pairing: dk x gn!reader
wc: 0.4k
genre:: fluff
(a/n): this is a request by (@teddy0809) thank you for the cutest idea ever!! lipstick tests + seokmin being all soft and giggly?? yes please. i had way too much fun writing this one hope you like it!
“Okay. This one’s called Endless Cherry Kiss.”
You hold up the tube dramatically like it’s some sacred artifact. Seokmin, sprawled across your couch in a sweater two sizes too big, squints at it.
“Endless?” he echoes, poking his cheek. “Like, endless kissing?”
You ignore the way his ears go a little red and nod seriously. “We’ll see if it’s worthy.”
He sits up straighter, already bracing. His cheeks are a watercolor painting of reds and pinks, each smudge more enthusiastic than the last. Lipsticks are scattered across the table in front of you like little soldiers who’ve already lost the battle.
You apply the new shade carefully, then turn to him. “Ready?”
Seokmin smiles—big and bright and totally unbothered by the growing lipstick museum on his face. “For you? Always.”
You lean in and kiss his cheek, soft and quick.
Both of you pause.
He blinks at you, hopeful. “Did it… work?”
You lean back and squint. “Nope.”
Seokmin pouts immediately, lifting a finger to the new cherry print. “You said this one was endless. I feel lied to.”
You burst out laughing as he flops backwards with a dramatic sigh, arms splayed out like he’s been emotionally betrayed. “We’ve tested twelve,” he says. “Twelve! That’s, like… a dozen kisses!”
“I can do math,” you tease, picking up another lipstick.
He peeks at you with a small grin. “I’m just saying… if we don’t find a kiss-proof one, I wouldn’t be that upset.”
You glance at him, cheeks warm. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he whispers, eyes soft now. “This is kinda my favorite experiment.”
You pause. Then lean in and kiss the tip of his nose.
GENRE + TAGS — non-idol au, fluff!!!, established relationship, boyfriend seokmin, body appreciation, suggestive (if you squint!), lots of kissing, skinship, pet names: baby (reader's)
LYR SPEAKS! — thinking about seokmin extra today so here's a fic for you <3
NOW PLAYING — stay with me (miki matsubara)
WORD COUNT + NETWORKS — 668 // @kstrucknet & @k-records
"every part of you is absolutely beautiful, you know that?"
seokmin's hands ghost over your bare stomach as he gently lifts up your oversized shirt, and you giggle as he kisses your neck, leaning into his warm body. "really?"
"really. it's crazy how perfect you are, baby." seokmin sighs against your skin, breathing in the faint scent of the body wash still clinging to your skin. his hands are soft against the plane of your tummy, and he gently caresses the skin with his thumbs, kisses trailing down your neck and back as he nips at your clean skin.
"your hands are my favorite, i think." seokmin smiles against your skin, and you tilt your head to give him more access, grinning from ear to ear. "why is that?"
"i love the way they fit into mine. they're just the right size so i can interlock your fingers with mine completely." seokmin takes your hands in his as if to prove a point, squeezing them as you squeeze back.
"and your back." seokmin's warm breath fans across your back, and you feel him kiss the outline of your spine, taking deep breaths with every peck. "it's always so soft and smooth. and it curves against my body as if it's memorized the way to do so."
"don't even get me started on your thighs." seokmin chuckles lowly, and you shake your head, playfully slapping seokmin's hands. "lee seokmin! be appropriate!"
"what? you didn't even let me finish my sentence, baby." seokmin buries his head in the crook of your neck, and you roll your eyes, shutting them afterwards as you speak. "fine then. go on."
"thank you." seokmin kisses your neck as a sign of thanks, smile still wide on his mouth as you feel it against your skin.
"i was going to say how soft and warm they are. and the fact that they support my big head perfectly." seokmin says softly, and you laugh, eyes flying open at the feeling of seokmin's hands ghosting over your thighs under the blanket.
"and...if you'd like to turn around," seokmin removes his head so you can turn to face him. he smiles when he meets your gaze, brown eyes sparkling with adoration as he grins. "i could talk about your pretty face, if you'd like."
you roll your eyes, nevertheless wrapping your arms around seokmin's neck as he pulls you closer to his face. "your soft eyes are my favorite to look into after a long day, and your cheeks are so soft i'd never get tired of cupping them when i kiss you.
"your nose is one of my favorite things about your face because we touch noses all the time, and don't even get me started on your lips, baby." seokmin chuckles lowly, eyes darkening slightly as he pecks them softly once. "i love everything about your lips. the color, the way they feel on my body, the way they taste—"
"okay, seok, i think that's enough out of you." you pull away, blush dusting your cheeks as seokmin laughs, eyes disappearing into pretty crescent moons as he nods.
"fine. i'll stop. lord forbid i want to talk about my pretty baby," seokmin rolls his eyes, sass filling his voice as you chuckle at his expression. you fall silent afterwards, staring at seokmin's handsome face before you smile softly at him.
"thank you, seokmin. i'm glad you love all these parts of me. i'm so lucky to have you as my boyfriend. so, so lucky." you bring your lips to his, hands going to his bed-tousled hair as he groans against you. his hands are grabbing at your waist as softly as they can, pulling you towards him as he pulls away seconds later.
"not as lucky as i am to fall asleep and wake up to you every day, baby." seokmin winks, and you can't help but giggle, throwing your head back and letting yourself soak in the all-encompassing love of lee seokmin.
The sternness of his tone surprised both of you, so much so that when you snapped to look at him, both of you froze. Your moon-sized eyes were further proof that your childhood nickname still rings true to date, although your being the deer made him the oncoming car in this scenario.
He didn’t love that analogy.
Recovering quickly, he pulled the Ace from his sleeve: the surefire way for one of you to get the other onboard:
“I triple-dog dare you to come with me.”
pairing: lee seokmin x reader
summary: when you're left off the guest list to seokmin's parent's thirtieth anniversary party, you're content to keep your questions to yourself and stay home. seokmin, on the other hand, is not content. in fact, he pulls the one card he knows will always win.
au: childhood best friends to lovers
genre: fluff, angst, smut
type: one-shot
rating: 18+ only. minors do not have my consent to interact.
wc: 13k
cw: pov switches, complicated sibling dynamics (seokmin’s), there is in fact one (1) bed, halmonis gone wild, stupid childhood nicknames, fingering (v), oral sex (m receiving), multiple orgasms, implied penetrative sex (p in v).
reader notes: afab, uses she/her pronouns, wears a dress/heels to the party, is implicitly an only child. the setting is intentionally ambiguous, so she's not implicitly korean and/or asian. there are no descriptions of body shape/size, complexion, etc.
a/n: thank you to the incomparable @daechwitatamic for beta-ing this! it's been a long damn time since i've written anything, so this might not have seen the light of day without jo, the hype-man. on that note, i suck at summaries; just read the fic, lmao.
svt masterlist. svt permanent taglist. multi permanent taglist.
For being the walking disaster that he is, there have been shockingly few moments in Lee Seokmin’s life where he’s needed to shove his oversized foot into his oversized mouth.
Prior to the incident at your apartment, the last time he’d embarrassed himself like this was when he’d asked his oldest sister, Soyeon, in earnest whether or not she was pregnant, only to learn that she was just bloated; and he’s just an ass.
To your credit, you’re far from cruel when he slips up, but that almost makes it worse. You visibly deflate when he asks his well-intentioned but ill-fated question, rather than letting him have it the way his two siblings would have done.
The day in question went like this:
He asked, “Did you reserve your room yet for the 31st? If not, we can double up. It’ll be a lot cheaper.”
And you blinked, stunned like you’d been slapped. “Have I what?”
It dawned on you both at that moment that, for whatever reason, his parents’ thirtieth anniversary party was in fact news to you. Two things then happened at once: you tried to hide your surprise and the twinge of pain that comes with being excluded; and he racked his stupid brain to find any explanation for why you had to feel either one of those things.
The best option he found was to gently toss his middle sister, Seonmi, under the metaphorical bus.
“Seonmi’s been working on something special for them. You know how she gets,” he waved dismissively. “So obsessed with finding the perfect napkins — ” He wiggled his fingers for emphasis. “— and creating custom cocktails, that she misses the forest for the trees.”
You didn’t look convinced. Likewise, you didn’t look any less uncomfortable.
Fuck.
“I’m sure it was an honest mistake.” To drive his point home, he reached from his spot on your couch to give your knee a reassuring squeeze. “I have a plus-one, so it’s not like it’ll be a logistical problem. You belong there as much as we do.”
And he meant it, wholeheartedly.
All his life, the running joke has been that Soonyi and Minseok Lee have four kids: two biological daughters, a younger son, and his otherwise unrelated twin, who spent more time sleeping on his top bunk than in her own home next door.
The way he saw it — and the way he’s sure his parents would see it — is that no family gathering is complete without you. That’s a hill he’d die on if need be.
You shifted in your seat, which caused his hand to slip off your knee, whether or not you meant for it to happen. Glancing uneasily out your window, you worried your bottom lip between your teeth, mumbling, “I don’t know…”
Seokmin frowned. You didn’t see it, though, and therefore weren’t moved by it. Instead, you cycled through your anxious thoughts at high velocity. If he was still touching you, he’d be worried that your sparking brain might catch him on fire.
“What if it’s not a mistake? I mean, what if it’s a couples thing?”
He couldn’t even classify these questions as rhetorical because he wasn’t meant to hear them in the first place. Though you asked out loud, each one of them was for your ears only. From his half of the couch — miles away — his frown deepened, unbeknownst to you.
“You know, Seonmi follows me on Instagram; she’d know that Kai and I broke up a few months ago. Maybe she doesn’t want me to feel awkward? Even if I went, and I didn’t feel weird about that, her expecting it to be weird might make it weird, right?”
Fuck.
You’d spiral all day if Seokmin didn’t stop you. As much as he loves how thoughtful you are, he knows better than most that you have a tendency to take it too far, inflicting that relentless consideration on yourself until it wounds.
“Bambi.”
The sternness of his tone surprised both of you, so much so that when you snapped to look at him, both of you froze. Your moon-sized eyes were further proof that your childhood nickname still rings true to date, although your being the deer made him the oncoming car in this scenario.
He didn’t love that analogy.
Recovering quickly, he pulled the Ace from his sleeve: the surefire way for one of you to get the other onboard:
“I triple-dog dare you to come with me.”
Begrudgingly, you’d conceded, just like Seokmin hoped you would. You sat with him while he figured out travel plans to the mountain resort, helped him visualize what the hell he needed to wear to an event like this. When the time came, you sent him half the cost for the room he booked, even though he repeatedly insisted that you didn’t need to chip in.
Now, that unsolicited sum sits untouched in his Venmo balance. You sit next to him on the night train out of town.
Sit, he thinks, is a bit of an understatement. You’re barely upright, so exhausted from your work day that his shoulder and side are bearing most of your weight. His arm went from tingling to numb an hour ago, but Seokmin doesn’t mind. There isn’t a burden he wouldn’t carry for you, up to and including you yourself.
Besides, he’s not worse off for being left to his own devices. In fact, he keeps himself thoroughly entertained by taking selfies of the pair of you. The aftermath will stay securely in his camera roll — largely because you’d kill him if you saw how squishy your face is, pressed against his coat, or how your little pout trembles slightly, almost as if you’re trying to talk through your sleep — but he still finds it worth the risk. This mochi-cheeked version of you is one of his favorites.
When Seokmin has amassed enough silly photos to comprise a dossier, he tucks his phone back into his pocket with a self-satisfied smile. You’re still out cold, so you don’t stir at his subtle movements or the sound of the concession trolley rattling your way down the aisle.
The girl manning said trolley is significantly outweighed by the thing itself. She hardly looks old enough to have graduated high school, he figures, and he can’t imagine how it is that she’s working at this hour — or how she got stuck doing this job, when it takes all she’s got to maneuver the giant metal contraption through all the train cars.
“Anything, sir?” She asks politely, albeit slightly out-of-breath.
Even though she’s speaking to him, her gaze is directed squarely at his hat, leading him to believe that she may also be too shy for her job. Nonetheless, it’s been two entire hours since his dinner, and he’s on the brink of starving to death, so he coughs up a few bills in exchange for several different snacks.
She could do him the kindness of assuming his massive pile of food is for sharing, but she doesn’t. She gestures to you and whispers, “Anything for your —?”
Seokmin intercepts the question, knowing exactly where it’s headed: in the same direction as the million others like it that he’s heard over the years.
“— parole officer?” He supplies with a smile, “No, this nap is fueled by a lot of crab rangoon. She’ll be out for the duration, I fear.”
Both halves of his response seem to stun her, which means he has to cover his inevitable laugh with a fake cough.
This bit of yours will truly never get old, although the implications that prompt it did a long time ago. It was a stroke of genius on your part, dodging inaccurate references to your relationship status by offering up something too absurd to converse around.
“You two make such a cute couple,” an Uber driver once told you.
“He’s not in a relationship,” you’d politely corrected him. “He’s in witness protection. I’m duty-bound to keep him and his identity safe.”
The silence turns awkward, so Seokmin thanks the girl and gives her a smile he hopes says, “you’re allowed to run away from me now; I won’t take it personally.” She bows her head a little too eagerly, then skitters off with a grimace, like she pulled something in her neck.
Alone again with you, he wiggles gently upright in his seat so that you can rest more comfortably against his pectoral, rather than his shoulder bone. Even though you’re still asleep, Seokmin swears he hears a quiet mmpfh, as if you’re expressing gratitude. He bites his lips to keep from smiling, knowing that smiling in your proximity is one step away from laughter: the only thing you’ve never been able to sleep through.
Instead of giving into the urge, he murmurs, “You should get paid royalties whenever we use that joke. Being as smart as you are should pay off.”
Now, he knows he’s not simply hearing things because you’re just barely loud enough to overcome your own mumbling.
“Agreed,” you sigh on an exhale before slipping off to sleep again.
“Well?”
There are two beats between his first question and his next: the unfilled gap you’ve left in the conversation and the cab’s trunk shutting firmly. “‘s that cool with you?”
Seokmin stares at you, staring at him. His expression is soft, like your lack of responsiveness is something to be fond of, rather than annoyed by. It’s unexpectant, too, leaving the door wide open.
You blink. “Sorry — I — What did you say?”
Hitting him when he least expects it, you shift your suitcase from your dominant hand so you can gesture properly to the bright, poorly crocheted bucket hat flopping over his forehead. “It’s a bit hard to hear you. That hat is so loud.”
His quizzically raised eyebrows drop in an instant. Likewise, that airy smile of his flattens into a straight line.
Bullseye.
“Is it me that you hate?” He asks, tone dead serious as he points his finger towards his own chest. “Or is it the very concept of whimsy?”
You’re too busy biting back a grin to protest when, without being asked, Seokmin reaches out and takes the handle of your suitcase into his own hand, as well as the garment bag you’d draped over your arm. Before turning away to abscond with both sets of luggage in addition to his own, he shoots you an incredulous look. It dissolves entirely before his face even disappears from view.
“This is an objectively delightful hat,” he mutters, nonetheless, in furtherance of the bit.
He spots a member of hotel staff standing on the sidewalk directly outside the hotel’s double doors and pleads his case to them. “She made me this hat, you know,” he announces, gesturing back to you with a nod.
The valet’s uniform hat casts a shadow under the lamplight, but it doesn’t do enough to hide the expression on their face. It is abundantly clear — even in the dark — that they didn’t hear a single word Seokmin said before he offered up that bit of trivia, seemingly apropos of nothing. They muster up a customer-service smile that doesn’t reach their eyes and tell him it’s a wonderful hat. Meanwhile, you roll your eyes from behind because nothing either of them just said is true.
That hat is the byproduct of delusions of grandeur and innumerable skeins of color-conflicting yarn. You made it for yourself, believing that you were the kind of cute and kitschy person who could pull it off; and inconsolable weeping Christ, were you wrong. It was — no, is — your greatest fiber arts failure.
Frankenstein’s floral monster would be in a secondhand shop somewhere if you’d had any say in the matter. It isn’t because you didn’t. Seokmin “rescued” it from the “to donate” pile on your bedroom floor. Since then, he’s worn it at every — public — opportunity, season be damned.
Admittedly, he’s exactly the kind of cute and kitschy person who can pull it off, but you’ve decided out of sheer pettiness to keep that appraisal to yourself.
You take your time catching up to him, both because his long legs make it hard to keep pace; and because the room is reserved under his name. After all, he’s the welcomed guest, not the reluctant party-crasher. The receptionist is already handing him a white keycard when you finally reach the desk. Seokmin holds it up between his index and middle fingers, closed-eye grin sparkling in a matching shade of ivory.
Though the journey up to your shared room is long, the real trip is being confined to an elevator with mirrors for walls.
No matter how hard you try to avert your eyes, you manage to keep finding some new, horrible angle of your stale, post-train state. It’s torture. Three versions of you stare back with deep, dark undereye circles; and all you can think about is how dull your complexion is — especially in comparison to Seokmin, who may as well be bioluminescent with the way he glows from the inside out.
It’s joy, you know, his primary state of being and something he radiates like no other. He’s happy to be here, happy that you’re here, and happy to be happy. Whether or not he means it to be, it’s infectious. Now, you feel yourself starting to smile, too.
Despite your quiet observation, you must have missed him looking at you. Seemingly out of nowhere, he carefully sets down your belongings, raises his now-empty hand, and cups the right side of your jaw. Unaware that you’ve frozen solid, he swipes his thumb carefully over your cheek, tilting his own head to the side and frowning.
“I got you bad, huh?”
You blink.
“The zipper on my coat,” he explains, laughing. “Looks like it took a bite out of you when you used me as a pillow on the train.”
For reasons you can’t possibly explain, the only word to roll off your tongue is a sheepish, “Sorry.”
For a second, Seokmin is just as confused as you are about whether you’re needlessly apologizing to him or his coat. He chuckles quietly at how easily distracted you both are, then he gets back to the point: “Does it hurt?”
“No.”
Your response comes unnaturally quick. Your pulse does, too, when you finally make eye contact with him. After clearing your throat, you give him a half-hearted smile, ignoring whatever medical event you seem to be experiencing. “I didn’t know it was there until now.”
He hums in acknowledgment, then rescinds his hand. You watch in silence while he re-encumbers himself with your luggage and turns back to face the elevator doors, which open almost immediately.
Seokmin steps out easily, like the weight of your respective burdens doesn’t mean a thing. “I’d say this way, please, but I’ve already forgotten the room number,” he admits with a sheepish laugh. “The keycard’s in my pocket.”
You take his cue and reach into the front, right pocket of his coat for the keycard. As soon as you see the room number, you snort.
“You booked room number 218 because that’s your birthday, and then… what? You forgot your own birthday?”
“I’m deeply flawed.” He sighs, put-upon. “Now, let’s go, Bambi. It feels like you packed a week’s worth of bricks.”
There’s no time to point out that you never asked him to carry your suitcase or bag for you in the first place. Likewise, there’s no opportunity to ask exactly how many bricks is a week’s worth. He’s on the move again before you can blink, energy evident in each step regardless of how late it is.
Once again, you follow Seokmin’s lead. Despite the signage, which is clearly visible on the wall, he walks confidently in the wrong direction, prompting you to grab him gently by the elbow and steer him the opposite way. His smile doesn’t falter; he plays it off as if he was just testing how closely you’re paying attention.
It takes several turns down several additional hallways before the pair of you reach your target. When you come to room 218, you tap the keycard against the reader, causing the lock to click open. You turn the handle, push the door open into the room, and step awkwardly out of the way so your personal bellhop can get by.
“This is what I was trying to tell you when you so viciously insulted my favorite accessory.” Seokmin nods his head towards the center of the room. “All of the rooms Seonmi included in the reservation block have a king-sized bed — singular. The rooms outside the block are criminally overpriced for ski season.”
It’s far from the first time you’ve doubled up, so you shrug. “Just like old times, right? Like, when you thought your house was haunted, and you forced your way into the top bunk with me?”
“First of all,” he says as he sets both of your suitcases down and places one hand on his hip, the other pointing at you. “We were six.”
After locking the door behind you, you toe off your shoes, smirking at him from over your shoulder. “What’s your second point?”
“It was haunted —” He insists. Then his stern expression melts into something smug, the way it always does when he’s about to blatantly rewrite history. “— and you asked me to come up there because you were scared.”
A laugh slips out of you automatically, but you selflessly decide to let him have this. Crossing to him, you pat him on the bicep, patronizingly simpering all the while, “You are the brave one.”
Even though you’re both cowards, and he knows it, he pockets this little victory with a pleased hum and a grin.
Turning away from him, you make a beeline for the closet area near the door. There, you shuck off your coat and hang it up, out of the way. While you do, Seokmin passes you both your garment bag and his. From there, the pair of you work in efficient silence: you, pulling your respective formal wear from their bags and smoothing out any wrinkles; him, tucking away your extensive collection of toiletries in the bathroom.
When everything is in its place, you turn back around and notice for the first time how beautiful the room actually is. Though the shades of the floor-to-ceiling windows are almost completely drawn, the snow-covered mountains are at least partially visible through the gap in fabric. If you had the time, you’d spend all day tomorrow sitting on the forest green, velvet chaise directly in front of the window, staring at frosty peaks so massive, they feel close enough to touch.
To your right, an electric fireplace heats the room, while a portrait-framed television hovers on the wall above the mantle, flipping through famous artworks as a screensaver. In between flashes of Van Gogh’s Almond Blossoms and Klimt’s The Kiss, you catch a glimpse of Seokmin’s smile reflecting on the black screen.
Awestruck, you turn to him and sigh, “Don’t let me get used to this.”
He jerks his thumb to his right, gesturing towards the bathroom. “Don’t judge me if I steal one of the bathrobes. They’re probably more expensive than half the shit in my apartment.”
“I won’t, but they’ll bill you for it when they figure it out,” you warn him. “On that note, do you need to shower or anything before I start my skincare side quest?”
Seokmin shakes his head, causing the crocheted abomination to flop. “All yours. My hair’ll get weird if I don’t deal with it tomorrow before we head out.”
And with that mental image of his insurmountable cowlick, you quickly grab your pajamas and shuffle off towards the bathroom.
The first few seconds after you close the door are spent gawking at the insanely intricate, geometric tile pattern in the walk-in shower. Thinking of how much time it must’ve taken to lay each one of them, you set to work on your own tedious task: your ten-step regimen of cleansers, toners, serums, and moisturizers. Seokmin says otherwise, but you don’t think any of them truly make a difference. As stupid as you know it is, the routine itself is therapeutic, even if your skin is no more bouncy and glowy than it was before.
When it’s all said and done, you emerge from the bathroom to find your best friend stretched out on the half of the bed nearest the door with his eyes fixed on his phone screen. It’s the side of the room he always chooses, claiming that it’s to protect you from any intruders, but you know the truth: he’s too much of a freeze baby to sleep near the window, and he knows you like it cold.
“Feeling refreshed?” He mumbles to the best of his ability; his sweatshirt hood is pulled up and drawn so tightly that it squishes his cheeks and chin, restricting his movement.
Chuckling quietly as you go, you pad over to your half of the bed and slip under the comforter. Like a moth to a flame, the other occupant sends his last text, tosses his phone to the side, and scoots closer to you, eager to siphon whatever extra body heat he can. His head winds up on your shoulder, while your cheek rests against the top of his head.
“Before you tell me that I look it, I’d encourage you to stare long into the abyss that is my under-eye circles.”
When he laughs, it’s merely a puff of air from his nose. “You never look as tired as you feel,” he says distractedly, fiddling with the drawstrings of his hoodie. “Pretty miraculous, given how little sleep you get.”
That comment warms you up so thoroughly, you wonder if he can feel it. Then, you wonder if that was the point. You intend to tease him for that, but then it dawns on you how fidgety he’s being. It’s rare for him.
“You okay, Thumper?”
It feels silly, using that nickname after so long. Your clumsiness stuck around for the ride, continuing Bambi into perpetuity; but he grew out of his companion name when he hit puberty, and his giant feet were suddenly proportional to the rest of him.
He’s certainly no bunny, nor is he a child, but the low ebb of anxiety rolling off of him reminds you of the scared little neighbor boy you used to know. It fits, even if it is silly.
At first, Seokmin begins his explanation without peeling his gaze off his restless fingers. “Apparently, Seungcheol and Mingyu are in town.” Then, his eyes slowly lift up to find you peering down at him. “They want to meet up to go snowboarding before we leave.”
Ah.
There it is: the top-secret look in his eye that only you can decipher. The one he’s been practicing for years, at your insistence, for moments like this, when he needs to be talked into something. When he needs to be brave and avoid missing out on something he’d love, solely because it freaks him out.
You respond the same way you always have; the way you once pinky-promised you always would: “I triple-dog dare you.”
He sighs deeply, neither fully resigned nor relieved, but then he nods. His head knocks slightly against your shoulder as he does. “I’ll do it.”
And that’s that; it’s settled.
Or so you think.
A beat passes in silence, until Seokmin suddenly pipes up again, “But you’re going to have to hold my hand on the chair lift, or I’ll pass out and fall to my death.”
“Deal.”
You grab his hand now in consideration of your promise and scratch affectionately at his palm. Surprisingly, his thoughts haven’t made him clammy. His skin is even softer than usual, likely due to the expensive hotel lotion he’s undoubtedly now harboring in his suitcase. Tongue firmly in cheek, you look at him sideways.
“Just — leave the hat in your suitcase, okay? The snow will be blinding enough.”
Seokmin’s been dressed and ready for at least thirty minutes, but you’re still standing exactly where you have been for the last forty-five. Face pinched, you turn this way and that in front of the mirror, smoothing fabric that’s already wrinkle-free, apparently for the hell of it.
“I’m oh-for-three.” Your exasperated sigh is punctuated by your bare, right foot stomping on the carpet. It doesn’t make the impact you likely hope it will, at least sonically. It does, however, speak volumes about how close to the ledge you are.
“All of them looked good,” he says earnestly. “I think this one is my favorite, though, if that means anything.”
Apparently, this is the wrong answer. Your wild-eyed gaze lifts from your own reflection until you’re staring him dead in the eye through the mirror.
“Why did I even pack this?” You ask, “Do you see this?”
Suddenly, you lift a manicured hand to point at your neckline, from which he’d admittedly been averting his eyes. “This is too much cleavage for a family function, isn’t it?”
As quickly as you glanced at him in the first place, you go right back to fussing with your dress, thankfully missing the way he swallows thickly.
Fuck, now he’s staring — but you’re the one that made him look in the first place — and he can feel heat rising to his ears, a dead giveaway. His sudden silence does enough to communicate his struggle. He has no idea how to respond without vaulting over the boundaries of your friendship.
Is it hot in here?
Deciding to rely on his usual tactic, he jokes his way out.
“If you think I’ll ever side against tiddie…” He forces a grimace, shaking his head gravely. “Then you really don’t know me at all.”
You laugh loudly, and whatever one-sided tension filled the room snaps like a twig. Better still, the smile you give him stays on your face while you reassess your dress. Seokmin takes it as a personal victory that you commit to his choice, rather than cycle back through your options for the second time.
While this means that you’ll both be able to hit the open bar sooner rather than later, the biggest upside is that he no longer has to keep excusing himself to the bathroom so you can change again, and again, and again.
You finish up quickly, tossing on jewelry, and then turn to him. His shoulder keeps you steady while you slip into your devilishly high heels. Seokmin pays them little mind now, however; his attention is drawn to the accessories you’ve chosen. Sure, they match perfectly with the rest of your outfit, but that’s not what strikes him. It’s the fact that everything you’ve picked was gifted to you by his parents at one point or another.
Unable to stop himself, he reaches out and gently taps on one of your dangling earrings. “Eighteenth birthday,” he muses to himself.
Then, both his gaze and his hand lower to your necklace. He skims his fingertip along the delicate, gold chain, inadvertently making you freeze up. “Christmas 2019?”
You shake your head slightly, though it barely counts as movement.
“Ah,” Seokmin corrects himself. “2020.”
Sensing that he’s somehow made you uncomfortable, he reels himself back in and clears his throat. “Shall we?” He asks, furnishing you with a bent arm to loop yours through.
You take his cue, link your arm to his, and sigh, “I suppose we shall.”
The walk to the elevator is quiet, in that neither one of you says a thing. Seokmin can hear the gears in your head turning, though, without any conversation to drown them out.
You step inside that glorified, mirrored box; and for a few minutes, he lets you work through the thing he knows ruined your sleep last night. That is, until he hears your breathing come a little quicker than usual.
“Hey.”
It was supposed to be a jumping off point. He was going to go from there and reiterate that you belong here with him. The plan was to reassure you for as long as it takes to get you to believe it, but you look up at him almost helplessly, and his Etch-a-Sketch brain is wiped clean in an instant.
The very best he can do is smile and offer a single word: “Hi.”
“Hi,” you whisper back, eyes twinkling.
Your plagued frown curves slightly back in the right direction. The creeping shroud of doom lightens, if only a little bit.
“That’ll do, pig.” You swat his arm, but he says it again, emphatically, “That’ll do.”
Halfway through you scolding him for quoting Babe at a time like this, the elevator door reopens, ready to regurgitate the pair of you out onto the ballroom level.
Unlike the lobby, which sits only one floor below, this floor looks like it was ripped straight from the pages of a fantasy novel. Everywhere he turns, there’s something new — and vaguely elven — to look at. Fairy lights hang in perfectly spaced arches from the lofted ceiling, delicately illuminating the exposed, wooden beams above. The chandeliers — plural — are crafted out of antlers of some kind, cutting between rugged and highly refined.
As stunning as it all is, Seokmin’s mind snags on a single conclusion. You’re the one who voices it, though, much to his surprise.
“This is the most Seonmi thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” you whisper to him, all without taking your eyes off the extravagance in front of you. “Is this a dress rehearsal for her wedding next year?”
He bites down on his lips hard to keep his laughter to himself. Of course, you’re dead on. Nothing about this space feels like his parents, who are supposed to be the sole focus of this entire event. He already found it odd that they agreed to such a big to-do in the first place — especially when it would require their loved ones to go out of their way, literally and financially — but this is….
“Am I being petty, or is this kind of… selfish?”
Petty, no.
Psychic? Probably.
“You’re right, and you should say it.” Seokmin nods and withdraws his arm from yours so that he can drape it properly around your shoulder. “This way to the beer, please. We’ll need it.”
Merely four steps in the direction to the bar, and a screech rings out from somewhere neither of you can locate. In fact, Seokmin’s head is turned the opposite way when someone launches themself at you, damn near ripping you from his hold.
“Oh, my god! I knew you’d come!”
Soyeon’s relief in seeing you is palpable. Seokmin can practically feel his bones being crushed as she hugs you tight, swaying from side to side. He catches a glimpse of your expression, which barely peeks through the curtain of his oldest sister’s hair; you’re far happier now than you were in the elevator.
His sister kisses the side of your head. “I missed you so fucking much. I love my residency program, but I hate how far away it keeps me.”
A solid minute passes by like this. When it starts to get unbearable, Seokmin clears his throat, hoping to remind his sister that she hasn’t seen him in months, either; and he’s also standing right here.
Instead of greeting him, Soyeon shoots you a wry smile. “Who is he today? A fugitive you’re harboring?”
In tandem, the two of you appraise him with thoughtfully narrowed eyes. See, this he didn’t miss: being both of his sisters’ least favorite younger sibling.
“Oh, no, though I can see why you think that.” You shake your head, then reach out to pat his shoulder patronizingly. “If anyone asks, this is a foreign diplomat, and I’m the interpreter he can’t understand a word without. Best not say hi to him; he won’t know what you’re saying.”
Soyeon nods, though Seokmin wonders if she truly gets what you’re trying to achieve. Not quite, he realizes a moment later. Instead, she covers his chin with her hand so she can squeeze both his cheeks at once.
“He’s adorable,” she coos. “Doesn’t look old enough or mature enough for diplomacy, though.”
Seokmin rolls his eyes. “Well, we can’t all be doctors, can we?”
Again, in tandem, all eyes on him widen with feigned shock. Between overlapping gasps of “he does understand!” and “someone’s been studying!”, he shakes off his sister’s touch and scowls.
“If you’re going to keep bullying me, can you at least do it at the bar? That way, I can numb my suffering with booze.”
At this, Soyeon drops the charade and pulls him into a hug like a vice grip. She holds him so tightly that his vision starts to get spotty. It’s not until he gently pats her back, begging for air, that she lets him go.
“I missed you too, Thumper,” she swears, prompting you to snicker.
Now, he’s annoyed for a completely different reason — one that makes even less sense to him. That nickname hasn’t bothered him in the last decade, so it shouldn’t now. Then again, the only person who’s called him Thumper since middle school is you.
The rules are different for you, if they exist at all.
“And I promise to catch up with you later, but I’ve got five thousand questions for Bambi, and the answers aren’t half as juicy with you around.”
Just like that, his plus-one is subtracted.
As much as you love Soyeon, she’s no Seokmin. With him, talking is easy; he never rushes to fill silences, doesn’t steer the conversation with a white-knuckled grip.
On the contrary, his oldest sister comes forward with a pickaxe, smashing through small talk while she mines for the wild stories she thinks she’s missed out on since moving away.
You don’t blame her, really. If you spent all your hours in a hospital, only sleeping in the lulls between other people’s trauma, you’d probably become just as intense — the human equivalent of a cracked-open fire hydrant — in the search for closeness, too.
In the thirty minutes you sit with her, you brief her on all the cliffhangers you’d left her with the last time you saw her.
Yes, you’re still stuck with your lease in the same apartment; and the old lady next door still regularly sets off the building’s fire alarm by accident.
No, you decided not to stay with Kai and haven’t spoken since the breakup; he needed more of your time and energy than you wanted to sacrifice for him.
No, Seokmin still hasn’t gone out with anyone that you know of in months. In fact, it’s been so long since either of you have touched on this topic, especially compared to how little time he and the last girl were together, that you can’t even remember her name.
Beyond that first, limited fact, you keep your mouth shut about the rest. It’s not your business to share; and it wouldn’t kill her to ask Seokmin about himself for once.
The longer you spend with her, the more frustrated you find yourself getting, although you keep this fact to yourself, too. Soyeon and Seonmi have both spent their lives fussing about Seokmin, talking about him like he’s some helpless baby, without doing much to get to know him.
That’s it.
If you were at all confident that Soyeon would take the initiative, you’d let her find all of this out on her own. She won’t, you know, but maybe it’ll sink in if she hears it from you.
“Seokmin’s doing really well, now that you mention it,” you offer, though she barely mentioned him in the first place. “He got promoted last month; he’s now lead architect on that massive commercial lot downtown. Apparently, it’s still a secret, whatever it is they’re putting there. Must be something special.”
Seokmin is something special, you all but yell inside your head.
Soyeon’s eyes brighten.
Nobody loves secrets quite like she does. You wait for the barrage, anticipating all the questions to which you’ll have to respond with “seriously, I don’t know,” but they don’t come.
Instead, she puts her drink back on its coaster, reaches out, and squeezes your wrist with her slightly chilled hand. “I’m grateful that he’s always had you, Bambi. If he didn’t, I don’t know if he’d lean in to opportunities like that.”
The look on her face tells you she means it. Maybe that’s what makes your stomach sour: that she can sit there, hearing of Seokmin’s accomplishments, and still find a way not to credit him for them.
Anger ignites inside of you. The flames lick up your esophagus, ready to explode, and you suck in a breath with every intention of letting her burn.
But then an arm slinks around your waist. Seokmin’s head bumps slightly against yours until you’re cheek to cheek.
“I hope I’m interrupting something.”
For a second, you think his slight tipsiness caused him to misspeak. Tilting your head to the side the best you can, you look at him out of the corner of your eye and catch his very subtle wink.
Soyeon opens her mouth, but Seokmin makes his wish a reality.
“Sorry, sis,” Seokmin says, entirely unapologetically. “I just found out that the band takes requests; and I’ll be goddamned if Bambi and I don’t show you clowns the meaning of dance.”
It takes no encouragement whatsoever for you to slip off your stool, get to your feet, and inch your way closer to his side. Then, like a starting gun was fired, the two of you bolt clumsily away from the bar, with you shouting “sorry!” over your shoulder as you go.
Your heels skid against the dance floor when you finally reach it, but Seokmin steadies you before you can eat shit in front of god and everyone.
“You’re way too expressive, you know that?” The fact that he’s out-of-breath doesn’t keep him from laughing. “I could’ve seen that grumpy turtle face of yours from space.”
Unintentionally, you prove his point, drawing your eyebrows together and frowning. “I do not —”
“— Also, I lied,” he interrupts yet again.
This, coupled with the everything else going on, leaves you too stunned to speak.
“This band is all trot, all the time. They don’t take requests — trust me, I tried — but if you stay here with me long enough, we can kill two birds with one stone.”
Seokmin doesn’t wait for you to answer because he knows it’s a yes. He doesn’t wait for you to assume your position, either, and instead holds your left hand in his right before placing your right on his left shoulder. This close, you feel the urge to tell him how handsome he looks with his hair parted off his forehead. You don’t, however.
The music swells behind you. Seokmin leads, and you follow, swaying slowly and moving across the floor.
“Two birds?” You remember to ask, one eyebrow arched.
His right arm lifts. “Spin,” he whispers. You step under his arm, then twirl. While you’re facing the opposite direction, he continues, “There. Do you see it?”
“Oh, my god.”
You do.
The bar stool you were just occupying is now filled by Seokmin’s great-uncle, Hajoon, while his new and much younger girlfriend, Yunhee, hovers near his shoulder. Even from this distance, you can see the look of abject distress on Soyeon’s face, totally unhidden by her attempt to seem engaged.
You return to your position in front of Seokmin, your hand accidentally landing on his bicep, rather than his shoulder. Flustered by the deceptive bulk there, you immediately scoot your palm back to where it belongs.
He leans in so that only you can hear him. It doesn’t feel necessary at all, given how loud the band’s horn section is, but you don’t recoil this time.
“They had me trapped over by the appetizers,” he explains, low voice making you shiver involuntarily. “Every time he started a story with when I was your age, I wanted to point out that Yunhee hadn’t been born yet.”
You can’t help the laugh that erupts out of you and therefore can’t pull your head away from Seokmin’s ear in time to save him. Instead of wincing or complaining, he looks at you and breaks into laughter of his own as soon as your eyes meet. The effect doubles, and before you know it, both of you are teary-eyed.
“How the hell did you get away from him?”
It’s a feat you've never once managed. Uncle Hajoon’s inability to read a room is equal parts due to his horrible hearing and his tendency to never stop talking. Even if he did leave space in the conversation for you to excuse yourself, you’d never successfully get the message across.
Seokmin lifts his arm again but not for you. He takes his leave to spin himself, simpering as he goes, “That’s where Yunhee came in handy, actually. I didn’t know she had it in her, but she’s not as much of a dud as we initially thought.”
“Oh?”
“She told him that I should be able to dance with my girlfriend, and he shouldn’t keep me any longer.” He shrugs. “It didn’t seem like the time to correct her.”
All the heat in your body goes straight to your cheeks. Nonetheless, you attribute it to the dancing and choke out, “No royalties for me, then.”
“Not this time.” Seokmin shakes his head. “I said that Soyeon was trying to catch up with everyone and would love to hear his stories.”
You bite back a grin. “You’re a bastard, you know that?”
“Maybe.” He smiles with every single one of his teeth. “But you’re free.”
“Surprisingly so. I haven’t felt the Eye of Sauron on me at all yet.” Just in case your statement serves as a jinx, you glance around the room for Seonmi. The tension you’ve been keeping in each one of your muscles slackens when, once again, your radar is blip-free.
“Dinner was supposed to start ten minutes ago. If I had to guess, she’s either leaving a scathing Yelp review or personally waterboarding the chef as we speak.”
“Both at the same time,” you counter, earning a wry smile. “She inherited your mom’s self-assuredness. If she believes she can, she will.”
After the pair of you dance through two more songs, the band breaks, and the hotel’s battalion of waiters come in, bearing domed, silver trays. Seokmin takes off in a hurry for your assigned table in the far corner of the ballroom, so famished that he barely remembers to tug you along behind him.
Through the meal and all its complimentary wine pairings, you do your best to focus on the conversation. Seokmin introduced you to the few people sitting with you that you haven’t had the occasion to meet yet. While he does what comes naturally to him, charming them with ease, you struggle for the first time to pay attention to him.
A few tables over, Seonmi sits down with her fiancé, joining the company of her parents; Soyeon and her date are there, too, leaving Seokmin out by design. Like an insane person, you can only watch her, rather than Seokmin’s blatant theft of bites from your plate. She laughs at whatever jokes her mother cracks, but you’d recognize that look of veiled angst anywhere. She isn’t happy, you realize. You can’t avoid the feeling that you’re the reason why she isn’t.
Time passes, somehow too quickly and too slowly. The plates are emptied, then cleared away by the wait staff — except for your half-empty glass, which is your third. Much like the other guests at your table, the joyful buzz you’d been feeling so far leaves, too.
All that’s left is you, Seokmin, and that ominous, storm cloud you can’t seem to shake.
“You’ll probably feel better if you talk to her.”
He’s always more observant than you give him credit for. You snap out of your zoned-out stare across the room in order to look at him. You frown. “I doubt it. She already looks pissed. Me parading my presence here despite her isn’t going to help anything.”
“Bambi,” Seokmin sighs, not impatient but gentle. “She’s not exactly warm, but she has always liked you. There’s literally no reason why she wouldn’t be happy to see you —”
You open your mouth to argue.
“— that happened over twenty years ago, and you really need to stop feeling guilty about it —”
You close your mouth, cross your arms self-consciously, and sink in your seat. Despite yourself, you glance over at him and catch the way he’s looking at you. He doesn’t need to say the words out loud for you to hear them.
It’s either the unspoken dare, his reassuring, soft-eyed smile, or all the blasted merlot that does you in. You’re not sure which of the three was the coup de grâce, and as you slink off towards her table, you realize it doesn’t matter. For one reason or another, you’ve decided that fear isn’t going to get the better of you this time.
Seonmi somehow senses you coming. Even without the band underscoring your movement, your timid steps across the mahogany parquet should’ve been impossible for anyone to pick up on.
Must be an older sister thing, you think, being doomed to keep a perpetual eye on others.
She doesn’t say anything when you slip into the chair next to her, which doesn’t bode well but isn’t a deal breaker, in and of itself. The important thing is that she doesn’t get up to leave. You tell yourself that this is a good sign. The knot in your stomach begs to differ, however.
Say something.
Say anything.
“Everything’s… lovely, Seonmi, seriously.” You gesture around you, smiling, but she only gives you a cursory look. “You’ve really outdone yourself with this one.”
Seonmi takes a sip of her cocktail — something bitter, the petty voice in your head assumes — and lets the corner of her mouth rise slightly. If it’s the closest thing you’ll get to a smile, you’ll take it. She hasn’t granted you a proper one in the decades since you got gum in her favorite Barbie’s hair.
“Thanks, kid,” she sighs, setting the drink back down on her personalized, cardboard coaster.
You can’t remember the last time she called you “Bambi”, let alone your real name. Just like Seokmin, you’ve always been a child to her. Apparently, you always will be, no matter what you do.
Her grip around the glass remains rigid, not unlike her overall posture. Condensation weeps under and around her manicured fingers, uninhibited. You watch those droplets soak through the coaster’s design, darkening her parents’ initials and wedding date, while you mull over whose turn it is to talk.
Ultimately, as is usually the case, Seonmi makes this decision for you. Without so much as a glance at you out of the corner of her eye, she muses, “It was a lot of work, getting all the details ironed out.”
You pick up on the subtext immediately. One of those details would’ve been the guest list; another, the invitations. Seokmin assumed it was all an accident and said as much to you no fewer than a hundred times, but this little comment from his sister blows his assurances to smithereens.
Your exclusion wasn’t an accident at all.
Suddenly, somehow, the room is twenty degrees colder. You shoot a panicked glance over to where Seokmin was just sitting, wanting nothing more than to slink back to his warmth with your tail between your legs; but he’s not where you left him. In fact, he’s nowhere to be found.
Fuck.
“Ah,” is the best you can do.
And then the two of you sit awkwardly in silence while the seconds age in dog years.
You should’ve brought a drink over with you so you’d have something to do with your hands. Or your phone — except you left it on its charger, you idiot — or a time machine, so you can revoke your bullshit decision to walk over here in the first —
“He deserves that, don’t you think?”
The combined suddenness of her voice and the switch in topics makes you jolt ever so slightly. You try to pass it off, to pretend that you’re simply adjusting the skirt of your dress, but your efforts go unnoticed. Seonmi is too busy pointing casually ahead, drawing your focus to the center of the dance floor.
Like absolutely no one else is watching, Mr. Lee twirls around his laughing wife, his heart-shaped smile beaming so brightly that it almost hurts your eyes. The love of his life has to hold one of her hands over her mouth to keep her laughter from bursting out; the other hand is raised with the rest of that arm, allowing her husband to spin himself underneath. When he’s halfway through, she surprises him, drops her arm down, and embraces him fully, giggling all the while.
It almost makes you tear up — Mr. Lee’s unabashed, silly love, and how much it reminds you of his spitting-image of a son; the way Seokmin’s mother’s eyes sparkle in the same blissful, radiant way his do. Maybe the same can’t be said for his older sisters, but it’s abundantly clear where Seokmin came from. It’s even clearer where he should end up.
“Yes,” you breathe, and it almost sounds like a laugh because of course, he does. Before you can stop yourself, you ask, “Is that really a question?”
No, you realize too late, it’s bait.
Without batting an eye, she counters, “Is it really so hard for you to let him have that?”
Seonmi turns her head to look you dead in the eye. Confusingly, despite her words, there’s nothing in her tone or gaze that reads like malice. If anything, the slight furrow of her brow shouts concern.
Your mind is spinning too fast to keep up with. Whatever her next move is, you’re too dizzy now to see it coming and too disoriented to follow it. With the knot in your stomach tightening further, you stammer, “Is — what?”
“God,” Seonmi drops her face into her hands. “You don’t get it, do you?”
A fish on dry land, all you seem to know how to do is open and close your mouth. You may not be literally flailing, but with the state your mind is in, you may as well start.
“Seokmin loves love.”
She says each of these words slowly, like she’s trying to hammer each nail through a thick skull.
“It’s the one thing he’s wanted most since he was a kid, yet I can count on one hand the number of short-term relationships he’s been in. He doesn’t ever bring anyone home to meet us; he doesn’t bring anyone to weddings, or parties, or holidays; he just brings you.”
Of course, you’ve been right there through all of his situationships. He’s always scant on details when they end — and you’ve never pressed for any — but you know better than anyone that nothing has stuck long-term.
You’ve never thought about how odd this really is, but with Seonmi spelling it out for you now, you can’t come up with a single, good reason why someone as objectively incredible as Seokmin can’t make these things work — or why, even as you rack your brain, the only constant you can find in his life is you.
She glares now, as if she’s daring you to speak; as if you’ve got anything she’d deem worth adding. The bulldozer revs up again, whether you’re ready or not: “You’ve always been the only person he saves space for, whether or not there’s a place for you, and he has no room left in his life for someone to love him like that —”
Seonmi points again to her parents, who are circling slowly on the dance floor, talking softly to one another.
“So, what is it? Do you truly not see what he’s missing, or are you choosing not to because you like his attention?”
Your eyes burn with tears, but you can’t let them fall, and you can’t wrap your head around why that is.
Who are you hiding them from: Seonmi or yourself?
The longer she stares at you, the muddier it gets. You don’t want her to be right. You don’t want to be the kind of person she’s describing; but there’s something awful whispering in the back of your mind, saying that you might be.
You’ve left every relationship you’ve been in, telling everyone who asks in the aftermath that you like being on your own better. But that’s bullshit. It’s not your own company that you keep when you’re single; it Seokmin’s.
He makes sure that you never spend a day feeling alone, that he’s always available over the phone in the rare times he’s not physically with you. As his best friend, he treats you better than every single one of your exes ever has. Like you’re worth more than anyone else will credit you.
What kind of friend are you if you feel relieved whenever his relationships expire?
Seonmi’s hand drops, landing half-heartedly clenched on the tabletop. Just the same, her voice drops until it’s almost a whisper.
“I am begging you,” she pleads, eyes narrowing desperately as they search yours. “If you don’t want him, someone else will. Please just — get the hell out of their way.”
By the time you reach the elevator, all you’re left with is a blur. You’ve already forgotten how the conversation ended, or which one of you was the first to get up. If she said anything else to you, it was drowned out by your own hammering pulse and a looping chorus of voices validating your biggest fear, stating in no uncertain terms that you don’t belong.
You’re shaking when you reach your floor. Heels clicking under unsteady footsteps, you make for room 218; and as you go, you shove your hand into the well-concealed pocket of your dress for the keycard Seokmin forgot to grab himself on the way out earlier.
He’s certainly not in the room when you finally step inside, although you have no clue where he’s gone. It’s for the best. The door closes behind you, and with no one to see it happen, you burst into tears.
All rational thought flies out the window, shaken off by the tornado of utter confusion tearing through your brain. You grab your suitcase, needing nothing more than to be anywhere else, and begin haphazardly throwing your things back inside of it.
Why did you still come with him, knowing it wouldn’t end well? It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve told him no; he would’ve listened if you truly meant it.
If you didn’t mean it when you initially tried to squirrel your way out of this, why not? Was it just your friend asking sincerely that won you over without a fight; or was it because you knew, deep down, it’d hurt to see him bring someone else?
Why would it hurt?
The answer to that will crack the foundation of everything the two of you have built, but only if you admit it to yourself. It can’t threaten you if you don’t say it out loud, don’t make it real.
So, you won’t.
You’ll bury it deeply enough to forget about, repour the concrete, and tiptoe through the rest of your life with your best friend still at your side.
That is, if your friendship survives the weekend — rather, your sudden departure from it — at all.
“Halmoni, it’s time to go back to your hotel, okay?”
He coos this, as if he’s pleading with a toddler at bedtime, because that’s exactly what it feels like to wrangle the drunk, 80-year-old clinging to his arm.
Physically, she needs to hold onto Seokmin to keep herself steady. Mentally, she’s ready to run and has made several attempts to do just that when she thinks his guard is down. It’s no wonder the hotel staff cornered him and begged him for help; she’s too wily for those who don’t know her.
The manager had at least done him the courtesy of hailing a cab. It sits out front, warm and waiting, while he shepherds his grandmother through the lobby.
“— and another thing!” She slurs.
There is never not another thing. She shouldn’t bother concluding her sentences in the first place; she’s never done talking.
“I told your sister — I said, Sunny —”
Seonmi, he dares to presume, although he doesn’t dare to correct her.
“— you can’t have stuff like this —” She gestures animatedly, albeit vaguely around her. “— in places like this and expect retirees to pay for it! I said — oh, what did I say? — Ah, I said, ‘find me the cheapest motel in the area, or I’ll be staying in your room with you’ —”
Her kitten heels hit the brick outside with an angry thwump.
Seokmin can’t help himself. “She didn’t go for that?”
“No!” His grandmother squawks.
The driver sees the ball of a woman wobbling his way and quickly exits the cab, skirts around it, and flings the back door open for her.
“I can’t imagine why, halmoni,” he lies through his teeth, which shine down on her in his best, least sincere smile. “You’re a blast in a glass.”
She roars with laughter, even while two grown adults work together to pour her into the backseat without bumping her head on the doorframe. “Glast in a blass!”
“Exactly. Can you —?”
He gives up before he finishes voicing his request; it’s no use. Instead, he bends down to hug her and finagles the buckle of her seatbelt while she’s too distracted to fight him off. That click is the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard, after the clunk of the door shutting her in.
By the time Seokmin turns to the cab driver, his grandmother is fully slumped in her seat, pilled peacoat rising and falling with every wine-laced breath.
“I am so sorry.” He sighs, which devolves into a sheepish laugh, and fishes all of the cash out of his pocket. No tip could possibly cover the emotional toll of this ordeal, so he does his best and gives the driver everything he has.
The driver’s eyes widen. Seokmin gets the impression that he doesn’t quite understand the task he’s undertaking.
Poor bastard.
Seokmin continues, “My grandfather is at the inn already; he didn’t feel well enough to come here, but he’ll be ready to get her inside once you drop her off.”
“Sounds easy enough.” The driver smiles and holds out his hand to shake.
Seokmin reciprocates, and he declines to explain just how wrong that assessment is. He thanks the man and chirps a quick goodbye to his grandmother before rushing back inside.
Walking into the ballroom, he hopes to find you and Seonmi laughing about whatever misunderstanding had gotten in your way before. At the very least, he expects you to still be sitting next to each other at the same table. That would be good enough, he thinks; he could assist in repairing the situation from there.
The problem, it seems, is beyond his help. Neither one of you occupies the same table. If his quick scan tells him anything, you’re not even in the same room.
No matter which way he turns, he can’t spot you. His sister, on the other hand, is near the far corner, having what looks like a nightmarish conversation with their parents. There are approximately five billion things Seokmin would rather do than get in the middle of that, but you don’t have your phone on you, and he has no other way to find out where you went.
Above the heads of the two women, Seokmin’s father catches sight of his approach. They lock eyes; there’s something insane in his father’s gaze. The older man shakes his head, mouthing “no.”
Seokmin stops short, raises his hands with the palms up to get across his confusion, and mouths back, “Bambi?”
In response, his father extends a single finger and points upwards. He then makes a shooing motion with his hand. His wife and daughter are so engrossed in their argument that neither of them catches the pantomime or Seokmin’s quick exit, back the way he came.
On the elevator ride upstairs, Seokmin worries. The most likely explanation is that you went to find your phone so that you could find him – but you haven’t texted or called him in the time he’s been looking for you, so he supposes it isn’t likely after all.
Maybe, he thinks, the wine caught up to you. You’re not as strong a drinker as you think you are. While he walks down the hallway to room 218, he steels himself. Even though you both hate it, he’s ready to hold your hair if he walks in and finds you with your head in the toilet. That dress looks too good on you not to be expensive; he’d rather talk you out of your embarrassment tomorrow than have you shell out for dry-cleaning.
You didn’t deadbolt the door behind you, which strikes him as odd. In fact, you didn’t even close it properly; it isn’t latched. All he has to do is tap on it for the door to open.
“Bambi?” He calls out before stepping inside entirely, thinking it’s only decent to confirm in advance that he’s not an intruder. “Sorry for disappearing. I had to pour my grandmother into a cab – it was exactly as awful as it sounds.”
The faint rustling sound he hears isn’t coming from the bathroom, which is both dark and unoccupied. Part of him wants to take this as a good sign, but the rest of him wonders if he’s walking in on a burglary. That flicker of fear is followed by a stupid sense of validation:
You always laugh at him when he cites this as his reason for choosing the bed closest to the door; you claim it’s statistically unlikely. Finally being able to say “I told you so” after a robbery wouldn’t make either of your belongings magically reappear, of course. That said, it might make him feel a little better.
But the figure rooting through your suitcase isn’t a bandit at all. It’s you with your coat on.
“Um,” he starts, unintentionally startling you. “What is….”
His question peters out when you look up at him. There are broken mascara tracks down your cheeks, as if you tried to wipe them off without actually looking at them. Above them, your wide eyes are wet, like you’re seconds away from crying all over again. Even worse, you’re trembling.
Seokmin’s only instinct is to reach for you. Before he can wrap his arms around you, you jerk away from him. “Please don’t.”
So, he stops, though he doesn’t understand why. This is quite literally the only time in your life that you’ve pushed him away.
“What’s going on?” Ideally, he’d project calm at a time like this. He just sounds desperate. “What happened with Seonmi?”
“She — um, she didn’t — It wasn’t that bad; I’m just… You know how sensitive I get when I drink wine.”
Like a switch flips, a half-hearted smile takes over the bottom half of your face. It’s not real; if it was, your eyes would light up and crinkle at the corners. Whatever that look is, it’s bullshit.
Seokmin gestures to your suitcase, where everything you brought with you has been unceremoniously shoved. “Sensitive enough to, what, run away? No. I’m not buying it. She said something — or did something — to make you this upset. Bambi, what happened?”
His urgency is selfish, he knows it. Seonmi’s always been way too intuitive for her own good. There’s no way she hasn’t noticed the way he looks at you when you aren’t looking; how god-awful he is at acting platonic.
He tries — has been trying, for a long time now — to shake these feelings off because he knows you’re not emotionally available. Because he knows who he’s supposed to be for you, and how devastating it would be if he threw your friendship away.
That devastation is right in front of him now; and it’ll push you out of his life forever if he doesn’t shut it down. He has to get in front of it.
You strike first, though. “Seokmin, why didn’t you bring anyone else?”
There are two ways for him to interpret that question: with the emphasis on anyone, meaning not you; or as an escape route. For your sake, he chooses the latter.
“She gave me a plus-one, not a plus-two,” he says softly.
Despite his tone, it must hit you like a punch. You nod curtly, once. “Got it. Basic math. Thanks, Seokmin; that was never my strongest subject.”
Foot, meet mouth.
You immediately set back to work, reaching for the lid of your suitcase to close and zip. Before he thinks once, let alone twice, his hand darts out and flattens against the mesh inner pocket on the top, preventing you from doing so.
“No.” He shakes his head firmly. “Not happening.”
You don’t scowl at him the way he expects, nor do you even stop to look at him. It’s far worse than that; your eyes start swimming, focused helplessly on your suitcase.
When you speak, your voice cracks. “I shouldn’t have come in the first place. I knew that this invitation shit wasn’t an accident; I knew I wasn’t welcome to —”
“— You came anyway.” Seokmin doesn’t mean to snap at you, but the point is moot. Softening at the edges, he quickly continues, “And I’m glad that you did because I don’t want to be here with ‘anyone else’.”
It’s not the whole truth, so it may as well be a lie. You know him too well for him to get away with it; it was stupid of him to try. Your head turns, and the slight narrow of your eyes says it all.
I triple-dog dare you to tell me the truth.
This fork in the road has two dead ends. His only options are to do just that or double down and lie straight to your face, while you see straight through him. Either option pulls the pin, he figures, so it’s no longer a question of who gets hurt; it’s who gets hurt worse.
Seokmin jumps on the grenade.
“I don’t want to be with anyone else!”
It comes out too loudly, startling you. In a way, it’s angry, too. He wishes could project that anger onto Seonmi for starting shit, as usual, but the person he’s maddest at is himself for putting you both in this position.
For the first time ever, he can’t decipher the expression on your face. He’d shove his foot into his mouth to try and keep himself quiet, but his adrenaline is firing on all cylinders, and he can’t seem to stop shouting.
“And I’m really fucking sorry to say it because I know you don’t want to hear it, not from me or anyone else. So, you can leave, alright? I’m not going to stop you.”
The force of the surprise almost knocks the air out of him, so quick that Seokmin can’t process what’s happening until his back is flush to the wall behind him — until your hands, flat against his white button-up, curl to grip the fabric, and you kiss him so hard that he sees stars.
You’re surprised too, it seems. When you pull away, chest heaving, you freeze in the same way he does. Eyes searching the other’s, unsure of what to do now that twenty-plus years’ worth of boundaries have been blown to bits.
You whisper, “Are you still sorry?”
Of the five million feelings swelling inside of him — fear, kind of; joy, yes; fucked up by your blown-out pupils, definitely — regret isn’t one of them.
Actually…
He cups your face in his hands like water from a spring, drinks down the sight of you in this new and perfect light. “I’m only sorry that it took me this long to tell you,” he confesses before kissing you back twice as hard.
You’d ask Seokmin to pinch you and prove to you that you’re not dreaming, but the fear you feel at the thought of waking up is too overwhelming.
Even if it wasn’t, he can’t help you, can he?
His hands are far too busy.
Your pretty dress is long gone now, having been shucked off and tossed somewhere out of sight. In its place, it’s Seokmin’s body that now drapes over yours, warm in touch and tone, like molten gold.
His middle and marriage fingers curl inside you, working you up again; and all you can do is cling desperately to his hair, whimper, and wait for the fall.
“I take back what I said earlier,” he murmurs between nips and kisses at your neck.
You can’t ask him to elaborate. You’re too close to careening over the edge for the second time tonight; too busy babbling fucking nonsense.
His simper against your throat reverberates all the way down, lights up your every nerve in tandem like a switchboard. “Only an idiot would tell you to be less expressive.”
The pad of his thumb swirls over your clit; its movement synchronizes with his middle finger inside of you, targeting your weak spot. He presses down on that spongy patch of nerves, and your hips buck involuntarily, a hallmark of your body begging for you while your words fail.
“You were right, though.”
You summon all your concentration. “I’m always right,” you counter. Seokmin pulls his mouth away from the underside of your jaw just to look at you pointedly. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
He picks up the pace of his ministrations, pulling no punches. You’re teetering on the ledge with no real ability to lift your own neck; your head crashes back against the pillow as you wail, clenching and gushing around his fingers.
“I do know how sensitive you get,” he snickers before slipping his fingers from you and sweeping down to kiss you sweetly.
The ringing in your ears has barely subsided, but you’ve decided not to take anymore of his teasing laying down. Slipping your fingers from his hair, you move your hands to his shoulders; and with whatever muscle control you still maintain, you flip him off of you, onto his back.
“How long —”
You climb over his lap and straddle him, placing your palms flat against his chest. It’s as much a show of dominance as it is a carefully disguised trick for balance.
“— have you been waiting to say that?”
Caught red handed, Seokmin shoots you that trademark, heart-shaped smile. His cheeks were already flushed from the effort he just expended on you; that perfect pink only deepens when he blushes and laughs, “What, you think I can’t come up with killer lines in the heat of the moment?”
You scratch your nails gently down the lines of his abdominal muscles. “Nope,” you purr.
Sitting up on his elbows, Seokmin tilts his head to the side and narrows his dark eyes at you. You’re nowhere near used to seeing him look at you like this, like you’re something to be devoured. The feeling of being wanted so badly makes your stomach flip.
“Give me some credit, won’t you?” He asks, voice low. “You’re a knockout; you’re naked in front of me for the first time; and it’s a miracle I can talk at all when I feel this concussed.”
When you lean in, he licks his lips expectantly. You’re close enough to kiss him, of course, but you stop a few millimeters shy of your mark and watch him fight the urge to pout. His eyes search yours, almost pleadingly.
“Is that why you’re still not naked?”
Seokmin’s next move is to reach for the black briefs he’s still got on, but you stop him, encircling each of his wrists with your hands.
“Ah, ah, ah,” you tut with a patronizing shake of your head. “You’re fired. I’m in control now.”
If the little sigh he lets out is any indication, he is very much on board with your self-promotion.
He takes your cue and reels himself in, allowing you to move further down his body, your fingertips hooking under his elastic waistband and tugging as you go. When his length finally springs free, you duck your head to take him into your mouth, beyond eager to feel his weight on your tongue.
“Oh, my god,” he groans, eyelids fluttering, while you swirl your tongue around his head. “Feels s-so —”
The rest of his sentence gets stuck in his throat; you take what you can of him down your own throat, working whatever remains with your hand.
Seokmin wants so badly to watch, you know he does, but he’s sensitive, too. His head tips back, eyes closed and mouth hanging open.
It’s messy, the spit dribbling down your chin and the sound brought forth by the suction of your mouth around him. The obscenity of it all spurs you on. Nothing inspires you quite like Seokmin’s breathy whines and low moans, though. Above all else, it’s his reaction to you that slicks the inside of your thighs.
You’d give him the ending he deserves, right down the back of your throat, but you feel his fingertips graze your shoulder, beckoning you to look up at him.
Voice rough, he pleads, “Come here.”
With his steadying hands on you, you move back into your original position with your bent knees on either side of him. You immediately spot the indent his teeth have left on his lower lip, which is now slightly swollen. Delicately, you brush your thumb over the mark. “Oh, you’re a goner.”
Seokmin looks at you pointedly. Though you tease, you’re even worse off: drunk on the taste of him, as much as the sight of him underneath you, wanting you just as badly.
“Alright, alright,” you concede. “I am, too.”
The hand you use to wave dismissively at him then reaches down between your thighs, fingers wrapping around his cock and lining it up with your entrance.
“But I’m taking you down with me.”
And you do.
So thoroughly that you barely recall him staggering off to the bathroom when all is said and done, the wash cloth he returns with to clean you up, or the way you slump into his waiting arms before promptly falling asleep.
You sleep so soundly, in fact, that you don’t stir when the sun blares through the open curtains. Likewise, when Seokmin carefully maneuvers himself out of the tangle of your limbs and places your head on a real pillow instead, you’re none the wiser.
What finally gets to you is the thwack of the expensive, hotel-issued shampoo clattering against the floor of the shower, echoing off the tile like a sonic boom. You sit bolt upright in bed, staring bleary-eyed in the direction of the bathroom.
As if on cue, Seokmin pokes his head out of the doorway to see if you managed to sleep through the noise. Damp hair splays over his forehead, hanging just as loosely as his lazily-knotted bathrobe. If you weren’t still too sleepy to function, you’d love nothing more than to grab him by that tie and drag him back to bed.
“Shit. I’m sorry, Bambi,” he coos, though his mouth is full of both toothpaste and a toothbrush in a distinctly greener shade of blue than usual.
You merely point at his mouth with a half-powered look of distress, otherwise unable to put your suspicion into words. He doesn’t get it; he glances down at his chest, looking for what he assumes is a stray glob of paste.
When you finally do speak, it’s a prayer: “Please tell me that’s not mine.”
Seokmin blinks at you, then down his nose at the toothbrush he’s using. He cocks his head to the side, opens his mouth to assure you it isn’t, and finally, when the realization makes his eyes widen, he groans.
You wail, “Noooooo!”
Memories of your last trip together clash before your mind — specifically, attempting to navigate a drug store in a foreign language while you shopped for the replacement toothbrush Seokmin is currently holding.
Ears bright red with embarrassment, he ducks back into the bathroom. Immediately, you hear a rush of water from the tap, which nearly drowns out his feeble cry of “I’m sorry!”
“I know it’s an honest mistake, but how do you make it twice?”
You collapse back onto the pillows and bury your face in your palms; and you stay that way, even when you hear him padding softly over to you. The mattress shifts under his weight as he makes his way, one knee at a time, until you feel him looming over you. His hands reach out and gently pull yours from your face.
Before you can get any ideas, Seokmin flattens himself on top of you; a weighted blanket, smelling like vanilla and spearmint. He folds his arms across your chest and props his chin up on the top of his right wrist, bright eyes sparkling as he peers up at you.
Suddenly, you find it very difficult to be annoyed with him. The worst part is that none of this is by design. He always just looks at you this way, not to get out of trouble but because you’re you.
Your hand reaches out of its own accord and brushes the remaining damp strands off his forehead. When your touch lingers, Seokmin leans into it, warming your palm with his cheek.
“Hey,” you say, after failing to come up with anything better.
He beams. “Hi.”
“Why are we awake at this hour?”
That smile of his evaporates slowly, giving way to a grimace you’ve seen before. “Seungcheol and Mingyu want to meet up at the ski lodge before the post-brunch crowd gets there,” he explains. “And I told my parents we’d get breakfast with them first, since yesterday was… well, mostly a disaster.”
“And it will conveniently provide you with time to think of a way out of snowboarding?” You chuckle quietly and pat his cheek.
Seokmin shakes his head firmly, then stretches his neck enough to kiss you.
“No,” he mumbles defiantly against your lips. “I never back down from a triple-dog dare.”
theme: things they unconsciously do after falling in love with you. (fluff!)
pairing: svt vocal team x gn!reader
a/n: i hope you guys enjoy this one! please consider commenting or sending an ask with a feedback, or even which member's version you liked the most! it means a lot and helps me to keep writing! obs i have no intention of offending anyone with this, this is complete fiction and i do not know them in real life. please tell me if i've said anything offensive!
woozi
picks up on your small habits.
suddenly, he's very interested in the specific genre of movies you love, and the songs you play on the car become his favorites too. his body language and gestures start assembling yours and he begins adopting your speaking patterns. he does it not because he forces himself to, it just naturally happens when you admire someone.
jeonghan
starts thinking more about the future with you.
he naturally stops thinking in a future for him, he thinks on a future for you both. it doesn’t need to be something far ahead like marriage (even if he does also think about that), it may be something like a trip his family is planning to go in a few months. he'll buy your tickets and a hotel room for both of you. he doesn't do it to control you, he just has no intention of ever leaving you. so while most couples are afraid of planning things for the future thinking that a break up could come, it just became natural for jeonghan to feel that you're someone permanent in his life. (so no 'current boyfriend' pranks!)
joshua
knows what you need before you even say it.
it's like he's a spy inside your brain. if you're going on a walk and you start feeling cold, you don't have to say it, he'll notice and immediately hand you his sweater. if you're trying to reach a glass that's all the other way in the dining table, he'll get it for you, no need to ask! the sun is shining in your eyes? he'll adjust his position so it isn't anymore. at dinner, you don't need to worry about your glass going empty, he'll be refilling it and ordering another drink before you even realise your glass was empty. he keeps your favorite snacks in his car and he charges your phone while you're getting ready to go out. he's got his eyes on you so life stays effortless and free of stress.
dokyeom
notices small stuff.
suddenly even the shape of your nails become noticeable. he remembers stuff you told him ages ago, comments when you've gotten a new shirt, asks you if you've gotten hurt while looking at a small bruise you never even noticed yourself. he just pays too much attention to you, and it seems like his mind has a special drawer to keep your details in. he might forget where he left his phone, but he'll never forget the color of your eyes.
seungkwan
falls asleep faster when he's with you.
he might be super anxious about something, or he might not even be that tired, but if you cuddle him he'll be snoring in five minutes. as soon as your arms wrap around him, or even as your hands meet, he can't think about anything else that's not how completely at peace he is. your voice, your touch and even your scent just signal to his brain that it's safe to shut off. it's kind of a problem because you might be telling him something important and oops he's out! don't get him wrong, he just feels relaxed when you're around.
You say you have high standards. Unfortunately for you, your boyfriend, Lee Seokmin, is exactly what your mental list calls for; as you joke about him being ‘too husbandable’ during a walk under cherry blossoms, he decides to fix that problem permanently.
boyfriend!lee seokmin × fem!reader ⋅ 2,836 words
🩷 GENRE/S. non-idol au, fluff, romance
🩷 CONTENTS. established relationship, mention of ‘high standards’ vs. reality, cherry blossom setting
⚠️ WARNINGS. none except mild profanity heheheh. but lmk if there is any i should’ve mentioned!
🩷 A/N. this is the first event we’ve hosted for @dorereef, and it was intentionally kept simple as a starting point. from here on, our events will continue to grow and improve as we find our rhythm and build our ideas together. i also want to take a moment to talk a little about drr itself. it’s our baby. both chee and i are attached to it, and to every member we currently have, as well as those who will join us in the future. i’ve been trying to focus more on the present lately, and i’ve realised that this is exactly where i want to be: with drr.
i genuinely wake up excited to see what our members are doing. even though it hasn’t been long, it’s already been incredibly rewarding to be surrounded by such kind and engaging people. i don’t think i can fully express how much love we have for this network and everyone in it.
a huge thank you to chee @nothoughtsjustfic for building this with me and for being such an important part of drr. i genuinely couldn’t do this without her [and all the things she does behind the scenes], and i’m really grateful to be doing this together. to all our members, thank you for being here and for participating. and for those who couldn’t take part this time for any reason, dw. the next events will be even better. we’re just getting started.
anyway, i love drr.
▸ PART OF @dorereef: The Reef In Bloom EVENT
📌 i hope you'll love all the fics in this event!
You always say you have high standards. It comes out so confidently too, it’s literally like you’ve got a whole checklist somewhere written about your non negotiables, expectations and the bare minimums that you can’t really see anymore these days.
But in reality, you know that’s not entirely true. Because if you’re being honest with yourself, you would just fall in love with someone who’s nice and gentle with you— that’s it; that’s the standard, and it’s not a high standard!
It’s a little embarrassing and ‘pathetic’ to admit, so you don’t. You just keep talking big like you wouldn’t melt the second someone treats you like a princess. And you used to think about it a lot more than you’d like to admit. You can’t wait for the day when somebody tells you you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to them, and they mean it entirely and not just saying it because it sounds nice and maybe earn a second date with you.
You used to treat that thought like a far off possibility that might happen one day, if you’re lucky. Because it was never about looks and just standards for you.
You don’t fall in love with looks; you fall for personality (at least that’s what you say for now but your actions might suggest both). If someone makes you smile and willingly joins you in doing dumb things, you’re basically already done. You don’t fall in love— you slip, fall, roll downhill, and accept your fate. That’s just how you are.
And soft spoken men… oh God, That’s been your number one pick in the great catalogue of men since the beginning of time.
Sweetheart, look how pretty that is! The voice comes from your side.
You look beside you and realize you can’t really relate to your past self and her so-called ‘standards’ anymore. You have your boyfriend, Seokmin, who not only has the personality you always wanted, but is also disgustingly good looking; cute and hot at the same time for absolutely no good reason.
You’re walking under rows of cherry blossom trees, petals falling down around you like something out of a kdrama scene. Your hands are intertwined with his warm hands, his thumb brushing absentmindedly over your knuckles as he talks.
He’s saying something more about the cherry blossom that you’re not even fully listening to except that he’s so happy talking about it and that’s all that matters to you to be honest, but his voice is so soft and exactly the kind you always said you liked • ᴖ •
You huff to yourself as you shake your head a little with a smitten smile as you look at him, stopping him from whatever he was saying, “stop being so husbandable if you can’t be my husband, bruh,” you tell him. You don’t even think he hears you, but then he stops walking. You take another step before realizing he’s no longer beside you, your hand slipping from his. You turn back confused, “why did you stop?”
Seokmin is just standing there looking at you in a way that makes you feel… nervous/stomach coiling all of a sudden? “What did you just say?” he looks at you caught off guard, probably can’t believe he’s hearing you right about being smitten over him for the nth time today, again.
“Nothing. I was just talking to myself,” you giggle.
He doesn’t walk when you turn forward to walk again, tugging your hand back to stop you from walking, “say it again.”
You squint your eyes a little with a smirk-smile, “why?”
“Just… please?”
You hesitate to think if you should tease him or just say it again, then sigh because reality hit you and now you feeling a little embarrassed but it’s too late to backpedal, “I said, stop being so husbandable if you can’t be my husband. It’s not that serious,” you hide your face with your hands and sprint away from him a little.
He just chuckles hearing you repeat it and being so shy again instead of your usual smug/forward self. “Well,” he goes after you, “I think that’s something I can fix.”
You frown, “huh?—” he reaches into his pocket and your words die in your throat when he goes down on one knee. Now, your brain is refusing to process what’s happening, like it’s literally lagging behind reality… but then he pulls out a small beige leather box, and suddenly everything feels very dreamlike, “Seokmin…”
“I know,” he’s nervous but trying not to show it too much, “I know I joke a lot, and I know you might’ve been joking about it too, but—” he continues, looking at you like nothing else exists, “you said you have high standards when we started dating… And I don’t even know if I will ever meet them, but I’ve been trying to.”
Your chest tightens so tight, it practically hurts. You want to tell him he exceeded everything you ever wanted from the bare minimum to the S-tier delusions you never thought you’d actually get. Stupid rich, offensively handsome, shining brighter than the sun for no reason, and with a personality so good it makes you consider violence as a form of support, having a personality that would make you kill anyone without hesitation if they made him even a little sad.
“I don’t always know what I’m doing, but I know I want to be good to you… I really do. I want to be someone who takes care of you, who you can rely on, someone who makes things easier for you and not harder… I’m still figuring things out, but I know I don’t want to do that without you,” he’s still on his knees. “And… I don’t know if I say it enough but… you really are the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” he looks at you with googly eyes. This is exactly how you imagined it, except it doesn’t feel a far off possibility anymore, “and I mean it,” he adds.
You think you might as well start crying at this point, shit. “Baby…”
As he clicks the leather box open, the sunlight shines on the ring that seems less like jewelry and more like something plucked from a fairytale garden. Literally what you showed him one night, months ago about the styles you love and the styles you don’t. So, resting against the plush lining was a marquise cut diamond. Why you love this is because, the most beautiful part wasn't just the diamond, but how it was held; the rose gold band didn't follow a straight line, but instead twisted into vines that curled around the finger. Nestled along those shimmering gold branches were tiny, leaf shaped diamond clusters.
“So… will you let me be your husband?”
For a second, you just stare at the bright, bubbly, soft spoken man who became your reality. So basically the person who fits every single thing you used to think about like it was impossible.
You manage to breathe again and breathlessly laugh a bit as you shake your head as tears blur your vision. “Yes,” you say immediately after. “Yes, of course.”
His face lights up brighter than the sun or the diamond in the box, relief and happiness crashing into each other as he lets out a laugh of his own. “Really?”
“Obviously,” you mumble even as your voice wavers. “You’re already so husbandable. That’s literally the problem.”
He grins, eyes crinkling as he slips your dream ring onto your finger. “Heh,” he says with a big pretty smile that you absolutely adore. “Then I guess I’m right on track,” he says, but he doesn’t let go of your hand after sliding the ring on. If anything, his grip tightens; he needs to make sure this is actually happening.
He immediately cups your cheek so gently with one hand as his thumb brushes beneath your cheekbone, and the other at your waist.
Leaning in, his touch tightens just a bit as his breath brushes your upper lip first before his mouth connects with yours. His hand at your waist grips tighter and draws you closer without force while his fingers at your cheek angle your face just enough so he can deepen it.
Slowly, the kiss breaks in a reluctant pulling away that leaves the air between you buzzing. He doesn't pull back far but a little to rest his forehead against yours, his nose brushing yours in a gentle friction. For a long moment, the only sound is the ragged synchronization of your breathing and the rustle of the cherry blossoms around you. Slowly, his hands move; the one at your cheek slides down to find your hand, his fingers lacing through yours as he leads you back toward the path. This is when you realise that the world hasn’t changed, but the two of you have.
Under the shadows of the trees, his thumb keeps brushing over the ring over and over again. You’re now staring at your hand.
It feels… strange, but not in a bad way. “Hey,” he says with that pretty smile on his lips. You look up to find him not beaming anymore; instead, his expression has softened into a look so soft and anxious it feels like he’s laid his entire heart bare right there under the trees. But pretty all the same. “You’re really okay with this?” he asks.
You look at him, a little dumbfounded, but there’s no hiding the adoration in your voice or your heart. “You literally just proposed.”
“I know, but—” he takes out a breathless laugh, a sign that he’s a little nervous again, “you joke a lot. I just want to make sure you didn’t say yes because of the moment or something.”
The weight of his gaze is heavy, but it’s a weight you realise you’re more than happy to carry for the rest of your life… but you stare at him for a second, dumbfounded all over again. You didn’t think your love for him could grow any more, but now you know it can. “Lee Seokmin.”
He straightens at your tone. “Yes, love?”
“If I didn’t want to marry you, I would’ve run.”
“…that’s fair.”
“And also,” you hold your hand up between you, “you put a ring on me. There’s no take-backs now. This is legally binding.”
He snorts as the tension breaks instantly, “sweetheart, that’s not how it works,” he’s
with that smile that you love.
“It is now.”
He chuckles as he comes closer and connects your foreheads. Cherry blossoms keep falling around you as some even sit on his hair, on your shoulders, on your joined hands.
“Wait—,” you say suddenly as you gain some sort of enlightenment.
He flinches, “what?”
“You said I’m the best thing that ever happened to you,” you raise your eyebrow at him, looking a little skeptical.
“…yeah?”
“But that’s crazy.”
He deflates on the spot like a puppy that just got told off, “why is that crazy?”
“Because,” you shrug, trying (and failing) to keep a straight face, “I was expecting something a little, you know, maybe a longer speech. Maybe, I don’t know, more tears? Actually! Was hoping for a breakdown.”
He stares at you, lower lip pushed out in a defiant swell that makes him look more like a kicked puppy than a newly engaged man. His brows are drawn together in a mock scowl, but the effect is completely ruined by the sheer, plush roundness of his mouth— a pout so dramatic and endearingly childish it feels like a physical provocation, “you’re making fun of me after I proposed?”
You’re internally, physically, going, sjjsjsnsbzkznzb, your heart doing frantic gymnastics against your ribs as a wave of pure cuteness aggression crashes over you. It’s him that’s making you want to either scream into a pillow or bite his cheek. You go on your tippy toes, catching that soft, stubborn protrusion with a kiss, physically pressing the gloom right off his face. “I said yes, didn’t I?” you whisper against his lips as you feel the tension melt out of him as the pout finally dissolves. “Be happy.”
He squints at you, then gives out a disbelieving laugh. “What do I do with you?” he squishes your cheeks.
“Love me,” you wink at him.
“I do,” he doesn’t hesitate before he leans down to give you a fast kiss on your lips.
It kicks the humor right out of your chest for a second, “…yeah,” you mumble as you look away and look at everything but him, “I know.”
He pulls you into him anyway as his arms wrap around you tightly. You huff, but your arms come up around him just as quickly, holding on just as tight. “Fiancée,” he whispers into your shoulder.
You make a face even though he can’t see it, “don’t say it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re obsessed with me.”
He leans back a little to look at you, eyebrows raised, “I am obsessed with you.”
“…okay, that’s embarrassing.”
“And you’re still marrying me.”
You sigh as if you’re annoyed by the fact as if you’re not actually completely gone for him, “yeah, unfortunately.”
He grins bright, completely unbothered and pats your head.
You stay like that for a moment longer, wrapped up in each other while petals keep falling around you. And then he laces your fingers together again, lifting your joined hands. “Come on,” he says.
“Where?”
He playfully smiles with a mixed sweet and teasing glint in his crinkling eyes, “we should probably keep walking. I don’t think proposing was the final destination.”
You look down at the ring catching the light, “… bruh you just changed my entire life mid walk,” you mumble.
“And you’re complaining?” he asked amused as a radiant grin breaks across his face that seems to catch the very photon of the road. It was his smile that didn’t sit on his lips; it crinkled the corners of his eyes into warm crescents and bared a perfect, gleaming row of teeth.
There was a genuine, boyish heat to it… you’ll literally go teary eyes to see a flash of his pure, unadulterated joy that makes his whole expression soften, turning his features into a map of sheer contagious light. Your man looks like a man who had never known a dark day in his life, or perhaps, like someone who had decided to be the sun for everyone else. So, you melt into his smile but being your pretense of being sane for him, “sure.”
He chuckles as the sound is a honeyed vibration that seems to absorb right in the marrow of your bones. He squeezes your hand as you both start walking again under the canopy of cherry blossoms.
You’re walking side by side just like before, but every cell in your body feels electrified by the sudden change within the last ten to fifteen minutes. This isn’t just your best friend or the boy you grew up with; this is the man who just promised his forever to you. You’re trailing beside him as your eyes trace the line of his jaw and his crinkling eyes when he looks at you, feeling absolutely, hopelessly undone.
It’s a terrifying, dizzying kind of love for you. Like, no matter how many times you’ll say you’re down bad for him, you still wanna make sure that everyone knows that you’d follow him into a storm just to stay in his orbit. You watch the dappled light dance across his skin and honestly, you're a goner. You’re down bad, head over heels, and slipping deeper with every step he takes. He’s the only person who could make your heart feel this heavy and this light all at once, and as you tighten your grip on his hand, you realise you never want to surface for air. You swing your joined hands slightly, then look at him again, “by the way,” you add, “why are you so husbandable?”
He smiles without looking at you so it’s a secret thing that he seems to be savoring all to himself. But you saw it anyway. “Because now, I actually get to be your husband,” he looks at you after saying it.
You’re frozen when he looks at you like that, probably expecting you to hit him, flirt with him or say something more cheeky. But you’re still frozen by how he’s looking at you. Internally screaming, your brain is a mess of static because how are you supposed to function when he’s being this fucking perfect? You want to tuck the sound of his voice into your pocket and keep it forever. He’s not just ‘husbandable’ to you at this rate— he is the literal blueprint, the standard, the absolute end of the road for you, and the way he looks right now bathed in the spring light, makes you realise you are irrevocably, helplessly his.
Yuin's note: Get in loser, we're feeding our delulu.
The sound of the front door opening caught your attention, it still wasn’t enough to get up from the couch. You stayed there, rolled up in the blanket and staring at the TV screen mind-absent.
Seokmin came carefully to the living room, despite the TV being on, unaware if you were awake or not, until a groan from the couch made him bite back his laugh.
“You’re still awake?” he came closer and sat in the small empty space next to your feet. “It’s almost midnight.”
“I know,” you sighed deeply, then sat up, still wrapped in the blanket. “I couldn’t sleep, so I put on something boring on TV to see if that would help.”
Seokmin focused his attention on the screen and smiled. “And how did that experiment go?”
“Well, a guy named Dylan had a aquarium made in his house,” you explained without much enthusiasm. “I don’t get it, but rich people doing rich people things, I guess?”
“And if you were the rich one, what would you do?” Seokmin leaned back on the couch, giving you his full attention.
“I wouldn’t invest in pyramid schemes,” your eloquent response made him burst into laughter. “Instead, I’d build a shelter for kittens.”
You muted the TV and focused all your attention on him. “And what would you do if you were filthy rich?”
“I…” his thoughtful gaze wandered for a moment. “I’d build a dog shelter, right next to the kitten one.”
His silly smile was endearing. No matter how silly their conversation was, it could always get worse, and it was one of the many things that made him so special: those pointless yet funny conversations.
“And, I’d buy you clothes,” he added, “so you could match with our puppies.”
“But, we don’t have any.”
“Well, I’d buy you all the puppies you wanted.”
“No way,” You scrunched up your nose, “I’d rather adopt them.”
All of a sudden, your eyes felt a little heavier, and you covered a small yawn with both hands. At that moment, Seokmin’s lap looked quite comfortable, so you rested your head to use his legs as a pillow.
“Tell me, what else you’d do?” you asked.
“I’d open a pizzeria,” he said, a little excited, his fingers slowly sliding through your hair. “A big one that could hold a lot of people, with every kind of pizza you can imagine…”
You closed your eyes, trying to imagine every one of his words: The beautiful tables and chairs with an old-fashioned style, the carefully cared for indoor plants, the section to grab a coffee and read manga… It was a beautiful vision.
“And the best part,” his voice became softer, “is that I’d have a lot of employees, so I’d have more free time to spend with you.”
You smiled to yourself. “Then let’s start saving right now,” mid-sentence, you gave a long yawn. “I miss spending more time with you…”
“Then don’t fall asleep,” you could swear he was pouting. “Let’s chat for a while.”
“I’m listening. You were telling me about the manga cafe.”
“Right! It would include volumes of classics, some not-so-well-known ones…”
As you slowly fell asleep, the last thought you had was that you didn’t really care about being a millionaire; eating three times a day and sharing a peaceful life with Seokmin in that cozy apartment was something money could never buy.
contains: 18+ nsfw (mdni!!) majority is afab reader
✩ svt writing & fic rec masterlist ✩
✩ sfw section ✩
1. ❥ the physics of love - @cheolism-archive
he's just SOOOOOOOOOOO down bad...he really wants to be with reader :,) (i had the BIGGESTTT smile on my face while reading the confessionnnn)
2. ❥ a guide to applying lip balm - @hanniescookie
THE PHYSICAL CLOSENESS?!?! "i have another way to wipe it off"!?!?! BABY!!!?!?!?
3. ❥ dating seokmin feels like.. - @ssentimentals
tears in my eyes like he would be the most understanding and forgiving partner there ever is?!!?
4. ❥ lover!dk - @studioeisa
he's sooooo loud but fuck i wouldn't trade that for anything :,) that's our dokyeommieee
5. ❥ ex!dokyeom texts - @cheoliedollie
in love love loveee with how their relationship progressed (AND THE PUPPY BEING CALLED DOA?!?!?)
6. ❥ overworked - @rubyreduji
the platonic relationship with jihooon!! dk doting on them and making sure they don't overwork!! i loveeeee~
7. ❥ color me crazy (for you) - @rubyreduji
i sooo relate to reader; those days when absolutely nothing goes right and the whole world feels against you? the way seokmin handled it so well, that's exactly what i need :,)
8. ❥ the things he’s whispered loudly - @seuonji
reader is such a dumbass (they're just like me lmao kgbdfk)
9. ❥ dating seokmin includes… - @svtswhorehouse
i would LOVE LOVE LOVEEEEE to date seokminnie like, it sounds so loving and funnn :3
10. ❥ the selection!dk - @studioeisa
omg he's sooooo nervous here ahhh my babyy (the bowing part reminded me of anastasia the musical [idr if it was in the movie too??])
✩ nsfw section ✩
1. ❥ biting your back during sex - @hoshifighting
him being rough...omfggggggggggggg
2. ❥ fwb!dokyeom texts - @cheoliedollie
nOTTTT both of them rushing to mingyu & jeonghan for help JKFGBDK
3. ❥ text mini au - @hoshifighting
mingyu being the biggest dk x yn advocate dkjbgdkj
4. ❥ post-sex with seokmin - @nsfwhao
omg DUDEEE calm down with the more than 3 orgasms?!
5. ❥ sub!seok - @sluttyminghao
agreed cuz i loveeeeeee the sub!seok concept teehe
6. ❥ boyfie seokmin + face riding - @rubyreduji
indeed, his face was madeeee to ride on
7. ❥ virgin reader - @hoshifighting
we alll know he'd take care of a virgin partner SOOO well :3
8. ❥ thigh riding - @toruro
just like his face....his thighs were madeeee to ride (WHY ARE THEY SO THICK??!)
9. ❥ an ode to d(k)arms - @cheolism-archive
the darms...THE DARMSSS (he's sooooo pretty and deserves all that body worshippp
10. ❥ home made porn - @hoshifighting
“don’t be shy. it’s just me and the camera.” I WILL THROW MY PILLOW WTFFF
pairing: seungcheol x reader, grumpy x sunshine trope
Warnings: none
a/n: It's taking a long time to write and publish because I was so busy. But here I am. enjoy reading
Please point out any grammar and mistakes you guys notice. this will help me improve more in my writing next time!
(To understand better, you guys can go to the teaser to get a grip of whats happen)
Instead, Y/N and her family were invited to have dinner at Seungcheol’s house.
“So, Y/N,” Seungcheol’s mother said warmly, leaning forward, “what do you say? Would you like to join us on this trip? We could have so much fun together.”
“No, Mom. She has work to do at the office,” Seungcheol interrupted immediately, clearly not a fan of his mother’s sudden invitation.
“Oh, don’t be silly, son,” she waved him off. “Let her have some stress relief on this trip instead of being stuck in that cubicle all day.”
The whole table chuckled. Seungcheol rubbed his eyebrow, already feeling the familiar ache forming. It seemed no one at the table was on his side.
“What stress does she even have, other than roaming around the office…” he muttered under his breath.
“Well,” Y/N said carefully, trying to sound reasonable, “if you all insist… but the final decision is still in the boss’s hands.”
Inside, her heart was already racing. A trip with the Choi family? That sounded dangerously close to a family outing. It almost felt like she was already one step away from becoming an in-law.
The table went quiet, all eyes turning to Seungcheol as they waited for his answer.
He took a slow sip of his drink, raised an eyebrow, and then glanced at his father, who responded with a warning smile
‘You better not reject her.’ He mouthing toward his son
Seungcheol let out a long sigh.
“Finish the proposal and everything else on your plate,” he said firmly. “If I see even one document unfinished, you’re staying behind.”
Her face lit up instantly. “Well, employees usually take after their boss,” she replied confidently. “I’ll make sure everything gets done.”
Seungcheol leaned back in his chair, already regretting his decision, while his mother smiled in clear victory.
Chan entered Seungcheol’s office, clutching a tablet under his arm and a cup of coffee in his other hand. His boss sat at his desk, glaring at the papers in front of him. If his eyes could shoot lasers, there would already be a hole burned straight through the page.
Chan placed the coffee on the side table and heard a slow, begrudging, “Thank you.”
“What is she doing now?” Seungcheol asked suddenly.
Chan blinked, processing the question, then the lightbulb went on.
“Ah, Y/N-ssi is working right now. She seems to be putting in a lot of effort these days,” he commented.
“I see…” Seungcheol murmured.
In his hands was a complete proposal for an upcoming small project. one prepared by her and her team. He had gone through it countless times already. And annoyingly, there were no flaws.
If anything, it had piqued his interest.
Seungcheol accessed the CCTV feed for the departments and found her immediately. Y/N was still at her desk, working, even as her colleagues slowly packed up and left for lunch one by one.
That’s unusual, he thought.
“Chan, let’s go eat,” he said, tidying his desk before standing up.
Chan was already holding the door open for him. As they walked toward the elevator, Seungcheol caught sight of her again, still seated at her desk, AirPods in, completely absorbed in her work.
“Hope she grabs something to eat,” Chan said, concern clear in his voice. “She seems really deep into it.”
Seungcheol paused for half a second — barely noticeable.
“She’s an adult,” he replied coolly. “She’s capable of taking care of herself. And I don’t allow food during working hours.”
Chan smacked his lips, unconvinced.
“Just said you are worried, is it that hard?”
6:00 p.m.
Most of the office had already emptied. Lights were switched off row by row, chairs pushed in, and computers shut down.
Yet Y/N was still there.
Several colleagues had invited her to dinner, but she politely declined each time.
“It’s okay, I’ll join next time. Don’t worry,” she said with a smile.
“Make sure you eat, Y/N-ssi,” one of them reminded her gently. “I don’t think you even had lunch today.”
With that, they left.
By the time the clock struck 8:00 p.m., the office was completely silent.
She jolted when a knock landed softly on her desk.
Looking up, she saw Seungcheol standing there, briefcase in hand, eyes fixed on her. “Go home, Y/N-ssi,” he said. “There’s no one left. Continue this tomorrow.”
“Worried about me, future boyfie?” she teased.
Before he could protest, she raised her hand.
“It’s after work hours. I don’t need to be formal,” she added, shutting down her computer and gathering a few documents.
His eyes narrowed. “Why are you packing those?”
“To continue at home. Let’s go — I’m tired.”
Confused, Seungcheol still followed her. They rode the elevator down to the basement in silence before he finally asked, “How are you getting home, Y/N-ssi?”
“Your car,” she replied with a smile.
“Take a taxi. I’ll call one—”
But she was already holding the passenger door, ready to open it.
“This girl…” he muttered, unlocking the car anyway.
The ride was quiet. She stared out the window, watching the city lights blur past. But soon, she frowned.
“This isn’t the way to my parents’ house,” she said, noticing the unfamiliar turn. “Are you planning to drop me here? My house is far from here.”
“Just get down,” Seungcheol replied, pulling the car to a stop. “And follow me.” She looked up — only then noticing the small ramen shop glowing warmly across the street.
“Irasshaimase~ How many people?” the staff greeted cheerfully.
Seungcheol lifted two fingers, and they were promptly escorted to a small table near the corner.
Once they were seated, Y/N couldn’t stop the smile creeping onto her face. A faint blush dusted her cheeks. “You really are worried about me,” she teased softly.
“Order,” Seungcheol replied, eyes fixed on the menu. “Or I’m leaving.” He scanned the options, deliberately avoiding her gaze.
Y/N chuckled under her breath.
Oh, Seungcheol-ssi… how could I not fall for you? she thought.
As if remembering something important, she reached into her bag and pulled out a small notebook. She scribbled something down quickly, lips curving into a satisfied smile, before finally turning her attention to the menu.
“Alright,” she said lightly, “let’s order.”
Across the table, Seungcheol paused — just for a second — his eyes flicking toward the notebook before returning to the menu, curiosity quietly taking root.
“You’ve done it,” Seungcheol commented, flipping through the documents she had submitted just a few hours earlier.
Page by page.
No mistakes. No delays.
“Of course,” she replied proudly. “I can’t miss this trip.”
A breathless chuckle slipped past his lips before he could stop it. He closed the file, opened his drawer, and took out an envelope, handing it to her without much ceremony.
Curious, she opened it.
Her eyes widened.
Plane tickets.
“Oh—yes!” She bounced in place before she could contain herself.
“Shh,” Chan hissed from the side, though he was smiling. “If you want to know, the boss asked me to book them last week. Actually.”
“Really?!” Y/N turned to Seungcheol, eyes shining. “Seungcheol-ssi, you really surprised me. Is me doing all the work just your excuse?”
“Go back to work,” he said flatly, turning away. “Or I’ll burn that ticket. Mrs Choi insisted — Who am I to reject her?”
She pressed her lips together, trying to suppress her smile, but the giddiness was impossible to hide. “Thank you, Choi Seungcheol,” she said softly. “I’ll get back to work now.”
She bowed politely before leaving the office, the envelope held close to her chest.
“Son, put your gadget away while we’re on vacation, please,” his mother reminded him gently.
The family was already at the airport, waiting for their flight to depart — though they were still waiting for Y/N’s parents to arrive.
Seungcheol smiled apologetically. “Give me a few minutes, Mom. I’ll go on a full digital detox for the whole trip.”
Mrs Choi shook her head, clearly used to her son’s excuses.
“They’re here!” Mr Choi interrupted suddenly.
From a distance, Y/N and her parents waved enthusiastically when they spotted them. Y/N stood out immediately — dressed in a bright yellow dress, a beach hat perched on her head, complete with a slightly ridiculous ribbon attached to it.
Seungcheol froze.
For a moment, the noise of the airport faded into the background.
She looked… different. Lighter. Radiant in a way he wasn’t used to seeing in the office.
She hurried over, nearly tripping in her sandals, before stopping in front of them with a wide grin.
“Good morning!” she greeted cheerfully. “Sorry, we’re a bit late.”
Mrs Choi’s face lit up instantly. “Oh my, Y/N! You look adorable.”
“Thank you, Mrs Choi!” she replied brightly, adjusting her hat.
Seungcheol cleared his throat, finally pulling his gaze away. “Let’s check in,” he said, already turning away.
“Have a nice vacation,” the receptionist wished warmly as Seungcheol accepted the hotel room keys.
He handed them out one by one — first to his parents, then to Y/N’s parents. The last key card, he held out to Y/N.
“Our rooms are on the same floor,” he said to her parents politely. “If anything happens, please contact me.”
As they moved away from the counter, Seungcheol naturally fell into step beside Y/N, who was clearly struggling with her luggage.
“We’re only here for three days,” he remarked. “And you packed like we’re staying for months.”
“Get used to it, Seungcheol-ah,” she replied cheerfully. “You’re going to face this when we’re together.”
He shook his head at her response but still reached out and took hold of her suitcase handle.
“You carry your handbag on your own,” he said firmly before walking ahead, pulling her luggage with him.
“Such a charmer,” she muttered, giddiness bubbling up despite herself.
They reached their floor and separated toward their respective rooms. As soon as she stepped inside hers, her phone buzzed.
Seungcheol:
Tell your parents we’re going out for lunch and walking around town for a bit.
Her excitement spiked instantly.
She dropped her bag, flopped onto the bed, and then sprang back up, throwing her luggage open.
“What should Seungcheol wear?” she murmured, tapping her chin thoughtfully. Her purpose is to match as possible with her crush
“What’s taking you so long?” Seungcheol asked, irritation clear in his voice.
Why was he annoyed?
Because the moment Y/N excused herself to the restroom after lunch, both sets of parents had very intentionally disappeared.
The result:
The parents were gone — no one knew where — and he was now stuck alone with this girl.
“Girls need time to do what they need to do,” she replied casually, holding her stomach.
For a second, worry flickered across her face. It felt like cramps — the kind she knew too well. She discreetly checked, then let out a quiet breath.
False alarm… maybe, she reassured herself.
She glanced down at her white skirt and grimaced inwardly.
Really bad timing if it actually starts.
Seungcheol noticed the slight change in her expression — the way the colour drained from her face.
“Do you want to go back to your room?” he asked, tone softer than before. “You look a bit pale.”
She shook her head immediately. Instead, she reached out, grabbed his hand, and pulled him along.
“It’s okay. Let’s go,” she said quickly. “My mom said they’re at the market near the beach.”
He didn’t pull away.
He had to admit it.
She wasn’t hard to handle at all.
As they walked around town — stopping here, wandering there — everything felt… peaceful. Not awkward. Not loud. Nothing like he had imagined.
Eventually, they ended up at a cliff overlooking the beach — a well-known tourist spot, quiet at this hour.
“Seungcheol-ssi,” she said suddenly, “can I borrow your phone? Mine’s almost dead. I’m trying to save the battery.”
“What for?” he asked suspiciously.
“To take my picture, obviously!” she grinned.
Before he could protest, she tugged him closer to the edge where the view opened wide. Luckily, there was no one else around.
“Here, like this—no, higher—okay now!” she posed enthusiastically, urging him to take the shot.
He shook his head but pulled out his phone anyway.
It was… amusing. Watching her strike random poses, spinning slightly, laughing at herself.
He snapped the photos just as she instructed.
Then —
A sudden strong wind blew through.
Her hat lifted straight off her head.
“Oh no, my hat!” she cried, reaching for it.
But it was already gone, carried far out toward the sea.
What Seungcheol did manage to catch was her expression — wide-eyed, dramatic, utterly adorable — frozen on his screen.
He chuckled.
“Aigoo… bye-bye, hat,” he teased.
She glared at him before snatching his phone to check the pictures.
He let her.
“Ooh,” she said, impressed. “Not bad, Choi.”
Before he could reply, a loud thunderclap cracked through the sky — followed instantly by heavy raindrops.
“Y/N-ssi, let’s go!” he called, grabbing her hand and pulling her along so they could reach shelter faster.
She skipped slightly beside him, heart racing. when does this going to happen again. holding hand with choi seungcheol!
God, please don’t let this moment end so soon, she silently prayed.
They ducked into a small market nearby, the sound of rain pounding loudly against the roof. Only then did she realize he still hadn’t let go of her hand.
She pointed it out.
The moment he released her, a sudden chill replaced the warmth, making her pout unconsciously.
“Sorry,” he said, clearing his throat. “You walk slowly, so I had to.”
She eyed him, unconvinced.
The rain showed no sign of stopping. They stood under the market’s roof for a while, watching people run past with umbrellas. The hotel was only a few minutes’ walk from where they stood.
“Cheol-ah…” she called softly.
He turned, expression unreadable. “Getting more casual now, are we, Y/N-ssi?” he replied coolly.
“Oh, come on,” she laughed. “We should be at that stage already. Besides, your full name is hard to pronounce — so I shortened it.”
Seungcheol rolled his eyes but didn’t deny it.
As long as she didn’t do it in the office, he could live with it.
“What do you want to say?” he asked.
She grinned, then glanced toward the road, measuring the distance between them and the hotel.
“When was the last time you played in the rain?” she asked suddenly.
He frowned slightly. “I don’t know… maybe when I was ten?”
“Well,” she said, eyes sparkling, “do you want to add to that experience?”
“What do you—” He paused, noticing the mischievous grin spreading across her face.
Before he could finish his sentence, she grabbed his hand and bolted out from under the roof, straight into the rain.
“ou fuc-!” he shouted as the rain instantly soaked them.
Her laughter rang out, bright and carefree.
“It’s rare to hear you curse like that!” she yelled over the downpour.
“You made me!” Seungcheol shouted back, trying to keep up. “Next time, warn me!”
They ran down the wet road, splashing through puddles, shoes soaked, clothes clinging to their skin. Her giggles were contagious — he found himself smiling, then chuckling without even realising it.
It felt… refreshing. He had buried himself in work for years, meetings, deadlines, and routines that never seemed to end. The same cycle, over and over again.
This, this was different.
And for the first time in a long while, Seungcheol welcomed the adrenaline that came with stepping outside his perfectly controlled world.
As soon as they arrived at the hotel, both of them went to their respective rooms to change and rest. Later that evening, they would head down to the hotel restaurant for dinner at the buffet.
Seungcheol sat on the edge of the bed, laptop open, replying to emails and checking work matters out of habit. After a while, he picked up his phone — and remembered the photos he had taken earlier.
He scrolled through them slowly.
A smirk tugged at his lips.
“Silly girl…” he muttered.
He selected all the photos of her and sent them over. Just as he was about to delete them from his phone, one picture caught his attention — the one where she was pouting after her hat flew away.
Why that one?
Even he didn’t know.
Still, he left it untouched and deleted the rest.
He was about to refocus on his laptop when his phone buzzed.
+82-xxx-xx-:
I look good in all of those, thank you Cheol-ah~ 🥰
Keep them as memories, will you? 👉🏻👈🏻
He snorted quietly and went to her contact.
After a brief pause, he changed her name in his phone.
👒 Trouble:
I look good in all of those, thank you Cheol-ah~ 🥰
Keep them as memories, will you? 👉🏻👈🏻
Seungcheol:
No, thank you.
“Always playing hard to get,” Y/N giggled to herself.
She had expected that reply anyway.
Scrolling through the photos, she picked one she liked best — sunlight, wind, and a smile she hadn’t even realised she was wearing — and posted it on her Instagram story with the perfect caption.
Satisfied, she placed her phone aside and curled up on the bed.
Just a quick nap, she told herself.
Dinner could wait.
The days had been fun and fluttering—until she woke up to the news that Seungcheol had already flown back to Korea for an emergency in the company. Not exactly the kind of news she wanted to hear.
“So… he just packed up and left?” she asked quietly.
Both parents nodded.
“It was urgent. Even Mr Choi was locked in his room taking calls,” Mrs Choi said.
She let out a disappointed sigh. She had already imagined sitting beside him, flirting endlessly, stretching those moments over the next three days. Yet, she couldn’t even spend dinner with him.
“But darling, Seungcheol did leave something for you,” Mrs Choi reached into her tote bag.
She pulled out a small sachet tied neatly with a ribbon. Carefully, she opened it.
Inside was a tiny keychain—shaped exactly like her hat, complete with a ribbon on one side.
Her heart fluttered all over again. She instinctively held her stomach, giddiness bubbling up.
Suddenly, the message she received earlier, just as she was leaving her room for dinner, made sense.
Cheol ❣️🐰:
Your hat is too ugly to put on your head, but it looks better hanging somewhere.
“Oh, Cheol…”
(˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶) ♡----------------------------(¬_¬)
The vacation ended just like that—too quickly. Now, it was back to dreading work.
Only now did she truly understand how serious that emergency had been.
Seungcheol had been buried in his office for three straight days since she returned to work—this didn’t even include the day he flew back immediately after the vacation. That meant he had been working nonstop for almost a week.
Even the coffee she used to deliver every day was no longer allowed. A notice had been sent out: no staff were permitted to meet or interrupt him.
“Chan-shi!” Y/N called out, quickening her steps toward his secretary when she spotted him heading for the elevator.
“Oh—Miss Y/N. Can I help you?”
They stepped into the elevator together.
“How is he?” she asked quietly.
“Well… the main issues have already been settled,” Chan replied. “But you know the boss. He’s checking everything again, just in case it happens another time. Even the lunch I delivered is still sitting on his side table. Eventually, he gave it to the cleaner who came to take out the trash.”
The words made Y/N feel uneasy.
Chan continued, almost deliberately sharing every detail—hoping she might be the one who could do something. He noticed the way she fell into thought, then finally nodded, as if a plan had formed in her mind.
“Alright, Chan-ah. Thank you,” she said.
When the elevator reached the lobby, Y/N bolted out of the building.
3:00 p.m.
She knocked on his office door and heard a low voice telling her to come in.
Inside, Seungcheol was seated at his desk, completely focused, documents stacked neatly in front of him as he reviewed them one by one. She approached slowly and knocked gently on the wooden desk to get his attention.
He raised his head briefly—then looked back down.
“Yes, Miss Y/N?”
No negative reaction. Good, she thought, relieved.
“I heard you haven’t had lunch yet, Mr. Choi.”
“I’ll eat later. Dinner.”
“So… you’re not hungry?”
“No, I’m no—”
A quiet growl cut him off.
Seungcheol froze. His ears turned red.
Y/N smiled triumphantly.
“Come on. I bought you something. I guess you’re not that busy, Mr. Choi,” she said, taking a seat at the small table in the middle of his office.
“Just go eat somewhere else, Miss Y/N.”
She sighed, then walked up to his desk and gently pried the papers from his hand. He was about to protest—until a familiar voice came from her phone.
A voice note.
“Eat, son. She went out of her way to ask me about your favorite food and bought it for you. If I find out you’re not eating, then don’t expect to eat anything from this house for the rest of your life.”
Then another voice joined in.
“Your mother is exaggerating—but she’s right. I got the food for myself, too.” interupt mr choi
“Let’s eat,” he sighed, finally standing up and walking toward the table.
Y/N served him budae jjigae, with cream puffs for dessert—courtesy of Chan. His eyes lit up slightly at the sight. He took a spoonful of soup, then picked up his chopsticks and started eating without a single complaint.
She guessed he must have been starving.
After a week of nonstop stress, Seungcheol finally had a proper meal—one he didn’t need to rush through.
Watching him eat so contentedly made Y/N smile.
She then pulled out her small notebook and began to write. “Say, Seungcheol-shi,” she began softly.
He hummed in response while munching on his food, eyes still on the bowl—his way of telling her to continue.
“Are you busy this weekend?” she asked.
After swallowing, he took his time before answering.
“Why?”
“Would you like to go on a picnic with me?”
He paused, finally lifting his gaze to look at her properly. For a moment, he studied her—then thought it over.
“When?”
She could feel herself light up immediately. Pulling out her phone, she checked her calendar.
“This Saturday, 12:30 p.m.?” she said.
He nodded, finishing the last piece of the cream puff before neatly stacking the empty containers together.
“I’m not promising anything,” he said flatly. “So don’t get your hopes up.”
She nodded eagerly anyway, already reaching for the stacked containers. Seungcheol was about to stop her—he could easily call the cleaner to handle it.
“I promise it’ll be a relaxing Saturday for you,” she said brightly. “Thank you, Cheol-ah.”
And just like that, she walked out.
Seungcheol watched her leave, eyes lingering on the door longer than he meant to.
⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡----------------------------(ಠ_ಠ)
Saturday
She arrived early at the park.
A few people had already spread out their mats, enjoying the slow leisure of the weekend. The weather was calm—not too hot, with a gentle breeze drifting through the trees.
In her hands was a picnic basket.
That day when she had asked his mother about his favourite food, she hadn’t expected the answer at all—a sweet tooth. The thought alone had surprised her so much that she ended up staying up late the night before, carefully preparing the desserts he liked.
She laid out a checkered picnic mat and began arranging everything neatly. Food first, then plates and cutlery. She even added a few small decorative touches—nothing too much, just enough to make it feel warm and cute.
Satisfied, she took a step back.
“Aww, this is pretty,” she murmured to herself, pulling out her phone to take a photo of the scene in front of her.
A perfect picnic.
A quiet park.
And the hope of spending the afternoon with her crush.
Nothing could get better than this. She sent the location to Seungcheol before settling down and enjoying the scenery.
— Choi House —
“It’s been a long time since we played this,” Wonwoo commented.
Both of them held controllers in their hands, fingers tapping furiously while their eyes stayed glued to the screen. The sounds of button clicks and in-game effects filled the room.
“I need this. It’s been a long week,” Seungcheol muttered, cursing under his breath as Wonwoo’s character defeated his once again.
“Yeah,” Wonwoo said with a triumphant grin, lifting his juice for a sip. “It’s kinda once in a blue moon for you to actually have a free weekend.”
Seungcheol clicked his tongue.
“Next round?”
The time ticked past quietly.
1:30 p.m.
There was still no sign of Seungcheol.
Her message remained unread. The food in front of her looked just as miserable as she felt—some of the cream on top had lost its texture, sinking slightly, as if it had given up waiting too.
She began to rethink everything.
He wasn’t a forgetful man. She knew that. She had even checked with Chan, asking if Seungcheol had been occupied with work over the weekend—but Chan had denied it.
So...why did she like this man again?
Well… a heart wants what it wants.
Still, what was happening now made her chest ache. If it had been another emergency, she would have forgiven him again without hesitation. But the phone call with his mother replayed in her mind—Mrs. Choi casually mentioning that he was rotting in his room, spending the day gaming with a friend.
That was what made her eyes sting.
Sure, he had said no promises.
But still.
She pulled her knees close to her chest and rested her chin on them, staring blankly at the picnic spread. That was when she heard a soft whimper.
Turning her head, she found a dog sitting beside her, eyes fixed on the food with hopeful curiosity.
She smiled despite herself.
Taking her tuna croissant, she carefully separated the filling and placed it onto a small plate, sliding it toward the dog.
“You’re my date now, doggy,” she said softly.
She open her phone and snapped a photo of the moment—the picnic, the dog, the quiet company.
“At least you cheer me up a little,” she murmured, gently rubbing its head. The dog’s tail wagged slightly, as if it understood.
Reaching into her bag, she took out her small notebook and began to write.
“Choi Seungcheol, I am so disappointed in you.”
His mother’s voice cut through the kitchen the moment she stepped in.
She crossed her arms, glaring straight at her son. Seungcheol, who had just grabbed a glass of water, paused mid-sip, confusion written all over his face.
“I… did what now?” he asked, taking a slow drink to quench his thirst.
Wonwoo had already left earlier after receiving a call from his girlfriend.
A simp, Seungcheol had teased him.
No, it’s love, Wonwoo had replied calmly. And I bet you’re worse.
Now, standing alone in the kitchen, Seungcheol had no idea how right that statement would turn out to be.
“You left that poor girl waiting for you,” his mother continued sharply. “She prepared everything—food, decorations, the whole thing. She even made it pretty.”
She shoved her phone into his chest.
“And dogs are better than you.”
Seungcheol frowned and glanced down at the screen.
Y/N’s Instagram story.
A neatly arranged picnic mat. Carefully prepared food.
And then—
A dog sitting beside her, happily eating, captioned with something playful that suddenly didn’t feel playful at all.
That was when it hit him.
“Oh…”
He lowered the phone slightly.
“How did you know?”
“Is that even important right now?”
“I said no promises,” he muttered defensively. “So she shouldn’t get her hopes high.”
His mother let out a dry laugh—one that carried zero humour.
“Seungcheol,” she said, softer now but somehow more dangerous, “just because you didn’t promise doesn’t mean you didn’t matter.”
She shook her head, grabbing a cup from the counter.
He retreated to his room and grabbed his phone, thumb hovering for a brief second before tapping a familiar contact.
👒 Trouble
The call rang a few times before she picked up. The line connected—but she was quiet on the other end.
“You’re home?” he started.
Not the best opening, especially for someone who vanished without a word.
“…Yeah,” he heard soft shuffling, like she was putting something down.
“Y/N-shi…”
Her name felt heavier than usual on his tongue.
“I heard you,” she replied calmly, too calmly.
“I’m sorry....I didn’t touch my phone the whole afternoon. I didn’t see your messages.”
There was a pause.
“It’s okay,” she said eventually. “You did say you didn’t promise, so… I kind of expected it.”
Her words weren’t sharp, but they hit harder than anger ever could. Seungcheol clenched his jaw.
“I—”
“If anything,” she cut in gently, “just tell me next time, okay? I forgive you, by the way.”
He let out a slow sigh, the weight in his chest refusing to lift.
“Alright… I’ll see you at work, Y/N-shi. Again, I’m sorry…”
“Alright, Seungcheol-shi.”
The line went dead.
(ᴗ_ ᴗ。)---------------------------(•́ ᴖ •̀)
A week later
Everything looked normal again.
The office buzzed with its usual morning chaos, the noise softened during lunch, and by 5 p.m., everyone was already packing up to go home.
But something wasn’t normal—at least not to Seungcheol.
Her attitude.
No teasing smiles, no coffee placed neatly on his desk, no “Cheol ah~” whispered like it was the most natural thing in the world.
He had tried to make it up to her after leaving her alone at the park. He really did. Still, she give same dull reaction. bonus, his mother continued calling him a moron whenever his name came up.
As if that wasn’t enough, another piece of news arrived that day—from her father.
He wanted to bring his daughter into the family company. Said she was ready now. Ready to take over.
Seungcheol had sent her a formal email, requesting her resignation letter to be placed on his desk.
A knock echoed through his office.
“Come in.”
There she was.
She walked in calmly, holding two envelopes in her hands.
“Here is my resignation letter, Seungcheol-shi,” she said, handing one over.
“Thank you,” he replied shortly, eyes already skimming the paper.
Yet she didn’t leave.
Her foot shifted restlessly against the carpet. Seungcheol noticed. He put his pen down and finally looked up at her.
“Do you have something else to say?” he asked.
“Aren’t you sad?” she countered.
“Why would I be?”
She smiled—small, tight.
“Because I won’t be here anymore. And after this, I’ll be your rival.”
A beat.
“Well… unless you marry me. Then there won’t be any rivalry.”
“Y/N-shi,” he said evenly, “I wish you all the best. I believe we’ve taught you many things here. Use them well.”
Her lips pressed together at his answer.
Then, without a word, she held out the second envelope.
His head tilted slightly. “What’s this?”
“My reasons,” she said simply. “Open it.”
He took the envelope, sliding the paper out. Inside was a small sheet—clearly torn from a notebook.
And as his eyes began to scan the words, something in his chest shifted.
Reasons to like you seem like a long list to explain out loud, so instead, here are a few reasons why you should like me.
1. I’m hardworking
. You saw it yourself—the day I stayed late at the office.
I finished the proposal and cleared the remaining documents just because you said I wouldn’t be allowed to join the trip if my work wasn’t done.
2. I’m fun to be with
The day we ran in the rain together.
Even if it was only for a short while, I think you enjoyed it too.
3. I’m caring
The week you couldn’t eat properly, I still brought you your favorite food—
even when you kept saying you were “fine.”
4. I’m forgiving
that picnic you didn’t show up to.
I forgave you even before you called to explain.
5. Because I love you
The fift reasons there is no explanation. A soft chuckle escaped him at the last line.
It gave him butterflies.
Honestly, all her actions had already screamed how much she loved him.
People often say ‘love’ is a strong word—
but in her case, ‘like’ felt far too weak.
“Oh, my Y/N… you really did make me fall for you,” he murmured, snickering under his breath.
She heard it.
She saw the way he covered his mouth as he read. and a lift from his corner mouth
And it hurt.
Are my reasons really that funny? she thought.
Misunderstanding his reaction completely, she took a step back.
“Well then… I’ll get going,” she said quietly.
Before he could stop her, she turned and rushed out of the room—
leaving Seungcheol staring at the paper in his hands, heart pounding.
; (◞‸◟)————————————-( ˶°ㅁ°) !!
“Have you made it up to her?”
Seungcheol let out a heavy sigh at the voice. He turned around, fully expecting to see his mother.
“Mo-…Dad?”
Mr. Choi laughed. “Sounds the same, doesn’t it?”
He replayed the voice from his phone again.
Seungcheol groaned. “Dad, stop playing with those AI apps. It will rot your brain.”
His father chuckled and finally put the phone down on the table before following his son into the kitchen.
“Well?” Mr. Choi leaned against the counter, arms crossed. “Have you made it up to her?” This time, Mr Choi really is curious. He was waiting for his son to finish the glass of water before responding
“I did. And today… I received something more than just her resignation letter.”
“The…5 reasons?” His father quotes with his fingers
Seungcheol froze. “…Wait. How did you know?”
He paused, then sighed. remember his loyal secretary Lee chan “Actually, don’t answer that.”
‘That brat’, he mumbled.
Mr. Choi laughed softly. “I know you already do your best son, keep up and upgrade your game a bit more.”
Then his tone shifted, more serious. “But you should hurry. There’s a reason her father pulled her out of your company.”
Seungcheol straightened. “Why?”
“Because someone else has already proposed to her.”
Another voice cut in.
Both men turned toward the back door of the kitchen to see Mrs. Choi walking in, grocery bags in hand.
“And unlike someone,” she added calmly, “that person didn’t give her any conditions.”She began unpacking the groceries while Mr Choi moved to help, both of them glancing meaningfully at their son.
“…Wait,” Seungcheol said slowly. “You’re not serious, are you?”
Mrs. Choi only shrugged. This leave seungcheol feel restless a bit. His hand slipped into his pocket, fingers brushing against the small red box hidden there.
‘Am I too late..?’ He mumbled
"You were saying?" his mother asked, catching the look on his face.
Seungcheol snapped out of it. “Nothing. I’m going to my room now… to change.”
as he turn he was startled by a loud, high pitched barked
“Kkuma!” He jumped, clutching his chest. “You scared me!”
In the movement, something slipped from his pocket.
The small red box fell to the floor, rolling once… twice… and stopping at his father’s feet.
“Oh?” Mr Choi bent down and picked it up. “What’s this?”
“Wait—no—!”
Too late.
Mr Choi opened the box. His wife gasped. “Son…”
Suddenly Thunder can be heard from outside
“Goddammit,” Seungcheol muttered, rubbing his temples as his parents stared at the ring—
the answer he had been too slow to give.
(๑>◡<๑)————❤︎————-(˵ ¬ᴗ¬˵)
“Darling, someone came to see you!” Y/N’s mother called from downstairs.
Outside, the rain poured heavily against the windows—matching the heaviness in her chest. Still wrapped in her blanket, Y/N sighed before forcing herself up. She checked her reflection in the mirror, fixed her hair, and took a steady breath before heading downstairs.
Voices drifted up from the living room.
As her vision cleared at the bottom of the stairs, she froze.
Mr and Mrs Choi were there.
And so was…
Seungcheol.
“Well,” her mother said brightly, standing up, “I should go check on the chicken on the stove.”
“Oh, let me help you,” Mrs Choi added immediately.
The two women exchanged a knowing look before glancing at their husbands, who were still deep in conversation. Mrs. Choi cleared her throat pointedly.
Both men paused, then stood up almost in sync.
“Let’s go taste the chicken, shall we, Choi?” Mr. Choi said smoothly.
Seungcheol rubbed his forehead. He had planned to come alone—but of course, his retired, overly involved parents insisted on a live update.
As the adults disappeared into the kitchen,
Seungcheol stood up, greeting y/n.
“What are you doing here?” They sat down on opposite ends of the sofa.
“I want to give you this,” Seungcheol handed over the familiar envelope. When she saw it, her heart stopped. She frowned at the sight of that envelope.
“Why are you giving me back this?” Her voice wavered. “Are yo- is this rejection?” Well, he didn’t need to make an effort to come all the way here to give it.
“This is my answer, Y/N-ssi,” he said softly. “Take it. You’ll understand.”
Hesitating, she accepted the envelope. It felt… heavy. Too heavy for just a piece of paper. As she turned the envelope upside down, the paper that was fold drop onto her hand. She took and opened the paper,
Something fell onto her lap.
Her breath caught.
A diamond ring.
It shimmered under the chandelier light, brilliant and unmistakable.
“Cheol ah…” Her voice came out barely above a whisper.
Seungcheol stood, then slowly lowered himself onto one knee in front of her. Her eyes went wide in shock. Gasp can be heard in the kitchen. Their parents were peeking
Seungcheol took the ring on her hand “now for my part, this is my proposal, y/n shi." He took a deep breath "Will you let me now lay down my reasons? Its a bit unfair if only you did it”
Y/n nods her head
Seungcheol let out a big sigh, hand sweating, continued “y/n, I didn’t fall for you at first sight, but the feeling starts from small things that you do. The coffee that you delivered every day, your voice and footsteps lingered outside my room. It becomes a routine that if one of its parts is missing, it feels wrong”
He took her hand and caressed it. “You make me feel light, I laugh without thinking, you didn’t force yourself into my life but volunteered to wait. You liked me openly, but when it hurt too much, you stepped back. You taught me so much”
He lowered his head, shame crept into him “When you left the office, when I heard someone else might take you away…that’s when I realised, that’s when I knew I didn’t want a life without you. ”
She paused him, "Take me away? who" She was confused. Seungcheol's mouth open and close to explain then he realised
this must be sceme from his parent. he exhale "please, forget the part that i mention about that" wave his hand try to distract y/n.
“So… Y/N-ssi,” he said, voice softer now, “will you—”
“DON’T PUS-.”
The kitchen door burst open.
“DID SEUNGCHEOL SAY YES YET?” Mrs Choi whisper-yelled, not whispering at all.
“Woman, he’s still kneeling,” Mr Choi added, peeking from behind her shoulder.
Y/N blinked.
Seungcheol froze.
“…Mom,” he said through gritted teeth.
Mrs Choi gasped dramatically. “Oh my god, you’re shaking. See? I told you he’s nervous.”
“I AM RIGHT HERE,” Seungcheol snapped, face turning red.
Y/N let out a small laugh—then another—until she was fully giggling, wiping the corners of her eyes. He looked up at her helplessly. “Y/N-ssi, please.”
Mr Choi cleared his throat. “We’ll… uh… go check the chicken again.”
“There is no chicken,” Mrs Choi whispered back.
“We’ll check it anyway.” The parents disappeared again, but not before Mr Choi flashed a thumbs-up.
Seungcheol exhaled slowly and looked back at Y/N. “…As I was saying,” he said, softer now, “will you marry me?”
Y/N tilted her head, pretending to think.
“Hm.” She tapped her chin. “You know… your reasons were kinda off.”
His heart dropped.
“But,” she added, smiling brightly, “I like them.”
She leaned forward slightly. “I guess I’ll say yes.”
His eyes widened.
“Really?”
“But you need to promise to be the most loving husband I ever had.. then I’ll accept,” she whispered,
He linked his pinky with hers, then slid the ring onto her finger, hands still trembling. “I’ll promise”
From the kitchen—
“YES!”
“I KNEW IT!”
“DON’T CRY YET, SAVE IT FOR THE PHOTOS!”
Seungcheol closed his eyes.
“…I’m never bringing you to my parents’ house again,” he muttered.
Y/N laughed, squeezing his hand.
“Too late, fiancé.”
⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡-------------FIN-------------(,,¬﹏¬,,)
a/n: thanks for scrolling until the end. I feel like I rushed the ending, and there was no build up tension. But I hope you guys like it!
Tell me if you guys want an epilogue and more side story for this couple!
