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wongyuuu · 3 months

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midnight rain | lsm

pairing: seokmin x f!reader genre: angst, smut, a little bit of fluff word count: 17k summary: after seven years away, you finally return home. meeting seokmin again wasn't in your plans, but life wasn't willing to let you have it your way. warnings: minors do not interact, kissing, oral, swearing, penetrative sex, unprotected sex (don't do this) a/n: this is part of 1k event, it was requested the dearest @ressonancee. but also, it's part of svt ans songs from midnights. i just wrote two in one and something that was supposed to be short became this monster. i hope i wrote seokmin in a way you'll like it. prompt: “I don’t want anyone else. No one else can make me feel like you do." Seokmin ➝ Midnight Rain He was sunshine, I was midnight rain ↳ it was the oldest story in the world, the bright boy fell for the grumpy girl.

Letter #1

Seokmin,

You know, I've always been very proud of not being a very attached person. I've always been proud that I can put myself first and second, because I know I need to do it, because I know that no one else will do it for me. So, when I came here and dropped everything I had, I thought it would be a lot easier than it actually is.

When I turn around in bed at night, after days of trying to get used to the time zone and weeks to the weather and the people here — which are both bad and for completely different reasons, nothing is like in the movies — I always hope to find you there by my side and being able to snuggle up to you like I always did. I wake up in the morning and make enough coffee for two people and take two mugs out of the cupboard, and only then do I realize I'm alone here. I don't need two mugs and I made too much coffee. Sometimes, in the middle of the day, I find myself typing your number, which I have memorized despite the fact that no one remembers phone numbers, because phones exist for a reason.

You have no idea how much I miss you and what I would do to be able to hear your voice again. I would do anything, I swear I could. But I know I no longer have that right. I know that what I did is unforgivable and although I want your forgiveness, I hope you never forget what I did to you.

You were still good to me on the last day. You took me to the airport, you said goodbye to me, you hugged me tight like you know I like it and you did your best not to shed a tear in front of me.

Every now and then I catch myself thinking that I messed up. I could have done my master's where we graduated, I didn't need to move to the other side of the world and leave the life I knew behind. But at the same time, I accept it. Coming here was my dream, it was always what I dreamed of even when you were by my side as well. And maybe that's why I never told you about the application, about being approved. Maybe I waited until the end, until the very last second to tell you because I knew you were the only one capable of changing my mind.

When I was by your side, I started to dream of a different life, a life that had you at all times and in all aspects. But, as you may have already noticed, I chose my first dream.

I know I won't regret it. I can't afford to regret it. You’ll become who you always wanted to be and I’ll be there to give you a standing ovation. Not there, next to you, but from afar.

“That was Sunday Morning, by Hong Joshua. Ah, whenever I hear this song I remember my college days. I've said this here a few times, and I think I sound like a broken record by this point, but Joshua and I went to the same college and he was always singing this song in the hallways. Any small gathering between friends he would pull out the guitar and sing. So I'm sorry, but you're going to have to listen to this song at least once a week for the next year. Or until he releases the next one.”

Seokmin looked at the monitor to his right as a pre-recorded commercial for the next show started. The comments were going up too quickly, which made reading them an almost impossible mission.

On the other side of the glass, Chan made a sign indicating that the commercial was over. Seokmin looked at his friend as he lowered one finger after another and finally pointed at him. Chan placed a sheet of paper, which was always used, against the glass, which said “last, chat”. Indicating that he still had one more question to answer.

“We have time for one more question” Seokmin said, opening the internal chat he used with the other radio employees and read the question that Chan had sent “I ended a relationship of almost four years a few months ago, but I still can't understand what happened. I haven't even returned his things yet. How do I get in touch saying I want to return it?”

Seokmin swallowed. He knew that Chan hadn't done it on purpose, that he had no way of knowing everything that had happened between him and you, but he hated how much the question resonated in his head. It was a feeling he shared and for him it had been a little worse because you lived together during your last year of college. So when he entered the house and saw all the furniture, the decorations, your clothes still in the closet, it was like entering a time machine. In that 30 square meter space, for a few minutes, you still hadn't left.

He took a deep breath, away from the microphone so the sound wouldn't be picked, and leaned forward.

“It's a difficult question, really. If it's been a few months and he still hasn't picked his things up, it's because he doesn't need them, so I don't think you should bother contacting him. Hmmm”

He bit his lip and rested his elbows on the table, thinking if he should continue talking or if it would be better to stop there. Seokmin always thought it was better not to let personal feelings show on the radio, but he had moments when he couldn't follow his own rules.

“I can tell you from experience that sometimes silence is better. Because if you know the truth, it could hurt you even more. When I was in a similar situation, after a while I simply discarded the person's belongings. At first, it will be difficult, because you’ll see that shirt you gave as a gift, that letter you wrote and remember what it meant, the moment you gave those things to him. But little by little you will achieve it. Don't feel obligated to just move on when you're not ready. People will always tell you that it's about time, that it's been so many weeks or months. You’re the one who knows about your feelings.”

Chan knocked on the glass again, almost desperate because Seokmin's answer had been too long. It wasn't the first time he had gotten lost in what he was saying and maybe had been talking in circles. It always happened that he remembered you when he answered a question.

And in that specific question he was being a hypocrite because he knew that if he opened his closet, deep inside it, he would find at least two boxes full of your things hidden. He rarely went near those boxes, he liked to pretend they didn't exist and most days he managed to achieve that thought. But there were other days…

“So we come to the end of another Cupid's Corner with Minnie. See you again next week. Cupid’s Corner with Minnie: Unveiling Love’s Melody, One Relationship at a Time!”

Seokmin removed his headphones, stood up, and waved at the cameras he knew were pointed at him. He grabbed his phone and the bottle of water he always carried with him. The red light above the door finally went out and Seokmin left the studio.

Immediately, Chan appeared beside him. He had just gone blond, and it strangely suited him.

He knew the youngest was desperate, not that he was doing a good job of hiding it. The disheveled hair, pointing in all directions, also helped a lot.

“You’re going to have a heart attack if you continue like this” Seokmin said laughing.

Chan was the newest employee, handpicked by Seokmin a few months before. Seokmin needed someone to help him organize the broadcasts after his previous assistant quit because she had gotten a job in the field she had studied. Seokmin even talked to her and offered a higher salary that would come out of his own pocket, but nothing seemed to help. Not that he blamed her, in her place he would have done the same thing. But in the position he was in, changes made him uncomfortable so he did what he could to make sure everything stayed the same.

Maybe it was trauma.

“It’s because they yell at me, not you.”

One of the reasons Seokmin chose Chan as his new assistant was his sincerity. In the middle of the interview he “I think there are things in your program that need to change” and started listing things that he thought were dated or ideas that had been used too much and therefore didn't have the same effect on listeners. The others had found him presumptuous as if he wanted to know more than those who worked at the radio. Seokmin disagreed and that's how Chan got the job.

“They yell at you because you’re the new guy, no one yelled at Jiah”

Chan made a sound in the back of his throat, like a scoff.

“That's because everyone was afraid of her” Seokmin rolled his eyes and reached for the folder Chan was carrying “Oh, right. Tomorrow is your lecture for the communication classes, but they said it is possible that students from other courses will also be there, because it’llll be in the auditorium”

Seokmin nodded, reading the guidelines Chan had made. He needed to admit that he was organized and had absolute control over everything he did. He was sure that if he asked about Wonwoo's program, Chan would know how to answer as if he worked directly with him.

“You know how it is, I have fans” Chan pretended to vomit “If you go tomorrow, we’ll go out to dinner later, I’ll pay”

"Deal"

Seokmin always found it strange to be called to give lectures at the college where he studied. He wasn't a teacher and he didn't think he had done enough to be someone who could give advice to someone. In fact, Seokmin was sure he hadn't done anything big. His life, to put it very simply, was flat. At least, almost all of his life.

Seokmin has always been the type of guy who makes plans and follows through on those plans. When he was sixteen he got it into his head that he wanted to work in radio. It wasn't without reasons, of course. He joined the school radio and despite doing very little, because the school director had to know everything that would be done, even the nouns he would use in the sentence, he fell in love with the idea. That's why he decided he should study journalism in college, that way even if his radio career didn't work out, he would still have a profession.

But his dream was to work on a radio, to have his own program. So that's what he did.

He entered college as planned, sunk into student debt, and graduated exactly as he had planned. In his last semester, he got an internship at the biggest radio station in the country. He was on cloud nine. It was as if he had received the green light in life and everything was on the right track.

At least that's what he thought. At least that was what he had forced himself to believe. The internship became a permanent position and one day he just happened to be in the right place at the right time. That's why he never felt prepared to give anyone advice. Despite having decided on the career he wanted to pursue, he knew that he also needed to count on a little luck and help. The only words he could offer were “you work hard, study, make contacts, and throw the rest into luck’s hands”. It wasn't the kind of thing he wanted to hear when he was a student looking forward to the future, so he certainly wouldn't say it to anyone.

However, Chan convinced him that it would be a good idea to give the talk.

“You’re going to tell me how you got here, that’s all. An unknown face who quickly went on air to cover someone for one of the most beloved radio broadcasters in the country. I'm sure if you say that shit fell on your head, they'll like it” Chan had said laughing.

Overall the lecture went very well. Better than expected. He answered the questions as honestly as possible and used his best smile to get rid of the more awkward questions.

Despite the good day, he knew he didn't want to repeat the dose anytime soon.

“They want to know if you would be willing to do one of these a semester” Chan whispered because he knew the answer Seokmin would give, so it was better for the students not to hear.

“No” was all Seokmin said “But I’ll still buy you dinner”

Chan punched the air in celebration, catching the eyes of those around him, but he seemed to care very little.

"I just…"

What Seokmin was about to say, an announcement that he needed to go to the bathroom, died in his throat as he looked straight ahead.

Letter #2

Seokmin,

I thought I would be able to adapt faster here. It was very hard in the beginning with transport, getting around in general was very difficult. So I chose a weekend and went walking around the neighborhood where I live. I don't know how long I'll stay here, but I thought I should check it out. Besides, I can wake up in the middle of the night and decide that I want to eat something that I don't have at home, so it's good to know if there are any stores or markets that open in the middle of the night (in this neighborhood there aren't any, maybe that's why I won’t stay here).

I discovered that going out there, although productive, wasn't such a good idea. Nothing wrong happened, I didn't get hit on or someone was rude to me. Quite the contrary, most people pretended they weren't even seeing me. The problem was that everything made me think about you.

I walked by the store that sold a lot of random old things and decided to go in. You know I love filling the house with trinkets. I didn't find anything there that I liked, but I saw that they were selling camera films. For a moment I forgot everything that had happened and all I could think was, I think Seokmin is running out of film, I need to buy more because he will only realize when he doesn't have any left.

I bought it and brought it to the apartment. I opened the door and called your name. It was only later, when I noticed where I was, that it wasn't our apartment, that I realized what I had done.

Even without meaning to, even when I try not to, I find myself looking for you. Everywhere. I go to a restaurant and think about what you would like to eat, I see a dog on the street and I imagine you bending down to pet it. It's not on purpose, I just can't help it. I try, but it's in vain.

I wonder if it will pass. Will this feeling that I succeeded in my career but ruined my personal life disappear or will I feel like this forever — or at least for a good few years?

yn.

It was as if all the air had been ripped from your lungs and there was no way in the world to get you to breathe.

Somehow, some way, Seokmin was standing in front of you, in the middle of the college hallway.

For a moment it was as if you had been transported back in time, to when you were still 22 years old. In another moment you would have simply run up to him and thrown yourself into his arms as if you hadn't spent the whole night clinging to him, as if you hadn't seen each other before classes, as if you hadn't shared the smallest space in the world on the subway for 20 minutes. And your body seemed to remember all of this, like some kind of muscle memory, because you felt like you were being projected forward. Towards him.

You thought Seokmin would talk to you, you were sure he would. But you saw the way his gaze changed, the way it went from complete surprise to a hard look, completely different from anything you had ever seen from him.

In your memory, Seokmin was always brilliant and was always willing to welcome everyone with open arms, even when he felt more shy. You didn’t understand, that look he gave you was completely different from what you imagined could happen.

When you made the decision to return, you knew that there was a possibility of meeting Seokmin, no matter how small it was. You didn't know if he was still friends with the same people, if he still kept in touch with them. You certainly hadn't kept in touch with anyone - except for the two times you talked to Joshua. The possibility existed, but being realistic you knew it was as big as winning the lottery.

Of all the places you thought you could find Seokmin, college was the last one and maybe that was even why you accepted the job. When you were taking the last tests, the ones that would say whether you would graduate at the end of the semester or not, Seokmin was categorical in saying that he would never set foot inside college again. So you thought it was a place he would never go, but there he was. And in your first week, when you needed everything to go well. Not to show that you were ready and that you could do the job, but to reassure yourself that you had made the right choice in accepting the job.

You didn't have time to decide whether to talk to him or not. Seokmin made the decision for both of you. He continued walking as if you weren't there, talking to the boy next to him, laughing. The only indication that he knew who you were was silent once and one that only you could distinguish.

He turned around and left as if nothing had happened.

Was it possible that only you had felt that way? That just your heart had decided it didn't know how to beat, as if a storm was raging inside your body?

You didn't have time to analyze what had just happened. You just forced yourself to take a deep breath and also keep walking as if those brief seconds weren't enough to make your entire world turn completely upside down.

Seokmin dragged his feet into the room, tripping over the rug at the foot of the bed. A curse came out of his mouth, followed by a burp. When he invited Chan to dinner he had no intention of ending the night drunk, being carried home like someone who had just had his first drink.

It had been years since he had gotten that bad and it was comical that the previous occasion was also connected to you.

The memory of leaving you at the airport, on a flight in the middle of the night, was still vivid in Seokmin's mind. Worse than that memory, was the one of you telling him that you had gotten a place in a master's degree on the other side of the world, 18 hours before leaving the country.

“I need to tell you something” you said as he pulled his coat over his head and patted his pockets, making sure he had grabbed his keys, wallet, and phone. He needed to leave as quickly as possible, he was already late.

Seokmin had plans to ask you to marry him. He had rented a house where you could spend the weekend, where it would be possible to see the stars. He had prepared himself, but he needed to leave right that second so he would have enough time to go to the house, get everything ready and come back to get you. The owner of the house would help him, since Seokmin decided that he wouldn't tell any of his friends because they might just ruin the surprise.

“I'm already late” he said, quickly looking at his watch. "Did something happen?"

He asked, noticing your already somewhat desperate look. He knew that whatever had happened couldn't be good.

To be honest, he had noticed that something was wrong a few weeks before, and for a while, he decided it would be better not to get into it too much. He knew you well enough to know that you would offer the information when you felt ready to do so. But thinking back on everything, he wished he had asked before, he wished he hadn't given you space, he wished he had forced you to talk to him sooner.

“I passed my master’s degree abroad”

Seokmin’s first reaction was to be happy for you. He knew how much you wanted that, that it was your dream. So he did what any boyfriend would do, he hugged you and congratulated you, told you that you had tried so hard and that they would be idiots not to accept you. The feeling was true and his smile was genuine. He was happy for you.

Knowing what he knew, every now and then Seokmin wondered if he would have done anything differently if he knew what the next words would be out of your mouth. He could have made a fuss, he could have begged you to stay, he could have offered to go with you. But at the time he didn't do any of that.

“I’m leaving today, I need to be at the airport at 11 pm”

Seokmin's ears rang deafeningly. It was as if he had been punched and needed to brace himself against something. The sofa was the closest piece of furniture.

He thought he heard it wrong, he wished he was dreaming, but all he had to do was look at you. It was true. It was as if a puzzle was being completed in Seokmin's mind. The way you had suddenly become distant, how every time he entered the room you hurried to change or close whatever you were looking at on the computer. He didn't even know you signed up. He imagined that you must have done some kind of test, some interview and he didn't even know anything about it.

He had no idea.

Had he been a bad boyfriend, someone who was so focused on making the long-awaited proposal that he had ignored everything else? Or had you hidden it so well that he hadn't noticed?

"What? You’re leaving today?"

It was like the world was spinning too fast and he was trying to keep up with what was happening. It was like being on a roller coaster that kept on falling. He remembered well how the little box with the ring he had carefully chosen weighed in his pocket.

“I didn’t even know you had applied for a position” he whispered, almost just to himself “You didn’t tell me”

And it was at that exact moment, when he looked at you, that Seokmin realized that your relationship was over. You avoided looking at him, your hands were buried deep in the pockets of your coat, which was his. He saw your eyes fill with tears, you swallow hard, and remain silent.

It was unlike you, to stay quiet when you had too many things going through your head. He desperately wanted you to talk to him, to tell him what had been going through your head. He just wanted to understand. Did you believe he would somehow stop you from going? If there was one thing he knew about you, it was the fact that you always put your education first. It wasn't a secret and you didn't want it to be. He just didn't expect things to happen that way.

Seokmin sat in front of the closet, on the floor, and with difficulty opened the doors. Deep in the back, behind several shoe boxes, were two old boxes that he hadn't moved in years. Part of him wished the things inside the boxes were ruined, that they had mold and anything else that could ruin its content. But he had been careful, kept everything in order, taken all necessary precautions, and cleaned the closet periodically.

He ignored the first box and pulled the smaller one towards him, placing it on his bent legs. Seokmin wasn't one to revisit those memories, he liked to keep them as far away from him as possible, but on nights like those, it was impossible.

Seokmin knew what he would find and was sure how he would feel, but he still took the lid off the box, but he didn't dare take out any of the items inside it.

He knew he had reached his lowest point when he was holding on to memories he had of you and not focusing on what was actually happening in his life.

Letter #3

Seokmin,

I talked to Joshua today. Talk is a bit too strong of a word. We exchanged a few words on Instagram. He posted a photo and I liked it, he sent me a DM asking if I was ok and how things were going. I lied, of course. He said everything was fine and he was happy. He didn't talk about you and I didn't ask.

It was very hard to contain myself. I want to know how you are. The more selfish part of my brain wants you to be just as bad as I feel. You know that little demon that sits on our shoulder? He assures me you're even worse. And I hate to think that's the case, but at the same time, I'm sure you're not okay. I know you, we dated for four years, we lived together for almost two years

You were always the more emotional one of the two of us. You were never afraid to show your feelings, not for me or anyone else. You always loved so openly, without any fear. I admit that at first, it scared me a little.

I was an 18-year-old girl who came from a family that had no idea how to show affection, so I was always more reserved in that aspect. And there you were with your beautiful, bright smile, with open arms, affectionate with anyone who came along. I thought you were a crazy person who didn't have the slightest notion of the world. It took a while for me to realize that your world was brighter than mine in ways I couldn't understand.

You were always so untethered, free, showing yourself to anyone who had eyes. When I was closed and more reclusive, you were open and expansive. When I was very shy or reserved, you were more charming and brighter than usual. Not even my worst mood, which seemed endless at times, was a problem for you.

One day you just showed up and decided that you would stay by my side, no matter what. Believe me when I say, I tried to push you away. But with each passing day you were further under my skin.

A kiss at a random party turned into a date at every party, parties became meetings at the college library, which led to coffee dates. One day you decided at the end of each date you had to take me back to the dorms and you kissed me for a long time on the side of the building where no one could see — or at least I made myself believe no one did. Then that alone wasn't enough and you were always with your fingers intertwined with mine, or your arm around my waist. And kisses were no longer reserved for empty streets, of course not. You kissed me anywhere, anytime, no matter who was watching.

You were sneaky, Seokmin.

When I realized it, I was in love with you. Your arms were my refuge. You were my safe space. My home.

yn.

You hated that Seokmin’s reaction, or lack thereof, had gotten to you so much. It was like being punched, and then one more, soon the punch became a beating and to finish with a flourish, it was as if a truck had run over you.

You had plans to go out at the weekend, though alone. Everything was so different, the places you knew no longer existed and friends from the past no longer spoke to you. You would have to rediscover the city without anyone's help. Despite your plans, you couldn't bring yourself to leave the house.

When you decided to return, you knew there would be no way to escape Seokmin. He had become successful not only in his career as a broadcaster but also as a celebrity of sorts. You never imagined you would see his face in magazines or on billboards selling fried chicken. You didn't expect that when you turned on the TV you would see his face in different programs.

In fact, you knew all of that was happening, but somehow you managed to convince yourself that you wouldn't have to see any of it. You managed to make yourself believe that you would not be haunted by his images and voice.

When you were away, you always listened to his programs, more than once each one, but it was almost like a relationship between fan and celebrity. You could separate very well what was him and what was you. But being there, in the same country, in the same city, it was much more difficult to make that separation.

Because once you were back, Seokmin was no longer just the radio host with a show about relationships. Far from it. Seokmin was your college sweetheart, the guy whose heart you broke but who, even after seven years, was still in love with.

That was the reality. you were still in love with him. There was no relationship in the world, no man in the world, that would have made you forget about Seokmin. Sometimes it worked, sometimes you managed to forget about him for a few months and that feeling of loss, of emptiness, that had settled deep inside your heart became smaller and smaller. And then it would come back full on as if it had never left.

Maybe that was your curse, your punishment for leaving behind someone you could have spent the rest of your life with. And somehow you knew you would have been happy. Or at least a different kind of happiness.

After spending the weekend holed up inside your apartment, after convincing yourself that you needed to prepare for teaching classes and unpacking the move, she decided that on Tuesday night she would explore the city.

Exploring wasn't the right word. You had discovered that one of your favorite restaurants still existed, it had just changed location. And, despite being on the other side of the city and being completely aware that you would have to pay a fortune for a taxi or risk taking the subway alone almost at closing time, you decided to go anyway.

You needed to feel like one thing hadn't changed, or at least still be recognizable.

You heard your name being called a few minutes after sitting down. You raised your head, recognizing the voice, but couldn't tell who it belonged to. Directly in front of you was a woman, with short hair, in her fifties.

“It’s really you!”

You stood up and a second later you were being hugged. Maybe you had gone there for that reason, knowing that there would be someone there who would recognize you. Or at least you hoped there was. And when you were welcomed with open arms by her owner, Niah, you wanted to cry for the first time in a long time.

“Hi” was all you could offer, your voice weak.

You quickly turned your face away, trying to be discreet as you wiped away your tears. The last thing you wanted was to cry in front of someone else. Tears were reserved for dark moments in the silence of your apartment, they weren't meant to be seen by people you didn't even know in a crowded restaurant.

“Look how beautiful you look. You haven't been around for so long. Seokmin told us that you had gone abroad to study, but I thought you would come back sooner.”

You just managed to smile, even though it was embarrassing. It was strange to hear his name coming out of someone else's mouth so easily. For years, his name was just an echo in your own mind, almost as if it were a fantasy of yours.

There were days when you managed to convince yourself of this, that Seokmin was nothing more than a dream.

“Are you just visiting or are you back to stay?”

“I'm staying” you said after a second, when you managed to find your voice again “I got a job here, I have nowhere to run”

Niah laughed and hugged you once again, tighter this time.

"Great, that makes me happy. We always miss you” Niah smiled and ran her fingers down your cheeks, brushing away some tears that were stubborn to fall “What do you want to eat? Today it's on the house. Consider it a welcome gift.”

You took a deep breath, swallowing the lump in your throat and the remaining tears.

"What do you recommend?"

The amazing thing about meeting Niah again was that she still acted exactly the same way. She didn't see you as someone who had simply packed a suitcase of clothes and left the country overnight. To Niah you were still that same person from 7 years ago who ate whatever she put in front of. You and Seokmin were always guinea pigs for all the new recipes.

The food was still wonderful, if anything it had just gotten better.

You had a fork halfway to your mouth when you heard the door open, the sound of the bell indicating the entry of a new customer. You almost instinctively turned to look. You choked on your own saliva when your eyes met Seokmin's.

It was as if you were back in the hallway that day. Your heart simply stopped, and the world fell into suspension. For a moment, it was as if you had been transported to the past. You were almost certain that if you looked at the table you would see books open next to the cutlery; you knew that if you looked at Seokmin for another second or two his face would break into the most beautiful smile, he would wave and call your name.

But your illusion shattered into small pieces as his neutral expression contorted into a frown. With the same foot he entered he turned to leave.

“Seokmin!” you called him, getting up from your chair.

Part of you thought he was going to continue out the door, but he stopped. Half of his body was outside the restaurant, the other inside.

“Hurry up and close that door!” Niah said leaving the kitchen “You’re letting out all the heat”

Even with Niah's voice calling him, Seokmin remained standing at the door. You sat back down, but without taking your eyes off him. He didn't know what he expected of him, but he felt an indescribable relief when Niah pulled him by the sleeve of his coat and forced him to sit in front of you.

“The restaurant is packed, so you will have to share a table” she said as she turned her back.

Seokmin shook his head, clearly against sitting there, staying in the restaurant, but he still took off his coat and hung it on the chair before leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest.

It was clear he was working out, his shoulders had gotten broader and his arms bigger since you last saw each other. You almost laughed at the pose, remembering all the times you had seen him in a similar situation. But this wasn't the time to laugh when everything else was screaming that he was uncomfortable with the situation, that he didn't want to be there.

It didn't take a genius to know that Seokmin wanted nothing to do with you. His reaction to seeing you in the hallway the week before and the way he was looking at you in that moment were enough answers.

You felt like the walls were closing in around you and there wasn't enough air in the room.

What were you thinking when you called his name? What were you thinking when you silently watched Niah pull him inside? Why were you still sitting there?

A waiter who worked with Niah passed by your table and you called him discreetly, not wanting to attract the attention of the restaurant owner.

“Can you wrap everything to go, please?” you turned to Seokmin “You can have the table. I was already leaving”

It was a lie, but he didn't need to know that.

Seokmin laughed lowly, scornfully, his sideways smile making the hair on your arms stand on end. In general, Seokmin has always been the type of guy who didn’t lose his cool easily, who would always rather let things go than have any kind of confrontation. But when he really got stressed out or nervous, it took a while for him to calm down again.

You had seen that storm in his eyes very few times in the years you spent together. The last one was when he went to the airport to say goodbye to you. That day the storm was just confusion and pain, you knew you had done that to him. But he sat there in the restaurant, in front of you, in silence while the people around him chatted animatedly, completely oblivious to what was happening between the two of you.

"What it was?" you rolled your eyes.

“Ah, nothing” he said, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture “It’s just like you to do that”

You narrowed your eyes at the same time you felt your cheeks get hot.

"Do what?"

"Runaway"

Letter #4

Seokmin,

It took me almost a year to convince myself that it was okay for me to look at social media. I convinced myself that every woman does this, that every now and then we look at our ex-boyfriend's Instagram, just to find out if his new girlfriend is ugly. I've told you this several times, but every female experience is universal.

I wish you were one of those low profile people, who post a picture every 6 months and it's a cut mango on a pretty plate. I wish you hadn't posted so many pictures. But more than anything, I wish I hadn't spent hours and hours looking at the photos. I wish I hadn't been analyzing every photo of you, I wish I hadn't thought “that's a new mole” and wondered which others had appeared since the last time we saw each other.

I had memorized every mole of yours. On your face, on your arms, on your back. On the worst days, when I missed you in a way that almost made me give up everything and go home, I kept remembering each one of them. I tried to remember the sound of your laugh, your voice, how you stroked my hair until I fell asleep when it wasn't a good day.

I keep wondering if one day this feeling will just go away.

It's been a year since I left. I went out with other guys, and I almost dated one of them, but you're always there in the back of my mind, almost comically because even against my will I can't help but compare them to you. I can't help but think that only you know how I like my coffee, how only you know that if I'm in my worst mood, there's no joke in the world that can make me laugh.

I know it's not fair to them. I gave you the chance to get to know me, I allowed you to get closer. I wanted you to come closer to me. Now I wonder if you're doing this for someone other than me.

I like to imagine that you also compare other women to me, that even now that you're dating I stay there, in the back of your mind, making fun of you.

Unfortunately, she's not ugly, but your smile was brighter when I was next to you.

yn.

To say that Seokmin had spent the rest of the week in an envious mood was an understatement. He was stressed and everyone around him soon noticed the change. He really tried not to let his personal life get in the way of his work. It was something he never struggled with. Work was work, what happened when the lights went out and he left the radio should never cross paths with each other. That week, however, it was impossible.

Meeting you at the restaurant caught him off guard. That day in the college hallway had been difficult, but he managed to just keep walking as if nothing had happened. He liked to pretend like he hadn't gone out with Chan right after and drank like there was no tomorrow, like he hadn't opened the boxes he had kept for years and cried while looking at the photos of the two of you together.

He had gone to the restaurant that day because he needed some form of comfort and didn't want to call any of his friends because he knew he would end up telling them everything that happened and would receive advice and words he would rather not hear. The restaurant was the best idea he had. Or maybe the worst possible one.

Maybe he had done it consciously, because he wanted to see you one more time, and wanted to make sure he hadn't imagined you. It wouldn't have been the first time.

In the first few months after you left, Seokmin got into the habit of visiting places he went with you, or places you liked to go alone. It was probably a form of torture, but he liked to imagine it was a way to forget and overcome the breakup. On several of those days, he believed he saw you. He realistically knew it wasn't you, he clearly remembered seeing you get on the plane and waited until it took off to leave the airport.

The worst thing that could have happened to him was you calling for him. Seokmin couldn't help but wonder if he had always reacted that way to you, if your presence was always so great that before he even saw you he knew you were nearby. That day, as soon as he opened the door, before he even saw you sitting there with your eyes wide open, he knew. He knew you were there.

The last thing he expected from you was you saying his name, as if asking him to sit with you, that Niah, knowing how the relationship had ended, would have made him sit in front of you.

Seokmin noticed your discomfort, the way your spine had become a little straighter, the way your eyes were hard and cautious at the same time. Your reaction made him angry. What right did you have to behave that way, as if you were hurt when all the decisions regarding a relationship both of you were in had been made by you?

You were the one who signed up for a master's degree abroad. It was you who never told him about your decision. It was you who kept everything secret, making him believe that the two of you were on the same page and that despite your different goals, you would be able to pursue them together.

Turns out he was wrong, those dreams were just his and didn't include him.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Chan asked for the thousandth time.

For the first time in a long time, Seokmin was having a hard time hiding how he really felt. That polished, carefully carved mask had fallen. It was a completely atypical day and everyone was able to notice his sudden change in mood. Even Chan, who normally did a great job of ignoring all the problems around him and focusing solely on his work, seemed to be walking on eggshells around him.

“It’s really obvious, isn’t it?” Seokmin asked in a low voice and Chan just nodded "And if I pretend it's because of the new segment, will anyone believe it?"

Again, Chan nodded. Since he had started the program, 3 years before, Seokmin would receive calls and speak directly to listeners. Although there were always interactions, those were always done through live chat and email when he received questions or stories from people who were not listening to the program when it was airing.

Seokmin wasn't nervous about the idea, he was actually excited. Chan knew this and knew that whatever the problem was, it was still the same as the day of the lecture. He didn't want to ask, and he didn't want to seem invasive, but he still wanted to make sure Seokmin was okay — or at least, well enough to do the program.

“I think everyone is already thinking that” was a lie and even Seokmin knew it, but he was grateful.

“You may already know this, but today we will start a new segment. We'll call it the heart to heart helpline, at least until we find a better name at least” Seokmin's voice and laugh resonated through the taxi “We'll take your calls and some of you will be able to talk to me and ask your questions live, instead of by chat. Each person will have a maximum of 2 minutes and we will answer 6 calls today”

You had left the house completely willing to avoid anything related to Seokmin. Realistically, you knew you couldn't do anything about the billboards and his face at bus stops, but you could very well avoid his radio show. And for a few weeks you had managed to do just that.

That day at the restaurant had almost been a cathartic moment. Somehow, it was as if something had clicked and fallen into place. The Seokmin you left behind no longer existed. It had been a naive thought to think so. You didn't expect that he would still be exactly the same person, of course not. Seven years had passed and Seokmin, like you, was approaching his thirties. Obviously, many things had changed, but you still expected to see traces of that 22-year-old boy you had known and loved.

You didn't spend more than five minutes with him at that table. And it was much more than enough. He had accused you of running away, of continuing to do this for years. Of course, that could be his view on everything, but it was never your intention. The only problem was that you hadn't been able to tell him those things. You had been so lost and so completely helpless in front of him that you had forgotten that you knew how to speak and form sentences.

You had spent years of your life writing letters to him, letters that he would never read, but that was beside the point. You wrote letters as a way to appease the emptiness you felt in your heart. You never, not for a second, thought you were running away. You never wanted to run away, but Seokmin seemed to believe you did.

In a sudden burst of anger, you took your phone out of your bag and dialed the number Seokmin spoke on the radio. You didn't expect your call to go through. In fact, you didn't even know what you expected.

“Please wait a minute, we will connect your call” a non-robotic voice said as you paid for the taxi.

Seokmin was still chatting animatedly with a listener who didn't have a real question, but who “just wanted to say that I really liked your show and that I’m a fan.” It was impossible not to roll your eyes. If she, and everyone else, knew how much of a complete asshole he could be just because he had the opportunity, they would never want to see his face again.

Or maybe they would team up against you in favor of the immaculate Seokmin. God knew how easily a man could turn public opinion in his favor with a beautiful smile. And God was also a witness that Seokmin's smile was simply wonderful, one that took your breath away, one that made you smile along because it was contagious.

“Welcome to the heart to heart helpline” Seokmin’s voice sounded in your ear “What’s your question?”

You didn't really think that your call would get through to Seokmin, you didn't think the signal would be good enough inside the elevator, but none of that seemed to be a problem.

“Hello, can you hear me?” he asked.

You took a deep breath and closed your eyes. You knew you were going really crazy, but you decided to throw caution out the window and be the crazy person everyone used to believe you were.

“Yes, I’m here” you could have sworn, that even over the phone, you felt Seokmin tense up “It’s a question about an old relationship, we broke up years ago, if that’s okay”

You struggled with your keys, trying to unlock the door as quickly as possible. You needed to get to your computer or tablet, whichever was closer. It was almost a physical necessity to see Seokmin's reaction to your voice, your question.

You always knew how to tell if he was truly calm or if he was masking what he was feeling. You wanted to know if you still had any other sort of effect on him. Whatever it was, it was better than angry disdain.

“Old relationships should stay in the past, don’t you think?” he finally said.

You nodded as you ran into your room. You knew you would find the tablet under your pillow — you were sure that if your mother saw it she would say that your brain would explode due to the radiation from the device. With a few taps, you opened the stream of Seokmin's program.

“I think so. But the problem is that we keep seeing each other. I don’t think it’s something either of us want, but it seems inevitable.”

You turned the sound off, you just wanted to focus on his reactions. Seokmin swallowed hard, his eyebrows furrowed and his eyes fixed on the microphone in front of him. To anyone, it just seemed like he was concentrating on the call, on what the person on the other end of the line had to say, but you knew very well that it was to hide his reactions.

"Your question?"

“Well, he called me selfish and said I ran away when we broke up, but that's not exactly what happened. I wanted to talk to him, but I don’t think he wants to listen to me.”

Seokmin took a deep breath and seemed to think about what to say next, his eyes no longer on the microphone, but on the ceiling.

“And why does he think that about you? You probably gave him reasons, don't you think? I don’t think anyone would think that about someone without anything having happened.”

“I always dreamed of studying abroad, so when the opportunity came, I went. I…"

“Did you tell him you were going?” Seokmin clenched his fists on the desk, his fingers gripped the pen in his hand tightly until his knuckles were white. “Did you give him a chance to say something or did you just walk away?”

You were speechless, eyes focused only on Seokmin. The way his hair perfectly framed his face, his sculpted thin nose. He was still exactly like he was seven years ago, just somehow different. He was the same, but he also wasn't.

You hadn't given him the chance to say anything, you had just walked away, but because you believed it was the best thing to do. You would have stayed if he had asked, I would have aborted all of your plans for him,

“Long distance relationships don’t work” you said finally, your voice lower “especially when there’s an ocean separating people”

“I'm going to guess and say that you were together for a while because I don't think anyone would care that much about a quick relationship” his voice became more sober, completely in control of his emotions, the opposite of what you felt, like you were enclosed every second that passed “I agree with you, long-distance relationships don’t work. Different cities are already complicated, I can't imagine what it would be like to be with someone who lives in another country. You didn't give many details, but I believe he had reasons to feel that way, just as you had your reasons for leaving without warning. I think the best thing for both of you is to let it fall into oblivion. It makes no sense for either of you to dwell on these feelings. Maybe your desire to talk exists because you think you've left things open with him, but he may think that what's in the past shouldn't be remembered. Maybe you're just a bad relationship he wants to forget.”

Letter #5

Seokmin

I found out by chance that you now have your own radio show. One day it was an empty slot in the schedule and the next it was your voice. To my joy and delight, it was one of those programs that also had video streaming. I say joy and delight in a very ironic way.

But I'm not lying when I say I'm happy for you. You always said it was your dream and in a way, here we are, achieving our dreams. It would have been better if we could have lived through this together, I think. Maybe if that were the case I wouldn't have this empty feeling inside my chest.

But I discovered a long time ago that I can't keep crying over spilled milk. I left and you moved on with your life. They were conscious choices, I knew what I was doing. I knew that making this choice would have hurt both of us, but I also knew that we could overcome it. It's just taking longer than expected. I honestly thought that by this point, so many years later, we would have been able to live as if the past were just that, the past.

But it's not like that for me or for you.

I may be completely crazy, but your show is about love advice and how to deal with heartbreak. Sometimes, when I hear you talk, I'm sure you've already dealt with all your feelings, after all, you've had other girlfriends. But there are other moments, when you answer a question or when you read one of the pre-written texts when I'm sure that what you said applies directly to what we both had.

I'm going crazy, aren't I?

It's been four years since I left. I already finished my master's degree and started my PhD, exactly as planned. I have a date tonight with a guy who seems genuinely nice, but here I am, writing yet another letter that will never be sent to the guy I was in love with.

What am I still doing?

Seokmin had always believed that for a relationship to truly end there must be no trace of it anywhere. When he told his listeners that they should get rid of items, it was not a lie. He was just terrible at following his own advice. The old story of do as I say, not as I do.

Finally, he decided it was time to take his own advice. With a little pain and resentment added to the mix, of course. At this point, he wondered if he could already be considered a masochist or if he still had a few boxes to tick to get the title.

Getting your address had been easier than expected. All he had to do was ask Niah, who offered the information without any resistance.

“Being thirty didn't make either of you any smarter,” she said as she leaned across the table and wrote the address on the napkin.

“Almost thirty” he felt the need to correct her, but decided he would ignore the hidden message in her words.

Seokmin never stopped going to Niah's restaurant. It was there that he had cried his sorrows over the cheapest drinks possible, he didn't have the money to pay for the good ones, while Joshua tried to console him. He had never seen Niah so stressed and angry. She hadn't said anything, but you could clearly hear the sound of her cutting the vegetables more aggressively than necessary.

Little by little she became calmer about the situation and started talking about you with the same affection as before. Seokmin always thought she had somehow kept in touch with you, or at least found a way to get your number or a way to contact you. At first, he had been angry, but somehow he believed he didn't have that right. It was only after a year that Seokmin decided to ask and the answer he received was “if I still had contact with her, I would have already screamed at her about disappearing without telling anyone”.

Asking Niah for your address was the only option he had. He refused to go to college, where you worked. He didn't know what would happen, whether you would be friendly with each other or the conversation would end in a shouting match just because. Because after years of no contact and considering the way things ended, it was pretty obvious that resentment could resurface — at least Seokmin had resentment up to his neck and knew that not releasing them all at once required almost inhuman self-control.

He looked at the building one more time before getting out of the car. It was one of those without a doorman. Seokmin knew that if he rang and asked to be let in, the probability of being sent to hell was very high. So he pulled up his cap down and covered as much of his face as he could while he balanced the boxes on his arms.

He stood there like a madman for almost twenty minutes until someone finally left the building. Seokmin felt like he was committing a crime when he slipped through the door before it closed. Even though the feeling was strange he made himself believe it was the only option he had and he really didn't have any bad intentions. He just wanted to return your things and, hopefully, arrange that if you ever met again, you’d simply pretend you don't know each other, instead of talking nonsense to each other.

Seokmin took a deep breath once before knocking on the door. He heard footsteps and a second later the door opened.

When you imagined what your Wednesday night would be like, the only option that crossed your mind was to order a pizza and watch a movie — the random option of Netflix seemed like your best friend and the only possible option because you weren't even able to choose what to watch by yourself.

Not even in your wildest daydreams could you have imagined that Seokmin would show up at your door with two boxes in his hand.

You were partially tempted to close the door on his face, but you knew that doing so would only make the whole situation worse. If Seokmin, who clearly didn't have any good feelings about you, was standing there at your door it was because he had something to say. Or more precisely to hand it over to you, considering the boxes in his arms.

Silently you stepped aside so he had enough room to enter. You wanted to slap yourself for the complete war zone that your living room was in. You were still unpacking the moving boxes, not that you had taken much with you. It was too expensive to send things from one country to another, especially furniture. You had only focused on your clothes and books and a few things you wanted to keep, and that alone was more than you were willing to spend. In addition to the boxes, you had all the things you still had to buy, but you still didn't have the mind to do it.

You had so much going through your head that cleaning the apartment was just another task you wanted to avoid. But it was one that could be left for later. In the few minutes that Seokmin spent there, you wished you had tidied it up, that he hadn't seen how that room represented your life at that moment: a complete mess.

"What are you doing here?" you finally asked when you managed to get your vocal cords to work properly.

Seokmin didn't seem to care about the mess but paid attention to everything else around him.

He placed the boxes on the counter and took off his cap, pressing the brims with his fingertips looking for what to say next. He had rehearsed an almost poetic speech in the car, something about being adults and how your relationship had ended a long time ago, so neither of you should have any regrets left. But the moment you opened the door and looked at him it was as if all the words had simply evaporated from his mind, as if he had never learned to speak in the first place.

It had always been that way with you. Sometimes when he looked at you, even when you were still together, he got lost. He was like a man adrift who had finally found solid land. It was as if he heard a click and the world started to move once again.

One of his favorite things, when you were dating and living together, was being able to come home after an exhausting day and see you sitting on the sofa in the living room, your computer on your lap, while you studied, occasionally shouting profanities at the computer. On those days, Seokmin would simply push the computer away and lay his head on your lap.

“Just five minutes” he used to say with his eyes closed.

You’d laugh, fingers immediately running through his hair, as if it was the most natural movement in the world.

“Who do you want me to insult today? You know my vocabulary is very colorful.”

How many times had he slept in that position, without meaning to, and you had to drag him to bed because “it's comfortable for you, but my legs are numb and you have to take a shower, you won't sleep dirty next to me, sir”.

It was impossible not to wonder where it all went wrong.

“I came to return your things” he pointed at the boxes.

You suppressed the urge to bend down and rummage through the boxes. You wanted to know what he had kept, what he considered important enough to keep for so many years. You knew he no longer lived in the apartment you shared. When you were looking for apartments you saw that that one was up for rent. It was necessary to restrain yourself from choosing it. It wasn't a good apartment, at least not at the time — the photos on the website said the property had undergone renovations two years earlier and had no tenants since. It wasn't big, it barely fit one person, but it was what your extremely limited budget could afford at the time. Somehow you and Seokmin turned that small space into a home full of life. Of love.

In the places where you lived, you bought all kinds of trinkets to fill the space, furniture you didn't need and never used, hoping to imitate, for even a second, the feeling you had in that little 35 square meter apartment.

You never quite managed to do that.

“Thank you” you said sincerely “I thought all my things had gone in the trash”

You laughed and Seokmin squeezed the back of his head and pointed at the boxes.

“I sold what I could, I didn't want to put it in storage because I really thought we would never see each other again. The money is in an envelope”

“Why did you keep all this?” the words came out of your mouth before you could stop yourself “You should have thrown it away or, since you sold it, you should have spent the money”

Seokmin had asked himself that question several times before, sober or not, and he never had an answer. After a while, he simply stopped questioning and accepted it as something he had to do, to have some kind of sanity. It didn’t. Knowing that those boxes were inside his wardrobe, having to go through them the two times he moved, only brought back memories that he would like to forget.

Ever since you had seen each other again for the first time, memories that Seokmin had struggled to bury came to the surface as if they had just happened. He started to dream about you, dreams that range from memories to things that never actually happened, he started to wonder if it would be okay to talk with someone. His brain always screamed NO, so he was stuck just dreaming.

“I don’t have a good enough reason. It is what it is, I guess,” he said.

The last time Seokmin felt so embarrassed around you was right when you met and even then it only lasted a few minutes. The 18 year old Seokmin was much braver than the 29 year old man in front of him.

That boy, without any guilt or remorse, would have asked every question that could cross his mind. You’d say “your mind is beautiful, it even echoes sometimes”. Seokmin wanted to still have some of that boy's strength. Maybe that was the only way to know what he wanted. He wouldn't ask and he knew you wouldn't offer the information to him without being pressured.

“I think in the end, we both got what we wanted.”

You realized you said the wrong thing when you looked at Seokmin’s hands. A second before he was clutching his cap until his knuckles turned white, the next his long fingers were still. You didn't want to see the expression on his face. You knew what you’d find. You messed up, but couldn’t take back what you said.

“You got what you wanted” Seokmin corrected you, his voice firm, his tone hard.

“You always wanted to have a radio show”

“No, I wanted you. I could adapt to everything else if it meant I would have you.”

You shook your head. You knew it wasn't true. Hell, even Seokmin knew it wasn’t true. The first time you talked, Seokmin mentioned how much he wanted to be a radio host and have his own show, of any kind. I don't have a preference, I know I can give anything my own colors. You felt envious of his certainty, of the way he knew he could do it.

“The show has always been your dream” you tried again, despite knowing it was in vain to argue with him.

“My dream was to have a life by your side. You never, not once, told me that you signed up to study abroad, you never even mentioned it. When it was time to go you just got on a plane and disappeared. You never even gave me the chance to follow you. I could have been a journalist anywhere in the world”

Seokmin hated the direction of that conversation, hated being so exposed in front of you after so many years. In the past, it wasn't a problem. Before he wanted to be exposed in front of you, he wanted to share everything he was, every aspect of himself with you. No more. The problem was that he couldn't just stop. A gate was opened and there was no way to close it.

“So, what? Would we both be living based on our dreams? Because this is a dream, and you know it very well.”

You clung to the top rail of the chair, your head lolling forward in an almost futile attempt to stop him from seeing the tears forming in your eyes. You knew you couldn't hold them.

You weren't the type of person who cried often, you did what you could to avoid it, but when the tears came it was impossible to simply stop them from falling.

“Yeah, maybe I was really dreaming, because I believed that you loved me in the same proportion, but it’s quite obvious that you didn’t”

Seven years of pent-up frustration couldn't just disappear, he should have known. He should have imagined that going there would be a problem, that being in the same space as you without any kind of interference was a mistake. But he was still there and there was no way to escape. It was better to end everything quickly than to keep those feelings for another seven years in the hopes of one day being able to say something.

Seokmin watched as you went to one of the boxes in the corner of the room and opened it forcefully, tearing the cardboard, and causing some of the contents to slide across the floor. He felt his body freeze as a roll of film stopped at his feet.

“So explain to me, why do I buy a roll of film every time I pass by a store?” you put both hands inside the box and took out several rolls of film, of different brands and models. “Explain to me, why have I followed your career all this time and never missed a damn show in the last 3 years? Why would I wake up in the middle of the night to watch the broadcast and then listen to the show again while going to work because I just wanted to hear your voice?”

You walked to another box, but you opened this one a little more carefully as if wanting to protect the contents.

“Why did I spend 7 years writing letters that would never be read to a guy I never loved?”

You threw several envelopes at Seokmin’s chest. Your face and body shook out of anger or another feeling he couldn't quite tell.

Seokmin bent down to pick up one of the envelopes from the floor. His name was written in your careful handwriting. He didn't need to look at all the other ones to know that they were also addressed to him. He didn't know how many letters were scattered on the floor, or if there were any left in the box. The only thing he was sure of was that he had no idea how to proceed.

“If that doesn’t say I loved you, if that doesn’t say I still love you, I don’t know what the fuck does.”

Seokmin saw the first tear run down your face and fell silent. He knew he should turn his back, he knew he should walk away, just like you did seven years before. Instead, he took four steps in your direction, his eyes never left your heaving chest and the tears that ran freely over your cheeks.

At that moment he knew that he only had two options: he could turn around and leave, he gave you back your things that alone made his plan a success; or he could kiss you like he had been wanting to since the moment he saw you again.

To hell with his plan.

Seokmin held your face in his hands and pulled you to him, crashing his lips on yours. It was an all too new feeling but also familiar, almost like coming to a remodeled home. It was him and it was you, if only it was just that simple.

You sighed into him, your arms wrapping around his slim waist while your hand balled a fist full of his shirt. There were so many moments where you wished you could be right in that spot, again in his arms. Dreams and daydreams, wishful thinking, whatever you could call it. Thoughts of Seokmin had always been a constant in your mind. It was impossible not to compare other people you went out with to him.

Your longest relationship had been one of almost a full year. Although the beginning had been good and easy, with you somehow managing to avoid any and all Seokmin related dreams and thoughts, it turned sour the second he crossed your mind.

“Seokmin, I…”

He shook his head and pressed his forehead to yours, eyes so intense that it was difficult to keep looking at him.

“Let’s not overthink it, okay?” was all he said.

You held his face for a couple, searching for something in his features, anything at all, that could indicate that the moment wasn’t for that. But all you saw in him was the same emotions you felt, the same need and desire.

You pulled Seokmin to you again, this time hungrier, your chest pressed to his. Your mind was loud telling you all the reasons why you shouldn’t be doing that, why having him so close to you was truly the most dangerous situation you could possibly put yourself in. But all of those voices, all of those words and thoughts were silenced the moment he kissed you again.

His lips were hungry, demanding all of you. And it was so easy to just give in to him, to his hands roaming on your body, down your back until he reached your ass. He gave it a light squeeze and ran his hand back up again, this time under your shirt. You moaned softly at the contact of his skin on yours, as he kissed your neck, bitting on the exact same spot he found years before.

He smiled over your skin.

“At least this hasn’t changed”

It was all too much but not nearly enough. Just having him that close to you was dizzying enough but him touching you and enjoying the fact that you were just as weak for him at twenty nine made you never want to let go of him again.

“Where’s your room?”

You took Seokmin by the hand, guiding him through the narrow corridor.

Your room was barely a room to begin with. You had no furniture except for the mattress lying on the floor, your clothes were either on the suitcase or on the chair on the side.

“This is unlike you” Seokmin said, his chest pressed to your back while he nibbled on the skin of your neck.

“I… hm… I” you sturred a little when he bit into a particularly sensitive spot, making him chuckle “I’m waiting on delivery”

Seokmin turned you around in his arms while lightly pushing you down on the mattress. His eyes never left yours as he ran his hand under your shirt, moving the fabric up until your chest was exposed.

It had been so long since you had been with anyone, it was almost like a reflex to want to pull your shirt back down. Since him, it had been hard to just let yourself be exposed to someone like that. You had become awfully aware of your body and things you never cared for or paid attention to before suddenly became worries. You didn't like that insecure version of yourself but when Seokmin cupped your breast in his hand his touch was almost solemn.

It was probably the worst timing in the world when you felt tears burn on the back of your eyes. You pulled his face to yours again, trying to hide your tears from him once again.

Suddenly, his touch was tender when he pushed a few strands of hair away from your face, his fingers careful.

Seokmin moved down on your body. When you saw his fingers on the waistband of shorts you lifted your hips off of the mattress to help him move the fabric down quicker.

He kissed your hips and inner thigh. You moaned in anticipation, your hand taking a fist full of his soft hair. When his lips finally found your clit it was like fireworks erupted behind your closed eyelids.

Seokmin was impossibly hard in his pants, embarrassingly so like he was a teenager having his first time.

He never thought that he would have you in his arms again and yet there you were in front of him, no reservations. Just for him. And for a moment it was like his brain was in short circuit, the small electric waves running all over his body, down to his toes.

He licked a path from your cunt to your clit. He went down on you almost in desperation, his nose brushing on your clit every now and then.

"Seokmin..." his name was barely a whisper in your lips, but it was also a chant.

Your orgasm hits you quickly, leaving you short of air and with shaky legs. You were spiraling in the most enticing way possible. It didn't stop Seokmin though as he kept sucking you frantically.

You tugged on his hair, pulling him up and to you again.

I love you, the words almost fell out of your lips. It would have been so easy to just say them, to be open about your feelings just this once.

Deep down you knew that that moment would be a one time kind of thing. It was just the kind of moment people sometimes needed to just completely let go of everything. Or in this case, nothing. It was to let go of seven years of complete nothingness and silence.

You opened the button of his jeans and pushed it down, his boxers following along. You wrapped your hand around his cock, pumping him a couple of times. Realization suddenly came over you. You never expected Seokmin to show up to your place, much less that it would lead to that moment, and there wasn't anyone else in your life, so you weren't ready for it.

"I don't have a condom" you said breathlessly.

Seokmin looked lost for a second, his brain going to his wallet, questioning whether or not he had one in him.

"I can pull out," he said "if that's okay"

All you did was nod and Seokmin aligned himself with your hole. He pushed in slowly, savoring each moment when your pussy pulled him in until there was no space between the two of you.

Seokmin kissed you again to give himself time to adjust to you squeezing him. You held his face close to yours, in your eyes a mix of emotions he didn't want to understand. Not in that moment at least.

"I don't want anyone else," you said looking into his eyes, your thumb running over his bottom lip "No one else can make me feel the way you do"

To hell with care and self-preservation. You let go of those the moment you opened the door for him, the moment you let him into your home, the moment you didn't push him away when he kissed you.

Seokmin fucks you slowly, his pace torturous as you beg and beg for more. He intertwined his fingers with yours and held one of your hands above your head while the other one held your hips in place.

"Seokmin... harder"

And it's like a switch has gone off inside his brain. His once slow pace becomes shallow. The sound of your breaths and his skin slapping against yours were the only ones heard, echoing through the empty room.

Your orgasm sneaks up on you, catching you so off guard you scream because it's too much.

You pushed Seokmin away and watched in ecstasy as he wrapped his hand around his cock, his hand working fast as your name left his lips when his release fell on the sheet by your side.

Seokmin dropped his body over yours again, his forehead on your shoulder. You closed your eyes and ran your hand over his hair.

"I love you" you allowed yourself to say, even if it meant nothing to him.

Letter #6

Seokmin,

I never thought I'd say this, but I'm coming home. Or the closest thing I still have to a home. Needless to say, my mother is happy with the news. She's been tormenting me for years, asking me to come back, but since I set foot here I decided I wasn't going back.

I wanted to, but I wouldn't go back.

Every time I thought about going back, the first thing that came into my head was the last image I had of you. Your teary eyes wishing me a safe flight, saying I love you and hope you accomplish everything you want. I regretted it the moment I gave my things away and handed my passport into the hand of the airline girl. I should have come back, I should have given up, but I couldn't. That old story of putting myself first and second, you know how it goes. In this case, my entire top 10 was just different versions of me.

I think I actually felt scared because as time went by, little by little without me realizing it right away, you became a very big part of my life. A part that could change everything. I felt like I depended on you too much. It wasn't fair to you or me.

We were only 22, Seokmin. When we were so young, we thought that life was conquered and today I know that is not the case. Far from it. At 22 I had a degree and worked part-time at a cafe to pay the bills, just like you.

You might think I'm selfish, I'm sure you do based on the things you say on your show. I was selfish and on some level, I don't regret it. I did what I always planned to do, what I always wanted to do. And now I'm coming home.

Part of me wants to run and find you, explain why I made the decisions I did, why I never told you. But I know you won't want to listen to me. I wouldn't want to listen to me either. Why would I listen to someone who left just like that? It really wouldn't make sense.

But another part, this one a little more rational, says that I shouldn't throw salt into the wound after so many years have gone by. I have the scar here, hidden enough for no one to see, but prominent enough for me to remember what I did every single day.

I think that's what I'm going to do. I think that's what I have to do. It wouldn't be fair to just show up in front of you and say “hi, I'm back” after seven years.

You have become a big “what if” for me. What if I had stayed? Would we have stayed together or would our relationship have ended years ago? What if I had told you what I was doing while I was doing it? Would you have asked me to stay? What if I had given the possibility of a long-distance relationship? Would we have worked out or would you start to resent me for leaving and end up hurting each other anyway?

The most absurd thing is that I still like you, I'm still in love with you. I've always heard that distance makes love end or something like that. I haven't seen you in seven years, I don't know what's going on in your life — you're really good at hiding everything being a celebrity now — so it doesn't make any sense that my feelings haven't changed even after all this time. This guy I see online might not be the Seokmin I fell in love with, just like I'm not the same person you remember.

Every time I hear your voice I still feel butterflies in my stomach. I sleep and dream about you. When I wake up I think about you and I wonder if you think about me too. It is not normal. It's not healthy. Life went on and I think it is our obligation to move forward together. We are not a museum to only feed on the past.

Let's continue as we are now, what do you think? We will once again be in the same country, in the same city, but I think it's best for both of us to pretend that nothing will change. It's a huge city, what are the chances of us meeting?

Before you even opened your eyes, you already knew what you would find. Or who you wouldn't find. You knew the space next to you on the mattress would be empty. You had noticed the exact moment Seokmin had gotten up, but you forced yourself to believe that he had just gone to the bathroom. You had kept your eyes closed and had somehow gone back to sleep.

You had been naive to think that the night had changed something, that the way everything seemed like it would be fine was an indication that things had finally gotten back on track. If any, the train simply ended up derailing.

When Seokmin kissed you it was magical, no matter how cliché and teenage it may sound. It was as if the world had fallen into place again, as if you had finally returned home after being away for so long. You couldn't help but wonder if that was why you'd taken the job, in the foolish, unconscious hope that there might be a chance, however slight, of being with him again.

You forced yourself to sit up and pulled the sheet up to cover your naked body. The shirt and shorts you wore the night before were next to you on the floor, but you refused to wear those clothes, opting to rummage through the boxes in the corner of the room looking for clean ones.

You didn't want to go to the living room, didn't want to be mocked by the two boxes that Seokmin had left on the counter, but you couldn't help it. It was as if your feet had a life of their own. When you realized it, you were already sitting on the living room floor with the two boxes in front of you.

You momentarily decided to ignore the smaller black box and pulled the large one closer. The first thing you saw was the envelope Seokmin mentioned the night before. Money, especially the one in the envelope, wasn't something you were going to worry about. You didn't care about it, you didn't lie when you told him that he should have spent it. That money would remain untouched.

There were also a few books you read and made annotations on, two stuffed animals, and all the picture frames you had left behind.

One of the things you regretted the most was not taking with you when you left were photos of you and Seokmin. You had only taken one, which was folded inside your wallet. It was already so old and worn out that it had almost turned to dust, but you would never get it out. It was you and Seokmin at Niah's old restaurant, he was smiling at the camera while you looked at him. It was your favorite picture.

At the bottom of the box was the camera you had given Seokmin as a birthday present a few months before you left. You had saved whatever money you could for months to buy him the camera he wanted, one that he always talked about and whenever you passed by a store you stood outside looking at it, almost as if it would magically appear in his hands.

You understood his reasons for leaving the camera there — or, at least, the reasons you could imagine—but you wished he had kept using it. Not because it was a gift from you, but because it was something he wanted. His smile was so big when you gave it to him, the tip of his nose slightly pointed down because of it.

Carefully you put everything back inside and put it aside.

The smaller box, for some reason, was scary. It was light and black, and you could hear its contents moving as you held it in your hands. You took one last deep breath and removed the lid.

Inside were photos you had never seen before. Photos of you alone, Seokmin wasn't in any of them. In none of them were you posing or smiling directly at the camera.

Most of them had been taken from a distance, without you noticing. In some you were inside the cafe where you worked, smiling at customers and serving tables, in others you were simply walking down the street, looking through window shops and pointing at something. Seokmin had taken countless photos of you without you even realizing it.

It was strange to see yourself through his eyes, even if it was a version of you that no longer existed. A much younger and more optimistic version. Did I smile that much? you couldn't help but ask. You never saw yourself as particularly optimistic or constantly smiling. You were happy, that's undeniable, but you didn't know that's how people saw you.

There were so many photos, from completely different moments, both from the beginning of your relationship with Seokmin, and from all the phases you went through together.

Behind the pictures were the post-its that you left around the apartment, reminding Seokmin of somewhere you had together or simply saying that you loved him. So many had a simple “I love you” written on them, others said “have a good day today!”.

You had no idea he had kept them. You always thought that once read, they were discarded, but there they were, intact as if you had just written them.

The very first one you had ever written, when you had just started dating, was also there. At the time, unlike Seokmin who never had a hard time expressing how he felt, it was almost impossible for you to be openly honest. So you wrote it on a post-it and stuck it inside one of his notebooks. He had shown up at the dorm a few hours after you left the library.

“Say it again, but this time looking at me”

You frowned, pretending you didn't understand.

“Your nose is beautiful”

You laughed when Seokmin wrapped his arms around you, squeezing a little, trapping your arms close to your body. His face was very close to yours.

“What you wrote in the note” he said softly, his cheek pressed against yours “Say it again, please”

The truth was that you had loved Seokmin, in a way you didn't believe was possible and maybe that was why you spent the last seven years writing letters to him.

Seokmin never left your mind, not truly. There was always a desire, even if veiled, to return home, to find out how he was, to just say “I know I messed up, I’m sorry”.

It was that desire that made your entire body go cold as you took one last item out of the box. A smaller box that fit in the palm of your hand. You knew what it was before you even opened it and opening it was the worst choice at that moment. Your heart, which was already broken, somehow managed to break even more, into a billion, shiny, new pieces.

Seokmin would have proposed if you hadn't left.

When the first sob echoed through the living room, you didn't try to hold it back, you just accepted the feeling of being absolutely lost and heartbroken.

The weather outside the building seemed to mimic the way you had felt in the last few weeks, torrential rain that had no end in sight. You watched the news hoping for an improvement, hoping that the rain would stop for at least a few hours, but it seemed like a distant dream.

All your students were already gone and there was nothing left for you to do. The handed in assignments were graded and the tests were ready to be applied the following week. You had never hated yourself so much for simply doing your job. You wanted to be, at least for that day, like other teachers who left corrections until the last possible second and left students desperate for their grades.

The hallway was in complete silence, a clear sign that everyone had left already. And you had already waited hours for the rain to stop, until the sky was completely dark, and if anything the rain had only gotten worse.

You sighed and picked up your bag from the chair. You wouldn't risk taking any books, papers, or documents home, the possibility of everything getting ruined was too big. Besides, you needed a rest, at that point it was well deserved.

Ever since you had opened the boxes Seokmin left behind, you had immersed yourself in work in every way possible. You had accepted all of the dean's requests and even offered to teach extra classes whenever there was a missing professor.

And even so, even though you had more work than you wanted, you still found time to look at all of his social media. You still listened to all his programs, even listened to the old ones before going to sleep.

It was almost like a form of elaborate torture done solely and exclusively with you in mind. And worst of all, it was self-inflicted. It was as if your brain liked it, begged for it.

The box with the engagement ring was next to your pseudo bed. It was the last thing you saw before going to sleep and the first thing you saw when you woke up. Instead of spending hours on your phone, you sat there, staring at the small box.

You hadn't dared to open it again. You had never felt so lost as you did that day, looking at that ring.

You wouldn't be a hypocrite to say that you had never imagined your life if you had married Seokmin, but before it was nothing more than a daydream. The ring made that dream an attainable reality. It had been in your hands and you just walked away.

A curse left your lips when you noticed that the umbrella you had used that morning was missing from the umbrella holder next to the door.

“Great, that’s exactly what I needed” you muttered, slamming the door shut behind you.

You were tired, exhausted to tell the truth. All you wanted was to get home, take a shower, and watch some relationship reality show, to escape the tragedy that was your own love life.

You closed your eyes and sighed as you reached the entrance. The next bus stop or subway station was at least a 15 minute walk away. That was a problem that existed when you went to school there, everything was far away. One would think that they would do something to improve that, but one would be wrong.

You thought about taking shelter in the nearest coffee shop, but you knew it was almost closing time. You wouldn't be the person who forces employees to stay late, not when you had worked at that exact coffee shop years ago.

Even with your heavy coat covering most of your body, the rain was cold on your back and it was hard to see anything ahead, even if it was just a few steps away. Even the sound of cars was muffled by the rain.

“yn?” a car was on your left, and it was moving at the same speed as you. The face of whoever was behind the wheel was blurred by the rain, but you would have recognized that voice anywhere in the world.

“Let me give you a ride”

You shook your head. The last thing you should do was get in the car with him. It was too dangerous, you were sure that if you looked at him for more than a second you’d start crying. Just by hearing his voice your eyes were burning and a lump was forming in your throat.

“It’s fine, the bus stop is right there”

“There was an accident back there, the bus won’t be here anytime soon”

You grumbled. Of course, there was an accident, of course, there wouldn't be a bus and with your luck, the subway would probably be closed too.

"If your car went through the accident, a taxi will too”

You quickened your pace, not because of the rain, but because you wanted to get away from him. You needed to get away from him.

“Jesus, yn, just get in the car. You’re going to get sick”

You pretended you didn't hear what he said and kept walking, face down – trying to escape both the rain and him. The first tear fell from your eyes. For the first time in days, you were grateful for the rain, because you could pretend it was just water and not a visual representation of your broken heart on your cheeks.

Seokmin stopped the car right there, in the middle of the street. He didn't care if someone was standing behind him honking like crazy — something that was bound to happen.

When he left your apartment that day he felt like he was 22 again, but this time he was the one leaving.

Hearing that you loved him was everything he had wanted, but the timing was strangely right and wrong, both at the same time.

Both of you screamed, shouted, and said what you wanted to say — or at least part of what you wanted to say. A weight had been lifted from his shoulders, at the same time a new one was placed on it.

After you fell asleep in his arms, the only thing Seokmin could think about were the letters scattered across the living room floor. There were so many. He couldn't believe you had spent all those years writing letters to him.

He needed to read them all. He would have done it in the living room, but he didn't know what awaited him, so he collected them all from the floor and a few more that had been left in the box and left.

He read the first one in the car, he couldn't wait until he got home.

Seokmin cried right there, the same way he cried when you left. Inconsolable. His heart broke and healed in equal measure with every word of yours he read.

Seokmin always believed that you left like that, without a single word, because you didn't like him that much, because you didn’t want to be with him anymore. Not that he thought the entire relationship had been a lie, but he thought that somehow the love had ended. It happened to everyone, the probability of it happening to him was also high.

The truth could not be different. There wasn't a letter in which you didn't say you loved him, not always in those words, but he knew you well enough to know that was what you said.

After reading all the letters, Seokmin called Joshua. He cried on the phone with his friend and then once again when he showed up at his place with bad beer and takeout food. “Since we’re going to talk about our college days, I think we should do the same thing we did back then” was all he said.

Seokmin was on his way to you when he saw you walking without an umbrella. He wanted to talk to you, to know if even after so long you still wanted to try with him one more time. It was better to try than to always wonder what could have been.

“I read your letters!” he shouted louder than the rain.

His words were enough to make you stop walking, but you still didn't turn to face him. It was too hard to breathe. Your chest rose and fell irregularly each time you tried to pull the air in.

You knew Seokmin had taken the letters. Part of you knew he would read them, but the last thing you expected was for him to want to talk about them.

“I know” you said when he approached “I saw they were gone, and you were the only person who came by”

“Do you know why I accepted to host a love advice show? Besides it being something I've always wanted, of course” he didn't give you time to answer “Because a part of me wanted you to listen, to know that I was okay, even if it was a lie. I thought that if I talked about it on a show that had used the nickname you gave me, you’d regret it. I thought that I should make you regret it because it was the only way I could still think about you without looking like a fool after so long. I thought you didn’t care, that you had left because you didn’t like me anymore, so making you regret your decision was the only option I had”

You shook your head. It wasn't true, not by a long shot.

“I'm sorry” you said softly “I should have told you what I was doing, that I had applied for the and got in. I thought it was my only option. It was so stupid. I was so stupid”

Seokmin laughed a little, fingers running under your eyes. A second later he pressed his lips over yours.

“I know, I read your letters”

Seokmin,

It's been a good few years since I wrote you a letter. After a while, I didn't think I needed it anymore because I started saying everything I wanted, everything I felt, looking at you. Of course, this new arrangement has its demerits, as the paper and pen don't look at me like a lost puppy. But paper and pen don't kiss me either, so it has its bonus.

I thought when I came home four years ago, I would never see you again. I thought you would just be the guy who has a radio show that I would listen to every now and then. I didn't expect to see you my first week back and again and, well, again.

As you probably know, I've never been a big fan of rainy days. I always preferred sunny days because those were the days I woke up ready to face the world. I felt better overall. But also because they reminded me of you. You know, when the sun appears after gray days? For me, you were always like that. Grand and brilliant.

But after that day, I started to like rainy days too because they started to be full of the two of us. Rain was no longer synonymous of an unproductive day, but rather of the memory of our fresh start.

You know this, we've talked about it a few times, but I spent a few months waiting for it to sink in. Sort of expecting that one day I would wake up and it would all be a dream. It was hard for both of us, I know. It was seven years of hurt and resentment and we had to navigate this uncertain sea without a map. Nobody teaches you how to do this, believe me, I looked. I found countless books on how to start dating, how to save a relationship, and how to get over a relationship. The problem is that none of them teach you how to rekindle a relationship after seven years apart, but during those seven years one of the parties wrote letters and the other had a program just to mourn the sorrows of the relationship.

I've read several, so you can trust what I say on this.

It really wasn't easy, but I think we came out better, stronger, in some way.

I love you and I’ll tell you that every day for the rest of our lives. Our forever begins today, in a little while. So stop crying, put ice on your eyes to help the swelling go down, and go to the aisle because I miss you already.

I love you.

taglist: @wonwooz1, @mirtaspace, @feat-sun, @belladaises, @mayashu, @immabecreepin, @miriamxsworld, @aaniag, @k-drama-adict, @maiamorrrrrrrrrrrr, @roguesthetic, @sofix-hc7, @scarlet789, @moonlightgrleric, @mixling-blog, @haowonbins, @slut4donghyuck, @shuabby1994, @anthropologymajorkpopmultistan, @plumings, @shuasdrafts, @aaasia111, @bouclesdefeu

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hanggarae · 2 months

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꒰ SNOOPY KEYCHAIN !

↺ synopsis ; finding your lost snoopy keychain at 2 am with dokyeom

dokyeom x f!reader

“min, i’ll lose my mind please come over and help me find it” seokmin almost felt a little bad at how he had to hold back laugh while you panicked over the phone.

in his defence, it was a funny situation! how could he not find you calling him at 2 am because of your lost snoopy keychain a little amusing?

“i’m on my way sweetheart” seokmin said, voice still groggy having just woken up. he was already putting on a think hoodie to beat the cold of late winter. “don’t stress too much i’m sure we’ll find it, alright?”

you sighed, reassured because of your boyfriend’s words.

ten minutes later, you heard the notification from your phone alerting you that someone was at your door. you made sure it was your boyfriend before opening it up, giving him a quick peck before asking for his car keys.

seokmin tilted his head in confusion and you bit back the urge to coo at him while he looked like a lost puppy.

“it might’ve dropped in your car after our date today”

‘today’ told seokmin that you hadn’t slept yet, upsetting seokmin but he wouldn’t lecture you just yet he thought while handing you his keys.

he watched as you ran across the hall and to the elevator so you could get to his car outside. he watched for a few seconds before grabbing the jacket you had hung by your door and chasing after you, ushering the jacket onto you while you both waited for the elevator.

another twenty minutes later, that snoopy keychain was still nowhere in sight.

“baby, i’m starting to think it might be gone” seokmin sighed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and stifling another yawn for the nth time.

“don’t say that!” you whined, nudging his shoulder gently, “if it’s gone i’m actually going to cry”

“it’s not the end of the world if you lost one snoopy keychain” seokmin giggled, cupping your face and using his thumb to stroke your cheek.

“it is!” you sulked, “you got me that keychain on our first date at that carnival. if i lose it that means i’m a horrible girlfriend”

seokmin looked at you for a few seconds before breaking out into another laugh. he was far too infatuated with you for his own good.

“considering i didn’t even remember that sweetheart i think that makes me an even worse boyfriend” seokmin said gently and tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear.

“shut up, you could never be a bad boyfriend” you mumbled, leaning up to press a kiss to seokmin’s lips and melting at how you could feel him smile against your own.

“i’ll get you a new keychain tomorrow, okay?”

“okay”

#seventeen x reader #seventeen fluff #seventeen x you #dokyeom x y/n #dokyeom x you #dokyeom x reader #dokyeom imagines #dokyeom fluff #seokmin fluff #lee seokmin x reader #seokmin x reader #seokmin imagines #lee seokmin imagines

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cheollipop · 5 months

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☂˚.⋆｡ 𝙨𝙬𝙚𝙚𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙣 𝙥𝙞𝙚𝙨

navi | taglist | part of svthub's fall-ing collab

pairing: lee seokmin x afab!reader

w.c.: 5.0k

genre: smut, fluff, established relationship, apple picking and pie baking and some sweet lovemaking <3

a lovers’ retreat—golden rays cast shadows over high, blushing cheekbones, flour-kissed noses and eye smiles as warm as the oven’s embrace, secrets and tender kisses shared with the starry night, and in a wooden cabin fragrant with the aroma of cinnamon and caramel, the love shared was sweeter than the finest apple pie.

☂ warnings: food/eating mentioned, unprotected sex (👎), creampie, praise, edging, some begging, some cockwarming, overstimulation (m), multiple orgasms (f), nicknames (min; baby, babe, love), some aftercare, seokmin is so fucking whipped (so is reader), there's so much love talk in this, I hate myself.

☂ A/N: nobody come for my inconsistent pie recipe, I didn't use one (also idc if you don't knead the dough, i needed it to describe seokmin's bulging muscles tyvm). other than that, this fic means a lot to me and despite struggling for the most part, I really enjoyed writing it. happy reading! :]

nsfw under the cut—minors dni 🔞

Slender fingers rounded the hanging fruit, examining for imperfections with eager eyes and the tip of a tongue held between pearly whites. The crisp air contrasted the solacing warmth of the morning sun under which you basked, strolling between green leaves and bright reds with a near-empty basket dangling at your side. You wanted him to work faster, to disregard whatever negligible bumps lay on the apples’ exterior, but you opted to remain silent, simply watching him from the sidelines while he carried on with his meticulous inspections.

Seokmin was spring. Smiles that could bring a barren land to life, vivid flora and singing birds fluttering around within the glimmers decorating his irises. But spring had long since ended, now treading deeper into the cooling weather of autumn, and yet, Seokmin still offered verve to everything he touched. Even as green turned to yellow then amber, and tanned skin rested beneath thick layers of cashmere and fleece, he still wore his spring smile—a reminder that the season of life will come again. He carried warmth wherever he went, and the biting chill attempting to penetrate thick layers of clothing stood no chance while his towering figure remained by your side.

You watched him throw the fallen end of his scarf over his shoulder, a woven cream he’d worn on your first date. Hoary yarn ends peeked out along its length, and you reminisced the store tag he’d forgotten to remove while he fiddled with his fingers and laughed anxiously before you all those years ago, so young and eager to impress. You’d mused over the giggles shaking his tense shoulders, the pretty pink painting his face and ears when you failed to rip it off in a discreet manner, and though the embarrassment was debilitating in the moment, the worry weighing down on Seokmin’s shoulders faded away as you laughed. It was well into winter when you’d walked alongside the river, steaming cups of hot chocolate resting between your palms—going cold before you had the chance to sip on them, only there to fight off the bleak midwinter breeze numbing your appendages. Young and dumb, you both were, walking by the river on a chilly day, but young and dumb brought upon you years of easy smiles and hearty laughs, unconditional love and unending happiness, all sprouting from sharing arbitrary details about yourselves with that same cream scarf draped around you both.

Dark locks now dyed the colour of changing leaves, the morning rays casting their golden hue over the wavy strands and reflecting off the specs perched over his nose bridge. Seokmin was a few inches taller now, and his shoulders broader, but the smile he wore, the sparkle in his eyes as he laid them on you were no different than those from that day by the river.

Chatter at your side dragged your attention off Seokmin’s profile and onto the family walking past you—two curious children and their parents inspecting the ripe fruit hanging before them. Scripts of late-night conversations you’d had with Seokmin flooded your mind, your face flushing and butterflies swarming your lower belly at the thought of starting a family with the man. Seokmin's fascination with learning how to braid your hair, his whispered comment—’for the future’—did not go unnoticed as he brushed gentle fingers through the stands he’d tangled in his attempts, a hint of a promise in his tone. He also promised to never leave them alone with Hoshi, which you appreciated. For obvious reasons. You were still young, and had much to experience together before taking a step that significant, but part of you was ready to offer Seokmin the world. A man who’d brought nothing bliss and warmth into your life, how could you not?

Turning your head back to the man in question, your eyebrows raised as you watched him eying the passing family alongside you, and you wondered whether the same thoughts were running through his head as well. But then his attention shifted back to you, and the amiable smile while he took you in told you everything you needed to know.

The curve of his lips persisted as he reached a hand to push the stray strands blown by the chilling breeze off your face, pinching the fat of your cheeks between his pointer and thumb before dropping them back to his side. A gentle gesture, but it lit your insides on fire, blinking quickly as you processed an action so natural to him, yet one that set you ablaze. Swallowing nervously, you redirected your gaze to the three apples resting over Seokmin’s palms as he presented the flawless, shiny Honeycrisps with a proud grin.

You giggled, “those look great, Min.”

“Only the best for you,” he leaned forward to plant a kiss onto the cheek he’d just pinched.

Flustered, you watched him throw the apples into the basket you held, his fingers brushing against yours as he swiftly pulled it out of your hand and carried on walking through the orchard. You might have missed a few additions to the small pile while you pondered about a lifetime by Seokmin’s side, and yes, the basket was significantly more weighed down now that he did. But it wasn’t that heavy.

You skipped a few steps to catch up with him, your bottom lip jutting out in protest. “Min. I can carry it myself.”

“Mm, I know,” he hummed, eyes trained on the novel batch of apples swinging gently at his eye level. “Don’t want you to, though.”

You pushed away the fondness warming your chest, capturing his coat’s sleeve between two fingers as you sulked at his side, his attention still set on those damn apples. He moved the basket to his other hand absentmindedly, allowing you more space to come closer to his side, his free arm wrapping around your waist, and head twisting to look over your moping features with tender adoration gracing his own. Leaning down, he pressed soft lips to your forehead, their warmth seeping into your skin and fluttering your eyelids shut.

Placing another one at your temple, playfulness mingled in his tone as he spoke, “Stop complaining, you’re not getting it back.”

And this time, all you could do was laugh.

The hours hurried by while Seokmin’s endless chatter kept you company, and perhaps you wish it hadn’t, wanting to treasure each passing second you shared in the presence of the man with the unwavering smile. You walked between the endless trees with leisure steps, the fingers entangled with yours occasionally dragging you with them to inspect the gradient of red and green. Some apples made the cut, thrown into the pile of spotless fruit he’d gathered over the past few hours, while others remained swaying with the gentle breeze, bruised exterior reflecting the golden rays.

A particular shade of green caught Seokmin’s eye, leaving your hand behind at your side to wrap slender fingers around the glossy circumference, rotating it gently to inspect it, going as far as leaning forward to get a closer look. Nodding to himself, he snapped its stem off and placed the weighted basket down, wrapping the apple in his cream scarf to give it a good wipe. You felt yourself salivate at the satisfying crunch sounding as Seokmin’s teeth breached the unblemished skin, and you watched the pucker of his lips as he chewed with wide, expecting eyes. A breathy chuckle contained within tightly pursed lips echoed in the back of his throat upon viewing the anticipation etched into your expression, and he moved the unbitten side towards your already-parted lips. Too focused on the apple nearing your waiting mouth, you’d missed the sly smile, the giggle he’d nearly failed at suppressing, and bit into the polished green.

A stream of its juice slipped past to flow down your chin, bitterness overwhelming your tastebuds and forcing your eyes firmly shut. A shiver ran down your spine as you struggled to chew on the unripe fruit, tears prickling in your eyes as you willed them open to glare at the man before you, hints of guilt mixed in with amusement on his face. Underneath all the kind smiles and caring gestures, Seokmin loved being an asshole.

He’d watched you persist and push through finishing the bite, too many people around now to spit it out. He even leaned forward to kiss away the tangy juice cooling over your skin, scrunching his nose at the sourness he’d willingly stolen another taste of. At least he was aware enough to take a step back once you’d swallowed the unpleasant bite down, what you thought was fear flashing across his features.

“Hey,” he put his hand up in defence before you could speak, “we share everything, right?” He took another step backward while giggling anxiously, and he nearly tripped over the apple-full basket he had resting over the soft grass. “Why should I make an exception for fruit?”

“Bad fruit,” you corrected, an eyebrow raised.

“Babe,” he started, but didn’t know how to continue, perhaps hoping the sparkling brown of his irises would do the trick.

And it almost did, you admit. But the bitterness lingered over your tongue, and Seokmin found himself scurrying away and out of the fire zone of the incoming apples you’d launched at him, laughing while you entertained the couples and children harvesting their own fruit with your lively act of revenge.

You smoothed your hands down the fresh set of clothes you’d thrown on, the fleece warm against your skin. The ligneous scent of your rented cabin added to its coziness, gentle winds blowing against closed windows and floorboards creaking with every socked footstep guiding you to the small kitchen.

Said footsteps quickened upon spotting bright green reflecting off the sharp metal of the very large knife in Seokmin’s hand, eyebrows furrowed as he focused on dividing the apple into even crescents. The hurried shuffling drew his attention, twisting his head just as you reached for the sharp tool, gently untangling his fingers off its handle to set it down over the cutting board alongside the botched fruit.

“Baby?” Tilting his head to the side, he stared at you in confusion.

You held both his hands in yours, flat over your palms as you inspected the tanned skin. Running your thumbs over polished nailbeds, you followed the protruding veins lining his slender fingers, all the way down each knuckle until you’d made sure he was unharmed. You enclosed his fingers within your palm, bringing them up to press your lips against, finding his pointer to plant an especially tender kiss over the scar stretching across its side.

“I was being careful,” he spoke through a melodramatic pout.

You smiled. “I know you were, Min. But let me handle the chopping this time, okay?”

Averting his eyes to the side, pretending to focus on the yellowing trees past the windowpane, Seokmin nodded, his hands limp in your hold. You lowered them to his side to cradle his jaw, tilting his head down to meet your eyes once again and staring him down in hopes of breaking his composure, but Seokmin’s pout persisted. And so the kisses began, soft and delicate over his cheekbones, forcing his eyes shut as you trailed your lips over the trembling skin. Leaning your head back, you watched his evident struggle against a betraying smile, finally curling the corners of his mouth when you’d dragged his head down with a forceful kiss to his cheek, the skin stretching under your lips while you kept them pressed there for a few more seconds. You moved away with an audible smack, Seokmin’s pout nowhere to be seen as he stared down at you with an uncontainable smile.

“Why don’t you make the dough instead?”

You picked up where Seokmin left off—half an apple chopped sloppily, which you ended up munching on while you worked—going through the washed apples to pick out the greenest, cutting them into even pieces and throwing them in a bowl of cinnamon and sugar. You remembered the nutmeg later on, after the frustrated noise at your side caught your attention, confusion raising your eyebrow when you’d noticed the powdery dough Seokmin was working with. He’d forgotten the eggs. The embarrassment on his face was adorable, rose-tinted cheeks and restrained smile while watching you crack an egg into the crumbly mess he’d been working on for a shameful amount of time. A quick kiss to his jaw and a whispered ‘it’s okay, Min’ seemed to do the trick, though.

Tossing the last of the apples into the seasoning bowl, you sprinkled nutmeg over the shimmering crescents before grabbing a clean spoon from the dishrack, the spices’ aroma wafting in the air around you as you mixed them in with the fruit. Glancing over at Seokmin, you realised he’d begun kneading the dough, flour dusted over the marble counter as he rolled the raw crust in on itself, and as you took in the hard muscle bulging against the sleeve of his t-shirt, your fingers unconsciously loosened around the spoon you held. Your eyes wandered over flexing biceps and defined, broad shoulders, veins protruding from tan skin as he worked the dough under his palm. Bottom lip tucked between a set of pearly whites, his eyebrows furrowed occasionally while the ball gradually smoothened in his hands, growing less crumbly and eventually forming a near-perfect sphere.

Absentmindedly tumbling the apples with a limp grip around the spoon, you followed Seokmin’s movements, lower belly fluttering with every faint, airy grunt sounding in the back of his throat as he worked the dough. Your thoughts strayed as you eyed the distracting flex of his muscles—the smile he wore, so sweet and tender, contrasted broad shoulders and the strength to manhandle you without much thought. You were almost certain Seokmin had no awareness of the fact, going about what he was doing without much regard to the blushing mess he’d left behind, the butterflies violently thrashing around within your stomach. The sparkling orbs with which he gazed at you, with charming innocence, oblivious to the effect he had on you. Perhaps that was for the best; you weren’t sure you’d want to find out what would become of him should he learn of the hidden power he’d been holding this entire time.

Sudden eye contact dragged you out of your daydreams when the man before you turned in your direction, the smooth doughball resting over his palm, and a proud smile on his lips. You held back the one threatening to break out on yours when you’d spotted the white dusting the pointy tip of his nose, some lightly powdering his cheeks as well. Instead, your chest warmed at his wordless flaunting as he slowly moved the undented dough towards you, sparkling eyes fishing for praise. And sure, you basically made the dough for him, and yes, all he did was mix the ingredients together with firm, hard-earned muscle, but the slight falter in his smile the longer you remained silent was enough to sway you.

“It looks great, Min!” You stepped closer, inspecting the roundness with wide eyes for a few seconds before straightening up to meet his eyes, “I’m proud of you, my love.”

Though a simple gesture, Seokmin’s face lit up, all but hurling the dough onto the counter to pull you into his arms, grinning into your shoulder while he squeezed your laughing frame closer to his chest. His arms still around you, he pulled away slightly, stars dancing in his eyes as he gazed at you gleefully, smiling against your lips as you got onto your tiptoes to kiss him lightly. But that didn’t satisfy Seokmin, his arm wrapping across your back to pull you back into him, locking his lips with yours once again, this time with hunger and hints of desire laced into the action. He kissed you once, twice, until he’d had a taste and realized he’d never have enough, needing sweetness and plush lips to forever bless his senses. While you held on to his biceps for balance, Seokmin was everywhere—hands up your back, over your arms and waist, and suddenly he was kissing you harder, deeper, tongue swiping across your bottom lip and teeth digging into it with a fervent want that sent waves of heat soaring through your body.

Pulling away for air, your chests heaved in unison, flush against one another as Seokmin peered down at you with hooded eyes, a spark of lust igniting the dark irises. And suddenly you were back in the present, the forgotten apples browning in their bowl, and the dough witnessing the heated exchange from its place on the counter.

“T-the pie!” you quickly diverted, pushing Seokmin away to shift your focus back to the task at hand, but you could feel his eyes boring into the back of your skull. “Can you preheat the oven please?”

An amused laugh sounded behind you at the shakiness of your voice, “yes, boss.” Just as you were about to sigh in relief, you heard him take a step towards you, his chest bumping into your shoulder and a gentle whisper blowing against the shell of your ear. “You have flour all over your face, by the way.”

And your pants, you thought, as his palm landed a playful slap onto your ass before he made his way to the other side of the kitchen.

The heat coursing through you dwindled as you fixated on the unfinished pie, save for those resulting from the not-so-hidden glances you’d stolen of Seokmin’s defined biceps as he moved the rolling pin over the dough. It was smooth sailing after that, though, missing the heart eyes directed at you as you spooned the filling into the rolled-out crust, perfectly fitted into the baking mould. You attempted to control your expressions as Seokmin tried and failed to cut straight lines out of the leftover dough, begrudgingly allowing him to place the uneven lattice in a questionable pattern, the chipper smile stretching his lips while he worked more than enough to excuse an ugly pie.

Carrying the raw pie over his head like Simba, Seokmin made his way to the oven. You held the door open for him, eyes following the baking mould as he transferred it onto the rack, gasping when his finger met the scorching metal. He placed the pie down and pretended nothing happened, ignoring the forming mark on his knuckle as he swung the oven door shut. And despite the whining and attempts of reassurance, you dragged Seokmin to the sink and ran cold water over his hand, once again kissing his pout away while you stood with barely any space separating your bodies.

His free hand slid across the small of your back, his other leaving its place under the running water to shut it off, wiping the droplets over his sweats before holding onto your hip. Leaning down, he met your lips once more, then again, until short pecks deepened, and a sharp nose nuzzled into the side of yours as he pulled you further into his body.

You pulled away with a gasp, startling Seokmin away from your lips, “the sweet potatoes!”

The initial shock replaced by softening eyes and a breathy laugh, Seokmin squeezed your waist once before releasing you. He stood to the side while you wrapped foil around the sangria exterior, offering to put them in the oven for you, but backing down at the disapproving glare you threw at him. Perhaps Seokmin had unintentionally caused a case of Pavlovian conditioning, one you remained unaware of, because the very second his bottom lip jutted out, yours were pressing consoling kisses over its plushness. Sometimes it took a few tries, but that’s only because you enjoyed watching the man—broad shoulders and all—sulk and whine when he didn’t get his way, only to lighten up and grin once your lips met his. It’s unclear who the winner was in this game, both parties working with a motive and ending with a satisfying result. Peculiar, really.

You settled down on the creaky floorboards across from the oven, your back to Seokmin’s chest and his thighs on either side of yours. His arms rested comfortably around your waist, hands limp at your hips, occasionally squeezing at the clothed flesh. Watching the pie crust brown through the glass, you basked in the cosy aroma circulating the cabin, the heat emanating from Seokmin’s body gentler and more comforting than that caramelising the sugar drizzled over the wonky lattice. Delicate fingers smoothed down your hair, and a silky voice lulled you to a tranquil state of comfort, strong arms holding you within the aura of warmth until a sharp click sounded, with the nostalgic scent of cinnamon and caramel to guide you out of slumber’s enticing grip, and back to toothy smiles and a cordial embrace.

The night’s breeze was crisp against slick skin, the warmth encased within the confines of the thick blankets now infiltrated through a window forgotten open. Seokmin noticed the raised goosebumps over your arms, and lowered his body until your chests laid flush, his forearms on either side of your head keeping his weight off your form.

“Cold?” he asked, lips pressing against your jaw and up to your cheekbone, over the frosty tip of your nose.

You shook your head, “not anymore,” and wrapped your arms around the soft skin of his waist.

Seokmin smiled, gentle features illuminated by the moonlight peeking through the cracked-open blinds—a cool-toned hue casting shadows over his face, moving as he pressed his pelvis closer to yours with an exhaled moan. Moving his weight over to one arm, he slid the other down to your core, splaying his palm out over your lower belly to thumb at your clit.

He’d been teasing you for so long—his cock filling you up the way you wanted, but only barely teasing your g-spot, refusing to move despite your repetitive whines; instead, he occasionally reached two slender fingers between your legs to relieve some of the arousal burning underneath your skin. This time, though, you’d reached your limit, clenching around him as a sudden high rushed through you, shaking your body within his hold.

Despite a day’s worth of lingering touches and heated kisses, a hand placed a little too low on your back, and eyes lit with unconcealed glints of want, the patience Seokmin exhibited as he guided you through your orgasm was not surprising. He’d always enjoyed giving—curling his fingers just right to take in the elegant arch of your back, your sweet taste on his tongue while he nuzzled his nose into your soaked pussy. But most of all, Seokmin savoured the tight squeeze around his cock as he fucked you through an orgasm, his breath heavy and eyes lidded with the pleasure your walls lavished upon him.

Slowly fading back into the present, you peered up at the man atop you, the column of his throat stretched as he took in the violent fluttering of your walls. But you wanted more, pent up and restless with his scent, his warm touch, occupying your every sense. And he still won’t move.

You rolled your hips experimentally, a startled hand rushing to stop you, fingers digging into the flesh to stifle the motion. “Please,” you whined, “Min, please move.”

Groaning at your tone, cock throbbing between your walls, “oh baby,” he breathed out, bumping his forehead with yours and allowing his eyelids to fall shut. “I’ve been thinking about having you like this all day. I wanna last for you, my love, ‘wanna make you feel so good.”

Arousal boiled in your lower belly, eyelashes fluttering and a shaky breath escaping your parted lips at the words whispered in the air between you. “Min-”

“Let me be good for you.”

A kiss to your temple and a few inhales were all it took Seokmin to regain his composure, his forehead still pressed to yours as he tugged you closer by the hips, languidly rolling his own into your heat. The leisure glide wasn’t much, but it sent a shiver through your body. It was as though Seokmin could read the wordless pleads sparkling in your eyes, pulling his face away just enough to adjust the angle before settling back down onto your body. Fingers tangled in your hair to keep your eyes on his, blinking in unison while you breathed the same air, gentle waves of pleasure drawing breathy moans out of the both of you, his cockhead brushing against your sweet spot every time he drove it inside your cunt.

Sliding a hand over his sweat-coated nape, you dragged Seokmin down to your lips, the sweetness of a pie forgotten outside enriching your tastebuds, the single remaining piece left over the picnic blanket alongside crumbled foil—the unintentionally discarded dessert serving as breakfast for the blackbirds to nip at when the morning came.

The hand lost in your hair found its way to your jaw, cradling your face while he devoured you, the kiss growing deeper the farther Seokmin sunk down the blazing pit of lust growing within him. His cock twitched erratically within you, pace picking up until the echo of skin-on-skin danced between the four walls, hips slamming against yours with fervour as his eagerness finally won over him. Unable to focus on anything but the mind-numbing heaviness of his cock pounding into you, your lips parted to release a staccato of ah’s, his own relentless as they peppered wet, open-mouthed kisses all over your face.

“God, you’re perfect,” he grabbed your cheeks with the hand previously on your jaw, squishing them together to lay his lips onto the forced pout on yours, “all mine.”

Your eyes rolled to the back of your head at the repetitive abuse to your cunt, squelching obscenely every time Seokmin fucked his entire length inside. “All—hngh—all yours,” you repeated, exhaling a breath you’d been holding when sudden warmth spread through your abdomen.

“I—hah—‘m sorry,” he stuttered as his rhythm turned sloppy, shuddering when he finally came. Sheathing himself deep withing your heat, he fed ropes of translucent white into your womb while attempting to keep his eyes on you, long eyelashes fluttering while ecstasy flowed through his body. “Felt so good, I couldn’t…” he paused to lower his head, interrupted by a string of airy moans as the last, weak spurts of cum emptied out of his twitching cock. “I couldn’t help it,” he muttered.

The reassurance died on your tongue when the sensitive cock drew out halfway, only to slam back into you as though the arms bracketing your head didn’t continue to tremble with the continuing effects of his orgasm. Lifting his head back up to meet your gaze, he lowered his hand back down to play with your cunt, dipping down to feel around your stretched hole and back up to circle your clit with the slick he’d collected, a silent promise of “I’ll be good” glimmering in his lidded eyes while he watched you fall apart under his touch.

And he was, so good.

You tumbled over the edge unexpectedly, cockhead pounding into your cunt while he rolled your clit underneath his fingertips until your features contorted gracefully, fireworks exploding behind your eyelids as you shut them and tilted your head back to welcome a stupefying orgasm. You tensed for a moment, then began spasming uncontrollably in his arms, hips simultaneously jerking towards and away from his touch as he guided you through your high, languidly gliding his cock along your dripping, clenching walls, both hands now gripping the soft flesh of your hips.

And when the stimulation sent pangs of pain up your body, a whispered repetition of his name paired with limp tugs at his wrist finally broke Seokmin away from you and the bewitching melody he drew out of the perfect circle shaping your mouth. He slid his softening cock out of your heat to allow thick dollops of pearly cum to stream out of your pussy, watching as your hole clenched uselessly until your abashed whine dragged him out of his thoughts.

You found yourself tucked in under layers of thick blankets while running water sounded in the bathroom, bare feet padding over the floorboards until Seokmin—with his boxers on backwards—reached under the covers to blindly drag a warm washcloth over your skin, hoping it would catch all the sweat and cum without having to expose you to the chill air. You drew your lips into a straight line to avoid laughing at the concentration furrowing his eyebrows, cheeks flushing as he washed your middle. Any other day, Seokmin would make a big deal of cleaning you up properly, but you could see the hair on his arms raising, the autumn night’s chill piercing through his skin.

He didn’t even bother with returning the rag to its place, tossing it over his shoulder to dive under the cosy blankets with you, limbs tangling as soon as he made it there—arms circling your tired frame and legs pushing between and over yours. The momentary frigidity dissipating, his body heat seeped into your very being, and you inhaled the fresh scent of laundry mixed in with remaining hints of his cologne. Nuzzling the pointy tip of his nose into your hair, he planted a kiss onto your crown, the gesture faint as his steady heartbeat lulled you to much-needed slumber, the serene trip to dreamland occupied with solacing thoughts about a forever home within Seokmin’s tender embrace.

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wheeboo · 4 months

Note

soft hrs for dokyeom: thinking about [tipsy live2] and dokyeom holding woozi while he cried :(( and kissing his cheeks and his head :(( and js dokyeom in general bc did u know this video got me into svt

no bcuz this clip gets me soft every time :(( the way seokmin held him and kissed his cheeks and head :(( it rlly shows their close bond as a group and i'm so proud of how far they've come <3 and this video getting you into svt is actually so adorable pls. anyways!! let me write a lil drabble for the soft hr <3

imagine seokmin having to pick you up from a hangout with your friends. he expected for you and your friends to drink, but he surely didn't expect you to be tipsy and at the cusp of being wasted, nearly stumbling to where he stood outside as you parted ways from everyone.

as he got you in the car and began to drive home, he notices how unusually silent you were throughout the short ride, but he doesn't say anything about it--not yet at least--simply taking it as you being exhausted and ready to go to bed.

he helped slipped you out of your shoes and took of your coat as he led you inside your (and his) place.

"let me get you a glass of water," he reassures you sweetly, leading you to sit down on the couch.

yet just as he's about to go to the kitchen, a tug at his sleeve stops him, and he turns back to you. you open your mouth as if about to speak, but only a choked sound leaves your lips. you're crying.

a sudden rush of adrenaline flows through seokmin as he grabs your hand into his. "hey, sweetheart, wh-what's wrong? why are you crying?"

"i-i'm scared."

seokmin furrows up a brow, confused. "scared?"

"that you'll..." you swallow a lump in your throat, trying to fight your blurry thoughts. "that you'll break up with me."

seokmin's eyes only widen, expression shifting from confusion to concern as he processes your words. he sits down beside you on the couch, still holding your hand gently, and looks into your eyes with a reassuring gaze.

"hey, hey," he whispers softly. "where is this coming from? you know i care about you more than anything, right?"

you sniffle, trying to compose yourself. "i-i don't know. it's just... tonight, when i was with my friends, i saw you watching us, and i thought, maybe you'd get tired of me. and when we were driving home, i thought you were disappointed. and all my friends were, um, talking about their break-ups with their partners and it got me thinking things--"

"i would never get tired of you, sunshine," seokmin affirms, gently wiping away the tears that continue to streak down your cheeks. "i love you, and watching over you tonight had nothing to do with being tired of you. i just want to make sure you're safe and okay."

seokmin wraps an arm around you, bringing you close to his side. he presses a kiss to the top of your head, and one to your cheek. when he pulls away, he notices the very faint, subtle smile beginning to curl at your lips.

"i'm not going anywhere, okay?" he says, rubbing his hand up and down your arm, trying to coax your uncertain thoughts away.

you manage a nod, closing your eyes momentarily to relish his warmth surrounding you.

"okay," you whisper, voice still shaky but the reassurance in seokmin's words starting to sink in. "i love you too. i-i'm sorry for doubting. i don't know what got into me."

"it's okay, love." his lips meet your temple, lingering for a few moments longer, before pulling back to meet your eyes with a loving smile. the room seems to brighten. "now let me take care of you tonight."

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sluttywoozi · 6 months

Text

Kinktober Day 31: Alien Kink + DK

For ⚔️

Rating: M (18+) | WC: ~2k

Pairing: Seokmin x Reader | Genre: smut, sci fi

Warnings: dk is a clueless virgin alien, sex ed, oral f. rec., vaginal fingering, alien anatomy, breeding mention

Seokmin has only been dating you for two earth months, but already, he knows he’s in love.

His species doesn’t put much stock in romance or dating - the most they seek is a suitable mate to help produce offspring every mating cycle - but Seokmin has always been different. Different enough that he’s never participated in the mating cycles at all, not wanting to share that side of himself with someone who won’t stay.

Different enough that he’s one of the few of his species that has ever left their planet, different enough that he can almost pass as human, if it weren’t for his pointed ears and chameleon-like qualities. You don’t seem to mind them, thankfully, nor do you mind the odd looks you get whenever you go out in public together.

Your kind has known about aliens for less than five years, barely long enough to grow accustomed to the idea and definitely not long enough for interspecies relationships to be normal. Seokmin isn’t worried though, knowing that as earth grows into a galactic trade hub, more and more relationships like yours will pop up.

Until then, he’s content to ignore the looks, hold your hand on the street, and proudly let his cheeks flare purple, the color a sign of his deep, true love for you.

Or at least, that’s what he tells himself.

The truth is, he’s dying to know what you look like naked.

He’s tried to do research, but what he now knows is called ‘porn’ doesn’t seem to be for him, and he can’t even begin to understand the words or the diagrams in that anatomy textbook he borrowed from the library. Besides, he only wants to see you, touch you, learn you, no one else.

So, he does what’s most logical to him, and simply asks.

It’s on a calm Sunday afternoon that he first broaches the topic, one that sees Seokmin reading with his head in your lap as you rewatch your favorite show for the nth time. His book is getting to a particularly spicy bit, one that has heat growing in both of his stomachs, but as usual, when it gets to the more specific parts, Seokmin is clueless as to what they’re talking about.

What is a pussy? Why is the main character putting his mouth on the love interest’s? And why is everything so wet??

These are all questions Seokmin needs an answer to, and he reaches over for the remote to pause your show so he can have your full attention. You blink down at him, arching an eyebrow in curiosity as he opens and closes his mouth like a fish, unsure of how to voice his questions.

In the end, he just asks you flat out.

By the time you get over your shock, finish laughing, and pull yourself back together, he’s pouting on the other end of the couch, his arms crossed and his cheeks bright orange in embarrassment.

“I’m sorry, Minnie, you just caught me off guard. Ummm,” you stall as you try to figure out how to answer, deciding to just be as clinical and explanatory as possible. “Humans generally have one of two types of genitalia, a vagina or a penis, and pussy is a less formal word for vagina, which is what I have. There’s something called oral sex, and it’s when you use your mouth to make someone feel good. That’s what’s happening in your book.”

Ohhh. That makes sense, Seokmin thinks.

“And everything is wet because, well, the mouth is wet and the pussy can make its own wetness, so everything just gets a little… messy.”

Seokmin squirms in his place at the end of the couch, suddenly not at all interested in his book and only too intrigued by the idea of putting his mouth on you.

“Can we try that?” Seokmin asks urgently, shuffling over to you on his knees and imploring you with his eyes.

“Right now?” You question, trepidation in your voice and nervousness on your face. “I haven’t shaved or anything.”

“What’s shaving?” He’s never heard that word before, doesn’t have a clue what it means, though you seem to think it’s bad that you haven’t done it.

“Never mind,” you sigh happily, throwing your arms around his neck and pulling him into a deep kiss.

Kissing, Seokmin is used to. Kissing, Seokmin is good at.

And he loves loves loves kissing you, loves your sounds and the taste of your tongue and the feeling of your lips against his. Loves how close he feels to you and how close you get to him, loves how his head spins and how your hands wander, your fingers tracing over the pointed tips of his ears and down the ridges of his abdomen.

He shivers when you break away to suck kisses into his neck, his head falling back to give you more room as you bite and lick your way down his throat. You pull down his t-shirt collar to get at his collarbones and he covers your hand with his, pulling back and reminding you of the goal.

“I’m going to perform oral sex on you, remember?”

You bite back a smile and tell him, “Seokmin, try saying ‘go down on you’ or ‘eat your pussy’ instead. They sound a bit sexier.”

“Baby, I promise I would never eat you. Sure, humans can be a delicacy on some planets, but that’s not how I do things,” he says, hand on his biggest heart and with all the seriousness in the world, unsure why threatening to consume you would sound any sexier than what he said.

“It’s just a figure of speech, Minnie. You won’t actually be eating me,” you promise gently, reminding Seokmin just how much he has left to learn about you and your people and your silly combinations of words.

“Oh. What will I be doing?”

“It’s like kissing, but you kind of have to multitask? It’s hard to explain, I’ll guide you once you get down there.”

He rolls off the couch and shuffles close to you on his knees, placing his hands on yours to push your legs apart. Gazing expectantly at you, he waits for you to remove your clothes so he can see what he’s working with, all three of his hearts beginning to race as you lift your hips and shyly push at your pajama shorts.

He can’t believe he’s about to see you bare, his first lover, his first girlfriend, his first human, and if he has anything to say about it, his last. The shorts get to your knees and he has to move his hands, settling them on your upper thighs and taking in a deep breath, tasting something sweetsour and heady on the air.

When you open your legs for him, he knows instantly that the flavor was you, and that it’s something he wants on his tongue now. He should take a look around, explore you a bit, but he’s letting his instincts guide him and they’re saying to get his mouth on you as soon as possible, lest he lose this chance.

And oh, oh, Seokmin gets it now, why it’s called ‘eating out,’ because he does want to eat you, he wants to consume you, he wants to drink you down. He wants to lick his fingers and taste you. Bite his lip and taste you. Swipe his tongue over his teeth and taste you. He wants you all over him, so he practically shoves his face into your pussy, shaking it from side to side to spread you out as his tongue laps at the folds and creases of you.

The taste is more concentrated further down, so further down he goes, making a questioning noise when he encounters something unexpected. There’s a… hole, or maybe an entrance? Are you hollow here?

His tongue delves inside, and all at once, he’s in heaven. It’s like everything else falls away, his shoulders untensing and his fingers spasming on your knees as his cheeks flare a bright red, the color of deep, gnawing arousal.

You’re searing hot and soaking wet, like a scalding shower on a freezing day, and your walls feel like molten velvet, the texture and flexibility of them mind blowing as they ripple and squeeze around his tongue.

He’s never felt, tasted, encountered anything like you in his life, and he hopes you’re alright with him sticking around for the rest of it, because he can’t give this up.

Seokmin can’t know about the glory of your pussy and then suddenly forget about it, no, this will stay with him forever.

He feels something nudge against his forehead and looks up, his eyes nearly crossing in an effort to identify what’s touching him. It’s your fingers, you’re swirling them over something and with every pass, he feels you tightening up on his tongue, feels more of your slick coming out to coat his face.

“What are you doing?” He pulls away to ask, his tongue slightly sore and his lips swollen.

“Um, this is my clit, there’s a lot of nerves here and touching it makes me feel the best,” you pant, stilling your hand and moving it to rest on your hip so he can inspect you closer. There’s a small bump peeking out of a little hood, and when Seokmin pokes his tongue out to give it a kitten lick, your hips buck into him.

“Like that?”

“Yeah, Minnie, like that. And you can fuck me with your-- your fingers, they can go inside.”

Oh, he likes whatever’s happening to your voice right now. You sound all breathy and needy and relaxed, and when he slides two fingers inside like you said, you moan raggedly and clench around them, the feeling of your walls grasping his fingers making his head spin.

He can only imagine what you would feel like around his aching cock, can only hope that one day, he’ll get to experience it. Maybe if he does really good with this, you’ll let him inside of you, let him fill you up and stretch you out, let him mate you and breed you and keep you.

Just the idea has him doubling his efforts, has him wrapping his lips around your clit and sucking hard, increasing the speed of his fingers until he feels like he really is fucking you with them, until your walls are undulating around his fingers and your arousal is dripping down his wrist.

“Just like that, Seokmin. Don’t stop, please,” you cry brokenly, your hips moving with his hand as he pushes you higher and higher.

He moans his affirmation into you and the vibrations must send you over the edge, because your pussy is fluttering and clenching and squeezing like crazy, and he can feel your clit throbbing between his lips as wetness seeps out of you, your whines so high and sweet he wants to bottle them up, save them for later.

He wants to keep going but begrudgingly stops when you push him away by the forehead, his fingers stagnant inside of you and his lips detaching from your clit with a slick pop.

“Was that good?” Seokmin slurs, his mouth exhausted and his brain drunk on you.

“It was perfect, Seokmin. You did such a good job,” you murmur as you pet his hair, not stopping him when he lays down again, his cheek pillowed by your thigh. He’s still aching but you seem tired, and he’s not sure how long he’ll be able to last after that, anyway.

He’ll need to practice a lot if he wants to make it through to the actual mating part.

Oh no, how terrible that will be, Seokmin thinks with a giddy smile.

Kinktober Masterlist

AN: okayyy this was getting a little long so i cut it off before we got to the fucking but i might do a part two!! if that's something you're interested in, pls comment or reblog to let me know!!

thank you so much for sticking with me and encouraging me through all of kinktober, it's been harder than i ever thought it would be but also more fun than i expected, and i feel like i've really grown as a smut writer!

ily and happy halloween 💖💖💖

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thepixelelf · 26 days

Text

how to harvest sunshine

a continuing part for the couple from the only way to get a good sleep!

genres: established relationship, fluff!! pairing: reader x seokmin words: 475 (ik it's short and doesn't need header images but idk it's a part 2 😭😭 idk) warnings: none :] notes: this is for elv @seokmins day once again!! ((ignore that this is a little late pls ty ily <3))

Seokmin has been a little, itty bitty, teensy bit dishonest with his boss for the past eight days.

Yes, this city is beautiful. Yes, the views are incredible. Yes, he's very grateful for this opportunity, and for being especially chosen to join him on this business trip.

But truthfully, Seokmin wants to go home.

Not because the city isn't beautiful or the views aren't incredible or he isn't grateful, but because he really, really wants to see you.

"For the record," you say as you prop your phone on the counter so it captures your upper half and some of the sink. "I also haven't seen you in eight days. I miss you too."

With a sleepy smile, Seokmin watches you as you start to wash the dishes. He wishes he was there to help you out, but he's hours away -- by plane -- and stuck in this admittedly nice hotel room. "I could just get on a flight tomorrow. Leave early."

You chuckle. "I don't think that's the best idea."

"Didn't you just say you miss me?" he whines with a pout.

"Now now, don't be like that," you tease, wiping your hands dry on on a tea towel. "You told me you were excited to visit that famous pizza place tomorrow."

He beams. "Guilty."

"Ooh. Hold right there."

"Hm?" Seokmin tilts his head, confused.

"No, wait, put that smile back on." You reach over for your phone and pull it so he sees your face more up close.

He can't help but laugh. "What are you doing?"

"Harvesting sunshine," you say with a cheeky smile. "Screenshotting. I'm going through withdrawals."

"Withdrawals?"

You take another picture of him. "A vitamin D deficiency, at least. I haven't gotten to see my favourite smile in a week."

"Any tips on how to collect moonlight?"

Snapping one last screenshot, you put your phone back on the counter. "Hmm... not unless you do get on that plane tomorrow."

You shouldn't tempt him like that, he thinks. If he didn't know you were just being silly, he'd book the flight right now with your video call at the corner of his screen.

Seokmin shifts on the hotel bed, letting his head rest on the pillow and hiding his smile under the edge of the blanket. "Hey..." he drawls.

You put the last dish on the drying rack. "Yeah?"

"Remember how I asked you to marry me?"

Chuckling, you slide the ring you'd taken off while your hands were wet back onto your third finger. You wiggle your hand in front of the camera. "Yes, sunshine, I remember."

"Can we do that soon?"

You try to hide how wide your smile is by pressing your lips together between your teeth, and you cross your arms with a shrug while nodding towards the drying rack. "Can I get these dishes done first?"

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miniseokminnies · 2 months

Text

through a different lens — l.sm

❥ pairing: lee seokmin x gn!reader ❥ theme: meet cute, strangers to something ❥ wc: ~3.4k ❥ warnings: fluff, language barrier, mentions of alcohol, author is obviously down bad, author also obviously doesn't live in london (let them live) ❥ a/n: this was supposed to be for valentine's day but kind of turned into a bigger project than i anticipated so it's for seokmin's birthday as well! i really like this one so please let me know what you think!! likes and reblogs appreciated

This wasn’t your scene. Oh God this was not your scene. Your friends always want to go clubbing on Friday nights, and being a good friend you always gave in. However, right about now, when the music was vibrating your skull, being anywhere else sounded amazing.

“y/n!” the voice of your friend pierced through the noise and brought you back from inside your head, “come take a shot!” she smiled at you. Reluctantly you joined your friends, all drunker than you. Someone shoved the small glass into your hand and you threw it back easily and quickly. The liquid burned all the way down into your stomach, you felt your cheeks flush with heat.

Eyes wandering toward the exit of the crowded bar, the thought crossed your mind to leave. Looking back toward your friends they were once again engaged in their own conversations, paying little attention to you. They all expect you to slip out early without telling anyone, you always do.

Cool air bloomed in your lungs and you felt like you could breathe for the first time tonight. The street in front of you was not particularly crowded, the walk home will probably be easy and refreshing. Taking another deep breath of fresh air you began in the direction of your flat. The city used to excite you, but these days you’d rather be home with some tea and a good book. You really wished you had stayed home tonight.

“Excuse me?” you heard a timid voice cut the silence. You suppressed a groan, you hadn’t even been walking for five minutes. Turning toward the source of the voice you were met with the confused face of a man, “Do you know…a place to eat?” he asked, accompanying the question with an eating motion with his hand.

“Uh yeah, there’s a great place down the street a ways and around the corner, if you go past Pennie’s you’ve gone way too far,” looking back at the man you could see the concentration on his face as he tried to remember your directions. Feeling bold from the remaining alcohol in your system you took a step closer to him, “I’ll show you, I could go for a bite too” He smiled at you then, the biggest smile you’ve ever seen, even in the darkness of the street you swear his teeth were shining.

“Thank you” he finally said with a bow of his head, breaking your trance and setting your feet in motion. The two of you walked side by side, your arms folded around you, and him clutching his camera. The walk was silent, aside from the man asking to stop to snap pictures a few times. It was odd though, the silence was never once uncomfortable for you, and he made no indication that it was for him either.

Every so often you glanced up at him, getting a better look at him now that the street was more well lit. You noticed his strong nose first, the way the light settled on his face made him look ethereal. Judging by his amazement for a shitty London street, you knew he was a tourist. Looking back at your feet you smiled to yourself, it was nice to see someone so excited about something you see every day.

“This is it!” you smile at him as the two of you approach the restaurant. He nods at you, seemingly waiting for you to enter. He trails behind you as you enter the building and inform the staff that you’ll be needing a table for two. Once you were seated you broke the tension, “So…where are you from?” you asked hesitantly.

“I am from Korea” he spoke slowly, but you saw his eyes light up at your question. Speaking of his eyes, sitting across the table from him you now saw them fully, a warm brown that compliments his tanned skin nicely. There are crinkles at the corners of his eyes, indicating that smile he flashed at you in the street was a normal part of his communication.

“That’s far,” you remarked, taking a sip of your water, “what brings you here?”

“Mmm” he thought for a moment, “holiday” he answered simply. You nodded as he looked around the restaurant, “my name is Seokmin” his eyes found yours again.

“My name is y/n” you exchanged with a small smile. Something about the kindness in his eyes made you squirm under his gaze. When the waiter came around to your table you once again decided to be bold, ordering fish and chips for Seokmin and yourself. If he came all the way from Korea you felt it was your duty to show him London’s best classics. Was it jumping too far to feel like he had met you in the street for a reason?

“Two beers, please” Seokmin’s voice pulled you from your thoughts once again. He was smiling up at the waiter holding up two fingers. The waiter nodded and headed toward the kitchen.

“Good call” you smiled at him, hoping to get a better look at his face when he smiles in return. Just your luck, he turned to you beaming. His eyes do crinkle when he smiles.

The food came quickly, not that you would have minded if it took a little longer than usual. Seokmin has a way of making you feel at ease, even in a social situation that would typically make you incredibly nervous. He did his best keeping up with conversation, you felt terrible about not being able to communicate in his native language.

Seokmin stared down at his plate, his eyes widening at the amount of food. “Try it, try it” you nearly squealed. You did not even dare to pick up your fork until you knew he liked the food. Your eyes followed the movement of his hand as his delicate fingers picked his fork up from the table. He lifted the bite of fish to his lips and popped it in his mouth. Immediately, he let out a satisfied sound.

“This is good!” he smiled after he swallowed. You smiled back at him and cut the fish with your fork as well. At some point in the meal, you were completely enthralled in Seokmin. The way he moved interested you even and even though you didn’t know nearly anything about him, somehow you knew you had never met anyone like him.

Something then made him laugh under his breath. Putting your glass down you gave him a questioning look. Trying not to smile, he gestured with his finger around his mouth. At this, your hand flew to your lips and you flushed with embarrassment as you felt the foam from your beer on your upper lip.

You could hear him nearly choking on his laugh and your eyes lifted again to meet his. Immediately, he tried to avert his glance, but you could tell he was still stifling his giggles. You felt your cheeks heat up again, and butterflies settle in your stomach. You couldn’t help but notice how handsome he looked in that moment. Pulling out your phone and positioning it so he was in your view finder you remarked,

“You should see how silly you look trying to hold back your teasing,” his eyes crinkled again at this, butterflies erupted in your stomach, and he threw up a peace sign, inviting you to take the picture. “Look!” you exclaimed, turning your phone so he could see the picture. Seokmin was laughing now, throwing his head back and clapping, the whole thing. You were lucky that in his excitement, he missed the fond look you gave him without even realizing.

“Do you know your way back to where you’re staying?” you asked earnestly once the two of you had paid and were outside the restaurant. He nodded at you and turned his phone, much like you did earlier, so you could see that he had the address and walking directions pulled up. “Good, now,” you pulled your phone out, “give me your number, I don’t want you getting lost”

***

Your life continued as normal the next day. Waking up, thankful you didn’t drink much the night before, you slipped out of bed toward the kitchen. Clicking on the kettle you think about the night before. Meeting Seokmin almost felt like it was a dream, but you have a photo on your phone to prove it wasn’t. He had also insisted that you send the picture you took, so you do have at least one thread of text conversation.

You reached for a mug, wishing you were taller, and heard your phone buzz on the counter. Assuming it was one of your friends texting you asking where you disappeared to last night, you continued to make your tea. Then your phone buzzed two more times, none of your friends would be that desperate to talk to you. Once your tea bag was securely in your mug you grabbed your phone.

Seokmin (fish n chips guy): y/n

Seokmin (fish n chips guy): the bus

Seokmin (fish n chips guy): ?????

Your heart skipped a beat realizing he actually texted you. Then, you began laughing realizing what he was asking.

You: do you need help?

Seokmin (fish n chips guy): yes

Seokmin (fish n chips guy): please

Seokmin (fish n chips guy) sent their location

Oh. Oh. He wanted to meet up again, you nearly spat out your tea seeing the notifications pop in. Checking his location you saw that he is at a bus stop a twenty minute walk away from you. You scrambled to get ready and ran out the door.

You saw him immediately when you rounded the corner to the stop. He was looking through his pictures on his camera, fully engrossed in his task. He looked up as you approached and moved toward you.

“y/n” he breathed

“How may I help” you smiled, giving a dramatic bow. He moved toward you, pulling out his phone. Standing at your side he showed his phone screen, with a bus route pulled up. “oh, easy” you looked up at him, trying not to blush at the sudden closeness, “I take that bus all the time”

You paid Seokmin’s bus fare, it’s the least you could do after he paid for the dinner you invited yourself to last night. Seokmin dragged you by the sleeve to the back of the bus, which is a place you would normally avoid but seeing how excited he was, you didn’t mind.

As the bus began to move Seokmin watched out the window, the city zooming by. You watched him watch the window. He looked cute when he was focused. The thick black framed glasses perched on his nose reflected the scenery. Without thinking you pulled out your phone, snapping a picture of him just like last night. Seokmin must have seen you out of the corner of his eye because he turned toward you.

He raised his camera and watched you through the viewfinder for several moments. You covered your face with your hands in a futile attempt to hide your blushing cheeks. You heard the shutter click a few times and then silence. Removing your hands you look up at him to find he is looking right back at you. Seemingly he became flustered and turned back towards the window.

You realized halfway through the trip, you weren’t actually sure where you two were going. Sure, you took this route all the time, but you didn’t know where Seokmin wanted to go. The only indication you had that it was time to get off the bus was Seokmin standing up suddenly. It was a stop you never get off at, but you follow him out and onto the street.

He grabbed his phone and pulled you closer to him by your sleeve. You felt your stomach swoop at the sudden breaking of the flimsy wall between you. Trying to not read too far into his action you glanced at his phone. He had pulled up the walking directions to a nearby thrift shop.

The walk was not too long, and the two of you passed the time easily. Every so often Seokmin would point something out and tell you the Korean word for it, which in turn you would give him the English word. His eyes were trained on you so attentively when you spoke it made you almost nervous.

Rounding the corner you saw the store he was hoping to visit. You may have been here once or twice, but it’s nowhere you frequent. He pulled the door open and held it for you. You smiled at him as a thanks, which earned you a blinding smile in return. Lucky you.

The two of you strayed away from each other, looking in different sections for a while. You swiped through the selection of shirts in your size, trying not to look around for Seokmin. The fabric in your hands didn’t feel real, you were distracted. You moved around to the rack of pants, which was closer to the set of stairs in the store which led to the music section upstairs.

You continued to browse through the pants, not really interested. Movement near the stairs made you look up, Seokmin was looking at the records hanging on the wall. He investigated them on his own for several moments, fully engrossed, before looking around for something, you hoped it was you he was looking for. As if he could read your mind his eyes settled on you from across the room, smiling, he called

“Jagiya!” As soon as the word rolled off his tongue, his eyes widened and his hand flew to his mouth. He obviously was under the impression he said something he shouldn’t have, if only you knew what it meant, “y/n” he corrected himself after taking a moment to calm down. You left the rack of pants behind almost immediately,

“Hmm?” you hummed once you were at his side on the stairs. Sleeves of your jackets brushing against each other. Seokmin pointed at the records on the wall, he was obviously excited. “Music lover, hm?” you smiled up at him.

“Yes” he smiled back, eyes almost closed, “I’m a singer” he added. Seokmin wished you could see your face right now, you looked amazed at the confession, your lips forming a little ‘o’.

“You’ll have to sing for me sometime” you said before remembering you had no idea how long you would be around each other. However, he just beamed and nodded at you. The two of you wandered around the music store upstairs for a while, Seokmin taking a particular interest in the selection of The Beatles vinyls.

Watching him closely, you noted the ring he wore, the delicate way he moved through the records. Seokmin was so interesting to you, everything he did seemed to be with purpose, but he also seemed carefree at times. Again, you wished so desperately to be able to communicate with him easier.

Eventually, you made it out of the store. The sun bit through the cold of the air and warmed your face. Closing your eyes you moved to face the sun and took a deep breath. You stayed here for several moments before hearing the click of Seokmin’s shutter again. Your eyes snapped open and toward him, his camera still raised, he watched you through the viewfinder again.

“Hey!” you laughed, “Stop that”

“You look happy” he replied simply, lowering his camera, looking at you fondly. There was nothing to do about the blush blooming across your cheeks, and you did nothing to hide it this time. He walked toward you and gestured down the street, “shall we walk?” he suggested.

The walk was quiet, but again, comfortable. Seokmin switched what hand he was carrying his camera in, letting the hand closest to you drop to his side. Periodically, his knuckles brushed against yours, giving you the feeling of electricity running up your arm every time. The tension crackled between the two of you until Seokmin stopped in front of a restaurant, “Hungry?” he looked at you, tilting his head to the side, a gesture that reminded you so much of a puppy it was insane.

“So hungry,” you agreed. Soon enough the two of you were seated at a booth that felt more like a couch. Comfortable silence fell between you as you looked over the menu, you eyed him a few times before he put his menu down.

After your orders were placed Seokmin brought out his camera and began to look through his photos. Every so often he would tilt the screen so you could see, most of the shots he showed you were of you. Suddenly, his phone began to buzz incessantly. You watched as his eyebrows knit together in confusion and he picked up his phone to check it.

“Ah” he sighed, and placed his phone face down back on the table, “My friend Soonyoung….” his eyes drifted around the restaurant, he was thinking of what to say next, “jagiya—“ he laughed and clutched the white knit beanie that sat on his head, “my English”

“Talk to me in Korean,” you shrugged nonchalantly, “I won’t understand, but I’ll listen” you assured him. His eyes lit up, and he immediately began talking animatedly. You were amazed at the change in him once he was speaking comfortably. Watching him attentively you took in the way his hands accompanied his enthusiasm.

You could tell, Seokmin was a person who was just full of love. Anyone lucky enough to be on the receiving end of that love was someone you were jealous of. You would do anything to sit in his light for as long as he would allow you.

***

“My last day” Seokmin’s voice still laced with sleep mumbled through your phone. You don’t know what possessed him to call you this morning but you would never complain.

“Today?” you asked, feeling a bit nervous, “do you have plans?”

“Mhmm” he hummed, “Join me later?” you could feel your heart jump up into your throat at the question.

“Of course” you mumbled trying to steady your voice.

Seokmin (fish n chips guy) sent a location

The sun setting overhead cast the street in watercolors of pinks and blues. Your eyes scanned through the throng of people all here to watch the sunset over the river. He caught your attention almost instantly, he was facing away from the river, arms propped up on the stone barrier, eyes closed enjoying the night air.

As you approached you watched as the breeze caught his bangs and ruffled them. Before making your presence known you snapped a picture of him looking so serene.

“Hey” you ventured, now right in front of him. His eyes cracked open, taking in your frame. Almost instantly his face was overtaken with a smile.

“Hi” he replied. You moved to stand next to him, facing the river and he turned to look out with you. Both of you stood in quiet contemplation for several minutes.

“You know,” you broke through the tension, “I haven’t been here in so long.” your eyes trained on the clock face of Big Ben across the water, “Somehow, you’ve reminded me of all the parts of my city I love” Seokmin shifted to face you,

“I love the city,” you met his eyes, it felt as though he was trying to tell you something.

“You leave tomorrow” you turned toward him, “is it weird if I say I’ll miss you?” Seokmin shook his head as the wind picked up. Once more, the breeze caught both of your hair. Seokmin moved to brush yours aside, searching your eyes to make sure you weren’t uncomfortable. You were glued to your spot, you wouldn’t dare move. Finally you felt his slender fingers in your hair, tucking it behind your ear.

You felt your breath hitch in your lungs as Seokmin’s fingers trailed down and he cupped your cheek with his hand. Absentmindedly, you melted into his touch.

“I leave tomorrow” he sighed as he echoed your previous statement. His other hand found your other cheek and his thumb brushed against it softly. The both of you stood frozen for a moment, neither of you wanting to break the spell.

Suddenly, Seokmin was leaning down toward you, and you felt his soft lips brush yours. The kiss was quick, but full of meaning. It seemed like he was communicating all the things he had wanted to say over the last few days that he couldn’t find the words for.

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seungcheorry · 2 months

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seokmin frowning when he hears your voice through the phone. it sure sounds a lot different...

seokmin stopping in his tracks when you say you're sick, has been for the last couple of days. i mean, how could you NOT tell him?

seokmin sending meds to your place, texting you as he tracks the delivery on his own phone. of course he'll take care of you, it doesn't matter he's not physically with you.

seokmin texting your mom to know what else he can do for you, if she could please drop by just to check on you since he can't.

"ain't no virus gonna beat your ass, babe, i'll fight them" "seokmin-"

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lovelywoos · 9 months

Text

my life, my seasons (teaser) | l.sm

genre: strangers to lovers, small town au, grumpy x sunshine; fluff, angst, comedy

↳ hometown cha cha cha x once upon a small town x summer strike inspired

pairings: gn!reader x lee seokmin, librarian!reader x handyman!seokmin

description: you're stuck in jeju for the summer having to run your grandma's library when you should be on vacation. things could not get worse. good thing lee seokmin, the man who you run into almost everyday, is there to make your summer a bit better.

word count estimation: 13k??

a/n - yes, dokyeom is inspired by hong dusik and yes, i love small town kdramas. anyways, please be patient as i hurriedly work on finishing and posting the final fic :') . comment or ask to be added to the tag list!

seokmin thinks he likes you.

he saw you practically every day. from then on, he wondered if he would ever have a bad day again as long as he saw you.

first, it was when he realized you would remember everything he said, all the small things, which was crazy because you couldn’t even remember what you had for dinner the day before.

it was a late night at the library. he had just finished tutoring his last student and you were closing the library.

seokmin had asked if you were hungry and you said no, only for you to be interrupted by the grumbling of your stomach saying otherwise. then that led to seokmin teasing you and you punching his shoulder, telling him to shut up.

so, he had ordered takeout to be delivered to the library for the both of you.

he had laid out all the side dishes for you as you unboxed the main dishes.

when you both finally sat down to eat, he has grabbed your chopsticks and split them for you, making you shy and then kick his foot gently under the table for mentioning your reaction.

what made him blush though was when he noticed you moved the dish of sliced cucumbers closer to you.

when he gave you a questioning look, you just shrugged, without even looking at him as you dug into the food, “you said you hate cucumbers.”

but it was definitely the time you were there for him when he felt the loneliest.

it was when mrs. park, the chinese restaurant owner, was a vendor at the summer festival in the next town over. she had called him when he happened to be with you.

the moment he ended the call and a cloudy look filled his eyes, you immediately picked up on it and asked what was wrong.

his words were brief. all he said was that mrs. park needed his help during a festival, but he declined, and mrs. park was not pleased.

you knew him well. you knew he hated disappointed the townspeople since it was his only job to fix their problems. but you also knew his trauma with crowded places, not that he knew you knew at the time.

so imagine his surprise when mrs. park texted him a blurry selfie the day of the festival and in that selfie was a beaming mrs. park and you in the background wearing an apron and hairnet with a dead look on your face.

“thank you for sending y/n in your place instead! she’s grumpy but a great worker!” she had texted.

seokmin had never asked you to go in his place.

a couple hours when he assumed you’d be home, he immediately called you.

“why’d you go in my place, y/n? i know you probably hated it the whole time,” he whined into the phone.

you laughed. and it comforted his soul. “why didn’t you tell me your fear of crowded places was real?”

his silence makes you sigh. “that day at the chinese restaurant with my friends, i accidentally overheard you and mrs. park talking about it. i didn’t mean to eavesdrop, i’m really sorry. and don’t feel bad for not doing something that you can’t do. it’s not your fault. if anything, let me do it.”

seokmin knows he likes you and he likes you so much that he doesn't know what to do about it.

#seventeen imagines #seventeen fluff #lee seokmin x reader #lee seokmin fluff #lee seokmin imagines #svt oneshot #seventeen oneshot #dokyeom fluff #dokyeom x you #dokyeom x reader #dokyeom imagines #dk x reader #dk fluff #dk oneshot #dokyeom scenarios #dk scenarios #svt fluff #svt imagines #svt scenarios

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zzoguri · 27 days

Text

familiarity (it’s all sticky) ➵ lee seokmin

peter parker!lee seokmin x spiderman!reader

you’re not sure why you decide to show up at your ex’s place all wounded up from tonight’s battle.

genre/warnings ➵ exes (to sort of lovers?), angst, touch of fluff, afab reader (no gendered terms), hurt/comfort (both physical and emotional), discussions of wounds and depictions of blood, lowercase intended, ghost-spider au (though please don’t expect it to be accurate!), reader is obviously spiderman while dokyeom is peter parker i mean HELLO?? i am right, dokyeom is a lil a slob here, reader’s hair is long enough to be tucked behind their ear, based everything on google when it comes to patching up wounds omg, kissing fingertips, mentions of non-sexual stripping and showering (let him take care of you)

word count ➵ 4k words

playlist ➵ nonviolent communication by metro boomin, james blake, a$ap rocky, & 21 savage // hummingbird by metro boomin & james blake

a/n ➵ my svt writing debut <3 i thought this fic would also work really well for my silly dk and i wanted caratblr to have a chance to read this lil baby of mine <3 here's the original work if you're interested! and ofc, thank you to my cat @wuahae for betareading the original :’) you know how much i love you! don't forget to reblog and leave feedback!

want to be part of my taglist? send me an ask! want to request? check out my guidelines! masterlist

new york city never falls silent. the bustle of every new yorker can be heard through their footsteps, the wheels that glide against the train tracks along with the beeps of taxis sound throughout the city. the metropolis stays alive in every street, every alleyway, every corner. no matter what hour it may be, each pavement is wide awake.

but the lights seem hazy tonight; the luminescence pours out of every building, the led boards are only blurs of silhouettes and illegible words. normally, you would warn against going out if someone could barely make sense of what these signs say, but you never seem to follow your own advice.

as you swing through the city, web clinging onto every building, blood continues to seep through the white spandex that covers you from head to toe. your body feels heavy, the pain in your lower abdomen continuing to spike with every movement—every swing—you make.

you bite on your lip, holding back the whimpers. your eyes dart through every street sign you pass. with every swing, you realize you’re nowhere close to where you should be. instead…

you don’t allow yourself to think it over. maybe the loss of blood has you moving out of impulse, but for now, you can only think of getting rid of the pain.

you swing around the corner before landing down at the familiar fire escape, paint-chipped and rusted just like you remember. a hiss leaves your mouth as your hand reaches out to the spot where the blood continues to seep through, holding it down to keep pressure on the wound.

you’re face-to-face with the window; the reflection of you all suited up in some persona is a sight you’re accustomed to—but not on the glass of his window. you’re not sure why you came back here, injured in an identity he only knew of through word of mouth.

but the throbbing in your abdomen doesn’t give you enough time to think more about it. pushing the window up, you throw one leg over the edge into the apartment. your eyes quickly scan through the familiar space—a room you once treated as yours.

pillows scattered and bedsheets wrinkled, the walls are littered with the same posters of anime he swears to be the best of all time (which you agreed with), along with his desk, littered with trinkets you haven’t seen since the day you left him—ones that he talked about to you back then with so much joy.

as you attempt to get your other leg over the edge of the window, you yelp at the sharp pain that strikes. “fuck,” you whimper, gasping out a breath. another groan rips out from your throat as you force your leg over, head resting on the frame with closed eyes, bracing yourself through the wave of pain that follows.

as pants continue to leave your mouth, your senses tingle as your ears catch the sound of footsteps on the other side of the room. you attempt to stand up only for another groan to leave your lips, and you realize it’s too late—the door creaks open, revealing the man you haven’t been face-to-face with since you said your farewell months ago.

dressed in an oversized white tee and a pair of black shorts, dokyeom stands with a bag of chips in his hand and disheveled hair, eyes wide and gaping. you can only assume he was fresh from bed.

“s-spiderman?!” he looks around, noticing the mess that you’re being exposed to. before you can register it, he rushes in, dropping the bag of chips somewhere near the doorway, and tries to tidy his bed. “w-what are you doing here? i think you might’ve entered the wrong room,” he stutters as he attempts to fix his pillows and bedsheets (poorly, if you may say).

somehow, the sight of dokyeom all frazzled makes you smile behind your mask. the idea of your—no, you mean, this guy all worried about you seeing how untidy he lives makes you chuckle.

but as you laugh, pain shoots through your lower abdomen once more. you cough out before hissing, pressing onto the wound. it takes everything in you to keep your body upright until you feel a pair of hands rest on your shoulders. you look up only to be met with his worried expression.

and you spot the way his eyes trail down to where your hand rests. you’re thankful that the mask could hide the heat that rises to your cheeks.

“oh god, you need that treated,” dokyeom’s eyes snap back up to you, and your breath hitches. even after all these months, he still holds stars in his eyes.

it’s been a while since you last saw him up close. the bags on his under eyes have turned a few shades darker, and you notice an eyelash that rests on his cheek. you don’t think about what you do next, your free hand reaching out to his face, and his breath hitches. once you pick it out, you flick the strand off of your fingers, and that’s when you realize the mistake you committed.

“s-sorry,” you choke out. although you try to keep your voice as low and gruntled as possible, he frowns. he bites the inside of his cheek as his eyes flicker between your masked face and the wound.

“i-i don’t know how to help. i can call for an ambulan—”

you grab onto his arm before he can leave. as you shake your head, he gulps. “i can’t really help you,” he says, but your grip doesn’t falter. with that, he lets out a sigh before kneeling in front of you. his hands find themselves on the ledge, his arms now caging your frail figure. “do you have someone in mind who can help you?”

dokyeom’s question is innocent. you’re sure the last thing he meant was to mock your situation—showing up in a “stranger’s” room unannounced—but it strikes a chord in you.

you haven’t spoken to him since you broke up a few months back. when you’re outside of your suit, you avoid him like the plague. in the hallways of campus, you take any possible route to not cross his. but when you’re covered in your second skin, you find yourself on top of buildings watching him from far away. with the distance, you allow yourself to learn about what he’s been up to since you two last spoke.

so you don’t know why you sit in front of him all injured and dressed up in white, black, and pink spandex, because you haven’t spoken to him since that day. shame bubbles within you all while reality slowly slips from your fingertips. and the way your body gets heavier with every second that passes has him mumbling profanities.

his hands hold onto you as he makes you lean your weight on the frame of the window. “wait,” he says as he stands up and walks into his bathroom. before you know it, he comes out with a box.

dokyeom finds his spot back in front of you and he opens what he retrieved. as he looks through the supplies of bandages, alcohol, gauze, and more, he says as his eyes flicker up towards you, “i don’t know how much this will help but it’ll do for now.”

and you should be thankful that someone is willing to bandage you up after the rough night you’ve had, but it feels like a lie to have dokyeom be the one to do it, especially when you haven’t told him the truth.

so when he grabs onto the supplies he needs to treat your wound, your free hand reaches for the underside of your mask. his eyes follow where it rests, and he freezes in his tracks. your fingertips curl on the fabric as you take a deep breath.

“you don’t—”

you shake your head, cutting him off, and you close your eyes before pulling off the mask.

you’re afraid to look at the boy kneeling in front of you, for you can only imagine the annoyance—the disgust—that will paint his features. it’s not like you had a choice to show up at his fire escape this one night, but it was your choice to reveal who spiderman really is behind the mask.

a beat passes.

you’re not sure what to do at this moment. what are you supposed to do after a vigilante reveals who they are?

but when you open your eyes, dokyeom looks back at you with an emotion you can’t pinpoint. he averts his eyes, trailing down to your wound. “let me see it,” he whispers.

you gulp, an attempt to clear your throat and thoughts, before letting your hand move away from the puncture. your hand grips the hem of the top of your suit, peeling it upwards to reveal a bloody wound. from the sight, it looks like you were stabbed, but it’s only a deep cut.

he pulls out a piece of cloth, reaching out and pressing it to your wound. you yelp, eyes squeezing shut at the contact. “i’m sorry, but we need to stop the bleeding a bit more.” it takes everything in you to open your eyes. you’re met with the sight of dokyeom whose face holds a thousand emotions—you can’t identify any of them.

“can you keep pressure on it?” you only nod before you remove your gloves, afraid to touch the wound with fabric covered in grime. you dump your mask and gloves on the space beside you before letting your hand reach to where the cloth is held against. your hand brushes against his for a split second—you retract your hand immediately at the contact with his skin.

at the sudden motion, the cloth against your stomach drops with nothing left to hold it. dokyeom curses in a panic, hand shooting out in an attempt to save it, but you react faster. snatching it mid-fall, you grasp it tightly, placing the cloth back onto your wound. his eyes dart between where your hand rests and your face, a twinge of worry cast on his features, but he doesn’t give you an opportunity to say anything as he stands up quickly and walks back to his bathroom.

you hear the water run for a moment. the noises of the street fill your ears. the lights from outside cascade the floor, hues of yellow and purple filling the room. and then thunder rumbles; it shakes the floorboards. the sounds of raindrops follow, and you feel your back start to get wet from the storm that has entered new york city.

you try to push yourself off the ledge, a groan ripping out of your throat once more. and you’re finally on your feet. but at any moment, it feels like you may collapse.

“wait, wait! what are you doing?” dokyeom exclaims as he rushes out of the bathroom. he quickly grabs hold of you in an attempt to keep you steady. “don’t stand up or that wound might get worse.”

“i-it’s just the rain. i don’t want to leave the window open.” as you turn your torso, another spike strikes where your wound is. the yelp that leaves your mouth has dokyeom grip onto your arm tighter.

“no, just sit. i’ll take care of it,” he says as he brings you to his chair, his hand never leaves your arm. you let out a hiss until your bottom meets the cushion. as soon as your back rests on the chair, you close your eyes for a moment from the pain.

his hand leaves you. you hear the window shut; the car horns and barks from stray animals are now muffled.

when your eyes flutter open, dokyeom crouches in front of you with a wet towel in his hand. “i need to clean it.” you only nod before removing the cloth on your wound. he grabs it from you and places it on his lap.

as he raises the wet towel to your wound, you flinch at the contact. he quickly retracts it and asks, “does it hurt?”

“no, it’s just cold,” you mumble back. he only nods before attempting to clean the area around your wound. while he keeps his eyes on the puncture, your eyes remain on his face; hues of yellow cast upon him.

his skin glows under the city lights—did anyone know about the stars you once carved on it?

“is this why we broke up?” his eyes snap toward yours as he asks that question.

you cannot help but bite the inside of your cheek. “y-yeah,” you choke out.

he hums before his eyes go back down to your injury. “i’m guessing this is why you were distant then, right?”

you don’t bother to speak, letting the silence speak for itself.

he removes the wet towel; the white cloth is covered in patches of red. as he crumples it into a ball, you spot that his white shirt holds splotches of blood as well.

dokyeom stands up to drop the pieces of fabric on the table behind you. “your dad obviously doesn’t know,” he mutters to himself.

it’s a rhetorical question. of course, your father has no clue of your late-night rendezvous. you’re sure he could never look at you the same if he found out because to him, he would never understand what you do. he would see you only as a low-life criminal in the same way the nypd does.

dokyeom then dabs a cotton ball soaked in betadine on your abdomen. you bite on your lip as a hiss leaves your mouth. “fuck,” you curse, and he only continues to clean up your wound.

silence takes over you two. as he bandages you up, you allow yourself to close your eyes. you were thankful to find rest in these small moments. but you don’t miss the warmth of his fingertips on your skin; they feel just like last time.

“why did you come here?” his question has your eyes snapping open, and you are met with a frown resting on his face.

you bite the inside of your cheek. “i-i don’t know.” it’s a lie—one you both know. you had every chance to change the route you were taking. instead, you chose to go to his place—even if it may be on the other side of where you live.

he lets out a sigh. it’s clear that he’s disappointed by your words, but all he says is “okay,” as he gets up. “you can stay here for the night.” he stands in front of you in a shirt covered in patches of blood—it’s proof that his heart still holds a spot for you.

despite the venom that was laced in your words the night you cut ties with him, he leaves you a space for you to fill. it’s another choice you can make, but one you’re not sure if you should take.

dokyeom walks to the desk behind you and flips the lamp on. you swivel the chair so that you’re face-to-face with his slouched figure. you would’ve scolded him, but you’re not in the place to do so—not after what you two had.

but a part of you wishes to chide those words—hey, keep slouching and your back will get worse—for old time’s sake. it takes everything in you to hold back from saying the reminder, but it takes nothing to let your hand grip the back of his shirt. his movements halt.

as you sit up, you let your face bury into the arch of his back. the scent of his laundry detergent (it’s still the same smell of lavender) fills your nose, and you let your hands trail around his torso until they find their home on his waist. even after all these months, your hands knew where to rest—your spidey senses knew who to go to.

you feel his hands rest on your arms, his thumb drawing circles on your forearm. you breathe at the same pace as him. whenever his shoulders move up, yours follow. and you allow yourself to cherish just this once the familiar warmth of dokyeom. you let your soul mesh with his once more.

with closed eyes, you whisper, “i still look for you.” his thumb stops moving, and a shaky breath leaves your mouth. “i’m here because all i know is you.”

it’s half of a lie, but still a lie nevertheless. you shake your head against his shirt. “no,” you rescind. “i know i shouldn’t be here, and i had every chance to go back home, but,” you take a deep breath. “would you let me, just this once, be honest with you?”

your question hangs in the air—it’s not for him but for you. all the choices you took led to this moment, from embracing the persona you were handed through a single spider bite all the way to removing the mask in front of him.

dokyeom spins to face you. he stands in front of you with the remnants of you covering him, his shirt coated in hues of red and your blood dried up on his hands. the light behind him causes a shadow to paint his face.

but when he kneels once more in front of you, you get a good look at his features. he still looks like the same boy you first met—the same one you fell in love with—but you wonder if he was still the one you knew?

that is until his hand reaches toward your face. you hold your breath as it finds its spot on your cheek. but as his thumb grazes your cheekbone, a trembling breath leaves you. you gulp everything down—your fears and anxieties—so that you can finally be honest with dokyeom.

“i wanted to tell you who i really am.” a flicker of confusion flashes through his eyes. “and i know i’m not doing it in the best state,” a chuckle leaves your mouth. “but with every day that passes, and every injury i need to endure, i didn’t know when i would be able to tell you what went wrong with us.” a beat passes. “what went wrong with me.”

he shakes his head. “nothing’s wrong with you. what are you talking about?” a frown takes over his face. “i mean, you’re spiderman, for god’s sake.” you weren’t able to hold back the giggle that slipped from your lips.

but it wouldn’t be fair to just accept his words as is, not after the damage you’ve caused.

you let a hand rest on his, the one that rests on your cheek, and you curl your fingers so that you hold it. “i’m sorry that this is me.” the whisper is loud enough to fill the silence of his room. “i’m sorry that i crashed here all injured and left you to deal with the mess,” your eyes flicker to his bed. “especially on a night when you were resting.”

as soon as your eyes go back to dokyeom, you notice that he’s biting the inside of his cheek. “why are you telling me this?” it’s an honest question, one he couldn’t figure out the answer to. “we haven’t seen each other since you broke up with me.”

and he has every right to be confused with your sudden appearance. after all the months spent avoiding him in the halls while still seeking him on top of buildings, dokyeom was left with no clue as to why you come to him first in such a dire situation. why is it that you chose to reveal such an intimate part of yourself months after you two have drifted?

“do i have to say it?” you ask.

and he looks back into your eyes before saying, “it’s the least you can do.”

so you grab onto his hand, moving it so that it rests in yours. the sight of his fingers and palms covered in splotches of you fills your heart with warmth. it’s proof of the time he spent to patch you up. no matter who you may be—spiderman or not—you will forever be at his mercy.

“we can’t be together. it will only be another cycle of pain.” for both of you. as your eyes land back on his face, you spot sorrow coating his features.

“but i still do.” it’s an unfinished thought on his end. despite the frown you show, all he does is flash you a bitter smile. “i always have and always will.”

and it clicks.

“n-no, dokyeom,” you shake your head. “you can’t.”

he brings your hand close to his lips, letting it linger for a moment. “but you do,” he whispers into your fingertips. “right?”

even after revealing who spiderman truly is behind the mask, you expect dokyeom to rethink everything he knows. the months spent away from you should be enough reason to reconsider how much he knows of you now. but even if you two were to spend years apart, he would still read you as well as he does now.

“i can’t,” you choke out. “i can only offer so much, and you deserve so much more.”

he smiles at you—the same one you used to see every day, no matter what time of the day it may be—as his free hand reaches for your hair, tucking it behind your ear.

“i couldn’t care any less.”

you shake your head. it’s clear he doesn’t understand the gravity of it all; to be with you means to remain in constant danger. “no, dokyeom. you don’t understand. i broke up with you because i’m batshit scared of what will happen to you.”

because it seems to always occur—anyone you come close to becomes another target for your enemies. it’s already hard enough to handle the responsibility of being a masked hero, but you don’t think you could handle a possibility where dokyeom’s death would be on your hands.

but all he does is shake his head and says, “i don’t care. i still love you.”

you haven’t heard him say that to you in months. such a simple phrase causes warmth to fill your limbs and heat to rise to your cheeks. he still has the same effect on you after so long.

there are consequences that this conversation bears. you should have stood up and left as soon as he patched you up. it should’ve been obvious that the longer you stayed, the more you would pour out sentiments that you tried to keep under wraps—under the mask—and it seemed that dokyeom knew how to undo them even better than he did then.

and hearing dokyeom say those words has you falling into a perpetual cycle of torment, one that makes every day intolerable for you can only watch him from afar. but aren’t you already living it the more you deny what’s in front of you two?

so you only nod, and bring his hand close so you can feel his fingertips on your lips. with closed eyes, you whisper, “okay.”

it’s a testament to everything—one to his offer to let you sleep in this very room you once treated as yours, one to his confession that tilted your world’s axis, one to the very situation you’re in—and you’re sure he knows it, too.

he smiles as soon as your eyes flutter open. “let’s go to sleep.”

you know that sleep meant to be wrapped in his arms all while he would leave kisses on your temple. you don’t remember the last time you got enough rest, but you remember that the last time you slept in dokyeom’s arms was the last one you were able to fall into slumber at ease.

so you nod, allowing him to help you out of the chair. and he helps you through it all—shedding the suit off of you, cleaning you of all the grime from tonight’s adventure, and getting dressed in fresh clothes—until you two find your place on his bed.

nothing is said for the rest of the night. for once, you drift into slumber without any secrets stashed away.

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#works of moni #kflixnet #bjnet #k-labels #seventeen #lee dokyeom #lee seokmin #dk #dokyeom #seventeen x reader #lee seokmin x reader #lee dokyeom x reader #seventeen imagines #lee dokyeom imagines #lee seokmin imagines #lee seokmin angst #lee dokyeom angst #lee dokyeom fluff #lee seokmin fluff

120 notes · View notes

storiesiwrite · 4 months

Text

Home ☾ Lee Seokmin

Genre: hurt/comfort, fluff, established relationship

Word count: 5026

Summary: In which you’re having one of those days when it’s a struggle to be kind to yourself, and Seokmin makes sure you feel appreciated and loved.

☁︎ ☁︎ ☁︎ ☁︎ ☁︎

Seokmin has a gnawing feeling in his gut that tells him you’re not feeling your best today.

It’s evident in the text messages you leave him throughout the day, in your unusual choice of words. Just a small difference, but a difference all the same, and he knows you too well to miss the signs.

Perhaps it also has something to do with your tendency to hide behind a smile even as you’re buried deep in your struggles. You don’t like the idea of people around you noticing. Seokmin would know; as terrible a habit as it is, it’s one that he and you both share.

Suffice it to say, it isn’t long before he begins losing his concentration at work. Completing the simplest of tasks eventually becomes a challenge, but he can hardly expect anything else when you’re constantly on his mind.

The moment his seven-hour shift is over, he wastes no time packing up his things and clocking out of work. The original—and usual—plan has been to head straight home, but those texts of yours made him change his mind. He decides to make a detour instead, making sure to snag a couple of your favorite desserts along the way.

It begins to drizzle shortly afterwards, the skies painted in shades of midnight blue that signal an impending downpour. Not the most ideal situation, but he doesn’t mind the rain beating down on him as he runs down the streets. Doesn’t see the negative because all that matters to him is that he is coming home to you.

Please, he says in a hopeful whisper, please hang on until I get there.

And by the time he reaches the door to your shared apartment, his clothes have been completely soaked through, and he fights to catch his breath. His keys are somewhere in the depths of his sling bag, but retrieving them with both hands occupied would be a hassle, which is why he resorts to pressing the bell with one side of his knuckle. It doesn’t take long before he hears shuffling on the other side and the door cracks open.

The sight that greets him breaks his heart into slivers.

You’re standing there beyond the threshold, your eyes puffy, the dark circles beneath them more pronounced than ever. Faint blotches of red have spread across your cheeks and nose, as if you’ve spent an ample amount of time rubbing them raw. You’re faring worse than he imagined, yet despite everything, you still manage to smile.

Though said smile falls the moment you take in his drenched state.

“Oh, Seok,” you say, concern etched on your features as you quickly pull him inside and shut the door.

He settles down the desserts on the small side table (thank the heavens they were wrapped in plastic, otherwise they would not have survived the terrible weather). Peeling off his wet jacket, he places it atop a drying rack nearby and watches as you dash towards the bathroom with a frown on your face.

“Did you forget to bring an umbrella?” You call out to him, reappearing mere seconds later with a clean towel in one hand. He can’t help but smile at the gesture, so endearing it warms him despite the cold seeping through his skin.

“Well, um, I was in a hurry this morning, and it completely slipped my mind,” he explains as you take his hand, leading him towards the kitchen. When you tell him to sit on one of the shorter stools there, he simply obliges. Standing there in front of him, your face level with his own, you begin drying his face and neck with the towel.

It’s not that he actually needs your help—he can pat himself dry perfectly well—but he accepts it anyway, sees it as an opportunity to truly look at you.

This should feel comforting. This nearness with you, this form of intimacy he would never want to share with anyone else. And in other cases, he’s certain it would. But never in the two years of your relationship has he had this much trouble gazing at you. Especially like this, up close with your bloodshot eyes and swollen cheeks. It hurts him to acknowledge that he wasn’t there for you when you needed him the most.

And still, he doesn’t look away. He knows he has to say something, has to begin the conversation somehow.

“I’m sorry, love,” he tries. “I didn’t mean to make you worry.”

With a shake your head, you say, “I know, and you don’t need to apologize for that. But please, promise me you’ll remember to take your umbrella with you next time?” You move on to his wet hair, gently dabbing it dry. “I just don’t want you to get sick, is all.”

He gives you a small smile. You’ve always been so caring of others; it’s one of the many things he adores about you. “I will. Promise.”

“Good.” There it is, a small upward tug of your lips. It’s a start.

“I actually swung by the bakery earlier,” he says, nodding to the table near the door where the desserts lie waiting. “Bought some of those glazed donuts you love.”

You follow his gaze. “Did you?”

“Yeah, and I also brought home some boba.”

Your mouth opens slightly in delighted surprise, your eyes crinkling. “You have to stop spoiling me, Seok! I don’t think I can keep up.”

“Not planning on that any time soon. You’re just going to have to put up with it.”

A soft laugh escapes you. “I guess so.” You push the towel aside when you’re done, running your fingers through his unkempt hair in an attempt to tidy it. “There. Better?”

He leans towards you to kiss you on the lips. “Better. Thank you, love.”

“Don’t mention it.” You cup his face in your hands, and he leans against your touch.

He steals yet another brief kiss from you. “You okay? I haven’t asked you how your day was.”

He feels you tense slightly, though your expression remains neutral. “It was good. Spent the whole day at home today, got to relax a lot. You know how much I like staying in.” You chuckle with a strain that hasn’t escaped his notice. “How was yours?”

“Well, work was more hectic than usual, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. I’m just glad to be back home.”

“So am I, Seok. I missed you.”

“I missed you too, love,” he murmurs. I’m with you now, he wants to add. You can talk to me.

But you say nothing, closing your eyes and leaning your forehead against his. Seokmin’s thoughts begin to wander as he weighs his options: should he be straightforward and ask you outright, or should he wait until you’re ready to talk? He imagines the latter would be the better solution, but he knows you well enough to know that you always try to bottle your feelings up.

He recalls the first time you broke down in tears in front of him; it was early on in the relationship, and you were in your fourth semester in university. You’d been given an assignment, one you were struggling to finish under the pressure of its nearing deadline. Naturally, it made you compare yourself to others who you thought were miles ahead of you.

He remembers having a hard time stringing together the words to console you, because seeing you in such pain wounded him in ways he could never describe.

“You can tell me,” he could only manage back then, his arms wrapped around you as if that alone could shield you from all the pain in the world. He’d take it in your stead if he could. “Whatever it is that’s upsetting you, you can tell me. I promise I won’t laugh. I promise I won’t tell anyone, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“It’s not that I don’t trust you, that’s not it, not at all,” you’d replied in between sniffles. “It’s just me overthinking again. I know it’s stupid.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t dismiss how you feel.” He kept repeating these words. But it seemed like nothing he was saying truly left its mark on you.

“You-you’ve also had enough on your plate already, and I wouldn’t want to add to that—”

“It doesn’t matter, love. Even if I do have enough on my plate, I still wouldn’t mind. I’d still want you to come to me.”

Your body shook as you tried and failed to contain your sobs. “I’m so, so sorry, Seok, I didn’t mean to cry but I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I’m so sorry you have to see me like this. I... I didn’t mean to ruin the night. I didn’t to be an inconvenience to you.”

Oh, he thought, his heart breaking in two. He never even once saw you that way. He never, not even for a split second, thought you were an inconvenience.

He couldn’t understand why you felt guilty for feelings you had no way of controlling. He couldn’t understand why you felt ashamed of being human. He could only hug you tighter, could only watch like a fool as you fell apart in his arms.

And then he felt it, simmering beneath the surface—anger.

Anger at whomever it was that had the gall to make you believe you were ever an inconvenience. Anger at himself for having failed you so terribly. He’s your boyfriend, for god’s sake. You were supposed to be able to trust with him. And clearly he’d done an awful job at making you realize that he doesn’t mind you crying in front of him.

He doesn’t mind sharing the emotional burden you’ve always insisted upon carrying all by yourself. None of it matters to him if it means that you’ll feel less alone.

And this time, he won’t repeat the same mistakes again.

He pulls away to look at you, and your eyes snap open at the movement, your hands dropping away from his face.

“You sure everything’s alright?” He asks you again. “You don’t sound well at all.”

“Mhm. My nose has been stuffy since this afternoon, I think. But it’s nothing I can’t handle, nothing a few cups of tea won’t fix.” You take a few steps back from him, decidedly avoiding his gaze. “Why don’t you go get yourself cleaned up and then we eat?”

The warmth in your tone from earlier has chipped away, replaced by a stiffness he’s grown all too familiar with. The kind that always tinges your voice whenever you’re dodging the truth. The kind that tells him you’re building your walls back up.

Alright, then, he thinks to himself. Waiting it is.

“I’m gonna get a bath running for you, okay?” You say with a smile that doesn’t reach your eyes. “Wouldn’t want you to freeze.”

He stands up from the chair so quickly he nearly stumbles. “No, no, that’s alright.” He moves closer to you. “You don’t have to. I’ve got it.”

“No, no. I can do it for you.” You’re still not looking at him in the eye. “You must be tired from all that work.”

His jaw clenches a little. Even as you’re struggling, you try to put everyone else before you. You refuse to let him take care of you.

And finally, after a long silence from his end, he makes himself nod.

“Okay, then. I won’t take long.”

☁︎ ☁︎ ☁︎ ☁︎ ☁︎

God, you think to yourself, rubbing your eyes with the heels of your hands. What a long, shitty day it has been.

You never knew staying at home the whole day could leave you so emotionally drained. It began the moment you realized you’d nearly missed an important online meeting because you’d thought it was scheduled for tomorrow. In your rush to get yourself prepared for said meeting, you managed to spill coffee all over your work papers, the smudged ink rendering the words illegible.

After the meeting, it took you seemingly-endless hours trying to salvage whatever remains of these papers. Because these papers are the same ones you’ve spent months carefully drafting, writing, and revising after every feedback from your boss. The same ones you’ve spent countless of sleepless nights poring over to see if there is anything you’ve missed, to make sure all the details are in line with the facts.

And for someone who thrives with the help of daily to-do lists, this whole thing stresses you out. Your schedule for the week is already very packed as it is, and the idea of not doing a few tasks that you really wanted to get done today, all because of this stupid, stupid mistake of yours that you could have easily avoided...

You feel like screaming. And you certainly feel like an idiot. What makes you think you could pull off juggling a university major with part-time work?

By now Seokmin must have already figured things out, despite your earlier efforts to pass it off as nothing more than symptoms of a cold. But there’s no doubt that he knows. He’s too observant to have missed anything.

And the fact that you’ve spent the last thirty minutes or so sequestering yourself in the bathroom isn’t helping your case. Try as you might, you don’t have it in you to face him like this, not when it’s so obvious that you’re frustrated. More frustrated than you probably have the right to feel.

Then there’s a soft knock on the door. It clicks open and Seokmin’s face slides into view. “Hey, love. May I come in?”

You nod, looking at his reflection in the mirror. “Yeah, of course.” You pretend to pat your hands dry. “Is something wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” he says, shutting the door behind him. He moves closer until he stands right behind you, his hands finding your waist, his chin resting on the crook of your neck. “Just that you’re taking so long in here and I’m starting to miss you.”

A laugh weaves its way out of you—the first genuine one of the day. You’re not surprised; if there’s anyone you know who can lift your sunken spirits in a matter of seconds, it has to be him.

“I miss you too, Seok.” You turn around to properly look at him, putting your arms around his body, his warmth enveloping you as he reciprocates the gesture. “You know, I was actually thinking...”

“Yeah?”

“What about a movie after this? I wanna get all cozy with you and watch something while we eat the snacks you bought earlier.”

His smile is soft as he regards you. “Sounds like a plan. Got anything specific in mind?”

“Not really, no. But I think I want something light-hearted. Like a rom-com? Would that be okay with you?”

“I’m okay with anything you want.” He plants a kiss on your cheek. “Just pick a movie, and I’ll get it up and running in no time.”

“Okay.”

As a comfortable sort of silence takes over, you allow yourself to think you got away with it, to hope that Seokmin would sweep it under the rug this time. But then his smile falls, a graver expression now taking its place, and that hope gutters out as easily as an unsteady flame. You stiffen, already knowing where this is going even before he speaks.

“But first, I need you to tell me what’s wrong.”

Of course. You knew he would catch on, but that knowledge doesn’t make this confrontation any easier.

You try to keep your voice from wavering, forcing down the lump on your throat. “What do you mean? There’s nothing wrong.”

“You know perfectly well what I’m talking about.” His fingers brush the darkened skin under your eyes, run down the side of your blotched cheek, as if to say, I can see right through you. The gesture feels so intimate that you have to look away, only to regret it immediately. It gives you away, leaves you with no choice except to start confessing.

“You knew?” The words escape you in an embarrassed whisper. What a stupid question to ask. Of course he knew. He probably found out the moment he stepped into the apartment, the lingering signs of your frustration clear as day.

“Yeah. When you sent me those texts earlier this morning, I knew something was wrong.”

Oh. And here you thought you were being subtle enough.

Seokmin hesitates for a moment, as if sorting out his thoughts. “I was... I was going to wait until you’re ready to talk,” he says by way of explanation, his brow lined with worry. “But I can’t stand not doing anything when you’ve locked yourself in here for the past half hour. I can’t stand the idea of sitting still when you’re just one door away and it’s clear that you’re not alright.”

You squeeze your eyes shut like you’d just seen a sight that stung.

“You can tell me,” he continues. “You don’t have to keep it from me.”

“I know that, Seok. I just...” you trail off, finding that it keeps getting harder and harder to hold back the emotions threatening to drown you. It takes you some time to muster the courage to look him in the eye again. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

“It’s a big deal to me if it upsets you like this. Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

But that’s the thing, isn’t it? What is there to even talk about? Nothing really happened; you spent the whole day just contending with that cruel voice in your head that always tells you you’re not enough. That you’ll never be enough, especially because you manage to mess up even the simplest, most trivial of things. Especially because you let said things ruin your whole day.

It’s embarrassing.

At your silence, Seokmin shifts closer to you. “Talk to me, love. I’m here for you. I won’t judge you, I promise.” His voice is so gentle that for a moment, you’re tempted to just give in and tell him everything.

This isn’t about the lack of trust; it has never been, and even Seokmin himself knows that. And neither is this about worrying what his response would be. If there is anything your past experiences with him can tell you, it’s that he deals with your breakdowns in a loving, gentle way. Every single time.

He’s aware of your mind’s tendency to shove one worst-case scenario upon another until you’ve run out of space and energy to think about anything rational. Admittedly, it’s not the healthiest habit, and you’ve been trying to unlearn it, but sometimes there are days when you simply can’t cope and begin to spiral.

Despite everything, Seokmin always understands. You know he would understand now, but it’s precisely the reason why this is the last thing you would want to talk about. He’s the kind of person who feels deeply, who doesn’t need to try too hard to put himself in other people’s shoes. That act of sympathizing can be so draining, and you’re not willing to subject him to that. His work is exhausting as it is without you having to pile your struggles atop of his own.

All you can offer him now is a tight-lipped smile. “I wasn’t lying when I said it’s not a big deal.”

He shakes his head. “It’s clear to me that it is. And even if it’s not, I’ll still want to hear it all the same.”

The small, knowing tug of his lips tells you he can see what’s running through your mind. You find yourself having to bite back a dry laugh. Ridiculous, really, how you bother trying to hide things from him when he knows you as well as the back of his own hand.

“Even if it’s something I’ve told you many, many times before?” You ask, still giving him the option to move past this.

“Even so. Whatever it is, we’ll get through it together. We’ll figure it out, the way we always do.”

His kindness leaves a gaping hole in your aching heart. This, you think to yourself, this isn’t something you deserve. You’ve simply been fortunate enough to have crossed paths with him that one fateful night in a certain cafe, that night that changed the trajectory of everything else that came along afterwards.

A tear slips down your cheek. Then another. Disappointed in yourself, you forcefully rub your eyes, only to have him reach out to stop what you’re doing.

He winces a little, as though he were the one on the receiving end of your roughness. “Careful, you’ll hurt yourself like that.” His thumb brushes against your cheek. “Here, let me do it for you.”

And it is at this moment that you finally break, the walls you’ve built to keep your emotions at bay crumbling under his touch as he slowly wipes away your tears. He treats you with the utmost care as you cry on his shoulder, listens to you as you try to recount to him all that has happened today. His attention stays undivided the whole time, even as you stutter or can’t seem to find the words to express how you feel.

“I know it’s the same problem every time,” you sob. You hate the way your voice breaks all over. “I know it may seem like... like I’m not changing at all, but I truly am trying my best, Seok.”

His free hand draws soothing lines down your back. “I know that, love. I have never once doubted you. And I can understand how hard it is to overcome this. But you can. You’ve gotten so much better than you give yourself credit for.”

That reminder that you don’t deserve him flits through your mind yet again, scolding you for not feeling ashamed. But the look on his face shows not even the slightest hint of ridicule or disappointment. Seokmin simply holds you in his arms and whispers in your ear over and over that everything will be alright. You want so badly to believe him.

Sniffing, you pull slightly away to meet his gaze. You don’t care for the redness in your eyes or the tear stains on your cheeks. It’s important that he hears this from you and sees the sincerity behind it. “You’re being so good to me, Seok. Too good to me. You always... you’re always doing so much more than I ever deserve—”

“Don’t say that—”

“And I can only hope that you’re alright with being stuck with me. I know I can be a lot to handle, and I can’t imagine I’m easy to love.”

At that, he stops talking, stares at you as though he has a hard time believing what he’s heard. As though waiting for you to take back your words.

And when you don’t, he asks, his voice low and serious, “Why do you think that way?”

Because you can’t think otherwise. Would he not grow tired of your problems? Would he not grow tired of you? Who wouldn’t when it’s the same shit over and over again?

He takes your silence as a sign to go on. “Do you really think that that’s how I feel about you? That you’re difficult to love because you go through problems sometimes? Because you have feelings like real people do, like I do?”

Pain flashes across his features, along with something else. It takes you a while to recognize it as anger, though you know that anger isn’t directed at you; rather, it’s on your behalf. “I’m so, so sorry that you were made to feel like you have no right to be sad or upset when things are difficult. But I’m here to remind you that whatever it is you feel, it’s valid.”

You say nothing in return, feeling the weight of his words as they sink in.

“I’ve seen the way you treat others,” he continues. “I’ve seen how deeply you appreciate and care for them. You don’t think twice when it comes to helping people, even the ones you barely know. But I’ve never seen even just a shred of that same kindness when it comes to yourself. You constantly beat yourself up for simply being human, and you have no idea how much that breaks my heart.

“And it makes me wish you’d see yourself the way I see you, because maybe then you’d come to learn all the wonderful qualities you have that you always seem to look past.” He lifts your hand to his lips, leaving a trail of kisses along your knuckles. “You’re a student working a part-time job; don’t you realize how impressive that is? Not to mention the fact that you’re getting better and better at not overthinking when it used to be tough for you. All this progress has never escaped my notice or anyone else’s, just your own.”

You’ve calmed down by now, your crying reduced to small sniffles. It’s still hard to keep your eyes open, and it’s even harder to come up with a response. But you’re content with simply hearing what he has to say, and your heart is full of tenderness and warmth. He’s never once failed to make you feel so loved.

“And as for what you said earlier about me being stuck with you”—he pecks your lips softly—“I hope you know that I’m not going anywhere. I’m never going to love you any less because of your struggles.”

His declaration hits a little too close to home, rubbing at a lifelong wound that has yet to heal. After all, the reason why you hadn’t wanted to get into a relationship before Seokmin came into the picture was fear. Fear that once your partner discovers just how ugly and messy things can get for you, how much emotional baggage you carry, they will leave.

A part of you has always known that confiding in Seokmin would make it hurt less. But a greater, selfish part of you is afraid that he’d grow tired of putting up with you and your constant problems. Maybe you’d never dare to admit it out loud, but the truth is that you would rather struggle alone in silence than lose him altogether due to your honesty.

But Seokmin sees through all that. And instead of leaving, he stands by your side and holds your hand through it. He holds your broken pieces as you try to stitch them back together.

And all the things he’s said about you... you know he truly means every one of them. He’s genuine in everything he says and does. But you can’t wrap your head around the idea of someone great like him can see you that way. It’s a surreal thought, one you never dared to entertain before now.

But maybe he’s right. Maybe you’ve been too hard on yourself. You’re certain that if it were anyone else going through the same, exact motions as you are now, you wouldn’t tell them the hurtful things you hurl at yourself at any given chance. And you’ve always known that progress is never linear, and falling down once or even a dozen times doesn’t eliminate all the previous steps you’ve taken. It doesn’t diminish all that you’ve accomplished, all that you’ve done to be better.

Whatever it was that Seokmin saw in you that one night from two years ago, when he asked you to be his, it doesn’t matter. For the millionth time, you’re so glad you took the leap and trusted that he would catch you.

All these new thoughts running through your head, all these feelings of fondness and love for him coursing through you, yet you can only manage to ask him this: “How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Know all the right things to say every time.”

He lets out a small laugh, relieved that you’re no longer as upset as you’ve been before. “Because I’m only saying the truth. Loving you is a commitment, a decision I make every single day. And that decision comes easily, willingly, because you’re so, so easy to love.”

You feel like crying all over again, but for the right reasons this time. God, you really are the luckiest person in the world. “So are you, Seok. I hope you know that, too,” you say as you pull him into a hug.

“Feeling any better?” You may not be able to see him, but you just know that he’s grinning.

“Yeah.” You nestle up against him. You don’t ever want to let go. “Thank you for always hearing me out. For not only accepting me as I am, but also encouraging me to be the best version I can be.”

“I can say the same thing to you, too.” He kisses your brow. “Thank you, love. For all the times you’ve held my hand and kept me grounded and going when it’s so easy to give up. You’ve been there for me in ways I can never explain, and I’m so, so grateful.”

It truly is the least you can do for him. You snuggle your head into his shoulder with a contented sigh. “Thank you for always giving the best hugs.”

He laughs heartily at that. “You can have all the hugs you want, I promise. But I need you to promise me one thing in return. Promise you’ll never hesitate to let me know whenever you’re not feeling okay. I’m here for you, and I don’t want you to go through things alone. I want you to let me take care of you.”

You glance up, your eyes meeting his. “I promise, as long as you do the same and let me take care of you, too.” And when he nods, you add, “I love you.”

He’s beaming so widely that you can’t help but do the same. “I love you, too.”

It’s been true all along: home is not a place but a person, after all.

— ☽ —

author’s note: not so proud of how this fanfic turned out, but i’m still glad i got it done because it truly helped me get through a tough time. i hope that you find comfort reading it as i did writing it. lots of love and take care ♡

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wongyuuu · 5 months

Text

memories of us | lsm

pairing: seokmin x f!reader - soulmate!au summary: every night seokmin dreams of his past lifes, when he met and fell for his soulmate countless times. genre: fluff, angst word count: 11.9k warnings: reader has really low self esteem a/n: this is not, in any way, connected to elevator. both stories are centered around soulmates, however the rules are different. in elevator people carry marks that vanish from their bodies once they meet their soulmate, here is the bond is created by eye contact. i hope you enjoy it :)

Today, when I woke up, the first thing I thought about was you, but that’s not something new. You’re always the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last one before I go to sleep. My mind is consumed by thoughts of you the entire day. There’s not a single minute when you don’t make your presence noticed, even if you’re not really here by my side. The funny thing is that I haven’t met you yet and somehow you are the only one in my mind.

I started to dream of you when I was sixteen. At the time I had no idea of what was going on, I didn’t know what Memorous were, and I couldn’t even phantom why I was dreaming of an older version of myself. I was young and the naive teenager version of me thought that it was something everyone goes through. Ah, maybe these are memories from my past lives. I was right about that part, but I didn’t know the length of what was going on with me.

It was only a month later when I told anyone about it. Because those dreams were something no one ever mentioned around me before, so I was afraid to speak about them. What if, because of those dreams, people started to label me as a freak? I had already a very negative reputation, so to say, I didn’t want to make it worse. When I finally mustered the courage to talk to someone about it, I figured that I should tell my mom about it. She was a mother, my mom, and like all moms she would probably know what to do.

She didn’t.

For a while, she just sat there and stared at me, not like I was a freak but as if I had become a stranger. I was no longer Lee Seokmin, her eldest son who on most days seemed like the youngest. I saw her eyes change that day, from a mother who loved her son to a woman who didn’t know who the boy in front of her was.

It was also the first time that someone told me that I was cursed.

None of us could be sure whether I was cursed or not, but she said it with so much belief that I knew that it had to be true.

I don’t think I have ever felt so alone. Before my mother said those words to me, those words that would be forever stuck in my brain, you are cursed, Seokmin, and there’s nothing any of us can do to change that, I used to be normal - or as normal as a sixteen-year-old hyperactive boy could be. But the second those words were uttered, released into the world, something inside me changed.

I think that the best way to describe it would be a click, I felt a click inside my heart. There’s no other word I could use to describe it.

After everything that happened in the span of minutes, I changed. I started to be more restricted, no one else in the world knew about the dreams or about me being a Memorous. My circle of friends got smaller and smaller. What if, by accident, I told one of them something about the dreams, about you? That couldn’t happen.

In reality, I didn’t have many friends. You know, the kind you tell secrets to and are really close to. Those were the kinds of people that I wanted to avoid at all costs. I wasn’t a loner, though. I had people I could hang out with, people that I would go to a bar or a club with, but I liked to be alone.

It’s weird, isn’t it? I had friends but I wasn’t actually friends with any of them. I wasn’t a loner but the thing I enjoyed the most was being alone.

When I turned eighteen and high school was finally over, I moved away from home. For two years I saved every cent that I could, my main goal was to just leave. I studied my eyes off in school so I could get into a university that was as far away as possible from home. I needed to get a scholarship so I wouldn’t need to ask for help from my parents.

Doing those two things made me feel somewhat proud of myself. It was like I was telling them see just because you think I’m cursed doesn’t mean that I can’t do what I want.

Let me explain to you how the dreams work: every night I dream of you, no exception but every night is a different life.

This is how Memorous must live. I remember every single thing about our past lives, all the details that people usually forget about their lives. I remember them, more or less. I know what you were wearing on April 18th, 1811; I know what was the first word you said to me in Madrid, it was a curse by the way; the first time we bonded.

Sometimes it feels so real that I think if I look by my side, I’ll see you there. That couldn’t be true, I haven’t seen you in this lifetime - I would never be able to let you go if I had.

There’s a trick about being a Memorous though. Once I fall asleep and dream of a different life everything I dreamed the night before vanishes and I can’t remember anything. At first, I thought that it happened like that because sometimes we forget about the dreams we have. It was as if it simply vanished from my mind, and I could only remember it when I dreamt of the same life again. It’s like a selective memory kind of thing.

You know, the feeling of a dream being so real that you could either wake up in panic or just really happy and satisfied?

For me, every dream was like that. If I held your hand in my dream, when I woke up I would still get the feel of your skin against mine; if we fought for whatever reason I would still feel the sadness and the anger lingering in my body.

When I understood what was happening, I started to write down the dreams, every little detail that I could remember. Slowly I started to find a pattern in the dreams, slowly I learned to tell the lives apart and so I started notebooks. It’s a little weird, I know, but I had to keep track of our lives. Maybe, at some level, you might think that I’m crazy or that I’m a stalker. But could it be considered stalking when it’s my own life?

I can’t wait to meet you. Although I haven’t actually met you or even seen you this time around, I feel like I have known you all my life. Is this the feeling we’ll get when we finally meet, this feeling of fullness?

I wonder if you feel that too.

Out of all our lives together I have a favorite one. I mean, it is expected, isn’t it? After such a long time of living countless lives, every day being a different person - although I’m ultimately the same - we are bound to have a favorite one.

If I do say so myself that life is very much Shakespearean. Okay, so imagine this: two families who were very powerful but were opposites and hated each other with a burning passion. And there you have it. Sounds very much like Romeo and Juliet, doesn’t it? Maybe if it happened a couple hundred years earlier, in England, then maybe I could say that we actually inspired him, but we happened far too late.

You know, I still remember the first time I saw you that time around. I think that maybe that bond was the strongest one we’ve had, probably because we were supposed to hate each other. The idea of an unexpected bond between two opposite families is kind of thrilling, isn’t it?

We met at a party. Because our families couldn’t even stand to be in the same space together, mostly our dads - why is it always the dads though? -, they send you and me to represent the families. As you can probably imagine, we had no idea of what the other person looked like.

So, there I was walking inside this immense ballroom, and you were the first person I saw. Looking at you I just knew that you were out of place, that kind of environment wasn’t one you felt comfortable in. At that point, you weren’t looking at me but when you finally did, it was like the entire world stopped. I felt my heart thump inside my chest, but I could feel you too. I saw as you went wide-eyed. You took a step closer to me but then, realizing what you did, you took a couple of steps back. For the entire night, we didn’t approach each other but my eyes never left yours, as yours never left mine.

We followed each other through the night. I got angry, really angry, when someone wanted to talk to me because all I wanted to do was look at you. Whenever my feelings changed, I would feel yours changing too. You felt mostly curiosity. How could this man, someone you had never seen before, catch your attention in such a way that you couldn’t look at anything or anyone else?

Back then it wasn’t like today, you know. The bond happened more quietly, or maybe we only thought it did. Though the bond is something that has been around since the beginning of time, we only found out about it much later in life. I suppose that back then we still didn’t know much about it. Maybe the change everyone felt around a couple that was bonding was there but because we didn’t know what it was supposed to be we just overlooked it.

Back to the story.

You were the first one to make a move to leave but I couldn’t let you go, no way. I followed you out and much to my own surprise you were waiting for me, because somehow you knew that I had to go after you. We didn’t say much, just promised to meet each other a couple of days later.

From that moment on, things took off, or as much as you could possibly expect from a couple in the early nineteen century. We would always meet each other. Everything was exciting because no one could know about what we were doing. Besides the whole ‘my family hates yours’ problem that we had, there was also the problem that both of us were promised to other people. You were supposed to marry a young Duque and I had to marry the daughter of a rich family. If we were against it before, imagine what it was like after we found out about how we felt for each other.

Our happiness didn’t last very long. We were careless and, although we were trying to hide it, we weren’t as stealthy about it as we liked to imagine.

It’s needless to say that when our families found out they were far from happy. They didn’t try to kill us or anything that dramatic, but they started to rush things. Your marriage that was supposed to happen only a year later was set to two weeks later; mine was happening in a few days. Of course, neither of us accepted that.

On the night before my wedding, I felt something trying to pull me. It was like my legs were moving on their own and I saw myself walking out of the house and into the city. I found you there, all alone in the middle of the street, staring at the church I was supposed to get married in. I realized then that the sadness I felt was only partially mine, a lot of it was coming from you. I didn’t really understand how it was possible for me to feel everything that you were feeling but I knew that there wasn’t another explanation for it.

You couldn’t control your emotions and tears were running down your cheeks, you tried hard to push them aside, but it was of no use. The more you tried to make the tears stop the more they fell. I couldn’t control myself by then. You were afraid when my arm went around you but once you knew that it was me you turned in my arms. The tears that ran down your face were no longer out of pain and hurt, they were because we were finally reunited.

We ran away. We didn’t take anything with us. There was no time to go home and get clothes, or say goodbye. We were sure that if we were together then everything would be alright. Because we had each other nothing in the world nothing could hurt us.

That's… that’s as far as the dreams go. I’d like to think that we had a happy ending.

Two years into college I finally understood what my mom meant when she said that I am cursed.

You see, the dreams I have at night are just fragments, tiny little pieces of an entire puzzle. I could only see a day or a week, at most. But the thing is that I only saw us young, meeting, starting the bond, falling in love. Not once did my dreams show us a little older, getting married, having kids, or even if things didn’t work between us. I never dreamed of those things.

At first, my guess was that the dreams were trying to show me a way to get to you, find you in a world that’s filled with billions of people. That wasn’t the case.

One night I dreamed of you dying. I woke up in despair. Instead of the sweet dreams, filled with warm touches and whispered words, I faced images of you surrounded by blood, a lifeless body in my arms.

For a while I wanted to make myself believe that it was just a nightmare, that it would eventually go away but I knew it wasn’t that simple, nothing ever is.

I kept seeing the same thing for days and every day it got worse and worse. It got to the point where I stopped sleeping at all. Every time I closed my eyes I could see your body on the ground, eyes wide open. I knew that it wasn’t true, but I felt like you were looking at me, like you blamed me for your death.

I searched it up. If the same thing happened to other Memorous I wanted to know how to make it stop, if I could even do something like that. From task number one I had problems.

For one, Memorous doesn’t like to be clear about it, we are heavily judged by it because no one understands what it is like to be one. Most people just think that we are making a fuss over nothing, that knowing what your soulmate looks like, what that person likes and dislikes makes it much easier to find the person you are supposed to bond with. What they don’t know is that, like everyone else in the world, people’s taste, personalities and all else changes. In one of your lives, you were a dancer, the stage was your home, and being watched by people was something you thrived off of but in the next one you were a shy girl who couldn’t bear the thought of people looking at her (this actually happened, just so you know).

Second, there aren’t many Memorous in the world. We are considered an anomaly, there are very few of us. I believe that we will only be able to understand why we are born this way when a scientist is born as a Memorous.

But not everything is a lost hope! God bless the people who aren’t scared to share their stories because they want to help other people. I found this post, on a very weird and hard to find website, saying that there is a way to break this ‘curse’. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it’s not up to us to end the cycle. Well, technically it is but it’s not a choice that we can make. It’s confusing, I know.

Apparently, the only way for us to stay together for a long time is if both of us are born Memorous, meaning that you and I must know our past lives. The one who wrote the post was a young boy, claiming that it was his grandparents’ story and that both of them were still alive and fine.

It’s not much but at least it’s something. I can’t help but wonder if this time around you already know who I am.

I saw you today, or at the very least I thought that I did. I looked at my right and you were right there! Your eyes went anywhere but me, it was like you were purposely trying to avoid me. I went after you, called after you (even though I don’t know what you’re called in this life). It seemed that you were running away from me, though I’m sure that wasn’t the case. How could you run from someone you don’t know?

On days like this, I think I’m starting to lose my mind. The dreams are starting to feel more real than ever, and I don’t know what to do. Is it because we are getting closer to each other? Maybe we are in the same city? I hope so.

I’ve hoping for something, just a tiny signal, for the longest time. Was today it? I think about seeing you, how the dreams are now just a repeat of all the first meetings before, how every day when I wake up I have a feeling inside my heart telling me that we are getting closer to each other.

Are we? Does this mean that we are getting closer?

Maybe this is the universe’s way of letting us know. Because our lives, all of them, have been so messed up that this is fate’s way of apologizing for all the crap that it put us through.

I’m going to find you soon. Hopefully, wherever you are you’re also looking for me and that will probably make our lives that much easier.

You closed the journal and put it aside. You managed to hold yourself back while reading, you didn’t want the tears in the back of your eyes to fall on the pages, the precious pages that told your story through Seokmin’s eyes.

It had been hard to come to terms with the idea, the fact, that he was your soulmate but over the years you became more and more used to it. Your lives were too different, your backgrounds complete opposites, and yet - somehow - you were it for each other.

The first time you saw him on TV, you clearly remembered how you felt. It was as if someone had just punched you in the chest. On the other side of the tiny screen was the boy - now the man - you had been dreaming about for years of your life. You never thought that you would find him, especially so soon but then again if you thought about all your dreams, both of you seemed young - maybe even younger than your 25 years.

You stayed away from the TV for about a month after that, but you knew that it wouldn’t last much longer than that. The entire time Seokmin was in the back of your mind, always making sure that you wouldn’t forget him. That was simply something that would never happen, you forgetting about him - even if that was one of the many things that you wanted to do. Eventually, you found yourself turning the TV on again, watching every single program, every video, and buying any magazine that featured him.

Thinking back at it, you felt sort of stupid for doing those things and not just trying to look for him. You were right, your soulmate was Seokmin but your own insecurities were holding you back. Out of everything you had, there was one problem you considered to be major: you had nothing to offer him.

You were the kid no one wanted, the kid that had been tossed into an orphanage at the age of eight, and no one had gone back to take claim. Like a monkey on a tree, you moved from house to house without a chance of staying, even the prospect of making friends didn’t exist.

Growing up you always dreamed of meeting your soulmate, imagined the way you would finally meet the other person. In your mind you were always the hotshot, someone who could make anything happen with a simple word. As you got older you wanted to just live a decent life but all you had was a shitty rented apartment in a sketchy area of the city, a shower that didn’t run with hot water, and were living paycheck by paycheck.

That wasn’t the life you wanted, it was a life that you were almost embarrassed over. How could you ever share a life with someone when you could hardly sustain yourself? That wasn’t possible.

But then it happened. You got dragged by your friend to go to the TV station and watched as Seokmin recorded a program. Jun said that he wouldn’t notice you, that you would sit far in the back, and you could put your bangs down and cover your eyes so there wouldn’t be a single chance of the bond happening.

It was a lie, you knew that. Jun lied straight to your face, and you let yourself fall for it. You couldn’t say no to him, much less to his kids. Hana was so excited about it. Watching Seokmin on TV was her favorite thing in the world, more than dancing or watching cartoons. He’s pretty and funny, my soulmate has to be just like him, she said. It was funny and endearing to watch. Sometimes you just wanted to meet Seokmin because of her, because she was so in love with him. The day you decided to take a step forward was also the day you took eleven steps back.

“Are excited?” Jun bumped his shoulder into yours and smiled.

He could be the kind of person your silly heart would fall for if there weren’t any soulmates. Jun was essentially a good person, with a heart made of gold and filled with so much love that his kids would never go a day in life thinking that he didn’t love them.

“No" yet another lie.

You were excited, a little too excited. Or maybe your excitement was actually just fear. Fear that the bond might happen, fear that Seokmin would be disappointed in who you were, fear that maybe your dreams would come true.

“You said that Seokmin is pretty” Hana called out.

A moment of weakness that you regretted.

“Handsome, honey. Boys are handsome”

She repeated the word a few times as if trying to memorize but everyone knew that she would just keep calling boys pretty.

“Why are you carrying her around like she’s three?”

Hana sighed and hugged Jun’s neck, her head on his shoulder.

“I’m daddy’s little girl”

Jun looked like he was about to cry and Hanbin just groaned, his sister’s act wasn’t something that he was too fond of. You could only smile at them. They were almost too cute for you to handle.

You were one of the first people to get in so there were still a lot of empty spots to choose from. The second you and Jun started to move towards the back Hanbin and Hana protested. Of course, they didn’t want to sit in the back. Besides being kids, and too short to be able to see anything, both liked Seokmin so being too far away was not something that they wanted. In the end, you caved. You couldn’t say no to two kids who were doing the puppy eyes at the same time.

As minutes went by and the studio got filled with people you started to get nervous. You ran your sweaty hands on your jeans trying to get them dry, but it was useless. Every person who walked inside made your heart skip a beat because you thought that it could be him. It never was. The scared part of your brain told you that it was a good thing, that maybe he wouldn’t show up at all, but the other part, the one that wanted to see him in person just once, told you to just wait a little longer because he was going to show.

You waited, for over an hour and there was no sign of him. You knew that in this kind of event it could take them a while to get everything sorted but you were told that it shouldn’t take long once you all went inside.

“Stop,” Jun said, his hand on your arm “Don’t overthink it"

He was smiling at you kindly. It was the kind of smile that was supposed to calm you down and reassure you and yet all it did was make you even more nervous.

“What if we bond?”

“Then you’ll deal with it later”

What if I don’t know how to deal with it?

When people started to scream you looked up and saw the host walking in. He talked for a couple of minutes, made a few jokes trying to be funny and then he introduced Lee Seokmin, a TV personality. The crowd went crazy, there was a girl behind you screaming so loud that you thought you’d go deft.

Seokmin walked in, his characteristic smile in place, as he waved at the audience.

Seeing him in person made the world slow down, even your own heart. Instead of going crazy, your heart nearly stopped, as the sight of Seokmin put you at ease. Your hands were no longer shaking, you didn’t feel like trying to hide yourself anymore. In fact, seeing him made your soul scream at you it’s him, what are you waiting for? Your soul was begging you to go to him. After all, it knew him, because despite being apart for years it recognized him immediately.

And then Seokmin looked at you.

His eyes were on yours as he stood frozen there. You could feel him everywhere. He was shocked, surprised, caught off guard, hopeful, and just so happy. His happiness was contagious because inside you felt happy too. You wanted to stand up and hug him, stay as close as possible to him. The fear you felt for years was momentarily forgotten in the back of your mind.

Your legs moved before you could even realize what you were doing. You stood up and walked to him, stopping only a couple of steps away from him. You felt his heartbeat like it was just under your skin. Being so close to him made your body tingle in the best way possible. Your entire being was begging you to just take another step, just one closer to him, just so you could touch him and feel him all around you.

When Seokmin moved forward, his hand raised ready to touch you - just like you wanted to do - you took a step back. Suddenly the realization of what could happen came crashing down around you. Your dreams, and images of Seokmin lying lifeless on the floor that had been engraved in your mind were unexpectedly in your eyes. You could see it coming, your downfall, and the things you dreaded the most, happening.

“I…”

Seokmin wanted to say something, anything, but he didn’t know what he was supposed to. What words could he possibly profess that would make the fear running through your body go away?

“I’m sorry, I can’t do this"

Turning around and walking away from him might have been the hardest thing you ever did.

You tried your best to keep living normally but it was close to impossible. Every second that went by you were reminded of Seokmin, of the broken look on his face when you walked away, of the way he felt like he had somehow done something wrong. And he felt unloved when it was supposed to be just the other way around. Even before the bond, before you had the chance to look at him in the eyes, you already had feelings for him. Perhaps it was because you knew that you were supposed to love him, you knew that once you met him your feelings would be unstoppable, or it was just because he was charming.

And just how charming he was.

You didn’t know one single person who disliked him, someone who would flat-out say that there was nothing good to like about him. Everyone loved Seokmin, his easy smile and friendly eyes pulled everyone in.

“Until when are you going to keep avoiding him?”

Jun had become the personification of what was happening inside of you. You wanted to meet Seokmin, desperately. You wanted to find out where he was and just go to him, introduce yourself, and just talk to him. Everything seemed so simple inside your mind, and in Jun’s as well, but it was so far from it.

“You’re just avoiding it, you know that”

“So, what if I am? I’m sorry if I don’t want to see my soulmate die!”

You weren’t angry at your friend or even Seokmin, as he would feel sometimes. You were just angry at everyone else, at the world, at destiny, at anyone in the world who decided that it was a good idea to make you see your soulmate die every night.

“I know that, but wouldn’t it be better if you could spend some time with him? Let’s say that you’ll have six months together, that’s it. No more and no less. Don’t you want to be with him for as long as you possibly can instead of keep hiding in here?” Jun moved his hand showing the lounge of his dance school “Think of all your past lives, about how happy you were because you were with Seokmin. In this life too, shouldn’t you be able to feel that kind of happiness?”

Jun was the only person who knew that you were Memorous and he was also the only person who would say that there was nothing wrong with it. You aren’t cursed. If you ask me, you are one of the lucky ones. I would anything to have more memories with Seol. He was also the kind of friend who wasn’t scared to say that you were messing up your own life, that you were doing something wrong. Most days he would act like the dad you never had. You were grateful for him, for having someone so eager to make sure that you were happy.

“Here’s a wild scenario” Jun smiled at Hana, who was running to him, as he stood up “Seokmin doesn’t die"

His words left you speechless as you watched him move away from you.

When you got home that day Seokmin’s journals were waiting at your doorstep.

Reading Seokmin’s words was much like reading your own. Since you started to have dreams, you thought that you were the only one who felt like that, like the only one who didn’t have anyone else to run to. Yes, both of your lives were very different, the place both of you came from was also different. But looking at it or wasn’t all that different.

His words and the way he described his feelings for you were the things that made you take a deep breath and go meet him.

I know that you are scared, I can feel it but please reconsider it. I’ve been waiting for a moment like this for a very long time and I would like to believe that you have too. I’ll be in the city for a few more days so let’s meet. If you don’t come to me, I will go to you. We can’t run away from this.

Seokmin.

Somehow you found yourself getting out of your tiny apartment and going towards Seokmin. You knew just how much he could feel your nervousness and yet he tried to stay calm so you could feel at ease too. The entire time, since you left the TV station, you could feel him in your mind and it was like he was talking to you, trying to convince you to meet or just to be comfortable with the idea of him.

At times you could swear that he was talking to you, his voice clear in your mind. It’s okay, you don’t have to worry. It was like Seokmin himself could read your thoughts. Of course, there were moments when he would feel that spark of fear, and anxiety but most of the time he was in complete control of his emotions. He was doing that for you, there was no mistake, so you felt childish for being all over the place and guilty for bombarding him with emotions that you couldn’t fully grasp.

That was one of the many reasons why you decided to go to him. His words had been the main reason, but you also wanted to put your heart in peace. From the second you walked away from him your heart had been heavy. It was the kind of emotion that was impossible to verbalize, the only word that could possibly come to mind was lost. Your heart was lost. You walked around feeling like there was a huge part of you missing, your eyes looked for something, someone, that was never there.

It was like that until you got his journals. Although you didn’t feel whole you could feel that a little piece of you was back. Perhaps it truly wasn’t a part of you, instead what could be the missing was a piece of you never found before.

The missing piece had always been Seokmin.

You stopped in front of his door, your hand closed into a fist just an inch away.

The truth was that everything you felt, every tiny thing, could be summed into just one word: fear. You were scared.

For years you saw Seokmin die in your dreams, he died in a new way every night. You saw, more times than you could count, the life left his eyes as he took his last breath. Sometimes you would just hear about it from someone, just words thrown into a conversation – words that always managed to break your heart. It never mattered how you found out, it always happened suddenly and unexpectedly.

Whenever you and he were settling into a life together, when you allowed yourself to love each other freely, it happened. You always thought that your love for him, as his for you, worked like a time bomb. And the moment the bond was made was when your time started to run out.

The only thing you thought about was how if you never made the bond then Seokmin would be able to live a long and happy life. It was okay if once, just once, you didn’t find your soulmate. As long as Seokmin got to live, you were fine with whatever life threw at you. Many people went through life without ever finding their soulmates but that didn’t mean that they weren’t happy. It just meant that they had to find other ways to be happy.

“Just, please, knock on the door”

You turned around, startled by the sudden presence behind you, a voice that you had memorized a long time before meeting the person to whom it belonged. Seokmin was there, looking at you like he had just walked out of some kind of sappy movie with his hair a mess and a hoodie that was at least three sizes bigger than him.

“How long have you been there?”

He smiled at you then making you feel like your insides were melting. Seeing him was like making the bond all over again. Your hands were sweating, your heartbeat out of control, slow, fast, and slow. The air around you was heavy and the tension between the two of you was almost palpable, like a thin sheet separating you and him.

“Long enough to know that you’ve been hesitating, for at least, five minutes”

How was it possible for him to be so calm when you felt like your heart was about to combust? Having him so close to you made your entire body shake. You almost wanted to take a step back before you fell to your knees. It was like your legs were barely there to support you.

“I want to say so many things but I’m afraid that if I do, you’ll run away again”

You shook your head at him. This time around you weren’t leaving or running. You had made it this far, there was no way you were backing down. Somehow, seeing Seokmin in front of you made you feel stronger like you could fight the entire universe just because he was right there by your side. He wasn’t doing anything, but he looked at you like you were everything that he had been waiting for and then some more.

“I came so that we could talk” you tried to smile in reassurance, for him or yourself you weren’t sure “Do you want to do this here or somewhere else…?”

“I think that it would be best if we had some privacy”

You took a step aside to let Seokmin open the door to his hotel room.

You had always been scared of people, not of what they could do to you in the spot but of what they could cause in the long run. From a young age, you learned that you were alone and that the people around you never really wanted you there. For the foster homes you went through most of your life, you were just a way to get easy money; for your first boyfriend you were just a pity bet; for your high school friends you were just the girl they let hang out with them in exchange for assignments; for your parents, you were just someone, something, that they could easily toss aside when they finally got bored.

All of those things left deep scars on you. Though you did your best to cover them, they were always there right under the surface. You always smiled at people and made sure to tell them that you were perfectly fine even though you weren’t, even though all you wanted was to curl into yourself and let yourself feel all that pain.

Jun had been the first person to get through to you, the only one who had stayed long enough for you to think that maybe he was around you because he actually liked you and not because he wanted something from you in return.

It was true that Seokmin was your soulmate, that once the bond is made someone can never really walk away from it. You knew all of those things, like a book that you were constantly reading. Knowing something is completely different than doing it. The insecurities, always in the back of your mind, screamed at you louder than any belief or hope. Your brain always told you that someone like Seokmin, someone who had everything – and anyone – he could possibly want, would never stay for someone like you, bond or no bond.

“Do you want something to drink? I can get you anything you want”

Seokmin opened the door for you and pointed at the couch in front of it. As you had expected his room wasn’t just room, it was like a goddamn apartment – hell it was bigger than half of the houses you went through as a teenager.

“I… it’s fine. I’m fine”

Seokmin knew that you weren’t fine but chose to stay quiet about it, he knew that it wasn’t a good idea to tell you just how much of you he could understand. It wasn’t only because he could feel every tiny thing coming from you but also because you were like an open book, filled with words begging to be read.

“I got your journals,” you said “I also read them”

Your words made Seokmin sigh in relief. He thought that if you saw his journals, and read his feelings, you would be able to understand how desperate he felt, how much his feelings had been all over the place – despite him trying to remain calm. His feelings mirrored yours very much, almost in every way.

“Because you shared yours with me, I think it’s only fair if I do the same with you”

He looked up at you, surprise all over his face as you handed him the small box you had been carrying.

“I’ve dreamed about you, for the past ten years, too. Every night I saw you and fell for you, every version of you”

The surprise Seokmin felt, the happiness, and the relief that ran through his body the moment he saw you at his door was almost completely gone when he heard what you were saying. He wanted to think that maybe he heard it wrong but the look in your eyes assured him that he hadn’t heard it wrong. Your words had been loud and clear, ricocheting inside his brain.

“For how long you have known about me?”

Your heart was breaking, shattering into tiny pieces when you saw and felt the change in Seokmin. He held the box with your journals like it weighed a thousand pounds, his face was contorted with something that you couldn’t decipher but his feelings were clear, like the sky on a starry night. Seokmin felt betrayed, hurt, and unwanted, all things that weren’t true.

“Since you started, around the same time, since I was sixteen as well” you whispered.

Seokmin felt his heart drop all the way down to his toes feeling sick to his stomach. He had always wanted to find you, from the day he understood what his dreams meant he looked for you – everywhere and anywhere in the world. You were the reason why he even started to work in TV, he thought that if he got a job that required him to talk to a lot of people then it would be easier to find you. But the idea, now the fact, that you had always known about him but even then, decided not to look for him, not to take a step away from him, was like a slap to his face.

“Do you know that I tried to look for you everywhere? I nearly went crazy. Every day since my dreams, the memories of us, started I searched for you. While you…” he scoffed like the world had played yet another sick joke on him “You knew who I was but you never…”

He couldn’t bring himself to say it; thinking about it – feeling it – was already bad enough. Seokmin didn’t want to voice it, if he did then everything would become that much more real, too real, more heartbreaking than anything else in his life up until that moment.

The dreams crushed his heart every morning when he woke up. Seokmin felt his heart die a little inside his chest for the life he never got to live with you, for the words he never got to hear from you, for seeing the bright light leave your eyes time and time again. But ultimately those dreams were just that: dreams, memories of a different period in time, of a different life that although felt real, it no longer was.

“I was afraid, Seokmin…”

“I know that you were! I felt it, with fiber in my body, I knew that you were scared, terrified that for some reason I wouldn’t love you. I knew all of that like it was my own fear”

The despair he had in his voice was felt in your body, every tiny cell. You hated that he was feeling like that, that your first ever encounter with him – a proper one – was only worth a fight. That was not how you wanted things to go. You thought that if you ever met him things would run smoothly but the reality of it was far from your expectations.

“Like you, I am a Memorous” you had to say it, you needed Seokmin to hear your words just once “The first time I saw you, like you are right now, was on TV but it was so fast that I couldn’t be sure. I was on the bus, passing by a TV store. The next day I stayed in front of the same store the entire day, waiting for that brief second of your face for hours. When I finally saw you I cried, right there in the middle of the sidewalk because I just felt so happy to see you, to finally find the boy that I had seen so many times before, the boy I loved so blindly, even though I have never met before.

“But the dreams… they are alive inside my mind. I don’t forget them like you do. My brain stores them like they are memories of this life, all those feelings were as real as if I lived them this time around. I thought about all the times I saw you die, and I couldn’t live through that again. I couldn’t let that happen to you, not after I saw you. I only knew you from the screen of my tv but my feelings were already so strong. I wanted the bond to happen, you can’t doubt that for a second, but I was scared. I would very much rather live knowing that you were somewhere out there, living a happy and long life than having you live a short one with me”

Your words were more than enough to make Seokmin stop. Until that moment, his mind was flying all over the place but the second you opened your mouth he couldn’t bring himself to be angry anymore. Those feelings, the fear of seeing your other half – the one you were supposed to be with – die, was one he knew very well. He often wondered what would happen when he finally met you.

The first time he saw you, he had been over the moon, he felt you and everything else. He felt the pull and your desire to get closer to him. To say that Seokmin was surprised when you ran away was an understatement. He didn’t truly understand everything that was happening inside of him, the unthinkable mix of you and him made him feel dizzy because he couldn’t set you apart.

He could finally understand the things you did but it didn’t mean that he liked them.

“I think it’s going to be a very long night”

Seokmin read your journals in front of you, and it didn’t feel embarrassing. Those journals, your words, had been written for him and for him only. While you wrote down your dreams you thought of him, of how he would read them one day and how much you wanted him to.

You spent the entire night in his hotel room. You talked for hours and hours and suddenly the subject wasn’t as heavy anymore, both of your fears momentarily forgotten, and you were simply enjoying each other’s company.

Seokmin was everything that he seemed to be, but he was also that much different. His bubbly personality was still there, fully out in the open for everyone to see, but there was also a shy side to him - one that not many people knew about but it was cute to watch. More often than he would like to admit, Seokmin would trip over his words, insecure about what he could and couldn’t say to you. The ice is still very thin, it’s making me nervous he said at some point in the night.

You had scooted closer to him or maybe he got closer to you, how it happened didn’t really matter. You found yourself sitting on the couch with your knees pulled to your chest as Seokmin quietly played with your fingers.

Just having him around you felt like a dream but the moment his skin touched yours? It was like fireworks exploded under your skin, like every single nerve in your body was suddenly awake. You could feel him everywhere, like he was not just the man in front of you, but he was also part of the air, like he could be all around you whilst staying in the exact same spot. He gave you calmness, a sense of peace and security. Things that up until that moment no one had been able to give you, not even yourself.

“I really want to kiss you” you whispered. Seokmin’s fingers stilled in yours and something sparkled in his eyes as he looked at you. The moment was suspended in the air as if it wasn’t neither here or there, as if time itself had stopped and all the attention was now on the two of you and the way you were feeling in that very second.

You couldn’t bring yourself to look away from him, you didn’t want to. It was the first time, in your entire life, that you craved someone’s touch and presence. With Seokmin you wanted that and so much more, everything that he had to give, you wanted.

Feeling like that for someone after only knowing them for a couple of hours was impossible, the kind of thing that you would never expect to happen, the kind of thing that you would laugh at because something like that couldn’t exist. But with you and Seokmin, nothing was as it seemed.

It was true that you had only known him for a little while but just in this life. When you looked at him you saw traces of the many different people that he had been in the past and because of that, it was like you fully knew him. That wasn’t the case, and you knew that, but even so, the feeling of reconnection still existed.

Seokmin inched forward, his eyes focused on your lips, as he interlocked your fingers and pulled you towards him. There was one second of hesitation, one tiny second that felt like an eternity before his lips finally pressed on yours and then it was pure magic.

Seokmin had to leave a few days later and you hated the idea of having to see him walk away. It wasn’t final, you knew that, but it hurt all the same. He had stayed in the city for you far longer than he was supposed to, his phone always blowing up with text messages from people concerned about his whereabouts when in reality he had been locked up with you inside your apartment.

On the contrary to what you previously thought, Seokmin didn’t care about your tiny apartment, about the fact that you had been to more foster homes than what you were willing to admit, or about the fact that you didn’t have a degree. I like you for you, not for the baggage that comes with you.

You sat at the airport for hours after his flight departed, the emptiness growing inside of you as the seconds ticked away.

Seokmin felt the same way. He wanted to stay or for you to just go with him, but he didn’t dare to ask. He knew that even though you didn’t think much of your life, you liked it. You loved to be a receptionist at Jun’s school, loved being surrounded by the kids, loved the city you lived in, and you were a little proud of yourself for being your own person and living your own life - even though you would never admit it. He got into the plane with a heavy heart, but he had to figure things out. He had to find a way for the two of you to be together. It was uncertain of what the future held for you. You could be together for just a year before one of you died or your entire life was still ahead of you. The not knowing drove him crazy.

Three weeks apart was all he could take before he found himself boarding a plane to the other side of the country and breaking a few contracts while he did so. You called every day, facetimed whenever there was a chance and texts were always a constant but just that wasn’t enough.

Due to the distance, the constant pull to you only grew stronger and the grasp he had of your feelings, how Seokmin could tell exactly what was going on with you, was slowly disappearing. It wasn’t that you were learning to control what he could and couldn’t see. Once the bond is made the newfound soulmates need to stay close to each other, it’s physically and mentally tiring to be away. He noticed that you sounded more exhausted on the phone, as your eyes nearly closed when you talked on Facetime.

All those things pulled him to you, yes, but Seokmin also wanted to see you desperately.

He didn’t tell you that he was coming to see you, he wanted to make it a surprise. The entire flight he felt just how happy you were, probably because you were at the dance school with the kids, but he also noticed your worry, because he hadn’t answered his phone in a few hours, as you tried to push it as far back in your mind as possible.

The long see-through glass walls of the school allowed Seokmin to see you inside. He heard your laugh before he saw you, the sound had been imprinted in his mind like the type of song that just gets stuck. And then he saw your profile looking at the little boy in front of you lovingly. When you smiled, he thought that his heart would explode inside his chest.

Seeing you, even from far away, was like going home after a long time. The feeling of calmness, the feeling of finally being able to breathe properly. Just looking at you made him lighter in a way that he couldn’t exactly put into words.

The kids were the first ones to see Seokmin. The little boy you talked to gasped, and his eyes went wide. All the other kids had the same reaction, some of them pointed at him while others just went back to what they were doing before.

You stood frozen in place and watched Seokmin walk from where he was to the door. You had to make sure that he was really there, that it wasn’t something that you were imagining. If it wasn’t for the cute selfies he sent you stored in your phone, you would be sure that meeting Seokmin and everything else that happened after had been nothing but a dream. It wouldn’t be the first time you wished for a life that could never have.

You got up and took a step away from the kids before walking as fast as you could - nearly running - towards him. He met you halfway, his arms reached for you before you collapsed into him.

You sighed in contentment and relief when you felt his skin against yours, when his warmth enveloped you. Everything else was forgotten and it no longer mattered.

“You’re really here,” you said against his neck.

His chuckle ran through your entire body and he tightened his arms around you, pulling you as close as possible to him.

“Half a country away is too much" he murmured.

You stayed in place for minutes, long enough for one of the kids to get bored and call out your name a couple of times. One of them ran inside and got Jun, because the little boy thought that Seokmin might be holding you for too long.

“This reunion is great and all but it’s weird for the kids”

At the sound of your friend’s voice, you let go of Seokmin but you didn’t go too far. Three weeks had been long enough, you would take whatever few moments with him that you could get before he had to leave again. So you stayed by Seokmin’s side, your fingers interlocked with his.

“Seokmin, this is Jun”

“I was the one who gave him your address, how else do you think he would send you his journals?”

Seokmin looked at you, with surprise in his face. He hadn’t expected you to tell someone about it, about his journals, or about anything at all. From the moment he saw you, and even from the journals you wrote, he knew that you were the kind of person who didn’t tell those around her much about her life so it was a surprise that you had talked about it with someone.

“It’s good to see that things worked out for you,” Jun said, he looked at the watch on his wrist before looking back at you again “Go on, take the rest of the day off”

You shook at head, pointing at the kids behind him - who were already making a fuss all over the place.

“I still have a few more hours to go and you need help with the kids”

Jun just rolled his eyes when he took a few steps closer to you and Seokmin, pretty much pushing out of the door.

“I’ll let you know that there was a time when I managed this place just fine without you”

For the rest of the day, you walked around town with Seokmin. He held your hand the entire time, letting it go just to put his arm around your shoulder, either way, he always had his hands on you. You didn’t mind it, in fact, you liked it a lot. The idea of always being close to him made your heart flutter in impossible ways, made you imagine what life would be like when you finally got to be with him for more than a few hours at a time, it made you wish for a future when you would be able to see him every day and talk to him and just be around him.

“I’ve been thinking,” Seokmin said when you reached your neighborhood.

“That could be dangerous”

During the time you and Seokmin talked on the phone, he told a lot about his childhood and there was one thing that was clear to you: he was an unpredictable kid. His ideas were always crazy and so unnatural for a child. When you were in foster care you thought that the other kids were crazy, but they were just reckless, Seokmin was wild.

“I should have never told you those stories,” he said with a sigh, a tiny smile on his face “I’ve got this job offer, here in the city. It’s not like what I do now but I think that it could be fun and I’ll try to make it work as much as possible. If I do take it, we’ll be closer to each other”

You were shaking your head before he was done speaking. Seokmin changing jobs, and doing something else that was not what he wanted initially was a huge no.

“You’re not moving here”

He sighed again and took your hand in his.

“I know you’re worried about my job, but I only started to do it because I thought that it was the easiest way to find you. I can do something else, anything else, if it means that I can have you”

You turned to look at him, your hand squeezing his. His words assured you, more than anything in the world. Hearing those words was the only thing you needed.

“Remember how I told you that Jun’s soulmate mom is a social worker? She told me that there is this University, not the most prestigious one but a university nonetheless, that is more likely to give out scholarships. A couple of months ago I took the test to get in and I got the results a week ago”

Seokmin nodded at you, not really understanding what you meant. Truth be told, he was a little hurt. The second he mentioned it you were already denying it, like the mere idea of having him close to was repulsive. He knew that couldn’t be the case, knew that those things never reached your heart but even so, the feeling of getting rejected was there.

“I got in. I have to move there in the next few weeks or so, to settle in and find my way around town”

“Where… where is that?”

You laughed and kissed him quickly. He looked way too cute with the confused look on his face.

“I didn’t ask for your address just to have it, Seokmin. I want to be close to you so I was looking for a place near yours but also close enough to the university”

Before you even done speaking Seokmin already had his arms around while he placed quick kisses all over your face, making you laugh.

Moving away was harder than expected. There weren’t many things that tied you to that place, but the few things that did make it heartbreaking.

Just as you predicted, telling Jun was easy. Your friend, like always, had been supportive saying that he had your back in all the choices you’ve made and the choices that you would come to make.

His kids were a completely different story. When you told Hana about it, she started to cry, tears running down her little face and sobs escaping her lips. You knew that it was going to be hard to talk to her, but you didn’t think that it was going to be like that. Hanbin was easier but you knew that he was also feeling it.

“Will you call us every day?”

“I’ll call you every Sunday morning,” you said pinching her cheeks “We all know how much your dad loves Sunday mornings”

Jun groaned but he still had a smile on his face.

“Why do you hate me?”

It broke your heart to leave all three of them, but it was something that you had to do, not only because you wanted to be close to Seokmin but because of yourself. The change was something that you needed to do in order to move your life forward.

Moving day wasn’t as terrible as you expected. Seokmin had helped you move all your stuff, boxing everything to perfection. You didn’t have much you wanted to take with you but even so, everything you owned had been labeled and wrapped.

Somehow Seokmin had managed to convince you to just move in with him. You tried to deny him at first. It didn’t make any sense; you had just started something with him and suddenly you were putting your toothbrushes together. That was way too fast. “We don’t know how much time we have together so why waste it by being apart?” You tried reasoning with him “What if I can’t stand your habits and you hate mine?” To what he just said, “I’ll love all of your nasty habits and I’ll be the perfect prince, so you’ll have nothing to complain about”.

It all ended with a heated make-out session on your couch.

Seokmin was feeling edgy. He was supposed to be home hours ago, he knew that you were worried but restraining yourself from calling him. He loved his job, he really did, and it was amazing that he got to keep it and be with you at the same time, but he hated days like those. He hated the late-night shootings when he had to be away - especially when he could feel how worried you were - and he didn’t even like to think about when he had to do something out of town.

The drive back home felt endless. He broke God knows how many speed limits, and crossed a few red lights. He didn’t know why he was feeling like that, he knew that there wasn’t anything wrong going on at home. You would have called him in case something happened, he would have felt something change.

But at times he couldn’t help but feel anxious.

It had been four years. Four years since you found each other, since you started your life together, probably the four happiest years of his. But whenever he wasn’t expecting it, whenever Seokmin started to feel comfortable again with his life and you around him, his dreams would come back to haunt him. Instead of seeing you, in the past, he saw you as you were in this life. He saw the woman he loved, more than any of his dreams could have let him know, die in front of him, in his arms. It was always like that, you had a smile on your face, a tear ran down your cheek and you said that loved him.

On nights like that, he would search for you. His arms moved directly to you and pulled you to him as quiet sobs escaped his lips. You always cried with him on nights like that. You didn’t have those sorts of dreams, but his despair and fear ran through your body as if they were your own.

That night was just like that. The whole day he had a sickening feeling in his stomach. Like the world was telling him that something was bound to happen. The one thing that had somehow calmed him was how at ease you were during most of the way.

Seokmin walked inside a house in darkness, the light in the hallway the only thing that could possibly tell him that there was someone home. You always did that for him when he had one of his late nights.

You were sleeping in the bedroom, so Seokmin tried his best not to make a sound. But he knew that all his efforts were useless when he walked out of the bathroom to find the bedside lamp on and you looking at him.

“I didn’t mean to wake you”

You sat up and smiled at him, shaking your head. It was a good thing that he had woken you up. Your sleep wasn’t peaceful, no nightmares or dreams but although you were asleep you still had that weird feeling of being awake while sleeping.

“It’s fine, I actually have to talk to you about something”

Seokmin wouldn’t like what you had to say to him, in fact, you were pretty sure that he would probably hate it.

“I talked to your sister today” the words left your lips in a quiet whisper.

Seokmin stood still, his eyes focused on you, but his mind was somewhere entirely. He finally understood why you had felt so anxious and nervous during lunchtime and why he was feeling on edge the entire day.

“We’re not doing this” he shook his head.

“Seokmin it’s been 12 years, you’re going to have to talk to them at some point”

You reached for his hand at the same that Seokmin scoffed at you.

“You haven’t talked to your parents in 22 years and I don’t push toward them”

Seokmin regretted his words the second he said them. He watched as you tried your best to control your emotions and not let him feel just how hurt you truly felt about his words. You pulled back the hand you reached to Seokmin and tucked it under the blankets.

“I did try to look for them, Seokmin. I found them. It went the same way as it did when I was eight years old. They didn’t want me”

You never told anyone about that, it wasn’t the kind of thing that you liked to talk about. To be honest you didn’t even like to think about it.

A week before you moved in with Seokmin you searched for your parents. With Jun’s help, you managed to find them, quite easily. They still lived in the city, in the same house you lived in for the first eight years of your life. All it really took to get a hold of them was to find the documents they filled when they left you in the foster house. Your meeting with them didn’t last long, less than five minutes and they didn’t even invite you in. All the conversation was done at their doorstep. “We can’t do anything for you, we’re not parent material,” they said to which you answered, “I’m no longer a kid who needs care and protection”.

For them to suddenly find their inner parent wasn’t something that you wanted or expected but you thought that they could, at least, be part of your life but even that they refused. They only showed some kind of interest when you mentioned Seokmin and just by looking at them, you could tell that their interest was more on what Seokmin brought with him than for you.

After that you never mentioned them again, never allowed Jun to talk about it again, not even thinking about them was allowed.

“Just because people bond doesn’t mean they become good people, Seokmin. It just means that there’s someone out there who won’t judge your choices”

“Babe…”

Seokmin crawled on the bed towards you, his arms going around you and tangled his legs with yours.

You stayed quiet for a while, unmoving. That was your favorite place in the world, his arms. Even if you had just some kind of argument with him, even if you were hurt by what the other person said, you never turned your back on each other.

“I’m afraid if I let them in again the same thing will happen. I can’t go through that again”

You turned in his arms, facing him.

“They were probably just afraid Seokmin, the things people say about Memorous aren’t nice. Maybe they were just afraid to lose their son. Your sister did sound really sorry on the phone” you ran your hand on his cheek “You’re thirty years old, the feelings you had at eighteen are not the same and you certainly are not the same person. Maybe we could try talking to them, and if it doesn't work, it doesn’t”

“Thank you for reminding me that I’m old”

You giggled against his chest, which made Seokmin kiss the top of your head.

“You’ll only be old when our kids kids go to college”

Something in Seokmin’s eyes changed, all the anger and laughter from just a second before suddenly disappeared. He rolled on the bed, so he was on top of you.

“Are we talking babies now?”

You wrapped your arms around his neck and kissed your way up from his collarbone to his lips.

“You’ve been lacking in that department lately, husband”

He pulled your hands away from his neck and presses it against the mattress.

“I’ll be sure to make it up to you, wife”

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