🔮 preview. “Time is a funny thing in this place. I know it’s been days, weeks, years even- that I’ve been here, but I don’t know for how long. I eat, I sleep, I drink- I repeat. I don’t grow old, I don’t get sick. I just am. It’s fucking boring if I’m behind honest with you, or at least it was. It’s been a while since we had someone new show up at the hotel, and even longer since that someone was as gorgeous as you.”
tw/cw. Unprotected sex, fingering, pussy eating, blow job, roughhousing, dirty talk, praise, finger sucking, multiple sex positions, spanking, mentions of pain kink, mentions of masturbation, breast worship, watching yourself in the mirror while you fuck, etc… I pet names: (hers) gorgeous.
👹 rating.18+ explicit I wc. 9.9k
🍭 aus. Non idol au, strangers to lovers, song as inspo, etc..
☀️ mlist + an. I’ve wanted to tackle ‘The Hotel California’ song by Eagles for ages, and after months of thinking about how to do it best, I think I finally did it justice. I wanted to also draw some inspiration from the tv show ‘The White Lotus,’ with the first season (and the first season’s Hotel Manager) being particularly interesting to me. I’m really excited about this fic, and I hope you guys enjoy it!
One:
Driving across the Californian desert after a twelve-hour shoot had not been your plan, but being double booked by your agent had left you with little choice in the matter. You’re still a blooming model, and you can’t yet afford the luxury of easy flights- no, you have to do it yourself, and it’s determination that’s driving you as you speed down the highway with the sun beginning to set.
You’re exhausted, and you can feel your body beginning to tire from your long hours, but you push on. In an effort to keep yourself awake, you put on some music, doing your best to focus on the long winding roads as you take the liminal path between one civilization to the other.
It’s a pretty drive if nothing else, at least as the sun sets, but once the purple and pink sky has faded to black, the whole thing feels monotonous.
You yawn loudly, pushing harder on your gas pedal. There are no cops out here this deep in the desert, and if it saves you even ten minutes to speed, it will be well worth it.
It’s hard to concentrate, and you can feel yourself getting drowsier and drowsier, your eyelids getting heavier with each passing breath, but you’re in too deep to pull off on the side of the road.
Your body is relaxing, succumbing to the exhaustion. Your eyes begin to close- and just as you’re on the precipice of falling asleep at the wheel, your car makes a rough sound.
Body lurching with anxiety, your heart thumps wildly in your chest, and once again, your car makes a noise it shouldn’t be making.
With a loud groan, you slowly pull off to the side of the road, and that’s when the engine begins to billow smoke out from under your hood.
You reach for your phone, only to find it’s dead, and with a loud, “Fuck!” you get out of your car.
It takes you a second to remember how to pop the hood, after all, you’re a model, not a mechanic. As the hood lifts, a gust of hot smokey steam flairs up at you, and without your phone to use as a light, you can only rely on the rays of the moon to guide you as you fiddle with your car on the side of the road in the middle of the desert.
After five minutes of panic, you decide to give up. As you look around, you realize there’s a light in the distance. It’s a faint light, but a light nonetheless.
You return to your car, sitting there for a while as you decide what to do.
Leaving your vehicle on the side of the road isn’t exactly the best-case scenario, but neither is staying with it overnight- you’ve heard that the desert can get cold when the sun goes down, and you’re already feeling chilly.
You weigh your options. After a while, you collect your things from the trunk and begin to make the trek down the long desert road toward the lights that symbolize civilization of some sort.
Two:
“Welcome to The Hotel California,” a peppy man smiles when you approach the front desk.
It turns out the lights you’d seen from your car had belonged to a cute one-story terracotta hotel. You didn’t realize there were hotels along this stretch of road, but relief floods through you as you approach the man whose badge says ‘Jeonghan. hotel manager.’
“Hello,” you smile, releasing a sigh. “My car broke down a little ways up the road.”
“Well that’s not very good,” he frowns, empathizing with you.
“I need a room for the night, and I’d appreciate it if I could use a phone to call for someone to come and look at my car in the morning,” you explain.
“I can get that settled for you,” he assures you, writing something down in the notebook in front of him. “A room for one?”
“Yes, it’s just me,” you confirm.
“Name?”
You give him your information, reaching into your bag for your credit card.
“We won’t need any form of payment until check out,” Jeonghan assures you. “Anything you eat or drink or do will be added to your tab, and you can deal with it another time.”
“Thank God, you have no idea how exhausted I am.”
“I’ll have our bellhop escort you to your room and help with your bags,” the hotel manager smiles. He waves over a man, whose nametag reads ‘Seungkwan,’ and with another nod and a grin to you, the manager watches you walk off.
You take a moment to look around. While the exterior of the hotel had been very rustic, the interior is Art Deco. There are many mirrors, and the lobby has a few red velvet couches strewn about. It’s actually kind of cute for a hotel in the middle of nowhere, and you’re thankful you’d come across it.
If your car had broken down even five minutes before, you doubt you would have seen the lights of The Hotel California, and then where would you be?
Three:
You wake as light peaks through the blinds of your room. With a yawn, you sit up in bed, immediately reaching for your phone on the bedside table.
Although you’d plugged it in to charge the night before, the screen is still dead.
Your heart sinks in your chest, and with a groan of exasperation, you stand up.
After putting on clothes and making yourself feel presentable, you head out in search of the lobby, where you find Jeonghan behind the front desk as he had been last night.
“Hi,” you greet him. “I was wondering if you have any news about my car?”
“We called a towing company, they had to come out from the nearest town. No word yet on what’s wrong with your car or how long it will take to fix.”
It’s hard to hide your disappointment as you release a deep breath. “So… I’m stuck here.”
“It would appear that way,” Jeonghan smiles politely.
As you’re about to leave, you remember the other point of contention on your mind, and you turn to look at the hotel manager again. “I tried to charge my phone last night, and I’m not sure if it’s a problem with my charger or your outlet, but it didn’t charge.”
“I can take your phone for you for now, and I’ll see if one of the chargers or outlets we have here will work,” he suggests.
You stare at him. The idea of giving up your phone doesn’t sit right with you, but at this point, you’re too tired to care. Although you’d gotten sleep, your body still feels exhausted- how many hours had you even gotten in bed?
“What time is it?” you ask.
“I think it’s time for you to get a watch,” the hotel manager teases.
“Right…” you trail off, pulling your phone out of your pocket to hand to him. “Please get this back to me once it’s charged, I’ve gotta call my agent and maybe rearrange a mode of transportation or something.”
“Go relax and I’ll deal with all of this,” Jeonghan assures you. “We’ve got a morning buffet in the dining room just down the hall, I suggest you go and get your strength up.”
“Thank you.”
You follow his direction down a few corridors to a dining room. It’s a lovely space, with one line of glass walls that look out at the desert. The style choice is as art deco as the lobby, and while you’d found it charming at first, you’re already getting sick of the mirrors everywhere.
A large table lines the far wall, and there are many silver trays with food on them. Heading over there, you find a plate and begin to choose what you want to eat.
As you make a dish for yourself, you look around, noting that there aren’t very many guests in the hotel. You suppose that it’s a very odd location for a hotel, and its remote nature is probably the reason you only see a handful of people around.
Once your plate is full, you approach one of the many empty tables, taking a seat and looking around once more.
There are two men dressed in suits, and you immediately assume they’re in business of some sort. You wonder what they’re doing here of all places, but you don’t dwell on it for long, not when you notice that their table is covered with plates.
They’re both rather lean men, so you wonder how they plan to eat all the food in front of them, but you decide not to be a person who pries. After all, you’re only going to be here a short time, you don’t have to care about what others are doing around you.
Your gaze shifts to a man seated near the windows. His hair is dark and curly, and he has a pair of glasses on. His gaze is focused on a book in his hands, and you notice the only thing on his table is a lemon water.
For some reason, he gives you monk vibes, and you wonder how a man so young and attractive can be so peaceful in his way of living.
The hair on the back of your neck prickles, and you realize someone is watching you. There’s a man in the corner of the room, and on second glance, you realize he’s next to a record player. He stares at you for a few seconds, then lifts an entire bottle of whiskey to his lips.
He makes you uncomfortable, and after that, you just focus on your own plate, repeating to yourself that this will all be over soon.
Four:
After breakfast, you head back to your room, and when you get there, you’re surprised to find both your laptop and all your charging cords are missing.
You scramble through your bags, hoping you just misplaced them- but no, your electronics are gone, and it makes your heart race with anxiety.
You all but run back to the lobby, but when you arrive, Jeonghan is not there.
Looking around, you realize there’s a bar set up in the corner, and you quickly make your way over, stopping in front of the bartender. “Hi, I checked in last night, my car was having issues, and then so was my phone- I gave my phone to your hotel manager to charge, and when I got back up to my room my laptop and charging cords were gone-”
He stares at you blankly, and you read the name on his shirt.
“Look, Joshua, I just need help. I need something. I have to call my agent, I have to do something-”
“Have a drink,” he suggests, lifting a bottle of tequila from behind the bar.
“I don’t need a drink,” you groan. “I need my phone, I need my laptop, I need my car- I need you to help me sort this out!”
“Calm down, gorgeous, Joshua just works here, you’re not going to get a lot of help out of him unless you want a mean cocktail.” A deep voice makes you turn, and you find yourself staring at the man who you’d seen by the record player at the buffet earlier.
He’s still carrying his bottle of whiskey, but it’s only about half full now.
“He works here, so he should know what to do or who to call-”
“Like I said, the most you’re going to get out of him is a wine and steak pairing recommendation,” the man in front of you laughs. “I’m Seungcheol, by the way.”
You tell him your name with a sigh, and you don’t miss the way his gaze rakes up and down your body.
“So what’s your story?” he asks.
“My car broke down, I walked here, my phone is dead, my laptop is stolen, I’m having a really shit day.”
“Sounds like it.” He brings the bottle of whiskey to his lips, taking a large gulp. “Maybe you should take Joshie’s advice and have a drink.”
“What I need is a nap,” you state. “I’m going back to my fucking room, to have a fucking siesta, and when I’m done, that fucking hotel manager better have my phone charged and my car fixed.”
Five:
You have no clue what time it is when you wake up from your nap, all you know is the sun is beginning to set and your whole body hurts. You groan to even sit up, and you realize you feel as exhausted as you had this morning before your nap.
Are you getting sick?
Deciding you don’t have time to dwell on the state of your body, you head to the lobby, where once again, Jeonghan is nowhere to be seen. So instead, you head to the bar, where the ‘Seungcheol’ man is sitting and chatting with Joshua.
You take the seat next to him and he turns to look at you with a grin.
“Hi, gorgeous, how was your nap?”
“Uneventful,” you state. “Look, I need a ride to town.”
“Which town?”
“Any town, I don’t care, I just need to get out of here.”
“Well, I don’t have a car.”
“You don’t have a car?” you stare at him in shock.
“Nope, just a motorcycle, and I doubt all your shit would fit on it.”
“I will literally leave ‘my shit’ here and come back for it once my car is fixed.”
“Well…” Seungcheol taps his fingers on the bottle of whiskey in his hand. “My motorcycle broke down on the way here.”
You blink as you look at this man. He’s stunning, with a strong jaw, broad shoulders, curly hair- but fuck, he’s a bit dense. “Well?” you ask. “Was it towed? How long have you been waiting for it to get fixed?”
Seungcheol only grins, taking a sip of his whiskey. “A while.”
For some reason, the way he says it is ominous. You don’t know if he’s playing with you, or what- but you’re done with all of this bullshit.
“I’m going to bed again,” you announce.
“Didn’t you just wake up?”
“I am going to bed!”
Six:
When you wake up the next morning, the first thing you do is go to the lobby. You can’t help the relief that floods through you when you see Jeonghan standing behind the front desk.
“Thank God,” you almost laugh with triumph. “Do you have news about my car? Or my phone? Also, someone stole my laptop yesterday!”
“Unfortunately I have no news about your car, and it seems none of the chargers are working with your phone,” Jeonghan frowns.
It feels like the breath has been knocked from your lungs. “What?”
“Also, I don’t know anything about your laptop, but I’ll look into it.”
You’re tired of this hotel manager taking charge- tired of being at this Art Deco hotel in the middle of butt fuck nowhere.
“You know what, I’d like to check out,” you tell him. “I’d like to grab my things, call a taxi, and just go to the next town and wait for my car to be fixed.”
“I’d love to help you with that,” Jeonghan says, “but unfortunately there are no available cars to take you to the next town.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, no taxis come out this far, you couldn’t bribe them with a hundred bucks to come grab you.” Jeonghan laughs as if what he’s just said is a joke. “And unfortunately all the actual cars on the property belong to people who work at the hotel, all of whom are on shift and can’t drive you.”
“Can’t I wait till someone’s off shift?”
“Everyone on shift lives here in the staff quarters and I can assure you that no one wants to drive to the next town, which is over two hours away, after a twelve-hour shift.”
“So…” Your heart is racing. “What are my options?”
“Well, you can check out if you’d like,” Jeonghan says, “but unfortunately, I don’t think you’ll be able to actually leave the premises unless you walk, which would be very dangerous.”
“Fuck. Give me my phone back.”
You watch Jeonghan reach down and pull your cell out of a drawer, and then you snatch it from his hands.
“Have a lovely evening!” he calls as you turn and storm to the bar.
“What was that about?” Seungcheol asks as you come to stand next to him, releasing a breath of exasperation as you set your hands on the bar top.
“Joshua, give me a bottle of something.”
“What do you like to drink?” the bartender asks.
“Anything.”
“Looks like you’ve changed your tune, gorgeous,” Seungcheol grins next to you.
“I’m going to get drunk, and then I’m going to walk back to civilization if it’s the last thing I do.”
You note the way Seungcheol’s expression falters. “For real?”
“Yes, for real.”
Joshua places a bottle of tequila on the bar and you snatch it up, flicking off the lid and taking a large chug.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Seungcheol muses. “He doesn’t either, do you, Joshie?”
“I just work here,” Joshua shrugs.
“Unless one of you wants to drive me back to town, I’m walking!”
You can feel Seungcheol studying you, and then he sighs. “Fine. I’ll go with you.”
“I never asked you to come.”
“But I’m coming anyways, it wouldn’t be responsible to let a cute girl like you go out into the desert alone. There are aliens and shit.”
“Sure there are,” you roll your eyes.
You have a few more sips of your drink, getting yourself jazzed up for this- and then, you turn to look at the door that leads out of The Hotel California. “Okay, let’s get out of this fucking hellhole.”
Seungcheol releases a chuckle, shaking his head, and then he stands, following you out into the desert beyond.
The first half hour or so is you walking with determination, but as time ticks on, you begin to falter.
“Finally ready to turn back?” Seungcheol asks.
“Why did you even come with me?” you snap.
“I told you, it wouldn’t be safe to send you out here alone.”
“Because men who ride motorcycles really care about safety,” you roll your eyes.
Seungcheol only laughs, and he says nothing else, allowing a silent trek for another hour or so.
Is it an hour? Fuck, you can’t really tell. There are no clocks, no phones to check the time- you have no clue how long you’ve been out here, and anxiety is beginning to bubble up in the pit of your stomach.
Then- just as you’re feeling close to your breaking point, you see lights in the distance.
“Oh my God! We made it!” you practically scream, turning to look at Seungcheol, who doesn’t seem nearly as excited as he should be.
Your pace picks up, in fact, you begin to run toward the light, toward salvation-
You’re out of breath, your muscles screaming at you, but you push on… and that’s when you realize, these lights are familiar.
The excitement begins to die down, and when you’re close enough to see the source of the lights with clarity, you sink to the ground next to the highway in shock.
Gravel and sand crunches as Seungcheol comes to join you, standing a foot away.
“But- that’s- that’s the hotel!” you say.
“It is.”
“But- we went straight! We followed the highway! How are we back here again?”
You’ve never felt defeat like this, and you’ve been rejected by modeling agencies a number of times in your career. This is something different, it’s not just a momentary lapse- this feels more permanent, it feels more otherworldly, and you can’t wrap your head around any of it.
“I think…” Seungcheol releases a sigh. “I think it’s time I told you a few things.”
Seven:
Seungcheol had insisted on going back to the bar to get a bottle of whiskey before divulging into a conversation with you. As you’d entered the lobby, Jeonghan had called out a bright ‘welcome back!’ and you were too defeated to acknowledge him.
You feel like a shell of a person as you lead Seungcheol back to your room, collapsing on your bed. “What the fuck is going on?” you ask.
“This is all going to sound a bit weird,” he admits.
“Weirder than us walking in a straight line for two hours only to find ourselves right back where we started? I doubt it.”
Seungcheol smiles, shaking his head a little as if this whole situation is somehow humorous.
“I think… everyone is stuck here.”
“Stuck here?” you question.
“You and I, we have similar stories. I remember driving my motorcycle, something happened, I pulled over, and then I saw this place,” Seungcheol explains. “I’ve talked to a few people who live here, and they all have the same story.”
“I don’t understand- Seungcheol,” you swallow thickly, “how long have you been here?”
“You see,” Seungchol chuckles, but there’s a sad note to it, “Time is a funny thing in this place. I know it’s been days, weeks, years even- that I’ve been here, but I don’t know for how long. I eat, I sleep, I drink- I repeat. I don’t grow old, I don’t get sick. I just am. It’s fucking boring if I’m behind honest with you, or at least it was. It’s been a while since we had someone new show up at the hotel, and even longer since that someone was as gorgeous as you.”
You can’t believe he’s taking this opportunity to flirt with you, so you pull yourself back on track. “Someone has to know how long we’ve been here,” you insist.
“No one I’ve talked to knows.”
“Well,” you take a breath. “I want to talk to those two men, the ones in suits who are in the buffet.”
“Why?”
“They strike me as the kind of men who would know things,” you tell him. “I can feel it.”
Eight:
You find the two men where they always are in the buffet. Tonight, they’re playing chess, using up a large table so the space not covered with the game board can be full of food and drinks. You still wonder at their glutenous ways, but that’s not why you’re here right now.
“Hi,” you say, trying to be friendly despite the day you’re having.
The two men look up at you, then at their chessboard.
“I’m Y/N, and this is Seungcheol,” you introduce yourself only to be met with silence. “What are your names?”
“Jun. That’s Minghao,” one of the men says dismissively.
“Do you guys happen to have the time?” you ask next.
They’re both quiet, and it’s making you angrier by the second, but you force yourself to keep your cool.
“Would you guys be able to tell me how long you’ve been here?
Still silence.
You look around for that man you’d seen, the one with glasses and a lemon water, but he’s nowhere to be found.
“Look,” you kneel down so you’re about level with the seated men, lowering your voice. “I just got here, something weird is going on, and I need answers.”
The two men exchange a glance, and it’s Jun who finally turns to you. “We won’t discuss this in the open.”
“Come to our room,” Minghao sighs. “But don’t make it obvious you’re following us.”
You wonder why the theatrics are necessary, but with a nod, you and Seungcheol move away. You take a seat at a table across the space, and after a few minutes where the two men converse in whispers, both stand up.
You wait for them to leave, and after a few seconds, you and Seungcheol slowly follow.
Jeonghan watches you cross the space, and that’s when you realize why these men are being so weird. This hotel manager has an odd hold on everyone in this place.
When you make it to Jun and Minghao’s room, they open the door for you, saying nothing. As you enter the space, you’re ready to bombard them with questions, but when Jun moves to the coat closet, pushing fabrics aside, all your words die in your throat.
The entire wall, which had just been hidden, is covered in small tally marks.
“We were keeping a tab with a pen and paper, but the cleaner kept taking it away,” Jun explains. “I don’t think they want us to keep track of time.”
“And these tallies-” you begin.
“They mark the days the two of you have been here,” Seungcheol finishes.
“But,” you swallow thickly, “that’s thousands of days- that’s years!”
“Over sixty years,” Minghao says quietly.
“How can this be real?!” you ask. “You both don’t look a day over thirty.”
“When we’d arrived here, we weren’t,” Jun says sadly, “but that was in 1963.”
“Nobody grows old here,” Minghao tells you, “because we’re in Hell.”
“So you both think that pansy hotel manager is the Devil?” Seungcheol scoffs.
You can see Minghao’s eyes immediately narrow in annoyance. “We just mind our own business, and we suggest you do the same.”
“Have you ever confronted Jeonghan?” you ask.
“Nobody confronts him,” Jun says sheepishly. “I guess, even though we’re all in Hell, lots of us are… scared of the consequences.”
“Well, he already took away my phone and my laptop,” you sigh, “I guess I have to be the man in the room and go deal with this.”
Nine:
After spending the night thinking about it, you decide as the sun comes up that you’re going to rip the bandaid off.
Everyone in this fucking hotel is so evasive, but you’ll take this head-on. You’re a twenty-first-century woman, and you’ll be damned if some hotel manager ruins your entire life.
There’s a power in the way you walk as you head straight for the front desk, and you try to look intimidating despite your rapidly beating heart.
“Good morning,” Jeonghan greets you with a smile.
“What’s the deal?” you ask.
“Hmm?”
“The deal with this place, what’s going on?”
He flashes you a knowing smile, and the words that come out of his mouth next are an obvious load of shit: “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
You size him up, and you realize that, at this precise moment, you’re not going to get any information out of this man, so you decide to switch to plan two.
Turning on your heel, you head deeper into the hotel, and in the back of the dining room, you see Seungkwan slipping into a corridor.
Catching him is easy since he’s not exactly running from you, and the man stops to politely nod at you. “Good morning.”
“What’s going on with this place?” you ask.
“Excuse me?”
“This stupid hotel, what’s the deal? All my electronics are missing, there are no clocks, and I left yesterday, I left! I walked down the highway for two hours only to end up right back where I started!” You can’t help the way your voice is rising in annoyance, and you partly hope that you can actually successfully intimidate this man-
As you look at him, you realize intimidation is off the table, because he releases a laugh.
“Look at you, little miss demanding.”
“Please,” you sigh, your heart practically wilting in your chest. “I just need to know.”
“Talk to the hotel manager, he can answer all your questions.”
“Except he can’t, or maybe the word is won’t-” You struggle for a moment. “Look, don’t you want to gossip with me?”
You can all but see his ears perk up at the word gossip.
“You’re a bellhop, you like secrets, right? You enjoy tea?”
His eyes narrow at you. “I’m more of a coffee drinker.”
“Tea, as in gossip, gossip is tea-” God, you wonder how many of these people are from the last century and have no idea what you mean when you use current lingo.
“I’m listening.”
“I’ll tell you some tea,” you insist. “Gossip for gossip, deal?”
“I want something else,” Seungkwan tells you, and that’s when you notice his eyes lingering on your throat, your necklace. “I want that.”
You sigh, reaching behind yourself to unclasp the silver chain. “Take it and tell me what’s going on in this stupid hotel.”
As soon as the jewelry is in the bellhop’s hand, his entire demeanor changes. It’s as if he’s gone from a young man, and turned into an old woman telling you about her neighbors and how she snoops at her window to collect information all day. There’s an air to his essence that tells you you’re about to find out exactly what’s happening in this so-called ‘Hotel California.’
“What have you heard so far?” he asks. “What do you think this place is?”
“I don’t know? Someone said it might be Hell, but I doubt Hell is an Art Deco and terracotta hotel in the middle of the desert.”
Seungkwan’s expression shifts with an all-knowing sort of twist of his lips. “This isn’t Hell. It’s purgatory.”
“What?” You feel your breath leave your lungs in shock.
“And Jeonghan, well, he’s not a hotel manager, he’s a grim reaper. His domain is this desert, and every guest at this hotel, they died in his desert, so their souls were his to pass judgment on.”
“Wait a minute, what do you mean we all died here?”
“Keep up!” Seungkwan snaps. “This is purgatory! Of course you’re dead!”
Your entire body deflates now. “But… how?”
“Fell asleep at the wheel, didn’t you, little miss model? Seungcheol’s motorcycle hit a pothole. Minghao and Jun were high on coke and drove off a cliff by the ravine not far from here, thinking they were invincible. Every guest has a similar story, it’s a dangerous stretch of road after all.”
“So… who are you? And how do you know all the people I’ve talked to since I got here?”
“I’m a nobody, a highwayman. But trust me when I tell you, the staff here keep tabs on everyone.”
“Are all the staff... Highwaymen?” you ask.
“In one sense or another.”
“And… and Jeonghan chose to put us in purgatory?” you question. “Why didn’t he take us to a final place?”
“Because your unfinished sins were too great to gain you entry above, but not dark enough to gain you entry below.” Seungkwan pauses for a moment. “It’s best if you try to overcome your original sins, you might just make it out of here.”
“Overcome my sins?” you repeat, on the verge of laughing in an odd sort of complete hopeless hysteria that you’ve never felt before. “Has anyone ever made it out of here?!”
“One man,” Seungkwan says thoughtfully. “In fact, you saw him. The man in glasses, Jeon Wonwoo. He was a powerful man back when he was alive, lustful and glutenous. But in his time here, he’s overcome, and you were his final test.”
Anger bubbles inside of you. “I was a final test? You mean I was brought here to test some horny guy!?”
“Not many women die on this stretch of highway, not many who are so grey and muted as yourself. Jeonghan found you to be particularly… puzzling.”
“Puzzling?” you scoff.
“You’re a model,” Seungkwan shrugs. “Lust, envy, pride, greed- you belong here like everyone else. Those businessmen, overwhelmed by pride, greed, envy, gluttony, sloth, and even wrath. They’ve only conquered lust in their eternity here, but that was to be expected with no women to enchant them. They treasure their own company now, far more than they’d ever treasure yours.”
“And Seungcheol?” you ask.
“Seungcheol?” Seungkwan actually laughs. “A rockstar from the seventies? Lust, pride, greed, wrath- in his day he had an enjoyment of starting mosh pits at his own concerts, of fighting people, of drinking and sleeping with many, many women. No, Jeonghan chooses the right people. You’re all here, and you’ll likely all stay here.”
Ten:
You’re sitting with Seungcheol in a secluded part of the buffet room, and you’ve just given him a rundown on all things Seungkwan. For a moment, he just sits there, and then, his brows furrow. “That little fuck says I’m here because I used to start moshpits at my own shows?”
“And sleeping with lots of women I’d assume.”
“I’m gonna beat that fucking bellhop’s ass-”
“This is what he’s talking about!” you insist. “Wrath!”
Seungcheol steadies himself, and then he sighs. “Who would have thought the seven deadly sins were a real fucking thing.”
“People who believe in the bible and stuff?”
Seungcheol shoots you an unamused expression and you have to stop yourself from smiling.
You look down at your hands, fiddling with your fingers. “So… are we going to try to overcome our sins or whatever?”
The man next to you exhales deeply. “I’ve been here a long time,” he admits. “I don’t think I’m going to magically change because some bellhop said I’m a horny fuck with anger issues.”
“True.”
“Besides, Jeonghan brought you here to test the whole lust thing, and I think we both know I’m failing in that one.”
Your skin tingles. Is this seventies rockstar admitting he’s into you?
I mean… you’d suspected as much, but to hear it confirmed like this…
Do you want to be good? Do you want to work on yourself?
Or do you want to give in to these lusty feelings? Do you want to go wild and make the most of this place since you’re probably going to be here forever?
You feel completely torn, and you clear your throat. “I think… I think I need to go clear my head.”
Eleven:
You find your way to the pool after some deep soul-searching. You’re in need of somewhat of a cleanse, and you think water could be a good way to do that.
It’s the evening, but the air is quite warm as you make your way through the open spaces of the hotel. The sky is dark above you, but stars twinkle, as does the moon. It’s oddly peaceful, if you forget the fact that you’re in some fucked of purgatory liminal space.
When you get to the pool area, you realize there’s a man you’ve never seen before, and he’s sitting by the hot tub. His feet are submerged in the bubbling water, and his head is tipped back, eyes closed. There’s a bong next to his right hand, and you can smell weed.
You stand and watch him for a moment, then decide to approach.
“Hello?” you say, drawing his attention. “Are you new here?”
“No, but you are,” the man muses.
“I am… but I’ve never seen you before.”
“You wouldn’t, I’m nocturnal. Might as well be, since there’s nowhere to go but here.”
Obviously this man has his own opinions of The Hotel California, and you take a seat next to him, crossing your legs. “What do you think of this place?”
“It’s whatever.”
You risk another look at him, and you realize he’s closed his eyes again, looking as relaxed as ever. That’s when you realize this man’s main sin is glaringly obvious; he’s sloth.
“How did you find weed here?” you ask.
“Brought some when I arrived, started growing it when I realized I wouldn’t be leaving.”
So… this man is growing weed, sleeping all day, and smoking all night in purgatory. Sounds about right.
“Do you want to leave?” you question.
“It’s whatever.”
“Some man named Wonwoo left,” you point out. “Seems like there’s a possibility.”
The man laughs. “That fucking monk finally got out? He’s been trying to be a good boy for years.”
You swallow thickly at the reminder that even if you try to be good, you’re doomed to be here for years. It’s not an ‘okay I’ve been good for a day, let me out now’ sort of situation. The whole thing leaves a bad taste in your mouth, and you clear your throat.
“I’m y/n by the way.”
“Vernon.” There’s a stagnant pause, and then he stretches. “You know, it’s nice here. You don’t have to cook or clean. There are no responsibilities. You just get to relax.”
“Kind of like an indefinite vacation.”
“Exactly.”
He seems nice enough, and if it wasn’t clear he was such a sloth with a thing for marijuana, you might expect him to be next on the list of viable options for getting out of this place.
“Just, enjoy yourself,” Vernon sighs. “You might as well.”
Twelve:
After a night of thinking, you’ve finally made your decision on what to do in this God-forsaken hotel, and you head down to the lobby. One look at Jeonghan makes you rethink asking him for information, but you spot Seungkwan heading toward the buffet, and you quickly follow him out of sight from the manager.
“Hey,” you greet the bellhop, “have you seen Seungcheol today?”
“I believe he runs at this time,” Seungkwan explains. There’s a small rocky hillside out behind the pool, Seungcheol made a trail there for exercise, but between us, sometimes I think he’s hoping to get bit by a rattlesnake and die for a second time.”
From the small chuckle that leaves his lips, you can tell he’s trying to joke around, but you’re just not at the stage in your acceptance of this place to find dead jokes comedic.
“Thank you,” you nod, heading off in the direction he’s pointed you in.
The trailhead behind the pool isn’t very difficult to find, and you start up the path.
You have no clue what time it is, but you know it’s early morning. It’s just starting to get warm, but despite this, you have a fire inside of you driving to find the seventies rockstar.
This urge - call it lust maybe - it drives you forward, and finally, you find the man you’re looking for.
He’s in running shorts, and he’s shirtless. A sheen of sweat covers his muscular form, and God, he’s never looked this beautiful. His hair is curled from precipitation, and he’s panting, his hands on his hips as he stands at the top of the small hilly cliff that looks down at The Hotel California.
“Seungcheol!” you call, drawing his attention immediately.
“y/n?”
You can tell he’s confused to see you here, and his brows furrow. Walking closer, you take a deep breath. “I’ve been thinking,” you tell him.
“Yeah?”
“I was thinking… if we’re going to be here forever, we might as well make it fun.”
Your words hang in the air, and on this tiny hill, you accept your fate. You accept that you’re dead, that you’re in some odd form of purgatory. And you accept the fact that you’ve found a partner to share this whole delusion with, for better, or for worse.
“So you’re saying…” Seungcheol swallows thickly, stepping closer to you.
“Just kiss me,” you laugh, shaking your head at him.
A massive smile appears on his face, and then he’s grabbing your hips and tugging you tight to his chest. His lips are on yours a moment later, and while you’d expected him to be an eager, lust-fueled maniac, he’s oddly slow with how he approaches this first interaction.
However, the kiss deepens when you wrap your arms around the back of his neck, your tongue swiping his bottom lip desperately.
Seungchoel lets out a deep groan, matching your rising energy with an enthusiasm of his own.
It feels so good to be doing this with him, and for the first real-time since you got to the hotel, you feel your anxiety slipping away. Your entire body is focused on this man, and this man alone- and then his hand slips down to your ass, grabbing it roughly.
“Hey,” you laugh, pulling away from the kiss. “We’re not fucking out here on some rock.”
“We’re not?” Seungcheol chuckles.
“Not in a million years, which it sort of sounds like we have.”
“Back to the hotel then,” Seungcheol tells you, and just like that, the two of you head back down the trail to the hotel.
It seems there are different routes to take, and you find yourself in the lobby as opposed to the pool, which is where Jeonghan stops you with a wave. “y/n,” he calls. “I’d like a word.”
Seungcheol groans, and you release a sigh, turning to look at him. “I’ll meet you later?” you suggest.”
“I’ll go shower, find my room after, I’m in number seventeen,” Seungcheol nods.
You watch him disappear, taking a moment to appreciate the muscles of his broad shoulders as he walks away, and then, you turn to face the hotel manager.
“Looks like you’ve made a decision,” Jeonghan muses.
You wonder what exactly he’s talking about. Is it a decision to pursue Cheol? To sin?
You’re not quite sure, but at this point, you don’t care.
“I’ve made my choice,” you tell him, trying to sound confident about it.
“So you’ve chosen to be a part of The Hotel California.”
“I don’t think you left me with much choice,” you point out.
A large smile appears on Jeonghan’s face. “I guess I have to agree with you there,” he admits. “Go. Enjoy Seungcheol. You might be able to help with his… less desirable traits if not his sexual habits.”
So everything here really is a set of scales. Cheques and balances. A lesser evil of cleansing Seungcheol of minor sins while fanning the fire of his lust. You suppose you can’t win them all.
Thirteen:
You wander the hotel until you find room seventeen, and when you get there, you don’t even bother to knock. You simply push the door open, entering the space.
Seungcheol’s hotel room is different from your own. It’s significantly larger, with a den and a door that you assume leads to the bedroom. You make your way through the space, looking in at where he sleeps, which is where you find the man himself standing.
He has a towel wrapped around his hips, his hair is damp and curly, and God, he looks even sexier than he had on the hill. He’s so well muscled- part of you wants to lick his entire body and moan while you do.
Seungcheol turns to look at you, and when he smiles, you swear your knees feel weak.
“What did dickhead want?” he asks.
“Jeonghan?” Your mind goes blank. “He uh, I guess he wanted to see if I’m set on staying here or not.”
“And?”
“Well, we’re about to sin, aren’t we? So… guess I’m a permanent resident now.”
Seungcheol laughs. “Who wants to go to heaven if you can’t fuck there?”
“A lot of people I think,” you giggle.
“Well, not us.” He steps towards you, hands settling on your hips. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited for you to show up.”
His words are nice, but you have some doubts lingering inside of you. “Would you fuck any girl who came here though?” you question. “Or am I special?”
“You’re special,” Seungcheol confirms. “You’ve got fire in you, I could tell from the moment we met.”
“Some people have called me a bitch before.”
“Well they can go fuck themselves,” he retorts quickly.
You laugh, looking around. “This is a nice room.”
“It wasn’t my original room, but once I realized I was staying here, I scouted out all the empty places to find my favourite.”
Your gaze shift up, and you notice that the ceiling is covered in mirrors. “I can’t escape these fucking mirrors.”
“These ones are fun though,” Seungcheol insists.
“Yeah? How’s that?” You wrap your arms around the back of Seungcheol’s neck, pulling him closer with a grin.
“Because… I can watch you when you’re riding me. You can see my sexy back when I’m fucking you. It’s just a good set up.”
“And I guess you haven’t really had a chance to test it out before,” you muse.
“Not with another person.”
It takes you a second to realize what he’s saying, and then you laugh. “Cheol, are you telling me you watch yourself jack off with these mirrors?”
“It’s not like I have access to porno mags or anything!” he defends himself.
God, he’s from the seventies- did they even have easily accessible porn then?
You push the thought out of your brain as you move closer to him, until your lips are just milimeters apart. “Now you have me.”
“I do, don’t I,” he grins, tightening his grip on your hips.
“Uh huh,” you nod. “And I haven’t been properly fucked in a while.”
“I bet I have you beat on that one.”
“Better make up for your lost time, big guy.”
“Better make this sin worth it,” he counters, and with that, he presses his lips to your own.
You smirk into the kiss, pressing your chest against his own as you wrap your arms around the back of his neck. It’s a mad flurry of tongue and teeth, no being cautious as he had been on the hill earlier.
No, this time, you know exactly what you want from each other, and there’s a freeing feeling in that.
He’s quick to guide you toward the bed, and when he gets you there, he pushes you down onto it. His hands quickly tear at your shirt and you raise your arms to allow him to easily take it off of your body.
Seungcheol sinks to his knees on the ground, his lips attacking your throat and descending down to your breasts. Two large hands grab at your tits, massaging them through your bra. He’s practically motorboating his face against you now, groaning into your cleavage.
“Take off my bra,” you tell him. “Suck on my tits.”
Seungcheol chuckles, but one swipe of his hand behind your back has your bra coming undone, and you realize that despite his forced celibacy, he hasn’t lost his touch.
Your bra slips off, and Seungcheol immediately picks up where he left off, but this time, he has access to your bare skin,
He grabs your breasts, pulling one nipple into his mouth while you throw your head back and moan.
It takes you a second, but you have the idea to open your eyes, and when you do, the mirrored ceiling gives you the perfect view of this man kneeling on the ground and sucking your breasts.
There’s something sexy about the view, and when you thread your fingers through his curls, it makes things even hotter.
Seungcheol groans, roughly tugging your nipple between his teeth and making you cry out.
“Shorts next,” he instructs, pulling away so you can both work on getting you fully naked for him.
It’s a little shocking how fast this is all going, but you don’t mind. Lust is fueling every cell of your body, and before you know it, Seungcheol is pushing you so you’re flat on your back. He places your thighs on his shoulders, and then he dives into your core with his mouth.
You whimper at the sensation of him sucking on your clit lewdly, and again, when you look up, you can see the view.
Fuck, with him now bending half over the bed like this, you can see his shoulders even better.
He’s so broad and strong and sexy, and it makes your core pulse with pleasure as he eats you out like he’s been starved for fifty years, which he has.
“Just like that,” you tell him, bringing your hands up to play with your nipples, loving the view of it all.
Seungcheol shifts, and then you feel a finger push into your entrance. He doesn’t go slow with it, he immediately starts pumping, fucking you while he licks and sucks on your clit roughly.
There’s no tact in his motions, no precision, he’s a wild man, and you suppose that fits his rockstar soul.
There’s something so sexy about this animalistic way he’s treating you, and when he groans against your clit, your entire body lights up with pleasure.
He has you closer to the edge than you’d ever imagined possible in such a short time, but you wonder if perhaps your body has been in need of some stress relief like this after such a crazy few days.
Another finger slips inside of you and you moan, reaching one hand to tangle in his hair again.
As much as you want to close your eyes and enjoy this, you can’t bear to look away from the view.
God, it’s absolutely glorious.
This gorgeous, beefy man, is practically ravaging you on a bed with silk sheets, worshipping your pussy with his tongue and fingers while you watch, enthralled with it all.
You can hear your core getting wetter, and with each thrust of his fingers you can feel your juices. His tongue circles your clit in the perfect way and your stomach muscles begin to clench, signaling your impending high.
“I’m gonna cum,” you tell him, swallowing thickly even as you pinch your own nipple, writhing against the bed.
Seungcheol only growls in response, and the sound turns you on even more.
Within a few seconds, you’re coming undone, releasing a cry of pleasure as your body is flooded with euphoria.
Your hips push up against Seungcheol’s face, but his free hand pins you down, his tongue unrelenting on your clit.
Now, you have to force your eyes shut. It’s all you can do to contain the ecstasy he’s providing you, an electric feeling that’s surging through your entire body unlike anything else.
“Fuck, fuck- Cheol!” you gasp, wriggling in his grasp.
He pulls off your clit with a pop, and you can feel him looking up at you as he removes his fingers.
Then he stands, and you open your eyes to look at him.
“Here,” Seungcheol leans over you, and then he pushes his fingers into your mouth, “want you to taste yourself.”
All you can do is stare up at him in shock, lust overtaking you as you suck his digits off diligently. You even grab his hand to steady him, not wanting him to pull away until you’ve licked him clean.
“That’s a good girl,” Seungcheol groans.
When you’re done with him, you release his hand, and Seungcheol pulls away with a deep breath.
“Can you suck cock like that?” he asks, undoing his towel so it can fall to the floor.
His hard length immediately slaps up against his abdomen, and you can see beads of precum dripping down his shaft. God, he’s super turned on, and your pussy pulses at the mere sight of him.
“Gonna give you the best head you’ve had in fifty years,” you promise.
“Ha ha,” Seungcheol says, but there’s little humour in it.
You sit up, and then, you stand. He gives you a confused look, but when you push him down onto the bed, things seem to click for him.
You take your spot on your knees, where he’d just been, and this time, it’s your turn to push his legs slightly open, giving yourself space as you grab the base of his cock.
“Don’t cum in my mouth,” you warn.
“No?”
“Want you to cum inside me, don’t wanna waste a drop.”
“Fuck,” Seungcheol groans as you put your mouth onto his tip, sucking and licking with all the enthusiasm he’d just given you.
His hands immediately grab at you, pushing your hair out of your face. He holds you gently as you sink more and more of him into your mouth, swirling your tongue to tease every inch of skin that you can.
“Shit, feels good,” he tells you, collecting your hair into a ponytail to make things easier.
You hum against him and his hips twitch at the stimulus.
“Fuck-” he says again, and you’d bet your life - or maybe your afterlife - that he’ll be swearing a lot.
He’s a man who hasn’t felt the touch of a woman in fifty years, you would blame him if he’s quick to bust?
“Keep going, fuck,” Seungcheol groans, applying some pressure to your head.
You don’t mind that he’s beginning to get rough with you, and you diligently sink further onto his cock, taking him all the way to the back of your throat. You gag a little around him, and Seungcheol releases his loudest moan yet, tightening his grip in your hair.
“Keep doing that, fuck, keep doing that!” he encourages you.
You do your best to relax your throat, wanting to please him, to give him the best blowjob he’s ever had. You have always found satisfaction when pleasing others, call it a trauma thing or whatever you want to call it, but his pleasure is your pleasure, and you can feel yourself getting wetter by the second as you listen to his moans.
“Shit, I’m close,” Seungcheol tells you.
With those words, you immediately pull off of him, and he looks down at you in shock.
“You’re not cumming in my mouth, remember?”
“Please?”
“No.”
You stand up, staring down at this man, who suddenly looks very needy. Then, you push at his chest, prompting him to lay flat against the bed while his knees are still bent, feet on the ground.
One of your own knees makes contact with the bed, and then the other, so you’re straddling him now.
“You said you wanted to watch me ride you,” you remind him. “So watch me ride.”
You grab the base of his cock, lining it up with your core, then you sink down onto him fully.
He’s big, and you feel the stretch, but you’re so wet from this that your lubrication makes the actual taking of his cock much easier than you’d imagined. God, when you pause for a moment, fully seated on him, you both groan from the pleasure… then you begin to bounce.
“Jesus Christ,” Seungcheol whispers, one hand grabbing your hip while the other latches onto your breast. He pinches your nipple between two fingers and you whimper, throwing your head back.
You look up at the ceiling, watching yourself ride this beautiful man.
The view makes your core throb, and you can feel your pussy clamping down around him, which earns another groan from the man you’re riding.
“You look so fucking good like this,” Seungcheol tells you, sitting up and using his hand as a brace against the bed so he can wrap his mouth around your nipple.
You grab him, threading your fingers through his hair and using him as an anchor as you move on his cock, bouncing to the best of your ability even in this position.
Again, you find yourself looking at the view, and you realize maybe this is a completely new kink of yours that you’d never discovered before.
“Okay, okay,” Seungcheol grabs your hips, making you stop. “My turn now.”
“Your turn?” you scoff.
“My turn,” he confirms.
Then, he’s standing up, and taking you with him. His hands grab your ass, keeping you pinned to his body while you squeal with delight, latching onto his shoulders.
“Wanna fuck you doggy first,” he tells you.
“So original,” you roll your eyes.
“Gonna make you regret that, gorgeous,” Seungcheol laughs.
“Then do it.”
With a shake of his head, he throws you onto the mattress, and with one quick manhandle, he has you on your knees with your ass in the air.
He’s standing at the foot of the bed, and he grabs your hips with one hand, his cock with the other. His tip finds your entrance, and with one rough thrust, he’s buried inside of you again.
“Fuck!” you whimper, arching your back and bracing your cheek against the sheets.
“Feels good, huh?” he asks, immediately picking up a pace that has your eyes rolling into the back of your head.
“Fuck, so good!” you moan, loving how deep he’s hitting, how rough he’s being.
A harsh smack erupts through the room, and you realize as the pain blooms like heat along your skin that he’s just spanked you.
“Did you like that?” he asks.
“Maybe?” You’re not sure how you feel about the sensation, but when a second smack comes, you jolt, your pussy clamping tight around Seungcheol’s cock.
“You liked it, didn’t you?” he teases.
“No!” you insist, but you can’t help the fact that you had enjoyed it, and you can tell from the gush of wetness you feel in your core that it will be clear to Seungcheol that you liked it as well.
“Keep lying to yourself,” he laughs, his hand returning to your hip so he can fuck you even harder.
You enjoy the feeling of this for a while, but soon, you’re practically itching for another hit of pain.
“Spank me again,” you tell him.
“Hmm? Didn’t quite hear you.”
“Spank me!” you say, louder this time. “Please!”
Another chuckle escapes the smug bastard behind you. “Only because you asked so nicely.”
One more spank becomes three, and you’re a whimpering mess at the end of it, clawing at the blankets like a whore.
“Guess we’re going to have to explore this pain kink of yours,” Seungcheol teases. “But first, I think I’m gonna cum in this perfect pussy and mark it as mine.”
You’re so overwhelmed by how good this has felt that you can’t even find the words to respond, but you don’t have to.
Seungcheol pulls out of your pussy, and then he adjusts you on the bed, pushing you closer to the pillows so when he joins between your legs, he has space to plank over you in missionary.
His cock enters you, his lips finding your throat, and as you stroke his powerful shoulders, you find yourself blinking up at your reflection.
You’re watching yourself sin, but you’re entirely okay with it.
You’re listening to him pant in your ear as he gets closer and closer to the edge, but you kind of love it.
This hotel might be a place to overcome sins, but you’re not sure how anything this perfect - this natural - could ever be considered wrong.
“I’m close,” Seungcheol whispers, sucking on your earlobe.
“Then cum inside of me, give me all of it,” you tell him, tightening your grip on his shoulders.
“Fuck,” Seungcheol groans, pressing his lips to your own. He kisses you desperately as his hips falter, his pace becoming erratic.
You can feel the moment he explodes, can feel his cock throbbing hard as he shoots his cum deep inside of you. He fills you up with warmth, and it feels like completion as he groans, half collapsing on top of you from the effort.
The kiss breaks, and you stroke his hair as he pants against your throat. Your eyes never leave your own in your reflection of the mirror over the bed.
Jeonghan might have put you in this place, but you’re the master of your own fate, and this is the direction you’ve chosen.
☀️ mlist + an. thank you for reading! I'm going to miss this au.
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🔮 preview. When Seungcheol thrusts, it pushes you onto Mingyu, and when he pulls back, he pulls you with him, effectively controlling the pace of absolutely everything. Seungcheol might be working on his envy streak, but he’s as controlling as ever… although, you kind of love that about him. Sure, he’s a flawed man, but he’s your flawed man, and as he begins to fuck you rougher and harder, you know that you’d never give this up, not even for Heaven itself.
cw/ tw. Unprotected sex, threesome, pussy eating, blow job, fingering, multiple reader orgasms, use of mirrors, masturbation, controling/dom Seungcheol, dirty talk, praise, slight degradation, spanking, deep throating, eiffle tower/spit roasting, etc… I petnames. (hers) gorgeous.
👹 rating. 18+ explicit I wc. 3.1k I teaser wc. 150
🌙 starring. Seungcheol & Mingyu x afab!Reader
bonus
You’re sitting at The Hotel California bar with Seungcheol. The two of you enjoy having a few drinks before a night of raunchy sexual escapades, and at first, this is a night like any other… until, you hear a new voice and turn to see a stranger talking to Jeonghan by the front desk.
You can’t help the look you immediately exchange with Seungcheol.
The two of you have spent months- years even, enjoying each other, and one thing you’ve always discussed bringing into the bedroom to spice it up, is another person. However, no one currently at the hotel has ever caught your eye, so you’d agreed that if anyone new showed up… you two might give them a try.
Now, with a tall, dark and handsome stranger standing just meters away, you think you may have found your new third, and excitement bubbles up inside of you.
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🔮 preview. Despite your tense relationship with Seungcheol, you’ve done your best to support him as a sister, and you know his teammates by sight alone. Jeon Wonwoo and Kim Mingyu, two Olympians… two sexy, athletic, very fuckable Olympians. You’ve watched Too Hot to Handle and Love Island, you’ve watched Singles Inferno, and you’re not on any of those shows. No, you’re in Thailand for your brother’s wedding, staring at his work besties like they’re your next meal. You know how problematic this is, but you’re yet undecided on just how far you want to go with this. All you know, is you’re alone at a bar, there’s two gorgeous men, and you’re feeling just lonely enough to go talk to them.
tw/cw. Unprotected sex, threesome, pussy eating, blow job, fingering, masturbation, spit roasting, double penetration, doggy style, missionary, multiple sex positions, multiple reader orgasms, pain kink, spanking, spitting, choking, dom!Wonwoo, eager!Mingyu, overstimulation, breast worship, dirty talk, praise, dry humping/grinding, undertones of therapy/childhood sibling rivalry/bad family dynamics, etc… I pet names: (hers) gorgeous, baby.
👹 rating.18+ explicit I wc. 10.9k
🍭 aus. Surfer Meanie au, Destination-Wedding au, my friend’s sister is hot au, etc…
☀️ mlist + an. I want to start this off by saying, I don’t know much about surfing or the Olympics, but fuck it, this is fanfic, and surfer Meanie is too hot to pass up.
“She’s quite adventurous, isn’t she?” the captain of the small vessel asks, watching you swim off with the guide in search of the whale shark that was recently sighted.
“It would appear that way,” Wonwoo sighs.
“She a friend of yours?”
“We’re friends with her brother, he’s here for his wedding, at the resort,” Mingyu explains.
“Ah, I see. You’re both being good friends making sure his sister is okay while he gets ready for his wedding,” the captain nods.
“We’re not taking very good care of her from here,” Wonwoo frowns.
The captain looks out at the water, letting out a breath. “I assure you, whale sharks are perfectly safe.”
“Fuck it.” Wonwoo strips his shirt off, grabbing a snorkel and some goggles.
“Seriously?” Mingyu asks in shock.
“They’re harmless,” Wonwoo points out. “We’ll regret it if we don’t go in.”
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you supported seungcheol through years of being an aspiring athlete, and all you got to show for it was your undergraduate degree and an awkward, stuttered apology when he dumped you to go semi-pro. now he’s back after an injury derailed his career, and there’s only one problem: you’re the only one available to tutor him. you - 0; the universe - 1. talk about no return on investment.
⚽ pairing: choi seungcheol x f. reader
⚽ genre: exes to (lite) enemies to lovers; university au; angst, fluff
⚽ rating: while there is nothing explicit in this fic, there are two brief references to smut. while i can't stop anyone from reading this, i would prefer minors do not interact with this or any of my work.
⚽ warnings: cheol is some degree of famous, reader is a grad student/TA, mentions of an injury and coping with the aftermath of it, lots of economics talk that even i do not understand, swearing, one mention of alcohol, some misplaced jealousy, rom-com tropes, dino is kind of a loser but we love him anyway. probably a lot of other things i missed, but this is actually pretty tame for a fic of this length.
⚽ word count: 13.4k
⚽ thank you: a lot of people looked this over for me in the process and i'm sure i will forget some of them so if i do i'm sorry: @the-boy-meets-evil, @hot-soop, @highvern, and @haologram, who also gave me some wonderful ideas for the vlogs. thank you to MIT for opencourseware existing. i took microeconomics and dropped it, so i couldn't have done this without you. everyone in the discord server for helping me along the way and keeping me motivated.
⚽ author's note: i haven't posted a fic in nearly seven months, so i think it goes without saying that there are parts of this i like and a lot more i'm not 100% happy with. i'd love if this was more fleshed out and 10k longer, but i was able to write anything at all so it's good enough.
this was written for the back to school with seventeen collab, hosted by @camandemstudios. thank you both for letting me participate! please make sure to check out the rest of the stories! everyone worked so hard and this collab was a ton of fun to participate in. <3
You look down at the paper. Back up at who handed it to you. Down at the paper again.
“You’ve got to be joking.”
The poor freshman kid laughs, all nerves, and even though the sound is grating, you remember what it’s like to be forced into work study. How far away graduate school seemed; how large your professors loomed over you with all their power and knowledge and credentials; how you constantly felt like the dumbest person in nearly every room you walked into for four straight years.
“Um—”
You sigh, just barely resisting the urge to slam your head onto your desk. “I—it’s fine, don’t worry about it.” Your words do little to ease Freshman’s nerves. He’s still hunched over in the doorway of your office, wringing his hands as he shifts his weight back and forth, in for a lifetime of body pain with the way he’s squaring his shoulders. “You’re sure about this, though? Like, I’m really not being set up?”
“I don’t think so?” he offers, slowly starting to turn green right before your eyes. “Dr. Lee ga-gave me the paperwork himself, I don’t think he would’ve messed it up? Oh no, did I mess it up? Should I go back to Student Services and conf—”
Good god, this kid’s anxiety is gonna stink up your office for weeks. “No need!” you interject. “I’ll just…” Sign it, you want to say, but the longer you stare at the sheet of paper the quicker you’re losing your resolve.
TUTORING REQUEST FORM
Student Name: Choi Seungcheol
Degree: Undergraduate
Major: Business
Course: ECON04101 Introduction to Microeconomics
Instructor: Lee Yeonseok, PhD.
Recommended Tutoring: High (3-4 hours per week)
You curse under your breath. Of the two names on the paper, Dr. Lee’s does not come as a surprise. He’s a notorious hard-ass with an infamous attrition rate—most students don’t last more than a week in any of his classes—but he’s also the sole reason you were able to pay for someof your grad school tuition out of pocket with all the tutoring money you made.
That, however, was two years ago.
“Does he know I don’t tutor anymore?” Stupid question. The kid stares blankly back at you, as if to say I don’t know any more than the people in Student Services, let alone Dr. Lee. It is literally my first year here. “I’m Dr. Ahn’s TA this year. I’ve got my hands full with her bullsh… stuff—”
Immediately, you know you’ve said something wrong, because the kid’s eyes light up, all that previous anxiety disappearing like smoke. “Wait, the same Dr. Ahn that teaches the crypto course?”
“No, that one died,” you say quickly. Kid deflates. “Anyway, I don’t really tutor anymore, especially for econ. As you can see”—you gesture vaguely around the cramped four walls of your office—“they’ve upgraded me. They even put my name on a little placard by the door! Go look! They spelled it wrong! If that doesn’t sum up this university I don’t know what does.”
You heave another sigh. Try to school your face and tone into something that exudes professionalism and finality. “Look, I’m sorry I can’t help you. I tutored Dr. Lee’s students for, like, three years in undergrad so I’m sure they just… forgot that wasn’t my actual job here. Who’s in charge of tutoring these days? I’ll shoot them an email and explain all this.”
Freshman gives you a name, and it takes less than a second to find them in the employee directory. You expect that to be the end of it, but he’s still taking up space in your doorway. You quirk an eyebrow. “Yes?”
The hand-wringing returns, along with an embarrassed flush that disappears beneath the neckline of his school-branded sweatshirt. “I just—um. Maybe you could, uh. Send that now? Before I get back there?”
You blink. “Don’t you have to go all the way back across campus? How slow do you think I type?” He shrugs, and you give up on the idea of getting rid of him. “Fine. What’s your name, anyway?”
“Lee Chan. I’m a sophomore. Do you know that guy?”
“Oh. I thought for sure you were a freshman, but you’re gonna need to be more specific, Lee Chan, Sophomore.”
“The guy they want you to tutor.” You freeze. The guy they want you to tutor is—“Choi Seungcheol,” Chan tacks on, and, yeah, you know—knew, you correct yourself—someone with that name, once upon a time.
But there are a lot of Chois and a lot of Seungcheols. It’s been years since you’ve spoken to the Seungcheol you knew, and that was when he’d broken up with you to—“I heard he’s a football player? Well, used to be, I guess. The girls in the office were freaking out so I guess he’s pretty famous, but I don’t know anything about sports, do you? They said they have photocards of him. I thought they only did that for idols.”
You think about being kids together in Daegu. Think about the exasperated looks you’d share when your parents would drag the two of you to festivals: Palgongsan in the autumn, Biseulsan in the spring; transformation and rebirth. Think about being eight years old and watching your father cram into the small space of the Chois’ living room, standing around the TV with Seungcheol’s dad, shouting at Park Jonghwan. Daegu FC made the FA Cup quarterfinals that year, and you think, of everything, that’s what you’ll remember for the rest of your life.
You think about falling in love slowly. Sixteen and clueless, the pair of you were. Didn’t really know any different, just that you’d look at him and feel butterflies. That you’d hold hands in secret. Text beneath the dinner table. That you’d watch him on the football pitch and be consumed by pride. That the future felt impossibly far away, that life would never catch up to the two of you.
You think about all the football jargon you didn’t understand—the academies, the teams, the implications. You think about, I’m thinking about trying out for the FC Seoul U-18, I just don’t think there’s much more I can do here in Daegu. You think about replying, Oh, I applied to university there.
You remember thinking it must’ve been fate, how easy that had worked out. How easy that first hurdle had been overcome.
You think about how fast everything happened. The try-out, the acceptance, the explosion. Remember being unable to go anywhere those first few months without seeing Seungcheol’s face, touted as the next big thing. Think about applying for scholarships when he was applying for international visas. Think about studying for midterms when Seungcheol was studying English for interviews.
You think about the last few weeks of your relationship, when it felt like you were desperately trying to cling to ghosts. Think about how Seoul had once felt endlessly big, both in opportunity and size, and how it now felt suffocating. You think about, So you’re just giving up? Is that what you’re saying? Think about, I don’t know what else to do. It doesn’t feel fair to you.
You think about all the places you’ve watched him. On countless football pitches; shy glances in school hallways; in the passenger seat, wracked with nerves on the drive to Seoul; poised above you in bed, hairline dotted with sweat as he rolled his hips, telling you how much he loved you.
You think about watching him walk out the door, and how you never watched him again.
So you fire off your email, concise and to the point about why you can’t tutor Choi Seungcheol in Introduction to Microeconomics, and turn to Lee Chan, Sophomore.
“No,” you finally answer. “Never heard of him.”
For all intents and purposes, your rejection should’ve been the end of it.
A few days go by. You hold office hours, attend lectures, work on your thesis when you have both the time and the energy. Try to ignore the feeling of bees beneath your skin, anxiety needling each time you check your email. You were well within your right to decline the tutoring request, but you can’t help but feel like you’ve done something wrong. That someone somehow knows who Seungcheol was to you and will pull you up on it. That those girls who’d gushed about him to Chan are somewhere laughing at your expense.
But you don’t hear anything at all about it… until you do.
Sunday evening. You haven’t moved from your couch in hours, some variety show playing in the background, barely audible over your keyboard clacking. Much to your detriment, you don’t write many papers these days, so you’re out of practice. Feels like you haven’t done anything besides formulas in years, all of your academic knowledge reduced to fucking math, so you’re about ready to toss your laptop out the window long before the email even comes through.
You see, From: Lee Yeonseok. You see, Subject: Choi Seungcheol - Tutoring.
Your stomach plummets to the floor.
You scan the body quickly. You see the words personal favor… friend of his father… urgent matter… and your hands start shaking. Whether it’s from the sheer audacity of this man or anxiety, you aren’t sure, but it’s not like it matters. There aren’t a whole lot of people on campus brave or dumb enough to go up against him twice.
“Motherfucker,” you spit, bitter the only taste in your mouth.
Where did you go wrong to wind up here? You’d followed the script: got the grades, passed the exams, received half of the required education for the Respectable Career, helped a few others along the way chase dreams that may or may not have been their own. You’d fallen in love. Only had a broken heart to show for it, but that’d been in the script, too: The First Love, followed by The First Heartbreak.
The split from Seungcheol was supposed to have been the end of that chapter. You’d planned on never seeing him again, and you never would have, had it been up to you. Apparently the universe has other plans, participation required.
“Did you spill onion dip on the rug again?” You startle, sending your laptop flying. Kaori, your roommate, is perched halfway in between the living room and the kitchen like a cryptid, clearly not expecting your reaction. “Oh. Were you watching porn?”
Face burning, you fetch your laptop from the floor. “In a common area? Kaori, please, I have far more decorum than that.”
She snorts, resuming her trek to the fridge. “See, that’s what I thought, but then I walked out here and you threw your laptop so fast it was like watching my ex get caught watching furry porn all over again.” She pries the lid off a large container of yogurt. “You think this is still good?”
“Dunno. What’s it smell like?”
She sniffs it and pulls it back to check the label. “Vanilla, I think, which is concerning because it’s supposed to be strawberry.”
You shrug. “What’s the worst that can happen, you get extra”—you pause, trying to remember the correct order of things, before giving up entirely—“...biotics?”
“Mm, so close. Care if I just eat this with a spoon?”
Nose scrunched, you wave her off. “Couldn’t pay me to eat yogurt on a good day, let alone if it’s expired. All yours, babe.”
Spoon in hand and a pleased smile on her face, Kaori collapses onto the couch beside you. You try to return your attention to your paper, try to find your momentum again, and it works for all of ten minutes before you’re groaning and slamming the top closed.
You don’t even need to look over to know Kaori’s staring. “What’s up with you?” she asks. Before she can answer: “Wait, is this serious? Because I can’t have a serious conversation in this t-shirt.” You steal a glance sideways. Ask Me About My Hemorrhoid! it says, and you exhale loudly. “Don’t breathe at me, I lost a bet.”
“And continued wearing it?”
She jokingly rolls her eyes. “God forbid a girl has hobbies.” Nudges you with her foot. “C’mon, spill.”
Kaori doesn’t know about you and Seungcheol. Most people don’t, aside from a few old classmates from Daegu who found you on social media and tried befriending you once he started making a name for himself in Seoul. After that, it was just easier to keep things private while you were together. New friends knew you were seeing someone but not their name or how long you’d been together. Any curiosity surrounding why the Choi Seungcheol was following you on Insta had been waved away easily. Our parents are friends, we grew up together. Then you broke up, and there wasn’t any evidence to delete, and he wasn’t following you on Instagram anymore, and it was easier that way.
So, yeah—even though you hadn’t met her until years later, Kaori knows you have an ex. She knows you’ve had a few flings and situationships in the time since, too, and it’s why she’s none the wiser when you ask, “It’s nothing, really. Just—do you follow football at all?”
“Nah, not really. The new guy’s pretty into it and keeps trying to get me to watch the games with him, but it’s so fucking boring? I dunno, I can’t get into it. Not in real life, anyway—I binged all of Captain Tsubasa in an embarrassingly short amount of time, though. Why?”
“Student Services asked me to tutor someone the other day and I had to turn it down. I just don’t have the time, you know? This semester’s already killer, and Dr. Ahn’s been riding my ass nonstop about grades. Turns out it’s some football player, so Dr. Lee emailed me asking me to do it as a personal favor, which means, on top of all the other shit I have to do, I’m now tutoring some football player four hours a week in Microeconomics.”
Her face distorts. “God, that guy’s such a prick. Like wow, you’re good at the economy! Good for you! Who cares! Why don’t you go balance the national debt or something instead of torturing university freshmen!”
You also wrongly assume that’s the last you’ll hear of it from Kaori.
Two days later, after Student Services replies to your email with the days and times you’ll be tutoring Seungcheol, she materializes in the living room to harass you.
“You didn’t tell me your football player was Choi Seungcheol.”
The panic is instant. You know how she means it, but it’s not how your body interprets it. All of a sudden it feels like an interrogation, an accusation, and a whopping serving of guilt takes up residence in the middle of your chest for not being entirely honest.
“Explains this weird text Ken sent me.”
She slides her phone over to you, open to her text thread with her current flavor of the week. Beneath an article about Seungcheol enrolling in classes at your school:
doesn’t ur roomie TA there
Why are you calling her “ur roomie” like you don’t know her name?? Rude. Also yes.
ask her to get me an autograph
No
babe pls he was my fav player before he got injured
No
🙄 fine. can i come over later?
Starting to think you’re using me for my roommate. Get your own job 🙄
You hand her phone back. “I didn’t think you’d know who Choi Seungcheol even is.” It’s the best you can do, even though it just digs you a deeper grave. “You said you’re not into football.”
“I’m not, but unfortunately I am into that stupid man.” She sighs, wistful and longing. “Babe, you have to understand. His dick is so big.”
You hadn’t wanted to stay in Seoul for your graduate degree, let alone the same university you’d gone to for undergrad.
You’d applied to schools all over—Japan, Europe, even a few in the States. Romanticized the hell out of NYU, went window shopping for an overpriced apartment, picked a favorite pizzeria based on nothing but vibes and online reviews. In those few months after graduation, there wasn’t a whole lot tying you to Seoul. Your and Seungcheol’s relationship had been old history by then, your parents split. Your dad stayed in your childhood home and your mother moved a few hours closer to her sister. They’d waited until your brother was old enough to be out of the house.
And it’d just been… a lot. Overwhelming. Some days you could barely shower or feed yourself, let alone move halfway across the world, so you’d stayed in the familiar and tried not to let it feel like failure.
But the good thing about familiarity is you learn its tricks, figure out the hiding spots. Early on, your first or second week of grad school, you laid claim to a study room on a floor of the library everyone else ignored. You write notes on the whiteboard with faded blue markers that are still there days later. The chair on the opposite side of the table is always exactly where you left it, the space between it and the table enough to only accommodate you. Sometimes you leave books—old paperbacks littered with notes in your writing—or papers, just to see if they move.
They never do.
And all of this is why it feels like a punch to the gut when that sanctity is tainted. When you’re halfway through a stack of Dr. Ahn’s exams and the doorknob rattles behind you. When you don’t even need to turn around to know who it is, because he still sounds the same, still has that overwhelming presence. You’ve always sensed him before you felt him.
“There you are,” Dr. Lee says, ambling into the room before you can protest. He, too, is overwhelming, just in different ways. Immaculate posture that anchors his slight frame that’s always dressed impeccably and expensively. Wears a watch that’s triple your tuition. Shoes polished so bright they’re nearly blinding. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
This time it is an accusation.
Well, you found me, you want to say, but just knowing Seungcheol is behind him, lingering in that half-study room, half-hallway space, is enough to keep you quiet. Like if you speak you’ll summon him closer and you’ll no longer be able to pretend this is nothing more than a nightmare.
You plaster on a polite smile. Say, “Ah, here I am, kyosu-nim,” and put all your energy into trying to glue Seungcheol to the floor with your mind.
Which is fruitless, because Dr. Lee moves further into the room. Gestures for Seungcheol to follow him with an impatient huff, and the study room is small, sure, and with three people it feels cramped, but that’s not the reason it feels like all the air’s been sucked out of the room.
Seungcheol looks… different. He looks as anxious as you feel, and he sticks close to the wall like he’s trying to disappear. Dr. Lee introduces him with grave importance, unaware of your history, and the forced smile he offers you almost looks embarrassed.
You know Dr. Lee is still hammering away, probably giving you a stern talking-to for rejecting his request the first time, but you can’t tear your eyes away from Seungcheol. Feels like the world around you has reduced to a pinhead, all hyperfocus; feels like your lungs are sucking in stale air one at a time.
“...his father is a very good friend of mine, so I expect…”
You expected to feel nothing. Seungcheol had left to chase his dream—one you’d always been so supportive of that it sometimes felt like your dream, too—and, perhaps naively, you thought the distance and the years would’ve been enough. You expected your heart to have hardened. You expected all those nights you spent crying to hit you at full force. You expected anger, hurt—indifference, at the very least.
“...as many hours per week as you both can manage…”
But you should’ve known better. Should’ve expected the butterflies, the way your palms grow clammy, the way your heart rate spikes. Should’ve expected everything to feel upside-down. You should’ve expected to look at Seungcheol and feel sixteen and in love all over again.
“...you are responsible for his academic progress…”
And that simply will not do. You’ve spent the last few years pulling yourself out of that hole, clawing your way back to something resembling normal. You’ve purged the thought of him from your mind—let his scent fade from your sheets, an old sweatshirt he’d left behind; forgot the way his lips felt against every inch of your skin; forgot the way his entire being lit up when he laughed; forgot the safety he encompassed, the way he whispered all those sweet nothings.
You cannot go there again.
So you roll your shoulders back, smile politely. Say, “Ah, kyosu-nim, Choi Seungcheol-ssi seems very intelligent, I’m sure he is capable of being responsible for his own academic standing, don’t you think?”
Dr. Lee cannot disagree without all but calling Seungcheol an idiot, so he hovers before you in shocked silence. Makes a show of huffing and checking his watch, like he’s all of a sudden remembered he’s late for something and being inconvenienced by this conversation he started, and then he’s halfway out of the library with a terse, “Discuss and figure this out amongst yourselves,” thrown over his shoulder.
You have an entire dramatic exit planned in your head. Gather your things, fake a phone call that makes you sound authoritative and important, and brush past Seungcheol wearing your nicest perfume as if all of this is so far beneath you you can’t even bring yourself to care about it.
Of course, you actually have to brush by him for any of that to happen, and since you’ve already decided you will not go there again, you quickly scribble your email address onto a piece of paper and slide it across the table at Seungcheol, who has steadfastly remained planted just outside the door. “Here’s my email. I don’t have time to discuss this right now.” Seungcheol cocks an eyebrow. You start throwing things into your bag haphazardly. You know you look frantic and affected, but there’s not much you can do about that. “What? Send me a copy of your syllabus and what you want to prioritize. It’ll be easier to get through this if we have a plan instead of winging it.”
He seems to catch on to your distaste because he mirrors it. Scoffs as he rolls his eyes and says, “Yeah, no use spending more time together than we have to,” and if you hadn’t gone years without speaking, you would’ve seen right through it.
But you did, so it stings all the same.
As it typically does, the planet keeps spinning after your run-in with Seungcheol.
You grade Dr. Ahn’s coursework. Try running off your anxiety at the gym, even though it’s pretty good at keeping pace with you these days. You meet Kaori’s maybe-boyfriend sneaking out of your apartment early in the morning and he has the good sense not to mention your ex, but you chalk that up to the mess of hickeys covering his neck and not any sense of social decorum.
Other people’s embarrassment saves you a ton of your own, you’ve come to learn.
Throughout all of this, Seungcheol only emails you once to send you his course syllabus. Doesn’t mention tutoring or provide you with his schedule or ask for yours, so when you’re sitting in a bar with your friends, three or four drinks deep and feeling a little petty, you forward him the original tutoring request and make sure to bold, underline, and highlight the “Recommended Tutoring: High” part for good measure.
He doesn’t take your bait—electronically, at least—but he does show up to your office hours the following Tuesday.
Bag tossed onto the floor, he flops unceremoniously into the chair across from you and says, in lieu of a greeting, “They spelled your name wrong. On the door thing.”
“I know,” you reply, your smile polite and terse. Incredible how he has the ability to raise your blood pressure in milliseconds. “What can I help you with?”
“Depends. How long do you have?”
“Well, considering you’ve shown up to my office hours on time, I’m assuming you already know I’m here every Tuesday and Thursday from four to six. So”—you glance at the clock above the door—“assuming no one comes by who needs my help more than you do, you have approximately one hour and fifty-eight minutes.”
Seungcheol is quiet for a moment as he takes you in. His stare is weighted; it makes you feel a little green around the edges. Clinical and sharp, so far removed from the way he used to look at you. You clear your throat. “I looked over your syllabus. The good news is there’s only a midterm and a final and the rest is problem sets. The bad news is there’s only a midterm and a final so they’re weighted quite heavily. You really need to know this stuff inside-out to have any hope of passing.”
“That’s why you’re here, right? Dr. Lee specifically requested you.”
You huff a breath through your nose. “I’m here as supplemental help. I can’t take your exams or do your readings for you. What else are you taking this semester?”
He sighs, sinking further into the chair, very much playing the part of the heir who has no interest in any of this. Which… is unlike him, you think, if you’re even allowed to. The Seungcheol you knew years ago took everything so seriously. Never clipped corners or took shortcuts. Anyone else would think him a spoiled, petulant child. “Business Accounting and International Trade.”
“Could be worse,” you note. “At least those three courses are tangentially related.”
Seungcheol rolls his eyes. “Easy for you to say. I haven’t taken a fucking math class in years.”
You return it. “You remember how to add and subtract, don’t you?”
“I ruptured my ACL, not my…” He trails off, looking a little embarrassed that he can’t name a part of the—“Brain.”
Whatever you were going to quip back with dies on your tongue. It's the first time Seungcheol has broached the topic of his injury—the first you’re hearing of it at all, actually—and he says it like it’s a joke, like it’s not a thing at all, but the pain is all over his face. The bitterness of the situation he’s found himself in. The unfairness of it all.
And there are so many questions you want to ask that aren’t your place: if it’s fixable, if he’ll ever play again, how he’s coping. But you don’t really need to—you can’t imagine how you’d feel if someone suddenly pulled the rug out from under you. If everything contained within the four walls of your office suddenly disappeared.
Not that the man sitting across from you hadn’t already done that, but.
“Right,” you continue, as if he hadn’t said anything at all. You know Seungcheol—know he wouldn’t want you prodding, sticking your fingers in that particular wound. “I want you to take a look at this,” you say, handing over a printout you have saved from your undergrad tutoring days. “Tell me what looks familiar, what doesn’t; what does and doesn’t make sense.”
He looks down at the paper. Back up at you. Down at the paper again. “What the fuck is this?”
“I—what? Cheol, it’s my old notes on recitation. Surely you’ve already covered this—the syllabus says this is week one stuff.” He looks down at the paper again, and it’s so familiar, watching the life drain entirely from someone’s eyes.
You barely resist the urge to slam your face onto your desk a second time.
You meet Seungcheol at the sports center for your next tutoring session.
He likes the humidity and the smell of the chlorine by the pool. He also likes that it’s not the football pitch, so the two of you sit in the bleachers there and go over his lecture notes. Much to your surprise, Seungcheol talks a mile a minute. Has stars in his eyes when he says he finally understands elastic demand curves, supply shock; tells you he spent a whole hour making flashcards.
It’s the first time you’ve seen him so excited since your tutoring began—the first glimmer of hope you’ve felt since Dr. Lee cornered you in your library hideaway. None of this surprises you. Seungcheol has always been smart, even when football was his primary (and sometimes only) focus. He has more determination and grit than anyone you’ve ever met, so you’re not surprised he’s doing well, excelling, but you are surprised—
“Can I ask you something?” Seungcheol shrugs, shoves half a protein bar in his mouth and swallows without chewing. “Why are you… uh. Here?”
“At this university?”
“Not exactly. I mean, I am wondering about that, but I guess… why business?”
Seungcheol hums. Tucks his good knee to his chest and stares down at the pool. No one’s using it, and truthfully the two of you probably aren’t even allowed to be here, but you understand why he likes it. It’s nowhere near as secluded as the library and definitely not as air conditioned, but it is peaceful. Calm. The water laps against the coping in quiet, small waves.
“Ah, I don’t know. You know how it goes.”
You quirk an eyebrow. Never, in all the years you’ve known him, has Seungcheol done anything he didn’t want to do. All that grit and determination. “What about your father, then? Dr. Lee mentioned this was a favor to him. He’s a pretty important person to have in your Rolodex of favors.”
Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what this is: Seungcheol’s father has new money; worked from the bottom up, made some smart investment decisions that finally panned out after Seungcheol left for Seoul. Started doing his own thing, made a name for himself. Last you’d heard from your mother, Seungcheol’s brother was second-in-command. Hell, even your own brother did an internship there.
So you know what this is: a father helping his son after his dream was shattered, life turned upside-down. You can’t blame him, even if you’ve heard the whispers from all the way across campus. That Seungcheol is washed up now, trying to nepo his way into his father’s company because of it; that all he knows is sports and he should’ve stuck to that, what does he know about business, why is he the one Dr. Lee went out of his way to help.
Doesn’t stop any of them from smiling at him, though; doesn’t stop them from asking for autographs or selfies.
But you also know this isn’t something Seungcheol seems willing to discuss, so you crack a joke—“I mean, business. God, who’d wanna go into that?”—and go back to what he was willing to talk about.
You’ve never hated elastic demand curves so much in your life.
Deep in the throes of tutoring—when you can’t tell if it’s week two or week twelve—you make it back to your apartment just before ten, head pounding.
The door flies open just as you’re about to punch in the code, and there stands Ken, looking far more put-off than you’ve ever seen him. Looks defeated, if you’re being honest, like someone mopped up all his emotions and wrung them out like dirty dishwater.
“Oh, hi,” you say hesitantly. The man in front of you seems too much like a caged animal to let your guard down. “Everything okay?”
He aborts a nod halfway. Mutters an apology as he brushes by you and stalks down the hall, disappearing around the corner to the elevators. Usually he’s a talker—you haven’t been able to avoid a Seungcheol-related conversation in weeks—so you’re a little stunned. Stand there stupidly for a while, and that’s where Kaori finds you a moment later.
“You gonna stand out here all night, or…?”
“Oh—yeah, right.”
You follow her inside. Toe off your shoes and put them in the rack. Focus on the sound of the kettle whistling instead of the overbearing tension in the room. Drop your bag off in your room, throw on a sweatshirt three sizes too big and a comfy pair of socks. Rummage through the fridge for leftovers, contemplate what mindless show you’ll watch as you eat, and you do not, under any circumstances, ask Kaori what happened.
You don’t have to. You knew what this was going to be the first time Ken spent the night—the way he looked mortified to be meeting you in the shared kitchen at seven a.m., wearing a look that begged you not to tell your roommate he was sneaking out.
I, uh, have an early class, he’d said. You know how it is.
Maybe you should’ve called him on it then. Issued a warning-but-not-really. She’ll get attached if you don’t tell her. She should know it’s different for you, if it is.
But you’d convinced yourself it wasn’t your place. Kaori wouldn’t want you in her business like that, so you stayed quiet, just nodded before watching him slip his shoes on and close the door behind him so quietly you wouldn’t have known he left at all if you hadn’t been looking. Gone, just like a ghost.
So, yeah, you know exactly why your roommate looks haunted.
“I’m a few episodes behind on this if you want to watch with me,” you offer, pointing at the television with the remote. It’s a lie—you’ve never watched this show a day in your life, which Kaori seems to know—but she contemplates it nonetheless. “Also, my mom mailed us some cookies. I think they’re in the fridge.”
“Why are there cookies in the fridge?”
You huff a laugh. “They were outside the door this morning before I left for campus. I don’t know—just saw who the package was from and was like, oh, this must go in the fridge.”
She nods. Grabs the container and joins you on the couch. Sticks her feet beneath your butt and doesn’t mention a thing.
The closest she comes is a few days later. Catches you right before you head out to campus and asks how tutoring is going.
“Not bad, actually.”
Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes when she says, “That’s good. I’m glad things are going well for you two.”
Lee Chan, Sophomore makes his unexpected return at your office hours on an unsuspecting Tuesday.
“Can I help you?”
He doesn’t answer right away, just helps himself to the seat across from you. “Maybe,” comes his cryptic retort. “I was thinking about signing up for that crypto course next semester.”
You narrow your eyes. “No, you weren’t.”
He sighs. Looks a little panicked, like he can’t believe that didn’t work. “You’re right, you’re right. I, um—I wanted to come say thank you.” He pauses. “You know, for that… email you sent.”
You blink. “No, you didn’t.”
Lee Chan, Sophomore cracks immediately. Thunks his head on your desk and lets loose a pained sound. It nearly sounds like he’s wailing when he says, “I’m sorry! They put me up to it!”
What you’re able to piece together is this: Lee Chan, Sophomore has become a bit of a celebrity in the Student Services department ever since he met you, Choi Seungcheol’s tutor. And, like any smart, previously unpopular university student would do, he took advantage of it. Might’ve stretched the truth a little to make it sound like he knew more than he did, so now here he is, angling for information the girls with the photocards may or may not have paid him to get.
“They want to know about his girlfriend.”
“His what?”
What you’re able to piece together is also this: the Photocard Girls are certain Seungcheol is dating someone, based on little more than vibes. You suspect these vibes are their three degrees of separation, considering there was an abnormal amount of Change of Major files formed after his enrollment, but you tell Lee Chan that you don’t know anything and, even if you did, you wouldn’t put his business out there like that.
But some part of you still has this inexplicable urge to protect Seungcheol, so you match their offer with interest and tell him to say there’s nothing to report—not that you didn’t know, not that he couldn’t get anything out of you. Seungcheol isn’t dating anyone.
You don’t know if it’s true, but you figure that if it isn’t, he still deserves privacy.
Which is a notion you have trouble explaining a few hours later, when Seungcheol strolls into your office with a grease-stained paper bag full of cheese coin bread, offering one to you with a proud smile that drops slowly when you just stare in return.
“What’s wrong?”
Your mouth opens, closes, opens again. Nothing comes out, even though it should be simple. Some sophomore kid was just in here angling for information or the Student Services department is taking bets on whether or not you have a girlfriend would both suffice, but you cannot bring yourself to say the words.
What you settle on is, “Sorry, I just… had an interesting meeting before you got here.”
“Oh. Are you okay?”
You sigh. Tilt your head back to stare up at the ceiling. “It was about you, actually.”
Seungcheol chokes, starts stuttering over words you can’t make sense of. Says, “Me? Why? I passed my last exam—I mean, barely, but I still passed. And that wasn’t your fault! I didn’t study enough! I’ve been losing my mind over my International Trade class, that shit sucks—”
“It wasn’t about your grades, Cheol.”
“Oh.” Then, slowly, a lopsided, pleased smile overtakes his face. “Haven’t heard you call me Cheol in a while.”
“Seungcheol,” you correct.
He seems to forget all about the meeting. Tries again to offer you a coin bread before he threatens to eat them all himself, so you acquiesce mostly to shut him up, say you’ll bring the extras to Kaori. For some reason, you tell him about how much she’d loved the cookies your mom sent, and the nostalgia sets him off, gets him talking again, asking if they were the yakgwa she used to make when you two were kids.
They were, but you can’t seem to tell him that, either.
Seungcheol: sorry it’s last minute - running late. can you meet me at my place instead?
Seungcheol shared a location with you
You’re halfway to replying—I don’t think that’s appropriate—before you sigh and delete it. Midterms are only a few days away and you don’t have time to argue over where your tutoring sessions will be, so if Seungcheol wants to meet at his apartment that’s where you’ll meet him.
You read over the midterm notes on the train. Once, twice, and then a hundred more times until they’re nearly memorized, all so you can ignore the voice in the back of your head saying what a bad idea this is. That you have no business being on your way to your ex’s swanky part of town or integrating yourself into his life beyond tutoring at all. You shouldn’t know where he lives. Maybe you shouldn’t even have his phone number or answer his texts.
Not that there’s much you can do about it now, two stops away.
Seungcheol greets you warmly, if not a little rushed. Apologizes for the mess once you step inside, although it’s less “mess” and more “haven’t finished unpacking,” but there’s enough clear space to study at the dining table, so that’s where you set up, determined to keep things professional.
“Sorry again about this,” Seungcheol says, placing a can of cola in front of you as he takes the seat across. “I had to meet with my father and lost track of time, I guess.”
“Oh. How’s he doing?”
Seungcheol sighs, leans further back in the chair as runs a hand through his hair. A light brown, now. “Same as he always was, I guess. Talked about the business, about my brother. Can’t get him to shut up about that stuff most of the time.”
“The business is doing good, though.” You cough, clear your throat. “My, uh. My brother interned there during undergrad. I don’t know if your father told you that.”
You don’t know why you say it, because it’s clear from the brief flicker of pain on Seungcheol’s face that he hadn’t known, that no one had told him. And it hurts you too that they felt the need to keep it a secret, to protect Seungcheol from you even in tangential ways.
“He didn’t,” he admits, “but I’m sure he was happy to see him. He was, uh—he was glad to hear you’re my tutor. Said you were always smarter than all of us boys combined.”
You laugh. Hope it sounds casual instead of strained. “Well, no need to prove him right. Come on,” you say, tossing a study guide in his direction, “let’s get to work.”
Everything is alright for a while—nearly an hour at least. He has the formulas memorized and attributed to the correct equations. He can explain supply and demand, preference and utility, but things start to fall apart around budget constraints and constrained choice.
The formulas get mixed up. He grows frustrated when he doesn’t know the answers to your questions right away. Rolls his eyes and gets a little snappy when you correct him, try to explain things differently in a way he understands. At first he’s able to temper it, collect himself before things truly start spiraling out of control, but the longer the two of you sit there the more it all unravels.
He snaps, you snap back, and you can’t figure out why. You’ve survived this long in Seungcheol’s orbit even though you never thought you’d be around him again, and perhaps it was bound to explode eventually, but…
It’s the familiarity, you realize.
You and Seungcheol aren’t friends, though you’ve been playing at it for weeks now: meeting outside of the library or your office, the personal conversations bordering on reminiscing, being in his personal space. You don’t belong here. You don’t want to be his friend—you can’t be, not for real or pretend.
“That’s not what I’m say—”
“Then explain it better,” Seungcheol fires at you, eyebrows creasing. “You’re the tutor here.”
You roll your eyes. “I’m trying, okay? All I meant was—your answer isn’t wrong, but I know Dr. Lee and he’s going to want more than that in a response.”
“Right—not good enough, like I said.”
“I’m just asking you to expand on your answer—”
“And I’m telling you that’s all I’ve got. I’m not like you, all right? I don’t have all this shit just floating around in my head all the time. I’m not smart, I barely have any idea what’s going on half the time, and you sitting here being condescending about it is doing fuck-all to help.”
You inhale sharply, taken aback at the hostility in his voice. Suggest calling it for the night, say neither of you will be productive if you keep going like this, and neither of you bother to apologize.
So much of your relationship with Seungcheol was marred by clichés.
The two of you passing notes back and forth during class. You in the bleachers of all his games, screaming along to the team chants, waving a sign around with his name on it. Not realizing you had a crush on him at all until he liked someone else and it made your stomach hurt. Childhood friends turned lovers.
Another cliché: that it’s starting to feel like that all over again.
Seungcheol sits across from you in the library, econ textbook cracked in half in front of him as he pays no attention. Keeps grabbing his phone each time it vibrates across the table. Can’t fight the smile that forces its way onto his face when he reads whatever’s there.
Stupid, you think—both to do this and to think it’d play out any other way. Seungcheol left years ago. Probably lived ten lifetimes while he was away while you were here in this exact spot doing this exact thing. Barely lived half a life, just stuck your nose in textbooks and forced your way through.
“Cheol,” you say, trying to drag his attention back to the study guide. No use. He’s typing away, presses his tongue into the fat of his cheek as he responds. “Seungcheol,” you try again.
Also fruitless.
You have no claim here, you remind yourself—not to his time, not to him. He’s only here because someone else mandated it. You’re only here because someone else mandated it, but it stings all the same. Another reminder of what used to be, of what ended regardless of what you wanted. Another reminder that the role you used to play in his life is not the role you play now. That the space you used to take up created a vacancy, and eventually it was going to be filled.
And if this was anyone other than Seungcheol, if you were more emotionally evolved when it came to him, it wouldn’t gnaw at you as much. All of this would roll off your shoulders.
But it isn’t, and you’re not.
“If you’re not going to listen, then—”
“I am listening,” he interjects, but he’s not looking at you. Not looking at his textbook or his study guide. Keeps laughing and smiling at his phone, and it’s sick how bothered you are by it. That it feels like your stomach’s been turned inside-out with jealousy; with annoyance, because you don’t want to be here anyway, don’t want to do this anymore, and you’re wasting your time on someone who doesn’t appreciate it.
Perhaps he never did.
“What are we discussing, then?”
Still not looking up: “Consumer theory.”
You laugh—more a huff of air than anything, grin sardonically out of one corner of your mouth. Seungcheol sees none of it. “Wrong,” you answer, already expecting the way he shrugs it off. “I’m gonna skip ahead a few chapters, though. Consider it a freebie for your business class.”
It must be your tone that finally grabs his attention. Cutting, precise, purposeful. Seungcheol lowers his phone, quirks an eyebrow, wonders where this is going to go. It’s clear he’s pissed you off, that you’re itching for a fight. It’s clear the years of silence are finally coming to a head.
“Let’s talk about ROI. You know what that is?” You barely give him a second. “Return on investment. A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or compare the efficiency of several investments. So, let’s say I make one-hundred-thousand won on a ten-thousand won investment: my ROI is 90%. Are you following?”
He nods.
“Great, now let’s try something a bit more hypothetical.” You suck in a breath. “Let’s say I invest years of my adolescence into someone. A friend at first and then something more. Let’s say I played cheerleader, supported every hope and dream he had—went to every game, cheered him on, helped him practice his English. Held his hand and talked him down when the pressure felt overwhelming, when the only thing that felt inevitable was failure. Now, let’s say all I got in return was a stuttered, awkward apology as he dumped me and walked out the door. Let’s say that guy showed up again after years of silence just to once again waste my fucking time.”
The thing about pain is it’s not linear. What hurt five, ten years ago might not hurt today, but it might tomorrow; what hurt yesterday may never hurt again. The thing about pain is it lets you stick your head in the sand until it can’t anymore, and that’s where you are now: that window of time between Seungcheol walking out the door on the assumption you’d never see him again before he bulldozed his way back into your life has been slammed closed, locked up tight.
So you don’t even notice you’re crying until the room goes deathly silent and you can hear the drip drip drip of tears on paper. Until you watch Seungcheol’s hands flex and unflex in mid-air, stuck in that liminal space, wanting to reach out but knowing he has no right to. Until your chest aches so bad you’re sure you’re either about to break into stardust or cease to exist.
Until you say, “What, Choi Seungcheol, would you say my fucking return on investment was?” and he has nothing to say at all.
Kaori invites you to a party.
Just something small to celebrate the end of midterms and a classmate’s birthday. Nothing out of control or raucous, not even the kind of thing that’d earn a second glance from campus security. I won’t even make fun of you if you leave before eleven, is how she sold it to you, in addition to a small amount of begging and bargaining and a powerful set of puppy-dog eyes.
After everything the two of you have been through, you find it hard to say no.
So here you are, nearly eleven o’clock on a Friday, a cup of cheap beer in hand. A friend of a friend of a friend is wailing into a karaoke machine and although your ears are bleeding, it does feel nice for that to be your greatest worry. You aren’t thinking about your classes or how you’ve been prioritizing everyone else’s academic success. You aren’t thinking about whatever’s going on between Kaori and Ken. You aren’t thinking about Seungcheol.
At least you aren’t, until he walks through the door.
You’re going to continue not thinking about him at all—not about the fact he’s alone or how good he looks in a simple black T-shirt that’s a little taut in the shoulders. You’re not going to think about the way the air shifts, like the universe knows he’s important and is willing to accommodate. You’re not going to think about how Kaori catches your eye across the room, recognizes him from all her internet searches, and the way she mouths oh my god he’s so beefy at you.
You’re not going to think about how guilty you feel that she doesn’t know, because if you do you’re certain it’ll take over.
You watch Seungcheol work the room; watch as he floats between conversations, as strangers fall over themselves at the sight of him. How eager everyone is to give him something and how reluctant he is to take them. You watch as he winds up in the same circle as Kaori and how she must mention you, oh, your tutor is my roommate, because there’s a question in return before he turns and meets your gaze.
You wonder why the distance between you feels more insurmountable now than ever before.
Seungcheol finds you in your office.
It’s not a Tuesday or a Thursday, far later than four to six in the evening, but he doesn’t even bother knocking before he’s barreling in, stifling your space with his bad energy.
You haven’t seen him in nearly two weeks. Not since the party, if that even counts. Hasn’t bothered to reply to any of your texts or emails, and that was just fine by you, if that’s how he wanted to act, but it isn’t until he’s brooding on the other side of your desk that you realize you’re still aggrieved, too. Feels a little too familiar, him leaving you behind and in the dark.
So you don’t mean to—typically have much more professionalism than this—but when he tosses a stapled stack of papers with a barely-passing grade on your desk and says, “This is your fault,” the words come automatically and without forethought.
“Fuck off, Seungcheol.” It’s not your words that take him by surprise; more so the roll of your eyes, the accompanying huff. The impression that all of this is beneath you and nothing more than a mere annoyance. That however affected you were two weeks ago is not how affected you are anymore. “That’s what happens when you blow off your tutoring for two weeks because you’re a coward.”
He laughs, incredulous; unable to help the sound the tumbles out of his mouth. “I’m a—I’m a coward?”
“Yes,” you reply, tone giving away nothing. All he sees is feigned nonchalance despite the hurricane you feel brewing beneath the surface. “This,” you continue, pinching the corner of the paper between your fingertips and disposing of it in the trashcan beneath your desk, “is all on you, but do please let me know if there’s anything else you’d like to blame me for. I’m all ears.”
You don’t miss it: the way Seungcheol’s eyes grow wide at your ‘I’m all.’ The way he thinks you’re going to punctuate that sentence with yours, and it nearly has bile rising in your throat. Makes you want to scream, rip at your hair. If the last few months have taught you anything, it’s that you are still hopelessly in love with the man across from you—the man that continues to leave before he’s left, always at your expense.
So, yeah—Seungcheol is a coward, but only when it comes to you.
But he doesn’t look much like one now, gripping so hard at the edge of your desk that his knuckles have gone white, baseball cap pulled down low enough his eyes are barely visible. He’s always been overwhelming, always carried himself with an exaggerated arrogance even when it wasn’t warranted, always took everything so seriously, and maybe that’s why you’d thought he’d treat you the same way. Take you seriously. Wouldn’t just throw it all away on a maybe thing, and that’s why it's been years and you still aren’t over it.
Maybe Seungcheol is a coward, and maybe so are you.
Because not once since he’s been back have you been able to say what you mean. Can’t seem to tell him about the anger, the hurt, the heartbreak. Played it all off as petty nonchalance because you foolishly thought that would hurt him, that you’ve been reduced to simmering ash, no hope left for a fire.
“I could never blame you for a goddamn thing,” he says, voice so deep you could drown in it.
You so desperately want to know. You don’t want to know anything at all. You want Seungcheol to explain everything to you in detail and spoil the ending, but only if it’s guaranteed to be happy. Enduring another loss like the first time—you’re not sure you can take it. Not after you two have crossed paths like this, because you’ve never quite believed in fate but you think that has to mean something. That so much time and life had transpired and you two came back together.
Today, though, it doesn’t look like you’re going to get any answers.
Seungcheol straightens, looms at full height. Digs into the pocket of his sweatpants and pulls out a thumb drive. Wordlessly, he hands it over, and then he’s gone just as abruptly as he’d arrived.
Again.
Kaori wants to spend the weekend moping, and you can’t come up with a good reason not to join her.
She doesn’t mention Ken once. Not when she’s sobbing over A Silent Voice and Toradora! after that. Not when she keeps glancing at her phone every couple minutes to see if she has any texts. Not when you—only halfway paying attention between grading and your own assignments—suggest ordering something for delivery, maybe that new burger place down the street you heard was good, and Kaori shuts it down so vehemently you can only assume it was Ken’s favorite place.
Kaori just cries over the man with the big dick she never expected to take so seriously, and not even your stonewalling makes her feel ashamed of it.
And there’s respectability in that kind of openness and vulnerability. At least whatever she’s feeling is honest; at least she can admit she’s sad. You think watching Kaori process her breakup might help you process yours too, years too late, so you suck in a breath and ask, “Can I tell you something or is now not a good time?”
Kaori looks over at you. Dabs a soggy tissue at her eyes. “Well, I guess it depends,” is her answer, and she doesn’t shy away from how waterlogged her voice sounds. “If you’re going to tell me you’re a Takasu and Kawashima shipper, maybe, but if it’s anything worse I’m not sure I could take it.”
“I—what? Who even are they?” She gives you a half-hearted thumbs up. You sigh in response, sink further into the couch. “It’s, uh.” Clear your throat. “Do you remember when we met sophomore year? At that party? And I told you I wasn’t looking for anything and you said, and I quote, why not, I have a sixth sense for this kind of thing and I know that guy will have a huge—”
She hides her face behind her hands. “Ew, god, yes I remember that. My dick whisperer era. How embarrassing.”
“Right. And I told you I wasn’t looking for anything because I’d just gotten out of something.”
“Not really by choice, if I remember correctly. I told you if it was quiet it should’ve been loud, and then you never talked about it again.”
You nod. “I—yeah, that sounds like something I would’ve said.” You suck in a deep breath. “Listen, this is probably gonna sound bad considering I did never talk about it again, but—”
“Hey,” Kaori says, nudging you with her foot. Meant to be comforting, somehow. “It’s okay. There’s a lot you don’t know about me, too… most of which I’m not sure you should, actually.”
A laugh forces its way out, gives you a nice reprieve from the anxiety of the conversation you’re about to have. The need to explain it all, the need for advice. Maybe it’s not her—or anyone else’s—business, but you think you’ve kept this to yourself long enough. You and Seungcheol loved each other, once, and it seems foolish that no one knows.
Maybe Kaori had been right. Maybe love should be shouted from the rooftops; exist out in the open. Maybe something hidden in the shadows can never thrive in the light, and you knew it back then, deep down, but now it seems so obvious.
You think back to a few days before the library. Think about how things didn’t feel good but they felt okay. Think about the frustrated crease between Seungcheol’s eyebrows as he stared down at his textbook and how all you’d wanted to do was smooth it. Think about how you’d rolled your lips and tried not to laugh; how you thought it’d take a miracle to help Seungcheol pass this class.
Think about: What is the difference between the short-run and the long-run from the perspective of production theory?
Think about the short-run of your and Seungcheol’s relationship—that you’d burned bright and fast, even though it’d felt like a million years. Hadn’t dared to consider the long-run because anything beyond that bubble felt impossible.
Think about: Which of the following is not a property of isoquants?
Think about the way Seungcheol’s eyes lit up when he knew the answer. That they’re always linear, he said, and you smiled at his enthusiasm, raised your hand to high-five him and dropped it when he hadn’t noticed.
You think about the explanation—isoquants can be linear when inputs are perfectly substitutable—and what those graphs look like. Downward sloping, left to right. Think about how the graphs change when the isoquants are perfect complements.
L-shaped. Less straight as the inputs become poorer substitutes.
You know what your and Seungcheol’s graph would’ve looked like back then.
So it’s easy, almost, to tell Kaori everything. You tell her about growing up in Daegu, about the smell of the azaleas at Biseulsan in the spring. You tell her about how your parents had befriended the neighbors, how they had a kid your age, that that kid was Seungcheol—yes, that Seungcheol.
She’s able to anticipate the rest from there, but you fill in the blanks of what she can’t: being sixteen and falling in love, holding hands, the clandestine notes. All those football matches and how your throat would be hoarse from cheering. How nauseous you’d felt applying to university in Seoul, how excited you were when Seungcheol said he was coming with you. That, after you arrived, it felt like you were living in fast-forward. Barely any time to breathe or adjust; no time to just be you and Seungcheol. You had to be a student, someone responsible; Seungcheol had to be a phenom.
“Could you feel it was going to happen?” Kaori asks, now sat ramrod straight, all her attention on you. “Like, did you know?”
“I don’t know,” you admit. “Maybe I did? It’s hard to say now, all this time later. I know things definitely felt different, like life was pulling us in opposite directions.” You laugh, bitterness coloring the edges. “You couldn’t go two blocks without seeing him on some billboard, and I was just… normal, you know? I wasn’t some rising star athlete like he was, I just went to my classes. How was I supposed to compete with something like that?”
Your roommate hums, leans back into the pillows as she stares up at the ceiling. “I don’t think you were. Maybe that’s why Seungcheol was worried—maybe he felt like you were losing your own identity feeling like you had to keep up.”
You want to push back, argue that you weren’t, that you didn’t, but the truth is that it’s possible. That the shadows created by Seungcheol’s dreams were so massive you wouldn’t be surprised if they unintentionally swallowed you up. “It still wasn’t his choice to make,” you say, voice barely above a whisper.
And Kaori already knows all about your hurt, listened as you explained it all and laid everything bare. So when she says, “Sometimes that’s just how it goes, though, babe,” it doesn’t feel condescending. “We do the best we can with what we’ve got at the time. You can say now it wasn’t Seungcheol’s choice to make, because it’s been almost five years and you’ve made a life for yourself separate from him. But the—god, this is gonna sound so patronizing, I am so sorry—but you guys were so young. No one has it all figured out at that age.”
She snorts, runs a hand through her messy hair. “Shit, I’m nearly halfway to thirty and I still don’t know anything.” Adopts a frown. “What do you want now? Do you want closure? Want to try to fix things and become friends?”
“I don’t know,” you admit, biting at a hangnail. “He actually, um. The other day when he stopped by my office, he left me a USB drive? And before you ask, no I did not already look at it.”
“A USB drive? Who does this guy think he is, James Bond?” A pause. “Are you gonna look at it, though?”
You do.
Not until the silver, midnight light creeps in through your bedroom curtains and you’ve stared at the ceiling long enough; waited long enough for texts that never came, for divine intervention to, well, intervene. It never did—fair enough—so you decide to take fate by the reins. Grab your laptop, instant headache from the screen, stick the drive into the port.
It takes a second for it to load, but when it does: dozens of videos, organized by date. Vlogs, by the look of them—some from before your breakup but the majority of them from after.
You’re not sure what you expected, but it wasn’t this.
You click on the first one: a month and a half before both of you moved to Seoul. A fresh-faced Seungcheol appears on your screen, cheeks still round with adolescence. He’s in his room back in Daegu, can’t get the camera angle right. Nostalgia hits you like a ton of bricks as it pans to the side, to the wall behind his bed, and you see all his old posters. Mostly football players you couldn’t name, some girl group he used to love, a few movies. Just below them are some of the notes you’d written him in school, and they’re all you can focus on as he talks about how excited he is for the move.
The next: a few weeks after you’d started classes. By then, Seungcheol was well into the swing of things with Seoul FC. Already a big fish in a small pond, tryout offers from European teams starting to roll in. You can hear yourself in the background stressing over your first exam, wishing a generational curse upon your calculus professor. In the video, Seungcheol laughs, whispers like he’s telling the camera a secret as he talks about how nervous he is for his future. I don’t know why, he says, but it just feels like everything is about to change.
There’s a long pause between that one and the next. You understand why when you look at the date: three months after your breakup. Your hands hover uselessly above your keyboard. Whatever answers you’ve been looking for the last few years are probably in this video, but you can’t bring yourself to open it. Not right away, at least.
You click on a different one at random. Seungcheol’s somewhere in Europe, judging from the language on the signs behind him. Snow falls quietly—whenever he filmed this, it must’ve been early. No one else is around, and he cracks a joke that it’s a good thing, people would probably think he was crazy if they saw him. He doesn’t tell you where he’s going but he narrates the entire walk: points out a cafe he’s grown to love. The way to get to his practice stadium from where he’s standing. Pauses near a restaurant and laughs ruefully, shakes his head, says, I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but one of my teammates set me up on a blind date here and I got stood up. You’d probably think that was funny.
(You do. It also makes your chest ache.)
One from two years ago: Seungcheol in a hotel room, clearly nervous. He raises his hand to wave at the camera and you can see the corners of his nails bitten raw. Dark circles beneath his eyes; cheekbones more pronounced than you’ve ever seen them. On the screen, Seungcheol sighs, rakes a hand through freshly-bleached hair. Sucks in a deep breath as he says, I’m so nervous. I’m so—so fucking nervous and I don’t. Fuck, I don’t know what to do. I want to call you because you always knew what to say but that’s so fucking selfish. God, we haven’t spoken in years, and it’s my—that’s my fault, I know, so I brought this all on myself. I just want to hear your voice.
Another from a week after that: the color’s returned to his face, and he’s recording from what looks like a penthouse apartment. Sleek, modern; a small white dog napping on the bed beside him. He smiles, looks like he got his teeth fixed, looks like he’s no longer carrying around the weight of the world. Talks endlessly and excitedly about some tournament. Talks so fast you can barely keep up. Talks around words tinged with languages you don’t understand.
Seungcheol wins a championship. Records a drunk vlog from the same night, hair soaked through with god-knows-what—water, champagne, you don’t know. But he looks radiant. Looks like the culmination of two decades of dreaming. He looks happy, free, at peace. He looks like the reason he let you go, why he had to go away.
You scroll to the bottom of the files. Pause at the last video, dated seven months before the term started.
“Hi,” he says, and you can immediately tell everything is all wrong. Seungcheol’s in the dark, face only visible enough to see the tears tracking on his cheeks. “This is going to be the last one of these I make. I don’t know if you, uh—I’m sure you aren’t paying attention to me—my career—anymore, but. I, um. I got hurt. Ruptured my ACL. They’re not sure I’ll…” A sob escapes him. Has you wanting to climb through the screen to hold him, thumb away his tears, tell him everything is going to be okay. “They don’t know if I’ll ever play again.”
Seungcheol no longer looks happy, free, at peace. “Maybe you’ll be happy to hear that,” he continues. “Maybe it’ll help you to know I threw away our relationship for nothing.”
Cut to black.
The sudden silence is deafening. Has you desperately clicking back to the video you’d skipped, the one from just after your breakup. Seungcheol looks the same in that one, too, like the life has been drained out of him.
I don’t know why I’m doing this. It’s not like I’ll ever show these to you now, since I…
I’m sure I owe you an explanation. To be honest, I don’t know what I’m doing, I just—things have been so hard, and I’m still trying to make sense of it all. I feel like my life went from zero to a hundred before I could even blink and now I’m scrambling. I didn’t think it was fair to—to drag you through that. Me being away, moving to an entirely different continent. I have faith we could do it, I just. I don’t know, baby, I don’t…
You deserve to have your own life. Be your own person. I’m so scared that the world will never see you for who you are—so beautiful and intelligent and kind. You don’t deserve to be reduced to my partner. And if you ever see this, I know you’re gonna roll your eyes. Probably call me a mean name because I took the choice away from you, because you think I’m trying to be selfless and heroic, and you’d be right. It’s not fair, and I wish I could tell you I’m sorry.
I wish I could just… pluck out my brain and give it to you, because even if it killed me to do it, at least it makes sense to me. And I don’t—I don’t want you to think I’m not hurting. I’ve been sick to my stomach since I left. I know I’m making a mistake, I know I am, I just—how do I do what I think is right in the long-run when it’s not what I want right now, or ever?
I don’t want to get over you. I don’t want you to get over me, and that’s how you know I’m not acting selflessly, because you should. I want you to always be happy, I just… wish it was with me.
So, I’m going to keep making these. I’m going to take you along for the ride, wherever it takes us, because you should be here but I can only hope you can one day understand why you’re not. I’m so—I’m so sorry, I don’t…
I’m sorry.
I love you.
You fall asleep and dream that you were the one meant to meet him at that restaurant.
The first thing you do is make a call to your mother.
“Could you send another container of yakgwa?”
On the other end of the line, your mother tuts, motherly intuition audibly kicking into overdrive. Is probably wearing that all-knowing, sly grin she always does when you try to be coy and evasive. “What happened to the last container I sent?”
“Ah, you know Kaori loves those. They barely lasted an hour after I told her what was in there.”
She hums an acknowledgement. Sounds like she takes a sip of tea. “I remember someone else being quite fond of those cookies, too.”
“Well, they are the most popular cookies in the country, so.”
After haranguing you into admitting they’re for Seungcheol and not your roommate, your mother promises to send them quickly. A few days at most, which buys you enough time to figure out how you’re going to approach the man in question.
The vlogs have turned your entire world upside-down. Answered questions you hadn’t even known you had. Took all that anger and resentment you’d been holding onto and set it free, and now you’re just left with… a void. Want to mend things, and it makes you wonder if such a thing is even possible, if it’s too late, but you don’t let those thoughts get very far.
Instead, you let them spur you into action. Have you sitting in front of your laptop at your desk, office hours long since over, silence creeping in the more the department empties. The thrum of the airconditioning and the tick-tick-tick of the clock are all the only company you have.
You worry if it’ll show on camera, how out of sorts you feel: sweating from the nerves, dabbing at your hairline; cheeks warm to the touch. But you suck in a breath anyway, steel yourself. Look at your webcam and the daunting red circle…
And start recording.
He hadn’t gotten it at first. Not really.
There’d been a container of yakgwa outside his door with his USB drive taped to the top of it. No note—not that he needed one to know who it was from, but he wasn’t sure what it was. A goodbye? A please fuck off forever and never contact me again?
He’d just taken them inside. Ate too many of the cookies while feeling sorry for himself. Maybe had a glass or two of wine to compound the issue, and never, ever considered contacting you. Didn’t think he could bear it if you never wanted to see him again, but he just…
Well, he was drunk and alone and he missed you, and he’d rewatched all those videos he recorded a million times before when he was like this, so what was a million and one?
It’d been the same as every time before: he smiled at the happy parts, cried at all his old wounds. Wanted to reach through the screen and strangle his past self for including that part about the blind date, because he never wanted to date anyone who wasn’t you, why would he say that, felt mortified at the thought of you watching that—
And then there it was.
All the way at the bottom. A new video. One that hadn’t been recorded by him—
Hi, Cheol, you say, and that’s all it takes to reduce him to a sobbing, yearning mess. I’m not sure what to say here. I don’t really record much—sometimes for lectures when the professors are too busy, but never anything personal like this, but I watched every single one you made for me and I thought I should return the favor.
I wanted to tell you everything I’ve been up to since you left, but it hasn’t been much. I got my degree. Tutored a lot in undergrad—the same thing I’m tutoring you in now, actually. I was good at it and it felt good to have something that was mine, you know? I almost moved for grad school. Thought for a while I was going to wind up in New York, but then my parents divorced and it felt like too much, too scary, so I stayed. Kaori also stayed, so we got an apartment together. It’s not much, definitely not as nice as your place, but it’s good enough.
I don’t think I ever told you, but she was seeing a guy for a bit and he was… obsessed with you, to say the least. Thought you were the coolest person in the world. They aren’t seeing each other anymore. Ended pretty badly, but—speaking of which, maybe steer clear of Student Services for a while, too.
Sometimes it felt like failure that I wound up staying here. That I had scholarships from all these far-away, prestigious places and didn’t take advantage of them. That I gave into my fear. And now… I don’t know. Maybe there’s a reason I stayed behind. Maybe there’s a reason you ended up back here, too.
Whatever happens—I don’t want you to think I still blame you. Kaori says we do the best we can with what we’ve got at the time, and I understand now that’s what you did. Even though it hurt me, you were trying to protect me. I get it now. And I’m sorry you had to go through all of that alone. I can’t imagine how hard it must’ve been to go to all these places you didn’t know. To have to deal with your injury, the loss of a dream.
You said in one of your videos that you just want me to be happy, and that’s all I want for you, too, whatever that looks like.
Here’s my address if you ever want to come by to talk.
I love you, too.
—and then he’d been up and out the door, feeling stone cold sober, running to the front of his building to wait for his ride.
Felt like the drive took hours. Must’ve hit every red light between his apartment and yours. Took the steps two at a time just to get to your door faster.
There’s a man already standing outside your door when he gets there. One that looks shocked to see him, stars in his eyes, and when Seungcheol says, “Oh, you must be Kaori’s ex,” he looks more like he wants the earth to swallow him whole. Embarrassed in front of his idol.
He knocks on your door and gets no response. Knocks again, harder this time, and he has to try really hard to stifle his laughter when your voice yells from the inside, “Fuck off, Kenji, I already told you she’s not here!”
“It’s me,” Seungcheol yells back.
There’s quiet again. Just enough time for it to feel like his heart is going to beat right out of his chest and follow Kaori’s ex down the hall.
Then you’re yanking the door open—slowly, so slowly, like you’re scared it’s not actually him. Your eyes are brimming with tears when they meet his own, and he doesn’t let himself think, just goes on instinct, when he grabs for you, hands on your cheeks, and presses his lips to yours.
Somehow you taste the same.
Somehow you taste like redemption.
You taste like home.
Seungcheol kisses you until the tears slow. Kisses you until the universe realigns, until he could map your mouth in the dark. Kisses you until all you’re all he knows again.
When he pulls away, you’re gripping at his sweatshirt, don’t want to let him go. He presses his forehead to yours, offers up a million more apologies, starts talking nonsense. Says he’s going to drop microeconomics, what the hell does he know, he barely has a passing grade anyway, what does it matter, he’s such an idiot—
And then you say, “You came back,” and nothing else matters.
“I always will.”
(Later on, as you’re trying to steady your breathing, slick with sweat, your thigh thrown over Seungcheol’s hip as he stares down at you, dopey smile on his face, you say, “Choi Seungcheol, don’t you dare drop that class. I have worked my ass off to get you to barely-passing.”)
if you’ve made it this far thank you so much for reading! i am still very new at writing for seventeen, so i hope this was acceptable. i'm now going to throw myself into the warped tour vernon fic and will hopefully not go another 7+ months without posting anything. 😭
notes ๑ band au! short smau (might make part two) i really like this song and it was playing while i was at the gym and i made a whole storyline w it HAHAHA no warnings except…blunt cheol.
( ´ ▽ ` )reblogs are super appreciated, please lmk if you want a part two!!
Omgggg!!!! Yesss, i have apple music unfortunately not spotify💔. The only time im on spotify is when a new song comes out so i can help with the streams…But if u have apple music definitely follow me because that one is just all my music combined, i have other playlists for different genres like my kpop and English tracks🥰 btw i absolutely love these types of fics, you do a really good job’
notes ๑ band au! short smau (might make part two) i really like this song and it was playing while i was at the gym and i made a whole storyline w it HAHAHA no warnings except…blunt cheol.
( ´ ▽ ` )reblogs are super appreciated, please lmk if you want a part two!!
title: like a deja vu of heaven
pairing: hansol vernon chwe x gn!reader (past joshua hong x gn!reader)
genre: angst, fluff, soulmate!au
warnings: mentions of partner death, grief
w.c.: 4.4k
summary: you meet your soulmate in a dream
a/n: hansol best boy. i have this thought that hansol would be the best boyfriend in svt but that’s a whole different post. sorry if is reads a little weird :/ i liked this concept but really struggled writing it...
Your eyes flutter open and you’re met with a blue sky. A warm breeze brushes against your skin and you sit up. You’re in a field.
You feel strange. Like you’re not in a dream but you’re not in real life either. You’re in a limbo between the two. The last time you felt this way you were younger, and the feeling was comforting. This time you’re just on edge.
You’re afraid to get up but you know you have to. Slowly you remove yourself off the ground and look around. Everything around you looks the same so you just start walking. You’re only walking for a few minutes when you hear a voice behind you.
“Yeoboseyo?” You stiffen at the voice. The word is Korean, you recognize that much, but you can’t translate it. (You never really picked up on the language as much as you'd have liked to.) You don’t want to turn around. You don’t want to confirm what you think is happening. “Excuse me?” This time it’s asked in English. The voice is deep and smooth and heart breaking.
You wake up.
Sobs rip from your throat as tears stream down your face. You sit up and bury your hands in your face. How can this be happening? You don’t want this. You only want him but you know that’s impossible.
You don’t sleep for the rest of the night.
The next time you fall asleep and wake up you’re not in the field. You’re in the passenger seat of a car.
“Hi.” The same deep voice from last night speaks. You don’t want to look at him. “I’m Hansol, but everyone calls me Vernon. I think you’re my soulmate?”
You look out the window, turning your head away from him. The scenery that passes by is too much of a blur to make anything out. It hurts your eyes but the pain is less than the one that clenches at your heart.
“Oh. I get it. Finding your soulmate is scary. Or at least that’s what I heard. I’m honestly just more nervous than anything. Kind of freaked me out yesterday. This whole…dreamscape thing. It’s so realistic but also not? Then I wake up and it’s like I didn’t even sleep but my body feels like it did. Then there was you showing up and then just disappearing.”
Vernon continues to talk as you stare out the window. You want to tell him to shut up but talking to him means you have to acknowledge he exists. Acknowledge that he’s your soulmate. And that’s just something you can’t do. So you listen to him talk for the rest of the night, staring out the window the whole time.
This continues every night for a week. You have to give it to Hansol (you’ve internally decided you like Hansol better than Vernon), he’s very resilient. He talks to you every night. He tells you about himself. His family, his friends, his job, his hobbies, his likes and dislikes. He tells you all about him. He recounts his day to you and then tells you his plans for the next day so when you meet again he can tell you if things went how he planned.
Every time you meet you’re in a different location. It’s different from what you’re used to. You liked the night you guys sat at the top of a stilled ferris wheel. All around you guys were colorful lights of an empty theme park. It was the closest you had been to Hansol and his arm kept brushing up against yours. He told you about how he and his friends Seungkwan and Chan went to the fair that day which probably inspired the dreamscape.
You still can’t look at him, and it still pains your heart to sit next to him, but his voice has started to bring comfort to you. Listening to him talk as you stare at your surroundings. You let the night take you away and you suffer the consequences every morning. Crying quietly to yourself as you will yourself not to break even more.
It’s on day nine when you finally speak to Hansol.
“Y/N,” you offer up in a small voice.
Luckily for Hansol he hears. “Y/N? That’s nice. Pretty. I’m Vernon, but you uh, know that.”
Tonight you two are in a castle. It’s Hansol’s dream. He always seems to be dreaming of exciting places. You only dream of landscapes.
The way the dreamscape works is whoever falls asleep first you end up in their dreams. Hansol seems to have a strange sleep schedule as he might be asleep way before you while the next night it could take him hours to come find you in your dream.
Hansol is in a knight costume while you’re dressed up like royalty. You think it’s a little silly but it’s also nice. You two walk the corridors of the castle together.
“You’re uhm, older than me right?” Hansol asks. If this was any other moment you might tease him for the question but instead you just nod slightly. “Cool. You’re very attractive by the way. Sorry if that's weird.”
You smile softly, turning your head away from Hansol so he can’t see your grin. You think Hansol is cute in an adorable puppy type way. You find yourself enjoying his nightly company, even if it pains you as well.
It seems that Hansol is happy just knowing your name because he spends the rest of the night talking and when you wake up that morning, for the first time, you don’t cry.
Slowly you start to warm up to the idea of talking to Hansol. You answer a few of his questions or tell him a few things. Never anything too much or all at once, but it’s a start, and he seems elated to have even just the minimal interaction with you.
It’s on day fifteen when Hansol touches you. It’s different than that day on the ferris wheel when your arms kept accidentally brushing. This time it’s deliberately. You guys are in one of your dreams. You’re on a lake front with mountains in the back. You sit on the edge of a forest with your knees pulled to your chest as Hansol sticks his feet in the water.
“And then Seungkwan was all ‘hyung you can’t just do that’ but it’s Jihoon-hyung so of course he can just do that. Oh and then Y/N you would never BELIEVE what Seungcheol-hyung did!” Hansol grabs your arm and you jump a bit and Hansol stops his movements as well.
Even in the dreamscape touching Hansol feels strange. His grip is firm but still gentle and you can feel the warmth radiating off of his palms. His hands are big and his fingers are thick, his knuckles are pronounced. They’re familiar, they remind you of his hands, but not quite.
The touch makes you shrivel back, like he’s burned you. You stare at his hand as you back up. You realize it’s too much. It’s all too much.
“Don’t touch me!” You shout, terror laced in the back of your voice. “J-just…leave me alone!”
You wake up. Tears are already streaming down your face as you sit up in bed. You draw your knees up to your chest again and sob into your arms. Maybe things aren’t getting better.
You don’t sleep the next night. A part of it is because you can’t shut your brain off to think, the other part is because you’re a bit too afraid to face Hansol again. Unfortunately sleep takes you over sometime in the afternoon. Hansol isn’t there as you sit on a beach, staring at the way the waves lap at the sand. You wake up early in the morning, way before Hansol falls asleep.
The time you fall asleep you end up in Hansol’s dream. You sit together at a kitchen table. The kitchen is designed like one of those 1950s generic checkered kitchens. The cabinets are a garish mint color and the chairs and table are a bright red. Neither of you speak. You sit in silence the whole night, not even looking at each other.
The following night you’re in Hansol’s dream again. You barely have time to register that you’re in what you think is a botanical garden because Hansol practically pounced on you.
“Y/N! You’re here! Thank god. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I touched you and freaked you out and I’m sorry that I didn’t talk to you last night. It felt wrong the moment I woke up and I went to bed extra early tonight so I could catch you as soon as possible. It scared me the other night when you didn’t go to bed and I felt awful and I knew I needed to apologize so I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have touched you like that the other night,” Hansol rambles on. He’s out of breath by the time he finishes talking and you have to take a moment to process all of his words.
“You uh, didn’t do anything wrong Hansol,” you tell him slowly, choosing your words carefully. “I should be apologizing. I’m sorry for the way I reacted.”
“No you’re okay! I was the one who scared you,” Hansol says with a frown.
“There’s something I need to tell you Hansol.” You walk a few feet to the nearest bench and Hansol follows, sitting cautiously beside you.
Neither of you talk for a while. You sit there in silence, calculating your words, what you want to say. You stare at the broken down dirt path beneath your feet, willing the right words to come to you. Willing yourself to be able to get through this conversation.
“I’m…terrified,” you whisper. Hansol doesn’t say anything, just waits for you to continue. “I’ve, uh, heard of it before, but I didn’t really think it would happen to me. Nobody talks about how hard it is though.” You pause again. Hansol’s hand twitches, like he wants to reach out for you, but stops. “Josh. That was his name. Joshua Hong.”
Hansol seems to realize all of it now. His mouth falls open slightly and his eyes soften. “Oh.”
“He was…beautiful. The best thing to ever happen to me. He’s been gone for three years now. I miss him everyday.” Your hand reaches under your shirt and pulls up the necklace with two rings on it. You fiddle with them. “You’re sweet Hansol, you really are, and I’m sorry you have to be in this situation. It’s just…so scary for me. This truly means he’s gone. And I don’t want anyone thinking I’ve replaced him or anything. It’s not like this is a choice you know?”
“Y/N…”
“I just think that if I let you in that it’s like it’s going to erase everything I had with him. Which I know is untrue and silly but he was my soulmate. And I know you are too, but…it’s different. And I hate having to tell you that but it’s the truth. A part of it for me is really hard too because I used to dream about him. Not soulmate dreamscape dreams but actual dreams. It was my way of still having him even though he’s gone. Now that I’m having dreamscape dreams again it’s…harder. Honestly I think I’m most afraid that I’m going to start to forget him. Especially if I let someone new into my life.”
“You won’t,” Hansol tells you, his voice firm. “He was the love of your life. He was your soulmate. You’ll never forget him. You’re not forcing him out of your heart, you’re just making room for another person. If of course…that’s what you want. If not I completely get it and we can stay friends or not at all and I’m sure there’s a way where we can stop doing this dreamscape thing and-”
“Hansol.” You grab his hand and his fingers enclose around yours immediately. This touch feels different again. It still burns but this time it burns in a different way. A good way. You hold his hand tightly, like you’re afraid you’ll lose him as well if you let go. “I want to let you in. I just…need more time.”
“Of course.”
The next time you see Hansol isn’t in a dream. It shocks you when you’re scrolling through your Twitter feed to see a photo of the smiling boy. It takes you a second to realize who you’re looking at but the wide toothy grin and kind brown eyes are unmistakable.
You look at the tweet again.
Vernon Chwe. Tuesday Night. 9pm.
The tweet is from the bar you go to. Sometimes they hire musicians to do gigs for live music nights.
You're at a loss for words. If you were being honest you thought Hansol lived in Korea. The one rule of the dreamscape is that you can't tell your soulmate where you are or give any hints indicating your location. You weren't expecting Hansol to live in New York though.
Joshua lived in California and you just happened to meet him when you were there for your aunt’s wedding. You guys did long distance during high school until you went to college and Joshua moved to New York to pursue his theatre major and to be with you. After you both graduated college Joshua proposed to you and you happily accepted only for him to get into a car wreck a year later. You’ve never lived outside of New York and a part of you is shocked that Hansol has been here all along, just down the street.
You look down at the tweet and contemplate if you should go see him. Is it too soon? It’s been three years since Joshua’s passing but it has never gotten easier. Would it harm you to just meet Hansol though? Just to make a friend.
Tuesday. That’s tomorrow. You wonder why Hansol hasn’t brought this up before, he usually tells you all about his plans for the week. He’s told you that he’s trying to become a musician but you didn’t know that he’s been getting gigs as well.
The small voice in the back of your head tells you that Joshua would want you to go. Would want you to meet Hansol. You had conversations about this before; what you would do if something happened to either of you. You both agreed that the other should find happiness again, no matter what form that came in. You knew that. Still you never expected to have another soulmate. Dating another person? Sure. But a new soulmate? It was a totally different situation.
You think about how Joshua would say that it’s even more reason to go meet him. Joshua was a big believer in the soulmate system. You remember when you first met him in the dreamscape, how excited he was. You also remember the day you guys got engaged.
“Joshua Hong, let me down!” You giggle as he spins you around.
“No way! You said yes and now I’m never letting go of you! My future spouse!” Joshua does put you down though but only so he can pull you into a kiss. “Maybe the universe does know what it’s doing with this soulmate stuff, huh?”
“Maybe,” you grin at him, “or maybe you’re just that irresistible.”
“That too.” Joshua kisses you again. “Hey Y/N?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m happy that it's you. That you’re my soulmate. Even if it doesn’t really matter. I’m glad the universe agrees that we belong together. That it brought me to you.”
He was like that. A true romantic at heart.
It’s decided then. You’re going to meet Hansol.
You’re at the bar. It’s fairly packed for a Tuesday night but you luckily find an empty table to the side. It’s 8:37pm and everyone seems to be excited for the performance. A part of you wishes that you brought someone with you. It’s nerve wracking sitting and waiting for Hansol to come on stage.
Five minutes until 9:00 Hansol walks on stage. Your breath hitches as you see him. It’s still the same Hansol you see in your dreams. Fluffy hair and wide smile and kind eyes. You watch him as he gets ready for his set, talking to the band and testing the mic.
Finally at 9:00 Hansol clears his throat into the mic, getting the crowd’s attention.
“Hello everyone! I’m Vernon Chwe and I’ll be performing for you tonight. Thank you Pledis on Fifth for having me sing tonight.”
His voice is the same voice you hear every night. It’s deep and smooth but hearing it in person sends shivers down your body. This is real. Hansol is really in front of you, only a few feet away. You contemplate leaving, just making a run for it while you can, but you also can’t seem to get up out of your seat.
The whole night you sit and watch Hansol perform. Everyone around you is mingling with each other and drinking their drinks and doing whatnot but you can’t tear your eyes from the man. His stage presence is natural and charming and his voice is calming and melodic. You stare at his face as he performs. A natural grin sits on his face and you soak in the way he glows under the stage lights.
Before you realize it his set is up and he’s thanking the audience. You realize if you don’t work quick you’ll miss your chance to talk to him. Maybe it’s a good idea, you’ll see him tonight anyways when you fall asleep. You’ve nearly worked yourself into backing out when suddenly a hand lands on your shoulder and you jump, spinning around to see who just touched you.
When you turn around you realize you’ve come face to face with the one and only Hansol Vernon Chwe. You suck in a breath as you stare at him. Your mouth goes dry and suddenly you freeze up.
“Hi,” Hansol breathes out.
“H-hi.”
“You uh, live in New York.” You can only nod. “I’m uh, wow. Sorry I just- I really wasn’t expecting to see you here. I understand if you want space though. Thinking about it now, I probably should have let you come to me on your own.” Hansol frowns a bit.
“Your set was amazing,” you blurt out, not sure what else to say. Hansol still grins at you though.
“Do you want to come get food with me? I’m super hungry after the show. Don’t feel obligated though!”
“Y-yeah, sure. Food sounds good.”
It’s not awkward, yet it is at the same time. You’re not sure how to feel.
You and Hansol sit in a booth at a diner as Hansol scarfs down a hamburger. You pick at your basket of fries, chewing thoughtfully as you think of what to say to Hansol. It doesn’t feel much different than when you dream together, but this time it’s actually real.
“I’d like to become friends,” you finally break the silence. “I think that uh, spending time together would be nice. It would help me out too. If you’d want to, that is.”
“Yeah!” Hansol perks up. “That would be cool.”
“I’ll still need some time and space. And everything won’t be perfect and glamorized, but I want to try.”
“I’ll be there for whatever you need Y/N,” Hansol tells you, sincerity written all over his face. “Just don’t push yourself, okay? I’ll be okay no matter what happens.”
“Thank you Hansol, I’m fortunate to have you.” And you mean it.
After your initial meeting, you and Hansol start to steadily hang out. You make sure to go out to his gigs when you can and he accompanies you to random places you want to go explore. You get more comfortable with his presence in your daily life and your dream life. You realize it’s been a while since you made an effort to connect with someone in this way and you’re glad you let Hansol in. He’s funny and caring and selfless and the most laid back person you’ve met.
Hansol’s presence doesn’t deter the grief of Joshua though. You still think of him everyday. Some days are worse than others. It’s been a few months since you and Hansol met in person and as much as you want to let him in even more, you don’t know if you would be able to handle it. You feel guilty about keeping him at arm's length, but you’re afraid you’ll feel even more guilty if you let him get closer. You’re grateful for how understanding and patient Hansol is.
You think that you could come to love Hansol one day. Maybe not in the same way you loved Joshua, but in a new way. A completely unique Hansol way. You know that you’ll always love Joshua and he will always be in your heart, in your head, that he will always have that impact on your life, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t learn to love again.
Your therapist has told you that healing isn’t linear but rather fluctuating. That you’ll learn to grow with it so it will be easier to bear, even if you still have bad days. You know he’s right because you’ve made a lot of progress since Joshua’s passing three years ago. Maybe the next step is opening up your heart more?
You groan to yourself and flop onto your bed. This has been eating you up inside for weeks now. You really like Hansol, but you can’t tell if you like him because he’s him or because he’s your soulmate and you feel obligated or because you’re trying to find another way to help you grow from your grief. You think it’s because you truly like Hansol, but then you over think it and wonder if that’s just what you’re telling yourself to feel better.
It isn’t until later in the day, when Hansol is at your apartment watching a movie, when you find your answer.
Hansol is telling you another one of his stories. He’s laughing about something that Seungkwan and Chan were fighting over and you can’t help but smile along. Hansol’s energy brightens up the room and you can’t help but be a little transfixed by it. It’s something you’ve found yourself doing more and more lately. Hansol’s energy is just contagious and you get pulled in by his warm personality.
Before you and Joshua met, you always thought about what makes a person a soulmate. What connects two people to make them destined for each other. How can the universe just match two people up and expect them to be perfect for each other. Then you met Joshua and you understood. You two were a match made in heaven, a true picture of soulmates. You think that maybe Hansol is also the perfect match for you. The person you need right now. The thought scares you, but gives you hope as well.
You know that you still need to do one more thing though. You need to know it’s truly right before letting Hansol in.
“Hey Hansol?” You cut off his story but he doesn’t seem to mind, just looking back at you with a curiousness in his eyes. “Would you…will you come visit Josh with me?”
You’re not sure how he’s going to respond. It’s a big ask and you would understand if he said not. Instead Hansol just grabs your hand. “Of course.”
Hansol is in jeans and a nice jacket when you meet him. He has a small bouquet of flowers in his hand. “I didn’t know if I should bring flowers or not. Sorry if that’s wrong.”
“No, it’s nice. Thank you, Josh would love them.” You smile at Hansol reassuringly. “Guiltily, it’s been a while since I’ve gone and seen him. Thank you for joining me today.”
Joshua is buried in New York, which was a difficult decision for his parents to make. You wouldn’t have minded if he was buried in California, but his parents agreed that he belonged in New York, where his heart was, where you are.
You guide Hansol to his grave and gently knee in front of it. The headstone is still fairly clean and there are withered flowers in the cemetery vase.
“Hi Josh,” you say as you take the old flowers out of the vase. “Sorry it’s been a while, there’s so much that’s been going on in my life recently. I still miss you everyday though. You’re always on my mind. I also uh, brought a friend today.” You gesture for Hansol to kneel down with you. He joins you and hands you the flower so you can add them to the vase. “Josh, this is Hansol…my soulmate.”
Hansol looks at you then but then looks back down at the grave. “Nice to uh, meet you Joshua. I’ve heard great things about you. I guess we’re also both pretty lucky guys.”
You roll your eyes at this. It’s a joke that Joshua would enjoy. “Josh, remember that conversation we had. Where we talked about what we would do if anything happened between us. We both agreed that we would want the other to be happy, no matter what form that came in. You know I love you, that I always will, but…I think that maybe…Hansol can make me happy too.”
“Y/N?” Hansol looks over at you. You reach over to grab his hand and he lets you.
“I’m not sure where this is going to take us, or what is going to happen, but I want to try Hansol. It will be a slow process but I want to let you in. If you’ll have me? I know I’m a bit broken but-”
“You’re not broken.” Hansol squeezes your hand. “You’re perfect Y/N. I know that things won’t always be easy, but I want to be here for you. In any form you’ll let me.”
“I,” you look down at Josh’s headstone, “I came here to uh, get closure? Which obviously it’s not really closure but, I just wanted to make sure this is okay. Come talk to him and see if he would send me a sign. I feel…lighter? Like I know that this is the right decision.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Thank you for being so patient. Thank you for coming with me today.”
When you finally leave the cemetery your hand is enveloped by Hansol’s and your heart feels a bit less empty than it used to. You think to yourself that just maybe, things might work out.
title: good to be bad
pairing: jeon wonwoo x gn!reader, kim mingyu x gn! reader
genre: fluff, minor angst, descendants au (child of hades reader)
warnings: mentions of violence, stealing, bullying, and canonical bad parenting
w.c.: 10.2k
summary: moving to auradon brings many new things, good and bad
a/n: this will follow almost none of the canon descendants universe lol. if i make someone mean its for the plot i promise i dont think they’re actually like this
here's the list of everyone's parents too if you're curious
You’re sitting on top of a warehouse roof when you hear footsteps approaching.
“Are you going to apply for the proclamation?” Wonwoo always seems to know just where to find you. He takes a seat next to you on the ledge and you scoot over a bit so your thighs are touching.
“It’s just charity to make them look good. They don’t actually care about us.”
Earlier in the morning, the royal palace released a proclamation, stating the royal family are going to sponsor six villain kids and bring them over to Auradon to help ensure a “better future”. Every child on the Isle of the Lost will send in an application and the six best candidates will be chosen to move to Auradon.
You don’t believe it though. It has to be a big set up. There’s no way the people in Auradon actually want to help, or they would have done something a long time ago.
“It sure is a unique opportunity. To go and live on the mainland, get to attend Auradon Prep.” Wonwoo is trying so hard to come off as nonchalant, but you catch the wistful air of his tone.
“You’re going to apply,” you say. It’s not a question. “They’ll pick you for sure. You’re not like us Wonwoo, you don’t belong here.”
“None of us belong here,” Wonwoo mutters.
“Maybe…” You’re quiet for a moment before you continue. “But you’re the one who deserves to get out.”
Wonwoo doesn’t respond. You two sit in silence, staring out at the Isle. It really is an ugly sight to behold. Even in the worst of places, you can find beauty, but not on the Isle. It’s ugly on the inside and out.
Eventually you get up and Wonwoo follows, still not saying anything. You two start to walk to your place, the unspoken agreement that Wonwoo will spend the night. The walk is far, considering you live in an underground lair on the edge of the Isle. Your father likes to be far away from people and to live underground, seeing as he is the God of the Underworld.
Your dad…well he’s not winning any Best Dad of the Year awards anytime soon, but he’s not near as bad as he could be. Sure he’s a bit negligent, treating you more as a lackey than his child, and he likes to remind you how much of a mistake you are and how you will never live up to him, but why complain when other kids have it worse.
Like Wonwoo, who’s mother is the literal most evil woman alive. She’s always been disappointed in him, seeing as he takes no interest in any villainy. That’s why Wonwoo sleeps at your place.
When you get inside the lair you and Wonwoo quietly navigate the dark rooms until you get to your bedroom. You two flop down onto your bed, squished together on the twin size mattress. You and Wonwoo have been sharing the same mattress since fourth grade, so the proximity of your bodies is normal at this point.
You’re not tired, but you know if you’re too loud your father’s going to yell at you in the morning, so you lay quietly staring up at the ceiling. You can tell Wonwoo is still awake too because you haven’t heard him taking his glasses off yet, and you know he hates sleeping with them on.
“Y/N-ah?” Wonwoo’s already soft voice is even softer as he whispers out to you.
“Woo?”
“Come to Auradon with me.”
Your breathing freezes for a moment before you gain your composure again. “I can’t.”
You and Wonwoo aren’t the same. By the time you and Wonwoo got close, you were already corrupted into the Isle’s ways. Besides Wonwoo, you have one of the most influential, evil parents on the Isle and whereas Wonwoo tries to ignore that part of him, you lean into it.
“You deserve to live a good life,” Wonwoo says. “You can’t do that here.”
“There isn’t a place for me in a world like Auradon. All they’re gonna do over there is try and ‘fix’ us so they can rub in our parents’ faces,” you say. “And all the while they try to fix us, they’ll just villainize us.”
“So we’ll just prove them wrong. I can’t live my most fulfilling life if you're not there too. So please, just think about it.” You’ve never heard Wonwoo ask for anything in his life, let alone beg.
“I…I’ll consider it.”
And consider it you did. Which is why you’re now standing at the bridge with Wonwoo, waiting to be picked up to go to Auradon. If you’re being honest you still don’t really want to go. The choice between going to Auradon with all of the prissy princesses and stuck up princes, or staying at home with your homebody dad who tries to get rid of you at every opportunity possible, was definitely a tough one. To you, it sounds like a lose-lose situation, but while you were going over the pros and cons you were hit with a tie breaker.
As much as you don’t think Auradon is for you, there’s only one reason why you even considered it to begin with. As hellish as it sounds to go to Auradon Prep, there’s one pro that outweighs everything else.
You were sure of your decision when you told Wonwoo and his whole face lit up. It’s rare to see that cute little smile spread across Wonwoo’s lips but whenever you do see it, you’re reminded why you’d do anything in the world for him.
“Well isn’t this a sight to see?” You hear someone approach the bridge before you see them, but you don’t have to turn around to identify who it is.
Jeonghan, son of Mother Gothel, is probably the only other person you trust who is not Wonwoo, and with Jeonghan you only trust him as far as you can throw him. He’s the one friend you have who you can get into mischief with. He’s manipulative and sneaky and quick witted and can talk himself out of nearly any situation he gets put in. If you and Jeonghan weren’t friends, you’d be a bit concerned with how similar you two are.
“What are you doing here Han?”
“I’m here to catch my ride to Auradon.” Jeonghan grins at you. He strolls up to you, slinging an arm around you when he gets close. “So nice of you to come see me off.”
“Yeah right, try again.”
“You're going to Auradon? You practically run this place, why would you give that all up just to be surrounded by a bunch of assholes?”
“I should be asking you the same thing,” you scoff.
“I’m going so I can wreak havoc and cause chaos. Why would I stay here when I can mooch all of the premium stuff off of the rich bitches while torturing them with my presence?” You don’t miss the way his eyes flit over to where Wonwoo is standing. “Oh I get it, your reason has more to do with lover boy and less to do with villainy.”
Jeonghan and Wonwoo are on…neutral terms, but then again, most people are with Wonwoo. People are more scared of his quiet, polite demeanor than they are of the kids who can do any actual damage. Jeonghan likes to tease you for the close nature of your relationship with the other boy though.
You’re about to retort back to Jeonghan when the next VK walks up, his always present companion slinking behind him, and anger flares up in you.
“No. No, fuck this. Living in Auradon is bad enough, but now I have to do it with him there as well?” You glare over at the boy who just walked up.
Minghao, son of the Evil Queen, just stands and stares with a disgusted look plastered on his features.
You and Minghao hate each other, and you have since kindergarten. At first it was just stupid little kid fights, and then petty middle school arguments, but as you’ve gotten older the disdain for one another hasn’t gone away. In fact it’s probably gotten worse.
His little pet, Junhui, son of Cruella de Vil, is never seen more than a few feet behind Minghao anywhere he goes. You don’t have anything against Jun per se, but by association with Minghao, he’s just another enemy.
“That’s only five, where’s the sixth VK?” Wonwoo asks.
With impeccable timing to Wonwoo’s words, the final VK strolls up. Rather than the anger you felt with Minghao, annoyance takes over that feeling. The sixth and final Villain Kid who was chosen, is Chan, son of Gaston.
You don’t have a direct reason to dislike him, other than the fact he has an affinity for getting on your last nerve. Just like his father, he loves to boost his own ego and you can’t help but puke your mouth a bit every time you hear or see it.
You wonder briefly if you still have time to back out. As much as you love Wonwoo and tolerate Jeonghan, you don’t know if they outweigh the other three companions you’ll have. You don’t have time to deliberate though, because soon the barrier is opening and a long black car is pulling up.
A man steps out from the car and greets you all. He quickly confirms your identity before ushering you all into the car. In the back it’s like a lounge area. You could combine all of the Isle and it still wouldn’t be as nice as this car.
The car takes off and soon you guys are on your way to Auradon. You’re staring out the window as you start to leave the Isle when all of a sudden a shiver runs through your body and you start to heat up. You’ve never felt so hot in your life and then you hear Chan scream. You look back at the others in the car and they all look at you terrified.
“What?”
“Your, um, your hair is on fire,” Wonwoo tells you. You reach up and touch your hair only to realize there’s flames in its places.
“Oh.” You do your best at concentrating to make it stop and soon everyone in the car starts to look calm, so you assume it went away. “Well that’s new.”
“It’s probably because of the barrier,” Jeonghan says. “You get to use magic now.”
“Woah, lemme try!” Chan shouts before Minghao smacks him on the back of his head.
“You don’t have magic parents dumbass.”
You sigh and really hope that coming to Auradon isn’t a mistake.
When the car finally pulls up to Auradon Prep, there’s a few people standing at the front. The six of you climb out of the car, taking in your surroundings. The mainland is definitely a lot…brighter, than the Isle.
You squint until your eyes adjust to the lighting. When you can finally identify what you’re looking at you wish you could go back to not seeing. Standing in front of you is the royal family. You watch the way the future king, Seokmin, flicks his eyes from you to Wonwoo to Minghao to Jun. It takes you a moment to realize what he’s doing but he’s looking at your hair. You and Minghao both have blue hair while Wonwoo has purple and Jun has white hair with black stripes. To you it’s never been anything out of the ordinary, but apparently it’s just an Isle thing.
The queen not so subtly nudges Seokmin and he stops his staring. The King smiles at you six as he approaches you.
“Welcome to Auradon! We are so happy to have you here!”
You all stare at the King, not saying anything. He comes to that realization only after he’s looked at you for too long.
“Well, I’ll leave my son here to give you the tour of Auradon Prep. We hope you enjoy your time here, and have a successful future.”
Seokmin steps up and greets you all. “Let me bring you on a tour.”
You and Wonwoo glance at each other before you follow behind the prince. He takes you through the halls, explaining everything as he does, but you’re not paying much attention. It seems the only person who really is paying attention is Wonwoo. Minghao and Jun keep whispering to each other and Chan keeps trying to touch things he shouldn’t. You and Jeonghan stray at the back of the group, bored more than anything.
It isn’t until you approach your first group of AKs that you have full attention. An unsettling feeling creeps down your spine.
“Jihoon, Joshua!” Seokmin calls to them before turning to the group. “Guys, these are my best friends, Jihoon, son of Ariel and Eric, and Joshua, son of Snow White and Ferdidnand.”
“Woah, that’s a lot of leather,” the boy named Joshua mutters. The other boy sizes the VKs up before turning back to Joshua, totally ignoring your presence.
You don’t miss the way Minghao stiffens, his eyes focused on Joshua. It never really occurred to you, but now that you’re in Auradon, you’re going to be meeting the kids of the heroes who your parents were villains to. Well that’s another thing to look forward to.
At the awkward tension in the air, Seokmin bids his friends goodbye and continues with the tour.
“Here at Auradon Prep, everyone has a dorm room. You’ll occupy these three rooms so pair up and feel free to get settled into your rooms or explore around.” With that Seokmin leaves, and you all pair off. You and Wonwoo pair off, to Jeonghan’s demise (who ends up with Chan), but you just brush him off.
As soon as you walk into the room, your nose upturns. You quickly move to shut all of the curtains. “Why is it so goddamn bright here?”
“You grew up underground, everywhere is bright for you,” Wonwoo teases. “You better get used to the light, this is our new home now.”
“As long as they don’t ship me back off to the Isle,” you mutter under your breath. Wonwoo still hears you though.
“That won’t happen, because you’re going to behave yourself. Right?” He gives you a pointed look.
“Yes, sir!” You jokingly salute at him and he rolls his eyes but accepts your answer.
“Just think Y/N, this is the start of our new lives. We’re Auradonians now, and get to go to Auradon Prep. It’s going to be amazing, I can just feel it.”
Despite the growing nerves in your gut, Wonwoo’s upbeat attitude helps soothe them down, just for now at least.
“First day of class, are you excited?” Wonwoo asks as you two get ready for the day.
“It’s just school,” you answer, shrugging noncommittally. The whole week Wonwoo’s been excited to be in Auradon. He’s been in a happy mood, happier than you've ever seen him before. Happier than you’ve ever seen anyone before (you didn’t even know people could be that positive). He even went as far as getting a new wardrobe and a haircut. He looks like a completely new person.
He looks…good.
You always thought back on the Isle that he was just quiet and reserved, but you’re starting to think that was just how he had to be to survive. He’s been more open and active, like he’s found the life inside of him.
You on the other hand, you’ve been dreading being in Auradon since you stepped foot in it. You thought you could do it for Wonwoo’s sake, and it does warm your heart to see him so lively, but you can feel your own self starting to deteriorate. That’s just while you’ve been staying in your room, now you actually have to go to classes filled with all of the Auradonians. You can already feel the snide remarks and the accusations and normally that wouldn’t bother you, but you’re worried about how it will affect Wonwoo’s mood. Back on the Isle you could protect him from anything, but here it’s a whole new playing ground.
“It’s not ‘just school’ it’s proper school now. We get to actually learn from people who want to teach! Why aren’t you more excited?”
“I just don’t want you to get your hopes up too high,” you tell him as you pull on your jacket.
“It’s going to be great Y/N, just you wait.”
You can’t do anything but hum at Wonwoo as you sling your bag over your shoulder and head towards the door. Wonwoo is quick to follow and as you two step out of the room, Minghao and Jun are doing just the same. You and Minghao tut at each other before heading off into different directions.
“Even in a new place you’re going to hold the same sentiments to Minghao?”
“Just because we’re in a new place doesn’t mean he’s a whole new Minghao. If you’re that concerned about it, you befriend him first.” Wonwoo doesn’t say anything. “Exactly.”
You walk out of the dorm area and into the classroom part of the school. There’s already a large group of kids wandering about to their classes. When they catch sight of you and Wonwoo they’re quick to give you a wide berth. You don’t pay them mind as you continue walking through the halls.
You and Wonwoo have different first blocks and you two split off, but not before you remind him to come find you at lunch. After Wonwoo leaves you start to navigate your way to your first class. When you walk in there’s already a handful of kids sitting at desks and they all stare as you walk in.
You send a hearty glare in their direction and they all quickly look away. You walk through the desk, noticing the way a couple of the students flinch away from you, before you take your seat in the back of the class.
It’s not long before the whispering starts up. You’re not stupid, you know it’s about you, but you can’t be bothered to listen. You knew it was going to happen, you know they’re not saying anything nice, so why listen to things that are just going to annoy you even more than you already are.
As you were getting up this morning you told yourself that you can’t pay mind to anyone who has something to say about you, no matter how hard they stare or sneer or whisper, you can’t do anything about it. You have to focus on being good now, be the bigger person, so you can stay here with Wonwoo.
That’s what you keep repeating to yourself as a group of guys snicker at you and a few girls start to obviously stare at your hair. It’s going to be a long day.
It’s not just the day that turns out to be long, it’s the whole week. Wonwoo seems oblivious to it all claiming “everyone just needs time to warm up” but you also have a suspicion people are either being fake nice to Wonwoo, or not giving him the same treatment as the rest of you due to his new look. Whatever the reason is, Wonwoo doesn’t seem to be aware of the comments and glares you and the other boys have been on the receiving end of.
It’s strange, everyone seems to be scared of you, but at the same time they have no problem making under the breath comments on your upbringing. You’ve definitely been called a ‘freak’ a couple of times and one guy even tried to trip you in the cafeteria. He immediately cowered back when you raised your fist him, but still.
You’ve found a particular enemy in a boy named Seungkwan, the son of Cinderella. He makes the most comments about you and the other VKs and you think you may hate him more than Minghao. You have your third period science class with him and rather than listening to the teacher, he likes to focus his attention on you instead.
“Better watch out with this one, you don’t know what kind of potions they may brew up,” Seungkwan sneers.
“You wanna say that again?” You growl.
“What are you going to do? Light me on fire? They’ll just ship you right back to that slum you call a home. Actually, maybe you should do it. It would get rid of at least one of you vermin.”
That whole interaction happened in front of a teacher, who didn’t say anything. You’ve noticed that’s a recurring theme as well. Teachers love to look past what the Auradonians are saying, but as soon as you glare at someone, you’re the one being told off.
The issue is that Wonwoo has barely been experiencing any of this, and he’s off doing stuff during his free time. He’s found new hobbies and has been practicing his magic with Fairy Godmother and over all soaking up all of the Auradon goodness, which leaves you to spend time with Jeonghan or yourself.
You stand at your locker, wondering if maybe it would be a good thing if you got sent back to the Isle, when a giant body slams into you, shoving you into the lockers.
“Watch it, asshole,” you growl.
“Oh my god I’m so sorry! I-” The guy’s words cut off when he gets a good look at you. “You’re one of the Villain Kids.”
“And you’re a giant dumbass who can’t watch where he’s walking.”
“Oh right, I’m very sorry about that!” The guy quickly bends at the waist in a bow. When he stands, he stares at you expectantly. “So how are you enjoying Auradon?”
“I don’t remember agreeing to talk to you.” You close your locker with a loud slam. You turn to leave but the guy is in your way. “Move.”
“No, wait-”
Without meaning your hair bursts into flames as you glare at the guy. He jumps back, his reaction causing your hair to go back to normal.
“You’re…you’re the child of Hades…”
You glare up at the tall guy. “Yep. Now if you’ll very kindly move out of my fucking way.” You shove your way past him, surprised at how easily he moved despite his stature. You can’t focus on that though, rather trying to focus on just getting away from him.
“Wait, no! Come back!” The guy grabs your arm and spins you around.
You stare between his frantic face and his hand clamped around your bicep. “I would advise you to let go if you favor that hand.”
He’s quick to release you. “I’m sorry! I just…wanted to talk. I know you uh, Isle kids probably don’t wanna talk to us, but I just want to get to know you guys. This can’t be easy for you and I want to try and get to know you guys before I judge you.”
“So when you do get to know us, you’ll be free to judge?”
“No! That’s not what I meant! I just meant, ugh, that like…it’s unfair for everyone to be saying what they are when they don’t even know you. That’s all.”
“Have you ever considered that maybe we don’t want to talk to you?” With that you turn away again, this time more prepared to deck the big oaf if he touches you again.
As you walk away, he calls to your retreating back, “The name’s Mingyu by the way! Son of Hercules!”
And as much as that interests you, you continue to make your exit, filing that information away for later.
You’re not exactly sure how you ended up in this situation, but sitting across from you in your dorm is the son of Hercules. It seems after your first encounter he’s been partial to seeking you out as much as he can. You were just walking into your dorm when he bombarded you and all but forced his way into your dorm. So here you are, sitting on your bed, staring at where he sits at your desk.
“You’re here so you can what? Run back to all of your little friends and tell them all about me?”
“Oh no, I actually uh…this is kind of embarrassing, I don’t really have any friends.”
“You live in Auradon, how the hell don’t you have any friends? Aren’t you guys all about friendship and kindness and all that crap?”
“Yeah, we are, but I don’t know. Most people see me as some clumsy, annoying guy.”
“You are a clumsy, annoying guy.”
“I know that, but it’s different when they say it. I don’t know, none of them really like me that much. They don’t even pretend to like me like they do with some of the others.”
“I don’t get that. If you’re not going to like someone, don’t hide it. Honestly, it’s better they don’t fake it with you. I’d rather have a million enemies than one fake friend.”
“It’s different here,” Mingyu says. “Everyone does what it takes to get them higher on the totem pole.”
“And being fake does that? I’ve always openly hated Minghao and I’m the highest on the damn totem pole.”
“Oh no. We’re not allowed to hate anyone. Well I guess, unless it’s me.”
“Why do they even hate you? From what I can tell you’re smart, and strong, and…nice,” you force the last word out. “Sounds like everything everyone here values.”
“I may be smart, but they still think I’m stupid. I probably am sometimes. I guess when you have to be nice all the time, you need someone to be the punching bag to get all of your anger out on. I just happened to be that person.”
“Why don’t you do something about it? Your grandfather is literally Zeus. The Zeus. They should all be bowing to you, not walking all over you.”
You’re not sure why you care so much. Maybe it’s because Mingyu is the only person who hasn’t sneered at you. Maybe it’s because he knows what it’s like to get sneered at.
“What am I supposed to do? Rain lightning bolts down on them? Beat them up with my strength? I can’t do stuff like that, that’s villain stuff.” Mingyu glances over at you, like he said something wrong. Like he’s not supposed to bring up villainy around you. You barely pay attention to him though.
“Hell yeah it is! What’s wrong with a little villany? Beats being a punching bag for the rest of your life.”
“I would be hated even more than I already am,” Mingyu says.
“Villains aren’t even the bad guys. They have good views, people just get mad because they didn’t think of it first. Honestly half of the villains wouldn’t even be villains if it wasn’t for your parents! The two strongest villains on the Isle, Hades and Maleficent, wouldn’t have even become villains if they just got a goddamn invitation to begin with!” It’s something you and Wonwoo have discussed before. The coincidence of your parents path to villainy. “If you ask me, the real villains are the good guys. Real heroes don’t bully others.”
“You know you’re…not nearly as bad as the others make you out to be.”
“Yeah well, I was a lot worse on the Isle. I just know I’ll get shipped back if I do any of my normal activities, and I can’t leave Wonwoo alone here like that.”
“Wonwoo…Maleficent’s son. He’s not like the rest of you guys is he?”
“No, but he’s not like the Auradonians either. He’s probably the only good guy I know. Well I guess, you count now too. But Wonwoo’s a whole different thing. Despite who his mother is, he’s never given into any of it. He couldn’t even hurt a fly, and his conscience keeps him accounted for everything. Even that time he accidentally borrowed a pen from me and forgot to give it back.”
“You really love him, huh?”
“Of course, he’s my best friend.”
“No I mean like…happily ever after love. Romantic love. I can tell by how you talk about him. It’s the same way my mom talks about my dad.”
“You’re mom…Megara.” You decided to change the topic. You don’t want to think about your feelings for Wonwoo, especially now that it seems like he’s ignoring you.
“Yeah…she wasn’t exactly a hero to begin with either. She doesn’t talk about her time with Hades much, but sometimes she brings it up in passing.”
“He’s…something.” You roll your eyes. “Let’s change the topic now.”
“Right…so back to Wonwoo.”
“Or maybe you can just leave all together.” Mingyu grins at you but you keep your face deadpan.
“Okay! No talk about Hades or Wonwoo. Good to know.” Mingyu doesn’t say anything for a moment and you’re about to ask him to not so kindly fuck off when he speaks up again. “So do you have any hobbies?”
“...No.”
“Oh.”
“There’s not exactly a lot to do on the Isle and I doubt you’d consider stealing a hobby.”
“So there’s…nothing you like to do? What have you been doing in your free time? Haven’t you thought about trying new things?” Mingyu spitfires the questions at you, something you’ve noticed he does a lot.
“In my free time I sit in my dorm or spend time with Jeonghan. There’s nothing here I want to do. Why try new things when they all sound awful?”
“You’re pretty pessimistic, you know that?”
“Yeah I do, it’s almost like I was raised by villains.”
“Well let me show you fun things to do! I promise it will be worth your time. Meet me at the front of the school tomorrow after class!” With that Mingyu gets up and leaves. You just stare at the space he was sitting in, trying to process his words.
For some reason you find yourself in front of the school after class the next day. You’re not sure why. Curiosity? Boredom? Some kind of pity for the kid with no friends?
“Y/N! You’re here!” The big guy runs up and attempts to give you a hug but you dodge him before he can. “You won’t be disappointed!”
“I better not be, or I’ll set you on fire.”
Mingyu laughs, not understanding you’re being completely serious. “Let’s go.” He starts to lead you to another part of the school you haven’t explored yet. “I thought I could introduce you to a bunch of things that you may enjoy. Cooking, art, music, reading, sports, gaming. Stuff like that.”
“I know what all of that is, I just don’t have an interest in it.”
“Do you not have an interest in it or are you just afraid to participate in something that’s not villainous?” You don’t answer. “You can’t tell if you don’t like something if you don’t try it! You live in Auradon now, you don’t have to be evil all the time. And don’t think I’m trying to change you from who you are, I’m just trying to…expand who you could be.”
“You’re cheesy, you know that? You sound like Fairy Godmother in Goodness Class but less stuck up and more puppy-like.”
“Puppies are a good thing!”
You just roll your eyes as Mingyu guides you into a room. There’s a bunch of equipment inside and a large mirror on one of the walls. There are a few people inside, using the equipment and it takes you a few seconds to piece together that it's a fitness gym.
“Why did you bring me here?” You turn to look at Mingyu.
“Well you seem to have a lot of pent up feelings and this is a great way to get them out. You can get swole while doing it too!” Mingyu flexes his arm and you try to not show how impressed you are at the size of his bicep. Stupid Hercules kid.
“So what? You just want me to lift weights?”
“Well…more like hit things. C’mere.” Mingyu takes you over to another part of the room where there are large bags hanging from the ceiling. “Punching bags. Just put the gloves on and go at it.” He hands you a pair of large gloves.
“You know on the Isle when you punch someone you don’t wear gloves. Seems like a sissy thing to do.”
“It sounds like protecting your hands from getting hurt. Just put them on.” You do.
You think Mingyu is about to say something else but you ignore him and throw a punch at the bag. You continue to throw punch after punch, working up a sweat and getting out all of your frustrations. The bag swings all over, probably due to your demi-god strength, but you don’t stop.
You don’t stop, until you hear someone cackle behind you. You step back from the bag to turn around and see two people staring at you and Mingyu. One is the small guy you met on the first day, Jihoon maybe? And another guy.
“Look Jihoon, it’s a delinquent and the dumbass,” the new guy scoffs. “Why don’t you two get out of here before you stink up the place.”
“Don’t even bother with them Cheol, they’re probably too stupid to understand what you’re saying,” Jihoon says.
This ‘Cheol’ doesn’t seem to listen to his friend though. “You know you have no right being here. Not just in this room, but at this school, on the mainland. Go back to the Isle where vermin like you belong. And you Mingyu. I knew you were fucking pathetic but hanging around low-lifes like them? You really are the biggest fucking loser in this school aren’t you?”
“Watch your mouth.” You throw the gloves off and start to walk towards the two but you feel a strong hand on your shoulder, stopping you.
“Don’t. C’mon, let’s just go. It’s not worth it.” You glare at the pair as Mingyu practically drags you out of the room. He doesn’t say anything else after you two get out of the gym.
“Hey,” you break the silence, “you said you were going to show me a bunch of things. What’s the next one?”
Mingyu perks up a bit at your enthusiasm and starts to guide you to a new part of the school. When you get there you realize it’s the art wing of the school. You’ve walked through it before but never stopped to look for too long.
You two walk in through the door of a room and to your surprise, Minghao and Jun are in there.
“Nope, we’re leaving,” you tell Mingyu. You try to drag him out of the room but unfortunately for you, he’s a lot stronger than you are.
“Why, what’s wrong? Aren’t those guys also from the Isle?”
“Yeah that’s the problem. Just because we’re from the same place doesn’t mean we’re friends, that’s an Auradon thing. It’s actually common to have a lot more enemies than friends on the Isle.”
“They’re your enemies?”
“Yes,” you hiss. “So let’s go before they see us.”
Mingyu finally seems to understand you and you two silently sneak out of the room. The sad look is back on Mingyu’s face. “Well that’s a two for two bust.”
You roll your eyes. “I’m supposed to be the pessimistic one, remember? There has to be more than punching things and half assed art.”
“Fine, fine. The final thing today is actually my favorite thing to do, so don’t be too harsh on it okay?”
“No promises.”
Mingyu ignores your last statement and leads you to your final destination, the kitchens. “My favorite thing to do is cook!”
You don’t have much time to protest before Mingyu is handing you an apron and getting right to work. You find that you don’t want to protest much anyways. Mingyu seems genuinely excited as he bustles around the kitchen and you may be evil, but not evil enough to kill his happiness. You do as he says and you two talk about your childhoods and yourselves as you work side by side. You find that you’re enjoying yourself, and that maybe you do like Mingyu’s company, just a little bit.
The food also comes out…really good. Better than the dining hall food and way better than anything you’d ever had on the Isle. You and Mingyu sit on the counters of the kitchen as you eat your meal and continue your conversation.
You stare at Mingyu as he goes on a story about trips to Mount Olympus and you decide he’s pretty. Objectively. He has good facial structure and tan skin and nicely styled hair.
“Mingyu,” you cut him off.
“Yes?” He stops his story to look up and stare you in the eyes.
“Uhm…thanks.”
“For what?”
“For…this? For you know,” you struggle to get the words out, you’ve never been the best at showing emotions, “for being my friend.”
Mingyu lights up at this and you think that his smile might be the prettiest thing about him.
“You and Hercules’s kid?” Jeonghan drawls and if you weren’t used to much scarier things creeping up on you, you would have jumped.
It’s been a few weeks since you admitted to Mingyu that you guys are friends and you’ve been spending a lot more time with him lately. He just left your dorm when Jeonghan approaches you.
“What do you want Jeonghan?”
“Oh nothing. Just interesting seeing you all buddy-buddy with the big guy. Especially given your parents and the fact you yourself said you’re not gonna be making any friends here.”
“Oh shut up. Don’t act like you’re not always with that pretty boy all the time.”
“Pretty boy? You mean Josh?”
“Josh? A nickname? Really Jeonghan? And you want to try and judge me?”
“Joshua and I aren’t friends. He’s just in like all of my classes and has taken to hanging around me, not the other way around.”
“The Jeonghan I know would have told him to fuck off. You really wanna be with someone who keeps shooting glares at Minghao whenever he can?”
“I guess that makes us even, given he’s the one hanging around Rapunzel’s kid. And anyways, since when are you sticking up for Minghao? You two are sworn enemies.”
“We are, but unlike on the Isle, there are much greater enemies to worry about around here. The Auradonians have it out for all of us, no matter how ‘buddy-buddy’ we get with them,” you say. “You guys can make all the friendships you want, but in their minds, we’re still just villain scum.”
“You’re one to talk. I just saw the son of the guy your father tried to kill walk out of your dorm!”
“He’s not like them!” You argue. “He’s more like us than anything else. He listens and understands when I tell him things. He gets bullied by the kids here, and he’s one of them.”
“You have always been soft for the underdogs haven’t you,” Jeonghan says. His tone is condescending and you know he’s referring to Wonwoo.
“I’m just saying you can’t judge me when you’re doing the exact same thing. If you want to judge someone, maybe start with the people who are the actual enemy.” With that you slam your dorm door in Jeonghan’s face.
A few minutes later you hear a knock on the door and you all but growl. You storm over to the door and throw it open, expecting to see Jeonghan, but instead you see Wonwoo, his hands full of books. It really shouldn’t surprise you to see him, considering he lives here, but in all honesty you haven’t really seen him in a few days.
“Thanks Y/N, I couldn’t really open the door with my hands full.” Wonwoo walks into the room and dumps the books on his desk.
You stand at the door, staring at your best friend. You’re not sure what you’re feeling. Relief to see your best friend. Anger because you haven’t seen him in a few days. Sadness because you miss him and even though he’s right in front of you, you still miss him.
Wonwoo turns to look at you. “Hey, are you okay?”
“Uhm, uh…no,” you admit. You finally close the dorm door and trudge over to Wonwoo’s bed (it’s closer) before flopping down. “It’s like…too much has changed since coming here. I don’t see you anymore and Jeonghan and I got into a fight and everyone here sucks.”
Wonwoo slowly crawls up onto his bed as well, and draws you into his arms. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry we haven’t seen much of each other lately. I’m sorry you don’t like it here. I shouldn’t have forced you to-”
“No don’t,” you tell him. “I made the choice to come here, don’t blame yourself. I just wish…I wish it wasn’t like this. That’s all.”
“I know,” Wonwoo murmurs. “How about this…you’ll have me this whole weekend to yourself. Just us hanging out. How does that sound?”
“Wonwoo I would love to, but I…kind of have plans?”
“Plans?”
“Yeah…Mingyu’s supposed to be taking me to town to go shopping? Or something like that?”
“Mingyu…that’s…Hercules’ son?”
“Yeah…we’re kind of friends? He’s like the only person here I like, but that’s only because he’s not an asshole. He kind of reminds me of you, but he’s like a total extravert.”
Wonwoo chuckles at that. “Well I’d like to meet this Mingyu who’s been keeping you company. Maybe we could all spend time together?”
You bury yourself further into Wonwoo’s arms and smile. “I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.”
You’re not sure how it’s happened but Wonwoo and Mingyu get along really well, maybe a little too much, because now your days are spent with both Mingyu and Wonwoo, to the point where you don’t get a break from them. Like three peas in a pod, or whatever Fairy Godmother said to you. You don’t mind, you’re actually happy that Mingyu and Wonwoo get along so well, but it doesn’t cover up the fact that Auradonian’s have gotten worse, and now that Wonwoo is actively hanging around you again, he’s started to become at the end of their insults as well.
You can take the insults, but it makes your blood absolutely boil hearing them thrown at the two boys. There’s been plenty of times where they have to pull you away from the AKs, saying how you can’t turn into what they want you to. You really don’t care what happens to you, as long as they leave Mingyu and Wonwoo alone, but they do care what happens to you so you have to stay at least somewhat under control.
You’ve recently realized that you’d do just about anything for Mingyu and Wonwoo and as much as that scares you, it also doesn’t. You love them and they mean the world to you and as long as it took you to admit that for Mingyu, it’s true.
Which is why you’re here, standing at the Parents’ Day event, even though your dad is back on the Isle, most likely sitting in his chair and watching TV. Mingyu asked you to be here, so you came.
You, Mingyu, and Wonwoo are standing at the edge of the set up, staring at everyone else. You watch everyone with their families, smiling and hugging and laughing. You’re rightfully uncomfortable, but you try not to show that to Mingyu.
Your eyes sweep over the crowd again when they stop on a large figure at the entrance of the garden. You take a deep breath before exhaling slowly, breaking the silence that you, Mingyu, and Wonwoo were standing in. “I didn’t know your dad would be making an appearance,” you mutter under your breath.
“Neither did I,” Mingyu responds.
Your hand automatically reaches for Wonwoo’s and he accepts, holding onto you tight. Mingyu excuses himself, telling you two not to move, before he moves to greet his parents. It looks like the three have a brief conversation before they start to make your way towards you and Wonwoo. You quickly avert your eyes so it doesn’t look like you were blatantly staring.
“Well son, let’s meet these friends of yours.” You hear Hercules’s booming voice before you see him, but it’s not long before Mingyu and his parents are standing in front of you.
Before anyone can say anything, Megara gasps. “You look…just like him.”
“Uh, Mom, Dad, this is Y/N and Wonwoo.” Mingyu shoots you an apologetic look.
“The…villain kids…” Hercules mutters.
“Nice to meet you sir,” you stick your hand out and you don’t miss the way Megara flinches a bit. Hercules wraps a large arm around his wife. You lower your hand.
“Hello Mr. Hercules, Mrs. Megara. You have raised a wonderful son. He’s been nothing but kind and accepting since we’ve met, and he’s shaped up to be a phenomenal friend,” Wonwoo says to the couple. They look less…on edge talking to Wonwoo. Maybe because he’s in an actual suit and you couldn’t be bothered to put on something nicer than a slightly wrinkled button up shirt and your nicest leather bottoms.
“Let’s meet some more of your friends, son.” Hercules claps a large hand onto Mingyu’s back and he stumbles a bit.
“Dad, I told you, I don’t have very many friends here.”
“Sure you do! Who couldn’t love this face,” Megara coos before pinching Mingyu’s cheek.
“A lot of people,” Mingyu mumbles softly so only you and Wonwoo hear.
“So Mingyu? These other friends?”
“I don’t have any other friends Dad!”
“You’re only friends are…the kids of the two worst villains of all time? No you’re lying, no son of mine would be friends with such degenerates!”
“Don’t call them that,” Mingyu growls. “Dad you’re being unfair.”
“Unfair? You’re friends with the children of Hades and Malficent.”
“So what? They are amazing people and you can’t judge them just because of where they come from. What makes them any different than Mom-”
“MINGYU!” Hercules booms. “That is no way to talk about your mother. Son, we’re very disa-”
“When are you not! Why did you even show up today? You’ve always been too busy for me and when you do pay attention to me, it’s to tell me how much I don’t live up to your expectations. Just leave already,” Mingyu spits out. “I don’t know why any of us are here, let’s go.” Mingyu roughly grabs your arm and tugs you away, Wonwoo following.
Mingyu storms all the way to the dorms before he calms down. He’s still grabbing onto your arm tightly and you gently try to pull your arm out of his grip before he realizes.
“Oh shit, I’m so sorry Y/N. Did I hurt you?”
“No, I’m fine. High pain tolerance.”
You three stand in silence as Mingyu sighs. “I’m…I’m sorry about them.”
“It's not your fault,” Wonwoo is quick to assure him.
“I should have known-”
“You couldn’t have known anything. It’s fine, nothing we’re not used to,” you say softly. “Let’s just…go back to the dorm, yeah?”
It’s somber as you walk back to the dorm, and nobody says anything as you crawl into your bed, Mingyu and Wonwoo following, sandwiching you in the middle. The silence continues as you hold each other, until you eventually drift to sleep.
You’re rarely guilty about anything, but you are a bit guilty for not seeing Jeonghan in a while. He is, admittedly, your friend, and you haven’t seen much of him since Mingyu and Wonwoo have gotten close. You blame yourself, but you start to rethink that thought when you catch him all but sneaking out of Minghao and Jun’s dorm one day.
“What the hell are you doing hanging around those guys?” You confront Jeonghan. He doesn’t look surprised to see you, but his face is somber.
“Listen Y/N, this might be something you want to stay out of.” Jeonghan’s tone isn’t threatening like it normally would have been. He is giving you a warning. He pushes past you.
“Jeonghan.” At the call of his name he stops, but doesn’t turn around. “When have you ever gotten into mischief without me?”
You see Jeonghan’s shoulders rise and fall before he turns back around. “We can’t talk about it here.”
He takes you to his dorm. You sit down at his desk, noting the way their room still looks the exact way when they moved in.
“You can’t tell anyone about this. Even if you don’t approve, you can’t stop us. You have to promise me that Y/N.” Promises are a big deal on the Isle because they’re enforced. You break a promise, and you’ll get your arm broken in return.
“...I promise.”
“Minghao, Jun, Chan, and I are gonna take down the crown. We’re tired of the way we’re being treated. They promised a better future and all they’re doing is making us want to go back to the Isle, which is saying something.”
“Take down the crown…?”
“Yeah. We’ve already started a plan. We’re gonna make all of Auradon pay, and then maybe we’ll even take over the world.” Jeonghan shrugs his shoulders.
“Woah, wait, hold up. What?”
“Y/N. C’mon dude you’re like…one of the evilest people I know. Don’t you get it? We’re gonna break into the Museum of Cultural History, get Fairy Godmother’s wand, and finally do what our parents couldn’t all those years ago.”
You wonder how long the boys have been planning this. You wonder if they would have told you if you didn’t catch them before they executed the plan. Knowing Minghao, probably not.
“We’d actually really appreciate your help if you’d like to give it. Wonwoo’s too, but I think he’s put all the villainy behind him,” Jeonghan scoffs. “Waste of potential. The son of Maleficent, and all he wants to do is read books.”
“What are you going to do when you do take down the crown?” You ignore the dig at Wonwoo, because if you don’t Jeonghan would be sporting a black eye.
“Not sure yet. If you’re worried about us hurting your precious little Wonwoo, don’t worry. No matter how much of a goody two shoes he is, he’s still one of us.”
“And everyone else in Auradon?” You think that if Jeonghan lays even a finger on Mingyu that you’ll castrate him.
“They’ll bow to us now, and do what we say. It doesn’t matter what happens to them, it will be us who have the power. So are you in or what?” Jeonghan stares back at you expectantly.
“I-” You contemplate your options.
You think about every Auradonian who’s scoffed at you and whispered behind your back. You think about the condescending remarks on teachers' tongues and the shifty looks the parents keep sending you. You think about your father who scoffed at you everytime you tried to tell him about your newest villainous act. You think about Wonwoo and Mingyu whose safety needs to be ensured.
You look back up at Jeonghan. “I’m in.”
“Nice to have you,” Minghao drawls as you walk into the next meeting with Jeonghan. “Finally came to your senses?”
“Just figured you’d need a lot more brains to counteract your stupidity,” you retort.
“Whatever the reason is,” Jun butts in, “we’re happy you’re here. Besides Minghao, you’re the only one of us who can use magic.”
“Technically, Wonwoo ca-” Your glare cuts Jeonghan off.
“What even are all of your powers?” Chan asks you.
You give them a run down of all of your powers. Fire and smoke manipulation, like your dad. High pain tolerance and increased strength because of demi-god powers. Manipulation of souls and the dead. All the basics.
“Yeah…yeah we can work with this,” Minghao mutters. “With the plans we have…we could put them into action by the end of next week.”
“And you’re 100% in?” Jun questions you.
“Yeah…of course. We’ll make them all pay.” Pay for how they treat you. Pay for how they Wonwoo. Pay for how they treat Mingyu. Pay for all of it.
“Well then, it looks like we have a team.” And something about that excites you.
A week after your first meeting with the other VKs you guys have a solid plan of action, and you’re ready to execute it. It’s a bit strange to actually be getting along with Minghao and Jun, but you decide they’re not as bad as they used to be. Or maybe you’re just finally giving them a chance. Either way, you find that you can stand to be around them for prolonged periods of time.
They’re not the only ones that you’ve had new revelations for. Sitting in the meetings, planning to take over Auradon, you think about how you’re doing it all for Mingyu and Wonwoo. Your boys. You’d honestly go to war for them if they asked. You think you may love them, but then again you’re not exactly sure what love feels like. Nonetheless, they mean the world to you, and so you’ll do everything in your power to give them what they deserve.
You hate to admit it, but you’re also a bit excited to get back into villainy. You know it’s the morally wrong thing to do, but when have you ever cared about morally correct? You miss the thrill you get from plotting something and carrying it out. The only time you ever feel a bit bad about it is when you come home to see Mingyu and Wonwoo waiting for you in the dorm.
“Where have you been going the past few nights? I miss you.” Mingyu pulls you into a hug, resting his head on yours.
Your heart swells. “I’ve just been with Jeonghan. I feel bad for leaving him out to dry lately. You know I do have other important people in my life than just you two.”
“When has anyone ever been more important to you than me?” Wonwoo questions and well, he’s got you there.
“We are still your favorites though, right?” Mingyu looks at you with his big puppy dog eyes and you roll your eyes but inside your stomach flutters with butterflies.
“Yeah, yeah, sure.” You push yourself out of Mingyu’s arms so you can start to get ready for bed. “Are you spending the night again Mingyu?”
“Can I?” He looks at you hopefully and grins wide when you nod.
You crawl into bed and Mingyu follows after, and even though Wonwoo was on his own bed, he makes the short trip over to yours so he can crawl in too. Snuggled in between both of them, you think about how there’s nowhere else you want to be. Even if you don’t have a label, you sleep peacefully knowing that everything you do, it’s for them.
You’re nervous, but only because you want things to go well. You don’t think you’re going to fail, but if you do, you just want to make sure your boys are okay. Minghao has decided that today is the day you’re going to execute the plan and then after this, everything will be over. You guys will finally be safe, and happy, and together.
The plan is to meet up at the museum where Jeonghan and Minghao will steal the wand while you, Chan, and Jun will do damage control. From there you will storm the castle and capture the royal family, before finally taking over all of Auradon. There’s a lot that could go wrong, but in turn there’s a lot that could go right which is a risk you have to take.
You quickly crawl out of bed, through the foot of the bed so you don’t have to crawl over the body on either side of you. You slip out of bed and start to pull off your pajamas to grab your clothes.
“Y/N?” The soft, sleepy voice stops you in your tracks. You don’t want to turn around, because if you do you’ll be tempted to just crawl right back into bed with your boys, but you have to do this, for them. “Y/N what are you doing? It’s late.”
“I have to go. I need to go do something right now,” you say as you continue to pull on your clothes.
“What could you possibly have to do at 3 am?” The other tempting voice in your bed sounds out. Great now they’re both awake.
“I have to go meet with Jeonghan, it’s very important and I promise I’ll tell you everything later, but just know that everything that happens has a reason. If things seem wrong, don’t freak out, it will all work out.”
“What are you talking about?” You hear shuffling in bed, meaning that most likely Wonwoo is sitting up.
“Just explain to us where you’re going, Y/N,” Mingyu says. “Why are you meeting Jeonghan at 3 am? You two have been very suspicious lately.”
“...If I tell you something, you have to promise you’ll keep it secret, okay?”
“Oh this is serious,” Wonwoo mutters.
“We promi-”
“We promise to our best ability to keep it secret,” Wonwoo cuts Mingyu off, having more experience dealing with Isle promises, “but we cannot promise our full secrecy if we deem fit to bring others in.”
That’s a good enough answer for you, and you finally turn around to face the two boys. They’re both sitting up, staring at you with half-tired looks on their faces. “The past couple weeks I’ve been meeting with Jeonghan and the other VKs. They’re planning on stealing Fairy Godmother’s wand and taking over Auradon, and I’m going to help them.”
“What!” Wonwoo roars, fully awake now. He quickly climbs out of bed to approach you. Mingyu hastily follows, a more concerned look on his face.
“Are you going to be safe? Did the others force you into this?” Mingyu, always the caretaker, rushes to make sure you’re okay.
Wonwoo, on the other hand, does not share the same sentiments. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Do you know how risky and stupid this is?”
“Yes I know how stupid this is, okay, but it’s just something I have to do. I can’t give you all the details right now, but you guys just have to trust me.”
“Trust you? You’ve been off planning world domination with Minghao,” Wonwoo says.
“I know, okay, and I’m sorry and I promise we’ll talk about it later, but I really have to go.”
“What are we supposed to do? Sit around and wait while you just take over the kingdom?”
“Y/N, I don’t like this. What if you get hurt, or caught? Do you trust the others to have your back?” Mingyu asks, your safety still being his biggest concern. “Why can’t you just stay here?”
“I have to do this Gyu…I can’t keep living here like this, but I can’t go back to the Isle. Things won’t get better unless we make them better.” You grab his hand in yours and squeeze tight. “You have to understand what I mean.”
“I’m with Mingyu on this one Y/N. I don’t want you doing this without any kind of back up.”
“Then join us,” you blurt out. Both of them look like they want to say something, but the words die on their tongues. “Everyone here treats both of you like shit. Don’t you want to do something other than sit back and let them? You two both deserve the world, so let me give it to you.” You reach up and cup both of their faces one hand each.
“Wh-what about-”
“We’ll figure it out. We’ll figure everything out. But I need you both to be with me.” You recall the words Wonwoo told you long ago. “I can’t live a fulfilling life without you two in it.”
“Okay,” Mingyu breathes out. You’re a bit surprised he’s the one who responded first.
“Okay?”
“Okay. I- I love you. If this is what you choose, then I’ll follow you to the end of the earth.”
You ignore the way you feel your stomach flutter at his words. You instead face the other man standing in front of you. “Woo?”
“You trust those four?”
“I trust they’re doing what’s best for us.”
“And we’ll be free?”
“No evil parents. No royal bullies. We make the rules now.”
“And it will be us together?”
“Forever.”
Wonwoo’s eyes search your face to make sure you’re sincere, but you both know you’ve never lied to Wonwoo a day in your life. His eyes flick over to Mingyu before looking back at you. “Okay.”
Relief surges through your body and you don’t think you’ve ever felt so powerful in your life. Mingyu pulls you into a hug and you snuggle into his large chest. You feel Wonwoo wrap himself around your back, once again sandwiching you between the two men.
The others can wait a few minutes, you think as you relax in their arms. You relish in the comfort of their warm bodies pressed into yours, enjoying the calm before the storm. You’re not worried though. You’re not worried at all. You have your two boys by your side and a plan to take over the world, what else could you need?
Her stories are soo sosososo good, most of them are short but its worth reading, definitely recommend checking her out, she also writes for txt too!!!!
The birth of your son three years ago was what caused your breakup with Wonwoo, your longtime (and at that point, long distance) partner. Now, you're getting concerned that Orion is starting to look a lot like his dad, but that's not your only problem. Wonwoo is back… and he's living across the hall.
one commoner, two princes, and three tales far too complicated to comprehend.
★ FEATURING; chan, joshua, and jeonghan!
★ STATUS; ongoing
★ TAGS; royalty au, magic, jeonghan being a menace (yes, it's a tag that's effective for the entire series lol), slow burn, fluff, angst, smut (MINORS DNI!)
★ NOTES; ok i lied abt posting this later hehe i've been soooo excited to share this entire series since i posted chan's story a few weeks ago <3 i hope you all like it!
★ BANNER CR; @himbocoups thank you so much for helping me out, nu!!!
✧ promise ring // chan ✧
word count: 21k words
summary: no one would’ve guessed that the daughter of the town’s royal mage has a soft spot for the clumsiest fire elemental in the entire realm. but when the crown prince suddenly asks for your hand in marriage, you’re forced to consider how you feel about a certain lee jung chan a lot more seriously.
tags: childhood friends, mutual pining, love triangle
✧ eyes meeting, hearts apart // joshua ✧
word count: 30.2k words
summary: you could've fallen for the childhood friend who owns a flower shop, the singer who takes the stage of the bar every other day. hell, even the owner's flirtatious son could've been a better choice. but you can't really help it if your heart longs for a prince who's in love with somebody else.
tags: bartender!reader, requited unrequited love, pining like no other, angst
✧ starcrossed losers // jeonghan ✧
word count: x
summary: at age fifteen, you’re betrothed to a prince named jeonghan. at age twenty-five, you’re set to marry him. so, when your father gives you a chance to find love all on your own, you immediately take it. now if only jeonghan would stop fucking sabotaging every relationship you’re trying to get into.
tags: royal!reader, enemies to lovers, arranged marriage, emotional romantic and sexual tension all in one lmao, more angst than intended
want to be included in the taglist? send me an ask!
✼ synopsis: flowers can speak for you when you can’t find the right words to say. you claim wen junhui works in a flower shop because he has too many words to say. but it’s okay, his little stories make your day. 5 mini stories surrounding 5 different orders a local flower shop receives.
✼ a/n: I literally do not know how to reply to this chapter but omg i'm seeing them live in three days my soul is going to leave my body I just know it.
The birth of your son three years ago was what caused your breakup with Wonwoo, your longtime (and at that point, long distance) partner. Now, you're getting concerned that Orion is starting to look a lot like his dad, but that's not your only problem. Wonwoo is back… and he's living across the hall.
Genres: smau, romance, drama, comedy, angst, single parent au
Pairing: jeon wonwoo x afab she/they reader x mystery member(s)
Warnings: coarse language, conversations about sex, mentions of pregnancy, reader uses mom/mother to refer to their parental status sometimes, infidelity, light alcoholism, miscommunication as a plot device, some of the teenies are not so nice at times, slut shaming, angst, everything is unrealistically dramatic because this is basically a kdrama in text/twitter form. warnings may be updated as they come, but I will label chapters properly if it's anything major
Note: unfortunately, I did have to make the mc for this series have female reproductive organs because, well... that's the plot. I couldn't find a good way around it :( if anyone reading this is discouraged, please know that pretty much every other fic I've ever posted is gender neutral. So, if you think you might've liked this smau, please check out my masterlist! hopefully there will be something you like there :) ALSO! if anyone makes fun of Orion's name just know that it's the name of a precious baby cousin of mine and if you bully smau Orion you are bullying irl Orion!! do not touch him!!!
Updates on Saturdays and some Wednesdays
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(pretty please don't ask to be put on the taglist without interacting at all with the series >-< Oh Baby, You is free to read, however, putting someone on the taglist is me going out of my way to make sure readers who enjoy my work can read it when it's ready! so please, if you'd like to be on the taglist, interact!)
Profiles I: Orion's Prettyboy(gn) Posse
Profiles II: Wonwoo's Famous Friend and the Other Guys
I love this series so much but a HUGGGEEE part of me wants orion to be wonwoos bc i will cry once wonwoo finds out he isnt his….if he’s not his🤭🫣🤔🤔 definitely a GREAT read
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