✎ . . . SYNOPSISᝰ things aren't going as planned the way you thought it was going to be. especially the part where you find yourself falling in love with your own boss– which was definitely not part of the agreed proposal.
✎ . . . NOTESᝰ just wanted to post this for fun lol. this has been sitting inside my vault for over 3 years now just waiting to be published. now i'm not exactly too sure when i want to start uploading for this cuz i still have one other ongoing smau but we shall see..
CHAPTERS ᝰ.ᐟ
➺ PROLOGUE ✐જ
➺ INTRODUCTION
➺ ONE ᝰ HIRED ✐જ
➺ TWO ᝰ SINCE WHEN?
➺ THREE ᝰ THE REAL DEAL ✐જ
➺ FOUR ᝰ I THINK I HATE MY BOSS
➺ FIVE ᝰ I STAND CORRECTED
➺ SIX ᝰ BEEN A WEEK
➺ SEVEN ᝰ LUNCH
➺ EIGHT ᝰ TIMES NEW ROMAN
➺ NINE ᝰ CLEAR MY SCHEDULE
➺ TEN ᝰ JEJU BOUND
➺ ELEVEN ᝰ WHY IS MY BOSS KINDA HOT ✐જ
➺ TWELVE ᝰ PR CRISIS
➺ THIRTEEN ᝰ PROFESSIONAL ✐જ
➺ FOURTEEN ᝰ RISE AND GRIND
➺ FIFTEEN ᝰ AFTER WORK HOURS ✐જ
➺ SIXTEEN ᝰ A MONTH ✐જ
➺ SEVENTEEN ᝰ SAVE YOUR TEARS
➺ EIGHTEEN ᝰ GOOD JOB ✐જ
➺ NINETEEN ᝰ COMPETENT ✐જ
➺ TWENTY ᝰ PUNNY
➺ TWENTY ONE ᝰ OVERCOMPENSATING ✐જ
➺ TWENTY TWO ᝰ CONVINCED
➺ TWENTY THREE ᝰ LITTLE MIX
➺ TWENTY FOUR ᝰ RAISE
➺ TWENTY FIVE ᝰ MODERN LIVING, ZHONG STANDARD ✐જ
➺ TWENTY SIX ᝰ LIAISON OFFICER
➺ TWENTY SEVEN ᝰ FEEDBACK DECK
➺ TWENTY EIGHT ᝰ RULE NUMBER ONE
➺ TWENTY NINE ᝰ GET IN ✐જ
➺ THIRTY ᝰ NEW SEATS
➺ THIRTY ONE ᝰ PAY ME BACK ✐જ
➺ THIRTY TWO ᝰ CHAUFFEUR ✐જ
➺ THIRTY THREE ᝰ JUST SUGGESTING ✐જ
➺ THIRTY FOUR ᝰ TGIF
➺ THIRTY FIVE ᝰ SOP
➺ THIRTY SIX ᝰ TAKE A BREAK SOMETIMES
➺ THIRTY SEVEN ᝰ REST ✐જ
➺ THIRTY EIGHT ᝰ DAY OFF
➺ THIRTY NINE ᝰ THE HEART OF THIS TEAM
➺ FORTY ᝰ ASSISTANT
➺ FORTY ONE ᝰ DRESS CODE
➺ FORTY TWO ᝰ LOOK THE PART ✐જ
➺ FORTY THREE ᝰ YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE ✐જ
➺ FORTY FOUR ᝰ NO OVERTIME TODAY
➺ FORTY FIVE ᝰ WARM ✐જ
➺ FORTY SIX ᝰ FAVORITE
➺ FORTY SEVEN ᝰ MOVING FORWARD
➺ FORTY EIGHT ᝰ DINNER RESERVATION
➺ FORTY NINE ᝰ EMPLOYEE BENEFITS ✐જ
➺ FIFTY ᝰ TOP OF YOUR CONTACT LIST ✐જ
➺ FIFTY ONE ᝰ BUSINESS TRIP
➺ FIFTY TWO ᝰ IS THE WORLD ENDING?
"fucking finally.. some peace and quiet" chenle huffs as he merges onto the main highway after dropping off the rest of your friends being hyuck, mark and jisung
"you're so mean to them" you laugh, shutting off your phone
chenle makes a face but laughs anyway. it was already late into the night after spending the day with your friends. after persuading chenle into treating his core team out for lunch given that he had given them hell (including you) a week prior
you all had went out for lunch and decided to just hang around the neighborhood. all expenses paid by no other than chenle
much to chenle's annoyance, he only wanted to hang out with you. a date is what he likes to call it in his head but instead you just had to suggest that why not tag everyone along. but now that that's out of the way, chenle now finally has you all to himself
"because i wanted this day to be all about us but guess we had other plans" chenle breathes out, "but it's fine. now it's just us" he suddenly turns his head away from the road to look at you before he picks up your already intertwined hands and gives them a soft kiss on the back of your hand
in an instant, you feel yourself melt into the little kiss. you almost hate how easy it is for you to be like this around him but you can't help it because it really does wonders to your well being
you could say you've moved passed the whole "i'm just his assistant and he's my boss" thinking
"see? even you just wanted it to be us two" chenle teases
you roll your eyes as he drops your hands onto your lap
"either way, i spend most of my time with you at this point" you shoot back
chenle suddenly lets out a squeal like a little school girl. much to your surprise. the fuck?
"god, you flatter me. almost as if you like me too. do you have a crush on me or something?" he gushes, words spilling out of his mouth over a simple factual sentence that you do spend most of your time with him
"oh my god" you cover your face with your free hand. you're never going to get used to this
"we're taking a detour. the day isn't over yet and now we can finally have our date in peace" chenle says abruptly. turning the car back around to the heart of seoul
you just shake your head. letting him take you anywhere his heart desires
. . . ᝰ.ᐟ
it was almost midnight when he drops you home
you two just ended up by han river. sharing a big bowl of ramen noodles and some street food while you sit on the grass just looking up at the night sky
"we have work again in a few hours and you just dropped me off now?" you complain, stretching your limbs before you get out of his car
chenle watches you quietly on the driver's seat. even if he has droven you a million time at this point, he can never get used to this
just you and him
"at least you get to see me first thing in the morning" chenle cracks a joke, a playful but knowing smile on his face
you make a face before you smack his arm in retaliation
"whatever.." you huff before you turn your head to face him. there he was, just looking back at you. eyes soft, cheeks slightly flushed. in your eyes he's no longer your boss or the ceo of the company you're working at
he's so much more than you'd like to admit
before you could even do something to truly change the trajectory of your whatever you call the relationship, you shake your head
"thanks again for today boss" you smile, "i owe you one for letting our friends crash our quote on quote date"
chenle blinks for a moment after the mention of the word 'date'
date, huh?
"obviously anything for you" he shrugs, attempting to sound cool
but for whatever reason, he's a little bothered how you called today or tonight rather, a date
before you could step out of his car, he grabs your arm to stop you
"wait, hold it. we're not done here" chenle says, "you're forgetting something"
you look at him weird. was there something missing? is he going to ask you for gas money?
chenle suddenly pokes his cheek and says nothing else
what?
you look around the car for some context clues because huh?
there was a beat of silence in the car. none of you even bothered to move
chenle then clears his throat before tapping his cheek again. twice
"uhh you got something on your cheek..?" you ask, voice going up an octave because what in the fuck does he mean with poking his cheek?
"payment for today since you brought friends to our date" chenle says. voice suddenly going serious
your mouth drops open. what in the actual fuck?!
so he isn't asking for gas money or anything to the likes of that but he's asking for a kiss because of what now?
"you did say you owe me one so this is what you owe me" chenle continues, tapping his cheek repeatedly til you get the hint
another beat of silence goes by. just you and him inside his car, illuminated by the interior car lights above your head and him just animatedly tapping his cheek
"you actually can't be serious—"
"oh, but i am dead serious. so come on now, pay up madam" he taunts
you let out an irritated huff before leaning closer to him. chenle gracefully closes his eyes as he waits for your lips to touch his skin
sucking in a deep breath, you close your eyes before you hastily peck him on the cheek
never in a million years would you ever imagine yourself kissing your boss just because he asked for it
"okay done, bye" you rush to get out but chenle annoyingly locks the door
"what the hell was that? that was barely a kiss let alone a payment!" he sulks but he was also blushing at this point
because neither did he imagine himself to be like this. let alone to his own assistant
it suddenly feels hot and heavy in his usually cold car. the tension is simmering up to a boil it's actually insane
"do it again. kiss it like you mean it" he pouts, tapping his cheek again shamelessly
was he enjoying this? he probably is
without another word, you lean in and kiss him this time on his cheek. letting your lips still for a good ten seconds before pulling away
for chenle, it feels like time had slowed. he actually can't wrap his head around the fact that you are kissing his cheek as you speak. like he was on cloud nine
he feels the blood immediately rush to his face. if only he could, he would've smashed your lips together with is but he knows it's still uncharted territory and he would rather prefer that you would initiate your first ever kiss
this would do for now
chenle returns to his senses when he notices that you were already out of his car
"goodnight boss!" he hears your voice off the distance. he looks outside to see you by your apartment building's front doors, waiting for him to drive off
he clicks his tongue in annoyance that he had missed your reaction from the kiss since he was busy being on cloud nine that it didn't even register to him that you had unlocked your door and ran out
which to him, was probably the safer choice. he probably can't even look you in the eye after that
you on the other hand, you feel like you could faint any second now with how hot your face feels. did you actually just kiss chenle? like it was nothing? and you just let yourself do it despite being told so? what happened to resisting him? beats you
you patiently wait for chenle to leave your street. you couldn't bear to look at him after that little stunt so you immediately ran away before he could even process everything that happened within those few seconds
chenle's car engine purrs as it passes by. he honks and his blinker blinks thrice before speeding away to head home. when his tail lights were out of your sight, you head inside
on the way up, your phone vibrates
Aa bossman 👹: payment well received 🩵
BUSINESS PROPOSAL ᝰ.ᐟ . . . DATE
✎ . . . things aren't going as planned the way you thought it was going to be. especially the part where you find yourself falling in love with your own boss– which was definitely not part of the agreed proposal.
[ PREV / NEXT ]
✎ AUTHORS NOTE . . . little writing exercise before we move on to the next part of the story eueueueu. haven't written anything in months so i'm rusty at the moment ++ guys tumblr is currently blocked from where im from so FUCK.... but im here now
✎ . . . things aren't going as planned the way you thought it was going to be. especially the part where you find yourself falling in love with your own boss– which was definitely not part of the agreed proposal.
[ PREV / NEXT ]
✎ AUTHORS NOTE . . . ive been itching to update only to find out we left on a little hangover for breather chapter last time... so here's this.... i miss updating so BADDDDD i only had time to do make a short lil chapter tn...... but maybe tomorrow cus this isnt enough
Synopsis: you escape to paris after a love turned deadly, carrying a secret you can never undo. jaemin is running too — the son of a mafia boss, betrayed by the one person he trusted. neither of you is looking for love, only anonymity and a clean break from the past. but when your lives collide, paris stops being neutral, and the past you both tried to bury starts clawing its way back.
wc: 13k
Part 1 — Part 2 — Part 3 — Part 4
you don’t run right away.
that’s the mistake everyone makes — thinking survival looks like movement. sometimes it looks like stillness. sometimes it looks like waiting long enough for the truth to show itself.
the city is loud again. sirens somewhere far off. footsteps that don’t bother hiding. the apartment smells like splintered wood and cold air, the door hanging open behind you like a wound that won’t close.
jaemin’s hand is still locked around yours.
not pulling.
not shaking.
steady.
you realize, dimly, that he isn’t panicking. his breathing is controlled, shallow, measured like he’s already three steps ahead of what’s happening now. that scares you more than the broken door ever could.
“shoes,” he says.
you don’t argue. you step into them without breaking eye contact, fingers numb. your phone buzzes again in your pocket. you don’t check it. you already know what it says.
jaemin moves first this time, guiding you toward the back stairwell instead of the elevator. his shoulder brushes yours once, grounding, deliberate.
“how many people know where you are,” he asks.
“i don’t know,” you answer honestly. “i didn’t tell anyone.”
he nods, like that confirms something he already suspected.
the stairwell smells like dust and oil. you descend quickly, quietly, every sense screaming. halfway down, voices echo from above — unfamiliar, confident, unhurried.
jaemin stops.
for a split second, you think he’s miscalculated.
then he turns you around, presses you flat against the wall, body shielding yours completely. his forearm braces beside your head, close enough to trap but not touching.
“listen,” he murmurs.
you do.
footsteps pass overhead. laughter. calm. no rush.
people who know they’ve already won.
when the sound fades, jaemin exhales once, slow.
“they’re not here for a warning,” he says.
you swallow.
“then what are they here for.”
his eyes flick to yours. something heavy moves behind them. something old.
“confirmation.”
the word settles in your gut like lead.
you reach the bottom of the stairwell and spill into the alley behind the building. the night air is sharp, cutting. jaemin doesn’t slow as he leads you away, weaving through streets you don’t recognize, cutting through spaces too narrow for cars.
“jaemin,” you say, breath hitching. “you said this was about both of us.”
“It is.”
his answer is immediate. too immediate.
you stop walking.
this time, he can’t ignore it.
he turns, annoyance flashing across his face before it smooths into something else. patience. calculation. concern layered on top of something darker.
“what aren’t you telling me,” you ask.
he studies you in the glow of a flickering streetlight. you’ve never seen him like this — fully awake, fully present, the softness pulled tight over something dangerous and deliberate.
“there are things about my family,” he begins.
you cut him off.
“i know.”
that surprises him.
just a fraction.
“you knew i was mafia-adjacent,” he says slowly.
you shake your head.
“i knew you were trained,” you say. “i knew you weren’t just running. i didn’t know why.”
silence stretches.
“i do now,” you add.
his jaw tightens.
“say it.”
you hesitate. the word tastes wrong in your mouth.
“inheritance.”
something shifts.
not outwardly. internally.
jaemin steps closer, lowering his voice.
“that’s not something you guess,” he says. “that’s something you learn.”
your phone vibrates again. this time, you look.
a photo fills the screen.
a man on the ground. blood dark against concrete. a face you know too well. a face that still visits your dreams.
your ex.
your victim.
your crime.
jaemin watches the color drain from your face.
“who sent that,” he asks.
you don’t answer.
you don’t have to.
his gaze flicks to the screen.
then back to you.
recognition lands.
slow.
devastating.
the city hums around you, indifferent, complicit.
“you,” he says quietly.
not a question.
your throat closes.
“he wouldn’t let me leave,” you whisper. “he wasn’t going to stop.”
jaemin doesn’t move.
doesn’t shout.
doesn’t reach for you.
something in his expression fractures instead — grief surfacing beneath restraint, love colliding with blood.
“he was my brother,” he says.
the word splits the night open.
everything lines up at once — the timing, the ghosts, the way the past kept circling back no matter how far you ran. you take a step back without realizing it.
“you knew,” you breathe. “you’ve known.”
he doesn’t deny it.
“i found out last week,” he says. “before the door. before the messages.”
your chest tightens painfully.
“then why didn’t you—”
“because i wanted to hear it from you.”
the restraint in his voice is terrifying.
sirens wail somewhere closer now.
jaemin looks past you, then back again.
“we don’t have much time,” he says.
and for the first time since you met him, you don’t know whether he means for you—
or for himself. the word brother doesn’t echo. it sinks. heavy and immediate, like it was always waiting for the right moment to surface. the streetlight flickers overhead, casting jaemin’s face in alternating shadow and clarity, and you hate how calm he looks. you hate how you don’t see rage first. you see grief. you see calculation arriving second.
“you knew my name,” you say.
he nods once.
“eventually.”
your pulse roars in your ears. you try to ground yourself in the present—the grit under your shoes, the smell of rain and oil, the distant sirens—but memory crowds in anyway. your ex’s voice, sharp and accusing. the moment you realized leaving wouldn’t be allowed. the split second where survival chose for you.
“you were looking at me,” you whisper, “and you already knew.”
“i was looking at you,” he replies, “and i was hoping i was wrong.”
that hurts worse than anger. you step back, putting space between your bodies like it might make the truth smaller. it doesn’t. jaemin watches the movement closely, attention sharpening, as if distance itself is now a variable he needs to control.
“how long were you going to wait,” you ask.
he exhales slowly.
“long enough to decide.”
“decide what.”
“whether i could live with it.”
the honesty lands like a blow. you feel it in your chest, a sharp ache that makes breathing harder than it should be. the city hums on, oblivious, while something fundamental fractures between you.
“and can you,” you ask.
he doesn’t answer right away. when he does, his voice is low, even.
“i don’t know yet.”
your phone buzzes again. you don’t look this time. you don’t need to. you know the pattern now—pressure, proof, patience. someone is watching to see what choice he makes. someone always is. jaemin’s gaze flicks to the alley mouth, then back to you, measuring time and angles like a language he’s fluent in.
“we need to move,” he says.
“where,” you ask.
“somewhere i can buy us time.”
us. the word feels reckless. you latch onto it anyway. you follow as he turns, cutting through a narrow passage that smells like damp stone and old smoke. your steps echo too loud. you want to ask a thousand questions. you ask none.
“you should hate me,” you say instead.
he doesn’t slow.
“i’m trying,” he answers.
that’s worse. you realize then that recognition isn’t the reveal. it’s the pivot. everything from here is choice, not coincidence. you reach the end of the passage and spill into a quieter street where the buildings lean close, conspiratorial. jaemin stops under a broken sign, finally facing you fully.
“tell me,” he says.
“what.”
“the part you’re not telling yourself.”
you swallow. the truth presses up, sharp and unavoidable.
“i didn’t mean to kill him,” you say.
he studies you, eyes dark, unreadable.
“but you did.”
“Yes.”
the word feels like a verdict. jaemin nods once, absorbing it, and for a split second the softness returns—brief, fragile—before something else steps forward and takes its place. resolve. inheritance. the kind of decision that doesn’t ask permission.
“then listen carefully,” he says.
you lean in without meaning to.
“if my family is here,” he continues, “they already know more than they’re letting on. they’ll wait. they’ll test. and when they move, they won’t miss.”
“are you warning me,” you ask, “or threatening me.”
his mouth curves, humorless.
“i’m doing both.”
a car turns the corner too slowly. headlights sweep the street. jaemin’s hand finds yours again, firm, grounding, unyielding. you let him pull you back into motion, heart hammering with the certainty that recognition has done its work. the game isn’t about hiding anymore. it’s about who acts first. movement becomes your language. you follow jaemin without asking where you’re going because the city has already made it clear that hesitation is a luxury you don’t have. he keeps you off the main roads, cutting through courtyards and service alleys, places that smell like damp stone and old secrets. he doesn’t look back to see if you’re keeping up. he knows you are.
“you’re walking like someone who’s done this before,” you say.
he answers without turning.
“i learned young.”
that settles something cold in your stomach. you realize then that the softness you met wasn’t a disguise. it was a decision. one he’s actively undoing. you pass a shuttered storefront and he pauses just long enough to peer into the reflection, checking angles, counting exits. his jaw tightens.
“they’re herding us,” he murmurs.
“who,” you ask.
“people who want to see which way i lean.”
the implication sharpens. this isn’t just about you. it never was. you are leverage. you are proof. you are temptation. jaemin turns suddenly, backing you into the shadow of a recessed doorway. his hand lifts, hovering near your shoulder, stopping himself from touching. restraint thrums between you like a live wire.
“listen,” he says.
you listen. footsteps approach. slow. confident. they pass without stopping. jaemin waits three seconds longer than necessary before moving again.
“you’re buying time,” you say.
“Yes.”
“for me.”
“For a decision,” he corrects.
you swallow.
“what decision.”
his eyes flick to yours, then away.
“whether i end this cleanly.”
the word clean lands wrong. you think of blood that never quite washes out, of nights where your hands shake no matter how many times you scrub them. clean is a myth. you know that better than most.
“your family won’t let you choose,” you say.
“They already did,” he replies.
that stops you. you slow despite yourself. jaemin notices instantly, stopping with you. he looks down at you like he’s weighing something fragile against something permanent.
“they expect me to fix it,” he says.
“fix what.”
“the imbalance.”
you feel it then. not fear. not yet. inevitability. you are the imbalance. you are the proof that his brother’s death didn’t stay buried. you are the variable that makes his inheritance unstable.
“if i disappear,” you say quietly, “this ends.”
his head snaps toward you. the denial is instant.
“No.”
the force of it surprises you both. he exhales, regaining control.
“that’s not how it ends,” he says more carefully. “that’s how it spreads.”
sirens swell and fade again, closer now, then farther. paris watches, patient. you keep moving until you reach a narrow building with a metal door scarred by age and graffiti. jaemin knocks once, sharp. the door opens a crack, then wider. an older man nods at jaemin without looking at you.
“ten minutes,” the man says.
“five,” jaemin replies.
inside, the room is spare and dim. no windows. one table. two chairs. jaemin closes the door behind you, locking it with a practiced twist. you turn to face him, heart hammering.
“you said you wanted to hear it from me,” you say.
“Yes.”
“then hear this,” you continue. “i don’t regret surviving.”
he studies you, searching for something. remorse. defiance. relief.
“i don’t regret it either,” he says finally.
the words are quiet. devastating. you realize then that motive isn’t born from hatred. it’s born from love colliding with obligation and refusing to yield. jaemin steps closer, stopping just short of touching.
“but i do need this to end,” he adds.
you meet his gaze, steady despite the storm inside you.
“so do i.”
outside, footsteps approach the door. the handle rattles once. not forced. testing. jaemin doesn’t look away from you.
“then don’t make me choose alone,” he says. the handle rattles again, slower this time, like whoever’s on the other side is enjoying the wait. the room feels smaller by the second. jaemin doesn’t move toward the door. he watches you instead, eyes sharp, measuring the cost of every possible outcome.
“they won’t come in yet,” he says.
“how do you know.”
“because they want to see what i do first.”
that lands with a sickening clarity. you aren’t just being hunted. you’re being used. proof of loyalty. proof of inheritance. you straighten your spine, forcing your breath to slow. panic wastes time. you learned that the hard way.
“you said five minutes,” you say.
“Yes.”
“then we talk for five.”
his mouth curves faintly, humorless.
“you’re negotiating.”
“i’m surviving.”
the footsteps outside shift. someone leans closer to the door, close enough that you can hear fabric brush wood. jaemin’s attention flicks there, then back to you. he doesn’t reach for a weapon. that’s the first thing you notice. the second is that he positions himself slightly in front of you anyway.
“what do they want from you,” you ask.
“clarity.”
“about me.”
“about whether i’m willing to finish what my brother started.”
the words punch the air out of your lungs. you shake your head once, slow.
“he didn’t start anything,” you say. “he ended it.”
jaemin’s jaw tightens.
“he crossed a line.”
“So did i,” you answer.
silence stretches, thick and electric. the door creaks softly as someone tests the lock without committing. jaemin doesn’t react. his calm is terrifying in its precision.
“they think i’ll choose blood,” he says.
“And will you.”
his gaze holds yours. there’s no softness left now, no room for pretending this is anything but what it is.
“they raised me to,” he says. “i taught myself not to.”
that shouldn’t comfort you. it does. you step closer without thinking, lowering your voice even though no one else can hear you.
“then listen,” you say. “if you give them me, they win. they don’t stop. they won’t ever.”
“I know.”
“and if you protect me,” you continue, “they’ll make you pay.”
“I know.”
another knock. sharper this time. impatient.
“time,” a voice calls through the door. calm. amused.
jaemin exhales slowly. you realize then that leverage isn’t about power. it’s about timing. you pull your phone from your pocket, fingers steady despite the tremor in your chest.
“what are you doing,” he asks.
“ending the test.”
you unlock the screen and open the message thread, the one you haven’t looked at since recognition cracked everything open. you turn the phone toward him. the photo is still there. the timestamp. the location data. the proof they’re using to corner you both.
“they think this owns me,” you say.
“It does,” he replies.
“only if i let it.”
you hit forward and select a contact you shouldn’t have saved. one you promised yourself you’d never use again. your thumb hovers. jaemin watches, understanding dawning too late.
“don’t,” he says.
“you said don’t make you choose alone,” you answer.
the knock comes again, louder. the door flexes.
“last chance,” the voice outside says.
you send the message. confirmation pings softly. irreversible. you meet jaemin’s eyes, heart pounding.
“now they can’t pretend it’s just about you,” you say.
his face hardens. anger flashes bright and brief.
“you just escalated this.”
“Yes.”
“why.”
“because leverage works both ways.”
the door slams inward, wood cracking. men spill into the room with practiced ease, smiles sharp and curious. one of them looks between you and jaemin, pleased.
“decision time,” he says.
jaemin steps forward, blocking you completely now. his voice is cold, precise.
“i’ve made it.”
the man’s smile widens.
“good.”
jaemin doesn’t look back at you when he speaks again.
“stay behind me.”
you realize then that leverage has done its job. the game has shifted. no one here is bluffing anymore. the room fills fast, bodies moving with quiet confidence, shoes soft against concrete. no one rushes. no one raises a voice. they don’t need to. jaemin stands between you and them like he was placed there on purpose, shoulders squared, breath steady. you can feel the tension in him now, coiled and contained, a blade kept sheathed by choice.
“you brought company,” the man says, eyes sliding past jaemin to you.
“she’s not part of this,” jaemin replies.
a soft laugh answers him.
“everything is part of this.”
the door behind them clicks shut. the sound is final. you resist the urge to glance at it. exits are counted already. jaemin shifts his weight, blocking your line of sight without looking back. it’s instinctive. practiced. you hate how safe it makes you feel.
“we’re here to clean up,” the man continues.
“you’re here to watch,” jaemin corrects.
the man’s smile sharpens.
“same thing, sometimes.”
silence settles. it’s thick, expectant. the kind that waits for someone to flinch. you don’t. neither does jaemin.
“say your terms,” jaemin says.
the man tilts his head.
“you always did like to skip ahead.”
he gestures vaguely, as if the room itself is the offer.
“you give us what restores balance.”
“and in return.”
“you keep your place.”
jaemin’s jaw tightens.
“you don’t get to promise that.”
the man shrugs.
“i get to imply it.”
you feel it then, the way the room is angled toward a single outcome. this isn’t negotiation. it’s theater. you step forward before you can stop yourself. jaemin’s hand snaps back, catching your wrist, grip firm and warning.
“don’t,” he says under his breath.
you meet his eyes anyway.
“they already know,” you whisper.
he releases you slowly, conflict flickering across his face. the man watches the exchange with interest, like he’s learning something useful.
“she’s bold,” he says.
“she’s not involved,” jaemin repeats.
the man’s gaze locks onto yours.
“that’s not what the message says.”
your stomach drops. jaemin’s head snaps toward you.
“what message.”
you don’t answer. you don’t need to. the man lifts his phone, screen glowing. the forwarded photo. the metadata. the trail you lit on fire on purpose.
“she made a call,” he says.
jaemin’s expression changes. not anger. not shock. calculation slamming into place.
“you set this up,” he says to you.
“i leveled it,” you reply quietly.
the man chuckles.
“she understands leverage.”
jaemin steps closer to you, voice low.
“you took my choice away.”
you swallow.
“i gave you one that doesn’t end with me disappearing quietly.”
the room hums with anticipation. the men shift, waiting. jaemin inhales, slow and deep, the way someone does before committing to a path they can’t turn back from.
“here are my terms,” he says.
every eye in the room sharpens.
“she walks,” jaemin continues.
the man raises a brow.
“and you.”
jaemin’s mouth curves, thin and dangerous.
“i stay.”
the word lands heavy. you shake your head immediately.
“no.”
jaemin doesn’t look at you.
“this is the only way,” he says.
“you don’t get to decide that alone,” you snap.
the man’s smile widens.
“i like her.”
jaemin finally looks back at you. there’s something raw there now, something unguarded slipping through the cracks.
“trust me,” he says.
the phrase feels like a betrayal. you laugh once, sharp.
“you already asked me for that.”
the man steps forward, clapping once, soft.
“done,” he says.
the word echoes like a gavel. jaemin’s shoulders loosen a fraction, relief cutting through tension. you feel it and something inside you snaps.
“no,” you say again, louder.
hands move. not toward you. toward jaemin. claiming. marking. he doesn’t resist. that’s what breaks you.
“this doesn’t end it,” you say to the man, voice shaking with fury.
he looks amused.
“it never does.”
jaemin turns his head slightly, just enough for you to hear him.
“run,” he murmurs.
you don’t. you step forward instead, eyes locked on him, heart hammering with the certainty that this isn’t a rescue. it’s a trade. and trades can always be reversed. the room holds its breath as if waiting for you to comply. jaemin stands perfectly still while hands close in around him, not rough, not gentle, just inevitable. you see the calculation behind his eyes as he allows it, the way someone does when they believe they’re minimizing damage. you’ve never hated him more for it.
“let her go,” the man says, already bored.
jaemin doesn’t look away from you.
“now.”
you don’t move. your body hums with a clarity that feels dangerous in its calm. this is the part no one expects—the moment where you stop reacting and start choosing. you step closer, close enough that jaemin’s shoulder brushes yours, close enough that the men tense.
“you said balance,” you say.
the man turns his attention to you again, curious.
“i did.”
“then you don’t get him and me,” you continue. “you get one.”
jaemin’s head snaps toward you.
“don’t,” he says.
you ignore him. you’ve done this before—felt the room tilt, felt the future narrow to a single line. it’s familiar in a way that makes your stomach ache.
“you want proof,” you say to the man. “you want closure.”
he smiles thinly.
“we already have it.”
“no,” you say. “you have leverage. there’s a difference.”
the men shift, uncertain now. jaemin watches you like he’s seeing you for the first time.
“if i walk,” you continue, voice steady, “this stays messy. witnesses. questions. attention.”
you lift your phone slightly, not threatening, just reminding.
“if i don’t,” you say, “this ends the way you want.”
jaemin’s breath hitches.
“you’re not doing this,” he says.
you finally look at him, really look. the softness is gone from his face, stripped bare by fear and fury. you recognize it because it mirrors your own reflection from another life.
“you taught me leverage,” you tell him.
the man considers you in silence. seconds stretch. the city presses in on the walls, patient and listening.
“she’s offering herself,” he says eventually.
jaemin steps forward, straining against the hands on him.
“no deal,” he snaps.
the man lifts a hand. the room stills.
“you stay,” the man tells jaemin, “or she does.”
you feel it settle then—the inevitability. jaemin’s choice was made the moment he stepped in front of you weeks ago. yours was made the first night you realized running doesn’t erase consequences.
“i’ll stay,” you say.
jaemin’s voice breaks.
“don’t.”
you reach for his hand despite the men between you. your fingers catch his for a heartbeat, skin to skin, electric and grounding all at once.
“you said don’t make you choose alone,” you whisper.
he stares at you, eyes shining with something close to despair.
“i was wrong,” he says.
the man nods, satisfied.
“take her,” he orders.
hands move toward you. jaemin surges forward, fury breaking through restraint. the room erupts for half a second before it’s controlled again, bodies repositioned, power reasserted. jaemin’s voice cuts through the noise, raw and unrestrained.
“i swear to you,” he says, eyes locked on yours, “this doesn’t end with you.”
you meet his gaze, heart pounding, a calm settling over you that feels like acceptance.
“i know,” you answer.
as they pull you away, the door opening to the night beyond, you catch one last glimpse of jaemin—contained, furious, watching the future fracture. you don’t look back when you cross the threshold. some exits only work if you commit. the night swallows you fast. hands guide rather than shove, steering you into the back of a car that smells like leather and something metallic beneath it. the door closes with a soft finality that makes your pulse spike harder than any slam could. the city slides past the window in streaks of light, anonymous and uncaring. you force your breathing to slow. panic is loud. calm survives.
“seatbelt,” a voice says from the front.
you comply without comment. small obedience buys time.
the car turns twice, then again, routes bending away from anything familiar. you count the seconds between turns, the hum of the engine, the way speed changes. it’s a habit you thought you’d left behind. apparently, it followed you across an ocean.
your phone vibrates in your pocket. you don’t reach for it. you already know who it is. you imagine jaemin standing in that room, contained by hands that know exactly where to apply pressure. the thought sharpens something inside you into resolve.
the car slows. stops. a door opens. cool air floods in, carrying the smell of damp stone and iron. you step out and find yourself facing a building that looks like it doesn’t exist on any map. old. patient. watching.
inside, the lights are low and yellowed, casting everything in the color of time. a man gestures down a corridor. you walk. your footsteps echo back at you like they’re asking questions.
“how long,” you ask.
“long enough,” he replies.
the room they put you in is spare. chair. table. no windows. no restraints. that’s intentional. the door clicks shut behind you. you sit without being told. control is quieter when it’s chosen.
minutes pass. then more. your mind drifts where it shouldn’t. you pull it back. you think of leverage. of proof. of timing. you think of jaemin’s eyes when he said trust me, and how trust has always been the most dangerous currency.
the door opens again. the man from before steps in, unhurried. he doesn’t sit. he leans against the wall like he’s got all the time in the world.
“you understand why you’re here,” he says.
“you want a confession,” you answer.
he smiles faintly.
“i want alignment.”
you tilt your head.
“with who.”
“with the truth.”
you exhale slowly.
“your truth or mine.”
he considers that.
“they used to be the same.”
you picture your ex’s face again, the way certainty curdled into threat, the second where survival became action. you steady your hands on the table.
“say it,” the man says.
you meet his gaze.
“i killed him,” you say.
the word lands and doesn’t explode. the man nods, satisfied.
“why.”
“because he wouldn’t let me leave.”
“and if you had stayed.”
“i wouldn’t be here,” you reply.
silence stretches. the man studies you like a ledger.
“you don’t regret it,” he says.
“i regret the cost,” you answer.
another nod.
“that’s workable.”
workable. the word chills you.
“what happens to jaemin,” you ask.
the man’s eyes flicker, just a fraction.
“that depends on how useful he remains.”
you lean forward.
“then listen,” you say. “if you want alignment, you don’t break the asset you’re testing.”
he smiles again, slower this time.
“you’re protective.”
“i’m strategic,” you correct.
he straightens.
“prove it.”
the door opens once more. a phone slides across the table toward you. jaemin’s name fills the screen. incoming. the man gestures.
“answer,” he says.
your heart hammers. you pick up the phone.
“jaemin,” you say.
his voice is steady, but you hear the strain under it.
“are you hurt.”
“No,” you answer. “i’m fine.”
a pause. you know he’s weighing your breathing, the cadence of your voice.
“where are you,” he asks.
“somewhere quiet,” you reply.
the man’s hand taps the table once. reminder.
“listen to me,” you continue. “this ends if we do exactly what they expect.”
jaemin exhales.
“that’s not how it ends,” he says.
you close your eyes.
“trust me,” you whisper.
the silence on the line is sharp enough to cut. then, quietly,
“i do,” he says.
the call ends. the man takes the phone back. his smile is gone now, replaced by interest that feels like a door opening.
“good,” he says. “then let’s see which of you breaks first.” they don’t touch you again after that.
that’s how you know this part is intentional.
they leave you alone in the room with the light humming faintly overhead, time stretching thin and elastic. you don’t pace. pacing wastes energy. instead, you sit and catalog—breathing, angles, the sound of footsteps outside the door. you imagine jaemin doing the same somewhere else, control stitched back into place, anger folded neatly where it can’t be used against him.
you wonder if he knows this is a rehearsal.
the door opens without warning. a different man steps in this time. younger. sharper. he doesn’t bother with pleasantries.
“we’re moving locations,” he says.
“already,” you reply.
he pauses, surprised despite himself. you stand without being told. that earns you a second look. they like compliance when it looks like cooperation.
the corridor outside is longer than you remember. or maybe time has altered your sense of distance. you pass rooms you didn’t see before, doors cracked just enough to reveal shapes that don’t move. you keep your face neutral. curiosity is a liability.
outside, the night is cooler. the car waits with its engine running. this time, you’re not guided. you’re watched. you take the back seat again, posture relaxed, eyes forward. the city slides by, familiar now in its hostility.
you think of jaemin’s voice on the phone. steady. trusting.
you hate how that feels.
the car stops beneath a bridge where light fractures into strips and shadow pools deep. water moves below, dark and constant. they don’t rush you out. the delay is the point.
“this is where it ends,” the younger man says lightly.
“no,” you answer. “this is where you check your work.”
he laughs. “you think you’re in charge.”
“i think you want to know if he’ll choose blood or weakness,” you say. “and you think i’ll tell you.”
that wipes the smile from his face.
you step out of the car slowly. the night air tastes metallic. footsteps approach from the far end of the bridge. familiar cadence. controlled. jaemin emerges into the light, hands free, posture calm. for a second, relief punches through you so hard it nearly breaks your composure.
then you see the cut at his temple. dried blood. a reminder.
you don’t react.
he stops a few feet away, eyes locking onto yours. the world narrows. everything unsaid presses between you.
“you okay,” he asks.
“Yes,” you answer.
a pause.
“you sure.”
“Yes.”
that’s the code. i’m still me.
the men position themselves around you, not touching, not retreating. spectators. this is the test.
“we want to see it,” the older man says, stepping into view now. “closure.”
jaemin’s jaw tightens.
“you already have it,” he says.
“no,” the man replies. “we have a body. we want alignment.”
the implication settles cold and heavy. you realize then what this is meant to provoke. not revenge. choice.
“tell him,” the man says to you.
you don’t look away from jaemin.
“tell me what,” jaemin asks quietly.
you swallow once. then you say it, because truth is the sharpest blade here.
“they want to know if you’d do it,” you say. “if you’d finish what he started.”
silence crashes down, vast and echoing. water rushes below like it’s waiting.
jaemin steps forward.
“and if i don’t,” he asks.
the man smiles.
“then we see how much she’s worth to you.”
you feel it then—the pivot point. the moment history tightens into a loop. you think of your ex’s face in that final second, the certainty that he wouldn’t stop. you think of jaemin standing here now, caught between inheritance and love.
you step forward before he can.
“don’t,” you say to jaemin. “this isn’t yours.”
his eyes flick to you, sharp.
“it is,” he replies.
“it isn’t,” you insist. “i chose then. i’ll choose now.”
the man laughs softly. “how noble.”
you ignore him. you hold jaemin’s gaze.
“if you do this,” you say, voice steady, “they own you forever.”
he exhales slowly. the city seems to hold its breath.
“if i don’t,” he says, “they’ll never stop.”
that’s when you understand.
this isn’t about who dies.
it’s about who becomes inevitable.
you feel the decision settle in your bones, heavy and calm.
“then don’t look at me,” you say.
his eyes widen just a fraction.
and somewhere beneath the bridge, the water keeps moving, patient as fate.
he doesn’t look away.
that’s the first thing you notice. jaemin keeps his eyes on you even after you tell him not to, like looking anywhere else would be the real betrayal. the men around you shift, sensing the tension tightening into something sharp. they’re waiting for spectacle. for blood. for a clean answer to a dirty question.
you don’t give them one.
you step closer to jaemin, slow enough to stop, close enough that his breath ghosts your cheek. his jaw tightens, eyes searching your face like he’s memorizing it.
“what are you doing,” he murmurs.
“ending the rehearsal,” you reply.
you reach into your coat.
every body around you tenses at once.
hands move. not fast enough.
you don’t pull a gun. that’s what they expect. instead, you pull your phone and hold it up between you and jaemin, screen already lit. a recording plays without sound at first, captions crawling across the glass. names. dates. transfers. locations. the architecture of a machine that eats people quietly.
the older man’s smile drops.
“you sent that,” he says.
“Yes,” you answer. “an hour ago.”
you watch the calculation ripple through them. this wasn’t leverage. this was detonation delayed. you didn’t escalate. you scheduled.
jaemin’s eyes flick to the screen, then back to you. understanding hits him all at once, sharp and awful.
“you didn’t,” he says.
“I did,” you reply. “to three places.”
sirens bloom in the distance, not close yet but coming. not rushing. inevitable.
the younger man swears under his breath. the older one recovers first, anger smoothing back into something colder.
“you think this saves you,” he says.
“It saves him,” you correct.
jaemin grabs your wrist, hard.
“you just signed your own sentence,” he says, low and furious.
you meet his gaze, steady.
“you were already sentenced,” you say. “i wasn’t letting you carry it alone.”
for the first time since you met him, jaemin looks afraid. not of them. of you.
“this was supposed to be my choice,” he says.
“no,” you answer softly. “this was always mine.”
movement erupts around you as the men start backing away, barking orders, recalculating exits. the bridge no longer feels neutral. it feels exposed. lights flash closer now, blue bleeding into the night.
the older man steps back, eyes never leaving you.
“you don’t understand what you’ve done,” he says.
you smile, small and tired.
“i understand exactly.”
jaemin pulls you closer, voice urgent.
“when this breaks,” he says, “they’ll come for you first.”
you nod.
“i know.”
sirens scream now, close enough to rattle metal. the younger man curses and runs. the others follow, scattering into shadow. the older man lingers one second longer, eyes locked on jaemin.
“this isn’t finished,” he says.
jaemin doesn’t answer.
when they’re gone, the bridge feels hollow. empty. too quiet after the noise. you finally exhale, knees threatening to buckle now that the choice is behind you.
jaemin catches you before you fall.
his hands are shaking.
“you shouldn’t have done that,” he says.
you lean into him, forehead pressing to his chest.
“neither should you,” you reply.
blue lights wash over you both as the first police car screeches to a stop at the end of the bridge. officers spill out, shouting commands. jaemin stiffens instinctively, calculating again.
you pull back just enough to meet his eyes.
“this is where we separate,” you say.
his gaze sharpens.
“no.”
“yes,” you insist. “you run. you disappear. you survive.”
“i’m not leaving you,” he snaps.
you smile sadly.
“you already stayed.”
footsteps pound closer. voices call out.
you take a step back from him, hands lifting slowly into the light.
jaemin’s face fractures.
“don’t,” he says.
you don’t look at the police.
you look at him.
“trust me,” you say.
and for the second time, he does. the night fractures all at once.
voices overlap. orders barked in french and english. blue lights strobe across the bridge, turning faces into sharp-edged versions of themselves. you keep your hands raised, breathing slow, deliberate. this part you know. this part has rules.
jaemin doesn’t move.
not when officers rush past him. not when someone grabs your arm. not when your wrists are cuffed with a practiced snap. his eyes stay locked on yours, wide and furious and breaking in real time.
“don’t let him stay,” you say, louder now, to no one and everyone. “he wasn’t part of it.”
someone shoves you forward. the words barely land. jaemin surges then, instinct finally overruling calculation.
“wait,” he shouts. “she didn’t—”
an officer blocks him. hands up. command voice. jaemin stops because stopping is what keeps people alive.
your gaze never leaves his.
this is the last clean second you get.
“run,” you mouth.
he shakes his head once, violently.
“i can’t,” he mouths back.
you’re pulled toward the car. the door opens. the world narrows to metal and glass and the sound of your own pulse. you twist just enough to look back.
that’s when you see it.
the older man hasn’t gone far. he stands at the far edge of the bridge, half in shadow, phone pressed to his ear. smiling.
you understand too late.
this was never about the police.
the shot cracks the air.
sharp. precise. final.
jaemin jerks forward, breath leaving him in a sound you don’t recognize. he stumbles, hand flying to his side, red blooming fast against his shirt. the world seems to tilt toward him, like everything wants to fall the same way.
“No,” you scream.
the sound tears out of you, raw and useless. officers shout. someone yells gun. bodies scatter. chaos blooms exactly as planned.
jaemin drops to one knee.
then the other.
you break.
you wrench free with a strength born of panic and inevitability, shoving past hands that try to stop you. someone grabs your shoulder. you twist, slip, stumble, don’t stop.
you hit the ground beside him hard.
blood is everywhere. too much. your hands shake as you press them to the wound, already knowing it won’t be enough.
“hey,” he breathes, surprised more than afraid. “you stayed.”
“don’t talk,” you say. “don’t—don’t you dare.”
his hand finds your wrist, slick and warm.
“you always do this,” he says faintly. “run toward the fire.”
tears blur your vision.
“stay with me,” you beg. “please.”
sirens scream closer. footsteps pound. the world closes in.
“did you mean it,” he asks. “when you said you’d choose.”
you choke on a sob.
“Yes.”
his mouth curves, small and broken.
“then listen to me.”
you lean closer, pressing your forehead to his.
“they’re not done,” he whispers. “my family doesn’t lose clean.”
“I know,” you say.
“you can’t disappear anymore,” he continues. “they’ll come for you.”
“I know.”
his grip tightens for a second, then weakens.
“then finish it,” he says. “do what i couldn’t.”
the words land like a verdict.
you shake your head.
“I won’t be like them.”
his gaze holds yours, steady even now.
“you already are,” he says gently. “you just choose better targets.”
his hand slips from your wrist.
“No,” you whisper. “jaemin—”
his eyes glass, breath hitching once before going still.
the city exhales.
officers pull you back. hands drag you away as medics flood in, too late, always too late. you scream his name until your throat burns and the sound breaks into nothing.
later, much later, the bridge is quiet again.
they tell you he didn’t make it.
they tell you it was a stray shot.
they tell you a lot of things.
weeks pass.
then months.
paris goes on without you.
so do they.
you sit alone in a different city now, different name, different apartment. the news plays softly in the background. indictments. arrests. collapsed networks. familiar surnames dragged into the light.
you watch without reacting.
your phone vibrates.
unknown number.
one message.
we’re even.
you stare at the screen for a long time.
then you type back.
no.
you delete the phone.
you step out into the night.
and somewhere, in the quiet that follows, you finally understand the truth no one saw coming.
you didn’t escape the cycle.
you inherited it. the silence after a gunshot isn’t quiet. it’s crowded. it’s full of everything that didn’t get said. you learn that while sitting in a room that smells like disinfectant and old paper, hands wrapped around a cup you don’t drink from, answering questions you don’t listen to yourself say.
they ask for timelines. motives. names.
you give them pieces. never the whole.
they tell you he died quickly. they tell you it wasn’t your fault. they tell you the city is safer now.
you don’t correct them.
grief doesn’t arrive all at once. it comes in administrative tasks. signatures. forms. the sound of his name spoken by people who never learned how he laughed when he was tired. you sign where they point. you nod when they expect it. you walk when they tell you to.
at night, you don’t dream. you replay.
his voice on the bridge. the warmth of his hand. the way inevitability settled before the bullet ever did. you wake with your jaw clenched and your pulse steady. panic would be easier. panic ends. this doesn’t.
you leave paris quietly.
not running. relocating. temporarily.
you choose a city that doesn’t look like it knows your name. you rent a place with narrow windows and floors that creak like they’re remembering someone else. you unpack slowly. deliberately. you leave boxes half-open on purpose.
routine returns. that’s how you know it worked.
weeks later, a package arrives with no return address. it’s thin. heavy anyway. inside, a flash drive and a note written in a hand you recognize from a distance.
you were right about leverage.
you don’t plug it in right away. patience has become a skill. when you do, you don’t flinch.
ledgers. call logs. recordings. redundancies built to survive betrayal. jaemin’s voice appears once, brief, giving instructions without emotion.
if this opens, i didn’t make it.
your breath stutters. you keep going.
there’s a map. not of streets. of people. lines drawn between names like arteries. pressure points circled. collapse points marked clean and clinical.
he didn’t plan revenge.
he planned succession.
your phone vibrates. a different number this time. a different tone.
we need to talk.
you type back.
you’re late.
minutes pass. then:
you have something that belongs to us.
you smile without warmth.
no. i inherited it.
the reply comes slower now.
you think you can carry his weight.
you consider the question. the city outside hums, indifferent and alive. you think of the bridge. the choice. the cost.
watch me, you send.
you close the laptop. you stand. you pull on your coat.
this time, when you step into the night, you aren’t disappearing.
you’re arriving. the city you chose doesn’t feel like refuge. it feels like staging. everything is temporary again, but this time you’re the one deciding what stays and what burns. you learn the rhythm of the place quickly—when streets empty, where cameras blink, which cafés talk too much. anonymity is still possible. invisibility is not.
people reach out in cautious increments.
first a message with no ask attached. then a question disguised as concern. then a favor framed like coincidence. you answer none of them directly. you let silence do the sorting. those who need reassurance fade. those who need permission linger.
at night, you open the drive again.
you don’t watch everything. not yet. you skim. you map. you note redundancies and dead ends. jaemin’s planning is meticulous, almost tender in its restraint. he never wrote your name. not once. but everything points to you anyway, like the negative space in a photograph.
you find a folder marked bridges.
inside: timestamps, traffic patterns, audio files stripped of identifiers. one clip plays without warning—his voice, steady, instructing someone to wait, to let the test finish, to intervene only if the variables turn irreversible.
you close the file.
your phone vibrates.
unknown number, again.
they’re nervous.
you don’t reply.
you don’t have to do this, the message continues. you can walk away.
you think of the bridge, the way inevitability settled before the shot. you think of how walking away has never been neutral. you type one word.
no.
the typing bubble appears. disappears. appears again.
then tell us what you want.
you stare at the screen. the answer is simple. the answer is impossible.
control, you send.
the reply comes after a long pause.
that can be arranged.
you don’t smile. you don’t celebrate. arrangements are fragile. they exist to be broken by the person who understands their limits.
days pass. a meeting is proposed in a place that pretends to be public enough to feel safe. you agree without agreeing—suggest a change, then another, until the location bends toward your terms without anyone admitting it has.
when you arrive, you sit where the exits are visible. old habits don’t die. they evolve.
a woman sits across from you. calm. precise. grief tucked neatly behind professionalism. she doesn’t introduce herself.
“you have his files,” she says.
“Yes.”
“and his reach.”
“Yes.”
“you don’t have his protection.”
“No,” you reply. “i have his intention.”
that earns you a measured look.
“you think intention survives exposure.”
you lean back, steady.
“it survives inheritance.”
silence stretches. the woman studies you like she’s trying to find the fracture. you don’t give her one.
“what happens if we say no,” she asks.
you consider the answer.
“then the residue leaks,” you say. “slowly. carefully. everywhere.”
she exhales.
“you’re not trying to win.”
“No,” you answer. “i’m trying to finish.”
the woman nods once, decision settling.
“this won’t bring him back.”
you don’t look away.
“nothing does.”
the meeting ends without ceremony. outside, the city hums, unaware it’s been rerouted by inches.
that night, alone, you finally let yourself sit with the absence. not the pain—pain is familiar—but the shape he left behind. you trace it quietly, like a fault line that still warms the ground.
you whisper his name once.
then you close the window.
inheritance isn’t about blood.
it’s about what remains when everything else is gone.
you don’t sleep much after that. not because of fear, but because your mind won’t stop arranging things. conversations replay themselves with new meanings. pauses become signals. silence becomes instruction. you learn quickly that inheritance isn’t loud. it’s weight. it presses until something gives.
the city responds before people do. meetings shift locations at the last minute. cars idle too long outside buildings you haven’t entered yet. strangers look at you like they recognize a pattern they don’t want to name. you let them look. pressure works both ways.
you stop pretending this is temporary. the apartment changes because you change it. boxes get unpacked. surfaces cleared. everything unnecessary removed. you keep only what you need and one thing you don’t—the flash drive, tucked where your hand finds it without looking.
messages resume. careful ones. respectful ones. no demands yet. you answer some. you ignore others. you never answer immediately. timing is leverage. jaemin taught you that without ever meaning to.
one message stands out.
they’re splitting.
you read it twice. the network is thinning, drawing inward, trying to protect itself. collapse doesn’t happen all at once. it happens when everyone starts saving themselves.
you reply with a single word.
good.
it’s the second. always the second.
that night, you walk. not to escape. to observe. the city feels different when it knows you’re watching back. you pass reflections that don’t belong to you anymore. you pass couples who don’t know how fragile safety is. you don’t envy them. you don’t feel separate either. you feel positioned.
you stop at a bridge—not the one from before, never that one. a quieter span. water moving steadily beneath it. you rest your hands on the railing and breathe. for a moment, you let yourself remember his voice without turning it into instruction. the memory hurts. you keep it anyway.
your phone vibrates. a new number. local. brave.
we should talk. in person.
you consider the water, the way it keeps going no matter what’s dropped into it.
time and place, you type back.
the reply comes almost immediately.
tomorrow. you choose.
you smile, small and tired.
no, you send. you do. i’ll decide if i show up.
the typing bubble appears. disappears. appears again.
you’re making this difficult.
you pocket the phone and push off the railing. difficulty is the point. as you walk away, you feel it clearly now—the pressure building, the system bending around you, testing how much force you can take before you break or become something else entirely.
inheritance settles deeper, quieter, irreversible.morning arrives without ceremony. light spills across the floor in a thin stripe that tells you the city is awake and expects you to be, too. you drink coffee you don’t taste and read messages you don’t answer. the network keeps breathing. you keep counting.
a location drops into your phone an hour later. public enough to pretend safety. narrow enough to control exits. they’re learning. you note the time window, the foot traffic, the cameras that blink when they think no one’s paying attention. you don’t confirm. confirmation is consent.
you leave early anyway. not to arrive on time, but to arrive informed. you circle the block twice, letting the place reveal its habits. a delivery truck idles too long. a man pretends to tie his shoe near the entrance. a woman checks her reflection in the glass and never looks at herself.
inside, the air smells like citrus and old wood. you choose a table that puts your back to a wall and the exits in your peripheral. you don’t order. waiting is the order.
she arrives alone. that’s deliberate. calm face. neat coat. eyes that measure before they soften. she sits without asking.
“you came,” she says.
“I was curious,” you reply.
she nods like that was the correct answer.
“you’re changing things faster than we expected.”
“expectations are expensive,” you say. “they compound.”
her mouth tightens.
“you don’t have the reach he had.”
“not yet.”
silence stretches. you feel the room tilt toward listening.
“what do you want,” she asks again, slower.
you meet her gaze.
“a counterweight,” you say. “something that keeps the system from snapping back when pressure lifts.”
“you want authority.”
“No,” you answer. “i want friction.”
she considers that. you can see the math running. friction slows collapse. friction buys time.
“and if we refuse.”
you shrug lightly.
“then gravity does the work.”
her phone vibrates. she doesn’t look at it. you already know what it says. something moved. something slipped.
“you’re not him,” she says quietly.
“I know,” you reply. “he planned endings. i plan continuations.”
another pause. the delivery truck outside cuts its engine. the man by the door straightens. the woman in the glass checks nothing now.
“there will be conditions,” she says.
you stand, already done.
“there always are.”
she looks up at you, a flicker of something like respect crossing her face.
“we’ll be in touch.”
“you already are,” you say, and leave without waiting to be dismissed.
outside, the city resumes its ordinary noise. you breathe once, steady. counterweights don’t stop motion. they redirect it. and somewhere beneath the surface, the system shifts, adjusting to your presence like it has no choice. the faster things move, the more resistance you feel. not from enemies, but from gravity itself. favors accrue interest. silence attracts attention. every choice leaves a wake. you learn to read it in the way meetings shorten, in the way apologies arrive prewritten, in the way people stop asking if and start asking how.
you keep your circle empty. emptiness is aerodynamic. you don’t sit still long enough for anyone to claim proximity. hotels instead of leases. taxis instead of cars. you let the city blur until it forgets where you end and the motion begins.
a warning arrives disguised as courtesy.
we’re concerned about exposure.
you reply with a time. not a question. not a promise.
tomorrow. fifteen minutes.
they accept. of course they do. drag works best when everyone pretends it’s mutual.
the meeting space is too clean. glass, light, angles meant to reassure. you sit where reflections multiply faces into fragments. the man across from you speaks carefully, hands folded like he’s learned that calm is a performance.
“you’re creating instability,” he says.
“Yes,” you answer.
“that draws scrutiny.”
“scrutiny reveals rot,” you reply.
he exhales.
“you don’t have to carry this alone.”
you think of jaemin’s voice, the way he refused comfort because comfort was always conditional. you shake your head once.
“shared weight breaks beams,” you say. “single load bends.”
he watches you with something like unease.
“what happens when it bends too far.”
you stand.
“then it becomes a direction.”
outside, rain starts without warning. the city slicks itself smooth, reflections stretching like lies. you walk through it, letting the cold ground you. drag isn’t an obstacle. it’s information. it tells you what’s catching, what’s clinging, what refuses to let go.
your phone vibrates as you cross a street. a name you recognize now. a new tone.
we lost a node.
you slow, just a fraction.
how, you type.
internal.
you smile without warmth. internal failures are contagious. you pocket the phone and keep walking.
that night, you sit by a window and let the rain draw lines you don’t follow. you replay the bridge once, just once, and then you stop. memory is drag if you let it be. you won’t.
inheritance doesn’t ask for permission. it tests your tolerance for resistance and keeps going. you feel it before anyone says it out loud. paths tightening. timelines overlapping. the way conversations start referencing the same absence without coordinating. convergence isn’t loud. it’s efficient. it trims excess until only the necessary remains.
you receive three invitations in the same hour. different senders. same phrasing. different cities. same promise of resolution. you don’t answer any of them. you forward each to a different contact and wait to see which one panics first.
we should align, the message says.
you reply with a location that favors neither side. you arrive early and leave late, not because it matters, but because it signals patience. patience unnerves people who rely on urgency.
the room fills gradually. no one sits where they planned to. that tells you everything. alliances are already fraying, loyalty redistributed in small, quiet ways. you let them talk. you watch who interrupts and who takes notes. you mark the ones who glance at the door.
“this can stabilize,” someone says.
“temporarily,” you reply.
“with your cooperation.”
you tilt your head.
“cooperation implies parity.”
silence. then a careful smile.
“what do you want,” they ask again, like repetition might change the answer.
“convergence,” you say. “everything in one place. no shadows.”
they exchange looks. someone swallows. shadows are where they live.
“that’s dangerous,” another voice says.
“Yes,” you agree.
the meeting ends without consensus. that’s fine. convergence doesn’t require permission. it requires pressure applied evenly. you leave first. always leave first.
outside, the air feels thinner. your phone vibrates with updates that contradict each other just enough to reveal the truth. movements misaligned. orders crossed. someone jumped early. someone hesitated. the system tightens, confused by too many corrections at once.
you stop at a corner and breathe. this is the moment jaemin warned about without naming it. when momentum compresses and the next move decides whether things explode outward or collapse inward.
your phone buzzes again. a single line. they’re all coming. you type back without stopping. good.
you cross the street against the light. cars brake. horns flare. the city adjusts. convergence isn’t an event. it’s a choice repeated until the future has nowhere else to go.you choose the place because it refuses comfort. concrete, glass, echoes that don’t soften anything said inside them. neutral ground is a lie, but this comes close enough to make people careless. you arrive before anyone else and walk the perimeter twice, not to secure it but to let it learn you’re here. spaces behave differently once they’ve been noticed.
messages stack and unstack on your phone. confirmations that don’t confirm. warnings dressed as advice. someone asks if you need protection. you don’t reply. protection implies permission. you set the phone face down and breathe until your pulse matches the room.
they arrive in clusters. never alone. never together. you watch the choreography unfold—who waits for whom, who avoids eye contact, who speaks too loudly to mask fear. ignition isn’t about sparks. it’s about proximity. put enough volatile elements close and let physics do the rest.
a man clears his throat. a woman folds her hands. someone tries to smile.
“let’s begin,” you say, and the room stills because you didn’t ask.
they talk first, of course. about exposure and stability and the cost of noise. you let the words stack until they collapse under their own weight. when you finally speak, it’s quiet enough that everyone leans in.
“we’re done managing outcomes,” you say. “we’re resolving them.”
a murmur ripples. denial flickers. you tap the table once and the screens wake, one by one, lighting the room with a map that isn’t geography. names flare and dim. lines thicken. timestamps scroll. receipts breathe.
someone swears. someone reaches for a phone and stops.
“this is blackmail,” a voice says.
“No,” you reply. “this is ignition.”
you point to a node pulsing near the center.
“this one breaks first,” you say. “it already is.”
the room tightens. alliances snap to attention. people do math in their heads and realize too late they’re not holding the numbers they thought they were.
“you’ll burn everything,” someone says.
you meet their gaze.
“only what’s soaked.”
sirens bloom outside—not close, not yet, but close enough to shift posture. you feel the pressure peak and you lean into it, steady. ignition needs containment or it turns into spectacle. you give them both.
“we end this tonight,” you continue. “cleanly. on record. or i let gravity finish the job.”
silence. then nods. reluctant. inevitable.
you step back as signatures begin to land, digital and irreversible. the first confession posts itself quietly somewhere it can’t be deleted. the second follows. momentum catches.
your phone vibrates once. a single name. then a dot. then nothing.
you don’t look. you already know what ignition feels like. it’s the moment resistance turns into heat and the future lights itself. the room empties without ceremony. people leave in pairs that won’t last and alone in ways that will. no one looks back at you. they don’t need to. gravity has already claimed them. you power down the screens one by one and the light drains from the walls, leaving the concrete honest again.
outside, the night is louder now. sirens closer. engines idling with purpose. you walk anyway, unhurried, coat pulled tight against a wind that smells like rain and consequences. fallout isn’t the explosion. it’s the quiet after when everyone checks what still works.
your phone lights up as you cross the street. updates arrive in clipped bursts. resignations. detentions. a warrant signed by someone who finally decided to be brave when it was safe. the network sheds weight fast, desperate to survive the burn. you don’t reply. you let the shedding continue.
you stop beneath an awning and breathe. your hands are steady. that surprises you. you think of the bridge and the way steadiness arrived there too, right before everything broke. you don’t flinch from the memory. you file it where it belongs.
a message cuts through the noise. not a number. a name you didn’t expect to see again.
they’re saying it was him.
you type back with your thumb, precise.
they always do.
they want a face, the reply comes. a story.
you smile faintly. stories are how systems forgive themselves.
give them the architecture, you send. faces age. structures collapse.
the typing bubble appears. disappears.
you’re colder than he was.
you pause, just long enough to be honest.
no, you reply. i’m still here.
the rain starts, fine and insistent. the city blurs at the edges, lights stretching into long, uncertain lines. you walk through it and let the water slick your path clean. fallout doesn’t erase. it reveals what was already unstable.
later, alone, you open the drive one last time and mark files complete. not closed. complete. there’s a difference. you shut the laptop and sit with the hum of the building, the way it remembers people who left and learned nothing.
you learned.
outside, the city recalibrates, stumbling into a new equilibrium it didn’t choose but can’t refuse. and somewhere in the quiet between sirens, you feel it settle—the weight of what remains, the shape of what comes next. fallout is survivable. it always has been. the news cycle chews and spits. headlines flatten complexity into appetite-sized truths. experts talk about collapse like it was weather, unavoidable and nobody’s fault. you watch for five minutes, then mute it. afterimages are louder when you don’t look straight at them.
people test the perimeter again. softer this time. offers wrapped in apologies. apologies wrapped in fear. you accept none of it. you don’t need loyalty. you need distance that understands its place.
you move apartments without drama. same city, different altitude. higher floors. wider sightlines. you don’t hide; you reposition. the building learns you quickly, settling around your habits like it knows better than to ask questions.
one night, you find yourself standing at a window you didn’t choose on purpose. glass reflects a version of you that feels familiar and not. older. steadier. the kind of person who doesn’t look away when the shape of things changes. you lift a hand and touch the pane, not for comfort—for calibration.
a knock arrives at an hour that means intention. you don’t ask who it is. you already know. the woman from before steps inside when you open the door, rain on her coat, composure intact.
“it’s stabilizing,” she says.
“For now,” you reply.
She nods. “They want to know what you’ll do with it.”
You consider the city breathing beneath you, the lines redrawn just enough to hold. “Nothing,” you say. “I’ll let it keep moving.”
“That’s a choice,” she notes.
“Yes.”
She studies you, then leaves without another word. no threats. no promises. the afterimage lingers anyway—power doesn’t disappear; it imprints.
later, alone, you sit on the floor with the lights off and let memory pass without grabbing it. jaemin’s laugh surfaces once, soft and brief, like a reflection in water that doesn’t break the surface. you keep breathing. you let it go.
outside, sirens fade into distance. the city settles into its new math. you stand, pull on your coat, and step back into motion. afterimages don’t haunt forever. they guide, until the next shape forms and asks to be met. you stop counting days. time only matters when it can be leveraged, and right now it’s doing its own work beneath the surface. the city moves with a new caution, like it’s learned what happens when pressure is ignored. you feel the undertow in small ways—meetings canceled without explanation, names removed from directories overnight, routes changing themselves before you commit to them.
you keep walking. motion disguises intent. you choose places that don’t care who you are and streets that don’t remember faces for long. anonymity isn’t invisibility anymore; it’s consent. the city agrees to let you pass because you don’t ask it for more.
a message arrives just before dusk.
someone’s pulling the thread back.
you don’t ask who. threads only get pulled by people who think they’re still holding the fabric together. you reply with a location that’s inconvenient and a time that’s worse. if they show up, you’ll know how desperate they are.
they do.
the café is half-full and loud enough to blur edges. the man sits across from you without greeting, eyes too alert for someone pretending calm. he talks fast. mistakes speed for strength.
“you destabilized everything,” he says.
“Yes,” you answer.
“and now there’s a vacuum.”
you sip your drink.
“vacuums collapse,” you say. “they don’t get filled.”
he leans forward.
“we can help you manage it.”
you meet his gaze.
“you already tried,” you reply. “it didn’t hold.”
his jaw tightens. you see the fear now, bright and inconvenient.
“you’re not protected,” he says.
you tilt your head.
“from what.”
he hesitates. that’s the answer.
outside, the light shifts. evening settles like a held breath. you stand, leaving money on the table you didn’t order from.
“tell whoever sent you,” you say, “that pulling back isn’t possible. only through.”
you leave him there, words catching in his throat. undertow doesn’t look dramatic. it just keeps pulling until resistance becomes exhaustion.
later, walking home, you feel it tug again—stronger now. something old trying to surface. a name you haven’t heard spoken aloud since the bridge. you stop at a corner and breathe through the ache, letting it pass without becoming instruction.
inheritance hums, patient and persistent. you don’t fight the current. you learn how to move with it. night presses closer to the streets now, thicker and slower, like the city itself is wading instead of walking. you feel watched again, not hunted—evaluated. that’s worse. evaluation means someone still believes there’s a lever they haven’t tried. you let them believe it. belief burns energy.
you take a longer route home and notice the details you used to ignore: a storefront closed earlier than usual, a light left on in an empty office, a car that turns when you do and then pretends it didn’t. undertow doesn’t announce itself. it tightens quietly, testing your footing.
your phone buzzes once. a single sentence.
they want to make it personal.
you stop under a streetlamp and type back without hesitation.
it already is.
the reply doesn’t come. that tells you enough. when messages stop, plans start moving. you adjust without drama—change direction, step into a crowded bar you don’t plan to stay in, exit through the back into a lane that smells like spilled beer and rain. the car misses you by seconds. timing matters.
back in your apartment, you don’t turn on the lights. you sit with the window cracked, listening to the city breathe. you think of jaemin—not the bridge, not the blood, but the way he used to pause before speaking, like he was weighing impact. you do the same now. every word you don’t say is a counterweight.
another knock comes later. not urgent. not polite. you don’t answer. the knock repeats once, then stops. footsteps retreat. the undertow tests again and finds no purchase.
you open the drive and scan a file you marked complete weeks ago. not to act—just to remember the architecture. structures fail in predictable ways. people don’t. that’s where the danger hides.
a final message arrives near dawn.
we can make this stop.
you smile faintly, tired but steady, and type the truth.
it already has. you’re just catching up.
when the sun lifts, pale and indifferent, the city looks almost kind. undertow recedes when daylight arrives, but you know better than to mistake that for safety. it will return. it always does. and when it does, you’ll be ready—not to fight it, but to let it pull the last weak pieces free. you find the seam by accident. that’s how they usually reveal themselves—not when you’re looking for power, but when you’re checking for frays. a document mislabeled. a transfer timestamp that doesn’t align. a name that appears twice where it shouldn’t. you stop walking in the middle of the sidewalk and let the city flow around you while the pattern locks into place.
the seam isn’t a person. it’s a promise. something agreed to long ago and never revisited because it worked too well. you feel the old pressure try to reassert itself, the undertow tugging at your ankles. you don’t pull back. you step closer. seams only split when you load them correctly.
your phone vibrates. the same contact as before. different tone.
we need to correct an oversight.
you type with one hand while crossing the street against the light.
oversights correct themselves when they’re named.
a pause. longer than usual. that’s the tell.
what do you want for it, the message finally comes.
you stop beneath a marquee flickering between letters and think of jaemin’s voice, careful and exact. you don’t ask for safety. you don’t ask for forgiveness. you ask for structure.
sunset clause, you reply. written.
another pause. cars hiss past. rain starts again, light and indecisive.
that affects people you don’t know, they answer.
you smile faintly.
it affects people who think they won.
the response arrives fast now. urgency bleeds through the words.
we’ll draft something.
you keep walking.
send it when it’s real, you reply. i don’t read intentions.
later, in your apartment, you lay the documents side by side and trace the seam with a fingertip. this is where momentum changes direction. not with noise, but with paperwork. not with blood, but with endings that know how to expire.
you think of the bridge once, brief and contained. then you let it go. seams don’t heal by remembering the tear. they heal by reinforcing the edge. the draft arrives at dusk. not as an attachment, but as a link that pretends it could vanish if you don’t click fast enough. you wait an hour. urgency is a tell. when you open it, you read slowly, line by line, letting the language reveal what it’s trying to hide. sunset clauses are delicate things. they don’t end power; they schedule its decay.
you mark three sections and send them back without comment. ten minutes later, the link refreshes. someone is working harder than they want you to notice. you mark one more line and add a date that makes a few futures impossible.
your phone buzzes.
that date won’t hold.
you type back.
then nothing does.
silence. then the link updates again. the date holds. expiration isn’t mercy. it’s physics. you feel the system accept it the way structures accept load—quietly, with a groan you only hear if you’re listening.
outside, the city changes shift. shops close. lights soften. you step out and walk until the air cools your face. people pass you with ordinary concerns, unaware that a clock just started ticking somewhere they’ll never see. you don’t resent them. normalcy needs scaffolding, and someone has to mind it.
a message arrives from a different number.
he would have hated this.
you stop under a tree stripped nearly bare. you don’t ask who sent it. you know.
no, you reply. he would have checked the math.
the typing bubble flickers, then disappears. some conversations end cleanly when you don’t let them become apologies.
back home, you close the document and file it where you keep things that are meant to run out. you don’t celebrate. expiration only matters if you’re still here when it arrives. you set a reminder anyway.
that night, you dream of a bridge you never stand on. water moves beneath it, steady and indifferent. you wake without panic. some endings work even in sleep. the effect isn’t immediate. that’s how you know it’s working. power rarely collapses in public; it shrinks in private until the people holding it can’t remember where it went. calls stop coming from certain numbers. invitations arrive later, phrased more carefully, like they’re afraid of leaving fingerprints. you let the lag grow. delay teaches restraint better than punishment ever could.
you notice it in the margins. budgets tighten. favors get smaller. people who used to speak in certainties start asking questions instead. diminishing returns aren’t dramatic. they’re humiliating. you walk through them without comment, letting the system feel its own weight.
a message arrives from someone you haven’t heard from since before the bridge.
you still breathing.
you reply after a minute.
yes.
thought you’d be gone by now.
you consider the city outside, the way it keeps accommodating you without asking why.
i learned how to stay, you type.
the reply doesn’t come. that’s fine. some people only reach out to confirm their own survival.
you spend the afternoon auditing the expiration again, not because you expect betrayal, but because maintenance is part of inheritance. clauses decay if they aren’t checked. you adjust one timeline by a week. the ripple moves outward, quiet and corrective.
later, you walk past a shop window and catch your reflection. there’s no triumph in it. no softness either. just accuracy. you think of jaemin’s last instruction, the way he framed inevitability as something you could choose to wield instead of fear. you hold that thought lightly. tools last longer when they aren’t idolized.
at dusk, a final message arrives from the woman who used to negotiate like a shield.
they’re standing down.
you don’t ask who.
good, you reply.
the city exhales. somewhere, a lever is released. somewhere else, someone realizes too late that leverage has an end date. diminishing returns settle in like dusk—unavoidable, unremarkable, complete. nothing announces the change. that’s how you know it’s real. the city doesn’t flinch, doesn’t rearrange itself to accommodate drama. it just keeps going, lighter somehow, like a structure relieved of unnecessary weight. quiet load is what remains when pressure is redistributed and nobody admits it out loud.
you stop receiving updates altogether. not because nothing is happening, but because nothing needs permission anymore. systems that relied on urgency lose their voice when time stops responding. you let the silence stretch. silence teaches people where they stand.
you return to places you avoided before. a park near the river. a corner bakery that opens too early. familiarity doesn’t bite the way it used to. you learn the difference between memory and threat. one lingers. the other demands. you keep only what lingers.
a package appears at your door without a note. inside, a single key and an address written in a careful hand. you don’t rush. you wait until evening, until the city is busy enough to be uninterested. the address leads you to a storage unit that smells like dust and patience.
inside, there’s nothing dramatic. no weapons. no money. just folders labeled with dates that haven’t happened yet. contingencies aging quietly, meant to be touched only if needed. you close the door and leave the key where it belongs. some safeguards work best when they’re never activated.
on the walk home, you pass a bridge and don’t slow. water moves beneath it, indifferent as ever. you realize the ache you’ve been carrying has changed shape. it’s not lighter. it’s quieter. that’s survivable.
at home, you sit on the floor with the lights off and breathe until the room settles around you. quiet load doesn’t demand attention. it asks for maintenance. you’re good at that now. the quiet doesn’t last. it never does. you feel the change before the message arrives—the way the air tightens, the way timing sharpens into intention. maintenance has a cost, and someone has decided to collect. the city holds its breath like it remembers this feeling.
the message is short. stripped of politeness.
tonight. final accounting.
you don’t ask where. you already know. the place that knowing always circles back to when people think they can end things cleanly. you pull on your coat and leave without checking the mirror. reflections don’t help at crests.
the venue is lit too brightly, like they want clarity. glass everywhere. exits labeled. a lie told with confidence. you arrive exactly when you mean to, not when they asked. timing still belongs to you.
they’re all there. not the loud ones. the careful ones. the people who survive collapses by pretending they were never inside them. eyes lift when you enter. conversations stop. the room tilts.
“this was supposed to be finished,” someone says.
“it is,” you reply. “this is the receipt.”
screens wake at your gesture. not with revelations—those are old news—but with sequences. causality laid bare. the seam you found stitches itself into a pattern no one can deny. names disappear as quickly as they appear. not erased. expired.
voices rise. objections form and die. someone reaches for authority and finds it empty. the crest arrives like a wave you don’t dodge. you stand where it breaks and let it pass through.
“you don’t get to decide the ending,” a voice snaps, brittle now.
you meet it evenly.
“i didn’t,” you say. “i scheduled it.”
sirens bloom outside, closer than before. not for you. never for you. for the last pieces that refused to decay quietly. the room shifts as understanding lands. people step back from you like proximity itself has become risky.
you think of jaemin—not the blood, not the bridge—but the math. the patience. the way he trusted you to finish without becoming loud. you hold that thought steady as the crest peaks.
papers are signed. calls are made. a structure exhales and settles into something smaller, safer, irreversible. when it’s done, no one applauds. applause is for spectacle. this was architecture.
you leave before anyone asks you to stay. outside, the night feels charged, electric with consequence. the city starts moving again, faster now, relieved. the crest has passed. the drop is coming. you walk into it with your shoulders squared, ready for whatever the fall asks of you. the fall isn’t free. it’s controlled, deliberate, the kind that happens when momentum finally agrees with gravity. you feel it in the way phones light up all at once and then go quiet forever. in the way people stop pretending they didn’t know. in the way names lose their power the moment they’re spoken aloud.
outside the building, the night exhales again. rain slicks the pavement like it’s erasing chalk lines. you walk until the noise thins and the city returns to its ordinary indifference. this is the dangerous part—not the chaos, but the calm that follows it. endings invite replacements.
your phone vibrates once. not a warning. a location pin. no message. no ask. you don’t answer. you turn it face down and keep walking. if they want you, they’ll say why. if they don’t, the silence will do.
you stop at a river and watch the current take what it’s given without argument. you think of the bridge again, briefly, and then you don’t. memory has learned its place. it doesn’t drive anymore. it observes.
footsteps approach from behind. not hurried. not stealthy. you don’t turn. you don’t need to. the presence settles beside you like it belongs there.
Note: 5/7 done!! This series has been SO FUN to write so far. I'm so excited for the next two. No spoilers. But comment to be in the taglist. It's gonna be for jeno or renjun who knows. The next two might not be short smaus
OKAY WAIT IT NOT MARK THEN WHOO OMGG JENO? RENJUN? ALSO THIS IS SOO CUTEEE I LOVEEEE THISS. I feel like it renjun he got the brains to actually hide a girlfriend
pairing: slytherin! na jaemin x gryffindor! fem. reader
genre: hogwarts au, fake dating (hell yeah!), fluff, smut, angst
wc: 17k
summary: A Gryffindor prefect and a Slytherin golden boy fake a relationship to avoid an unwanted marriage pact, but as staged kisses turn real and secrets unravel, their hearts end up tangled in ways neither expected. Now, with love and pride on the line, they must decide if risking everything is worth the truth.
content warnings: explicit sexual content, loss of virginity, protected sex (contraceptive charms), oral sex (fem receiving), fingering, cursing, alcohol consumption, miscommunication, emotional hurt/comfort, anxiety, self-consciousness, emotional manipulation (though not malicious) lots of harry potter references (obvs), hogwarts setting, slytherin/gryffindor stereotypes and prejudice, pureblood politics, brief mention of emotionally distant/cold parents.
a/n: finally!! i’m so sorry this took forever, i really meant to post it the same day as part one, but i kept adding more (like… a lot more), so i really hope it was worth the wait. i had so much fun writing it though and i’m actually really proud of how it turned out. this fic fully consumed me for months lol😭 i hope you guys enjoy it as much as i enjoyed writing it. please feel free to scream in the comments/inbox, i wanna hear all your thoughts <3
ps: if anyone cares for a bit of music while reading i made this playlist for the fic.
Read part 1 here
In the wake of that catastrophic lapse in judgment at the Three Broomsticks, you had spent the remainder of the weekend engaged in a heroic attempt at total social erasure. Under the flimsy pretext of Prefect patrols, you’d spent twenty four hours haunting the castle’s most desolate corners and developing an encyclopedic, almost intimate knowledge of the drafty corridors behind the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy and the specific, rhythmic drip of the second-floor lavatory.
You lived in mortal fear of a confrontation, your brain a frantic pinball machine of panicked justifications. How does one even begin to explain away the fact that you’d essentially tackled Jaemin with your mouth in front of half the student body? You couldn't even blame the butterbeer; no one was that much of a lightweight.
All that strategic hiding, however, proved to be a spectacular waste of time.
Because Monday morning arrived and with it, the unavoidable horror of Double Potions. Jaemin, of course, decided to plop down next to you, looking both freshly pressed and utterly unbothered by recent events. All the while had to physically force yourself not to bolt in the opposite direction.
“Morning, Y/N,” he said pleasantly. “Fancy another go?”
You nearly slid off the stool. “I—beg your pardon?”
His mouth quirked as he leaned closer, lowering his voice until it was a secret shared only between your skin and his lips.
“Just a thought,” he drawled, “since the entire school has already watched us snog, we might as well get our money’s worth, don’t you think?”
You gaped at him, your indignation warring with a sudden spike of heat. Jaemin just watched you, a picture of insouciant grace, clearly having decided that his new favorite hobby was seeing exactly how many shades of scarlet he could make you turn before Slughorn even called the roll.
“I—well—” You faltered, the sentence dying a pathetically in your throat. There was no good exit strategy here, no witty retort that could dismantle the sheer smugness radiating off him. “Wasn’t that a bit… much? In the Three Broomsticks?”
His gaze turned positively feral with glee. “I believe the many witnesses there that night will say that you started it. I was merely an innocent bystander, swept along by the current of your passionate improvisation.”
You pressed your lips together, an exercise in sheer willpower to deny him the satisfaction of a reaction.
“Swept along, my arse. You’re the one who—” You clamped down on the thought before it could manifest, but the phantom sensation of his fingers tangled in the hair at the nape of your neck flashed through your mind.
Jaemin tilted his head, a lock of blonde hair falling over his brow, as if to punctuate how useless your walls were against him now.
“Look, if we’re going to commit to this performance, we might as well aim for the stalls,” he said. “The school already has us pencilled in as the frontrunners for ‘Best Couple’. It would be a tragedy to disappoint the fans now, wouldn't it?”
He slipped his hand into yours, as if nothing at all had changed. But now you were horribly aware how your skin prickled with nerves and the pulse in your wrist kept skipping whenever he brushed his thumb along the side of your hand.
Slughorn, bless his velvet-clad heart, seemed absolutely determined to overwhelm the gloom of the dungeons with his boisterous goodwill. He was in rare form today, circling the room like a parade master, “Today, my dears, we will be brewing Amortentia! The mother of all love potions! Now, who can tell me its greatest danger?”
You raised your hand with perhaps more enthusiasm than Slughorn's question warranted, if only to reclaim it from Jaemin's grip.
“It can’t create real love, sir” you said, voice admirably steady. “Only a very strong infatuation. A kind of obsession, really. And it’s different for everyone who smells it, the scent changes to reflect whatever attracts you most.”
“Excellent! Excellent!” Slughorn beamed. “Ten points to Gryffindor! Now then, pair up, everyone, pair up! Today we brew!”
Naturally, this was when things went from bad to infinitely worse.
Brewing Amortentia while in the throes of whatever this mortifying situation with Jaemin was? Spectacularly poor timing. Working close enough to feel the warmth radiating off him, to have his fingers brush yours with every ingredient passed between you? Absolute torture of the most exquisite variety.
“Pass me the pearl dust, would you, love?” Jaemin murmured, his voice a low rumble that seemed to vibrate in the scant space between you.
You passed it quickly and focused back on the cauldron, determined to at least finish before him. You added the frozen ashwinder eggs, stirring counter-clockwise until the liquid began to shimmer.
“You’re quite good at this,” Jaemin noted. “Almost as good as you are at improvisation”.
“Focus on the potion, Jaemin,” you bit out, though you could feel your face go scarlet.
After forty minutes of gruelling labor, the potion was perfect. The steam rose in characteristic spirals, and the surface gleamed with a lustrous, opalescent sheen. You smiled at your technical triumph.
But the smile died on your lips the moment the scent hit your nose.
You'd hoped—prayed, really—for something ordinary. Like the comforting smell of old books, perhaps. Or the woody scent from the fire in the Gryffindor common room. But what you got instead was far more specific, and infinitely more damning.
Expensive cologne that smelled of bergamot and beneath that was the distinct, slightly oily musk of broomstick polish. The exact olfactory combination that seemed to have permanently infused itself into the fibers of Jaemin’s robes, the scent that enveloped you whenever he pulled you close in the corridors.
Godric save me, you thought, your stomach performing a sort of sickening swoop.
Your mind scrambled for a rational explanation. It’s just a common scent, it argued desperately. Half the Quidditch players use that polish. And any posh tosser could wear that cologne.
But the Amortentia didn’t lie. Your Herculean attempt at self-delusion was failing utterly in the face of the irrefutable truth spiralling out of your cauldron.
Fear metastasized across your body, becoming a cold weight anchored in the hollow of your sternum, pulsing in time with the frantic thrum of your heart. If you acknowledged the bergamot and the broomstick polish, you were surrendering the only fortress you had left. To speak it would be to dismantle the safety of the 'fake' and leave you standing raw and defenseless in the debris of your own design.
You were terrified that the moment the truth escaped your lips, the delicate, agonizing balance of your world would tilt, sliding you both into a reality from which there was no clever improvisation to save you.
“So?” Jaemin’s voice was suddenly right at your ear, making you flinch. “What are you getting, Y/N? Freshly bound books and new parchment, I’d wager.”
The proximity forced your lungs to pull in the real version of the bergamot you had just been mourning.
“Yeah, uhm…I smell old books,” you said, the lie ashen on your tongue.
Jaemin turned to look at you, and it was as though he were reading the very thoughts you were trying to bury. Beneath the table, out of sight of the professor and the prowling eyes of the room, his hand found yours again
“Is that so?” he murmured, his eyes visibly darkening as they swept over your face. “Well. I’m getting a very distinctive note of vanilla. And that floral soap you use in the Prefects’ bathroom.”
His words were utterly devoid of the frantic panic currently hijacking your nervous system, that for a moment, you simply stared. Your brain suddenly tripped over his transparency. He’s joking, you realized, a hysterical sort of relief blooming in the wake of the shock. Of course he is. If he actually smelled that from the potion, he would be guarding that secret with his life, burying it under ten layers of Slytherin steel.
“Aha!” Slughorn crowed, making you both start. He peered into your cauldron, his face shining with delight. “A perfect brew! The spirals are unmistakable. Tell me, Mr. Na, is the aroma potent?”
Jaemin didn’t take his eyes off you. “Distractingly so, Professor,” he said, his lips curving into a smile that made your entire body go on high alert. “It’s enough to drive a man to madness.”
Slughorn clapped his hands together, mercifully oblivious to the silent conversation happening right under his nose. “Splendid! Simply splendid. Ten points to Slytherin and Gryffindor. Now, for your homework, I want a foot of parchment on the dangers of Amortentia and why its use is so strictly regulated. To be handed in next lesson!”
As the class descended into the frantic clatter of copper stirring rods and the rhythmic scrubbing of stone, you moved through the motions in a total sensory daze. What were you supposed to do with this knowledge? How were you meant to deal with the fact that the scent of your Amortentia, the very distillation of your most primal desires, was inextricably tied to Jaemin?
Right before you exited the room Jaemin’s fingers brushed against your own so briefly it should have been negligible, yet it sent a jolt of fire anchoring itself in the marrow of your bones. He leaned in, his shadow eclipsing you for a fleeting second.
“Think about what I said earlier, yeah?” He murmured, the words ghosting against your skin before he deposited a soft kiss on your temple.
You stood frozen as he merged into the tide of students. A sinking, leaden certainty settled in the pit of your stomach, making your breath hitch in your throat. You were well and truly doomed, there was no more room for clever denials. The Amortentia had stripped away the artifice, laying the raw, pulsing truth bare against the cold dungeon floor.
You liked Na Jaemin, and Merlin help you, there wasn't a potion in the world that could fix it.
Part of you was almost giddy about the novelty of actually fancying someone, of feeling your stomach swoop when they walked into a room. But mostly you were terrified. When had Jaemin stopped being an inconvenience and started being this?
Maybe, you reasoned, you could indulge it. Just a little. Lean into the dating act a bit more and let yourself feel it without examining it too closely.
That’s how the boundaries started dissolving.
Slowly at first, then all at once, every rule you’d established became negotiable. Jaemin would pull you into empty alcoves where no one could possibly see you, press you against cold stone and kiss you until you couldn’t breathe. “We’re not in public,” you’d manage between kisses. He’d just smirk against your mouth. “Practice makes perfect.”
No one batted an eyelid at the sight of him pulling you into empty rooms. Even Giselle had stopped questioning you, and became rather repulsed by your sudden displays of affection.
Meanwhile, you walked around feeling as if you’d lost the original plot of this whole thing. Your brain became a pinball machine: every glance from Jaemin sent the ball ricocheting wildly, every brush of his fingers over your knuckles set your whole body on high alert. He, on the other hand, seemed to delight in turning up at the least convenient moments—snagging you between classes, kissing you in the shadow of the greenhouses, catching your hand when you tried to slip past him on your way out of the library and kissing you against the stacks.
You coped by remembering it was all for show, the same way you might recite lines in a play. Only actors didn’t typically wake up thinking about the curve of their co-star’s mouth or lie awake at night replaying every touch of their calloused fingers.
You ran into him outside your common room one evening, just as curfew loomed. Jaemin looked up from a parchment he was pretending to read, tucking it away as you approached.
His eyes seemed to visibly darken at the sight of you. It would have been easy to walk past, make some excuse about homework or an early morning. Instead, you hovered, dithering between the impulse to run and the urge to close the gap.
Jaemin broke the stalemate, stepping forward and catching your wrist. “I was hoping I’d see you,” he said and then pointed at the portraits on the walls that watched you silently. “Thought we might keep the neighbors entertained.”
He didn't wait for an answer. He tugged on your wrist to guide you forward, and then his hand was sliding upward, fingers tangling deep into the hair at the base of your neck. He tilted his head, his gaze dropping to your lips for a fraction of a second before he leaned down to claim them.
His lips moved against yours with devastating confidence. As the kiss deepened, his other hand found the small of your back, pulling you flush against him until there was no space left between you. He made a low sound in the back of his throat, a private noise of satisfaction that seemed to echo against your own heartbeat.
High above, the painted figures in the frames whispered and tittered. The Fat Lady let out a bright, trilling giggle that rang through the hallway, but Jaemin didn't stop. He only pressed closer, his thumb tracing the line of your jaw as he turned the kiss slower, more rhythmic, and infinitely more distracting than any textbook could ever be.
When he finally broke away, he didn't pull back more than an inch. His breath hitched against your lips, and the dark intensity in his eyes seemed to catch fire.
He had just begun to trail his lips from your mouth to the sensitive line of your jaw when a shrill, cackling whistle echoed off the stone walls.
"Ooh, lookie here! Little lions in a knot! Or is it a tangle? A right royal muddle!"
Peeves the Poltergeist swooped down, hovering upside down just inches from your faces. His wide, malicious eyes darted between you and Jaemin, his tongue poking out through a jagged grin.
Jaemin didn't let go of you, but he let out a long, frustrated exhale against your skin. He slowly turned his head to glare at the spirit. "Not now, Peeves. Go find a first-year to pelt with ink pellets."
"Ink pellets? Boring! Stale!" Peeves blew a loud raspberry and started spinning in a dizzying circle. He reached into his pocket and produced a handful of stale, rock-hard Cauldron Cakes. "I’d much rather watch the lovebirds try to coo while I practice my aim!"
With a wicked flick of his wrist, he tossed a cake. It whistled past Jaemin’s ear, narrowly missing him and thudding loudly against the frame of a disgruntled landscape painting.
"Jammy and the Pouter, sitting in a hall! Kissing 'til the portraits scream and the ceiling falls!" Peeves sang at the top of his lungs, his voice shrill enough to wake every sleeping student in the nearby tower.
Jaemin finally pulled back fully, though he kept a protective arm slung low around your waist. He looked up at the cackling poltergeist, a dangerous, tired sort of smirk playing on his lips. "You’re going to get Filch up here, you menace."
"Filchy-poo? Even better!" Peeves shrieked, preparing another handful of projectiles. "Double the trouble, double the fun! Run, little students, run-run-run!"
Jaemin’s jaw tightened, and the last traces of the kiss's softness vanished into a look of sharp irritation. He reached into his robes and flicked his wand upward with a lethal grace.
"I warned you," Jaemin muttered dangerously. “Waddiwasi!"
The Cauldron Cake Peeves had been preparing to throw suddenly zoomed upward, propelled by an invisible force. It jammed itself straight into the poltergeist’s left nostril.
The poltergeist let out a high-pitched scream of outrage, spinning wildly in the air as he tried to claw the stale pastry out. Realizing he had lost this round, he zoomed through the nearest wall, leaving nothing behind but the faint sound of his frantic thumping as he retreated toward the floor below.
Jaemin let out a huff of a laugh, finally tucking his wand back into his sleeve. The intense look returned to his eyes as he turned his full attention back to you, his hands sliding back to their previous spots on your waist.
"Now," he whispered, pulling you back against the wall. "Where were we before we were so rudely interrupted?"
You pressed a hand to his chest before he could close the distance. “Wait—did you hear that?”
“No.” The word was muffled against your neck, which he’d apparently decided required immediate attention.
“Jaemin, I’m serious. I think that’s Filch—”
He went still, listening. Sure enough, the shuffle of uneven footsteps echoed down the corridor.
“Your common room,” Jaemin said immediately, tugging you toward the Fat Lady’s portrait. “Come on—”
“Wait! She won’t let you in!”
He stopped short. “What? Why not?”
“Because you’re a Slytherin? We’ve been over this.”
“I thought you were drunk when you said that.” Jaemin stared at you incredulously. “So you’re telling me she won’t let any Slytherins in? And we’re the prejudiced house?”
“I mean she could, technically. But then she’d absolutely tell Filch about it.”
Jaemin made a sound of disbelief as Filch’s footsteps grew louder.
“Fine. Come on.” He grabbed your hand, pulling you in the opposite direction.
“Where are we going?” you hissed, jogging to keep up as he led you through several corridors and down the stairs.
“The dungeons.”
“What?! I am not going to your common room—”
“Oh, come on.” He threw you an exasperated look over his shoulder. “It’ll be fine. Slytherins actually mind their business when it comes to sneaking people in. Unlike you lions, apparently.”
The further you descended, the more aware you became of where this was heading. You’d never set foot in the Slytherin common room, and now you were sneaking in at night to… Well. The thought alone was enough to make your heart ricochet against your chest.
“Right, here we are.” Jaemin stopped before a blank wall.
“That’s it?” You stared at it with a raised brow. “Kind of underwhelming, isn’t it?”
“Sorry, did you expect a giant fanged mouth?”
“Alright, ease up on the attitude.” You glared at him.
He smiled, and spoke to the wall: “Serpensortem.” Then, catching your eye: “Feel free to use that. You know, if you ever need to find me.”
The hidden door (which did, in fact, have serpents carved into it) swung open to reveal a narrow corridor of stairs descending even deeper. How Slytherins didn’t lose their minds being this far underground, you had no idea.
Inside, the common room was both exactly what you’d pictured and nothing like it. Dark stone, high ceilings, and a green-filtered light casting everything in a sort of underwater glow. Because…Oh. The ceiling was glass. There were actual panels looking straight up into the Black Lake’s murky water and the shadows of the occasional creatures drifting by.
Stunning. Also deeply unsettling if you thought too hard about it.
“Nice view of the Giant Squid you’ve got.”
Jaemin was right, his housemates truly didn’t care. The handful of students still up barely registered your presence, offering cursory glances before returning to whatever they were working on. Apparently a Gryffindor in the Slytherin common room wasn’t that much of a strange sight.
“Want to go up to my dorm?”
You gave him a look. “Where all your dormmates are?”
“They’re at the Three Broomsticks getting properly pissed.” He shrugged. “We’ve got the place to ourselves.”
“It’s way past curfew. How’d they even get out?”
“There are secret passages that lead straight to the village. They’re all over the castle.”
“How am I only just learning this?”
His smile turned wicked. “Well, you’re such a good girl.” He pulled you closer by the waist. “A very good girl who owes me a kiss.”
You were completely out of your depth. Although the flirting had become familiar, the fact that Jaemin seemed to want you with the same desperate intensity you felt for him was uncharted territory that left you dizzy and unmoored.
So you didn’t fight when he led you upstairs. You let him pull you into a kiss on the steps, let yourself kiss him back with abandon until you stumbled into the warm sanctuary of his dorm. Only then did you surface long enough to catch your breath and actually take stock of your surroundings.
There were four four-poster beds with dark emerald hangings, the standard Hogwarts setup, but each corner had been claimed and personalized by its occupant.
You recognized Jaemin’s immediately. The one nearest the window, if you could call the glass panel looking into the lake a window. His Quidditch gear was piled carelessly beside his trunk: broom propped against the bedpost, leather gloves draped over the footboard, a jersey with “NA” embroidered on the back slung over his desk chair. The nightstand held an impressive collection of cologne bottles and a few books stacked messily beneath them.
But it was the wall above his bed that caught your attention. Photographs pinned in no particular order of what looked like his family, him and his Quidditch team, a few older shots of him with other friends you didn’t recognize.
“Snooping already?” Jaemin’s voice came from behind you.
You turned to find him leaning against the wall, watching you with a raised brow.
“Just… observing.”
“Mhm.” He pushed off the post and crossed to you in two strides. “And what have your observations concluded?”
“That you’re messier than I expected.” You gestured to the Quidditch gear. “But also weirdly sentimental.” You nodded toward the photographs.
You turned to the other sections of the room and caught on a collection of what appeared to be hand-drawn comics pinned above one bed, surprisingly good actually, depicting what looked like Quidditch matches gone horribly wrong.
“Are those—did someone draw these?”
“Renjun.” Jaemin followed your gaze. “He’s got a thing for documenting Donghyuck’s Quidditch failures. It's quite therapeutic for him, apparently.”
“Donghyuck and Renjun—wait, I thought you roomed with Changmin and Sungchan?”
“I used to. Merlin, don’t remind me.” Jaemin collapsed onto what was clearly his bed—the one nearest the lake-view panel.
“That bad?
“They both snore like bloody dragons. Together it was—” He shook his head. “I got about three hours of sleep a night for two years. Finally cracked in third year and begged the head boy to switch me.”
You laughed. “So who’d you end up with?”
“Jeno, Donghyuck, and Renjun.” He gestured vaguely around the room. “They’re a nightmare in different ways, but at least they sleep quietly.”
“Sounds like a ringing endorsement.”
He got up and started slowly towards you. “I didn’t bring you up here to psychoanalyze our dorm though.”
“No?” Your hands settled against his chest when he pulled you to him. “What am I up here for, then?”
His smile turned wicked. “I believe we established you owe me a kiss. Several, actually, if we’re keeping count.”
“Are we keeping count now?”
“I am.” He leaned in, mouth barely brushing yours. “And you’re severely in debt.”
You could’ve pointed out the flawed logic, could’ve reminded him that you’d just spent the last several minutes kissing him senseless on the stairs. Instead, you closed the distance between you, letting him walk you backward until your legs hit the edge of his bed.
“This okay?” he murmured against your lips, even as his hands slid up your sides.
Your heart was hammering so loud you were sure he could hear it. This was different from the corridors, from the alcoves and the performances. Just you and him and the choice to cross whatever line you’d been toeing for weeks.
“Yeah,” you breathed. “This is okay.”
His smile was soft before he kissed you again. You reciprocated with much enthusiasm making him sigh against your lips. His hands slid into your hair as the kiss deepened, and you let yourself get lost in it .
Your fingers found the buttons of his shirt, fumbling slightly, and he made a sound low in his throat that sent heat racing through you. His hand slipped beneath the hem of your sweater, palm warm against your ribs, and—
Suddenly you heard voices. Loud and slurred, echoing up from the common room.
“—telling you, Hyuck, you can’t just Accio the entire bottle—”
“It almost worked though… I’m just— hngh— a bit wet”
“What—…” You scrambled into a sitting position, trying to finger-comb your hair into something less incriminating. “How do I look?”
He looked at you and tried to hide a grin behind his hand. “Like I’ve been kissing you for the past ten minutes.”
“Jaemin!”
“Right, sorry—” He reached out, gently attempting to smooth down your hair. It was possibly the sweetest thing he’d ever done and absolutely not helping your emotional state. “Okay, just act natural?”
The door banged open and three boys tumbled through in various states of inebriation— a muscular lad with short black hair barely keeping another upright, while a third brought up the rear looking significantly more sober than his friends.
The first one stopped short when he spotted you. “Oh, shit.”
“Jeno, move, you’re blocking the—” The one being held up peered around his friend and broke into a massive grin. “Na Jaemin, you absolute legend.”
“Shut up, Donghyuck.” Jaemin stood, positioning himself slightly in front of you.
The sober one closed the door with considerably more care than it had been opened with. “We can go back down if—”
“No, it’s fine.” You stood as well, acutely aware of how warm your face felt. “I should probably get back to Gryffindor tower anyway.”
“Gryffindor!” Hyuck crowed, stumbling further into the room. “So you’re the Gryffindor. Jaemin’s been—ow! What the fuck, Jeno—”
Jeno had elbowed him, hard. “Subtle as a brick, mate.”
“I’m just saying, he’s been in a better mood lately and now I know why—”
“Hyuck, I will literally hex your bollocks off.” Jaemin’s tone was pleasant. His expression was not.
The sober one gave you an apologetic look. “Ignore them. They had approximately five Firewhiskeys each at the Three Broomsticks.”
“Five and a half,” Hyuck corrected proudly.
“Right. Well.” You smoothed down your skirt. “I should go.”
Jaemin caught your wrist. “I’ll walk you out.”
“I think your friends need more help than I do .”
“They’ll live.” His jaw was set and you could tell he was still annoyed about the interruption.
“Awww, he’s being chivalrous,” Hyuck stage-whispered to Jeno. “That’s so—ow, fuck, Renjun—”
Renjun had slapped the back of his head. “Please excuse Donghyuck. He becomes aggressively annoying when drunk.”
“Just when drunk?” Jeno muttered.
You bit back a smile despite yourself. “It’s fine. I can find my way out.”
“You sure?” Jaemin was still holding your wrist.
“I’m sure.” You gently extracted your hand, very aware of three pairs of eyes tracking the movement. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Yeah. Tomorrow.”
You made it approximately two steps toward the door before Hyuck piped up again. “Hey, Gryffindor girl?”
You turned. “It’s—”
“Oh, we know who you are,” Jeno said, grinning.
“He’s absolutely miserable when you’re not around, you know,” Hyuck announced cheerfully, ignoring Jaemin’s death glare. “Like, genuinely unbearable. So thanks for that. You’re doing Merlin’s work, truly—”
“HYUCK—”
You escaped into the corridor before you could hear the rest, but their laughter—and Jaemin’s protests—followed you all the way down the stairs.
By the time you reached the common room, your face was burning and your heart was still racing and you had absolutely no idea how you were going to look at Jaemin tomorrow without remembering the weight of him above you, the heat of his hands, the way he’d looked at you like—
No. Not thinking about it.
Except you absolutely were going to spend the entire night thinking about it. You shook your head sharply as you climbed back through the castle, taking a different route to avoid Filch.
The interruption was probably for the best. It had stopped you from doing something you couldn’t take back, from crossing a line that would make the whole “fake dating” excuse completely untenable.
“Wow, he’s even convinced you to go to a Quidditch game?” Jo said as she observed you putting on the green scarf you’d borrowed from Jaemin. “And wearing his colors? Okay, who are you and what have you done to my best friend?”
You rolled your eyes. “It’s just one game. Plus, he’s been asking me to go for the past few weeks and I’ve already rejected him too many times. What kind of girlfriend doesn’t go support her boyfriend at a game?”
“A fake one?” She offered with a knowing look.
“I’m already committed to the bit, Jo. Cant back out now.”
“I just want to remind you that there are only 2 more weeks of this arrangement. Personally, I haven't even seen Yuna bother Jaemin in a good while, so there’s really no need to keep extending this thing.”
She was right. Yuna had been conspicuously absent lately. No more pointed stares across the Great Hall, no more appearances in places you and Jaemin frequented, no more saccharine interruptions during your library study sessions. You’d been so caught up in the elaborate fiction of your relationship that you’d stopped monitoring the very threat it was meant to neutralize.
Had she given up? Moved on to easier prey, perhaps? Or had the performance been so convincing that she’d accepted defeat?
And if the threat had dissolved, what justified the charade’s continuation?
More pressingly: did you want it to end?
The thought arrived unbidden, unwelcome, and stubbornly refused to leave. Two weeks. Fourteen days until you’d presumably sit down with Jaemin and declare mission accomplished, shake hands like business partners concluding a transaction, and return to being polite strangers who’d once played at intimacy for an audience.
“I’ll leave it to Jaemin to decide,” you said finally, the words emerging more brittle than intended. You avoided Jo’s reflection in the mirror, suddenly fascinated by the intricacies of your braid. “It’s his arrangement, technically. His problem we were solving.”
Liar, your reflection seemed to whisper. Coward.
Because the uncomfortable truth you’d been studiously ignoring was that you had no idea what Jaemin wanted anymore.
When he kissed you in empty corridors with no witnesses, was that practice? When his thumb traced absent patterns on your hip during meals, was he performing for distant onlookers or had it simply become habit? When he looked at you like that, was he acting or had the fiction begun consuming the actor?
You didn’t know. And you were terrified to ask.
Jo made a small noise of sympathy. “Just… be careful, alright? I know you think you’ve got this handled, but—”
“I’m fine,” you interrupted, perhaps too sharply. “Everything’s completely under control.”
The lie hung between you, obvious and ignored.
At the Quidditch pitch you headed to the Slytherin side of the stands. Thankfully, the finale was against Ravenclaw and not Gryffindor, otherwise you would feel like a horrible disloyal witch by not supporting your own house.
The place was already packed by the time you arrived. You’d expected to sit with the general crowd, but before you could even start climbing the stairs, you felt a hand on your arm.
“You’re with us,” Giselle said, appearing out of nowhere. She was dressed head to toe in green and silver, her house pride on full display. “Come on. We’ve saved you seats.”
“Saved me—what?”
Giselle led you to a prime spot right at the front of the Slytherin stands, where Changmin was already waiting.
“There she is!” Sungchan grinned, as if this had all been planned.
“Jaemin’s good luck charm,” Changmin added with a wink.
You blinked at them, too stunned to speak. These were the same boys who had barely tolerated your presence a month ago. Now they were scooting over, offering you the best view on the pitch, as if you belonged there.
“Jaemin said if we didn’t make sure you had the best seat, he’d hex us into next week,” Sungchan continued breezily. “And I quite like having my kneecaps intact, so.”
You sat down, feeling extremely self-conscious about being front and center in the Slytherin section wearing Slytherin colors. People were definitely staring. You could feel their eyes on you, could hear the whispers starting up.
"Wait," you started, your voice slightly breathless as you looked between their relaxed postures and the players currently mounting their brooms on the pitch. "Why aren't you two down there? Don't you both play?"
Changmin let out a dry snort, adjusting his sleeves. "Suspended," he said, "the Ravenclaw Beaters didn't appreciate my 'aggressive' tactical maneuvers during last week's scrimmage."
"And I'm on the bench today with a 'mysterious' wrist cramp," Sungchan added, though he looked entirely too healthy for an injury. He leaned in closer, dropping his voice to a murmur. "Truthfully? Jaemin didn't want us on the pitch. He wanted us here. Guarding you."
What?
"He’s a bit possessive over you," Giselle noted, settling in on your other side and smoothing her skirt. "He didn't trust the general Slytherin population to behave themselves while his head was in the clouds. Consider them your personal gargoyles for the afternoon."
Before you could process the idea of Jaemin hand-picking his friends to act as your shield, the teams flew onto the pitch, and the crowd erupted in cheers. You spotted him immediately. He was easy to pick out, even among the other players in their green and silver robes. He was a Chaser, and even from a distance, you could see the easy confidence in the way he handled his broom.
He did a lap of the pitch, clearly scanning the stands, and when he saw you sitting front and center in the Slytherin section wearing green his entire face lit up. He changed direction, flying closer to where you were sitting, and the crowd around you started screaming louder.
Jaemin pulled up right in front of the Slytherin section, hovering there on his broom, and blew you a kiss. An unsubtle, utterly ridiculous kiss blown in your direction in front of the entire school.
You felt your face go absolutely scarlet, but you couldn’t help smiling. He looked so happy. So genuinely, completely happy, and it was directed at you.
"Salazar's ghost," Giselle groaned, pointedly looking toward the sky. "The two of you are going to make me sick."
The whistle shrieked, a sharp, piercing herald that set the game in motion. You quickly discovered that Quidditch was an entirely different ordeal when your attention was tethered to a Chaser. It was no longer a sport but a grueling exercise in cardiovascular distress. Every time Jaemin’s fingers curled around the Quaffle, your breath hitched, trapped in the tight column of your throat. Every time a Ravenclaw Beater sent a Bludger whistling toward his skull, your stomach performed a sickening, leaden drop into your heels.
You were on your feet more often than not, screaming yourself hoarse, your dignity dissolving with every reckless maneuver he pulled. Your knuckles were white, clutching the edge of the railing as if you were the one hanging onto a broomstick three hundred feet in the air.
“Look at you,” Giselle observed during a brief lull in the carnage. “You truly have it bad, don’t you? You’re vibrating.”
“I’m simply—invested in the match,” you ground out, refusing to look away from the green-and-silver blur circling the hoops.
“You’re invested in him,” she corrected, a smirk playing on her lips that was equal parts amused and knowing. “It’s a bit pathetic, really. But I suppose he deserves someone who watches him with that level of frantic devotion.”
Whatever biting retort you were preparing to mount was violently incinerated by the roar of the crowd. A deafening, earth-shaking thunder erupted from the Slytherin stands as Jaemin executed a barrel roll that seemed aerodynamically possible, slamming the Quaffle through the center hoop.
Slytherin dominated the match with embarrassing efficiency, their Chasers running rings around Ravenclaw’s defense, and Jaemin in particular seemed determined to make a personal statement. Then their Seeker caught the Snitch about an hour into the match, ending things decisively. The moment it was over, the Slytherin section erupted in celebration, and before you quite knew what was happening, people were pouring onto the pitch.
“Come on!” Giselle grabbed your hand, pulling you along with the crowd. “We’re going down!”
You let yourself be dragged down to the pitch, caught up in the excitement. The Slytherin team had barely landed when they were being mobbed by supporters, everyone screaming and hugging and celebrating.
You were just trying to stay upright and not get trampled, when suddenly hands grabbed your waist and you were being lifted, spun around, and then you were looking directly into Jaemin’s face.
He was sweaty, and disheveled, and grinning so wide it looked like it might hurt his cheeks.
“We won,” he said, as if you might not have noticed.
“I saw,” you said, laughing despite yourself. “You were brilliant.”
“You wore green,” he said breathlessly. “You actually wore green for me.”
“Of course I did. I’m your—”
You didn’t get to finish the sentence, because he kissed you.
He kissed you like you were the only two people there, like he’d been waiting all day to do this, like winning the match was secondary to getting to kiss you. His hands cupped your face, angling your head to deepen the kiss, and you forgot about everything except the feeling of his mouth on yours.
People were cheering. You could hear them, distant and muffled, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care. You just kissed him back, your hands fisting in his Quidditch robes to pull him impossibly closer.
When he finally pulled back, you were both breathing hard. “That—” Jaemin said, thumbing sweat and hair from your cheek, “was the best part of the whole day. Actually, my entire bloody year.”
He kissed you again, quick and fierce, before setting you down.
The chaos of the pitch threatened to sweep you up—Haechan was flying mockingly around the dazed Ravenclaw Keeper, who looked two seconds away from swearing off Quidditch forever. Jeno was being hoisted onto someone’s shoulders while holding the Cup, still in his gear, a lopsided grin plastered across his face as a small army of younger Slytherins began a chant.
You barely had time to process anything before a dozen Slytherin hands were clapping you on the back, dragging you into the noisy throng. Jeno slung an arm around your shoulder, while Haechan bowed with the sort of exaggerated flourish only he could get away with.
“Oi, Y/N! You’re practically the Slytherin mascot at this point,” Haechan crowed, earning a fresh round of chanting. Jeno nodded and said, “We’ll need you at every match. Jaemin plays like he’s got something to prove when you’re here.”
Jaemin slipped an arm over your shoulders, fitting himself between you and Jeno. It wasn’t the casual sort of touch affectionate boyfriend would do but rather the kind of grip that signaled territorial intent, both “look at me” and “hands off, Lee Jeno.” Jeno raised his brows, smirked, and stepped back with a dramatic sigh as if to say, “I know when I’ve been outmaneuvered.”
Jaemin lead you out of the crush, across the pitch, past the green-robed ruck of his teammates still shrieking and high-fiving each other senseless.
You found yourselves in the lee of the stands, momentarily invisible to the hooting masses. Jaemin bent over, hands braced on his knees, still catching his breath. The flushed tips of his ears glowed through sweated hair, and when he looked up at you, his eyes were shining, open, utterly unguarded.
“I’m sorry if that was too much,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “We agreed—no more public spectacles.” He grinned, sheepish and shameless at once.
You laughed. “That was entirely your fault. You were the one who just put on a whole air show out there.”
“Had to impress you,” he said, then he straightened, hands on your hips. “Did it work?”
The question was clearly rhetorical, but Jaemin’s voice always lilted up at the end, as if the answer mattered even if he already knew it. Your heart did the embarrassing somersault you’d tried to train it out of, and you could only nod, which made him gloat without mercy.
“Good,” he said, and tugged you in for another kiss, backgrounded by the muffled roar of the stadium and the granular crunch of pebbles underfoot.
Suddenly a broomstick whirred to a stop nearby and Jaemin loosened his grip on you, letting you sway back ever so slightly. You barely had time to school your features before Madam Hooch’s voice rang out.
“Na, what in Merlin’s name do you think you’re doing back here?” She hovered just above, her yellow hawk’s eyes narrowing as she took in the flush on your cheeks and the state of your hair. “This isn’t the broom shed, though you two seem determined to treat it as one. Save the snogging for after hours—if you must.”
A mortifying heat swept up your neck. Jaemin simply grinned at her. “Just appreciating my good luck charm, Professor.”
Madam Hooch sniffed, unimpressed. “If you’re quite finished, the rest of the team would like their Chaser back for the cup photo.”
She fixed you both with one last look that could have stripped paint from the stadium, then gestured briskly for Jaemin to join the others.
He shot you a look over his shoulder, and winked “I’ll meet you in a bit for the celebration”
As the door to the Slytherin common room opened, you were met with an emerald-hued wonderland teeming with giddy, flushed-faced revelers. It was like being inside a shaken bottle of champagne, the air practically fizzing with elation and an infectious sort of glee.
Despite wearing green, you felt distinctly out of place. Like a single rose petal that had somehow fluttered its way into a bouquet of silver-tipped ferns. But Jaemin’s hand was warm and sure in yours.
“Stick close,” he murmured. “Wouldn’t want you to get lost in this snake pit.”
“And here I thought you’d be eager to feed me to your housemates. Y’know, as a victory sacrifice.”
Jaemin’s laugh was a rich, dark thing, like molten chocolate. “Tempting. But I think I’ll keep you to myself a bit longer.”
The wicked glint of his gaze as he said those words made heat rush to your cheeks. But before you could think much of it, you were swept up in a whirlwind of backslaps and high fives, the team descending upon their star Chaser in a giddy mass of sweat-damp robes and Firewhisky-fueled cheer.
You found yourself passed from embrace to embrace, your hair mussed and your face peppered with exuberant kisses. It was overwhelming, dizzying, this sudden immersion into the tight-knit camaraderie of Jaemin’s world.
But through it all, his gaze never left you. Even as he was jostled and jolted by his teammates, his eyes remained locked on yours, a searing, steady connection that made your pulse stutter and your knees go curiously weak.
As the night wore on and the festivities showed no sign of waning, you found yourself gravitating closer and closer to Jaemin, drawn by some irresistible magnetism. The heat of so many bodies packed into the subterranean space, the buzz of one too many Butterbeers, the maddening drag of his fingers along the small of your back as he steered you through the crowd…it was all blurring together into a delicious haze.
And then you looked up at him in a sudden moment of perfect clarity amidst the chaos, and everything else simply…fell away. The noise, the crush of bodies, the very air seemed to shimmer and warp, narrowing down to the electric pulse of connection stretching taut between you.
In that suspended sliver of time, you knew with bone-deep certainty that there was no going back. No more pretending, no more lines in the sand. There was only this, only him, only the truth of what had been building between you from the moment this mad charade began.
You crashed together like colliding stars, mouths and hands and hearts falling into desperate alignment. Jaemin kissed like a man possessed, like he wanted to crawl inside your skin and make a home there, and you matched him beat for beat, pouring months of pent-up longing and frustration and fierce, helpless wanting into the slant of your lips against his.
When you finally surfaced, gasping and glassy-eyed, Jaemin’s face swam into focus, his usually sharp features softened by a look of tenderness.
“Come with me,” he said, his voice a rasping, wrecked thing.
You could only nod, mute and dizzy with want, and let him lead you out of the common room and into the labyrinthine tangle of the dungeon corridors. You walked in silence, the only sound the ragged counterpoint of your breathing and the distant, muffled thump of music.
When he stopped at a stretch of unremarkable wall and began to pace, you knew with a jolt where he was taking you to The Room of Requirement.
Where else would one go to tumble headlong into inadvisable, paradigm-shifting passion?
Jaemin reached for the handle, but then he turned to you with a question in his eyes and an uncharacteristic hesitance in the set of his shoulders…you knew that stepping over this threshold would change everything.
“Y/N,” he said, and there was a whole universe of unspoken things layered into the shape of your name. “Are you sure…?”
“Jaemin,” you said. “Kiss me.”
In the next instant, his lips were on yours again, and you stumbled backward as the hidden door swung open. You didn’t spare a glance for the room that bloomed before you. Couldn’t focus on anything beyond the heat of Jaemin’s body against yours, the desperate, reverent drag of his hands over your curves. The room could’ve been an empty Quidditch pitch, for all you cared.
Every romance you’d ever read and even scoffed at came to life in that moment—the world receding, time slowing to a molasses crawl. There was only sensation, only feeling, only the drugging slide of his lips along your jaw, your throat, the dip of your collarbone.
Your pulse was fucking riotous. You’d talked yourself into this, hadn’t you? Marched up here on legs so wobbly you could’ve blamed the many stairs, convinced yourself you could handle it because it was Jaemin.
His calloused hands roamed with urgent purpose, fingers digging into your hips as he backed you against the nearest wall. He broke the kiss only to yank your shirt over your head, tossing it aside without a second thought. You immediately turned to flame when his gaze tracked all over you. From your swollen lips, to your flushed cheeks, down to the way your chest stuttered with every shaky breath. His hands found your jaw. Steady, so steady.
“We can stop whenever you want to.” he murmured against your ear.
You managed a nod because your speech simply wasn’t coming. Every nerve was pulled taut with both anticipation and terror at the realization of what you were about to do for the first time in your life.
His fingers unclasped your bra carefully, and when the straps slid down your arms, you tried to fold into yourself, awkward and too aware of skin and imperfections. Jaemin’s eyes caught yours; they were dark but promising patience even as he bent to take your nipple in his mouth.
You arched into him, a gasp escaping as his teeth grazed your nipple. “Jaemin,” you breathed, threading your fingers through his hair to hold him there.
He growled low in his throat, the sound vibrating against your skin. His hand cupped your other breast, thumb rolling the nipple between his fingers, pinching just hard enough to send sparks of pleasure-pain shooting straight to your core. You’d never been touched like this before. There’d been secret snogs, awkward fumbles in broom closets that had never gone further than shirt buttons, never left you feeling more than flustered and underwhelmed. This was different.
Your body reacted in ways you hadn’t expected, hips twitching, thighs pressing together, the ache between your legs suddenly urgent and embarrassingly obvious. You could feel yourself clenching around nothing desperately. The sensation was almost alien, and you had to fight the impulse to cover yourself, to pull his hand away and to say wait, let me catch up.
Thoughts scattered in all directions. Was it supposed to feel this good? Did he know how much you were trembling? Could he tell this was your first time? Did he care? Did it matter? You worried you might be doing it wrong by making too much noise, arching too eagerly into his hands, looking foolish and overeager. But his gaze fixed on you, pupils blown, jaw tight with want.
He suddenly straightened, fingers smoothing back the hair from your face. “Hey,” His voice was softer than you’d ever heard it. “Still with me?”
You nodded, a little wild-eyed. “I—yeah. Sorry. I just—” You swallowed, eyes locking on the bland pattern of the carpet. “I haven’t…”
When you looked back up, his eyes flashed with a kind of darker satisfaction. “I know,” he murmured. “I thought so.” His hands slid down your waist. “We’ll go as slow as you need.”
You responded by tugging at his shirt, nails scraping against the hem until he chuckled low in his throat and let you have your way. He pulled back just long enough to strip it off, revealing the lean, muscled planes of his chest and abs. His sun-tanned skin bore the faint ghosts of bruises from Quidditch, a testament to the fact that he played rough today.
You stared shamelessly, hands twitching at your sides, before you finally gave in and mapped every line with your fingertips. The kiss that came next was messier, his tongue thrusting into your mouth in a rhythm that promised what was to come.
Jaemin's fingers worked at the button of your trousers, and you remembered with mortification that your knickers did not match your bra. Cool air hit your bare skin, but his body heat chased it away as he pressed closer, his clothed erection grinding against your thigh. You could feel how hard he was, the thick length straining against his trousers.
“Fuck, Y/N,” he murmured against your lips, voice rough with desire. “I've wanted this for so long.” His hand slid between your legs, fingers parting your folds to find you already slick. He groaned at the discovery, circling your clit with his thumb while a finger pushed inside you, drawing out tiny sparks of pleasure. Hehen he slipped two fingers inside, your hips jerked in startled delight. He moved slow at first, letting you get used to the stretch, his other hand splayed over your hip, grounding you, steadying you.
You moaned, hips bucking into his hand as he pumped his fingers in and out, stretching you, preparing you. The wet sounds of your arousal filled the room, mingling with your ragged breaths. He added a third finger, scissoring them to open you wider, his thumb pressing firmer on your clit until you were trembling, on the edge.
“Merlin, remind me to–… to read a book on this before next time,” you blurted breathlessly.
Jaemin stilled, and for a second, you wondered if you’d killed the mood entirely. But then his mouth curved into a wolfish grin, and he pressed a slow kiss to your cheek, trailing down the line of your jaw.
“Oh, I think you’re doing just fine,” he murmured, voice gone gravelly. “But if you want me to demonstrate…”
He kissed a path down your throat, across your collarbones, pausing to worship each new inch of skin revealed. It seemed like there was no part of you he didn’t want to learn. When his lips brushed the top of your breast, you gasped, the joke you’d been about to make dying on your tongue.
“Jaemin—what are you—?”
“Trust me,”
You whimpered in protest, but he silenced you with a kiss, guiding you toward the bed. He stripped off his own pants and boxers, his cock springing free, long and thick, the tip glistening with pre-cum. Your eyes locked on it, pulse racing at the sight.
He pushed you down onto the soft sheets, following you immediately until his body was covering yours. His mouth trailed lower, kissing a path down your stomach to the apex of your thighs. He spread your legs wide, settling between them, and looked up at you with eyes dark with hunger. “I need to taste you.”
“Wait—” you started, nerves rearing again.
He glanced up. “I promise you’ll like this.”
Then his tongue flicked out, lapping at your core in one long stroke, and the sound you made barely qualified as human. He sucked your clit into his mouth, alternating with broad licks along your slit, his fingers returning to thrust inside you. The combination of his relentless tongue and his fingers fucking you deep and steady was overwhelming.
“Okay, wow, that’s—oh—bloody hell—”
Right. So. That was new.
In fairness, you thought you were reasonably experienced. You had been alone with yourself often enough. You knew what you liked, had your own routines abd methods. A careful system involving muffled pillows, and a great deal of optimistic trial and error.
This was definitely not that.
This was like discovering you’d been trying to play a symphony on a recorder and Jaemin had just sat down at a grand piano and casually dismantled your entire understanding of music.
Your hips rolled against his face instinctively, chasing the building pleasure. He held you down with one arm across your waist, not letting you escape the onslaught. You gasped, the coil in your belly tightening unbearably.
“Jaemin,” you gasped. “Please—”
You weren’t entirely sure what you were asking for.
For him to stop. For him to continue. For him to explain how this was happening. For him to never leave this exact position.
Suddenly he added a finger, and wow…. that was certainly not how it felt when you did it. It probably had to do with the fact that his fingers were way longer and he seemed to know what to do with them.
He hummed against you, the vibration along with his tongue and fingers enough to push you over. Your orgasm crashed through you and you clenched around his fingers as waves of pleasure ripped you apart. He didn't stop, licking you through it until you were shaking, oversensitive and boneless.
Only then did he rise, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and dumb smirk on his lips. “How was that?”
He looked far too smug for your liking, and you—who had spent years pretending to be unflappable—actually giggled. Like a third year after her first Butterbeer.
“It was—” Your cheeks burned. “Brilliant.”
His smile widened. “Alright. Just one more thing before we…” He trailed his wand through a complicated motion. The tip shimmered blue, a faint ring of light settling across your pelvis.
He caught your eye. “Contraceptive charm. Unless you’d rather I hexed my own bollocks off instead, but I hear Madam Pomfrey’s got enough on her hands.”
Another nervous laugh broke from your lips, but Jaemin just pressed a reassuring hand to your thigh and leaned in.
“Tell me to stop if you want to. I mean it.”
You shook your head, want eclipsing every doubt you had. “I want to,” you said, the words tumbling out so fast they nearly tripped over themselves. “I want you.”
Jaemin lined himself up and watched your face as he eased forward slowly. The stretch stung at first—your body fighting to accommodate the unfamiliar width. It hurt more than you’d expected.
Your walls stretched, burning, fluttering around him, the ache gradually giving way to a dizzying pressure as he bottomed out. He stayed perfectly still, forehead resting against yours, both of you shuddering through the intensity of it.
“Alright?” Jaemin asked thickly, as if it cost him everything not to move. A low groan escaped him as your inner muscles clenched involuntarily around his cock, the sensation clearly testing his control.
“Yeah, it’s just… a lot,” you admitted, your breath hitching.
He let out a soft, breathy laugh, his hips twitching slightly despite his efforts to stay still. “Yeah, I know. I’m quite big.” The joke pulled a surprised giggle from you, the tension in your chest easing just a fraction. His eyes crinkled with warmth at the sight.
“You feel so fucking good,” he murmured, a whimper threading through his words, his fingers digging into the sheets beside your head. “It—it’s taking everything not to just pound into you right now.”
He was flushed, hair damp with sweat, the strands sticking adorably to his brow and temples. His cheeks were tinged rose-pink, his jaw clenched tight as if the effort of holding himself back was an actual battle. His lips, swollen from kissing you, parted as he panted, every exhale ghosting warm across your face. A single bead of sweat trickled from his hairline, skimming down to the curve of his cheekbone. You couldn’t help but reach up, tracing it with a shaky finger. He caught your hand, pressing his lips to your palm, and the heat of it nearly undid you.
You’d never seen him look more beautiful. All that cockiness and swagger stripped away. This was just Jaemin, undone, desperate, trying to be gentle for your sake and barely managing.
A sudden warmth loosened in your chest, chasing away the last of your tension. You wanted this. The pain ebbed slowly, replaced by a deeper need. You shifted beneath him, hips rolling tentatively, and found the sting softened, yielding to a heady pleasure that made your toes curl.
“Merlin,” Jaemin groaned in response.
You squeezed your eyes shut for a moment, focusing on the sensations: the fullness, the way your inner muscles clenched involuntarily around him, sending little sparks of warmth across your body. Your hands roamed his back, feeling the tense muscles under your fingertips, and you whispered, “Please Jaem, move.”
Jaemin pulled back slightly, just an inch or two, and pushed in again slowly. A deep groan rumbled from his chest at the drag, his eyes fluttering shut for a second. “Shit… so good,” he panted.
The motion made you gasp, the initial burn fading into a building warmth. He repeated it, shallow at first, giving your body time to adapt. Each gentle thrust coaxed a soft whimper from your throat, your nerves firing in ways you’d never imagined. It wasn’t seamless or effortless like in the stories you’d read; there were awkward pauses, a slight shift when he slipped a bit, both of you chuckling breathlessly to ease the tension.
Then he started moving faster, pulling out almost all the way before thrusting back in. Each stroke hit a perfect angle, his hips grinding against your clit with every push. You wrapped your legs around his waist, pulling him closer, nails digging into his shoulders as he fucked you harder.
The bed creaked under the force of his thrusts, skin slapping against skin. Jaemin's hand found yours, lacing your fingers together as he drove into you, his eyes never leaving yours. There was tenderness in the way he held you, even as his pace turned brutal, chasing release.
“You’re doing so well, princess,” he murmured, brushing your temple.”
A jolt of pleasure shot through you as the head of his cock nudged a spot that made your breath hitch. “There… right there,” you breathed, your voice shaky but sure.
Jaemin laced his fingers with yours, pinning your hand above your head gently. His eyes bored into yours. “I’ve wanted this for so long,” he confessed between thrusts, voice punctuated by a whimper as your walls gripped him.
“Me too,” you breathed..
He released your hand to slip between your bodies, fingers finding your clit with unerring accuracy. He circled it slowly at first, matching the tempo of his hips, then faster as your moans grew louder. “Come on, let go for me… you’re so close, I can feel it,” he urged, his own groans growing more frequent.
The added friction shattered you. Your orgasm built fast, coiling tight before exploding, your walls fluttering around his cock, milking him.
He followed you over the edge with a broken cry muffled against your neck, burying himself deep as he came. He collapsed onto you afterward, both of you panting, hearts pounding in that particular post-coital unison that poets find romantic and medical professionals find concerning. He stayed inside you as he softened, pressing kisses to your temple, your cheek, the corner of your mouth.
You lay tangled in Jaemin's arms, limbs pleasantly loose from exertion and spine somewhat less pleasantly compressed by the world's most questionable mattress.
The Room of Requirement, in its infinite wisdom, had conjured a heap of velvet blankets to cover yourself with. You suspected Hogwarts's taste in romantic furnishings had been shaped by decades of adolescent fantasy and the castle's own flair for the dramatic. Regardless, your back ached, your hair was a catastrophe, and you found that you didn't mind at all.
Jaemin, for his part, seemed content to lounge beside you like a Renaissance painting of decadent youth, one hand idly tracing the curve of your hip beneath the sheet. It was all terribly calm—if you ignored the thunderous panic building in your own chest.
You propped yourself up on one elbow and regarded him in the low light. In repose, the sharp edges of him softened into something almost approachable. You'd always been rather undone by his eyes, if you were being honest, but now, seeing them half-lidded and so unguarded, the usual sardonic glitter banked to embers, you felt something dangerous clawing its way up your throat.
Don't, warned the sensible part of your brain. Don't you dare.
"I love you," you said.
The words escaped before you had a chance to wrap them in plausible deniability or cushion them with caveats.
Jaemin went very still.
For one absurd, hopeful moment, you thought perhaps he simply needed a second to process. That was reasonable, wasn't it? People usually needed time to absorb emotional declarations. Any moment now, he'd turn to you with that devastating smile and say—
He rolled away. Sat up. And began an unhurried search for his shirt, which had vanished somewhere beneath the bed during earlier, more optimistic proceedings.
Ah.
Ah.
"Jaemin?" you ventured. Your voice sounded strange to your own ears.
He didn't turn around. His shoulders, you noticed, had gone rather tense. "It's getting late. We should probably head back to our dormitories."
Your heart, so stupidly full just moments ago, plummeted somewhere in the vicinity of your stomach. "What?"
"It's late," he repeated, to the floor, or perhaps to the shirt he'd finally located. "We have classes tomorrow. We should get some sleep."
You felt as though someone had upended a bucket of ice water directly over your head. You sat up, pulling the sheet around yourself with hands that had begun, rather inconveniently, to tremble. You'd been pleasantly naked in front of him not five minutes ago, and now you couldn't bear the exposure.
"Jaemin." You hated how small your voice had become. "Did you hear what I said?"
He finally looked at you. His expression had shuttered completely, all the warmth and softness of moments ago locked away behind those dark eyes.
"I heard you."
"And?"
He exhaled. "This... what we just did... it doesn't change anything." A pause. "We had an arrangement. A deal. It was never supposed to be more than that."
The silence that followed was the loudest thing you'd ever heard.
You stared at him, vision blurring treacherously at the edges, and thought: of course. Of course he didn't love you back. How could he? You were merely a solution to a problem. The fact that you'd been foolish enough to fall for your own charade—well. That was your fault entirely, wasn't it? No one to blame but yourself and your own ridiculous heart.
"Right," you heard yourself say. "Of course. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—that was too—I'm sorry."
"Y/N..." He reached for you, and you flinched away so sharply you nearly toppled off the bed.
"No, it's fine." Your voice had gone brittle, the way it did when you were trying very hard not to cry. "You're absolutely right. We should go."
You stood on shaky legs and began gathering your scattered clothes with trembling hands. Your jumper had ended up draped over a candelabra, and you couldn't find your left sock, but you decided that you didn't care. You needed to leave. You needed to be anywhere but this room that had witnessed your greatest vulnerability and your most thorough humiliation.
Jaemin dressed in silence. His movements were impersonal, as if the tender lover of minutes ago was replaced entirely by a distant stranger pulling on his trousers like this was simply another Tuesday. Perhaps, for him, it was.
When you were both clothed, he cleared his throat.
"I'll walk you back to—"
"I can manage," you interrupted, shoving your only gracelessly into your back pocket.
His jaw worked, as though he were chewing over some final, unsatisfying thought. You found you didn't want to hear it.
"Goodnight, Y/N," he said finally.
You didn't answer. You turned on your heel, crossed to the door, and walked out of the Room of Requirement with your chin held high and your heart in approximately seventeen thousand pieces, wishing desperately for a Time-Turner and the sense to use it.
You walked back to Gryffindor Tower in a daze, barely registering your surroundings. Your mind was reeling, trying to process the abrupt shift from blissful intimacy to cold rejection. You stumbled through the portrait hole, ignoring the Fat Lady's concerned look. Thankfully, the common room was empty at this hour. You stood there for a long moment, staring into the dying flames, feeling the weight of your own foolishness pressing down on you.
You'd let yourself imagine it, hadn't you? A future where this thing between you and Jaemin was something real. Something that would survive the end of your little arrangement, that would unfold into late-night conversations and stolen kisses in corridors and his hand finding yours under the table at breakfast. You'd let yourself believe it so thoroughly that you'd forgotten it was never true to begin with.
And now you were left with nothing but the cold truth and the aching space in your chest where your heart used to be.
A beautiful lie. A fairy tale you'd spun for yourself, heedless of the inevitable unhappy ending that had been written into the story from the very first page.
And now you were alone in an empty common room at half past midnight, with nothing but the cold truth and the aching, echoing space in your chest where your heart used to be.
"Y/N? Is that you?"
You turned to see Jo descending from the dormitories. She was in her pajamas, hair piled in a messy bun, face still creased with sleep. But the moment she saw you properly, whatever drowsy inquiry she'd been planning died on her lips.
Her eyes went wide. Understanding flooded her features, followed swiftly by something fierce and protective.
"Oh, love," she breathed, and crossed the room in three quick strides to pull you into her arms. "Oh, no. What happened? What did he do?"
And that was all it took. The dam broke, and suddenly you were sobbing into her shoulder, great heaving gasps that shook your whole body. She held you tightly, stroking your hair, murmuring soothing nonsense as you cried.
"I t-told him I l-loved him," you managed between sobs. "And he... he just..."
"Shh, I've got you. Breathe."
"He said it didn’t change anything." You choked on the words. "That it was never supposed to be more than that. And I just—I stood there like an idiot—"
"You're not an idiot." Her arms tightened around you. "You're not. He's the idiot. He's a complete and utter prat, and I'm going to hex his bollocks off, see if I don't—"
A small, inquisitive mrrp interrupted the proceedings.
You both looked down. Whiskers had appeared from somewhere behind the sofa. He blinked up at you with large, knowing eyes, then began weaving between your ankles with pointed determination.
"Oh, Whiskers," Jo murmured. "Good boy. You tell her."
The cat, apparently agreeing that emotional support was required, rose up on his hind legs to bump his head against your knee. When that failed to produce adequate acknowledgment, he meowed again and began climbing your leg in pursuit of a better vantage point.
You laughed, it came out watery and hiccupping and rather awful, but it was a laugh nonetheless.
"See? He thinks Jaemin's a prat, too." Jo said solemnly, scooping Whiskers up and depositing him into the narrow space between you both. The cat immediately began purring and butted his head against your chin.
You wiped your eyes with the back of your hand, still trembling. "I feel so stupid, Jo. I knew this was how it would end. I knew from the beginning it wasn't real, and I just—I let myself—"
"Hey." Jo pulled back to look at you properly. "Falling in love isn't stupid. It's brave. Even when it's messy and terrifying and the other person is a monumental coward who doesn't deserve you."
"He's not…"
"He is." Her voice brooked no argument. "Anyone who looks at you the way he does and then pretends it's nothing? That's cowardice. That's someone too scared to admit what they feel, so they make you feel like you’re imagining it instead."
You opened your mouth to protest, because surely it wasn't like that, surely you'd simply misread everything, surely the fault was yours for wanting too much, but Jo cut you off.
"No. Don't do that. Don't even try to make excuses for him." She softened, just slightly. "I know you love him. And I know that doesn't just... switch off. But you deserve someone brave enough to love you back out loud, yeah?"
A fresh wave of tears came, because she was right. You did deserve that. And you’d thought, for a few perfect hours, that maybe you’d had it.
“I really thought he—” You couldn’t finish.
“I know.” Her voice was gentle. “I know you did. And maybe he does, somewhere under all that stupid hair. But maybe isn’t good enough.”
You pressed your face into Whiskers’s fur, trying to breathe through the ache in your chest.
"Right," she continued. "Here's what's going to happen. You're going to sit here, and you're going to let Whiskers work his magic, and you're going to cry as much as you need to. And tomorrow, we're going to eat an absolutely obscene amount of chocolate at breakfast, and you're going to ignore Na Jaemin so thoroughly he'll wonder if he's gone invisible. And if he tries to talk to you, I'll hex him. I’ve gotten really good at Bat-Bogeys."
"Jo, you will get detention."
"I don't care," she wasn't smiling anymore. "No one gets to make you feel like this and walk away unscathed. Not while I'm around."
You leaned into her, letting your head drop against her shoulder. Whiskers purred on.
"I really love him," you whispered. "Even after tonight. How pathetic is that?"
"It's not pathetic at all." Jo's voice caressed your heard, all the protective fury banked into comfort. "Love just doesn't care about timing, or logic, or whether the other person deserves it. It just is." A pause. "And for what it's worth? I don't think he's as unaffected as he's pretending to be. I've seen the way he looks at you when he thinks no one's watching."
You didn't answer. You weren't sure you believed her at all, to be honest. But you let her hold you, let Whiskers purr and let the fire burn down to ash while the ache in your chest slowly, slowly dulled to something almost bearable.
Jaemin had never felt more like a prat in his entire life.
No—that wasn't quite accurate. Prat implied mild social incompetence. A tendency to say the wrong thing at dinner parties, forgetting birthdays, laughing at funerals. The sort of harmless foolishness that people forgave with a fond eye-roll and a muttered oh, that's just Jaemin.
What he had done went rather spectacularly beyond that.
He had taken something fragile and rare, something most people spent their entire lives hoping to stumble across, and placed it directly under his own boot. Deliberately. With malice aforethought, or at least malice afore-panic, which hardly seemed better.
He had watched you gather every ounce of courage you possessed. Had felt you trembling against him, breath shallow, voice catching on the edges of words you clearly hadn't planned to say. You had offered him something honest and unguarded and terrifying in its vulnerability, and he had responded by retreating behind technicalities and arrangements like a child hiding behind a curtain and insisting, with full conviction, that he was invisible.
We had a deal.
God. He wanted to reach back in time and throttle himself.
It was never supposed to be more than that.
What a thing to say. What an absolute masterwork of emotional cowardice, delivered with the sort of cool detachment that would've made his father proud. He could practically hear the old man now: Well done, son. Keep them at arm's length. Never let them see you bleed.
Coward.
That was the word. The only word that fit.
A coward with decent grades and a Quidditch record impressive enough to distract people from the fact that, emotionally, he possessed all the sophistication of a flobberworm. Less, actually. Flobberworms at least had the excuse of being invertebrates.
He replayed it in his head for the forty-seventh time that hour, the way your voice had softened when you said it. I love you. Three words, plain and graceles, tumbling out like they'd escaped against your will.
The way your fingers had curled into the sheets as if bracing for impact. The tiny pause afterward—that breath of suspended time where you had waited for him to meet you there.
And he hadn't.
He had stood on the very edge of everything he'd wanted for six years—six years, which was roughly forty percent of his entire existence and one hundred percent of his adolescence—and he had convinced himself that stepping forward was more dangerous than falling back.
He had finally kissed the girl who'd haunted his thoughts since he was eleven years old and too stupid to understand why her insults made his chest feel strange. He had finally heard you say you loved him out loud, to his face, with your whole heart in your voice.
And instead of recognizing it for the bloody miracle it was, he had panicked.
As though being loved were a trap. As though affection were some elaborate con, and you were merely waiting for the right moment to spring it.
As though you, of all people—brilliant, stubborn, infuriatingly principled you—were something he needed protecting from rather than running toward.
He laughed under his breath. The sound came out thin and joyless, startling in the empty corridor.
Afraid of being loved.
What a stupid thing to be afraid of. It ranked right up there with afraid of winning the Quidditch Cup or afraid of someone handing you precisely what you've desperately wanted and asking nothing in return.
He had spent years wanting your attention.
Years engineering excuses to speak to you, picking fights in the corridors because negative attention was still attention, stealing your quills, hexing your textbooks, memorizing your class schedule so he could accidentally-on-purpose cross your path between classes.
He had told himself this behavior came from an innocent rivalry or perhaps even house pride, just the natural antagonism between Slytherin ambition and Gryffindor recklessness.
He had watched you from across the Great Hall, the way you laughed with Jo, the way you chewed your quill when you were thinking, the way the light caught your hair in the morning, and convinced himself it was harmless curiosity. Academic interest. The detached observation of a worthy opponent.
What a spectacular amount of bollocks he had fed himself.
He had wanted you persistently. Recklessly, in a way that would've horrified his younger self, who had been very committed to the aesthetic of cool indifference.
And when he finally had you, when you were warm and real and trusting in his arms, when you'd given yourself to him completely and then offered your heart on top of it like some undeserved gift—
He had recoiled.
Because being loved meant being seen.
It meant showing up. Being present. Letting someone witness all the parts of himself he usually kept buried under six layers of charm and sarcasm and ambition. It meant responsibility. Knowing that someone else's happiness was now tangled up in his own choices, his own failures, his own capacity to be something more than the sum of his defense mechanisms.
He had spent years telling himself he was being sensible.
Protecting people, he'd called it. Keeping them safe. As though his emotional unavailability were some sort of public service, a kindness he performed by keeping parts of himself locked away where they couldn't do damage.
He lived by three rules: feelings were liabilities, distance was safety, and caring too much was the fastest way to hand someone a weapon and hope they didn't use it.
It had been easy to believe that, growing up in a house where affection came with conditions and approval came with expectations. Where love had always been something that could be revoked at any moment—a privilege, not a given. A reward for good behavior, withdrawn the instant you failed to meet the mark.
So he'd learned early how to ration himself. How to care quietly, in ways that couldn't be measured or weaponised. How to want without asking. How to feel without admitting it, even to himself.
And it had worked. For years, it had worked.
He had been fine. Perfectly content in his carefully constructed fortress of emotional self-sufficiency.
Until you.
You, who had looked at his defenses not as walls to be respected but to be climbed. Who had called him out on his nonsense and refused to be impressed by his posturing and seen through him with a clarity that terrified him.
You had dismantled his entire system without even trying.
And now you were crying in the Gryffindor common room, probably being comforted by Jo who rightfully thought he was the worst sort of person, while he stood alone in a dark corridor with nothing but the wreckage of his own making for company.
He pressed his palm flat to his chest, as if he might physically restrain the ache there.
It didn't work. The ache remained, steady and insistent, a bruise that seemed to pulse in time with his heartbeat. He had been given exactly what he wanted and he had thrown it away because he didn't believe he was allowed to keep it.
Because somewhere deep in the foundations of himself, in all the places his parents' voices still echoed, he had decided that love was not something people like him got to have. Not permanently. That wanting something too much was the surest way to lose it, and the safest course was to let go before it could be taken.
He had pre-empted his own heartbreak.
And in doing so, he had guaranteed it.
The realization settled over him slowly, and Na Jaemin—Slytherin Prefect, Quidditch star, heir to a name that opened doors across the wizarding world—had never felt more utterly, unforgivably small.
He thought of you, somewhere in Gryffindor Tower, believing you had been foolish to love him.
And he thought: No.
The only fool here is me.
He spent the next few days turning it over. You saying those three words and him saying it didn’t change anything. What a lie. It changed everything and he could feel every new fault line spider out beneath his feet, threatening to split him open.
At first, he tried to convince himself he needed this: to have the edge. He thought of the next two weeks as a sprint, a countdown to the end of the deal, a chance to reset before anyone saw how scrambled he’d become. But the more he tried to hold that line, the more he found himself drifting. A wordless longing in his veins, a kind of hunger not easily starved out.
He looked like hell at breakfast. Sungchan greeted him with a commence-the-mocking whistle and immediately began recounting every detail of the party—especially the part where Jaemin had “dragged his girlfriend off like the end of a Victorian bodice-ripper and nobody saw either of them again until morning.”
Jaemin grunted in response. He’d hoped that the Slytherin table’s perpetual ruckus would drown out his mood, but word had apparently traveled at broomstick speed that he and his Gryffindor paramour had disappeared into the night and returned separately.
“Did you see Y/N?” Giselle asked, low-voiced as she slid onto the bench next to him. “She didn’t come down yet. Jo said something about a headache, but you know what that usually means.”
Jaemin played dumb. It was one of his most reliable talents. “Hangover?”
Giselle’s lips thinned into an unimpressed line. “Try again.”
He almost managed a laugh. “What, mid-semester flu, then?”
Changmin leaned across the table to whack him on the forearm. “Knock it off. You know what she means.”
For a second, Jaemin's lip curled with the beginning of a sneer. Then he caught the genuine concern in Changmin's eyes, and something in his chest constricted painfully. He knew he was being intolerable, but couldn't seem to stop himself. Besides, when had his friends developed this sudden interest in your wellbeing? Just weeks ago, they'd barely concealed their disdain whenever your name came up.
He shrugged. “Didn’t realize you lot were so invested in her.”
Sungchan, mouth full of toast, said, “Are you thick? She’s basically our in-law now.”
Giselle, who had never in her life let a moment of vulnerability pass unremarked, pinned him with a look sharp enough to cut. “Stop pretending you don’t care,” she said quietly. “It’s pathetic.”
Jaemin tried to brush it off, but her words dug in. The table fell into a brief, uncharacteristic silence, broken only by the scrape of utensils and the dull roar of the rest of the Hall. His eyes betrayed him, sweeping across the Great Hall in search of your face. It was four minutes to the start of first period when you appeared, rumpled as a stray leaflet, hair yanked into a bun with a quill, the red in your eyes unsoftened by any attempt to conceal it. You didn’t look in his direction. Not even once.
Jo steered you to a seat as far from the Slytherin table as possible, and for the first time in living memory, you didn’t have a book open with breakfast. You just sat there, picking at a single triangle of toast, the very opposite of the person he’d chased across the halls for half a decade.
He watched you, hating himself for it but unable to stop. Any moment now, you’d look up with a tiny smile and mouth, “What are you looking at?” and the axis of his world would correct itself by one degree. Instead, you slipped out before the first bell.
At least he was reliably consistent. Second period hadn't even started and Jaemin had orchestrated a trinity of fleeting, meticulously planned collisions. He'd spent the first break loitering by the Charms corridor, just to see your profile as you debated something with Jo. You never saw him. Or if you did, you made a point of acting as if he were invisible—a feat that, for someone as volatile as you, must have taken immense restraint. Still, his pulse hammered at the mere proximity, the knowledge that you occupied the same ten-meter radius.
Then, after Defense, he'd shadowed your route to the library, walking the long way around just so he could pass you by the statue of Dymphna the Dazed. He’d spent so many hours studying your gait, the bounce in your step, the way you always fiddled with your wand as you walked that he could predict, to the second, when you'd arrive at the oak doors. The actual moment was almost an anticlimax, though: You breezed right past, not even a flicker of recognition in your gaze.
By the time he wandered into the stacks of the Library, he’d convinced himself that running into you was serendipity and not the carefully plotted vector of a moth to its own funeral pyre. He saw you perched at the edge of a reading table, surrounded by towers of books and an aura of such prickly concentration that even Madam Pince hovered before daring to approach. He told himself he needed something from the Potions section, just adjacent to your fortress of solitude, but when you looked up and caught him standing there, he nearly dropped his armful of textbooks.
But you simply returned to your reading, jaw tight, quill moving in furious dashes. The rejection was as comprehensive as any hex, and it landed him two rows over, staring blankly at a shelf of moldy periodicals and trying to pretend his hands weren't shaking.
This was how the day went: Jaemin planning collisions, you dodging each one with exactness. He wondered if you knew you could destroy him just by looking his way.
You didn’t bite either way. You only spoke once to him, and it was to offer one brittle “Excuse me” as you slid past. He caught a whiff of your hair then and realized he’d missed that scent. It filled his head, left him dizzy. He didn’t turn around as you disappeared down the aisle. He only stood there, polysyllabic apologies crowding the back of his tongue—and not a single one fit to say aloud.
You knew the aftermath would be the hardest part, but nothing could’ve prepared you for the days that followed. They stretched out, elastic and punitive, filled with silences so loud you imagined they could split the castle at its seams.
In a fit of what you would later call “productive despair,” you doubled down on your schoolwork. Every study hour became a refuge, your textbooks a bulwark against thinking. Whiskers responded to your newly-acquired hermitage by laying siege to your lap at all hours, claws lightly sheathed, tail flicking in his sleep like he was chasing the very feelings you’d tried to outrun.
You became an expert at avoiding Jaemin. You timed your arrivals to classes, hung back until the corridors thinned, and made peace with the fact that every now and then, you’d have to let a Slytherin Prefect dock you house points for lateness. Sometimes it was even Jaemin himself; he’d hand you the slip with his eyes fixed somewhere behind your left ear.
Even the Slytherin first years who’d once delighted in blocking your path seemed to shrink away from the tableau, as if the story of your heartbreak had filtered down through the stone like cold water, softening even the nastiest traditions.
Jo, goddess among friends, never pressed. She introduced you to a new array of comfort snacks and developed a proprietary cocoa recipe that she claimed could “reanimate a troll.” She helped you with Charms and let you rant about nothing in particular. When you occasionally faltered—when your hand shook during practicals or you lost your place reading out loud in History of Magic—she’d bump your knee under the desk and say, “We’re almost there, kitten. Keep your chin up.”
You kept your chin up. It hurt but you did it, because Jo was watching, and because Whiskers was watching, and because you refused to let him have any more of your dignity than you’d already handed over.
Four days before the end of the arrangement, your N.E.W.Ts loomed like a darkening storm. You’d just finished revising for Arithmancy when Jo spoke, “We’re doing a girls’ night tonight. No arguments.” She produced two vials of Smuggler’s Pumpkin Spice Spirit (questionable provenance) and a deck of Exploding Snap. “And we’re inviting Yuna.”
You nearly choked. “Yuna?”
Jo nodded seriously. “I saw her crying in the North Tower last Tuesday. She needs it. We need it. Besides, she’s been relentlessly normal lately.”
The idea felt so surreal that you couldn’t bring yourself to object. At exactly ten, Yuna appeared outside your dormitory, balancing a tray of suspiciously glittery shot glasses. She wore pajamas patterned with tiny cats and a hesitant smile, both of which seemed calculated to defuse ancient hostilities.
The three of you sprawled on the floor of the dormitory. You, cross-legged and trying not to look like your entire emotional landscape was scorched earth; Jo, already red-cheeked and deploying her patented “I’m-not-drunk-you’re-drunk” strategy; and Yuna, who poured drinks for everyone.
The first round was vile. The second was marginally less vile, or perhaps your tongue had simply given up. After a few more, your nerves had been numbed enough that you no longer cared if anyone brought up the name “Jaemin”. Or maybe you wanted them to.
Eventually, Jo passed out. She did so with Whiskers pillowed on her belly and her arms flung overhead.Yuna watched her for a long, pensive moment. Then she poured each of you one last shot and raised hers in a slightly wobbly toast. “To stupid boys,” she said. “And to the girls surviving them.”
You clinked glasses. The spirit went down like molten pudding and settled somewhere near your spleen.
A companionable silence fell, the pleasant, boozy sort that felt safe enough to say things you would otherwise never let see daylight.
Yuna was the first to break it.
“He’s terrible at hiding it, you know,” she said. “Jaemin.”
You blinked. “What?”
“What he wants,” Yuna clarified. “It’s…not subtle.” She swirled her shot glass, watching the dregs coat the glassy bottom. “I think he makes things hard for himself, but harder for the people he cares about.” She flicked her gaze up. “And you must know. You’re the only one he’s ever actually cared about.”
You tried to laugh, but it came out flat. “I think you’re mixing up ‘care’ with ‘use as a convenient shield for his own problems.’”
Yuna’s expression shifted to puzzled. “Convenient shield?”
You blinked at her, a little dizzy, a little stunned that Yuna, one of Slytherin’s most preternaturally well-informed gossip, didn’t already know every miserable detail. “You—oh, come on. The arrangement.” You mimed air quotes with your fingers, nearly upending your glass in the process. “We only did this to get you off his bloody back.”
Yuna opened her mouth to say something,but then just burst out laughing. Not even a sly titter but a full-throated snort that startled Whiskers off Jo’s belly and into an escape beneath the bed.
“Oh—oh, Merlin’s balls—” Yuna gasped, clutching her ribs. “You—wait, you actually believed—oh, this is precious.”
You felt yourself flush with irritation. “What’s so funny? That you lost your shot at Jaemin?”
“No, you adorable idiot, not that.” Yuna shook her head, wiping away a tear of mirth. “Are you serious? I’ve only ever talked to Jaemin because he’s Changmin’s best friend, and Changmin—well…”
She trailed off, her cheeks going very pink, then, as if you weren’t present at all, she laid her head back against the bottom bunk and stared at the ceiling, a contented smile on her lips.
You waited for more context, a swirl of confusion tangling up your tongue. There was a thud as Whiskers landed on the foot of the bed, followed by the faintest prickle of claws as he padded up beside you.
Finally, the implication of her words hit your tipsy brain. “Wait. You’re not—I mean. You weren’t even—?”
“Into Jaemin?” Yuna finished for you. “Merlin, no. Not since third year at least—and even then, only in the way you want a new pair of boots.” She shrugged, twirling a strand of her hair around her finger. “He’s nice to look at, but a nightmare to date. Total self-saboteur.” She glanced at you, curious. “You really thought I was after him?”
You felt lightheaded. “I mean you were everywhere—”
“I was following Changmin, you dolt.” Yuna’s face went even pinker if possible. “I set this whole thing up to make him jealous. I mean, it worked, he finally asked me to Hogsmeade, but—” she broke off, suddenly shy. “Sorry for the collateral damage. Truly.”
You stared at her, the pieces of the last months threatening to explode through the air. All that plotting, the drama, every humiliating emotional contortion you’d endured, and all this time…
Jaemin hadn’t been fighting off Yuna. He’d just, what?
Did he just want an excuse to be near you, because he was pathologically incapable of admitting how much he needed it, even to himself? Every ounce of dignity you'd sacrificed, every moment of your life spent embroiled in this nonsense, and the object of his supposed self-sacrifice had been pining for Changmin the entire time.
You took a long, bracing inhale, thumping your head once hard against the edge of the bed frame.
“Unbelievable,” you muttered.
Yuna, to her credit, had the decency not to gloat. She nudged Whiskers toward you. “He’s always liked you, you know,” she said. “Even before. He used to ask me how to get you to stop hating him, like I had some kind of… girl code manual.”
You eyed her. “Did you?”
Yuna nodded, propping her chin on her knees. “I told him to try being honest for once. Clearly, he didn’t listen.”
You rolled your eyes. “That’s the understatement of the century.”
“You know, out of everyone, I think you’re the only person who makes him utterly lose his composure. He’s usually… impossible to fluster. Kind of his thing. But around you it’s like—you light a match and throw it into his brain.”
“Well, I certainly managed to set something on fire,” you said, and surprised yourself with a half-laugh. “Just not in any useful way.”
Yuna scooted a little closer, lowering her voice. “I know you probably don’t want my advice, but… maybe give him a chance to fix it. He’s genuinely bad at this stuff.” She shrugged. “You don’t have to forgive him, but if you’re waiting for him to say the right thing, you might be waiting forever.”
Her words slotted into place in your exhausted brain, like the last piece of a hopelessly complicated puzzle. Horrible, giddy amusement bubbled up your chest: all this time, you’d been fighting the wrong war, arming yourself against an enemy who’d never even taken the field.
You left Jo and Yuna asleep in each other's arms, Whiskers curled into a protective gray-striped crescent at the foot of the bed. Every portrait squinted with suspicious half-lidded eyes, and every suit of armor clattered medieval disapproval as you ran past them.
You didn't think much about where you were going, but the probability was as precise as Divination could ever muster: the Slytherin common room. Because if there was a single neuron left swimming in your firewhisky-addled brain, it was firing like a desperate flare directly toward Na Jaemin.
You padded soundlessly through the dungeons, fingertips trailing along the cool stone walls for balance, only to round a corner and nearly collide with a tall silhouette legging it up from the other direction. Jaemin, hair disheveled like he'd been running his hands through it for hours, shirt untucked with three buttons misaligned, and eyes wild as a cornered hippogriff, skidded to a halt so abrupt you both nearly toppled over.
You just stood there, staring, every cell in your body screaming and also quite possibly vibrating. Through the haze of fatigue and shame and liquor, you registered every heartbreakingly specific detail of him: the spike in his breathing, the way he braced one hand against the wall as if he needed it to hold up the rest of him, the deep crease between his eyebrows that only appeared when he was actively terrified.
The words queued up, fighting to be first out. “I—” “Listen—” “Can we—” “Please—”
A jumble, then an accidental harmony: “I need to talk to you.”
For one second, you considered turning around and running. But the way Jaemin looked at you pinned you to the spot.
He spoke first. “Come to the broom closet? I think I saw Mrs Norris nearby, which means… ”
“Filch,” you finished for him. “Okay, let’s go.”
You followed him in silence, down the corridor to the oversized closet that Slytherins had used for centuries to hide everything from illicit liquor to first-year snoggers. He held the door open, then closed it behind you, which left you not even three feet apart.
Jaemin propped his back against the door and exhaled so slowly it sounded like the last breath of a dying man. You tried not to notice that his hands were shaking. Or that he looked, for all his composure, completely lost. “I, um.” He looked down at his own shoes. “Y/N, I fucked up.”
You blinked. You’d come here to yell, maybe. Or at least to interrogate some truths out of him, like why he had so thoroughly detonated your entire sense of self. But he’d opened with the guilt and you weren’t ready for it. Unpracticed, unbuffered by the ice of pride or wit. It landed inside you with an unexpected warmth that left you unable to launch the first missile of your prepared invective.
He tried again. “I said things I didn’t mean. Or… didn’t say things I was supposed to.” He scrubbed a hand down his face, and for the first time in your long and bitter acquaintance, he looked his age. Not the chiseled, archvillain Slytherin but a seventeen-year-old boy who’d just spent the last week eating his own heart.
You pressed your back to the shelving, feeling a bristle of ancient brooms poking into your shoulder. It was easier to focus on the physical discomfort than the absolute riot of feelings inside you. “Why did you do it, then?” you asked, voice trembling but louder than you felt. “Why pretend? Why go through all of it if you didn’t—”
He looked up then, and the world stopped. You'd always known Jaemin had pretty eyes, almost stupidly so, but you'd never seen them this stripped of showmanship. There was nothing left in them but the need to be understood.
He ran both hands through his hair, almost laughing at himself. “Growing up, love was like a… currency. My parents, they’d dole it out in rations, make you earn it, then yank it away when you needed it most. Every hug, every ‘I’m proud of you’—it was an investment, and nothing was free. I don’t want to do that.”
He broke off, looking at you as if every word took a year off his life. “But then you—fuck, Y/N, you just loved me. Out loud. Not because you had to, or because I earned it, but because you wanted to. And I didn’t know what to do with that, so I panicked and did what I always do, which is ruin things before they can ruin me.”
You might have laughed, if it hadn’t stung so much. “You could’ve just said it back, you know. Or at least not torched me on the way out.”
“I know,” he whispered. “I wanted to. I do. I just—” He exhaled again and met your gaze. “I actually love you so much, and it scares me so bad I’d rather light the whole thing on fire than tell you to your face.I thought if you ever knew, if you ever saw how fucking much it was, you’d run for the hills. I was scared.” He huffed a laugh. “I’m still scared.”
You stared at him, the old defenses rising out of habit—sarcasm, skepticism, the impulse to twist anything freely given—but something in his voice made them shrivel away. He wasn’t lying. He wasn’t even posturing. He was sweating through his shirt in a freezing stone corridor, admitting in the most un-Slytherin way possible that he wanted something enough to break himself for it.
He took a faltering step toward you. “I love you. I love you so much it makes my head hurt, and every time you look at me, I feel like I’m being given something I’m not allowed to keep. You’re so smart, brilliant really, you make everything feel less small and stupid, and I like how you argue even when you know you’re wrong, and sometimes I go out of my way just to hear you laugh at me, because when you do it I feel like maybe I’m not a total waste of oxygen—”
He broke off, eyes wild and shining. “You make me better, from the inside out. And I was so terrified that if you ever saw the real me—if I let you in even a little—I’d ruin it. Or you’d hate me.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “But I ruined it anyway,didn’t I?”
You listened in shock, because this was the Jaemin you’d believed existed only at the very edges of his brittle, cocky mask. The one who’d made a study of you, who’d learned all your favorite spells and matched your every move. You weren’t sure you knew how to reply. The gravity of his confession pressed you to the wall.
"I'm not going to say it was fine," you whispered, voice cracking. "It felt like you'd reached inside my chest and—" You pressed a trembling hand to your sternum. "God, Jaemin. I couldn't breathe for days. But even then, I never—" Your voice broke completely. "I never really hated you. Not even when I probably should've."
He breathed out. “You’ve no idea how much I wanted you to hate me properly. Would’ve made everything simpler.”
“Why spend all that time and effort in this charade? You could've just been honest... You had no idea how I would take it.”
He squeezed the bridge of his nose as if the pain of the question might physically rupture his skull. “Because I didn’t know how else to have you, and I thought the only way you’d let me close was if it was an act.”
You wanted to spit something cruel, but it collapsed against the lump in your throat. “You incredible, galloping idiot,” you said instead, mostly to yourself.
You were about to speak again when he slipped a hand inside the folds of his robes. A familiar spine emerged, its dark leather cover worn soft across the creased corners, the gold lettering faintly dulled by time. Wuthering Heights.
It was the very copy you’d pressed into his hand weeks ago, at Tomes and Scrolls, half in jest. You’d expected him to snort and set it aside unread, or skim a few florid passages, shrug, and call it melodramatic nonsense. But now its pages were dog-eared, edges curling; a thin gold ribbon marked a specific chapter. The paper around it was so softened that you could almost see the imprint of fingertips pressed into the margins—tiny scrawled notes in cramped handwriting, evidence of long, late-night wrestling matches with Emily Brontë’s tempestuous souls.
Jaemin’s fingers trembled as he thumbed to the ribboned page. He cleared his throat, that quiet catch sounding louder in the hush around you, and lifted his gaze. The green of his eyes locked onto yours so fiercely your ribs felt oddly vulnerable, as if he were staring right through your chest. Then, in a voice low and rough with something like reverent ache, he began:
“Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad. Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you.”
Your pulse thundered in your ears. You stared at the book, at the margin notes, at the little crease in the paper where he’d returned again and again.
“You read it,” you whispered shakily. “You actually read it.”
He tucked a stray lock of dark hair behind his ear and offered you a shy, sheepish smile. “I got about three pages in and thought, ‘This is the most overwrought melodramatic nonsense I have ever encountered and she’ll never let me live it down if I admit I liked it.’”
Your breath caught, and you laughed softly. “So the Slytherin prince secretly studies Muggle love tragedies for—what? Sport?”
“For you.” His words fell simple and straight, but you saw in the tense set of his shoulders how much it cost him. “I remembered what you once said. That words could be more powerful than any spell. That some stories could make you feel things magic never touches.” He swallowed, eyes flicking away for only an instant. “I wanted to understand. I wanted to see the world the way you do. Even if… even if you never spoke to me again, I needed something of how you think.”
Your throat tightened around all the things you wanted to say.
“I love you,” he said suddenly. “I know I don’t deserve another chance. I know I hurt you, and I’m sorrier than I’ve ever been. If you want me to leave you alone, I will. I’ll resign as a Prefect, stop dining in the Great Hall… never speak to you again, if that’s how it has to be—”
“Jaemin—”
“And if you think I’m not worth the drama, if you find some sensible Ravenclaw that's smarter and more emotional available instead of—” He gestured at himself “—a stupid prick with a habitual avoidance of feelings, that’s fine too, I unders—”
“Jaemin.”
He stumbled to silence, eyes wide, braced for your anger or dismissal. Instead, you stepped forward. “I think,” you said softly, “I’d rather take my chances with a Slytherin who panics at his own heart.”
His whole face broke into a tentative, trembling smile that brightened by the second, like dawn’s first light spilling over the lake.
“You don’t hate me, then?”
“Oh, I do,” you teased, closing the distance between you. “Just not enough to stop wanting to kiss you.”
He laughed a breathless, disbelieving sound that left him momentarily speechless. “That’s… a very low bar.”
“It’s the bar you set,” you said, reaching up to smooth the crease by his temple. “I’m just acknowledging it.”
He was so close now you could see the faint shadows under his eyes, the restless hours he’d spent reading. His breath hitched, and his fingers, still warm around your forearm, shook.
“One condition.”
“Anything.”
“No more schemes. No more elaborate lies to keep me close. If you want something from me, you ask. And if you ever feel like sabotaging yourself again, you write it in a journal like every other teenager, and you keep me out of it.”
His eyes shone with relief and determination. “Deal. I swear it. Honest to Merlin, I’ll be so transparent you’ll beg me to tell a little white lie.”
“Unlikely.” You tousled his hair affectionately.
“I’ll be boring and straightforward and—”
“Now you’re just making things up.”
“—and I’ll read every book you recommend, even the ones you hate, so at least we can hate them together. I’ll tell you if I’m scared instead of running away, and I’ll—”
“Jaemin.”
He stopped and blinked up at you, a hopeful question in his gaze.
“Shut up and come here.”
He closed the last few inches between you, cupping your face as if it were made of spun glass. His thumbs traced the damp paths of your tears, his eyes pleading.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered into the soft curve of your lips. “For all of it—for the lies, the running, the… spectacular emotional incompetence. I’m so sorry.”
You rested your hands against his chest, feeling the rapid thump of his heart. “I know.”
He drew a shaky breath. “I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you, if you’ll let me.”
You pressed your forehead to his “I will.”
"Yeah?"
"Don't let it go to your head."
"Already there."
And then, finally, his mouth found yours.
The kiss was unhurried. A little clumsy. Both of you slightly out of practice with each other, slightly hesitant, slightly afraid this might still evaporate if you moved too fast.
But it was real.
You could taste the years of wanting and the weeks of pretending and the days of heartbreak. The sharp edge of pain, slowly dulling. The first green shoots of something that might, given enough time and care, grow into something lasting.
You smiled against his lips. Let your fingers curl into the collar of his robes. Kissed him back with every ounce of mortifying hope you'd sworn you'd bury.
There was nothing staged here. Only the press of his mouth saying yes and sorry and I love you and please, over and over, until the words became simpler.
Stay, his kiss said. Stay, and I'll spend the rest of my life proving I deserve it.
When you eventually separated, both breathing heavily, your foreheads touched.
"Let's see how long it takes you to mess this up," you murmured.
He laughed, eyes bright with joy. "Reckon I've got until dinner at best."
"Don't push your luck."
You kissed him once more, simply because it was possible. Because you wanted to. Because for five endless days you'd believed this door closed forever, and now finding it open seemed too precious to ignore.
Gossip would explode anew, inevitably. By evening meal, whispers would spread about you two emerging from an empty classroom, looking thoroughly kissed. By morning, a dozen conflicting stories would circulate. Within a week, the castle's most creative rumormongers would have you practically married.
But in this moment—his hand entwined with yours, his smile against your temple, your future sketched in pencil rather than vanishing ink—the entire castle seemed beautifully uncomplicated.
For a pair of hopeless liars, it made for a surprisingly honest beginning.
I FELT LIKE SO MANY EMOTIONS READING THIS. IT WAS WRITTEN SOOO BEAUTIFUL OMG THIS WAS SO WORTH THE WAIT. genuinely tear up a little at the piece of angst but it work out in the endd. Thank you author for writing this! 
pairing: slytherin! na jaemin x gryffindor! fem. reader
genre: hogwarts au, fake dating (hell yeah!), fluff, smut, angst
wc: 17k
summary: A Gryffindor prefect and a Slytherin golden boy fake a relationship to avoid an unwanted marriage pact, but as staged kisses turn real and secrets unravel, their hearts end up tangled in ways neither expected. Now, with love and pride on the line, they must decide if risking everything is worth the truth.
content warnings: explicit sexual content, loss of virginity, protected sex (contraceptive charms), oral sex (fem receiving), fingering, cursing, alcohol consumption, miscommunication, emotional hurt/comfort, anxiety, self-consciousness, emotional manipulation (though not malicious) lots of harry potter references (obvs), hogwarts setting, slytherin/gryffindor stereotypes and prejudice, pureblood politics, brief mention of emotionally distant/cold parents.
a/n: finally!! i’m so sorry this took forever, i really meant to post it the same day as part one, but i kept adding more (like… a lot more), so i really hope it was worth the wait. i had so much fun writing it though and i’m actually really proud of how it turned out. this fic fully consumed me for months lol😭 i hope you guys enjoy it as much as i enjoyed writing it. please feel free to scream in the comments/inbox, i wanna hear all your thoughts <3
ps: if anyone cares for a bit of music while reading i made this playlist for the fic.
Read part 1 here
In the wake of that catastrophic lapse in judgment at the Three Broomsticks, you had spent the remainder of the weekend engaged in a heroic attempt at total social erasure. Under the flimsy pretext of Prefect patrols, you’d spent twenty four hours haunting the castle’s most desolate corners and developing an encyclopedic, almost intimate knowledge of the drafty corridors behind the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy and the specific, rhythmic drip of the second-floor lavatory.
You lived in mortal fear of a confrontation, your brain a frantic pinball machine of panicked justifications. How does one even begin to explain away the fact that you’d essentially tackled Jaemin with your mouth in front of half the student body? You couldn't even blame the butterbeer; no one was that much of a lightweight.
All that strategic hiding, however, proved to be a spectacular waste of time.
Because Monday morning arrived and with it, the unavoidable horror of Double Potions. Jaemin, of course, decided to plop down next to you, looking both freshly pressed and utterly unbothered by recent events. All the while had to physically force yourself not to bolt in the opposite direction.
“Morning, Y/N,” he said pleasantly. “Fancy another go?”
You nearly slid off the stool. “I—beg your pardon?”
His mouth quirked as he leaned closer, lowering his voice until it was a secret shared only between your skin and his lips.
“Just a thought,” he drawled, “since the entire school has already watched us snog, we might as well get our money’s worth, don’t you think?”
You gaped at him, your indignation warring with a sudden spike of heat. Jaemin just watched you, a picture of insouciant grace, clearly having decided that his new favorite hobby was seeing exactly how many shades of scarlet he could make you turn before Slughorn even called the roll.
“I—well—” You faltered, the sentence dying a pathetically in your throat. There was no good exit strategy here, no witty retort that could dismantle the sheer smugness radiating off him. “Wasn’t that a bit… much? In the Three Broomsticks?”
His gaze turned positively feral with glee. “I believe the many witnesses there that night will say that you started it. I was merely an innocent bystander, swept along by the current of your passionate improvisation.”
You pressed your lips together, an exercise in sheer willpower to deny him the satisfaction of a reaction.
“Swept along, my arse. You’re the one who—” You clamped down on the thought before it could manifest, but the phantom sensation of his fingers tangled in the hair at the nape of your neck flashed through your mind.
Jaemin tilted his head, a lock of blonde hair falling over his brow, as if to punctuate how useless your walls were against him now.
“Look, if we’re going to commit to this performance, we might as well aim for the stalls,” he said. “The school already has us pencilled in as the frontrunners for ‘Best Couple’. It would be a tragedy to disappoint the fans now, wouldn't it?”
He slipped his hand into yours, as if nothing at all had changed. But now you were horribly aware how your skin prickled with nerves and the pulse in your wrist kept skipping whenever he brushed his thumb along the side of your hand.
Slughorn, bless his velvet-clad heart, seemed absolutely determined to overwhelm the gloom of the dungeons with his boisterous goodwill. He was in rare form today, circling the room like a parade master, “Today, my dears, we will be brewing Amortentia! The mother of all love potions! Now, who can tell me its greatest danger?”
You raised your hand with perhaps more enthusiasm than Slughorn's question warranted, if only to reclaim it from Jaemin's grip.
“It can’t create real love, sir” you said, voice admirably steady. “Only a very strong infatuation. A kind of obsession, really. And it’s different for everyone who smells it, the scent changes to reflect whatever attracts you most.”
“Excellent! Excellent!” Slughorn beamed. “Ten points to Gryffindor! Now then, pair up, everyone, pair up! Today we brew!”
Naturally, this was when things went from bad to infinitely worse.
Brewing Amortentia while in the throes of whatever this mortifying situation with Jaemin was? Spectacularly poor timing. Working close enough to feel the warmth radiating off him, to have his fingers brush yours with every ingredient passed between you? Absolute torture of the most exquisite variety.
“Pass me the pearl dust, would you, love?” Jaemin murmured, his voice a low rumble that seemed to vibrate in the scant space between you.
You passed it quickly and focused back on the cauldron, determined to at least finish before him. You added the frozen ashwinder eggs, stirring counter-clockwise until the liquid began to shimmer.
“You’re quite good at this,” Jaemin noted. “Almost as good as you are at improvisation”.
“Focus on the potion, Jaemin,” you bit out, though you could feel your face go scarlet.
After forty minutes of gruelling labor, the potion was perfect. The steam rose in characteristic spirals, and the surface gleamed with a lustrous, opalescent sheen. You smiled at your technical triumph.
But the smile died on your lips the moment the scent hit your nose.
You'd hoped—prayed, really—for something ordinary. Like the comforting smell of old books, perhaps. Or the woody scent from the fire in the Gryffindor common room. But what you got instead was far more specific, and infinitely more damning.
Expensive cologne that smelled of bergamot and beneath that was the distinct, slightly oily musk of broomstick polish. The exact olfactory combination that seemed to have permanently infused itself into the fibers of Jaemin’s robes, the scent that enveloped you whenever he pulled you close in the corridors.
Godric save me, you thought, your stomach performing a sort of sickening swoop.
Your mind scrambled for a rational explanation. It’s just a common scent, it argued desperately. Half the Quidditch players use that polish. And any posh tosser could wear that cologne.
But the Amortentia didn’t lie. Your Herculean attempt at self-delusion was failing utterly in the face of the irrefutable truth spiralling out of your cauldron.
Fear metastasized across your body, becoming a cold weight anchored in the hollow of your sternum, pulsing in time with the frantic thrum of your heart. If you acknowledged the bergamot and the broomstick polish, you were surrendering the only fortress you had left. To speak it would be to dismantle the safety of the 'fake' and leave you standing raw and defenseless in the debris of your own design.
You were terrified that the moment the truth escaped your lips, the delicate, agonizing balance of your world would tilt, sliding you both into a reality from which there was no clever improvisation to save you.
“So?” Jaemin’s voice was suddenly right at your ear, making you flinch. “What are you getting, Y/N? Freshly bound books and new parchment, I’d wager.”
The proximity forced your lungs to pull in the real version of the bergamot you had just been mourning.
“Yeah, uhm…I smell old books,” you said, the lie ashen on your tongue.
Jaemin turned to look at you, and it was as though he were reading the very thoughts you were trying to bury. Beneath the table, out of sight of the professor and the prowling eyes of the room, his hand found yours again
“Is that so?” he murmured, his eyes visibly darkening as they swept over your face. “Well. I’m getting a very distinctive note of vanilla. And that floral soap you use in the Prefects’ bathroom.”
His words were utterly devoid of the frantic panic currently hijacking your nervous system, that for a moment, you simply stared. Your brain suddenly tripped over his transparency. He’s joking, you realized, a hysterical sort of relief blooming in the wake of the shock. Of course he is. If he actually smelled that from the potion, he would be guarding that secret with his life, burying it under ten layers of Slytherin steel.
“Aha!” Slughorn crowed, making you both start. He peered into your cauldron, his face shining with delight. “A perfect brew! The spirals are unmistakable. Tell me, Mr. Na, is the aroma potent?”
Jaemin didn’t take his eyes off you. “Distractingly so, Professor,” he said, his lips curving into a smile that made your entire body go on high alert. “It’s enough to drive a man to madness.”
Slughorn clapped his hands together, mercifully oblivious to the silent conversation happening right under his nose. “Splendid! Simply splendid. Ten points to Slytherin and Gryffindor. Now, for your homework, I want a foot of parchment on the dangers of Amortentia and why its use is so strictly regulated. To be handed in next lesson!”
As the class descended into the frantic clatter of copper stirring rods and the rhythmic scrubbing of stone, you moved through the motions in a total sensory daze. What were you supposed to do with this knowledge? How were you meant to deal with the fact that the scent of your Amortentia, the very distillation of your most primal desires, was inextricably tied to Jaemin?
Right before you exited the room Jaemin’s fingers brushed against your own so briefly it should have been negligible, yet it sent a jolt of fire anchoring itself in the marrow of your bones. He leaned in, his shadow eclipsing you for a fleeting second.
“Think about what I said earlier, yeah?” He murmured, the words ghosting against your skin before he deposited a soft kiss on your temple.
You stood frozen as he merged into the tide of students. A sinking, leaden certainty settled in the pit of your stomach, making your breath hitch in your throat. You were well and truly doomed, there was no more room for clever denials. The Amortentia had stripped away the artifice, laying the raw, pulsing truth bare against the cold dungeon floor.
You liked Na Jaemin, and Merlin help you, there wasn't a potion in the world that could fix it.
Part of you was almost giddy about the novelty of actually fancying someone, of feeling your stomach swoop when they walked into a room. But mostly you were terrified. When had Jaemin stopped being an inconvenience and started being this?
Maybe, you reasoned, you could indulge it. Just a little. Lean into the dating act a bit more and let yourself feel it without examining it too closely.
That’s how the boundaries started dissolving.
Slowly at first, then all at once, every rule you’d established became negotiable. Jaemin would pull you into empty alcoves where no one could possibly see you, press you against cold stone and kiss you until you couldn’t breathe. “We’re not in public,” you’d manage between kisses. He’d just smirk against your mouth. “Practice makes perfect.”
No one batted an eyelid at the sight of him pulling you into empty rooms. Even Giselle had stopped questioning you, and became rather repulsed by your sudden displays of affection.
Meanwhile, you walked around feeling as if you’d lost the original plot of this whole thing. Your brain became a pinball machine: every glance from Jaemin sent the ball ricocheting wildly, every brush of his fingers over your knuckles set your whole body on high alert. He, on the other hand, seemed to delight in turning up at the least convenient moments—snagging you between classes, kissing you in the shadow of the greenhouses, catching your hand when you tried to slip past him on your way out of the library and kissing you against the stacks.
You coped by remembering it was all for show, the same way you might recite lines in a play. Only actors didn’t typically wake up thinking about the curve of their co-star’s mouth or lie awake at night replaying every touch of their calloused fingers.
You ran into him outside your common room one evening, just as curfew loomed. Jaemin looked up from a parchment he was pretending to read, tucking it away as you approached.
His eyes seemed to visibly darken at the sight of you. It would have been easy to walk past, make some excuse about homework or an early morning. Instead, you hovered, dithering between the impulse to run and the urge to close the gap.
Jaemin broke the stalemate, stepping forward and catching your wrist. “I was hoping I’d see you,” he said and then pointed at the portraits on the walls that watched you silently. “Thought we might keep the neighbors entertained.”
He didn't wait for an answer. He tugged on your wrist to guide you forward, and then his hand was sliding upward, fingers tangling deep into the hair at the base of your neck. He tilted his head, his gaze dropping to your lips for a fraction of a second before he leaned down to claim them.
His lips moved against yours with devastating confidence. As the kiss deepened, his other hand found the small of your back, pulling you flush against him until there was no space left between you. He made a low sound in the back of his throat, a private noise of satisfaction that seemed to echo against your own heartbeat.
High above, the painted figures in the frames whispered and tittered. The Fat Lady let out a bright, trilling giggle that rang through the hallway, but Jaemin didn't stop. He only pressed closer, his thumb tracing the line of your jaw as he turned the kiss slower, more rhythmic, and infinitely more distracting than any textbook could ever be.
When he finally broke away, he didn't pull back more than an inch. His breath hitched against your lips, and the dark intensity in his eyes seemed to catch fire.
He had just begun to trail his lips from your mouth to the sensitive line of your jaw when a shrill, cackling whistle echoed off the stone walls.
"Ooh, lookie here! Little lions in a knot! Or is it a tangle? A right royal muddle!"
Peeves the Poltergeist swooped down, hovering upside down just inches from your faces. His wide, malicious eyes darted between you and Jaemin, his tongue poking out through a jagged grin.
Jaemin didn't let go of you, but he let out a long, frustrated exhale against your skin. He slowly turned his head to glare at the spirit. "Not now, Peeves. Go find a first-year to pelt with ink pellets."
"Ink pellets? Boring! Stale!" Peeves blew a loud raspberry and started spinning in a dizzying circle. He reached into his pocket and produced a handful of stale, rock-hard Cauldron Cakes. "I’d much rather watch the lovebirds try to coo while I practice my aim!"
With a wicked flick of his wrist, he tossed a cake. It whistled past Jaemin’s ear, narrowly missing him and thudding loudly against the frame of a disgruntled landscape painting.
"Jammy and the Pouter, sitting in a hall! Kissing 'til the portraits scream and the ceiling falls!" Peeves sang at the top of his lungs, his voice shrill enough to wake every sleeping student in the nearby tower.
Jaemin finally pulled back fully, though he kept a protective arm slung low around your waist. He looked up at the cackling poltergeist, a dangerous, tired sort of smirk playing on his lips. "You’re going to get Filch up here, you menace."
"Filchy-poo? Even better!" Peeves shrieked, preparing another handful of projectiles. "Double the trouble, double the fun! Run, little students, run-run-run!"
Jaemin’s jaw tightened, and the last traces of the kiss's softness vanished into a look of sharp irritation. He reached into his robes and flicked his wand upward with a lethal grace.
"I warned you," Jaemin muttered dangerously. “Waddiwasi!"
The Cauldron Cake Peeves had been preparing to throw suddenly zoomed upward, propelled by an invisible force. It jammed itself straight into the poltergeist’s left nostril.
The poltergeist let out a high-pitched scream of outrage, spinning wildly in the air as he tried to claw the stale pastry out. Realizing he had lost this round, he zoomed through the nearest wall, leaving nothing behind but the faint sound of his frantic thumping as he retreated toward the floor below.
Jaemin let out a huff of a laugh, finally tucking his wand back into his sleeve. The intense look returned to his eyes as he turned his full attention back to you, his hands sliding back to their previous spots on your waist.
"Now," he whispered, pulling you back against the wall. "Where were we before we were so rudely interrupted?"
You pressed a hand to his chest before he could close the distance. “Wait—did you hear that?”
“No.” The word was muffled against your neck, which he’d apparently decided required immediate attention.
“Jaemin, I’m serious. I think that’s Filch—”
He went still, listening. Sure enough, the shuffle of uneven footsteps echoed down the corridor.
“Your common room,” Jaemin said immediately, tugging you toward the Fat Lady’s portrait. “Come on—”
“Wait! She won’t let you in!”
He stopped short. “What? Why not?”
“Because you’re a Slytherin? We’ve been over this.”
“I thought you were drunk when you said that.” Jaemin stared at you incredulously. “So you’re telling me she won’t let any Slytherins in? And we’re the prejudiced house?”
“I mean she could, technically. But then she’d absolutely tell Filch about it.”
Jaemin made a sound of disbelief as Filch’s footsteps grew louder.
“Fine. Come on.” He grabbed your hand, pulling you in the opposite direction.
“Where are we going?” you hissed, jogging to keep up as he led you through several corridors and down the stairs.
“The dungeons.”
“What?! I am not going to your common room—”
“Oh, come on.” He threw you an exasperated look over his shoulder. “It’ll be fine. Slytherins actually mind their business when it comes to sneaking people in. Unlike you lions, apparently.”
The further you descended, the more aware you became of where this was heading. You’d never set foot in the Slytherin common room, and now you were sneaking in at night to… Well. The thought alone was enough to make your heart ricochet against your chest.
“Right, here we are.” Jaemin stopped before a blank wall.
“That’s it?” You stared at it with a raised brow. “Kind of underwhelming, isn’t it?”
“Sorry, did you expect a giant fanged mouth?”
“Alright, ease up on the attitude.” You glared at him.
He smiled, and spoke to the wall: “Serpensortem.” Then, catching your eye: “Feel free to use that. You know, if you ever need to find me.”
The hidden door (which did, in fact, have serpents carved into it) swung open to reveal a narrow corridor of stairs descending even deeper. How Slytherins didn’t lose their minds being this far underground, you had no idea.
Inside, the common room was both exactly what you’d pictured and nothing like it. Dark stone, high ceilings, and a green-filtered light casting everything in a sort of underwater glow. Because…Oh. The ceiling was glass. There were actual panels looking straight up into the Black Lake’s murky water and the shadows of the occasional creatures drifting by.
Stunning. Also deeply unsettling if you thought too hard about it.
“Nice view of the Giant Squid you’ve got.”
Jaemin was right, his housemates truly didn’t care. The handful of students still up barely registered your presence, offering cursory glances before returning to whatever they were working on. Apparently a Gryffindor in the Slytherin common room wasn’t that much of a strange sight.
“Want to go up to my dorm?”
You gave him a look. “Where all your dormmates are?”
“They’re at the Three Broomsticks getting properly pissed.” He shrugged. “We’ve got the place to ourselves.”
“It’s way past curfew. How’d they even get out?”
“There are secret passages that lead straight to the village. They’re all over the castle.”
“How am I only just learning this?”
His smile turned wicked. “Well, you’re such a good girl.” He pulled you closer by the waist. “A very good girl who owes me a kiss.”
You were completely out of your depth. Although the flirting had become familiar, the fact that Jaemin seemed to want you with the same desperate intensity you felt for him was uncharted territory that left you dizzy and unmoored.
So you didn’t fight when he led you upstairs. You let him pull you into a kiss on the steps, let yourself kiss him back with abandon until you stumbled into the warm sanctuary of his dorm. Only then did you surface long enough to catch your breath and actually take stock of your surroundings.
There were four four-poster beds with dark emerald hangings, the standard Hogwarts setup, but each corner had been claimed and personalized by its occupant.
You recognized Jaemin’s immediately. The one nearest the window, if you could call the glass panel looking into the lake a window. His Quidditch gear was piled carelessly beside his trunk: broom propped against the bedpost, leather gloves draped over the footboard, a jersey with “NA” embroidered on the back slung over his desk chair. The nightstand held an impressive collection of cologne bottles and a few books stacked messily beneath them.
But it was the wall above his bed that caught your attention. Photographs pinned in no particular order of what looked like his family, him and his Quidditch team, a few older shots of him with other friends you didn’t recognize.
“Snooping already?” Jaemin’s voice came from behind you.
You turned to find him leaning against the wall, watching you with a raised brow.
“Just… observing.”
“Mhm.” He pushed off the post and crossed to you in two strides. “And what have your observations concluded?”
“That you’re messier than I expected.” You gestured to the Quidditch gear. “But also weirdly sentimental.” You nodded toward the photographs.
You turned to the other sections of the room and caught on a collection of what appeared to be hand-drawn comics pinned above one bed, surprisingly good actually, depicting what looked like Quidditch matches gone horribly wrong.
“Are those—did someone draw these?”
“Renjun.” Jaemin followed your gaze. “He’s got a thing for documenting Donghyuck’s Quidditch failures. It's quite therapeutic for him, apparently.”
“Donghyuck and Renjun—wait, I thought you roomed with Changmin and Sungchan?”
“I used to. Merlin, don’t remind me.” Jaemin collapsed onto what was clearly his bed—the one nearest the lake-view panel.
“That bad?
“They both snore like bloody dragons. Together it was—” He shook his head. “I got about three hours of sleep a night for two years. Finally cracked in third year and begged the head boy to switch me.”
You laughed. “So who’d you end up with?”
“Jeno, Donghyuck, and Renjun.” He gestured vaguely around the room. “They’re a nightmare in different ways, but at least they sleep quietly.”
“Sounds like a ringing endorsement.”
He got up and started slowly towards you. “I didn’t bring you up here to psychoanalyze our dorm though.”
“No?” Your hands settled against his chest when he pulled you to him. “What am I up here for, then?”
His smile turned wicked. “I believe we established you owe me a kiss. Several, actually, if we’re keeping count.”
“Are we keeping count now?”
“I am.” He leaned in, mouth barely brushing yours. “And you’re severely in debt.”
You could’ve pointed out the flawed logic, could’ve reminded him that you’d just spent the last several minutes kissing him senseless on the stairs. Instead, you closed the distance between you, letting him walk you backward until your legs hit the edge of his bed.
“This okay?” he murmured against your lips, even as his hands slid up your sides.
Your heart was hammering so loud you were sure he could hear it. This was different from the corridors, from the alcoves and the performances. Just you and him and the choice to cross whatever line you’d been toeing for weeks.
“Yeah,” you breathed. “This is okay.”
His smile was soft before he kissed you again. You reciprocated with much enthusiasm making him sigh against your lips. His hands slid into your hair as the kiss deepened, and you let yourself get lost in it .
Your fingers found the buttons of his shirt, fumbling slightly, and he made a sound low in his throat that sent heat racing through you. His hand slipped beneath the hem of your sweater, palm warm against your ribs, and—
Suddenly you heard voices. Loud and slurred, echoing up from the common room.
“—telling you, Hyuck, you can’t just Accio the entire bottle—”
“It almost worked though… I’m just— hngh— a bit wet”
“What—…” You scrambled into a sitting position, trying to finger-comb your hair into something less incriminating. “How do I look?”
He looked at you and tried to hide a grin behind his hand. “Like I’ve been kissing you for the past ten minutes.”
“Jaemin!”
“Right, sorry—” He reached out, gently attempting to smooth down your hair. It was possibly the sweetest thing he’d ever done and absolutely not helping your emotional state. “Okay, just act natural?”
The door banged open and three boys tumbled through in various states of inebriation— a muscular lad with short black hair barely keeping another upright, while a third brought up the rear looking significantly more sober than his friends.
The first one stopped short when he spotted you. “Oh, shit.”
“Jeno, move, you’re blocking the—” The one being held up peered around his friend and broke into a massive grin. “Na Jaemin, you absolute legend.”
“Shut up, Donghyuck.” Jaemin stood, positioning himself slightly in front of you.
The sober one closed the door with considerably more care than it had been opened with. “We can go back down if—”
“No, it’s fine.” You stood as well, acutely aware of how warm your face felt. “I should probably get back to Gryffindor tower anyway.”
“Gryffindor!” Hyuck crowed, stumbling further into the room. “So you’re the Gryffindor. Jaemin’s been—ow! What the fuck, Jeno—”
Jeno had elbowed him, hard. “Subtle as a brick, mate.”
“I’m just saying, he’s been in a better mood lately and now I know why—”
“Hyuck, I will literally hex your bollocks off.” Jaemin’s tone was pleasant. His expression was not.
The sober one gave you an apologetic look. “Ignore them. They had approximately five Firewhiskeys each at the Three Broomsticks.”
“Five and a half,” Hyuck corrected proudly.
“Right. Well.” You smoothed down your skirt. “I should go.”
Jaemin caught your wrist. “I’ll walk you out.”
“I think your friends need more help than I do .”
“They’ll live.” His jaw was set and you could tell he was still annoyed about the interruption.
“Awww, he’s being chivalrous,” Hyuck stage-whispered to Jeno. “That’s so—ow, fuck, Renjun—”
Renjun had slapped the back of his head. “Please excuse Donghyuck. He becomes aggressively annoying when drunk.”
“Just when drunk?” Jeno muttered.
You bit back a smile despite yourself. “It’s fine. I can find my way out.”
“You sure?” Jaemin was still holding your wrist.
“I’m sure.” You gently extracted your hand, very aware of three pairs of eyes tracking the movement. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Yeah. Tomorrow.”
You made it approximately two steps toward the door before Hyuck piped up again. “Hey, Gryffindor girl?”
You turned. “It’s—”
“Oh, we know who you are,” Jeno said, grinning.
“He’s absolutely miserable when you’re not around, you know,” Hyuck announced cheerfully, ignoring Jaemin’s death glare. “Like, genuinely unbearable. So thanks for that. You’re doing Merlin’s work, truly—”
“HYUCK—”
You escaped into the corridor before you could hear the rest, but their laughter—and Jaemin’s protests—followed you all the way down the stairs.
By the time you reached the common room, your face was burning and your heart was still racing and you had absolutely no idea how you were going to look at Jaemin tomorrow without remembering the weight of him above you, the heat of his hands, the way he’d looked at you like—
No. Not thinking about it.
Except you absolutely were going to spend the entire night thinking about it. You shook your head sharply as you climbed back through the castle, taking a different route to avoid Filch.
The interruption was probably for the best. It had stopped you from doing something you couldn’t take back, from crossing a line that would make the whole “fake dating” excuse completely untenable.
“Wow, he’s even convinced you to go to a Quidditch game?” Jo said as she observed you putting on the green scarf you’d borrowed from Jaemin. “And wearing his colors? Okay, who are you and what have you done to my best friend?”
You rolled your eyes. “It’s just one game. Plus, he’s been asking me to go for the past few weeks and I’ve already rejected him too many times. What kind of girlfriend doesn’t go support her boyfriend at a game?”
“A fake one?” She offered with a knowing look.
“I’m already committed to the bit, Jo. Cant back out now.”
“I just want to remind you that there are only 2 more weeks of this arrangement. Personally, I haven't even seen Yuna bother Jaemin in a good while, so there’s really no need to keep extending this thing.”
She was right. Yuna had been conspicuously absent lately. No more pointed stares across the Great Hall, no more appearances in places you and Jaemin frequented, no more saccharine interruptions during your library study sessions. You’d been so caught up in the elaborate fiction of your relationship that you’d stopped monitoring the very threat it was meant to neutralize.
Had she given up? Moved on to easier prey, perhaps? Or had the performance been so convincing that she’d accepted defeat?
And if the threat had dissolved, what justified the charade’s continuation?
More pressingly: did you want it to end?
The thought arrived unbidden, unwelcome, and stubbornly refused to leave. Two weeks. Fourteen days until you’d presumably sit down with Jaemin and declare mission accomplished, shake hands like business partners concluding a transaction, and return to being polite strangers who’d once played at intimacy for an audience.
“I’ll leave it to Jaemin to decide,” you said finally, the words emerging more brittle than intended. You avoided Jo’s reflection in the mirror, suddenly fascinated by the intricacies of your braid. “It’s his arrangement, technically. His problem we were solving.”
Liar, your reflection seemed to whisper. Coward.
Because the uncomfortable truth you’d been studiously ignoring was that you had no idea what Jaemin wanted anymore.
When he kissed you in empty corridors with no witnesses, was that practice? When his thumb traced absent patterns on your hip during meals, was he performing for distant onlookers or had it simply become habit? When he looked at you like that, was he acting or had the fiction begun consuming the actor?
You didn’t know. And you were terrified to ask.
Jo made a small noise of sympathy. “Just… be careful, alright? I know you think you’ve got this handled, but—”
“I’m fine,” you interrupted, perhaps too sharply. “Everything’s completely under control.”
The lie hung between you, obvious and ignored.
At the Quidditch pitch you headed to the Slytherin side of the stands. Thankfully, the finale was against Ravenclaw and not Gryffindor, otherwise you would feel like a horrible disloyal witch by not supporting your own house.
The place was already packed by the time you arrived. You’d expected to sit with the general crowd, but before you could even start climbing the stairs, you felt a hand on your arm.
“You’re with us,” Giselle said, appearing out of nowhere. She was dressed head to toe in green and silver, her house pride on full display. “Come on. We’ve saved you seats.”
“Saved me—what?”
Giselle led you to a prime spot right at the front of the Slytherin stands, where Changmin was already waiting.
“There she is!” Sungchan grinned, as if this had all been planned.
“Jaemin’s good luck charm,” Changmin added with a wink.
You blinked at them, too stunned to speak. These were the same boys who had barely tolerated your presence a month ago. Now they were scooting over, offering you the best view on the pitch, as if you belonged there.
“Jaemin said if we didn’t make sure you had the best seat, he’d hex us into next week,” Sungchan continued breezily. “And I quite like having my kneecaps intact, so.”
You sat down, feeling extremely self-conscious about being front and center in the Slytherin section wearing Slytherin colors. People were definitely staring. You could feel their eyes on you, could hear the whispers starting up.
"Wait," you started, your voice slightly breathless as you looked between their relaxed postures and the players currently mounting their brooms on the pitch. "Why aren't you two down there? Don't you both play?"
Changmin let out a dry snort, adjusting his sleeves. "Suspended," he said, "the Ravenclaw Beaters didn't appreciate my 'aggressive' tactical maneuvers during last week's scrimmage."
"And I'm on the bench today with a 'mysterious' wrist cramp," Sungchan added, though he looked entirely too healthy for an injury. He leaned in closer, dropping his voice to a murmur. "Truthfully? Jaemin didn't want us on the pitch. He wanted us here. Guarding you."
What?
"He’s a bit possessive over you," Giselle noted, settling in on your other side and smoothing her skirt. "He didn't trust the general Slytherin population to behave themselves while his head was in the clouds. Consider them your personal gargoyles for the afternoon."
Before you could process the idea of Jaemin hand-picking his friends to act as your shield, the teams flew onto the pitch, and the crowd erupted in cheers. You spotted him immediately. He was easy to pick out, even among the other players in their green and silver robes. He was a Chaser, and even from a distance, you could see the easy confidence in the way he handled his broom.
He did a lap of the pitch, clearly scanning the stands, and when he saw you sitting front and center in the Slytherin section wearing green his entire face lit up. He changed direction, flying closer to where you were sitting, and the crowd around you started screaming louder.
Jaemin pulled up right in front of the Slytherin section, hovering there on his broom, and blew you a kiss. An unsubtle, utterly ridiculous kiss blown in your direction in front of the entire school.
You felt your face go absolutely scarlet, but you couldn’t help smiling. He looked so happy. So genuinely, completely happy, and it was directed at you.
"Salazar's ghost," Giselle groaned, pointedly looking toward the sky. "The two of you are going to make me sick."
The whistle shrieked, a sharp, piercing herald that set the game in motion. You quickly discovered that Quidditch was an entirely different ordeal when your attention was tethered to a Chaser. It was no longer a sport but a grueling exercise in cardiovascular distress. Every time Jaemin’s fingers curled around the Quaffle, your breath hitched, trapped in the tight column of your throat. Every time a Ravenclaw Beater sent a Bludger whistling toward his skull, your stomach performed a sickening, leaden drop into your heels.
You were on your feet more often than not, screaming yourself hoarse, your dignity dissolving with every reckless maneuver he pulled. Your knuckles were white, clutching the edge of the railing as if you were the one hanging onto a broomstick three hundred feet in the air.
“Look at you,” Giselle observed during a brief lull in the carnage. “You truly have it bad, don’t you? You’re vibrating.”
“I’m simply—invested in the match,” you ground out, refusing to look away from the green-and-silver blur circling the hoops.
“You’re invested in him,” she corrected, a smirk playing on her lips that was equal parts amused and knowing. “It’s a bit pathetic, really. But I suppose he deserves someone who watches him with that level of frantic devotion.”
Whatever biting retort you were preparing to mount was violently incinerated by the roar of the crowd. A deafening, earth-shaking thunder erupted from the Slytherin stands as Jaemin executed a barrel roll that seemed aerodynamically possible, slamming the Quaffle through the center hoop.
Slytherin dominated the match with embarrassing efficiency, their Chasers running rings around Ravenclaw’s defense, and Jaemin in particular seemed determined to make a personal statement. Then their Seeker caught the Snitch about an hour into the match, ending things decisively. The moment it was over, the Slytherin section erupted in celebration, and before you quite knew what was happening, people were pouring onto the pitch.
“Come on!” Giselle grabbed your hand, pulling you along with the crowd. “We’re going down!”
You let yourself be dragged down to the pitch, caught up in the excitement. The Slytherin team had barely landed when they were being mobbed by supporters, everyone screaming and hugging and celebrating.
You were just trying to stay upright and not get trampled, when suddenly hands grabbed your waist and you were being lifted, spun around, and then you were looking directly into Jaemin’s face.
He was sweaty, and disheveled, and grinning so wide it looked like it might hurt his cheeks.
“We won,” he said, as if you might not have noticed.
“I saw,” you said, laughing despite yourself. “You were brilliant.”
“You wore green,” he said breathlessly. “You actually wore green for me.”
“Of course I did. I’m your—”
You didn’t get to finish the sentence, because he kissed you.
He kissed you like you were the only two people there, like he’d been waiting all day to do this, like winning the match was secondary to getting to kiss you. His hands cupped your face, angling your head to deepen the kiss, and you forgot about everything except the feeling of his mouth on yours.
People were cheering. You could hear them, distant and muffled, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care. You just kissed him back, your hands fisting in his Quidditch robes to pull him impossibly closer.
When he finally pulled back, you were both breathing hard. “That—” Jaemin said, thumbing sweat and hair from your cheek, “was the best part of the whole day. Actually, my entire bloody year.”
He kissed you again, quick and fierce, before setting you down.
The chaos of the pitch threatened to sweep you up—Haechan was flying mockingly around the dazed Ravenclaw Keeper, who looked two seconds away from swearing off Quidditch forever. Jeno was being hoisted onto someone’s shoulders while holding the Cup, still in his gear, a lopsided grin plastered across his face as a small army of younger Slytherins began a chant.
You barely had time to process anything before a dozen Slytherin hands were clapping you on the back, dragging you into the noisy throng. Jeno slung an arm around your shoulder, while Haechan bowed with the sort of exaggerated flourish only he could get away with.
“Oi, Y/N! You’re practically the Slytherin mascot at this point,” Haechan crowed, earning a fresh round of chanting. Jeno nodded and said, “We’ll need you at every match. Jaemin plays like he’s got something to prove when you’re here.”
Jaemin slipped an arm over your shoulders, fitting himself between you and Jeno. It wasn’t the casual sort of touch affectionate boyfriend would do but rather the kind of grip that signaled territorial intent, both “look at me” and “hands off, Lee Jeno.” Jeno raised his brows, smirked, and stepped back with a dramatic sigh as if to say, “I know when I’ve been outmaneuvered.”
Jaemin lead you out of the crush, across the pitch, past the green-robed ruck of his teammates still shrieking and high-fiving each other senseless.
You found yourselves in the lee of the stands, momentarily invisible to the hooting masses. Jaemin bent over, hands braced on his knees, still catching his breath. The flushed tips of his ears glowed through sweated hair, and when he looked up at you, his eyes were shining, open, utterly unguarded.
“I’m sorry if that was too much,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “We agreed—no more public spectacles.” He grinned, sheepish and shameless at once.
You laughed. “That was entirely your fault. You were the one who just put on a whole air show out there.”
“Had to impress you,” he said, then he straightened, hands on your hips. “Did it work?”
The question was clearly rhetorical, but Jaemin’s voice always lilted up at the end, as if the answer mattered even if he already knew it. Your heart did the embarrassing somersault you’d tried to train it out of, and you could only nod, which made him gloat without mercy.
“Good,” he said, and tugged you in for another kiss, backgrounded by the muffled roar of the stadium and the granular crunch of pebbles underfoot.
Suddenly a broomstick whirred to a stop nearby and Jaemin loosened his grip on you, letting you sway back ever so slightly. You barely had time to school your features before Madam Hooch’s voice rang out.
“Na, what in Merlin’s name do you think you’re doing back here?” She hovered just above, her yellow hawk’s eyes narrowing as she took in the flush on your cheeks and the state of your hair. “This isn’t the broom shed, though you two seem determined to treat it as one. Save the snogging for after hours—if you must.”
A mortifying heat swept up your neck. Jaemin simply grinned at her. “Just appreciating my good luck charm, Professor.”
Madam Hooch sniffed, unimpressed. “If you’re quite finished, the rest of the team would like their Chaser back for the cup photo.”
She fixed you both with one last look that could have stripped paint from the stadium, then gestured briskly for Jaemin to join the others.
He shot you a look over his shoulder, and winked “I’ll meet you in a bit for the celebration”
As the door to the Slytherin common room opened, you were met with an emerald-hued wonderland teeming with giddy, flushed-faced revelers. It was like being inside a shaken bottle of champagne, the air practically fizzing with elation and an infectious sort of glee.
Despite wearing green, you felt distinctly out of place. Like a single rose petal that had somehow fluttered its way into a bouquet of silver-tipped ferns. But Jaemin’s hand was warm and sure in yours.
“Stick close,” he murmured. “Wouldn’t want you to get lost in this snake pit.”
“And here I thought you’d be eager to feed me to your housemates. Y’know, as a victory sacrifice.”
Jaemin’s laugh was a rich, dark thing, like molten chocolate. “Tempting. But I think I’ll keep you to myself a bit longer.”
The wicked glint of his gaze as he said those words made heat rush to your cheeks. But before you could think much of it, you were swept up in a whirlwind of backslaps and high fives, the team descending upon their star Chaser in a giddy mass of sweat-damp robes and Firewhisky-fueled cheer.
You found yourself passed from embrace to embrace, your hair mussed and your face peppered with exuberant kisses. It was overwhelming, dizzying, this sudden immersion into the tight-knit camaraderie of Jaemin’s world.
But through it all, his gaze never left you. Even as he was jostled and jolted by his teammates, his eyes remained locked on yours, a searing, steady connection that made your pulse stutter and your knees go curiously weak.
As the night wore on and the festivities showed no sign of waning, you found yourself gravitating closer and closer to Jaemin, drawn by some irresistible magnetism. The heat of so many bodies packed into the subterranean space, the buzz of one too many Butterbeers, the maddening drag of his fingers along the small of your back as he steered you through the crowd…it was all blurring together into a delicious haze.
And then you looked up at him in a sudden moment of perfect clarity amidst the chaos, and everything else simply…fell away. The noise, the crush of bodies, the very air seemed to shimmer and warp, narrowing down to the electric pulse of connection stretching taut between you.
In that suspended sliver of time, you knew with bone-deep certainty that there was no going back. No more pretending, no more lines in the sand. There was only this, only him, only the truth of what had been building between you from the moment this mad charade began.
You crashed together like colliding stars, mouths and hands and hearts falling into desperate alignment. Jaemin kissed like a man possessed, like he wanted to crawl inside your skin and make a home there, and you matched him beat for beat, pouring months of pent-up longing and frustration and fierce, helpless wanting into the slant of your lips against his.
When you finally surfaced, gasping and glassy-eyed, Jaemin’s face swam into focus, his usually sharp features softened by a look of tenderness.
“Come with me,” he said, his voice a rasping, wrecked thing.
You could only nod, mute and dizzy with want, and let him lead you out of the common room and into the labyrinthine tangle of the dungeon corridors. You walked in silence, the only sound the ragged counterpoint of your breathing and the distant, muffled thump of music.
When he stopped at a stretch of unremarkable wall and began to pace, you knew with a jolt where he was taking you to The Room of Requirement.
Where else would one go to tumble headlong into inadvisable, paradigm-shifting passion?
Jaemin reached for the handle, but then he turned to you with a question in his eyes and an uncharacteristic hesitance in the set of his shoulders…you knew that stepping over this threshold would change everything.
“Y/N,” he said, and there was a whole universe of unspoken things layered into the shape of your name. “Are you sure…?”
“Jaemin,” you said. “Kiss me.”
In the next instant, his lips were on yours again, and you stumbled backward as the hidden door swung open. You didn’t spare a glance for the room that bloomed before you. Couldn’t focus on anything beyond the heat of Jaemin’s body against yours, the desperate, reverent drag of his hands over your curves. The room could’ve been an empty Quidditch pitch, for all you cared.
Every romance you’d ever read and even scoffed at came to life in that moment—the world receding, time slowing to a molasses crawl. There was only sensation, only feeling, only the drugging slide of his lips along your jaw, your throat, the dip of your collarbone.
Your pulse was fucking riotous. You’d talked yourself into this, hadn’t you? Marched up here on legs so wobbly you could’ve blamed the many stairs, convinced yourself you could handle it because it was Jaemin.
His calloused hands roamed with urgent purpose, fingers digging into your hips as he backed you against the nearest wall. He broke the kiss only to yank your shirt over your head, tossing it aside without a second thought. You immediately turned to flame when his gaze tracked all over you. From your swollen lips, to your flushed cheeks, down to the way your chest stuttered with every shaky breath. His hands found your jaw. Steady, so steady.
“We can stop whenever you want to.” he murmured against your ear.
You managed a nod because your speech simply wasn’t coming. Every nerve was pulled taut with both anticipation and terror at the realization of what you were about to do for the first time in your life.
His fingers unclasped your bra carefully, and when the straps slid down your arms, you tried to fold into yourself, awkward and too aware of skin and imperfections. Jaemin’s eyes caught yours; they were dark but promising patience even as he bent to take your nipple in his mouth.
You arched into him, a gasp escaping as his teeth grazed your nipple. “Jaemin,” you breathed, threading your fingers through his hair to hold him there.
He growled low in his throat, the sound vibrating against your skin. His hand cupped your other breast, thumb rolling the nipple between his fingers, pinching just hard enough to send sparks of pleasure-pain shooting straight to your core. You’d never been touched like this before. There’d been secret snogs, awkward fumbles in broom closets that had never gone further than shirt buttons, never left you feeling more than flustered and underwhelmed. This was different.
Your body reacted in ways you hadn’t expected, hips twitching, thighs pressing together, the ache between your legs suddenly urgent and embarrassingly obvious. You could feel yourself clenching around nothing desperately. The sensation was almost alien, and you had to fight the impulse to cover yourself, to pull his hand away and to say wait, let me catch up.
Thoughts scattered in all directions. Was it supposed to feel this good? Did he know how much you were trembling? Could he tell this was your first time? Did he care? Did it matter? You worried you might be doing it wrong by making too much noise, arching too eagerly into his hands, looking foolish and overeager. But his gaze fixed on you, pupils blown, jaw tight with want.
He suddenly straightened, fingers smoothing back the hair from your face. “Hey,” His voice was softer than you’d ever heard it. “Still with me?”
You nodded, a little wild-eyed. “I—yeah. Sorry. I just—” You swallowed, eyes locking on the bland pattern of the carpet. “I haven’t…”
When you looked back up, his eyes flashed with a kind of darker satisfaction. “I know,” he murmured. “I thought so.” His hands slid down your waist. “We’ll go as slow as you need.”
You responded by tugging at his shirt, nails scraping against the hem until he chuckled low in his throat and let you have your way. He pulled back just long enough to strip it off, revealing the lean, muscled planes of his chest and abs. His sun-tanned skin bore the faint ghosts of bruises from Quidditch, a testament to the fact that he played rough today.
You stared shamelessly, hands twitching at your sides, before you finally gave in and mapped every line with your fingertips. The kiss that came next was messier, his tongue thrusting into your mouth in a rhythm that promised what was to come.
Jaemin's fingers worked at the button of your trousers, and you remembered with mortification that your knickers did not match your bra. Cool air hit your bare skin, but his body heat chased it away as he pressed closer, his clothed erection grinding against your thigh. You could feel how hard he was, the thick length straining against his trousers.
“Fuck, Y/N,” he murmured against your lips, voice rough with desire. “I've wanted this for so long.” His hand slid between your legs, fingers parting your folds to find you already slick. He groaned at the discovery, circling your clit with his thumb while a finger pushed inside you, drawing out tiny sparks of pleasure. Hehen he slipped two fingers inside, your hips jerked in startled delight. He moved slow at first, letting you get used to the stretch, his other hand splayed over your hip, grounding you, steadying you.
You moaned, hips bucking into his hand as he pumped his fingers in and out, stretching you, preparing you. The wet sounds of your arousal filled the room, mingling with your ragged breaths. He added a third finger, scissoring them to open you wider, his thumb pressing firmer on your clit until you were trembling, on the edge.
“Merlin, remind me to–… to read a book on this before next time,” you blurted breathlessly.
Jaemin stilled, and for a second, you wondered if you’d killed the mood entirely. But then his mouth curved into a wolfish grin, and he pressed a slow kiss to your cheek, trailing down the line of your jaw.
“Oh, I think you’re doing just fine,” he murmured, voice gone gravelly. “But if you want me to demonstrate…”
He kissed a path down your throat, across your collarbones, pausing to worship each new inch of skin revealed. It seemed like there was no part of you he didn’t want to learn. When his lips brushed the top of your breast, you gasped, the joke you’d been about to make dying on your tongue.
“Jaemin—what are you—?”
“Trust me,”
You whimpered in protest, but he silenced you with a kiss, guiding you toward the bed. He stripped off his own pants and boxers, his cock springing free, long and thick, the tip glistening with pre-cum. Your eyes locked on it, pulse racing at the sight.
He pushed you down onto the soft sheets, following you immediately until his body was covering yours. His mouth trailed lower, kissing a path down your stomach to the apex of your thighs. He spread your legs wide, settling between them, and looked up at you with eyes dark with hunger. “I need to taste you.”
“Wait—” you started, nerves rearing again.
He glanced up. “I promise you’ll like this.”
Then his tongue flicked out, lapping at your core in one long stroke, and the sound you made barely qualified as human. He sucked your clit into his mouth, alternating with broad licks along your slit, his fingers returning to thrust inside you. The combination of his relentless tongue and his fingers fucking you deep and steady was overwhelming.
“Okay, wow, that’s—oh—bloody hell—”
Right. So. That was new.
In fairness, you thought you were reasonably experienced. You had been alone with yourself often enough. You knew what you liked, had your own routines abd methods. A careful system involving muffled pillows, and a great deal of optimistic trial and error.
This was definitely not that.
This was like discovering you’d been trying to play a symphony on a recorder and Jaemin had just sat down at a grand piano and casually dismantled your entire understanding of music.
Your hips rolled against his face instinctively, chasing the building pleasure. He held you down with one arm across your waist, not letting you escape the onslaught. You gasped, the coil in your belly tightening unbearably.
“Jaemin,” you gasped. “Please—”
You weren’t entirely sure what you were asking for.
For him to stop. For him to continue. For him to explain how this was happening. For him to never leave this exact position.
Suddenly he added a finger, and wow…. that was certainly not how it felt when you did it. It probably had to do with the fact that his fingers were way longer and he seemed to know what to do with them.
He hummed against you, the vibration along with his tongue and fingers enough to push you over. Your orgasm crashed through you and you clenched around his fingers as waves of pleasure ripped you apart. He didn't stop, licking you through it until you were shaking, oversensitive and boneless.
Only then did he rise, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and dumb smirk on his lips. “How was that?”
He looked far too smug for your liking, and you—who had spent years pretending to be unflappable—actually giggled. Like a third year after her first Butterbeer.
“It was—” Your cheeks burned. “Brilliant.”
His smile widened. “Alright. Just one more thing before we…” He trailed his wand through a complicated motion. The tip shimmered blue, a faint ring of light settling across your pelvis.
He caught your eye. “Contraceptive charm. Unless you’d rather I hexed my own bollocks off instead, but I hear Madam Pomfrey’s got enough on her hands.”
Another nervous laugh broke from your lips, but Jaemin just pressed a reassuring hand to your thigh and leaned in.
“Tell me to stop if you want to. I mean it.”
You shook your head, want eclipsing every doubt you had. “I want to,” you said, the words tumbling out so fast they nearly tripped over themselves. “I want you.”
Jaemin lined himself up and watched your face as he eased forward slowly. The stretch stung at first—your body fighting to accommodate the unfamiliar width. It hurt more than you’d expected.
Your walls stretched, burning, fluttering around him, the ache gradually giving way to a dizzying pressure as he bottomed out. He stayed perfectly still, forehead resting against yours, both of you shuddering through the intensity of it.
“Alright?” Jaemin asked thickly, as if it cost him everything not to move. A low groan escaped him as your inner muscles clenched involuntarily around his cock, the sensation clearly testing his control.
“Yeah, it’s just… a lot,” you admitted, your breath hitching.
He let out a soft, breathy laugh, his hips twitching slightly despite his efforts to stay still. “Yeah, I know. I’m quite big.” The joke pulled a surprised giggle from you, the tension in your chest easing just a fraction. His eyes crinkled with warmth at the sight.
“You feel so fucking good,” he murmured, a whimper threading through his words, his fingers digging into the sheets beside your head. “It—it’s taking everything not to just pound into you right now.”
He was flushed, hair damp with sweat, the strands sticking adorably to his brow and temples. His cheeks were tinged rose-pink, his jaw clenched tight as if the effort of holding himself back was an actual battle. His lips, swollen from kissing you, parted as he panted, every exhale ghosting warm across your face. A single bead of sweat trickled from his hairline, skimming down to the curve of his cheekbone. You couldn’t help but reach up, tracing it with a shaky finger. He caught your hand, pressing his lips to your palm, and the heat of it nearly undid you.
You’d never seen him look more beautiful. All that cockiness and swagger stripped away. This was just Jaemin, undone, desperate, trying to be gentle for your sake and barely managing.
A sudden warmth loosened in your chest, chasing away the last of your tension. You wanted this. The pain ebbed slowly, replaced by a deeper need. You shifted beneath him, hips rolling tentatively, and found the sting softened, yielding to a heady pleasure that made your toes curl.
“Merlin,” Jaemin groaned in response.
You squeezed your eyes shut for a moment, focusing on the sensations: the fullness, the way your inner muscles clenched involuntarily around him, sending little sparks of warmth across your body. Your hands roamed his back, feeling the tense muscles under your fingertips, and you whispered, “Please Jaem, move.”
Jaemin pulled back slightly, just an inch or two, and pushed in again slowly. A deep groan rumbled from his chest at the drag, his eyes fluttering shut for a second. “Shit… so good,” he panted.
The motion made you gasp, the initial burn fading into a building warmth. He repeated it, shallow at first, giving your body time to adapt. Each gentle thrust coaxed a soft whimper from your throat, your nerves firing in ways you’d never imagined. It wasn’t seamless or effortless like in the stories you’d read; there were awkward pauses, a slight shift when he slipped a bit, both of you chuckling breathlessly to ease the tension.
Then he started moving faster, pulling out almost all the way before thrusting back in. Each stroke hit a perfect angle, his hips grinding against your clit with every push. You wrapped your legs around his waist, pulling him closer, nails digging into his shoulders as he fucked you harder.
The bed creaked under the force of his thrusts, skin slapping against skin. Jaemin's hand found yours, lacing your fingers together as he drove into you, his eyes never leaving yours. There was tenderness in the way he held you, even as his pace turned brutal, chasing release.
“You’re doing so well, princess,” he murmured, brushing your temple.”
A jolt of pleasure shot through you as the head of his cock nudged a spot that made your breath hitch. “There… right there,” you breathed, your voice shaky but sure.
Jaemin laced his fingers with yours, pinning your hand above your head gently. His eyes bored into yours. “I’ve wanted this for so long,” he confessed between thrusts, voice punctuated by a whimper as your walls gripped him.
“Me too,” you breathed..
He released your hand to slip between your bodies, fingers finding your clit with unerring accuracy. He circled it slowly at first, matching the tempo of his hips, then faster as your moans grew louder. “Come on, let go for me… you’re so close, I can feel it,” he urged, his own groans growing more frequent.
The added friction shattered you. Your orgasm built fast, coiling tight before exploding, your walls fluttering around his cock, milking him.
He followed you over the edge with a broken cry muffled against your neck, burying himself deep as he came. He collapsed onto you afterward, both of you panting, hearts pounding in that particular post-coital unison that poets find romantic and medical professionals find concerning. He stayed inside you as he softened, pressing kisses to your temple, your cheek, the corner of your mouth.
You lay tangled in Jaemin's arms, limbs pleasantly loose from exertion and spine somewhat less pleasantly compressed by the world's most questionable mattress.
The Room of Requirement, in its infinite wisdom, had conjured a heap of velvet blankets to cover yourself with. You suspected Hogwarts's taste in romantic furnishings had been shaped by decades of adolescent fantasy and the castle's own flair for the dramatic. Regardless, your back ached, your hair was a catastrophe, and you found that you didn't mind at all.
Jaemin, for his part, seemed content to lounge beside you like a Renaissance painting of decadent youth, one hand idly tracing the curve of your hip beneath the sheet. It was all terribly calm—if you ignored the thunderous panic building in your own chest.
You propped yourself up on one elbow and regarded him in the low light. In repose, the sharp edges of him softened into something almost approachable. You'd always been rather undone by his eyes, if you were being honest, but now, seeing them half-lidded and so unguarded, the usual sardonic glitter banked to embers, you felt something dangerous clawing its way up your throat.
Don't, warned the sensible part of your brain. Don't you dare.
"I love you," you said.
The words escaped before you had a chance to wrap them in plausible deniability or cushion them with caveats.
Jaemin went very still.
For one absurd, hopeful moment, you thought perhaps he simply needed a second to process. That was reasonable, wasn't it? People usually needed time to absorb emotional declarations. Any moment now, he'd turn to you with that devastating smile and say—
He rolled away. Sat up. And began an unhurried search for his shirt, which had vanished somewhere beneath the bed during earlier, more optimistic proceedings.
Ah.
Ah.
"Jaemin?" you ventured. Your voice sounded strange to your own ears.
He didn't turn around. His shoulders, you noticed, had gone rather tense. "It's getting late. We should probably head back to our dormitories."
Your heart, so stupidly full just moments ago, plummeted somewhere in the vicinity of your stomach. "What?"
"It's late," he repeated, to the floor, or perhaps to the shirt he'd finally located. "We have classes tomorrow. We should get some sleep."
You felt as though someone had upended a bucket of ice water directly over your head. You sat up, pulling the sheet around yourself with hands that had begun, rather inconveniently, to tremble. You'd been pleasantly naked in front of him not five minutes ago, and now you couldn't bear the exposure.
"Jaemin." You hated how small your voice had become. "Did you hear what I said?"
He finally looked at you. His expression had shuttered completely, all the warmth and softness of moments ago locked away behind those dark eyes.
"I heard you."
"And?"
He exhaled. "This... what we just did... it doesn't change anything." A pause. "We had an arrangement. A deal. It was never supposed to be more than that."
The silence that followed was the loudest thing you'd ever heard.
You stared at him, vision blurring treacherously at the edges, and thought: of course. Of course he didn't love you back. How could he? You were merely a solution to a problem. The fact that you'd been foolish enough to fall for your own charade—well. That was your fault entirely, wasn't it? No one to blame but yourself and your own ridiculous heart.
"Right," you heard yourself say. "Of course. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—that was too—I'm sorry."
"Y/N..." He reached for you, and you flinched away so sharply you nearly toppled off the bed.
"No, it's fine." Your voice had gone brittle, the way it did when you were trying very hard not to cry. "You're absolutely right. We should go."
You stood on shaky legs and began gathering your scattered clothes with trembling hands. Your jumper had ended up draped over a candelabra, and you couldn't find your left sock, but you decided that you didn't care. You needed to leave. You needed to be anywhere but this room that had witnessed your greatest vulnerability and your most thorough humiliation.
Jaemin dressed in silence. His movements were impersonal, as if the tender lover of minutes ago was replaced entirely by a distant stranger pulling on his trousers like this was simply another Tuesday. Perhaps, for him, it was.
When you were both clothed, he cleared his throat.
"I'll walk you back to—"
"I can manage," you interrupted, shoving your only gracelessly into your back pocket.
His jaw worked, as though he were chewing over some final, unsatisfying thought. You found you didn't want to hear it.
"Goodnight, Y/N," he said finally.
You didn't answer. You turned on your heel, crossed to the door, and walked out of the Room of Requirement with your chin held high and your heart in approximately seventeen thousand pieces, wishing desperately for a Time-Turner and the sense to use it.
You walked back to Gryffindor Tower in a daze, barely registering your surroundings. Your mind was reeling, trying to process the abrupt shift from blissful intimacy to cold rejection. You stumbled through the portrait hole, ignoring the Fat Lady's concerned look. Thankfully, the common room was empty at this hour. You stood there for a long moment, staring into the dying flames, feeling the weight of your own foolishness pressing down on you.
You'd let yourself imagine it, hadn't you? A future where this thing between you and Jaemin was something real. Something that would survive the end of your little arrangement, that would unfold into late-night conversations and stolen kisses in corridors and his hand finding yours under the table at breakfast. You'd let yourself believe it so thoroughly that you'd forgotten it was never true to begin with.
And now you were left with nothing but the cold truth and the aching space in your chest where your heart used to be.
A beautiful lie. A fairy tale you'd spun for yourself, heedless of the inevitable unhappy ending that had been written into the story from the very first page.
And now you were alone in an empty common room at half past midnight, with nothing but the cold truth and the aching, echoing space in your chest where your heart used to be.
"Y/N? Is that you?"
You turned to see Jo descending from the dormitories. She was in her pajamas, hair piled in a messy bun, face still creased with sleep. But the moment she saw you properly, whatever drowsy inquiry she'd been planning died on her lips.
Her eyes went wide. Understanding flooded her features, followed swiftly by something fierce and protective.
"Oh, love," she breathed, and crossed the room in three quick strides to pull you into her arms. "Oh, no. What happened? What did he do?"
And that was all it took. The dam broke, and suddenly you were sobbing into her shoulder, great heaving gasps that shook your whole body. She held you tightly, stroking your hair, murmuring soothing nonsense as you cried.
"I t-told him I l-loved him," you managed between sobs. "And he... he just..."
"Shh, I've got you. Breathe."
"He said it didn’t change anything." You choked on the words. "That it was never supposed to be more than that. And I just—I stood there like an idiot—"
"You're not an idiot." Her arms tightened around you. "You're not. He's the idiot. He's a complete and utter prat, and I'm going to hex his bollocks off, see if I don't—"
A small, inquisitive mrrp interrupted the proceedings.
You both looked down. Whiskers had appeared from somewhere behind the sofa. He blinked up at you with large, knowing eyes, then began weaving between your ankles with pointed determination.
"Oh, Whiskers," Jo murmured. "Good boy. You tell her."
The cat, apparently agreeing that emotional support was required, rose up on his hind legs to bump his head against your knee. When that failed to produce adequate acknowledgment, he meowed again and began climbing your leg in pursuit of a better vantage point.
You laughed, it came out watery and hiccupping and rather awful, but it was a laugh nonetheless.
"See? He thinks Jaemin's a prat, too." Jo said solemnly, scooping Whiskers up and depositing him into the narrow space between you both. The cat immediately began purring and butted his head against your chin.
You wiped your eyes with the back of your hand, still trembling. "I feel so stupid, Jo. I knew this was how it would end. I knew from the beginning it wasn't real, and I just—I let myself—"
"Hey." Jo pulled back to look at you properly. "Falling in love isn't stupid. It's brave. Even when it's messy and terrifying and the other person is a monumental coward who doesn't deserve you."
"He's not…"
"He is." Her voice brooked no argument. "Anyone who looks at you the way he does and then pretends it's nothing? That's cowardice. That's someone too scared to admit what they feel, so they make you feel like you’re imagining it instead."
You opened your mouth to protest, because surely it wasn't like that, surely you'd simply misread everything, surely the fault was yours for wanting too much, but Jo cut you off.
"No. Don't do that. Don't even try to make excuses for him." She softened, just slightly. "I know you love him. And I know that doesn't just... switch off. But you deserve someone brave enough to love you back out loud, yeah?"
A fresh wave of tears came, because she was right. You did deserve that. And you’d thought, for a few perfect hours, that maybe you’d had it.
“I really thought he—” You couldn’t finish.
“I know.” Her voice was gentle. “I know you did. And maybe he does, somewhere under all that stupid hair. But maybe isn’t good enough.”
You pressed your face into Whiskers’s fur, trying to breathe through the ache in your chest.
"Right," she continued. "Here's what's going to happen. You're going to sit here, and you're going to let Whiskers work his magic, and you're going to cry as much as you need to. And tomorrow, we're going to eat an absolutely obscene amount of chocolate at breakfast, and you're going to ignore Na Jaemin so thoroughly he'll wonder if he's gone invisible. And if he tries to talk to you, I'll hex him. I’ve gotten really good at Bat-Bogeys."
"Jo, you will get detention."
"I don't care," she wasn't smiling anymore. "No one gets to make you feel like this and walk away unscathed. Not while I'm around."
You leaned into her, letting your head drop against her shoulder. Whiskers purred on.
"I really love him," you whispered. "Even after tonight. How pathetic is that?"
"It's not pathetic at all." Jo's voice caressed your heard, all the protective fury banked into comfort. "Love just doesn't care about timing, or logic, or whether the other person deserves it. It just is." A pause. "And for what it's worth? I don't think he's as unaffected as he's pretending to be. I've seen the way he looks at you when he thinks no one's watching."
You didn't answer. You weren't sure you believed her at all, to be honest. But you let her hold you, let Whiskers purr and let the fire burn down to ash while the ache in your chest slowly, slowly dulled to something almost bearable.
Jaemin had never felt more like a prat in his entire life.
No—that wasn't quite accurate. Prat implied mild social incompetence. A tendency to say the wrong thing at dinner parties, forgetting birthdays, laughing at funerals. The sort of harmless foolishness that people forgave with a fond eye-roll and a muttered oh, that's just Jaemin.
What he had done went rather spectacularly beyond that.
He had taken something fragile and rare, something most people spent their entire lives hoping to stumble across, and placed it directly under his own boot. Deliberately. With malice aforethought, or at least malice afore-panic, which hardly seemed better.
He had watched you gather every ounce of courage you possessed. Had felt you trembling against him, breath shallow, voice catching on the edges of words you clearly hadn't planned to say. You had offered him something honest and unguarded and terrifying in its vulnerability, and he had responded by retreating behind technicalities and arrangements like a child hiding behind a curtain and insisting, with full conviction, that he was invisible.
We had a deal.
God. He wanted to reach back in time and throttle himself.
It was never supposed to be more than that.
What a thing to say. What an absolute masterwork of emotional cowardice, delivered with the sort of cool detachment that would've made his father proud. He could practically hear the old man now: Well done, son. Keep them at arm's length. Never let them see you bleed.
Coward.
That was the word. The only word that fit.
A coward with decent grades and a Quidditch record impressive enough to distract people from the fact that, emotionally, he possessed all the sophistication of a flobberworm. Less, actually. Flobberworms at least had the excuse of being invertebrates.
He replayed it in his head for the forty-seventh time that hour, the way your voice had softened when you said it. I love you. Three words, plain and graceles, tumbling out like they'd escaped against your will.
The way your fingers had curled into the sheets as if bracing for impact. The tiny pause afterward—that breath of suspended time where you had waited for him to meet you there.
And he hadn't.
He had stood on the very edge of everything he'd wanted for six years—six years, which was roughly forty percent of his entire existence and one hundred percent of his adolescence—and he had convinced himself that stepping forward was more dangerous than falling back.
He had finally kissed the girl who'd haunted his thoughts since he was eleven years old and too stupid to understand why her insults made his chest feel strange. He had finally heard you say you loved him out loud, to his face, with your whole heart in your voice.
And instead of recognizing it for the bloody miracle it was, he had panicked.
As though being loved were a trap. As though affection were some elaborate con, and you were merely waiting for the right moment to spring it.
As though you, of all people—brilliant, stubborn, infuriatingly principled you—were something he needed protecting from rather than running toward.
He laughed under his breath. The sound came out thin and joyless, startling in the empty corridor.
Afraid of being loved.
What a stupid thing to be afraid of. It ranked right up there with afraid of winning the Quidditch Cup or afraid of someone handing you precisely what you've desperately wanted and asking nothing in return.
He had spent years wanting your attention.
Years engineering excuses to speak to you, picking fights in the corridors because negative attention was still attention, stealing your quills, hexing your textbooks, memorizing your class schedule so he could accidentally-on-purpose cross your path between classes.
He had told himself this behavior came from an innocent rivalry or perhaps even house pride, just the natural antagonism between Slytherin ambition and Gryffindor recklessness.
He had watched you from across the Great Hall, the way you laughed with Jo, the way you chewed your quill when you were thinking, the way the light caught your hair in the morning, and convinced himself it was harmless curiosity. Academic interest. The detached observation of a worthy opponent.
What a spectacular amount of bollocks he had fed himself.
He had wanted you persistently. Recklessly, in a way that would've horrified his younger self, who had been very committed to the aesthetic of cool indifference.
And when he finally had you, when you were warm and real and trusting in his arms, when you'd given yourself to him completely and then offered your heart on top of it like some undeserved gift—
He had recoiled.
Because being loved meant being seen.
It meant showing up. Being present. Letting someone witness all the parts of himself he usually kept buried under six layers of charm and sarcasm and ambition. It meant responsibility. Knowing that someone else's happiness was now tangled up in his own choices, his own failures, his own capacity to be something more than the sum of his defense mechanisms.
He had spent years telling himself he was being sensible.
Protecting people, he'd called it. Keeping them safe. As though his emotional unavailability were some sort of public service, a kindness he performed by keeping parts of himself locked away where they couldn't do damage.
He lived by three rules: feelings were liabilities, distance was safety, and caring too much was the fastest way to hand someone a weapon and hope they didn't use it.
It had been easy to believe that, growing up in a house where affection came with conditions and approval came with expectations. Where love had always been something that could be revoked at any moment—a privilege, not a given. A reward for good behavior, withdrawn the instant you failed to meet the mark.
So he'd learned early how to ration himself. How to care quietly, in ways that couldn't be measured or weaponised. How to want without asking. How to feel without admitting it, even to himself.
And it had worked. For years, it had worked.
He had been fine. Perfectly content in his carefully constructed fortress of emotional self-sufficiency.
Until you.
You, who had looked at his defenses not as walls to be respected but to be climbed. Who had called him out on his nonsense and refused to be impressed by his posturing and seen through him with a clarity that terrified him.
You had dismantled his entire system without even trying.
And now you were crying in the Gryffindor common room, probably being comforted by Jo who rightfully thought he was the worst sort of person, while he stood alone in a dark corridor with nothing but the wreckage of his own making for company.
He pressed his palm flat to his chest, as if he might physically restrain the ache there.
It didn't work. The ache remained, steady and insistent, a bruise that seemed to pulse in time with his heartbeat. He had been given exactly what he wanted and he had thrown it away because he didn't believe he was allowed to keep it.
Because somewhere deep in the foundations of himself, in all the places his parents' voices still echoed, he had decided that love was not something people like him got to have. Not permanently. That wanting something too much was the surest way to lose it, and the safest course was to let go before it could be taken.
He had pre-empted his own heartbreak.
And in doing so, he had guaranteed it.
The realization settled over him slowly, and Na Jaemin—Slytherin Prefect, Quidditch star, heir to a name that opened doors across the wizarding world—had never felt more utterly, unforgivably small.
He thought of you, somewhere in Gryffindor Tower, believing you had been foolish to love him.
And he thought: No.
The only fool here is me.
He spent the next few days turning it over. You saying those three words and him saying it didn’t change anything. What a lie. It changed everything and he could feel every new fault line spider out beneath his feet, threatening to split him open.
At first, he tried to convince himself he needed this: to have the edge. He thought of the next two weeks as a sprint, a countdown to the end of the deal, a chance to reset before anyone saw how scrambled he’d become. But the more he tried to hold that line, the more he found himself drifting. A wordless longing in his veins, a kind of hunger not easily starved out.
He looked like hell at breakfast. Sungchan greeted him with a commence-the-mocking whistle and immediately began recounting every detail of the party—especially the part where Jaemin had “dragged his girlfriend off like the end of a Victorian bodice-ripper and nobody saw either of them again until morning.”
Jaemin grunted in response. He’d hoped that the Slytherin table’s perpetual ruckus would drown out his mood, but word had apparently traveled at broomstick speed that he and his Gryffindor paramour had disappeared into the night and returned separately.
“Did you see Y/N?” Giselle asked, low-voiced as she slid onto the bench next to him. “She didn’t come down yet. Jo said something about a headache, but you know what that usually means.”
Jaemin played dumb. It was one of his most reliable talents. “Hangover?”
Giselle’s lips thinned into an unimpressed line. “Try again.”
He almost managed a laugh. “What, mid-semester flu, then?”
Changmin leaned across the table to whack him on the forearm. “Knock it off. You know what she means.”
For a second, Jaemin's lip curled with the beginning of a sneer. Then he caught the genuine concern in Changmin's eyes, and something in his chest constricted painfully. He knew he was being intolerable, but couldn't seem to stop himself. Besides, when had his friends developed this sudden interest in your wellbeing? Just weeks ago, they'd barely concealed their disdain whenever your name came up.
He shrugged. “Didn’t realize you lot were so invested in her.”
Sungchan, mouth full of toast, said, “Are you thick? She’s basically our in-law now.”
Giselle, who had never in her life let a moment of vulnerability pass unremarked, pinned him with a look sharp enough to cut. “Stop pretending you don’t care,” she said quietly. “It’s pathetic.”
Jaemin tried to brush it off, but her words dug in. The table fell into a brief, uncharacteristic silence, broken only by the scrape of utensils and the dull roar of the rest of the Hall. His eyes betrayed him, sweeping across the Great Hall in search of your face. It was four minutes to the start of first period when you appeared, rumpled as a stray leaflet, hair yanked into a bun with a quill, the red in your eyes unsoftened by any attempt to conceal it. You didn’t look in his direction. Not even once.
Jo steered you to a seat as far from the Slytherin table as possible, and for the first time in living memory, you didn’t have a book open with breakfast. You just sat there, picking at a single triangle of toast, the very opposite of the person he’d chased across the halls for half a decade.
He watched you, hating himself for it but unable to stop. Any moment now, you’d look up with a tiny smile and mouth, “What are you looking at?” and the axis of his world would correct itself by one degree. Instead, you slipped out before the first bell.
At least he was reliably consistent. Second period hadn't even started and Jaemin had orchestrated a trinity of fleeting, meticulously planned collisions. He'd spent the first break loitering by the Charms corridor, just to see your profile as you debated something with Jo. You never saw him. Or if you did, you made a point of acting as if he were invisible—a feat that, for someone as volatile as you, must have taken immense restraint. Still, his pulse hammered at the mere proximity, the knowledge that you occupied the same ten-meter radius.
Then, after Defense, he'd shadowed your route to the library, walking the long way around just so he could pass you by the statue of Dymphna the Dazed. He’d spent so many hours studying your gait, the bounce in your step, the way you always fiddled with your wand as you walked that he could predict, to the second, when you'd arrive at the oak doors. The actual moment was almost an anticlimax, though: You breezed right past, not even a flicker of recognition in your gaze.
By the time he wandered into the stacks of the Library, he’d convinced himself that running into you was serendipity and not the carefully plotted vector of a moth to its own funeral pyre. He saw you perched at the edge of a reading table, surrounded by towers of books and an aura of such prickly concentration that even Madam Pince hovered before daring to approach. He told himself he needed something from the Potions section, just adjacent to your fortress of solitude, but when you looked up and caught him standing there, he nearly dropped his armful of textbooks.
But you simply returned to your reading, jaw tight, quill moving in furious dashes. The rejection was as comprehensive as any hex, and it landed him two rows over, staring blankly at a shelf of moldy periodicals and trying to pretend his hands weren't shaking.
This was how the day went: Jaemin planning collisions, you dodging each one with exactness. He wondered if you knew you could destroy him just by looking his way.
You didn’t bite either way. You only spoke once to him, and it was to offer one brittle “Excuse me” as you slid past. He caught a whiff of your hair then and realized he’d missed that scent. It filled his head, left him dizzy. He didn’t turn around as you disappeared down the aisle. He only stood there, polysyllabic apologies crowding the back of his tongue—and not a single one fit to say aloud.
You knew the aftermath would be the hardest part, but nothing could’ve prepared you for the days that followed. They stretched out, elastic and punitive, filled with silences so loud you imagined they could split the castle at its seams.
In a fit of what you would later call “productive despair,” you doubled down on your schoolwork. Every study hour became a refuge, your textbooks a bulwark against thinking. Whiskers responded to your newly-acquired hermitage by laying siege to your lap at all hours, claws lightly sheathed, tail flicking in his sleep like he was chasing the very feelings you’d tried to outrun.
You became an expert at avoiding Jaemin. You timed your arrivals to classes, hung back until the corridors thinned, and made peace with the fact that every now and then, you’d have to let a Slytherin Prefect dock you house points for lateness. Sometimes it was even Jaemin himself; he’d hand you the slip with his eyes fixed somewhere behind your left ear.
Even the Slytherin first years who’d once delighted in blocking your path seemed to shrink away from the tableau, as if the story of your heartbreak had filtered down through the stone like cold water, softening even the nastiest traditions.
Jo, goddess among friends, never pressed. She introduced you to a new array of comfort snacks and developed a proprietary cocoa recipe that she claimed could “reanimate a troll.” She helped you with Charms and let you rant about nothing in particular. When you occasionally faltered—when your hand shook during practicals or you lost your place reading out loud in History of Magic—she’d bump your knee under the desk and say, “We’re almost there, kitten. Keep your chin up.”
You kept your chin up. It hurt but you did it, because Jo was watching, and because Whiskers was watching, and because you refused to let him have any more of your dignity than you’d already handed over.
Four days before the end of the arrangement, your N.E.W.Ts loomed like a darkening storm. You’d just finished revising for Arithmancy when Jo spoke, “We’re doing a girls’ night tonight. No arguments.” She produced two vials of Smuggler’s Pumpkin Spice Spirit (questionable provenance) and a deck of Exploding Snap. “And we’re inviting Yuna.”
You nearly choked. “Yuna?”
Jo nodded seriously. “I saw her crying in the North Tower last Tuesday. She needs it. We need it. Besides, she’s been relentlessly normal lately.”
The idea felt so surreal that you couldn’t bring yourself to object. At exactly ten, Yuna appeared outside your dormitory, balancing a tray of suspiciously glittery shot glasses. She wore pajamas patterned with tiny cats and a hesitant smile, both of which seemed calculated to defuse ancient hostilities.
The three of you sprawled on the floor of the dormitory. You, cross-legged and trying not to look like your entire emotional landscape was scorched earth; Jo, already red-cheeked and deploying her patented “I’m-not-drunk-you’re-drunk” strategy; and Yuna, who poured drinks for everyone.
The first round was vile. The second was marginally less vile, or perhaps your tongue had simply given up. After a few more, your nerves had been numbed enough that you no longer cared if anyone brought up the name “Jaemin”. Or maybe you wanted them to.
Eventually, Jo passed out. She did so with Whiskers pillowed on her belly and her arms flung overhead.Yuna watched her for a long, pensive moment. Then she poured each of you one last shot and raised hers in a slightly wobbly toast. “To stupid boys,” she said. “And to the girls surviving them.”
You clinked glasses. The spirit went down like molten pudding and settled somewhere near your spleen.
A companionable silence fell, the pleasant, boozy sort that felt safe enough to say things you would otherwise never let see daylight.
Yuna was the first to break it.
“He’s terrible at hiding it, you know,” she said. “Jaemin.”
You blinked. “What?”
“What he wants,” Yuna clarified. “It’s…not subtle.” She swirled her shot glass, watching the dregs coat the glassy bottom. “I think he makes things hard for himself, but harder for the people he cares about.” She flicked her gaze up. “And you must know. You’re the only one he’s ever actually cared about.”
You tried to laugh, but it came out flat. “I think you’re mixing up ‘care’ with ‘use as a convenient shield for his own problems.’”
Yuna’s expression shifted to puzzled. “Convenient shield?”
You blinked at her, a little dizzy, a little stunned that Yuna, one of Slytherin’s most preternaturally well-informed gossip, didn’t already know every miserable detail. “You—oh, come on. The arrangement.” You mimed air quotes with your fingers, nearly upending your glass in the process. “We only did this to get you off his bloody back.”
Yuna opened her mouth to say something,but then just burst out laughing. Not even a sly titter but a full-throated snort that startled Whiskers off Jo’s belly and into an escape beneath the bed.
“Oh—oh, Merlin’s balls—” Yuna gasped, clutching her ribs. “You—wait, you actually believed—oh, this is precious.”
You felt yourself flush with irritation. “What’s so funny? That you lost your shot at Jaemin?”
“No, you adorable idiot, not that.” Yuna shook her head, wiping away a tear of mirth. “Are you serious? I’ve only ever talked to Jaemin because he’s Changmin’s best friend, and Changmin—well…”
She trailed off, her cheeks going very pink, then, as if you weren’t present at all, she laid her head back against the bottom bunk and stared at the ceiling, a contented smile on her lips.
You waited for more context, a swirl of confusion tangling up your tongue. There was a thud as Whiskers landed on the foot of the bed, followed by the faintest prickle of claws as he padded up beside you.
Finally, the implication of her words hit your tipsy brain. “Wait. You’re not—I mean. You weren’t even—?”
“Into Jaemin?” Yuna finished for you. “Merlin, no. Not since third year at least—and even then, only in the way you want a new pair of boots.” She shrugged, twirling a strand of her hair around her finger. “He’s nice to look at, but a nightmare to date. Total self-saboteur.” She glanced at you, curious. “You really thought I was after him?”
You felt lightheaded. “I mean you were everywhere—”
“I was following Changmin, you dolt.” Yuna’s face went even pinker if possible. “I set this whole thing up to make him jealous. I mean, it worked, he finally asked me to Hogsmeade, but—” she broke off, suddenly shy. “Sorry for the collateral damage. Truly.”
You stared at her, the pieces of the last months threatening to explode through the air. All that plotting, the drama, every humiliating emotional contortion you’d endured, and all this time…
Jaemin hadn’t been fighting off Yuna. He’d just, what?
Did he just want an excuse to be near you, because he was pathologically incapable of admitting how much he needed it, even to himself? Every ounce of dignity you'd sacrificed, every moment of your life spent embroiled in this nonsense, and the object of his supposed self-sacrifice had been pining for Changmin the entire time.
You took a long, bracing inhale, thumping your head once hard against the edge of the bed frame.
“Unbelievable,” you muttered.
Yuna, to her credit, had the decency not to gloat. She nudged Whiskers toward you. “He’s always liked you, you know,” she said. “Even before. He used to ask me how to get you to stop hating him, like I had some kind of… girl code manual.”
You eyed her. “Did you?”
Yuna nodded, propping her chin on her knees. “I told him to try being honest for once. Clearly, he didn’t listen.”
You rolled your eyes. “That’s the understatement of the century.”
“You know, out of everyone, I think you’re the only person who makes him utterly lose his composure. He’s usually… impossible to fluster. Kind of his thing. But around you it’s like—you light a match and throw it into his brain.”
“Well, I certainly managed to set something on fire,” you said, and surprised yourself with a half-laugh. “Just not in any useful way.”
Yuna scooted a little closer, lowering her voice. “I know you probably don’t want my advice, but… maybe give him a chance to fix it. He’s genuinely bad at this stuff.” She shrugged. “You don’t have to forgive him, but if you’re waiting for him to say the right thing, you might be waiting forever.”
Her words slotted into place in your exhausted brain, like the last piece of a hopelessly complicated puzzle. Horrible, giddy amusement bubbled up your chest: all this time, you’d been fighting the wrong war, arming yourself against an enemy who’d never even taken the field.
You left Jo and Yuna asleep in each other's arms, Whiskers curled into a protective gray-striped crescent at the foot of the bed. Every portrait squinted with suspicious half-lidded eyes, and every suit of armor clattered medieval disapproval as you ran past them.
You didn't think much about where you were going, but the probability was as precise as Divination could ever muster: the Slytherin common room. Because if there was a single neuron left swimming in your firewhisky-addled brain, it was firing like a desperate flare directly toward Na Jaemin.
You padded soundlessly through the dungeons, fingertips trailing along the cool stone walls for balance, only to round a corner and nearly collide with a tall silhouette legging it up from the other direction. Jaemin, hair disheveled like he'd been running his hands through it for hours, shirt untucked with three buttons misaligned, and eyes wild as a cornered hippogriff, skidded to a halt so abrupt you both nearly toppled over.
You just stood there, staring, every cell in your body screaming and also quite possibly vibrating. Through the haze of fatigue and shame and liquor, you registered every heartbreakingly specific detail of him: the spike in his breathing, the way he braced one hand against the wall as if he needed it to hold up the rest of him, the deep crease between his eyebrows that only appeared when he was actively terrified.
The words queued up, fighting to be first out. “I—” “Listen—” “Can we—” “Please—”
A jumble, then an accidental harmony: “I need to talk to you.”
For one second, you considered turning around and running. But the way Jaemin looked at you pinned you to the spot.
He spoke first. “Come to the broom closet? I think I saw Mrs Norris nearby, which means… ”
“Filch,” you finished for him. “Okay, let’s go.”
You followed him in silence, down the corridor to the oversized closet that Slytherins had used for centuries to hide everything from illicit liquor to first-year snoggers. He held the door open, then closed it behind you, which left you not even three feet apart.
Jaemin propped his back against the door and exhaled so slowly it sounded like the last breath of a dying man. You tried not to notice that his hands were shaking. Or that he looked, for all his composure, completely lost. “I, um.” He looked down at his own shoes. “Y/N, I fucked up.”
You blinked. You’d come here to yell, maybe. Or at least to interrogate some truths out of him, like why he had so thoroughly detonated your entire sense of self. But he’d opened with the guilt and you weren’t ready for it. Unpracticed, unbuffered by the ice of pride or wit. It landed inside you with an unexpected warmth that left you unable to launch the first missile of your prepared invective.
He tried again. “I said things I didn’t mean. Or… didn’t say things I was supposed to.” He scrubbed a hand down his face, and for the first time in your long and bitter acquaintance, he looked his age. Not the chiseled, archvillain Slytherin but a seventeen-year-old boy who’d just spent the last week eating his own heart.
You pressed your back to the shelving, feeling a bristle of ancient brooms poking into your shoulder. It was easier to focus on the physical discomfort than the absolute riot of feelings inside you. “Why did you do it, then?” you asked, voice trembling but louder than you felt. “Why pretend? Why go through all of it if you didn’t—”
He looked up then, and the world stopped. You'd always known Jaemin had pretty eyes, almost stupidly so, but you'd never seen them this stripped of showmanship. There was nothing left in them but the need to be understood.
He ran both hands through his hair, almost laughing at himself. “Growing up, love was like a… currency. My parents, they’d dole it out in rations, make you earn it, then yank it away when you needed it most. Every hug, every ‘I’m proud of you’—it was an investment, and nothing was free. I don’t want to do that.”
He broke off, looking at you as if every word took a year off his life. “But then you—fuck, Y/N, you just loved me. Out loud. Not because you had to, or because I earned it, but because you wanted to. And I didn’t know what to do with that, so I panicked and did what I always do, which is ruin things before they can ruin me.”
You might have laughed, if it hadn’t stung so much. “You could’ve just said it back, you know. Or at least not torched me on the way out.”
“I know,” he whispered. “I wanted to. I do. I just—” He exhaled again and met your gaze. “I actually love you so much, and it scares me so bad I’d rather light the whole thing on fire than tell you to your face.I thought if you ever knew, if you ever saw how fucking much it was, you’d run for the hills. I was scared.” He huffed a laugh. “I’m still scared.”
You stared at him, the old defenses rising out of habit—sarcasm, skepticism, the impulse to twist anything freely given—but something in his voice made them shrivel away. He wasn’t lying. He wasn’t even posturing. He was sweating through his shirt in a freezing stone corridor, admitting in the most un-Slytherin way possible that he wanted something enough to break himself for it.
He took a faltering step toward you. “I love you. I love you so much it makes my head hurt, and every time you look at me, I feel like I’m being given something I’m not allowed to keep. You’re so smart, brilliant really, you make everything feel less small and stupid, and I like how you argue even when you know you’re wrong, and sometimes I go out of my way just to hear you laugh at me, because when you do it I feel like maybe I’m not a total waste of oxygen—”
He broke off, eyes wild and shining. “You make me better, from the inside out. And I was so terrified that if you ever saw the real me—if I let you in even a little—I’d ruin it. Or you’d hate me.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “But I ruined it anyway,didn’t I?”
You listened in shock, because this was the Jaemin you’d believed existed only at the very edges of his brittle, cocky mask. The one who’d made a study of you, who’d learned all your favorite spells and matched your every move. You weren’t sure you knew how to reply. The gravity of his confession pressed you to the wall.
"I'm not going to say it was fine," you whispered, voice cracking. "It felt like you'd reached inside my chest and—" You pressed a trembling hand to your sternum. "God, Jaemin. I couldn't breathe for days. But even then, I never—" Your voice broke completely. "I never really hated you. Not even when I probably should've."
He breathed out. “You’ve no idea how much I wanted you to hate me properly. Would’ve made everything simpler.”
“Why spend all that time and effort in this charade? You could've just been honest... You had no idea how I would take it.”
He squeezed the bridge of his nose as if the pain of the question might physically rupture his skull. “Because I didn’t know how else to have you, and I thought the only way you’d let me close was if it was an act.”
You wanted to spit something cruel, but it collapsed against the lump in your throat. “You incredible, galloping idiot,” you said instead, mostly to yourself.
You were about to speak again when he slipped a hand inside the folds of his robes. A familiar spine emerged, its dark leather cover worn soft across the creased corners, the gold lettering faintly dulled by time. Wuthering Heights.
It was the very copy you’d pressed into his hand weeks ago, at Tomes and Scrolls, half in jest. You’d expected him to snort and set it aside unread, or skim a few florid passages, shrug, and call it melodramatic nonsense. But now its pages were dog-eared, edges curling; a thin gold ribbon marked a specific chapter. The paper around it was so softened that you could almost see the imprint of fingertips pressed into the margins—tiny scrawled notes in cramped handwriting, evidence of long, late-night wrestling matches with Emily Brontë’s tempestuous souls.
Jaemin’s fingers trembled as he thumbed to the ribboned page. He cleared his throat, that quiet catch sounding louder in the hush around you, and lifted his gaze. The green of his eyes locked onto yours so fiercely your ribs felt oddly vulnerable, as if he were staring right through your chest. Then, in a voice low and rough with something like reverent ache, he began:
“Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad. Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you.”
Your pulse thundered in your ears. You stared at the book, at the margin notes, at the little crease in the paper where he’d returned again and again.
“You read it,” you whispered shakily. “You actually read it.”
He tucked a stray lock of dark hair behind his ear and offered you a shy, sheepish smile. “I got about three pages in and thought, ‘This is the most overwrought melodramatic nonsense I have ever encountered and she’ll never let me live it down if I admit I liked it.’”
Your breath caught, and you laughed softly. “So the Slytherin prince secretly studies Muggle love tragedies for—what? Sport?”
“For you.” His words fell simple and straight, but you saw in the tense set of his shoulders how much it cost him. “I remembered what you once said. That words could be more powerful than any spell. That some stories could make you feel things magic never touches.” He swallowed, eyes flicking away for only an instant. “I wanted to understand. I wanted to see the world the way you do. Even if… even if you never spoke to me again, I needed something of how you think.”
Your throat tightened around all the things you wanted to say.
“I love you,” he said suddenly. “I know I don’t deserve another chance. I know I hurt you, and I’m sorrier than I’ve ever been. If you want me to leave you alone, I will. I’ll resign as a Prefect, stop dining in the Great Hall… never speak to you again, if that’s how it has to be—”
“Jaemin—”
“And if you think I’m not worth the drama, if you find some sensible Ravenclaw that's smarter and more emotional available instead of—” He gestured at himself “—a stupid prick with a habitual avoidance of feelings, that’s fine too, I unders—”
“Jaemin.”
He stumbled to silence, eyes wide, braced for your anger or dismissal. Instead, you stepped forward. “I think,” you said softly, “I’d rather take my chances with a Slytherin who panics at his own heart.”
His whole face broke into a tentative, trembling smile that brightened by the second, like dawn’s first light spilling over the lake.
“You don’t hate me, then?”
“Oh, I do,” you teased, closing the distance between you. “Just not enough to stop wanting to kiss you.”
He laughed a breathless, disbelieving sound that left him momentarily speechless. “That’s… a very low bar.”
“It’s the bar you set,” you said, reaching up to smooth the crease by his temple. “I’m just acknowledging it.”
He was so close now you could see the faint shadows under his eyes, the restless hours he’d spent reading. His breath hitched, and his fingers, still warm around your forearm, shook.
“One condition.”
“Anything.”
“No more schemes. No more elaborate lies to keep me close. If you want something from me, you ask. And if you ever feel like sabotaging yourself again, you write it in a journal like every other teenager, and you keep me out of it.”
His eyes shone with relief and determination. “Deal. I swear it. Honest to Merlin, I’ll be so transparent you’ll beg me to tell a little white lie.”
“Unlikely.” You tousled his hair affectionately.
“I’ll be boring and straightforward and—”
“Now you’re just making things up.”
“—and I’ll read every book you recommend, even the ones you hate, so at least we can hate them together. I’ll tell you if I’m scared instead of running away, and I’ll—”
“Jaemin.”
He stopped and blinked up at you, a hopeful question in his gaze.
“Shut up and come here.”
He closed the last few inches between you, cupping your face as if it were made of spun glass. His thumbs traced the damp paths of your tears, his eyes pleading.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered into the soft curve of your lips. “For all of it—for the lies, the running, the… spectacular emotional incompetence. I’m so sorry.”
You rested your hands against his chest, feeling the rapid thump of his heart. “I know.”
He drew a shaky breath. “I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you, if you’ll let me.”
You pressed your forehead to his “I will.”
"Yeah?"
"Don't let it go to your head."
"Already there."
And then, finally, his mouth found yours.
The kiss was unhurried. A little clumsy. Both of you slightly out of practice with each other, slightly hesitant, slightly afraid this might still evaporate if you moved too fast.
But it was real.
You could taste the years of wanting and the weeks of pretending and the days of heartbreak. The sharp edge of pain, slowly dulling. The first green shoots of something that might, given enough time and care, grow into something lasting.
You smiled against his lips. Let your fingers curl into the collar of his robes. Kissed him back with every ounce of mortifying hope you'd sworn you'd bury.
There was nothing staged here. Only the press of his mouth saying yes and sorry and I love you and please, over and over, until the words became simpler.
Stay, his kiss said. Stay, and I'll spend the rest of my life proving I deserve it.
When you eventually separated, both breathing heavily, your foreheads touched.
"Let's see how long it takes you to mess this up," you murmured.
He laughed, eyes bright with joy. "Reckon I've got until dinner at best."
"Don't push your luck."
You kissed him once more, simply because it was possible. Because you wanted to. Because for five endless days you'd believed this door closed forever, and now finding it open seemed too precious to ignore.
Gossip would explode anew, inevitably. By evening meal, whispers would spread about you two emerging from an empty classroom, looking thoroughly kissed. By morning, a dozen conflicting stories would circulate. Within a week, the castle's most creative rumormongers would have you practically married.
But in this moment—his hand entwined with yours, his smile against your temple, your future sketched in pencil rather than vanishing ink—the entire castle seemed beautifully uncomplicated.
For a pair of hopeless liars, it made for a surprisingly honest beginning.
Warnings: fluff as usual, Spiderman!Mark,abrupt ending(i'm sorry) that's literally it.
A/n: I love spiderman mark with my whole heart 🫶 and for the love of god,i couldn't come up with a title for this.
The air crackled with unspoken words as you stared at Mark, the discarded mask lying forgotten between them. The revelation hung heavy, a secret finally unraveled.
Spiderman, the city's enigmatic hero was Mark, the lanky guy who tripped over his own shoelaces. Your goofy, clumsy best friend.
But it did make sense. His mysterious disappearances, the vague explanations about internships, the way he always seemed to know when trouble was brewing. It all made sense.
He shifted uncomfortably, guilt twisting in his gut. All this time, he'd kept this colossal part of him hidden, a wall between your friendship.
"So," you finally said, your voice surprisingly steady, "you're Spiderman."
Mark braced himself for a torrent of emotions – disbelief, anger, fear – anything but the glint of excitement that lit up your eyes.
"Can we swing?"
Mark blinked, taken aback. He'd imagined a million scenarios, a million ways this conversation could go, but this? This wasn't on the list. "S-swing...?"
"Yeah! You know, like you do on TV. Through the city, with the wind in my hair!"
A hesitant smile tugged at the corner of Mark's lips. This wasn't the reaction he'd envisioned, but a warmth bloomed in his chest nonetheless. Maybe, just maybe, his secret wouldn't be the wedge he'd feared.
"Uh, yeah," he stammered, a hesitant smile tugging at his lips. "Sure, I can do that. But hold on tight, okay? It can get a little… breezy."
Mark led you to the window, the cityscape twinkling below like a bed of scattered diamonds. He took a deep breath, the familiar tingle of responsibility coursing through him as he pushed open the window. The cool night air whipped at your faces, carrying away the last vestiges of his hesitation.
You wrapped your hands around his neck, a nervous tremor running through you as you peered down, but before fear could take root, Mark's hand secured your waist, a gesture both protective and familiar.
With a silent leap of faith, they plunged into the night air.
For a moment, there was only the rush of wind, the blur of buildings, and the exhilarating feeling of weightlessness, momentarily stealing your breath. But then, something magical happened.
Your gasp cut through the air.
The fear that had flickered in your chest was replaced by awe. The city sprawled beneath you, a glittering tapestry of light against the inky canvas of the night. The buildings, once imposing giants, now seemed like miniature models. You were flying.
Laughter bubbled up from your chest, a sound both exhilarating and liberating. Mark, glancing at you from the corner of his eye, couldn't help but feel a warmth spread through him, thankful for the mask that hid his lovesick grin. The city lights reflected in your eyes, brighter than any neon sign.
Maybe keeping his secret hadn't been all bad. Afterall it had led him to this moment, sharing this incredible experience with the person he... well, felt a little more than just friendship for.
- in which you blackmail Na Jaemin with his stalker level photographs and his only solution is to double down because his ego is as big as his portfolio
part of the nct dream uni smau series but can be read as a stand alone
Pairing: Jaemin x reader
Description: Description? You want me to give you a description and ruin the fun? No way. It’s best if you just go into this one with no hints.
Content warnings: None :)
Word count: 3,515
A/n: This is the epilogue to Too Good to be Fake, which you can read here if you haven’t already - thank you all for showing so much love to that fic, I swear my heart has never been so full. So, this is my gift to you in return. Please enjoy :))
“No, you know what? I can’t do this anymore, I’m done.” Your broken voice rings throughout the unoccupied space of the apartment’s living room, but you know it reached where you needed it to.
“After everything we’ve been through?” Jaemin yells back from his bedroom. “You’re giving up on this? Just like that?”
You shake your head as tears provide a healthy glaze over your eyes, frustrated that he wasn’t out here to actually have this conversation with you because now you felt stupid. “I’m tired, Jaemin,” you reply in defeat, trying your best not to let the tears roll down your cheeks. You hated that this was the state you were in, but you were so drained and you had to do something about it, even if each embarrassed word you spoke brought every tear closer.
“Oh, and now I have a name-?” Jaemin shoots back in great offense as he finally leaves his bedroom and rounds the corner to continue talking, but the second he sees your figure, his face drops into worry. “Hey…angel,” he says softly, rushing to wrap you in a hug and place a kiss on the top of your head. “You are tired, huh?” He echoes in understanding, leaving you to just nod into his chest as the tears finally fall down your cheeks.
“We’ve been working all day- and I get why, and I get that we’re supposed to finish this all up soon, but I can’t,” you reply miserably. “Not today.”
The thing was, you and the guys were throwing Haechan a surprise party, his birthday now just days away. The rest of your friend group promised to keep Haechan busy and out of his shared apartment with Jaemin for the day, and under the guise of a date between the two of you, you and your boyfriend were using the time to roughly set up decorations and start putting things together, where everything would then be kept in Jaemin’s room until the actual party.
That being said, you both had been running from party store to party store all day today, trying to get decorations to match the vibe you had in your heads. You had spent the past two hours unpacking everything, trying to set up the space in a way that looked good so that you could take a reference picture before tearing it all down again to keep hidden for the next few days. Less of a decorator than you were, Jaemin took on the job of continuously blowing up balloons in his room to make a balloon tower. Altogether, the entire concept of the surprise party was something you were really pumped to do for Haechan…until about two minutes ago when you hit your breaking point, leaving you to cry in your boyfriend’s arms.
Jaemin gives your figure a fond look, lightly rubbing a hand up and down your back as he tries his best to comfort you, any element of playfulness now completely gone from his being. “You’re okay. We can rest,” he assures gently. Slowly, he removes one arm from around you to instead place it lightly on your cheek, guiding your face up so he could make eye contact with you. “Do you wanna go back to your place so we can be away from all this party stuff?” He suggests, and the idea of it sends more relief through your system than you could’ve imagined.
“Sure, thank you,” you say with a light nod of your head, bringing your own hand up to wipe the remaining tears from your cheeks. Jaemin does his part in swiping a thumb under your eye on the side where his hand was already placed, and then he leans in to press a soft kiss to your forehead.
“Anything for you, sweet girl,” he responds, pulling back to look you over again. “I’m sorry today took a lot out of you.” He grimaces as he continues, looking genuinely regretful knowing that all of this was his idea in the first place.
You shake your head to dismiss his guilt, as if wanting to throw a surprise party wasn’t already a huge indicator of how big his heart was - your inability to decorate for hours on end was not for him to feel bad about. “No big deal,” you assure, and then a smile finally paints itself across your lips again as you stare back at him. “At least I’ve been by your side for the entirety of it.”
Jaemin shakes his head in disbelief, a breathy laugh escaping him as he smiles brightly back down at you. “I love you so much,” he states, unable to help himself from leaning down to catch your own lips in an actual kiss. Then, he fully lets you go from the hug, switching his grip to instead grab your hand in his own and lead you around to gather his things before heading out of the door with a soft, “come on.”
As soon as Jaemin started his car, he whipped his head towards you in the passenger seat. “Oh, hey, you have your key, right?” He asks seriously, but you look back at him as though he were crazy.
“Yes…? Don’t you also have your spare key, though?” You ask in return, and watch as Jaemin shakes his head.
“No, it’s in my room right now, which is why I was asking before we got on the road so that I could go get it if need be; so you can either wipe that look off your face, angel, or I’ll kiss it off you, cause I’m not as crazy as your stare would lead anyone to assume,” he answers with a playful taunt. You roll your eyes at him to combat the heat that went to your cheeks at his tease. Still, you lean over the center console and press a firm kiss to the side of his face, though Jaemin catches you before you’re all the way settled in your seat again, and instead pulls you back so he could actually kiss you, too - somehow, he never got enough of you…you thanked your lucky stars for that one every single day.
As he finally lets you go and shifts to actually start driving, you occupy yourself by playing with his hand that found its home on your thigh. Quickly, though, another thought crosses your mind and you furrow your brows. “Hey, wait-” you start, focusing your gaze back on his face and watching as he chances a quick glance back over at you to urge you to continue. “Do you not carry my spare key with your own house keys?” You ask skeptically, knowing that if it were you, having one key automatically meant you had the other.
Jaemin shakes his head in response but cuts it off promptly as he chooses to just explain himself instead. “No, well- yes. Normally I keep both keys in the same place, but my keychain broke the other day, so I only have my car keys and stuff while everything else that used to be on my keychain sits on my desk until I can get a new one.”
Your mouth forms an ‘O’ at his explanation as you pull out your phone and add ‘keychain’ to the list of gift ideas for him that you had in your notes. Then your attention turns back to his fingers tapping rhythmically against your thigh as you bring one hand to cover overtop his own, and Jaemin risks one more fond glance at your figure before pinning all his focus on not missing the turn into your block of housing.
As Jaemin grabs your hand and helps you out of his car, you’re instantly confused by the sight that greets you. Tons of rose petals were scattered on the pavement and seemed to lead up to your front door. You give a small shake of your head and laugh. “Was it super windy earlier today?” You question, eyeing the rose petals which you assumed had definitely made their way over to the wrong walkway. “Someone’s gonna be disappointed when they find out all their roses ended up on my doorstep,” you continue with a laugh. Jaemin lets out his own soft exhale of laughter, squeezing your hand slightly tighter in his as the two of you walk up and you begin unlocking the door.
However, as you swing the door open, all of your awkward laughter abruptly stops and you take in the state of your living area. None of your actual lights were on, but the room was filled with the golden glow of numerous candles, illuminating the rose petals that continued from your front door to eventually circle your dinner table, soft music playing from a source you couldn’t yet lay eyes on. You finally remember to breathe, and a heavy exhale leaves your gaping mouth as you turn to your boyfriend in question. “Jaem…what-” you cut off your words as you look up to meet his eyes and catch the brightest of smiles playing against his features.
“Happy five months, angel,” he says fondly, squeezing your hand in his for a moment before bringing it up to his lips so he could kiss the back of it. Realization dawns across your face all at once.
“Oh my god, today’s the 2nd,” you breathe out, your eyes wide in horror at the fact that you weren’t conscious of the date until now. You knew Haechcan’s birthday was getting close, but the last thing on your mind as you got things ready for his party was that today was June 2nd.
Jaemin throws a smirk in your direction. “That it is,” he began assuredly. “Thankfully, somehow, I was able to distract you from that fact for the entire day,” he continues, his tone as though it was the biggest accomplishment in the world. He breaks into more explanation with a small laugh. “I was terrified it’d be the only thing on your mind and then I’d be an asshole for pretending to not know what day it is.” As he continues, he squeezes your hand in his once more, turning your attention fully back to him rather than where your gaze had been wandering around the room again. A shy smile paints his lips as he continues softly. “I know it’s a weird one to celebrate so grandly, but I really wanted to surprise you, and no other birthdays lined up well enough for my plan to work.”
Of course, surprises had to be planned, but the addressing of the word sent your head spinning. This was the plan. A thousand thoughts run through your head as you look up at him in confusion. “So Haechan’s surprise party-” You begin, but Jaemin’s eyes go wide in an instant and he rushes to cut you off.
“Wait-!” His attempt is overshadowed by his own words getting interrupted.
“I’m getting a surprise party?!” Haechan questioned from the kitchen, excitement coating his voice and making Jaemin sigh. You whip your head towards where his voice came from, but still can’t lay eyes on him in just the candle light.
“You’re here?!” You question in shock, and Haechan finally steps out to where you can see him, clad in a suit and his head ducked in embarrassment immediately after making eye contact with an unimpressed Jaemin.
“Sorry,” he begins lowly as he seems to resume a role of sorts. “Don’t think of me as Haechan. I’m just supposed to be a server tonight.” His words and sure tone only serve to confuse you even more.
“Are you all here?” You ask, and at once, the rest of the guys pop up from behind the kitchen counter, all in matching suits and with idiotic grins on their faces.
“Chenle and Jeno are cooking, Renjun’s on dessert, Jisung and I are your trusty wait staff, and Mark brought his guitar over so he can play live music tonight,” Haechan explains calmly. You take in their presence, along with all the information that Haechan just recounted to you, and your head drops to the floor, sucking on your bottom lip as more starts clicking into place.
“This is why you don’t have your spare key,” you say underneath a sigh of disbelief.
Jaemin lets out a small chuckle as he tracks your train of thought. “Well, my keychain did break but- yeah,” he cedes, continuing softly. “It’s currently in Mark’s pocket…figured he was the most trustworthy. And-” he breaks off with another exhale of laughter before looking down at you with a fond grin. “To answer your previous question, Haechan’s party is definitely a thing, but there’s no way we could’ve blown up balloons already, half of them would be deflated by the 6th. I just needed a reason for you to be out of the house…and to not question why Haechan was also out all day, so I figured setting up for his surprise party would do the trick.” He drops his head after his explanation and begins to fumble for more words, his thumb gently rubbing against the back of your hand. “Again, I’m sorry it wore you out,” he says sincerely, then popping his head back up to give you a weak smile. “I just needed to make sure they had time to get everything ready over here.”
You take in the living room again alongside his words, and being completely filled in now, you can’t help it when tears make their reappearance in your eyes. “Baby…” you manage to whimper out, and Jaemin lets out a fond laugh as he pulls you into him again so he can fully hug you.
“Hey, angel, it’s okay,” he reassures for the second time that day, placing another kiss to the top of your head.
“I love you so much,” you mumble into his chest in return.
Jaemin places a hand on your cheek and guides your face back up towards his slightly until he can rest his forehead against your own. “I love you,” he replies seriously, a smile straining at his lips before he just leans in to kiss you softly.
“I can’t believe I’m getting a birthday party!” Haechan exclaims from the kitchen, with nothing but joy in his tone and a complete neglect for what was happening in front of him.
“Haechan, not the time!” The rest of the group groans in chorus, Jeno swatting at him with the back of his hand.
“Right, right,” Haechan relents, now rubbing away at the sting in his bicep. You and Jaemin break from the kiss with a laugh, but Haechan’s input did a good job at reminding you both that you weren’t exactly alone tonight, and dinner was just getting started. So, Jaemin took your hand and led you to the table, where Jisung greeted you both with water and Haechan took actual drink orders which, surprisingly, wasn’t just whatever you already had stocked in your fridge.
As far as an actual dinner meal went, Jisung informed you both that there were two options on the menu; and when you and Jaemin ordered different meals from each other, Chenle and Jeno popped their heads up over the kitchen counter and informed you that they actually could only make two servings of one meal rather than one serving of two meals, and then when you and Jaemin decided on which dish truly sounded best, Chenle and Jeno informed you that you picked the wrong one, and it was the other which was going to be served. Jaemin dropped his head into his hand, but you just let out a fond laugh and nod of your head. Then, Chenle and Jeno got to work on finishing cooking what they had already prepped for before the two of you ever got there.
Renjun rolled his eyes at the boys, but it wasn’t as though your dessert was in a much different boat, it’s just that he wasn’t going to even pretend there were other options than tiramisu.
As your dinner conversation started winding down and you moved onto dessert, Mark stopped terrorizing his friends in the kitchen and instead moved over to an armchair in your living area to actually start playing his guitar.
With the last bite of tiramisu and Mark still humming a melody, Jaemin looked your way intently, rolling his lips inwards before spitting out a question.
“Do you want to dance?” He asks, a little more awkward than normal for Jaemin. You look back at him as some shock runs through you at his question, but before you even think about responding, your gaze subconsciously darts over to where the rest of the guys were anxiously awaiting your answer from the other side of the kitchen island. Jaemin follows your gaze and then drops his head with an embarrassed laugh. “Just pretend they aren’t here- except for Mark, who’s, you know…playing the music.”
You let out a small laugh of your own before shifting your gaze back to Jaemin, eyebrows raised as you give the question back to him. “Do you want to dance?”
A wide grin tugs at Jaemin’s lips as he gives a solemn nod of his head. “I’d love any excuse to hold you,” he replies softly, and you just let out a heavy exhale.
“You’re too good to be true,” you say in return, shaking your head in disbelief as you look at Jaemin across the table from you.
His smile grows to reveal his teeth, but he drops his head as a blush takes hold of his features. “Funny,” he begins thoughtfully, guiding his gaze up to eventually meet yours again. “I think the same thing every time I look at you,” he admits sincerely, and now it’s your turn to blush. “Come on,” he begs softly, standing up from the table and leaving a hand out to take your own. “Come dance.”
As you place your hand in his, the boys scurry out from behind the counter to quickly push all the furniture back in the living room and give the two of you more space; then immediately darting back into the kitchen again and leaving Mark to be the one to smile up at you guys from where he was situated on the chair before aiming his focus back on his guitar.
The two of you held each other in the living room and swayed back and forth to whatever love song Mark remembered he could play on guitar, Jaemin sometimes grabbing your hand to spin you around as an excuse to look you up and down in your entirety, your diamond necklace catching in the candlelight as you turn and he’d lose all his words trying to understand how he ever got so lucky as to have you love him. You were an absolute dream, from your smile and your laugh, to the way you looked in his clothes and the things he’s bought for you, to the way you retaught him what love looked like (the answer was simple now, love looked like you). Jaemin was sure there’d never be enough softness in his eyes to convey how fond of you he was. That didn’t stop him from trying, though. His eyes glazed over with love as he stared after you tonight, the most tender smile on his lips each time he pulled you back into him from your spin so that he could hold you some more.
A few songs in and the boys decided you both had enough time to settle into the mood that their presence would no longer affect things, and as such, they stopped hiding behind the counter and instead leaned over the island in admiration as they watched the two of you dance, their own whispered conversations being the only thing to keep them even a bit distracted. Though, for some, those side conversations weren’t enough to keep their evening light. Renjun shot his head over to his right the second he heard a sniffle. “Are you crying?” He whisper yells in shock.
“No. Shut up,” Chenle dismisses with a firm shake of his head, but then he turns his head back to you and Jaemin and throws his hands up in defeat. “They’re just so in love.”
Renjun does his best to stop his laugh from shattering the atmosphere, and instead he just raises his eyebrows at Chenle. “You used to cringe at that, you know?” He teases, nudging Chenle in the side with his elbow. Chenle can’t buy into the banter, and instead is trying his best to stifle his sob. It doesn’t get past the rest of the guys though, who make wild eye contact with Renjun before they all bear hug Chenle, able to finally turn his tears into embarrassed laughter. As for you and Jaemin, you were in your own world, completely unaware of what was going down in your kitchen. The obliviousness wasn’t your fault, Chenle was right, after all - the two of you were just so in love.
Pairing: Jaemin x reader
Description: If there was one thing Na Jaemin was known for, it was being a fuckboy with no interest in commitment. If there was one thing you knew him for, it was being your best friend…and long-time crush. When his group of guy friends gets tired of the roster Jaemin seems to be running through, they propose a deal - they’d each give him $100 if he could settle down with one girl for at least three months. But that was easy money to Jaemin. After all, he could just fake-date you.
Content warnings: swearing, talk about sex, mentions/consumption of alcohol, a panic attack (not the reader), one punch gets thrown, reader has a somewhat bad relationship with her parents, their obliviousness to the other’s feelings makes you want to slam your head against a wall, some angst but it’s mainly through unaddressed fluff. Please let me know if I’ve missed anything.
Word count: 31,947
A/n: I didn’t know I could write this much, but after making my smau, I was ITCHING for written work ahahahhahahahaha. Please enjoy, though who am I to tell you what to do…as always, feedback would be greatly appreciated. I love you :) also because I must tag @fullsunstrawberry in everything I do...here you go - I love you the mostest!
Read the epilogue here!
The semester was in full swing for just over a month, and Haechan was already tired of the amount of girls Jaemin had brought over to their apartment. The first two years of university cemented Jaemin’s image as resident fuckboy, but no one cared about the fact that they couldn’t keep him for more than a night because he was hot enough to make the one night worth it. Similarly, Jaemin couldn’t care less about being labeled a fuckboy - at the end of the day, all it meant was that he was able to get his dick wet with no added pressure from the expectation to ever commit; the concept seemed like heaven to him.
However, the start of junior year had his best friends thinking it was time for a change. As Jaemin sat down in one of their usual cafés for lunch, all eyes were on him. “Alright, Jaemin, we figure you’ve had your fun for the past two years now,” Chenle said with a gleam in his eyes.
“Too much fun…” Haechan adds under his breath.
Jaemin looked around at the group with furrowed brows. “Whatever is going on, can we stop it and just have our coffee and sandwiches like normal? Why am I being targeted for the amount of fun I’m having? You’ve all had your fair share of fun, too.”
Jeno let out a small laugh at Jaemin’s defense. “Yeah, but we aren’t nicknamed the campus fuckboy. Plus, we’ve all been in actual relationships during our time in college.”
Jaemin’s face drops, no longer interested at all in the conversation they were clearly wanting to have. “I could be in a relationship if I wanted to be, I just don’t want to,” he’s quick to mutter in reply.
“Why not?” Renjun asks, raising his eyebrows in wait.
Jaemin lets out a scoff. “All that love and commitment is stupid. You guys put so much effort into your previous relationships and yet, we’re all currently sitting at this table single. There’s no one who makes me want to even try being in a relationship. Why would I want to risk wasting all that effort on someone?”
His six best friends eyed each other around the table, either not buying it or not caring. “Look man,” Mark starts, getting Jaemin to turn his attention over to him. “Regardless of how you feel about love, Haechan is tired of listening to you and whatever girl you bring home that night…and he’s especially tired of it always being a different girl to walk in on him while he’s singing in the kitchen making breakfast. So, to maybe help him out, and also to test your ability because honestly, I don’t know if any of us think you’re capable…in the nicest way possible, of course. We wanna propose a bet- or a deal is probably the better word for it.” Jaemin shoots his gaze over to the rest of them, but no one bore a look of amusement, they were all curiously locked in. “If you can get a girlfriend and settle down for at least three months, we’ll give you $600.”
Well originally, Jaemin had no interest in any part of this, but if everything worked out the way his brain was planning it, that $600 could potentially be easy cash…not to mention a lot of it.
“I’m in,” he pipes up immediately, truthfully stunning his best friends at the table. Nevertheless, they all shake on it, and then Jaemin only has one thing to do…after finishing his coffee and sandwich, of course.
One day later, you get a text from Jaemin. Free to catch up today? Your cheeks blush warmly at the message. It wasn’t anything special, but after being glued to each other’s sides during high school, college saw you and Jaemin having considerably less time for each other; so it was always nice to see you were still a thought in his mind because truly, you missed your best friend like no other.
Free to catch up everyday :)) You respond, and Jaemin’s reply comes instantaneously.
Perfect ;) meet you at the café in two hours
You check the clock before mapping out how you would spend all your time in between now and then, quickly deciding most of it should be directed towards making yourself look presentable, seeing as you’ve done nothing but rot in bed all morning.
Fast forward two hours and you were already sitting at one of the café tables when the bell rang as Jaemin walked through the door. He scans the inside before his eyes find you and he lights up. “Hi, best friend!” He says overenthusiastically as he pulls out the chair across from you. You furrow your brows at his tone, not to mention his usage of ‘best friend,’ when you think you remember Jaemin calling you that only once before when you were both still in high school, and had since never labeled you like that again - not that it was an incorrect label, but one that he typically didn’t make a huge deal about unless…
“Oh, god,” you start sarcastically. “What mess did you get yourself into now?”
“Hey!” Jaemin shoots back in mock hurt, moving a hand over his heart as if you’ve just shot him. You let out a light laugh, rolling your eyes.
“Sorry, Jaem, please continue.”
He immediately ducks his head to face his lap, his tone bearing a fraction of the force it previously had. “Okay so, I got myself into a mess.” You can’t help the genuine laugh that escapes you as you shake your head. Jaemin whips his head up to face you in response, but as you manage to stop your laughter, all you can do is meet his gaze with a softness in your eyes that perfectly balanced the playful smirk on your lips.
“I’ve missed you a lot, you know,” you respond, and Jaemin rolls his lips inward to try and stop the smile as he directs his gaze somewhere off to the side.
“Yeah, hoping you’re still thinking that after I explain,” he replies hesitantly, and your face falls in an instant.
“You got me into a mess?!” You ask in disbelief, and Jaemin lets out a light sigh.
“Not yet, but that’s kind of the goal,” he answers, scrunching up his facial features as he waits for your reprimanding. Though it never comes, and instead, you speak plainly through a sigh.
“An explanation needs to come out of your mouth in three, two-”
Jaemin curls himself into a ball as best he can while sitting in the café chair, wanting some kind of physical defense before explaining himself in a rush. “I need us to fake date for three months so can you please please please be my fake girlfriend?” When he doesn’t get coffee thrown at him, he takes a moment to unfurl himself and look over at you again, his gaze met with your indifferent expression.
“Why?” You ask neutrally, and it seems to finally hit Jaemin that you were still the same sane, comforting presence you always had been, even if the two of you hadn’t properly hung out in over a year. He settles more decidedly into his chair, though he still frames his words through a lens of embarrassment, figuring that might be the best way to get you to agree - if you knew he knew he was stupid.
“$600 and to prove something to my friends,” he replies, his words light but his demeanor dead serious.
“And why me?” You toss back, causing Jaemin to roll his eyes as he throws his gaze off to the side again with a scoff.
“Cause every other girl I know has a crush on me and it’d make this very weird. I’m not trying to actually be in a relationship. That’s the last thing I want.” His words this time are firm enough to match his demeanor, and it has you taking a sip of your coffee to fight back the awkwardness you would’ve otherwise choked on.
“...Right,” you say in agreement, because out of all the times you could come clean about your huge crush on your best friend, right after he tells you that he doesn’t want a relationship is probably the worst time to do so.
“So?” Jaemin inquires hopefully, snapping you out of your thoughts. You flick your gaze up to him before immediately darting it back to your coffee on the table, one of your hands messing with the straw absentmindedly. Then you give in, because you suck at saying ‘no’ to your best friend.
“...Fine, but then we’re making a contract,” you say plainly, swirling the ice around in your americano. Jaemin lets out something like a laugh, shaking his head.
“Y/n, you’re taking this so seriously-” He starts, but you whip your head back up to him in an instant, cutting him off with sincerity.
“They’ll see right through it if we don’t,” you state, and you watch Jaemin’s adam's apple bob up and down in his throat as he swallows awkwardly.
He shakes out of it before putting his hands up in defeat. “Okay, whatever. Go ahead,” he replies, disinterested. You roll your eyes, grabbing a piece of paper and a pen from your backpack. Then you get to writing, because you were gonna need to set some intense boundaries if you were hoping to make it out of this alive.
“Alright, I think this should be good for right now,” you say after a few minutes, sliding the piece of paper his way. He takes one glance at it before letting out a laugh and directing his gaze back to you with raised brows.
“‘No kissing?’ I don’t mean to alarm you, but that’s actually the quickest way for them to see right through it,” he quips. You run your fingers through your hair awkwardly as you dodge his gaze, finally nodding your head with a sigh.
“Okay fine, we can change it. No kissing unless they bring it up or get suspicious. Good?” You ask, finally looking up at him again. He lets an amused smile paint its way across his lips as he stares at you across the table.
“Ha, we’ll keep it for now,” he agrees before turning his attention back to the paper and looking over the next thing you wrote. “‘No weird nicknames?’” He reads, popping his head back up to look at you for clarification. You roll your eyes, slightly embarrassed.
“Yeah, like sugar, pumpkin, honey, buttercup, sweetie, sweetheart, cutie pie, baby, babe, darling-” You’re cut off by a genuine laugh from Jaemin, helping you realize you’ve missed the sound of it a lot, and not at all helping the awkward situation you’ve gotten yourself into.
“Okay, you’re just naming every pet name imaginable,” he counters as though you were crazy.
You roll your lips inward, hesitating on how to respond before opting with a near-whisper. “I don’t like them,” you admit quietly, and Jaemin’s demeanor falls from playful to understanding. He opens his mouth to reply but closes it again before any words get out, instead taking another moment to think.
“They’re gonna expect me to call you something,” he finally says, speaking as though it were an apology.
You sigh, knowing he wasn’t lying. Idly messing with your hands, you reply quietly. “...are they gonna expect me to call you something, too?” You ask, and Jaemin contemplates with a sorry nod.
“Yeah, probably. Look, you can call me whatever you’re comfortable with, and if that’s just ‘Jaem,’ that’s fine.”
A more lenient answer than you were expecting, you shoot your head up to look back at him again, though your brows slightly furrow as you address the part he didn’t. “What about you?”
Jaemin lets out a soft sigh. “How about I just limit my usage of pet names, and I won’t call you anything food-related,” he suggests lightly, figuring those nicknames having made up your first seven examples meant you hated them the most. You roll your eyes but a smile crosses your face regardless because he was right, after all…and caring enough to actually realize that.
“I can live with that,” you relent, and a big grin comes back onto Jaemin’s face at the progress. He moves his attention back towards the contract, but immediately is whipping his gaze back to you in hurt.
“Why can’t I be the one to break it off?” He pouts, and you have half a mind to laugh, but you know he’s serious.
“If you date me for exactly three months and then break up with me, no matter how believable we make it, they’re either going to know it was set up or they’re going to assume you learned nothing and probably not give you the money,” you explain, and Jaemin’s pout turns into an impressed nod.
“You have a point…” He breathes out, causing you to smirk.
“I know.”
He bites on his bottom lip, deep in thought before turning back to you again. “We probably shouldn’t date for exactly three months then, either,” he adds, and you flash your eyebrows in recognition.
“That’s also true,” you say before putting together a calendar in your head. “Well, if today’s September 27th, three months is December 27th, so…we could have New Year’s Eve be our last night together?” You suggest awkwardly. Though, when you look back up towards Jaemin, he’s putting your timeline together with a nod.
“Works for me,” he cedes, scribbling your end date somewhere off to the side before continuing to scan down the list. His next question comes with the very last bullet point on the contract. “‘Come home with me for Christmas dinner?’” He reads before looking up at you in confusion. You shake your head with a laugh.
“Well, you didn’t think I’d do this for nothing in return, did you?”
Jaemin flashes his eyebrows in acknowledgement. “Okay…so why Christmas dinner?” He asks, and you drop your gaze back to your coffee.
“My family keeps riding my ass about not having a boyfriend. If you come back with me and pretend to be my boyfriend there, too, then even when we end things, they’ll at least be off my case for a while,” you admit, embarrassment tainting your voice before you rush to make the request sound more appealing. “And it’s not actual Christmas dinner! It’s that first weekend after finals week. You remember the big dinner we always had with other family friends and all that,” you drag off with an awkward laugh.
“Okay,” Jaemin agrees immediately, and you look back up at him in shock.
“Really? You’re agreeing to that?” You question, but he just shrugs his shoulders.
“Y/n, you’re getting me $600, the least I can do is one dinner with your family. Besides, they’re practically my second set of parents. I’m pretty sure I had at least a hundred dinners with them during high school,” he jokes, and the tension in your shoulders falls. You guys were really doing this…all of this. The two of you left the café and parted ways soon after agreeing to the terms of the contract, Jaemin feeling $600 richer already with how easy this was going to be.
Jaemin picked you up from class on the first day you would be meeting his friends, five days after the two of you signed your contract to fake-date. He greets you with an easy smile outside of your classroom door. “Hey, you ready?” He asks, and you send a nervous smile back up at him.
“Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess,” you reply with a laugh. He flashes his eyebrows in acknowledgement, feeling much the same way seeing as this was probably the least conventional thing he’s ever done.
He leads you outside and towards the guys’ regular lunch spot at one of the tables set up in the campus commons. Jaemin had told his friends beforehand that he had gone and gotten himself a girlfriend and thus, to start the three month timer, and they were the ones who begged him to bring you to one of the lunches so they could meet you, and now here you were - walking casually towards the lunch table with Jaemin…too casually, Chenle noticed, because you weren’t even holding hands. He keeps quiet, but lets an easy smirk come across his face as you and Jaemin sit down next to each other.
“Alright, guys,” Jaemin starts as the rest of the friend group pins their full attention on you. “This is y/n. My girlfriend,” he says with a smile. The label sends ice through your veins. You could not believe Na Jaemin was introducing you as his girlfriend…it didn’t matter that the label was fake, the words sounded real coming out of his mouth. You turn your head to look at him, as if to get some kind of confirmation that it really was Jaemin next to you, calling you his girlfriend. By the time your gaze reaches him, he’s already looking over at you with a cheesy grin, nudging your side playfully with his arm and getting you to relax a little.
The guys go around introducing themselves, but as they make their full way around the table, Jeno immediately speaks up.
“So, how did the two of you get together?” He asks curiously. A valid question, which is why the guys all lean forward in interest, because of course they would be dying to know how their fuckboy best friend got an actual girlfriend rather than a hookup. It was a horrible question though, because it was one you forgot would ever come up, and you had no game plan to go about answering this. Though, it seemed all you had to worry about was keeping your eyes from going wide, because Jaemin did have a game plan for this, and he answered smoothly.
“I just asked her out,” he says with a shrug. “It’s always been so easy with y/n, I take it for granted most of the time. Every time I’m with her, I’m reminded that it takes no effort to breathe, that I’m standing on solid ground. We met up for coffee the other day and she said she missed me and I-” He falters for a moment, and you finally bring your gaze up from your lap to face Jaemin, just to see him shake his head as if he were breaking himself out of a nostalgia trip. “I wanted to hear that again and again,” he finally says seriously, and you can’t stop the smile from reaching your face. “So, though now it just sounds embarrassing saying it out loud, I straight up asked her to be my girlfriend right after that,” he adds through a laugh. “I had been waiting for the butterflies that everyone always talks about, but the fact that I’ve never really felt that with her just made me more sure I wanna be with her - there’s no discomfort or anxiety,” he says, and with your head ducked back in to face your lap, you miss it when he turns to look at you softly. “She’s just always felt like home.”
Jaemin’s answer seems to have done its job in convincing everyone, and it definitely did its job in reminding you that you were in deep trouble. Though, as the rest of the guys take in Jaemin’s words with an impressed nod, Mark tries to fill in his holes. “Wait, how long have you known each other?” He asks, which was another valid question seeing as Jaemin talked about you with history even though you had never met his friend group before.
“We’ve been friends since high school,” Jaemin says coolly, though this time, you’re the one to nudge him with a laugh.
“Best friends,” you add teasingly, and Jaemin chuckles as he looks over at your figure before nodding his head.
“Yeah, best friends,” he agrees fondly. “But, I’ve liked her for a while now,” he says, turning back towards the group as his face falls and he shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “I just- obviously have the image that I do and I never wanted to get her tied up in it. She deserves more than being labeled as some fuckboy’s latest infatuation,” he says, and as you furrow your brows at him, he just shakes his head, moving on with a light smile. “Though, obviously, I saw her last week and couldn’t help it anymore.”
Sorry smiles cross most of the guys’ faces - they were no help when it came to keeping labels away from Jaemin, and he was sure putting on a convincing show, making it almost seem like it was their fault the two of you hadn’t already gotten together.
Haechan swings his gaze over to you with raised eyebrows, shifting gears to try and not to let the dampened mood actually settle in. “And you? How long have you liked him?” He asks, and you have to stop the laugh from leaving your system. Instead, you just shake your head fondly.
“Forever,” you answer truthfully, turning to face Jaemin before immediately pulling your gaze back down to your lap in embarrassment. “Any girl will tell you, it’s impossible not to fall for Na Jaemin.” At this, all the guys roll their eyes, but Jaemin just turns to study you softly, biting on his bottom lip in contemplation as he tries to sort out whether any part of your statement was true or if you were just really good at acting.
However, with the rumbling of Jisung’s stomach, he quickly discards the topic of you and Jaemin, deciding that after all the intro questions were out of the way, food was much more interesting. The guys laugh along as Jisung rips through his paper bag lunch, but it does its job in getting them to focus on their own food in front of them, too.
Casual conversation occurred over lunch, and you were pleasantly surprised to find it wasn’t awkward at all. Not that you were expecting the guys to be awkward with each other, but you typically weren’t great at meeting new people; and now you were meeting six of them at once, somehow fitting right in, your occasional remarks causing the whole table to laugh - something you’d have to pat yourself on the back for later. The only disturbance comes from Chenle, who had begun leaning way back from the table, carefully balancing his weight on the bench as he seems to examine the ground by your feet.
The entire friend group eventually catches on to his antics, turning their attention towards him with raised eyebrows. “What are you doing?” Renjun finally asks, the question coming out as though he thought Chenle were crazy…which probably wasn’t too far from his actual stance on the matter.
Chenle shakes his head, pulling himself back into a normal sitting position as he locks his gaze onto you and Jaemin. “Don’t most couples have a hand placed on the other’s thigh or something while sitting? Why are you guys like- a foot away from each other?” He asks plainly. Your face drops and your eyes widen.
“We are not a foot away from each other,” you remark firmly, but then Jisung peaks beneath the table as well, pulling back up with a shrug.
“Uh, you kinda are,” he says, causing Jaemin to roll his eyes.
“Didn’t think you guys were big pda enthusiasts,” he says, trying to laugh it off, but Chenle is relentless.
“Have you kissed yet?” He asks immediately, and you almost choke.
“What?!” You return in shock, but Chenle looks between the two of you with uninterested brows.
“You’ve liked each other for forever and you’re this awkward?” He shoots back in a taunt. You sigh, collecting yourself because you knew what you were about to have to do.
“You’re right, Jaem,” you say, pulling his attention your way as you place a hand on his cheek and smile in disbelief. “Your friends are annoying,” you continue, and then you lean in and kiss your best friend and long time crush.
Admittedly, you’ve imagined this moment more times than you could count, but none of those fantasies could have prepared you for what it actually felt like to kiss Na Jaemin. His lips were perfect, he was perfect, and you knew that already but now you felt it. You remind yourself of where you’re at, why you’re kissing him in the first place, and bring yourself to pull back after the one soft kiss, trying your best to make it seem as though that alone didn’t cause you to lose your breath.
As the two of you pull away from each other, Jaemin’s gaze locks on you, running over every inch of your face with an unreadable look in his eyes to contrast the softest of smiles on his lips. “Yeah, angel, they are,” he says through an exhale, and as your face goes completely pink, his smile eases into a familiar smirk. “But if you kiss me every time they piss you off, I might have to have them stick around.”
You roll your eyes, nudging him in the side again as you focus on the playful banter and not on the fact that Jaemin just rewired your brain chemistry with one ‘angel.’ “Whatever, we both know I kiss you all the time anyways,” you tease, but as you try to shift away again, Jaemin catches your hand in his and looks at you as if you were crazy.
“No, I kiss you all the time,” he rushes to correct, and though you whip your head back to face him in offense, your eyes instantly soften upon contact, a tight smile playing at both of your features instead.
Your only thought was to kiss him again, and you’re thankful when Chenle cuts off any chance of that happening. “What is going on?” He asks in disgust, causing Renjun to laugh and shake his head.
“Hey, you were the one jumping their asses for their lack of public romance. This is your fault.”
With the conclusion of lunch, Jaemin kept you company on the walk back to your dorm. As soon as you’re out of sight from the rest of the guys, you let out a heavy sigh and accompanying drop of your shoulders. “Well, there goes rule number one…” You say in defeat. If you couldn’t even follow the first rule during your first outing as a ‘couple,’ the rest of these three months were not going to bode well for you.
Instead of matching your demeanor, Jaemin takes offense. “What, no! We changed rule number one to no kissing unless they brought it up or were suspicious, and they both, brought it up and were suspicious,” he claims firmly, but the playful tone underlying his words makes it so that all you can do is let out a small, wry laugh.
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” you say with a shake of your head, though the smile has made its reappearance on your face. Next to you, Jaemin stops walking, pausing for a moment as he stares at the pavement beneath your feet. As soon as you notice his absence at your side, you turn back around to face him and his small grimace.
“Thank you, by the way,” he says gently, and any remaining tension you were carrying falls away; because any time Jaemin fell softer, you were reminded of how you’d do anything for your best friend. “I don’t know if I really thanked you for letting me talk you into this. I know it’s stupid, but it’s nice to have them attacking me for whether or not I’ve kissed you rather than attacking me for my body count,” he finishes, and it feels as though all your joints had immediately locked up again.
Jaemin’s title as the campus fuckboy was not lost on you, but talking about anything close to relationships was never a strong suit for you guys; and with him quickly finding his place within a new friend group here at college, it meant you were even less in the know of his whereabouts on any given day. The last thing you were expecting was for Jaemin to keep you updated on who he just fucked, but the entire realm of conversation was always so unreachable for you two. You knew nothing of what the campus fuckboy was truly getting up to; there was sometimes talk in your class when a girl would come in beaming as she told her friends she managed to spend a night with Jaemin, but instances like that were all you got informed by, and you never dared pry deeper into those overheard conversations.
Sometimes your jealousy would damn near kill you - all these girls boasting about the fact that they had spent a night with Jaemin…you wanted to turn around half the time and tell them to forget about one night because you’ve spent countless days with him; that your entire high school career was covered in his handprints and bright smile which you were sure was laced with drugs - a smile you knew he wasn’t throwing around in the bedroom.
You never did snap, though, because it was easier to keep your ‘best friend’ label with Jaemin under the radar at college, unless you wished for tens upon hundreds of girls to line up in front of you and ask your advice on how to win his heart. Jokes on them, you were still figuring that out, yourself.
“What is your body count?” You ask with a hesitant swallow, your curiosity getting the better of you now that he’s finally brought it up.
Jaemin shoots his head up to face you but instantly dodges your eye contact again. For the first time since you’ve met him, he looks genuinely embarrassed. “Another time, y/n,” he says in soft dismissal.
You swallow harshly, in disbelief at what you were about to tell him, but as much as it would sting, it would keep your own feelings at a very needed bay. “If you still want to have sex, you can. I don’t mean to force you into celibacy. Just make sure it’s at the girl’s house so Haechan doesn’t find out,” you say lowly, and Jaemin immediately makes wide eye contact with you.
“Really?” He asks in something like shock. You act as though it’s no big thing, and you’re sure it probably shouldn’t be, anyways.
“Yeah,” you respond with a shrug.
Jaemin takes in your words with a contemplative head nod, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth before his eyes light up in alert, finding another caveat to address. “What do we do if the girl starts talking about the fact that she hooked up with me?” He asks seriously, but you’ve finally found humor in the situation, shaking your head as though there were hardly a need for the question.
“Jaem, just about every girl wants to sleep with you, or at least make it seem like she did…a random girl claiming to have hooked up with you one day is just going to sound like she’s desperate for attention. No one’s gonna take it seriously,” you say with a playful roll of your eyes. Absolutely nothing you said was wrong, and with a deep breath, Jaemin seems to accept that fact.
As he exhales, he resumes his continuation on the walk back to your dorm, a light nod of his head accompanying his next words. “Okay. Thank you-” His casual start is broken as he turns his head back over to you at his side in question. “Are you gonna be okay? Are you gonna like- hook up- uh…with other guys?” He asks curiously. All you can do is laugh at him.
“Casual hookups aren’t my thing and no way am I getting an actual boyfriend while we’re doing this, but of course I’ll be okay. I’m pretty sure your sex drive is at least ten times greater than mine. I can handle three months,” you reply lightly, and seemingly all of Jaemin’s worries about this new implementation fade away - it seemed perfectly doable without getting caught.
As you get to your dorm entrance, you and Jaemin turn to fully face each other. “Thanks again for today. I think we got them somewhat convinced,” he says through a small laugh, and you flash your eyebrows in acknowledgement.
“No reason to thank me for that - you did most of the talking,” you rebuttal playfully.
Jaemin’s laugh turns into a knowing smirk. “You were the one who kissed me,” he teases, and you shake your head, but a wide grin spreads across your lips, regardless.
“It's not my fault that they both, brought it up and were suspicious,” you remind him, putting your hands up in defense. Jaemin takes a moment to laugh again before settling into a more fond look that was reminiscent of your high school days.
“We’re gonna have to start hanging out more again since they think we’re dating, but even before all that, I think it’d make me happy if we started hanging out more again just cause I’ve missed you…and I know it’s my fault we haven’t talked as often! I got a friend group of guys and an- agenda…with girls, and as such, my entire college career up to now has unfolded in that way. But I miss you because you’ve always been my friend, not because of some agenda or fake-dating scheme.”
“Mmmmmm, best friend,” you correct with a sure smirk, making Jaemin drop his head with a laugh of defeat.
“Yeah, best friend,” he cedes, and your smirk turns into a soft smile.
“I never do anything, so just text me when you wanna hang. I’ll be there.”
He looks back up at you with a small grin and a nod. “Same goes for you,” he replies. Then, all that was left was saying ‘goodbye’ in a much more awkward way than usual, before you went back up to your room to decompress from whatever the hell just happened.
It was a week after that first lunch when you were alone and bored in your dorm. None of the guys mentioned anything about having plans for the weekend while at lunch, which you had begun to join in on every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So, although you just saw him, you figured Jaemin wouldn’t have anything better to do than hang out with you some more today. You shoot your gaze over to the clock, agreeing there was more than enough time left in the day to make a hang out worth it, and then grabbing your phone to text Jaemin.
Hey, I’m bored. Wanna do something? You send, and Jaemin’s reply is instantaneous.
With a girl rn
For a text that’s letting you know he’s following your directions, it hurts more than you thought it would to read. You know it’s for the best that this be your reality. Jaemin had been your best friend for so long now, the last thing you wanted was to ruin that with your feelings; and while fake-dating wasn’t helping, this reality-check definitely did. He’s not just your best friend anymore, he’s the campus’ heartthrob…the campus’ fuckboy. It was the entire reason behind the bet his friends made in the first place - a circumstance like this was only expected. So, you’d have to forget about the hollow feeling in your stomach right now and instead support your best friend in a best friend way, cause no matter how many times in the next three months he’s destined to call you ‘angel’ or look over at you softly every time you talk in the group, ‘best friends’ is all you are to each other. Oh, look at you go! I figure I’m your alibi, so I guess I’ll stay in for the rest of the night so there’s no possibility of one of your friends seeing me
His reply this time took about thirty minutes to get to you, and even his last text didn’t prepare you for the brick wall that faced you with this one. Thanks
Jaemin isn’t selfish, Jaemin is busy. It’s the mantra you kept repeating to yourself, because you know he’s not selfish; and while you were expecting a reply more aligned with an apology for forcing your Friday night to be spent indoors and alone, taking the time to text that out probably was not something Jaemin could manage while another girl was surely sucking him off.
The next Thursday, it’s Jaemin’s idea to hang out after classes. The two of you decided to chill at your place so that you didn’t have to constantly pretend around Haechan, should he be in their apartment. As you swing the door open to Jaemin’s presence, he looks at you with a big grin on his face. “Hey, angel,” he says, patting the top of your head as he walks into your dorm. You track his figure deeper into the living area, looking at him quizzically because the whole purpose of him being here was that he didn’t have to call you ‘angel.’
You just shake your head with a smile as he plops down on your couch. “Hey, Jaem.”
He looks up at you with innocent eyes. “What did you want to do tonight?” He asks, and you shrug your shoulders with a laugh.
“You’re the one who wanted to come over; my plan was to do homework.” Your answer has Jaemin’s face falling, and you watch as he gets up from the couch and immediately walks out the door, leaving you completely dumbfounded. You didn’t think homework was that repulsive to him. Though, moments later, there’s another knock on your door, and you answer it to be met with Jaemin again, this time his own backpack slung across his shoulders. “Wha-?” You question with a laugh of disbelief.
Jaemin sends a smirk your way before once again walking past you and towards the couch, immediately unzipping his backpack and placing its contents on the coffee table. “Homework,” he says casually, looking up at you with raised brows and a smirk. “Best friend, fake girlfriend, study buddy…you get all the fun labels,” he teases, causing you to shake your head before relenting and joining him at the coffee table.
It was an incredibly normal night. After the two of you finished up the last of your assignments - though getting distracted every five or so minutes with stupid jokes, complaints of coursework, or a sudden remembering of a story that needed telling did not help push things along, the two of you watched a movie. You ended up making hot cocoa, because the privilege of thermostats meant that it wasn’t a crazy option, regardless of the outside temperature, and then sat on the recliner, Jaemin taking up considerably more space on the couch in response.
The two of you had always been good movie watchers with each other. You both liked to enjoy movies in the same way - the lights off, no talking, no distractions from phones…even if it was a movie you had seen a hundred times. The two of you took movie nights seriously, mainly because with each other, you could. At least, you had yet to find anyone else who would sit and watch Coraline with you and not take a break to say something about how they find it creepy or flatout don’t like the movie when it’s not even halfway over. Though, Jaemin always happily watched, saving his only comments (typically about how “they just don’t make movies like that anymore”) for the credits.
Just like that, it was like a night from high school, and it ended much the same way - a side hug with Jaemin and his promises of getting home safe, though it was you rather than your mother that he was making that promise to now.
Walking back into his apartment, Jaemin immediately catches the attention of Haechan, currently making late night ramen in the kitchen. “Did you just get back from y/n’s?” He asks, pulling his attention away from the stove to turn his head towards Jaemin.
“Yeah,” Jaemin answers casually as he makes his trek through the front space and towards his room, only getting distracted when Haechan speaks up again with a playful lilt and a matching smirk on his face.
“Good night?” He asks, causing Jaemin to furrow his brows before realizing what Haechan was actually getting at.
“What-? Oh, shut up,” he dismisses. Turning back around to face Haechan revealed him to be completely distracted from his ramen - his back now leaning against the countertop as his casual crossed arms added to the tease in his raised eyebrow. Jaemin rolls his eyes at the antics, especially considering Haechan was the main reason this whole deal was made in the first place - because he was tired of Jaemin having sex. “We didn’t have sex. We did normal couple things,” he states confidently before turning around again to actually make his way inside his room and behind his closed bedroom door.
This meant Jaemin missed the way Haechan’s playful brows furrowed in confusion, his face falling flatter as he spoke through a soft exhale. “What?” Any more time he could have had to actually question it was overridden with the need to tend to his now boiling over ramen; so Jaemin got off easy the rest of the night.
Haechan was not as forgiving the next time he saw the guys at Monday lunch, though. With you still nowhere to be seen and Jaemin in his line of sight ordering food, he addresses everything in a more serious tone than any of the guys were expecting.
“Does anyone else find it odd that they haven’t had sex yet?”
Eyes go wide at the rest of the table. “They haven’t?!” Jeno practically shouts before immediately getting embarrassed and making himself as small as possible. Haechan just shakes his head.
“They haven’t even spent the night at each other’s places yet. He always comes back home after hanging out with her and it’s always just him.”
“Maybe they’re taking it slow,” Mark replies with a shrug, but all eyes lock on him with ample skepticism.
“Does ‘slow’ seem like a Jaemin thing?” Haechan rebuttals. “I mean, come on. We’re talking about the guy who’s notorious for getting his dick wet at any available opportunity.”
“So, we think they don't really like each other? They’re faking it?” Renjun asks with pursed contemplative lips.
Haechan’s the one to shrug this time in mystery. “$600 is a hefty amount. He’d do anything he can for that, including but not limited to getting a fake girlfriend and lying to us,” he states more firmly, but that’s as Jaemin joins the table; his brows furrowed and mouth hanging slightly open as he looked around at the guys in something like disgust.
“What in the world did I just walk in on? Y/n is not my fake girlfriend. The deal money is nice but I’m at least honorable about these things,” he argues, and immediately all the guys whip their gazes towards him, varying expressions on their faces as Jisung speaks up in genuine question.
“Why haven’t you slept with her yet?” The seriousness of the question and the sheer interest in the rest of the guys’ faces gets Jaemin to roll his eyes.
“You guys are atrocious, you know that?” He says in place of an answer.
Chenle raises his brows. “The question remains,” he taunts with a smirk.
Jaemin looks him dead in the eyes as he responds. “She means more to me than that.”
“Means more to you than that?” Jeno reflects back with a laugh. “Jaemin, are you forgetting your love language?” This is the first thing you can pick up as you finally get to the table after questions from your classmates held you for more minutes than should be allowed. Regardless, you immediately jump right into conversation.
“Love language?” You echo with a smile. “There’s something I’m knowledgeable about. How’s my words of affirmation boy doing?” You continue, all your attention directed towards Jaemin as you shed your backpack from your body.
He looks up at you still standing by his side, eyes soft and speaking through a small smile. “Better now that you’re here,” he answers, and you don’t stop the bashful smile from coming across your face as you finally get situated sitting down next to him. The gentle moment is broken, though, with Jeno asking a question in total shock.
“Words of affirmation??” He begs for clarification, and the rest of the guys lean in at the table some more in apparent interest. You look at them all as though there was some joke you weren’t getting.
“Yes? What did you think it was?” You question back, and they respond in almost perfect unison.
“Physical touch.”
You can’t stop the small laugh from leaving your system as you look back at all of them seriously. “Jaemin’s good at showing love through physical touch, no doubt, but words of affirmation is by far his favorite way to receive love, it’s not even a question. And sure, part of that is how he smiles like an idiot whenever I tell him he’s the most handsome guy on the planet - which is stupid because ‘handsome’ honestly doesn’t even begin to describe it…” You trail off awkwardly before shooting your head back up to face everyone.
“But have you ever seen him receive a compliment that has nothing to do with his body or looks? The way his eyes light up like something just clicked for him? I mean, he’s so many more things before he’s physically attractive, and all he was waiting for was someone to recognize that. Every time we meet up after class and I say something like ‘I’ve been longing to be in your presence all day,’ or ‘thanks for bringing me more happiness than I’ve ever known,’ he’s practically on the verge of tears every time. It’s why when I told him I missed him that one day, all he could think to do was ask me to be his girlfriend. He’s been waiting to be missed on a level that had nothing to do with his body. He’s been waiting to be affirmed in a way that isn’t physical.”
That seemed to get everyone else at the table to shut up, swallowing awkwardly as they instead turned their attention to their food. You let out a small sigh of relief as you dig into your own sandwich, but Jaemin doesn’t think he can even take one bite anymore; a weird feeling in his stomach and his mind going a million miles an hour. When he does pick up his sandwich, it’s not because he’s finally convinced he can keep it down, but because not eating now would be incredibly suspicious to everyone…including you.
Jaemin walked you back to your dorm after lunch, something that became typical since it wasn’t always possible to pick you up from class for lunch. You were walking in comfortable silence; in fact, an element of awkwardness was only introduced once Jaemin spoke up with a strange sort of cough and hesitant words. “I didn’t know I was a words of affirmation guy,” he finally says after a couple of minutes.
With the two of you out of sightline and earshot of the others, you let your actions and reactions express more naturally. So, you paused completely, making him eventually stop and look over his shoulder at you in question. “Oh…really?!” You say in light shock before shaking your head and resuming your pace so you could catch back up to him and continue casually. “I mean, maybe you’re not then, but just from what I know-”
You’re cut off with a small laugh from Jaemin as he shakes his head softly, matching his contemplative tone. “No, I think you’re right. Everything you said I- I think you’re right.” He says it as though he were almost embarrassed by the fact, and you decide that’s the last thing you’re gonna allow him to feel in this situation.
“Oh, well, would you like me to affirm you more often then?” You ask seriously. “We aren’t exactly meeting up after class everyday and I’m not exactly telling you I’ve been waiting for that very moment, but I can.”
Jaemin is quick to dismiss the idea. “No, it’s okay. No use doing that when this whole thing is fake. I mean, rule number three or something is that everything is immediately dropped when we’re in private,” he tries to play off with a laugh, and as you finally reach the entrance to your dorm, you turn around to face him solemnly.
“Jaem, that’s not me putting on an act. You do know I love spending time with you, right? And-” You shake your head, frustrated with yourself that this is something you obviously didn’t do a good job of communicating earlier. “Take us out of this whole situation thing,” you command, finding your footing in what you’re wanting to say. “Just- as friends. I love spending time with you. I want you in my life forever, yeah?” You finish softly, and when you look back up at Jaemin, he’s quick to break eye contact.
“Yeah.”
The next few weeks saw to it that you and Jaemin were hanging out more than ever. What you saw as insane luck meant that every time you texted asking if he could hang out, he was never ‘with a girl’ at the time; and Jaemin was texting you and being the one to make plans at a far greater rate than you were, anyways. Instantly, your relationship reflected that during your time in high school - the only difference was that sometimes in the midst of trying to pretend you didn’t have the hugest crush on your best friend, you were also having to pretend you did have the hugest crush on your best friend.
Hang outs were still mainly at your place so that the two of you never had to worry about Haechan, though sometimes you’d purposely have a night in at Jaemin’s to keep Haechan convinced. This was not one of those times. Instead, you opened your door to Jaemin as you have for the past three Friday’s now, which the two of you decided would be ‘date night’ in everyone else’s eyes while really, you’d just keep a low profile and do whatever you wanted. Due to schedules, you always had an hour for homework before you’d be met with Jaemin’s presence, and he was right on time today. “Hey, Jaem!” You greet with a smile as you swing the door open and step back to allow him inside.
“Hey angel,” he replies casually, because calling you ‘angel’ was now a very typical occurrence, regardless of who was around to hear it. He flashes a smile in your direction, but instead of beelining for the couch like normal, he stops to stand kind of awkwardly in front of you before continuing hesitantly. “Mark is having a Halloween party if that’s something you’re interested in…we could go together. I know parties aren’t really your thing.” He speaks as though it were an apology, and all you can do is chuckle at his antics.
“Don’t worry about that. I am your fake girlfriend, aren’t I?” You tease in reply, and Jaemin raises his eyebrows as though he didn’t know where you were going with this.
“...Yes,” he draws out slowly, and you just shake your head at him fondly.
“So, if you’re going, then I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” you answer sincerely, and though you’d never be able to convince yourself of it, you made Jaemin blush - just the tiniest bit.
He lets out something like a sigh of relief before nodding his head in acknowledgement. “Okay, I’ll tell Mark we’re going, then,” he says happily, and then suddenly it’s right back to routine as he heads for the couch to chill before the two of you could decide what all you actually wanted to do that day.
The next time you saw Jaemin was two days later when he asked if you wanted to accompany him to the store. It was all light and casual conversation as you strolled through the aisles, most of the time pointing at random items and saying ‘you’ to try and see who could get the other to laugh more. The bit promptly ended when you pointed at a Scrub Daddy to relate Jaemin to, but he instead teased you endlessly for using an item with “daddy” in the name. The only thing to veer his topic of conversation away from that was when you passed the aisle that had been repurposed into Halloween decorations and costumes, making him stop in his tracks.
“Have you decided on a costume for the party yet?” He asks curiously, and you turn back around to face him and redirect your path to peruse the Halloween aisle, touching random bits of costumes before dropping them back to the rack with a shake of your head.
“Well, I was gonna go as an angel since that’s kind of what you call me now, but if we do it as a couple’s costume, then you’d end up as the devil or a demon or whatever, and I don’t love the idea of that. So…would you wanna go as Team Rocket instead?” You ask in return. Jaemin swallows awkwardly as he takes in everything you just said, but he can’t take too long to explore the slightly comforting feeling brought on by you saying the idea of him as a devil wasn’t your favorite…because that wouldn’t be very ‘I don’t care what anyone else thinks’ of him. Instead, he resorts back to a familiar tease, an eyebrow raised as a playful smirk crossed his lips.
“Who said I wanted to do a couple’s costume?” He shoots back and your face immediately goes red as you scramble for words.
“Oh! You don’t- I was just- it’s not-” You’re cut off with a warm laugh from Jaemin.
“Breathe, angel, I was just messing with you,” he reassures with a shake of his head.
“Maybe you would make a good demon,” you deadpan in return, and Jaemin’s eyes light with fire as his jaw drops.
“Hey!”
“Just messing with you, Jaem,” you banter back, and Jaemin bites on the inside of his cheek to stop a wide grin from making an appearance at your behavior.
“I’m fine going as Team Rocket, as long as I get to be James,” he says with a mock seriousness, effectively getting you to smile as you roll your eyes.
“Well, I wasn’t going to suggest you be Jessie,” you assure in the same manner, and Jaemin nods his head, seemingly content with the plan before another question comes to mind.
“Are we dying our hair?” He asks, and this time he’s actually serious. You think about it for a second before giving into the idea with a contemplative nod.
“We can get the spray that lasts up until you wash it,” you suggest, and with a nod from Jaemin, your Halloween costumes were set - all you had to do was make them.
Fast forward a week and the only thing left to do was iron on the ‘R’ decal on Jaemin’s top, which was exactly what you were doing in his apartment as he took the time to spray blue in his hair. You look up from the heat press as Jaemin walks out of the bathroom. “Huh,” you let out involuntarily, and if you were any less close with Jaemin, you would’ve been embarrassed beyond words. However, he just looks at you with furrowed brows and a curious grin.
“What?” He asks, and you shrug your shoulders as though it were nothing big.
“You look good with blue hair,” you answer, trying your best to be casual about it.
Jaemin’s curious grin had turned into a shiteating one. “Oh, yeah?” He digs, trying to get under your skin; though, you thwart the attempt immediately, instead responding with nonchalance - the exact opposite of what he was reaching for.
“Well, no more than normal,” you reply, and Jaemin’s brows raise impossibly.
“Now, what does that mean?” He asks playfully, but you just shake your head.
“You’re the fuckboy, Jaemin. You know what I’m getting at.” With that, your attention was back on the iron as it beeped and let you know his shirt was ready. You pull it out from under the heat and turn it around so Jaemin could see the final product, and with a nod of approval, he grabs it from your hands and heads back to the bathroom.
“Looks great, angel,” he finally says, studying his appearance in the mirror before walking back out to the living area. You just drop your head as you feel your face heat up at the compliment.
“I’ll uh- go get ready,” you say quietly, and then you grab your own costume and hair spray before trading places with him in the bathroom.
Jaemin doesn’t hide his small smile as he watches you walk back out to the living area in your matching costume with him, and you try your best to pin your focus anywhere other than his soft gaze. “Um- drinking at parties isn’t really my thing so- I can drive us back here afterwards. You can drink however much you want,” you get out awkwardly before moving to sit down next to him on the couch.
Jaemin chuckles lightly in response to your behavior. “Are you sure?”
You nod your head profusely. “Of course. You enjoy parties a lot. I don’t want you to change an aspect of it just because I’m there, too. So, however much you normally drink…go for it.”
Jaemin studies your figure with ample doubt covering his features. “I don’t know. Me drinking while knowing I have a ride home typically means I turn into too much to handle,” he jokes, but any form of negative self-talk from him always grounds you, and you’re quick to refute it.
“Not for me,” you say, turning your head to make eye contact with him. “Never for me.” Your soft reassurance has Jaemin simply staring at you, and you quickly turn your head back to face your lap as you overthink every little embarrassing thing you’ve already done tonight. On the other hand, Jaemin didn’t even think twice before leaning over to place a kiss on your cheek.
Your cheeks puff out with a smile in immediate response to the contact, but as you lift your gaze back up to face Jaemin, your attention is caught by Haechan, who had just walked out of his room in costume - a vampire costume that was already iconic and he hadn’t even done anything yet.
Your soft smile turns into a full-on grin as you address him. “Woah, Hyuck. You look great!” You say with a laugh, and Jaemin whips his head around to face his roommate just to fall into his own bout of laughter.
“Oh, fuck off,” Haechan replies with a playful roll of his eyes as he walks towards the door. “Are you two gonna head out soon?” He asks more seriously, and Jaemin gives a light nod.
“Yeah, we won’t be too far behind you. Y/n just isn’t a huge fan of parties, so we opted for fashionably late rather than fashionably early.”
Haechan flashes his eyebrows up in acknowledgement before turning back from the front door to face the two of you again. “Alright. Don’t violate the couch too much in the meantime. It’s my favorite couch,” he banters, and this time it’s you and Jaemin to roll your eyes.
“You fuck off,” you say through a grin, and Haechan drops his head with a loud laugh before bringing his gaze back to the two of you with a soft smile.
“I’ll see you guys soon,” he says happily, and with that, he’s out the door.
It was about thirty minutes later when you and Jaemin entered the party house hand-in-hand. As soon as you got in, you realized your friend group was a lot more popular than you ever thought, because seemingly everyone you went to school with was here. For parties already feeling overwhelming, parties where you could hardly move without bumping into someone were even more so. Though, in the midst of the blaring music, a hundred different conversations, and all the dancing, your attention is turned to your interlocked hand with Jaemin as he gently rubs his thumb across the back of your hand.
You shoot your gaze up at him just to see he’s already staring back down at you softly. Unlike you, he looked completely at home in the party scene, though you figure one can’t truly get labeled a fuckboy without being so. That’s also why you assume he was able to tell you were already uncomfortable from the second you stepped inside.
Hardly a few feet from the entrance, he leans down to you at his side, speaking slowly in your ear so you could make it out from the rest of the noise. “We’ll stay only as long as you want, okay? If you wanna turn back around right now, we can.”
You shake your head minimally, turning to face him and realizing that action placed your lips dangerously close together. You roll them inwards in hesitation before shifting your gaze to his own. “I’m not going to make you leave super early. You like parties.”
A smirk plays on Jaemin’s lips as he raises an eyebrow at you. “I like you more,” he replies playfully.
You dart your gaze off to the side, ripping your hand away from his in the process. “I’m fine. Let’s just go find our friends.” You take a step out from the entryway but quickly notice Jaemin isn’t following. You whip your head around to face him just to see his hand outstretched for you again.
“If we’re going to go find our friends, your hand better be in mine,” he quips, causing you to roll your eyes before obliging and lacing your fingers back together. He gives your hand a light squeeze as he flashes you a wide smile and drags you to where he already saw Haechan, Jeno, and Renjun.
“Hey, you guys look great!” Jeno says with a bright smile as the two of you join their circle. Jaemin finally slides his hand out of yours to instead place it on the small of your back. Despite yourself, a small smile comes onto your face, not at Jeno’s words, but at Jaemin’s touch, and you relax a bit more against his hand.
Jaemin is the one to actually respond as the other two guys turn their attention to the both of you as well. “Thanks! My incredible, beautiful girlfriend made the costumes,” he says, tossing his gaze over to you at his side. You roll your eyes at him, but your smile grows.
“Making it is not the same as making it look good. You did that all on your own,” you shoot back earnestly. The three guys in front of you throw on a look of disgust, as if they weren’t the ones telling Jaemin he needed a girlfriend. Jaemin just looks over at you with a soft gleam in his eyes, his mouth straining as he tries to conceal a smile. He opts to just kiss you on the cheek instead, then reaching for your far shoulder and pulling you his way. He snakes his arms around you to keep you there in a hug from behind, his thumb gently rubbing up and down your waist. The five of you stood in a circle just talking for at least an hour. Occasionally, one of them would leave to grab drinks for the group, though you were sure to just stick to water the entire night as everyone around you became a comfortable state of tipsy.
Eventually, Jaemin unwound his arms from your figure, causing you to turn your head and look up at him in question. He lets an easy smile paint his lips. “I’m just running to the bathroom real quick. I’ll come find you again in a few.”
You nod your head, and your eyes follow Jaemin for as long as they could before he became completely indistinguishable from the rest of the crowd. You turn your attention back to Renjun, Jeno, and Haechan. “I’m gonna go find Mark,” you start with an awkward laugh. “I don’t know if he even knows Jaemin and I are here.” The three of them nod at you, Renjun racking his foggy brain for where he thinks he last saw him. You nod, thanking them for their company so far, and then heading off towards the kitchen under the guidance of Renjun’s memory.
When Jaemin steps out of the bathroom, he almost immediately runs into the body of another guy. Opening his mouth to apologize, the guest beats him to words.
“Jaemin, nice costume,” he says, and Jaemin loses his tension at the compliment.
“Oh, thank you-” He starts, but is quickly cut off again by the stranger.
“You got another one of your hoes to match with tomorrow?” He slurs with a smile, throwing an arm around Jaemin’s shoulder.
Jaemin’s eyes widen as he snakes out under the touch, guiding their hand back down to their side. “Uh, no, y/n’s my girlfriend. It’s just her and we’re just out for tonight,” he replies, turning his gaze away from the man to instead scan the crowd and try to lay eyes back on you.
“Ha! Good one,” the guy laughs out, and Jaemin snaps his gaze back to him in confusion.
“Good one?” He echoes back in question, but with a hard slap on his back that Jaemin thinks was meant to be playful, his conversation partner quickly leaves. Jaemin stands there for a moment puzzled, but he tries to shake out of the uncomfortable feeling as he directs his gaze back to the big crowd, looking for where you may have wandered off to once he sees you’re no longer with the previous group.
He quickly realizes he wouldn’t be able to find you by standing in one place, so he picks up his feet and starts weaving through the crowd again. When he feels a hand on his back, he assumes it’s you, and he whips around towards the figure. His face quickly drops when he realizes it isn’t you, and suddenly he’s extremely conscious of how everyone’s been touching him tonight.
“Such a shame your costume shows so little skin,” the girl says with a small pout and a fake innocence in her eyes. Jaemin tries to take a step back, just to bump into more people dancing and forcing him back into close proximity. He swallows hard, accepting the fact that he was having to engage in this conversation now.
“My girlfriend picked it out,” he says firmly, and the girl in front of him just tilts her head to the side, now rubbing a hand up and down his arm.
“Well, she’s ruining the fun,” she replies, something like pity in her eyes as she looks at Jaemin. He furrows his brows, his breath getting heavier as the air seems to get thinner.
“Um, I- I think I’m still fun without showing skin,” Jaemin fumbles out, and the girl just laughs, finally letting her hand drop from his arm as her doe-eyed expression turns mean.
“You’d like to believe that,” she says, shaking her head and walking off.
Jaemin stared after her in a weird mix of hurt and confusion that he hadn’t ever felt before. “What?” He asks in defeat, but there was no one there to give him any clarification.
He desperately starts looking around for you again. If he could just get back to you, if he could just slip his hand into yours, he was sure the heavy weight that’s found its way onto his chest would disappear. He was shaking, he didn’t know when he had started shaking, but it seemed to take the place of his breathing, and now he was worried about whether or not he would even have time to find you before he suffocated. Almost all the effort he was placing into finding you was now being placed into holding back his tears. Everything was too loud, he couldn’t hear his own thoughts, couldn’t hear his voice if he spoke aloud, suddenly not sure if he was even getting any words out when he opened his mouth, which only worried him more because he was dying and he couldn’t tell anyone.
Holding your hand, it was the only positive thought he could seem to cling to, the only thing keeping him from collapsing to the floor in a ball - he had to find you, he wanted to hold your hand. He thinks it’s a miracle that his feet are able to start moving again, especially when someone definitely put 50 lb weights in his shoes without him knowing.
He finally lays eyes on you, now in the kitchen talking with Mark, Chenle, and Jisung. Though you were maybe ten feet away, it might as well have been miles, as another hand gets placed on his chest from a random girl in front of him. “James, let me know if you get bored of Jessie later. I can give you a good time,” she says with a smirk, and Jaemin feels like he’s going to throw up; though he can’t quite tell if that was because of her words or the whirlwind of the past three minutes. In fact, if he knew just how badly he was shaking, he would’ve questioned how she didn’t feel it when she placed her hand on his chest.
He shakes his head as quickly as he could without getting too dizzy to continue his trek towards you. “No, I quite like Jessie,” he says through hiccups, not sure when the first stray tear made its way down his cheek. He pushes past the girl without giving her time to respond and make him feel worse. All he wanted was you, and when he finally got close enough to place his shaky hand in yours, all he could manage were whispered words that he prayed would reach you, or at least leave his mouth at all.
“Please don’t leave me.”
Still in conversation with Mark, Chenle, and Jisung, you don’t turn too much attention to Jaemin slightly behind you as you settle your hand into his touch, but that’s when you feel how badly he’s shaking. “Jaem, are you okay?” You ask at your side, though your eyes remained trained on Chenle as he told the least dramatic story in the most dramatic way.
“There’s a lot of people here,” Jaemin whimpers out, the answer confusing enough to pull your focus away from Chenle.
“I know-” You start, your gaze following from your interlocked hands up his arm and to his face, but that’s when you actually see the state he’s in and your face instantly falls into worry. A steady stream of tears cascaded down his cheeks, his eyes tightly shut to block out the extra stimulation, only opening them to look at you before promptly getting embarrassed and turning away. You immediately squeeze his hand a little tighter in your hold, getting him to train his eyes back on you. You pick up your words as he does so, careful to hide your immense worry in your tone and instead speaking softly for him. “Hey…let’s get you to a quieter room, okay?”
Jaemin nods his head minimally, able to let out a choked response. “Okay.” You take no extra time in telling the others that you were going to have to get filled in on the story later. Instead, you just make sure your grip on Jaemin’s hand is enough to not lose him while navigating through the crowd as you immediately lead him upstairs and into an empty room.
“Talk to me, what’s going on?” You say, closing the door and turning on a soft lamp light before you whip back around to watch Jaemin pace the entire floor, his fingers running frantically through his hair.
“I don’t know. Everyone keeps talking to me and touching me and everything is so loud and my head hurts and it’s so hot I’m sweating and dizzy and freaking out-” He spoke all at once, and you knew the last thing he needed was to run out of breath while explaining. You jump to cut him off, still trying your best to make your voice as calming as possible for him.
“Hey…it’s gonna be okay. Can you sit down for me?” The second you said it, Jaemin was on the floor, his heavy breaths visibly not making it to his whole body. Your eyes soften some more as you look at him. It didn’t take a genius to tell you he’s never been in this situation before, and all he knew to do was trust you. You let out a soft sigh as you move closer to him. “I know you said you’re hot and sweaty and overwhelmed with touch, but is it okay if I hug you?”
“Please.” The word comes out weak, riddled with enough tears to make you break. You sit down behind him, placing your legs out along his own outstretched ones as you gently hug him from behind.
“You can close your eyes, just focus on my voice. You’re gonna be okay,” you state with confidence, rubbing a thumb gently up and down his side. Jaemin is quick to refute, shaking his head with an intensity you wish he wouldn’t right now.
“No, y/n, it feels like I’m dying,” he says, fear covering every aspect of his voice. You let out a soft sigh.
“You’re not dying, you’re panicking.” This, too, he refuses to accept. His response comes out as firm as it could through tears.
“I don’t panic. I’m the cool guy. I’m not panicking, I’m dying.”
Despite yourself, a small laugh escapes you through an exhale, and you hug Jaemin to you extra tight. “Baby, no matter how cool you are, there’s not a person in the world completely immune to panic attacks.”
Jaemin stills for a moment, the sudden switch confusing you before he speaks and confuses you even more. “I thought you didn’t like that word,” he says, wiping his face of tears and then placing his hands on your own arms around his torso.
You furrow your eyebrows, though with him in front of you, there was no point. “What word?” You ask. Surely he wasn’t talking about the word ‘panic attack’ but racking your brain, there was nothing else you said that wasn’t just a normal word.
“You don’t know you said it,” he says curiously, a small sniffle coming from his figure as he tries his own attempt at a light laugh.
“What are you talking about, Jaem?” You question again. At this point, you were sure one of you was going crazy, and you really were banking on it not being you. Though, Jaemin just dismisses the subject, and with you sitting behind him, you missed the small smile that now covered his features.
“Nothing, please just continue holding me like this,” he begs softly, and you nod your head, squeezing him tighter for a second.
“I’m not going anywhere,” you reply seriously, and there you and Jaemin sat for at least another ten minutes; the only noise to break the silence was his occasional cries as he still tried to rid himself of tears and calm down completely.
When you couldn’t remember his last sniffle, you start to rub your thumb up and down a portion of his waist, disrupting the physical stillness before you spoke and disrupted the silence.
“I wanna get you some water soon,” you say gently, but any attempt to move from your position was shot down as Jaemin quickly fumbled to grab your arms and press them firmly back down across his torso, his body beginning to shake again at the idea of you getting up.
“No! Don’t leave! Please,” he chokes out, and almost all of the progress you thought he made in the past few minutes was erased.
You sigh, and refusing to think about the fact that you were practically breaking your own rule, you lean forward to kiss him on the cheek. “I’m staying right next to you, Jaem,” you start, and you watch as he basically forces his breathing to get back to normal at your words…or at least tries to. “Do you want me to call Jeno and get him to bring up water for you, or do you want to follow me down to the kitchen, grab a water bottle, and leave?”
Jaemin thinks for a moment before dropping his head in what you assume was shame, which was the last thing he needed to be feeling. “I- can we leave?”
You squeeze your arms around his body once more in acknowledgement. “Yeah, come on,” you reply, and the two of you slowly make your way off the floor and into a standing position. As you let go of his waist, you immediately grab his hand in yours, looking up at Jaemin for confirmation that this was what he wanted to do. He stared back down at you with a teary smile and nod, and with that, you led him out of the bedroom and back downstairs.
Thankfully, Mark, Chenle, and Jisung were still in the kitchen, meaning you had to cover no extra ground to fill Mark in on your departure.
“Hey, I’m gonna take Jaemin home,” you say, turning to face Mark after grabbing a water bottle from the fridge he was standing next to.
Mark furrows his brows. “Everything okay?” He asks, knowing Jaemin wasn’t one to leave parties early, nor was he one to have tear streaks painted across his face.
You try to smile but it comes out more as a grimace. “Yeah, he’s just a little overwhelmed today. Thank you for inviting us, though. It was a blast.”
Mark nods his head in understanding. “Thanks for coming. Are you driving?”
“Yeah,” you reply, and Mark forces some sobriety back in his system.
“You haven’t had anything to drink, have you?” He asks in worry, and you let a grateful smile paint your face as you respond.
“No, I’m okay.”
Mark nods before taking another sip of his own drink. “Okay. Be safe. I’ll see you guys soon.” You reciprocate his nod in acknowledgement and then immediately lead Jaemin towards the front door and back to the car.
You make sure he’s all taken care of in the passenger seat before you start messing with the controls in the driver’s seat to move it to where you could actually drive. You make a mental note to apologize about changing the position of his seat and mirrors tomorrow after everything’s calmed down, but as you start driving, Jaemin is the one to beat you to an apology.
“I’m sorry,” he says weakly, and you risk a quick glance over at him with furrowed brows.
“Huh, why?”
Jaemin fiddles with his fingers in his lap, unable to look anywhere else because of his embarrassment. “For making you leave the party. You were having fun,” he answers softly, and despite your best efforts, a small laugh escapes you.
“Jaem, I was having fun because all we did was hang around with our group of friends. I don’t care for parties in and of themselves, you know that. Truthfully, I’d rather just be with you right now,” you say, and as you pull up to a stop sign, you look back over at him again. Defeat riddled his features as he spits out a response.
“But I’m just crying.” He speaks those words as though he were mad at himself for it, and you don’t understand how your best friend came to believe that he always had to be some perfectly presented guy.
You let out a sigh before turning your attention back to the road. “It doesn’t change the fact that I like spending time with you. Besides, you’d be crazy to think I’d rather be anywhere else right now when you’ve got me so worried about you.” When the only response from Jaemin is another sob he tries to cover up, you frown. “I’m not mad at you for making us leave the party early, and I’m not mad at you for crying,” you add on, and Jaemin finally lifts his head to look over at you in his driver’s seat. He seems to scan your figure up and down, processing your words and the fact that you were actually taking care of him right now. He sniffles once more before abruptly turning his focus back to his lap, and the car ride is silent the rest of the way to his apartment.
As soon as Jaemin gets into his own room, he already looks a thousand times better; the tension in his shoulders finally falls and his breathing gets more regular. You scavenge around his apartment for anything he may need during the night and next morning, because outside of his panic attack, he was still tipsy, too.
With a fresh water bottle and ibuprofen set on his night stand, you bid Jaemin goodnight, running a hand gently through his hair as he laid down in bed. However, before you can fully turn around and leave, Jaemin catches the hand you just had in his hair. In shock, you whip back around, just to be met with wide pleading eyes.
“Please stay,” he says softly, and your breath hitches for a moment before you resume your cool, or at least try to.
“Jaemin-” You start, your tone already giving way to your refusal. Though, Jaemin cuts you off in an instant, his grip on you getting slightly tighter.
“You said you wouldn’t leave me,” he shoots back, and his voice is already shaky again from the sudden raise in volume of his claim.
You sigh, trying to slowly snake your hand out of his grip as you reply. “Yeah, but I was kind of meaning that for while we were still at the party, not…now, when you’re going to sleep.”
He refuses to let you out of his hold, and he pulls you even closer to the end of the bed. “What if Haechan comes back?” He starts, trying his best to talk normally. “He’d be really confused as to why you didn’t stay over after the night I had.”
Despite yourself, you let out a small laugh. “There’s no shot Haechan makes it back tonight or is sober enough to think about anything but getting in bed himself. You’re just saying that to try and convince me.”
He finally lets his grip on you drop as he lets out a heavy breath bordering on the dividing line between defeat and hope. “Is it working?” He asks, and though you were finally free from his grasp, able to just say a final goodnight and leave to head back to your place, you don’t. Instead, you drop your head, speaking so softly you’re not sure Jaemin would even be able to hear.
“I want the side next to the wall.”
With your gaze facing the floor, you couldn’t see the sudden warm glow behind Jaemin’s eyes as he pulled back the comforter on that side and pulled his legs up so you could crawl over by the foot of the bed, neither of you saying another word as you do.
Jaemin didn’t know why he was so captivated by watching you fall asleep in his bed. The two of you must’ve been at least a full foot away from each other, as you immediately made sure to press up against the wall and make yourself as small as you could. That was fine by Jaemin. He wasn’t asking for the two of you to cuddle in the first place - this was still a fake relationship after all, and he was very much aware of that. In fact, that truth was probably more plaguing than ever at the front of his mind. Now instead of a reminder that he had to pretend to date you, it was a reminder that this was ending in two months. Jaemin’s tipsy brain couldn’t put together what the sinking feeling in his chest meant at the realization of that. So, he pushed it away, and just looked over at you sleeping peacefully right up against the wall. He didn’t need to have his arms around you - knowing you were next to him was enough, and for the first time that night since the party started, he was completely at peace.
When you wake up and realize you were more comfortable than usual in your bed, you open your eyes and figure out that it’s because you’re not in your bed. In fact, you’re hardly resting against a bed at all. Instead, one of your arms is lazily thrown over your best friend’s waist as your head rested comfortably, incredibly too comfortably, on his chest. The discovery that your legs were some kind of interlaced didn’t make things any better, and the full realization that you were practically on top of Jaemin had you jolt. This, of course, didn’t do anything but wake him up. With your head now propped up on his chest, you watch as he slowly peeks open one of his eyes, exhaustion still written over all his features. However, the second his gaze lands on you, he shoots open both eyes. Embarrassment quickly floods your being as you address everything. “Uh, sorry. I didn’t mean to-”
You’re cut off with a light chuckle and softly spoken words from Jaemin. “You’re okay.” Regardless of his response, you can’t shake the embarrassment. Jaemin’s arms fall from around your body as you try to get up, and that’s when you realize both of his arms were wrapped around you in the first place. You push the thought to the back of your head, turning to get off of his bed completely.
You’re stopped by his hand grabbing yours. You quickly turn your attention back to Jaemin, who still had yet to move any part of his body but his arms as he looks at you softly, pleading. “Can we go back to sleep?”
You swallow awkwardly, your throat now suddenly dry. You dart your eyes around his room before sighing and just landing your gaze back on him. “Um, do you still need me here for that?” You ask genuinely. Jaemin breaks eye contact this time, as he just looks down at your two hands still holding onto each other. He gives a slow nod of his head, humming a little.
You bite your lip to stop a smile from coming onto your face. It wasn’t often that you got to see your best friend looking as gentle and small as he did now. Jaemin, with the larger than life personality just wanting to stay in bed with you, it was hard to say ‘no.’ So, you don’t. “Okay.” Though when you move to resume your position back by the wall, he chuckles a bit and uses your still interlocked hands to pull you back onto him.
The next two days after you woke up on top of Jaemin (again) were filled with an awkward period of zero contact between the two of you. You couldn’t blame him for not responding to your text to hang out the day after. You were both really good at never crossing lines back in high school, but Halloween put a blur on every single one…and it didn’t help that he was tipsy that night, too. Outside of whatever rules in your contract were broken, you were sure Jaemin was also just embarrassed to no end.
There was a lot of pressure on him to be this man with no emotions; his label as a fuckboy meant people typically started and stopped all their thoughts about him at the sexual level, and he did his best to live up to their many expectations in that department, neglecting all the other parts of his being that needed tending to. Vulnerability was not a Jaemin specialty, largely because it’s never what anyone was looking for from him; and anything that lessened his sex appeal, and thus meant he couldn’t make a call and immediately have any girl he wanted, was a possibility he sought to avoid.
You didn’t necessarily mind the no-contact, though. Your heart was doing flips and spins in Jaemin’s presence on Halloween, and you had to give yourself a cool-down period before seeing him so that you could act normal around him again - whatever it was that ‘normal’ looked like when you were having to convince a group of friends that you liked your best friend while convincing your best friend you didn’t actually like him.
Jaemin made up an excuse for your absence at Monday’s lunch, but on Tuesday he finally messaged you again and asked you out for ice cream, which you of course said ‘yes’ to. He meets you at the entrance to your dorm and smiles at you with something like a sigh of relief when you smile back at him; though, with his messy hair, thick-framed glasses, and a hoodie adorning his figure, it was hard to do anything but smile - he looked criminally boyfriend.
“Hey, I’m- sorry…for it being weird these past few days,” he gets out somewhat awkwardly as you start on your walk towards the best ice cream parlor by campus.
You shake your head with a small laugh. “It’s okay. You’ve been going through it recently,” you joke, and Jaemin licks his lips before bringing himself to laugh as well.
“Thanks for uh- putting up with me on Halloween.” He speaks as though the words were bitter on his tongue. “I’m sorry about forcing you to spend the night.”
You let out a sigh. You wanted to stop and force him to see the sincerity in your eyes as you told him that you weren’t ‘putting up with him,’ but you knew you needed to keep this moment more casual so he wouldn’t find these vulnerable bits overwhelming and consequently shut down. So instead, you just keep walking with a small shake of your head.
“You don’t have to apologize for that. You just had a panic attack - if I didn’t spend the night, I wouldn’t have gotten any sleep. I would’ve stayed up all night worried about you. It was better that I was with you.”
Jaemin lets something like a grimace cross his features as he responds with a wry laugh. “You care about me a lot,” he points out, making you look up at him by your side with raised brows.
“Of course I do. You’re my best friend,” you say seriously, and Jaemin looks down to meet your gaze, giving away the distant look in his eyes.
“Ha, fair,” he begins. “I care about you a lot, too.” As he continues, he drops his head to face his feet. “But I don’t think I’d know how to take care of you while you’re having a panic attack,” he admits regrettably, but all you can do is give a soft smile.
“I’m not expecting you to. All I ask is that you let me be there for you again if you have another one…and that you stop being so embarrassed about showing emotions,” you tack on, causing Jaemin to laugh a bit in defeat.
“Okay, angel, but only with you. I have a hot guy persona to keep up in the real world,” he says through a smile, but you shake your head.
“You’re hot, regardless,” you deadpan, and Jaemin’s face lights up as he nudges you in the side playfully.
“Well, look at that! You sweet talker. Maybe I’ll pay for your ice cream today,” he banters, and soon the two of you are in shared laughter as you elbow him back.
“Whatever. I’m 80% sure you were gonna pay for my ice cream even before that.”
“80%?” He echos, bringing a hand up to his chest as though he’s been shot. “Such little faith,” he tuts, shaking his head and making you roll your eyes playfully.
“Am I supposed to have more faith in a fuckboy than that?” You tease, and Jaemin’s face falls into a mock seriousness, holding open the door to the ice cream parlor for you as he looks at your figure with raised eyebrows.
“No, you’re supposed to have more faith in your best friend than that,” he says as you pass through the door, and you look back at him to share matching small smiles.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I have nothing but faith in you,” you reply as he, too, fully steps inside and lets the door swing closed behind him. The proximity has you looking almost directly up at him as he stares down at you in much the same manner; playful gleams in your eyes and fond smiles adorning your faces. At once, he nods his head towards the counter behind you.
“Go order, angel. It’s on me today.”
You scrunch your face up at him with a big grin. “Thanks, handsome.” Then you promptly turn around and head towards where the cashier was waiting to take your order, not even taking one chance to look back and see how red Jaemin’s face had gotten in response.
Jaemin knew it was coming, that was the funny thing. He just wasn’t expecting the disconnect between his head and his heart to be remedied all at once; but looking at you standing in line and pointing at what flavor you wanted, he had never wanted to do this with anyone else, but he really really wanted it with you, today and every day after that.
Sitting down and actually eating ice cream included the most normal of conversations between you and Jaemin. He wasn’t your best friend for nothing - the two of you could talk forever and never run out of things to say or comfort and joy to find in each other’s presence. As such, when you finished your ice cream cones and left the parlor, interaction flowed as it always had while he walked you back to your dorm…meaning the two of you looked like just best friends; close enough on the sidewalk to hear each other but far enough apart so that there was no possibility of accidentally grazing the back of each other’s hands or anything. You were hardly conscious of it, elated at the fact that you and Jaemin were so close and consistent again after the past few years, but Jaemin could practically only focus on the distance between the two of you.
You had basically just stepped foot back on actual campus when Jaemin abruptly stopped, grabbing your wrist and turning you towards him as he spoke in a rush.
“My friends are looking, kiss me,” he says in something close to a panic, and so you immediately oblige, pressing up on your tiptoes to kiss him firmly. You place your hands on his chest to steady yourself as you break away, catching your breath - something that Jaemin always seemed to make you lose - as you turn your head around to look at the surrounding area.
“Where are they?” You ask through a light pant, turning back to Jaemin once you checked and double checked but caught no sign of his friends.
Jaemin licks his lips hesitantly, shaking his head. “They must have left already,” he says through an exhale, and you take a deep breath, finally allowing yourself to step away from Jaemin’s body as you face the ground, trying to regain your footing from the whiplash it felt you just went through. Jaemin lets out an awkward cough before speaking up again. “We should probably hold hands all the time when we’re in public, though. I’m pretty sure Chenle’s the only suspicious one still out of the friend group, but it’d throw anyone off if we’re dating and not holding hands. And if there’s one thing I learned from the Halloween party, it’s that people don’t know we’re dating, and that should probably change so it doesn’t just look like an act put on for the friend group…or Chenle’s never gonna believe it.”
He wasn’t wrong, and you knew that - you knew that before all of this even started. Rule number three was that the act is immediately dropped in private, but that came with the other side of things being that you had to put on an act while in public, regardless of who was around to witness it.
You nod your head slowly. “Yeah, okay,” you cede, and Jaemin’s hand immediately finds yours, the warmth from the contact making you realize how chilled your bones currently were. There was no more hiding it from girls in your classes now - you were Jaemin’s girlfriend to the general public, not just to his six best friends. You needed these next two months to pass by quickly, because with the promise of Jaemin’s hand being in yours more than ever, you were sure your chances of survival just decreased dramatically.
That Friday, your date night was replaced with a night in at Jaemin’s apartment. As soon as he shot you a text saying he was home from class, you made your way over to his place. He opened the door with the bright smile he typically revealed just for you, stepping back to let you inside with a fond, “hey angel.”
You step inside with a smile and small greeting in reply. “What do you wanna do today?” You ask, turning around to face him once you realize you were aimlessly crossing the span of his apartment for no reason. Already preparing for the question, Jaemin moves his hand from behind his back to reveal a thick blu-ray case in his grip.
“Harry Potter movie marathon?” He asks with a smirk.
You look back at him with raised eyebrows and a small grin of your own. “You know I can’t say ‘no’ to Harry Potter at any point in the Fall or Winter seasons,” you reply, and Jaemin’s eyes find a new glow behind them.
“That and Gilmore Girls; though I’m much more in the mood for Harry Potter because if we started rewatching Gilmore Girls now, we’d have to get through all those episodes with that floppy-haired jerk and really, Jess is so much better,” he adds on seriously, and all you can do is laugh.
“Hey, Dean is at least better than Logan,” you respond, and Jaemin lets out an actual groan.
“Please don’t get me started on Logan…can we instead get started on Harry Potter?” He asks again, waving the disc case around invitingly and causing you to laugh some more as you walk towards the couch.
“Just waiting on you,” you answer as you plop down on the couch, making Jaemin roll his eyes playfully before turning around to set everything up on the TV. As the familiar soundtrack fills the room, Jaemin places himself next to you like normal, handing you a blanket to make the cozy night-in complete.
Two hours later, as Jaemin got up to switch out the discs from The Sorcerer’s Stone to The Chamber of Secrets, you got up for a bathroom break, and when the two of you sat back down, there was maybe an inch less space between you both than previously. Not much else changed. That is, until not even ten minutes into the second movie. You catch in your peripheral as Jaemin moves his hand up to scratch at the back of his neck. You don’t think anything of it until that arm doesn’t come back down to his side, but instead wraps around the back of your shoulders.
“Is Haechan here?” You ask lightly, trying to talk over the sound of your breath hitching. Haechan’s room was closest to the bathroom, and you don’t remember any sign of life coming from nearby while you were in there, but nothing else explained this, because this was not normal between the two of you.
“No,” Jaemin answers shortly, and all you can do is swallow hesitantly as you fight for words again.
“Then why is your arm around my shoulder?” You ask, trying to make it sound as though your words were a playful tease and not a desperate question.
Jaemin looks over at you with raised eyebrows and a playful smirk. “Because what if he comes back?” He replies casually, and you try to roll your eyes in much the same manner, as though his arm around your shoulder wasn’t single-handedly making your heart rate spike. He was right, anyway - if Haechan came back, it would be weird for the two of you to be sitting any other way.
It was during Prisoner of Azkaban when Haechan inevitably walked into the apartment. Busy with locking the door behind him, he was caught off guard when locking eyes with the two of you as he turned back around. Though, all at once, his gaze softened as he looked between you, Jaemin, and the television. “Hey guys,” he says warmly, and you mentally high-five yourself not only for the fact that you and Jaemin seemed to have truly won Haechan over, but also that you had won Haechan over; the main reason this bet was even made was because Haechan couldn’t stand whatever girl it was that Jaemin had over, but here he was, excited to see you cuddled into Jaemin on the couch, and that win was not lost on you.
“Hey,” Jaemin replied with a smile. “We’re watching Harry Potter if you want to join,” he continues, but Haechan shakes his head at the extended invite as he moves to grab something from the mess that was the kitchen counter.
“Tempting, but- I’m all good. I’m about to head back out, actually. Mark and I are gonna hit a few bars and try to unwind from this bullshit week,” he says with a weak laugh. You and Jaemin flash your eyebrows in acknowledgement.
“Let me know if you need a ride back home. We’ll swing by to grab you and Mark, or- I will, at least, depending on what time it ends up being. Regardless, be safe. I enjoy having you as a roommate,” Jaemin says, his tone turning more playful with every word.
Haechan rolls his eyes with a smile. “Yeah, yeah. I won’t drink and drive. We all know I’m smarter than that,” he says, but when he makes eye contact with you and Jaemin again, he meets your wide-eyed stares of doubt, causing him to shake his head with a more hearty laugh. “You guys suck,” he says with a smile. “I’ll keep you updated throughout the night. It was nice seeing you, y/n,” he continues seriously, beginning to fiddle with the front door lock on his exit.
“You, too,” you reply genuinely, and with one more nod and wave goodbye, he was out the door. It wasn’t even five seconds later when Jaemin’s arm detaches itself from your shoulder, instead finding comfort at his side again. He didn’t pay any mind to it, his attention pinned solely on the movie. You do your best to not show any physical reaction to the absence of his touch, especially when you were the one giving him a hard time for it in the first place. You’re almost shocked by how well Jaemin is able to turn it on and off, though you figure the real problem was how poorly you were able to do the same. Jaemin was just doing his part, exactly as he said he would.
Your heart had to stop looking for hidden meaning to every touch, every “angel,” because he was your best friend and crush, but you were his best friend and fake-girlfriend. Unbeknownst to you, Jaemin ran through the same spiel in reverse inside his own head, figuring if he kept his arm around you now with the promise of Haechan being gone, you would surely catch onto the fact that he craved your touch more than typical of best friends - which was exactly what you both were going back to at the start of the new year.
It was the first Tuesday after you and Jaemin agreed to ramp up your public dating facade, and you were already the center of attention as you walked into class at 11:00. You tell yourself no one’s gaze locked onto you as you opened the door for class - that you were making it up; but at least some percent of that story was false, because as you sit in your chair and start pulling out your notebook for class, your name gets called from the seat diagonal to you. “Y/n, rumor has it that you and Jaemin are actually dating,” this girl, Hana, says. You knew she was looking for a response, so you don’t give her one, instead focusing on your pen mindlessly rolling between your fingers.
“You? With a guy like him?” She continues, adding more bite and disbelief to each word. You keep your gaze focused in front of you, jaw tightening as you try to hide more robust reactions. That is, until she continues. “You can’t be that good in bed.” Your fist clenches as you whip your head towards her; furrowed, taunting eyebrows matching the fire in her eyes and the smirk on her lips, the rest of her friend group snickering behind her. You have the patience for none of it - you were not going to sit here and take this.
“Actually,” you begin, your kind tone dripping in sarcasm. “I know this is something you don’t have experience with, so bear with me, but Jaemin genuinely likes me as a person and so I didn’t have to win him over with just my skills in bed. Yeah! He actually wants to hold my hand and tell me pretty things and I’m just so sorry that he never had the desire to do any of that with the likes of you!” You give her one last look before shrugging a bit, even your fake smile completely ridden from your face. “Actually, I’m not sorry at all.”
Hana looks mortified, her friend group in the surrounding desks all watching the exchange now with wide eyes. You don’t even think any of them saw it coming when Hana got up from her seat and lunged towards you, swinging at your face. “You bitch!” She yells at you, her fist making contact with the area around your eye. You wince slightly but you refused to give her the satisfaction of a bigger reaction - you’d leave that for when you were alone. You move your hand up to touch the area, making sure none of her rings caught your skin and drew blood, but when your fingers came back clean, you just move your gaze back to her in disinterest.
“Are you done now?” You ask monotonously. You catch her fist clench again in your peripheral and prepare yourself for another hit because seemingly none of the other students were concerned with stopping the exchange. However, your professor finally walks in before Hana can even get another word out, and instead she’s told to take her seat as you swing back to face the front of the room in your own chair. The throbbing that half of your face was currently experiencing would have to wait an hour and twenty minutes to be addressed, you weren’t letting her win.
Thankfully, that was your last of two classes for the day, so you were able to head back to your dorm directly after. You throw your backpack down in the entryway and immediately head for your bathroom to assess the damages. “Fuck,” you whisper under your breath. The hour and a half was enough time for a proper bruise to start forming, and it wasn’t necessarily the prettiest of black eyes. You move a hand up to touch the area again, this time just the light pressure already putting you in horrid pain. With a defeated groan, you leave the bathroom and dig through your freezer for an ice pack to hold up to the area instead.
Settling yourself down on the couch, you decide the last thing you need is for Jaemin to see you like this. With a sigh, you open your phone and pull up your texts with him. Hey, just a heads up, I don’t have a lot of time to hang this week or make it to friend group lunches.
Jaemin’s reply is almost instantaneous. Is everything okay?
You frown at the message. You hated lying to your best friend, but explaining what was up would defeat the whole purpose of saying you couldn’t hang out anyways. Yep! You reply instead, thankful when Jaemin didn’t press any further. You’d give yourself a week to heal, and then you were sure makeup would be able to cover what little would be left of the bruising by then.
Those plans didn’t even last twenty-four hours. There was a knock on your door after classes on Wednesday and you figured it was your RA here to remind you not to leave your windows open while out at class with the chances of snow ever increasing. Though, when you lazily throw your door open, it’s your best friend on the other side. Your eyes go wide and you immediately move a hand up to cover the left half of your face where your black eye was still very much at its peak. “Jaemin, what are you doing here?!” You ask in a rush, but he doesn’t match your demeanor at all.
Instead, he shrugs, a light smile painting his lips. “I missed you, angel-” He answers as he brings a hand up to your wrist and gently guides your own hand down away from your face…and that’s when his energy completely flips, eyes going wide as he rushes to place a hand on your cheek and assess the damage himself. “Oh my god, what happened to you?!” He asks in a panic. You shake your head adamantly, trying to move his hand away from your face as you reply with a serious bite.
“Nothing, it’s fine,” you reply dismissively, and Jaemin’s eyebrows furrow as he scans your entire face.
“Is this why you said you couldn’t hang out?” He asks, almost mad if you had to put an emotion on it.
You shake your head, dropping your gaze to face the floor. “Jaem, don’t worry about it-” You start indifferently, but he cuts you off with enough emotion for the both of you.
“What happened?” He questions again, this time his tone much firmer than any of his previous questions. His gaze bore into you, and you knew there wasn’t any getting out of this. You let out an annoyed sigh, shrugging like it was nothing as you go to reply.
“This girl in my class found out we were dating, and apparently that pissed her off because she didn’t think I deserved you or I was taking her spot and all that. And I snapped back so she punched me,” you finally answer, and Jaemin’s body language immediately softens as he looks over you once more with a frown and wide eyes.
“Y/n…” You don’t want to deal with his sorry tone. Instead, you move to meet his gaze again as you shake your head, the frustrated tears in your eyes rather revealing themself in your fractured tone.
“Please just sleep with her, Jaem. Tell her we broke up or something and then sleep with her. Or pretend you’re cheating on me with her…she’d love that, and no one would believe her if she said so, so we keep our cover,” you suggest in a rush, and Jaemin looks at you as though you just committed murder.
“No. Absolutely not,” he replies instantly.
“Jaem-” You start through a defeated exhale, but hearing you out was currently the last thing on Jaemin’s mind.
“I’m not fucking sleeping with someone who hurt you,” he states with force, and you don’t know why this is such a big deal to him, not when the solution was this simple.
“I would just rather have her satisfied and dealt with,” you respond hollowly, and Jaemin actually lets out a laugh.
“Oh, I’ll be sure to deal with her, don’t worry.” His angry promise makes you sigh, and all you can do is respond in defeat.
“Jaem-” You begin, and you’re not given any time to decide how you want to continue as he cuts you off. Passion still courses through Jaemin’s body as he shakes his head, taking a break from clenching his jaw to speak again.
“She should know better than to lay a hand on my girl,” he argues, and now you absolutely know you need to get him to calm down.
“I’m not really your girl,” you state plainly, and if you weren’t already feeling deflated, you sure did now as you admitted that. Jaemin seems to react to your statement in much the same way, his features softening for a moment as he looked at you again, bringing a hand up to run through his hair in frustration; though this time, the frustration was aimed towards himself.
“I- I know. I’m sorry, I never should have asked you to do this for me. I was so selfish, goddammit,” he rambles under his breath absentmindedly as he begins to pace back and forth. You shake your head softly, reaching out to catch Jaemin’s wrist and force his movements to still.
“It’s fine, handsome,” you state firmly, and you watch as a million emotions run over Jaemin’s face, him just sucking on his bottom lip in hesitation. The hand that was previously caught in your grip comes up to cup your cheek again, his thumb lightly grazing your bruise as he studies you with a sad look on his face.
“No, angel,” he begins with a sigh. “It’s really not.”
You falter under his soft gaze and sure words, shaking your head as you fumble for words of your own. “It will be fine, then. Just let me lay low for a bit. I probably won’t be at lunch on Friday…I don’t necessarily need your friends seeing me beat up like this,” you try and laugh off.
Jaemin looks at you quizzically. “They wouldn’t-” He begins, but you cut him off with pleading eyes.
“Jaem, please,” you counter, and he just nods his head solemnly.
“Okay.” He lets out a breath before darting his gaze around from you to the rest of the living area, locking eyes with your backpack and giving him a reason to stay in your presence for a bit longer. “Can we do homework together?” He asks, and you lightly sigh as you nod your head, guiding his hand down from your cheek so you could instead head towards the couch and set everything up on the coffee table for the two of you.
Your main distraction from homework came in the form of whatever was on the television. Jaemin’s main distraction came in the form of you; he could hardly finish one part of an assignment without turning his head to look over at you, chewing on his bottom lip as he studied you softly, then whipping his gaze back to his laptop before you could ever feel his eyes on you. It was the least productive he's ever been.
Friday was the next time you saw Jaemin, when he came over as per usual for your ‘date nights.’ However, with you missing the friend group lunch for the second time this week, he immediately greeted you with a related request. “Hey, the guys miss you. They wanted to know if you were down for a movie night tomorrow,” he says casually as he closes the door behind him.
You turn to face him with a straight face. “Jaem, my black eye isn’t going to be-” You watch as Jaemin rolls his lips inward and dodges your eye contact, and all you can do is let out a heavy sigh. “You told them, didn’t you?” You ask instead, and Jaemin’s hidden lips reappear to form a weak don’t-be-mad grin. That is, until he meets your eyes again and lets out his own sigh, shrugging his shoulders as he resets his facial expression to something more casual again.
“They wanted to know where you were,” he says in defense. You watch as the memory of lunch replays behind his eyes and he tilts his head slightly as he looks at you with an anticipatory cringe in how you were going to respond as he continues. “…and now they’re all pissed and want to be there to make you feel better, too,” he finishes with a dorky smile, as though his full set of teeth would fix everything. Unfortunately, he was right about that, and all you can manage is a huff of laughter as you shake your head.
“Oh my. Sure, we can have a movie night,” you give in with a smile, and Jaemin lights up before pulling out his phone to text the group that the plans for tomorrow are a go. Then, your Friday night with Jaemin consisted of a large pizza, red wine, and board games.
That Saturday night, Jaemin came to pick you up and take you back to his apartment where the movie night was being held, insisting that Haechan could hold down fort as he came to pick you up…and that no boyfriend would let his girlfriend drive herself over to his place when he had a perfectly good truck and an excuse to kiss you under the porch light before joining all the guys; you told him he was an idiot, but he met that with a kiss on your cheek, claiming that you were the idiot for not taking a free kiss under the porch light with the Na Jaemin…a low blow considering the reason behind your bruising eye.
When you step inside his apartment, the rest of the guys silence mid-conversation, instead turning all of their attention to you. Their shoulders drop as your black eye comes into the light. Embarrassment flushes your cheeks as you turn into Jaemin’s chest, and he wraps his arms around you lightly with a warm laugh, kissing the top of your head before turning his attention to his friends. “I’m pretty sure you guys promised me you would be chill about this if she came over,” he states playfully, causing the rest of them to drop their heads with a small laugh of their own.
“Our fault for caring about her,” Jeno banters back, and all you can do is sigh and pull away from Jaemin’s chest, facing the rest of the group again. He was right, not about it being their fault, but for the fact that their frowns just meant they cared about you, and it wasn’t like you didn’t feel the same way towards them - you’d frown, too if one of them walked in battered and bruised.
You roll your eyes playfully with a mellow shake of your head. “It’s fine. I’m fine,” you assure, turning your gaze to Jaemin before tossing your head side to side with a small smirk. “Besides, I’d say Jaem’s worth a punch or two.” The guys in front of you laugh but Jaemin furrows his brows.
“Or two?” He echoes worriedly, making you turn to him again with a soft, sure gaze.
“One,” you promise him and watch as a bit of relief washes over his figure, nodding his head as he takes it in.
“Um, you guys wanna watch Transformers?” Jisung speaks up awkwardly, shattering whatever tension you and Jaemin just created and instead making everyone chuckle.
Mark whips his head over to Jisung. “I thought we were watching Spider-Man…?” He adds sulkily. Jisung’s jaw drops, because apparently he had been looking forward to a Transformers marathon nonstop since the plans were made; but Chenle cuts off any chance of a response from him, instead just shaking his head rapidly.
“It doesn’t matter. Just choose anything before they take the pause in activity to make out,” he says as though he were horrified by the possibility, and Renjun lets out a sure laugh as he places a hand on Chenle’s shoulder.
“Still traumatized by the pda you asked for at that first lunch?” He asks, and Chenle looks at him with wide eyes.
“Can you blame me? So, they’re in a relationship…that’s great. Slightly cringe, but whatever. You know what’s not cringe? Spider-Man.”
“The Transformers!” Jisung corrects adamantly, getting everyone to laugh again.
“Sure, the Transformers,” Chenle agrees automatically, and Haechan rolls his eyes with a soft smile as he moves to set up the TV.
The eight of you got situated before another beat could pass. Mark on the recliner, Chenle and Jisung on the small couch, and then you, Jaemin, Jeno, Haechan, and Renjun taking up the big couch in the middle of the room. You cuddled easily into Jaemin as he threw an arm around your shoulder, his fingers lightly tracing patterns on the side of your arm.
For the group of you typically being a mess of chaos when you were all together, the eight of you somehow all followed the same unspoken rules when it came to movie night. There was no talking and, surprisingly, no one distracted by their phone. However, the peace of the perfect movie night was broken maybe twenty minutes into the first movie, when a chill ran through your body and the resulting shiver didn’t go unnoticed. “Do you want a blanket, y/n?” Mark asks softly. All at once, the guys whipped their heads towards him, furrowed brows adding to their glares at his disruption. That is, until it registers for them what Mark just asked, and all their gazes soften as they draw their attention to you in wait for your answer, Haechan pausing the movie entirely.
You let out a laugh under your breath, shaking your head at Mark with a grateful smile. “No, I’m okay,” you say quickly, trying to get everyone’s focus back on the movie because one shiver was not enough reason for concern. The guys all flash their eyebrows at your answer, immediately accepting it as they turn their attention back to the movie.
It isn’t long though before you shiver again, and while your attempt to cover it up was stellar, it wasn’t enough to get past the man holding you in his arms. Jaemin leans down so his lips are by your ear. “Go put on one of my hoodies,” he whispers slowly.
You shake your head minimally in response, eyes still trained on the Transformers. “I’m okay-” Your whispered words are cut off when the movie pauses, and you whip your head over to face Jaemin now, remote in hand and raised brows as he stares back at you seriously. A chorus of complaints erupt from the rest of the guys but Jaemin is only focused on you, and you can’t do anything but let out a light sigh. “Are you sure?” You ask, and Jaemin’s brows go from raised to furrowed.
“Am I sure? Of course I’m sure. You’re my girlfriend. Please go dig through my closet and wear my clothes,” he replies firmly, nodding his head now in the direction of his bedroom. You dodge any further eye contact with him as you instead slip out of his arms and towards his room. You don’t spend too much time in there, more than aware that they were all still waiting on you before unpausing the movie. You throw on the first hoodie you see, trying to ignore how much it smelled like him - how comforting it was to be wrapped in that scent.
You put on a straight face as you walk back out to the living room, though you begin to think it was unnecessary considering their reactions, or- Jaemin’s, at least. He immediately broke from the idle chatter he was having with Jeno as he instead locked his gaze on you, eyes wide and lips slightly parted. You fall shy under his gaze, looking around at the rest of the guys to see if you missed something before accepting the fact that it was just Jaemin who had the answers. “What?” You ask hesitantly, and it forces Jaemin to snap back to reality and collect himself.
He lets out something of a defeated laugh, shaking his head as he concludes his look up and down your body. “You should’ve been swimming in my hoodies for the past two months already,” he answers seriously, and suddenly your cheeks are on fire. You hide your face in your hands and the rest of the guys let fond grins paint their face at the interaction between the two of you. That was the first time it truly hit all of them that they were each about to lose $100 soon. Though it was hard for them to even be mad about it, because in everyone’s eyes but your own, Jaemin was whipped, and that was all they ever wanted for their best friend.
The group got through three movies before everyone started fading, eyelids feeling heavier by the minute. Renjun was the one to turn the lamp on at the side table beside him, putting everyone on the same page as they all got up from their seats and started getting ready to leave. Chenle is the first to say his goodbyes and head for the door, but as he places his hand on the knob, he whips back around. “Oh, wait!” He starts, louder than any of you were prepared for as you stare back at him in question. He shakes his head, the volume of his voice apparently even getting to him, but then he looks back at you all seriously. “I’m having my big New Year’s Eve party again. You’re all invited, obviously. I don’t know anyone’s plans after finals week, so I figured I’d just tell you now before we’re all in different places - if you wind up back at NCIT by December 31st, I’d love to have you, and if you wind up back at NCIT even earlier than that, please please please please please-”
“Chenle,” you all cut him off in unison, and he gives an awkward laugh.
“Please consider helping set up,” he says flusteredly. You all let out fond chuckles as you nod your head at the boy, and he lets a wide smile grace his features before finally opening the door and leaving with a soft ‘thank you.’
Dropping you off at your dorm, Jaemin fumbles for words before you can even open the door back to your place, and you turn around to pin all your attention on him instead as he speaks up awkwardly. “Uh- about Chenle’s party…”
“Yes, I’ll go. We said that would be our last day together so we might as well be…together,” you say, and Jaemin nods his head slowly.
“Okay; and for next weekend…?” He leaves the question at that and that’s when you realize you truly hadn’t given him much to plan with yet. You shake your head with a small laugh.
“We’ll leave Saturday morning for my parents’ house. I have finals up until Friday anyways. The big dinner you have to be there for is Saturday night, so you can do whatever you would like with your break after that.”
Jaemin processes the information with a distant expression before pulling it into a smile. “Alright, angel. Good luck with finals next week. I’ll be ready to go Saturday morning,” he says happily, and all you can do is match his smile.
“Good luck on your finals, too-” You start, but as you move to wrap him in one last hug, you catch sight of the hoodie covering your arms and jump back. “Oh! I’m still wearing your hoodie. Sorry-” You speak in a rush as you work to try and slip out of it, but Jaemin shakes his head.
“Don’t worry. Keep it,” he responds seriously, making you whip your head up at him and causing him to laugh. “It would be really suspicious if I came back home with the hoodie that I just said you looked cute in, and I’m not taking any chances with us so close to the three month mark now. Just don’t lose it…it’s my favorite hoodie.”
You let out a flustered laugh. “Well, are you sure you don’t want it back, then? Haechan is probably asleep already-” You reason as you start pulling one arm out of the hoodie again.
“Just keep it,” he cuts you off with a warm chuckle before continuing more somberly. “Our three months are almost up. I’ll get it back in no time.” If the words were bitter on his tongue, you didn’t notice. You were too preoccupied trying to neutralize your own emotions at the notion of this all ending soon.
You’re scared your voice would betray you if you opened your mouth again to speak, so instead you just nod your head, finally wrapping him in that goodbye hug and then turning to let yourself into your dorm.
Finals week somehow went by in a flash, and you’re scared to add up how many hours of it you spent in Jaemin’s hoodie. Though, the atypical schedule meant that you didn’t really have to worry about that - you only ever ran into Jaemin on campus for friend group lunches, and those were canceled this week since half of you would be in the middle of finals during the usual span of time; so, Jaemin never had to find out that you were practically living in the very same hoodie you had tried so hard to give back originally.
Come Saturday morning, that hoodie was packed with all of your other clothes in your suitcase, currently in the trunk of your car as you drive over to pick Jaemin up before heading to your house. He places his luggage next to yours before opening the passenger door and sliding in. “Hey, angel! Ready to pull all this off for your parents, too?” He asks with a devious smirk. You roll your eyes, trying to buy into the playfulness to forget about the dread filling your system at the idea of heading back home right now.
“Ready as I’ll ever be. Thank you again for agreeing to this,” you say seriously, and Jaemin looks at you as though you were crazy.
“Of course I’d agree to do this. Do you realize how much you’re doing for me?” He banters back, effectively getting you to laugh a bit as the tension in your shoulders drops. “Besides,” he continues more thoughtfully. “It’ll be nice to see our hometown again.” His words are much more mellow this time, and you look over at him with a sad grimace before shifting into drive and actually getting out on the road.
As soon as Jaemin went to college, his family moved to Jeju Island, and for as often as the two of you talked about traveling there one day, it was much less exciting of an idea when it was already Jaemin’s home base and it’d just be you traveling to visit him. Even outside of that, you knew he missed the city - moving away from everything you know is only nice if it’s your choice, and moving to Jeju was definitely not his choice.
It’s not like his relationship with his parents was impacted, though. He understood, and was very appreciative of the fact that they held out on the move until he graduated high school. Truly, if they were wanting to move, this was the time to do it. He’d graduate college and get his own place wherever he wanted; it’s just that now his place to go back to was Jeju rather than Seoul.
On the other hand, your family stayed put in the same house from childhood, but your relationship had gone through rough waters since you started college; something not even Jaemin knew, and now you were wondering how oblivious you could keep him of your current home-situation.
The verdict was ‘not very long.’ As soon as the two of you walked in your front door, your parents seemed shocked to be laying eyes on Jaemin with you. You push past them and towards your bedroom to put your stuff down, sending just a meek ‘hi’ their way. Jaemin watched you disappear with ample confusion, but his face quickly straightened up into a smile as he greeted your parents with hugs and gratitude for having him over.
Your mom pulls back from the hug with a look of disbelief, shaking her head solemnly. “Jaemin, it’s wonderful to see you. I apologize for not having a space set up for you to stay. To be honest, when y/n said she was bringing a guest home, the last thing we were expecting was for it to be a guy,” she laughs off, and Jaemin’s eyebrows immediately furrow. Your own muscles tighten as you move to close your bedroom door, deciding that was already enough for you to hear.
“Why?” Jaemin asks in return, trying to match the laugh from your mom, though his was half-hearted at best.
Your mom shrugs it off like it’s nothing new. “Well, you know our y/n…doesn't exactly have a lot going for her-”
“Y/n’s gorgeous, actually,” Jaemin cuts off with force, now taking a full step back from your mom and causing her hand to drop from where it was still at his forearm. “And sure, she has her guard up most of the time but that doesn’t change the fact that once she’s comfortable enough to be herself, she’s incredibly easy to love,” he continues, brows furrowed as he makes sure to get his point across.
Your mom passes her gaze from Jaemin to her husband, taking a moment to exchange strange smiles with him before turning back to Jaemin. “Sorry, I seem to have offended you. I didn’t know you cared about my daughter that much.” She speaks every word as though she’s only half serious, and all it does is frustrate Jaemin even more.
“Of course I care about her but that’s not even the point. You shouldn’t be saying that about your child and you used to know that, cause you never said anything like that when we were growing up. So, I don’t know what changed but I can tell you it wasn’t the worth of your daughter.” Setting all your stuff down, you open your bedroom door enough to catch his last sentence and immediately let out a heavy sigh, knowing you had to go out there and do something.
“Jaem?” You start, walking back out from the hallway. His face instantly changes from disgust to warmth as he snaps his head in your direction.
“Yeah, angel?”
You nod your head back towards where you just came from. “My room is still the same one it’s always been. Since we’re apparently bunking together, if you want to go put your stuff in there so you’re not carrying it around throughout the house, you know where to go,” you say casually, trying to make it seem as though the sleeping arrangements were all you caught of his conversation with your mom.
Jaemin nods with a tight smile. “Alright, I’ll be back in a second,” he says, pressing a soft kiss to the top of your head as he passes you in his walk to your room and you take his place with your parents in the living room. You and your mom both watch as your dad looks between the two of you before immediately leaving to go outside, shaking his head as he does so and leaving just you, your mom, and the suffocating tension in the room.
You drop your head to face the floor and your mom is the first one to speak. “I didn’t know he liked you,” she says plainly, eyes darting towards the room Jaemin was currently in before landing on you again, your head now whipped up to face her with raised brows.
“Didn’t know he liked me or didn’t think I was capable of having him like me?” You ask in return, and your mom falters for a moment.
“Y/n…” She starts, but you shake your head.
“Am I good enough now? Is this enough for you? That I brought an attractive guy home who cares about me? Are you even the tiniest bit proud of me now?” The fire in your eyes soon matches that of your mother’s, her disproving gaze that you knew so well baring into you.
“Y/n, that’s not fair and you know that,” she counters, her voice raising with every word.
Your jaw drops as you look at her in disbelief. “What’s not fair is you judging me by the man I do or do not have to hold my hand at any given time.” You’re thankful when the words come out firm; you’ve never stood up to her like this, and when your mom studies you with intensity, it’s as though she doesn’t know the woman in front of her this time.
“Well,” she breathes out, bringing her gaze back to your own. “Being with him has apparently given you some confidence…or a voice, at least.” Her tone borders between indifference and slight disgust, and all you can do is shake your head, unsure of how your relationship with your mom ever turned into this.
“I refuse to believe that you find an issue in the fact that he makes me feel like the most beautiful girl in the world,” you say in almost a plea for her to tell you it’s not true, but she never does; instead, it’s just Jaemin’s breath hitching in the hallway that he tries to cover up so you wouldn’t know he was listening. When neither you nor your mom turn your heads towards him, he realizes he was still under the radar. So, he prepares himself to walk back into the living room as though he just got done putting everything away in yours.
When he gets back by your side, he lightly kisses your temple, turning to face your mom as he sneaks a hand to rest on the small of your back; your mom stares at the physical contact and you think her eye actually twitches. Jaemin opens his mouth to start casual conversation back up but your mom cuts him off before he can even begin. “Your father and I are going out for the day. We will be back to cook dinner,” she states, and your eyebrows furrow immediately.
“You haven’t seen Jaemin in years and you’re just gonna leave right when he gets here?” You ask in shock, and your mom glares back at you.
“Dinner,” she replies sharply, and then she’s out the door.
Jaemin’s hand on your back begins to rub lightly up and down, and as you turn to bury your face in his chest, he wraps you in a full hug. “I’m sorry,” you mumble out, and Jaemin shakes his head. With one hand, he lightly guides your chin up so that you make eye contact with him, a soft smile on his face as he looks down at you.
“Nothing to be sorry for, angel. It’s all okay. How about we just watch TV or something, go outside maybe…what’s gonna destress you?” He asks, his hand that was underneath your chin maneuvering to instead caress your cheek.
You shrug, doing your best to dodge eye contact as you reply. “Anything in your presence,” you say seriously, missing the way warmth just reached every corner of Jaemin’s being at your words.
“Okay,” he responds surely, and that’s how you found yourself walking the streets of your hometown, hand-in-hand with Na Jaemin. You visited his old house, the old playground, anywhere you could before the cold air finally caught up to you and you had to retreat back inside for some hot chocolate and more Harry Potter from your last unfinished rewatch session.
Jaemin never brought up the obvious tension between you and your mom, something you were thankful for, but it also left you feeling guilty because you knew it was on his mind - the equation of where things went wrong between you and your mom after he left Seoul was continuously being worked out behind his eyes. When you explained this part of the fake-dating contract, he wasn’t expecting for your parents to actually be on your ass about not dating anyone, but stepping into this house was like a minefield, and any conversation around the topic turned into an explosion.
He wasn’t gonna make you talk about it though, you obviously weren’t ready to. Instead, he just wrapped his arms around you as best he could, making sure you and your cocoa were always kept warm throughout the duration of your latest movie marathon.
Surprising you, when it was finally dinnertime, the atmosphere was lighter by the tiniest bit. Your parents were engaging with Jaemin, at least, and the presence of other long-time family friends put you at ease, too, because you knew a big fiasco is the last thing your parents would allow to happen in front of others.
“Are you staying with us all of break?” Your mom asks as she puts her fork down and places all of her attention on Jaemin. He gives a sorry grin in return as he shakes his head.
“No,” he begins, and your face immediately drops, forcing you to take another bite so it’s less noticeable. “I was thinking I would surprise my parents. I haven’t seen them since the summer, and I figure that means it’s time to fly out and see them again,” he continues with a light laugh. “Though, when y/n asked me to come back with her for this dinner, I- well,” he drags off, taking a moment to turn and face you at his side, a fond smirk on his lips before he turns his head back to face his lap before you can notice. “I realize I’ve gotten incredibly bad at saying ‘no’ to her,” he finishes, his own light chuckle following his words.
Gazes soften all around the table as they listen to Jaemin, but you can’t bring your head up to look at him, sure the look in your eyes would give away how desperately you were wishing for those words to be real.
Your dad is the one to pick up the conversation again. “Well, we’ll be sad to see you go so soon, but it’s sure been a pleasure having you fill our house again,” he says with a tight nod that Jaemin reflects back to him, slightly softer in his perfect Jaemin way.
That night, you and Jaemin went to bed before the rest of the adults did, but they had the advantage of alcohol to keep them occupied, and while that option was technically open to you and Jaemin, you both decided it would probably be best to stay under the label of ‘innocent youth’ with your parents and family friends.
You walk back into your bedroom after washing your face and putting on pajamas to see Jaemin already laying down. You trace his outline underneath the covers and sigh when you realize how little room was left in your full size bed. You slip under the covers and begin to turn on your side so you could take up the smallest space possible, but Jaemin evidently has other plans as he reaches over and pulls you so that you’re laying against his chest. “What are you doing?” You ask, propping your head up on his chest as you stare at him in confusion.
He looks back at you as though there were no need for the question, his smirk playing lazily against his lips. “If you’re going to end up on top of me anyways, I’d rather just hold you there,” he replies, and all at once you’re vividly reminded of Halloween night. You don’t argue back, instead just rolling your eyes and resting your head back against his chest as you try to hide most of the blush on your cheeks.
Jaemin idly draws shapes on your back as he watches you fall asleep on him. He swallows awkwardly, remembering what your mother said about you…what you said to your mother, and a kind of frustration fills his chest. He listens for any signal that you were still awake, and when he finds none, he presses the lightest kiss to the top of your head. “You’re so beautiful, y/n,” he whispers. His mortification comes when he feels you tense under his hold.
“You don’t have to pretend when it’s just us, you know,” you whisper back, and his heart breaks in his chest. His tone is firm as he replies, because if you were going to be awake to hear him say that, he might as well get his point across.
“Some stuff I never had to pretend for. Some stuff is just a fact.”
You let out a heavy sigh, flipping which way your head was facing on his chest before speaking softly. “Go to bed, Jaemin,” you say, and he doesn’t quite know what to do with the feeling of defeat that arose knowing you don’t believe him. He thinks about saying more but he figures now is not the time for it…that in your friendship, it may not ever be the time for it. So, he lets out his own light sigh, his grip around you going slightly tighter as he gets to work on actually falling asleep.
The next day, all you really had time for was breakfast before you had to drive Jaemin to the airport. As you pull up to the curb for departures, Jaemin doesn’t even think twice before leaning over the center console to press a soft kiss to your cheek. “Thank you for dropping me off,” he says sincerely amidst the rustling of him gathering his bags from various spaces of your car. You laugh as you open your own door, sliding around to the back of your car to pop the trunk and grab his suitcase.
“I’m coming inside with you, you know?” You tease lightly, missing the way Jaemin’s eyes soften at the care before he quickly vetoes your carrying of his luggage and rips his suitcase from your grip, causing you to laugh some more as you turn to face him now at your side. “But, of course, it was no problem,” you say genuinely, stepping inside the airport with him and too quickly facing the security checkpoint where you’d finally have to split. “Have a safe flight,” you continue, and with each word he’s now taking a step further than you dare to. “Tell your family I said ‘hi.’”
Jaemin looks over his shoulder to smile back at you. “I will,” he promises firmly with a matching nod, and you throw a grin and final wave his way as he turns back to actually face where he was walking towards the entrance for security. As soon as you’re out of his line of sight, you allow your face to drop slightly alongside your gaze, letting out a light sigh at the feeling of him walking away from you. However, your attention is caught by the increasingly loud sound of heavy footsteps. You shift your gaze back in front of you to see Jaemin had changed his path and was instead heading straight for you again.
“Jaemin-?” You question, but you’re cut off the second he gets close to you because he wastes no time in dropping his bags, cupping your cheek with his hand, and pressing a sure kiss to your lips. You melted right into it, something you would have to kick yourself for later, but at the present moment, all you could think about was his soft lips still lingering against yours.
“I’ll see you in a week, okay?” He says in a near-whisper. His words weren’t so much a statement as they were a reassurance, like he needed you to know that all you had to bear without him was a single week, like he intended to never leave you again once he came back. All you can do is swallow awkwardly, nodding as you look up at him through your lashes.
“Yeah.”
Jaemin’s gaze roamed over your entire figure as best it could with the two of you still in close proximity. You wanted to press up on your tiptoes and kiss him again for the hell of it, or maybe for the comfort of it, but Jaemin is the one to take action first, simply running his thumb gently across your cheek with a small smile before immediately turning to grab his bags and actually make his way through the security checkpoint. All you can do is stand and watch helplessly as he walks away from you. You’d see him in a week, sure, but then it’d be New Years before you knew it and all of this would slip right out of your hands…it practically already had.
You were back at NCIT before Christmas, trading in family-time for time with Chenle, who was the only other one of your friends on campus for most of that duration. He tried to pretend that he needed to meet up with you to talk about plans for his New Year’s Eve party, but most of it was just excuses to hang out when he got lonely. One by one, the guys all made their way back to NCIT, Jaemin being the last to do so, coming in on the evening flight December 26th.
You had brought Chenle with you to go pick him up, mainly because Chenle begged you to let him tag along. The two of you stood at the baggage claim for maybe fifteen minutes, Jaemin’s hoodie adorning your figure and providing you with comfort amidst Chenle’s constant nagging that you guys should have brought a sign saying that Jaemin was coming back from prison or something else more embarrassing.
The baggage claim carousel had already begun spinning for Jaemin’s flight, and eventually even Chenle stops talking to instead join you in a frown as the two of you search for Jaemin. The verdict was that he must have just been the last person off the plane, because around five minutes later, you catch sight of his figure. “There he is- what’s he doing?” You ask confused as you look at Jaemin speed in your direction.
“Running towards you,” Chenle answers as if it were the most casual occurrence ever. He tosses his gaze over to you with raised eyebrows before continuing. “And I think you should probably start running towards him unless you’re prepared to catch his weight, cause I’m pretty sure he’s ready to jump on you.”
Your eyes go wide at his words as you shake your head. “God, having a lunatic boyfriend is a lot of work,” you respond, feigning exhaustion. Chenle throws his arms up in defense.
“Hey, you chose him, not me,” he quips, making you smile before realizing you really had to start on your run towards him, because of all the things you were prepared for, catching Jaemin’s weight was not one of them.
You take off from where you and Chenle were standing, running up and meeting Jaemin somewhere in the middle as he lets go of his carry-on and puts his arms out for you. “Jaem!” You exclaim, jumping into his arms and wrapping around him like a koala.
“Angel!” He replies just as enthusiastically; hugging you tightly and spinning around once with the momentum.
“Chenle’s here so you have to kiss me,” you whisper in a rush, cupping his cheek with your hand as Jaemin steadies himself again.
He lets out a genuine laugh, catching your gaze with the brightest of smiles in his eyes. “Well, I wasn’t gonna run all this way towards you for nothing,” he says surely. Then he presses his lips to yours, and the resulting warmth in your body should’ve made the snow outside impossible.
Jaemin breaks away from you when he feels a tug on his shirt sleeve, and the two of you turn to make eye contact with Chenle. “You’re being cringe now, can you please take me home?” He asks plainly, making you and Jaemin laugh as he puts you down on the solid ground again, slipping his hand in yours as the next best option. Then, after making sure Jaemin had all of his things, the three of you were on the road back to NCIT.
The next day, Jaemin and the guys went out for lunch, one you weren’t invited to because it was one you “couldn’t know about.” Sitting around the table in a perfect reflection of the start of the semester, the guys around Jaemin all wore a mixture of looks on their faces, ranging from impressed to sulky…though that last one was only Chenle, who despite having the most money in the group, hated giving it out.
Mark is the one to finally address the reason they were all there. “Well, you did it. I’m sure we don’t need to be the ones to tell you that you’ve been dating y/n for three whole months now,” he says with a light laugh. Jaemin can’t bring himself to join in on the smiles and playfulness around the table.
“I can’t believe it’s been three months already,” he says hollowly, but both his tone and the distant look in his eyes go unnoticed by his friends, their tunnel vision on their childish bet covering over Jaemin’s anguish at winning.
“Here’s your $600,” Haechan says after having collected everyone’s shares from around the table. “Can't wait to have a new PS5 in our apartment,” he quips, but Jaemin whips his head up at him, grabbing the $600 from his hands defensively.
“I’m not spending it on a PS5…” He begins, dragging off as the fire dies from his tone and he returns to a contemplative state of being. “I’m gonna buy y/n something nice.”
Gasps are heard from quite literally everyone else at the table, all of them looking at Jaemin with wide eyes. “Really?” Jeno asks in disbelief, and Jaemin makes passing eye contact with all of his friends, giving them all odd looks for being so caught off guard.
“Yes, really. She’s the best thing to ever happen to me, and I don’t know how to give her the world, but I can at least get her the best that $600 will buy,” he explains surely, and the rest of the guys all exchange glances with each other before turning back to him, Renjun being the one to take a jab this time through a hesitant laugh.
“Are we still talking to Na Jaemin?” He asks, making the rest of the guys laugh as well. Jaemin just lets out a sigh, finally able to find a bit of humor as well as he shakes his head, tucking the money away and turning the afternoon into a regular lunch hang out.
Two days later, you get a call from Jaemin sometime after dinner.
“Angel?” He says softly once you pick up, his tone making you smile on the other end.
“Yeah, handsome?” You respond warmly.
“Wanna go on a drive?” Jaemin asks, giving away no hints as to his current state of emotions, and your eyebrows furrow as you pry more.
“No destination?” You ask, and Jaemin shakes his head, not that you were able to see it anyways. His response is sharp.
“No.”
“Everything okay?” You question, the warmth in your tone turning into concern.
“Yeah,” Jaemin responds immediately. You let a beat pass in silence and it’s enough for Jaemin to want to fill it again on his own. “Just want some more time with you,” he explains shyly, and you let out a small breath of laughter as you oblige.
“Let me get my shoes on.”
“I’ll be there to pick you up in five,” he replies firmly before immediately hanging up.
True to his word, it only took five minutes before you’re opening the door to Jaemin. “Hey,” he says as soon as you make eye contact, leaning down to press a quick kiss to your cheek.
“Hey,” you reply, your face hurting as you try not to smile too widely at his actions. Jaemin wouldn’t have noticed if you did, though, because he immediately turns to face the floor sheepishly.
“Sorry if you were in the middle of something,” he finally says, making you furrow your brows at him - this wasn’t a Jaemin you were used to.
“Nothing that couldn’t wait,” you assure him before prying some more. “What’s up?”
Jaemin pulls his bottom lip between his teeth as he shakes his head hesitantly. “Nothing. It’s just our last few days together. Figured we could hang out before you go off and get an actual boyfriend and I-” You watch as he fumbles for words, eventually giving up with a shrug as he finally makes eye contact with you again. “Go back to doing whatever it is I do.”
His answer doesn’t relieve you of any worry, and you move a hand up to cup his cheek as you tilt your head in study of him. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
Jaemin nods his head slightly against your hand, a fond smile at your touch replacing the distant expression he previously held. “There’s just a lot on my mind. Nothing for you to worry about. Just wanted to hang out with you and kind of escape it all for a bit,” he explains casually, eventually bringing both hands up to guide your own back down from his face, idly playing with your fingers as he asks his next question. “Do you still like cloud watching?”
“You know I do,” you reply with a laugh, and Jaemin finally bares his teeth as he smiles back at you. He checks to make sure you actually did put your shoes on already before switching his grip so that he was just holding your hand as he walked the two of you to his truck.
You ended up at one of those nature parks, where the fields are preserved for fields-sake rather than playgrounds. The two of you got out and made your way around to the tailgate of his truck and you register that he already had blankets and pillows in the back, completely reminiscent of high school.
You both sat in silence for a while, staring up at the sky and giving yourselves a chance to be at peace, at least somewhere away from the false sense of urgency that always seemed to be around. Eventually, you move your gaze from the clouds above to where your arms were wrapped around your knees, debating with yourself before finally breaking the silence.
“Jaem?” You call softly, and he turns all of his attention towards you.
“Yeah, angel?” He replies in much the same manner. You dart your tongue out to lick your lips, anything you could do to prolong your question - which you were currently thinking should’ve lost in your inner debate.
You finally let out a sigh, still focused in front of you as you talk. “You know you’re much more than the image you’ve picked up around campus, right?”
Jaemin’s face immediately whips back to the front so there would be no chance of making eye contact with you. “Um…” He begins, but that was the only word he could come up with before forfeiting with an awkward swallow. You know that means it’s up to you to continue.
“I know that day I first met your friend group, you had to make up a ton of stuff on how we got together and everything, but I don’t know if you were necessarily lying when you were talking about how I deserve better than getting tied into your fuckboy image. I just- wanna make sure you know, in case that has ever been your thought process for anyone you’ve had a crush on, that there’s so many more sides to you than that. An image is an image, okay? Don’t let it get to you.” Your courage is built with every word and you finally turn to face Jaemin as you continue softly, surely. “They don’t know you like I do.”
Jaemin’s lips part with a heavy exhale before he rolls them inwards in hesitation. “Do you mean it?” He finally asks, and there’s just a trace of sadness riddling his voice.
“Of course I do,” you say firmly, and Jaemin takes in your answer with a slow nod.
“It’s been hard. I-” He grimaces before letting out an awkward laugh. “Oh, this is kind of weird to talk about with you,” he continues, making you laugh, too as the atmosphere lightens.
“Whatever,” you say, rolling your eyes playfully. “It’s me.”
Surprisingly, that seemed to do it, because the tension in Jaemin’s shoulders falls as he lets out a light sigh and finally finds his words for what seemed to be the first time that night. “I used to not care. If they wanted to label me as a fuckboy, that was fine. Truthfully, if I was getting my dick wet, I was good-” He cuts himself off at the sound of a slightly louder exhale than normal from you, and he whips his head your way with a pout. “Don’t laugh, I’m being vulnerable.”
You stare back at him with a fond smile on your face and raised brows. “I’m not laughing,” you assure, and Jaemin turns to face his knees again as he accepts your denial of the claim without a fight. Then he starts back up with his explanation, his tone heavy and contemplative.
“Lately though, I’ve just been thinking I want so much more out of life. But, I spent so long under the fuckboy label I didn’t know if I would ever be able to break free from it, if I could ever be more.”
Your gaze on him softens but your eyebrows furrow; there was something so weird about knowing he’s never viewed himself in the way you do. “Na Jaemin, you’ve always been more,” you respond firmly. The lightest of exhales escapes as laughter from Jaemin, and he lets a weak smile play at his lips before responding.
“And you’ve always felt like home…” He says, matching your tone as he finally turns to look at you again. “That’s another thing I wasn’t lying about that day.”
You immediately dodge eye contact, knowing it’d reveal to him in milliseconds your real emotions towards all of this…towards him. Probably against your better judgement as well, you lean into him at your side, resting your head against his shoulder. “For what it’s worth, I’ve had a nice three months with you,” you say, your own weak grin making an appearance.
“Yeah,” he agrees, wrapping his arm around you casually. “It hasn’t been too bad, has it?”
There it was, the reason you needed to snap out of it, because for Jaemin, it just wasn’t ‘too bad,’ and meanwhile you’ve been over the moon these past three months. You’d come to your senses eventually - remember that ‘breaking up’ was the plan all along, that the last thing Jaemin wanted was to be in an actual relationship, and that you were going to have to be as okay with that as ever. However, for now, you figured you’d just lean into him a bit more while you still can.
The next day saw all eight of you at Chenle’s place, helping him decorate and prepare for the big party, and then it was New Year’s Eve. Only you and Jaemin knew that it was your last night together before the ‘break up;’ and neither of you knew that the other didn’t want it to ever end, meaning when you placed Jaemin’s hoodie in his backseat as a way to return it before the party, you didn’t know the idea of giving it back nauseated him possibly more than it did you. As such, the air was tense and awkward between the two of you, trying to keep hidden how devastated you knew you were going to be at the end of the night, and too dumb to realize the best thing you could do is talk about it.
Hand-in-hand with Jaemin, the two of you join the rest of your friend group, already standing around in a circle somewhere on the outskirts of the set up dance floor. They greet the two of you with bright smiles, none of them plagued with the knowledge that their favorite relationship was ending tonight. However, with the eight of you chatting about anything imaginable, the night became incredibly casual, despite the overwhelming amount of people flooding in around you all.
Eventually, the group divides up, deciding a range of different activities sounded best for the time being. You ended up with Chenle and Jisung, the three of you indulging in the indoor s’mores kit that was set up. Jaemin never moved from where the big group of you originally were. Instead, he let the crowd all pass around him as he stayed focused on you, gaze aimed in your direction with a fond smile as he watched you interact with his friends.
The only thing to break him from his staring is when Mark taps him on the shoulder and hands him a cup of water. “Man, I hope you know you’ve turned into a completely different person,” he says as he does so, making Jaemin furrow his brows in question; though Mark shakes his head as though it were no big thing. “You got this glow about you that scares me, and the look in your eyes when you’re staring at her…I didn’t think I’d ever see that from you - you know, being so against relationships and everything,” he ends with a light laugh.
Jaemin drops his head, his own laugh escaping his lips. “It’s just what happens when you’ve found your person, I guess,” he replies seriously. “I mean, to me?” He begins, finally looking up at Mark in sincerity before throwing his gaze your way. “For her?” He shakes his head, his smile turning into a dumb grin on his face as he finally admits to what’s been on his mind for three months. “Everything’s worth it. All the risk, all the effort, I’d do anything for her.” He looks your way once more before his gaze turns distant and he lets a grimace slip across his features. “It just took being with her to make me realize…I want to believe in love,” he finally says, meeting Mark’s eyes once again.
Mark’s smile was painted widely across his face, though he stared at his best friend in something like disbelief. “Want to believe it? Jaemin, you’re in it,” he says firmly, and Jaemin immediately lets his gaze fall to his feet as he lets out a heavy sigh.
“It’s less scary than I thought it’d be,” he finally says, and Mark’s smile turns fond as he gets a glimpse at how his best friend operates. He puts on his best voice of comfort as he replies.
“You said it yourself, it’s what happens when you’ve found your person. You should tell her,” he says, tossing his head in your direction casually, but Jaemin’s muscles tense up.
“No, I can’t,” he says in a rush, and Mark lets out a laugh.
“From the one who says he isn’t scared,” he teases, but Jaemin shakes his head - it wasn’t that.
“I- it’s a weird situation,” he says, letting out a huff with his bad explanation. “I can’t tell her. Not tonight, anyways…she won’t want to hear that from me,” he concludes, dragging off miserably. Mark’s face completely flips as he stares at Jaemin quizzically.
“But- she looks at you the same way, you know?” He says surely, but Jaemin shakes his head again.
“No, that’s just how she looks at me. Even when we were in high school.” He takes a moment to pause, tongue darting out to wet his suddenly dry lips before continuing with conviction. “No, she doesn’t love me. Not like this,” he says, and then he’s walking away, leaving a very confused Mark standing there with parted lips.
“...I thought she’s liked you since high school,” he says under his breath now that he knew there was no way Jaemin would hear anyways. He looks between you and Jaemin before shaking his head - the last thing he needed on New Year’s Eve was to engage in overthinking.
You had just broken away from where you were talking with Chenle and Jisung to instead make your way over to the punch table. Grabbing yourself a glass, when arms wrap around you in a hug from behind, you know the only person it could be. “Hey, handsome,” you say with a smile, turning your head to the side to try and lay eyes on him.
“Hi, angel,” Jaemin replies, taking the opportunity to place a small kiss on your cheek before continuing. “Are we kissing at midnight or are we ending things before then? I’m not sure if you want to start the new year with me or not.” His tone borders on defeat, and you turn around in his arms to stare at him with raised eyebrows and a playful smirk.
“I’ll be your new year's kiss if you’ll be mine,” you reply, and Jaemin lets out a small chuckle. “Besides,” you continue more seriously. “Ending this doesn’t mean you aren’t still my best friend. You’ll be a part of my new year no matter what. We can kiss and just pretend that was our way to say ‘bye’ to dating, cause you know, I guess it will be.” For a moment that you always knew was coming, admitting its near occurrence now felt like you just had the wind knocked out of you. Jaemin just stares down at you with a wide grin, nodding his head along to your words in approval.
“Alright best friend, then I’ll make sure to find you again before midnight,” he replies, the entire thing making you swallow awkwardly as you nod your head back at him slightly.
“Yeah…” You respond in something like a whisper, and with one light kiss on your forehead, Jaemin vanishes again into the crowd.
The rest of the New Years party was a blast, no doubt, but the knowledge of what was coming, or more so ending, plagued your thoughts and eventually you just needed to slip away from the rest of the noise. You ended up on the balcony attached to some random bedroom, the cool air something of a relief for your current state.
The only pull back into reality was when the ever-present loudness turned into synchronized cheers, and you catch as the entire party starts counting down from fifteen seconds. You whip around to start on your rushed journey back inside, realizing you never told Jaemin where you would be; but as you turn, you make eye contact with him, just stepping onto the balcony himself, an easy smile crossing his features. “No need to rush. I told you I’d find you before midnight,” he says with a light laugh, and you drop your head with a small exhale as your own form of laughter. “Ready to say ‘bye’ to all this pretending?” He asks, stepping up to where he was directly in front of you.
No. “Yep,” you respond with the best fake smile you could. You already made it this far with no problems, you refused to let it slip that your heart was fully in this right when it was about to end.
Jaemin matched your smile, and as the crowd’s counting reached the ‘3, 2, 1,’ his hand came up to find its favorite spot at your cheek again. Then he leaned in and kissed you right as the party erupted with cheers of ‘Happy New Year.’
Your hands gripped tightly at his shirt, keeping you steady and keeping him close to you; though he wasn’t necessarily going anywhere with one hand cupping your cheek and the other placed firmly on your waist. Unlike any of your other kisses, this one…lingered. The two of you kept steady pace with each other, you gently sucking on his bottom lip and figuring for as long as he’d let this go on, you would take it for all it was worth, trying to pretend you could ever kiss him enough for a lifetime.
When you think he’s breaking away, you’re instead met with the feeling of his tongue running across your top lip, asking for permission - permission all too easily granted by you as you open your mouth to let him explore. Your New Year's kiss turned into a greedy make out session, which was probably the last thing you were expecting, but you couldn’t take the time to question it because you were too busy drowning in his taste. You loved the taste of Jaemin on your tongue, and his own soft moan - which he tried so desperately to cover up but that you still very much heard, let you know he was currently feeling the same way; and you’d mark that down as a tiny win in the midst of the huge loss you were about to incur.
Against your better judgement, you finally break away when you truly couldn’t breathe anymore, and Jaemin rests his forehead against yours. The air was just filled with the sound of panting as the two of you tried to catch your breaths. You swallow awkwardly once you do, taking a small step back as you process what just happened, Jaemin’s hand running down your body until you were no longer in reach. “You’re awfully good at ‘goodbye,’” you say in between breaths.
Jaemin immediately dodges your gaze, facing somewhere off to the side as his adam's apple bobs up and down. “I’ve had a lot of practice,” he responds quietly, to the point where you were practically just reading his lips, and then he’s gone, leaving you alone on the balcony to deal with your flooding emotions on your own…not that you could do so in his presence anyways.
You hated that it hurt this much - that a goodbye you knew was coming still seemed to blindside you. You had allowed your heart to indulge in his every romantic gesture, and while on the surface you knew they meant nothing, you held onto hope in some deep dark corner of your heart that maybe it wasn’t all just pretend; and yet here you were, grouped in with the vast category of girls he’s said ‘goodbye’ to in the way he knew all too well. You were his best friend but you were no one special, and you didn’t expect the resurgence of a fact that you already knew to affect you as much as it did - to make it feel as though you had been hollowed out, bones chilled from the empty space your soul used to occupy.
You and Jaemin weren’t in contact the entire first day of the new year, though you couldn’t complain because talking to him right away was not something you figured your heart could handle. Instead, you went to work out at the gym and run errands and all those other things people do when they’re single and making a point to say they’re okay with that. To be fair, it kind of worked. Not that you were okay with whatever you and Jaemin had gotten yourselves into coming to an end, but that day of productivity and endorphin-inducing activity helped you ground yourself - these past three months were you helping out your best friend, that was all it was ever supposed to be.
The next day was far less productive, but you were still functioning like normal. The only disruption from your typical daily routine came with a phone call from Haechan. As soon as you pick up, he starts speaking.
“Why did you go and break Jaemin’s heart all of the sudden?” He asks angrily.
You furrow your brows, though it wasn’t like he could see it anyways. “What do you mean? The breakup was mutual,” you counter in confusion, and Haechan lets out an actual ‘HA’ in disbelief before he replies with animosity.
“I need to know what the hell your definition of ‘mutual’ is because Jaemin hasn’t stopped crying for the past twenty-four hours.”
You think he’s kidding, like this is one last stupid test of whether your relationship ever added up - but you shake the idea away, he already got the money, it was a week past three months, there wasn’t anything for you to mess up now, the story you’ve been telling would work as it always had. “Crying? What? We both agreed we worked better as friends,” you reply instantly, confusion adequately painting your voice.
Haechan cannot believe his ears, and he makes sure to let you know so. For as much as you were confused, he didn’t understand why you were acting this way, ten fold. “No, I don’t believe you at all now. He wouldn’t agree on that. I don’t know how Jaemin talked to you, but he talked about you as though he’s never held anyone’s hand before until he held yours. Y/n, it was like you were the one to put every star in his night sky, I swear there’s no way this breakup was mutual.” Your whole world stops and you go speechless on the other end. Haechan was being dead serious, or else he wouldn’t be angry, he wouldn’t be pushing the subject. His words turn over and over again in your head. Jaemin talked about you, evidently when you weren’t around. You were fake-dating and yet Jaemin went out of his way to speak of you fondly to his friends. Jaemin, who never saw the point of getting romantically attached like that, doing more than what was needed in expressing his feelings about you. You push down the feeling of nausea and instead let out a deep sigh.
“I’ll be over in five minutes,” you say quietly, and then you hang up the phone before ever getting a reply from Haechan.
You race over to their apartment, and before you could even knock, Haechan is swinging the door open for you. The two of you make eye contact and about a million emotions pass between you, but it was easiest to pick up on the uncertainty. Haechan opens his mouth as if he’s about to bombard you with questions, or maybe yell at you again…you weren’t sure, but instead he just lets out a breath, nodding his head back in the direction of Jaemin’s room with a soft, “in there.”
You throw a thankful smile his way, not that you were necessarily guessing at where Jaemin could be, but you were very grateful he was letting you off so easily. Even by looking at Haechan, you could tell Jaemin had truly been crying for the past twenty-four hours…Haechan looked exhausted.
You lightly tap on the door of Jaemin’s room before entering, breath hitching as you lay eyes on his figure, curled up in a ball and clad in his favorite hoodie that you had given back - the hoodie he now knew you had lived in for the past few weeks because he already caught your own scent on it. Tears raced down his face, and he immediately turned away from you to hide them as he squeaked out choked words.
“Please go away,” he says, and reality hits you all at once. It wasn’t like you thought Haechan was lying, but now you truly had to face the fact that you were the cause of Jaemin’s tears; he wanted you to go away.
“Jaemin, I’m not going anywhere,” you say softly, shaking your head to emphasize the point. Though, as you do so, your gaze catches onto a gift bag on his dresser, a label with your name written on it in his stupid perfect handwriting.
You walk up to it, swallowing hesitantly as you turn your attention from the bag to Jaemin and back again. “What is this?” You finally ask. Jaemin shoots his gaze your way, not having previously realized what had caught your intrigue.
“Please don’t-” He rushes to say, but in the pause, you had already pulled out a diamond necklace, holding it gently between your shaking hands. You shake your head, eyes wide and jaw dropped as you’re unable to form a coherent thought. You turn back around to face him, your gaze darting every which way because you’re not sure you can confidently hold eye contact with him.
“Jaemin, what-? Why is this in a gift bag labeled for me-? When did you-?”
He cuts you off, visibly annoyed. “It’s what I used the bet money on. Now please go away,” he demands more firmly, but you wouldn’t be able to follow through on it even if you wanted to, because as you process his words, you lose the ability to move.
“You spent the $600 on this?” You ask in disbelief, turning your attention fully towards him to try and find any cue that he was lying. “On me?”
Jaemin turns his head to the side, and you watch as his adam’s apple bobs up and down with an awkward swallow. When he finally answers, his voice has lost its tension, his words instead coming out as though he were ashamed. “$700,” he corrects. “I didn’t want it to feel like I was just gifting you something from the guys.”
You think you’ve gone crazy, or maybe Jaemin has, but all you can do is stare at him in disbelief. “I-”
He quickly finds his fire again, apparently having had enough embarrassment for a lifetime in those few seconds. “Please leave,” he spits out. He dares look up to make eye contact with you before immediately regretting his decision and staring back down at his bed again, wiping more stray tears from his eyes as he fumbles out his next words. “You can take the necklace if you want but just- please leave.”
“Jaem-” You say softly before he can cut you off.
“What?!” He quips, though when he shoots his gaze back to you in irritation, he realizes you’re no longer standing at his dresser, but sitting at the edge of his bed with him. Your fingers barren of the necklace, you instead occupy one hand by placing it on top of his own.
“You could’ve told me you fell for me, too,” you say seriously, and Jaemin stops breathing for a moment as he looks up at you with wide teary eyes.
“Too?” He echoes weakly, and all you can do is give a tight smile, moving a hand up to wipe under his eyes as you try to hold back your own tears.
“I refuse to believe I played off my huge crush on you since high school that well.” You reply with a hoarse laugh.
Jaemin finally recovers his ability to breathe as he lets out a heavy exhale. “You like me?” He asks through tears, and you finally break, having to wipe your own stupid tears off your face before nodding at him with an embarrassed smile.
“I always have. Why do you think I made all those stupid rules to try and make sure we acted like a couple as little as possible?” A bittersweet laugh gets caught in your throat as you think back on it. “If I had to listen to you call me cute names all the time, I wouldn’t have survived knowing it was eventually going to end,” you continue seriously.
Jaemin’s finally able to let out a bashful smile and sorry laugh. “...I called you cute names all the time anyways.”
You nod your head with a fond smile. “I know.”
“I couldn’t help it,” he explains as more tears rush down his face, though this time, they’re at least sliding down next to an embarrassed grin.
You look at him with playful raised eyebrows. “Just like how you couldn’t help it when you kissed me every time you saw me? Or looked over at me super fondly?”
Jaemin softens as his eyes trace over your figure, the distant look in his gaze letting you know his mind was rather preoccupied with reliving the past three months. “Exactly like that,” he says lowly, and you let out a breath, forcing your gaze away from Jaemin as you instead focus on the way your fingers were idly fidgeting with each other.
“God, Jaem. I’m sorry. I should’ve realized-” You speak apologetically but Jaemin cuts you off again.
“No, I should’ve communicated. Well…” He lets another soft laugh leave his system, the tears finally drying on his face as he works towards fully collecting himself. “I should’ve communicated when you knew I was serious.”
You smile at his words, shaking your head again as you relive every moment of the fake relationship. “I didn’t even know you had time to catch feelings for me,” you begin with something like wonder in your tone. “I mean- weren’t you still hooking up with-”
When Jaemin cuts you off this time, it’s with the most flustered of cheeks and the weakest of laughs. “Um, about that…the very first girl I hooked up with after we added that rule-” He shakes his head with a small smile as he corrects himself. “Well, I say that…she was also the last girl I hooked up with.” Your eyebrows furrow slightly as you process the information, but Jaemin doesn’t give you much time to do so before throwing in another wrench. “I uh- accidentally moaned your name.”
Your head whips in his direction, your wide eyes straining against your dropped jaw. “Jaemin! You did not!”
“Why would I make that up?!” He quips back with a hearty laugh. You move a hand over your gaping mouth, unsure at what exactly you were supposed to do with this news. You shake your head in disbelief.
“Oh my god, what did she do?” You ask, curiosity dripping from your voice. Jaemin bites on the inside of his cheek before giving in again with a light sigh.
“Well, we immediately stopped because we were both mortified, I think. She said something about how I obviously had to go figure some things out, to which I agreed, but for different reasons than she thought…” He drags off a bit but instead just shakes his head and goes in a different direction. “I practically begged her not to say anything about it, but she laughed and said I was crazy if I thought she was going to tell that story and humiliate herself,” he finishes with a small chuckle, and you just stare at him with no less shock than before.
“I can’t believe this,” you manage to get out playfully.
Jaemin flashes his eyebrows in acknowledgement before his eyes light up and he rushes through more words. “Oh! The best part is, a week or so later, she saw us holding hands in public and texted me saying that she’s rooting for us,” he recalls with a shiteating grin.
“Stop!” You get out, the idea of it damn near killing you. Though, before you can end up dying of laughter with Jaemin, another piece of information fits itself into the puzzle and you come back to your senses in seriousness.
“Wait wait wait,” you begin, focusing your gaze fully on Jaemin again. “So, you’ve been celibate for like…three months now?” You ask in shock. Jaemin isn’t even the tiniest bit regretful as he responds with a shrug, his sincere gaze meeting your own.
“I only wanted you. Wasn’t going to waste mine or anyone else’s time pretending any different.”
Your gaze softens immediately as a fond smile plays against your features. “Jaem…” You aren’t necessarily sure where you were going from there, but Jaemin picks it up anyways with a small shake of his head; his own weak smile making an appearance again as he recounts those first few moments.
“You kissed me that first day and I assumed I was fucked,” he explains casually. “Everything felt like it changed, and not because it was affection but because it was you.” His cheeks puff out again with a bigger grin as he continues. “Then I had that slip up and I knew I was fucked. Couldn’t get you out of my head for even a moment. It was starting to drive me crazy how much I wanted to make you happy.”
His eyes meet yours again as he finishes, and you search them for answers you knew you would have to ask for. “A good crazy?” You question hesitantly, but Jaemin is quick to shut down any worries.
“The best,” he assures, moving his hands so that he could interlace them with yours. He moves his gaze from your physical contact back up to your face before continuing seriously. “I love you, y/n.”
You swallow hard, trying to not let any more tears run down your face, albeit happy tears weren’t so bad. You squeeze his hands in yours as you nod your head. “I love you, too.”
“Can we date for real?” He immediately asks, his wide pleading eyes making you chuckle.
“It’s been ‘for real’ for a while now,” you say warmly, but Jaemin shakes his head, not having it.
“Yeah, but we’re currently broken up if you don’t remember. The entire reason you’re over here is because I couldn’t stop bawling my eyes out…which was the worst feeling in the world, by the way,” he banters back with a weak laugh. You let a grimace cross your face before pulling it into a fond smile.
“Yeah, don’t worry. I’ll never break up with you again,” you assure him softly. Jaemin doesn’t hide his wide smile as he shifts himself so he can easily lean in and kiss you softly, resting his forehead against your own as he pulls back to smile against your lips.
note: can be read in order or as a stand alone but I think it's fun reading it in order. open to all criticism and new ideas
[ requests open ]
main masterlist - nct masterlist
Loaded - Zhong Chenle [complete]
chenle x fem!reader
summary: in which a desperate joke about needing a sugar daddy accidentally manifests a millionaire classmate who takes his new role very seriously.
Intro to Being Delulu 101 - Lee Donhyuck [complete]
haechan X fem!reader
summary: in which one disastrous chemistry experiment turns into a feud and haechan thinks you bullying him online is a form of love language
Quarter Life Crisis - Park Jisung [complete]
jisung x fem!reader
summary: in which Jisung puts his feelings aside and plays boyfriend for his dream girl to make her situationship jealous
Focal Point - Na Jaemin [ongoing]
jaemin X fem!reader
- in which you blackmail Na Jaemin with his stalker level photographs and his only solution is to double down because his ego is as big as his portfolio
