#queue semi-hiatus

Pairing:Jeon Jeongguk / Reader.

Genre:Fluff / Humour.

Summary: Today is supposed to be a peaceful day off, but when you find a pair of hands sticking out from underneath your car, it becomes all the more interesting.

Count:2,400+ words.

Note: Adapted from my old story of the same name. Not much has changed, I just liked this piece and wished to repost it!

A day off is well needed after six shifts straight, alongside a whole lot of homework from lectures that have kept you up until the late hours of the evening. Or more so, into the earliest minutes of the morning. So when you notice that your Thursday is completely free of absolutely anything at all, the sight of the blank space on your calendar nearly brings a tear to your eye, and you decide it can be the perfect twenty-four hours to treat yourself, to at long last, kick back and relax. 

And what a lovely day it has been so far! You sleep in without any concern of an alarm, briefly waking only to roll over and drape yourself back into your sheets, welcoming another hour and a half of dreams. The sound of your roommate slamming the front door on her way out to one of her own tutorials has you decidedly getting up, taking your time to make toast, switching the kettle on to boil until you open the coffee jar and realise the dreaded fact that less than half a teaspoon of grains is found stuck to the bottom.

But no, nothing can ruin this day. So you butter your toast and shower, adorn your figure in a lovely, floral summer dress that you have not yet had the chance to wear, sauntering out the front door and into the student parking where your compact little car is blinking its lights in welcome as it is unlocked. You could have walked down to the cafe, less than a few blocks away, but you decide that once you retrieve your coffee, you should go for a drive down to the oceanside. Barely seven minutes has passed by the time you are zipping into a conveniently open parking bay on the street, directly parallel to the cafe, and you breeze into the atmosphere of coffee beans and warmed pastries, waiting in line with patience, no qualms to be anywhere else, using the opportunity to search up maps and scenic routes on your mobile.

The coffee is delightful, scalding hot when it reaches your tongue, but you cannot bring yourself to mind. Clutching at your cup of the roast, you hurry back across the street to your car, unlocking it with the button on your keys and eagerly about to jump into the driver seat with the interesting route you had discovered ready on your cell screen, until–

“Wait!”

The abruptness of the shout has you leaping back with a shriek, butterfingers allowing the biodegradable cup of coffee to clatter down onto the asphalt, the lid instantly popping off and leaking the steaming liquid across the bitumen. The sight is practically unbearable to witness, a moan of agony whimpering from your lips as you watch the rivulets of caramel brown spread in all directions, and then, you are seeing the pair of broad palms and slender fingers that are sticking out from beneath your car. It almost appears as though a dead body has been dragged underneath the vehicle, if it were not for the way that they defensively gesture, causing you to yelp and jump all over again.

“Oh shit, sorry to startle you!” The low voice travels from your toes and up your calves, curving around the shell of your ear and encouraging you, after a moment of hesitancy, to slowly bend and peer beneath the idle vehicle, avoiding the pool of caffeine that is already beginning to dry beneath the sunlight.

There, with his palms facing out to you in surrender, is a boy unfamiliar to your sight, though a delightful one in appearance at that. His hair is tousled dark chocolate, wide eyes akin a deer, rosy lips parted in surprise or awe, you are not entirely sure until they are suddenly spreading into a grin of pearly white bunny teeth at the very sight of you. He is very long too, the soles of his feet almost poking out at the rear to bask in the glorious sunlight, the remainder of his lithe limbs all bunched up, folded origami. A beautiful stranger, lying within the shadows, almost completely pressed against the engine of your car.

“What are you doing?” Is all you can muster, gaping with the remnants of the shock he had instilled in electricity sparking beneath your skin with his obtuse shout. Or possibly, because he is so handsome that you wish to shake the hands of his parents.

“Hiding,” the boy responds in an indifferent tone that is more suited to say just buying the newspaperorthe weather is nice today. You eye him from the peculiar angle, he horizontal and you not quite so until suddenly there are loud shouts in the distance and his face drains of its muted pink colour, a sheet of white casting over instead. “Quick, get under the car.”

You blanch at him before tilting your chin upward to where the commotion is arising. Two boys, who appear to be of similar age to the one taking refuge beneath your Hyundai, are hollering a name that you can barely make out coherently, assumedly belonging to the firm palms that are wrapping urgently around your ankles and– Hey, hold on!

“Jesus, just please get under the car!” The boy urges you, his voice strained and a little irate and although you do not wish to get your nice summer dress dirty, you find yourself completely yielding to this anonymous being. Within seconds, you are almost completely beneath the vehicle, but apparently your movements are not fast enough because his arm is looping as best it can in such a confined space around your waist, dragging you into his chest as the sound of four feet go thumping past, a trail of taunting laughter following in their wake.

“Ow,” you moan at the gravel grazes your elbows, the side of your thigh, pulling a face of distaste down at the already grimy material of your attire before you flit your eyes back up to the ones of the boy, unbelievably close. His arm is still firm around your waist, pressed near uncomfortably between the metal and your flesh.

“Sorry,” his apology feels genuine although the grin that it is whispered around. “Also, hello, I’m Jeongguk.”

“Y/N,” you breathe, disturbing a few loose hairs around your face and the boy now named Jeongguk watches them dance vivaciously against the flushed roses of your cheeks. His smile deepens, you pink further. “May I ask, other than the obvious, why on earth you are hiding beneath my car?”

Jeongguk sniffs. “Playing Manhunt with those two idiots who just ran by.”

“You made me spill my coffee,” you enunciate the words very slowly, “over a sillygame?”

“Well, how about this,” Jeongguk winces as he tries to draw his arm from around your waist, so you momentarily lay on your back for moveable space to be accommodated. Free, free, finally free, he wriggles and writhes until he can get his hand into the back pocket of his jeans, retrieving a small leather wallet. “I will take you out on a date, my treat.”

Choking on the limited availability of clean air, you cough at the complete bluntness, the sheer and utter confidence of this boy that appears to roll off him in tidal waves, and you are getting dragged out into its sea. “A d-date? You only just found out my name!”

“So? You willingly crawled under your car to lay with some guy who could have been a downright creep,” Jeongguk points out. The damn bastard has a point. “Plus, I like your freckles. You have ticked all the right boxes so far.”

Huffing, you watch him fiddle through the tiny plastic sleeves of his wallet. “The creep part is still valid until you prove me otherwise.”

“That’s cool, I can prove that wrong quickly,” he is grinning to himself, finally retrieving a perfectly cut white card and pressing it into your palm. “So, wanna make out?”

“See? You are doing a marvelous job of proving the creep part correct already.” You sigh, faux disappointed, staring down at the block letters and numbers that are inked in black on the paper. “Seriously? Is this a business card?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“You look about eighteen.”

“Ouch, low blow.”

“Fine. Tell me why, you who is older than he appears, has a business card?”

Jeongguk continues to smile. Gee, he does that a lot, but you sure are not complaining. You want to see it across flickering campfires and reflected in bathroom mirrors and among tufts of white bedsheets. “To give to pretty girls like you while I am hiding underneath their cars.”

“You are absolutely enthralling,” you comment, a tentative smile itching at the corners of your lips while you tuck the card tightly into your palm where, later, you will discover how the ink has bled into the lines of your skin. “How long must we lay beneath here?”

“Until we have told each other our life stories,” Jeongguk waggles his eyebrows and you bark out a short laugh, which he believes sounds alike to wind chimes. “They will be running back past here any minute. So once they return and realise that I have vanished like the Houdini himself, we can get out.”

Your legs are beginning to ache and so you stretch them out, rolling the joints of your ankles. “Well then, you may as well tell me the life story.”

“Jeon Jeongguk, as you know, twenty years old–“ He ignores the pointed look that you gave him of see, I was not far off– “I study music at The Institute of The Arts. I grew up with nice parents, I spend my days singing to the rooftops and wooing girls beneath cars into kissing me. Seriously, your lips are gorgeous, entertain the idea at least.”

The hope that glances through his eyes at your mischievous smile has your lips tilting higher. He is a human-sized puppy, eager for attention, and you would be a complete liar to say that you do not want to kiss the life out of this boyishly handsome stranger. “Fine. But maybe on our date instead. You have grease on your lips.”

“Aha! So you will call me!” Jeongguk boasts in triumph, wiping the back of his hand against the nonexistent marks on his mouth. “I’m glad. Anyhow, life story, come on.”

You drum your nails against the bitumen and he watches the movement with piqued interest. “Y/N, same age. I study literature at a quaint little university and work in a bookstore just up the avenue. My parents are also rather lovely, and I spend my days drinking way too much coffee, but this is the first time that I have spilled aforementioned precious liquid to then be dragged beneath my very own car by somekid–“

“I am twenty years old.”

“– Who has thus, ruined my pretty dress and, potentially, my perfect day off.”

Jeongguk skims his eyes down your figure then, gaze landing upon the exposed expanse of your thigh where the cotton has been hitched up, the skin smooth, the face of a pearl. “Indeed, it is very nice.”

The way that you flush and fluster fuchsia pink has him grinning that sweet smile all over again, watching your fingers grapple at the dirtied cotton and hide your limbs beneath once more. You are about to make a comment, something along the lines of pervert, though there is suddenly the very distinct sound of gravel crunching beneath the soles of feet and Jeongguk is looking rather frightened. His eyes are saucers of pitch black galaxies.

“Jeonggukie!”

The voice that sings out is high, musical, yet entirely taunting. Gooseflesh creeps up your own spine at the way it slithers beneath the car in a threat. The boy before you starts to kick, scramble, inching closer to your body in the way that he flounders like a fish gasping upon land, and then he is suddenly yanked down to the height of your breasts by hands that you cannot see.

“Oh god,” Jeongguk panics, grappling onto your hips while you lace your fingers around his wrists, but the hands wound around his ankles are too strong and he is being dragged far, far away. “Oh god, oh god, they have got me.” And then, much louder for his two friends to hear. “Ow fuck! Watch it!”

“M-My palms are too sweaty!” He is slipping out of your grasp, and the way that he is being dragged is beginning to pull at you too, making you bend into a rather painful position that has you yelping and releasing him entirely. Jeongguk spits another string of curses behind him and then stares at you, wide-eyed and serious.

“I shall miss you, recent lover!” You call as though you are a woman watching her man set off on the seas, when in reality, he is just being dragged out from beneath your car. The preparation to sprint like a gazelle once he is completely out in the open is evident in his eyes.

“Tell our children I love them!” Jeongguk calls back and you burst into a fit of laughter. “Save us that kiss!”

He smiles with the radiance of sunlight at the way the humour of the situation envelops you. “Of course!”

As soon as his body has entirely emerged from beneath the car, you can hear the briefest of struggles before there is a harsh grunt, and then the sound of feet propelling away at a speed you certainly cannot imagine. The two men stand softly swearing at one another at the rear of your vehicle for a moment until they were also taking off, groaning something about how that damn kid has got some nerve.

When you roll to shimmy yourself out from beneath the car, you notice the tiny puddle of coffee has completely dried up in the bitumen by the golden sun. The outline is explosive, a miniature bomb that had been set off the moment that his voice called, hands outstretched and helpless, begging at your ankles until you decided to lean down and see the boy for yourself.

Remembering the way Jeongguk had stared at you like an unsure, yet excited child, how he had spoken so confidently and promised coffee and clearly much, much more once you thought to call, you decide that maybe your perfect day has not been ruined at all. Anyone who receives the cell phone number of an attractive stranger with a delightful personality to match must be utterly mad to call such a day anything but absolutely brilliant.

Pairing:Reader / Jeon Jeongguk.

Genre:Soulmate!AU where soulmates are drawn to one another by the infliction of physical touch, whether it be pain or pleasure. But it is only initiated once the two people somewhat interact.

Count:7,802 words.

Warnings:So much fluff I am seriously cringing. Pain and puking warning. Foreplay smut. All with a sprinkle of angst. Dinner is served.

Jeongguk is not used to waking up in his own bed with another laying beside him, but he certainly thinks he can get used to it.

She is already awake, sitting up with crossed legs, bent over her phone that she balances in one hand, her other used to prop her chin up on her knee. He wonders how she can appear so effortlessly gorgeous doing something that simple, his sweater swallowing her smaller frame, pooled in a sea of black cotton in her lap. Jeongguk stretches with his eyes screwed tightly shut, making a pleasant groan that cracks into something a little higher as a bone in his spine pops satisfyingly, and she perks up at the movement just in time for him to loop an arm around her waist and pull her back down into the duvet with a squeak. He presses his face into her hair, moaning while nuzzling deep into the strands, inhaling her delicious lavender shampoo.

“Good morning to you too, Jeon,” She murmurs, throwing a leg over his hip for leverage to pull herself closer. Her cellphone becomes lost somewhere in between them, her hands instead curling around the back of his neck, carding through his hair, massaging his scalp and he suddenly wishes to never leave this bed or her arms.

“Guhdmfning,” Jeongguk mumbles back into her hair, and she draws back so that she can see his still waking face, squinting against the golden light that cuts through the curtains and spills onto her body. With the tip of his index finger, he traces the lilac under of her eyes, only slightly puffy. “How are you feeling?”

“Better, mostly because you didn’t run for the hills this time,” She grins, and he hides his face in her neck again, ashamed of his past actions. She chuckles, combing his hair with light brushes of her delicate fingertips. “Aw, don’t be like that, Jeon. You know I’m only joking.”

“Well if it’s any compensation,” He replies, warm breath clouding on her throat, making the skin there rise into tiny mountains of buzzing nerves. “I’m liking this so far, waking up to you.”

“Ohgod,” She groans, releasing him then and covering her face dramatically. “What are we doing to each other? Why are we so damn cheesy? I swear, if we are like this for the rest of our lives, everyone will hate us. Make it stop.”

Jeongguk retreats from her neck at that, curling his fingers around her wrists and prying her palms away from her eyes, staring at her lips. “Make it stop?”

“Make it stop.”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely.”

She blinks a few times, only just regaining enough focus to discover his devilish grin, the dark glint in his eyes that has her heart flipping. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Then, he is cradling her jaw and kissing her.

It is no ordinary kiss, not feeling like it had in the past with numerous other girls who were not his destined. They were nice, sure, but it was nothing like this. It is the kind of kiss that shouts I have been waiting so long to do this again, that feels like fireworks setting off in his chest, sweet vanilla on his tongue in a taste that he can only ever associate with her. The sillage, the sharing of sensations makes it all the more intense, fire blazing beneath skin, lips tingling with the identical touch that has all rational thought dispelled. Her hesitation is brief before she is pleasantly relenting, resting her fingers on his throat while he slips his arms around her waist, hands travelling beneath the soft cotton of the sweater to rake up her spine, nails finding home in her shoulder blades as if he wishes to bury himself in her very skin. He belongs there, within her, a part of her. Every inch of her body shapes perfectly to his own, moulding together beneath golden light to form one sole entity of passion, connected in the invisible ties of sillage, in a blooming redamancy that has her parting her mouth, allowing him access to angle his chin just right so that he can kiss her in full, mind blowing potential. It is messy and beautiful, young love at its very finest, and neither of them can get enough of it.

“Sorry,” Jeongguk says with his teeth dragging her lower lip, melting at her sigh. “Morning breath.”

She only kisses him harder then, laving her tongue over his own. “I don’t mind.”

Jeongguk is already in love with her. He knows that more than anything, has never been so sure of something in his entire life.

“Mmf,” She mumbles, and he can feel her lips tilting up, a thigh nudging against his crotch. “Hello there.”

He is also entirely sure that he is hard as a fucking rock.

“Shit,” He groans, kissing her chin, down her jaw without lustful intent, simply doing so for the sheer pleasure of watching her wriggle with delight. “Sorry again.”

“It’s fine,” She giggles, shifting her leg away to rest back upon his hip, the halting of the potential intimacy only a fleeting loss because he realises who gives a damn when he simply gets to have her in his arms, when her toes are brushing at his ankle and she is smiling as if the sun exists within her veins, tucked between her teeth and spared only for him to see. Jeongguk kisses her, again, again, until she is the oxygen that he breathes, that he swallows up whole to trap within his lungs and perfuse through his bloodstream, becoming a sole being of gold that moves and sighs in the morning light among bedsheets swathed in luminescence until the sound of an alarm that he associates with waking up at ungodly hours (8:00AM) and forcing himself to do things that he would rather not be (such as studying for his future career) cuts through their little moment of heaven.

Jeongguk groans and ignores the jingling ring, continues to lap his tongue over her own, but then, even she is making an irritated noise and telling him to turn it the hell off. Obediently, he rolls over, an arm still snaked around her waist as if she will slither away while he is distracted, the other reaching for his mobile that hums in a repetitive vibration against the bedside table. Another groan of annoyance crawls up his throat at the notification that shines on the screen, the means of their separation.

“Do you have class?” She murmurs right by his ear, velvet rolling over his skin in calm waves, dragging him out to sea and back into the crook of her neck, a safe place. He kisses there, calls it home, before pulling back to look at her.

“Do you not?” He scrutinises with a small frown, picking a fallen eyelash from the sweep of her cheekbone. She grins, wicked.

“Nope, today is my day off.”

“Well aren’t you just lucky.”

“Lucky, because I have you.”

Jeongguk releases a combination of a moan and a scream, and she simultaneously shrieks at her own overboard expression of mealodramaticy, wholeheartedly embracing the way he rolls on top of her smaller frame and smothers her face with a pillow, knowing she deserves it. He quickly becomes bored with the method and resorts to tickling, digging his fingertips into her bare ribs and grinning wildly at the way she squirms beneath him, gasping between fits of laughter, until the sound of wood slamming against plaster has them both stilling completely, staring each other, panting.

“Who the fuck are you murdering– Oh, am I interrupting?”

Taehyung stands at door, a little pink in the cheeks at the fairly interesting sight of Jeongguk crowded over her figure, the pair of them relatively lacking in the clothing aspect of matters. Before Jeongguk can open his mouth to speak, she is propping herself up on wobbly elbows, tilting her head to see around his waist.

“Yes, you are. We were about to make sweet, romantic love.”

“Ugh, how gross,” Taehyung says with a roll of his eyes, yet his tone is fond, used to years of her mischief. Then, he is jabbing a finger at Jeongguk, who shrinks beneath the sudden glare. “Get your shit together, man. Coach wants us at the lecture hall in half an hour for some routine prep that I really do not want to be doing at–” Taehyung glances at his watch then, eyes widening in disgust at the time displayed on the face and then whirling on his heel to leave. “–  Seven-thirty in the fucking morning. Oh my god, this a damn crime!”

Jeongguk pouts once Taehyung slams the front door with make sure you use a goddamn condom and slumps forward so that she takes all of his weight, shaping his entire body to her own and sinking his teeth into her throat. She stretches her arms up high, joints crackling like crumbling embers, and then she curls her fingers into his hair.

“Come on, Jeon, you gotta get ready.”

“Dnhmft wahna leaf you.”

“Well, too bad,” She sighs, massaging his scalp. He purrs like a feline. “We can get lunch after, how does that sound?”

Jeongguk delicately kisses his way up her neck, down the fine line of her jaw before reaching her lips, where he presses one that is more languid, deep, the tip of his tongue separating the rosy seam of her mouth and she relents without question, opening up for him once more. He gazes at her through slits, and she looks ethereal, her lashes prettily fanning out, cheeks a salmon pink with the adoration she holds for the boy who smothers her with an amount of love that he never thought he could possibly muster for another being. He wonders if maybe that is simply the matter of being soulmates, capable of becoming almost instantly comfortable with them, fitting like two pieces of a puzzle, magnet bonds clicking together, no matter how much or how little you truly know about the other. Knowing that, with time, the other will gradually unravel, loosen up, spill secrets like black tea from smashed porcelain cups, cracks in the earth that open up and swallow the surface whole.

He is willing for her to drown him in an ocean of her worries, fears, all the while holding her heart up above the raging surface. He just hopes that she feels the same for him too.

Jeongguk pecks her cheeks, her nose, her lips once again. And when she smiles as if he is a brilliant star that she has plucked from navy skies, he stumbles in love over, and over.

“Lunch sounds great.”

It is easy to forget about Jaebum and the venom he spat onto your skin where it sizzled, festered in the flesh, when you are consumed by nothing but Jeongguk who cleanses your pores with his fingertips, his lips. For the two weeks after that one night of your tears drying on the cotton of his shirt, that one night of you kissing him through his dreams, that one morning of him kissing you with wide open eyes, you see him almost every day, whether it be for a few minutes on campus, or when you go to his place for Chinese takeout and movie marathons. The bond that you share is much alike to intimate friends, or teenage crushes, sharing private smiles, always bumping elbows and knees, lacing your fingers together when nobody is looking.

And you kiss. A lot.

That is difficult when you are trying to keep your soulmate status on the down-low from both of your friends. But you cannot help yourselves when it just feels sogood.

When Jeongguk holds up a menu at the restaurant you visit on the next Saturday evening and takes your lips for the kill, it feels like the drop on a rollercoaster ride, your heart in your throat and your skin prickling in the wind. When Jeongguk sees you briskly walking across campus with armfuls of fabric and dresses the Monday you both have morning lectures, he makes quick work to rush over and help you, using the fuss to land a kiss on your lips that feels like burying the stars in your bones for safekeeping. When Jeongguk insists that you both study together at the campus library on the second Thursday, you do not realise that he has followed you into the aisle of fashion design books until his fingers are skimming down your waist and his grin shapes against your own and he makes you feel more beautiful than literature.

It is easy to forget about Jaebum when Jeongguk chants mine, mine, mine into the curve of your ear, humming like a lullaby that threads through your very being and sings you to sleep.

It is not that you both do not wish to share with every man, woman and their dog that the two of you share a bond that elicits physical sensation, that strings your hearts together as eternal soulmates. But the term in itself, particularly at such a young age, can be enough to throw people off, make them turn their heads and pursue no further interest in forming any kind of connection, for it is widely believed that at the end of the day, your soulmate is the only one that you ever need. The both of you have watched it happen firsthand with Taehyung, but once they learn of the distance between himself and Jimin, they slowly warm up to him.

Mainly, having the soulmate tag attached to your backs screams off limits, which is considered especially peculiar for the two of you, who are not precisely known to keep promiscuity under tight reigns.

Joy, of course, who knows you from blood and bone, better than the back of her own hand, is the first to sniff something peculiar out. But no matter how much she pries, nails trying to peel back your skin to see the love that Jeongguk has buried beneath, you have managed to keep her wrists tied and her eyes averted.

So you thought, at least.

“Are you going to come to the game this weekend?” Joy asks, blowing on the nude pink polish that she has just applied to her nails. The both of you are sat at the dining table. You, with your design books open, a sketching pencil in hand, while she ignores her assignment that glares in accusing light-emitting diode from her laptop screen, opting for a manicure instead. She waggles her eyebrows. “Or are you going to be with your secret loveragain?”

Your ears lick with fire. “U-Uh, no. But not because of him. I have to finish my recyclable wear project.”

“Hmm,him?” She pursues, starting on her right hand. “Will I ever get to meet him? How dare you hide himfrom me for so long. We are best friends, are we not?”

Placing down your pencil, you pinch the bridge of your nose and groan. “It’s complicated, Joy. I promise you will get to meet him soon, but things are just– up in the air at the moment. We haven’t put a label on it, so we aren’t going public yet.”

“He’s your soulmate, isn’t he?”

At that, you swallow, dropping your hand from your face to find her staring at you with a knowing gaze. Her nails are completely lacquered, drumming against the dining table.

“Don’t look at me like that, you make it so obvious,” She shrugs, indifferent. But there is a grin colouring the corners of her lips. “You are always so mooney-eyed, and you practically leap onto your phone every time it rings. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you are not precisely the greatest romantic, you could only be swayed by someone that you are truly destined to be with.” Then, her voice softens, eyes averting to the nail polish bottle. “Besides, I heard you stopped seeing Jaebum.”

Your lips part into a circle of an oh, scratching at the nape of your neck, exhaling a huff of air. She is your best friend, you truly should tell her what happened, yet now you wonder if she already knows about the spiel of confession that occurred outside of the cafe two weeks ago, the tears that still shimmer in the cracks of the pavement. Anyone who looks close enough can see them there, frozen into shards of glass.

“The morning after the game, he will be coming over,” You finally say, avoiding the thought, picking up your pencil and scribbling distractedly in the corner of your design. A bunch of wildflowers scrawls in lead across the white paper, and like everything, they remind you of Jeongguk. Beautiful, blooming in throngs of brilliant colour. “You can meet him then. But for now, let’s just leave it as a surprise. Sound good?”

Joy hums her approval, leaning back on her chair, pearly white teeth shining with delight. “Okay, deal. But I swear to God, if it is somebody like that Jeon Jeongguk kid, prepare for me to disapprove. I don’t give a shit if he has a dick sent from the heavens, he is Satan at heart.”

You only bite your tongue and smile.

When the day of the game finally arrives, Jeongguk is an unstoppable ball of energy, bouncing from the walls with excitement, lifting you up by the waist and spinning you until the floors sway beneath your feet. The spicy scent of his passion punches through the atmosphere, fills every crevice of the room, drowning you while he organises his football wear into a duffel bag, leaving you slumped on the couch where you observe his rather lascivious attire of all black sweatpants and a loose muscle shirt. The corded muscle of his bare biceps shine with perspiration, hair pushed back from his eyes that roam to you every moment you are in view, instantly followed by a mind-blowing smile that makes your heart swoon, has you bewildered at how you got so damn lucky.

And although his alluring appearance, it is the memory of the last time you were at the football field that draws you up from the cushions, has you approaching him while his back is turned, pressing your lips against his spine and feeling the sensation lightly tingle in the same place on your own. Supportive cheers, an excruciating pain, fluorescent lights, and thin hospital mattresses all cloud your mind. Jeongguk turns around, curls you into him, skin smelling like salt and honey and his teeth gently nipping at the top of your ear.

“Guess what?” You murmur, hiding yourself beneath his chin, selfishly wishing for him to not leave you tonight and instead just hold you like this until your final breath.

Jeongguk cards his knuckles through your hair, his tone giving away the small frown that you can sense is creasing his brow. “What?”

“Joy invited me to the game tonight. I said no, of course, but then she guessed that my secret lover is in fact my soulmate.”

A silence too thick hangs between you, and when you swallow, it tastes bitter.

You are unsure why you are suddenly filled with a sense of dread, almost desperately wishing to see his face and decipher whether his expression weighs harder on the fight, or the flight, as if the matter of being publicly known as tied by destiny to you will have him hightailing out of your life. Without thought, you dig your nails into his sides like you are trying to keep his feet grounded before you, his wings of noncommittal tendencies bound to his shoulder blades.

Something blossoms in your chest at the thought of him leaving. Something that blooms delicate beige petals, rooting deep into the fibres of your being, flowering in precious beauty right where your heart hums its thumping tune of existence. And you know that you can never let it wilt, you can never let him abandon you.

At long last, Jeongguk sighs softly, a gust of air that disturbs the hair half fallen across your eyes, brushing it aside so he can look at you without any barrier. You ease at his gentle features that scream something far from escape.

“Promise me, you won’t go anywhere near the field,” He murmurs, pressing his forehead against your own, the proximity allowing you to see the concern that washes darkly through his usually bright irides. He is hiding something, you know, can tell in the way that his jaw stiffens, gaze hardens whenever the mention, the possibility, the occurrence of you being harmed is mentioned. It is tucked in the lines of his lips, behind his ears, in a past you know all too little about but trust with time, that he will tell.

Lapping your hands over his own, you stand on your toes to kiss him once, watching the worry drain away. “I promise.”

“Good,” He hums, a small smile beginning to pick at the corners of his lips in a soft shade of relief. “Do you want me to come over afterwards? We can hang out, watch that new season of Sense8 together and get fat on popcorn and cocoa.”

“Mm that sounds lovely,” You grin, running your palms down his chest, shivering at the defined plains of muscle that you can feel through the cotton, the sensation tingling over your own breasts, ribs, stomach. “Only if you wear this, though. You look simply mouthwatering in all black.”

Jeongguk growls like a lion, dropping his hands from your jaw to lift you up by the waist, spinning you around, and around, until laughter squeezes the air from your lungs and your worries ferris wheel onto the floorboards, slinking beneath the front door, away, far, far, away.

You just never knew they would be waiting for you on your own doorstep.

The field smells like fresh rain and earth, mud slick on his boots, caked into his gear and his grin. Adrenaline wildly sprints through his veins, a thrill that solely has the ability to sting at his limbs like a drug, though he is discovering with every new day that she is capable of eliciting such sensations from his nerves, too. The crowds are overflowing the bleachers, seas of red and white, already hollering until their voices break when the game still has a minute left before it starts. Taehyung is jumping on the balls of his feet, keeping his muscles warmer than the grin that splits his cheeks, noticing Jeongguk staring fondly, which encourages both him and Hoseok to grab the protective grate of the younger’s helmet and rattle his head about within until he grabs Taehyung by the torso and throws him off with maniacal laughter. And he is home, he is home.

But he worries about the girl of dresses, of pinpricked fingertips, of ruby red thread that she winds around his throat in a sole claim of mine.

“Let’s fucking do this!” Taehyung whoops, and Jeongguk for a moment wonders if he is still high on the four Monster cans he had throughout the night to finish his Computation Theory paper. The honey haired man looks as though he is about to fly off the surface of the Earth and pocket the stars for himself.

“Alright boys, let’s make Jeon’s return game worthwhile and murder the other bastards!” Coach snarls passionately, albeit taking it overboard as per usual, but Jeongguk and his teammates do not hesitate to retaliate with loud roars of encouragement. They all bump chests, butting helmets before they break into position.

But once the game starts, Jeongguk finds himself hesitating.

Worrying.

For the first two quarters, he cannot be rid of her eyes that hinted concern earlier in the afternoon, bright and afraid. They both know how strong their bond is, even if it has only been a little under three months, their connection is as clear as day and the sillage intensifies with every moment that they spend together. That knowledge throws him off constantly, becoming lighter on his feet whenever a figure comes barrelling in his direction, losing the ball without a fight on his behalf, lagging behind in a sprint so that Hoseok or Namjoon can take the pass, keeping him far from any potential blow that lands on his spine, shoulder, chest.

It would not be a bad thing if Jeongguk did not put his body in harms way for a living, a future.

It would not be a bad thing if there were only two ways to stop that, both options being too heartbreaking to even consider.

“Jeon, if you don’t get your shit together now, I’ll be taking you off! This is yourfucking comeback, kid, and you are floundering about out there like the ball has teeth!” Coach barks in the half quarter break, bright red in the face like tomatoes have been splattered on his skin. At this level of frustration, Jeongguk would not mind pegging a few at him, too.

Instead, he just gives a curt nod, ignores the sharp stare from Taehyung that he can feel between his shoulder blades. Inhale, exhale. Hold on, let it go.

He is far enough away. Everything will be okay.

So when the game starts again and the ball lands in his palms, a wall of flesh and muscle, clothed in the colours of the enemy, hurtling his way – he dispels her face from his mind. He pretends that he is living in the past, before her damp eyelashes blinking across his pillowcase in the shadows, before her skin bathed in orange sunlight and drying sea salt, before her scrutinising eyes that stare through a hospital curtain.

He lets go, and takes them head on.

It feels like hands lay on every surface of your body, nudging, squeezing, digging.

At first, you can handle it. Almost akin to a rough massage, you can still thread your sewing machine with ease, retrieving the pieces of baby pink silk and chiffon that you had torn from old prom dresses, hidden on a coatrack at the back of the local thrift store to be long forgotten, but no, no, they were absolutely perfect for the piece you have in mind. Your hands shake a little while you cut the material, a particularly firm bump on your shoulder muscle surprising you, so much, that you almost take the blade to your palm. At that, you make quick work of shaping the rest of the chiffon, leaving the silk for another day, another moment of perhaps cutting your fingers off instead because bodies that you cannot see are throwing themselves at a boy that you maybe, possibly love.

Nausea sweeps in when you feel a hard pressure on your gut, like knuckles breaking through the skin of your abdomen and clutching at whatever they can find within, twisting until you are stumbling over to the sink and the tea you just drank comes spilling back up. With quivering fingertips, you wash it down the drain, wiping at your mouth with a paper towel and taking a deep breath, releasing it’s okay, everything will be okay in your exhalation before padding back to the dining table where your sewing equipment observes your hunched form in harsh light.

But it is not. Definitely, most certainly not.

Altogether, you end up putting aside your assignment, opting to lay crumpled and defeated on the tiles of your bathroom, just waiting for that next nudge, hit, to send you surging over the edge once again. Though after a while, the nausea seems to simply take home in your stomach, not even requiring the disturbance of the sillage to trigger it, as if you suddenly came down with the flu that immediately takes to kicking your ass with every slight move.

The worries that you had abandoned back at Jeongguk’s apartment hastily come crawling back towards you, invading your every thought with their poisonous tongues, a constant chant of this is it, you knew it all along, love hurts. The flower that had unfurled its delicate petals over your heart earlier in the afternoon now shivers, unsure, unknowing if it is capable of taking such strain, if dealing with this is harder than having Jeongguk leave.

No. No you cannot think like that.

So you suck the poisons from your veins and spit them into the porcelain bowl that you kneel before, flushing them down into the sewerage where you hope such thoughts will fester and rot. Never to resurface again in their ugly, vile ways.

Placing your hand over your heart, the blossom within no longer shakes. But instead, has become flooded with a hopeful warmth.

It’s okay, everything will be okay.

They win, like they always do. 

Jeongguk, at first, thought the novelty would wear off after a while, but it never does, never ceasing to feel any less empowering, gratifying. He can never tire of the way his teammates celebrate with their feet floating above the ground, grins cutting through their cheeks, nor can he tire of the way the crowd quite literally howls in joy, so fiercely, that the earth beneath their boots rumbles with the cheers of support. It is that fact, never tiring from winning, which allows him to know that this is what he is good at, this is what he was born to do.

And he cannot wait to share that with her.

Jeongguk takes the stairs up to her floor two at a time, still pumped on the remnants of adrenaline that drove him to score the final twelve points, exhilarated by the notion that the faster he moves, the sooner he will get to press his nose into the rose scented flesh of her neck, can hear her voice of silk drape over his hearing. He almost barrels into her door, he is that eager to see it, urgently rapping his knuckles against the wood and bouncing on the balls of his feet while his heart rate continues to flutter like hummingbird wings, threatening to break through its bone cage of ribs.

When she answers the door, it is with a smile that is as brilliant as silver moonlight and has him melting into liquid joy. But it quickly slips to her feet, cowering between the panels of the floorboards as she turns on her heel and runs like he wears a murderous grin and holds a sharpened blade with her name engraved on the edge.

“Wha– Y/N, what’s wrong?” Jeongguk loses his excitement in an instant. He does not think to kick off his shoes, only tossing aside his duffel bag before going after her in long strides, just catching the end of her dinner disgorging into the toilet bowl. “Oh, jesus, baby.”

Jeongguk kneels down beside her, the girl who shivers, frail and weak with her knuckles whitening on the porcelain while she throws up again. He carefully sweeps her hair back from her face and holds it in a makeshift bun at the nape of her neck, rubbing soothing circles over her lower back and humming words of encouragement until she ceases to bring up any more. Shakily, she gets to her feet to flush the loo, eyes watering and cheeks flushed and he holds onto her elbows for balance, looking on with quiet concern as she washes her sweat dampened skin, swishing mouthwash through her teeth before spitting and then finally, finally bringing her attention to him. She smiles weakly, and his heart breaks, as if the answer is etched into the sad pull of her rosy lips, shining in the glassiness of her dimming gaze.

“It was me, wasn’t it?” Jeongguk barely whispers, his hands dropping from her sides, and he sees the alarm that immediately darts across her expression. He goes to reach for her again, but he cannot bring himself to do it. “You’re sick because of me. The fucking game, I knew it would happen, yet I–“

“Jeongguk, it’s fine,” She interrupts with a sigh, taking a small step closer, as if nearing too quickly will have him fleeing. Hesitantly, she curls her fingers into the cotton of his shirt, a hint of delight blooming in her eyes at the all black attire she had requested earlier in the day. “It was just a little bit of vomit, no dramas–“

“I still hurt you.”

And although his words, he is the one that looks most hurt with his drawn together eyebrows and the grimace that hangs tightly on his lips, truly disgusted with himself for thinking everything would be okay, for casting her from his thoughts, for letting go. Yet she sighs again, this time, her fingers opting to frame his jaw, bringing his chin down so that he can stare at her levelly. She seems to search for something in his eyes, but quickly gives up.

“Don’t blame yourself for this,” She says firmly, gaze determined. “We were both hurt, okay? We’re soulmates, we’re in this together. I can handle this, if I couldn’t, I would tell you.”

Though Jeongguk cannot shake it from his frame, the tense palms that weigh him down. “But–“

“No–“ She stands on her toes, kissing him, tasting like artificial mint. “– Buts.” When she kisses his taut mouth again, she grins. “If you are feeling so godawful, then you can make it up to me. How does that sound?”

This has his attention, already becoming malleable beneath her mouth, her touch, her calm voice that rolls waves of reassurance across his skin. Visibly and mentally relaxing, Jeongguk halfheartedly raises an eyebrow. “How so?”

“Instead of just hanging out–” And suddenly, she is blushing furiously, so much, that he is concerned her skin may be stained with roses forever. “– How about you stay the night? I kind of just want to go to bed, but I don’t want you to leave. It has been two weeks since we slept together.”

Jeongguk almost chokes on his answer, incapable of getting it out quick enough. “Yeah– Yeah, I would love that.”

So the both of them get ready for bed. He, staying in the bathroom to quickly shower the sweat of the game from his pores, and she, slinking back into her bedroom to change into her pyjamas and retrieve his bag from the living area. When he steps out into the shadows, bare chested, raven hair slicked back and damp, he finds her wrapped in the duvet like a burrito in a square pool of moonlight, watching with curious eyes and a mischievous smile, looking absolutely fucking adorable, in his personal opinion. Though before he can voice this, there is a click outside of the room, followed by a thumpand something that sounds like duck,which Jeongguk automatically assumes was fuck.

“Joy,” She peeps without question, unmoving.

Jeongguk stares at the entrance, the thin sliver of living room light that outlines the door from the opposite side. “Should I go out and introduce myself?”

“Save it for tomorrow. Unless you wish to have her stick thumbtacks beneath your nails while demanding questions about your reputation right now.”

Jeongguk, at that, fakes contemplation. “That seems tempting, but you are looking awfully warm, so I may just join you instead.”

The bed creaks, sheets shifting until he is comfortably tucked in beside her warmth. But he keeps an arm of distance between them, as if touching her after all that she has endured tonight will have her shattering like glass, crystal fragments that glimmer on his fingertips. Though in the light of the moon that spills through the parted curtains, her pout is highly noticeable.

“Why are you so far away?” She whines, pressing her toes onto the tops of his, and she shivers at how cold they are.

Jeongguk simply quirks his lip. “I’m right here.”

“Come closer,” She mumbles, but she is the one who moves, the end of her sentence pulling her across the mattress and right into his awaiting arms that curl in hesitancy around her, only holding tighter once she firmly entwines her legs with his and digs her teeth into his neck out of defiance. He chuckles an ouch into her hair, inhaling the lavender that he adores, her breath warming on his throat.

Once she deems herself comfortable, she tilts her head back, just enough so that a mere inch separates their lips, a yearning to suddenly close the distance overwhelming his every thought. When she smiles, it is no different to any other time, like soaring through starlit skies, pockets full of cosmic dust, the ethereal silver beauty that slips through her irides.

“We fit so nicely together, don’t we?” She murmurs, blinking slowly, and the words nestle themselves in the corners of his mouth, on the tip of his tongue, waiting for his response.

Jeongguk touches his nose to her own, not closing his eyes just yet because she always look so beautiful the second that their lips make love. “We do, we do.”

When they connect in warm, rosy flesh, it is as if nothing could ever go wrong. That no matter what obstacles they face, what hardships they must conquer, they will always get through it together and reach the splendorous end with golden sunlight woven through their marrow and love bleeding from their fingertips.

Jeongguk caresses her, holds her, like they never once fucked, like he never had his cock inside of her and enacted the greatest moment of his life. Her skin is newfound land, marked with fingers of the past that were too intoxicated to think twice, to enjoy and devour the expanses of smooth flesh. But now, he has all the time in the world to do that. Every single day, every waking second. Yet he still cannot get enough of her. Not even when his hands hunt beneath her big sweater and fit into the lines of her ribs, sweep over her perked, pretty nipples. Not even when his lips reach her throat and she is gasping into the shell of his ear, blooming meadows of lilac and blue on the delicate skin while his palms smooth down her sides. Not even when he reaches the hem of her underwear, thumbs digging beneath the elastic, pressing firmly into her hipbones with his knee wedging between her thighs in a request, a promise.

“Do you want me to make you feel better?” Jeongguk hums, and she gazes wickedly when his fingertips graze beneath her panties, cupping at wet warmth. She shudders, a small nod.

“Do your worst, Jeon.”

Though to her slight surprise, he plants a quick peck upon her lips before throwing the covers off, revealing their entangled bodies that shimmer in silver moonlight. His fingers are dripping when he pulls them from her underwear, grabbing at the elastic and dragging them completely down her legs until they are lost within the sheets. Jeongguk positions himself between her thighs, smiling rather cutely up at her while her eyes glass over with desire, and then flicking his eyes down to her pink, glistening centre.

“Jesus, you are beautiful,” He sighs, staring lovingly at her cunt, holding her firmly still with his arms curled around her thighs when she tries to shut her knees, shy away. “Don’t. Let me adore what is mine.”

When he dips his mouth down and licks a clean line up her slit, she hisses, and he too, moans a little, feeling a pleasant tingle rush up his cock. The sillage, what a beautiful thing, he muses to himself.

Jeongguk keeps his gaze on her while he continues, using two fingers to part her and then press the flat of his tongue to her wet core, adoring the taste of her on the back of his throat, the sound of her soft whine sending shivers down his spine. He cannot tell what is more beautiful, how warm she is against his mouth that is quick to glisten with her arousal, the way it quivers with every stroke, or the blissful, almost strained look on her face that has her cheeks flushed with roses, lips parted and eyelashes drooping low over the eyes that hold his entire world together. He digs his nails into her thighs, dips the tip of his tongue slightly into her entrance, watches intently at the way her knuckles clench and burst with white bone.

“F-Fuck, oh my god, can you not?” She finally squeaks, her foot shoving at his shoulder and he grins like a fox, biting the soft, smooth skin of her inner thigh out of retaliation before soothing his tongue over it. She whimpers a little at that, and Jeongguk returns his mouth to her centre, the hot air of his exhalations making her writhe. “I swear, you could make me come in seconds looking at me like that. You wouldn’t even have to touch me.”

Jeongguk licks gently at her clit, delighting in her sharp inhale of breath. “Can we try that?”

“No.”

“Baby.”

“Don’tbaby, me.”

With a chuckle, Jeongguk murmurs a fine and continues with his ministrations, easing a finger inside that has her gasping an oh. His own cock is hard and heavy against the mattress that he ever so lightly rolls his hips into, trying not to become too distracted by his own pleasure and wishing to focus solely on her. In his hands, she is beautiful, flustered with her rosy cheeks, shining with a thin layer of sweat as he swirls his tongue softly around the nub of nerves, pressing another finger inside of her heat that has her spine arching, chest heaving in short, lovely breaths that time perfectly with every thrust. He dines on her like a fine delicacy, lips now completely glossed with her arousal, drawing out her climax with his knuckles that curl within her tight walls until her whole body is shaking, a tiny earthquake shattering the bones beneath her skin.

She comes with a gorgeous moan onto his tongue, and while he laps her up, he feels his own load blow in his underwear with a cringe. Jeongguk rests his forehead onto her still quivering thigh, the room filling with the sound of breaths catching up.

“Shit,” She pants, reaching down to card her fingers through his hair, loving, gentle. “I almost forgot you have wonderful hands.”

“Thank you,” Jeongguk murmurs against her skin, softly kissing the flesh before running the tip of his nose up to her knee, and back down again. “Hey, do you have any spare, uh– Shorts, maybe?”

“Probably, you won’t like where they came from though–“ She stops in the process of wriggling away from the tangle of sheets, a little damp with her exertion, and eyes him curiously in the dark. “Wait, why?”

Jeongguk keeps his face buried into the mattress. “I came.”

For a moment, she is silent, processing the information before the realisation smooths her pinched brow, a bubble of laughter at the tip of her tongue. “Wow, I really don’t have to touch you to make you come, do I?”

Jeongguk blindly grabs for her ankle with a growl as she slips away, missing by an inch and letting his hand fall limp among the sheets, listening to the sweet vocals of her laugh while she opens and closes drawers. A moment later, a piece of basketball short material lands on his head and he takes it as a sign to sit up, pushing himself up by the elbows and taking the shorts between his fingers. He ignores the logo of a university that he is all too familiar competing with, embellished at the hem of the left leg.

“This is embarrassing,” Jeongguk mutters, resting back on his heels and revealing the evident stain on the fabric of his briefs. Although his words, he unabashedly peels off the underwear, kicking his legs out as he shucks on the basketball shorts, feeling her gaze on his cock.

“We’re beyond embarrassment now, Jeon. I just came all over your face.”

“True. I liked that.”

When she grins, it is as though the sun has suddenly decided to rise in the middle of the night, painting the walls in radiant gold and his heart in illuminant joy. Jeongguk disposes of the underwear before grabbing her around the waist and pulling her close, feeling the warmth of her abdomen pressing to his bare skin of his torso, a hand tangling through the strands of her hair to draw her mouth up to his. She sighs into the grooves of his lips, and he melts, a victim to her touch.

He loves her, he loves her, he loves her.

They fall down in a shower of lips on skin, wrapped around each other and tugging the sheets until they form a tent over their bodies, the cotton tucking them into their elbows and hips and knees. Jeongguk kisses her, teeth in her lip, tongue on the roof of her mouth, until he cannot breathe.

She retreats with a smile and nuzzles herself into him, sniffing, flushed and beautiful in the crook of his throat. He can hear her smile. “On the contrary, maybe being sick while you play football is–“

“Don’t finish that sentence.“

“– Worth it, if I always get such aftercare like this.”

“A masochist,” Jeongguk mutters, tugging at her earlobe and she swats him away. “My soulmate is a masochist.”

“Mm, all corniness aside,” She murmurs, pressing her mouth to his jawbone, “Isn’t that nice? We are soulmates. I don’t think that will ever wear off – that this is it, us, always.”

“Thatwasfucking corny.”

“Way to ruin the moment, Jeon.”

“Really though, Y/N,” Jeongguk suddenly lowers his voice, lips pressed to her temple, and he can sense her momentarily tense up. “Please don’t say that. I hate knowing that I am hurting you.”

She smooths the pad of her thumb over his eyebrow, as if she is trying to rub away the frown. “Jeongguk, I told you that it’s fine, okay? This is your career, I am willing to sacrifice an hour of my time feeling a little nauseated for that.”

He kisses her absolutely silly, until she is muffling protests and there is saliva on his chin, but he does not mind, never, when it comes to her. They watch each other in blissful silence, her lashes the first to droop, blinks slowing until they stop altogether and she becomes a still, ethereal creature in his arms, skin marbled by the moonlight, a statue of bona fide beauty. It is only then when her heartbeat slows that the guilt shows its ugly face in the shadows, slipping beneath sheets and digging into his knees, elbows, temples, heart, burying deep and reminding him that it will get worse, it will get worse, they still have so far to go.

He cannot stand how much loving her will hurt them both. But he simply cannot stop.

part one|part two|part three|part four|part five |part six |part seven