featuring: classmate!soonyoung x gn!reader, idiots to lovers
summary — kwon soonyoung is your best friend, and a bit of an idiot. he’s so dense he would sink in the dead sea, as you like to say. but one thing you never quite noticed was just how dense you were.
author’s note: am i projecting? mayhaps. at some point writing just becomes me writing the love stories i want to live out. but here’s hoping that at least some people out there want to be loved the same way i do <3
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:ঌ THE SUN, THE MOON, AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN ⭑ A.KN ㅗ ໒:
📬 ❤︎ best friend!keonho 𝔁 f!reader ─── ৻ꪆ are they best friends? are they lovers?
❤︎ warnings+tags ─── ৻ꪆ fluff · crack · childhood best friends to lovers (my most fav trope ever) · nicknames · kissing & skinship · lines between best friends and lovers blur so much · underage drinking (i do NOT condone that btw 😭) · ft. ian (h2h) and seonghyeon
💌 ❤︎ notes ─── ৻ꪆ most of the fic was inspired by the time i thought moonstruck by enha was so keonho-coded + i was listening to enchanted & wildest dreams by ts recently and it sounded so whimsical so i was like hell yeah keonho fic 😁 · the drunk encounters in the end of this fic are fully inspired by the first time my friends and i tried some vodka from a stupid steel thermoflask at the end of a school day for no logical reason 💀 it was the funniest day ever 😭 (AGAIN, i do NOT condone underage drinking ok 😭) · sun and moon references are fully dedicated to my bby @cortismoon and the whole premise of not having a certain label is entirely inspired by whatever it is that @jjuhyeons and i share (which i could talk about forever 💕) (also for nana @bananagirl222 bc i promised u a keonho fic 😛)
❤︎ wc ─── ৻ꪆ 6k
𝄞 𓏸 my cortispilledmasterlist »﹙合﹚
❝ tracklist ❞ ─── you—radiohead ❦ enchanted—taylor swift ❦ moonstruck—enha ❦ you are in love—taylor swift ❦ friends—v ❦ pluto projector—rex orange county ❦ serendipity—bts ❦ line without a hook—ricky montgomery ❦ kidult—svt ❦ golden hour—jvke ❦ polaroid love—enha ❦ it's nice to have a friend—taylor swift ❦ still with you—jk ❦ until i found you—stephen sanchez ❦ about you—day6
there were certain things that people in your school accepted as universal facts. the sky was blue, the bell rang at three fifteen on fridays, and ahn keonho belonged somewhere within arm’s reach of you at all times.
it had been that way for as long as anyone could remember. long before high school hallways, long before senior year lockets and varsity jackets, there had just been the two of you. in kindergarten, keonho was the boy who would sit beside you in the sandbox, patiently building tiny earthen fortresses around your shoes so the incoming tide of running toddlers wouldn’t scuff them. in middle school, he was the boy who sat on your porch until the sun dipped beneath the trees, helping you memorise vocabulary words while tossing pebbles into the garden hedge. and by high school, he was simply keonho—your shadow, your light, your permanent companion.
if he was the sun, golden and radiant and impossible to ignore, then you were the moon. he moved through the crowded hallways with an easy, effortless warmth that drew people into his orbit without him even trying. his laugh was loud, quick to ignite, and bright enough to clear out the gloom of a rainy monday morning. you, on the other hand, were the quiet tide that kept him anchored. you were cool where he was warm, steady where he was impulsive, reflecting his bright energy back into the world in soft, gentle glimmers. he was the day that made everything feel vivid, and you were the night that gave him a place to rest.
and yet, despite how naturally you fit together, nobody in your school could ever make sense of what you actually were.
it was an ongoing debate among your friend groups, a mystery that lived permanently in the margins of high school gossip. were you childhood best friends who were so comfortable with each other that romance seemed redundant? or were you secret lovers who simply didn’t feel the need to broadcast your relationship status to the rest of the world?
no one could ever say for sure. because the things you did with keonho did not align with how normal best friends behaved, but you also never gave anyone a straight answer when they asked.
the physical boundary line between ‘childhood best friends’ and whatever you two were simply didn’t exist to you both. it wasn’t a needy kind of proximity; it was an atmospheric necessity, like gravity.
if keonho was standing in line at the cafeteria, you were leaning back against his chest, his hands lightly holding your waist so you wouldn’t get bumped by the chaos of the lunch rush. if you were studying in the library, your knees were bumped together under the small wooden table, your feet tangled carelessly beneath the chairs.
if you were sitting together on the bleach-stained benches of the gym during fifth period, keonho would naturally lean over and rest his head right in the crook of your neck, his eyes closing while you absentmindedly ran your fingers through his messy, dark hair. if you were cold during third-period history, he would reach down, pull off his hoodie without a word, and hand it to you before you even had to ask.
take any given tuesday, for instance. you would be sitting on the crowded floor of the choir room during lunch, surrounded by a dozen other seniors arguing about spirit week themes. space was tight, so keonho would simply pull you back between his legs, wrapping his arms around your shoulders and resting his chin comfortably on top of your head while he chimed in with ridiculous suggestions that made you snort and add on to. you would spend forty minutes leaning entirely against his chest, feeling the vibration of his laughter right against your spine, casually holding his wrist and tracing the faint blue veins on the back of his hand while he talked.
or take the nights when you were crammed into the backseat of seonghyeon’s car after getting late-night diner food. exhausted, your eyes burning from a week of late-night studying, keonho would lift you by your waist without a word, settle you directly across his lap, and tuck your head under his chin. he would wrap his denim jacket around your shoulders and hold you tight against him the entire drive home, his fingers gently rubbing your lower back until you fell asleep.
and then there were the nicknames. it started somewhere in middle school, a soft slip of the tongue during a late-night study session over geometry homework that somehow stuck forever. keonho called you ‘sweetheart’. he said it naturally, casually, his deep voice smoothing over the vowels as if it were the most natural word in the world. “sweetheart, move over, you’re taking up the whole blanket.” or “sweetheart, did you drink enough water today or should i check cookie’s nanny cam since you’ve been with him the entire day?”
and you called him ‘love’. it fell off your tongue with the same unthinking ease, spoken softly into the space between you whenever he was being particularly endearing or stubborn. “hold still, love, your collar is crooked.” or “thanks, love, you’re a total lifesaver for helping me figure out that 45 plus 45 makes 90.”
your classmates spent entire semesters analysing your behavior.
“do best friends hold hands while walking across the football field?” ian had asked one afternoon, squinting through the classroom window as she watched keonho weave his fingers through yours while you both walked back from the track. “he literally fed her a piece of sliced apple off his fork yesterday during lunch! and then she wiped a drop of juice off his chin with her thumb! and he didn’t even flinch! he just smiled like a golden retriever who got praised for existing.”
“they’re just close,” seonghyeon had shrugged, though even he sounded entirely perplexed. “i mean, i don’t hold my homies in my lap like a victorian prince mourning his tragic bride, but it’s them. it’s yn and keonho, y’know? they’ve been like that since kindergarten.”
“they’re an enigma,” ian concluded with a heavy sigh. “don’t try to study them, hyeon. it’ll ruin your gpa.”
whenever anyone worked up the courage to ask—whenever a curious classmate leaned across a desk and whispered, “wait, are you guys dating?”—you both would just look at each other, blink, and laugh.
“we’re just yn and keonho, dude,” he would say, flashing that warm, brilliant sun-ray smile of his that made his eyes crinkle at the corners. and you would just nod, offering a quiet smile of your own, leaving the rest of the world to scratch their heads in absolute confusion.
on rainy afternoons, that confusion only amplified inside the privacy of his bedroom.
the sun had long abandoned the room, leaving behind only the soft, ambient purple of twilight filtering through the window blinds. you were sitting on the edge of keonho’s bed, leaning back against the wooden headboard with a heavy textbook resting open in your lap. outside, a steady, rhythmic rain was tapping against the glass, making the warm bedroom feel like a tiny island floating in the middle of a quiet sea.
keonho wasn’t studying. he had given up on his history notes roughly forty-five minutes ago, declaring that his brain had reached maximum capacity and that his only remaining duty for the evening was to serve as your personal heating pad.
he was currently lying sideways across the mattress, his long frame draped over you without a single care for personal space. his head was buried against you, his nose tucked right into the warm crook of your neck. one of his heavy arms was wrapped tight around your waist, while his knee was hooked lazily over your thigh, anchoring you to the bed exactly like an anchor drops into the sea. he was heavy, warm, and entirely unbothered by the fact that he was crushing roughly sixty percent of your ribcage.
“love,” you murmured, holding your head back slightly so you could try to read line forty-two of your psychology chapter. “you’re kinda squishing me.”
he didn’t move a single millimetre. instead, he let out a low, contented hum that vibrated right against your collarbone, his arm tightening around your waist just a fraction more.
“nuh uh,” he mumbled into your skin, his lips brushing against your throat as he spoke, sending a tiny, involuntary shiver down your spine. “i’m currently recharging my battery, and you are my charging port. do not unplug the charger.”
“you’ve been charging for an hour,” you laughed softly, setting your highlighter down on the pillow and letting your hand sink into his thick, wavy hair. your fingers traced gentle, absentminded patterns across his scalp, untangling the soft strands. he let out a soft, breathy sigh, his shoulders relaxing completely under your touch. he shifted just enough to turn his face, pressing his cheek flat against your chest so he could look up at you with heavy, sleepy eyes.
“it’s cold,” he reasoned softly, his voice thick with sleep. “and you’re warm. and you smell like that sweet vanilla soap. why would i lie on the cold floor when i can lie on you?”
“because normal best friends don’t use each other as human furniture,” you pointed out, though your hand never stopped petting his hair.
keonho blinked, a faint, lazy smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “who said we were normal?”
you closed your textbook and slid it onto the nightstand. the moment you moved, keonho shifted, pulling the heavy duvet up over both of your shoulders to create a warm, dark little cocoon beneath the covers. he pulled you down until you were lying flat on your back beside him, his legs entangling tightly with yours under the blanket. one of his hands reached up, his long fingers finding yours in the dark and threading together, resting your joined hands over his heart.
he lowered his head until his forehead rested against yours in the dim light filtering through the sheets.
“yn?” he whispered, his voice dropping into that quiet, reverent tone that always made the rest of the world fall away.
“yeah?”
“ian asked me something today,” he murmured, his thumb absentmindedly stroking the back of your hand. “she asked if we… if we ever got confused. about where the friendship ends.”
you felt a soft flutter in the pit of your stomach, cool and sweet like butterfly wings. “what did you say?”
“i told her there’s nothing to be confused about,” he breathed, his lips hovering mere millimeters from yours. “because there was never a line to cross in the first place. i’ve just… always been yours.”
he moved his head just an inch, pressing his soft lips gently to the corner of your mouth—a slow, lingering press that felt like coming home after a long journey in the cold.
“do best friends do this?” he whispered softly, a little dimple appearing in his cheek as a tender, teasing smile broke across his face.
you let out a soft, breathless laugh, reaching up to wrap both of your arms around his neck, pulling him down against you. “no idea,” you whispered into his ear, pressing a soft kiss to his temple.
that lingering heat carried straight into the weekend.
the party happened on a crisp friday night in late autumn. it was hosted by one of the senior athletes at a sprawling house at the end of a quiet suburban cul-de-sac. the front yard was already lined with parked cars by the time keonho and you walked up the driveway. the cool night air was sharp and fresh, smelling faintly of fallen oak leaves and woodsmoke, but inside the house, the atmosphere was thick with loud music, thumping bass, flashing strobe lights, and the hum of dozens of teenager voices overlapping all at once.
as was customary, you two arrived together—you always did. keonho had picked you up from your house earlier that evening, waiting patiently in your living room while you grabbed your jacket, chatting with your parents like he was already part of the family (which he technically was). when you came downstairs, his eyes had brightened instantly—that sudden, golden flare of light that always hit his gaze whenever you entered a room.
“ready?” he had asked softly, reaching out to tuck a stray strand of hair behind your ear before offering you his hand.
“mhm,” you had hummed, sliding your fingers into his warm palm.
now, inside the crowded living room, the two of you moved through the sea of people like a well-rehearsed dance. you were great at mixing up friend groups. keonho was friends with everyone—the athletes, the theatre kids, the debate team, the kids who sat in the back of art class—and you were the quiet thread that seamlessly connected him to every conversation.
for the first hour, you drifted between circles together. keonho would sling a heavy, warm arm over your shoulders, pulling you against his side while he laughed at a joke someone made about the upcoming basketball season. you would rest your palm against his lower back, feeling the steady heat radiating through his soft shirt, chiming in with a witty remark whenever the conversation lulled.
people watched the two of you with the usual bewildered curiosity. you would lean up to whisper something in his ear over the blaring pop music, and keonho would bend down instantly before you could speak more than two words, his ear pressed close to your lips, a soft, indulgent smile spreading across his face. when you pulled back, he would brush his thumb over your cheekbone, completely unfazed by the fact that three different people in the circle were staring at him with wide, questioning eyes.
“are you two going to get drinks or what?” someone shouted over the music, pointing toward the kitchen where red plastic cups were being stacked into messy pyramids.
“not yet!” keonho called back, his voice smooth and bright. “we’re taking our time tonight.”
neither of you had ever drank alcohol before. it wasn’t out of some strict moral stance; it was just something you hadn’t gotten around to trying yet. high school parties were fun for the music and the socialising, but you both had always preferred staying clear-headed enough to remember every second of your time together.
around eleven o’clock, the party reached its loud, chaotic peak. the living room was packed shoulder-to-shoulder, the bass from the speakers vibrating right through the hardwood floor and up through the soles of your shoes.
keonho leaned down toward you, his warm breath fanning across your temple. “hey,” he murmured, his voice dipping low, meant only for you. “it’s getting pretty loud in here. want to get some air, sweetheart?”
you looked up into his dark, bright eyes. the house was suffocating, but he looked like a breath of fresh spring air. “i’d love to.”
he took your hand, his long fingers instantly interlacing with yours, and gently navigated a path through the crowded kitchen, slipping out through the heavy glass sliding doors that led into the back garden.
the moment the glass door closed behind you, the chaotic noise of the party muffled into a soft, distant hum. the garden was quiet, illuminated only by the faint glow of fairy lights strung along the wooden fence and the cool, silvery light of the full moon hanging high in the clear midnight sky. the air was crisp, sending a tiny shiver down your spine as the cool breeze hit your cheeks.
keonho noticed immediately. before you could even register the chill, he had pulled you toward the wooden bench tucked away in the quietest corner of the yard, under the sprawling branches of an old maple tree. he sat down and immediately drew you into his lap, wrapping his arms around your waist to pull you close against his chest, burying his face into the side of your neck to shield you from the wind.
you let out a soft, breathy laugh, relaxing into his warmth. it was so familiar, so effortless. you rested your head against his shoulder, looking up at the bright moon overhead.
“you’re warm,” you whispered softly, leaning your cheek against the soft cotton of his jacket.
“i’m always warm when i’m with you,” he murmured into your skin. his voice was low, smooth, and gentle, stripped of the playful boisterousness he wore indoors. out here under the night sky, he was entirely yours.
for a long moment, neither of you spoke. out here, under the pale glow of the moon, time seemed to slow down until it was just the two of you, sitting on a wooden bench in the quiet chill of autumn.
he stirred slightly, his arms tightening around your waist. he shifted so he could look down into your face. the silvery moonlight caught the deep dark tones of his eyes, making them shine with a soft, golden radiance that felt brighter than any sun.
“yn?” he called your name softly. not sweetheart. just your name, weighted with a sudden, beautiful reverence that made your heart skip a beat.
“yeah, keon?” you answered, your voice barely above a whisper.
he looked at you for a long time, his gaze trailing over your eyes, the bridge of your nose, the soft curve of your lips. his thumb reached up, gently stroking your jawline with a touch so light it felt like a feather drifting on the wind.
“everybody keeps asking me questions,” keonho said quietly, a soft, fond smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “seonghyeon asked me earlier if i was planning on taking you to prom as a date or as a friend. even the guys on the team were nudging me, asking when i was finally going to ask you out.”
you tilted your head slightly, feeling the warm pulse of his thumb resting against your skin. “what did you tell them?”
“i told them the truth,” keonho murmured, leaning closer until his forehead rested gently against yours. the warmth of his breath brushed against your lips. “i told them that there isn’t a word in the dictionary that fits what we are. because ‘dating’ sounds like something that has a beginning and an end. and you… sweetheart, you’ve been my whole life for as long as i’ve been alive.”
your chest tightened with a sweet aching. you reached up, your fingers tangling into the soft hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him just a millimeter closer. “keonho…”
“i’m serious, yn,” he whispered, his eyes fluttering shut for a second as he felt your touch. when he opened them again, they were swimming with so much affection it made your breath catch in your throat. “i love you. i’ve loved you when we were seven and playing in the dirt. i loved you when we were fourteen and terrified of high school. and i love you right now, sober as a judge, under this somehow bright moon.” he chuckled softly, a quiet, rumbling sound in his chest. “you’re the moon, you know that? everyone thinks i’m the bright one because i talk too much and make a scene, but you’re the light that keeps me from getting lost in the dark. i don’t want to live in a world where i’m not orbiting around you.”
a soft, breathless giggle escaped your lips, a tear of pure, overwhelming happiness brimming at the corner of your eye before you brushed it away. “you’re such a dork, ahn keonho.”
“i’m your dork,” he corrected softly, his smile blooming wide and radiant, like the sun breaking through the clouds. “so... can i kiss you now? properly? not just on the corner of your mouth, and not because of a label, but just because i can’t spend another second sitting this close to you without doing it?”
when he finally pulled back just an inch, his forehead resting against yours again, both of your breaths were shallow and uneven. he was grinning so hard his cheeks were dimpled, his eyes sparkling with absolute delight.
“wow,” he breathed, his thumb smoothing over your lower lip. “best friends definitely don’t do that.”
you laughed softly, wrapping your arms around his neck and pressing a quick, sweet kiss to the tip of his nose. “definitely not.”
he let out a low chuckling sound, shifting slightly as if to lean back and take you in—putting a few teasing inches of distance between your faces. but the sudden loss of his warmth was entirely unacceptable to you. before he could fully retreat, you leaned right back in, chasing his lips with a desperate kind of impatience that made him gasp in surprise.
his chest rumbled with a bright, melodic laugh as he ducked his head back just an inch further. “wait, wait—are you, like, addicted to me already? because i’m pretty sure there’s a strict rule about best friends—”
“shut up and just kiss me, you fucker,” you cut him off, your voice a breathless command.
you grabbed the collar of his jacket, pulling him down and closing every last bit of space left between you. the sudden force brought him flush against you, and his laughter instantly melted into a soft sigh against your mouth. this time, as your arms wrapped tight around his neck, he gave in completely—his arms wrapping firm around your waist, pulling you so close there wasn’t an inch of air left between you.
for a long time, you just stayed there on the bench, exchanging soft, silly little kisses between bursts of laughter. every time keonho looked at you, he seemed to find a new reason to smile, leaning in to press his lips against your cheek, your jaw, your forehead, making you squeal and hide your face in his jacket while he snickered warmly.
“okay, okay,” you gasped softly, pressing your palms against his chest to push him back a fraction, though you didn’t really want him to leave. “my heart is physically going to burst if you keep being this cute.”
“i can’t help it,” he grinned, kissing the back of your hand. “i’ve been holding that back for like… twelve years minimum. i have a lot of lost time to make up for.”
“we have all the time in the world,” you reminded him softly.
he beamed, his chest expanding with a deep, happy breath. then, he blinked, looking back toward the glass sliding doors of the house where light and sound were still spilling out into the yard.
“hey,” keonho said, an adventurous glint suddenly lighting up his eyes. “you know what we’ve never done?”
“what?”
“gotten drunk.” he pointed toward the house. “everyone in there is taking shots and drinking weird coloured liquid out of red cups. we’re seventeen—which is basically almost eighteen—we just had the greatest moment of our entire lives on a garden bench, and we are ninety-nine percent clear-headed to make this decision. don’t you think it's time we try alcohol for the first time ever? together?”
you stared at him, eyebrows raising in amusement. “are you serious, love?”
“one hundred percent serious,” he said, hopping up from the bench and extending a hand to pull you up into his arms. “come on! let’s go be chaotic. if we’re going to try drinking, i only wanna do it with you.”
you looked at his eager, golden face, completely incapable of saying no to him, and also wanting to try it out anyway. “fine. but if we throw up, you’re cleaning all that shit up.”
“deal!” he laughed, grabbing your hand and pulling you back toward the house.
what followed over the next two hours was a masterclass in chaotic, legendary foolishness. neither of you had any idea how tolerance worked, what drinks tasted like, or how to mix anything properly. you approached the kitchen counter like two mad scientists entering a lab with zero safety training.
“okay, what’s this… yellow stuff?” keonho asked, picking up a half-empty bottle with an illegible label while squinting at it like it was an ancient artifact.
“i think that’s lemon vodka,” ian said, walking into the kitchen and pausing when she saw the two of you standing side-by-side near the punch bowl. she squinted at you both suspiciously. “wait... why are you two looking at each other like that? why is keonho glowing more than usual? did something happen?”
“nothing!” keonho said a little too quickly, his face flushing bright pink as he immediately poured a generous splash of the yellow liquid into a red cup. “we’re simply exploring the culinary arts of adult beverages!”
“you guys are weird,” ian muttered, grabbing a soda and walking away.
keonho turned to you, holding up the red cup with grand ceremony. “to our first drink.”
“to our first drink,” you agreed, taking a tiny sip from the cup while he took a huge gulp.
the reaction was instantaneous.
keonho’s eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. his throat convulsed, his face turned bright red, and he immediately bent double, coughing violently while clapping a hand over his mouth. “oh god—” he coughed. “—that tastes like hand sanitizer mixed with battery acid! why do people drink this for fun, what the fuck?!”
you weren't faring much better. the sharp, burning sensation recoiled down your throat, making you pull a face so horrific that keonho stopped coughing just to point at you and burst into hysterical laughter.
“your face!” he wheezed, leaning against the kitchen counter for support, tears of laughter prickling his eyes. “yn, you look like you just bit into a raw lemon that was soaked in kerosene—”
“dude, this is awful!” you squeaked, fanning your mouth frantically with your hand. “why is it burning?! is it supposed to burn?! this is so disgusting!”
“i don’t know!” he giggled, grabbing a carton of orange juice from the fridge and frantically pouring it into the cup to dilute the taste. “here, let’s fix it. to science!”
he stirred the concoction with a plastic spoon, added a splash of cranberry juice, a drop of sprite, and—for reasons known only to him—a sprinkle of crushed potato chips that happened to be sitting on a plate nearby.
“keonho, no!” you shrieked, laughing so hard your belly hurt as he proudly held up the light-red, slightly floaty liquid. “you cannot put potato chips in alcohol!—”
“it adds salt,” he defended passionately, taking a tiny taste test. his face contorted into absolute horror again before he began giggling hysterically. “okay, nope! that made it worse. it tastes like soggy sea water.”
within forty-five minutes, the alcohol you had managed to force down after the stupid lemon vodka—combined with the pure, unadulterated high of your earlier confession—had both of you completely, utterly giggly and lightheaded.
you weren’t dangerously drunk, but you were definitely tipsy for the first time in your lives, and the results were pure comedy. keonho became profoundly emotional about inanimate objects.
at twelve thirty, you found him standing in the hallway, staring intensely at a medium-sized potted cactus plant sitting in the corner near the stairs. he had his hands on his hips, his head tilted at a dramatic angle, looking down at the leaves with immense concern.
“love, what are you doing?” you asked, stumbling slightly as you walked over and rested your head against his arm, your fingers looping through his belt loop for balance.
“yn,” keonho whispered gravely, leaning down to whisper in your ear like he was revealing a top-secret state security matter. “this plant… it’s being excluded from the party.”
you blinked up at the cactus. “it’s a plant, keon.”
“it has feelings, yn!” he insisted, his eyes wide and terribly earnest. “look at it! everyone is in the living room dancing, and this little guy is just sitting here in the dark corridor! it’s heartbreaking!”
before you could stop him, keonho picked up the heavy ceramic pot, cradling it in his arms like a newborn baby, and solemnly marched into the crowded living room.
“everyone!” keonho announced loudly over the music, holding the cactus plant high above his head like rafiki presenting simba on pride rock. “i would like you to meet our new best friend, injang! treat him with respect!”
the entire room broke out into cheers and laughter. someone handed keonho a pair of sunglasses, which he promptly put onto the plant’s branches, while you sat on the arm of the sofa, wheezing with laughter until you literally slid off onto the carpet.
“he’s out of his mind,” seonghyeon said, shaking his head as he watched keonho carefully place ‘injang’ on a side table and start teaching the plant how to do the robot dance. “what did you guys give him?”
“orange juice and battery acid,” you wheezed from the floor, clutching your stomach. “and potato chips!”
“yn, get up off the floor,” seonghyeon laughed, reaching down to pull you up, but before he could touch your hand, keonho suddenly materialised out of nowhere, swooping in with the speed of a protective mother hen.
“hands off my moon!” keonho declared dramatically, wrapping both arms around your waist from behind and pulling you flush against his chest, dropping his chin onto the top of your head. “she’s delicate! she’s lunar! you can’t just pick up lunar bodies, seonghyeon, let alone my favourite one!”
seonghyeon stared at keonho, then stared at you as you were currently giggling uncontrollably while pressing a messy, sweet kiss against keonho’s jawline.
“okay,” seonghyeon said slowly, raising his hands in defeat. “i’m officially not asking any more questions. you two are on an entirely different planet tonight. and no alcohol for you both till we teach you how tolerance works.”
“we’re on the moon!” keonho corrected loudly, tightening his hold on you and nuzzling his nose into your neck, making you squeal with laughter. “and i’m the sun! we have an eclipse going on right now! please respect our astronomical privacy!”
by two in the morning, the party was winding down, and the peak of your tipsy adventure had faded into a soft, cozy exhaustion.
keonho and you were sitting side-by-side on the bottom step of the front porch, wrapped in a giant plaid blanket that you had somehow acquired from inside the house. the cool night air washed over your warm cheeks, helping clear the remaining haze from your minds.
keonho had his arm wrapped tightly around your shoulders, pulling you close against his side. your head was resting contentedly on his chest, listening to the steady, rhythmic beat of his heart beneath his shirt. his free hand was holding yours, his thumb absently tracing small, soothing circles over the back of your knuckles.
“my head feels like a bouncy ball,” keonho admitted softly, letting out a breathy, quiet laugh that ruffled your hair. “drinking is strange, sweetheart. i don’t think i like the taste, but i definitely like sitting here with you while the world spins a little bit.”
“me too,” you murmured, closing your eyes and pressing a gentle kiss against his collarbone through his shirt. “though i think we should stick to fruit punch next time. minus the chips.”
“agreed,” he giggled softly. “the chips were a mistake. a delicious, terrible mistake.”
the front door opened behind you, and ian stepped out, wrapped in her winter coat as she waited for her ride. she looked down at the two of you huddled together under the blanket, looking for all the world like two sleepy kittens curled up in a basket.
she sighed, a fond, helpless smile touching her lips. “so… are you guys going to finally tell us what’s going on with you two, or are we going to have to guess forever?”
keonho looked up at her, his golden eyes soft and completely untroubled. he looked down at you, his thumb gently caressing your hand, and then looked back up at ian.
“what do you mean?” he asked innocently.
“i mean!” ian threw her hands up in amusement. “you spend your lives tangled together, lying on top of each other, holding hands, kissing her cheek, calling her ‘sweetheart’, making speeches about her being the moon, and tackling seonghyeon because he tried to help her off the floor! are you guys dating now or what?”
you tilted your head up to look at keonho. he looked down at you, and in his eyes, you saw everything. you saw years of shared laughter, late-night phone calls, shared umbrellas in pouring rain, cozy rainy days tangled under duvet covers, secret smiles across crowded classrooms, and the gentle, sweet weight of his lips against yours under the maple tree. you saw the past, the present, and every unwritten day of the future stretched out like a starry sky.
‘boyfriend’ and ‘girlfriend’ were nice words. they were neat, tidy boxes that people used to organise their feelings so everyone else could understand them. but what keonho and you had didn’t fit into a box. it was too big, too deep, too bright. it was the sun and the moon—two celestial bodies bound by gravity, moving together through the void, belonging to each other simply because that was how the universe was made.
keonho smiled—a soft, quiet, radiant expression that belonged only to you.
“we’re just yn and keonho,” he said gently, repeating the same line he had spoken a hundred times before. but this time, when he said it, he leaned down and pressed a soft, lingering kiss right to the corner of your lips, his fingers tightening in yours.
ian stared at the two of you for a long moment, blinked twice, and then let out a long, wheezing laugh. “you guys are unbelievable. totally hopeless.”
“goodnight, ian!” keonho called out cheerfully as her ride pulled up into the driveway.
“goodnight, you weirdos! get home safe!” she called back, waving as she ran down the steps.
when the front yard finally emptied out and the night returned to its quiet, still rhythm, keonho and you slowly stood up from the porch step, keeping the plaid blanket wrapped around both of your shoulders like a shared cloak.
the walk back to your house was slow and peaceful. the streets were empty, illuminated by the pale yellow glow of streetlights casting long, intertwined shadows ahead of you on the pavement.
you walked close together, your hip bumping against his with every step, your hands locked tightly inside the warm pocket of his jacket.
“yn?” keonho murmured softly into the quiet night air as your house came into view at the end of the street.
“yeah, love?”
“do you think people will ever stop asking about us?”
you smiled, leaning your cheek against his shoulder as you walked. “probably not. they like labels, keon. they like knowing where things start and where things end.”
keonho stopped walking under the soft light of the streetlight right in front of your driveway. he turned to face you, stepping close so that there was no space left between you at all. he reached up, gently taking your face in his warm hands, his thumb brushing softly over your cheekbone.
“well… then let them ask,” keonho whispered, his voice full of that quiet, unconditional warmth that had been your home for as long as you could remember. “we don’t need a label. we just need each other.”
“always,” you whispered back.
he leaned down and kissed you again—a long, sweet, lingering kiss under the yellow light of the streetlamp, tasting faintly of sweet orange juice and the crisp autumn night. it was quiet, gentle, and utterly perfect.
no words could ever encompass what you meant to each other. no title could ever hold the weight of how deeply you belonged to him, or how completely he belonged to you.
you were the sun and the moon. day and night. best friends, lovers, and everything in between, living in a world built for two.
and as you stood there in the quiet stillness of the late-night street, wrapped in his arms under the glowing sky, you knew that no matter what tomorrow brought, you would always be right here—exactly where you belonged.
📬 ❤︎ bf!keonho 𝔁 gf!reader ─── ৻ꪆ watching spiderman: brand new day with your boyfriend but… there’s a twist?
❤︎ warnings+tags ─── ৻ꪆ non-idol au · fluff · aged up (college/uni?) · movie date · very very mild violence (pocket knife mentioned once) · slight swearing
💌 ❤︎ notes ─── ৻ꪆ everyb say ty to whoever because spiderman bnd releases one day early in the country i’m in rn 🤤🤤 i’m going to the 10 AM show in a while 😈😈 @ everyone who prayed on my downfall, pray HARDER losers 😹😁
❤︎ wc ─── ৻ꪆ 9.4k
𝄞 𓏸 my cortispilledmasterlist »﹙合﹚
❝ tracklist ❞ ─── upside down kiss—txt ❦ fever—enha ❦ out of time—the weeknd ❦ guilty—taemin ❦ bed chem—sabrina carpenter ❦ chasing that feeling—txt ❦ pretty please—dua lipa ❦ mago—gfriend ❦ lunch—billie eilish ❦ un village—baekhyun ❦ one of your girls—troye sivan ❦ cool with you—njz ❦ die for you—the weeknd & ariana grande ❦ impurities—le srfm
it was exactly 9:14 AM on july 30th and you were currently vibrating at a frequency that could probably shatter glass.
you were dragging keonho by his wrist down the sidewalk, your grip so tight he was probably losing circulation, but honestly? this was a matter of life and death. spiderman: brand new day was premiering at exactly 10:00 AM—the very first showing. the absolute first day, first show. if you didn’t get there before the trailers started, you were going to combust into a cloud of pure, unadulterated spoilers. you had blocked every single variation of the word ‘spider’ on tumblr, instagram, twitter, tiktok, and even linkedin just in case some rogue recruiter decided to post a movie leak under the guise of a ‘motivational career lesson.’
“yn, please,” keonho wheezed, his long legs trying to keep up with your olympic-level speed-walking. “the theatre is literally three blocks away. we have forty-six minutes. why are we running like the green goblin is actively throwing pumpkin bombs at our heels?”
“because, keonho!” you gasped, not slowing down for even a second, your hair flying wildly behind you. “you don’t understand the significance of this. if i see even one frame of this movie on a random tiktok post before my eyes witness it on the big screen, i will physically perish. and more importantly, you need to be fully prepared. i’m not having you ask me who someone is mid-movie. this is a sacred space.”
keonho let out a soft, incredibly fond sigh, letting himself be dragged along. he was wearing an oversized grey hoodie that practically swallowed him, his soft black hair slightly messy from the morning breeze. he looked so soft and harmless, just a regular, slightly sleepy college-aged boyfriend who had been bribed out of bed with the promise of a large cherry tango slushie and a giant tub of sweet popcorn.
“okay, okay,” he chuckled, his voice still carrying that low, gravelly morning tone that usually made your brain short-circuit—but today, the spider-hyperfixation was far too strong to be defeated by pretty boy charms. “i’m listening. educate me, professor yn.”
“thank you,” you said solemnly, adjusting the strap of your bag. “now, listen closely. you need to understand the fundamental tragedy of the peter parker ethos. it’s all about the sliding doors of the multiverse. in the previous trilogy, which you insisted on sleeping through during our movie night—”
“i didn’t sleep through it, i was just resting my eyes during the parts where they weren’t swinging—”
“you slept for two hours, keonho! you snored during the green goblin’s monologue!” you accused, pointing an accusatory finger at him without breaking your stride. “anyway. the point is, this new movie, brand new day, is supposed to soft-reboot the timeline after the memory wipe spell. peter is completely alone. nobody remembers him. not mj, not ned, not even the local deli owner who makes his sandwiches. he’s living in a tiny, depressing apartment, sewing his own suit with a sewing machine that probably runs on hopes and dreams, and he has nothing. but he still goes out every night to save people because of the responsibility, keonho! ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ isn’t just a cool quote, it’s a curse! it’s a lifestyle!”
keonho’s eyes softened in a weirdly specific way as you said that. he looked down at the pavement, a tiny, almost melancholic smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “yeah,” he murmured, so quietly you almost didn’t hear him over the sound of a passing bus. “it really is.”
“exactly!” you cheered, completely missing his oddly profound tone. “so, in this movie, there are rumors that because of the residual multiversal energy from the last movie, his universe might be bleeding into other ones again. which means we might get cameos. we might get the other spiders! we might get some crazy comic-book lore like the spider-society or the web of life and destiny! i hope hobie’s there, even though it’s unlikely… well, i guess we’ll have to wait for 2027’s beyond the spider-verse till i can see hobie again—keonho, are you following me? do you understand the gravity of the situation?”
“i’m following, sweetheart,” keonho smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. he reached out and gently took your hand, slowing your frantic pace down just a tiny fraction so you wouldn’t trip over a cracked piece of concrete. “so, basically, guy gets bitten by a radioactive bug, loses his uncle, gets cool powers, loses his girlfriend, gets forgotten by the entire universe, and still decides to put on skin-tight spandex to fight crime instead of going to therapy.”
“i mean… when you put it like that, it sounds ridiculous, but yes. that’s the emotional core of the character,” you said, pulling him into the theatre lobby.
the cool blast of air conditioning hit your face, immediately followed by the glorious, life-giving scent of artificial butter and popping corn. the lobby was relatively empty since it was a thursday morning, but there were still a few dedicated nerds wearing spiderman graphic tees and hoodies. you instantly felt like you were among your people.
“stay here,” you commanded, tapping keonho’s chest. “i’m going to get the tickets and the holy grail of snacks. do not talk to anyone. do not look at your phone. do not let anyone spoil anything.”
“yes, captain,” he replied, giving you a mock salute. he leaned his back against a pillar, stuffing his hands into his hoodie pocket, watching you with that same incredibly soft, amused expression as you practically bounced over to the concession stand.
five minutes later, you returned bearing gifts: a tub of popcorn large enough to bathe a newborn infant in, two massive slushies—one blue, and the other red—and a bag of sour patch kids. keonho immediately took the heavy popcorn tub from you, offering a grateful smile.
as you walked down the dimly lit hallway toward screen 4-2, you were still whispering furiously under your breath. “okay, so there’s also the whole thing about his spider-sense. it’s not just a warning system, you know? it’s a physical reaction. his adrenaline spikes, his pupils dilate, the hairs on his arms stand up. it’s like a constant state of hyper-awareness. it must be so exhausting, honestly. imagine never being able to be startled because your brain just knows when a stray pigeon is about to fly into your face three seconds before it happens.”
keonho let out a sudden, choked sort of laugh, coughing slightly into his sleeve. “yeah. yeah, that... that sounds incredibly annoying. especially the pigeon thing. they’re so unpredictable.”
“right? you get it!” you beamed, feeling incredibly proud of your boyfriend’s sudden engagement in the lore.
you found your seats—dead center, row f, the objectively superior viewing angle for any cinema purist. you settled into the plush seats, kicking your legs slightly in pure excitement as the lights began to dim. you leaned over to keonho, whispering fiercely, “this is it, okay? quiet time. no talking unless it’s a mutual gasp of sheer disbelief.”
“got it, sweetheart,” he whispered back, taking a sip of his blue raspberry slushie.
for the next two hours and fifteen minutes, you were completely locked in. you went through a rollercoaster of emotions. you gasped, you clutched keonho’s arm so hard you probably left bruises, you stuffed handfuls of popcorn into your mouth without looking, and you definitely shed a tear or two when peter looked at mj from across the counter of the donut shop and decided not to tell her who he was to keep her safe.
but throughout the entire movie, you noticed something weird. whenever a major plot twist was about to happen—like, seconds before it actually registered on screen—keonho would react.
when a random character turned out to be a disguised villain in a split-second reveal, keonho didn’t even flinch. in fact, he actually sighed right before the reveal happened, like he was tired of the cliché. when spiderman dodged a projectile from a blind spot in a highly complex, visually stunning action sequence, keonho’s eyes didn’t widen in surprise; they just tracked the exact trajectory of the dodge perfectly, as if he knew exactly where the character was going to land.
and most bizarre of all: during a scene where spiderman was trying to web-swing through a particularly tight alleyway and clipped his shoulder against a fire escape, keonho literally winced and muttered, “ugh, i told him he needs to tuck his shoulder more on the left turns,” under his breath.
you had blinked, turning to look at him in the dim glow of the screen. “what?” you whispered.
keonho froze, his eyes widening slightly. he quickly stuffed a handful of popcorn into his mouth, chewing furiously. “nothing. i said... ugh, he should have tucked his shoulder. it looks like it hurt.”
“oh. yeah. totally,” you whispered back, though a tiny, suspicious seed had been planted in your brain.
when the credits finally rolled, you sat there in a state of absolute shock. the lights slowly came back on, illuminating the empty theatre. you were emotionally drained, physically exhausted from the sheer hype, and utterly satisfied.
“that,” you breathed, staring blankly at the screen as the names scrolled by, “was the greatest piece of cinema to ever exist. the cinematography? the soundtrack? the emotional weight of his isolation? 10 out of 10. absolute masterpiece.”
“it was pretty good,” keonho agreed, stretching his long arms over his head. his joints let out a series of alarmingly loud, rapid pops that sounded like bubble wrap being crushed.
you winced at the sound. “jesus, keonho, are you decaying? how do your shoulders even make that noise?”
“just stiff,” he said smoothly, offering you a sweet, innocent smile. “shall we go? my legs are cramping up.”
“yes, but we have to talk about the choreography,” you insisted, grabbing your trash and sliding out of the row. “the way he did that mid-air twist to dodge the glider? that was insane! like, the physics of that shouldn’t even work. you’d have to have, like, zero bone density and pure muscle memory to pull off a 360-degree flip while suspended by a single thread of web. it’s unrealistic, but so cool.”
“actually, the physics does work,” keonho said casually as you both walked out into the bright daylight of the street. the sun was blindingly hot, making you squint. “you just have to use the centrifugal force from the initial swing to propel your lower body upward first. if you try to spin from the waist, you’ll just stall out and face-plant into the brickwork. it’s all about the hip rotation and releasing the web at the exact apex of the arc.”
you stopped dead in your tracks on the sidewalk.
a group of teenagers walked past you, laughing, but you didn’t hear them. your brain was currently trying to process the words that had just come out of your boyfriend’s mouth. you turned your head slowly, like a character in a horror movie, to look at him. keonho had stopped a few paces ahead of you. he had his hands in his pockets, looking back at you with a slightly confused expression.
“what?” he asked, tilting his head.
“how…” you started, your voice barely a whisper. “how do you know that?”
“know what?”
“about the hip rotation,” you said, taking a step closer to him, your eyes narrowing into tiny slits of extreme suspicion. was he secretly… a spiderman nerd? “and the centrifugal force. and the... the face-planting into the brickwork. keonho, you don’t even watch gymnastics. you fell off a standing bike last week.”
“that was a mechanical failure!” he protested quickly, his cheeks flushing pink. “the pedal was loose!”
“keonho,” you said, your voice dropping an octave. “during the movie. when the glider scene happened. you winced before he got hit. and you muttered something about tucking the shoulder on left turns. who is ‘he’? who were you talking about?”
keonho’s expression went completely blank. he looked like a computer that had just been hit with a blue screen of death. his eyes darted to the left, then to the right, then up to the sky, as if looking for an escape route.
“i... i didn’t say that,” he stammered, his voice pitching slightly higher than usual. “you must’ve misheard me. the theatre speakers were really loud. i probably said... ‘he should eat more... cold turnips.’ yeah. nutrition is important.”
“cold turnips?” you repeated, deadpan. “are you serious right now? you expect me to believe you were advocating for root vegetable consumption in the middle of a climax action sequence?”
“turnips are a great source of vitamin c, yn,” he said, nodding solemnly, though a bead of sweat was visibly rolling down his temple.
you took another step closer, backing him up against the brick wall of a closed storefront. you leaned in, staring directly into his dark eyes. “and what about the part where you didn’t even react to the big twist? the one where the guy in the alley turned out to be mysterio’s illusion? you literally yawned, keonho. you yawned!”
“i was tired! we got up early!”
“you didn’t even jump when the jump scare happened!”
“i have strong nerves!”
“keonho…” you whispered, your heart starting to beat at a ridiculous pace. a wild, absolutely insane, completely delusional thought was starting to form in your mind. but... this was the multiverse. you knew the multiverse was real. there had been scientific anomalies reported on the news for the past year—weird spatial distortions, strange sky-glows, that one time a literal giant portal opened over downtown seoul for three minutes before vanishing. the government called it ‘atmospheric pressure events’, but the internet knew the truth. the multiverse was real.
and your boyfriend… your sweet, sleepy, turnip-advocating boyfriend…
“no way,” you breathed, your eyes widening to the size of dinner plates. “no. fucking. way. there is no shot. there is zero percent chance.”
“yn, you’re looking at me weird,” keonho said, his shoulder muscles tensing up. “you’re doing the ‘i’ve cracked a conspiracy theory’ face… please don’t do the face—”
“are you…” you gulped, lowering your voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “are you... him?”
“who?”
“the guy who web-swings. the guy who wears the weird tight spandex. the guy who tucks his shoulder on left turns.”
keonho stared at you. his lips parted slightly, and he looked incredibly stressed. “sweetheart, that’s a fictional character. we just watched a movie about him. he’s played by an actor and has really good cgi.”
“but the multiverse is real!” you hissed, grabbing his hoodie strings and pulling him down to your eye level. “you know it is! the news reports! the sky portals! and... and your joints! they pop like that because you’re constantly doing acrobatics! and you eat like three pizzas in one sitting and never gain weight! and... and yesterday! yesterday i dropped a mug and you caught it behind your back without even looking! you said it was ‘fast reflexes’ but nobody has reflexes that fast unless they have a sixth sense!”
“i just have good hand-eye coordination—”
“show me your hands,” you demanded.
“what? no—”
“show me your hands, ahn keonho!”
“...i don’t know who ahn keonho is!” he protested, but it was too late. you grabbed his right hand, pulling it out of his pocket.
you turned his palm over. there, right at the base of his wrist, was a tiny, faint, circular scar that looked suspiciously like a healed-over puncture wound. but more importantly, you noticed something else. you pressed your fingers against his palm.
“why is your skin so... grippy?” you whispered, feeling the microscopic ridges on his fingertips that felt almost like sandpaper, but softer. “you’re sticky. keonho, you’re sticky.”
“that’s just syrup from the sour patch kids!” he pleaded, his face now bright red. “i swear! i’m just sticky from the candy!”
“we didn’t even open the sour patch kids yet, dumbass. they’re literally still in my bag.”
silence fell over the sidewalk. keonho stared at you, and you stared back at him. a gentle breeze blew past, rustling the leaves of a nearby tree. slowly, the frantic, panicked expression on keonho’s face began to melt away. it was replaced by a deep, heavy, incredibly defeated sigh. his shoulders slumped. he let his head drop forward, resting his forehead against your shoulder with a quiet groan.
“i hate you,” he mumbled into your neck. “you’re too smart for your own good. i literally tried so hard—i’ve been doing this for two years and you figure it out because of a shoulder-tucking comment.”
your entire body went numb. your soul left your physical form, hovered in the air for a second to process the information, and then slammed back into your chest.
“oh my god—” you screamed.
he immediately clamped a hand over your mouth, his eyes wide with sheer panic. “shh! shh! quiet! do you want the entire neighborhood to know? there are literal government agencies that would love to dissect me, yn!”
you nodded furiously, your eyes watering from excitement behind his hand. he slowly let his hand slip away, looking at you warily.
“you’re spiderman,” you whispered, your voice trembling with pure, unadulterated ecstasy. “my boyfriend is spiderman. the actual spiderman? like, the web-slinger, wall-crawler, the friendly neighborhood hero.”
“yes,” he sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “yeah, i am.”
“do the thing,” you demanded instantly.
“what thing?”
“the web-shooter thing! shoot a web at that trash can!”
“what? no! i’m not shooting webs in broad daylight on a busy street!” he hissed, grabbing your wrists to keep you from flailing. “are you crazy? also, my web-shooters are mechanical, i’m not wearing them right now. they’re in my backpack.”
“you have a backpack? the classic spiderman backpack that you web to the wall of an alleyway?”
“yes, and i’ve lost like twelve of them because sanitation workers keep taking them down,” he grumbled, looking genuinely annoyed. “do you know how expensive graphing calculators are? i’ve had to buy three this semester alone.’
you were practically vibrating out of your shoes. “this is the greatest day of my life. forget the movie. this is better. this is ten thousand times better. wait, so... the movie we just watched? how did you know the plot?”
keonho sighed, gently guiding you to start walking again so you wouldn’t look suspicious standing in the middle of the sidewalk. “because, yn... the guy who wrote that movie? he’s from a universe where my life is apparently a comic book. the multiversal leak from last year didn’t just bring portals, it brought media crossover. some writer in another dimension literally had a dream about my life and wrote a script about it. they changed the name to ‘peter parker’ to protect my identity—which, thank god, because ‘ahn keonho’ is not a very common spiderman name—but the plot is basically exactly what happened to me last year.”
“wait,” you paused, looking at him. “so... you had a memory-wipe spell cast on you?”
“no, we don’t have a wizard in our universe, sweetheart,” he clarified, rolling his eyes. “but i did have to go off the grid because a rogue tech company hacked my personal database. i had to erase my entire digital footprint, fake my own death for three weeks, and live in a horribly damp basement eating instant ramen while trying to clear my name. it was incredibly stressful and i didn’t even get a cool magic circle out of it.”
“oh my god,” you gasped, clutching your chest. “my poor baby. you were so lonely.”
“i was!” he complained, suddenly turning into a giant, pouty toddler. “and i couldn’t even text you! i had to watch you from a distance to make sure you were safe, and you were just... sitting in your room eating dry cereal and crying over an emotional k-pop compilation video. i wanted to swing in through your window so badly.”
“you should have!” you yelled. “i would have shared my cereal!”
“you would have screamed and hit me with a broom, baby, let’s be realistic now,” he pointed out.
“...okay, fair point,” you admitted. “but still! oh my god. you’re spiderman. this explains everything. the weird bruises! the times you ‘fell down the stairs’! the fact that you can do a backflip over our couch without even warming up! the time you saved that stray cat from the roof of the library by ‘climbing a very sturdy drainpipe’!”
“drainpipes are very reliable,” he mumbled, his cheeks burning.
“you’re a terrible liar, keonho. i can’t believe i fell for the drainpipe story.” you grabbed his arm, squeezing his bicep. “wait. if you’re spiderman... that means you’re, like, super strong, right?”
“i mean... yeah. i can lift a city bus if i really try, though it usually gives me a terrible backache the next day.”
“lift me,” you said instantly.
“what?”
“lift me! right now! bridal style! show me the spider-strength!”
“sweetheart, we’re in public—”
“there’s literally nobody on this street right now! lift me or i will tell the deli owner down the street that you’re the one who keeps webbing his awning!”
keonho gasped, looking betrayed. “you wouldn’t.”
“wouldn’t i?”
with a dramatic, long-suffering sigh, he looked around to make sure no one was watching. in a fraction of a second, before you could even blink, his arms slipped under your knees and your back. with absolutely zero effort—like he was picking up a feather—he scooped you up into his arms.
you let out a squeak of delight as you felt completely weightless. his chest felt like solid marble beneath his soft hoodie, and his grip was incredibly secure.
“oh my god,” you whispered, wrapping your arms around his neck. “you’re so strong. this is ridiculous. you’re like a human crane.”
“are you satisfied, your highness?” he asked, a playful, arrogant little smirk finally breaking through his nervous exterior. he bounced you slightly in his arms, making you laugh.
“highly satisfied. but… there is one more thing.”
his smirk instantly vanished. he looked wary again. “what?”
“you know what day it is.”
“thursday?”
“no, stupid. it’s the premiere day of spiderman. and i have a bucket list.” you grinned, a mischievous, chaotic spark lighting up your eyes. “we’re currently three minutes away from the neighborhood playground. the one with the really high monkey bars and the big oak tree.”
keonho stared at you. he slowly put you down, his face pale. “no. absolutely not.”
“yes!” you squealed, grabbing his hand and pulling him toward the park. “you have to! it’s a cinematic law! if you’re spiderman and i’m your girlfriend, we need to recreate the upside-down kiss!”
“yn, that’s so dangerous! my blood’ll rush to my head, i’ll get a headache! also, how am i even going to hang upside down without a mask? people will see my face!”
“we’ll do it under the big oak tree! the leaves are super thick, nobody can see inside! and you don’t need a mask, i know what your face looks like! please, keonho! prettiest please ever… i’ll buy you the expensive garlic bread from the bakery! the one with the triple cheese!”
he paused. his eyes wavered. “the triple cheese?”
“with the dipping sauce that you like,” you added, sealing the deal.
he closed his eyes, praying to whatever multiversal deity was listening for strength. “...fine. but if i drop you, or if i get a cramp in my calves, we’re going home immediately.”
“deal!” you practically dragged him into the park. luckily, because it was a hot thursday afternoon, the playground was completely empty. the sun was beating down, but the massive, ancient oak tree in the corner provided a perfect, secluded canopy of deep shade.
you both scrambled under the low-hanging branches. the ground was covered in soft grass and fallen leaves.
“okay,” you said, turning to him with a serious, business-like expression. “how do we do this? do you just... jump up there?”
keonho looked up at the thick branch dangling about ten feet above you. “yeah. i just... jump.”
he took off his backpack, setting it carefully against the trunk of the tree. he reached into the front pocket and pulled out two sleek, metallic wristbands. he clicked them onto his wrists with a satisfying clack-clack.
“oh my god, the web-shooters,” you whispered, staring at them like they were holy relics. “they’re so beautiful. can i touch them?”
“after the kiss,” he smiled, his confidence returning. “stand back a bit.”
you took a few steps back.
he bent his knees slightly. with absolutely no run-up, he simply... sprang upward. it looked like gravity had temporarily forgotten to apply to him. he launched into the air, caught the thick oak branch with his knees, swung his body downward, and suspended himself perfectly upside down, his arms dangling toward the ground.
his hoodie fell over his face for a second, and he quickly blew a breath of air to push it back, revealing his flushed, upside-down face. his messy black hair hung downward, defying gravity in a way that was honestly extremely attractive.
“well?” he said, his voice sounding slightly muffled from the position. “how’s this?”
you stood there, completely starstruck. your boyfriend was literally hanging upside down from a tree like a giant, beautiful, extremely dorky bat.
“you’re so cool,” you whispered, walking over to him.
you stopped right in front of him. because he was hanging from a relatively low branch, his face was perfectly level with yours. you looked into his eyes, which were sparkling with mischief and affection.
“okay,” you said, your heart doing flip-flops. “now, for cinematic accuracy… i have to peel down your mask. but since you don’t have one…”
you reached out, your hands trembling slightly as you gently grabbed the hood of his grey sweatshirt. you pulled it down, exposing his forehead and his messy hair even more.
“close enough,” you whispered.
keonho chuckled, the sound vibration buzzing through the quiet space under the tree. “you’re a nerd, you know that?”
“i’m your nerd,” you corrected. “and you are literally spiderman, so you have no room to talk.”
“fair point,” he murmured.
he reached up with his hands, gently framing your face. his palms were warm, and you could feel that slight, unique, grippy texture of his skin against your cheeks. it didn’t feel weird; it felt incredibly grounding.
he tilted his head slightly to adjust for the upside-down angle.
“with great power,” he whispered, his eyes shifting to your lips, “come great kissing privileges.”
“that is not the line, keonho—” you laughed, but before you could say anything else, he closed the distance.
the kiss was... incredible. it was soft, warm, and slightly dizzying—partly because of the sheer thrill of the moment, and partly because of the gravity-defying angle. his lips moved against yours with a familiar, deep tenderness, but there was an added spark of excitement that made your knees feel weak. you reached up, wrapping your hands around the back of his neck, pulling him closer.
for a few seconds, the entire world disappeared. there were no portals, no rogue tech companies, no movie premieres, and no responsibilities. there was just you, a shady oak tree, and the boy who loved you enough to hang upside down from a branch just to make your silly movie dreams come true.
when he finally pulled back, he let out a soft breath, his eyes crinkling. “how was that? cinematic enough?”
“11 out of 10,” you beamed, your face flushed red. “the academy is shaking. tom holland is crying in a corner.”
keonho laughed, but then his face suddenly went pale. his eyes widened. “uh oh,” he muttered.
“what? what’s wrong?”
“my... my left calf,” he grimaced, his body tensing up. “it’s... it’s cramping. yn, it’s cramping really bad.”
“oh, uh—grab the branch!” you yelled.
“i can’t! if i move my leg, i’m going to—”
with a sudden, undignified yelp, keonho’s grip slipped. he fell straight down, landing flat on his back in the grass with a loud thud.
you stood over him, horrified but also trying desperately not to laugh as he curled into a fetal position on the grass, clutching his left leg.
“ow, ow, ow,” he groaned, his face pressed into the clover. “the spider-strength does not protect against lactic acid buildup. ow.”
you burst out laughing, dropping to your knees beside him and gently massaging his calf. “see? i told you! you need to stretch before you do acrobatics, spiderman!”
“i hate you,” he whined, though he let you massage his leg, a soft, defeated smile returning to his face. “but... you still owe me that triple cheese garlic bread.”
“of course,” you smiled, leaning down to kiss his cheek. “anything for my friendly neighborhood boyfriend.”
after about ten minutes of you vigorously massaging keonho’s calf while he made noises that sounded like a dying walrus, the cramp finally subsided. he lay flat on his back in the grass, staring up through the canopy of the oak tree, looking completely drained of all life and dignity.
“are you alive?” you asked, poking his cheek with your index finger. “do i need to administer mouth-to-mouth or does the spider-physiologic system have an automatic self-reboot function?”
“i’m dead,” keonho mumbled, closing his eyes. “just leave me here. tell my professors i died doing what i loved: being bullied by my girlfriend and failing to recreate iconic early 2000s cinema stunts.”
“oh, shut up,” you laughed, plonking yourself down on the grass right next to him. the smell of crushed clover and warm summer earth was thick in the air. “you did great. the kiss was literally perfect. the landing... well, we can work on the landing. maybe some hamstring stretches before our next date.”
“there is no ‘next date’ involving trees,” he groaned, but he slowly rolled onto his side to face you, propping his head up with one hand. his black hair was completely messy now, decorated with a few small dry leaves and twigs. you couldn’t help but reach out and gently brush them out of his hair, your fingers lingering in the soft strands.
he watched you do it, his dark eyes incredibly soft. “you’re really not freaked out?” he asked quietly, his voice dropping into that gentle, sincere tone that made your heart do a little loop-de-loop. “like… at all? you’re not worried that i’m constantly in danger, or that i’ve been lying to you for months?”
you paused, your hand resting on his temple. this was the same guy who always insisted on walking on the street-side of the sidewalk, who bought you chocolate when you were stressed about exams, and who once spent three hours trying to assemble a flat-pack bookshelf for you, only to end up putting the back panel on upside down. he was also the guy who swung through the skyscrapers of the city at night, catching falling helicopters and trading punches with weirdos.
“of course i was a little mad for like, a split second, because you’re a terrible liar,” you admitted, giving his nose a playful boop. “but freaked out? absolutely not. keonho, you’re a hero. you save people. and the fact that you still make time to watch dumb movies with me and hold my hand even though you probably have a million bruises under that hoodie… it just makes me love you more. plus, i get bragging rights. my boyfriend is literally the friendly neighborhood spiderman. do you know how much clout i have now? even if i can never tell anyone, the inner knowledge is enough to sustain my ego for the next thousand years.”
he let out a soft, breathless laugh, his cheeks dusting with pink. “you’re so ridiculous. my life is a constant, anxiety-inducing mess of balancing college physics, a part-time job, and saving the city, and your first thought is clout.”
“duh,” you scoffed, crossing your arms. “but seriously… can i see the web-shooters now? you promised.”
he rolled his eyes but smiled, sitting up and unclicking the sleek, metallic bands from his wrists. he handed one of them over to you like it was a fragile glass slipper. you held it in both hands, marveling at the engineering. it was incredibly lightweight, made of a dark, brushed titanium-like metal, with a tiny, glowing blue LED indicator near the nozzle. “this is insane. did you build this yourself? in your tiny college dorm room?”
“yeah,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck, looking a bit shy. “the chemistry department at school has a really great lab, and the professors don’t really pay attention to what chemicals are being checked out as long as you clean up after yourself. the web fluid is basically a liquid nylon polymer with a high tensile strength that solidifies upon contact with air. i had to cook it on a hot plate next to my ramen.”
“you cooked highly volatile multiversal web fluid next to your shin ramyun?” you stared at him. “keonho, if you had blown up the building, the headlines would have been so embarrassing. ‘local student perishes in noodle-based chemistry mishap’—”
“yah, it worked!” he defended himself, pointing at the shooter in your hand. “and it’s not volatile. it’s actually completely biodegradable. after about two hours, it dissolves into a harmless powder. otherwise, the city sanitation department would have sued me into oblivion by now.”
“can i try it?” you asked, your eyes shining with dangerous excitement.
“absolutely not,” he said instantly, reaching for it.
“please? just one tiny bit of web? just a little thwip? please, baby, i’ll let you eat the middle part of the garlic bread, the really soft, buttery part.”
keonho froze, his hand hovering over the shooter. you could see the internal struggle playing out on his face. the triple cheese garlic bread was his ultimate weakness, and the soft middle part was practically a holy experience.
“just… one?” he negotiated warily. “and you have to point it at something completely inanimate. and not at me. and definitely not at that pigeon over there.l
“deal!” you squealed, quickly slipping the band onto your wrist. it was a bit loose on you, but you held it steady with your other hand. you raised your arm, copying the iconic hand gesture—middle and ring finger pressed down to your palm. “okay, how hard do i press?”
“just a quick, firm tap on the palm trigger,” he instructed, leaning over your shoulder, his chest pressed against your back as he guided your wrist. “don’t hold it down, or you’ll release a giant web-bomb and we’ll both be stuck to this tree until three in the afternoon.”
“okay, okay, here goes,” you breathed. you aimed at a thick, sturdy-looking wooden post near the empty swing set.
you pressed your fingers down.
thwip!
with a high-pitched hiss, a thin, white line of webbing shot out of the nozzle at blinding speed. it hit the wooden post dead center, wrapping around it instantly with a satisfying splat sound.
“oh my god!” you screamed, jumping up and down. “i did it! i’m spider-woman! i’m the ghost-spider! call me gwen stacy!”
“please don’t call yourself gwen stacy, that usually doesn’t end well for spider-girlfriends,” he muttered, though he was grinning from ear to ear at your sheer joy. “but yeah, nice shot. you actually have decent aim.”
you turned around, your eyes wide. “wait, let me try to pull it!” you grabbed the line of webbing. it felt incredibly strong, like a thin, rubbery cable, but it was slightly sticky to the touch. you gave it a hard yank. the wooden post, which was apparently not as firmly anchored into the dirt as you thought, let out a loud crack and tipped over, crashing loudly into the woodchips.
you both froze.
“uh,” you said.
“yn,” keonho said, his voice very calm, very flat. “did you just vandalise a public park using my illegal vigilante technology?”
“i didn’t mean to!” you whispered-yelled, quickly taking the wristband off and shoving it back into his hands. “the wood was rotten! it was a structural hazard! i actually did the city a favor by identifying a safety risk for the local children, you know? i’m a public servant.”
“sure, let’s go with that explanation when the park rangers show up,” keonho chuckled, quickly packing the web-shooters back into his backpack. he swung the bag over his shoulder and offered you his hand, pulling you up from the grass. “come on, spider-vandal. let’s get out of here before someone accuses us of destroying city property.”
you both scrambled out from under the oak tree, laughing like idiots as you jogged out of the park. the adrenaline was still pumping through your veins, and you felt an incredible, giddy high. you kept sneaking glances at keonho as you walked down the sidewalk. he looked so normal—just a tall boy in a hoodie—but now you finally knew the truth. you knew that under that hoodie was a body capable of defying physics, and a heart brave enough to protect the whole city.
“okay, so,” you started, wrapping your arm through his as you walked toward the commercial street where the bakery was. “now that i’m officially your ‘guy in the chair’, we need to establish some ground rules.”
“my guy in the chair?” keonho raised an eyebrow. “i don’t even have a chair. i usually just sit on the edge of a billboard and eat a sandwich while looking at google maps.”
“well, now you have a chair, and it’s my desk chair, which has a very ergonomic memory foam cushion,” you declared. “rule number one: no more lying about your injuries. if you get a bruise, you don’t ‘fall down the stairs’. you tell me, and i will bring you ice and frozen peas. rule number two: i get to name your villains.”
keonho let out a loud, snorting laugh. “name my villains? why would you need to do that, sweetheart?”
“because real-life villain names are probably so boring,” you argued. “what do they call themselves? corporate criminals? tech developers? no. we need comic-book flare. like, if some guy tries to rob a bank using magnetic boots, his name is electro-slide. if a guy tries to steal a bunch of diamonds using a laser-cutter, he’s the crystal-slicer. it builds brand recognition, keonho. it’s about the marketing.”
“baby, i don’t think the guys trying to steal copper wire from construction sites care about marketing,” he pointed out, amused.
“they will when i write articles about them on my speculative blog,” you insisted. “rule number three: you have to take me web-swinging like tom’s spiderman does with his mj. at least once, but like, in a safe, non-traumatising environment. like over a lake… or a very soft field of mattresses.”
keonho’s expression softened, and he squeezed your hand. “i can do that. but we’re starting low. like, ten feet off the ground. and you have to wear a helmet.”
“a helmet? keonho, that ruins the aesthetic! how am i supposed to look like a cool, breezy superhero girlfriend if i’m wearing a fuckass yellow bicycle helmet with cartoon dinosaurs on it?”
“you’ll look like a safe superhero girlfriend,” he said firmly. “no helmet, no swing. those are my terms.”
“fine,” you huffed, though you were secretly melting at how protective he was.
as you turned the corner onto the main street, the heavenly, rich aroma of freshly baked yeast, roasted garlic, and melted butter hit you like a physical wave. the local bakery, le petit crunch, was famous for its specialty breads, and you could see the daily special board sitting outside on the pavement: TODAY’S SPECIAL: TRIPLE CHEESE GARLIC BAGUETTE (LIMITED QUANTITY).
“there it is,” you whispered, pointing at the sign like it was the holy grail. “our prize.”
“oh, thank god,” keonho breathed, his stomach letting out a loud, rumbling growl right on cue. “my metabolism is currently screaming. i think i burned about three thousand calories just hanging from that tree.”
“then let us feast, my spider-knight,” you said, pulling him toward the door.
inside, the bakery was cozy and warm, filled with the golden glow of display cases packed with croissants, tarts, and freshly baked loaves. a middle-aged woman behind the counter, mrs. kim, smiled warmly at you both as you walked in. she was a regular face in the neighborhood and knew you both well.
“ah, the lovely couple!” she beamed. “here for the garlic bread, i assume? i saved the biggest, cheesiest one in the back just for you two.”
“ah, mrs. kim, you’re an angel sent from the heavens,” you said, placing your hands on the counter. “we’ll take that, and two iced americanos, please. extra large.”
“coming right up!” she chirped, turning around to retrieve the legendary loaf and instructing her son, juhoon, to take care of a far away table.
keonho leaned against the counter next to you, looking incredibly content. he reached over, lightly tracing a circle on the back of your hand with his thumb. you smiled up at him, feeling a wave of pure, cozy happiness. this was perfect. a quiet morning movie, a dramatic superhero reveal in a park, and now a massive loaf of garlic bread. what more could a girl ask for?
but, because this was a spiderman universe, peace never lasted long.
just as mrs. kim was pouring the coffee, a loud, obnoxious commotion started right outside the bakery glass window.
you turned your head to look. a young man in a leather jacket, wearing a motorcycle helmet with the visor pulled down, was frantically trying to wrestle a designer leather handbag away from an elderly woman who was clutching it with both hands, screaming for help.
“let go, you old hag!” the guy yelled, his voice muffled by the helmet.
“help! someone! he’s stealing my purse!” the old woman shrieked, refusing to let go of the strap.
“oh my god,” you gasped, smushing your face against the bakery window. “keonho, look! a crime! a literal, actual crime is happening right in front of us!”
his posture changed instantly. the sleepy, relaxed boyfriend disappeared, replaced by a hyper-focused, tense energy. his eyes narrowed, his pupils dilating as his gaze locked onto the struggle outside. his hand immediately went to his backpack strap.
“i have to go,” he whispered, his voice suddenly sharp and serious. “i’ll go around the back alley, put on the mask—”
“wait, no!” you grabbed his sleeve, pulling him back. “look at the distance! by the time you run to the alley, unzip your bag, pull on the stupid spandex, and swing back, that guy is going to be three miles away on his scooter! and mrs. kim is right there, she’ll see you run out the back!”
“but i can’t just let him rob her!” he hissed, his jaw clenched in frustration. “she’s going to get hurt!”
“so stop him as you!” you whispered-yelled. “just… do a regular civilian intervention! but, you know, with a little bit of spider-stuff to make it quicker and easier. just don't do anything that violates the laws of physics!”
keonho blinked, processing this. “right. civilian intervention. regular guy stuff. i can do that. i’m a regular guy.”
“keonho, go! save the grandma!”
he burst through the bakery door, the little bell chiming wildly. “hey! let go of her!” he yelled, his voice commanding and loud.
the thief in the helmet looked up, startled. seeing a tall, lanky college student running toward him, the thief sneered behind his visor. “mind your own business, kid, or i’ll gut you!” he yelled, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small, metallic pocket knife, flicking the blade open.
the elderly woman let out a terrified shriek, dropping her bag and falling backward onto the concrete.
“keonho, watch out! he has a weapon!” you screamed from the doorway of the bakery, your heart leaping into your throat. even though you knew he could take a punch from a giant rhino-man, the sight of a knife was still terrifying.
bystanders on the street started screaming, backing away. mrs. kim pulled her son inside, frantically dialing the police on her landline.
the thief lunged forward, thrusting the knife toward keonho’s chest.
to a regular human, the movement was fast. to keonho, whose spider-sense was probably screaming in high-definition slow-motion, the knife was moving through molasses.
you watched in awe as keonho dodged the most dramatic, ridiculous ‘civilian dodge’ you had ever witnessed. instead of just stepping aside like a normal person, he did a sudden, fluid, cat-like twist of his torso, the blade missing his hoodie by literally a millimeter. but he forgot his own strength. as he twisted, he accidentally swung his backpack around.
the heavy backpack, loaded with college textbooks and two metal web-shooters, slammed directly into the side of the thief’s helmeted head with a loud, hollow clang.
the impact was so loud it sounded like a church bell ringing. the thief’s eyes rolled back in his head, his legs went completely jelly, and he collapsed onto the pavement like a sack of wet flour, the pocket knife clattering away into the gutter.
the street went dead silent.
everyone stared at keonho, who stared at the unconscious thief.
“uh,” keonho said, looking down at his backpack, then up at the gathering crowd of shocked onlookers. “i… i think there was a very heavy physics textbook in there. classical mechanics. it… it has a lot of mass.”
you immediately ran out of the bakery, realising your boyfriend was about to fail the social-interaction portion of his secret identity. “oh my god!” you yelled at the top of your lungs, running over to him and grabbing his arm. “that was incredible! you are so lucky! the way you tripped over your own shoe and accidentally swung your bag because of your terrible balance? science is amazing! centrifugal force really saved the day!”
keonho looked at you, his eyes pleading for help. “yes! yes, i… i tripped. my coordination is historically very poor. i actually have an inner ear infection right now.”
“an inner ear infection!” you confirmed loudly to the crowd. “it completely ruins his spatial awareness! he’s practically legally clumsy! and yet, his flailing limbs managed to neutralise the threat! truly, the universe works in mysterious ways!”
the crowd, initially stunned, slowly began to murmur in agreement.
“wow, that was some lucky flailing,” a middle-aged man holding a grocery bag said, shaking his head. “he looked like a windmill.”
“a very brave, clumsy windmill,” an elderly man agreed.
the old woman who had been targeted was now being helped to her feet by another bystander. she walked over to keonho, clutching her rescued handbag, her eyes watery. “thank you, young man. you might be clumsy, but you have a good heart. if you hadn’t tripped so spectacularly, he would have taken my favourite bag.”
“it was… it was nothing, mam,” keonho said, offering her a sweet, incredibly soft smile, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “i’m just glad you’re okay. you should wait inside the bakery until the police arrive, it’s warm in there.”
“thank you, dear,” she patted his arm, letting out a shaky breath.
within five minutes, the distant siren of a police car could be heard. mrs. kim ran out of the bakery, holding a massive brown paper bag that was radiating the scent of garlic and cheese.
“here!” she gasped, shoving the bag into keonho’s hands, along with two iced coffees in a cardboard carrier. “you two take this and go now. the police are going to want to take statements and you’ll be stuck here for hours. you’re college students, you have classes and studying to do! go, go! i’ll tell the police what happened, i’ll make sure they know you’re a hero who tripped!”
“mrs. kim, we can’t just leave—” keonho started.
“aish, go!” she insisted, shooing you both away. “before the reporters show up. clumsy boy saves grandma is a front-page story, you don’t want that trouble!”
“we’ll pay you next time! thank you, mrs. kim!” you grabbed keonho’s sleeve, and the two of you bolted down the street, ducking into a side alley just as the police cruiser pulled up to the curb with its lights flashing.
you ran for three blocks, laughing and panting, until you finally reached the safety of the courtyard outside keonho’s dorm building. you collapsed onto a wooden bench under a shady pergola, completely out of breath.
keonho set the heavy bag of garlic bread and the coffees down on the table, leaning his head back against the brick wall, let out a long, exhausted chuckle. “clumsy boy saves grandma. really, yn? that’s the best cover story you could come up with?”
“hey, it worked!” you defended yourself, gasping for air. “and it was technically true! you did flail! and the textbook did do all the work. by the way, which textbook was it?”
“principles of electromagnetism,” he smiled, pulling the massive, hardbound book out of his bag. the corner of the cover was slightly dented. “it weighs about six pounds. i’m glad i didn’t crack his skull.”
“see? education is a weapon!” you grinned, opening the brown paper bag. the steam rose from the fresh garlic bread, and you let out a dramatic, worshipful sigh. “oh, sweet baby jesus. look at the cheese.”
the bread was sliced thick, with melted mozzarella, cheddar, and parmesan bubbling over the crispy crust, with rich, fragrant garlic butter and chopped parsley. it was still burning hot.
you tore off a massive chunk, the cheese stretching out in a long, thread, and handed it to keonho. “here. the soft middle part. as promised. for your valiant, clumsy services.”
“why, thank you,” he said reverently, taking the bread. he took a massive bite, his eyes literally rolling back in pleasure. “oh my god. this is better than saving the city. i might retire from crime-fighting and just become a professional garlic bread taster.”
“i would support that career change,” you mumbled around a mouth full of delicious, cheesy bread. “so, now that we’re safe… can we go up to your room? i want to see the stash. i want to see the actual suit.”
keonho swallowed his bite, looking at you with a mixture of amusement and nervousness. “the suit? yn, it’s not like the movies. it doesn’t have a built-in AI or nanotech. it’s literally just spandex i bought online and hand-sewn details. it smells like sweat and laundry detergent.”
“dude, i don’t care! i wanna see it! i want to wear the mask!—”
“fine, fine,” he chuckled, picking up the coffee cups. “but don’t judge my sewing skills. sewing curves on stretchy fabric is a nightmare, okay? my sewing machine literally gave up on the boots.”
you both ran up the stairs to his room on the third floor. it was a typical college student apartment—slightly messy, with stacks of textbooks, empty soda cans, a guitar in the corner, and a giant whiteboard covered in complex physics equations. but now, knowing his secret, you noticed the little details you had missed before.
there was a sewing basket sitting next to his desk, filled with spools of red and blue industrial-strength thread. in the corner of his closet, hidden behind a row of flannels, was a large, locked plastic storage bin.
keonho set his keys down on the counter and walked over to the closet. he pulled out the bin, set it on his bed, and fished a small key out from a hidden pocket in his backpack. he unlocked the padlock with a soft click.
you leaned over his shoulder, holding your breath. he lifted the lid.
there, folded neatly inside, was the suit.
it was a brilliant, vibrant red and deep navy blue. the fabric was a heavy-duty, textured spandex that caught the light with every shuffle, and the chest had a sleek, hand-painted black spider emblem. the mask sat on top, its large, white mesh lenses framed by sharp black borders.
“oh my god,” you whispered, reaching out to touch it. the fabric felt incredibly durable, almost like a thin wetsuit, but with a lot of stretch. “keonho… this is beautiful. you made this?”
“yeah,” he said softly, watching your reaction. “the lenses are actually made from modified sunglasses and a two-way mesh i found at a theatrical supply store. they’re designed to focus my vision so my eyes don’t get overwhelmed by all the sensory input when i’m moving fast. and the soles of the boots are reinforced with a thin layer of flexible rubber so i don’t slip on wet rooftops.”
you picked up the mask, holding it up to your face. “can i put it on?”
“go ahead,” he smiled.
you carefully pulled the fabric over your head. the inside smelled faintly of lavender fabric softener and a hint of mint, probably from his breath when he was wearing it. the moment the mask settled over your face, the world looked completely different. the white mesh lenses did something weird to the light, filtering out the glare and making everything look incredibly sharp and high-contrast.
“whoa,” you gasped, your voice sounding slightly muffled inside the fabric. “i can see everything! i feel like a predator! look at me, keonho! i’m the night!” you struck a ridiculous, dramatic superhero pose on his bed, crouching down and shooting imaginary webs at him. “fear me, citizen! i’m the spider-girlfriend! pay tribute to me with garlic bread or face my wrath!”
keonho burst into a fit of breathless, hysterical laughter. he fell back onto his desk chair, clutching his stomach as he watched you pose wildly. “you look like a bobblehead, yn! the mask is made for my head, it’s way too big on you!”
“i do not look like a bobblehead!” you protested, though you had to hold the chin of the mask with one hand to keep the eyeholes aligned with your eyes. “i look intimidating! i look like a menace to society!”
“you look adorable, sweetheart,” he corrected, his laughter dying down into a warm, incredibly fond smile. “come here.”
you waddled over to him, still wearing the oversized mask. keonho reached out, wrapping his arms around your waist and pulling you into his lap. he looked up at you, his hands gently holding the sides of the mask.
“are you really okay with all this?” he asked again, his voice dropping into that quiet, intimate register. “with me being… this? it means my life is always going to be a little chaotic. there are going to be nights where i have to cancel plans because someone is dangling off a bridge, or times when i come home with a black eye and have to explain it to my mom.”
you reached up, pulling the mask off your head, letting your messy hair tumble down. you looked into his dark, anxious eyes, seeing the vulnerability he usually hid behind his easygoing, sleepy persona.
“keonho,” you said softly, cupping his face with your hands. “i’ve been with you for two years. i’ve already dealt with you canceling plans because you ‘fell asleep’ or ‘got lost on the subway’. now i know the real reason, and honestly? it makes so much more sense. i’m not going anywhere. i love you. clumsy flailing, spider-webs, and all.”
his eyes shone with a sudden, overwhelming emotion. he leaned forward, pressing his forehead against yours, letting out a long, shaky breath. “you have no idea how much of a relief it is to hear you say that. i’ve been so scared of you finding out. i thought you’d think i was a freak, or that i was putting you in danger.”
“the only danger i’m in is dying of an overdose of garlic bread,” you whispered, pressing a soft kiss to his nose. “now, show me how you make the web fluid. i want to cook a batch.”
“absolutely not, we are not running a chemical weapons lab in my kitchen,” he laughed, but he squeezed you tight, holding you close as the afternoon sun filtered through the window, casting a warm, golden glow over the messy apartment.
for the rest of the day, there were no supervillains, no portals, and no responsibilities.
there was just you, your boyfriend, and a massive loaf of garlic bread.
“wait, so do you know andrew garfield in real life, maybe?”
#🪽️: 「 crack, fluff, swearing, kms kys jokes, basically my humour, no member x reader romantic pairing at all, purely platonic series, affectionately called cortis cafe sometimes bc they practically run it !! 」
#💸️: 「 ok so this mini series is fully inspired by the shenanigans of the gc (aka @cortismoon @ceuxnoirst @jjudawn ily guys ty for being stupidly funny enough to inspire me to make this 💞) and also sunny ( @jjuhyeons )’s wild tales from the cafe she works at (imy my wife please come back soon 🥹) !! this is js pure crack and fluff, so don’t expect any real plot lmao 😭 but if you have any ideas or requests to add onto this series, then send an ask and i’ll be more than happy to slip in some details you want into the fic ehehe 👩❤️💋👩 」
᧔♡᧓ 。 mlist :
-> OO1. ᭝ the oven is smoking? ՟
-> OO2. ᭝ stay quiet on the creek ՟
-> OO3. ᭝ tbd ՟
#📩: 「 taglists (perm & series) are open. comment to be added 」
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📬 ❤︎ platonic!martin 𝔁 sixth member!f!reader ─── ৻ꪆ working on a song together on weverse live.
❤︎ warnings+tags ─── ৻ꪆ kinda deep? a little bit? idk, mostly focusing on identity formation etc.
💌 ❤︎ notes ─── ৻ꪆ inspired fully by this post and the thought that i thought back then 😭 i was up at ungodly hours of the night last night because i was thinking about this a LOT 🥹
❤︎ wc ─── ৻ꪆ 4.9k
𝄞 𓏸 my cortispilledmasterlist »﹙合﹚
❝ tracklist ❞ ─── photo id—remi wolf & dom fike ❦ grow up—skz ❦ paradise—bts ❦ no rules—txt ❦ wannabe—itzy ❦ kidult—svt ❦ for me—day6 ❦ dreams come true—nct 127
the red recording light on the camera flickered to life, its tiny glow cutting through the ambient warmth of cortis’ studio at the back of the company building.
outside, seoul was bathed in the quiet, bruised-purple haze of late autumn. inside, the room was filled with the faint hum of vintage amplifiers and the unmistakable scent of takeout coffee cups stacked in a neat tower near the door.
martin leaned over the desk, his bangs falling slightly into his eyes as he squinted at the monitor screen to check the incoming comment stream. he was wearing an oversized grey hoodie that swallowed his shoulders, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows to reveal a dark leather watch strap and many bracelets.
“is it working?” he asked softly, his voice carrying that familiar, gentle rasp that made him sound like he’d just woken up from a three-hour nap, even if he’d been up since dawn.
“yeah, we’re live,” you said, leaning back in the heavy swivel chair beside him, clutching a ceramic mug with both hands. you pulled your feet up onto the rung of the stool, wrapping an oversized cable-knit sweater around your knees. “give it ten seconds. the notifications take a second to push through.”
within seconds, the counter on the bottom left corner of the screen exploded.
100... 4,500... 28,000... 110,000...
the comment section immediately transformed into a blurred vertical waterfall of hearts, emojis, exclamation points, country flags, and multilinguistic greetings.
WAIT MARTIN AND YN OMFG 😛😛😍😍😍😍
THE SIBLINGS DUO IS LIVE AT 11 PM??
gts guys omfg yall are at a growing age ㅋㅋ
KEONHO GET WELL SOON!!
where are the others? is james sleeping? 🥹
cortis live after so long YAYAYAYYYY how come user hyuneskkami on blr still hasn’t posted about it 🤣 is she actually the sixth member
i can feel seonghyeon’s aura from somewhere bro idk where tho
yn-ah looks so cozy ㅜㅜ
WHERE ARE JUHOON AND KEONHO?????
martin let out a low laugh, tapping his fingers on the desktop. “hey everyone. good evening.”
“ah, hi guys,” you waved at the lens, leaning slightly closer. “it’s just the two of us tonight. the prodz.”
“james and keonho went down to the convenience store to buy those ridiculous ice cream sandwiches keonho is obsessed with right now,” martin explained, pointing over his shoulder toward the hallway. “juhoon and seonghyeon are in the room next door trying to figure out a three-part harmony for a track we aren’t even releasing for another six months. so... you get us.”
“the night owls,” you read out a comment. “well yeah, martin was working on a synth loop, i was sitting on the floor trying to fix some lyrics, and we thought, ‘why not just turn the stream on?’”
martin turned in his chair to face you, a soft grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “should we tell them what we were actually laughing about ten minutes ago?”
“oh god,” you groaned, hiding your face behind your mug for a second before looking back at the camera. “if we tell them, hyeon’s gonna text us in three seconds telling us to shut up.”
“he’s in the building, he can come over here and make us,” martin countered effortlessly. he pulled his keyboard closer, resting his long fingers over the keys without pressing them down. “so, for context... a few days ago, the ‘first id card’ vlog was out, yeah? seonghyeon, keonho, juhoon, and i had to get our national id cards at different times.”
you snorted. “the famous id day.”
“basically, in korea, when you turn nine, you get a youth id card, and you keep it until you’re seventeen, and then you update it to get a national id card,” martin explained to the camera, his tone turning informative in that endearingly serious way he got when he was explaining mundane things. “since seonghyeon and keonho are 2009 kids, and i’m an ‘08 liner, we were all dealing with our updated ones recently. juhoon was there too with me, of course.”
“james and i were exempt,” you said proudly, tapping your chest. “because we’re 2005 and 2006-born. we’re adults, you feel me? we have passed into the ancient realm of real adult identification.”
martin rolled his eyes, nudging your shoulder with his. “you’ve been an adult for like five minutes, yn. don’t start.”
“i have an id card, martin. a real one. i can hold it up and feel the weight of, like, legal responsibility.”
“you lost your wallet in the studio lounge twice this week,” he shot back without missing a beat.
the live chat erupted into rows of laughing emojis.
SAVAGE MARTIN IS BACK LMFAOO 😭😭
yn getting humbled by her younger brother in under 3 minutes ahh 🤓
yn’s noona privileges revoked ㅜㅜ
“okay, valid,” you admitted, laughing into your redbull can. “but anyway. these kids came back to the dorms with these shiny little laminated youth id cards, sitting around the kitchen island, looking at their official photos like they were inspecting government documents for a spy mission.”
“because keonho’s photo looked like a mugshot!” martin insisted, his eyes crinkling. “he was holding it up to the light, going, ‘does this look like a guy who knows how to do long division?’ and seonghyeon was staring at my card like he was trying to figure out who the person in the picture actually was.”
“and that’s when martin said it,” you remembered, pointing a finger at him. “do you remember what you said?”
martin looked down at the desk, a quiet, reflective smile replacing his smirk. he hit a soft, shimmering chord on the nord keyboard. the sound echoed through the studio monitor—a lush, nostalgic fender rhodes sound laced with a heavy, warm chorus.
“i said... it feels weird having an id card that says who you are, when you don’t even know who you are yet,” he murmured, his fingers dancing lightly across the keys, laying down a slow, spacey progression. “like, here’s a plastic card with your name, your birthday, your address, and a photo of your face. it tells the whole world, ‘this is martin edwards’, but inside? i’m just... sitting there thinking, ‘i have literally zero idea what i’m doing tomorrow, let alone for the rest of my life’.”
the energy in the studio shifted instantly. it was that magic transition that always happened when cortis worked—the jump from chaotic dorm banter to deep, raw artistic honesty within a single breath.
you leaned forward, your elbows resting on your knees, watching his hands on the keys. “it really struck a chord with me when you said that, mars. because even though i’m older than you, and even though james is older than me, we talk about this all the time when the cameras are off. being in cortis... being six people who came from totally different backgrounds, shoved into a shared house, sharing a single bathroom for months, wearing each other’s socks by accident...”
“keonho still wears my spiderman socks,” martin muttered softly, though he was smiling.
“...and trying to build an identity as a team while we haven’t even finished building our identities as individuals,” you continued. “it’s intense. people expect us to have a ‘concept’. they ask us, ‘what is your favourite colour? what is your role? who are you in the group?’”
“and we’re just seventeen, eighteen, twenty one-two years old,” martin added, pitching his voice lower, talking steadily. “we don't have a favourite colour yet. we’re still mixing the paint.”
“yeah,” you said, your heart warming at how effortlessly he understood the feeling. “we were sitting in the kitchen, eating cold kimchi stew at 1 am and rewatching seonghyeon and keonho’s vlog in which we were all screaming random lines about ‘no id’ or ‘id card’ with the guitar, and we joked: ‘we should just write a song called no id’.”
martin stopped playing for a second, looking up at the camera. “we weren’t joking for long, though. after everyone went to sleep, yn and i stayed up at the kitchen table with a notepad.”
“and tonight,” you announced, leaning over to grab a fresh notebook and a thick black marker from the desk. “we decided we’re going to build that track right here. with you guys."
the comment section went wild.
UNRELEASED TRACK PRODUCING LIVE?? HELLO I’VE PRAYED FOR TIMES LIKE THIS
NO ID??? THE CONCEPT IS SO REAL
SO PEAK ㄷㄷㄷㄷ
wait i’m actually tearing up, this theme is so relatable
PRODZ LYRICIST DUO UNSTOPPABLE AFFF
didn’t someone on tumblr predict this omfg?? they’re such a genius tho
“okay, so let’s set the ground rules,” martin said, opening a fresh session in fl studio on the main screen and sharing his view with you. “the theme is simple: it’s totally, completely, 100% fine if you don’t fully understand who you are right now. that’s it.”
“in fact,” you added, drawing a big star on the whiteboard sitting on an easel next to you both, “it’s better that way. cortis has always had this core idea of ‘colouring outside the lines’, y’know. you can’t colour outside the lines if you’ve already decided exactly where the lines are supposed to be. if you draw your own box and stay inside it, you get stuck.”
martin began tapping a rhythm on his drum pad. it wasn’t a heavy, aggressive 808 beat. it was soft, mid-tempo, with an organic, slightly off-grid kick and a crisp snare that felt like rain hitting a windowpane.
“this one sounds like a late-night walk,” martin observed, looping the drum beat. “like walking home from school or practice when the streetlights are just turning on and you can see the sun just barely dip below the horizon.”
“mhm,” you agreed, closing your eyes to catch the mood. “you’ve got your headphones in. you’re holding your phone or your student id, looking at your reflection in a shop window, thinking... ‘is this really me? am i doing this right?’”
“let’s get some chords down first,” martin said. he pressed a button on his midi board, layering a warm, slightly tape-warped guitar sample over the drum beat. it sounded dusty, intimate, like an old record playing in a bedroom with the door cracked open.
“that sounds so... pretty, mars,” you said softly, listening to the loop go around twice. “it feels safe. it doesn’t sound rushed.”
“because life feels too rushed,” he replied, looking at the comments passing by. “look at what people are writing right now.”
he pointed at the chat. you leaned in to read aloud.
“someone’s saying: ‘i’m nineteen and all my friends know what major they want, but i feel like i’m just standing still.’ oh, man. i feel that in my bones.”
“me too,” martin said quietly. “can i tell a quick story?”
“go for it, man, it’s our live.”
martin leaned back, resting his hands in the pocket of his grey hoodie. “when i first joined the company, i was so young. i was watching my seniors dance, and they already had this insane, polished style. even james; he always looked like an artist. seonghyeon had this super distinct voice that sounded like pure velvet. keonho was so sharp with his dance and he also sang really well, and he was always adapting so fast. and i remember sitting in the corner of the practice room, holding my guitar, thinking... ‘what am i?’”
“you were a kid, martin,” you reminded him gently, your heart aching a bit with sibling fondness as you remembered those early days.
“yeah. a kid. but i felt like i was supposed to have an answer. people would ask me,’'what kind of musician do you want to be?’ and i wanted to say, ‘i don’t know! i like rap, i like indie, i like weird ambient synths, i like video game soundtracks!’ i thought having too many answers meant i had no answer at all.”
“you know what’s funny?” you said, sitting up straight, after making sure he was done speaking. “i had the exact opposite problem, but it felt identical inside.”
“how do you mean?” he asked, looking at you attentively.
“well, as the only girl in the group, before we debuted, everybody had an opinion on who i should be,” you shared, leaning forward so your voice was steady and clear. “people outside would say, ‘oh, she needs to be the cool, distant older sister type’, or ‘she needs to be super soft and feminine to balance the guys’, or ‘she needs to rap so she matches martin’. so for a long time, i tried on all those different costumes. i’d wake up one day and try to act mature, then the next day i’d try to fit another mold. and every time i put on a fake identity, i felt like a ghost in my own body.”
“until we started making music together,” martin said, catching your eye.
“until we stopped trying to be a finished product,” you corrected, smiling. “the day james came into the studio and said, ‘let’s just be messy’. remember that?”
“how could i forget? he spilled entire bubble teas over the soundboard five minutes later,” martin laughed, breaking the serious mood for a second. “messy literally.”
“exactly! but mentally, too. that’s when cortis became real. when we realised that our strength wasn’t that we were six perfect pieces of a puzzle. it was that we were six incomplete scribbles that looked really cool when you put them next to each other.”
martin grinned, turning back to the keyboard. “six incomplete scribbles. we need to write that down.”
you grabbed the marker and wrote on the whiteboard in big, bold letters:
TITLE: NO ID
THEME: WE ARE UNFINISHED, & THAT’S OUR POWER
“okay,” martin said, tapping a rhythm on his desk. “let’s work on the chorus melody first. i have an idea for a line. something simple, something you can sing while walking down the street at night.”
he hit record on the track, played the dusty guitar loop, and sang softly into his mic, his voice airy and relaxed:
“no name on the card that fits who i am today...
blurred picture, but i’m doing okay...”
you immediately bobbed your head. “ooh, i love that second line. ‘blurred picture, but i’m doing okay’. let’s build off that. what if the hook is super conversational? not overly dramatic, just kinda real.”
“try singing something over it, yn,” martin offered, pressing play again. “just... anything you want.”
you leaned into the mic, closing your eyes, letting the cozy warmth of the guitar track carry your voice:
“don’t ask for my status, don’t ask for the frame,
i change like the weather, i’m never the same,
got a pocket full of paper, but no id,
you’re looking for a label, but you just get me...”
martin slammed his hand on the desk after pausing the recording, a giant grin breaking across his face. “yes! ‘you’re looking for a label, but you just get me.’ that’s the core! that’s literally the whole point of cortis!” he grinned excitedly.
“let’s record that scratch track right now,” you said, his excitement bubbling over to you.
he looped the chorus section. you two pulled the mic closer, sharing the headphones split between your two chairs. he sang the low harmony while you took the main melody:
“don’t ask for my status, don’t ask for the frame,
i change like the weather, i’m never the same,
got a pocket full of paper, but no id,
you’re looking for a label, but you just get me...
yeah, no id, no id...
colouring outside where the lines used to be...”
when the loop finished, martin played it back through the studio monitors. the contrast between your clearer tone and his deep, raspy texture gave the phrase an effortless, bedroom-pop intimacy.
“look at the chat,” you mumbled, pointing at the screen.
the comments were flowing so fast they were practically unreadable.
WAIT WTF. THIS IS A MASTERPIECE?? 👅 ts tuff asf
‘youre looking for a label but you just get me’ IM CRYING HI I LOVE THIS SBBB
this feels like a warm hug on a cold night... ty guys
PLEASE RELEASE THIS OFFICIALLY I BEG YALL
ㅅㄱ cortis!
the sibling harmony is elite asff 🔥🔥
“they like it,” martin said, trying to act cool, but his ears were turning pink—a classic martin giveaway whenever he was genuinely proud of a melody.
“they love it!” you bumped his arm. “okay, now we need verses. let’s make verse one about the physical youth id memory. the funny stuff that turned into something deeper.”
“i got verse one,” martin volunteered, opening a blank text document on his monitor. “let me write a verse from my perspective, sitting in that boring office getting my picture taken. i remember i was almost considering asking juhoon to dance for me.”
he started typing, reading aloud as his fingers flew across the mechanical keyboard:
“plastic card in my right hand
says i’m seventeen, says where i stand,
stare at the photo, the flash was too bright,
look like a stranger in black and white.”
he leaned back, humming to the drum loop.
“they asked for my signature, asked for my role,
but how do i sign for a half-written soul?”
you gasped, putting your hands over your heart. “yahh! ‘how do i sign for a half-written soul?’ are you kidding me? who let you write lyrics that insane at 11:30 pm on a tuesday night, man?!”
he chuckled, burying his face in his grey hoodie sleeve. “it just came out! it fits, right?”
“it doesn’t just fit, it’s amazing,” you said, grabbing your pen to write it down on the whiteboard so the viewers could follow along. “sing them together. i wanna hear how you think it’ll go with these beats.”
he cleared his throat and sang:
“plastic card in my right hand
says i’m seventeen, says where i stand,
stare at the photo, the flash was too bright,
look like a stranger in black and white...
they asked for my signature, asked for my role,
but how do i sign for a half-written soul?
so i put it in my pocket, let the edges get worn,
i’m still deciding who i am since the day i was born...”
“that last line!” you shouted, hitting the desk gently. “‘i’m still deciding who i am since the day i was born’. pure comfort, man.”
“ahh, now it’s your turn,” he pointed at you. “verse two is fully yours. your perspective. the ‘adult’ who still feels like a kid playing dress-up.”
you took a sip of your drink, letting the cool liquid soothe your throat as you thought back to your own experience.
“you know,” you said, turning to face the camera directly, “when i turned eighteen, everybody told me, ‘congratulations! you’re an adult now!’ as if a light switch flips at midnight on your birthday and suddenly you know how to do taxes, how to navigate life, how to handle grief, and how to know exactly who you are.”
“did you feel any different at midnight?” martin asked softly, leaning closer.
“not at all,” you laughed softly. “i woke up the next morning, stepped on a lego keonho left on the living room rug, cried about it for two minutes, and then ate leftover waffles for breakfast. i was the exact same person. but there’s this weird societal pressure... the second you cross that line, people expect you to have your whole life mapped out.”
“and if you don’t?”
“if you don’t, you feel like you’re committing a crime,” you replied. “like you’re sneaking through life without a valid permit.”
you stared at the whiteboard for a moment, your mind racing through memories of your early training days, the fear of not fitting in after being cut from debut lineups twice, the middle-of-the-night talks with the guys in your tiny kitchen, and the realisation that none of you had it figured out—and that was okay.
you began to sing your verse slowly, fitting it into the groove of martin’s drums and guitar pattern:
“turned eighteen on paper, got a brand new card,
they told me growing up shouldn’t be this hard,
suitcase full of clothes that don’t fit my style,
trying on identities every few miles...”
martin nodded along, catching the rhythm instantly. “keep going, it’s hitting really good.”
“they say ‘you’re an adult, time to pick a lane’,
but i’m drawing murals on a moving train,
no expiration date on finding my piece,
i’m a masterpiece that hasn’t yet found its lease.”
“ooh, ‘drawing murals on a moving train’,” martin called out. “that’s such a cortis visual, because we’re always moving, always performing, always producing, but we’re painting as we go.”
“mhm,” you hummed, smiling warmly. “we aren’t sitting in a quiet studio waiting until we’re ‘ready’ or ‘complete’ before we show the world who we are. we’re showing the process. the mess, the growing pains, the silly jokes, the unwashed mugs, the late-night conversation and weverse lives.”
martin took your marker and added your lines under his on the board.
“now we need a bridge,” he suggested, sitting back and adjusting his mic stand. “something that brings the whole group into it. because even though it’s just the two of us here in the studio right now, this whole concept came out of all six of us.”
“mhm, let’s talk about the six of us,” you agreed. “what do we want for the bridge message to include?” you thought aloud.
“the message,” martin said thoughtfully, looking directly into the camera with a rare, quiet intensity, “is that you don’t need an id when you have a community. when you have people who accept you before you even know who you are.”
the chat flooded with emotional responses.
BRO STOP IM LITERALLY CRYING IN MY BEDROOM AT MIDNIGHT
cortis found family is the most genuine thing in the world
they really accept each other so fully ㅜㅜ
this bridge is about to wreck me i can literally feel it
this song is like joyride and lullaby’s sibling omfg 😭
i could cry myself to sleep w this one
“i agree,” you told the stream, your voice softening as you looked at martin. “when i joined the dorm as the only girl, i was so terrified that there would be a barrier. that i’d be ‘the girl’ and they’d be ‘the boys’, but after a little of getting used to, james made sure my voice was just as loud as anyone else’s. seonghyeon never looked down on my rap ideas. juhoon always saved a seat for me at dinner. keonho literally still treats me like an older sister he loves to pester. and martin...” you looked over at him, nudging his knee with yours. “...martin became my absolute partner-in-crime in the studio. when i don’t know how to translate an emotion into a melody, i just hum three terrible notes, and he turns it into a song.”
he ducked his head, laughing shyly, but his grin was wide and genuine. “you give me too much credit, yn. you bring the heart, i just push the buttons.”
“we bring it together,” you said firmly. “so for the bridge... let’s write about how six people with ‘no id’ built a home together.”
martin played a rising chord sequence, building tension under the track. the tape-warped guitar grew louder, accompanied by soft ambient pads that sounded like a sunrise breaking over the seoul skyline.
“sing this with me, mars,” you said. you two leaned into the shared mic space, your heads almost touching as you read off the rough draft you wrote together on the spot:
“six different shadows under one roof…
we don’t need no proof, we don’t need no proof…
no stamp on our wrist, no name on our chest,
we’re making our home in the middle of the mess...”
martin added a gentle ad-lib underneath your lead line, his higher register shining through with breathtaking clarity:
“(in the middle of the mess... yeah, yeah...)
so tear up the forms, let the colours run free,
the best part of us... is who we’re gonna be...”
as the final note hung in the air, martin slammed his foot down on the sustain pedal, letting the chords reverberate through the speakers and fade out slowly into a blanket of analog vinyl crackle.
silence fell over the studio for three entire seconds.
then he let out a long breath and looked at you. “whoa.”
“whoa,” you echoed. “that felt... really good.”
you turned together to look at the stream chat. it was moving so fast it looked like a strobe light.
RELEASE THIS RIGHT NOW
IM BEGGING ON MY KNEES FOR ‘NO ID’ TO BE ON THE NEXT ALBUM
THE HARMONIES AT THE END HELLO??
‘we’re making our home in the middle of the mess’ IS MY NEW TATTOO
this is why cortis is different. they just create from the soul.
just then, the heavy studio door creaked open with a slow click.
a head popped around the corner—keonho, holding a half-eaten green-tea ice cream sandwich, his hair messy from sleep or rehearsal, eyes wide as he looked at the two of you. behind him stood james, wearing your beanie and holding a plastic convenience store bag, with juhoon and seonghyeon trailing right behind them.
“did we interrupt something?” james asked, taking off his (your) beanie and blinking at the live camera setup. “why are there 200,000 people on weverse live right now?”
“we made a song,” martin said calmly, as if he hadn’t just produced a full track in forty-five minutes.
“about your stupid youth ids,” you added, pointing your marker at keonho.
keonho swallowed his ice cream, his eyes lighting up. “wait, really? is my mugshot in the lyrics?”
“add a stupid ad-lib about it later if you want it in the song so badly,” martin scoffed. “come here, sit down.”
the four of them squeezed into the frame—juhoon pulling up a spare folding chair, seonghyeon leaning over the back of martin’s seat, james crouching next to your stool, and keonho sitting straight on the carpet right in front of the camera, waving enthusiastically at the chat.
“hi everyone!” keonho beamed. “i brought ice cream, but i ate most of it.”
“he ate three on the walk up the stairs,” james tattled quietly, earning a light smack on the arm from keonho.
“play it for us, martin,” seonghyeon requested, leaning over to inspect the session on the screen. “let me hear what you guys were cooking while we were next door.”
martin smiled while tweaking a few final settings, hit spacebar, and pushed the master volume slider up.
the dusty, warm guitar loop filled the room. the rhythmic kick and crisp snare bounced off the studio walls. as your recorded voices flowed through the monitors—singing about plastic cards, blurred photos, drawing murals on moving trains, and making a home in the middle of the mess—the four guys went completely still, listening intently.
juhoon was nodding along to the beat, a gentle smile spreading across his face.
james rested his chin in his hand, his eyes locked on the lyrics written on the whiteboard, murmuring, “‘how do i sign for a half-written soul...’ man, that’s heavy.”
when the song reached the chorus, keonho started swaying from side to side on the floor, lifting his arms up and singing along to the simple melody after hearing it just once. seonghyeon clapped martin on the shoulder hard enough to make him bump into the desk.
“this is an anthem,” seonghyeon declared, pointing at the screen. “man, this is literally us. we’re putting this on the album. i don’t care what the company says, we’re tracking my rap verse tomorrow.”
“i have a bridge harmony idea too,” juhoon chimed in, leaning over your shoulder to look at the notes. “we can make the vocal stack sound massive at the end.”
“see?” you looked at the camera, leaning over keonho’s shoulder so all six of your faces were packed tightly into the video frame—messy hair, cozy hoodies, half-eaten snacks, and bright, tired eyes. “this is what we mean.”
martin looked into the lens, his expression soft and reassuring.
“to everyone watching right now,” martin said softly, his voice cutting through the casual chatter of the other members behind you both, “whether you’re nine, seventeen, twenty, or thirty... if you feel like you don’t have an identity card for who you are yet... don’t worry.”
“colour outside the lines,” you added, resting your hand on martin’s shoulder, feeling the deep, unbreakable warmth of the bond you’d built through every trial, every late night, and every shared dream. “leave the label blank. just be you, right now, in this exact moment. that’s more than enough.”
“we’re cortis!” keonho yelled suddenly into the mic, making everyone jump and burst into collective laughter. “and we have no id!”
“okay, time to turn off the live before keonho breaks the audio equipment,” james laughed, reaching over martin to grab keonho’s sleeve.
“say goodbye, guys,” you called out.
“goodbye!! good morning, if it’s morning. good afternoon, if it’s afternoon. good evening. good night!! eat good food! don’t worry too much!” all six voices tangled together into a chaotic, beautiful symphony of noise as juhoon clicked the end stream button.
the red recording light went dark.
the studio returned to its quiet warmth. outside, seoul slept under its canopy of stars. inside, six friends sat around a single desk, surrounded by scribbled whiteboards, glowing monitors, and a half-finished song that belonged to anyone who was still finding their way home.
📬 ❤︎ bf!martin 𝔁 gf!reader ─── ৻ꪆ your boyfriend is more dramatic about you getting vaccinated than you are.
❤︎ warnings+tags ─── ৻ꪆ non-idol au · mentions of hospitals, needles & vaccination but not detailed · nicknames
💌 ❤︎ notes ─── ৻ꪆ for my lovely bby @jjudawn, i wish i was martin and you were yn and also i hope your arm starts feeling better soon or im gonna slime out the entire hospital that vaccinated you. ok cool goodbye ☺️
❤︎ wc ─── ৻ꪆ 1.2k
𝄞 𓏸 my cortispilledmasterlist »﹙合﹚
❝ tracklist ❞ ─── golden hour—jvke ❦ tethered—sleeping at last ❦ fallin’ for you—colbie caillat ❦ suntooth—del water gap ❦ sweet—cas ❦ paper rings—taylor swift ❦ i like me better—lauv ❦ warm—dre’es ❦ until i found you—stephen sanchez
the heavy scent of clinical disinfectant had your hands trembling before you even stepped through the double doors. you squeezed martin’s hand so tight your knuckles were practically white, but he didn’t complain for a single second. instead, his thumb just kept rubbing slow, soothing circles over the back of your hand, his gentle presence holding you together while your brain was actively trying to execute a three-step evacuation plan.
“hey,” he murmured softly, bending down until his forehead bumped gently against yours. “look at me, baby. you’re doing so good. i’m right here, okay? if you need to pass out, just try to aim away from my new shoes, okay? don’t get dirt on them.” he joked.
you cracked a tiny, stressed laugh, taking a shaky breath as the nurse finally called your name from the doorway.
“miss yn?” she called.
martin pulled you with him towards the room.
sitting on the examination table felt like waiting for a severe sentence. your breath caught in your throat the moment you saw the nurse prepping the tray, the faint glint of the needle making your stomach pull a full backflip.
martin immediately swooped in and blocked your entire line of vision like a human shield. he stepped right between you and the tray, cupping your face in his warm hands so you had no choice but to look at his ridiculous, handsome face instead.
“keep your beautiful wattpad-describable orbs on me, baby,” he instructed smoothly, his voice a steady anchor, already speaking again before you could laugh at his stupid joke. “do not look over there. there’s nothing over there except boring medical posters. focus on my voice. tell me what we’re eating tonight. what’s the plan, captain?”
“i—i don’t know, maybe pasta?” you stammered, your eyes widening with panic as you heard the cap of the needle clatter on the tray.
“pasta sounds amazing,” he smiled, his dimples popping, doing absolute heavy lifting to keep your attention. “we can make that garlic bread you like, grab the biggest blanket we own, and basically rot on the couch for the rest of the night—”
“all done!” the nurse announced cheerfully, gently slapping a small band-aid onto your upper arm.
you blinked. there was a sharp, annoying sting trailing behind the prick, but before your brain could even process the indignity of it all, martin was already pressing a dramatic, squishy kiss to the side of your head.
“see? absolute cake walk. you were so brave,” he whispered, wrapping his arms around you like you had just survived a gladiatorial arena, being extraordinarily careful not to touch your freshly jabbed shoulder. “you did so good, baby. i’m putting a gold star on your forehead later.”
by the time you two actually made it back to the apartment, the dull ache in your arm had blossomed into a full-blown, throbbing soreness. trying to move your arm even two inches felt like attempting to lift a concrete block with a toothpick. it was officially a decorative limb—useless. kaput.
you flopped onto the sofa with an exaggerated, dying groan, letting your bad arm hang limp at your side like a sad noodle.
“mars,” you whined dramatically into the couch cushions. “my arm has passed away. it’s gone. frame it and put it on the wall.”
he walked into the living room holding a glass of water, paracetamol, and a cold pack neatly wrapped in a fluffy dish towel.
“rest in peace, yn’s arm, you served us well,” he chuckled softly, setting the glass on the coffee table and carefully sitting down next to you like you were made of fragile glass. “how’s the patient doing? on a scale from one to dramatic?” he asked softly, gently placing the wrapped ice pack right against your sore shoulder.
“it feels like a truck ran over my arm, took a breath, and then backed over it again,” you pouted, wincing as you tried and failed to shift your position. “i literally can’t lift it. i’m invalid now. you have to feed me food yourself.”
martin’s expression melted into pure, mushy tenderness. he held the ice pack in place so you wouldn’t have to strain a single muscle, leaning down until his nose brushed your cheek.
then, with zero hesitation and the biggest grin on his face, he leaned over and pressed a long, soft kiss right next to the bright band-aid on your sleeve. he pulled back just an inch, looking up at you through his eyelashes with the most absurd, sweet smile.
“can i kiss it better?” he asked, using his absolute highest-pitched puppy voice. “does the magic doctor kiss help with the big scary pain?”
you wheezed, snorting out a laugh that completely broke your pitiful act. “you’re so stupid, oh my god. but… maybe a little bit.”
“thought so. science has nothing on me,” he declared proudly, shifting so he could pull you against his side without disturbing your shoulder.
by the time late night rolled around, the heavy post-vaccine fatigue finally hit you like a ton of bricks. your eyelids felt heavy, your body felt like lead, and all you wanted was to dive into bed and sleep for twelve hours.
the problem? as soon as you climbed under the covers, muscle memory kicked in. you immediately tried to roll over onto your favorite side—which just so happened to be the exact side of your vaccinated arm.
the moment your weight hit the tender muscle, a sharp zap of pain shot through your shoulder.
“ow! fuck—” you hissed, jerking back instantly.
“woah, woah, careful, baby—” martin said quickly, his hands darting out to catch your waist before you could crush your own arm again.
“i can’t sleep on my other side, mars,” you whined softly, the exhaustion and lingering ache making you feel overly sensitive and grumpy. you buried your face in your hands. “it feels completely wrong. i literally only sleep on this side. i’m going to be awake forever.”
“hey, hey, don’t cry over bad side-sleeping,” he murmured gently, climbing into bed beside you and propping himself up against a stack of pillows.
he carefully pulled you toward his chest, angling your body so you were resting securely against his side while your sore arm remained completely elevated and untouched on a plush pillow next to him. he tucked the duvet snugly around your shoulders, making a cozy little nest so you couldn’t accidentally roll over in your sleep.
“how’s this, my dramatic little baby?” he whispered, his long fingers carefully threading through your hair, massaging your scalp in slow, rhythmically soothing sweeps. “is this acceptable for the sleeping princess?”
wrapped up in his warmth, listening to the steady, comforting thrum of his heartbeat under your ear, the throb in your shoulder slowly drifted into the background.
“...it’s pretty good, i guess,” you mumbled, your voice slurring slightly as sleep finally claimed you.
“good,” he chuckled quietly, resting his chin on top of your head and tightening his hold just enough to make you feel safe. “get some sleep, baby. i’ll guard the noodle arm all night.”
:ঌ HOPEWELL SANCTUARY FOR THE MENTALLY UNSTABLE ⭑ CRTS ㅗ ໒:
📬 ❤︎ cortis 𝔁 sixth member!f!reader , implied james 𝔁 f!reader ─── ৻ꪆ a horror-themed escape room with cortis.
❤︎ warnings+tags ─── ৻ꪆ crack · fluff · comedy (jamesyn as adrenaline junkies #canonjameskyedynamic + jjuhyeon as the neutral ones + markeon as the funniest bitches alive bc LMFAOOO JUST LOOK AT THEIR SCREAMING AHH 🤣) · jumpscares · horror escape room described in detail · screaming · falling and stumbling a lot · secret skinship · capitals only to emphasise screaming bc yall know i love lowercase downnn right
💌 ❤︎ notes ─── ৻ꪆ i originally started writing this the same night i watched enha’s vlogs (1 2) but then a few days (ig? idk how long) later, i found out mnet was also releasing THE SUMBAKKOKJIL SEASON 2 W CORTISSSS and i was so happy 😁 · the whole theme for this fic, however, is not at all related to the theme that mnet is advertising (hide and seek horror) bc i like horror escape rooms wayyy more (like enha’s) so 😋 · but like can yall believe ive never been to an escape room ever booo if only someone would take me out on a date 👀 cortis 👀 hmu 👀 not keonho or martin tho ik they’ll abandon my ass and find the emergency exit in five seconds · ruining my posting schedule for this fic btw
❤︎ wc ─── ৻ꪆ 9.4k (sue me bro, i have a whole design on my ipad for this fic 😭)
𝄞 𓏸 my cortispilledmasterlist »﹙合﹚
❝ tracklist ❞ ─── entire enha discog on shuffle tbh it’s js fun + somehow matches the vibe
you were curled up on the long, slightly worn fabric sofa in the corner of your main practice room, your legs tucked up under the oversized hoodie you’d stolen from james’ closet that morning. the lights in the room were dimmed, the only major source of illumination being the massive flat-screen television rolled in on a stand, currently glowing with the vibrant, dark-toned thumbnail of enhypen’s latest variety content.
everyone else was scattered around you in various states of exhaustion and post-practice slump. to your left, james was sitting on the floor, leaning his back against the base of the couch right between your knees. his hand was resting casually on your shin, his thumb tracing absent, soothing circles through the thick fabric of your sweatpants. it was a familiar, quiet comfort—a silent language the two of you spoke when the cameras weren’t rolling. the rest of the boys were scattered across the floor on beanbags and yoga mats. martin, as your ever-stressed leader, was rubbing his temples near the front, while juhoon was already halfway through a bag of honey butter chips. seonghyeon and keonho were bickering in whispers about who got the bigger beanbag, their voices fading the second the video finally started playing.
you all dropped everything the moment your phones chimed with the notification for enhypen’s new youtube video. enhypen were your direct industry seniors, and watching their content had become a ritual for your group, both for entertainment and to observe how seasoned idols carried themselves on variety shows. but this specific release—a massive, two-part horror house escape room deeply tied to their vampire lore—had you all hooked from the first teaser.
well, technically, it had james and you hooked more than anyone else.
while the rest of cortis tolerated scary movies for the sake of group bonding, james and you were absolute, unhinged adrenaline junkies. theme park drop towers? you both ran to the front of the line. extreme roller coasters? you rode them back-to-back until your hair was a bird’s nest. the thrill of the jumpscare, the rush of blood in your ears, the challenge of surviving a high-stress scenario—you both relished in it.
“turn it up, keonho,” juhoon mumbled around a mouthful of chips, pointing a finger at the youngest.
keonho scrambled for the remote, cranking the volume just as the eerie, atmospheric intro music filled the concrete walls of the room. the screen showed the enhypen members being led into a dimly lit, sprawling house designed to look like a normal estate from the outside, but the inside was much different. the production value was insane—fog machines, flickering lights, portraits with eyes that seemed to follow the members and other cooler shit you really wished you could witness first-hand.
for the next hour, the room was filled with a mix of your group’s chaotic reactions. but while seonghyeon was practically flinching at every shadow and martin was analysing the set construction, you were practically vibrating with pure excitement.
every time a vampire actor jumped out from behind a hidden panel, making your seniors scream and scramble away in a blind panic, james and you would exchange a thrilled, wide-eyed look.
“look at that set design,” martin muttered, his leader brain instantly wondering about the budget and production. “the details are crazy. even the keys look like authentic antique props.”
“i would have cried,” seonghyeon admitted honestly, watching jay sunbaenim get cornered in a library by a particularly fast actor. “if someone jumped out at me from behind a bookshelf like that, i’d lock myself in a cabinet and never come out. like, ever.”
james chuckled, his back shifting against your legs as he leaned his head back to look up at you upside down, a wicked, excited grin playing on his lips. “you’d do fine, seonghyeon. now, if it were us…” he teased, giving your ankle a gentle squeeze. “we’d probably try to race the scare-actors.”
“i would absolutely sprint down those halls,” you whispered back, leaning down slightly so only he could hear, your eyes shining in the dim light of the tv. “we need to find a place like this. i wanna do the riddles while being chased. it looks so fun, to be honest.”
“agreed. we’re making this happen,” he smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners before he turned back to the screen, his thumb resuming tracing patterns on your leg.
by the time the second episode ended with the final dramatic escape of all seven members, the entire practice room was buzzing with a strange, hyperactive energy. the adrenaline from just watching it had woken everyone up from their post-dance fatigue, but nobody was more fired up than the two secret thrill-seekers of the group.
juhoon tossed his empty chip bag into the trash bin and sat up straight. “okay, hear me out. we need to do that.”
“do what? become vampires?” keonho asked, blinking.
“no, idiot. a horror house escape room,” juhoon said, his eyes sparkling with sudden excitement. “a vlog. a cortis variety special. think about it! coers would love to see us losing our minds in the dark! plus, all we’ve been posting lately is just ‘playing basketball’, ‘playing football’, ‘playing chess’ and all that. don’t you think coers would like a special vlog next?”
seonghyeon shivered. “speak for yourself. i value my heart health.”
“come on, it’ll be amazing!” you chimed in, leaning forward over the back of the couch, your chin resting on your arms as you beamed at the boys. “we haven’t done a proper chaotic vlog in months. and the concept is so cool! we don’t have vampire lore like them, but we could do something matched to our own concept, or just a classic haunted house.”
“it is a good content idea,” martin looked thoughtful, tapping his chin. “the engagement on horror vlogs is always high, and it shows a more natural, unscripted side of us to the fans. but getting the company to approve the budget and rent out a high-end location like that? manager-nim is going to say no instantly. we’re in the middle of preparing for the next comeback cycle too. plus, the concerts…”
“not if we handle him together,” james said, turning around fully now to rest his forearms on the couch cushion next to you. the proximity made your heart do a little flip—a reaction you still hadn’t shaken off even after being together for so long, especially when you both shared this specific, hyperactive wavelength. “if all six of us beg, he usually cracks within ten minutes.”
“twenty if he hasn’t had his iced americano yet,” keonho corrected.
“then we buy him three iced americanos,” juhoon declared, standing up and dusting the chip crumbs off his pants. “and those expensive strawberry tarts he likes from the bakery down the street. come on, let’s go find him before he leaves the building.”
the mission to convince your manager, manager park, turned into a full-scale operation. as the only girl in the group, and the one he arguably had the softest spot for when it came to nagging, the boys collectively decided you had to be the front line of defense, backed up by the youngest, keonho, for maximum emotional manipulation. but behind the scenes, james and you were the real driving forces, fueled by pure, unadulterated excitement to get terrified.
that evening, the six of you marched down the hallway of the company building toward the staff lounge where manager park was currently finishing up some scheduling paperwork. juhoon was carrying a bakery box like it held sacred artifacts, while james held a tray of three extra-large iced americanos with extra shots of espresso.
martin knocked gently on the door before pushing it open. manager park looked up from his laptop, his eyes instantly narrowing in suspicion the moment he saw the entire group filing into the room with bright, overly innocent smiles.
“no,” he said immediately, before anyone could even breathe.
“we haven’t even said anything yet!” keonho whined, immediately moving to the side of his chair and putting a hand on his shoulder, giving it a gentle massage. “you look so tired today. are you sleeping well? the company is working you too hard, no?”
“i’m tired because i manage five chaotic boys and one stubborn girl who technically acts like a boy,” manager park sighed, though he didn’t push keonho's hand away. his eyes drifted to the coffee tray james placed gently on the table, and then to the bakery box juhoon was opening with a flourish to reveal the glossy strawberry tarts. “what do you want? did someone break a camera? did someone scratch the company car?”
“nothing like that, we promise,” martin said, stepping forward in full leader mode. he pulled up a chair and sat across from him, leaning in with an earnest expression. “we just finished watching enhypen sunbaenim’s new horror escape room vlog.”
manager park closed his eyes for a brief second. “oh, no. i know exactly where this is going.”
“it’s an incredible content opportunity,” juhoon insisted, sliding a tart toward him along with a fork. “the views on those videos are insane. our coers have been begging for a high-intensity variety vlog. it builds teamwork, it’s entertaining, and it lets us blow off some steam before the concert prep.”
“it costs money,” manager park countered, taking a sip of the iced americano despite himself. he sighed in relief at the caffeine hit. “renting out a fully staffed, high-quality horror escape room that is secure enough for idols, ensuring no leaks, setting up the cameras... it’s a logistical nightmare on short notice.”
this was your cue. you stepped up next to james, your shoulder lightly brushing against his in a way that felt entirely accidental to an outside observer, but gave you a grounding sense of warmth. you looked at manager park with your best pleading eyes, though internally, you were practically vibrating with anticipation.
“please? we’ll work twice as hard during choreo practice next week. we won’t complain about the early morning call times for the practices either. and we’ll even clean the entire practice room ourselves for a month. no complaints, no delays,” you begged.
james nodded along, his voice smooth, persuasive, and carrying that subtle, excited edge that only you could truly read. “we can shoot it as a two-part special, just like them. it satisfies the content quota for the quarter, which means the media team won’t have to scramble for ideas during our concert weeks. it actually saves time in the long run.”
manager park looked at the tarts, then at the coffee, then at the six pairs of eyes staring at him with desperate hope. james shifted slightly, his hand hidden behind your back, his fingers gently brushing against the small of your waist for a split second to encourage you. you bit your lip, holding back a wide, excited grin, keeping your focus on the manager.
finally, manager park sighed. “you promise? no slacking on the new choreo?” he asked, his resolve visibly crumbling under the collective pressure.
“promise!” you all shouted in unison.
“and you’ll clean the practice room? thoroughly? not just throwing everything into the corner closet like you usually do, keonho?”
“i’m offended—i mean, yes, absolute deep cleaning,” keonho promised, crossing his fingers.
manager park let out a long, dramatic groan, burying his face in his hands for a moment before looking up and pointing a finger at martin. “i will talk to the content production team. but if the budget is too high, or if we can’t find a secure location that fits our filming schedule before the concert prep gets too intense, it’s off. understood?”
“understood!” martin beamed.
“you’re the best, manager-nim!” keonho cheered, giving his shoulders a final, enthusiastic squeeze before the group began to celebrate, high-fiving each other in the small lounge.
as everyone started filtering out of the room, still buzzing with excitement, james lingered back a bit, slowing his pace to match yours. the hallway was relatively quiet, the other boys running ahead to tell the dance instructors the good news. james reached down, his fingers quickly intertwining with yours for a brief, hidden moment in the shadow between your jackets.
“we actually pulled it off,” he murmured, a low, thrilled chuckle vibrating in his chest. “i can’t wait to see who screams first. my money’s on martin.”
“nah, it’ll be keonho,” you said with a quiet laugh, squeezing his hand back before letting go as you approached the main lobby area where staff members were walking around. “but seriously, james, we have to request the scariest setting they have. if we’re doing this, we’re going all out.”
“oh, absolutely,” he grinned, his eyes shining with that shared, chaotic adrenaline-junkie energy.
☆
the next two weeks passed in a blur of intense preparation. true to your word, the group worked tirelessly in the dance studio, nailing the new comeback choreography until your muscles ached and your throat burned from breathing in the dry studio air. manager park kept his side of the bargain too; the production team had managed to scout a massive, highly rated immersive horror escape room located on the outskirts of seoul. it was built inside an abandoned three-story concrete warehouse, entirely customised for private group bookings, making it the perfect, secure location for an idol variety shoot.
the theme they selected for you wasn’t vampires—that solely belonged to your seniors—but rather a gritty, psychological survival theme: an abandoned asylum where a rogue scientist had allegedly conducted strange experiments, leaving behind ‘variants’ that roamed the dark corridors. the production team had already gone in ahead of time to install hidden cameras, night-vision equipment, and safety triggers, ensuring everything was ready for the vlog.
the night before the shoot, sleep was hard to come by in the your dorm. tonight, nobody was sleeping yet. the lights were out in your room, but the group chat was flooded with texts from juhoon, who was currently lying in his own bed across the room, illuminated by the harsh glow of his phone screen. he kept sending fake ghost stories and creepy urban legends into the group chat to scare keonho, who was text-screaming in all caps from the room next door.
‘hoon, stop text-torturing keonho, he’s going to wake up the manager,’ martin typed into the chat, though it did nothing to stop the onslaught.
you were lying in your own bed, staring at your phone, a wide smile on your face. the sheer anticipation of tomorrow’s horror house had your blood pumping. you couldn’t wait. across the small gap between your twin beds, you could see the faint silhouette of james lying on his side, his phone screen glowing as he typed something.
a second later, your phone buzzed with a private message.
james: go to sleep, baby
you giggled silently, turning over onto your side to face him.
you: nahh, i’m too excited. i’ve been reading reviews of the asylum warehouse online. apparently, the actors are allowed to grab your ankles if you hide under the beds.
james: seriously? that’s incredible lmfaooo we have to try it fs + trick martin to be the one to get his ankles pulled
you: right?? and juhoon’s gonna lose his mind, and he’s the one who wanted to go so badly
speaking of juhoon, a loud, rumbling snore suddenly erupted from his side of the room. the chip-eating, ghost-story-sending boy had instantly crashed, his phone slipping from his hand onto his mattress as he fell fast asleep within seconds.
james let out a soft, silent breath of a laugh from across the gap. in the dim shadows of the room, you watched him quietly throw back his blanket. with practiced, silent movements, he slid out of his bed and crossed the small expanse of flooring, slipping under the covers of your bed before you could even blink.
the bed was narrow, but neither of you cared. james wrapped his long arms around your waist, pulling your back flush against his chest. he buried his face in the crook of your neck, his warm breath tickling your skin as a happy sigh escaped him. you immediately relaxed into his hold, your hands reaching back to rest over his forearms, intertwining your fingers with his.
“you’re literally radiating energy,” he whispered into your skin, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that sent a different kind of shiver down your spine. “i can feel your heart racing.”
“i told you, i’m too hyped,” you whispered back, turning your head slightly so your nose brushed against his jawline. “the production team said there are three different floors. we need to make sure we don’t get separated from the group, but if we do… we’re definitely clearing the puzzles first.”
“oh yeah, we’re absolutely gonna dominate,” he murmured, a cocky, thrilled smile evident in his voice. his grip on your waist tightened affectionately. “while martin’s trying to organise a diplomatic strategy and keonho’s crying in a corner with seonghyeon laughing at him, you and i are gonna run straight through the jumpscares. it’s going to be the best vlog we’ve ever shot. lots of aura, too.”
“we have to pretend to be at least a little scared for the cameras, y’know,” you reminded him with a silent laugh, tilting your head up. “otherwise coers will think we’re psychopaths.”
“true,” he chuckled, leaning down to press a soft, lingering kiss to your lips in the dark—a sweet, private moment hidden away from the world, backed by the steady rhythm of juhoon’s snores across the room. “we’ll pretend to be startled, but we’re going for the speed run record. now, try to close your eyes. if you’re exhausted tomorrow, you won’t be fast enough to outrun the variants, hm?”
“watch me,” you challenged playfully, but you nestled deeper into his chest anyway, closing your eyes as the warmth of his body completely enveloped you.
with the manager asleep down the hall, juhoon dead to the world beside you, and the thrilling promise of a terrifying adventure waiting for you tomorrow, you finally let sleep take over, your heart beating in perfect sync with the boy holding you tight.
☆
the morning sun hadn’t even fully broken through the thick layer of seoul smog when manager park banged loudly on your dorm door, his voice echoing down the hallway like a drill sergeant on a mission. you were already awake, sitting on the edge of your bed with your sneakers halfway tied, while james was standing by the mirror adjusting the collar of his black jacket. juhoon, predictable as always, was still a human burrito under his blankets, groaning loudly as the door swung open.
“up, up, up! the vans are downstairs in twenty minutes, and if we miss our highway slot, the production team is going to dock my pay,” manager park yelled, pointing a stern finger at juhoon’s unmoving form before looking at james and you. “you two look way too awake. why are you smiling? it’s five in the morning. stop it. it’s creepy.”
“we’re super excited for the content,” james said smoothly, slipping his phone into his pocket and giving you a quick, imperceptible wink in the mirror.
“yeah, right. just don’t break anything,” manager park muttered, already moving down the hall to wake up the absolute chaos that was the younger ones’ room. a second later, you could hear martin’s loud, groggy voice protesting from the next room, followed by seonghyeon whining about his lack of beauty sleep and keonho immediately asking if there would be food at the venue.
☆
two hours later, the two company vans pulled up to the entrance of the abandoned warehouse complex. the place looked even more intimidating in real life than it did in the online photos. the exterior walls were covered in cracked, peeling grey paint, patches of dark green ivy crawling up the rusted pipes, and windows that had been intentionally boarded up with stained wood to keep the interior completely pitch black. even in the broad daylight, it looked like the exact place where a low-budget horror movie villain would set up camp.
the production crew—among whom you spotted some mnet banners, for some reason—had set up a makeshift basecamp under a massive pop-up tent near the entrance. rows of monitors showed the live feeds from the night-vision cameras installed inside, and several staff members were frantically checking audio levels. the second the six of you stepped out of the vans, the energy split into two distinct factions. martin was already pacing, his leader face on as he tried to look brave while secretly staring at the rusted iron doors with deep suspicion. keonho was bouncing on his heels, a nervous, high-pitched laugh escaping him every time a crow flew past. seonghyeon looked like he was contemplating calling his mom, and juhoon was trying to peek at the staff’s monitors to see what was waiting for them. then there was james and you. the two of you were standing side by side near the equipment tables, radiating adrenaline. you were tapping your foot in anticipation, your eyes scanning the dark entry tunnel with a massive grin.
“alright, cortis, gather around,” the main pd called out, holding a clipboard. the six of you shuffled into a semi-circle in front of the cameras. “welcome to the ‘hopewell sanctuary for the mentally unstable’—or what’s left of it. the rules are simple. you have ninety minutes to escape the three floors of this facility. there are live actors inside who play the roles of the ‘variants’—subjects of failed biological experiments. they cannot physically harm you, but they might pursue you. you must find keys, solve riddles, and work together to unlock the fire exits on each floor to progress. if anyone feels too overwhelmed, you can shout the safe word ‘cortis end’ into your microphone, and a staff member will escort you out.”
“can we use seonghyeon as a human shield?” juhoon asked immediately, raising his hand.
“yah! why me?!” seonghyeon shrieked, his voice cracking slightly. “use keonho! he has more muscle mass!”
“i’m the maknae, man! you’re supposed to protect me!” keonho argued, instantly grabbing martin’s arm and clinging to it like a koala. martin, despite looking equally terrified, patted keonho’s head with a shaky hand, trying to maintain his dignity as the oldest in their trio.
“alright, settle down,” a staff member laughed, stepping forward with a large box filled with small, handheld vlogging cameras. “each of you will carry a personal camera. you’re responsible for filming your own reactions and your members’ faces in the dark. please stand still while we clip on your body mics.”
the wardrobe staff swarmed in, pinning small, highly sensitive lapel microphones to the collars of your shirts. you stood perfectly still as a stylist adjusted yours, but as soon as she stepped away, james moved into her space under the guise of checking your jacket. his back was blocking the main production cameras for a split second as he leaned down, his shoulder brushing against yours heavily.
“keep your camera pointed at martin when the first scare happens,” james murmured, a brilliant, mischievous glint in his eyes. “i promise you his face is going to be a meme for the next three years.”
“oh, i’m already tracking him,” you whispered back, a low chuckle escaping you. “just make sure you don’t trip over keonho when he inevitably hits the floor.”
“deal,” james grinned, straightening up just as the pd raised a megaphone.
“production crew ready? audio clear? safe triggers active?” the pd called out. a chorus of ‘yes’s echoed from the tent. “alright, cortis. the doors are open. you may enter the sanctuary.”
the massive, rusted iron doors creaked open with a loud, mechanical groan that sounded straight out of a nightmare. the interior was a black abyss, save for a flickering green emergency light about twenty feet down a narrow, concrete hallway.
“leader first! leader first!” juhoon shouted, immediately grabbing martin’s shoulders and physically shoving him toward the threshold.
“wait, wait, wait! let’s form a tactical line!” martin yelled, his voice already an octave higher than normal as he resisted juhoon’s push, his sneakers squeaking loudly on the asphalt. “we need a strategy! who’s the bravest? james! yeah, james, you go first!”
james didn’t even hesitate. with a wide, thrilled grin, he stepped right past martin, his personal camera already raised to flip into selfie mode. “come on, children, let’s go. the clock’s ticking, y’know.”
you followed right on his heels, completely fearless, your camera pointed squarely at martin’s wide, terror-stricken eyes as you crossed the threshold into the pitch black. the heavy iron doors slammed shut behind the last member with a deafening thud that caused the entire facility to echo.
“AAAAAHHHH!!” the scream that ripped out of martin’s throat was so loud, so incredibly high-pitched, that it actually made james and you flinch—not because of the dark, but because your leader sounded like a dolphin being stepped on. keonho instantly joined in, letting out a guttural, dramatic yell that sounded like a warrior going to battle, except he was actively running backward until he hit the closed metal door.
“WE’RE GOING TO DIE! WE’RE LITERALLY GOING TO DIE HERE!” keonho screamed, holding his vlogging camera upside down as he panicked.
“yah! the door just closed! nothing even happened yet!” juhoon yelled from the middle of the pack, though his own voice was noticeably shaky as he clutched the back of seonghyeon’s hoodie.
“their screams are literally going to burst our eardrums before we even see a single actor,” you laughed, adjusting your camera so the ring light illuminated the concrete walls around you. the walls were splattered with fake, dried dark fluid, and old medical clipboards were scattered across the floor.
“alright, team, follow me,” james called out cheerfully, walking down the flickering hallway like he was taking a casual stroll through a park. you walked right beside him, your shoulders touching as the two of you navigated the debris.
the hallway opened up into a wide, circular reception desk area. the ceiling was high, with broken acoustic tiles hanging down like cobwebs. a low, mechanical humming noise vibrated through the floorboards, creating an intensely creepy atmosphere.
“okay, we need to find a key or a passcode to open that iron gate over there,” martin said, his voice trembling as he pointed toward a heavily reinforced security gate at the far end of the room. he was trying to sound authoritative, but he was standing dead center in the room, refusing to move an inch toward any of the dark corners. “seonghyeon, go check the reception desk.”
“why don’t you check it?” seonghyeon shot back, his eyes darting around the shadows. “you’re the leader! lead by example!”
“i am leading! i’m leading from the tactical centre of the room. it’s a strategic choice,” martin argued, his vlogging camera trembling in his hand.
while the two of them were bickering, a sudden, loud bang resonated from inside a rusted metal filing cabinet right next to the reception desk. the drawer flew open, and a scare actor dressed in a tattered, blood-stained lab coat with horrific special effects makeup—pale skin, dark veins, and completely black contact lenses—lunged out, letting out a guttural, animalistic snarl.
“AAAAAAAHHHHHHH OH MY GOD!! I’M SORRY FOR EVERYTHING, EOMMA!!” martin shrieked, his legs giving out completely as he dropped to the floor, scrambling backward on his hands and feet like a startled crab.
“HELP!! IT’S GOT A WEAPON!! IT’S GONNA EAT US!!” keonho yelled at the top of his lungs, leaping into the air and attempting to climb up juhoon’s torso like a tree. juhoon let out a panicked yell of his own, stumbling backward under keonho’w sudden weight, and the two of them crashed into a pile of empty cardboard boxes in the corner, creating a spectacular amount of noise.
seonghyeon didn’t scream, but he instantly froze solid, his eyes wide, his jaw dropped so low it looked unhinged, his camera pointing directly at the ceiling as he completely forgot he was supposed to be filming.
meanwhile, james and you burst into fits of laughter, the sheer comedy of your members’ utter demolition far outweighing the scare factor of the actor. james actually stepped closer to the guy, holding his vlogging camera up to get a high-definition close-up of the actor’s ten layers of makeup.
“wow, the details on the veins are insane,” he said to the actor, completely casual, his voice entirely devoid of fear. “hey, man, good job on the timing. you completely destroyed martin. look at him, he’s still on the floor.”
the scare actor, clearly not expecting an idol to calmly compliment his makeup, stayed in his lunged position for a second, blinking through his black contacts before letting out another, slightly confused snarl.
you walked over to the desk, completely ignoring the actor who was still hovering there. “hi, excuse me, do you happen to know where the key to the gate is? is it in the drawer you just jumped out of?” you asked politely, leaning over the counter.
the actor didn’t answer, staying in character as he dragged his leg and stumbled back into the shadows of the back office, hiss-whispering at you.
“he didn’t answer. rude,” you scoffed playfully, turning back to face the absolute disaster zone in the middle of the room. “guys, get up. he’s already gone. and honestly, martin, that scream was a new record. i think they heard you back at the company building.”
“my heart… bro, i felt my soul leave my body for a second,” martin gasped, sitting up from the floor and clutching his chest, his hair completely disheveled. “that was not a normal scare. that was a targeted attack.”
“you fell like a sack of potatoes, dude,” keonho said, finally untangling himself from juhoon and the cardboard boxes, his face flushed red from screaming. “but did you see how i handled it? i immediately checked the perimeter.”
“you tried to climb me like a telephone pole!” juhoon yelled, dusting off his jacket. “my back is bruised! you’re the youngest, but you’re not five, dumbass!"
“alright, focus, clear the room,” you laughed, walking over to the filing cabinet the actor had emerged from. you casually reached your entire arm deep into the dark, narrow drawer, rummaging around without a care in the world. “if i were a rogue scientist, where would i hide a key…”
“yn, stop! what if there’s a fake spider in there?!” seonghyeon warned, standing five feet away and watching him with deep anxiety.
“then it’ll be a fake spider,” you reasoned, pulling your hand out. “nothing in this drawer. let’s check the desk.”
james joined you at the wooden reception desk, which was covered in old, yellowed papers and broken computer monitors. while juhoon and seonghyeon were tentatively lifting up old folders with the tips of their fingers like they were handling live bombs, you noticed something odd about the desk’s structure. the desk had a thick, ornamental wooden trim running along the bottom edges. you knelt down on the dusty concrete floor, running your fingers along the wood.
“ooh, look at this,” you called out.
james immediately dropped to his knees beside you, his long frame crowding into your space. under the dim light and out of the direct line of sight of the other boys who were busy watching the dark hallway for more actors, james placed his hand over yours, his fingers squeezing yours gently for a brief, warm second before helping you pull at a loose piece of the wooden trim.
“it’s a hidden compartment,” he murmured, his voice low and close to your ear, sending a thrill through you that had nothing to do with the haunted house. together, you pried the wooden panel open. inside lay a heavy, rusted iron key attached to a plastic tag with the number ‘101’ written on it.
“we found it,” you announced, standing up and holding the key high.
“oh, thank god,” martin sighed, immediately running toward the security gate. “give it to me, please, let’s get out of this room before that guy comes back with friends.”
“wait, look at the tag,” seonghyeon said, his eyes catching a detail as you handed the key to martin. “it says 101. but the security gate doesn’t have a room number. it just has a padlock. let me see that.” seonghyeon grabbed the key and looked closely at the padlock on the gate. “yeah, the padlock has a star symbol on it. the tag on this key has a circle. this isn’t for the gate. this is for a room.”
“are you serious?!” martin groaned, his face falling. “we have to go into one of the side rooms?”
“well… room 101 is right down that dark hallway,” you pointed out cheerfully, pointing toward the exact corridor the scare actor had just retreated into.
“absolutely not. no way. we’re staying here. let’s just… i don’t know, break the lock,” keonho suggested, completely deadpan.
“we cannot break the company’s props, keonho,” martin scolded, though he looked like he seriously considered the option for a split second. “alright… tactical formation again. james and our fearless yn in the front. juhoon and seonghyeon in the middle. keonho and i will cover the rear."
“you just wanna be furthest away from the danger,” juhoon pointed out, but he fell into line anyway.
the six of you slowly crept down the narrow hallway toward room 101. the walls here were lined with old rusty pipes that occasionally hissed with fake steam, causing martin and keonho to gasp and jump every single time.
“it’s just air, guys,” james laughed, his vlogging camera pointed back at them to capture their synchronised flinches. “you’re scaring yourselves more than the actors are. stop doing their jobs for them.”
“it’s the atmospheric pressure, james!” martin hissed, holding his camera like a weapon.
suddenly, keonho stopped in front of a large, industrial-looking red button mounted on the wall. it had a plastic cover over it and a warning label that read ‘emergency ventilation system—do not touch’.
“guys! guys, look! i found it! i found the master switch!” keonho yelled excitedly, his eyes lighting up. “this must be what unlocks the main gate! the production team always hides keys in plain sight! i’m going to press it—”
“—keonho, wait, it says do not touch—”
but keonho, fully convinced of his own genius, flipped the plastic cover and slammed his palm onto the big red button.
instantly, a loud, piercing siren began to blare through the hallway speakers, accompanied by a flashing red strobe light that turned the corridor into a chaotic nightmare. from the far end of the hall, a heavy metal door banged open, and two scare actors, moving incredibly fast and screeching like banshees, came sprinting straight toward the group.
“AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!” martin’s scream reached a pitch that shouldn’t even be humanly possible. he completely abandoned the ‘rear guard’ position, turned around, and sprinted blindly in the opposite direction, his sneakers slipping on the dusty floor before he gathered traction and vanished back toward the reception area. keonho let out a loud “oh shit!”, which you were sure would get censored by the editors later, and bolted right behind him, his camera capturing a chaotic blur of ceiling and floor as he ran for his life.
juhoon and seonghyeon both yelled out in terror, gripping each other’s jackets and shuffling backward as fast as their legs could carry them, yelling a string of incoherent apologies to the actors as they retreated.
in the absolute madness of the strobe lights and sprinting members, one of the actors came charging directly down the center of the hall toward you. without a second thought, james stepped right in front of you, his large frame completely shielding you from the actor. he planted his feet firmly, throwing his arm out protectively across your chest to keep you steady behind him. it was a purely instinctive, protective reaction—one that made your heart hammer against your ribs far harder than any scare ever could.
the actor stopped right in front of you both screaming in his face and thrashing his arms. james just stood there, completely unfazed, a massive, amused grin on his face as he looked down at the actor.
“hey, great energy, man! your cardio must be amazing,” james shouted over the blaring siren, completely ruining the actor’s terrifying aura.
you peeked out from behind james’ shoulder, laughing hysterically as you pointed your camera at the scene. “you guys run really fast! do you do track? i run fast too! i practiced 100 metres a lot, but i really hate long distances.”
the actor broke character for a fraction of a second, his shoulders dropping slightly in sheer disbelief at your non-stop yapping, before he turned around to pursue the much louder, much more rewarding targets—martin and keonho—who were still screaming somewhere in the distance.
as the actor moved away, the overhead speaker suddenly crackled to life over the sound of the siren. the calm, slightly exhausted voice of the main pd echoed through the hallway.
“keonho-ssi. stop touching random buttons. it’s not a clue. you just triggered the penalty event. please step away from the wall.”
the entire hallway went silent for a beat, save for the blaring siren which slowly faded out. james and you looked at each other, and then both of you burst into laughter, leaning against the concrete wall for support. from the reception area, you could hear juhoon and seonghyeon groaning loudly, while keonho’s voice echoed back defensively.
“i thought it was a shortcut, okay!” keonho yelled back at the speaker.
“you almost got us killed, you idiot!” martin’s voice boomed from the dark.
james turned to you, his eyes crinkling with immense warmth as he looked down at you in the dim red light. his hand briefly came up to tap the tip of your nose, a quick, affectionate gesture before the others could walk back. “you okay? didn’t get startled by the sprint?”
“please,” you laughed, swatting his hand away playfully though your face felt warm. “i was trying to see if i could outrun him. you ruined my chance.”
“i was saving the actor from you,” james teased, his voice dropping to a low, sweet murmur. “couldn’t have you embarrassing the staff on camera.”
“sure, keep telling yourself that,” you smiled, turning to walk back toward the reception room where the rest of the group was slowly trudging back, looking thoroughly defeated.
martin walked back with his arms crossed, glaring at keonho. “from now on, keonho is forbidden from touching anything that is painted red, shiny, or looks like a button. do you understand?”
“fine, mom,” keonho muttered, looking like a scolded puppy, though his camera was still pointed at his own face as he whispered to it, “but honestly, my darling lovely beautiful coers, it looked exactly like a clue, right? the pd is just biased. right?”
“alright, let’s actually use the key for room 101,” seonghyeon said, shaking his head as he unlocked the wooden door to the side room.
the room was small, designed to look like a doctor’s examination office. an old leather gurney sat in the center, and rows of glass bottles lined the shelves. now that the chaos had died down, the calmer four of you—james, juhoon, seonghyeon, and you—immediately went to work, while martin stood guard at the doorway, his head darting left and right, and keonho sat on a stool beside him, banned from touching anything.
“okay, there’s a locked box on the desk with a four-digit combination,” juhoon said, examining a heavy metal lock. “we need to find numbers.”
“look at the eye charts on the wall,” james suggested, walking over to a classic snellen chart. “some of the letters are colored differently.”
you walked up next to him, squinting at the chart under the dim light of your camera’s ring light. while james was looking at the red letters, you noticed something else. the glass bottles on the shelves directly opposite the chart were reflecting the light in a strange pattern.
“wait, look at the bottles,” you said, pointing a finger. seonghyeon stepped up beside you, his sharp eyes instantly catching onto what you were seeing.
“aah, the fluid levels in the bottles!” he exclaimed, his voice filled with genuine excitement. “look at the four bottles on the top shelf. they’re filled to different heights. 100 ml, 80 ml, 0 ml, 80 ml again. and the labels on them match the symbols on the eye chart!”
“oh yeah, good catch,” james said, looking over at you with an expression of pure pride that made your chest swell. he held up his camera, deliberately framing you in the shot as he spoke loudly for the vlog. “our resident genius strikes again. what would we do without her?”
“probably still be screaming in the reception room with martin,” you retorted smoothly, flashing a grin at his camera.
“hey! i’m right here! i can hear you guys!” martin yelled from the door.
juhoon quickly punched the numbers derived from the bottle levels into the combination lock—1, 8, 0, 8. with a loud click, the lock sprang open. inside the box was a small, silver key with a star symbol stamped into the metal.
“yes! the gate key!” juhoon cheered, snatching it up. “let’s go, let’s go! first floor cleared!”
the group piled out of the room and ran back to the main security gate. martin practically snatched the key from juhoon’s hand, frantically shoving it into the padlock and turning it. the heavy iron gate swung open, revealing a concrete staircase leading up to the second floor.
“go, go, go! up the stairs!” martin urged, ushering everyone through like a shepherd with his flock.
the second floor was designed to look like the residential wards of the asylum. the hallway was wider, but it was lined with rows of rusted iron doors with small viewing grates. the floor was covered in old, decaying mattresses and overturned wheel chairs. the atmosphere was incredibly heavy, and the silence was almost worse than the blaring sirens from earlier.
as the six of you slowly walked down the main corridor, the adrenaline was still humming through your veins. james was walking slightly ahead of you, his hands in his pockets, looking completely relaxed. the rest of the boys were grouped tightly behind you.
suddenly, james stopped dead in his tracks. his shoulders tensed, and he let out a sharp, dramatic gasp, pointing a trembling finger toward a dark alcove at the end of the hall.
“OH MY GOD! RUN! RUN! THERE’S A WHOLE PACK OF THEM COMING OUT! THEY HAVE CHAINS!!” he roared suddenly, his voice filled with a terrifying, urgent panic as he turned around and grabbed your arm, pretending to sprint backward.
“AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!” the reaction was instantaneous. keonho let out a blood-curdling shriek, completely losing his mind as he dropped his camera, picked it up in a blind panic, and sprinted back toward the staircase, nearly knocking seonghyeon over. martin screamed so loud his voice broke completely, turning into a high-pitched squeak as he threw himself against the nearest wall, covering his head with his arms. juhoon let out a panicked yell, spinning around in circles like a confused dog before running after keonho. seonghyeon shouted in terror, diving behind an overturned mattress on the floor, his legs kicking out in desperation.
the entire hallway was a scene of absolute, unmitigated chaos. screams echoed off the concrete walls, sneakers squeaked frantically, and bodies flew in every direction.
and then, there was james.
the second he saw the magnitude of the destruction he had caused, he stopped running. he doubled over, his hands resting on his knees as he burst into a booming, breathless laugh that filled the corridor. he was laughing so hard no sound was coming out for a few seconds, his shoulders shaking violently as he pointed his vlogging camera at keonho, who was currently trying to squeeze himself into a tiny corner by the stairs.
you stood there, realising that he had been completely faking it. you smacked his shoulder hard with the back of your hand, though a massive laugh was already escaping your lips. “james! you jerk! you completely terrified them!”
“look… look at seonghyeon!” james gasped out between bouts of hysterical laughter, pointing at the mattress where seonghyeon was slowly peeking his head out like a terrified turtle. “he literally dived into the dirt!”
“yah!! james!” keonho screamed from the end of the hall, his face bright red as he realised there was absolutely nothing there. no actors, no chains, nothing. just an empty hallway and a cackling james. “i’m the maknae! you can’t do that to me! my damn blood pressure!”
“dude, your face—” james choked out, wiping a tear from his eye as he raised his camera to get a close-up of keonho’s furious, embarrassed expression. “you looked like you saw an actual ghost. i’m sorry, i couldn’t help it. the tension was too high, i had to break it.”
“you didn’t break the tension, you broke my spirit!” seonghyeon whined, slowly crawling out from behind the dirty mattress, dusting off his knees with a deeply offended look. “i thought we were a team! i thought we protected each other!”
“we do protect each other,” james laughed, walking over and helping seonghyeon up, though he was still grinning like a idiot. “i was just testing your reaction times. you passed. you hid very quickly.” he nodded solemnly.
“i hate you so much,” seonghyeon muttered, though a reluctant smile started breaking through his annoyance as he shook his head.
“that was a foul play, dude,” martin said, slowly sliding down the wall until he was sitting on the floor, completely drained of energy. “i almost used the safe word. i had ‘cor—’ out of my mouth.”
“alright, alright, i’m sorry,” james said, though he didn’t sound sorry at all as he walked back over to you, his eyes still sparkling with laughter. he leaned in close as the boys were busy dusting themselves off and complaining loudly to each other. “admit it, that was hilarious.”
“it was so mean,” you whispered back, a wide, bright smile on your face as you looked up at him. “do it again on the third floor.”
james let out a low, delighted chuckle, his hand briefly coming down to brush against the small of your back in a quick, hidden gesture of shared mischief before stepping back into the light.
the speaker crackled to life again. “james-ssi. please refrain from creating fake scares. our audio engineers are wearing headphones and the other members are causing permanent hearing damage to the staff.”
the entire group erupted into laughter again, the sheer absurdity of the situation breaking whatever residual fear the boys had left. keonho marched back down the hall, pointing a finger at the ceiling. “thank you, pd-nim! protect us!”
“alright, let’s solve the next puzzle before james tries to kill us again,” juhoon said, walking up to a large steel door labeled ‘warden’s office’. it had a digital keypad that required a five-letter word code instead of numbers.
the search began again. the office inside was filled with old bookshelves, a large wooden desk, and a terrifying anatomy mannequin sitting in a chair in the corner. the mannequin’s chest cavity was wide open, revealing plastic internal organs.
“oh, no. no way. the clue is definitely inside that thing,” juhoon said, pointing a finger at the mannequin from a safe distance of six feet. “martin, go dig around in its stomach.”
“huh? why me?! you’re the one who loves science!” martin shot back, backing away.
“i’ll do it,” you said, completely bored by their hesitation. you walked right up to the mannequin, your camera held in one hand as you plunged your other hand straight into the open chest cavity, moving the plastic lungs and heart around.
“yah… she’s truly fearless,” seonghyeon muttered, watching you with wide, impressed eyes. “she didn’t even blink.”
“well, it’s literally just plastic,” you muttered. “anyway, there’s nothing in here,” you announced, pulling your hand out and wiping it on your jeans for good measure. “just plastic organs.”
while you were doing that, james was looking at the bookshelves. he noticed that several books had letters printed on their spines in bright white ink, contrasting with the faded titles. “hey, look at these letters. e… a… t… h…”
seonghyeon walked over to a old typewriter on the desk, his fingers gently pressing the keys. “wait, the typewriter has a piece of paper stuck in it. it just says ‘the final hour brings the…’ and then it cuts off.”
you walked over to the desk, your eyes scanning the surface. you noticed a small digital clock mounted on the wall above the desk. the clock was broken, its hands frozen at exactly 11:05.
“look at the time on the clock,” you said, pointing upward. “11:05. if you look at the letters james found on the books, how many are there?”
“four,” james said, counting them. “e, a, t, h. but the keypad needs five letters.”
seonghyeon looked at the typewriter again, then at the clock, then at the books. “wait! 11:05. in twenty-four-hour format, or just looking at the clock… no, look at the first letters of the titles of the books that are turned upside down!”
“oh!” you exclaimed, catching onto seonghyeon’s train of thought. “the upside-down books! there’s a fifth book under the desk!” you knelt down and pulled out a dusty volume from beneath the desk leg. the spine had the letter ‘r’ printed on it.
together, the four of you rearranged the letters based on the order of the upside-down books on the shelf. h-e-a-r-t.
“heart!” juhoon shouted, running to the keypad and punching in the letters.
with a loud, satisfying beep, the heavy steel door unlocked, revealing the final staircase leading to the third and final floor: the high-security containment zone.
“we’re almost out! let’s go!” martin cheered, his confidence suddenly returning as he ran toward the stairs.
the third floor was by far the darkest. the production team had turned off almost all the ambient light, leaving only the ring lights from your cameras to cut through the heavy blackness. the walls were lined with thick padding, and a low, echoing heartbeat sound filled the entire floor, creating an incredibly tense atmosphere.
as you stepped onto the landing, a sudden loud crash echoed from the dark hallway ahead. a heavy metal cart filled with old medical trays came rolling out of nowhere, smashing into the wall right in front of the group. behind it stood a massive scare actor wearing a terrifying gas mask and holding a strobe light, moving erratically as he snarled.
“AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!” martin and keonho shrieked in perfect unison, a beautiful, high-pitched chord of pure terror that echoed through the entire facility. martin actually turned around and attempted to run back down the stairs, but he tripped over his own feet, crashing hard onto the landing floor and taking keonho down with him. the two of them lay in a tangled pile of limbs on the concrete floor, screaming and kicking their legs out as if the gas-mask variant was actively dragging them into the abyss.
“RETREAT!! TACTICAL RETREAT!!” martin yelled from the floor, his camera capturing a chaotic spin of the ceiling lights.
juhoon and seonghyeon let out startled yells, scrambling backward against the stair rail, their hands wildly waving in front of them to keep the actor away.
their combined, earth-shattering screams were so loud and sudden that they actually made you jump this time, the sheer volume of their panic catching you off guard. you stumbled backward slightly on the uneven concrete floor, losing your balance for a brief second in the pitch black.
before you could even register the fall, james moved. his arm shot out, catching you securely around your waist and pulling you firmly against his side, stabilising you instantly. his other hand, with the camera facing away, came up to rest gently against the back of your head, pressing you against his chest in a deeply protective, comforting embrace that completely shielded you from the chaotic scene in front of you.
“i got you,” james whispered softly against your hair, his voice low, steady, and entirely calm amidst the roaring chaos of the screaming members. he held you tight for a long, lingering beat, his heart beating a steady, reassuring rhythm against your cheek.
you wrapped your arms around his waist for a split second, soaking in the sudden, intense warmth of his body in the freezing dark room, a wide smile breaking out on your face. “their screams are going to give me a heart attack, i swear,” you murmured back, your voice muffled against his jacket.
“i know,” james laughed softly, his chest vibrating against yours. as the actor moved away to terrorise the screaming pile of limbs on the floor, james slowly released his grip on your waist, though his hand lingered on your hip for a final, affectionate squeeze before he stepped back into the frame of the vlogging cameras. “alright, children, get up. the big bad variant is gone. you’re safe.”
martin slowly sat up, rubbing his elbow with a deeply pained expression. “i think i just dislocated my pride. i’m completely done. let’s just find the exit please.”
“the exit is right there,” you pointed out, laughing as you helped keonho up from the floor. “but there’s a massive chain lock on it. we need a final key code.”
the final puzzle was mounted directly on the exit door. it was a large digital screen with a riddle: ‘i have keys but no locks. i have space but no room. you can enter but can’t go outside. what am i?’
“oh! ohh! i know! a computer keyboard!” seonghyeon shouted instantly, solving it within three seconds.
“oh yeah!” you cheered, looking around the room. near the corner was an old, rusted computer terminal. seonghyeon and you ran over to it. the keyboard was covered in thick dust, but some of the keys had small red glowing lights underneath them.
“look at the glowing keys,” you said, pointing them out to the group. “c… o… r… t… i… s.”
“OH, CORTIS!” martin realised, his face lighting up with immense relief. “punch it in! punch it in!”
keonho walked up to the main door panel, his camera pointed at the screen as he looked back at the group with a bright, triumphant grin. “cortis… escape!”
he typed the letters into the keypad. a loud, long green light illuminated the entire doorway, and the heavy electronic locks opened with a massive click. the final fire exit door swung open, revealing the bright, beautiful morning sunlight flooding into the facility.
“YES! LET’S GO!!” the entire group shouted, sprinting out of the dark warehouse like prisoners being freed.
the fresh air hit your face, and the bright sunlight made you blink as the production crew erupted into loud applause, cheering for your successful escape. martin immediately dropped to his knees on the grass, kissing the ground dramatically, while keonho threw his arms in the air like he had just won an olympic gold medal.
james and you walked out side by side, your personal cameras still running as you looked at each other, both of you flushed, laughing, and completely energised by the pure thrill of the last ninety minutes.
under the cover of the chaotic celebrations and the boys shouting their post-game thoughts to the main production cameras, james leaned in close to you one last time, his shoulder bumping yours heavily as he flashed that familiar, devastatingly handsome grin.
“we’re definitely doing this again next week,” he murmured, his voice full of pure, unadulterated excitement.
“absolutely,” you whispered back, your eyes shining with happiness as you turned together to face the cameras, ready to wrap up the most chaotic, hilarious, and unforgettable variety vlog cortis had ever shot.
a week later, you found out that your manager had agreed to this in the first place not because of your excessive pouting and whining, but because it was a pre-decided mnet variety episode.
