Blind Sided By A Feeling Hes Never Known Trope (Part 1)

“Blind sided by a feeling he’s never known” trope 🤭 (Part 1)

♡ Reblogging from my shadow-reader days ♡

i. stupid cupid

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words: 4.3k

warnings: swearing, underage drinking

——————————

Kai sat at the cafeteria table with his head in his hands, sulking.

“Now you’re the only one out of the five of us who’s never been in a relationship,” Taehyun noted, pointing out the obvious. Beomgyu grinned, proudly showing off his new lockscreen.

“Yeonjun’s single, too,” Kai protested.

“But he just got dumped, and it was serious. He really loved her,” Soobin said.

Yeonjun smiled with gritted teeth. “Thanks, Soobin. I definitely needed to be reminded of that.”

“It’s kind of nice having a real connection with someone instead of hopping from fling to fling,” Beomgyu said wistfully.

“Are you kidding me right now?” Kai said, monotone.

“Yeah, Kai could never do that,” Yeonjun joked. “He’s the original fifteen-day king. He can’t settle down.”

Kai pursed his lips. Maybe it was time for him to grow up.

——————————

He would never admit it, but his friends all being taken (or recently un-taken) affected Kai much more than he thought it would. He had never expected the day to come, not least of all this soon.

Gone was the era of the fifteen-day kings, the group of boys who could walk into a party and each get any person they wanted. No, now Soobin, Beomgyu, and Taehyun were boringly tied down to their partners, and Yeonjun was too mopey to join Kai on his flirting escapades.

In his mind he told himself he was young and just wanted to have fun, and that was easy to do when basically anyone would jump at the chance to be with him, even if only for fifteen days. But as the months went by, a larger and larger part of him feared that he was just using ‘free-spiritedness’ as an excuse for cowardice and emotional immaturity.

Did he fool around because he was popular and liked the excitement? Or because he was scared of responsibility and getting close to anyone?

That rumination turned itself over and over in his head when he saw you standing at your locker after school one day, fighting for your life to try and get it open. Although you ran in the same circles, he didn’t know you too well. He thought you were hot and flirted with you on occasion, but that was it.

“Need some help?”

You smiled when you saw him. “Yes, please.”

Kai liked that you didn’t get all shy and flustered when he talked to you the way some of the other students did. Why would you? You were just as attractive and popular as he was.

He saw you at parties pretty frequently and you were friends with many of the same people, but within your network you were one of the less prominent ones. Not because you were less well liked or less good-looking, but because you were tamer, more sensible, and more grounded. Kind of like him, he supposed.

He placed a hand on the small of your back and moved you aside with a cocky smirk. Grabbing your locker door, he braced against it with his shoulder and yanked it open on the first try.

“Thank you, Kai,” you smiled, checking the rust on the hinges of your locker door.

He winked. “Anything for you, Y/N.”

“Will you be at Aeri’s party on Friday?” you asked, leaning back against the closed locker next to yours and looking up at him, waiting.

Kai quickly got the hint and rested one hand on the locker right by your head, caging you in on your left. You always responded so well to his joking advances, which was something else he liked about you. You didn’t take anything he did too seriously, knowing he did everything in good fun.

“I will,” he confirmed, pausing only for a couple of seconds before adding, “I’ll be looking for you. I want to ask you for a favour.”

He didn’t realise he’d been subconsciously leaning in until his nose bumped up against yours. He was so close to you that he could see the outlines of your irises. There weren’t many people who could be pinned to a locker by him with his face so close to theirs without blushing or squealing, but you were one of the talented few.

“Can't you just ask me now?” you pressed, bristling at his vagueness. Your lips were plump and pink.

“I would, but I think someone’s waiting for you, and they seem a little impatient,” he informed you with an innocent grin, nodding down the corridor.

Standing a couple of metres away was Park Jongseong, another popular kid, watching everything unfold with annoyance written all over his face. According to the school rumour mill, he was your latest romantic link. You’d been seen with each other at his recent house party.

Kai backed away. The slits in the locker door had left parallel indentations on his palm. He traced your jaw with his index finger, preening at how naturally you lifted your head for him as he did.

“I think you may be right,” you sighed.

“Patience, baby,” he teased with a boyish smile. “I’ll catch you on Friday.”

——————————

You surveyed the amount of alcohol Aeri had stockpiled in her kitchen with a disapproving eye. As was tradition, you and your other friend Yizhuo were the first to arrive on Friday to help her set up.

“Don’t you think this is somewhat excessive?” you asked, preaching to a brick wall because Yizhuo was already tipsy, Aeri was careening towards the same destination, and the first guests had only just started to arrive.

While they were distracted, you removed half of the hard liquor and hid it in an empty cabinet. Aeri had hung a small whiteboard on the handle of the kitchen door that read, ‘drink responsibly :)’, like that was going to do anything. You shook your head and put some extra pitchers of water out on the counter.

Once the sun had set, Aeri’s house began to fill up rapidly. She and Yizhuo were sitting on the floor of her living room in a circle with eight other people playing some sort of kissing game. They invited you to join, but you declined. Those types of things had never interested you. Besides, you were waiting for Kai to show up.

You weren’t sure exactly why you kept thinking about him. Fine, you’d had a crush on him two years ago, but you had crushes on people all the time and you’d long since moved on from him. In the circles you moved in it wasn’t even puppy love; it was cycles of infatuation. Everyone was constantly flirting and hooking up with one another; it was hard not to get caught up in it every now and then.

But there you were, refusing advance after advance from your countless suitors, faithfully waiting for Kai. Eventually your head started to hurt from the pounding bass of Aeri’s expensive surround-sound system and you retreated upstairs.

The doors on the second floor were all locked with fancy electronic locks, but you had the password to the guest room. You keyed it in, slipped inside, and escaped to the balcony.

Normally you’d be downstairs joining in the fun (and more likely than not making sure people were drinking responsibly) but you had to admit that the peace and quiet was equally enjoyable in a different way.

An hour passed before you heard a familiar voice behind you.

“I was looking everywhere for you.”

It was Kai. You had accidentally left the door unlocked.

“What are you doing out here?” He closed the door behind him and joined you on the balcony, leaning against the railing like you were doing. He was wearing a black button up over a white t-shirt and black jeans, as effortlessly good-looking as he always was. His black hair, no longer styled neatly for school, was messy and tousled in the best way.

“I have a headache,” you told him, which had been true an hour ago, but you were fine now. “What about you? Why aren’t you downstairs?” you asked. You still had no urge to return to your friends even though they were blowing up your phone.

He shrugged. “Not in the mood to drink tonight.”

Your friends sometimes called Kai his friend group’s version of you — less wild, more sensible, more innocent, albeit more childishly chaotic at times. He kept them in check, or tried to, because they didn’t listen to him much.

“It’s nice to get you alone for once. It doesn’t happen very often.”

“I could say the same for you,” you replied, casually picking a piece of lint off of his collar. “Where were we on Tuesday?”

He smirked with a cool confidence that would probably have come off as sleazy if he wasn’t so charming, turning around to face you. He rested both of his hands on the railing on either side of you, again caging you in, bringing his face close to yours.

“I believe we were here,” he whispered, “and I was about to ask you something.”

Strangely, your heart jumped. You weren’t the type of person to get nervous at such gestures; in fact, you were known for being unflappable in situations like this. He didn’t give you any time to think too hard about the uneasiness in your chest, though, because the next thing out of his mouth wiped your mind completely clean.

“Can we pretend to date?”

“What?”

His phone went off but he ignored it, laughing at the ridiculousness of a scenario of his own creation. His smile when he wasn’t trying to be flirtatious or seductive was sweet and pure. You wished he smiled like that more, because he looked cute when he did.

“Okay, hear me out,” he began, already giggling before he’d even said anything. “Beomgyu just got into a relationship, and I’m the only person in our group who hasn’t been in one yet.”

“Are they giving you shit for it?” you asked, confused, because his friends didn’t seem like the sort of people to do that. Sure, they were massive flirts, but they were also nice people. You’d never heard anyone say anything that negative about them, including Kai.

Especially Kai. He was the least playboy-ish of them all, not so much a chronic heartbreaker as he was just a good-looking guy who liked the attention but could never get past the initial stages of infatuation.

Not that you spent a lot of time thinking about him or anything.

He sighed. “Not exactly, but according to them I’m too much of a flirt to settle down.”

Your lips quirked up into a smile. “Are you?”

That mustn’t have been what he was expecting to hear, because his eyebrows flicked upwards in surprise. “I- I feel like they see me as immature. They think I’m- I don’t know- scared of commitment or something,” he answered, hesitant.

Just like you weren’t normally the type to get nervous, Kai wasn’t normally the type to hesitate. But here he was, unsure, for once not entirely confident in what he was saying.

“Is what other people think important to you?” you continued, looking up at him.

He smiled again, one of his rare real ones. “Why do you ask such hard questions?”

You laughed. “I’m just trying to understand your motivations, as one is apt to do when an acquaintance of theirs asks them to pretend to date them,” you teased.

“Acquaintances? I thought we were friends,” he pouted in mock-hurt, leaning in and glancing down at your lips. “Although I guess not many people would see this as purely friendly,” he added, lowering his voice and gesturing to the small space between you.

You ignored the slight spark of excitement in your heart when he said that, holding up two fingers. “I have two more questions. They’re easier, I promise,” you said. “First, what’s in it for me?”

He touched your jaw lightly. He seemed to like doing that. “You get to be with the best-looking guy in school. I’ll take you on fake dates anywhere you want. And I have a movie projector system in my basement.”

That last point made you laugh again. “I have to admit, those are enticing perks,” you said, playing along. “Second, why did you ask me?”

“I like you,” he answered simply. You shook your head and turned away, because you knew he didn’t mean it. “So, what do you think? Can I be your fake boyfriend?”

Against your best judgement, you nodded.

“I promise I’ll make it worth your while,” he said, his voice low.

You poked his chest playfully. “I’ll hold you to that, fifteen day king.”

More than an hour and a half had passed by the time you returned to the party, but your friends were still playing that stupid kissing game. Yizhuo was the first to see you and Kai walking down the stairs together, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively at you. You hurriedly ushered him towards the kitchen, hoping to disappear before anyone else noticed, but Aeri spotted you.

“Y/N!” she screamed, piercingly loud and very drunk. She was lucky it was her house. “Where were you? We were waiting,” she whined, dragging out the word ‘waiting’.

“Especially this guy,” Yizhuo shouted, equally as loud and drunk, gesturing to Jongseong sitting beside her. “He kept asking us where you went. He wants to make out with you.”

You stifled a laugh at her obliviousness to the boy’s embarrassment — he was beet red and avoiding your gaze like looking at you would turn him to stone.

“I’ll join you in a bit!” you called out across the living room, noncommittal, barely audible over the blaring music.

Jongseong started to stand up like he wanted to follow you to the kitchen, but he quickly backtracked when Kai slipped an arm around your waist and pulled you into his side. You turned to him in surprise.

Kai tapped his fingers on your hip and smirked. “Shall we start?”

——————————

After school the next Monday, the same day Kai surprise-debuted your relationship on his Instagram, you were standing at Yizhuo’s locker with her and Aeri. While you waited for her to find her phone charger, someone grabbed you by the waist from behind and rested their head on your shoulder.

“Hello,” Kai said against the shell of your ear. “I missed you.”

You despised the way your heart raced at that — you knew it wasn’t real — but you swore it was solely because he was so good-looking and nothing else. Yes, you would feel that way if any other good-looking person touched you like that and said those words against the shell of your ear.

You turned your head to kiss his cheek. “Hi.”

“Sorry to steal your lovely friend away from you,” he said to Aeri and Yizhuo, releasing your waist from his grasp and taking your hand instead. “But we’re walking home together today.”

“We are?” you asked. Kai rather conspicuously kicked in the back of your knee, like kids do to trip each other over. You issued a hasty correction, “Oh, yeah, we are.”

As soon as you were out of earshot, he let go of your hand and burst into laughter, throwing his head back. It was yet another glimpse of his true self, without rehearsed displays of confidence or calculated movements crafted specifically to entice.

“You know, I thought I was going to be the unconvincing one, but you might be worse than me,” he said in between giggles. “Have your friends been won over?”

Your hand felt empty, but you ignored it. “Apparently the Instagram post was enough for them,” you answered, waiting for a beat before adding, “it would’ve been nice to have a heads up, though.”

He tapped his temple with a knowing grin. “No paper trail. Speaking of which, can I come over?”

Your grip on your school file tightened. “For what?”

“Well, we should probably get to know each other if we’re going to pull this off,” he said, and he had a point. Honestly, neither of you had really thought through your plan (or lack thereof) since Friday.

You’d reached the school gates. “Right.”

“Do you not want me to come over?” he frowned, given pause by your unenthused response. The only people you’d ever invited to your house were Aeri and Yizhuo, and even then, you’d only done so after knowing them for four whole years. “Actually, now that I think about it, you’ve never held a party at your place.”

Most of the kids you were friends with lived on the north side of the city in the spacious suburbs — home to brand new mansions with surround sound systems, electronic door locks, and perfectly manicured backyards.

In fact, of all of the ‘popular’ students, you were the only one who didn’t. You lived in the west where all the old apartments were, and your two best friends were the only ones who knew that. As Kai astutely observed, you were always at other people’s houses for parties, but you were never the host of your own.

He was already walking north towards the train station. See, everyone always assumed you lived in the suburbs too. You grabbed the sleeve of his school blazer, pulled him towards the intersection, and pushed the traffic light button in answer.

“Where are we going?” he asked, confused. You weren’t sure exactly why you were willing to show him where you lived without first befriending him and making him wait for four years. On some intrinsic level, not having realised it yet, you must’ve trusted him.

You put your hands in your pockets and took a deep breath. “To my house.”

——————————

Kai was largely silent as he followed you, too busy taking in the sights of the unfamiliar streets and buildings to talk. Funnily, although he’d grown up in this city and lived a mere twenty minutes away, he’d never once walked through this area. He liked it.

“I’m jealous. You get to walk to school,” he said, looking around. You didn’t respond. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Your voice was flat, quiet, and so unlike your usually chipper self. You stopped walking so suddenly that he bumped into you on the narrow pavement, and gestured to the short three-storey building in front of you. “Here we are.”

It was old and run-down, with overgrown green vines invading its facade and a massive padlock on the damaged front door holding it shut.

“I like it,” he declared, smiling at the small yellow flowers sprouting from the ancient vines sprawled across the grey cement walls. You pretended to be preoccupied with fishing your keys out of your bag.

He wasn’t really the sort of person to keep speaking just because the other party refused to, but now he had the urge to fill the silence. Maybe it was down to him being unaccustomed to seeing you without a smile on your face for so long.

“I like this whole street,” he continued, feeling strangely compelled to get a response out of you. “It’s got so much more personality than where I live.”

Although it didn’t reach your eyes, you smiled. “That’s nice of you to say,” you said, but he could tell it was insincere.

The way you were glancing around at your surroundings told him you were picturing the northern suburbs where he and all your friends lived — comparing your apartment building to their stand-alone mansions, the weeds colonising your cracked pavements to their pristinely landscaped lawns, and the heavy rusted chains on your neighbours’ doors to their automated alarm systems. Maybe you were even thinking about the movie projector system in his house that he’d promised you. He shut up.

You gingerly eased the main door open — it was nearly falling off of its hinges — and led Kai up the narrow coiled staircase to the second floor, letting him into your apartment. Again, he kept his mouth shut as you brought him into your room.

“Make yourself comfortable. I’ll go get you a drink,” you said, excusing yourself.

He sat down at the foot of your bed (he would’ve sat at your desk, but you didn’t have one) and studied your room. It was small, big enough for your bed, a small dresser, and not much else. Like the rest of your house, it was small and modest, but clean and uncluttered.

In lieu of a headboard, you had pictures of you and your friends taped to the wall above your bed. Most were polaroids complete with Sharpie captions, and others were strips of photos from mall photo booths. Interspersed between them were ticket stubs, receipts, and long handwritten birthday letters from your two best friends.

One photograph in particular caught his eye: it was of all three of you in your room, on the very bed he was sitting on, making a scrapbook together. You had your arms wrapped around Aeri, Yizhuo’s head on your shoulder, and a massive smile on your face.

In it, your hair was unstyled. You were wearing glasses, no jewellery, and a loose grey sweatshirt. It was completely antithetical to how he always saw you in school or at parties — so impeccably put together with contacts in, your hair done to perfection, and carefully chosen accessories to match your well-planned outfits. He liked you better without all that faff, he decided.

You returned with two sodas in your hands and shut the door behind you with your foot.

“This is cute,” he complimented, pointing to your wall collage. “I’ve been meaning to put up something similar in my room for ages.”

Finally, you gave him a genuine smile. “Thanks, Kai.”

It seemed like you were about to join him on your bed, but you changed your mind and sat on the floor instead. “So, the plan,” you started, already back to your old self, “What did your friends say?”

“They’re not buying it,” he complained. “They asked me what I was trying to prove when I posted that picture of you. Beomgyu’s already started his fifteen-day countdown.”

You covered your mouth with your hand and laughed. “To be fair to them, we didn’t interact at all in school today,” you said.

Kai hummed. You were right.

“What should we do, then? We could walk to school together, I guess. I can meet you at the intersection after I get off the train,” he suggested, knowing it was a pathetic excuse for an idea even before he said it. You told him to wait while you got out your notebook and a pen.

If you’d been anyone else, he would’ve taken you by the waist and pulled you onto the bed with him, but for some reason he didn’t feel like flirting with you. Not right then, anyway. His head was curiously still occupied by the thought of you in that picture on the wall behind him.

He wanted to see that side of you, more of it. The side of you who asked him difficult probing questions about his inner psyche. The side of you who let him come over to your house and see your room. The side of you who carefully arranged photos and memorabilia on your wall, away from the chaos of loud parties or your popular friends.

“Kai. Kai!” you called, tapping your pen against his knee, looking up at him questioningly from your spot on the floor. He snapped out of it. “What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing,” he lied, unconvincing. “Sorry, I didn’t hear what you said.”

You clipped the end of your pen between your teeth with a breathy laugh, drawing his attention straight to your lips. This was your public self, complete with an enigmatic gaze and a flirty upward tilt of the corners of your mouth. Perhaps he did want to pull you into his lap.

“I said we should have lunch together, and maybe pretend to hang out after school a couple of days a week,” you repeated.

“Sounds good,” he agreed, but you were still looking at him inquisitively, like you could tell he was off. He patted the spot on your bed next to him like it was his own and said, “Come here.”

Together, sitting side by side on your bed, you worked out your schedules down to the hour, meticulously planning when you would see each other and which friends would be around to witness your interactions.

“What do you think will convince your friends? You know them better,” you asked.

Kai shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. Maybe we need to, like, make out in front of them or something,” he said, only half-joking. He’d never spent this much time in someone else’s room, let alone on someone else’s bed, without touching them even once. He wanted to.

You laughed again. “Yeah, maybe.”

Turning to you, he placed his hand on your knee and leaned in. “Shall we practise?”

He hadn’t expected you to clam up at that, but you did. You were one of the most popular kids in school, constantly connected to one love interest or the other, always seen flirting with and surrounded by others. All the people in your social circle, including him and his friends, got around. Surely, you did too.

“Maybe some other time,” you said casually, putting your own hand over his. But he had noticed, no matter how swiftly you recovered or how much you tried to hide it. “My brothers are coming home soon. I need to get dinner ready for them.”

He didn’t even know you had brothers. He was realising that, despite how talkative and open and outgoing you acted, you rarely shared anything about yourself. In fact, the more time he spent with you, the less he felt like he knew you.

——————————

thanks for reading!

-minastras <3

Still one of my favourite mini series yet. The awkward hockey captain that is weak against flirty-innuendos 😂 (part 1)

*I would think of this every now and then, cause of the first chapter LOL*

let’s break the ice | m.l | one

🏒  SYNOPSIS— in which you’re attending your college team’s hockey practice with your best friend and embarrassment ensues.  🏒 GENRE— fluff, humor, crack, college!au, hockey!au 🏒 PAIRING— hockey captain!mark lee x reader 🏒 WORD COUNT— 1.4k 🏒 WARNINGS— sexual innuendos made! 

🏒 AUTHOR’S NOTE—i would like to thank whitney for tweeting the inspiration for this fic and my chaotic ass group chat for all the ideas. i also know nothing about hockey. (read through it twice to edit but i might’ve missed some errors!)

(11/27/2020: edit! surprise! it’s now a mini-series!)

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Keep reading

woodlands nymph JiHan, the mischievous and sweet duo combo 💕🧚🏼‍♂️✨ let’s be real though, i would faint too if that happened to me 😭

. ˚ lost in this green (and in your eyes)

pairing: wood nymph!joshua x gn!reader

genre: fluff, magic realism, meet cute, besties!97z

word count: 2371

warnings: brief mentions of fainting

notes: i just. i just love wood nymph!shua a lot okay pls he'd fit the concept so devastatingly well

summary: you're lost in the forest, and it's terrible and terrifying and you're all alone but then... well, you meet someone, and suddenly you find yourself wondering if fairytales and myths really are just tales.

"Lee Seokmin, you are so dead."

You turn around in a circle, looking around for any recognisable objects around you, desperately trying to find a way out. When you see none that could possibly mark out this section of the forest as different to where you’ve been traipsing through earlier, you sigh, frustrated. 

This was all Seokmin's fault. Okay, maybe not entirely his fault, but it was all his stupid dare to get you to fetch him a squirrel from the woods (what sort of dare was that, anyway?) and now… Well, now you're lost. 

It had all started when Mingyu had abruptly announced that you should go on an outing for fun, and then Minghao, being Minghao, had insisted that all four of you take a trip into the countryside for the outing, smack-dab in the middle of nowhere for a 'healing day out' in a field surrounded by trees. It had been fun, for all of one hour before you'd devolved into a game of truth or dare that had ultimately led you to venture into the surrounding trees to go catch a squirrel for Lee Seokmin. 

Oh, that guy really is so dead if you manage to make it out.

"Seokmin? Mingyu? Can anyone hear me?"

The wind rustles the leaves in reply, almost mocking, and distantly there's the sound of some insect creaking. Everything around you is green and brown, and even when you look up, the blue sky and bright sun is covered by the dense foliage. This is a little bit terrible. 

Sighing, you continue on your trek through the woods. Not being the best with directions, you'd kind of lost where you were going about 5 minutes into the forest, and so you have no idea if you're heading back to the field or if you're going in an entirely different direction. You just hope you're not walking around in circles, because that would—

You pause in your tracks. For a moment, there’s only the sound of a pigeon cooing somewhere, but you listen harder, certain that it was a distinctive voice that you heard. And then, there it is again, louder, and you’re sure of it. There's a voice, calling for you, and it sounds a lot like Minghao. 

“Minghao!” Immediately, you’re scrambling towards the noise, running along the soft forest floor, accidentally kicking bushes and almost tripping over tree roots. “Minghao, oh my god, what took you guys so long?”

But abruptly, Minghao stops yelling for you, and the forest is silent again. The trees are tall, looming, now, and you kind of wish it was Mingyu’s stupid height looming over you rather than these dark, unresponsive trees. 

You wait, for several moments, straining to hear Minghao’s voice again. But when he calls, it’s in a completely different direction, so you curse to yourself and start running off again.

You’re deeper into the woods now, you’re sure of it, because the trees are denser and there’s less light and the sound of animals and insects have disappeared. The air is still as you run through the forest, still following the faint sound of Minghao’s voice, and when you stop, it’s as if the entire world is silent, with not even the trees making a breath of noise. 

Minghao’s voice disappears, yet again, and now you’re worried that your brain is playing tricks on you. The bushes you brush against are getting thornier, bigger, difficult to get past, and the trees look like they’ve enlarged and now seem to try and slap you across the face with their rough branches. 

You’re well and truly lost now. Minghao’s voice doesn’t sound again, and you turn around aimlessly in circles, hoping that somehow, you’ll magically find an exit. 

But then. In the eerie stillness of the forest, any sound and movement echoes through the trees, and you hear a branch snap to your left.

“Hello?” you call out, hoping it’s just Minghao or one of the others behind the bushes, waiting to jump out at you. “Who is it?”

There’s silence.

And then a bush rustles to your right.

You whip your head around. “Come on, stop playing. Just show yourself, I know you’re there.”

There’s a good chance, you know, that it’s just a woodland creature or something, but everything in this part of the woods seems so dead and dark that part of you is sure that it has to be a person rather than an animal.

Slowly, gingerly, you creep towards the bush. It rustles again, and you flinch, but then the distinct sound of Minghao’s giggles comes from the bush and you move forwards, and just as you’re peering over…

“Boo!”

A person jumps out at you, yelling in Minghao’s voice. His hair is long, his eyes are large, and he looks like he has little stars around his doe eyes and he’s smiling widely, wickedly, delighted.

You scream, and he laughs with Minghao’s laugh, and the last thing you see are his eyes suddenly widening in horror as the world fades to black and you fall to the floor.

All you can think is, ‘That wasn’t Minghao’.

————————————— 🌿

When you regain consciousness again, there’s a man leaning over you. His eyes are large and he has little stars around his doe eyes, too, and for a moment you’re sure that it was the person who had scared you who was now going to try and kidnap you.

You yelp, attempting to scramble away, but the man just shushes you, gently and firmly placing hands on your shoulders to keep you against the tree you’re propped up on.

“I’m sorry,” he says, chuckling a little. “Jeonghan is a bit of a menace, but he means well. He just loves imitating voices, and he didn’t intend to take the joke that far. He meant you no harm, truly.”

The man’s hands are now on your face, brushing your cheeks softly, making soft sounds to calm down your racing heart. Now that you’re properly looking at him, the man focused on dislodging a leaf that fell on your shoulder, you can see he’s not the same man as earlier. Not Jeonghan, or whatever this man had called him. But you stiffen up, still, unsure if you can trust him.

He looks up at you then, warm eyes meeting yours. His eyes are constantly turned up at the corners, you notice faintly. He looks like a baby deer.

“I won’t hurt you,” the man says. “I promise. No one here wants to hurt you.” He pauses. “At least, not intentionally.”

Well. That doesn’t exactly make you feel reassured.

“Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” He smiles again, and you realise that even his mouth is constantly turned up at the corners. 

He’s so pretty.

“Let me try again. I’m Joshua,” pretty man says, and he sits back a little to hold out his hand. “And I noticed that you’re a little lost here. I was wondering if I could maybe help lead you out?”

You look down at the hand, surprised to find yourself endeared by the action as you reach out to shake it. His hand is warm, too, as warm as his eyes, rough and soft in yours at the same time. Your heart is still racing when you release his hand, but now it’s for an entirely different reason.

“Y/N,” you reply, deciding that, at this point, you’re not sure you have anything to lose by following this pretty man. At least, if you die, you’ll die by the hands of a gorgeous stranger. “And I think any help would be much appreciated.”

Joshua smiles again, and takes your hand to pull you upright, swiftly walking off, hand still clasped with yours.

The woods are still silent, but it no longer feels as if every sound has been suffocated—rather, it’s a peaceful silence, and maybe it’s brought on by the peace you feel with a warm hand firmly holding yours, and a presence beside you that’s quiet and gentle and relaxing.

He’s silent the entire way, walking with you through trees as if he’s following an invisible path, pushing away branches for you and gently guiding you to one side to avoid tripping on roots. You can’t help but glance at him, often, because he’s so pretty and so calm and, in turn, it makes you feel calm too.

There are flowers weaved into his hair and they wave gently in the wind that has managed to come to life again. The forest feels lighter now, less terrifying, and birds now seem to chirp cheerfully in the trees above you.

One bird comes and lands on Joshua’s shoulder as you walk and you startle in surprise, but the man doesn’t even bat an eye, smiling down at it in greeting.

“Well, hello there,” he says. “What do you want now, you little rascal?”

Joshua’s tone is fond, affectionate, and when the bird chirrups, he laughs. 

“Yes, this person is very pretty, isn’t it?” he chuckles, and it makes you blush slightly. Nevermind the fact that he’s talking to a bird. “But unfortunately, they’re not here to stay. We need to lead them out.”

The bird trills, but Joshua just laughs again, and then it flies off.

You watch it go, curiously, and then look at Joshua, who seems completely unfazed by what would have been, to any other normal person, an incredibly weird exchange.

The stars around his eyes glitter as he turns to look at you. They don’t look like stick-on gemstones or even glitter patches, but look as if they’re embedded in his skin. As if the stars are part of him.

“What brought you here to my humble forest?” he asks, and you blink a little at the strange phrasing of his sentence. 

“Oh. I was… trying to catch a squirrel. For my friend.” It sounds ridiculous, when you say it aloud, but it manages to make Joshua laugh, sweet and beautiful and melodic, and you can’t help but smile.

He tilts his head, amused, and now his eyes are sparkling too. “A squirrel? Well, I think you may have failed at that. Unfortunately.”

You shake your head. “This is all Seokmin’s fault. He knows I’m bad with directions, and yet he sent me off into the forest. Alone.”

Joshua’s hand tightens around yours, secure. “Don’t worry. You’re not alone anymore.” He nudges his shoulder against yours, and the sun is now peeking through the leaves, casting a dappled golden shine over his face. “I’m here now.”

That makes you duck your head, shyly, awed by his beauty.

It takes a few more minutes, but eventually, the trees thin and you can see a road ahead of you, a road that looks awfully like the one that Minghao had driven down hours ago to get you to the field.

“Ah, it seems that we’re here,” Joshua says, and he lets go of your hand. When you look back at him, confused, he smiles a little sadly. “This is as far as I can take you. It’s too polluted there for me, and I can’t leave my home.”

“Your home?” you repeat, but he’s stepping forward again, and then leans in to press the lightest kiss on your cheek. It makes heat rush into your face, blushing at the sudden action, but he’s already stepping away before you can react.

“Goodbye, Y/N, and I hope you manage to get home safely.” He grins, lips turning up at the corners a little mischievously. “Hopefully you manage to catch a squirrel someday.”

You blink, startled, because suddenly he’s leaving even though he’d been by your side for so long. “Wait,” you call out, “what are you?”

Joshua laughs, and he’s already begun to fade back into the trees, the stars sparkling around his eyes. “Wasn’t it obvious?” he says.

“I’m a nymph.”

And then he’s gone, melted back into the forest, and you’re standing there alone, straining to see where he went, wanting to know what he meant, wanting to know whether he really was a mystical nymph that you only read about in legends.

You stand there at the edge of the forest for a lot longer, and are about to walk back into the trees again when there’s the sound of a car driving down the road, and someone honks the car horn loudly, making you jump and turn around.

Mingyu has rolled down the window of the passenger seat, practically half falling out of the car.

“You!” he yells. “We’ve been looking for you for ages! Why weren’t you answering your phone?”

And instantly, the memories of before you’d found Joshua come flooding back, and you run towards the car, yelling at Mingyu.

“There’s no service in a forest, idiot!” You open the car door and get in, only to be tackled by Seokmin, who’s sitting in the back seat beside you.

He sobs dramatically, wrapping his arms tight around you. “Why did you disappear like that! We thought you were dead!”

“No, I wasn’t dead, why—hey.” You frown down at him from where he’s buried his head into your shoulder. “It was you. You sent me into the forest to get you a stupid squirrel!” 

Mingyu laughs at that, looking back at you as Minghao drives off again. “Yeah, Seokmin, you sent Y/N in there.”

Seokmin’s eyes go wide as you wrestle out of his arms to shake his shoulders. “I’m going to kill you! This is all your fault!”

“What—! Hey, we found you in the end, didn’t we? Minghao! Help!”

“Hey hey, no killing in my car,” Minghao interrupts sternly, and he sounds genuinely serious, so you settle down. Not before balling your fist and shaking it at Seokmin, though. This guy really is dead once you get out of the car.

Minghao looks at you in the rearview mirror, eyes glittering amusedly. “How did you even manage to get out? You have literally no sense of direction.”

You don't even register the teasing, eyes going distant as you recall stars around eyes and flowers weaved in hair. You smile, feeling your face warm up, leaning back against the headrest.

“I found a nymph.”

fics tags: @jeonginssa ,, @weird-bookworm ,, @minhui896 ,, @bunnyiix ,, @slytherinshua ,, @haowrld ,, @belladaises ,, @moonlitskiiies ,, @cinnamoroxie ,, @butiluvu ,, @wonranghaeee ,, @zozojella ,, @kawennote09 ,, @thedensworld ,, @a-wandering-stay ,, @abibliolife ,, @doublasting

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.

Hannie is the cutest fisherman thusfar 😂

❖ take care of me anyway // yoon jeonghan

jeonghan x gn!reader, 1.7k+ words

tags: office worker!jeonghan not rlly relevant to the plot tho, sick fic, fluff, established relationship

warnings: brief fever-induced hallucinations ig?? but theyre rlly cute, pet names, reader has a cold

notes: im sick. like, 'i have a cold' sick. and i also have another sick fic planned so uhh yeah im a little Unwell in the head too

There are ten minutes left of Jeonghan’s lunch break when you finally call him.

“Hello, my darling,” he says, his tone both parts dry and amused. “How are you?”

“Sick,” you reply, and even just that word sounds horribly bunged up. “But you knew that already, didn’t you? You called in sick for me.”

Jeonghan just hums, smiling a little as he adjusts the phone against his ear, walking down the street back to his company building. “Maybe I did.”

You don’t say anything for a moment, and he can almost hear you pouting on the other end of the line. There’s a rustling sound as you adjust yourself in bed, and he sighs.

“How sick are you?”

“Very,” you say, miserably, and then give a series of harsh, wet coughs that has him wincing. “Very sick. I only just woke up, but my head is just…” You don’t finish your sentence. Just make a very pained sound like a wounded puppy.

Jeonghan chuckles. “Gee, I wonder how you managed to get so sick. It’s not like walking home in the pouring rain without a coat makes you ill, isn’t it?”

You whine at that, upset. “Han, I told you, I was gonna call you but my phone was dead. I had no choice! Wanted to get home fast to see you,” you add in a mumble, sounding dejected.

He smiles at that. “It wasn’t like I was going anywhere, though,” he points out. “I was all comfortably squished on the couch. I wasn’t gonna disappear any time soon. You could’ve taken your time. Waited for the rain to pass.”

“Yeah, but still,” you huff petulantly, then sniff. “Can you make soup when you get back home?” you ask after a beat, and sniffle again. “And also buy some tissues? And meds? And give me cuddles?”

Jeonghan chuckles at how pitiful you sound, resisting the urge to coo. “No.”

“What?” You’re whining again, and you sound all bunged up but Jeonghan just smiles, amused. “But your darling Y/N is currently suffering the worst cold in the entire world.”

“But alas, I think my darling Y/N is the sole person to blame for this cold,” Jeonghan says, lips twitching upwards. “Don't you think so?”

“Come take care of me anyway.”

“No.”

You make a noise of discontent, sheets rustling as you shift around in bed again. “Hmph. Worst boyfriend ever. I’m breaking up with you.”

That makes him laugh, the stunned sound being pulled out of him by your deadpan tone, and he grins to himself out on the street, rounding the corner until his company building is in sight. “Whatever you say,” he singsongs. “I’ll see later, okay?”

“Whatever. Bye.” A pause. “Have a nice day.”

Jeonghan smiles as you hang up, looking fondly down at your contact name. He’s standing in front of the company entrance, now, and he has three minutes of his break left. Just enough time to get into the elevator and up to his office.

He pockets his phone, turns on his heel and traipses off to find the nearest pharmacy.

───────────── 🧂

You’ve been drifting in and out of sleep the entire day, constantly stuck in that drowsy, so-sick-that-nothing-feels-real state, and you’ve hallucinated Jeonghan coming home a total of thirteen times in the past five hours.

At least, you think it’s been five hours.

Maybe it’s been less than that.

Whatever. Time is weird.

The point is, your mind is all fuzzy and everything feels like it’s floating, so when someone who looks an awful lot like Jeonghan comes into the room, you just groan. Hallucination Jeonghan #14 has come to pay you a visit, it seems, so you just frown and give him the response that you’ve given all his other clones.

“Go away. Stop trying to sell me fish.”

Hallucination Jeonghan #14 makes a confused noise at that, walking closer to your bed, leaning over to adjust your pillows and pull you up into a more upright position.

“I don’t want your fish,” you say, just in case he didn’t hear you the first time. “Stop it.”

That makes the hallucination chuckle, and his hand comes up to your forehead. 

Cold. Huh. None of the other hallucinations touched you before.

His hand drops from your forehead, swiping at the soft skin under your eyes gently, and his fingers are blessedly cool against your skin. You hadn’t realised how much you were burning up before.

“You’re really, really sick,” Hallucination Jeonghan #14 murmurs, and he sounds so concerned, before pulling out a bottle of water from one of the plastic bags he’s holding. Woah, you hadn’t even realised he was holding them. “Here, darling. Drink.”

You obediently take a sip once he uncaps the lid for you, before making small noises of distress when some of it spills down your shirt. Hallucination Jeonghan #14 (wow was it a mouthful to say, even in your head) just hushes you gently, dabbing at it with tissues that he’d procured from the plastic bags. 

“It’s okay,” he says softly, and his hands take yours, clasping them around the bottle. Once you’re holding it, he gets up, and for a horrible moment, you think this hallucination is going to leave again. You kind of like this one.

“Where’re you going?” you ask, but it comes out as more of a slur of vowels. You’re not sure he understood a word.

 “Drink up,” is all he says. He fishes out a packet of pills from the bag (it’s like a magic bag, you think blearily. It seems to have everything inside it). “Have these as well, okay? I’ll go make that soup you wanted.”

You nod, blinking. Dutifully, you sip the water that the hallucination has left you, because really this was one of the most gentle, doting, Jeonghan-like Hallucination Jeonghan and it kind of feels like he really does have your best interests at heart. 

Unlike the other Hallucination Jeonghans, who just wanted to sell you fish. This one really seemed to care about your well-being. 

You blink again, slowly. 

Oh. 

By the time Jeonghan comes back with a gently steaming bowl of chicken soup on a tray with a mug of tea, you're more lucid than before, pouting at him as he comes closer, having remembered his last words before you’d hung up the phone.

“You said you weren’t going to take care of me.”

Jeonghan doesn’t say anything, setting the tray on the bedside table, before sitting down on the edge of your bed, wordlessly picking up the bowl and spoonfeeding you some soup. You open your mouth easily, and he hums in approval with a smile.

“What kind of boyfriend would I be if I let my darling be sick all alone, hm?” he says. “I can’t do that. Especially if you’re also seeing hallucinations of me who are trying to sell you fish.”

He continues feeding you soup in tiny sips, and the entire situation feels weirdly vulnerable, with you propped up on pillows and Jeonghan making small noises of approval every time you successfully swallow a spoonful. Like you’re a little baby bird, or something.

But he smiles so lovingly at you the entire time, so it’s kind of hard to feel too embarrassed.

“Well done,” Jeonghan murmurs, once you’ve finished half of the bowl. Your boyfriend is affectionate, almost overbearingly so at times, always poking you in the side or pinching your cheeks or tweaking your nose, but the softness with which he treats you right now is a whole other level of affection entirely.

Jeonghan cares deeply for you. You know that. You’ve never doubted how much he loves you, and he never gives you reason to doubt it. But still, when he smooths down your hair and strokes the back of your hand and gazes at you so gently, it makes you realise yet again that oh God, he loves you.

“We’re going to get you to finish the rest of the soup in a minute,” he says, reaching down towards the plastic bag at his feet, “but first. I wanted you to have this.”

Out of the bag, he pulls out…

A fluffy bunny plushie.

You blink, tilting your head, sniffing in confusion and also to try and unblock your bunged up nose. “What?”

“Say hi to Jjongie,” Jeonghan says. “He came up to me when I was buying your soup, and I couldn’t not bring him home.” The bunny’s pink ears flop adorably into its eyes as he holds out the soft toy to you. It even has a cream coloured ribbon around its neck. “He’s gonna keep you company whenever I can’t be here for you.”

“Oh,” you say softly, taking Jjongie from him with a smile. You rub your thumb over the soft fur of the bunny’s cheek. “He’s adorable.”

Jeonghan beams, proud. “Of course he is. He’s a me-substitute.”

You look up at him, smiling. “Han, I—” You can’t finish your sentence, too choked up. Literally. You suddenly start coughing, hand coming up to cover your mouth, and Jeonghan rushes forward with the mug of tea and an opened box of tissues that he suddenly procured out of nowhere.

“Hey, it’s okay, no need to cry over it,” he says teasingly as you glare at him, eyes tearing up from how hard you’re coughing. You accept the tissues and, when he pushes the tea insistently in you direction, you take the mug too.

“Yeah, yeah.” You blow your nose with one hand and then drink the tea, noting with a smile the subtle notes of honey in it. “Thank you,” you add, softly, looking down at Jjongie in your lap. Jeonghan really has gone out of his way for you.

Jeonghan just shakes his head, picking up the soup bowl again. “Thank me once you get better,” he says. “You can take care of me after. I’ll probably be catching your illness from looking after you.”

You grin, blowing your nose again, and even you can’t miss the way that Jeonghan watches you, eyes devastatingly fond.

“Yeah, but you’re gonna look after me anyways, aren’t you?”

Jeonghan grins, unashamedly bright. He taps the spoon against your lips, smiling wider when you sip the soup, the mug of tea in your hands, Jjongie the bunny in your lap. 

“Duh. I love you too much not to.”

fics tags: @jeonginssa @weird-bookworm @minhui896 @bunnyiix @slytherinshua @haowrld @belladaises @moonlitskiiies @mirxzii @zozojella @kawennote09 @thedensworld @a-wandering-stay @abibliolife @doublasting @wonranghaeee @icyminghao @sweet-like-caramel @your-yxnnie @evasaysstuff @odxrilove @kyeomyun @crackedpumpkin @jeonride @kellesvt @butiluvu @sakufilms @eightlightstar @onlyyjeonghan @aaniag @amxlia-stars @raevyng @isabellah29

just two people in love 🥹

❖ no such thing as too perfect // jeon wonwoo

wonwoo x gn!reader, 2k+ words

tags: office au, established relationship, fluff, kinda crack, junhui is the best work bestieTM ever, yn is Dramatic and In Love

warnings: none

notes: this was only meant to be like, 1.2k.... idk what happened but im not apologising. also there are a couple of pov switches which i hope make sense!!

“I think I need to break up with him,” you say, and Junhui blinks around a mouthful of salad. 

“Who?” he asks, spraying pieces of feta cheese all over the table, and you wrinkle your nose and brush away a few bits that get too close to you and your bento box. He frowns, and then his eyes widen. “Oh my god, you need to break up with Jeon Wonwoo? Why do you need to break up with Jeon Wonwoo?”

You wince as Junhui's loud exclamation rings throughout the office canteen, making several heads turn to look at the two of you. 

“Don't yell it so loud—and why are you saying his name in italics?”

“Because this is Jeon Wonwoo,” Junhui emphasises again, shoving salad passionately into his mouth before carrying on talking. “He's the only one of your boyfriends that I've actually ever approved of. Which is crazy, because Soonyoung introduced him to you, and I've never pinned Soonyoung as a guy that knows boyfriend-material guys.”

You reach over and lower Junhui’s fork, preventing him from eating and talking at the same time. “I don't know,” you sigh. “I just… I don't think this is going to work.”

“What did he do?” Junhui asks. His face morphs into a more serious look. “Do I need to murder him for you?”

“No, I— no! Don't murder him!” you say quickly, shaking your head. “He hasn't done anything wrong. It's just. I think I need to break up with him.”

The grave look melts from Junhui's face, and then he frowns. “You need to break up with him… even though he hasn't done anything wrong?”

“Yes.”

Junhui stares at you, mystified, then snatches back his fork to keep eating his salad. “Okay, so you've gone insane. Nice to know.”

You sigh at Junhui's response, rubbing your temples. 

Whilst it does sound insane for you to break up with Wonwoo even though he's done nothing wrong, in your eyes, it's actually quite understandable. 

Nothing has gone wrong, per se: you've been dating Wonwoo for about ten months now, and everything has been perfect. He's been perfect. 

Maybe… a little too perfect. 

He's always being so gentle and courteous, silently reading your emotions and knowing exactly how you're feeling at any given moment. He knows what you need before you even know that you need it—giving you little cheek kisses to remind you that you're loved, pushing a chocolate bar into your hand when you're all dizzy and tired, hugging you to sleep when you've had a bad day. 

The bento box that you're opening and having for lunch? That was prepared by him too. 

Jeon Wonwoo is just so goddamn perfect, and it worries you. 

“I don't think I'm good enough for him,” you admit whilst Junhui is busily sipping his water. 

It's fascinating how he manages to eat so frantically whilst eating so slowly at the same time, you think idly, as Junhui chokes on the tiny sip he was taking. He sets down the glass, wiping his mouth and blinking at you. 

“Sorry, what?”

“Come on, Junhui, do I really have to say it again?” you complain, beginning to open your bento box. “You heard me.”

“Yeah, and I couldn't believe my ears,” he says, tilting his head sideways. “You? Not good enough for him? Please. That's crazy.”

You make a questioning noise. “You just said that he's the only boyfriend of mine that you approved of.”

“Exactly.” Junhui stabbed his fork in your direction, before going back to shovelling leaves into his mouth. “You're perfect for him, and he's perfect for you. I predicted it from the moment you met.”

“I don't know about me being perfect for him, but he really is just too perfect for me,” you whine. “Him and his stupidly warm eyes and that smile… oh, Junhui, he makes me feel like the most beautiful person in this entire universe.” You look down at your bento box, pouting. “Wonwoo's just so perfect.”

Junhui makes a face. “Gross, but okay. I still don't see your point, though. Wonwoo's perfect, and you're both good enough for each other. I don't see why you think you need to break up with him.”

Still looking down at the bento box, you let out a sigh. All of the food is neatly packed away into the separate compartments, and he's even arranged the sesame seeds on your rice into a little heart. It's an awfully goofy but also an awfully Wonwoo thing to do, and you can feel your heart squeezing painfully in your chest, the longer you stare at it. 

This is not good. You are far too in love with Wonwoo. 

That's what you tell Junhui, and he stares at you with utter disbelief as if you've finally admitted that you really have lost your mind. 

“And what makes you think that he's not far too in love with you?” Junhui asks. “You know, one of the reasons that I approve of Wonwoo is because he's just so so in love with you. Like, almost disgustingly in love with you.”

“What?” You blink at him, before shaking your head. “Junhui, no, this is serious. Wonwoo's just so perfect and I'm so in love with him and—and it's actually getting dangerous now. I've literally fallen in love with him.”

Junhui stares at you for a long moment, wondering whether you're actually being serious about all of this. 

“That's not a bad thing,” he insists, and then chomps on his salad in frustration. “Y/N, that's not a bad thing at all.”

“Yes it is,” you say, despairingly, looking forlorn as you prop your chin on your hand. “I love him too much. It's gonna—it's gonna get too overwhelming, soon, and then he'll start thinking I'm weird, and he'll distance himself from me, and then we'll break up and I should end this before that happens.”

Junhui shakes his head. “I don't think that's true.”

“Yes it is.”

“No it isn't. He won't break up with you.”

“Not yet.”

Junhui looks away exasperatedly, because you're adamant in wallowing in your despair over having to break up with Wonwoo because “he's too perfect” even while quite happily eating the lunch that Junhui knows Wonwoo probably prepared for you. 

It's insane, he thinks, because it's obvious to him that Wonwoo loves you a lot. But he knows you and your negative thinking, and short of Wonwoo walking in here and professing his love to you all by himself, Junhui can't think of anything that could possibly convince you otherwise. 

As he looks past your shoulder to the glass doors of the office canteen, however, he blinks. 

There's a tall man entering the canteen, his dark hair all fluffy and his glasses-rimmed eyes scanning the area, lips pursed into a look that could almost be described as bored. He has his hands in his coat pockets, wearing the most simple casual fit ever, but he exudes such cold model energy that even Junhui blinks again. 

And then he watches as the man catches sight of you and Junhui, and his entire demeanour just softens. 

Junhui bites back a grin. 

Wow. Maybe he’s, like, actually psychic. 

“Wonwoo's here,” he says abruptly, and your head snaps up so fast that he can hear the audible click that sounds in your neck. 

“Where?” 

Junhui doesn't get to say anything, however, because he sees the moment that your eyes clock the tall man that's striding into the canteen, the light catching the frames of his glasses, and watches as you positively melt, in much the same way that the man had done when he saw you. 

He can almost hear every infatuated thought that runs through your mind. 

“Wonwoo,” you breathe, once Wonwoo steps close enough to the table that you and Junhui are eating at. His hair is all fluffy and windswept, and you resist the urge to smooth it down with your fingers. 

“Hello.” Wonwoo bends down, presses a soft kiss to your forehead. “You weren't answering your phone.”

“Hm? I didn't get any text notifs from you.” You check your phone, trying to turn it on, only for the screen to remain black. “Oh. Is it dead?”

“I suspected as much,” Wonwoo says dryly, but there's a fondness in his voice as he pulls out a power bank from his pocket. “Here.”

Your eyes light up. “Oh, you're a life saver!” You look up at Wonwoo, smiling at the way his eyes look so warm as he gazes down at you. “Thank you.”

Junhui slurps his water loudly. 

“Sorry,” he says, sounding not sorry at all when the two of you look over at him. “Don't mind me.”

He's grinning mischievously, for reasons that you cannot fathom, and when he leans forward to peer up at Wonwoo with curious eyes, the mischief in his grin only increases. 

“So, Wonwoo, why are you here?”

Wonwoo tilts his head, pushing his glasses up at the same time. “You're Junhui.”

“The one and only,” Junhui says brightly. “I'm Y/N's work bestie. I've heard loads about you.”

You hiss in annoyance, kicking Junhui under the table even as Wonwoo laughs amusedly, placing a hand on your shoulder affectionately. 

“Wen Junhui! Why would you say that?”

“Do you talk about me that often?” Wonwoo asks, and his tone is somewhere between genuinely curious and adoring and you kind of just wanna sit there and listen to his voice forever. 

“Oh, all the time,” Junhui says, eyes gleaming, and you snap your gaze back to him, exasperated. “Y/N loves you so much. I hear about the extent of it every day.”

Wonwoo looks down at you, raising an eyebrow. “Really?”

You kind of want to deny it, but then that would mean lying to Wonwoo, so you don't. 

“Maybe?” you say weakly, cheeks burning as you smile sheepishly up at him. “You're just, uh. Really really lovely. And, um, I kind of love you. A lot.”

Wonwoo laughs, a full and endeared laugh, twinkling with the light of a thousand suns. “I'm glad. Because you're really lovely, and I love you a lot too.”

Your eyes widen, and suddenly it's like it's just you and Wonwoo in the canteen now, him with his hand on your shoulder and those eyes, holding your very soul in place as he just smiles so lovingly and oh God you really do love him. 

“Oh,” you say, soft. “Wonwoo…”

Wonwoo just smiles again. “Anyways, I came by to let you know that I'll be finishing work a bit earlier today, so call me when you're done and I'll drive by to pick you up, okay?”

You nod, mute, stunned by the gentlest words of “I love you” that had left Wonwoo's mouth just seconds before. 

“It was nice meeting you,” Junhui chirps, but Wonwoo doesn't seem to hear, because he's looking down at you again, before swooping in and placing the lightest kiss on your nose and you feel like you could combust on the spot right there. 

“I'll see you later?” he says. 

You nod. “I'll see you later.”

Wonwoo smiles, and then the hand slides off your shoulder and he walks away. 

You watch him go, watch him walk through the tables and then get to the glass doors, where he turns around one last time to wave goodbye before disappearing outside, and really, it's insane how much you love him. 

And how much he loves you, it seems. 

“So. He took time out of his own lunch break and came all the way here to give you a charger because he knew that you'd forgotten one and to tell you that he's picking you up later?” Junhui says, making you reluctantly turn back to him. “Y/N. If this doesn’t make you see just how in love with you Wonwoo is, then I’m gonna kick you.”

“Hey, no need for violence,” you say, raising an eyebrow, and Junhui pulls a face. 

“So do you see it or do you not?”

You look over your shoulder again, out at the doors. Wonwoo’s no longer there, but you can still imagine the imprint of his warmth, lingering like the softest lavender scent over the entire area. 

“Maybe I do,” you say, all wistful and dazed, a smile on your face. “Isn’t he just so perfect?”

Junhui grins, and makes use of your distracted state to steal a carrot stick from your lunch, crunching on it loudly.

“Perfect and in love with you,” he points out. “So do you still feel like you need to break up with him?”

“Hm?”

You blink, eyes still all starry from your few minutes of interacting with your boyfriend, his soft smile etched into your mind. It takes a moment for Junhui's words to register, but then they do, and you can't help but laugh. 

“Oh. Oh, no. He and I are perfect.”

Junhui grins. He really is a psychic. 

fics tags: @jeonginssa @weird-bookworm @minhui896 @bunnyiix @slytherinshua @haowrld @belladaises @moonlitskiiies @mirxzii @zozojella @kawennote09 @thedensworld @a-wandering-stay @abibliolife @doublasting @wonranghaeee @icyminghao @sweet-like-caramel @your-yxnnie @odxrilove @kyeomyun @crackedpumpkin @jeonride @kellesvt @sakufilms @eightlightstar @onlyyjeonghan @aaniag @amxlia-stars @raevyng @isabellah29 @hrts4hanniehae @mcu-incorrect