Honestly, At This Point, ALL Of Alex Older Soulmate-aus Were My Favourites. Cause This 2-piece Tore My

honestly, at this point, ALL of Alex’ older soulmate-au’s were my favourites. Cause this 2-piece tore my soft-heart into two, when i first read it 😭

*looking for angsty-soulmate au? look no further, cause this is one of them 😭❤️*

All I See is Red, 1. | Jaehyun

part 01 | part 02 (final)

SUMMARY. You have the ability to see the Red String of Fate. You know whether two people are destined to be together, whether they are soulmates. The ability to see the string is a beautiful gift until you see that the woman Jaehyun is in love with isn’t tied to his string of fate.

GENRE. angst (rip) + soulmate!au

WORD COUNT. 756 words

author’s note. i decided to take a quick break from my other stories i have going on on this blog. during the short break, i wrote this. should i write an ending for this? if so, would you want a happy or sad ending? i hope you like it! and for the mean time, i’ll be continuing to finish the other stories LMAO

Is it possible to be lucky and unlucky at the same time? That was a reoccurring thought you had for twenty-two years. You’re sure there are more people in the world who are just like you, who have the same thought embedded in their minds.

The red string of fate. Everyone has an invisible red string attached to their fourth finger. Attached to the end of their string is the person they’re destined to be with; their soulmate. The red string remains invisible. It cannot be seen with the naked eye. But you were one of them, one of the few exceptions; the special ones.

You spot a couple sitting a couple of metres away. You assume the man told the woman a solid joke. She lets out a giggle before playfully hitting his arm. It’s a cute interaction, you think to yourself, but your thoughts are ruined when a red sliver catches your eye. They seem to be in love with each other, but there’s one thing you know that they don’t. The man is not tied to the end of the woman’s string and vice versa. They’re not soulmates—

“One can for you and two for me.”

You look up at Jaehyun, who’s handing you a nice cold can of beer. He sits next to you on the picnic blanket, opening his first can and taking the first sip. You can’t seem to stop looking at the couple and feel troubled.

“You look like you have a lot on your mind,” your best friend, Jaehyun says while nudging you. You glance at Jaehyun and purse your lips into a tight line.

“Do I?” You ask and he nods. You let out a soft sigh. “I guess I’m just too busy with work and it’s making me really tired.”

He notices that you’ve been looking at the couple for quite a while. He nudges you again and subtly nods his head at the couple. “Are they bound together by the string?”

You raise an eyebrow. “What?”

“You can see the string. You’ve been looking a bit bothered ever since we got here and I assume it’s because of them.” He takes another sip of his beer. He tilts his head and asks, “Are they at the end of each other’s string?”

After some hesitation, you shake your head. His eyebrows raise in shock. Jaehyun, your best friend, is the only one that knows about your ability to see the red string. He knows that you’re one of the minority who are considered the only exception to the rule of fate.

He nudges you again. “You know, I’ve been wanting to ask you for quite some time about—”

“No, Jae. I’m not going to answer your question.”

He chuckles. “You haven’t even heard the question, though—”

“You want to know whether you and Haeun are soulmates, right?” You cut him off.

He slowly nods his head. “Are we?”

“I choose to not answer your question.” You shake your head. “Whether you are soulmates or not, I’m not telling you—”

“No,” he mumbles. “If Haeun and I are soulmates, you would tell me and all of this would be easier. Are you choosing not to tell me because—because Haeun and I aren’t—”

You cut him off with a look. He bites his lip and furrows his eyebrows. You don’t say a single word. With a slight shrug of his shoulders, he grabs his can of beer and chugs it down. Before he can open his second can of beer, he wipes his lips.

“I don’t care if we aren’t soulmates, I love her. I can’t see myself spending the rest of my life with someone else.”

Jaehyun’s been in love with Haeun since high school. They’ve been together for years. They’re inseparable. When someone would one look at them, they’d assume that they’re soulmates. But when you look at them, your heart starts to ache for your best friend.

Is it possible to be lucky and unlucky at the same time? It is. Are you considered lucky if you’re able to see the red string of fate, to see who is tied to the end of your red string, to know who your soulmate is? Probably.

But you’re not so sure anymore, because the man tied to the end of your string is in love with someone else.

You stare at Jaehyun’s fourth finger and your eyes follow the trail of his red string. The end of his string isn’t tied to Haeun.

It’s tied to you.

author’s note. i hope you liked this short drabble! the blog has been getting a lot of love lately, especially towards the new series. i just wanted to express my gratitude for all the love you’ve been giving. it really means so much to me :-) it makes me more excited and motivated to write.

send me a message! let’s be friends!

Adorkable hockey captain Mark <3 (part 3)

let’s break the ice | mk.l | three

🏒  SYNOPSIS— in which you’re attending you and hockey captain, mark lee, go on your second date.  🏒 GENRE— fluff, humor, crack, college!au, hockey!au 🏒 PAIRING— hockey captain!mark lee x reader 🏒 WORD COUNT— 2.6k 🏒 WARNINGS— sexual innuendos, language, suggestive makeout scene uwu

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adorkable hockey captain Mark <3 (part 2)

let’s break the ice | m.l | two

🏒  SYNOPSIS— in which your college’s hockey team crashes your lunch plans after practice and you have to get away before dying of embarrassment 🏒 GENRE— fluff, humor, crack, college!au, ice hockey!au 🏒 PAIRING— ice hockey captain!mark lee x reader 🏒 WORD COUNT— 1.5k 🏒 WARNINGS— sexual innuendos made; povs switching during the same scene; cursing 

🏒 AUTHOR’S NOTE— oh shit, does that say part two?? l m a o

y’all asked for it, so here it is! i’m turning this into a mini-series featuring random snapshots of mark with his love interest! no regular updates, the parts are just going to be randomly uploaded as we go. surprise surprise! i have a couple of moments planned already, so stay tuned! (i’m still working on the requests i have left as well as my other wips, please be patient with me!)

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Just two-fake dating besties in-love~ (PART 3 — playing favourites~)

JUST FRIENDS, a timestamp mini-series (3/5)

[14:35] → [11:13] → [15:37] → [18:00] → [01:21]

making this a small series because i really enjoy writing this au. 

aka in which you and your best friend jaehyun pretend to date each other because you are a broke university student who likes to take advantage of some deals that require you to be, well, not single.

[15:37] Jaehyun had invited you out to the aquarium, knowing how much you loved animals. But despite how much you adored animals, you still didn’t bode with the idea that the animals were enclosed in such small spaces. Luckily, Jaehyun reassured you that he did his research and that the aquarium served as a sanctuary for wounded animals to recuperate and they will be released into the wild after they were better. 

While going through the numerous exhibitions, you two discussed the past study you had participated in, not having to go in for the research project for another two weeks. And as much as you hated to admit it, you two successfully passed as a couple. Something you weren’t sure whether to be happy about, or not. 

You finally ended up at the gift shop, where you were perusing which small souvenirs you should buy as a memento. You had your eyes on this cute enamel penguin keyring. However, it came as a set with an enamel polar keyring, almost like a couple accessory. But you had no use for a second keyring, causing you to pout at the dilemma.

“What’s up?” Jaehyun asked as he crouched down next to you.

You blew your cheeks and pointed at the two keyrings. “I want this.”

“I can see that.”

“But… it’s like… a couple set.”

He raised an amused brow at you. “And, why would that stop you from buying it?”

You frowned at his answer and stuck out your tongue at him. “I don’t need a set of matching keyrings to remind me just how painfully single I am right now.” You then motioned the price tag. “Not to mention the discounted price can only be sold to couples. What is this?”

He chuckled lowly at your answer and grabbed the set of keyrings before getting up. You looked at him, confused, as he made his way to the cash and paid for them. The cashier seemed to be telling him setting, probably the fact that the keyrings couldn’t be sold to him. Against your expectations, he pointed at you and then waved.

You waved back, unsure of what was he planning. But he was successful in his purchase. Jaehyun then jogged back to your spot and crouched back down again before dangling the penguin keyring in front of your eyes.

“Here you go,” he said with a teasing smile.

“What the hell? How did you manage to buy it?”

He bobbed one side of his shoulders. “Just told the girl that you were my girlfriend.”

“So, you lied?”

“I learned from the best.”

“Hey–”

He cut you off. “Do you want it, yes or no?”

You jutted your lips out. “What is that supposed to mean? Of course, I want it.”

“I’ll give it to you on one condition.”

“Ew, never mind, I don’t want it anymore.”

He tsk-ed at your retort. “Just tell me who’s your favourite person in our whole friend group?”

“Sicheng.”

“Sicheng doesn’t count, we just met him this year.”

“Fine, Doyoung.”

“You’re really going to be like this?”

You scoffed dramatically and blinked your eyes repeatedly. “Doyoung lied to the waiter about how it’s my birthday and got us free cake! You know how I am when it comes to cakes! And it was a strawberry shortcake too!”

“I pretended to be your fake fiancé so that you could sample wedding cakes!”

You waved his words aside. “That’s old news.”

Jaehyun narrowed his eyes at you. “Will it really kill you to say that I’m your favourite person?”

You rolled your eyes and grabbed the keyring from Jaehyun before he could react.

“Fine, Jeong Jaehyun is my favourite person in the whole wide world! Happy?”

His lips lifted up in a small smirk. “I could do without the sarcasm, but I’ll take what I can get.”

You jokingly pushed him to the ground before walking away from him. But not before telling him, “I still prefer Sicheng over you.”

“Hey!”

You giggled as you skipped away, happy that you could tease Jaehyun a little. But, really, you were just trying to hide your ever blushing cheeks that somehow matched with the colour of his ears.

But you didn’t know that last bit.

Boy Group Tags ¹

⌞GENRES⌝ NAVIGATION ⌞RECS 1⌝ &TEAM ATZ BND BTS ENHA MISC ⌞RECS 2⌝ NCT RZE SVT SKZ TBZ TXT ZB1

˚　　 ✦　 　. 　 　˚  ˚　 .🍄⋆. ˚   　˚　 　* . ✦

⌞&TEAM⌝ fuma ⋆ yudai ⋆ nicolas ⋆ euijoo ⋆ yuma ⋆ jo ⋆ harua ⋆ taki ⋆ maki

⌞ATEEZ⌝ seonghwa ⋆ hongjoong ⋆ yunho ⋆ yeosang ⋆ san ⋆ mingi ⋆ wooyoung ⋆ jongho

⌞BOYNEXTDOOR⌝ sungho ⋆ riwoo ⋆ jaehyun ⋆ taesan ⋆ leehan ⋆ woonhak

⌞BTS⌝ seokjin ⋆ suga ⋆ jhope ⋆ rm ⋆ jimin ⋆ taehyung ⋆ jungkook

⌞ENHYPEN⌝ heeseung ⋆ jay ⋆ jake ⋆ sunghoon ⋆ sunoo ⋆ jungwon ⋆ niki

MISCELLANEOUS

⌞EXO⌝ baekhyun ⋆ chanyeol ⋆ kyungsoo ⋆ kai ⌞MONSTA X⌝ jooheon ⋆ changkyun ⌞ONEUS⌝ seoho ⌞P1HARMONY⌝ jiung ⌞TREASURE⌝ hyunsuk ⋆ yoshi ⋆ asahi

“Blind sided by a feeling he’s never known” trope 🤭 (Part 4 - finale)

♡ Reblogging from my shadow-reader days ♡ I remember thinking the transitions for each chapter weren’t abrupt and that the storyline flowed smoothly~ Capturing HNK “im falling for you” moments nicely~

iv. if i give my heart to you

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words: 4.8k

warnings: swearing, underage drinking

——————————

The second you reached home you rushed to your room and shut the door, letting out a quiet, choked sob. You allotted twenty minutes for being miserable away from prying eyes, sitting on the floor with your back to the door and your head in your hands.

You’d read a Richard Siken quote a while back about sliding down a wall crying but only being able to focus on the wall in front of you and how you didn’t paint it all that well. That was you now, as you stared and stared and realised one of your power outlets was crooked. There was something so pathetically sad about hiding your tears when there was no one around to see you cry.

The next day, you told your friends you and Kai broke up. You didn’t give them any more details than that, lest your two stories contradicted each other again.

Aeri and Yizhuo tried their best to comfort you (and you appreciated it) but they couldn’t, not really. Not unless they knew the real reason you were upset. Kai hadn’t “broken your heart”; you’d gotten invested in something knowing it was fake. You were drowning in quicksand you’d willingly jumped into, and you had no one to blame but yourself.

Over the next week you and Kai stayed out of each other’s way. His friends gave you such pity-filled glances whenever you crossed paths that you felt compelled to tell them you were fine each time. Obviously, that was a big fat lie.

Daeseong and Daehyun asked about Kai only once, because the second they mentioned his name you’d burst into tears. They both got so scared they started crying too. You had never cried in front of them in your life.

“I’m cancelling my party next week,” Aeri told you after class. “Yizhuo and I’ll come over and we can hang out.”

“You don’t have to do that,” you shook your head. “Have the party. I know you’ve been excited about it for ages.” She’d recently gotten a pool table and wanted to show it off. You weren’t going to deny her that chance, especially not to just make her join your daily moping sessions.

“Fine, but you don’t have to come,” she acquiesced. She knew you well enough to know you hated pity, and that when you said things you meant them.

“No, I’ll go. It’ll help me take my mind off things,” you said, smiling and poking her cheek. “Anyway, I need to be there to keep you and Yizhuo in check.”

——————————

——————————

Empty bleachers haunted Kai at every practice, but he still looked forward to training. It helped to keep his mind off of you. For a while at least.

After he ended his fake relationship with you, there had been no teasing, ribbing, or I told you so remarks from any of his friends. Not even Beomgyu. How visibly torn up must Kai have been to elicit such unbridled sympathy? He hated thinking about it, the fact that other people knew the strength of his emotions.

Practice ended, and once again a dull ache crept its way back into his heart and settled in, making itself at home as it had for the last week.

Soobin cleared his throat and pointed over Kai’s shoulder. “Someone’s here for you,” he said.

His heart started racing. It was you. You were here to give him another chance to apologise. But then he turned around and saw your friend Yizhuo, standing at the bottom of the bleachers with her arms crossed, staring daggers right at him. He excused himself from the group and made his way over to her.

“Hi, Yi-”

She held up a hand, not in the mood for pleasantries. “I’m not here to be a messenger between you and Y/N. I’m also not here to beg you to take them back,” she started, narrowing her eyes. “They didn’t send me here, but you probably already knew that.”

He did; you weren’t the sort of person to pull such stunts. That’s what really hurt, that you didn’t want to talk to him at all.

“I don’t know what happened between you two, and frankly I don’t care. But I do know that you left them with the impression you don’t care about them,” she continued. You thought he didn’t care about you?

“Whether you guys get back together is none of my business. I just hope you’ll show them they mattered to you and give them closure instead of running away,” she said, before pivoting on her heel and leaving.

Kai sat at his desk that night, unmoving, as if the right path of action would come to him if he stared at his wall collage for long enough. Even Yizhuo knew he was a child, incapable of having important conversations, incapable of real relationships.

He pulled the polaroid of you and him after his championship game off the wall — the one you’d asked for but he refused to give up. He could still remember the feeling of your hands on his face when you kissed him, your palms cool in comparison to his skin flushed from the exertion of the game.

His friends teased him relentlessly over this photo and the way he stared at you in it, saying he was happier at the kiss than their championship win.

He set the picture down on his desk and reached for his phone. He had something he needed to say.

——————————

Did you regret attending Aeri’s party? Maybe. But you couldn’t back out now, and you didn’t want her to worry about you.

While Aeri shepherded the earliest guests down to the basement to see her new pool table and Yizhuo greeted people at the door, you were in the kitchen making a gigantic bowl of your signature sparkling strawberry vodka punch.

It gave you something to do, at least, that didn’t necessitate being out in the living room where the rest of the party was. Talking to one or two people when they popped into the kitchen for a drink was a hell of a lot easier than doing that.

There was no way Kai would turn up, you kept telling yourself, trying to be normal.

You repeated that again when you finally left the kitchen and saw Yeonjun and Soobin walk through the front door.

And again when you were talking to Jongseong in the backyard and spotted Beomgyu and Taehyun walking up the driveway.

Jongseong was trying to assess you — to figure out if he could flirt with you or if you were still upset about Kai — and in the back of your mind you knew that. You answered that question for him when you locked eyes with Kai through the open back patio door. He looked away, a see-through cup of your punch in his hand.

Jongseong turned around as your mask of friendly bubbliness slipped off in an instant and shattered all over the grass beneath your feet.

“Yeah, I figured you’d still be hung up on him,” Jongseong said, sounding mildly disappointed. How long had Kai been watching you? When did he even get here?

“Mm, I guess so,” you shrugged, pushing your entertainer smile back onto your face. But you weren’t fooling anyone, not anymore.

“It’s fine, Y/N. I get it,” Jongseong chuckled, taking a step back to indicate he wasn’t going to pursue you further. “Now’s a bad time. I hope things work out, whether you guys get back together or not.”

You relaxed considerably, scrambling for the shards of your mask as you tried to smile back. “Thanks, Jongseong. I’ll be in the house if you need me,” you said, excusing yourself.

When you returned to the living room Kai was nowhere to be found. You headed straight for the stairs and up to the guest room, leaving the door unlocked behind you as you entered.

If there was anything you were jealous of in Aeri and Yizhuo’s houses, it was the balconies. What you would give to have one of your own. From up here, the sounds of the party seemed so far away. The night Kai had asked you to fake date him on this very balcony, exactly one hundred days ago, seemed equally distant.

It was a cold night, but not unbearably so as long as the air was still. The sky was clear but too polluted for visible stars. You propped your feet up against the edge of the balcony and leaned over the railing, looking up at the deep indigo anyway.

“Don’t do that. It’s dangerous,” came a familiar voice. You stepped back down and turned around, watching Kai shut the door behind him.

You closed your eyes tightly and turned away, back to the view from the balcony, and held your breath.

“You left the door unlocked for me, right? You were hoping I’d follow you, right?” he asked, sounding almost desperate for his assumptions to be true.

And they were. You told him as much when you sighed softly and once again turned around to face him.

He was wearing his student athlete jacket that you loved, a black and gold varsity-style jacket with ‘Kai’ embroidered in small gold letters on the front. You borrowed it sometimes, because it was soft, warm, and smelt like him. Selfishly, you wondered if he wore it hoping to run into you.

“Kai-”

“I’m sorry. Please, hear me out.”

It was too cold to be out on the balcony. You walked back inside, closed the sliding door behind you, and sat down on the end of the neatly made bed. He sat down beside you, hands fidgeting nervously in his lap.

If someone had asked you what you were anticipating from this conversation, you wouldn’t have been able to give them an answer to save your life. No, your head was filled only with him — how sad his eyes looked and how much you wanted to hug him. There was no room in your mind for speculation.

“The other day when I told you I wanted to end things, I was lying,” Kai began, pausing after every other word, choosing them carefully. He wasn’t looking at you while he spoke, his eyes locked low on the wall in front of him. On a power outlet.

“I actually wrote a whole thing out on my phone — that’s what I was looking at — but I didn’t read it out because I was being a coward,” he continued. “Can I read it to you now?”

There was a block in your vocal cords preventing you from speaking. All you could do was nod and watch him pull out his phone. He turned to face you, and each time he glanced up from his phone at you while he read, his eyes seemed to get shinier.

“You were right, it was real. All of it. I avoided thinking about us until you brought it up because I’m immature, I’m childish, and I don’t like thinking about the serious stuff. What people say about me is true, and I was terrified by how much I like you. I chose to act as if everything was fine, and that wasn’t fair to you.

“I’m sorry I hurt you, and that I made you feel like you didn’t matter to me. That was the last thing I wanted to do, because you’re my favourite person. I like everything about you. You just get me, and I never have to pretend around you. I want to be your boyfriend, your actual boyfriend, and I promise I’ll grow up for you. If you’d have me.”

He cleared his throat awkwardly and pocketed his phone, fidgeting with his hair like he always did when he was nervous. You watched him, biting the inside of your cheek, the ambient noise of the party downstairs crackling in the background.

“I- I meant to say all that a long time ago,” he said, trying to hold eye contact with you but breaking it constantly. His hands rested uncomfortably on his knees, like he didn’t know what to do with them.

“Do you still mean it?” you asked. “All of it?”

“Yeah, I do,” he nodded, before sighing and pushing his hands through his hair again. “I just- you know me. I can’t commit to people. I’m the last of my friends to grow up.”

Huening Kai: the master of puppy love and nothing more. Or so people used to say. But there were other types of love aside from romance, and you’d always known he was capable of those. The guest bedroom was painfully quiet, enough so that you could hear him breathing.

“You keep saying that, but I don’t think it’s true,” you said.

“You’re right: it’s Beomgyu,” he agreed, giggling nervously. It had been too long since you last heard him laugh. You smiled at his cautious joke, which appeared to reassure him slightly.

“I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have let it get this far. I should’ve talked to you earlier,” you mumbled. Your initial outburst must have come out of nowhere for him. The embarrassment of your past actions hit you, delayed, but you pushed it aside and soldiered on. “Can- can we try this again? I don’t want to live with regrets.”

You had barely finished getting out your last word when Kai leaned forward and kissed your cheek, urgent yet hesitant, eager yet tentative. He was beaming as he reached for your hands and held them in his.

“Me neither.” There were sparkles in his eyes.

He kissed you again, pecking you on the mouth this time, and you leaned against him with a content sigh. You could stay like this forever, wrapped in his arms with a soft warmth in your chest you’d never felt before. You played with the gold ring on his pinky finger.

“Kai?” you whispered, closing your eyes.

“Yeah?”

Your voice was soft and hopeful. “This is real, right?”

He moved his free hand to the nape of your neck, gently turning it to tilt your head towards him so he could press his lips to your temple.

“It’s real. I’m all yours,” he promised, “for as long as you’re willing to put up with me.”

You buried your face into his jacket and laughed, breathing him in. His cologne was woody and faintly sweet. “Stop saying things like that,” you mumbled. “This week without you was the longest week of my life.”

He froze, but after a second he relaxed and pulled you closer.

“I told my friends the truth, by the way. They were the ones who knocked some sense into me,” he said. “Speaking of which, we should probably go downstairs.”

Shit. You needed to tell Aeri and Yizhuo.

“They probably all think I’m an idiot now,” you groaned.

He sat up and grinned cheekily. “Is what other people think important to you?”

You rolled your eyes and nudged him, but you didn’t let go of his hand even as you stood up and led him to the door. “Hah, very funny.”

“Hey, you’ve asked me so many difficult questions. I should get to ask you some, too,” he complained, shrugging off his jacket and draping it over your shoulders.

That indescribable soft warmth grew stronger. It reminded you of how your skin felt when you stepped out of a cold room and into the sunlight. You’d missed the feeling of having Kai’s hand in yours so much that it was almost overwhelming, delivering a rush to your head that made you dizzy.

“Well, then, to answer your question: no, it’s not,” you smiled, opening the door.

The party was still thumping along downstairs; with all the chaos going on you could hardly blame anyone for missing your absence. But the second you and Kai reached the halfway point of the staircase, Taehyun spotted you from the backyard through the kitchen door like some kind of superspy, breaking into a knowing smile immediately.

“What’s that like? Must be nice,” Kai joked, although the underlying element of truth was clear in the look in his eyes as he waved to Taehyun. You squeezed his hand and smiled, trying to be comforting, not knowing if you were doing a good job or not. He led you towards the front door, clearly wanting to leave.

“Are you okay?” you asked, feeling the tension in his forearm as you held onto him so you wouldn’t get separated by the crowd. The chaotic chatter of the partygoers around you concealed your words and afforded you both a paradoxical privacy.

“Yeah. You’re here,” he replied, turning around and flashing you a sweet smile — the kind he reserved only for you. The sincerity of it knocked the air from your lungs temporarily.

Once you’d made it out of the packed house, you swiftly found Aeri to let her know you were leaving.

“Hi, uh-” Aeri started, staring at Kai’s name embroidered on the jacket around your shoulders. Her pupils were dilated from the alcohol. “What?”

“I’ll explain tomorrow, I promise,” you said, holding up your pinky finger.

She locked her own around yours with a dramatic eye roll. “God, I can’t wait to hear whatever this story is,” she ribbed, clearly joking, because she gave you a tight hug and told you to get home safe.

——————————

While you were talking to Aeri earlier, Kai had run around to the backyard to tell his own friends he was leaving to take you home. None of them had seemed even remotely surprised at this news. They saved all their questions for the group chat, not that he’d bothered to check his texts since. He’d reply to them later.

He tiptoed into your living room after you and took off his shoes, trying not to disturb your brothers.

“What are you smiling at?” Kai asked, watching you curiously as he locked the front door behind him and turned on the lights.

“Just making sure Daeseong and Daehyun did their chores,” you replied, looking around the room, clearly pleased that they had. The plates were washed, the floor was cleaned, and the curtains were drawn. As far as he could tell, the only thing left for you to do was iron.

Your wood floors were cold under his feet, even through his socks. He stood with his hands in his back pockets and waited for you to speak, but all you did was glance at the ironing and then back at him apologetically.

“I’ll help you,” he offered, never mind that ironing wasn’t exactly a two-person operation. He knew you’d forgiven him, that you were ‘back together’, but he remained on edge. You did too. Standing right beside you as you ironed and he folded clothes, he could almost taste the nervous energy radiating off of you. You two still needed to talk.

“Do you want to spend the night?” you asked. You had never invited him to stay over before.

Inquisitive, he studied your features. “Do you want me to spend the night?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, I will.”

You fell silent. He continued folding, biting his tongue.

“I feel like I should say something, but I don’t know what to say,” you admitted, with your trademark straightforward bend, your eyes locked on Daehyun’s school uniform shirt you were pressing.

“Why did you take me back?” he blurted out, surprised by his own forwardness. He hadn’t quite realised how close to the surface in his mind that question had been bubbling for the last hour until now.

The laundry pile had depleted much faster than he expected it to (you were clearly a better ironer than he was), reduced to just two of your own school uniform shirts. You switched off the iron and set it aside, reaching for his hand. He gave it to you.

“I really like you, Kai,” you began, and as if you could sense his apprehension you immediately added, “the real you, not the one everyone else sees that you keep calling immature or cowardly or whatever you said earlier.”

Yeonjun had mentioned something ages ago: he said he spoke to you after school once and asked you what you liked about Kai. You answered, “everything.” At the time Kai figured you just didn’t know how to respond (because what kind of question was that, right?), which was what he told Yeonjun.

“No, man,” Yeonjun insisted. “I was joking around with them like, ‘Are we talking about the same person?’ And they shrugged and said, ‘He makes it easy.’ They had the corniest, dopiest smile on their face. It was revolting.”

Yeonjun was still reeling from his breakup at the time, clearly.

The way Kai felt now was exactly how he felt back then. It must’ve been more than two months ago. A flippant memory for Yeonjun, perhaps, and you probably didn’t even know Kai knew of the conversation, but Kai never stopped thinking about it.

“You’re kind, you’re caring, you’re selfless. You notice things that no one else does, and you’re always there to make sure I’m okay without ever taking credit. I wish you wouldn’t be so hard on yourself, because you’re my favourite person too,” you continued.

He shook his head, fighting off a smile, holding your hands in his. “I don’t- that’s not true.”

At that, you frowned. “But you are. And you’re wonderful.”

Your eyes were soft but insistent, pulling him in and not letting him look away. He wasn’t used to such frank words. He was used to superlatives and grand titles: the best-looking boy in school, the MVP of the soccer team, one-fifth of the fifteen day kings.

But to be called wonderful was something else. It made him giddy.

“You didn’t tell me about Stackies,” you reminded him. “Most people would have. And you didn’t tell me about Hangil.”

Kai blinked. “How do you know about that?”

“His friends were bitching about it to Aeri,” you answered. “Wasn’t it because of us?”

“Not us, you. He was being inappropriate,” Kai replied, scowling now as he remembered the encounter. “But I didn’t keep it a secret out of some noble selflessness, I just didn’t want you to find out I punched someone.”

It took you all of two seconds to see through his obvious self-deprecating lies. You didn’t dwell on it though, merely letting go of his hand and reaching for the iron to turn it back on. He could almost see you thinking, trying to figure out how best to respond without scaring him off.

Neither one of you spoke while you pressed your last two shirts and he put them neatly on hangers, or while you left to put away the laundry and he helpfully kept the iron and ironing board.

He felt exposed, mortifyingly so. Your words were too kind, the type to make him want to run away. It wasn’t like he hated attention, far from it, but it was just different when it was your attention for some reason.

But when you returned from your room empty-handed and ready to talk, he stayed and listened.

“That’s not why. You know I wouldn’t have been upset by that,” you observed with a playful smile. You never complained about people like Hangil being knocked down a few pegs.

Kai shrugged. “Well, you shouldn’t have to hear stuff like that,” he said simply. You walked right up to him and took his hand again, and it felt like his heart was going to burst. “I know you don’t need me to protect you or anything, but-”

He was almost relieved when you leant forward and kissed him to shut him up, because it was apparent he was incapable of doing so himself. You tasted like your favourite raspberry chapstick, oh so sweet and intoxicating.

“See?” you whispered when you pulled back. “You are selfless.”

——————————

After Kai stubbed his toe on the corner of your kitchen counter and only barely stopped himself from shouting in pain, you decided it’d be better to head up to the roof to talk. If either of your brothers woke up now they’d never go back to bed.

You both put on your jackets and he dragged a blanket up the stairs behind him, ready to brave the night chill until you were tired enough to sleep. Leaning back against the tall parapet, legs tangled together as you sat side-by-side on the floor, Kai rested his head on top of yours with a happy sigh.

“You knew I liked you, right?” you asked, sitting obediently still while he wrapped both of you up in the blanket and tucked you in.

“I think so. I couldn’t understand why, though,” he said, only half-joking.

“What does that mean?” you mumbled, mindlessly opening the suspiciously-old pack of gummy bears Kai had fished out of his jacket pocket earlier. He told you not to eat them, but you didn’t listen. When you offered him one, he refused.

“I remember when you first started waking up earlier to prepare your brothers’ dinner before school so you could stick around until my soccer training ended,” he started, grabbing the pack from your hands to check if the gummy bears were still edible before reluctantly returning it. You sat up, ready to dispute that, but he stopped you.

“Don’t deny it! I could tell because you started answering my messages at six in the morning instead of six-thirty,” he said, grinning smugly when you closed your mouth and relented, lying back down. “And you always brought me snacks after my practice. I knew then, I’m pretty sure, but I didn’t feel like I deserved it.”

The rooftop was small, the view was unimpressive, and the night air was cold and dry, but none of that really mattered to him. What mattered was you, your hand in his, and your head on his shoulder.

“I cannot comprehend why you think you’re so unlovable,” you mused. Your tone was light, but he could tell you were upset from the way your voice pitched up ever so slightly as it always did when you got emotional.

He watched you eat the gummy bears with a lingering mild concern, turning your words over and over in his head.

“I don’t think that exactly,” he answered after a long pause. “I just don’t really know who I am yet.”

The implied ‘how can I think I deserve love if I don’t even know myself?’ went unsaid, hanging in the air between you two like a stubborn fog unwilling to clear. Sometimes it really did feel like everyone else around him was racing ahead in front of him, leaving him in the dust, aimless and confused.

“I don’t know who I am either. Most people don’t, even if they act like they do,” you pointed out sagely. “We don’t need to have everything figured out.”

He smiled and adjusted the collar of your jacket to better shield you from the wind. “How did you get so wise?” he teased, playfully messing up your hair with his free hand. You automatically leaned into his touch when he did, like you’d never fought at all.

“If only my report cards agreed with you,” you laughed, suppressing a yawn and checking your watch. “It’s past midnight. We should go to bed,” you said quietly.

The loss of your warmth as you stood up and walked over to the rooftop door almost made him whine. He dragged himself to his feet, more tired than he would’ve liked to admit, until a realisation hit him.

“Wait,” he called, chasing after you. You turned around, looking so cute in your massive teddy jacket.

“What-”

Kai put one hand on your waist and the other on your jaw, tilting your head up so he could kiss you. He felt no surprise, no hesitation, no tension in your body as he did, even though he’d caught you off guard. Your lips were tinged with the artificial sweetness of the probably-expired gummy bears you’d been eating, soft and plush as they moved against his.

He had been craving this for so long — to feel your waist in his hands and your fingers in his hair, to be as physically close to you as the laws of nature would allow. A real, proper kiss, one where everything else in the world fell away and he could think of nothing but you.

He was forced to pull away by his pesky need for oxygen, feeling the urge to kiss you again the second he did. You looked up at him, slightly confused but mostly blissful, the sort of dazed contentment one felt after waking up and realising a loved one had covered them with a blanket while they were sleeping.

“What was that for?” you whispered, your cold fingers wrapping naturally around his forearms to hold him closer. Like it was magnetic, both of you were drawn to each other.

He beamed, pointed to your watch, and kissed your forehead one last time. “Happy 100 day anniversary.”

——————————

thanks for reading!

-minastras <3