warnings: gets sad, angsty, mentions of slight bullying
word count: 4.9k
based on a true story....
dedicated to the boy i should've told "I love you" to when I had the chance. my first love.
✒️✒️✒️
August 2008.
The warm summer air was no longer as prominent as it was a few weeks back. The chill in the air hit your tanned cheeks as you chattered away with the girl sitting next to you. It wasn't a big surprise to anyone seeing you beaming with happiness on the first day of school in contrast to the gloomy faces around you, bummed about the end of their summer holidays.
"Honestly, I am a little upset none of my friends are in the same class as me but hey! At least we have each other right." You smiled at the girl in front of you who smiled right back at you.
The teacher striding in cut your conversation short. A young boy trailed behind her looking confused and out of place.
"Good morning, children!" The teacher beamed up at everyone. "We have a new addition to our class this year. Introduce yourself!"
The boy looked around at us before gulping and muttering, "Hi, I'm Mark Lee. I used to study at Clover Elementary School and I'm 9 years old."
The teacher patted him on the back and guided him to his seat, two benches away from yours.
"Why did you switch schools?" One of your classmates asked echoing everyone's thoughts.
"My old school started an hour earlier than here." He said sheepishly making everyone laugh out loud.
You stared at the boy, a little shorter than you.
He was interesting.
December 2008.
As Christmas was right around the corner, the school and all its inhabitants were shivering with excitement-more with the prospect of holidays than with the festival itself but no one would admit it- and that meant classroom activities.
This year the students were tasked with making paper wreaths to decorate their lockers with. You and your mum spent the day before searching the web for all kinds of creative wreaths you could make and ended up deciding on an origami one.
The class was all busy decorating their own wreaths, giggling, and chattering away with their friends nearby.
"Hey, could you lend me a pair of scissors I forgot mine at home?" Mark asked the boy sitting next to him.
"Sorry, I don't have one." The boy said clearly hiding the scissor in his pocket. "Maybe Y/N can help you?"
Mark turns towards you looking expectantly.
"Sure", you shrug handing over your scissor.
He uses it before giving it back muttering a small thanks
A few minutes later he asks for your glue and a few minutes later asks for your scissors again.
"Did you even come prepared?" You ask him joking.
"I'll be honest. I completely forgot this was today." He whispered making you giggle.
"Oh wow! Your cheeks get really chubby when you smile." He tells you as you turn beet red.
The boy sitting between the two of you snickers. "Yeah, you should lose weight, Y/N."
Mark frowns lightly. "It's cute though," he mumbles under his breath to himself.
But you heard him and you couldn't help but smile at him.
He's nice.
September 2009.
Mark was sitting right behind you this year and you were relieved you had someone in your class this year that you know. You did not want to go through finding a new friend to hang out with again this year.
The two of you would get along well. Top of the class always competing over who would get a higher grade.
"You are a VIP," Mark tells you one day with a mischievous smile.
"What does VIP mean?" You ask genuinely confused.
"Very Idiotic Person." He snickered at you as your face contorts into an offended look.
You raise your hand calling for the teacher. "He is calling me a VIP," you whine when the teacher comes over to your seat.
"Isn't that a good thing?" She asks you looking over at Mark who had his "good boy" smile on.
"He says it means a Very Idiotic Person," you exclaim making the teacher let out a quiet laugh before half-heartedly scolding Mark who was still smiling ear to ear.
"Why are you so mean to me?" You ask him frowning.
"It's fun teasing you. You get cute." He explains leaving you with a small pout on your face as he lets out an endeared laugh.
You couldn't help but laugh along with him.
He was funny, sometimes.
January 2010.
Everyone was half asleep on the first day after Christmas break. Who in the right mind thought it was completely reasonable to wake up children early in the morning and put them all together expecting them to be productive?
"I have decided on the class president and the vice president for this semester," the teacher announced making all the students perk up. "Congratulations Y/N for becoming the class president and Mark for becoming the vice president. Come here and collect your badges."
You let out the brightest smile and walk over to the teacher to collect your badge smirking at Mark as you pass him.
A silent boast of achievement. You were the President and he was the vice president. You had power over him. He rolled his eyes at you. It was a healthy competition. It always had been.
The teacher soon left the class and you were in charge of maintaining discipline in class. As you stood up from your seat a paper plane went swooshing right in front of your eyes. You looked around trying to figure out who did it. And you were met with Mark looking at you with guilty eyes.
"You can't do that. Flying paper Planes is against the class rules. You are the Vice President!" You scold him frowning.
"Please. You are upset because you don't know how to make a paper plane." He smirks at you.
"So what?" You glower at him.
"Sit down. I'll teach you." He says before moving over to your seat crouching down and teaching you how to fold the paper.
You turn over to him to remind him they had a class to monitor but all you saw was his focused side profile and in that moment all words left your mouth flying away along with the paper planes your classmates threw around.
He was really handsome.
February 2011.
A year older. In the same class again. You had joked with Mark about how he was following you around like a duckling. He had laughed before jokingly calling himself your personal stalker leaving you giggling.
It was also the year he got a little more popular. You were friends but you knew he was good-looking. A little too good-looking if you were being honest with yourself. He got himself, new friends, and so did you.
It wasn't a big deal. You were never in the same friend circle. You had always had your own friend groups but his new friends did hurt you a bit.
They were the same ones who would pass comments whenever you were around.
"God, I really don't want to sit next to her." Your seatmate complains to her friend as you sit right beside her.
"Can't you go and tell the teacher you want to sit somewhere else?" Her best friend tells you a little annoyance in her tone.
"I don't know if I can do that." You respond back with a tight smile making the two girls sigh rolling their eyes at you before going back to their conversation.
You looked over to Mark who had just entered the class and was now making conversation with the girl and her best friend. He saw you looks at you and gives you a light nod. You smile back at him.
He was a little aloof.
March 2011.
You were hanging out by the lockers with your girlfriends during the break. They were all gushing about the boy band named One Direction or whatever.
You were just about to joke about them being boy crazy and how you didn't get the hype around the group but before you could utter a word, Mark walked in with his friends smiling at you and your friends.
"Hey, Mark. You said you liked One Direction, right?" One of your friends asked him.
"Oh, yeah. I love 'What makes you beautiful" He said.
"Oh my god, really? Me, too." You squeal not knowing what possessed you to lie out of nowhere. You hadn't even heard their music before!
"They are so good, right!" He exclaims with the biggest smile on his face making your heart beat so fast all you could do was nod your head. You knew you stutter like an idiot if you said a word.
That night you spent the night under the covers with your earphones in your ears listening to every song One Direction had released on repeat, occasionally popping out of the covers to see if your mom walked in.
He had good taste.
May 2011.
As the academic year was coming to an end, the teacher's kept piling on homework, assignments, and projects.
You were tasked with making a science project on the ill effects of pollution. You were in the group with the smartest girl in class, Mark, and a few other classmates. The leader being the smart girl was assigned with planning out the project.
And that was when you realized academically gifted did not equal having common sense. The teachers loved her draft and encouraged you all to work on it but you found it a bit impractical.
As days passed on, Mark, too, realized how incredibly difficult it was to bring her draft to life. All the while, the rest of your teammates conveniently gave up on the project whilst your dear leader refused to meet up outside of school.
Deciding to take matters into your own hands, you went up to Mark ignoring his friends who were hooting at the two of you as you ask him to come over to your place so you could do the project yourself.
You met up with him the next day an hour after school ended. Your mum, a craft enthusiast, helping you throughout.
"Mark, how much did you score in Math?" She asked him.
"Oh, 19/20" he answered proudly.
"And how much did you score?" Your mum asks you.
"16," you mumble a little upset.
Your mum just hums and goes back to instructing the two of you.
An hour. later you realize you might need some more stationary. Mark and you go to a nearby store to buy more paper and some paints.
"16 is not a bad score, you know?" he says quietly picking up two bottles of paint trying to make out the difference.
"Says you. You scored a 19." You mutter.
"So what?" He looks into your eyes dropping both bottles of paint in a basket. "It's just a practice test. It won't count in the future."
"What do you wanna be when you grow up?" You ask him as the two of you walk towards the billing counter.
"I wanna be a scientist. Do something to help people." He says as the two of you pay for the supplies before leaving the store.
"What about you?" He looks at you and you could swear you saw sparkles in his eyes.
"I want to be a doctor." You state with confidence. "The one that treats mentally sick."
"A Psychiatrist?" He asks making you nod. "They don't make much money though."
"So what?" You mimic the words he had said earlier making him smile.
That night as your mum put you to bed, she smiled at you before leaving the room and asked, "Is there anyone from school that you like?"
You laughed at her trying to rid your brain of all the thoughts of Mark that popped up.
He was the one you liked.
June 2011.
The academic year was ending in a week and that meant class trips. It was the one event of the year all students waited for.
Ever since you had the realization that you might like Mark, your brain had been a big big mess. It was only your luck that with finals coming up the interactions between the two of you had come to the bare minimum and you were grateful. Your mind was a mess every time he was around you.
You wanted to confide in someone but you didn't know to who you could tell this. In the end, you decided, you were going to confess.
He was your friend the worse that could happen was he'd want to be only friends. You'd deal with it when the time comes.
It was the day of the trip. Everyone was vibrating with excitement. For once your bags were laden with food and games instead of textbooks.
"I heard Mark is going to confess to Pearl today. He said he was going to ask her to go on the Ferris wheel with her and then he'd ask her out. He even got her a bar of expensive chocolate." A friend of yours turned around to tell you and your seatmate.
Your seatmate and you exchanged a look before she shrugged and turned around.
You'd be lying if you weren't a little hurt.
You knew Pearl. She was your friend. Not the closest but you were friends nonetheless. And you could see why Mark liked her, she was pretty. Albeit not the prettiest girl in class but definitely way prettier than you.
How stupid of you to believe you had a chance!
Yet, a small part of your heart hoped all of this was just a rumor.
But it wasn't. You knew that as you saw Pearl walk onto the bus after your trip with a shy smile on her face and a large bar of chocolate in her hand as her friends giggle and Mark's friends pat his back while he blushes.
You cried so hard that night. You knew you were being irrational.
He was so inconsiderate.
January 2012.
You had no idea how the rumor started about you having a crush on Sam, one of your classmates, but it was getting out of hand.
"Okay, I dare you to go outside the class and jiggle your boobs." The girl sitting in front of you said making you laugh awkwardly.
"Hell no, I'm not doing that." You say chuckling as your eyes dart to the ground.
"Yeah, your tummy will be the one jiggling anyway," she said poking your stomach as she and her friend start laughing mad high fiving each other.
You unknowingly tuck in your stomach and leaned forward to try and hide your abdomen.
"Okay, go tell Sam that you love him." She orders you.
You knew this was better than doing whatever embarrassing ideas they had in their brains.
You slowly walk up to Sam and it was only when you were right beside him that you realise all of his friends were there.
'This is so embarrassing,' you think. Confessing to a guy you don't even like just because you are too cowardly to tell people it isn't Sam you like but Mark.
"I….I..um-" You try to spit out.
"What?" He asks you looking between you and his friends.
"I like you." You said before dashing out of the classroom before anyone could process what had just happened.
When you came back a few minutes later, the whole class was hooting at the two of you.
"You shouldn't have said anything. If it was a dare, you could've skipped it. Why do you have to embarrass us both?" Sam whispered harshly looking at you with disgust as you walk past him.
You didn't like him but it still stung.
That day as you were walking out of the school campus Mark rushed over to you.
"Did you really confess to Sam?" He asked amused.
"Go away!" You mutter at him before leaving.
"Aww look at you having a crush on Sam. That's cute." He snickered before walking over to his friends including Sam.
He was so gullible.
November 2012.
The new academic year saw a big hit in your social life after Confessiongate with Sam.
The only thing you looked forward to was having Mark in your class again and if you played your cards right. Everything would go back to how it was before. The way it was intended to be.
Mark and you sharing unfunny jokes and competing over who scored higher on the latest class test.
Everything would go back to normal. Yall would have your silly yet deep conversations and you would no longer freeze if anyone in the 10 mile radius mentions his name.
The only downside? You had severely underestimated the change in the dynamics of your friendship.
Mark was no longer a 10 year old geek calling you some stupid non offensive insult. He was a teenage boy. And like all teenage boys, he did teenage boy things.
Like thinking and talking about girls all day long. Spending more time looking and grasping at potential date opportunities then spending time doing his homework.
The both of you were on opposite sides of the school hierarchy. He had his popular friends and you were a known loser. He only socialized with those that would rather be caught dead then fraternizing with your type.
The not so attractive slightly nerdy students.
But you did have a minor glow up. Maybe now the two of you could go back to being friends. You didn't expect him to like you back.
All you wanted now was him to have a normal conversation that was not "Excuse me".
You had hoped he wouldn't notice his new found popularity and pretend you never existed but he did much to your dismay.
"Aww, I scored better than you. Look!" You had boasted with a smile handing him the paper. He had only scored a point less than you but that's how things had always been. Reading each other over who did better.
"Whatever. Why do you care so much?" He sneered in annoyance before walking off.
The smile on your face dropped instantly. You knew it was stupid to hope for things to go back to the way it was but you hadn't expected such a cold response.
He had changed.
January 2013.
It was just another day. You were having a mindless chat with your friend. Being 13 year old girls, the conversation automatically ended up about boys and crushes.
"You really had a crush on Sam? He is as dumb as a bolt!" Your friend exclaimed.
You contemplated whether or not to come clean to her. You had grown quite close to her and considered her one of your more trustworthy friends.
"I never liked him. It was just a rumor." You clarified.
"Then why did you confess to him?" She asked confused.
'Whats the worse that could happen?' you thought and decided to tell her.
"I liked someone else but I was scared to tell anyone. I just kept quiet and let people assume whatever." You whispered.
"Oh my god who was it?" She asked her curiosity now through the roof.
"I'll tell you if you tell me who you have a crush on now." You struck a deal.
"Fine. He's in our class right now. He is smart. He is good-looking. And he wears the cutest glasses." She said flustered at the thought of her crush.
The only boy you knew in class that was good looking and smart was Mark. Not that you had even laid your eyes on other boys.
"Mark?" You asked as a joke secretly hoping she said no.
"Yeah." She whispered back. "Now tell me who did you actually like?"
You not your lip. "Mark."
The both of you sat in silence for a few seconds and then burst out laughing.
What a coincidence!
A few days passed and the situation that seemed funny earlier did not evoke the same feelings as you saw your friend get close to him.
Mark and you drifted apart and he became closer to your friend.
You went from having little conversation to practically being non existent to him.
It filled you with envy. Why did he give every girl a shot at the love story you so wished to have with him? Every girl except you?
He was a real heartbreaker.
February 2014.
You were finally secure in your life. You had a support system. Friends who understood you.
You opened up to them about Mark and they understood. You finally felt at peace.
You had left the chapter of his behind you. That was until Mark got himself a new girlfriend.
You never understood how they met. They were polar opposites.
Mark was academically driven. She was failing a vast majority of her classes.
Mark didn't have a single artistic bone in his body. She was an aspiring actor.
You wished you could hate her. But every single negative thought that passed your mind just seemed like envy and insecurity.
She was pretty in a conventional yet underrated way. She was so petite. She didn't talk too loud or eat like a man or laugh with her mouth open.
She was elegant and graceful and everything you were not. It was a cold and unfriendly reminder that you were not and never will be Mark's type.
He was unreachable.
October 2014.
Mark and his girlfriend were going on strong. They were a power couple in school.
And it took every single ounce of strength and sanity in you to not have a mental breakdown every time you saw the two of them together.
They were such an unlikely pair yet it made so much sense.
They made so much sense.
Seeing them and knowing you could never have something as romantic and pure as them.
She and Mark had been caught kissing in an empty classroom.
When you first heard about it, you refused to believe it. You were so incredibly jealous of her. She was living your dream.
But you couldn't help but feel bad for her. The entire ordeal ended up with her being slutshamed by classmates and teachers alike.
You felt really bad. Despite wanting to hate her you couldn't bring yourself to do so. The students would pass comments everytime she was around. The teachers were no different.
"Maybe if you focussed less on finding abandoned places to kiss boys and more in class maybe you would score more." A teacher had said in class.
"Ma'am I will respectfully ask you to apologize to her. We agree what we did was wrong. But there is no need to shame her in front of class." Mark had stood up and spoken loudly.
The entire room shut up instantly. No one had expected him to do that. Standing up for his girlfriend in a very Asian school. The teacher and he went back and forth until the teacher fed up left the class.
You always respected him. But the level of respect you had for him after seeing what he did for his girlfriend transcended any emotion you were feeling in the moment.
And it only made you fall for him more.
He was a good boyfriend.
June 2015.
Academic stress had hit an all time high. You had no time to ponder over what Mark was doing. All his friends were transferring to new schools. And you assumed he would do the same.
You were shocked to walk in class on the first day and sitting on the first seat talking to another boy excitedly.
You cover your face and speed to the back of the class.
He was in everyone of your classes. The fact made you more anxious than giddy like it did a few years ago.
The stress about your future added with the stress of your forever crush being in your presence all day long was paralyzing.
A small part of you wished he would turn around and greet you but he looked straight ahead the whole day.
He would always around.
March 2017.
The last two years of school breezed past in a snap. You had alternated between studying for medschool and yearning for Mark.
Meanwhile he kept to himself. The only time he ever approached you was when he wanted help with projects or assignments.
You knew it was wrong to help him. Especially when it was so obvious that he was taking advantage of you but you couldn't help it.
You still wanted him as much as you did 8 years ago. He will always be your dream man. You hoped that maybe helping him would make him look at you in a new light but all that was merely wishful thinking.
"I wanna be a surgeon," he told me as you hunched over the desk pretending to read our biology textbook.
"Really? I wanna be a doctor." You told him.
"Still? Psychiatrist right?" He asked.
"You remember?" You ask him surprised.
"Of course" He smiled at you.
And just like that all the emotions that you had fought and kept at bay came back all at once.
He was a real charmer.
May 2017.
It was the last day of school. You knew you would never see Mark again.
Except of school reunions maybe but who is to say either of you would even attend.
You had made up your mind. You would confess to him. You weren't gonna see him again anyways.
Although you do admit you had spent countless hours fantasizing what it would be like if you ended up going to the same college. Would he finally give you a chance? Would he go and date another perfect girl?
But the chances were slim.
The last bell had rang and students poured out of their classes.
You approached him with a nervous demeanor.
"Hey, Mark. Can we talk?" You asked him.
"Yeah. What's up?" He asked.
You open your mouth to profess your undying love for him but before you could utter a single world you hear your teacher calling for the both of you.
"You both did so well in your finals. Y/N, I need to talk to you about some stuff. Can you stay back?" She looked at you.
"Yes, of course." You answer looking at Mark.
"You can leave now, Mark." She told him and dragged you away.
You wanted to run back and tell him "I love you. I've loved you since we were 10." But you just let yourself be dragged away by your teacher.
Maybe it was a sign from the universe.
He was never yours.
July 2017.
It was graduation.
You didn't think Mark would be here. You heard from a mutual friend that he got into his dream college.
You were happy for him really.
But standing at the gates of your school you saw him again. Wearing the same goofy smile as always surrounded by people.
You walk upto him. "Hey, guys. Finally done with this hellhole."
They all laugh as a wave of nostalgia hits them. Reminiscing the time spent.
"I heard you got into your dream college. Congratulations!" I wish Mark.
"Yeah. What about you?" He asked seeming genuinely curious.
"I'm gonna take a year off for mental health. I don't know if I wanna pursue medicine anymore. I don't have the brains for it." You laugh.
"Are you kidding? You're like the smartest person I know! Don't give up. For my sake?" He said in a pleading voice.
"For your sake? And who are you?" You laugh at him.
"Only like your bestest friend ever, Miss. VIP." He said his eyes crinkling as his smile got bigger.
"You remember that? Oh my god we were so lame." You lean into him as he lets out a laugh agreeing you.
And just like that the two of you were 10 again. And you fell in love with him and everything he did for a millionth time.
"You said we needed to talk that day. What was it about?" He asked out of nowhere.
You were tempted to tell him everything.
How you've been in love with him for ages.
How he made you feel. Makes you feel.
A thousand words on the tip of your tongue. You looked deep in his eye hoping to see a fraction of the things you felt for him. But all you could see was the reflection of a young girl hopelessly in love with a boy who would never see her the same way.
"Nothing. Just wanted to ask about where you were applying for college." You lied effortlessly.
The two of you stood together as the ceremony started.
He was just a fantasy.
August 2018.
Its been a year since you saw Mark.
He got busy with college and you understood.
Its not like you were that close anyways.
You would occasionally check his Instagram page. He had a new girlfriend you saw. It didn't fill you with envy. You were happy for him. It was a bittersweet happiness.
You had often wondered whether you had truly loved him.
Did you love Mark Lee as a person or the person you had made him up to be in your head? Was he really your soulmate or just a chapter in your book that you read to your children years from now?
Was it really love? Or was it childhood infatuation?
"Heard you got into medschool. Congratulations future Dr. Y/N!" He texted.
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excerpt. “i loved her hard and at a distance, which made it easier to do, experienced brief but powerful compulsions to hug her and almost never did.” - our wives under the sea, julia armfield.
pairings. mark lee x gender-neutral reader, (slight) na jaemin x gender-neutral reader
genre. angst, slight fluff, best friends!au, one-sided pining
warnings. swearing. mark is so...whipped...it’s almost pathetic.
word count. 4.6k
soundtrack. drunk text - henry moodie
notes. i haven’t written much this year and if i did get around to writing, it was either self-indulgent (read as written to appease my delusions) or nothing good. | taglist. @mosviqu @by-moonflower @lovesuhng @emvrd
Your name was but a whisper in the wind; minute against the rustling of crisp dry leaves as the breeze picked up and blew down the sidewalk, but he spoke it loud enough to be heard over the distant bustling of the city night, half a world away from where they were.
“______,” he called out, the name spilling out of his mouth long before he could think of what to say afterwards. The impulse trigger had left him, just as suddenly as it came and by the time his mind had caught up, she’d already stopped and turned to him.
“What?” Your eyes met his and all the words he’d bottled up inside him fizzled up right when he needed them most.
“Leaving?” Mark watched as a blur crossed the room, moving past him on the way somewhere he—in his sorry state of insobriety—couldn’t quite figure out just yet. The blur is you, on your merry way to take the unconventional route to the kitchen to fetch more drinks or heading for the backyard to take a dip in the pool.
Or leaving, because you stop by the doorway, picking up the sneakers you came in with as you bid you goodbyes to the others around you. “Already?”
The room Mark was in was a clockless one and with his phone dead, he had no way of knowing how late the night had gotten. Was it late enough to warrant heading home or just another one of the days you were up for hanging out until you weren’t? Either way, he still pushed himself off the couch, anticipating the nauseating world-spin that came with the sudden jerk of motion and waited for it to pass. Then he was fine—the world stilling momentarily—and he’s saying his ‘goodbye’s and ‘see you next time’s until he was out the door.
You hadn’t gotten that far yet, less than a house away when he stumbled down the front porch steps and trampled the front lawns of the Lees. He was debating calling out to you to wait when he noticed you slowed your steps to match his, waiting until you walked side by side on the sidewalk.
He wasn’t sure how far down on the way home his thoughts shifted from keeping his walking straight to the rabbit hole he’d fallen into. Ever since the seed sprouted in the depths of his mind, he never was able to get away from it—tangled in its grasp and dragged down every time he was reminded of it. It was hard not to think of it when he saw you almost everyday, your image ingrained into his eyelids with the permanence of all those years of friendship.
Tonight, the thoughts loomed just beyond the horizon; from the moment you ran out the front door waving to your parents by the doorway, to the bus ride you spent standing together and trying their best not to fall over, to enjoying the party all the while looking out for where the other had gone.
It was always like this between you, a seemingly mismatched compatibility outlasting the average lifetime of a pair with a dynamic like theirs. People like you grew into something more or diminished into nothing, unable to withstand the test of time. Not you, though. Your friendship mirrored the way the tides shifted through the months, reaching far into the shore only to pull far back later on. He was the static sand of the shoreline and you were the tide, moving with the push and pull of lunar gravity; growing closer to each other until you overlapped then backing away but never entirely apart. Nothing more, nothing less and Mark was content with that.
Until one night—mid-summer—in a drunken haze he wondered if it would be wrong to want something more than just this and nothing had been able to quell the thought ever since.
It spread through his mind like a plague, an obsessive fascination of this possibility happening because it wasn’t off the table. They might work. And he would think of what it would be like to call you more than just a friend, to hold you closer than their current unsaid boundaries allowed, to feel your warmth against his—chest to chest with your hearts beating in sync.
The thoughts led him here, verbalized in the form of your name for the first time since its inception in the recesses of his mind.
You were still looking at him, arms finding their ways back to your side after pretending to keep your balance on levelled ground. It took one glance at your face, your curiosity warping into impatience, for him to remember what he was really up against. Every con listed itself in bullets in his mind, matching up against his established list of delusion-fuelled pros. What if you didn’t feel the same way? He’d thought about it before. People have taken bullets to the chest and lived to tell the tale, so why couldn’t he? But he knows it wasn’t just about the ache of the potential rejection, it was about every ripple and repercussion following the confession because...
What if he lost her?
And somehow that was enough to snap him out of the deluded trance, every inch of mustered courage dwindling as he weighed the possibilities—his losses always heavier than the probable benefits. Certainties, such as your being a part of his life, would remain as such until factors that could potentially affect it would surface, and uncertainties will, well, remain uncertain until further evidence would prove it closer to certainty than the former.
So, Mark shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “Just be careful.” It was a stupid excuse but he knew you’d never look into it more than the fact that a man just tried to dictate your actions.
“How about you be careful and start minding your own business?” you answered, keeping a feisty fit until you broke into a laugh, filling the air of the silent evening. When he didn’t laugh along with you, you stuck out your tongue, leaping onto the next square on the pattern across the sidewalk with your arms stretched out.
You were right though. Between you and him, he had more chances of falling over even if he wasn’t hopping around. And if that happened, he’d be more than happy to lie there gazing at the semi-starry night sky—the road not taken lingering as a daydream in his mind.
In the same way recent thoughts sometimes slip into dreams in the form of ridiculous symbolism, anything the senses pick up in sleep have the chance of transcending reality and making itself known in dreams in some wild interpretation the mind comes up with unconsciously. In Mark’s case, it was the crescendo of banging on his bedroom door that intruded the peace of his slumber and turned its peaceful air into a full-blown apocalyptic nightmare.
In the dream, he was making his way down the sidewalk of a busy highway, still in a filler part of his dream. He had no recollection of where he was or how he got there, just that he was headed somewhere and that events would pick up from there. Unfortunately for him, he won’t be asleep long enough to find out what awaited him.
The first of the crashes was faint, loud enough to draw his attention but far enough to not worry him. It sounded like a bomb exploding from underground, muffled but powerful. and as his mind registered the connections he made, the second boom came—louder and closer now—shaking the ground where he stood.
Fear surged through his system, adrenaline pumping into his veins as he broke into a sprint. Then the crashes came first, as if seemingly sensing his fear and coming for him. There was a third, a fourth, and a fifth, all barrelling closer and closer towards him until one detonated behind him, finally knocking him out.
Mark Lee woke up with a start. He's alive, breathless right on his first waking minute. A thin layer of sweat glazed the skin of his upper torso, the dream vivid enough to leave remnants in reality. He turned to his side, reaching over to his bedside table when he heard it, the same loud crash that killed him in his dreams and it was right outside his door. He sat up, startled, slowly realizing that it wasn’t a bomb but knocking loud enough that it might as well be.
“I'll be down in 10, mom!”
Bthe knocking persisted. what it diminished in volume it made up for in its frequency, coming in half-beats.
He groaned, throwing the covers off of him to walk over to the door. “I said I’ll be there in 10!”
The door swung open. It wasn’t his mom knocking dents into the wood.
“Happy birthday!” The candle goes out with a concentrated exhale, a thin line of smoke being only its remnant that it was ever lit up.
The cake was simple; store-bought chocolate with a Happy Birthday, Mark! scribbled in red icing, held up by someone who looked up at him expectantly. What were you expecting?
“Oh shit, sorry.” Mark fought the urge to laugh at your little fuck up, leaning against the doorway as you fumbled your pocket for the lighter. You found it eventually, striking it twice until a steady flame relit the candle. “Happy birthday, Mark! Make a wish,” you greeted again, holding the cake out further from your face and closer to Mark’s.
He doesn’t tell you that his wish had already been granted. “Thank you,” he took the cake from your palm, killing the candle’s light a second time. “You really woke up early for this?”
“I did,” you answered, hands on your waist like a superhero; proud. Mark could tell from the shadows beneath your eyes that you’d probably forgotten the date and panicked the second you realized it was his birthday, bought the cake right as the bakery was closing and somehow forgot to bring a lighter on your way here.
But there was always plus points for effort.
He could feel the corners of his mouth twitch up, the telltales of a smile making its way to his face no matter how hard he tried to keep it down. “Thank you, ______.”
He’d done this a hundred times before but this one felt different. Pulling you closer, he wrapped you in a half-embrace to which you melted into. Your own arms curled languidly around his frame, slowly enclosing him in your own squeeze. Pressed chest to chest, he was conscious of every muscle twitch. He felt as if his arms would lock and keep you there, where his lips could brush your temple if you wanted him to, where your perfume was too strong it was all he could inhale.
“You’re old.” You mumbled and he felt the vibrations on his chest as you spoke.
“Your birthday’s in a few weeks too, idiot.” Did you feel it in your chest too?
He opened his mouth to speak, but stopped himself, the moment too fragile in his hands. So he left it in yours even when he knew you’d be quick to drop it, pulling away from him right before he could beg you to stay a little longer.
You stood at a fair distance away from him again. “Get changed and come down. Breakfast’s ready.”
Breakfast was omelettes and a mug of coffee. Before him were two plates of the same meal, one more overcooked than the other. It was easy to point out but he opted to keep his mouth shut, glancing over at you.
“Go on, try it!” you said, beaming at him with an air of confidence.
So he does, slicing a portion with his fork before shoving it into his mouth. Surprisingly, it’s better than he expected it to be, but judging from the few too many egg shells on the kitchen counter, it took a few tries. “Good, but not as good as my mom’s.”
His mom’s hearty laughter filled the room, warmth spreading where the sunlight couldn’t reach. “You’ll get the hang of it someday, _____.”
It wasn’t the first time you tried it but this was the closest you’d ever gotten to getting it right. Across all his birthdays and the mornings you dropped by, this was the first time you didn’t burn the eggs completely. Just slightly, just enough for Mark to notice the difference. But his mom had the edge, what was 20-something consecutive years of practice to several tries months apart?
The rest of breakfast is spent in small talk, filling in the gaps between the last time they’d been huddled together and today. Mark spent most of his time listening, the information exchanged no longer anything new. But he’d speak in the silences, when his mother attended to other things or when you had your head down, smiling at something but telling him nothing when he asked.
Oh. That.
Mark knew for a while now, he was just waiting for you to admit it. The gradual shift was subtle but enough for him to notice; this wasn’t the first time this had happened, the last time being a lifetime ago. Shortened, occasional replies and half-distracted responses meant you were hiding something or budgeting time across people and failing to keep up. He would know, because he’d done it before. But unlike you, his temporary fixes proved to be temporary and he’d somehow find his way back, retracing his steps and ending up on your doorstep with a story of a lifetime you’d be willing to hear out on the front porch. But he was rarely on the receiving end of these stories, never the one to keep the friendship alive despite the growing distance.
He first noticed it on a weeknight mid-semester, when he was staying up late to finish something. He camped in a server with a bot playing music in the background when he heard the ding, an intruder entering his safe space, but it’s you so he doesn’t bother. It’s half-past 3AM and,
“You never sleep do you?” you asked.
“Why aren’t you asleep?” he asked.
Mark answered work and you answered nothing. Nothing was an avenue for a lot of things, just not something you wanted to say out loud. Just not something you wanted to say to him.
Your camera blinked on, the same old familiar face greeting him—the dim light of your laptop screen reflecting on your skin. The pixels that made up your eyes stared back at him, which meant you were staring at the black orb of your camera just to look at him directly. Then you turned away, laughing.
“Something funny about my face?”
He expected some sarcastic reply. But you only shook your head, looking elsewhere. He could hear the keys clicking as you typed, your eyes scanning across the screen that, as Mark realized, isn’t just composed of him.
“Are you talking to someone?” Mark asked, even if he wouldn’t like either response. No, I’m not talking to someone—a blatant lie. Yes, I’m talking to someone—the truth he didn’t want to hear. But he asked anyway, getting a firm answer would be better than mere speculation. He just didn’t get why the thought of it stung.
On his screen, you cocked your head, your heads now side by side as if they were leaning against each other. At least, that was how it was on his end. He noticed your lips, the way the edges curled when you fought hard not to smile. Mark heard about Na Jaemin for the first time that night.
Mark got out of his shift a little past midnight, bursting out the door in a frantic rush straight into the empty streets of the city. His mind had been locked onto one thing since he got the voicemail: to get to the pub as soon as he could. Hi Mark, your best friend’s voice came through the speaker. I know you’re working, But could you pick _____ up after your shift? I would drive them home but I came with Jeno and I don't think they’re in the right state of mind to be riding a motorcycle right now so... The line goes silent for a while, the talking distant before he overhears ‘Is _____ here? Are they ok?’. I know, I’m sorry, it’s so late. You don’t have to do it, I’ll just call up their dad.
No, he replied, not even thinking of how he’ll get there. I'll come get them. Because they both knew calling your dad was the last of all last resorts. Your best friend replied with an okay and an address that was on the other side of the city.
Mark walked into an unforgiving downpour, raindrops thick enough to blur the rest of the avenue. His jacket wasn’t enough to shield him from it, the thick denim soaking in not even seconds in. It offered some form of protection but it wasn’t a coat nor an umbrella and the closest bus stop was still a block away. He dashed head first into the pouring rain, down the sidewalk and across the street, straight into the bus shed.
The few people who rode the bus along with him cast glances of disgust, keeping an unrespectful distance away from him as if the rainwater that drenched him was some vile toxic liquid. He stood the whole way, not wanting to dampen dry bus seats and risk getting ejected off the bus. His bus card was declined thrice and he ended up paying in cash before hopping off, only to find himself on the wrong street. His phone shut down somewhere along the way and he spent a few minutes walking in the wrong direction before he eventually turned around and found the pub.
For a pub, it wasn’t crowded enough for him to get more lost than he already had been. In fact, it was relatively empty. He spotted familiar faces close to the back, Jeno specifically who had a beer can in hand—ready to offer it to him. They welcomed him as he approached, asking where he was, why he only arrived now and why the fuck he was drenched. He ignored everyone, though he would soon regret not taking the can of beer from Jeno’s hand. “Where’s ______?” he asked.
“Mark, you’re here!” Your best friend came up from behind him, eyes running over his figure. “Oh my God, what happened? Didn’t you get my text?”
Mark fished his phone out of his pocket, showing the black screen and the useless effort of trying to turn it back on. Whether it was drained or drenched beyond repair, he wasn’t sure.
Your best friend chewed the inside of their cheeks before speaking. “_____’s fine now,” they said and he noted the hesitance in their tone, as if they knew something he didn’t. After a quick sigh she resigned and continued, “Jaemin came. They’re still here, I think, down the hall by the comfort rooms.”
He wished your best friend didn’t notice when his expression hardened from worry to a stoicism meant to keep his emotions in check. But their lingered, pity and concern dancing across the glossy surface of their eyes. He thanks them as he excused himself, thanking them a second time for saying the truth instead of shielding him from the truth he’d uncover on his own eventually.
A cue stick hits a cue ball, scattering the multi-colored balls across the table. The crowd erupts into cheers, the music playing in the background drowned out by the amused laughter. It’s a lucky shot because a few make it into the holes, the player earns another opportunity to strike. One of their friends called him over and he glanced, suddenly torn between stalling or confronting what was waiting for him.
He holds a hand up, opting to come back for them later. He'd need the distraction, anyway. The short walk to the bathroom ends at the mouth of another hallway, a narrow one that led to the lavatory and the comfort room doors that stood side by side to each other.
You sat with your back against the wall, somewhere at the end of the hallway. And across you sat Jaemin, cross-legged on the same floor, mirroring the way you were curled up against the corner because it made you laugh. Mark feels like he’s interrupting something, feels that his presence—though not yet acknowledged—was not welcome in their little space.
“_____?”
Jaemin is the first to look over, dark eyes bearing down on Mark’s. and though the man was seated on the floor, Mark suddenly felt small. When he searched the blonde’s face for a sign of hostility, he found nothing but mere indifference, nothing beyond how someone would treat a stranger. Jaemin leans forward, closing the distance between you. Only then do you glance over at Mark—head spinning instantly, eyes wide like a doe in headlights. You always moved that way when the alcohol overtook your system. Where others found their actions dulled, yours became sharper. Mark found it comforting that you weren’t too far gone yet to lose the snappy movements.
The blonde man rose up to his full height and they finally saw each other eye to eye. Then he turned to reach a hand to you to help you pull yourself up with a firm grip on the other man’s wrist.
In that moment, Mark slipped out of the hallway and into the recesses of his mind, revisiting the last time he’d seen you—that night in his room, the altercation. He remembers the way you beamed at him when you walked in, the brightness of your presence permeating the thick air of his room. Whatever reasons he had, he could no longer remember. Why was he that irritable that day? At what point could he no longer bear to listen to you? And why did he have to say what he did?
You talked about your day, at first, and just like every conversation since you introduced Jaemin, the topic inevitably steered to him. How you went from passing glances at each other, to exchanging socials, to talking all night, to hanging out in person—and Mark listened on for the justification as to why his own messages had gone unanswered for longer periods until he couldn’t bear it any longer.
He shouldn’t have scoffed but he did. “Are you even sure that he likes you?” he said, cutting you off as you spoke. He regrets it the second it rendered you silent. You didn’t look hurt, no, it was disappointment and the weight of your gaze that made the guilt surge within him.
“_____,” he tried but you were already slipping off the bed, passing behind him as you picked up your things and slamming the door without even looking back. He should’ve stood up right then, ran after you before you could leave the house and apologize. Say that he didn’t mean it that way, say that he didn’t mean it at all. But he just sat there, his guilt gobbling him whole and his pride keeping him rooted there.
Like clockwork, he eventually apologized and you eventually told him it was fine, even when it wasn’t for the sake of dismissing it. Nothing was the same ever since; the rift evident, as if you hadn’t drifted far enough already.
But there were times like this when pride was an easy thing to overlook. You had done it for him once or twice before. He recalled running late one too many times for a class you had together; and you, despite not being on speaking terms with him, took the blame for it. And your friendship was always fixed that way, non-verbal ways, as if to prove that actions spoke louder than words if they failed.
“What the fuck happened, Mark?” you asked, slurring through your words before bursting out in laughter.
Mark raised an eyebrow, “What the fuck happened to me? What the fuck happened to you?” he watched as you stumbled over, wobbly as you stepped.
Behind you, Jaemin leans to mumble something in your ear. Something about letting him know if you were ready to leave. Mark didn’t mean to eavesdrop on it, nor could he help butting in.
“It’s fine,” he says, to the blonde’s surprise and his own. “I’ll take her home. Sorry for bothering you.”
“Not a bother at all,” Jaemin replied. “I don’t mind. I’ll take her home. Besides, it’s raining. Glad I brought the car instead.”
And Mark debates whether it would be worth sparking an argument with the man. Didn’t he know that the rain had stopped? Maybe he would’ve known if he wasn’t busy flirting in a pub bathroom. And did he really have to shove it in his face that he had a ride after seeing him drenched?
But Mark noticed you looking and he bites his tongue. You were no longer looking over with eyes glinting with both worry and amusement at the same time. You looked at him imploringly, as if begging for him to take the hint. If he was honest, Mark didn’t want to. And it wasn’t because he tread through a storm just to get here but because it was an opportunity to make things up to you, to finally apologize and break the ice. But it seemed you were taking apologies in other ways today and it didn’t necessarily involve him.
Mark sighed and hoped that his voice wouldn’t betray him as he spoke. “Alright, be careful both of you. Her dad’s kinda strict.” He even mustered up the courage to wink at the blonde man.
Jaemin chuckled lightly and he watched as your face flared up in a blush. Mark stepped aside to let the pair pass, looking away when he noticed the blonde resting an arm over your shoulders—like he used to. But he sees you through the mirror hanging over the lavatory and that’s how he noticed that you looked over a final time. Your eyes met on the glass and for the first time since your little quarrel. You looked at him warmly; he missed this. You mouthed a little thank you before you turned back, walking away and disappearing into the main room.
By the time Mark joined the others, you had long left the place for a night out on your own. Everyone knew better than to bring it up. Beer bottles were passed, along with cue sticks and unlit cigarettes. He hoped the alcohol would dampen out how he felt even just for that night.
They were at the pub until it closed in the early AM, saying their goodbyes when they were out on the street. Mark’s house was far from everyone else’s, close only to yours, but because you were no longer around, he ended up alone. He would’ve sent you a text to ask if you got home safely, to tell you that he walked all the way home again, to say what he’d been meaning to say for years now. Good thing his phone was dead long before he could do so.
summary: things are complicated now between your demon lovers, WinWin, and Mark, but even when you find some clarity, there’s an even bigger complication hovering at the horizon
<-previous || next–>
For the next week, it’s almost as if nothing ever happened with WinWin.
Neither you nor the demons mention it. WinWin acts perfectly normal when he comes over, though he isn’t hiding his feelings for you anymore.
Mark is avoiding all of you. That’s the biggest issue that comes from it.
Demon lessons continue. Friendships continue. Ten acts surprisingly civil, even friendly to WinWin when he shows up to have dinner or just to hang out at the apartment. Perhaps he’s a tiny bit more clingy whenever WinWin is around, but he’s no longer bursting into flame or glaring at the werewolf any time that they’re in close proximity to each other. Neither Ten or Yuta even shows a flicker of jealous anger when WinWin brushes his hand over your hair and brings you in so he can lay a kiss on your forehead before he leaves after dinner one night.
“Goodnight, princess. I’ll leave you to your boyfriends,” WinWin murmurs against your forehead, pressing his lips there one last time before he slips through the apartment door, shutting it behind him.
You press your back to the door, shoulders flat against it as you look over at the two demons WinWin had been referencing. Boyfriends. That’s still not something that you’ve actually discussed with them, like, the actual parameters and labels of this relationship. Things have just been for the past week, there hasn’t been any further or deeper discussions about anything.
But maybe you should discuss it.
Yuta and Ten are standing side-by-side, cleaning the kitchen of the mess you’d made hand-cooking dinner earlier. It was nice sometimes to take a break from manifested dinners to make an actual home cooked meal with fresh ingredients from the market on the edge of the city. You’d spent the first part of today there with Ten and Yuta, enjoying fresh air and naturally grown produce. Something about that had put all of you in a very good mood, and that had carried on through dinner and even until now. Yuta is laughing, knocking shoulders with Ten as their hands are covered in bubbles from scrubbing at the dishes. They look happy and normal and you love them so much that, in that moment, it hurts.
You need clarification. You need a label on this.
“Can we talk?”
Yuta looks up at you first. His smile sinks at your serious tone, concerned.
Ten stares down at his hands buried in the bubbly sink. “Talk?”
As you step towards them, Yuta’s eyes flick back towards the door. “Does this have something to do with WinWin?”
“No.” Yes. Maybe. You’re really not sure, if you’re being honest at this point. “Not right now, anyway. I want to talk about us.”
Steam billows from the sink as Ten finally jerks his hands from the water, splashing bubbles and dishwater on he and Yuta. “Yeah. Sounds good. Let’s talk about us,” Ten says sharply, wiping his hands off on the legs of his jeans. His movements are jerky, body stiff. Gone is the loose, relaxed mood of just moments ago. Ten is suddenly agitated, and you wonder what he thinks this conversation is going to be that he so quickly went from 0 to 100.
Ten leaves Yuta standing at the kitchen sink, quickly crossing down to the sofa where he sits and looks over, waiting for you and Yuta to join him.
You don’t know what Ten’s expecting, but he leans back on the sofa, folding his arms over his chest, watching you with narrowed eyes as you approach. You don’t think he’s expecting it when you climb into his lap, straddling him and tipping your fingertips beneath his chin, but Ten welcomes it. He doesn’t look away from you even when Yuta sits down beside him.
“I want to talk about us now. Not WinWin. Not Mark. Not anyone else but the three of us. Specifically–” You take a deep breath, then say, “I want to talk about what this means between us, like, it’s time that we finally really put the stamp on it. What are we?”
Ten relaxes slightly. His eyes soften, a faint smile touches on his lips. Had he been worried about what you were going to say?
Yuta snorts, apologizing quickly when you and Ten both look over at him. “I’m sorry, but isn’t that a silly question?”
Is it?
“I don’t think it is.” You tilt your chin defiantly as you look at Yuta. “I know that you both like me. Obviously. And you know I love you, but what is this? Like, are we just fucking or are you my boyfriends?”
Ten groans a little, dropping his head forward with a chuckle so his head rests against your shoulder. “Do we have to put such a human label on it?”
“If you want the right to be jealous, then yeah. I want you two to call me your girlfriend. I want to be able to actually call you my boyfriends.” Your heart thuds in your chest. “I am part human, remember? So why wouldn’t I want a human label on this, even if you’re both fully demons?”
Ten turns his head to the side, his breath puffing over your chest as he looks at Yuta. The two of them hold eye contact for what feels like too long. You wonder if telepathic communication is yet another demon skill you’ve been unable to unlock because it feels like they’re having a whole silent conversation. One that ends when Ten finally lifts his head from your chest to sit back against the sofa again.
“I don’t know, darling…” Ten’s tone is teasing as he says, “You sure you wouldn’t rather call us soulmates? Lovers? Current obsessions?”
Yuta snickers.
You laugh too, groaning out a “Shut the fuck up!” as you grab up a throw pillow beside you to shove it at Ten’s face.
He grabs the edges of it, laughing right with you, as he pushes the pillow away to keep you from smothering him with it. Somehow the pillow disappears, but his lips are right there. “I want to call you mine,” Ten says, his tone light and teasing as his lips brush yours with each syllable.
“I take it back,” you tease right back. “I don’t want to call you my boyfriend anymore, Ten.”
You pull back from his lips, denying him the kiss that he’d been about to reel you into. Instead, you tip yourself over into Yuta’s lap. Yuta smiles adoringly down at you, touching your cheek lightly with his fingertips, and you lift your face to his, sharing a quick kiss with your boyfriend.
Ten whines in complaint. His fingers curl around your forearm, tugging, trying to pull your attention back to him. “Call me your boyfriend, babe. Darling.” He kisses behind your ear, his lips trailing down your neck as he whispers, “Lover, angel, sweetheart, kitten, queen of my heart. The sun to my moon. The girlfriend to my boyfriend.”
His words tickle just as much as his lips, and you laugh, breaking away from Yuta’s kiss. Ten steals your lips in an instant, and you spend a decent portion of the next few hours making out with your boyfriends, trading back and forth between them. There’s a little bit where you’re pretty sure you were kissing both of them at the same time, but Ten also had his hand tucked between your legs at that point in time, so everything was a bit hazy.
You don’t leave Yuta’s lap, and he probably gets the brunt of your arousal with you grinding down on him, your lips trailing along his throat on the rare occasion that neither of your boyfriends are claiming your lips. Yuta’s hair definitely gets the most fucked up from your fingers raking through it, standing up at all kinds of odd angles when he finally tips you backwards into Ten’s lap, pushing you and Ten flat onto your backs.
Ten’s got his legs spread apart with you resting between them, your back against his chest. His lips are against your ear, whispering to you as his hands and Yuta’s wander, and you feel like molten lava. One or both of them undress you, and then Yuta’s lips are on your chest, your belly, white hot against your pussy while Ten keeps whispering filth in your ear.
Yuta’s tongue carries you into bliss, and you push your fingers through his hair, whining at how he keeps eating you out to the point of sensitivity.
“Let us take care of our girlfriend,” Ten whispers in your ear. Your heart thrills at the word from his lips. Girlfriend. It’s everything you wanted. Ten drags your hands from Yuta’s hair to pin them instead to your belly, his hand clasped over them. “Let your boyfriends take care of you. Okay?”
You nod.
Ten’s lips touch your cheek. “Let us hear you say it.”
A desperate moan doesn’t qualify as letting them hear you say it apparently, because the moment after you’ve moaned, Yuta lifts his head between your thighs. His thumbs stroke alongside your pussy, his eyes catch yours. “Come on, pretty girl. Tell us what you want.”
Articulating your thoughts into anything resembling actual words is a struggle with both of them touching you. Ten’s teeth graze your shoulder, one of his hands is at your breast, pinching and rolling a nipple between two of his fingers. Yuta just keeps up that tantalizing proximity to your pussy, holding eye contact and waiting for you to speak up and tell them what you want.
“Both of you.” Eventually you manage to get the words out. Your hands twist beneath the one that Ten has pinning them down. “Both of you. That’s what I want.”
“Good girl.” Yuta smiles, and his fingers snap flat against your clit, sending a jolt to your core, a flare of fresh arousal answering his smack.
You appreciate the cooperation of your two boyfriends with each other. The way that Yuta helps Ten out of his clothes without shuffling you around too much. The way that Ten holds your thighs for Yuta. You appreciate Yuta spitting on Ten’s cock and guiding Ten to your entrance; him sitting back to watch while giving Ten the chance to feel you all to himself for a moment.
Ten rolls his hips up against your ass, cock sinking slowly inside you. His lips are at your shoulder, his hands grip your hips.
You watch Yuta, the hungry way he watches your pussy swallow Ten’s length while he fists his own cock. As you watch, Yuta thumbs at his tip, spreading glossy precum along the shaft, his other hand massaging at his balls. You swear they look a little swollen, like they’re just full of cum just for you. When you lift your gaze up to his face, Yuta winks at you. Can he read the hunger in your eyes? The need to have them both inside you as soon as possible?
You’ve taken both Ten and Yuta at the same time before, but there’s just something about this time that feels so much different.
Yuta cups your cheek in his hand as he joins Ten inside the tight fit of your pussy.
“Good girl,” he says again, and the words go straight to your belly, making your heat flutter around the pair of them.
“Fuck,” Ten gasps behind you, his teeth digging into your bare shoulder. “Baby, is this how it felt when you were with him and Yuta?”
He doesn’t say the name, but you know he means WinWin.
Yuta’s laugh is a rumble in his chest as he rolls his hips forward, pressing in as deep as he can get with both he and Ten inside you. “Do you want the honest answer, Ten? Because I can tell you, the feeling I’m experiencing is nothing to how it felt when me and him were in her.”
WinWin’s dick is big. Ten’s is average, not that you’ve ever thought about telling him that. Plus, WinWin had a knot that had made you feel so much more full, especially when Yuta shifted to have one as well. So, yes, right now you do feel incredibly full and amazing, but nothing can quite compare to the lusty hormone-driven haze of a threesome with a werewolf and shape-shifted demon.
As if Ten can read all of that between Yuta’s words and your silence, you swear you feel his cock swell inside you.
Yuta’s grin grows cocky. “Really, Ten?”
“What?” Ten bites back.
Yuta says nothing else, and you just take the opportunity to feel how your boyfriends both fit inside you, the way that Yuta starts moving, creating friction in all the right places. All you can do is moan, attempting to kiss Yuta while Ten marks up your throat and shoulder with his lips. Ten’s fingertips bruise at your hip bones and your belly; your fingernails drag along Yuta’s back and Ten’s thigh as they dually thrust into you. All three of you roll your bodies together, all skin-to-skin, lips and teeth and moans mixing together.
It feels orgiastic.
It feels like there’s a new, deeper connection tethering you to Yuta and Ten. Your demons. Your protectors. Your boyfriends.
Ten’s fire embraces you from behind, his heat encompassing you and brushing against Yuta as well. Ten curses under his breath in a language that is foreign to you, and his cock spills inside you, twitching against where Yuta is still moving.
“Come on, angel,” Ten’s lips skim your cheek. “It’s your turn.”
His arms circle your waist, one hand sliding down until his fingers meet your clit. His head bows, lips pressed to your throat, sucking a mark there as he starts swirling his fingers over your clit at the perfect speed to have you tipping towards your orgasm. He and Yuta are both still inside you, both of them still rocking their hips against you, Yuta a little more intently than Ten.
Yuta’s hair falls in front of his face, his eyes flaring black with sparks burning in their depths, and all you want to do is crush your lips to his, to take him in as deep as you can.
You want to be consumed in him, consumed in Ten.
It’s your name that falls from Yuta’s lips when he tumbles into his orgasm, and he pulls you right there with him. Ten’s fingers work tight circles on your clit, and the way that Yuta’s cum fills you at the same time, sends you spiraling.
For a long while, none of you move.
Just a pile of limbs and the lingering smell of sulfur, sweat sticking your bodies together in a way that should possibly be uncomfortable. But you’re perfectly happy to stay there, pressed like a flower between the weights of your boyfriends.
Even after the discussion about labeling your relationship, the question still remains on where the situation with WinWin has landed.
You need to know where things will go from here.
WinWin clearly has feelings for you, although he doesn’t act on them by actually kissing you or initiating anything else. Since his rut ended, there have been little kisses on the forehead, holding your hand, longing looks from across the room. But nothing more.
In the aftermath of defining your relationship with your boyfriends, you feel that this is the next important step to take: determining how WinWin fits into all of this.
You’re in bed, Yuta’s head on your belly while you play with his hair. Ten is sitting up against the headboard, and your head is pillowed on his thigh. He had put some movie on the TV a while ago, and you’re not watching it at all. Too lost in your thoughts to be able to follow the plot.
“How long is it going to take before you spill, darling?” Ten finally asks in a quiet voice. “I can nearly hear your mind whirring. What are you thinking about?”
You tip your head back until your eyes meet Ten’s. He lifts his eyebrows.
“Are you sure you want to hear it?”
The corners of Ten’s lips twitch upwards. Yuta lifts his head from your belly, and you feel him turning over onto his stomach.
“Hm,” Yuta says, and you turn to look down at him. “I would guess that probably means it involves our wolf, and his position in our makeshift pack? How much our Alpha Ten is going to oppose him?”
Ten snorts out a laugh, but says nothing at the Alpha comparison.
You nod. “We should probably talk about it, right?”
Ten runs his hand over your hair. “Let’s talk then.”
The discussion is an easy, open one that surprises you in its simplicity. They’re open to WinWin taking a more hands-on role. From Yuta, that was no surprise. But Ten’s possessiveness with you, particularly in regards to WinWin, is something you have been well-acquainted with. While Ten had been a bit lenient about WinWin’s rut, you hadn’t expected him to admit to being open to letting WinWin in from time to time.
You were shocked. Shocked, but happy.
“We’re very tight-knit,” Ten says by way of explanation. “I mean, once he spent his rut with you, I don’t think there’s any going back. Plus, he’s really not so bad. Just as long as he’s fully aware that there’s no stealing you away from us. This is like an all or nothing kind of thing.”
“Unless you choose differently,” Yuta makes sure to clarify. “But Win can’t just come into this intending to take you all for himself. That’s just not going to work.”
Not that you think WinWin could possibly steal your love away from Yuta or Ten. You don’t know how to explain the way you feel about your two boyfriends, but it’s deeper than anything you’ve ever felt before. He would have to work very, very hard to make you forget that feeling.
“Even Mark,” Ten tells you when you begin discussing the dynamics of this relationship. “He’s part of our tight knit too. So, like… I don’t know, if you are into him too, I get it.” Yuta rolls his eyes a little, but you know it’s based more in affection for the vampire than anything else, especially when he mumbles something about “having to break his celibacy oath” before Mark can really become a part of all this.
You like Mark, you’ve known that for quite a while, but you’ve been so well-fed on your boyfriends and WinWin, that you haven’t paid much mind to Mark lately. Your dreams, when you do sleep, revolve almost exclusively around Yuta and Ten, though since the rut, WinWin has taken up his fair share of space in your dreams. And Mark is basically a celibate vampire, not to mention avoiding you, so maybe that’s part of the reason that he’s been absent from your dreams. Your subconscious wrote him off as a lost cause. But there is that attraction there, though you’ve never acted on it, but Ten was giving you permission now to seek whatever you can find from Mark and WinWin both.
Yuta agrees too, carding his fingers through your hair, turning your head towards him. “We get the freeness of love. We’re demons, not heartless. And sometimes love can’t be contained to just one or two others. We get that.”
It’s a new concept to you, one that you hadn’t seen or heard of much in your old life. You’d only known of polygamy, harems, or infidelity. But Yuta whispers to you about polyamory, an accepting and freeform kind of a relationship.
Both Yuta and Ten fill your mind with these ideas, and you know that given the next opportunity, you’ll make sure to let WinWin know that he’s welcome. And if you get the chance to bring Mark in too, well, you’ll take it. The only problem with that being that you haven’t seen or spoken to Mark in over a week, and you’re really missing the vampire.
“Well, then we’ll just have to go out.” Ten says, patting your cheek. “He can’t avoid you forever, darling.”
Maybe he can’t avoid you, but Mark won't look at you.
It’s now been a couple weeks since WinWin’s rut. A week since you defined your relationship with Yuta and Ten. Tonight they’d finally gotten Mark to agree to go out with all of you, which really meant you, the demons, and WinWin meet up with Mark at one of his places of business.
You’re tired of Mark being distant.
Is it just the fact that you brought WinWin into your bed that has Mark like this? Is it because he feels left out? Is he mad? Disgusted? Because even now, when you’re all together, Mark won’t even look at you.
Tonight you’re somewhere new. Not Frozen Hell and not any of his other clubs you’ve been to before, but a more chilled-atmosphere bar.
It reminds you of something from the early 1900s, like a secret prohibition bar, though that could be the fact that you’re literally underground paired with the fog of smoke that fills the room—not from cigars being smoked but rather from a table of bodily-smoking figures across the room—as well as jazz music which a band of mismatched supernatural beings plays for the bar.
Tonight a few more of their accumulated friends have been invited to join in the fun. Mark invited Haechan and Jisung. Yuta invited a pair of demons named Taeyong and Doyoung. Ten had told you that you were the only company he needed, and WinWin had agreed.
You’re all gathered around a big, round booth table in the corner.
Mark sits at the back center of the curved leather bench, and although you sit two people away, with WinWin and Yuta being in between, Mark never once looks in your direction. Even when you spoke to him earlier in the night, he’d only given you a short answer without looking at you.
“Have I done something wrong?” You ask Ten where he sits on your right side.
Ten’s been tracing distracted circles on your bare thigh. The tight pink miniskirt had seemed like a good idea when you were checking yourself out in the mirror, but ever since you sat down here tonight, Ten and Yuta have both been unable to keep their hands to themselves. Ten’s fingernail has likely written his claim to you in a thousand languages on your skin by now, and Yuta’s just got his hand there on your other thigh, not moving, just a constant warmth.
When Ten’s hand finally ceases its movement so he can answer your question, you look down. He taps his finger against your inner thigh. “I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong, darling. I think he’s just feeling a little left out.”
“And that really doesn’t bother you?” You ask, looking up at Ten through your eyelashes.
He smiles. “Not as much as it once did. Not as much as the idea of WinWin and you did. Mark’s a good friend. He’s a good boy. I feel like we could trust him with you. He’d be too scared of pissing us off by hurting you, anyway.”
You know you’ve discussed this. Mark in the context of this relationship. It was only in brief passing when the talk about WinWin happened, but still, you would think the idea of letting a vampire as powerful as Mark have any kind of more-than-friendly relationship with you would drive both Ten and Yuta crazy. He’s got all the power of the underworld behind him. But of course, he is a good boy. You’ve been alone with Mark a lot more than you’ve ever been alone with WinWin, and nothing even remotely untoward has ever happened. Especially since a lot of that one-on-one time over the last several weeks had consisted of meeting with him in his little private prayer chapel. Things still weren’t the same as they were before you found out about all of this world. Prayer now doesn’t feel exactly the same, and you don’t feel the same about God anyway. The promise of eternal life in Heaven, the idea of being punished for sins, and everything else that you were taught by the Church seems less important now that you know about all of this.
The promise of eternal life is right here, without the need for true death first.
“Mark’s been fighting temptation,” Ten whispers to you. “Yuta might be better at mind-reading than I am, but even I can feel that coming off of Mark. These past couple of weeks he’s been eaten up with lust and bloodlust, knowing that me, Yuta, and now WinWin have had you.” Ten’s fingers start trailing your thigh again and his lips skim your shoulder, pulling a shiver from you which draws Yuta’s attention.
A flicker of a grin appears on Yuta’s lips before he wipes it away just as quickly. His hand squeezes your thigh, making your heart pound at the implication of both of your demons touching you.
For the first time, Mark actually glances your way. You see his gaze dart quickly over the points where your boyfriends are touching you.
He looks away again. His jaw is clenched, and he’s clearly doing his best to listen to whatever the demon Taeyong is saying, but you can tell that he’s tuned in more to the pounding of your heart and the soft way that you sigh when Ten starts kissing your throat.
Mark jumps to his feet, knocking the entire table.
Everyone looks at him.
“I need to get a drink. Excuse me.” He pushes around the other side of the table, knocking into the other vampires and the two demons. He vanishes toward the bar.
He’s gone for a while, eventually returning with another vampire you’ve never met before named Jungwoo, who he deposits at the edge of the circular booth beside the demons. Mark climbs back over the laps of the others to reach his previous spot. You notice he’s got one of his bloody cocktails in hand, and he manages to not spill a single drop, and he manages to not once look at you.
Did you really fuck up so badly? Have you ruined the friendship you have with him just because he’s the only one in your close group that hasn’t had sex with you?
You do your best to forget about Mark ignoring you. You do your best to have fun. These new guys are easy to get along with. Everyone’s drinking, laughing, talking. Jisung regales you all with stories he recalls from his life before vampirism, and he latches onto Haechan who begs him to share some of his favorite stories. Jungwoo and one of the other two demons, Doyoung, you think, disappear from the table, coming back after a while with some tag-alongs, pretty people that they pull into their laps.
You don’t care about the new additions, not until you’re watching the demon Doyoung tilt the head of his partner, exposing their throat. When his kisses to their throat turn to him taking a bite, you cringe.
“I thought you said demons don’t drink blood?” You whisper quietly to Ten.
“Most of us don’t. Doyoung’s a different kind of demon than either of us. Different than you too.” Ten curls his arm around your shoulders. “All of us can drink it, but a few have to.” You remember the way that Ten and Yuta had both offered themselves up to Mark that time he was in desperate need of blood, but you’ve never seen either of them actually drink blood, not like this.
You watch the messy way Doyoung drinks from his partner, the smoother way that Jungwoo sips from a pretty girl’s wrist. And then your eyes land on Mark. He’s watching Jungwoo’s mouth on the girl’s wrist, a stray trickle of blood that trails over her skin, and then, in an instant, Mark looks away, catching your eye for a fraction of a second before looking away again.
That was the most eye contact you’ve held with him all evening.
Mark materializes a fresh drink in front of him, a vividly bloody drink with something floating in it that you don’t want a clearer look at. He downs it like it’s a shot, and the skin around his eyes cracks with bloodlust, angry veins of thirst like the eyes of a vampire in a show Ten had gotten you started watching recently. You’ve never seen Mark like this before, and it scares you just a little bit. It scares you even more when Mark’s eyes shoot momentarily back to you, another refilled glass lifting to his lips.
“You should drink the fresh stuff, Mark,” Jungwoo says as he lifts his head from the girl’s wrist, licking his lips. “It’s so much better.”
Mark doesn’t partake in fresh human blood, you know that. An accidental turning had resulted in him swearing it off, but you can see the temptation at war with his vow behind his eyes. Fresh blood oozes from the girl’s wrist, and when Doyoung pulls away from his partner’s throat, Mark’s nostrils flare at the heat of warm blood straight from the jugular.
“Doyoung.” Yuta suddenly sits forward, snapping Mark’s attention away from the blood as he says, “I think you and Jungwoo need to move that somewhere else.”
Doyoung opens his mouth to argue, but Taeyong reaches over, silencing the demon with a touch. “Let’s go,” he says, “Don’t push Mark, Doyoung.”
They leave with Doyoung’s partner, and Jungwoo follows behind with the girl giggling and clinging to him as he suckles again at her wrist. Jisung and Haechan, sensing the tense atmosphere, also decide to make their exit, heading for the open blood bar.
That leaves the five of you again.
Mark drops his head into his hands, grinding the heels of his palms against his eyes. “Fuck,” he groans. “I need something. Like a distraction.”
You can tell by the hunch of his shoulders that Mark is struggling. His body is sharpening, like he’s tensing up and relaxing in quick succession. His veins in his hands and arms are visibly pulsing, which is a mildly disturbing sight.
WinWin reaches over, clasping Mark by the back of the neck. “Do you need to get out of here?”
For a moment Mark doesn’t answer, but then he nods.
You watch, caught between Ten and Yuta, as WinWin stands, forcing Mark out of the booth on the other side. You watch Mark begin to struggle a little, watch WinWin manhandling Mark, the two of them fighting a little, but neither of the demons beside you moves to help.
“He’s got it,” Yuta says. “He’s handled Mark like this before.”
He doesn’t elaborate on that, but you notice the way that he and Ten exchange glances.
The three of you spend a while longer at the table just drinking and people watching. Jisung and Haechan return after a bit, and the other demon Taeyong returns too. After that bit of awkwardness, things smooth over again. The evening turns relaxing and fun, made better when Yuta whisks you away outside the bar to a very narrow back alley to make out and eat you out.
That’s the turning point of the evening, you believe, as Yuta presses your back against the brick wall, as he sinks to his knees and hitches your thighs over his shoulders. Your tiny little miniskirt becomes more of a belt as Yuta buries his face between your thighs, messily eating your pussy.
He leaves you wobbly legged from the intensity of your orgasm, grinning as he lowers your legs from his shoulders so he can rise from his knees. Yuta kisses you with your taste still fresh on his lips.
You shouldn’t even be surprised when Ten appears from nowhere, stealing your attention away from Yuta. He nudges the other demon out of the way so he can slot himself between your legs. “That mini skirt, darling,” he groans, “It’s doing something special to me. And watching Yuta on his knees like that…” Ten’s eyes flash in the dark.
When Ten also sinks down to his knees, your heart pounds with exhilaration. Are you finally about to get the rare experience of Ten’s tongue?
Yuta melts into the background. Maybe he even leaves, you’re really not sure what happens to him after Ten begins kissing along your inner thigh. Ten doesn’t eat pussy, that’s what Yuta had told you the first time you had sex with them. That has remained true up until this moment, until you feel Ten’s fingers sliding your panties back away from your wet lips, until you feel his breath and the tentative touch of his tongue.
Ten eats pussy like he has all the time in the world: slowly.
At first you think it’s due to uncertainty, but the longer it goes on, the more you realize that it’s because Ten likes the slow build-up, the way that you grind down on his waiting tongue, the slow kisses, lengthy strokes of his tongue until you’re shivering to pieces. Your fingers knot in Ten’s hair, and he hums against your pussy. It took so long to get him to go down there, but now he’s reluctant to leave.
Ten’s hands smooth down your sides as he gets to his feet, pulling your skirt back down to cover you up as he pins you back to the wall, his mouth colliding with yours in a heated kiss. Your fingers wind through his hair, kissing him deeper until there is an absolute lack of space between you.
It’s a while before the heat settles, Ten’s kisses growing softer before you both pull apart. Yuta is nowhere to be seen, but you assume he just headed back inside once he realized Ten had completely stolen your attention.
Ten wears a smug grin on his face as you head back inside the bar. He holds your hand tight. If Yuta weren’t still waiting for you at the table, you would beg Ten to take you back to your apartment right now.
But you have to return to the bar first.
As you approach the table, you see that the others have disappeared, leaving Yuta behind, but he’s not alone. Yuta is talking with someone you haven’t yet been introduced to. The figure’s back is to you, a heavy black cloak draped around his shoulders with a long hood that’s been lowered to reveal the back of his head of thick black hair. There is something vaguely familiar about even the sight of the back of his head, but you’re not sure exactly what. Both the stranger and Yuta speak in low voices, Yuta’s brows drawn together.
Ten’s smug look fades.
“Do you know him? Who is that?” You ask, tucking your chin over Ten’s shoulder as he steps in front of you, pausing the slow walk towards the table.
“No one.” Ten’s voice is sharp.
“That’s so convincing, and totally not suspicious.”
You try to slip around him, but Ten catches your waist. His arm loops tight around you, dragging you back toward him, spinning you both around to be facing away from the table. And then he begins propelling you towards the exit.
Finally a pang of worry takes up inside you. What’s going on?
As soon as you’re out of the bar, Ten holds you securely in front of him as he pushes you forward, farther away from Yuta and the stranger. Ten begins spitting words under his breath in a language you don’t know.
“Who was that?” You ask, attempting again to twist free of his hold. Ten’s fingers dig into your hip.
“We call him a Watcher.”
Quiet falls again with Ten hurrying you through the winding streets of the underground of this city. He doesn’t offer any further explanation. He doesn’t speak at all, actually, just silently pushing you higher through the streets, leading you into the tower to spiral your way quickly upward toward the surface of the city.
Even when you ask, “What about Yuta?” Ten only grunts out his answer of, “Not now.”
The moment you’re out of the underground tunnels, emerging onto the cool city street, the burnt orange sky unfolding above you, you finally break free of Ten’s hold.
“Are you going to explain what that means? Any of that?”
Ten swings an arm out, dragging you back in again, pulling you close to his chest. You can’t miss the way his eyes dart around, swinging to the shadows of the alleys, to the windows and rooftops above you. He’s on edge, and that makes you feel equally as nervous.
“Ten, wh—“
“Shh.” His hand covers your mouth, and normally you would slap his hand away for that, but in the moment, with his body tense against yours, you don’t move a muscle, don’t make a sound. You watch his cautious features as he scans the streets.
The city is quiet.
That’s not totally unusual. But it is for this hour, a late hour when even the quietest monsters creep out of their hidden places in Hell City.
“I’m going to teach you something new,” Ten says under his breath, the words meant only for your ears, though they struggle to catch the sound. “Your lesson for the day, transportation. Teleportation, whatever you want to call it.”
“I thought I couldn’t do that. Can you even do it?” You’ve only ever experienced that with Yuta, not Ten.
Ten jerks his head. “I know the theory, and I believe you can do it. Right now I need you to be able to.”
Fear overtakes the worry residing in your belly, and the fear bites, gnawing at all of your nerve endings. His words are all short, clipped, rushed as he still looks around nervously, holding you against him.
He says your name, and that more than anything else sends a sharp spike of fear through you. Ten never calls you by your name. It’s always darling or babe, always some silly little teasing nickname about being a saint or an angel. Never your name.
“Ten, what’s going on?” You can hear the mild panic bleeding into your voice. He ignores the question.
“Listen, reach for your flames but don’t call them.” Ten’s fingernails dig into your bare arms. The cute miniskirt and matching top had earlier felt fun and sexy, the perfect outfit for a night out with your two and a half lovers. WinWin had spent the first part of the night checking you out before everyone else showed up. Clearly, neither of the demons had been able to keep their hands off of you either. But now you just feel bare and exposed, at risk of whatever Ten is so scared of.
You reach for your flames like he’s asked, the heat warms, rising beneath your skin. It tickles against the surface, begging to be fed on the air, but you hold them in control.
“Follow that connection,” Ten instructs, “Follow it all the way to the source.”
You’re staring into his eyes as you do, feeling your mental awareness sliding along the white-hot connection, growing warmer and warmer as you zip towards the core of it all. And then you feel it, a vast power inside you, it feels limitless.
“That,” Ten says, “Hold that and picture your apartment. Picture your bed and your stars. Visualize yourself there, and when you open your eyes—“ Your eyes have drifted closed at some point, and now you don’t dare open them, until Ten says, “You’ll be there. And I need you to manifest a secure lock on your door. Don’t fucking open it, not for anyone.” Again he says your name, and it sends a chill down your spine, especially when he pauses before repeating it again, this time with a desperate, pleading tone. “Not unless you’re certain beyond any doubt that the person that stands on the other side of it is Yuta or I. Or Mark or WinWin. Don’t leave, just stay there. I need you to stay safe inside.”
You do your best to not let his panic increase your own. You try to not let your panic mess with your hold on that white-hot source of power weighing in your belly. Your mental image of your apartment sharpens, and you hear Ten’s voice echoing in your ears, his arms squeezing warm and tight around you.
“Promise me,” he begs.
“I promise, Ten.” You can see all the small details of your room, from the glimmer of the stars to the exact claw marks left on your sofa after WinWin’s rut.
“Good. Open your eyes.”
Ten’s voice is softer than before, his touch lighter, almost barely there, and when you open your eyes, you find yourself startlingly alone, standing in the middle of your apartment.
You did it.
For a moment, a burst of happiness flares through you. Excitement and pride and successfully teleporting on the first try.
And then the cold and panic rush in, drowning out all the good.
You’re alone.
Ten didn’t come along with you.
You stand frozen, immobilized by fear and panic and the sudden deep loneliness of abandonment. But then Ten’s words come back to you. Manifest a secure lock. Don’t leave. Don’t let anyone in.
You start moving.
The first thing you do is of course to manifest a lock like Ten commanded. Rather, you manifest a series of locks as complex as you can conjure in your mind. And then you draw the curtains over the window. You climb onto the sofa and wrap yourself in a blanket, and you manifest a new security system, one that won’t let anyone just pop into your apartment like Ten and Yuta regularly do.
And then you sit there. And you wait.
How quickly the night changed.
Your mind is reeling from the stark shift from fun and sexy to this. You’re confused and panicked and anxiety-ridden over this situation that wasn’t even explained to you.
All you know is that Yuta had been talking to what Ten called a Watcher. And clearly that was cause for fear, judging by Ten’s reaction and the serious look on Yuta’s face.
You sit there for quite a while on your sofa, unsure just how long, before you remember that you still have the encyclopedia on the supernatural that you’d checked out from the library weeks ago now (what with time being so strange here, you weren’t sure if there even were such things as overdue dates). Although Ten hadn’t explained anything about what a Watcher was or what it meant, you have that book. Surely it’ll have some mention of this. You just need to find the book, and there will be your explanation.
You have to basically tear your apartment apart to find the encyclopedia, but eventually you pull it out from the bottom of a bookshelf where it had gotten tucked beneath other books and games you’d manifested in the weeks since.
It’s a heavy tome, and when you heave it onto the sofa with you, it sends up a little plume of dust.
You flip to the back of it, searching the index, but it’s hardly as organized as an index is meant to be. There’s a jumble of languages thrown into the mix, making it confusing to navigate. But eventually, after flipping through the entire index three times, running your finger down the columns of words, you find what you’re looking for.
Tucked underneath a word in a language you can’t read, is the term angel, and beneath that is a series of related terms, and it’s there that you finally find it: Watchers.
Mentioned on just three pages back-to-back, deep toward the center of the tome.
You flip towards it with care, feeling the weight of the pages on your fingertips as you search for the page that will hopefully provide you with answers since Ten had not.
The page feels static beneath your fingertips, though maybe that’s just your nervous energy manifesting itself. The text is illuminated like old Bibles from the Middle Ages with exquisite ink detailing around the first letter on the page, and drawings along the edges of the page. But your eye is drawn to an illustration that takes up a portion of the left hand page. A drawing of what appears to be an angel, a radiating halo stretching towards the edges of the page, a cross held aloft like a spear or a sword in battle. There’s a look of rage on the angel’s face, staring up at you from the parchment, his feet mounted on what appears to be a cliff shaped like the lower sharpened curve of the moon, ready to leap in offense.
On the page behind it is another illustration, an angel haloed by moonlight, standing atop what you can only call a Cathedral, and again something about it feels like a dark threat, though in this illustration you can’t make out any facial features.
You flip back to the first page of the section on Watchers, and you begin to read.
The text is tiny. Fine print in three columns down each page, it feels like it takes forever just to get through one page, let alone all three. But you bow your head and read on, soaking in every bit of information that you can.
Watchers are angels, to a certain degree. They are protectors and defenders, warriors and righteous, mercenaries and deadly.
You recall what you’ve been told since you first came here to Hell City. You remember mentions of a policing body for the supernaturals, the ones that maintained order, ones that made sure all of this didn’t leak out into the human world. Is that the Watchers?
But what do they have to do with Yuta and Ten?
The text explains how Watchers are holy to an untouchable degree, blessed in all that they do, even when what they do is assassinate. They are powerful, to an uncertain limit, able to do things beyond the scope of even the most powerful of supernatural beings. They are peacekeepers between the natural, or human, world and the supernatural world, in both terms of the “good” and the “evil.” They are the go-betweens of the faithful and God, in his untouchable Heavenly realm.
You pause when you read those words.
God, in his untouchable Heavenly realm.
Does that mean that God is real?
If he is, then is he listening? Is he watching? Or is he kept apart from the world he created, leaving the control of it to the Watchers?
Watchers are the gods all the stories in the world have been written about. They exist to right wrongs, to punish and imprison wrongdoers, to create and destroy, to make certain that the order of things is kept, equilibrium met and maintained.
But still, as you reach the end of the section, turning the page to look for more, you have unanswered questions.
What was that one doing talking to Yuta, and why did Ten send you away?
You reread the text multiple times before you give up on finding answers where there are none. You wrap up in your blanket, curling up small on the sofa, and you stare up at your universe, praying to the God that doesn’t listen to you anymore (or is it a Watcher that you pray to? Another thing the encyclopedia didn’t have the answer to) that your demons will come back to you with answers.
The fucked up thing about Hell City is the stagnancy of it all. Especially when you’re alone in a room with just a sliver of the unchanging sky outside visible.
Time doesn’t pass.
Time isn’t even real.
It could be hours, days, a week or more, and you wouldn’t know.
The point is that it feels like nothing moves; you certainly don’t. You’re curled there on the sofa, watching that thin glimmer of orange daylight through the curtain, flickering in and out of awareness until eventually you hear a quiet knocking.
You blink.
The world shrinks to just the heat of the blanket around you, fuzz tickling your bare arms. You’re still wearing the outfit from the bar.
Another knock, this one a little louder, a little more insistent.
Faintly, you think you hear your name.
With the blanket around your shoulders like a cloak or a shield, you slide from the sofa and walk lightly, barefoot across the floor towards the door. All of your locks are securely in place, and you peek through the peephole on the door, trying to make out the sight of anyone through it. The passageway outside your door has always been a bit murky, so it takes a moment for you to be able to see anything.
Mark is standing there alone, shoulders hunched against the chill of the city. He lifts a hand to knock again, and you study his face through the small peephole even as you feel the door vibrate with his knock.
He looks like Mark. His eyes have the red glimmer to them. The familiar laugh lines beside his lips. And when he turns his head to look back at the shoddy lift, you catch a glimpse of the chain you’ve noticed he always wears around his neck. The holy cross on it is there as a reminder of his life before, always wrapped in a protective layer of fine silk to keep it from burning against his skin.
“Mark?” You ask quietly through the door.
His head snaps around to face the door, to face you hidden safely behind it. “What’s going on?” He asks. “Someone at the bar said you and Ten left in a hurry, that Yuta left with a stranger, and Ten came back looking for him before he took off in a panic.”
Your heart pounds in your chest. “Why are you here? You haven’t spoken or even looked at me in weeks. Where’s WinWin?”
“He’s out looking for them. He can track them better than I can.” Mark taps his nose before continuing, “I’m here because I’m a stupid idiot. I’ve been weird the last couple weeks, I know, but that’s just because I need to keep away from you, for my own good, for yours, for the others too. I’m not too great at controlling myself, and every time I look at you, all I want is to bite you, if I’m being honest. But I’m here now because if Ten’s not in there with you, then I feel like someone should be.”
Ten’s not in here with you, and knowing that he’s vanished along with Yuta to who knows where makes you incredibly nervous.
What do the Watchers want with them?
“How do I know beyond a reasonable doubt that you’re you?” You ask, but your hands are already straying to the first lock on the door. He looks like Mark, sounds like Mark. You’re almost certain that this is Mark, but Ten’s warning hangs heavy in the forefront of your mind. “Why should I let you in?”
Mark swallows. “Given the way I reacted earlier to a little bit of blood, I would say you probably shouldn’t let me in. But considering that my best friends and your two boyfriends are missing, I think we should be together right now. Whether prayer actually works for us or not, one thing I remember from my life as a human, is that when times are tough, banding together with people close to you helps.”
The first lock clicks as you unlatch it. The rest come undone in a quick series, and you open the door only wide enough to reach out and drag Mark in. You slam the door closed again as soon as the tail of his jacket makes it through the door. The locks latch shut again, locking you securely inside the apartment with Mark.
You spin around throwing yourself into his arms, tucking yourself against him, just needing contact with another person. Mark hugs you back just as tightly. He’s cold, and his chilly hands are easily felt even through the layer of your blanket still wrapped around your shoulders like a cocoon.
“You’re okay,” Mark sighs, resting his head against yours.
“I’m okay,” you agree, clinging to him, needing him to keep hugging you even as the chill of him seems to spread, and besides that Mark smells like wet dog, either from him and WinWin being together or maybe that’s how he’d alleviated his bloodlust from the bar. You hold him tight for a few moments longer, feeling like the weight of his arms around you is holding all of your pieces that have been shaken loose, pressing you back together.
“Go shower,” you tell him after a while, pushing away gently. “When you come out, I’ll tell you what I know.”
You know for certain that he’s Mark when he begins singing after the shower starts. He sings a silly song from a movie you’d watched several weeks ago, one that you’d watched a few times until he’d begun annoying all of you with his constant humming or singing of the songs. And right now, his voice is echoing off the walls as you move around your apartment, straightening up the mess you’d made in your search for the encyclopedia. The book itself you leave sitting on the table in front of your sofa, and that’s where you’re sitting when Mark returns.
His hair is flat to his forehead, his skin warm to the touch as his arm bumps yours when he sits down beside you. He smells like lavender body wash, vanilla scented shampoo. Mark leans against your side, and you find yourself leaning into him as well.
“What is this?” He asks, reaching for the cover of the book.
“An encyclopedia on all things supernatural.” You brush his hand away as you lift the book open. “I borrowed it from the library to do some research into, well, werewolves.” Mark clears his throat, shifting a bit, but he doesn’t say anything, and you continue saying, “But it’s useful to know more about all of this, isn’t it?”
Mark nods, scanning the first page you flip to which happens to be about Gorgons, the snake-haired beauties with eyes that could turn a villain to stone.
“What happened?” Mark asks, flipping idly through the encyclopedia.
“After you and WinWin left the table, Jisung and Haechan eventually came back. So did Taeyong. Everything was going fine. It was normal and fun, and Yuta and I snuck off outside the bar.” You feel heat rise to your cheeks. You’ve not ever talked about your sex life with Mark, not that you think he really wants to hear it. “We were out there for a bit, and then Ten came out, and Yuta went back inside while Ten and I… finished up. We were coming back to the table when we saw someone talking to Yuta,” you tell him slowly. “Ten wouldn’t tell me anything. He just made us leave the bar, and once we got back up here to the surface, he made me transport myself back here.”
Mark brushes his fingers along the edges of the book, pages fluttering under his touch. “He didn’t say why? Or who Yuta was talking to?”
Mark glances back at you, and you draw your knees up towards your chest, wrapping the blanket more fully around you as you say, “He said it was a Watcher.”
The word makes Mark’s face go pale, eyes dropping from red to black irises. “A Watcher? He said that?”
You nod. “That’s all he told me. But I did my research. Page 829.”
You tuck your chin over your arms folded on top of your knees, eyes following the way Mark flips the book open more, thumbing through the pages until he finds the one you told him. And there’s the illustration again, the haloed Watcher with the cross held like a sword.
“What do you know about them?” You ask, closely watching his face.
Marks shakes his head, keeping his face plain as he replies, “Me? Nothing.”
You snort. “That’s a fucking lie. Why would you react like that a minute ago if you didn’t know about them? Do you know what’s going on?”
Again Mark shakes his head no, but this time his face betrays himself a little bit. He bites his lip, eyes darting across the page, scanning the tiny print. “No, I don’t know.”
You stare at him, and the longer you stare, the more he fidgets.
“I don’t know!” Mark insists. “Genuinely! They didn’t tell me anything, but I’ve heard of the Watchers. I think most of us have who’ve been here for a while. They’re… the Watchers. They see everything, they reign the world from the shadows, in control of everything. I try my best to avoid them and their policing of everything supernatural, considering, y’know, I basically run a vampire empire here. But whatever is happening with the Watchers and Yuta and Ten, I don’t know anything about that.”
Now, his face appears open and honest, if not a little afraid still.
“Well, then we might have cause to worry, don’t we?” You tip your head against the back of the sofa, letting out a long, heavy breath.
When you feel Mark’s fingers on the back of your hand, for a moment you’re not sure what he’s doing. But then he slips his fingers over the back of your hand, tucking them beneath. He’s holding your hand, squeezing it reassuringly.
“WinWin will be here soon. He’ll have something. I’m sure of it.”
But hours pass and WinWin doesn’t show up. Mark forces you to eat something, drink some water, to do anything other than just sit there on the sofa lost in your worry again. But there’s nothing you can do other than think about Yuta and Ten, your missing demon lovers, so you take to thumbing through the encyclopedia, reading about beings you didn’t know existed, admiring the illustrations. Mark sits close beside you, reading along with you.
Judging by a clock that you’ve manifested, it is sometime the following day when you finally hear a knock on the door.
Mark jumps to his feet, ready to go open the door, but you grab his hand.
“Make sure of who it is. Ten warned me of that.” You hold Mark’s hand tight until he nods.
You can’t hear the quiet questioning at the door, but Mark waits there for a moment, his face close to the door, lips moving and his gaze fixed through the peephole. And when he opens it, a ragged WinWin steps inside.
“Thank fuck,” he sighs when he sees you, and you’re barely off the sofa before he’s suddenly there, wrapping you up in a crushing hug, lifting you off your feet.
You melt against him, his anxious heat wrapping around you, and you can only sigh happily as he guides your mouth to his.
You haven’t kissed WinWin like this since his rut passed. You’d shared secretive smiles with him, snuggled up with him a little, forehead kisses from him and a bit of hand-holding, but this close of an embrace as well as any kissing hadn’t happened. But it feels as familiar as if no time has passed.
“Uh, alright.” Mark awkwardly steps around you, slumping back into his spot on the sofa. “Didn’t know this was still happening.”
WinWin ends the kiss, but he presses his forehead to yours as he lowers you down so your feet can touch the floor again. “I was so worried,” WinWin says just for you. “I thought maybe they’d taken you too.”
You sink down beside Mark onto the sofa, tugging for WinWin to join you. “What do you mean?”
“It was the Watchers.” He mostly directs his words to Mark, but his thumb strokes back and forth over your knuckles. “I tracked their scents as best as I could; I asked around. People said it was the Watchers, and they took them away.”
“Away where?” You ask.
Mark’s hand slides comfortingly over your knee. “The Watchers have a place they take people. For punishment or imprisonment.”
“But why? What have Yuta and Ten done that they’ve been taken away?” You ask, desperately looking back and forth between the faces of the two men on either side of you.
You already know that Mark doesn’t know, but WinWin shakes his head, just as lost as the two of you.
“Well, can we go there? Wherever they are? See them, talk to them, find out what the fuck is happening?” You don’t understand. Everything was going so well. You were happy. Neither of them had said or done or acted in any way that would make you believe they’d done anything that might be cause for alarm, that might draw a supernatural police force down on them.
“I’ll ask around.” WinWin promises, and he leans in, brushing another kiss to your forehead. “We’ll find them and get them back, I promise.”
But that’s it for the day. WinWin doesn’t seem to want to let you go, doesn’t want to let you out of his sight. His worry has you even more worried.
WinWin settles down on the sofa right there with you. He holds you tight, body pressed to yours while he listens intently to Mark reading aloud the pages of the encyclopedia about the Watchers. You sink into the warmth, comfort, and familiarity of WinWin’s embrace.
You haven’t yet had the chance to tell WinWin about the conversation you’d had with your boyfriends. There’s a pang in your chest when you think of them right now, and WinWin rests his cheek against the top of your head when he feels you shudder. You need to tell him about what they said, about how he’s welcome. You need him to know that he’s allowed to hold you, touch you, kiss you, comfort and love you.
You don’t even realize that you’re shivering, not until WinWin pulls you to your feet.
The blanket slips from your shoulders.
“What’s wrong?” Mark asks, looking up at you from where he’s still seated.
“I think she’s in shock a bit.” WinWin says. “Baby, let’s get you into the shower.”
You let WinWin draw you into the bathroom with him. He holds your face in his hands as soon as you’re alone in the bathroom, and you feel yourself break. The tears come, and they don’t stop.
WinWin holds you, hugs you, wipes your tears and is all around gentle. He helps you undress, he brings you into the shower. He showers and you shower with him, lingering under the hot water for as long as you can, until your fingers and toes are pruned, until Mark is probably worrying or wondering about what’s actually going on in here.
You feel only minutely better when you’re out of the shower. WinWin helps you dry off, but you dress yourself. He kisses your cheeks and your eyelids, and he’s so fucking gentle with you that you want to cry all over again, but instead you just tangle your fingers in the fabric of his shirt to keep him close.
You don’t mean to start talking, but the words all just slip out.
You stand there in the bathroom, your face tucked against WinWin’s chest, his arms around you, and you tell him everything about you and Ten and Yuta, the discussions you’d had. The decision to call them your boyfriends. The agreement to accept WinWin into the relationship too, if he’s still interested.
He only hugs you, murmuring to you that he’d love that, being a part of this, being with you.
Mark doesn’t say anything when you eventually walk out of the steamy bathroom behind WinWin. He doesn’t comment when WinWin leads you over to your tiny kitchen. Mark just watches WinWin sit you up on the countertop as he prepares a meal for you.
Home-cooked meals are better than manifested ones, if only because of the attention and effort put into it.
Mark comes over to join once WinWin starts cooking. He doesn’t eat food, you know that much, but Mark leans against the counter beside you and breathes in the smells.
You don’t have too much of an appetite, the worry over what’s happening with Ten and Yuta gnaws at your belly, so you can only stomach a few bites of what WinWin makes for you. Both Mark and WinWin try to convince you to eat more, but you feign tiredness and push away the food.
“I just want to sleep.” You climb down from the kitchen counter, walking away in the direction of your bed.
Mark opens his mouth, taking a step after you, but when you look back over your shoulder at him, his mouth snaps shut. You watch his fingers curl into a fist, falling back to his side.
WinWin speaks up instead. “Can I sleep with you?”
Mark’s head snaps towards WinWin, mouth dropping open a little in surprise at the bold question.
You look back and forth between Mark’s side-profile and WinWin’s unwavering stare. “You both can, as long as you don’t hog the sheets.”
You head straight to your bed, leaving WinWin to clean up the kitchen mess. Mark helps a little bit, but he keeps looking over at you on the bed, and judging by the way WinWin keeps growling at Mark, you’d say he’s causing more harm than help, and after a few minutes, WinWin sends Mark over to you.
As Mark crawls into your bed, he looks nothing like the boss you’d met on the first night. Gone is the facade of vampire king of the underground, he’s been entirely replaced by the young man Mark was when he was turned.
He sighs as he sinks down into the mattress, leaving space between you and him. “I don’t really sleep,” he says, tugging the covers up over himself. “But is it alright if I just lay here?”
You nod, turning onto your side so you can look at him. Mark looks right back at you, his eyes glowing dimly red. His gaze twitches down to your lips for just a fraction of a second before he’s looking at your eyes again.
He takes a deep breath, and you think he’s about to do something big. But he just breathes back out, going quiet for a moment in which the only sounds in your apartment are WinWin finishing rinsing clean the last of the dishes, setting them aside to dry.
In that moment, you feel more human than you’ve felt since that All Hallow’s Eve night. The first time you lived it.
You feel like a normal human young woman, living a normal human life with a normal human boyfriend (or two or three or maybe even four, if the way Mark keeps looking at you means anything). It seems such a human thing, for someone to be doing dishes, to be sitting here in comfortable silence with the boy in your bed. You feel human and normal, and for a second you forget all the grief and anxiety that’s been raging through you since you opened your eyes alone in this apartment.
You don’t even notice your eyes closing until Mark touches your cheek with the backs of his fingers, the coolness of his hand startling. You twitch, eyes flying open again.
“Sorry,” he mumbles. “I thought maybe you’d fallen asleep.”
No, not yet. You’re wide awake, eyes open.
He holds your gaze again. “Tomorrow I’ll go out there, and I’ll ask some people I know what they know about the Watchers. Where they take people, how to get there. I’ll see if anyone knows anything about Yuta and Ten.”
Mark’s fingers dip across the few inches of empty bedsheets between you and him, and he finds your hand, clasping onto it.
When WinWin settles into the bed too, fitting himself along your back, snuggling up without a single breath of space between his chest and your back, Mark still holds tight to your hand.
It feels different, being shown affection and care in this bed from two men that aren’t Ten and Yuta. The smells are different, though also familiar. The heat is imbalanced. It doesn’t feel wrong, it just feels different, and it takes longer for you to fall asleep than it does when it’s your demons sending you to sleep.
But eventually you fall, sleep welcoming you like a gentle friend, a quiet and easy respite at last from the terrors of your waking world.
<-previous || next–>
a/n: dun dun dun Ten and Yuta are missing, leaving Y/N all alone with WinWin and Mark now, so things are definitely going to be getting more complicated going forward
summary : HOEPROTOCOL:ACTIVE. Main objective? Protect Princess Karina from the Black Mamba, obvi. And please- don't jeopardize the mission just because Mark Lee from Public Speaking class is coming your way.
-----
Sighing, you exchange glances at Ryujin, Lia, Giselle, and Yeri. They already look exhausted, all ears and advice to the girl with long black hair. It’s been an hour since you all arrived at Nu Chi Tau, they are hosting the semester break party. It’s that time of the year, when the students finished their semester finals, it’s time to loosen up after all the mathematical equations stuck on their head, or those sociology theories, or heck, maybe the vitamin contents of a basket of oranges.
“Karina, honey. You’ve been downing your 6th glass of beer tonight. You might wanna slow down now.” You start, touching your friend’s shoulder. She looks absolutely stunning tonight, but hammered as fuck, only letting out a little chuckle from her lips.
Ryujin and Giselle can only shake their heads. They literally did this 2 days ago, when Karina was bawling her eyes out at the sorority dorm, she didn’t get up from her bed, except she had to pee. You and Yeri had to drive to the nearby McDonalds, getting her comfort food, McNuggets with honey mustard on the side. Lia was in charge to stash her some chocolates, to supply some serotonin up in her pretty brain.
For tonight, you and the girls actually promised Karina to accompany her in the dorm while the rest of the house is partying. But then suddenly she jolted out of her bed, showered, and put on one of her best dresses, the glittery purple one. Sis really said “I’m getting fucking ripped tonight.”, and told all of you to dress up and put makeup on.
And yet, here you are. With your other 4 pretty friends. One is heartbroken-drunk. The rest of them are only here for moral support, not even bothered to find some boys to be tormented or girls to talk with. Just vibing in the dark blue velvet couch together, right in the middle of the living room of some frat house.
Karina sniffles, it looks like she ran out of beer. She starts to turn her head left and right, looking for some beer keg for her to kick in. “m’getting more beeeeer..” she said, completely hammered.
Lia sighs, seizing the red cup from Karina’s hand. Shaking her head, Lia nags, “You are not getting more, miss. I am sending you to detention.”
“No, ma’am. I will not. But please don’t send me to detention, ma’am.” Karina pouts, with her glimerry eyes, drunk Karina is something else. You chuckle at them, then go back to scanning the whole living room, packed with dudes and girls, dancing and grinding to each other. On some occasions, you may spot a wild Hendery Wong chugging a whole ass Tequila bottle with Yangyang, Chenle, and Renjun in the background chanting “Chug! Chug! Chug!”.
But today, all you can see is a pack of dudes playing Just Dance on PlayStation 5 or whatever. You thought you saw Ten Lee from Psychology major, playing a tight match against Taeyong Lee from Fine Arts major, but then a boy caught your eye.
“Girls, the fucking snake has landed. I repeat, the fucking snake has landed. Activate the hoe protocol. I repeat, activate the hoe protocol.” You quickly announce your friends. In a flash, they tidy their hair and dress up.
Jeno Lee. A boy from the Nuclear Engineering major. He had the AUDACITY to cheat on your best friend, with an unknown girl from his class. Karina found out and dumped his ass, but still, crying and heartbroken. He begs for her forgiveness, but you and the girls forbid her to get back to him. And now, all you wanna do is just lit his fucking ass on fire.
“Roger that. Y/n and Giselle, bring the Princess faraway from this fucking Black Mamba. Far, far away. Please, I can’t stand this man and I will personally whoop his ass and-”
“ROGER THAT, RYUJIN. I think we all agree that we can jump him afterparty. I say we tie him into a tree, yes?” Giselle cuts off, giving a hand gesture for Ryujin to calm the fuck down.
“I have a better idea, do y’all maybe wanna cut off his-”
“Okaaaay maybe we can activate the protocol now.” Yeri joins in, cutting Lia off before she can continue her words about slaughtering something.
Karina, still dazed, not knowing what is happening. She is being dragged by you and Giselle, into a whole new part of the frat house that can only be unlocked when you go straight ahead from the huge ass ping-pong table in the middle of the goddamn house. The girls separated ways to activate the protocol, to spy on Jeno and distract Karina. But knowing Ryujin, she probably would’ve lit Jeno’s ass on fire right now. But no, she can’t jeopardize the whole team right now. Jumping Jeno is the final stage. Not now.
You, Giselle, and Karina are currently in the kitchen right now. Sitting on the top of the kitchen counter, eyes closely watching Karina chugging a whole ass glass of water. She needs it right now, considering the amount of alcohol running through her systems. You scan the whole floor from the kitchen, you probably just know a few faces, but not all of them. Giselle is busy typing on her phone, probably just busy tweeting on her Deadpool stan account.
Sighing, you come down from the counter, start rummaging through the fridge. One by one, you gain more and more information from frat life. Turns out these are what they consume on the regular : milk; leftover orange chicken from panda express; watermelon that is gouged out, probably with a fucking soup spoon (who the fuck eats watermelon with a fucking soup spoon?); burnt out cheesecake; frosted flakes (why the fuck do they put a whole ass cereal in a fucking fridge?); a few rotten veggies; quinoa; a fucking candle, a fucking TV remote, and a whole ass ipad pro. Yes, and an ipad pro. Inside a fucking fridge. In conclusion : men are weird.
Disgusted, you quickly shut the fridge door and glance at Giselle and Karina. “I’ll never open a fucking frat fridge again, ever.” you announce,
Karina just laughed a bit, she’s probably not sober yet. Giselle just snickers at you without looking up from her phone. “Tell me about it.”
“It’s so fucking weird, they literally put everything in there. There’s a whole ass ipad in there. And worse, a fucking watermelon, gouged out, I don’t know what these men use- but it looks like they used a fucking garden shovel.” You explain, complete with a gesture that you are purely disgusted.
Looking at you directly, Giselle is convinced. She is now doing the throwing up expression, and proceeds to hold up her index finger. “Hold up, let me tweet about it. Men are fucking gross. Tweet. Tweet sent.”
Giselle and her twitter wonders, you can only roll your eyes about it. The reason you use twitter is to thirst over Sebastian Stan, and maybe to retweet memes and collect them.
“Uh yes, about that- That’s me. And I use a spoon. We’re men, but not that barbaric.” You hear a voice from your back. Oh god. Giselle just gasps, while Karina is downing another glass of water.
The embarrassment. You can’t even cope with it anymore. You’re just ready to apologize to whoever it is, and probably drag Giselle and Karina out of the kitchen to find another place to hide from Jeno the fucking Black Mamba. You turn around slowly, tidying your hair. Well at least if you’re going to be embarrassed, you’re gonna look good.
"Look, I’m terribly sorry, I just thought it was weird to eat a whole ass watermelon with a-”
It’s Mark Lee, from the public speaking class. International Relations and Affairs major.
“-oh it’s you. Should’ve known you’re that kind of guy.” You’re relieved to see him. You once used to be a partner with him in public speaking class, he’s a great guy for an assignment. Responsible and filled with ideas.
He giggles, his blue hair is half wet, probably because of the sweat that he produced, considering the frathouse is fucking packed. His earrings and necklaces really complemented his green sweatshirt.
"Yeah. I'm actually the only one who eats the watermelon here. Everyone else is just hooked into either junk food or overpriced organic shit.. Except for Johnny, he has a wholeass Frosted Flakes stock for a year, Kellogg's sent him because he was wearing that damn Tiger costume in a Halloween party, posted it on Instagram, and tagged Kellogg’s. As for Xiaojun and Hendery, they can live with Bella’s food." he explains, with a canned beer in hand.
“Who is Bella?”
“She’s our lovely dog. During a party like this, we keep her on the second floor. Specifically in Lucas’ room.”
“So, if Lucas brings a girl upstairs, then Bella will be watching?” You raise your brow at him, he chokes on his beer.
“Technically speaking- maybe. Wh-why would you wanna know that?” He asks back, coughing from the drink that he choked on.
You just chuckle at him as a response, while being mesmerized by his choice of outfit. Pretty neat for a frat boy who is recently just confessed that he is the one who eats a watermelon like a fucking wild beast. He rubs his neck, looks more flustered than before.
“Um, Y/n.. I know it’s probably gonna sound weird but..” he starts, looking down on you, since he’s a little taller than your figure. You wait in anticipation, the party itself is already shit once Jeno comes crashing, and you did insult the entire frat kitchen though, so nothing's gonna surprise you anymore.
He glances at Karina, who is currently holding her own head like her life is depended on it. Giselle, on the other side, is busy taking selfies, probably sending snaps to that one boy named Shotaro, who once sent an entire box full of glazed Krispy Kreme to your dorm. He’s a sweet boy, and probably is out somewhere in this frat house, dancing his ass off like his rent is due tomorrow.
“See, my friend, Donghyuck- or maybe you girls just know him by Haechan, he saw your friend there, and he wants to get to know her.” He says, pointing at the girl in a glittery purple dress, who is now done holding into her head like her life is depended on it, is now back to chugging water.
Your eyes follow his fingers, and you’re thinking real hard. Is it the right time to introduce Karina to a new guy? Are they gonna make it? You made a mental bet to yourself, she ain’t gonna budge. A part of her still wants Jeno back, but it is mandatory to follow the new rules that you and the girls made : Jeno Lee is fucking canceled. But it’s probably good for the distraction part. But poor Haechan, he’ll be a rebound.
“You sure? My girl Karina here just broke up with a fucking snake. Or maybe you boys just know him by Jeno. Think your friend can live as a rebound?” You lift your eyebrow at Mark, he takes another sip of his beer.
“Affirmative. Jeno’s one of us, but after hearing the news about the affair, I now believe that he is a shitty man.” He answers, and you nod. Finally, a boy who knows the clear line between wrong and right, not caring whether Jeno is one of his frat brothers or not. This man has a brain.
“And about Donghyuck.. Well, his head is practically made out of rock. He is capable of not giving up on someone. I’m sure he’ll work it out, he won’t be a rebound.” He continues,
Okay. Now you’re convinced. But if so, why is he not here? Why did he send Mark from Public Speaking class to talk to you instead of himself?
“And where is that friend of yours now? If he doesn’t really give up on someone, can he just come over and talk to Karina himself? Instead of sending his friend to talk to her friend?” You ask, glancing at his beer. “Anyway, where did you get that? All I see is just beer keg, not the canned ones.”
He looks down on his hand, glancing at the beer that he holds. “Yeah no, I bought this myself. Beer from the keg tastes like shit.”
Damn straight. That’s why you decided to avoid the goddamn beer that Karina’s been drinking. It tastes like shit. It has always been. Kudos to him for understanding.
“Donghyuck is watching from afar. He said he will come over once the introduction is completed. I’m only a messenger here, to notify you to notify your friend so she’ll be notified that a boy would like to get to know her.” he continues, and you just shrug.
“D’accord, monsieur. I will notify my friend so she will be notified that a boy would like to get to know her.” you answer, copying his tone from earlier. He chuckles, fishing out his phone out of his pocket. He’s probably busy notifying his friend that you’ll notify your friend so she is notified that a boy would like to get to know her.
“Uh, one question.” You hold your index finger up, gaining his attention from the phone. He nodded his head, “Don’t y’all got some bro-code in this house? Like, is dating one brother’s ex allowed?”
Mark laughs, “Jaehyun is the president this year. This bro-code doesn’t exist, not on his watch! If you decided to break a girl’s heart and one of your brother is willing to make her happy, then it’s your fucking problem. The whole house has nothing to do with it.”
Informed and satisfied, you mutter him a small “Okay”, and shuffle back to Karina, whose face is now fresher than before, probably all the water she chugged like her life depended on it has finally put an end to the alcohol running (but Yeri, as a med student, swore it doesn’t work that way). Seeing you, she flashes a smile.
“Hi there, pretty, is that your boyfriend?” she starts, pointing at Mark, who is now glued to his phone again. Ah yeah. Yeri is correct, the water doesn’t work that way towards the beer, but at least she is getting better.
You throw a stare at her, “No. But he has a friend that wants to get to know you. Like, right now.”
You can feel that Giselle is putting down her phone, scooting over, closer to you and Karina. “See, Karina, my love, every gentleman wants a piece of you! You don’t need that snake.”
Nodding, you approve of Giselle's word of wisdom. “Gigi’s correct. This is your time to shine, boo. Remember, activate the hoe protocol, right?”
Karina grins at the two of you, tidying her dress and coming down from the kitchen counter. “Yeah. Okay. Bring him. Anyway, how do I look?”
“Perfect. Okay, Y/n, bring him in.” Giselle answered, sweeping Karina’s hair to the side.
Affirmative, you stick a thumbs up to Mark, who is now standing right beside a boy who is dressed in a pink-white checkered shirt and a white t-shirt underneath. You swore you almost cackled when you first saw the way his pants and necklace matched Mark. So, those frat boys also have friendship outfits or what?
Receiving the signals, Mark pushed his friend lightly while saying something, probably some good-luck spell or something. Haechan takes light steps toward you, Karina, and Giselle. The way he walks really indicates that he’s pretty confident. Probably the type to smooth talk his way out of something.
As Haechan approaches Karina, you signal Giselle to scram together or something, to leave them with their moment, but of course, you still gotta keep tabs on her sometime, because she is in no condition to be left alone completely. You’re preparing to take your leave from the kitchen, but Giselle still managed to pull you closer, whispering something.
“You mind babysitting Ms. Yoo with her new man? I gotta grab something real quick.”
You eye her, “Giselle, you know what, if you really need to see that Shotaro boy somewhere in this house, I completely understand. You don’t really need to say that you gotta grab some-”
“OKAY Y/n, I’ll see you in a bit. You know what, maybe you can have some fun with that canned beer guy-”
“Okay, Giselle. Just get lost before I change my mind.” You cut her off, she responds by giggling and makes her exit. She’s probably right, spending time with Mark from Public Speaking class won’t be bad either. But probably not, since he’s probably not interested, and you’re definitely not the type to chase boys around.
You sigh. Trying to leave the sight of Haechan and Karina giggling together like 12 years old. Ew. Karina has cooties. You can’t help but notice Mark again, who is about to leave the kitchen area with the same canned beer he held a few minutes ago. He mutters something, but you can’t seem to hear what he’s saying, since the goddamn music from the big ass speakers is practically covering the whole house. Gulping, you finally believe that he’s not interested, because he just walked away from the scene where you’re a third wheel.
Defeated, you sigh while walking to the white dining room, staying true to your purpose of the night : watching Karina like a fucking eagle, while the rest of your friends are probably getting Tequilla shots with Hendery, or probably planning Jeno's embarrassment scene, or probably joining the Just Dance competition with that Shotaro boy. Oh well, only god knows it.
As you sit on the dining chair, you can't help but notice the big ass pizza box sitting in the center of the dining table. A piece of pepperoni pizza won't hurt, you thought to yourself. You finally stretch your hand to the brown large box with large pieces of pepperoni pizzas inside it. You've always loved pepperoni pizza, especially when someone would accompany you to eat one.
Checking every bit of the pizza, you choose the one with 7 pepperoni pieces on it, you already counted each one of them, the rest only have like 5-6 pieces. As you take a bite from the pizza, you hear a notification sound from your phone, it's a message.
Mark from Public Speaking class : wya? still cookin’ in the kitchen? thought you want some canned beer🤪
You chuckle at the message. This guy is pretty cute, he really paid attention to what you said earlier. You type back to him using your left hand, for your right hand is holding a piece of a big ass pizza.
Y/n : haha yeah im at the dining room
Y/n : the pizza's great, im starving
Y/n : you literally left the crime scene as soon as they linked up
You put down your phone, still munching on the pizza that you grabbed a while ago. Watching Karina and Haechan from afar, like a goddamn mother whose job is to spy, but spying after her daughter. They look like they’re having the conversation of their life. Okay. Good for them. But you can’t help but feel jealous, you want what they have, but with who?
“Really can’t believe you took the one with the most pepperonis on it. I was marking that one, but you stole it.” You hear a familiar voice resonating through your left ear, and then to your right ear. Someone sits in a dining chair beside you, placing a tall canned beer on the table, right beside your phone.
Chuckling, you know who exactly it is. You turn your head facing him, his lips forming a wide smile, and his hair is already swept to the side, no more signs of sweat rolling down his forehead. His eyes glued to the pizza box, completed with his hand reaching to the biggest slice on the box.
“Hey, first come first serve, you know. Like I said, you fled the scene.” You let out a giggle, finally finishing the pizza slice on your right hand, but you left out the crust on a piece of tissue. Still staring at his facial features, he’s actually very attractive when up close.
He turns his eyes from the pizza to you and lets out a little chuckle. On the other hand, you can feel your heart beating very fast.
“Did I? I was heading back to my room, getting some more canned beer for you. I thought I already told you, though?” He answers, while munching the pizza.
Oh shit. He’s cute. Adorable. Lovely. Gorgeous. Beautiful. Even if he’s munching a goddamn pizza like a fucking kid. Absolutely stunning. You just know that moment, you’re probably getting the cooties from Karina, and this is the side effects. Crushing on Mark from Public Speaking class.
And that’s when you realize that he was actually muttering something to you, not some random words, right before he left. You just couldn’t hear him earlier. You can feel the nervousness kicking in. He’s just too good to be true, right now. A model student living in a fraternity house, cute, caring, responsible, creative, a gentleman, he’s absolutely perfect. His only flaw is he’s eating a fucking watermelon with a soup spoon. Other than that, he’s definitely getting straight As in your book.
“Oh really? I didn’t hear it. Why thank you for the fancy drink, kind sir. I find that very gentleman of you.” You smile at him, reaching for the beer can.
“Anytime, my lady.” He replies, laughing, before he takes a bite of his pizza.
My lady? Did he just- did he just call you- my lady? You swear that you’re about to burst. Well, if he wants to do it that way, you can too.
“Well, cheers to Haechan and Karina. Cheers to you too, my kind sir, for making a lady’s heart happy.” Popping the beer can open, you wink before you gulp it.
He lets out a laugh, while his pizza has already disappeared. Little did you know, his heart beats so fast as well. Putting his hands together, he brushes the pizza crumbs off his hands, while eyeing the pizza crust you left on a piece of tissue.
“Yo, dude.. You don’t EAT the crust?” he asks, pointing at the pizza crust.
You peek at him behind the canned beer that is right in front of your face, “Yeah, dude. What about it?”
He giggles, letting out a little burp in between his little giggles. Adorable. Even if he’s burping, and if most guys do it, it’s fucking disgusting. “Let me have it, I’m still fucking hungry.”
You laugh, setting your beer aside to the table. Letting him have your pizza crust, you also question him, “Why don’t you get a second slice, dude? This box is hella loaded.”
Shrugging his shoulder, he finally takes the crust to his mouth, with his joyful expression on his face. It’s such a sight to see, a boy with a cute smile, eating your leftover pizza crust happily. You don’t wanna freak him out, so you decided to open your phone instead of watching his cute face all the time.
You have new messages.
Pressing the passcode, you open the message app, specifically the girls’ group chat whose name is HOEPROTOCOL:ACTIVE.
Ryu-jean covey : so no one’s gonna talk about the fact that y/n is jeopardizing the mission
Ryu-jean covey : sis really said fuck watching karina imma bout to get married👰👰👰
Ryu-jean covey : WITH THE FRAT GUY FROM THE PHILOSOPHY CLASS?
Ryu-jean covey sent a photo.
Gigi had it : ryujin he’s from biology class tf
Gigi had it : THEY LOOK CUTE THOUGH
Lia seydoux : wait
Lia seydoux : is that mark lee
Lia seydoux : idk how much weed did y'all smoke but he's from public speaking class
Gigi had it : my bad
Yerimiese : do i need to remind y’all that men ain’t shit
Ryu-jean covey : damn right men ain’t shit
Lia seydoux : men ain’t shit but felix lee is tolerable
Yerimiese : y’all have fucking cooties and it shows💀💀💀
Gigi had it : jealousy is a disease bitches get well soon xoxo💋
Ryu-jean covey : shut up giselle ik ur somewhere out there with osaki
Lia seydoux : shut up ryujin ik ur somewhere out there flirting with yeji👀
Ryu-jean covey is typing…
You chuckle, reading the group text from the top to bottom. Seeing the girls argue about things is a sight you see almost everyday, no matter where. You scroll back to the top, clicking on the image attachment that Ryujin sent. It’s a picture of you and Mark laughing in the dining chair, right where you are right now. The image quality is quite low, considering the low light and the fact that it was taken from afar. You look around, trying to spot the girls one by one.
Karina, by the counter with Haechan, check.
Ryujin, out in the living room by the stairs, typing vigorously on her phone, with Yeji by her side, check.
Lia, nowhere to be found.
Giselle, nowhere to be found.
Yeri, nowhere to be found.
You just shrug it off, replying their messages.
Y/n : yall just jealous i get a man who would bring me a goddamn canned beer straight outta his room when the kegged beer tastes like piss
Yerimiese : bad taste, y/n. bad taste. get yourself a man who would bring you a whole-ass pyramid made of gold
Ryu-jean covey : so it be like that huh lia? you thought i didn’t know you went UPSTAIRS with felix?
Reading Ryujin’s messages, you glance around. Right. You can’t find Lia anywhere.
Yerimiese : shame on yall for not beating the snake’s ass
Yerimiese : smh these lovesick girls
Ryu-jean covey : you want me to do it right now?
Yerimiese : RYUJIN NO
Gigi had it : RYUJIN NO
Lia seydoux : RYUJIN NO
You're about to hit send as soon as you're finished typing the same exact message your 3 friends sent, when you suddenly hear a loud crash from the living room.
Startled, you and Mark turn your heads in sync to the living room direction. That one true fear you and the girls have, come true.
"Shit." you curse, glancing back at your phone,
Yerimiese sent a photo.
Yerimiese : YALL BEEP BEEP SOS 911 GET HELP SEND DUDES
You sigh loudly. Loud enough to make Mark turn his head from his own phone to you, "Something wrong?" he asks.
You glance at him with a worried expression. "I.. I gotta go, and can you send dudes?”
Mark blinks and smirks. “Send nudes? Damn, Y/n. I know that you’re getting impatient but I really didn't think you're that kind of-"
"Dudes, Mark. Send me some dudes to the living room. Ryujin jumps Jeno. They are in a fight. Right now." You look at him dead in the eye.
This is not the time for him to misheard your statement. And you can see it right on his face, embarrassed, and flustered.
"Oh- Sorry. I misheard. Shit. Oh yeah- right. Send dudes. Wait up, I'm gonna get Johnny to settle things-"
You nod, and sprint your way to the living room. To your horror, the brutal imagery of Ryujin stepping on Jeno's back while pulling his hair comes true, what Yeri sent to the group chat got nothing on the vivid view you see right now.
The crowd goes wild, chanting "Ryujin! Ryujin! Ryujin!", while the others chant "Jeno! Jeno! Jeno!"
You can't believe you'd be today years old to see Ryujin actually jump this boy. That’s a rare occurrence, but the chances are never zero. That’s literally it, Ryujin pulling Jeno’s jet black hair while shouting a few curse words, while Jeno winces in pain, trying to shield his head from Ryujin’s hands, but fails miserably.
You quickly run to Yeri, who is still frozen in her place, “How long has this been going on?” you ask her, and she just shakes her head in panic, placing both of her hands on your shoulder “Goddammit, Y/n, I can’t think right now! Is this my fault, I shouldn’t have sent that! I was just messing with-”
And then you remembered something you left on the kitchen, “Fuck, Yeri, I left Karina in the kitchen- She’s half drunk, I can’t leave her!”
Yeri, who is now panicking, can’t even imagine her own panic flooding through her blood right now. First, she probably trigger the fucking physical fight between Ryujin and Jeno, and now, this too, you accidentally left Karina in the kitchen.
You run as fast as you could to the kitchen while Stupid Love by Lady Gaga is blasting through the goddamn speaker. Yeah. So true, Lady Gaga, Stupid Love. Especially when it’s blasting through the air while Ryujin is involved in a physical fight. As you make your way to the kitchen, you spot Mark with Jaehyun, Kun, and a tall, blonde, and gorgeous man running to the living room, who you believe is Johnny or something.
Nice, he’s such a guy with great ears. He listens well to you, he’s sending dudes directly to the fight, what a nice boyfriend material- wait. Are you imagining things right now, while one of your friends is involved in a goddamn catfight that consists of hair pulling, and the other one is half drunk sitting in a kitchen counter? Goddammit, Y/n. Get a hold of yourself.
Finally arriving at the destination, you spot Karina still sitting on top of the counter, with a glass of water beside her. Haechan, who is standing right in front of her, notices your presence and waves at you, “Hey, Y/n. I was looking for you for a bit, I need to go check on the living room, Mark summoned all the brothers to the living room at once, but I don’t want to leave Karina alone so I had to-”
“It’s okay, Haechan. You go, I’ll be with Karina. Thanks for watching her.” You cut him, assuring him that you’ll take over. He nods and gives Karina a smile before he runs off to the living room.
You sigh in relief. How nice. Mark and his lovely friends, such a gentleman. Unlike the goddamn Black Mamba. You sit by the counter beside Karina, offering her more water. You love your best friends more than anything, and you want the best for them. And right now, probably not letting Karina know about Ryujin and her snake-wrestling fiasco is the right thing to do, you all can just tell her the next morning.
“Where did Haechan go?” Karina asks, eyes heavy like a sleepy girl,
You smile at her, “He needs to take care of a few things, he’ll be back.”
Karina giggles, “He’s a nice guy.”
Her words bring your mind to the other nice guy, who eats a watermelon with a goddamn soup spoon. You can’t help but smile with her, head leaning to each other’s shoulder like true sisters you are, not by blood, but through good vibes.
“Yeah. He’s a nice guy.”
----------
You wake up to the blaring sound of Giselle's alarm, it's birds chirping uncontrollably. At first, it was mesmerizing and relaxing, like you're in the middle of a garden of dreams. But then it comes crashing in, the sound of the chirps are no longer relaxing, it's annoying.
You and Lia have been assigned to the same room with Giselle from the beginning when you joined the sorority with the girls. But you're never used to her goddamn alarm. The room was quite big for you three to have beds of your own, unlike the apartment you used to live in before joining the sorority, where you used to be roommates with Yeri, who is now rooming with Ryujin and Karina in the house.
"Giselle, can you tell your goddamn birds to fuck off? My head hurts." You grunt, barely opening your eyes. Giselle hums on her bed as a response and shuts her alarm off, while Lia is still sleeping soundly.
You try to shut your eyes again, hoping for another sleep. But it seems like the universe won't let you, especially since the sunshine trespasses your shared room through the curtains. It's closed though, but the sun manages to barge in unbothered.
Tossing your body back and forth, you notice Giselle still lying on her bed, smiling at her phone like an idiot. Probably on her Deadpool stan twitter again, or maybe her daily good morning texts with Osaki Shotaro. Or maybe she just stumbles upon some juicy memes on tiktok she is about to send to you.
Finally giving up another hour of sleep, you check your phone for new notifications, or maybe if you don't have one, you can just simply open Instagram, seeing the wild shit that went down last night in Nu Chi Tau house. But it says otherwise, you have new messages.
Mark from Public Speaking class : dude
Mark from Public Speaking class : haechan told me he has a date with ur friend today
Mark from Public Speaking class : u wanna tag along and spy on them?
A wide smile formed on your face. Ah yes. Lazy sunday with Mark from Public Speaking class slash from Nu Chi tau slash the one who eats watermelon like a freak, spying on Haechan and Karina. What can be more interesting than that?
Y/n : count me in
You smile and get up from the bed, gaining interest from the girl whose alarm is annoying. She glances at you as you walk to the door,
“Going somewhere, Princess?”
“Spying on Karina and Haechan.” you shrug,
Giselle groans, “Goddammit, Y/n. Let them be, they’re adults for god’s sa-”
And then her expression changes, mouth forming ‘O’ as she changes stance on her bed, from lying down to sitting up. “My bad, whatever your Mr. Public Class planning for the date with you, using the excuse of spying on friends, go for it.”
You roll eyes at her as you continue to step out of the bedroom, “It’s not a date. We’re just gonna see how Haechan and Karina are doing.”
Giselle just smirks. “Whatever. You know what- I’m starting to think that Haechan is the wingman here-”
“Yada, yada, yada, Giselle. Me and Mark are just friends. We’re just helping our friends.”
“Friends that might end up kissing each other, sure.”
You close the bedroom door behind you. Friends? Really? You and him barely know each other, just classmates from Public Speaking class, and maybe helping mutual friends out. Though deep inside your mind, you wish what Giselle said earlier come true, even though just 70%. Wait. That percentage is kinda high.
Making your way to the bathroom, your phone rings as a sign of a new message.
Mark from Public Speaking class : great! i’ll pick u up after haechan leaves
------------
“And when you said spying, this is exactly what I did not have in mind, Mark.” You say to him as you try to adjust the black bob wig on your head, “By the way, where did you get this wig? It’s odd to see that you are THIS well prepared.”
Mark scrunches his nose, probably adjusting his fake mustache. He shrugs, “Last year Hendery went as Willy Wonka to the Halloween party. Don't ask me why, he just did.”
“Goddammit, dude. We spy on Haechan and Karina, who are going on a date. Not a goddamn drug transaction.” You stare at him and his stupid white cap and his stupid mustache. He looks like somebody in his 40s looking for sugar babies.
“Speak for yourself, Edna Mode. You had a choice to look obvious as hell, but you did get along with my plan.” he stares at you and your stupid black bob wig (which Hendery wore to the Halloween party), completed with round sunglasses and a black coat.
Stupid Mark and his stupid plan. Stupid disguise. Why did you agree to do this in the first place? Well maybe yes, you have that tiny itsy bitsy crush on him, but did you expect him to be this weird? Nah. But the fact that you and Mark sit in a diner booth that is located 3 booths behind Haechan and Karina’s says otherwise. You must like him A LOT that you had to do this.
You and Mark keep covering your faces with the menu with the constant gaze to the couple, spying on them as they laugh together, and telling stories one to another. You and Mark are waiting for the juicy details like maybe brushing hands to one another or sharing milkshakes, but that scene just won’t come out.
After ordering 3 to 4 servings of french fries, you and Mark finally give up spying on them, it’s their first date, yes. Juicy details rarely come around on the first date. “Should we give up? It’s their first date.”
Mark turns his head to you, hands scratching his philtrum, probably itching from the stupid mustache he wears. “Yeah. What am I thinking? This is so weird.”
You laugh, “Yeah. My head itches, how did Hendery manage to wear this all night long?”
He laughs, “Rumor has it, he has a stone scalp. Let’s get out of here, I’m starting to get bored.”
You agree with him and make your exit to his car, taking off the so-called disguises one by one to the backseat as he does the same, then proceed to sit in the driver’s seat with you right beside him.
“Now what?” he asks, eyes on his driving wheel.
“I don’t know, dude. You drag me into this.” you tease him,
“Goddammit, woman. Come on, give me some suggestions.”
“Well, I’m lacking of sleep this morning, Giselle and her goddamn alarm-”
“Ah.. I see.. Do you wanna.. Like.. sleep together? SHIT that’s not what I meant-”
You widen your eyes at him, “Mark, can you stop being a horny teenager for like- 3 seconds?”
Mark covers his eyes, “That’s not what I fucking meant! Ah fuck, I made it sound weird.”
You laugh. He’s jumbling over his own words, battling his own mind, “That’s not what I fucking meant, I swear! I was asking if you want to like take a nap together because honest to god- I don’t have THAT intention with you- I just-”
You laugh at him again, he’s so fucking adorable. You just know it’s him, he’s such a sweet gentleman, and try to ignore your thoughts about what he accidentally said. His real intention is to take a nap together. A nice, innocent, great nap with a friend. That’s all.
“Yeah, Mark. A nap would be great.”
He smiles, “Thank god you understand what I mean. And please don’t take this the wrong way- I don’t want to make you uncomfortable so you can maybe sleep in Haechan’s bed.”
“Okay.”
"Ah shit I'm so sorry for making this weird… If you want to go home, it's alright, I'll drive you home- I'm sorry for dragging you into this mess-"
"Mark,"
"-yes?"
"Shut up and drive to Nu Chi Tau before I drag you to my sorority house. You know that Irene, our president, eats boys, right?"
He falls silent. Probably remembering how scary Irene is when she's angry, she once fought Taeyong and Kun, for the prank war that was conducted between Nu Chi Tau and your sorority house last April. Needless to say, she was not pleased. The prank war ended when Nu Chi Tau's swimming pool was fizzing with glitter bath bombs with your house's signature pink color. It took them days to clean up the pool full of bath bombs.
"Oh yeah. Right."
And with that, he shifts his gears and heads to his frat house as fast as possible. On the way there, he tells you how much he lacks sleep too, since he had to clean the house this morning after the goddamn party, especially when Ryujin and Jeno’s catfight broke a bottle of Grey Goose, shattering everywhere along with the spilled vodka, he had to prevent Jaemin from licking the goddamn liquor on the floor.
He also tells you how Johnny suggested that Ryujin and Yeri should be banned from Nu Chi Tau for 3 weeks, and how he and Haechan defended the girls, because Karina, obviously. And you wonder, if Mark did that because of you too. Did he? Or didn’t he? All you can do is just hope for the sake of your tiny itsy bitsy crush on him.
As soon as you and Mark arrive at Nu Chi Tau house, your entrance is welcomed by a few whistles from his frat brothers, only to reveal themselves as Lucas, Jungwoo, and Yuta.
“Good lord, Mark, it’s 2 PM, and you’re already getting it?” Lucas teases you and Mark as you both climb the staircase, you just flip him off. “At least we don’t have Bella watching.”
“Hey! That’s an honor, if Bella is watching!” Lucas and Jungwoo laugh as they kick their feet on the couch, watching Top Gear or something in TLC. Yuta gives Mark a look, “My baby brother, don’t forget to use protection!”
Mark groans, “Goddammit, I told you all we’re just gonna take a nap until Haechan gets back from his date!”
They just laugh it off, as you both enter his shared room with Haechan and Taeil. Pretty much the same as your room back in sorority house, a spacious room with 3 beds along with wardrobes and study desks. You spot Taeil studying on his desk, with his airpods on. He’s startled when you and Mark entered the room, staring at both of you.
“Oh boy. Do I need to get out-”
“No! No, no, no! Carry on! We don’t do what Lucas does every Saturday, we’re here to take a nap!” Mark quickly explains to Taeil, who looks skeptical, but he carries on studying.
You quickly jump to the bed nearest to you, placing your head on the white pillow. Mark chuckles, “That’s my bed, but it’s okay. You go ahead, I can just sleep in Haechan’s.”
You quickly sit up, “Ah sorry, it’s fine, I can take Haechan’s-”
“No, no. You go ahead.” He smiles, as he lies down on the bed beside you. You smile back at him and sink your head back to the pillow, finally getting some peaceful nap after this morning’s re-sleep failure.
--------
You open your eyes, and the first thing you see is Mark. Startled, you quickly get up from his bed, and watch his sleeping figure on Haechan’s bed. You check your phone, it’s 6.03 PM, and a few missed calls from the girls. New messages? You name it, there are 54 new messages from the group chat.
You don’t want to wake him up, so you decide to sprint out of the Nu Chi Tau house as fast as you can before the girls can blow your phone up any longer now. Thank god the universe is on your side, because Mark’s frat brothers on the ground floor are pretty preoccupied in the kitchen and you can successfully escape.
The trip to your sorority house is not that long, 7 minutes if you sprint, 15 if you walk.
And when you arrive at the door, you can see 5 girls line up at the entrance, with hands folded in front of their chest. You gulp, you’re pretty sure there will be a hell of an interrogation tonight.
“Miss girl, did you use protection?” Giselle starts, you let out a heavy sigh. “Goddammit you guys, I was not-”
“So you mind telling me why were YOU in Nu Chi Tau for 4 hours?” Ryujin continues, and the other girls nod.
Wait. How the fuck do they know that you were in Nu Chi Tau? You literally told Giselle this morning that you were going to spy on Karina- who is now standing right in front of you with 4 other girls, still wearing the same outfit you saw earlier, nothing else. How did they-
Oh yeah.. Fuck iPhones and their Find Friends feature. You forget that you and the girls linked on the Find Friends feature, they can see you wherever you go when they need to know where you are. You gulp, trying to make up an excuse,
“I was-”
“Spying on me, I know. You look like young Edna Mode, having lunch with your sugar daddy, Y/n. Can’t believe you wore that hideous wig.” Karina rolls her eyes,
“You what?! Goddammit Y/n- why would you- ugh, I can’t even finish the sentence.” Lia responds,
And all you can do is blink and crack an awkward smile. “I just wanna make sure you’re having a good time, bestie.”
“Well it looks like you were the one who is having a good time, miss girl. You were missing for HOURS only for us to find you in Nu Chi Tau.” Yeri adds,
You groan and stomp your feet, “Let me clarify. There was nothing happening today except me and Mark spied on Haechan and Karina, and then we went to his house to take a goddamn nap. If you don’t believe me, you can ask Taeil! He saw us sleeping our ass off!”
They chuckle, “We're not buying it but we totally ship you with Mark, it’s so cute!”
You shrug and roll your eyes, then proceed to head upstairs to wash up. As if it’s that easy. You do like him though, and your friends are blessing you with it. But what about Mark, does he feel the same, though? Again, you and him started as classmates, and then now your mutual friends kinda go out together. Does he see you more than that?
--------
Mark feels something touching his nose, as he opens his eyes, the first thing he notices is Haechan- or he just calls him Donghyuck. His finger poking Mark’s nose bridge like he’s trying to awaken a cat.
“Dude, what the fuck?” Mark startles, getting up immediately, and then stares at his watch, it’s 6.54 PM. He looks around the room, only to meet with Haechan, still wearing the outfit that he saw today, and Taeil, who is now sprawled across his own bed, face covered in his Quantum Physics book. He’s looking for Y/n, but it seems like she is now long gone.
“Your Cinderella left, she’s now at home. Karina told me.” Donghyuck sits on his bed, scrolling through his phone.
Mark gulps, but then can’t help but smile as he glances at his bed. Still messy just like somebody just slept on it a few moments ago, and he can’t wait to go to sleep on it, with the scent of Y/n’s hair sticking on his pillow.
“By the way, dude. If you want a fucking double date, just tell me. It’s embarrassing to see you looking like a man in his 40s with his sugar baby, who happens to be a younger version of Edna Mode.”
Hearing it, Mark can only pinch his nose bridge. Right. That was embarrassing. But he can’t help but think of the event that you spent with him today, it was so fucking eventful.
“Yeah, shit, sorry. I was running out of excuses to hang out with her.”
Donghyuck chuckles as he puts away his phone, “Dude. We were supposed to help each other out, remember? I’m your wingman, and you’re my wingman. Just ask her out or something, I’m pretty sure she’s into you!”
Mark smiles like a fool. “You think so? I don’t know if I was being self-absorbed, but I’m sure she’s into me, like-”
Donghyuck laughs. “There you go! Come on, man!”
“She gives me heebie jeebies, man. But, in a good way.”
Donghyuck lifts one of his eyebrows, “Elaborate?”
“Y’know.. Heebie jeebies… That jittery feeling. But with her, it’s some good heebie jeebies.”
Donghyuck shakes his head, “Mark, you’re weird but I get it.”
---------
Sipping your iced coffee on the kitchen counter, you scroll past your Instagram feed, but all those interesting posts just can’t seem to avert you from opening user @onyourm__ark over and over again. You can’t help but stare at his video post from 7 months ago, having a pool party in Nu Chi Tau house, hands linking with Xiaojun while jumping to the pool.
You continue to scroll past his profiles, trying your best to not be stalker-ish by accidentally pressing like on any of his posts.
“Ah, would you look at that... Lovergirl, stalking her Prince Charming on Instagram. How cute.” Karina chimes in as she places her dirty dishes on the sink.
You quickly put your phone away, turning your head to her, “My, my, isn’t it Miss Karina, who went on a date yesterday.”
She chuckles, “About that,”
You glance at her, “Yes?”
“Donghyuck- errr- Haechan thinks that you and Mark should tag along on our next dates.”
You choke on your iced coffee, “Me and who?”
“Mark. Mark Lee. Lee Minhyung. From your Public Speaking Class. From Nu Chi Tau.”
“Karina, dude, you’re not trying to pull a joke on me, aren’t you?”
She shakes her head. “Why would I?”
“I- I don’t know what to say-”
“For fuck’s sake, Y/n. You like him, don’t you? Just go for it, Jesus Christ.”
You blink. You do like him. Maybe is this a sign from the universe that you and Mark should date? Probably, “Yeah. I like him, though.”
She sighs, “Finally. Goddammit.”
You smile at her, unaware of your phone screen, where you accidentally liked Mark’s post from 2014, where he ate salmon with his brother.
On the other side, at the same time, in a different place, Nu Chi Tau’s living room, a blue haired boy is screaming with joy. He was lying on the couch, scrolling on twitter, probably gonna end up collecting memes. But by the time a notification from Instagram is stating that user @thisisnotyn liked his photo, he jumps and clicks on it immediately.
Xiaojun notices his frat brother dancing in the living room like a worm in heat. He’s watching from the stairs as he comes down, Jaehyun makes him go for a grocery run again for the 4th time this week. But this time, he prefers not to bring Jisung and Chenle along, because they’ll be back with 8 packs of oreos and capri suns, again.
“Did somebody accept your marriage proposal?” Xiaojun asks as he fishes out his car key out of his jeans,
Mark turns his head to Xiaojun like a happy puppy, “Dude, she liked my photo from 2014! She visits my Instagram profile!”
Xiaojun is purely confused, “Was that supposed to be significant in your love life with her?”
“Dude, if she visits my Instagram profile THAT deep, it means she’s interested!”
The blonde boy just rolls his eyes as he walks straight to the door, “I hope it’s true. If not, Mark, please, go to a therapist.”
Mark doesn’t care, he’s still joyful. As Xiaojun walks out of the house, Donghyuck rushes downstairs, “Green light. Karina and Y/n said yes.”
With that, Mark couldn’t be more ecstatic. He’s up there in cloud 9.
-------
Since then, Haechan and Karina have been inviting you and Mark to tag along with them. Literally every Friday evening, the four of you always see each other. It all started with the pancake double date, trip to the supermarket just to grab a few drinks, and many more.
But then, you and Mark have been sneaking around a lot too, he started to ask you to go on a late night drive with him a little more often now. It has been going on for 2 months now, and you’re still not sure if he sees you as more than a friend.
Your phone rings, bursting your bubble of thoughts. Ah, speak of the devil. It’s Mark, calling you, in the middle of the night,
“Yeah hello, very ethical, Mark, calling someone in the middle of the night.” You answer the phone with a sarcastic tone, which he’s already used to all of it by now.
“Well maybe if you just look out of your window when I fucking throw rocks on them, I wouldn’t.”
Your heart skips a bit. He what? You quickly leave your big ass textbooks that are lying on your bed and rush to the window. He’s literally right there, wearing the signature green Nu Chi Tau varsity jacket with his hand holding up his phone beside his ear, looking directly at you.
“God- what the fuck are you doing in here? You’re trying to be eaten by Irene, are you? You know if she sees one Nu Chi Tau boy, she will combust-”
“Yeah. I know. So won’t you come down and save me from being eaten by Irene?”
“Yeah, she won’t be able to eat you if I eat you first.” You laugh at him, sticking out your tongue.
“Hey! You-”
You hang up the call and quickly open the bedroom door, leaving the sleeping Giselle and Lia behind. They’re sleeping so soundly after Seulgi and Yeri practically dragged their ass to the tennis court, to play against them.
You run your way to Mark, who is now sitting on the wooden bench that faces your bedroom’s window.. He smiles, like a goddamn fool, but you like it the most. He’s very cute.
“Hi, Mark from Public Speaking class, what brings you here?” You nudge his shoulder playfully as you sit beside him,
He looks at you, and you feel like the whole world is doing its favors to you. It’s one of the best views you’ve ever seen in your life. While seeing you in the middle of the night is considered a regular thing for Mark, actually seeing you this clearly face to face, especially in your own sorority’s house lawn is something he does for the first time. At midnight, he usually sees you in the dark, inside his car, while he’s driving and you’re busy queueing the songs for the drive.
“I- uh.. Um.. Aren’t you cold?” He stammers, taking off his signature green frat varsity jacket, only to reveal he’s wearing a black sweater underneath.
“Uh- no, it’s okay-”
Too late. Mark already snakes his jacket around you, covering your shoulders with the arms of the jacket.
And you can feel your heart beating unusually fast, cheeks spreading heat so rapidly. Little did you know, Mark shares the same experience as you right now. Especially when his arms brush into yours, it feels like you both are going to combust together.
“Okay, dude. State your business or I’m calling Irene.” You joke, trying to relieve the tension,
Mark chuckles. “God- you’re really ruining the mood, I’m trying to be romantic.”
HE WHAT? You almost pop your eyes when he says that, trying to believe what you just heard, and all you can do is just blink, while Mark is now shifting his glance to the sky, trying to avoid your gaze.
“You keep calling me dude, for god’s sake! I can’t let myself stuck in a fucking dude-zone forever.”
You’re still silent. You don’t know what to say, you just can’t believe what you just heard, over and over again. Did he just- did he just fucking-
“I- Um.. Uh.. It’s embarrassing, I-I know, but I just want to let you know, Y/n. That I.. I.. I like you so much,” he stutters again, “and um.. I got this funny feeling when I’m around you- you- you give me heebie jeebies.”
Still no response from you, still trying to convince yourself that this is not a fucking dream.
Mark sighs and starts to grab his own hair in frustration, “Fuck. Now I just ruined our friendship by telling you that I like you- goddammit why am I so reckless? Shit, Y/n, if you don’t feel the same way about me, it’s fine- I swear it’s fine. Oh god- fucking Mark Lee you can’t keep your mouth shut for-”
And while he’s blabbering on his own, you finally take your chance to actually hug him tightly, with his frat jacket still attached to your body. With it, he freezes on the spot.
“Am I giving you the heebie jeebies?” You feel your heart warms as your face fits perfectly on his neck,
And now it’s his turn to fall silent. As a fucking rock.
“What happened? Heebie jeebies got your tongue?”
After the last taunt, Mark pulls away from the hug and cups your face as he squishes your cheeks,
“Can I kiss you?” he asks, and you slowly nod.
He pulls you in for a kiss, and you feel like the universe is once again in your favor. His lips are so soft, and taste like watermelon. You can’t even begin to describe the feeling, it’s so comforting, and joyful.
Ah, is this what love feels like?
You pull away from the kiss, staring at his red face, and laugh.
“What’s so funny?” he asks as he lets out a little chuckle,
“No, I’m sorry, I didn’t expect for you to like me- I thought it was really a one-sided crush but I was oblivious as fuck.”
“Yeah, it’s fine. I was scared of being too bold or too obvious but here you are.”
“Really? Name one thing you hinted.”
He sighs as he starts counting with his fingers, “Dude, I literally asked you to spy on Haechan and Karina when it’s fucking ridiculous. I fucking ask Haechan to ask you and Karina on a double date. I literally drove 7 miles to the taco bell just because you tweeted that you want some taco monstrosity down your tummy. Dude, I poured the maple syrup on your waffle in literal heart shape and you didn’t notice-”
You cackle. Yeah. The waffle one, that’s the best, you thought was drawing a butt on your waffle, but now you know.
“Wait, that was a heart shape? I thought you drew a wholeass butt!”
“Dude, not cool.”
“Hey! You told me I called you dude so many times, and now you call me dude! Do you wanna go back to dude-zone?”
"No, ma'am."
You laugh, "Stop calling me dude!"
“Okay, babe. Is that what you want now?” He says, placing a soft kiss on top of your head.
Babe. Oh wow. Maybe it is time for your soul to ascend to the sky, isn’t it?
“Shut up.” you pout,
“God, if you keep pouting like this, I’m afraid I need to kiss you again-”
“YEEESSSS!!!” You both hear loud cheer and applause from the sky.
Oop. Is it the universe applauding and cheering for you both, or-
As you both look up in horror, you see the least sight you want to see right now. Your bedroom window is full of girls including Giselle, Ryujin, Karina, Lia, and Yeri. But someone you expected the least actually makes an appearance, Irene Bae.
“Congratulations!” They shout from upstairs, and all you and Mark can do is just freeze on the spot.
“Hi, Mark Lee. Nice to know you’re now dating one of my sisters. Now please get lost before I come down to drag your ass back to that damn house.” Irene speaks, and needless to say, Mark is scared shitless. He’s terrified.
“Yes, Irene.” He nods as he looks at you,
“See you tomorrow, babe. I gotta run.”
You chuckle at him as he is now a goner. He literally sprints his way out of the lawn, terrified of Irene Bae. You stare at the girls’ crowd on your bedroom window, facepalming yourself in frustration, “You girls! I’m having a moment!”
They just laugh and tell you to get inside and spill the full tea. You agree and head inside, totally aware of the frat jacket you’re currently wearing, feeling content as ever as Mark’s scent lingers around you. What he doesn’t know, the heebie jeebies also get into you whenever you’re near him.
On the other side, Mark is running for his life, completely delighted. Intentionally leaving his jacket to you is another strategy to sneak in the middle of the night to the house again, maybe right after the date during the day. Mark feels nothing but heebie jeebies full of happiness.
“Ssshhh” Mark had his one hand over your mouth and the other one had you pinned against the wall.
Apparently, Mark decided that it would be fun to come up to your bedroom from the window instead of the door..
“Y/n, calm down its me, Mark..” he whispers..
You sigh and nod at him, signaling him to remove his hand…
As soon as he removed his hands and let you loose, you gave him a hard slap on his shoulder..
“Ow!” Mark exclaimed.
“You scared the shit out of me!!” You gave him another smack when you saw him laughing.
“Ok, ok, I am sorry, I just wanted to surprise you.. ” he explains..
“Surprise me?! By scaring me?!” You give him another smack and he rubs his shoulder to ease the pain.
“What are you? A monkey?! How did you climb up here?! Couldn’t you-” you are once again pinned against the wall. “Mark-”
“Ssshh, shut up, just shut up” he says and you obey, realising how close you both actually were.. if he takes one more step forward then you-
And he takes another step closer, his breath fanning your cheek as he comes closer to whisper in your ear..
“You wanna know a secret?” He asks and you ponder, he never kept any secrets from you.. then this-
You nod at him, not being able to trust your voice at that moment..
“I love you” he confesses and looks at you, a look of determination in his eyes..
You don’t say anything, you were just too shocked..
You never thought that your best friend, would be in love with you. You would be lying if you said that you didn’t have feelings for him. But you were scared. Scared of spoiling this friendship that was soo very precious to you. You were scared of rejection. You were scared of taking a risk..
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“considering i just got out of the shower, it makes sense,” he stops in his tracks, rolling his eyes when you state the obvious. “wait… is that- are you wearing my shirt?”
your eyes leave mark. you glance down out the oversized top covering your torso and move back up to meet the anticipation shown by mark’s features. “no… maybe,” you say the latter word quickly.
jokingly he responds, “babe, don’t lie to me.”
“ok fine. yeah, it’s your shirt, but it’s comfy. do you not want me to wear your clothes?”
“are you kidding me? please always wear my clothes if you’re gonna look that good. i could just eat you up. maybe i’ll do just that. ”
you throw your head back with a laugh, your body hitting the comforter, trying to grasp what he just said. your boyfriend isn’t always the most straight-forward so whenever he makes his little comments, you can’t help but be surprised. when you’re done laughing, he’s standing in front of you on the bed. “i’m not entirely opposed,” you say in return.
now, he’s the one flustered.
you tease him saying, “awww… somebody’s blushing.”
“shut up.” the phrase timidly leaving his mouth. “are we still on for movie night?”
“duhh. the tv is already set up and i got the snacks-”
“did you get my cereal?”
“that’s your main concern right now? seriously?”
“it’s a yes or no question, dude.”
you gawk at him for a few seconds. “yeah, bro. i got your cereal. you really think after how long i’ve known you and how long we’ve been together—over a year and a half, at that—that i would forget?” you move around the bed, getting comfortable and making room for mark. he gets under the blanket with you and snuggles up close. “so, what movie are we watching tonight? what about a kdrama? kinda in the mood for that.” you turn to see him already looking at you. “what? is there something on my face?”
he shakes his head. “what if… we don’t do movie night?”
“mark, you literally- you just- bruh i-”
“no, wait. hear me out. ok?” he tries to calm you down, laughing lightly as he speaks.
by now, you can only look at him with slight annoyance. that feeling fades away when you see him reach for his guitar. the tension in your shoulders leaving as you take a breath of relief. “you’re telling me… your idea instead of our weekly movie night… was a guitar session?”
“not just any guitar session. a special one,” his voice showing hints of embarrassment.
“what makes it so special?”
“you’ll see.”
in all honesty, mark’s been wanting to do this for months. he’s planned this out since you passed your first year anniversary. his hands adjust around the instrument, getting ready to play. you shift your position, now attentively waiting for him to start. the nerves hitting him. instinctively, his fingers start to strum the chords. the tune of the song that you were listening to when you two first met is heard. he continues to play, as you hum along, singing the lyrics under your breath. the second song being the one he first had you listen to that he made. the third: the one that played at the cafe on your first date. he went on, song after song.
you realize now what he meant when he said it was special. you don’t notice it, but the tears start to well up, both of you. you’re speechless when he finally finishes the last track. no words can be uttered by either of you, other than an endless chain of “i love you’s”.
genre: lowkey fluff, a bit of crack (?) , strangers to friends
pairing: stranger!haechan & stranger!mark lee
summary: donghyuck was not a big fan of making friends. maybe one particular night with a certain somebody will change his mind.
warnings: a little swearing
Rule number one: Never attend major school events
Donghyuck always thought that the idea of friendship was utterly overrated. Not only does it require a large amount of energy and commitment to be maintained, they were bound to fall apart one way or another. He used to think he did not need friends, and that he would fair well without one. He went along with a good number of his schooling years without an external additional stranger in his life and to be frank, Donghyuck found it rather peaceful. Doing projects alone, eating alone and studying alone were extremely blissful. He seemed to forget the times where he was a bubbly, outgoing and an obnoxiously loud little boy, but Donghyuck liked the change in his overall demeanour.
It was not until the student body president, Lee Jeno, announced one day during the assembly that the annual homecoming dance would be held in a week. The sea of students that surrounded the sleepy boy wasalready starting to buzz to life, each of them making their way to their respective friend groups hurriedly to engage in the mindless discussion on who to take to the dance. Donghyuck decided that he would not even be going anyway as he would rather spend his night burying his nose in the latest Spider-man comic and savouring a nice hot cup of hot chocolate even thought it was only late September and nowhere near Christmas.
“Yo, Lee! You coming to the dance?” Donghyuck turned around and came face to face with Chenle, his desk mate in the Chemistry class they both had together. Donghyuck only showed a small smile before shaking his head. The latter pouted, clearly disappointed.
“Come on, Lee! What are you gonna do that night, huh? Read your stupid comics? Get out and enjoy your final year before college! Please come to the dance! It would be nothing without you!“ Chenle pleaded the tanned boy relentlessly. Donghyuck chuckled at the seemingly futile attempt to get himself to go to the dance. Donghyuck was almost invisible to everyone, so he highly doubted that the lack of his existence would dent the supposedly promising atmosphere of the dance that night.
“C’mon, man! Please? I’ll buy you donuts for a month if you come! Please? Please?” Chenle badgered continuously, causing Donghyuck to sigh. A month of free donuts from the rich kid? Chenle knew the boy was an absolute sucker for donuts and Donghyuck hated how that sentence could win him over in a split second.
“Fine, I’ll go. Just promise to not make me dance.” Donghyuck replied, only to be smothered in a hug by the shorter male.
“Thanks dude! Also, about the dancing, no promises. It’s called a dance for a reason!” Chenle shouted before making his way to the other side of the hall, where his obnoxiously loud but amazing friend group was at. Donghyuck sighed, rubbed his forehead and headed to class, worried about the nightmare that awaited him.
——————————————————————————
Rule number two: Never talk to strangers
The dance was chaotic, put simply. As much as the gymnasium had underwent a complete makeover—turning from a mediocre bare place to a majestic palace of some sort— it was without a doubt that hundreds of students would be huddled together in the enclosed environment. Donghyuck certainly did not have a penchant for the constant contact of sweaty bodies accompanied by the loud blast of electronic dance music from the DJ station. With minimal effort, he managed to exit the gymnasium without interfering with the crowd and bumping into Chenle. As soon as he was out, Donghyuck dashed his comfort place— the playground that was located in his childhood town.
Donghyuck was thankful for the long distance between the playground and his school. He had finally gotten away from the flock and was at last alone.
Or so he thought.
As the 18-year-old boy set foot into the playground, he noticed a figure sitting on one of the swings. In the dimness of the evening light, Donghyuck could make out that the foreign figure was a boy about his age. He cursed underneath his breath. Donghyuck wanted to be alone, yet someone else was here. While mentally considering whether to gather a sufficient amount of energy to walk back home or to stay there, Donghyuck felt his legs buckle underneath him, probably due to the exhaustion and him not eating anything since four in the afternoon.
The solution was obvious.
Donghyuck made his way to another swing beside the stranger and sat down, swinging back and forth while admiring the few stars in the sky. The two never spoke to each other for a while, both occupied in their own thoughts.
“Stars are pretty out here tonight, huh.” The boy beside Donghyuck spoke, his relatively deep raspy voice cutting through the chilly breeze. Donghyuck turned to the stranger.
“There’s isn’t many tonight, so I can’t really be certain.” he said, causing the stranger beside him to chuckle at his statement.
“You’re one picky thing. What’s your name?” Donghyuck pondered for a little. Was he about to give his name to a random boy he just met without a clue about his past and backgrounds?
Yes. Yes he was. Even if this boy turned out to be a murderous lunatic, at least Donghyuck will die in the hands of a rather handsome boy with adorable dimples.
“It’s Donghyuck.”
“I’m Mark. Mark Lee.” the latter replied, eyes still focused on the night sky.
“Cool, cool.” Donghyuck replied, unsure on how to keep the conversation going. Mark tuned his head in Donghyuck’s direction, glancing at his suit that was once crisp and ironed well, and now crumpled and disheveled.
“Love the outfit. Isn’t a bit too formal to be hanging out at a children’s play area?” Mark questioned, clearly tickling Donghyuck.
“I ran away from my homecoming dance. Too many people.” He replied.
“I relate to that last statement on too many levels,” Mark replied, “People are scary, I shit you not.”
“I wholeheartedly agree.” Donghyuck stated, nodding his head before turning his gaze back to the stars. The two continued to stay quiet, enjoying each other’s presence in peace. This went on for another hour before Mark’s phone rang.
“Shit, it’s my mom. Gotta go.” Mark grumbled before hopping off the swing. Donghyuck followed suit, preparing for the long journey back to his home located on the other side of town. As he prepared to bid the boy goodbye, Mark turned around to face him.
“You’re interesting, in a weirdly good way. Will I see you tomorrow night?”
“Sure. I’ll be here. Later, alligator.” Donghyuck found himself saying before walking away. As he started his journey home, Donghyuck remembered the third final rule he chose to abide by.
Rule number three: Never make friends
Well, a good set of rules do come in threes, and Lee Donghyuck, had broken all of them, all in one night.
Pairing: Mark Lee x Reader
Genre: Smut, Fluff, slight College AU
Length: 3.5k
Warnings/Details: mature content (unprotected sex, oral [male receiving], slight exhibitionism), mentions of fwb, mentions of Johnny
Summary: In which you and Mark are friends with benefits, and Mark tries to tell you he wants to be more.
a/n: minors, please beware; there is mature content in this writing
♡━━━━━━━━━━━━♡
Mark’s fingers can’t stop moving. From the volume knob on the radio, to the random receipts that are squished into his cup holders, to tapping a random rhythm on his steering wheel. It’s his nerves. Mark’s stomach is churning and there’s so much uneasiness in him that he can only let out through his fingers.
Tonight, Mark’s going to confess his feelings for you.
He’s not sure if this is the right time, or if you feel the same, or even exactly what he plans to say, but he’s going to tell you something tonight. You and Mark have been fooling around behind your friends’ back for a semester and half now. Your parking passes had you parking next to each other last semester, and constantly seeing each other before and after classes made Mark interested enough to ask you out on a coffee date.
The coffee date ended with a short make out session in his car, but neither of you were going to complain about that. So, that one date birthed the beginning of your friends with benefits relationship with Mark. He cringes every time he calls the thing between you two “friends with benefits.” Mark would like to say you’re two separate people who call each other up when you need to let go of your frustrations and stress. In reality, you two really are friends; the “separate” part is where things get fuzzy.
You’ve never met Mark’s friends and he has never met yours, but you’ve cried on his shoulder about school, a red eyed and snot filled nose sight only seen by him. Mark knows where the birthmarks are on your body and could probably guess how many moles you have on your thighs, but he doesn’t know what you want to do after college— what your dreams, goals, and aspirations are.
Mark wants to know. He wants to hold you after fucking you and he wants to hear about how your day was. As corny and cliche as that sounds, Mark yearns for it, but only with you. And that’s how he knows his heart has crash landed on you, and he can’t go another day without telling you his real feelings.
When you slide into the passenger seat of Mark’s car, he turns in the driver’s seat to face you. You don’t have make up on and your hair’s down, but you still have on your jewelry from today. You smile at Mark, looking a bit tired but he’ll never tell you that to your face.
“Hey, what did you want to talk about” Your voice is low and light, bouncing off of the center console and clutching onto Mark’s heart. It’s only now that Mark realizes what you’re wearing. A big, white t-shirt, much bigger than you and much bigger than Mark. It covers your shorts and thighs, and the short sleeves are long enough on you to almost reach your elbows. Mark recognizes the brand that’s painted on the chest; it’s a men’s brand.
“What are you wearing?”
“Is that why you called me down here, from my warm bed, to ask me what I’m wearing?” You laugh, genuinely amused. “If you asked me that on the phone, I could’ve told you.” Your voice turns slightly teasing and suggestive, but Mark doesn’t waver on his question.
“Seriously, w-what are you wearing.” Mark blinks at you, his eyes trained on the logo. “Where did you get it?” From what Mark knows, you haven’t seen anyone since you’ve started sleeping with him. It was the one thing you both agreed on: If you wanted to sleep with other people, you would break up your agreement to avoid confusion and fuss from anyone in the situation. Mark may be jumping to conclusions here, but he can’t help it. He needs to know if there’s someone else before he says what he plans to tell you.
“The shirt? It’s Johnny’s.”
“Who’s that.” It doesn’t sound like a question. Your sleepy eyes widen as you watch Mark. He looked so soft when you first sat in his car; curly black hair peeking out of his hoodie and basketball shorts riding up his thighs. Now, not much has changed, other than Mark’s white knuckle tight grip on the steering wheel and his usual starry eyes piercing into you.
“He’s a few years older than us, in my major.” Something between your thighs stirs as Mark’s jaw clenches for a second, “I got this shirt from him when mine got dirty during our pottery class.”
The explanation is valid. This Johnny person just seems like an older guy who’s trying to help someone younger in his same major. Mark would’ve liked it if someone did the same to him. However, your answer does not satiate Mark’s curiosity.
“So, like, why are you wearing it now?”
“It’s comfy, and Johnny told me to keep it, so why wouldn’t I—”
“Take it off.” Mark’s words stun you, but his tone doesn’t. You’ve heard that tone before, on the nights Mark has a bit too much stress from exams or a bit too much adrenaline after winning a basketball game. Your thighs clench together at his gravelly voice and your jaw drops slightly.
“What?” Mark’s stomach tightens at that tone you’re using with him, like you’re innocent when in reality you’re filthy.
“I said, take it off.” Mark is blinded by a green hue on his mind. He has lots he wants to say to you, but his dick wins over his mind for the time being.
Not really wanting to find out what happens if you don’t do as Mark says, you drop your phone and dorm keys into the cup holder and grip the edges of the shirt. The fabric teases your thighs, running up your stomach, and then your chest until you’re sitting bare in Mark’s passenger seat. Your nipples harden, partially from the arousal beginning to course through you and partially from the sudden change in temperature.
Mark grabs the fabric from your fingers and rolls down his window a few inches, tossing it outside and leaving the window open.
“Why did you do that?” You pout, already sensing the answer from the envious look in his eyes.
“You won’t be needing that right now.” Mark takes your hand in his, softly bringing you to his side of the car, his actions different from the voice he’s currently using with you. The move is slightly awkward but you manage to straddle Mark’s lap, not for long though. In one swift move, Mark pushes back his seat and leans back slightly, resting one arm behind his head and the other pushing you down onto your knees between his seat at the steering wheel.
“Here? In your car?” You whisper, your breath tickling the skin of Mark’s tummy that became exposed when he leaned back. You’re in the parking lot of your dorm at night, but that doesn’t mean that no one could walk by your car. You notice how the window is still rolled down a few inches. Mark was always a bit iffy about doing anything super sexual out in public, so this new side of him made butterflies rumble in your stomach, your mouth already slightly watering at how you can make him moan loud enough so that if someone does walk by, they’ll hear how good you make him feel.
“Yeah, here.” Mark answers, using his free hand to move your hair away from your face. He quickly leans down to press his lips to yours, the first kiss of the night. It’s shallow but full of heat already, making you almost lose your balance on your knees and float towards Mark when he pulls away, your eyes slow to open.
Your hands pull down the waistband of Mark’s shorts and underwear at the same time, one hand reaching to pull out his cock. He’s starting to get hard, but you help him along with a firm grip on his member while your thumb runs along that one protruding vein and your tongue kitten licks his tip. Mark’s eyes close and he hums, his grip on your hair tightening.
You lean back to spit on your hand a bit, running it up and down his length as you start to suckle on his tip. Your rings are cold around his soft skin, and the constant moving of them on his dick has Mark’s breathing deepening.
Eventually, you take Mark in your mouth, using your hand on what you can’t take yet. Mark doesn’t seem impatient, but he still uses his grip on your hair to pull you down all of the way until your nose is hitting his short happy trail and his tip is grazing the back of your throat. Somewhere in all the mess, his hoodie and t-shirt was thrown into the passenger's seat leaving Mark in his silver chain, and you only realize it when you look up at him.
You breathe through your nose to keep your pace going, but soon regain some control and slow down.
“H-Holy fuck.” Mark stutters at the new feeling. “You’re doing good, babe, just like that.” He praises you, stomach muscles tightening and arm muscles flexing. You hum around his cock, watching his eyes screw shut for a moment at the feeling.
You love watching his fucked out expression from down here, but your focus goes back to what’s in your mouth. Your tongue presses against Mark’s dick, experimentally swirling it around when you come up. Mark chokes out a groan, his hips jerking at the sensation and you’re pleased with his reaction, repeating what you just did.
“Wait, w-wait.” Mark pulls you away, “I’ll come if you keep doing that.”
“Let me make you feel good. Let me make you come.” Your voice sounds raw from the amount of times Mark’s dick hit the back of your throat, but you don’t mind the sensation.
“You have made me feel good, so much.” It seems he has other plans as he brings your lips together in another kiss, this one longer and more heated than the first.
A few months ago, Mark would’ve thought it was gross to kiss someone like this, with Mark’s own precum on their lips and saliva dripping down their chin. But now, it makes Mark pull you closer to his chest, making you rise up from your spot on the floor and straddle him once again.
His lips push yours open until you let him stick his tongue in your mouth. He won’t stop, something in his movements keeps him moving as if he’s trying to prove something or get a point across. The thought leaves your head as soon as it comes, too focused on how Mark can make you clench around nothing just buy how his tongue sucks on yours.
That’s when you feel his nimble fingers, skin rough from gliding against a basketball five days a week and full of calluses from years of playing guitar. His middle finger glides over your clothed core, soaked through your shorts, and he can’t help but smile. You pull away to look at him and see the constellations in his eyes, some strands of his wavy hair soaked and sticking to his forehead while his mouth is wet from kissing you.
“What is it?”
“Hmm, nothing. You’re just so lovely,” He kisses your jaw, “And sweet,” He presses a hot open mouth kiss against your neck, his tongue darting out for just a moment to slide over the area, “And so, so fucking hot.” He presses another kiss to the valley between your breasts. The pressure of his fingers over your shorts is driving you mad; you just want to feel his skin on yours. So you pull down your shorts and panties all in one move, Mark helping you get them off of your legs and throwing them on top of his discarded hoodie.
His fingers lay flat against your bare pussy, and you shiver at the feeling of your wetness coating his fingers. Mark continues his slow kisses along your chest, his middle finger now pushing into your hole. The feeling is almost overwhelming; you didn’t realize how wet and hot you got while sucking Mark’s dick, but now that he has a finger in you, you can’t help but clamp down around it as he moves in and out.
You both hiss at the feeling, your hands finding Mark’s shoulders to balance yourself, and he adds another finger after a few seconds. Mark moves his fingers in and out of you and scissors them, making your thighs shake and causing you to roll your head back. Mark removes his fingers, making you squirm with want and grind up into nothing.
“Be patient, doll. I’ll fuck you good, I promise.” He puts his fingers in his mouth, the two that were just in you, and sucks your juices off. You lick your lips at the sight, your fingers sliding down his bare chest to hook onto his chain and bring him closer to you for another kiss, but Mark has other plans.
“Turn around.” You’re confused, but do as he tells you. During the few times you’ve ridden him, Mark has always preferred you to face him. But Mark is surprising you in many ways tonight, so you let him do as he wishes. The new view makes you realize where you are again, the parking lot. No one is walking around now, but you wonder if someone has walked by your car and heard Mark’s moans or seen your bare back. The thought makes you bite your lip and your pussy throbs, a shaky sigh leaving your chest.
One of your hands grips onto the driver’s seat between Mark’s legs and the other grips the dashboard as you hear Mark pumping his length. You jump a bit when you feel his tip touch your folds, an involuntary whine slipping past your lips. You may not be able to see anything Mark is doing, but the surprise of it all makes you twice as sensitive.
Mark’s tip rubs up and down your folds again, making you wiggle your hips, signalling you want Mark to get his dick in you already. You hear him hum from behind you, and grabs your hip with one hand to lower you down and the other guides himself into you. When he bottoms out, you moan lowly, and then both sit in silence for a second.
Mark leans forward to kiss the delicate skin of your back, his hands massaging your sides while they move up and down your waist and hips. He’s not greedy with sharing his kisses, planting them wherever his lips can reach. His touch and kiss and the wholesome feeling of him being in you makes you move, sliding up and then back down enough to have both of you groaning at the friction.
You try to set a pace, but Mark’s grip on your hip slows you down once again. “Slow, babe, slow. I wanna take you slow.” You oblige, rolling your hips slower than before and arching your back so that Mark can hit the sweet spot inside of you. The new angle makes it easier, and you feel like he’s filling you up more and more with each slow stroke, almost lazy in how languid and sensual each movement on his dick is.
Mark’s right hand reaches for your clit, alternating between tapping on the bundle of nerves and circling his calloused finger. His other hand wraps around and plays with your nipple, squeezing it every so often.
All the stimulation quickly becomes too much for you; you’re not sure where to look, what to do with your hands, at this point you aren’t even aware at what sounds are coming out of your mouth. You find your hands now gripping the steering wheel, your forehead leaning against them and your jaw slacked open as Mark does not slow down with his fingers and you do not dare rush your hips, your thighs burning and your muscles clenching.
“Mark, you feel— Oh, fuck.” You can’t even form a proper sentence, but you don’t care when Mark’s hips start to move up and meet yours with every thrust. His hand leaves your chest to steady you by gripping your waist, but his other hand only speeds up on your clit.
When you accidentally press the horn, you don’t think it’s you who did it. Your eyes open and your head pops up to look out of the windshield, but the condensation on the windows obstructs your view. You only realize that you’re the one who honked when you see the placement of your hands.
“Shit—” You almost laugh at how you got carried away, but you’re glad you saved your breath. Mark’s hips speed up insanely fast, and suddenly he’s thrusting into you with precision. His cock moves in and out of you so fast that you can hear wet noises coming from your pussy and the clapping of skin coming together.
“Oh, God, Mark please don’t stop.” Your words come out choppy as your whole body moves with Mark’s motions. Your tits bounce up and down, your hips move to Mark’s rhythm without you even trying, and his car is shaking from side to side.
“I won’t stop if you tell me who’s making you feel this good.” Mark presses one finger hard onto your clit, making you gasp through your next words.
“You— You, it’s you, Mark.” You feel the familiar knot forming in your stomach, your walls clenching at the delicious feeling of your high coming to its furthest point. “I’m gonna come. For you, Mark.”
“Come on me, babe.” With those words, the knot in your stomach breaks, making each and everyone of your nerves sizzle with heat and pleasure. You feel Mark come undone below you, his hips stuttering until you feel him fill you up and push some of his cum into you as his hips gradually slow down.
You both take a second to catch your breaths, your grip still tight on the steering wheel in front of you, now mindful of the horn, and Mark’s grip is still tight on your hips and waist. You feel his hot breath hit your back and he gently pulls out of you, moving you to sit on his lap as you both lean back in the driver’s seat.
“What’s wrong?” You ask. Maybe you should’ve noticed something off about Mark sooner, and maybe you should’ve brought the question up before fucking each other, but now that whatever emotions were brewing in both of you have been physically released, hopefully Mark can speak more comfortably.
“There was something I needed to tell you…” You turn your head to the right to see Mark's expression. He’s glancing down at his thumb that rubs circles around your hip bone.
“Not who’s shirt I’m wearing?” You’re not teasing him, but Mark giggles at his earlier jealousy. For a split second, it’s hard to believe this is the same guy you were riding just a few minutes ago.
“No. I’m sorry I got so… forceful and possessive. I have no right to do that.” Mark talks with his heart, and he realizes now is a perfect segway into bringing up his feelings. “But I want to.”
“What do you mean?” You ask, but you already know what Mark is about to say, and your stomach churns as you brace yourself.
“I want to do this, what we’ve been doing so far,” He laughs awkwardly, “And more. I want to meet the people in your life and— maybe, I don’t know, go on dates or somethin’.” Mark still hasn’t met your gaze, and the lack of eye contact makes him keep rambling. “Maybe we could study together and meet up before class and— I just want to be more than what we are now. I want to mean more to you than just a fuck buddy.”
“You’re not just a fuck buddy to me, Mark.” You reassure him, cutting him off by turning his chin with your fingertips and making him look at you. “I do have to admit… I don’t have those types of feelings for you.” Your confession makes Mark’s stomach drop and he looks away, suddenly feeling very shy and almost ashamed. His heart plummets and he thinks he might’ve just screwed up; he’s already cursing himself out in his head.
“Mark.” You make his attention turn back to you when you realize he’s already overthinking your words, “You are someone important to me. I trust you in a way that I don’t even trust some of my closest friends. I think… maybe we can see where this goes? Just… take it slow?”
“Really?” Mark’s voice is shaky, as if he was holding his breath this whole time and he finally let it out. Mark didn’t know what he was expecting when he decided to tell you his feelings. He was not expecting you to jump into his arms and live happily ever after, but this is probably the best way tonight could’ve gone.
“Yeah, really.” You sooth, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek.
“Okay— Yeah, let’s do that. I promise, I’ll make it worth it.”
“You don’t have to promise me that. I already know you’ll be.”
