In her head, when the bullying happened the first time, she didn't immediately react. When she saw her classmate getting hospitalized after being forced to gorge five scoops of food more than could be taken by someone diagnosed with GERD, she didn't feel angry or speak her mind about how unnecessary it was to enforce discipline in that way. In her head, when the tactical officer said, "be my rat", she accepted like a stupid docile lamb. When the same officers were violating the very rules they were enforcing, she just shut her trap.
In her head, she didn't make waves or react when the antagonizing and leering came her way. She just kept her head down, allowed herself to be ridiculed for not knowing anything about the environment she had willingly entered--although, in her defense, the training was supposed to be for that, right? To learn and to understand the workplace culture.
In her head, she didn't disappear into the night. She didn't listen to the people who were encouraging her to speak up so that things could be made right inside that unspeakable place, who, in the end, really just used her to advance their own agenda but left her high and dry to fend for herself.
In her head, she focused more on getting out, no matter what the moral and emotional cost may be. She focused on just getting past it all instead of feeling everything there was to feel.
In her head, she made it through without and everybody loved her and nobody spoke up about the things they experienced. In her head, she was transformed into the mute and blind follower that they wanted her to be.
But this is is the catch: this more peaceful alternate universe wasn't her reality. It was all just in her head.
In reality, she stood up, she spoke up, and she did what the others couldn't. She did it all alone. The institution wasn't bad; but the fucking middle management were, and nobody was going to call them out. So she did it.
But instead of the happy ending where wrongs were righted, where the culprits were punished in the social guillotine, she was branded a troublemaker. The odd one out. The one who wanted special treatment. She was blamed for not knowing what she was getting into.
Her sense of right and wrong was repeatedly gaslighted. The kindest advice she received was to lie low and just take the blows. The cruelest was that she was a good-for-nothing ingrate who shamed the workplace that took her in after a two-year-long employment drought brought by the pandemic. All she wanted was to make it better, but in the process, her character was brutally assassinated, with its corpse ridiculed for being a weak fucker who only knew how to whine.
She wasn't whining.
She knew things weren't right.
But try as she might to get this point across, she could not .
Because she had lost her power to speak.
She lost her drive to make the world a better place, which should have been the beating heart of the institution she was part of.
And so when more things went wrong, as is the case when you start to realize that the place you are in is not the place where you belong, she could not say a word due to the trauma of mishandled justice. When she started to lose her head, hungry competitors banked on it and further pushed her down. One even went so far as to push his hands in places where she does not want him to.
In the end, she went out with a bang. She dropped out in attendances. She tried for a few months, but her mind has quit and her spirit has been defeated. Some do-gooders tried to save her with bandages, but blood has already left the body she drags to work everyday. There were moments of light, but the ever-changing landscape of this unspeakable place would snuff them out at the very last minute. She attended meetings but forgot what they were for the minute she stepped out. And then, when chances to rile them up one last time hit, she took them.
One minute she was in, the next she was out.
So-called friends were shocked but not devastated. Naysayers cheered. The ugly envious ones spread rumors. But when this all happened, she was already basking in the aftermath, puffs of breath heaving from her mouth as she released all the toxic air she had to breathe in while inside.
The institution wasn't bad.
But how does one account for all the things she experienced?
In her head, she knew the answer.
In reality, she is just lost, as if waking up from a dream that she wishes to never see again.
I honestly do not know how many times it has been that I tried restarting my life. It started with that one moment in elementary school when I lost a friend and I subconsciously told myself, "Okay, I have to change myself in order to keep people around me." The first time I experienced humiliation after not getting the top spot in class (as was expected of me). All the times I failed to show up during events by student organizations I was part of, when I said, "I will show up next time." Losing loves, disappointing family, and now navigating the emotional aftereffects of resigning from a job that I honestly loved but wasn't fit for holistically.
Suffice it to say, the weight of realizing how my life looks so linear for others but so confusing from my perspective was really something else. It makes me just not want to live anymore, to be honest...but life isn't meant to be given up to the void, just because we all have trouble getting past the reset button. Just because we have a hard time consistently following the script that comes after the reset.
I don't even know where this writing is going, but this is it. Another reset is taking place. The resignation process is still underway. Roots are being cut to make way for something new. My entire world spins around a completely new North Star. Visas are being processed. A new job is waiting for me, and every night I read post after post of how to set up an online shop to sell my first book. It is another manifestation of how I much procrastinate. But we don't have time for delays anymore.
This is me getting myself out there again, baby step after baby step, until I become comfortable enough to walk like the grown-ass woman I was meant to be at this point.
Healing from being badly beaten in the slumps takes time. And this is my way of saying to myself, "Hey. It's still not game over. We can still get through this."
Plot: your anxiety over being the perfect person is rolling over you like a truck, and you can't hide it anymore...especially from the beautiful Yoon Jeonghan himself.
Genre: slice of life, smut, angst
Pairing: yjh × reader
Words: 3k+
You have a habit of making yourself change for the people that you love. It's your talent. The percentage of success that you incur from it is off-the-charts. No one has caught on to your uncanny ability to fit anyone's desired definition of you.
Sometimes, you are thrilled because you could change yourself to be anyone you want to be. You feel happy that you could make the people around you happy. But lately, you've been feeling like a fraud. You would stare at the mirror, wondering who the reflection was.
To your family, you are the perfect child. Everyone looks up to you. You are goal-driven—a hard worker, someone who is clearly on her way to a promising future. You are so full of potential that your mom would protectively guard how you managed your time, your studies, and your social circles. You grew up as a woman cultured enough to mingle in society above yours. Your mom has high hopes of you marrying well someday after you’ve carved out a niche for yourself. You grew up knowing the words to say, the rules to follow—you know how to do everything right in your parents’ eyes.
To your friends, you are somewhat of an enigma. They all wonder about you because you are a walking contradiction. What they see and what they hear about you don't always match. They have hints that you are not at all who you seem to be, but they have no idea about how good you are at hiding who you are from them. Nobody could decide how to describe you as a person. They couldn’t agree about whether you are the nice girl some of them know you to be or the bitch others have sworn that you are. They will never find out. Even you yourself do not know the answer to that. To put it simply, you become who your friends want you to be. You play roles for them, and it has come to a point where you could easily be the nice girl or the crazy rebel. They only have to choose, and you will perform.
And, to your boyfriend, Seven, the same is true. If he wants you to play the role of a sweet girlfriend, then that's who you would be. If he wants to bend over and play the role of his bitch, then you would be it. If he wants you to play the role of a thesis completer, a Laundromat, a punching bag, a bank—hell, anything he could dream of—then you would play it for him.
You are an outstanding actress; there is no doubt about it. But the roles you’ve been taking have been weighing you down lately. Circumstances are peeling your masks off, and you are afraid of what might happen once they’re gone.
Without others deciding who you would be for them, who are you?
. . .
You've just lost your scholarship.
Nobody is talking about it at home, but when everybody sits down for dinner, the tension is stifling. Jokes sound dull and forced, and the small talk is unbearable. No one dares to bring it up. No one talks about school, which is the weirdest part. They are probably thinking that they are sparing your feelings, but the weight seems to get heavier as they hesitate to confront you about the situation.
At night, you hear your parents arguing about how they would be able to help you scrape up the money for your classes. They do not believe in student loans, and neither do you. You have been taking part-time jobs lately, but what you earn is still not enough to keep you afloat for the coming semester. What's more, it's been a week since your mom cleaned your bathroom for you and found those pregnancy tests that you've forgotten to throw away. You had seen in her eyes that she wanted to talk to you about it, but she still hasn't approached you about it.
You know she will.
You might be dropping the role of the perfect child soon.
. . .
Your circle of friends has been getting smaller lately.
It all started when Yerin made a scene at the cafeteria and accused you of making out with her boyfriend. You had gone clubbing with her and a few other friends, and you had indeed drunk more than you usually did. You might even have popped a few magic pills, too, according to Mika. Somewhere between excessive drinking and popping pills that you shouldn’t have, you had somehow managed to sit on Marco’s lap and kiss him with Yerin watching. Some people who went to the nightclub with you three tried to come to your defense and disprove Mika's story, but their versions of the story were overruled. You yourself do not know who was telling the truth. You could not remember what happened that night. Ah, truly, you will never know for sure. To make matters worse, your nightclub self is clashing with another role that you've been playing.
"Y/N doesn't drink!" Sabrina, your self-proclaimed best friend, had argued when Yerin confronted you roughly about kissing Marco. "Back off, Yerin. I don’t see any proof supporting this shitty story that you're trying to sell us. I would have known if she was doing—"
"—I know who I was with that night, Sabrina," Yerin had spat out. "I know who sat on my boyfriend's lap and made out with him like I wasn't sitting right there, soaking in that fucked-up scene. I know what kind of two-faced bitch your best friend is. But do you know who doesn't know her for who she is, Sabrina? You." Yerin had then crossed her arms while throwing a mocking smile at Sabrina. "You don't really know her. All of her. Don't you think you should have realized that by now?"
"Y/N?" Sabrina’s honest brown eyes had then searched your face for answers, desperately wanting Yerin and Mika to be wrong. After all, she was the one who should know you better than anyone. You had lived in the same neighborhood street for years. Your parents are best friends, and Sabrina had assumed that you thought about her as your bestie as well. "Is Yerin telling the truth?"
"Y/N?" Eunjae, your other friend and Sabrina's cousin, had spoken then, her words making your stomach churn. "Please tell us Yerin’s wrong so we could defend you from all this bullshit." She had looked pale and drawn. She hated Yerin because Marco was her ex-boyfriend that she believed had been stolen from her. Eunjae would never understand why you would be friends with someone she hated.
"What's going on?" The gathering crowd had then parted, and Seven appeared out of nowhere, arm encircling your waist, protectively pulling you close to him. For once, you had been grateful for his presence. You then asked him to take you away from the cafeteria, and he did.
Sabrina and Eunjae will eventually find out that you are not who you seem to be. As for Yerin and Mika, they will make it their mission to tear your reputation to shreds. You laugh at that, and you mentally raise a glass in a toast to the end of your friendship.
The mask you have been wearing around the school, around your friends—it’s coming off. Soon, you will no longer be an enigma. The definitions people have of you will merge into one slamdunk judgment, and you could not help but dread what that will be.
. . .
Seven has been seeing another girl again.
You don’t know how you could sense that kind of thing; it was probably an instinct that had become refined because of your past experiences with him. He doesn’t think you know because you’ve played the role of the docile—and sometimes dumb—girlfriend quite well.
You are sitting at a diner booth with him right now, watching him eat more than his share of the food that only you would pay for, as usual. He is meeting new friends from a nearby uni to discuss something about his podcast. You sit there, waiting impatiently, drumming your fingers. For the nth time, you check your watch. Your shift at the coffee shop across your house starts in an hour, and you are thirty minutes away.
"Are they coming yet?" you ask Seven. You rake back his hair from his forehead. He flinches at your touch, and you know why. He doesn't like it when you touch him while he is cheating on you. The last time you and he talked about it, he said it made him feel guilty. You remember putting on an innocent face as he caved and confessed about seeing someone else.
Three men sit down across you just as Seven answers. All three wear the varsity jacket of the uni across the diner. You study the surnames on the lapels of their jackets: Decker, Lee, and Yoon. You nod and say hi and turn back to Seven, sidling closer to him. As you do so, you catch a whiff of an unfamiliar scent on his shirt.
You do your best to hide what you are feeling. Seven is entertaining friends, and you are Sweet Girlfriend right now. You have to play your part perfectly. You have to pretend that all is well. You have to act as though Seven is a fantastic person and that you are very much in love.
At least it is true that you are in love with Seven. If you hadn't been, you would have made a scene then and there and asked Seven why the hell he was wearing some rose-scented perfume on him and how he still found the audacity to fuck you with another girl on his mind before you came to the diner.
As you smile and nod at Seven, you ask him in your mind for the millionth time, How could you sit here with me wearing another girl’s perfume on you? You must really look stupid in his eyes.
You had thought that you could get away with being Seven's Sweet Girlfriend tonight, but you are proven wrong. Because as Seven brags about you and how much you love him, the guy surnamed Yoon lets out a laugh.
"What's funny?" Seven asks, his tone dangerously light.
"Nothing, nothing," the guy says, shaking his head as he laughs. He is making too much eye contact with you, and you are beginning to feel nervous. Seven doesn't like it when guys look at you too much. Somehow, that sort of attention becomes your fault.
Clamping a hand around your leg, Seven pretends to laugh. Smiling, you try not to flinch at the pain. "I was telling you how much this girl here likes me. Did that sound funny to you?"
"Uh-huh." The guy surnamed Yoon seems unfazed by Seven's loaded tone, and he keeps laughing as he looks at you straight in the eye. "That was the part that sounded funny to me."
You couldn't believe that this guy is exchanging tit-for-tat with Seven. The grip on your leg becomes tighter. The guy surnamed Decker laughs gently to ease the tension.
"Jeonghan’s sense of humor is questionable sometimes, believe me," Decker says placatingly. "Now, where were we?"
Seven hesitates before his hand leaves your leg, and you try not to get noticed as you sigh with both physical and mental relief. You ignore the guy named Yoon, and you pick up the last fry on the plate. You try to pay attention to what Seven and the other two are discussing. But the Yoon guy keeps looking at you, and you finally raise an eyebrow at him in irritation.
To your surprise, instead of getting flustered, his face—which is too handsome for his own good—turns smug, and he grins wider, as though your show of irritation had delighted him. You then conclude that his mind is twisted. He probably gets off by doing crazy things. Not that you were one to judge him, you tell yourself absently. You get off doing crazy things, too.
You check your watch at that point. Mercifully, it is time for you to go. You kiss Seven goodbye, and you nod at the three guys as you slide out of the booth. You feel eyes on you. You keep walking.
Once outside the diner, you put on your coat, and you sigh deeply. It's hard acting for the people around you—especially for Seven. But, at least, it is over. Tread lightly, you tell yourself. Tread lightly, Y/N.
You close your eyes. You inhale deeply, and you prepare yourself for the next scene ahead. In a few minutes, your mind has to focus on work and on being Perfect Daughter when you get home after. You mentally pack Seven and his cheating hide in a box and shove him at the furthest corner of your head. You will get back to him later.
But as you are hailing a cab, a hand grabs yours and kisses it. Frightened, you yelp, and you whirl around to find yourself looking into the Yoon guy's twinkling eyes.
"Ah," he begins with a mocking pout, "did that kiss still not refresh your memory?" He cocks his head to the side as he studies you with a humorous expression. "Do you need more hints?"
"Excuse me," you hiss as you snatch your hand away from him, "but I don't need hints. Now get out of my face before I call my boyfriend and—"
"—sweetheart, we both know that you don't want to do that," he breaks in gently. The light in his eyes never leaves. And while his tone still holds a bit of jest in them, the implication of his words makes you reel back in surprise.
For a minute, you just stand there, mouth agape, staring up at Jeonghan. "Who are you?" you ask with a small voice. "Why are you acting as if you know me?"
"Because, honey, I do know you. And I can help you remember me," he answers. His silly smile is back, and you hate yourself for gaping at him. How could someone be so irritating and so gorgeous at the same time? "Do you want me to help you remember me?" He says your full name, and your eyes widen all the more in surprise.
"And what will you do to make me remember you?" you say scornfully, but with no small amount of wonderment.
The cab you hailed races away like your heart as Jeonghan kisses you on the mouth, his hands cupping your face, his lips on yours like the tenderest caress. As he deepens the kiss, tongue inside your mouth and tasting you, you arch against him, suddenly not caring that Seven the Cheater and two of Jeonghan's friends might see.
When he breaks away, you are panting, and your heart is hammering inside your chest, heartbeats racing beyond reason. He does not let go of your face. A soft expression is on his face as his thumb traces your lower lip.
"You," you manage to breathe out as your hands hesitantly touch his face. "You." You have finally remembered him.
"Mm-hmm." Jeonghan chuckles again as he sees that you have finally remembered him. "Yes. Me." He kisses you again, and you let him. "I am glad I helped refresh your memory."
"Not quite," you whisper, your eyes still trained on his. You know that you must stop right there. But gazing up at Yoon Jeonghan, words come out of your mouth before you could think them through. "I think you need to help me more."
Jeonghan hails a cab, arm wrapped around your shoulders. You watch him as he gives an address to the cab driver. Your mind absently reminds you of work, but you simply watch as the driver heads off in a direction that would take you far from the coffee shop. From home. From anyone who might know you at first glance.
You did not even turn around to check if Seven saw you get into the cab with Jeonghan.
You also ignore the driver as Jeonghan continues to make you remember.
. . .
Every day, there is a weight inside your chest that never leaves. There are fears that hiss out word for word scenarios that make you lose focus at day and sleep at night. Your senses are so high-strung, taut, erect. Too alert. Too sensitive. Too preoccupied with everything that is going on around you. Too nervous. Too anxious. Too tired.
You can't please everybody forever. Nobody needs to remind you of this for you to know. But you just. Can't. Stop. Pleasing. Them.
All of them.
For a while, you let off steam by smoking a few packs. But then your mom smelled the nicotine on you, even though your anxiety reeked even worse. So you stopped that.
Then it was trying a few bottles to help you unwind. But just when the alcohol was about to knock you out and give you the blessing of passing out, oblivious to the world and the pressure it gives you, your teetotaler bestie Sabrina would take the can or the bottle and prevent you from drinking the last drop.
Then it was the clubs. The midnight escapades with unlikely companions. The kisses in the dark. Too loud music that you never liked but tolerated because sometimes, it could drown out the noise inside your head. But not all the time. Never all the time. Nothing works all the time to calm the panic inside you that says, "Everything will fall apart and you will have nothing."
Seven would have been a good distraction when he fucks you in the rough way he does, but he pulls out of you at the worst moments. You make him come every time, but he can't make you come. At all. Horrible, really. Each fuck was so devoid of pleasure for you that you sometimes wondered what it was like with other people. If sex is as overrated as some say it is. He likes your pussy, Seven says as he groans and bites your neck when he comes. One of the best. As if that thrills you. As if that turns you on. One of the best. Imagine that. How he unknowingly adds to your anxiety. Your pussy, even your pussy, a runner-up. Wow. What a life. Never good enough. For anyone.
But you always had to pretend like it was all okay.
Always.
Well, you think about it now as your hands grip Jeonghan's hair as his tongue does wonders on your runner-up pussy, not always. Not anymore.
As Jeonghan fucks you and pounds into you so fully, so deeply--as he takes control and lets your mind go to La La Land while he makes your body feel things it never did before, your mind quiets and all you hear is your moans and the flush of dirty words from his mouth that arouse you and make you forget everything except the way Jeonghan fucks you.
And the way he made you come. Like waterfalls crashing and letting loose. Intense, but so...so...sweet. It made your body feel tremors that it never felt before. Over and over.
All night, that is what he does. Waking you up with kisses after an hour or two...insatiable. Taking off your clothes and helping you put them back again, as you would do for him. Pillow talk and deep conversations, melding into each hour that passes. Somewhere on the wooden floor of his apartment, your phone and Jeonghan's phone would buzz occasionally, the only signs that there is a world outside the haven Jeonghan had created for you unknowingly. You didn't bother to bring up the phones. How could you? Jeonghan was too busy making you forget everything on your mind, except for his mouth, his beautiful body, his eyes, his touch, the way he thrusts inside you...your mind was just all him.
Nothing else.
You met him at a bar you happened to stumble into one drunken night with Yerin and the others. It as miles away from everything you knew, which made you feel more adventurous than usual. Jeonghan had been watching you from afar, he told you as you lay beside him, but it was you who had come up to him and told him that he was cute.
"I was too drunk when I said that," you protest, slapping his arm. "There is no way I would approach a stranger and say stuff like that with my head straight."
"Then I am glad you got drunk," Jeonghan says before kissing you again. "Very glad," he whispers as he kisses your neck.
Jeonghan proceeds to tell you that you went to that bar with a mission to find out if cheating was satisfying. If fucking someone else other than your boyfriend was sweet revenge for being duped. Jeonghan had not wanted to go with your crazy, drunken plan, but...
"...I kissed you first," you finish his sentence, heat flush on your cheeks.
Jeonghan was usually levelheaded, but he forgot his moral compass and his sensibility when you did that. Somehow, you both ended up at his apartment just like tonight and fucked the senses out of each other.
Was it a good choice? Definitely not. But why did it make you feel lighter? Why are you calmer?
As you look at Jeonghan's sleeping form beside you, you could not help but wonder.
In this room, with this man, it had happened twice: you forgot everything else, and every word you said felt true. From your compliments of his prowess to the stories you told him about your life.
Being with him was wrong, but for whatever reason, being with him also made you set things right in your mind.
There are no roles in this room with him beside you.
You are just you. You are just you with Yoon Jeonghan.
You hear your phone's 5AM alarm and you let it go on and on. As if on instinct, Yoon Jeonghan pulls you closer to him and mumbles, "Sleep."
Safe from the outside world in his arms, you did sleep.
You were just you with him, and everything felt right.
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