hai! i'm aims, jeonghan lover since 2018! from london and living in the uk. yjh ult + hjs, chs, ljh, csc, kmg, xmh, wjh, jww bias (whole group at this point...). writing for only seventeen, but past skz, nct & day6 works can be found in my film cupboard! enjoy, please msg me & request i'd love to chat...shh! the film is starting!!
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⤷ pre-2020 works of fiction written about skz, day6 & nct -- these works are very old! not edited & i no longer write for any of these groups ᝰ.ᐟ
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you supported seungcheol through years of being an aspiring athlete, and all you got to show for it was your undergraduate degree and an awkward, stuttered apology when he dumped you to go semi-pro. now he’s back after an injury derailed his career, and there’s only one problem: you’re the only one available to tutor him. you - 0; the universe - 1. talk about no return on investment.
⚽ pairing: choi seungcheol x f. reader
⚽ genre: exes to (lite) enemies to lovers; university au; angst, fluff
⚽ rating: while there is nothing explicit in this fic, there are two brief references to smut. while i can't stop anyone from reading this, i would prefer minors do not interact with this or any of my work.
⚽ warnings: cheol is some degree of famous, reader is a grad student/TA, mentions of an injury and coping with the aftermath of it, lots of economics talk that even i do not understand, swearing, one mention of alcohol, some misplaced jealousy, rom-com tropes, dino is kind of a loser but we love him anyway. probably a lot of other things i missed, but this is actually pretty tame for a fic of this length.
⚽ word count: 13.4k
⚽ thank you: a lot of people looked this over for me in the process and i'm sure i will forget some of them so if i do i'm sorry: @the-boy-meets-evil, @hot-soop, @highvern, and @haologram, who also gave me some wonderful ideas for the vlogs. thank you to MIT for opencourseware existing. i took microeconomics and dropped it, so i couldn't have done this without you. everyone in the discord server for helping me along the way and keeping me motivated.
⚽ author's note: i haven't posted a fic in nearly seven months, so i think it goes without saying that there are parts of this i like and a lot more i'm not 100% happy with. i'd love if this was more fleshed out and 10k longer, but i was able to write anything at all so it's good enough.
this was written for the back to school with seventeen collab, hosted by @camandemstudios. thank you both for letting me participate! please make sure to check out the rest of the stories! everyone worked so hard and this collab was a ton of fun to participate in. <3
You look down at the paper. Back up at who handed it to you. Down at the paper again.
“You’ve got to be joking.”
The poor freshman kid laughs, all nerves, and even though the sound is grating, you remember what it’s like to be forced into work study. How far away graduate school seemed; how large your professors loomed over you with all their power and knowledge and credentials; how you constantly felt like the dumbest person in nearly every room you walked into for four straight years.
“Um—”
You sigh, just barely resisting the urge to slam your head onto your desk. “I—it’s fine, don’t worry about it.” Your words do little to ease Freshman’s nerves. He’s still hunched over in the doorway of your office, wringing his hands as he shifts his weight back and forth, in for a lifetime of body pain with the way he’s squaring his shoulders. “You’re sure about this, though? Like, I’m really not being set up?”
“I don’t think so?” he offers, slowly starting to turn green right before your eyes. “Dr. Lee ga-gave me the paperwork himself, I don’t think he would’ve messed it up? Oh no, did I mess it up? Should I go back to Student Services and conf—”
Good god, this kid’s anxiety is gonna stink up your office for weeks. “No need!” you interject. “I’ll just…” Sign it, you want to say, but the longer you stare at the sheet of paper the quicker you’re losing your resolve.
TUTORING REQUEST FORM
Student Name: Choi Seungcheol
Degree: Undergraduate
Major: Business
Course: ECON04101 Introduction to Microeconomics
Instructor: Lee Yeonseok, PhD.
Recommended Tutoring: High (3-4 hours per week)
You curse under your breath. Of the two names on the paper, Dr. Lee’s does not come as a surprise. He’s a notorious hard-ass with an infamous attrition rate—most students don’t last more than a week in any of his classes—but he’s also the sole reason you were able to pay for someof your grad school tuition out of pocket with all the tutoring money you made.
That, however, was two years ago.
“Does he know I don’t tutor anymore?” Stupid question. The kid stares blankly back at you, as if to say I don’t know any more than the people in Student Services, let alone Dr. Lee. It is literally my first year here. “I’m Dr. Ahn’s TA this year. I’ve got my hands full with her bullsh… stuff—”
Immediately, you know you’ve said something wrong, because the kid’s eyes light up, all that previous anxiety disappearing like smoke. “Wait, the same Dr. Ahn that teaches the crypto course?”
“No, that one died,” you say quickly. Kid deflates. “Anyway, I don’t really tutor anymore, especially for econ. As you can see”—you gesture vaguely around the cramped four walls of your office—“they’ve upgraded me. They even put my name on a little placard by the door! Go look! They spelled it wrong! If that doesn’t sum up this university I don’t know what does.”
You heave another sigh. Try to school your face and tone into something that exudes professionalism and finality. “Look, I’m sorry I can’t help you. I tutored Dr. Lee’s students for, like, three years in undergrad so I’m sure they just… forgot that wasn’t my actual job here. Who’s in charge of tutoring these days? I’ll shoot them an email and explain all this.”
Freshman gives you a name, and it takes less than a second to find them in the employee directory. You expect that to be the end of it, but he’s still taking up space in your doorway. You quirk an eyebrow. “Yes?”
The hand-wringing returns, along with an embarrassed flush that disappears beneath the neckline of his school-branded sweatshirt. “I just—um. Maybe you could, uh. Send that now? Before I get back there?”
You blink. “Don’t you have to go all the way back across campus? How slow do you think I type?” He shrugs, and you give up on the idea of getting rid of him. “Fine. What’s your name, anyway?”
“Lee Chan. I’m a sophomore. Do you know that guy?”
“Oh. I thought for sure you were a freshman, but you’re gonna need to be more specific, Lee Chan, Sophomore.”
“The guy they want you to tutor.” You freeze. The guy they want you to tutor is—“Choi Seungcheol,” Chan tacks on, and, yeah, you know—knew, you correct yourself—someone with that name, once upon a time.
But there are a lot of Chois and a lot of Seungcheols. It’s been years since you’ve spoken to the Seungcheol you knew, and that was when he’d broken up with you to—“I heard he’s a football player? Well, used to be, I guess. The girls in the office were freaking out so I guess he’s pretty famous, but I don’t know anything about sports, do you? They said they have photocards of him. I thought they only did that for idols.”
You think about being kids together in Daegu. Think about the exasperated looks you’d share when your parents would drag the two of you to festivals: Palgongsan in the autumn, Biseulsan in the spring; transformation and rebirth. Think about being eight years old and watching your father cram into the small space of the Chois’ living room, standing around the TV with Seungcheol’s dad, shouting at Park Jonghwan. Daegu FC made the FA Cup quarterfinals that year, and you think, of everything, that’s what you’ll remember for the rest of your life.
You think about falling in love slowly. Sixteen and clueless, the pair of you were. Didn’t really know any different, just that you’d look at him and feel butterflies. That you’d hold hands in secret. Text beneath the dinner table. That you’d watch him on the football pitch and be consumed by pride. That the future felt impossibly far away, that life would never catch up to the two of you.
You think about all the football jargon you didn’t understand—the academies, the teams, the implications. You think about, I’m thinking about trying out for the FC Seoul U-18, I just don’t think there’s much more I can do here in Daegu. You think about replying, Oh, I applied to university there.
You remember thinking it must’ve been fate, how easy that had worked out. How easy that first hurdle had been overcome.
You think about how fast everything happened. The try-out, the acceptance, the explosion. Remember being unable to go anywhere those first few months without seeing Seungcheol’s face, touted as the next big thing. Think about applying for scholarships when he was applying for international visas. Think about studying for midterms when Seungcheol was studying English for interviews.
You think about the last few weeks of your relationship, when it felt like you were desperately trying to cling to ghosts. Think about how Seoul had once felt endlessly big, both in opportunity and size, and how it now felt suffocating. You think about, So you’re just giving up? Is that what you’re saying? Think about, I don’t know what else to do. It doesn’t feel fair to you.
You think about all the places you’ve watched him. On countless football pitches; shy glances in school hallways; in the passenger seat, wracked with nerves on the drive to Seoul; poised above you in bed, hairline dotted with sweat as he rolled his hips, telling you how much he loved you.
You think about watching him walk out the door, and how you never watched him again.
So you fire off your email, concise and to the point about why you can’t tutor Choi Seungcheol in Introduction to Microeconomics, and turn to Lee Chan, Sophomore.
“No,” you finally answer. “Never heard of him.”
For all intents and purposes, your rejection should’ve been the end of it.
A few days go by. You hold office hours, attend lectures, work on your thesis when you have both the time and the energy. Try to ignore the feeling of bees beneath your skin, anxiety needling each time you check your email. You were well within your right to decline the tutoring request, but you can’t help but feel like you’ve done something wrong. That someone somehow knows who Seungcheol was to you and will pull you up on it. That those girls who’d gushed about him to Chan are somewhere laughing at your expense.
But you don’t hear anything at all about it… until you do.
Sunday evening. You haven’t moved from your couch in hours, some variety show playing in the background, barely audible over your keyboard clacking. Much to your detriment, you don’t write many papers these days, so you’re out of practice. Feels like you haven’t done anything besides formulas in years, all of your academic knowledge reduced to fucking math, so you’re about ready to toss your laptop out the window long before the email even comes through.
You see, From: Lee Yeonseok. You see, Subject: Choi Seungcheol - Tutoring.
Your stomach plummets to the floor.
You scan the body quickly. You see the words personal favor… friend of his father… urgent matter… and your hands start shaking. Whether it’s from the sheer audacity of this man or anxiety, you aren’t sure, but it’s not like it matters. There aren’t a whole lot of people on campus brave or dumb enough to go up against him twice.
“Motherfucker,” you spit, bitter the only taste in your mouth.
Where did you go wrong to wind up here? You’d followed the script: got the grades, passed the exams, received half of the required education for the Respectable Career, helped a few others along the way chase dreams that may or may not have been their own. You’d fallen in love. Only had a broken heart to show for it, but that’d been in the script, too: The First Love, followed by The First Heartbreak.
The split from Seungcheol was supposed to have been the end of that chapter. You’d planned on never seeing him again, and you never would have, had it been up to you. Apparently the universe has other plans, participation required.
“Did you spill onion dip on the rug again?” You startle, sending your laptop flying. Kaori, your roommate, is perched halfway in between the living room and the kitchen like a cryptid, clearly not expecting your reaction. “Oh. Were you watching porn?”
Face burning, you fetch your laptop from the floor. “In a common area? Kaori, please, I have far more decorum than that.”
She snorts, resuming her trek to the fridge. “See, that’s what I thought, but then I walked out here and you threw your laptop so fast it was like watching my ex get caught watching furry porn all over again.” She pries the lid off a large container of yogurt. “You think this is still good?”
“Dunno. What’s it smell like?”
She sniffs it and pulls it back to check the label. “Vanilla, I think, which is concerning because it’s supposed to be strawberry.”
You shrug. “What’s the worst that can happen, you get extra”—you pause, trying to remember the correct order of things, before giving up entirely—“...biotics?”
“Mm, so close. Care if I just eat this with a spoon?”
Nose scrunched, you wave her off. “Couldn’t pay me to eat yogurt on a good day, let alone if it’s expired. All yours, babe.”
Spoon in hand and a pleased smile on her face, Kaori collapses onto the couch beside you. You try to return your attention to your paper, try to find your momentum again, and it works for all of ten minutes before you’re groaning and slamming the top closed.
You don’t even need to look over to know Kaori’s staring. “What’s up with you?” she asks. Before she can answer: “Wait, is this serious? Because I can’t have a serious conversation in this t-shirt.” You steal a glance sideways. Ask Me About My Hemorrhoid! it says, and you exhale loudly. “Don’t breathe at me, I lost a bet.”
“And continued wearing it?”
She jokingly rolls her eyes. “God forbid a girl has hobbies.” Nudges you with her foot. “C’mon, spill.”
Kaori doesn’t know about you and Seungcheol. Most people don’t, aside from a few old classmates from Daegu who found you on social media and tried befriending you once he started making a name for himself in Seoul. After that, it was just easier to keep things private while you were together. New friends knew you were seeing someone but not their name or how long you’d been together. Any curiosity surrounding why the Choi Seungcheol was following you on Insta had been waved away easily. Our parents are friends, we grew up together. Then you broke up, and there wasn’t any evidence to delete, and he wasn’t following you on Instagram anymore, and it was easier that way.
So, yeah—even though you hadn’t met her until years later, Kaori knows you have an ex. She knows you’ve had a few flings and situationships in the time since, too, and it’s why she’s none the wiser when you ask, “It’s nothing, really. Just—do you follow football at all?”
“Nah, not really. The new guy’s pretty into it and keeps trying to get me to watch the games with him, but it’s so fucking boring? I dunno, I can’t get into it. Not in real life, anyway—I binged all of Captain Tsubasa in an embarrassingly short amount of time, though. Why?”
“Student Services asked me to tutor someone the other day and I had to turn it down. I just don’t have the time, you know? This semester’s already killer, and Dr. Ahn’s been riding my ass nonstop about grades. Turns out it’s some football player, so Dr. Lee emailed me asking me to do it as a personal favor, which means, on top of all the other shit I have to do, I’m now tutoring some football player four hours a week in Microeconomics.”
Her face distorts. “God, that guy’s such a prick. Like wow, you’re good at the economy! Good for you! Who cares! Why don’t you go balance the national debt or something instead of torturing university freshmen!”
You also wrongly assume that’s the last you’ll hear of it from Kaori.
Two days later, after Student Services replies to your email with the days and times you’ll be tutoring Seungcheol, she materializes in the living room to harass you.
“You didn’t tell me your football player was Choi Seungcheol.”
The panic is instant. You know how she means it, but it’s not how your body interprets it. All of a sudden it feels like an interrogation, an accusation, and a whopping serving of guilt takes up residence in the middle of your chest for not being entirely honest.
“Explains this weird text Ken sent me.”
She slides her phone over to you, open to her text thread with her current flavor of the week. Beneath an article about Seungcheol enrolling in classes at your school:
doesn’t ur roomie TA there
Why are you calling her “ur roomie” like you don’t know her name?? Rude. Also yes.
ask her to get me an autograph
No
babe pls he was my fav player before he got injured
No
🙄 fine. can i come over later?
Starting to think you’re using me for my roommate. Get your own job 🙄
You hand her phone back. “I didn’t think you’d know who Choi Seungcheol even is.” It’s the best you can do, even though it just digs you a deeper grave. “You said you’re not into football.”
“I’m not, but unfortunately I am into that stupid man.” She sighs, wistful and longing. “Babe, you have to understand. His dick is so big.”
You hadn’t wanted to stay in Seoul for your graduate degree, let alone the same university you’d gone to for undergrad.
You’d applied to schools all over—Japan, Europe, even a few in the States. Romanticized the hell out of NYU, went window shopping for an overpriced apartment, picked a favorite pizzeria based on nothing but vibes and online reviews. In those few months after graduation, there wasn’t a whole lot tying you to Seoul. Your and Seungcheol’s relationship had been old history by then, your parents split. Your dad stayed in your childhood home and your mother moved a few hours closer to her sister. They’d waited until your brother was old enough to be out of the house.
And it’d just been… a lot. Overwhelming. Some days you could barely shower or feed yourself, let alone move halfway across the world, so you’d stayed in the familiar and tried not to let it feel like failure.
But the good thing about familiarity is you learn its tricks, figure out the hiding spots. Early on, your first or second week of grad school, you laid claim to a study room on a floor of the library everyone else ignored. You write notes on the whiteboard with faded blue markers that are still there days later. The chair on the opposite side of the table is always exactly where you left it, the space between it and the table enough to only accommodate you. Sometimes you leave books—old paperbacks littered with notes in your writing—or papers, just to see if they move.
They never do.
And all of this is why it feels like a punch to the gut when that sanctity is tainted. When you’re halfway through a stack of Dr. Ahn’s exams and the doorknob rattles behind you. When you don’t even need to turn around to know who it is, because he still sounds the same, still has that overwhelming presence. You’ve always sensed him before you felt him.
“There you are,” Dr. Lee says, ambling into the room before you can protest. He, too, is overwhelming, just in different ways. Immaculate posture that anchors his slight frame that’s always dressed impeccably and expensively. Wears a watch that’s triple your tuition. Shoes polished so bright they’re nearly blinding. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
This time it is an accusation.
Well, you found me, you want to say, but just knowing Seungcheol is behind him, lingering in that half-study room, half-hallway space, is enough to keep you quiet. Like if you speak you’ll summon him closer and you’ll no longer be able to pretend this is nothing more than a nightmare.
You plaster on a polite smile. Say, “Ah, here I am, kyosu-nim,” and put all your energy into trying to glue Seungcheol to the floor with your mind.
Which is fruitless, because Dr. Lee moves further into the room. Gestures for Seungcheol to follow him with an impatient huff, and the study room is small, sure, and with three people it feels cramped, but that’s not the reason it feels like all the air’s been sucked out of the room.
Seungcheol looks… different. He looks as anxious as you feel, and he sticks close to the wall like he’s trying to disappear. Dr. Lee introduces him with grave importance, unaware of your history, and the forced smile he offers you almost looks embarrassed.
You know Dr. Lee is still hammering away, probably giving you a stern talking-to for rejecting his request the first time, but you can’t tear your eyes away from Seungcheol. Feels like the world around you has reduced to a pinhead, all hyperfocus; feels like your lungs are sucking in stale air one at a time.
“...his father is a very good friend of mine, so I expect…”
You expected to feel nothing. Seungcheol had left to chase his dream—one you’d always been so supportive of that it sometimes felt like your dream, too—and, perhaps naively, you thought the distance and the years would’ve been enough. You expected your heart to have hardened. You expected all those nights you spent crying to hit you at full force. You expected anger, hurt—indifference, at the very least.
“...as many hours per week as you both can manage…”
But you should’ve known better. Should’ve expected the butterflies, the way your palms grow clammy, the way your heart rate spikes. Should’ve expected everything to feel upside-down. You should’ve expected to look at Seungcheol and feel sixteen and in love all over again.
“...you are responsible for his academic progress…”
And that simply will not do. You’ve spent the last few years pulling yourself out of that hole, clawing your way back to something resembling normal. You’ve purged the thought of him from your mind—let his scent fade from your sheets, an old sweatshirt he’d left behind; forgot the way his lips felt against every inch of your skin; forgot the way his entire being lit up when he laughed; forgot the safety he encompassed, the way he whispered all those sweet nothings.
You cannot go there again.
So you roll your shoulders back, smile politely. Say, “Ah, kyosu-nim, Choi Seungcheol-ssi seems very intelligent, I’m sure he is capable of being responsible for his own academic standing, don’t you think?”
Dr. Lee cannot disagree without all but calling Seungcheol an idiot, so he hovers before you in shocked silence. Makes a show of huffing and checking his watch, like he’s all of a sudden remembered he’s late for something and being inconvenienced by this conversation he started, and then he’s halfway out of the library with a terse, “Discuss and figure this out amongst yourselves,” thrown over his shoulder.
You have an entire dramatic exit planned in your head. Gather your things, fake a phone call that makes you sound authoritative and important, and brush past Seungcheol wearing your nicest perfume as if all of this is so far beneath you you can’t even bring yourself to care about it.
Of course, you actually have to brush by him for any of that to happen, and since you’ve already decided you will not go there again, you quickly scribble your email address onto a piece of paper and slide it across the table at Seungcheol, who has steadfastly remained planted just outside the door. “Here’s my email. I don’t have time to discuss this right now.” Seungcheol cocks an eyebrow. You start throwing things into your bag haphazardly. You know you look frantic and affected, but there’s not much you can do about that. “What? Send me a copy of your syllabus and what you want to prioritize. It’ll be easier to get through this if we have a plan instead of winging it.”
He seems to catch on to your distaste because he mirrors it. Scoffs as he rolls his eyes and says, “Yeah, no use spending more time together than we have to,” and if you hadn’t gone years without speaking, you would’ve seen right through it.
But you did, so it stings all the same.
As it typically does, the planet keeps spinning after your run-in with Seungcheol.
You grade Dr. Ahn’s coursework. Try running off your anxiety at the gym, even though it’s pretty good at keeping pace with you these days. You meet Kaori’s maybe-boyfriend sneaking out of your apartment early in the morning and he has the good sense not to mention your ex, but you chalk that up to the mess of hickeys covering his neck and not any sense of social decorum.
Other people’s embarrassment saves you a ton of your own, you’ve come to learn.
Throughout all of this, Seungcheol only emails you once to send you his course syllabus. Doesn’t mention tutoring or provide you with his schedule or ask for yours, so when you’re sitting in a bar with your friends, three or four drinks deep and feeling a little petty, you forward him the original tutoring request and make sure to bold, underline, and highlight the “Recommended Tutoring: High” part for good measure.
He doesn’t take your bait—electronically, at least—but he does show up to your office hours the following Tuesday.
Bag tossed onto the floor, he flops unceremoniously into the chair across from you and says, in lieu of a greeting, “They spelled your name wrong. On the door thing.”
“I know,” you reply, your smile polite and terse. Incredible how he has the ability to raise your blood pressure in milliseconds. “What can I help you with?”
“Depends. How long do you have?”
“Well, considering you’ve shown up to my office hours on time, I’m assuming you already know I’m here every Tuesday and Thursday from four to six. So”—you glance at the clock above the door—“assuming no one comes by who needs my help more than you do, you have approximately one hour and fifty-eight minutes.”
Seungcheol is quiet for a moment as he takes you in. His stare is weighted; it makes you feel a little green around the edges. Clinical and sharp, so far removed from the way he used to look at you. You clear your throat. “I looked over your syllabus. The good news is there’s only a midterm and a final and the rest is problem sets. The bad news is there’s only a midterm and a final so they’re weighted quite heavily. You really need to know this stuff inside-out to have any hope of passing.”
“That’s why you’re here, right? Dr. Lee specifically requested you.”
You huff a breath through your nose. “I’m here as supplemental help. I can’t take your exams or do your readings for you. What else are you taking this semester?”
He sighs, sinking further into the chair, very much playing the part of the heir who has no interest in any of this. Which… is unlike him, you think, if you’re even allowed to. The Seungcheol you knew years ago took everything so seriously. Never clipped corners or took shortcuts. Anyone else would think him a spoiled, petulant child. “Business Accounting and International Trade.”
“Could be worse,” you note. “At least those three courses are tangentially related.”
Seungcheol rolls his eyes. “Easy for you to say. I haven’t taken a fucking math class in years.”
You return it. “You remember how to add and subtract, don’t you?”
“I ruptured my ACL, not my…” He trails off, looking a little embarrassed that he can’t name a part of the—“Brain.”
Whatever you were going to quip back with dies on your tongue. It's the first time Seungcheol has broached the topic of his injury—the first you’re hearing of it at all, actually—and he says it like it’s a joke, like it’s not a thing at all, but the pain is all over his face. The bitterness of the situation he’s found himself in. The unfairness of it all.
And there are so many questions you want to ask that aren’t your place: if it’s fixable, if he’ll ever play again, how he’s coping. But you don’t really need to—you can’t imagine how you’d feel if someone suddenly pulled the rug out from under you. If everything contained within the four walls of your office suddenly disappeared.
Not that the man sitting across from you hadn’t already done that, but.
“Right,” you continue, as if he hadn’t said anything at all. You know Seungcheol—know he wouldn’t want you prodding, sticking your fingers in that particular wound. “I want you to take a look at this,” you say, handing over a printout you have saved from your undergrad tutoring days. “Tell me what looks familiar, what doesn’t; what does and doesn’t make sense.”
He looks down at the paper. Back up at you. Down at the paper again. “What the fuck is this?”
“I—what? Cheol, it’s my old notes on recitation. Surely you’ve already covered this—the syllabus says this is week one stuff.” He looks down at the paper again, and it’s so familiar, watching the life drain entirely from someone’s eyes.
You barely resist the urge to slam your face onto your desk a second time.
You meet Seungcheol at the sports center for your next tutoring session.
He likes the humidity and the smell of the chlorine by the pool. He also likes that it’s not the football pitch, so the two of you sit in the bleachers there and go over his lecture notes. Much to your surprise, Seungcheol talks a mile a minute. Has stars in his eyes when he says he finally understands elastic demand curves, supply shock; tells you he spent a whole hour making flashcards.
It’s the first time you’ve seen him so excited since your tutoring began—the first glimmer of hope you’ve felt since Dr. Lee cornered you in your library hideaway. None of this surprises you. Seungcheol has always been smart, even when football was his primary (and sometimes only) focus. He has more determination and grit than anyone you’ve ever met, so you’re not surprised he’s doing well, excelling, but you are surprised—
“Can I ask you something?” Seungcheol shrugs, shoves half a protein bar in his mouth and swallows without chewing. “Why are you… uh. Here?”
“At this university?”
“Not exactly. I mean, I am wondering about that, but I guess… why business?”
Seungcheol hums. Tucks his good knee to his chest and stares down at the pool. No one’s using it, and truthfully the two of you probably aren’t even allowed to be here, but you understand why he likes it. It’s nowhere near as secluded as the library and definitely not as air conditioned, but it is peaceful. Calm. The water laps against the coping in quiet, small waves.
“Ah, I don’t know. You know how it goes.”
You quirk an eyebrow. Never, in all the years you’ve known him, has Seungcheol done anything he didn’t want to do. All that grit and determination. “What about your father, then? Dr. Lee mentioned this was a favor to him. He’s a pretty important person to have in your Rolodex of favors.”
Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what this is: Seungcheol’s father has new money; worked from the bottom up, made some smart investment decisions that finally panned out after Seungcheol left for Seoul. Started doing his own thing, made a name for himself. Last you’d heard from your mother, Seungcheol’s brother was second-in-command. Hell, even your own brother did an internship there.
So you know what this is: a father helping his son after his dream was shattered, life turned upside-down. You can’t blame him, even if you’ve heard the whispers from all the way across campus. That Seungcheol is washed up now, trying to nepo his way into his father’s company because of it; that all he knows is sports and he should’ve stuck to that, what does he know about business, why is he the one Dr. Lee went out of his way to help.
Doesn’t stop any of them from smiling at him, though; doesn’t stop them from asking for autographs or selfies.
But you also know this isn’t something Seungcheol seems willing to discuss, so you crack a joke—“I mean, business. God, who’d wanna go into that?”—and go back to what he was willing to talk about.
You’ve never hated elastic demand curves so much in your life.
Deep in the throes of tutoring—when you can’t tell if it’s week two or week twelve—you make it back to your apartment just before ten, head pounding.
The door flies open just as you’re about to punch in the code, and there stands Ken, looking far more put-off than you’ve ever seen him. Looks defeated, if you’re being honest, like someone mopped up all his emotions and wrung them out like dirty dishwater.
“Oh, hi,” you say hesitantly. The man in front of you seems too much like a caged animal to let your guard down. “Everything okay?”
He aborts a nod halfway. Mutters an apology as he brushes by you and stalks down the hall, disappearing around the corner to the elevators. Usually he’s a talker—you haven’t been able to avoid a Seungcheol-related conversation in weeks—so you’re a little stunned. Stand there stupidly for a while, and that’s where Kaori finds you a moment later.
“You gonna stand out here all night, or…?”
“Oh—yeah, right.”
You follow her inside. Toe off your shoes and put them in the rack. Focus on the sound of the kettle whistling instead of the overbearing tension in the room. Drop your bag off in your room, throw on a sweatshirt three sizes too big and a comfy pair of socks. Rummage through the fridge for leftovers, contemplate what mindless show you’ll watch as you eat, and you do not, under any circumstances, ask Kaori what happened.
You don’t have to. You knew what this was going to be the first time Ken spent the night—the way he looked mortified to be meeting you in the shared kitchen at seven a.m., wearing a look that begged you not to tell your roommate he was sneaking out.
I, uh, have an early class, he’d said. You know how it is.
Maybe you should’ve called him on it then. Issued a warning-but-not-really. She’ll get attached if you don’t tell her. She should know it’s different for you, if it is.
But you’d convinced yourself it wasn’t your place. Kaori wouldn’t want you in her business like that, so you stayed quiet, just nodded before watching him slip his shoes on and close the door behind him so quietly you wouldn’t have known he left at all if you hadn’t been looking. Gone, just like a ghost.
So, yeah, you know exactly why your roommate looks haunted.
“I’m a few episodes behind on this if you want to watch with me,” you offer, pointing at the television with the remote. It’s a lie—you’ve never watched this show a day in your life, which Kaori seems to know—but she contemplates it nonetheless. “Also, my mom mailed us some cookies. I think they’re in the fridge.”
“Why are there cookies in the fridge?”
You huff a laugh. “They were outside the door this morning before I left for campus. I don’t know—just saw who the package was from and was like, oh, this must go in the fridge.”
She nods. Grabs the container and joins you on the couch. Sticks her feet beneath your butt and doesn’t mention a thing.
The closest she comes is a few days later. Catches you right before you head out to campus and asks how tutoring is going.
“Not bad, actually.”
Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes when she says, “That’s good. I’m glad things are going well for you two.”
Lee Chan, Sophomore makes his unexpected return at your office hours on an unsuspecting Tuesday.
“Can I help you?”
He doesn’t answer right away, just helps himself to the seat across from you. “Maybe,” comes his cryptic retort. “I was thinking about signing up for that crypto course next semester.”
You narrow your eyes. “No, you weren’t.”
He sighs. Looks a little panicked, like he can’t believe that didn’t work. “You’re right, you’re right. I, um—I wanted to come say thank you.” He pauses. “You know, for that… email you sent.”
You blink. “No, you didn’t.”
Lee Chan, Sophomore cracks immediately. Thunks his head on your desk and lets loose a pained sound. It nearly sounds like he’s wailing when he says, “I’m sorry! They put me up to it!”
What you’re able to piece together is this: Lee Chan, Sophomore has become a bit of a celebrity in the Student Services department ever since he met you, Choi Seungcheol’s tutor. And, like any smart, previously unpopular university student would do, he took advantage of it. Might’ve stretched the truth a little to make it sound like he knew more than he did, so now here he is, angling for information the girls with the photocards may or may not have paid him to get.
“They want to know about his girlfriend.”
“His what?”
What you’re able to piece together is also this: the Photocard Girls are certain Seungcheol is dating someone, based on little more than vibes. You suspect these vibes are their three degrees of separation, considering there was an abnormal amount of Change of Major files formed after his enrollment, but you tell Lee Chan that you don’t know anything and, even if you did, you wouldn’t put his business out there like that.
But some part of you still has this inexplicable urge to protect Seungcheol, so you match their offer with interest and tell him to say there’s nothing to report—not that you didn’t know, not that he couldn’t get anything out of you. Seungcheol isn’t dating anyone.
You don’t know if it’s true, but you figure that if it isn’t, he still deserves privacy.
Which is a notion you have trouble explaining a few hours later, when Seungcheol strolls into your office with a grease-stained paper bag full of cheese coin bread, offering one to you with a proud smile that drops slowly when you just stare in return.
“What’s wrong?”
Your mouth opens, closes, opens again. Nothing comes out, even though it should be simple. Some sophomore kid was just in here angling for information or the Student Services department is taking bets on whether or not you have a girlfriend would both suffice, but you cannot bring yourself to say the words.
What you settle on is, “Sorry, I just… had an interesting meeting before you got here.”
“Oh. Are you okay?”
You sigh. Tilt your head back to stare up at the ceiling. “It was about you, actually.”
Seungcheol chokes, starts stuttering over words you can’t make sense of. Says, “Me? Why? I passed my last exam—I mean, barely, but I still passed. And that wasn’t your fault! I didn’t study enough! I’ve been losing my mind over my International Trade class, that shit sucks—”
“It wasn’t about your grades, Cheol.”
“Oh.” Then, slowly, a lopsided, pleased smile overtakes his face. “Haven’t heard you call me Cheol in a while.”
“Seungcheol,” you correct.
He seems to forget all about the meeting. Tries again to offer you a coin bread before he threatens to eat them all himself, so you acquiesce mostly to shut him up, say you’ll bring the extras to Kaori. For some reason, you tell him about how much she’d loved the cookies your mom sent, and the nostalgia sets him off, gets him talking again, asking if they were the yakgwa she used to make when you two were kids.
They were, but you can’t seem to tell him that, either.
Seungcheol: sorry it’s last minute - running late. can you meet me at my place instead?
Seungcheol shared a location with you
You’re halfway to replying—I don’t think that’s appropriate—before you sigh and delete it. Midterms are only a few days away and you don’t have time to argue over where your tutoring sessions will be, so if Seungcheol wants to meet at his apartment that’s where you’ll meet him.
You read over the midterm notes on the train. Once, twice, and then a hundred more times until they’re nearly memorized, all so you can ignore the voice in the back of your head saying what a bad idea this is. That you have no business being on your way to your ex’s swanky part of town or integrating yourself into his life beyond tutoring at all. You shouldn’t know where he lives. Maybe you shouldn’t even have his phone number or answer his texts.
Not that there’s much you can do about it now, two stops away.
Seungcheol greets you warmly, if not a little rushed. Apologizes for the mess once you step inside, although it’s less “mess” and more “haven’t finished unpacking,” but there’s enough clear space to study at the dining table, so that’s where you set up, determined to keep things professional.
“Sorry again about this,” Seungcheol says, placing a can of cola in front of you as he takes the seat across. “I had to meet with my father and lost track of time, I guess.”
“Oh. How’s he doing?”
Seungcheol sighs, leans further back in the chair as runs a hand through his hair. A light brown, now. “Same as he always was, I guess. Talked about the business, about my brother. Can’t get him to shut up about that stuff most of the time.”
“The business is doing good, though.” You cough, clear your throat. “My, uh. My brother interned there during undergrad. I don’t know if your father told you that.”
You don’t know why you say it, because it’s clear from the brief flicker of pain on Seungcheol’s face that he hadn’t known, that no one had told him. And it hurts you too that they felt the need to keep it a secret, to protect Seungcheol from you even in tangential ways.
“He didn’t,” he admits, “but I’m sure he was happy to see him. He was, uh—he was glad to hear you’re my tutor. Said you were always smarter than all of us boys combined.”
You laugh. Hope it sounds casual instead of strained. “Well, no need to prove him right. Come on,” you say, tossing a study guide in his direction, “let’s get to work.”
Everything is alright for a while—nearly an hour at least. He has the formulas memorized and attributed to the correct equations. He can explain supply and demand, preference and utility, but things start to fall apart around budget constraints and constrained choice.
The formulas get mixed up. He grows frustrated when he doesn’t know the answers to your questions right away. Rolls his eyes and gets a little snappy when you correct him, try to explain things differently in a way he understands. At first he’s able to temper it, collect himself before things truly start spiraling out of control, but the longer the two of you sit there the more it all unravels.
He snaps, you snap back, and you can’t figure out why. You’ve survived this long in Seungcheol’s orbit even though you never thought you’d be around him again, and perhaps it was bound to explode eventually, but…
It’s the familiarity, you realize.
You and Seungcheol aren’t friends, though you’ve been playing at it for weeks now: meeting outside of the library or your office, the personal conversations bordering on reminiscing, being in his personal space. You don’t belong here. You don’t want to be his friend—you can’t be, not for real or pretend.
“That’s not what I’m say—”
“Then explain it better,” Seungcheol fires at you, eyebrows creasing. “You’re the tutor here.”
You roll your eyes. “I’m trying, okay? All I meant was—your answer isn’t wrong, but I know Dr. Lee and he’s going to want more than that in a response.”
“Right—not good enough, like I said.”
“I’m just asking you to expand on your answer—”
“And I’m telling you that’s all I’ve got. I’m not like you, all right? I don’t have all this shit just floating around in my head all the time. I’m not smart, I barely have any idea what’s going on half the time, and you sitting here being condescending about it is doing fuck-all to help.”
You inhale sharply, taken aback at the hostility in his voice. Suggest calling it for the night, say neither of you will be productive if you keep going like this, and neither of you bother to apologize.
So much of your relationship with Seungcheol was marred by clichés.
The two of you passing notes back and forth during class. You in the bleachers of all his games, screaming along to the team chants, waving a sign around with his name on it. Not realizing you had a crush on him at all until he liked someone else and it made your stomach hurt. Childhood friends turned lovers.
Another cliché: that it’s starting to feel like that all over again.
Seungcheol sits across from you in the library, econ textbook cracked in half in front of him as he pays no attention. Keeps grabbing his phone each time it vibrates across the table. Can’t fight the smile that forces its way onto his face when he reads whatever’s there.
Stupid, you think—both to do this and to think it’d play out any other way. Seungcheol left years ago. Probably lived ten lifetimes while he was away while you were here in this exact spot doing this exact thing. Barely lived half a life, just stuck your nose in textbooks and forced your way through.
“Cheol,” you say, trying to drag his attention back to the study guide. No use. He’s typing away, presses his tongue into the fat of his cheek as he responds. “Seungcheol,” you try again.
Also fruitless.
You have no claim here, you remind yourself—not to his time, not to him. He’s only here because someone else mandated it. You’re only here because someone else mandated it, but it stings all the same. Another reminder of what used to be, of what ended regardless of what you wanted. Another reminder that the role you used to play in his life is not the role you play now. That the space you used to take up created a vacancy, and eventually it was going to be filled.
And if this was anyone other than Seungcheol, if you were more emotionally evolved when it came to him, it wouldn’t gnaw at you as much. All of this would roll off your shoulders.
But it isn’t, and you’re not.
“If you’re not going to listen, then—”
“I am listening,” he interjects, but he’s not looking at you. Not looking at his textbook or his study guide. Keeps laughing and smiling at his phone, and it’s sick how bothered you are by it. That it feels like your stomach’s been turned inside-out with jealousy; with annoyance, because you don’t want to be here anyway, don’t want to do this anymore, and you’re wasting your time on someone who doesn’t appreciate it.
Perhaps he never did.
“What are we discussing, then?”
Still not looking up: “Consumer theory.”
You laugh—more a huff of air than anything, grin sardonically out of one corner of your mouth. Seungcheol sees none of it. “Wrong,” you answer, already expecting the way he shrugs it off. “I’m gonna skip ahead a few chapters, though. Consider it a freebie for your business class.”
It must be your tone that finally grabs his attention. Cutting, precise, purposeful. Seungcheol lowers his phone, quirks an eyebrow, wonders where this is going to go. It’s clear he’s pissed you off, that you’re itching for a fight. It’s clear the years of silence are finally coming to a head.
“Let’s talk about ROI. You know what that is?” You barely give him a second. “Return on investment. A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or compare the efficiency of several investments. So, let’s say I make one-hundred-thousand won on a ten-thousand won investment: my ROI is 90%. Are you following?”
He nods.
“Great, now let’s try something a bit more hypothetical.” You suck in a breath. “Let’s say I invest years of my adolescence into someone. A friend at first and then something more. Let’s say I played cheerleader, supported every hope and dream he had—went to every game, cheered him on, helped him practice his English. Held his hand and talked him down when the pressure felt overwhelming, when the only thing that felt inevitable was failure. Now, let’s say all I got in return was a stuttered, awkward apology as he dumped me and walked out the door. Let’s say that guy showed up again after years of silence just to once again waste my fucking time.”
The thing about pain is it’s not linear. What hurt five, ten years ago might not hurt today, but it might tomorrow; what hurt yesterday may never hurt again. The thing about pain is it lets you stick your head in the sand until it can’t anymore, and that’s where you are now: that window of time between Seungcheol walking out the door on the assumption you’d never see him again before he bulldozed his way back into your life has been slammed closed, locked up tight.
So you don’t even notice you’re crying until the room goes deathly silent and you can hear the drip drip drip of tears on paper. Until you watch Seungcheol’s hands flex and unflex in mid-air, stuck in that liminal space, wanting to reach out but knowing he has no right to. Until your chest aches so bad you’re sure you’re either about to break into stardust or cease to exist.
Until you say, “What, Choi Seungcheol, would you say my fucking return on investment was?” and he has nothing to say at all.
Kaori invites you to a party.
Just something small to celebrate the end of midterms and a classmate’s birthday. Nothing out of control or raucous, not even the kind of thing that’d earn a second glance from campus security. I won’t even make fun of you if you leave before eleven, is how she sold it to you, in addition to a small amount of begging and bargaining and a powerful set of puppy-dog eyes.
After everything the two of you have been through, you find it hard to say no.
So here you are, nearly eleven o’clock on a Friday, a cup of cheap beer in hand. A friend of a friend of a friend is wailing into a karaoke machine and although your ears are bleeding, it does feel nice for that to be your greatest worry. You aren’t thinking about your classes or how you’ve been prioritizing everyone else’s academic success. You aren’t thinking about whatever’s going on between Kaori and Ken. You aren’t thinking about Seungcheol.
At least you aren’t, until he walks through the door.
You’re going to continue not thinking about him at all—not about the fact he’s alone or how good he looks in a simple black T-shirt that’s a little taut in the shoulders. You’re not going to think about the way the air shifts, like the universe knows he’s important and is willing to accommodate. You’re not going to think about how Kaori catches your eye across the room, recognizes him from all her internet searches, and the way she mouths oh my god he’s so beefy at you.
You’re not going to think about how guilty you feel that she doesn’t know, because if you do you’re certain it’ll take over.
You watch Seungcheol work the room; watch as he floats between conversations, as strangers fall over themselves at the sight of him. How eager everyone is to give him something and how reluctant he is to take them. You watch as he winds up in the same circle as Kaori and how she must mention you, oh, your tutor is my roommate, because there’s a question in return before he turns and meets your gaze.
You wonder why the distance between you feels more insurmountable now than ever before.
Seungcheol finds you in your office.
It’s not a Tuesday or a Thursday, far later than four to six in the evening, but he doesn’t even bother knocking before he’s barreling in, stifling your space with his bad energy.
You haven’t seen him in nearly two weeks. Not since the party, if that even counts. Hasn’t bothered to reply to any of your texts or emails, and that was just fine by you, if that’s how he wanted to act, but it isn’t until he’s brooding on the other side of your desk that you realize you’re still aggrieved, too. Feels a little too familiar, him leaving you behind and in the dark.
So you don’t mean to—typically have much more professionalism than this—but when he tosses a stapled stack of papers with a barely-passing grade on your desk and says, “This is your fault,” the words come automatically and without forethought.
“Fuck off, Seungcheol.” It’s not your words that take him by surprise; more so the roll of your eyes, the accompanying huff. The impression that all of this is beneath you and nothing more than a mere annoyance. That however affected you were two weeks ago is not how affected you are anymore. “That’s what happens when you blow off your tutoring for two weeks because you’re a coward.”
He laughs, incredulous; unable to help the sound the tumbles out of his mouth. “I’m a—I’m a coward?”
“Yes,” you reply, tone giving away nothing. All he sees is feigned nonchalance despite the hurricane you feel brewing beneath the surface. “This,” you continue, pinching the corner of the paper between your fingertips and disposing of it in the trashcan beneath your desk, “is all on you, but do please let me know if there’s anything else you’d like to blame me for. I’m all ears.”
You don’t miss it: the way Seungcheol’s eyes grow wide at your ‘I’m all.’ The way he thinks you’re going to punctuate that sentence with yours, and it nearly has bile rising in your throat. Makes you want to scream, rip at your hair. If the last few months have taught you anything, it’s that you are still hopelessly in love with the man across from you—the man that continues to leave before he’s left, always at your expense.
So, yeah—Seungcheol is a coward, but only when it comes to you.
But he doesn’t look much like one now, gripping so hard at the edge of your desk that his knuckles have gone white, baseball cap pulled down low enough his eyes are barely visible. He’s always been overwhelming, always carried himself with an exaggerated arrogance even when it wasn’t warranted, always took everything so seriously, and maybe that’s why you’d thought he’d treat you the same way. Take you seriously. Wouldn’t just throw it all away on a maybe thing, and that’s why it's been years and you still aren’t over it.
Maybe Seungcheol is a coward, and maybe so are you.
Because not once since he’s been back have you been able to say what you mean. Can’t seem to tell him about the anger, the hurt, the heartbreak. Played it all off as petty nonchalance because you foolishly thought that would hurt him, that you’ve been reduced to simmering ash, no hope left for a fire.
“I could never blame you for a goddamn thing,” he says, voice so deep you could drown in it.
You so desperately want to know. You don’t want to know anything at all. You want Seungcheol to explain everything to you in detail and spoil the ending, but only if it’s guaranteed to be happy. Enduring another loss like the first time—you’re not sure you can take it. Not after you two have crossed paths like this, because you’ve never quite believed in fate but you think that has to mean something. That so much time and life had transpired and you two came back together.
Today, though, it doesn’t look like you’re going to get any answers.
Seungcheol straightens, looms at full height. Digs into the pocket of his sweatpants and pulls out a thumb drive. Wordlessly, he hands it over, and then he’s gone just as abruptly as he’d arrived.
Again.
Kaori wants to spend the weekend moping, and you can’t come up with a good reason not to join her.
She doesn’t mention Ken once. Not when she’s sobbing over A Silent Voice and Toradora! after that. Not when she keeps glancing at her phone every couple minutes to see if she has any texts. Not when you—only halfway paying attention between grading and your own assignments—suggest ordering something for delivery, maybe that new burger place down the street you heard was good, and Kaori shuts it down so vehemently you can only assume it was Ken’s favorite place.
Kaori just cries over the man with the big dick she never expected to take so seriously, and not even your stonewalling makes her feel ashamed of it.
And there’s respectability in that kind of openness and vulnerability. At least whatever she’s feeling is honest; at least she can admit she’s sad. You think watching Kaori process her breakup might help you process yours too, years too late, so you suck in a breath and ask, “Can I tell you something or is now not a good time?”
Kaori looks over at you. Dabs a soggy tissue at her eyes. “Well, I guess it depends,” is her answer, and she doesn’t shy away from how waterlogged her voice sounds. “If you’re going to tell me you’re a Takasu and Kawashima shipper, maybe, but if it’s anything worse I’m not sure I could take it.”
“I—what? Who even are they?” She gives you a half-hearted thumbs up. You sigh in response, sink further into the couch. “It’s, uh.” Clear your throat. “Do you remember when we met sophomore year? At that party? And I told you I wasn’t looking for anything and you said, and I quote, why not, I have a sixth sense for this kind of thing and I know that guy will have a huge—”
She hides her face behind her hands. “Ew, god, yes I remember that. My dick whisperer era. How embarrassing.”
“Right. And I told you I wasn’t looking for anything because I’d just gotten out of something.”
“Not really by choice, if I remember correctly. I told you if it was quiet it should’ve been loud, and then you never talked about it again.”
You nod. “I—yeah, that sounds like something I would’ve said.” You suck in a deep breath. “Listen, this is probably gonna sound bad considering I did never talk about it again, but—”
“Hey,” Kaori says, nudging you with her foot. Meant to be comforting, somehow. “It’s okay. There’s a lot you don’t know about me, too… most of which I’m not sure you should, actually.”
A laugh forces its way out, gives you a nice reprieve from the anxiety of the conversation you’re about to have. The need to explain it all, the need for advice. Maybe it’s not her—or anyone else’s—business, but you think you’ve kept this to yourself long enough. You and Seungcheol loved each other, once, and it seems foolish that no one knows.
Maybe Kaori had been right. Maybe love should be shouted from the rooftops; exist out in the open. Maybe something hidden in the shadows can never thrive in the light, and you knew it back then, deep down, but now it seems so obvious.
You think back to a few days before the library. Think about how things didn’t feel good but they felt okay. Think about the frustrated crease between Seungcheol’s eyebrows as he stared down at his textbook and how all you’d wanted to do was smooth it. Think about how you’d rolled your lips and tried not to laugh; how you thought it’d take a miracle to help Seungcheol pass this class.
Think about: What is the difference between the short-run and the long-run from the perspective of production theory?
Think about the short-run of your and Seungcheol’s relationship—that you’d burned bright and fast, even though it’d felt like a million years. Hadn’t dared to consider the long-run because anything beyond that bubble felt impossible.
Think about: Which of the following is not a property of isoquants?
Think about the way Seungcheol’s eyes lit up when he knew the answer. That they’re always linear, he said, and you smiled at his enthusiasm, raised your hand to high-five him and dropped it when he hadn’t noticed.
You think about the explanation—isoquants can be linear when inputs are perfectly substitutable—and what those graphs look like. Downward sloping, left to right. Think about how the graphs change when the isoquants are perfect complements.
L-shaped. Less straight as the inputs become poorer substitutes.
You know what your and Seungcheol’s graph would’ve looked like back then.
So it’s easy, almost, to tell Kaori everything. You tell her about growing up in Daegu, about the smell of the azaleas at Biseulsan in the spring. You tell her about how your parents had befriended the neighbors, how they had a kid your age, that that kid was Seungcheol—yes, that Seungcheol.
She’s able to anticipate the rest from there, but you fill in the blanks of what she can’t: being sixteen and falling in love, holding hands, the clandestine notes. All those football matches and how your throat would be hoarse from cheering. How nauseous you’d felt applying to university in Seoul, how excited you were when Seungcheol said he was coming with you. That, after you arrived, it felt like you were living in fast-forward. Barely any time to breathe or adjust; no time to just be you and Seungcheol. You had to be a student, someone responsible; Seungcheol had to be a phenom.
“Could you feel it was going to happen?” Kaori asks, now sat ramrod straight, all her attention on you. “Like, did you know?”
“I don’t know,” you admit. “Maybe I did? It’s hard to say now, all this time later. I know things definitely felt different, like life was pulling us in opposite directions.” You laugh, bitterness coloring the edges. “You couldn’t go two blocks without seeing him on some billboard, and I was just… normal, you know? I wasn’t some rising star athlete like he was, I just went to my classes. How was I supposed to compete with something like that?”
Your roommate hums, leans back into the pillows as she stares up at the ceiling. “I don’t think you were. Maybe that’s why Seungcheol was worried—maybe he felt like you were losing your own identity feeling like you had to keep up.”
You want to push back, argue that you weren’t, that you didn’t, but the truth is that it’s possible. That the shadows created by Seungcheol’s dreams were so massive you wouldn’t be surprised if they unintentionally swallowed you up. “It still wasn’t his choice to make,” you say, voice barely above a whisper.
And Kaori already knows all about your hurt, listened as you explained it all and laid everything bare. So when she says, “Sometimes that’s just how it goes, though, babe,” it doesn’t feel condescending. “We do the best we can with what we’ve got at the time. You can say now it wasn’t Seungcheol’s choice to make, because it’s been almost five years and you’ve made a life for yourself separate from him. But the—god, this is gonna sound so patronizing, I am so sorry—but you guys were so young. No one has it all figured out at that age.”
She snorts, runs a hand through her messy hair. “Shit, I’m nearly halfway to thirty and I still don’t know anything.” Adopts a frown. “What do you want now? Do you want closure? Want to try to fix things and become friends?”
“I don’t know,” you admit, biting at a hangnail. “He actually, um. The other day when he stopped by my office, he left me a USB drive? And before you ask, no I did not already look at it.”
“A USB drive? Who does this guy think he is, James Bond?” A pause. “Are you gonna look at it, though?”
You do.
Not until the silver, midnight light creeps in through your bedroom curtains and you’ve stared at the ceiling long enough; waited long enough for texts that never came, for divine intervention to, well, intervene. It never did—fair enough—so you decide to take fate by the reins. Grab your laptop, instant headache from the screen, stick the drive into the port.
It takes a second for it to load, but when it does: dozens of videos, organized by date. Vlogs, by the look of them—some from before your breakup but the majority of them from after.
You’re not sure what you expected, but it wasn’t this.
You click on the first one: a month and a half before both of you moved to Seoul. A fresh-faced Seungcheol appears on your screen, cheeks still round with adolescence. He’s in his room back in Daegu, can’t get the camera angle right. Nostalgia hits you like a ton of bricks as it pans to the side, to the wall behind his bed, and you see all his old posters. Mostly football players you couldn’t name, some girl group he used to love, a few movies. Just below them are some of the notes you’d written him in school, and they’re all you can focus on as he talks about how excited he is for the move.
The next: a few weeks after you’d started classes. By then, Seungcheol was well into the swing of things with Seoul FC. Already a big fish in a small pond, tryout offers from European teams starting to roll in. You can hear yourself in the background stressing over your first exam, wishing a generational curse upon your calculus professor. In the video, Seungcheol laughs, whispers like he’s telling the camera a secret as he talks about how nervous he is for his future. I don’t know why, he says, but it just feels like everything is about to change.
There’s a long pause between that one and the next. You understand why when you look at the date: three months after your breakup. Your hands hover uselessly above your keyboard. Whatever answers you’ve been looking for the last few years are probably in this video, but you can’t bring yourself to open it. Not right away, at least.
You click on a different one at random. Seungcheol’s somewhere in Europe, judging from the language on the signs behind him. Snow falls quietly—whenever he filmed this, it must’ve been early. No one else is around, and he cracks a joke that it’s a good thing, people would probably think he was crazy if they saw him. He doesn’t tell you where he’s going but he narrates the entire walk: points out a cafe he’s grown to love. The way to get to his practice stadium from where he’s standing. Pauses near a restaurant and laughs ruefully, shakes his head, says, I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but one of my teammates set me up on a blind date here and I got stood up. You’d probably think that was funny.
(You do. It also makes your chest ache.)
One from two years ago: Seungcheol in a hotel room, clearly nervous. He raises his hand to wave at the camera and you can see the corners of his nails bitten raw. Dark circles beneath his eyes; cheekbones more pronounced than you’ve ever seen them. On the screen, Seungcheol sighs, rakes a hand through freshly-bleached hair. Sucks in a deep breath as he says, I’m so nervous. I’m so—so fucking nervous and I don’t. Fuck, I don’t know what to do. I want to call you because you always knew what to say but that’s so fucking selfish. God, we haven’t spoken in years, and it’s my—that’s my fault, I know, so I brought this all on myself. I just want to hear your voice.
Another from a week after that: the color’s returned to his face, and he’s recording from what looks like a penthouse apartment. Sleek, modern; a small white dog napping on the bed beside him. He smiles, looks like he got his teeth fixed, looks like he’s no longer carrying around the weight of the world. Talks endlessly and excitedly about some tournament. Talks so fast you can barely keep up. Talks around words tinged with languages you don’t understand.
Seungcheol wins a championship. Records a drunk vlog from the same night, hair soaked through with god-knows-what—water, champagne, you don’t know. But he looks radiant. Looks like the culmination of two decades of dreaming. He looks happy, free, at peace. He looks like the reason he let you go, why he had to go away.
You scroll to the bottom of the files. Pause at the last video, dated seven months before the term started.
“Hi,” he says, and you can immediately tell everything is all wrong. Seungcheol’s in the dark, face only visible enough to see the tears tracking on his cheeks. “This is going to be the last one of these I make. I don’t know if you, uh—I’m sure you aren’t paying attention to me—my career—anymore, but. I, um. I got hurt. Ruptured my ACL. They’re not sure I’ll…” A sob escapes him. Has you wanting to climb through the screen to hold him, thumb away his tears, tell him everything is going to be okay. “They don’t know if I’ll ever play again.”
Seungcheol no longer looks happy, free, at peace. “Maybe you’ll be happy to hear that,” he continues. “Maybe it’ll help you to know I threw away our relationship for nothing.”
Cut to black.
The sudden silence is deafening. Has you desperately clicking back to the video you’d skipped, the one from just after your breakup. Seungcheol looks the same in that one, too, like the life has been drained out of him.
I don’t know why I’m doing this. It’s not like I’ll ever show these to you now, since I…
I’m sure I owe you an explanation. To be honest, I don’t know what I’m doing, I just—things have been so hard, and I’m still trying to make sense of it all. I feel like my life went from zero to a hundred before I could even blink and now I’m scrambling. I didn’t think it was fair to—to drag you through that. Me being away, moving to an entirely different continent. I have faith we could do it, I just. I don’t know, baby, I don’t…
You deserve to have your own life. Be your own person. I’m so scared that the world will never see you for who you are—so beautiful and intelligent and kind. You don’t deserve to be reduced to my partner. And if you ever see this, I know you’re gonna roll your eyes. Probably call me a mean name because I took the choice away from you, because you think I’m trying to be selfless and heroic, and you’d be right. It’s not fair, and I wish I could tell you I’m sorry.
I wish I could just… pluck out my brain and give it to you, because even if it killed me to do it, at least it makes sense to me. And I don’t—I don’t want you to think I’m not hurting. I’ve been sick to my stomach since I left. I know I’m making a mistake, I know I am, I just—how do I do what I think is right in the long-run when it’s not what I want right now, or ever?
I don’t want to get over you. I don’t want you to get over me, and that’s how you know I’m not acting selflessly, because you should. I want you to always be happy, I just… wish it was with me.
So, I’m going to keep making these. I’m going to take you along for the ride, wherever it takes us, because you should be here but I can only hope you can one day understand why you’re not. I’m so—I’m so sorry, I don’t…
I’m sorry.
I love you.
You fall asleep and dream that you were the one meant to meet him at that restaurant.
The first thing you do is make a call to your mother.
“Could you send another container of yakgwa?”
On the other end of the line, your mother tuts, motherly intuition audibly kicking into overdrive. Is probably wearing that all-knowing, sly grin she always does when you try to be coy and evasive. “What happened to the last container I sent?”
“Ah, you know Kaori loves those. They barely lasted an hour after I told her what was in there.”
She hums an acknowledgement. Sounds like she takes a sip of tea. “I remember someone else being quite fond of those cookies, too.”
“Well, they are the most popular cookies in the country, so.”
After haranguing you into admitting they’re for Seungcheol and not your roommate, your mother promises to send them quickly. A few days at most, which buys you enough time to figure out how you’re going to approach the man in question.
The vlogs have turned your entire world upside-down. Answered questions you hadn’t even known you had. Took all that anger and resentment you’d been holding onto and set it free, and now you’re just left with… a void. Want to mend things, and it makes you wonder if such a thing is even possible, if it’s too late, but you don’t let those thoughts get very far.
Instead, you let them spur you into action. Have you sitting in front of your laptop at your desk, office hours long since over, silence creeping in the more the department empties. The thrum of the airconditioning and the tick-tick-tick of the clock are all the only company you have.
You worry if it’ll show on camera, how out of sorts you feel: sweating from the nerves, dabbing at your hairline; cheeks warm to the touch. But you suck in a breath anyway, steel yourself. Look at your webcam and the daunting red circle…
And start recording.
He hadn’t gotten it at first. Not really.
There’d been a container of yakgwa outside his door with his USB drive taped to the top of it. No note—not that he needed one to know who it was from, but he wasn’t sure what it was. A goodbye? A please fuck off forever and never contact me again?
He’d just taken them inside. Ate too many of the cookies while feeling sorry for himself. Maybe had a glass or two of wine to compound the issue, and never, ever considered contacting you. Didn’t think he could bear it if you never wanted to see him again, but he just…
Well, he was drunk and alone and he missed you, and he’d rewatched all those videos he recorded a million times before when he was like this, so what was a million and one?
It’d been the same as every time before: he smiled at the happy parts, cried at all his old wounds. Wanted to reach through the screen and strangle his past self for including that part about the blind date, because he never wanted to date anyone who wasn’t you, why would he say that, felt mortified at the thought of you watching that—
And then there it was.
All the way at the bottom. A new video. One that hadn’t been recorded by him—
Hi, Cheol, you say, and that’s all it takes to reduce him to a sobbing, yearning mess. I’m not sure what to say here. I don’t really record much—sometimes for lectures when the professors are too busy, but never anything personal like this, but I watched every single one you made for me and I thought I should return the favor.
I wanted to tell you everything I’ve been up to since you left, but it hasn’t been much. I got my degree. Tutored a lot in undergrad—the same thing I’m tutoring you in now, actually. I was good at it and it felt good to have something that was mine, you know? I almost moved for grad school. Thought for a while I was going to wind up in New York, but then my parents divorced and it felt like too much, too scary, so I stayed. Kaori also stayed, so we got an apartment together. It’s not much, definitely not as nice as your place, but it’s good enough.
I don’t think I ever told you, but she was seeing a guy for a bit and he was… obsessed with you, to say the least. Thought you were the coolest person in the world. They aren’t seeing each other anymore. Ended pretty badly, but—speaking of which, maybe steer clear of Student Services for a while, too.
Sometimes it felt like failure that I wound up staying here. That I had scholarships from all these far-away, prestigious places and didn’t take advantage of them. That I gave into my fear. And now… I don’t know. Maybe there’s a reason I stayed behind. Maybe there’s a reason you ended up back here, too.
Whatever happens—I don’t want you to think I still blame you. Kaori says we do the best we can with what we’ve got at the time, and I understand now that’s what you did. Even though it hurt me, you were trying to protect me. I get it now. And I’m sorry you had to go through all of that alone. I can’t imagine how hard it must’ve been to go to all these places you didn’t know. To have to deal with your injury, the loss of a dream.
You said in one of your videos that you just want me to be happy, and that’s all I want for you, too, whatever that looks like.
Here’s my address if you ever want to come by to talk.
I love you, too.
—and then he’d been up and out the door, feeling stone cold sober, running to the front of his building to wait for his ride.
Felt like the drive took hours. Must’ve hit every red light between his apartment and yours. Took the steps two at a time just to get to your door faster.
There’s a man already standing outside your door when he gets there. One that looks shocked to see him, stars in his eyes, and when Seungcheol says, “Oh, you must be Kaori’s ex,” he looks more like he wants the earth to swallow him whole. Embarrassed in front of his idol.
He knocks on your door and gets no response. Knocks again, harder this time, and he has to try really hard to stifle his laughter when your voice yells from the inside, “Fuck off, Kenji, I already told you she’s not here!”
“It’s me,” Seungcheol yells back.
There’s quiet again. Just enough time for it to feel like his heart is going to beat right out of his chest and follow Kaori’s ex down the hall.
Then you’re yanking the door open—slowly, so slowly, like you’re scared it’s not actually him. Your eyes are brimming with tears when they meet his own, and he doesn’t let himself think, just goes on instinct, when he grabs for you, hands on your cheeks, and presses his lips to yours.
Somehow you taste the same.
Somehow you taste like redemption.
You taste like home.
Seungcheol kisses you until the tears slow. Kisses you until the universe realigns, until he could map your mouth in the dark. Kisses you until all you’re all he knows again.
When he pulls away, you’re gripping at his sweatshirt, don’t want to let him go. He presses his forehead to yours, offers up a million more apologies, starts talking nonsense. Says he’s going to drop microeconomics, what the hell does he know, he barely has a passing grade anyway, what does it matter, he’s such an idiot—
And then you say, “You came back,” and nothing else matters.
“I always will.”
(Later on, as you’re trying to steady your breathing, slick with sweat, your thigh thrown over Seungcheol’s hip as he stares down at you, dopey smile on his face, you say, “Choi Seungcheol, don’t you dare drop that class. I have worked my ass off to get you to barely-passing.”)
if you’ve made it this far thank you so much for reading! i am still very new at writing for seventeen, so i hope this was acceptable. i'm now going to throw myself into the warped tour vernon fic and will hopefully not go another 7+ months without posting anything. 😭
⟢ 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: cussing, drinking (wonwoo refused to touch mc with alcohol involved), talks about online sex work
⟢ 𝐬𝐦𝐮𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: dom wonwoo, bratty/sub reader, big dick wonwoo, size kink, use of sex toys, unprotected sex, creampie, cumplay, rougher sex, the reader is handcuffed, edging, overstimulation, begging, dirty talk, choking, body worship, wonwoo can be a little mean, crying from pleasure, mc is a little worried Mingyu can hear them, nicknames: baby, good girl, brat, princess (hers) nonu, baby, sir (his)
⟢ 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: 18+ nsfw
⟢ 𝐚𝐧: this one is for Wonwoo’s birthday. Thank you @aeristudios for listening to me ramble about this one. Thank you @svtts for beta reading. divider by @/saradika-graphics.
When it comes to you and Wonwoo you both have some similarities, but are also quite different. You both have jobs online. Wonwoo is a successful streamer, and you're known for your spicy paid subscription website. You've been on online fans, and working as a cam girl for a few years now. You've managed to absolutely make bank, and have built quite the online following even away from your site.
You and Wonwoo have quite a few mutual friends. It turns out he's had a crush on you for a while. Once Seungcheol found out, he decided to introduce you two.
The first time you crossed patches was at Seungcheol's birthday party. You're not dumb, you're well aware of who Wonwoo is. There is something about a cute nerdy gamer with glasses, who clearly has the body of a Greek god, that does something to you.
You’ve found yourself being a silent viewer in a few of his streams.
At Seungcheol’s party, you learned Wonwoo was interested in you, but you aren't in a place with your career where you could try and navigate having a boyfriend.
The entire night Wonwoo flirted and eventually you exchanged numbers. You let him know then that you weren't looking for any type of connection with anyone.
It's been six months since you met, and it turns out you couldn't push Wonwoo away. He’s turned into someone you texted often, and even flirt with all the time.
It turns out when you only have sex with yourself and toys, you start to get pent up.
THE GIRL ON THE SCREEN
Wonwoo is hosting a game night at his, and his best friend Mingyu’s apartment. You picked out your outfit with the intention of possibly trying to get laid. You've been debating on crossing the line with Wonwoo for a while. Tonight finally feels like the night.
The boys live in a pretty big three bedroom apartment. It seems their entire friend group plus some of the boys significant others are here.
The first person you see is Seungcheol. He leads you into the kitchen where Wonwoo is talking to Seokmin. The moment Wonwoo's eyes lock on yours you have his full, undivided attention.
What was supposed to be a game night quickly turns into a night of drinking games. The more you drink the drunker you get. The more alcohol that floats through your veins, the more you flirt with Wonwoo.
The whole time he's talking to you, your eyes just focus on his pretty lips, and how he's nervously pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. You want Wonwoo so bad, you could scream.
-
The light peaking through the curtain slowly wakes you up. Your eyes flutter open and you're hit with the realization you're not in your room. Lifting the covers you see that you're fully naked.
The clicking sounds of the keyboard catch your attention. Looking over into the corner, you see Wonwoo on his computer. The scrambled memories of last night start flooding back to you.
Wonwoo turns in his chair removing his headphones. He tilts his head looking at you. "Good morning, sunshine."
Slowly you sit up in his bed, holding the covers up. "Did we have sex?"
"No, you were drunk and I refused to even kiss you while you were intoxicated." He says firmly.
"Why am I naked?" He turns his chair around so he's fully facing you.
"Because after you tried to kiss me, you thought if you got fully naked, I would fuck you."
The memories of what happened between you are sparse, but you remember some of it. Awkwardly, you look around the room. Wonwoo's room looks exactly how you thought it would. Seungcheol always jokes and calls him a neat freak, and it looks like nothing is out of place in his room. It even looks like he's folded your clothes and placed them on his dresser.
You look at the other side of where Wonwoo's phone is sitting on the nightstand. "I slept in the living room on the couch."
"Oh." Turns out Wonwoo is a gentleman and respectful.
"I came in here so we could talk once you’d woke up."
Holding the blanket close to your chest, you get a little more comfortable. You know there is no way you can get out of talking after you clearly threw yourself at him last night.
"What did you want to talk about?" You try to play innocent.
He rolls his eyes. "I don't know, maybe the fact you threw yourself at me last night."
"I thought you liked me?" Wonwoo's made it very clear in the past he's interested in you.
He pushes himself up from the chair. Without thinking your eyes travel up and down his body. He's dressed in a pair of God forsaken grey sweatpants and a tight tank top that shows off his glorious shoulders.
"See, here's the thing—I like you, a lot actually." He pauses, stopping at the foot of the bed. You know there is a but coming. There is no way he'll leave it just at that. "But I only mess around with girls who behave."
Your brows knit together, processing his change in tone. You've never heard him sound so stern. "Am I not a good girl?"
"No."
"I literally put myself on a silver platter for you."
He cocks his head to the side. "A good girl wouldn't have pouted and called me a virgin, because I wouldn't fuck her while she was drunk." You most definitely don't remember saying that to him. A hot wave of blush crawls up your neck.
"I'm sorry."
"I thought you were a good girl until last night." He reaches out, grabbing your chin. "I know that you play with yourself online before I met you, I'd seen some of your videos. None of your them ever made me think that you would be a brat." His words are firm. Your eyes go wide, taking in each and every word he says.
"I didn't think you were some hard dom." You retort.
He narrows his eyes, as a smirk tugs at his lips. "I'm not normally a hard dom. I like control in the bedroom, but if you behave I won't have to be hard on you."
He turns on his heels walking to his dresser. You watch carefully as he pulls out a box. He grabs what looks to be a vibrator wand, handcuffs and a bottle of lube.
"Are you going to fuck me?" You let the blanket fall, leaving your chest fully exposed.
He glances over his shoulder. "Do you still want me to fuck you?"
"Please." If Wonwoo only fucks girls he considers to be "good girls" you must be on your best behavior for him.
"Say it." He turns around, holding the handcuffs.
"Say what?"
"Ask me, tell me you want this." He raises his brows.
Without saying anything you push the covers off, leaving your naked body fully on display. "Wonwoo, I want you to fuck me. I'll be so good for you. Just please fuck me." You've never been one to beg, but right now, you'll do anything he asks of you.
He moves toward the bed without saying another word. "We'll use the traffic light system. At any point if something is too much, you need to tell me. I'm not sure what you're used to, but I'm in control."
Silently you nod.
"Use your words."
"I understand, sir." His eyes light up at the use of sir.
"You're a quick learner, princess. I need to know, what are your boundaries."
"I like choking, but don't be super rough with it. You can slap my ass, but not my face." You pause, suddenly feeling embarrassment crawl up your throat.
"Keep going."
"You can be rougher with how you fuck me. No gross stuff please. Oh and don't call me mean names. Like I don't want be fully degraded."
"Are you okay with princess, good girl, and brat?"
"Yeah, those are fine."
"Can I put you in handcuffs and edge you?"
"Yeah."
Holding the handcuffs out towards you, he nods his head. "Give me your hands." He clicks the cold metal against your skin. They're tight, but not tight enough to hurt. "If they hurt just tell me. Communication is key here."
"Yes, sir."
He goes to take off his glasses. "Please leave them on." You can't escape the thought of him wearing his glasses whilst doing the dirtiest things to you.
"Okay. Lay down, and do not touch me."
Quickly you obey him. Laying on the bed you spread your legs, giving him full access to your needy core. He walks over to the dresser, picking up the vibrator and the bottle of lube before returning and sitting them on the bed next to you.
Your eyes stay focused on him as he pulls off his tank top. Taking his time, he neatly folds it and sets it on top of the dresser, next to your clothes.
Placing his knee on the bed, he crawls towards you slowly. He stops once he's sitting on his knees between your spread legs. His large hand rests on your thigh, rubbing soothing circles into your skin, helping to relax you. You aren't sure why you're so nervous. Maybe it’s because this is the first time you're ever letting a man fully take control.
Picking up the vibrator, he clicks it on. "Color?"
"Green."
He presses the vibrator directly against your clit, earning a moan instantly. He doesn't give you a moment to breathe before he clicks up the speed. Your body tenses immediately.
Your lips part, sinful moans and whimpers filling the room. He unexpectedly drags two fingers through your folds. Closing your eyes, you tilt your head back.
Without thinking your push your hips up towards the vibrator.
"Don't." His words catch you off guard. Your eyes snap open and you see him glaring at you. "Don't try and get yourself off. You'll take what I give you."
"Yes, sir."
Two fingers are suddenly pushed into you, earning a wanton moan. He clicks the vibration speed up another level, as he drags his fingers in a come hither motion, touching that spot inside you that has you seeing stars.
"Let me know when you're close."
"Okay." You whine.
The feeling of his fingers and the vibration is too much, your orgasm is speeding towards you at one hundred miles per hour.
"I'm gonna cum." You cry.
The precipice of your orgasm is rapidly approaching, suddenly everything stops. He rips the vibrator and, fingers away from your needy core. Your orgasm is right there, and he stopped everything.
Your eyes fly open, and you look at him confused. You know he said he would edge you, but you thought he would change his mind.
"Wonwoo—" you cry.
"You're such a good girl, you didn't cum without my permission." He taunts you. Your eyes are wide, you try your hardest to process the situation. "Can you do that again?" You aren't sure if you can, but you'll try anything for him.
He puts the vibrator against your needy clit again. He goes back to his same task of pumping his fingers in and out of you, except this time he's added another finger— this orgasm barreling towards you quicker then the last.
Before you can even tell him you're close he stops everything. Every nerve in your body feels like a live wire. Tears brim your eyes. Another orgasm being ripped away from you is devastating.
“Fuck—“ you cry.
“Such a filthy mouth.” He says teasing you.
He pushes the vibrator back onto your clit. He has the speed all the way up. This orgasm is going to hit you like a freight train. He pumps three fingers in and out of you at a rapid pace.
All the muscles in your body are tense. It’s taking everything in you, to not lift your hips, attempting to chase your release.
"Wonwoo, please let me cum. I'll be so fucking good for you if you let me cum." Tears spring from your eyes. You pull your hands up towards you. If you keep your hands anywhere near him, you know you'll try to grab him.
He rips the vibrator away from your clit and tosses it on the bed. This time he doesn't remove his fingers. He keeps pumping them.
"You can cum princess." He dives in face first into your core. His lips lock around your clit. He's practically making out with your pussy, whilst he pushes you over the edge.
The white hot wave of your orgasm is excruciating. Your walls pulse around his as your head is thrown back moaning his name. He doesn't let up on your clit. He keeps sucking until it’s overstimulated and sore.
"Wonwoo." You cry, squirming underneath him.
He pulls back, sitting back on his knees. Sliding his fingers into his mouth, he licks them clean of your release.
"Pretty baby, can barely handle being edged." He teases.
No words form, silently you blink at him, processing everything that's happening. He turns around stripping away the rest of his clothes.
When he turns around you're greeted to the sight of his massive cock. This is by far the biggest cock you've ever seen with your own eyes.
"Should I grab a condom?"
"I'm clean. I haven't slept with a man in over a year." It's probably dumb to fuck without a condom the first time, but all the logical thoughts left your brain long ago.
"You sure?" He raises his brow.
"Yes, I want you to cum inside me."
He barks out a laugh. Walking closer to the bed, he reaches out and grabs the chain that holds the hand cuffs together. "I'm going to lock your hands above your head. If it's too much, you have to tell me."
"Yes, sir."
He hoist your hands above your head. He hooks the chains into a hook you didn't even realize was built into the headboard.
"You've done this before?" You ask.
"Many times." He smiles.
"Wonwoo?"
"Yes, princess?" He's standing over you.
"You haven't even kissed me." There is something quite humorous about the fact that he's already made you cum and you haven't even kissed.
"Do you want me to kiss you?"
"Please."
Without another word he leans in, pressing his lips to yours for a searing kiss. His hands holds your face as your lips dance together. He kisses you like you’re air in his oxygen-deprived lungs. Pulling back, his teeth tug on your bottom lip.
"Happy?"
"Yes."
He picks up the bottle of lube, clicking it open he coats his entire length. You're going to need all the help you can get, taking someone his size.
He pours some of the cold lube on your core, earning a gasp from you. "Oh—"
"I'm big, so this might hurt."
"I can take you." Even if it hurts you don't care. You'll make him fit.
"Such an eager girl.” He tosses the lube on the bed next to you. "Keep your legs spread wide."
He pushes in slowly, giving you time to adjust. He goes in inch by inch. The moment you're filled to the brim, it feels like he's splitting you open.
Out of instinct, your hands tug against the handcuffs. "Are you okay?" His voice is soft and gentle.
"Yeah. Just—" your brain is having a hard forming words. He's managed to leave you cock drunk. "You're so big."
A smile tugs at his lips. "Am I too big for you?" He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
"No—" you cry.
"Color."
"Green, green." You stutter out. If he stops now, you'll break down crying.
"Did you want me to move, or do you still need time to adjust?" His hand that rests on your thighstarts rubbing soothing circles again.
"Please move, I'll be so good for you if you move." You can't help but beg.
He gives you a smile before he pulls his hips back and slams back into you roughly, knocking you back. He keeps a quick and brutal pace. With each thrust your breasts bounce.
Grabbing your leg, he hooks it over his arms. He keeps snapping his hips into you, over and over.
There is a weird contrast as he leans down kissing the top of your knee gently.
He's so big, he's touching parts inside of you that you didn't know could be reached. Your hands tighten into a fist as you try not to cum too early.
Out of nowhere he drops your leg. Your eyes fly open, looking at him confused.
"Color?"
"Green."
He stops moving for a moment. He's still sitting on his knee, snug inside you, but he moves so he's hovering over you. He snaps his hips back into you.
"Fuck—" you can't help but moan.
He takes your breast in his large hand. He gropes the flesh, earning wanton moans from you. This is the best sex you've ever had in your life.
"Wonwoo—" you cry.
"Does Princess want to cum?" He taunts you.
"Please, I'm so close."
"You can cum." He snaps his hips harder.
The cry that leaves your lips is loud. You're hit with the realization that Mingyu might be home. You pray that he left long before you and Wonwoo started fucking.
This orgasm hits harder then anything you've ever experienced before. You see spots as your walls flutter against his cock like a heartbeat.
Tilting your head back, you leave the delicate skin of your neck fully exposed. Without saying a word, his large hand wraps around your throat. He applies just enough pressure to send you futher over the edge.
"Fuck— fuck." You cry out.
He doesn't stop moving. He keeps thrusting into you, over and over as you ride out your high.
"Where do you want me to cum?" He ask, leaning in even closer to you.
"Inside." You cry.
He releases your neck and drops down to his elbows, so he is plastered against you. He slows down a little, rolling his hips into you as he chases his release.
His lips crash into yours for another heated kiss. Your tongues slide together, muffling your moans.
His thrusts get more sloppy as he gets closer to finding his release. "I'm going to fill you up." He moans against your lips.
True to his word, he fills you like you've never been filled before. He keeps thrusting into you as he paints your walls with his milky release. He came so much, it's starting to leak out around his cock.
It takes a few moments for him to slowly stop moving. He pulls away from you and reaches up for your hands. He releases the chain from the hook and slowly brings your hands towards him. He unlocks the handcuffs and gently rubs your wrist, focusing on the spot where the metal started to bite your skin. He places gentle kisses on both wrists. This is the complete opposite of the man who just fucked you until you cried.
"How are you feeling?" He's still inside you, he hasn't tried to move.
"Like my legs probably don't work." You let out a little laugh. “Please tell me Mingyu isn’t home.”
“He left hours ago.”
He leans in and presses his lips to yours for another kiss. "You're way nicer now." You say with your lips against his.
"It's because you were a good girl."
"I'll always be your good girl, if you'll fuck me like that." Reaching up, you tangle your fingers in his fluffy hair. It feels nice to actually touch him.
"So was this a one time thing?" He asks as he pulls back from you.
"No."
Slowly he pulls out of you. He sits back on his knees, watching as his release starts slowly sliding out of you. He takes two fingers and scoops it up, pushing it back inside.
"Don't waste it." He says, giving you a wicked smile.
"I need a shower." You sigh.
"Let's shower together, and then I'll take you out for breakfast."He holds his hand out towards you.
"Like a date?" You push yourself up, immediately realizing how sore you are.
"Yeah, if you want me to fuck you again we have to go a date."
You can't help but smile. For someone who just dom’ed the hell out of you, he's acting pretty cute right now.
"I would like to go out with you."
Things are definitely going to change after this, but you're okay with that. Clearly what you and Wonwoo have is special.
pairing: fiancée! non-idol! jeon wonwoo x fiancée! fem! reader
genre & warnings: fluff! a tiny bit suggestive but mostly just fluff...
desc: on the day you met, you both took a photo of each other — a tradition that still lives on seven years later, even on your wedding day.
wc: 1.7k
note: happy wonwoo day! i miss him so dearly, so here is some horrifically sweet fluff for everyone. this is inspired by a tiktok made by @oklikewhatever ! not beta read so any mistakes are allll me :3
𝄞: pictures of you by the cure
The sun glittered through the swaying willow tree, the spindly arms arching in gorgeous, bespoke spirals above the head. The scene was picturesque, sprawling green in all directions, blossoming botanicals clustering the field, and a dozen or so rows of perfectly dressed chairs.
Familiar faces from all the paths your life had taken looked back, real and genuine smiles beaming towards you, chins held high in appreciation.
At the other end of the grassy aisle, the figure of a suit clad man snapped his head up, his body overwhelmed with adoration as he watched you walk slowly.
With each step, your heart became fuller and fuller, your shy smile evolving into a wide grin as you finally let your eyes meet those soft chocolate orbs that never quite left your mind. Those eyes you see in your dreams and in almost every picture you take, those warm coffee-brown eyes that beheld you like you were an angel on earth, descending upon them like a blessing.
If there wasn’t a delicately designed bouquet between your hands, you may’ve covered the flush that was intruding on your cheeks from his adoring gaze. But alas, you reveal the effect Wonwoo has on you to your friends, your family and even the perpetrator, your fiancée, about to be husband.
As the pace slowed and you neared the altar, you felt tears begin to well up in your own eyes, the sight of your beautiful fiancée smiling so tenderly plucking your heartstrings like a harp. However, before he can reach out to take his big hand in your smaller one, you notice the small brown stool sat politely in the middle, wonwoo’s vintage film camera patiently waiting on the surface.
It all started the day that you met, seven years ago, on a snowy university quadrangle. The weather had gotten unforgivingly bitter in a matter of days, and it had most students grunting and groaning at the biting, icy wind — Including Wonwoo, who swore the cloudy sky would singlehandedly fail his photography assignment for him.
The once vivid green of the colossal oak trees was dimmed under grey skies, the camera capturing sullen shadows and blurry undertones instead of the striking light beams and glowing leaves. Wonwoo let his arms slack beside him as he looked up at the colourless clouds, irritation stiffening him grossly.
As if things couldn’t worsen, tiny specks of white began to tumble lightly from above, settling graciously between his feet. Great, now it’s snowing.
A loud and excitement-fuelled squeal pulled Wonwoo from his self-induced strop and forced him to snap his head to the source of the heinous invasion of noise in his ears. Between two of the ancient oaks, you were jumping with an untameable smile on your face, eyes glowing in delight as you flapped your arms gleefully in the snow.
Wonwoo froze, mouth slacking as he watched you — like a vision of pure euphoria, you squealed in the snow like it was the most mind-blowing thing to ever occur. And for some reason, he was enticed, heart pounding as he watched you closely. Like perfect wingmen, his feet led him to you, stopping a few feet away as you held your arm above your head, letting the cool snowflakes land on your palm.
‘Hi.’ Wonwoo said, mentally cringing at his lax greeting.
‘Oh, hey!’ You turned your head to face him briefly, unable to keep his eye contact as the flourishes of snow wisped past. ‘Isn’t this amazing!’
Wonwoo laughed lightly, his heart screeching within him as he continued to watch your fascination.
‘Do you think I can take a photo of you?’ He asks gingerly, worry consuming him. ‘Sorry, if that seems creepy, I study here, and I’m trying to complete a project about natural-occurring beauty.’
Maybe you were playing dumb, but you let him believe you thought he was talking about the snow.
‘Sure.’ You agree, ‘on one condition.’
Wonwoo furrowed his brows, letting his camera lower as you look at him closely. ‘Okay.’
‘If you let me take a picture of you too.’
Those first two photos developed in time for your first date. Two snowy pictures of wide smiles and anticipation — anticipation for something unknown, something unawaited and new, something that would unknowingly change both of your lives.
It was an icy evening in late November when Wonwoo showed up at your door with hand-wrapped flowers, offering you his arm to take you out on a first date. Between his hands were a bunch of gorgeous lilies, close to blooming, wrapped carefully in newspaper — which were delicately placed in a vase before he whisked you off to dinner.
Somehow, he’d located the most perfect and intimate restaurant within walking distance of your dorm. The abode was decorated in dark colours and lit dimly to foster closeness between its customers, tiny candlelights flickering on the varnished wooden tables, illuminating faces with golden warmth.
Wonwoo did everything right — took your coat, pulled out your chair, called you beautiful, tucked your hair behind your ear. And your heart felt butterflies were gearing up to flutter it away.
‘I hate to be cliché.’ He speaks fondly, reaching beneath the table.
You hung your head in confusion as he manoeuvred himself back up. ‘What are you talking about, Wonwoo?’ You say with a questioning smile.
‘Can I take a photo of you?’
He materialises the same camera that captured your blissful snowy moment and places it on the table between you.
‘Well…’ You pretend to think, tapping your chin for exaggeration, Wonwoo’s soft laugh ringing from opposite you. ‘On one condition.’
‘Oh really?’ He plays into the joke, a smile bit into his cheeks as he pretends. Inside, his heart is practically singing, the sight of your eyes glowing under candlelight enough to almost render him speechless.
‘If you let me take a photo of you too.’
The second couple of pictures developed in time for Wonwoo to tack them to his wall. The photos under subdued light radiated warmth, from the shy smiles dancing on both of your faces to the subtle knowing looks you both possessed — this was meant to be.
On a grassy spring plain, Wonwoo presented a spread of your favourite foods, a soft plush blanket beneath your legs as you sat peacefully, letting the breeze tickle your cheeks lightly. Wonwoo was beside you, stealing sly glances at your side profile as the early-spring sun made your skin glow.
‘Hey,’ He said softly, making you turn and hum in response, leaning onto his shoulder on instinct, the closeness familiar over the months of developing feelings.
‘What’s up?’ You say as he wraps an arm around your waist, resting his head on yours comfortably. Throughout the months of dating, small touches had flowered slowly, shy pinky-holding evolving into strong arms wrapped around one another.
‘Want to be my girlfriend?’ Wonwoo asked not-so smoothly, letting the biting anxiety slip through his relaxed facade and muddle the beginning of his sentence.
‘Want to be your girlfriend?’ You repeat back to him, with a baited smile, turning to look at him. ‘Jeon Wonwoo, you can do better than that.’
‘Do you want to be my girlfriend?’ He rolls his eyes playfully and meets your gaze — your eyes are glistening and as soft as ever, love penetrating as you nod bashfully at him.
With a light touch, Wonwoo cups your cheek, running the pad of his thumb across your smooth skin as he drinks your pretty face in. Slowly, his plush lips meet yours, electricity jolting through you as they mould together like two pieces of the same heart. Heat rises through your body as he pecks your lips lovingly, continuing to memorise the texture of your skin beneath his fingertips.
‘Sorry to ruin the moment but,’ Wonwoo speaks, his breath still mingling with yours. ‘Can I take a photo of you?’
With a flushed complexion, you lean your forehead on his shoulder in embarrassment. ‘You know my condition, boyfriend.’
Over the years, Wonwoo had collected hundreds of these photos. Each in neat pairs, bright expressions of delight dancing on your faces, backgrounds differing from rural beauty to urban simplicity, some taken in extravagant cities across continents and some in your and Wonwoo’s bed, white covers concealing your naked figures.
The photographs were famous in your close circle, many of the most important people in your lives witnessing the innocent flash of the camera and the small giggle as you passed it between each other.
Photos from family holidays and photos from mundane work-from-home afternoons, photos from the day Wonwoo got down on one knee and photos from dates gone wrong. Every photo displays a precious memory that you both held close to your hearts.
As you behold the film camera between you both, the audience watching knowingly as Wonwoo leans down to pick it up, just like he did on your first date, and a small, joyful tear slips down your cheek.
‘You already know what I’m going to ask.’ He says quietly, the rows of friends in front of you silently listening along.
Without a word, you nod, a grateful smile on your features as he lifts his hand to wipe the tear from your cheek.
‘Can I take a picture of you?’ This time Wonwoo’s eyes are beginning to get glassy, the audience swooning calmly as they watch.
‘Of course you can,’ you answer with a sniffle, ‘on one condition.’
He nods, just as he has many times in the past, your hand meeting his on your cheek to intertwine your fingers.
genre: fluff, girl dad vernon cuz why not ;)
wc: <1k
a/n: welp, ig i'm sorry i kinda disappeared from here 😔 💔 personal life was busy, but im back, and i'll try to write more over here! i also wanna thank my friend for motivating me with the idea of girldad vernon. i owe you one 🥹 ✊🏼
It’s a rather quiet evening. Sunlight filters in through the bedroom windows. The curtains sway slightly from the gentle breeze that is flowing outside.
The house is quiet, save for whatever program is playing on the tv, long forgotten. Vernon is sitting on a sofa, and in his lap sits his three year old daughter Lily. Her face is scrunched in the kind of focus only toddlers her age could muster. Her hair is messy, stray strands covering her forehead—a result of the countless hours she spent playing around.
Vernon scrunches his face as Lily holds a bright red lipstick in her hands.
“Appa focus!” she says, leaning over, as she carefully presses it against his lips. Vernon goes perfectly still as he lets his daughter doodle on his face.
“Okay. just like this." She says, nodding her head as she squints her eyes at her dad.
Vernon sighs but the corner of his lips turn upwards, a small smile playing on his lips as he looks at his daughter fussing over his makeup. Your makeup is messed up in the vanity, a lip stick rolled down here, a mascara placed there. The makeup brushes are long forgotten on the floor at this point.
“You know your mama will not be too happy about this right?” Vernon asks his daughter as she attempts to stand in his lap. He feels lily dab a brush against his cheeks. Bright red powder falls on his t-shirt, and Vernon can't help the chuckle that escapes his lips as he looks at his situation.
“Look at this appa, you look so pretty.’ she states as she looks at the artwork she created on his face, nodding her head in approval.
“Hmm, Is that so?” Vernon asks Lily and she hums. “You look pretty just like mama” she states.
...............................
You don't know whether to laugh or cry. Standing in the door, the words of greeting die in your mouth when you look at the state of your bedroom.
“...and what do we have here?” you ask, stepping in, wincing as you take in the image of your husband. There he is, hair pulled in lopsided ponytails with glittery rainbow pins, lipstick smudged across his cheeks. And somehow he still looks so pretty?
The cause of this tiny chaos seems to recognize you there too, because she's grinning as she gets off Vernon's lap.
“Mama look! I did appa’s makeup!” she chirps.
“Oh did you now?’ you ask, glaring at Vernon and the tiny monster standing in front of you now.
“Ahm," Lily puffs out her chest. "I told appa he looks just as pretty as you do.” she says, as she proudly looks back at you, you scowl at Vernon and he raises his hands up in mock surrender.
“I can explain." he scrambles. "I was forced into it” he grins sheepishly, holding his hands up in surrender. and despite yourself, despite the mess on the table and that the lipstick was now practically useless, you can't help but let out a giggle.
The giggle turns into a full laugh the moment Vernon actually turns to look at the side mirror and you see the way realization hits him. He looks like a love struck mess.
“Oh you little devil." he says, grabbing your daughter as she tries to run away shrieking. You can't help as you take out your phone recording the whole thing because it's so silly. Yes you're mad that a mess was created but there is a sense of fondness as you look at the way Vernon laughs as his daughter tugs against his grip. Vernon grins back at you, his eyes turning into crescents.
Clearing your throat you put your phone back and walk over to them, Vernon immediately pulls you close, whispering a quiet “sorry for the mess.” as he places a small kiss against your head.
You merely shrug your shoulders as you sigh. “I don't mind if it makes you look this funny. It was funny." You add and Vernon smiles against your cheeks, as you both look over at your daughter who is now busy playing with her stuffed toys in the corner.
“But you do owe me a new lipstick though.” you frown at your husband.
"That was a given after the mess we made." Vernon says as he leans his head against your shoulders.
“And no more experiments with my makeup.” you hold your finger up, giving him your best glare.
“I make no promise," Vernon says, you lunge at him but he is quick, laughing as he suddenly runs off to where Lily is playing.
“Hey! Get back here, you need to clean the mess, " you yell behind him.
“Coming right up,” Vernon says, picking your daughter as he grabs a pack of wet wipes to clean the room.
And despite Vernon looking like a goofy ball, with your tiny menace of a daughter trailing right behind with her usual mischievous grin—you think you don't mind having your makeup ruined. You love your family and the cute mess they make. And you won't have it any other way.
SYNOPSIS. On the night of your eighteenth birthday, you and Wonwoo made a pact to lose your virginities together. Ten years later you're co-parenting your unexpected child while figuring out where you stand with each other.
PARING. Wonwoo x F!Reader
GENRE | TAGS. Smau, series, non idol!au, best friends (idiots) to lovers, unexpected pregnancy, slow burn, angst, pinning, fluff, humor/comedy.
WARNINGS. Suggestive, pregnancy, teenage pregnancy, teen parents, explicit language.
A/N: (1) First and most important, it's a pregnancy related smau, so obviously topics that are prohibited for minors will be addressed, so I would feel more comfortable if minors didn't interact. (2) This smau will take place over the course of 10 years.
UPDATES. Every other monday, saturday and sunday.
STATUS. on-going.
TAGLIST
PART ONE (the first nine months)
PART TWO (the first year) ⤷ 001 002 003
PART THREE (the second year) ⤷ 001 002 003
PART FOUR (the third year) ⤷ 001 002 003 004 005
PART FIVE (the fourth year) ⤷ 001 002 003 004 005
PART SIX (the fifth year) ⤷ 001 002 003 004 005
PART SEVEN (the sixth year) ⤷ 001 002 003 004 005 006 007
PART EIGHT (the seventh year) ⤷ 001 002 003 004 005
summary: It’s not just Wonwoo, but everyone in his life who knows that he is the best driver for Aston Martin, and has been for years. This season is his first real chance to take the championship home. But everything goes terribly wrong when a race goes awry and he fractures his collarbone, and there is no one he hates more than the orthopedic surgeon who tells him he can’t race.
pairing: f1 driver!wonwoo x orthopedic surgeon!reader
word count: 9.7k
warnings: f1 au, swearing, some angst, descriptions of injuries and fractures, medical procedures. wonwoo is a bit of an asshole, realisation of feelings, smut, nsfw, multiple orgasms, riding, dirty talk, fluff.
a/n: i think this is my first time writing a stand alone oneshot for wonwoo, and also my first time writing f1, so pls be nice to me 🙏🏼 this was written as a commission, and you can find details here. thank you to @supi-wupi, @orbitondgtl and @mylovesstuffs for beta reading for me, ily all so much xx
Wonwoo thinks he is very level headed. In fact, he prides himself for it. He credits his success to it; being calculating, grounded, and strategic. There’s no room for emotion in his sport, and he makes sure that there never will be. Every variable is weighed, every hypothetical solved in his head or in race simulations. Nothing can catch him off guard. He’s got this shit on lock.
But even Wonwoo did not anticipate how badly today would go.
It’s a critical race weekend. This last season has been astronomical for him and his career, and winning today is important for his future. He can take the championship, he knows this. Years of work have come to a head this season. It’s more or less his game to lose, so no one in his team risks anything. While the weather was a factor on the circuit, it’s been carefully accounted for. Everything is set, everything is adjusted.
It’s the nature of his job that the slightest alteration can have such disastrous consequences.
He doesn’t even register how quick it all happens. The tires scream as he shoots into Turn 5, barely a centimeter from the car beside him. Rain has left the tarmac slick, and spray blurs the view of the apex. His hands grip the wheel, muscles screaming against the steering forces.
Suddenly, a flash of red on the inside, likely the Ferrari that has been on his heels for a while, trying to overtake on the inside line. It loses control. The car spins violently, clips the barrier, and bounces back across the track. There is nowhere to go. Instinct takes over Wonwoo in that instant. He jerks left, but the slippery surface betrays him.
His Aston Martin hits the outside barrier shoulder-first, the impact crushing his left side against the carbon fiber cockpit. The world tilts; G-force slamming into his chest and shoulder like a battering ram. Pain shoots through his left collarbone, sharp and immediate.
The car skids along the barrier for a few meters before stopping. Smoke and sparks rise, and the tires hiss against wet asphalt. Wonwoo sits frozen for a moment, his good hand balled into a fist, the other dangling awkwardly to the side, shoulder numb but throbbing.
His mind is stationary with shock.
FIA marshals are on him within seconds. The medical car screeches to a halt behind the crash, doors opening like a scene from a film. Trackside doctors arrive, quick hands checking for consciousness, pulse, and the obvious deformity of the shoulder. Wonwoo doesn’t feel any of it. He’s still in the race in his head, focus somehow unbroken. He barely registers the hands, the noise all around him deepening and slowing like he’s hearing it through a bad speaker.
“Clavicle,” one of them mutters under their breath. There’s some tugging and pushing, and they carefully immobilize his arm with a sling and brace, instructing him not to move. Wonwoo doesn’t think he can, even if he tries. The reality is sinking in, and the pain is so sharp, radiating down his arm with every heartbeat. The adrenaline keeps him upright, alert, but that means he is quickly absorbing the gravity of the situation.
His race is over. He’s done.
He doesn’t know how long it takes for him to be lifted onto a stretcher and guided into the medical car. He is half aware that his eyes are open, and he can register touch, but everything else feels like it’s far away. It’s a while later that he fully feels like he’s in his own body again. He’s at the circuit medical center, laying on a stiff, cold surface with a large machine hovering over him. In the quiet of the space, his head mutes a bit more, and Wonwoo can finally look at his surroundings to truly comprehend what is happening. Seungkwan, his physical therapist, is standing over a console in the next room, staring intently at a computer screen with someone who looks like an X-ray technician, his arms crossed. There’s a crease between his eyebrows, one he gets very rarely, only when he is really, truly worried. A new feeling sinks into Wonwoo’s chest then, a crushing, unbearable dread.
It’s a bit of a blur when Seungkwan comes to him with the news. His clavicle is fractured. Badly. In multiple places. His first thought is: no wonder. It hurts so bad, it couldn’t have been something minor. And his second thought is: when can he be back in a car again?
Seungkwan’s face gets sympathetic when he echoes the sentence out loud. Wonwoo doesn’t like that look.
“I’m not saying anything.” Seungkwan’s tone is somber. “I don’t want to give or take any hope right now. I’ve sent your X-rays to an orthopedic surgeon the team has on contract. She’s the one who can make a correct estimate.”
Wonwoo nods, but the movement itself makes tiny tendrils of pain shoot down his neck. Seungkwan is right. Speculation won’t help. Wonwoo needs the facts. Numbers don’t lie, they never have. So he sits there, trying to keep his mind as still as possible, to somehow suspend his reality until he knows for sure.
Jeon Wonwoo, the man who runs hypotheticals, cannot do that exact thing right now. He can’t, because anything other than him not missing even a single race will be a nightmare he doesn’t even want to think about.
Seungkwan has an answer in less than ten minutes. He will need surgery. No racing for at least four to six weeks.
His world comes crashing down.
He doesn’t believe it at first, staring blankly at Seungkwan. The man shifts a little uncomfortably in the long silence, but doesn’t really say more. Not that anything he says would make any of this feel better. Instead, Wonwoo stretches out his uninjured arm, holding his hand out for the phone in Seungkwan’s grip.
“Let me talk to her.”
Seungkwan blinks, surprised. “The surgeon?”
Wonwoo nods. His physio hesitates.
“Look, you’re going to see her at her clinic anyway. We’re preparing transport right now-”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Wonwoo’s teeth grit. “The race-”
“It’s not your race anymore.” Seungkwan’s tone is firm. “Plus, your surgeon gave us strict instructions that you don’t move much until she’s had a look herself.”
Anger swells inside Wonwoo’s chest. Irrational, seething anger. He wants to yell at Seungkwan, at this invisible surgeon who is essentially killing his career. There’s no way he’s going to take this laying down, no way he’s not going to fight for his life. He’s worked too hard, he’s sacrificed too much to be where he is. All of it can’t be for nothing.
It can’t end. Not like this.
…………………………………
The caveat that comes with working in Orthopedics is that long term injuries will leave patients feeling some type of way. And as the person usually delivering that news, you are at the receiving end of their frustrations.
It’s a natural response, so you’re not too bothered by it. You’ve dealt with it for years, through your entire residency and the process of establishing your own practice as well. Any kind of fracture or ligament tear that needs long term care is not exactly good news, and people aren’t very keen on them, especially those whose jobs are affected by these injuries. The absolute worst of these cases are, without a doubt, athletes.
When you get soft copies of X-rays sent to your email for a Formula 1 driver and you immediately spot a displaced clavicle fracture, you wince. You already know this isn’t going to go well. From previous experience, you know this will cost him at least two or three races. You’re not sure exactly how many, since you’re not very up-to-date with the schedules. You’re not directly involved with the drivers, since their core medical team usually takes care of any health issues. You’re too high up the chain for minor problems. But this? This is definitely in your wheelhouse.
You’re closely in contact with Seungkwan, Aston Martin’s physical therapist, as well as their Sports Medicine Physician. You discuss your patient’s status while they get him ready for transport. As you wait for him to arrive at your clinic, you have your team on standby, briefing them about your incoming patient. Chan gasps when you tell him who is on the way, and that makes you raise an eyebrow.
“Jeon Wonwoo…” He trails off. “Oh man. He was going to take Aston Martin all the way in this championship. This is bad. He’s going to be pissed.”
You give the nurse a weird look. “Okay. Well. We are in for an unpleasant few weeks then-”
“Unpleasant?” Chan visibly shivers. “It’s going to be a nightmare.”
You roll your eyes. Athletes really are always like this. Though you can’t fault them for the reactions: this is their career, their whole life on the line. Anyone would be agitated. You’re a professional. You can deal with it.
Nothing could’ve prepared you for how venomous this guy would be, though.
The first thing you notice about him when he arrives with a nurse and a medical assistant is that he is unbearably stiff, from the stony expression all the way to the ends of his limbs. You look at the X-ray films again and advise a CT scan for more details. While your team preps, you try to assess his arm as much as you can. He sits on the examination couch and stares blankly at the opposite wall as you gently maneuver the arm attached to his injured collarbone. He’s silent all throughout it as you work his shoulder, not even flinching at the movements when you press down on his skin. The room is silent as you work, the heavy kind that leaves the air awkward. You let him sit in it, trying to make it as quick as possible. He needs this space. When you step away, he finally utters his first words.
“So?” He says. “How long?”
His tone is clipped. You are unbothered. “While it depends on how the surgery goes, I can estimate almost six weeks.”
He scoffs, and you see his jaw tick. “Is surgery necessary?”
You blink. “Well, yes. It’s a fracture.”
“But some fractures don’t need surgery, do they? I read somewhere that-”
“Yours is not that kind of fracture.” You cut him off immediately. Great. He’s the kind who googles stuff. God, Chan was right. This won’t be easy. This guy is in denial about even needing surgery. Usually the denial starts with how long the healing time will be, not this.
He scowls. “But there has to be a way-”
“There isn’t.”
His eyes narrow into sharp daggers. You know your interruptions are ticking him off, and he’s not used to them, but you need to nip this in the bud. Any hesitation means he will look for alternatives, and that will delay his surgery, making it more difficult in the long run. While you can see how his cold stare might intimidate someone else, you are unfazed. You’ve met too many people like him.
“Figure it out.” He spits. “I can’t miss another race. I already missed today-”
“Listen to me.” You cut him off again, holding a hand up. You look him straight in the eye, not backing down. “I will do the best I can for you within my capacity. I gave you my professional opinion. If you don’t trust it, you’re more than welcome to ask another orthopedic surgeon. I’m telling you right now though, it will be the exact same answer. The rest is up to you.”
This is the best way to deal with situations like these. All this anger, this denial, is coming from the very emotional state of having his career in jeopardy for something that wasn’t his fault. He needs to feel some semblance of control in a situation that gives him none, and making the choice of his own surgeon gives him that control, even if it’s just to placate his mind. You watch a million shadows pass over his eyes as he contemplates. You notice the sweat built up on his temple, the slightly increased pulse on his heart monitor. He’s in pain, even if he isn’t showing it.
Finally, he nods, albeit stiffly. You move then, pulling open your exam room door to poke your head out and call for Chan to bring the meds your patient requires. When you go back in, Wonwoo is lost in thought again, face just as blank as before. He truly gives nothing away in moments like these, even to someone who reads people as well as you do, and something like curiosity unfurls in your stomach.
Who exactly is this guy?
Your clinic is not far from where you live, and later that night, when you’re back home after settling everything with Wonwoo and giving full instructions to prep him for surgery the next day, you can’t help but give in to your inquisitive nature. With dinner half devoured on the bed next to you, you pull your laptop closer and look up your newest patient on the internet.
Jeon Wonwoo is wildly popular.
He’s been racing for a good while now with Aston Martin, and they've really put their faith in him. This year was shaping up to be his best one yet, until he got gravely injured in the recent race. It’s all over the news, the shock of the season, article after article speculating how bad his condition is, how long he will be out of the races, and how that will affect his points. There are talks of a reserve driver taking over for the time he won’t be there, someone he apparently has a long standing rivalry with. You end up on the depths of YouTube, watching an interview from years ago where both Wonwoo and this other guy, Soonyoung, are present, and even someone completely oblivious to social cues can see how cold the air is between them, as well as the little quips they make. They clearly don’t like each other.
Does Wonwoo know Soonyoung is taking his place? Maybe that adds to his agitation as well.
You’re left to ponder as you stare off into the distance, wondering what is going on in his head. This entire situation is high tension, potentially career altering. While you’ve dealt with a few cases like this, none of it is of this magnitude. Jeon Wonwoo is changing the course of Aston Martin’s history in Formula 1. That has to be a lot of pressure. Is that it? He feels responsible for everyone who depends on him? Is that why he reacted so badly to the thought of needing surgery?
You shut your laptop and rub your eyes. You will treat him with extra caution then. And Chan obviously knows the gravity of the situation. He can deal with it better than you in this case, so you will leave what you can to him. After surgery, Seungkwan is going to take over for the rehab, so that won’t be your problem. The surgery is scheduled for tomorrow. You need to get some sleep.
When you close your own eyes and lie down, you remember the stoney, chilly intensity of his. It makes you shiver. You fall asleep quickly.
………………………….
Wonwoo feels a little like he’s cut off from the world, and the only connection he still has to what everyone is saying is through Joshua. Which isn’t good, because Joshua always sugarcoats everything for him. It works usually, because Wonwoo knows he comes off as crass and cold, so a publicist like Joshua who can soften his image is a smart decision. But in moments like these, when he needs to know what the hell is happening after his shocking injury, Joshua isn’t exactly giving him the hard facts.
“It doesn’t matter.” The man insists from where he sits on the chair next to Wonwoo’s bed. “You need to focus on preparing for your surgery. We can talk all about it later.”
“I don’t have to do shit.” Wonwoo retorts. “That’s their job.”
He jerks his head to the nurse standing bedside, drawing blood from his arm. He’s a young guy, and he blinks rapidly as both men turn to him. Wonwoo can see his ears darken to pink. He just gives both of them a sheepish smile.
“Everything will be ready soon.” He chirps. “Just some tests to check your general anaesthesia fitness. We will have you in surgery by tomorrow morning.”
“I would like to have a word with his surgeon.” Joshua says, making Wonwoo scoff loudly. His publicist looks at him questioningly. He just shakes his head in return.
He’s not going to badmouth a surgeon in front of his nurse. Wonwoo knows he’s an asshole, but he respects professional boundaries.
When the nurse leaves though, Wonwoo goes on a tirade. He tells Joshua that you’re rude and strict. That you didn’t hear him out and instead just essentially told him to leave if he wasn’t okay with your treatment plan. You didn’t use those exact words, of course, but your meaning was clear. Joshua listens silently as Wonwoo rants, and his lips tick up in a smirk the longer Wonwoo goes on. It makes the driver pause, and he glares at his publicist.
“What?” He snaps.
Joshua shakes his head. “Oh, nothing. Just wondering about this surgeon. Rude, kind of pissy and strict, doesn’t play about her profession and doesn’t take bullshit from anyone about her skill…” He levels Wonwoo with a pointed look. “Sounds like someone else I know.”
Wonwoo can feel the back of his neck burn. “I’m nothing like her.”
Joshua snorts and stands up, holding his laptop close to his chest. “Sure.”
He says a quick goodbye to Wonwoo, promising he will be here in the morning before his surgery. Wonwoo still feels like he’s on edge, rolling his eyes at Joshua’s ridiculous words. He’s not like you. He knows the stereotype of arrogant surgeons, and you fit it to a T. Wonwoo is an asshole, he knows that, but he has good reason to be. Being an asshole, being calculating and harsh, makes him incredible at what he does because it keeps him sharp.
But Joshua’s words don’t leave him. And Wonwoo wonders if being firm and crass makes you good at what you do, too. Was it your absolute unmoving belief in your judgement that made Wonwoo stay and agree to a surgery he would otherwise never consent to? Were you the reason?
All this conclusion does is make him even more irritable. He came here to give you a piece of his mind and to resist this surgery. But instead, he’s lying in a patient bed, hooked to machines, being prepared for the exact surgery he didn’t want. All because, for some reason, he trusts you.
His sleep is restless. He can’t toss and turn, since his shoulder is basically tied and held in place. So he’s stuck on his back, staring up at the grey ceiling. The monitors beep regularly, letting him in on the pace of his own heartbeat. Wonwoo lies there. And he thinks.
Ever since he was a kid who got obsessed with racing, Wonwoo has known what he wanted to do with himself. The trajectory his life took was a no-brainer for him and for anyone who knew him. It wasn’t just an obsession, it was a life purpose. Wonwoo lived and breathed racing. This championship, a build up of years of work, was supposed to be the summit of his life’s work. He had been laser focused on this for as long as he knew what it was. There was nothing else, no relationship, no personal commitment, that could get in the way of this. That’s what all his exes’ biggest problem always was. That he didn’t make ‘time’ for them. But if any of them knew him, they would know this was his number one priority and always would be.
He got so close. He almost had his fingertips on that trophy. He could taste the victory. He was in peak physical condition, all his race simulations were seamless. The first few wins of the season felt like they were his birthright. But now….
Wonwoo stares at a grey ceiling, and the heart monitor mutedly beeps on.
………………….
He’s more tame today. That’s the first thing you notice.
You go to see him in his room first thing next morning. He isn’t alone. There’s a man next to him on his laptop, muttering on and on about some media jargon you don’t understand. He stands up when you come in, and you give him a tight smile.
“Joshua Hong.” He offers his hand. You shake it. “I’m his publicist. Is there any way I can get a statement from you?”
You blink, immediately shaking your head. “I’m sorry. I’ve sent complete updates to his medical team at Aston Martin. Any public statement comes from them, not from me.”
You don’t know why, but that catches him off guard. You ignore him and step aside to look at your patient.
“How are you doing?” Your voice is light and cheerful, your typical patient interaction tone. “Any pain?”
Wonwoo shakes his head. “Probably the painkillers.”
You nod and skim over Wonwoo’s chart. Chan’s neat handwriting lays it all out. “Everything looks good. The OR is ready. We will have you shifted as soon as the anesthetist gives his good-to-go.”
He nods silently, a sharp contrast to the resistance he put up yesterday. You eye him carefully. “Do you have any questions?”
He shakes his head. You don’t question him further, but you make note of your unease in your head. He keeps confusing you. You don’t know what to do with him. You need to recommend counseling for him after this.
All thoughts are pushed out of your head when the anesthetist arrives and the team springs into action. You scrub in, layer after layer of sterilized equipment being put on you. When you enter the OR, Wonwoo is already there, lying down on the table and draped, his arms pulled out to the sides, staring up at the ceiling with wide eyes. OR assistants and technicians mill around, bustling to get everything ready. It’s slightly noisy, with machines beeping and people moving next to him. You glance at his heart monitor. 122. Higher, but not high enough to be a concern. He’s clearly nervous.
You go to stand by his head while the anesthetist preps to put him under.
“Hey.” you mumble from underneath your mask. His eyes shoot to you. “It’s me.”
You can see the relief on his face from your familiar voice. You feel sympathy curl in your chest. He’s probably questioning everything right now, how new and daunting all this is, and even the reality of him returning to the circuit like he used to after everything that will happen to him today.
“Just relax.” You manage to say. “I’ve got you.”
There’s really not much else you can say without crossing a professional boundary. He looks at you for a long moment, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on you while everything around him shifts and moves, and for the first time since you’ve met him, you think you are seeing Wonwoo truly, without all his thorns and needles, and just him, all his uncertainty, his vulnerability, on the line.
“Ready? Count down from one hundred.”
His eyes fall shut before he hits ninety six.
The advantage of surgeries on athletes is that they are in prime physical condition, nearly textbook, so the chances of something going wrong are minimal. Your own experience means you predict every single step on Wonwoo’s surgery before you even do it. His vitals look great, his muscles respond to push and pull the way you expect them to, he bleeds minimally, and the bone is fixed with the least effort required. The screws slide in like second nature. You’re closing him up in record time. Your OR team is relaxed and not tense today as everything goes smoothly, and all goes well until the very last moment, when the anesthetist takes over again.
His publicist, Joshua, is waiting outside the doors of the OR. There’s another man there, tall and handsome, who you immediately recognise as Aston Martin’s other driver, Kim Mingyu.
“How’d it go?” Joshua sounds anxious, standing up when he spots you. You give him a placating smile.
“As well as could be expected.” You reply. “If rehab goes well, he should be back on the circuit in around 4 or 5 weeks. But-” You give Joshua a stern look. “Don’t quote me on that.”
He laughs. “Got it. Thank you so much. I don’t think anyone else could’ve done what you did.”
You pause at his words. “What do you mean?”
Joshua looks amused as he replies. “Wonwoo had no plans of getting the surgery. He came here to your clinic fully prepared to fight you on it. I was shocked when I heard he agreed to trust you with this. But also, not really, now that I’ve seen how you deal with patients.”
You can’t help but let out a light laugh at that, a little thrown off. “I don’t know what exactly you mean, but I will take your word for it.”
You excuse yourself from the men and return to your office. As you settle in, you can’t help but wonder. Was it true? Did Wonwoo agree because of you? You assumed he did it because he clearly didn’t have a choice. Objectively, he needed this surgery. But then you think again on what you know of him, and you realise someone as stubborn as him agreeing so quickly, being under the knife within 24 hours of getting the injury, was definitely not something anyone would expect of him. So maybe it did have to do with how firm you were and what you said.
You don’t know how to feel about that.
A knock on the door breaks you from your thoughts. Boo Seungkwan pokes his head in through the crack in the door and gives you a smile.
“Hey.” You greet him warmly. “Come in.”
Seungkwan, Wonwoo’s physical therapist, is someone you’ve known for a while now. You get along well with him. He’s good at his job, and he’s very friendly whenever you have a chance to meet. He makes for great conversation, and you genuinely enjoy his company.
“I read Wonwoo’s operation notes.” Seungkwan settles on the chair opposite to your desk. “Looks like everything went well.”
You nod and smile, and screw Seungkwan’s perceptive ass because he immediately raises an eyebrow.
“You okay?”
You sigh, contemplating. If anyone is going to understand, it’s someone in the same professional line as you. And Seungkwan is in charge of Wonwoo’s rehab. This pertains to him too.
“I just…. feel some type of way about him agreeing to this surgery because of me.”
Seungkwan frowns. “What do you mean?”
You sit up. “You and I know this was inevitable. He had to get the surgery no matter what, but he thought this was optional. He agreed to it because of me.”
Seungkwan doesn’t react. “So?”
You gawk at him. “What do you mean ‘so’? If something goes wrong, if his recovery is delayed, he’s going to blame me.”
That makes his face clear up. He lets out a small laugh. “Y/N, you need to give Wonwoo a bit more credit than that. He’s not an idiot. He knows what your part in this is. He put his trust in your skill because something you said or did got through to him. He has connected with you somehow, which I think is a miracle in itself for someone as closed off as him. But you’re not a miracle worker. He knows this.”
You contemplate silently. Seungkwan doesn’t say anything more. After a few minutes, he sighs and stands up.
“He should be out of Recovery by now. I’m gonna go see him.” Seungkwan smiles. “You should too. He’ll feel better if you’re there when he’s fully conscious again.”
Before Seungkwan turns to leave, he gives you one final look.
“Don’t think so much. And don’t be too hard on yourself. You’ve done everything right.”
You nod slowly, giving him a smile.
Wonwoo looks almost pliant as his bleary eyes blink slowly through whatever haze he is getting out of. He can’t move his neck, not yet, so he’s forced to stare up at the ceiling. You walk into the room a little while after his visitors leave, since you don’t want to crowd him. He can’t see you, so you lean over him to give him a tiny smile.
“Hey there.” You chirp. Wonwoo lets out a sound somewhere between a hum and a groan.
“How are you feeling? Any pain?”
You know there is none. He’s on a crazy amount of painkillers. But you have to ask anyway. Wonwoo shakes his uninjured arm to say no, since he can’t move his head.
“I’m sure Chan told you that everything went great with your surgery.” You say. “Smoothest surgery I’ve had in a while, in fact. If rehab goes well, you’ll be back in the car in no time.”
Wonwoo closes his eyes and lets out a breath. It’s shaky, and riddled with relief. He has shadows under his eyes, and his lips are chapped. Your heart squeezes.
“Thank you.” He mumbles. If the room wasn’t so silent, you wouldn’t have heard him. But you do. You smile and nod, patting his hand a little. It’s cold to touch, and you instinctively pull the blanket higher over him. Wonwoo watches you.
Your cheeks feel warm. You pull away.
“If there’s anything you need, just press the button, okay?”
You give him a second to respond. When he doesn’t, you step back, exiting the room quietly.
…………………………………
Wonwoo is naturally a quiet person, but something definitely shifts in him in the days he stays at your clinic after his surgery. While he is still quiet, it is void of the usual stiff and ticked off energy that surrounds him. You see him every morning and evening during rounds, checking in on his progress and asking him how he feels. He answers shortly, softly, but he never stops watching you. His eyes are sharp and intense, and they throw you off a little bit.
You check on his arm almost three times a day, paying special attention because of his circumstances. Everything looks fine, but he winces when you move it a certain way. It’s not surprising, but you hate it nonetheless.
“Sorry about that.” You always say, handling his arm and shoulder as gently as you can. He brushes it off.
“It’s okay.” His voice is raspy and low. You swallow tightly.
You want to blame his strange pliancy on the after effects of anesthesia for the first couple of days. Then you want to blame it on the drugs he’s on. After that, you’re really not quite sure what to name his behavior, so you just stop trying.
“I have good news.” You tell him five days after his surgery, when you go to see him during morning rounds. “I’m going to discharge you today.”
Wonwoo blinks from where he is propped up on pillows. His hair is a mess on his head, and he looks extra comfortable surrounded by pillows and sheets. You almost don’t recognise him as the man in the sharp green race suit you see on the videos from the circuit. You’re standing on the foot of his bed, leaning against the table where his papers are placed. “Really?”
You nod. “Really. Everything looks fantastic with your recovery. In fact, we’ve kept you here more days than we usually would, just to be safe, and you're cleared from our side now. The rest is going to be between you and Seungkwan as you pick up the pace on your rehab.”
Wonwoo nods, looking like he’s deep in thought. “I see.”
You watch him for a few seconds, waiting for him to say more. He doesn’t. That uneasy feeling hits you again.
“Hey.” You hesitate for a second. “I think it would be beneficial for you to speak to someone about everything that has happened. You know, athletes often don’t cope well with such a sudden circumstance, so having support in a time like this is-”
Wonwoo lets out a small laugh, the first time you've heard a sound like that from him. It makes you pause immediately.
“I understand where you’re coming from, but I’m fine.” He says. “I’ve just come to some realisations and….. it’s taking me a while to accept them.”
He keeps looking at you so intently. You feel your breath stutter just a little at the look in his eyes. You know you shouldn’t ask, but your curiosity gets the best of you. “What kind of realisations?”
He smiles again. Soft, like he’s accepting his reality. “I can’t tell you yet.”
Yet?
You don’t know what to say, so you just stay quiet. You let Wonwoo’s words linger like an unspoken promise, with its many implications. You fear if you vocalise them right now, they will break, and you don’t want to risk that.
You watch each other for a while, both of you silent.
……………………………………
Jeon Wonwoo is a very dedicated man.
You’ve seen leaps and bounds of improvement made by patients who do physiotherapy correctly, but even you are shocked by Wonwoo’s progress. You’re not directly involved after the first two weeks and Seungkwan fully takes over, but you get regular updates since Wonwoo still insists on you checking his shoulder at regular intervals.
He shows up at your clinic every Tuesday on the dot, looking and behaving light years softer than how he was when you first met him. He will sit on the examination table and tell you all about his physiotherapy sessions, how far he has gone and how it makes his shoulder and collarbone feel.
“This really isn’t necessary.” You always say when you examine him. You place your palm on his shoulder, just resting over his collarbone, and lift his arm up. It goes up smoothly. No clicks, no shifts, not even a wince on his face. “This is all Seungkwan. The amount of healing I had to do, I already did.”
“I know that. I just feel better if you know what’s going on and you take a look at it.”
He always says that. Always. With that look on his face you can’t quite place, his eyes trained on you as you work. Ever since Wonwoo got discharged, you’ve developed a habit of watching his videos online in your evenings. And never, in all your hours of watchtime, have you seen him give anyone this particular look.
It makes your heart race in a way you don’t really appreciate.
Seungkwan thinks it’s funny when you want him to tell Wonwoo to stop showing up.
“He’s not my patient anymore.” You insist over the phone, getting ticked off when all he does is laugh. “There’s no reason he should be coming to see me.”
“Have you ever considered that’s exactly why he’s there?” He retorts. “He’s not your patient anymore.”
You’re confused. Seungkwan huffs.
“He’s interested in you, dumbass. For something more. I swear to god, you’re kind of dumb for someone so qualified.”
If you weren’t so shocked by Seungkwan’s revelation, you would be more offended at his quip about your intelligence. But you’re stuck on his first sentence, and nothing else registers.
“No he’s not.” You immediately bite out.
“He is. I would know. He asks about you almost every day.”
“That’s-” Your heart races. You grip the phone hard. “How is that possible?”
Seungkwan snorts. “Beats me. I can’t remember the last time he was genuinely into something that wasn’t his damn car.”
You don’t know what to say to him. So you just hang up, something fluttering in your stomach at the thought of Wonwoo being interested in you for anything beyond your professional requirements. Could this be true? Is Seungkwan lying?
You’re too direct and matter-of-fact as a person to dance around anything. So the next time Wonwoo shows up, Tuesday afternoon as always, you don’t think you can ignore the slowly increasing tension between you two anymore, the one that has been rising since the day you discharged him.
“Wonwoo.” You speak up as you examine him, hand on his collarbone, other holding up his arm.
“Hm?”
“Seungkwan told me something. I need to confirm it with you.”
“What is it?” His eyes are on you, that same soft look in his eyes that seems to be reserved for you. You pointedly look at his shoulder only.
“Are you- Do you want-” You grit your teeth, feeling the knot in your throat. This is ridiculous. How can you not get the words out? You both know what this is and what you’re referring to. You’re not idiots. From the corner of your eye, you catch Wonwoo’s lips pulling up in an amused smirk.
“I do.” He says. “As you so eloquently put it, I do want.”
You feel your face flush hot. You turn your head and scowl at him.
“You’re an asshole.”
Your words surprise him, but there’s no venom behind them, so he lets out a laugh. “That’s not very professional, doctor.”
You roll your eyes. “I’m not your doctor anymore.”
“Yet you still have your hands on me.” His eyes shoot down pointedly to the palm you have on his bare shoulder. You flush and try to pull away, but immediately, Wonwoo reaches up, gripping your wrist tightly.
“Don’t.” He whispers.
Your eyes meet, and you can feel that coil in the bottom of your stomach. Something tingles your skin, the place where Wonwoo grips your wrist. You’re acutely aware that he’s shirtless, and that has never bothered you before, but the context is different now. There’s a heat in his gaze as he watches you. His eyes shift, for a fraction of a second, down to your lips. You grit your teeth, looking at him intensely. You voice the singular doubt that has been in your head all this time.
“I will not be a conquest, Jeon Wonwoo.” You state. “I know what your life is like. I won’t be an accessory in it. If you want to do this, it has to be more than what you’ve previously given.”
When he smiles at you, it’s gentle, warm. You’ve never seen him smile like this. Jeon Wonwoo, the pride of Aston Martin, cold, sharp and ruthless. His hard exterior is his charm. But here, with you, devoid of his bright race suit, in nothing but a t-shirt and pants, hair falling over his eyes and face relaxed of all its tension, this is different. This is intimate in a way it has never been before.
“Why do you think I like you?” Wonwoo says, caressing your wrist with the hand already holding it. You watch the movement when you can no longer bear to watch his eyes. “You’re strong headed, like me. Firm, like me. You talk to others like you won’t take their shit. You didn’t take mine. You put me in my place.”
You huff. “Sounds like a lot of fancy words to say I’m a bitch.”
Wonwoo laughs openly this time, not a chuckle, but a full belly laugh, and the sound leaves you frozen. You decide you like it.
“You’re not. And even if you are, you’ve got the goods to back it up. Just like I do.”
That makes you smile. Wonwoo’s laughter settles, and his bright eyes meet yours. You’ve spent so long trying to ignore how handsome he is. Strong jaw, sharp cut cheekbones, intense eyes, hair that perfectly frames his forehead. This close, you can admire all his features. And he lets you, because his own eyes are drinking you in. The air sizzles with tension. Your breath stills. Finally, Wonwoo closes the gap between you.
It’s like the static in the air breaks as soon as his lips meet yours. It starts slow, tentative, like he’s trying to feel you out. You move at his pace, happy to just indulge in this feeling. It has been a long time coming for both of you. As he keeps going, the pace picks up, hungry, intense, heads turning to deepen the kiss. His uninjured arm winds around your waist, trying to hold you as close as he can from where he sits on the examination table. You stand between his spread legs, head tilted up, one hand gripping his shoulder. You’re careful to avoid his opposite side. Despite how good the healing is going four weeks in, you don’t want to do anything that might jeopardise it. Wonwoo knows it too, keeping that arm away, but his free hand is large, gripping possessively at your waist as his tongue slides into your mouth, warm and wet. You can’t help but whine into him.
He pulls away with a curse, kissing the corner of your mouth, your cheek, your jaw. You let him, basking in the heat that rolls over your body.
“Let me take you out to dinner.” He whispers. His hand snakes under your lab coat, toying with the hem of your shirt before slipping inside to run over your bare side. You shiver, eyes rolling up as he nips at your neck.
“Only if I can ride you in the backseat of your car after.” You retort.
That makes him groan. He pulls away to rest his forehead on your shoulder. “You drive me crazy, you know that?”
“Is that a pun?”
He snorts and pinches your side where his hand is still wandering under your shirt. You yelp and slap it away. He only chuckles.
“Tomorrow night?” His eyes are so soft. Your heart sings.
“Tomorrow night.”
……………………………
Wonwoo is a man who keeps his promises, and you admire that. It shows that he is honest, and that he cares. So, as promised, he takes you to dinner the very next night, and, as promised, he has you in the backseat of his car right after.
It could, of course, be entirely selfish that he kept his promise, but you really don’t care about that because you’re here now, lips devouring each other’s like you’ve been starving, your dress pushing up to your hips so you can straddle his lap and grind down on his rapidly hardening cock. One of Wonwoo’s arms, the healing one, is stationary on your bare thigh, but the other moves desperately, winding into your hair to hold you in place as his teeth bite your bottom lip, tugging at it, tongue immediately swiping over it to ease the sting. You’re already so wet, nearly soaking through your panties. You’d been slowly sizzling with heat since the moment he picked you up at your place, dressed in a black button down shirt, sleeves rolled up and first two buttons undone to give him a more casual look, and matching black slacks. He had run his eyes down your body, your form fitting navy blue dress with a flared skirt, the neckline just low enough to give a teasing peek. You know what this dress does, and Wonwoo tells you exactly that now too, as he pushes the skirt up to play with the lace of your panties.
“Shouldn’t have waited until after dinner.” He groans. “The second I saw you, I should’ve turned you around against your door and fucked the shit out of you.”
You clench around nothing, moaning into his mouth. His lips leave you to travel down, licking and biting at any surface he can find, teeth digging into the skin of your neck. It sends a sizzle down your spine straight to your core. Your hands fumble frantically to unbutton his shirt and pull it back to reveal his bare chest, perfectly chiseled and leading down to his built abs. You run your hand over him, watching his muscles contract under your touch. You grind hard onto him, his clothed shaft pressing right against where you need him the most. He curses, finally having had enough, and pulls your panties to the side so he can slide his fingers through your sopping slit.
“Jesus.” He sighs, looking up at you. In the darkness of the parking lot, you can barely see him, but his eyes are piercing, clouded with lust and a hunger that makes you clench around nothing. “So wet, baby. For me?”
You nod shamelessly, sighing in relief when he circles your aching clit. He rubs sensually over it, like he’s coaxing you to greater heights of arousal. You press your forehead against his, grinding on his hand. You want more so badly, but you’re so turned on that you know you can get there with just his clever fingers alone. He’s working you just right, and he knows it too, whispering dirty words into your mouth as you whine into him.
“So pretty, using my hand like this.” He hums. “Can’t tell you how many times I imagined you on top of me. Under me. Wrapped around me. Such a perfect body, perfect pussy.”
Your head spins at his words, his implications, pleasure cresting until you can’t hold back anymore and let your high take you. You gasp and tremble, his fingers steady, taking you through it and prolonging it as much as he can with his movements. It leaves you dizzy and lightheaded, nearly boneless.
You haven't even properly come down before you’re fumbling with his belt and unbuttoning his pants, your vision slightly hazy as lust clouds your senses. Wonwoo lifts his hips to allow you to tug them down a bit, and his cock springs free. He’s huge, long and thick veined, mushroom tip that’s already leaking, shiny in the dim light that falls on it. You lick your lips.
“Wanna suck you off.” You breathe. Wonwoo moans.
“I’d love that, baby. But I need to fuck you right now or I’m gonna lose my mind.”
The petname makes you whimper, and you nod your head before lifting your hips so you can line him up. You don’t want to waste any more time. You’re as desperate for him as he is for you. You sink down on him in one smooth slide, jaw going slack as his cock carves its way through your spongy, contracting walls. Wonwoo’s voice breaks as he moans, a sound so delicious right next to your ear.
“Holy hell.” He chokes out, his fingers digging into your hips so hard you know it will leave bruises. Not like you mind. The thought of having signs of Wonwoo all over you leaves you lightheaded. You remain still for a few seconds, trying to adjust to the intrusion. You can feel the moment he twitches inside you, and you can’t help but sigh at the feeling. Your hips swivel, testing, and Wonwoo throws his head back against the seat. Your eyes shoot down to the column of his throat, slick with his sweat and cords of muscle straining. It’s so hot, you think you can cum just from this sight.
“God.” His voice cracks. “You’re so….. god.”
Never in your life did you think you would see the Jeon Wonwoo rendered speechless. But if there was ever a moment for it, witnessing it while your pussy is strangling his cock is glorious. You mouth at his jaw, roll your hips again so his navel brushes your clit just right. His hands have a vice-like grip on you, and he encourages your movements. Finally, you brace your legs on either side of him, and start to properly bounce on his rock hard cock.
Wonwoo isn’t a very vocal person, but he lets out little grunts and sighs in between your movements. He is very attentive though, caressing your waist, squeezing your boobs and tugging your dress down enough so that he can free them. He groans in approval as they bounce with your movements, pinching your nipples until you whine and sink down on him harder. His mouth busies itself on your neck, and you’re so fucked out that you don’t even care if he’s leaving marks in visible places. You wind your hand through his hair, tugging harshly at it. He curses and bites down in warning. All throughout it, your movements don’t falter once, brain addled with lust. His tip kisses your cervix when you angle yourself a certain way, his shaft brushes over every part of you so effectively that you see stars. Sweat builds up, the windows fog, the car rocks. Neither of you care.
Your thighs tremble when fatigue sets in, and Wonwoo notices, winding his good arm around your waist and anchoring you tight against him as he slides his body down just a little and tenses his legs. You realise what he’s going to do, and you try to protest.
“Wonwoo, your shoulder.” You gasp out. He runs his tongue over your jaw.
“I’m okay. Wanna fuck you properly. This pussy deserves it.”
You clench and whine. You don’t have it in you to fight him on this. You’re already so close, and you want that final push. Wonwoo’s grip is strong, leaving you immobile, and finally, he starts moving, his hips fucking up into you. You cry out, the angle shifting and the intensity increasing. His pace is brutal, skin slapping hard against skin. Your second orgasm is fast approaching, and you can barely choke out the words to warn him. But he knows already.
“Go ahead, baby. That’s it.” He goads you. “Make a mess on me. Wanna feel your pussy tighten around my dick. Come on. Cum all over me.”
His words are so depraved, so filthy, that you can’t hold it anymore. He fucks you through your peak, holding your shaking and writhing body tightly to his as you do. It washes over you in tidal waves, sinking into your very bones and leaving you melting into his body. Wonwoo holds you still, pushes into you over and over, pace turning sloppy before finally he pushes deep inside you with a few more deep thrusts. He groans deliciously in your ear, voice strained and thick with his own pleasure. Finally, he relaxes, trying to catch his breath.
You shift yourself to his good side, fingers reaching up to run over the curved scar along his collarbone after pushing his unbuttoned shirt out of the way. He shivers just a little under your touch. You feel his lips on your hairline.
“Okay?” You ask, referring to his injury. He nods.
“More than okay.”
You smile and lay a kiss on his shoulder. You feel his arms tighten around you. You relax into him, closing your eyes.
……………………………….
You don’t put a label on your relationship with Wonwoo, but over the course of the next two weeks, it’s clear that is what it is. A relationship. Wonwoo is aware that you made it clear this isn’t some casual fucking around, not that he wants it to be. This incident, his injury, a wrench in his career plan, a halt in his ambitions, had done nothing but recenter Wonwoo’s focus. Not just professionally, but in his personal life as well.
He hasn’t really met anyone like you.
You’re headstrong without compromising your kindness, firm without letting go of your empathy. You are all the good parts of what Wonwoo thinks his own personality is. He doesn’t know what that makes him, but he does know that being around you dampens that hollow feeling inside him that leaves him crass and snappy towards everyone around him. He doesn’t want to completely change who he is as a person, nor is that something you are hoping for, but Wonwoo is a firm believer in the fact that there is always room for improvement, whether it’s your sport or in yourself as a person. If being with you helps with that even a little bit, he will welcome it.
As Wonwoo slowly integrates back into racing, it seems that everyone notices this slight change too. It’s not visible in his habits yet, since it’s still very early, but it definitely is present in his mindset. Seungkwan sees it most of all, since he meets with Wonwoo every day for his physio, as well as the fact that Seungkwan knows you and what is going on between him and you.
“It’s funny, for it to be her of all people.” Seungkwan comments. “You two might be similar, and it’s for the better when it comes to you, but from her point of view, your lives couldn’t be more different.”
Wonwoo hums, contemplating, before halting Seungkwan as well, who is assisting him with his arm lifts. “What do you mean?”
Seungkwan looks a little confused. “Just that she’s a pretty private person. She has a routine, she sticks to it. Keeps her head down and does her job right. I figured you would know. You see her every week.”
Well, Wonwoo did know, but he never paid much attention to it. Wonwoo’s own life is very much the opposite. His schedule is awry and unpredictable, his profession takes him all around the world, his day is fast paced and his race weekends even more so. He’s stepping into the spotlight in less than a week, finally cleared by everyone involved in his care. He’s been doing race simulations flawlessly, hitting the gym to rebuild muscle and working with Seungkwan in all his free time. Soon, he will be returning to his crazy, haphazard and high octane routine. Which, he is quickly realising, is far different to yours.
Would you be okay with it?
The dilemma stays with Wonwoo while he completes physio for the day and bids Seungkwan goodbye, his therapist completely oblivious to the turmoil he has unknowingly caused. Later in the evening, Wonwoo shows up at your door for your date. This time, it is something more lowkey, just dinner at your place and a movie. Wonwoo doesn’t really care much for the movie, he had other plans for you and him which involved your couch, your bed, and later, your shower. But Seungkwan’s words are still annoyingly fixed in his head, and you being the ever perceptive person you are, notice his distraction the second dinner is done and you’re sitting together to eat it.
“You wanna tell me what’s going on?” Your eyes are on the television screen, pushing food around on your plate. Your thigh is pressed to his, casual intimacy that feels so comforting to Wonwoo, but it seems you sense how stiff he is.
“It’s race weekend soon.” He begins, deciding that he wants to be up front with you. He won’t shut down on you, he had promised himself that before he even first asked you out. You’re different, so he needs to be different with you. You deserve more of him than anyone else. You nod, so he keeps going.
“I don’t want you to be any less of a priority as my schedule picks up again.” He says. “Things will get crazy immediately, because I need to make do for the three races I’ve missed. I was up by a lot of points before this, so there’s a chance I can still take the championship, but I need to really, really hunker down for that.”
You nod again and hum. “I figured as much. It’s good to know there’s still a chance, even if it’s a small one.”
Wonwoo nods, gears up for what he will say next.
“I know you have your own routine.” Wonwoo stares at his plate. “I hope me being part of it won’t disrupt it too much.”
You are silent for a few seconds. Then, you snort.
“Of course you being part of my routine will disrupt it.” You quip. “You’re a whole person. My life can’t stay the same with you involved.”
Wonwoo blinks, shocked by how casual and matter-of-fact you sound about it. “Oh.”
It’s a lame reply. And it makes you laugh. You lean forward to set your plate on the coffee table. He follows suit, settling on the couch by facing you.
“Wonwoo, I’m not completely naïve. I know what your job entails, and how things will change for you personally because of it. What do you think I signed up for when we decided to do this? I know how it goes.”
Wonwoo feels his cheeks heat a little. Damn Seungkwan. He had Wonwoo worried for nothing, because he forgot that you’re the most level-headed, understanding person he has ever met. He knew it from the day you first saw him, that night he spent in your clinic, staring at the grey ceiling, listening to the heart monitor beeping steadily on, and wondering why he felt for you the way that he did. Even then, Wonwoo knew you were different. He knew that he trusted you, despite the fact that in his frantic, adrenaline driven life, he has never trusted anyone as far as he can throw them.
Wonwoo doesn’t know if he’s in love, if it’s too soon for that, but as he watches your amused little smirk, he does know he is getting there frighteningly fast. But that is his life. He is used to living his relentless life, high pressure, hyper competitive, physically and mentally brutal, unforgiving but rewarding. He has never slow played anything, ever. So this feels natural, falling headfirst into you, despite every variable and every unknown involved. Jeon Wonwoo, the pride of Aston Martin, a man who has been sure of everything in his life with one hundred per cent certainty, is more than okay with whatever you have in store for him, without even knowing what it is. Because it’s you, and he trusts you with everything in him.
So as he pulls you in for a kiss, smiling when you giggle sweetly into his mouth, he realises he doesn’t care if it’s too fast. In fact, he welcomes it. After all, he has always felt at home with a fast paced life.
aaaa i hit 600 a week ago!! thank uu so much it brings me sm joy to know people enjoy my fics :3
in true aims fashion, townies will be with you...soon. it's currently sitting at 22k/14 chapters (eeeek) and i think around another 8k to go (double eeeek). but lmk if anyone would like a second teaser or character profile?
🖤 vernon x f!reader
🖤 2.6k
🖤 mafia au
🖤 guns. blood. torture and interrogation and murder. mentions of various torture tools/methods. guard/attack dog vernon. gunplay. devotion bordering obsession (theyre both insane abt each other). slight misogyny directed towards reader. not smutty but they kiss bc ofc they do. it's not super super dark but proceed with caution. lmk if i forgot anything please!!
🖤 i... have no excuse. the thought entered my brain and clawed its way out and this is nothing like what i've written here before, but... wow, was it fun. and unhinged. and possibly toxic. BUT ANYWAY!! two drabbles in like 12 hours, i'm on a roll wow. thank you @bubbliegubs (and @gent1es3xy) for enabling me lol
Vernon does anything you ask of him. It makes interrogations... fun.
🖤
Your heels click against the concrete floor – back and forth, back and forth. The man in front of you, bound hand and foot to a chair, is far too confident at the moment for your taste. (The man behind you, silent and stoic and ready, is perfect.)
“I’m not telling you anything,” the scum snaps for the hundredth time. It’s almost enough to make your eye twitch, the way he looks like he might spit at you. If he did, you know he wouldn’t last the night. Maybe he knows it, too, with the way his eyes dart around the room. What was his name? Dojun? Something like that.
He doesn’t really matter, anyway. There are dozens of runners like him that know the name you need. He, like so many others, is expendable.
But it’s so much more fun this way.
“Let me tell you something,” you begin, letting your fingers drag across the careful assortment of weapons on the table. Your nails skitter over them – Scalpels. Knives. Tongs. Ooh, those are always fun. But tonight, as Dojun’s eyes track you back and forth, you know exactly what kind of fun you want. “You know who I am?”
Dojun raises his eyebrows. Scoffs. “Of course I know. But those are just rumors.”
“Mm, rumors. Yes. I’m sure nothing about how I built this empire from my father’s ashes could possibly be true. Because I’m a woman, maybe?”
You toss your hair over your shoulder. Dojun’s eyes follow you. So do someone else’s.
“You’re too pretty for this kind of work,” Dojun says, too cocky for someone tied to a chair. You have half a mind to backhand him. But on the other hand, you just got your nails done, and you’d hate to break one on someone like him. “There’s gotta be someone doing your dirty work, doll.”
“Oh, there is.” He’s given you an opening. The perfect one, maybe. You grin. “He’s perfect, actually. He does anything I ask of him. Shuts up when I tell him to. Speaks when I ask. You could take notes.”
A familiar shadow falls over your shoulder, and your smile widens.
Vernon. Silent and stoic and ready as ever.
You lift your hand, eyes still on Dojun, and let your fingertips trail down Vernon’s cheek. His head bows obediently. His lips ghost against the bare skin of your shoulder.
“You know,” you say, tilting your head to frown at Dojun, “we weren’t supposed to be here tonight. I had reservations at our favorite place.” You click your tongue, flick your finger, and Vernon’s hands move to your hips, just… holding. Dojun’s eyes drop, and you can’t blame him – Vernon’s firm grip and pale skin contrast beautifully, delectably, with the dark glitter of your fitted dress. It always does. Always will. “And my poor Nonie isn’t very happy about that, is he? Are you, darling?”
Vernon’s voice slides through the cold room, vibrating against your skin as he speaks into your shoulder. His chest burns against your back.
“No, my love.”
You hum. “And what are you hoping for?”
“I’m hoping you kill him quickly.”
Dojun’s eyes flicker with uncertainty, just for a moment. You smile and tilt your head, and, having received permission, Vernon leans in and presses a kiss to the side of your neck. “Thank you,” he even whispers against your skin. You tug on his tie, just once, as you step away, and he lets you go, his feet rooted to the floor.
“Now,” you say, heels clicking as you approach Dojun once more, “I hope you see that I could make him do anything to you. He wouldn’t flinch. I might not want to bloody my fresh set of nails,” you tell him with a flick of the nails, the pretty sparkly set that Vernon lost his mind over just two days ago, “but he has no such qualms. I might not be strong enough to rip your stomach out with my bare hands, but he certainly is. And he quite enjoys it, I might add.”
Dojun scoffs immediately – but it’s too immediate. Too quick. “No one’s crazy enough to do that.” He shifts in the chair, though the restraints make it hard. Good. “You’re just bluffing.”
A laugh of indignation rises, and you turn sharply on your heel to keep from slapping him. He’s really not worth breaking a nail on.
Instead, you hold your hand out, palm up.
Within moments, Vernon’s gun is in your hand, freed from its holster with the smooth fingers and steady hands that have guided you through so much. You smile and face him fully.
“Turn around,” you say, light, like it’s not even a command.
Still, he turns around, his back to you and his hands slipped easily in his pockets. There’s not even tension in the strong line of his shoulders. He’s entirely, utterly, relaxed.
You press the cold tip of the barrel against the soft spot at the base of his skull. His muscles jump for a moment, just a little, but he’s well-trained, and the calm returns rapidly.
“Knees.” This one’s an order. He drops, swift and silent, his knees hitting the ground with the softest little thud. You know he’s been practicing, not wanting to risk hurting himself. It’s endearing, really. You pull the gun away, just for a moment: “Head.” His head snaps back, jaw sharp, eyes meeting yours, and you have to smile, just a bit, at the way his pretty eyes glitter and shine. Just for you. Always just for you.
Then you walk around to his front. His eyes stay fixed on you, his hands still in his pockets, his head craned back even though it cannot be comfortable. His thighs will start to shake, eventually, with how far back he’s leaning. Not yet, though. He’s strong.
You hold out the gun, handle towards him, but he doesn’t move.
“Spin the chamber,” you tell him, and just like that, the gun is in his hands. He spins it, quick and precise, then locks it in place and returns it to you. His eyes only flick down once, but they return to yours as quickly as they’d left. You take the gun with one hand, and with your other you cradle his chin. His eyelashes flutter, but he keeps his eyes open and on you.
You tilt his head even further back and press the tip of the gun to the hollow of his throat.
Then his Adam’s apple. He goes completely still – doesn’t swallow. Doesn’t even breathe.
Then the underside of his chin. The muzzle fits neatly into the crook of his bone, dark against his pale skin.
You cock the gun. One move, now, one twitch of your finger on the trigger, and he’s gone.
Vernon knows. But his eyes stay fixed on you. I don’t mind, he told you once, as long as I can see you. Then if anything were to happen, though I trust that it won’t, your face will be the last thing I see. You’d kissed him for that. Again and again and again. And now his eyes stay on you, beautiful and brown and trusting, despite the active weapon against his skin.
He’s gorgeous.
“There’s no bullets in there,” Dojun declares.
Ugh. You’d almost forgotten he was there.
“You’re just pretending –”
You turn your head just enough to glare at him, and he shuts up.
“Would you like to tell me the name of your supplier now? Or do you need more proof that he would do anything I asked of him, including bringing me your spine to hang on my wall?”
Vernon’s fingers twitch where his hands are folded in front of him. He’s so eager. It’s adorable. You glance at him with a smile that eases the apology from his face.
“Not yet,” you tell him softly. “Soon, darling.”
“Soon?” Dojun blurts, but you ignore him. Let him stew in his own thoughts for a moment. Vernon, with his patient eyes and his trembling thighs, matters far more.
You tilt the gun, letting it dig into his chin a little more, and he rises with the pressure, nearly contorting his body to follow the slow rise of your hand. He could just stand up. But he doesn’t. He lets you guide him.
“The thing about someone like my Nonie,” you tell Dojun, although you don’t look at him, “is that he’s very hard to control. It might not look like it, I know, but trust me. I’m the only thing holding him back.”
You snap the hammer back into place, spin your grip on the gun, and level the barrel at yourself. Vernon’s eyes flash for a moment, worried, but then the trust settles back in.
“If anything happens to me,” you say as Vernon takes the handle, “he has full permission to do as he likes with you.” You let your fingertips trail down the barrel, guiding the tip to rest just above the line of your dress, in the hollow of your throat. It’s warm now, pressed against Vernon’s skin for so long. Your eyes drift to Dojun. He’s watching, silent, and you can almost see his heart beating in his throat. “And he likes to get messy with his toys.”
You reach up, eyes still on your prey, and cock the gun.
Once again, your life is in Vernon’s hands. There’s nowhere else you’d rather have it be.
Vernon doesn’t move. You lace your hands together behind your back. “But nothing is going to happen to me,” you say easily, “because Nonie is going to point that gun at himself, instead.”
You haven’t even finished by the time he’s fitted the muzzle back under his chin, finger still on the trigger.
“Good,” you tell him, brushing the backs of your fingers across his cheek. His throat bobs, and his eyes fill with an adorable longing, but you know he’s alright. He’d let you know if he wasn’t. “Stay.”
Dojun flinches as you turn to him. Oh. That’s good.
“So?” You smile.
He clears his throat. It doesn’t stop his voice from squeaking when he says, “I still think there’s nothing in there.”
You let your smile drop.
“Nonie, shoot him.”
BANG!
Vernon’s arm is extended past your shoulder, finger tight on the trigger, and Dojun’s screaming as blood trickles from a neat hole in his shoulder. You pat Vernon’s cheek, then step forward again, careful to avoid the growing puddle of blood. You’d hate for your dress to get dirty.
“Sorry,” you hum, tuning out the mindless blabber of screams. “What was that you were saying about the bullets?”
He just screams.
You sigh. “Never been shot before? How disappointing. I was hoping you’d have a higher pain tolerance. But maybe we should work on that. Put a matching bullet in your other shoulder, perhaps?”
“NO!” Dojun screams – the first comprehensible word since the bullet went in him.
You raise your eyebrows. “Oh. Then tell me who your supplier is.”
“THE BULGAE!” Is Dojun crying? Oh, he really is disappointing.
But there’s your answer.
You straighten up. He’s begging for his life now, or something; you’ve stopped listening.
Vernon holds out the gun, handle offered to you, and you take it. But then you pause and glance up at him. His eyes are alive, his face sharp and perfect as ever, but a single lock of silvery hair has fallen into his face.
You brush it aside with the tip of the gun. He doesn’t flinch. He just looks down at you, gaze dark with adoration.
“There,” you say decidedly. “Perfect.” Dojun’s still screaming. He might be fully sobbing now. You really couldn’t care less.
You hook the gun beneath Vernon’s chin again. Slowly you draw him in. His breath catches, but you know it’s not from the burning steel against his skin. Not when his eyes are roving over your face, desperate as a dying man in the desert.
But he doesn’t move past where you’ve led him to. Because he’s a gentleman. (And a good boy.)
Oh, he’s everything.
“Go ahead,” you whisper, and Vernon doesn’t need to be told twice. You’ve given him permission, now, for whatever he wants, and he’s going to take it.
He cradles your face in his hands like you’re gold and jewels, and he kisses you like you’re oxygen and he can’t breathe. He’s been waiting so patiently, and you know what? So have you.
You let go of the gun, and before it can even fall he’s dropped a hand from your cheek to catch it. He knows you so well. He kisses you so hard that you almost don’t hear the screams.
Your hands curl into the lapels of his suit. His mouth burns against yours, soft and wet and perfect. His other hand slides from your cheek to your shoulder, down your back to your waist, and then his arm locks around your waist and he dips you.
Vaguely you notice the gun, reaching out over your head. Vaguely you hear it fire, again and again and again, and you feel Vernon’s body rock with the kickback as he empties the chamber into Dojun’s body. You don’t really care anymore. You barely cared in the first place. All that matters now is the way Vernon’s tongue dances with yours.
By the time you come up for air, the room is silent but for Vernon’s ragged breaths and your own quiet pants. His eyes are wild, sparkling, fixed on yours, riding the high of kissing you and killing a man at the same time. That’s his favorite way to do it, anyway.
There’s a little spot of blood on his cheek, dark red against pale skin, and you reach up and swipe it away with your thumb. You let your nails rest against his cheek, lifting your thumb just enough for him to see the red smear.
“Messy,” you chide. He drops his eyes to your hand, but only for a moment. Then his fiery gaze meets yours again.
“I’m sorry, my love.” His voice rolls over you, low and soft and worshipping and truly apologetic. “Here. Let me.”
He leans forward and presses his lips to the pad of your thumb. Gently, ever so gently, he kisses the blood away, his gaze locked on yours, and you just… watch. He’s so incredibly perfect. He only needs one arm to keep holding you up, even halfway to horizontal in this wonderfully low dip. The other hand, holding the gun, stays far away from you; he’d rather let his arm get sore than risk burning you.
When the blood is gone, he starts to pull back, but you catch his tie before he can move too far. He doesn’t even need you to guide him in again, and this time when he kisses you, it tastes of iron and steel and fire.
Eventually he guides you back to your feet, drawing you back towards the door and away from the bloody mess spilling over the concrete. He tosses the gun in the corner. His hand stays firm on your waist, even as he opens the door and ushers you through. He doesn’t like letting you go, and you don’t mind. You’ll be in his arms again soon, anyway, so why waste time?
“Clean up,” you order with a flick of your hand, and someone slips away. “The Bulgae have been supplying him and the others,” you tell someone else, and he nods and disappears.
The rest of the hallway empties quickly. Everyone knows not to get in your way.
Especially not when you’ve got Vernon at your side.
tempted to do a collab based on an album/music idk…there’s smth brewing :3
like how do we feel abt smth like my who’s the clown? series but in a collaborative way…like one album with thirteen songs - an au/drabble based off of one song for each member, each written by a different author hmmmm
want to meet more writers and make friends? want to get involved in the caratblr writing community? svthub is looking for new members, and we might just be the place for you!
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if you . . .
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note: didn't realise how v8 crazy i went this month lol anyway, here's what i loooved reading, enjoy! :3 18+ only, mdni!
choi seungcheol
longing, rusted [m] by @hansiris
summary: seungcheol as the winter soilder, returning to the woman he loves after so much time spent under...
read here!
yoon jeonghan
jealous [m] by @milk-moonbunnies
summary: a very jealous and possessive jeonghan reminds you who makes you feel good. (this is an all time favourite and i lost the link a month ago but wooosh it’s back 🧎♀️)
read here!
mirror, mirror [m] by @cheolism-archive
summary: jeonghan asks to roleplay being jealous so he can show you how jealous he can get...
read here!
need you [m] by @1-800-hwahui
summary: dom yjh drabble...just really dirty smut ngl
read here!
red sign [m] by @thedensworld
summary: you need someone to marry you — your livelihood depends on it. but jeonghan can't bare the thought of you being anyone elses.
read here!
room for interpretation by @seungkwansphd
summary: you started as rivals. breathing down each others necks — jeonghan under your skin so badly that you signed a lawfully binding marriage contingency contract. however, time moves on and suddenly your college nemesis is in the office next door…
read here!
ruin my life [m] by @ts19009
summary: enemies to lovers with prince jeonghan, the impulsive and cocky soon-to-be king. (i love this fic so much suuuch game of thrones vibes)
read here!
hong joshua
still warm by @hanniejoo
summary: a busy joshua has to figure his way through upset he causes you. angsty and so mature this fic really pulled on my heart strings
read here!
royally, screwed [m] by @husbandhoshi
summary: joshua and you are thrusted into an arranged marriage for the sake of your kingdoms...one problem, you can't stand each other...
read here!
wen junhui
deadlock [m] by @sailorsoons
summary: wen junhui, your gorgeous and intelligent husband and you have both been living secret lives — spies for agencies that are sworn enemies. however, when he’s sent to assassinate you his love stops him pulling the trigger.
read here!
kwon soonyoung
none yet!
jeon wonwoo
none yet!
lee jihoon
patience, love by @forsvtjihoonie
summary: jihoon drabble bc he's so hot with glasses
read here!
xu minghao
diamond life [m] by @haologram
summary: model minghao is throwing the first pitch and you're pitching...if only you were strangers
read here!
kiss from a rose by @orbitondgtl
summary: hurt & comfort about the flower shop minghao regularly visits and how it saved your relationship
read here!
muddled hearts [m] by @haologram
summary: this is a slooooow burn that is just absolutely delicious i was kicking my legs and giggling at minghao. ‘i don’t have a crush on her. im in love with her’ Stfuuuu
read here!
rain room [m] by @sailorsoons
summary: during a long hot day at your job in the water park, you stumble into the rain room, ran by a shy and quiet man.
read here!
kim mingyu
don't forget you love me by @orbitondgtl
summary: f1 driver mingyu and you, his long term girlfriend, are drifting apart...and something needs to happen
read here!
hard carry by @studioeisa
summary: soulmate au where mingyu stubbornly helps you out with your degree through your bond...
read here!
the weight of his crown [m] by @ts19009
summary: mingyu, the prince of the north is forced to travel south to compete for you, the princess of hespros' hand. a cold and stoic man, you warm him up from within, even without him realising... one of my favourites so far this year!
read here!
lee seokmin
none yet!
boo seungkwan
none yet!
chwe hansol
bambi eyes [m] by @vernonverse
summary: PLUG HANSOL!!!! SLOW BURN!!!! AHHHHH
read here!
hard times by @hansiris
summary: hansol as spiderman...need i say more??
read here!
spit kink by @extra-gray
summary: yeah...what the title says
read here!
the cat-parent trap by @bluehoodiewoozi
summary: cat dad hansol cant find his cats, but you’ve got a new cuddle buddy.
read here!
vice;grip [m] by @daechwitas
summary: you and fuck buddy hansol only exist in the dead of night. for years, you existed in dark spaces, feelings kept in the shadows — but they’ll come spilling out eventually…another one of my favs
read here!
you, again by @808luvrr
summary: you and hansol keep bumping into each other in the middle of the night...yet you think of each other all day
Pairing: military!wonwoo x popstar!reader
Summary: The biggest pop star in the world is on the tour of a lifetime. Jeon Wonwoo is counting down the days until she comes back for him. Everyone says he should stop dreaming.
Warning/s: military!wonwoo, non-idol wonwoo, long time idol!y/n, other svt members are in the military for this purpose bc i'm too lazy to make up names, ppl think he's delulu, most likely inaccurate portrayal of the rules in the military but it's fictional anyway
Note: This is part of my you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love series! The POV is different in this fic bc I feel like it's better for this theme.
Song: maggots for brains by olivia rodrigo
drop dead | stupid song | honeybee | maggots for brains
DELUSIONAL Y/N FAN
There was a rule in the barracks. Well, an unspoken rule at that. Newbies have been warned, and seasoned soldiers are alert. The rule? If you left your phone unattended and it buzzes, everyone looks.
"Jeon."
Wonwoo didn't bother looking up from the novel in his hands. "Hm?"
"You've got a notification."
Across the room, Mingyu craned his neck dramatically toward Wonwoo's bunk before gasping loud enough for the entire platoon to hear.
"Oh, my god." Mingyu's jaw dropped.
Wonwoo sighed. "What?"
"It's her!" Mingyu exclaimed. That got everyone's attention.
Seungkwan sat up from where he'd been lying on his bed. "Y/N posted?"
Mingyu nodded solemnly. "Yup."
Wonwoo reached over for his phone. The movement was small. Casual, even.
"You have post notifications on?" Chan asked, genuinely horrified.
"...No," Wonwoo muttered.
"You picked up your phone before you even checked who it was." Chan pointed out.
Wonwoo unlocked his screen and opened Instagram. Just as Mingyu had confirmed, Y/N had posted. His thumb lingered over the screen. A smile tugged at the corner of his lips. Seungkwan saw the smile on his face, and he was amused.
Wonwoo ignored him. The first photo was exactly what he expected. Another stadium, another sea of lights, another sold-out show. The second was backstage. The third—his smile grew bigger without realizing it.
"Wonwoo!" Soonyoung called.
"What?" Wonwoo echoed.
"You smiled." Soonyoung teased. Wonwoo looked at him and said, "...Did I?"
"You did!" Soonyoung chuckled.
"Oh, he smiled," Chan confirmed, pointing accusingly. "I saw his teeth!"
Wonwoo looked back down at his phone. "It was funny."
"What was?"
He hesitated. "...Nothing."
Mingyu lunged across the space between their bunks. Wonwoo tilted the phone away just enough.
"Lemme see," Mingyu said.
"No," Wonwoo replied.
"Why not?" Mingyu pouted. "I just wanna see."
"It's my phone, Mingyu. Check your own phone." Wonwoo scoffed.
Mingyu squinted his eyes, "You're being suspicious."
"It's not suspicious."
"It is when you're guarding Y/N's Instagram like it's classified information." Mingyu rolled his eyes and crossed his arms.
Wonwoo locked his phone with a quiet click. "I'm going to finish my book."
"Oh, he's embarrassed." Mingyu snickered.
"He definitely left a thirsty comment." Soonyoung chortled. "I didn't know you were that kind of fan, Wonwoo."
"I didn't leave a nasty comment," Wonwoo said, busy reading his book.
"You thought about it," Soonyoung said.
"Nope."
"You've thought about marrying her," Jihoon said from his bed.
Wonwoo blinked. "Probably."
The room fell silent. Then, the room erupted in loud laughter. Chan nearly fell off his bunk laughing. Seungkwan slapped his knee. Even Vernon looked up from the crossword puzzle he'd been pretending to solve. Mingyu wiped imaginary tears from his eyes.
"Our boy is never beating the delusional allegations." Mingyu ruffled Wonwoo's hair.
-
Training that afternoon was merciless. By the time they were dismissed, Wonwoo's shoulders ached, his boots were caked in dirt, and the only thing he wanted was to shower. Unfortunately for him, he found himself cornered outside the barracks by the self-proclaimed biggest Y/N stan, Boo Seungkwan, who had his phone out.
"Look!" Seungkwan said giddily.
Wonwoo glanced over. It was another clip from Y/N's tour. Shaky. Blurry. Someone had clearly filmed it from halfway across the stadium.
"She changed the acoustic section tonight," Seungkwan said. "Nobody saw that coming."
Wonwoo watched the first few seconds. "She wasn't feeling it."
Seungkwan frowned. "What?"
"The other song," Wonwoo answered, looking at Seungkwan in the eyes. "She wasn't feeling it."
Seungkwan huffed. "And how do you know that, Jeon?"
Wonwoo shrugged. "She always switches when she's tired."
A pause. Then Seungkwan pursed his lips, "You always say 'she always'."
"What?" Wonwoo tilted his head.
"Like," Seungkwan sighed. "'she always switches songs', 'she always wears that color', 'she always laughs like that'. Bro, you talk like you've known her your whole life."
Wonwoo only shrugged. In fact, he never argued. Arguing never helped, anyway.
That night, after lights out, the barracks settled into silence. Or as close to silence as six grown men could manage. Someone snored. Someone muttered in their sleep. Mingyu rolled over with enough force to make his bunk squeak.
Wonwoo reached beneath his pillow for his phone. One earbud. Volume low. He opened a fan-uploaded video. The quality was terrible. The audio peaked every time the crowd screamed. Still, he watched.
The camera shook violently as Y/N ran across the stage, waving at eighty thousand people like she had enough love for every single one of them. Wonwoo smiled.
"Careful," he whispered to the screen before she jogged down a staircase.
The person filming nearly dropped their phone. The video ended. Suggested clips appeared. He clicked another. Then another. Then another. A knock sounded against the metal frame above him.
"Jeon."
Wonwoo paused the video. "Yeah?"
"Go to sleep," Seokmin said sleepily. "I can see light from your phone."
"In a minute," Wonwoo said quietly.
"You said that an hour ago." Seokmin yawned.
"Mm."
Seokmin sighed and eventually dozed off. Wonwoo stared at the paused frame. She was laughing at something someone off-camera had said.
He wondered what it was. He wondered what city she'd wake up in tomorrow. His thumb hovered over the message icon before stopping. The time difference. She'd be onstage by now. He locked his phone. Rolled onto his back. Closed his eyes.
"Good night, Mrs. Y/L/N Y/N." Mingyu teased while his eyes were closed.
"Good night," Wonwoo said softly.
I SWEAR I'M TELLING THE TRUTH
Military life had a funny way of making days blur together. Wake up. Train. Eat. Train again. Sleep. Repeat. Some days went by so quickly that Wonwoo barely had time to think. Those were the good days.
Then, there were days like today. The kind where his thoughts wandered despite himself, and he moved around half-dead like a zombie.
The cafeteria had run out of coffee that morning. 'She would've complained.' Wonwoo thought.
Training had been pushed back because of the rain. 'She hates getting caught in the rain.' Wonwoo stared out the window.
Seungkwan had nearly slipped face-first into the mud. 'She would've laughed until she cried.'
Wonwoo sighed quietly. It was exhausting. No, loving her is easy. Missing her was exhausting. His brain had become annoyingly predictable over the past year and a half. Everything somehow circled back to her: the weather, a song, coffee, a dumb joke, a bird that looked like one she'd once spent ten minutes trying to photograph.
Aside from turning rotten as days go by, what else could he do but think of her?
"Jeon!"
Wonwoo blinked. "Hm?"
"I've been calling your name." Mingyu frowned.
"Sorry."
"You zoning out again?" Mingyu huffed. Wonwoo shrugged. Mingyu grinned. "Were you thinking about your girlfriend?"
Laughter rippled through the room. Wonwoo didn't even bother correcting him anymore. "Yeah."
Another round of laughter.
"So honest," Chan wheezed. "Bro's embracing the delusion now."
Wonwoo simply shook his head and ate kimchi.
By afternoon, the rain had stopped. The sky was clear. Training had finally ended. Wonwoo had just started untying his boots when someone called his name.
"Private Jeon."
He looked up. A staff sergeant stood outside the barracks holding a medium-sized cardboard box.
"Package for you."
Wonwoo frowned. He definitely wasn't expecting anything. "For me? Are you sure?"
The sergeant nodded. "Sign here."
He did. By the time he turned back around, seven heads were already at him. Mingyu pointed dramatically.
"Who's sending you packages?" Mingyu lifted an eyebrow.
"No idea." Wonwoo shrugged.
"Liar." Mingyu crossed his arms.
"I'm genuinely not," Wonwoo said.
Chan leaned forward. "Your parents?"
"Maybe." Wonwoo sighed as he sat on his bed.
"Open it." Vernon piped up.
"I'm tired," Wonwoo said, putting the box next to him as he continued to untie his boots.
"Open it." Seungkwan clapped.
"I'm showering first."
"OPEN IT!!" Soonyoung exclaimed excitedly. Wonwoo stared at him, then at everyone else, before sighing, "Fine."
Soonyoung, Jihoon, Seokmin, Mingyu, Seungkwan, Vernon, and Chan gathered around Wonwoo curiously. Wonwoo never received packages before. He barely got any visitors, too.
The tape peeled away with a soft rip. Inside, there was nothing flashy. Just neatly packed things. Coffee, instant ramen, protein bars, a new pair of insoles, and a small tube of hand cream from Yves Rocher that he loved.
Seungkwan tilted his head and pursed his lips, "Your family knows you too well. I mean, even my eomma doesn't know the hand cream I love."
Everyone nodded in agreement with their own anecdotes of how their parents don't know small things about them, too.
Wonwoo reached deeper into the box. His fingers brushed against thick paper. He pulled out a stack of Polaroids. His expression softened. Mingyu noticed.
"Aha!" Mingyu exclaimed.
"What?" Wonwoo asked.
"You did the smile." Mingyu teased.
"What smile?" Wonwoo played dumb.
"You know," Mingyu said. "The smile."
"I don't know what you're talking about." Wonwoo shook his head.
"But you DID." Mingyu huffed.
Wonwoo ignored him. The first Polaroid showed a sunrise over an empty stadium. The second is a blurry picture of a stray cat. The third, a paper coffee cup with her messy handwriting that read: Too bitter. 2/10.
The corners of his mouth twitched upward. "She still hates black coffee." He mumbled.
Silence. Wonwoo froze. 'Oops...' Wonwoo thought.
Seungkwan looked up. "What did you just say?"
"Nothing."
"No, you definitely said something." Seungkwan eyed him suspisciously. "You said, 'she still hates black coffee'..."
Jihoon folded his arms, "You talk like you know her."
Wonwoo looked at the Polaroid for another second before placing it gently on his blanket. On a normal day, he'd let those comments slide. Today was different. He was missing Y/N more than usual. All the colors around him are dull, and his tasks are mundane. Against his better judgment, he said, "I do."
The room erupted into laughter. Chan laughed so hard, he had to sit down. Mingyu pointed at Wonwoo while laughing.
"Wow, he actually thinks he knows her!"
"Bro actually committed THAT hard!"
"You know what? Respect."
Seungkwan shook his head, grinning. "You're unbelievable."
Wonwoo didn't argue. He never argued. He simply reached back into the box. At the very bottom, a folded envelope. No sender's name. Just his. He unfolded the letter. The handwriting made his chest ache immediately.
My Dearest, Wonwoo,
Paris was loud. Portugal was louder. I still think Tokyo had the best crowd, but if you were here, you'd probably disagree.
He chuckled lightly.
I'm sending you stuff that I've picked up for you along the way. I hope you like them! I also hope you like the Polaroids :>
The coffee was insanely bad istg. The cat followed me for three blocks. The sunrise reminded me of you. We used to watch them all the time. I miss you so much, my love. I hope giving you this package can ease the pain of missing me too.
His grip tightened on the paper.
I love you, Wonwoo.
P.S. Please, please, please send me anecdotes of ur life in the barracks!! I hope they're feeding you enough bc I'll fight them lol jk. I'll see you soon (hopefully).
P.P.S I'm taking a hiatus after this long-ass tour. I'll travel the world with you... or maybe just chill at home with your buldak addiction. Maybe get married in secret and start a family? I don't know, but the possibilities are endless. I love you!
Yours always,
Y/N, writing from Amsterdam <3
For a moment, the barracks disappeared.
A private terminal. One week before enistment. The engines of her private jet hummed in the distance. She hadn't let go of his hand once.
"You know, I should stay." Y/N said to him. "I mean, I can wait until I send you off to your military service."
Wonwoo smiled. "No."
"I can postpone the first show fr you, love!"
"You won't do that." Wonwoo said softly.
"I would."
"You shouldn't," Wonwoo said, cupping her face with both hands. Tears brimmed in her eyes.
"I hate this."
"Me, too." Wonwoo smiled sadly.
She laughed weakly. "You're supposed to make this easier."
"I'm trying." Wonwoo chuckled lightly.
"You suck at it."
"Probably."
She hit his arm lightly. Just enough to make him smile. Then, she stepped closer and wrapped both arms around him, held him like she was trying to memorize every part of him. "I'll be back before you know it."
Wonwoo closed his eyes. "I know."
Neither of them believed it. A voice called her name. Five minutes. She looked toward the jet. Then back at him. Then back again. She kissed him. Once, twice. A third time after, she'd already started pulling away. The security staff politely looked everywhere else.
"Okay." She laughed through her tears.
"This time?"
"Yeah."
She made it halfway up the stairs before turning around one last time. Wonwoo lifted his hand. She mirrored the gesture. Then she disappeared inside. He didn't leave, not until the jet became nothing more than a white speck against the sky.
"Jeon?"
Wonwoo blinked. The barracks came back into focus. Mingyu was waving a hand in front of his face.
"Dude, you've been staring at that letter for, like, five minutes," Mingyu said.
"Sorry," Wonwoo said.
"So?" Seungkwan leaned forward. "Who sent it?"
Wonwoo carefully folded the letter. Placed it back inside the envelope, then looked at the six men staring at him.
"She's busy," was all Wonwoo said, completely disregarding Seungkwan's question.
HONORABLY DISCHARGED
The morning of Jeon Wonwoo's discharge was surprisingly... anticlimactic. No dramatic music. No grand farewell. Just paperwork. Sign here, initial there. Return your equipment. The military had a funny way of reducing nearly two years of someone's life into a stack of forms and a firm handshake.
"Congratulations."
Wonwoo bowed politely. "Thank you.
"Dismissed."
Wonwoo bowed one last time before heading back toward the barracks. His duffel bag sat neatly on the edge of his bunk, packed the night before. Wonwoo checked his stuff before he zipped his duffel bag shut and slung it over his shoulder.
"Well," Seokmin said, breaking the silence. "I guess this is it."
"So sentimental," Soonyoung teased, nudging Seokmin with an elbow. "You gonna cry?"
"I might," Seokmin said.
"You absolutely are."
"I'm definitely not crying because I'm gonna miss Wonwoo-hyung." Seokmin huffed.
"Oh, now you call me 'hyung'." Wonwoo laughed. A quiet laugh rippled through the room.
Wonwoo smiled. "Take care of yourselves."
"Look who's acting like a dad now," Mingyu snorted.
Chan crossed his arms. "Don't forget us when Y/N notices your comments."
"She notices," Wonwoo said. "Sometimes, I tell her in person."
The room erupted in laughter.
"There he goes!"
"Last delusion before discharge!"
"Never change, Jeon!"
Wonwoo chuckled. "I won't." He reached into his duffel bag and pulled out a small paper bag. "I almost forgot." He handed it to Seungkwan.
"What's this?" Seungkwan eyed the bag suspiciously.
"Snacks." Wonwoo shrugged.
Seungkwan peeked inside. His eyes widened. "Wait... these are imported!"
"They're your favorite," Wonwoo said casually.
"Hyung-" Seungkwan said.
"I wasn't going to finish them."
Seungkwan looked strangely touched. "Thank you."
Wonwoo nodded once. He pulled out another bag. "Mingyu."
The tall man pointed at himself, "For me?"
"You kept stealing my instant coffee."
"Allegedly..." Mingyu said.
"I bought you your own." Wonwoo handed the bag to him. Mingyu opened the bag.
"You actually remembered?"
"Mm."
For a second, nobody joked. They just looked at him.
Jihoon cleared his throat. "You're annoyingly thoughtful."
"So I've been told."
Vernon finally spoke up from the corner. "You know..."
Everyone looked at him.
"If you ever somehow meet Y/N..."
Mingyu laughed. "Here we go."
"...Can you ask her for a video message?"
Seungkwan immediately pointed at Vernon. "You're not even sure if Sofia's a fan!"
"...Who said it was for Sofia?"
The room dissolved into chaos. Wonwoo shook his head, unable to stop smiling. "I'll see what I can do."
"Screw all of you," Seungkwan said. "I believe he'll meet her, and I'd also like a video. I also want to meet her."
"Seriously though," Mingyu said, "if you somehow meet Y/N... tell her hottest soldier from the military, Kim Mingyu, says hi."
Wonwoo could only stare at him. How could he tell his lovely girlfriend that the 'hottest soldier' says hi? Wonwoo can manage.
"And tell her Boo Seungkwan is her biggest fan, and I can do all the dances."
"Okay..."
"And get us signed albums." Chan chimed in.
"We each want video messages!" Seokmin shouted excitedly.
"Can I get a hug?" Soonyoung asked.
Wonwoo looked at him. "...No, I don't think so, buddy."
Wonwoo simply adjusted the strap of his duffel. "I'll see what I can do as well. Bye, everyone. It was nice knowing all of you."
"Take care, hyung!"
"We love you!"
"Stay healthy!"
"Don't marry Y/N without us."
Wonwoo paused with one hand on the door. "I'll keep that in mind."
The laughter followed him all the way down the hallway. It lingered even after the voices faded into the distance. Wonwoo glanced back only once.
The barracks looked exactly as they had the day he'd first stepped inside—rows of bunks, neatly folded blankets, and seven men who'd somehow turned into family over the course of nearly two years.
He shook his head with a quiet smile. They were loud. Annoying. Unnecessarily invested in his love life. But somewhere between endless drills, sleepless nights, and terrible cafeteria food, they'd made the days a little easier to get through. They just... didn't know it.
Adjusting the strap of his duffel bag, Wonwoo walked toward the front gate. One step. Then another. The weight on his shoulders felt different now. Lighter. Not because the bag weighed any less. Because he no longer had to count down the days. The guard at the gate gave him a polite nod before handing over his identification.
Wonwoo stepped through the gate without looking back. On the other side, his family was already waiting.
His father pulled him into a tight hug before he could even say hello. His brother gave him a firm pat on the shoulder, smiling in that awkward way brothers often did.
"Welcome home, son," he said.
"It's good to be back."
As they walked toward the car, Wonwoo's phone buzzed.
[Y/N my love ♥️] good morning over there, soldier. congratulations ♥️ i'm sorry i couldn't be there, but just know i'm in your heart all the time.
A smile found its way onto his face. After nearly two years, he finally got to type the words he'd been waiting to say.
[my wonwoo ♥️] Good morning, love. Thank you. I love you so much. See you soon :)
A typing bubble appeared. Then disappeared. Then appeared again.
"So," His father smiled knowingly, "when's your flight?"
"Tomorrow." Wonwoo smiled.
His father nodded once. "Go ahead."
"What? That's it?" His brother blinked. "He just got out!"
"Well, she's waited long enough." His father laughed.
"We both have."
-
The flight felt longer than military service. Not literally. Just emotionally. He barely slept. Watched clouds drift by instead. Every few hours, he'd unlock his phone. Not to text her. Just to check where she was. London.
Tonight's show. The last stop. He smiled. Perfect.
-
Meanwhile, backstage was chaos.
"Five minutes!"
"Mic check!"
"Where's wardrobe?"
"I need someone on stage left!"
Y/N sat quietly in front of the mirror while her stylist adjusted the last few details. "You okay?"
She nodded. "Yeah. I'm just tired."
"Sure?"
She laughed weakly. "It's just..." She looked down at the bracelet around her wrist. The one Wonwoo had given her before enlistment. "Today's our anniversary."
Her stylist's expression softened. "I'm sorry."
"Eight years and going strong." She smiled. "I miss him so much. He's the reason why I keep going on every show. I keep thinking that the better I do on stage, the quicker I come back to him."
"That's sweet."
"Wonwoo's my everything, Jia." She said softly. "He's amazing. He inspired me to write and perform."
"How did you meet?" Jia asked.
"We were nineteen..." She smiled.
Y/N was already a household name, juggling interviews between college classes, while Wonwoo was just another university student who happened to be paired with her for a group project. He never treated her like a celebrity, and she loved him for it.
What started as shared notes, late-night study sessions, and coffee runs slowly turned into movie nights, bookstore dates, and a friendship neither of them realized had become something more. One evening, after walking her back to her apartment, Wonwoo stopped her before she could head inside.
"I don't think I'll ever stop liking you," he admitted with a nervous laugh. "Would... would you let me be your boyfriend?"
She smiled so brightly that he forgot every word he'd rehearsed. Instead of answering, she stepped forward, kissed him, and whispered, "I thought you'd never ask."
-
The concert was everything the internet expected. Fireworks. Costume changes. Surprise songs from her very first album. A sold-out stadium with fans singing every word. Y/N gave them everything she had because she always did. Then, the final song. The last note echoed through the stadium.
Confetti exploded. She bowed. "Thank you for coming tonight! Thank you for supporting me throughout my career, ever since I was a young teen until now. I'm so blessed and grateful to have fans like you. I love you all and good night!"
The crowd roared. She looked around with the biggest, most genuine grin and gave a final wave before disappearing behind the curtain.
Backstage erupted into cheers.
"You did amazing!"
"Last show!"
"We survived!"
Managers hugged each other. Dancers cheered. Someone popped open a bottle of champagne. Y/N laughed as people congratulated her. Then she saw him standing quietly in the hallway, hands tucked into the pockets of a hoodie she'd stolen years ago and never given back. For a moment, neither of them moved.
"Wonwoo?"
He smiled and waved.
She didn't think. She ran straight into him, hard enough that he stumbled back a step before catching her. "You idiot."
"Mm." He wrapped his arms around her tightly.
"You said you were staying home."
"You are my home," Wonwoo said.
"That's too cheesy, even for you."
"There's a first for everything."
She buried her face against his neck. "I hate you."
"No, you don't."
"I don't." Her voice cracked. She pulled away just enough to cup his face. "Your hair is shorter."
"Military things."
"I like it." She smiled. "But I missed your long hair."
"Me too."
She laughed through fresh tears. "I've cried enough over you."
"Sorry," Wonwoo said sheepishly.
"You better be." She kissed him before he could answer.
The crew, to their credit, became incredibly interested in literally everything else. The floor. The ceiling. A stack of road cases. One lighting technician suddenly discovered a deep passion for checking cables. Nobody interrupted.
-
The hotel room was unusually quiet. Not because there was nothing to say. Because after nearly two years apart, silence no longer felt empty. Y/N lay beside him, lazily tracing circles across his bare arm while the city lights spilled through the curtains. Somewhere below, traffic hummed, people laughed, and life carried on as if nothing monumental had happened. Wonwoo watched her for a long moment.
"What?" she asked, catching him staring.
"You still do that."
"Do what?"
He glanced down at her hand. "The circles."
She smiled. "It's very comforting, and I know you like it."
"True."
Another comfortable silence settled between them. Y/N shifted closer until her head rested against his shoulder. "I still can't believe you're here."
"I'm here." Wonwoo smiled, and kissed the top of her head.
"If this were a dream, I never want to wake up."
"I'd say 'don't', but," Wonwoo said. "I would never want to experience a time when you never wake up."
She looked up at him. "I fucking love you."
"That's intense." Wonwoo grinned. "I fucking love you, darling."
She laughed softly. Wonwoo brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "Can I tell you something?"
"Anything, my love."
He looked toward the ceiling for a moment, choosing his words carefully. "There were days when training was so exhausting that I forgot to miss you."
She looked up.
"And there were days when," he smiled to himself. "I'd see coffee, or it would rain, or someone would say something stupid."
A tiny chuckle escaped her.
"And I'd think..." he paused. "'Y/N would've complained about the coffee.' or 'Y/N would've forgotten her umbrella.' or 'Y/N would've laughed at that.' I couldn't stop."
Her expression softened. "Wonwoo..."
"I was going crazy." Wonwoo shook his head as he laughed quietly. "The guys thought I was obsessed with you."
"You kind of are."
"I am." He nodded without shame. He reached for her hand, intertwining their fingers. "But I had nothing to do except think of you the whole time."
His thumb brushed over her knuckles. "I had maggots for brains, my love. I was like a zombie out there."
For a second, neither of them spoke.
Then Y/N laughed. Not because it was funny. Because it was so painfully him. She leaned forward and kissed his forehead. "I know."
"You do?"
"I had that feeling, too."
He smiled. "You?"
She nodded. "I'd finish a show and immediately wonder what you would've thought. I'd see a bookstore and think about dragging you inside. I'd order room service and accidentally ask enough for two."
Her voice grew quieter. "I kept forgetting you weren't there."
Wonwoo closed the distance between them, resting his forehead aginst hers. "We're making up for lost time."
"We are."
"No more fan cams." Wonwoo said and she laughed.
"No more grainy livestreams." He added.
"No more letters." She said.
"I liked your letters." Wonwoo said.
"I liked yours better." She smiled.
"I only sent three."
She nodded. "And I re-read all three."
His heart skipped a beat. "You kept them?"
She looked at him as if the answer should've been obvious. "They're in my suitcase."
A beat.
"Your Polaroids are in my suitcase." Wonwoo said, then he laughed—a full, warm laugh she hadn't heard in far too long. "I guess we're both a little crazy."
"No." She cupped his face. "We're just in love."
He kissed her gently. This time, there was no departure gate waiting for them. No boarding call. No countdown. No wondering what city she'd wake up in tomorrow. Tomorrow, when the sun rose, he'd be there to see it with her.
BONUS
The hotel room was still half-asleep. Sunlight filtered through the curtains while the shower ran somewhere in the background. Y/N sat cross-legged on the bed, scrolling through her phone when Wonwoo's voice carried out from the bathroom.
"My phone's on the nightstand."
"Mhm?"
"Can you call Seungkwan for me?"
She blinked. "Seungkwan?"
"I promised them a video message."
Y/N grabbed his phone and marched towards the bathroom, not caring about him showering. Hey, they've been together for eight years. They've seen everything.
"Are you serious?"
Wonwoo glanced at her through the foggy glass of the shower. "Yes."
"Okay, okay." She laughed to herself. "What will I say?"
"Just... say hi or something. Oh, and Mingyu says hi. Vernon would also like a video message. Seungkwan is also your biggest fan and he's so bummed that he's not able to go to your show because he's in the military. He's always watching the reels of your surprise songs." Wonwoo said.
"Really? Well, I'll be sure to give them all a special pass when I have my concert in Korea."
"But you don't have a Korean stop."
"I do now." She chuckled before exiting the bathroom.
Meanwhile, back in Korea, it was nearly lights out. Seungkwan had just finished brushing his teeth when his phone lit up.
Wonwoo Hyung is calling...
His eyebrows shot up. "Wonwoo hyung is calling!"
Within seconds, the rest of the guys popped up from around the barracks.
"Put it on speaker!"
"No, it's a video!" Seungkwan said.
"Oh my god. Video?" Seokmin asked.
"Yah, answer it!" Jihoon said impatiently.
Seungkwan accepted the call. "Hyung!"
The screen flickered.
"Hi!"
Seven of them froze. Y/N waved cheerfully from the hotel room somewhere in London.
"So, um," she laughed awkwardly. "I know you guys asked for a video message, but I figured a video call would be more fun and interactive? Maybe even more memorable."
Silence. Complete utter silence. Behind Seungkwan, Mingyu slowly lowered the cup of instant noodles he'd been holding. Chan's jaw physically dropped. Vernon blinked once. Twice.
Soonyoung whispered, "No, way..."
Y/N tilted her head. "Anyway, Wonwoo's in the shower. He told me to call..." she glanced down at the phone. "Seungkwan?"
Mingyu moved to the side, off-camera, and shouted, "Oh my god, it's actually her!"
Y/N burst into laughter. "You must be Mingyu."
His eyes widened and walked back in frame. "You know my name?"
"Wonwoo may have talked about you guys when he got here." She chuckled.
"So he wasn't lying." Chan said and Vernon nodded.
"So you're..." Soonyoung scratched the back of his neck. "his girlfriend?"
Y/N proudly nodded. "Yes. For eight years."
"Eight years?!" Jihoon shrieked.
She nodded and smiled sweetly. "In fact, it was our eighth anniversary yesterday, and he surprised me here in London."
"You guys are practically married at this point." Vernon said.
She laughed. "Yeah."
Mingyu covered his face with both hands. "We've been bullying Y/N's boyfriend for two years."
"You called him delusional," Jihoon reminded him.
"I know!"
Seungkwan suddenly remembered something. "Wait..." He pointed accusingly at the screen. "So all those times he said, 'she doesn't like black coffee', 'she changes the acoustic set when she's tired', 'she notices my comments'..."
"All true." She confirmed.
The bathroom door opened. Wonwoo stepped out wearing a bathrobe. He smiled and waved at the guys. "Morning."
Y/N turned the phone toward him. "They have questions."
Wonwoo looked at the seven dumbfounded faces on the screen. No one spoke. Finally, Mingyu sighed dramatically. "Hyung..."
"Very much together." Wonwoo nodded, putting on his glasses. "Eight years is no joke."
"I won't be getting that hug, then." Soonyoung said quietly.
"I can still hug you!" Y/N exclaimed. "Wonwoo's not the jealous type, and he's not immature. I really got lucky."
Wonwoo blushed, causing a round of teasing from the guys. Y/N looked completely amused. "I like you guys."
Seungkwan shook his head, "I can't believe we spent two years making fun of your boyfriend."
"Now you know it's real and he's not delusional." She smirked. "Oh, before we hang up, I want to say hi to Mingyu and I want to tell Vernon that I promise to make a video greeting right after."
"Can we all get one?" Seokmin asked shyly. She chuckled and nodded. "Sure."
"Oh, and Seungkwan?" She called.
"Yes?" Seungkwan smiled excitedly.
"I know you know all of my dance steps and Wonwoo may have told me in passing that you do TikTok challenges of my songs. I'll happily do a TikTok with you when I have my concert in Korea." Y/N smiled.
"But... you don't have a concert here. It's done." Seungkwan said.
"I'm Y/L/N Y/N, Seungkwannie. I can make it happen, and I'm giving you all special passes and seats." She smirked as the guys cheered. She glanced at Wonwoo and he only shook his head with a small smile on his face.
The call ended a few minutes later. One by one, the guys climbed back onto their bunks, still trying to process everything that had just happened.
No one spoke. No one really knew what to say. Finally, Mingyu broke the silence. "We've been calling Y/N's boyfriend delusional for two years!"
"We really have," Chan muttered. "I even laughed the loudest, for fuck's sake."
"So..." Seokmin said. "are we terrible people?"
Jihoon didn't even look up from his book. "A little."
"I apologized!" Mingyu pouted as he defended himself.
"After two years." Jihoon answered back.
"I still said I was sorry!" Mingyu frowned. "Doesn't that matter?"
Before anyone could tease him further, a buzz came from Seungkwan's phone. He looked down and his eyes widened.
"Guys..."
No one answered.
"Guys!" Seungkwan said a little louder.
"What?" Vernon said.
"She followed me on Instagram."
Six heads whipped towards him.
"What?" Soonyoung asked.
Seungkwan turned his phone around.
@yn started following you.
"No way..." Soonyoung's jaw dropped. His phone buzzed, too. He quickly checked. True enough, he received the same notification as Seungkwan. "Yah! She followed me, too!"
Chan looked down at his screen. @yn started following you.
Vernon frowned at his own notification. @yn started following you.
Soon, every phone in the barracks buzzed one after another. Mingyu stared at his screen like it had personally offended him. "She's real."
"She's not AI, Mingyu-ya." Jihoon retorted.
Seungkwan scrolled through Instagram and refreshed the app. Y/N posted a few seconds ago. He quickly gave it a like before swiping through the photos.
The first few photos were from the final show. The confetti. The crowd. The dancers.
He swiped again and stopped. It was a more intimate, yet private photo. It was Wonwoo on what he assumed was their date after the call.
Wonwoo was across Y/N, and his face was strategically hidden by the cup he was drinking from. To the rest of the world, that's how Wonwoo was shown on her profile for the past eight years. Always protected, but never hidden.
The caption read: the last concert day was a blast! now, I'll be spending my days with my man. happy 8th anniversary, my love. you're the best surprise I've ever gotten.
Seungkwan bit back a squeal. He was too happy. The other guys had seen the post, too.
"No," Chan smiled as he looked around the room. "He just has someone worth going crazy for."
a/n: i think we all got maggots for brains while wonu's away. pls pls pls lmk what u think of this one! gosh, i'm so nervous abt it. i hope you guys don't mind me switching it up for a bit xo
Series taglist: @joongtime @neotannies @seungkwanglazer @gibbonstar @moonriverandkmg
desc: you and minghao were homebodies, in every sense of the word. comfortable meditating together in your garden, content sipping complex red wines under the parasol, happy reading your respective books with interlinked pinkies. however, his new subunit has dragged you and all of your friends to a huge party but god, you look a bit too good for minghao to contain himself...
wc: 7.8k..this was supposed to be a drabble
note: happy (belated) v8 release!! this is my celebratory post so pls enjoy and im sorry for the delay! this is the first piece of smut i've ever written lol so pls don't mind if it's not amazing.. this was supposed to be 2k idk what happened lol. tysm miss @binniebean0 for beta-ing once again, ur the best ma lav <333
𝄞: silver jubilee by audrey hobert, v8 by the8 & vernon
Partying was way behind you. Like a distant moment of the past that you revisit once a year and swear to never look back at again. The thumping music and the dazzling lights are not so enticing when you have a gorgeous fiancée who gives such good massages. A brilliant fiancée who buys you books every time he leaves the country — each one picked with perfection, always aligning with your exact interests. An insane fiancée who sees you in your slacks, sweat-ridden after a long and humid day at work and thinks it’s the prime time to make a meal of you on the kitchen table.
Yeah, so homebodies you had become.
Really, who would want to leave the house when the human incarnation of a god, Xu Minghao, your soon-to-be husband, led intense and relaxing meditation sessions for you? In your vast garden, greenery swallowing the senses, the small swish of the coi pond pattering softly to one side, your lean fiancée speaking with ultimate rest dripping off of every word. It was like your own personal heaven!
But alas, work calls — Minghao had been working tirelessly with Vernon for their new subunit. Slipping in the front door early in the morning, cap pulled low as his feet dragged against the polished wooden floors, fatigue radiating off his body when he quietly pulled your body into his and cocooned himself around you.
This was no new routine; you’d been with Minghao for years, through comebacks, daesangs, scandals, you name it, you stood by his side, a solid and hushed rock. However, there was once upon a time when you and he enjoyed indulging in the bustling Seoul nightlife, awake until all hours of the night and dancing carelessly under strobe lights. It was an era you both look back at with soppy nostalgia.
The bass vibrated through the darkened club, the sound of a hyperpop song penetrating your flesh and transforming into sweet endorphins, a buzz of adrenaline and raw energy surging through you. Beside you, your best friends Jun and Mingyu nodded nonchalantly along to the beat — sunglasses securely over their eyes, making them resemble a pair of handsome bodyguards rather than two idols on their night off.
A mix of tequila and soda zipped through your straw as you leaned on the wall between the two, their chatter rapidly adapting to include you. ‘I mean, I never coined them for the clubbing type,’ Jun shrugged, halfway through a conversation with his bandmate, who had his eyes narrowed at his phone in his hand.
The three of you had perched on a balcony, watching the dance floor swarm with bodies, arms flailing to the music, heads bobbing to the beat. Dark purple and white lights flashed, illuminating the floor in brief intervals, revealing people intertwined with one another, others busy looking at their keys and some drunken party-goers grinding with lustful gazes.
‘Well, they’re on their way.’ Mingyu shrugged, pulling your gaze away from your inspection of a particularly messy make-out session in the middle of the crowd – gross.
‘Who is?’ You question, lifting your drink lazily to your lips.
‘Remember Vernon and Minghao?’ Mingyu questioned, slinging his arm around your shoulders, his beer almost spilling onto your heels with his clumsy movement.
‘I know the names.’ You reply, nibbling on your straw and eyeing a broad-shouldered man, leant nonchalantly against the bar.
This was your routine: Jun and Mingyu would drag you to the club. Most of the time, the three of you partied yourselves out together, strolling home in fits of drunken giggles, Mingyu slung between you and Jun like a human piñata — letting his slackened body flop onto your sofa whilst you and Jun top-and-tailed. But occasionally, one of you would spot someone, get busy and be whisked away into the night.
‘They’re on their way.’ Mingyu finishes, and you shrug, preoccupied by the muscled man downstairs — Tall, dark and handsome.
As the music shifted, Jun pulled you eagerly onto the dance floor, ready to rock, twist, point, any drunken dance move that his body could conjure in the moment, a loud laugh escaping your lips when he pokes the person behind him.
The music was something booming, high-pitched vocals over a speedy tempo, making your hips sway with easy finesse, Jun matching you with a cheeky pout on his face. At some point, Mingyu had disappeared into the crowd to collect his bandmates, leaving you and Jun to continue letting the beat pump through your bodies.
Bodies slick with sweat stuck to yours, the alcohol-induced euphoria swimming through your system and rendering you careless, as all you thought about was feeling the music travel through your bones.
Through the crowd, your abnormally tall friend weaselled his way through, two drinks held haphazardly in his hand as he held them above head height, almost spilling the beverages on multiple unassuming party-goers' heads.
Behind him, two men materialised, both of whom you recognised from Instagram posts, music videos and whatever else your two best friends were involved in. The shorter of the two had a snapback perched backwards over his hair, and he sported a shy grin as he greeted you with a polite nod, ‘Vernon.’
Next to him, your gaze hovered, the second man making your breath hold tightly in your throat — He was gorgeous. The sort of gorgeous that is plastered on the front of fashion magazines. The sort that almost made drool slide down your chin.
Minghao, you can only presume, had a pale face, framed by a sleek black mullet, wisps of hair tickling his sleek cheekbones. The enticing dark chocolate eyes were sharp, and it felt as if Minghao’s gaze was swallowing you whole. Lazily, he dragged his eyes down your body, a small smirk on his plump pink lips as he consumed you with his look alone.
‘Minghao.’ He leaned forward with subtle ease, his strong hand ghosting your waist as his hot breath tickled your ear.
That was the night that changed your life.
Messy makeouts in the bathroom corridor, arms desperately pulling each other close, feeling all of your soft skin and lathering in the rosy scent of your perfume. Tugging his fluffy hair closer, dragging him lustfully to bed, arching your back involuntarily as his hot mouth met you.
You and Minghao were like two magnets, snapping together with force as soon as you met. There was no doubt in your mind that he was your person from the moment you set your eyes on him. And he — he was smitten, absolutely enamoured by you; he practically fell to his knees when you stepped out of your front door for the first date.
Now, six years later, you were each other’s forevers. The gorgeous engagement band on your finger confirms that. Minghao hunted far and wide for the ring that felt authentically you and him, searching across countries, visiting jewellery stores for hours at a time, researching different materials and styles.
An unexpected hunt on a work trip to Beijing made him stumble across a delicate twist of silver that was bent into two smooth spirals, a discrete diamond framed by the curving silver work. It was so perfect that Minghao didn’t hesitate — he signed the papers and strolled out of the store with a bashful grin on his face.
Then, on that starry evening when he got down on one knee, you felt your heart explode in your chest. Adoration surging through your body as you looked at your boyfriend’s sincere smile, his warm eyes glazed with anticipation as he bared his heart to you in an engagement box.
As the streetlights strobed softly through the private car's window, your ring glistened against your knee. A symbol of unrequited love that decorated your body every single day.
The vehicle was a buzz of your best friends, Jun squished in the middle, whilst Mingyu took up way too much space next to him, talking animatedly with Alice in the front seat. Both men were a concoction of shirts and cologne, sunglasses perched in their hair. It had been a long time since you’d been to a club, life moving in a gentle motion away from partying, so you were beyond excited to be indulging in one night of drunken fun with your best friends and fiancée.
Minghao was already at the bar the company had hired out, without a doubt networking, talking to devoted fans and bantering with his sub-unit counterpart.
You could already imagine his lean body, glistening in the low lighting, his shoulder-length strawberry blonde hair tickling his cheeks under a nonchalantly placed cap. Ring finger decorated with a shining silver band as he DJ’d. God, the vision practically made your panties wet.
‘What are you daydreaming about?’ Jun nudged at your side, all heads turning to yours as you rapidly snapped out of your drool-inducing vision of your fiancée.
‘Nothing,’ You reply, perhaps a bit too fast, the flustered expression on your features refusing to be wiped off. Trying to faux calm, you absentmindedly brush invisible dust off your dress.
‘You’re disgusting.’ Jun replies with a distinct scrunch to the nose.
‘What?’ You reply, with widened eyes and a sarcastic look of shock. Jun shakes his head at you, the car slowing as it swerves down a side street in Tokyo, vivid neon lights glowing above your heads.
Crowds of people hover by a bar and you can only presume that’s your destination. There was an atmosphere of anticipation, the beckoning call of music reverberating out onto the slim street, and the car halted, people ecstatically staring through the glass.
As soon as the door opened, you smiled and waved with the politeness you’d be forced to adopt the moment the tabloids caught wind of you. Teethy grins, small bows at fans, waves towards the crowd. However, as the audience swarming outside were struck with Jun and Mingyu's presence, you slipped through the entrance, staff easily directing you to the small stage, where the main act was fooling around.
The bar was packed from wall to wall, bodies crammed in as fans excitedly screamed, hollered and shouted at their idols. The air was thick with smoke that clouded heavily in the corners and dampened the lights. A loud and bass-heavy hyperpop track shook the room as it bounced with a tinny crunch out of the speakers and flowed through the atmosphere.
This environment felt like travelling back in time, the thumping of dance music and the scent of strong alcohol dripping nostalgia through you. The hum of bodies pressed into the space brought you back to those long and late nights of the past, dancing sweatily with strangers, not having a care in the world. As you rolled your shoulders, the muscles loosening instinctively, you felt the weight of adulthood dissolve as the atmosphere swallowed you.
The staff member broke the crowd, guiding you through the barricade with a polite nod. The blonde locks wisping in the busy air caught your attention — your fiancée, looking devastatingly gorgeous, was perched in front of a set of decks, headphones slung around his neck as his stare zeroed in on the buttons. Minghao’s hair was hanging carelessly along his shoulders, a slouching cap resting on his head. He had a pair of dark sunglasses shielding his eyes from the hundreds of phone flashes shining at him. As he bobbed his head along to the beat with effortless indifference, you decided his nonchalance was perhaps the most attractive thing on the planet.
There was a cloudy grey tank top hanging loosely off of his toned chest, his tattooed arms revealed to the world as they flexed when he held his hand up in motion. Minghao looked delectable, his body glistening in all the right ways as you watched with your mouth hanging. Even after six years, he still made you speechless daily.
As if your stare burned through him, his head turned straight towards you, his face softening in recognition as he quirked a sweet smile towards you. With a brief lean into Vernon, he stepped down and sauntered over to you, his tongue poking the inside of his cheek as he inspected you.
With discretion, he slid his arms around your waist, his smile converting into a smirk as he raked his eyes down your scantily clad body — your dress hugged all the right places, revealing a modest amount of cleavage and displaying your long legs for appreciation.
‘My love, you look beautiful.’ Minghao mutters in your ear, his hot breath fanning your soft skin, the surface puckering into an array of goosebumps. Your fiancée’s deep, seductive tone sent shivers down your spine, and you allowed your hands to rest on his shoulder, feeling the cotton beneath your fingertips.
‘Hao, you look-‘ There wasn’t even a word to describe how godly he looked. ‘Fuck, you look so good.’ You let your hand skim his bicep, squeezing the tough muscle lightly as he leaned forward, tilting your jaw to kiss you. His soft, plush lips, which you had the privilege of kissing daily, still sent electricity sparking across your body, the taste of mint gum and Coke infiltrating your mouth with ease. You both knew you could easily be here all night, wrapped up in one another, refusing to falter until you knew exactly how good his mouth tasted.
However, the hoards of cameras and fans watching closely ignited a consciousness that forced Minghao to apprehensively pull away, his lip caught between his teeth.
‘Proud of you, baby.’ You say wholeheartedly, sending him a sincere smile before pecking him lightly and running the pad of your thumb over his cheek.
‘I love you,’ He says back, his eyes practically oozing adoration. ‘Wouldn’t be here without you.’
To this, you smile with unrestrained happiness, letting your hands run lightly down his torso before giving his waist a squeeze and ushering him back to the decks. Throwing a quick wave at Vernon, who insisted on a sweaty congratulatory hug, you joined the rest of your friends who’d made their way to the viewing area.
The crowd was alive, chanting and buzzing at the two boys, who danced and waved happily, both radiating shy nonchalance whilst simultaneously bringing life to the room.
‘Put your drinks up!’ Your fiancée shouted, jumping excitedly with Vernon, his face radiating as joy rumbled through him — and you couldn’t help but appreciate how breathtaking he looked as euphoric glee zoomed through his skin.
Alongside you, Mingyu had arrived with a bottle of tequila, shot glasses lined up with precision. With a huge laugh, Mingyu poured one out, slinging it back before pouring another, then a line, linking his arm with yours to knock it back with the old trick you shared.
The sting of the spirit was dulled by the bittersweet flavour of nostalgia it arose on your tongue. It was a twisted sentiment to your early twenties, those party days, the ones that brought you and your friends together — the ones that brought your husband-to-be together, and it bloomed a subtle warmth in your chest.
Watching the man you cherished, so in his element, moving seamlessly to his own music, smiling wide enough to blind a nation, brought bliss to your heart and you inhaled deeply as if it could pause the moment.
Mingyu and Jun, dancing with drunken silliness next to you, expressions of happiness playing on their features. Roars boomed as Vernon and Minghao stood on the platform the decks sat on, dancing in sync to the songs they’d work tirelessly on.
And if you’re being honest, you don’t really party, you just sit at home, but tonight you were throwing it back to those long euphoric nights, letting your body sway freely and laughing wholeheartedly with your closest friends.
As the night stretched on, the bar darkened, the atmosphere still electric even as a different DJ took to the decks. Minghao had eventually shuffled his way over to you, sliding both hands around your waist as he nuzzled his face into your neck. The hair on your body stood up at your fiancée’s skinship, the thumping in your heart intensifying with his hot hands as they lightly massaged your skin.
‘Hey sweetheart,’ He said with a dipped voice, leaving a light kiss on the crook of your neck. You turn rapidly to face your hot, sweaty and frankly, very sexy fiancée, his cap pulled low as you join your lips with his; alcohol induced lust daring to poke through.
‘You were amazing up there,’ You breathed, a bashful smile appearing on Minghao’s face as you complimented him. ‘I’m so proud of you.’
There’s a glaze over his eyes that is somewhere between adoration and gratitude, the mixture making his chocolate eyes shine with unapologetic happiness. Instead of replying, he simply pulled you in once again, savouring the sweet taste of the plush lips you possessed.
The whirlwind of friends and colleagues then sweeps him away, people approaching with waves of congratulatory exclamations. You leave him with a tender kiss on the cheek, a reminder of how proud you are, and then disappear off to Alice.
With drunken confidence, the two of you dance, shaking your hair, swaying your hips, letting big hearty laughs tumble out of you. As the songs beat on, Jun and Mingyu materialise at your sides, moving exactly how they did all those years ago — Jun producing the strangest moves he could conjure, making you almost wet yourself in fits of giggles.
As Mingyu twirls you effortlessly, your sweet-faced soon-to-be-husband arrives, sliding in close to you, his body moving like liquid against you. The sensation of his hard chest pressed against your back made tingles shoot down your spine, the familiar scent of his musky beechwood aftershave wafting over you.
‘Back already?’ you say with a turned head, only his light curtains visible as he presses tickling kisses along your neck.
‘Forgot how attractive you are when you dance like this,’ He mumbles, nipping on a spot that elicits rather inappropriate sounds from you. The heat of the bar seemed to have settled on your skin as a heavy dew, your pulse racing at a quickened pace.
‘Hao,’ You exhale with heft, hoping the release would ease the growing heat between your legs. You lean your head into the crook of his shoulder behind you, his lips forced to disconnect with your neck as he grumbles quietly. ‘We’re in public.’
The shy and bashful Minghao that presented himself to the public was long gone — his shameless flirtation and risqué-nature penetrating through his persona. You knew this version of Minghao very well. It was the one shielded from his fans, one reserved specifically for you, the one that devoured you on a balcony the night of your engagement.
And his lusty gaze made the heat pooling between your legs feel more and more bothersome.
‘I can’t help myself,’ He says quietly, ‘you look too good, it’s driving me insane.’ His arms don’t falter from their secure place on your hips, tugging you impossibly closer. It felt like you were younger again, kissing carelessly in the club, letting the music take you both away as you indulged in one another.
‘Hao,’ A shaky breath leaves your lips, ‘We can’t exactly slip off, this is your party,’
With a sigh of frustration, he lands one more nip to the sweet spot on your neck, ‘We’re leaving as soon as it’s socially acceptable.’
It, in fact, was not socially acceptable to leave until three in the morning. In those hours, everyone had gotten impossibly drunker. Beside you, Mingyu, almost asleep, stood up, his speech slurred in that hilariously whiny way that was so reminiscent of dragging his tall frame down the dark Seoul streets.
Minghao had hovered around, often being pulled in every direction by various guests, his gaze hot on your figure as you continued to dance or mingle. You could feel eyes burn into your body when you bent over to pick up a spilt beverage, and he used it as a convenient excuse to practically run to your side — skilfully placing himself to conceal your exposed thighs.
Like a perfect scapegoat, Mingyu almost toppled over into both of you. The lanky man’s absent gaze was practically begging for bed, and who were you both to make him stay any longer?
‘We should take him back to the hotel.’ You say with a pout, bidding goodbye to Jun with a tight hug. Minghao had rapidly slipped off to also spout all variations of valedictions to the remaining guests.
Three slightly long, awkward hugs, around ten polite bows and countless ‘goodbyes’ later, you and Minghao had Mingyu slung over your shoulders, his body borderline slack between you as you both dragged him into the car.
As much as you could mentally thank Mingyu for always drinking himself into the perfect escape plan, you didn’t want to praise him for the impending spine problems his years of drunken slackness will inevitably cause you.
There were many ways you’d rather be leaving the bar. Through a back door, hands tangled in Minghao’s mullet, tugging when his lips hit that sensitive spot on your neck. Or in a private car, just the two of you, your hand eagerly stroking torturously slowly up his thigh, skimming his crotch with routine obliviousness.
But alas, Mingyu collapsed onto the seat with a thud, babbling incoherently as he lay his head on your lap. Minghao just tutted as he climbed into the passenger seat, turning to see you display a shrug, raising your hands in defeat.
Even through Mingyu's meaningless utterances, the sexual tension was rife — Minghao stayed glued to his phone, his hat low as his teeth nibbled on his lip in frustration. He was vying for a distraction, and his Instagram feed had never been so boring.
You, on the other hand, leaned on your wrist as you watched the busy, late-night traffic blur past the window. Neon lights and hordes of bodies meshed together in the dark night, the lowlight skimming your fiancées strong jaw, which was very obviously clenched, his plump lips glowing with each passing streetlight.
God, you were ready to devour him.
The minutes skidded by almost painfully, Tokyo dragging through your vision with snail-like slowness. Mingyu was fast asleep on your lap, muttering to himself drunkenly — If your head wasn’t spinning with visions of the gorgeous man in the front seat, you might find this heartwarming and so reminiscent of times passed. Mingyu follows his usual routine, getting too drunk and having to be hauled home by you or whichever oblivious friend was roped in to take half of his weight. Stumbling into the hotel elevator with someone hot on his trail, apologising profusely to whichever member of the public he may have embarrassed himself in front of. Then, collapsing onto the closest comfiest surface — the hotel bed, and passing out without a word.
It made you giggle at how his habits had never changed and how yours remained, too. Popping two painkillers onto his nightstand, filling up a cup with water. All the usual things that came as second nature. Minghao watched you closely with adoration. There wasn’t a day that he didn’t fall deeper in love with you, and today he really felt it. Even through the chaos, the stress, the pressure, your presence was ever-grounding; even if it made his brain scatter when he saw you.
Your fiancée lingered close behind you as you clicked the door shut slowly, the dim hallway abandoned at this heinous time. The warm glow made your body shine, the expanse of your neck exposed when you swept your hair to the side, your long legs practically glistening for Minghao to ogle. He traced the curve of your waist in your tight dress, biting his lip at the swell of your ass as you twisted to look at him.
‘Let me get out of the door first,’ You joke, recognising the lust dripping off of his gaze. Without hesitation, his tongue slipped out of his mouth, licking his lips as if you were his favourite meal.
You were.
The tether within Minghao had snapped, finally alone after hours of pent-up frustration, and he had you pushed up against the wall with lightning-quick agility. One strong arm wrapped tightly around your waist to pull his hips flush against yours, the other cradling your face with softness, the rough pad of his thumb savouring the feeling of your skin below it.
Without hesitation, he joined his lips to yours with desperation, his body aching to taste the alcohol on you — and now he could taste it, he felt utterly intoxicated. The plush of your lips was so familiar, but it never failed to make him feel like every hair on his body was standing on end.
‘Hao,’ You breathed out in a quiet whine, your hands lacing through Minghao’s soft hair with an instinctive tug as he let his lips begin their assault on your neck. He knew exactly how to make you fawn, his teeth grazing your sensitive spots as he left discrete marks along your exposed shoulder.
To be honest, he didn’t care that people were sleeping behind plywood walls; you were too delectable to treat anyone else with regard. A sick part of him wanted them to hear how good he made you feel, he wanted them to know that his fiancée would only moan like this for him for the rest of her life.
Your nails clawed harshly at his biceps as the feeling of his lips made heat pool pathetically between your legs, his lusted-over gaze burning through you when he pulled back to examine his art.
This was Minghao’s own personal Picasso. The sight of you, face flushed and screwn in an expression of blissful pleasure, a thin sheen of sweat coating your skin as your head leaned on the dark wall behind you, the expanse of your neck exposed and actively developing little bruises. The dress, which was, quite frankly, a method of torture designed specifically to make Minghao suffer, was bunching up and revealing your hot skin to his eyes.
‘Oh baby,’ Minghao sighs, letting his arms pull your body into his. You took advantage of his moment of weakness and began to pepper kisses up the column of his throat, trailing along his jaw and nibbling his ear gently, smirking as the skin under your fingertips rose in goosebumps. Sometimes you forgot how easily you affected him, the hotness of your breath eliciting his body to react rapidly, his eyes fluttering shut tightly as he groaned loudly and unapologetically.
The hallway had dissolved into a desire-driven blur around you both, the almost pornographic moans tumbling out of your fiancées mouth floating you away on a cloud of pure sexual need.
‘Baby, I need you.’ He manages to gasp out, your hand now feeling his toned stomach with daringly slow accuracy whilst your mouth continues to run circles around his brain.
‘Can’t have me in a corridor, Hao.’ You state between sloppy kisses, not parting from his skin for longer than a few seconds.
He turned his head and emitted a sound resembling a hiss as your mouth was forced to leave his body, ‘I’ll have you right here, sweetheart, don’t test me.’
The tone was icy, the dominance in his voice almost making your knees give way. His hand was resting with a strong presence on the back of your neck, his drooped eyelids penetrating you with so much intensity it was overwhelming.
Not willing to try your luck with Minghao — Knowing he’d bunch your dress up and tear your underwear off for anyone to see, you take his wrist in your hand, dragging him to the elevator. There’s a cocky smirk that’s landed permanently on his features, his eyes watching the way your ass giggled as you jogged lightly to the end of the hallway, pulling him along.
The doors slid shut, but before they could ring out a quiet ding! he has you pinned against the mirrored wall, his body heavy against your back.
It’s embarrassing the way you arch into him, your breath heavy as it already begins to cloud the mirror in small hues. Behind you, he has one of your arms secured to your back, intertwining his fingers with yours in an intimate gesture. Yet, his eyes are darkened as they scan your face in the mirror, the need rife in your hooded gaze as you meet his hungry look.
Your entire body is squashed against the mirror, making your cleavage bulge out of your skimpy dress, and Minghao can’t help but stare at it as he reattaches his mouth to your neck eagerly. The hardness of his throbbing cock is tough against your ass, and you gasp sharply when he smoothly thrusts himself against you.
‘Look at you,’ He coos with fake sympathy dripping off every word, his mouth ruthlessly working at your exposed skin. ‘Such a greedy girl, rubbing yourself against me in public.’
Your fiancées taunts make you impossibly wetter, and you attempt to stifle a moan that was escaping you. Minghao pauses sharply, squinting at your already fucked out reflection. ‘It’s too late to be quiet now, baby, you’ve already let the whole floor know how good my lips make you feel.’
It’s embarrassing. Almost humiliating, how he has you completely at his mercy before you’ve even swiped your room key — in the elevator where anyone could see you, where any innocent passerby could watch as your fiancée ruts his stiff cock into you, when any of his members could walk in to your face flushed and already fucked out before Minghao has even touched you.
As the elevator begins to halt, he releases his grip on you, taking your hand sweetly and pulling you into his side. It’s mind-boggling how versatile Minghao is, the doors sliding open with torturous pace as a fellow hotel guest nods politely to your fiancée, entering the space that held the ghost of said man, practically dry-humping you against the wall.
Minghao’s grip around you was tight, his hand absentmindedly tugging your dress to cover your exposed thighs as he smiled awkwardly and bowed to the stranger, keeping your head tucked safely into the crook of his neck.
You knew this was killing Minghao. Even the redness on your face did not compare to the restraint he was exercising with each passing moment.
The elevator slowed once again, and Minghao couldn’t pull you out of there faster, his cock painfully hard in his trousers; he was already facing your shared room by the time the door to the elevator slid closed.
Beep! The hotel door clicks open, and everything becomes a whirlwind. Minghao has you pressed against it with wicked ease, pulling your lips to meet his in a sloppy, needy kiss that radiates heat from him. Your hands are sliding beneath his shirt, letting your nails scratch along the toned muscles as his hand smooths over your ass, grabbing at it harshly as he attempts to pull you closer.
Minghao’s lips are working on the sweet spot below your collarbone, tasting the skin with unfaltering intensity. You let your hands roam, tangling them in his hair, scratching at his back, squeezing at his waist — you feel every inch of him like you’re learning where everything is.
With a rough tug, your dress is pooled around your waist, your braless chest bouncing out with the release of the cloth binding it, and Minghao lets out a long groan, his eyes closing as he lets his head slack. He is devilishly handsome, his jaw defined in the low light as it flexes at the sight of you.
‘Sweetheart,’ He speaks whilst he inspects every inch of you closely, bringing his hot mouth to your chest once again, his tongue drawing patterns against your skin as he brings one of his hands to toy with your nipple, his long fingers working automatically to pinch and caress you.
Loud throaty moans tumble out of you as he fails to neglect your other nipple, letting his mouth trail hot kisses around it before sucking with perfected ease. If Minghao’s arm wasn’t securely around you, the feeling would’ve made you collapse to the floor — he knew your body like the back of his hand, nipping and sucking on every single sensitive spot, touching every place that set your body on fire. Except where you needed him most.
‘Hao,’ You moan, and he just grunts against you, not faltering for a second from his heavy assault on your chest, the sight of him devouring you almost enough to have you cumming. ‘Baby, I need-‘
He pulls off of your nipple with a dirty pop, his pent-up gaze watching as the pleasure drops off your face with the lack of contact. It was filthy, the arousal that pumped through him when he watched you become absolutely desperate for him.
‘Need what baby?’ He questions, his movements so slow that they almost cease, making your eyebrows furrow and your lip jut out in a pout. Pathetically, you let your slender hand reach for the waistband of his trousers, but he’s like a hawk, pinning both of your wrists above your head.
It’s humiliating how turned on you are — completely under his control willingly. His frame is fully clothed, whilst yours is a mess, dress in a rushed bunch around your waist, panties dripping.
‘What do you need?’ He questions, gaze burning into you as he drags his eyes down your curves. ‘Use your words, baby.’
‘Need you,’ You whine, wiggling to attempt to reach for his waistband again, but his grip is steady, keeping you absolutely merciless.
‘Need what part of me?’ He blinks, big innocent eyes staring at yours like he wasn’t already ruining you without even a touch.
Your face is utterly flushed as embarrassment and arousal mix into a vicious vision of want, the outline of his hard cock practically pounces at you. Minghao uses this moment to let one of his big hands ghost over your panties, his touch so light that you buck your hips instantly, desperate for him to give your clit any stimulation.
A taunting laugh escapes his lips before his ruthless mouth is back on your neck, nipping and sucking as your head falls back in pleasure. The sudden attention forces a moan to escape you, and he stops, the brief contact ripped away so savagely that your brain is fuzzy with frustration.
‘I asked you a question, sweetheart.’ He repeats, letting your restrained hands fall as he tugs you lightly towards the bed, pausing as you near it. Without a word, he slips your bundled dress off of your frame carefully, discarding it as you kiss him, pulling his neck to yours before he even has a chance to appreciate your almost naked body.
‘Need your cock baby,’ You mumble against his lips, and he groans at your needy answer, his pants feeling uncomfortably tight around him, and you let your nails scrape his lower abdomen in that way that has his body in shivers.
Minghao is so enticed by you, the way your lips mingle with his effortlessly, the ways in which you know his body, the ways that can almost make him cum in his pants with just a feather-light touch.
You’ve slyly twisted, pushing him to sit on the edge of the bed, your lips not parting as you masterfully manoeuvre yourself between his solid thighs.
Minghao thinks this might be a mirage. A vision of ecstasy in a moment of desperation. You, his beautiful fiancée, on your knees in front of him, your lips swollen from his assault on them, tiny marks along your neck from his greediness to mark you. There’s a distinct thirst in your eyes as your hands fumble with his belt, and Minghao thinks it might be the most attractive thing he’s ever seen.
Like an expert, his belt is unbuckled, and his trousers are tugged down, your light touch carrying the weight of hours of teasing. As you let his cock spring free, he hisses, the scene in front of him so dirty he could cum right now.
Your fiancé's biceps are flexed as he holds himself up, leaning back and watching you with squinted eyes. His cock is so pretty, you sometimes forget, and it shocks you all over again – It’s pale and long, not too girthy but beautifully slender. The sight of it alone makes your pussy clench around nothing, the memories of it kissing your cervix infiltrating your mind.
Drool pools at the corner of your lips, and without further ado, you stroke your fingertips lightly along his cock, letting your thumb drag over the tip, a string of tangled grunts tumbling out of him as you spread the leaking pre-cum down his shaft.
After a few eager strokes, you bring your mouth to him, kitten-licking him with precision, his teeth gritted as he lets out a hiss, your warm mouth sending spikes of pleasure up his body. His cock was more than a mouthful, the salty pre-cum lathering your tongue as you gradually make your way down him, gagging as your nose grazes his stomach.
Your engagement band glints as you grip his thigh, beginning to piston your head, throaty moans slipping out of his mouth as you take him so well.
‘Fuck baby,’ He groans, and an involuntary sound of pleasure leaves you, your nipples perked in arousal as you speed up. Minghao runs his fingers through your soft hair delicately, the sensation prickling your skin as he gathers your locks and guides your motions with desperation. ‘You look so pretty.’
It was so filthy, the squelch of your mouth working against him and his heavy, breathy moans at free flow as the feeling of your tongue around him takes over. Minghao is seeing stars, the sight of you alone pushing him closer, yet alone the stimulation on his cock.
‘Baby, baby.’ He pants, his breathing climbing rapidly as his release nears, and he pulls your head away from him carefully, refusing to come from just your mouth – he needed to be inside you, watching your eyes roll back as he bottoms out. You pout, looking up at him with red cheeks, your lips glistening with his pre-cum and your spit. ‘I want to come inside you.’
His words make you ache, your pussy practically begging for something – anything at all.
Minghao lifts your jaw up to his, rejoining your lips. The salty taste of himself on you infiltrates his mouth as he pulls you onto his lap, his strong arms reaching to squeeze at the expanse of your ass cheeks as his cock is trapped between you both, nudging at your clit in selfish intervals.
‘Take this off.’ You whisper, hands already pulling at his shirt, and he whips it off, sparing only a second before his tongue is intertwined with yours again, your fingertips feeling his smooth skin and tracing his abs.
You push his body down, crawling over him to grind your clothed entrance against his hard cock. Pretty moans falling out of you as your clit gets the stimulation it was craving, forcing your eyes to squeeze shut as your body is submerged in pleasure. Your fiancée is breathless below you, your hair dangling down into his face as your expression presents as angelic, all-consumed by pleasure. Minghao always thought you were the most beautiful woman on earth, but god, you glowed in a different way like this.
Breathing shallowly, you continued dragging yourself against his hardness, your eyes locking with Minghaos as he tilts his head back into the mattress, his gaze lusty yet determined. Those strong arms working their way down to your wetness as you pause your movements, desperate for your fiancée to touch you.
‘Oh my poor baby, you’re soaked,’ He said, using his middle finger to trace circles over you, the panties ruined and your thighs almost dripping. You couldn't even muster a response, his light teasing pressing all of the right spots, and you drop your head to the crook of his neck as he continues his lazy circles. ‘Do you want me to stop?’
You knew it was a baited question. Minghao wanted to see you squirm.
‘No, please.’ You beg, your mouth hot against his sensitive neck as you speak into it, biting at the skin gently.
‘Look at me.’ He says sternly. Pressing one finger into your dripping hole, pushing your panties inside you. It was ludicrous and practically a sin to be so hopelessly at his expense, but you couldn't think past how good it felt.
‘Look at me.’ He repeats with a grit in his teeth, halting his movements to get your full attention. With a rapid snap of the neck up, your faces are inches apart, his hot breath mingling with yours as he scans your gorgeous face, your cheeks reddened, your lips jutted.
You were so beautiful.
‘Good girl.’ Before you can even moan, his mouth is back on yours hungrily, his hands gripping your waist tightly as he guides your soaked clit to rub against his painfully hard cock. ‘Stay just like this, baby.’ Then, in a subtle movement, he slides out from underneath you and discards the rest of his clothing, kneeling behind you.
The heat of his body radiated as he stroked himself whilst inspecting you, wetness dripping down your spread legs, pussy gleaming with arousal. It was one of his favourite sights, and he can’t help himself as he runs his hands up and down your plush thighs, squeezing your ass and letting the cool of his metal engagement band send shivers up your spine.
‘Hao, please.’ With desperation, you push your hips backwards, his cock brushing you, and you let out a hum of satisfaction.
Wordlessly, Minghao begins to guide his cock into your dripping hole, the sensation of you so tight and warm around him making a heavy groan fall from his throat. Similarly, tears begin to cloud your vision as sweet relief washes over you, the feeling of him dragging against your walls combined with his throaty sounds making you dig your nails into the soft white covers.
Slowly, he bullies his way into you, his member hitting every single spot that has you clawing desperately at anything you can. As he bottoms out with a hiss, a loud moan leaves your lips, the overwhelming feeling of his tip mingling with your cervix, making you clench around him.
It felt insane how well his body slotted into yours. Your pussy was moulded to fit his cock, your walls hugging it in every single place. There was nothing that could compare to the feeling of being conjoined with one another, ecstasy blasting through you both as you thrive in the overwhelming feeling of one another.
Unable to restrain himself, Minghao begins to fuck into you with a quickened pace, the room becoming a soundtrack of filthy sounds; his hips slapping your thighs, the squelch of your soaked hole, the mixture of grunts and moans the two of you emit.
Minghao’s eyes stare as your skin jiggles with each thrust, his fingers gripping your hips so tight that bruises will blossom beneath them tomorrow. His breathing is heavy as he relishes the euphoric feeling of you bent over, receiving him so willingly and squeezing him impossibly tighter.
The wicked thrusting has you seeing stars, the sensations overwhelming, and you start hurtling towards your release, moans running at free flow out of you as your fiancée only quickens his pace.
‘H-Hao,’ You moan, gripping the mattress below you as if it could receive some of the immense pleasure rippling through you.
‘Yes, baby?’ He pants out, letting one hand rub up your side in a soothing manner, his hips and arms doing completely contrasting things to your body.
‘I’m close.’ You sputter out, lathered in his deep strokes that were practically splitting you in half.
‘Mhm,’ He hums, only speeding up impossibly faster as he wraps a strong arm around your waist to pull you into him, not letting his cock disconnect from the comfort of your slick.
Your head is slack on Minghao’s shoulder as he holds your back tightly to his chest, letting his hand ghost over your neck. He nips at your ear as he continues to piston into you ruthlessly, your release within an arm's reach.
‘You’re doing so well, baby,’ Minghao whispers in your ear, tightening his grip on your neck as he chases your high. ‘Such a good girl, my good girl.’
That was all it took before you were tightening around him, high-pitched moans tumbling out of you. The coil within you snaps, sending your vision white, heat flushing out of you as you squeeze your eyes shut tightly.
Minghao keeps fucking you ruthlessly, holding the weight of your body as he chases his own release, small whines escaping your mouth as he overstimulates you. The grip of his hands gets tighter and tighter as he grunts in your ear, muttering incoherently as all he thinks about is how good you feel.
‘Fuck ____.’ He gasps, his breath taken from him as he spurts inside you, his warm milky release coating your insides, his thrusts becoming sloppy as he slows.
The room is swamped in the sound of heavy breathing, Minghao pulling out and helping you lie down gently, kissing your shoulders, all the way down your spine and then returning to kiss the crown of your head.
‘You’re so beautiful.’ He speaks with delicate sincerity, your sleepy gaze watching his naked figure disappear off to the bathroom.
‘I love you.’ You mumble, grinning shyly and nuzzling your face into the pillow. Your fiancée reappears with a wet towel, wiping you cautiously as he appreciates your gorgeous figure.
‘I love you more, my love.’ He replies, Your vision became as your body relaxed into the plush mattress. With a light but solid grip, you tug him onto the bed, his musky scent washing over you once again, and you sigh happily.
‘Just cuddle me, baby.’ You murmur, tiredness taking over you as he pulls you into his chest, placing the covers over the two of you. Peppering kisses on your head, he watches you gently doze off, and his heart feels like it could burst with how much he adores you.
Even submerged in sleep, your hand finds his, engagement rings clicking quietly together, and Minghao closes his eyes in contentment, letting sleep lull him away with you.
