that, Chan,” you sighed, regardless of how your chest tightened at his words. It was hard to stand your ground when you were intoxicated and he was already on your mind. Looking into his eyes easily reminds you of why you’re upset with him in the first place. Your mind is battling a war between longing and anger.
“It’s true, Y/N. I miss you so much, baby,” he slurred. You immediately froze at his words.
“Baby?” you barely whispered.
“You spend too much time with Minho and Hannie now,” Chan accused, his brows furrowed as he circled back to his last drunken text messages that he had sent weeks ago.
“And you spend too much time with Sol,” you scoffed, the alcohol giving you courage that you didn’t even know existed.
“But I wanna spend time with you, Y/N. You’re my favorite.” There were practically tears in Chan’s eyes as he mumbled his words. Regardless of the drunken disconnect, you heard every single word loud and clear.
“Oh yeah? How would Sol feel about that?” you asked, both out of curiosity and guilt.
“Will you quit saying her name?” Chan whined, his shoulders slumping further with each passing second.
“Why? She’s your girlfriend, no?” God how you wished he’d say no. In a sober state of mind, you would have easily kicked him out of your room and back to his girlfriend. However, a mixture of the alcohol and his pleading eyes is making you feed into the chase.
“Can you just — stop talking for a sec,” Chan hiccuped in between his words, trying to compose himself. Slowly, he took gentle but confident steps toward you, steadily closing the gap between you two.
“Why’s that?” you murmured, your breathing starting to go unsteady the closer Chan got.
“I just wanna think about you,” he pouted right before you. “Nothing else,” he whispered, shamelessly raking his eyes over your half-naked body. His fingers reached out, slightly grazing where your hips peaked out of your jeans.
“Just me?” You felt childish asking for validation, but this is all that you had dreamed about for months. You had to make sure that you weren’t simply hearing things.
“Just you,” Chan whispered with a husky voice. His eyes darted back to your face before flickering to your slightly glossy lips. He ran his thumb across your lip, simply fascinated with how you looked this close.
Before you could overthink it, Chan took initiative himself. Digging the pads of his fingers deeper into your side, his other hand swiftly moved to cup your jaw. Pulling you closer, Chan crashed his lips into yours with hungry desire. You took a sharp breath in, not entirely expecting Chan to take control like this. It only took a moment before you melted into his embrace and started to kiss him back with an equal amount of vigor.
“I’ve thought about this for so long. Thought about you,” Chan admitted when he pulled away to catch his breath.
“Yeah?” you replied, obvious yearning laced in your voice. “Show me what you’ve thought about?” you tested him.
Chan simply smirked before crashing his lips into yours once more. His hand that rested on your waist slowly crept around and landed right on the swell of your ass. His fingers needed your flesh through your jeans, matching the pace of his tongue gliding against your own.
Wordlessly, Chan walked the two of you back toward your bed. Once your knees hit the mattress, you became slightly unbalanced and immediately fell to the bed. Through his intoxicated lens, Chan swore he had never seen anything more beautiful than you giggling beneath him, lips even shinier than before.
Scooting you further up the bed, Chan crawled on top of you, picking up right where he left off. When the distance between your bodies closed further, you began to feel an unmistakable podding against your thigh — Chan was incredibly hard. This realization made you whine, grasping the edges of his white shirt.
“Off, please,” you pleaded, tugging at the cotton material. Chan nodded, seemingly as eager as you. When he lifted his shirt over his head, you let out a shameful whimper at the sight of his body.
You’d seen Chan shirtless a countless amount of times. However, nothing compared to how he looked now: desperate and glistening with sweat as he caged in your body.
“You like what you see?” he cockily replied to your whimpers, using this as an opportunity to slowly grind against your leg. You know for a fact that your own erection was easily seen through your jeans — Chan was getting off on teasing you.
“Channie, please,” you whined, grinding the air as you searched for some sense of relief.
“Easy, baby.” A puff of air escaped his lips as he tried not to laugh at your blatant neediness. Nonetheless, he gave you exactly what you wanted — truth be told, it was mainly because he wanted it more.
Teasingly slow, Chan worked his way around your jeans, fingers brushing your erection as he inched toward the button and zipper. With one hand dangerously close to your crotch, he expertly undone your jeans with his free hand. When you lifted your hips once more, Chan wasted no time freeing you from your constraints of denim.
The moment the cool air kissed your bare skin, you gasped. Suddenly aware of how exposed you were, slight insecurities started to creep in your mind. You and Chan had seen plenty of one another, but you spread out, flushed, leaking at the sight of him? This is uncharted territory.
Any lingering doubt faded when you saw the hazy look in Chan’s eyes. Pupils completely blown out, he was entranced by every inch of your body. Though he looked uncertain about what to do next, it was for sure that he wanted this.
“Is this for me?” Chan quipped, wrapping his hand around your cock. You rapidly nodded as Chan slowly pumped your length.
“Want you to fuck me, Channie,” you cried, already needing more than just his hand.
“Yeah? Think you can ride me, baby?” Chan asked, thought it seemed like the fantasy was entirely his.
Chan’s free hand slid between your legs, inching closer to your hole. Completely filthy and unexpected from the man you know, Chan let a long string of saliva fall from his lips, slowly falling to the fingers that inched closer to your entrance. With precise thought, Chan began to tease your ass with his slightly lubed fingers.
“I wanna see you on top of me,” Chan groaned as he plunged the first finger into your tight hole.
Your eyes rolled back into your head as you imagined how full you’d feel on top of him. Before you could respond, one finger became two — Chan was getting impatient. There was a slight sting, but you couldn’t care less since Chan was the one pleasing you.
When Chan finally felt like you were ready enough to carry on, he retracted his hands from you completely. You whined, now clenching around nothing.
“Patient, baby,” Chan teased as if he wasn’t rapidly fighting to get his jeans off.
Your eyes widened when Chan’s erection sprung free from his jeans. He was big — much bigger than you had imagined. You’d seen him half hard through his sweats during practice before, but nothing could’ve prepared you for reality.
Before you could ogle at his dick for too long, Chan swiftly grabbed your hips and tossed you further in bed. It didn’t take long for him to join you, lying against the headboard, legs spread to leave nothing to the imagination.
As much as you would love to live out all of your fantasies with Chan tonight, the need to have him inside of you outweighed any other desires. Unfortunately, skipping foreplay was a must.
Chan spit on his hand before stroking himself a few times. His eyes encouraged you to lean up and straddle him.
“If it’s too much, let me know,” Chan whispered, kissing you way too gently for whatever this was.
You winced in fear even before his tip pressed against your ass. You knew to expect pain due to the lack of preparation and lube. Regardless, lust overpowered then need to slow down.
When you finally lined yourself up directly above Chan’s dick, he couldn’t help but slightly thrust up. You cried out as Chan slowly inched inside of you. The pain was blinding, but you knew that it would be worth it. By the time you had sunk completely onto his cock, your brain was scrambled. The stretch and fullness was something like you’d never experienced before.
Eventually, once you felt well-adjusted, you began lifting your hips, slowly making a rhythm as you began to ride Chan’s dick.
“Baby, you feel — fuck — so good,” Chan panted once you had found a good pace. At his praise, you completely zoned out.
During the intense pleasure coursing through your body, your mind was running a million miles an hour. All that you could think about were the many nights where this was all that you dreamed about. The idea of actually having Chan like this was unrealistic in your mind. Yet, here you were, making him feel like heaven on earth.
With your thoughts running rampant, the all so familiar coil in your belly began to grow embarrassingly fast. Absorbed in your fascination with Chan, you leaned forward and began leaving wet, open mouth kisses along his jawline, traveling down his neck. Your teeth nipped at his soft skin as you felt yourself growing closer and closer.
“Chan — I —“ you panted.
“It’s okay, baby. Me too,” he admitted breathlessly.
Pulling back to see his glazed over eyes was enough to push you over the edge. Your hand flew to cover your mouth to conceal any loud moans that inevitably escaped as your orgasm wrecked your body. Hot spurts of cum leaked from your tip, painting Chan’s chiseled chest.
The sight of your release covering his own body was enough to trigger Chan’s orgasm as well. Shakily, Chan pumped himself into you one last time as he emptied his seed into you.
Totally spent, your body collapsed on top of his. Gently, Chan lifted you off of his softening member. He sat you back down, still straddling his hips as you laid on his chest.
Just as you had felt content enough to doze off into much needed rest, Chan began to whisper in your ear.
“I wish that Sol was you, Y/N,” Chan admitted with a hazy voice.
With these words, a small moment of clarity finally peaked through your intoxicated trance. Guilt settled in your stomach before sleep could take hold.
The morning welcomed you with the smell of sweat and sticky skin. You were confused for a moment until you recognized the weight of another man in your bed. You didn’t even have to fully look up to remember that Chan had ended up in your bed the night before.
Regardless of the pounding headache you had, your mind was clear enough to instantly fill with regret. You slept with a taken man — disgust for both yourself and Chan was overpowering any other thought in your mind.
Simultaneously frantic but carefully, you eased your way out of bed and stumbled toward your suitcase. The two of you had slept completely naked, curled up beside one another all night long. With shaky hands, you opened your suitcase and grabbed the first pair of sweats you could find.
After throwing on your clothes, you realized that you couldn’t stay in the room for any longer; each slight glance at Chan made you sick with panic. Not knowing whether you needed water or air, you dizzily walked the stairs that led to the common area.
Your frazzled brain calmed for a second once you reached the bottom of the stairs. Han was sitting on the couch, scrolling through his phone. It was uncharacteristically early for him to be awake.
“Morning, Y/N,” Han’s soft voice cut through the air.
You opened your mouth to reply, but nothing came out.
“Everything okay?” Tears started to sting your eyes at Han’s question. “Oh, hyung. Come here,” Han pouted, patting the empty cushion next to where he sat.
The moment that you sat next to him, Jisung threw an arm behind your back — a reassuring reminder that you are surrounded with support. When you didn’t speak, Han took a good look at figure, seeming like he was trying to read your mind.
“You slept with him. Didn’t you?” You froze at his words.
“How did you—“ your jaw was slack with shock.
“I went to pee last night and I saw Chan walking into your room. Based on that and the creaking that followed, I’m not stupid,” Jisung explained, immediately making you even more embarrassed.
“I am so sorry,” you choked, ears red at the thought of your close friend hearing you fuck your leader.
“Don’t be sorry. I’m sure that you’ve heard worse from Minho and I,” Han laughed, causing your shoulders to relax in the slightest.
“I just-“ you paused, a slight tremble in your voice, “I can’t believe I did that. I feel so gross.”
Jisung immediately wiped away the tears that you didn’t even know were falling.
“What about it makes you feel gross?” he inquired, his eyes showing his genuine intent to listen.
“I slept with a man in a relationship. I’m a home-wrecker,” you took a sharp breath in, trying your best to hold back the tears.
“So you aren’t grossed out at the fact that it was Chan that you slept with? Just the fact that he has a girlfriend?” Han pressed further. This was a question that you hadn’t yet reflected on yourself.
“I- I don’t think so,” you pondered as you processed this idea for the first time yourself. “I mean, I’ve wanted…that for so long. I never would have wanted this to happen under these circumstances, though.”
“And you still feel something for him? After all of this?” Han’s voice was nonjudgmental.
“Yeah. Without a doubt,” you finally confessed after a moment of silence. As much as you hated yourself for still wanting Chan all for yourself, you knew better than to lie to Han. Jisung was one of the few helping you throughout this whole situation.
“Can I give you my opinion?” Jisung carefully asked. You simply nodded in response.
“I’ve seen this before: what Chan is going through,” he elaborated. “I saw this same thing happen with myself when I first met Minho.
“I didn’t want to admit that there was a possibility that I could be interested in men. I knew that I felt different around Min, but I didn’t want to admit that to myself.
“It took me so long to finally be content with the idea of being bi — being myself. Y/N,” Jisung paused to make sure that the two of you locked eyes, “I’m not sure if or when Chan will get to that point.
“Coming from experience, it’s hard,” he sighed in reflection. “But, Jesus…Chan is so stubborn sometimes. He loves to be in control so much, and I think he’s scared that his emotions are one thing that he can’t control.
“All that I’m saying is: I don’t want you to keep hurting yourself chasing someone who may never be able to love you the way that you deserve. Because you deserve so much more than what Chan is willing to give right now.” Han slid his arm down just enough to squeeze your shoulder in reassurance. His touch grounded you, made you realize that he — unfortunately — had a point.
Before you could respond, muffled sounds of screaming were heard from upstairs. You couldn’t make out everything perfectly, but it was clear that Sol was yelling at Chan. “You’re fucking kidding me,” is the one phrase that you’re sure you heard at least three times throughout the shouting match.
You somehow managed to tense up further at the sound of a slamming door. Upstairs, Sol had stormed out of the bedroom, angrily preparing to leave with her bag in tow.
When she did storm down the stairs, you barely glanced at her out of the corner of your eye. The sight of her absolutely broken destroyed you. Her face was still puffy with sleep, only now it was also ruined with tear stains. An innocent bystander in your story, a victim in her own — Sol looked heartbroken.
The front door was shut with force as Sol left with her belongings. The moment she left, you crumbled. The tears that you fought so hard to hold back poured out of you uncontrollably. Without a second thought, Han pulled you closer, holding you through your sobs. All of the pain and guilt from the last few months was all crashing in on you at once.
Upstairs, Chan was frantic. He regrettably was found in your bed, covered in hickeys just moments ago. He had barely had a chance to recall what happened the night before when Sol began to tear him to shreds. With Sol gone, Chan now had to decide if he would confront you or his potential ex-girlfriend.
You trembled in Han’s arms, scooting closer as if to hide away from all of your problems. Unfortunately for you, your biggest problem came walking down the stairs moments after Sol left.
The moment that Chan stepped downstairs, his eyes locked onto you. The sight of you being cradled by his younger member caused an unsettling sensation in his chest. After last night you really ran to Han?
Conflicted with anger and sadness, Chan too stormed out of the cabin. It was clear that he made his choice between you and Sol.
The deafening slam of the door echoed through the home, only accompanied by your loud sniffles. Undeniably, everyone else was awake by now.
In a home filled with people you love, you had never felt more alone. With Chan and Sol out the door, the hole in your heart began to swell further and further. You never expected any of this to get this bad.
At the end of the day, you are the one left to pick up the pieces. Han’s advice sat heavy on your shoulders as the rest of the world began to rise and carry on. Chan made his choice, and now it was time to make yours.
STRAY KIDS HYBRIDS AU : OT8 STRAYKIDS X HYBRID RAGDOLL CAT FEM READER
Summary : Hybrids is well known to public, and in the entertainment industry, idols owning hybrids wasn’t unusual. Stray Kids have one, a pure ragdoll cat hybrid. Not as a pet, but more like a family, A Pack for her.
Pairing : Stray Kids OT8 x F!Reader
Tags : Angst ( I love angst), and fluff
A/N : This is my first time writing, so advice, tips and critics are helpful :). English isn't my first language so I used tools to help me write.
You guys ended up on a food bazaar happening near that beach. The summer bazaar near the beach felt alive in a way that made your heart pounding in excitement pleasantly. Summer truly felt alive here. Like the entire coastline had gathered together to celebrate something beautiful.
Music echoed faintly from somewhere deeper within the festival grounds, mixing together with laughter, conversations, sizzling grills, and crashing waves nearby. Colorful string lights hung overhead between stalls, glowing warmly against the darkening sky while signs blinked brightly advertising food, games, and summer events.
The smell alone made your senses dizzy— grilled seafood, sweet pastries, sugar, spices, smoky skewers, fresh fruits, perfume lingering from people brushing past, even traces of different hybrids’ scents blending into the crowd.
It smelled…
Happy.
That was the only way to describe it.
Happy.
Your ears twitched constantly trying to process everything at once while your eyes widened more and more with every step. Your eyes sparkled immediately while looking around at everything.
“Woah…”
Your voice came out breathless.
“There’s so many people here.”
Families wandered laughing together, children ran around carrying glowing toys, couples shared drinks beneath hanging lights, and groups of friends crowded around food stalls loudly debating what to buy.
Summer buzzed beautifully around all of you.
It genuinely felt like the season itself had come alive.
Chan looked around carefully, leader instincts immediately activating seeing the growing crowd.
“Okay listen,” Chan spoke firmly enough to gather everyone’s attention. “Nobody wanders off alone.”
Everyone looked toward him.
“Buddy system.”
Groans immediately erupted.
“Seriously?”
“Yes seriously,” Chan answered firmly. “No wandering off alone, and that’s final.”
“You sound like a kindergarten teacher,” Hyunjin muttered.
Chan ignored him completely.
“At least in pairs. Got it?”
Eventually smaller groups naturally formed while everyone wandered through the bazaar together. You stayed close beside the members while strolling deeper into the bazaar, your attention darting everywhere at once.
Street food vendors shouted excitedly trying to attract customers while steam rose beautifully into the evening air. Everywhere you looked felt exciting. And almost instantly A warm hand slipped into yours. You looked sideways. Felix grinned brightly at you before intertwining your fingers together naturally
Warm.
Comfortable.
Natural.
“Come on, Sunny!”
You blinked at him. Your heart melted instantly.
Because Felix calling you “Sunny” always sounded impossibly affectionate coming from him. Even though he himself was the brightest sunshine in your life.
“Sunny? You’re literally the sunshine here.”
Felix grinned brightly.
“But you are my sunshine, Y/n-ah !.”
Before you could argue further, he immediately tugged you forward through the crowd excitedly.
You squealed loudly while nearly stumbling after him.
“Lix— wait!”
Your laughter rang through the busy walkway while your tail bounced happily behind you. Even the members behind you both could hear your excitement spilling out uncontrollably.
And honestly—
Behind you, the other members watched with fond amusement.
“She’s literally skipping,” Minho observed. And you were.
It had been a long time since they’d seen you this carefree. You practically skipped between stalls while pointing at different foods and decorations excitedly. Your tail swished wildly behind you while you practically hopped beside Felix, excitement overflowing so obviously you couldn’t hide it even if you tried.
Felix only laughed harder hearing your happy squeals. He watched you more than the bazaar itself.
Completely soft.
Because moments like this when you forgot to overthink.
Forgot to shrink yourself.
Forgot to worry—
Were precious.
“You’re cute.”
“You’re dragging me!”
“You love it.”
…You did.
Because Felix always knew how to make the world feel lighter.
Safer.
Fun.
After wandering around for a while scouting almost every stall possible, Felix finally asked, “So?” He squeezed your hand lightly.
“What do you wanna eat?” You looked around immediately.
“The sweet stalls look really good…”
Felix narrowed his eyes playfully.
“Absolutely not. Real food first.”
You pouted dramatically, making Felix pinched your cheek lightly.
Then your ears perked suddenly.
“Oh!”
You pointed excitedly toward a nearby stall.
“That gukbap place smells amazing.”
“You smelled it?”
You nodded proudly.
The rich savory aroma drifted strongly through the air even from several stalls away.
“And mandu too! It smelled rich,” you explained excitedly. “Like beef broth and garlic and green onion and—”
Felix laughed softly.
“Okay then. Lead the way then”
Still holding your hand tightly, he followed wherever you led him.
The two of you somehow completely lost control afterward.
Eventually you stopped excitedly near a cozy food stall where steaming broth filled the air deliciously.
“There!”
Felix looked up toward the sign.
Sure enough—
Gukbap.
And fresh mandu being folded nearby.
The warm savory smell immediately wrapped around both of you.
“Oh wow…”
“See?!” you chirped proudly.
Felix laughed softly.
“You win.”
The older woman running the stall greeted both of you warmly while leading you toward a small outdoor table nearby.
The lights overhead glowed softly above the two of you while distant festival sounds buzzed around the night air.
Felix pulled your chair out for you automatically before sitting across from you.
“You’re very gentleman today,” you teased.
“I’m always gentleman.”
You burst into laughter immediately. And Felix found himself staring again. Because your laugh tonight sounded so free. So genuine. It made something emotional settle warmly inside him.
The food arrived quickly afterward.
Steaming hot gukbap filled with rich broth and tender meat.
Fresh mandu with crispy bottoms and juicy filling.
The smell alone nearly made you melt.
“Oh my god…”
Felix laughed watching your expression.
“You’re reacting like you found heaven.”
“Maybe I did.”
Your ears twitched happily while your tail swayed beneath the table.
Felix physically softened seeing it.
And honestly—
Watching you enjoy simple things like this always made the members feel strangely emotional.
Because you never asked for much.
Just warmth.
Attention.
Love.
Time together.
Things they hadn’t realized you’d slowly been starving for before.
What started as gukbap and mandu turned into far too many plastic bags filled with food.
Gimbap.
Chicken skewers.
Hotteok dripping with syrup.
Bungeoppang stuffed with sweet red bean.
Cream-filled donuts.
Drinks.
Desserts.
Snacks.
Felix stared at the growing pile.
“…I think we got too much.”
You looked at the bags.
Then immediately burst into laughter. “A little bit.”
Eventually Felix got a text saying the others had found a table nearby. So, both of you hurried back carrying enough food to feed an army. The second Han saw the amounts of bags his jaw dropped.
“WHAT happened?!”
You laughed sheepishly.
“We wanted to share with everyone…”
“Did you buy the entire market?”
“Maybe.”
The long outdoor table quickly filled with food afterward.
Steam rising warmly into the cool evening air.
On one side stretched the glowing bazaar. On the other the beach glittered beneath lights and moonlit waves. And surrounded by laughter, warmth, food, and the people you loved most—
This vacation truly felt healing.
Everyone ate noisily while talking over each other. Felix stayed pressed close beside you the entire time while happily feeding you bites from different desserts he wanted you to try.
“You need to taste this.”
“Lix, I’m still chewing—”
“Open.”
Your cheeks were puffed up with food. Before you could react, Felix immediately pointed dramatically.
“Hey Jisung-ah.”
Han looked up.
“Hm?”
“You guys look exactly the same.”
Silence.
You and Han slowly turned toward each other.
Both with puffed cheeks full of food.
Both blinking innocently.
Then suddenly—
You both nearly choked laughing.
Han bent forward coughing dramatically while you grabbed Felix’s shoulder wheezing. The entire table erupted immediately.
“Oh my god.”
“They actually do.”
“Copy paste.”
“You’re both squirrels.”
“I hate you guys,” Han laughed breathlessly.
Eventually the eating slowed down. You rubbed your stomach lightly with a small laugh. “I’m gonna regret gaining all this weight…”
The comment came too casually.
Thoughtlessly.
But Felix immediately frowned beside you.
“What do you mean?”
You blinked at his tone.
“It’s okay to enjoy good food like this.” His voice softened slightly afterward. “You should enjoy it.”
You smiled weakly. “Yeah… you’re right.”
Still your fingers unconsciously fiddled with your dress a little.
“I just…” you hesitated quietly, “I can’t help worrying a little lately.”
The others slowly looked toward you.
Jeongin tilted his head slightly.
“Why? You look really good though, Doll.”
Then softer, “Did you actually gain weight?”
You shook your head quickly.
“Not really…”
Your voice trailed off uncertainly.
“It’s just…”
The moment Jina’s name nearly left your mouth, your chest tightened strangely. But eventually you sighed quietly. “…Jina mentioned my tummy during the photoshoot.”
Silence immediately settled over the table.
The atmosphere shifted subtly.
Not heavily.
But enough.
Jeongin blinked.
“…Noona did?”
You nodded slowly.
“…Yeah.”
Nobody spoke for a second. Doesn’t really know how to respond to that. But Han quickly tried smoothing things over.
“Maybe she didn’t mean it badly.” His voice sounded careful. Like he desperately wanted to prevent the mood from sinking more.
“You know how people sometimes point things out without thinking.” He smiled awkwardly. “We seriously don’t mind though. Right guys?”
Everyone nodded almost immediately.
Han hurriedly continued before the silence could deepen again.
“Anyway! What should we do after this?”
He clapped once dramatically.
“More walking? Or call it a night?”
The others slowly followed his lead, conversation beginning again little by little.
But still—
You could only manage a small tight smile. Your fingers curled lightly against your lap.
Felix’s hand found yours beneath the table. Holding it gently. Squeezing softly.
You looked sideways.
He was already looking at you lovingly, with his famous sparkly bobba eyes.
His expression quiet.
Tender.
Understanding.
No teasing.
No joking.
Just reassurance.
Like he knew your thoughts were spiraling again.
Your chest fluttered at the kindness.
Slowly, you mouthed toward him—
“Thank you.”
Felix smiled softly in return.
And without letting go of your hand—
He intertwined your fingers together tighter.
The walk back to the staycation house felt slower than the rest of the day. Not because anyone was tired. But because nobody wanted the day to end yet.
The night air was cool against your skin, carrying the scent of salt and summer. Waves crashed softly somewhere beyond the darkness while the lights of the nearby town twinkled behind you. Every now and then, laughter broke out among the members as they retold moments from the day.
Han dramatically reenacted himself nearly choking from laughing at dinner. Felix insisted the story became funnier every time. Hyunjin somehow got distracted by the moon reflecting on the ocean and spent several minutes trying to photograph it. And you?
You simply walked in the middle of them.
Listening.
Smiling.
Feeling strangely warm even with the cool wind blowing from the shore.
By the time everyone returned to the house, the atmosphere had settled into something cozy.
Home-like.
Shoes were kicked off near the entrance.
Bags got tossed onto chairs.
Someone immediately claimed the largest section of the couch.
Someone else stole the softest blanket.
The living room quickly filled with life again.
Felix sprawled across one end of the sofa.
Han occupied an entire beanbag like a starfish.
Changbin sat cross-legged on the floor.
Minho somehow looked elegant even while half-slouching into a chair.
The fireplace wasn't lit, but the room still felt warm from the lingering energy everyone carried back with them. You ended up curled on the arm of the sofa while everyone continued talking.
The conversation naturally shifted toward tomorrow.
"Beach day." Felix immediately sat upright. His eyes sparkled. "A full beach day."
The others laughed.
Of course Felix had already planned the entire thing. He pointed around the room dramatically.
"Morning walk first."
Everyone nodded.
"Then beach games."
More nods. Perfect because the staycation site has its own private beach. A sharing private beach with the other occupants of the other houses. There're also some hut bars for several kinds of drinks, foods, and even snacks build by the site owner. And of course, delicious signature cocktails and mocktails. Still need to pay for the beverages and foods tho, but still perfect for a small get away like this.
"We stop around lunch."
"Picnic?" Han suggested.
"Picnic under the shades and trees outside!" Felix agreed immediately.
"Then after resting we go back around three or four."
"To avoid the sunburn," Seungmin added.
"Exactly."
The planning continued for almost twenty minutes.
Ideas bounced around constantly.
Volleyball.
Swimming.
Building sandcastles.
Taking photos.
Watching sunset.
Eventually you raised your hand slightly.
"I wanna collect seashells."
The room immediately paused.
You smiled sheepishly.
"And maybe paint them."
Hyunjin's head snapped toward you.
"WAIT."
His eyes widened.
"You brought art supplies?"
You nodded enthusiastically.
His entire face lit up.
"Oh my god."
He looked genuinely excited.
"We are absolutely doing that."
You laughed.
"I thought you would like it."
"I love it."
Meanwhile Jeongin pointed at you from across the room.
"You really prepared for everything."
You puffed your chest slightly.
"I try."
"No seriously."
He laughed.
"What would we do without you, Y/N-ah?"
The words were casual.
Probably not meant to linger.
But they did.
Because there was a time recently when you genuinely wondered if they still needed you at all.
The warmth in your chest felt bittersweet.
Before you could dwell on it, however—
Seungmin suddenly spoke.
"I can't wait to see the swimsuits."
Silence.
Then immediate realization crossed your face. "Oh."
Everyone looked toward you.
"Oh!"
You nearly jumped up.
"I forgot about those!"
The members looked confused as you suddenly scrambled off the couch and bolted upstairs.
"Where are you going?!"
Nobody got an answer.
Five minutes later—
You returned carrying a pile of swimsuits.
The room erupted immediately.
"What is that?"
"Wait."
"Are those all swimsuits?"
You dumped the pile dramatically onto the center rug.
The members stared.
Then stared harder.
Then looked at each other.
You crossed your arms.
"Help me choose!"
Immediately their attention sharpened. Like you had just announced a national emergency. "I only brought four options."
You pointed dramatically.
"Before anyone complains."
Several members immediately closed their mouths, refraining themselves from complaining. You narrowed your eyes. "Some of the swimsuits you guys bought..."
You paused.
"...are ridiculous."
Hyunjin coughed.
Chan suddenly found the ceiling fascinating.
Han refused eye contact.
You pointed accusingly to each member.
"Way too revealing."
The guilty members avoided your gaze.
"I am not confident enough for those."
Pouting immediately spread across multiple faces, which you concluded are the ones who bought the most revealing ones.
You ignored them.
"Anyway."
You gestured toward the remaining choices.
There's a simple dark blue long sleeve one piece with a hot pink flower on the bottom parts, a black halter with a crisscross design two piece, a soft pink swim dress with a flowy short skirt, and lastly a lighter blue halter swimsuit but with a boy short, a triangle shaped hole on the stomach area and white vertical stripes with a little bow in the middle for the top part.
The room immediately descended into chaos. Everyone gathered around the swimsuits and picking it up to look at it better.
Studying them.
Discussing them.
Arguing over them.
Like professional judges at some international competition.
You sat comfortably on the single sofa nearby. All of them looked too focused and thinking too hard like it's a non-negotiable life and death situation. They huddled around to discussed it together while you adjusted your position leaning on the arm rest staring amused at their dedication. You stifle a giggle with seeing how cute they are and their non-stop argue about which swim wear you should wear and why. You let out your phone to take picture of that very moment.
Watching.
Amused.
Because they were taking this so seriously.
"You don't understand."
Hyunjin pointed dramatically.
"The blue one matches her eyes."
"No it doesn't."
"It matches her vibe."
"That's not a thing."
"It absolutely is."
Meanwhile Han held up the pink swimdress.
"This one is cute."
"But the blue one is prettier."
"The black one is elegant."
"The black one is dangerous."
"What does that even mean?"
"You know exactly what it means."
You nearly choked holding back laughter. Because the sight was honestly adorable. Eight grown men huddled together debating your swimwear like their lives depended on it. Their brows furrowed.
Hands gesturing dramatically.
Voices overlapping.
The entire thing felt ridiculous.
And strangely precious.
Eventually a final verdict emerged. The black halter swimsuit and the blue sailor-inspired swimsuit. The members stood together proudly like they had completed a group project. Minho stepped forward first.
"We have decided."
You laughed.
"Okay?"
"The second one."
"And the fourth one."
You blinked.
"Really?"
Everyone nodded.
You looked down uncertainly.
"Are you sure it won't look weird on me?"
Immediately multiple voices answered.
"No."
"Absolutely not."
"Not even close."
"You'll look amazing."
Chan waved away your concerns entirely.
"You'll look beautiful."
The certainty in his voice made your ears warm.
Slowly you smiled.
"Okay."
A small pause.
Then—
"Okay, I trust you guys."
Immediately quiet celebrations broke out.
"YES."
"I told you."
"Victory."
The room dissolved into laughter once more.
For a little while, everything felt light.
A phone rang.
Felix glanced down.
His expression brightened.
"Oh."
The screen showed a video call. From Jina.
The atmosphere shifted almost imperceptibly.
Not enough for most people to notice. But your ears twitched immediately.
Felix answered and put up the phone so it can capture everyone. Her face appeared instantly.
Bright smile.
Perfect makeup.
Cheerful voice.
"Hey guys!"
Everyone greeted her warmly.
The members naturally gathered closer around Felix's phone.
"Hey Jina."
"How are you?"
"Miss us already?"
The members bombarded her with questions. She laughed.
"I was looking for you guys!" Her eyes widened dramatically. "I texted Chan this morning." She pointed accusingly. "No response all day."
Chan winced. "Oh. I’m so sorry, Jina-ah"
"You ignored me!"
"I forgot."
"You forgot me?"
Everyone laughed.
Then Jeongin casually answered.
"We're in Busan, noona. We’re having a little vacation!"
Jina blinked. Then pouted immediately. "What?" Her voice became playfully dramatic. "You guys didn't invite me?"
She pressed a hand against her chest.
"Wow. Damn. I thought I was special." The members laughed awkwardly.
And immediately—
Something unpleasant twisted inside your stomach. Irritation.
Because you could predict what will come. You answered before anyone else could. "It's Stray Kids members only." Your voice came calmly. "Sorry, not sorry."
The room went quiet.
Jina's eyes found you through the screen. Then narrowed almost invisibly. "Oh?" The smile stayed. But something colder flashed underneath. "And they brought ‘you’ along?"
The emphasis landed immediately. Like she’s mocking you.
You felt it.
Everyone did. The tension growing.
You leaned back slightly, scoffing softly.
"Of course."
Your smile mirrored hers. "Why wouldn't they?" you mocked her back.
A brief silence followed.
Then Jina looked back toward the members.
"Seriously though." She laughed lightly.
"Why bring her but not me?"
The atmosphere immediately became awkward with this growing competing like tension.
Your nose picked it up before anyone spoke.
Nervousness.
Discomfort.
Awkwardness.
The members exchanged glances.
Changbin spoke first. Trying to smooth things over. "We're sorry, Jina-ah." He smiled apologetically. "It was really a last minute."
You rolled your eyes unconsciously, before you could stop yourself. "It's not a big deal."
The room quieted again.
You looked directly at the phone.
"She's just a staff." Pointing at her. The words came bluntly. "We agreed no staff. And it was final, end of discussion."
You continued.
"We didn't invite managers either." You shrugged.
"Though they know we're here, they are not upset or anything. It's not a big deal, really !"
The silence afterward felt heavier.
Jina's smile faded slightly.
Then quietly—
"You really hate me that much, huh?"
The question wasn't loud.
But it landed.
Immediately.
You blinked. "wha-?"
Because suddenly everyone was looking at you.
Chan frowned.
"Y/N-ah..."
His voice was gentle.
"You shouldn't say it like that."
Your stomach tightened.
You sighed.
Trying again.
"I'm not saying I hate her."
You rubbed your temple.
"I'm just saying..."
You searched for the words.
"If you're not invited somewhere..."
You hesitated.
"...sometimes it just means the event isn't meant for you."
You shrugged.
"That's normal. It’s common sense."
Still.
The atmosphere remained uncomfortable. Minho could see how you grew frustrated at that moment, he finally spoke. His voice soft. Kind. The same voice that always made your defenses crumble. "I understand what you mean, Jagi."
You immediately looked toward him. His expression stayed warm. "But I think it sounded a little harsh." The disappointment wasn't even there. Yet somehow—
That made it worse. Instant guilt flooded through you. Your ears lowered flatten back. "...Yeah."
You looked away. "I guess you're right."
Minho smiled softly.
Not angry.
Never angry.
Just understanding.
And somehow that made your chest ache. “I’m sorry about that…”
You sighed and stood slowly.
Dusting invisible lint from your clothes. Stretching slightly to avoid looking so awkward. "I'm gonna head in first." You didn't wait for their responds, you went on.
Nobody stopped you from going.
Maybe because they thought you wanted rest.
Maybe because nobody knew what to say.
Quietly climbing the stairs. Leaving the conversation behind. Your room felt colder somehow.
Quieter.
You sat on the edge of the bed.
Listening.
The walls weren't thick. You could still hear voices from downstairs faintly.
Laughter.
Conversation.
Jina's voice through the phone.
The members reassuring her. Comforting her. Explaining things. Telling her stories from today.
You knew they were only being kind. That was who they were.
Kind.
Patient.
Thoughtful.
The very things you loved most about them.
So why did it bother you so much?
Why did your chest feel tight?
Why did irritation still linger?
You stared at the floor.
Trying to untangle the feeling.
Trying to decide whether it was jealousy.
Frustration.
Resentment.
Or something else entirely.
Because maybe—
Just maybe—
You were tired of always being asked to understand.
Tired of always making room.
Tired of watching someone who constantly made you uncomfortable receive endless patience anyway.
The thought immediately made guilt follow afterward.
Because wasn't that unfair?
Wasn't that petty?
You sighed heavily.
Rubbing your face.
No matter how much you thought about it—
The feeling wouldn't disappear.
Maybe because feelings weren't always logical.
Sometimes they simply existed.
Whether they were justified or not.
Outside your bedroom window, the ocean continued singing softly beneath the night sky.
And downstairs—
The laughter continued.
While you sat alone trying to figure out why your heart suddenly felt heavy again.
Eventually you stood. Gathering your pajamas and toiletries.
The familiar routine helped.
Something simple.
Something predictable.
Something quiet.
The guest bathroom upstairs you occupied was quiet.
Too quiet.
The soft yellow light above the mirror illuminated the room warmly while the distant sound of laughter from downstairs echoed faintly through the house as you stood there brushing your teeth.
For a moment, you simply stared at your reflection.
The girl staring back looked normal.
Maybe a little tired.
Hair slightly messy.
Fluffy ears drooping relax and comfortably.
Nothing seemed wrong.
Yet ten minutes ago your thoughts had been spiraling. Too full.
About Jina.
The conversation downstairs.
The uncomfortable feeling in your chest.
The way Chan frowned.
The way Minho gently corrected you.
The way everyone immediately rushed to make sure Jina didn't feel left out.
Your mind had been loud.
Crowded.
Heavy.
But now...
Nothing.
Just emptiness.
You blinked slowly at yourself. The toothbrush moving absentmindedly.
Maybe you were tired.
Maybe you genuinely didn't want to waste this vacation being upset over someone who wasn't worth it.
The realization settled softly inside your chest.
You spat into the sink before rinsing your mouth.
A long breath escaped you.
Cold water splashed against your face.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
The chill immediately shocked your senses awake.
You lifted your head.
Water dripped from your chin.
And somehow...
You felt lighter.
Not perfect.
Not completely okay.
But lighter.
“Enough.”
Enough to enjoy tomorrow.
Enough to enjoy tonight.
Enough to stop thinking.
For now. “Not tonight.” You mumbled to yourself. So you dried your face, gathered your things, and headed back toward your room.
Your room welcomed you with comfortable silence.
You changed into your pajamas.
A loose oversized shirt and soft shorts.
The bed practically called your name. Then you practically face-planted onto the bed.
"Ahhh..."
A long sigh escaped you.
Your tail lazily swished against the blanket.
Yet instead of immediately sleeping, reaching over, you grabbed your phone. Soft music filled the room. The kind of songs that made your chest feel warm.
You grabbed your notebook from your bag and your favorite pen.
Then climbed onto the bed.
Cross-legged.
A recent habit.
A habit you had picked up from Seungmin months ago.
At first he'd suggested journaling after noticing how often you bottled things up.
You remembered the conversation clearly.
"Just try it."
"What's the point?"
"You learn things about yourself."
"That sounds scary."
"Exactly."
You had rolled your eyes back then.
But eventually tried it.
And now?
You loved it.
Writing things down somehow made everything easier to understand. Your feelings became less tangled. Your worries less overwhelming. Your gratitude easier to notice.
The notebook opened naturally to a fresh page.
You smiled softly.
Just you.
Your thoughts.
And honesty.
The pages slowly filled.
Things you were grateful for.
The brunch.
The ocean.
Felix feeding you desserts.
Hyunjin getting excited over painting shells.
Chan carrying you last night.
The shopping trip.
Jeongin helping you pose for pictures.
Changbin complimenting you at sunset.
Even the silly swimsuit debate.
As you wrote, the memories replayed.
One by one.
And despite everything...
You smiled.
Because today had been good.
Really good.
You didn't want one uncomfortable conversation to erase all of that.
The song playing through your speaker reached its chorus.
You hummed along absentmindedly. Tail lazily swaying behind you. The room felt peaceful.
Then—
Click.
Your door opened.
You looked up.
Seungmin stood there already dressed for bed. One shoulder leaning against the frame. Arms crossed.
Smirk displaying on his face.
"Still journaling?"
His voice carried amusement.
You closed the notebook.
"I'm done."
His smirk widened.
"Good."
Something immediately felt suspicious.
Your eyes narrowed.
"Why?"
Instead of answering—
He looked behind him.
"Hyung." He called to his behind, his grin became downright evil. "She's done."
Then a shadow appeared behind him.
Changbin.
The moment he stepped into view—
You sat up straighter and immediately every instinct in your body screamed danger.
Because for some reason—
He looked calm.
Too calm.
His expression was completely serious.
Dangerously focused.
He entered your room calmly.
Slowly.
The floor creaked beneath his weight.
You instinctively scooted backward on the bed.
"What?"
No answer.
Changbin continued approaching.
"What?"
Still nothing.
"Changbin."
His expression never changed.
You looked toward Seungmin.
The younger man was visibly holding back laughter.
"Why are you smiling like that?"
No answer.
Your survival instincts activated immediately.
"You two are planning something."
Seungmin finally cracked.
A laugh escaped him.
And somehow that felt worse.
"Guys?"
Changbin stopped directly in front of the bed.
Towering.
Massive.
You gulped. Because why was Seo Changbin suddenly so enormous?
"...Guys."
Without warning—
Two strong arms wrapped around your waist. A startled squeak escaped you. Then suddenly the world flipped upside down.
"AH—"
Before you could react—
You were thrown over Changbin's shoulder. Slung you over like a sack of potato. Like absolutely nothing. Like you weighed less than a pillow. "CHANGBIN!"
Your voice echoed through the room and outside.
Seungmin doubled over laughing.
"Oh my god."
You kicked your legs.
"This is kidnapping!"
"Nope."
Seungmin followed behind happily.
"It's more like a catnapping."
You gasped dramatically.
"SEUNGMIN."
The betrayal.
The absolute betrayal.
Changbin simply continued walking.
Unaffected.
Calm.
As if carrying an outraged cat hybrid over his shoulder happened every day.
Which honestly...
It kind of did.
By now they had reached the bottom of the stairs.
Your protests echoed throughout the house.
Immediately attracting attentions from the living room.
You squirmed a little trying to escape. Only for Changbin's large hand to lightly smack the back of your thigh.
"Behave."
"NO."
"You asked for this."
"I DIDN'T."
"You did."
"I LITERALLY DIDN'T."
The remaining members looked up from their card game.
Han blinked.
Felix blinked.
Hyunjin blinked.
Jeongin blinked.
Minho looked up from his cards.
Then casually looked back down.
Nobody appeared concerned.
Not a single person.
Only Chan laughing from the scene.
"HELP ME."
You reached dramatically toward them.
"PLEASE."
Han pointed at you.
"You look comfortable."
"I AM NOT."
"You kinda do."
"I'M BEING KIDNAPPED."
Minho placed a card down. "No." He answered calmly. "You're being collected."
The room erupted into laughter.
You gasped.
"Collected?!"
"Like a stray cat."
Felix nodded seriously.
"Exactly."
You felt betrayed by every single one of them. You crossed your arms and glared at them. Meanwhile Seungmin laughed so hard he nearly missed a step.
The three of you finally reached the bedroom.
Changbin and Seungmin's room.
The door opened.
Then closed behind you.
The room immediately felt warmer.
Changbin finally set you down onto the bed. More like tossed you to the bed. Making you bounced on it.
Seungmin plopped next to you on the edge of the bed. Changbin sat on his side of bed, leaning back on the headboard. You layed on the middle of them, your elbows supporting your upper body.
Seungmin smiled.
"You looked upset earlier." He poked your forehead.
Your expression softened slightly.
"...Oh."
Changbin crossed his arms.
"You disappeared."
"I was getting ready for bed."
"You were hiding."
"I wasn't."
"You were."
You opened your mouth.
Then closed it.
Because unfortunately—
He wasn't entirely wrong. You lay there flat looking at the ceiling.
Silence settled.
Gentle.
Comfortable.
The teasing faded.
Leaving behind something softer.
Seungmin hover on top of you, lightly flicking one of your ears.
"You know."
He spoke quietly.
"You don't always have to handle things by yourself."
You looked at his kind eyes.
Changbin's voice came next.
Lower.
Steadier.
"We notice more than you think."
The words settled deep inside your chest. So instead of answering you laughed sheepishly.
Weakly.
Trying to hide it.
Seungmin pressed his body on top of you, trapping you and nuzzling his head on the crook of your neck. You groaned from the sudden weight. His arm circling you. Changbin chuckled from seeing the scene in front of him. It’s so rare for Puppy Seungmin to emerge in front of others like this.
“Puppy!” you giggled, hand immediately interlocked with his hair. Massaging his nape, while the other hand pulled him closer. Legs locking his waist.
That night you were trapped between both of them.
Outside, the ocean continued singing beyond the windows.
Inside, the house remained alive with distant voices and laughter from the members downstairs.
And somewhere between those moments— Curled up safely between two people who refused to let you isolate yourself. Ending in Changbin spooning both you and Seungmin, who were hugging each other. It was so warm that night, making you purred. Healing both boys in their sleep with those low vibrations.
Summary: you and Seungmin love each other, but sometimes love just isn’t enough.
Warnings: just pure angst.
Word count: 3.4k.
a/n: soooo... sorry in advance, but there is no happy ending in this part (but there's always part two 😉)
The first time you met Kim Seungmin, he was a nobody.
Not in a cruel way. Just… ordinary.
He was the lanky fifteen-year-old studying to be a prosecutor, the one with messy brown hair and an impossible habit of humming songs under his breath while his head was buried in his notes in the school library.
The first thing you ever said to him was, “You’re singing the wrong lyric.”
He’d looked up, startled and immediately frowned.
“No, I’m not.”
"You definitely are."
"I'm definitely not."
"You are."
He narrowed his eyes, and you just narrowed yours back.
Three minutes later, you were both laughing so hard that Seungmin had doubled over where he was sitting.
That was the beginning. There were no fireworks, nor was it love at first sight. You were just two teenagers who made each other laugh. It was the kind of beginning that never feels important until years later.
Years later, when everything has changed.
As the years passed, Seungmin's biggest dream narrowed down to simplicity.
He wanted to sing. He didn’t want to become famous, walk red carpets, or have millions of fans screaming his name. He just wanted to perform.
You spent countless afternoons listening to him talk about music, watching his eyes light up whenever he spoke about melodies and lyrics. Sometimes you'd sit beside him while he practised. Sometimes he'd drag you to tiny local performances where only twenty people showed up. Sometimes he'd even sing just for you.
Every single time, you thought the same thing: He's going to make it someday.
You just didn't realise what "making it" would cost.
At seventeen, Seungmin got his first real break. He participated in JYPE's 13th Open Audition, placing second. Not long after that, he joined JYP Entertainment.
Just months later, it was announced that he would debut in Stray Kids.
You remembered sitting on the swings at the park between both your houses, quietly. The stars were bright, and you could feel Christmas in the air. Neither of you wanted to acknowledge that things were about to change.
"You'll forget about me," you teased.
Seungmin immediately scoffed. "Impossible."
"You'll be famous."
"I won't."
"You will."
"I won't."
You smiled. "You totally will."
He reached over and squeezed your hand. "Then you'll just have to remind me who I am."
At the time, it sounded romantic. Now you knew that it was a promise neither of them understood.
When Seungmin debuted, you cried harder than he did. You stood backstage after one of his earliest performances, tears streaming down your face while he laughed at you.
"Why are you crying?"
"You did it."
He smiled, the kind of smile that made your heart stop.
"We did it."
Then he pulled you into a hug, and for a moment, nothing felt different. He was still Seungmin - still your Seungmin. The boy who stole your fries and sent you terrible memes at two in the morning, the boy who knew exactly how you liked your coffee. The boy who held your hand whenever you got anxious.
Nothing had changed.
At least, that's what you both told yourselves.
The first year was easy, but busy.
There were late-night phone calls, endless text messages, and video chats that lasted until one of you fell asleep. Whenever he came home, he spent every spare second with you. The distance was hard, but your love wasn't.
Then Stray Kids exploded.
One successful comeback became another. Then another, and another. Concerts became arenas and arenas became stadiums. Schedules became impossible. And somewhere along the way, your lives stopped moving at the same speed.
The first crack appeared during an interview. It was small, so small you almost ignored it.
You were curled up on your sofa watching him on television. The interviewer had smiled and asked him a simple question:
"Who is Kim Seungmin when he's not an idol?"
Seungmin had laughed. "Honestly? I don't really have a life outside work."
The audience laughed, and the interviewer, but you didn't. You just frowned at the screen, feeling an uneasy feeling build in the pit of your stomach, because he did have a life. He had his members, his family, his friends.
He had you.
Yet, somehow, all of that had disappeared from his answer as though Kim Seungmin the idol had swallowed Kim Seungmin the person.
When you mentioned it later, he brushed it off. "You know what I meant."
You nodded, but something about it stayed with you, and the doubt started creeping in.
The years passed, and Seungmin changed. Not all at once, and not dramatically, but little by little. The way water smooths stone.
His laugh became quieter, and his words became more careful. Every answer felt rehearsed, every reaction measured. Every action seemed filtered through an invisible question:
What will people think?
You understood why, you really did. Millions of eyes were constantly watching him. They were waiting for him to make a mistake, to say the wrong thing. Waiting for him to be human.
The world demanded perfection, and eventually, Seungmin started demanding it from himself, too.
One evening, months after his latest tour ended, the two of you sat across from each other at dinner.
It was a rare night alone with no schedules demanding time and energy. There were no cameras to perform for, or managers rushing about requiring his attention. It was just you and him, exactly the way it used to be. Or at least it should have been.
You were halfway through telling a story about work when you noticed he wasn't listening. His eyes were fixed on his phone. When you leaned over to look at his screen, you noticed he was scrolling through and reading comments on the last Stray Kids upload. He was checking the fans’ reactions and monitoring engagement.
Watching the endless flood of opinions from strangers instead of being here. With you.
"Seungmin."
Nothing.
"Seungmin."
He looked up. "What?"
You smiled sadly. "Exactly."
Guilt immediately flashed across his face. "I'm sorry."
You looked down at your plate, messing with the food that you no longer had the appetite for.
"You always say that."
The silence that followed felt heavier than any argument.
You convinced yourself that the worst part wasn't that he had changed, but that you knew why.
You knew what fame had done to him. You saw the exhaustion behind his smile, the anxiety hidden beneath his confidence, and the pressure sitting permanently on his shoulders. You knew he wasn't becoming distant because he wanted to. He was just surviving, and surviving meant adapting to protect himself.
Knowing that didn't stop your heart from breaking, though, because every day, you felt like you were losing the boy you fell in love with, and every day, he seemed a little harder to reach.
The argument happened on a rainy Thursday night.
It was the kind of rain that makes the city feel lonely. It had enveloped the city in a blanket of isolation, forcing people indoors and off the streets. By now, only a few people remain outside.
You were one of them.
You were standing outside the restaurant where he was meant to meet you. The one he’d made the reservations for himself. But that was before he'd cancelled dinner. Again. There was another schedule or meeting. Another apology. Another disappointment.
When he finally arrived home hours later, exhausted and breathless, you were already sitting in the dark, waiting. Seungmin immediately knew something was wrong. You hadn’t changed out of your wet clothes, and your hair was still sticking to the side of your face.
"Hey."
You didn't answer as he sat beside you.
"Talk to me."
For a long moment, you stared out the window. You knew what you needed to do – needed to say – but it didn’t make it hurt any less.
"I can't keep doing this."
His face fell. "Doing what?"
"Waiting." The word hung between you, heavy in its truth. "I've spent years understanding."
His eyes filled with guilt. "I know."
"I've defended you."
"I know."
"I've supported you."
"I know."
Your voice cracked. "Then why do I feel so alone?"
He opened his mouth, then closed it.
You knew then that he didn't have an answer.
You finally turned to look at him. Physically, he was the same Seungmin. His face hadn’t changed much over the years, only aged. He was still the same lean build as he was in his youth. What had really changed was on a deeper level. You saw the tired eyes, the carefully controlled expression.
The version of Seungmin that the world adored.
Suddenly, the question escaped before you could stop it. "What happened to you?"
Seungmin froze as if you'd physically hit him. It hadn’t come out as an accusation, but rather a plea. A plea to understand where it had all gone wrong.
The room fell silent around you both before he laughed brokenly.
"You think I don't ask myself that every day?"
Your breath caught. For the first time in years, the mask slipped, and there he was.
Not the idol, and not the celebrity.
Just Seungmin.
You could see how lost he was, see the humanity behind the cold mask of fame.
"I miss him too." His voice barely rose above a whisper. "The boy you fell in love with. I miss him all the time."
Tears filled his eyes, and you felt your heart shatter completely, because you realised something devastating.
You weren't the only one mourning who he used to be.
He was mourning him too.
The conversation didn't end that night.
After Seungmin admitted he missed the person he used to be, neither of you knew what to say. There wasn't a solution hiding somewhere between the two of you. There was no compromise or grand sacrifice. No choice that magically fixed everything. You loved him, and he loved you. That had never been the problem. The problem was that life kept moving, and neither of you could move with it.
The weeks that followed felt strange, almost… softer than before. It was like both of you were handling something fragile and trying not to break it. There were no more arguments, no accusations or frustrated tears.
In their place, however, were long silences. Conversations that trailed off before reaching the thing you were both thinking.
The thing neither of you wanted to say first.
One evening, Seungmin showed up at your apartment after practice. It was late, almost midnight. You opened the door and immediately knew he'd come straight from work. His hair was still styled, and there was makeup lingering around his eyes. Exhaustion sat heavily in his shoulders, yet somehow, he still smiled when he saw you.
The familiar one that made your heart ache now.
"Hey."
"Hey."
You stepped aside to let him in. Neither of you spoke much; he just curled up beside you on the sofa. You watched a movie that neither of you paid attention to. He was no doubt busy thinking about something from practise, and you were thinking about how handsome he looked, even this tired.
Eventually, his hand found yours. It was instinct, muscle memory from years of loving each other. For a while, everything felt normal – dangerously normal.
Then Seungmin spoke.
"So what do we do?"
The words were so quiet you almost missed them.
You stared at the television, avoiding his eyes. "I don't know."
He nodded slowly as if he'd expected that answer. He'd been asking himself the same question. Every day for months, maybe even years, without an answer.
"What if I try harder?" he asked.
Your throat tightened, and you looked at him. Even now, with barely enough energy left to watch a film, he was still fighting to make this work, still putting the pressure on his own shoulders.
Try harder.
As though he wasn't already giving every piece of himself away - to the company, the members, the fans, the public.
To everyone except himself.
"You already are."
His jaw tightened at your answer. "Then what if I make more time?"
"You can't."
"I can."
"You can't."
For the first time, frustration flashed across his face. "Why are you deciding that for me?"
"Because it's true."
The words came out sharper than intended. Seungmin immediately looked wounded, and you hated yourself for it. But you couldn't take it back. Not now.
"You have a tour next month. Then recordings. Then promotions. Then another comeback."
His eyes dropped to the floor as you checked them off on your fingers. He knew that you weren't guessing. You were describing reality - his reality. The life he'd worked years to build. It was the dream he'd sacrificed everything for; he just never expected you to be part of that sacrifice.
You reached for his hand, squeezing it gently. "I'm not asking you to give that up."
His eyes lifted immediately, almost desperately. "Then tell me what you need."
The question shattered something inside you because he still didn't understand. You didn't need anything, not anymore. There wasn't something missing, and this wasn't a problem to solve. There wasn't a compromise waiting to be found.
There was simply reality.
It was a reality neither of you had created, yet both of you were trapped inside.
Your eyes stung. "That's the problem."
Seungmin's expression crumpled. "What is?"
You swallowed hard, then finally said the thing you'd been avoiding.
"We can't go back."
The room fell silent, and you felt his hand tighten around yours. Your voice trembled as you carried on.
"We can't go back to how things were before. Before the schedules and the tours. Before everyone knew your name."
His eyes filled with tears, but you had to say it. If you stopped now, you'd never would do.
"And we can't go forward."
The words cracked in the middle, the truth in them bringing you pain. You couldn't move forward together because nothing could change. At least, not in the ways that mattered. Seungmin wasn't choosing fame over you. He was living the dream he'd spent his entire life chasing. One he'd worked too hard to abandon. One he deserved.
And you would never ask him to give it up.
Never.
It was in the same way that he could never ask you to spend the rest of your life waiting for moments that became shorter every year. Waiting for him to come home, for a future neither of you could actually picture. He couldn’t ask you to wait for things to somehow become different, knowing that they wouldn't.
The silence stretched on, two hearts breaking in unison.
"So that's it?"
The sound of his whisper nearly broke you, and you forced yourself to look away. Seeing him cry had always made it difficult to breathe, and seeing him cry now might very well suffocate you.
"I don't know."
It wasn't the answer he wanted, but it was the truth. Because neither of you wanted this, and neither of you had chosen this. Somehow it was happening anyway.
Seungmin laughed suddenly, but it was a hollow, miserable sound. Far from the boy you once knew, doubled over in the library all those years ago.
"All these years… All this time."
You watched tears slide down his face.
"And this is what beats us?"
You couldn't answer – wouldn’t answer – because what were you meant to say? There has been no scandal, no cheating or betrayal as so many feared in his industry. It was just… time. Time and distance. Life, really. All the things that nobody warns you about that love can't always survive.
You moved closer, wrapping your arms around him. Immediately, his arms locked around you like he was afraid you'd disappear. For a long time, neither of you spoke. You simply sat there, holding each other, memorising the feeling of being in each other’s arms for what might be the last time.
Somewhere deep down, both of you already knew. This was goodbye. Not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but soon. It was inevitable, the approaching elephant in the room, waiting to make its final appearance. You realised that the end had arrived long before either of you admitted it. You were only catching up to it now.
Three weeks later, Seungmin showed up outside your apartment. There were no flashing cameras, no security or manager. It was just him, the same way he'd come to see you hundreds of times before.
You knew the second you opened the door. His eyes were red, but then again, yours probably were too. Neither of you smiled; there was no point in pretending anymore.
"Can I come in?"
You nodded.
The apartment felt impossibly quiet. He sat beside you, close enough to touch, but neither of you were willing to. For a long time, the only sound was your breathing.
"I kept trying to think of another answer."
Your chest tightened at his words, eyes closing to brace yourself against the inevitable.
"I know."
"I couldn't find one."
A tear slid down your cheek, but you didn't wipe it away, because neither of you were pretending to be okay anymore.
"I couldn't either."
His eyes closed, and for a moment, he looked younger. Like the boy from the library, you realised painfully. The one who used to sing the wrong lyrics on purpose just to make you laugh. The one who'd stolen your heart long before the rest of the world knew who he was.
When he opened his eyes again, they were shining.
"I love you."
The words landed between you, gentle but no less devastating.
You smiled through your tears. "I know."
"No." His voice broke. "I need you to know that this isn't because I stopped loving you."
Your heart shattered. Hearing it made everything worse, and you wondered, briefly, if it would have been easier to have something worse to blame this whole thing on.
"I know."
"I'll probably love you for a really long time."
A sob escaped you, and before you knew it, he was crying, too.
Years.
Years together. Years of memories, of becoming part of each other, and now you were sitting here trying to untangle something that had rooted itself into your bones. It felt impossible, and maybe it was.
Eventually, Seungmin reached for your hand, and you let him for one final time.
"I wish I'd met you in another life."
You laughed through your tears. "One where you weren't famous?"
He shook his head. "No." His thumb brushed across your knuckles. "One where I didn't have to choose between my dream and the person I love."
The tears came harder after that.
Neither of you had ever really been given a choice, at least not a fair one. Not one that let you keep everything. Life rarely worked that way, though. Sometimes it asked for sacrifices, and sometimes it made them for you.
When he eventually stood to leave, the final moment felt impossibly small. It was just a doorway and a pair of tear-filled eyes.
A goodbye.
At the same time, it felt bigger than all your previous years put together. Seungmin looked at you one last time, memorising every last inch of your face in the same way that you were memorising him.
He gave you one last smile. It was small and broken, but no less beautiful. It was still the smile you fell in love with all those years ago.
"Thank you."
You started crying again. "For what?"
"For loving me before any of this. For knowing me before I forgot who I was."
And then he was gone.
The door closed softly behind him. The silence was overwhelming, and you stood there for a long time staring at the space he'd occupied moments before. You knew you couldn’t go back, and you couldn’t move forward, so this was the only path to take.
You knew then just how difficult this would be. Because sometimes love doesn't end when the relationship does. Sometimes it stays, lingering quietly in the spaces someone used to occupy. Not as regret or anger, but rather proof.
Proof that once, before the world claimed him, Kim Seungmin was yours.
fluff ; clingy boyfie taesan!!, not proofread… (writing at 3am again)
taesan, who doesn’t like separating from you before you need to crawl out of bed. he wraps his arms around you instinctively when you try to get up, having grown somehow stronger when the threat of you getting too far is made.
you both have early mornings and he knows that. but does he do anything about it?
nope.
instead, he makes a big show out of convincing you to stay home with him and ditch your jobs to be lazy.
“just…20 more minutes,” his face is pressed against your shoulder, muffling his voice that you know is whiny.
you sigh as this has been a reoccurring back-and-forth between the two of you recently. you’ve decided on an earlier shift so you have the nights with him but no matter the time you’re gone, it’s still time without you. “20??— taesan, i could be fired if i show up that late.” you barely have enough room to turn in his hold and finally face him.
“shh, i’ll drive you. that’ll save you tons of time” he smiles lopsidedly at the sight of your face, thinking his plan is foolproof. he starts looking at you with those stupidly cat-like eyes that he knows you’re weak to because he thinks he’s soo clever.
“in order to drive me you also need to be awake.”
…
“we can figure that out later, darling please?” he groans and buries his face back into your neck. taesan is fully willing to let you drop your job and become the main provider. all for 20 more minutes in the mornings.
it came as a surprise to you to find out how clingy he was at home. at least in the beginning of your relationship; in public, he’s a stoic gentleman that keeps a steady arm around your shoulder or your back as you peruse around. occasionally his pinky will reach for yours and eventually engulf your hand as he pulls you closer. but at home? it’s physically impossible to pry him off of you.
taesan is fully on top of you on the couch, watching videos with you as you scroll on social media. he’ll poke at you while you prepare a snack and even keep his chin on your shoulder while you get ready in the mornings.
but that’s exactly the problem. getting from point a, the bed where he’s keeping you trapped, to point b, the bathroom while you do your hair.
you try meeting in the middle, offering 10 minutes and extra kisses. he counters with 17 minutes and his hoodie for the day. you tell him 13 as you consider leaving your hair in a looser style. taesan ponders, resting his forehead on yours as he makes his final decision.
“15 minutes.. and i get you breakfast. but!! you have to eat it in the car. with me. together. before you leave.” he has that dumb smile on his face that you just can’t say no to and that’s when he knows he has you.
his playfulness lately has been affecting you harder each day and seeing him be an unashamed, sillier version of himself melts your heart in a way you can never deny.
and so taesan falls back asleep with a smug grin on his face, so so proud for getting you all to himself while knowing he’ll still ask for 5 more minutes once you turn your alarm off.
like what you see? check my masterlist for more!! feel free to join my taglist if you’d like to be notified!! ↳ @xionvlog , @ivehan , @hraethy
── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──
≔ ⋆⟢ pairing : (husband) yang jeongin x (wife) female reader
◟ genre : married life, fluff
◟ word count : 276
⬩➤ 「 warning 」 ᝰ. not proofread
“Okay, so Jeongin-ssi? I know you’re a married man.” The host said happily.
“Yes I am, have been for the last five years.” Jeongin replied, grinning ear to ear.
“That’s great! I’m happy to hear that.”
“Thank you.” Jeongin said, nodding before drinking some of his water.
“But please, if you don’t mind me asking and for our listeners too, what is something that you would like to tell couples?”
“Hmmm? There is a lot that can be said. But I just want to say this then, couples out there, no matter who you are or who you are with, you’re bound to get into some arguments. That is inevitable, but it's the way you solve them that would make your relationship stronger.”
“Well said. And again, if you don’t mind me asking, have you gotten into arguments with your wife?”
“I have, yes.”
And just as he answered, his phone rings.
“Well, my wife is calling.”
“Would you like to answer it?”
“If that’s okay?”
“Go ahead.”
“Hello?” Jeongin answered.
“Innie, we ran out of snacks. Can you get more?”
“Of course, Jagi.”
“Awww…” The host chimed.
“Wait… am I on air?”
“Yes.” Jeongin chuckled as he heard you let out an amused sigh. “Wanna say hi to everyone?”
“Hello everyone?!”
“Jagi, have we gotten into arguments?”
“Yeah? Quite a few but we worked them out at the end. That’s why we’re still together.”
“And there goes my point.”
“Is there anything else you would like to say to our listeners, Y/N-ssi?”
“Hmmm? Love and respect one another. That may sound like the obvious, but those are two very different things.”
i see you need requests so could you do chan x reader where he’s been on tour for a while and reader misses him like soooo much and then he surprises her by being home one night ? 🫰🫰
still here
@ bang chan & @ f!reader
ⓘ fluff ; comedy ; regular au
wc: around 950
[ @softasapril has sent you a message! : hellooo, hope this is your liking!! I really liked this one — rare event — ITS ME ITS ME]
the apartment has a specific kind of quiet when Chan is away.
you’d never noticed it before he became a permanent fixture in your life, the way a place can feel like it’s missing something without being obviously empty. everything is where it should be. his stuff is still here, his stupid oversized chair you’d complained about when he first brought it in and now exclusively sit in when he’s gone, his collection of things on the kitchen counter that don’t quite have a category. all here. just not him.
you’d been fine about it, mostly. you were always fine about it. it was a known quantity, the tours, the schedules, the time zones that made calling an exercise in math you were too tired to do at 11pm. you knew what you’d signed up for and you didn’t resent it, not really.
you just missed him. that was the whole thing. you just missed him a completely unreasonable amount for someone who was, by all accounts, a functioning adult.
your friend had told you to get a plant to cope.
the plant died in two weeks.
by week five you’d settled into a routine you were only slightly embarrassed about. dinner, the chair, whatever show you were using to avoid thinking about the time difference, asleep by eleven if you were lucky.
tonight was like that. you’d been horizontal on the couch for an hour, half watching something you’d already seen, and had at some point migrated to the bedroom and fallen asleep on top of the covers with the lamp still on, fully dressed, which was not your finest moment but also there was no one home to witness it so.
you don’t know what time it is when you hear it.
a sound. faint. from somewhere in the apartment.
you’re awake immediately in that unpleasant way, heart already going, the lamp still on and the room disorienting for a half second before your brain catches up. you lie still. listen.
another sound. the distinct specific creak of the third floorboard in the hallway, which you know because it had annoyed you for months before you just accepted it as a feature.
someone is in your apartment.
you grab the first thing within reach, which turns out to be a hardcover book, and you are fully aware this is not a weapon but you are committing to it, and you get up, and you go to the door, and you yank it open —
Chan screams.
you scream.
he drops his bag. you throw the book. it hits him in the shoulder.
“ow —”
“WHAT —”
“it’s me, it’s me, it’s —”
“CHRIS —”
“it’s me!” he’s got both hands up, half laughing, fully wincing, and he looks exhausted and travel-rumpled and real, actually real, standing in your hallway at whatever hour this is, and you stand there for a full three seconds just breathing.
“I threw a book at you,” you say.
“you did,” he agrees. “it was a big one.”
“I thought you were a burglar.”
“I live here.”
“I didn’t know that at the time.” you’re still staring at him. your heart is doing something complicated. “you didn’t tell me you were coming home.”
“it was supposed to be a surprise.” he drops his hands, and the smile he gives you is tired and warm and so familiar it does something embarrassing to your chest. “surprise.”
you cross the hallway and walk directly into him, and his arms come around you immediately, and he smells like travel and his own shampoo and you press your face into his shoulder and don’t say anything for a moment.
“hi,” he says, quietly, into your hair.
“you scared me half to death,” you say.
“I know. I’m sorry.” he doesn’t sound very sorry. “the book thing was a good instinct though. very brave.”
“shut up.”
he laughs, low, and holds you tighter, and you feel him exhale like he’s putting something down, some tension he’d been carrying, and you understand that because you’re doing the same thing.
“how long,” you say.
“ten days.”
ten days. you do the math without meaning to, already aware of how fast that will go, already not wanting to think about it.
but that’s later. that’s a problem for a different night.
“you should’ve told me,” you say, not moving. “I would’ve stayed up.”
“you were asleep at —” he checks his phone over your head. “one in the morning.”
“I would’ve stayed up,” you repeat, which you both know is not true, and he makes a sound that means he knows it too.
“the plant died again,” you say, after a second.
he pulls back just enough to look at you. “you got another one?”
“I was trying to cope.”
he stares at you for a moment, then laughs, real and warm, the tired kind that comes from somewhere genuine, and you feel it more than you hear it and you’ve missed that too, specifically that, you’d forgotten how much until right now.
“go back to sleep,” he says, steering you gently back toward the bedroom. “I’ll shower, I’ll be quiet.”
“you’re already failing at quiet.”
“that was your fault, you scared me.”
“you broke into our apartment.”
“I have a key—”
“at one in the morning—”
“it was a surprise—”
you’re both still arguing about it, low and fond, when you reach the bedroom, and Chan turns the lamp off, and outside the city does whatever the city does at this hour, and the apartment doesn’t feel quiet anymore.
── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──
≔ ⋆⟢ pairing : (husbnad) seo changbin x (nurse!wife) female reader
◟ genre : married life, fluff
◟ word count : 524
⬩➤ 「 warning 」 ᝰ. not proofread
It’s already getting so late at night, the sun had set a while ago and he had just finished his last choreography practice session for the group’s upcoming music video production. Which is why most people would assume that he would drive straight home to rest, after all it’s been a long day for him. But he doesn’t do that. Not yet at least. First, he needed to make a quick stop at one of those twenty four seven supermarkets to grab a couple of things. Then, he’d secure the items into his car before he goes driving off to the hospital.
It’s not quite the place people would expect to go after work. However, Changbin has a good reason. There’s a special someone working at the hospital and that person is you, his beloved and precious wife. As soon as he walked in, the receptionist and friend of yours recognized him. Not for his idol image, but as your husband. He didn’t even need to say anything before telling him what floor and area to go to to find you.
“Thank you.” He would shyly say as he made his way to the elevator.
As the elevator was going up, he started thinking, holding the bag up to see if this was actually enough. He’s known to be a hardworking man, but he would disagree seeing what you have to deal with constantly on a daily and nightly basis. Unfortunately, you were given the late shift today and unsurprisingly, you're short staffed meaning you have to ensure the hospital is up and running with the few co-workers you have. Once the elevator dinged, the doors opened, he walked out before the people waiting for the elevator walked in.
He looked around the hall, side to side, and thankfully, he stumbled across one of your co-workers.
“Oh, Changbin? You’re here.”
“Yeah, I just wanted to drop a few things off for my wife.” He said joyfully as your co-worker nodded.
“Follow me.”
And he does just that.
He followed your co-worker to the break room. Your co-worker knocked on the door first which made you sit up in your chair from a peaceful nap you were having.
“Y/N, someone is here to see you.”
“Hi Jagi?”
“Binnie! What are you doing here? I told you to go straight home.” You lightly scolded, getting up from where you sat to kiss him on the cheek.
“And I brought these for you.”
“You shouldn’t have.”
“Hey, can’t have my wife go hungry on her shift and I brought this for you too.”
“You even got my favorite drink, you’re going to make me cry.”
“It’s been a long day? Huh?” He asked, hugging you.
“It’s always a long day around here.” Your co-worker chuckled.
“Can’t forget, here brought some things for you guys too. You nurses are really one of the toughest people I know.”
“We have to be, otherwise, how else can we save lives?” You said.
“Well then, I won’t be staying for long and as for you my amazing, hardworking wife I’ll see you tomorrow?”
Summary: You find out what really happened when Felix disappeared. Can you forgive him?
Warnings: angst, but happy ending. References to heavy drinking and poor mental health.
Word count: 7.4k.
a/n: never have I ever... written so much dialogue UGH. Anyways, enjoy my darlings, Seungmin is up next!
a/n2: SURPRISE! Early post bcos you guys are the best and I’ve already reached my next follower milestone ily👉🏻👈🏻
The confusion on his face lasted approximately two seconds before it disappeared, replaced by something closer to annoyance.
"What?"
"The letters." You folded your arms. "What letters?"
Now it was his turn to stare.
"You know what letters."
"No, Felix." Your voice rose. "I very clearly do not."
A frown appeared on his face, annoyance building at your denial. "The letters I sent you."
The words hit like a physical blow. Neither of you moved as you tried to process what he was saying. You were sure there was no way he could have sent you letters, because you would definitely have received them.
He continued, unaware of your inner turmoil. “I sent you one every month, Y/N."
You blinked. "What?"
"For a year."
Your stomach dropped. "No."
His expression hardened. "Yes."
"No."
"I did."
The certainty in his voice made your pulse quicken. "No, you didn't."
His jaw clenched. "I did."
"You're lying."
The words escaped before you could stop them, and your stomach dropped at the look on his face. Genuine hurt flashed across his face, but he held eye contact as he answered you, refusing to shy away from your words.
"I'm not lying."
The alley suddenly felt too small. Too narrow. Too quiet. You stared at him as he stared back, and slowly, a horrible realisation began to creep into both your expressions.
Your voice came out quieter this time. "...I never got any letters, Felix."
Felix froze - actually froze – and you saw the colour drain from his face as he stared at you in disbelief. "What?"
You shook your head, repeating yourself. "I never got anything."
The silence that followed was deafening, and for several seconds, neither of you spoke. You couldn’t believe what he was saying. You could understand one missed letter – accidents happen all the time – but more than that? How was that even possible?
Felix’s voice brought you out of your thoughts when he asked, "What do you mean you never got anything?"
The question came out almost breathless, and you shrugged your shoulders helplessly in response, unsure of what more you could tell him.
"I mean exactly what I said."
His eyes searched yours desperately, like he was trying to determine whether you were joking or whether this was some elaborate attempt to hurt him. When he found nothing but confusion staring back, his expression slowly crumbled.
"I sent twelve."
Your heart stopped at the heartbreak in his voice. "What?"
His voice grew distant as he continued, stuck in the past, thinking about it. "Twelve letters. One every month."
You felt sick at his words, hand coming up to cover your mouth.
A year.
A whole year.
A year of letters you'd never seen. A year of words you'd never read. A year of explanations you'd never received.
"I never got a single one of them, Felix."
Felix looked away first, running both hands through his hair. For the first time since Paris, he looked genuinely shaken. Long gone was the guilt, the sadness. It was replaced by sheer disbelief – at the situation, at how different things could have been had you received even one of them. He looked as though the ground beneath him had suddenly disappeared when the next words came out of his mouth.
"I thought you were ignoring me."
The confession was so quiet you almost missed it, and you were taken aback by what he said.
“Ignoring you? Felix… I was too busy missing you.”
His laugh was humourless, broken. His eyes started watering as he continued, "I thought you hated me."
The words landed heavily between you, but he wasn’t finished. It was as if you had reached inside him and uncapped years’ worth of bottled emotions.
"After the first few months, I thought maybe you were angry." His eyes met yours again. "Then after six months... I thought you never wanted to hear from me again."
You couldn't speak, because suddenly pieces of the puzzle were rearranging themselves. Pieces that had never fit before, that you'd spent years trying to understand.
Then anger surged back.
"What kind of idiot sends letters?" you snapped.
Felix blinked. "Excuse me?"
"You had a phone."
"I got a Korean number."
"So?"
His frustration matched yours immediately. "So I couldn't just hand it out!"
You threw your arms into the air. "You couldn't text me?"
"No."
"Email?"
"No."
"Social media?"
His laugh this time was genuinely disbelieving. "Y/N, I was a trainee."
You opened your mouth, but he continued, ranting now.
"I barely had access to my own accounts. I wasn't allowed to share my private number. I was already risking things by sending you so many letters! Letters you didn’t even get."
By the end of it, his voice had risen to bounce off the walls of the dark alley around you. To some, it might have been intimidating, but to you, it was refreshing. Felix had always said more when he was angry.
You were still confused, though, because out of all the things he could have done-
"Letters?"
"What else was I supposed to do?"
The question echoed through the alley, joining the rest of his annoyance. And frustratingly... You didn't actually have an answer. Because when you thought about it, letters did make sense. They were definitely old-fashioned and annoying, but possible. If he genuinely couldn't contact you another way.
You hated the whole situation because it made everything more complicated. And complicated was the last thing you wanted. Your chest felt tight, and your head hurt. Nothing made sense anymore. You had spent years missing him, trying to get over him. Years convinced that he had left without a word. And now, you were learning that those years spent in silence had possibly been a lie.
Finally, you looked at him. "If you were trying so hard to contact me..."
Your voice cracked slightly, but you had to carry on. You had to know.
"Why did you leave?"
The question you'd carried for two years. The question at the centre of everything.
Felix immediately went still, and the tension between you shifted. Changed. It became something heavier, more suffocating. His eyes dropped briefly, then returned to yours. He looked terrified suddenly. But not of your anger, you thought, but rather the answer.
"You still don't know?"
A chill ran down your spine. "Know what?"
Felix stared at you for several seconds, refusing to answer. He looked away, and you could see the fight behind his eyes about whether he should tell you the truth or not.
“Felix… Please. Tell me.”
He sighed, a slow exhale, before he cleared his throat and spoke. "The night before I left."
You frowned. "What about it?"
His expression twisted into a mixture of pain and regret and instantly, your heart was racing.
"I came to your house."
Your heart skipped. "No."
"I came to tell you."
The world tilted. "No."
"I did."
"No, you didn't."
"I did." His voice was firm now, certain. "I packed my bags. I went to your house."
You stared. Every instinct told you he was telling the truth, and you started to pace, unsure of what to do with yourself.
He carried on regardless. "I spoke to your mum."
Everything inside you stopped and you froze in your tracks, staring at the wall opposite you. You couldn’t breathe, and with each new piece of information, it only got worse.
"I told her about Korea. I told her about the opportunity."
The alley seemed to spin slightly.
Your mum.
Your mum knew?
"No."
His eyes filled with something resembling heartbreak. "She knew."
The words shattered something inside your chest. You took a step backwards, trying to process, to understand. Trying to make it make sense.
"What did she say?"
The question came out sharp - dangerously sharp – and Felix hesitated for a moment before breaking your heart all over again.
"She told me to leave."
"No. No, she wouldn’t-"
His gaze remained locked on yours, desperate for you to understand. "She told me that if I stayed..."
His voice cracked.
"...you'd never follow your own dreams."
Your entire body went numb.
No. No. No.
That wasn't possible.
Your mother would never—
Would she?
Suddenly, memories resurfaced. Conversations you’d once considered unimportant filled with comments you'd never thought twice about. The way your mum had pushed you towards opportunities after Felix left. The way she'd insisted you move forward. The way she'd always changed the subject whenever his name came up.
Your stomach lurched, and you grabbed the nearest surface to remain standing.
Felix looked miserable. "I thought she was right."
The words barely registered because fury was already rising. The response was fast. Violent. Uncontrollable. Only this time, it wasn’t directed at Felix. It was directed at the person who had apparently made a decision about your life without ever asking what you wanted.
Your hands clenched into fists, and your voice trembled as you spoke. "You're telling me... that my mother decided what was best for me?"
Felix immediately looked alarmed. "Y/N—"
"And you listened?"
His expression collapsed. "I thought I was doing the right thing."
"The right thing?" Your laugh was sharp, disbelieving. "You left me!"
"I know."
"You let me think you abandoned me."
"I know."
"You let me spend two years believing I wasn't worth an explanation."
The guilt on his face was immediate, devastating in its intensity. Yet somehow, in this moment, it wasn't enough. Because right now, all you could think about was the fact that somebody had stolen your choice, your future, and your relationship. But the thing that hurt the most?
They’d taken your chance to decide for yourself.
Suddenly, for the first time in two years, your anger wasn't pointed entirely at Felix anymore. It was somehow the most terrifying revelation of all.
The moment Felix had finished speaking, you’d turned and walked away. Not because you were done with the conversation, or because you believed him and suddenly forgave him. You walked away because if you stayed in that alley for another thirty seconds, you genuinely thought your head might explode.
Nothing made sense anymore.
Nothing.
For two years, you'd carried a very specific version of events. Felix had left. Felix had disappeared. Felix had chosen his dreams over you and never looked back. Whilst they were painful, they were also simple. Understandable at your strongest. Now, in the space of ten minutes, that entire narrative had been shattered.
Letters. Twelve letters. A visit to your house. A conversation with your mother. A decision supposedly made without your knowledge.
The ground beneath everything you thought you knew was shifting, and you hated it.
You pushed back through the side door and re-entered the club, and music immediately hit you. People were still laughing, still celebrating. They were still living in a reality that made sense. You marched through the crowd with single-minded determination. Behind you, you could hear Felix following, calling your name. You ignored him, though.
Your bag was exactly where you'd left it, and you grabbed it so quickly you nearly knocked over a chair. You immediately pulled out your phone. One call – one answer – was all you needed. Your mother's contact appeared on the screen, and you pressed call without hesitation. Your temper flared when it rang out to voicemail. You ended the call and immediately tried again, and again. When you noticed the time, you realised. It was one o'clock in the morning, and most normal people were asleep. Unfortunately, normality felt completely irrelevant right now. You lowered the phone, your heart hammering. Your thoughts were racing so fast you could barely keep up with them.
"I need to go home."
The words escaped before you'd fully processed them. Felix was standing a few feet away, watching you carefully.
"Y/N—"
"I need answers." Your voice shook, thinking out loud. "I need to know if he's telling the truth."
He flinched slightly at the word he, but you didn't care.
"I'm driving there.”
The decision had already been made. Your childhood home was only a couple of hours away. You could be there before sunrise, wake your mother up and finally get some answers.
You turned towards the exit but paused when you felt gentle fingers close around your wrist. Slowly, you looked down, and then up into Felix’s worried gaze.
He released you, stating with certainty, "I'll drive."
"No."
"I'll drive."
"I can get a car."
"Y/N."
You shook your head. "No."
His expression softened, but the stubbornness remained. Your heart unhelpfully skipped a beat when you noticed how concerned he looked, too.
"Please."
Just one word. That’s all it took to break your resistance. Not an argument or an explanation, just please. If you were honest with yourself, your thoughts were a complete mess right now, and you probably shouldn't be behind the wheel, but you hated that he was right.
Eventually, you exhaled – once, slowly - then nodded.
The drive was strange, but surprisingly not awkward. After everything you'd learned, awkwardness felt far too small a word. The silence between you wasn't uncomfortable. It was heavy, thoughtful. Tense. The sort of silence that existed because both people were trying to process something too large to put into words.
Streetlights passed rhythmically outside the windows, and the motorway stretched endlessly ahead. Occasionally, Felix glanced at you, but most of the time, he didn't. Most of the time, he simply focused on driving. You, on the other hand, stared out of the window, your thoughts spinning endlessly.
Your mother knew.
The sentence repeated over and over. Your mother had known that he was leaving – why he was leaving – and where he was going. Known he'd come to say goodbye. If Felix was telling the truth... The thought made your stomach twist. You couldn't think like that yet. Not until you heard it from her, until she confirmed it herself.
The hours slipped by, and at some point, exhaustion finally began catching up with you. You hadn't slept properly since Paris, and then there had been the concert, followed by the party and the argument with its revelations. Your body was running on fumes, and you desperately tried to fight it at first, but eventually your eyes began drifting shut.
When Felix glanced across a few minutes later, you were asleep. You were curled against the passenger door, one hand loosely wrapped around your phone. Your expression had finally relaxed for the first time all evening, and all the anger, frustration and confusion was finally gone. He knew it was only temporary, but he was glad of the break that sleep provided for your mind.
He swallowed hard before tearing his eyes away, back to the road. Seeing you like that hurt, he thought. He didn’t think that you looked vulnerable, but you definitely looked exhausted, and he knew exactly why.
By the time he pulled up outside your childhood home, it was after three in the morning. The house sat in darkness, every window black, and everyone inside asleep. Felix killed the engine, and silence settled around the car. You didn't even stir, completely at rest in his passenger seat. For several seconds, he simply sat there, watching the house whilst he listened to your soft breathing.
Eventually, he reached into the back seat slowly and retrieved his jacket, afraid of disturbing you. He draped it over you, the oversized material immediately swallowing half your frame. You shifted slightly, and his breath hitched for a second. He smiled sadly to himself when you just snuggled deeper into his jacket.
He settled back into his seat to wait.
When you woke, it took several seconds to remember where you were.
The first thing you noticed was the sunlight - soft golden morning light filtering through the windscreen. The second thing you noticed was the jacket. The third—
Everything.
The letters.
The conversation.
Your mother.
The house.
The revelation hit like a train, and you sat upright immediately. Beside you, Felix was still there, exactly where you'd left him. He was sitting in the driver's seat, awake. His eyes looked tired. The sort of tired that came from not sleeping at all, you realised.
"Did you sleep?"
A small smile appeared. "Not really."
You looked at the dashboard clock.
6:03am.
Your stomach dropped. "You stayed awake?"
He shrugged, as though sitting in a parked car for three hours wasn't remotely unusual. You opened your mouth to say something before closing it again, because suddenly, none of that mattered.
The house and the answers. That was what mattered.
You shoved his jacket into his arms, unbuckled your seatbelt, and climbed out quickly. The cool, sharp morning air hit your face immediately, wiping away any lingering fatigue. Behind you, Felix emerged from the car, but he didn't say anything or try to stop you. You marched straight up the path, past the flower beds and the familiar windows. Past every memory you'd ever made in this house. Your pulse thundered in your ears as you felt the weight of years of unanswered questions sit heavily in your chest.
Finally.
Finally.
You reached the front door, hand raised to knock.
For the first time in two years, you were about to hear the truth from the person who owed it to you most.
The door opened almost immediately. Your mother had always been an early riser, so you weren’t surprised.
What was surprising was how quickly her expression changed.
One second, she was opening the door with sleepy confusion. Next, she was staring at you. You watched her eyes drift past you, towards the driveway, towards Felix. He was standing beside the car with his hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket, looking just as tense as you felt. For a moment, nobody spoke, but you saw the look of anxiety on your mother’s face. In that instant, before a single word had been said, you knew.
She knew exactly why you were here.
A long silence stretched between the three of you before your mother closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them again, she looked tired. Not sleepy, but the kind of tired that came from carrying something for a very long time.
"Come inside."
You walked past her without speaking, Felix following several seconds later. The familiar scent of your childhood home hit you immediately, and for a brief moment, memories threatened to surface. Christmas mornings, school mornings, family dinners. The countless evenings you'd spent sitting in this kitchen. You shoved all of it away, though, because right now, nostalgia felt like the last thing you needed.
Your mother led you through to the kitchen. It was the same kitchen with the same table and worn wooden chairs, but everything felt different now. You sat automatically, and across from you, Felix hesitated before lowering himself into the seat beside you. Exactly where he used to sit years ago.
The familiarity of it made your chest ache.
The silence stretched, heavy and uncomfortable. Now that you were here, you weren’t sure whether you should let your mother start or say something yourself. You didn’t know whether to mention your argument with Felix or how angry you were.
Your mother stood before you had to decide, disappearing from the room with a simple "I'll be right back."
A cupboard opened somewhere, then another. You heard drawers slide open, followed by something shifting. Beside you, Felix remained completely silent, but you could see the tightness in his jaw, his eyes fixed on the table as he waited. Eventually, your mother returned, and in her hands was a bundle of envelopes.
Your breath caught.
The room suddenly felt smaller as she placed them carefully on the table between you. For a moment, nobody moved. You stared until your vision went blurry. Even from where you sat, you recognised the handwriting. Your heart dropped. There were twelve letters, maybe more, all tied together with a faded ribbon. All unopened. All untouched. The sight made you feel physically sick.
Slowly, your gaze lifted towards your mother. She looked older than she had thirty minutes ago, smaller somehow.
"I kept them."
The words sounded fragile, and you felt your face twist in anger.
"Why?"
Her eyes filled immediately, but it only made you angrier. Why was she upset when you were the one who had suffered for years? When both you and Felix had suffered?
Your voice rose. "Why, Mum?"
"Because I thought I was doing the right thing."
A bitter laugh escaped you. The sound surprised everyone, including yourself.
"The right thing?"
She swallowed. "I knew what would happen."
You folded your arms. "Oh, I'd love to hear this."
Beside you, Felix shifted slightly but remained silent.
Your mother looked at both of you, then down at the letters. "When he came here that night... I saw the way you looked at him."
The room fell silent.
"I knew what you would do."
You arched an eyebrow. "What I would do?"
"You would've followed him."
"No."
"You would've tried." Her voice strengthened. "You would've put your life on hold."
"I wouldn't have."
"Yes, you would have." The certainty in her tone hit like a slap. "You loved him. I knew you'd try long distance."
You looked away, away from her and away from Felix, because part of you hated how accurate that sounded.
Your mother continued. "I knew you'd spend every day waiting for him."
Felix's head dropped slightly, pained by your mother’s words.
"And I knew that every dream you'd ever talked about would become secondary. I didn't want that for you. I wanted you to have your own life."
The kitchen felt suffocating by the time she was finished, and you couldn’t stop the frustrated years from welling up in your eyes.
"Really?"
Her expression faltered. "Y/N—"
"No." You shook your head. "No." The years of hurt suddenly surged forward. Every sleepless night, every unanswered question, every lonely moment. Every piece of yourself you'd spent years rebuilding. "You thought that was what was best? Was it for the best when I spent months wondering why I wasn't enough?"
Your mother's face crumpled, but you had to finish now, you had to say everything that was on your mind whilst you had the chance.
"Was it for the best when I couldn't sleep? Was it for the best when I drank myself unconscious just so I wouldn't think about him?"
The words echoed through the kitchen, and you realised your mistake a second later because Felix had gone completely still. The room seemed to freeze with him. You hadn't meant to say it. Not like that, and not in front of him. But it was too late now because the words were out, and Felix had heard every single one.
Slowly, you turned your head to face him. His face had gone white, and the devastation there was raw, unfiltered.
"What?"
The word barely emerged from him above a whisper. You immediately regretted it because you'd never wanted him to know. Those months had belonged to the version of you that you'd worked so hard to leave behind. The version that couldn't function, couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep.
The version that couldn't understand why she hadn't been enough.
Felix looked like he couldn't breathe, voice cracking as he asked:
"You were drinking?”
You looked away, unable to meet his eyes. The silence answered for you.
"Oh, my God."
The horror in his voice made your stomach twist. Beside you, Felix dragged a hand across his face, looking completely shattered. This was clearly news to him, but it obviously would be. You hadn’t had any contact because of your mother, who was looking equally horrified.
"I didn't know it was that bad."
You laughed sharply. "Of course you didn't."
"Y/N—"
"No."
You stood so abruptly that your chair scraped loudly across the floor, the sound echoing through the kitchen. Your mother stood, too.
"I was trying to protect you!"
The words snapped something inside you, and the tears broke free, rushing down your cheeks. "Protect me? Protect me? You took away my choice! You decided what my future should look like!"
Your mother winced, trying to explain. "I thought—"
"Exactly." Your voice broke. "You thought."
The room fell silent. Your mother looked heartbroken, but you couldn't find it in yourself to care right now. Not when the hurt was still burning so fiercely, and not when two years of your life suddenly looked completely different.
Your gaze dropped to the letters. The bundle was sitting untouched on the table, waiting. You grabbed them, and the ribbon dug into your fingers, somewhat grounding you. Your mother opened her mouth, but you didn’t want to hear it. You didn’t want to hear her explanations, her apologies, or her defence. Not right now. Maybe not ever.
Without another word, you turned and rushed out of your childhood home, the front door slamming behind you. You barely noticed the cold morning air anymore. Your vision was blurred, your hands shaking. The letters felt impossibly heavy in your hands, the weight of years of silence trapped in a simple bundle of paper.
The front door opened behind you, but you didn’t need to look because you already knew who it was. Even after all this time, you still recognised the sound of his footfall on the paving slabs outside your home. For several seconds, neither of you spoke, simply existing side by side in the early morning sunlight. Birds chirped somewhere nearby, and the world carried on as though nothing had happened. As though everything hadn't just changed.
You stared down at the bundle of letters clutched against your chest. Twelve months of words, twelve months of explanations, twelve months of him trying to reach you, stolen from you by the one person in this world who was meant to protect you and your happiness. Beside you, Felix was silent. Neither of you knew what to say exactly, because after everything you'd just learned, there weren't really any words left.
Only the truth.
And the wreckage it had left behind.
The drive back to your hotel was quiet. Not the comfortable sort of quiet that settled naturally between two people who knew each other well, and not even the angry silence that follows an argument. This felt different, loaded. As though neither of you quite knew how to exist in the aftermath of what had happened.
Your mother's confession sat between you, and the letters sat on your lap. Twelve unopened envelopes that somehow felt heavier than anything you'd ever carried. You spent most of the journey staring at them, at Felix's handwriting and the dates carefully written in the corners. Month after month, year after year. Proof that the story you'd spent two years believing wasn't the whole truth. Beside you, Felix kept his eyes fixed on the road. Neither of you attempted a conversation. What was there left to say? Every time you thought about speaking, another memory surfaced. Every time you looked at the letters, another piece of your anger shifted.
By the time the hotel came into view, you felt emotionally exhausted, the sort of exhaustion that settled deep into your bones. Felix pulled into the car park and switched off the engine. You sat there for a few seconds, dredging up the energy to move before slowly reaching for the door handle.
"Thank you."
Your voice sounded small, rough from disuse and the tears you’d shed.
Felix nodded. "Of course."
You swallowed, then pushed the door open and turned to step out. Warm fingers wrapped gently around your hand, and you froze, eyes dropping to where his hand held yours. You didn’t say anything as you met his gaze, heart breaking at what you saw. Felix was, and always would be, beautiful, but right now he looked awful. The sleepless night mixed with the drive and everything you’d both learnt was written all over his face. There was something in his eyes, though. You weren’t sure if it was hope, fear, desperation or a mixture of everything, but you knew what he wanted. He wanted reassurance, a sign that you weren’t about to disappear on him.
Your chest tightened painfully at the sight, because despite everything, despite what the letters might contain, despite what you'd learned, you couldn't do this right now.
"Felix."
His expression softened immediately, and you hated just how much more difficult it made things.
"I need space."
The words hurt coming out. You saw the disappointment immediately in the way his shoulders dropped slightly, but you had to say this.
"I need time." Your voice cracked. "Please."
The silence stretched as his eyes took you in before slowly – very slowly – his fingers loosened, letting you go. You knew that it wasn’t because he wanted to, but because he was respecting what you'd asked, the same way he had for the past month.
His jaw tightened, but eventually he nodded. "Okay."
The word sounded reluctant, painful even, yet sincere. You managed a small nod in return, then turned and walked away.
This time, he didn't follow.
The second you entered your hotel room, the carefully maintained composure you'd been clinging to finally shattered.
You didn't bother turning on the lights, didn't bother unpacking or changing clothes. You kicked off your shoes and crawled straight into bed fully dressed, still clutching the letters. The curtains remained closed, the room remaining dark. And for the first time in years, you allowed yourself to fall apart. Quietly. The way heartbreak always seemed to happen when nobody was watching.
Hours passed, and your phone buzzed repeatedly, but you ignored it. Food arrived outside your door at some point, and you ignored that, too. The world continued turning whilst you remained curled beneath the covers, thinking and remembering. Trying desperately to make sense of everything. Eventually, sometime late that afternoon, your gaze drifted towards the bundle of letters resting on the bedside table.
Suddenly, you couldn't avoid them anymore.
Your heart immediately started racing because part of you wasn't sure you wanted to know. For two years, those letters had been trapped in limbo. They were left unopened, frozen in time with their unread words. The version of Felix who wrote them no longer existed, and neither did the version of you they were intended for. Somehow, they still felt terrifying.
Slowly, you sat up, reached for the ribbon and untied it. The paper felt fragile beneath your fingers, and you noticed that the first envelope was dated only weeks after he'd left. Your hands trembled as you opened it, then you began to read.
Y/N,
I miss you already.
The first line alone was enough to make your eyes burn, but you continued anyway. Letter after letter, month after month, you watched a year of Felix's life unfold through ink and paper. He told you about training, about being lonely, about missing home and missing you.
Always you.
Every letter carried the same thread running through it. There were stories about terrible meals, about exhausting schedules, about sleeping on buses. Stories about moments he'd wished you were there to see. The details changed, but the feelings never did.
You read until your vision blurred, then kept reading, because you couldn't stop. Not anymore. One letter described seeing something that reminded him of you in a shop window. Another described hearing a song he'd immediately wanted to send you. One talked about dreaming he'd come home and found you waiting for him. Your tears landed on the paper, but you barely noticed.
It was one of the final letters that broke your heart completely.
Y/N,
I don't know if you're reading these anymore. Maybe you're angry, or maybe you've moved on. Maybe you never want to hear from me again. I wouldn't blame you, but I still need to write this.
You pressed a hand over your mouth, trying to stop the sob building in your throat. It didn't work.
I love you. I think I always will. And maybe that's selfish, maybe it's unfair, but I can't imagine a future where I don't.
The tears came harder, faster, but you kept reading.
I know people say long distance never works, and I know everyone thinks we're too young. But I don't. I still think we're meant to find our way back to each other.
Your chest ached from the hurt because this wasn't the Felix you'd imagined. This wasn't the selfish boy you'd spent years resenting. This was someone who had been writing into silence, someone who genuinely believed you were ignoring him. Someone who had continued loving you anyway.
And the worst part – the absolute worst part - was what wasn't there in any of his letters. He never once even alluded to the conversation he’d had with your mother. He never hinted at her asking him to leave. There was no attempt to use it against her or to excuse himself by making you blame anyone else. He could have. One sentence would have changed everything, and you would have known the truth years ago. Instead, he'd protected her, respected her, even when it meant letting you hate him. Even when it meant carrying the blame alone.
Your vision blurred completely, and the final letter slipped from your fingers. You were crying harder than you had in years. For the first time, it wasn’t because Felix had left, and it wasn’t even because of your mother or the letters. It was because, for the first time, you realised how alone he'd been and how convinced he'd been that you were choosing silence. Yet he'd kept writing anyway, month after month, letter after letter, holding onto hope long after most people would have given up.
The thought shattered what remained of your heart.
Curled beneath the covers with twelve letters scattered around you, you finally allowed yourself to mourn everything that had been stolen from both of you. Not just the relationship, or the years, but the future you might have had if someone had simply trusted you enough to choose it for yourself.
By the time evening arrived, your eyes ached from crying. The letters were scattered across the bed around you. Some lay folded neatly, whilst others had clearly been reread multiple times. You had spent hours working through them, tracing familiar handwriting with trembling fingers and mourning a version of the past that neither of you had ever been allowed to have.
At some point, your phone began vibrating. You ignored it and then ignored it three more times before you grabbed it, groaning.
It was your best friend, and the second you answered, she immediately said, "You're crying."
You sighed. "Hello to you too."
"You've been crying for hours."
"I hate that you can tell."
"I've known you for a while now. We talk every day. You cry a lot."
And okay, fair.
You rolled onto your back and stared at the ceiling. For a few moments, neither of you spoke before you quietly told her everything, from the letters to your mother and the conversation to the drive. You explained that Felix had been writing to you for an entire year while believing you wanted nothing to do with him.
Your voice cracked more than once, but your best friend listened, for once not interrupting or joking. She simply listened.
When you finally finished, silence filled the line before-
"Oh, sweetheart."
You closed your eyes, the sympathy almost making you cry again.
"I know."
"No." Her voice softened. "I mean it."
You swallowed hard. "It wasn't supposed to happen like this."
"No."
"It wasn't."
You knew when she paused this time that she wanted to say something that she knew you wouldn’t like to hear. The thing you loved most about your best friend was that she’d go on and say it anyway.
"You need to talk to him."
You groaned immediately. "There it is."
"There it is."
"I knew you were going to say that."
"Because I'm right."
You covered your face with one hand. "He left."
"Yes."
"He listened to my mum."
"Yes."
"He made a terrible decision."
"Yes."
You sat up, huffing in frustration. "Then why am I the one who has to go and talk to him?"
Your best friend didn’t even hesitate. "Because he was twenty."
You frowned in confusion. "So was I?"
"Exactly." The answer caught you off guard, but she continued before you could interrupt. "He was twenty, in love, terrified, halfway across the world and being told by your mother that leaving was the best thing for you."
You stared at the wall. "He should've fought harder."
"He should have."
"He should've told me."
"He should have." You sighed heavily, and when your friend spoke again, her voice was softer. "But people don't always make the right decisions when they're young."
The words settled heavily. You knew she was right, and you hated it.
"You've spent years imagining that he stopped loving you." Your throat tightened at her words. "And now you know he never did." When she was met with silence, she continued gently, "You don't have to forgive him today."
You looked down at the letters, the first one sat open on your lap.
"But I think you owe it to yourself to hear everything."
Two hours later, you found yourself standing outside Felix's hotel room. You had changed clothes, brushed your hair, and washed your face. Not because you cared what you looked like, obviously! Definitely not.
Your best friend would have laughed herself unconscious at that lie.
For several seconds, you simply stared at the door before you took a deep, calming breath and knocked before you could change your mind. A few moments later, the door opened, and there he was.
Felix.
The second he saw you, his eyes widened. "Hi."
Your chest tightened. "Hi."
His expression immediately softened, as though simply seeing you there was enough.
"Do you want to come in?"
You nodded.
The conversation lasted hours. Longer than either of you realised.
At first, it was awkward, and not because there was nothing to say but because there was too much. There was years' worth of mess to sort through. Eventually, though, the walls began falling away one at a time until suddenly it wasn't awkward anymore. It was just honest in the way it used to be. The way it had always been before everything went wrong.
You sat cross-legged on the sofa while Felix occupied the armchair opposite. The letters rested on the coffee table between you - evidence. Proof. History. He looked at them for a long moment, then laughed softly.
"I can't believe she actually kept them."
Your chest tightened. "I can."
The smile faded, and silence followed for a minute before he spoke again.
"I missed you."
The words were simple, uncomplicated, yet still painful. You looked down as he continued. "There wasn't a day I didn't think about you. I looked for you everywhere." A small laugh escaped him. "You'd probably find that creepy."
You smiled despite yourself. "It is a little creepy."
His grin appeared briefly, then disappeared. The honesty in his voice when he spoke again made your throat tighten.
"I always thought I'd see you again. I didn't know how, but I knew I would."
His eyes met yours, and for a moment, neither of you spoke. He glanced towards the letters.
"You?"
The question hung between you. You knew what he was asking, and you knew he deserved the truth, no matter how messy or painful that truth would be. You told him about the loneliness, the sleepless nights, and the months spent feeling like you weren't enough. His expression slowly fell apart when you told him about the drinking. The words felt ugly and embarrassing, but you forced them out anyway. You told him how it started and how it became easier to sleep after a few drinks. How eventually it became easier to do everything after a few drinks. How you stopped recognising yourself.
By the end, the room had gone completely silent. Felix looked devastated, as if every word had physically hurt.
"You should've hated me."
The sentence emerged quietly, broken, and you looked up in surprise.
"What?"
His eyes were shining now. "I would've."
Your chest tightened. "Felix—"
"I would've hated me."
The honesty nearly broke your heart, and for a few brief moments, you simply sat watching the man across from you battle with his own inner demons.
"I missed you, too."
The confession seemed to steal the air from the room. His eyes closed briefly, like hearing those words meant more than he could explain. When he looked at you again, he seemed younger somehow, more vulnerable. More like the boy you'd fallen in love with.
Suddenly, you realised something. You weren't angry anymore. You were still hurt and confused, but not angry. At least, not the way you'd been after everything you'd learned.
You looked down at your hands. "I don't know what happens now."
The admission felt terrifying, because it was true. The future suddenly looked completely unfamiliar.
Felix was quiet for a moment before hesitantly saying, "We try again."
You looked up, but his gaze never wavered.
"Please."
The vulnerability in that single word almost undid you. "Felix..."
"Please." His voice wobbled. "I know I messed up."
You smiled weakly. "That's one way of putting it."
A surprised laugh escaped him, and the sound filled the room with familiar warmth.
God.
You'd missed that laugh.
"I know." His smile faded again. "But if there's even the smallest chance... I'll spend the rest of my life proving I deserve it."
Your chest hadn’t felt this full in years, but there was one thing still bothering you. One thing you'd never gotten an answer about.
You tilted your head. "What about that idol?"
Felix blinked. "What idol?"
"The article."
Realisation hit immediately. Then - to your complete surprise - he started giggling. Actually giggling.
You stared, frowning. "What?"
His laughter only worsened. "Y/N."
"What?"
"Oh, my God."
You folded your arms. "What?"
Finally, he managed to compose himself, barely.
"She's a lesbian."
You blinked. Once. Twice.
"...what?"
That immediately set him off again. "She's literally a lesbian."
The sheer relief that flooded through you was so immediate that it was embarrassing – and apparently obvious - because Felix noticed. The grin that spread across his face was impossible to ignore.
"Oh."
"Don't."
"Oh, that's interesting."
"Felix."
"You were jealous."
"I was not."
"You absolutely were."
You threw a cushion at him, and he caught it, still laughing. Suddenly, just for a moment, everything felt normal. Not perfect or fixed, but… normal. The way it used to be before life complicated everything. Looking at him across the room, laughing at his own terrible jokes, you felt something settle inside your chest. You realised that you hadn't just missed your boyfriend. You'd missed your best friend. He was the person who understood you better than anyone and could make you laugh when you least wanted to. The person you'd spent years convincing yourself you didn't need. Maybe that was why this felt different now. Not because everything was magically okay, but because for the first time in years, you weren't imagining a memory. You were sitting across from him, and he was still there.
Eventually, the laughter faded, but the smiles remained. Felix looked nervous, suddenly, almost boyish.
"Can I ask you something?"
You immediately became suspicious. "That's usually dangerous."
He smiled, then took a breath. "Would you go on a date with me?"
The question hung between you. It was simple, hopeful, yet terrifying. You stared at him for a long moment before a soft, genuine smile slowly spread across your face.
"Yeah."
The relief that crossed his face was almost comical. "Yeah?"
You laughed. "Yeah."
For a moment, he looked completely overwhelmed. Then he smiled, too, and somehow, for the first time in a very long time, the future didn't seem quite so frightening. You didn't know what would happen next or whether things would be easy. You didn't know how long it would take to rebuild trust, or whether either of you would get everything right. But as you looked at Felix sitting across from you, smiling like he'd just been handed the entire world, you realised something.
For the first time in years, you wanted to find out.
And whatever the future held, you found yourself hoping it held him, too.
a/n: phew! That became a lot more complex than I was originally planning. The majority of you wanted a happy ending and I tried to deliver! What do you all think? Lmk in the comments! xo
genre: established relationship, soft angst, comfort, fluff
wc: 2.7k
warnings: brief social embarrassment, overthinking, insecurity, fear of being "too much" (no one is ever too much!!!), lovesick Taesan, chronic yapper
a/n: to all my yappers out there, you are loved and appreciated!! @yoonlxlla thank you for proofreading, you're my star!!
You were a yapper.
A chronic yapper, according to your friends.
Not in an annoying way—at least that’s what everyone always insisted. You just loved talking. About stupid little things, about serious things, about things nobody else noticed. You could turn a five-minute story into forty-five if someone let you. Your thoughts moved too fast for your mouth to keep up, and sometimes words spilled out before you even realized you were speaking.
But people usually smiled through it.
They laughed when you got dramatic over tiny inconveniences. They listened when you rambled about a movie theory nobody asked for. They let you explain random facts you’d learned at two in the morning from some questionable internet rabbit hole.
And honestly?
You liked that about yourself.
You liked being passionate. You liked caring loudly.
So maybe that was why it hurt more than it should’ve when the newest addition to the friend group sighed softly halfway through your story and said,
“Can you maybe let other people talk too?”
The words weren’t even harsh.
Her tone was polite. Calm. Casual.
But it still felt like someone had poured cold water directly over your head.
The entire table went quiet for a split second.
Not long enough for anyone to acknowledge it.
Just long enough for everyone to hear it.
Then conversation resumed almost immediately, awkwardly stumbling forward as if nothing had happened.
You felt your smile strain at the corners.
“Oh,” you laughed quietly. “Yeah. Sorry.”
And just like that, you shut up.
You stopped talking mid-thought. Stopped adding onto conversations. Stopped interrupting yourself with excited little side tangents. Even when people directly asked you things afterward, your answers stayed short.
The worst part was how painfully aware you suddenly became of your own voice.
Every time you almost spoke, your chest tightened.
Were you talking too much again?
Were people secretly annoyed all the time?
Did they only tolerate you because they felt bad?
You hated how quickly your brain spiraled.
So instead of risking it, you stayed quiet, and apparently nobody noticed.
Well.
Nobody except him.
Later that evening, the apartment door opened and Taesan walked in.
The atmosphere shifted almost immediately.
Maybe it was because Taesan naturally carried himself like someone impossible not to notice. Tall frame wrapped in an oversized black hoodie, dark hair slightly messy from the wind outside, rings glinting against his fingers as he pushed the door shut behind him.
Or maybe it was because your stupid heart still reacted to him like it hadn’t learned better yet.
“Finally,” Leehan groaned. “You’re late.”
Taesan snorted. “I brought food. That cancels out the lateness.”
“It absolutely does not.”
“It literally does.”
Everyone started talking over each other immediately.
Taesan laughed under his breath while slipping off his shoes, and then his eyes found you almost instantly.
Always.
It didn’t matter how many people were in a room.
His attention somehow landed on you first every single time.
Your chest squeezed painfully.
You forced a smile before he made his way over, setting the takeout bags down on the table first before dropping onto the couch beside you.
“Hi,” he murmured.
“Hi.”
He leaned down automatically to kiss your cheek.
Usually you’d immediately start talking after that.
You’d tell him something random before he could even settle properly. Maybe about the weird guy you saw earlier, or how Hana almost burned the garlic bread, or some ridiculous thing you read online.
Instead, you stayed quiet.
Taesan pulled back slowly. His brows furrowed almost instantly. There it is, you thought miserably.
He noticed.
Of course he noticed.
He greeted everyone else casually, fell into the rhythm of the conversation for maybe five minutes, but you could feel him glancing at you every few seconds.
Studying you.
By the sixth glance, you couldn’t even focus on the conversation anymore.
Then he leaned closer.
“You’re quiet,” he said softly enough that only you could hear. “What’s wrong?”
You shook your head immediately.
“Nothing. I’m fine.”
You even smiled a little to make it convincing.
It didn’t work on him for even half a second.
Taesan stared at you for another moment before narrowing his eyes slightly.
“You sure?”
“Mhm.”
“You’ve said maybe six words since I got here.”
You shrugged.
“I’m just tired.”
That earned you an unimpressed look. Because Taesan knew you. Knew you in the terrifyingly specific ways that made lying almost impossible.
He knew your fake smiles from your real ones. Knew the difference between your annoyed silence and your hurt silence. Knew when your thoughts were moving too fast because your fingers twitched against your sleeves.
And right now?
He knew something had happened.
Still, he didn’t push.
Not there.
Not in front of everyone.
Instead, he rested his arm behind you on the couch and stayed quiet.
But you could feel it.
The way he kept looking at you.
The way his jaw tightened every time someone else spoke while you stayed silent.
The way he frowned slightly whenever you laughed too softly at something.
You hated that he could tell.
You hated that you cared this much.
The evening dragged on painfully after that.
Usually you were the loudest person in the room. Usually Taesan spent half his time teasing you for bouncing between topics too fast for anyone else to follow.
Tonight, you mostly just listened.
And somehow that felt worse.
At some point, Riwoo brought up conspiracy theories.
Normally that would’ve been dangerous territory for you because you loved talking about weird things. Taesan especially loved listening to you spiral through theories with dramatic hand gestures and completely unnecessary diagrams drawn on napkins.
Tonight, you stayed quiet, and Taesan noticed immediately.
His head turned toward you.
“You don’t have anything to say about this?” he asked.
You blinked.
“Hm?”
“The conspiracy thing.”
“Oh.” You looked down at your drink. “Not really.”
Now everyone was staring at you like you’d grown a second head.
“Not really?” Hana repeated. “You literally made a thirty-minute presentation once.”
“It was not thirty minutes.”
“It was forty-five.”
Normally you would’ve argued dramatically. Normally you would’ve laughed. Instead, you just shrugged again.
Taesan’s expression darkened slightly.
He looked genuinely concerned now.
And honestly?
That almost made you emotional.
Because nobody else seemed to realize how weird this was except him.
The conversation continued, but you could feel Taesan getting quieter beside you too.
Observing.
Thinking.
Then eventually he leaned down near your ear.
“Come outside with me for a second.”
Your stomach twisted.
You nodded quietly.
Nobody really questioned it when he stood up and held his hand out toward you. You slipped your hand into his automatically and let him guide you toward the apartment balcony.
The cool night air hit your face immediately.
Nights always felt strangely comforting to you. Cold enough to wake you up a little, soft enough to calm you down.
Taesan slid the balcony door shut behind him.
Then he turned toward you fully.
“What happened?”
You looked away instantly.
“Nothing happened.”
“Baby.”
That voice.
That soft, patient voice he only used when he knew you were lying but wanted to give you the chance to tell the truth anyway.
You swallowed.
“It’s stupid.”
“Then tell me the stupid thing.”
You rubbed at your sleeve nervously. Taesan waited quietly. Somehow that made it worse. Because he wasn’t rushing you. Wasn’t dismissing you. Wasn’t acting annoyed. He just looked at you like what you said mattered.
Always.
Finally you sighed.
“I think I talk too much.”
Taesan blinked once.
“What?”
You laughed awkwardly.
“There. See? That reaction alone proves it.”
“What are you talking about?”
You hesitated.
Then quietly explained what happened earlier. The more you talked, the more Taesan’s expression changed. Not annoyed. Not embarrassed. Just increasingly upset on your behalf.
“And I know she didn’t mean it badly,” you rushed to explain. “Like logically I know that. I probably was talking too much. I do that sometimes and I know it can be annoying and—”
“Hey.”
Your words stopped immediately.
Taesan stepped closer.
“You know what I noticed when I got here?”
You frowned slightly.
“What?”
“You weren’t talking.”
“Well obviously.”
“And that bothered me.”
Your chest tightened unexpectedly.
Taesan shoved his hands into the pockets of his hoodie before continuing.
“You know what this friend group sounded like before you joined?”
You blinked.
“What?”
“Dead.”
You snorted softly despite yourself.
“I’m serious,” he said. “Nobody talked this much. Nobody got excited this much. Half the hangouts used to be everyone staring at their phones.”
“That’s dramatic.”
“It’s true.”
You rolled your eyes weakly.
Taesan leaned against the balcony railing.
“You talk a lot because you care a lot.”
Your throat felt weirdly tight now.
“You get excited over things. You tell stories like every detail matters. You make people laugh because your brain moves faster than your mouth.” His lips twitched slightly. “Sometimes significantly faster.”
You finally smiled a little.
“There she is,” he murmured immediately.
Your smile faltered from embarrassment.
“You don’t think I’m annoying?”
Taesan looked genuinely offended.
“Annoying? Baby, I voluntarily listen to you explain things I don’t even understand for hours.”
“That doesn’t count. You’re biased.”
“I’m absolutely biased. But I’m also right.”
You stared down at your shoes.
Taesan sighed softly before reaching over to tilt your chin up gently.
“I like listening to you.”
The sincerity in his voice made your stomach flip.
“You don’t have to say that.”
“I’m not saying it because I have to.”
You looked at him carefully, and unfortunately for your emotional stability, he looked completely serious.
Taesan laughed quietly under his breath.
“You know what's my favorite thing?”
“What?”
“The way you start rambling when you’re excited and then halfway through you realize you forgot the original point.”
You groaned immediately.
“Oh my god.”
“And then you try to backtrack but somehow the story gets even longer.”
“Taesan.”
“And your hands start doing this—” He mimicked your overly animated gestures badly.
You smacked his arm instantly.
“That is not what I look like.”
“That’s exactly what you look like.”
“You’re evil.”
He grinned.
“There she is again.”
You hated how easily he could pull you out of your moods sometimes.
Taesan’s expression softened after a moment.
“Do you know how quiet you got in there?”
You looked away again.
“Yeah.”
“I hated it.”
That surprised you.
“You did?”
“Mhm.”
He reached for your hand absentmindedly, playing with your fingers while he spoke.
“When you’re quiet because you’re tired, it’s different. Tonight you looked like you were trying to make yourself smaller.”
Your chest ached immediately. Because that was exactly what you’d been doing.
Taesan sighed softly.
“I don’t like when people make you feel like you need to shrink yourself.”
You blinked rapidly.
“It wasn’t even a big deal—”
“It hurt your feelings.”
The simple certainty in his voice almost undid you.
You laughed weakly instead.
“I sound dramatic.”
“You are dramatic.”
“Wow.”
“But you’re also sensitive.” He squeezed your hand gently. “And there’s nothing wrong with that.”
You stayed quiet for a moment before mumbling,
“I was trying really hard not to talk too much afterward.”
“I know.”
“I kept thinking about everything I said before speaking.”
“I know.”
“And then I got scared to talk at all because what if everyone secretly agrees with her?”
Taesan’s face softened painfully.
Then suddenly he stepped closer and wrapped his arms around you. The hug caught you off guard enough that you melted into him almost instantly.
“You know what I think?” he murmured against your hair.
“What?”
“I think if somebody genuinely didn’t like you talking, they wouldn’t keep inviting you everywhere.”
You hummed quietly.
“And I think,” he continued, “you’re way too loved for that.”
Your throat tightened embarrassingly fast.
Taesan pulled back slightly just to look at you.
“And personally? I could listen to you talk forever.”
“That’s insane.”
“It probably is.”
You laughed quietly into his hoodie.
For a moment neither of you spoke.
The city lights glowed softly around you while distant traffic hummed below.
Then unfortunately your brain started functioning normally again.
“So anyway speaking of conspiracy theories—”
Taesan burst out laughing immediately.
“There she is.”
“No because listen,” you said, suddenly animated again. “Why do celebrities always wear sunglasses inside buildings? That’s suspicious behavior.”
“Oh my god.”
“I’m serious. There has to be a reason.”
Taesan leaned against the railing again while you started talking properly for the first time all evening.
And because he loved you hopelessly, completely, disgustingly much—
He listened. Not the fake kind of listening either. Not the kind where someone nods while waiting for their turn to speak.
Taesan listened like every word mattered.
Like your thoughts were something precious.
You started pacing slightly as you spoke, hands moving dramatically while you explained your ridiculous theory about celebrities, government replacements, and weird airport behavior.
Halfway through, you got distracted by another thought entirely.
“Wait actually speaking of airports, did I ever tell you about the guy I saw eating tuna at like six in the morning?”
Taesan smiled immediately.
The topic switch.
Classic you.
“Yes,” he said fondly. “Three times.”
“Right, okay, but that’s because it was genuinely disturbing behavior.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“No because imagine waking up and deciding tuna is breakfast food.”
Taesan watched you continue talking. Watched the way your face lit up again. Watched your eyes brighten more with every sentence.
And maybe it was pathetic how much affection filled his chest from something as simple as this. But he couldn’t help it. He loved listening to you. Loved the way your thoughts wandered unpredictably. Loved how passionate you got over tiny things. Loved how conversations with you never stayed on one topic for longer than three minutes.
You made everything feel alive.
Even silence felt warmer around you.
You eventually stopped mid-sentence suddenly.
Taesan blinked.
“What?”
You squinted at him suspiciously.
“You’re doing the face.”
“What face?”
“The one where you stare at me like I’m a cute puppy.”
“I’ve never made that face in my life.”
“You’re literally making it right now.”
He laughed quietly.
“Maybe I just like you.”
You rolled your eyes dramatically.
“Cringe.”
“And yet you stay.”
“Unfortunately.”
Taesan pulled you closer by your hoodie strings.
“You know what else?”
“What?”
“You look happiest when you’re talking.”
That hit you strangely hard. Because nobody had ever said that before, and maybe it was silly. Maybe it was stupid how emotional something so small made you feel.
But Taesan noticed things.
Tiny things.
The kinds of things people usually overlooked.
You looked away shyly.
“That’s embarrassing.”
“It’s cute.”
“Even more embarrassing.”
Taesan laughed softly before pressing a kiss to your forehead.
Then the balcony door suddenly slid open behind you. Riwoo peeked outside dramatically.
“Oh thank god,” he sighed. “She’s talking again. We were getting scared.”
You groaned instantly.
Taesan smirked.
“Told you.”
Riwoo pointed accusingly at you.
“Do you know how weird it was in there without you talking about something random every five minutes?”
“That sounds fake.”
“It’s not fake,” Leehan called from inside. “Come back and tell us more conspiracy theories.”
You blinked in surprise.
Taesan watched your expression carefully.
That tiny moment of realization. Maybe they did like listening to you after all.
Riwoo grinned.
“Seriously. The silence was depressing.”
You laughed softly before looking at Taesan again, and the look on his face nearly melted you alive.
Fond.
That was the only word for it.
Like he was genuinely relieved to see you smiling again.
You nudged him lightly.
“Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m adorable.”
“You are adorable.”
“Taesan.”
“You’re literally pouting.”
You immediately stopped pouting. Which only made him laugh harder.
Riwoo gagged loudly.
“You two are disgusting. Get back inside.”
Taesan snorted before intertwining his fingers with yours again. As he led you back inside, he leaned down slightly and murmured near your ear,
“By the way.”
“Hm?”
“If anyone tells you to stop talking again, I’m fighting them.”
You stared at him.
“That’s insane.”
“Mhm.”
“You can’t fight people for not wanting to hear me yap.”
“I can and I will.”
You laughed so hard your stomach hurt.
And that sound alone made Taesan think the entire world was worth it.
Warnings: flirting, shy Taesan, physical proximity, awkward crush, soft romance, tattoo artist AU
Summary: Your quiet customer dressed in black keeps coming back to the flower shop for reasons that clearly have nothing to do with flowers and the more nervous Taesan gets around you, the harder it becomes not to fall for him too.
The first time you saw Taesan, you thought he looked way too intimidating to be inside a flower shop.
Everything about him clashed with the place. The black clothes, the tattoos covering his arms, the silver rings, the serious expression that seemed permanently stuck on his face. Even when he was just standing there looking at flowers, he still looked like someone who belonged more in a dark tattoo studio than somewhere filled with peonies and daisies.
And yet… he kept coming back.
Always alone.
Always quiet.
And always looking at you more than the flowers.
“What kind do you like the most?”
you asked one afternoon while arranging fresh bouquets near the counter.
Taesan looked up quickly, like he hadn’t expected you to talk to him so suddenly.
“Huh…?”
“The flowers,”
you repeated with a small smile.
“You come here a lot, so I thought you’d have favorites.”
For some reason, that seemed to make him nervous.
His eyes moved to the flowers in your hands, then back to you, then briefly to the floor.
Cute.
Way too cute for someone who looked like that.
“I don’t know much about flowers…”
he murmured.
You stepped a little closer, showing him a small bunch of white flowers.
“These are easy to take care of.”
Taesan looked at them carefully.
But every time you glanced up, he was already looking at you first.
And every time, he looked away just a second too late.
“What about these?”
he asked, pointing at another bouquet just to keep hearing you talk.
You ended up explaining way more about flowers than any normal customer would ever need to know.
And he listened to all of it.
Actually listened.
Quietly nodding, asking small questions every now and then, holding the bouquets carefully in his tattooed hands while looking at you like you were more interesting than anything else in the shop.
After that, you started expecting him a little.
Without really wanting to admit it.
You got used to seeing him walk through the door dressed all in black with that serious expression, only to turn completely shy whenever you smiled at him first.
And that was exactly why you didn’t expect what happened a few days later.
You were trying to drag large flower pots and heavy bags of soil into the shop by yourself, barely managing to move them across the floor outside.
“Just a little more…”
you muttered to yourself, trying to lift one.
But suddenly, the weight disappeared from your hands.
You blinked in confusion.
Taesan already had the bag thrown over his shoulder like it weighed nothing.
“What—?”
At first, he didn’t even look at you.
He simply carried everything inside carefully before coming back for the rest.
You could only stare after him, surprised.
When he finally returned for the last flower pot, he glanced up at you briefly.
And that’s when you noticed it.
His ears were completely red.
Like he had only just realized what he’d done.
“Why did I do that so impulsively?” he was probably thinking.
And honestly…
it was adorable.
Much more adorable than someone that intimidating had any right to be.
“Thank you,”
you said when he placed the last flower pot inside.
Taesan adjusted the sleeve over his hand, avoiding your eyes.
“It wasn’t that heavy.”
A lie.
A small laugh escaped you.
And this time, instead of stepping away or going back to work, you moved closer to him.
Close enough for him to look up again.
“Taesan.”
“Hm?”
“Do you want to go out with me?”
Silence.
Literal silence.
His eyes widened slightly.
Like his brain had completely stopped working for a second.
“…What?”
he asked quietly.
He didn’t look intimidating at all anymore.
Now he just looked like a completely nervous guy standing in front of the person he liked.
Your smile softened.
“A date,”
you repeated.
“With you.”
Taesan stared at you for a few more seconds before suddenly lowering his head, clearly trying to hide how red he’d gotten.
And even then, he nodded quickly.
Too quickly.
“Yes,”
he murmured almost immediately.
Then he looked back up at you again, still red all the way to his ears.
✧ you were just supposed to record his song. he was just supposed to be your producer. somewhere between quiet directions, late-night sessions, and “just one more take,” it stops being that simple.
✧ han taesan x fem!reader | idol au, producer au, slow burn, studio romance, mutual trust, soft tension, light teasing, emotional fluff | wc: ~2.8k
✧ author’s note: first BND fic!!!! woooo!!!!
you shouldn’t have been nervous.
really.
you’d spent years training for this.
you’d sung in front of vocal coaches who looked physically incapable of smiling.
you’d danced until your knees gave out under the lights in practice rooms that never seemed to sleep.
you’d stood in front of company executives with your hands clasped behind your back so they wouldn’t notice they were shaking.
you’d survived all of that.
so one recording session shouldn’t have been the thing that did you in.
...right?
your manager gave you an encouraging pat on the shoulder.
"don’t worry too much."
easy for him to say.
"he’s a sweet guy. think of him as just another producer."
but that somehow made it worse.
because he wasn’t just anybody.
he was han taesan.
producer. songwriter. idol.
the taesan whose name was buried somewhere in half the demos trainees whispered about.
the taesan who somehow always looked calm in behind-the-scenes videos while everyone else looked like they hadn’t slept in three days.
the taesan who had apparently been trusted with producing your group’s debut song.
no pressure.
your fingers tightened around the lyric sheet.
the studio door slid open before you could think yourself into turning around and pretending you got the room number wrong.
he was already there.
one ear covered by oversized headphones, sleeves pushed up to his elbows, quietly scrolling through files before looking up at the sound of the door.
your eyes met.
he blinked.
you blinked.
"...hi."
"...hey."
silence.
not an uncomfortable one though.
just one where two people seemed equally convinced the other should probably say something first.
then, unexpectedly—
he laughed.
small. quiet. more to himself than anything.
“i’m relieved.”
you frowned.
"...relieved?"
“you look nervous.”
your ears immediately warmed.
“oh—and great, so it’s definitely showing,” you said with a small, nervous laugh.
“but i’m kind of relieved i’m not the only one.”
you stared at him.
"wait...you’re nervous?"
he rubbed the back of his neck with an embarrassed smile.
“a little.”
“oh?”
“okay, maybe a lot.”
“but haven’t you done this before?”
“i’ve written songs before. but i’ve never written one for another group.”
the smile on his face was tiny.
almost sheepish.
“like... what if you hate it?”
you stared at him for exactly half a second before pointing at yourself.
“excuse me?”
he blinked.
“what if i hate it? we should be a bit more concerned on what if i ruin it?”
for a second, neither of you said anything.
then he laughed again.
a real laugh this time.
and somehow you were laughing too.
the tension that had been sitting on your shoulders all morning dissolved into something lighter.
something warm.
he held out his hand with a grin that looked more like encouragement than confidence.
“then...”
he tilted his head.
“...let’s both do our best?”
you looked at his hand for exactly one second before shaking it.
“let’s work hard.”
—
the red recording light blinked on.
you adjusted your headphones, inhaled once, and sang.
when the take finished, silence settled over the room for exactly three seconds before his voice came through the speakers.
“one more take?”
you let out a small, steady breath and nodded.
“got it.”
“i liked it.”
“…but?”
“i think you can go a bit deeper emotionally in the second half.”
you focused, already shifting into work mode.
“okay. more build-up into the chorus, or more contrast?”
he leaned back slightly, thinking.
“both. i know what i want it to feel like, i just—”
a pause. his fingers tapped lightly against the desk.
“i can hear it in my head, but i can’t really explain it properly.”
“try me.”
he looked up, intrigued.
“warm, but a little far away,” he said slowly. “like nostalgia, but not sad. more like you’re remembering something you don’t want to lose.”
you listened, then nodded.
“okay. let me something out.”
the next take ended, and he didn’t speak right away.
you could hear him replaying it—once, then again.
then—
“wait.”
his tone shifted, sharper with interest.
“that part before the chorus—can you do it again?”
“like this?”
you sang it once more, softer, a little more suspended at the end.
silence.
then—
“oh.”
“what?”
he sat up slightly.
“that’s it.”
“like that?”
“yeah,” he said quickly. then, quieter, more certain. “exactly like that.”
“i couldn’t figure it out how to explain it,” he admitted, eyes still on the screen. “but you just did it.”
you smiled faintly.
“then i’ll keep that direction.”
“yeah,” he said softly. “i trust you on this.”
and after that, it wasn’t just him directing anymore.
it was both of you, finding the song together.
—
it started off small.
a few days later, you got a message.
“are you free for like… 30 minutes?”
no explanation. no overthinking. just that.
when you walked into the studio, he was already there—same hoodie, same half-focused expression, like he’d been stuck on the same idea for a while.
“i can’t get this chorus right,” he said immediately.
“hello to you too mr. taesan.”
he looked up, then laughed under his breath like he’d just remembered basic social skills.
“hi.”
then, quieter:
“sorry for calling you over. i just… really wanted your opinion.”
that was new.
you stepped closer.
“lets hear it.”
—
by the end of the session, you were both leaning toward the monitor.
“i think it needs less force here,” you said carefully.
he tilted his head.
“less force like… softer? or like—”
“like it’s not trying to convince anyone. it already knows.”
he looked at you.
then nodded slowly.
“…that makes sense.”
then, almost to himself:
“i don’t know why that makes more sense when you say it.”
you shrugged a little.
“same brain, i guess.”
that got a quiet laugh out of him.
—
and after that… it just started happening more and more.
a message here. a “are you free?” there. a demo file waiting for you before you even asked what it was for.
you stopped thinking of it as “helping out.”
it became something else—something unspoken, but steady.
you’d come by, sit down, and pick up on what he meant halfway through his thoughts. he’d wait for your reaction before deciding what he actually thought of a line.
sometimes you didn’t even need to talk much.
just listen. adjust. try again.
and somewhere between late sessions and half-finished choruses, it stopped feeling like work you were stepping into…
and started feeling like something you were already part of.
—
around a few weeks later, things started to shift again.
you were packing up when he spoke.
“…hey.”
you looked up.
“yeah?”
he didn’t look at you right away—like he was letting the words form properly first.
“do you ever want to hang out outside of this building?”
you blinked.
then stared at him.
“outside?”
he nodded once.
“like… not here.”
a pause.
you slowly turned back to your bag, pretending to think when you had already made your decision.
“that’s kind of a dangerous question to ask another idol,” you said, but your voice was softer than your words.
he leaned back in his chair.
“i know.”
no joke in it.
no deflection.
just honest.
“but i’m asking anyway.”
that made you look at him again.
really look.
“right now?” you asked quietly.
he gave a small shrug and a smile.
“right now works.”
your fingers paused on your bag strap.
the idea suddenly felt a little too real to ignore.
“wouldn’t that be too much?” you asked, your voice softer now, trying to sound casual as you ignored how your heartbeat had started picking up.
he tilted his head.
“depends.”
“on?”
“if we’re doing something wrong.”
a pause.
then, a little softer—
“or if we’re just getting coffee and pretending we’re normal people for an hour.”
that broke the tension immediately.
you laughed, a little breathy, shaking your head.
“you’re weirdly bold for someone who was nervous like two weeks ago.”
he hummed.
“who said i wasn't still nervous”
there wasn't any pressure in his words.
just certainty.
“honestly, i think i’d rather ask… than spend time wondering what this could turn into.”
the words hung there for a moment, like neither of you wanted to rush past them.
“…i think i’d rather find out too,” you admitted softly, your voice lighter than your thoughts felt.
then added, trying—and failing—to sound casual:
“but if this gets us caught, i’m blaming your song.”
he blinked.
then a grin broke out on his face—slow at first, like it was trying to stay composed, and then fully giving up.
“wow,” he said, leaning back in his chair, clearly amused now. “my song is already causing problems outside the studio?”
you shrugged, but you were smiling too.
“…i mean,” you said, glancing up at him with a teasing look you didn’t fully try to hide, “it is kind of influential.”
that got him laughing for real—light, surprised, like he hadn’t expected the moment to feel this easy.
“noted,” he said, still grinning as he grabbed his jacket. “i’ll tell it to behave.”
and somehow, as you both moved toward the door, it didn’t feel like stepping out of the studio anymore.
it felt like stepping into something you hadn’t named yet.
'crawling back to you, ever thought of calling when you've had a few, cause i always do.'
cw: alcohol consumption, happy ending yay!
part 1 // part 2
chan's head lolled against the back of the booth he was sat in, heavy with a drunken haze. he couldn't remember how many he had had at this point, probably not many considering he never usually drinks. but felix had thought it would be a good idea to go out to celebrate the release of their new comeback, and the rest of the boys were easily convinced. chan decided it was better to be out and depressed than at home, alone and depressed.
it had been a few weeks since his argument with you, such a stupid argument, and it had been the only thing he could think of recently. any song he tried to finish reminded him of you, any food he ate didn't compare to your cooking, even this stupid vodka redbull he was drinking now made him think of how you always stocked juneberry redbulls in the mini fridge at his studio. all those late nights you stayed with him, and the early mornings where you basically had to drag him through the front door. nothing but memories of you flooded his brain.
he lifted his head from its reclined back position, regretting it immediately as dizziness flooded him, and turned to hyunjin who was sat next to him.
'maybe i should call her,' he said, or at least tried to say; speaking was hard when mixed with vodka. hyunjin looked at him with something akin to pity. jisung, however, who was sat on the other side of chan, immediately perked up.
'yes hyung, please call her. i don't think i can handle being a child of divorce any longer.' jisung said, draping himself along chan's lap dramatically.
'maybe you shouldn't, channie, not when you're drunk anyway,' hyunjin chimed in. chan felt like he had a little angel and devil on his shoulders, like in the cartoons, but he couldn't tell who was who.
'do you think she's moved on?' he asked, leaning his head back against the booth again. jisung had removed his body from chan's lap and instead opted for leaning his head on his shoulder.
'yes, absolutely,' seungmin chimed in sarcastically from across the booth.
'seungmin you're so rude,' jisung whined.
'he's asking stupid questions, what am i supposed to do?'
'she has not moved on, i assure you.' hyunjin comforted, putting his hand on chan's free shoulder.
'so i should call her?'
'yes!'
'no, wait until the morning.'
'she hates you and she doesn't want you to call her.'
you can easily guessed who said what.
'you're all confusing me. i need air,' chan replied, rubbing his temples and pushing his way towards the exit.
chan had been outside a good 15 minutes now. he had found a comfy spot on the wall, but at this point the chill of the night air had started getting to him.
he was going to call you. he had made his mind up.
he pulled his phone out, scrolling through his contacts until he found yours, thumb hovering over the call button.
should he call you?
'ahh, fuck it,' he said, tapping the button.
the phone rang, and rang... and rang, until finally,
'hello?' your voice was thick with sleep, a couple octaves deeper than usual. shit, he woke you up, you hate being woken up.
'chan?' your voice came through the phone once more.
'yeah, hi.' he finally said, a smile pulling on his face at the sound of your voice. he hoped you wouldn't notice he was drunk.
'are you drunk?'
oh well.
'yes, maybe, a bit. but, look, i was stupid. i am stupid. so so stupid. i shouldn't have said all the things i said because you didn't deserve it. you were so good to me. you are so good. and i miss you, and i love you, and i need you back. i can't do anything without thinking of you. i said i didn't have time for a relationship, but i was so wrong to even think that, let alone say it to you. shit, if you asked me to i'd quit music without a thought. you are so important to me and i should have never let you walk out that door. i'm so sorry, please forgive me. i would be on my knees but i'm sat on the wall of an alley outside the bar and i don't know how clean the floor is.'
there was silence on the other end of the line, a silence that ran too long for chan's liking.
'are- are you still there?'
'yes, i'm still here.'
'and...'
'i think tomorrow, in the afternoon probably, when you've had time to get over your inevitable hangover, you should come over and say all that again to my face.'
'i don't think i'll remember what i said word for word, but i'll give it a go,' he replied, chuckling.
'i think anything along the lines of, i'm sorry, will do.'
'does this mean you forgive me?' he asked hopefully.
'i guess so, but you have lots of grovelling to do going forward.'
'i can grovel.'
'i'll see you tomorrow chan, don't forget.'
'never, bye baby.'
'bye,' and the call ended.
chan rushed back inside the bar, finding the boys still sat at the same booth.
'we're back together,' he announced, probably a little too dramatically. the boys all turned to him happily.
'yes, mum and dad!' jisung cheered.
'shocker.'
'that's great hyung, very happy for you,' felix said, smacking chan on the back.
'thanks guys.'
on the other side of the city was your apartment, where you were currently kicking your feet and squealing with delight.
authors note: don't ever go back to your exes unless they're an australian/korean leader of an international kpop boy group!
STRAY KIDS HYBRIDS AU : OT8 STRAYKIDS X HYBRID RAGDOLL CAT FEM READER
Summary : Hybrids is well known to public, and in the entertainment industry, idols owning hybrids wasn’t unusual. Stray Kids have one, a pure ragdoll cat hybrid. Not as a pet, but more like a family, A Pack for her.
Pairing : Stray Kids OT8 x F!Reader
Tags : Angst ( I love angst), and fluff
A/N : This is my first time writing, so advice, tips and critics are helpful :). English isn't my first language so I used tools to help me write.
The next few days passed like it's supposed to. Not perfect. Not fully healed. But smoother.
The tension that had wrapped so tightly around your chest for weeks finally loosened little by little, enough for you to breathe without constantly feeling like something heavy sat over your ribs. The members became warmer again too, whether because they finally noticed the distance growing between all of you or because schedules lately had forced everyone together longer. Either way, the dorm slowly regained fragments of the warmth it used to hold.
And you clung to those fragments desperately.
Every morning started early, sunlight barely touching the windows before you were already awake in the kitchen, wearing one of your oversized hoodies beneath an apron. Your fluffy cream-colored tail swayed lazily behind you as you moved around preparing breakfast while soft music played from your phone speaker. Eggs sizzling quietly. Rice steaming. The comforting smell of soup filling the dorm little by little.
It became your favorite part of the day again. Because mornings felt honest, sleepy and unfiltered.
The members shuffled in one by one with messy hair and tired eyes, naturally gravitating toward you before they were even fully awake. Lee Know always entered first these days.
Somehow already carrying a warm mug for you.
“Drink this first.”
You turned from the stove with a small blink.
Warm milk. Your ears perked slightly.
“You made it for me?”
Minho only shrugged casually while leaning against the counter.
“You forget to take care of yourself when you’re busy.”
The words settled warmly in your chest.
Quiet affection. The kind Minho gave without making a scene. You accepted the mug with both hands, smiling softly.
“Thank you.” His fingers brushed briefly behind your ear as he passed you.
“You look less dead lately.”
You gasped dramatically.
“I did not look dead!”
“You absolutely did.”
And just like that, your laughter filled the kitchen again.
Soon after, the others began piling in noisily. Felix immediately attached himself to your back while you plated food, wrapping both arms around your waist and pressing his face against your shoulder.
“You’re warm.”
“Lixie, I can't move properly if you cling to me like that.”
“I don't wanna Y/n-ah...”
He mumbled through your shoulder then he kissed your cheek absentmindedly before stealing bacon directly from the pan and ran to quickly sat down.
“Yah!” you protested.
Meanwhile Bang Chan sat at the dining table already sipping coffee, eyes following you around the kitchen quietly. There was something unbearably soft about the way Chan looked at you this morning.
Gentler.
Longer.
Like a lovestruck feelings lingered somewhere beneath his eyes.
“You’re staring,” you stated boldly while setting down plates in front of him. Chan smiled immediately. “Can’t help it.”
“Ugh,” Changbin groaned from beside him. “You sound like someone’s husband.”
Chan only grinned wider. “Maybe I am.”
Your ears instantly flattened in embarrassment while everyone burst out laughing, Changbin pretended to vomit. Then Han appeared dramatically out of nowhere.
“Move.”
Han turned you around and wrapped his hand around your waist from the front, hugging tightly while you whined saying that the breakfast still need to be serve.
“My affection now.”
Changbin immediately protested. “Yah, get off!”
Han ignored him entirely, rubbing his cheek dramatically against your shoulder while pouting. “She likes me more anyway.”
“I literally cooked for all of you,” you laughed.
“Exactly,” Han answered smugly. “Proof of love.”
Changbin looked deeply offended.
And somehow, sitting there listening to everyone bicker over you again felt so painfully domestic your chest almost hurt. Breakfast became slower these days. And longer much to your liking. Nobody rushed to leave immediately anymore.
Seungmin fed you pieces of fruit while pretending he wasn’t.
Jeongin rested his head against your shoulder half-asleep.
Felix complained loudly whenever Minho got more of your attention than him.
At one point, Seungmin suddenly pulled you directly onto his lap while you were trying to clear dishes. You yelped softly in surprise. “Seungmin!”
He only tightened his arms around your waist comfortably.
“You move around too much.”
Felix nearly slammed his spoon down dramatically.
“That’s unfair.”
“She sat on your lap yesterday!”
“And?” Seungmin answered smugly. “Skill issue.”
Your laughter spilled out before you could stop it.
Real laughter.
Not forced.
Not careful.
And hearing it made several members glance toward you instinctively with lightened expressions.
Because they’d missed it too. More than they realized.
Eventually everyone scattered around the dorm preparing for schedules, leaving the kitchen messy with warmth and leftover conversation. Meanwhile you packed essentials carefully into bags while double-checking schedules mentally.
Water bottles.
Medicine.
Extra snacks.
Chargers.
Always prepared.
Always careful.
But when you reached for your tumbler—
It wasn’t there.
You paused.
Blinking slowly.
Weird.
You always carried the same tumbler everywhere. A cream-colored insulated bottle decorated with tiny cat stickers Felix once insisted on buying for you.
You checked your bag again.
Nothing.
The counter.
The sink.
Your room.
Still nothing.
Your brows furrowed deeper the longer you searched.
Because you never lost things.
Especially not daily used things.
And stranger still—
You genuinely couldn’t remember when you last used it. The memory felt blurry somehow. Like trying to grasp smoke. From the hallway Chan’s voice called out. “Baby? What’s taking so long?”
You peeked out from your room.
“I can’t find my tumbler…”
Chan immediately walked over.
“You lost it?”
“I think so…”
Your ears drooped slightly.
“That’s weird.”
Chan stepped inside your room helping you glance around briefly before sighing. “You probably misplaced it at work.”
“I don’t usually forget things…”
“You’ve been busy lately.” Chan gently squeezed your shoulder. “I’ll buy you water later, okay? We gotta go.”
You hesitated. Something about it still bothered you. But eventually you nodded. “Okay.”
The photoshoot studio buzzed with energy all afternoon.
Bright lights.
Music blasting through speakers.
Staff rushing everywhere with makeup kits and clothing racks.
The atmosphere felt exciting rather than stressful though, mostly because the members were in unusually good moods today.
And honestly—
They looked stunning.
Every single one of them.
You sat near the monitors watching the shoot while occasionally snapping photos with your phone whenever the staff got distracted.
Hyunjin looked ethereal beneath the lighting.
Changbin somehow made simple black clothing look devastating.
Felix’s freckles stood out beautifully under soft makeup.
Chan’s smile alone kept making the stylists scream dramatically.
“You guys look too good,” one staff member complained jokingly while reviewing photos.
You nodded immediately. “They really do.”
“Careful,” another stylist teased. “Y/N’s staring too hard.”
Heat instantly crawled into your face.
“Yeah I am...” Too struck with how good looking they are
“You absolutely are.”
The members overheard immediately.
Hyunjin grinned proudly. “Can you blame her?”
“You’re literally flaunting,” Minho sighed. You buried your face behind your phone while everyone laughed.
And for a little while—
Everything felt light again.
“Aren’t you guys looking good today~?”
Your head snapped toward the familiar voice instantly.
Jina.
You hadn’t even noticed her arrive. She stood near the back of the studio smiling pleasantly, coffee cup in hand. But something about her sudden appearance made unease crawl quietly down your spine. Her eyes landed on you almost immediately.
“Oh.” A pause. “You’re here too.” The emphasis on you felt strange.
Subtle.
But noticeable enough your ears twitched slightly. What does she mean by that ?
Still, you smiled politely.
“How’s work going?”
“Good, good.”
Jina approached casually, gaze flickering across you thoughtfully.
“How are you, Y/N?”
Again.
That emphasis.
Like she was testing something invisible.
You laughed awkwardly.
“I’m okay.”
“You’ve looked upset lately.”
The statement caught you off guard.
Not because it was wrong.
But because of the way she said it.
Sweet.
Concerned.
Yet somehow it still made your stomach tighten. Maybe it’s a cat instinct.
“I’m fine,” you answered carefully.
Jina’s brows lifted slightly before she smiled again.
“I’m glad everything’s working out, then.”
Something about the sentence lingered strangely in the air.
You couldn’t explain why.
But suddenly you felt cold.
Jina stood smoothly afterward.
“Well, don’t push yourself too hard.”
Then she walked directly toward the members with effortless familiarity.
Laughing naturally with Chan.
Fixing Hyunjin’s sleeve.
Showing Felix something on her phone.
You watched silently from your seat.
And once again—
That same uneasy feeling settled heavily in your chest.
Because no matter how kind she sounded…
Something always felt wrong around her. Like standing too close to a smile hiding teeth. Maybe it's the cat inside of you, having the instinct and ability to detect bad vibes from people.
“Y/N!”
You startled violently at the sudden voice.
Nearly dropping your phone.
The photoshoot director approached quickly, smiling brightly.
“You scared me…”
“Sorry,” she laughed. “I have an idea. A really great one!”
You blinked. “What idea?”
The director clasped her hands excitedly. “How would you feel about doing your own photoshoot?”
Silence.
Your brain stopped completely.
“…What?”
Several nearby staff members immediately perked up.
“Yes!”
“Oh my god, please say yes.”
“We already have makeup ideas.”
You stared at everyone blankly.
Completely flustered.
“M-Me?”
The director nodded enthusiastically. “The first time I met you, I immediately pictured a concept.”
You blinked again. Still processing nothing.
“You’d fit it perfectly.”
“No, no, I’m not model-like at all—”
“That’s exactly why I want you.”
Your ears flattened shyly.
“What does that even mean…”
The director laughed warmly.
“You have a natural face. Expressive eyes. Soft features. And your hybrid traits make everything visually stunning.” Nearby stylists nodded aggressively in agreement. “We’ve literally talked about this before.”
“You’re gorgeous.”
“You’d photograph beautifully.”
Your entire face burned hotter with every word.
“No way…”
“It doesn’t even need to be published,” the director reassured gently. “I just really want to bring this concept to life.”
You hesitated.
Nervous excitement fluttered strangely inside your chest.
A photoshoot?
You?
Before you could fully answer, suddenly—
Han appeared beside you at lightning speed.
“DO IT.”
You yelped as he grabbed both your hands dramatically before kneeling in front of you. “Please!”
“Han—”
“You’ll look gorgeous.” He looked genuinely excited now.
“Like actually insane. STAYs would lose their minds over you.”
Nearby members immediately agreed.
“Facts.”
“Absolutely.”
“You’d break the internet.”
Han tightened his grip dramatically.
“And WE would go crazy too.”
Then he hit you with the full pout.
Big bobba eyes.
Whining voice.
The devastating combination he knew you couldn’t resist.
“Pleaseeeee?”
You stared at him helplessly. Then at the excited staff surrounding you. Then at the members smiling expectantly nearby. Your heart pounded nervously. But underneath the anxiety…
There was excitement too.
A tiny spark of confidence you hadn’t felt in a very long time.
Maybe…
Maybe this could be fun.
Slowly—
You nodded.
“…Okay.”
The entire room exploded immediately.
And somewhere across the studio—
Jina watched silently. Her smile never wavering but her eyes darkened almost imperceptibly.
The preparation room buzzed with excitement the moment you stepped inside.
It felt completely different from the loud energy of the studio outside. Softer somehow. Warmer. Filled with overlapping conversations, makeup brushes clicking together, steam from curling irons, and the faint scent of perfume and hairspray lingering in the air. The second the door closed behind you, several staff members immediately surrounded you with bright smiles.
“Thank you for agreeing to this.”
“We’ve wanted to style you forever.”
“You’re literally our dream concept.”
Your ears twitched shyly beneath all the attention.
“I’m really not that special…”
A collective groan immediately filled the room.
“No.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Do not start that.”
You laughed softly despite yourself while being guided carefully toward the vanity chair.
The makeup artists adored you openly. One gently brushed your fluffy ears while cooing dramatically about how soft they were. Another lightly touched your tail with sparkling eyes.
“You’re seriously adorable.”
Your cheeks warmed instantly.
“Thank you…”
And strangely—
For the first time in a while, the attention didn’t feel heavy.
It felt nice.
Safe.
"You are beautiful, you should always embraced your beauty Y/n-ssi." Her encouragement stuck in you that day.
The stylists chatted excitedly while working around you carefully, fixing your hair into soft waves that framed your face beautifully. Makeup remained natural and light, just enough to brighten your features without hiding them. A soft pink tint dusted across your cheeks and lips, making your eyes appear warmer beneath the lighting.
Every few minutes someone would pause dramatically just to admire you.
“You have such pretty eyes.”
“Your skin is glowing today.”
“That dress is going to look insane on her.”
Your confidence slowly bloomed under all the kindness.
Not arrogance. Just pure confidence in yourself.
Like maybe you really could look beautiful too.
Eventually the dress arrived.
And when they helped you step into it—
You genuinely froze staring at yourself.
It was soft white fabric scattered with delicate pink floral patterns, the kind that looked almost painted beneath the light. Thin straps rested gently against your shoulders while a ribbon tied neatly across the chest area. The material hugged your figure just enough to flatter you naturally without feeling tight or uncomfortable.
You didn’t have the dramatic body proportions models usually did.
But somehow—
The dress made you feel pretty anyway.
Soft.
Bright.
Summery.
Like the kind of person someone would want to remember.
One stylist placed both hands dramatically over her heart.
“Oh my god.”
Another sniffled jokingly.
“She’s so cute I’m emotional.”
You burst out laughing.
When you finally stepped out into the studio—
Everything stopped.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
Just…
Stopped.
Conversations paused.
Cameras lowered.
Several staff members blinked slowly like they genuinely forgot what they were doing.
And the members—
The members looked stunned.
You froze immediately under the sudden silence.
“...What?”
No one answered for a moment.
Then Han whispered faintly—
“Oh, we’re doomed.”
Laughter instantly broke across the studio.
But even then, the members still stared.
Bang Chan looked completely speechless, coffee cup still halfway lifted toward his mouth.
Hyunjin pressed a hand dramatically against his chest like he’d just witnessed something life-changing.
Felix literally looked ready to cry.
And Changbin stared so openly that heat immediately rushed to your face.
One of the stylists giggled proudly behind you.
“Thank you for the reactions.”
The staff surrounding you looked incredibly satisfied, like your appearance alone validated all their hard work.
Meanwhile you could only laugh shyly while smoothing down the dress nervously.
“You’re all exaggerating…”
“We are absolutely not,” Seungmin answered immediately.
“You look insane,” Jeongin added.
Your ears flattened bashfully, giggling from the compliments.
The director clapped happily.
“Okay! Let’s shoot before they start fighting over her.”
The photoshoot theme centered around summer.
Not glamorous luxury summer.
Not dramatic beach magazine summer.
But warmth.
Sunlight.
Soft happiness.
And somehow—
You fit into it naturally.
The set had picnic blankets, flowers, fruit props, warm lighting, and soft pastel backdrops. The director guided you patiently through poses while constantly reassuring you.
“Relax your shoulders.”
“Think soft.”
“Good— yes, exactly like that.”
At first you felt awkward.
But slowly—
You began enjoying yourself.
Laughing naturally.
Holding flowers while sunlight reflected against your skin.
Playing with your own tail absentmindedly between shots.
The staff kept gasping dramatically whenever the preview images appeared on-screen.
Meanwhile the members watched from the side completely invested in every second.
“You guys are staring too hard,” one photographer teased.
“We can’t help it,” Felix complained.
Changbin didn’t even deny it.
Han took approximately eight hundred behind-the-scenes photos.
And somehow their attention didn’t make you anxious this time.
It made you glow.
After nearly an hour, the director finally smiled.
“Ten minute break.”
You immediately bowed politely.
“Thank you for your hard work!”
Then quietly slipped away toward the restroom.
The bathroom felt cool and silent compared to the busy studio.
You washed your hands slowly while staring at your reflection in the mirror.
And honestly—
You looked happy.
Really happy.
Your cheeks still carried a soft pink flush from smiling too much. Your eyes looked brighter than they had in weeks. Even your ears stood higher. A small smile spread across your lips. You actually did it.
Before you could sink too deeply into the moment, the restroom door opened.
Jina walked in.
“Oh, hey!”
You smiled politely.
“Hi.”
She approached beside you naturally, leaning against the sink facing you.
“You look beautiful today.”
Your ears twitched shyly.
“Thank you…”
Jina gently brushed a strand of hair behind your shoulder.
The gesture felt strangely intimate.
Then casually—
“Maybe hold your stomach in a little more though Y/n-ah.”
You blinked.
“What?”
She smiled lightly like she was giving harmless advice.
“Your tummy rolls are showing a little in the dress.”
And before you could process the words—
She playfully pinched lightly at your side where the fabric rested against your waist. " Look at this, so plumpy !" She giggled.
“I just don’t want anyone making fun of it later.”
Still smiling, sounding sweet, like she genuinely cared.
“Oh.. I didn’t notice.”
Jina smiled sympathetically.
“It’s not a huge deal.”
Then she tilted her head slightly.
“You’re not really model-sized after all.”
The air vanished from your lungs.
Your eyes immediately dropped toward your own body.
The dress suddenly felt tighter.
Your stomach suddenly felt bigger.
More visible.
You instinctively wrapped your arms slightly closer around yourself.
Jina continued casually.
“You’re still cute though.”
“I…” you swallowed quietly.
Jina only waved casually while walking toward one of the stalls.
“Just helping.”
The restroom suddenly felt freezing cold.
When you returned to the studio, something inside you had shifted.
Tiny.
But devastating.
Because now you couldn’t stop thinking about your body.
About how the dress hugged your waist.
About whether everyone noticed the softness there.
About whether the photos looked embarrassing.
You became hyper aware of every movement.
Every pose.
Your confidence drained away quietly.
The director noticed first.
“Relax your shoulders again.”
You tried.
But your body felt stiff now.
Awkward.
Wrong.
The members exchanged small glances from the side. Because only twenty minutes ago you’d been glowing. Now you barely looked at the camera. Finally you lowered your hands awkwardly.
“Can we… pause for a second?”
The director blinked gently.
“Of course.”
Immediately Hyunjin approached towering over you. Concern already visible across his face. “What happened?”
You hesitated.
Because saying it aloud sounded ridiculous.
Still—
Quietly, you admitted—
“I think my stomach looks weird in the dress.”
Hyunjin stared at you blankly.
“What?”
“I’m not a model,” you rambled nervously. “And maybe this concept would fit someone prettier or skinnier or—”
Suddenly—
Hyunjin kissed you.
Right on the lips. With his plump pink lips, that every Stays would die for.
Your brain completely stopped functioning.The studio exploded instantly.
“YAH!”
“That’s cheating!”
“UNFAIR!”
Minho eyes got wide.
Han collapsed dramatically onto the floor.
Meanwhile you stood frozen.
Completely stunned.
Your ears burned so hot you thought you might actually combust.
Hyunjin pulled back only slightly, hands cupping your face gently.
“Love...How can you say that,” he murmured softly, “when every single one of us has been completely obsessed with you all day?”
Your breath caught.
Hyunjin smiled faintly. “Seriously. You’ve got everyone falling in love with you all over again.” Nearby, Chan nodded immediately. “True.” Felix groaned dramatically. “She’s been attacking us since she walked out.”
Your entire face flamed deeper.
“Stop—”
“Some of them are literally malfunctioning,” Hyunjin continued teasingly.
“HYUNNIE.”
“What? I’m serious.”
Han pointed aggressively.
“I forgot how to speak earlier!”
The staff burst out laughing.
Meanwhile you buried your face in your hands.
“I’m never coming out there again…”
Hyunjin gently pulled your hands away.
“Hey.”
His voice softened instantly.
“You’re beautiful.”
Not exaggerated.
Not teasing.
Just honest.
“And you looked happiest when you stopped worrying about being perfect. You are literally an art Y/n.”
Your chest tightened painfully.
Because maybe—
Maybe that was true.
The director approached carefully afterward.
“Everything okay?”
Hyunjin explained briefly while rubbing comforting circles against your waist.
The director blinked once.
Then laughed softly.
“Oh sweetheart.”
You looked up nervously.
“This shoot isn’t about having a perfect body.”
She gestured around the set.
“It’s about summer.”
You stayed quiet.
“The warmth of it. The brightness. The happiness people remember.”
Her expression softened warmly.
“And you embody that perfectly.”
Your eyes widened slightly.
“You don’t look like a model,” she admitted gently. “You look real.”
The staff nodded in agreement immediately.
“Comforting.”
“Warm.”
“Pretty in a way people remember.”
“You feel like sunshine.”
Your breath got caught unexpectedly. Because nobody had ever described you that way before. Not beautiful because you were flawless. Beautiful because you felt warm.
The insecurity loosened slightly.
You smiled softly.
Then bowed deeply.
“I’ll do my best.”
The rest of the shoot turned out even better somehow. Once your confidence returned, everything flowed naturally again. The photos captured laughter.
Movement.
Warmth.
Life.
And when the final images were reviewed afterward—
The entire studio collectively lost their minds.
“Oh my god.”
“These are insane.”
“She looks magical.”
Even you stared speechlessly at the screen.
Because somehow—
You looked genuinely beautiful.
Not edited into perfection.
Just… beautiful.
Warm sunlight against soft smiles.
Wind catching your dress.
Your eyes glowing naturally.
Minho immediately pointed at the screen.
“I want every photo.”
Everyone laughed.
“I’m serious,” he insisted. “I’m making an album.”
Felix gasped dramatically.
“That’s actually genius.”
“I want copies too.”
“Me too.”
You laughed helplessly while fanning your burning face with your hands.
The director turned toward you with a pleased smile.
“So?”
You blinked.
“Hm?”
“How does it feel?”
You looked back at the photos slowly.
Then at the staff surrounding you.
The members smiling proudly nearby.
And quietly—
“It feels really precious.”
Your voice cracked slightly from sincerity.
“Thank you so much for letting me experience this.”
The director’s expression softened deeply.
Then carefully—
“How would you feel about publishing them yeah?”
Your eyes widened immediately.
“What?!”
Several staff members nodded excitedly.
“You’d do amazing.”
“People would adore these.”
Instinctively you looked toward the members first. Seeking permission.
Reassurance.
Every single one of them nodded aggressively.
“Yes.”
“Absolutely yes.”
“Please.”
Then you turned nervously toward the managers. One of them smiled.
“If the publisher approves it, we’re okay with it.”
The director laughed confidently.
“They’ll approve it immediately.”
Then with a grin—
“And of course you’ll be paid.”
You froze.
“…Paid?”
The thought hit unexpectedly hard.
Because you’d never really had your own income before.
You lived with the members.
Relied on them.
Everything you had came from them somehow.
But this—
This would be yours.
Your own work.
Your own achievement.
Your eyes lit up instantly.
And before anyone could stop you, you bowed deeply toward every staff member repeatedly.
“Thank you so much! You don’t understand how grateful I am!”
The room filled with laughter and applause immediately. Everyone looked happy proud.
Everyone except one person.
From the far corner of the studio, Jina sat quietly with crossed legs and a drink resting in her hand.
Watching.
Smiling faintly.
But irritation burned clearly beneath her expression now.
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