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joonsytip · 1 day

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Only for Love || Mingyu - Part 1

Pairings: Mingyu x Fem!Reader

Genre: Angst, Fluff, Smut, Husband!Mingyu, Cold Wife!Reader, Arranged Marriage au, Contract Marriage au, Divorce au

Synopsis: When an accidental discovery has your perception of happy married life crumbling down, you do what you think is the best for everyone involved. Naturally, your opinion of the best doesn't cater to your husband's. So what happens when things spiral out due to unforeseen events?

Warnings: This part is SFW, Reader is cold & blunt but also shy, Mingyu is gullible and impulsive, lack of communication, profanities, heartbreak, breakup alluding to emotional cheating.

Word Count: 6.5k

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Teaser | Part 1

The sun is shining brightly in the clear sky with white, fluffy clouds drifting across in it. Just like the clouds, Mingyu has been drifting away in his pool of thoughts. As he sips his favourite beverage which he decided to get before starting work for the day, the smile on his lips never leaves.

Life has been good to Mingyu lately. His boss has boosted to him about the surety of him being promoted to the Head of Brand Marketing, a position he has been eyeing for a long time, which would also mean an upgrade in paycheck so he could contribute more in the care of his parents, pampering his sister a bit more even though they have always been content.

A notification breaks his blissful reverie and the contact name on the screen widens the stretch of his lips. It's a text from Sora, his girlfriend of five years. But his lips curl down as he reads the message stating she's extending her stay at her home for some reasons again, for the third time. A frown sits on his face at the thought of spending another series of nights in his empty shared apartment without being in the embrace of the love of his life.

Mingyu wears his heart on his sleeves. He can be defined as a pure romanticist, an absolute sentimentalist. He's liked by everyone. Apart from sculpted physique and height, he's lovable because of his nature as well.

It's a daily routine, he walks into his workplace and a swarm of bee like people come to greet him, some wanting just a glimpse of him, some wanting to get running guidance on how to maintain work-life balance, others just to confirm that Kim Mingyu isn't just a myth but an actual existence.

It's also evident that Mingyu is popular not only because of looks but also how he always helps his coworkers, a great leader to his subordinates, an outstanding resource to his bosses and a reliable asset to the company. The year-end performance evaluation knocks around the corner and everyone is busy to clock details, set the impression right. Mingyu has a good feeling about it.

He isn't much of a private person, he flaunts everything he is proud of, never to rub off arrogantly but with a sincere smile and soft eyes. But only his family and group of close friends know that he's planning to propose to Sora once she returns, that he has already bought the ring that sits hidden in his apartment closet.

After work, he decides to visit the Game Parlour where he can't be dimed as a regular but he definitely visits it often. Mingyu had a knack for gaming since childhood, he was a pro gamer during his university days often being called to participate in the championships, winning many of them. Though he would have loved a career in the gaming industry but that teenage boy wasn't courageous enough to take the risk.

The first thing he seeks after logging into his gaming account is for a specific Id. As soon as he sees the green dot beside he puts on his headphone and pings in the chatbox.

phoenix_726 is another gamer whom no matter what Mingyu is never able to beat nowadays. He always bags the second position and when they team up, it's a given no other can be the winner.

Mingyu often throws banter to the gamer, to whom he assumes is another closely aged man from the voice he has heard while gaming. They stay anonymous to each other and share bits and frustrations of life. No one else knows but Mingyu has another friend in form him, whom he ocassionally confides in, there's an sense of goodfaith. Having a great sense of humour and gaming skills, he definitely helps Mingyu shake off his worries and have a good time. So Mingyu casually slips that he's gonna propose to his long time girlfriend soon and invites him to the wedding already. All giddy, he says he can't wait for the day to come.

Mingyu is a crying mess when that day finally comes. He's inconsolable. He feels like his world has collapsed. Not only did Sora slap a rejection to his proposal, she also had admitted to emotional cheating on him before leaving. Another batch of fresh tears stream down his cheeks when he remembers her words from before.

"I'm sorry Gyu, I can't do this anymore.", Sora says urging him to be off his knees, closing off the ring box, "I don't love you anymore, I've outgrown you."

Mingyu stands frozen. He can't believe his ears, none of the people present believe what they're hearing.

"I had gone back home to take a break from everything, to sort out my feelings. Your presence was overwhelming, it was suffocating me.", she says tearily, "And I realised a lot of things. The reason I kept delaying my return is because I was preparing myself to tell you the truth."

Mingyu snaps out and quickly grabs her hands, "I'm sorry. Please give me another chance, I'll be better.", he swears in tears, "I'd not bother you much, let's start afresh, I'm willing to do everything you want me to.", he begs, "Please, just don't leave me. I love you, I can't live without you."

Sora's sobs echo throughout the venue, "I can't, I have developed feelings for someone else. So please let's end it."

That served as the last nail in the coffin. Mingyu stands straight looking at her and says in hollow voice, "Go. Empty the apartment before I get back. And never show yourself again."

"Come on buddy, let's go my to place.", says Jeonghan, trying to get Mingyu up but failing nonetheless, "What are you doing? Come help me.", he side-eyes and hisses at Soonyoung.

The said man quickly scrumbles on his feet and they both manage to take him to the car.

"Seokmin & Hansol have gone to drop uncle, aunt & Minhee. And now we'll head to my place not Jeonghan's.", Junhui says as he waits in the driver seat patiently for the other three to settle in, ignoring the protests from Jeonghan.

Mingyu takes a whole week off, which is something he has never done before. He also hasn't got his heart crushed before so....

The guys regularly check upon him, dropping by casually. There are some calls from his family and they always keep it short. Everyone hopes for him to be okay but the pain in his chest never subdues. The whole apartment reeks of Sora. The memories flash before his eyes and he hates that he wants them back, wants to go back to the time when they were happy, when there was only love and bliss. He checks his phone every now and then in hopes of getting a text or call from Sora saying it was a mistake and she wants him back but that never happens.

Mingyu thinks he might die from this heartache.

But he tries, tries his best to go on with his life. People notice the change in his demeanor but they don't pry because of the respect they have for him.

Seokmin, one of his closest friends and also colleague visits his cabin to check upon him.

"You don't have to babysit me, Min.", Mingyu sighs as he looks at the chocolate box, his friend places on his table.

"I'm not, Min. But you don't exactly look good currently and I'm afraid more people will come for me now that my rival is lacking.", Seokmin dictates dramatically.

Mingyu laughs, "Yeah sure. The throne is all yours. Don't you have work?"

To that Seokmin instantly deflates, "I'm knees deep in work.", and looks at him with expectant eyes, "We're gonna crash at Jeonghan's tonight."

"Oh, does he know that we're gonna crash at his place for the whole weekend?", Mingyu snorts already knowing the answer.

"Why does he have to know?", Seokmin says, "We're just gonna barge at his place, that guy's bitchless so that shouldn't be a problem--"

Seokmin bites his tongue but it's already late.

"So am I", Mingyu tries to joke smiling sadly and looks at him, "You don't need to feel bad, I'm getting used to it."

The second betrayal comes to him in succession and rather quickly after a month and half later, when in the year-end evaluation it was announced that it's not him but Kim Hanjun, the relative of someone who works in a higher slash powerful position, gets promoted as the Head of Brand Marketing. His hardwork and dedication gets defeated against connections.

Since that day, Mingyu is a changed person within the work space. Once a bubbly personality now is nothing but aloof employee who comes to office and is off his desk as soon as the work hours are over. He doesn't indulge in conversations or attend adhoc works. He already has a resignation letter drafted and saved in his laptop.

Kim Mingyu wishes nothing but misery for the people who have wronged him. He wants nothing but healing for himself.

Your trained gaze alone is enough to send the person lining infront of you six feet under.

"I gave you a whole month to come up with the concept of character design and you bring this to the table.", your tone is dangerously low, "Am I supposed to show this to the Design Director?"

The girl is sweating, as she manages to speak, "I-I'm sorry, I'll get back to you with new inputs."

"How long?", you ask.

"A week. I'll make sure to complete it in a week.", she says with scared eyes.

You sigh, taking your glasses off, "We have a deadline, keep that in mind. You can reach out to Kwon Soonyoung of Art and Naration Department for guidance. Don't bother him much, he's a busy man."

Before she leaves, you add, "Mail me the initial drafts and also coordinate with Dowon, the main characters should complement each other in the terms of their appearance, weapons etc."

Your walking out of the cabin, silences the whole office. As you pass by, all people do is bow to you, they never dare to look at you, nor do they dare to strike a conversation.

Neither are you interested in indulging in any kind of talks with these people who are plain gossipers and can only think of judging people by materialistic bases.

'Ice Princess', that's the cliche nickname you've acquired, which still confuses you but you could care less. All you could care about is work and getting it done.

The day continues and it's during the lunch hour that you get a call from your uncle. And you'd have never imagined, this meet-up would lead him to say something so bizarre, something that would change your life.

"You're getting married.", he says, with all seriousness making your stomach churn.

And before you could open your mouth, he continues, "Trust me this once. You know I would never compromise your happiness with anything less."

Next day, you suddenly find yourself sitting in front of the guy you're supposed to marry.

It's strange and beyond awkward, with neither of you clearly having no idea of what to talk about, where to start and above all how did it come down to something like this.

"Did my uncle threaten you to marry me?", you stay poised, voice stone cold, eyes looking out through the window glass.

Mingyu almost chokes on air but he's quick to regain composure, "Well hello to you too and no, he didn't."

"Then why did you agree on marrying a stranger? I'm sure you don't even know me."

Mingyu sighs, "You should know that your uncle is one of the Senior Executives in the company I work for and I respect him a lot. When he came to me with the proposal, I was taken aback but you sure are beautiful and independent and I have been also meaning to settle down so I couldn't find myself refusing it."

You scoff, "Do you know what you're getting into? I'm not easy to handle, I'm more than capable of making you rip out your hairs."

You continue further, "I don't treat the concept of marriage as some sort of joke or treaty where two involved parties would make a deal or whatever. Uncle has been nagging since forever asking me to get married but I have been pushing it back because...", your voice drops and gaze wavers, "Nevermind. I'm not doing it."

Mingyu gasps at your words before gruffing out, "No please, give me a chance. Look, I have been in a rough patch for past months. I want this marriage to happen just not to bridge connections or to push through any other motives, I want to start afresh."

You squint your eyes at him, "Doesn't sound sincere at all. But I trust uncle and he must have a solid reason if he chose you and you're good looking so it's a bonus. Hence, I'm willing to give it a chance."

You get up from your seat and walk up to him, one hand on the table, other on the armrest of his chair. Hovering over you say, "Kim Mingyu, I have already warned you, if I find any discrepancy after getting married, you'll be a dead meat. I can tolerate anything but betrayal."

Mingyu instantly breaks in cold sweat.

"You're gonna do what?", Minhee asks, in case she has heard it all wrong from her brother.

Mingyu sweeps his gaze across the faces of his parents, his sister and all his friends. They all echo the same expression, they all are utterly dumbfounded.

"I'm getting married", he repeats again, "to Lee Y/N."

"And who's that?", asks his father.

"What do you mean by getting married so suddenly?", this time his mother raises her voice, "Aren't you still silently moping over that girl?"

Silence falls upon the room, until Soonyoong's loud gasp erupts through the room.

That's not something abnormal for Soonyoung to do but Mingyu exactly gets the reason behind it and gestures him to keep his mouth shut.

"Do you know her--", Jeonghan gets cut off.

"Do you have a pic of--", Hansol gets cut off.

"Did you even meet her--", Junhui gets cut off.

"Does Y/N even knows that you're marrying her?", Soonyoung is the one who gets to finish his question.

Mingyu heaves a breath after getting bombarded with non stop questions. His head spins and he hasn't even started yet.

Seokmin is unusually quiet. There's seriousness ghosting him which is rare. Once Mingyu goes out to send off his family, it's Seokmin who tells the others about the whole situation because apart from Mingyu and your uncle, he's the only one who has the grasp of the situation to the fullest.

When Mingyu returns he sees a bunch of disappointed faces except one. Soonyoung is eyeing him with uncertainty, something one could mistake as remotely scare.

"I think Soonyoung needs a breather.", Junhui says, "Because he works with Y/N, not directly but he knows her well enough."

The said man throws a very curious gaze at Mingyu saying, "Nothing is making sense to me. You two are polar opposites, Gyu. And not the kinds that fit in the criteria of opposite attracts."

"I don't support it.", Jeonghan retorts, "This is wrong. If this ever gets out, you're so gonna regret it."

"I have made up my mind.", Mingyu tells him with all certainty, "This wedding is going to happen and I'm not letting anything get in the way to my happiness anymore."

And that's how the preparations of the wedding starts.

You and your uncle meet Mingyu and his family. Though you had expected it to be another one of the awkward meetings but it turns out rather pleasing. His family is welcoming, especially his younger sister, Minhee. While everyone inside discusses the date of engagement and wedding, Mingyu slips you out of the conversation.

You both take a stroll in the neighborhood.

"How was it, meeting them?", Mingyu asks.

You walk straight, not meeting his gaze, "I like them, they have an amiable aura surrounding them.", you suddenly halt and look at him, making him halt as well, "But not you."

Mingyu creases his brows, "You'll come to like me, that's me, I'm lovable."

You scoff, crossing over your hands, "We'll see about it."

The engagement date is set to a month later, followed by the wedding.

You gradually sink back into work and it's a relief that you don't hear from Mingyu but that's cut short when you receive a text from him a week later.

So that's how you landed in your soon to be fiancé's apartment. You sit quietly, gaze constantly sweeping back and forth on the new faces.

Mingyu takes a seat beside you and starts introducing his friends. The text Mingyu had sent primarily stated something along his friends wanting to meet you, which you had bluntly rejected. But when he called you immediately after, saying that they're his extended family and it's important for you and them to get along because it's them you're gonna have to deal with more than his own family, you scolded him for good five minutes for blocking your time during workhours before agreeing on a meet-up.

So far, you've learned that they all belong to almost same age group. Seokmin is a childhood friend who works in the same company as Mingyu, practically indicating that the two are inseparable. The rest are his friends from university days, some he acquired while playing tournaments, others from being a regular at the same game parlour etc.

Jeonghan is a lawyer and eldest among all. Junhui is a dentist and you're immediately setting an appointment with him. Hansol is a photographer who tells that he's gonna manage all the shoots starting from the engagement to the wedding.

And the last one is a very familiar face. You would rather introduce him well to the others because he works with you. And that's the reason he's seated stiff throughout.

"Am I making you uncomfortable?", you ask Soonyoung.

Yes, Soonyoung wants to say this but rather he settles with it a subtle shake of head. He breathes a silent sigh of relief when he feels your gaze off him.

"I guess Soonyoung has already made all of you aware of my reputation. But that's how I am at work.", you say smiling wide.

The rest all relax and exchange smiles before going stiff again when you add, "I'm exactly the same off work as well."

Mingyu nudges your elbow but you don't bother to look at him.

"Stop scaring them.", he says in a hushed voice and you quip back immediately.

"I'm just letting them know that I may not be the perfect sister-in-law they want or picturing me to be. When expectations are less, people on both ends won't get hurt."

The atmosphere turns rigid, the room turns silent.

"What about your parents, Y/N? Do you have any siblings--", Mingyu is late to hush Junhui's failed attempt to wave off the tension. Jeonghan is about to knock his friend's head when he remembers that Junhui was absent the last time when this topic was brought up.

"I'm sorry, Y/N.", Mingyu is quick to aplogize.

You look at a very confused Junhui and tell him, "My uncle is my only family. Sixteen years ago, I lost my parents, aunt and my cousin in a car accident. Since then it's me and uncle. We do have some distant relatives but they're not in touch. Hope this resolves your query."

Checking your watch, you get up, "I'll get going."

"So soon? Please stay till dinner", Seokmin requests, "We all have cooked for you."

Your eyes go wide for a brief moment, as you accidentally speak out your mind, "No one has ever made an effort to cook for me except my uncle."

And before you could slip out, you're almost being dragged into the dinning space. There's no denying that you haven't had this good food recently. And though you say that you've no shame but you don't meet anyone's eyes when you tell them to pack some of the leftovers for you.

You sit silently, watching the crowd, observing the people. You have just been engaged to Mingyu and though it was meant to be a private ceremony, you realised how you quantify it might be completely different from your fiancé.

The only person from your side who's attending is your uncle and it'll be the same in the wedding and all other ceremonies as well. But as you have counted there are a total of thirty people who can be deemed close by Mingyu and are attending the engagement ceremony.

And you can see that it's not a bluff. Everyone is smiling wide, dancing and singing to their hearts will. What made your heart swell once again is that you can sense how each one of them congratulated you both with goodwill and sincerity.

The corner of your lips are twitching to stretch in a smile as you watch your would-be father-in-law being successful in dragging your uncle to the dance floor. It's been long since you've seen him laugh heartily, enjoy wholly.

You wonder if that's what having a family feels like. To be always surrounded by the people you love, who loves you unconditionally. To always have someone to lean onto. The trauma has led you to suppress the memories but you do remember vaguely something similar, a familiar backdrop, smiling faces and warmth.

Your heart suddenly constricts within your chest and you find yourself in the balcony catching breaths. Staring into the abyss of darkness, you don't notice the tears those stream down your face.

"Found ya.", you hear your now fiancé's voice and as he situates beside you. You try to discreetly wipe away the tears but Mingyu sees it.

He doesn't evade your space though, he just stands beside you, speaking nothing which is unlikely but you get what he's conveying and you're thankful to him.

The pre-wedding shoot is a headache, you think. You should be working on finalizing the designs and launch dates of the game but rather you're here at a beach, all dolled up and in a beautiful dress, hues matching to the shirt Mingyu's wearing.

You hate how warm the weather is. You hate how calming the sounds of sea waves are. You hate how soothing the gentle breeze is. You hate how beautiful Mingyu is looking just donning a polo shirt and chinos.

"You're staring a little too hard."

You get startled and crane your neck to see Hansol now changing some settings in his camera with a teasing smile on his lips.

Clearing your throat, you ask, "How long would it take?"

"For how long do you want it to go on?", Hansol enquires back and you want to duck his water underwater for acting smart with you.

A lot of things happen during the shoot. The remarkable ones are you being too shy to hold an eye contact with Mingyu for which you knew you're gonna get teased. Mingyu being scared off by some bugs, shouting, cowering behind you which settles the score, neither of you are getting teased by the other. You are almost whacking Hansol every time he takes a little too long to click the shots when you both are posing, smiling ear to ear, arms linked or hugging each other.

"I'll kill your friend.", you say through gritted teeth while smiling.

Mingyu controls his laugh as his eyes turn into slits, "Be my guest."

Hansol suggests a shot where Mingyu is standing in the water as waves graze his feet while he's cradle carrying you in his arms.

"We're done for now!", Hansol shouts, "Let's get going to the next location."

You immediately link your arms strongly around his neck when Mingyu tries to settle you down.

"My legs are aching.", you say resting your face on his shoulder, so that he doesn't get to see your face.

Mingyu squints his eyes, saying teasingly, "I thought you didn't like me?"

"Correct. I don't like you", you tell him, "I'm tired. Plus what's the use of those muscles if you can't carry me?"

Mingyu doesn't reply rather he sprints towards the rest of the people making you scream for you life as you hold him tighter.

The whole team cheers and shouts and Hansol does what he does best, takes thousands shots of you both throughout.

You open your eyes to hushed murmurs and coos only to find all eyes on you as you wake up nestled in Mingyu's chest as he's still sleeping unaware of the disastrous, as you would state, state you both are in. Your gentle push wakes him up and they inform that they're at Mingyu's address and he drops off by asking Hansol to take you home safely.

"He's good guy, Y/N.", Hansol says as the van heads towards your location, "Not saying because I'm his friend but genuinely, he's keeper."

You just give a subtle nod, choosing not to say anything.

You hate your personal space being evaded but for some reasons it's tolerable as you watch your would-be mother-in-law cooking in the kitchen of your apartment while Minhee aids her.

You stand quietly by the counter, eyes quizzically moving along with the movements of the two people present along with you.

"I have cooked enough for you to last a week.", Mingyu's mother tells you, "Stop eating those instant, frozen, junk food.", she says unimpressed as she clears out the cupboards.

"Don't tell him that I said this but my brother's a great cook, have him cook for you both everyday.", Minhee telltales.

The three of you have chat where they're the ones mainly speaking and you become an ardent listener. It feels nice, you think, to have people care for you, to evade your space when you say you hate it but actually want them to have around you.

That night when they try to head off back to home, you don't let them go, rather you insist them to stay the night and they do stay back. It's not another usual lonely night at your apartment.

Your uncle gifts you both a new apartment, ignoring your protests. He insists, you both need to start afresh, on the right foot. Jokes about your own apartments to be cool off place to crash in if you both have fights.

"Why do I have to be here?", you ask sitting unfazed along with Mingyu's friends (yours as well but you won't admit yet).

Mingyu whines, "Who else would finalize on my wedding suit? They're of no use", he points at his friends who jokingly throw hurls at him, "And I don't trust her choice.", he says pointing at his sister who's too used to his antics to be bothered.

"Such a baby", you roll your eyes, "I have a meeting at 5. Be quick."

Oh you did well in muffling the gasps every time the curtains raised and Mingyu appeared in trying the attire.

Let me buy them all, is what you wanted to say. But sadly, you had to settle for one. But Mingyu doesn't get the privilege to choose your wedding gown.

He sees you walking down the aisle along with your uncle. Mesmerizing would be an understatement he's beyond that. He is nervous and shows. You're nervous as well but as always you're a master in hiding it. The vows are exchanged and as the crowd chants, your lips meet for a brief moment.

Your uncle starts off with teary speech, making you and almost all others cry silently. You walk up to him hugging tight because he has the only constant throughout your life, raising you as his own child, to be present and cheering on you on every important event of your life.

Mingyu has a long list of people lining up for giving speeches for him but what surprises you is even though they share tales about him, they include you in bits and your heart feels at ease thinking about how you might have found a family and people you can call them as your own. Which also leads Soonyoung to get too comfortable, almost getting an earful from you in front of the guests if Mingyu didn't intervene for daring to challenge you for a gaming match with all cockiness. Man lives as if he has nine lives.

You meet his colleagues and he gets to meets yours as well. Mingyu wonders, he has been wondering for as long as he has known you that where did you seek solace on hard days. How come you had no friends, not even one. Or maybe you had, but somehow you've lost touch. He can only speculate.

The first week for the newlyweds goes by settling into the new space. Everything sets in fine and you both divide the duties. Mingyu would be in charge of cooking, you'd do the groceries and he'd join in too obviously. You'd both would be aware of the each other's whereabouts and respect the spaces.

"I'm fine with everything and I want to make this marriage work.", Mingyu's tone changes to a defensive one, "Also, please never go to my office room, no matter what.", he says pointing towards the same, "It's a request and I hope you'd respect it."

You nod understandingly, you're also not a big fan of people messing or evading into your workspace so you agree.

Mingyu has gotten used to it but not the others so when his friends gather at your home one night to catch up they're gurgling out the drinks they're having when you hear you speak.

You call Mingyu, Husband.

"Husband!", you call him seated on the couch. Ignoring the turning of heads, as soon Mingyu comes in your sight, you say, "I have ordered the takeout, none of you needs to spend time in kitchen, rather spend time with each other."

Everyone smiles wide. The rest throw a knowing glance at Mingyu. You take it as a cue to give them space and get up to leave the room.

"I'll take a walk outside. Have fun catching up.", you say stoicly, already beelining towards the passage, "Will be back once the food arrives."

"You're one of us, Y/N. We don't need any space but if you do, then please go ahead..", Jeonghan says making you stop in tracks.

You turn back and sweep gaze among the faces, specially your husband's for any disagreement and when you find his pleading eyes, you see yourself beelining back to your seat.

Work's hectic as ever and you both try to adopt into the change of lifestyle. But what's not happening is work - life balance. With the new gaming launch event nearing, you are expected to stay in the office till late. It's nothing new but something is actually new.

And that's Kim Mingyu. You're still getting used to receiving texts asking about your expected time of return, extending the offer to pick you up if needed. It's also nice to have food served on the table when you reach home.

It's warm when you sleep into the sheets quietly but your husband somehow finds you, holding you in his arms albeit of his sleepy state.

"Why are you hugging me?", you ask with your voice muffled against his chest one morning.

Mingyu has just stirred from his slumber when your voice reaches him. He gets to look at the top of your head and cranes his neck to see the tangled limbs.

"You were spooning me as soon as I got into the bed.", you further add.

His eyes widen, as he tries to untangle himself mumbling apologies, "I'm sorry. I have a habit of clinging while sleeping. I'll try to be careful from today onwards."

And he misses to notice that one of his hands circling your waist is now in your grip, "Who told you to retract?", you down your head further into his so he doesn't get to see even an inch of your face, "I was just asking."

Mingyu goes silent. He's not in love with you and he knows neither are you. But moments like this make him realise something.

He reminiscences another fairly recent memory.

"There's something bothering me.", you come into his view as he pauses the movie he was watching.

Your eyes don't meet his, "I have noticed how your parents deflate whenever I call them uncle and aunt."

Mingyu listens, unsure of where this monologue is going.

You now turn to the front facing the television, your back facing him as your voice toning down as you continue, "I know being their only daughter-in-law they have some expectations. But I'm not good at coining terms, especially the terms like mother and father since I haven't... When I haven't--", you pause sucking in a sharp breath.

Mingyu gets up and turns you to face him, "You don't have to try so hard. Be easy on yourself. There's plenty of time and my parents do understand where you're coming from. And trust they're not disappointed or anything."

And he proceeds to do the most assuring thing, he knows of. He softly pecks your forehead.

Your eyes widen and you grab his arms gaping at him.

"Do it again.", you blurt out and though he smiles a grim realisation gnaws on Mingyu.

Many of the basic acts of proximity and affection, you're experiencing them for the very first time, hence it always comes to you as a surprise. Mingyu's heart constricts in the chest because as a person who has been surrounded by love and people, he can't fathom how you have managed to live on your own, in your lone company.

You're six months into the marriage and things have changed. Changed for good, you think.

You think being in the office and being at home are not the same anymore, it does make a difference. It's not bad, having someone checking upon you. It's not all bad having someone cooking for you. It's absolutely amazing to hear someone rant out, eating your ears off about work and whatnot and not expecting any words of comfort in return.

That someone being your husband. You think your husband is bearable, maybe a little more than bearable.

Mingyu sits still with the phone in his hand as his eyes trace over the photo repeatedly. There's an ache in his heart, he can feel his chest tighten. There are tears pooling in the corner of his eyes, throat closing up suffocating him.

During the lunch break, just to kill some time Mingyu decided to scroll through his abandoned social media account, the ones he hasn't bothered to check since the breakup. And he it turned out to be a mistake as the first picture that popped up on his feed was of the one Sora posted flaunting her new man.

And as he clicks on her account, it breaks his heart to see all of the photos they've posted together or if them clicked together were gone. As if it never happened, as if none of that were true whereas his account is still all about her and their memories.

"It's time for you to delete those pics as well."

He hears Seokmin's say.

"Are you seriously wasting your energy on her?", Seokmin takes a seat beside him, "When you're married and have a such a wonderful wife waiting for you at home?"

Mingyu gives melancholic smile, "Home? Sora was my home, Min. It was supposed to be her waiting for me at the end of day."

"You're sounding like a loser. And I might throw hands at you for uttering nonsense.", Seokmin gets up abruptly making the chair screech, "Don't ruin your present by living in the past."

Dealing with you is not easy and Mingyu had decided to marry you knowing all ifs and buts. At the start it felt more like living with an uncooperative roommate. Then, as days passed he became aware of your habits. Nowadays he thinks you've become habituated to him and it's a good sign but what tires him out is it's only him who's trying.

"I got promoted, Y/N!", Mingyu says all excitedly as soon as you're back from work and into his sight.

"Oh, congratulations.", you say plainly.

He waits with expectant eyes for you to say more but you don't. You don't pat him, neither do you smile. You just simply saunter towards the shared bedroom to freshen up. Eyes turned dull, heart heavy, dejected Mingyu goes to bed empty stomach, his appetite now gone.

You're still cold, to the extent that it's freezing a strain on the relationship. You don't open up, you never appreciate his efforts openly, neither are you interested in his matters. All that matters to you is work.

"Mom was asking if we could visit them anytime soon. As you know their wedding anniversary is approaching and I was thinking if we could spend some days with them around that time?", Mingyu asks you on a call one day when you had to work at office on a weekend because of some changes in timeline.

"You can go.", you tell him, "I don't think I would be able to attend the anniversary party."

"Could you please try? It would mean a lot--"

"Mingyu, you know I can't. I'm sorry.", you say hanging up.

Mingyu doubts if he'll ever love again, he doubts if he'll ever love you. And being a person who wears his heart on his sleeves, he wants being vocal and receiving affirmations, you do neither. Though he knows there are many things which you're experiencing as a first but that doesn't justify anything when he's trying, you should try as well. He contemplates every night if made a mistake by marrying you, if he was too much consumed by greed.

The company's hosting a dinner and everyone's expected to bring a plus one. Some take the opportunity to introduce their partners to their colleagues, for others it's free dinner and socializing. For the past years Mingyu attended the event just to flaunt his partner, Sora and make her aware how much he's looked upon at his workplace. He liked the way people worshipped them, deemed them as the perfect couple, he lived for the vibe of it.

But this year though there's a lot of anticipation about him bringing his wife, Mingyu attends the party alone. He hadn't informed you about the party, simply because he doesn't want you to be here. He's still disappointed at you, plus he knows you wouldn't even care to come even if he asked so to save his dignity from another rejection he decides not to inform you. And if your uncle asks, he'd make some excuse.

The dinner party swings on and it's kinda mundane for Mingyu with Seokmin also not attending because he's out of town until he hears everyone applauding. His gaze follows the crowd when he sees your uncle entering.

And he instantly freezes on the spot when he sees you walking behind.

→ Do not copy, re-post, translate, or share any of my works on other platforms! All stories are copyrighted, joonsytip. ©️

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headphonesboyandfriends · 1 month

Text

HeadphonesBOY, the best virtual assistant on the internet!

day 113

#daily headphones boy #headphones boy #kinitopet #kinito my beloved

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kissforyouu · 8 months

Text

𝙲𝙰𝚁𝙳𝙸𝙶𝙰𝙽 . 𝚓𝚓𝚔

pairing : jungkook x reader

genre : college boy!jungkook , fwb , so much fluff , situationship , confusing relationship

warning : angst , strong language , smoking , masturbation , use of weed and drugs , getting high , lots of kisses🤭 , oral sex ( f recieving ) , doggy , unprotected sex , situationships. (trigger warning😓)

Inspired by Cardigan - Taylor Swift

unedited.

> read pt. 1 here

It's been about three weeks since Jungkook had left my door. I try, but I still can't make up my mind with the fact that it's all over. It's even harder, because Jungkook was always apart of my daily routine. We'd go get our groceries together, drop eachother by our respective classes, study together, hangout and so much more. It's not just the fucking, or the kissing, he was also my best friend. Losing my bestfriend was even worse. Sometimes I'd wonder how it would've been if we never had sex. Would we still be friends? Best friends? Would it have been better? It would have been better, I think. Maybe. Or maybe not. I don't fucking know.

Or maybe we'd just be strangers and I would've never gotten to experience this love from him? Or maybe—it wasn't even love. Well, obviously, it wasn't. He made it clear. Very clear.

Although it's been a week, Jungkook has never tried to contact me. It hurts, but whatever. Clearly he's enjoying his time though, judging by his instagram stories. Party after party. I always see him either drinking or going out with his friends on social media. Okay. I might be stalking him on social media. But hey, it's not exactly stalking when the information is public and accessible to anyone, right? So, I'm not stalking. I'm only making use of my rights as someone using social media.

It's whatever. Jungkook's whatever. I'll move on. Of course, I will. It's nothing a bit of journaling and music can't fix, right? Yeah.

I hum to my music, continuing to write on my journal. This was my way of letting all my feelings out. I'd journal, write and doodle about it. It was calm, and it also helped me open up and learn more about myself. I liked it.

I continued to write...

I still want him. I want him so so much. I really hate to admit that, but I do. I don't know what's gotten over me. I have to make up my mind, I really really do. Jungkook proved to me that I was nothing but some fuck, but why can't I think the same? It's slowly driving me insane. In addition to that, I really really really really fucking hate the fact that I'd go back to him in a heartbeat if I could.

I let out a sigh, closing the journal. This is what I've been doing for the past three weeks. It's stupid, really, we weren't even fucking dating! I keep thinking about that, and it's driving me crazy. Whatever. I placed my journal and headphones back on my table, then getting back on my bed. Covering myself with my soft pink sheets, I made myself comfortable enough to fall asleep.

I hated this so much.

Everywhere I looked, it always reminded me of Jungkook. I hated how every corner of my room had some sort of memory attached to him. Whether it was just him holding one of my belongings, standing in a specific area, or him just doing something—it always reminded me of him.

The worst was my bed. Everytime I got on it, I just couldn't help but think of all the things we did on it. I couldn't help but think of the places his hands touched me, the feeling of his lips on my skin, or the feeling of his cock going in and out of me. I hated this because sometimes—sometimes! Just sometimes I'd feel myself getting hot down there.

I hate to admit this but—

"Mm..." a whimper leaves my mouth at the feeling of my fingers pressing onto my clothed clit. All that thinking got me wet. I slowly drag my fingers up and down, caressing my folds. I imagine it's his fingers, Jungkook's, teasing my folds slowly.

What would he do right now? He'd subtly touch me everywhere to get me soaking wet.

My other hand reaches down to my left breast, rubbing my nipple through the material. A few seconds later, the material of my top was now discarded on the bed. I continue to rub my nipple slowly, just the way he would. My other hand was caressing my thighs slowly, letting my fingertips subtly touch the surface of my skin. I gather a good amount of spit in my mouth, then bringing my fingers to my lips, then my nipples. I spread the liquid all around my nipple, flicking it too.

A heavy breath is heard, my fingers creeping inside my panties this time. It was a new sensation. I never masturbated. I didn't need to. I had Jungkook.

A small whimper echoes within my mouth as my fingers come in contact with my folds, spreading the arousal around. Shit, I was so wet. Not as much I was whenever I was around him though. I gather some of the arousal, rubbing my clit with it next. I moan, continuing to rub myself. It felt awfully good. I imagine it's him. His fingers teasing and rubbing my clit while his face was squished in between my tits. That's how it'd usually go.

An embarrassingly whiny moan slips past my mouth at my thoughts, fuck I want him so bad. I continue to rub myself faster, my back now arched a little. I rub my bud in the motion of an 8, hoping for a release. It feels good, but not that good.

I then run my middle and ring fingers up and down my folds. I imagine it's his tongue, sliding up and down on me as he savours the taste. "So good..." I hum. I retreat my fingers back to my clit, rubbing it again. About a minute later of continuous rubbing, heavy breaths and small whines, I slowly feel my high approaching. I squeeze my eyes shut, imagining it's him, as my body shudders.

I don't rub myself further, stopping myself right there. I was now sensitive down there. I didn't cum. Fuck, this is annoying.

Groaning, my body sits back up on the bed. I put back all my clothes on, pee and get right back to bed. This was unsuccessful and very annoying. Embarrassing, too. What have I done? Fuck, really, Y/n? Over Jungkook. Yes, Over Jungkook.

Okay, just sleep it off. I tell myself, trying to convince myself that what I had done just now was totally not embarrassing.

I groan at the sound of my annoying alarm beeping on my nightstand. "Fuck you", I turn the alarm off, groaning once more as I roll off the bed. I grab my phone, my eyes still blurry, and then— FUCK. IT WAS 12PM. MY CLASSES START AT 11AM. FUCK, FUCK, FUCK. I rise up from the bed, running to my bathroom. I have to make this very quick. I grab the toothbrush and get in the shower, washing my body while brushing my teeth. 5 minutes later, I run out of the bathroom to open my closet. I throw a pair of jeans and a hoodie before quickly putting them. I don't bother to style my hair or to eat, I just grab my bag and laptop before running out of my dorm. Mina, my roommate, didn't even wake me up. Where even is she? I didn't see her coming back home yesterday? Whatever.

I speed walk to my class that's already started one hour ago. Shit, hopefully the teacher doesn't give me a bad grade or note this down. I had a record of being one of the top 10 students in each class I took. I wouldn't want to drop it because of something so careless and small.

I hesitantly walk inside the door, my foot taking small nervous steps. The teacher looks at me, her eyebrow raising up to a confused look on her face. "Y/n, you're late" She taps her pointer finger on her chin repeatedly.

Bringing my lip in between my teeth, I nod my head in return. "Uh, I'm so sorry, Ms. Kim"

"Any particular reason you got late, Y/n?" She asks.

Oh yeah, I miss my ex - ex best friend - ex talking stage - ex fuck buddy— or whatever, and then I rubbed one out for him and passed out on the bed right after.

"Um, just overslept"

"Ah, pity. As a punishment, stay after class and help out the librarian please. New stack of books incoming!"

I press my lips into a thin line, nodding. It's not like I have another choice.

"Yes, madam."

She giggles in return, then directs me to my seat.

Another hour has passed, the bell has rung. After class. A groan echoes out of me as I rise up from my seat, clutching onto my bag. My friend looks at me, then giggles before patting my shoulder twice in hopes of comforting me a little. She leaves the room.

"Y/n, I hope I see you tomorrow on time. You're a good student, don't lose that reputation." Ms. Kim flashes a bland smile as she exits the classroom. Shrugging, I walk out of the classroom as well, heading to the library.

"Hi, Ms. Kent! I wave at the librarian.

"Y/n, isn't it? Ms. Kim informed me about you." She responds as she adjusts her glasses.

I nod my head back at her, my hands holding on to eachother at the back.

"Great! You can help me by taking out that stack of books and putting them inside this box" She hands me a big cardboard box.

I take it as I walk to the book shelf she pointed at. I turn around to look at the librarian, desperately hoping that she'd come help me out. But no, nevemind. She was on her chair, legs resting on top of her table as she took a nap. Okay, fine, take your rest. She probably deserves it, anyway.

I turn back, my hands now on my hips. "Good luck, y/n" my eyes scan the big shelf.

I start by taking out the books at the lowest layer, then gradually making my way to the top. "Hmm..." I hum, looking around the library for a tool. In order to reach the top, I needed something to get on. As I scan the room, my eyes land on the small tool in a corner. "Ah!"

Getting on the stool, my spread out my arms in order to balance myself. I grab a few books, then slowly lowering myself down to the box to drop the books. It's a bit of a risky task. I could break a limb. "Good", words of relief leave my mouth. I repeat the process, slowly and watching each of my steps.

I bend down to drop another book then lift myself back up, my feet doing a 60° degree again to align myself perfectly in front of the shelf. I grab one of the last few books on the shelf, turning around to drop it into the box. Uh, oh. There we go. I fall to the ground with a yelp. I lost my balance. Groaning, I close my eyes. Maybe I'll just lay here for a few minutes till the pain goes away. It really hurts though, I rub my hip and waist area. I'll apply some balm when I get back to my dorm.

"Y/n?"

I want to drown myself in a river.

I know that voice better than anyone else's. What the fuck is he doing here.

In the other hand, it felt really nice hearing my name coming out of his mouth. I missed his voice.

I gulp at the feeling of two fingers patting my shoulder. I don't want to open my eyes because I know I'll come eye to eye with the person I seriously do not wanting to be talking to right now. But I do it anyway.

"Y-you good?" He stutters.

I nod, slowly raising myself up. I flinch, wincing at the sudden jolt of pain on my lower back. My hand grips onto the closest shelf as I slowly lift myself back up on my feet. Jungkook offers me his hand for support, but I deny it. I just want to walk away.

"Y/n—

I walk past him with the now full cardboard box, ignoring the stabbing pain I'm feeling. Lifting this is so hard, fuck, especially with my now broken back. Broken is probably an exaggeration, but whatever.

I place the box in the small room right next to the library that's filled with stacks of books and other material. I'm done!

I go back inside the library to grab my bag and other items. As I put my pair of glasses inside the bag, I feel the soft honey-like voice from before say my name again.

"Y/n" I'm done.

Ignoring him would be too immature and would cause even more problems. So it's better to say something, right? Totally not because I want to talk with him, maybe, kind of.

"Jungkook." I gulp.

"Let me talk to you." Oh.

"About?"

"Us" Oh.

"There's nothing to talk about us, Jungkook."

"Yes, there is."

"No, there isn't. You made it clear."

"Jesus, Y/n. Can we move on from that, please?"

I scoff. "Fuck, no."

His hand immediately catches my wrist just when I try to walk away.

"Please, let me make it up to you—

"Jungkook. No."

I make it very clear to him that I don't want anything with him anymore. Maybe I do. But maybe I'm scared to get hurt again. Doesn't matter.

I pull my wrist away from his grip. I don't look back but walk straight out of the library.

If you wanted to talk to me and make things right, you should've done it two weeks ago.

Stepping into the safe space of my dorm, I sigh, plopping myself on the bean bag. My fingers go through my hair, softly caressing it and massaging my scalp. Shamelessly, my mind drifts away to the moment where Jungkook's fingers were tangled in betweens my locks, massaging my scalp and stroking my head. Or the times where he would fist my hair, using it to guide my head up and down while I choked on his dick. Unconsciously, my thighs rub against eachother just a little to bring me back to my senses. I look around my room, cheeks flushed and embarrassed. I can't be doing this again, god no.

Deciding to make myself a cup of ramen, I make my way to my little kitchen. I add boiling water to the cup, waiting for the noodles to be ready. Now back on my sofa with my noodles, I was so so ready to dig those chopsticks in and take a bite on my noodles. But my phone suddenly dings, the screen showing a message. It was Jungkook. What, Jungkook? Why's he messaging me? Oh fuck, was it about early? I gulp, reaching down to the coffee table to grab my phone.

jungoogie💌: haiiiii😆😁😁

jungoogie💌: Y/NNNNN!!!! ansehwr mem

My eyebrow slightly raises at the texts, noticing how messy and chaotic they were. Is he was drunk? I began typing my reply.

No, what.

I immediately press the call option then and there after reading the message of him saying he was going to take another gummy. What was wrong with him?

The call answered fast, the first thing I hear being him giggling.

"Y/nnnn?"

My name is heard in a slurred speech, a set of small giggles being heard once again after.

"Jungkook? Where are you?"

He hums into the phone, then small wet kissy noises being heard after. Is he kissing his phone?

"Miss you...so much..."

My heart warms up at his words. I know I shouldn't let it affect me, but I felt the same. It's been weeks since I had last seen Jungkook, and I've wanted nothing more than to be in his arms and hold. I clear my voice a bit before speaking again.

"I miss you too. Can you tell me where you are, please?"

I need to make sure where he is. Back before I met him, he used to go around the street and get high for fun with Yugyeom. I stopped him later on. But he's back at it again, I guess.

"You do?!" His voice suddenly escalates from tired and slurred to hype pitched and excited. He is being so adorable right now.

"Baby, I...miss you too!" Jungkook groans, then a small thud is heard. I hear Jungkook sigh, sounding very relaxed and calm.

"Mm, are you in your dorm?"

Jungkook hums in confirmation. And just at that, I get up from my bed before walking out the door. I cannot let him get even more high. Even more so, who knows what else he'll do in there.

"Jungkook, keep talking"

"Can I sing?"

"Yeah"

"Vintage tee, brand new phone, high heels on..."

He knew I liked that song. He's doing this on purpose. As he continues to serenade me, I slowly make my way upto his dorm. We weren't allowed to be here. One of the rules in our university was that no one of the opposite gender should be seen at another's dorm. That's a rule me and Jungkook had broken way before. He was always there in my dorm. I'm surprised he was never caught.

Too lost in Jungkook's voice, I forget that I was already near his dorm. Snapping back to reality, I hesitantly ask Jungkook to stop singing.

"Kook, open your door. I'm there."

I'm sure of this, right? Yeah, yeah I am.

"Oh?" His singing stops, his voice switching to a more confused tone. Next, I hear small sounds, then thuds on the floor as they got closer and closer.

The door shoots open in a hurried manner, his eyes falling onto mine. But his eyes are not the thing I'm looking at, it's the weed roll in his hand. I look back at him, my eyebrows now furrowed.

"Baby—"

"When did you start smoking again?" I cross my arms against my chest.

Jungkook rolls his eyes, bringing the blunt upto his mouth to inhale some.

"A few days after we stopped talking" He admits. He looks guilty, but I try to ignore it. I was still mad at him. For everything. In addition, about this too.

Jungkook angles his body to the side, making space for me to walk in. I walk past his body towards his room.

Once I enter, I let out a small gasp at the state of his room. It was so fucking messy. Clothes here and there on the floor, his books scattered across his table alongside empty cans of frizzy drinks and empty ramen cups, bed fully messy and sheets on the floor included.

"What the fuck happened here?" I ask, concern flowing through me.

I feel his hand snake around my waist, cold fingertips giving me chills as they traced my belly. My body instinctively leans back into his, my back pressed against his chest. Jungkook's sighs into my neck, the tip of his nose caressing my collarbones.

"Missed you..." He was holding me so tight that I almost couldn't breathe. He was holding me so tight as if it's the last time he'll ever be able to do so.

I don't say anything else while I lead the both of us to the top of his bed. Jungkook doesn't allow me to move much, caging me in between his body and the bed right away. I lay flat as his body settles in between my legs. I run my fingers through his hair, massaging his scalp.

Jungkook takes one look at me, then another inhale from his weed roll. I forget he even had it.

He blows the smoke away, eyes still on mine, staring into the deep the corners of my eyes. Suddenly, I start coughing, my hand on my chest as I tried to calm down my breathing. The smoke was making me cough.

Jungkook sits on the bed, alerted as he starts to mutter sorrys over and over.

"Fuck, fuck, I'm sorry, baby"

His hand rubs up and down my back in a soothing manner in an attempt to calm me down. It works, of course. My breathing slows down to my normal pace. Jungkook looks at his blunt, getting up from the bed before taking one last inhale then throwing it in the bin.

He groans, now inside his bathroom. I hear the sound of the water running down.

The light is turned off again as Jungkook exits the bathroom. He looks at me sitting on his bed. This time he notices the outline of my breasts, clearly visible from the thin material of the shirt I was wearing. His eyes trail down my body, from the outline of my breasts to my nipples, then my waist.

"No bra?" Jungkook breaks the silence.

I shook my head, pushing my shoulders back so I could lean against the headboard. And also that my tits were even more visible to him, but I don't want to admit to it. I watch Jungkook's eyes shift from my face to my tits. He walks towards the bed and gets on it.

Sitting on the bed right in front of me, Jungkook sighs, gripping onto my thigh before pulling me towards him so that I'm laying flat on the bed.

We lock our eyes together, our breathing suddenly syncing in as Jungkook hooks onto the edge of my shirt. He looks at me, for approval.

Fuck, how could I not? I've been wanting to feel him so bad.

I nod, gulping.

He raises the shirt upwards, exposing my tummy. Jungkook leans down to place a few kisses all over it. He continues to kiss my tummy in circles, causing me to let out a few giggles at the ticklish feeling here and there. And each time I did, he would raise up his head to look at me, his eyes big and sparkling.

Jungkook moves the shirt more upwards, my tits now out and bare as the end of the shirt laid right over them.

His hands immediately fly to cup my breasts, holding them. He sighs.

"So warm..."

Jungkook crawls further, so that his head is laying on my breasts. He nuzzles himself deeper, cheek pressed against my chest and hands groping my breasts. I watch him attentively, finding this moment comforting.

He slowly turns around to look at me, and this time, I notice how his eyes are half lidded, reddish with veins visible. It's from all that weed and gummies. Jungkook says nothing though, he just looks at me in awe, but also guilt.

I glide my thumb over his cheekbone, stroking it. Jungkook leans in to my touch, then colliding his lips and my palm, small smooch noises being heard after.

This is nice. I want to have this everyday.

He proceeds kiss my fingers, trailing them up wrists to my arms, then collarbone, my throat and upto my face. I close my eyes, focusing on the feeling of his soft thin lips on me and the small smooch sounds they create. Right then, he kisses both of my closed eyelids, then nose, cheeks, chin. The only area left were my lips. My eyes open to look at him.

His breath was fanning against my lips. We were inches away from kissing.

Jungkook cracks up a small giggle,

"I think you sobered me up a little."

He pulls away to sit up on the bed again.

No, kiss me. I want you to kiss me.

I clutch onto his shirt, pulling him back to me. Jungkook was surprised, his hand gripping onto my arm for support. I lean in to peck his lips once. I pull away, my lashes batting as I stare at him.

Jungkook looked shocked. He shouldn't be, I just let him kiss me all over. His expressions change, turning into a more soft and relaxed look on his face. His big eyes stare back at me as he leans in, going for another kiss.

The kiss feels passionate, deep and so — real. It feel real.

Jungkook's eyebrows furrow, head tilting to the side to deepen the kiss more. Our lips move against eachother so perfectly. The kiss wasn't rough, neither was is soft. It was perfect, filled with longing and love.

He settles his legs down next to my thighs, caging my body. I grab his hand, holding it with both my hands to my heart. I'm sure he could feel how fast my heart was beating. He whimpers, sending vibrations through my mouth. The kiss was getting sloppy and air was running out. But we continued kissing. I missed his lips so much. His soft lips against mine, moving in a synchronised rhythm. Even our breathing was synchronised.

After one final smooch, I pull away with a gasp in a serious need of air. My head arches onto the pillow, hair messy and arm thrown over my head as I catched breath.

I lower my eyes down to look at Jungkook, who was looking at me as if I was the only thing that mattered to him. If I could, I'd hit replay and live this moment over and over again.

He cups my face, squishing my cheeks while he left small pecks all over my upper and lower lip. My lips turn into an uncontrollable smile, so big and bright. He continued to peck my lips, teeth even, then my cheeks.

I don't know what is making him do this, is it the weed and gummies he took earlier or is it actually him.

"Mmmm..." I whine once he pulls away.

There is so much tension in the room right now. But nothing sexual, I don't want to fuck him right now. Maybe later. But not now.

Everything we did right now obviously meant we had to talk about it later. Especially about Jungkook's behaviour. The drugs, the weed, the messy room, calling me. Everything. Would I go back to him after this? Yeah.

There is an awkward silence again, and Jungkook looks like he wants to say something so bad. I can say that because he keep tugging onto his lower lip with his teeth, nibbling on it constantly. For a moment, he opens his mouth, ready to say something but closes it again. My eyebrow raises. Patting Jungkook's cheek,

"Say it." I tell him.

"I love you."

Jungkook whispers, audible enough for me to hear. Audible enough to send me into euphoria. Audible enough to make me fucking forget everything for a moment.

I don't say anything back for a few seconds. Jungkook looks relaxed and relieved, maybe glad that he finally said it. Before I could say anything back, he covers my mouth with his hand.

"Don't say anything, please. I don't want to hear it yet. Let's just go to sleep and talk in the morning."

Jungkook lays down on the bed right next to me, his arm wrapping around my waist. His big eyes sparkle, looking directly into mine.

I don't say anything back just like he wants, but I wrap my arms around his torso, pulling him closer to me. I don't know whether it was the weather or something else, but Jungkook felt so warm. The atmosphere around us as well. Everything felt warm and comfortable. Nuzzling my face further into his chest, I hum, comfortable as fuck. My heart skips a beat once I feel his fingers on my head. He run them through my hair, massaging my scalp and patting my head. Fuck, I missed this so much.

I soothe into his touch, my body weight now entirely on him. As my eyes get even more drowsy, I let myself fall asleep in his embrace.

Before even realising, the morning had come already. What did make us realise that was Jungkook's alarm going off.

Jungkook groans, rolling over to the other side to turn his alarm off. When he turns around, he finds my back facing him fully. I had shifted while sleeping. Jungkook giggles, his arm pulling me back to him as my back collides with his hard chest. He thinks of going back to sleep again, but too late, the alarm had already woken me up. Just when Jungkook presses his head onto my shoulder, I pull his hair away so that his head is back on the pillow.

"I'm awake"

"Don't care" Jungkook murmers.

"Jungkook"

"Fucking hell..." He groans.

He rubs his eyes open. Jungkook yawns again, then going back to lay his head on my back.

"My head hurts" he sighs.

"Probably because of the things you did last night. Maybe I could give you a massage?"

Jungkook's eyes lit up at the suggestion. Eagerly, he nods his head already sitting up on the bed.

"Take your shirt off and lay on your stomach"

Jungkook can't help but crack up a small laugh at my comment while I tilt my head to the side, clearly confused.

"What?"

"Nothing" He grins.

"No, say it"

—"Say it." - "I love you" —

"It's just that it's usually me who says it you know, cause, when we have sex..." he giggles again.

I look at him, grinning back. Grabbing the pillow, I hit his back with it. Jungkook pokes his tongue, looking at the outline of my nipples through my shirt when I stretch my arms up to hit him. He snorts at the hit, then taking his shirt off before throwing it on the ground.

I get on top of his back once he lays down.

I take my time to admire his naked back, sculptured to perfect. It was so perfect and built. You could tell that he worked out just by the side of his back.

I begin with his shoulders, gently massaging them to ease the tension out. He hums as I continue massage his shoulders now increasing the pressure. I move down to his arms, squeezing them and sort of punching them to relax them. Jungkook's eyebrows raise up,eyes closed as he nods his head in approval. I then press onto his bones, circling them from time to time as I switch in between squeezing his muscles to massaging his bones.

I loved the feel of his muscles. Touching them felt so nice. I loved it when I felt him relax at the pleasure of my hands massaging him. I take a moment to admire his back again, running my hand up and down his back. Unknowingly, my nails begin to scratch his back. He lets out a long moan at the soothing feeling.

I giggle, leaning down to press a small kiss behind his neck. I get no reaction back from him, so I continue to trail kisses down his back. Jungkook shifts a little in his position, groaning a little.

"Jungkook, turn around" I whisper.

I get off of him for a brief moment so that Jungkook could lay on his back before getting back on top of him again. Now that my clothed pussy was pressed onto his growing buldge, I grip onto his shoulders to massage him more. He moans at the feeling, head thrown back.

"Here, baby?"

His eyebrow is raised because of the tone of my voice—flirty— and the nickname I used on him. I never called him baby. Ever.

"What's up with you?" He asks.

I immediately give in not being to control myself more, I dive in for a kiss. Jungkook understands how I'm feeling, smirking into the kiss while his hands sneakily slide up my legs and inside my shorts. He palms my ass cheeks, rubbing his palm over them. My arms lay on around his head, caging it, as both our mouths working on eachother's. My tongue licks his lower lip, a smile forming on my lips slowly. I feel his hands leave the inside of my shorts to slap both my cheeks, a cocky laugh coming from him next. Jungkook then hooks onto the waistband of my shorts, pulling them down upto my ankles. My ass was now bare and out.

I go back in for a kiss, arching my back as well. I whimper into the kiss once Jungkook sneaks his way into my mouth with his tongue, at the same time — his fingers touching my pussy. I could imagine his smirk right now. Fuck. I feel the tip of his fingers teasingly tracing along my folds teasingly. To spite me up even more, he inserts the very tip of his fingers in, but nothing more. I grunt, trying to grind myself back on his fingers. I was begging for some friction. Jungkook's fingers leave my pussy, only to be back with a small slap on it.

I groan into his mouth, letting him take over me with his godly tongue. His middle finger touches my bud, pressing onto it while my pussy clenches on absolutely nothing. It was so fucking embarrassing but I was dripping wet for him.

Jungkook pulls out of the kiss, now beginning to trail kisses all over my neck. He starts with the side of my neck, then down to my collarbone and back up on my neck again. He nibbles on a spot near my throat, biting it here and there to create a hickey. Jungkook licks over the small purple bruise forming, to then kiss it over and over again. He begins to repeat the process all over on several areas on my neck and collarbones. Meanwhile, I melt onto his touches, just letting him continue kissing and biting me all over. But while being too caught on the moment, I feel his fingers begin to slowly rub my bud. A long moan leaves me as my back arches even more. I'm pretty sure I looked like a fucking cat who was stretching.

"Turn around. Want this pretty pussy on my face" He pats my bud.

Shit, I was so turned on.

Immediately, I turn around, my ass now in front of Jungkook's face. I feel his hands on my cheeks, squeezing them and feeling them all over as he slaps it a few times.

"Sit on my face"

I felt myself clench around nothing.

I turn my upper body around to make sure I won't hurt him, I slowly lift my thighs up to sit on his face. I wasn't exactly putting my whole body weight onto him, more like hovering over him.

"Sit" He commands.

"No, you'll be crushed and my thighs are too big. This is good enough"

I hear him sigh. Next thing I know I feel his hands on my thighs, bringing me down so that my ass was entirely on his face and thighs around his neck and shoulder. My entire body weight was on him.

"I'm not dying, see?" He scoffs.

I whine in defeat, nodding to his words.

Jungkook begins by swiping his tongue up for a long stripe on my pussy, then going in again. He repeats the process, but much rougher, with his nose pressing onto my flesh. Meanwhile, his hands rub and squeeze my thighs, delivering a few slaps here and there. I lean forward a little balance myself out, but suddenly jolt at the feeling of his tongue entering my pussy.

"Shit!" I moan.

Gripping onto his shoulders for support, my back arched and pussy on his face. His face was smothered all over my dripping cunt.

"Baby, you're so wet. This pussy must've missed me, huh?" I feel his thumb dipping in to gather arousal. Jungkook sucks on his thumb, pulling it out again to enter two fingers in my hole at once.

"Fuck!" I wasn't even stretched out to begin with.

He kisses my clit, lips softly sucking on it while his fingers went in and out of me slowly. So slow, that it felt like he was just caressing my wet folds. His teeth gently tucks on my clit to pull on it a little, earning a long moan from me return. He sighs into my pussy, groaning right after, sending vibrations through me adding even more pleasure.

Shit, this was heaven.

He was so mindful with what he was doing. He knew where to touch me, where to kiss, how to tease me and make me like it. He knew my body so fucking well, better than I ever could.

Jungkook pulls out both of his fingers to replace them with his tongue. I feel his tongue swiping through my folds, gulping down all of my juices. His room was filled with nothing but my filthy moans and his slurping noises.

His tongue enters my gaping hole, making my eyes roll back in pleasure. Shit. He saves me no mercy, trusting his tongue in and out of my pussy. Fuck, I was so turned on. I could feel my slick dripping down to his face, smothering it all over.

Panting, I close my eyes just to open them a few seconds later, my eyes immediately landing on the fat dent in his pants. His cock was prominent and big, standing tall even in his quite tight pants. I want to have it. I look beneath me at the man who was currently eating me out like a starved man, biting my lip at the erotic sight.

I groan a little, moving my hips at the same pace as his tongue.

"Jungkook, I want you in my mouth!" I cry out.

He doesn't respond, continuing to eat me out. His finger was now pressed onto my bud, circling it. I whine, desperately wanting a response from him.

Still no response. I then grip onto his shoulders with my hands, leaning forward. I crawl my way over his body, my face right in front of his cock now. I hear Jungkook groan at the lack of my pussy on his face. I turn my upper body around to look at him, giggling at him. Sticking my tongue out playfully, I turn back around only to get dragged back to Jungkook by his arm.

My back collides with his chest, a series of giggles and laughs leaving us. I throw my head back, still laughing, as Jungkook holds both my hands tightly to my chest while not letting go.

He presses his cheek onto my neck, whispering things.

"You want me dick? Yeah, you're gonna get it"

He easily turns my body around so that I was laying on my stomach again. Jungkook now gets on the bed, on top of me as both his thighs are caging mine. He pats my ass cheeks with both his hands while I got myself back up so that my ass was displayed to him clearly with easy access (doggy style). Jungkook releases his breaths, fondling with my ass cheeks, slapping it a few times.

"I could do this all day everyday" He comments.

"Jungkook, I missed you" my voice cracks.

He scoffs. "You missed me or you missed this dick?" He slaps my cheeks again.

I whine, sighing afterwards.

"Both" Jungkook laughs, almost mockingly.

"Wonder how you got yourself off without me, hm? Did you use your hands? Were you even able to make yourself cum?"

I could feel that cocky smirk behind me.

"S-shut up, just fuck me" I could feel the heat in my cheeks growing more each second.

"Did you cum?"

"No"

Jungkook hums, fingers inching towards my pussy.

"You want me to touch you here and make you cum?" His fingers circle my wet clit.

"Mmm-hm" my voice sounds more relaxed, but desperate.

"Here? Touch you like this, baby?" He then pinches my clit and twists it, earning a whiny whimper from me. I was so fucking wet and each touch he gives me got me dripping even more. After, I feel his hand palming my pussy, juices smothering all over his hand while he rubbed my clit painfully slowly.

A long whine leaves me, back arching even more. Fuck.

"Jungkook, p—please... please"

I was a big fucking mess and Jungkook loved it so much.

"No more, please... Just fuck me, mm!"

My hair was messy and all over, head buried into the pillow while Jungkook's hand worked slowly on my pussy. He lets out a little laugh, stopping his movement on me. I don't feel his hand on me no longer, but not even a second later, I gasp at the feeling of the tip of his cock pressed onto my folds.

"Shit, Jungkook" I cuss.

"You're on birth control?"

"Mhm"

We were too fucking horny to even care at this point.

He glides the tip along my folds, coating it nicely with my slick. I hear him pumping himself a few times — not that he wasn't hard enough, fuck his cock was standing so fucking tall — but to bet my slick all over. He aligns himself with my hole once again, patting my ass afterwards.

"You ready?"

"Just put it in!"

He thrusts himself in rough, a big wet noise echoing through the room.

"Fucking hell, baby, you're dripping"

Jungkook begins from just grinding his cock into me while being inside, then gradually increasing his pace. He then stops for a moment to pull his cock out for a second to slam it back in a rough pace. He never stops, repeating the same process over. The sound of his thighs clapping into the back of my thighs echoes through his room alongside the wet mushy noises my pussy made.

"S—shit, so good, taking this cock so well, baby"

He repeatedly slaps both my ass cheeks mid process, enjoying this moment to the max. My whole upper body had collapsed to the bed already, and it was the pillow that Jungkook placed under my stomach that was holding me up.

I was this close to passing out. My mouth was open, saliva spilling to the pillow while he continues to drill into my pussy.

Jungkook leans forward to press his chest onto my back, hands enveloping my breasts to flick and pinch my nipples.

He circles his hips in circular motions, just to pull out and slam back again inside.

I was such a moaning mess.

"Mm, mm, mm! Y-you fuck me so well!" I scream out.

"Oh, baby" He groans.

I feel myself clenching around him repeatedly, about to cum.

"J–jungkook, cumming!"

His thrusts slow down a little but he picks it back up, slopping but fast as he fucks me through my high. I feel my pussy clenching around him tightly, making the man behind me cuss and moan as I finally released all over his cock. Panting, I moan into the pillow as Jungkook kept going on.

His lips leave a few kisses on my back, his thrusts getting sloppier as he went on.

He lets out a long moan, finally releasing myself in my pussy.

"Shit, shit, shit—" a series of moans and cusses leave his mouth.

We both lay there, breathing synchronised and fast. Jungkook then slowly lifts himself off of my body, slipping himself out.

"You look fucked out, baby" He laughs.

"Of course, I would be. You just fucked me rough and I'm stuffed with your cum" I respond.

He puckers his lips, leaning down to place small kisses all over my face.

"Ah, my babyyy. Tired?" I could tell he was teasing me from the little baby voice he's using on me.

I turn my head to the other side, a smile forming on my face, completely forgetting about the fact that I was filled with his cum to the brim.

I feel his hand on my head, fingers twirling my curls at the end. He then holds my chin, gently, moving my face so that I'd face him.

His nose scrunched, Jungkook smiles wide before leaning down to place a soft peck on my puckered lips.

"Cute" He mumbles, and I swear my heart just did a flip.

"Let's get you cleaned"

We both were now on his bed again, cuddled up against eachother after a nice shower together. Both our classes start around 2pm, thankfully, and it was about 9am right now so we had a plenty of time left to just be in eachother's presence. I still had so many questions to ask Jungkook regarding yesterday. But not right now, I wanted to enjoy this moment.

I was currently laying in his arms, my head resting on his hard chest and both arms securely wrapped around my body while we watched whatever show that was on the TV. From time to time, he would lean forward to press a kiss onto my body or just talk about the show we were watching.

"I honestly don't like her character. She's so...ugh" I comment on the TV show, my face scrunch up in disgust.

Jungkook just hums, hand massaging my scalp. He seemed to be out of space a little. Deep in thought. Wonder what he was thinking about. Eh, I could think of a few possibilities.

"Jungkook?" I pat his cheek.

He hums in response, glancing at me.

"You good?"

"Mm, just — ah, yesterday, you know. I'm sorry, baby"

Awwwww.

"No, it's okay. I'm sorry about earlier, though"

"Baby, there is nothing for you to be sorry for, okay? In that case, it's me who should say sorry for anything. I really did care about you right from the start it's just that...I didn't want to admit it, you know? I didn't know whether I was ready for a relationship or not. I know in that way, I was leading you on and I'm sorry for that. But I truly did enjoy and care for you from the bottom of my heart. I just kept trying to convince myself that I didn't want anything else from you..."

I listen silently. He continues...

"...And also, I'm sorry about the café. But we weren't anything to begin with. You were the only girl I talked with throughout the whole time I was sort of seeing you. But after the incident, I started to realise how much of a fucking douche I was to you. But the more realising I did, the more I realised how much I actually cared about you. And that's when I started taking all the gummies and weed again because I needed something to get my frustration off on. But I also worked hard to stop using them because of you. That's when I realised I was in love with you. I was so fucking in love with you that I started to dig up old unhealthy coping mechanisms to cope again which I stopped doing solely because you told me to do so. I felt back because I felt as if I was betraying you but I had already betrayed you so what was the point, I thought. I tried to go to parties to find girls to release my stress but non of them were you so I'd end up disgusted and leave. I'm so fucking sorry, I became a mess"

He stops talking, releasing a sigh. We stay in silence for about 10 seconds before I break it.

"Jungkook, it's alright. I'm glad you told me and everything is fine now, hm? Thank you for telling me. I understand your side and I also forgive you. I'll help you clean your room. I'll help you with everything. And I can't give you an answer for your confession right now, okay? But we can definitely go on a date" I smile, tilting my head to the side.

Jungkook squeals out of happiness, pulling me into his embrace.

"Thank you so much, baby. Take all your time and thank you so much." He responds, the shaking of his voice from earlier now nowhere to be heard.

He leans down to place a kiss on the top of my head, pulling me closer into his embrace while we continued to watch TV.

Maybe this is for the best. This feels right. And I want this. Yeah.

"I like this" I say

"I like you"

I know you'd miss me once the thrill expired, and you'd be standing in my front porch light. And I knew you'd come back to me.

a/n : hii sorry this took a while to post 😭🙏🏽 i been busyyyy. thank you soo much for reading and hope you liked it :)

#Spotify #jungkook x reader #jungkook #jungkook fanfic #jungkook smut #jungkook x oc #jungkook x y/n #smut #fanfiction #bts jk #bts smut #fanfic

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muwapsturniolo · 4 months

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✯So Hard PT. 3✯

Summary: the two enemies put their differences aside (sort of) and finally execute the sexual tension that has been brewing between them for years.

Warnings: degradation, mouth/throat fucking. use of force, spit, cum, sloppy blowjobs.

pt1 pt2

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Y/N can't help but feel nervous as she parks her car in the triplet's driveway. Usually, when she arrives at the triplet's house, she's perfectly calm, ecstatic even.

It's different this time around.

Instead of coming to hang out with Nick and Matt like she usually does, she's coming to have sex with their brother. The same brother whom she argues with on a daily (no, like the two of them argue every day, even when they aren't in the same vicinity.)

As she climbs out of her car, she notices the triplet's own car is gone. She begins to think one of two things, either all of them left and she's going to beat Chris's ass and cry later for making her look goofy, or Matt and Nick left leaving her and Chris alone.

She hopes it's the latter option.

Taking a deep breath, she walks up to the door. She goes to knock but stops when she remembers it was unlocked.

Walking into the house, it's abnormally quiet. There's always some type of noise going on considering it's three boys living with each other, but she tries to pay no mind to it.

"Nick? Matt?" Y/N calls out. Part of her hopes they answer, but another part of her doesn't.

She will be completely honest, she's thought about Chris fucking her multiple times. Even though the two relentlessly argue, she can't help but notice how attractive he is. The way his blue eyes darken a shade or two when he's irritated, the way his muscles show when he flexes his arms a certain way. Y/N's favorite is when he gets a sly smirk across his face when he successfully annoys her.

She notices the two boys she called out for didn't answer. She takes off her shoes and softly walks to Chris's room. The door is cracked and a faint yellow light is peaking through. She pushes the door open more and steps inside. As she does so, she notices Chris has on headphones and is nose-deep in his phone. She doesn't know what to do to get his attention. She's sure if she tries to scare him, he will get pissed off and try to cuss her out.

Suddenly, she gets an idea. She approaches him from behind and rips out his airpod, "Nick what the fuck are you-" Chris stops when he sees Y/N.

She's wearing those little pink shorts that are doing nothing to cover her ass (not that Chris is complaining), and a pink tube top that her boobs look amazing in.

Y/N sees the way he's looking her up and down, and it intimidates her slightly. His eyes are dark and his jaw is clenched. Suddenly, he speaks.

"Took you long enough, I was getting ready to take a nap."

The girl rolls her eyes and crosses her arms, " Shut the hell up, I didn't even take that long!"

That same sly smirk that Y/N knows, loves, and hates at the same time makes its way onto Chris's face as he stands up, "You're right, you honestly got here fast. Was it because you were eager to have my dick down your throat, or was it because you wanted to experience sex with me so damn bad?"

Y/N says nothing as she glares at Chris. The way he spoke his words so calmy, the way he was staring her down so confidently.

She loved it.

"It was both wasn't it?" His hands grab at her waist, pulling their bodies together. Y/N can't help it, her breathing starts to get harsher.

"It's ok to be excited-" he whispers in her ear as one of his hands slides down to her ass. He grips it, kneading the dough-like skin in his palm. He would never admit it to anyone, but he has dreamt of this multiple times. All of his friends would tell him that Y/N has a fat ass, and he had to act like he was disgusted at the comments when in reality, he wanted to cop a feel for himself.

Now he finally gets to.

"I'm excited too." He begins to kiss her neck lightly. Y/N slowly begins to relax, allowing her arms to drop as she eases into Chris's body, eyes closed and all.

He starts biting, sucking softly at the brown skin on her neck, "If you leave a mark I'll kill you Chris."

"Shut up, we both know you're going to leave scratches on my back. I think it's fair if I leave something on you." He raises his head from her neck and leans in close.

Their lips are basically touching, the tension getting thicker and thicker until finally,

They kiss.

It starts off soft and slow, both of them a bit hesitant since they are enemies and whatnot; but it gets more intense. Y/N throws both of her arms around Chris's neck as he moves his other hand to her ass, harshly gripping the skin.

Teeth begin to clash as tongue and spit mix,

They can't get enough of each other.

Chris harshly throws her on the bed before climbing on top of her and starting the assault on her neck. He could smell the brown sugar and vanilla lotion she always wore, and it was driving him crazy. He could always smell her when she walked past, her scent lingering, teasing him.

He was eager to see how she would actually taste.

Y/N begins to rut against Chris's knee. She couldn't help it, she was aching to be filled up. She hasn't had sex in a couple of months and now that the opportunity is here, she can't control herself.

Chris smirks feeling the girl rut against him. Out of habit, he begins to tease her. "Aww look at you, so eager for some form of friction you're resulting to rutting against me like a damn dog in heat."

The words go straight to her core.

Y/N didn't realize how much she liked being talked down to (when it's coming from Chris that is.)

She arches her body into his, begging for him to touch her without actually speaking.

Chris knows what she wants, but of course, he has to be an asshole. "you want more?"

Y/N quickly nods her head.

"what do you want? my fingers-" his nimble fingers brush the wet patch in her shorts,

"my mouth-" he plants a kiss on her neck,

"or my dick?" He moves her hand to his bulge.

Y/N's mind is in overdrive. So much yet so little is happening and yet, she can't think properly. Chris becomes agitated with how long she's taking to answer so, he takes matters into his own hands. "Fine, since you want to act dumb, I'll decide for you. Get on your knees," he demands.

As if a switch flipped in Y/N's head,

"I'm not sucking your dick."

It's like an old western show down the way the two stare each other down.

Suddenly Chris yanks her by her hair and forces her on her knees.

"You just love being a brat, don't you?" Y/N cracks a slight smile, showing he's right.

"You just love making my life harder," he begins to pull his sweatpants down, leaving him in his boxers. Y/N peeks at the bulge in her face and she can feel her mouth watering for it.

She could see the outline, it was big. 8 inches at most, skinny but thick at the same time. She could tell it had a big tip.

Slowly, she reaches her hands up and begins to palm at him. "Keep teasing and I won't fuck you all." He spits out.

Y/N tilts her head in a taunting manner, "You said it yourself you want to fuck me, we both know you won't take that away."

Chris doesn't like how she called his bluff. He shoves his boxers down before forcing himself in the girl's mouth, all the way down her throat. "All you do is talk, talk talk talk. Why don't you put that mouth to use for once." He watches as the girl gags around him, tears instantly forming in her eyes.

Chris has dreamed of this, seeing the girl he hates choke on his dick. It was concerning how many times he thought about dragging her to the bathroom when they all went out and fucking her mouth.

He eventually pulls away letting Y/N catch her breath. The girl coughs for a few seconds before looking up at Chris. After she catches her breath, she wraps her acrylic nails around him, sliding her hand up and down his length.

Chris watches with hooded eyes as he takes deep shakey breaths.

She leans forward and wraps her lips around his tip.

Her lips were big and plump, constantly moisturized so they were pillow-like. Chris was in heaven.

She slowly begins to lick around him as she takes him fully into her mouth, her hands fondling his balls.

Chris throws his head back feeling the warmth of her mouth.

"Fuck your mouth feels good." He looks back down to see Y/N already holding eye contact.

If there was one thing he loved about Y/N (besides her lips), it was her eyes. They were so big and doe-like, but half of the time she looked like a siren when she had her lashes on.

Just her looking at him on the daily had him bricked up.

Still holding eye contact, Y/N pulls away and rubs the tip on her puckered lips.

"You're such a fucking brat."

He pulls her curls into a makeshift pony, shoves himself in her mouth while holding her nose, and begins fucking her mouth.

Y/N is so caught off guard, that her hands fly to his thighs in an attempt to slow him down.

It doesn't work.

Y/N opens her mouth wider as she gags around him, spit pooling at the sides of her mouth and dripping down onto her chest. She could feel the liquid making her nipples hard.

Due to how hard he's going, Y/N ends up falling back against the edge of the bed, trying to get him away from her. "You're already-fuck-running? I'm not even in you the way I want to be and you can't take it." He lets go of her nose so she can breathe better.

Chris looks down as he's fucking her mouth and he so badly wants to take a picture.

The spit running down her mouth, the tears running down her face, her eyeliner running.

It's a sight he will never forget.

He feels his orgasm approach so he goes even faster, "Where do you want it? huh? fuck- you want in on your face? that nice chest-"

He stops thrusting and stalls deep in her throat, "I think your throat is the perfect spot."

Y/N feels the warm liquid shoot into her throat and start to drip down, as Chris throws his head back, letting out a deep groan.

He slowly pulls out of her mouth and watches as she coughs and tries to catch her breath.

All Chris can do is stare at her. If she's fucked out from this, he could only imagine how she will look when he's actually had his fun with her.

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finally put out the third part of this😭😭 idk why it took me so long. im telling yall now, 'freshlove for the fit' will take even longer, plz don't jump me im trying i promith

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ericityyy · 7 months

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𝐎𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐆𝐢𝐫𝐥𝐬

𝙎𝙪𝙢𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙮: 𝘎𝘦𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘪𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘵 𝘶𝘱𝘴𝘦𝘵 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘝𝘦𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘢 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘣𝘰𝘺𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘭. 𝘏𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘪𝘮 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘩𝘪𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘨𝘪𝘳𝘭𝘴, 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘣𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘧𝘧 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘦. 𝘓𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘩𝘦 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘨𝘪𝘳𝘭 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘩𝘪𝘮.

𝙏𝙧𝙤𝙥𝙚: 𝘓𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘵 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵

𝙏𝙮𝙥𝙚: 𝘍𝘭𝘶𝘧𝘧

𝙒𝙤𝙧𝙙 𝘾𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙩: 960

𝙈𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩

One night in the Cooper residence, Georgie was putting his clothes in a bag as his father walked by his room, noticing the actions of his son.

The reason for this? Georgie wrote a letter to Veronica in which he said that he would be a much better partner than her current boyfriend, Dustin, who he found out was much taller than him through his mother.

"Hey," George called out to his son, who has his back turned on his father and is still continuing to put his clothes in a bag.

"Hey," Georgie called back, not facing his father, who was leaning on a door frame.

“Going somewhere?”

“Alaska.” The younger Cooper sighed. “Gonna work on the pipeline.” His southern accent was heard, except there was no playfulness added to it like usual.

“Alaska, huh?" George shook his head a little. “That’s pretty far.” He managed to stutter out, looking at his son’s back.

Georgie, still not paying him any mind, said, “Not far enough, but it’ll have to do.”

George started walking toward his son. "Look, Georgie, I know it feels bad right now, but... I promise it’ll get better.” He went inside the room and leaned on a desk while crossing his arms across his chest.

“How’s it gonna get better?” Georgie shook his head, finally facing his father, an annoyed frown painted on his face. “Veronica thinks I’m a jerk, and everyone in the school’s calling me Lovey Cooper.”

George cringed at the name. “Ooh, that is not a good name.”

Georgie put his pants in the bag, not folded properly. “It doesn’t matter, cause I’m never going back to that school.” His dad called his attention again, making Georgie put his shirt harshly on top of the bag as he flopped down on his bed, facing George Sr.

“You’re a good-looking kid, and you got a big heart.” George looked his son directly in the eyes to make him understand every word he’s saying. “Once we get you on a daily shower schedule, the girls are going to be lining up.” He attempted to joke in order to lighten up the mood, but it didn’t work on Georgie.

“I don’t want girls.” Georgie shook his head, looking at his dad. “I want Veronica.”

“Yeah, maybe you’ll get her, and maybe you won't, but someday you’ll find the woman who was really meant for you.” George did his best to give Georgie hope to not be down. He will find the woman for him someday.

Suddenly, Mary walked by carrying a laundry basket. “You mean like Kathryn Dempsey?”

“Alaska’s beautiful. How ‘bout I go with you?” George smiled tightly at his son, his arms still crossed over his chest.

Georgie frowned at the new name his mother mentioned. “Who’s Kathryn Dempsey?”

“I was 15 years old!” George shouted near the doorway for Mary to hear as he exited Georgie’s room.

That left the teenage boy alone with his thoughts. Another girl? Like hell, there’s another one. Veronica will always be the girl. Georgie shook his head and dumped his bag full of clothes on the floor as he closed the door to his room.

・‥...━━━━━━☆☆━━━━━━...‥・

The next day at school, Georgie mostly kept his head down. Avoiding anyone as much as possible, still feeling humiliated about what happened yesterday. If only he had the choice to not go to school, but one look from Mary Cooper and he was already at the door with his school bag.

Without looking at where he was going, he accidentally bumped into someone causing her walkman to slip from her fingers along with her headphones, “Ah! Dang it.” He heard the girl exclaim quietly.

“I’m so sorry.” Georgie kneeled down at the same time as the girl to pick up her things, “I wasn’t looking where I was— woah.” He finally looked up to see a girl about the same year as him. She was wearing her hair down while her glasses were brushed up on the top of her head.

Brown eyes stared back at him before he was snapped out of it when the girl stood up while taking her walkman back from his hands. “It’s all good, I wasn’t looking where I was going too so no harm done.” She smiled at him, the girl looked down at her wrist where her watch was situated, “Shit, I gotta go, I can’t be late for class.”

Georgie snapped out of it when she turned her back on him and started running toward the hallway while blasting Guns N’ Roses in her ears. (Georgie faintly heard the song Sweet Child O’ Mine when he picked up her headphones.)

“But I didn’t even know your name.” Georgie whispered out when he couldn’t find the girl anymore, “Dang it!” He exclaimed quietly before jumping a little when he saw his little brother beside him, “Sheldon, what the heck are you doin’?”

Sheldon looked at the hallway the girl ran to, “Please avoid bumping into people, you’re causing a scene and I would appreciate it if you would not. It’s unhealthy and unhygienic, then again, I do not expect hygiene from you of all people.”

Georgie rolled his eyes before walking away from his brother, “And please don’t infect Y/N L/N.” That made Georgie halt upon the mention of your name, “She is the only tolerable and smart person here aside from Tam, and me of course. She comes second to smart people in this school.”

Y/N L/N, huh? Georgie continued his walk with a slight smile on his face. Maybe next time, he’ll have a proper conversation with you. Especially when he didn’t even think of Veronica, the moment he saw you.

Other girls. Guess you’re right, dad.

𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑’𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄

i know that there’s not much interaction here so i was thinking if i’ll make another part to this. But then again, the trope is love at first sight so i guess that’s the goal.

#young sheldon #georgie cooper #georgie cooper x reader #x reader #x oc #imagine #fluff #first meeting #love at first sight #georgie #fem oc

497 notes · View notes

mistydeyes · 9 months

Note

hey, can i please request headcanons of 141 boys with reader that is a youtuber?

omg yes ofc! i used to (and still am) a HUGE YOUTUBE WATCHER so this was so fun to do :) thank you again for requesting!

vidcon but the uk version

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summary: You're not any regular civilian, you're a Youtuber ;) In all seriousness, here's some headcanons of how the boys interact with your channel and support you!

pairing: 141 x YouTuber!Reader

warnings: swearing

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price - beauty and skincare

you were already big on YouTube when you met John

he can't go into a Sephora without someone mentioning your latest video or TikTok

someone would assume you were an employee based on how you were able to help the fan pick out the best skincare and makeup

he was shocked at the sheer number of brand deals you participate in

he also is in awe at the corner you had dedicated to your ring light and makeup desk with a nice camera set-up

when you eventually move in together, he's just used to the number of parcels you get daily

he will insist on at least giving you some money when you do a beauty haul (even though you tell him you don't need it)

one time he tried to surprise you by picking out some things that you mentioned

now your most popular video is “trying out makeup that my boyfriend picked out”

his only annoyance is when you accidentally stain one of the face towels

eventually just buys a new set meant specifically for you when you wash off a look

you're planning on having a new video where you do skincare on him and finally get at some of his blackheads

soap - gaming

prior to meeting Johnny, you already had a sizable channel

you primarily did long lets plays and the occasional stream

your setup is absolutely gorgeous -i'm talking led lights, two monitors that have the best processing power, pro gaming chair, and posters

it took awhile to curate but it's your baby and you make sure he knows that

loves watching you game and will occasionally keep you company for those long streams

it reminds him of when his younger siblings would watch him game on their early Playstation and X-Box consoles

your subscribers love when he's there though because he has the best reactions

your most popular video? "my boyfriend plays five nights at freddy's ⚠️headphone warning⚠️"

despite having amazing technical skills on the field, his multitasking sucked and he would always forget to check on foxy or overuse the battery

you had a great time editing the video after and emphasizing the jumpscares

he won't subject you to rewatching your videos with him but he likes watching other channels or collars you've done

"This guy is absolute shite" "I know, that's why I don't play multiplayer with him anymore"

he'll be so excited if you ever get invited to a big event like Pax, E3, or Gamescom

you basically have to keep him on track as he loves stopping in artist's alley and looking at all the trinkets and merch people are selling

make sure to bring a huge suitcase because your game room is getting a few new additions

gaz - internet documentaries

think of Internet Historian or Down the Rabbit Hole vibe

your channel is dedicated to internet phenomena like Florida Man or the movement to Storm Area 51

you'd tell the facts of the trend and then add a few funny commentary pieces

usually your videos are 45 min to an 1 hr long so a lot of work goes into it

it's more of a hobby than anything but Kyle always thinks the amount of research you do for it is insane

"Babe I think you need a new laptop" "Why?" "I always know you're about to make a new docu-series because it sounds like a fucking airplane takin off"

once your laptop doesn't sound like its going to blow up, he'll be sure to keep you company as you write down your script

"Did you know that there was a convention for X or X happened?" is how most of your conversations go

he'll always smile and let you give him a spark notes version of what happened

will be the one telling you too sleep and that you can continue editing tomorrow

loves when companies send you things for ad reads

hoards all of the items from Dollar Shave Club and Raycon (his absolute favorite sponsor of yours)

he'll occasionally watch your videos while he's cooking or at the gym

always loves learning something new even if its about a failed furry convention

"I liked your latest video" is such a huge compliment from him because he knows how much effort you put into it

he'll occasionally feed you ideas that he sees while he's scrolling through social media

"You should do something on Hat Man" "WHO??" "Yk the guy you see when you take too much Benadryl, apparently Soap sees him too"

ghost - asmr

tbh doesn’t think much about your channel

you’ll just occasionally leave the room to record or crack some slime in front of a camera

however when your channel is mentioned in conversation, he considers revisiting

“have you heard about this asmr thing?” Gaz asked the group and Soap immediately interjected

“OH YEAH some of them are amazing to watch alone,” he said with a wink

“Like this account-“ Soap wasn’t able to finish his sentence before Ghost snatched the phone out of his hand

“Sorry just couldn’t see it” he apologized and he tried to suppress his disgust that someone else was listening to you at night like that

after that, he takes another look and watches a few of your more popular videos

ofc its your series roleplaying as a nurse or doctor taking care of someone

as well as one where you act like a sleepy girlfriend waking up next to their significant other

he will never say that he watches your videos but you do notice the uptick in views and likes (it's a cute little secret of his)

one time you attempted to ask all these questions about being in the military to help you write dialogue for your latest combat medic series

"People seriously want stuff like that?" "You'll be surprised, not tell me what you usually have in your pack"

he will cringe when you pull your asmr voice on him and whisper in your ear

"Cut that shit out."

570 notes · View notes

starlightkun · 3 months

Text

➥ word count: 28.9k ➥ warnings: cursing, side character makes one (1) kms joke (“walk into traffic”), probable overuse of the word skeeze for a couple scenes ➥ genre: angst heavy at the beginning then fluff, science fantasy au, soulmate au (red string), speculative fiction, star crossed lovers, a little mystery-ish, artist sungchan ➥ author’s note: omg i’m sooo excited for this one! had a lot of fun with the worldbuilding and such, and as always, with characterizing sungchan. unfortunately due to tumblr’s 1000 block limit (which was created to hurt me personally), i had to do some modifications to this in order to make it fit (i was like 150 blocks over and really didn’t want to split it into two parts for no reason). if you want the authentic, unadulterated experience with original formatting and one extra scene, i highly, highly recommend reading it on ao3

Humming along to your music, you watched the city pass by, felt the bus start and stop, and were vaguely aware of the same passengers as always getting on and off. You took the same bus every day, Monday through Friday, as you had for the past two years, since you’d been promoted and moved to better accommodations that you could afford with your new pay.

There were regulars on your commute, such as the elderly couple who got on one stop after you on the first Monday every month, and got off at the stop that you knew was closest to the art museum. They sat in the row behind you, and explained to you once that they had been passholders at the museum for years, and that was when new exhibits were rotated in. Or in the front of the bus, a pair of sisters that you had inadvertently seen grow up over the years, who got on some time before your stop, and got off two stops before you in the morning, close to a nearby private school. You could sometimes hear the older one helping the younger with homework, or making last-minute fixes to her hair or uniform.

There were of course lots of office workers as well, who all rushed on and off the bus with promptness at their stops. You recalled fondly the primary school teacher who used to sit next to you, young and always dressed in fun, colorful prints. She had blurted out one morning that she was pregnant, and you were the first person she was telling, even before her husband. She didn’t know how to tell him yet, but was so excited and had to share the news with somebody, even a stranger that she only knew for a few minutes a day on the bus. You’d watched over the months as she started to show, then told you one morning she was just going on a short maternity leave to have her baby boy but would be back sooner than you’d know. She never got back on again. You hoped her son was beautiful and healthy, and still thought of them every so often when you’d look up and pass by her stop.

And then there was you. You sometimes wondered what they thought of you, if any of them did. It would be strange if they didn’t have at least a passing opinion of you. Not because you yourself did anything remarkable on your daily commute. You got on, took the same seat every day, listened to your music with your headphones in, and got off at the same stop. But no matter how normal your routine was, how quaint your occasional conversations with your fellow commuters were, there was something that set you apart.

As signified by the strawberry red jumpsuit you donned five days a week, you worked at The Soulmate Factory. It was technically called the Bureau of Interpersonal Affairs, but everyone just called it The Soulmate Factory, even the employees. Not the most popular place to work, but the work that was done there had to be done nevertheless. All Factory employees were ineligible for matching, in order to maintain the integrity of the Bureau’s image. Your family could never understand why you’d accept a position there; never getting a soulmate of your own, never getting the one person destined for you. But you didn’t see it like that. It’s not like you could never fall in love, find a partner to spend your life with, or be fulfilled in any millions of other ways.

The bus jerked to a stop again, and the doors swung open. You stood up and hurried off. You were the only passenger to depart here, as usual. A building loomed in the distance, all flashing windows and pink marble. Following in a few other coworkers in matching red jumpsuits, you hurried up the stairs, catching up to a familiar head of hair on the way up.

“Morning, Jaemin!” You chirped, nudging his arm with yours as you fell into step with him.

“Oh, hey, Y/N! Morning!” He offered you a bright smile, stepping off at the same floor as you and walking over to your neighboring desks.

“Hey, did you ever read that book I leant you?” You asked, dropping your backpack off at your desk before heading for the breakroom together. There was always a quiet buzz in the morning that you liked, when everybody was still mellow from waking up, but excited to start the day.

He hissed regretfully, a sheepish smile already coming to his face, telling you everything you needed to know, “Well...”

“You haven’t touched it since the day I gave it to you.”

“I’m going to! Promise!”

“It’s coming up on my re-read list,” you warned him, starting a fresh pot of coffee. “I only have like four books ahead of it. That gives you like, four weeks max.”

“You need to rot your brain with some TV or something.” He shook his head teasingly, reaching up into a cabinet and pulling down a box of cereal.

“Hey, isn’t that—”

“Na Jaemin, if you value your life, you’ll put that box down now.” The stern voice of Huang Renjun cracked through the air.

Jaemin turned around, hiding the box behind his back as he offered your other coworker a sickly sweet smile. “What box?”

“Come here, you son of a—”

“Hey, let’s not commit homicide before the weekly agenda meeting, maybe?” You suggested loudly over their squabbling, as Renjun had just grabbed Jaemin by the collar. “Because I’m pretty sure if you kill Jaemin, they’ll just reassign you his work, Renjun. Might want to see what your workload is like first.”

Renjun yanked the box of cereal out of Jaemin’s hand then, holding it to his chest protectively and scowling. “Fine. You better hope that you’re on data synthesis, Jaemin.”

He walked out still clutching the box to his chest.

“He’s just going to eat it dry by the fistful, isn’t he?” You sighed, starting to pour yourself a cup of coffee.

“Definitely,” Jaemin confirmed. “And I’m suddenly really wanting to do some data synthesis this week.”

After getting dismissed from the weekly agenda meeting—during which Jaemin was assigned data synthesis, and Renjun got profile compiling—you headed back to your desks. You weren’t assigned anything because your job was the same every day. You were on a very specific career trajectory at The Soulmate Factory after showing promise in the typical six months of entry-level training for new employees. Following those six months, your fellow trainees went on to start their jobs, while you went through an additional two and a half years of specialized training for your position: matchmaking.

You didn’t sit down at your computer when you got back to your desk, simply placing your nearly empty coffee cup on it before taking off down the hall to the room in which you actually did most of your work.

Swiping your badge at the access panel, the door clicked to unlock, and you pushed it open. There were a couple of other matchmakers already in there, who didn’t offer you a single glance or any indication that they were even aware of your presence. Sitting at your station, you were face-to-face with a quaintly archaic-looking computer. Compared to the newest monitors at every desk in the main bullpen, which could display images in a resolution so crisp it was hard to tell the difference between that and real life, the small, square glass and pixelated text that was in front of you seemed so out of place. But this was the system. Pressing the Enter button on your keyboard, your screen came to life, already giving you your first match.

N!#83LPd5D4ZR$PYQ^KLT6WnY##4GYVm74v^f@96#q#hheeRYgLLf3Ft9KQw

‘Matchmaker’ was a misnomer, really. You didn’t set people up to be soulmates whatsoever. The computer gave you the results, all you did was read them. Take the seemingly random string of letters, numbers, and characters, and parse out the meaning. Your training consisted of watching other matchmakers work, then trying your hand at doing some on your own, being told that you were wrong or right, with no explanation as to why either way—until you stopped getting them wrong. And whenever it would be your turn to train a matchmaker, that would be exactly how you’d train them. Because there was no way to tell them what exactly you were seeing, or how to do it. They just had to do. The longest part was looking up the profile numbers in the program, selecting them, and sending off the match results. As soon as you submitted that one, your next match came up.

jkD%NVSC3%JCacN%vWS5#k!Z4GqGW#ZfMyqGUfc@wQT5L5vK2uWU5N*5Lg&6

Your body moved as if by itself, in understanding with the machine, the program. The matchmakers often talked about entering a sort of trance when working, becoming one mind with the computer, completely unaware of their surroundings, time, or bodily needs. Only the next match. That’s why all of your screens had to be simultaneously forced into a shut-off at lunchtime, or else none of you would take a lunch break, then again at the end of the workday.

Blinking a few times to readjust from the hours spent interfacing with the program, you looked around you at the other matchmakers slowly getting up from their seats as well. With a sigh, you stood up and shuffled out after them. Jaemin was still at his desk when you got back to yours, fervently clacking away at his keyboard. You grabbed your coffee mug, went to wash it out in the breakroom and set it up to dry, then returned to your desk. Swallowing in an attempt to wet your dry throat, you asked him, “So how was your thrilling day of data synthesis?”

“Not over yet,” he groaned, scrolling down in his spreadsheet. “Hey, wait up a minute, would you?”

Checking the time on your watch, you nodded. “My bus doesn’t come for another twenty-five. They let us out early again.”

“Yeah, I heard the Director on the phone to somebody a while ago. He sounded pissed. Apparently, there’s some concerns over the Factory’s energy usage. They must be cutting you guys a few minutes early every day to try to help since you still use old hardware, right?”

“Mm,” you hummed thoughtfully. “Yeah, could be.”

“You’d think we’d be the one agency that wouldn’t be hit with budget cuts,” he scoffed, clicking a few things before his monitor displayed the login screen again. He spun around in his chair, giving you a wide smile. “Alright, ready?”

“Sure.” You grabbed your backpack from your seat. Jaemin and you headed down the stairs, awash in pinks and oranges from the sunset streaming in from outside.

“So, I already know what the answer is going to be, but I have to be able to say that I asked, alright?” Your coworker began, making you scrunch up your face in confusion. “My sister wanted me to ask if you’ve done hers yet? Na Minhee?”

You sighed, “Jaemin, you know I don’t know any of that—” “I know—” “—it’s all just… stuff. And you’ve compiled profiles, those are completely anonymous.”

“I know, I know,” he reassured you. “I just needed to be able to tell her that I asked, and that’s what you said. She wouldn’t take my word for it.”

“She’d know if hers has already been done, anyway.” You held up your hand, wiggling your pinky finger. “Why ask you?”

“Because she’s impatient.”

“Well, I can’t help her.” You shrugged. “It’ll happen when it happens.”

“I’ll tell her that. Thanks!”

“Yeah, no problem, dude.”

“When does your bus come?”

You checked the time again. “Fifteen minutes or so.”

“You want me to wait with you?” He offered, looking around the empty bus stop. “Kind of dark.”

“I’m alright, thanks. Go break your sister’s heart, champ.” You gave him a mock punch on the shoulder.

On your own again, you took your phone and headphones out, popping one earbud in your ear as you went to choose your playlist. As you scrolled, tapped, and swiped through your phone to try to pick the perfect song, some fuzz fell from your jumpsuit onto your right pinky finger, and you absentmindedly shook it off as your focus stayed on your music library. But it was stubborn, and the red fleck didn’t budge. You wiped the digit on your pants, eyes on where you had finally gotten the perfect choice, the song starting up as you lifted your now-clean hand back up.

Except it was still there. You looked at your hand for the first time, really looked at it, and felt your stomach drop. A thin, bright red string, the same color as your jumpsuit, was tied around your right pinky finger, just above the juncture where the finger met your hand. The string hung off in the air, becoming transparent and disappearing altogether less than a finger’s length away. You turned your hand over, palm to back to palm to back, and the string moved with it, the end fluttering with each of your movements. Stupidly, you tried to grab it, as if to pull it off, but when you took hold of the silken thread and gave it a yank, it didn’t budge. For a split second, amputation came to mind, but you quickly pushed those thoughts away. There were stories of people losing fingers or entire limbs and their strings reappearing on the other hand, or in new places altogether if they had no hands at all.

You looked around for any of your coworkers. Nobody else except the two people on either end of the string could see it, but you still didn’t want anybody to be observing your behavior, and then have to try to explain said behavior right now. It was easy to explain why you were doing what you were doing—you just got a red string; but not how—you weren’t supposed to get one. Ever. The area around you was empty, the majority of your coworkers driving, taking the subway, or not having left work yet. You looked over your shoulder, at the pink marble building looming in the distance.

The squeal of brakes and hiss of compressed air as the doors of a bus were flung open made you turn around. Rushing up the steps onto the bus, you then plopped into your usual seat, keeping your backpack on your lap and instinctively tucking your right hand between the bag and your body to keep the string hidden. You didn’t know who could possibly be your soulmate now, you had to be vigilant. You didn’t relax until you were safely tucked away in your apartment, door locked behind you, no plans to see any other humans for the rest of the day.

The next morning, you kept your right hand hidden away as much as possible on your commute, in your pockets, behind your bag, under your thigh. You didn’t feel remotely safe until you were in the matchmaking room, at your station. Even then, it took you longer than normal to stop from looking at your pinky and actually focus on the first match up on your screen. Once you had, everything else faded away like usual, and you could only think about reading the matches.

vLZD%v7^XftyvnM6HcxszgUbT6EaPaza41tJtv%#HFby%5Y2rWdujYUj8X21

At lunch, you typically would’ve taken your packed lunch to a nearby public park to eat, but that was too risky. So you took it to the breakroom, sitting at the small table and taking out one of your books from your bag. A few other coworkers came in and out to use the microwave or retrieve their own lunch from the fridge, but nobody bothered you as you read. You finished your food rather quick, and found yourself a bit too distracted to focus on your book. The red string on your finger was back in the forefront of your mind. Checking the time, you saw that you still had over half of your break left. With a sigh, you shut your book and walked back over to your desk next to Jaemin’s.

The floor was pretty empty, only a couple of your coworkers left who either took early or later lunches. You turned on the desktop computer, waiting for it to start up before quickly signing on. Opening up the program where profiles were compiled to be fed into the matchmaking system, you chewed on the inside of your cheek thoughtfully, clicking around on the controls. During the basic training you’d received over five years ago, you’d been shown how to compile and enter a profile into the database, and you obviously searched them up from your matchmaking station. But these were all profiles that hadn’t been matched yet, that didn’t have red strings. You needed to get into wherever the profiles that had been successfully matched were. If they were kept somewhere at all.

After poking around some more in the application, you determined that either you didn’t have the technical know-how to access that information, the administrative access to do so, or that information wasn’t stored in the first place. Exiting out of the program with a sigh, you dropped your chin into your palm, scrunching your eyes and nose up as you continued thinking. It felt like it was right there, right on the tip of your tongue, but you couldn’t grab it for some reason. The weekly agenda meeting, something about the weekly agenda meeting—Jaemin was assigned data synthesis. They compiled information on all kinds of stuff regarding matched soulmates: average time to meet after the strings appear, get married, have kids, how many kids, length of time they’re together prior to death, the list goes on. That couldn’t come from nowhere. They had to keep track of soulmates somehow, right?

You quickly opened the Internet browser, going to the Bureau’s website and finding the ‘Studies and Statistics’ page. All of the things you were thinking about were there, complete with fancy little graphics. It didn’t tell you anything about where this stuff was stored internally, but this meant that it had to be, somehow, somewhere. Which meant that your match had to be somewhere, and if you could just find it, then you could—

What? Undo it somehow? It had to be possible. But first you had to find out how it happened in the first place, which meant laying eyes on the match itself, at least. You needed some kind of starting point, and that felt like as good as any.

At the end of the day, the matchmakers were let out early again, and you waited up at your desk as Jaemin was still working. He looked over his shoulder at you curiously. “You need something, Y/N? I don’t have your book, sorry.”

“No, I have a question. But you can finish your work first.”

He made an interested noise, and turned back to his screen. After entering a few more things into his spreadsheet, he pressed save, then exited out with a satisfied groan. He shut down his computer and leaned back, audibly cracking his back. “Fucking finally! If I ever have to look at another number again, I’ll walk into traffic.”

You chuckled as the two of you set off. “Data synthesis that bad?”

“Yeah.” He rubbed one of his eyes. “Anyway, what’d you want to ask me?”

“It was actually about data synthesis…”

“No!” He whined, shaking his head fervently.

“One question! One question!” You begged.

“Fine…”

“The data that you use, how do you get that? Like, where do you get it from?”

He looked at you, squinting with confusion. “From soulmates that have already been matched?”

“Then the Factory keeps records of matches after the strings have been triggered.”

“Yeah, we do.”

“Where? Is it a separate database from the one that you enter new profiles into? Or is it part of the matchmaking program?”

“I mean, it’s probably its own thing? I don’t know, I get the numbers in my data synthesis project assignments. If I need more, or something different, I tell the project manager and he gets it for me.”

“Huh.” You kept the disappointment off your face, as well as curiosity. While he didn’t know a lot, what he didn’t know actually was helpful to you. “Okay, thanks.”

“That was more than one question.”

“Right, sorry.”

“What’s going on? Why the interest in data synthesis all of a sudden?”

“Just curious, since you guys seem to hate it so much.”

“It’s… mind-numbing, to say the least.”

“Here’s hoping next week you’re on profile compiling.”

“Fingers crossed,” he sighed. “Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow, Y/N.”

The next few days passed without incident. Your intervals of snooping around on your desktop computer during your lunch breaks were fruitless in finding wherever completed matches were stored, and soon it was Friday evening, and the work week was over. Not even a crisis like this could make you work late on a Friday. You realized when you got home that you were out of groceries, and ordered delivery to your apartment. Can’t risk someone at the restaurant being your soulmate.

Saturday morning you woke up and left early to go grocery shopping, hopefully before most anybody would be out and about. Well, before one person in particular would be awake—your soulmate. Only problem was, you didn’t know who that was, so you had to avoid pretty much everybody. As you walked through the streets keeping your hands crossed and tucked under your arms, you kept your head down, eyes focused only on your feet. If you couldn’t see anybody’s hands and couldn’t possibly see a red string, hopefully they wouldn’t see yours.

Except as you rushed through the streets, you passed by your favorite small bookstore, with its doors wide open, and a sign out front on the sidewalk advertising a huge sale, 70% off a table of books right by the doorway. You couldn’t help but stop—just for a second—to check it out, spotting a title by one of your favorite authors that you’d been meaning to read but hadn’t yet. Picking up the book to look at the price and turning it over in your hands to skim the blurb on the back, you were barely aware of the sounds of some young men playing with a Frisbee at the park across the street, their yells fading into the din of the waking city.

That was, until the purple, plastic disc came skittering across the pavement to a stop right at your feet, and a tall man jogged up after it, still calling to his friend over his shoulder, “Nice aim, Anton! You almost took this poor woman’s head off!”

You missed what his friend said in response as you were already looking up from the Frisbee with the intent to tell him that you were quite alright, then your eyes got caught on a thin red loop around his pinky finger. Snapping your gaze down to your own hand, which was still holding the book, then back to his as he stood now right in front of you, your eyes widened with alarm.

To your horror, the string completed itself, connecting seamlessly to the pinky of the stranger in front of you. The young man looked at you with wonderment, a wide smile coming to his features, brightness and recognition in them. He opened his mouth, presumably to say hello, or whatever soulmates did when they met, but before he could utter anything, you dropped the book and took off at a run. You sprinted away, turning down streets at random, until your legs were burning and you had a stitch in your side. Ducking around another shop, you hid behind the building to catch your breath, sure that you had lost him. Your heartbeat was thudding loudly in your ears, and you habitually tried to shake off that stupid, pesky red string again.

“Look—” A voice suddenly registering right over your shoulder made you jump and scramble back. The man had found you, holding his hands out in front of him like he was trying to calm a wild animal or a spooked horse. His chest was heaving as he was as out of breath as you were (presumably from running after you). There was a bewildered, confused look in his wide eyes as he kept himself between you and the only way out of the alley you had unintentionally backed yourself into. “I don’t normally chase women through the streets, sorry.”

You stayed silent as you looked between him and the exit. The red string hung between you, painfully obvious.

“I just… wanted to talk, you know,” he continued, gesturing to said string. “I’m Sungchan.”

You shook your head, clenching your jaw tightly to avoid making any kind of sound.

“What?” He tilted his head. “You… won’t tell me your name?”

You stared at him, unmoving.

“You know what, we got off on a bad foot, and clearly this is not a good time for you.” Sungchan stepped away from the alley entrance entirely. “Bye for now.”

Taking hesitant, shuffling steps, uncertain that he was actually going to let you leave, you kept your eyes laser focused on him until you were out of the alley, at which point you promptly booked it down the road again. You didn’t stop until you could no longer breathe, your legs shook and threatened to give out any second, and you had tears streaming down your face from the wind blowing into them.

That day you looked up how to get rid of a red string. You knew it was stupid, impossible to do at home. You literally worked at The Soulmate Factory, you were a matchmaker, for fuck’s sake, you were the one giving them out in the first place.

None of it worked, of course. Not meditating, praying, attempting to light it on fire, soaking your finger in a mixture of various oils and herbs from your spice cabinet, scrubbing really hard with the coarse side of a sponge, or crying for thirty minutes straight (that last one was just you being frustrated, no Internet listicle or sketchy guru suggested that). It was still there after everything, as pristine as when it appeared less than a week ago. Less than a week ago. Much faster than average, according to the statistics that you had just looked up the other day. The average time from getting the red string to meeting was seven months and eighteen days, with some taking several years. And yours just had to be within five days. You felt like you could cry again, if you didn’t already have a throbbing headache from how much you had done that earlier.

Now, you were sitting under the spray of your shower, holding your knees to your chest, trying not to look at it. You couldn’t look at your finger, at the red string, but if you closed your eyes, you just saw his face—Sungchan.

On Monday, you continued your investigation with renewed vigor. When you swiped into the matchmaking room, you didn’t go to your station, instead you headed for the back, where there was a short flight of stairs up to an office. Knocking on the door, you waited for the familiar voice inside to beckon you in.

“Come in.”

Pushing your way in, you nodded politely to your supervisor, “Good morning, Ms. Kwon.”

“Good morning, Y/N.” She brought her hands down from where they had been poised over her keyboard to rest in her lap. “How are you?”

“I’m well,” you lied. “How are you?”

“Fine. What brings you to my office this morning?”

“I… have sort of a weird question, if that’s alright.”

She gestured to the two chairs opposite her. “Of course.”

You sat in one, making a conscious effort to keep your knee from bouncing nervously.

“What is your question?” She prompted you.

“There’s never any mistakes, right?”

“Mistakes? No, you’re all trained right.” Ms. Kwon arched an eyebrow. “Do you think you’ve made a mistake, Y/N?”

“No, not the matchmakers. I mean… the computer does whatever it does with the information it’s given, right? That we collect?” You took a deep breath, preparing yourself for what you were about to say. “What if… it gets the wrong information? Wouldn’t it all be wrong if it’s given the wrong stuff in the first place?”

“The profiles we compile are extremely rudimentary, and that isn’t all the information it uses. The computer does more than we can ever know.”

“But what if… there’s an extra profile in there that was never supposed to be in there?”

“Like a person that doesn’t exist? How would a fake person even get created in the first place?”

“No I mean like—You know how Factory employees are taken out of the program? What if somehow, someone got missed? Like, their match happened right before their first day or something crazy. So they got matched up when they weren’t supposed to.”

“I’ve never heard of that happening.” She shook her head, leaning back in her seat and crossing her legs at the knee. “As soon as we receive someone’s application, their profile is removed from the program. If they’re not hired, their profile is put back in. If they are hired, the data is permanently destroyed.”

“Where’s it stored when it’s temporarily removed during the application process, then?”

She didn’t answer your question, her face turning concerned instead of simply confused as before. “Y/N, what’s going on? Do you know of a Factory employee who’s been matched up?”

You shook your head, trying not to deny it too quickly or with too much fervor. “No, I just—Got a brain itch about it, I don’t know. Seems too… uncertain.”

“I can assure you, no Factory employee has ever been matched up. Accidentally or otherwise,” she replied smoothly, a reassuring smile coming to her features. “You can rest easy; no mistakes are made here.”

“Can you just… answer my question? Please?” You pleaded, picking at your nails to avoid messing with your pinky. “I won’t be able to sleep tonight.”

“Alright, to soothe your brain itch,” she agreed, sounding amused. “It’s another list in the profiles database that we import into your matchmaking program, except only personnel with a certain clearance can view, add, and remove profiles from the list. Once a round of interviews has been completed, the applicants on the list are either marked as hired or not. If they’re marked as hired, their profile information is permanently destroyed upon their first day of training. If they’re marked as not, it’s returned to the main database that everyone has access to.”

“One more thing?”

“Sure.”

“Once a match is made, where does that information go? Like, the reports, the profiles, is it stored anywhere?”

“We maintain all of those records in another program. Those with higher clearance have access to it, for security purposes, since profiles are de-anonymized in it. Data synthesis uses them for reports frequently.”

“Okay, thanks.” You offered her a feigned, relieved smile, then tacked on a quick fib, “Just wanted a little refresh, in case we got any new hires anytime soon.”

“Already looking to train, Y/N?”

“Oh, maybe…” You laughed nervously, as if shy about being caught with your eye on a promotion already and not anxious from having to discretely interrogate your supervisor.

“You always were ambitious. And wanting to learn more about the program and the Bureau… I like it.” Ms. Kwon nodded her approval. “Feel free to ask about any other brain itches you get, okay?”

“Right, thanks.” You stood up, giving her a polite bow. “I should get to my station. Thank you again, ma’am.”

As you hurried down to your matchmaking station, you easily came to the realization of what you’d need to do next. There was no way you’d be able to just wait until you were promoted to a position with high enough security clearance for the post-matched program, that sounded like it would be people of Ms. Kwon’s position and above. You’d have to get into the program using one of their access points. Somehow. But you didn’t have time to brainstorm a plan for that at the moment, you had matches to read. You sank down into the comfortable, posture-saving chair, and let your mind mesh with the computer as the first one loaded up on the screen.

The next day, you waited at your bus stop, leaning against the shelter and eating your apple one-handed. Pedestrians would occasionally pass by, but your area was mainly young families, so most residents drove their children to daycare or school, then either returned home, or went to work themselves. There was the occasional parent who would jog by with a stroller, or pulling a stroller hitched to the back of a bicycle, but for the most part it was just you and your apple, which you were nearly done with. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw a lone jogger approaching, and took a step back to allow him to pass, eyes still down on your phone and apple as your bus hadn’t arrived yet. Except this jogger slowed to a stop in front of you. You followed the red string from the hand that held your apple core up to a somewhat familiar face, looking down at you in mild confusion.

He was admittedly sweatier now, pieces of hair curling and sticking to the skin at his hairline, and his t-shirt sported a damp spot starting at his collar going down the middle of his chest. But this was definitely Sungchan, as signified by the red string connecting your right pinky to his left. He lifted the hem of his shirt to quickly pat drops of sweat away from his face and took one of his earbuds out as he offered you an easygoing smile.

“Hi. Feeling better?” He asked, his tone light and teasing.

“Why are you here?” You practically snapped. You thought you’d be safe at your bus stop of all places, which you were at every day. You knew your neighborhood, the people on your bus, but he still somehow showed up. “I-I take the same bus every day, at the same time, and I’ve never seen you jogging in the morning!”

“Oh, yeah, I stayed at my sister’s place last night, she lives around here.” Sungchan casually gestured over his shoulder at the general vicinity. “So I had to take a different route than normal for my morning run. You live in this area?”

You stared at him, jaw clenched.

“Sorry, probably sounded a little weird asking you that, huh?” He laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Uhm, it’s just that you said you’re at this same bus stop every day at the same time, so I figured you, uhm… never mind. I’m Jung Sungchan, I realized I didn’t properly introduce myself last time. I’d offer my hand or hug you or something but I’m a bit sweaty…”

Taking a deep breath, you tried to think of how to politely phrase the everything you had to tell him, but he just kept talking.

“I’d like to uh, you know, know your name, too. Since we’re uhm, you know… soulmates? And uh—”

“Sungchan!” You cut him off, and he immediately shut his mouth. “It doesn’t matter. You don’t need to know my name.”

“What? What are you talking about? But we’re—”

“I’m not supposed to have a soulmate!” You gestured wildly to your uniform. “This was a mistake! An error! I’m sorry. This shouldn’t have ever happened. I’ll get it fixed, okay? I’ll figure out how to undo it, and make sure you get put back in.”

He frowned thoughtfully. “I thought the Factory didn’t make mistakes.”

“The computer doesn’t. But somehow, somebody must have put a paper in the wrong stack, or not deleted something when they should’ve, I don’t know! But I’ll fix it.”

The bus finally arrived then with its usual screech of brakes and hiss of the pneumatic doors, and you stepped away from Sungchan towards it.

“I have to go.” You told him with finality, tossing your apple core in a nearby trashcan and boarding the bus without waiting to hear if he had something else to say.

Without having to avoid the entire world now, you actually took your lunch today. But as soon as you stepped outside of the building and turned from the front doors, you spotted a familiar tall figure standing awkwardly off to the side, no longer in sweaty running gear. You made a beeline for Sungchan, grabbing him by the elbow and pulling him to the most secluded corner of the open space as you could, away from all your coworkers who were heading off to take their own break.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” You hissed at him, constantly glancing around to make sure nobody was close enough to hear you two.

His face did look genuinely regretful, though exasperated at the same time. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know how else to find you.”

“Why are you trying to find me?”

He held up his left pinky. You pushed it back down. “I’m working on it!”

“No, I—” He let out a frustrated groan, rubbing his face. “Can we like… I don’t know, talk, or something?”

“Why?”

“Don’t you think I should get a say in you undoing this?”

You inhaled sharply. “You’re right, Sungchan. I’m sorry. We should talk.”

“Finally, thank you.”

Checking the time for a moment, you then offered, “I have fifty-five minutes left of my lunch break. Do you want to join me?”

“Sure, sure.”

You led him away from The Soulmate Factory, along a familiar path. There was a riverside public park nearby, and on days when you packed your lunch, and it was nice out, you would eat outside.

Sungchan broke the silence, “Will you ever tell me your name?”

“Y/N. Y/L/N Y/N,” you informed him flatly. “Happy?”

“Y/N,” he repeated, as if savoring your name. “Okay, thanks.”

The park was only a couple minutes’ walk, and you had a very specific destination in mind once you two got there.

“I packed a lunch today, sorry,” you said quietly, sitting down on the wall overlooking the river, your feet swinging in the air.

Sungchan sat down next to you. “That’s fine. I can grab something later.”

Opening your lunch bag, you grabbed your sandwich and held out half to him. He accepted it gingerly. “Thank you.”

“I haven’t figured out how to undo it yet, but I can enter a profile into the program easy, so once I do undo it, don’t worry about me putting you back in. You’ll be all set,” you reassured him, taking a bite.

“You’re still talking like this is a done deal. Undoing it.”

“I’d be fixing someone’s mistake, Sungchan. That’s what you do at work. When you see a piece of paper is misfiled, or a decimal is in the wrong place, or a typo on a presentation, you fix it, even if you didn’t do it.”

“It’s just… human error?”

“Yes.”

“That’s all that’s happened here, you think?”

“Whoever was supposed to take my profile out didn’t for some reason, and the computer got it when it wasn’t supposed to,” you confirmed emphatically.

“How does it work, the program? And the profiles, and the computer? All of it?” He questioned.

You gave him as simplified of a version as you could, “Profiles and a bunch of other data points get put into the program, which imports them into the computer. The computer spits out the resulting matches, I—we, matchmakers read them and submit the match reports, triggering the red strings.”

“So it wasn’t given any incorrect information about you or me? Nobody tampered with the system to force it to match us, or falsified a match?”

“No, you can’t do that. It’s impossible.”

“The only hiccup, in your opinion, was that it was given your data at all.”

“Yes, Factory employees aren’t allowed to—”

“Whose rule is that?”

“The Bureau—”

“So, it’s literally just bureaucracy?”

“I like my job,” you huffed, frustrated that he wasn’t seeing the blatantly obvious mistake that had happened. “It’s a rule for a reason. Factory employees are taken out of the program so the public doesn’t think employees are rigging their matches.”

“Can’t rig your soulmate if you don’t get one,” he scoffed.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“You say that like having one would be the worst thing in the world!” Sungchan replied incredulously.

“It is for me! Because do you know what would happen if people at the Bureau found out this happened?” You looked at him with wide, pointed eyes. “Just losing my job would probably be the best outcome. And who knows what would happen to you!”

“But—”

“I’m sorry, Sungchan. I’m sure you had imagined all of this, your red string, and the person at the other end of it, going a lot different. And I’m sure it will, when I fix everything.” You stood up, cutting your conversation and lunch short. “Don’t come to my work again, okay? For both our sakes.”

“Yeah, okay. Sorry,” he muttered, looking out at the water.

Back at the Factory, you finished eating your lunch at your desk, then shuffled back to the matchmaking room. After swiping in, you realized that you were pretty early, the first one back. Curious, you peered up at Ms. Kwon’s office. She was in there, of course. No way would you be able to attempt to use her computer to access the higher-clearance data. You sank into the chair at your station with a deep sigh. Drumming your fingers along the desktop, you let your eyes flutter shut. You’d have to wait for the others to get back from lunch for the power to be returned to the screens. In the meantime, you could just ruminate.

“Y/N?” Ms. Kwon’s voice came from the direction of her office. “Back so soon?”

You opened your eyes back up, turning to look at her. You nodded sheepishly. “Quick eater…”

“I feel like I’ve seen you in the breakroom with a book before. Nothing today?”

“Forgot it at home.”

“Alright, well… have fun, I suppose.” She turned to go back into her office.

“There’s no way to undo a match, is there?” You blurted out, stopping her in her tracks. She turned back around to look at you curiously as you continued, “Once we press submit on the computer, that’s it?”

Ms. Kwon cocked her head, leaning against the railing at the top of the stairs. “You should’ve been told this in training… No, there isn’t a way to ‘undo’ a match. We aren’t even matching them, just reporting on what the computer says. All the reports do is trigger the strings. The two people are soulmates regardless of the computer. We just intervene so they can find each other.”

You gulped and nodded. “Of course. I knew that… I… I don’t know. Thank you, Ms. Kwon.”

“Another brain itch?”

“Yeah, I guess,” you forced out a couple of chuckles to cover up the dread you felt on the inside.

“Alright. Remember, ‘The Soulmate Factory’ isn’t very accurate. We don’t make soulmates here, they’re already out there.”

“Right, yeah. Terrible nickname, huh?”

She shrugged. “It’s cute. Good for branding. I’ve got a few things to work on, unless you have any other burning questions for me?”

“No, Ms. Kwon, that’s it. Thank you, again.”

“No problem, Y/N.” And with that, she retreated into her office once more.

Dragging your feet back out to your desk at the end of the workday, you chewed on your bottom lip, contemplating pretending to have extra work so you could stay late and try to sneak onto Ms. Kwon’s computer to access the matched profiles. But her office was behind a door with swipe access, it would log that you swiped in after hours. A digital breadcrumb trail.

“Hey,” Jaemin got your attention as you sat in your chair and stared at your screen. You spun your chair around to look at him, lifting your eyebrows in a silent question. “Who was that guy?”

Your blood turned cold. “Huh? Who? When? What guy?”

“Oh now that wasn’t suspicious,” he snorted. “The guy that was waiting for you at lunch whose ass you looked like you were about to kick.”

Oh God. Jaemin saw Sungchan. Who else saw him? You had to assume everybody. You stood up from your chair hastily, fully intent on running away. “Just—Nobody, it doesn’t matter.”

Jaemin gasped, then dropped his voice, “Y/N, you didn’t...”

“Didn’t what?” You squeaked, now ready to stick around. You had to know what he knew, which was obviously the truth.

“You totally did.” He shook his head, clicking his tongue. “Never a good idea, getting involved with people who are destined, even if they don’t have their string yet. Because one day they will.”

Of course. He thought, perfectly reasonably, that you had dated, slept with, done something with somebody who was going to get their red string someday, while you would remain without it forever. You swallowed down your sigh of relief, and instead crossed your arms over your chest, quickly switching trains of thought to follow this new cover story.

“And that’s what I told him, Jaemin, I swear,” you whispered insistently.

Your friend finished up and switched off his desktop then, giving you a frank look. “How many times, Y/N?”

“I told him like a hundred times—”

“No. You know what I mean.”

You hurried down the stairs, Jaemin right with you, rolling your eyes as you tried to think of a number that wasn’t excessive, but messy enough to possibly warrant a guy turning up at your work. “I don’t know... a few! A girl’s got needs, Jaemin!”

He chuckled and shook his head again, pushing the front door open for you. He turned suddenly, grabbing you by the shoulders and spinning you around to face the building with him, then gestured grandly up and down the entirety of The Soulmate Factory. “A whole ten floors to pick from, Y/N. No messy red strings to worry about after.”

“Yeah, just awkward encounters at work,” you scoffed.

“I heard Park Jisung on the second floor thinks you’re cute.”

“What is this? Middle school?” You elbowed him to get him off of you, ducking out from under his arm and taking off towards your bus stop at a speed walk.

He easily kept pace with you. “I’m just looking out for you. Rule Number 1 of dating with no soulmate: Stay away from people with one.”

“Uh-huh, noted,” you replied shortly. “You done?”

“Are you?”

“Yes! God!”

“Alright.” He was still grinning, clearly finding the whole scenario amusing overall. “Goodnight, Y/N.”

“Bye, Jaemin.”

A couple nights later found you rooting through the frozen section of a corner store. You’d gotten home from work after yet another day of getting nowhere with this stupid red string and had wanted nothing more than to wallow in misery with a pint of ice cream. Except you had none in your freezer, and your usual corner store was out of your favorite flavor, so you had to go to one several blocks over.

After paying for the ice cream and grabbing a plastic spoon from the available utensils, you hurried out of the shop. Turning sharply onto a side street to take a shortcut back to your apartment, you nearly tripped over somebody sitting on the sidewalk curb, their feet in the street. They were wearing a hoodie with the hood up, and you jumped back as you went to apologize. Then they looked at you over their shoulder, and you stopped your apologies, flabbergasted and a little pissed off at the universe at this point.

“Oh my god, again?” You stared at Sungchan, eyes bugging out of your head.

“Okay, ouch,” he retorted. He had his own pint of ice cream and plastic spoon in hand, about two-thirds of the way done.

“Sorry, I was just… I wanted to drown my sorrowsin ice cream alone.”

He turned away from you, resting his arms on his knees as he went back to looking down at the pavement. “Well, I’ve got dibs on this street corner for sadly eating ice cream.”

You winced. “Sungchan… I’m…”

Sorry? Was that it? Not for wanting to undo the string. Sorry that this all happened to him in the first place, and that he was now sadly eating ice cream by himself on a street corner? Absolutely. Even though you wanted to remove your red string that connected you two as soulmates, you still felt for the guy as a person, and you felt bad just leaving him here. In a different set of circumstances, you could see the two of you being friends. Against your better judgment, you sat down next to him on the curb, opening your pint of ice cream. He looked at you suspiciously out of the corner of his eye, and you caught a glimpse of his damp, bloodshot eyes in the light of the streetlamp above you two before he focused them back down on his own ice cream.

He shoveled a spoonful into his mouth before speaking again. “We’re going to keep running into each other, don’t you get that?”

“Yeah, I know, the string always gets tighter again. But I didn’t think our string would be like a fucking rubber band.” You shook your head, licking the lid of your container clean. “Honestly, this is kind of ridiculous.”

There was a moment of awkward silence as he ate another bite of ice cream.

“The computer doesn’t make mistakes.” He stated bluntly. “That’s what you said the second time we met. Do you actually think that? That what goes on in there is making soulmates? Finding them? Whatever.”

“I-I mean, yeah.” You carefully carved out your first spoonful from the pristine surface. “We do analytics and data gathering post-matching and… yeah, it works.”

He was quiet as you took your bite of ice cream into your mouth.

“Then we’re soulmates.”

You couldn’t swallow quickly enough, mind reeling at you tried to think of anything to say. “But my profile—”

“Whatever may have happened before the computer got our data doesn’t fucking matter, it still did all the same stuff that it does when giving you all the matches that you read,” Sungchan cut you off, and you saw a fresh tear catch the light as it rolled down his cheek. “And it figured that we were soulmates. But suddenly you’re doubting it? Suddenly it’s not right? What’s so fucking special about you?”

“I…”

“Has somebody’s profile even been through the computer twice? Ever? And you want to just stick me back in there. What if it rejects me because it already processed me once? What if I don’t get another match? What if it breaks the whole damn program? The whole fucking Factory?” He wasn’t yelling, but his voice was strong and hoarse at the same time, and you froze up as you felt the anger and hurt in him.

You didn’t have an answer for him. You always had an answer. You always knew, at work, when reading the matches, you just always knew, but you didn’t now. You had nothing, it was all blank, empty in your mind. You swallowed thickly, staring at him as he looked over at you furiously. White hot shame and guilt made your skin prickle.

“I don’t know,” you admitted quietly.

Sungchan put his pint down on the pavement, then covered your hands with his. Even as you held onto your ice cream, you could feel that his skin was colder than yours. “I’m trying to understand you, Y/N, but this isn’t making any sense to me.”

“I thought I’d have a choice,” you told him shakily, slowly pulling your hands away. “I thought I’d be able to choose…”

He blinked, and his face twisted up with pain as he took his hands back. He grabbed his nearly empty carton, standing up and blotting out the lamp light as he towered over you.

“Trust me, you’ve got a choice. A big one.” He sighed bitterly, tossing his container in a nearby trash can. “I’ve said my piece. Goodnight.”

“Where are you going?” You called after him as he started down the sidewalk.

“Somewhere. When you’re ready, you know how to find me.” He lifted his left arm up and waved his hand, his end of the red string fluttering back and forth in the air with the movement.

You watched him continue to walk down the street, not slowing down or looking over his shoulder once. It was only when you could no longer see him that scalding tears welled up in your vision and stung your eyes. You didn’t bother wiping them away as they streamed down your face and fell onto your shirt, leaving dark patches in their wake. Despite the ice cream being your original intent for coming out, you suddenly didn’t have an appetite, burying your face in your arms to cry alone on the curb.

What’s so fucking special about you?

Sungchan’s words were still in the squeal of the bus brakes in the morning, and the hum of strangers’ conversations, and the shuffle of leaves as the wind shook tree branches. You stared at the grooves of the hardwood floor in the breakroom, hearing his voice in the gurgle of the coffee machine as it ran on the counter behind you. You didn’t even need your usual morning cup, still wide awake, as you had been all night. Fingers snapped in front of your eyes, and you lazily dragged your gaze up to the owner of the hand, Renjun.

“You look like shit,” he deadpanned.

You took a long, deep sigh, not even having enough in you to react to the comment as you usually would. “Do you ever think about your soulmate, Renjun?”

“Uh… no?” He lifted an eyebrow. “Because I don’t have one? Remember?”

“I know, Factory employees get taken out of the program. But doesn’t that mean that the computer is really working with incomplete data or whatever? Since it doesn’t actually have every single person in there?”

He crossed his arms over his chest as he seemed to think about this for a moment. “I guess.”

“If we were all in there, we’d get matched up with somebody. Our soulmate. We’re not all in there, but whoever we would be matched with still is. So they just… get their second-best match?”

“What is it that matchmaking lady always says? ‘The computer does more than we’ll ever know?’”

“Ms. Kwon?”

“Yeah, her.” He nodded, turning around to get his cereal down from the cabinet. He answered your question over his shoulder, “No, I’ve never thought about this, Y/N. But you have clearly been doing a lot of thinking about it.”

“Too much,” you groaned. “My head hurts.”

Your coworker’s voice was a bit softer as he offered, “You, me, and Jaemin—Drinks after work?”

After work you ended up on a rooftop bar with Jaemin and Renjun, nursing your second beer of the night as you stared out at the lights of the city. The two of them were chatting about some movie that was coming out this weekend that they were interested in, and all three of you had your feet kicked up on the ledge of the rooftop.

In a lull in their conversation, a finger poked your head from the left. “What’s wrong?” Jaemin asked.

You sighed. “It’s… ugh.”

Another finger poked the right side of your head. “Come on,” Renjun insisted. “You’ve been weird all week.”

You took a swig of your drink, then let out another deep sigh. “Why did you guys start working at the Factory?”

“What?” Renjun scoffed lightly, as if he couldn’t imagine why you’d even ask that.

“Why did you start working at the Factory?” You repeated. “I mean, accepting a life without a soulmate.”

“My parents met at the Factory, actually,” Jaemin said.

“Wait, really?” You turned to him curiously. You knew that Factory employees dating each other wasn’t off-limits, and theoretically that meant they could settle down and have lives sort of like soulmates, but you’d never heard much about it actually happening.

“Yeah, they weren’t soulmates. So it was one of those things where, I don’t know, I got to grow up knowing that there was another way to live.” Jaemin shrugged casually. “I didn’t even really think about the no-soulmate thing when I applied, they just always talked about how much they loved their jobs, it sounded like a cool place to work.”

“I applied at a bunch of different places, this is the first one that called me back,” Renjun gave his own answer.

“Why did you start working here?” Jaemin turned your question back on you.

You tapped your fingernail against the side of your bottle. “Pay’s not bad… And I didn’t… hate the idea of having a say in my love life, you know? Instead of this string showing up one day and telling me who I’m supposed to be with forever. Getting to choose on my own.”

“Sounds like you don’t think the computer knows what it’s doing,” Renjun snorted.

“No, it does! It does! I just… didn’t mind the idea of never knowing.”

Jaemin furrowed his brow curiously. “What do you mean?”

“Like… I can wake up tomorrow and have cereal, or eggs, or buy breakfast on my way into work. There could be someone new on my bus in the morning. I can get a haircut, or dye my hair. It could rain tomorrow, or be sunny, or overcast. Life is always in flux, always changing, new, different.”

“Knowing who your soulmate is, would be too… certain?”

“Some people like having that constant in their life,” Renjun pointed out. “Or so I’ve heard.”

“I don’t know, like what if you get your soulmate and they kind of suck? Then you kind of have to ask yourself what did you do to deserve someone who kind of sucks? Because that’s literally the best you can do,” you ranted, gesturing around to the night sky with your bottle. “At least without a string, there’s always a chance that there’s someone better out there.”

“Ah, you’ve got the Boy Scout mindset,” Jaemin said knowingly. “Just in case. Just in case it rains, I’ll bring an umbrella. Just in case whoever you’re seeing now kind of sucks, you can always try again.”

You crossed your arms defensively. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing, since you don’t have a string.”

“Very polite way to say she has commitment issues, Jaemin,” Renjun snickered.

“Rude!” You smacked his arm with the back of your hand.

He wasn’t dissuaded by your minor battery, however. Bringing his two feet back down to the ground, he leaned his elbows forward on his knees and looked over at you, “Sounds like to me, you want infinite second chances. Just in case.”

“There’s only so many of us at the Factory, really,” Jaemin pointed out. “Wouldn’t a soulmate actually be infinite second chances? Since you know you’re destined to be with them, you can kind of mess up as often as you want?”

You frowned, thinking of Sungchan walking away from you. “You really think so? I mean, they’re still a person. Wouldn’t they stop putting up with you after so long? Even if they were your soulmate, I’m sure being alone would be better than having a shit soulmate.”

“Well, then you have to ask: What is a soulmate? Just the best you can do? Or someone who’s going to make you better? Is there such a thing as a shit soulmate?”

“There has to be, right? There’s bad people, and those people have soulmates.”

“Are they bad forever? Are they bad people to their soulmates? Or do they also have shit people for soulmates? So, relative to each other, they don’t even realize that they have a shit soulmate?”

“My head hurts again…” You groaned, pressing the heels of your palms against your temples.

A long silence passed as you three each finished off your beers. Renjun shrugged and leaned back in his chair with a satisfied grunt. “Thank God we’ll never know, huh?”

Your Saturday was spent walking. Walking all over town, from your apartment to your bus stop, to the park where Sungchan had been playing Frisbee before, to the corner store where you’d last seen him, and everywhere in between. You kept your head on a swivel, straining for any sign of his tall head over the crowd. But you couldn’t see him anywhere.

When you finally gave up mid-afternoon and went back to your apartment for a late lunch, you knew that you were actually relieved that you hadn’t found him today. If you had ran into him, you didn’t even know what you’d say, where to start, where to end, what to say in the middle. Your head was a jumbled mess, simultaneously too full and too empty. There was no way you’d be able to articulate a single comprehensible word when you yourself didn’t know a shred about anything that you were thinking or feeling.

Sunday you were kept busy with Sungchan’s lingering question. What’s so special about you?

In the moment, it felt like he was asking why you thought you were special enough to be exempt from something that everyone else experienced: getting a red string and finding their soulmate. But as you went about mindless chores in your apartment, doing the dishes, folding laundry, you thought about him.

What’s so special about Sungchan? What would make him your soulmate? And you wondered if he was asking himself the same questions about you.

Monday morning you almost missed your bus. You’d been so distracted going about your morning routine that you ran straight from your apartment building onto the bus, the doors closing right after you. The elderly couple was on today, and you plopped into your seat in front of them, offering them a breathless smile and greeting.

“Tough morning, dear?” The woman asked you knowingly.

“Oh, a bit,” you laughed. “Tough couple of weeks, honestly. But I’ll make it. What’s the new exhibit for this month?”

“It’s a contemporary artist who does large-scale mixed media collages,” the husband explained.

“That sounds so cool! Is there a particular theme for the collection on display or it more eclectic?”

“Oh, we don’t read up much before,” she said with a shake of her head. “We like to go in blind, no presuppositions or expectations, good or bad.”

You continued chatting about the museum with them until their stop to get off, and watched fondly as the man helped his wife up, the both of them bidding you farewell before departing. As the bus peeled away, you were able to glimpse them starting arm-in-arm down the sidewalk together.

After dropping your backpack in your chair, you headed towards the breakroom, where you found Jaemin hunched over something at a counter, his back to the door.

“Renjun’s cereal?” You surmised immediately.

He jumped in place, turning around clutching his chest. “Fuck! You scared the shit out of me, Y/N! Don’t sneak up on a guy like that!” He did in fact have a familiar box in his hand, clearly having been pouring some into a cup.

“I wasn’t sneaking. You just flipped out because you know you’re being a little cereal thief right now.”

He quickly closed up the box and put it away. “There. Like it never happened.”

“Why don’t you just bring your own box of cereal?”

“It just tastes better if it’s free.”

“Stolen.”

“Synonyms.” He grinned slyly, shooting you a wink as he walked out.

As you were milling about, trying to gather everything to start the first pot of coffee, Renjun entered, heading straight for where his cereal was stored. You watched out of the corner of your eye as he grabbed it, froze midair, and tested the weight of it in his hand.

“Na Jaemin…” He hissed, slamming the container onto the counter.

“Suggestion—” You announced, turning around to look at him with your arms crossed over your chest. “Keep the cereal at your desk instead of leaving it here unattended where he steals it all the time.”

“I never keep food at my desk. What if it attracts ants?”

“Padlock.”

He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “You may be onto something there…”

Renjun wandered out of the room, still musing over this with the cereal box tucked under his arm. You realized you didn’t really want a cup of coffee and put the empty coffee mug away.

The weekly agenda meeting was short and sweet, and you were slow to follow the other matchmakers down the hall after. You were the very last one to swipe in, and to take your seat at your station. Everyone else was already reading their matches, but you just stared at your blank screen, not even turning it on yet. At some point, two weeks ago, someone in this room, one of your coworkers—or maybe even you—had read a match result, looked up a bunch of numbers, and submitted a match report that had changed your life forever. You listened to them clacking away at their keyboards, dozens more strangers’ lives being irreparably altered like yours was.

“Y/N?” Your name was called from across the room, and you whipped your head around to look over at Ms. Kwon, standing in the doorway of her office. She gestured for you to come over. “A moment?”

“Oh, of course, ma’am.” You rushed to stand, hurrying up the stairs and following her into her office.

She closed the door behind you, sitting back down behind her desk, and offering the chairs across from her for you. You nervously took the one closest to the door.

“Is everything alright with you?” Your supervisor asked gently. “You’ve been sitting at your station for the past fifteen minutes and haven’t turned the screen on…”

“Sorry…” You winced, self-conscious as you pictured Ms. Kwon watching you stare at a blank screen for fifteen minutes. “I’m uhm… I…”

“Have something on your mind?”

“It’s worth it, right? Giving up your soulmate to work here?”

Ms. Kwon took your question in stride, folding her hands together over her desk as she answered, “It’s good work that we do here, Y/N, don’t get me wrong. Necessary. But choosing to live without a soulmate, that’s not a noble sacrifice on our part. We’re not any better than anybody else because we choose to work here and they don’t. I don’t know a single executive here who would talk about it like that.”

You could feel all façades slip off your face, your eyes widening slightly and your mouth parting, though no sound came out.

At your apparent speechlessness, Ms. Kwon continued, “We’re not... monks or nuns taking some holy vow, Y/N. It’s morally neutral. Neither good nor bad. It just is.”

A split-second of rage burst inside you. “Then why would any of you choose it? Why would anybody go without a soulmate?”

“Why did you?” She asked you calmly.

“I... was afraid to know,” you admitted quietly.

“Everyone here is sort of like that. They have some other reason. It’s usually not a good one, but they never have to confront it. Ever.”

“So the Factory... is the easy way out?”

“Y/N, listen to the words I’m telling you: It is neither good nor bad to choose to work here. It just is.”

“Is it good to have your soulmate, then?”

“I am not the arbiter of good or bad in your life. I’m just your boss,” she replied, sounding a bit tired now. “Look, you’re very smart. That’s why you were chosen for matchmaking. But I’m urging you to stop this line of thinking here. This is how you end up—”

“I’m resigning,” you declared, and suddenly all of the noise in your mind was quiet.

“That is what I was afraid of,” she sighed. “May I ask why?”

“I… have a soulmate.”

“Of course you do.” Ms. Kwon smiled placidly. “All of us at the Factory do. But quitting now will not put your profile back in to get matched with them.”

“No, I—I was matched. Somehow, I don’t know how, but… I have a red string, Ms. Kwon.” You held up your right hand, pointing to your pinky, even though you knew she couldn’t see it. You couldn’t help but laugh at the sudden lightness of your shoulders. “I have a soulmate, and… this is just a job. It’s a good job, and I love it. But there’s other jobs. I don’t have another soulmate.”

She was quiet for a moment, simply looking at you intensely. After a moment, she reached out to hover her hands over her keyboard. “Would you mind if I took just a moment to confirm? It’ll take less than a minute.”

“Sure, go for it.”

Ms. Kwon quickly typed away and clicked a few things on her mouse as you quite literally twiddled your thumbs over your lap. Just a few seconds later, she took her glasses off, rubbing between her brows as she let out a deep sigh. “So it seems you have been…” She sat back in her chair. “Have you… found them?”

“Uhm, yes, ma’am,” you nodded awkwardly.

“This is why you were so interested in undoing matches as of late, I presume.”

“Yes… but not anymore.”

She sat there for a few more moments, eyes closed, before putting her glasses back on and sitting up straight again. “I accept your resignation, Y/N. With a heavy heart, might I add.”

“That means a lot, Ms. Kwon.”

“There will need to be an investigation.”

“I figured.”

“I expect full cooperation from both you and your soulmate.”

“Oh, uh, sure, sure.”

Ms. Kwon looked at you oddly. “Is that going to be a problem?”

“We’re not… exactly… friendly… right now…” You admitted quietly. “And it’s completely my fault…”

She let out a few soft, wistful chuckles. “He didn’t take too kindly to you attempting to ‘undo’ your string, did he?”

“No, he didn’t.” You shook your head, biting the inside of your cheek regretfully.

“The string will tighten again, Y/N,” she reassured you, her voice kind. “The computer doesn’t make mistakes.”

“Right. Thank you, Ms. Kwon.”

She cleared her throat, becoming formal and businesslike again. “Provided the investigation turns up exactly what I think it will, I’ll also write an excellent reference letter for you, if you would like.”

“What do you think the investigation will turn up?”

“A mistake. Something was misfiled. A paper was put in the wrong stack. A name left off an email. I don’t think you tampered with the program somehow to put yourself back in. Did you?”

“No, ma’am, not at all.”

“There we go.” She shrugged. “Do you have anything else for me?”

“I get my severance pay and all that, right?”

“Of course.”

You stood up, set your key card on the desk, and shook her hand before leaving her office, walking right out of the matchmaking room as the others kept at it at their stations. Making a beeline for your desk, you could see several heads of your coworkers popping up to peer at you curiously before looking back down at their computers. One remained up and focused intently on you from further down your row, Renjun.

As you stopped next to Jaemin and opened your backpack at your desk, he took his headphones off to turn to you. “Uh hey…?”

“Hi,” you replied cheerily, beginning to grab personal possessions off your desk and load them into your bag.

“What are you doing?”

At this point, Renjun had stood up from his desk and stalked over to you two, eyes wide as he took in what you were doing. “What’s going on?”

“I quit!” You informed them, not being particularly quiet about it.

“What?!” “Seriously?!”

“Seriously,” you confirmed, unplugging the receiver for your personal wireless mouse, and putting it back inside said mouse, before chucking the whole thing into your bag. “Resigned. Quit. Handed in my zero day notice.”

“Why? I thought you loved this job!” Renjun sputtered out, his hands on his hips.

“Yeah! Like, I thought you were going to be Director one day!” Jaemin nodded. “What happened?”

You looked around the wide-open bullpen, still having enough tact to not want to blab about your string in front of everybody. Zipping up your backpack and throwing one strap over your shoulder, you asked your friends innocently, “Walk me out?”

They practically dragged you down the stairs, flanking you on either side, none of you saying a word until you were outside.

“What’s going on?” Renjun demanded as soon as the front doors closed behind you. “Is it something we need to know about? Should we be looking for other jobs?”

“Did you ask for a raise or something and they wouldn’t give it to you?” Jaemin asked. “Or a promotion? Or—”

“No, it’s nothing like that. You guys are fine,” you promised them, lacing your two hands together in front of you. Taking a deep breath, you admitted, “I have a red string, and I found my soulmate.”

Their jaws dropped, and they looked at each other, flabbergasted, then at you, then each other again, then stared at you. Renjun was the first to shake himself out of his stupefied state, “How did that even—”

“I don’t know, and I don’t know how much I can even say until the Factory finishes their investigation, so…” You trailed off. “Yeah, that’s why I quit. And Ms. Kwon didn’t ask me to stay.”

Jaemin’s eyes widened comically as he pointed at you accusatorily. “The guy at lunch, was he your—”

“Yeah, that was him.” You rubbed the back of your neck nervously. “Anyway, you guys can’t say anything to anybody else at the Factory, okay? Just let management handle this however they want to. Keep your noses out of it.”

“So what are you going to do now?” Renjun asked.

“Uh… try to find him? Again?” You said sheepishly.

“You lost him?” Jaemin asked in disbelief. “Like, in a well or something? How? What?”

“We kind of had a fight… Let’s just say the ball’s in my court, and I don’t know how to play.”

He patted you on the back. “You’ve got this, Y/N.”

“Thanks,” you nodded to him gratefully. “I should let you two get back to work now. Thank you both, again, for being the best work buddies a girl could ask for.”

“Hey, don’t talk like you’re going off and dying,” Renjun scoffed, poking the right side of your head.

“Yeah, we’re your real buddies, too.” Jaemin poked the left side of your head. “I still owe you your book.”

“You two have got to make sure you don’t kill each other over cereal in the mornings on your own now. I won’t be there to referee,” you warned as you took a step back, facing them.

“As long as Jaemin keeps his grubby mitts to himself, no problem.” Renjun nodded.

Jaemin grinned. “No promises.”

You laughed, going in to give each of them a hug. “Bye, guys. I’ll see you around.”

And you proceeded to walk. From the riverside park near the Factory, to the curb where you’d eaten ice cream together, to your favorite bookstore. You walked until your feet ached and your stomach growled, and even after that. You found new parts of the city that you’d never seen, never had any reason to go to before. As you came up to a street of small shops, you peered into each window carefully as you passed by. Your feet skidded to a stop all on their own and your heart leapt to your throat as you inadvertently made eye contact with a patron right on the other side of the glass of one store. The exact person you’d been looking for.

While Sungchan froze in place, you ran for the entrance to the shop, throwing open the door and ducking around shelves and displays to find him still glued to the same spot, staring out the window at the pavement where you used to be. You grabbed his left hand with your right, watching the string complete itself, and pulled him around to face you.

“Sungchan!” You said his name breathlessly, a relieved smile on your face. “Found you!”

“Y/N…” His voice was guarded, uncertain, gaze trailing over your red jumpsuit that you were still in. “Are you… on your lunch break?”

“No, I uh, I resigned this morning,” you told him, not an ounce of remorse in your tone.

His eyes widened, and his demeanor immediately changed as he looked down at you with concern. “What? You didn’t have to—Y/N, what happened? Oh my god, what are you going to do?”

A throat was very conspicuously cleared from nearby, and you snapped your head over in the direction of it, spotting a group of several guys leaning against shelves further down the store, a few trying to look busy and not like they had just been listening to your conversation. One stood at the front of them, looking directly at Sungchan.

“Oh, sorry, guys,” Sungchan waved them off. “Go on without me, okay?”

And with that, he set down the merchandise he had been browsing—which you were now seeing was a stack of old magazines; it looked as though you were in a thrift store of some kind—and pulled you out the door by the hand. Just a little ways down the street was a bench overlooking the river, and the two of you stopped there.

“I wouldn’t have been able to keep working there with a red string, Sungchan,” you explained. “If I didn’t resign, I would’ve been fired whenever they found out. I wanted to tell them myself.”

He frowned. “When I said you had a choice…”

“I chose to keep the string, and stop looking for a way to undo it. I know that’s what you were asking me.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask…” he sighed. “What made you change your mind?”

“A lot of different things, but… I think realizing that I’m not that special.”

“Y/N, I—”

“No, I mean, I kind of had this complex about working at the Factory. Thinking that it was some sacrifice for the greater good, me giving up my soulmate so I could help other people find theirs. But like… it was just a job.” You laughed at how ridiculous that sounded now, even just a few hours after resigning.

Sungchan smiled a little at that, but still looked pensive. “So what are you going to do for work now?”

“I don’t know,” you admitted quietly, but couldn’t keep the giddy grin off your face. “That’s really scary… but it’s kind of exciting, in a weird way, right? I’ve had the same job since I got out of school, and now I can do anything.”

“We’ll find you a job. That’s like, Priority One, okay?” He reassured you. “We’ll do some brainstorming, find some job listings, we’ll figure something out.”

“We?”

“Yeah?” He said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I’m not leaving you out to dry after all this.”

“Thanks, Sungchan.” You fidgeted with your fingers, eyes gracing over the finished red string again. “And uh, if that’s Priority One, then Priority Two is probably going to have to be the investigation.”

“The what?”

“The Bureau has to investigate how this even happened, our match. Me resigning was just the beginning, not the end. They’re expecting our full cooperation.”

“What are we going to have to cooperate with, exactly?” He crossed his arms.

“They’ll probably just want to ask us some questions. Me more than you, since I’m the one who actually worked there. Ms. Kwon—my old boss—made it sound like it’d be more a formality than anything else. I’m sure they’re already auditing all my match reports for the past two years, and looking through my key card log, and going through my computer as we speak.”

“Alright, yeah. Fine.”

With his agreement, the two of you were quiet for a moment, and you felt an air of uncertainty. You’d found each other, you were soulmates, you weren’t trying to undo your string anymore, and yet you were still practically strangers. Where did you go from here?

“So… what’s your favorite color?” You asked.

“What?” He blinked, seeming confused at the sudden change in topic.

“I don’t know anything about you…” You said quietly, feeling your skin get warm with embarrassment. “I don’t know, that’s just the first thing that came to mind. Forget it, it was stupid.”

He chuckled and answered anyway, “Purple. My favorite color is purple.”

“Oh. Cool.”

“What’s yours?”

“Pink. Uh, cotton candy pink, specifically.”

“That’s good. That’s really good.” He was still laughing, more than your awkward question warranted.

“Okay, what’s so funny? Other than me being stupid.”

“No, I’m not laughing at you, it’s just…” He reassured you, trailing off as he seemed to be trying to put his thoughts together. “There’re all these books, and magazine articles and stuff, you know. 15 Things to Not Do When You Meet Your Soulmate. 10 Best Opening Lines for Meeting the One. I Met My Soulmate and It’s Awkward: Now What? How to Get Over First Meeting Flutters. And you’re nothing like that. You’ve probably never even read anything of that sort of stuff, have you?”

“No…” You shook your head, then squinted at him suspiciously. “Have you?”

He held his hands up defensively. “Well, call it morbid curiosity—”

You couldn’t help but giggle, attempting to cover it with your hand, having the perfect image of him lying on his bed on his stomach, legs kicking up behind him as he scrolled on his phone late at night reading cheesy internet columns about love.

“And that’s funny, yeah, okay. I didn’t fool you with the… yeah.” Sungchan laughed again, this time at himself, and you were quickly starting to think that it might be your favorite sound.

“It’s cute, it’s cute!” You promised. “I’m uhm, sure me running away really threw a wrench in whatever great opening line you had planned.”

“Yes and no.” He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “You were really pretty, and when I looked at you, I suddenly forgot every word I knew. And then you ran away, and I was just confused at how I had messed it up before opening my mouth.”

Your body burned on the inside and outside twofold from him simultaneously saying you were so pretty it made him speechless, and also the shame at how stupendously you had fucked up your first meeting. You squeezed your eyes shut, covered your face with both hands, and shook your head as you groaned out an apology, “Oh god, I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s fine, really— Helped snap me out of it, you know?” He chuckled, and you were glad he could at least see some humor in it now. “Looking back now, completely understandable for you to do that. Sorry again for chasing you through the streets, I’m sure that didn’t help.”

“Also understandable on your part,” you said. Before you could scramble for another thing to ask Sungchan, your stomach rumbled loudly, and you cringed, knowing full well that he had definitely been able to hear that. “Sorry…”

“I was supposed to grab food with the guys anyway.” Sungchan stood up. “Let’s get you something to eat, hm?”

You followed him to a small café a couple streets away, and after grabbing your food, you two sat at a table outside. “So what do you do? For work? Or are you a student? You know quite a bit about my old job, but…”

“Oh, I’m an artist.”

“What kind? Like, what medium? Is that the right way to ask that? I guess I’m asking what kind of stuff you make?”

“Don’t worry, those were all good questions. Different questions, but good.” He smiled warmly, taking a sip of his drink before answering. “I mostly focus on making mixed media collages. Sometimes I source my materials from other places, but sometimes I make it myself. Take my own pictures, paint it myself, put the clay on myself. Just depends. So I work with a lot of different materials and mediums, too.”

“Oh!” You immediately thought of the couple you talked to on the bus that morning. “You should totally check out the art museum on 2nd this month! I heard they have an exhibit showcasing mixed media collages. I haven’t been, but there’s this couple on my bus in the mornings who goes every month, they told me about it today.”

“Did they say the artist?” He asked mildly, picking at his food with his utensil.

“No, they don’t do any research before, they like to go in blind.”

“Yeah, uhm, that’s my exhibit,” he practically whispered the last two words behind a napkin as he wiped his mouth with it, looking down at his plate. His ears were bright red, and he grabbed his drink to take another long sip.

Your eyes widened. “Wait really?”

“I understand if you think I’m lying, it’s on the exhibit webpage on the museum website, but yeah…”

“Sungchan, that’s so cool!” You exclaimed, even as you brought out your phone to bring up the website. Not because you didn’t believe him, but just because reading the headline of how the museum was proud to feature ‘New Local Artist Jung Sungchan’ in an exclusive exhibit was practically surreal. He, however, still couldn’t seem to meet your eyes. “Why do you look like you want to die?”

“I didn’t want to use my real name, but my… manager thought it would be a good idea. And obviously I had to tell you.” He rubbed a hand over his face, making everything from his forehead to his neck pink. “I just hate people looking at my art and thinking they know me. They can look at my art all I want, project onto it, feel from it, call it stupid, say they could have done better, I don’t care, I just don’t want them to know it’s mine and think they know me because of it.”

“Who’s your manager that made you use your real name? Don’t artists use pseudonyms sometimes?”

“My sister’s husband. He’s good at his job, and he’s done a lot for me. I’m really thankful for him, honestly. It was more like when I was first starting out, he thought that using a pseudonym would make me seem sort of pretentious. People would like a regular guy a lot more.” Sungchan sighed. “I agreed, and have regretted that decision with every art show I’ve attended since.”

You nodded slowly, tapping your fingers on the tabletop in a rhythm as you thought. “So… why do you think you make art, then?”

“I have to,” he shrugged. “Not making art would be worse. People connecting with my art… I like that. But I don’t like when they try to assume things about me because of my art. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah, it does,” you assured him. “Death of the collagist.”

His face cracked into a grin. “Exactly.”

“Would you mind if I went to your exhibit sometime?” You asked. “You totally don’t have to come, I’m sure that’d be weird for you. But I’d like to go see it, and not make any assumptions about you at all.”

“It’s a public museum, I can’t stop you from going.”

“Well, yes… I don’t know, it’s still your art, and I’m not just a member of the public, am I?”

Sungchan’s eyes held a softness as he looked at you across the table, and he shook his head. “No, you’re not just a member of the public to me.”

“And you’re not just some random artist to me,” you responded.

“I wouldn’t mind if you went, on one condition.”

“Mm?” You prompted, expecting it to be something along the lines of ‘don’t tell me what you think’ or ‘don’t ever mention it to me.’ Nothing at all in the realm of what he actually requested.

“I go with you.”

Your eyebrows shot up. “Wait really?”

“Really.”

“Okay, yeah, of course!”

“Then it’s a date.”

You nodded, suddenly feeling shy at him calling it a date, turning your eyes back down to your food. “Yeah, okay. A date.”

You ended up spending the whole day with Sungchan, just getting to know each other. And browsing online job listings for you—turns out he wasn’t kidding about that being Priority One.

He used revising your résumé as an opportunity to learn more about you. Education—Oh where did you go to school? What did you study? Which devolved into you two telling stories about classes you liked, professors and teachers you loved and hated, and old school friends. Work Experience—So what actually was your official title? What were your job responsibilities? Which led to you fondly reminiscing in your times at the office with Jaemin and Renjun, talking about your training to be a Systems Analytics Specialist, and his disbelief in how exactly you even did your job. It was when you got to the Skills portion that you balked a little bit. It felt like your only skills were specific to the Factory: reading the matches from the computer, inputting match reports, keeping Renjun from killing Jaemin over a box of cereal. Sungchan helped you get a bit creative with your technological experience, creative thinking, quick learning, and conflict resolution skills.

As he walked you back to your apartment after getting dinner together, you were still asking him your never-ending stream of questions. “So what were you supposed to be doing with your friends today?”

“I was collecting.” He craned his neck up, and you followed his line of vision to look up at the few specks of light in the sky that you could see against the brightness of the city. “Gathering materials for collages. Thrift stores are pretty good for old magazines, books, newspapers, photo albums, all kinds of stuff. The guys were tagging along, they wanted to get lunch and do some shopping too.”

“Oh. Sorry for taking you away from them.”

He gave you a funny look. “No.”

“What?”

“No, you’re not going to apologize for that.”

You blinked at him in confusion. “Uh… I think I already did?”

He stopped you two in the middle of the sidewalk, devoid of other pedestrians, holding your eye contact very seriously. “Thank you for finding me today.”

“Oh,” you chuckled nervously. “You’re welcome. Thank you for… everything else about today. The look on your face when I found you—I was sort of afraid that you were going to run this time.”

He laughed, continuing to walk again. “Did I really look like that?”

“Through the window, yeah. When I came in the shop, though, it was more like… you thought you were dreaming. Like you were going to pinch yourself at any moment, just in case. Or you thought I was pranking you.”

“Well, you’ll have to understand why I didn’t want to get my hopes up too high; all our previous meetings didn’t quite have fairytale endings.”

“No, they didn’t,” you agreed.

“But this time felt different. So I let myself be a little hopeful,” he admitted with a grin, nudging your arm with his. “And I was right.”

“How’d you figure that?”

“You didn’t act like finding me was a terrible inconvenience, first.”

You winced. “Mm-mhm.”

“And the smile on your face when you ran in and grabbed my hand.”

“What about it?”

“I’d never seen you smile before that.” He then added a teasing, “I didn’t know if you could.”

“Hey! I wasn’t that bad.”

He snickered, affectionately bumping his elbow against yours again. You rolled your eyes, smiling as you elbowed him back. You arrived at the main entry to your building soon, and you stopped there to say goodbye to Sungchan. He looked between the door that you were standing in front of, and the familiar bus stop just a few meters down the road, well within view.

“Oh wow, it must have really freaked you out when I jogged by your stop, huh?” He commented, scratching the back of his head.

“Yeah, you can imagine the ‘ready to fistfight the divine universe’ energy I had in my body at that point.”

He laughed, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Pretty sure I witnessed some of it, too.”

You looked longingly at the bus stop, holding yourself, and sighed. “It’s going to be weird not getting up and going to work tomorrow.”

“So what are you going to do tomorrow? With no work?”

You passed a bubble side to side in your mouth as you thought, then shrugged. “Sleep in?”

“Great way to start the day.”

“And then… send my résumé to some of those places we found?”

“That’s a good idea.”

“Probably read outside somewhere if it’s a nice day?”

“Ooh, sounds nice.”

You dug your toe into the ground. “I don’t know, what are you doing?”

“Sleep in, and I promised Shotaro I’d help him with this thing, but then… if you don’t mind the company, I think reading outside sounds pretty lovely?”

“What are you helping Shotaro with?”

“Taking Instagram pictures.”

You let out a short round of giggles. “I’d like to spend time with you tomorrow too, Sungchan. Just let me know when you’re done helping Shotaro with that thing.”

“It’ll be the quickest photoshoot he’s ever done in his life.”

“No, still do it right!”

“It’ll be right, just quick.”

You shook your head disapprovingly, but the fond smile on your face very obviously negated that sentiment. “Goodnight, Sungchan.”

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

And with that, you unlocked your building door and gave him one last wave over your shoulder before closing and locking it back up behind you. Alone in the stairwell, you let out a sigh of contentment.

The next morning, you slept in on a Tuesday for the first time in a while and didn’t put on your red jumpsuit after getting out of bed. Instead, you shuffled out to your kitchen and made yourself breakfast, which you slowly enjoyed with a cup of tea. After taking your sweet time in a nice hot shower, you got into a t-shirt and pants, and sat on your couch to start sending in applications to new jobs. As you typed on your laptop, you’d catch the occasional flash of the red loop around your pinky finger, but instead of filling you with you dread or apprehension, it now made you smile a bit, and push on with your task, knowing you had someone right there in your corner just on the other end of that string. After a couple hours of filling out applications, searching through more prospective job listings, and finding a few new ones that had been posted since you and Sungchan looked yesterday, you deemed that to be plenty for your first morning of job hunting. It was nearly lunchtime, and you hadn’t left your apartment yet. Looking outside, you saw that it was sunny, with a few passing clouds creating occasional patches of shadow, and breezes gently rustled the leaves on the trees. A perfectly lovely day.

Gathering up a couple books, you packed a light going-out bag, then headed out. As you passed your bus stop, you thought of the regulars on your morning commute, and wondered if they noticed your disappearance this morning, and if they thought anything of it, like you thought of the primary school teacher sometimes. You hoped the sisters got to school okay, and that the elderly couple liked Sungchan’s exhibit, and even that the office workers who you had never spoken to had good days at work—not too terribly stressful. As you had just arrived at your destination and picked out the perfect spot to read, your phone buzzed with a text.

[sungchan: done! with a satisfied customer, might i add]

[you: oh good! i’m done with my applications for the morning too! out reading right now]

You sent your location, then took your book out as there was another buzz.

[sungchan: omw :) ]

You were so caught up in the chapter you were reading that you didn’t realize Sungchan had arrived until he set his bag down next to you. You jumped a little bit, closing the book on your thumb as you clutched your hand over your heart, which was now beating wildly out of rhythm.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to give you a scare.” Sungchan didn’t look that sorry, as he had a clearly amused smirk on his face as he looked down at you. “I did call your name.”

“It’s alright, sorry I didn’t hear you.” You waved off his apology, then nodded to the spot beside you for him to sit down. “Lovely day out, huh?”

“It is,” he agreed, stretching out his long legs as he settled in against the large tree trunk. He reached into his bag, and you looked with intrigue at what book he was going to read for today.

You perked up with interest as you recognized the cover immediately. “Oh, I’ve been wanting to read that book! I love that author. Just haven’t picked it up yet.”

“Yeah it uhm—” he cleared his throat awkwardly. “It was the book you were looking at when we met. The one you dropped.”

“You…”

“I didn’t know how long it was going to be until the next time I saw you, so I went back and bought it. You know, sort of hoping I could learn something about you in the meantime.”

“And in the meantime, I was scheming to undo our string…” You muttered, eyes falling to your lap.

“Which you, no offense, failed at,” he clicked his tongue and elbowed you teasingly. “I’ll speedread so you can borrow it after me, okay?”

“No, read it right! That author’s so good, you’ll miss stuff!”

“I’ll read it carefully! Just also super fast.”

“Those are literally antonyms when it comes to reading!” You insisted.

“You’ve never seen me speedread then.”

You smacked your open book over your face, despite knowing that he was joking. “Oh my god…”

Two weeks later, and you and Sungchan were going to The Soulmate Factory for your interviews. You were sort of surprised it had taken them this long to talk to you, but at the same time, that it was happening this quickly. It felt weird going to the Factory not in your jumpsuit, but you knew that would’ve been possibly the worst choice. So you instead put on something nice, presentable, but not overly formal. After all, it wasn’t your job interview again. Sungchan was wearing a button-up shirt, a stark contrast to the rather casual attire you’d always seen him in before. As the two of you entered the lobby of the Factory, you could see him looking around at everything with an air of suspicion.

You stopped at the front desk, giving the attendant a polite smile and starting to introduce yourself, despite having just been colleagues a few weeks ago, “Hi, uhm Y/L/N Y/N and Jung Sungchan, here for a 9:00 appointment with Ms. Kwon?”

“Of course,” she nodded, looking between you and Sungchan with a strained smile of her own. “You… two can have a seat. I’ll let her know you’re here.”

Leading Sungchan over to sit on a settee nearby, you looked around, taking a few deep breaths as your knee bounced up and down nervously on its own. You had gotten the two of you here fifteen minutes early, so you already knew that you’d be waiting for some time.

“Why did she say it like that?” He hissed to you under his breath.

“Say what?” You whispered back, looking at her out of the corner of your eye to see if she was listening, but it looked like she was taking an incoming call.

“You two can have a seat.” He repeated snidely. “And the way she looked at us? Looked at you? Like we’re the weird ones for being soulmates?”

“I told you, Sungchan, there’s a reason Bureau employees don’t get soulmates. People will think I rigged it somehow. Even other employees.”

“You said it was impossible for you to have messed with it. Shouldn’t they of all people know that?”

“Well, with me being a matchmaker…” You tried to think of how to succinctly sum this up without telling Sungchan too much stuff that he wasn’t supposed to know right before his interview. “Even other Bureau employees don’t know what goes on in the matchmaking room. I’m sure there’s been rumors since I’ve left.”

“But you didn’t do anything. What’s the point of working here if you’re just as bad as the people who don’t?”

“They also probably think that when this gets out I’m going to give the Bureau and the employees here a bad rep, make the public distrust them for a while. Even the employees that don’t think I did anything will probably hate me at least a little for that.”

“Well I still don’t like it,” he huffed, resting an arm along the back of the furniture behind you.

“You’re allowed to not like it. I’m just saying there’s not much we can do about it.”

He proceeded to focus his hater energy on making comments about the décor being tacky, and you couldn’t help but giggle quietly and join in. You never really thought about it much before, but being called The Soulmate Factory and having a color palette of red, pink, and white was a bit much. You two also had a small game of how many “subtle” red lines you could find in the designs of decorative throw pillows, rugs, carpeting, and pieces of abstract art on the walls. Finally, you heard footsteps coming down the stairs, and looked up to see a somewhat familiar face. It wasn’t Ms. Kwon, as you had hoped for, but Lee Jeno, one of the executive assistants that you often saw when he was sent down from the ninth floor on important errands by his bosses.

“Jung Sungchan?” He called, looking directly at Sungchan.

“Yeah, that’s me.” He lifted his hand that had been resting on his leg between pointing out tacky décor. He ushered you up with him with the hand that was behind you on the couch. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

“Sorry, just Mr. Jung right now,” Jeno clarified with a slight wince.

Sungchan looked like he was about to argue, but you patted his arm reassuringly. “It’ll be fine, Sungchan. I’ll see you in a bit, okay?”

He sighed, giving your shoulder a squeeze. “Alright, fine. I’ll be back soon.”

“Be good.”

“Always am.”

You watched him follow Jeno up the stairs, Sungchan casting you one last glance over his shoulder before the two of them fully disappeared from your view. It was then that you finally sat back down, and started chewing on your thumbnail.

Only fifteen minutes later Jeno came back down the stairs. Alone. “Y/N?” He addressed you more casually.

You stood up and didn’t hide the concern on your face as you looked around behind him. “Where’s Sungchan?”

“Mr. Jung has been moved to another waiting room. You’ll see him after your interview.”

Letting out a breath, you tried really hard not to shoot the messenger as you responded. “Fine. Lead the way, Jeno.”

The fact that you were going up the stairs and not to the elevator was interesting. You must not be going to his bosses’ floor, unless they wanted you to collapse on your way there.

“It’s good to see you again, by the way,” your former coworker said quietly. “I had to hand-deliver a memo to Ms. Kwon the other day and the matchmaking room was weirdly empty without you at your station.”

“Thanks.” A smile tugged at the corner of your mouth. “I wouldn’t have even noticed your presence if I was there but… it’s nice to know that someone noticed my absence.”

“Well, we did our intro training together. You don’t forget those people.”

“No, you don’t,” you agreed. “Us, Jaemin, Renjun, Donghyuck in Budgeting.”

“Is it nice? Your life now? Don’t tell me anything specific, I can’t know.”

You laughed. “I haven’t lived much of it, honestly. I’ve only been gone a few weeks.”

“That’s true. There’s just been so much that’s happened, it feels like a lifetime.”

“Yeah, it does.”

“But has it been good at least? Overall, you think?”

“Yeah, it’s good, Jeno. He’s good.”

“Of course he is. The computer never makes mistakes.” And with that, the two of you stopped in front of a conference room on the second floor. He nodded politely to you. “This is where I leave you. If I don’t see you again, I wish you the best, Y/N. With everything.”

“Thank you. Bye, Jeno.” You smiled at him, knocking on the door as he pivoted on his heel and walked down the hall.

“Come in.” Came a familiar voice from within. Opening the door, you saw two figures stand up from the small conference table. Ms. Kwon, and a man who wasn’t familiar to you at all.

“Y/N, hello,” Ms. Kwon nodded to you. She didn’t even let you open your mouth to greet her back, gesturing to the man with her. “I’m not sure if you ever had the pleasure to meet AD Yang of Risk Management while you were here.”

And in one curt sentence, she had told you everything you needed to know about the situation: This was the assistant director of the risk management department at the Bureau, aka the legal department, which meant that this was serious serious, this would not be some quick interview to check off boxes, and she had only been let in because of her job title and as a professional courtesy to her, she wouldn’t be in control of the processions. But most importantly—she was on your side, for whatever that was worth. And honestly, it was worth a lot to keeping your composure as you turned to face the man.

AD Yang was deceptively young, you wouldn’t have pinned him as being as high up in the Bureau as he was just by looking at him. He only looked to be maybe ten years older than you, not a touch of grey in his pristine black hair, and only a hint of the beginning of worry lines on his forehead. He wore a suit, as all Bureau Executives did—it was only the lower level workers like you who wore the red jumpsuits—though his looked just a little too big on him, and his red tie was a little loose and slightly crooked, as if he still hadn’t mastered tying it yet. Both these things only aided in making him look younger and inexperienced. But the air of caution Ms. Kwon had about the whole situation immediately let you know not to underestimate him. You were thinking maybe his dress choices were intentional, so people would do exactly that, let their guards down around him.

AD Yang offered you a practically boyish smile as he held out his hand across the table, which your former supervisor hadn’t even done. You gingerly shook it as he introduced himself. “Please, just Mr. Yang is fine. Ms. Kwon is always so formal, you know. And I’ll call you Ms. Y/L/N, so we’re all on the same level here.”

You nodded.

“I don’t think we ever did have the pleasure to meet, Ms. Y/L/N,” Mr. Yang kept talking, his tone conversational. He then said as if it were a joke, “People usually only see me when they’re in serious trouble, you know?” He laughed, the only one to, then reassured you, “That isn’t what’s happening here, don’t worry. We’re just going to ask you a few questions, then you and Mr. Jung can head on out and off to your new life together, okay?”

You nodded.

“So, why don’t we sit, hm?”

The three of you took your seats, the two of them on one side of the conference table, you on the other. Mr. Yang took a moment to shuffle his papers, then smacked his hand to his forehead as if he’d suddenly remembered something. “I’m sorry, would you like some water, Ms. Y/L/N?”

“No, thank you.”

“Alright, let’s get started then.” He reached for a small device in the middle of the table. “I’ll be needing to record this conversation. Is that alright, Ms. Y/L/N?”

“Sure, yeah.” Not like you could really say no.

“Great.” His boyish smile disappeared as soon as the recorder clicked on. He started by listing off the date and time, then addressed you. “This is AD Robert Yang, interviewing Ms. Y/L/N Y/N. Also present is Ms. Kwon Siyeon, Supervisor of Systems Analysis and Reporting. Ms. Y/L/N, you are aware that I’m recording this conversation, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

“Yes.”

“A few formalities before we begin: Since I have the recording going, I ask that you let me finish my question before you answer, even if you think you know what I’m going to ask. Cross-chatter is a bit difficult to parse out when you have to listen back to it.”

“Okay.”

“I also want you to answer everything aloud. No nodding or shaking your head, or ‘uh-huh’ or ‘nuh-unh.’” He showed the motions as he did them, and you could tell he had done this spiel many times before. “The non-verbal cues don’t translate great in an audio format.”

“Will do.”

“Thank you.” He cleared his throat, clicked his pen a couple of times, then looked up at you to begin with his first question. “Now, can you tell me how long you worked at The Bureau of Interpersonal Affairs prior to your resignation?”

“About five years.”

“Do you remember when your first day was?”

“Of training or on my own?”

“Training. After being hired.”

“Probably… spring five years ago. May, after I graduated.”

“Okay, good, good. And so you were hired, did your six months of standard training, right?”

“Right.”

“Then what happened?”

“I did more training to be a Systems Analytics Specialist.”

“How much?”

“Two and a half years.”

“So three years of training total, then you got to start on your own as a… Systems Analytics Specialist.”

“Yes.”

“I believe the other name for that position is matchmaker, correct?”

You bit down on your tongue to keep back an eyeroll. All of you in this room had to be aware that he was feigning ignorance right now. He might as well have asked if the Bureau was also sometimes called The Soulmate Factory. “Yes, we’re often called that as well.”

“More than Systems Analytics Specialist?”

“Yes.”

He jumped topics. “So why did you start working at the Bureau?”

“It sounded like a good place to work.”

“How so?”

“It seemed like the Bureau did good work. Helping people find their soulmates.”

“And you didn’t want to find yours?”

“I was willing to give that up for something bigger than me.”

“Did you join the Bureau with the intent of manipulating your soulmate match?”

“No.”

“Did you sign up to be a matchmaker with the intent of manipulating your soulmate match?”

“No. I didn’t sign up to be a matchmaker in the first place.”

“You didn’t?” He arched an eyebrow curiously.

“No.”

“How did you become a matchmaker?”

You glanced over at your former boss. “Ms. Kwon chose me at the end of my six months of basic training.”

“Why you?”

“I don’t know.” You shrugged.

“She didn’t tell you?”

“No.”

“You agreed to two and a half more years of training for a specialized position that doesn’t even recruit one new person a year without being told why you were suited for that position?”

“Yes. I was young and it paid better. I didn’t need to know.”

“When you were working as a matchmaker, were you ever asked by friends or family to manipulate their matches in any way, shape, or form?” He switched topics again. You weren’t sure if he was trying to disorient you, or if he simply decided that he was done with that line of questioning and wanted to move on with the next one.

You opened your mouth to say ‘no,’ then suddenly thought of the sisters on your bus in the mornings, recalling a day when the younger one had been crying as you got on, and her sister stopped you specifically. Tilting your head, you replied, “I once pinky promised a little girl that I wouldn’t match her with this smelly boy in her class. Does that count?”

“Yes.”

“Then yes.”

He made a show of scribbling something down on his notes, of which he had already filled up the first page of a large legal pad. AD Yang flipped to the next page as he announced, “I’m going to skip forward a little in time. When you found out you had the string, what did you do first?”

“Went home.”

“Went home?” He repeated.

“It showed up after work. So I went home.”

“Where were you?”

“The bus stop outside of the Bureau.”

“Around what time of day was this?”

“Between five and five-twenty.”

“That’s a pretty specific time frame. How do you know that?”

“It was after work ended but before my bus showed up.”

“So the Bureau was still open, then. There were still people inside that you could have reported this to, such as Ms. Kwon here?”

“I don’t know if there were people in the building, and certainly not if Ms. Kwon specifically was still in the building, since I was outside and could not see inside of the building,” you answered frankly.

“Right, of course.” He gave you a close-lipped smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Do people usually stay after five here, at the Bureau? To your knowledge?”

“Some people, sure, on some days.”

“So, it would have been a good guess, that there would’ve been somebody inside, when you realized that you had a string?”

“Possibly.”

“Then why didn’t you go back inside?”

“Honestly, I panicked,” you admitted, closing your eyes for a moment as you thought back to that night again. “I thought it was impossible for me to get one. I thought I might’ve been able to figure something out on my own.”

“Figure something out? Like what?”

You opened your eyes and gave a half-hearted ‘I-don’t-know’ gesture with your hands that had been resting on the tabletop, despite his prior instructions to keep non-verbal cues to a minimum. “Like what happened, what went wrong.”

“And did you?” He prompted.

“No. I didn’t.” Not even a little bit.

“And is that when you told Ms. Kwon? When you gave up?”

“No.” You told her when you decided you wanted to keep the string. Not because the dead-ends had frustrated you.

“Why did you tell her? Why not continue your renegade investigation?”

“You’re asking me why I followed proper protocol?”

“I’m trying to piece together what happened. All the events that happened, and exactly in what order. What happened that caused you to tell Ms. Kwon at the time that you did? Did you even tell her? Or was it found out? I’ve been assuming, I’m sorry.”

You narrowed your eyes slightly, but consciously relaxed your face back into a pleasantly neutral expression. Ms. Kwon would have obviously had to do her own report including all of the details of your conversation with her. He should know all of those particulars. Was he trying to catch Ms. Kwon in a lie?

“Yes, I chose to report it. Because I had done some self-reflection. And I don’t think there’s anything further to be said that is of import for the Bureau to know.”

There was a moment of still air as he held eye contact with you. Out of the corner of your vision, you saw Ms. Kwon’s lips part, as if she were about to say something, then she closed her mouth again, waiting. Mr. Yang cleared his throat.

“Sorry to jump around like this, I’m sure it must be disorienting, but I’m going to go back in time now.” He was very clearly not sorry at all. “Did you know Jung Sungchan before this incident?”

“No.”

“Had you ever met, seen, or heard of him in passing?”

“Not to my recollection, no.” Sure, you could have walked by him on the street before, but you had no way to know that.

“It’s my understanding that he’s an artist, you may have seen some of his work? Heard of him that way?”

“No.”

“So there was no reason that you would have wanted to manipulate your match with him?”

“No.”

“How soon after getting your string did you meet Mr. Jung?”

Now you felt like he was messing with you. “You have that data.”

“I’m asking you.”

“The string appeared on Monday evening, we met that Saturday morning.”

“So, less than a week?”

“Yes.”

“Quick.”

“I suppose,” you replied noncommittally.

AD Yang hummed a single note in the back of his throat as he looked over one of his papers, then his sharp eyes were back on you. “How many times did you meet before reporting your string to Ms. Kwon?”

You had to take a moment to think before answering. “Four, including the first meeting.”

“I’d like to return to your job, for a moment. Now, I have Ms. Kwon here with me not only because she was your boss, but because I obviously have no clue what goes on in that room when you guys work with the computer. Really, from what I’ve heard, it’s some incredible stuff. So she’s kind of here to help me out in case I go way off the mark with what I’m asking you with some of this.” He let out an imitation of a nervous laugh, grabbing a piece of paper from his stack. He pushed it over to you, asking, “Now, can you take a look at this for me?”

It was a nearly blank piece of copy paper, except for one long string of characters printed across it.

jkD%NVSC3%JCacN%vWS5#k!Z4GqGW#ZfMyqGUfc@wQT5L5vK2uWU5N*5Lg&6

“What do you see here, Ms. Y/L/N?” Mr. Yang questioned.

You looked up from the paper, having to consciously choose not to slip back into reading it and instead focus on the conversation at hand. “It’s raw match data from the computer. This is one match.”

“Does it look familiar to you at all?”

“I mean, it looks like every other match I’ve ever read.”

“So you don’t remember reading this specific match at all?”

“No, I don’t remember reading this specific match.” You didn’t even need to look at it again. Of course you didn’t remember it, they were all just a bunch of stuff that you read practically in a trance, there was no way you’d be able to remember any of them.

He grabbed another paper from his folder to show to you, a clipping from a spreadsheet of some kind, several columns showing a date, time, and eight-digit code that was unfamiliar to you, except for the letters appended to the end of it—your initials.

“According to our audit logs, this match was read at, and the match report submitted from, your station in the matchmaking room.”

“Okay.”

“Is it safe to assume, therefore, that you submitted the match report?”

“Was it during business hours?”

“Yes.”

“Was I swiped in?”

“Yes.”

“Did Ms. Kwon see me at my station during that time?”

“Ms. Kwon?” Mr. Yang prompted her without breaking eye contact with you.

“I do not have specific recollection of this day, so I cannot say in the affirmative or the negative,” she spoke for the first time since you had entered, and you had to suppress your smile at her response.

The man lifted his arms up and then down in a sort of ‘oh well’ motion. “We don’t know.”

“The electronic data does make it seem likely that I read this match and submitted this match report,” you finally said.

“This is your match with Mr. Jung.”

You tried not to show your utter shock on your face—you knew he wanted to get some kind of reaction from you—but you couldn’t help the sudden jolt forward in your seat as you went to pull the piece of paper closer to you again, your eyes drinking in the characters once more.

jkD%NVSC3%JCacN%vWS5#k!Z4GqGW#ZfMyqGUfc@wQT5L5vK2uWU5N*5Lg&6

There was still no way for you to distinguish specifics, but just knowing that somewhere in this seemingly meaningless string of nonsense was you and Sungchan, you kept rereading it, desperately wishing for it to feel special now.

“And how do you read the matches? Walk me through the process.” AD Yang’s voice brought your focus back to the present.

You exchanged a knowing look with Ms. Kwon. “I really can’t…”

“Trade secrets?” He said humorously. “It’s alright, I work at the Bureau.”

“No, I mean, it’s impossible to describe. I can’t tell you what I’m reading or how I know. I just do.”

“Then how do you know it’s right?”

“Because it is.”

Ms. Kwon stepped in then, “Mr. Yang, I’m advising you that you are getting close to questioning the computer and the program itself, not Ms. Y/L/N.”

He held his hands up in a sort of surrender. “Well that is certainly what we are not here to do, hm? Let me just take a look at my notes, and make sure I’ve covered everything. Should only be a few more minutes of your time, Ms. Y/L/N.”

AD Yang kept you in there until you started watching the sun begin its journey downwards in the sky. At some point, you started going in circles, and you knew he was just trying to catch you in lies, or confuse you, or get you to admit more than you had before out of exhaustion, or in hopes that he’d let you out. But you gave no different answers, no contradictory or new information, and you knew he’d eventually let you out. After all, there was no proof anywhere that you had done anything wrong, because you hadn’t. The most they could really get on was not telling someone at the Bureau sooner when you’d gotten your string but what could they actually do? Fire you?

When Mr. Yang finally declared the interview over, and turned the recorder off, you had to keep in your groan of relief. Instead, you maintained your composure, standing up when they did in order to shake their hands.

“Thank you very much for your time, Ms. Y/L/N. I do apologize for taking so much of your day, that had not been my intention,” Mr. Yang once again laughed as he shook your hand. “But this was very helpful, and I promise, yours and Mr. Jung’s answers are going to help us here at Bureau improve the way we do things in the future.”

“Right. It was nice meeting you, Mr. Yang.” You nodded politely to him, then turned to your old boss, a genuine smile coming to your face. “It was good seeing you again, Ms. Kwon.”

“Jeno had something to do, so I’ll show you out, Y/N.” She informed you, gesturing to the door.

The two of you were quiet as you walked through the halls of the second floor, until you finally reached a small waiting area on the other end of the building, made up of only a few uncomfortable-looking armchairs. Sungchan was the only person there, slumped down in a chair and bouncing his leg as he cracked his knuckles. He looked up when he heard footsteps, jumping to his feet as soon as he saw you, and while you would’ve felt a little weird about running in an office, he clearly didn’t care, taking just a few long strides to reach you and wrap his arms around you.

“God, Y/N! There you are! What the hell? Why the fuck did they keep you so long? They wouldn’t tell me anything, just that you were still being interviewed and I could either leave or keep waiting. I wasn’t going to leave but—”

“I’m fine, Sungchan, I’m fine,” you reassured him, hugging him back despite the slight awkwardness you felt with Ms. Kwon still definitely being right there. “We’ll talk about it later, okay?”

He didn’t say anything else, just kept holding you as you turned around in his arms to address Ms. Kwon.

“Uhm, we’re good to leave, right? Do you need anything else from us?”

She was clearly fighting back a smile as she replied, “I ask that you wait just a little bit longer, okay?”

“Okay, sure,” you nodded. “What is it? Something for me to sign? An NDA or something?”

“Just a moment, okay?” And with that, she left.

“God, I fucking hate it here,” Sungchan grumbled into your shoulder. “Let’s just go, whatever NDA or whatever the hell they want you to sign is going to suck and be coercive as shit and not worth it. It probably won’t even be enforceable or whatever.”

“I can’t even tell how much of that is even good or bad legal advice. I think all of it was probably bad?”

“It’s definitely going to be written by that fucking skeeze who interviewed you for like seven hours straight, which means it’s going to be bad.”

“What if it’s stuff for my severance pay and benefits? Ms. Kwon also said she’d write me a letter of rec if the investigation went well—”

“Y/N!” “Y/N!” You were cut off by two familiar voices calling your name from down the hall, and whipped your head around to look, your jaw dropping in disbelief. Jaemin and Renjun were rushing towards you, waving all four of their arms wildly, as if you could miss them. You squealed, darting over to them and throwing your arms around their necks.

“Oh my god!” You laughed as they hugged you tightly. “I wasn’t expecting to see you guys today!”

“We were specifically not told when you were coming,” Renjun admitted. “I even got blocked out of the Executive calendars for the month.”

“Ms. Kwon just came and got us,” Jaemin said. “Though, word had already spread.”

“Are you sure you want to be seen with me?” You double-checked, looking around despite being in a rather empty corner of the building. “I don’t know what people have being saying, but based on the less-than-warm-welcome we got at reception, it doesn’t seem like it’s been good.”

“Do we want to be seen with our friend?” Renjun poked the right side of your head.

“Duh.” Jaemin poked the left side of your head.

“Yeah, I didn’t miss that.” You scowled at them.

“It’s so weird seeing you in normal clothes,” Jaemin commented, making you really look between their jumpsuits and your blouse and pants.

“It’s still a bit weird being in normal clothes,” you sighed.

“So… you going to introduce us?” Renjun nodded to where Sungchan was still standing awkwardly by himself in the waiting area.

“Yeah, come on!” You grabbed them by the arms to drag them over. Sungchan looked up from where he had been busying himself with a loose thread on his dress shirt, eyes landing expectantly on you. You let go of your friends to loop your arm with his. “Sungchan, this is Jaemin and Renjun, we used to work together. Jaemin’s desk was next to mine out in the bullpen, and Renjun was a few desks down from us. Guys, this is Jung Sungchan, my soulmate.”

You could hear your voice pitch up with giddiness as you introduced Sungchan in that way, and watched as his face relaxed into a smile as soon as you had called him your soulmate. He offered his free hand out to the other two.

“Nice to meet you guys,” he said sincerely. “I’ve heard good things from Y/N.”

“Then she must’ve been talking about a different Jaemin,” Renjun snorted.

“And a different Renjun,” Jaemin agreed.

“So, what are the wild theories about how I did it?” You asked. “Not the official one, I know you two don’t know that. But the breakroom gossip, the water cooler chat, the cereal death match chatter.”

“Rumor has it…” Jaemin lowered his voice and leaned in conspiratorially. “You were desperate to reunite with a long-lost childhood love and that’s why you applied to be a matchmaker.”

You snorted. “Cheesy.”

“I heard one about Ms. Kwon being in on it because you’re her secret daughter,” Renjun grinned.

“Ooh, that one’s good.”

“With someone with a string.”

You mock gasped. “Scandalous.”

Jaemin added, “I heard a version sort of like that, but you were Ms. Kwon and the Director’s secret daughter, which is obviously how you had enough pull to get it to happen.”

“Then how did I end up with my parents? Did they pay them off to adopt me?” You frowned, trying to figure out this bonkers drama plot of your fake life.

“Get this…” Jaemin paused for dramatic effect. “Your dad is the Director’s secret brother. So your parents are actually your aunt and your uncle.”

“I should’ve thought of that!” You shook your head, laughing.

“A lot of people don’t think you did anything, though,” Renjun assured you. “Seriously, most of the stuff I’m hearing is people being surprised that it hasn’t happened before.”

“That’s good to know.”

“PR is going to have a hell of a time,” Jaemin chuckled.

“Sucks to be Mark Lee right now, huh?” You grinned.

“Oh, I know that man has been sleeping under his desk for the past two weeks.”

You wrinkled your nose. “God, the seventh floor has got to be fucking rank by now. Please tell me Jeno and Donghyuck have at least been making him go home to shower.”

“Chenle did.” Your friends said in unison, making you burst into laughter at the mental image.

“God, I would’ve paid money to see that.” You chuckled. As much as you loved seeing your friends again, this wasn’t where you belonged anymore, and you had skipped lunch in that unnecessarily long interview. So with a sigh, you announced, “Anyway, it was so good to see you guys again, but we need to get going, and I’m sure you have work to finish up.”

“Unfortunately,” Renjun sighed.

“We’ll get drinks—dinner and drinks, the usual place—all four of us,” Jaemin declared as he went in to hug you goodbye. “Okay?”

“For sure,” you agreed with a grin. “You still need to give me my fucking book back, Na Jaemin.”

“He’s just a fucking thief!” Renjun complained as he went to hug you as well. “Bye, Y/N. See you again soon.”

The guys all exchanged a final wave and ‘nice to meet you,’ before your former coworkers headed back. You looked up at Sungchan, about to ask if he was ready to go, and saw him already gazing down at you thoughtfully.

“What?” You asked instead, furrowing your brow.

“Now I get how you could stand working here for five years.” He rubbed your back. “It wasn’t the Factory itself; it was the people you found here.”

“W-Well yeah. I liked my coworkers. But I also liked my job.”

“Yeah, but I like my job too, and I work alone at my studio. I like that. I prefer that. If I had to make small talk with a bunch of different people all day on top of doing my job, I think I’d start biting people,” he explained. “You didn’t just make small talk, you made friends.”

“I guess I’m a people person,” you shrugged, never really thinking about something that was so normal to you. “Is that weird?”

“No, it’s good. Just want to make sure you have people around that you like at your new job too.” He wrapped an arm around your shoulders, pulling you close to him. “Now come on, if your lunch in there was anything like mine out here, then it was approximately four saltine crackers and some water.”

“Where are we going to eat?” You asked as the two of you headed towards the stairs.

“I live nearby. I want to talk about whatever the fuck that skeeze did in there for seven hours.” His voice was tense again at the mention of the interview. After a beat, he tacked on almost nervously, “If that’s okay. We can go somewhere else if you want.”

You encircled an arm around his waist as the two of emerged into the empty courtyard. “Your place works for me. I agree, we shouldn’t talk about that out in the open.”

Despite Sungchan both picking you up and walking you home from seeing each other many times over the past couple weeks, you had yet to actually be in each other’s homes before. You hadn’t even seen the outside of his place. You knew the general area of where he lived, as he had mentioned it while giving context for some stories he’d told you. The two of you also hadn’t been this… touchy before. Whenever you saw him, it always felt sort of like you were hanging out with a friend, if you ignored the string. You didn’t hug hello or goodbye, didn’t hold hands, nothing other than the little teasing elbow digs. It never occurred to you to really bring it up to him before, that technically, according to Bureau statistics, you two were taking it slow, because that would be a fucking weird thing to say—and also, you didn’t mind. You didn’t mind doing this at whatever pace it happened at.

But now, all of this all at once, it was making you a bit dizzy. In a good way, if that was possible, but still off-kilter.

Sungchan stopped in front of the door to a townhouse in a long row of townhouses, each one with a different, colorfully painted door. His was pistachio green. When he finally opened it up and pulled you in by the hand, you immediately started looking around with eager eyes. He said he hated people looking at his art and making assumptions about him, but he said nothing about his home.

“Kitchen, living room, and laundry room are on the first floor, bedroom and bathroom are on the second,” he told you over his shoulder, taking you through a narrow entryway before emerging into the connected living room and kitchen area. You already knew his studio was at a different location from his home due to the sheer scale of the pieces he made.

His walls were all filled with art, but you immediately figured it wasn’t his. They were drawings, paintings, doodles on napkins, anything and everything. It looked like dozens, maybe even hundreds of different artists in all sorts of styles. Some professional, but most clearly not.

“Everyone who comes to my place has to pay,” he explained. “They owe me a piece of art.” Walking over to the very first wall that your eyes would see upon entering, he pointed to a piece of copy paper with random crayon scribbles on it that was displayed dead in the center. He grinned. “Not even babies are exempt. My nephew.”

“What happens when you fill up your walls?” You asked curiously, following him into the kitchen, which had even more art.

“Guess I’ll have to find a bigger place with bigger walls.” He seemed to be searching for a specific piece, then pointed to a small napkin drawing of seven cartoon heads grinning. “Sohee. Guy said he couldn’t draw then busted that out after some soju. With a pen! I know you haven’t met the other guys, but it looks just like us. Guess which one’s me.”

You hummed thoughtfully, then pointed to a face in the top left.

“Yep!” He beamed proudly, as if it had been his own drawing. He started naming all the other guys in the drawing. “Shotaro, Wonbin, Sohee, Seunghan, Anton, and Eunseok.” Then, he drew your attention to what looked like an invoice for air conditioning repair services, with a pencil sketch of an older woman in the corner of it. “A/C repair guy. Just pulled that out of nowhere. It’s his wife, they met when he went up to her in public saying she was so beautiful he had to draw her. That was before they had their strings. He said he just knew, would’ve known without the string anyway. His art didn’t take off, hence why he was my A/C repair guy.”

“So is it a piece of art every time a person comes over, or just one piece of art, and that’s the toll paid forever?”

“One piece of art per person, debt is cleared forever,” he clarified, opening his fridge to root around in it. “I’ve had some artist friends defer their pieces for future visits because they wanted to make a proper, good piece. You know, put real time into it.”

“It’s good, Sungchan,” you grinned, still looking around at more of the art on the walls. “I love it all.”

“I know, now I don’t have to worry about my furniture matching my décor.”

“Yeah, but it’s also…” You breathed in happily as you tried to figure out how to say it. “You called me a people person earlier. You are too, just in a different way.”

He looked around doubtfully. “You think so? I literally said I would bite people if I had to talk to them. I don’t know if my people skills are really up to par for being labelled a people person.”

“Your entire house is wallpapered in art from just ordinary people that you’ve met. Your friends and family, an A/C repair guy. Call me crazy, but I think you like people.”

“Huh. Never thought of it like that.” He grabbed a few more things from the fridge, then the pantry. “Anton just calls it a weird powerplay, and one time Eunseok said he thought I like ‘asserting my dominance.’”

You laughed, “Maybe you’ve just got weird friends if they think you asking them to make you art is you trying to dominate them.”

“Not going to argue with you there.”

“Can I defer my art to another visit?” You requested. “I mean… I’ll probably be over more than once, right?”

He smiled softly. “Probably. And sure, you can defer. But you’re not getting out of it just because you’re my soulmate. If anything, I think that means you definitely owe me something I can point to when people come over and say, ‘my soulmate made that one.’”

After getting a quick and simple lunch together, you and Sungchan took it to his living room to eat, as he didn’t have a dining table. You sat with your back against the arm of the couch, facing Sungchan as your legs were criss-crossed under you.

You started, “So, what did AD Yang—” “Who?”

“The guy who interviewed us? The man with Ms. Kwon?”

“Oh, the skeeze.”

“Yeah. So what did Mr. Yang—” “Who?”

You rolled your eyes, fighting to keep the amused smile off your lips. “So what did the skeeze ask you? I want to know that first, before we talk about mine. Because like, when I think about the amount of time it took Jeno to walk you up there, introductions, goodbyes, then for Jeno to take you to the waiting room, then come get me… I mean, that whole time was like fifteen minutes. So you probably only talked to them for a few minutes, right?”

“Yeah, I mean, it was just a bunch of stuff they probably already knew.” He shrugged. “When did I realize I had the string? When did you and I meet? Did I know that you worked at the Factory when we met? When did I learn that you worked at the Factory? Did I know you before the string? Did I know anybody else at the Factory who could have manipulated the match for me? Then… that was it.”

“Makes sense. You didn’t have any ties to the Factory other than me.”

“So what the fuck happened in there that the skeeze thought he needed to take seven fucking hours?”

“I don’t think it would have taken that long, except…” You scratched your head awkwardly. “I’m the one who read our match and submitted the match report.”

Sungchan’s eyes widened. “Wait, really? But how did you not— Don’t you look that stuff up?”

“Reading the matches, and looking up the profiles, it’s all anonymous. It’s not like I saw it and my brain read it as ‘Jung Sungchan and Y/L/N Y/N.’ It was just… sort of like, the impression of profile numbers, I guess? It was like any other match to me, there was nothing special about it to me.” You screwed your face up as you desperately tried to both explain the matchmaking process to someone who had never been near the process at all, and as you tried to recall anything about that specific match at all, which you of course couldn’t. “And the profile numbers when I looked them up, it didn’t show me names or pictures, or any sort of identifying data when I would do that. It’s all completely anonymous, for good reason.” When you opened your eyes again, Sungchan was still staring at you, and your stomach dropped as you realized what you had just said. “Sungchan, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s not that you’re not special, of course you are, but when I would be matching, you’re sort of not yourself and—”

“Woah, woah, sorry, I didn’t mean to zone out and make you worry like that,” he apologized, setting his bowl aside and turning to fully face you. “I was just thinking… How many people get to say that their soulmate was the one who gave them their own red string? Like, that’s so cool.”

“Uh… nobody? We’re probably the only ones.”

“Exactly. It doesn’t matter if it felt special to you in that moment or not. Because it still was. I mean, did it feel special when you decided to stop and look at that book at the bookstore? In the split-second that you made the decision?”

You shook your head. “No, I just, wanted to look at the book.”

“And me running after the Frisbee when Anton missed for like the sixth time that morning didn’t feel special in that second. But both of those things were, because it took both of them happening at the same time for us to meet.”

You chewed on your bottom lip, looking down at your food, then up at Sungchan. Setting your bowl aside as well, you then asked, “Is that what a soulmate is, then?”

“What? A Frisbee nearly hitting you in the face?”

“No,” you chuckled. “I mean—Jaemin, Renjun, and I were talking one night, and we were debating about what a soulmate really was. I was in an existential spiral over our red string, they were having a fun little philosophical discussion. They didn’t know about the string yet. We couldn’t decide if a soulmate was just the best that you do, or somebody who would make you better, or infinite second chances.”

“So what do you think a soulmate is now?”

“Someone that makes all the nooks and crannies in your life special, even if they wouldn’t usually be. Just by being there.”

Sungchan absolutely beamed, nodding enthusiastically. “Yeah, yeah. I… like that.”

“What do you think a soulmate is?”

“I’ve always figured every pair of soulmates needs something different from each other,” he replied. “And I think you figured out what we need from each other. To make all the nooks and crannies of our lives special just by being there.”

“Okay…” You agreed softly, a fond smile coming to your lips as he offered his hand out, palm out. You set your hand atop his, your chest squeezing your heart at the same time Sungchan squeezed your hand.

“Now… tell me everything that fucking skeeze said. Everything you can remember.”

“Oh my god, Sungchan.”

“You were in there for seven hours, Y/N!”

“He asked me the same one and a half hours of questions like five times. I was going to start biting people by hour three.”

[sungchan: omw :) ]

[you: okey!]

[sungchan: :( ]

[you: okey! :) ]

[sungchan: :) ]

Laughing to yourself at Sungchan’s attachment to emoticons in texts, you grabbed the last few things that you’d need for your date today. It was the last week that his exhibit was available at the museum, and between your hectic schedule of interviews, and phone interviews, and callback interviews for jobs, in addition to his own schedule, this was finally the day that you two had been able to arrange to go together. A few minutes later, your phone lit up again.

[sungchan: outside :) ]

[you: omw down <3 ]

You saw him start typing, but then he stopped, presumably figuring that he’d be able to tell you whatever it was to your face in thirty seconds. Rushing down, you threw open the front door already with a smile that only grew tenfold as you looked up at Sungchan.

“Hi!” You greeted him, locking up behind you before giving him a hug.

“Good morning.” He readjusted your jacket, pulling it more snugly around your collar for you. “You going to be warm enough in that?”

A cold snap had come through last night, dropping the temperature and forcing you to get your fall wardrobe out early. You raised an eyebrow, looping your arm with his to pull him over to the bus stop to wait. “The museum is heated inside, isn’t it?”

“Well yeah…”

“Then I think my biggest problem would be having to carry a heavy jacket around the museum the whole time.”

When the bus arrived, you were just a bit disoriented by there being completely different passengers—after all, it was a different time of day than your previous daily commute, and you and Sungchan went to sit in a different row. You took the window seat, always loving to watch the passing scenery, and to give Sungchan the extra leg room of the aisle. As the bus took off, you squinted, unable to see much through the fogged-up glass. Sungchan reached a hand past you, and you watched with interest as he drew a heart in the condensation on the window. You giggled and took your own pointer finger to the empty space in the heart, carefully tracing out JSC, then your initials, then a plus in the middle, feeling very much like a preteen doodling on your math homework.

When you looked back at him, you saw that his ears were pink, and you weren’t sure if it was from the cold or not, but he grabbed your right hand with his left, both of your index fingers still a bit chilly from drawing on the window. He rested your linked hands on your lap, and though you couldn’t quite see it from this angle, you knew that the string that connected your pinkies was complete. You leaned your head on his shoulder to look out the window, through the lines made with your little heart.

At the art museum, you excitedly stuck your visitor sticker to your shirt before pulling Sungchan in further by the hand. You looked up at the huge skylight in the main atrium, providing an abundance of natural light on a large abstract sculpture in a bold orange color. “It’s beautiful in here.”

“Have you ever been to this museum?” Sungchan asked curiously as you stopped to watch a cloud pass over the skylight.

“No, I haven’t,” you replied quietly, turning your gaze down to the sculpture in front of you. “I’ve lived here my whole life and it’s one of those places that I’ve always been meaning to go to but, I don’t know, I just haven’t yet.”

“Yeah, I’ve got some places like that,” he said in understanding. “Let’s make a list, both of us. And we’ll cross them off together.”

“Okay, yeah.” You smiled at him, squeezing his hand. “Together.”

Sungchan’s exhibit was in the first gallery past the lobby atrium, and you two had gone at a pretty perfect time for it to be empty of everybody except the docents. You came to a stop as soon as you entered, unsure of where to put your eyes first. When you heard large-scale mixed media collages, you weren’t sure if you had really processed how large ‘large-scale’ was. The gallery was probably fifty meters across, the longest wall being taken up entirely by one single piece. There were only five pieces total in the gallery, one on each wall and one suspended in the middle of the room. You were sure that you could spend hours just looking at one of them.

You decided to start at the one closest to you, and work your way towards the back, where the entrance to the next gallery was. There was a plaque with information about the piece and the artist on it, which you entirely discarded. You commented on things you liked or found interesting as if you were just talking to yourself, not expecting Sungchan to respond at all. And truly, you were just talking to yourself, mostly gasping and muttering all of these things under your breath with delight—after all, you were in a museum, you had to use your inside voice. He’d sometimes chuckle or hum with interest, but that was the extent of him engaging with your commentary, just following you as you slowly trailed down the pieces, then sometimes jumped back to a place that you had already looked over as you made a connection, then went down again. Until you finally made it to the behemoth piece.

Despite being the largest, it had the most fine detail, the smallest individual parts making it up. And that almost felt intentional. Part of you wanted to ask Sungchan that, but you bit your tongue. Instead, you raked your eyes over every square centimeter, drinking in as much as you possibly could. The docent who was standing in the corner switched out while you were looking over that piece, and for a brief second, you wondered if any of the employees had recognized Sungchan. It had never occurred to you that random people on the street would, but in the art museum where he quite literally has an exhibit displaying his art, under his real name… If they did, nobody had made any indication as to such.

Then your attention was sucked back in by the collage in front of you. By the time you were finished, you weren’t sure how much time had passed, only that your feet hurt. You didn’t say anything to Sungchan, only gave his exhibit one more proud look before turning the corner into the next gallery. This one had a dark, heavy curtain dividing it from the rest of the museum, and you immediately knew why. There was a sign at the beginning, the letters lit up so you could read it: ‘The Beauty of Light’

The building’s main overhead lights were completely out, so that the only light provided was from a few along the floor so you could see your step, and the exhibit itself. There were mirrors, glass panes, and colorful lights set up all around the room, refracting all sorts of seemingly impossibly arrays of colors and designs along the surfaces.

“Woah…” You breathed out, reaching out to catch a rainbow on your palm, immediately laughing with wonder.

“It’s interactive,” Sungchan informed you, adjusting the equipment making the rainbow so that there was a whole starburst of rainbows all across you.

“Okay, that’s really fucking cool.” You could feel the huge grin on your face.

“I really didn’t want to see you reacting to my art, actually. I usually hate seeing people looking at my works.”

You looked up at him, confused. “Then why did you want to come with me?”

“I knew they had this exhibit here, and I knew I had to be there when you saw it.” He moved the glass just a bit more, and you weren’t sure where the rainbows had ended up now, but he seemed satisfied as a tender smile came to his lips. “Beautiful.”

“It’s incredible,” you gushed, looking around the room at more of the cool effects being done with lights, then back to Sungchan. You held your hand out towards him, and he walked out from behind the equipment, taking your hand again. Now that he was next to you, some of the rainbows were sticking to his skin and clothes, and you couldn’t help but smile as one caught on his nose.

“Thank you for bearing through the horror of seeing somebody see your art to experience this with me,” you half-teased, swinging your linked hands. Though your words were exaggerated, your sentiment was sincere.

“I said I usually hate seeing people look at my works, but I liked watching you in the exhibit. It didn’t feel like you were performing for me,” he said with a grin. “I could probably watch you watch paint dry.”

“You’re being hyperbolic,” you scoffed.

“I’ve got some paint at my place, want to find out?”

“As thrilling as that sounds, maybe later,” you snorted. “I’m not done with the beauty of light.”

“Hey, no complaints here.” Sungchan ran his thumb over your cheek, still looking down at you with an unbelievable tenderness in his gaze. “Hm…”

“What?” You whispered, your voices suddenly sounding too loud in the empty gallery. The docent had stepped out, and another hadn’t come back in. It was just you and Sungchan in this room.

“Tried to wipe the rainbow off your cheek…”

“Let me guess, didn’t work?”

“Well, it did, kind of.”

“Kind of?”

“Moved to your mouth.” He traced the bottom line of your bottom lip with the very tip of his thumb, and you felt like you weren’t breathing, waiting for him to do something, anything.

“Sounds like a problem.” You put your hand over his, pushing it to your face so he was cradling your cheek.

Sungchan was smiling as he kissed you, you could feel it in the sweet press of his lips to yours, the soft tilting of your chin up to meet his. You squeezed the hand down by your side even tighter. He broke the kiss as gently as he had started it, still smiling down at you. You suddenly shot up to your tiptoes and wrapped your hand around his neck to pull his head down so you could peck the bridge of his nose, giggling when you had released him and he stood back up with a confused but affectionate look on his face.

“And what was that for?” He asked with a chuckle.

“You had a rainbow on your nose.” You told him very seriously. “We’ve established that you have to kiss them off, obviously.”

“Well in that case—” He proceeded to kiss your forehead, cheek, hair, and mouth again in quick succession.

You were laughing, your entire body buzzing from head to toe as you leaned against him both in a bid just be closer, and also because you felt like your knees might just give out. When you heard footsteps enter the gallery again, you bit your lip to stop your giggles, and Sungchan left you with one more fleeting peck to your temple before standing up straight and bringing you over to the next area of the exhibit.

Groaning and sleepily rolling over onto your back, you were vaguely aware of the fact that you had rolled directly back into someone’s chest, and contentedly snuggled further into your position. An arm snaked around your waist, pulling your hips flush to theirs, and you smiled to yourself as you started drifting back off to sleep.

“Y/N?” Came a low rumble of your name from behind you.

You were nearly asleep again, and decided to just pretend you didn’t hear him.

“Baby?” He whispered, a little louder.

“Shh, Sungie,” you hummed. “Still sleeping.”

“Y/N…”

“Sungchan, my love, shut the fuck up and let me sleep.”

Deciding your discussion was finished, you rolled onto your front again and pushed your face into your pillow. He just followed you to that side of the bed, and you felt the pillow dip as he rested his head on it as well. Sungchan ran a hand up and down your spine, the covers dropping lower with his movements.

Realizing that he wasn’t going to be letting you sleep in today, you lifted your face out of your pillow and propped yourself up on your elbows to glare at him. “What is so important that I can’t sleep in on a Saturday when I don’t have to open?”

“You said you wanted to go to that breakfast place, and it closes in an hour,” he informed you quietly, face reminding you very much of a guilty puppy in that moment.

You looked at the time on his bedside clock, and flopped back down with a groan. “Well it’s too fucking late now. Next week.”

“Sorry, baby.” He squeezed your shoulder. “I would’ve woken you up sooner, but usually you’re the one who wakes me up for this kind of stuff. I just woke up a couple minutes ago.”

“Mm, it’s okay, Sungie,” you sighed and turned onto your back, offering him a sleepy smile to let him know that you weren’t mad at him at all. Now in a particularly lovely and warm patch of sunlight, you couldn’t imagine even getting up to go to the bathroom, much less a restaurant. “I think my sleep schedule from working at the Factory is finally gone. My body isn’t used to getting up for a nine to five anymore.”

“Oh, hold on.” He reached for his phone off the nightstand, and you immediately knew what was coming based on his change in demeanor. With a half-resigned, half-endeared sigh, you threw an arm over your face to hide it as he stood up to start taking pictures of you. He called for you with a slight whine in his voice, “Baby…”

“I have bedhead and morning breath, Sungie.”

“You can’t tell if you have morning breath in a picture.”

“And the bedhead?”

“So? Prettiest bedhead I’ve ever seen.”

“Subject gets to decide if you see her bedhead.”

He was quiet, but his pout was deafening as he continued taking pictures of you laying in the morning sunlight.

“Actually…” There was a curl of a smile in his tone as he plopped back down on the mattress. “I like it. Reminds me of those Baroque statues of Greek goddesses.”

You dropped your arm from your face and shuffled closer to be able to peer at his screen. The similarity of the pose was uncanny, but it also reminded you of something else.

“Or Ophelia…” You snorted.

“She doesn’t have an arm over her face.”

“Yeah but like, the general vibe, you know?”

He laughed, sinking into the pillows to make a few minor edits to the color toning. You settled your head on his chest to mindlessly watch him work, knowing that at least one of these photos would be printed out and added to the wall.

When you had admitted to him one night that you felt a lot of pressure over what piece of art to make him to put on his walls as part of his house rule, he suggested that the two of you make one together. So far all of his guests’ art had been relegated to the first floor, so the walls of his bedroom were entirely blank. Starting in the middle of the largest wall, above the long side of his bed, you two had begun a collage. Adding pictures that you two took of each other, pictures other people took of you two, pictures you took of places that you went on dates together, and any miscellaneous thing from your time that had acquired fond memories and Sungchan could figure out a way to stick to the wall. It had slowly started growing, and sometimes you liked to just lay in bed and look at it. One time you’d asked Sungchan what he was going to do when he moved out of this place, and he’d said cut out that section of wall and take it with him. At the time, you had laughed, but now you weren’t so sure it was a joke. Honestly, they could just put more wall in, right?

“There,” Sungchan murmured with finality, and you heard his portable photo film printer start whirring to life from his desk in the corner.

“Put it up later,” you requested, wrapping an arm around his middle and burying your face in his neck. “Don’t want you get up…”

“Fine by me.” He hugged you to him tightly, readjusting you so you were practically on top of him. “Are you on the afternoon shift or the closing shift?”

“Ahrin had her sister’s wedding today, so I’m doing afternoon and closing.”

“God, nobody else could take her shift?”

“I needed the money,” you shrugged. “Severance pay is gone and amazingly, part-time bookstore clerk doesn’t pay as well as full-time matchmaker at the Factory did.”

You’d been having a difficult time finding a job since quitting the Factory. Despite companies and organizations seemingly tripping over themselves to want to interview you, it was crickets when it came time to actually follow through after that. Even with your immaculate letter of recommendation from Ms. Kwon. At most of the interviews, you got the distinct impression that they just wanted a chance to meet the Factory employee who “rigged it,” and not actually interview you. After all, who would want such a dishonest and untrustworthy employee at their company. The only place that had offered you a job was your favorite bookstore by the park, which you were more than grateful for.

“I told you, you can live here,” Sungchan reminded you gently.

“I already practically do,” you retorted. “But I still have a lease on my place, and have to pay whether I’m here seven days a week or not.”

“Then why don’t you cut your lease? Isn’t there an early leave payment or something? That has to be cheaper than continuing to pay for the next however many months when you don’t even live there.”

“I—” You swallowed thickly, your voice getting smaller. “You really mean that?”

“Of course I mean that.”

“Me actually moving in?”

“Yes, you actually moving in.”

“Okay.” You beamed into his shirt. “I’ll look into the early leave payment.”

“Send your lease to Jihun to look over,” he suggested, referencing his sister’s husband.

“He’s not a lawyer.”

“No, but he’s got a couple. And he’s good with contracts and haggling. Bet he can get that fee payment cut in half.” You lifted your head, about to argue with asking for favors like that, when Sungchan cupped your jaw and tilted your chin so you were looking right at him. His red string hung in the air just in the corner of your eye. He held your gaze steadily. “It’s what family does, Y/N.”

“Okay,” you murmured, nodding against his hand. “Yeah, family.”

He pulled you forward and up to crash your lips together, his fingers tangling in your hair, and your hands flew to his chest to keep yourself upright. You felt your love for him filling every nook and cranny of your body, and you knew it was something special, because it was yours.

➥ masterlist

#sungchan x reader #riize x reader #sungchan imagines #riize imagines #sungchan #sungchan imagine #riize imagine #nct x reader #nct imagine #nct imagines #jung sungchan #i: sungchan #f: tsf #writing #text #mine #bias tag #*100 #*200

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