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“Choi Seungcheol must die” Epilogue

Masterlist

📌chapter tags: SMAU, inspired by “John tucker must die”, John tucker!seungcheol, college au, revenge fic, written chapter (3.6k), utter fluff and surprises

taglist: @silvsie @christinewithluv @stayinhellevator @aiforyuu @2youngsworld @justcruisingalonguntilbamkpop @asyre @simpxxstan @anzellll @hipsdofangirl @plskillme22 @lirtha97 @lixiel0ver @notevenheretbh1 @leah-rose03 @woozarts @expensive-idiot @doveblackboat @the-boy-meets-evil @tamakis-bbyy @freshdetectivenight @mrsdacherry @smilechannie @alltheshineofthestars-blog @ocyeanicc @horanghaezone @wonuqrtz @leewonkyeom @horangboosadan @kkooongie @myghobi @wonunuwoo @wonwootakemyheart @shuasunshine @dinonuguaegi @ckline35 @miriamxsworld @itsokaytobedumb00 @seokgyuu @nishloves @bmkgemz @conwunder @kawaiimusiccollection @humankimbap @ashes23 @writingbarnes @strawberryya

A year later

The morning sun filters through the blinds, casting a warm glow that gently penetrates the small gaps in your closed eyes. With a sleepy squint, you flutter your lashes as you gradually emerge from a deep slumber. Shifting your head from the pillow, a hand extends out from the cozy depths of the blanket, wrapping around your frame.

“Stop it…” a groaning voice protests.

“You're the one who wanted to share my bed,” you mumble, nuzzling into their chest. “Face the consequences.”

They respond by pulling you into a tighter embrace, their arms enveloping you, and their chin finds a comfortable perch on the crown of your head. “Fine,” they mutter, the warmth of their breath brushing against your hair.

As the two of you engage in this intimate morning ritual, another head pops into view. With a bemused expression, she scrutinizes the scene, her presence intruding on the moment that might seem suspicious to any outside observer. Her eyes, filled with curiosity, take in the details of the shared embrace, brimming in a playful curiosity.

"Minji, you're suffocating her.”

“I'm not…” Minji growls, her voice weak and sluggish.

“Maybe a little,” you manage to squeak, though the amusement in your tone is evident.

Finally, Minji releases you, her fingers gently loosening their grip, and she chooses to bury herself underneath the covers in a futile attempt to shield herself from the intrusion of the morning light. The soft rustling of blankets marks the end of the embrace, and you feel the lingering warmth on your skin as she seeks refuge from the brightness. Turning your attention to your savior, Gyuri, you find her already poised and ready to embrace the day. She stands with a graceful confidence, her attire impeccable and thoughtfully chosen for the day ahead. The morning sunlight catches the subtle details of her outfit, casting a gentle glow on her figure.

“Thank you.” You said with a voice devoid of consciousness.

“We can’t begin our morning with manslaughter,” Gyuri responds with a chuckle, her tone retaining its bubbly and inviting quality.

Sweeping the room with a more deliberate scrutiny, your discerning gaze catches a subtle irregularity. "We're short one."

“Breakfast served for my lovely ladies.”

Haru makes her presence known along a tray full of breakfast painted in shades of red and pink. From eggs to ham, and scones to her specialty pancakes, glistening in the honey gloss of the syrup and valentine sprinkles topping it all off. A grin stretches across your face as you're drawn in by the irresistible aroma, prompting you to join in and assist your friend in the pleasant surprise.

“Haru, you shouldn’t have,” you gush.

“Can't have our Galentine weekend without heart-shaped pancakes. Or bacon.”

“I’m up,” Minji stirs from her slumber, immediately alert at the mention of her favorite morning food.

A burst of excitement surged through the group as you and your friends hurriedly converged, exchanging laughter and animated banter. The anticipation of the upcoming meal heightened as each of you took turns crafting plates, carefully selecting and arranging a delectable array of food to share in bed. The air buzzed with a vibrant energy, a communal spirit filling the space as the aroma of the feast enveloped everyone. It starts your morning off right.

Since the fiasco that was ‘Choi Seungcheol must die,’ your public persona has evolved significantly from being labeled as the girl who supposedly shattered the campus heartthrob's—well—heart to normal girl once again. While a handful may still harbor disdain, you've garnered admiration from many others, including the lovely ladies seated around you sharing a meal. Despite have all dated the same man at least once, you've managed to forge genuine connections, finding common ground and shared interests that transcend your ex.

Basking in the sisterhood of this unique friend group proved to be a breath of fresh air. The unwavering support from these like-minded women has become a source of comfort, and you find yourself smiling at the regularity with which their presence graces your life.

"Oh," Gyuri polishes off the last bite of her syrup-soaked pancake and casually drops the bomb, "We should go to the Valentine fair in town. It’ll be cute and fun. All of the guys would be there too.”

“Will Mingyu be there?” Minji muses, a sly grin curling her lips.

“Minji, really?”

Minji playfully waves her fingers over her face, emphasizing the importance of facial features. “I’m just saying, good looks run in your family. Didn’t stop at you or your fine ass brother.”

Gyuri rolls her eyes. “Gross.”

“Come on, I deserve a chance. Y/n did.”

“Pardon,” you ask with a mouthful of eggs. You swallow the remaining food, thanking Gyuri, who wipes food from the corner of your lips.

"Yeah, the gorgeous guy you rejected, who's still holding onto feelings for you, along with my little brother, by the way. It’s about time he has someone new to look at and I can be that someone. If only his thoughtful little sister would steer him my way."

Gyuri lightly nudges the girl, nearly knocking off her glasses before he regains her posture. “I am not setting you two up. You both annoy me enough as is. I can’t imagine what’d happen if you were together.”

“You hate me. Just say that.”

“Minji…” Gyuri warns. “You know that’s not true.”

“Gyuri hates me,” Minji whines shedding fake tears. “She despises the potential of me being a sister-in-law.”

The youngest in the group, Gyuri sighs, shaking her head as though unimpressed by the antics of her older friend who lacks the mental maturity expected of her age. Her expression hints at a weariness, a silent playful disapproval of Minji’s snarky attitude, exhibiting a wisdom that belies her youth.

The collective smiles from you and the rest of the women in the room signal another good day, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

The air carries a crispness that beckons to be inhaled, immersing you in the delightful blend of the sweetest aroma from freshly baked goods and the rich fragrance of the hottest, freshly brewed espresso. You're glad to have join in on the festivities, rest assured that you’d have company, even if that company included a couple.

Minji playfully feigns distaste. "Come on, Haru, it's Galentine's, and you bring your fiancé?"

Haru casually strolls alongside your group of friends, hand in hand with Junhui, who recently earned himself and Haru a newly coined label. She grips his hand just a little tight as her other arms clasped over his bicep. “But he’s such cute eye candy, plus I know he's been dying to come to this festival too.”

The fact that they got together no longer bothers you; in fact, you've come to realize it's for the better that they did. They couldn't be more perfect for each other, and the warmth of their connection is evident. As you reflect on the realization that a romantic relationship with Junhui was never in the cards for you, you find yourself smiling now. Despite your initial feelings, you're genuinely happy he found someone who loves him enough to commit to marriage. You weren’t so sure if you could’ve filled such shoes had it been you.

The grown man sticks out his tongue and Minji returns the gestures, tugging you and Gyuri by her side just as tight. “You two would never betray me for a man.”

"No, but you'd make an exception for a Mingyu," Gyuri points out, a fact made evident from this morning. "Speaking of which…"

Your attention is drawn to the lanky figure making his way toward you. His face lights up with a warm smile, and his arms open wide and inviting. "Guys!" he calls out enthusiastically, his expression and body language eager to greet his dearest friends.

"Mingyu!" Minji exclaims, wasting no time as she runs into his arms, momentarily startling him before he warmly reciprocates her embrace. "It’s nice to see you, Minji. I’m sure Seokmin is here somewhere."

She scoffs, clutching tighter. "I didn’t ask."

He chuckles, gently patting her on the back until she releases him. "You all look beautiful today, especially my darling sister," he says, pulling Gyuri into the tightest of embraces.

"Stop," Gyuri protests, pushing him away. "You'll ruin the hair."

“Spoiled as ever. So what do you guys wanna do first?”

The question appears to be a general inquiry, but you can't help but notice the glance thrown in your direction, almost as if he's anticipating your response. You simply shrug, mumbling a "not sure" under your breath. He hums, conjuring an idea while everyone else discusses possible plans.

"Well, if it helps, maybe there are a couple of things I thought we could consider doing."

“A haunted house? On Valentine’s day?”

“Don’t you know couples love scary movies?” Mingyu responds to Haru's question with a playful counter.  “You and Jun can go, and then–”

“Me and Mingyu!” Minji chimes in, taking his arm.

Mingyu politely smiles. “We could do that, or,” he takes you with his other arm, “We can come as a party. Use it as a test of courage.”

“A test?” Gyuri inquires with a taunting grin. “A test where you scream like a little girl and you get hurt because it’s too dark inside?”

Mingyu shoots a momentary glare at his sister, the edges softened by a hint of amusement, before his eyes shift into a silent plea. "Who knows? Perhaps amidst the chills of the show, you might accidentally find a guy you're meant to be with," he suggests, a playful yet hopeful undertone in his words.

“I’ve already met my guy,” Minji says. “But if it’s what Mingyu wants, we should go.” Her gaze shifts to the already-established couple. “Mom and dad first.”

“Minji, you’re older than me,” Haru states matter of fact.

“Until you break the engagement, you’re mom and dad.”

You proceed in the designated order, walking behind the couple as they lead the way into the haunted house. The remaining four of you huddle closely, a tightly-knit. You find yourself positioned at the edge, where the suspenseful anticipation of what lies ahead intensifies as you step into the dimly lit entrance of the eerie attraction. The air is thick with harmonious trepidation and the fear of unknowing, anticipating every possible jumpscare.

Mingyu, the largest of the group, ironically turns out to be the biggest scaredy-cat among you. Just as his sister predicted.

“What’s that?” he would shout. “He’s gonna jump out—damn, why did that look so real? OK—WHO OR WHAT TOUCHED ME?”

Before long, he starts darting off on his own, but Minji makes sure to hastily follow behind. Meanwhile, Gyuri vanishes amid her brother's episode, somehow amplifying the fear as he frantically searches for her. You attempt to keep up as best as you can, but your best falls short when you find yourself alone, struggling to locate even the exit.

"Uh, guys?"

You don’t know how you managed to do it, but there you were, standing frozen in the dimly lit corridors of the poorly made haunted house, a chill creeping down your spine. The creaking wooden floorboards and flickering lights creates an eerie enough atmosphere to make you wish you hadn’t made fun of it earlier. The playful screams and laughter of your friends now feels distant as an unfamiliar unease settles over you, turning what was supposed to be a casual haunt into a genuinely unsettling experience.

A split second later, a masked volunteer leaps out, causing you to stumble backward and collide with the person who materializes behind you—a solid, firm chest greeting you. Swiftly apologizing, you turn your head, locking eyes with the unexpected stranger. It takes a moment to register, but disbelief gives way to recognition as he smiles. His complexion, illuminated by the inconsistent lighting, exudes a radiance that you find oddly captivating.

Impulsively, you clutch at the fabric of his clothes, pulling yourself closer. "How are you here right now? You're supposed to be studying Europe."

Chan, a welcome sight, continues to smile warmly as he assists in guiding you out of the haunted house, his presence a comforting contrast to the lingering shadows and cheap Halloween supplies.

“We finished early about a week ago. I wanted to be a surprise.”

While you spent the remainder of your college years at the local university, Chan chose to venture abroad, a decision made in the aftermath of the Seungcheol incident. A clear sense of satisfaction is evident on his face as you take your time retracing the features of his face that have now matured in your time apart. 

“Oh my god, how are you? How was Italy? You look… amazing.”

He chuckles at your ceaseless chatter, intertwining arms with you along the entire path. “I'm well, still adjusting to the time difference. Italy was filled with great food, great wine, but, sadly, no you. I made do, though.”

You playfully elbow him, unable to contain the smile spreading across your face. “You never stop. God, the others will be so happy to see you!”

Upon reaching the exit, Chan, with a playful glint in his eye, deftly guides you around a concealed corner. The mischievous grin on his face deepens, and he suggests, "I have a better idea: we meet them later after you and I have a chance to catch up.”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU LOST Y/N?” Seokmin's voice echoes through the chaotic atmosphere, laced with a touch of frustration.

"Go, go, go." Chan, immediately recognizing the urgency, deftly propels you forward, skillfully navigating through the crowd. With a sense of urgency, he guides you towards more private quarters.  

“I can't believe Seungcheol's a dad now. A lot happens in a year,” you remark, savoring the indulgence of your double scoop brownie delight, the rich chocolate flavors mingling with the conversation, as you relaxed by the campus’s lake side.

Chan kitten licks his mint chocolate cone, savoring a sweet taste that he misses so much.“Yeah. I’m an actual uncle. It’s weird, but parenthood has done him a lot of good. He’s a lot different than he was back then.”

“How's he managing it all? Girlfriend in the picture, I'm guessing?”

He shrugs. “They're giving it a shot. Seems like she'll stick around, and Cheol might too. I've never seen him look at a girl the way he looks at his own daughter. They all look happy together. She’ll keep him grounded.”

“Now he’ll start defending his daughter from guys like him when she gets to his age one day. Cosmic Karma.”

Chan chuckles. “He better or I'm stealing her away and raising her myself.”

“So, how’s it been for you? What’s Italian Chan like?” you inquire humorously, reaching the sweet waffle cone.

“Still Chan. Just know the difference in wine now and why pasta should never be broken in half.”

You take a deep breath, mustering the strength to voice the question that has been swirling in your mind. The weight of the inquiry presses against your chest, and you can't help but wonder how much this very question has occupied your thoughts. Finally, you manage to ask, "Anyone special to you?"

He glances at you thoughtfully, smiling as he let out small bittersweet sigh. “There was...but I let her go. I tried dating while I was in Italy, no one right for me though.”

“Hmm.”

As you mull over his words, Chan's eyes drift into the realms of distant memories, a wistful gaze reflecting the moments he reluctantly left behind, “What about you? I can’t help but overhear you tried it out with Seungkwan while I was gone.”

You chuckle, the memory painting a genuine smile across your face. “And boy, was that awkward. We only stood a chance as friends. My dating life hadn’t been much of anything these days.”

A familiar glint dances in his eyes as he indulges in his ice cream. “I see.”

“Don’t go looking too happy.”

“What? I’m devastated. My OTP.”

You laugh, lightly shoving him, remembering how much he really did make you laugh. There wasn’t a person that made laugh the way he did. “Shut up.”

“So…no one special for you either, hmm?”

You meet his gaze, a flicker of earnest crossing your expression before you shake your head. “No.”

Silence settles between you, a moment pregnant with unspoken thoughts and emotions. When your ice cream is gone, your hand itches for something else to hold. The air becomes charged with a quiet wonder, both of you reminiscing in the shared moments—the sleepovers, the messages between lines that you told one another. There’s peace in this space you share, as well as bitterness in the possibility that has yet to arise.

“Do you remember what we said, after that third night straight you slept over at my place?”

Your mind drifts back to that moment. The air was filled with the aroma of fried chicken for dinner, and Chan had effortlessly polished off five beers. It was one of those nights you wished could last forever, where the outside world faded into the background, leaving only Chan in its wake. “Not sure,” you respond.

“Right people, wrong time,” he repeats. “That we would’ve probably gotten along a lot better if we met under different circumstances. If it wasn't for what I was going through or what you were going through, we might’ve been right together.”

Your cheeks flush, and you internally curse yourself for momentarily forgetting. It was one of the most intimate moments you've ever shared, and surprisingly, sex wasn't even involved. Despite all the heartfelt words exchanged in that moment of vulnerability, you had half-expected him to have forgotten about it by now. “What about it?” you inquire, trying to keep your composure amidst the resurfacing emotions.

He leans in, licking evidence of dessert off his fingers. “I thought about that a lot when I was away. How we worked together was great. How you made hours pass by like minutes, minutes like seconds.” 

“You thought about me, hmm?” You tease.

“I was in the most romantic city in the world and all I could think about was how you’d love it here, so yeah. I thought about how better it would’ve been with you even if I knew you’d wretch at the smell of squid form the squid ink pasta.”

As Chan speaks, you notice the subtle shifts in his expression, the glimmers of nostalgia and contemplation in his eyes. A moment of quiet lingers between you, the unspoken acknowledgment of what could have been. The weight of untold emotions hangs in the air, and you attempt to break that down.

“...You would’ve tried forcing that into me.”

His laughter feels like medicine for longing. “Maybe I would’ve.”

“Why are you bringing all this up to me? Professing your love, huh, Lee Chan?” you challenge.

“And if I am?”

“Chan…we shouldn’t.”

His eyes dim, appearing as if he expected this response yet still disappointed. “Why not…”

“We said why–”

“Because we were both vulnerable? Fragile? Susceptible to hurting each other because we were interested in other people. Y/n, I haven't thought about Haru since I saw her here at this festival because all I could think about is you.” As the words linger in the air, Chan's admission leaves a charged energy between you. The festival surroundings seem to fade into the background as the unspoken tension and emotions build.

Your hands bunch up your pants at the knees, and you pull yourself up from the grass. “Chan…”

He follows, determined to stay by you. “We’re not who we were a year ago. There’s nothing else holding us back. Not our friends. Not my brother. Not any unrequited feelings. Just me and you.”

You've pondered this ever since you realized your feelings, sometime after he left. How you'd long at him, how he looked at you. Whether he still had feelings for Haru or if he somehow harbored interest in you. Or course, you wanted this but was any time the right time? “...Right people.”

“Wrong time, but that’s not the case anymore,” he steps closer, his presence enveloping you, and he cups your face in his hands. The warmth of his touch is both comforting and electrifying. “I want to try it with you because, knowing you, we work damn well together. We deserve that. We deserve this more than anyone.”

You shake your head, recognizing the stolen quote. Lips stretched over your face, and you take half a step closer. “Screw you.”

Not giving him the chance to react, you capture his lips instead, savoring the familiarity. The the soft rustle of the wintertime breeze and the distant of other people only served itself as background that becomes te white space on now your vividly painted canvas. In that stolen moment, the world narrows down to the warmth of the kiss, an electric charge passing between you and Chan, and longing grip of his hands claiming your body. Each second is written meticulously into a story that you both finally decide to explore, the delay only proving that all had been worth the wait.

---

boyfriend texts with wen junhui.

---

Svt & learning to cook food from s/o’s homecountry (aka not korean food). A different culture & food for each member would rlly cool

making you a meal from your country

content: established relationship, fluff, foreign reader (non-korean), etc.

wc: 872

a/n: this was such a cute concept omg!! i picked the food items and the home countries at random btw sorry if i got some dishes wrong pls lmk if there's any corrections i should make 😭

masterlist

seungcheol -

he wouldn't be able to stand your homesickness for even one second, feeling too sad at your sadness and deciding to do everything in his power to make you feel better. he'd ask around for traditional south african dishes leading him to make you some chakalaka while you were at work. the hours of trial and error wouldve been worth it the moment he saw the happiness in your eyes at his efforts.

jeonghan -

being quite used to simply ordering takeout whenever he so pleased, jeonghan was not used to cooking at home too often. however, if his sweet s/o wanted some homemade tom yum soup, then he'd deliver! after a quick call to mingyu (and an hour or two of messing around in the kitchen), he'd be ready with your food. he loves thai food, so this would be a win-win situation for him.

joshua -

he knew you sometimes missed australia and were unable to go back and forth as you pleased, so josh would occasionally indulge you in making meat pie for you, following a recipe you'd once made for him early in your relationship.

jun -

he'd had indian food before and loved it, so it did not take any convincing for him to decide to make you some indian street food. he'd do it out of his own volition pretty often, actually. by now, he had mastered the art of various dishes, specially panipuri, which he would frequently make for you, and sometimes he'd even share some with his members.

soonyoung -

if he sensed you growing homesick and missing your usual chinese cuisine, he'd go out of his way to seek out jun or minghao to ask what food may make you feel a bit better. he'd then take on the task of making you the most delicious street breakfast, jianbing, knowing it wasnt too difficult a task for him and that it was a meal you'd often have in your youth.

wonwoo -

wonwoo was quite known for his lack of ability in the kitchen, but that would not stop him from making you some laksa whenever you were feeling particularly homesick. despite not knowing how to make any other singaporean dishes, he'd have specifically mastered at least one in order to take care of you in such a domestic way whenever the opportunity arose.

jihoon -

never having been one to cook much (he'd much rather stick to washing dishes), he'd struggle a lot through making you some pastéis de nata for your anniversary, deciding to make a korean-portuguese fusion of meals to celebrate your relationship. ok, maybe he called mingyu over to help, but the joy in your eyes as you shared the meal with him had made it worth all of mingyu's nagging as he followed his instructions to the letter.

seokmin -

he's never been to spain, but he's had a few spanish meals throughout his life, so he'd quickly understand why you'd often complain about the lack of authentic spanish food near your shared apartment. would take it upon himself to learn how to make paella in the most perfect manner imaginable just to see a smile on your face.

mingyu -

making a pizza from scratch was easier said than done, but mingyu had taken on the task the moment you let him know of the fomo you felt at seeing him and his best friends explore your country of origin, italy. you'd watched nana tour happily, but still felt a bit off at knowing you couldn't be there with your boyfriend. but fear not! mingyu was about to bring the authentic italian experience to your door!

minghao -

he's been to the united states so many times by now that he just knows american food by heart. wouldnt even need a recipe to know how to make you some classic barbecue on a sunny afternoon. would even make an entire day out of it, grilling under the sun while you sunbathed next to him.

seungkwan -

seungkwan has always thought himself to be quite a good cook. or at least he was quite good at making korean food. japanese food was another story. he knew how badly you missed homemade sushi, never enjoying any from your nearby restaurants. he'd have to ask for your help at some point, but the end result would be the two of you sharing a nice moment making a meal together, so it all went according to plan.

vernon -

he doesnt know how to cook neither korean nor american food, but you best bet he'll try his hardest to make you traditional vietnamese food in the form of bun cha and bánh xèo. it looked easy and like it tasted good, how hard could it be? would try his bestest but eventually need to ask you for help completing the task. a+ for effort, though.

chan -

he already loves mexican food, so making it for you wouldnt even be something you'd have to request from him – he'd just do it on his own! he'd already mastered all types of street food, eventually opting to make you menudo, knowing how much you enjoyed that meal as a child.

---

Wants to know? SCREW EVERYTHING I PLANNED

I'M GOING TO BE THAT LITTLE CREATURE AND THAT'S IT 🛐

(don't worry, I'll say more about her in the future:D)

---

His Love in Her Force

Pairing: undercover detective!Jaehyun x ballerina!reader

Genre: fake marriage au, hate to love, action, drama, fluff, romance, small town au, slow burn, smut, suspense

Word Count: 28k (it's worth it if you like slow burn, promise)

Summary: Fleeing from a ruthless stalker, you are forced to participate in a witness protection program at the other side of the world, pretending to be the wife of a taciturn undercover detective from now on. Despite all differences, you slowly start to settle with your new life as a married couple - until your newfound happiness is stripped away from you all over again.

A/N: Loosely inspired by a friend's friend case that went viral where I live. Jaehyun goes by several names here (Jay Jung, Jung Jaehyun and Jeong Yuno).

Imagine leaving everything behind. 

Your home, your friends, your family.

Life as you knew it, vanished overnight, and you had to start anew at the other side of the world.

People easily let such a wish slip when their ordinary life got too exhausting. But what many truly meant was that they wanted to take a break from their daily routine and relax a few weeks under the tropical sun. 

They could always come back to the security and comfort of their stable home, and that was why only the minority was serious and courageous enough to actually go through with the plans of starting anew somewhere far away.

And then, there were people like you. The ones who didn’t have a choice.

“Mrs. Jung, please put up your table, we’re starting to descend,” the stewardess told you.

Mrs. Jung. That was your new name now. 

You had no relation to this surname that you had gotten assigned to only sixteen hours ago through a fake ID and passport at the airport. It sounded so foreign and disturbing to your ears. 

This “Mrs. Jung” wasn’t you, yet you had to slip into her role and pretend to have been someone else’s wife for a significant part of your life already. It was a role you didn’t deem yourself to be suitable for at all.

You were a young, single woman who lived her childhood dream of being a ballet dancer. After having attended different dance academies around Asia and Europe, you had settled with your first engagement, the Korea National Ballet, back in Seoul for the meantime where your family was residing.

A week ago, you had gotten the confirmation letter that you were accepted into the Dutch National Ballet after having studied there the year prior.

Your life was finally everything you had been working so hard towards since you were little.

And then, your future had gotten stripped away from you. Just like that.

“Mrs. Jung?” The stewardess passed by again. “The table.”

“Oh sorry,” you quickly apologized and put it up to properly lock it.

You then proceeded to stare out of the window, the plane having brought you to a continent you had never set foot on ever before. Narrow streets, tiny houses and small forests passed by you in a blur of earthly colors as the plane slowly angled downwards to start its final descent. 

You hated your new life already.

_____

“My duty here is finished,” the officer, who had been accompanying you all the way to the US, told you. “I’ll be taking the next flight back. But no worries, a driver is already waiting for you and will escort you to your new home. You must be relieved, you’re almost there now, Miss.”

“Relieved, detective?” you mocked and crossed your arms in front of your chest. “I’ll be exchanging the life of a successful ballerina for the one of a housewife, stuck in the nowhere on the other side of the world, because you couldn’t do your job right. What in the hell should I be relieved about, tell me?”

“Listen, Miss.” He lowered his voice as though there were other people besides you in this domestic charter flight. “Detective Jeong is one of our best people for this job here, I heard. So when it’s about life or death, there is no other place you’d rather be at the moment. He surely wants to be elsewhere as well, so that makes you two people that have to arrange themselves with this situation.”

“Jeong?” You raised a brow. “Isn’t his name Jung also?”

“Your fake name applies to the both of you of course. It’s a fine, but grave detail to his real one, also for easier spelling. Don’t ever use it in front of anyone though.”

You barely listened to him. “I don’t care. I don’t care about any of this.”

“I’m sorry this happened to you, really.” He sounded almost empathetic. Almost. 

“Don’t be, I know that deep inside, you aren’t. You think you did a good job, detective. If you wouldn’t have sat on your asses all day long and laid out all my collected evidences properly instead, I wouldn’t even be here on this stupid plane, in this stupid country!”

“I already told you there is nothing that we can do anymore, Miss. Stalking cases, where the suspect hasn’t done any harm yet, are always hard to handle since not everything can be considered solid evidence. That’s the thing with social media.” He was tired of leading this conversation, but you weren’t, because you knew you were right. “Besides… The judge hasn’t even passed the sentence yet.”

“But they’re close, and we all know what the sentence will be, otherwise I wouldn’t be here! And it’s only because my father pays such a huge amount of money that you’re willing to get me into this program and away from him.” Your heart was full of hostility, and you let him feel every single bit of it. “Otherwise I would possibly be dead by tomorrow.”

“Again, I’m sorry this happened to you, Miss.”

“Screw your half-assed apologies! I’ve lost my trust in the police a long time ago!” you yelled at him. “You’d rather want a woman dead than get a stalker behind bars!”

And, once again, replied with, “I’m sorry, Miss.”

You didn’t want to hear any more of this, so you remained quiet for the rest of the landing approach and just bid an annoyed farewell to the detective when you disembarked the aircraft. By the exit, after you had picked up your luggage, you were welcomed by the announced driver. 

“Hello, Mrs. Jung. I will accompany you to your new home,” he greeted you. “Welcome to Connecticut. Follow me please. Here, let me help you with your luggage.”

You tagged along with a distance of two steps until you got out of the airport and into his car. The ride distanced you from the airport and thus from the next city as well. While you were hoping to cross another town soon, no such thing happened.

“How far is it?” were the words you finally brought out after half an hour of driving. “It’s been quite a while and all I’m still seeing is… green.”

“Oh, it’s still an hour, Mrs. Jung.”

“An hour?” you squealed and sat straight up from the backseat. “Where are we driving to? Maine? This was Connecticut already, how far into the province are we going?”

“Where your persecutor won’t find you that easily, Mrs. Jung.”

You swore to god, if he called you “Mrs. Jung” again, in every sentence… But it was the first time someone used the word “persecutor”, and it kind of caught you off guard to have someone not talk down on your case.

You leaned back in your seat and closed your eyes to relax after such a long flight that also included a layover. It worked out a bit too well in the end though, sleep eventually engulfing you with the mundane sound of the car rolling over the road in the background.

You only woke up much later when the car had already come to a halt. At the outside, when you groggily opened your eyes, you saw two figures talking to each other in front of your side window. One of them was the driver who had brought you here, the other though, you could only make out the outlines of as he stood with his back turned to you, but it was definitely a much taller man.

“Couldn’t you have gotten someone else?” the unfamiliar man spoke. 

“Since when do detectives in your position get to choose the person they will protect?” the driver asked back.

“It’s just… that she’s…” He faltered.

“A young dancer at the peak of her career?”

“Don’t go there.”

At that moment, he turned around to you and your eyes met. You didn’t know who was more shocked to see the other. So that was him, your “husband”. How dare he speak about you like that! As though you were happy over this situation!

Your eyes were wide open now and you aggressively unbuckled your seatbelt. Opening the door, you stepped outside, getting greeted by the driver right away.

“You’re awake, Mrs. Jung! May I introduce you to your husband Jaehyun? Around here, for better pronunciation, he’s known as Jay.”

The unfamiliar man, obviously going by the name of Jaehyun/Jay, said nothing to you, not even during the entire time your eye contact didn’t break. You felt him clearly examining you from head to toe though, but not in the way a guy checked out someone he was interested in.

No, he was eyeing you from head to toe like he was inspecting a piece of leftover meal that he was unsure of whether to still eat after finding it in the very back of his fridge seven days after preparing. He was full of disgust, and his off-putting behavior was masking how ridiculously good he looked at the same time. 

In the end, he decided against the meal and shifted back to the driver. “She’s looking even gaudier than in the pictures.”

“Excuse me?!” You clenched your fists. “What do you mean?!”

But he ignored you. “She’s looking like a Christmas tree, drawing attention to her wherever she goes. So flamboyant.”

“This is called fashion! People in Seoul wear such outfits!” you retorted, upset that he was still treating you like you weren’t there and simultaneously insulting you. 

The driver just patted his shoulder. “I’ll get going.”

When he had driven away, you were left alone with Jaehyun or Jay - if that was even his real name, but you supposed it wasn’t, a fake name like yours and your both’s surname most likely as well. 

You stood there kind of awkwardly in the small driveway of the house you needed to call your new home from now on. Judging from the outside, admittedly, it looked like a cozy country style bungalow, spacious enough for two people and with no other houses in the immediate radius. 

You would have liked it very much for a short vacation if you wouldn’t have to share it with a stranger who apparently didn’t have the hots for you anyway.

“Let’s go inside,” he barked with suppressed anger, and you wondered why he was already behaving so hostile towards you. 

But at least, the feeling was mutual since he was a policeman as well. Starting from the day they had laughed at you when you called 911 shortly after the physical stalking had started, you had vowed to hate every single one of them.

When you stepped through the entry door, heaving the luggage up the stairs yourself, because Jaehyun was not gentleman enough to help you, you were positively surprised. 

The interior was bright and modernly furnished. There was a huge kitchen, open to the living room that looked equally comfortable and cozy with a soft couch. Additionally, there was an entire wall filled with books only at the opposite of the window facade by the entrance.

“The bathroom is over there.” Jaehyun stood next to you and pointed with his finger to one of the two doors behind the kitchen. “And that is the bedroom. No worries, it’s all yours, I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“You better do so,” you murmured and went straight to the bedroom, dragging your luggage behind you.

“You’re not allowed to go outside all alone. Either I accompany you or you ask for my permission and tell me exactly where you go and for how long.”

He spoke like a robot who had memorized an instruction, and who knew, perhaps he was even one. This already felt like jail. Whether you were here or at home, leaving either wouldn’t be safe for you. It didn’t make any difference except that you hated it here. And him.

Jaehyun cleared his throat. “I’ll prepare dinner.”

“I’m not hungry.”

You shut the door behind you and looked around in the room before you let yourself fall onto the huge bed and stared at the ceiling. Minutes later, you found yourself crying so hard like you had never cried before in your life. 

Your entire body shook, and you sobbed so loudly, you feared that Jaehyun might hear it. But you actually didn’t care. You would gladly let him know that he wasn’t the only one feeling miserable in this situation you two were in, even though you voiced it differently.

Missing your parents, grandparents, friends and everyone else dear to you, you now realized that you were all alone. You hadn’t been allowed to keep your phone in case you’d be tracked down and thus weren’t allowed to get in touch with anyone from your former life either in case someone accidentally revealed your whereabouts.

Another part of you mourned the end of your career that you had been working so hard towards and that hadn’t even really started yet. This same part hated your father for putting you into this program, but loved him at the same time to go through these lengths to ensure your protection. 

But the biggest part of you hated the man who had laid his eyes on you a year ago and vowed to never leave your side again in the most controversial ways. 

The man who had ruined your life. 

This was what he had wanted for you - cornered, shut off, frightened. When admiration turned into hatred, there was no space for happiness anymore. You had never felt more agonized. And lonely.

And with this feeling, after your sheets were all wet from too much crying, you slept in long after night had fallen.

____

The ringing doorbell woke you up, and judging by the misty light that flowed into the bedroom from the outside, it must not be past nine in the morning. You must have slept for over fourteen hours.

Opening your eyes in a slow manner, it took you a few moments to adjust to your surroundings. At first, you were happy to have woken up in your home again - until you realized it quite wasn’t and reality dawned on you, a dreadful feeling instantly weighing down on your heart that nearly caused you to bawl right there and then again. 

You grabbed a pillow and put it over your face to drown out the noise that was coming from the door. If anything, it was Jaehyun’s responsibility to open it as he was closer to the source, and you weren’t even sure whether you were allowed to let strangers in. 

But the string of constant noise just wouldn’t subside, and jet lag was hitting you hard.

“Goddammit!” you yelled in annoyance, jumped out of the bed and stormed into the living room.

But there was no sign of Jaehyun, the couch neatly made, so no one was even able to suspect that someone had slept on it the night before. You tiptoed to the window close by the entrance door to get a look at the person standing outside. 

It was an old, asian woman with gray hair. 

The moment she spotted you by the window, she quickly hurried over and excitedly signed you to open the door. In her hands, she presented a bag, dangling it in front of your vision. You neither had the time nor the patience to put up with her right now, but since she had spotted you already, there was no chance that you could still avoid her.

“Yes?”

You opened the door, not paying attention to your disheveled hair and the clothes from the day before. Whatever she wanted, you hoped that she would finish fast.

“My, my!” she called out in delight. “You must be Mrs. Jung, having arrived yesterday, right?”

You nodded, still not having adjusted to that name. At least you were fluent in English. “Yes, that’s me. May I help you?”

“I brought you a set of dumplings as a welcome gift. Here, take them. According to the villagers, they taste the best in my restaurant, Mrs. Jung. I’m sure they only say it because I’m running the only restaurant here, though.” She winked and then laughed as you took the package into your hands, slowly waking from your petrification. “Far away from your home country, I thought you needed something familiar, and food always manages to lift the mood, am I right? I must know, because when I immigrated here from Vietnam, I also felt lonely.”

This old woman’s surprising genuine gesture seemed so sweet to you though, you had to gulp big time to hold back your tears that were still present from before. Amidst a sea of turmoil, she radiated so much warmth and grandmotherly love, it made your chest tighten and soothed your pain at the same time, and you regretted your malign thoughts from earlier.

“Thank you so much,” you said wholeheartedly, softly.

“Grandmother Anh!” The two of you simultaneously spotted Jaehyun hurrying in your direction while crossing the front yard. “What are you doing here so early in the morning?”

“I wanted to drop by and bring you a set of dumplings as I remembered your wife must have arrived by now,” she explained and pointed at the bag in your hands. “Freshly made.”

“Thank you so much, grandmother Anh!” He wasn’t paying attention to you. “It wasn’t necessary for you to come all the way up there though!”

She waved aside. “A short trip up to here hasn’t hurt anyone yet, right?”

“You want to come inside for a cup of tea?” you offered her as you deemed it suitable for a situation like this despite not knowing whether you actually had tea. It earned you an angry gaze from Jaehyun though, and you wondered what you had done wrong.

“No worries, dear, I have work to go after now, and I’m sure you want to have some time to adjust yourself to your new living situation. Thank you for the invitation though. And don’t forget to step by my restaurant!”

When she was gone, you retreated to the inside, but as soon as the door closed behind you, Jaehyun threw a fit.

“What the hell were you thinking?” he yelled at you. “Oh, I know! You weren’t even thinking! Opening the door for someone you don’t know, even though you’re currently in a security program, are you nuts?!”

“Of course I’ve looked through the window before!” you shot back at him angrily. Stranger or husband, nobody was allowed to talk to you this way, and in contrast to the day prior, you had enough energy now to give him hell back. “If it was a suspicious looking man, I wouldn’t have let him in, but this was a nice grandma! My stalker is still in detention until the court decision, so he won’t come here so easily, and I doubt he has accomplices in the middle of the american nowhere when he’s just a simple korean man!”

“Listen up here, I’m trying to teach you a point,” Jaehyun pressed through gritted teeth, urging you to move backwards until your feet hit the baseboard and your back rested against the wall. “You know why you’re not allowed to use the phone or the internet? You log yourself into your social media account, congratulations, you just disclosed your location and he’ll appear here once he’s free. You call a friend while being connected to a local radio mast, congratulations, you’re now in danger again, because he’s hired a technician to track your steps. The same goes for people. One tells the other who they’ve seen here, words spread, someone knows someone who knows someone who knows him. Or one of them takes a picture, it lands on the internet, and things on the internet stay on the internet. It will then only be a matter of time until he comes across it. How do you know what he’s capable of? Because he’s ‘a simple korean man’? You’re smarter than this!” For the time he paused and inhaled deeply. “I’m here to prevent all this from happening, to prevent him from finding you, so you have to follow me. Since you’re not known by anyone yet, I have to run a background check, and we still have time to study our story so that they’re going to match. Until then, you’re gonna stay quiet and inside.”

“I didn’t ask you to be my protector!” you defended yourself, his closeness flustering you still. “No one from the police has ever helped me anyway, so stop acting like you care about my wellbeing!”

“Care about your wellbeing?” He revealed his pearl white teeth when he scoffed. “I don’t care about your wellbeing. It’s just that I want to get out of here as fast as possible and you’re just something that holds me back if I don’t take care of it. So you play by my rules or you go back now.”

“You-!” You swallowed the rest of the sentence.

With a slip to the side, you escaped from his fearful presence and crossed the living room in a hurry to lock yourself inside the bedroom again.

Only hours later, when hunger got the better of you, you dared to come out. The dumplings laid on the dining table where you had dropped them off earlier, and you couldn’t ignore the gurgling sounds your stomach was making anymore. 

Jaehyun was sitting on the couch, typing something into his laptop and minding his own business without looking up to you. You were grateful for his ignorance as neither of you wanted to back off from your argument earlier, so you took half of the dumplings and retreated back into the bedroom from where you didn’t come out for the rest of the day.

At night, you cried yourself to sleep again.

____

“Let’s go grocery shopping.”

You were very much surprised when Jaehyun offered to take you on a short trip to the supermarket two days later. Yesterday, you had only been living off leftover dumplings and hadn’t felt any appetite, even until now. This was your very first interaction since the argument.

“I don’t want to,” you blocked it off.

“It’s weird and actually more suspicious when everyone now knows that you’ve already arrived, but don’t show yourself. We have to blend in, that’s how it works here in the countryside. And I have already done a background check on everyone, they’re clean. Besides…” He hesitated. “You should start eating properly.”

You didn’t care about his reasoning as you didn’t want to go out at all. Staying inside, hiding and being left alone sounded like the proper activity according to your mood, but Jaehyun wouldn’t budge, so you had no other choice than to finally dress up and accompany him against your will.

You hadn’t seen anything from the village except for your own house so far, so you got a bit excited when you finally stepped out onto the streets. The sun was shining brightly that morning, and it was kind of comfortably warm already for early spring. 

When you did a 360 degree turn, you silently noted that the village was located on the slope of a hill, your house placed on the highest point and the other houses stretching a few hundred meters apart from each other along the main street and scattering into narrower ones. 

The view and the location were splendid, you had to give credit for that. You weren’t the kind of person to seek this kind of tranquility as you were more a fan of a buzzing city, but somehow, you didn’t find it so bad here. 

The houses were all so small and looked so cozy, embedded and blending in with nature, and the village overall was surrounded by trees and the greens of the connected grasslands that reached to the very top of the mountains.

“If we should come off as a couple, you have to stay by my side.”

You hadn’t noticed how Jaehyun had gone ahead already and quickly fell into his step. You were kind of grossed out by the idea that he would suddenly want to take your hand or do something else that young couples usually openly showed to prove their affection towards each other, so you kept your arms close to your body. But luckily, he didn’t seem to be fond of such a thing right now as well.

As you were walking down the street leading to the village center, Jaehyun told you, “I’ll be starting my work tomorrow. I’m a police officer here, so I’ll be gone for the majority of the day.”

“You work?”

“In contrast to you, I have to.”

“I see,” you noticed curtly. It wasn’t like you minded. No, you rejoiced even!

“But don’t get the wrong idea,” he reminded you as though he was reading your thoughts. “It doesn’t mean you can do what you want and go wherever you want.”

You rolled your eyes. “I understood the first time already.”

“Very well. We’re here,” he then declared when you stood in front of a store, not bigger than a 7/11.

“That’s it? That’s the grocery store?”

“Yeah. What did you expect anyway?”

Yeah, what exactly did you expect to discover in this small village? You sighed. “Let’s go inside.”

A high-pitched voice directly greeted you from the inside. “Mr. Jung! Is this your lovely wife? I can’t believe I finally get to see her! Welcome, Mrs. Jung!” A middle-aged man approached you from the counter, took both of your hands and shook them excitedly. “I’m Mr. Jones. Please help yourselves. You’ll find here everything that you need. My store might be small, but it’s rich in its ingredients.”

You felt Jaehyun’s stares in your back when you carefully greeted him back with a, “Nice to meet you, Mr. Jones” before you went back to his side like the obedient wife you were supposed to play.

Jaehyun was wandering through the small aisles and put one grocery after another into his shopping basket. From afar, he truly looked like a caring husband. But you knew better. 

“What do we want to cook for dinner?” he asked nonchalantly, almost kindly.

For the first time, his voice wasn’t filled with anger or tension that you would also find in your own tone whenever you opened your mouth to speak to each other. In front of the people, you had to conceal your negative feelings towards each other. 

“Hmm…” You looked through the shelves, Jaehyun tagging along. “I’m kind of craving fried rice.”

“I’d rather have steak.” He put the meat in the basket. 

Of course he’d get what he wanted. But you didn’t want to back down either and bought the ingredients for your own cravings.

“Mrs. Jung, please make sure to step by again,” Mr. Jones told you when he packed your groceries. “We always have fresh fruits, you’ll love them!”

You nodded, totally not in the mood for smalltalk with strangers.

Back at home, you waited until Jaehyun had finished preparing his steak before you cooked your own dish. You ate in silence, him on the couch, you in the bedroom, both of you then cleaning after yourselves in silence, too. 

And that slowly became your arranged routine. Silent and separate, yet still together physically.

____

You had spent the past days inside the house mostly, reading, watching TV and staring at the ceiling. At home, you barely had time for these trivial things as you were always practicing, even during your free time. But your free time now was endless, and simple leisure activities prevented you from falling back into this deep, black hole that engulfed you every night, luring out your tears.

You didn’t want to go out, you didn’t want to talk, you barely wanted to eat.

When you felt like this at home, you would just start dancing, but now, you didn’t even have that. Your life was dull after you had been ripped off your passion and your entire future. You didn’t know whether, if you’d ever return, you could catch up again.

At this point, you were asking yourself whether this life was actually worth living. But if you were to give up now, it only meant your stalker had succeeded. This was what he wanted, and you wouldn’t give him this.

As you were lying on the couch that evening again, staring into space, you heard Jaehyun coming home and immediately shot up to go back into your room. You wanted to spend as little time around him as possible.

But he didn’t let you go far. “Mr. Jones saw you in the driveway this morning as he drove by.”

“...And?”

“You know for sure that this isn’t allowed,” Jaehyun hissed sharply. “I prohibited it.”

“But why?” you genuinely wanted to know. “I was only catching some fresh air, nothing to fret about.”

He didn’t show any compassion. “If you want some fresh air, open a window, but, under no circumstances, are you allowed to leave the house when I’m not there. Think about what would have happened if it was someone else driving by, not Mr. Jones!”

“You’re totally nuts!” you yelled now. “And paranoid! That man doesn’t even know I’m here, so technically, I can roam around freely if I want to!”

“This is why I didn’t want you,” Jaehyun growled, his voice full of contempt. “The moment I saw you in the car, I knew what kind of person you would be. And I was proven right. You’re so reckless and neglecting in regard to your own life. On top of that, you’re so audacious as well, and I actually despise people like you. You didn’t even need this program, you’re only here because your father wanted to protect his little princess!”

You froze, and Jaehyun turned stiff in the same breath, your eye contact not breaking despite the interruption. Almost simultaneously, it became clear to you both what he had just said, and the extent of his hurtful words.

Jaehyun opened his lips, his eyes wide in shock. “I-”

The ringing doorbell broke through the distressing silence between the both of you and Jaehyun crossed the living room to hurry to the entrance door.

“Hello Mr. Jung!”

“Grandmother Anh, what a surprise!” he greeted her, still a bit overwhelmed, but trying to downplay the situation. “What brings you here?”

“I was wondering whether you and your wife already have plans for dinner and whether you are interested in joining me and a few other villagers at my restaurant this evening?” she asked politely, trying to get a glimpse of the inside. 

“My wife is doing fine, only still adjusting. There is just so much work to still go after inside the house, so we barely have time at the moment. I’m afraid we have to decline.”

“That’s unfortunate,” the old woman commented. “But I still hope that you can make time this evening and join the dinner. We would be really pleased!”

“I’m going to ask her, alright?”

“Actually I wanted to ask her pers-…”

“Grandmother Anh?” you popped up behind Jaehyun and interjected. “I would happily join the dinner along with my husband! Thank you so much for the invitation!”

“Oh dear, I’m so glad! Then I’ll be going to prepare something nice for you two then, alright? See you later!”

When she was gone, you didn’t resume the topic from earlier, but instead said, “She probably heard it. She probably heard everything and was anxious about what was going on in here. Perhaps, she even thought we were physically fighting, so I had to show myself to let her see that everything is okay.”

“You could have just politely declined,” Jaehyun interposed.

“That’s not the point,” you explained calmly, walking around in the living room and pulling the curtains together. “The whole point of us being here is that we will pretend to be a happy couple, not drawing any suspicion on us. Doing grocery shopping every few days together just doesn’t do it. Didn’t you yourself say that words spread fast here?”

He didn’t want to concede it, but Jaehyun’s following words were his own gesture of acknowledging your believability. “So, what do you suggest we should do?”

Perhaps, he also realized at that moment, that he was missing something that you had been contributing from the very beginning: the ability to not only think rationally, but also compassionately. 

And that sometimes, your reckless acts originated from this character trait of yours, being a person who relied mostly on emotions and urges. He opened his mouth to say something, but quickly closed it again.

“We’re going to show everyone how happy we are as a couple. That it was a usual lovers’ quarrel, that we don’t physically fight, and that you don’t keep me locked up or whatever. And since you’ll be there too, it’s safe. Satisfied?”

You weren’t fond of all that, of the thought of going out, meeting people and pretending you were living the happy life of a married couple. But you had no choice.

You didn’t admit this openly, but this was your only way to survive this hellhole and eventually return to your old life one day.

____

You were more anxious than excited to finally step out of the house again. When you stood in front of the restaurant later that evening, you barely brought yourself to crack a smile. How were you supposed to pretend to be happy when all you wanted was to cry?

“Stop.” Jaehyun held you back when you already wanted to enter through the front door. “Didn’t you forget something?”

You cursed inwardly, having hoped that he had forgotten about it. Why had you even mentioned such a thing as holding hands to prove the nature of your relationship? You would rather not, but you also saw that it was necessary to come off as a true couple and not two strangers who had just met. Even though the latter was true.

So you placed your hand in Jaehyun’s for the first time. It felt surprisingly warm and tender, and so different from the attitude he always showed you. How could someone so grouchy and cold have such tender and warm hands?

Jaehyun’s fingers enclosed around yours, and the unexpected feeling he caused you to experience currently didn’t have anything to do with the fear of getting touched by him. By far not. Not even something close to it.

You were so flustered that you barely noticed how he led you into the restaurant, right towards a large table on which a handful of people were already seated, and all their heads turned to you.

“Oh my, it’s the Jungs!”

You directly spotted grandmother Anh who approached you from behind the counter, taking your hands into hers and out of Jaehyun’s grip.

“Welcome! Dear, let me introduce you to the other villagers,” she addressed you. “Mr. Jones already told me that you two met, but these are…”

She proceeded to list four names that you forgot right after again, and you then took one of the two left free seats at the table along with Jaehyun while the old woman was bringing in one dish after another.

“Please help yourselves!” grandmother Anh then announced after she had sat down well. “Dig in!”

The entire table was filled with different dishes from the region, but also asian food. You felt your mouth watering after having lived off your humble cooking skills ever since your arrival.

“You see, this is a special restaurant,” grandmother Anh explained to you. “I’m not specialized on Asian or Western food. Basically, I can cook anything by order.”

“That’s true,” a middle aged woman next to you answered, Mr. Jones’ wife. “Mrs. Anh started off with an Asian restaurant, but since she’s running the only food place here, the requests started to pile up.”

You swallowed the last bite of delicious fried rice - your go to comfort food - before you responded, “No matter Asian or Western, your food is very delicious, grandmother Anh.”

“I’m so happy you like it, dear!” She smiled from ear to ear. “Hurry, eat up before all the others do!”

You nodded, and for the first time since you had gotten here, you didn’t only feel hunger, but also appetite as you reached for fried chicken, more fried rice, baked potatoes and steamed vegetables all at once. 

When you were training - which was usually all the time - you hadn’t had the pleasure to eat such delightful food as you had to follow a very strict diet to remain your figure. Just a few grams more would have gotten you kicked out of every academy. Of course you stole a secret bite of fast food and sweet treats here and there, but tonight was the first time you could actually eat without compunction.

“... And you left everything behind for your husband, even your job?” Mrs. Jones casually dropped when the dinner slowed down and everyone was finishing off. “That’s so courageous!”

Before you had come here, you had studied both of the roles that had been assigned to you very thoroughly. Jaehyun was the cop who had found a new job here, and you, his wife, had followed from Korea to settle with him in rural Connecticut. That was the part of the script that bothered you the most as this was something you would never ever consider doing in the first place. Giving up your dreams for a man - they wished!

“The things women do for the love of their life, hm?” you only brought yourself to say reluctantly, dripping with hidden sarcasm.

“My husband also made us both move from Vietnam to here,” grandmother Anh clinked herself into your conversation. “He was always dreaming so big, dreaming about living the American dream. I wasn’t fond of the idea, but I was even less fond of living a life without him. So I followed him.”

“Where is your husband now?” it blurted out of you, and you regretted it right at that moment already when her face fell. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s alright, dear,” she brushed it off in understanding about your unawareness. “It’s been five years without him, and I still miss him dearly. With my experience, I can put myself in your shoes very well. You feel lonely and depressed very often, hm? A new country, new people, an entirely new environment, and a husband who’s not home for the majority of the day. It’s hard to adjust.”

Those feelings had nothing to do with Jaehyun, but with yourself only, so you confirmed them with a nod. 

“How about you join our female poker round every wednesday?” Mrs. Jones then proposed. “It’s grandmother Anh, the girl sitting over there named Rosie, and me.”

When the girl heard her name, she briefly raised her head and smiled at you.

“Poker?” you asked carefully. “I’ve never played poker before.”

“You’ll learn it in no time!” Rosie encouraged you. “I’m pretty sure we aren’t playing it accurately either, but we’re having lots of fun and drinking lots of wine. You’ll love it!”

Poker with two elderly women and a girl around your age that you had barely interacted with before didn’t sound like your usual pastime activity back there in Korea. But at least there would be alcoholic drinks, and it would help you avoid this dark hole for a little while, you assumed.

“I’m afraid my wife might not be able to join,” Jaehyun then cut you off at the moment you wanted to excitedly accept their invitation. The three women looked at him in the same confused manner as you. “She’s really busy with work around the house and chores.”

“I’m sure I’ll be done by wednesday, that’s how fast but thorough I always work,” you affirmed to the women, avoiding Jaehyun. “So I’ll join you for sure.”

Jaehyun opened his mouth again, but it perhaps dawned on him that when he objected now, he’d look more like a husband mistreating his wife. The fact that he was known as a police officer didn’t affect the situation positively. 

“Okay,” he then gave in. “I’ll let you ladies have fun.”

“Oh it’s going to be so fun!” Rosie exclaimed and clapped her hands together. 

You were really looking forward to something now as well, for the first time since you had gotten here.

____

“Go, yell at me,” you provoked Jaehyun when you walked through the front door of your house after the dinner.

But he didn’t. Instead, he hung up his jacket, totally muted, put his phone on the kitchen counter and walked straight into the bathroom, locking the door behind him. Whatever, if he didn’t want to talk about it, then you didn’t need to talk about it either.

With dragging steps, you then moved over to the kitchen yourself to get something to drink before your eyes fell onto Jaehyun’s phone.

Your front teeth sank into your bottom lip as you stretched out your hand in the direction of the device. You knew it was wrong, you knew what consequences it would all bring, yet you couldn’t hold back. The temptation was too strong.

Your fingers glided swiftly over Jaehyun’s display as you typed the name of your stalker into the search bar. And the first article that popped up was the one reporting about his release. 

Dated today. You knew it. You just knew it.

You cursed under your breath as you read through the comments that were almost all defaming him and the acquittal following everything he had done to you. When it had gotten public that a popular ballerina had been stalked, the media was quick to cover the story. Before, no one had cared about it. 

The majority of people having your back in the comment section were only a drop in the bucket. But it still was soothing somehow.

When you went back to the search results, you found an article about you retiring from the Korea National Ballet. It wasn’t a big one, but had still gotten covered by a local newspaper after your absence from the performances had been noticed, and they were quick to link your decision with your stalker not getting a sentence because the state of evidence was too insufficient. 

Your fingers trembled, because now, as soon as he picked up these news, he would start searching for you and carry out his threat that he had sent to your home through a letter a week before you had started your new life here,

I will come for you.

“You know for sure that this isn’t allowed,” Jaehyun scolded strictly next to you, and you flinched, nearly letting the phone drop before he snatched it out of your hands. “Didn’t I already tell you that with today’s technology, every time you go online, you leave traces? You want that? Having him here?”

“I didn’t log into any social media or anything,” you defended yourself. “I just… looked him up, and hundreds of other people pulled up that website also, so.”

“Even that is not-”

“He’s free,” you interrupted him, your breathing only coming in hitches as you realized what it meant for you. “As of today, he’s free again, and he’ll come for me. Like he wrote in that letter.”

You shut your eyes, ready to get yelled at, but Jaehyun didn’t say a word again. With the phone in his hand, he went into the bedroom - your room - and you followed him. You didn’t know what this meant. Had you gone too far tonight? 

“What are you doing?”

He jerked something out of the closet, and at second glance, you recognized the thing in his hands as your suitcase which he then threw at your feet.

“Go pack. You’re going home.”

You blinked in confusion. “What?”

“If you don’t give a damn about your life, you don’t deserve to stay here. So you should go home.”

He was so cold and indifferent about it, it made you shudder. And that stare of his. You hadn’t seen it before. This was serious.

When you had first come here, you would have rejoiced and would have willingly accepted a flight ticket back. But with this knowledge, the thought about setting a foot on Korea’s grounds with your stalker on the loose raised your hackles. Then, this entire nightmare would start all over.

Hesitantly, you brought yourself to admit that this was where you were the safest now. On the other side of the world, by the side of a detective. 

“Please…” you started.

“What am I supposed to say?” Jaehyun asked, overly annoyed, not breaking eye contact. “You defied my orders. Again. You think I didn’t know about this? I knew before you did, before the media did. It’s because of your reaction that I wasn’t supposed to say a word. Now look at what it has done to you! Will you ever get a good night’s sleep again?”

“I’m sorry!” You had never said that to him before, so this was a huge step for you. But you meant it. “I couldn’t resist. I had to know.”

“Of course you had to. You always have to meddle. Did something positive ever result from your meddlings? Perhaps, your meddlings have even brought this upon you!”

You stared at each other and Jaehyun’s face fell when it dawned on him what he had just said. Once again.

“You’re not better than any of them,” you hissed. “Yet, I’m not going anywhere.”

You picked up your suitcase and threw it back into the closet. When you turned around, Jaehyun had left your room already, so you quickly closed the door in case he would return and hid in the safety of your familiar four walls until the next morning. 

____

When wednesday finally came around, you were still feeling some sort of anticipation that Jaehyun’s hurtful words hadn’t been able to entirely tear down. You had only interacted with him when it was truly necessary since the day he wanted to kick you out, otherwise avoiding him at all costs. At least, he hadn’t prohibited you from going today.

“Remember to only share the most necessary things about us,” Jaehyun repeated again as you walked along the streets to grandmother Anh’s restaurant. “And not more. Don’t invent anything, just dodge the topic. If someone wants to take a picture, prohibit it. But luckily, people here aren’t so obsessed with social media.”

“It’s so easy for an emotional klutz like you to say such things,” you grumbled. “But it’s something entirely different when people put pressure on you, especially when you’re in such a small group.”

“Whatever,” he shrugged it off. “Just dodge everything you can dodge.”

You rolled your eyes. You hadn’t wanted him to come with you, but one of his conditions was to still accompany you everywhere once you stepped outside of the house, so you had no choice but to walk with him all the way there. 

“I’ll pick you up at ten, okay?” Jaehyun confirmed, and you nodded. “If something happens-”

“What should happen? We’re in the middle of nowhere and I’m just playing poker with the three less suspicious people on earth. Give it a rest already.”

“If something happens,” he continued unbothered, “or you start to feel uneasy… even if you only want me to pick you up no matter the reason, even if you’re only a few minutes away…” He reached his hand into his pocket. “Take this, just in case.”

He held up a black flip phone in front of you. One which you had only seen in action way back then in primary school, and which you deemed antique by now, because you were only able to send text messages and make calls with it. That kind of phone.

You took it into your hand and opened it up. The black and white display only showed one number when you pulled up the contacts list. You proceeded from the assumption that it was Jaehyun’s.

“It’s curbed, so you can only call me. Shortcut is one. The card has fifteen bucks on it, but I doubt you’ll spend it all unless we talk to each other for six hours straight. So don’t even think about calling someone you know from back home.”

Perhaps, a tiny part of him did care in the end. At least more than any policeman back there in Korea throughout the span of a year.

“Okay.” He cleared his throat. “See you later then. At ten.”

What you had wanted was an apology. But this was nearly just as good and his very own way of saying sorry, you saw that now.

Jaehyun turned his back to you and slowly walked back while you stored the phone away in your purse and entered the restaurant through the front door.

Not much later, you found yourself laughing among the other three women, having forgotten about your miserable situation for the evening as you hadn’t had so much fun in a long time already. 

Poker had faded into the background and you were getting to know about the other women more than playing cards. And while you were talking, you emptied one bottle of wine after another.

“So tell me,” Rosie urged, “how did you and Jay meet? It’s so rare having such a young couple deciding to live with us so secludedly!”

“We’ve met when we were both still in university,” you revealed, having studied this part of your new identities very carefully so that your stories would match. Yet, you couldn’t help but to spice it up a bit. “Through mutual friends. We couldn’t actually stand each other at first. I hated his guts, and he hated mine. But we slowly warmed up, and the rest is history.” 

“At first, I couldn’t quite read him as well,” Rosie admitted. “So I found his character very off-putting. But Jay is actually really warm-hearted and caring.”

No way she was talking about Jaehyun. You suppressed a laugh.

“That’s true!” Mrs. Jones nodded. “When he came into the hardware store earlier today, I was there too, talking to Mr. Alden. And he was searching every shelf high and low for an MP3 player. You know, one of these old things that you can only listen to music with which no one uses anymore. Mr. Alden didn’t have one of these of course, so he ordered it for him. He looked very stressed about it, but in a desperate and not angry way. More like a gift he needed promptly.”

An MP3 player? What would he need it for? In your world, your husband wasn’t capable of showing or even bearing feelings at all. Why was it then, that these people had a whole other picture of him?

“One time, at my father’s pharmacy,” Rosie added, “he asked what my father could recommend if someone suffered from a stomach ache. Apparently, his wife, so you, was in pain one night, and he wanted to be prepared for the next time this could occur. So, I would say you truly have a dedicated husband.”

You frowned. You had indeed suffered from a stomach ache one night, searching through the shelves and ending up making tea instead as you hadn’t found any medicine. That you had found it the next day, you had blamed it on your absent-mindedness.

“Mr. Jung surely has a warm heart despite his stoic demeanor. Otherwise he also wouldn’t have helped me when I had fallen on my back. That happened only last week. He carried me all the way to the doctor’s,” grandmother Anh continued.

There had truly been a day when Jaehyun had only come home much later than usual, and he was commonly very strict in keeping his routines. You hadn’t asked him about it though and had shrugged it off again. That was how indifferent you always were at home. Perhaps, you then realized, you should start doing exactly that: communicate. 

You couldn’t continue living with a person you openly despised and didn’t care about. Jaehyun had said a few awful things to you, but the phone in your purse and what people were telling about him were proof enough to you that he was, indeed, different from the cops you had encountered until now.

Most likely, he wasn’t so awful and you had only failed to see. Jaehyun had given you a few second chances. Now, it was your turn to give him one.

“Why the long face?” Rosie pulled you out of your thoughts. “Let’s celebrate the start of your new life here! Grandmother Anh, I’m going to open another bottle, alright? The night is still young, cheers!”

You heard it pop for the second time.

____

You woke up the next morning with a headache. You didn’t know how you had gotten home or when, but the last time you had gotten so drunk, it was in the academy in the Netherlands. These village people’s alcohol tolerance was really on a whole other level!

A glimpse at your phone told you that it was midday already, and you suddenly were sitting up straight in your bed. But since you had no business anywhere anyway, you fell back against the mattress.

You then slowly drifted off to sleep again when the doorbell interrupted your nap. That was the downside of living in such a small village. People just came over whenever they wanted.

“Have you just woken up?” Rosie asked you.

A bit embarrassed, you scratched your head. “Maybe…”

“It’s been a tough way home, hm?” she laughed. “Jay also didn’t quite know what to do with you.”

“To do… with me?” you repeated with widened eyes.

“Oh my!” Rosie covered her opened mouth with her hand and giggled. “You can’t remember a thing?”

You shook your head. “Nothing.”

“You were so drunk after our fourth bottle of wine, you slept in right there and then. Jay had to carry you in a piggy back out of the restaurant and all the way home up here, and you didn’t even bat an eye.” She chuckled again. “And then, you only cried, ‘I wanna go home, I wanna go home!’ while he constantly replied, ‘You’re gonna be home soon’. And you said again, ‘But not this home!’”

“Holy!” you gasped. “I really can’t remember!”

Everyone knew about the drunken truth, and Jaehyun had also certainly known that you didn’t mean this home when you had said you wanted to return. If the alcohol had gone to your head much more, you would have probably revealed your true identity by accident! You suddenly felt so defeated. You had put yourself in danger. Again.

“Make sure to reward him properly for all the convenience with a nice meal or otherwise, okay?” Rosie winked and handed a paper bag over to you. “And start out by giving him these painkillers for his back pain. My father doesn’t recommend using it on a daily basis. Perhaps, change your mattress to a less soft one as they probably stem from that.”

“But our mattress is not soft,” you commented naively and accepted the painkillers when it suddenly crossed your mind that he didn’t even sleep on the bed. “It’s probably only because he naps on the couch so often,” you briefly corrected yourself. “I’ll have an eye on it.”

After Rosie said goodbye to you, you closed the entry door behind you and directly went into the bedroom to prepare something before Jaehyun came home.

When he eventually walked through the front door a bit later that day, he didn’t say a thing about the night before, but calmly took off his jacket and went to sit on the couch without greeting you. 

Communicate. Your start. “Can you come to the bedroom real quick, please?”

Without a complaint, he arose again and followed you. When you opened the door, you presented a room to him with your clothes and other stuff all gone, the bedding freshly exchanged.

“This is your room from now on.”

Jaehyun blinked in irritation, and it was not the first time that you witnessed him turning so startled. You continued to take him aback. “I don’t understand…”

“I’m sorry,” you apologized to him quietly and bowed. “For having caused such havoc last night, being a burden to you again. When Rosie told me what happened because I can’t remember a thing, I realized that I put us both in danger again, now with my habit of drunkenly telling the truth. It wasn’t my indication to do so, and I will look after my alcohol consumption much better from now on. As I will do with everything else, of course. I will be obedient and follow the rules.”

He slowly turned around to you, his expression not quite distinctive enough for you to read. “Okay.”

“And because of your back pain, Rosie dropped by earlier with the painkillers. But I know it’s all because of me too. So, here, have the bedroom. It’ll be much better if you sleep on the bed as the mattress is not as soft. I’ll take the couch, I’ll be fine.”

You both stood there, quiet for a while. Until Jaehyun broke the silence himself. “There is a mattress.” 

“What?”

“Here.” He crouched down, put his hands in the compartment under the bed and pulled out a small mattress that had been kept there apparently. “It’s too small for me, but for you, it should be fine. Let me carry it to the living room for you, okay?”

You smiled and nodded. “Thank you. And thank you for the stomach medicine as well.”

He opened his mouth to return something, but seemed to get too flustered and closed his lips again. It was familiar to you.

“I’m sorry too.” You turned keen-eared. What had he just said? Jaehyun’s ear tips turned red as he looked to the side. “I- I didn’t mean it. You’re not… you know.”

He didn’t elaborate what he referred to. But he didn’t need to. You knew what he had exactly apologized for, and accepted it. All the things, little and big. About you being a princess, about you always meddling. And about you having brought this upon yourself.

Your husband wasn’t a man of many words, but he had silently accepted your apology too by starting to sleep in the bedroom that night and leaving the new mattress to you. 

You hadn’t been much of a great wife either, and you silently promised to him to be a better one from now on.

____

You were alone the next night, Jaehyun working overtime as one of his colleagues had spontaneously wanted to change shifts, so he had to take up on two in a row.

That was why, even by 1am, you still weren’t able to sleep. In your pajamas already though, you wandered up and down the living room, your thoughts swimming. You had kept the lights turned off as you went back to your mattress every now and then when you felt ready to finally fall asleep, only to fail once again.

You had gotten so used to having Jaehyun sleep in the room next to you that now that he was gone, you couldn’t fall asleep at all as you felt so defenseless. You were not paranoid about your stalker having gotten here, but with Jaehyun around, you had been able to fall asleep with more ease.

All by yourself though, you felt at your own fear’s mercy.

THUD

You froze on the spot. What in the hell was that?

You were currently facing the window, but the noise came from the other side of the closed door where the bedroom was located. Believing that your hearing might have fooled you, you held in your breath and listened closely.

Thud.

Again. This time, not that loudly, but it was clearly the same noise as before. You almost didn’t dare to make a move. It was in the middle of spring, the weather was warm and the moon was shining brightly. This was not the background noise of a thunderstorm.

Thud.

No, you hadn’t been fooled by your own hearing. There was definitely something going on in the bedroom that should not be going on, and Jaehyun was not here tonight! Restraining your breathing volume, you tiptoed to the kitchen area, hoping the parquet under your feet wouldn’t audibly give in.

THUD.

Louder. Your heart was racing, but you told yourself over and over again that you couldn’t afford losing your nerves now. Perhaps, it was an animal trying to get in, perhaps the wind pressing a branch against the glass, but perhaps also someone trying to break in. 

It couldn’t be him.

… right?

He was still in Seoul, you had obediently followed Jaehyun’s rules, you had left no traces. There was no possibility that he could be here.

… right?

The faults you had made hadn’t been that grave. You were now obediently following the rules.

… right?

As your gaze fell upon the kitchen counter, you reached for the phone Jaehyun had given to you and dialed the shortcut. The phone was shaking in your trembling fingers as the display lightened up and you saw it trying to connect to Jaehyun. 

But he didn’t pick up. You tried again and again. But he didn’t pick up even after the fifth attempt. You nearly wanted to cry. What was a police officer husband good for when he wouldn’t even come to rescue you? 

Whatever, you didn’t need him anyway. You were a strong, independent woman, you would take matters in your own hand. Literally. So you grabbed the pan that was lying on the stove and headed for the bedroom door. 

At this moment, you didn’t know what was louder. Your own heartbeat, your own breathing or the thudding that came from the bedroom. Perhaps, all at once, and the only thing that kept you going right now was the thought that you just didn’t want to die here, all alone, on the other side of the world, without having seen your friends and family again. 

BAM.

“Hey!”

You flinched the second you stretched out your hand to press down the door handle as the lights suddenly turned on, and a sharp scream escaped your lips as you were sure your life was flashing before your eyes. The pan fell onto your feet, missing your toes by a hairbreadth, as a pair of strong arms wrapped around you from behind.

Then, you realized that you were crying as you twisted and turned, trying to escape. “Let me go! Let me go!”

“It’s me!” a familiar voice then came through to you. “It’s Jaehyun! It’s me!”

His voice, his scent. This all suddenly embraced you as it dawned on you that indeed, it was him. You had just not known what it was like to be held by him which had startled you so much as you had never had any physical contact before.

In his arms, your chest was still heaving up and down heavily, but he held you closely and tightly, with no intention to let you go now as tears continued to stream down your face.

“It’s okay,” you then heard Jaehyun whisper, his voice close to your ear. “I’m here now.”

He only let you go after you had stopped trembling and crying out loudly, and only reluctantly with a deep sigh from your part. You didn’t know where that had exactly come from though.

As you then turned around to him, you clenched your fists and hammered against his chest. “You idiot! Where have you been?!” you yelled at him. “I’ve called you five times, but you didn’t pick up! What do you have a cell phone for!”

Jaehyun didn’t hinder you from letting out your anger. Only when your strength was slowly subsiding as exhaustion settled, he enclosed your fingers and explained to you calmly, “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear it ring as I was in the car with my colleagues, and when I got out, I was already here and saw that you have called five times.”

“I- I… I heard,” you stuttered, but you didn’t quite know how to explain your situation. What if he would think you had only imagined it and didn’t take you seriously? 

But Jaehyun did exactly that without you having to explain yourself. “My colleagues are currently searching the property high and low. I came here the moment I left the car.”

“I heard a thudding noise coming from the bedroom. As though… I don’t know. Someone was trying to get in. Through the window… I don’t know, there was definitely something!”

“Okay, let me check.”

You were hiding behind Jaehyun as he slowly pushed the door open and got in position. Then, he switched the lights on and you saw, as you peeked from behind him, exactly nothing. With slow steps, Jaehyun crossed the room and positioned himself in front of the closet. As he drew the door open, as expected again, you only found clothes inside of it.

“All clear inside here,” he then confirmed and approached the window to open it, calling outside, “What’s up out there?”

“All clear out here!” you heard someone yell in the distance.

“All clear in here as well!”

“You want us to stay put?” 

Hesitantly, Jaehyun turned around to you, and then back to the window. “It’s okay, for tonight, I got this. Thank you.”

“Alright.”

Your teeth sank into your bottom lip as you stood by the door and felt embarrassment crawling up your cheeks. “I’m sorry. I was so sure…”

“Don’t ever apologize for such things,” Jaehyun cut you off, and you faced him with insecure eyes. “You were scared, and your feelings are valid. Nothing else matters.”

The majority of people would have brushed it off. But Jaehyun had taken you seriously the moment he saw you all alone, so scared.

Only later that night, when you were ready for bed again, it sank into you that this was probably what the other women had talked about when the topic revolved around Jaehyun last week. Finally, even for only a short moment, he had shown you this part of him as well.

“Where is my mattress?” you then asked when you came out of the bathroom.

“In the bedroom,” Jaehyun deadpanned. “Come.”

You raised a brow, but willingly followed him to the bedroom where you found your mattress lying next to the bed. 

“Tonight, you can stay here. Just…” You heard him gulp. “... just… in case you feel unsafe and scared again.”

He made it sound like you had requested for it, which you surely hadn’t, and you both knew. It was Jaehyun’s manner of offering you some kind of security and solace, just because he wanted to, not because you had asked for it.

“Thank you.”

“And next time when I have the day off, I’m going to show you how to shoot with a gun.”

“... what?”

For the first time since you had come here, you didn’t cry yourself to sleep. You didn’t know whether it was because of the shock that was still lingering or because of someone else sleeping right next to you, even though not on the same bed.

“Jaehyun?”

“... Hm?”

You had your back turned to the side of the bed and were facing the wall from your small mattress, eyes wide open while listening to Jaehyun fiddling with the blanket just two feet away from you.

If you had faced him at this moment, you didn’t know if you would still have said what you were about to say.

“I take it back. You’re better than all of them combined.”

He knew what you meant, and despite his missing audible answer, you were sure he had gratefully acknowledged it.

When Jaehyun’s breathing rhythm became quieter and more regular, you could finally relax as well, a foreign nervousness falling off your shoulders and letting you drift off to sleep shortly after.

You felt so safe like never in your life before.

____

“What exactly happened with that man, if I may ask?” 

You were standing in the backyard, Jaehyun getting the gun prepared while you watched him.

“I thought you had all the background info about me before I got here already?” 

“Not the details. I only know about a guy who’s stalked a popular ballerina in Seoul. She dragged him to court, but the judge decided that the evidence was too insufficient and that he’d most likely get free. Since the ballerina claimed he had threatened her again, she was put in this program voluntarily.”

“I didn’t claim that he threatened me,” you disagreed. “He sent a letter. With a death threat. To my home. But the judge said it cannot be proven that it’s from him.”

“I only told you what I heard.”

Yet, he had still taken your fears from the night before seriously. You wondered whether, if Jaehyun had been responsible for your case back there in Seoul, you would still be here now.

“It started with a simple bouquet of roses after every performance shortly after I joined the Korea National Ballet a year ago,” you started. “I just returned from the Netherlands and it was my first engagement as a professional ballerina. At first, I found it flattering to already have such a dedicated fan. He’s a man in his early thirties, neat, groomed and very polite. Until he made his intentions clear and I rejected his advances. That’s when he stopped being polite.”

“That’s where it usually starts,” Jaehyun noted.

You nodded. “Admiration turned into obsession with bouquets that got even bigger and more pompous. With letters that claimed his unconditional love for me. With presents that I’m too embarrassed to talk about. Then, obsession turned into harassment. With phone calls from different numbers over one hundred times a day. With a date’s car tires all slashed. With fake online profiles of mine where manipulated nudes popped up. Back then, I still thought I could handle this all by myself. I’m a grown up woman. I’m responsible for myself.”

“When did it change?” Jaehyun questioned. “When did you report everything to the police?”

“When I started getting texts like ‘Better pull the curtains together when you sleep’ right after I went to bed and ‘Home sweet home’ with a picture of me entering my apartment building. I never disclosed my home address to anyone.”

Jaehyun was lost for words.

“And what did the police do? Nothing. Because they had too little conception of such things, they told me. The guy never signed his gifts, never showed up physically again as well. Presents, calls and letters aren’t a crime. And they didn’t take the phone calls as well as texts seriously enough to track the source as they claimed they wouldn't be able to do it.”

“I’m sorry.” Jaehyun released the gun’s safety catch, and you heard it in his voice that, in comparison to the detective from the plane, he was sincere about it. “There are detectives who care and detectives who don’t care. After all, we’re all normal people. But they were clearly people who didn't care enough.”

“I’m not alone with this situation. There was a case where the stalker waited under the girl’s bed. Another one waited in her roommate’s closet. Another one waited for her right on the streets. And they all ended up dead. I don’t want to join them. I’m only lucky to be here, because my father had the money to. These other girls weren't so lucky. But I want to be lucky and strong for all the girls who couldn’t be and can’t be in the future.”

“What do you mean?”

“I will come back home,” you responded determinedly. “I will come back home and get him imprisoned. This time, forever.”

“I haven’t encountered a woman like you until now,” Jaehyun concluded after some beats of silence passed by in which his gaze didn’t divert from yours.

You furrowed. “Like me?”

He nodded and held up the gun. “So fearless.”

You took it as a compliment and smiled. You hadn’t heard such kind words out of his mouth until now. But then again, this was the first proper conversation you two shared since you lived together.

“Here.” Jaehyun showed you how to properly hold the weapon. “Make sure this finger is here and this one here. Right now, it’s not locked anymore. If you pull the trigger…”

“... it will shoot.”

“Yes. Here, let me lock it again and then try releasing the safety catch yourself.”

You took the gun from his hand after he was done and placed it in your own palms. Positioning your fingers where Jaehyun had shown you, you weren’t able to get it right on the first attempt.

“Your index finger must be here.” Jaehyun touched it and moved it around. “And your thumb… right. Here. But a bit lower for a better grip.” He gently motioned this finger down as well. 

Where you had loathed his touches before, you still minded them. But oddly, not in the same, negative way. No, better say in a way that made you wish he would have his fingers placed on yours for a little bit longer and one that made you crave for more than these little touches.

“You wanna know how to aim at your target?”

Excitedly, you nodded and heard Jaehyun chuckle. For the first time, very genuinely. It was like last night had broken the ice between you two that should have melted weeks ago already.

“Hello? Someone home? It’s me, Rosie!”

“Quick.” Jaehyun took the gun from your hands and hid it behind his back.

“We’re outside!” you called out and saw Rosie turning around the corner a moment later. 

“Hey you two! What a beautiful sunday, right? I hope next week, the weather will be just as beautiful, because then… drum roll please… we’re going to hold our annual spring festival!” She lifted up her hand and presented a few colorful flyers to you. “Please come, okay? There will be boots, an animal competition and a stage for karaoke!”

Immediately, you were hooked. “Of course!” But then, it crossed your mind that you were only allowed to go outside with Jaehyun’s confirmation and instantly fell back into silence, unsure whether to face him.

“You two have fun together. I have volunteered to patrol that day, so I’ll be kind of there anyway.” 

Jaehyun had indeed given you indirect permission!

“Oh, it’s going to be so cool, trust me!” Rosie clapped her hands. “Okay, I’m going to inform the next house! I’m telling you, the people coming into the village center less than you are the Schmidts! See you next week at the latest, alright? And you, we’ll be seeing each other tomorrow at poker, okay?”

You hadn’t known that you were invited again, that you had gotten welcomed with open arms and accepted into this community. But it made you very happy, and you nodded.

“Of course. See you tomorrow.”

Later that day, Jaehyun placed a small object on the table that you hadn’t seen in quite a while. Since primary school, to be exact.

“This is for you.”

“What’s this?” you asked, even though the answer was quite clear. 

You were sleeping in the living room again, but somehow, since the night you had spent by Jaehyun’s side, you felt a bit more lonely than before. You weren’t crying yourself to sleep at all anymore, yet the feeling of loneliness still lingered. 

And it was not the kind of loneliness that made you long to hear a family member’s voice, it was more than that. This, you were sure of.

“An MP3 player,” Jaehyun announced and crinkled up his nose. “I figured, if you were to spend your time here with no connection to the outside world aside from the TV, you might as well spend it with your passion.” He placed a pair of earphones next to the device. “You can use it to listen to music only or to dance. Just as you please.”

You looked at Jaehyun, and saw it clearly now. With the person who had made you feel so unwelcome the day you had landed in this unfamiliar country, he had nothing in common anymore. 

This was not only a side of him, this was him. 

The man Mrs. Jones had talked about who had searched the shelves high and low for exactly this device. The man Rosie saw buying stomach medicine and the one who had helped grandmother Anh when she had fallen. 

This man had finally shown himself to you too in all his aspects.

You didn’t know what had made Jaehyun accept you for who you were to him, but somewhere along the way, he had settled with this arrangement.

And you were getting adjusted to your new life as well, you realized as your features softened. 

“Thank you.”

____

When the day of the festival finally came around, you stood with Rosie in front of grandmother Anh’s booth and tasted her dumplings together.

“My dear girls, you need to try these too! I experimented with another filling, so please give me feedback.”

The old woman shifted another plate in your direction, but you and Rosie waved aside in unison.

“Granny, we’re so stuffed already!” Rosie said. “And you don’t even want us to pay! Leave these for your actual paying guests.”

“Alright, alright! But I’ll make them for our next poker night! And then, you’ll tell me how they taste!”

“Okay!” you agreed. “We’re going to Mrs. Jones’ booth now, grandmother Anh. See you later!”

Linked with Rosie’s arm, you made your way through different booths, passing by people from neighboring villages as well as the stage, until you reached Mrs. Jones at the other side of the festival ground.

“Hello my favorite girls!” she greeted you cheerily. “Look what I have! A cotton candy machine! You can each have one for free!”

“Are you sure you can operate this?” Rosie skeptically raised a brow. “When people serve these, they look so professional, but you haven’t ever used one before, or am I wrong?”

“That’s not true!” the woman whined playfully. “Don’t be so rude, Rosalind Richards, or I’ll have a talk with your father!”

“Guess I’m not one of her favorite girls anymore!” Rosie whispered to you, and you chuckled while Mrs. Jones prepared the cotton candy for each of you.

In the end, the outcome wasn’t even that bad, she only needed to practice a bit more. With the cotton candies in each of your hands, you and Rosie walked over to watch the animal competition. 

People had brought their dogs and walked with them up the stage where they demonstrated different tricks. You and your friend were standing there for the entire time, eating your cotton candy and watching the dogs show off what they had practiced for. When the competition was over, you rode a few rounds on the small ferris wheel and visited the other booths, only finishing your tour when the sun was already setting.

Your last stop was a shooting gallery where you met Jaehyun overlooking the situation. He had been here since the morning, so you assumed he was off duty now as he wasn’t in his uniform anymore, standing at the sidelines, joking with another colleague. 

You had never seen him effortlessly interacting with other people in daily situations before, and for the first time, you perceived him as the normal man that he was outside of your fake marriage. Casually standing there, talking, laughing. A normal man whose dark hair was blowing in the wind, his sleeves rolled up, his arms folded in front of his chest.

A perfectly normal man who was also very attractive. 

As his head slowly moved to the side, your gazes met, and you gulped, somehow embarrassed that you had gotten caught, although it was only natural to look at your partner. 

Jaehyun was a man you could have easily felt attracted to if you had met under normal circumstances, not as your fake husband and your taciturn protector.

You had only failed to see clearly until this day.

“Oh look, it’s your husband Jay!” Rosie then finally noticed as well. “Let’s go over to them!”

A smile spread across Jaehyun’s face and he lifted his hand to wave at you. When you approached his group though, he got called over to the booth and took a rifle in his hand. Apparently, he had lined up to shoot.

“Oh let’s watch him!” Rosie urged.

“Jay is our best shooter,” one of his colleagues said proudly. “Look closely.”

He was leaning over the booth’s counter, his rolled up sleeves revealing his muscular arms and veiny hands. His entire body was tensed up, every single nerve concentrated on bringing down the targets. The air was almost static due to the tension as even other people stopped to watch.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Before you could even process what had happened, Jaehyun had shot down all three targets at the first go, and the spectators were rejoicing. 

“Wow!” Rosie exclaimed. “What was that? I couldn’t even follow the happenings!”

Indeed! You watched Jaehyun giving back the rifle and having presented the prizes in the back of the booth which offered everything, from giant plushies, different toys to knick-knacks. Knowing Jaehyun, he would probably take a pass on that, so you were quite surprised when he chose something from the knick-knacks.

You couldn’t see what it exactly was, but as he shifted around to you, Jaehyun approached you with a keychain dangling between his fingers. It was a yellow elephant that wore a red tie. It looked hella ridiculous and childish - but not to you. 

Stretching out his hand, Jaehyun held it out to you, and you were stunned, not exactly knowing where to turn your attention to: the gift or Jaehyun who looked at you with a gaze you had never seen on him before.

As you didn’t move, you felt Rosie’s elbow poking into your back, pulling you back to reality. No, you shouldn’t behave like a dumbfounded twelve-year-old, this was officially your husband after all!

So you raised your hand and took the keychain between your fingers. It was a plush knick-knack that probably wasn’t valuable at all. But Jaehyun had chosen this one among everything he had been offered to give it to you. And you would treasure it dearly.

You smiled. “Thank you.”

“It’s late. Let’s go home?”

You nodded and said goodbye to Rosie before you followed Jaehyun across the festival ground. You had trouble keeping up with his steps among all these people, so Jaehyun did what every other good husband would do: he reached for your hand and kept it in his until you had left the premises.

That was only for the show in front of all these people, you kept telling yourself the entire time. You had to prove to them that you were a happily married couple, and such couples did things like these.

The keychain, which you had attached to your purse, dangled with each step you took as you raised your voice, “Jaehyun…”

“Hm?”

“Why are you here?” you wanted to know. “You know my story, but what about yours? Is this your department?”

You spent every day alongside this man, yet knew nothing about the true him. At first, you hadn’t cared either. But the more time you spent by his side, the more it irked you that he was still such an enigma.

You thought he’d stonewall, but he gave you a clear answer, “I’m the NYPD, as a matter of fact.”

“Oh, I see. New York, hm.” You nodded. “And… why are you here?” 

The way his fingers cramped up around yours made you freeze despite having to keep up with his pace while walking. You had hit a sensitive nerve, you immediately became aware of that.

“I’m sor-”

“You really want to know?” he asked back. 

“Yeah.” You shrugged. 

“I did something a good detective should have never done.”

And with this sentence, he wasn’t about to tell you more. He didn’t need to express this, you were able to read the atmosphere. But that only kept your thoughts spinning. What was something so terrible that a detective could do that got him transferred to another area of responsibility?

You didn’t believe that Jaehyun was a bad person. 

He was cold at times, but an entirely cold person wouldn’t have let you sleep on the bed while they were enduring back problems. He was grumpy at times, but an entirely grumpy person wouldn’t have warmed up to the point of letting a smile slip every now and then. He pretended not to care at times, but a person who entirely didn’t care wouldn’t make sure that the people around them would be well and healthy. 

He was crude at times, but an entirely crude person wouldn’t have held your hand until you were home.

____

“What are you doing?” Jaehyun asked you when he came home from work that day and found you sitting at the edge of the bathtub with the bathroom’s door wide open.

“Dyeing my hair.”

“Pink? Red?” he asked.

“Magenta. It was quite an adventure until I had the base, but I think I’m there now,” you explained while you stirred the color in the small bowl in your palm. A huge amount had already been put on your head.

“Isn’t it too…” He stopped.

“Too flamboyant?” You intentionally used the word he had described you with the first time you had met. “Probably. But, just in case someone will ever make a connection between me and the ballerina from Seoul, they will dismiss the thought immediately since my English is almost flawless and my hair doesn’t match the color.”

Jaehyun seemed to ponder about it, but then confirmed your way of thinking. “I think you’re right.”

“Besides…” You smiled mildly. “Ever since I was little, I was never allowed to alter my appearance. A ballerina has to look perfect where perfect means we all have to look the same. Same hair, same makeup, same figure. It’s kind of nice to try something new after all this time.”

“Okay.” Jaehyun held up a plastic bag. “Grandmother Anh gave me these dumplings when I dropped by her restaurant today. I’ll prepare them for dinner, okay?”

“Alright!”

“Hurry up, they’ll be done in a few.”

“Got it.”

You quickly finished dyeing your hair and wrapped it all up with a shower cap before you went to the dinner table where Jaehyun had not only prepared the dumplings, but also different side dishes such as rice and vegetables.

You hadn’t known that he was such a good cook, but thinking back, Jaehyun had always prepared more extravagant dishes in comparison to you who just threw rice and vegetables together.  In fact, you had never quite learned how to cook.

This was the first time that you and Jaehyun ate dinner together and the first time that he had cooked for you, too.

“You look ridiculous,” he commented while he scooped rice on each of your plates. But was this a chuckle that had accompanied his voice?

“It’s not quite done yet. Wait until it’s washed out and dried. I’ll be the only pink-haired ballerina walking on this earth!”

You threw your hands in the air, almost tipping over a bowl, but you didn’t mind. Somehow, this was a very good feeling - to finally make your own decisions for your own body, your own appearance. It was only a minor change, but to you, it felt like you could conquer the world. 

“Enjoy the meal!” you announced and then dug in. 

By the first bite you could tell that Jaehyun was not only a good cook, but an exceptionally good cook. This, you also told him, which turned him all flustered. He then asked about your day to which you answered that you had thought of finally picking up dancing again after much struggle.

“Why did you struggle?”

You lowered your head. “Because the last time I danced, it only brought me misery.”

You were at your last bite, but suddenly didn’t feel like finishing anymore. Before, you had felt something like easiness, even happiness almost for quite a constant while. Now, your thoughts got thrown back to your stalker who was roaming around in freedom.

“If it’s your passion, you shouldn’t lose sight of it. Because you don’t know whether you will still be able to enjoy it whenever you want in your future.”

You didn’t know what he meant with that, but he wasn’t keen on explaining either as he gathered your plates and brought them over to the sink the moment after.

It was the first evening in a long while that you peacefully enjoyed without a burdened heart. You wouldn’t mind this becoming your routine.

Later that evening, when you had washed out the dye and dried your hair, you hid in the backyard of your house where no one could see you with earplugs in and the MP3 player attached to your body, picking up some ballet moves again.

Sheltered from the whole outside world, you tried to let the fact sink in that you were safe here and that no one would come to make your life miserable after a performance. Here, you could actually be at peace again.

And then, you danced until it turned dark.

When you returned to the inside, Jaehyun had accidentally fallen asleep on the couch with a book on his chest. On tip-toes, you sneaked up to him and wanted to take the book out of his hand to put a blanket over him when something suddenly urged you to halt.

The first two buttons of his white shirt were open, and right there, between the first and second one, you spotted a scar.

Of course. A detective always went hand-in-hand with danger. He was your husband, you saw him every day, yet this was the first time that you noticed this visible mark on his chest. How many more dangers had he encountered so far? How many more bullets had he caught during his young career? You knew nothing about it.

You stretched out your hand, determined to touch the spot, but snapped out of your trance-like state just before you laid your fingers on him. In your head, you scolded yourself. What in the hell were you thinking, behaving like such a creep?

You tried to calm yourself down when suddenly, Jaehyun’s hand snatched forward and wrapped around your wrist before you could even blink. You got bent forward over the backrest with his other arm then enclosed around your neck, his eyes full with surprise as he brought your face close to his.

“You’re so beautiful.” Barely a whisper from him.

You stared at each other for a moment in near disbelief, and you didn’t know where the ground and where the ceiling was anymore as everything around you seemed to rotate. Your whole body felt so hot as though you were suffering from a fever, but your heart beating out of its usual rhythm told you that the reason for your body reacting this way was nowhere near something rational things could explain.

A part of you wanted to break free, another part wanted to look into his soft eyes just a bit longer.

“It’s you!” With a sigh of relief, Jaehyun let go of you and fell back down on the couch. “I wasn’t able to recognize you at first because of your new hair! I thought it was a thief or something!”

“Ha.” You couldn’t even explain the sounds coming out of your mouth anymore, and thus decided to remain quiet about it. “I’ll go take a shower.”

“Okay. I’ll go to bed then. Good night.”

When the door fell close behind you, you leaned against the bathroom’s tiles, trying to calm yourself down once again. But even when you placed your palms on your cheeks a few minutes later, you were still hot all over.

Staring at your face in the mirror over the sink, you gritted your teeth, having tried to fight against this feeling for so long. But looking at your reflection, you came to the realization that this was the expression of someone who had lost this fight a long time ago.

You had never wanted this to happen, because you wanted a way out of this fake marriage someday. 

Now, it seemed like the exit door was blocked by your own feelings.

____

“Can I tell you something?” Rosie asked you the next time you gathered to play poker. “Because you’re my friend now, I want to be honest with you.”

Mrs. Jones was currently giving out the cards, and while you collected them, you nodded. “Go ahead. Is it my hair? You’ve been staring at it forever. I like it though.”

“I love the color, but it obviously looks like you did it yourself. Why didn’t you call me? I could have helped!”

“I’m sorry, it was an urge, I’m very impulsive. So, what is it then?”

“To be honest, in the beginning, you and Jay didn’t quite radiate the happiness of newlyweds to me. You were so distant and cold towards each other,” Rosie laid out her first impression. “I thought it was because of the cultural difference. I know from grandmother Anh that in Asia, public display of affection is not very common and you both immigrated from there. But it was like…” She halted. “Like you were strangers. Not familiar with each other at all. As though you had just met.”

You didn’t know how to properly react to this revelation, and Rosie wanted to apologize right away before grandmother Anh stepped in to support her, “I second that. You tried so hard to conceal it and pretended to be a happy couple, but my old eyes can see beyond that. When he bought the music player for you though… I knew that something had entirely changed between you two.”

Between you two?

You had only assumed that for you things had changed since the day of the festival. When he had looked a little too good that day. When he had smiled a little too genuine. When he had held your hand a little too long.

But never for him either.

“Everything has changed,” grandmother Anh continued. “You look so in love, just like when my late husband was courting me back then.”

You pressed your lips together to a fine line and you tried so hard not to blush, but to no avail as you looked into everyone’s eyes and encountered a smug grin from each side. 

No, you were wrong. The day of the festival was the day you had assumed first, admitting it to yourself the day you had picked up ballet again. But something had changed for you before all that. Slowly, continuously. And it was still in process.

“See?” Rosie teased. “This is how Jay looked as well when I told him exactly the same!”

“Quit joking,” you replied briefly, but your voice only came out as a whisper while the hotness wandered further to the very tips of your ears. “You’re giving out cards now or what?”

“Let me tell you something!” Mrs. Jones now meddled too, not wanting to be left out. “After so many years of marriage, I haven’t seen my husband getting so stressed about buying a gift for me, not even on my birthday!”

But you hadn’t even talked to each other regularly back then when Jaehyun was looking for the MP3 player for you. 

It just didn’t make sense to you.

Or were you just in denial because it couldn’t actually be possible? After everything that had happened between you two, Jaehyun had grown fond of you from the very beginning already, even before you? 

“Oh dear, why are you making such a face?” Grandmother Anh sounded worried as your hands still laid on the table, not touching the cards you had been given while everyone else had already picked up theirs. “Are you not feeling well?”

You were certainly not feeling well. Your stomach had turned upside down, and you suddenly felt like you couldn’t breathe, on the verge of a collapse. While it had become so obvious to everyone around you, you had been left in the dark this entire time.

“I need to get fresh air.”

You arose, pushing the chair under you away with your legs and hurried to the entrance door before you thought you were going to run out of air entirely now. But even the outside didn’t make a difference, and you were supporting your arms against the wall while breathing in and out heavily.

After a while, you heard the entrance door open and close again, and judging by the shoes that you could see from your position, Rosie had followed you to the outside. 

“I called Jaehyun to pick you up.”

“What?!” Your eyes widened and you felt your stomach turn. In your hot ears, you heard it ringing while simultaneously, your loud heartbeats tried to steal the show. “I’m all fine!”

“Yeah,” she chuckled. “But I thought you’d rather want to be with your husband today than with us, and this is a good excuse to leave the round. Just pretend to be a little dizzy.”

“Rosie!” you called her out while the next moment, you heard fast footsteps approaching in your direction. “I’m not coming to your birthday barbecue anymore next week!”

“I know you’re lying.” She winked.

“Are you okay?!” Jaehyun came to a halt in front of you, totally out of breath and beads of sweat visible on his forehead. He only needed a brief moment to take a breather before he faced you, his features drawn with apprehension, his eyes mirroring pure concern. 

The next moment, his palms were on your cheeks, and he gasped, feeling your heat burning against his skin.

“You’re all glowing and hot!” Jaehyun stated in shock. “Do you have a fever?”

“I-I’m… I’m all fine!” you tried to brush it off, but his hands cupping your face possibly made it only worse as you felt like melting from within.

“Jay, you need to take her home, okay?” Rosie persuaded him. “The gathering is over. Have a good night!”

With these words, she turned around and closed the door behind her, leaving you alone with Jaehyun. Despite having been alone with him so often already, with all this new knowledge, everything was different now.

You were jittery and all nervous around him, having problems looking into his eyes, and he noticed of course - but for all the wrong reasons.

“Come, we’re going home! You’re sleeping in the bed tonight, no questions asked. I’ll get a few more blankets so you’ll have it all warm in case you’re catching a fever. Tomorrow, you’ll be doing fine again, no worry. It’s probably the change in weather since it’s been unusually hot these past days for spring.”

You hadn’t ever seen him so talkative and openly expressing worry, and it somehow took you by surprise. Goosebumps raised all over your arm as Jaehyun’s hand slid down your side and his fingers intertwined with yours.

There were no other people aside from you out here at this hour, there was no need to pretend being a couple - yet, he held your hand as you walked all the way up to your house in silence.

It didn’t feel real to you.

But the night sky was your witness.

____

A few days later, long after nighttime had fallen, you were lying on your mattress, still wide awake like the nights before. 

You hadn’t noticed until now, but your life wasn’t so dull anymore. You weren’t on the verge of depression anymore in contrast to the first month in your new home. You had made new friends, had picked up your passion for ballet again, trained during daytime, and spent the evenings with Jaehyun, cooking, eating and then watching a movie or taking a stroll on the hill behind your house together. 

It was an entire different life from the one you had lived back at home in Seoul, but nothing you enjoyed less. No, which you enjoyed even more, if you said so yourself. 

A warm feeling embraced you every time the clock approached the hour your husband would return home, and even though you saw each other every day, it was like seeing him for the first time, your heart almost jumping out of your chest whenever he walked through the door, greeting you with a smile.

You were able to clearly name that feeling now that made you so excited, you were barely able to sleep at night while Jaehyun was lying in the room next to you, sleeping peacefully.

Or… could he not either?

There were noises coming from the bedroom. You sat straight up on your mattress, feeling a rush of hotness wash over you with your heart beating out of its usual rhythm. Flipping the blanket over, your naked feet touched the wooden floor, but you didn’t bother slipping into your shoes.

You tiptoed to the bedroom to make sure that your ears hadn’t misled you, but you swore you could hear him walking up and down in there as well. With a trembling hand, you placed your fingers on the handle, but before you could even think about how in the hell you could explain what you were doing in front of Jaehyun’s bedroom in the middle of the night, only dressed in your light pajamas, the door suddenly opened from the other side.

Jaehyun was just as shocked to see you as you were shocked to see him. You wanted to stutter something about sleepwalking, but as you made eye contact, you realized that he wasn’t expecting an explanation from you.

He wasn’t expecting anything as he closed the last remaining gap between you two, his hands cupping your face again, this time to pull you against his chest. 

And as his lips met yours, you now were assured that he had lied awake every night like you as well. 

____

With hasty movements, Jaehyun unbuttoned your pajama top all while not letting his lips slip from yours, his fingers rather fumbling, but knowing exactly and precisely what they were doing and the carelessness most likely stemming from pent-up anticipation, because he was finally getting what he had wanted all along:

You.

You felt him smiling into the next kiss that came rather sloppy in his hurry as your shirt glided from your shoulders, the palpable traces along your skin getting replaced by Jaehyun’s fingers that drew down the same path in a feathery-light manner. 

He was holding himself back until it almost hurt, you felt it as his fingers’ grips were first tight, then froze and softened lastly. But you didn’t want him to hold back. You had both been holding back for way too long already.

Both of your hands slung around Jaehyun’s neck as you deepened the kiss until it almost became hard for you to breathe, that was how wildly and hungrily you were craving for each other. With a little jump, you also hooked your legs around his waist, feeling him supporting you instinctively from the bottom with a strong grip.

You moved from the door frame to the bed where Jaehyun seated himself down and placed you on his lap, but you had no intention of moving away as your fingers vanished under his shirt and pulled it over his head in one swift motion.

But Jaehyun’s lips didn’t find their way back to your mouth. Instead, they traveled down the side of your neck, eliciting a moan from you in the process, and stopped by the raising of your breasts. You threw your head back, your nails digging into the flesh of his shoulders, leaving red marks as he took your nipple between his lips.

Sucking sounds mixed with the audible rhythm of your heavy breathing, thwarted by suppressed squeals whenever he bit into it, pulling it between his teeth and teasing you until you couldn’t take it anymore. So Jaehyun then wrapped his arms around you and flipped you both around.

“You have no idea for how long I’ve been holding back,” he told you with an expression on his face that you had never encountered before as he was hovering over you. 

Lust, desire, and so much… passion. 

Yes, you for sure had had no idea. But you luckily did now. 

Strands of your red hair had gotten disheveled, partially disturbing your view, and he brushed them off, smiling. For a short while, you shared a moment of loving understanding, and your heart thumbed so fast against your chest, you were scared he was going to hear it.

There was a distinct feeling growing inside of you that didn’t want to admit. That you couldn’t confess, not even to yourself. Because you knew, this was only temporary.

“Then show me,” you challenged him.

“Very well.”

His grin widened, revealing his teeth even in the semi-darkness when his mouth came back down on yours, his hands roaming across almost every single inch of your body as though he wanted to keep a map of your body in his mind. As though he shared the exact same thought with you:

That this was not permanent, struggling with holding himself back to prolong the experience and going through with the act as fast as possible because he had been looking forward to it for so long already.

Jaehyun’s lips left yours, passing by your neck and tracing down to your stomach where he placed butterfly kisses around your navel, and you shuddered from the soft touches that you had been missing out on for a very long time already.

Your hands disappeared in the thickness of his hair as his lips further approached your nether regions, and you gave him credit for still being so patient when release was so close as it made you almost go crazy in contrast.

Tender warmth covered your core, the fabric of your pajama bottoms being the only barrier between the two of you, and you craved for nothing more than to feel his tongue inside you right now, feel how it dipped into your wetness, his mouth doing the same as he had done to your breasts before.

But Jaehyun’s patience had reached its limit. There was nothing left of it anymore.

After several moments of internal conflict, Jaehyun decided to not withhold anymore and to go for it instead. At the end, he had the entire night, and he would make use of every single second he had left.

The mattress gave in under you when he hooked his fingers into the waistband of your pajama bottoms after he had removed his own boxers, the feeling of his weight then carefully pressing back down on you, now the both of you entirely naked. It felt so surreal to you as you locked your gazes, and you needed a moment to process this situation, to let the fact sink in that this was indeed real.

Then, as though he had just done the same, Jaehyun eased between your thighs and started to enter you. The night was still so long, but it felt like he didn’t want to lose any time, and neither did you. You hadn’t noticed how wet you had gotten throughout the foreplay which had made his entrance so easy, almost imperceptible.

Your pupils rolled to the ceiling as he adjusted and you finally felt him inside you fully. You couldn’t quite remember the last man you had been intimate with, even though it had happened only shortly before moving here, but somehow, Jaehyun had clouded your memories of every other man in your life who wasn’t him at this point.

As a matter of fact, on the contrary, you now knew that you had never desired another man this much. Every fiber of your body was longing for him so badly that despite him being right here, it ached so much not to have him even closer. And that wasn’t even physically possible.

“What’s wrong?” Jaehyun asked suddenly, having noticed your conflicted expression and coming to a halt.

You shook your head. No, nothing was wrong. Everything was perfect, it was almost unbelievable.

“I-... I…” You were so overwhelmed by your feelings, the words nearly slipped carelessly out of your mouth. Luckily, for you though, you were able to swallow all of them. Instead, you said, “I’m just so happy.”

The corners of Jaehyun’s lips tilted up, and he took this moment of sweetness to tenderly peck your lips and confess, “Me too. I’m happy too.”

Soft moans fell from your lips as he started moving inside of you again. His motions were deliberate and powerful, and you enjoyed every single thrust of his. Jaehyun was so excited, but put you first still, and you appreciated that.

There were times, his thrusts seemed insatiable as he rammed into you nearly in a trance, seeking for his release, but despite you enjoying these rough phases very much as well, he always calmed down and feeded you with slow, sensual pushes that put you on the verge of being delighted and desperately wanting more.

His lips were wet and warm against your lips when his hips got a rest on top of yours, and you were quick to hook your ankles around his waist when he picked up his pace for the nth time, but this time being the last that would finally bring the long awaited release, you both knew at that moment.

Jaehyun’s chest glistened with a paper thin layer of sweat, and your eyes wandered along his neck to his face where you watched him in awe changing his features to a more tensed one, working towards your orgasms. Your fingers slithered up his arms that were propped up to the left and right of yours, and you held tightly onto him, breaking your eye contact to not let his hard work go to waste and concentrate on yourself.

You bit into his arm as you came, and he let out a groan, whether it was because of your bite or because of him reaching his own heights as he released into the sheets next to you, you didn’t know. But at that moment, as you slipped out of this world for a few seconds, you wished that you could have this for the rest of your life.

Especially for - no, because of - what followed after.

Your grumpy and always stoic husband rolled onto the space next to you to take a rest, a smile spreading across his face that just wouldn’t vanish anymore as he turned his head aside and looked at you. And you genuinely felt the same. 

Instinctively, you moved over to him, and he stretched out his arms to pull you onto his chest where you laid yourself down. You didn’t say anything for a long time until you felt him pressing his lips on your forehead.

Now, you truly felt like you had arrived at home.

There, it was so warm, and so comfortable that you wanted to stay forever.

____

Rosie’s birthday barbecue took place the next day where the festival had been held weeks prior. If anything, you knew by now that her father, the pharmacist and major apparently, technically built this village. Aside from the pharmacy, he owned several other stores here.

Unfortunately, you had come all by yourself. 

Jaehyun had left early in the morning already, rudely awakened by a call from his supervisor, so you weren’t able to fully concentrate on celebrating Rosie’s big day right now as you wished, but for reasons that couldn’t wipe that grin from your face.

Your thoughts revolved around Jaehyun as well as around what had happened the night before - several times in different positions as though he had feared he was running out of time to do all this to you.

This morning, you had woken up with your limbs entangled and strands of your hair in his face, but he hadn’t complained. Instead, after getting the call, he had pulled you closer to him, lying in bed with you a few minutes more and even kissing you goodbye when he had walked out of the door.

You flushed when you recalled the memories.

“My, my! What’s that?” Rosie called you out as she took the seat next to you. “What’re you blushing for? Long night with your husband?”

“Rosie!” you called out indignantly, totally shocked, but she only laughed.

“Come on, nobody heard! Lucky you!”

You shook your head and shifted a small box in your friend’s direction. “Open it.”

“What are you doing?” Rosie feigned upset. “I told you to not get me anything!”

“Well, the gift shopping area in this village is very limited, but I didn’t want to come empty-handed.”

You could tell Rosie was very excited as her fingers fiddled with the ribbon that held the gift wrap together. As she untied it, a small, flat box was revealed.

“It’s not much, but where I come from, these are very trendy now, and I’m more of a personal gift giver than buying something random. My husband had to order them from the internet, but the rest was made by me. I hope you like it.”

Rosie stilled her motions. “Did you just say ‘my husband’?”

Did you? You gasped nearly inaudibly. You had never referred to him like this before, and truth to be told, you hadn’t even intended to do so now. It had just slipped somehow.

Your friend giggled. “Your husband always refers to you as ‘my wife’, and I found it odd that you hadn’t until now. Perhaps, it took you longer to get used to it, right?”

“...Right.” You kneaded your fingers in uncertainty.

“Are you kidding?!” Rosie then squealed as she opened her gift fully and pulled out a pearl bracelet. “It’s so cute!”

It was made of freshwater pearls in different colors that you had beaded yourself with all the colors Rosie liked the best. You had never seen her wearing jewelry, so she apparently didn’t want to bother taking them on and off.

“It’s an elastic band, so you don’t have to close and open it every morning. You can wear it all the time or take it off and put it on easily.”

Rosie pulled it over her hand and held her wrist against the sunlight. “Such pretty colors! Thank you so much! I will cherish this all my life! It’s a token of our friendship!”

She cuddled you a little bit too tight for your liking, but you didn’t mind. You hadn’t seen such an openly pure reaction to your gifts ever when you had given presents to your friends or family all along. And they had been more expensive and impressive than what you had given to Rosie.

Here, life was much easier. People seemed to be content and satisfied with the little things life had to offer, that was why they had chosen to stay in the countryside. You admired this mindset as people in the big city always thrived to achieve more and to be better than everyone else. 

You wanted to be more like Rosie and the villagers.

“Okay, let’s eat now! The meat is ready!”

You really wanted to enjoy the barbecue, and more often than not, you earnestly did. But watching Mr. and Mrs. Jones' banter-like but loving interactions, along with many other married and dating couples, made you long for something which you had never expected to be missing. 

“What is it, dear?” Grandmother Anh then asked you as most of the people were slowly finishing their meals and moved on to play with the children or to talk with each other. “You look so somber.”

You, among only a handful of other guests who were still eating, had remained in their seats. Next to you, there was an extra plate with food that hadn’t been touched yet.

“Grandmother Anh…” You turned to her, your eyes expressing exactly what was going on inside of you. “Is it possible to miss someone so much, your heart hurts even though you had only been together in the morning?”

Because that was how you were feeling now. You wanted to be around Jaehyun all day, all night, not missing out on his presence even a single moment. Where you had loathed his existence before, it was all you could think about now and how you’d probably die of a heartache if he was ever gone.

You had never experienced something close to this.

“Oh dear…” Grandmother Anh squeezed your arm and smiled compassionately. “I miss my husband starting from the moment I open my eyes in the morning. And I even felt like that when he was still with me. We weren’t separated for a single day, and I know that even now, he’s with me.”

Because they loved each other wholeheartedly. You couldn’t say the same about what Jaehyun felt for you.

“But why are you so upset right now, dear?” she asked you. “He’s here now.”

“... what?”

You looked up and spotted Jaehyun walking down the street in your direction. You suppressed the urge to blink a few times in case this wasn’t real. But grandmother Anh had just said so, and he would be standing right in front of you not too long from now.

Suddenly, you were all nervous and excited like a child on the first day of school. Jumping out of your chair, hitting the table’s edge in the process and flushing to your cheeks, you didn’t quite know what to do at first. You wanted to run towards him and jump into the safety of his arms like this morning, but were too shy to do so.

What if he rejected you?

What if last night and this morning were an exception?

What if he had returned to being the reserved and taciturn Jaehyun from the beginning?

These were thoughts that were running through your head when you were standing there awkwardly to welcome him.

“I…” you then started when he stopped right in front of you, his mien not quite expressive enough for you to read. “I saved you some meat and potato salad.”

You didn’t know what you were saying, you were only trying to downplay this awkwardness that had weighed down the lighthearted atmosphere of the party as Jaehyun also clearly didn’t know how to behave after your intimate encounters.

“Are there n-”

But your words got stuck in your throat as Jaehyun stretched out his arms and cupped your glowing cheeks with his palms. It was almost magical how instantly, you were able to calm down. Then, he pulled you towards him, covering your lips with his as though he had been waiting all day only to do that.

As he kissed you there, in front of everyone, chastely, but also deeply, you knew that this wasn’t an act. This was not staged for the villagers to believe that you were a truly married couple.

This was honest. His feelings were real.

“God, I’ve wanted to do that all day,” he admitted, tucking a strand of your hair that had gotten loose behind your hair. “I thought time would never pass.”

And you were on the same page.

You were still on the same page when the front door of your house closed behind you later that evening and Jaehyun shoved you against the door, devouring all of you with an open mouth and his tongue, his fingers locked with yours in a tight grip, pinned against the wall above your head.

You were still on the same page when he bent you over the kitchen counter, not even showing the slightest patience by undressing you clothing for clothing as he just dragged your pants down and pushed into you from behind with a long-suppressed groan that made you scream in excitement.

You were still on the same page when you laid your palms flat on the surface in the illusion of getting support, moving along his length to meet his thrusts whenever he pulled out to just slam back into you full-force, because you couldn’t take being apart from him for even a second.

You were still on the same page when you were shaking from past-orgasm spasm, his cum dripping down your hips as he had released on your back, and he carried you on his hands to the bedroom with the words,

“I’m not done yet.”

It was raw.

And it was real.

____

For the fifth morning in a row, you woke up next to Jaehyun. And every time, it still felt so surreal to you that you wanted to give yourself a pinch to make sure this was real. But whenever you turned to his side, his arms tightly wrapped around you, and looked into his eyes that were so sincere and clear, you didn’t mind if this was a dream after all if only you wouldn’t wake up from it.

But today, his expression was clouded, and you could tell something was bothering him gravely that he couldn’t let go of.

“What is it?” you asked him, barely awake yet, but irritated that he wasn’t cuddling with you as usual. “Did something happen?”

It was odd. The fact that you could live with a person for so long and still know nothing about them. That was what Jaehyun told you the next moment.

“What do you mean?”

“That you don’t know my biggest secret yet. And that it might make you hate me.”

You feared that your whole world would teeter under your feet the further he spoke about what he had to confess to you. At this point, you loved him so much, you didn’t know what could possibly make you hate him. After all, he was a detective, and one of the good ones.

The last thing he would have done was kill an innocent person.

… right?

Jaehyun’s struggles were almost palpable for you as he inhaled and exhaled deeply, the muscles on his chest straining and never seeming to relax anymore as he withdrew into a deep hole of silence.

Minutes passed without him crawling out of it, and you sat up yourself, leaning against the headboard while Jaehyun was leaning forward, not facing each other. You wanted to hug him from the back to give him comfort, but also sensed that this would only restrain him from crossing over the final line he was so close to reaching.

And he really wanted to pass it.

“I could never hate you,” you told him. “I l-...” You gulped. “You’re a good person. What would ever make me hate you?”

“Not even knowing that I ruined someone’s life?”

There it was. The elephant in the room that rendered you totally motionless and emotionless. Ruining someone’s life was a wide term and could come in many shapes and forms, each that had a different impact on the victim, and the culprit. 

You desperately wanted to know Jaehyun’s dimension, and you knew he desperately, finally wanted to tell you.

“Explain to me. Has it got something to do with the scar on your chest?”

“Yes. As a detective, my job is to protect the victims. But I failed to do so once when I purposely hurt them.”

“How so?”

Jaehyun bent further forward, and you perceived how he lifted his hands to ruffle his hair in aggravation before he continued, “Last week, at Rosie’s birthday party when I got called to my supervisor, I told you it was about my case.”

You nodded. You hadn’t pushed the topic, because if Jaehyun had wanted to talk, he would have come forward. And now, it was apparently the time.

“This case has brought me here to this witness protection program. I’m clearing my name and serving my sentence, because I hurt a victim. The trial is long finished since the victim decided not to press charges, but hurting a hostage is not seen as a peccadillo among the police nonetheless. After I got suspended for a few months, I got sent here to prove myself again while working in another unit and eventually return to the NYPD.”

You had a hard time processing what Jaehyun tried to get into your head. Inwardly, you were repeating every single syllable until they settled.

“I ruined a life. That hostage, a woman… I shot at her,” he pressed bitterly through gritted teeth. “There, you have it. The reason to hate me.”

Your brow arched. “I don’t quite understand. Why did you shoot at a hostage?”

Being nosy was one of your characteristics, but the best part of it was that you never judged a situation before you got all the details, and you hadn’t collected enough details to waive Jaehyun’s action as something bad yet.

“The kidnapper was holding her hostage with a gun pointed at her head.” 

It was difficult for Jaehyun to speak about this situation, you could tell from the way he expressed himself, with hitches and deep breathers in between, but you gave him all the time he needed.

You lifted your hand and touched his back in a reassuring gesture, scared he would shy away, but still wanted to try. Instead of retreating, you felt his muscles relaxing under your palm, and you exhaled in relief, letting him know you were there for emotional support, no matter what was to come.

And what was about to come was really hard to digest.

“Instead of shooting at the kidnapper, I shot at the hostage’s leg. Of course I didn’t want to hurt her on purpose, but at this moment, it was the best thing that I could do. I could see it in his eyes. He really wanted to pull the trigger, that was how ruthless and brutal he was. As soon as I would shoot at him, he would shoot at her. So I had to do the last thing a policeman is supposed to do, and aimed at the hostage instead.”

Your forehead was in creases. You couldn’t grasp the entire situation as it sounded just so absurd to you. As a ballerina in the spotlight, you had never gotten in touch with this dark side of the world.

But Jaehyun was a good person. So good, that he omitted the entire story from you.

“You shot at the hostage, because an injured hostage is useless to the culprit,” it suddenly became clear to you. “You’re not a bad person, Jaehyun. That’s very courageous. And honorable as you did everything to save the hostage.”

His shoulders shook, and you were irritated whether he was laughing or crying. Until you noticed that his shaking was actually trembling, and that he was uttering indistinct sounds. Only moments later, you realized that he was, indeed, silently crying.

You just weren’t sure whether these were tears of guilt or tears of relief for finally coming clear with you.

“The scar… it’s from a bullet, right? Did he shoot directly at you after that? Is that how you got it?” 

“Even if, at the moment I pulled the trigger, he let go of the culprit and shot at me, I didn’t save her life.”

You felt a tight knot in your stomach. “Jaehyun… that woman… is she still alive?”

It didn’t sound like she didn’t survive the entire incident, but you wanted to hear it from him. Almost instinctively, he nodded with much hesitation, and relief washed over you. 

“But at what cost?” he broke through your thoughts. “That woman… one of her legs was rendered useless. I hit der at such an unfortunate spot-”

“But she still has her life,” you interfered. “And you risked your own life for her. You were ready to die for a victim. But she’s still alive, and you as well. That’s all that matters.”

“All that matters? Here’s the thing you’ll hate me for…” He sucked in a rush of air. “She was a professional ballerina. Just like you.”

You didn’t know what to say. Perhaps, it was best to not say anything at all now.

For a ballerina to lose the ability to use even one of her legs was the most unfortunate thing that could happen. All your life, you were trained to rely on your legs. They were your pillars that carried your passion, your career. You were dependent on your legs. You hadn’t learned how to use anything else to get through life.

You leaned forward and replaced the palm of your hand on his back with both of your arms. Gentle, you snuggled up against him and held him in your arms, resting your head in the crook of his neck and closing your eyes, listening to his silent cries.

“Jaehyun. Still. You didn’t ruin a life.”

Everything happening in the past weeks suddenly made so much sense to you. Why Jaehyun had been behaving so hostile upon seeing you for the first time, why he hadn’t wanted you to think so lowly about your safety, why he had wanted you to pick up your passion again, why he had bought you the MP3 player…

“You saved hers.”

Reluctantly, he placed his arms over yours. You really felt his insecurity, but your support was unwavering, and you let him know.

“And you saved yours as well. No lives were lost. You’re a good detective.”

At that moment, you assumed that you were the first person he actually opened up to. And the first person who actually truly understood his deepest feelings.

“Thank you.”

Jaehyun turned to you and kissed you. It tasted of tears and despair. 

And a bit of wishful thinking.

____

“I’m still in therapy because of it,” Jaehyun spoke the day after when he was ready to pick up the topic again. “Well, when I’m in New York, I mean.”

It was constantly warm outside nowadays, you two sitting on the slope of the hill behind your house, and you couldn’t wait to finally embrace summer fully in this part of the world where you had never experienced this season before. 

Your hair was glowing in the bright sunlight. Jaehyun liked to compare it to a pink rose when you woke up in the mornings and he ran his fingers through the strands.

“That’s good,” you coaxed him, showing full support ever since his confession. “I think it’s always good to speak with a professional about traumatic experiences. They will never go away at some point, but we all have to learn to live with them.”

You stood by your opinion that Jaehyun had had no other choice and actually had made the right decision in this situation. You respected him for that, and you had learned that the hostage, who had attended the trial of course, thought so as well as she had voiced during the process.

It was only the inner demons Jaehyun was fighting now, and you would help him get every single one of them caged.

“It’s odd.”

“What is?”

You stretched yourself, enjoying the warmth. “The fact that I know about your most traumatic experience, but not even where you were born.”

“I was born in Seoul, as a matter of fact,” he clarified instantly.

“The city where I live?” you called out in surprise. 

Jaehyun nodded. “I lived there with my mom until I graduated from high school. Then I went to New York because my dad has been working there, and pursued a career as a policeman.”

You pulled grass between your fingers, the mild breeze playing with the tips of your hair strands. “Why did you want to join the police?”

“I’m good at solving cases. And I really want to help people, but didn’t have the patience to go to med school.” Jaehyun looked up, smiling softly against the wind. “Why did you take up ballet classes?”

Yeah… why? You shrugged. “It was something I was passionate about ever since I was a little child.” Your reasoning was not as extensive and detailed as his, but for you, it had always been enough.

And for Jaehyun as well. He turned his head against the sky and basked in the sun. “That’s great. Anything else you want to know?”

“Fair enough, since you knew every fact about me before I even set foot in this country. Do you have siblings?” you jumped at the chance. 

“No.”

“Favorite food?” 

“Nothing specific. I like anything.”

“A country you’d like to visit one day?”

“Japan.”

“A country you have visited and is your favorite?”

He smiles. “I’ve only been to South Korea and here, so… Here.”

“Can you imagine going back there though?” you then asked. “To Seoul, I mean.”

“Absolutely not.”

You didn’t know why his answer hurt you. Disappointment seeped deep into your heart at the realization that your real home and his real home were separated by an entire ocean if you were ever to go back. 

“Do you miss your home?” Jaehyun then returned.

Did you still?

You weren’t so sure about that anymore. You missed your family and your friends, as a matter of fact, and not a day passed in which you didn’t think about them. But not as much and as hurtful as in the beginning where tears had kept you up all night. Your sadness had stepped back, making space for a feeling that was much greater.

But you didn’t want to tell him that.

“Yeah, I do.”

Jaehyun shifted his head back to you. “I can imagine that.”

He kissed you then, right at your favorite spot in the entire village, his fingers entangled in your rosy hair. You felt so happy, yet so regretful as you hadn’t had any memory of a moment where you had been at such a high in your life back there in Seoul.

There, you had everything. The spotlight, your family and your friends. But despite everything, right here and now was where your heart was going to burst because you didn’t know how much bliss it could still grasp.

There were so many more questions you wanted to still ask him.

How his life back there in New York was. How he imagined life when this was all over. Whether he had someone he held dear back home.

But you swallowed all of them down. You were scared of the answers.

You didn’t need to know every little detail about a person’s life to fall in love with them. All it took was to know how they treated others, how they treated you and their outlook on life, nothing more.

Not even their real name.

The rest would fall into place.

Deep down, you had accepted your new life with every aspect it offered itself to you, and whenever you thought about the village and its people, a certain warmth enclosed your heart that nearly made you teary-eyed.

You didn’t want to leave anymore. That was now clear to you.

____

Call it intuition. Gut feeling. A woman’s instinct.

Whatever it was called that you were experiencing that day, it would be right. Your whole world crashed when Jaehyun walked through the door after work that day.

“You have to leave,” were his first words as soon as he spotted you. “Now.”

“... what?”

With widened eyes, you watched the sweat drops on his forehead slowly rolling along his temples. Had he run all the way here? And why did he seem so anxious as though he was trying to uphold a friend? You had never seen him like this.

“Go pack your things. You have five minutes.”

“Jaehyun…” You stood up from the couch. “I don’t understand, only last wee-”

“It’s all settled,” he interjected calmly but curtly. “The day I got called to my supervisor, you remember? They told me I was free to return to the NYPD. My job here is done as they finally found someone else for you. I can go back home, to my old life.”

“That means…?” You halted. You wanted to cover your ears. You didn’t want to hear.

But Jaehyun broke the hard truth down for you. “You’ll be moved to another city, get assigned another fake husband, exactly. The driver will be here in a few.”

You were flabbergasted at how factual his way of delivering the news to you was. “You only stayed with me to deal with your bad conscience, right? Because I’m a ballerina as well, and for protecting me, you would pay your debt? Now that the time is over, you want to get rid of me?”

Of course you hoped he would deny everything you had just accused him of. But he didn’t. This was like a nightmare.

“This program works like that,” Jaehyun explained to you like you were some twelve year old, with much repulsion written all over his face. “You move from one city to another, from one husband to another. You brought this upon yourself.”

Here was the deal with anger. You didn’t feel how it got implanted into you. You couldn’t feel it grow and feed on your pain. Suddenly, it was there, and you didn’t have any control over it until, from one moment to another, it made itself aware verbally and physically.

You wanted to scream, grab for the nearest vase nearby and throw it against the wall, yelling at him how much of an asshole he could be, leading you on this entire time. But sometimes, people were stronger than anger.

And so were you.

He had never led you on. You had always been aware of the rules. He didn’t owe you anything.

“Is that all?” you only brought out dryly, the vowels stuck in your throat. 

You didn’t want to cry, you didn’t owe him a single tear in return, not a single word anymore, because you had known all along that this was about to come eventually. 

This… all this wasn’t real. This wasn’t your life. And the next one wouldn’t be your real life either.

You didn’t know what your next fake home and fake husband would be like. You didn’t know for how long they’d stay this time. All you knew was that you didn’t want them. You didn’t want anyone else other than Jaehyun.

“That’s all.”

But he didn’t want you anymore.

You just wondered how he could stand there, as stoic and taciturn and as cold as when you had first met. 

What had happened to the Jaehyun that woke up next to you every morning, playing with your hair, snuggling up against you and kissing the nape of your neck? The Jaehyun that showed you a different side every night, making you feel so special and loved? The Jaehyun that had let you into his deepest secrets?

Perhaps, he was just so good at his job. No wonder they wanted him back in the NYPD.

Your fingers grabbed just whatever piece of clothing they could find, regardless of whether you had picked up everything that belonged to you or not.

When you rolled your suitcase to the door a few minutes later, you had digested the first waves of shock and were only barely able to hold back your tears. You had expected that the end would come in little steps, with signs that would indicate the last days were approaching, giving you time to adjust, prepare and linger around.

Now, it was like ripping off a band aid. 

As you turned away from him, who had not moved since, tears were burning behind your eyes, but you didn’t want to lose your dignity in front of him. You wanted to defy him again, show him that you were just as strong as him and that it all didn’t bother you. That you had only played the role of a wife so perfectly, you had not only fooled the ones around you, but him as well - just as he had done with you.

But in contrast to Jaehyun, for you, it had meant everything to the point you had wished that this was your real life.

This, you couldn’t lie to yourself about. And it was the thing that hurt the most.

When the car pulled up the next moment, you expected Jaehyun to still say something to you, but he just stood there, with an expressionless face, watching you getting into the vehicle. Your eye contact didn’t break, even though you wished so. You just couldn’t tear your gaze away from him as you still hoped that he would raise his voice and beg you to stay.

And you would have.

But he didn’t.

When the car reverted, he just stood there. When you drove along the main street, he just stood there. Even when you were almost out of his sight, he just stood there.  

“You’re going to Phoenix this time, Miss!” the driver, the same as from your first day, told you, looking through the rear mirror. “I’m sure you’ll like it there!”

No, you wouldn’t. 

This was the most miserable day of your life, and still in the car, you broke down in tears.

You would have given everything to sit down with Rosie, grandmother Anh and Mrs. Jones just once again, playing cards and drinking wine. You would have given everything to go shopping with Rosie and hear her lighthearted laughter again. You would have given everything to eat grandmother Anh’s dumplings and get her advice again.

You would have given everything to just spend another day in the village, appreciating what you had had and saying goodbye to everyone.

But even this, he had pried out of your hands, rendering you so defenseless and vulnerable.

You hated him.

And whenever your gaze fell upon the key chain of the yellow elephant wearing a red tie on your purse, you cried even harder, wanting to rip it off and throw it out of the window.

But no matter how much you wanted to hate him and talk yourself into it, you couldn’t bring yourself to truly feel so.

You didn’t care about your old life anymore. You didn’t care whether you could never go back. You didn’t care about your career, about your future.

You were willing to give all of this up forever just to spend another day in the life that had been such an illusion, but had made you the happiest so far.

“Uhm… Miss…”

____

Klick.

The sound of the safety catch of a gun getting released.

“You’re late,” Jaehyun announced into the semi-darkness as he took the weapon back into his hand. “She’s not here anymore. She just left.”

“I know,” a voice he had never heard before, answered back. “I actually came for you.”

“Oh. Be my guest then.” Jaehyun chuckled with sarcasm. “I wasn’t sure when exactly you’d arrive since my people couldn’t find the flight you boarded, but this is what I call perfect timing as I just left the door open. So, how did you find us exactly?”

He shrugged. “You know… it cost me a fortune and a few private detectives, but I was always watching her, even during detention. I always knew where she was. That I’m only coming now is because I thought that eventually, when she sees that I’m free and behaving, she’d come back.” His voice cracked. “But she didn’t.”

Jaehyun remembered the night you had claimed to have heard someone roaming around in the bedroom or garden. So there had been truly someone among you, a private detective most likely. He hated himself at that moment for not having been able to protect you better. 

“You know what happened to the former guy she dated?” 

The stalker stepped into the light that flooded into the room from the window, and as Jaehyun looked into his face, he encountered a man who he, and probably every other person, would deem harmless at first glance. He looked like a normal office worker, not intimidating or even dangerous at all with his slicked back hair and wide glasses.

“They packed their things and went away as soon as they met me,” he illustrated, almost boastful with much pride in his voice. “One of them didn’t want to back off, so I had to slash his tires. That was when he got the message.”

“Lucky you that I’m not one of these guys. I’m not scared of you.” Jaehyun grinned. “I’m her husband, and I’m going to protect her at all costs.”

“She doesn’t belong to you!” he then yelled, throwing around his arms. “She belongs to me! … But… she’s always running away from me… She never comes back to me. Why would someone do that when you’re destined to be together?”

Despite the semi-darkness, Jaehyun saw the insanity coming forward in his eyes that gradually slowly took power of his entire body. He wasn’t familiar with stalking cases personally himself, but had read quite a few things prior to your arrival.

Clearly, this guy followed the delusional disbelief of your both’s romantic destiny despite you having made it clear several times that no such thing existed at your side. Yet, his obsession with you had made him want to continue being a part of your life and change your mind at all costs until it turned unhealthy and dangerous for you, watching you and following each of your steps. Admiration had quickly turned into the sadistic urge to torment you, because if he couldn’t have you, nobody could.

And now, you didn’t even deserve to live if it wasn’t with him.

“I’m not going to run away like the other guys,” Jaehyun spoke calmly. “I’m here to set an end to this, because she deserves to live freely and happily. And I want to give this to her.”

“No!” he screamed, sweat dripping down his temples, and only now, Jaehyun saw the blade glistening against the dim light. “She can only be happy with me! With me only, not with someone else or even alone!”

Jaehyun lifted up his arms and aimed the gun at him. He flinched. “She’s happy with me. How does that sound, asshole?”

Suddenly, he laughed. “If you shoot at me, you’re going to jail, and you’re not going to have her either.”

“I don’t care,” Jaehyun spoke calmly and the guy raised his brows. “I don’t care if I might go to jail because of this, because no one else before cared enough. I don’t care if I have to give my life for hers, because my life is not worth living if she’s dead. I don’t care if I have her or not. I just want her to be far away from you and live her life to the fullest, because she deserves it. Because this is what love is.”

“Oh, you fool.” He laughed again, this time like a maniac. “She has you in her force. That’s what she usually does.”

“Maybe.” Jaehyun’s finger enclosed the trigger. “But that’s what love also is. Forceful.”

The stalker raised his hand, the huge knife between his fingers fully visible now as he prepared himself to dash forward, but the second he moved, your voice echoed through the house.

“Stop!”

You stepped into the living room, totally out of breath, but lucky to have convinced the driver to turn around before it was too late after he had empathized very much with you during your breakdown in the car and told you the entire truth.

“It’s okay,” you breathed, having reached the premises only seconds ago. “I see it clearly now. I can’t be with you, Jaehyun. I can’t run away from my feelings either.” You smiled mildly and stepped closer to the stalker. “I see where I belong to.”

Jaehyun couldn’t believe what he had just heard. “What-!”

“I know we didn’t have a great start,” you said, your gaze not wavering from the guy who had made your life on earth a living hell, yet you tried to conceal that you were trembling all over and sweating in fear as this was the only way to save Jaehyun. “While you only wanted to protect me, I always tried to defy you. I felt caged, imprisoned and really unhappy. It was only later that I realized that you did all that because you cared. About my safety… about me.”

Jaehyun saw that you were directing these words to your tormentor, but he also saw that they were not lies. They were only directed at the wrong person.

“Yes, yes!” the guy blurted. “That’s totally it!”

“Will you now please put away the knife? I will willingly come with you.” Then, you finally spun around to Jaehyun. “Please put the gun away as well.”

“But-!”

“Please!”

Hesitantly, he did as he had been told, so did the persecutor. He knew where you had come from as the guy wouldn’t have done the same, but still didn’t find the thought to be so weaponless appealing. 

After the stalker had placed the knife on the kitchen counter, he turned around to you with a bright smile on his face, but it got wiped out very quickly - with your knuckles rolling nearly in slow motion over his cheek and continuing along the bridge of his nose. He lost balance and was thrown against a chair, folding like a piece of paper as he collapsed against the furniture.

Your fist had met his face full-force, and you stilled the seconds after, having totally caught him off guard - and yourself as well.

“The knife!” Jaehyun then screamed, reaching for his gun once again.

But as your fingers moved to reach for the weapon, your hand got slapped away and the blade vanished in front of your eyes and back into the possession of the stalker. Only this time, the knife was not the only thing he claimed to have taken control over.

The sharp blade slightly buried itself into the side of your neck as he had rendered you motionless by having you in a choke with his other arm wrapped around your middle. All your twisting and turning didn’t benefit you in any way as he was much taller and stronger, and you could only watch all the color drain from Jaehyun’s eyes as he looked back at you in horror.

“What wishful thinking, I’m such a fool,” the stalker whispered into your ear, blood streaming down your side, and the pain slowly overshadowed the shock you had initially felt. “If you can’t have someone yourself, all you can do is kill the person.”

You heard it click as Jaehyun was now pointing his gun at you. “Not before I kill you first.”

And then, there was pain.

____

When you were in the hospital, you dreamed of Jaehyun.

He was holding your hand at night, not leaving your side. It was tender and warm, just like the first time he had held your hand when you had joined the dinner with the other villagers. You could even hear what he was saying to you. Many words you had been longing to hear for so long.

Too bad that these were only fever dreams.

Because instead, when you woke up three days later, there was Rosie.

… Rosie!?

But you weren’t able to bring these words out as your throat was dry, so the syllables only came out as rasping sounds. She was quick to serve you a glass of water before you were finally able to ask,

“...Rosie? What happened?”

“Jesus!” she let out in wonder. “You can’t remember a thing?”

You shook your head. “Do you?” And then cocked your brow. “... what do you know exactly?”

“Jay told me everything. About you. About the program.” Your eyes widened and you prepared yourself to sit up, but Rosie gently pushed you back against the pillow. Only then you noticed that you couldn’t have made it further anyway. Your entire middle hurt. “It’s okay, lay still. Nobody can harm you anymore. He’s dead.”

“... dead?” You barely believed your own ears. 

Rosie nodded. “Jay’s bullet hit you, but it was only a graze, barely visible, but enough to take the stalker by surprise so that he suddenly let go of you. But… he was on top of you the next moment… with the knife.” She struggled to find the right words. “When I arrived after the reinforcement you called before… there was so much blood, and Jay was holding you in his arms… he was screaming… wailing. He thought he’d lost you, and so did I.”

You got stabbed?!

That would explain the immense pain that turned more distinct with each bypassing second, and you were so close to calling a nurse to pump some more morphine into you.

“W… what happened to… him?” you asked, though a part of you already knew the answer.

“Jay shot at him. He died on the spot.”

You didn’t blame yourself for feeling so much relief at this moment. For the past year, this man had robbed you of all your happiness and freedom. Now, it was all over. You were safe and free. You had every right to be happy.

But you weren’t.

“Where is…” Suddenly, you stilled as a dangerous thought crossed our mind. “Is he-”

“He’s fine.” The corner of Rosie’s lips tilted up. “Even now, you’re only thinking about him. He’s outside. Should I call him in?”

“Yes, please. And Rosie?” You reached for her hand, squeezing it. “Thank you for coming. It means a lot.”

She squeezed your fingers back. “Even though this life of yours wasn’t real… I know our friendship is.”

She was so right.

When Rosie left, Jaehyun didn’t come in right away. You waited for at least five more minutes until the handle moved downwards and the face you had been longing to see all along finally appeared in your room.

“How are you doing?” he asked, and it made you shudder how distant he sounded as opposed to the look in his eyes. 

They were telling a whole other story, and you wondered what was holding him back from running over to you and finally taking you into his arms. 

“Fine.”

The pain in your stomach really did feel fine when the pain in your heart was a much graver one.

“Don’t lie to me. You got stabbed right through. It’s not like it’s nothing.” He lowered his head. “And it’s my fault. Again.”

You saw where he was coming from after everything that he had been through. Your mind was still working only slowly as it hadn’t been able to make the connection right away, but now, it was all clear.

“It’s thanks to you that I’m still alive. I’m very grateful.”

Eventually, the pain in your stomach would pass, leaving only a scar. You couldn’t imagine what the stalker would have done to you if Jaehyun wouldn’t have been there. You counted yourself very lucky to still be alive.

“Thank you, honestly.”

He acknowledged your feelings with a nod, though you weren’t entirely convinced that he thought the same about you. And as he didn’t move away from the door further in your direction, you finally grasped that he just wasn’t there by your side yet. Not only physically, but also emotionally.

At some point, everything happening in the past months had been real for him too. But now that he could have it all, he was getting cold feet. You didn’t know why, but you knew that it wasn’t your fault, and it certainly wasn’t in your power to lay out all the reasons as to why he shouldn’t feel this way.

He just wasn’t ready.

“You’re going back to the NYPD, right?”

“Yeah. Tomorrow already, as a matter of fact. I have things to take care of.” He scratched his head in nervousness. “You’ll be okay?”

Oddly, you could affirm his assumption.

You’d return to Seoul and to the Korea National Ballet. If you’d had a talk with the academy, you were positive that you could also still join the Dutch National Ballet as originally planned. You had your old life back, and it would all fall into place.

Your future, everything you had worked so hard for, laid in front of you again.

And without Jaehyun. 

Again.

“I’ll be okay.” Despite these insights, you smiled through your pain. “Really.”

“Okay.” Jaehyun’s smile was equally painful. 

Perhaps, he had wished for another outcome as well. But whatever was holding him back was more powerful than everything he’d ever felt for you, and you wished that you could share his pain again, telling him that he didn’t need to go through this all alone.

But you knew, this time, he wouldn’t let you.

Rosie was there for you after he had long left, comforting you throughout the entire night. She was also there when you got discharged two weeks later, bidding you farewell at the airport and showering you with so much love a friend could possibly feel for another. 

“We’re going to meet again,” you promised her.

“I’ll come visit you,” she promised you too.

And with that, you returned to your old life.

____

The curtain call was your favorite part of each performance. Then, all the burden and pressure fell from your shoulders and you could finally breathe again, showering in the spotlight and relishing the applause.

Today was the first time that you stood on the stage of the Korea National Ballet again after the events in the States and thus, your first curtain call after such a long time.

Your hair had returned to its natural color, and despite the fact that you hadn’t changed at all from the outside, you knew that on the inside, you were an entirely different person. Nothing would be like before ever again.

“Good performance,” your instructor remarked and moved on to tell the same to the others as well.

You hadn’t danced an important position, only moving in the background as your instructor had been sure that you had let things slide in the months you were away. Before, you would have gotten angry, practicing day and night to lose the remaining weight and catch up with the others. Yes, you surely had let things slide, but to you, nothing of this was important anymore.

The Dutch National Ballet hadn’t wanted you back, and you couldn’t hold it against them. You were glad to have been able to pick up some kind of engagement again. Until you were back at the top, a lot of time would pass.

You just weren’t so sure anymore if you wanted to climb up that high again.

You took off your tight shoes in the dressing room and rubbed your wounded feet, your thoughts drifting off. You had seen him again. In the audience, sitting in the first row and watching you. Usually, you didn’t let your eyes wander through the people, but this time, your role had given you enough time to do so.

Not your stalker, but Jaehyun.

He had sat there, in a black tuxedo, and had watched you with the same gaze that he would share only with you during your time together.

You knew immediately that this wasn’t real. He wasn’t here. He couldn’t be here. 

Because lately, you saw and felt him very often. Next to you on the bed when you were waking up, walking close to you as you strolled through the streets, and in the mirror whenever you lifted your head after washing your face. 

This was what it was like when you couldn’t let go of a person you had once loved so much.

“There is someone waiting for you in the lobby,” another dancer told you in passing.

“Who is it?” 

“Said his name was Yuno.” She shrugged. “Wears a black tuxedo and waits by the stairs.”

“Okay.”

You didn’t know a person named Yuno, so you didn’t hurry changing your clothes and took your sweet time, until a sudden thought crossed your mind. This was how it had started out with your stalker as well! 

But it couldn’t be. He wasn’t alive anymore, and here, nobody would give you the same attention as you were only a background dancer. You sucked in a rush of air, halted, and then continued your way.

You’d be fine.

Just as you had promised Jaehyun.

“Mister…” you called out when you came around the corner. You didn’t know his surname, so you faltered, only able to watch him from behind as he stood with his back to you.

“Jeong. Mister Jeong.”

“... Mister...”

Your voice was stable, in contrast to your inner feelings as a storm broke free deep within you. You hadn’t seen him in so long, and you wanted to cry, scream and slap him all at once.

“I saw your performance.” He smiled. “You’re marvelous. I wanted to bring you a bouquet of flowers, but thought it would be a bit too tactless…”

“You’re late,” you interrupted him.

“I know,” he agreed. “There were a few things I had to take care of.”

“Things that took you three months?” You folded your arms across your chest. “I thought… I thought you moved on.”

“Is that what you think of me?” He looked hurt. “Have you moved on?”

Not a single bit. Every night, you lived through every moment you had spent together in the States. As much as you had wanted to, you hadn’t been able to move on.

Almost unnoticeably, you shook your head.

“You want to know what I did during this time?” He stepped closer to you as the lobby was emptying, and you didn’t retreat. “I visited the ballerina. She’s doing well. She’s a counselor now, helping people who are as handicapped as her. She said it’s fulfilling and that she’s very happy, and she thanked me again for saving her life. Hearing it from her personally takes a huge burden off my heart.”

Despite your controversial feelings, you smiled. “That’s good to hear. I’m happy for you.”

“And I finished my therapy sessions,” he continued. “For a long time, I thought I was the person bringing harm to people. I’m a detective, why am I only bringing harm to people I desperately want to protect? It just didn’t get into my head. My therapist said that not everyone is made for this life and I should focus on finding a partner who is as equally courageous and fearless as me. Who shares my views on life, who doesn’t back down and looks danger right into the eye. Only then, when I have a partner who can take care of themselves, I don’t have to fear for two lives, but only for one. For mine, because my partner will be fine by themselves.”

Then, he smiled too as you recalled, “I slapped the hell out of that asshole.”

“Yeah, you did. You also defied all my orders. You always know how to take care of yourself. You don’t run away when it’s getting dangerous. And you didn’t hesitate even for a single second when you found out that I lied that day. You came back right away to help me. If there is a woman suitable for me, then it’s you.”

You chewed on the inner flesh of your mouth to keep the growing smile from showing. You still didn’t know what exactly this all meant, but you were eager to hear it from him soon.

“But I didn’t come here to tell you this only.”

You tilted your head. “What did you come here for then?”

“I came to pick up my wife,” was his answer that nearly made your heart jump out of your chest.

You stared at him, lost for words and mouth agape.

“I’m sorry that it took me so long. I wanted to get everything cleared and settled. I wanted to be emotionally ready for a new path in my life, with you by my side. I… I mean… If you hate New York and want to stay in Seoul instead,” he hemmed and hawed, “I would be happy to cross the ocean again as long as you’ll be waiting for me at the other side. But if you want to come back to the US, I’ll be fine with that as well. In Seoul, New York or Connecticut… I can call any place my home as long as you’re with me. This time, as my real wife.”

You felt tears gathering in the brims of your eyes. “As… as your wife?”

“As my wife.” He nodded. “You want me to repeat that again?”

“Yes, please.” You blinked, your shoulders starting to tremble.

“Perhaps, you rather want to read it,” he dismissed softly and reached into the inner pocket of his tuxedo to pull out a sheet that he carefully unfolded and handed over to you.

You read attentively.

MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE APPLICATION

of

Jeong Yuno

and

….

There it was. His real name. Your real name. 

This was real.

You looked up to him, the tears now streaming down your face, and you desperately tried to dry them with the back of your hand.

“If we get all your papers together, we can apply tomorrow and be officially married by next week.”

You could barely see through the blurry curtain of tears. 

“This time, for real?” 

you asked as Yuno, as his real name was, took your hands into his, and it felt just like the first time when you had walked along the streets of the little countryside village.

“This time, for real,” he promised.

---

the moment i started reading i was hooked immediately, i was so immersed in it that I DIDNT EXPECT THE END OF THE FIC TO COME THAT QUICK.

anyways this is officially my favourite seokjin characterisation, biggest chef's kiss. i also really enjoyed the way the plot flowed, it just felt so natural. 🤍

⊶ final sleigh (m). ⊷

You took an (almost) immediate dislike to Seokjin during his first week at the office and six months later that distaste is not only still going strong, but also mutual. Working in sales, you view one another as competition, so what happens when you’re forced to organise the Christmas office party together? It’s a recipe for disaster, but one thing’s for sure, it doesn’t end the way you imagined it…

(Spoiler alert: you don’t wind up murdering him.)  

pairing; kim seokjin x reader  au/genre/warnings; christmas au, workplace/office au, enemies to lovers, rom-com, hoseok, namjoon and yoongi make appearances, smut; drunk grinding, drunk kissing, workplace (oral) sex, storeroom (oral) sex, oral sex (male & female receiving), fingering, dirty talk, jin has a big dick (obv) words; 23,363 

author’s note; I got a teeny tiny idea and of course my mind ran away with it;; I hope you enjoy, please let me know what you think! Happy Seokjin month, Happy December! 💖

Keep reading

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talk slow (m) | kth

pairing ↠ kim taehyung x reader 

genre ↠ brother’s best friend | exes to lovers AU

word count ↠ 6481

18+ | full warnings ↠ drinking, swearing, teeeny bit of angst, fluff, marking, foreplay, softdom!tae, fingering, dirty talk, edging, teasing, finger sucking, praise, cunnilingus, slight begging kink, grinding, handjob, blowjob, face fucking, hair pulling, unprotected sex (don’t do it!), squirting, multiple orgasms, creampie, lil bit of cumplay, more implied sex. 

Summary ↠ “Any semblance of amusement has since been wiped from your own face, and now as you look at Taehyung, your stomach drops, making you feel somewhat nauseous. As though he can sense your sudden distress, he looks back at you, his expression void of any humor it previously sported, and he simply gazes at you, eyes flickering with a sincerity that wavers you.”

A/N: I feel like this story is all over the place, lol, apologies in advance :) & a big thank you to everyone @bangtansorciere and Solaris @jamaisjoons for coming up with the perfect description of Taehyung! 💗 (feedback is always appreciated!)

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starstruck pt. 7 (myg, kth)

Summary: Taehyung and you take the next step while Yoongi tries to take just one.

pairing: Kim Taehyung x plus-sized f. reader, Min Yoongi x plus-sized f. reader

genre(s): the perfect combo - angst and smut

au: non!idol, university!au, f2l, strangers to lovers

rating: 18+

word count: 12.8k

trigger warnings: there are so many so please be aware of them before reading. smoking, anxiety attack, panic attack, self-hatred, addiction, yoongi is on a shame spiral, yoongi is a fucking asshole to a wonderful horny lady, jealousy, oral (m & f), kissing, lots of talk about taehyung’s balls, yoongi’s date wants to role play and he doesn’t but he goes along with it, fingering, squirting, admiration for a fantastically placed mole, taehyung is dressed while reader is not, protected sex, taehyung is a bit possessive, lots of hickeys left on bodies, lots of POV switches

author’s notes: this chapter took a lot out of me. i want to say to everyone reading that if you are dealing with mental health or struggling with addiction you are not alone, please reach out to someone you trust or a hotline as they can be great sources for support. you are NOT a burden. please go and read the trigger warnings before you read this. I want everyone to take care of themselves and this chapter drained me so i just want to make sure everyone is okay! please let me know if you notice a trigger warning missing or if i am using honorifics incorrectly. thank you so much to @wwilloww​ and @illneverrecover​ for looking this over and yelling at me and also giving me some amazing suggestions. this chapter would not be what it is if it weren’t for you two. @introlxv​ made this wonderful banner!!

tag list: @miscelunaaa @herecomesjoon @minyoongiboongi @minttangerines​

© sugalaritae, 2022. you do not have any permission to repost or translate my work even if you give credit. all of this is mine.

YOONGI

He’s bored already.

He’s bored and Hyejin is walking into the apartment. She was a mistake, he knows this already and he hasn’t even kissed her. He should be taking care of himself. He should be thinking about what his therapist said about whether or not he thinks that he is always inebriated when he talks to you.

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sweetener | myg (m)

Summary: You used to know how he sounded when you were wrapped around him, but circumstances have pulled you apart and sent you scattering in opposite directions. Feelings shouldn’t reappear so easily by simple words, but when you find yourselves in the same place once again, this is exactly what happens.

⋙ pairing: Yoongi x female reader ⋙ rating: 18+ ⋙ genre: fwb/kinda enemies to lovers; fluff, smut ⋙ warnings: a misunderstanding, former fuckboy!yoongi, pent-up feelings, very light angsty bits buuuut mostly cute hot stuff, hobi – the frustrated wingman; explicit sexual content: dom!yoongi, sub!reader, making out in a bathroom, oral (f. & m. receiving), hair pulling, grinding, protected sex, dirty talk, teasing, pussy/tiddie slapping (i think), light spanking – yoongi slaps it all, degradation, praising, biting, he comes on her tits, spit, light choking, rough sex, manhandling, cum play, aftercare, some crack dialogue i guess, most of this is smut tbh. ⋙ word count: 10.3k ⋙ a/n: this was supposed to be a 5k pwp 😐 but anything for the BIRTHDAY BOY !! i adore this man, may only good things happen to him ever 😭 here’s my little love letter to min suga. genius. <3 also lowhighkey dedicated to @sugalaritae​ who brainstormed this w me (came up with this wonderful summary, too !!) and just, ugh – i just love her, she deserves to be spoiled <3

MASTERLIST | WIPS

You should’ve listened to your guts when they told you to stay home this morning. Maybe you could’ve avoided Yoongi’s presence for some longer that way.

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—“is there someone else?” |myg|

⟢ pairing: yoongi x f!reader 

⟢ word count: 2.5k

⟢ genre: nsfw 18+, established relationship, rocky relationship, non-idol!au. Angst! smut, fluff. 

⟢ warnings: alcohol consumption, domestic yoongi (yes a warning is needed for that) explicit smut: kissing, shower oral f. receiving, shower sex, unprotected vaginal penetration, creampie

⟢ summary: Your boyfriend’s been acting different lately. So you pull away because no one wants to face a heartbreak face first.  

⟢ an: i absolutely love this story lol

You walked up to the counter, slightly tipsy, (make that drunk) due to the trip and stumble into the barstool that you just did, waving down the bartender.

“Hey! ‘Scuse me!” You stuck your outreached arm over the bar top practically flapping like a bird. Finally you caught their attention and ordered another drink, this time a double amaretto sour. You walked back out to the dance floor after draining the drink down, empty glass abandoned on a random table. As you slowly gyrated to the music, not even the alcohol in your system could drown out the words replaying in your head.

“𝘐𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘦𝘭𝘴𝘦?”

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BTS attends the 64th Annual GRAMMY Awards at MGM Grand Garden Arena on April 03, 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

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Fact Over Fancy (m)

Reader x Jeon Jeongguk

Summary: In this world, there are two types of people: those born with emotions, and those born without. Society is thriving in its emotionless state, productivity levels are at an all time high. Marriage serves only one function: to father the next generation. Those with emotions are considered to be defective, aberrations who can never be matched. What happens when there’s a glitch in the so-called perfect system and a defective and a “normal” person are matched?

Rated m for graphic sex, dirty talk

Word Count: 9910

As always, a HUGE thank you to my beta readers @ohmanholyjungkook and @blame-bts <3

“Back again I see, Mr Jeon.” Your eyes are fixed on his patient file in front of you, and you don’t look up when the person in question clears his throat and shifts in his seat in your doctor’s office. “This time it’s for starting a fight, again, with Jimin in the cafeteria.”

He leans back in his chair, one leg crossed over the other at the ankle in a display of absolute confidence. His eyes are fixated on your profile with a strange fascination, as if staring at you brings him some sort of entertainment almost. An amused chuckle catches your attention this time, and you glance up at his unapologetic expression. “Do you really like coming in here that often?”

Jeongguk leans forward in his seat now, interested. He props his chin up with his hand, and his gaze is penetrating, his cold, slate grey eyes unwavering. “Maybe I do, Dr ____. It’s my only chance to get you to myself for a whole hour.”

You don’t bother acknowledging his bold remark and flip to the section with his personal details, including his medical history. Defective.

“Medication won’t work on you because of your defect… you realize you won’t get better if you don’t try right?” Because of his status, it’s impossible for you to take the easy way out and shove him out the door with enough mood suppressing pills to last a lifetime.

“What if I don’t want to get better? What makes you think people like you aren’t the ones with defects instead?” His accusatory tone does nothing to rile you up, and you recite the motto of the Board that’s engraved in the walls of its headquarters, along with the speech you’ve regurgitated so many times it’s practically engraved in your head now.

“‘Fact over Fancy’, Mr Jeon. You know why it isn’t the other way around. Ever since emotions have been eradicated, productivity has increased exponentially, our economy has been functioning at its zenith, and will continue to do so in the future. People like you are a threat to the well oiled cogs of our socially engineered society, and it’s my job to make you realise that.”

“Nice speech, ____. Did the Board feed you those lines or do you actually believe in all that crap? How different are we from machines if we negate our emotions in everything we do?”

The little timer on your desk lets out a shrill ring, signalling the end of your session with Jeon Jeongguk. You close his file calmly.

“‘You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of service to them.’ I’ll see you next week, Mr Jeon. And don’t forget about your punishment. Cafeteria clean up every day for the rest of this week and next.” The dismissive tone in your voice is clear, but Jeongguk doesn’t make a move to leave. You gather up your things and stand, opening the door of your office and hoping he’ll get the hint.

When he doesn’t, you clear your throat in a professional manner. “I’ll see you next week, Jeon Jeongguk. I’m late for my meeting.”

Seeing as he can’t win in this situation, he rises from his seat and makes his way to the door, pausing by where you stand for a moment. The lack of personal space that he allows for in between leaves you with a face full of his chest, and he leans down toward your ear.

“I’ll be looking forward to it.”

You close the door behind him hastily, and dart toward your chair to grab your white doctor’s coat that hangs over the back of it, digging out your ringing phone from its deep pockets.

“Namjoon? Yeah, I’m still in my office. A patient ran slightly overtime. Has the meeting started already?”

“Nah, I’m still on my way too. I’ll be passing by your office, do you want to walk to headquarters together?” He sounds slightly out of breath on the other end of the line, and you shrug on your coat and exit from your office just in time to catch a glimpse of his blonde head turning the corner.

“Hey,” you greet him as he finally catches up to you. “Why are you running late? You’re usually always on the dot.”

“There was a bug in the matchmaking system this morning, and it took longer than expected to straighten it out.” You’re struggling to keep up with his long legs on the way to headquarters, and your heels click furiously on the smooth granite floor.

“That’s weird. The matchmaking system hardly ever messes up, right?”

“Well, there’s a first for everything.” Namjoon pushes the door of the meeting room open with the heel of his hand and you follow him in, heading straight to your seat.

The Head of the Board, President Kwon, interlaces his fingers together and surveys the entire meeting room filled with Board members with a brief sweep of his eyes.

“Welcome to our bimonthly progress report meeting. As you all know, the success of our society depends entirely on your contributions as Board members. As the Heads of your respective departments, your efforts go a long way in ensuring the continued flourishing of our economy as well. Dr_____, head of the Psychiatric Department, please kindly begin your report.” That’s your cue to kickstart the meeting, and you shuffle your stack of papers to your prepared notes.

“Most of the patients who were not born with the defect but have picked up emotional tendencies along the way due to various reasons are responding well to the emotional suppressant drugs. Those with the defect, however, are taking a slightly longer time in showing response towards counselling sessions with their respective psychiatrists. However, I believe with continued rigorous treatment sessions, the Board’s motto of ‘Fact over Fancy’ will eventually be drilled into them. Thank you.”

Namjoon picks up where you leave off seamlessly.

“The Department of Arranged Marriages has always been in line with the Board’s views, and believes that marriages should be for the sole purpose of propagating the human race only. Part of our duties include matchmaking individuals with the compatibility of their genes in mind so as to produce the best possible offspring in order to serve our society well. Our matchmaking system analyses each individual’s genetic makeup in order to produce the best match possible. There was a slight bug in the system that I found this morning, but fortunately, it wasn’t anything too serious.”

President Kwon accepts yours and Namjoon’s reports with a mere nod, and the rest of the meeting passes in a similar fashion, with the heads of various departments such as Finance, Education and Welfare delivering updates and reports.

Finally, the president makes a move to stand, “Your reports are very much appreciated. Since there are no pressing issues to address at the moment, the meeting is adjourned.” The rest of the Board rises along with him, waiting for him to exit from the meeting room before filing out after him.

You walk out with Namjoon toward the cafeteria, briefly checking your schedule for the rest of the day on your phone.

“What’s the rest of your day like?”

“After lunch I have a few more patients to see, and then I’m done for the day. What about you?”

“Lucky you. After this it’s a whole 12 hours of monitoring the system to make sure the bug doesn’t pop out again. I’d ask one of our interns to do it, but I don’t trust them nearly enough.” Namjoon has to raise his voice over the noisy environment of the cafeteria to be heard, and you give him a wry smile in response as you stand in front of one of the many dispensing machines and scan your ID.

The machine reads your barcode and serves up a tray of a foil wrapped package with your name stamped on top. It’s the Board’s way of ensuring everyone gets exactly the amount of nutrition they need, and each individual has all of their meals specifically catered to them.

You manoeuvre to an empty table with your food and wait for Namjoon to be seated opposite you before you unwrap the foil, noting your smaller portions as compared to his with little interest.

“I didn’t get a chance to ask you about your patient who ran overtime this morning.” Namjoon pauses in his chewing for a second.

“Jeon Jeongguk again, his sessions with me have been lengthened now because of his fight with Jimin last week. He’s a tough one.” Your eyes wander over to Jeongguk as he mops a section of the cafeteria, pondering over his last words as he left your session that morning.

“Ah yeah, he’s known to be one of the more outspoken ones among the defects. I’m surprised he hasn’t been locked up for constantly trying to go against the Board by now.”

Jeongguk’s head is down as he concentrates on finishing his task, and you note that his slim yet burly physique gets the job done pretty efficiently. His tall frame allows for his jet black head of hair to stand out even in the crowded cafeteria. The thin white shirt he has on fits nicely over his broad chest, and the chiseled indents of his collarbones peek out over the tee’s scoop neck. The dark wash of his denim jeans don’t do much to hide the sculpted planes of his thighs. Namjoon follows your gaze, and registers the intense look on your face. He pats your hand briefly, “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll fix him. You’re not the head of Psychiatry for nothing. Anyway, I wanted to talk to you about something else too.”

This catches your attention, and you tear your eyes away from Jeongguk to focus on Namjoon again.

“It’s your turn to be matched soon, you know that right?”

At the mention of your matching, your appetite seems to disappear and you push your foil package away. “Yeah, it’s only at the back of my mind every second. I hope my partner is suitable, I’ll be informed of the results soon.”

Namjoon gives your hand a brief squeeze, “_____, you know the system is perfect. It never makes a bad match. Well, it does get bugs every now and then, but other than that, it’s flawless.”

You’re about to agree with him and chide yourself for the unnecessary stressing, but another voice cuts in.

“That’s sweet, enjoying lunch with your match?” Jeongguk props his head up on an arm over the handle of his mop with a saccharine sweet smile. You have no idea when he materialised by your side all of a sudden, but you’re painfully aware of how you have to crane your neck to meet his unnerving gaze.

Namjoon opens his mouth to correct him, but you stop him with a glance. Jeongguk’s your patient, after all, and you turn to look at him. “He’s not my match, Mr Jeon.”

“Well that’s a surprise, ‘cause I saw you two engaging in an intimate act just a while ago. He touched your hand!” A mock gasp comes from him as he shifts his position to lean his hip against the table, the epitome of cockiness. “I’m sure the Board wouldn’t approve of that.”

You wrap up the remains of your meal in the foil, giving Namjoon a slight nod to let him know you’ll see him later. You step out of your seat to face Jeongguk. “You seem to be done with your duties, shall I do a spot check? If they aren’t up to my standards, I’ll have to assign more days.”

Your threat seems to work as Jeongguk reaches for the mop that he left leaning against the table, turning to face you with a smirk. You turn on your heel and head for the bins to dispose of your trash before he can speak, but he only tags along with you, his long strides keeping up with you effortlessly. “Authoritative women are such a turn on. I wonder, are you like that in bed too?”

“Maybe I am. Too bad you’ll never find out.”

You usually don’t respond to his jabs and comments, so your parting shot leaves him a little surprised and Jeongguk doesn’t follow you out of the cafeteria. But you feel his eyes on your back the whole way to your office.

*

The rest of the day passes uneventfully, and you wrap up with your last patient before gathering your things and leaving your office. Deciding you’d much rather eat in the peace and quiet of your apartment, you decide to pick up your meal before heading home. There aren’t many people at the cafeteria since dinner is nearly over, save for a few late workers and the cleaners.

And Jeon Jeongguk.

He’s stationed right at the end of the row of dispensing machines, looking as if he’s finishing up his duties for the day. You approach the furthest unoccupied machine from him, hoping to get your food and leave without attracting his attention. But luck is not on your side today, and as you search your bag for your ID, he comes up behind you to wait for his turn, even though there must be at least four other unoccupied machines available.

Once again, Jeon Jeongguk seems to have no respect for personal space and you can feel his breath rustle the hairs on the top of your head, and the heat emanating from his body tells you that he is mere inches away.

The plop of your foil packet is music to your ears as you snatch it up quickly, sidestepping to escape the trap of his body and the machine. You’re just about to hightail it out of there when a voice behind you calls out.

“Dr _____! Will you eat with me?” His voice rings out across the short distance that you’ve managed to put in between you, and also attracts the attention of the few remaining people in the cafeteria.

Your hurried steps come to a halt as you try and think of a believable excuse to feed him. He strolls leisurely towards you and pulls out a chair at the table beside you, sitting down and extending a leg to push out the other chair opposite as an invitation to join him.

The heat from the packet is starting to become unbearable, but you’re at a loss for words to reject him. Defeated, you slide into the seat opposite him, only to be met with a radiant smile that shows off his bunny teeth.

“I’m starving. I haven’t eaten all day, but having such a pretty doctor eat with me totally makes up for it.” He tears into his own packet with enthusiasm, digging in immediately.

“Wait, I saw you earlier today at lunch. Didn’t you eat then?” You unwrap your own portion of food more delicately, waiting for the steam that rises from today’s dinner of grilled chicken and salad to settle first.

“Nope, my cleaning duty lasted all the way till I had to leave for my job at the mechanic’s.” In a flash, Jeongguk’s almost done with his food, but it’s painfully obvious that it’s not nearly enough for someone of his size, not to mention factoring in all the physical activity he probably engages in to earn those defined biceps and the rest of his muscled physique.

Before you have a chance to second-guess yourself, you push your packet towards him and fork your portion of meat into his.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t consider your needs well. I should have written you a pass so you could get off duty earlier to eat.”

You’re all too aware that sharing food like this is against the rules, and Jeongguk must be too, judging from the widening of his eyes. The surprise on his face is soon replaced by smug little smirk as his pink tongue darts out to lick at a smear of gravy at the corner of his lips. Your eyes are unconsciously drawn to that sharp little movement and the dampness left behind.

“Is that a hint of sympathy I detect?” The teasing lilt in his tone is nothing like the sharp accusations earlier this morning, and instead of responding with your usual barrage of politically correct jargon, you choose to watch him wolf down the rest of your portion.

“Office hours may be over, but I’m still your doctor. If anything happens to you, I’m responsible.”

“You always have to spoil the mood, don’t you? I rather liked the idea of you being indebted to me.” He’s twirling his spoon in between his slim fingers now, and you focus on finishing your food as quickly as possible. With your mouth full, at least you’re spared from having to come up with an appropriate response to Jeon Jeongguk.

All too soon, the last of your salad is scraped clean, and you no longer have an excuse to remain silent. You’re all too aware of him watching you, and the silence grows a tad uncomfortable.

“Can I sleep over at yours tonight?”

His blunt statement causes you to bite your tongue and you immediately flinch. You attempt to cover up your reaction by standing from your seat, but he’s already tossing his head back in laughter, a musical little sound that reminds you of the tinkling of bells on a sleigh. He collects himself for just a moment and his gaze lands on your shell-shocked expression once more before he erupts into another fit of laughter. Gone is the cold steel gaze from this morning, now it seems to resemble more of a dove grey, as soft as down feathers and lit up with the warmth of a summer’s day.

A little flustered and in dire lack of a curt comeback, you decide to make a break for it while he’s still otherwise incapacitated. You almost make it out of the cafeteria before you hear him, slightly out of breath. “See you for our next session, _____.”

*

The encounter with Jeon Jeongguk in the cafeteria leaves a strange taste in your mouth and an unfamiliar sensation in the pit of your stomach, and somehow you don’t think it can be attributed to nerves from breaking one of the Board’s rules.

Your formal request to the Board to let Jeongguk off duty a little earlier during lunch has been rejected and you’re at a loss for the first time in a long while. The thought of him having to skip a meal and starve till dinner every day makes you slightly uncomfortable, and it’s something you can’t seem to brush off. The thought lingers at the back of your mind even during consultation hours, and as a result you’re even more taciturn to your patients than usual.

Having spent most of lunch picking at your food in your office, you decide you have to do something.

You’re careful to wait till the lunchtime crowd clears before heading to the cafeteria and scanning your ID again, requesting for another pack of food. It’s the best you can do since you can’t get your hands on someone else’s ID, and there’s no way you’ll ever ask for Jeon Jeongguk’s. The Board might take note of your unusually high amount of food intake this month, but there’s slim chance they’ll let you off with it, considering your trusted position as Head.

And if not, you’ll just have to come up with an excuse for them. Maybe racking up some physical activity ought to account for those extra calories.

Food packet in hand, you scribble his name onto a post it and attach it to the foil, making your way towards the automobile-servicing centre where he works. You’re hoping to drop in inconspicuously and leave the food packet for him, but there’s no chance of that when you see him parked at the entrance, hard at work on a dusty maroon pickup.

You stand out like a sore thumb in your pristine white doctor’s coat compared to the oil stained, griminess of the whole place, and Jeon Jeongguk spots you immediately. He comes bounding up to you like an excited puppy, wiping his greasy hands on his blemished, cobalt overalls that he wears for work and giving you an expectant look.

You decide to just bite the bullet and get this over and done with.

“I brought you some food.” You thrust the packet into his dirt streaked hands and make your escape, trying to block out his amused chuckles as he practically announces your presence to the whole world with his shout of thanks.

And that’s how you end up visiting Jeon Jeongguk every day after lunchtime.

*

Watching Jeon Jeongguk eat is one of the most satisfying things in the whole world, you conclude.

It’s a swelteringly hot Thursday afternoon, and your third time delivering food to him. You’re a little more at ease when you find out that Jeongguk mostly works alone at the shop, so there won’t be any witnesses to answer to and you decide that you don’t have to return to your stuffy little doctor’s office quite so quickly.

You’ve learned from your first time and left your coat behind, but rivulets of sweat still stream down the nape of your neck even in a sleeveless ivory top and navy pencil skirt that comes up to mid thigh. With a sweep of your hands you gather your hair up into a ponytail to try and counter some of the heat, and you can feel the weight of Jeongguk’s observant gaze tracking your every movement from where he’s seated across the small table in the service centre. He refuses to be caught, though, and returns his attention to scrunching his nose at the slivers of ginger scattered in his rice.

Today is the first time you’re staying to watch him eat and he seems to know that you’ll leave as soon as he finishes, taking his time to meticulously pick out all the pieces of ginger and setting it aside like a fussy little child. There’s a grain of rice lingering at the corner of his mouth, and a small smile tugs at your lips at his child like innocence that only seems obvious when his guard is down.

You reach out and pluck at the offending grain of rice without thinking, and freeze when the pad of your thumb brushes across the cupid’s bow of his upper lip, and the velvety sensation of his cherry red pout makes you jerk back as if electrified. His platinum grey eyes immediately lock onto yours, and you’re pretty sure you look like a deer in the headlights right about now.

Willing yourself to remain calm, your fight or flight response kicks in and you swing your leg over the bench to get up, unwittingly flashing Jeongguk in the process. You curse inwardly over your choice of a skirt on today of all days and try to remember what kind of underwear you have on, though you’re not sure why it even matters, when he answers the question for you.

“Cute panties. Dark green just happens to be my favourite colour.”

The predatory gaze makes you let out a squeak reminiscent of hunted prey, and your dignity hangs in shreds. A flushed heat settles over the apples of your cheeks, and you smooth your hands down the front of your skirt for composure.

“I have to go. My next patient’s waiting.” You mumble out a half assed excuse before hurrying out of the servicing centre, wondering just why all of your encounters with Jeon Jeongguk seem to end in the same way every time.

*

The last and final time you bring Jeon Jeongguk his lunch, he kisses you.

The events of the previous day are still too fresh in your mind; so today you don’t sit opposite him to watch him eat, but instead fiddle around with the car he’s currently working on. You don’t really have much experience with automobiles, nor are you very interested in them, but it’s the best way to avoid eye contact with a certain someone. Common sense tells you to simply deliver his food and go back to the safety of your office, but there’s also something else within you that refuses to admit defeat and retreat like a coward.

Damn Jeon Jeongguk.

A thick layer of dirt and grime that’s settled over its entire body dulls the sunset glow of the tangerine saloon in the workshop. Other than its less than stellar upkeep, you can’t see anything else wrong with it.

“What’s wrong with this car?” Your question cuts through the silence in the workshop.

“It was pretty wrecked when we bought it, but I managed to find some new parts for it. It just needs a good scrubbing now.” Blocked from your view by the car, his disembodied voice echoes in the empty workshop. Jeongguk finishes his meal in record time today, and you can hear the rustling sounds as he cleans up.

“Wow. Who’d want to sell this though? It’s such a beauty.” Despite your lack of experience, the car’s elegance and allure is evident even under so much filth.

Jeongguk makes his way to the hood, so that he’s standing opposite you with only the car in between. His eyes are fixated on you as he replies. “Yeah, she sure is pretty.” When you don’t answer him, he continues. “Wanna help me out a little?”

A little intrigued by his question, you nod, even though warning bells are going off in your head.  You’d really like to see how the car looks in its full glory though, and you manage to convince yourself that’s the only reason why you’re sticking around so much today. Jeongguk hands you a rubber hose and instructs you on how to operate the controls that turn the water on or off, telling you to aim at certain areas while he gets a sponge ready to scrub.

At his cue, you flip the switch, releasing the valve and allowing a stream of pressurized water to shoot out. However, the backlash of the water catches you off guard, and even though you stumble back a few steps, you manage to retain your balance. But your aim goes off target and you end up drenching Jeon Jeongguk’s entire upper body.

“Oh my god I’m so sorry!” You scramble to flip the switch off as he sputters in shock, soaked to the bone. His tongue-tied reaction as he stands there is priceless and sends you into an uncharacterized fit of giggles, and you have to steady yourself with a hand placed on the bonnet of the saloon.

You’re bent over trying to fight off another wave of laughter and catch your breath at the same time that you don’t see the mischievous grin on Jeongguk’s face, but the next thing you know, soapy water is dripping off the front of your shirt from the sponge he was holding mere moments ago.

The sharp, biting cold of the water provides a much-needed relief from the heat, but when you catch a glimpse of the impish gleam in his eyes, you decide that you won’t back down so easily this time. You bend to pick up the hose from the floor and toggle the switch again, and this time, your aim is spot on. A jet of water hits Jeongguk right in the chest, but he only laughs it off, a pure, unadulterated laughter that makes you forget about the Board and its rules, defective and undefective,until all that’s left is you and Jeon Jeongguk.

He endures the slight pressure of the jet aimed at his chest to step towards you, and you can’t help but erupt into peals of giggles as you back away as well. “Jeon Jeongguk you monster, don’t come a step closer!” You raise your voice over his contagious laughter, but before you can think of how to defend yourself, he lunges at you and grabs you around the waist, expertly shutting the flow of water from the hose as you drop it to the ground.

The pressure of his hips against yours causes your feet to lose purchase on the slippery ground, and you’re forced to wrap your arms around his neck tightly. The warmth of his sturdy arms banded around your waist, a contrast to your soaked skin, kindles a spark in your lower belly, and you don’t miss the way your heart skips a beat.

A flood of sensations overwhelms you at once: the rock hard quality of his whole body pressed up against yours, the comforting stability of being cradled in his arms and the intoxicating spicy tang of citrus from the cologne he wears. You pull back a little to get a better look at his face, not wanting to be the first one to break away and shatter the crackling chemistry sizzling between you.

You notice his eyes drop to your lips right away, and you only have a split second to close your eyes before he meets your lips in a hungry kiss. You respond back almost immediately, shocking the both of you as your lips move together in a tandem of harmony, as if you’ve done this with him a million times before. The taste of the peppermint candy that he finished his lunch with lingers on his plush lips, flooding your taste buds, and you can’t help but let out a dulcet moan. In response, Jeongguk nibbles at your bottom lip, and the scrape of his teeth causes the reality of the situation to come rushing back.

You break away first, breathing heavily, but he doesn’t relinquish his iron grip around your waist. The atmosphere is weighted with the aftermath of the kiss, and you’re paralyzed by the adrenaline rushing through your system and the reminiscent tingling on your lips. This situation is all too familiar to Jeongguk; he does something unexpected and a tad inappropriate, and you respond by running away. So this time he offers you a way out himself.

“My hoodie is over there on the bench. Wear it over till you get back to your office.” He loosens his grip and takes a step back. “I’ll see you for our next session, _____.” His voice is barely audible if you weren’t so close to him, and there’s a gentle and even raw quality to it that infuses a sense of calm into you.

You grab his jacket from the bench and tug it on, hyperaware of how Jeongguk’s scent surrounds you like a protective outer layer. Before you leave this time, you manage a few words to the boy watching you with something akin to yearning in his eyes.

“See you soon, Jeongguk.”

*

The patient before you is slumped in his chair, and every line of his body conveys his utter frustration.

“Why am I even here? Isn’t this what the Board wants, for us to fuck and then give birth to another generation of emotionless slaves? What did I even do wrong?”

The tip of your ballpoint pen glides across the notepad in front of you in neat cursive, noting down every detail of your patient’s outburst. It’s only when he stops that you look up at him, only to find that he’s waiting from a response from you instead. You glance back down at your notes.

“Kim Taehyung, you were caught having sex with your match in a public area, and being guilty of other acts such as giving and receiving oral sex, which is certainly not required to conceive. On top of that, you’ve been showing signs of emotional outbursts recently.” You reach for a pill bottle on your desk and give it a little shake. “Have you been taking your suppressants?”

The defiance is clear on his face as he answers. “No. Why should I? It’s perfectly normal to crave intimacy.”

Patiently, you meet his chocolate eyes ablaze with indignance from beneath his honey brown hair that layers across his forehead. “How did you come to that conclusion, Mr Kim?”

“It’s in the archives. Before people lost the ability to feel.”

“You should be well aware that reading and retaining information from the archives is strictly forbidden. Your job as an archivist could be jeopardised if I report you to the Board.”

You close his patient file as a knock sounds at the door and the Psychiatry Department’s secretary peeks her head in with a stack of mail. It’s almost the end of Taehyung’s session with you anyway, so you wrap up with him.

“You’re not born defective, so you have a good chance of recovering if you take your suppressants. If I don’t see any improvement in your behaviour then I’ll be forced to report you.” Your threat hangs in the air as you push his prescription towards him. “See you next week, Mr Kim.”

Taehyung snatches the prescription off the desk, and the tension in the air is palpable as waves of helplessness emanate off him. His knuckles are white as he grasps the crushed piece of paper and heads for the door, rudely colliding into the secretary on his way out.

You nod at her in brief apology as she hands you your stack of mail before taking her leave. Leafing through the crisp white envelopes one by one, it’s the usual bills and useless notices, but one of the letters makes you stop your shuffling so suddenly that a paper cut rips across the pad of your thumb. But the pain barely registers when you glance at the front of the letter.

The letterhead visible through the clear window on the envelope is printed in a glaring crimson that stands out from its pristine white background. The Department of Arranged Marriages.

A mix of anxiety and denial bubbles up in the hollow of your stomach and you consider chucking the envelope into the paper shredder that sits in the corner of your office. But that would only be irrational, and you close your eyes to try and suppress the sudden warp of unprecedented emotions swirling in the cavity of your chest. The letterhead remains imprinted beneath your eyelids, burnt into consciousness and there’s no escape. You know there’s only one reason for this letter as you flip the envelope around and tear it open with trembling hands. It takes several unsuccessful tries before the letter slides out of its cradle and you smooth it out on your desk.

You start at the very top, attempting to keep your nerves in check by treating the contents as objectively as possible, as if they were a patient’s file, or a progress report. But it’s impossible to compartmentalise when the issue at hand is something as personal as your match, and your eyes skip over the first few paragraphs explaining the purpose of such a system, information that you already know as thoroughly as the back of your hand. You skim down the margins till you stumble across four words printed in bolded obsidian that stand alone on the page.

YOUR MATCH: JEON JEONGGUK

Incredulity and disbelief slam into your chest with the force of battering ram, and you blink furiously to refocus on those four words. There has to be a mistake. Defectives aren’t allowed to be matched; they’re kept out of the system’s database altogether in order to prevent their defective genes from passing on to the next generation.

You’re just about to reach for your phone and dial Namjoon’s cell to get to the bottom of this colossal mess when the door of your office bursts open. Standing in the doorway is none other than Jeon Jeongguk with the very same letter, and he saunters over to his seat in front of you, tossing the letter onto your desk with a relaxed air that completely contrasts with the white hot adrenaline coursing through your bloodstream and the staccato beat of your racing heart.

“Looks like you’ll be Dr Jeon from now on.”

“Don’t jump to conclusions. There has to be a mistake. Namjoon told me he found a bug in the system just last week, so it’s completely plausible.” There’s panic laced in your tone, but your words aren’t convincing enough to steady your quivering hands that are folded on your desk.

“I don’t think I’m the one jumping to conclusions here, ____.”

You take a deep, calming breath for strength. “Get out. I need to make some calls. There’s no way I can be matched to you, you’re-”

“Defective?” His toneless voice cuts in. Jeongguk stands now, his hands on your desk and leaning down so that he is at eye level.

“Our union won’t benefit our society in any way, our offspring have a 50% chance of being born defective-”

“What are you really afraid of, _____? Is it the way I make you step out of the lines that your precious Board has drawn, breaking their rules? Or how you’re slowly becoming like all the patients you try so hard to rehabilitate?”

“Are you afraid of the way I make you feel?”

His question sends a rush of flashbacks of your heated encounters with him coursing through your mind, especially the kiss, and this time you can’t deny the surge of warmth that blooms in your chest at the thought of kissing him again. Jeongguk’s searing gaze burns into you, daring you to prove him otherwise, to deny the volatile chemistry that sparks in between you, to dismiss the events of the past few days as if they are nothing more than passing clouds on a stormy night. It’s useless to fight against this, whatever it is, any longer. You open your eyes and really see Jeon Jeongguk for the first time.

He is sharp angles of chiselled beauty, his liquid mercury gaze pinning you in place with an undeniable intensity. Adorned with a complexion of porcelain and alabaster cheekbones carved by the gods themselves, the aristocratic slope of his Roman nose and the dusty rose pink of his puckered lips are nothing less than a work of art.

How could this boy, cloaked in such magnificence and resplendence, be considered defective in the least?

Realization hits you hard, and the entire infrastructure that you’ve based your very existence on comes tumbling down.

“Jeongguk.” This is the second time you’ve addressed him without any sort of salutation, your voice choked with emotion for the first time in your life, and that’s when Jeongguk knows he’s broken through.  

“Finally,” his own voice is clouded with relief, and he runs a hair through his jet-black hair, tousling it so perfectly. You’re mesmerized at how much more intense everything feels, from the way a slight intonation of his single word imbues it with so much more meaning, to how much deeper his voice is now or the nervous energy that runs through him as he paces the length of your office, things that have always been there, but you’re only noticing now.

It’s like a sudden sensory overload, all these things that lingered beneath the surface only to manifest now in a shower of sensation that you’re struggling to keep up with.

“_____, you have to listen to me. It’s not safe-”

The sound of your name sends a shiver down your spine, the way it rolls off his tongue like a deep purr reverberating from the depths of his chest. But the second half of his sentence is enough to snap you back into a semblance of consciousness.

“Wait, what are you talking about? Not safe?” 

Jeongguk glances about the interior of your office, as if looking for something before grabbing a legal pad and pulling it toward him. He helps himself to a pen before scribbling something on it, and then pushes the pad back toward you.

They’re monitoring your office. They can’t find out about you. You have to pretend like nothing’s changed, or else they’ll come for you.

Only when you read his words do you remember the cameras installed in your doctor’s office, enabling the Board to monitor consultations and intervene when necessary. Back then you were all for such measures, but only now do you realize how invasive it is. When you look up at Jeongguk again, he’s imploring you to play along, to pretend that the consultation is going as per normal. And so you do. 

‘Mr Jeon, your behavior has been incredibly disruptive as of late, more than usual. If you don’t improve, I’ll have to punish you.” It’s hard to regulate your voice into your old, monotone drawl like before when it seems so natural to infuse emotion into your speech, for it to ride the highs and lows of intonation like a roller coaster. You manage to draft out a response to his earlier warning: What do we do now? I can’t pretend like this for the rest of my life, and we have to get married. 

Even your written words are filled with desperation, and Jeongguk can’t help but smirk. “I can’t wait to see what kind of punishment you come up for me, Dr_____.” Even in such a dire situation Jeongguk’s still his old, inappropriate self, but the smouldering look in his eyes tells you he’s not entirely joking either. You lick your lips unconsciously at his double entendre, but before your thoughts can go anywhere else, he slides the pad back to you.

We have to run away. Signing the marriage contract will buy us some time before they start looking for us. There are others too. 

A million questions are tripping over themselves, and your tongue physically itches with the need to speak freely, but you know you can’t. And it’s too much to write out on paper too, not if the consultation is to go on as per normal.

“I’ll be monitoring you closely, Mr Jeon. Regarding our marriage contract, I will contact Namjoon to have it set up to both our conveniences. See you next session, Mr Jeon.” It’s a struggle to keep your voice professional when all you want to do is throw yourself into his arms.

Jeongguk nods, and this time when he leaves, you feel a pang of loss.

*

“Thank you for scheduling this for us on such a short notice,” your voice sounds overly emotional even to your own ears, but Namjoon only nods in response as he pushes the marriage papers towards you.

Jeongguk is sitting a seat away from you, and the three of you are sealed away in the privacy of your apartment.

“Most signings take place at the registry building, but you’re an exception.” Namjoon watches as the both of you flip through the thick stack of papers, signing multiple times on each page as required. Jeongguk shifts his seat and closes the distance between you, pretending to clarify doubts about a clause in the papers, but all you can feel is the heat from his steel thighs even through two layers of clothing. You don’t miss the cheeky, insinuating tone in his voice either. You’re pretty sure your face is heating up just from this physical contact, and you pray that Namjoon doesn’t catch on.

“As per Board rules, newly wed couples will be allowed an hour in complete privacy to consummate their marriage. Any other interaction following that will be monitored closely to ensure intimacy is kept at a minimum.” Namjoon’s voice is all matter-of-fact, and Jeongguk nods in thanks for the clarification, but your face heats up even further and you don’t understand how the two men remain so composed, as if they’re discussing something as inane as the weather. 

Finally, the last page is signed, and you watch Namjoon gather up the papers with a sweep of his lithe fingers and slide them into his briefcase. Jeongguk follows him to the door, but before he leaves, Namjoon turns to him, “Be ready in an hour.”

Exhaling a breath you didn’t know you’d been holding, you approach Jeongguk and slide your arms around his waist, leaning your head between his shoulder blades.  The feel of his solid body is like nothing else and you relish the feeling of just being able to hold him like this.

But Namjoon’s instructions are weirdly phrased, and you can’t shake the odd feeling settling over you. “What did Namjoon mean? Be ready for what?” You have to tip toe to murmur the question into the shell of his ear, allowing the tip of your tongue to trace a path over it.

A shudder runs through Jeongguk’s body, and you feel the growl in his chest before you actually hear it. “Nothing, baby. Forget about it. I don’t want to hear another man’s name from your lips, only mine.”

The edge to his tone ignites a spark in your lower abdomen, and you find yourself rushing to comply. He turns around in your grasp and encircles his arms around your waist, burying his nose into the crook of your neck and sending a delicious tingle down your spine. His wet tongue laps at the sensitive flesh, sucking dark violet petals into the column of your neck, and you’re trying to keep abreast of all the pleasurable sensations, placing your hands on the broad expanse of his chest to halt him.

“Jeongguk, we can’t do this now, we have to run away.”

“You heard him didn’t you princess? According to the law, I’m allowed one hour to fuck you in any way I want. Give a man his hour yeah?”

Your resolve falters again when you feel the possessive grasp of his hands span the small circumference of your waist, and the way he makes you feel so feminine with his sudden display of dominance, another side of him you never knew existed. His hands roam southwards to smooth over the curve of your ass, and instinctively, you hop up into his arms, directing him toward your bedroom. 

Jeongguk sets you down on the bed with a gentleness that doesn’t quite match the desire clouding his irises. He orders you to strip in a voice that makes liquid heat slam into the pit of your stomach, and your fingers fly to the hem of your shirt, tugging it over your head. His eyes are quick to take in every inch of your bare skin as it’s revealed, but they screech to a stop at the sight of your simple black satin bra. He’s practically drooling at the sight of your cleavage, and emboldened by his reaction, you push yourself off the bed and stand. Turning your back to him to pull off your jeans, you bend over just a little more than necessary and give him an eyeful of your emerald silk panties, thanking whatever gods up there that you picked this pair today of all days.

Aware of the sudden reverse in power dynamics, you straighten up again and face him, and the tent in his jeans has grown considerably after your little strip tease.

“Those jeans look a little tight, shall I give you a hand?” You don’t wait for his response as you drop to your knees and get to work on his belt buckle, working it open and getting to the zipper quickly. You chance a glance back up at him only to meet his gunmetal gray eyes darkened with lust, and he’s clenching his jaw so tightly that a muscle jumps in his cheek. Seeking to tease him further, you reach for the zipper with your teeth and drag it down, and Jeongguk rewards you with the most delicious moan.

“Stop teasing me princess,” he reaches for your hair with both hands and gathers it into a makeshift ponytail so that he’s granted a full view of your face. “Be a good girl and take my cock.”

Your hands glide up the bunched muscles of his inner thighs to the waistband of his underwear, pulling it down to reveal his erection, the head of him an angry red and already dripping with precum. You make sure to make eye contact with him before you dig your tongue into his slit with an open mouthed kiss, feeling his salty flavour spread on your palate and causing his hands to tighten in your hair.

The tugging on your hair intensifies as he drags you a little closer to him, desperate to feel the heat of your mouth. You oblige him and take his cock into your mouth, using your tongue to stroke the underside of his length teasingly as you shield your teeth. The sheer thickness of him makes your eyes water and your gag reflex activate itself, but his needy whine is enough to make you ignore it. Attempting to relax the muscles of your throat, you force your jaw open a little wider and swallow a few more inches of his member. Above you, Jeongguk is panting so hard as if he’s just completed a marathon, and he begins to thrust his hips a little, chasing after the warmth of your mouth.

With two hands on his hips, you push back and withdraw for a quick breath before sinking your mouth all the way down on him, until your nose is buried in the v of his abs. The head of his cock hits the back of your throat, and you instinctively swallow around his length. The noise Jeongguk makes above you causes a rush of wetness to soak your panties.

“Fuck your mouth is so fucking hot princess, who taught you to deepthroat like that?” The ache in your throat and the tingling pain from your scalp is nothing compared to the praise Jeongguk showers you with. The sight of you on your knees for him, mouth wrapped tightly around his pulsating cock draws him to the edge a little too quickly, and just as you’re about to swallow around his length again, he yanks you off his cock with a lewd pop.

“As much as I enjoyed that, I’d much rather cum inside you.” His filthy words are like an aphrodisiac, and the buzz in your veins is enough to leave you lightheaded as he pushes you back on the bed, kicking his underwear and jeans off in the process. His fingers dance over the hem of your panties, but his eyes are drawn to the dark spot of your arousal. He tugs the emerald garment over your hips and you automatically spread your legs for him, too far gone for any semblance of modesty now.

“Jeongguk please,” you gasp out, desperate for some friction against your heated core, arching your hips up towards him.

“Patience, princess. Time for me to return the favour.” With that, he presses a well-aimed lick that sends electricity surging through every inch of your body, and you buck up into his tongue with a wail. He concentrates his efforts on your sensitive bud, and the stimulation of his rough tongue flat against your clit leaves you boneless. With two fingers of one hand, he spreads your lips apart, drawing tight circles around your clit with the tip of his tongue and burying another two fingers into your wet heat. You clench involuntarily against the intrusion of his fingers, and he moans against your clit, the vibrations causing you to buck your hips up for more.

The talented strumming of his fingers inside you paired with his relentless attack on your clit hurtles you towards the edge at a breakneck pace. Your incoherent moans fill the air as you beg him not to stop, and he smirks against your core, twisting his fingers to brush against your sweet spot. Your broken wail only encourages him to suck on your clit harder, and a few strokes of his fingers against that spot is all it takes for the bubble of tension in your abdomen to burst, and your toes are curling in bliss.

Jeongguk thrusts his fingers to help you ride out your high, and when the pleasure ebbs into a distant hum, he withdraws his fingers to suck them clean of your arousal. You watch him with a heated gaze as he licks every inch of his fingers, until your eyes drop to his still hard cock, and your mouth waters at the thought of feeling his entire length inside you.

“Jeongguk, I want to feel you inside me. Now.” Your raspy voice catches his attention at once, and the feral gleam in his eyes sends chills down your spine; he looks ravenous enough to devour you whole.

He crawls over to cover your body with his, and you can feel the heat of his steely length against your inner thigh. Jeongguk is peppering kisses from your belly all the way up your torso, and growls when he’s restricted access to your breasts by your bra.

“Why are you still wearing this?” With a hand looped around your waist, he lifts you up and undoes the hook of your bra with the other, and you’re wondering how he’s such an expert at taking bras off when he latches his mouth onto the peak of your nipple and you’re barred from any more coherent thought. The blazing heat in your stomach is reignited and you whine when he switches his attention to the other neglected bud, wondering how he’s so collected even after spending close to an hour in arousal.

He knows exactly what you want, but the damn jerk reaches down to fondle your clit instead. “What do you want baby? Use your words, I want to hear you beg.”

You’re too far gone to put up a fight with him now, and your breaths are coming out in harsh pants. “I want you Jeongguk.”

“Want me where princess? You’ll have to be more specific.” His fingers leave your clit and instead you feel the head of his cock as he rubs it along your slit teasingly; so near yet so far. 

You growl in frustration, dignity be damned. “Please fuck me, I need to feel your cock so deep inside me-”

His sharp thrust buries him to the hilt inside you and knocks the breath out of you. The walls of your pussy are clenching around him so tightly that he stills above you, and a litany of curses spill into the crook of your neck.

“Fuck you’re so tight and wet, I won’t last long baby.” Jeongguk straightens up and grabs your ankles, placing them on his shoulders so that he slides in that much deeper. The thickness of his length stretches you out so perfectly at this angle, and filled to the brim with his cock, you can’t help but clench around him, trying to draw him in deeper. His thumb brushes your cheek in a particularly tender gesture as he pistons his hips slowly.

“You okay, ___?”

“Yes, fuck, please Jeongguk harder, I need to cum so badly.”

With his hands positioned at the backs of your thighs to keep you in place, Jeongguk snaps his hips, fucking into you so deep that the mix of pleasure and pain threatens to overwhelm. With each thrust, he pounds your pussy so hard that you can’t help but half sob, half moan his name as you hold on to his biceps in an attempt to ground yourself. You can already feel bruises of indigo and violet starting to form on the backs of your thighs from his steel grip, but the feeling of his cock so deep triumphs all other sensation.

Thanks to his talented tongue earlier, your second orgasm approaches quickly, and you can feel him throbbing inside you as he races towards his, the force of his thrusts making you dizzy. Jeongguk’s fluid hips manage just a few more hard thrusts before the fluttering walls of your cunt prove to be too much and he spills ropes of white hot cum inside you, flooding you with his seed.

The feeling of him cumming inside you, the hot splash of cum that feels like fire in your pussy sends you over the edge as well, and you join him as bliss takes over all of your senses and he collapses against you, boneless.

You’re just barely regaining control of your breathing when an impatient knock sounds at the door. It escalates into a pounding, but neither you nor Jeongguk have the energy to answer it right now. He rolls off you with a groan, causing him to slip out of you and you miss the feeling of being so full. He pulls you into his arms, tossing the covers over the both of you. You relish the feeling of his cum dribbling down your inner thigh, concrete evidence of just how good in bed Jeon Jeongguk is.

But the insistent pounding is getting on your nerves. “Who the hell could that be? It better not be fucking Namjoon or else I’m gonna murder him.”

Jeongguk only chuckles and buries his nose into your hair, and all your irritation evaporates at once. “Just ignore it baby, they’ll know what to do.”

You’re just about to snuggle down into the safety of his arms when you hear the front door fling open, and less than a second later; the privacy of your bedroom is invaded by a group of men dressed in black. 

You sit up immediately, arms crossed to ensure that the sheet covers you properly. “What the fuck? Namjoon? And T-Taehyung? Kim Taehyung? And Park Jimin?”

You recognize your former patient behind Namjoon, and next to him Jeongguk’s fellow defective Park Jimin, but the mint haired boy, tall blonde, and another brunette are total strangers to you. Beside you, Jeongguk only lets out a sleepy little yawn, not panicked in the least. He scrunches his nose at the intruders and buries his face into your soft belly.

“Guys give us a break, we just got married. Can you come back later or something?”

“Fuck you Jeongguk. Do you think this is a game?” The mint haired boy certainly doesn’t seem very intimidating at first glance, with his small and slender figure, but the tone of his voice tells you that you don’t want to end up on his wrong side, ever. He seems ready to reach across the bed and yank Jeongguk from your side, but Namjoon stills him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Wait, what the fuck is going on here? Namjoon, do you know these people? Are they from your department?”

Namjoon turns to you with a strange look in his eyes, one that you’ve never seen from him before. It takes you a second to realize that it’s the same look you get from all your patients.

“This is Bangtan, and we are the rebellion.”

A/N: AAAND WE’RE DONE!!! *throws confetti into the air* This took me ages to write but it’s finally done! My inspiration for this AU came from Charles Dickens’s Hard Times (props if you can spot the quoted lines) and also the movie Equals that just got released! I realised the plot is pretty complicated but I hope it makes sense. Thank you for reading, feedback is always appreciated <3

Also, since i don’t have a master list yet, check out my other story Premonition here!!! 

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In lieu of posting art (because I don’t have anything rn) I thought I’d share a Bubba edit I made a while ago

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1. Cicada Heat- Bubba Sawyer ('74) x ADHD having reader

[Cicada heat] Bubba Sawyer (’74) x nurodivergent AFAB reader

An: this is a lil romantic, there are subtle references to dating etc. etc. I love bubba and I think he deserves some love. One thing to note, this is the ’74 rendition so bubba in this uses he/him pronouns, I also write bubba as someone on the nurodivergent spectrum, as a nurodivergent person I saw myself in him oddly. Anyways enjoy sleepy bubba.

The heat clung to the two sleeping bodies. The larger, arm wrapped around the smaller waist; buried in their chest, his snore muffled. The other arms wrapped around the larger face band aids coating their arm. A chicken squawked nearby, stirring the smaller from their slumber.

The mattress creaked as the snuffed awake, falling on their back. The larger beginning to stir grasped for the smaller.

“Bubba?” I said blearily, “time?” his hand went up near his head and flicked outward. ‘I don’t know, and I don’t care.’ He signed. I blinked, perching on my knees to look out his little rooms window. The sky was a bruise red, bugs sticking to the trees and whistling their sweet chirps in hopes of seducing a fair mate.

“Bubba- can you get the chicken out?” he glared at me, before weakly flicking his hand out, batting at the chicken. He looked at me letting out a huff, his hand quickly moving ‘he wont get out. I’m too hot to move.’ “Invest in a fan” ‘noooooooo I have no moneeeeeyyy Drayton keeps it all..’ “We shall steal it!” I announce, ‘noooooooo’. He let out an angry whine, poor mute bastard.

I scoop up the fat chicken, and toddle out the hall, chop-top was doing some shit in a salt circle, so I set the chicken on his head.

“Gmornin, have chicken.” I stated before teetering off. Chop-top squabbled for a second, all his rocks falling to bits. He wore a loose purple shirt with a brazen peace-sign, and loose ripped green jeans his glasses teetering on the edge of his nose. “Are you up?” he asked, “no- “I held my finger to my lips “don’t tell Drayton please- “his lips pursed to a straight line. “Nubbins is gonna yell at you for letting another chicken out” “you have the chicken my friend, speaking of, do we have water now? Or did the well dry up again..” he shrugged wiggling his hand out of the salty rock pot circle and chugging a large tin of Mello yello “I just got sodie, go ask Drayton or gramps, my programs on now…go away.” I sniffed and picked up the chicken again, messing his weird demon circle up again. “To peepaw.” I told the chicken it settled in my arms, scrunching its head down.

The warm heat intensified as I tip toed up the stairs to the tune of chop tops “ohms”

That man is Charles Manson re-incarnated.

The attic stairs creaked as I tip-toed up. “Peepaw?” I whispered into the inky blackness.

“Huh?” the thick old accent poked up a light flickering on “is it time to get up?”

“No Peepaw, I just came to ask if we have a fan or some water.” Peepaw eyes slowly blinked before the question registered.

“Somewhere near mee-maw or in the piles of shit outside there’s a fan..” he laid back down. “Careful of mee-maw, you might wake her.” His stiff body rolled over, creating soft crackling sounds. I set the chicken in a small bassinette, before remarking “peepaw, mee-maws dead…isn’t she?” he shrugged, that was his final response. Shit. I remember the chicken in the bassinette and hurried down the stairs, the chicken falling asleep again. By then nubbins and Drayton were in the kitchen, discussing business, course.

“hi” “bye” I scuttled passed them chicken and hand, I wiggled open the chicken room door and placed him on a bed of hay. I sat down with the chicken spacing out for a second. I turned my head to stare out the coops open door, the sun barely rising over the horizon. My foot thumps against the floorboard like a small dog with a double helping of fleas and ticks. Tak tak, tak tak tak. Again, the odd drumbeat against the panel before I smacked my lips together, dry. The small windmill outside creaked adding to the bugs song. Crap. Water. I set the chicken down wiggling out of the coop and headed to the kitchen.

“Hello.” Pass chop top, “hello.” Pass the lounging nubbins, “hello” to peepaws porch sit, straight into Drayton’s back. I let out a lip smack sound alerting him of my presence.

“Good morning chickee.” He smiled, before looking down “where’s your clothes…” I looked down, “knickers” I stated, “hot” I finalized. “water” I finally remembered, “do we have a fan, I wanna believe peepaw but I’m not really intent of moving mee-maw..” Drayton nodded and scratched his chin. “We have a fan.. but I think it may be under… mee-maw.” The bacon popped behind him, he shuffled around and flipped them, he wore his favorite yellow paisley shirt with khaki pants and deep brown belt; I thought it complimented his eyes. “Tell ya what, we’ve got a jug of orange juice in the freezer- “my nose scrunched up, he let out a sigh, “you’ve gotta get used to it at some point.” “I don’t wanna know how the sausage gets made. All I know is eating it.” I pat my tummy to emphasize my point. “Tell nubs to get it- I can go fetch water..” “We have a jug in the kitchen- “Drayton said, “don’t use all of it now!” I set it out on the counter and stalked into the main room, the morning air beginning to cool. Nubbins, lounged on the couch under the open window, he seemed to be looking through old polaroids.

“nuggets” he looked up, and stacked the photos together, and clicked open the purse, shoving them in. “aaayup. That’s me” he nodded “the craziness hasn’t kicked in yet?” he raised a brow, “your usually Fred Flintstone by now!” “Your usually not half nude- ““listen we all have priorities; can you get the juice?” “Can’t you?” he asked, I pouted as a response, “there are carcasses, that is your thing. Plus, I’m gonna smell..” he squinted and sniffed the air, “you already do!” “Shut up.” I told him, gently bonking his head “gimmie juice, or ill riot” “with what?” he stood up and stretched out. “The chickens” my brows tilted upward; my lips tilted upwards. He gasped softly, “you wouldn’t.” my feet sped down the hall on their own accord, nubbins quicky followed barreling headfirst before scooping me up and placing me back in the living room. “Be good.” He commanded, “ill get you your juice” for extra measure, his fingers flicked around the soft flesh of my midsection. “I’ll bite your fingers.” I retorted, “not for juice?” “Fine, only for juice.” He smiled softly; his sharp canines poked out of his grin the sticky strands of his hair falling into his face, he blew it away as he sauntered off.

I waddled into the kitchen and wiggled out two mugs plunking a few ice cubes in the glasses, the sun rays now rising felt warm on my back. I poured the jug of water into the two glasses, upon putting away the jug I grabbed the stepstool and nabbed the pitcher off the shelf and set it on the table. I picked up two straws and set them into the two glasses. I teetered back to bubbas small room, I wiggled the knob to find him getting ready, mask was still discarded on the floor. He grunted thankfully, his hands forming a beak; he pressed it into his palm. He chugged the water down; ‘thank you’ he signed. His soft face scrunched into a warm charming grin, “you’re getting tan” I murmured setting down my half empty mug. He hummed softly in reply, I wrapped my arms around his head stroking the tanner parts of his skin, the tips of his lips and the lids of his eyes. He lowered his lashes, the small dimples of his cheeks poking out. I poked them in, and he melted into my hands.

His hair was greasy, so it fell about his chin, I twirled a strand around my finger. “non-verbal hours?” he signed, ‘my throats dry’ and grinned wiggling his eyebrows. “dummy” I giggled squishing his cheeks, he made a fish face and fingers flicked about in return. ‘Gotta get ready’ he signed, ‘gotta do chores’, “damn” I said, teetering to my little space of the room. “Laundry day then?” he grunted in agreement, the clinking of a belt buckle filling up the quiet space. I opened my closet, admittedly it was smaller.. I pulled on a large checked button-down with green and orange squares, and a pair of dirt-stained shorts that held a tight belt with a dairy cow bell upon it (a Draycon hand-me down). I grabbed a kerchief off my small rack and tied my hair back, flattening down my shirt in the mirror and brushing of the earlier days excess dirt.

Nubbins screamed “juice” from down the hall, we filed out stomping towards the kitchen.

“Alright kids!” Draycon announced over the table of bowed heads, messily slobbering away at kitschy plastic dinner plates. Milk poured out of my lip, and I craned my head over the mountainous bowl of corn flakes to catch its drippings.

“First off” he continued “y/n please, small bites” I swallowed before he lightly swatted the back of my head, “were lucky it’s not a dog-eat-dog world out here- “he frowned sullenly “but as I was saying, today’s chores will be written- by request” he added under his breath “and placed under the window on the porch if one forgets what they’re doing. We’re expecting a few more calves this year, so the barn needs to be organized and re-stocked. “y/n I’m guessing you’ll do laundry?” I nodded, shoving another spoonful into my mouth, earning another swat. “Do we have yeast?” I asked, my words burbled by the freshly swallowed flakes, he nodded before responding, “cabinet. Alright kids, lets get to work!” everyone shoved in their chairs, plates and cups clattering as the house began to wake from the new shouts of chickens announcing the suns arrival. I headed to the basement and brought up the ancient washboard and tub setting it on the porch, returning to the kitchen to set a washpot to boil. I gathered dirty clothes from all corners of the house and wheeled peepaw out front to his viewing place; he chattered endlessly about “the war” and how he wouldn’t trust a person who believed in the energies of rocks, he stated its ‘hogwash’ and ‘blasphemy’. I snorted realizing chop-top was setting up his radio for his chores. I took the linens out first, letting them sit in the warm soapy water, before scrubbing them until my knuckles were red, the cicadas continued their happy song as peepaw yelled at nubbins and chop-top to keep it down.

“This is 83.2 America’s favorite station for all things new, well its 8’o’clock and time for this new release, banjos and brewski’s”

“Change the station!” I shouted at them, as they repaired a fence gate. The dial clicked softly to an audio program; it was another romance.

The facial expression on nubbins was obvious “blegh.” It stated. “My favorite!” peepaw announced, “I can’t believe we have a new episode this week!” “Just your luck huh?” he nodded lifting the chipped mug to his cracked lips. I wrung out the washed sheet and trekked over to the clothing line, pinning it in place. I let out a breath, it exited my mouth as a “poof”

I worked endlessly, toiling away until the small front yard looked like a mini festival if colored sheets, and personal affects. The sun was high at this point, so I presumed it was about noon, I walked back inside and sat on the couch watching Draycon take care of the financials. I seemed to be intently staring as his eyes met mine and he sighed before stepping his hand twice. “Come back to earth please, your in here for something. Figure it out.” “no” I insisted, “I just wanted to wander.” He held his head in one of his hands “wander elsewhere then..”, I nodded and wiggled out the back door, holding my nose as I passed the carcass room.

The stalks were just beginning to bud produce, I hopped the fence and decided to wander. Our “neighbors” the Solley’s lived on the other side of the acre, I would often see their farmhands help over on ours. They had a little dog named “mop” that tagged along a lot of the time, he didn’t like the rest of the family; but seemed content with me. I decided that I would go help Ms. Solley in her little garden, she grew all sorts of flowers.. and gave treats for good work. To be honest that the real incentive for going over.

I watched my family members teeter over large haystacks and argue about where each tool went, and which duty was left to what brother (or cousin in chop-tops case, he was just here for the summer anyways..) I heard a soft bark as I approached the large white house, one of Ms. Solley’s daughters looked up from her sweeping, Lydia was her name. she grinned holding the broom handle “isn’t its chore day?” “Ayup.” I responded, she snorted and set down the broom, “Lemme guess is it flower time?” I nodded vigorously, before remembering “do you guys have flour? We ran out of it..” “We should have a bag, but you owe me a quarter then, or 50% of what your making.” She grinned tucking a curl behind her ear. “Oh, before I forget, mum left for the market today, so she set you and your beau out a snack.” Lydia winked handing me a little bag full of treats. “One of the sawyer boys” she sighed “they’re luckier than me..”

“If I’m honest with you” I admitted, “I thought they were gonna hate-crime me” she guffawed at that, and in nubbins voice she joked: “meat is meat.”

I frowned, “that’s not funny. But don’t get me wrong, the only person in that family capable of a hate crime is peepaw, but he seems to be dead enough that he doesn’t.” I finished my thought.

“You should probably get home before the gelatin wear out. It’s always a pleasure talking to you. And- I think you shouldn’t be worried about that stuff, I mean- “I interjected, “it’s really only the bigoted areas, I know. But the thing is, you come from sunny California where there are people of all shades, to the deep south where you’ve heard stories from relatives about atrocious things! I wanted to die when I met the sawyers. They’re awfully terrifying at first glance.”

She shrugged, “they’re doofus’s, especially the one you roped, lucky he hadn’t been infected by that slaughterhouse crap.”

“Not by much..” I reminded her, “he wore a butchered cows head for his childhood hat, or so I’m told.”

She shrugged, “well he’s the nicest, so perhaps- you might make him more presentable.”

“Maybe.” She walked me out, I quickly added on “and y’know he’s never really been properly taught English- so its gonna be hard to adjust if I take him away.. and I don’t know if all of his mutism is selective, cause you know I’ve read up on that- “she hushed me. “Try it out, suns leaving- head back, congrats on the new calf.” I shrugged again, “I’ll ask him.”

The field was sunlit, the stalks growing into golden poles in the sun contrasting against the dark blue sky. The cicadas sung again; the deep summer heat settled into the ground.

I could hear Draycon squabbling with the older cousins, yelling at them to shower; both boys refused. I snorted softly, heading towards the barn. I found bubba petting the pregnant cow, a tired content smile on his face; pinch fingers hand under his chin, his wrist twisted. He said hello, the dreamy smile playing off his soft face.

“All done with work?” I asked taking his hand, he shrugged and rested his head on my shoulder, the mask scratching the inside of my neck. We stayed there for a bit, gently swaying, before he nodded and signed that he was ready to go. ‘I cant wait for a bath..’ “you’re lucky you’re the least stinky of the bunch, s’ why I chose you.” ‘Stoop, you’re making me blush.’ He added on a J at the end as a side note.

Draycon only let us around the table once we were spick and span and smelt less like the dirt and sun- this couldn’t be said for poor chop-top who smelt like pot all the time; his “eternal fragrance” he called it. I set the bag of treats in the retro egg yolk yellow fridge, Draycon shooed me out complaining I smelled like a wet dog.

Bubba settled onto the freshly linen-ed mattress leaning backwards into the wobbling armchair I rested on, which nubbins insisted was “made of real arm bones” of what species they don’t want to tell me. He purred softly as I worked my fingers through his hair, “did you put conditioner?” his hand bobbed back and forth, yes. I clucked picking up a brush brushing out the final knots. “I’ve wanted to try something- “I admitted “y’know when your like.. I dunno when its really quiet and the world is calm for a second- and like you.. agh like when you- I guess- when I can hear your breathing. The back of my head itches a lot.. but it’s a nice itch. It feels either like the top of my head is being scrunched or my spine gets cold for a second. I just- its an experiment is all.” He looked up and squinted before grunting approvingly ‘do whatever, just don’t make me stressed please..’

“This is gonna look stupid so please don’t laugh!”

‘I don’t think I can?’

I place my hands on the base of the small wood brush, tapping my nails against the small base.

His hands hesitated before he pressed his palms together and rubbed in a small circular motion, ‘nice.’

I set down the small brush and grabbed the medium sized hand towel before gently scrubbing it above his ears, he held his hands out and wiggled them, ‘tickles’.

“Exactly!” I chirped, “I just wanted to know if someone else could feel it too!”

I gently tugged at the base of his tips downward and patted his hair dry; before giving it a fluff for good measure.

“Dinner?” I asked, again his hand shot up, bobbing, he stared at me for a second before his hand made a little cupping motion pinching his finger, ‘tea after?’ “Yes, thank you that would be lovely.” He smiled, his nose and the corners of his eyes wrinkling.

We headed to dinner in loose shirts and comfy pants, the rest of the family looking half asleep as they ate. By the time dinner was over, bubbas head was neatly tucked into the corner of my neck at some intervals of time he rubbed his nose against it as re-assurance.

He made some tea, pouring half a cup of honey for himself, and two pumps for me. He rubbed his eye as he held the warm mug.

He waved goodnight to the rest of the family before trudging down to his room. I- the more affectionate of our group, hugged everyone goodnight placing goodnight kisses between their brows. As I walked down the aged hall, my feet dragged as the toll of the day entered my body. I turned the nob again, wiggling out of the day clothes and into clean pajamas again, and collapsing besides bubbas warm body. He shifted and rolled over, drawing a scared finger through the strands of hair coating my ear. A soft coo left his lips, I took that as confirmation to wrap my limbs like vines around his.

“Do you think… do you think you’d ever wanna leave this place?” I felt him shrug beneath me, readjusting so his head rested on my chest. I played with a strand of his hair; he closed his eyes before signing: ‘it’s a possibility.’

“When I first met you, I felt really bad for you- actually”

‘ha’ he signed, letting out a breathy chortle.

“Take me seriously- you go to bumfuck nowhere, only to find a rabid little family with an adult that cant speak English.”

‘It’s not my fault’ he signed. I patted his head as an apology; hoping that consoled him.

He let out a little huff, before his hands flicked out once more: ‘your teeth looked weird to me, never did I see someone with such straight teeth.’

“Artificially straightened, my parents wanted a poster child.” I batted my eyes at him, he snorted again in response.

Bubba began tapping a soft drumbeat on my spine, it sounded like the pattering if rain.

‘I was thinking- if I were to leave, what... I’m not sure if I’m going to function- like…there’s only so much structure in a day. And! I’m not good at any of the “sit down” stuff.’

“we’d find something for you, maybe a pretty garden to work at, maybe we’d work on talking- “

‘That is something I’d like to investigate.’ He smiled thoughtfully, pressing small kisses to the inlet of my collar bone.

“Last thing? Your nose is too pointy for your face.” He frowned covering his nose with half of his hand, ‘is the mask more appealing than my nose?’

“no” I finished, “it just took a little bit to get used to. I like it in the end.” He smiled letting me pepper kisses to his round face, ‘you were very hesitant.. look at you now! How the mighty have fallen.’ He mocked disgust, before signing ‘guess you fell for me anyways’

“That I did.” He grinned, wiggling a finger under my chin, and tugging me forward, pressing little pecks to the corners of my lips.

‘Sleep now’ he presses his thumbs to my eyelids wiggling them around, before lurching to his side- taking me with him.

His breathing slowed as the crickets sang,

In that summer of cicada heat.

---

I guess we can call this a DiceCup((???????

Critical Hit D20 Mug

---

“That’s a carpet, right?”

“It certainly is.”

“Yep. Walking like a person.”

“That’s Eraqus, right?”

“It certainly is.”

“Yep. Walking like a carpet.”

10/10, no notes.

- Mod A.

---

— 505 ⟢

i'd probably still adore you with your hands around my neck; or i did, last time i checked.

★ FEATURING; joshua x afab!reader

★ WORD COUNT; 1-2k est, no idea bc mobile

★ TAGS; coworkers au, friends with benefits, typical gentleman in the streets sexual deviant in the sheets joshua, a hint of pining if you squint, slight angst?, smut (MINORS DNI)

★ NOTES; this specific picture of shua is years old but it incited the most visceral reaction out of me anyway so here we are with another short oneshot that sidetracked me from the monster that i'm SUPPOSED to be writing :| this also turned out a bit more emotional(?) than i originally intended, so heads up on that i guess

★ SMUT TAGS; unprotected sex, shower sex, oral (f receiving), choking, slight dumbification (i'm sorry, i normally have more dignity than this but i miss him so so dearly)

★ PERMANENT TAGLIST; @cheolhub - @pretty-trustme - @just-here-to-read-01 - @idkmelkro - @dejavernon - @venusrae - @jyiiscool - @jiniesclub - @junhui-recs - @bldelaine - @featmia - @fruitzcup - @hoeforhao - @candidupped - @billboard-singer - @caratochan - @novalpha - @dahliatopia - @0717luv - @shiveringgaze - @toruro - @mixling-blog - @minnie-mouser22 - @homerunhansol - @mirtaspace - @ti-red - @zzucculent - @woozarts - @rubyreduji - @mozellerra - @lllucere - @cheolzip - @jjjzzzz - @lissiesykes - @jeonride - @meowmeowminnie - @colored-confetti - @partiallyinfluencial - @speaknowlwt - @flwrshwa - @lilylikesthat - @aurorahongg - @whippedforjihoon - @todorokiskitten - @immabecreepin

★ JOSHUA TAGLIST; @yoonzinoooo - @scandal-in-bohemia - @lunaryoongie

Joshua arrives five minutes after the first clap of thunder and ten minutes after the rain started pouring outside.

You hear him before you see him. The automatic lock of the hotel room turns as he scans the spare keycard from outside — one that you made sure to leave with the receptionist in the lobby when he told you he'll be running a little late. When the door swings open, light spills from outside and he greets you with a smile that makes his eyes crinkle and your heart stutter.

It's the same look that makes your female coworkers swoon and giggle to themselves in the office pantry — talk about Joshua's adorable eye smile never straying too far from your ears.

If they knew what kind of person he was past the usual pleasantries, would they still engage in that kind of fanfare?

Joshua is soaked all over when he enters, having tracked rainwater all over the carpeted hallway and into the floor of Room 505. He doesn't seem all too fazed by it though — quickly shrugging off his coat before hanging it behind the flimsy plastic hooks screwed to the back of the door. He shuts it behind him with a kick, sighing through his teeth as he loosens the coil of a sushi-patterned necktie around his collar.

You got that one for him as an exchange gift for last year's Christmas party. Joshua uses it a lot more frequently than you expected him to. In fact, he always wears it during casual Fridays. You're not sure if he actually likes the stupid necktie or he's just trying to get a reaction out of you, but his choice to wear it isn't lost on you either way.

"Team dinners are really something else," Joshua chuckles as he tosses the flimsy material atop the complimentary dining table. He cards his fingers through his damp hair and you try not to think of how good he looks as he does it.

"You should've come with us. It's not often that you see Manager Yoon convince Jihoon to down a shot of soju. Oh, Seungkwan also got his ass handed to him at karaoke with the girls from sales. I had no idea Jihyo could hold her high notes like she means business."

You don't take a bite at his feeble attempt at small talk. He knows damn well why you don't show up to any of Jeonghan's team dinners, but you tell yourself that Joshua's just being polite — still thinking of the outcast of the marketing department despite the fact that you do not want anything to do with the people you work with.

...Although there are some exceptions here and there.

"Really? You're just going to give me the silent treatment all night?" Joshua sighs dramatically as he unbuttons his dress shirt — baring his rain-beaded chest to your unwitting gaze. "Well, if you need a bit more time, I'll go hop in the shower first. You're free to join me if you'd like."

He knows you won't, so you find it strange that he offers each and every time anyway.

You let your gaze wander to the full length mirror attached to the cabinets once the door to the bathroom clicks shut. There's nothing remotely special about your getup tonight. You're still donned in your work clothes — brick gray pencil skirt with a brick gray blazer to match. Apart from the heels sitting on the rack near the door, you're pretty much still in uniform.

You had half the mind to go home and change when Joshua said he's going to dinner and karaoke with your boss and some other colleagues, but that would mean you actually cared about what you looked like in front of him.

Which, for the record, you don't.

You can hear Joshua singing a familiar song in the bathroom — one that he always belts out in the most annoying way possible every time he showers. You wonder if he even knows any other song apart from that, but tell yourself you don't really have any business asking.

As the near-silence persists, however, your thoughts start to wander. Did he also sing this song when he was at karaoke earlier? Did he get to duet the high notes with Jihyo? You wouldn't put it past either of them to do so — being two of the company's renowned social butterflies.

That train of thought brings forth the same question you've been asking ever since the first night you shared this hotel room with Joshua and found him still lying beside you in the morning:

Why'd he choose you?

You're an in by nine and out by five unless there's paid overtime kind of employee. You never bothered establishing any worthwhile friendships in the workspace because you know better than to trust the backstabbing fiends in the corporate ladder. You're perfecrly aware of what other people say about your individualistic behavior — how you're the worst team player in your department — but you never really cared.

Not until Joshua Hong inserted himself into your life.

To put it in the easiest way possible, he's the epitome of a perfect coworker. He's the guy that greets you every morning with an charming smile. The guy who drops by your cubicle to give you a coffee he made himself before saying you're doing a great job with that report you're putting together. The guy that everyone just adores simply because he's always been likable from the get-go.

That's the kind of person Joshua is — the exact opposite of you. Surely the jury won't condemn you for always questioning how you wound up spending your Friday nights fucking the man your entire department is basically in love with when you're so unlovable yourself.

Every time you try to recall how your transactional relationship with the company's unofficial sweetheart happened in the first place, your brain simply refuses to cooperate — memories muddled by a few pints of beer too many and an eye-crinkling smile that you're better off not rationalizing.

Besides, it's not like Joshua kisses and tells. Whatever happens in Room 505 stays in Room 505, and that's one of the many reasons why you haven't deigned to walk away from the setup altogether.

You meet up, he makes you feel good — makes you feel wanted — he cycles through whatever aftercare you might need, you fall a little more in love with him, then you both decide if you want to sleep in for a couple more hours or —

Wait.

Did you just admit you're in love with him?

"Hm? Didn't think you'd actually hop in with me today."

Joshua's voice is clearly laced with amusement as you shut the door to the bathroom — cheeks hot with both the steam billowing from the shower and the embarrassment cloying in your chest. You had the foresight to take off your uniform at least, leaving you in an unassuming set of cotton underwear that makes Joshua lick his lips with anticipation.

You make a show of stripping the rest of your clothing before him — nothing but the glass door to the shower separating the both of you. It's nothing sensual, nothing grandiose. You simply take off everything that's keeping your body hidden from your nighttime lover's hungry eyes.

When you step into the warm drizzle of the showerhead, Joshua hums before reaching for a bottle of shampoo — squeezing just the right amount into his palm as he lathers the product into your scalp.

The gentleness weighted into his actions startles you a little — not having expected him to do something so...domestic. You came in here with the full intention of getting fucked against the bathroom wall, but the way he massages your scalp so tenderly makes you reconsider your course of action.

But no matter how much of a gentleman he acts around you, not even Joshua can do anything about his own body's physiological reactions.

You feel the length of his cock nestled against your ass, hips rocking back and forth as he stimulates himself into full hardness. A soft moan tumbles out of your lips when he squeezes some of the hotel-provided body wash all over your chest — large hands lathering the soap across your body all while paying special attention to your tits.

"You finally snapped out of it, sweetheart?" Joshua sighs before latching his mouth onto the thrum of your pulse, biting down for only a moment to get your attention. "Ready to take my cock like a good girl?"

The way he murmurs those last few words along the column of your throat makes your legs feel like they'll disintegrate at any moment. Joshua continues to murmur sweet nothings into your ear, helping you clean up properly first before actually trying anything.

You're not sure if you should be pissed off or endeared by his stalling, but by the time he's finally rinsed out all the suds from your heated bodies, you're more or less ripe for the taking.

"Brace your palms against the wall, pretty girl. Yeah, just like that." Joshua chuckles softly as he presses a kiss to your nape, lips traveling down the length of your spine until he's eye-level with your sopping cunt.

"God, I'll never get tired of looking at this pretty pussy. Been thinking about sinking my cock into you all fucking week," he practically growls. "You really knew what you were doing with that cute maroon skirt you wore the other day, weren't you? The one that kept riding up your thighs when you reached for something from the high shelves? Little fucking minx."

You mewl helplessly when you feel Joshua's tongue prodding your soaked folds — forcing you to press your cheek against the cold tile as he massages your ass gingerly.

Joshua does his best to keep you anchored, making sure you won't accidentally slip as he laves at the slick between your thighs. He has no problem doing just that — driving you to near insanity with how his tongue sucks and slurps at your cunt like it's the first meal he's had in days.

"S-Shua," you whimper pathetically, pushing your ass out for more friction. "You're eating me so good..."

Had you not been so quickly drowned in this haze of arousal, you would've exercised more restraint. Joshua normally has a hard time getting you to be more vocal whenever he makes you feel good, but you suppose that there's just something in the air tonight that makes it so easy to just surrender yourself to him.

You can feel the vibrations of his laughter along the millions of nerve endings on your clit as he traces it with the tip of his tongue — further incapacitating you from coherent thought. When he slips in a finger into your awaiting heat, you all but gasp into the steamy air of the hotel bathroom.

"You're so cute when you start calling me that," he coos without halting his ministrations — that sinful tongue darting out to tease and lick and stimulate as he eases in another thick finger into your gummy walls. "Wanna eat you out underneath your desk someday... Would you act as cute as you're acting right now if I did that?"

The prospect of having sweet, gentlemanly Joshua Hong on his knees for you under your work desk makes you tighten conspicuously around his fingers. From the sordid chuckle that leaves his lips, you're fairly certain that he's noticed.

"You like that, huh? You like it when I put my mouth on you? Make you feel so good, you forget about everything else?" he chuckles darkly, rising back to his full height without taking his fingers out of your needy cunt. "But we both know this is hardly enough for you, right sweetheart?"

You hate how he knows you so well.

Joshua spends about one minute max towel drying both of your bodies before he quite literally sweeps you off your feet. You let out a surprised shriek as he princess-carries you onto the bed — gently laying you on the undisturbed sheets before crawling on top of you like a predator circling its next meal.

"Wanna tell me why you were so out of it earlier?" Joshua murmurs as he nips at your jaw, the words followed by a crackle of thunder in the distance. He chuckles when you jolt in surprise before peppering your face with a collection of kisses that ends at the tip of your nose. "It's not the weather, is it? I remember that I literally fucked you in the middle of a storm last month."

"Quit running your mouth and just fuck me," you mumble, lacing your fingers around his nape before grinding up against his leaking cock. "I've waited for you long enough."

"Ahhh," he drawls with resounding epiphany, as if he'd just figured out some ancient secret. "So you were sulking because I took too long to get here? Don't worry, sweet thing, it won't happen again."

When Joshua leans close to your ear, his hot breath fans against your flesh — making your toes curl with quiet anticipation.

"The next time we meet in this room, I'll have you mounted on my cock the moment you come through the door."

Joshua doesn't bother with foreplay or any sort of preamble. He simply guides his cock into the give of your entrance, sinking his length so deep, you can feel him in your stomach.

"Fuck," you whimper, fingernails seeking purchase across the rippling muscles of Joshua's back. He doesn't quite move yet — letting you get used to the stretch like he always does.

"Pretty pussy's so fucking tight around me," he groans. "Did you need me this badly? 'm sorry for making you wait so long, sweetheart. If I had known, I would've ditched karaoke and made you feel good as soon as I could."

Empty words uttered in the throes of passion — you're well aware that's all they are. Yet Joshua has no trouble making your heart flutter with the sentiment anyway.

"J-Joshua," you manage to gasp as you feel his girth throb inside you. "Please move... Need it. Need it so bad, please."

You're on the brink of tears with how desperate you are for mind-numbing release, but amidst your mounting delirium, Joshua sighs a little too endearingly before pressing a long, hard kiss on your lips.

"Anything for you, pretty girl."

He eases himself into you slowly at first — making sure you feel every ridge of his cock dragging along your tight walls. Joshua particularly feels smug when your eyes roll to the back of your head, addicted to the way his cock is splitting you open.

It's only when you start to loosen up that he picks up the pace, strong hands gripping your thighs as he pounds into you. The squelch of your arousal echoes within the walls secluding you from the rest of the world.

When Joshua hoists your hips higher before hooking the back of your knees across his shoulders, you knew it was all over for you.

Admittedly, you don't remember the first time you've had sex with him anymore. Or the second. Or the third. You've had each other so many times in so many ways that every instance kind of just blends into the next — painting a messy caricature of all the illicit meetings you've had with your nighttime lover.

But you don't care if it's messy. You don't care if it's strange. At the end of the day, you're comforted by the fact that all these experiences you shared with him are irrevocably yours.

Even if you can't really say the same for Joshua himself.

He stirs the pot of your arousal with practiced ease. Joshua stares at you like you're the most precious thing he's laid eyes on before letting one of your legs fall back on the mattress.

Your lover trades the depth of his thrusts for enough leeway to flatten his thick fingers across your throat — making you bleat with expectation as he presses down just enough to make you feel lightheaded. He hisses when he feels your velvet walls clamp tighter around his cock, further informing him that he's on the right track.

"Fuck, sweetheart," he laughs breathlessly — his gorgeous face the only thing you can see. "You'll let me do anything to you, won't you? All I gotta do is fuck you stupid and you'll take everything I give."

At this point, you're too far gone to even deny a word he says. "Mmmm... Your cock feels too good, Shua. 'M so close already. You'll finish inside me, won't you? Make both of us feel good?"

"Dumb little princess couldn't even answer my question," Joshua chuckles before making a particularly harsh thrust that jostles you further up the mattress. "Of course I'll finish inside this pretty pussy. It's all mine, isn't it?"

"Uh-huh," you mewl as Joshua's fingers tighten around your throat again, making your toes curl with unadulterated glee. "My pussy's all yours, Joshua. All fucking yours."

He chuckles again, fingers climbing up to your jaw until Joshua is able to prod his thumb against your bottom lip. You respond in earnest, suckling at the digit as he rails you into the mattress. There's no longer any room for intelligible thoughts — lost in the sea of pleasure that Joshua choose to drown you in every time you come together like this.

"Close, close, close," you practically sob, thighs winding around his hips as you bring him impossibly closer to you. "Shua, I'm gonna cum. Please, I need to cum. I need you—"

"You already have me, sweetheart," he laughs breathlessly yet full of intent that you're too fucked out to notice.

"You'll always have me."

That's what does you in. That's what always does you in — his sweet words, his tender gaze.

As much as the pleasure he gives with each drive of his cock into your battered cunt sends you to cloud nine, nothing makes you fall apart harder than the thought that maybe Joshua Hong is capable of loving you back.

Because how can he stare at you with so much adoration in his eyes if he doesn't actually love you at all? How can he keep meeting you like this in secret if there's no hidden agenda behind it?

But when all's said and done, you come back to your senses. Your rose-tinted gaze fades back into the darkness of Room 505.

Joshua is still beaming at you like you're the only person that matters to him on this entire earth. But you know damn well that he'd never smile at you the same way once you're out of the four corners of this room.

That's just the way things are.

As you pick off your clothes from the floor of the bedroom and the bathroom alike, Joshua stirs from where he momentarily passed out on the mattress — bleary eyes observing your every move as his brows furrow together.

"You're leaving?" he murmurs sleepily. "But it's raining outside. We should stay until it stops at least."

Hesitating for a moment, you stare at the bundle of rumpled clothes in your arms as Joshua practically tells you to go back to bed.

You know it's for the best if you don't lay back down beside him. The distance keeps you grounded — anchored to the truth that beyond these weekly trysts you share together, you and Joshua are nothing but civil colleagues at most.

He isn't your lover. He isn't even your friend.

But a stubborn part of you believes that maybe if he breaks you apart and puts you back together again, you'll be a different person. Someone who can keep up with his outgoing lifestyle. Someone he'll have no problem showing off to his friends and fellow coworkers.

But, really, when have things ever turned up daisies when it comes to you and Joshua Hong?

"Fine," you mumble, dropping your clothes in a heap next to the sushi necktie that looks more worn out now that you're seeing it up close.

You make a mental note to buy him a few more once the Christmas sales start coming around again.

"You coming to cuddle before we sleep or what?"

Joshua stares at you sleepily and expectantly from the bed, even patting the vacant space between him for added effect. If only those girls swooning at him in the office pantry could see him now...

Too bad what happens in Room 505 stays in Room 505.

⟢ end notes: finished this at 3:05 am with zero proofreading dedicated to it <3 if you spot any mistakes, they're not really mistakes since they're all crucial contenders in the creation process <333

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“Sometimes,” Gareth drawls. He’s sitting behind his kit, twirling a drumstick in his fingers, thoughtful. “Sometimes I think this town really is cursed.” “Dude.” Jeff warns. “Let me finish. I think this town is cursed, and Eddie’s a part of it—” “Dude!” “Let me finish! Town’s cursed, Eddie’s involved, but he’s not the source. He’s a victim.”

Jeff and Francis exchange a look. ”And the true source.” He rises, getting on a roll. “The true source is hiding in plain sight, something—”

He cuts his eyes at them. “—or someone no one would expect. The true source…” He whirls his drumstick with a dramatic flourish then snaps his arm to its full extension and points outward, into the wild blue yonder that is the world beyond his parents’ garage. “…is Him.”

Him, being: Steve Harrington, parked at the end of the driveway. Steve Harrington, opening the passenger side door of his rich boy Beemer. Steve Harrington, who drove Eddie to band practice. Who’s shouldering Eddie’s gig bag. Who’s helping Eddie out of the car. 

Jeff and Francis watch for a moment in silence, then turn back to Gareth in sync.

”An interesting theory.” ”Elaborate.”

Keep reading

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Boundaries - Kim Taehyung (M)

Beautiful moodboard by @cafelunes

⇢ word count: 4.7 k

⇢ summary: it hadn’t been the first time you and Taehyung fucked, but something about the way he held you, told you this time, was different. 

⇢ genre: smut, fluff. Office sex! Office! au

⇢ warnings: graphic smut, fingering, light exhibitionism? (They have sex in a meeting room, door unlocked), no condoms - stay safe my friends.

This story is dedicated to @guksthighs, thanks for helping me overcome my writer’s block, jess. You’re the sweetest patootie bean and I love you very much. (Also something she told me inspired this story HAHAHAHAHHAHA)

A/N: I’m so excited about this, because this is the first fic I’m posting since my four month long writer’s block! So pls shower me with love and supports, i love it when you guys leave comments!

-

“Fucking hell.”

Glare directed at your boss, you picked up the paperwork she placed on your desk and sifted through it with deft fingers. From your peripheral vision, you noticed the discreet slap she gave Taehyung’s ass. The jolt he made was almost comical, and he whipped his head around, only to receive a wink.

Stopping in front of you, he glanced over his shoulder againand sighed. “It’s been like the third time this month.”

You snorted and adjusted the pile, leaving it on your desk. Taehyung stood at your side, lips pursed and eyes narrowed as he watched you rearrange the few things in your work space. “Well,” you started, turning to face him with an amused smile,“that’s what you get for sleeping with your boss, genius.”

“But, that was like four months ago,” he whined, before his face suddenly contorted with a satisfactory glint. “Besides, that was before I got a taste of you.”

The gagging gesture you made only urged him further, “oh, come on! You were so into it in the bathroom last week.”

“Jesus, will you just be quiet,” you hissed and brought a hand to your temple, massaging it gently to calm your headache. “I do not need a constant reminder of the fact that I have slept with you more than once.”

“Please, you fucking love it.”

Keep reading

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