#jaeminfluff

You barely register the faint prickle at the back of your neck before your limbs suddenly go slack. A sharp chill courses through your chest, followed by a disorienting lightness, like you’re being peeled away from yourself. Then—blackness.

When you blink, you’re no longer behind your eyes. You’re watching them. Watching him.

Jaemin smirks at you from your own reflection, his fingers wiggling in a sarcastic little wave.

“Hey, gorgeous,” he purrs with your voice. “Miss me?”

Oh, you hate him.

When the exorcist first explained that Jaemin, a restless spirit, needed to temporarily possess your body to deliver a message from the in-between, you were willing to be gracious. Sympathetic, even. Poor, wandering soul. Couldn’t pass on until he spoke to his loved ones. You agreed without hesitation. But this? This was not part of the deal.

He’s supposed to be grateful. Solemn, maybe. Instead, he’s parading around in your skin like he owns it.

You glare at him from the mirror, your eyes narrowing, though it’s useless. He raises your eyebrows mockingly, as if to say, Is that all you’ve got?

“Y’know,” he hums thoughtfully, stretching your arms above your head, “you’ve got way more upper body strength than I expected.” He glances down at your torso, admiring it with an obnoxious little grin. “Are you secretly hitting the gym at midnight or something?”

You mentally screech, flailing in the disembodied limbo you’re stuck in.

“Jaemin, I swear—”

“Oh! And,” he interrupts, wiggling your fingers smugly, “you bite your nails when you’re thinking. Didn’t peg you for the anxious type, but it’s kind of cute.” He lifts a hand toward his—your—lips, playfully tapping your lower one.

You’re going to kill him. Well, he’s already dead, but you’ll find a way.

Over the next few hours, Jaemin wreaks absolute havoc on your daily routine. He rearranges your entire spice rack alphabetically. He texts your best friend unhinged compliments like, “You have the most symmetrical ears I’ve ever seen.” And when you pass by your nosy neighbor, he waves far too enthusiastically, making her nearly drop her purse in confusion.

“Why are you like this?!” you scream from your incorporeal prison.

But the worst comes when he finds the full-length mirror in your bedroom.

“Oh-ho…” he whistles lowly, tilting your head at an angle. “Would you look at that.” His eyes (your eyes) darken with amused mischief, half-lidded as he trails your fingers down your collarbone. His lips twitch into a familiar smirk—the one you’ve seen on his face every time he appears in your dreams. The one that always leaves you a little breathless.

He leans forward until his breath (your breath, dammit) fogs up the glass. His lips part slightly, and in a soft, husky murmur, he says,

“Damn. If I’d known you were this pretty, I would’ve possessed you sooner.”

Your heart, your actual heart, stutters.

“Oh, you are unbelievable,” you seethe.

He chuckles, the sound rich with genuine delight. “Don’t be mad. You’re making this way too easy.” He trails his fingers over the mirror’s surface, like he’s caressing your cheek. “I’ve been watching you for so long. You didn’t really think I was gonna waste this chance, did you?”

You stop fighting. Stop flailing. You just blink at him.

“…Wait. You’ve been watching me?”

Jaemin flashes you a slow, devilish grin.

“Sweetheart,” he murmurs silkily, voice dripping with fondness, “you’ve been haunting me since day one.”

And damn it all—you feel yourself fall for him.

You stare at him—at yourself—but the person staring back feels nothing like you. There’s a glimmer in your eyes that doesn’t belong. A sharpness to your smile that you’ve never worn. It’s him. Completely him. And he’s making it impossible to breathe.

“Haunting you?” you echo, barely able to keep the waver out of your voice.

Jaemin’s grin spreads slowly, devilishly, like he’s savoring the effect he’s having on you. He drags your fingers down the side of your throat, deliberately slow, making your pulse pound in places you no longer have a physical form.

“Mmh,” he hums, tilting your head to the side like he’s admiring his favorite portrait. “You didn’t notice?” His voice dips into something low and smoky. “Every time you got chills for no reason? That was me.” His smile grows wicked. “When your window blew open, even though you swore you closed it? That was me, too.”

You reel, trying to process his words, but your mind keeps snagging on how he’s brushing your knuckles across your lips. His eyes glimmer with dangerous delight as he murmurs,

“And when you had those dreams about me?” He presses your index finger against the corner of your mouth, tracing it slowly. “Yeah. Definitely me.”

Your mind blanks.

No. No, no, no, no. Those dreams. The ones that left you breathless and achingly hot, your fingers gripping at sheets that never seemed cool enough. The ones you brushed off as some twisted side effect of your subconscious craving companionship. Those were him?

Jaemin watches the realization flicker in your eyes, and he smirks. The bastard smirks.

“Caught you,” he taunts softly. “You liked it.”

You hate how warm your limbs—his limbs—suddenly look. How he’s using your body to lean against the dresser, one hand slipping into your hair with an infuriatingly slow, self-satisfied motion.

“I— I did not like it,” you snap, but the waver in your voice makes the words feel brittle.

Jaemin clicks your tongue, mock-scolding you. “Tsk, tsk. Lying to a ghost? How cold-hearted.”

Then, with a wolfish grin, he steps closer to the mirror, lowering his voice into something just shy of sinful.

“Admit it,” he purrs, lips brushing your reflection. “You miss me when you wake up.”

You want to scream. Want to throttle him. Want to—

Oh. Oh no. You want to kiss him.

He feels it. The longing that spikes through you. His eyes—your eyes—flash with a victorious gleam. Slowly, deliberately, he presses your palm against your chest, right over your heart, as if to taunt you with your own racing pulse.

“Wouldn’t it be easier,” he breathes softly, the words a whisper against the mirror, “if you just let me stay?”

The world stills. Your throat tightens.

Stay?

Stay in your body? With you?

“You’re insane,” you murmur faintly.

Jaemin flashes you a dimpled grin. “Possibly.” Then, in a voice so soft you almost mistake it for reverence, he adds,

“But you make me want to be alive again.”

And before you can stop yourself, you whisper back,

“You already are.”

For a single, breathless heartbeat, he falters. His eyes—no longer teasing, no longer smug—widen slightly, raw and disarmed. For the first time, you catch a glimpse of something achingly human behind them.

And that’s when he lifts your hand—his hand—to the mirror. Presses his palm against the glass, longing sparking in his eyes like embers.

“Come closer,” he murmurs, so softly it barely reaches you.

Without thinking, you do. Your consciousness—your disembodied self—drifts toward the surface of the mirror, drawn in by the magnetic warmth in his eyes. You hover there, feeling the pull of his presence. The way it stirs something deep and trembling inside you.

His lips part. Just slightly. His eyes lower to your mouth.

“Stay with me,” he whispers, your voice barely a breath.

And before you know it, you’re crashing back into your own body.

The sensation is sudden and disorienting. Like being dunked into ice-cold water, your limbs snap back into place, your chest heaving. You blink rapidly, disoriented. Dizzy. Alive.

But when you glance at the mirror—he’s still there. His reflection. Smiling softly. Not smug. Not teasing. Just… gentle.

“See?” he murmurs. “Told you we were better together.”

Your lips part, your heart hammering painfully against your ribs.

“You’re impossible,” you whisper.

Jaemin’s grin turns slow and fond.

“Yeah,” he chuckles. “But I’m yours now.”

You had dealt with a lot of difficult clients in your time as a bodyguard, but Na Jaemin was, without a doubt, the most infuriating.

As the heir to one of the most powerful crime families in the city, he should have taken his safety seriously. Instead, he treated it like a joke—slipping away from his security detail, sweet-talking his way out of every tight spot, and flashing that damn smirk whenever you tried to lecture him.

"Relax," he drawled, leaning back against the leather seat of the car. "No one’s coming for me tonight."

You gritted your teeth. "That’s what you said last time. And yet, here we are—me pulling you out of another disaster while you act like it's a game."

Jaemin chuckled, tilting his head to watch you, dark eyes gleaming under the passing streetlights. "Admit it. You’d miss me if I actually behaved."

Before you could fire back a retort, the first bullet shattered the window.

The ambush was sudden, but not unexpected. You'd warned him that his father's enemies were getting bolder, but he had shrugged it off with a laugh and a flirtatious wink.

Now, as gunfire erupted around the car, you didn't have time for I-told-you-so. You grabbed Jaemin by the arm and yanked him down just as another bullet tore through the headrest where he'd been sitting.

"Out. Now!" you barked, already reaching for your weapon.

Jaemin, to his credit, moved fast when it really mattered. Together, you ducked and ran, slipping into the shadows of the alley behind the club. The city streets blurred as you dragged him through a maze of backroads, your only focus on losing the men chasing you.

When you finally stopped, hidden in the back of an abandoned warehouse, your heart was still pounding from the adrenaline. Jaemin was grinning.

"That was kind of fun," he admitted.

You shot him a glare, pressing a hand against your aching ribs. "Are you incapable of taking anything seriously?"

His expression softened, just for a second. "I take you seriously."

Your breath caught, but you refused to let him see the way he affected you. "You should," you said, voice sharper than you meant. "I'm the only thing keeping you alive."

Jaemin took a slow step forward, closing the distance between you. The usual teasing was gone from his face, replaced with something deeper. "Then who’s going to keep you safe?"

The question hit harder than any bullet.

You had spent so long keeping your distance, reminding yourself that he was a job, not a person. Not someone you could let yourself care about. But standing there, with Jaemin watching you like you were the only thing in the world that mattered, you realized the truth.

The biggest danger wasn't the assassins hunting him. It was the way you were starting to feel about him.

And that was a threat you didn’t know how to fight.

As the seconds stretched on, the silence in the warehouse felt heavy—too heavy. Jaemin’s gaze never wavered from yours, his dark eyes searching, reading you in a way that made your skin prickle. You stepped back instinctively, retreating into the cool shadows of the dimly lit space, as if the distance could shield you from the tension thickening between you.

"Don't," you warned, trying to steady your breath, trying to make sense of the mess your thoughts had become. "Don't look at me like that."

Jaemin didn't answer right away. Instead, he moved closer, until the air between you crackled with unspoken words. You felt every muscle in your body coil, a mix of protectiveness and something else you couldn't name. His proximity was dangerous, and he knew it.

"Like what?" he asked, voice lower than before, rough with something that sounded like frustration. Or maybe it was desire. You couldn't quite tell anymore.

"Like you’re not making my job harder than it already is," you snapped, but your words had no bite. They fell flat, impotent, as if the fight had already been drained from you.

Jaemin's lips curled into a half-smirk, but his eyes softened, that glint of mischief replaced by something else. Something real. "You keep saying that... but I don't think it's just your job that makes things hard."

You froze, all the air leaving your lungs in a rush. He couldn’t have—did he—?

Jaemin closed the last of the distance between you. He reached up, fingers brushing lightly against your cheek, tracing the line of your jaw like he had every right to. "You care, don't you?" he whispered.

The question hung in the air, thick and charged. For a moment, the world felt impossibly still, the weight of his touch pressing against your skin. You should’ve pulled away. You should’ve pushed him back, told him to focus on staying alive and stop making everything harder than it had to be.

But you didn’t.

Your breath hitched, and for a split second, the line between professionalism and something personal, something dangerously intimate, blurred completely. You met his gaze—those eyes that seemed to see right through you—and a part of you wished you hadn’t, wished you could ignore the pull between you, the way he made your heart beat just a little too fast.

"Don’t do this," you whispered, voice strained.

Jaemin’s thumb brushed over your lower lip, and your pulse stuttered. "Why? Because you’re afraid of what it means?"

You opened your mouth to argue, but no words came. The truth was, you were afraid. Afraid of how much you cared, how easily he had wormed his way under your skin. Afraid that the moment you allowed yourself to feel something for him, you’d be just as reckless as he was.

"Stop," you managed, taking a step back, forcing yourself to create some distance between the two of you. "We can’t afford distractions."

Jaemin’s smirk faltered, replaced by an unreadable expression. For a moment, he didn’t move, as if he were giving you the space to breathe, to think. But you both knew it wasn’t that simple. You were two people caught in the crossfire of a dangerous world, and the last thing you needed was to complicate things with emotions that could get you both killed.

He finally spoke, his voice softer now. "I’m not a distraction, you know. I’m the reason you’re still alive."

You swallowed hard, trying to keep the emotions from betraying you. "And I’m the reason you are, too."

Jaemin chuckled, but it wasn’t the teasing laugh you were used to. It was quiet, almost melancholic. "Yeah, guess we’re kind of stuck with each other."

The words hung in the air as he turned away, walking to the far side of the warehouse, giving you a moment of peace. But that peace was fleeting. You knew it. The moment you let your guard down, the moment you let yourself feel anything beyond the job—was the moment everything would change.

And you had a sinking feeling that change would come sooner than you were ready for.

Jaemin turned back toward you, his expression serious for once. "We need to stick together if we're going to make it out of this. You’re all I have right now."

The weight of his words hit you harder than you expected. You had never let anyone get close enough to say something like that to you—not without walls built high around your heart. But with Jaemin? You weren’t so sure anymore.

"Fine," you said, trying to sound unaffected, even though the truth burned in your chest. "But don't think this changes anything."

Jaemin raised an eyebrow, his lips curling into a familiar smirk. "I’m counting on it."

The next few days were a blur of hiding, running, and fighting. Every moment you spent with him made it harder to remember why you had to keep things professional, why you couldn’t afford to care. Jaemin, ever the reckless heir, pushed you to your limits, but he also kept you grounded in ways you never expected.

And with every glance, every stolen touch, the threat you feared most—the one that had nothing to do with the gunfire or the ambushes—grew larger. Because the truth was, you weren’t sure how much longer you could pretend you didn’t feel something for him.

The days passed in a blur of close calls, adrenaline, and tense moments that never seemed to let up. You could feel it in every quiet glance Jaemin stole your way, in every fleeting touch when he would brush past you, the heat of his skin against yours. It was a constant reminder that the line between professional duty and something far more dangerous was slipping through your fingers like sand.

It was on the fourth night, when you found yourselves holed up in a dilapidated hotel room, bloodshot eyes and exhausted bodies collapsing onto the bed, that you finally let yourself face the truth.

Jaemin had been quiet for a while, an unfamiliar seriousness in his gaze as he peeled off his jacket and sank onto the bed beside you. He didn’t make a move, but you could feel the weight of his presence next to you.

"You know," he said softly, his voice rough from days of shouting orders and dodging attacks. "You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met."

You didn’t answer right away, unsure of where he was going with this, unsure if you even wanted to know.

He turned to face you, eyes softening as he studied your face. "You’re not supposed to care about me. You’re supposed to protect me, keep me alive, and that's it. But I think you’re starting to see me as... something more."

Your heart hammered in your chest, and for the first time in a long time, you allowed yourself to feel the weight of his words. "You’re right. I shouldn’t care," you whispered, trying to steady your breathing, trying to convince yourself that this wasn’t real. That he wasn’t real.

Jaemin’s fingers gently traced the back of your hand, and the touch sent a shiver down your spine. He shifted closer, the distance between you closing until you could feel his breath on your skin. "I know you’re trying to fight it. Believe me, I am too. But every time you look at me like that, like I’m something to be protected... I can’t help but want to be more than that."

You swallowed hard, torn between the professional distance you’d spent your entire career cultivating and the intense pull you felt toward him. "Jaemin, don’t do this."

He leaned in, his lips barely a breath away from yours. "I’m not doing anything. I’m just being honest with you."

The room felt too small, the air thick with anticipation. Your pulse quickened, and for a moment, you couldn’t remember why this was a bad idea. The heat between you was undeniable, a flame that burned hotter with every passing second.

"Please," you said, voice strained, pulling away just enough to look into his eyes. "We can’t. Not now. It’s too dangerous."

Jaemin’s expression softened, but he didn’t pull away. Instead, he cupped your face, his thumb gently brushing over your cheek. "I get it," he said, his voice quieter now, the teasing edge gone. "But I’m not just some rich kid you’re hired to protect anymore, am I?"

You didn’t have an answer for that.

The air between you seemed to thicken again, and before you could stop yourself, you were leaning forward. His lips met yours in a kiss that started slow, tentative, as if both of you were testing the waters. But as the seconds passed, it deepened, heat rising between you like wildfire, burning away any hesitation you’d clung to. Jaemin’s hand threaded through your hair, pulling you closer, and you let him, unable to fight the magnetic pull that had been building between you from the moment you’d first laid eyes on him.

When you finally broke apart, breathless and disoriented, Jaemin rested his forehead against yours. "I don’t care if it’s dangerous," he murmured. "I don’t care if this is reckless. All I know is that I’m not letting you go."

Your heart raced, and you closed your eyes, allowing yourself to feel the weight of his words settle deep within you. You’d been so careful, so guarded—but now, standing there, with Jaemin's arms wrapped around you, you realized that maybe, just maybe, it was okay to let someone in. It was okay to care.

You looked up at him, your voice steady despite the turmoil inside you. "You’re impossible."

Jaemin smirked, that familiar spark lighting up his eyes. "But you still care."

And as you stared into his eyes, knowing full well that nothing about this situation was simple or safe, you couldn’t help but admit he was right. You cared, and it scared you.

But for the first time in a long while, you didn’t think you needed to fight it anymore.

Jaemin’s lips found yours again, and this time, you didn’t pull away.