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chlix · 6 months

Text

souvenirs

pairing: seungmin x reader

genre: fluff, light angst (???)

word count: 1.8k

warnings: vague references to depression (in a sense)

synopsis: It's getting harder to get through the day, lately. seungmin helps

a/n: the way this is borderline nonsense aksdjhlfajkd i've been exhausted from work lately and this is what i spit out,,,excuse the fact that my metaphors are all mixed together

You're sitting on the couch with your hand above your face, watching your rings glimmer in the afternoon light. Your head is reading on Seungmin's thigh as he reads a book he bought while he was in Paris, something about local birds and migratory patterns. He’s been trying to read more lately, says it’s important for self-improvement. You wonder what self-improvement could come from understanding the ecological niche of French swallows.

“It’s not about the information,” he says. “It’s about learning to parse meaning from text. It’s a brain exercise.”

You think your brain gets plenty exercise. You want to join him on his quest for media literacy, but your brain is too fried to process written language most days. Work takes everything out of you, and then you have to come home and worry about classes and the laundry and all the other things you’re responsible for each day, and it keeps you from being able to focus on any individual thing, in the end. Even now, you're meant to be relaxing, a rare afternoon off when neither you nor your boyfriend has anything important to do, but you can't relax. Your gut is tight, and your head feels stretched thin. In your mind's eye you can see your desk, your laptop, all the work and emails and papers piling up. It's hard to breathe if you think about it for too long.

The sun is so pretty on your gold rings. Seungmin bought them for you in Paris from a vendor’s stand on his way to the airport. They're not real gold; one of them is already tarnishing, and the gems inlaid in another are chipping, clearly fake and not at all real garnets. But he thought you’d much prefer to have the “authentic” experience of a tourist Paris, and wear something you would’ve gotten yourself had you gone.

"If I went to Paris, I would’ve asked you to send me your card details," you'd said after he gave them to you. "I wouldn't have settled for tacky fakes.”

“You don’t even wear jewelry,” Seungmin threw back at you. “You would’ve only put them on to post them to your Instagram story, and then you’d never wear them again.”

“I would wear them if they were from Paris.”

“And so from Paris they are.”

It’s become something of a running joke. Every time you post a picture of yourself, you make sure one of your hands is visible, and with it, the rings. Of course, for this to be possible, you end up wearing them almost every day. In the end, Seungmin is right that it doesn’t really matter that the rings are cheap fakes. They’re beautiful, and they complement your skin tone, and Seungmin had bought them for you, so you don’t really care they’re from a cheap street vendor. First and foremost, they’re from your boyfriend, a souvenir he’d carried thousands of miles back to you, like those birds he’s reading about crossing large bodies of water to find their families back home.

You take one off and hold it directly above your head, looking through the hole like a lens at the ceiling above you. You zero in on the sunlight dancing across the ceiling, getting caught in the brass rings on your curtains and bouncing around in delight.

"You're thinking so loud," Seungmin says.

"Well, stop eavesdropping," you reply.

"It's not eavesdropping if you're loud," Seungmin says. "What's wrong?"

What's always wrong, you want to ask, but you don't know if that's helpful or vindictive, so you don’t. Instead, you say,

"I've just got a lot on my mind."

"Penny for your thoughts?"

“They’re worth more than that,” you say, absent. You're still looking through your lens. You're waiting to see something appear on the other side. Like Coraline’s seeing stone, you think to yourself, ignoring everything outside the metallic ring. If I look through it I can see a new reality.

Seungmin reaches up and takes the ring out of your hand.

“Boyfriend discount,” he says, teasing. He turns the ring over in his fingers curiously.

“Is this the ring from Paris?”

You hum.

“It’s tarnishing.”

“It’s cheap. That’s what happens with cheap things. They break down.” You reach for it, but he holds it out of your reach.

“A shame. Now what will you have to remember Paris by?”

“I didn’t even go, moron,” you say. “I never do anything that fun.” You mean to be lighthearted, but your voice is bitter, hard.

“That’s not true. You do fun things all the time. You’re the interesting one, not me.”

You actually laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“It’s true. If I wasn’t in an idol group, I would never go anywhere. I would have gotten a boring office job and been a salaryman, and I never would’ve even met you.”

Maybe that would be for the best, you think, but you know better than to say it. You've both grown tired of conversations about not deserving each other; there’s no denying you guys are in this for life. You love Seungmin so much it’s embarrassing, so much that you go to all his shows and sound checks, so much that you buy newspapers with his face on them and stick them on your coffee table even though you never read a single page. You love him enough that you stay up late and call him at odd times at night when he’s off in Europe headlining a music festival, so much so that you wear tarnished rings from a stupid Parisian street vendor just because he bought them and you love him and you want to look at your hands every single day and think about how much he loves you. So much so that you fantasize about the day he’ll give you a ring that won’t tarnish, because it’ll be real gold, and it’ll sit prim and shiny untouched on your currently unadorned ring finger. It’s not about deserving. If it was about deserving, you’d never have it. But you will have it, someday.

It's not someday yet, though.

"However you used to be, or could be, I'm the boring one now. I'm tired all the time. I have nothing to talk about most days except my work. And the work never ends. I'm not even a housewife. I'm something worse." It’s toeing the line of how much self-deprecation Seungmin will allow, and sure enough, he fights back.

"You said you wanted to keep your jobs. You said you liked them."

"I do like my jobs. And I like having money. Very low bar for me, liking things that I need to survive.”

"Is there a lot going on lately?" Seungmin holds the ring out between his thumb and middle finger, surrendering it back to you. You slide your finger back through the hole easily, reunited with your prices possession once more. Crossing portals, becoming whole, something else metaphorical that would fix you, that would make this conversation easier.

"Like I said, just a lot on my mind."

You don’t know why this is so hard.

Seungmin has always been willing to hear you out, knowing you're not one to complain when you don't need to. But something about this situation is getting to you, this prison of your own making, of trying to do everything in your own. You don't let Seungmin support you and then complain about working. You say you want fulfillment through education and then cry about midterms. You move miles away from your family to earn your independence and then wax depressive about how you're not seeing your baby sister grow up. It must be tiring for him, not just as someone who’s made similar sacrifices for his idol career, but just as a person on earth who has to listen to you all day. You don't like to be whiny. You understand your choices, and you don't regret them. You regret very little of your life, and very little of yourself, even on your worst days, but that doesn't mean it doesn't suck.

"Thinking loud again,” Seungmin says.

"Does that mean the thoughts are worth more?" you ask, but there's no mirth in your voice.

"You can tell me anything, you know," he says, and you do know. Of course, you know.

"Take your own advice," you say. "It's like pulling teeth with you.'

"You shouldn't pick up my bad habits," Seungmin says. "You have plenty of your own."

He isn't saying it to be mean, it's just true. There are so many parts of yourself you prefer to ignore, this being one of them. Seungmin is all about self-improvement. Hence the book on swallows, and the afternoon off. Hence the way he's not demanding you tell him what's wrong and is instead letting you decide. He's working on being less impatient, more empathic. You're working on honesty. To be honest it's like pulling teeth for both of you.

Talking with Seungmin like this is doing...something. It isn't really making it easier to breathe, and it's not helping you ignore the piles of work you have left, but it does make it easier to remember that you two are a team in this. In being people. In suffering and paying rent and being maybe not so good with money, if he’s willing to waste it on street trinkets that will just tarnish within the year and you’re willing to encourage him by wearing them.

You're drowning in work, you both are, always, but then, the work isn't here with you, is it? Here it's Sunday afternoon, and it's golden hour, and you're on the couch with your boyfriend. And you still don't really want to tell him what the problem is, because you're afraid he'll laugh, even though he clearly won't. He would never laugh at you. He doesn't find most of what you do funny for him to start making jokes now.

"Buy me fried chicken and I might give you a thought or two," you say. "I'm bringing back the barter system.”

“Traditionalist," he says.

"True innovation is found in retrospection," you say. "I’ll make it a BOGO. Combining old with new.”

"Enough metaphors," he says. “What place do you want to order from?"

You pretend to be offended. "You don’t know my chicken order?"

"Now you're just inventing things. Coffee order, sure, even dessert order. But chicken order?”

"If you don't love me, just say that."

“This is why your thoughts are only worth a penny, just so you know."

You grin, looking up at him. You're not looking at his face through the ring, but it feels like you're seeing another world anyway, a universe where there's Just the two of you, a universe sustained only by your love.

Who cares about migrating birds, as long as Seungmin keeps flying home to you.

#skz x reader #stray kids x reader #seungmin x reader #seungmin fluff #skz imagines #skz x you #skz x y/n #seungmin imagines

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chlix · 8 months

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to do what i can do

pairing: seungmin x f!reader

genre: fluff, light angst

word count: 6.1k

warnings: insecurity, light angst, exactly three (3) uses of "y/n"

synopsis: after a conversation with hyunjin's girlfriend, you grow worried that you aren't putting enough work and attention into your relationship. seungmin dissuades you of this idea immediately.

a/n: literally never done this before so sorry if this formatting isn't standard. also ignore any spelling errors pls <3

Seungmin kisses you goodbye every morning. It’s like clockwork: he puts on his shoes, pours his coffee in a mug, kisses you goodbye, and is out the door. Both of you are routine-oriented people. You like schedules and organized silverware drawers. Ever since you first got together, Seungmin has been kissing you goodbye whenever you part ways, and nearly a year later that hasn’t changed. It’s sweet that he always remembers, and the fact that it’s practiced doesn’t make it feel any less sincere.

This morning is more of the same. You get up before him, as always, and put the coffee on. You check your emails while your breakfast cooks. Seungmin emerges just as the food is done (too late to actually eat it, as always) and goes to get his coat and shoes from the door. He loops back around to put his coffee in the cup you washed the previous night and leans down to where you’re sitting at the table to kiss you lightly on the lips. It’s so rote as to be unnotable, but it makes you smile anyway, your day instantly brighter.

“I love you,” you call after him, as you always do, and Seungmin waves as he leaves, throwing a “Be safe!” over his shoulder. And then the door closes, and you’re alone.

In a few minutes, you’ll go to work at your office job. Later, you’ll come home and make dinner. At some point in the day, Seungmin will text you to let you know if he’ll be coming home or not, so that you’ll know if you need to make one portion or two. You normally make two anyway, and just leave the second wrapped up in the fridge. If worst comes to worst, you don’t mind eating the leftovers. It’s far more horrible in your mind to not have food ready for him when he is home. It’s not that Seungmin expects food from you. He’s expressed multiple times that he can buy food on his way home. But you like cooking for him, and lately you don’t get much chance because he’s so busy. You want things to be perfect when he’s home because the time you get together is precious. You’re not obsessive about it, or anything. You’re not “playing housewife” as your friends sometimes say. It’s not a crime to want to take care of your boyfriend.

Right now is a bit of a hectic period, and you haven’t seen him much for a while. You were surprised he even had the time to come home the previous night, although of course you were grateful. When he does come home, he gives you his undivided attention, like you’re the only person on earth. It makes the wait worth it. And he kisses you goodbye every morning because he loves you, and you can feel it on your lips all day, and it assuages the loneliness you might otherwise feel.

Today you have lunch with Ahrin, Hyunjin’s girlfriend. You have good relationships with the partners of all the boys, but you’re a bit closer to Ahrin, maybe because you two are so similar. Ahrin is quieter than the other women, and is more content to observe rather than participate. She’s witty and sharp-tongued, but still kind, and has a gentleness to her that makes her easy to open up to. She calls you up and complains she hasn’t seen you in a while and asks to have a meal with you that afternoon. You haven’t been feeling work very much, and you do miss her, so you agree to take a late lunch and meet her a cafe near your office.

Ahrin is radiant as always, and you make small talk about your families before devolving into complaining about mundanities: annoyances at work and the price of fruit at the supermarket. As you’re speaking, you notice Ahrin is wearing a dainty gold necklace that you don’t recognize, and cut yourself off to ask about it.

“Oh, this? It’s Cartier. Hyunjin bought it for me,” she says, bringing a hand up to touch the small pendant like she’d forgotten she was wearing it. “He’s on this kick about couple’s jewelry.”

“It’s beautiful,” you say, and you mean it. It suits Ahrin’s softness and sophistication. He may have bought it because it was Cartier, but he clearly put some thought into it besides the designer label.

“Thank you,” she says, genuinely pleased. “I try to wear something he bought me whenever I go visit him.”

“Are you going to see him today?”

“I just come from there, actually. He took my credit card in his wallet, so I had to go get it back.”

“Oldest trick in the book,” you say.

Ahrin rolls her eyes. “I know. But it’ll work every time. I can’t help that I need it to go about my day.”

She doesn’t sound the least bit bothered. Ahrin and Hyunjin have been together for two years, and it’s a trick he’s pulled ever since they started living together, the “accidentally taking one of Ahrin’s things to work.” You’ve asked her before why she doesn’t confront him about it, but she says that she thinks it’s cute how he keeps coming up with excuses to see her, and anyway, she also likes having excuses to see him.

You also think it’s cute, if in a more wistful way. Seungmin is organized to a T, and he’s never needed you to bring him something he’s forgotten or vice versa. In fact, you can’t remember if you’ve ever visited him at work at all. You don’t think it’s that strange, though. It’s not like he’s made a habit of showing up to your workplace. Also, you likely wouldn’t have the time even if he’d offered. It does dampen your mood a bit though, especially as Seungmin texts you in the middle of your conversation that he in fact, would not be coming home today, meaning you would have to eat dinner alone tonight.

Ahrin notices the dip in your mood as you set your phone back on the table.

“Bad news?” she asks.

You swipe the notification away.

“It’s nothing. Seungmin just texting me about how busy they are.”

Ahrin hums in understanding. “Well, what can you do. At least it’s not as crazy as it was a few months ago.”

“Isn’t it?” You’ve been seeing less of Seungmin than you had in ages, and you’d assumed it was because their schedules had been bordering on unbearable lately. But Ahrin looks confused at your question.

“I don’t think so. Busier than last month, yeah. But they’re not filming anything right now, so the schedule isn’t as rigid. Seungmin hasn’t talked to you about this?”

You feel embarrassed, somehow. “He doesn’t talk about work much when he’s with me. He likes to keep it separate.”

“That makes sense. You should ask him to share his schedule with you, though. What if you need him and you don’t know where he is, or when he’ll answer?”

“I know where he’s at, generally. He tells me if he’s traveling. I just don’t know the minutiae.”

“You’re allowed to know. You should, for your own peace of mind.”

It’s not that it hadn’t occurred to you to ask. Seungmin told you his whereabouts if you questioned him, and he even volunteered information every once in a while, so you hadn’t thought much of it. And you didn’t suspect him of cheating on you ever in a million years. You knew he had other hobbies and friends as well- a whole life outside you that you weren’t privy to and didn’t need to be. But was it possible you were being a bit too aloof about your boyfriends daily habits? Why didn’t he share what he was doing, if he wasn’t at work? Why didn’t you know?

“I’ll ask him,” you say. “You’re right.”

Ahrin smiles encouragingly, and the topic is dropped for other matters. The odd feeling in your stomach doesn’t settle, though, and by the time you’ve finished your day and sat down to eat dinner, you realize you’ve unfortunately lost your appetite.

Seungmin calls you the next day to say he’ll be staying at the dorm for several days, and you tell him okay, thanks for telling me, I love you, goodbye. After you hang up the phone, you berate yourself for not asking more questions. You’re his girlfriend. You should be care that he’s leaving you alone for days at a time, you think as you drive to work. Maybe he’d been waiting for you to ask what he’d be doing or pester him for spoilers about the group’s upcoming plans. Maybe he wanted you to pout and whine about missing him and beg him to come home. You’d never done any of those things before, but maybe you should be. Maybe he’d called you hoping you would do those things and had hung up the phone disappointed.

The central problem of dating an idol is always a scarcity of time. They’re always busy, and because they’re always busy, you as a partner need to have a life outside them that is full and fulfilling, and sometimes those two schedules conflict. You can go long stretches without spending meaningful time together, and it’s hard to cope with, especially when they’re within driving distance of you, but still inaccessible. You know, though, that a scarcity of time does not always mean a scarcity of attention. You’ve seen it in Ahrin and Hyunjin, in the Cartier necklace and the missing credit card, that Hyunjin thinks about Ahrin all the time, and Ahrin knows that he does, is thinking of him just as much if not more. She can languish in the thought that even if Hyunjin is not with her, he desperately wishes he was, and when she wears his necklaces and bracelets and $500 hair clips, Hyunjin knows she is also desperately thinking about him.

You and Seungmin don’t have a system like that. Seungmin isn’t in the habit of buying you expensive gifts, for starters. He’s frugal with his money, hyperaware that one day his youth and fame will fade, and he won’t have such extravagant income. You’re similarly pragmatic, and you’ve never resented him for this. And that’s not to say he never spends money on you. He buys you flowers and takes you on expensive dates. He bought you a new laptop and headphones without you saying anything, and your closet is full of fancy dresses that are each tied to a high class outing you’ve been on. For each one, he’d bought himself a shirt and jacket to match. But those aren’t things you wear every day to show off. They’re for special occasions, specific memories. There’s nothing you wear or carry daily that marks you as ‘his.’

And honestly, you’ve never really thought about yourself that way. You and Seungmin are together, and you live together (by whatever measure your living arrangements currently count as), but you’ve never longed to be “branded” in a way befitting a pair of earrings or an oversized sweater. You wear his clothes at home, but never out. You don’t feel the need to show up to his practices and recording sessions. You’ve never even asked if you were allowed. If Seungmin bought you a Cartier necklace, you aren’t totally sure you would wear it.

It hits you like a freight train when you put it all together: You don’t care enough about Seungmin. You’re comfortable with him, you feel like you love him, but you don’t care about him the way you’re supposed to care about him. You’re not involved enough. But then, the same goes for him too, doesn’t it? He knows what you do for work, but he rarely asks you about anything other than a cursory how was your day? He doesn’t pester you for anything, doesn’t ask you to visit him or stay up for him when he comes home late. Aren’t those things that he should expect from you as a girlfriend? Why doesn’t he care that you’re so obviously neglecting him? When he kisses you goodbye in the morning, is that because he misses you, or is that just a habit formed over these past months, a meaningless part of the morning ritual he couldn’t resist if he tried?

You feel caught in a lurch, unsure what to do now. Seungmin deserves better than you, clearly. He deserves a girlfriend who actually gives a fuck about his life. But maybe, if you start making up for it now, he’ll forgive the past few months of you being so terrible. He’ll realize that you are an attentive girlfriend, and that you do care about him and that you love him, and you can prove it, you swear, it took you a while to realize what was wrong but you’ve got it all straightened out now.

You can change. You can fix this. You know you can.

-/-

The next time Seungmin comes home, you wake up first the next morning, like always. You go to put the coffee on, and you make breakfast, and you check your emails. Seungmin comes out, walks past you to his shoes and coat, and doubles back to get his morning coffee.

“Busy day today?” you ask.

Seungmin freezes in his movements, caught off guard by your question. He recovers quickly enough, and answers. “Not particularly. Vocal practice, some other things.”

“Oh, good. Do you think you’ll be home today then?”

Seungmin turns to face you, his cup abandoned on the counter, unfilled. “Is everything alright?”

“What?”

“Is something wrong? Do we need to talk?”

Oh god, it’s worse than you thought. Asking if he’s going to be home to eat dinner is enough for him to think something is amiss. Have you truly never asked him that before?

“Everything’s fine. It would just be nice to eat dinner with you, is all.”

Seungmin relaxes. He leans down to kiss you, but it lingers longer than normal, as if he’s savoring the touch, your attention. “I’ll do my best,” he promises. “I love you. Have a nice day.”

You absolutely blossom under his affection, the verbosity atypical for so early in the morning.

“I love you too. Be safe.”

“I always am,” he says, and presses another peck to your lips before pulling away. He finishes pouring his coffee, grabs his coat, and waves as he leaves. You sit at the table, vibrating with satisfaction. You’re doing it, you’re giving him what he needs. Maybe all hope isn’t lost for you two just yet.

Your sky-high mood follows you to work, and the day keeps getting better with the discovery of cupcakes in the break room. One of your coworkers’ kids just had a birthday, and they had way too much food left over. You take one back to your desk to nibble on while you work, and even the mundanity of your daily tasks can’t bring you down from how well this day is turning out. Around midmorning, it occurs to you that this is the perfect opportunity to do something else nice for Seungmin by bringing him cupcakes. They’re not filming, which means they’re not on diets, so he can handle a bit of sugar and frosting, especially if it’s a gift from you. You borrow a container from the staff kitchen to carry some cupcakes and decide to defer your own lunch to deliver them across the city.

When you get to the JYPE building, though, you realize you have no idea what to do. You’re fairly sure you’re allowed access; the other girlfriends pop in and out all the time. But it’s possible no one here recognizes you, since this is the first time you’ve shown your face around here.

Being spontaneous is cute and quirky, but standing around lost and embarrassed grows tiring within seconds. You give up and decide to text Seungmin.

Are you busy?, you send, standing awkwardly by the door and hoping security doesn’t throw you out. Thankfully, he responds quickly.

Not super. Do you need to call?

Actually I’m in the lobby of your building. Can you come down?

Typing, and then a pause. Then more typing. Eventually the message comes through.

Ok.

You can’t decode that at all. It strikes you for the first time that you may be bothering him by driving over here. You did ask if he was busy, though. And it stood to reason that if you had time for a 5-minute phone call, he had time to come downstairs and accept the gift you’d brought him. It isn’t intrusive. This is what people do for each other when they care about each other.

It only takes a few minutes for Seungmin to round the corner into the lobby. His face is creased in concern, even worse than he’d looked this morning, and he’s walking at a brisk pace to stand right in front of you.

“Hey,” he says. “What’s going on?”

You don’t know how to respond to his intensity, so you just hold out the container towards him. “I brought you cupcakes.”

Seungmin’s eyebrows furrow in utter confusion. “You…made cupcakes?”

“I didn’t make them. A coworker brought them in. But I remember you saying you liked cupcakes, and I had a free minute, so I thought I’d bring them over before they got finished.”

Seungmin accepts the box gingerly, as though it contains a nest of wild hornets, or lit sticks of dynamite. “You drove all the way over here to give this to me?”

Your doubts go from an inkling to a full-on tumult. “Yes, I did. I was just thinking of you…I thought you might like something sweet.”

You don’t mean to look dismayed, but Seungmin must clue-in to the fact that this isn’t the reaction you were hoping for. He shifts the box to one hand and laces your fingers together with his other.

“Thank you for thinking of me,” he says. “But you don’t need to go out of your way to bring me things.”

“It’s not out of my way. I had time.”

“Let me rephrase. You shouldn’t expend your lunch hour to bring me food. When are you going to eat now?”

“I’ll stay an extra half hour. It’s fine.”

Seungmin clearly isn’t satisfied with this. He tugs lightly on your arm, bidding you to follow, and you do, unsure of what else to do.

He takes you up a floor, and down a hallway to what seems to be a regular employee break room, where he gestures for you to sit down at one of the tables. You do, and he walks over to the fridge to get bottled water and brings back one for you, along with napkins and a knife from the drawer next to the fridge.

“If you aren’t going to eat lunch, you might as well share your spoils with me,” Seungmin says. He opens the container and takes out one of the cupcakes (and they are huge, to be honest, you kind of can’t believe they’re from a kid’s birthday party) and cuts it in half.

“Pick a side,” he says, and you do, and he carefully picks it up and lays it on a paper towel before sliding it towards you. He takes the other half, and you pick your desserts apart with your fingers. Seungmin tells an anecdote about Jeongin from their vocal lesson that morning. It’s…nice. You’re just spending time with your boyfriend, a quick stolen minute in the midst of your busy lives. The frosting is sickeningly sweet, and you find yourself reaching for the bottle of water without even thinking of it, and only later preen at the realization that Seungmin knew you would need to wash the artificial taste out and had brought you water preemptively. He knows you well enough to identify if something would suit your palette with only a glance.

Both of you don’t have much time to spare, so after fifteen minutes you wipe off your hands and clean off the table.

“I’ll bring the rest of these back upstairs,” he says. “They won’t last ten minutes once the others see them.”

“That’s fine. That’s what I was hoping for, actually.”

“And here I thought you brought these only for me,” he says, but his lips are curled up, teasing. He kisses you goodbye, like always, lips sugary-sweet and soft as cotton-candy. “Thank you for stopping by. I’ll see you tonight.”

Your heart grows three sizes. You’re on cloud nine. “Anytime,” you say.

That night you try very hard not to be an absolute freak about dinner. You cook nearly every day, so the cooking itself isn’t that special, but for some reason your usual rotation doesn’t feel good enough. Seungmin is coming home for the second day in a row, and you don’t want to reuse ingredients, or phone it in when you’d specifically asked him to come home. At the same time, a five-course meal is definitely doing way too much. You stop by the store on the way home and scan the shelves, before wrestling yourself into a compromise and getting ingredients for a meal you both enjoy, but you’re normally too lazy to bother after a long day at work. It’s nothing fancy, just time-consuming, but you’re in such high spirits that the labor doesn’t even feel harrowing.

Seungmin gets home a few minutes before you’re properly done, with the pot on the stove ticking down steadily as you wash dishes and spoons. Seungmin greets you as he walks in but vanishes quickly down the hall to shower and change into inside clothes. By the time he reappears, you’re all but done, and you’ve never been more satisfied with yourself as you dish the food into two bowls and set them on the table. Sure, maybe it’s “playing housewife” a little bit, but you don’t even care. If playing housewife is this rewarding, you might have to start doing it more often.

Seungmin raises his eyes as the dinner you prepared.

“Didn’t you complain that this is hard to make?” he asks. You shrug.

“Felt like cooking today,” is all you say. “No biggie.”

Seungmin sits down at the table, pushes his plate to the side, and looks directly at you. “Y/n. What’s going on?”

Anxiety shoots through you. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do. I’m not oblivious. You’ve been acting off all day.”

“Off?”

“Visiting me at the company? Cooking this fancy dinner? It’s not like you at all.”

“That’s not me being ‘off.’ I just missed you, that’s all.”

“Have I not been paying enough attention to you? Is that why?”

“No! I mean, you have. There is no ‘why’. Am I not allowed to miss my boyfriend?”

Seungmin looks distinctly unimpressed. “Nice try. Wanna go again?”

All your good humor from earlier is dissolving into your soup. “You’re mocking me.”

“I’m not mocking you.”

“I was trying to do something nice for you. I just wanted to spend time with you today. Is that so wrong?”

“It’s not wrong. It’s just unusual for you. When you told me you showed up at the company, I thought something horrible had happened, because you never visited me before.”

“And that doesn’t bother you?”

“What doesn’t?”

“That I never visit.”

“Why would that bother me?”

All your anxieties are simmering near the top, threatening to boil over. “Because the other members’ girlfriends visit all the time. I know they do. They have security clearance and everything. But I never do. I don’t even know where you are most days if I wanted to visit you.”

Seungmin frowns. “You’re busy. You have a job you’re at all day, same as me. Some of the other members’ girlfriends work less or have other things going on.”

“Maybe that’s the problem,” you mutter. “Maybe I have too much going on.”

Seungmin looks hesitant at this. “If you feel you need to cut back, I’ll support you.”

“Is that what you want? Do you think I should work less?”

“No, I don’t. That’s not my decision anyway.”

“But I just…” You’re cracking, you know you are, you can hear it in your voice- “I just want to be there for you more. I want to be attentive.”

“You are attentive. You’re there for me all the time.”

“I’m not!” It bursts out of you more violently than even you expected. Seungmin is taken aback, eyes widening as you finally break. “I’m so aloof towards you, it’s awful. I never know where you are, or what you’re doing. I never ask you to come home to me. I don’t stay up for you. I don’t visit you. Other girlfriends have bracelets or necklaces they wear for their boyfriends, and I don’t do any of that. No one would even know we were dating, based on how we are now.” You suck in a breath, reminding yourself to stay calm. “I just don’t even know what you get out of being with me. I don’t do anything I’m supposed to do, and you keep letting me get away with it. And I thought if I changed, and I started trying harder, maybe I could fix it before you realize that I don’t deserve you.”

You squeeze your eyes shut, humiliation and sadness making you feel dizzy and hot. Now that you’ve said it all out, it sounds ridiculous. It’s not as if you could fix a behavioral pattern with one good day. If your relationship really is rotten through, all you’ve done is draw attention to the problem and made it even worse. Contrasted with how you acted today, the past eleven months must seem downright hollow.

Seungmin sighs. “Y/n, look at me, please.”

You open your eyes and are horrified to see Seungmin looking absolutely mournful where he sits across the table. He looks so aggrieved, so weighed down, and a horrible rock forms in the pit of your stomach.

“First of all,” he says. “I don’t ever want to hear you say again that you don’t deserve me. It’s not true, and I won’t have you putting yourself down like that. You don’t decide what I deserve, I do. And I’ve decided you’re exactly what I want.”

You blink, confused at the turn of events. It’s a very Seungmin thing to say, yes, but in this situation, you didn’t expect him to double down on it so earnestly.

“Second of all, you’re not aloof towards me. I know you love me, and you care for me in your own ways. I also know you have a life outside of me that keeps you busy. I’m grateful for that. I would feel horrible if you spent a significant amount of your day just waiting around for me when we both know I can’t always be there.”

“That’s different,” you can’t help but interject. “You’re an idol. You can’t help that you’re busy.”

“You can’t help being busy either. Being an idol isn’t any more important than any other job. You have responsibilities too.”

You deflate, sagging in your chair. He takes this as license to continue.

“Third, I didn’t think you were the type to wear jewelry every day. If you want me to get you something, I can do that. I just didn’t want you to feel pressured to wear something just because I bought it and it was expensive. Someday, if we get married, you’ll wear my ring, and that’ll be enough for me.”

He’s right. You don’t usually wear jewelry every day, and you would feel bad about not wearing something he’d specifically bought you as a gift. You’re starting to feel more and more foolish as this conversation continues.

Thankfully, his itemized list ends there, and he leans forward, dark eyes fixed on yours. He doesn’t look angry, or upset, just focused. Leave it to Seungmin to mind-map his way through a relationship crisis.

“Can you tell me what brought this on? It’s unlike you to be insecure. If I’ve done something to make you think you’re not good enough for me, I’d like to know so that I can change my behavior.”

You let out a long breath, giving up the fight in the face of Seungmin’s rationality.

“I had lunch with Ahrin the other day. I was complaining about how you’re so busy these days, I rarely see you. Ahrin said you guys actually haven’t been that busy. It made me realize I don’t actually know your schedule, like what you do all day, much less outside of work. And I also realized part of the reason I haven’t seen you much is because I never ask to see you. You have no reason to spend time with me when it seems like I don’t even want you around.” Your voice trails off as you continue, shame sticking the words in your throat.

Seungmin hums, thinking. He lifts his hand up and stretches it toward you, your sign to extend your own hand so he can lace your fingers together. You oblige, and the contact settles you a bit.

“I have never thought for one second that you didn’t want me around. I don’t take offense to you not knowing my schedule either. I know I don’t talk about work much. It might be a flaw of mine.”

“Hyunjin is always playing these little games with Ahrin to get her to come see him. But I’ve always felt that you’d prefer I stay away when you’re working.”

Seungmin hesitates again. “That might be right. That’s not because I don’t love spending time with you, though. It’s the opposite.”

“I…don’t follow.”

“Whatever you believe, the other members’ partners don’t really come around all that much, but when they do come around, it’s not really a big event. They’re just spectators. Like when Ahrin visits us at practice, it’s easy for Hyunjin to pretend she’s not there and keep working. I couldn’t do that. If you were in the room with me, I don’t think I could be as focused as I normally am. I’d be distracted because all my attention would be on you and how you’re doing. That’s why I’ve never encouraged you to visit.”

A small hysterical part of you wants to twist his words somehow, to start a fight about him calling you a ‘distraction’ and all it implies, but you know what he meant. It’s a fairly big admission he’s given, that he couldn’t keep control of himself if you were in his eyeline. It’s…unexpectedly flattering.

“I fluster you that badly?” you ask, half-teasing, half-curious. But Seungmin answers you dead serious.

“Embarrassingly so. When I went back upstairs with the cupcakes, Minho-hyung didn’t give me a second to breathe before commenting on it.”

You find yourself grinning. “Really?”

“Don’t laugh at me. It’s unkind.”

“I’m not laughing,” you say, even though you definitely are. Seungmin rolls his eyes, but there’s no heat or embarrassment in them.

“You could at least be sorry about it.”

“I’m very sorry that I got you bullied by your bandmates,” you say dutifully. “I promise I will do my best not to place you in such a compromising position again.”

“You can visit me if you want,” Seungmin rebuffs. “I can take a little teasing if you really want to see me. My point is just that you shouldn’t feel like you have to because the other girlfriends do.”

“Okay.” You nod, then venture out into the part of the conversation you’ve been avoiding. “If that’s all true, why do you stay away so often? It’s okay if you just have other things to do, but why do you let me think you’re at work if you aren’t?”

You aren’t sure what he’s going to say to this. You believe in his loyalty, always, and you don’t think he truly intended to lie to you, but you still can’t figure out who’s to blame here, and how this miscommunication has persisted between you for so long.

To your surprise, Seungmin’s ears flare red. His grip tightens on your hand, like he’s fighting himself, but you can tell he answers you honestly when he says,

“I was worried I was imposing on you.”

You blink. “Imposing?”

Seungmin is no longer meeting your eyes, his gaze lowered to the table. “Like I said, I don’t want you to constantly be waiting around for me. I don’t want you to get used to having me around, and then when I go on tour, or get busy with activities, you feel my absence stronger. Then, when I come back, I become an inconvenience as you try to fit me into your life again. It’s hard, and it’s unfair. I thought it would be easier to try to keep the same level of involvement all the time, so that you didn’t miss me too badly when I was gone, and I didn’t annoy you too much when I came back.”

You hardly let him finish his sentence before you say, “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. You keep your attention from me so that I won’t miss you later? How does that make any sense? I miss you regardless. That’s the point of being in a relationship.”

Seungmin winces, and you decide to dial back your indignance. He’d spoken to you evenly, and you could do the same for him.

“Sorry. I just meant that you shouldn’t keep yourself away from me in an effort to spare my feelings. I know what I signed up for when we started dating. I know some times will be easier than others. I appreciate your efforts to mitigate that, but this isn’t the way. You being gone so often is all the more reason to be overt and intense when we do have time together. It’s fine to not want to spend all your free time with me, but don’t ever think wanting to be around me is imposing, or hurting me in some way, because it’s not.”

Seungmin looks properly chastised. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ll be around more.”

“And I’ll ask for you more. We both need to stop holding ourselves and each other back.” You let out a little laugh. “We’re acting like it’s embarrassing to be in love or something.”

“Hyunjin said the same thing to me once.”

“Hyunjin is smart in exactly one area,” you acquiesce. “Ahrin is a lucky girl.”

“Comparison is the thief of joy,” Seungmin mutters. You lean forward over your cold dinner and press a kiss to Seungmin’s cheek.

“I didn’t say she was luckier than me.”

You both grin.

-/-

Next week, Monday. You wake up at your usual time, put on coffee, make breakfast. You clear your entire inbox because fuck the sales department, they can say whatever they need to say in the meeting this afternoon. You set your phone down and enjoy the warmth of the tea you brewed and watch the sun come up outside your living room window.

Seungmin gets up, gets his shoes and coat, and doubles back around.

“Good morning,” you say.

“Good morning.”

“Busy day?”

“Nope. I’m free after lunch.”

“Lucky. I have an awful meeting from two to four.”

“You’ll do fine,” Seungmin says. “Sales isn’t the boss of you.”

“They actually are,” you groan, and Seungmin laughs at your dismay. He kisses you goodbye, tells you to be safe. You tell him you love him. The front door opens and closes.

At around 1pm, your phone buzzes with a text.

Are you busy?

Eh. Why?

I’m in your lobby.

No way.

You grab your security pass and head towards the elevators, watching every floor tick down until it lets you out on the ground floor. Seungmin is sitting in a chair in reception, holding a white cardboard box. When he sees you approach him, he grins and holds it up.

“Got time for cupcakes?”

Your smile is so wide it’s splitting your face in half. “Follow me. The break room is on the fourth floor.”

-/-

“I didn’t even know you knew what building I work in.”

“I looked it up on NAVER.”

“Of course you did.”

“Why reinvent the wheel when someone invented the iPhone, y/n.”

#skz x reader #stray kids x reader #seungmin x reader #seungmin fluff #seungmin angst #skz imagines #skz x you #skz x y/n #seungmin x y/n #seungmin x you #skz hurt/comfort

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