#p1harmony angst | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

starry-nights-garden · 8 months

Text

Keeho ✧ Pay Off

✧ P1Harmony Keeho x fem!reader ✧ words: ~5.4k ✧ genre: fluff, slow burn ✧ warnings: (mentions of reader visibly blushing)

Desc.: The number one rule when working with idols is not to fall in love with them. Unfortunately you woke up one day and had to realize that your feelings for Keeho are very much real, and so now you’re trying to figure out how to best deal with them.

“Everyone, get ready! You’re up on stage in 5 minutes!” you hear the urging words of the boys’ manager. In the corner of your eyes you see the rest of the staff swarm around them, and you too have no time to lose. With a brush and a makeup palette you get up from where you’ve been resting just now, and as you repress a yawn you approach the idol nearest to you. You examine Jongseob’s face, trying to make out any spots that need some touching up and eventually find none. Your eyes lock for a moment as he’s busy fixing his headset, and he shoots you a thankful smile, to which you nod, signalling him that his makeup looks perfect as it is. Then you move on to the next person. You find the leader amid the sudden fuss in the waiting room - a phenomenon you’re used to by now. Nobody knows the exact time when each group or artist has to be up on stage to either pre-record or to perform live, but you usually know the approximate schedule, so around these times everyone’s on standby to assure a smooth procedure.

“Does it look okay?” Keeho is talkative as always, and in response you lift the makeup brush up to his face, applying some more of the powder that matches his skin tone next to his nose. You can sense he isn’t nervous anymore during promotions, like he used to be just after his debut.

“It does now,” you answer and smile, hoping he wouldn’t notice the blush creeping onto your cheeks, before you’re split up. Your colleagues must’ve finished fixing everyone else’s hair and makeup, and with a somewhat heavy heart you watch the boys and some staff members walk out of the room. You sink back into one of the chairs in front of the big mirrors and you let out a sigh, trying to calm your beating heart. As you’re putting aside the makeup and brush, one of the other girls approaches you.

“Are you okay, Y/N?” the hair stylist asks, worry apparent on her face.

“I’m fine… just a bit tired,” you answer, and that technically isn’t a lie.

“You seem distracted these days…” she replies.

“I’m okay. I could just use a nap, that’s all.” It’s the end of the third week of promotions - by this time everyone usually starts getting tired. After all it’s not just the idols who are forced to get up at ungodly hours for music shows or other appearances. Their staff follows them through every step of the procedure, so you too have to be up around 2am lately. At least I don’t have to stay up for practice and can get to bed at a normal hour… I should try that today, you think to yourself. But sleep doesn’t come easy these days. Your mind is too packed with the guy who occupies your every thought every free second of the day, and your heart is too heavy because you know you cannot have him. There’s this unwritten rule among especially the young stylists: Don’t fall for the idols you work with. You knew it only brings trouble, so you tried really hard to see them as nothing but colleagues. And that works just fine with all of them but one, because somehow your heart didn’t get the message when it comes to Keeho, and you ended up catching feelings for him.

You’ve tried telling yourself it’s just a crush because he’s handsome, you’ve tried telling yourself it will go away if you keep your distance, tried telling yourself you’ll be fine if you talk a little more to him and find out he actually isn’t as great as you think he is. And yet here you are, feeling yourself falling for him just a little more with every minute you spend with him and every new side of his that you get to know, rendered unable to escape that pink bubble of infatuation.

The stage is over, the guys are making their way back. Sweat covers their foreheads and drips down their necks, and they’re followed by staff handing them towels while the boys are trying to cool off a little with the help of their mini-fans.

“You did well, everyone,” you hear Keeho shout into the room with a radiant smile, and for a moment he flashes his teeth at you too. That gesture alone is enough to melt your heart, and while you’re slowly dying inside, you do your best to remain stoic on the outside. Some of the guys clap, meanwhile Taeyang lets his body retreat onto the nearest couch and Intak is still too busy regaining his breath after giving it his all on stage. You take a moment to muster each of the boys, and still the only one who makes the butterflies in your stomach go wild remains him. They’re all handsome and they’re all nice people, so why does one of them have to affect you so differently than the rest?

“That’s stupid.” It’s the evening of the same day. Your body is telling you to go to sleep already, get the rest you so desperately need, meanwhile your mind is racing. “That’s a really stupid idea,” you repeat, while glaring at yourself in the bathroom mirror. You were peacefully washing your face just a minute ago, when suddenly a memory hit you right when you needed it the least. It was back when the boys, their manager, and all the staff had their celebration dinner at the end of their very first promotion period. You remember it had been a little awkward, because on one hand you were pushing the curfew of the youngest members quite a bit, and on the other hand there were the legal adults who didn’t want to get drunk “in front of the kids” but couldn’t keep their fingers off the alcohol completely either. So there were the very happy maknaes who could stay out longer than usual, the tipsy elders who at some point secluded themselves a tad from the rest of the group, and then there were the ones in between - Taeyang, Jiung, Keeho, a hair stylist and you. Not that you weren’t enjoying yourselves, and the food tasted delicious, but being stuck in the middle was never a thing you were good at handling. That night it was Keeho who took the initiative and, like a true leader, did everything he could not to let the atmosphere become awkward. You started chatting more casually, and maybe that was the moment you started falling for him without realizing. You remember running outside along with the younger boys as the adults started gradually turning the night into their own drinking party, and you found a playground nearby which you decided to occupy for yourselves. You can’t normally see the stars from the city, as its lights are too bright, and so the night sky is usually a slightly illuminated shade of black, but just for the heck of it you pretended to be stargazing anyway as you were sitting on that swing that very night.

“Thinking of someone?” As Keeho’s voice reached your ears, you turned to face him, startled. You thought you could sneak away for a few minutes by yourself after having been social all evening, but even out here someone was ready to talk to you. And of course it had to be him. You didn’t know how to react at first, because his assumption was very much off. You were thinking about the comfort of your own home if anything, and you didn’t want to appear rude by denying his guess. So you merely shrugged. A knowing smile spread on his lips and you felt a little sorry for deceiving him.

“You should tell them,” he suddenly said and you raised your eyebrows at him. “If there’s someone you’re thinking of… then you must like that person, right? You should tell them,” he added. “In one way or the other, it will pay off for sure.”

“No, I…” You opened your mouth to say something back and to correct his confusion, but when you saw him realizing he made a wrong assumption by himself, and his ears were growing beet red in the process all you could think of doing was to apologize.

“No, I shouldn’t have assumed things!” he immediately retorted. “I’m sorry, I thought I was being helpful… maybe they put some soju in my drink without me noticing?” He laughed. He tried to brush it off with a bad joke, still his embarrassment was apparent. And somehow you found that image that was unfolding right in front of your eyes weirdly charming. So you gave him a soft smile.

“It’s good advice though,” you said, hoping to calm him down a bit with your words. “I’ll remember that if… once I have someone I like.”

“I really shouldn’t,” your reflection is scolding you. “I can’t. You can’t tell him. This is something different. Don’t even consider it.” You point at yourself like a strict teacher or your mother would, and then you finish washing your face and you go to bed. You switch off the lights in your studio apartment, and close your eyes. Still you feel wide awake, contemplating whether to follow Keeho’s advice or not. Back when he said those words to you you didn’t think much of it. Who thought it would come bite you in the ass now? “Ugh, I need to sleep, not think about this…” you tell yourself and you grab the ends of your pillow to squish your face in between the soft material. Still, sleep does not come easy tonight, just like the many nights before.

It’s a new day, and once again you curse your alarm for waking you up in the middle of the night. You grab a coffee first thing after getting up and combined with a cold shower right afterwards you hope to be as ready for the day as you can be. You arrive at the broadcasting station just on time to find the right waiting room and to prepare all your makeup, hoping that today would finally be the day that your feelings for Keeho came to cease. Your hopes are in vain though, or so you must realize once the boys start coming into the room one by one, and a sleepy leader sinks down onto the chair right in front of you. As you look around and the others are also finding their seats, it slowly begins to dawn on you that the situation you’ve been fearing for so long has finally arrived: it’s your turn to do Keeho’s full makeup today, and with the onsetting realization also comes the unstoppable picking up pace of your heartbeat, which is soon racing. I can do this, you tell yourself, apparently just in time for Keeho to notice your distress.

“You look like you had a rough night,” he remarks, trying to put a certain understanding behind the words. You can tell he hasn’t warmed up yet, as his voice still sounds a bit raspy, the tone not as controlled as usual. Because of you, you respond in thought, but choose a more acceptable answer to say out loud.

“It’s okay,” you retort and follow up with a chuckle. “I’m not as tired as you look.” Keeho lets out a rather unenergetic laugh.

“I will trust you to make me look more awake then,” he mumbles and closes his heavy eyelids. The motion lets you breathe a bit more easily. With him taking a nap while you do his makeup, at least he won’t be watching you all the way through. You try to focus only on your work in order to regain your composure, and after applying the first layers of makeup you feel like you can finally concentrate, correct any small errors you’ve made thus far, and move on.

“I can’t believe someone with such a face exists…” you mutter to yourself, caught in awe over the beauty of his features. The waiting room is getting noisy as most of the boys are finally waking up a bit, so you don’t think anyone would’ve heard you, but as soon as you see the grin that forms on Keeho’s lips you know you're wrong. You panic for a second, but he just retorts a casual “Thank you.”

“You heard that…” You talk quietly, and you stop in your tracks for a second when he opens those sharp eyes, while you’re in the middle of making them appear even sharper.

“I can’t sleep with the kids screaming in the background,” he explains just when an excited Jiung yells through the whole room, followed by a loud laugh.

“They aren’t even that much younger than you…” you try to start a conversation, mostly to distract yourself from your own overwhelming feelings.

“It doesn’t matter. They’re still my kids,” Keeho says before laughing somewhat shyly. “I sound like a middle-aged dad.” He lifts his hand to hide his mouth for a moment, but upon realizing he shouldn’t cover his face while someone is working on it, he puts it back down and fidgets with the sleeve of his shirt instead. “But we’re more than a team. We’re family. And I’m the leader, so they’re the kids.”

“You take good care of them, huh?” you remark, feeling touched by his words and by how strong the bond between the boys must really be.

“I guess so… I’m doing my best. But even the best parents make mistakes,” he adds that last sentence in a lighter tone, probably to try and loosen up the conversation a bit, while you carefully lay the base for his eye makeup. He lets you work for a while, remaining silent, so that at least his words won’t distract you further, and once you reach the finishing touches, he speaks up again.

“Say… I thought about getting a drink from the vending machine downstairs,” he starts, and as you can guess where he’s going your heart is starting to pound again. You reach for the lip brush quickly, and he takes it as a sign to be silent for another minute or two. You’re not sure if it’s the way you’re suddenly hyper-aware of how soft and puffy his lips really are as you apply makeup on them, or if it’s the way Keeho’s half-lidded eyes are watching you closely as you’re doing so, but you feel your cheeks heat up and you come to the painful conclusion that the blush on your face must be visible to him now. You would’ve wanted to just run right out of there and hide forever, still you know you have no other choice but to play it off and to keep doing your work. After all, he isn’t the only person in here who wants to get his makeup done by you.

“I think that’s it,” you say and take a step back to get a proper look at his face. You did a decent job, and you know the last touch-ups will have to be done immediately before the boys go up on stage anyway, so you decide to leave it the way it is.

“So about the drink…” Keeho tries to bring it up again. However, because you know you currently shouldn’t allow yourself a break, but also because the thought of being all alone with him makes you more nervous than anything, you turn around and shout across the room,

“I’m free for the next person to get their makeup done!” You watch as Shota puts away his phone and gets up, and you shoot Keeho an apologetic look.

“Right, you have to finish here first,” he mumbles, and then makes way for the younger boy to take his seat.

You do your best to avoid him after that. The fear of being alone with just Keeho and risking to reveal more of your feelings haunts you, and it makes you shameless enough to double check each of the boys’ makeup - minus Keeho himself of course - and to make Jiung sit through a touch-up that you drag out for longer than it has to be. You’re scared you picked the wrong victim, because Jiung is the type to question such actions, but thankfully he doesn’t say anything. He probably reckons that you know better than him when it comes to makeup, and so if you say something needs fixing, then it most likely does - or so you hope. Plus, he was the only one around when you felt Keeho’s gaze resting on your figure, and he was already approaching you from the other side of the waiting room, so you just had to do what you had to do in order to escape him.

Pre-recording ends, as well as the interview that the boys had after that, and the first sigh of relief you dare to let out is only once they are starting to change from their stage outfits into their casual clothes again. It is the early afternoon when the schedule for the day ends, and it’s time to go back to the company or home. As you’re cleaning up your stuff, you fail to realize that Keeho is once again approaching you until it’s too late, but thankfully Taeyang stops him by the shoulder and tears his attention away from you.

“I think I’ll do a live when I’m back at the company. Wanna join me?” you can hear the eldest of the guys ask a question. Seizing the moment, you quickly finish up and then wish everyone in the room a nice remaining day, before slipping through the door of the waiting room and making a run for it.

“I think I can’t today…” You faintly hear Keeho’s voice in the distance as you make your way down the corridor with fast steps. You feel like he could follow you and appear behind you at any given moment, so you don’t slow down until you’ve reached the main entrance, and you’re standing on the small plaza in front of the huge broadcasting house.

Finally, you feel like you can breathe again. You stand there for a good five minutes, catching your breath and as the air fills your lungs, the butterflies in your stomach seem to finally settle down for the first time in over ten hours. As you feel the tension leaving your body you realize how on edge you’ve been the whole day, and when you put your hand on your chest you feel your heartbeat slowly calming down.

“That was horrible…” you whisper to yourself and you let out a big sigh. And then, just when you’re about to set one foot in front of the other to start your journey back home, someone calls out your name from behind and you feel like you’re running face first into a wall of concrete.

“Y/N, wait!” As soon as his call enters your ears you know you can’t escape here. And so you stay there, frozen, and in shock you wait for him to appear in your field of vision. He’s out of breath, and you notice a tiny smudge on his makeup under his left eye, which you don’t think anyone else would’ve realized was even there. You expect him to finally ask you about getting a drink together, but instead he furrows his eyebrows, frowning at you. “Are you avoiding me?”

“Uh.” The sound escapes your mouth against your will. You didn’t think he’d be this straightforward. “No?” You lie to his face, and to give your words some more credibility you add, “Why would I do such a thing?”

“It feels like you do.”

“Don’t be silly,” you try to play it off with a laugh.

“Then let’s go get that drink now.” You’re speechless again.

“Uhm… I…” You stammer, and you start to fidget with one of the zips on your bag. “I’m… busy today actually…” You feel your face heating up because of the white lie, and he too must sense that you’re being untruthful, as the frown on his face is getting deeper now.

“You… I thought you liked me…” he says, and again you feel panic arise within you. Does he mean as a friend? Or does he know…? However, he shakes his head. “Nevermind. I’m sorry for bothering you then…” He seems sad. You can sense his disappointment about the rejection, and upon seeing him like this, his words from that one night resound in your ears. “Then I hope you have a good day and-”

“Actually,” you cut him off, “I have to tell you something. But not here.” Keeho is the surprised one now, and reminding yourself that he is still an idol and you two are still in public, you stop yourself from grabbing him by the hand and dragging him with you. “Let’s go have a drink. But I know a better place than the broadcasting station,” you say, and with a gesture of your hand you make him follow you. You lead him across the street and down another road, where there aren’t as many people around, and eventually you reach an old arcade that people barely visit these days, especially not in the middle of the day.

“This place looks shady…” he remarks when you’re about to enter the rundown building. You can’t say you don’t understand his worries, but you’ve known this place for years, and just because it doesn’t have many customers doesn’t mean it’s dangerous.

“We won’t be bothered here,” you explain. “You are an idol after all and being seen with a girl could get you in trouble. Even when she’s your makeup artist.” You don’t dare to look him in the eyes while speaking those words, afraid he might read too much into it and connect the dots all by himself.

“Alright… well if it’s a place you know then I trust you,” Keeho says, but his voice reveals that he’s still wary. Still, he reluctantly follows you down to the first ground floor, past a hall with all kinds of arcade games and eventually you reach a row of huge vending machines that offer all kinds of drinks and snacks one could wish for.

“See?” You point out the sheer variety of offered wares, “This is better than at the station, isn’t it?” And Keeho too finally relaxes, because now all he can do is gape and let his eyes wander the colorful samples and the relatively low prices.

“You were right!” he exclaims. “So what do you want? It’s on me.” You hesitate for a moment. What you’re about to do is stupid, and you know that, but you’ve set your mind to it. Plus, you know you will feel lighter once you’ve spelled out the truth for him, and who knows? Maybe it will help you finally forget about your feelings for him.

“Actually, Keeho,” you say, and within a split second you have his full attention. Your heart starts racing as you lock eyes with him, giving you a hard time organizing your thoughts, but there’s no turning back anymore now. “I’ve been meaning to tell you something.”

“W-what is it?” He stutters and lets out an awkward laugh. You guess he might feel uncomfortable with how the air around you suddenly turned so serious.

“I… I like you.”

There. You finally said it. It’s out. It’s out now, and you know you should feel relieved, but why is it that you can feel your heart pounding even harder now and you can practically hear the blood rushing through your veins as he stands there in front of you, dumbfounded and speechless. He opens his mouth to say something, but when nothing comes out he closes it again, and never does he avert his eyes from you during the whole process - his eyes, that are now widened and full of surprise and a little bit of disbelief.

“Oh,” he finally says. Oh, you repeat in your mind, as if that response would tell you anything other than that he did not see your confession coming. And the longer he doesn’t react to it, the heavier your shoulders start to feel and the more you want to run away and make your words unsaid. So you know you have to act soon. And eventually you start talking and somehow end up rambling, half trying to make it seem like it wasn’t that serious, half laying out the perfect opportunity for him to just reject you and move on.

“I mean… I know it’s stupid. You’re an idol after all, and a rookie too, you can’t afford to date. Not that I’m assuming you might want to date me! I mean… haha… what was I even thinking? I shouldn’t have said anything, I’m sorry. This is all my fault. It got awkward because of me and now-” You had your eyes averted the whole while that you were talking, so you failed to catch his reactions to your words, and you somehow managed to completely miss the fact that he was slowly leaning in, until your lips were already in contact with his. His lips, that you could barely tear your gaze away from as you were brushing makeup onto them just this morning. His lips, that you were subconsciously wondering how they would feel against yours, and now you suddenly know, and it’s better than anything you could’ve ever imagined. His touch is soft against your mouth, but certain. He’s doing this because he wants to, that’s what you can unmistakably feel from the way he captures your lips between his, pressing a kiss that lingers against them, even when he pulls away far too soon. You share eye contact for but a moment, before a realization hits you.

“Are you stupid?!” you yell at him suddenly, and you add, hissing, “We’re in public, what if someone sees us?!” Shock is written all over his face, and both of you look around thoroughly. Only when you’re sure that there really is nobody else around, you two let out the breath you’ve been holding. Keeho turns back to you and he leans in again, but you shake your head at him strongly.

“We’re alone,” he insists.

“This is still a public space. We might not be for long,” you retort, but somehow not even your sharp words are enough to make the sudden hunger in his eyes go away. He bites his lower lip while his gaze is still glued to your mouth.

“Then…” he eventually says, keeping his voice low. “Since you know this place… take us somewhere nobody will see.”

If you were in your right mind in that very moment his request would’ve seemed ridiculous to you, but with the way he’s looking at you and the way you can’t silence your own longing to feel his lips on yours again, you begin to search the whole place in your mind. You’ve been here countless of times, you should know every single corner, every little niche and every hiding place in this building, and really, after only a few seconds of rummaging through your memory, you’ve found the ideal spot. It might not be 100% safe, but the possibility of being caught should be low enough. So you do what you couldn’t earlier, and you grab Keeho’s hand and pull the guy along with you, one story lower and into a maze of old game machines. You finally make it to a corner where, even when the arcade has many visitors, barely anyone ever stops by, as this place is being used as more of a storage room than anything else. And so, when you turn on your heels between some big dusty cardboard boxes, Keeho immediately takes a step forward to back you up against the wall, and with his thumb and index finger he lifts your chin to kiss you again, this time properly. You reach out, wanting to feel him closer to you, and you wrap your arms around his torso, placing your hands on his shoulder blades. His fingers leave your chin and now his palm cups your entire face, while his other hand rests on your hip, pulling you towards him. Your lips separate for but a moment, and with one gaze into the other’s eyes you simultaneously decide that this much wasn’t nearly enough for either of you, so you smash your lips right back together. For the first time ever you begin to enjoy the way he makes your heart race, and with every one of his touches he sends an electric impulse through your entire body, making your temperature rise. You rake your fingers into his hair, pull on his dyed locks, and in response you feel him capture your lower lip with his teeth, nibbling on it, releasing it, and then reconnecting your lips in the blink of an eye. You catch yourself wondering what kind of longing he too must’ve hidden away for so long that he kisses you like this now - fiery, demanding, and in a way that just makes you want him more with every passing second.

But it’s not like you don’t kiss him back with a similar passion, feeling like the fire sparked between you two will devour you whole if you don’t pour your everything into every single kiss, into every touch of your lips and every dance of your tongues. You know you’re running out of air, but you want to bear it a little longer, want to feel him kissing you just a bit deeper, and so you hold onto his back, your fingers buried in the fabric of his shirt, before you finally have to break the kiss. And so here you are, hidden away from the public eye, holding onto each other as if your lives depended on it. You’re both panting in one and the same rhythm, just like you have kissed each other as if you’d been doing nothing else your entire life, and his forehead is resting against yours. His slow thumb strokes on your cheek make your heartbeat slow down gradually, and when you look into his eyes now it’s like looking at the sea that’s calming after a storm. And as you’re both catching your breath, your minds still hazy from receiving each other’s kisses, a worry begins to grow in the pits of your stomach.

“So what are we gonna do now?” you ask. He seems to understand, and he lifts his other hand to cup your face with it as well.

“I’ll figure something out,” he says.

“You’re an idol… even if we want to, we can’t just date…” you reason. You know how busy his life is even without a girlfriend, plus you don’t want him to risk his career for you. However, Keeho leans in for another kiss. It is a sweet, feathery kiss now, one that is meant to put your mind at ease and for some inexplicable reason it works. It’s like his kisses put a spell on you, and they can make you feel whatever he wants you to feel in that moment.

“There will be a way, okay?” His tone is serious now, and when you discover that trustworthy look in his eyes you can suddenly see why he was chosen leader of his group. “We’ve made it up until here, so I believe we can make it anywhere.” He lets go of your face and his hands glide down to your arms, until he reaches your palms and eventually intertwines his fingers with yours. “We need to be careful. And it won’t always be easy. But we can make it. If we really want to, we can.” He gives your hands an encouraging squeeze, and you feel hope budding in your chest. And then suddenly, you cannot stop the way a broad smile makes its way to your lips.

“So you were right after all,” you say eventually. “That it will pay off.”

“What will…?” Keeho throws you a questioning look, seemingly unable to remember the conversation he had with you that night. You don’t hold it against him that he doesn’t recall, after all the words might not have been as important to him as they turned out to be for you.

“That if there’s a person you like, you should tell them,” you clarify, “and it will pay off for sure.”

#p1harmony oneshots #p1harmony scenarios #p1harmony drabbles #p1harmony imagines #p1harmony fluff #p1h x reader #p1harmony x reader #p1h drabbles #p1harmony angst #angst #fluff #keeho x reader #keeho fluff #keeho imagines

104 notes · View notes

whatsa-bi-as · 3 months

Text

first time

GN!reader x Haku Shota (Soul)

song; first time - Hozier

plot; a young couple talks about whether it would be worth trying again to make a relationship work

genre; angst

warning; none - let me know if I've missed any

word count; 1.4K

networks; @kflixnet and @k-labels

proofread; by the wonderful @gyumibear go check them out they've been a lot of help!!

a/n; I'm thinking of doing some stuff inspired by songs and this was kind of a test run :)

masterlist is here

“Do you think that this could have worked? You and me?”

It was a risky question, but one you hadn’t been able to get out of your head for weeks. It was eating you up inside, and if you didn’t ask it now, you probably never would. The silence that followed filled the air around the both of you and it was deafening.

“I don’t know. I mean, we tried. We tried twice, and Keeho always says 'third times the charm'. So maybe we would, maybe we wouldn’t.”

This was your ex-boyfriend, but your first love. This was the boy you had loved with all your heart, the boy you had watched grow into who he is now, the boy you had always supported with everything you could give.

“One of my mates tells me about this philosophical idea she read about. She thinks it’s just to make people have hope that things could have turned out differently. It’s the idea that there are different versions of people in different universes. ”

He smiled, but he didn’t say anything. He just let you keep talking and listened to you, like he always had, whether you were together or not.

“Which means that in one universe there's a version of us that never met, in another you were always my best friend but nothing more, and in some far off universe it worked out the first time. We never had to wonder if it would work because we… we knew we’d be together forever.”

“So we’re in the one where we tried, but it never happened.”

“Pretty much, yeah. That sucks, doesn’t it. Out of all the universes to be in, we got this one.”

He took a second to think about it. The idea of alternate universes was a lot to take in, especially when it was randomly presented to you late on a Wednesday night.

“What do you think we’re like in that last universe, the one where we never broke up? Do you think we call each other every night and put our beds together in Minecraft?”

You couldn’t quite tell if he was joking or not, but that was typical of him, always trying to make you laugh, even in the middle of a semi-serious conversation. Once he told you that he did that because he thought your smile was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, and deep down you still hoped that was the case.

“I like to imagine that we’re planning our future. I’m stressed about university applications and you're telling me to relax, that I’ll be fine. We’re also bickering over what colour the rug should be in the living room because you think it's the perfect shade, but I am convinced that it’s too dark for the colour palette we chose.”

“If we would bicker over anything, it would be over what mugs we have on the side and which ones go in the cupboard. You want the ones we use everyday to be on display and I think that glass ones would go better with the decor."

You could picture that argument, and try as hard as you might that one did make you laugh.

“That's the only right answer! It’s not only practical, but a house isn’t a home unless you add some personality to it, and what better way to do that than with mugs!”

“I guess one thing that doesn’t change between that universe and this one is that I know you better than you know yourself.”

The wind was not the only thing that sent a shiver down your spine. It was the fact that he was right, this boy could read you like a book, you didn’t have to say anything for him to know that you were upset, or happy, or stressed, just anything. He always knew exactly what to say or do, and although you used to love that about him, now it just leaves a bittersweet taste in your mouth.

“It's way too cold for us to be out this late.” He stood up and held out a hand to help you up. “Let’s get you home.”

“Do we have to go just yet?”

This night felt perfect. It was like a bubble had formed over the two of you, blocking out any fear and anxiety, but you knew that the moment you walked through your front door, you’d have to deal with all of it.

“You hate the cold. I’m honestly surprised you’ve lasted this long without complaining.”

You just looked up at him silently pleading for him to say no. For him to sit next to you again.

“We can walk slowly, but it’s late, it’s dark and it’s cold, so I’m walking you home whether you like it or not. And I’m not taking no for an answer, so..."

This was a situation you’ve been in before. He's not going to give in. You wouldn’t either if it was the other way around, so you take a deep breath and take his hand. The feeling sends a sense of nostalgia and hope deep into your soul. There's something about holding his hand that just feels right, like it was made to fit in yours.

The walk starts off in silence, the previous conversation soaking in like winter rain into a jumper. It was comfortable but as you got closer to your house and the seconds began to tick away, there was so much that you had to say, but so little time.

Passing the bench where you spent plenty of late nights when you first started dating you just let it out. All the things you'd been meaning to say over the last few years came out all at once.

“I did love you, you know. Sometimes it's hard for me to realise that I love people because in some ways it just comes so naturally. I know I love my family and my friends, because I mean that's a given, but when it comes to like, romantic love, that's a bit harder to realise. I don’t think I truly realised I loved you until I knew it would never be the same again. You’d never put your arm around me while we talk to our friends, you'd never pick me up for late night snack runs, or send me stupid pictures when I’m having a bad day, and I really, really miss that. I miss you.”

“You love me?”

“I did.”

“Do you still love me?”

“I think a part of me always will. You were my first love. I don’t think I’ll ever stop loving you completely.”

“You were my first love too.”

You had reached your front door. The night was over. You had said everything you wanted to say, so nothing should really stop you back from going inside. You weren’t together, in theory you owed him nothing.

In reality, this boy was the first one to hold your heart in his hands and try his hardest not to let it break. He was your first love and it felt impossible to leave him. His hand in yours warmed your heart more than any blanket ever could. It just felt right to be with him, but you had to leave. This doesn’t work and as painful as it is, you just have to admit it. It would be for the best if you could find the strength to turn away.

Instead, you just look at him, admiring how his eyes shine like the stars, how he’s so young but already has laugh lines, and he doesn’t care because it means he’s lived a happy life. He was perfect, and the fact that it wasn’t meant to be broke your heart into smaller and smaller pieces every time you thought about it.

He was the one who broke the silence first.

“Can I kiss you? One last time to say goodbye?”

“Yes. Yes, you can.”

Breaking apart neither of you really knew what to say. You were both so different from the people you were when you first met, but the moment after you broke away it was as if nothing had changed. You were back to being those nervous kids again, whose cheeks got warm every time you held hands because it was all so new.

“I love you.”

“I love you too, Shota.”

#kflixnet #k labels #soul angst #p1harmony fluff #haku shota #soul fanfic #soul x reader #soul x you #p1harmony #p1harmony x reader #soul p1harmony #shota angst #haku shota x reader #shota fanfic #p1harmony angst

40 notes · View notes

restlessmaknae · 4 months

Text

trajectory [keeho]

Sometimes, people just fall apart to fall apart.

➳ Characters: Keeho x female!reader/you

➳ Genre: slice of life, real-life bittersweet, friends drifting away

➳ Words: 1.9k

➳ Warning: mention of losing a pet, stress, insecurities

➳ A/N: The story was inspired by this part in one of Keeho's lives. Also, thank you so much for you all you for supporting my works this year! Wishing each and every one of you a very happy, balanced and healthy New Year! 🥰

➳ P1Harmony taglist: @dat-town, @tranquilpetrichor, @laaylaazyy, @americanokisses, @kuleo26, @hyu-won, @wccycc, @sunooslover, @littlestartonightsposts, @koishua, @seungincore, @s00buwu

➳ Check out: my P1Harmony masterlist

“It’s me.”

The way Keeho shouted this exact sentence into the intercom had never changed. Year after year, time after time, that had always been his signature way of introducing himself. Let it be you or your parents who had picked up your apartment’s door phone, he had always announced his arrival casually and proudly - his tone indicating that he had been glad to enter your home.

You didn’t think that such a familiar sentence - a habit of his by that time - could prick at your skin like a needle pushing through the layers. At first, it didn’t seem to hurt, but then the pain hit out of the blue and all at once - like the waves crashing down on a shore at the beginning of an abrupt summer downpour.

“I’ll go downstairs. Stay there,” you forced the words out, your voice coming out raspy and feeble. You could hear the hesitation in the line - for you had usually let him in instead of going outside to meet him downstairs -, but you had to do it this way. You could feel it coming, and you didn’t want to attach such a conversation to the image of Keeho and you in your bedroom. It would be better if it was played out somewhere else. You had never contacted each other by saying that ‘you needed to talk’ before you would meet up, but now it was time, and you both knew the weight of the upcoming conversation.

“Okay. I’ll be here,” came the answer nevertheless, and you yanked your hand away from the intercom. You took in a deep breath, then told your parents that you would step outside for a bit before opening and closing the front door behind you.

You walked down the stairs instead of taking the elevator, prolonging the conversation as long as you could. As you took one step after another, flashbacks of your teenage years spent with Keeho swang round and round on the carousel of your memories: talking under the watching eyes of the moon, looking for shooting stars on humid summer nights during summer camps that resulted in more mosquito bites than actual shooting stars; having Disney movie marathons on the couch in your flat that was so worn-out by now that a new one was already on its way; checking out so-called Instagram-worthy places with Keeho, roaming around Seoul only to get scared by a passing black cat in the dark, have the worst latte of your life or end up with a sprained ankle on Keeho’s part when he had slipped on a cobblestone; attempting to make viral TikTok recipes only to end up with inedible masses of questionably-looking food and turning Keeho’s family’s kitchen into a warzone; recording TikTok challenges to post onto his account, the one that he said would go viral one day and you wouldn’t need to have a 9-5, you could work for him.

As you turned a corner and passed another floor, brief flashes of tears raining down on notebook pages, talking through sleepless nights worrying about your senior exams, sobs over the passing of your beloved pet and pep talks following outbursts of teenage awkwardness regarding your teenage body and insecurities came to mind; ones that you would have liked to forget, but still cherished so much because they proved you why you were best friends.

Best friends. The word felt like a flicker of light in the darkness now when it had been a huge torch lighting up your life for so long. Your friendship with Keeho had gone through many ups and downs, but the care and empathy you had towards each other had never changed, and that’s why you wanted to talk; because you didn’t want to leave him hanging, you wanted to talk about how you were doing now, and whether you had a future together anymore.

The truth is, when one becomes friends with someone, they don’t think about the end. They might even find it impossible that it could ever end. You had been the same. When you had been going to school together, seeing each other almost everyday, and planning your future in senior year, probably closer than you had ever been before, the thought that it might fade into bittersweet memories one day had never crossed your mind. Yet, here you were, barely speaking, barely catching up, barely seeing each other.

Even though you had gone to different cities to study after high school, you had made it work in the beginning. You had gone back to your hometown at the same time, you had planned trips to visit the other in their uni’s city, and you had talked as if nothing had happened. Yet, semesters went by, and the conversations died down slowly like a candle burning down, the visits back home seemed to never work out at the same time, and even if you talked, it seemed like you had nothing to say to each other, as if you had become strangers in each other’s life. The worst was that there had been nothing grande about it, there had been no big fight, no big misunderstanding, no big secrets, it just all… faded.

Just like the colours of the sky faded into a messy deep-blue when you stepped outside of the apartment complex, and came face-to-face with Keeho. He tried with a smile, but you could tell that it wasn’t genuine.

“Hi!”

Awkward. Unfamiliar. Tense. Everything you had been feeling for some time now came crashing down on you now that you were face-to-face with him. As if the physical body of his made his existence and his footprint in your life more prominent. More painful. More unbearable.

With a heavy sigh, you suggested going to the nearby playground where you had frequently sat on the swings, talking about everything that came to your mind. Now, nothing seemed right, nothing seemed fitting for this occasion.

“I… I don’t know how to start,” you blurted out feebly, playing with your fingers mindlessly just so you could take your mind off the weight on your chest.

“Then, don’t,” came the answer immediately, but Keeho cleared his throat and made an addition before you could question his words. “I mean, we can absolutely just sit here and wait until you feel ready.”

You weren’t sure that you could ever be ready for such a conversation. You knew that Keeho always appreciated your honesty, and wanted you to tell him if you thought he took his jokes too far or he made a hurtful comment or anything of the sort, but you still felt like you were the bad guy now for wanting to bring it up, for wanting to talk about it. On the other hand, the facts spoke for themselves, the lack of messages, the lack of conversations, the lack of hang-outs…

“I just… I don’t know how to describe it, but I think you feel it, too,” you started, truly hoping that it was true, that he felt the same way. He had to, you told yourself. “We’re different and our friendship is different, and everything is different… and I’m not sure I feel as comfortable around you as before. Or that we have things to talk about.”

Your voice was resigned instead of accusing for you didn’t want to start a fight, you didn’t want to start a war. You had too much of a history to accuse him of something that he probably did unintentionally, and he wasn’t at fault. It wasn’t him who made you feel uncomfortable, it was the situation itself. It was that pang in your chest, that twist inside your stomach when you looked at the pictures of you and Keeho on your bedroom shelf, it was that deep, deep feeling inside that it wasn’t the same anymore, and you missed what you had, but you weren’t sure that you could ever get it back.

“You know what I mean, right?”

You looked at him for the first time since the start of your conversation, and saw something flash across his eyes at your question. Something familiar, something close, something deeply connected to a part of you. Keeho looked at you like that when he was about to say something that would put your mind at ease, and when there was a twitch in the corner of his lips, you knew that he was about to speak his mind.

“Yeah, I get you. I think we’re having such different experiences and we live away from each other, we have different friend groups, and it’s just, as you’ve mentioned, different,” he mentioned just as calmly as you had. Neither of you wanted to hurt the other or accuse the other. You were having a conversation, not an argument. “Like Taylor Swift said, everything has changed,” he added as his lips began to curl upwards, and that… that was just so Keeho-like, you found yourself cracking a smile.

“That’s better,” he smiled back at you, fondly and affectionately, and the years of your friendship was squashed into this smile, one that you would never question was genuine. “I don’t want you to feel bad about it. I feel the same way, and I think friendships have their own trajectory. They begin, they soar and they eventually come down. Sometimes… there’s no reason for that, it just happens.”

Seen. Heard. Understood. Despite the jokester he was, Keeho was also very wise, and he handled problems and concerns maturely. For that reason, you should have known that he would understand you, but somehow, you didn’t want to dare that he would, or maybe you wanted him to disagree, to see it differently… so that you could save the friendship, but as he had said, maybe your friendship was coming down to the ground like an air-balloon, and it would never take off again. Or maybe it would, but right now, it just didn’t seem right.

“I had a feeling you wanted to talk about this, and truthfully, I was thinking of bringing it up too, but it just never came to it. So thank you for speaking up about it,” Keeho broke the momentary silence that fell upon the two of you as you were pondering and pondering. You smiled at him, reminiscing about him, about the past, present and the future, and your voice was confident and genuine when you said:

“Me too. Thank you for everything.”

As you sat there beside each other on the swings just like you used to, you saw the old Keeho in him and felt like the old you in that moment. When he stood up to give you a hug while calling you by the nickname he had given you, you reciprocated it, bittersweet yet grateful. Grateful for the you that you had become because of him, grateful for the way he understood still, and grateful for the lesson he taught you that day.

Sometimes friends just fell apart to fall apart - as a part of their friendship’s trajectory, but that was just one of the many trajectories that lined their lives in the past, present and the future.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed this story of mine! Let me know what you think!

If you want to read more stories of mine, let it be for P1Harmony or for other artists, consider signing up for my taglist here.

Hope you have a lovely day/night! Take care! ❤️

#p1harmony scenarios #p1harmony imagines #p1harmony x reader #p1harmony x you #keeho imagines #keeho scenarios #keeho x reader #keeho x you #p1harmony angst #keeho angst

32 notes · View notes

tranquilpetrichor · 1 year

Text

the friendship problem

synopsis: in which you have company during morning break, and it is strangely tolerable.

cast: jiung (p1harmony) x gn!reader

genre: strangers to friends, high school!au

wc: 1.1k (1,117)

warnings: discussions of loneliness, reader is implied to show some symptoms of social anxiety, barely proofread

notes: looking back at my high school experience (and reflecting on my growth throughout school in general) thus far makes me oddly nostalgic. this one's definitely self-indulgent. here's to the people who didn't ask me why i was so quiet, who accepted my idiosyncrasies and admittedly, brought out a friendlier side in me.

(also peep that word count i wasn't gonna post this originally but i must, i count 1117 as a small ateez reference.)

erasing the inappropriate drawings from the side whiteboard, you began to write a problem from your calculus textbook.

“integral of w squared times sin of 10 w…” you said out loud to yourself.

you could have gone outside, as it was time for break, but you found your math teacher’s classroom to be more comforting. natural light gently shone through the windows, the air freshener emitted a scent of pine, and best of all, there were no crowds to be found.

you had tried to get over your discomfort around large crowds and navigate to the cafeteria to buy a snack, but found that it was quite the pain in the ass to squeeze between couples who walked as slow as tortoises and boys who elbowed people everywhere they went.

through those wonderful experiences, you learned that the epicenter of your high school’s social life overwhelmed you the hard way.

shaking intrusive thoughts from your mind, you began to visualize solutions to this calculus problem. after a minute or two of writing, you had the answer.

“let’s go!” you cheered, knowing no one else would hear it, but finding it funny nonetheless.

suddenly, you heard a voice and turned around to see a classmate you vaguely recognized from classes you shared. jiung, that was his name.

“don’t mind me,” he said, “just looking for a place to read.”

your shoulders tensed up a little, but you nodded, resuming your work on another problem.

normally, you would expect an noticeable and uncomfortable silence, but jiung seemed to be just as at peace with the quiet as you were. that was more than you could say for a lot of people, who felt as if they had to fill silence with words that seemed rather meaningless.

curiously, you glanced at him reading. the book was an alternate history fiction novel by haruki murakami, titled 1Q84. you've read it before, of course.

"uh, enjoying your book so far?" you asked him, cursing under your breath afterwards when you got the low battery notification on your laptop.

"well," he paused briefly, "murakami's descriptions tend to be long-winded and i find some of the scenes a bit odd, but it's interesting for me. have you read it before?"

"yeah, i have. i had fun trying to make sense of all the symbolism, but i admit that 1Q84 can be a tough read for some."

you tried not to show it, but your eyes sparkled with excitement.

"since you've read it, it'd be nice to talk to someone about the book once i'm done." he smiled. "wait, your name is y/n, right? i've seen you in some of my classes."

you set the whiteboard marker down. “yep. and i know your name is jiung.”

he stared at the board in front of him, now filled from the not-quite-top to the bottom with math problems. "you wrote a lot in such a short amount of time. do you find math easy?"

you shrugged. "let's just say it's relaxing for me."

he did ask an interesting question. to be fair, you hadn't always liked math as much as you did now, being a highly stubborn child who was averse to doing their homework back then.

however, a natural curiosity to learn new concepts coupled with a preference for being alone gave you the time to sit down and ponder random topics, developing a special love for math due to its basis in objectivity.

in general, your teachers loved the fact that you asked questions and stayed during morning breaks and after class sometimes—their classrooms felt like a second home.

so yeah, you discovered that you liked doing math, and it was better than being around people who deliberately excluded you, or trying to participate in conversations where you knew you wouldn't get a word in.

better to be alone than to feel lonely, right?

(yeah, just keep telling yourself that.)

he stood up to stretch. "that's cool, i definitely admire that. you don't hear people call math relaxing often."

"to each their own. i just think it's important for someone to have something they enjoy, and who gives a shit what it is if it doesn't hurt anyone?"

you probably shouldn't have added the last part, as it came out more defensive than you anticipated. however, jiung didn't seem surprised. his eyes were kind and welcoming.

"i think it's a good rule to go by. there'd be way less conflict in the world if people minded their own business. oh, speaking of that, i hope i didn't bother you by coming in."

to your surprise, you didn't mind. "of course not, it is a teacher's classroom anyways, not mine, so obviously people have the right to come in, although most don't. and i mean, i do prefer it to be quiet while working. but your presence isn't bad or anything."

you twirled the whiteboard marker around in your hands. “quite the opposite, really. i actually liked talking to you.”

“do you not like talking to others?” he joked, probably noticing the emphasis you put on “liked.”

“i figure i either scare people away or they’re not the kind of person i want to be friends with anyways. also, not gonna lie, socializing is hard.”

for better or for worse, you knew what people thought about you—this was a fairly small school, after all. it was easier to just isolate than to worry about who was judging you.

"nothing wrong with incompatibility," he said with a small smile and a shrug. "it just means there's people out there who are better suited for you anyways."

you hadn't thought about your situation like that, but that was probably a wise way to put it.

"that... actually makes sense."

where was this dude lurking? it would have been nice to get to know him earlier, you thought. although it might be too early to tell, you had put him tentatively under a category of "people that were better suited for you."

jiung glanced at his phone for a quick second. "break's ending soon, so i have to head to my history class, but i enjoyed talking to you!”

he headed toward the door, but as he was about to leave, he turned back, as if he was forgetting something. "hey, mind if i get your kakaotalk information? let's chat again sometime."

you entered in your number, voice a little shaky. "i'd love to chat. and if you ever need to find me, i'll be here, like i always am."

"well then, i'll see you around!"

he walked to his next class, leaving you to ponder if it really was so difficult to make friends after all.

#kflixnet #kwritersworldnet #p1harmony x reader #p1harmony scenarios #p1harmony drabbles #p1harmony fluff #p1harmony headcanons #p1harmony reactions #p1harmony angst #p1harmony jiung #choi jiung #tranquilpetrichorfic

150 notes · View notes

lily-blue · 9 months

Text

Paying the price

☆ characters: patriot!jiung & revolutioner!you ☆ genre: dystopian au, the devil judge au, angst ☆ warnings: graphic description of damaged corpses, mention of blood and violence, vomiting, major character’s death, spoilers ☆ summary: jiung believes in the system, that it has the people’s best interest; you believe that the system is rotten to the core and the people of South Korea need to be enlightened about the truth - as it always is, you two learn it the hard way which one of you is right ☆ words: 15,3k ☆ massive thank you: to @dat-town ♥ for proofreading this monster (i still can’t believe i accidentally made intak older than jiung 🙃) ☆ also: happy name day to the one and only @restlessmaknae 💕 it actually made me feel nostalgic when i started to search up these guys for this story, it reminded me of that one yeonjun fic i wrote for you, the one that made me stan txt. i’m not quite there yet with these boys, but who knows, maybe one day. thank you for coming back to my life and showing me new groups and new things this year, too. i wish you nothing but happiness! 💕 ☆ a/n: this story is written for @restlessmaknae’s (dis)harmony collab; you can check out the masterlist with the other stories » here

Despite the country’s shortcomings: the apparent corruption that was planted in its core from the education system through the media to the judicial and political apparatuses, you loved your home. You loved living in a neighbourhood where the grocery store ahjussi gave you an extra cluster of grapes whenever you looked tired at the end of a rough day and the ahjumma from the corner Chinese restaurant knew your order by heart, hence spared you from the headache of making yet another decision when all you craved was a big bowl of warm lotus root soup. You loved knowing the youngsters in your building by their name and the feeling of having half a dozen sisters and brothers, uncles and aunts despite losing your family at an unfairly young age and spending too many lonely years in a government-funded orphanage.

God, you even loved the opportunities higher education was constantly giving you regardless of a handful of your teachers who openly expressed their political views in class when it went against your university’s policies. So why couldn’t you have sat through your Korean History II. lecture with a neutral face like everyone else did? Why did it make your blood boil when looking at Choi Jiung’s slides you realised that he was about to praise your country’s leaders, too, like the three other students before him had already done during their own presentations? Why couldn’t you have shut up and swallow down your opinion when it was time for the audience’s questions?

Easy. Because despite your love for your country and the people around you, it was corrupt to the core and as law students, all of you should have refrained from turning a blind eye to the exponentially growing amount of power abuse that happened in your home. It didn’t matter that half of your classes brainwashed you to bend under pressure.

‘What about those innocent citizens who lost their homes because of the evacuation? There is no clear data available about the rehousing of those families. Were they ever compensated?’ You threw your provocative questions at the blond boy, voice firm and merciless as your words echoed off the pristine walls in the small classroom.

The moment Choi Jiung’s gaze fell on you, you knew he was pissed, although he did a great job concealing his feelings. It was just… you had known the guy ever since you had moved to your current one-bedroom flat right after you had been kicked out of the orphanage. You could read him like he was an open book.

‘While the rate of unemployment increased during the pandemic, the statistics show that the rate of homelessness stayed stagnant. Is that not clear data?’ The blond boy asked back and you could hear your professor’s pleased humming from the first row as you were sitting in the second one, almost right behind Mr. Kim.

You linked your fingers and let your arms fall on your desk while you leaned forwards with a straight back. You didn’t break eye contact.

‘Reports from that period state that due to the pandemic, there were less ongoing projects in the construction industry, which means there couldn’t have been emergency constructions due to rehousing. Where did those families go?’ You pushed, shutting out the murmurs from your side and behind your back. You were already used to the whispering, the wary look in your classmates’ eyes whenever you expressed your opinion.

Unlike what they said, you weren’t obsessed with the spotlight nor did you have a childish crush on Choi Jiung. You picked fights with him because he was an unpleasant part of your friend group, but a part nonetheless, and you believed that Shota wouldn’t have tolerated his presence in your lives if he had been a lost case.

You challenged Jiung repeatedly to help him see the errors in his own beliefs.

‘Less ongoing projects don’t equal to no ongoing project. It only means there were fewer than before the pandemic,’ Jiung stated, voice cold despite the fire in his eyes. ‘Those few projects could have been, or included, the emergency constructions in the countryside,’ he said, your nails digging into the back of your hands because of your frustration as you were listening.

‘Hundreds of thousands of people—’

‘I think that’s enough. We still have one more presentation to sit through and discuss before this seminar ends,’ your professor rose from his seat, exchanging positions with the blond student. If looks could have killed, neither him nor Mr. Kim would have survived your rage. How dared this old, soggy snob cut you off when you were clearly making a point?

You had to bite into your cheeks from the inside to not curse him out, but your opinion must have been written all over your face because before the next student could have started her presentation, the history professor looked at you and shook his head as though he was deeply disappointed when clearly, he was annoyed.

‘It’s my last warning, miss,’ the man stated and you were genuinely surprised that he hadn’t memorised your name by now. After all, it wasn’t your first class with him and you had never been a silent participant. ‘If you keep disturbing the peaceful learning environment, I will need to send you out of my class and mark this lesson as a missed lesson next to your name in the roster,’ he informed you, although it was more like a threat.

Okay, maybe he did know your name. He just didn’t bother to address you respectfully.

You pressed your lips into a firm line, contemplating whether getting into a useless fight with your professor would have been worth it, but ended up biting into your cheek from the inside once again instead of reciting your rights as a student of this institute. It didn’t matter what rights a piece of paper gave you in your country when your opinion differed from what was accepted and encouraged by those above you - expected and demanded if you didn’t feel like sugarcoating the truth.

Consequently, you fully intended to stay put until the end of the class because it was still too early into the semester to waste one of the three lessons you were allowed to miss in each seminar, but as soon as Kang Yohan’s face was staring back at you from the next presenter’s slides, you knew you wouldn’t be able to keep your mouth shut. Thus, you did both yourself and the class a favour when you shoved your laptop into your backpack and walked out of the classroom without a word.

The sound of your steps echoed off the walls of the semi-abandoned hallways, but the relative silence didn’t bother you, nor did the glances you got from those who saw you walking out of a classroom before the official end of the period. Confident, you headed towards the library on the first floor with your chin high and your facial expression unbothered.

It wasn’t the first time you chose your beliefs (and your pride) instead of letting a professor humiliate you in front of a whole class, after all.

You were doing some research for another class, sipping on your iced coffee despite the late hour, reading through statistics about crime rates and the judicial system, when Shota took a seat by the table you had been occupying since your last class for the day. You narrowed your eyes as you let your gaze loiter over his dishevelled figure, but said nothing before you turned back to your laptop. Being neighbours with the guy, you whole-heartedly believed that some things considering him was better left unasked. That way, you weren’t an accomplice.

‘Are you still looking for a way to get inside that institute?’ He asked while he reached out for your drink and took a casual sip of the bitter beverage like it was his.

You tore your gaze from the screen and leaned your back against your chair without making the slightest attempt at getting your drink back from the younger. Instead, you linked your arms in front of your chest and observed his face with caution. The yellowish bruise under his left eye and the cut on his cheek promised nothing good, but you knew Shota meant danger mostly for himself and rarely for the people around him.

‘The Dream House Medical Center?’ You asked just to confirm that you were thinking of the same building and all he gave you was a nod and a lopsided smile. ‘Yeah, I do, actually.’

Even though you still had a whole year before you should have started on your masters thesis, you already had a pretty firm idea of what you would have liked to write about: Kang Yohan, the misjudged judge who had died nearly a decade ago in the explosion of the courtroom where the infamous live court show had been broadcasted. That day, South Korea had lost not only the president and the first lady of the country, but five other powerful and rich people as well, all seven of them corrupt to the core yet labelled as victims of a self-assured psychopath. It boiled your blood whenever you thought of them, how in today’s history books, they were the casualty of an anti-national act conducted in an attempt to overthrow the administration.

Your fists were trembling as your nails sank into the soft flesh of your palms. You swore, you would clear the judge’s name one day in the future and make everyone see those lies that they were constantly fed by the government. Your thesis paper, the detailed research none of your professors would be able to oppose, would be the first step down the road.

But to be able to start marching, you had to get inside the Dream House Medical Center.

‘Any suggestions?’ You asked when the silence got too loud, not breaking eye contact even when you could feel the first tear drops forming in the corner of your eyes. Making a deal with Shota was never easy, the boy did nothing for free, not even for his closest friends, but he wouldn’t have brought up the topic just to tease you. He had something to offer and you knew when to be patient.

‘I got my hands on some interesting intel, so I can get us in and out without any of the guards noticing,’ he informed you, lazily sipping on your drink as though he hadn’t just knocked you off your feet with his statement. You were trying to find a way inside that building for months by then, because while it was supposed to be an abandoned institute - it was a part of a failed charity project after all - it was unreasonably heavily guarded.

Taking a deeper breath to ground yourself, you put your elbows on the table in front of your laptop and leaned forwards.

‘Name your price,’ you demanded quietly, earning a genuine smile from the boy.

‘Help me with the university interview. I need dirt on your professors and those you don’t have classes with,’ Shota negotiated and honestly, the only reason you were able to swallow down the laugh that was scratching your throat was the fact that you needed his help. If you could have afforded him getting sulky, you would have ruffled his messy hair and pinched his cheeks before you told him you would have helped him anyway.

He was clearly doing you a favour for free while pretending that he was a businessman who made no exceptions. It made you wonder whether he had gotten beaten up when he had tried to find information on the Dream House for you or the two things were completely irrelevant. A selfish part of you that didn’t want to deal with the guilt wished it was the latter, but deep down you knew Shota wouldn’t have held back something so huge just to share it with you at the perfect moment.

You had both learned early on in your lives that perfect moments were created; they didn’t just come to those who were patiently waiting.

‘Want it written down or is it enough if I tell you everything I know?’ You asked with a small tilt of your head, playing along and taking on a more serious tone. Meanwhile, you glanced down at your laptop and pulled up a blank document on your screen. The chances that none of your professors would have been present at Shota’s interview was high, so you wanted to make sure you had info on those who might have been possible candidates. For that, you needed to prepare a long list with every professor from the Business Faculty on it and ask around in the KU group chats you weren’t a part of yet.

‘Written down,’ Shota said and you acknowledged his choice with a low hum and a nod as you pulled up your university’s website and copied the names of the listed professors to your document. You also made a second list that contained the names of students you personally knew and would have vouched for, hence could have sought out for help.

‘Consider it being done,’ you preened, scanning through your lists one more time before you closed the tab and saved a couple of important websites regarding your assignment for your class as bookmarks. You made sure your laptop was turned off properly before you shoved it into your bag. ‘About the Dream House…’ you started, trying to sound as nonchalant as you could despite the light buzzing in your veins. ‘When are we going?’

‘Where are you going?’ Choi Jiung’s voice cut off your impromptu discussion before it could have started and you sighed, disappointed that you had let your excitement get the best of you when you should have seen the interruption coming. After all, Jiung was well aware that you preferred studying on campus over writing your papers in your own flat. He also knew that Shota liked tagging along when you had classes after six, because it meant that chances you would stay at the nearby coffee shop until closing time was high and he hated when you walked home on your own so late at night. Thus, when Jiung was looking for his friend, all he needed to do was checking the spots you frequented at.

‘None of your business, Choi,’ you grumbled while you leaned back against your chair and linked your arms in front of your chest.

Frustrated, you rolled your eyes when Jiung put a cup of perfectly untouched iced coffee on the table in front of you, but reached out for the drink when you saw Shota eyeing it like he was seconds away from stealing that, too.

The silence that fell on your table wasn’t new. It was a recurring phenomenon in your friends group whenever Jiung and you were joined by a less talkative person - so basically anyone other than Keeho or Intak. And while at first it had made you anxious, because you had felt as though you should have been able to initiate or at least keep up a pleasant conversation with people you considered close friends, by now you knew silence was absolutely fine as well. In fact! It was rather nice to enjoy the tranquillity around people who accepted you the way you were: stubborn, strong-willed and curt when you had nothing important to say.

‘What got your panties in a twist this time?’ Shota’s snarky question shook you out of your thoughts, his dark eyes fixed on nothing in particular making you wonder whether he was talking to you or the blond boy on his other side.

You opened your mouth for an equally sarcastic answer when Jiung let out a loud huff and cut you off with his own mocking reply.

‘What else? She tried to sabotage my presentation. Again,’ he accused and you rolled your eyes without giving too much thought to the action. All three of you knew damn well that you would have never stooped so low; your morals simply wouldn’t have let you play dirty much to Shota’s disappointment. The younger had tried to make you see numerous times that the world wasn’t fair to those who played by the rules, but you stood your ground each and every time. You wanted to become an exceptional judge just like Kang Yohan and his mentee, Kim Gaon. You were determined to lead by example as well - with the right example!

‘Oh, grow up, Choi Jiung, would you? My questions were spot on,’ you retorted, slim fingers turning white around your drink.

Looking around, you had to remind yourself that just because it was late, the coffee shop still had a fair amount of customers, thus you should have kept your voice low to not disturb their peace. Still, resisting the urge to call the blond boy out on his bullshit, as he wouldn’t have contributed to your daily caffeine intake if he had been indeed pissed, was challenging. He got under your skin way too easily.

‘No. You were once again pressing your false narrative,’ Jiung tried to correct you, talking to you in a condescending way that made you feel like a child. If looks could have killed, he would have been dead even before his gaze landed on you. ‘One day, these types of questions will cost you a lot more than a missed class.’

You gulped down the coffee in your mouth along with the non-existent bile that somehow did scratch your throat.

‘Is that a threat?’ You spat, unaware of the sadness in Jiung’s eyes as you were hyper fixated on the possible implication behind his words. It made you see red, grip tight around your cup and nails digging into the plastic with so much force, Shota had to take the coffee out of your hand and put it on the table before it could have overflowed.

‘Friendly advice,’ Jiung corrected you once again and it was only due to the years of practice the orphanage had given you that you hadn’t screamed it into his face that you didn’t consider him as a friend. Not like you did Keeho and Theo and sure as hell not like you did Shota. The sole reason you let him be a part of your life despite his questionable political beliefs was your respect for the others.

With a resigned sigh, Jiung turned his gaze away and shook his head as though he couldn’t have taken your stubbornness any longer. Well, you didn’t ask him to.

‘I’m done for today,’ you stated, leaving the half-finished drink on the table as you grabbed your bag and slid your gaze to the younger. ‘Shota?’

The boy stood up from his seat immediately and reached out for the abandoned beverage, his smile content as he took a big sip from the iced coffee. He patted Jiung’s shoulder twice in gratitude, then squeezed it lightly for good measure.

You turned away, refusing to feel guilty for putting an abrupt end to the conversation. It was a long day, getting into a heated argument about the government with Jiung for the second time that day was the last thing you needed. Especially at a public place that you loved and where you were a regular.

‘See you tomorrow, hyung,’ Shota bid his goodbye while you sealed your lips and gave Jiung a half-assed bow because it was a habit drilled into your DNA. It was a fundamental part of your culture: you bowed to people at every single encounter, at every goodbye and sometimes in between when the situation required it. You didn’t have to respect someone to follow the most basic rules of etiquette in their company.

If Jiung had said anything to your best friend before the younger boy followed you towards the exit, you hadn’t heard him, but you did sneak a peek at him sitting casually by your table before you closed the door shut.

Not that you would have admitted it to anyone.

Your palms were sweaty while you were waiting with Shota for what you supposed was some sort of sign that you could finally enter the building without getting arrested for trespassing. Admittedly, you had never felt more nervous in your entire life: your current actions going against your moral code while simultaneously aiding your fight against the propaganda that your whole nation was fed with on a daily basis. You needed evidence, desperately so, but the thought of breaking into the Dream House Medical Center freaked you out more and more as the crucial moment came closer and closer to your present.

Only a couple hundreds of metres from the abandoned institute, it felt too real. You weren’t sure you were ready and started to question whether you were made for the job.

It shouldn’t have surprised you that at one point your feet started drumming a clumsy rhythm on their own accord, but your lips still parted slightly when you felt a warm hand on your knee, over your ripped jeans. Staring at Shota’s hand, you lifted your head to look at his face and shot a tight-lipped smile at him as a sign of gratitude for his silent support. You could do this. It had been your idea from the beginning. You were doing the right thing.

So why did the proverb ‘the end justifies the means’ sound like a cheap excuse of a criminal?

‘Nervous, kiddo?’ A familiar voice pulled you out of the self-doubting spiral of thoughts and you turned towards the newcomers with panic in your eyes. Not counting the two of you, no one should have known about your plan. So why were two of your friends staring at you like they were simultaneously doubting your sanity and admiring you for your guts?

You looked around to check your surroundings in search of the others, then let your gaze fall back on Keeho and Jiung when you realised it was only them.

‘What are you guys doing here?’ You whisper-shouted, unable to decide how you felt about their presence. For 1) since it was your research, you felt like you were responsible for the safety of everyone who got involved in the fieldwork and looking after Shota in itself was already a bit emotionally overwhelming for you under the current circumstances. 2) Because of the very same reason, you were relieved that there would be more pairs of eyes during the investigation that could watch out for the potential danger.

Still, a part of you felt more people meant a bigger risk. It didn’t help that you were already fidgety due to your growing guilt that pressed down on your chest.

‘Supervising,’ Keeho explained, his tone lowkey condescending like he couldn’t believe he needed to spell it out to you. Like it was natural that he was there even though he shouldn’t have known about the trespassing to begin with. ‘Obviously, I won’t just let Shota break into a guarded institute on his own,’ he added, coaxing a displeased scoff out of you with his complete disregard for your presence and capabilities.

You wanted to remind the boy that you were only two weeks younger than him and that you would have made sure Shota didn’t get in trouble even if it had meant endangering your own life, but in the end you swallowed back your remarks. Mostly, because you believed it would have been unwise to start a fight so close to the main gates. Also, because your muscles were non-existent in comparison with the older boy’s. Realistically speaking, he had more potential than you when it came to protecting your friends.

‘What about you?’ You turned towards Jiung, one of your slim brows raised with challenge. For some reason, you doubted he had come with Keeho to help you in any way. If anything, he might have tagged along to give you another unasked, friendly advice.

‘I came to see your face when you realise you’ve been wrong all this time,’ he claimed with a shrug, not putting too much effort into protecting your feelings. Although, had he ever? The thought that he found true joy in your failures left a bitter taste in your mouth.

The retort that he had come in vain had already been on the tip of your tongue when Shota nudged you with his shoulder and pointed at the entrance once he gained your attention.

‘It’s time,’ he said. You gulped before you acknowledged his statement with a nod.

Considering how many walls you had bumped into while you had been trying to find a way inside the building in the legal way, how unhelpful every single one of the government agents had been and how many armed guards you had seen around the building in the last hour, you had assumed that walking inside the medical centre would be challenging despite your best friend’s intel. Blame it on those old school action movies Intak loved so much, but you were convinced that you would be in a race against time, that you would need to run and jump and use your non-existent muscles to get through some hidden back door.

Walking up to the front door with confident strides and opening the huge lock with a key was oddly anticlimactic. You had to pinch your arm to make sure you weren’t dreaming.

‘How the hell did you put your hands on that thing?’ Keeho asked, stealing the words out of your mouth.

Shota closed the double door behind your backs like he had just gotten home, then turned on his flashlight similar to the one in your pocket. You mimicked him and turned on yours, too.

‘I asked for a copy? Don’t you know acting suspicious is what makes people aware you’re up to something?’ He asked, not really expecting an answer based on the way he turned his back on your small group and started to walk down the hallway. ‘It’s all about confidence.’

You put your hand on Keeho’s shoulder and squeezed it lightly as a reminder that you didn’t have time for further interrogation nor was it the most suitable place for a parental scolding, then followed your best friend until you reached the first intersection. There, you waited for the others to catch up with you and you decided to split up. You didn’t have all the time in the world after all, only two hours until the next error in the system of the graveyard shift.

‘I’ll check the basement,’ you volunteered and shook your head dismissively when you saw Jiung open his mouth from the corner of your eyes. ‘Keeho’s babysitting, there are too many floors for just two groups,’ you said, slowly turning towards the blond boy with your entire body.

‘Who said I was about to follow you?’ He retorted with a huff and took the flashlight out of Keeho’s hand as he turned on his heels and marched up the stairs. You kept your eyes on his back until he disappeared, then shot a tight-lipped smile in the others’ direction before you made them promise to take pictures of anything suspicious or interesting-looking.

You hoped Jiung would do the same as well even though he hadn’t waited around for your reminder. You had faith in Shota and his dubious network, you really did, but you genuinely doubted you would have had another chance like this in the near future if you had failed to gather enough evidence due to your slipshod job.

On your way to the basement, you kept your mind occupied with random songs from the last decade they still played on the radio just so it wouldn’t have turned on you and made you see things in the darkness that weren’t there. Your imagination might not have been too wild, but being alone in a building where you assumed poor people had been killed for how much their organs were worth was scary. You didn’t believe in ghosts and other supernatural creatures, but you wouldn’t have blamed their souls for sticking around, angry, if they had existed.

The dust in the air was heavy and it stuck to your skin uncomfortably as you checked each and every door that opened from the hallway underground. Most of the rooms were unlocked, the surgical equipment inside of them outdated and untouched. A part of you - the same part that was convinced of Kang Yohan’s innocence - was eager to see them as evidence of human experiments, but the rational side of you was aware that things like these were normal at a medical facility. If you had shown photos of these to anyone, they would have focused on the fact that you shouldn’t have been in the building.

You gulped, growing frustrated, as you checked the time on your phone and walked up to the next door. You still had some time.

Admittedly, you knew you could have spent an entire day in the building and still felt like you needed more to do a thorough research, but beggars couldn’t have been choosers. Thus, you locked your panicking thoughts in the back of your mind and opened the drawers in the next room that looked more like an abandoned office than a medical room.

‘Come on!’ You groaned when you found the third drawer in a row empty, getting on your knees without much thinking to force the last one open as well. At first glance, it didn’t seem like you should have had a key to open it, so you hoped it was only stuck, preferably due to the weight of the papers inside of it.

Two of your nails broke in the process and your fingertips were burning, but eventually you managed to open the lowest drawer, its content plenty and full of names you weren’t familiar with. However, you did recognise one: Heo Joongse. He had been one of the “victims” of the explosion that had killed Kang Yohan. He had been the former president of South Korea.

Hands shaking nervously, you started to take pictures of the documents, but because of the lack of proper lighting, they turned out to be unreadable. Therefore you shoved them under your sweatshirt on a whim.

‘Noona! Noona, it’s time to go!’ You heard your best friend calling for you and you stilled, contemplating whether you should have pretended that you hadn’t heard him and checked one more room or let him know where you were. He must have calculated with finding you, he knew how you got when you… ‘Noona, we have to get out of here!’

You closed your eyes and let out a displeased sigh. You should have met them upstairs, close to the front door. If Shota was in the basement, it meant you hardly had any minute to waste. Even if the digital numbers in the upper right corner of your phone’s screen said otherwise.

‘I’m coming!’ You shouted on your way to the hallway, giving a resigned look to the rest of the basement, to all those closed doors you hadn’t had a chance to open, then ran towards Shota’s voice. It came from the stairs that led to the ground floor.

The question of what had happened that you needed to leave twenty minutes sooner was on the tip of your tongue, but you didn’t have a chance to say it aloud. The moment you opened your mouth, your best friend grabbed your wrist and pulled you in the opposite direction from the main entrance, confusion making you uncharacteristically obedient and unresponsive.

You didn’t question him when he shoved you inside a dirty restroom, nor did you ask a single thing when Keeho emerged from one of the toilet cubicles. You simply let the older boy take the lead and help with your balance when you stepped on top of a half-broken plastic toilet lid that was supposed to support your weight and made you tall enough to reach the edge of the open window on the tiled wall.

‘You really think I can…’ pull myself up; you wanted to ask, but before you could have finished your question, someone grabbed your arms from the outside and got you out of the building with one swift movement.

With a scream stuck in the back of your throat, you looked down at Jiung with slightly parted lips and gulped nervously when your gaze fell on your palm atop of his chest. You swore, you could feel his heart beating like crazy under your palm, your own mimicking the rhythm and pushing enough blood to your neck and cheeks to turn them ruby red.

‘Get up! We’re running out of time.’ It was Shota whose voice pulled you back to the present, but you were sure, even without stealing a glance at the boy on your right, that it was Keeho who pulled you off Jiung and pulled you towards the iron fences.

You stumbled in the dark, unaware of when you had lost your flashlight and whether the guys had turned theirs off on purpose. By the time your friends deemed that you were far enough from the facility, your lungs were screaming for a break and every breath felt like you were inhaling pieces of broken glass.

‘What the hell happened?’ You demanded, even though it seemed you were the only one who thought your frustration and anger were justified.

‘That your stupid obsession almost got us in trouble, that’s what happened,’ Jiung screamed at your face, a few drops of saliva landing on your burning cheek due to your close proximity. You balled up your fists, your knuckles turning white from how hard you clenched them.

‘Shota said it was safe! And I don’t remember asking you to join us,’ you retorted as calmly as you could manage with the growing annoyance you were feeling.

Sure, you knew trespassing had been a gamble, that you had been going against everything you believed in just to prove a point, but you had done nothing inside that damned building that could have put everyone in danger. Whatever had happened it hadn’t been on you, you refused to believe it.

‘It was the USB. We found a bunch of them in one of the offices, but one of them was still plugged into a smashed PC, so I pulled it out,’ Shota confessed at the same time Keeho said:

‘I think I broke a lock I shouldn’t have.’

You closed your eyes, heaving. Honestly, the second option sounded more possible, but you felt like stating the obvious or calling Jiung out on his freaking tendency to put the blame on you would have done more harm than good. The atmosphere was already tense, making it worse while you were still relatively close to the crime scene would have been stupid.

‘It’s okay, it doesn’t matter,’ you concluded because crying over spilled milk would have been just as idiotic. You had gotten in and out without encountering any of the guards, no one had known your faces, your identities were safe. You might have felt bitter about leaving so soon, but at the end of the day, you were all unharmed and that was what mattered.

You straightened your back and opened your eyes.

‘Let’s go home,’ you exclaimed and shot a genuine smile in Shota’s direction to soothe the guilt that was written all over his face.

When Jiung bumped into your shoulder on purpose, you gritted your teeth, but followed him towards the main road. You decided not to ask him whether he had found anything useful as you were sure he wouldn’t have told you even if he had done, and pointed at your tummy with a mischievous wink when Shota did the same with his pockets where he hid the old USB sticks.

You might not have been able to check everything you had wanted, but your mission hadn’t been a complete failure, after all. And that… that sure as hell made you feel like you had accomplished something.

A couple of days later, you were in the university library, working on your assignment on the live court show’s effects on the judicial system and the shift of responsibility the DIKE app had contributed to when citizens had been given the power to decide the defendants were guilty or not guilty, when Choi Jiung walked up to your table and shut down your laptop with a fixed combination of keys. To say you were furious would have been an understatement. You were livid.

‘Do you want to die? The hell is wrong with you?’ You spat, pushing yourself into a standing position in an attempt to look more intimidating despite still being significantly shorter than the boy. It didn’t matter. Anger could take people farther than one would have thought.

Instead of answering your question with words, Jiung threw a small pile of papers on your desk. You looked down at it with narrowed eyes before you took it in your hand. There was no need for you to scan through the provocatively phrased paragraphs. Just by looking at the header, you knew it was your thesis abstract.

‘Where did you get this?’ You asked, trying not to wrinkle the document in case it was indeed the original copy that you had put on your professor’s table in the teachers’ office after your last class.

‘Do you want to die?’ He threw the question back at you, his tone just as angry as yours even though the flames in his eyes burned with a different colour. He seemed a lot more serious rather than borderline panicking. His reaction closed up your throat, but you kept your chin high to prove a point. ‘I’m serious! You can’t be this stupid, can you?’

You took a shallow breath, then another one and another one for good measure before you crouched down for your bag and shoved your laptop inside of it.

‘You saw that place. They’re guarding it for a reason. Even if you really didn’t find anything on the first floor…’ You took another breath to calm yourself. You still had time before your next class, so you could put the abstract back on your professor’s desk like Jiung had never put his hands on it.

‘You can’t become a judge with this mindset. It’s anti-nationalist,’ he pressed, stopping you with his fingers hanging around your wrist like a chain. You shook it off, his rough touch, and turned around to look him in the eyes.

‘I’m ashamed of you. People like you should never be allowed to become a judge in the first place,’ you said, quiet enough to not draw anyone’s attention, but loud enough to hurt.

You meant it: every word. Those people who deliberately turned a blind eye on the flaws in the stories the system tried to feed you with, on the government’s wrongdoings just because it was easier, shouldn’t have been given power to decide who deserved a severe punishment for breaking the law and who acted upon self-preservation.

The two of you kept eye contact for longer than it was necessary, therefore you were about to turn your back on Jiung when you got a text via kakao. With furrowed eyebrows, you fished the device out of your pocket and checked the incoming messages.

shota 😤: “don’t come home!” shota 😤: “i’m serious” shota 😤: “stay with the hyungs”

The urgency in his double texts made you feel alarmed, so you sent a quick message to both Shota and Keeho, then threw your phone into your bag and rushed out of the library.

There was no way you would let your best friend deal with whatever trouble he was in on his own when you had a good guess where he was and it was clearly too big for him to handle it alone.

Jiung tried not to think too much into it when you didn’t show up at class the day after you had stormed out of the library. He really tried not to panic when he couldn’t see you at any of your favourite places around campus, although he was familiar with your schedule and habits: when you preferred the university library over the coffee shop, which classes you would have never skipped for the world and how many papers you had to submit before the upcoming midterms.

It wasn’t unusual that you didn’t pick up the phone to him, so he didn’t even bother after the first futile attempt, aware of the line he had crossed when he had taken your thesis abstract that he shouldn’t have even read, but when even Soul refused to read his messages, he knew something was off. The boy would have never ignored his hyungs just because he might have taken your side. At least, he had never done so before and god, the younger sided with you almost all the time.

Lacking any better idea, Jiung dialled Keeho’s number, letting out a relieved breath when the older picked up the phone after the second ring.

‘Have you heard from Soul? His bestie hasn’t shown up at uni since last week,’ he started without beating around the bush, too frustrated (and worried) to prolong the conversation. He wanted to know that you were both okay and his worst nightmare hadn’t come true despite your stubbornness.

Had you gotten in trouble with the authorities because of your big mouth? Who had you been texting to before you had turned your back on him?

‘Not since last week. He said he would be out of town for a couple of days,’ Keeho answered. ‘Same for the firecracker. She texted that she’s worried about Shota, but then she claimed everything was fine, so I didn’t ask,’ he explained, not going into too much detail about why he hadn’t pushed when he was so overprotective of the babies of their group. Jiung knew the older boy was balancing two jobs to provide for not only himself, but Jongseob, too. Life was tough ever since the youngest had run away from home.

If you had told Keeho things were okay, Jiung understood why he had chosen to believe you and stay at his workplace or steal himself an hour of extra sleep.

‘Did he say where he was going?’ Jiung asked, wondering whether he was overreacting or the nagging voice inside of his head was right about you. Even if he doubted you considered him as a friend, he would have liked to believe that he knew the core of your personality. There was no way you would have deliberately ditched your studies when you had worked so hard to get accepted on scholarship.

‘No,’ came the answer after a momentary break, silence filled with pangs of distress. ‘Why?’

‘I’m not sure, but I have a bad feeling about this. I’ll go and check their place,’ Jiung said, checking his timetable and deciding against showing up at his last class as it wasn’t a seminar and most importantly, it wasn’t a lecture he was sharing with you.

‘Now?’

‘Now,’ he nodded out of habit as he threw the strap of his messenger bag over his head and put on his cap.

‘I’ll be there in an hour. Wait for me!’ Keeho asked and Jiung let out a loud, affirmative hum before he hung up the phone.

The blond boy didn’t waste any time. He called a cab with his kakao app and asked the driver to drive as fast as he could once he got inside the car. He promised to double the fare if the old man got to your place in under an hour (which would have been an achievement in itself in the afternoon traffic).

‘We have arrived, mister,’ the taxi driver announced and Jiung indeed paid plenty before he jumped out of the car and rushed upstairs. He had only ever been to your place once, when it had been your birthday in freshman year of uni and Soul had organised you a surprise party with your favourite strawberry cake and a second-hand laptop for your studies. Jiung couldn’t remember anymore what he had bought for you. Had he even bought you anything?

He shook his head. That wasn’t important at that moment. Making sure you were alright and simply avoiding him was.

The first alarming sign was how easy it was to get inside your flat: all Jiung needed to do was push down the handle and the door was open. He didn’t need a key, a keycard or a passcode. His heart sank into his stomach when he crossed the threshold.

Jiung needed to bite into his lips to not make the mistake most people made on tv whenever they found themselves in a similar situation. Because as ridiculous as it sounded, his first instinct was to call for your name and announce his arrival, which would have been stupid. What if someone was here? He really shouldn’t have done that.

So he didn’t. Instead, he took off his shoes and checked every room as silently as possible until he made sure he was alone. Then, he started to go through your stuff systematically: skimming your mails, searching through your drawers and desk, rummaging your bathroom while simultaneously trying to not invade your privacy and finding clues about where you had been and what had happened. He was in the middle of looking for hidden compartments in your walls when Keeho arrived.

‘Is anyone here?’ The older boy asked, coaxing an unamused scoff out of Jiung with his loud question. Of course, he was acting like every idiot in a horror movie who was about to die.

‘Bedroom,’ Jiung grumbled, keeping his focus on the task in hand. He vaguely remembered Soul bragging about the coolest compartments he had installed in both of your flats, so that you could have hid your cash there and never gotten robbed. They had to be big enough to store a handful of stolen USB sticks. If only he could have known for sure there was nothing on them that would want dangerous people to make you disappear.

‘What happened here?’ Keeho asked, clearly taken aback by the state of your room.

Jiung didn’t bother to look around. He knew damn well the disaster he had left behind when he had started to get more and more frustrated, too impatient to put everything back to its place when they hadn’t given him the answers he was looking for.

‘The kimbap in her fridge went wrong days ago. She wouldn’t have left it there if she’d had a choice,’ the blond boy stated and it was ridiculous really, how sure he was in certain things when it came to you. But he just knew. He had caught you eating food you didn’t enjoy just because you had already paid for it or it had been for free. Even if you had been in a hurry, you wouldn’t have left it there to rot.

‘You sound pretty paranoid. And worried,’ Keeho commented, but walked up to your bedside table without much questioning and moved it aside. Then, he knocked on the beige wall a few times, gaining Jiung’s attention when suddenly, the thud gave a different sound.

Jiung crawled towards the bed on his hands and knees, reaching for the content of the hidden compartment once his friend opened it with ease that showed he knew exactly what he was doing. In small stacks, there were a couple of 5000 and 10000 won bills, less in total than the amount of Jiung’s allowance had gotten regularly in middle school.

Jiung’s throat closed up when his eyes fell on the custom-made keychain he had forgotten a long time ago, the one he had given you for your birthday and the one that sat on top of a pile of dirty papers. He took it into his hand and shoved it into his pocket before he skimmed the documents. On each page, they had the Dream House’s stamp on their upper left corners, which meant you might have found these in the facility’s basement.

Damnit! You had never mentioned you had found something that night, let alone something that looked like trouble.

‘What do they say?’ Keeho’s question came from Jiung’s right, your worn bed cracking under the older boy’s weight.

‘At first glance? That they are lucky if they’re in the countryside,’ the younger answered, his heart rate picking up because of the dreadful pictures his brain was throwing at him about you and Soul behind bars, the two of you in separate interrogation rooms, powerful people trying to break you to turn against each other.

Jiung looked around in search of his backpack, then stood up and lifted it off the floor, so that he could shove the documents between two books he had been supposed to take back to the university library. They didn’t matter anymore. You and Soul did.

‘Where are you going?’ Keeho asked, and while Jiung had a concrete destination in mind, he was contemplating whether he should have told the other the whole truth. Keeho hadn’t seen the late president’s name on the documents yet and while Jiung would have also needed more time to figure out what you had gotten yourself into exactly, he had a vague idea. He didn’t want to put his friend in more danger in case he was right.

On the other hand, he was aware how important Soul was to Keeho. Obviously, the older boy cared about each one of his close friends, even people he deemed honest and kind, but Soul was like a brother to him. If Jiung had been in his shoes, he would have resented whoever kept secrets this serious from him.

‘I’ll ask Jiseong if he heard anything,’ he settled for the truth, albeit giving a curt answer. He would cross that bridge when he got there. For the time being, he didn’t want to complicate things even more. Not to mention that his step-brother would have scolded him and might have outright refused to tell him any details if he had shown up at his office with someone who had nothing to do with their family or their social circle.

After meeting you, Jiung had started to question whether he was able to read other people as well as his family expected him to, but recognizing the fine mixture of doubt, hurt and worry in Keeho’s eyes was too easy.

‘You will call me,’ the words came out pseudo-commanding, like the boy knew no objection, but Jiung noticed the pinch of uncertainty that made Keeho’s voice crack by the end, turning the statement into a semi-question. He didn’t call him out on his lack of faith in his character, mostly because Jiung himself was unsure of numerous things, too, regarding the situation.

Therefore, he settled for a nod instead of a verbal promise and left the building. The papers in his backpack felt heavy, like rocks that were trying to pull him underwater, but nothing could have compared to the weight of the abandoned keychain in his pocket that you, for some reason, had kept at the same place you kept your treasures.

After a failed attempt at the District Court, Jiung decided to wait for his step-brother at his home office, which was basically a separate room on the second floor in their house, between their parents’ offices and across from his own study room. Aware of the importance of respect and good manners even when one wasn’t out in public, he knocked on the mahogany door and counted to three, seven, ten, before he entered.

Since the boy’s plan was to ask a few questions from his hyung about the Dream House Medical Centre and whether there had been any attempts at breaking into the abandoned building in the last couple of years - the more general his curiosity appeared to be, the safer for you and Soul -, he decided to jot down every aspect he needed to touch upon and tried to make the inquiries sound as academic and neutral as possible while he was waiting. A written list could have helped him make it look like he was working on an assignment of some sort.

Taking a seat by the massive desk in the left corner of the room, Jiung pulled out the upper drawer, looking for a piece of paper. He knew it was a little old-fashioned, that he could have taken notes on his phone as well, but there was something about a piece of blank paper that stimulated his brain. Thoughts and ideas came easier when he could feel the material against the mounts of his palm and the weight of the pen in his hand.

Jiung didn’t intend to pry. Why would he have? He had been raised to trust his family above everyone and everything and put his faith in the system blindly as his relatives had important roles in it for generations. However, it was undeniable that it was your thesis abstract staring back at him from the top of a smaller pile of papers in Jiseong’s drawer. Jiung needed to take it into his hands.

He didn’t have to read through the lines to make sure the paragraphs had been written by you. Even though your name was crossed out with a black marker, he knew it was yours. He had read your abstract before. God! He had told you it would have gotten you in trouble. He had just never assumed that his hyung would have also been involved in this mess somehow.

Desperate to not jump to false conclusions, Jiung put the document back into the drawer and closed it carefully. He leaned the back of his head against the chair and closed his eyes, trying to even his breathing. He couldn’t have allowed himself to act suspicious or else his brother would have kicked him out of his office before he could have uttered a single word.

‘What are you doing here?’ Jiseong’s thunderous voice filled the room, pulling the blond boy out of his messy thoughts. Jiung snapped his head in his brother’s direction, resisting the urge to gulp down the nervous knot in his throat or put on a fake smile.

‘Homework,’ he explained with his fidgety fingers clenched into fists and hidden under the desk. He needed to stop thinking about your abstract in the drawer and how it could have gotten there for not only his own sake, but yours and Soul’s as well. He had never been a man of emotions, he couldn’t have allowed to become one in such a delicate situation. ‘I mean, I need some answers I couldn’t find on the internet, nor in any of the books in the uni library,’ he added when his answer met with silence, putting effort into relaxing his tense muscles.

‘I see,’ Jiseong muttered, not taking his hawk eyes off his younger brother while he walked closer to the desk and along with it, to Jiung. The young man’s arms were crossed in front of his chest; his tailored suit devoid of any wrinkles. ‘Ask away then.’

Jiung wished he had had more time to prepare himself for this conversation. Sure, the boy had wanted to get over with the interrogation as soon as possible when he had decided to seek his hyung out right after he had left your flat, but that had been before he had found your thesis abstract. With this new discovery, he felt unprepared.

‘It’s common knowledge that the Dream House has been abandoned since judge Kang Yohan tried to use it to overthrow the government,’ he started with a well-known statement to steal himself a couple of more seconds. He usually used this method during presentations because talking about things he was certain about did wonders to his jittery nerves, but this time, the academic tone had no positive effect. The lingering uncertainty poisoned his confidence. ‘It’s heavily guarded, though. Why?’

‘Use your brain, Jiung-ah. Why do you think it needs to be guarded up to this day?’ The man asked in a chastising tone. It reminded Jiung of school breaks in the countryside that they had spent with their grandparents. It reminded Jiung of summer days when he had falsely thought he could have acted his age without unpleasant consequences.

He frowned, but gave a serious thought to the question and answered with his chin held high.

‘So people wouldn’t break in,’ he chose, because even before breaking into the Dream House and rummaging through the first floor, he had doubted there had been something or someone kept in there that could have escaped. Which could have only meant that the government wanted to keep people from entering.

‘And?’

Jiung furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, wondering whether his brother knew he had been there, inside the medical centre, when you had put your hands on those documents. Was there a specific answer Jiseong was expecting from him? Or should he have played it safe and pretended he didn’t know about the late president’s involvement in something that had gotten you in so much trouble, you and Soul had disappeared off the face of Earth?

‘There are people in our country who believe Kang Yohan was some sort of saint who wanted to protect the powerless from corruption even though he couldn’t have cared less about the poor and unprivileged,’ the young judge stated, destroying the remaining distance between himself and his brother. Jiseong put his palms on his desk and leaned closer to Jiung with a predatory glint in his hazel eyes. Like he was staring at a pitiful prey instead of someone he had to treasure and protect. ‘It’s guarded, so those with anti-nationalist ideas wouldn’t turn it into their own sacred place,’ he said, forcing the younger to hold his breath and listen. ‘They would crowd it. It would give them a place with meaning for gatherings and suddenly, their preaching would gain more credibility.’

At that moment, as he was staring at his step-brother, the blond boy couldn’t help but think of you and your reaction whenever he had said something to defend the system. He wondered whether he had sounded just as biassed and inimical to you as Jiseong did to him while he was talking about faceless people and their hypothetical actions when they hadn’t committed said crime yet.

He wondered whether the fact that he added that harmless “yet” at the end of the sentence in his head meant he was indeed the same.

‘Has anyone ever broken into that building?’ Jiung asked partly to cut the tension that grew with the silence, partly to check the credibility of his hyung’s words.

Jiseong took his hands off the desk and straightened his back. He shot a small smile in Jiung’s way and shook his head.

‘Never. Like you said, it’s heavily guarded. You have nothing to be worried about,’ he said, slowly loosing his necktie, piercing gaze poking holes into the skin between the younger’s eyes. ‘Any other questions?’

There were. Jiung had plenty of questions starting with why was your abstract in his drawer, what had they done to you and Soul, whether you two had been the first ones who had been dealt with this drastically or there were others, people who had no connection to people like Jiung who came from an influential family. However, putting these thoughts in words would have done more harm than good and Jiung wasn’t an idiot. He might have doubted Jiseong would have been able to make him disappear or it was really him who had been behind all of this, but Jiung knew he wasn’t untouchable.

‘No, nothing. Thanks,’ so he said and stood up from the chair as casually as he could manage before he bent down and picked up his backpack from the floor. He bowed to his brother like he always did when he was greeting his family members or saying goodbye to them, then straightened his back and waited to be dismissed, showing respect to his elder as he had been taught.

‘Go, wash up! It’s almost dinner time,’ Jiseong said and patted his brother’s shoulder once, twice, three times, before he turned his back on Jiung.

The younger didn’t hesitate to leave the room afterwards.

The thing was, whether his step-brother knew that Jiung had broken into the Dream House with you and the boys or not, Jiseong had lied to him. He also had your thesis abstract, the very same document Jiung had given back to you the day he had last seen you, which was more than a little concerning. Therefore, despite his own beliefs, Jiung needed to figure out what was going on and how deep his hyung was in the mess you had also gotten yourself and Soul into.

He needed to know you two were okay. The sooner, the better.

If anyone had caught the boy sneaking into his brother’s home office instead of attending his classes, Jiung would have been cursed out, then dragged into his room and locked up for several weeks. He knew because he had been driven to school and back home for a whole month in high school when his father had found out that he had drunk a beer with his friend in public despite being underaged. They had done it at a park where they had thought no one had been paying any mind to them, but they had been dead wrong as his then-friend’s mother had sent one of her secretaries to keep an eye on her son and they had gotten caught before they could have decided whether they had wanted to open the second can. The tension at home after that had been so messed up, Jiung hadn’t dared to break any rules for years.

That was, until he had met you.

Rummaging through Jiseong’s drawers turned out to be fruitless. Other than stationeries and a bunch of files about ongoing cases at the court, there was nothing to put his hands on, which was weird. Why wasn’t your paper in the upper drawer anymore?

Kneeling on the floor, Jiung leaned his forehead against the edge of the desk and closed his eyes. Looking through his hyung’s things was one thing. Should he have really logged into his computer, too? That sounded too extreme, but then again. The boy had already trespassed on government property just to keep an eye on you and make sure you were fine. He could have always claimed he needed Jiseong’s laptop for whatever excuse his mind would have provided at the time of need.

Letting out a troubled sigh, Jiung could hear your last words to him ringing in his ears. If he had decided to turn a blind eye on the weird happenings now, he would have turned into what you had hated the most in people like him. People with the proper background to make a real difference, but no desire to change what was wrong. He might have refused to believe you had been right about everything, nor did he think he was a bad person just because his values and beliefs were different from yours, but he couldn’t have lied to himself. Something about the Dream House project was fishy.

So Jiung sat on the chair and turned on the computer before he could have lost his courage. He checked every folder and every file systematically, then opened Jiseong’s email services and read through his mails, too. The more he saw, the less suspicious his brother appeared to be and the more guilty he felt, but it was too late to turn back. So he kept reading, until he did find something.

It was a forwarded email Jiseong had never replied to or if he had done so, he had already deleted the evidence. The original letter was a report on the break-in to the medical centre; the person claimed there had been three or four suspects, but no gender, approximate age or physical features had been stated. The first response was about the punishment of the guards who had been working that night; the second one was an ID number; the third said: it’s done. Collateral damage: one person.

Jiung’s hands were trembling slightly when in the last email attached to the conversation there was a follow-up report from his uncle. It had been sent at five in the morning, mere hours ago, and it said they were ready for shipping.

‘What the…’ he murmured under his nose, finding it hard to process that these people might have been talking about you.

Jiung deleted the search history and closed the browser. He turned off the computer and took a moment to think. Should he have visited his uncle’s researcher centre on his own or should he have told Keeho about these emails like he knew the older boy wanted him to? Should he have tried to figure out what was going on in the legal way or gone behind his uncle’s back, too, lacking spare time to waste? What had they meant by shipping anyway?

Before he left the office, Jiung took a quick look at the interior from above his shoulder, then stepped out to the hallway and fished his phone out of his pocket. He called Keeho and when it went to voicemail, he sent the older boy a cryptic text about how he needed him as soon as possible.

A rational part of Jiung was aware he needed backup, but he wouldn’t have waited hours just to hear back from his friend.

Luckily, Keeho had reached out to Jiung within an hour, hence the two boys could meet up at the 7-Eleven across from the research centre around three. If Jiung wanted to be honest, it was the worst time either of them could have picked: it wasn’t close to lunch break nor did it align with anything else that could have drawn the attention from them, but he didn’t want to wait until closing time. He wanted to check every room on every floor as soon as possible in case, for some reason, you and Soul were in there.

The more he thought about it, the more this place seemed like the perfect cover-up and this thought drove him up the wall.

‘Sorry we’re late,’ a familiar voice demanded attention, followed by a loud, screeching sound as the intruder pulled out the metal chair and sat next to Jiung. Intak’s smile was too wide for the older boy’s liking, but at least it didn’t look genuine. The visible distress that blended into his friend’s cheery facial expression made Jiung feel less paranoid even though he would have gladly accepted that he was overreacting and let the guys make fun of him if that had meant you and Soul were chilling somewhere in the countryside.

‘Why are you here in the first place?’ Jiung asked, his gaze sliding from Intak to Theo who also took a seat by the table in the meantime.

‘Duh. Cause I’m the best thief you know and you’re about to break into the enemy’s lair in broad daylight?’ Intak’s question was dripping with sarcasm, his cold tone making it sound more like a statement. Jiung bit back a nasty comment about how Soul would exceed him in no time with his connections all across the city because thinking of the younger came hand in hand with thinking of you and he couldn’t have that.

Jiung put his elbows on the table and intertwined his fingers. He raised a brow as he looked at Theo, the silent question why he was there hanging in the air.

At first, Theo’s response was no more than a shrug, but as the tension became palpable, he let out a defeated sigh. It was clear, he didn’t think he needed to explain himself, especially because both Soul and you were a part of their friends group.

‘Someone’ll need to stand guard.’ It wasn’t something Jiung could argue with even though he would have liked to believe that even if they had gotten caught, his connection to the head of the institute could have gotten them out of trouble. The thing was, he couldn’t say it for sure anymore and this uncertainty and his sudden lack of trust in his own blood were stressing him out. If the boy’s thoughts hadn’t returned to your disappearance every two minutes, he might have already broken down due to the revelations he had needed to face in the last twenty-four hours.

‘Cool. Now, let’s order something and talk about the plan,’ Intak proposed, earning a judging side-eye from Jiung and a frown from Keeho when he pushed his chair back, making more space for himself to be able to stand up and walk up to the counter. ‘What? You chose a café for this group meeting. It’s pretty suspicious if we don’t order anything,’ he put his weight on his palms, leaning closer to the boys over the table.

Jiung let out a scoff.

‘I’ll have one small iced cappuccino,’ Keeho broke the growing silence before he changed his mind. ‘You know what? I’m coming with you. We’ll be back in a minute.’

Instead of following his friends with his eyes, Jiung’s gaze stuck on the massive building on the other side of the road. He couldn’t not feel like in a matter of mere hours, the life he had been living would cease to exist for good. Whether because his own uncle and step-brother were parts of a mafia-like system he had been blind to all this time or because he had chosen to betray them when he had decided to paint them as the enemy, it didn’t matter. Their bond that had been built on trust would break beyond repair once Jiung broke into the research centre. It might have already done so when he had read through his hyung’s emails.

‘You won’t turn on us, will you?’ Theo’s question pulled the blond boy back to the present, his sharp eyes cutting deep into his being. He didn’t blame his friend, though, even if the assumption that he would have left them behind to save himself was offensive.

His pride could take this much.

‘I want to get them back,’ Jiung said firmly, hoping that the sincerity in his voice would be enough and Theo didn’t expect him to come up with a whole monologue about how he was ready to go against his own family and burn Seoul down to the ground to find you. Because honestly, he wasn’t ready for any of those. He wasn’t ready to face the elephant in the room.

‘And that’s what we’ll do,’ Keeho patted the blond boy’s shoulder, taking a seat next to Theo while Intak sat back on the empty metal chair on Jiung’s side. He slid a small cup of black coffee towards the younger and took a sip from his mint choco frappé.

‘Which part of the building we want to infiltrate first?’ Intak asked and Jiung also let out an amused laugh when he saw the other boy fishing out a worn laptop from his backpack. Neat, serious and responsible weren’t adjectives Jiung would have ever used to describe his hyung, but he sure took this job seriously. It was actually pretty impressive.

‘The sixth floor and the basement. You need a special keycard to get to both or the elevator won’t start,’ Jiung said, going into more details about the security system although his knowledge was very limited. He had been in the research centre only twice and both times he had been left with his father’s secretary in the canteen while his father and uncle had been talking about business.

The soft clatter of the keyboard filled the air and embraced Jiung with its normality; he took a sip from his coffee and let the warmth spread in his body. He might have hated the thought of his friends getting in trouble because of his fixation on your sudden disappearance, but a selfish part of him found solace in their presence. He wasn’t alone.

‘Okay guys, we’ll do it this way,’ Intak spoke up after a couple of mumbled swear words and a delighted hum that reverberated through all of them. He pushed the laptop further from himself so that everyone could take a look at the screen, then pointed at the live footage of one of the security cameras inside the building. ‘Based on their social media posts and public appearances, these two researchers are the easiest to lead on. Out of the two, this one here, Dr. Kim Ryeowook is the one who possesses one of the six magic cards to the elevator.’

‘You figured these all out, skimming through a few Facebook posts?’ Jiung raised a brow and it was actually Theo who shook his head first, reaching out to the laptop and clicking on the tab next to the one everyone was staring at.

‘Actually, it’s a text analysis software we still need to work on with Beomgyu for one of our classes. Once it’s finished, it’ll help people make decisions, like solving complex problems for them, based on the imported information,’ he explained, slapping Intak’s hands away so that he could check the accuracy of the information.

‘Oh, okay! That’s cool,’ Jiung nodded to himself, letting the guy overwrite what he needed to overwrite before he confirmed the prediction.

Dr. Kim Ryeowook. The man was currently walking down the hallway on the second floor. If they were lucky, they could snatch his keycard and sneak it back into his coat’s oversized pocket before his shift ended around six.

Jiung’s heart was about to explode when the elevator’s doors closed behind their back and he caught sight of the sterile interior of the sixth floor. As they were running low on time, he was only with Keeho while Intak searched through the basement, his humming deafening even from the other side of the call that kept them connected.

‘Could you please focus? Look for papers, anything about shipping can be important,’ Jiung scolded his friend while they walked down the eerie hallways that led from the elevator to the laboratories. Although they were both dressed in the white coats of the researchers’ uniform, the boy couldn’t have said he felt disguised enough. In fact! He felt as though they were both sticking out like sore thumbs. They were walking too slowly, the caution in their steps almost alarming.

‘I don’t know about you, guys, but I don’t think they’re storing papers in here,’ Intak’s voice sounded almost pained before his words got replaced by a very forced, very loud coughing fit. Jiung furrowed his eyebrows and exchanged a glance with Keeho.

‘What are yo—’

‘Fuck! Is this a freaking liver?’ Intak asked in terror, his question tugging on Jiung’s insides forcefully, making him nauseas. Because while it was a known fact that the employees at his uncle’s research centre were looking for ways to cure incurable diseases, Jiung would have never thought their vaccines and experimental medicines were tested on human organs. Sure, it must have been less cruel than testing them on living, breathing people, but the method still sent an unpleasant shiver down his spine.

Looking at Keeho and listening to Intak’s uneven breathing, his friends had to be of the same opinion.

‘Guys, some of the organs have the same set of numbers…’ Intak didn’t have to finish the sentence, it was obvious what that meant. Yet, he still forced the words out. ‘I think they belonged to the same person. Livers, kidneys, hearts. The list is endless,’ he said.

Jiung hadn’t realised he was shaking until Keeho wrapped his fingers around his wrist and stopped the uncontrollable trembling of his left arm.

‘Don’t touch anything. Take pictures if you can, but stay alert,’ Keeho instructed, then pulled Jiung forwards.

The two picked up their pace and walked down the hallway with purpose in each one of their steps. When they reached the first door on the left side, Jiung reached for the handle with his sweater paw covering his hand, then pushed it down so that they could enter.

Inside, there were two dozens of hospital beds, unconscious people tied to the meal structure of the furniture, high-tech machines monitoring their vitals. It shouldn’t have been as scary as it felt with the eerie silence filling the atmosphere.

‘Do you thin—’

Jiung didn’t let Keeho finish his question. He had to stay focused; if the older boy had asked him whether you and Soul were in one of these rooms, in one of these beds, his thoughts would have tried to come up with an answer and ended up being all over the place.

‘I’ll check the beds on the left,’ the blond boy volunteered, simultaneously praying that you weren’t one of these people and that you were here so he could get you out of here.

Jiung’s movements were frantic by the time he got to the last patient - victim? - at the end of the row without being able to touch you. He snapped his head towards Keeho who was taking pictures of the sick, fighting his frustrated tears, in hope of good news.

Neither of you was in the room. Or in the next one, or in the third.

‘I found him! Jiung, quick!’ Keeho exclaimed, his hands already working on detaching the machine from Soul’s fragile body. Jiung could taste bile in his mouth when he saw the bloody dressing around the pale boy’s torso. He couldn’t see the wound and he had never been particularly good at Biology, but he had a faint idea that the red line across the textile was somewhere around his friend’s right kidney.

‘Hy-hyung,’ Soul mumbled weakly, his half-lidded eyes barely open and his lips a mixture of lilac and blue as his head fell on Keeho’s shoulder. It took everything in Jiung to not throw his million questions at him about you and his family members like a spoiled child.

‘It’s okay. We’ll get you out of here. You’re safe now,’ the older boy whispered against the boy’s temple, then looked around, searching for something. Jiung couldn’t stop thinking of… ‘That wheelchair! Jiung-ah, we need to put Shota into that wheelchair.’

The urgency in Keeho’s voice pulled Jiung back to the present and he rushed to the other side of the room to get one of the wheelchairs for Soul. Keeho was right, there was no way they could have sneaked their friend out of the research centre when he was in a half-unconscious state. A patient in a wheelchair might have been a tad less suspicious than a lax body hanging from their shoulder. Though, a voice in the back of his mind said neither was a common sight in the building.

Jiung’s entire body tensed up when Intak dropped the phone on the other side of the call. The younger’s curses and his desperate ‘No, no, no!’ froze his blood even though Intak’s voice was barely above a whisper due to the sudden distance between him and the electronic device.

Contemplating whether he should have helped Keeho with Soul or pleaded Intak to give them an explanation of what was going on in the basement, Jiung let out a frustrated sigh while he was keeping the wheelchair in place.

‘Intak! Intak! What’s wrong?’ Jiung tried to gain the boy’s attention, but it wasn’t working. So they exchanged a worried glance with Keeho and came up with a plan: they checked the last room on the sixth floor, then the older got Soul out of the building while Jiung went down the basement to collect their friend (and whatever he might have found or encountered with).

Jiung hoped it wasn’t one of the security guards who had caught him red-handed, but if it had been, he was Intak’s best chance to get out of trouble. And that was the least he could do for his friend as without him, they might have never gotten to Soul.

The thought that he might have been facing his uncle’s rage at any moment should have been more terrifying. Jiung had no doubt about it that under different circumstances, mere weeks ago, he would have shitted his pants from the presumption that he had messed up so bad, the old man needed to be involved in the situation. But as he was running in search of his friend, passing by shelves full of glass containers and what not, he feared whatever triggered Intak’s uncharacteristic reaction the most.

It didn’t take long for Jiung to find the room with the open door. On the contrary, it became pretty easy once he got within hearing range, because Intak’s painful wailing echoed off the walls and surrounded him on the empty corridor.

Trying to regulate his nerves, the first thing Jiung noticed when he crossed the threshold was how the room was slightly colder than the rest of the basement he had raced through. Then, the sour and irritating smell of vomit and formaldehyde.

‘Intak.’ Jiung crouched down in front of the younger boy, cupping his face with his own, trembling hands, so that the boy could take notice of his presence. He had never been particularly good at comforting others, but he had seen Keeho do it to the boys enough times to have a vague idea about what he should have done.

Jiung pulled his friend’s snotty and tear-stained face against his chest and patted his blade bones gently, for a calming rhythm. Meanwhile, he looked around the room with his chin resting on top of Intak’s head, trying to figure out what could have happened.

‘She… she’s… no-hoh,’ Intak cried out desperately as he grabbed Jiung’s arm and held onto him stronger, body shaking from the threat of another pile of bile-filled vomit. Jiung looked down at the boy and closed his eyes. Should he have reminded him that they had to leave the basement soon? Should he have asked for answers?

Keeho would have rocked him back and forth until he calmed down, but Jiung was afraid they didn’t have enough time.

‘Intak, we need to leave. The keycard, we…’ The rest of the words stuck in Jiung’s throat when Intak pushed him away aggressively, shaking his head and screaming frantically as though the blond boy said something unforgivable.

‘We, no! We have to… we need to! No!’ He protested, crawling backwards on his hands and feet until his head crashed against an open compartment in the wall. With bold, palm-sized characters, there was a number written on it: 0327.

Now that Jiung paid more attention to the odd-looking doors on the right side of the room, his anxiety started to pick up. He pushed himself into a standing position and walked past Intak, trying to take a better look at the inside of the compartment. It must have been the younger who had opened it, which could mean that whatever was in there had triggered his hysterical reaction.

Jiung’s brows were knitted together in confusion when he felt a hand on his ankle. He looked down at his friend, who was shaking his head, mouthing his objections so quietly, the blond boy didn’t hear a word.

He turned back towards the compartment and pulled it entirely open. The piece of white clothing that was hiding the thing underneath was as big as a comforter. Although it brought no warmth or comfort when removing it, Jiung’s gaze fell on a pile of chewed out skin. There were no bones, no organs inside the violated corpse, only damaged skin and a head with more stitches, indicating that he couldn’t have found the brain inside of the skull, either.

Jiung fell on his knees when he recognized the ghost of your features on the corpse’s face. He coughed up bile and that little food he had in his stomach before the first tears rolled down his cheeks. He felt sick.

Neither of the boys could have told how long they were cursing and crying in that room with your corpse mere centimetres from them, but at one point Intak’s ringtone overpowered their sobs and pulled them out of their heads. Although Intak was closer, it was Jiung who reached out for the abandoned device and received the call, his voice hoarse and weak that did barely a thing to alarm the caller on the other side.

‘What the hell guys! You have to get out of there! Dr. Kim is already looking for his keycard, they are on their way to the sixth floor and I’m pretty sure the basement will be the next,’ Keeho said, panic and worry evident in each one of his words.

Jiung looked at Intak, then shifted his gaze to the open compartment. A part of him knew that there was no way they could have taken your remains without throwing up at each corner on the way out, that letting the others see you like this, especially Soul, would have traumatised them for life. He was also aware that as stubborn as you were - had been -, you would have wanted him to pull himself together and get the hell out of there before those who had done this to you would have done the same with the people you cared - had cared - about.

But it was so freaking hard to leave you there or to get up from the floor.

‘Are you listening to me? Please, guys, come out! Whatever there is, it’s not worth it, please, guys, please!’ Keeho was pleading, forcing Jiung’s limbs to move.

‘We’re on our way, hyung. Stop worrying so much,’ he forced out the sassy reply to ease the older’s nerves before he hung up the call and shoved the phone into his pocket.

Considering that cleaning up their vomit wasn’t an option, Jiung didn’t bother with checking the room for potential evidence they could have left behind. On the other hand, he put the textile back on your corpse and made sure the compartment you were laying in was closed before he opened another one and took pictures of another damaged body. He didn’t have the heart to do the same to yours.

Dragging Intak out of the basement was time-consuming and by the time they reached the elevator, Jiung’s muscles were screaming for a break, but he pushed himself until they were out of the building. The boy knew that their initial plan had been to sneak the keycard back into Dr. Kim’s pocket or at least leave it at the reception desk as though someone had found it accidentally at one point of the day, but with the mess they had left in the morgue room, these kinds of details had lost their importance.

Instead, they crossed the street to get to the coffee shop’s parking lot at a speed that didn’t draw too much attention, then got in Theo’s old car and refused to talk about what they had found in the basement until they got somewhere safe in the outskirts of Seoul.

The shocking news of your death lingered around the boys like smoke: sickening, ugly, bad. They couldn’t get rid of it and it threatened their health, especially Soul’s who refused to eat or drink anything for days despite his weak state until Keeho aggressively shoved some plain porridge down his throat.

Intak and Jiung weren’t that much better. Jiung just knew you would have lectured him for his self-harming behaviour if you had seen him skip his meals, so he forced himself to chew and gulp without the slightest care for the taste of the dishes Keeho put on the table. They could have been the saltiest, most disgusting soups and porridges of his life, the boy wouldn’t have noticed.

Although they didn’t know whom they could trust, the boys agreed on one thing: they needed to show the country, if not the world, the real faces of those monsters who led their nation since the first wave of the pandemic. They had to make people see how terrible they were, so horrible, inhuman things like this could have never happened again.

The problem was that even when they tried to upload the pictures they had taken on the web, they got taken down almost immediately. Then, after two weeks of futile attempts at sharing the evidence with the citizens of South Korea, the news was filled with the same lie on every damned channel: a group of young people committing terrorist acts against the country.

Honestly, Jiung knew that he had burnt down all the bridges when he had chosen his friends and the truth over his family, but seeing his ID picture next to those photos that the people in power had chosen to put on display in the media was numbing. He felt too many emotions at once to distinguish any of them properly. He couldn’t even say he was angry: the word itself did no justice to the thunderstorm inside his chest.

‘We can’t give up now,’ Soul said and Jiung tore his gaze from the screen of his tablet to look at the younger. He still looked so fragile, but as he balled up his fists and opened his mouth for Keeho to feed him some soup, he finally had some colour to his cheeks.

‘We won’t,’ Jiung promised and for the first time in weeks, the silence that followed his statement didn’t drain him. If anything, this newfound determination gave them all another reason to find a way to stop this madness.

Not even twelve hours after their faces were plastered all over the capital city, a girl called Elijah reached out to Jongseob, claiming that she and her uncle had seen the photos Jiung had taken of the damaged corpse before they had gotten taken down and that they wanted to help them fight against the system. It was freaking suspicious and at first, they decided to ignore it altogether. However, when Soul pointed out that Jongseob hadn’t been at the Dream House with them, nor had he joined them when they had broken into the research centre, they talked through their options one more time.

And they decided to follow the instructions of this faceless person towards a place that was promised to be safe for them in two groups just in case it was a trap.

Jiung, Soul and Keeho were the first ones to leave the city. They took Theo’s car, saying one of them would come back for the rest of them if things were really safe, then followed the GPS signals given to them real time by this Elijah girl who hacked into its system.

‘What do you think we will find when we get there?’ Keeho asked from behind the driver’s seat, his voice low on purpose to not wake up Soul who had fallen asleep in the backseat.

Jiung shrugged.

‘Dunno. Two more hours and we’ll find out,’ he stated, looking out the window, taking in the scenery. The countryside looked so peaceful and slow from the inside of the car, but he knew it was only the illusion of obliviousness. He refused to believe that there was any place in this country that hadn’t been corrupted by the government. He knew that the outside world was just as rotten as his life was without the rose-tinted glasses he had been wearing all these years.

Shaking his head, the boy tried not to think about the last conversation he had had with you. Still, he wished he had listened to what you had been saying. He wished he had stopped you when you had turned your back on him and walked away, visibly wary. You had given him so many chances to understand. Yet, here he was, figuring out too late:

History was made by monsters dressed as saints.

the end.

#disharmonycollab #jiung x reader #jiung x you #p1harmony scenarios #p1harmony x reader #p1harmony x you #p1harmony #p1harmony collab #p1harmony angst #ssbyme

46 notes · View notes

horanghoe · 5 months

Text

Keeho!Kitty fic - Y/N?

I present thy evidence:

i present thy poll:

[depending on result ill publish another poll asking what kinda thing ppl want ~ love wren]

#keeho #p1h keeho #yoon keeho #the way i almost tagged stephen #stephen p1harmony #LMAO HAHAHA #p1harmony #p1harmony x reader #p1harmony keeho #p1harmony scenarios #p1harmony smut #p1harmony fluff #p1harmony fanfic #p1harmony au #p1harmony angst #p1harmony drabbles #p1harmony imagines

27 notes · View notes

momobani · 2 years

Text

It’s Not A Secret - 6.9k

roommate!jiung x fem!reader

Sum: in which you bring your new boyfriend to meet your flatmate Jiung and it’s not what you expected.

*Title reference to Girlfriend by Avril Lavigne

A/N: check out Jiung’s cover of Girlfriend from the fanmeeting last year! One of the million drafts on my computer that wanted to see the light of day. And also I’m a simp for Jiung, nothing new. Everyone’s slightly older, use your imagination - it just fit the story. Enjoy!

Warnings: swearing, angst, use of alcohol, mentions of injury

You’d never pinned Jiung as the jealous kind.

For all the years that you’d known him he’d always been mature, self-controlled and calm; a creature of diligence and planning, collected even under pressure. He wasn’t the impulsive type, that much you knew, but as it turns out, it’s impossible to know everything about someone.

Tonight you’d invited your new boyfriend Taeyang to dinner to introduce him to your flatmate Jiung. It was several minutes past eight and you had already moved past the appetisers and into the main course of the meal.

The meal had started out fairly awkwardly, which you’d expected, and Jiung had been somewhat quiet, which was also not unusual but you’d talked a big game to him to try and get to know Taeyang.

The concept may have sunk in but the execution was moderately mortifying.

Jiung had been meticulously polite from the beginning, shaking Taeyang’s hand, perhaps a little too strongly from the way Taeyang had (not as discretely as he aimed to) shake it off afterwards. (You’d only noticed because you were hyper-fixed on the critically analysing the situation from the get go.) He’d been the perfect host to Taeyang, offering him a drink whilst you finished cooking the last dish, Jiung having made one before too, as they made small talk at the table.

You didn’t know exactly where it had started to derail, but the current situation was Jiung eating his food, minding his own business as you all sat in silence. You knew Jiung well enough to know something wasn’t right as he was feigning total absorption in a piece of sautéed broccoli. He was usually quiet when he ate, concentrating on eating but this was unnatural. You were chewing on a piece of carrot as your eyes flitted from one man to the other; the phrase ‘silent as the dead’ had never been more exactly portrayed, you thought.

You bite back a sigh and keep chewing, not bothering to break the silence. It was a lost cause. You’d tried several times to keep the conversation going, but it was mostly just you and Taeyang saying this and that, waiting for Jiung to chip in but he answered in a short sentence or gave a small reaction just to show you that he was paying attention.

You weren’t exactly mad at Jiung for not making more of an effort; you couldn’t fault him for not warming up to Taeyang, but you’d hoped for better. Jiung was one of your bestest and closest friends for a long time since college and you really valued his input on a lot of stuff, even your dating life.

You’d met near the end of high school, having never been really close despite being in the same year but when you found yourself at the same university interview venue, you’d been relieved to see a familiar face. It had marked the start of something special and precious, your friendship growing quickly as you got to know each other.

There wasn’t a party you didn’t attend together, not a lecture you didn’t listen to together, not an exam you didn’t study for together. It was the type of friendship that others envied and you were universally grateful for. Jiung was your rock in life and you his.

You thought about all the summers you’d spent hanging out together, working jobs across the street from each other and grabbing ice cream after work, babysitting Jiung’s younger brother, Jongseob. Jiung was the only constant in your life.

As for Taeyang, you didn’t know him that well yet and you were surprised to find how shy he was in front of Jiung. You’d only been dating for about a month and been on a handful of dates but you thought you’d observed him to be more outgoing and social than that. There was no chemistry here and it worried you since you thought you might fall for him properly soon so you definitely wanted Jiung’s approval as your best friend and also to make it less awkward when they inevitably started running into each other whenever Taeyang came over.

(Your previous boyfriend had been horrified to find another guy in your kitchen the morning after he spent the night at yours, despite you telling him that you had a flatmate. It had helped you find that he wasn’t worth it when he broke up with you over the fact that said flatmate was a guy).

The alternative if you were to potentially stay with Taeyang for a long time, would be to hang out at his place, where his flatmate Keeho had been the life of the party. It had been shocking; you walked into an apartment so starkly different to yours. Their place was full of life, noise and colour. Your and Jiung’s apartment was homey, cozy and tranquil; nothing screamed out at you when you sat on the couch, you could hear each other’s footsteps it was so quiet.

But it’s how you liked it, you realised after spending a day at Taeyang and Keeho’s. It had been kind of exhausting to step into the chaos, especially when Shota, Keeho’s younger brother, had bounced around the living room when he came to visit after school. It had been fun, yet a little overwhelming.

You liked the way that you could come back to a peaceful and calming environment after all that. You and Jiung had fallen into a routine and a harmony; you kept your distance, had your boundaries and respected each other’s need for quiet. If either of you needed someone to talk to, you were open and would sit and catch up with each other on the couch over some hot cocoa and a good complaints session.

“How about some dessert?” You ask.

“I’m a little stuffed, but sure, if you made it I’ll have some.” Taeyang smiles at you. You felt a glimmer of hope that tonight wasn’t as bad as you thought it was.

“Sorry to disappoint ya, babe, I only made the money to buy it with.” You chuckle and clank a few plates together, starting to clear the table. You see Jiung takes a sip of his (second) whiskey (an extraordinary choice of beverage for a quiet Friday night dinner at home in his case) and move the cutlery out of the way so you could stack them.

“Thanks.” You mumble. You felt his uncharacteristic tenseness as you brush past him to get to the kitchen sink. It was like walking past a clock and hearing its ticking only to find out it was a time bomb in the end. You wondered if you’d chosen the wrong day to introduce them. The whole thing made your scalp prickle in protest.

You settled the dessert, some chocolate mousse, and returned to the funeral-esque dinner table. It was bordering on strained silence. You could tell it was all from Jiung; his posture was off, his usually comfortable semi-shrimping replaced by a straightened up stiffness. His mouth creased in a tiny pout as he ate his chocolate mousse, but he was trying his best to keep a neutral expression.

You look at Taeyang to see him dipping the spoon in his mousse, similarly disgruntled but still attempting to enjoy it. You decided it was now official; this was a disaster. Brand it and move on, you thought to yourself.

Jiung’s phone buzzes and he fishes it out from his pocket, eyebrows scrunched in confusion.

“Jongseob.” He said, mostly to you. “Excuse me, I gotta take it.” He left his mousse and got up, polite to the very end as he went to take the call in the other room. Jongseob was usually very capable and barely called for anything, so the call irked you too. Was something the matter? You bit down the last spoonful and tried to calm down.

“Are you okay?” Taeyang put a warm hand over yours to get your attention. You snapped out of it and hummed in response.

“Yeah, just worried about Jongseob, he’s Ji’s little brother.” You explain.

“Oh, okay.” He didn’t press the matter. You almost wanted him to worry too since Jongseob was like your little brother too and you wanted Taeyang to be interested in your worries. Except your thought process was hugely flawed. This was mostly Jiung’s worry; something that you’d come to share, and so it occurred to you, why would a stranger be part of that all of a sudden? That’s what Taeyang was, still, to them and to some extent to you too.

Where did that thought come from?

Jiung emerges from the other room, jacket in hand, looking a little frazzled. You perked up when you saw him, anticipating what he was going to say.

“I’m really sorry, it’s sort of an emergency. He said there’s some weird crackling noise coming from the main electric board. I should check it out.” He shakes his head. “I swear this kid is going to set the house on fire if he keeps experimenting with his gadgets.” He throws the jacket on. “It was nice to meet you, Taeyang, I’m sorry I’m leaving in such a hurry. You guys enjoy the rest of dessert, don’t wait up for me.”

“Wait, how are you going to get there?” You get up and pace after him.

“There’s still a few buses running, I probably won’t come back tonight, not unless I know it’s safe.”

“Okay, be careful, let me know if there’s anything.” You trail after him as he stuffed his shoes on and grabbed his set of keys from your little fish shaped trinket dish (it had been a present from Jiung).

“Will do.” You watch him as he says it without turning to look at you. Something about seeing his back as the door closed made your heart sink. You couldn’t help but feel deflated, like a popped beach ball. You walked back to the table, sitting back down.

“Well, that was fun.” Taeyang quips sarcastically. He’d finished his mousse and places the spoon down gently. You sigh, collecting your thoughts.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s got into him, he was really odd tonight, you’re not offended are you? It’s really not you, Jiung is usually quite friendly, he’s just shy-” you start rambling but you don’t notice Taeyang’s slight frown.

“It’s fine, you don’t have to make excuses for him.” He replies. “I get it. Actually, I know it’s not me. It’s you.”

“Huh? Me, wh-what do you mean?” Your brain scrambles to keep up with the conversation, it was veering into uncharted territory. What was he talking about?

Taeyang smiles, but a little bitterly.

“It’s you. He likes you. He doesn’t want to share you.”

“That’s ridiculous, Taeyang, that’s bullshit.” You shake your head, swatting the idea away the way you’d swat away a fly. You and Jiung were great friends, but it’s all you’d ever been. Sure you were close, but that didn’t mean you were harbouring any other feelings, not that you were aware of at least.

“Is it though? Trust me on this one, YN.” He pauses, running a hand through his hair in thought. “I just…I don’t know. It’s a little sad.”

“Taeyang, what are you saying?” You hung on to his every word, your heart starting to beat abnormally fast in anticipation. Your fight or flight instinct was tingling.

“I like you, and I know you like me. But,” he purses his lips for a moment, and you braced yourself, you felt it coming now. “I know you’ll never look at me the way you look at Jiung.”

There it was. It was like a dagger to the heart. You felt dizzy at his words, suddenly it was a little too hot and stuffy in the room. You close your eyes, attempting to fight the vertigo. This was so not the way you thought things were going to go.

“So what you’re saying is…?” You trail off.

“Let’s break up.” The words pierce through your eardrums, like a bullet shattering glass. “I know I can’t compete with that. He looks at you like you’re the only person in the world. And you…you look at him like he makes the sun rise.”

“Oh my god…”

“I’m sorry, I just can’t do this. I do like you, you’re amazing, but I just don’t see us working out if there’s a Jiung-sized piece of your heart between us.”

You sit there, processing the words, not moving. It’s in this silence that you feel your heart exploding and it’s not because Taeyang is breaking up with you. It’s because there’s a loud siren of realisation that has suddenly broken through the surface of your mind and you need to process exactly what is going on in your head and in your heart.

Did a stranger see you better than you saw yourself?

“Thank you for your honesty, Taeyang.” You say, eyes filling with tears. You’re not exactly sad, more like overwhelmed. He sees it and puts a comforting hand on your shoulder.

“I think our dates were great, it was a lot of fun, but maybe this is for the best.” He says as he gets up and you follow on autopilot, walking him out. “Thank you for the dinner. If you ever need anything, you can call me, okay?” He watches you, still tender towards you and it makes you just that little bit sadder. But you nod, grateful.

“Yeah, thanks, I’m sorry it happened like this.” You can’t think of anything to say.

“Me too.” He says softly and steps towards you. He plants a gentle kiss on your forehead as a goodbye and walks out of your apartment.

When the door closes, your legs give in and you sit on the floor, leaning against the nearest wall. It was conflicting; you were sad about breaking up with Taeyang but you were more in turmoil over what he’d said about you and Jiung. Could he be right?

You looked up at the fish shaped trinket dish on the counter across from you. The little blue tray that greeted you as you came in and bid you ‘goodbye’ as you left. You’d gotten it after about a year of you and Jiung living together. You’d been thinking about getting actual fish, raising a bunch in a tank together in your apartment but you’d discovered an unexpected allergy in the store and Jiung had bought you the trinket as a substitute since he knew how much you wanted to have a fish.

It was just one instant in the plethora of highlights in the reel of your friendship with Jiung; there was the time he stayed with you at the hospital when you’d gotten food poisoning, fighting the doctors and insisting to stay even though he wasn’t “family”. The time he’d dropped everything to find you in the middle of nowhere when you messed up the train you were supposed to get on and brought you home. All the times he’d made you coffee in the morning because he knew you didn’t have time to do it, when he’d made sure you ate no matter how late you were working, when he picked you up after work with the umbrella you’d forgotten to take that morning.

Jiung’s presence permeated through every aspect of your life, so much so that you couldn’t imagine your life without him in it. You loved him and he loved you, that was not in any doubt, but had you mistaken this as platonic love when it could be something entirely different?

If a total stranger picked up on something, then surely it was obvious? Why wasn’t it obvious to you? Why couldn’t you figure it out? All these questions made our head hurt, and you let yourself fold up, tugging your knees up and resting your arms on them.

What now?

It’s three in the morning when you hear the door cracking open. You’re asleep on the couch, or were, passed out waiting for Jiung. The noise wakes you up and you stretch up, pulling yourself up to see Jiung’s silhouette moving across the foyer.

“Jiung?” You croak, voice laced with sleep. He turns around, his step stuttering slightly as he kicks off his shoes haphazardly.

“YN? You’re awake.” He says. His voice is quiet and a little sluggish and you realise he’s drunk. He’d only had a bit of whiskey but that was hours ago, that would have worn off by now.

“Ji, where did you go?” You get up and walk towards him in the dark, the little bit of moonlight coming from the window illuminating your way.

“Intak’s.” He slurs.

“I thought you went to see Jongseob?” You press gently.

“I did. He was there.” Jiung throws off his jacket, leaning on the wall and even in the dark you see the slight flush colouring his face.

“How much did you drink?”

“Not that much.” and as if to disprove his point, he stumbles a little and you immediately reach out and grab his arm to steady him, heart hammering in your chest with worry.

“Come on, let’s get you to bed.” You guide him slowly to his room. You help him tumble into bed, settling him on the pillow and you bring the duvet up to his chin, tucking him in while you sit on the side. He makes a little noise of satisfaction. There’s some biting emotion tugging at your heart as you look at him, but your three am brain doesn’t grasp on to it.

“Why did you drink so much?” You whisper, not particularly asking Jiung, but he shifts, looking vaguely in your direction. He can barely see you, the only light coming from the undrawn curtains of his window.

“Because I couldn’t stand it.” He mutters, voice getting lost in the dark.

“Stand what?” You ask, groggy but semi-alert. There’s no answer and you think he’s already asleep, his eyes closed.

“Is he here?” He mumbles.

“Taeyang’s gone.”

“Hmm, good.” But he’s already falling asleep and it sounds more like ‘hm gu…’. You stay for a minute more, making sure he’s asleep and you let the questions slip into your brain and roll around like balls of yarn being chased by cats, except you’re the cat and you can’t grab onto any of them as you chase them hopelessly…

You wake up again and this time you’re vaguely aware it’s morning, if the brightness of the room is anything to go by. You shift and you realise there’s a weight over your side. You open your eyes, blinking rapidly to adjust to the light and you find your feet dangling to the floor whilst you’re lying on your side in a bed. That’s not yours. In a room. That’s also not yours.

You shift and you find the weight around you is actually an arm and it’s a no brainer that it’s Jiung’s arm, casually thrown around you and almost keeping you in a headlock with how strong his grip was. You grumble lightly as you try to wriggle out of his grasp but your attempted escape makes Jiung shift and he voluntarily moves his arm, a yawn breaking out over his face.

He looks down just as you’re starting to sit up and the look on his face is priceless. He’s caught somewhere in between confusion, disbelief, embarrassment and dread all in one go and you can’t help but laugh lightly.

“You have no idea how you got here, do you?” You ask him, referring to how drunk he must have been last night (earlier this morning).

“But I did. I got here.” He whispers, voice a little hoarse. You reach over to the bedside table and hand him his resident water bottle. He takes a sip, clearing his throat. “So it doesn’t matter how, really. How did you get here is the question.” He asks.

And you don’t know how to answer it.

How had you gotten where? In this life? In this room? To the point where your boyfriend had spent five minutes with you two and broken up with you? It beats you.

You divert the question because you know it’s not getting answered right now.

“Was there ever anything actually wrong with the main board at home?” You wonder. Jiung is silent for a second, looking away. “Right.”

“No, wait - there really was some weird ticking thing but it was nothing. So we went to Intak’s and I started-”

“Drinking yourself to death?” You shoot back. The worry you felt last night, the one that you’d suppressed as much as possible, came flooding back and it morphed into microscopic ire. Jiung shuts up, shrinking back like a child who’s getting scolded. You didn’t mean to sound that harsh and you sigh. “I’m sorry. You’re allowed to do what you want, doesn’t mean I won’t worry though.”

“No, I’m sorry too, I didn’t mean to be an ass to Taeyang, or to worry you.” He says. “I can make it up to you two, have him over some time again, I’ll be good this time.”

“Taeyang broke up with me.” You blurt. As if it could get worse, Jiung’s eyes bug out at you and his jaw drops open.

“Oh god, I’m so sorry, it’s all my fault - I’ll call him up and expla-” he starts rambling and find it endearing how worked up he gets but you cut him off.

“It’s not your fault. You don’t have to do anything. It’s mostly me anyway.” You say, echoing Taeyang’s words. You’re not sure how in the mood you are to have this conversation right now, both of you dishevelled in last night’s clothes and still sleepy. So you don’t. “Okay, get up, I’ll make breakfast. What do you want to eat?”

Jiung looks up at you, his eyes still wide and comically unsure. You nod a reassuring ‘tell me’ at him and he concedes.

“Pancakes?” He asks hopefully. You can’t help the smile that breaks over your face as you look at him. You nod, stomach growling activated at the mention of food.

“Anything you want.”

It had been quite a few days since the dinner and Jiung’s stunning alcohol digestion attempt, the two of you mostly going back to your normal harmonious lifestyle, avoiding the topic of the dinner. You’d thought a little bit about what Taeyang had said but the possibility of you facing any feelings you had or might have for Jiung terrified you. Instead, you treated him like always but it was getting harder.

One day you’d been watching TV, shoulders brushing as you sat side by side. Normally that wouldn’t have bothered you at all, but now you were overthinking everything. Did he realise you were touching? Did he care? Should you move away? It was all frustrating as you let your mind wander away from the screen and stare at Jiung instead.

He was absorbed in the new episode of whatever drama it was, one you agreed to watch together. You looked at the shadows cast across his face by the light coming from the TV across the room; Jiung had always been handsome, you had always thought so, but had it been the sort of objective acceptance that your friend was hot or had you actually noticed how charming he was?

That was just one instance of you starting to slowly lose your mind. Your awareness of the proximity between you increased too, constantly noticing every touch, every look, every smile he threw in your direction. The sweet familiar sound of his laugh made your stomach curl contentedly as you felt pride in being the source of it. It wasn’t long until you realised you were falling hard. Or had fallen already but were only getting conscious of it now, belatedly.

Better late than never.

It’s late afternoon one day when you get a phone call from Jongseob. At first you think he called you by mistake but you pick it up with a smile.

“Jongseobie-ah, what’s up, kiddo?” You were just leaving work, on your way to catch the bus.

“Noona! I can’t get a hold of Jiung hyung, I think something’s wrong.” You hear the worry lacing his voice over the line. You stop short, not quite leaving the building.

“Huh? What do you mean? What’s going on?”

“He’s not picking up his phone. We were supposed to go have dinner together after my interview but it’s been an hour and he’s still not here. I called him several times but it’s not working-” you could feel him starting to ramble nervously.

“Alright sweetie, calm down, I’m sure it’s nothing serious, I’ll try and call him too, where are you? I’ll come get you.”

So you’re on your way to get Jongseob from the interview venue and you call Jiung profusely, texting him and leaving a voicemail. It’s so unlike him to ever be late for an appointment, especially breaking a promise to his little brother, or for him to ignore his phone.

When he doesn’t respond, you can’t help the way your heart twists while your imagination runs wild - what if he got robbed? What if he got kidnapped after work, he got eaten by a bear, he got accidentally taken out by a hitman send to kill some spy but he got the wrong guy-

You find Jongseob standing outside an office building, clutching his phone to his ear, looking around before spotting you and waving. You smile, happy to see him despite the circumstances; you think he’s grown since you last met him as he stands tall in his suit.

“Hey, ‘Seobie,” You say as you reach him. “Any luck?” You ask as he brings his phone away from his ear. He shakes his head.

“No, he’s still not picking up.” He sighs, pausing. “Thanks for coming though, noona.”

“Of course, honey. I’m sure he’s probably stuck at work or something.” You reassure him. It was easy to be brave when it’s for someone else’s sake. “How was your interview?”

“It was okay, I’m not worried about it now though.” And you understand what he means. You’re about to say something when you hear his stomach growl loudly.

“‘Seobie-ah, when’s the last time you ate?” You question the boy. He shrugs innocently. That’s all the answer you need. “Come on, let’s feed you while we wait for your brother. Come on.” You usher him in the direction of the nearest restaurant, not taking in his protests.

You sit at a table, the bright LED lights above the two of you beaming down on your food. You’re both eating - one hand holding the cutlery, one hand holding your phones as you wait for Jiung to call. You’re starting to lose hope when you’ve reached the last bite in your plate when your phone screen lights up and before it can properly ring, you open the call.

“Hello, where the hell were you?” You almost scream down the phone. Jongseob’s staring at you, straining his ears to hear the voice on the other end.

“Hello, is this Mrs Choi YN?” Your heart sinks when you hear a stranger’s voice and not Jiung’s. Moreover you’re confused as to why he thinks you’re Mrs Choi but you ignore it, your mind barely registering it. You clear your throat, feeling a little embarrassed.

“Yes, speaking.”

“I’m calling from the university hospital, are you able to pick up your husband, Mr Choi Jiung?”

You swallow hard. Hospital? Husband? Jiung? You feel a flash of anxiety pitting in your stomach.

“Y-yes, I’ll be there right away. Is he okay?” You’ve switched to autopilot, your mouth going dry as you wait for whoever’s on the phone to answer your question.

“He’s doing alright, he’s had a minor head injury and needs to be discharged with a guardian.” You’re dizzy as you hear those words, but you steel yourself up.

“Right, I’ll be there as soon as I can. Thank you.” And you’re left with your phone against your ear as the person hangs up. Jongseob’s waving his hand in front of your face, calling out to you and you snap out of it.

“He’s fine, but we need to go to the hospital to get him.”

It feels like an avalanche; you’re clamming up, palms sweaty and face paling as you process what you just heard. Injury? What if he was actually really hurt? How would you deal with this? The thought of seeing Jiung in pain made you queasy and your legs turned to jelly as you forced yourself to get up and go.

You pay the bill in a hurry, telling Jongseob to call a cab whilst you do that, the two of you stunned and sitting in stony silence during the ride. There’s a pain in your chest, an ache around where your heart is and you’re trying to rationalise every thought that flits across your mind, but it ends in the same tortured mantra of Jiung’s name echoing in the cavities of your head.

You reach the hospital quickly, lucky to avoid most of the rush hour and almost run to where you were told Jiung was when you asked the front desk. You find him sitting in one of those half-curtain-closed spaces in the minor injuries ward. His back is to you and judging from his posture he seems okay.

You walk forward quickly, Jongseob at your heels as you speed towards Jiung, heart hammering in your chest. As if he sensed you were coming, he turns around and perks up.

“Jiung!” You skid to a halt in front of him, grabbing his face in your hands to inspect the damage - there’s a semblance of a bruise next to his left eye and a slight cut above his eyebrow. You sigh in relief when you see it’s not anything huge. “Oh my god, what happened?” You don’t give yourself time to catch your breath as you keep holding his warm cheeks in your hands. You remember Jongseob is next to you so you let go and step back.

“It’s nothing, seriously. I’m really fine. Jongseob-ah, how was the interview?” Jiung turns to the younger boy, who stands stiffly for a second but registers the question in a split second.

“Hyung, it doesn’t matter. Are you hurt?” You can tell Jongseob is a little shocked and you zero in on Jiung and how he shakes his head then winces at the movement.

“I’m telling you, I’m fine, really!” Jiung tries his best to convince you, trying to be stoic for your sake, but you both stand there with an air of scepticism.

“Jiung, just tell us what happened!” You demand, but deep down it feels like you’re begging instead.

“There was an emergency and some lunatic came into the office, looking to pick a fight with someone. I ended up trying to restrain him with Intak and it turns out the guy had a mean right hook and a ring on his finger.” he explained, looking from you to Jongseob.

“God, why would you do that?! What did the doctor say?” You press him; clearly if he was in hospital then it’s not just a small scratch.

“I don’t have a concussion as far as they can tell but they told me to take it easy for a while and watch out for any symptoms.” Jiung sees your expression and reaches out a hand to grab yours. You almost on air when he does. He looks up at you earnestly. “I’ll be okay, seriously, calm down.”

“Let’s go home.” You manage.

After instructing Jongseob not to blab to their parents since they might worry too much, you and Jiung drop him off at their house and take a cab back to your apartment. The ride is full of palpable tension and you can’t tell if it’s from you or from him. You hear Jiung’s stomach growling but he fakes a cough to stop the suspicious glance you throw him in the back of the car.

You’re dying to ask him why on earth he would try to get involved in what is a security guard’s job or why the doctors thought that you were his wife but you decide to halt your questions for the moment because you think he must be exhausted.

The moment you walk through the door, you boss Jiung around to sit himself at the table and not move until you prepared some dinner for him to eat. He stops his half-hearted protest when he catches a glimpse of your glare and he shrivels up on one of the chairs.

Once there’s a plate of hot food on the table, you sit down and watch him eat. He takes several careful bites but you don’t miss the way he flinches in pain occasionally when he opens his mouth up. You end up rummaging around the medicine box for some painkillers and place them in front of Jiung.

“Dessert.” You mumble.

“Thanks.” He says with a mouthful of food, cheeks puffing up cutely like a squirrel.

“Don’t mention it, hubby.” You cross your arms and watch Jiung squirm at the nickname. He looks up like a kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

“How did you find out about that?” He asks once he swallows his bite.

“Find out about what?” You cock an inquisitive eyebrow. “The doctor asked me to pick up my husband, but I had no idea when we got married. Explain.” Jiung lets out an awkward laugh and pulls out his phone.

“About that,” he hums in thought. “It’s nothing, just um- your contact in my phone-”

And you’re reaching towards the device that now sits on the table, looking at the unlocked recent contacts list. You don’t see your name but you do see something rather interesting. There are several missed calls listed from Jongseob but also a contact that reads ‘Wifey <3’ and you can’t help but snort out a laugh. No wonder Jiung looked like he wanted to sink into the ground right now.

“Intak saved it like that when we were drinking at his and I didn’t notice for a while but then I kept meaning to change it but I never got around to it and-”

“It’s cute.” You smile at how flustered Jiung looks, the tips of his ears growing a soft pink much like the blush dusting across his cheeks. You wonder suddenly what you look like from the side as you look at Jiung; is it obvious on your face - the affection you have for him?

“You’re not mad?”

“Jiung, why would I be mad? It’s just a word on a screen.”

“Oh.” You could pick up on the slight tinge of disappointment in his voice.

“And besides. We do act like an old married couple sometimes, I can see what Intak was getting at, cute kid.”

“Right, yeah, I guess we do.” And he shuts up, keeping a careful balance of looking at his food and glancing up at you occasionally. You’re finally starting to calm down as you watch him scoff down the food, his hunger clearly surfacing after a few bites. Jiung looks like he always does but you realise it’s you who’s different.

You think about your life with Jiung in it and the possibility of your life without him in it and strikes you like a flash of lightning. You couldn’t bear the thought of him not being there. This time it was a small injury, but what if next time it was serious? What if something happened to him? You couldn’t face the idea, your heart clenching in your chest as you zoned out at the dinner table.

It’s only when you see the tears plop down on the surface in front of you that you realise you’re crying. It’s a moment before you feel Jiung notice and freeze in his actions, last mouthful of food forgotten.

“YN?” He asks quietly. You don’t reply but let yourself hang in the despair you feel; hang in the limbo between knowing you love your best friend and knowing you’re in love with your best friend. There’s a threshold you hadn’t crossed until now, until you realised that Jiung is your everything. He’s the first person you see in the morning and the last before you sleep. The one you always want to hang out with, talk with, eat with. You realise he’s been in your heart more than you had thought.

You look up at him, cheeks stained with tears and vision slightly blurred and the look on Jiung’s face - the look that you cannot call anything else but love - finally breaks you down.

You’re sobbing at you kitchen table and you hear the screeching of the chair as Jiung gets up and wraps his arms around you. You bury your face in his torso as he holds you tight, a gentle hand brushing over the back of your head. He doesn’t ask you anything but lets you let it all out.

A minute later you’re pulling away, swiping away the saltiness from your cheeks with the backs of your hand, slightly embarrassed at how much you cried but if you couldn’t cry in front of Jiung, then who could you cry in front of? No one.

“Sorry.” You sniffle and clear your throat. “I’m fine.”

Jiung lowers himself down on his knees in front of you and rests his hands in your lap as he looks up at you, his eyes meeting yours.

“You’re not fine, I can tell. I’m sorry for worrying you. You must have been startled. I promise I’ll be more careful from now on.”

“You better. What am I going to do if something happened to you, huh?” You smile a little, unable to hide your affection for him. “I love you.” You sniffle.

“I love you too, I’ll be fine, I promise.” He says automatically, not even blinking as he pats your leg reassuringly. Your heart does a summersault at his words but you don’t think he quite understood you.

“No, Ji, I said I love you. As in, I’m in love with you.” You clarify, your voice soft as you fight back another sob. Jiung freezes in front of you, his body rigid where you’re touching. You watch him as he blinks several times, flinching when his brow scrunches in confusion and you can’t help but smile at him trying to figure it out.

You bring your hands to cup his cheeks, making him look up at you again. You feel him almost trembling as you hold his face. His eyes are wide, almost like a cartoon as he tries to process the words coming out of your mouth. He looks like he’s finally discovering eurika when you decide to lean in and plant a soft kiss on his lips. It’s not a split second before he’s kissing you back, just as softly and gently, as if you’re made of rice paper and even the slightest movement can tear you apart.

You don’t separate completely but you pull back a few centimetres, sharing the space between you. Neither of you is ready to say anything yet, the silence comfortable as always for the two of you.

“Is this why Taeyang broke up with you?” Jiung asks finally, voice low as if you weren’t the only ones in your kitchen.

“He noticed immediately,” you say. “How I looked at you…and how you looked at me.”

“It’s written all over my face, isn’t it?” He asks, bringing a hand to rest on your cheek, tears dried now. “I can’t hide how much I love you too.”

“I hadn’t realised it before; I think I was too used to being your friend to notice how much more there was to it. How much you really meant to me. I’m sorry it took me so long.”

“I’m glad you realised because you know how much of a jellybean I am when it comes to talking about feelings.” He chuckles, a familiar and sweet sound making you smile too. “But I’ll say it anyway - I’ve always loved you as more than a friend.”

“That…that explains a lot.” You say, unsure of how to continue. It’s not like you’d ever let yourself fantasise about you and Jiung as being anything more than what you’d been. But that was until recently. What you’d been and what you perceived yourself as being, you realised, were completely different things; maybe you’d been more than friends for a long time without realising you’d even opened that door. Now your feelings were on the table, your mind was brimming with the possibilities of what you could become.

“Would you be willing to try us?” Jiung says shyly. “Y’know like dating?” He swallows thickly, his Adam’s apple bobbing down and up. It’s not difficult to decide when he looks the way he does right now; hopeful, his eyes full of love that you couldn’t recognise before.

“I’d like that,” you say, looking down and interlocking your fingers with Jiung’s, hands fitting together perfectly. “I’d like that a lot.” And you lean in to kiss him again, smiling into the kiss.

***

#p1harmony #choi jiung #jiung #p1harmony jiung #p1harmony x reader #choi jiung x reader #p1harmony scenarios #p1harmony imagines #choi jiung scenarios #choi jiung imagines #p1harmony angst #p1harmony fluff #piwon #momobani.writes

274 notes · View notes