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sarah // she/her // a place for fic recs & also i write sometimes. // please do not copy, repost, or translate any of my works. thank you! 💗
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Text
— CRADLE
PAIRING: jww x reader
GENRE: fluff
TAGS: none
WC: 203
MESSAGE FROM NU: (*꒦ິ꒳꒦ີ)b
wonwoo protects love like it's the most precious thing in the world. he holds your sleeping face, soft, in the cradle formed by the palms of his hands. he wonders how the world works so that his cold hands can always be warmed by the delicate skin his lips touch the most.
the older he gets, the more he thinks about reciprocation. how amazing it is to be able to love. how lucky he is to be loved back like the slow and graceful force of the rising morning sun. once complete strangers in the past, he now wonders how it is that he can picture how far you tilt your head backwards when you laugh. clear and crisp is your laughter — a beautiful ring in his ear. how he knows that it's you unlocking the front door by the jingle of your keys. how he wants to cry every time you remind him how much you love him.
he looks at you, soft puffs of air that part your lips every time you breathe. he doesn't know if he should move his hands. so he strokes his thumb against your cheek. once. twice. you smile.
he decides to not move his hand.
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˗ˋˏ Missing Phones ˎˊ˗ | one shot smau
synopsis: the thieves of a few missing phones have some fun before they're caught by their respective owners
genre: fluff, humor
tags: svt, svt dogs (not the f**t kind)
message from nu: I woke up from a nap that turned into sleep and immediately wrote this fever dream of a fic. just a little something silly + I miss writing smaus. I hope you all have a nice week - nu ♡
wondernus's masterlist
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˗ˋˏ a winter interlude ˎˊ˗
synopsis: maybe this is meant to be an interlude – an unforeseen passing moment in each other’s timelines. but with the stroke of a conductor’s baton, the symphony lands on the fermata hovering above the note. do we allow this interlude to become something longer than a short period in our lives, or do we end it after all of it is over?
pairing: wonwoo x coworker!reader
genre: romance, drama, light angst
tags: children's book illustrator wonwoo, publisher reader, enemies to lovers, fake marriage, food/drinks, work husband jeonghan cameo, small town dynamics, snowed in, scene where reader almost gets physically injured
wc: 11.3k
message from nu: waaaa first fic of the year. special special special thank you to my beloved madi (@heartkyeom) for being my beta reader well after midnight. I also wanna thank mars (@onlymingyus) for being mars c: I remember a while ago I answered an ask with a possible wonwoo work husband spinoff. this is it. this is wonwoo's work husband spinoff. this can be read as a standalone fic. happy winter and happy new year to all of you. I hope you all enjoy this svthub snowventeen collab fic - nu ♡
wondernus's masterlist / snowventeen collab 18+
one
“Don’t forget to wear you layers because it’s about to be chillier as the week passes by. For those trekking into the mountains, make sure you look out for weather updates from the signal tower and stay indoors because a large snowstorm is about to paint the mountains white. Stay safe, and have a great day. Now, onto Yoon Jeonghan with the traffic.”
“‘Trekking?’ What are you? A protein bar wrapper? Anyway, thank you Joshu-"
Never really understanding why other people say they often find themselves turning down the music while driving to see better, you find yourself doing the same – driving in silence as if the silence could create such a frictionless surface that would shoot and propel your car to your destination. A couple of hours late to your annual winter work retreat, a clear understatement defined by the speed at which you are driving, what was supposed to be a carpool event turned into you sitting in a pool of cars while stuck in traffic.
The Sun shines lightly, a gentle kiss against your skin, but not enough to hug everything it touches in warmth. With the heater on high, you sit in your front seat sweating and dreading the moment when you have to get out of your car, thighs peeling off the leather seats and leaving a pool of sweat where you were sitting. Perhaps it is not the Sun and the heater’s heat that causes you to sweat, but a psychological factor – an amalgamation of stress and anxiety that stemmed from the moment you realized you were late.
No longer can you allow yourself to forgive him that easily, yet you really did not want t blame him for giving you incorrect meeting minutes. But when the retreat itinerary clearly stated to meet in the morning at seven in front of the publishing house, you should have known better than to wholly trust your ditzy new intern to attend your office meeting while you traveled out of town to hunt down your author for her overdue speculative fiction novel draft. Instead of writing the correct time to meet, he incorrectly noted the arrival time.
This unprecedented-precedented blip is the catalyst for a series of chain reactions that would metaphorically send you pummeling down the steep side of a mountain in a snowy avalanche that you could have avoided. But you do not know it, nor do you know how it, whatever “it” is, ends.
Dark circles under your eyes and a forgotten paper-thin pimple patch a jolt over a speedbump away from falling off your oily skin, you keep telling yourself that everything will be okay once you get to the camping grounds. Hopefully, this sort of denial could make up for the fact that you spent all of last night kicking your feet under your covers while binge-watching the reality show that your favorite boy group filmed rather than packing for your trip. But there is only so much your heater turned on high can do for someone wearing an old flimsy university tee with a couple of cat teeth-made holes who forgot to put their contacts in last night. You are better off skipping the winter retreat, but you are already nearing the mountains. There is no turning back – especially on winding roads.
And the embarrassment. This feeling of creeping anxiety seemingly washed away the moment it stepped foot into your head even though you are utterly unprepared and inappropriate for being late to the paid work retreat. Because this sudden realization hits you mid-drive: the only person who you would be embarrassed to meet in your current situation is excused for the retreat. Reasons unknown. And not that you would let any man define you, but at your core, you are simply a person with an embarrassingly big fat crush on your co-worker (and seemingly everybody else you work with). This crush is so bad that if HR made every team create their own set of photocards, you would put his in a protective cover with tiny holographic hearts, and then in a sturdy toploader decorated with overpriced stickers. One glance at him would put you in a trance, daydreaming about what it would be like to wake up in his arms on a sunny day with birds chirping outside your window, and him with a soft smile on his face.
Except for one thing – he hates your guts, so you decided to hate his too.
They always say “try, try again,” but how many tries would it take before the attempts turn Sisyphean? Sure, Hades enchanted Sisyphus’s boulder so that it would roll away before Sisyphus reached the top, but what about you? Car tires struggling against the icy roads, you drive carefully so your car does not turn into a giant hockey puck or a curling stone on (what is essentially) a giant ice rink. But being careful does not help the fact that you are unprepared. And being unprepared means your car has absolutely no way for you to drive over any sized slopes, no matter how many times you try.
You only realize any further attempt of going over the slope or taking any other route is fruitless when your tires spin in place after digging themselves well enough into the road. And you slump against your steering wheel like an exasperated character in a movie – pounding your head against 12 o’clock a few times for good measure. So much for a fifteen-minute-saving de-tour through a small town you have never seen before. And so much for you trying to drive over a slope you could easily walk over. Trying sucks.
Still, the only thing that keeps you from abandoning your hand-me-down car to trek forty-five minutes to the campsite is the fact that it is freezing outside, and your cellphone Wi-Fi gets especially spotty when you are in areas of high altitudes. With one final sigh, you push yourself away from your steering wheel to sit upright, leaning the back of your head against your headrest. There is not much to do except to put your car in neutral and try to push your car out of the little hole it dug itself in.
The thing is, the texture of real snow is a lot different from the snow that giant portable snow machines shoot out of their gigantic cylindrical nozzles to cover the courtyard in front of the city hall whenever the local city has its annual winter festival. Real snow is also incomparable to the “snow” a child creates along the perimeter of an ice skating rink, hands holding onto the rails for support while they repeatedly scrape the inside of one of their blades towards the inside of their other shoe, creating soft ribbons of shaved ice before the navy blue Zamboni can create a clean slate before private lessons start.
Real snow is relentless toward anybody who does not come prepared to interact with it. So, no matter how much you try to dig and twist your sneaker sole into the snow, that tactile grip that you wish to create that supports your feet while you are pushing against the back of your car can seldom be created. You slump against your car’s bumper in defeat. The Sun still shining on your skin, a little bit stronger now, leaves you with the same warmth you felt against your skin, a bit tingly and upsetting, when you knew your skin would still burn no matter how nice the cordiality of the Sun felt on that one Spring day in the past.
Plus, there is a little more time to observe your surroundings when you have given up completely.
In the grassy median strip that denotes the entrance into the small town is a wooden welcome sign with the name in loopy golden lettering against a beautiful pine green: “Welcome to Interlude.” A few feet ahead of you, the mountainous road marries smooth concrete, and the sidewalks pave in a festival town-esque brick lining. And you conclude you must be on the outskirts of the town. Leftover snow fills the grooves between each brick and covers the dark-colored awnings in front of each shop along the town strip. Where flashy LED shop signs and brightly colored bulbs decorate sidewalk trees drawing visitors in from around the world, is surprisingly a lack of people. And you frown while thinking about how you would be able to push your car to the side of the road if another vehicle wants to enter the town.
Not a few moments later, a navy blue truck slowly climbs up the road, and you feel the littlest bit of hope surge into your body. Forcing yourself to stand up, you move out of the way and wave at the incoming car. But as your day could not have gotten any more unfortunate, your car starts rolling backwards towards the pickup truck. And you cannot help but see your entire life flash in front of you – a person dressed too lightly for the snow and the used car passing by like a celebrity on a parade float, all in a moment.
What is scarier than the fact that your car is now bumper-less and the pickup truck remains unscathed is the man who hops out of his truck. Looking like a snow-stage boss from a video game, the man who is large and menacingly looking enough to make his shiny dark green car look like a minivan next to him stalks over to you with his finger pointed directly at your face. The only thing missing from the scene is the army of ice ogres that are supposed to follow closely behind him.
However, the only thing you can register is the fact that he is yelling at you – face glowing bright red and spit flying out of his mouth. Your body is frozen in fear. There is a lack of capacity for you to be able to stand up for yourself while you are shocked and unable to recognize your surroundings while terrible words spill out of the man's mouth. And you cannot do anything except take in his expletives while teardrops well up, ready to spill out of your tear ducts.
But they do not. A figure puts himself between the man and you, and your view is too obstructed to see the other side.
“I called the insurance company. Give me your information and I’ll handle it,” the mysterious person says.
“And who are you?” You hear from the other side.
“I’m their husband.” He fishes for his wallet in his back pocket and takes out a business card, handing it to the man between two fingers. “Call me. Email me. Your choice. I’ll get it sorted. Sorry about the whole thing, I didn’t have time to drive my partner. Bad husband right?... So, I heard you’re the new fishing shop owner? I’ll drop by sometime.” He tries to switch subjects to lessen the tension while slipping his wallet back into his pocket.
The thing is, it works. The presence of the man who uses his body to shield you calms the angry pickup truck driver almost exponentially. And the man who yelled at you seemed to forget he was yelling at you just because he realized your marital status. The man calms down, and even falters in his speech.
“Ahh…I’m not a fishing shop owner. I guess it’s fine now that you’re here, but you know men. There aren’t bad husbands, only ba-”
“I’ll be at Town Hall if you need more information from me.” The man who calls himself your husband purposely and curtly cuts the other man off, knowing very well that he would be even more upset if he heard the man finish his sentence.
The man does not turn back to address you until he is done taking photos of both cars and waving the other man goodbye. And your piece of junk car stays in the same spot, bumper-less and bruised, while the pickup truck, clearly without any injury, smoothly makes its way into Interlude, disappearing from your sight.
“You’re just going to dumbly let that man say those things to you? About you? Do you have no respect for yourself?” He lectures you, his deep voice muffled by the black wool scarf wrapped around his neck and mouth.
You see him clearly this time, how his black locks fall in front of his face in neat curtain bangs, set in a defined “C” shape. The oversized fleece-lined collar jacket falls to the middle of his thighs, leaving little room for his cream-colored sweater to peep into view. And his stance, focusing his weight on his right heel while his left foot slightly protrudes forward, allows him to tap his foot against the snow while he waits for you to answer him.
But what is shocking to you is not the code-switching he uses when speaking to the driver versus when speaking to you. What is shocking, you realize, are the thin silver-framed glasses that sit on the bridge of the man’s nose and the familiar deep woody scent that clings onto him, touched with a hint of peach.
It couldn’t be.
A cold chill leaves your tongue dry and squeezes your stomach.
“Are you dumb? Did you not hear about the snowstorm coming?” He asks you, a voice without concern, all while pulling out his phone from one of his pockets.
He tugs his manicured thumbs out of his gloves to wake his phone and proceeds to reveal his face from under his scarf to unlock his phone. After a few loud keyboard taps, you hear your phone’s notification sound from your car. But all you can do is stare back at the man, stomach gurgling and queasy.
“Yn,” your co-worker sighs, clearly annoyed by your lack of response. “Why are you here?”
two
A backpack-wearing piglet who happily crosses the street. A fashionably dressed lumpy toad who rows across the pond in a wooden paddle boat. A shrew who picnics with a chipmunk in a grassy city park. Tiny children who sit between each of a stegosaurus’s scutes. An angry and scruffy-looking Siamese cat who wears a cone too big for it to see. The backside of each illustration states:
Jeon Wonwoo
ILLUSTRATOR
Same Dream Publishing House
Work Email | Work Number | Personal Website
Nicely squared recycled textured card stock printed with soy ink, Jeon Wonwoo’s business cards can very well double as collector cards. And the owner of these cards himself, in your eyes, is the most beautiful man you have ever laid your eyes on. No fantasy writer, no Renaissance artist could ever truly depict how you see this man. Yet it makes you feel terrible, so entirely rotten on the inside, knowing that he would rather crawl up several flights of stairs made of tiny plastic building blocks than take a fifteen-second elevator ride with you.
If you could pinpoint the exact day Jeon Wonwoo started hating you, it would be the Monday after coming back from a previous work trip to the vacation home of a poet the two of you were assigned. The two of you were amicable with each other, even more so – close friends. A power couple in the children’s books and short stories field – a force to be reckoned with. And the hotel rooms adjacent to each other where the two of you decided to sit on opposite sides of your shared door and talk to each other with both your backs against the door. You remember the sound of his hair brushing against the wood and his soft chuckle when you accidentally bump your head against the door. The goodbye after the trip lingered for a little too long while the first hello back never came. And you can only watch from the back of the crowd during meet and greets and panels, sometimes only catching the tip of his tiny flyaway from far away.
It would hurt your feelings a lot less if he turned away whenever you walked near him, but he chooses to frown instead. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make you like him any less. But you do not know what you are holding onto (or if there is anything to hold onto at this point).
Even now, there is a blatant emotional and physical distance between the two of you. He briskly walks at least a meter in front of you, never turning his head back to see if he left you behind or if you were following closely behind.
The thick uncomfortable shoulder strap keeps slipping from your shoulder, unable to find any traction against the smooth nylon of the puffer you put on earlier. And it is just a walk, a measly ten-minute walk to the police station where you can report the accident, but it is hard to walk while looking ahead when you are so close to crying. No matter how much you try to adjust your shoulder strap so it doesn’t stop falling, it finds a way to slip from your sore shoulder or frozen grip. Overwhelming emotions usurp any will to continue onwards and leave you feeling so annoyed, so dejected, and so frustrated with everything that happened today. And when your bag’s strap slips again, you let it slip from your shoulder, sending your entire duffle bag crumpling against the wet and icy brick pavement.
And so you crumple with it, sinking to your knees and wallowing in your unhappiness.
The winter boots that clop in front of you never stop. Jeon Wonwoo would never stop for you, never walk backwards to pick up your heavy duffle and offer you a hand. So it wracks your head trying to understand why he would help you out in the first place, leaving you in the snow once everything was settled, and threatening an IOU coupon for the future. Why he would be in this town in the first place.
The shop window lights of the tiny electronics store to the side of you flicker on. On display and pressed flat against the glass are a bunch of old television sets stacked on top of each other, creating a large screen if not separated by the thick plastic television frames. Golden tempera paint in a modern Serif font exhibits the store’s logo across the glass: “Stay For A While,” in a wide downward pointing arc.
Every single television screen livestreams the local news. According to the subtitles, a giant snowstorm is about to hit the local area. Residents are advised to seek shelter and stay home. The sunny weather is only a farce.
But you don’t notice the news. To you, the only thing in front of you is a lachrymose shadow of a blob trapped in a foreign town with nowhere to go. And your heart follows closely behind the man as if dragged by him on a leash – blindly bouncing, cobbling, and getting scratched by the various pebbles and dirt on the pavement.
The man never looks behind to check on the organ. He doesn’t even know it’s there.
“What do you mean you’re cat sitting? Jeonghan, you never volunteer to do things willingly…Oh, for the friends who are high school teachers? Then road trip with their cat and save your cousin who is stranded in the mountains.” You adjust your grip on your phone while mindlessly browsing through the several knickknacks for sale in the souvenir shop in the town’s only lodge.
Passing the wall of graphic tees and sweaters and passing through a shelf of souvenir mugs, you stop at a shelf of tiny woodcarvings. Your eye lands on a figurine of a whittled cat, hand-painted orange with a white belly. On the other end of your phone call, your cousin complains about the weather, but you don’t listen – clearly too entranced by the tiny cat.
“Of course I listened to the radio this morning,” you mutter while running the tip of your pointer finger against the cat’s ear, feeling the smooth sanded wood under your touch. “Okay, you got me. It was for background noise. Look, I’m not asking you to pick me up today. I somehow ended up booking a room after finding out cab services are down today. But if you’re not going to pick me up then I’m going to hang up and solve this myself. But if you don’t hear from me in three days, then call a search party. Okay?”
Except he hangs up before you can say goodbye, grumbling about how you never listen to him. Still, you’re unbothered by his action. The tiny cat, now in the palm of your hand, looks so content with life, unbothered by what goes on around it. Your mind wonders about its artist, how long they must have spent carving the cat from a single block of wood, the hours it must have taken to create something so tiny yet so fulfilling to own. And you wonder about the artist’s emotions, if they ever felt sadness after parting with their cat. If the cat was the artist’s friend, even for the brief moment, that juncture, in their individual timelines.
It would be best if you left the cat on the shelf, you think. Just in case the artist ever changes their mind about selling the cat. And the cat looks happier sitting on the shelf with its other animal friends, happier than what its painted lazy smile suggests.
And for the first time today, you feel a tiny bit of happiness – a halcyon moment surrounded by forest-themed trinkets and flashing keychains with generic names and soft 2010s pop music playing from the store speakers. That is until you see a familiar figure being escorted to the lobby of the lodge. Curiosity causes you to leave your spot in the souvenir store, edging closer to the creation of a new scene.
“I have a room.” You hear him try to reason with the security guard. “It’s not called loitering if I am a guest.”
You can’t hear the security guard, but it seems like Wonwoo’s bluntness is not a strong enough source of logos for the guard. And the guard stands in front of the illustrator, fully unconvinced that the man wearing a suit and holding his work briefcase would be any other out-of-town guest. And one look of pure panic on Jeon Wonwoo’s stupidly handsome-looking face sends you on autopilot, making your way to his side for no good reason.
“Babe.” You lie through your forced smile while looping your arm around his right arm. “Where were you?”
His arm jerks in the tiniest bit before it relaxes as if he hesitated for a moment before making his decision. Of course, another explanation could simply be because he experienced a negative bodily reaction to your mere presence. Flabbergasted, he would mutter. The nadir of today’s excitement. And you would hate him even more for using vocabulary without incorporating any malapropisms. He is as pretentious as the outfit he wears.
“Baby,” he grits through his teeth. “This gentleman seems to think I’m stalking the halls like some animal out to hunt its prey.”
“Sorry, Sir.” You pout at the security guard, hoping your natural pathos could appeal to the man. “My husband has a tendency to walk around whenever he’s bored. It’s been a while since we went on vacation, and he clearly has too many thoughts in his head. You see his outfit? It’s a bad habit.”
The security guard strokes his chin and nods, eying Wonwoo’s ineffable outfit. He wonders why the man in front of him would pack a business suit for a vacation in the mountains, but he doesn’t want to be the one too quick to judge. Rather, he agrees with the fact that the suit actually fits the man very well. If the man wasn’t stalking the hallways just a few moments ago, he would’ve asked him about which tailor he sees. “If he’s so bored, why don’t the two of you join couples night tonight? Winners get a free bedroom upgrade. And between you and me, I heard there’s a famous author who’s staying with us,” he whispers the last portion, a quick cheeky wink.
You don’t realize that you are still grabbing onto his arm until you dragged him into your room. And he shrugs you off, taking the extra step to smooth out his suit fabric while looking through your vanity mirror before turning to you.
“You have the grip of a snapping turtle,” he scoffs while looking around your room.
It is a standard room with a single queen-sized bed at the center of the room. If it were not for the carpeted floors, the entire room would look like a wooden box from its Western Red Cedar planks that make up the four walls to the wooden paneling that covers the ceiling, giant circular wooden beams that keep the ceiling steady by design. The rooms in this lodge are a termite’s dream feast and an art deco enthusiast’s nightmare. Even the bedframe is made of logs, cylindrical in every piece, and the bedsheets are of deep burgundy red bordered with silhouettes of black bears as if it came straight from the video game your cousin was so obsessed with a few Summers ago.
What catches his eye is not the fact that your duffle bag is thrown across your bed, nor the fact that the lamps in your rooms may as well be oil lamps. Rather, he stares at the door to the right of your mounted television, the divider between your room and your neighbor’s. And you can’t help but wonder what is going on in that head of his.
“You are insufferable, you know that?”
“How long did it take for you to think of that comeback?” His attention is drawn away from the door and aimed toward you. “Just because I compared you to a turtle didn’t mean you had to act like one.”
Your jaw drops and becomes your turn to scoff at him, loudly. You cannot believe what you are hearing, and your breathing becomes shallower as you glare at him. “Are you kidding me? Me helping you literally saved you from being pathetically kicked out by the security guard. You should be happy I didn’t record it and post it online.”
“Like you would have enough followers for it to go viral,” he sneers while taking a step toward you. “And I never asked you for help.”
“Loitering in the hallways? Wearing a business suit when you’re supposed to be at the retreat?” Now there is almost no space between the two of you. And you reach over to his chest, grabbing the plastic nametag that dangles from his neck, and holding it up to his face. The item feels as cold as the person who wears it. “Wearing your work badge? Fine, I’ll admit I have no idea why you’re here. But if you thought that walking around and waiting for some author to come out of their room and have some preplanned accidental meet cute could work, then you’re so wrong. And I’m not going to let you defame our company just because you have no social skills whatsoever.” You let go of the item you’re holding, letting it drop against his chest.
“Okay, I’ll be the bigger man and admit that I was waiting for the author my team wants to work with to show up. But talking about defaming the company? You want me to care about what you say when all of that was coming from someone who would rather let some random man verbally degrade their worth than to stand up for themselves? You’re all bite and no tongue. Just like a snapping turtle,” he says, his face entirely without emotion.
“SNAPPING TURTLES HAVE TONGUES. DUMBASS,” you snap at him.
“That’s exactly what a snapping turtle would say,” he challenges you.
The thing is, Jeon Wonwoo likes to keep things short even though he is not as quick-tempered as you are. He prefers to relay everything he wants to say at once, saving anybody from asking for clarification. Yet, you can feel that Wonwoo only seeks to maim you with his words. Even at your most imperturbable composure with your intern, you cannot stand being alone in a room with Wonwoo once he starts opening his mouth to speak. And stupidly and repeatedly you let his elementary quips affect you like rubbing salt on an open wound. The laceration in your heart.
“You’re so rude Jeon Wonwoo. No wonder I hate you more and more every single day. You’re the single-most worst person in the entire world, and I hate how I once considered us friends.”
He looks like he has something to say to you but mentally drops the notion. Instead, he sighs and makes his way to the door beside your television, unlocking the knob and opening the door. He doesn’t make some offhanded comment about being your neighbor and only quietly closes the door behind him, making sure it’s locked with a tiny click.
three
It is a tiny office breakroom, the kind with a beige refrigerator whose motor is a little too loud, a low-watt microwave, and light green walls decorated with random pen marks from the lodge workers signing up for holiday potlucks. The late afternoon sunlight shines in an ethereal orange glow through the window, casting what could be the day’s last warm ray across the round wooden table in the middle of the room. Central heating runs throughout the building, and the lodge manager sits in the hot seat, his hands folded in front of him while he stares at you and your “husband.”
“Darling?” A nice elderly receptionist on break holds up a bag of mini marshmallows, the tri-colored kinds you can only find in baking stores, and points to it with her manicured finger. “Marshmallow?” she asks you from her place near the kitchen cabinets.
“No thank you,” you reply, your hands wrapped around a warm disposable cup filled with generic brand instant hot chocolate. Gratis, courtesy of the elderly receptionist before the manager arrived to talk to the two of you.
You bring the sugary drink to your lips, blowing softly and watching the steam disappear into the air. The drink itself, velvet chocolate that coats your tongue, is a warm invitation to this little town in the middle of nowhere. However, you cannot help but feel the only thing – or person – that unwelcomes you is the man who tries to angle his body away from you and the manager if the two of you ever cause trouble for your neighbors. Again.
“Look, we’re not going to kick you out. It would be inhumane to kick someone out during a snowstorm. And also we’re all kinda snowed in…actually, we’re super snowed in so nobody is coming in or out at this point. Funny how it was sunny earlier, right? Anyway, word has it that the two of you are married. So why don’t you two take some time to work things out, yeah? I’m no relationship counselor, but this is a small lodge in a small town so word gets out fast. So, seeing how far the two of you are sitting apart from each other, maybe channel that pent up anger into some competitive spirit during couple’s night because we can’t have you two being loud and arguing elsewhere. And I hate to be the bad guy here, but no more calls from your neighbors complaining about the two of you arguing or else we will contact authorities. Alright? Just keep it down and work it out, would ya?”
The manager’s lengthy spiel is immediately followed by silence, although not awkward, but one that provokes thought. And when you sense Wonwoo, being the smartass he is, open his mouth to counter his marriage status, and you immediately kick him in the shin with the heel of your tennis shoe. And he folds like his latest pop-up book, glaring at you while trying not to wheeze in pain. A fake smile and a solemn pledge to not bother the other patrons for the rest of the night are enough for the two of you to be excused from the conversation with the manager.
But not from each other.
How you ended up blindfolded and dizzy with a bat in your hands while Wonwoo angrily yells at you from the sidelines is beyond you. For the time being is what the two of you agreed with, albeit this one is far from Ruth Ozeki’s version. It’s a small promise to try to prove the two of you are more than amicable: attend a few games and activities together with the other couples, attempt to act like a married couple, and dip after an hour.
After twelve elephant spins with your forehead against the baseball bat, you and the other blindfolded contestants try to cross to the other side of the banquet hall in order to smash one of the many squashes on the large blue-colored plastic tarp laid across the floor. And Wonwoo, along with the other separated pairs, barks into the open air in the direction he wants you to move.
The funny thing is, you would expect to hear him call your actual name out of all of the pet names being thrown around, but Wonwoo cannot yell for the life of him, so much to shout your name in public. So even though you hear a bunch of people getting confused with the various forms of “honey” and “baby” being called out, you struggle to find his voice amidst the cacophony of shouts. Once the physical dizziness from spinning around evaporated, you feel a new kind of dizziness from being agitated as an aftereffect of trying to find Wonwoo’s voice in the middle of the crowd. By the time you decide on giving up, the shrill sound of a whistle signaling the end of the game fills the air. Shrugging the blindfold off your face, you look around to see the aftermath. While the other pairs are on the other side of the room surrounded by broken pieces of squash, there is only one man standing in front of you alone and separated from the others.
Your breathing hitches when you realize he’s walking towards you – long, even strides like the romantic lead in a movie. By the time he places himself in front of you, your baseball bat is in his hand while your cheek is in his other.
“It was hard, wasn’t it?” he whispers while looking into your eye.
Except you can’t help but train your eyes elsewhere, unable to look him in his eyes while it feels like your heart is beating erratically. And even though you know very well how he is faking everything, you can’t help but regress to the same you, the same you who is so helplessly in love with the man you hate. The same you who spends every day wondering how did the two of you end up that way.
“You only took the bat from me because you’re scared I might whack you with it. And not going to lie, I was contemplating it,” you mumble.
“It’s okay babe.” He tries to cheer you up, a slight undertone of insincerity in his voice. He continues to ignore your statement. “You did your best. Snapping turtles are slow, but they still manage to survive.”
Ignoring the fact that Wonwoo’s hand is warm because he has warm packs in each of his loungewear jacket pockets (and the fact that he refused to share one with you), someone catches your eye in the distance. Where workers are cleaning up the aftermath of the squash game, a familiar-looking man stands to the side where some lodge patrons flock around him with rectangular objects in their hands. Once you see him turn his head your way, your entire body freezes – Wonwoo’s touch suddenly begins to feel cold against your skin. And Wonwoo, who was expecting you to get mad at him for calling you a turtle, can’t help but notice your state of panic. And he not so subtly turns around to see who could be causing you so much fear.
“Oh my,” he mutters, coming to his realization.
“I can’t believe –” you begin before Wonwoo interrupts your train of thought.
“I hope he rots in hell before he can get his next book deal,” he almost spits at the man from several feet away. He drops his hand from your cheek and takes a tiny step back before taking a deep breath as if he is about to ask you something that he would regret, “Do you mind staying a little longer? I want to make sure chauvinists never win book upgrades.”
“Room upgrade,” you correct him while glaring at the other man from afar.
“What?”
“You misspoke.” You guide your attention back to the man who is, for what you think is the first time, looking at you attentively and without malice. And the fact that he is looking at you amicably makes your brain go haywire, but you subdue your thoughts and continue the conversation. “It’s the ‘room’ upgrade that we’re trying to stop him from winning.”
“Book upgrade or room upgrade, it’s the same thing.” He frowns while tapping the end of the bat against the ground. “It turns out your pickup truck man is the author my team is after. But I’d rather be jobless than to work with someone like him.”
So he works with you, absolutely demolishing the competition during the Dinner and Paint section and loudly cheering for you while you stacked plastic cups. And the way he smiles at you, lovingly and with the glimmer reflected from the ceiling lights contrasted against the cocky attitude he surrounds himself with when one of you wins a game – it almost makes you forget that you’re supposed to hate him. How easily he wraps his arms around you, hugging you tightly against his embrace so much that his cologne lingers on your clothes, leaves you feeling hopeless. Because the only time Jeon Wonwoo could ever approach you without visibly withering in repulsion is when he acts like he is in love with you.
Outside the cozy lodge, the Sun sets its rays on the heavy layers of snow. While the Earth turns to face the other way, the rays wash the pillowy white crystals in a warm and deep burgundy orange – a warm embrace, a promise to return, before parting for the night. As you clean Wonwoo’s smudged glasses with the hem of your shirt, he sneaks his right arm around your waist while he leans further into his seat as the Couple’s Night host announces the next game. You feel something warm enter the pocket of your jacket and look down to see Wonwoo’s hand back on your waist. The untouched hand warmer gradually feels hotter in your pocket when you gently place your fake husband’s glasses back on the bridge of his nose. He whispers a small “thank you,” and you can only smile back at him with a heaviness in your heart that only you can carry.
The hand warmer feels like it would burn through your clothes at any second.
four
“Team Snowball, what did your partner answer for the question: ‘What is your partner picky about eating?’” The emcee points at the woman sitting next to you who gladly flips her sketchbook around for the other half of the room to see. She squints her eyes, trying to read the woman’s squiggly writing, and smiles when she realizes it’s a match. “Soft grapes? It’s a match. Point to Team Snowball.”
Despite everything going around you, you can’t help but fidget in your seat, the sketchbook’s pages starting to feel damp in your sweaty palms. Wonwoo sits with the separated pairs across from you. He crosses his legs, and his sketchbook lays comfortably across his lap so he can twirl his black marker in his hand. Even when you know you wrote the correct answer to Wonwoo’s food preferences, the two of you are still several points behind the other teams. Your stomach cannot help but feel queasy every time you embarrassingly flip your sketchbook for others to see. Because every single wrong answer about your “husband” whom you love very much feels like a punch in your gut every time you hear snickers from the others around you.
Seafood is your answer; you’re the last to answer this round’s question. You earn a small cheer from the woman reading your answer and a small smile from Wonwoo. He sneaks you a tiny thumbs up, the tip of his thumb poking out of his sweater.
“Next question,” dictates the emcee. “When did you know they were the one?”
It’s an abstract question – one that doesn’t necessarily need matching answers from both sides. Still, you look across to look at Wonwoo, uncertain whether or not he would put much thought into an answer he would have to pull out of thin air. Uncapping his marker with his mouth, he pulls the sketchbook closer to him to scribble down whatever comes to his mind. The action leaves your mouth feeling dry: one, obviously, because he uncapped the marker with his mouth; and two, he was the first to start writing.
Some answers are simple. Some answers are meaningful. Some answers are like yours – “love at first sight.”
Corny, overused, and unusual, your answer is the safest route you knew you could take. And despite how clichéd your answer is – its timelessness, its Hallmark-ability – still garners a series of awws from everybody around you. Technically, there is some truth to your answer. You developed a tiny crush the first time you saw him at the office. Who wouldn’t? He surrounds himself with illustrations of anthropomorphic animals and has a laugh that bellows and fills any room with joy. He made your days brighter by simply existing.
Now, the brightness struggles to navigate its way through the thick fog. And you’re left alone in the cold, the fog’s misty droplets clinging onto your skin.
It’s weird how in this life, time moves linearly, but moments and experiences with others exist in intervals – interludes that we can relive over and over again through memories. Sometimes we experience interludes of happiness, interludes of pain, and interludes where it only seems like there are only two people in this world. But nobody can determine how long these interludes can last and for how long you can try to hold on to these moments before letting go.
“Let’s see if Team Turtle can earn a point. Please show us your answer.”
“I’m kind of embarrassed,” he softly chuckles, voice more sonorous than ever, while standing his sketchbook on his knee.
9 pm is his answer. You, and the rest of the people sitting beside you, cannot help but gaze at his answer in confusion.
It is only when he sees you staring at him he finally clarifies, “When we were sitting in my car eating donuts while the waves crash on the shores in front of us. You smiled at me with pieces of maple donut glaze stuck to your upper lip.”
You. He speaks in the second person and looks directly at you with a soft gaze. It couldn’t be, you think. But it is true, you recognize his diction as true. He’s speaking to you.
And you remember that shared moment in the front seats of his car, the night of the work trip. The donuts were for the poet, but the two of you had the door slammed in your faces before being able to hold a full conversation with the poet. And after an entire day of confusion and apologies, the two of you were finally able to fulfill your portions for the work trip. Who knew that the tiny suggestion of walking along the pier after dinner would turn out disastrous – frigid ocean winds strong enough to blow people away? The clothes the two of you packed were not meant to sustain harsh winds but harsh sunlight – after all, the work trip’s destination is a beach town. So the two of you sat in his car, eating donuts, people-watching, and sharing anecdotes to get to know each other better. It was the type of conversation that you would do anything to prolong its duration, the type of conversation with the right type of person.
“You were so happy,” he finishes.
You were so happy, it echoes in your head.
Are you happy now?
“How about you?” The emcee turns to you for clarification. “Your partner gave us such a beautiful explanation. So, you have to explain your ‘love at first sight.’ Tell us about it.”
“Ohh,” Wonwoo begins awkwardly while giving an equally awkward chuckle. “You don’t have to if you do-”
“I was having a really bad morning.” You smile into your lap and look up at your supposed husband. You don’t know why or how the full day with unease bubbling inside of you dispersed so quickly after Wonwoo’s particular answer. But you launch into your story, letting the words flow out of your mouth like melted snow on a grassy hill under the bright Sun. “A really bad morning. I ended up working overtime and accidentally missed my morning alarm. I had to chase the bus while my hot coffee poured out of its opening and onto my skin. My entire day at the office was a mess because I kept messing up. I felt awful and exhausted. So I worked overtime for the second day in a row to clean up my errors. Someone places hot green tea in front of me, the free ones at the office. There is a doodle of a stingray with the dumbest-looking smile on its face. It looked so pathetic that it made me feel a little better about myself. He says that he accidentally boiled too much hot water and thought to make a cup for me. And then he holds his own up in front of his face. There’s a picture of a cat wearing glasses. ‘You can do it,’ he tells me in a squeaky voice. And he leaves. We don’t meet again for about a month, but his kind gesture pieced me back together. And I held onto his kindness for days.”
He stares at you, a few strands of his hair out of place and in front of his eyes. He doesn’t care to move them back in place. There’s that smile on his face, the exact one you imagined to be on his face that time he sat on the other side of your shared door. Soft coral lips relaxed, but the cupid’s bow is slightly perked as the corners of the lips turn upward. He tries to hide the fact that he is smiling, keeping his happiness hidden and only to himself.
So you smile at him. An honest, genuine smile where the cheeks kiss the lower lashes. And his lips stretch thinly so that his brilliant white teeth shyly make their way into the open. He smiles back at you.
Musicians know that an interlude, in music, is an interrupting or intervening passage that connects different parts of a song. An interlude can also be a song in an album. In other words, there are different ways for musical interludes as well as temporal interludes to exist. Now, there is a new interlude in your timeline, this shared moment where two timelines from two completely different lives collide and converge. Anybody can tell that this shared moment is filled with happiness and understanding…perhaps, even longing.
But what do you call it when these two timelines have converged in the past? If two timelines that once converged reconverge at a further point on the timeline, did that initial interlude ever truly end? Are interludes simply short periods in our lives if these interludes stay in our timelines forever, even when the moments they denote end?
Nevertheless, at this moment, you know you’re happy. And you can only hope the man who sits across from you, the one who looks at you with a reminiscent expression you once experienced so long ago, is feeling the same way.
“Okay. We’re in third place. If we win this one, then we’ll be a point ahead of them.”
“I tied it pretty tightly. Is the tightness okay with you?” Wonwoo frowns from below you, seemingly exploring a different problem at hand. He inspects the rope he tied around your leg, poking and prodding at different sections. “It’s a three-legged race, but I don’t want you getting hurt from an accidental rope burn because I tied it too tightly.”
“Wonwoo, it’s fine.” You pat his left shoulder, letting him know he doesn’t have to worry.
He grabs your stretched hand, and you help hoist him upwards. But there is an apparent frown on his face.
“Why do you still call me Wonwoo,” he mumbles while wrapping your arm around his back and on his waist. There is a tiny pout on his face pointed downwards as he naturally loops his arm around your shoulders like he had done it a thousand times. “Are you not comfortable with calling me ‘babe?’ Any other name also works.”
Deep down, or not even deep down, you know he is right. You are uncomfortable with the idea of casually calling him by these pet names over and over again. Calling him by fake pet names, not counting the many idealistic scenarios that once played in your head, in this case, feels very wrong. His sudden change in attitude towards you as well as his overall demeanor after the last game left you in shock. A plot twist in a season finale would be less shocking than what you feel at this very moment. Like every other hypothetical person in your situation, you choose to ignore your problems by focusing on your other problems at hand. Because you know very well, allowing yourself to fully play into this fake husband rouse, even in times when you’re truly happy, would only hurt you in the end. And you’ve been hurt by him before, not really sure if you ever fully healed.
But you can’t deny he looks and seems nothing like the literal he-devil he was this morning. In fact, he seems to be the opposite. Even without being physically tied to you, he trails behind you like a lost puppy and clings onto your sleeve like a cat who kneads dough on your arm, nails hooked onto the fabric of your clothing. And you let him hold you close to him so much that he leans his chin on your shoulder while listening to others talk. And you let his hair tickle your scalp and would let him melt into you if he asked.
Getting hurt by the same man twice does not make a right. Succinctly, it only makes you dumb. So, to protect yourself, you use the image of the screaming man from the morning to remind yourself that everything is a rouse no matter how much you enjoy each moment with the illustrator.
The three-legged race’s course starts in the banquet hall, passes through the hallway and into the lobby, takes several twists and turns throughout the sitting area, and finishes in the banquet hall. Wonwoo takes the lead, firmly holding you against him while he chants “in, out, in, out” to direct how the two of you should speed-walk. But the excitement of the games and the promise of the upgraded room must have gone over the heads of several of the teams, causing each team to speed walk into a sprint once they left the banquet hall.
Wonwoo and you are also victims of wanting to win, or at least of wanting to beat the author. But in this incredibly small lodge, there are only so many paces you can take before having to try to squeeze past another team. And Wonwoo practically hoists you onto his foot without notice, penguin-walking you to make it past another team to navigate through the sectioned seating area.
Startled by his sudden lack of communication, you demand he set you down. “Let me go,” you grunt after being jostled against one of the round wooden tables. You are absolutely sure your hip would bruise in the morning if he bumped you into one more object. “It’d be easier if one of us walks ahead of the other.”
Does it look like I care?” His ego slips from his tongue, completely coating the sweet words that came out of his mouth before the game started. His sudden change in tone catches you by surprise. “I’ll buy a sled from the gift shop if it means I get to drag you instead of hauling you around.”
“It’s just a game.” You try to push yourself off of him, annoyed that he’s suddenly being uncooperative with you. In the meantime, the team behind the two of you catches up and pulls ahead. “Let me go before one of us gets hurt.”
Wonwoo’s eyes aren’t trained on you. Instead, he stretches his head to look at the few teams in front of the two of you. Surprisingly, the two of you make it out of the seating area without any trouble. Before the two of you can make a sprint back toward the banquet hall, you pull yourself away from Wonwoo, yanking his arm off of your shoulder.
“Babe, come on.” He holds out his hand for you to grab onto. “We’re going to end up being last.”
But your hand never reaches out to meet his.
“Babe? Are you serious? Are you kidding me? Are you really calling me ‘babe’ right now?” You almost shriek at him if it weren’t for the fact that the two of you are standing in proximity to the reception desk. But you are exasperated, your voice wobbles as you voice what is bothering you. “I’ve had it with you, Wonwoo. I tried communicating with you. I tried voicing my fears. But your head is so far up your ass that you couldn’t even think about the safety of the person right beside you. Am I sad and mad about what happened this morning? Yeah, I still am. Nobody deserves to be treated that way, but nobody deserves to be ignored. I don’t care about winning anymore. I feel humiliated, utterly and devastatingly humiliated by you and by myself. To think I let myself have fun around you. To think I believed for a second that you truly did care about me. At one point, I thought we were friends. At one point, I really did like you for who you were. But I guess I can’t expect people to stay the same, can I?” More words and sentences pour out of your mouth – like a small tornado that grows larger in size after picking up all of the things you left unsaid, the words that threatened to slip from your tongue all picked up and twirled into the tornado, you ended up saying more than what you meant to say.
“Look, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say,” he begins, but he can only hopelessly stare at you squatting in place to untie the rope that binds the two of you.
“There.” You bitterly drop the rope in his free hand. “You’re free from me now. You can go back to hating me all you want.”
“But I don’t hate you.”
“I’m done, Wonwoo. I’m done with being confused so I’m just going to give up and wallow in my room until Jeonghan picks me up once the snow clears.”
five
“No offense, but I would never spend that much time or energy on a guy…especially a guy who treats you like that. He even stopped pounding on your front door so that obviously means that he’s the type to stop trying after a while,” your cousin rants from the other side of your phone screen. He shuts his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose while the cat he is looking after purrs contently on his lap. “So what are you? A masochist? You like men who treat you poorly and then reward you with like an hour of happiness? That’s literally like if professors gave you the hardest final you’ve ever taken in your life and told you to grab a free cookie after you turned in the final. What are you even holding onto at this point?”
“I don’t know,” you wail at the older man, crumpling your used tissue in the palm of your hand. It quickly joins the growing pile of snot-riddled balls of tissue at the edge of your bed. When you recline into your initial position, the shifted blanket knocks Wonwoo’s hand warmer onto the floor.
“Eww stop holding your phone so close to your face,” Jeonghan complains, “Vernon says I kinda look like you, and I can’t help imagining that’s how I look when I cry.”
“I don’t know why I still like him,” you mumble to your cousin. You honestly still don’t understand why you like him despite every single recent negative encounter with him. To be honest, your heart doesn’t flutter as it does with the characters in the novels you read. Nothing cliched happens when you see him, like how the world stops and he is the only one who walks in slow motion. Quite frankly, your days pass by whether you see him or not, but it doesn’t mean that the thought of him crosses your mind every once in a while.
“Maybe you just like the idea of him,” he offers with a sigh. There isn’t much that he could do for you in the middle of a snowstorm except to be on a video call with you and hope that the can solve whatever you have going on before his bedtime.
“I make up scenarios of him in my mind but I still prefer the real him,” you admit with a twinge of embarrassment. You can only sink deeper under your covers, pulling the cabin-themed sheets closer to your chest. Maybe you’re still holding onto the Wonwoo who existed during the work trip, and maybe, you think, he still exists somewhere.
“Hypothetically, do you maybe think that the reason why he’s so bad at everything is because he spends most of his time with children and draws instead of writing so his communication skill is basically hindered? Like how you’re good with feelings and ideas because that’s the bulk of the media you surround yourself with daily so you have more exposure to that area. So you have man-child versus person with skewed expectations on love and relationships. But then you literally have people like me…perfect in every aspect.”
“Shut up. You talk about traffic every morning but you can’t even name the model of your car. You were also tricked by a catfish.”
“I’m hanging up.”
“I’m sorry,” you beg him. “Please don’t.”
“My point is.” He places his phone down on the sleeping cat to use as a temporary phone stand while he gathers his thoughts. “The two of you seem like total opposites. And the only time the two of you seem to work well together is when you meet in the middle. So, have you ever tried communicating with him? Ever pulled him to the side to ask him why he’s such an ass?”
Yoon Jeonghan’s simple solution to your problem causes your brain to briefly short-circuit. Silence fills your lonely cabin room as your mouth slightly hangs open while your cousin silently judges you from the other end of the phone. It took a simple suggestion to make you realize that you have been hanging onto Wonwoo’s personality change to even think to consider the idea of confronting him about it. And Jeonghan’s hypothesis may not be wrong at all – life isn’t a fictional novel where everything can be magically solved in the incoming chapters.
“No?” Your answer is meek. You don’t know what to feel after this revelation. Anger? Despair? Peacefulness?
“And is he still knocking on your door? Trying to talk to you?” His tone is gentle for once.
“Yeah?” You look to the right side of your room where the door stands between his room and yours. Slips of lodge notebook paper often found in the nightstand drawers slowly shove themselves through the tiny crack under the door. “I think he’s pushing slips of paper under our shared door.”
“Then go talk to him. But throw away your snot pile and fix your appearance before you do. Yeah?”
“What would I do without you?”
“I don’t know. And I don’t care. Bye.”
Sitting on the floor with your back leaned against the door, you shuffle the sheets of paper in your hands. There are a couple of sorry notes partnered with sad and apologetic-looking animal doodles. There are a few slips where he asks you to forgive him. Then there are these series of slips – a mini cartoon of his morning, this morning – that somehow cause a small upwards curl to form on your lips.
Blue ballpoint pen ink depicts a series of panels starting with a text he received this morning. This comic is void of cute tiny animals and can only be drawn with the sincerity of a children’s book illustrator. He draws himself staring at his phone screen in confusion – you’re missing, and the rest of the work group chat has no idea where you are. And he’s worried. Everybody is worried, but nobody is worried enough to send search parties for you. Blue-figured Wonwoo rushes out of his room, completely abandoning his presentation for the author, to rush to the entrance of Interlude. Because he knows that your team always passes through Interlude, but you’re known to arrive at the campsite while rubbing your eyes, hair frizzing from the static built from your head rubbing against the headrest while you were sleeping on the way there. But the scene he stumbles upon makes him angry despite how relieved he is to know that you are okay.
The few pages that you hold in your hand are smudged with blue ink, and the ending is unfinished. Wonwoo softly rasps his knuckles against the shared door, calling out your name. When you don’t reply, he sighs and sits down with his back against the door. You feel a tiny jolt with his added pressure against the door. Still, you can’t bring yourself to confront him. At least not yet.
“I’m childish and I let myself get caught up in moments. And you were right, if something happened to you, I would never forgive myself for hurting you. At one point, I really did forget that the reason why we agreed to work together was because we didn’t want him to win. I ended up wanting us to win, or at least for you to win so you could have the upgrade. I’m really sorry for not communicating well with you, and for how I acted.”
The sound of his hair leaving the door lets you know that he probably dropped his head toward his lap.
Taking a shallow breath, he mutters into his hands, “And I wasn’t lying when I talked about us at the beach. I really did like you then. I still like you.”
“Then why ignore me? Why act like you hate me? What did I do to deserve how you treated me?” The questions leave your mouth in a flare of anger.
“I started ignoring you because I was hiding from you. I couldn’t confront you because I knew I would make it obvious that I liked you. But I guess I hid from you for too long because you thought I hated you.” His voice muffled from being on the other side of the door.
“So all of this happened because of some big misunderstanding? Just because we couldn’t confront each other?”
So it really was a simple problem with a simple solution. The revelation feels like a sore punch in the gut, one that’s so surprising that all you can do is laugh.
“I’m sorry, Yn. I really am.”
“I’m also sorry.” You feel really guilty now that you know that you were wrong to believe that he hated you. “I should’ve confronted you about this earlier.”
“Does it still hurt?” His voice sounds clearer as if he shifted his body so he sits facing the door.
“Oh, from the race? Actually nothing happened.”
“From when you fell from heaven,” he finishes with his voice trailing in diminuendo, almost as if he is slightly embarrassed from using the overused pick-up line.
“It actually hurt a lot,” you joke. “But I’m glad it was you who found me in the middle of the road.”
“Then can I stay by your side? Not separated by doors, but by your side?”
So you push yourself away from the door, turning around to unlock the brassy knob. The door slowly swings open to Wonwoo, who is still sitting on the floor, now facing you. And you awkwardly sit in front of him, not really able to meet his eyes.
“I think I have a lot to learn.” He fiddles with the hem of his sweater. “I’ll start by being more communicative about my feelings,” he promises with a soft smile. “Because I really do like you.”
“I like you too.”
There is a magnetic pull that slowly draws the two of you closer together, a comforting sort of sensation that offers a moment of solace created from two extremes. The outside world is dark. The snowstorm has long gone. The surfaces where the sunlight once touched are replaced with the soft yellow glow of several lamps around both of your rooms. Kaleidoscopic remnants of shards of light scatter around every surface. But the two of you, seemingly in the very corners of your shared world exert a different type of glow - one that can only be created in a collision like the break of dawn after a devastating snowstorm.
“I really like you too,” you can’t help but reaffirm.
“It’s actually ‘I also like you.’” He can’t help but playfully correct you. “You’re the publisher. You shouldn’t be making these errors.” He teases.
“And you’re the illustrator, so shouldn’t you stay quiet so I can kiss you?”
one month later
At the base of a computer monitor, a tiny wooden whittled cat naps lazily next to its turtle counterpart. Two people sit side-by-side in the breakroom a few rooms away, the metal seats practically stuck to each other. While their lunches heat up in the microwave, the two happily discuss the upcoming young adult novel they are finally working on together. Under the table, their pinkies naturally interlock. The man who scrolls through art ideas on his tablet can’t help but let his eyes linger on his partner for a little too long while they scroll enthusiastically through the several concept art slides he created. When the microwave sounds, he quickly leaves a soft and brief kiss on the side of his partner’s temple before getting up to remove their heated lunches. And the partner smiles while turning back to look at him, a smile brighter than the soft sunlight that wraps the room in a warm afternoon glow.
There’s a new interlude in their timelines. In this interlude, the two opposites are taking it slow, learning to meet in the middle.
dedicated to ellie (@flowershu/@eliphant). just wanted to thank you for supporting wondernus for all these years. happy new year <33
#FAKE MARRIAGE? SNOWED IN? WONWOO? exquisite ✨#love me a good enemies to lovers let's GOOOOOO#also work husband jeonghan truly a wonderful gremlin#nu this was such a fun and good read ahhhh i love 🥺💗#rec; fic#member; wonwoo
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Hi i don't know what happened but i can read it now just perfectly!!!
YAYYYY i just clicked around and changed the color of the fonts a couple of times until it seemed to go back to normal HAHAHA i'm glad it's fixed!!!! 💞💞💞
#ask; anon#i've never had it do that before hahaha but at least i think i know how to fix it if it happens again!! 😂
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Hey why is your new Jeonghan fic dark?! Like i can't read it cus it's literally unable to read.
hiya! are you using dark mode?? i have my tumblr set to true blue so i didn't notice anything was wonky 😭 but i think it should be fixed in dark mode now!! if that wasn't it....i don't know, i checked in app and in chrome/firefox browsers and it looked okay to me 😅 hopefully it works for you now!!
#ask; anon#genuinely had no idea it was doing that jfeiowafae#i write all my fics in google docs and then copy + paste over so i guess something got wonky in the transfer???#but i checked in dark mode in the app too and i think it should be good to go now#thank you for letting me know though!!!!!!!
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it's a date
pairing: jeonghan x reader
length: 1.3k
genre: fluff (i promise!!)
warnings: mild language, vague mentions of hospitals + jeonghan's elbow injury
summary: A text from your best friend telling you that your boyfriend was in the hospital was definitely not what you wanted to see when you woke up at three in the morning.
shubot (02:34): hey
shubot (02:34): jeonghan's in the hospital
shubot (02:35): he told me not to tell you but since when have i listened to him about that lol
yn (03:12): shua what the fuck do you mean jeonghan's in the hospital
yn (03:13): what's wrong
yn (03:13): is he sick
yn (03:13): wait, did he get hurt at filming
yn (03:14): how serious is this, how freaked out do i need to be bc i am very freaked out
yn (03:25): answer!! your!! phone!!!!!!!!!!!!!
yn (03:28): shua istg i know you're awake rn
shubot (03:36): i was showering!!
yn (03:37): i WaS sHoWeRiNg BOI DO NOT JUST TEXT ME THAT MY BOYFRIEND IS IN THE HOSPITAL AND THEN GO SHOWER
shubot (03:38): i thought you'd be asleep :/
yn (03:38): answer my questions joshua hong!!!
shubot (03:39): i mean it's not not-serious but it's not life threatening
shubot (03:40): it's his elbow, he went in earlier bc the pain got worse and ended up having to have surgery
shubot (03:40): he’ll have to wear a cast or brace or something for a few months probably
shubot (03:41): he's not dying or anything
yn (03:42): i was about to drive to the dorms rn and smack you i swear
yn (03:42): literally holding my car keys
shubot (03:43): i'll give you his hospital room # if you don't slap me
yn (03:44): fine
yn (03:44): gimmie
shubot (03:44): score
–
You were smart enough to not show up at the hospital at four in the morning, and you had to go into the office for at least a couple hours to wrap up some projects before taking the rest of the day off, but you were outside of Jeonghan’s hospital suite by noon.
You knocked once but didn’t bother waiting for a response before slipping into the room, only to immediately be met with a loud groan; you laughed, flopping unceremoniously in the chair next to Jeonghan’s bed.
“I told them all not to tell you until I was discharged, I didn’t want you to worry about it, who snitched?”
“Who do you think?”
“I’m gonna kill Joshua.”
“Babe, I’ve been friends with Shua since we were two, he was always gonna tell me. He can’t help it.”
Jeonghan pouted, reaching over with his good hand to grab yours. “But I didn’t want you to worry. It wasn’t a big deal.”
You wrinkled up your nose playfully, turning your hand over in his so you could wind your fingers together. “I would have worried a lot less if you’d told me instead of Shua ominously texting me at three in the morning that you were in the hospital. With absolutely zero context! No explanation! Imagine waking up in the middle of the night and getting that message.”
Jeonghan winced. "Sorry."
You gave his hand a gentle squeeze. "Hey, you're alive and I didn't have a heart attack, so we're all good."
"Our standards for being good are pretty low if that's the bar we've gotta hit," Jeonghan remarked dryly, but you could hear the smile in his voice.
You shrugged as he brought your connected hands to his face, pressing his lips against the back of your hand and holding there for a second. "As long as we're fine, I'm fine," you said, and you meant it. "You're my rock. I can get through anything with you."
"Doljjong is my rock," Jeonghan said immediately, and his laugh filled the room as you deadpanned, only to be joined by yours a moment later. His laughter was infectious; you could never stay mad at him for long.
"Do I at least get to be your second choice rock?"
He clicked his tongue. "I'd pick you over Doljjong any day."
"You'd pick me over your own son?" You gasped dramatically, hand over your heart as you feigned shock.
Jeonghan winked. "Just don't tell him that."
And you dissolved into giggles again, Jeonghan watching you with the fondest smile on his face, feeling very proud that he was the only one who could make you laugh like that.
Once you'd calmed down, you yawned, checking your phone for the time. "When are you getting discharged?"
Jeonghan pouted at his cast. "Not sure. My physical therapist is supposed to come by sometime between four and five, I think, to go over some stuff and then I can get discharged after that as long as everything looks okay. When do you have to go back to work?"
"I don't," you said cheerfully, quietly delighted at the way his eyes, sparkling hopefully, darted over to you. "Took the rest of the day off because I was worried about my poor hospitalized boyfriend. Thought I might take him out to dinner and everything for being sooooo brave.”
Jeonghan was smiling so hard at the thought of getting to spend the whole day with you that he couldn’t even be mad at your teasing. Your dates had been quick ones for the last few months, just coffee or a meal between breaks or short naps at your place – his busy schedule and yours had prevented any more than that and, though you texted and called all the time, he missed you.
So you spent the afternoon talking, Jeonghan telling you all the funny stories about his members that he hadn’t yet, you catching him up on the latest office gossip, you both making suggestions and lighthearted plans for the next time he had a break.
A little after four, when there was a momentary lull in your conversation, you stretched your arms over your head and moved to get up; Jeonghan grabbed the side of your shirt.
“Where’re you going?”
You rolled your eyes at the note of disappointment in his voice, leaning over to kiss his cheek. “Your physical therapist is coming, remember?” His lips slipped into a silent ‘O’ and you smiled fondly. “I’m just going to wait in the cafe downstairs until you’re done. I probably shouldn’t be here while they’re going through everything with you.”
“Why not? I want–”
“You don’t want me here because then I’ll know what you’re supposed to be doing and not doing and I’ll just end up nagging you even more every single time we talk.”
“Good point.”
You laughed, grabbing your bag. “Text me when you’re done, okay?”
“Yeah. Babe?”
You paused in the doorway, looking back at him with a questioning hum.
“Love you.”
A smile blossomed over your face. “Always. Love you back.”
“Always,” he repeated and he grinned, flopping back against his pillows as you disappeared out of the room.
–
hanniehae (16:37): i’m gonna kill you
shubot (16:38): no you’re not ♡
shubot (16:38): you know you wanted yn to come visit you ♡
hanniehae (16:39): yeah thanks or whatever
yn (16:40): you know you’re texting the group chat right?
hanniehae (16:41): yeah that was on purpose
hanniehae (16:41): send him that pic of us
hanniehae (16:42): make him feel all sad and lonely for being the single friend, that’s part of his punishment
shubot (16:44): but i’m not sad or lonely
shubot (16:44): or the single friend 😉🤪
hanniehae (16:45): WHAT
yn (16:45): WHAT
hanniehae (16:46): SINCE WHEN
yn (16:46): AND WHO
hanniehae (16:47): WHEN DID YOU START KEEPING SECRETS FROM US
yn (16:48): gonna kick him out of the best friend chat fr wtf
yn (16:53): …
yn (16:58): JOSHUA JISOO HONG
yn (16:58): STOP DROPPING BOMBS IN CHAT AND THEN DISAPPEARING
yn (16:59): omfg
hanniehae (17:00): we still get to be the cute couple though, right 🥺
yn (17:01): ofc we are 💗
yn (17:02): now stop texting and pay attention to your physical therapist so we can go get dinner, i’m hungry
hanniehae (17:03): only if you beat up shua for me after 💗
yn (17:04): it’s a date 💗
#caratwritersclub#seventeen imagines#seventeen x reader#svt x reader#seventeen fluff#svt fluff#seventeen scenarios#jeonghan x reader#jeonghan imagines#yoon jeonghan#jeonghan#seventeen#95z for my first three fics on this blog! 🎉#also they all somehow ended up being around 1.2k#that was not on purpose lol i honestly don’t know how that happened#this is like half smau but without the fun picture formatting bc i’m too lazy to figure out how to do that l o l
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HIIIII omg stop i will cry on you, this is so sweet!! 😭😭 thank you so much, that's like...the best compliment on my writing and i am now emotional about it 😭💞
lazy nights
pairing: joshua x reader
length: 1.2k
genre: floofy fluff
summary: Joshua comes home after a long day to find you in the middle of a beading project.
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#admin; replies#pepperonidk#seriously omg this is SO SWEET 😭😭💞💞💞#i like to write small fluffy moments but the fact that they made you think of this....that's goals right there i am 😭😭💞💞💞💞#but yeah same also yearning 😔
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.....if you see non-fic posts pop up (like that yuzu one that idk how long was up here LOL), it's bc i forgot to check which blog was set before quick reblogging bc i am not used to side blogs 🤪 trying to keep this one all fic, but if you wanna see other svt/misc posts you can check out my main (@seekingthestars), that's where those posts go!
#admin; info#lol OOPS#i am on the struggle bus most of the time just fyi#also fun fact if anyone reads this: i'm working on a jeonghan thing!#how my first three fics on this blog ended up being 95z is a mystery to me but there you go#i love my 95z 🥺#also pls feel free to chat with me here or my main!!#i'm also on twt for as long as twt is around#twt is in the pinned info post!
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live stream
pairing: s.coups x reader
length: 1.2k
genre: fluff
summary: seungcheol is in the middle of an impromptu live stream when you, unaware, burst into his room and are caught on camera.
You weren’t thinking of much when you headed to Seungcheol’s room and burst through the closed door.
His good morning text had been one telling you that you could come over after work and that had been, quite literally, the only thing that had gotten you through the rest of the day. The sole thoughts floating around your mind were of the food you’d brought over and how much you wanted to grab the boy in question so you could eat it together.
“Seungcheol, beloved, light of my life, world’s best boyfriend, I have– what?”
Seungcheol stared at you like a deer in headlights from his position sitting cross legged on his bed. His eyes flickered to the phone he had propped up against a couple of pillows, then to you; confused, you followed his gaze back to the phone. There was a beat of silence, then you slapped your hand over your mouth as your heart dropped very dramatically into your stomach.
“Oh no.”
Seungcheol looked like he was somewhere between wanting to swear and wanting to burst out laughing and couldn’t quite decide which direction to take.
“Oh no,” you repeated, slowly taking several steps backward, even though you weren’t visible on screen from this angle. “Live?” He nodded, confirming what you were already certain of. Whatever poor soul was monitoring his live was probably having a complete breakdown; you just groaned. “Ah.” Over three years of sneaking around down the drain. You’d known this day would come eventually - it was inevitable - but you hadn’t exactly expected it’d be today when you woke up this morning.
From his spot on the bed, Seungcheol weighed his options. One quick glance at the screen showed comments coming in so fast they were nothing more than a blur. Even if they didn’t upload the replay, he knew there would be clips saved and some three hundred and seventy thousand people had just heard the exchange live – there wasn’t exactly a way to talk yourselves out of this one. And, honestly, he didn’t really want to.
So he looked at you.
He tilted his head in the direction of his phone. Wanna join?
You raised an eyebrow. Is that allowed?
A shrug. I don’t care.
A hesitant step forward. I dunno. You sure?
And he opened his arms, a smile finally blossoming over his face. “C’mere.”
You paused for a second longer until he wrinkled up his nose ever-so-slightly and wiggled his shoulders; you caved immediately, plopping down on the edge of his bed, just barely visible at the edge of his phone screen.
“Baaaaabe,” he whined and grabbed your arm, tugging on it until you obliged him and scooted closer; he wrapped his arms around you fully and rested his chin on your shoulder before smiling at his phone.
“Say hi.”
When you finally looked at your images on the screen, you started to pout. “No fair, you look way better than I do.”
“No I don’t!”
“Cheol, I ran over here after my workout, I look like a trainwreck. I accidentally crashed your live and I look like a disaster, this is the worst possible first impression I could make.”
Seungcheol laughed, your favorite giggly ‘ha ha ha’ laugh, the one that filled you up and made you feel warm, and he squished his cheek against your shoulder. One hand slipped around to rest against the small of your back, drawing slow, deliberate circles there in reassurance.
“I think you’re the prettiest in the world.”
That’s all it took for your face to begin heating up, turning a splotchy red for all four hundred and eighty thousand viewers to see (when did so many more people show up?).
“Carats, this is my partner.” There was an unmistakable note of pride in his voice that only made the red spilled over your cheeks darken. You hadn’t thought it possible, but the comments looked like they were coming in even faster than before and you went cross eyed trying to catch any words at all.
“We’ve been together for…a little over three years?”
You nodded in confirmation. “Yep!” You glanced back at the screen for a second. “I know you guys already know this, but he’s the best.” You watched a delightedly smug little smirk appear on his face and rolled your eyes. “But you have to stop telling him that or his ego’s just gonna explode and he’s gonna be totally insufferable.”
“Hey!” He whacked your arm playfully, the smirk replaced with a pout, and this time it was your turn to laugh.
“I'm teasing, you know I love you."
That’s all it took for his pout to be replaced with the widest grin and he gave your waist a gentle squeeze. “Love you most.”
“Ugh, gross, publicly declaring your love like five minutes after we tell people we’re dating.”
And he was laughing again, his smile so bright it was blinding, crumpling into you as he dissolved into giggles, which only made you laugh with him. There, in his arms, laughing until your sides hurt – that was home.
It took a minute or two for you both to settle down, but Seungcheol began to play with a strand of your hair once he did. “Babe, what’d you come in for in the first place?”
“Ah!” You sat up a little straighter, suddenly remembering the purpose of your mission, and turned your head, lowering your voice so it wasn’t picked up on the stream. “I brought your favorite for dinner because Shua told me you haven’t eaten yet. He wanted to do a movie night? You wanna?”
He nodded. “Mmm. Sounds good.”
You grinned. “I’ll go tell Shua and Jeonghan. Take your time!” You slid off the bed, rolling your eyes when Seungcheol grabbed your arm and tugged you back in to leave a quick kiss on your cheek. You stuck your tongue out at him playfully before disappearing into the hallway, pulling his door shut behind you.
Seungcheol waited until he was sure you were out of earshot before he turned his attention back to his phone. “Carats,” he started, his tone carrying just a hint of warning, “be nice to them.”
The comments hadn’t slowed down since you walked in the room, but he caught a lot of heart emojis, “so cute!!”s, and general statements of affirmation.
“They mean a lot to me, so you have to be nice, okay?” He waited a minute, pushing his hair up and out of his face, only for it to fall right back into place. “I know you will be, but I just wanted to say it anyway. I’m gonna go eat dinner now. Everyone have a good night, sleep well.” He brought his hand up in front of his face to wave at the camera. “Bye bye!” And he ended the live, leaving his phone there, propped up against the pillows, as he ambled off to find you.
—
Later that night, he posted one picture on weverse; him smiling at the camera with you pressed up against his shoulder, fast asleep, face obscured by shadows. His fingers hovered over the screen for a second before he edited the post, adding a caption.
our own heaven 😊❤️
#caratwritersclub#seventeen imagines#seventeen x reader#svt x reader#seventeen fluff#svt fluff#seventeen scenarios#s.coups x reader#seungcheol x reader#s.coups imagines#choi seungcheol#s.coups#seventeen#sometimes i start fics and then have no idea how to end them and this is what you get#me as i throw heaven's cloud lyrics in at the end of this fic: it's fine heaven's cloud solves everything#ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
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▹▹▹ about
sarah. she/her.
this is my fic sideblog! ♡
▹▹▹ links / misc
masterlist
ask
old got7 fic blog
⇢ i'm v inconsistent with writing lol there is no schedule here! and i don't take requests bc i can't really keep up with them tbh 😔 but i'm always down to talk here, on my main, or on twt! ♡ i mostly write mindless fluff so if that's your thing then i gotchu haha
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candlelight : y.jh
༉‧₊˚✧ for my 1k event !
requested by @crimsoncauldron : hey, sol! congrats on 1k (woo hoo). well deserved <3 blind date, friends to lovers, jeonghan
a/n: hi livvie!! thank you so much for sending a req and for all the support and love you’ve shown me 💓 i hope you’ll like this hehe i went overboard a tad :’))) requests are open until june 1 so please reference this post and read the guidelines if you’re interested!
word count | 1.2k
pairing | yoon jeonghan (svt) x gn!reader
genre | fluff, blind date au, friends-to-lovers au
warning(s) / includes | food and alcohol mentions (please lmk if i missed anything!)
joshua (18:43) you better be on your way
joshua (18:43) trust me, you’ll like him ;)
joshua (18:44) when have i ever wronged you?
Rolling your eyes, albeit fondly, you shoot a quick text back to your friend promising you really are just a block away from the restaurant, and not buried under your covers at home restarting your favourite K-drama for the fifth time like most of your Friday nights. Considering how many praises Joshua had sung about your to-be date, he will never let you hear the end of it if you stood this guy up.
You’re not a mean person—at least, that’s what you tell yourself to soothe the guilt of rejecting all the blind dates you’ve been set up on in the past several months. Your friends have good intentions, wanting to help you get back into the dating game after being single for a considerably long time, yet for some reason the people you were matched with just weren’t… right.
Some of them weren’t even horrible people to begin with, in fact you quite enjoyed the evening you spent with Seungcheol’s friend, Seokmin. He was incredibly sweet and did everything right by conventional first date standards, yet something still felt off. You just couldn’t picture yourself being with him in the long run, and you ended things after the second date. Seokmin was understanding, perhaps even sympathetic, but that somehow made guilt weigh heavier on your gut.
Your phone chimes again.
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#stoppppp this is cute as all heck 🤧#oh to be on a blind date with yoon jeonghan 🥺#also matchmaker shua we love to see it!!!!#rec; fic#member; jeonghan#genre; fluff
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title: what’s your number?
genre: fluff, light angst
pairing: vernon x gn!reader
wc: 6.1k
summary: this whole soulmate thing is supposed to be easy. unfortunately, fate has other plans for you.
tags: soulmates!au (in which people find printed numbers on their skin, counting down to when they meet their soulmate), best friends to lovers, highschool!au, college!au, slow-ish burn, emotionally confused!reader, suggestive content
being at this party, filled with people you neither like nor know, feels like staring straight into the sun, where you feel your eyes closing in on themselves but cannot bring yourself to look away. you sit in a ring in front of the television, the light from a midnight teen drama casting everyone’s faces in neon and shadow.
the girl next to you tugs the collar of her shirt to the side to reveal a delicate, neatly printed 493 on the ridge of her collarbone. “i can’t believe i’m going to meet my soulmate in university. it’s the perfect romance!"
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˗ˋˏ LIVE・ˎˊ˗
synopsis: having just finished composing a song a few hours ago, jihoon starts a live on his phone to sing to those who are feeling a little lonely at night. little does he know, your sleeping figure could be seen in the corner of his little livestream, causing his fans to go crazy.
pairing: ljh x reader
genre: fluff
tags: established relationship, public relationship, idol x non idol
wc: 1.24k
a/n: just a little something short I barely remember drafting at 4am. I haven't written an imagine in months so this was a nice change c: also squeezing a little something out of my braincells before I let my brain melt during the concert in a few days ahhh!!
wondernus' masterlist
“I don’t really do this a lot,” he whispers while leaning forward in his seat to stare into his phone screen he set on his desk, propped loosely between his mechanical keyboard and his miniature sound board. “I usually upload videos, but I wanted to sing to you on live today.”
Thousands of hearts and messages pop up one after another, and Jihoon quickly reads through them as best as he can. Most of them are greetings from fans who are slowly joining his live, and some fans ask him why he’s whispering.
“Why am I whispering? It’s past midnight,” he chuckles. “I’m trying to keep my voice low so I don’t disturb anybody.”
His studio lights are off, and the LED lights color his studio in a lazy purple haze. Fans can see him rolling his seat over to the guitar rack near his work desk and return with an acoustic guitar. He tunes his strings a bit before positioning the capo on the neck of the guitar. He opens his desk drawer to grab a silicone guitar mute to tuck under his strings.
“Are you all getting ready to sleep?" his voice is tender and loving in this interaction. He finger picks a simple but sweet melody as he continues, "I wrote this a few hours ago and just wanted to share it with you tonight. Maybe it’ll bring comfort to those who are feeling a little lonely."
Jihoon was never the type of guy to act so caring in public and private. The most care he would show was to slap you on the back once in a while if you did something right. But him singing his fans to sleep? Him offering comfort in a time of loneliness? These are actions he would never do on his own before you came into his life. Now knowing what it feels like to have someone by his side, to have someone he never plans on letting go, he's become more sympathetic to others. He openly worries and cares for those who need that extra comfort.
“Where’s Yn? Ahh…” he awkwardly scratches his hair and shakes his head so that his hairs fall flat against his head. “Yn’s sleeping right now.”
There are replies about him avoiding the question, but he smiles into his lap while he hugs his guitar closer to his chest.
Despite the fact that your relationship with him has been public for a while, the two of you still choose to keep your relationship to yourselves. As much as his fans want to know more about Jihoon's love life, they respect the privacy of others. However, anybody can notice the positive changes your relationship has on him.
He seems happier - not exactly floating on cloud nine. Jihoon is not the type to do so, but he simply seems happier than he was before. There's a subtle type of warmth he exudes. He's smiling more than usual and pushing Soonyoung off him less in interviews. One time he patted Soonyoung’s hair while Soonyoung was leaning his head on his shoulder. It weirded out the older boy so much that he avoided Jihoon for the rest of the day.
In his studio, there is a tiny framed polaroid of the two of you smiling, cheeks touching and faces squished together, that leans against one of his large Bearbricks standing on his white cubed shelves. One of his minimized tabs on his desktop is a page for a Polaroid film bundle that comes with a mini photo album and a string with tiny clips to hang the photos on the wall. He thinks it would look good on the wall above the couch with tiny fairy lights. He’d probably hang pictures of his studio guests and his pictures of you on the strings once he has time to print them out.
He tells his fans to wait a few seconds while he pulls up the lyrics he finalized after you fell asleep. With nothing in mind but singing the song he wrote with you to his fans, he pulls his keyboard close to him. His phone slowly slides backwards onto his sound board, and his fans see nothing but the ceiling changing colors in slow waves from purple to blue. They hear him click on his mouse a few times before softly gasping when he notices his fallen phone.
He mumbles his apologies while propping his phone against whichever surface he finds. His head turns away from his livestream, checking on something behind him, but he quickly focuses back on his live. The phone is repositioned in a new angle that Jihoon isn’t really bothered to doublecheck as long as he is in the frame. It’s already pretty late, and he doesn’t want to keep his fans up for too long.
The song he sings is very short. With a simple down, down, up, down, down strum pattern, he sings about the feeling of having somebody he loves fall asleep on him. He describes the fear of moving when someone is resting on his shoulder – too afraid to wake them up. He wonders if they’re dreaming about him, if the version of him in their dreams is a better version of the real him. Casting doubts aside, he ends his song on a note about the difference between dream him and real him is that they chose to be with the real him.
There is a small but cheesy smile plastered on his face as he leans forward to look at the comments his fans are leaving. However, his smiling face turns into one of blatant confusion when he notices the chat box moving a lot quicker than usual. He can barely catch the comments as they zoom upwards along the left side of the screen. His mouth drops open and his eyebrows twist in confusion when the only comments he is able to catch are keyboard smashes and people talking about themselves crying. He awkwardly thanks his fans for staying awake and waves them goodnight before ending his livestream.
When he locks his phone, he turns around to look behind him. He sighs in relief when he sees you sleeping soundly on his old couch. He puts his guitar back on the guitar rack and makes his way over to you. He quietly squats in front of you, laughing through his nose when he sees the tiny pool of drool forming where the corner of your lips touch the cushion you’re using as a pillow. He readjusts his large jean jacket you’re using as a blanket and decides to quickly clean up around him before waking you up to go home with him.
Little does he know the two of you are trending on Twitter. There are screenshots and recordings of his live from when he was singing. More importantly, fans are going wild about seeing you sleeping soundly in the corner of his screen. Not only that, they notice his jacket draped over you, and you’re hugging a pair of matching plushies fans have deduced are supposed to represent the both of you. Many have already guessed that there was another person in the studio with Jihoon when he started whispering in his large studio and turned around to check on something. However, many are even happier to find out that the person was you.
A few hours later, Soonyoung posts a screenshot from the live with the caption: “When will it be my turn?”
forever taglist: @jiminismybabymochi, @anissanightyoung, @bat-shark-repellant, @woozarts, @jaycheoluwu, @staysstrays, @soobin-chois, @anothershorthuman, @hoohoohope, @bibinnieposts, @candidupped, @purpleglassesenthusiast, @seokshook
#gooooood morning i am going to fling myself DIRECTLY INTO THE SUN#😭😭😭😭💘💖💗💞💗💓💘💓💖💕#this is so soft and sweet and warm i am just 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺💘💘💘💘💘#pls look away these tears are definitely just bc my eyes are dry and not bc i am emotional over v cute fic 🤧🤧#thank you for this absolute gift on this v rainy friday morning it has made my day 🥺🥺💗💗#rec; fic#member; woozi#genre; fluff
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𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 ˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆ෆ
ෆ synopsis: kwon soonyoung loves too hard and falls in love too quickly, accidentally building a (very false!!!) fuckboy image that he can’t seem to get rid of. when his friends talk him out of proposing to a girl he went on 2 dates with, he finally realizes he has a big problem with love. signing up to appear on his university’s most popular youtube talk show to unload his baggage and fix his image? what could possibly go wrong?
ෆ pairing: college student! ksy x reader (gn)
ෆ genre: fluff, humor, romance
ෆ series warnings: anxiety/insecurities, cursing, food/drinks, ksy’s character is extremely 🥺🤧
ෆ status: completed
ෆ started: feb 1st - may 23rd, 2022
ෆ a/n: I noticed that i tend to write a lot along the lines of angst or serious/mature themes so i'm really excited to switch to something more relaxed, fluffy, and feel-good. this is 100% a comfort fic. please let me know if I missed any warnings!
wondernus main masterlist
profiles: [X], [X], [X]
chapters:
0. prologue
1. bag
2. wallet
3. keys
4. phone
5. earphones
6. water bottle
7. glasses
8. reusable straw
9. pens
10. notebook
11. planner
12. receipts
13. lip balm
14. snacks
15. trash
16. textbooks
17. hat
18. umbrella
19. reusable bag
20. watch
21. small pouch
22. vitamins
23. bandages
24. painkillers
25. perfume
26. hand sanitizer
27. hand wipes
28. tissues
29. ear plugs
30. toothpicks
31. cough drops
32. masks
33. spf
34. breath mints
35. folders
36. laptop
37. portable charger
38. calculator
39. charm
40. utensils
41. cushion
42. polaroid
43. dog treats
44. end
bonus chapters:
josh in vegas
himbos
them
#look!!!#look here!!!!!#i love this fic so much!!!!!#i just binge read it again and 🥺#this soonyoung is so tiny and precious i wanna CRY#also his friend squad is a+#i am here for this i am here for the fluff these are the vibes i am looking for always#this is such a gift 🥺#genre; fluff#member; hoshi#rec; smau
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‘ SHIPPED ’ | joshua hong
synopsis : the one where the students of pledis uni are wondering if their two favorite professors are actually dating <3
genre/s : one-shot smau, university au, professors au, pure fluff, gn!reader
from reese, with love <3 face the sun pioneer photos ??? going crazy going feral i- this era is going to break me i can feel it,,, anyways- my brainrot is stronger than ever so i offer u this ,,, thank you for reading, as always id love to know what u think !! going back into academic hell now 🥲 take care, everyone:)
#not at me screaming#joshua!!!!!!!!! hong!!!!!!!!!!#this so cute it got me grinning like a FOOL!!!!!!!!!!!#shua my beloved the cutest man that u are#rec; smau#member; shua#genre; fluff
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“ wedding weekends with wonwoo ”
ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ SYNOPSIS. jeon wonwoo, the perfect man. kind, smart, successful career, and not too bad on the eyes. all his friends are getting married and everyone’s aunts, mothers, and family friends are trying to set him up with their friends, sisters, brothers, nieces, and nephews at every wedding he attends. he’s tired of it. what better way to solve his problem than to employ your help, someone who’s having the exact same one?
NOTES. fake dating, non-idol au, photographer!wonwoo, florist! + gn!reader, fluff, angst if you looked hard enough (honestly, it’s kinda cheesy lol)
WC. ~10k
also contains. food mentions + one swear word
You first meet him in hiding, behind one of the heavy white curtains around the large elegant wedding hall.
Normally, you wouldn’t let your curiosity get the better of you, but seeing a pair of shiny black shoes peeking through beneath the heavy fabric threatened to send your brain into overdrive. You hesitate for a few seconds, was this really any of your business? You weren’t supposed to attend the ceremony in the first place, let alone the actual reception. What if this stranger was an actual weirdo?
You look around the crowded reception hall; there are plenty of potential witnesses. Shrugging your shoulders, you reach a hand out to take a peek behind the curtain.
What you didn’t expect to find was a man, a very good looking one at that, asking in the most quiet voice he could possibly muster, “Are they gone?”
Keep reading
#am i in love with this? who's to say#(the answer is yes)#omfg it's so cute i wanna cry 😭💗#rec; fic#member; wonwoo#genre; fluff#genre; au
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lazy nights
pairing: joshua x reader
length: 1.2k
genre: floofy fluff
summary: Joshua comes home after a long day to find you in the middle of a beading project.
Joshua wasn’t surprised to find you sitting on his bed when he got back to the dorms late. Ever since he’d given you the passcode, he’d gotten used to coming home to you in various spots around the dorm, cooking or reading or playing games. Today you’d set up camp on his bed, dragging out his bead containers and rifling through them.
He dropped a quick kiss to the top of your head, mumbling out soft hellos with a lingering touch on your bicep before disappearing to the bathroom to wash his face and change into sweatpants and an old t-shirt.
When he finally felt comfortable, he slid behind you on the bed, wrapping his arms around your waist and peering over your shoulder to properly see what you were doing.
“No peeking!” You immediately dropped the beads, covering them with both hands. You wiggled your shoulders, shaking your head quickly when he whined in your ear.
“But they’re my beads, why can’t I see?”
You turned your head to press a lightning-fast kiss to his cheek. “It’s a surprise, now no peeking!”
Joshua whined again, which made you giggle, but he obligingly slid back just enough to rest his cheek against your shoulder blade as his eyes slipped closed. He took slow, even breaths, the sound of beads clinking against each other and your soft humming settling over him like a blanket, making him feel truly at peace for the first time in weeks.
After a few moments, you gently patted one of the hands he still had wound around your waist. “Long day?”
He nodded twice, hair brushing against the back of your neck, a barely-audible hum of agreement slipping past his lips.
“Did you have dinner?”
A shake of his head this time. You sighed, clicking your tongue once.
“Shua, you can’t skip dinner!”
“Too busy. No time,” he mumbled, shifting slightly to a more comfortable position pressed up against your back. He buried his face in the fabric of your t-shirt, muffling his voice. “I’m fine.”
You put down the beads in your hands, instead slowly running your fingers up and down his arms. “Mmm, well, lucky for you, I’m a very nice girlfriend and brought you some of the pasta I made for dinner. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing.” You felt him smile against your back, which made you smile in return. “What’s your favorite color these days?”
He hummed in thought, starting to draw absentminded circles on your side with his finger. “Green.”
“Green…do you have a little gr– oh, nevermind, I found it.” You grinned triumphantly as you found the perfect bead and added it to the growing strand in your hands. “Want me to heat the pasta up for you?”
“Mmm…no, I’m comfy, finish what you’re working on first.” As if to make his point, he pressed his face more firmly against your back.
You rolled your eyes at his antics, but were content to let him stay there; you loved when he was extra cuddly anyway.
You went back to humming as you worked, occasionally asking him questions about his day or telling him about yours. He mostly answered in short, sleepy sentence fragments, obviously drifting in and out of focus the longer he sat there. When you were finally satisfied, you patted his arm happily and he slowly straightened, yawning as he propped his chin on your shoulder.
“You done?”
“Mmhmm!”
You grabbed his hand, carefully stretching the elastic just enough to glide the beads over his fingers and palm until they nestled on his wrist. He brought his hand up to see the pattern on the bracelet you’d made, a smile blossoming over his face when he realized what you’d done.
Clear, blue, green, and yellow beads, bright and happy in a haphazard pattern with a little daisy on one side. Opposite the daisy were a set of alphabet beads: your initials, a small green heart, and then his.
“You like it?” The lightest of pinks danced over your cheeks, threatening to reveal the nerves you felt at making a bracelet for him for the first time. But he just pulled you up against his chest, squeezing you tightly, and peppering feather-light kisses over your ear and down your jaw until you were giggling and squirming happily in his grasp.
“I love it.” His voice was a notch deeper than normal, but every bit as soft as usual and bursting with all the affection he held for you that had nowhere else to go. “It’s perfect.”
“I know you can’t wear it at schedules and stuff, but I thought– I dunno, you could keep it with you. A little reminder that I’m always cheering for you and…” You paused for a second, cheeks burning. “And that I love you very much.”
It wasn’t the first time you’d told him you loved him, but he was usually the one who said it first. He was never shy about it, making sure you always knew how much you meant to him and how lucky he felt to have you in his life.
He gave you a quick squeeze before letting go of your waist to tilt your head toward his.
It wasn’t a long kiss, just a gentle peck, but kissing Joshua always gave you butterflies and now was no different. You beamed at him.
“Love you too, angel,” he murmured, then fell back on his bed, pulling you down with him.
You laughed when he went back to hiding his face in your shoulder, clearly trying to entice you into nap time. “You, sir, need to eat and I need to put up your beads before you accidentally kick them and make a gigantic mess neither of us wants to clean up.”
“Babe–”
You bonked your nose against his, then pulled away, rolling off of his bed and kneeling on the floor as you started packing up his beading supplies. “Go eat! It’s in the fridge unless Cheol stole it when he got in.”
He pouted, giving you his best wide-eyed sad puppy look, the one he knew you could never say no to. “Cuddles after?”
“Cuddles for the rest of the night if you wanna, but you gotta eat first.”
“I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
He practically leapt off the bed, moving faster than you’d seen him move all night, and you couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled over your lips. “I’m not going anywhere, you don’t have to rush!”
But true to his word, he was back in less than ten minutes, licking cold pasta sauce from his lip as he tumbled back onto his bed, spreading his arms wide. You flopped next to him and he pulled you up against his chest, heaving one big, content sigh before settling down.
You peeked up at his face, staring at him for a moment before snuggling in closer to him.
“Shua?”
“Hmm?”
“‘Night. Sleep well.”
His lips twitched upward to a lazy smile. “Goodnight, love.”
#caratwritersclub#seventeen#seventeen imagines#seventeen x reader#svt x reader#seventeen fluff#svt fluff#joshua#joshua hong#joshua x reader#joshua imagines#seventeen scenarios#so i haven't written in a hot minute but uhhh here we go again!#back on my overly fluffy fluff agenda
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