#bnd woonhak

You're supposed to be free of thoughts of him. Right. Then why the fuck is your drunk mind conjuring up his snaggle-toothed grin…?

"Y/N?" You hear Jongseob call from your right. Or is it your left? What is direction, really?

"L/N Y/N!" Another loud yell from the other side—that sounds like Lily, your other blond, more sober friend. But all of it is white noise when the only thing you can focus on is the face up in front, mouthing the exact same word you've heard multiple times already.

Your name.

And you don't know why you do it. Or if there is a reason at all. Maybe it's all muscle memory, the invisible pull of you to him despite how big an impact time has made on the stretched-out string.

"Y/N?"

You blink, tongue tasting like daquirie and dread.

Because why the fuck are you in a club, facing your ex boyfriend of all people when you should be living up your victory at successfully ignoring the asshole for a whole year!?

Because you're an idiot, your brain supplies uselessly.

"Uh…" he tries again, and this time your vision is refocused enough to map out the details. His light brown hair he's run gel through for the night, the cropped tee that he should be shivering in and you're kinda pissed that he isn't, the snakebite piercings you've had the pleasure—wait, no, fuck!—the…horrors…of tasting.

He's the same, and still somehow, not.

"Hey," you mumble, readjusting your balance on the drink-spilt floor. "What are you doing here Woonhak?"

He looks at you for a couple breaths. Then, realising you're still floating in the haze of whatever concoction you'd had last, softens his voice to reply. "Well it's a club…I'm…clubbing?"

Bullshit. "You hate clubbing. You said it gives you a heat stroke. And that the DJ makes you want to eat your music production diploma. And feed it to your neighbour's dog—"

"Okay, okay," he stops you exasperatedly, moving closer to avoid bumping into the crowd of mindless party-goers around the two of you. "Good to know your memory is perfectly fine when it comes to me."

And maybe he means to say, when it comes to complaining about me, but the slip-up makes tingling heat crawl up your neck.

The alcohol—that has to be it. You'll blame it on the alcohol for now. It has nothing to do with Kim Woonhak's big brown eyes, or his lips that always quirk to one side, or the gentle dips of his nose, or—

"Stop it!" you scold yourself out loud, slapping your hands to your red hot cheeks. "Water. Get me water."

He doesn't wait to follow your order; it's instinctive, it seems like. In record speed, you're ushered closer to the bar, further away from your group of friends who may or may not be losing their minds looking for you (you'll explain to them later with a couple bats of your lashes and some dramatic vows to bake them cookies as compensation), and you feel a cool glass of water pressed into your palm.

"Thank—" you choke back the words when you realise who you're about to thank. He doesn't deserve it. So you look him in the eye and down the whole thing, hoping the daggers pierce a nice, painful spot in his heart.

"So…." he starts, hands deep in his jeans pockets, voice hesitant. You hope that's fear. "How have you been?"

"Been great. Swimmingly great. Extraordinary, actually!" But your exaggerated peppiness is short-lived. "What about you? Did your plans go to shit already…I thought you were supposed to backpacking through Europe right now? Is that why you're here instead?" you bite back passive-aggressively. The pettiness does not go unnoticed by Woonhak's sorry eyes.

"That's…plans changed," he concedes. There's a shift of the beam-lights, leaving a soft glow over his face; you catch a glint near his mouth, and then you curse your entire existence for being so affected by his stupid piercings. "Life had just…sucked me dry, y'know," is his vague-ass excuse.

The shittiest reason he can give to you after declaring on a random Tuesday that he was no longer going to be tied down to a 9-to-5 that paid decently well, quitting his job without even giving you a heads-up, and asking you—no, assuming you would, follow him to the ends of the literal earth because he was on a journey to find himself.

Find himself. In this economy!?

Ugh. You remember how you wanted to strangle his stupidly long neck and sit him down to knock some sense into that thick skull of his. But you didn't. You stayed stubborn and broke up with him, well into the second year of you being together, expecting him to beg for you to take him back and choose you over the hippie lifestyle of 'finding oneself' when there are debts to pay and mouths to feed (yours).

You're still mad he didn't choose you; he'd just cried the whole time according to what Jaehyun had relayed, then sorrowfully booked a ticket to Italy in his journey to get through the break-up.

And now he's here, standing like time had frozen over and him with it.

"Did you find someone else?" you ask, tongue loose as ever. Your chest hurts from imagining a 'yes' from him. What if he did? What if he's happy when you're not? What if they're better than anything you've bee—

"Never," Woonhak says in a sincere whisper, "only ever been you." It's weighty one, and his fingers twitch over the bar-counter, with a kind of thirst you know you feel too.

Mistake number 1: you stare at his hand for too long. They're objectively nice hands—long fingers and all. Nice knuckles. Pretty tendons. A deft wrist.

Mistake number 2: you're not subtle enough to stop your study. He notices, and he notices how your sight traces the dip of his neck and up his mouth and lands at the silver there. He gulps.

Your wine-soaked brain blares red—'BAD IDEA', it screams in all caps. It's not too late to go back from this; you can just pivot on your feet and leave. Leave and never look back and risk the chance of never seeing his face again.

Your heart, however, it sings a little, beats harder and calls his name.

Mistake number 3: your hands on his shirt, pulling, his mouth landing against yours. It tastes like beer. You don't mind.

And fuck, it's a kiss you indulge a little too much in, with all the desperation that comes from seeing him for the first time after an eternity, but knowing his mouth inside out like you've memorised it a thousand times over when you still could.

For a second, Woonhak doesn't respond. You sense his awkward fingers at your sides, the stiffness of his body, but right as you're about to pull back and apologize, maybe run, he grabs your upper arm and crushes you back against his mouth.

Heat. Everything is heat and sugar. When your lips taste the metal, it's like awakening a buried part of you that you've been to scared to dig up. Smell remembers—taste remembers, whether you yourself do or not. There is a thumb working at your jaw, coaxing the hinges loose so there's a tilt of an angle, for better access.

And fuck, yeah, you're so stupid for this. But Woonhak tastes so sweet and you missed this and it feels like he wants you after all this time when you've been convincing yourself he was practically over you by now. So you detach from him, just long enough to say, "Do you wanna get out of here?"

Woonhak blinks, as though in a trance, or as though he's doing long division in his mind with the exact cluelessness of a lobotomized fish.

"The…bathroom?" he suggests after figuring it out.

Your lips curl into an offended sneer. "No, not the bathroom, what? Outside."

He appeases you with a thumb brushing over your wrist. "Like your place?"

"No, you idiot. Like your car. You're stupid if you think I'm letting you back into my house. I just got it deep cleaned and got rid of your disgusting perfume stench; god knows how it lasted for so long."

"Hey, it's not a stench—"

"One more word out of your mouth and you leave the bar alone tonight, got it?"

The sharp edge to your warning has him swallow the rest of his sentence and nod with feverish obedience. You grab him by the shirt and drag him through the mass of sweaty bodies and out the front door.

He clambers for his keys, almost panicking until he finds it in his pocket and grins wide as he opens the backdoor of his car (a new one you haven't seen before. Looks rental), and decides to be a gentleman when he holds it open for you instead of jumping in headfirst like you'd expected him to.

And maybe that's the thing about expectations—a little subversion is all it takes for you to find it absolutely, irrevocably, senselessly hot.

You're pulling him in before you know it, climbing into his lap and pushing him back against the leather headrest as he has half the mind to lock up. Moonlight spills everywhere—on the curve of his cheeks, on his fluttering lashes, on the glint near his mouth—and his car smells like him, metallic and sweet, his musk lingering everywhere like a memory.

The hunger is palpable, and you dive in like a starved woman.

Your friends are going to kill you for this later, but for now, your brain is just Woonhak, Woonhak, Woonhak, melting into the feeling of how warm his mouth is. It's so cold outside, wind nipping, but he's a furnace in winter. On a particular tug, his teeth grazes your bottom lip and draws out a hungry whine out of you.

You've always hated those stupid teeth of his—how they peek out through his smile and makes all your inhibition go to shit. You hum into the kiss, making him grin into you. You can feel it even if you can't see. "Lower."

"Hm?" he asks half-mindedly, lost in the sensation of the push and pull, of your fingers in his hair.

Instead of answering with words, you pry him off of you and lead his mouth to your jaw, shrugging off the jacket that's covering your shoulders to expose skin.

And Woonhak—he might be kiss-drunk and dumb, but he knows how you make your demands.

"I—I shouldn't," he stutters, lips shiny. "What if—"

"Oh for fuck's sake, it's not the first time." You roll your eyes in annoyance. "Leave a mark, so I can look at it later."

"Y/N…."

"Kim Woonhak," you mimic, but your patience is thin. "This is your one fucking chance to get something right. You're the one that left me. And for what? Fucking Romania?"

He has enough shame to give you an apologetic grimace, but seeing you regard him with annoyance still, he nods several times to agree with you. "It wasn't as good as I expected," he placates, giving you those puppy-eyes.

You don't have anything against Romania, not really. Or any of the other locations your ex boyfriend ditched you to go explore like some idiot. You have no qualms at all.

But if he doesn't get his mouth on you right now, you just might.

"Holy shi—" You slap a hand to your mouth to stop yourself from letting out an embarrassing reaction. "Hm, there," you mumble through watery eyes as he works to suck a splotch onto your neck, a spot above the collarbone.

"Just one?" he asks as he leaves a kiss over the bruise.

"Use teeth. How I like," you instruct.

"What!?" he asks, looking panicked. Like you'd asked him to put a knife to your throat of something.

"It's just teeth for fuck's sake. Just a little bite. Now go on."

"Y/N, I don't think that's a good idea—"

"Woonhak," you grip him by the jaw, making him meet your eyes. "How long has it been?"

He gulps. "A year."

"365 days to be exact. You left last December. Right?"

"Right."

"So you want me to make it another 365 days so you can be the one that waits this time? You want me to leave, yeah?"

"No, wait—" He launches an arm at the door-handle where you're teaching for. "Okay! Okay, yes, alright. I'll…bite."

You grin in victory, shuffling a little to make the angle easier. He mumbles something like, insane woman, and you giggle at that because he isn't wrong. You are insane for thinking it would be easy to get over this guy. You're insane for being here, all on your own will and want, in his lap in his car, asking him to sink his teeth into you.

You're insane when you tip your head back at the feeling of enamel on flesh, fingers pressing against his shirt, then around his bicep when it begins to sting. It's like a dance. Rhythm and muscle memory. You've done this a hundred times before, in various degrees of urgency, but every single time with red grooves marking your neck and warmth pooling underneath it, bringing a blush to your cheeks whenever you were at work, dying under the humdrum of routine.

Your brain is a haze when you feel him tense on you, his hands tightening where they grip your waist, a little desperate, and a little like he's putting up a fight to hold back. "Don't," you mutter with the worry he might do that. "Don't stop."

He shivers at your order and gasps into the wound, and before you can tease him about the reaction, his canines sinks right through your shoulder, quick and sharp. You gasp. "Woonhak—"

"Hmm…" He's lost in the rush, mouthing at the spot with more ferocity until you feel your own head spinning, the world blurring around its fringes. His smell is all you can think about, and the lightheaded, airy weightlessness you're floating on. What is this?

It's different from the other times. A prickle of pain rises again, and warmth spreading over your neck. When you spare a look at Woonhak, his eyes have gone half-lidded with…greed? Love? You can't tell. But he parts for one second before diving back in—and in the gap between, you see it.

Red.

On his lips, coating it. Blood. The glint of fangs.

Fangs?

"Hey did you shave your teeth or something?" you ask despite the delirium climbing inside of you. His mouth—you've mapped it out many times before—and it looks different. The canines are more pointy. They've got blood on them.

He doesn't know if he's supposed to answer or not it seems, because he just goes back to laving over the wound as though thoroughly entranced. Then another bite that sends electricity down your veins. And he's lapping at it, like a….like a….

"Vampire."

You can't linger on the thought for too long when he's running his mouth on your neck, moving up the other shoulder, dragging a thin smudge of blood across the surface and singeing your nostrils with the iron smell.

And then you sense it—beneath the perfume and the absence of body heat from Woonhak—under the darkness blanketing the dashboard. A silhouette. In the passenger seat up front.

A shriek leaves your mouth when you come to your own conclusions, the sound startling Woonhak out of his almost-psychedelic worship.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT!? KIM WOONHAK WHAT—"

His head swerves to where you're looking at, your eyes blown out of their sockets. He almost gets a whiplash from how fast he turns back to you. "I can explain—"

"That's a fucking body up front!" you burst out, almost falling over with the force. "IS HE DEAD!!?"

Woonhak flails for an explanation, coming up empty before fixing you with a sheepish grin instead. "Babe, I can explain."

"Oh, don't 'Babe' me!'. What the fuck is going on!"

"Well…" He tries to figure out the best way to lay out his explanation, each of them looking like a dumb option from the what you can tell. Then he just opens his mouth, pulling the underside of his cheek with a finger to tap at his fang. (Fang!) "Shee thish. I wash turned."

You pull his wrist away from the thing, a strangely instinctive part of you worried he'll puncture his finger somehow. "What?"

"I was turned. In Romania," Woonhak supplies with more clarity, returning his hands to your waist to keep you from jumping off again. "I…I went to this breakup retreat up in the mountains, you see. They were supposed to help regaining control over your life if you were still…hung up on someone." He sucks in a deep breath, trying to see if you believe the insanities coming out his mouth. "Turned out it was not a retreat. It was a coven…of vampires. We were gonna be their meals, not their patrons. Guess I should have seen it coming from the coffin-style beds and lack of sunlight….whoops!"

You let the words settle into you, rolling it over to see if you can spot a lie on his face. Woonhak is easy to read, you know him inside out, and he isn't lying, that's for sure.

"So let me get this clear," you start, crossing your arm, completely forgoing the fact that there is a dead person barely a foot away from you. "You're a vampire."

"Fledgling, yes." He nods, nervous.

"You bit me because?"

"Because you asked."

"Okay, so…." There's a headache running up your neck, fury booking inside. Then, "What I'm hearing is—you've been using me like a juice-box all this time!?"

"You told me to bite! I didn't wanna…but then I kinda lost control because you taste pretty nice and—"

"Don't try to fucking flirt your way out if this!" you scold, huffing. "You drank my blood."

"Are you mad at me?"

"Yeah."

His expression falters, a little forlorn. You only now notice how pale he's gotten since you saw him last. How there's a rim of red around his pupils, his lips lacking colour if not for your blood-stain.

"Did you…hate it?" he asks, scared of your answer.

You think about lying, saying yes, you despised the feeling and him, but you can't. Not when he looks at you like that—like the same Woonhak who'd left you heartbroken. The same one you'd left with a matching broken heart, too.

"No," you gulp.

His next question comes immediately. "Did you miss me?"

Every bone in your body is telling you to fucking run. He's a vampire for god's sake. You'd only learnt about the existence of the supernatural like five minutes ago, but you're already so comfortable with entertaining the idea because it's attached to a pretty face and a skillful mouth.

You really are insane.

"If I say yes, will you bite me again?" You raise a brow, eager to gain control of the situation again. "Not enough to kill, but harder."

He tunes all of it out to zone in on the part he cares about the most. "You'd trust me to not hurt you?"

You ignore that in favour of climbing off of him and clambering to the driver's seat, and for a second, Woonhak freezes at the sudden shift in your demeanour.

Until you say, "I'll help you hide the body," jutting a thumb towards your side like there wasn't a corpse slumped over there. Like you have more pressing matters than the rando your ex had just sucked dry of life. "And then we go to my apartment."

Woonhak blinks incredulously. "I thought u said you won't let me in there again?"

You roll your eyes. "I won't if you keep mouthing off."

As always—and as predicted—Woonhak obeys. Soon you're in the front seat of his stupid car after having stashed a stupid body in the trunk, driving off to a lake to dispose of any evidence. You're not sure which truth will warrant a dramatic chide from Jongseob, or a shocking swoon from Lily—the dead body part, or the getting back with your ex part.

But hey, can they blame you? When your ex is a hot vampire who is also unfortunately the cutest man on Earth, sometimes you make mistakes.

And if its a mistake as hot as Kim Woonhak, then you'll willing to make it more than once.

fin.

a/n: reader is crazy but aren't we all a little? (*nervously looks around*). okay but the lore is kinda wacko in this lol and the man woonhak killed is not confirmed to be a bad or a good person, so the morality in this fic is up in the air anyways. i like crazy morals in fiction so therefore I write it 🩷 if there are questions regarding my vampire lore then drop by the inbox and I shall feed your (blood)thirst 😉

now the important note: veryone is obligated to go wish @moesthinking a very happy birthday for being the awesomest person alive! i would never in a million years have written something like this if it weren't for them. i love this person to bits and so should all of you!!!!!!

perm tl: @lovehakie @leehanaholic @ivehan @syunet @moesthinking @gentiliana @athenaisonlinee @wnouzi @amarecerasus @defnotsanni @cl4ir0l0v3r @knrejj @fayepz @nemoihan @ruuroom @woonbabie @i-am-not-dal @tenshi-sama @mwotgata @kazukazukiiii @qeeun-didi @izhypen @bee-the-loser @beomtomie @snoopymyung @dj-ami @itsmooniebaby @sycamoretree222 @yesongi @w3willris3 @nineooooo @nichozzystuffs @f-a-t-e-l-e-s-s @renvrr @mirouie @aer1z @velvetmae @geniejunn @elysianssoul @ihanzzn @cinnamorollhyuka @starriniqhts

thank you for the support, ily ♡⸝⸝

SUNGHO

Your first kiss with Sungho happened because he laughed.

Not even a cute little chuckle either. Full-on head tipped back, shoulders shaking laughter because you had accidentally sprayed dry shampoo directly into your own face while trying to help him fix his hair.

“You look like a startled Victorian child,” he wheezed, clutching his stomach.

“You are literally the worst person to experience embarrassment around,” you groaned.

But he just kept laughing, bright and warm and so ridiculously pretty that it made your chest hurt a little.

Sungho reached over to brush the white powder off your cheek with his thumb, still smiling softly now. Up close, you noticed how gentle he looked despite those broad shoulders towering over you.

“There,” he murmured. “Better.”

Your eyes flickered to his lips for maybe half a second too long.

He noticed immediately.

Of course he did.

His grin turned shy around the edges, surprisingly delicate for someone usually so dependable and composed. “Can I kiss you?”

You nodded so fast it made him laugh again.

The kiss itself was soft. Warm. Careful.

He kissed you like he was making sure you were comfortable every second, one hand resting lightly against your jaw while the other steadied your waist.

And when he pulled away, smiling so pretty it nearly killed you, he whispered,

“You taste like strawberry dry shampoo.”

RIWOO

Your first kiss with Riwoo happened in complete silence.

Well.

Almost complete silence.

Because he had spent the last twenty minutes making horrible donut-related dad jokes while the two of you sat in a tiny bakery sharing powdered sugar donuts.

“What did the donut say to the other donut?” he asked, trying not to smile already.

You groaned. “Please stop.”

“You complete me.”

You stared at him blankly.

Riwoo burst into embarrassed giggles before hiding his face behind his sleeve, shoulders shaking.

“You’re actually unbelievable,” you laughed.

His little beauty mark crinkled when he smiled, eyes disappearing into crescents as he ducked his head shyly. Even after dating for months, he still got flustered whenever you looked at him too long.

And unfortunately for him, you were staring now.

“What?” he mumbled.

“You’re cute.”

Immediately, his ears turned red.

“No I’m not.”

“You are.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

He looked at you for one long second before quietly whispering, “You’re mean.”

Then he leaned forward so suddenly you barely processed it before his lips brushed yours.

Soft.

Tiny.

Almost hesitant.

Like he was scared you might pull away.

But the second you kissed him back, Riwoo made the tiniest surprised noise against your lips, and you swore your heart exploded on the spot.

When he pulled away, his entire face was pink.

“Can I still have the last donut?” he asked timidly.

You started laughing so hard he nearly hid under the table.

JAEHYUN

Your first kiss with Jaehyun was absolutely not planned.

Because nothing with Jaehyun was ever planned.

One second he was talking excitedly about something completely random, hands flying everywhere while he rambled at a million miles per hour, and the next he was suddenly stopping mid-sentence to stare at you.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked.

“Like what?”

“Like you wanna kiss me.”

You nearly choked.

He immediately burst into loud laughter, clinging to your arm dramatically. “I KNEW IT.”

“You are insane.”

“But am I wrong?”

His grin was so unfair. Big puppy eyes, messy brown hair falling into his face, cheeks already dimpled from smiling too hard.

You hated how adorable he was.

Jaehyun tilted his head slightly, voice suddenly softer.

“Can I kiss you first?”

The sudden sincerity caught you completely off guard.

You nodded.

And oh.

Oh.

The kiss was sweet in the most Jaehyun way possible — smiling into it, accidentally bumping noses because he got too excited, hands cupping your cheeks like he couldn’t believe this was real.

When he pulled away, he looked genuinely emotional.

“Wait,” he whispered. “That was actually our first kiss.”

You laughed. “Yeah?”

“That’s crazy.” He stared at you with the biggest lovestruck expression ever. “I think I’m gonna remember this for the rest of my life.”

Then he kissed you again before you could even respond.

TAESAN

Your first kiss with Taesan happened while he was pretending not to care.

“You’re staring again,” he said lazily from where he sat on the floor, guitar resting across his lap.

“I’m literally not.”

“You literally are.”

You rolled your eyes, but he smirked because he knew he was winning.

Taesan always acted so cool about everything. Calm voice. Sharp teasing. That whole mysterious thing he had going on.

Which was hilarious considering he was secretly the softest person alive.

He plucked absentmindedly at the guitar strings while classic rock played quietly from his speaker, black hair falling into his eyes.

“You know,” you said slowly, “you’re actually cute.”

His head snapped up immediately. “Don’t say weird things.”

“Aww, are you embarrassed?”

“No.”

“You are.”

“I’m not.”

His ears turning pink said otherwise.

You grinned triumphantly, scooting closer until your knees bumped his. Taesan looked at you for a second too long before sighing dramatically.

“You’re annoying,” he muttered softly.

But he was smiling.

A tiny one.

The kind reserved only for you.

Then, before you could tease him again, he grabbed your wrist gently and pulled you forward just enough to kiss you.

It was slow.

Careful.

Much softer than you expected from someone who tried so hard to act unaffected all the time.

When he pulled away, you blinked at him in surprise.

“What?” he asked defensively.

“You kissed me first.”

Taesan immediately looked away. “Shut up.”

LEEHAN

Your first kiss with Leehan happened at the aquarium.

Of course it did.

You had spent nearly forty minutes sitting in front of one tank because Leehan got distracted explaining facts about fish with the most sparkly expression you had ever seen.

“And this one actually changes color depending on stress levels—”

“Mhm.”

“And some fish can recognize human faces—”

“Mhm.”

“And— wait.”

He turned toward you slowly.

“You’re not listening to me.”

“I am trying,” you defended weakly. “But you’re really pretty.”

Leehan blinked.

Then blinked again.

His cheeks turned pink so gradually it was adorable.

“You can’t just say things like that out of nowhere,” he mumbled, smiling shyly.

“But it’s true.”

He ducked his head, laughing quietly to himself before glancing back at you with that soft little smile that always made your stomach flip.

The blue light from the aquarium reflected in his eyes while he looked at you so gently it almost hurt.

“You know,” he said softly, “I think I like you more every day.”

And before you could recover from that sentence, he leaned in and kissed you.

It was impossibly tender.

Like being wrapped in warm water and sunlight all at once.

When he pulled away, he rested his forehead against yours, smiling so sweetly you thought you might combust.

“Do you wanna see the jellyfish next?” he whispered.

WOONHAK

Your first kiss with Woonhak happened because he got fake angry over a comment section.

“These people are WRONG,” he declared dramatically, pointing at his phone while sprawled across your bed.

“It’s literally rage bait.”

“I know it’s rage bait but they’re still WRONG.”

You laughed so hard you almost fell over.

Woonhak looked ridiculously cute when he ranted — all expressive hands, pouting lips, messy brown hair bouncing while he complained passionately about absolutely nothing important.

“You’re smiling at me,” he accused.

“Because you’re cute.”

He froze instantly.

“Oh.”

The confidence disappeared immediately.

Now suddenly he was shy.

You watched his face go pink while he tried very hard to act normal and failed horribly.

“You can’t just say stuff like that randomly,” he muttered.

“Why not?”

“Because then my heart starts doing weird things.”

Your expression softened immediately.

Woonhak looked at you for one quiet moment before scooting closer until his arms wrapped around your waist automatically, like hugging you was second nature.

And honestly?

Being held by him felt like the safest thing in the world.

“You’re really warm,” you mumbled into his shoulder.

“Good,” he said softly.

Then he pulled back just enough to look at you with the gentlest eyes imaginable.

“Kiss me?”

You barely had time to nod before he was grinning again, pressing the sweetest, happiest kiss against your lips.

And halfway through it, he smiled so hard you both started laughing.

© All rights reserved @gigisnextdoor 2026.

You drop back against your pillow and exhale slowly. The ceiling stares back at you, indifferent and unhelpful. Somewhere outside your window the neighbourhood has gone quiet—it's late, later than you should still be awake, and yet here you are. Thermometer on the nightstand. Fever climbing. The elaborate skincare routine you had promised yourself—the one specifically designed to ensure you looked like a functioning human being tomorrow—sitting completely forgotten on your bathroom shelf.

Tomorrow morning, which is the morning of your first date with Kim Woonhak.

Even just thinking his name sends an embarrassing flutter to your chest. That small, involuntary lurch behind your ribs, the one you've grown so used to that you almost forget it hasn't always been there. 

Almost. 

The truth is you remember exactly when it started. It wasn't dramatic. No grand revelation or cinematic eye contact across a crowded room. Just the smallest detail—stupid and completely ordinary, and then it settled somewhere deep and refused to leave, through months of friendship and late nights that ran longer than they should have, through every conversation where you chose your words a little more carefully than necessary and every time you looked at him and had to remind yourself to look away.

And now, after all of that, tomorrow is finally arriving. 

Your first date. With him. Your first date with anyone, if you're being fully transparent with yourself, which you are actively avoiding because that particular truth makes everything feel even more enormous than it already does. The outfit is already hanging on your wardrobe door. You'd spent an almost unreasonable number of evenings narrowing it down, texting Woonhak about completely unrelated things while your floor was covered in rejected options, and the memory of it makes a quiet warmth bloom in your chest even now, even through the fever haze.

You reach for your phone. His contact is already open because of course it is, your thumbs have developed their own opinions about where they want to be apparently. The rational thing is right there—one text, simple and reasonable. “I'm not feeling well, can we move this?” He would understand. He would insist on it, even. He is, frustratingly, that kind of person.

You stare at the empty message box.

Then you lock your phone and set it face-down beside the thermometer.

No. Absolutely not.

You have waited too long for this. You've sat with this feeling for too long, through too many months of wanting a relationship you weren't sure you'd ever get to have. You are not surrendering tomorrow to a fever. You will sleep this off. You'll feel better in the morning—people recover from fevers overnight all the time, surely, and you will simply be one of them through sheer force of will if nothing else.

The glass of water on your nightstand, the one you poured an hour ago with genuine intentions of drinking it, sits completely untouched. The medicine in your bathroom cabinet stays in the bathroom cabinet. The half-eaten snack you'd abandoned on your desk earlier in favour of rereading your last conversation with him remains exactly where you left it, slowly going stale.

You turn off the lamp.

Tomorrow, you decide, with the serene and entirely unfounded confidence of someone who has comprehensively outsourced her common sense to her heart—you will be absolutely fine.

You close your eyes.

You are so utterly, devastatingly, hopelessly cooked.

 ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

Morning arrives, and it is not kind.

You become aware of consciousness slowly. Everything feels heavy. Your head, your limbs, the very air pressing down against your skin—all of it conspires to keep you horizontal, and for a long, bleary moment you comply. The sunlight filtering through your curtains feels aggressive. Your throat has graduated overnight from sandpaper to what feels like gravel, and the low throb behind your temples from last night has settled in with the comfortable permanence of an unwelcome houseguest.

You lie there, blinking at the ceiling.

Something was supposed to happen today.

You can't quite—

Your phone lights up on the nightstand.

You reach for it with the slow, waterlogged movements of someone operating at approximately forty percent capacity, fingers closing around it weakly. The screen swims into focus. One notification. A text, timestamp seven minutes ago, from the contact name you may or may not have spent an embarrassing amount of time choosing.

“Good morning :) still up for today? or did you finally come to your senses and realise you can't handle me?”

The effect is instantaneous and completely involuntary.

You sit up.

The headache detonates behind your eyes like a personal vendetta, white, sharp and immediate, and you actually have to press the heel of your palm against your forehead for a moment, teeth gritted, vision briefly unreliable. A noise escapes you that is not remotely dignified. You stay very still until the worst of it passes, phone clutched to your chest, the room tilting gently at its edges.

Then you look back down at his message.

The smile happens before you can stop it.

“I’ve been ready since yesterday,” you type back, which is true in every sense except the one where you are currently sitting upright through sheer determination alone, fever still very much present, head still very much attempting to detach itself from your body. “don't keep me waiting :)”

You hit send.

Then you push the covers back, plant your feet on the floor, and decide with absolute finality that you are fine.

You are so fine.

 ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

Getting ready takes longer than it should.

It’s not because you are indecisive—you already know what you're wearing, have known for days, the outfit still hanging exactly where you left it on your wardrobe door like a small monument to your own optimism. It takes longer because somewhere between washing your face and attempting eyeliner, your body keeps requesting breaks you haven't scheduled. A moment gripping the bathroom sink while the floor shifts unreliably beneath you. Another moment sitting on the edge of your bed, mascara wand in hand, waiting for a wave of dizziness to pass with the patience of someone who has decided that dizziness is simply not on today's agenda.

You look at yourself in the mirror.

You look terrible.

You look, specifically, like someone who ran a fever through the night and then got up anyway and tried to cover it with skincare and wishful thinking (which… is exactly what you did). Your eyes are glassy enough that no amount of concealer has managed to fully disguise it, and there's a specific quality to your complexion that sits somewhere between delicate and concerning.

You lean closer to the mirror.

Fine, you decide. Totally fine. Practically glowing, even.

Breakfast does not happen. You think about it briefly, open the fridge, register that the idea of eating anything feels genuinely implausible, and close it again. You'll eat later, during the date. That counts. That's basically the same thing.

By the time his text arrives—"on my way :)”—you are dressed, presentable by the loosest definition of the word, and running on a potent mix of adrenaline and delusion. You do one final check in the mirror, smooth down your outfit, and decide firmly that you look fine.

You look fine.

When the knock comes you cross the apartment in record time, pull open the door, and there he is.

And for a moment, you forget entirely that you feel like you're dying.

He looks like how he always does, which is to say unfairly good in an entirely casual way that he seems completely unaware of, and he's smiling at you with that radiant smile that has absolutely no business making you feel the way it does. His eyes do a quick, almost imperceptible sweep of your face—a brief, unreadable emotion passing through them—before settling back on yours like it never happened.

"You actually showed up," he says, delighted, like he genuinely wasn't sure you would. You lean against the doorframe with what you hope reads as effortless and not please give me something to hold onto.

"Told you," you reply. "Don't keep me waiting."

He laughs—bright and easy—and steps back to let you through, and you decide with complete certainty that you would drag yourself off your deathbed every single morning for the rest of your life for that sound without a second thought.

You grab your bag. You step outside. 

Yes, you are completely, totally fine.

ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

The night market is everything you imagined it would be.

Warm light strung low between stalls, the smell of frying oil and sugar competing in the air, noise layered over noise until it stops being individual sounds and becomes atmosphere. Woonhak grabs your wrist the second you step inside, already pulling you through the crowd before you've fully arrived, pointing excitedly at a stall halfway across the market.

"Okay, okay—do you see that? We're going there first. No arguments."

"We just got here—"

"No arguments," he repeats, already moving, and you laugh and follow him, and for a blissful, golden little while, you forget entirely that you are running a fever of nearly thirty nine degrees.

He's so bright tonight. That's the thing about Woonhak that you can never quite explain to anyone who hasn't stood next to him—he fills whatever space he walks into, this warm and restless energy that makes everything feel like it's moving slightly faster and more vividly than it did before he arrived. You've liked him for so long that you've genuinely forgotten what it felt like not to, and standing beside him now, it feels like a reality you keep having to convince yourself is real.

You feel strange tonight. Everything seems just a little out of focus, like your body can't quite keep up with the rest of the world. But his hand is warm around your wrist, grounding you, and the dizziness eases enough for you to catch your breath. 

You're here. You made it. Everything else can wa—

A sudden chill moves through you from your shoulders down, your whole body shuddering once, visibly, before you can catch it.

Woonhak turns immediately.

"Are you cold?"

"No," you say. "Just the breeze."

He looks at you. Then he looks very deliberately at the banners hanging from the stall directly beside you—completely, utterly motionless, not a single thread shifting—and then he looks back at you with his eyebrows raised.

"There's no breeze."

"There was one. It passed."

"It passed." 

"It was… very fast!”

He stares at you with his mouth slightly open, caught between disbelief and amusement, and then he laughs—short and bewildered—and shakes his head and turns back to the stall. You exhale quietly.

Fine. You're fine.

But when he falls into step beside you again he's closer than before that your arms brush with almost every step, and his hands have come out of his pockets, and you notice all of this and choose, very deliberately, not to think about what it means.

 ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

He talks without restraint, like every thought that crosses his mind is worth sharing. He keeps up a running commentary on every stall you pass, tells a story about Jaehyun that has him laughing before he even reaches the punchline, and bumps his shoulder against yours every so often to make sure you're looking at whatever has caught his attention.

You are. You laugh when he laughs, follow wherever he points, match his energy as best you can. It's just that every few minutes, the world blurs around the edges, and you have to blink until everything settles back into place before he notices.

"—and then he actually tried to convince the guy that it wasn't even his—" Woonhak glances over mid-sentence and catches you a half-beat behind, your gaze slightly unfocused, and stops. "Hey."

You blink back into the moment. "Sorry — those caught my eye." You gesture at a nearby stall. "What were you saying?"

He doesn't look at the stall. He looks at you, and underneath his expression a different frequency of attention has switched on—the laughter still warm in his face but behind it, watchful now. 

"You sure you're okay?" he asks.

"I'm great," you tell him, and you smile, and you put your whole self into it. "Tell me what happened."

The moment passes. He finishes the story and you laugh in the right place. But when you start walking he's closer again— closer than he was even a minute ago— and his shoulder stays pressed against yours, steady and deliberate, and you think he's started noticing more than he's letting on.

Inside, the throb behind your temples has quietly escalated. You breathe through it and keep walking and tell yourself it's fine, it's fine.

You're absolutely fine.

 ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

He buys you tteokbokki without asking, appearing at your side with it like it's the most natural thing in the world. He holds it out to you, his expression easy, but there's a quiet insistence beneath it.

"You haven't eaten anything this whole time," he says, and the teasing lilt that's coloured his voice all evening gives way to quiet concern.

"I've been pacing myself."

"For an hour."

"I'm very disciplined."

He looks at you, and for just a second, the easygoing expression slips away. What's left is intent—focused, a little worried.

"Eat," he says. "Please."

The word startles you more than it should. You don't think you've ever heard him sound quite so earnest. 

Before you can talk yourself out of it, you're reaching for the skewer. 

You smile, take it, and try. You genuinely do.

Two bites in, your stomach clenches in immediate protest. You stop chewing.

For a few long seconds, all you can do is stand there, swallowing carefully, willing the nausea back down. The skewer hangs forgotten in your hand as you fix your gaze on the lantern above the nearest stall, counting each breath and praying your face doesn't give you away.

It passes. Barely.

The third bite never comes.

You find a bin a minute later. When you return to his side his eyes go straight to your empty hands, and the silence stretches three full seconds longer than it should.

"You couldn't finish it?" he asks quietly.

"I wasn't as hungry as I thought," you offer.

He looks at you for a long moment, jaw shifting once. He has the expression of someone assembling a picture from pieces he doesn't want to believe, choosing very carefully not to say what he's thinking yet.

"Okay," he says, quiet and measured.

It's only one word, spoken in a tone you've never heard from him before. But it tells you more than anything else he's said all evening.

You take his hand without thinking about it, lacing your fingers through his, and he squeezes back—warm and immediate—and you feel him exhale through it.

"Come on," you say softly. "What's next?"

He lets you redirect him. But his thumb traces a slow, absentminded pattern against the back of your hand as you walk, and you don't think he realises he's doing it, and it keeps you tethered to the present unlike anything else tonight has managed. For a little while the fever recedes back to a murmur and you almost forget again.

Almost.

ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

The adrenaline leaves gradually, and then all at once.

There's no single moment where you register it happening. It's just a slow and incremental dimming. The idea of him has been powering you through this all evening—the wanting, the waiting, the electric reality of finally having what you'd spent so long hoping for—and ideas, it turns out, have limits when your body is running a fever on no food, no water and sheer stubborn devotion.

You're still beside him, matching his pace, answering when he speaks. But your reactions come a fraction too late now, every smile feeling just a little heavier than the last. He tells a joke that would usually have you laughing without thinking. It still reaches you. Somewhere beneath the fever, it's just as funny as it always would be. Your body simply can't keep up.

Woonhak has gone quiet.

The commentary has stilled entirely. He's just walking beside you now, close enough that your shoulders stay in constant contact, and you can feel the weight of his attention on the side of your face like a hand pressed gently against glass.

"Hey," he says, low.

"Hey."

"You having fun?"

"So much fun." You mean it. You mean it with everything you have left, which isn't much, but every last bit of it is his. "I really am."

He nods slowly. "You'd tell me if something was wrong, right?"

Your chest tightens. "Nothing's wrong," you say. "I promise."

He doesn't push. But his free hand finds the small of your back, warm and steady, and it keeps you upright in more ways than one.

Almost there. 

Just the rooftop. 

You just have to get to the rooftop.

ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

The street leading away from the market is quieter, lined with low amber light and the particular stillness that follows when a crowd falls away behind you. Woonhak mentions the rooftop ahead with practiced casualness—definitely looked it up, definitely pretending he didn't—and even now, even like this, the quiet effort behind it makes your heart soften.

You make it halfway down the street.

The dizziness arrives without warning and without mercy—a full and consuming wave that drains the colour from the edges of your vision and turns the pavement unreliable beneath your feet in a single, devastating second. Your steps falter. Your free hand reaches for something solid to grab onto and finds only air.

"Hey—" Woonhak feels it through your joined hands before you've even fully registered it yourself, turning towards you instantly. "Hey, what's—"

"I'm—" But the word dissolves. The world tips. Your knees buckle before you can catch yourself, and the pavement rushes up to meet you—

Arms catch you before you reach the ground, immediately pulling you in against him, and the impact you braced for never comes, just the solid warmth of him and his voice saying your name with an urgency that cuts through the fog like the first clear word you've heard all evening.

"Hey — hey. I've got you. Can you hear me?"

"Mm." It's all you can manage. Your hands have found the front of his jacket and are holding on with what little grip you have left.

For a moment he just holds you, one hand braced at your back, and then his palm comes up to press against your forehead, and the sharp breath he draws in tells you everything about what he's been expecting.

"You're burning up." His voice is low and even and very, very careful. "How long have you been feeling like this?"

You close your eyes. "Since yesterday."

Silence settles between you.

"Since yesterday," he repeats. His grip doesn't loosen, but it changes somehow, tightening just enough for you to notice. His gaze searches your face as if he's trying to reconcile the answer with the version of the evening he'd convinced himself was real.

"I didn't want to cancel," you say, into his jacket, very small. "I've been waiting for today for so long. I just—I really didn't want to cancel."

He doesn't say anything for a moment. You feel him exhale, slow and deliberate, feel the way his arms adjust around you with a care so methodical and certain that your throat tightens with it. Before you can ask what he's doing, your feet leave the ground. The movement is so smooth you're already tucked against his chest by the time it registers that he's carrying you.

"Woonhak—"

"Don't," he says softly. His jaw is set and his eyes are forward and his hold on you does not waver for a single second. "Just stay with me, okay?"

You try.

You really, genuinely try—you focus on the amber light above you, on the steady rhythm of his footsteps, on the warmth of his chest against your side and the sound of his voice and every small anchor that might keep you tethered here, present, with him. You want to stay. You want to see where this street leads, what the rooftop looks like and every version of tonight that has yet to come.

But the fever has been patient all evening, and it is done being patient.

The amber light blurs and stretches. His voice reaches you from somewhere far away, your name in his mouth sounding like the last clear sound in a room going slowly, gently dark—and your hands, still curled into the front of his jacket, go slack.

ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

You wake slowly, and the first thing you register is cold.

A damp cloth sits folded over your forehead, cool water tracing a thin line down towards your temple, and beneath it your skin feels tender and overheated in a way that makes the cold almost unbearable and welcoming at the same time, like your body can't decide which sensation to trust. You lie there for a long moment without opening your eyes, just breathing, just existing inside the strange heavy quiet of a body that has been running on empty for far too long.

The air smells different from your own room—cleaner, somehow, with an undertone of a warm, familiar scent that you can't immediately place, not until your mind catches up and supplies the answer : him. It smells like him.

You open your eyes.

The ceiling above you is not your ceiling. The light fixture is wrong, the crack in the corner that you've memorized from your own bedroom missing entirely, replaced by smooth unbroken white. You blink, slow and uncertain, and let your gaze drift sideways instead—soft grey walls, a desk cluttered with things that are clearly not yours, textbooks stacked at an angle that suggests they were shoved aside in a hurry, a hoodie thrown carelessly over the back of a chair like someone changed out of it in a rush and didn't bother folding it.

His hoodie. His desk. His room.

Oh.

The realization comes quietly as the memories begin to return, uneven and out of sequence, as though your mind is still catching up to everything your body has already lived through. The market, warm, loud and golden. Lanterns strung low overhead. Tteokbokki you couldn't finish, the way his eyes had gone straight to your empty hands when you came back from the bin. His hand at the small of your back, steady even as the ground had started to feel unreliable beneath you. The street after, quieter, amber-lit, his voice mentioning a rooftop with poorly disguised excitement.

And then the ground tipping. His voice, sharp and urgent, cutting through a fog that had already started swallowing everything else. Your name, said like it mattered more than anything else in the world.

And then nothing. A long, formless nothing, dark and total.

You lift a hand—slowly, testing, like you're not entirely convinced it will cooperate—and press your fingers lightly against your own forehead, beneath the cloth, as though you might be able to feel the fever from the outside if you just try hard enough. It's still there, quieter now, banked down to a more manageable ache than whatever had been raging through you last night, but present all the same. A dull, insistent hum beneath your skin.

You have never in your life felt more like a zombie than you do in this exact moment, and the humiliating part is that you know, somewhere in the honest core of yourself, that it isn't only the fever's doing. You'd spent the entire week rotting quietly from the inside—skipping meals because his texts felt more urgent than hunger, staying up because talking to him felt more important than sleep, letting every small warning sign slide because nothing, nothing, felt more pressing than the fact that you were finally, finally going to get to have this. Him. A date. A version of tomorrow you'd been aching for since the moment you realized you were in this deep.

Lovesick, in the most literal, humiliating, medically inconvenient sense of the word.

You almost laugh, except your throat is too dry and your head throbs in mild protest at the idea, so instead you just lie there, staring at his ceiling, marinating in the specific mortification of having quite literally fallen ill over a boy.

Maggots for brains, you think, a little deliriously. If he ever found out that phrase existed, you would never, ever hear the end of it.

The door opens.

"OH MY GOD—okay, okay, you're up, you're actually—" Woonhak comes in fast, too fast, a bowl balanced with visible concentration in one hand like he'd been hovering just outside the door waiting for exactly this. The moment his eyes land on you properly, something in his whole body seems to loosen, relief washing so plainly across his face that it's almost startling to witness, like he'd genuinely been bracing for the alternative.

"Do you know how long you've been out?" He crosses the room in a handful of long strides, setting the bowl down on the nightstand with more care than the rest of his movements would suggest he's capable of right now. "A full day. Twenty four hours, I've been checking your temperature every hour like some kind of lunatic, Jaehyun's been texting me asking if I've lost my mind, I genuinely think I might have—okay, here, sit up, slowly, don't just—wait, let me—"

His hands hover, uncertain, torn between the cloth on your forehead and the pillow behind you and you in general, like he can't quite decide what needs fixing first and is mildly panicking about the sheer number of options.

"Okay, cloth first, probably, or—no, wait, are you thirsty, should I get water, I have water right here actually—" He reaches for a glass on the nightstand you hadn't even noticed, thrusts it slightly in your direction, then seems to reconsider whether you're upright enough to drink anything and pulls it back halfway. "Or not. Not yet. Cloth. I'll do the cloth.”

 It would be funny, you think distantly—the way concern turns him chaotic instead of calm, all that easy confidence from last night nowhere to be found—except you don't have it in you to laugh, not yet, because somewhere between the door opening and him crossing the room, the full shape of everything has finally caught up to you.

The date. The one you'd wanted for months, quietly, achingly, through every late-night conversation and every carefully chosen word. 

"—and I texted my mom, actually, don't ask me why, I panicked and she was just the first person in my contacts who wasn't you—" He resettles the cloth against your forehead with a gentleness that doesn't match the speed of his voice at all, two entirely different registers running at once. "She said to give you soup. I'm already doing that. I feel very ahead of the curve here, honestly—”

The one you'd promised yourself you'd be present for, fully, unmistakably yourself, not this. Not fainting in the middle of a street. Not losing an entire day. Not waking up small and fever-warm in his bed while he hovers over you like you're a fragile object he's afraid of breaking further.

"—I mean it, I nearly had a heart attack, you just went completely limp, I've never carried anyone that fast in my life, I think I set a personal record actually, not that this is a competition, but if it were—" He stops, and notices, maybe, that you've gone very quiet beneath him, that your eyes have taken on a glassy, distant quality that has nothing to do with the fever.

There was no rooftop. There was no ending. There was just—an entire day gone, swallowed whole, and the quiet devastating certainty that you'd taken the one thing you'd wanted most and broken it before it had even properly begun.

Your eyes sting before you can stop them.

Woonhak's rambling cuts off mid-sentence.

"Hey—hey, what's wrong?" His hands finally land, one bracing gently at your shoulder, the other hovering near your face like he's afraid to touch without permission. "Is it your head? Are you dizzy, do you need me to—"

"I…" You swallow hard. "I r-ruined it." Your voice catches on the second word, and you squeeze your eyes shut, willing yourself to stop.

It doesn't work.

The tears come anyway—hot, fast, and completely outside your control, spilling over before you can do anything to stop them. 

"I ruined the whole thing." Your breath hitches. "I wanted it to be p-perfect. I wanted to be—I don't know." You shake your head, another sob breaking through. "I just wanted to be normal."

Your next words come out in a rush, tripping over each other.

"I wanted you to have a good first date, and instead I passed out in the middle of the street, and you had to carry me, and there was no rooftop, and I missed an entire day, and I'm s-sorry." The apology fractures around another shaky breath. "I'm so sorry. I just wanted it to be good, and I—"

"Hey. Hey, no—" Whatever he was about to do gets abandoned entirely. He sinks down onto the edge of the bed, closer now, and his hands come up slow and careful, as though you're a frightened animal that might startle at sudden movement. One thumb brushes beneath your eye, catching a tear before it can fall further, and then his palm settles against your cheek, warm and steady, like it belongs there.

"You didn't ruin anything," he says, and there's no trace of teasing left in his voice now. Only a quiet certainty, delivered as though it isn't even a point worth arguing. "You showed up to see me with a fever of thirty nine degrees because you didn't want to disappoint me. Do you understand how insane that is? You ate tteokbokki you could barely keep down because I asked you to. You held my hand through an entire night market while you were actively about to pass out, and you still laughed at my stupid Jaehyun story, and you still smiled at me like—" He stops himself, exhales, shakes his head slightly, like even he can't quite find the right shape for it. "Like I was the only good thing in the whole market. That's not ruining a date. That might be the most anyone's ever tried for me in my entire life."

You blink up at him, throat too tight to answer, more tears slipping free despite his thumb's best efforts to catch them.

"There's going to be a rooftop," he says softly, still wiping at your cheeks with a patience that leaves your chest painfully tight. "There's going to be a hundred rooftops, I promise you, I already looked up five more just in case. I'm not going anywhere. This isn't the only chance we get." His voice grows gentler with every word. "You could've just told me you were sick, you know. I would've shown up at your door with soup and my bad taste in movies instead. I wouldn't have cared about some rooftop."

"I wanted the date," you mumble, small, pressing your face slightly into his palm without quite meaning to. "I've wanted it for so long. I didn't want a fever to be the reason I didn't get it."

"I know." His thumb sweeps once more beneath your eye, gentle. "I know, you absolute menace. You've got maggots for brains, you know that? Fever like that and you still texted me 'don't keep me waiting.'"

A wet, surprised laugh escapes you despite everything, undignified and hiccupping. "That's so mean."

"It's affectionate," he says, entirely unbothered, leaning forward to press his lips briefly to your forehead, right where the cloth had been. "Extremely affectionate. I've been thinking about it all day, actually—maggots for brains, over me. I don't think I've ever felt so honored to be someone's rot."

"Please stop talking."

"Never," he says, grinning now, some of the earlier panic finally bleeding out of him now that you're laughing instead of crying. He reaches for the bowl on the nightstand, angling it towards you with exaggerated ceremony. "Soup. Made by my own two hands, so lower your expectations accordingly. And then you're sleeping, and I'm staying right here, and tomorrow—when you've got actual functioning brain cells again—we're renegotiating this whole rooftop situation. Non-negotiable."

You take the bowl from him, your fingers brushing his, and the tightness in your chest eases for the first time since you woke.

"Okay," you say quietly.

"Okay?"

"Okay." You manage a small, worn-out smile. "Take care of me, then."

The look that crosses his face at that—soft, a little stunned, like you've handed him permission to hope—stays with you long after he's tucked the blanket back around your shoulders and settled into the chair beside the bed, close enough that his hand finds yours without either of you really deciding it should. The fever hasn't broken yet. There's no rooftop tonight, no ending you'd planned for.

But his hand is warm around yours, and his eyes stay on you even after you've closed your own, and for the first time all week, the ache in your chest doesn't feel anything like sickness at all.

Maybe this was just the thing that happens when your baby stays. 

@coriihanniee ᯓᡣ𐭩

˖➴ reblogs are appreciated! ty for reading! <3

"See, I don't understand as to why she's going back to him—HE CHEATED ON YOU TWICE GIRL, SAVE YOURSELF!" Woonhak yells as he points out the obvious.

"Woonhak, could you be any louder… it's almost midnight and you might wake up my parents," You respond to him while looking at him unimpressed.

"Well, I'll have you know that I would never cheat on you, babe—because if you cheat on someone, why did you even agree to date them in the first pla—"

"Shut up, it's the makeout scene," You cover your boyfriend's mouth with your hand and focus on the screen in front of the two of you. While the couple on the screen is making out and tugging on each other's hair, Woonhak seems to be bored out of his mind—like, bored to the point where he needs to do something in the next five seconds or else he's going to explode.

"Can we makeout?" Woonhak blurts out, leaving your eyes widened and your face looking like you've just got a sunburn. "I—I mean—we don't have to but like…I do wanna make-out with you but…" He stays silent for a few seconds. "I think I just made this whole situation awkward now."

Yes. Yes he did.

You and Woonhak have kissed before—giving each other pecks on the lips, peppering each other's faces with kisses and the occasional passionate kiss—but the two of you never made out before.

You both looked back at the screen and continued watching the movie. While you're perfectly fine—investing all of your time into the movie. Meanwhile, Woonhak was getting bored again until he finally gave in. He brought is hand to your chin and made you face him—and then he leans in.

"Um, Woon? What are you doing?"

"Shhhh…" and his lips meet yours. Well—almost. You cover his mouth with your hand for about 5 seconds before you pause the movie, get up from the bed and exit the bedroom.

Woonhak starts whining the second you get off the bed. "Awww babe—why did you leave? Come back!" He gets off the bed as well and follows you.

"I'm going to get more snacks," you reply. "Want something?"

"Yes—I want you~" he starts becoming needy while still following you.

You open a top cupboard when you feel a pair of hands creeping onto your waist. Then a soft kiss on your neck—followed by kisses to your jaw—then your ear. You hear a voice whisper into your ear, a breathy one. Woonhak's arms are now entirely wrapped around your waist. He's still kissing your neck, jaw, and ear. "I want you so bad right now…" Woonhak whispers into your ear. "You're so hot, y'know that?" He continues to kiss you softly. So softly that you can only feel the tingle at the the end. You life your head up and close your eyes as you feel the sensation of his kisses, your breathing becomes heavier.

You turn your head to face him and his lips meet yours in a soft, but firm kiss. He turns your body around—arms still around your waist, and lifts you up onto the counter. The kiss gets messier as your hands reach Woonhak's hair, slightly tugging it. He whines when you do so—letting go slightly with his forehead against yours, panting for air. He looks at you. "Come on pretty girl…" he gasps. "Let me take care of you."

Woonhak brings your legs around his waist as he lifts you off the counter, carrying you back to the bedroom as you both continue your messy makeout session. Once you both make it to the bedroom, he places you onto the bed as he climbs on top of you. Pinning your arms onto the bed as you're kissing.

"So…good…" you mutter, almost inaudible.

"Yeah? You want more?"

You nod eagerly once he asks. He starts nipping your ear. Then kisses your jaw, then neck. His lips travel to your collarbone as his hands explore your abdomenal area under your shirt. Your breathing gets heavier—and you tighten your grip of Woonhak's hair. His lips travel back up to meet yours in another kiss. This time it was more soft.

You both let go and Woonhak flips you over so that you're on top of him. His arms are wrapped around your waist, cuddling you tightly. Your head is on his chest. "So…how did I do?"

"Eh, could be better."

"You wanna break up?" Woonhak smacks you with a pillow.

"H-hey! I was kidding! You did so well!"

"That's what I thought." Woonhak replies, still holding you in his arms as you start drifting into a slumber. Woonhak also closes his eyes and you both fall asleep—him holding you in his arms. Both wishing to have this experience again.

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