pink

eliciting a loud yawn, with his entire frame filling up the entrance sukuna scratches his head looking you up and down,

“what are you doing, woman?”

“oh just grilling a steak, want some?” you didn’t know why he’d ask you that, frankly it was too late at night for you to tolerate such stupid questions.

“no silly!” yuji chimed in, “mama peeing” atleast someone here was sensible.

your husband just nods in acknowledgement, arms crossed leaning on the door,

watching you.

seriously?

“hello?” you wave your hand at sukuna, motioning him to leave “what happened to privacy?” you question.

“yeah son, ya’ gotta go mom needs space” he tilts his head towards yuji who just sticks his tongue out. guess stubbornness ran in the family.

you narrow your eyes at him.

“i married you and impregnated you and saw you give birth and we have a son together wife, so really what privacy?”

“touché” you click your tongue. seriously, the irony in your whole family watching you pee wasn’t lost on you.

then, mid-stream, he whistles at you.

“you look sexy as hell right now”

“ryo!” you clutch your stomach, trying not to laugh, “i’m trying to pee!”

“by all means, don’t let me stop you” he raises both hands as if in mock surrender.

“i wasn’t gonna!” you chuckle while wiping yourself.

you pull your pants up and walk towards the sink.

turning on the tap you hiss at the ice cold water hitting your poor, previously warm fingers.

yuji circles about in the limited space of the bathroom, singing “wash, wash, wash” his kindergarten teacher probably taught him that.

“can you not stay even a second away from me?” you question as you feel sukuna’s arms snake around your waist.

his heavy breath tickles your neck making you shudder.

“i can”

“so why are you here?”

a beat of contemplation, perhaps.

“okay, i can’t”

you giggle again, moving to wipe your hands on the towel all nice and dry.

“alright party people, we’re done here” you announce walking out of the bathroom with your ducklings husband, and son following suit.

firefly; i’m back with more baby!yuji who else cheered?

“What?” you ask, forcing a small laugh, trying to brush off the tension crawling up your spine. “Why are you all—”

“Where were you last night?” Chan’s voice cuts through you. It’s calm—frighteningly so—and it hits you with a coldness that makes your heart stutter.

You blink confused by the sudden interrogation. “Dorm. Why?”

Then Minho scoffs under his breath, a sharp, bitter sound that makes you flinch.

“You actually expect us to believe that?” he mutters, his gaze fixed on the wall behind you as if looking at you is beneath him.

Your chest tightens. “Believe what?”

Hyunjin tosses his phone onto the table. It slides toward you, stopping just short of your hand.

You look down, and your heart doesn’t just drop—it feels like it stops entirely.

Clips. Snippets. Audio files.

Unreleased tracks.

Your tracks.

They are the unreleased tracks from the album you’ve all been pouring your souls into for months. You see the titles of songs that came from hours of sleepless nights, heated arguments, desperate rewrites, and shared tears. All of it—the culmination of your hard work—was out there.

Leaked.

“No…” your fingers trembling as you scroll through the social media threads and the links. “No, this—this isn’t—”

“You were the last one using the studio computer,” Jisung says flatly.

You freeze, the phone nearly slipping from your hand. “I—yeah, I was, but that doesn’t mean I had anything to do with this!”

“Then what does it mean?” Changbin snaps, voice sharp. “Because that’s the same computer the files were pulled from.”

You feel like the ground has suddenly disappeared beneath your feet, leaving you suspended in a void where your own brothers are looking at you like a criminal.

“I didn’t do this,” you say, quieter now. “You have to believe me.”

Felix looks away, his jaw tight. Jeongin refuses to meet your eyes. Jisung is staring intently at his own shoes. Hyunjin just crosses his arms, his face a mask of hurt and anger.

And Chan… Chan just watches you like he’s trying to read something you’re not saying.

But there’s doubt there. You see it, and seeing it hurts more than any of the accusations.

“You’re the only one who had access at that time,” Seungmin adds, his tone cold, calculated. “It’s not exactly a stretch.”

“That’s insane,” you whisper. “Why would I leak our own album?”

“For attention?” Minho says with a shrug. “Wouldn’t be the first time idols did something stupid for buzz.”

Your head snaps toward him like he slapped you.

“What?”

He doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t take it back. He just stares at you with a chilling indifference.

“Or money,” Changbin adds. “God knows how much those clips are worth.”

“That’s not funny,” you choke out. “That’s not even—do you hear yourselves?”

But they don’t soften. Not a single one of them offers a hand or a kind word.

“I didn’t do this,” you repeat, voice cracking now. “I swear, I didn’t.”

Chan exhales slowly, running a hand through his hair.

“We’ll let management handle it,” he says finally. “Until then, just…stay out of the studio.”

The words hit you harder than if he had screamed at you.

Stay out.

Like you don’t belong there. Like you’re a threat to the very thing you helped build. Like you’re the problem they need to contain.

“…okay,” you whisper, the word barely audible.

No one stops you when you turn around and walk out the door.

The next few days feel like a blur of quiet cruelty.

It’s the little things that hurt the most.

No one sits next to you at the kitchen table anymore; they leave a conspicuous, empty gap as if your presence is contagious. No one calls your name when they’re ordering food or headed to the convenience store.

The group chats, once a constant stream of memes and chaotic energy, go silent the moment you reply to something.

Minho brushes past you in the hallway like you’re a piece of furniture, not even bothering to acknowledge your existence. Hyunjin doesn’t even try to hide his glares when you accidentally catch his eye.

Changbin mutters things just loud enough for you to hear—“unbelievable,” “can’t trust anyone.”

Even Felix… sweet, kind-hearted Felix, who usually hugs everyone until they can’t breathe… avoids you like you’re made of glass that’s already shattered.

And Chan? Chan doesn’t look at you at all. He stays buried in his work, eyes fixed on his screens or his feet, treating you like a ghost haunting the dorm.

That hurts the most of all.

Eventually, you stop trying. You stop going to practice because the atmosphere is too toxic to breathe. You stop hanging around the common areas of the dorm because the silence is too loud.

Because every time you do, it feels like you’re begging for scraps of trust they’ve already decided you don’t deserve.

One night, you hear them all laughing in the living room—a genuine, loud sound that used to include you. For a split second, habit almost pulls you out of your room to join them.

Almost.

Then you remember the way they looked at you.

Like you betrayed them.

Like you ruined everything.

You turn back to your bed instead, burying your face in your pillow to cry where no one can hear you.

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

It’s a week later when everything breaks.

Management calls a mandatory meeting for everyone. All nine of you are ushered into a sterile conference room. You sit at the very end of the long table.

The room is thick with an uncomfortable energy until one of the head managers clears their throat and opens a laptop.

“We’ve concluded the investigation.”

Your heart pounds so loudly you’re sure everyone can hear it.

Chan straightens up in his chair, his hands clenched into fists on the table.

“So?” he asks.

The manager slides a thick folder onto the table, the sound of paper hitting wood echoing in the quiet room.

“Evidence shows that the leak did not come from any of you.”

Silence.

Absolute, deafening silence.

You don’t move. You don't even think you’re breathing.

“It was one of the new interns,” they continue. “They accessed the files after hours. We have CCTV footage and email records—communication with external media outlets. They were paid to leak the tracks.”

A sharp intake of breath echoes somewhere down the table.

You continue to stare at your hands. They’re shaking, but it’s not from fear anymore. It’s from a hollow, crushing realization.

“What?” Changbin whispers.

Seungmin leans back slowly, looking like he’s just been punched in the gut. Hyunjin’s face goes deathly pale, his gaze dropping to the floor. Felix looks like he’s on the verge of a breakdown, his eyes welling with tears.

And Chan finally looks at you. He really looks at you for the first time in what feels like a lifetime.

“…you didn’t…” he starts, voice unsteady.

You let out a short, hollow laugh that has no humor in it. Of course you didn’t. You had told them that. You had told them until your voice was hoarse and your heart was broken.

“I said I didn’t,” you murmur, still refusing to look up from the table.

No one speaks. There’s nothing left to say that can undo the last seven days. No apology can take back the cold shoulders, the venomous whispers, or the way they looked at you like you were a stranger. They didn't just doubt you; they abandoned you when you needed them to be your family the most.

The sound of a chair scraping against the floor breaks the silence.

Footsteps approach you, hesitant and slow.

“Hey,” Chan says softly, standing right in front of you. He reaches out a hand as if to touch your shoulder. “I—we—I’m so sorry, I—”

You stand up before he can finish. You don’t do it violently, and you don’t make a scene. You just move enough to make him retract his hand, creating a physical boundary between you and the leader you used to trust implicitly.

“I need some air. Excuse me.” you say.

Your voice is calm. The kind of calm that comes after the storm has already leveled the house.

It makes Chan’s expression twist with a fresh wave of pain.

“Can we please talk about this?” he pleads, his voice cracking.

“Later,” you cut in, though you aren't sure if 'later' will ever actually come.

You don’t wait for permission or for them to explain themselves. You just turn and walk out of the room, the door clicking shut behind you.

They don’t go after you right away when the door clicks shut.

It isn't because they don’t want to—it’s because none of them actually know how.

The room feels different now. Heavy in a way that makes breathing feel like work. The truth sits on the table between them like something alive, something ugly.

They were wrong.

Not just factually incorrect, but fundamentally cruel.

Chan drags both hands down his face, the skin stretching under the pressure. He paces the length of the room once, then twice, before stopping abruptly.

“We fucked up,” he says, his voice sounding hollow, like it's echoing from the bottom of a well.

No one argues with him. Because there is absolutely nothing left to argue.

“I told you,” Felix whispers, voice trembling. “She kept saying she didn’t do it…”

“And we didn’t listen,” Hyunjin finishes quietly, his usual composure completely gone.

Jisung leans forward, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. “We accused her like it was already proven.”

That breaks something.

Because they all remember it now—the details they chose to ignore in their anger. They remember the way your voice shook when you pleaded with them. They remember the way your hands trembled when you held Hyunjin’s phone.

The way you kept saying I didn’t do this—over and over, like if you said it enough times, they’d finally believe you.

But they didn’t.

Chan exhales sharply. “We fix this.”

Jeongin shakes his head slowly. “You can’t just ‘fix’ something like that, Hyung. You don't just glue that kind of trust back together.”

“I know,” Chan says, quieter now. “But we have to try.”

Because now, they finally understand. It was never about whether you were innocent or guilty. It was about the fact that when things got hard, they didn't believe you.

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

You don’t come back that night.

Or the next night.

Or the one after that.

Every single day that passes without your presence in the dorm feels like a punishment. Your bedroom door stays closed, a silent barrier that none of them dare to cross. Your things remain untouched on the shelves—your favorite mug in the cupboard, your shoes by the door—and your absence becomes a physical thing, louder and more intrusive than any noise you ever made.

It’s four days later when the front door finally clicks open.

You step inside cautiously, moving like a stranger in a house you've lived in for years. You’re careful, quiet, keeping your shoulders hunched as if you’re trying to take up as little space as possible.

It’s the movement of someone who doesn't quite feel like they belong anymore.

Eight heads turn immediately.

The tension is instant.

“Hey,” Chan says, standing up too quickly, like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he doesn’t move fast enough.

You give a small nod. “Hi.”

That’s it. No smile. No warmth. Just a polite, distant greeting that hurts more than if you had walked in screaming at them.

Felix is the first one to bridge the gap. He walks toward you slowly, his hands held out slightly as if he’s approaching something fragile that might shatter at the slightest vibration.

“You’re back…”

“Just to grab some things,” you reply softly.

The words land like a physical punch to the gut of everyone in the room.

“Things?” Changbin repeats, panic flickering in his voice. “You’re… leaving?”

You hesitate for a second, and that hesitation says more than a thousand words ever could.

“No,” Chan says quickly, stepping closer. “No, you’re not—we’re not letting it end like that. Please… just talk to us.”

Your grip tightens on your bag.

“I don’t really know what there is to talk about.”

Minho flinches at the coldness in your tone. Seungmin looks down at his hands, unable to face you. Hyunjin finally finds his feet and steps forward, his voice quieter and more broken than they’ve ever heard it.

“We’re sorry.”

You don’t respond, so he keeps going, the words tumbling out in a rush.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have looked at you like that. We shouldn’t have assumed the worst. You didn’t deserve that.”

Jisung runs a hand through his hair, clearly frustrated—with himself. “I said things I didn’t mean. I was angry and I took it out on you, and that’s not—there’s no excuse for that.”

“I avoided you,” Felix adds, his voice breaking. “Even when I knew something felt off. I’m so sorry…”

Jeongin steps closer, eyes glossy. “I didn’t defend you. I just stayed quiet. That’s on me too.”

Seungmin exhales shakily. “I pride myself on being rational, but I wasn’t. I hurt you.”

Minho finally looks at you—really looks at you. There’s something raw and bleeding in his expression now.

“I said you just wanted attention,” he mutters, the words tasting like ash. “That was… messed up. You’ve never been that person. I knew that in my heart, and I just… I chose to ignore it.”

All of them owning every look, every word, and every silence.

No excuses about the stress of the comeback. No deflecting onto the intern.

Just pure, unadulterated guilt.

And Chan steps in front of you last. His voice is the quietest of all. “I should’ve believed you. More than anyone else in this world, I should have been the one standing in front of you.”

That’s the one that cracks something in your chest.

Because he’s right.

Out of all of them—the leader, the one who calls you family more than anyone—he should have known.

“I trusted evidence more than I trusted you,” he continues, eyes shining. “And that’s not what a leader does. That’s not what someone who cares about you does.”

A heavy silence settles over the dorm. All eyes are on you, waiting. You swallow hard, feeling the lump in your throat.

“…I get why you were upset,” you say slowly. “The situation was bad. I understand that.”

Relief flickers across a few faces but it fades just as quickly when you continue.

“But you didn’t just get upset,” you add, voice tightening. “You decided it was me. Immediately.”

No one interrupts. Because they can’t.

“You didn’t even hesitate.”

Your hands tremble slightly, but you keep going.

“I kept telling you I didn’t do it. I was right there, and none of you believed me.”

You don’t stop.

“I felt like I was begging just to be trusted. And that’s…” you shake your head. “That’s not how it’s supposed to be.”

Chan looks like he’s about to reach out, to say something, but you take a small step back. Just a few inches. That tiny movement says everything.

“I forgive you,” you say.

They all freeze.

“But I don’t feel okay yet.”

The words are soft and painfully honest. They’re somehow heavier than anger.

“I don’t think I can just… go back to normal like nothing happened.”

Minho clenches his jaw, his eyes dropping to the floor. Hyunjin looks away, his shoulders shaking. Changbin nods slowly, accepting the weight of your words even though it clearly hurts him to hear them.

“That’s fair,” Chan says. “You don’t have to.”

You shift your bag on your shoulder.

“I’m not leaving the group,” you add quietly. “But… I need time.”

No one argues. They don’t have the right to demand anything from you anymore.

“Take all the time you need,” Seungmin says gently.

Felix wipes his tears. “We’ll wait.”

Changbin nods. “We’ll do better.”

Jeongin gives you a small, shaky smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. Minho just mutters, “We’ll prove we’re worth trusting again.”

Chan steps back, giving you space this time.

“We’re not giving up on you,” he says softly. “Even if you need distance… we’ll be here.”

You nod, but you don’t move closer to them. Not yet.

And they notice that too.

The way you linger near the edges.

The way your voice stays careful and guarded.

The way you look at them like you’re measuring every word, every action like you’re walking on eggshells around people who were once your safest place.

It hurts.

But they don’t rush you.

They don’t demand hugs or smiles or forgiveness.

They just—try.

Small things at first.

Gentler voices when they speak to you. Softer approaches when they enter a room you're in. They check in without pushing for an answer. They give you all the space in the world, while making sure you never actually feel alone.

Because they know now that trust isn’t something you say sorry for.

It’s something you rebuild, brick by brick, day by day.

And this time, they’re not letting it break again.

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

⤷ ゛ TAGLIST ˎˊ˗

It starts as a joke.

The first time you say it is when he cooks dinner.

You’re sitting at the kitchen counter, chin in your hands, watching him move around and looking annoyingly good doing something as mundane as stirring a pan. His focused, dark brown eyes. The strands of hair falling over his forehead. The sharpness of his jaws. The slope of his nose.

He wipes his hands on a cloth when he’s done. Then slides a plate toward you.

“Eat before it gets cold,” he says without the slightest of zest.

“Thank you, my beautiful, private chef,” you teasingly say.

You pick up the fork, taking a piece of the pan seared salmon and shove it into your mouth. It tastes exactly as it looks. As you expected.

“Oh my god,” you gasp, eyes widen dramatically.

He rolls his eyes immediately. “What.”

“This is amazing,” you gasp, clutching your chest like you’ve just been emotionally wounded by good food.

The compliment doesn’t seem to faze him much as he continues eating his own dinner. Yet he looks just as attractive when he’s eating.

You put your hands under your chin, tilting your head slightly to the side as you dreamily sigh, “You’re hot and good at cooking…”

He only looks at you, unimpressed. And yet, his indifference is the biggest part of his charm.

You lean forward and sweetly say, “Please, marry me.”

He doesn’t even look up from his own plate of dinner. “No.”

Your lips curl into a pout. “No?”

“I already cooked for you. That’s more than enough commitment,” he simply answers and ever so casually, taking a sip of water.

The answer comes out so smoothly, so unexpectedly but at the same time, it’s so Minho. You burst out laughing, completely amused. And ever since, you can’t help but teasing him with the same joke, anticipating what his answer will be.

-

A week later he comes home with a fresh haircut.

You’re on the couch scrolling through your phone when he walks in, casually kicking off his shoes like he didn’t just drastically increase the apartment’s attractiveness level.

It amazes you how Minho losing a few inches of hair makes you stare and feel warm all over.

He notices as he walks to the kitchen to grab a glass of water. “What?”

“You look hot,” you say, biting your lower lip like it would help supress the dirty thoughts forming in your head. “Like… illegally hot.”

“It’s just a haircut,” he says, matter-of-factly.

You wait until he’s sitting on the sofa with you, scooting closer until you’re right there next to him and stare at him all over again with heart in your eyes.

“Gosh, I have the hottest man in the world as my boyfriend,” you sigh, a finger playfully tracing the prominent vein on his arm.

As usual, Minho is unfazed. He’s on his phone, typing on the screen with so much focus. You lean in closer, close enough to place light, little kisses along the side of his jaw and then a final one on the skin behind his ear, catching the hint of his perfume there.

“I’d destroy the world if you married someone else,” you feign seriousness as you whisper into his ear. “So please… marry me.”

That gets him turning his head toward you and stares at you for a long second. Then he shrugs and says, “Sounds like a you problem.”

With that, he turns his focus back on his phone, ignoring the way you pout and glare at him from the side.

But after a while, you smile as you soften around him again. You wrap your arms and legs around him, clinging to him despite him rejecting your playful proposal for the second time.

-

One evening you’re both sprawled on the couch. Minho is lying on his back with a cushion propped under his head and you — you lay on top of him with his muscular chest as your pillow, your legs are tangled with his. His arm wrapped around your back, fingers absentmindedly playing with the end of your hair.

Even doing something mundane like this — just watching a movie, cuddling on the sofa in a contented silence — feels special with him. It really is not about what you’re doing but who you’re doing it with.

You glance up at him and find him so focused on the TV, looking comfortable and warm and frustratingly boyfriend-shaped.

You sigh contentedly and softly call his name, “Minho.”

“Hm.”

“Please marry me.”

He doesn’t even look away from the screen. His tone flat and uninterested as he asks, “Why should I?”

You subtly shrug and say, “So we can do what married people do.”

One hand glides down to the base of your spine, threading his fingers there. He turns his head slightly. “Like what?”

You think about it seriously for a moment, humming in solemn. “We can open joint bank accounts.”

“Terrible idea.”

“Getting a mortgage.”

“Even worse.”

“Buying matching coffins.”

He finally turns fully toward you. “What?”

“So when we die we can be buried next to each other,” you explain matter-of-factly.

He stares at you like he’s reconsidering every life choice that led him here. “You skipped a lot of steps.”

You coyly shrug and grin.

“I’d prefer to be cremated though,” he says, putting both hands on your back now.

“Oh?” You softly gasp, slightly surprised. Then, a second later—

“Oh!” you gasp again, the kind that comes with an idea. A strange, weird idea. “We can have our ashes pressed into diamonds and inherit it to our future children.”

Minho’s lips quirk into a half smirk. “That’s actually a good idea,” he agrees.

You beam and snuggle closer, feeling proud of yourself. You burrow your head into the crook of his neck and softly whisper, “So let’s get married, yeah?”

He pats your head like you’re an overly affectionate cat. “No.”

The proposal isn’t that serious but your head lifts anyway when he rejects you for the third time. “No?”

This time, he looks at you when he says it again. “No.”

“Why not?”

He holds your face with both hands like you’re a fragile object but the answer he gives you is nothing like it. “Cause you’re getting harder to tolerate,” he flatly replies.

Instead of feeling offended, you crack a laugh and bump your nose with his. “I hate you,” you say, affectionately.

“See? Hard to tolerate,” he says, smirking.

But with each rejection, you find yourself falling harder for him. And a tiniest bit of hope that he’ll marry you. For real.

-

The joke continues.

Every time he does something nice.

When he brings you coffee.

“Please marry me.”

When he fixes the loose cabinet door you’ve been ignoring for months.

“Please marry me.”

When he wordlessly hands you a blanket because he noticed you were cold.

“Please marry me.”

His responses are always the same level of unimpressed.

“Unlikely.”

“No thanks.”

“Absolutely not.”

Or his personal favorite:

“I’m not in the mood.”

Even when you’re already tucked in bed, drowsy and tired, ready to sleep. You look at Minho who’s peacefully lying beside you with eyes closed. You lean in to his ear, whisper while half asleep.

“Please marry me, Minho.”

Minho’s eyes snap open and slowly, he turns his head toward you. He gives you a look of disbelief. Then he runs his fingers down your face to force you to close your eyes.

“Go to sleep.”

“But—”

This time, he cuts you off with by pressing a sudden, hard kiss on your lips. When he pulls away, he mutters, “Your proposal has been postponed.”

And you can’t really complaint when he shut you up like that. So instead, you snug closer to him and try to sleep. At the same, you’re already planning on proposing again tomorrow.

-

Weeks pass.

The joke never really stops. It just becomes part of your routine now.

As Minho is busy preparing dinner in the kitchen, you hug him from behind. You wrap your arms around him, resting your head on his shoulder and feeling comforted already by the mere feel of his body against you.

Minho continues cutting ingredients like this is just another Sunday afternoon. The sounds of his knife hitting the cutting board are the only thing filling the silence. Until—

 “Please marry me,” you say, voice a little muffled as your mouth pressed to his neck.

Minho sighs but continues cutting the carrot now. “You’ve proposed to me twelve times today.”

You grin and teasingly say, “So?”

He turns his head, looking at you like he’s both impressed and bewildered that you haven’t given up already.

You don’t waver. Instead, you feel encouraged. “Statistically one of them will work eventually,” you confidently say.

He smirks and simply says, “Good luck with that.”

-

One night you come home exhausted. Work had been long and irritating and your brain feels like it’s running on fumes. When you open the apartment door, the smell of food greets you immediately.

Minho stands in the kitchen, the sleeves of his dark sweater rolled up to his elbows, putting too much focus on plating dinner.

Just the sight of him is enough to make the weight of the day vanishes into thin air. “I’m home,” you weakly announce.

“You’re late,” he says without looking up.

You walk up to him, giving him a quick hug while letting out a sigh. Like you’re trying to exhale all the heavy, worried minds out of your head. When you pull away, you offer him a small smile.

“I’m just going to put my bag away and wash up,” you say.

He seems to notice that you’re more exhausted than usual. He gives you a quick kiss on the lips before letting you go.

When you return, he’s already set everything on the dining table and now, filling your glass with red wine. You take your seat, stomach grumbling at the mouth-watering smell of the food in front of you.

It’s when Minho takes his seat, you finally allow yourself to start eating. It feels good to come home to the man you love and eat the food he cooked. You couldn’t be luckier than this.

“Good?” he asks.

You have to stop yourself from shoving more food to properly answer him. “So good,” you say with stuffed cheeks.

He smiles at that, warm and affectionate, before getting back to his own plate of dinner.

At the end of the dinner, you feel so content. Literally. Figuratively. You have a small sip of wine before leaning in to the side until your shoulder meets his and stay there.

You tilt your head, meeting his eyes. “Thank you for dinner,” you genuinely mutter.

Minho puts an arm around your shoulder. “Glad you enjoyed it,” he says, followed with a quick kiss to the top of your head.

You have another sip of wine and feeling playful when you look at him again. Then you hesitantly ask, “Marry me?”

For once, he doesn’t respond immediately. Instead, he looks back at you. He studies your face for a moment. Then, finally answers, “Okay.”

Wow! That’s a first.

But you know him too well to know that he’s only saying that as a joke, to boost your ego. Or lighten up your mood after a long, tiring day.

“You’re not supposed to say yes. You’re supposed to reject me,” you tell him, half-laughing.

He tilts his head slightly and blinks his eyes a few times. “Well, I changed my mind.”

You can’t tell if he’s being serious now or just messing with you. You nervously laugh and decide to entertain the idea. “Okay, let’s go to the city hall tomorrow and get a marriage certificate.”

“Okay,” he repeats.

Your heart starts beating faster. “You’re joking, right?” you carefully ask.

“I’m not,” his voice is calm. Serious.

Your stomach flips. “Minho…”

The arm around your shoulder feels warm and steady. He looks you in the eyes as he says, “I though you always wanted me to say yes.”

Your brain struggles to catch up. “Wait, are you actually—”

“Yes.”

You sigh, a part of you still struggling to believe this. “Minho, I need to know if you’re serious.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Why would I joke about that.”

You stare at him, completely stunned. “But I thought—”

“That it was just a joke?” he finishes.

You nod weakly.

He nonchalantly shrugs. “It started that way. But I thought about it.”

“And?” you whisper.

He looks at you like the answer is obvious. “And I decided I wouldn’t mind doing those things with you.”

Your voice comes out small. “Even the cremated part?”

He sighs like he’s fed up of you doubting his proposal. “If that’s what you want.”

A shaky laugh escapes you, half disbelief and half overwhelming emotion. “You’re really proposing right now?”

“You’re the one who proposed first.”

“That was a joke!”

“And this isn’t.”

The room feels very quiet suddenly. Despite the confusion, the suddenness of this moment, and the fact that it hasn’t sunk into you… your eyes start to sting.

“You’re serious…” you mutter to yourself while laughing in disbelief.

He gently squeezes your shoulder. “Do you want me to ask properly?”

You nod quickly.

He takes a small breath. Then, in the most Minho way possible, he says, “Do you want to marry me so we can open a joint bank account, get a mortgage and have our cremated ashes turn into diamonds?”

You burst into tearful laughter. “Yes. A thousand time yes,” you say immediately.

He nods once, satisfied. “Okay.”

With that, he pulls you into his arms like this was the most normal conversation in the world. That this is not him finally asking you to marry him and said yes to marrying you.

You cling to him, still laughing in disbelief. “Told you, one of them will work eventually,” you mumble into his shoulder.

“I know.”

You tilt your head up, looking at him in love and disbelief that you’ll have your forever with him. “Marry me, Minho,” you softly murmur it’s almost a whisper.

He leans in and places a chaste kiss on your lips. when he pulls away just enough to look at you, he smiles and says, “Already working on it.”

-

The attendants behind him had turned white as ghosts, bracing for the inevitable spray of blood. Sukuna’s jaw had set, a terrifying, low growl vibrating from his chest. But you hadn't trembled.

You hadn't scrambled to fix your posture. You had just looked at him with an expression of profound boredom.

If he wanted to kill you, he would kill you. Fawning over him wasn't going to change his nature, so you simply refused to waste the energy.

He hadn't killed you. Instead, he had left, the doors slamming shut with enough force to rattle the shoji screens.

And that was the exact moment the nightmare began. Because from that night onward, Sukuna became an insufferable, permanent fixture in your life.

"You are eating that wrong."

You stopped your chopsticks halfway to your mouth, letting out a long, slow exhale through your nose. It was midnight.

You had been looking forward to a quiet, solitary meal of cold rice and pickled plums, but Sukuna had simply materialized in the corner of your room ten minutes ago, dripping wet from a thunderstorm, and had proceeded to sit directly on the edge of your bedding.

"I am eating it the way I have eaten it for more than twenty years," you said, not looking at him. "If my technique offends you, the door is exactly where you left it."

Sukuna scoffed, leaning back on his palms. His massive, tattooed frame took up half the space in your small room, his lower arms crossed over his chest while his upper right hand casually reached over and swiped a plum straight from your bowl.

"You have a wretched attitude," he remarked, popping the fruit into his mouth and chewing lazily. "The women in the east hall weep with gratitude if I so much as glance toward their courtyard. You look at me like I am a stray dog that ruined your garden."

"Stray dogs are quieter," you muttered, finally looking up to glare at him. "And they don't steal my food."

Sukuna’s lower mouth twitched into a sharp, jagged grin. He loved it. The realization turned your stomach, a strange, dizzying mixture of irritation and heat.

He didn't come to your room because he wanted a concubine; he came because he was a creature driven entirely by conflict, and you were the only person in the entire empire who refused to give him the satisfaction of a fight. You gave him nothing. You gave him a wall of pure, unbothered apathy, and it was driving him entirely insane.

He leaned forward suddenly, crowding your space. The smell of the storm, ozone and rain, rushed over you. Before you could pull back, his large, calloused hand shot out, his fingers wrapping around your jaw.

It wasn't the brutal, bone-crushing grip he used on his enemies. It was controlled, a heavy, unyielding restraint that forced your face up toward his.

"You should fear me," he murmured, his upper eyes tracking the movement of your throat as you swallowed. His thumb thumbed the soft skin right beneath your lower lip, a deliberate, electric friction that made your toes curl inside your robes. "A single flick of my finger, and this pretty little throat splits wide open."

You met his gaze evenly, refusing to let the wild, frantic thudding of your heart show on your face. "Then do it. I'm tired of your bragging."

Sukuna froze. For a second, the silence in the room was deadly. Then, a loud, booming laugh tore from his throat, the sound rough and genuine as he released your jaw, shifting his weight until he was practically draped over your lap, his heavy head resting casually against your thigh.

"Insufferable," he muttered, closing all four of his eyes as if he owned the space. "Utterly insufferable."

You stared down at the King of Curses currently using your legs as a pillow, your hand hovering over his unruly pink hair, entirely tempted to shove him off. But you didn't. You just sighed, picking up your chopsticks again, ignoring the way his subconscious weight felt entirely too natural against you.

The shift happened. In Sukuna’s dictionary, words like love or devotion were meaningless concepts invented by the weak to justify their dependency. He would never admit to favoring you. If anyone asked, he would simply say you were a minor amusement, a dull distraction from his boredom.

But the rest of the estate wasn't blind.

The servants noticed that the rare silks brought from the western raids, the ones Sukuna usually threw into the treasury to rot—somehow kept finding their way into your wardrobe because he had casually grumbled that your current robes looked "like rags."

The guards noticed that if Sukuna left your courtyard irritated, he was significantly less likely to execute someone in the main hall.

And then there was the incident with the lord of the northern clans.

During a formal banquet, the lord had made a passing, disparaging remark about your status, calling you an "eccentric, useless mouth to feed" who didn't know her place.

You hadn't even heard the comment; you had been across the pavilion, systematically ignoring Sukuna’s attempts to make you try a cup of sake.

But Sukuna had heard it.

He hadn't made a scene. He had simply stood up, walked over to the lord’s table, and dismantled the man’s entire lineage within three seconds, leaving the pavilion drenched in red before sitting back down next to you, casually picking up his chopsticks as if nothing had happened.

"You're exhausting when you're angry," you had murmured, wiping a stray drop of blood from the sleeve of your robe with a click of your tongue.

Sukuna hadn't answered. He had just grabbed your wrist, pulling your hand toward him until you were forced to use your sleeve to wipe a smudge of gore from his cheek instead. He hadn't asked. He had just assumed your hands belonged on his skin.

Late one evening, weeks later, the heat of the summer had turned the air thick and oppressive. You were lying awake in your bed, staring at the ceiling, when the shoji screen slid open without a sound.

Sukuna stepped inside. He looked exhausted, the heavy marks of a curse battle still lingering in the tension of his shoulders. He didn't speak. He just shed his heavy outer robe, letting it hit the floor, before crawling directly onto your sleeping mat.

"Go away," you groaned, trying to roll over to the far edge. "It is too hot for this."

"Silence," he grunted, a large, heavy arm snaking around your waist from behind. He hauled you back against his chest with a single, effortless tug, his massive body completely enveloping yours.

His chest was blazing hot, a furnace of pure cursed energy, and his face buried itself directly into the crook of your neck.

"You cling too much," you muttered, though you didn't actually fight the hold. It was a useless endeavor anyway.

"What nonsense," Sukuna rumbled, his voice thick with sleep, his lower arms tightening around your hips, anchoring you so securely to him that you could feel the rhythmic, heavy thud of his heart against your spine. "You are small. You fit here. Stop complaining."

You lay there in the dark, his breath warm against your skin, his long, sharp fingernails absentmindedly tracing patterns into the fabric of your garment near your ribs.

He was completely unaware of how intimate the gesture was, how entirely possessive his body became the moment he was near you. He thought he was just resting. He thought he was just taking what was his.

You turned your head slightly, looking back at him. His eyes were closed, his expression unusually peaceful in the dim moonlight.

"You're an idiot, Ryomen Sukuna," you whispered softly.

A faint, arrogant smirk touched his lips, though he didn't open his eyes. His hand moved up, his fingers lacing through yours with a casual, unthinking pressure, locking your hands together against the bedding.

"And you are still breathing," he murmured into your skin, his grip tightening just a fraction more. "Be grateful I find your stupidity so entertaining."

You closed your eyes, letting yourself sink into his terrifying, inescapable warmth, finally accepting that while the King of Curses would never say the words, his actions had already rewritten the entire world around you.

............................................................................

“You’re impossible,” you shake your head.

“Leader duties,” he smiled at you softly.

“You need to take care of yourself, Chan, you’re taking too much stress.” You sighed.

“Well…” he said softly, his voice was rough with exhaustion, “you are here to take care of me.”

Your hands stilled. 

It’s dangerous, the way he says things. Dangerous because he’s warm in ways he doesn’t even realize. This is just who he is — gentle, respectful, attentive and impossibly kind. He treats everyone well, but sometimes it feels different with you. Different because it's the way he texts to make sure you got home safe. In the way he saves you a seat without thinking about it, like of course there’s always supposed to be a place for you beside him. In the way his eyes find yours first whenever he laughs, like your reaction is the one he’s waiting for. 

And maybe none of it means anything, and your heart is selfish enough to want to believe it means more, because he smiles at everyone like that. He always makes everyone feel a little chosen anyway.

But then when the room empties out, the noise fades, and he looks at you with an unbearably tender gaze that feels lingering and far too intimate to be called innocent.

And that’s the cruelest part of all. Not your feelings for him. Not the uncertainty. Not even the fear of rejection. But the quiet, devastating truth that he already belongs to someone else.

Everyone in the SKZ team knows about the relationship. It’s not publicly known, but enough people in the industry whisper about it. A female idol from another group. Beautiful, talented, sweet from what you’ve heard. 

You want to hate her. God, you want to hate her so bad… but you can’t. 

Because she makes him happy, there’s a softness in him whenever he talks about her that makes it painfully obvious how deeply he cares. And maybe that’s what destroys you most of all, that she’s good to him. That she makes him happy in ways you never could. 

They are perfect for each other because they belong in the same industry and live the same K-pop idol life. They go through the same exhausting schedules, the same pressure, the same understanding of what it means to live under constant scrutiny. She understands parts of him you never could. You’re just a girl trying to make it through the month without falling behind on bills. Quietly ordinary in every possible way. While she’s everything dazzling, like truly, she’s the kind of girl loved by millions. The kind of girl cameras adore, the kind of girl songs are written about.

And standing beside her, you’ve never felt smaller.

So instead of being jealous of her, you do the only thing you can. You stand there quietly as SKZ’s makeup artist, smile when you’re supposed to, and let yourself break a little more each day.

******************************************

“Hyung,” Changbin called from across the room, “your girlfriend sent coffee again.”

The entire dressing room erupted into teasing.

Chan laughs, cheeks pink as he accepted the drink carrier from staff. “She said I sounded tired.”

“Whipped,” Hyunjin said immediately.

“Disgustingly whipped,” Seungmin added.

You kept your head down, pretending to organize brushes. You think you’re hiding it well, but Chan noticed the shift in your mood immediately — he always noticed.

“You didn’t have your morning coffee yet,” Chan said suddenly, walking and holding out the cup toward you. “Take mine.”

Your throat tightened. “It’s okay.”

“I can share.”

You finally looked at him, and that was your mistake, because there it is again… that gaze. That quiet, lingering fondness he always carries in his eyes, like looking at you is the most important thing in the world. 

And for one horrible, stupid second, you let yourself imagine this isn’t borrowed affection. That maybe, just maybe, the way he looks at you means something more and it wasn’t just in your head. 

Then his phone lit up.

my girl <3

The screen flashed with a new message.

Miss you already.

And just like that, reality crashed back so hard it nearly stole your breath.

You stepped away before anyone noticed the crack in your expression.

“I need to clean the other station,” you lied.

Chan watched you go.

That was the day you decided you needed to set strict boundaries with him. He was taken and you would never be a homewrecker. If you continued staying close to him, it would only get worse. Your feelings would deepen, settle in places you wouldn’t be able to scrape out later. 

God, you felt pathetic. Like why would you even let yourself think like this in the first place for a taken man. You were the problem.

So, you made a decision, you would avoid him. Not completely, of course. You still had a job to do. You still powdered his face before performances, still fixed his hair between takes, still smiled politely when the camera was around and when it wasn’t. 

But you stopped lingering and letting conversations stretch beyond what was necessary. You stopped replying to his jokes the way you used to, instead you kept your eyes on your work, hands busy, focused elsewhere, like anywhere but him.

And whenever he tried to pull you into ease, into familiarity, you didn’t follow.

You could tell it was getting to him.

The way his smiles didn’t come as easily around you anymore. The way his gaze lingered a second longer, like he was trying to figure out what changed and when he stopped being allowed to reach you the way he used to.

But it had to be this way, because if he knew, if he ever found out what you were really feeling — it wouldn’t just be messy. It would ruin everything. The team, the trust, the easy comfort that had always existed between you.

And worse than all of that… he would look at you differently, maybe with disappointment or even disgust, for daring to feel something like this when he already loved someone else.

So you swallowed it down, all of it, and strictly kept your distance.

It kept going for weeks, until one evening after rehearsal, he cornered you near the backstage hallway while everyone else packed up.

“Did I do something wrong?”

The question caught you off guard.

“What?”

“You’ve been distant lately.”

“I’ve just been busy—”

“You’re lying,” his voice was sharp when he cut you off.

You busy yourself stuffing products into your kit. “Chan—”

“Did someone say something to you?” he asks. “Are you uncomfortable working with us?”

“No! God, no.”

“Then why are you avoiding me?”

Because I’m in love with you.

Because every time you smile at me I forget you’re not mine.

Because hearing your girlfriend call during touch-ups feels like swallowing glass.

Instead, you forced out, “You’re overthinking.”

Chan stared at you for a long moment, then quietly asked, “Am I?”

You couldn’t answer that, not when he’s looking at you like that.

His gaze didn’t move away from you.

“It doesn’t feel like I am,” he said sadly.

“I’m just focused on work,” you said again, quieter this time.

“Right,” he said, after a pause, but it didn't sound like he was convinced. “Just work.”

He studied you for a moment longer, like he’s trying to pull an answer out of you without words.

“Just…” he started, frustration creeping into his voice. “Just tell me what I did wrong.” 

You shook your head immediately. 

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

But you don’t elaborate further, you just let the heavy and suffocating silence stretch.

Then his phone lit up and her name flashes across the screen.

Neither of you move at first.

His eyes flick down to it, then back to you — like he’s still waiting for the ringtone to stop, like he’s desperately trying to hold this conversation.

You swallowed hard.

“You should answer her,” you said softly. “I should go. I’ll… catch you later.”

Before he can respond, before he can stop you, you turn away quickly and leave, forcing your feet to keep moving, not daring to look back.

Behind you, he exhaled faintly. Chan looked at the screen for a long moment before sighing, his thumb hovered over the call and then he declined it.

He slipped the phone back into his pocket, but he didn't move right away. He was too exhausted and too overwhelmed to move, so he just stood there staring at the ceiling, his eyes stinging as tears built up. 

******************************************

He tried again and then again the next day. And the day after that.

But it was always the same now. You found a reason before the conversation could even begin — work, schedules, something urgent that couldn’t wait. Anything that kept things contained and professional.

At first, he still tried to reach you through the gaps. Small questions and lingering glances. He showed quiet patience that seemed like it could stretch forever.

But slowly, even that faded.

Chan stopped trying to close the distance.

He stopped looking for you the way he used to between takes. He completely stopped waiting near your station after rehearsals and stopped turning casual moments into something more just by the way he stayed a little longer than necessary.

Now, when he spoke to you, it was strictly about work. He spoke in a way that was polite and detached, like there had never been anything softer between you to begin with.

It was what you wanted.

You kept telling yourself that.

That this was better. That you had done the right thing before anything could spiral into something messy and irreversible.

But still, the quiet that followed didn’t feel like relief. It felt more like an absence and you didn’t know what to do with that.

It went on for four days.

Four days of careful distance, professional exchanges and pretending that nothing had shifted, when everything clearly had.

And then the day before the weekend finally arrived. At the end of your shift, you let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding.

At least you could rest for a couple of days, and you wouldn’t have to keep pretending tomorrow. At least there would be space to breathe without having to carefully measure every interaction, every glance or every word.

You gathered your things a little quicker than usual, already thinking ahead to the quiet of your room, the comfort of shutting the world out for a while.

As you made your way toward the bus stand, the evening air felt softer than usual. The streets were busy, but not overwhelming. People were heading home, just like you, wrapped up in their own routines, and somehow, in that quiet in-between, your mind drifted again… to him.

You kept recalling the past and how it used to be easier. Chan would sometimes stay back after his schedules ended, casually offering you a ride home as if it was the most natural thing in the world. You used to laugh it off, decline politely, insist you were fine taking the bus. But you never won the argument and he’d always end up driving you home anyway. 

And somewhere along the way, those rides became something more than just a way to get back. Sometimes you’d make spontaneous stops at an ice-cream place, sitting in his car with the engine off, talking for hours about nothing and everything, ending up laughing over the smallest things. You’d make him try flavours his typical indecisive Libra self would never choose on his own, teasing him until he finally gave in, only to decide he actually liked them. And somehow, between shared scoops and easy conversation, it always turned into something warm, light, and effortlessly fun, like the world outside didn’t exist at all. 

Other times, he would buy you hotteok from a small roadside stall, that felt warm in your hands against the night air. He always preferred the ones filled with red bean paste, insisting they tasted better that way, while you argued the cinnamon sugar ones were superior.

Sometimes he would park his car in front of the Han River, the city lights stretching across the water in quiet reflections while everything else slowed down around you. You’d sit side by side, sharing snacks his mom sent him from Australia, unwrapping them carefully like they were something precious. He’d always insist you try first, watching your reaction with that small, expectant dimpled smile of his. And then he’d talk about his childhood back in Australia, the streets he grew up on, the sun that felt different there, the way home used to sound and smell. He spoke about it casually, but there was always a hint of softer nostalgia underneath.

You’d listen without interrupting, occasionally asking questions when his voice trailed off, while the river moved quietly outside the windshield like it had all the time in the world.

And in those moments, it never felt like anything complicated. It was just him and you, and a car full of borrowed stories, shared snacks, and a kind of peace you didn’t realize you’d start holding onto.

It was simple and mundane, easy in a way you didn’t realize you’d start missing until it was gone. Now, the memory sat differently in your chest. He doesn’t do that anymore and it’s your fault.

You swallow hard, pushing the thought down as quickly as it rises.

You ruined a good thing, you recall sadly. You lost a great friendship, all because you couldn’t control your damn feelings. In hindsight, you realized that feeling had always been there, quietly building in the spaces between conversations and shared silence.

Oh if only you had understood your own feelings back then.

By the time you understood you were in love with him, he already started falling for someone else. Or maybe even if you had realized and confessed back then, he would’ve rejected you anyway, because you were no match for him, his feelings for you were always platonic for sure. The thought settles heavily, but you don’t fight it this time, because it feels like the truth you’ve been avoiding. 

The bus arrives with a low hiss of brakes.

You step onto the bus, letting the doors close behind you with a soft mechanical sigh that feels louder than it should. The world outside is cut off in an instant, replaced by the dim, familiar interior of late evening travel.

You move down the aisle and take the seat at the very end of the row, near the window. From here, the city stretches out like a moving painting — streets glowing with gold and white lights, brake lamps bleeding into soft red streaks, buildings dissolving into blurred shapes as the bus pulls forward.

Everything keeps moving.

The hum of the engine fills the space around you, steady and low, vibrating faintly through the seat and into your bones. It should be comforting in its predictability, something to anchor you, something to keep your mind from drifting where it shouldn’t.

But it doesn’t work tonight. You lean your head against the cool glass beside you, letting the slight chill press into your skin. The movement of the bus rocks you gently, almost like it’s trying to lull you into stillness. Your body feels heavy in a way that has nothing to do with physical exhaustion, and everything to do with carrying too much you don’t know where to put.

You slip your headphones on without thinking, more out of habit than intention, and let your playlist begin on its own.

At first, it’s nothing more than background noise. Familiar songs pass through your ears without meaning, soft melodies that don’t ask anything of you, that don’t require attention or emotion. They drift in one side and out the other, barely registering.

And then everything changes when you hear his voice.

Eternity by Bang Chan starts playing.

It hits you so suddenly that your entire body stills, like something inside you has paused without permission. It feels almost unreal at first, like your mind is playing a trick on you, like it shouldn’t be possible for him to exist here — in something so ordinary, so mundane, so far removed from where he actually is.

But he does.

He fills the space inside your headphones completely, as if there is no room for anything else. As if the world outside the bus, the people sitting around you, even your own thoughts, have all been pushed aside just to make space for him.

You remember adding this song. When he talked about his pet dog, Berry, and how much he missed her. A breath caught in your throat before you can stop it, small and unsteady, followed by another that you try to control but fail to steady. Your fingers curl slightly in your lap, pressing into your palms as if grounding yourself physically could stop what’s happening internally.

But it doesn’t.

The lyrics don’t simply play. They settle. They sink in slowly, deliberately, as if they’ve been waiting for you specifically. Each line feels heavier than the last, threading through every carefully built barrier you’ve spent weeks putting up, slipping through the cracks you thought you had sealed tightly enough.

Memories rise without warning, uninvited and sharp at the edges—quiet laughter during late schedules, shared silence that never felt uncomfortable, the easy comfort of sitting beside him without overthinking what it meant. And then, more recently, the distance. The careful politeness. The way everything between you shifted without either of you saying it out loud. 

You turn your face slightly toward the window, pressing your forehead more firmly against the glass. The cold against your skin is sharp enough to ground you for a second, to remind you where you are, to remind you that this is just a bus ride home and nothing more.

Outside, life continues in fragments. People get on, people get off, conversations begin and end without meaning to linger. No one looks long enough to notice anything beyond the surface. No one sees the way your expression tightens, the way something inside you quietly starts to break apart without sound.

You swallow hard, forcing your breathing into something steady, something controlled. But it doesn’t matter how still you sit, how tightly you hold yourself together, or how carefully you try to look away from what you’re feeling.

Because it’s already there and the tear slips anyway. 

God, you just want to go home and sleep.

******************************************

Award show season becomes torture.

You stand backstage adjusting the clasp of Chan’s in-ear monitors when she arrives.

She’s even more breathtaking in person. The kind of beauty cameras never fully capture. And Chan’s entire face lit up when he saw her.

Not polite, it was just pure admiration. Deeply in love kinda gaze. 

“Baby,” he breathed.

Your chest caved in.

She wrapped her arms around his waist carefully, mindful of his outfit. “You look so handsome.”

“And you look so beautiful, baby,” he said quietly, eyes softening as if the world around them had faded out.

“I missed you.” She said cupping his face.

The intimacy of it felt private. You shouldn’t be standing here witnessing this. 

You step back immediately. “I’ll go check the others.”

Neither of them notice you leaving. Like you didn’t even exist and that hurt more than it should.

That night, after the performance, Chan finds you alone on the rooftop of the venue parking structure.

Cold wind whipped past as you stared over the city lights below.

“You disappeared.”

You didn’t turn around. “Needed air.”

A silence settled between you. 

“Did seeing her upset you?”

Your heart stopped. Slowly, you looked at him.

Chan’s expression was unreadable. He looked hesitant.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do.”

You laugh weakly. “Chan—”

“You look at me like your heart’s breaking.”

The words shattered something inside you.

You shake your head immediately. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t say things like that.”

His brows pull together. “Why not? Isn’t that the truth?”

“No,” you whispered, finally meeting his eyes, “it’s not.”

The wind felt freezing now. Chan stepped closer, way too close. You stepped back immediately and he held your wrist to stop you.

“Stop running away from me, dammit,” he snapped, though his voice betrayed a slight shake.

“Chan, it’s… let’s not talk about it, please.” You sighed sadly, “my heart can’t handle this conversation.”

“I just…” he started, then stopped, like the sentence didn’t know where to go.

His eyes flicked away from yours. And when he spoke again, it was quieter, carefully stripped of anything that sounded too honest.

“I just don’t like when things feel different between us.”

“I’m sorry. I was just bu—”

“Busy with work,” he cut you off immediately, a faint edge slipping through before he could stop it. “Yeah. You said that.”

He sighed, running a hand down his face. 

“I know,” he said finally, quieter now. “I know you’re busy.”

The silence stretched.

You took a step back. “Chan, just… let it go, okay? This is getting too much.”

At that, something in his expression flickered, he looked pissed at this point.

“I’m not trying to make it ‘too much,’” he said, making air quotes around the word.

You swallowed. “Chan, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Then don’t say things like that.”

You frowned slightly. “Like what?”

His jaw tightened.

“Like you can’t handle talking to me,” he said, slower now. “Like I’m something you have to escape from.”

That landed heavier than it should’ve.

“I wasn’t trying to!” you said defensively. “I’m here minding my own business. You’re the one trying to make an issue out of a situation that’s nothing!”

“Oh yeah?” His voice snapped sharper now. “Stop lying.”

“I am not lying! I’m just doing my job. I’m giving you space. That’s all it is.”

His breath came out sharper this time.

“So it is space.”

“It’s not—”

“Then what is it?” he interrupted, frustration finally breaking through the restraint. “Because it feels like I’m being erased from your life one interaction at a time.”

The words stole the air from your lungs. For a second, neither of you moved.

And then his voice dropped, “I’m not okay with this.”

That was all he gave you. Just the raw and unfiltered truth. Your throat tightened.

“Chan…”

“Being not around you is making me lose my mind, can’t you see that?” He said shakily.

You froze slightly. “What… why does it matter?”

His breath came out uneven now, like he hated that he’d said it.

“Because I care about you,” he said, voice breaking at the edges. “I don’t know how to deal with losing you.”

And there it is, the worst part, because you know he does. Chan loves deeply and fiercely. He gives pieces of himself to everyone he treasures. But not the way you ache for him, his one was purely platonic for you.

So you smile sadly and say the only thing that will save you both. 

“I know.” 

His face fell slightly. 

“You should go back to her,” you continue softly. “She’s probably waiting.” 

For a second, something flickers in his expression, it looked like a mix of conflict, guilt, longing. It’s gone almost immediately. 

Chan looked away first. 

“…Yeah.” 

That one word nearly killed you. He hesitates before leaving. Like he wanted to say more. 

But in the end, he walks away. And you let him, because loving him means accepting that sometimes someone can give you tenderness, trust, late-night conversations, lingering looks, just a little bit of their heart, while the rest belongs to somebody else. The one they truly want. 

------------------------

Permanent Taglist 1:

Little did he know, you were laying face-down on a tattoo bed while somebody pressed fresh ink into the skin between your shoulder blades and down the full length of your spine.

This wasn’t your first tattoo, though.

Jake knew about the delicate piece on your forearm - the one he absentmindedly traced whenever your hand rested near his. He also knew about the tiny butterfly behind your ear.

This one was different.

Bigger.

Hidden.

And entirely yours.

You kinda knew he wouldn’t approve, but you did it anyway.

Well - maybe “wouldn’t approve” is slightly dramatic.

He’d probably stare at you with that unreadable expression he wore whenever you did something impulsive, sigh under his breath, and ask why you hadn’t told him first.

Which is exactly why you didn’t.

Because if he knew you were getting another tattoo - this time stretched delicately down your spine - he would’ve insisted on coming with you.

Not that you didn’t want him to, of course, but with this one you wanted to give him a nice surprise.

You arrived at the tattoo studio, the air smelling faintly of disinfectant wipes and lavender. You smile at the lady sitting by the tattoo bed and she waves you over.

“Y/N, right? Come take a seat.” she pats the bed beside her as you approach.

You nervously explain the placement of the tattoo and what kind of design you want. You pull up Pinterest on your phone and manage to find a similar photo. The artist nods, telling you she’s able to do it.

You’re buzzing with excitement but also shaking with nervousness. You already have tattoos, but small ones. One on your forearm and the other behind your ear. Those didn’t hurt much, but you’re afraid this one might.

You take a deep breath before pulling your shirt over your head and removing your bra. You tie your hair into a messy bun and lay face down on the bed before sliding your phone out of your bag pocket.

There’s a threat of messages from Jake.

Jake: i hope you’re having fun, love

Jake: let me know if you need me to come get you

Jake: or if you need any more money

You smile at the screen and type out a fast response, just in time since the tattoo artist is now back with fresh ink, disinfectant wipes, and tissues.

She tells you to lay flat and take deep breaths. You try.

Hours later, you’re finally finished. The lady bandages up your new tattoo and gives you some tips to help keep it clean. She then lets you stand and gather your things. You pay and leave the shop.

You exhale deeply once you step out into the cool, night air. Shit. It’s already dark.

You pull out your phone and see a longer thread of messages from your boyfriend.

Jake: where are you?

Jake: are you still with your friend?

Jake: 3 missed calls

Jake: answer the phone please

Jake: i’m coming home early

You sigh and shove your phone into your back pocket.

He worries like this a lot, not always, but sometimes. It’s partly your fault for running off places and not letting him know where you’re going and how long you’ll be out.

You stop at a bus stop and check the app on your phone. 5 minutes.

Surprisingly, the bus isn’t late and it arrives 5 minutes later. You scan your card and hop on, finding a seat upstairs.

The bus ride is only around ten minutes, but as you’re driving, your phone continues to buzz in your back pocket.

You finally reach your apartment building and head inside quickly. You pull your keys out of your handbag, but when you reach the door, it’s already unlocked.

You push open the door and toe off your shoes.

“Baby?” your boyfriend calls from the living room.

His footsteps approach quickly before he appeared at the end of the hallway. His eyes scanned you head to toe. “Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

Before you could even open your mouth to respond, he reaches you in three long strides and pulls you into his arms.

The sharp sting across your back made you suck in a breath. “Ow-“

Jake immediately pulled away. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” you breathe.

He raises an eyebrow at you. “You just winced like a i stabbed you, baby.”

“That sounds dramatic.” you try to lighten the mood, but his serious expression doesn’t soften even a fraction.

He lifts his hands and places them on your shoulders, his thumbs rubbing small circles through the thin fabric of your shirt. “Why were you out so long?”

“I’m sorry, I lost track of time.” you try shooting him a soft smile.

“Of course, you did.” He sighs and runs a hand down his face. “I thought I told you to let me know if you’d be out late.”

“I know, I’m sorry.” you whisper.

He doesn’t say anything else. He just stares at you, his serious, dark eyes finally softening. “It’s fine. I’m glad you’re okay.”

The two of you make your way to your bedroom after that, changing into pjs and settling into bed. You slip into bed, careful not to lay on your back because of your new tattoo.

Jake slips into bed beside you and immediately wraps his arms around your waist. You hold your breath as he pulls you closer so your back is flush against his bare chest.

His hand slides under your tank top and his fingers begin tracing gentle patterns on your stomach as the both of you fall asleep tangled up in each other.

The next morning, you wake up to hear Jake’s soft snoring behind you. You slip out of bed quietly, careful not to wake him, and pad into the kitchen, your bare feet silent on the wood.

You make your way into the kitchen and begin making breakfast for the two of you. Sausages, bacon, eggs and toast.

You grab the bread from the cupboard and shove four slices into the toaster, you pull out the bacon, eggs, and butter out of the fridge.

Then you bend down to grab the sausages from the freezer but your ass pushes back against something instead when a pair of large, familiar hands pull you backwards.

You straighten up quickly, startled, and spin around. Your boyfriend stands facing you, hands on your hips, with a smug grin creeping onto his lips. “Morning, sweetheart.”

“Morning.” you smile up at him.

“You making breakfast?” he nods towards the items on the counter before looking back at you.

“Yeah,” his hands grip your hips tighter. “I hope you’re hungry.”

At that, his smirk just widens. “Oh, I am.”

You gasp as he spins you around and pushes your chest flat against the counter, his hips pushing against your ass. “Jake!”

A low chuckle escapes his throat as his large hands squeeze your hips tightly. "Jake..." you repeat, but this time it comes out breathier than expected.

That's when you feel him freeze behind you. One of his hands leaves your waist and comes up to your neck to gather your hair into a makeshift ponytail.

"What is that?" forget skipping a beat, your heart actually stops beating and restarts again faster than before.

"What's what?" you manage to say as you turn to look at him over your shoulder.

His brows are knitted, eyes dark. You feel him run a finger over the bandage peeking out the top of your tank top, his fingers feather light. "This."

"Oh..." you whisper.

"Are you hurt?" his voice left his throat harsher than intended. "What have you done, y/n?"

"It's umm..." you fumble over your words. "nothing."

"Nothing?" he scoffs, voice tightening. "that's not nothing."

You sigh and spin around to face him fully. "I wanted to wait and surprise you when it had healed."

"Healed?" his eyes widened, tone becoming accusatory. "Tell me that's not what I think it is..."

"It's a tattoo." you admit, voice no higher than a whisper.

"When did you get it?"

"Yesterday."

"Fuck, y/n." he grips your waist and spins you around again.

His fingers trace the edge of the bandage again before he pulls at it gently. You wince as the tape pulls at your skin.

"Take your shirt off." he's not asking. He's telling you.

You pause for a moment before reaching down for the hem of your tank top and pulling it over your head. When you lift it, Jake sees that the bandage disappears into the waistband of your shorts.

This time, he's not gentle when he begins pulling at the bandage again. He dips his finger into the waistband of your shorts and pulls them down just enough to see the larger horizontal bandage on the small of your back. Shit.

The bandage is fully off now. You feel vulnerable. Is he mad? Does he like it? Does he hate it?

You spin around to face him again, only to be met with a smug smirk plastered on his lips. His eyes lift to meet yours. "Show me again, sweetheart."

You smile, a chuckle escaping your throat as you turn your back to him and move your hair out of the way so he can see the full length of the tattoo. He lift his hand and trails a single finger down the side of the permanent ink. "D- do you like it?"

"I don't know. It's... big" he sighs. "You should've let me come with you."

"I knew you'd say that." you laugh as he turns you around again with a gentle hand on your waist.

Before either of you even get chance to say anything else, his hands are on you and his lips are on yours. It’s not rushed, but it’s not gentle either. His hands slide up and down your bare sides, his thumbs brushing just below your bra. Your hands reach up to grip his shirt and pull him impossibly closer.

He groans low in his throat and it goes straight between your legs. You feel heat flushing up your neck and your panties becoming wet. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go.

At least he likes it.

He backs you up until your back hits the counter and you wince against his lips. “Sorry…” he whispers before diving back in, biting your bottom lip gently and soothing it with his tongue.

Then suddenly you’re being lifted onto the edge of the counter and his hands are patting your knees so he can stand between your thighs. You gladly let him and instantly wrap your legs around his waist, keeping him pressed against you.

Eventually, he pulls back from the kiss and rests his forehead against yours. “Fuck…”

“You do like it, then?” you tilt your head slightly.

“Yes, I fucking like it.” he smirks down at you. His hands drop from your hips and slide down to your thighs, fingers digging into the soft skin.

“Still should’ve let me come, though.” he adds but you just roll your eyes. “Was it a guy?”

“No.” you chuckle, hands coming up to cup his cheeks.

“Good.” is the last thing he says before his lips are on yours again. His tongue pushes its way inside your mouth and tangles with yours. Your hands drop from his face and tug at the hem of his shirt.

“Off.”

You didn’t have to tell him twice. He reaches behind his head and pulls off his shirt in one swift motion. Your hand reaches for the back of his neck and you pull him back onto you. He groans against your mouth and reaches behind you to unclasp your bra.

The straps fall down your arms and he practically rips it away from you, throwing it somewhere onto the kitchen floor.

Then you reach down for his belt but he stops you with a firm grip on your wrist. “Not yet, sweetheart. Patience.”

He lifts you off the counter, holding your body up against his with his hands on your ass. You wrap your arms around his neck to steady yourself and giggle as he carries you to the bedroom. On the way there, he buries his face in your neck and places open mouthed kisses along your jaw and down to your collarbones.

He kicks your bedroom door shut behind him and lowers you onto the bed, suddenly being gentle - only because of your new tattoo - despite the hunger in his eyes.

You look up at him as he sits you down, and he just smiles devilishly at you. He drops to his knees before you and taps your leg. “Shorts off.”

You reach down and slowly, purposely, pull your shorts down your long legs. He watches the whole thing with that specific, hungry gaze he only ever gives you when he’s desperate for you.

Now you’re completely naked apart from your panties with him kneeling between your legs. His eyes remain locked onto yours as he leans down between your thighs and licks a long stripe from your entrance to your clit on your soaked panties. “You already this wet f’ me, doll?”

You nod eagerly and a needy whine escapes you. He licks again, and again, and again until you’re begging him to take off your panties.

“Jake… please, take them off.” you say, reaching down to try and do it yourself. He stops you. Again.

“What did I say earlier, sweetheart? Patience.” he growls before pushing your panties to the side and slipping his middle finger into your tight hole.

You cry out, your hand flying to tug at his hair. He adds another finger and begins moving them slowly. Not just slow, like, hardly moving at all.

He’s such a tease.

“Jake…” you breathe. “stop teasing me.”

He chuckles and looks up at you through his lashes. “You want more?”

You nod quickly.

“Ask how I like.” he demands.

You whine and wriggle beneath him, rolling your hips upwards to meet his hand. “I want you… so bad. P-please.”

He smirks, satisfied, and quickens his torturing pace. He adds a third finger and he begins pistoning them into you, curling them at just the right angle.

It doesn’t take much more before you’re whining and rolling your hips upwards, desperate for more of him.

He takes the hint and pulls his fingers out of you, bringing them to his mouth and licking them clean. He doesn’t break eye contact as he does so.

A moan escapes you while watching him. Then he’s on you again, pushing you further up the bed so he can hover above you. He buries his face in your neck and sucks at the sensitive spot just below your ear before kissing you slowly, letting you taste yourself on him.

You didn’t even realise he was pulling your panties down until he pushes two fingers back inside of you and presses his thumb against your clit.

You arch your back off the bed and wrap your arms around his neck, keeping his lips pressed against yours.

He slides his tongue into your mouth again, wanting to taste you. All of you.

It doesn’t take much more until you’re coming on his fingers. “Ngh- Jake… I’m…”

“I know, baby,” he whispers into the crook of your neck. “let go f’ me.”

And you do. Your walls clench around his fingers and you tug harder at his hair, earning a low groan from your boyfriend.

He doesn’t stop rubbing your clit with his thumb or curling his fingers inside you until you’re basically begging him to stop.

“T-too much… ahh…” you wriggle beneath him, trying to move away from the sensitivity.

He pulls his fingers out of you slowly and watches as a white string of your come, connecting you to his fingers, breaks.

He lifts his head from the crook of your neck and kneels between your thighs. “Turn over.”

You flip yourself over quickly and raise your ass into the air. Just how you know he likes it.

He slaps your ass cheek hard, ripping a choked moan from your throat. Then you hear the soft clinking of his belt undoing before it falls to the ground. You look over your shoulder and see him unbuttoning his jeans. He tugs them, and his boxers, down his waist and throws them somewhere on the floor.

When he turns back to you, he trails his finger down your spine. Not directly on your tattoo, but beside it. You wince, the skin still red and sensitive.

“S’ so fucking sexy.” he whispers before tapping his leaking tip against your clit.

You clench around nothing, still needing more despite coming minutes earlier.

“Please Jake… fuck me, please. Need you so bad.” you beg.

“You need me, huh, princess?” he chuckles, the smirk audible in his voice, as he lines himself up with your dripping entrance.

He doesn’t say anything else; he just pushes into you slowly, feeling you stretch around his thick cock.

“So tight…” he groans before leaning over you, pressing his bare chest to your sore back. He digs his teeth into your shoulder, his hands gripping your hips so tight it’ll definitely leave marks, as he bottoms out and soothes the marks with his tongue.

He sets his pace, not too slow but not too fast. Not yet.

You reach underneath you, taking it upon yourself to touch yourself. The teasing is getting too much. You need more. More of his touch. More of him. You use your middle and ring finger to circle your clit, but you only manage a couple seconds before he’s grabbing your wrist and pulling it behind your back.

“You just can’t wait, can you, baby?” he chuckles before slamming into you so hard you cry out, tears already pricking at the corners of your eyes.

His thrusts are aggressive and hard now as the bed rocks against the wall every time his hips slam into your ass.

Despite coming minutes before, you’re getting close to the edge again. He feels it when you clench around him and grip the bedsheets tighter. He loops his arm underneath you, his bare chest pressing against your back, and connects his fingers with your still-sensitive clit.

He doesn’t slow down, not once. If anything, his thrusts are getting harder and harder.

“J-jake… I’m close…” you manage to whine.

“Come for me.” he grunts as he releases your wrist and grips your hip even tighter than before (if that’s even possible).

You’ve become a whining, wriggling mess beneath him after you come, but he doesn’t stop. He chases his own release, reaching to wrap his hand around your neck and pull your back towards his chest.

“Gonna come inside you, yeah?” he whispers against the shell of your ear before sucking another mark onto your neck.

When he comes, he bites your neck hard and his hand tightens around your neck. When he finally stills inside of you, you can feel his cock pulsing and the thick ropes of come filling you up.

You’re both panting. Both sticky with come and sweat.

But too exhausted to even give a shit.

a/n2 : this is the longest fic i've wrote so far and i genuinley think it's a piece of art lmao but i'll let you guys be the judge of that. i tried my best and like i always say, i'll get better eventually 🖤

taglist : @binsown @testingspider @yoruse @tsumiyaa

You wake up to find your bedroom silent and pitch black, the only light being the soft glow of the moon shining through your blinds.

You thought your sleep schedule had been getting better, but you’d started waking up in the middle of the night again. You’re not sure why.

Actually, you know the exact reason why. It’s because your boyfriend, Song Mingi, is on tour again. He’s thousands and thousands of miles away from you and the comfort of your apartment.

You rub your eyes and sit up in your bed, reaching for your phone on the nightstand. You turn on the screen and see the time reads 3:47am. Below is a thread of notifications from Mingi.

He’s probably telling you to get some sleep or to eat properly - not just instant noodles.

He knows you worry and he knows you get lonely without him. That’s one of the many things you love most about your boyfriend. He notices everything.

Mingi: sleep well beautiful

Mingi: i’ll be home before you know it

Mingi: don’t worry too much

You type out a quick reply before throwing your phone onto the mattress.

Eventually, after what feels like an hour of tossing and turning, you manage to fall asleep again.

————

The next time you’re woken up, it’s by the sun illuminating your bedroom and… a wetness between your legs.

You find yourself trying to wriggle away from the sensitive pressure between your legs, but something is holding you down.

Or someone.

You blink open your sleepy eyes and look down to find your boyfriend’s head between your thighs. His arms are wrapped around your thighs, keeping you pinned down. That explains why you couldn’t move.

You arch your back off the bed and reach down, letting your fingers card through his annoyingly perfect hair.

You see the moment he realises you’re awake when he lifts his head, revealing his shiny lips and chin. “Good morning, baby.” he smirks up at you.

You can’t help but giggle as he dives back in, sucking your already-sensitive clit into his mouth. You whine in response, tugging at his hair and rolling your hips upwards.

He wastes no time pushing two fingers inside of you, pumping them slowly as he effortlessly reaches all the right spots.

“Mingi…” you moan his name, somehow already close to the edge.

He doesn’t respond. He just quickens his movements. His tongue flicks over your clit faster and his fingers push further inside of you, curling at just the right angle. Your legs tremble as you warn him you’re about to come.

“M- ahh… Mingi, I’m close…” you whimper seconds before your release coats his fingers.

He pulls his fingers out of you slowly and brings them to his mouth, licking them clean while holding your gaze.

He releases your thighs and moves quickly, hovering over you. He buries his face in your neck and inhales deeply. “Good girl.”

“You couldn’t wait until later?” you chuckle (although you aren’t complaining) and wrap your legs around his waist.

“And miss out on waking you up in the best way possible? Absolutely not.” he groans as he begins kissing and nipping at your neck. One of his hands grips your hip tightly and the other rests beside your head, careful not to put all of his weight on you.

He leaves a trail of kisses from just below your ear all the way down to your collarbone. You didn’t even notice he had shifted his weight to unbuckle his belt and pull down his jeans just enough to free his hard length.

Saying Mingi is big is an understatement. He’s huge. Not just length, but girth, too. You’ll never get over how good the stretch feels when he pushes inside of you.

“Tell me you missed me, baby.” he whispers hoarsely against your neck as he lines himself up with your entrance. But he doesn’t wait for you to respond.

You open your mouth to speak but he’s already pushing inside of you. He groans against your neck and mutters something that sounds like a mix of your name and “fuck”.

You cry out embarrassingly loud and your nails dig into his shoulders through the thin fabric of his shirt (which he didn’t bother to remove).

He groans again and removes his hand from your hip, bringing it up to wrap around your throat instead. He squeezes, but not enough to cut off your breathing, just enough to show he’s in control. But damn you already knew that.

He bottoms out and he’s already panting into the crook of your neck. “Fuck, baby… needed you so bad.”

Then he’s moving. Thrusting deep and agonisingly slow. One hundred percent on purpose.

“Mingi…” you breathe, although you’re not even sure why.

“Use your words, love. Tell me what you want.” he smirks before lifting his head to capture your lips in a slow but hungry kiss. His fingers tighten around your neck for a moment, urging you to speak.

“More…” you manage to say.

“More?” he chuckles low in his throat. “Greedy little thing.”

He listens, though. With practiced ease, he quickens his pace and shifts ever so slightly to angle himself deeper inside of you.

When your walls begin clenching around him, you know you’re not going to last much longer. He’s kissing you when you squeeze his cock and he lets out this delicious, deep groan straight into your mouth. You swallow it, your tongue pushing into his mouth before mingling with his.

He lowers his head again and pushes his face into the crook of your neck. His thrusts are messy and ragged now as he gets closer to the edge.

He removes his hand from your throat and reaches between your bodies to rub fast, tight circles on your clit.

“Ahh… I’m close.” you manage to whisper.

“Let go, baby. Come for me.” he encourages, thrusting faster.

Your pussy clamp around him as you come which leaves him following seconds later. He basically collapses on top of you as his hot ropes of come fill you up. He’s a panting, groaning, sweaty mess when he lifts his head from your neck for the final time.

“Hey,” he smirks down at you. “Miss me?”

————

taglist : @binsown @testingspider @yoruse @tsumiyaa

you watched the back of his head—the way his shoulders were hunched toward his ears, the tension visible in the line of his neck. he was drowning in this comeback. you knew how it went; the closer the date got, the more he disappeared into the music until there was nothing left of 'channie' and only 'bang chan the producer.'

it wasn't just today, either. it had been weeks of missed dinners and "i'm five minutes away" texts that turned into five hours of silence. your relationship had been shoved to the back burner so many times the pilot light was starting to flicker.

but you weren't the type to pick a fight over it. you knew him. you knew he didn't do it because he didn't care; he did it because he cared too much about everyone else—the members, the fans, the legacy. he was a perfectionist, and you were the person who understood that better than anyone. so, you just sat there, scrolling through your phone and watching the cursor on his screen move back and forth, back and forth.

it hurt, in a quiet, dull way, to be in the same room as him and still feel like you were miles apart. but you swallowed it down. he was stressed, and the last thing he needed was you adding to the weight on his back.

you leaned your head back against the cushion, the rhythmic thump-thump of the bass line acting like a lullaby. your eyes started to grow heavy. the studio was warm, and the lack of sleep from his late-night texts was finally catching up to you.

"chan?" you murmured softly, your voice thick with sleepiness.

he didn't even turn around. he just hummed, a distracted sound that meant he hadn't actually heard you.

"i'm gonna... just close my eyes for a second," you whispered, more to yourself than him.

he didn't respond. the only sound in the room was the clicking of his mouse and the rain that had started to smear against the high windows of the building.

the low, rhythmic thumping of the track finally pulled you under. your head lulled to the side, pressing against the cool leather of the sofa as you drifted into a shallow, restless nap.

a sudden, sharp chime from your phone jolted you awake. you blinked, disoriented by the dim studio lights, and fumbled for the device.

8:42 a.m.

"shit," you hissed, the word catching in your throat. your lecture started in eighteen minutes, and the university was at least fifteen minutes away on a good day. "channie, i’m so late. i have to go."

he didn't even flinch. his fingers were still dancing over the keyboard, eyes bloodshot and fixed on a wave file. "mhm. drive safe, baby," he murmured, his voice flat and robotic. he wasn't really there; he was somewhere inside the music, lost in a loop of percussion.

in a blind panic, you started sweeping your belongings off the coffee table. your notebook, a stray pen, your charger—you shoved them into your tote bag without looking, your movements frantic and uncoordinated. your hand brushed against a small, silver object near his keyboard, and you swept that in, too, thinking it was your own thumb drive.

"crap. have you seen my pen? the one—"

he shook his head, even though he hadn't really heard you. "check the bag," he muttered.

you decided you could come back and grab it later. you leaned over him, pressing a lingering, desperate kiss to his cheek. he smelled like caffeine and stale air. he leaned away slightly, not out of annoyance, but because you were blocking his view of the left monitor.

"bye, channie. i love you. eat the bagels, okay?"

"yeah, yeah. talk later," he muttered, already reaching for his headphones.

you rushed out of the building, the heavy glass doors swinging shut behind you. the moment you stepped outside, the sky felt like it collapsed. the rain wasn't just falling; it was a vertical ocean, thick and grey, turning the parking lot into a blurred mess of asphalt and water.

you scrambled into your car, the interior immediately smelling like wet denim. you gripped the steering wheel, your heart hammering against your ribs. you hated this. you’d always hated driving in the rain—the way the world lost its edges, the way the tires felt like they were floating instead of gripping.

you looked back at the studio entrance, a part of you wanting to run back inside and beg him to drive you. just for twenty minutes. just so you didn't have to face the highway like this.

but you looked at the glow of his studio window on the third floor and shook your head. he was already drowning in work. he’d been up all night. the last thing he needed was to play chauffeur because you were "a little nervous" about some rain. you didn't want to be a burden. you didn't want to be another thing on his to-do list.

"get it together," you whispered to yourself, wiping the fog off the inside of the windshield with your palm.

you shifted the car into gear, the windshield wipers clicking at their highest speed, and pulled out into the downpour.

the knuckles of your hands were white, gripping the steering wheel so hard they cramped. the rain was a violent, drumming percussion against the roof of the car, deafening and relentless. every time a semi-truck passed in the opposite lane, a wall of muddy water slammed against your windshield, momentarily blinding you. your heart was a frantic bird trapped in your chest, fluttering against your ribs. you hated this. you hated every second of this drive.

then, the car’s bluetooth system chimed. the caller ID on the dashboard screen flashed: channie ♡

you exhaled a breath you didn't know you were holding, a small, hopeful smile twitching at your lips. maybe he’d snapped out of it. maybe he realized he barely looked at you before you left and wanted to say he loved you. you hit the 'accept' button on the steering wheel.

"what’s wrong, channie?" you asked, your voice trembling slightly as you squinted through the gray haze of the downpour.

"my flash drive," he snapped. his voice wasn't warm. it wasn't the voice of the man who tucked you in or called you 'baby.' it was sharp, jagged, and vibrating with a suppressed fury that made your stomach drop. "i need it. do you have it? you were in a rush, throwing your shit everywhere—did you take it with you?"

the light ahead turned red. you slammed on the brakes a little too hard, the car hydroplaning for a terrifying half-second before the tires caught. breathing heavily, you reached into the passenger seat and began frantically digging through your tote bag. your fingers brushed against cold metal.

you pulled it out. his silver drive. the one with the final masters. the one that represented months of his blood, sweat, and literal tears.

"oh my god, yeah, i do," you breathed, the guilt hitting you like a physical blow. "i’m so sorry, chan! i must have swept it up when i was grabbing my pens. i'm at a light now—can i give it to you right after my lecture? i'll drive straight back—"

"no!" he shouted, and the sheer volume of his voice through the car speakers made you flinch. "no, i—it’s due today. it’s due now. the engineers are waiting on those files. god, you’re always doing this."

the light turned green. you took your foot off the brake, your vision already starting to swim as the first hot tear tracked down your cheek. "doing what? it was an accident, i was just—"

"you're always so messy," he cut you off, the words coming out in a cold, rhythmic stream of resentment. "you’re cluttered. you’re all over the place. you don't think, you just move. i'm trying to hold a career together, i'm trying to finish this for the guys, and you’re just... you’re not focused enough. you're never attentive. you just come in here, distract me, and then leave with the one thing i actually need to do my job."

"chan, please," you whispered, your voice breaking. you reached up to wipe your eyes, but the movement made the car veer slightly toward the edge of the lane. you jerked the wheel back, your breathing becoming shallow and jagged. "i didn't mean to. i just wanted to see you. you asked me to come over."

"i asked you to come over to spend time, not to create more problems for me to fix," he ranted. he sounded so tired of you. so utterly finished with the 'mess' of your presence. "i’m so tired of dealing with your messes. i’m trying to focus on my career, but i’m constantly having to check behind you like you're a child—"

the rain was coming down even harder now, a literal curtain of water. you couldn't see the lines on the road. the tears were making everything a blurred, kaleidoscopic mess of red brake lights and gray asphalt. your chest felt tight, your lungs refusing to take in enough air.

"shit," you whispered under your breath as the car hydroplaned again, the steering wheel feeling loose and useless in your hands. you gripped it tighter, trying to blink away the moisture. "channie, i really am so sorry about the usb, but can we do this in a minute please? it’s raining and i’m driving and—"

"no, we’re doing this now," he shouted, his frustration peaking. "i'm tired of the excuses. i'm tired of you being 'sorry' every time you do something careless. grow up already! i have so much on my plate and you just add to it. it's like you don't even care about how hard i work—"

"i know, i know, i—"

you were looking at the dashboard, trying to find the button to clear the fogging windshield. you were trying to find the words to make him stop hating you. you were trying to stay in your lane.

you didn't see the black SUV that had lost control in the opposite lane. you didn't see it cross the median.

all you heard was a sudden, deafening blare of a horn.

"chan—"

the world turned into a cacophony of violence. the sound of metal screaming as it was crushed like paper. the shattering of glass, a thousand diamonds exploding into the air. your bag beside you was thrown, a sudden, brutal weightlessness followed by an impact that stole the very concept of breath from your body.

in the studio, chan heard it all.

he had been mid-sentence, his mouth open to deliver another stinging remark about your lack of responsibility, when the sound hit him through the phone. it wasn't a sound he recognized at first—it was too loud, too industrial. a sickening crunch. and then, the most terrifying sound of all: nothing.

it was a noise that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

just the faint, rhythmic pitter-patter of rain hitting a microphone somewhere far away.

his heart didn't just skip a beat; it felt like it stopped entirely. a cold, disgusting wave of nausea curled in his stomach, making him lightheaded.

"baby?" he asked. his voice was small now. the anger had vanished, evaporated by the sudden, chilling silence on the other end. "hey. that wasn't funny. pick up the phone."

nothing.

"baby? baby, answer me," he said, his voice breaking. he stood up so fast his chair flipped over behind him. he gripped the phone with both hands, pressing it so hard against his ear it hurt. "baby, please. talk to me. say something. i'm sorry, okay? i didn't mean it. just tell me you're there."

the line hissed with static. he could hear the rain. he could hear a faint, distant siren beginning to wail in the background of the call. then, a sharp click.

the line went dead.

chan stared at the screen. call ended. his fingers were shaking so violently he almost dropped the phone. he hit the redial button. his breath was coming in sharp, ragged gasps.

ring. ring. ring.

"pick up, pick up, pick up, please god, pick up..."

“the person you are trying to reach is not available. please leave a message…”

he hung up and called again. and again. and again. he didn't even realize he was crying until a tear hit the screen of his phone. he was already grabbing his jacket, his keys, his mind a blurred mess of every cruel thing he’d just spat at you.

he’d been so worried about a silver drive. he’d been so worried about a deadline.

he called again.

“the person you are trying to reach is not available. please leave a message…”

he fell to his knees in the middle of the room, the phone still pressed to his ear, listening to your voicemail greeting over and over like a lifeline. his stomach twisted with a question that threatened to shatter his mind.

had his cruel words been the last thing you heard? his anger had been the last thing you felt?

the answer was yes.

the silver usb drive sat in the center of the mahogany desk like a jagged piece of shrapnel. it looked smaller than it had two weeks ago. less significant. it was just a bit of metal and plastic, slightly scuffed on one corner where it must have hit the pavement or the dashboard, but otherwise perfectly intact.

it was functional. it held the files. it held the "future" chan had been so desperate to protect that he’d sacrificed the only thing that actually mattered.

the comeback had happened, technically. the company had pushed it through because schedules were already locked, because the industry doesn't stop for tragedies, because the wheels of the machine keep turning even when the driver has been crushed.

but chan hadn't been there. he hadn't gone to the music shows. he hadn't sat in on the final meetings. he had become a ghost in his own life, haunting the halls of the building like a man waiting for a sentence that had already been carried out.

the studio was cold. he’d turned the ac down to sixty degrees days ago and just left it there, wanting the air to feel as biting and sharp as the guilt in his chest. it didn't feel like a place of creation anymore. it felt like a tomb.

the bagels were gone. he’d thrown them away in a fit of violent, shaking sobs three days after the accident, the plastic bag crinkling in a way that sounded like the crushing of metal. the coffee cups had stayed, though. he couldn't bring himself to move them.

there was a ring of dried brown liquid at the bottom of the one you’d sipped from—the one he’d ignored while he was working. he stared at it for hours sometimes, tracing the rim with his thumb, wondering if a single microscopic trace of you was still clinging to the ceramic.

one night, the silence had become too loud, and the mess he’d once scolded you for—the stray pens, the crumpled papers, the way you’d tuck your shoes under his desk—had started to feel like an accusation.

he’d grabbed a bottle of industrial-strength cleaner from the janitor’s closet and scrubbed every inch of the leather couch until his knuckles were raw and the room smelled like bleach and chemicals. he wanted to scrub away the memory of his own voice. he wanted to bleach the sound of his anger out of the walls.

but when he was finished, all he was left with was a sterile, empty room that didn't smell like you at all. and that was worse. that was infinitely worse.

the members tried. they always tried. they were his brothers, his family, but right now their presence felt like a suffocating weight. every time they looked at him with those soft, pitying eyes, he wanted to scream. he wanted them to hate him. he needed someone to tell him he was the villain in this story, because the version where it was "just an accident" was one he couldn't live with.

it was changbin and minho who came in today. they didn't knock; they knew he wouldn't answer anyway. they brought food in a plastic bag—something warm, something that smelled like ginger and soy—and set it down on the console. the same spot where you’d left his lunch.

"eat, hyung," changbin said, his voice low and steady. he reached out a hand, hovering it near chan’s shoulder but not quite touching. "you haven't left this room in twenty-four hours."

chan didn't look up from the usb drive. "i'm not hungry."

"chan, it’s been two weeks," minho said, his tone firmer, the kind of tough love he usually used to snap the members out of a funk. "the police report came back. the other driver was hydroplaning. it was the weather. it was the rain. it wasn't you."

the word rain triggered something in him. it felt like a physical strike to his jaw.

"don't tell me that!" chan roared.

he stood up so abruptly his chair screeched against the floor, a sound like a dying animal. he slammed his palm against the mixing console, the vibrations rattling the speakers.

"don't you dare tell me it wasn't me! i was on the phone. i was screaming at her. do you know what the last thing i said to her was? i told her she was a mess. i told her she was a distraction. i told her she didn't care about my work."

his voice cracked on the last word, crumbling into a jagged, wet sound. his chest was heaving, his vision blurring as the hot, stinging tears finally spilled over.

"i made her cry while she was driving on a highway in a monsoon because i was worried about a stupid piece of silver plastic," he choked out, pointing a trembling finger at the usb drive. "she was apologizing. she was saying she was sorry while she was trying to stay on the road, and i just... i kept going. i wouldn't let her hang up. i wouldn't let her breathe."

he sank back into his chair, his head falling into his hands. the bravado, the anger, the leader—it all vanished, leaving behind only the hollowed-out shell of a man who had broken his own world.

"i made the last thing she ever heard a lie," he whispered into his palms. "i told her she was a burden. she was never a burden. she was the only reason i was even doing any of this. and now i have the music, and i have the career, and i have this fucking drive... and i don't have her."

changbin and minho exchanged a look of profound, helpless sadness. there was no script for this. there was no leader-talk chan could give himself to fix it.

"she knew you loved her, chan," changbin tried again, his own voice thick with emotion. "she knew how stressed you were. she always understood."

"that's the problem!" chan sobbed, a harsh, broken laugh escaping him. "she always understood. she sat on that couch for hours just to see the back of my head. she took my shrapnel and she just... she smiled and told me she was proud of me. she deserved someone who would look at her. she deserved someone who would tell her the mess was the best part of his day. and i didn't do it. i chose this. i chose the work."

he reached out and grabbed the silver drive, his fingers curling around it so tight the edges dug into his skin. he wanted it to hurt. he wanted it to leave a mark.

"get out," he said, his voice suddenly cold and dead.

"hyung—"

"get out! please."

he didn't look up until he heard the soft click of the heavy studio door. alone again. the silence rushed back in, filling the spaces between his shallow breaths.

he looked at the computer monitors. the software was open, the project file for the lead single staring back at him with its colorful bars and complex waveforms. the music you had been so proud of. the music you had died for.

he picked up the usb drive and held it over the port. his hand shook so violently he couldn't line it up. he tried again, his teeth grinding together, a low noise of frustration building in his throat. he wanted to see the files. he wanted to see the mess he’d been so worried about.

but he couldn't do it. every time he moved the drive toward the computer, he heard the honk of that horn. he heard the sound of the metal. he heard the way the line went dead.

he pulled his hand back and threw the drive across the room. it hit the far wall with a dull thud and skittered across the floor, disappearing into the shadows under the leather couch.

chan didn't go after it. he just sat there in the dark, the blue light of the monitors reflecting in his hollow eyes. he pulled his phone out of his pocket and scrolled to your name. he knew it was useless. he knew the phone was sitting in a plastic evidence bag at the precinct, cracked and water-damaged.

he hit the call button anyway.

he closed his eyes and leaned his head back, listening to the ringing.

one. two. three.

“the person you are trying to reach is not available. please leave a message…”

he didn't hang up this time. he let the beep happen. he sat there for a long time, the silence of the recording eating up the space in the room.

"i'm sorry," he whispered, his voice barely audible over the hum of the cooling fans. "i'm so sorry. the studio is clean, baby. it’s so clean. there’s no mess at all. and i hate it. i hate it so much."

he stayed on the line until the system cut him off, staring at the spot under the couch where the silver drive lay forgotten in the dust. he was a professional at making music, at layering sounds and fixing glitches, but he realized then that no amount of editing could fix a life.

the rain started to hit the windows again—a soft, rhythmic tapping that sounded like fingers against glass. chan flinched at the sound, pulling his knees up to his chest on the producer's chair. he was a man who lived for the beat, for the rhythm, for the sound.

but for the first time in his life, he just wanted the world to be quiet.

he reached over and clicked the power button on the console. one by one, the lights went out. the monitors faded to black. the hum of the speakers died.

and there, in the absolute darkness of the room where you used to wait for him, chan finally let out the breath he’d been holding since the crash. it wasn't a release. it was just a beginning.

the beginning of a year where the music wouldn't play, and the rain wouldn't stop, and the mess would be the only thing he ever wanted back.

the seasons had shifted, though chan only knew this because the light hitting the studio floor in the evenings was a different shade of gold. it was spring now. outside, the city was blooming, people were shedding their heavy coats, and the air probably smelled like wet earth and fresh growth.

but inside the four walls of his studio, it was still that gray, suffocating morning in february. for chan, the rain had never actually stopped.

he was stuck in a loop. it was like a track he’d produced where the skip was so subtle you didn't notice it until you realized you’d been listening to the same four bars for three months. his life was a sequence of "what ifs" that played on a constant, maddening repeat.

what if he hadn't sent that text at 3:00 a.m.? what if he’d let you sleep in? what if he’d just turned his chair around for five seconds when you walked in with those bagels? if he had just looked at you—really looked at you—he would have seen how tired you were.

he would have seen that you were rushing. he would have seen the silver drive sitting too close to your bag.

he spent a lot of time staring at the door. he’d sit in his chair, the one he used to spin around in to tease you, and he’d wait for the click of the handle. his brain knew you weren't coming back, but his body hadn't caught up yet.

every time the hallway quieted down, he’d find himself holding his breath, waiting for the sound of your sneakers or the soft hum of you humming one of his demos under your breath.

depression wasn't a weight for him; it was a thinning. he felt translucent. he’d stopped eating anything that required effort, surviving on protein shakes and the occasional granola bar minho forced into his hand. his skin was sallow, the dark circles under his eyes looking like permanent bruises. he looked like a man who was disappearing, and in a way, he was. he was fading into the static of your absence.

it was 4:00 a.m. on a tuesday when the silence got too loud again. the studio was dark, save for the low glow of his monitors and the tiny, blinking red light of his hardware. he reached for his phone, his thumb hovering over your contact.

he knew it was full. the mailbox had been full for six weeks. he knew the phone was likely sitting in a cardboard box at your parents' house, or tucked away in a drawer at the police station, the screen shattered into a spiderweb of glass. but the act of calling was the only thing that made him feel like he was still anchored to the earth.

he hit dial. his heart did that familiar, painful stutter as he waited through the rings.

“the person you are trying to reach is not available. please leave a message…”

he closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against the cool edge of his desk. you used to have a personalized one, but deleted it because you hated the sound of your own recorded voice. he'd been there the day you tried to record it. he could almost see you saying it—the way you’d scrunched your nose in embarrassment, the way you’d laughed right after the recording ended.

"hey," he whispered into the mouthpiece. his voice was gravelly, unused for hours. "it’s me. obviously."

he let out a breath that sounded more like a shudder.

"i finished the track today, baby. the one you liked. the one with the heavy synth in the bridge. the members think it’s the best thing we’ve done in years. everyone is so happy with it. but i... i deleted your favorite part. that vocal chop you kept humming? i took it out.

"i couldn't leave it in. i didn't deserve to keep the version you liked. it felt like stealing. how am i supposed to put something out into the world that you were the only one who truly understood?"

he paused, listening to the faint hiss of the line. he liked to pretend he could hear you breathing on the other end, just listening to him talk like you used to while he worked.

"i'm so sorry, my love. i'm so sorry i called you a mess. i’ve been looking around this room, and i realized... i was the mess. you were the only thing in my life that made any sense. you were the only thing that wasn't a deadline or a chore or a performance. you were just... you. and i treated you like an inconvenience."

he felt a tear track down his nose and drip onto his hand, but he didn't move to wipe it away.

"i found your charger today. the one with the little yellow tape on the end so i wouldn't accidentally take it to the company. it was behind the couch. i tried to plug it in, just to see if it still worked, but then i realized i don't even have anything of yours to charge anymore. i just held it for a while. it still smells a little bit like that lotion you use. the vanilla one."

his grip on the phone tightened until his knuckles turned white. "i really like that one," chan added softly.

"if i promise to never skip a meal again, will you just show up in a dream tonight? just one? i just need to see your face without the rain. i just want to see you sitting on the couch again, even if you're not talking to me. i’d take you being mad at me.

"i’d take you never speaking to me again if it meant you were still driving that car. i would have given up the music, baby. i would have thrown the drive in the river myself if i’d known."

the line timed out, the automated system cutting him off with a cold, digital beep. chan didn't pull the phone away from his ear. he just sat there in the dark, listening to the dial tone.

he thought about the drive. the silver usb was back in his desk drawer now, tucked away like a shameful secret. he’d accessed the files, but he hadn't changed anything other than that one deletion. every time he opened the project, he saw the last save date. february 12th.

he hated that date. he hated the rain. he hated the way his coffee tasted now—bitter and metallic, like he was drinking the regret straight from the cup.

he stood up, his joints popping from hours of being curled in the chair. he walked over to the window. the city was quiet, the streetlamps casting long, lonely shadows across the pavement. it wasn't raining tonight, but the ground was still damp from a shower earlier in the evening. the reflections of the lights looked like streaks of neon tears on the asphalt.

he imagined your car on a night like this. he imagined you turning the heater on, singing along to the radio to try and ignore how nervous the wet roads made you. he imagined the exact moment he’d called you. the vibration in your cup holder. the way you would have reached for it, wanting to hear his voice, thinking he was calling to say something kind.

"i'm sorry i was the reason you were distracted," he whispered to the glass. "i'm sorry i was the last thing you had to deal with."

he walked back to the couch—the black leather one he’d scrubbed so hard it was now slightly discolored in patches. he lay down, pulling a hoodie over his head, trying to trap the stale air inside. he didn't sleep much these days.

when he did, he usually woke up reaching for his phone to tell you about a dream, only to feel the cold, empty space beside him and remember all over again.

it was a cycle. a loop.

three months. ninety days. two thousand, one hundred and sixty hours of replaying a ten-minute phone call.

chan closed his eyes and tried to remember the way you looked when you were laughing at one of his stupid jokes. he tried to focus on the sound of your voice instead of the sound of the crash. but the crash was louder. the crunch of metal was a permanent layer in the mix of his life now, a frequency he couldn't eq out.

he reached out and touched the spot on the floor where your bag used to sit.

"goodnight, baby," he murmured into the empty room.

he didn't expect an answer. he didn't even hope for one anymore. he just needed to say the words into the void, hoping that somewhere, in some version of the universe where he’d been a better man, you were tucked safely into bed, and the silver drive was nothing more than a piece of plastic on a desk.

but in this world, the drive was on the desk, and chan was on the floor, and the rain was waiting just outside the window to start all over again.

he fell into a fitful, shallow sleep around 5:30 a.m., his hand still clutching the phone. he dreamt of the studio, but it was filled with water. he was swimming toward the couch, trying to reach you, but the harder he kicked, the further away the couch drifted. you were sitting there, holding the usb drive, pointing at the door. your lips were moving, but no sound was coming out.

it’s okay, you were saying. it’s okay, channie.

but it wasn't. it would never be okay.

when he woke up two hours later to the sound of the cleaning crew in the hallway, the first thing he felt was the crushing weight of the daylight. another day of being the person who stayed. another day of being the reason you left.

he sat up, rubbed his face with his hands, and looked at his phone.

152 unread messages from the members. 0 from you.

he stood up, walked to the desk, and turned on the monitors. the hum of the fans filled the room, a low, constant drone that sounded like a mourning song. he opened the project, highlighted the entire vocal track of the new song, and lowered the volume by three decibels.

it sounded emptier. hollower.

"perfect," he whispered, his voice breaking. "it sounds just like the house."

he stayed there for the rest of the day, a ghost working on a ghost of a song, waiting for the sun to go down so he could call your voicemail and apologize for the things he’d said when the world was still bright.

six months. a half-year of the world tilting on an axis that felt permanently wrong. for chan, the passage of time wasn't measured in months or weeks anymore, but in the slow, agonizing evaporation of his own edges.

the fire that had fueled his anger in the beginning—the hot, white-hot rage at the driver, at the rain, at his own reflection—had finally burned itself down into a cold, gray ash.

what was left was the deep quiet.

it was a silence that lived in his bones. it wasn't just the absence of sound; it was the absence of weight. he felt like a hollowed-out tree, still standing but entirely empty on the inside. he was back to work at the studio because the company demanded it and because his members needed him, but the "bang chan" everyone knew was gone.

the man who used to stay up until dawn obsessing over the frequency of a snare hit, the perfectionist who wouldn't let a single breath go unedited, had been replaced by someone who just... didn't care.

his desk was a disaster. it was a crushing, bitter irony that he couldn't stop thinking about. for years, he’d teased you—sometimes gently, sometimes sharply—about your mess.

he’d laugh at the way your bag always overflowed with receipts and loose pens, or how you’d leave half-finished cups of tea in every room. he’d called you cluttered. he’d told you that you needed to be more focused.

now, he was the one living in a wreck. his studio was littered with empty energy drink cans and crumpled snack wrappers. there were stacks of lyric sheets with coffee stains on them, most of them half-finished and abandoned. he’d forget to save files. he’d lose his keys twice a day.

he was messy in every sense of the word, his brain too clouded with grief to maintain the rigid structure he’d once used to define himself. he had become the very thing he’d used as a weapon against you on that last morning, and every time he looked at the chaos on his desk, it felt like a ghost was laughing at him.

it was a tuesday evening when it happened. he’d dropped his phone—again—and it had skittered across the floor, sliding deep into the dark gap beneath the black leather couch.

chan sighed, a long, weary sound that seemed to come from his soul. he got down on his hands and knees, pressing his cheek against the cold floorboards to peer into the shadows.

his fingers brushed against something hard and plastic. he thought it was his phone, but when he pulled his hand back, he was holding a cheap, blue ballpoint pen.

he froze.

he knew this pen. it was the one you’d been frantically looking for right before you left for your lecture. he could still see you in his mind's eye, patting down your pockets, huffing in frustration because you were already late. you’d asked him if he’d seen it, and he hadn't even looked up from his monitor. he’d just muttered something under his breath without a second thought.

you must have dropped it right there, next to the couch where you’d been napping.

chan sat back on his heels, the pen clutched in his palm. it was just a piece of plastic, worth maybe fifty cents, but to him, it felt like a holy relic. he brushed the dust off it with the hem of his hoodie, his thumb tracing the teeth marks on the cap where you used to chew on it when you were stressed.

he felt a sudden, sharp pang in his chest—the first real feeling he’d had in weeks. it wasn't the dull ache of depression; it was a stabbing, vivid grief.

he tucked the pen into the front pocket of his hoodie, right over his heart. he didn't even go back for his phone.

he walked over to his desk and sat down. for six months, the silver usb drive had stayed in his drawer. he’d touched it, moved it, even held it against his forehead while he cried, but he hadn't plugged it in. he couldn't bring himself to look at the data. it felt too much like an autopsy.

but tonight, with your pen in his pocket, he felt a strange, quiet pull.

his hands shook as he opened the drawer. the drive caught the light, its scratched surface a testament to the violence it had survived. he didn't let himself think. he just shoved it into the port.

the computer chirped. the drive icon appeared on the screen, labeled simply: CB97_FINAL_MASTERS.

chan clicked through the folders, his breath hitching as he found the project file from that morning. the file he’d been screaming about. the file he’d valued more than your safety.

he hovered the cursor over the file properties.

last saved: february 12, 2026. 9:02 AM.

the air left his lungs in a rush. he remembered the timeline. he’d called you at 8:52 am. he’d spent ten minutes tearing you apart, telling you how your lack of focus was ruining his career, how your messiness was a burden he couldn't carry anymore.

the timestamp on the save was three minutes before the call ended. three minutes before the sound of the crash.

he realized then that while he was shouting at you, you hadn't just been listening. you had reached into your bag, found the drive, and—despite the rain, despite the terror of driving, despite the tears he was making you cry—you must have been thinking about him.

you had probably been checking your bag at the red light, making sure the important little thing was safe, perhaps even planning how to get it back to him as fast as possible.

you were caring for him while he was destroying you.

chan clicked the file open. the digital workspace loaded, the familiar wave files of his members' voices blooming across the screen. he hit play.

it was the track you liked. the one with the synth bridge. but as the music filled the studio, it didn't sound like a hit song anymore. it sounded like a funeral march. every beat was a heartbeat he’d helped stop. every lyric was a word he’d wasted.

he leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. the blue light of the monitors washed over him, making his skin look ghostly. he felt the weight of the pen in his pocket, a tiny, physical pressure against his ribs.

"i'm so sorry," he whispered into the empty room. "i'm so, so sorry."

he didn't turn the music off. he let it loop. he sat there for hours, listening to the perfection he’d demanded, realizing that it was entirely worthless. the mix was clean. the vocals were crisp. the transition he’d been so worried about was seamless.

and he would have traded every single note of it to have one more "messy" afternoon with you. he would have traded his entire career to see one more half-finished cup of tea on his console.

as the sun began to peek through the blinds, casting long, pale strips of light across the cluttered studio, chan didn't move to clean up. he didn't reach for an energy drink. he just reached into his pocket and wrapped his fingers around the blue pen.

he realized then that the "bang chan" he was supposed to be—the leader, the perfectionist, the producer—was a lie. the mess was the truth. the clutter was the life. you had been the only one who lived in the real world, and he’d been too busy trying to polish the edges of a song to notice that the world was beautiful because it was broken.

he finally reached out and clicked 'save' on the project. not because he wanted to work on it, but because he wanted to update the timestamp. he wanted to move past february 12th, even if it was only by a fraction of a second.

the computer chirped again.

last saved: august 20, 2026. 5:44 AM.

chan let out a long, shaky breath. he stood up, his legs stiff, and walked toward the door. he didn't turn off the lights. he didn't tidy the desk. he just kept his hand on the pen in his pocket and walked out into the quiet hallway.

for the first time in six months, he didn't feel like he was drowning in the rain. he just felt tired.

he walked down to the parking lot, the morning air cool and crisp against his face. it wasn't raining. the sky was a pale, clear blue, the kind of color you used to say looked like fresh ink.

he got into his car and sat there for a moment, looking at the empty passenger seat. he reached into his pocket, pulled out the blue pen, and set it carefully in the cup holder.

"we're going home now," he murmured.

he started the engine and drove out of the lot. he drove slowly. he stayed in his lane. he didn't check his phone. he just watched the road, the blue pen rattling slightly in the plastic holder, a small, messy piece of you finally coming home.

the quiet was still there, but as he drove through the waking city, it didn't feel quite so deep. it felt like a beginning. a messy, cluttered, imperfect beginning.

and for now, that had to be enough.

the date on the corner of his monitor felt like a heavy weight, though the numbers themselves were small. february 12th. one year.

chan stood by the window of the third-floor studio, his forehead resting against the cool glass. outside, seoul was being swallowed by a familiar, grey downpour. the rain streaked down the pane in jagged lines, blurring the world into a smear of neon signs and headlights.

he watched the cars crawl along the wet asphalt below, their brake lights glowing like embers in the mist.

a year ago, the sight of the rain would have sent him into a spiraling panic, his lungs tightening until he couldn't draw air. now, it just felt like a quiet companion. the sharp, stabbing agony that had defined the first few months—the kind that made him want to claw his own skin off just to escape the guilt—had finally settled into something different.

it was a dull, permanent ache. it was a part of him now, like a break in a bone that never quite knit back together right. he didn't fight it anymore. he just carried it.

he turned away from the window and looked at his desk. it wasn't the sterile, bleached workspace of six months ago. there were loose papers scattered everywhere. a half-empty bag of pretzels sat next to a stack of external hard drives. three different colored pens—none of them his—were rolled into the groove of the console.

he’d stopped trying to scrub the mess away. he realized, with a clarity that only comes through total wreckage, that the mess was the point. a life without clutter, without distractions, without someone accidentally taking your usb drive because they were rushing to be somewhere important... that wasn't a perfect life.

it was just a lonely one.

he walked over to the console and sat down, but he didn't sit in the producer’s chair. he sat on the edge of the black leather couch, the one that still had a tiny, faded water stain from a cup of tea you’d spilled two years ago.

he pulled a notepad toward him. he’d been writing a song for weeks. it wasn't for the next album. the company didn't know about it, and he wasn't sure he’d ever release it. it wasn't for the fans, and it wasn't meant to be a chart-topper.

it was just for the chaos. it was a song about the way your laugh sounded when you were mid-sentence, the way you’d always lose your keys in the bottom of your bag, and the way you’d apologize for things that weren't your fault.

it was a song for the girl who made his life beautiful by making it complicated.

as he looked over the lyrics, the studio door opened. it wasn't a soft, hesitant knock. it was the loud, unmistakable sound of seven people who didn't know how to be quiet if their lives depended on it.

"breakfast is here!" han’s voice bounced off the acoustic foam walls before he was even fully in the room.

chan looked up as the members piled in, one by one, carrying bags of food and cardboard carriers of coffee. minho was at the front, looking as unbothered as ever, while felix trailed behind him with a wide, bright smile that seemed to challenge the gloom of the weather outside.

"we decided the studio needed more people," hyunjin said, dropping a stack of napkins onto the console without asking. "and more food. mostly more food."

seungmin and i.n. started clearing a space on the large wooden table in the corner, pushing aside chan's notebooks and cables with a reckless lack of concern that would have made the old chan go ballistic. changbin followed them, already tearing into a bag of pastries.

"sit down, hyung," felix said, gently grabbing chan’s arm and pulling him toward the table. "you haven't eaten anything but coffee today. we checked your trash can."

chan let out a soft huff, a sound that was dangerously close to a laugh. "you guys are invasive, you know that?"

"it’s in our contracts," lee know replied dryly, handing chan a plain paper bag. "open it."

chan took the bag. he could feel the warmth through the paper. he opened it and looked inside. it was a bagel. toasted, with just a bit of cream cheese melting on the edges. simple. unremarkable.

it was the first thing he’d been offered on that morning a year ago.

the room was suddenly very full. seungmin was arguing with han about a melody they’d heard on the radio, while hyunjin was trying to show i.n. something on his phone. changbin was mid-story, gesturing wildly with a half-eaten donut, and lee know was watching them all with that quiet, observant smile he wore when he was content.

chan sat there, the bagel in his hand, and for the first time in three hundred and sixty-five days, the air in his lungs didn't feel like lead.

he looked at his members—his brothers. they knew. they knew exactly what today was. they knew why the rain felt heavier and why the silence in the studio had been so thick lately. they hadn't come here to give him a speech or to tell him it was time to move on. they had just come to bring the mess back into his life.

they had come to be the distraction he once thought he hated.

"hey, chan-hyung," seungmin called out, leaning across the table. "han thinks the bridge in that new track should be faster, but i think it needs to breathe more. what do you think?"

chan looked at han, who was already nodding aggressively. "it needs energy, hyung! like a heartbeat!"

"no," chan said, his voice quiet but steady. he felt the eyes of all seven of them drift toward him. "seungmin is right. it needs to breathe. you can't rush the important parts."

the conversation erupted again, louder this time, as they debated the merits of tempo and emotion. chan found himself joining in. he corrected han on a technical point, laughed when changbin made a self-deprecating joke, and even nudged i.n. when the younger boy tried to steal a piece of hyunjin's breakfast.

it was a strange, soaring feeling. it wasn't that the sadness was gone—it would never be gone—but it was as if the room had expanded enough to hold both the grief and the life at the same time. he felt light.

he felt like he was allowed to be in this moment, even though you weren't. that he was allowed to breathe. allowed to live.

he realized that the best way to honor the love you’d given him wasn't to stay frozen in the second you left, but to live the way you’d always wanted him to.

he took a bite of the bagel. it tasted like salt and bread and a memory that didn't hurt as much as it used to. it was a tribute. it was a quiet promise.

they stayed for over an hour, turning the studio into a chaotic den of crumbs and loud voices. by the time they started packing up to head to their own schedules, the room felt different. the once ugly silence had been broken, replaced by the lingering warmth of people who loved him.

"see you at practice, hyung?" felix asked, pausing at the door.

"yeah," chan said, nodding. "i'll be there in twenty minutes."

once the door clicked shut and the hallway faded into silence, chan walked back to his desk. he picked up the silver usb drive—the one that had been the catalyst for his nightmare.

he didn't feel the nausea anymore. he didn't feel the urge to throw it across the room. he just looked at it. he saw the scratches. he saw the wear and tear. he saw the physical evidence of a day that had broken him.

he plugged it into the computer.

he navigated to the project file—the one with the synth bridge, the one you’d loved. he hit the spacebar.

the music filled the room. the bass was deep, the synths were shimmering, and the vocals were clear. but this time, he didn't hear the screech of tires over the melody. he didn't hear the sound of the metal crunching during the chorus.

he just heard the music.

he leaned back against the couch, closing his eyes. he let the sound wash over him, every note a reminder of a time when the world was bright. he realized that he didn't have to delete your favorite parts to be sorry. he didn't have to punish himself to prove he loved you.

loving you was the legacy. the mess was the legacy.

outside, the rain continued to fall, a steady drumming against the glass. but inside, chan was just breathing. he was sitting in the middle of a messy studio, with crumbs on his desk and lyrics about a girl who chewed on her pens, and for the first time in a year, he wasn't waiting for the crash.

he was just listening to the song.

he reached out and turned the volume up, just a little bit, until the music was louder than the rain. he stayed there until the track ended, and then, with a hand that didn't shake, he hit play again.

and when he closed his eyes, you were smiling softly right next to him.

🏷️ ( stray kids / general ) : @beautifulsharkgoatee @susu6944 @emilywjinnie @emotionalstrawberries @babythisisourcinema @maliatate96 @sapphirewaves @iconicallyher @fussel9913 @yawwni @inlovewithstraykids @foppishitudinality @gadriezmannsgirl @straystar-8 @narratedforbutterflies @yawngnab @yawwni @teddybeartaetae

you watched the back of his head—the way his shoulders were hunched toward his ears, the tension visible in the line of his neck. he was drowning in this comeback. you knew how it went; the closer the date got, the more he disappeared into the music until there was nothing left of 'channie' and only 'bang chan the producer.'

it wasn't just today, either. it had been weeks of missed dinners and "i'm five minutes away" texts that turned into five hours of silence. your relationship had been shoved to the back burner so many times the pilot light was starting to flicker.

but you weren't the type to pick a fight over it. you knew him. you knew he didn't do it because he didn't care; he did it because he cared too much about everyone else—the members, the fans, the legacy. he was a perfectionist, and you were the person who understood that better than anyone. so, you just sat there, scrolling through your phone and watching the cursor on his screen move back and forth, back and forth.

it hurt, in a quiet, dull way, to be in the same room as him and still feel like you were miles apart. but you swallowed it down. he was stressed, and the last thing he needed was you adding to the weight on his back.

you leaned your head back against the cushion, the rhythmic thump-thump of the bass line acting like a lullaby. your eyes started to grow heavy. the studio was warm, and the lack of sleep from his late-night texts was finally catching up to you.

"chan?" you murmured softly, your voice thick with sleepiness.

he didn't even turn around. he just hummed, a distracted sound that meant he hadn't actually heard you.

"i'm gonna... just close my eyes for a second," you whispered, more to yourself than him.

he didn't respond. the only sound in the room was the clicking of his mouse and the rain that had started to smear against the high windows of the building.

the low, rhythmic thumping of the track finally pulled you under. your head lulled to the side, pressing against the cool leather of the sofa as you drifted into a shallow, restless nap.

a sudden, sharp chime from your phone jolted you awake. you blinked, disoriented by the dim studio lights, and fumbled for the device.

8:42 a.m.

"shit," you hissed, the word catching in your throat. your lecture started in eighteen minutes, and the university was at least fifteen minutes away on a good day. "channie, i’m so late. i have to go."

he didn't even flinch. his fingers were still dancing over the keyboard, eyes bloodshot and fixed on a wave file. "mhm. drive safe, baby," he murmured, his voice flat and robotic. he wasn't really there; he was somewhere inside the music, lost in a loop of percussion.

in a blind panic, you started sweeping your belongings off the coffee table. your notebook, a stray pen, your charger—you shoved them into your tote bag without looking, your movements frantic and uncoordinated. your hand brushed against a small, silver object near his keyboard, and you swept that in, too, thinking it was your own thumb drive.

"crap. have you seen my pen? the one—"

he shook his head, even though he hadn't really heard you. "check the bag," he muttered.

you decided you could come back and grab it later. you leaned over him, pressing a lingering, desperate kiss to his cheek. he smelled like caffeine and stale air. he leaned away slightly, not out of annoyance, but because you were blocking his view of the left monitor.

"bye, channie. i love you. eat the bagels, okay?"

"yeah, yeah. talk later," he muttered, already reaching for his headphones.

you rushed out of the building, the heavy glass doors swinging shut behind you. the moment you stepped outside, the sky felt like it collapsed. the rain wasn't just falling; it was a vertical ocean, thick and grey, turning the parking lot into a blurred mess of asphalt and water.

you scrambled into your car, the interior immediately smelling like wet denim. you gripped the steering wheel, your heart hammering against your ribs. you hated this. you’d always hated driving in the rain—the way the world lost its edges, the way the tires felt like they were floating instead of gripping.

you looked back at the studio entrance, a part of you wanting to run back inside and beg him to drive you. just for twenty minutes. just so you didn't have to face the highway like this.

but you looked at the glow of his studio window on the third floor and shook your head. he was already drowning in work. he’d been up all night. the last thing he needed was to play chauffeur because you were "a little nervous" about some rain. you didn't want to be a burden. you didn't want to be another thing on his to-do list.

"get it together," you whispered to yourself, wiping the fog off the inside of the windshield with your palm.

you shifted the car into gear, the windshield wipers clicking at their highest speed, and pulled out into the downpour.

the knuckles of your hands were white, gripping the steering wheel so hard they cramped. the rain was a violent, drumming percussion against the roof of the car, deafening and relentless. every time a semi-truck passed in the opposite lane, a wall of muddy water slammed against your windshield, momentarily blinding you. your heart was a frantic bird trapped in your chest, fluttering against your ribs. you hated this. you hated every second of this drive.

then, the car’s bluetooth system chimed. the caller ID on the dashboard screen flashed: channie ♡

you exhaled a breath you didn't know you were holding, a small, hopeful smile twitching at your lips. maybe he’d snapped out of it. maybe he realized he barely looked at you before you left and wanted to say he loved you. you hit the 'accept' button on the steering wheel.

"what’s wrong, channie?" you asked, your voice trembling slightly as you squinted through the gray haze of the downpour.

"my flash drive," he snapped. his voice wasn't warm. it wasn't the voice of the man who tucked you in or called you 'baby.' it was sharp, jagged, and vibrating with a suppressed fury that made your stomach drop. "i need it. do you have it? you were in a rush, throwing your shit everywhere—did you take it with you?"

the light ahead turned red. you slammed on the brakes a little too hard, the car hydroplaning for a terrifying half-second before the tires caught. breathing heavily, you reached into the passenger seat and began frantically digging through your tote bag. your fingers brushed against cold metal.

you pulled it out. his silver drive. the one with the final masters. the one that represented months of his blood, sweat, and literal tears.

"oh my god, yeah, i do," you breathed, the guilt hitting you like a physical blow. "i’m so sorry, chan! i must have swept it up when i was grabbing my pens. i'm at a light now—can i give it to you right after my lecture? i'll drive straight back—"

"no!" he shouted, and the sheer volume of his voice through the car speakers made you flinch. "no, i—it’s due today. it’s due now. the engineers are waiting on those files. god, you’re always doing this."

the light turned green. you took your foot off the brake, your vision already starting to swim as the first hot tear tracked down your cheek. "doing what? it was an accident, i was just—"

"you're always so messy," he cut you off, the words coming out in a cold, rhythmic stream of resentment. "you’re cluttered. you’re all over the place. you don't think, you just move. i'm trying to hold a career together, i'm trying to finish this for the guys, and you’re just... you’re not focused enough. you're never attentive. you just come in here, distract me, and then leave with the one thing i actually need to do my job."

"chan, please," you whispered, your voice breaking. you reached up to wipe your eyes, but the movement made the car veer slightly toward the edge of the lane. you jerked the wheel back, your breathing becoming shallow and jagged. "i didn't mean to. i just wanted to see you. you asked me to come over."

"i asked you to come over to spend time, not to create more problems for me to fix," he ranted. he sounded so tired of you. so utterly finished with the 'mess' of your presence. "i’m so tired of dealing with your messes. i’m trying to focus on my career, but i’m constantly having to check behind you like you're a child—"

the rain was coming down even harder now, a literal curtain of water. you couldn't see the lines on the road. the tears were making everything a blurred, kaleidoscopic mess of red brake lights and gray asphalt. your chest felt tight, your lungs refusing to take in enough air.

"shit," you whispered under your breath as the car hydroplaned again, the steering wheel feeling loose and useless in your hands. you gripped it tighter, trying to blink away the moisture. "channie, i really am so sorry about the usb, but can we do this in a minute please? it’s raining and i’m driving and—"

"no, we’re doing this now," he shouted, his frustration peaking. "i'm tired of the excuses. i'm tired of you being 'sorry' every time you do something careless. grow up already! i have so much on my plate and you just add to it. it's like you don't even care about how hard i work—"

"i know, i know, i—"

you were looking at the dashboard, trying to find the button to clear the fogging windshield. you were trying to find the words to make him stop hating you. you were trying to stay in your lane.

you didn't see the black SUV that had lost control in the opposite lane. you didn't see it cross the median.

all you heard was a sudden, deafening blare of a horn.

"chan—"

the world turned into a cacophony of violence. the sound of metal screaming as it was crushed like paper. the shattering of glass, a thousand diamonds exploding into the air. your bag beside you was thrown, a sudden, brutal weightlessness followed by an impact that stole the very concept of breath from your body.

in the studio, chan heard it all.

he had been mid-sentence, his mouth open to deliver another stinging remark about your lack of responsibility, when the sound hit him through the phone. it wasn't a sound he recognized at first—it was too loud, too industrial. a sickening crunch. and then, the most terrifying sound of all: nothing.

it was a noise that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

just the faint, rhythmic pitter-patter of rain hitting a microphone somewhere far away.

his heart didn't just skip a beat; it felt like it stopped entirely. a cold, disgusting wave of nausea curled in his stomach, making him lightheaded.

"baby?" he asked. his voice was small now. the anger had vanished, evaporated by the sudden, chilling silence on the other end. "hey. that wasn't funny. pick up the phone."

nothing.

"baby? baby, answer me," he said, his voice breaking. he stood up so fast his chair flipped over behind him. he gripped the phone with both hands, pressing it so hard against his ear it hurt. "baby, please. talk to me. say something. i'm sorry, okay? i didn't mean it. just tell me you're there."

the line hissed with static. he could hear the rain. he could hear a faint, distant siren beginning to wail in the background of the call. then, a sharp click.

the line went dead.

chan stared at the screen. call ended. his fingers were shaking so violently he almost dropped the phone. he hit the redial button. his breath was coming in sharp, ragged gasps.

ring. ring. ring.

"pick up, pick up, pick up, please god, pick up..."

“the person you are trying to reach is not available. please leave a message…”

he hung up and called again. and again. and again. he didn't even realize he was crying until a tear hit the screen of his phone. he was already grabbing his jacket, his keys, his mind a blurred mess of every cruel thing he’d just spat at you.

he’d been so worried about a silver drive. he’d been so worried about a deadline.

he called again.

“the person you are trying to reach is not available. please leave a message…”

he fell to his knees in the middle of the room, the phone still pressed to his ear, listening to your voicemail greeting over and over like a lifeline. his stomach twisted with a question that threatened to shatter his mind.

had his cruel words been the last thing you heard? his anger had been the last thing you felt?

the answer was yes.

the silver usb drive sat in the center of the mahogany desk like a jagged piece of shrapnel. it looked smaller than it had two weeks ago. less significant. it was just a bit of metal and plastic, slightly scuffed on one corner where it must have hit the pavement or the dashboard, but otherwise perfectly intact.

it was functional. it held the files. it held the "future" chan had been so desperate to protect that he’d sacrificed the only thing that actually mattered.

the comeback had happened, technically. the company had pushed it through because schedules were already locked, because the industry doesn't stop for tragedies, because the wheels of the machine keep turning even when the driver has been crushed.

but chan hadn't been there. he hadn't gone to the music shows. he hadn't sat in on the final meetings. he had become a ghost in his own life, haunting the halls of the building like a man waiting for a sentence that had already been carried out.

the studio was cold. he’d turned the ac down to sixty degrees days ago and just left it there, wanting the air to feel as biting and sharp as the guilt in his chest. it didn't feel like a place of creation anymore. it felt like a tomb.

the bagels were gone. he’d thrown them away in a fit of violent, shaking sobs three days after the accident, the plastic bag crinkling in a way that sounded like the crushing of metal. the coffee cups had stayed, though. he couldn't bring himself to move them.

there was a ring of dried brown liquid at the bottom of the one you’d sipped from—the one he’d ignored while he was working. he stared at it for hours sometimes, tracing the rim with his thumb, wondering if a single microscopic trace of you was still clinging to the ceramic.

one night, the silence had become too loud, and the mess he’d once scolded you for—the stray pens, the crumpled papers, the way you’d tuck your shoes under his desk—had started to feel like an accusation.

he’d grabbed a bottle of industrial-strength cleaner from the janitor’s closet and scrubbed every inch of the leather couch until his knuckles were raw and the room smelled like bleach and chemicals. he wanted to scrub away the memory of his own voice. he wanted to bleach the sound of his anger out of the walls.

but when he was finished, all he was left with was a sterile, empty room that didn't smell like you at all. and that was worse. that was infinitely worse.

the members tried. they always tried. they were his brothers, his family, but right now their presence felt like a suffocating weight. every time they looked at him with those soft, pitying eyes, he wanted to scream. he wanted them to hate him. he needed someone to tell him he was the villain in this story, because the version where it was "just an accident" was one he couldn't live with.

it was changbin and minho who came in today. they didn't knock; they knew he wouldn't answer anyway. they brought food in a plastic bag—something warm, something that smelled like ginger and soy—and set it down on the console. the same spot where you’d left his lunch.

"eat, hyung," changbin said, his voice low and steady. he reached out a hand, hovering it near chan’s shoulder but not quite touching. "you haven't left this room in twenty-four hours."

chan didn't look up from the usb drive. "i'm not hungry."

"chan, it’s been two weeks," minho said, his tone firmer, the kind of tough love he usually used to snap the members out of a funk. "the police report came back. the other driver was hydroplaning. it was the weather. it was the rain. it wasn't you."

the word rain triggered something in him. it felt like a physical strike to his jaw.

"don't tell me that!" chan roared.

he stood up so abruptly his chair screeched against the floor, a sound like a dying animal. he slammed his palm against the mixing console, the vibrations rattling the speakers.

"don't you dare tell me it wasn't me! i was on the phone. i was screaming at her. do you know what the last thing i said to her was? i told her she was a mess. i told her she was a distraction. i told her she didn't care about my work."

his voice cracked on the last word, crumbling into a jagged, wet sound. his chest was heaving, his vision blurring as the hot, stinging tears finally spilled over.

"i made her cry while she was driving on a highway in a monsoon because i was worried about a stupid piece of silver plastic," he choked out, pointing a trembling finger at the usb drive. "she was apologizing. she was saying she was sorry while she was trying to stay on the road, and i just... i kept going. i wouldn't let her hang up. i wouldn't let her breathe."

he sank back into his chair, his head falling into his hands. the bravado, the anger, the leader—it all vanished, leaving behind only the hollowed-out shell of a man who had broken his own world.

"i made the last thing she ever heard a lie," he whispered into his palms. "i told her she was a burden. she was never a burden. she was the only reason i was even doing any of this. and now i have the music, and i have the career, and i have this fucking drive... and i don't have her."

changbin and minho exchanged a look of profound, helpless sadness. there was no script for this. there was no leader-talk chan could give himself to fix it.

"she knew you loved her, chan," changbin tried again, his own voice thick with emotion. "she knew how stressed you were. she always understood."

"that's the problem!" chan sobbed, a harsh, broken laugh escaping him. "she always understood. she sat on that couch for hours just to see the back of my head. she took my shrapnel and she just... she smiled and told me she was proud of me. she deserved someone who would look at her. she deserved someone who would tell her the mess was the best part of his day. and i didn't do it. i chose this. i chose the work."

he reached out and grabbed the silver drive, his fingers curling around it so tight the edges dug into his skin. he wanted it to hurt. he wanted it to leave a mark.

"get out," he said, his voice suddenly cold and dead.

"hyung—"

"get out! please."

he didn't look up until he heard the soft click of the heavy studio door. alone again. the silence rushed back in, filling the spaces between his shallow breaths.

he looked at the computer monitors. the software was open, the project file for the lead single staring back at him with its colorful bars and complex waveforms. the music you had been so proud of. the music you had died for.

he picked up the usb drive and held it over the port. his hand shook so violently he couldn't line it up. he tried again, his teeth grinding together, a low noise of frustration building in his throat. he wanted to see the files. he wanted to see the mess he’d been so worried about.

but he couldn't do it. every time he moved the drive toward the computer, he heard the honk of that horn. he heard the sound of the metal. he heard the way the line went dead.

he pulled his hand back and threw the drive across the room. it hit the far wall with a dull thud and skittered across the floor, disappearing into the shadows under the leather couch.

chan didn't go after it. he just sat there in the dark, the blue light of the monitors reflecting in his hollow eyes. he pulled his phone out of his pocket and scrolled to your name. he knew it was useless. he knew the phone was sitting in a plastic evidence bag at the precinct, cracked and water-damaged.

he hit the call button anyway.

he closed his eyes and leaned his head back, listening to the ringing.

one. two. three.

“the person you are trying to reach is not available. please leave a message…”

he didn't hang up this time. he let the beep happen. he sat there for a long time, the silence of the recording eating up the space in the room.

"i'm sorry," he whispered, his voice barely audible over the hum of the cooling fans. "i'm so sorry. the studio is clean, baby. it’s so clean. there’s no mess at all. and i hate it. i hate it so much."

he stayed on the line until the system cut him off, staring at the spot under the couch where the silver drive lay forgotten in the dust. he was a professional at making music, at layering sounds and fixing glitches, but he realized then that no amount of editing could fix a life.

the rain started to hit the windows again—a soft, rhythmic tapping that sounded like fingers against glass. chan flinched at the sound, pulling his knees up to his chest on the producer's chair. he was a man who lived for the beat, for the rhythm, for the sound.

but for the first time in his life, he just wanted the world to be quiet.

he reached over and clicked the power button on the console. one by one, the lights went out. the monitors faded to black. the hum of the speakers died.

and there, in the absolute darkness of the room where you used to wait for him, chan finally let out the breath he’d been holding since the crash. it wasn't a release. it was just a beginning.

the beginning of a year where the music wouldn't play, and the rain wouldn't stop, and the mess would be the only thing he ever wanted back.

the seasons had shifted, though chan only knew this because the light hitting the studio floor in the evenings was a different shade of gold. it was spring now. outside, the city was blooming, people were shedding their heavy coats, and the air probably smelled like wet earth and fresh growth.

but inside the four walls of his studio, it was still that gray, suffocating morning in february. for chan, the rain had never actually stopped.

he was stuck in a loop. it was like a track he’d produced where the skip was so subtle you didn't notice it until you realized you’d been listening to the same four bars for three months. his life was a sequence of "what ifs" that played on a constant, maddening repeat.

what if he hadn't sent that text at 3:00 a.m.? what if he’d let you sleep in? what if he’d just turned his chair around for five seconds when you walked in with those bagels? if he had just looked at you—really looked at you—he would have seen how tired you were.

he would have seen that you were rushing. he would have seen the silver drive sitting too close to your bag.

he spent a lot of time staring at the door. he’d sit in his chair, the one he used to spin around in to tease you, and he’d wait for the click of the handle. his brain knew you weren't coming back, but his body hadn't caught up yet.

every time the hallway quieted down, he’d find himself holding his breath, waiting for the sound of your sneakers or the soft hum of you humming one of his demos under your breath.

depression wasn't a weight for him; it was a thinning. he felt translucent. he’d stopped eating anything that required effort, surviving on protein shakes and the occasional granola bar minho forced into his hand. his skin was sallow, the dark circles under his eyes looking like permanent bruises. he looked like a man who was disappearing, and in a way, he was. he was fading into the static of your absence.

it was 4:00 a.m. on a tuesday when the silence got too loud again. the studio was dark, save for the low glow of his monitors and the tiny, blinking red light of his hardware. he reached for his phone, his thumb hovering over your contact.

he knew it was full. the mailbox had been full for six weeks. he knew the phone was likely sitting in a cardboard box at your parents' house, or tucked away in a drawer at the police station, the screen shattered into a spiderweb of glass. but the act of calling was the only thing that made him feel like he was still anchored to the earth.

he hit dial. his heart did that familiar, painful stutter as he waited through the rings.

“the person you are trying to reach is not available. please leave a message…”

he closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against the cool edge of his desk. you used to have a personalized one, but deleted it because you hated the sound of your own recorded voice. he'd been there the day you tried to record it. he could almost see you saying it—the way you’d scrunched your nose in embarrassment, the way you’d laughed right after the recording ended.

"hey," he whispered into the mouthpiece. his voice was gravelly, unused for hours. "it’s me. obviously."

he let out a breath that sounded more like a shudder.

"i finished the track today, baby. the one you liked. the one with the heavy synth in the bridge. the members think it’s the best thing we’ve done in years. everyone is so happy with it. but i... i deleted your favorite part. that vocal chop you kept humming? i took it out.

"i couldn't leave it in. i didn't deserve to keep the version you liked. it felt like stealing. how am i supposed to put something out into the world that you were the only one who truly understood?"

he paused, listening to the faint hiss of the line. he liked to pretend he could hear you breathing on the other end, just listening to him talk like you used to while he worked.

"i'm so sorry, my love. i'm so sorry i called you a mess. i’ve been looking around this room, and i realized... i was the mess. you were the only thing in my life that made any sense. you were the only thing that wasn't a deadline or a chore or a performance. you were just... you. and i treated you like an inconvenience."

he felt a tear track down his nose and drip onto his hand, but he didn't move to wipe it away.

"i found your charger today. the one with the little yellow tape on the end so i wouldn't accidentally take it to the company. it was behind the couch. i tried to plug it in, just to see if it still worked, but then i realized i don't even have anything of yours to charge anymore. i just held it for a while. it still smells a little bit like that lotion you use. the vanilla one."

his grip on the phone tightened until his knuckles turned white. "i really like that one," chan added softly.

"if i promise to never skip a meal again, will you just show up in a dream tonight? just one? i just need to see your face without the rain. i just want to see you sitting on the couch again, even if you're not talking to me. i’d take you being mad at me.

"i’d take you never speaking to me again if it meant you were still driving that car. i would have given up the music, baby. i would have thrown the drive in the river myself if i’d known."

the line timed out, the automated system cutting him off with a cold, digital beep. chan didn't pull the phone away from his ear. he just sat there in the dark, listening to the dial tone.

he thought about the drive. the silver usb was back in his desk drawer now, tucked away like a shameful secret. he’d accessed the files, but he hadn't changed anything other than that one deletion. every time he opened the project, he saw the last save date. february 12th.

he hated that date. he hated the rain. he hated the way his coffee tasted now—bitter and metallic, like he was drinking the regret straight from the cup.

he stood up, his joints popping from hours of being curled in the chair. he walked over to the window. the city was quiet, the streetlamps casting long, lonely shadows across the pavement. it wasn't raining tonight, but the ground was still damp from a shower earlier in the evening. the reflections of the lights looked like streaks of neon tears on the asphalt.

he imagined your car on a night like this. he imagined you turning the heater on, singing along to the radio to try and ignore how nervous the wet roads made you. he imagined the exact moment he’d called you. the vibration in your cup holder. the way you would have reached for it, wanting to hear his voice, thinking he was calling to say something kind.

"i'm sorry i was the reason you were distracted," he whispered to the glass. "i'm sorry i was the last thing you had to deal with."

he walked back to the couch—the black leather one he’d scrubbed so hard it was now slightly discolored in patches. he lay down, pulling a hoodie over his head, trying to trap the stale air inside. he didn't sleep much these days.

when he did, he usually woke up reaching for his phone to tell you about a dream, only to feel the cold, empty space beside him and remember all over again.

it was a cycle. a loop.

three months. ninety days. two thousand, one hundred and sixty hours of replaying a ten-minute phone call.

chan closed his eyes and tried to remember the way you looked when you were laughing at one of his stupid jokes. he tried to focus on the sound of your voice instead of the sound of the crash. but the crash was louder. the crunch of metal was a permanent layer in the mix of his life now, a frequency he couldn't eq out.

he reached out and touched the spot on the floor where your bag used to sit.

"goodnight, baby," he murmured into the empty room.

he didn't expect an answer. he didn't even hope for one anymore. he just needed to say the words into the void, hoping that somewhere, in some version of the universe where he’d been a better man, you were tucked safely into bed, and the silver drive was nothing more than a piece of plastic on a desk.

but in this world, the drive was on the desk, and chan was on the floor, and the rain was waiting just outside the window to start all over again.

he fell into a fitful, shallow sleep around 5:30 a.m., his hand still clutching the phone. he dreamt of the studio, but it was filled with water. he was swimming toward the couch, trying to reach you, but the harder he kicked, the further away the couch drifted. you were sitting there, holding the usb drive, pointing at the door. your lips were moving, but no sound was coming out.

it’s okay, you were saying. it’s okay, channie.

but it wasn't. it would never be okay.

when he woke up two hours later to the sound of the cleaning crew in the hallway, the first thing he felt was the crushing weight of the daylight. another day of being the person who stayed. another day of being the reason you left.

he sat up, rubbed his face with his hands, and looked at his phone.

152 unread messages from the members. 0 from you.

he stood up, walked to the desk, and turned on the monitors. the hum of the fans filled the room, a low, constant drone that sounded like a mourning song. he opened the project, highlighted the entire vocal track of the new song, and lowered the volume by three decibels.

it sounded emptier. hollower.

"perfect," he whispered, his voice breaking. "it sounds just like the house."

he stayed there for the rest of the day, a ghost working on a ghost of a song, waiting for the sun to go down so he could call your voicemail and apologize for the things he’d said when the world was still bright.

six months. a half-year of the world tilting on an axis that felt permanently wrong. for chan, the passage of time wasn't measured in months or weeks anymore, but in the slow, agonizing evaporation of his own edges.

the fire that had fueled his anger in the beginning—the hot, white-hot rage at the driver, at the rain, at his own reflection—had finally burned itself down into a cold, gray ash.

what was left was the deep quiet.

it was a silence that lived in his bones. it wasn't just the absence of sound; it was the absence of weight. he felt like a hollowed-out tree, still standing but entirely empty on the inside. he was back to work at the studio because the company demanded it and because his members needed him, but the "bang chan" everyone knew was gone.

the man who used to stay up until dawn obsessing over the frequency of a snare hit, the perfectionist who wouldn't let a single breath go unedited, had been replaced by someone who just... didn't care.

his desk was a disaster. it was a crushing, bitter irony that he couldn't stop thinking about. for years, he’d teased you—sometimes gently, sometimes sharply—about your mess.

he’d laugh at the way your bag always overflowed with receipts and loose pens, or how you’d leave half-finished cups of tea in every room. he’d called you cluttered. he’d told you that you needed to be more focused.

now, he was the one living in a wreck. his studio was littered with empty energy drink cans and crumpled snack wrappers. there were stacks of lyric sheets with coffee stains on them, most of them half-finished and abandoned. he’d forget to save files. he’d lose his keys twice a day.

he was messy in every sense of the word, his brain too clouded with grief to maintain the rigid structure he’d once used to define himself. he had become the very thing he’d used as a weapon against you on that last morning, and every time he looked at the chaos on his desk, it felt like a ghost was laughing at him.

it was a tuesday evening when it happened. he’d dropped his phone—again—and it had skittered across the floor, sliding deep into the dark gap beneath the black leather couch.

chan sighed, a long, weary sound that seemed to come from his soul. he got down on his hands and knees, pressing his cheek against the cold floorboards to peer into the shadows.

his fingers brushed against something hard and plastic. he thought it was his phone, but when he pulled his hand back, he was holding a cheap, blue ballpoint pen.

he froze.

he knew this pen. it was the one you’d been frantically looking for right before you left for your lecture. he could still see you in his mind's eye, patting down your pockets, huffing in frustration because you were already late. you’d asked him if he’d seen it, and he hadn't even looked up from his monitor. he’d just muttered something under his breath without a second thought.

you must have dropped it right there, next to the couch where you’d been napping.

chan sat back on his heels, the pen clutched in his palm. it was just a piece of plastic, worth maybe fifty cents, but to him, it felt like a holy relic. he brushed the dust off it with the hem of his hoodie, his thumb tracing the teeth marks on the cap where you used to chew on it when you were stressed.

he felt a sudden, sharp pang in his chest—the first real feeling he’d had in weeks. it wasn't the dull ache of depression; it was a stabbing, vivid grief.

he tucked the pen into the front pocket of his hoodie, right over his heart. he didn't even go back for his phone.

he walked over to his desk and sat down. for six months, the silver usb drive had stayed in his drawer. he’d touched it, moved it, even held it against his forehead while he cried, but he hadn't plugged it in. he couldn't bring himself to look at the data. it felt too much like an autopsy.

but tonight, with your pen in his pocket, he felt a strange, quiet pull.

his hands shook as he opened the drawer. the drive caught the light, its scratched surface a testament to the violence it had survived. he didn't let himself think. he just shoved it into the port.

the computer chirped. the drive icon appeared on the screen, labeled simply: CB97_FINAL_MASTERS.

chan clicked through the folders, his breath hitching as he found the project file from that morning. the file he’d been screaming about. the file he’d valued more than your safety.

he hovered the cursor over the file properties.

last saved: february 12, 2026. 9:02 AM.

the air left his lungs in a rush. he remembered the timeline. he’d called you at 8:52 am. he’d spent ten minutes tearing you apart, telling you how your lack of focus was ruining his career, how your messiness was a burden he couldn't carry anymore.

the timestamp on the save was three minutes before the call ended. three minutes before the sound of the crash.

he realized then that while he was shouting at you, you hadn't just been listening. you had reached into your bag, found the drive, and—despite the rain, despite the terror of driving, despite the tears he was making you cry—you must have been thinking about him.

you had probably been checking your bag at the red light, making sure the important little thing was safe, perhaps even planning how to get it back to him as fast as possible.

you were caring for him while he was destroying you.

chan clicked the file open. the digital workspace loaded, the familiar wave files of his members' voices blooming across the screen. he hit play.

it was the track you liked. the one with the synth bridge. but as the music filled the studio, it didn't sound like a hit song anymore. it sounded like a funeral march. every beat was a heartbeat he’d helped stop. every lyric was a word he’d wasted.

he leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. the blue light of the monitors washed over him, making his skin look ghostly. he felt the weight of the pen in his pocket, a tiny, physical pressure against his ribs.

"i'm so sorry," he whispered into the empty room. "i'm so, so sorry."

he didn't turn the music off. he let it loop. he sat there for hours, listening to the perfection he’d demanded, realizing that it was entirely worthless. the mix was clean. the vocals were crisp. the transition he’d been so worried about was seamless.

and he would have traded every single note of it to have one more "messy" afternoon with you. he would have traded his entire career to see one more half-finished cup of tea on his console.

as the sun began to peek through the blinds, casting long, pale strips of light across the cluttered studio, chan didn't move to clean up. he didn't reach for an energy drink. he just reached into his pocket and wrapped his fingers around the blue pen.

he realized then that the "bang chan" he was supposed to be—the leader, the perfectionist, the producer—was a lie. the mess was the truth. the clutter was the life. you had been the only one who lived in the real world, and he’d been too busy trying to polish the edges of a song to notice that the world was beautiful because it was broken.

he finally reached out and clicked 'save' on the project. not because he wanted to work on it, but because he wanted to update the timestamp. he wanted to move past february 12th, even if it was only by a fraction of a second.

the computer chirped again.

last saved: august 20, 2026. 5:44 AM.

chan let out a long, shaky breath. he stood up, his legs stiff, and walked toward the door. he didn't turn off the lights. he didn't tidy the desk. he just kept his hand on the pen in his pocket and walked out into the quiet hallway.

for the first time in six months, he didn't feel like he was drowning in the rain. he just felt tired.

he walked down to the parking lot, the morning air cool and crisp against his face. it wasn't raining. the sky was a pale, clear blue, the kind of color you used to say looked like fresh ink.

he got into his car and sat there for a moment, looking at the empty passenger seat. he reached into his pocket, pulled out the blue pen, and set it carefully in the cup holder.

"we're going home now," he murmured.

he started the engine and drove out of the lot. he drove slowly. he stayed in his lane. he didn't check his phone. he just watched the road, the blue pen rattling slightly in the plastic holder, a small, messy piece of you finally coming home.

the quiet was still there, but as he drove through the waking city, it didn't feel quite so deep. it felt like a beginning. a messy, cluttered, imperfect beginning.

and for now, that had to be enough.

the date on the corner of his monitor felt like a heavy weight, though the numbers themselves were small. february 12th. one year.

chan stood by the window of the third-floor studio, his forehead resting against the cool glass. outside, seoul was being swallowed by a familiar, grey downpour. the rain streaked down the pane in jagged lines, blurring the world into a smear of neon signs and headlights.

he watched the cars crawl along the wet asphalt below, their brake lights glowing like embers in the mist.

a year ago, the sight of the rain would have sent him into a spiraling panic, his lungs tightening until he couldn't draw air. now, it just felt like a quiet companion. the sharp, stabbing agony that had defined the first few months—the kind that made him want to claw his own skin off just to escape the guilt—had finally settled into something different.

it was a dull, permanent ache. it was a part of him now, like a break in a bone that never quite knit back together right. he didn't fight it anymore. he just carried it.

he turned away from the window and looked at his desk. it wasn't the sterile, bleached workspace of six months ago. there were loose papers scattered everywhere. a half-empty bag of pretzels sat next to a stack of external hard drives. three different colored pens—none of them his—were rolled into the groove of the console.

he’d stopped trying to scrub the mess away. he realized, with a clarity that only comes through total wreckage, that the mess was the point. a life without clutter, without distractions, without someone accidentally taking your usb drive because they were rushing to be somewhere important... that wasn't a perfect life.

it was just a lonely one.

he walked over to the console and sat down, but he didn't sit in the producer’s chair. he sat on the edge of the black leather couch, the one that still had a tiny, faded water stain from a cup of tea you’d spilled two years ago.

he pulled a notepad toward him. he’d been writing a song for weeks. it wasn't for the next album. the company didn't know about it, and he wasn't sure he’d ever release it. it wasn't for the fans, and it wasn't meant to be a chart-topper.

it was just for the chaos. it was a song about the way your laugh sounded when you were mid-sentence, the way you’d always lose your keys in the bottom of your bag, and the way you’d apologize for things that weren't your fault.

it was a song for the girl who made his life beautiful by making it complicated.

as he looked over the lyrics, the studio door opened. it wasn't a soft, hesitant knock. it was the loud, unmistakable sound of seven people who didn't know how to be quiet if their lives depended on it.

"breakfast is here!" han’s voice bounced off the acoustic foam walls before he was even fully in the room.

chan looked up as the members piled in, one by one, carrying bags of food and cardboard carriers of coffee. minho was at the front, looking as unbothered as ever, while felix trailed behind him with a wide, bright smile that seemed to challenge the gloom of the weather outside.

"we decided the studio needed more people," hyunjin said, dropping a stack of napkins onto the console without asking. "and more food. mostly more food."

seungmin and i.n. started clearing a space on the large wooden table in the corner, pushing aside chan's notebooks and cables with a reckless lack of concern that would have made the old chan go ballistic. changbin followed them, already tearing into a bag of pastries.

"sit down, hyung," felix said, gently grabbing chan’s arm and pulling him toward the table. "you haven't eaten anything but coffee today. we checked your trash can."

chan let out a soft huff, a sound that was dangerously close to a laugh. "you guys are invasive, you know that?"

"it’s in our contracts," lee know replied dryly, handing chan a plain paper bag. "open it."

chan took the bag. he could feel the warmth through the paper. he opened it and looked inside. it was a bagel. toasted, with just a bit of cream cheese melting on the edges. simple. unremarkable.

it was the first thing he’d been offered on that morning a year ago.

the room was suddenly very full. seungmin was arguing with han about a melody they’d heard on the radio, while hyunjin was trying to show i.n. something on his phone. changbin was mid-story, gesturing wildly with a half-eaten donut, and lee know was watching them all with that quiet, observant smile he wore when he was content.

chan sat there, the bagel in his hand, and for the first time in three hundred and sixty-five days, the air in his lungs didn't feel like lead.

he looked at his members—his brothers. they knew. they knew exactly what today was. they knew why the rain felt heavier and why the silence in the studio had been so thick lately. they hadn't come here to give him a speech or to tell him it was time to move on. they had just come to bring the mess back into his life.

they had come to be the distraction he once thought he hated.

"hey, chan-hyung," seungmin called out, leaning across the table. "han thinks the bridge in that new track should be faster, but i think it needs to breathe more. what do you think?"

chan looked at han, who was already nodding aggressively. "it needs energy, hyung! like a heartbeat!"

"no," chan said, his voice quiet but steady. he felt the eyes of all seven of them drift toward him. "seungmin is right. it needs to breathe. you can't rush the important parts."

the conversation erupted again, louder this time, as they debated the merits of tempo and emotion. chan found himself joining in. he corrected han on a technical point, laughed when changbin made a self-deprecating joke, and even nudged i.n. when the younger boy tried to steal a piece of hyunjin's breakfast.

it was a strange, soaring feeling. it wasn't that the sadness was gone—it would never be gone—but it was as if the room had expanded enough to hold both the grief and the life at the same time. he felt light.

he felt like he was allowed to be in this moment, even though you weren't. that he was allowed to breathe. allowed to live.

he realized that the best way to honor the love you’d given him wasn't to stay frozen in the second you left, but to live the way you’d always wanted him to.

he took a bite of the bagel. it tasted like salt and bread and a memory that didn't hurt as much as it used to. it was a tribute. it was a quiet promise.

they stayed for over an hour, turning the studio into a chaotic den of crumbs and loud voices. by the time they started packing up to head to their own schedules, the room felt different. the once ugly silence had been broken, replaced by the lingering warmth of people who loved him.

"see you at practice, hyung?" felix asked, pausing at the door.

"yeah," chan said, nodding. "i'll be there in twenty minutes."

once the door clicked shut and the hallway faded into silence, chan walked back to his desk. he picked up the silver usb drive—the one that had been the catalyst for his nightmare.

he didn't feel the nausea anymore. he didn't feel the urge to throw it across the room. he just looked at it. he saw the scratches. he saw the wear and tear. he saw the physical evidence of a day that had broken him.

he plugged it into the computer.

he navigated to the project file—the one with the synth bridge, the one you’d loved. he hit the spacebar.

the music filled the room. the bass was deep, the synths were shimmering, and the vocals were clear. but this time, he didn't hear the screech of tires over the melody. he didn't hear the sound of the metal crunching during the chorus.

he just heard the music.

he leaned back against the couch, closing his eyes. he let the sound wash over him, every note a reminder of a time when the world was bright. he realized that he didn't have to delete your favorite parts to be sorry. he didn't have to punish himself to prove he loved you.

loving you was the legacy. the mess was the legacy.

outside, the rain continued to fall, a steady drumming against the glass. but inside, chan was just breathing. he was sitting in the middle of a messy studio, with crumbs on his desk and lyrics about a girl who chewed on her pens, and for the first time in a year, he wasn't waiting for the crash.

he was just listening to the song.

he reached out and turned the volume up, just a little bit, until the music was louder than the rain. he stayed there until the track ended, and then, with a hand that didn't shake, he hit play again.

and when he closed his eyes, you were smiling softly right next to him.

🏷️ ( stray kids / general ) : @beautifulsharkgoatee @susu6944 @emilywjinnie @emotionalstrawberries @babythisisourcinema @maliatate96 @sapphirewaves @iconicallyher @fussel9913 @yawwni @inlovewithstraykids @foppishitudinality @gadriezmannsgirl @straystar-8 @narratedforbutterflies @yawngnab @yawwni @teddybeartaetae

The sheets were twisted around your legs, damp with sweat and smelling like sex.

Chan laid sprawled next to you, one arm thrown over his face, chest still rising too fast. You watched the ceiling above you, counting the seconds until he’d roll over and say something stupid — or worse, nothing at all.

This was how it always went. A text at midnight, usually after some party where you’d spent the whole night pretending not to watch each other. His place or yours, never sober enough to bother with a condom unless one of you remembered at the last second.

No talking afterward unless it was 'nice' or 'I should go'.

You weren’t his girlfriend. He wasn’t your boyfriend.

It had started last semester, after a particularly messy game of beer pong where he’d cornered you in the bathroom, fingers already under your skirt. Neither of you had asked what it meant. it just happened.

Chan shifted beside you, the mattress creaking as he sat up. You didn’t look at him, but you could feel his eyes on you. “You good?” he asked.

“Yeah,” you said, because that’s what you always said.

He reached for his jeans on the floor, the fabric rustling as he dug for his phone.

The silence stretched too long. You rolled onto your side, pulling the sheet up just enough to cover yourself. Chan glanced at you, thumb still tapping his screen. “You want me to go?”

You almost laughed. “You always do.”

Something flickered in his expression — too fast to name — before he shrugged. “Right. Well.” He stood, hopping into clothes that were scattered throughout different areas of your room.

He didn’t kiss you goodbye. He never did.

The front door clicked shut behind him, and you exhaled, staring at the ceiling again.

It was fine. This was fine.

You had midterms next week anyway.

~

The first midterm exam was a blur of half remembered formulas and caffeine jitters that made your hands shake.

You scribbled your last answer with thirty seconds left, then bolted for the door before the professor could call time.

Outside the lecture hall, the air was thick with the smell spring, too cheerful for the hollow feeling slowly growing in your chest.

You spotted Chan immediately. He was leaned against the bike rack, scrolling through his phone like he hadn’t just ghosted you for 3 days. His head snapped up when your shoes scuffed the pavement, and his mouth quirked into that stupid smirk that made your stomach flip.

“Hey,” he said, like it was nothing. Like he hadn’t left you tangled in the sheets with your thighs still sticky and your pulse pounding in your ears.

“Hey,” you echoed, adjusting your backpack straps. The silence stretched, awkward.

Chan’s phone buzzed. He glanced at it, thumb swiping absently, and something bitter curled in your throat. “Busy?” you asked, nodding at the screen.

Chan's smirk didn’t waver as he pocketed his phone. "Just a group chat. some study session tonight." He shrugged, "You should come."

You snorted. "Hard pass. I’d rather stab my eyes out with a highlighter."

He answered you with a laugh, and you hated how your chest tightened at the sound.

You were about to make an excuse—library, laundry, literally anything—when a voice cut in from behind you. "Chan! There you are."

You turned to see a girl with a sleek dark ponytail and a textbook clutched to her chest. Her smile faltered when she noticed you, then went back to normal. "Oh. Hi."

"Hey, hae," he said, voice suddenly lighter. Too light.

The girl — hae — sidled up next to him, close enough that her elbow brushed his arm. "You disappeared after class," she said, flicking her ponytail over one shoulder. "I was gonna ask if you wanted to grab a drink before our next class." Her gaze slid to you, "Unless you're busy."

You clenched your teeth so hard your jaw ached. Chan shifted his weight, "Nah, just catching up with—" He gestured vaguely at you, and the omission stung more than it should have.

Not his girlfriend. Not a friend. Not even a name worth mentioning.

hae’s smile widened. "Cool." She hooked a finger through Chan’s belt loop — his fucking belt loop — and tugged. "Let’s go. You still owe me notes from Tuesday."

You watched them walk away. Your nails dug into your palms, but you forced your face into something neutral, something unbothered. You were fine. This was fine.

By midnight, the anger had curdled into something hotter, something restless under your skin. You were halfway through a half assed attempt at studying when your phone buzzed

u up?

you stared at it before typing back,

yea

his reply came immediately

dorm's empty, come over?

~

Chan was already shirtless when he opened the door, hair mussed like he’d been running his hands through it. His grin was lazy, familiar. “Hey.”

You didn’t answer. Just stepped inside and let the door click shut behind you.

It was fast, no pretense of tenderness tonight. His hands dug into your hips, your back hitting the wall before you could make it to his bedroom.

You wrapped your arms around him, trailing kisses down his neck, “damn, missed you too,” he snickered.

~

After, tangled in his sheets. again. you stared at the ceiling. again. Chan sprawled beside you, one arm thrown over his eyes, chest still rising too fast. again. The silence was sticky with everything you weren’t saying.

“So,” you said finally, voice too loud in the dark. “hae.”

Chan stiffened. His arm slid away from his face, but he didn’t look at you. “What about her?”

You rolled onto your side, propping yourself up on one elbow. “You let her drag you away by your belt loop like some fucking lapdog.”

A muscle twitched in his jaw. “We study together. It’s not a big deal.”

“Sure.” You laughed, “And I’m just some girl you fuck when you’re bored.”

Chan sat up suddenly, sheets pooling at his waist. “That’s not what this is.”

“Then what is it?” You kept your voice steady, even as your pulse hammered in your throat. “Because, as it seems, we’re not serious. You made that real clear today.”

“You’re pissed because I walked away with hae?”

“I’m pissed because you let her drag you away.” You fully sat up now, looking at him next to you as you tried real hard to hold your tears back.

“You didn’t even introduce me. Just ‘catching up with—’ like I’m some random you bumped into.”

“Oh, so now we’re doing introductions? What, you want me to tell people you’re my girlfriend?” he regret the words right as they spilled from his mouth, and you looked back it him in disbelief.

The word hung between you. before you decided to swing your legs off the bed, reaching for your clothes on the floor. The fabric was still warm from his hands. You yanked your shirt over your head.

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

You didn’t wait for him to reply. The floor was cold under your bare feet as you stepped into your jeans, yanking them up. Chan didn’t move, he might have wanted to, but he didn't.

His silence was worse than anything he could’ve said — proof that he’d let you walk away a hundred times before and wouldn’t stop you now.

Your bra was somewhere near his dresser, but you didn’t bother hunting for it. Just tugged your sweater on over your t-shirt. Chan’s fingers twitched like he wanted to reach for you, but he stayed put, jaw clenched tight.

“You’re really leaving?” he asked, like he couldn’t believe you’d actually go through with it.

You scooped your shoes off the floor without answering. The laces dragged as you shoved your feet into them, not bothering to tie them.

The doorknob was cool under your palm, and for half a second, you hesitated — stupid, pathetic hope curling in your chest. But there was no sound of footsteps behind you, no hand on your wrist pulling you back. Just silence.

you twisted the doorknob, letting the door slam behind you as you left.

~

The week passed in a blur, your textbooks spread across your desk. You aced the rest of your midterms — probably because Chan wasn’t in your bed, or your head, or your vagina every other night.

The irony wasn’t lost on you. Still, your fingers hovered over his contact in your phone more times than you’d admit, thumb almost brushing the call button before you’d snap it shut and toss it onto your pillow.

The fifth time your roommate, yunjin, caught you staring blankly at the same page of your psychology textbook for forty minutes, she ripped the book from your hands and slammed it shut.

“Nope,” she declared, tossing it onto your bed where it landed with a thud. “We’re done here.”

You blinked up at her, your brain still foggy from three nights of fitful sleep, “What?”

“You,” Yunjin said, grabbing your wrist “are going to a party.” She yanked you upright with surprising strength for someone who subsisted entirely on instant ramen.

“And before you argue — no, you don’t have a choice. I’ve watched you mope around this room like a victorian widow for a week now. It’s pathetic.”

You opened your mouth to protest, but Yunjin was already rifling through your closet. She tossed a sparkly cropped black top at your face, followed by jeans so tight you’d have to lie down to zip them.

“Put these on,” she ordered, then paused, eyeing your unwashed hair with disdain. “Actually, shower first.”

The hot water did nothing to loosen the knot in your chest, but the steam cleared your head enough to remember how to function like a human being.

By the time you emerged, Yunjin had laid out your makeup on the desk, textbooks gathered and thrown somewhere, “Sit,” she commanded. and you sat there with your hair still in a towel while she did your makeup.

“You’re being weirdly intense about this,” you muttered as she swiped blush across your cheeks.

Yunjin didn’t pause. “Someone has to be. You’ve been acting like your life ended because one idiot boy can’t figure out his feelings.”

She grabbed your chin, tilting your face toward the light to inspect her work. “News flash, the world is full of idiot boys. Tonight, we’re going to remind you that you don’t need any of them.”

~

The party hummed with the kind of manic energy unique to college students who'd just survived midterms — music too loud, sticky floors, red cups getting passed around.

You let Yunjin steer you through the crush of bodies, her grip on your wrist unyielding as she carved a path toward the kitchen.

The scent of cheap vodka and sweat hung thick in the air, and you focused on that instead of the way your pulse jumped when you spotted Chan across the room, leaned against a wall with some guy friend of his.

He hadn't seen you yet. His head was tipped back in laughter, the familiar curve of his throat exposed under the dim overhead light.

Sakura spotted you first, her face lighting up like a flare in the dark. "Oh my god, there you are," she crowed, reaching across the kitchen island to snag your wrist then pull you in a hug. Her fingers were sticky with punch, but you didn't pull away as she dragged you into their orbit.

chae was perched on the counter beside her, legs swinging lazily as she sipped something pink from a plastic cup. The familiar sight of them loosened something tight in your chest.

"You look like shit," chae announced cheerfully, kicking your hip lightly with the toe of her boot. The bluntness made you laugh. It was the kind of honesty only she could get away with, delivered with charm that it felt like affection.

"Thanks," you deadpanned, stealing her drink for a sip. "Midterms."

Chae wrinkled her nose. "Ugh, don't remind me. I had to bribe my TA just to look at my paper."

She leaned in conspiratorially, her breath warm against your ear. "Also, Yunjin texted us. We're under strict orders to distract you tonight." Her fingers made air quotes around the word, nails glittering under the kitchen's light.

The conversation flowed, uncomplicated for once, the kind of chatter that didn’t require thinking.

You leaned into the counter, letting their voices wash over you, the tension in your shoulders easing for the first time in days.

It was almost enough to make you forget the way Chan’s gaze had flickered toward the kitchen twice already.

Then mingyu stumbled into you, his elbow knocking your ribs as he reached past you for the vodka.

you recognized him, he's someone from chan's obnoxiously big circle of frat guys.

"Shit—sorry," he mumbled, blinking at you with the bleary focus of someone three drinks deep. His face lit up in recognition. "Oh hey! You’re—" He pointed at you, brow furrowing. "Chan’s girl, right?"

The words hit like a bullet. Sakura’s cup paused halfway to her lips. Chae’s eyes widened, darting between you and where Chan was now very much not looking in your direction.

You forced a laugh, "Not even close."

mingyu blinked at your response, then shrugged. "Cool, cool." He leaned against the counter beside you, close enough that his shoulder brushed yours.

"So what do you go by, then?"

"Just my name works fine,"

He was easy to talk to in a way, no loaded silences. Just easy smiles and stupid jokes. It was casual. Nice.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Chan stiffen. His drink hovered halfway to his lips, frozen mid sip as mingyu leaned in to whisper something in your ear, his hand settling lightly on your waist to steady himself.

The music pulsed, loud enough to drown out whatever nonsense mingyu was murmuring, but you laughed anyway.

Chan’s cup hit the counter with a sharp crack. His jaw was tight, fingers flexing at his sides like he was physically restraining himself from crossing the room.

You met his gaze across the sea of bodies, holding it for a few seconds.

mingyu followed your line of sight and snorted. "Damn. If looks could kill." He didn’t move his hand, though. "You sure you’re not together?"

You took a slow sip of your drink, the sweetness cloying on your tongue. "just play along."

Chan pushed off the wall abruptly, shouldering through the crowd toward the backyard. The screen door slammed behind him with enough force to rattle the frame. You exhaled.

mingyu’s thumb stroked absently over your hipbone. "You okay?"

"Fine," you lied.

chae, after watching the entire scene, slid off the counter with a sigh. "I’m gonna go see where Yunjin wandered off to," She paused, squeezing your shoulder. "we'll be back, okay? Don’t do anything stupid."

sakura sighed, "Too late for that." But she followed chae anyway, leaving you alone with mingyu and the ghost of Chan’s stare still burning against your skin.

mingyu’s laugh was low as he leaned in. "So, not Chan’s girl, that means you're free to dance?"

You hesitated, then nodding. "Yeah. Let’s dance."

some time passed. you let him spin you around, laughed at his jokes. It was easy, too easy, to pretend you weren’t counting the minutes since Chan stormed outside.

You were mid sip of some sickly sweet concoction mingyu had shoved into your hands when the crowd parted like a curtain, and chan emerged from the middle.

His gaze locked onto mingyu’s fingers curled around your waist, and something dark flickered behind his eyes.

"Can I talk to you?" he asked, but it was not really a request.

mingyu tried to step in, "Hey, man—" but it didn't really work.

"Alone," Chan snapped.

You tilted your head, smiled, "We’re busy."

Chan’s jaw twitched. He stepped closer, his voice dropping low, "Five minutes. That’s all I’m asking."

You hesitated, long enough to watch his throat bob, before sighing. "Fine." Turning to mingyu, "I’ll be back."

"Take your time."

Chan didn’t wait. He grabbed your wrist and pushed through the crowd, his grip firm on your wrist.

he took you to an empty room upstairs, shutting the door behind him. He exhaled sharply, raking his free hand through his hair. "What the fuck was that?"

You yanked your arm free, "Dancing? Pretty sure you’re familiar with the concept.

Chan’s laugh was jagged. "With mingyu?" He stepped closer, crowding you against the wall. but you held your ground, tilting your chin up. "You’re really gonna play this game?"

"We’re not serious," you mimicked, throwing his words right back at him. "That’s what you said, right? Or did your 'study buddy' blow your brain too?"

His hands flexed at his sides. For a heartbeat, you thought he might walk away, he always did, but then he moved, one palm slammed against the wall by your head while the other gripped your hip, fingers pressing into the same spot mingyu had touched minutes ago.

"You think I don’t see what you’re doing?"

You swallowed hard. "Enlighten me."

"Bullshit revenge act." of course, he read right through you. "You wanted me to watch."

You arched a brow. "And if I did?"

"Then mission fucking accomplished."

The party noise faded to a dull roar, drowned out by the rush of blood in your ears. Chan’s chest heaved inches from yours, his breath warm and uneven against your lips.

"You’re such a hypocrite," you hissed, "You don’t get to act jealous when you—"

Chan’s mouth crashed into yours before you could finish, clacking in a kiss that was more teeth and tongue than anything. His free hand tangled in your hair, tilting your head back to deepen the angle. It was messy, desperate, fuelled with all the pent up anger you suppressed all these days.

When he finally pulled away, his lips were swollen, pupils blown wide. "I don’t want him touching you," he ground out, thumb swiping roughly at the smudged gloss on your chin. "Ever."

"You don’t get to decide that."

His grip tightened, fingers pressing into the soft skin just above your waistband. "Watch me."

Chan’s mouth was on yours again before you could protest, his teeth scraping your lower lip in a way that sent a jolt straight to your core. You arched into him, nails digging into the fabric of his tank top as he crowded you back against the wall, his thigh slotting between yours with bruising pressure.

"Fuck you," you gasped against his mouth, but your hips rolled against him on instinct, chasing the friction.

"oh I will," he growled, hands sliding under your top, his palms were rough against your ribs, thumbs brushing the undersides of your breasts as he yanked the fabric up.

The cool air hit your skin just as his mouth did — tongue swiping over your nipple, teeth following in a sharp bite that made you gasp.

"You’re such an asshole," you breathed, but your fingers twisted in his hair, holding him there.

he laughed against your skin, one hand already working the button of your jeans. He didn’t bother undoing it fully, just shoved the fabric down your thighs enough to slide his fingers past the waistband of your panties.

You were wet — had been since he dragged you up here — and his groan vibrated against your collarbone. "Fuck, you’re dripping," he muttered, dragging two fingers through your folds. "This what you wanted? Me losing my goddamn mind watching someone else's hands all over you?"

You keened when his fingers circled your clit, the pressure almost painful.

"You don’t own me," you managed, but the words dissolved into a whimper as he pushed two fingers inside without warning, curling them just right.

Chan’s breath hitched at the way you clenched around him. "Don’t I?" He worked you ruthlessly, his thumb pressing tight circles against your clit as his fingers fucked into you. "Tell me to stop, then."

any retort died in your throat when he twisted his wrist, fingers crooking, hitting that spot that made your knees buckle. "I—Fuck!" You bit down on your lower lip hard to try to conceal any sounds, but the moan tore free anyway as he sped up, his palm grinding against your clit with every thrust.

"You gonna come for me?" His voice was rough, laced with a challenge. "Or you still thinking about him?" The bastard punctuated the question with a sharp twist of his fingers, and you came with a choked cry, hips stuttering against his hand as he worked you through it, prolonging the pulses until your thighs shook.

Before you even caught your breath, Chan was on his knees, yanking your jeans the rest of the way down. He didn’t give you time to recover, just hooked your thighs over his shoulders and buried his face between your legs.

His tongue was flat and hot against your oversensitive clit, licking into you like he was starving. You writhed, but he held you firm, his fingers digging into your thighs as he sucked gently at your clit before lapping at you.

The pleasure coiled tight again. He hummed against you, the vibration sending sparks up your spine, and you arched off the wall with a gasp, your fingers pulling at his hair for purchase.

"Fuck—Chan," you choked out, throwing your head back against the wall, your eyes screwed shut.

He pulled back just enough to blow a cool stream of air over your wetness, watching the way you shuddered before diving back in with renewed hunger. His nose bumped your clit as he fucked his tongue inside you, savoring the way your hips jerked against his mouth.

You could feel the tension building again, tighter this time, intensefied, your thighs trembling where they bracketed his head.

"Look at me," he growled against your skin, his breath hot.

You forced your eyes open, looking down to meet his gaze through the messy tangle of your lashes. His lips were slick, his chin glistening. His tongue circled your clit lazily, once, twice, then flattened against it with firm pressure.

the sight alone made you cum again with a sob, your back bowing off the wall as your orgasm ripped through you, sharper than the first.

Chan didn't let up, his mouth working you through it until you were whimpering, oversensitive and raw, your hands fisting in his hair to tug him away. He relented only to press a filthy, open mouthed kiss to your inner thigh.

he rose from his knees, his mouth slick with you, before you could catch your breath, he crushed his lips to yours, messy, desperate, tasting yourself on his tongue.

his hands slid under your ass to lift you up effortlessly. The bed hit your back a second later, mattress springs creaking under the sudden weight as he climbed over you, caging you in with his body.

You arched under him, nails scraping down his back. "Too bad we’re not serious," you taunted, throwing his words back at him with the same smirk he used to give. "Right?"

"You drive me fucking insane," he gritted out, dragging his teeth down your throat. His hips grind against yours, the hard line of his cock pressing into your thigh through his pants.

"You know that? Every goddamn time—" His hand fumbled between you, yanking his zipper down with impatience. "Every time I see someone else’s hands on you, I want to—" The words dissolved into a growl as he shoved his pants down just enough to free himself, thick and flushed against your stomach.

Chan’s breath stuttered. He caught your wrists in one hand, pinning them above your head as he reached between your legs with the other, fingers dragging through your wetness.

"Shut up," he muttered, but there was no heat in it — just raw frustration as he lined himself up, the blunt head of his cock pressing against your entrance. "Just—fuck—just let me—"

You gasped as he pushed in, The stretch burned. He was bigger than you remembered, or maybe you’d just forgotten how he felt after days of pretending you didn’t care.

"Fuck," he groaned, hips stuttering as he bottomed out. "You’re—god—still so tight."

"Missed your ego, mostly."

your legs locked around his waist, pulling him deeper. The friction was maddening, the way he filled you so completely it stole your breath.

Chan’s laugh was ragged, his forehead dropping to yours as he rolled his hips in a slow, torturous grind. "You like that?" he murmured, voice thick with satisfaction when your nails dug into his shoulders. "Missed this, didn’t you?"

"and I missed you"

you let out a shaky sigh at that, his words never sounded this affectionate before.

"You don’t get to say shit like this after—"

Chan kissed you before you could finish, deep and desperate, his tongue sweeping into your mouth like he was chasing the taste of your anger.

"I know," he muttered, after he pulled away, "I’m a hypocrite. An asshole. Whatever you want to call me." His hips rolled again, "But i'm yours."

The words barely had time to register before Chan’s hips snapped forward, driving into you with a force that knocked the breath from your lungs.

The bedframe rattled against the wall with each thrust, the sound muffled by the distant thump of bass from the party downstairs.

“Tell me you’re mine, too” he demanded, but it was more like a plea.

The words slipped out before you could stop them—"Yours," you gasped, nails raking down his back as his hips stuttered against yours. "Only yours."

Chan groaned low in his throat, the sound vibrating against your collarbone where his teeth had marked you moments before. His hands slid under your thighs, hooking your legs over his elbows to drive deeper, and suddenly you were full in a way that made your vision blur at the edges.

"Say it again," he demanded, his voice rough with something that wasn't just lust — something desperate.

You arched under him, meeting each thrust with a roll of your hips that drew a strangled moan from his lips. "Yours!" you repeated, louder, eyes rolling back when he hit that spot that made your toes curl.

"You take me so well," he murmured against your sweat slick skin, his lips brushing the shell of your ear. "Always so perfect for me, fuck—" His hips snapped forward, the angle shifting just enough to drag a whimper from your throat. "Look at you. Mine."

The possessiveness in his voice sent a jolt straight to your core, the heat coiling tighter with every filthy word.

His thumb trailed up to your clit, circling roughly as his pace grew frantic. "Come with me," he ordered, his voice wrecked. "Let me feel it—god, please—" he begged.

You shattered with a cry, your back bowing off the mattress as the pleasure crashed over you in waves.

Chan followed with a groan, his hips stuttering as he spilled deep inside you, his forehead pressed to yours as he rode out the aftershocks.

For a long moment, the only sound was your ragged breathing and the distant thump of bass from below. Chan's weight slumped against you, warm and familiar, his lips brushing your temple in a kiss so tender it made your chest ache.

He exhaled sharply, rolling off you to collapse onto his back beside you. His arm flung over his eyes.

The bed creaked as you turned onto your side, studying the sharp line of his jaw, the way his throat worked as he swallowed. "I think," you said slowly, tracing a finger down his sweat damp chest, "i think you just proved a point."

"mmm, and what point would that be?"

"That you're an idiot," you said simply.

His arm slid away from his face, revealing dark eyes gone soft at the edges. "Yeah," he admitted quietly. His fingers found yours, threading through them, "But now I'm your idiot now."

"Yeah," you agreed softly. "You are."

a/n: yes I borrowed hae's character from @starlostjisung 's exchange series (I hope u don't mind queen I couldn't think of anyone..), notice how she's a bitch in both universes 💔💔