Day by Day

day by day
Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/53445334.
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: M/M
Fandoms: Semantic Error (TV), Semantic Error - 저수리 | Jeosuri
Relationship: Chu Sangwoo/Jang Jaeyoung
Characters: Jang Jaeyoung, Chu Sangwoo (Semantic Error)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Medical, Meet-Cute, Exes,
Post-Canon, Established Relationship, Alternate Universe - Vampire,
Truth or Dare, Autistic Chu Sangwoo (Semantic Error), Alternate
Universe - Royalty, Secret Relationship, Alternate Universe - Library,
Vampire Hunters, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Light Angst,
Fluff, Misunderstandings, Clubbing, Alternate Universe - Aliens, Crack
Treated Seriously, Friendship, Bullying, tho the bullying is really just
implied, Temporary Amnesia, Hospitals, Married Couple, Alternate
Universe - Criminals, Chatting & Messaging, Healthy Communication,
Healthy Relationships, Dimension Travel, Alternate Universe - Character
Swap, RPF, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal
Language: English
Series: Part 1 of semantic error snippets
Stats: Published: 2024-02-01 Completed: 2024-02-29 Words: 18,784 Chapters:
29/29
day by day
by Yersina
Summary
This social outing with Choi Yoona is not exactly what Sangwoo was expecting. The
woman seems to be the same type of person that Jaeyoung is: beautiful, a little bit cold,
but willing to be friendly once all pretenses have been dropped. A prototypical popular
girl who Sangwoo would’ve done everything to avoid when he was in high school. So,
in some part of his mind, he was anticipating that Yoona suggest an art gallery, or a mall,
or a restaurant to meet up at.
Instead, he’s sitting at a cat cafe. (from Ch.29)
A personal monthly drabble/ficlet challenge where I write something for Semantic Error
every day.
Notes
so i was having some difficulty with writers block a while back and figured that i’d try this as
a way of loosening my writing muscles!
parameters of this challenge:

1. fulfill the prompts
2. write a minimum of 100 words per prompt per day
3. do this for a month
i do have a few chapters stashed already, so no worries abt me stopping halfway or anything!
i’ll be updating the fic tags as i go, and i’ll be adding chapter specific ‘tags’ in the chapter
notes since they can get jumbled up in the additional tags section. the prompts that inspired
the particular chapter will be the chapter title. on average, the chapters will be rated T—any
rare chapters that are higher than that will come with a chapter note abt it
i hope you enjoy! happy reading!
See the end of the work for more notes

let me through, i’m a doctor
Chapter Notes
drabble list 6, prompt 58

chapter tags: doctor au, meet cute
“Let me through, I’m a doctor.”
On a list of things that Sangwoo wants to hear on a Thursday morning, that ranks close to the
bottom. He blinks his eyes open with great effort, and the ceiling of the Starbucks he’s in
swims into view, along with the blurry details of a face. “I’m okay,” he mumbles.
“It’s alright—take it easy,” the stranger soothes. “You collapsed a minute ago while waiting
in line to order. Are you feeling any pain?”
“No, I’m fine.” Sangwoo tries to push himself up, and thankfully, the stranger helps him sit
up. “Just embarrassed.”
“That’s a good sign. A bruised ego is better than a bruised body,” the stranger jokes. “Do you
have any medical conditions that might cause you to faint?”
“I have anemia. It’s probably that.” He finally takes a good look at the person who’s helping
him, now that his head and vision aren’t spinning nauseatingly. The other man looks
shockingly young for someone who claims to be a doctor and also ridiculously attractive. If
Sangwoo were him, he would’ve gotten a modeling job instead of going to med school.
The stranger’s lips quirk up. “Thank you. Luckily for you, though, I did go to med school and
was here to help you today.”
Sangwoo inhales deeply, sighs, and buries his head in his hands. “I’m so sorry,” he mumbles.
“That was so rude of me. Please blame it on the lingering dizziness.”
“Don’t worry,” the stranger laughs. “I’m taking it as a compliment. If you’re still feeling
dizzy, I’d recommend visiting a hospital, just in case. It’s better to be safe than sorry.”
“Thank you for the advice,” Sangwoo replies without lifting his head. “I’ll probably be fine,
though.”
“Even so.” There’s rustling, and then something is brushing the side of his hand. When he
looks up, he finds that it’s a business card being passed to him. “I have to go, but here’s my
card, in case anything comes up and you have any questions.”
Seoul National University Hospital, it reads. Jang Jaeyoung, Internal Medicine. Next to the
hospital telephone and fax number, it has a phone number scribbled in pen.
“Feel free to call me with non-medical questions too.” Jang Jaeyoung punctuates his sentence
with a wink.
Sangwoo feels himself flush with something other than embarrassment. “Sure,” he squeaks.
Jihye is not going to believe this.

it doesn’t have to mean anything
Chapter Notes
chapter tags: au - exes, exes with benefits (if that’s a thing?)
this chapter straddles the line between T and M (a la fade to black implied sexual
content). if that’s an ick, proceed with caution!
“It doesn’t have to mean anything,” Jaeyoung tells him as he’s pushing Sangwoo against the
wall and scrambling to tug his sweatshirt off. Sangwoo doesn’t pay attention; he’s too
preoccupied with reacquainting himself with the feel of Jaeyoung’s lips against his own, the
way his thoughts fall away and his body feels electrified.
“This doesn’t have to mean anything,” Jaeyoung mumbles against his skin a day later,
clutching at his arms like they’re not in the middle of the hallway in the engineering
department. Fifteen minutes later, they’re in Jaeyoung’s hotel room, and two minutes after
that, wrinkling the crisp, white sheets.
“It’s not—this isn’t—” Sangwoo cuts Jaeyoung off by dragging him over the threshold of his
apartment and closing the door behind them.
“This doesn’t mean anything,” Sangwoo breathes into the quiet, midnight air of Jaeyoung’s
hotel room. None of these times have meant anything, because three days from now,
Jaeyoung is still going back to France, and Sangwoo’s still staying in Korea.
None of it can mean anything, and yet…
And yet.
this keeps getting worse
Chapter Notes
no additional chapter tags necessary: canon compliant/post-canon (tv)
Jaeyoung tilts his head at the canvas. “Somehow, this keeps getting worse?” His voice trails
up at the end like it’s a question, an implicit how are you doing this? embedded in the
sentence.
Sangwoo sets down his paintbrush and also takes in the canvas. It had been Jaeyoung’s idea
to try and get Sangwoo to experiment with different art mediums besides Microsoft
PowerPoint. “There has to be some artistic spark in there somewhere,” he’d insisted.
Sangwoo had indulged him, mostly because it seems like fair play when Jaeyoung is helping
out with his game.
They’d started with digital art and Jaeyoung’s Cintiq, then paper and pencil, and now paint
on canvas. Sangwoo has a vague inkling that Jaeyoung might want to try clay next, but he’s
not sure his boyfriend is still keen on the option after looking at his current… attempt.
“I mean, it’s colorful,” Jaeyoung comments after several seconds. “Anything can be art.” He
sounds dubious.
Sangwoo sighs and tips his head sideways until it’s propped against Jaeyoung’s arm. “I want
to go eat lunch now.”
“…yeah, okay.”
you’re so rude!
Chapter Notes
chapter tags: post-canon (tv)

chapter concept: jangchu are recruiting ppl to work on their game
“You’re so rude!”
Jaeyoung is standing up even before their newest applicant shoots to her feet. “Get out.”
“My pleasure.” She hurriedly stuffs her application materials back into her bag. “I wouldn’t
want to work with someone like him anyway.”
Jaeyoung slams the door behind her and doesn’t bother showing her out. If she gets lost, good
riddance.
When he turns back, Sangwoo has his hands folded together on the table, lips pursed. Even
after a year and a half of being together, Jaeyoung sometimes still can’t read his expressions.
“Sorry about that,” he tries.
“It’s okay,” Sangwoo says blandly. Even his blink seems placid, and Jaeyoung’s still-
simmering anger and indignation feel overdone in comparison. “I’m used to it.”
Jaeyoung returns to his seat and pulls one of his boyfriend’s hands into his own. “You
shouldn’t have to be used to it.”
Sangwoo looks down at the table. This time, Jaeyoung does catch the furrow of his brow, the
downturn of his lips. “It is what it is. Complaining about it won’t change anything.”
“Still.”
Sangwoo hums. He doesn’t add anything else, but he does squeeze Jaeyoung’s hand gently.
Jaeyoung figures that that’s answer enough.
you don’t need to feel sorry for this
Chapter Notes
chapter tags: vampire au, vampire!jaeyoung
my first actual drabble (exactly 100 words)!
“You don’t need to feel sorry for this,” Sangwoo tells him, but Jaeyoung does feel sorry for it.
He feels sorry that he forgot to check France’s regulations before visiting. He feels sorry that
he didn’t do the math correctly, and he ran out of blood bags before his planned departure
date. He feels sorry that he’s been quietly starving for the past week. He feels sorry that his
boyfriend decided to fly across the world and visit him and now he has to deal with this.
“Stop being so dramatic, Jang Jaeyoung, and just bite me,” Sangwoo says drily.
this is making me sick
Chapter Notes
chapter tags: party games (truth or dare), established relationship
Yoona mimes throwing up. Jaeyoung flips her off. “You two are gross. This is making me
sick.”
“Choi Yoochae, you were the one who suggested this dare,” Sangwoo points out. Jaeyoung
can always count on his boyfriend to stand up for him. “You could’ve asked for me to sit on
anyone else’s lap instead.” Never mind, Jaeyoung takes it back—his boyfriend is a cruel and
unfeeling mistress.
He snakes his arms around Sangwoo’s stomach and cuddles him like a particularly large
teddy bear. “Sangwoo-yah, you’re only allowed to sit in my lap. Because you’re my
boyfriend.” Saying the words still makes him feel giddy inside, like his stomach is a fizzy
soda that has just been shaken up, or like there’s effervescent fireworks popping in his chest.
“Hyung, that’s not the rules of the game,” Sangwoo explains patiently, as if Jaeyoung doesn’t
understand how to play Truth or Dare. “If Choi Yoochae dares me to sit in Hyeongtak-
hyung’s lap, then that’s what I have to do.” Jaeyoung shudders at the thought of Sangwoo
sitting like this with Hyeongtak and by the look of horror on the other’s face, he agrees.
“Fuck the rules of the game,” Yoona mutters, throwing back a shot. “Just get out of his lap
already. I’m becoming homophobic just looking at you two.”
these people are so nice!
Chapter Notes
chapter tags: autistic chu sangwoo (tho he’s always autistic in the bg haha), established
relationship
When Jaeyoung returns from the bathroom, he finds his boyfriend sitting on a bench in front
of one of the tanks, right next to a small child. It’s not the weirdest situation he’s ever found
Sangwoo in, but it’s definitely up there.
“And what’s that one?” the kid asks, pointing to somewhere inside the tank.
“That’s a pufferfish,” Sangwoo answers. He’s speaking just as flatly as usual, but the kid
doesn’t seem to mind. “Pufferfish are called that because they puff up by sucking in a lot of
water.”
“Whoaaaa.”
“Pufferfish are poisonous.”
“Really?”
“The toxin is called tetrodotoxin, which is very harmful to both humans and other animals.
But pufferfish can still be eaten, if prepared correctly.”
And on and on he goes. The kid sits there and fiddles with his hands, and Sangwoo keeps
spewing fish facts, occasionally glancing at the informational plaques surrounding the tank
for help. Jaeyoung knows that Sangwoo has clocked his return already, but the scene is cute
enough that Jaeyoung is loath to interrupt them.
A few minutes later, a woman hurries up to them and sweeps the boy into her arms. “Jaemin-
ah,” she scolds, sounding out of breath and possibly on the verge of tears. Jaeyoung politely
averts his eyes. “I was so worried! What if someone hadn’t found you?”
“Sorry, eomma,” the kid says solemnly. “The lady at the front desk and Sangwoo-hyung were
both really helpful, though.”
At this, the kid’s mom finally scans the rest of the room and spots Sangwoo and Jaeyoung.
“Thank you so much for helping out,” she says, bowing to Jaeyoung.
He quickly shakes his head and gestures to Sangwoo instead. “That’s Sangwoo, I’m
Jaeyoung. Sangwoo was the one who sat with him and kept him entertained.”
“It was no problem,” Sangwoo demurs. “Jaemin knows a lot about fish. It was fun talking to
him.”
The woman laughs, a strained note in her voice. “Sorry, did he talk your ear off about them?
He loves learning about the ocean. This is probably the fifth time we’ve been to the aquarium
in the last two months.”
“It was no problem,” Sangwoo repeats. He turns his attention to the kid, even though the kid
is looking somewhere around Jaeyoung’s shoes. “The ocean is cool. If you like it, keep
learning about it. There are jobs where all you do is learn more about the ocean. Things that
we don’t know already.”
Jaeyoung is half-expecting the kid to not be paying attention, but he gives a shy, gap-toothed
smile. “Really?”
Sangwoo nods. “Really.”
The mom gives Sangwoo a grateful smile of her own, and quickly makes her goodbyes,
looking the type of harried that comes with losing your child at the aquarium on a weekend.
As they’re leaving, Jaeyoung hears Jaemin say, “These people are so nice.” It makes him
smile and nudge Sangwoo’s shoulder.
“Hey, that was nice of you,” he comments. “You’re a lot better with kids than I was
expecting.”
Sangwoo shrugs. “I’m not, usually. Just certain ones.”
Jaeyoung feels like he’s missing a piece of the puzzle here, but he’s sure that if it’s important,
Sangwoo will explain it to him eventually. “I hope you’re still having fun on our date.”
He feels warmed from the inside out by Sangwoo’s small smile. “I always have fun when I
spend time with you.” He pauses. “Except when you’re procrastinating on your deadlines.”
“Hey!”
“Or you’ve left the apartment messy again.”
“Hey!”
“Or you’re late to one of our dates.”
“I’m going to go have lunch without you.”
Sangwoo laughs. Jaeyoung can’t help his own answering grin. He links their hands together
and pulls Sangwoo in the direction of another exhibit. “Tell me what you know about manta
rays.”
i kind of like the secretiveness
Chapter Notes
chapter tags: royalty au, secret relationship
If Yoona has to boost Jaeyoung over the palace walls one more time, she’s going to lose it.
“I don’t know,” Hyeongtak muses, because he’s soft-hearted and a romantic and a sucker for
star-crossed love. “I kind of like the secretiveness.”
Yoona rolls her eyes. “You only say that because you don’t have to listen to him talk about
his secret lover constantly. ‘Oh, he’s so straightforward and serious but he looks so cute when
he smiles.’ ‘Oh, he has the most beautiful brown eyes and hair and lips and every other facial
feature in existence.’ ‘Oh, he would look sooooo beautiful in red silk and wedding attire, do
you think he’d say yes if I asked him to marry me.’ Ugh.”
“It’s cute!” Hyeongtak protests. “His Highness deserves some love. Some simplicity.”
Despite herself, Yoona softens. Jaeyoung does deserve some of that, especially as his father’s
hair grows white and the burdens he shoulders grow heavier. “Still doesn’t mean I have to
like it,” she sniffs, but her heart isn’t in it.
a toast to our friendship
Chapter Notes
chapter concept: sangwoo and jihye become best friends change my mind 💛
Jihye tilts her coffee cup in Sangwoo’s direction. Sangwoo tilts his head to the side in
confusion. “A toast!”
“For what?” It’s September, which isn’t too far from Sangwoo’s birthday, but Jihye’s not the
type to celebrate an occasion early when she can do it exactly on the right date instead.
Jihye beams at him. “This is the day that I worked up the courage to ask for your number!
The start of our friendship.”
Sangwoo, embarrassingly, doesn’t remember that at all. “Oh.” He sits on that for a moment,
not entirely sure what he should do, before raising his own cup of coffee and tapping it
against Jihye’s. “A toast to our friendship.”
They both take a drink, even though their drinks are both slightly too hot to be comfortable.
Sangwoo stares out the window, thankful that Jihye was considerate as always in choosing a
table on the side and out of the way of most foot traffic.
“I’m glad that I met you,” he feels compelled to say. Jaeyoung and Yoona have both been
telling him that he has to work on verbalizing his emotions and thought processes. “You’ve
helped me grow as a person. I appreciate your friendship. Thank you.”
Jihye makes a squeaking noise and clasps a hand to her cheek. “That’s really sweet of you to
say, oppa.” She hums and swirls her coffee a few times before responding. “I’m glad that I
chose to persevere and stay friends even after you started dating Jaeyoung-oppa. You’re a
wonderful listener and an attentive and considerate friend.”
Sangwoo bobs his head uncomfortably. He’s never been sure how to respond to or accept
compliments, but Jihye doesn’t seem to be looking for a particular response, instead focused
politely—or pointedly—on her own coffee.
After a minute, the itchy, uncertain feeling subsides and Sangwoo settles in to enjoy a nice
cup of coffee and a quiet afternoon with his friend.
i crave a good book right now
Chapter Notes
chapter tags: librarian au
this is one of the only (if not the only?) prompt fill where i was fairly liberal with how i
chose to incorporate it into the writing, mostly because “i crave a good book right now”
🙏
just felt so out of place in my writing ‘voice’. the spirit of it is still there, but the exact
wording is kinda ehhh. thanks for understanding!
See the end of the chapter for more notes
“Hi.”
Sangwoo looks up at the patron who just stepped up to the circulation desk. Leather jacket,
styled hair, earrings. He’s not in the habit of making snap judgments about people, but a
small part of him tenses at the sight. “Hello. How can I help you?”
“I…” The patron quickly glances back at a woman sitting at a table halfway across the floor
and sighs when she waves at him. Prank, Sangwoo’s bullshit meter is telling him. “I’m
looking for… a good book.”
“That is what people usually come to the library for,” Sangwoo informs him.
The patron’s expression is quickly becoming pained. “Right.” They stare at each other for a
few awkward seconds. “I’m looking for a book on… asking someone out.”
“Non-fiction books on communication are going to be on the second floor, romance is on the
first in the back,” Sangwoo rattles off. “Which type are you looking for?”
The patron goes to lean on the counter, pushing into Sangwoo’s space. “I think I’m looking
more for non-fiction. I’m trying to ask someone out right now.”
The library suddenly feels uncomfortably warm. “Okay,” he says, leaning back and trying not
to seem too obvious about it. “Would you like me to show you where that section is?”
The patron pauses. “I’m trying to ask someone out right now.”
Is there a nuance here that Sangwoo isn’t picking up on, or is the patron being rude and
telling Sangwoo to hurry up? “Follow me, then,” Sangwoo says, trying not to let the irritation
bleed into his voice.
The patron obediently dogs his steps as they climb the stairs to the second floor. “So, how
long have you been working here?” the patron asks. Sangwoo points to a Please Keep Your
Voices Down: People are studying!!! sign taped to a nearby post. “Sorry,” the patron
apologizes in a whisper, but doesn’t actually stop talking. “My name is Jaeyoung, by the
way.”
“This is the aisle with books on leadership and communication, Jaeyoung-nim,” Sangwoo
says once they’ve reached the right bookshelf. “Two rows down is where you’ll find books
on relationship advice and psychology. Do you have any questions?”
Jaeyoung pauses for an extended period of time again. “No, I don’t think so,” he eventually
says. “How… can I contact you again?”
“I’ll be at the front desk until the end of my shift,” Sangwoo answers, confused. “If you need
to call the library for whatever reason, you can find our phone number on our website or at
the front desk before you leave.”
“Great, thanks.” Jaeyoung gives him the kind of awkward smile that Sangwoo is used to
seeing from people who really want him to leave but don’t know how to tell him, so he spins
on his heel and heads back to the circulation desk.
An hour later, Seungjin comes to take over desk duties and Sangwoo gets to reshelve books.
As he wheels his car through the fiction section, he gets close enough to the study tables that
he hears a hushed conversation and one particular familiar voice. This is close to where he’d
seen that woman who waved at Jaeyoung earlier, he realizes.
“Where did he go?” Jaeyoung is saying.
“How am I supposed to know?” The woman. “You’re the one keeping an eye on him like a
hawk.”
“Don’t say it like that. I’m observing respectfully.”
A snort. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?”
Sangwoo shelves three more books and pushes his cart along, still guiltily eavesdropping.
Are they talking about him? If they are, though, why? Sangwoo can’t imagine that there’s
anything interesting enough about his library shift to warrant intensive spying.
“Did I do something wrong?” Jaeyoung says suddenly. “Am I putting off the wrong vibes?”
“When have your vibes ever been right?”
A thud. “Shut up!” This outburst comes out much louder than the previous whispers and
Sangwoo feels the need to look around furtively. “I’m being serious! I literally told him that I
was trying to ask someone out right then. How could that be anyone other than him?”
Oh. They are talking about him.

“I don’t know,” the woman snorts. “Maybe if you’d actually been clear about the fact that
you were hitting on him and asking him out, you wouldn’t be sitting here complaining to me
about it right now.”
“You—” Jaeyoung groans quietly. “You’re a horrible friend.”
“We’re perfect for each other.”
They both fall silent after that. Sangwoo counts to one hundred and then counts again just to
be safe, before he pushes his cart out from between the stacks and begins reshelving books on
the shelves closest to the pair.
He’s not sure if they’re aware that he can hear them, but there’s a quiet scuffle, some furious
whispering, and then a particularly loud, “Go, you idiot,” before footsteps shuffle up behind
him.
“Hi again.”
Sangwoo takes a deep breath. He turns around. “Jaeyoung-nim. Hello.”
“Yeah, that’s me. Listen.” Jaeyoung pushes a hand through his hair, looking oddly nervous
for someone who’s wearing a leather jacket and earrings. “Would you want to get dinner
sometime? Together?”
Even with the context of the previous conversation, Sangwoo can’t quite believe his ears. He
glances over at the woman, who raises her eyebrows at him, and then returns his gaze to
Jaeyoung. “Why?”
Jaeyoung opens his mouth, then closes it, then opens it again. “What do you mean, ‘why’?”
The eye contact gets to be too much, so Sangwoo looks down at the brown carpet instead.
“We’ve never met before today. Why would you ask to eat dinner with me?”
“Are you being serious?” Jaeyoung’s voice sounds incredulous.
Sangwoo frowns. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
He looks back up in time to see Jaeyoung sharing a look with his friend before stepping
closer. “I think you’re cute,” he says with a smile. Sangwoo’s breath, strangely, hitches in his
throat and he feels his heart stutter. “You’re right that we don’t know each other, but I’d like
to get to know you better. Over dinner. What do you say?”
Sangwoo clears his throat. Perhaps he’s coming down with a cold? “O-okay. That sounds
reasonable.”
Jaeyoung beams. “Great!” He turns back to the table and fumbles for what turns out to be a
small slip of paper, which he hands to Sangwoo. It has a phone number written in neat
handwriting. “Call me.”
Sangwoo tucks it into his pocket for safekeeping. “I’m not allowed to use my phone while
I’m working.” Jaeyoung’s expression dips back into a frown, so he clarifies, “I’ll message
you after my shift ends.”
“Works for me.”
Jaeyoung doesn’t seem inclined to end the conversation, so Sangwoo nods his head at him
and nudges his book cart. “I have to return to shelving books now.”
Jaeyoung gestures magnanimously to the nearest row of bookshelves. “Please, be my guest.”
Sangwoo inches past him, still feeling unusually warm. Perhaps he should talk to Jinyoung
about lowering the thermostat? “I’ll… talk to you later.”
“I’m looking forward to it.” The corners of Jaeyoung’s eyes crinkle when he smiles, which is
a detail that sticks in Sangwoo’s mind’s eye as he works his way down the row, placing books
back where they belong.
When he peeks through a gap in the books, looking for Jaeyoung’s table, he finds Jaeyoung
looking back.
He winks.
Sangwoo recoils, his whole face and neck on fire and slowly spreading. He hurriedly shuffles
over to a row that’s definitely not in view of Jaeyoung and takes deep breaths until his heart
doesn’t feel like he spent the last minute sprinting at full speed. “Chu Sangwoo, get it
together,” he tells himself, but still somehow spends the rest of his shift with a lingering blush
on his cheeks.
Chapter End Notes
((friendly reminder to not hit on employees while they’re working skdjfbdhfh))

you can’t do whatever you feel like?
Chapter Notes
chapter tags: royalty au, secret relationship, established relationship
this is a continuation of/in the same universe as ch.8!
“Sangwoo-yahhhhh,” Jaeyoung groans from where he’s slumped over Sangwoo’s dining
table. Sangwoo still wonders whether he should be appalled at Jaeyoung’s manners or
thankful that the prince feels comfortable enough with him to display such behavior.
“Sangwoooooooo.”
Yes, very conflicted.
“I’m cooking right now,” he reminds the prince. His… partner. His lover. His very own,
incredibly loving and charmingly sweet annoyance. “You have to wait at least another thirty
minutes.”
Jaeyoung peels himself off of the wooden table and instead bumbles over to the stove and
drapes himself over Sangwoo instead, chin digging into the crown of his head and arms
heavy over Sangwoo’s. “You’re bothering me,” he says, tipping his head back as far as he can
to look up at Jaeyoung. He doesn’t get very far—he catches the tip of Jaeyoung’s nose and
the fringe of his hair. “It’ll be difficult to stir the pot like this.”
Jaeyoung mumbles something that Sangwoo can’t decipher, but winds his arms around
Sangwoo’s middle instead and tucks his face into Sangwoo’s shoulder. This can’t be a
comfortable position for him, considering how much taller he is than Sangwoo, but Sangwoo
did ask him to move, so he refrains from commenting.
Sangwoo stirs the pot a few more times before pouring in his pre-prepared bowl of water and
covering it to let it simmer. He then sets aside his cooking spoon so he can reach down and
cover Jaeyoung’s hands with his own. “What’s wrong? Jagiya?” He stutters over the term of
endearment. It doesn’t sound anywhere near as natural as when Jaeyoung does it, but he’s
trying. Perhaps one day, it’ll be second nature.
Jaeyoung straightens up, returning his chin to its previous rest on Sangwoo’s head. He also
twists a hand around, capturing Sangwoo’s and lacing their fingers together. “I’ll miss you,”
he says wistfully. “I always miss you when I’m not here.”
Then don’t go, Sangwoo thinks, but it would be more than unfair of him to say. You can’t do
whatever you feel like? he wants to ask. You’re the prince! You should be the most carefree of
us all.
But he knows that it’s not true. Jaeyoung proudly carries the burden of his country, and
strives to do right by his people, as all good rulers ought to do. He’s not king yet, but he will
be someday, and that is enough to keep him away from Sangwoo. He doesn’t wish that his
lover was less diligent, but a small part of him wishes that he was a little more selfish. A little
more unwilling to return to his duties. A little more unwilling to leave Sangwoo.
That would be more than unfair to say, too. Sangwoo keeps quiet.
“Yah,” Jaeyoung says, nudging Sangwoo’s side with their joined hands. “This is where you
say that you miss me too.”
“Ah.” Apparently Sangwoo missed that beat in this conversation.
He turns around, dislodging Jaeyoung’s hold on him, so he can reach up and cup his lover’s
face in his hands. “Sometimes, I feel the urge to see you again, even before you’ve left,” he
says softly, looking into Jaeyoung’s eyes. “When I pass by street food stalls in the market, I
think about sharing them with you. When I see a stray cat, I think about how excited you are
when you get to pet one. In the summer, I think about collecting flowers to show you and
berries to feed you. In the winter, I think about sharing the warmth of a single fire together
with you, and walking through snowy woods side by side.” He strokes a thumb over the arc
of Jaeyoung’s cheekbone. “I think about you constantly, Jang Jaeyoung. Either I’m always
missing you, or you never leave me for long enough for it to occur to me.”
He rises on his tiptoes to kiss the stunned shape of Jaeyoung’s mouth. “Happy?” he asks,
once he’s back on his heels again.
In a flurry of movement and fabric, Jaeyoung pulls him closer for another, deeper kiss.
Sangwoo sinks into the embrace, focusing on the feeling of Jaeyoung’s body against his and
letting his mind go quiet.
Eventually, Jaeyoung draws back, though not without a show of great reluctance. “I love you
too,” he whispers, eyes wide and voice wavering. Sangwoo turns his head slightly and
presses a kiss to the palm of the hand cupping his cheek. “Chu Sangwoo. I love you.”
Sangwoo closes his eyes and tries not to think about the complexities of loving the prince of
his country, or the equal but different complexities of that prince loving him back. He tries
not to think about how he’d greeted Jaeyoung at the door only last night and how he’ll be
departing as soon as they’ve finished this meal together. He tries not to think about how he’ll
never have chance or reason to step foot into the palace, their worlds touching but never
crossing.
Instead, he pushes forward towards Jaeyoung, resting his forehead against his chest as he
draws him into a hug. “I love you,” he says, he thinks, with every fiber of his being.
Hopefully, that’s enough. It has to be.

i can do whatever i want!
Chapter Notes
chapter tags: vampire and vampire hunter au, established relationship, jang jaeyoung
definitely has a competency kink in this one
although this wasn’t necessarily written to be a continuation of ch5, it can be seen as

being in the same au!
“I can do whatever I want!” the vampire writhing on the ground hisses at him.
Jaeyoung pinches the bridge of his nose and wonders why they set up a rotation of people to
rehabilitate feral vampires, and why his name had to be on that list. Surely whoever’s in
charge is aware of how goddamn annoying this task is and how much simpler it would be to
just stake the assholes and be done with it. “That’s not true,” he says as evenly as possible.
“If you go around attacking humans—”
“They’re just food!”
Jaeyoung sighs. “You used to be food,” he tries. “You were once human.”
“And now I’m not,” the vampire declares triumphantly. “You’re the same as me! You should
understand this feeling—this power!”
“I am not the same as you,” Jaeyoung feels the need to clarify. Frankly, he’s insulted. He’s
smarter, more handsome, and more experienced than the idiot on the ground. At the very,
very least, he’s sure as hell not planning to be trapped in silver chains by his own kind at any
point in the future.
You could just stake him and say that the dumbass wiggled his way into the sun somehow, a
persistent voice inside him suggests, but as much as Jaeyoung can feel himself losing brain
cells talking to the guy, he’s not going to do that.
Someone else, however…
“Sangwoo-yah!” Jaeyoung exclaims excitedly seventeen minutes later—he knows, because

each of those minutes have been excruciating. “Sweetheart! Darling! Love of my life!”
Sangwoo blinks at him. His blank face rivals the stoicism of vampires ten times his age.
“What happened?”
Jaeyoung pouts. “What? I can’t just be excited to see you?”
“You’re always excited to see me. I’m asking what happened. You asked me to come over as
soon as possible, so I’m assuming there’s been some sort of problem.”
That, Jaeyoung supposes, is reasonable.
Before he can say anything, the vampire thrashes around enough to catch a glimpse of
Sangwoo in the doorway. “What, you called reinforcements?” Jaeyoung can tell the exact
moment that he must catch the scent of Sangwoo’s blood, because his facial expression
morphs into something truly grotesque. “Human blood—”
“Ah-ah-ah,” Jaeyoung tsks, aiming a kick at the vampire’s shoulder and feeling little
sympathy when it lands somewhere closer to his jaw instead. “Keep your hands, teeth, and
thoughts to yourself, thanks. He’s mine.”
The vampire grins through a mouthful of blood. It’s not a good look. “Oh? We’re not immune
to the law against thralls, are we?”
The thought is so absurd that it takes Jaeyoung a moment to connect the dots. When he does,
he bursts out laughing. “Oh, you think I—? Me—him?” It takes a few moments for the
laughter to subside, long enough for Sangwoo to pad across the room and join him, staring
down at the vampire. “No, no, you’ve got the wrong idea.” Jaeyoung cocks his head to the
side consideringly. “If anything, I belong to him. He’s got me under his spell.” He blows a
kiss at Sangwoo and gets an irritated look for his troubles. “Isn’t that right, love?”
Sangwoo doesn’t respond, but Jaeyoung wasn’t expecting one. His partner is intensely
private, and not prone to indulging Jaeyoung’s teasing besides. He does, however, step closer
to the vampire and kneel down.
Before Jaeyoung can even open his mouth to warn him, the vampire is lunging upwards,
mouth agape and aimed for Sangwoo’s jugular. Sangwoo, to his credit, flows backwards with
the motion and catches the vampire’s jaw, digging into the hinge of the joint and forcing it
open. Jaeyoung winces. He knows exactly how much that hurts. “Careful,” Sangwoo
murmurs in a tone of voice that never fails to send shivers up Jaeyoung’s spine. Whether it’s
the danger or the attraction that’s getting to him, he’s never been able to figure out. “Never
point a weapon at someone you don’t intend to hurt.”
The vampire’s hateful glare is more than visible to Jaeyoung even when it’s not directed at
him. Sangwoo’s grip on his jaw means that he can’t respond, however, so he hisses instead. I
meant to kill you, Jaeyoung can fill in for him.
Sangwoo makes a face. “How crude.” He pauses, lets silence fill the room, before continuing.
“Did you know,” he begins, voice quiet and even, “that the oral anatomy of vampires is
strikingly similar to snakes? It means that I can hold you like this for as long as you’re
willing to be uncooperative.” It’s true, too—Jaeyoung has seen him go for truly frightening
periods of time. He knows that hunters specifically get trained for this type of thing, but it’s
still terrifying.
Humans are endurance predators, indeed, he thinks. Another fact that he’d learned after
meeting Sangwoo.
“There is an irony in the design of vampires,” Sangwoo continues as if he’s giving a

presentation to a roomful of bored high schoolers. Actually, Jaeyoung is pretty sure that he
has, in fact, given this exact speech to a room of high schoolers. “You need blood to survive,
but you bleed the very blood you drink. The thirstier you are, the weaker you get. Do you see
the problem?”
The vampire doesn’t reply, of course.
“If I were to cut you with this knife—” and here, Sangwoo produces a silver knife from thin
fucking air, Jaeyoung loves his boyfriend so much— “and you stayed trapped in these chains,
you wouldn’t be able to heal or drink.” Sangwoo pauses, possibly to let this sink in. “And of
course you can’t die of thirst itself, so eventually you would be stuck here, unable to move or
defend yourself or even lift your head to drink, if ‘food’ walked in here on their own and
presented themselves to you.” Jaeyoung can hear the quotes around ‘food’ in the way that
Sangwoo spits the word.
“I can make that happen,” Sangwoo concludes, holding the silver knife out for inspection.
“Me. Ostensibly, a food item. Jaeyoung-ssi certainly wouldn’t lift a finger to help you.”
Jaeyoung flashes a peace sign and grins. “The vampire council must already think that you’re
a problem—that’s why they assigned you to this program to begin with. They wouldn’t miss
you.”
The vampire, stupidly, decides that this is the right moment to struggle. In a flash, Sangwoo
has the tip of his knife pressed to his throat, right where the vampire had been aiming on his
own neck. “What will it be?” he asks. “Death? Or living to see another day?” After a beat of
silence, Sangwoo inches closer. “There will always be people out there who can stop you,” he
says gently. “Whether you think they’re stronger than you or weaker—they all exist. Your
downfall was thinking that you were the best.”
A few tense seconds go by. The vampire must flex or twitch or something, because Sangwoo
lets go and steps back, standing up to his full height and looking down at the bound and
pathetic creature at his feet. “I look forward to seeing your recovery,” he says, and despite the
last several minutes, Jaeyoung knows he means it. It’s why he’s good at his job, and why
Jaeyoung called him instead of Yoona when she’d be more than happy to help him shank a
fellow vampire.
Taking this as his cue, Jaeyoung steps forward. “Let me just grab the paperwork,” he says,
and takes the opportunity to bend down and brush a kiss against the side of Sangwoo’s neck,
staring at the other vampire the whole time. We are not the same, he thinks, and then he walks
to the side of the room to grab the requisite sheaf of papers off of his desk.
Ten minutes later, he’s skipping out of the room, signed paperwork in his hands, appointment
card filled out, and Sangwoo trailing silently at his side. “Thanks, sweetheart,” he sings,
nudging Sangwoo playfully. “Your success rate remains unchallenged.”
“I’m still waiting for you to compensate me for my time and my services,” Sangwoo replies
blandly, but Jaeyoung knows he sees a smile pulling at the corner of his lips.
Jaeyoung puts on a touch of supernatural speed—unnecessary, but fun—to stand in front of

Sangwoo. “How do you want it this time?” he prompts. “Dinner? Movie? …kiss?” At the last
suggestion, he leans forward, only for Sangwoo to hold up his hand.
“Not while we’re at work.” Jaeyoung can smell his interest though, can hear the quickening
of his heartbeat, so that’s good enough for him.
“Technically, only I’m at work,” Jaeyoung points out. “I… called you in as an expert
consult.”
Sangwoo arches his eyebrows, unimpressed. “So you’ve called me in to work on my day
off.”
Jaeyoung pauses. Shit. “…No.” Sangwoo side-steps around him and continues down the
hallway. Jaeyoung hurries after him. “Have I told you that you’re very attractive when you’re
threatening people?”
“Many times.”
“So sexy.”
“Mhm.”
“I love you?”
“Tell me again tonight when you’re not at work.”

we just have to keep going
Chapter Notes
chapter tags: zombie apocalypse au
cw/tw: vague allusion to depression
Jaeyoung is tired.
For all the zombie movies out there before everything went to shit, the question of ‘would
you survive the apocalypse’ and ‘who would you take with you to a deserted island’, the
jokes that you just have to outrun the slowest person—nothing really captured the pain of
endurance. Of waiting, of living, of hoping for a cure. For survival.
Living is a practice of hope, and hope is in short supply, in the apocalypse.
“We just have to keep going,” Sangwoo tells him every day, a little morning ritual of theirs.
He doesn’t always mean physically. The days when Jaeyoung can’t quite figure out why he’d
want to get out of bed anymore, why he needs to eat when he could die tomorrow—those
days, he needs to keep going too.
“Just have to keep going,” Jaeyoung murmurs to himself, staring up at the burnt out husk of a
fluorescent lightbulb above him. “Just… keep going. We can… we can. We can.”
He balls up his hands and presses them against his eyes for a few moments, breathing deeply.
“We can,” he repeats to himself once more, and then swings up to a sitting position so he can
start his day.
that will do
Chapter Notes
chapter tags: fluff, healthy communication (-ish?), established relationship
very minor inconsistency, but sangwoo and jaeyoung’s doors use keys, not codes. i was
too lazy to change the one sentence after i found out :’)
happy valentine’s day/happy wednesday!
Sangwoo isn’t a verbose person, nor is he one for praise—giving or receiving. He’s not
generally inclined to give positive feedback, not when a simple ‘that will do’ suffices. But
he’s been told that it makes him come across as cold, and Sangwoo wants to at least try for
Jaeyoung.
That day, when Jaeyoung had presented to him the proposal for the new and improved Veggie
Man, Jaeyoung had seemed… really happy when Sangwoo had complimented him. Even
happier than when he’d pat his head. A single data point does not a hypothesis confirm, but
that’s what continued experimentation is for.
Hypothesis: if Sangwoo compliments Jaeyoung, then Jaeyoung will be happy.
Sangwoo starts small. Jaeyoung is a surprisingly good cook and likes to cook meals for the
two of them when he gets the time. When Jaeyoung sets out two plates of pasta for the two of
them, Sangwoo makes sure to say, “I appreciate your hard work, hyung.”
Jaeyoung gives him a weird look, though not immediately identifiable as negative. Sangwoo
tentatively categorizes it as ‘shocked’. “You’re welcome?” He gestures at their plates. “Come
on, eat.”
Data point unclear.
After Sangwoo finishes—several minutes after Jaeyoung, because he prefers to eat slowly
and chew thoroughly—he comments, “That was tasty. Thank you for cooking.”
Jaeyoung sits back in his chair and crosses his arms. “Aish, what’s gotten into you?” He’s
smiling though, which Sangwoo feels confident about putting in his mental ‘positive’
column. “Is there some news that you need to give me? Did something bad happen?”
Sangwoo frowns and re-evaluates. Can he count this as a positive outcome if Jaeyoung is
assuming negative intentions? “No. I want to be better at saying nice things about hyung, so
I’m practicing.”
Jaeyoung’s face goes through an interesting series of expressions that Sangwoo doesn’t have
the capacity to decode. “Oh. In that case, I appreciate it.” He leans in closer, propping his
elbows up on the table. “Warning: I want to kiss you.”
Sangwoo checks that against his preferences at the moment and nods. He leans forward and
meets Jaeyoung’s lips in a chaste kiss, which deepens a few moments later when Jaeyoung’s
hand comes up to cup the back of his neck. Leaning across a table is not a comfortable
position to kiss, though, and Sangwoo draws back sooner rather than later before he gets a
crick in his neck.
Data point: firmly positive.
In the following days, Sangwoo continues experimenting. Although his compliments always
earn him a smile and some sort of acknowledgement, he hasn’t gotten anything to the degree
of that first time, even when he tries commenting on Jaeyoung’s art again. Sangwoo doesn’t
just want acknowledgment; he wants to improve. He wants to know that he’s satisfying
Jaeyoung in their relationship as much as Jaeyoung is satisfying him.
One night, he brainstorms a list of possible confounding variables affecting his data
collection.
Topic of compliment → hyung prefers compliments on specific things

Depth of compliment → hyung prefers well-articulated and specific compliments
Modality of compliment → I should try using something other than words
Timing of compliment → 1) when linked to a task, complimenting before, during, or
after matters; 2) hyung will always react best the first time that he’s complimented by
someone; 3) hyung is past the point in our relationship where he wants to be
complimented by me
Sangwoo frowns at his list. This is too many variables to be able to control, and some of them
aren’t controllable at all.
Humans—and human relationships—are frustrating.
Still, Sangwoo perseveres. He’s been inadvertently testing the first criteria already, and
Jaeyoung reacts with minimal variation between different topics of compliments, whether it’s
his cooking, art, or appearance. He crosses that one off the list, with potential for revisiting if
the other options aren’t fruitful either.
Depth of compliments is more complicated. Sangwoo is perfectly capable of conveying his

thoughts when necessary, but has never considered himself ‘good at speaking’—and
particularly not good at speaking in great depth unprompted. Thankfully, Jaeyoung has a
relatively predictable schedule, even if it’s not with the precision that Sangwoo lives his own
life, which gives him time to prepare.
Lately, Jaeyoung has been getting up early and working late in order to balance his work with
Dex and progress on their game together. Jaeyoung moans and groans about all of his aches
and pains and hardships, but Sangwoo has noticed that he never actually begs out of any of it.
He’s been meaning to say something to Jaeyoung about it, and this might be the perfect
occasion. He pulls out a piece of paper and writes:
I’ve noticed that you’re a very hardworking person. I know that I push you hard, and I’m sure
that Dex has very high expectations, but you never fail to perform admirably. I’m glad that
we’re working together, which makes me glad that we met and got to know each other better.
I hope we can continue being together. You make me happy.
Sangwoo sets down his pen and reads over his words again. It’s certainly not poetry, but it
seems… acceptable. Better than the single sentences he’s been giving Jaeyoung so far, at
least.
He reads it over a few more times, committing as much of it to memory as possible before
taking it to his kitchen counter to remind himself of it later. Jaeyoung will be coming over
with takeout for dinner, and Sangwoo wants to review it again before needing to put it into
action.
His night ends up trailing later than planned—he spends several more hours debugging than
he’d wanted to, which ends up coinciding with Jaeyoung’s schedule because one of his
virtual meetings gets pushed a few hours later, and noon in France is eight at night in Korea.
All of this means that Sangwoo is forced to take his nightly shower before eating dinner in
order to accommodate the shift in time, and he shuffles out of his bathroom to the sight of
Jaeyoung poring over his open notebook still on the kitchen counter. Ah, he thinks faintly.
Hyung has the code to my door. “That didn’t go as planned,” he says out loud, just so
Jaeyoung knows that he didn’t originally intend to leave the notebook lying around for him to
find. “Do you feel like reading the message is still effective? I was planning to say it.”
“Sangwoo-yah.” Sangwoo watches trepidatiously as Jaeyoung abandons the notebook and

strides over to Sangwoo. It just ends up being a hug, though, warm and tight and thick with
the smell of Jaeyoung’s cologne. After a few seconds, Sangwoo settles in and pats Jaeyoung’s
back. “Thanks,” Jaeyoung says eventually, voice rumbling by Sangwoo’s ear. “You’re…
you’re really so wonderful, Sangwoo-yah. I love being with you. You make me happy too.”
“Oh.” Sangwoo knew already, he had to have, because neither of them would stay in a
relationship that wasn’t making them happy. But apparently his heart hadn’t gotten the
memo, because it stutters in his chest and begins beating in double time. The words warm
him from the inside, like drinking a cup of hot chocolate on a cold day.
I make him happy.
Hypothesis: proven.
it just wasn’t enough
Chapter Notes
chapter tags: vampire au, light angst
once again, all the chapters abt vampire!jaeyoung could theoretically fall in the same
‘verse??
Jaeyoung shudders, drawing back slightly and licking over the points of his fangs. Sangwoo’s
blood still calls to him like a siren, warm and sweet and metallic and not enough. That’s the
curse of being a vampire—it just wasn’t enough. It never would be, no matter how much he
drank. The trick isn’t controlling himself; it’s choosing someone he trusts to stop him.
Even now, Sangwoo’s fingers are wound tightly into his hair, no longer pulling but right on
the edge of pain. “Better?” he whispers.
“Better,” Jaeyoung agrees, even though each sip of blood only ever serves to reignite the
thirst that otherwise lies dormant in his veins. “Thanks, love.”
It’s not as if he has any other choice, in the end. To burn with thirst or ache with bloodlust—
Jaeyoung prefers the option where he gets soft words and gentle comfort with his pain.
i’ve been waiting for this moment
Chapter Notes
chapter tags: established relationship, fluff, misunderstandings
GAME OVER. Sangwoo stares down at his phone screen. Only five seconds into the first
song of this rhythm game… Maybe he isn’t meant for this genre.
He closes the app and means to text Jaeyoung to ask if something happened, considering that
it’s been three minutes since his class period was scheduled to be over, but gets distracted by
a sudden flurry of whispering. “Are you sure it’s this classroom?” a girl hisses. She’s huddled
close with another girl, standing next to the door to Jaeyoung’s classroom and across the
hallway from Sangwoo.
“Yes! Soojin is in this class too so I know I have proof.”
The first girl groans. “It’s been almost five minutes since the class was supposed to let up.
Are you sure you didn’t get the days of the week mixed up or something?”
“Eunbi. Listen to me.” The second girl grabs the first—Eunbi—by the shoulders. “I have
been waiting for this moment. It’s early in the semester, so all the students wouldn’t have
gotten to know each other yet and there’s less chance of competition. Soojin says that she’s
never seen him with a girl in a romantic way. I have double checked and triple checked that
I’m in the right place at the right time. I need this to happen.”
Eunbi throws up her hands in exasperation. “Okay, I guess. It’s your funeral.”
The second girl sniffs. “No, it’ll be my date.”
Sangwoo cannot even begin parsing this conversation, so he puts it out of his mind. When
will your class be over? he texts Jaeyoung.
Immediately, he gets back: THE PROF WONT LET US GO. IM SUFFERING.
Ok.
Chu Sangwoo. Light of my life. Keeper of my heart. I hate you.
I’m waiting outside. I’m hungry.
Jaeyoung sends back an angry face, which Sangwoo doesn’t reply to.
He pulls up the rhythm game again and re-attempts the first level. It takes two tries, but he
manages to make it through the song, even if his score leaves something to be desired. He’s
about to try the next song when the door to Jaeyoung’s classroom finally opens.
A flood of students rushes out, followed by a wave of noise and chatter. Sangwoo doesn’t
bother standing and inching closer—it’s much too loud and crowded, and it’s not as if the
added three feet of distance gets him to Jaeyoung any sooner.
As the last of the students trickle out, he spots Jaeyoung towards the back, who waves at him
enthusiastically. “Chu Sangwoo!”
“Jaeyoung-oppa!”
Sangwoo pauses in his motion to wave back, attention going to the girl who had been talking
earlier, who’s now bounding up to Jaeyoung. Jaeyoung, as far as Sangwoo can tell, also looks
confused.
“Jaeyoung-oppa,” she repeats, smiling widely. “I don’t know if you remember me—my name
is Im Hyejin. We took Advanced Graphic Design together?”
“Oh,” Jaeyoung responds slowly and clearly without the spark of memory. He darts a glance
over at Sangwoo before turning his attention back to Hyejin. “Can I help you with
something?”
“I was wondering,” she says. Sangwoo follows the fidgeting of her hands as she smooths the
fabric of her skirt over and over. “You’re an amazing artist and I really admired you during
the class we took together. I’d like to get to know you better! Would you be open to going on
a date together?”
Ah. Belatedly, Sangwoo puts together the pieces of his two overheard conversations.
“No,” Jaeyoung says bluntly. “I’m about to go on a date with my boyfriend right now,
actually.”
Hyejin, dumbfounded, watches as Jaeyoung strolls over to Sangwoo and pulls him out of the
art building by the cuff of his sleeve. “That was mean of you, hyung,” Sangwoo comments
once they’ve exited the building. He tugs his sleeve free to straighten his clothing and offers
Jaeyoung his hand to hold instead.
“What do you mean?” Jaeyoung takes his hand and starts leading them in the direction of the
restaurant that he’d insisted they go to for lunch. “I got to the point quickly, I didn’t lead her
on, I showed that I was unavailable—what could I have done better?”
That’s… not a bad point. Sangwoo thinks this over while they wait at a crosswalk. “That’s
acceptable,” he concedes.
“‘That’s acceptable’,” Jaeyoung mocks. “Says Mr. ‘Sorry I can’t return your feelings, I’m
focusing on my academics’.”
Sangwoo frowns. “I never actually said that to you. Or anyone.”

“No, but you give off that energy.” Jaeyoung gestures vaguely with his free hand. Sangwoo’s
not sure what ‘that energy’ is supposed to be or how he’s giving the impression of it. “Were
you bothered by her?”
The crosswalk light changes, which gives Sangwoo some time to collect his thoughts. “Not
particularly. Hyung is very attractive, and it’s not possible for other people to not notice that.
Hyung is also very good at what he does, and is friendly when he’s not trying to be my
biggest annoyance, so of course other people would be interested.”
“You give the best compliments.” Jaeyoung squeezes his hand gently. “You don’t feel
jealous?”
Sangwoo’s certain of his capacity to be jealous, but Hyejin hardly seemed like she’d be an
issue in their relationship. “In this instance? No.”
“Oh?” Jaeyoung’s expression looks too gleeful for Sangwoo’s tastes. “So you have felt
jealous over me before?”
Sangwoo’s mind immediately goes to that time when Choi Yoona told him about all of
Jaeyoung’s previous relationships. There were many other emotions all swirling around
together at the time—insecurity, apprehension, disappointment—but also an element of
jealousy. “No,” he says, to be contrary.
Jaeyoung narrows his eyes. “You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
“Chu Sangwoo.”
“Hyung.”
Jaeyoung groans loudly, but drops the topic for the rest of the walk to the restaurant.
Maybe one day, Sangwoo will figure out how to tell him about how jealousy comes from
worry, and how Sangwoo isn’t really worried about their relationship at all. It’s easy to see
Jaeyoung’s affection—in the way that he rejected Hyejin, in their easy conversation, in the
touch of their hands. It’s been Jaeyoung that’s come back again and again and again; as long
as Sangwoo stands firm, he doesn’t doubt that they’ll stay by each others’ sides.
we’re so hot
Chapter Notes
chapter tags: clubs, drinking, meet cute
Yoona knocks back a shot. “We’re so hot.”
“Uh huh.”
“You’re hot.” She waves in Jaeyoung’s vague direction. “I’m hot. Hyeongtak is cute.”
Hyeongtak whines incoherently when she goes to ruffle his hair. “Whyyyyyy can we not get
bitches?”
“Maybe if you didn’t put it like that, it’d help,” Hyeongtak complains, trying to fix his hair.
“Also, stop calling me cute.”
Jaeyoung throws back his own shot. “Nah, some people are into that.”
“Into being called bitches? Or cute boys?”
Jaeyoung shrugs. “Both.”
They’re here at this club on a Saturday night and the place is absolutely packed, but Jaeyoung
lost the desire to dance about half an hour ago, and Yoona is reaching the point of drunkness
where it’s best if one of them keeps an eye on her, just in case. If it wouldn’t be such a blow
to Jaeyoung’s pride, he’d be at home with a Netflix show right about now.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” he declares, standing up from their booth. “Don’t break any
laws while I’m gone.”
“You know we’d wait for you.” Yoona tips her glass of water at him and Jaeyoung tips an
imaginary cap back.
The trip to the bathroom is uneventful, though the wait’s annoyingly long. On his way back,
though, he spots a guy curled against the wall across from the bathrooms, hands over his ears
and hunched over like he’s nauseated. Jaeyoung’s philosophy with people at clubs is
generally to let people make their own bad decisions, but the guy looks more like he’s in pain
than facing the consequences of a long night of drinking—not that those two are necessarily
mutually exclusive.
He approaches slowly and nudges the guy to get his attention, hoping that he’s not about to
get puked on. “Hey, you okay?”
The guy startles badly as soon as Jaeyoung touches him, flinching backwards and
straightening up so quickly that Jaeyoung’s worried about whiplash. He still doesn’t take his
hands away from his ears, though.
Are you okay? Jaeyoung mouths again when the guy doesn’t respond. He gestures at his own
ears.
The guy shakes his head. “It’s loud,” he answers, making a face. “Hurts.”
Jaeyoung nods understandingly. “It’s not going to get better if you stay here.” He’s yelling,
but he still doesn’t get through to the guy, if his quizzical look is any indication. Outside? he
offers, pointing.
The guy visibly hesitates, eyes darting first to the ground and then to the rest of the club, but
he eventually nods. Jaeyoung figures that he doesn’t lose anything by heading out together
with him and making sure that the guy is okay, so they walk out to the sidewalk together,
where it’s just the sound of Seoul’s usual nightlife that pollutes the air.
“You okay?” he asks once again, when the guy has taken his hands away from his ears with a
wince.
“I’m fine. It was too loud, and the noise was getting painful.”
“Earplugs,” Jaeyoung advises. “No shame in using them if you need them.”
The guy shudders and shakes his head quickly. “I don’t plan on coming back. Once was
already too much for me.”
That’s fair enough, and Jaeyoung says so. “What made you come this time?”
“My friend wanted me to join her, and I ran out of excuses to say no.” The guy’s exasperated
expression looks more cute than anything, Jaeyoung notes with a curl of amusement. Like an
angry kitten. “Or, at least, excuses that she would accept.”
“We all have friends like that,” Jaeyoung agrees sagely. It probably means less coming from
him considering that he usually is that friend, but the guy doesn’t need to know that. “Hey,
I’m Jaeyoung, by the way.”
“Sangwoo.”
“Well, Sangwoo-ssi, I should probably get back to my own friends,” Jaeyoung says, stuffing
his hands in his pockets. “Are you feeling recovered enough to head back in with me?”
Sangwoo looks like he considers it for a split second before shaking his head. “I’m going to
throw up if I go back in there,” he says seriously.
Jaeyoung can’t imagine why Sangwoo or his friend thought that a club would be a good idea
if Sangwoo reacts this badly to loud noises, but who’s he to judge bad decisions? “You might
want to message your friend then, so they know where you are and that you’re alright.”
Sangwoo nods with the same kind of seriousness that Jaeyoung is starting to suspect he treats
everything with. “I’ll do that. Thanks for spending time with me, Jaeyoung-ssi. Enjoy your
night with your friends.”
Jaeyoung smiles and waves as he heads back. “You too—have a good night!”
What a weird guy.
He puts Sangwoo out of his mind for the rest of the night and doesn’t think about him at all
for several weeks until the day of his art exhibition, where he runs into one Chu Sangwoo on
the opening night.
my boss is not going to be happy
Chapter Notes
chapter tags: alien au, crack treated seriously
this chapter is another one where the prompt is a liiiiittle loose in how it’s been added to
the text itself, but the spirit is definitely there!
Jaeyoung takes in the very naked boy curled up on the break room floor and sighs heavily.
“Boss is not going to be happy about this,” he mutters to himself before crouching down to
shake the probably homeless, possibly high guy awake.
“Hey,” he says, trying to keep his voice gentle and non-threatening. “I don’t know how you
got in, but you can’t sleep here, okay?”
Thankfully, the person stirs before Jaeyoung has to consider more involved ways of waking
him up. “Hey,” he says again as the boy blinks his eyes open. “I need you to leave—whoa.”
He makes direct eye contact with a tile past the guy’s shoulder so he’s not staring at his junk
as he turns over and unfurls. “Um. Do you have clothes?”
From the corner of his eye, he can see the guy tilt his head. “Clothes?”
Oh, jeez.
Jaeyoung quickly makes the decision to sacrifice his jacket to the cause—it’s long and
definitely better than 1) sitting on a tiled floor ass (and everywhere else) buck naked and 2)
Jaeyoung not being able to look at the dude for fear of getting an eyeful. When he tosses the
garment to the boy, though, he just flinches and looks blankly at the cloth now in his lap.
“What is this?” he asks.
“A jacket…?” Jaeyoung mimes putting it on and gets the blank stare directed at him for his
efforts. “I… Look, I’m just trying to help out. It’s closing time and I’ll definitely lose my job
if I don’t get you to leave, so do you mind just…?” He makes a shooing motion, but once
again gets no flicker of comprehension.
The boy does pluck hesitantly at the jacket, though, making a face at whatever texture the
fabric is. “Interesting.” He looks back at Jaeyoung. “I seem to be lost.”
Jaeyoung snorts quietly. “No kidding.”

“Which planet is this?”
Now it’s Jaeyoung’s turn to stare blankly. “Excuse me?”
The boy furrows his brow. “There is nothing to excuse you for.”
“No—” Jaeyoung shakes his head. “What was your question?”
“Which planet is this?” the boy repeats patiently. “Do you not know? Do you have a name for
the place that you live?”
Jaeyoung keeps shaking his head. Apparently he needs to start taking more day shifts—the
sleep deprivation is getting to him. “Uh, this is Korea?” he says hesitantly, not sure if he
should be indulging whatever delusions are happening here. “We’re on Earth.”
“Oh!” Strangely, this seems to make the boy cheer up. “I am in the right place, then.”
“Right…” Maybe Jaeyoung is the one tripping? Would Haeun have slipped him something
earlier? She doesn’t seem the type. “Clearly you’ve got something going on here—”
“I should introduce myself,” the boy interrupts, like Jaeyoung hadn’t spoken. “My name is
—” Here, he lets out a string of completely unintelligible noises, and not even in a foreign
language kind of way. It’s as if the sounds aren’t meant to be pronounced with a human
throat. The boy frowns, tries again with the same effect, and frowns again. “An equivalent in
your language might be Sangwoo.”
“Hi, Sangwoo,” Jaeyoung says, too tired to question this. “I’m Jaeyoung.”
“Jaeyoung,” Sangwoo says, slowly and carefully, before nodding. “I have come to your
planet—”
“Excuse me?”
“—for ‘cultural exchange’. I traveled several hundred light years for this opportunity, and am
excited to understand humanity from a more personal perspective.” Sangwoo nods once to
himself like he’s confirming that he’s gotten everything right, and looks up at Jaeyoung
expectantly.
Jaeyoung just gapes. His boss is definitely not going to be happy about this.
Chapter End Notes
not super important, but i did some research into hanja for this to have a plausible
explanation for why sangwoo can pull out a human name from nowhere, so i’m just
gonna say that i’m imagining his name means 상우=像雨=‘like rain’ and that’s what his
alien name means too (hangul/hanja dictionary)
not such a lone wolf after all
Chapter Notes
chapter tags: friendship, implied previous bullying
i can’t be the only one who thought sangwoo’s reaction to jihye calling him sangchu for
the first time (“how did you know?”) was a hint that ppl made fun of him for it in the
past lol
For some reason, it doesn’t occur to Jaeyoung that Sangwoo might be the type to get bullied.
He’d gone into his last semester at school with the very specific intention of getting revenge,
not just for general malice. There’s a difference. By the time he’d registered Sangwoo as an
actual person and not just an adversary, he was already more than aware of all of Sangwoo’s
positive qualities.
So when he’s out one day with Sangwoo and Jihye on one of their weird book-cafe friend-
date hang outs (look, Jaeyoung doesn’t claim to understand—he just hangs around and
sketches while they read), he doesn’t expect a random stranger to do a double take at
Sangwoo and come over to their table. “Chu Sangchu?” he says incredulously.
Sangwoo looks up. “Ah,” he says after a moment. “Song Dohyeon?”
“Yeah, that’s me. Sangchu and I used to go to school together—all the way from elementary
to high school, wasn’t it?” Sangwoo nods. “Wow, fancy seeing you here.”
Sangwoo nods again, doing the awkward head bob that he does when he’s at a loss for words
and not sure how he’s supposed to respond. Jaeyoung is about to jump in when Dohyeon
continues, “Hey, not such a lone wolf after all, eh?”
At this, Jihye bookmarks her place and closes her book with finality, frowning. “What do you
mean?”
Dohyeon laughs. “I mean, you’ve met him, clearly. Sangchu’s always been a loner—not that
that’s ever been a problem for you though, huh?” He looks at Sangwoo like he’s expecting
support, but Sangwoo’s looking down at his open book. Jaeyoung doubts he’s reading.
“What do you mean?” Jihye repeats.
“Sangchu’s just a cold guy, you know? Always off on his own, never wanting to talk to
people. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him work in a group project, and definitely not a group
project where he didn’t do all the work.” Dohyeon laughs again, but there’s an awkward tinge
to it this time. “We used to place bets on how quickly it’d take him to request to do an
assignment alone instead of with a partner.”
None of this is news to Jaeyoung—hell, Sangwoo had done the same thing to him—but
something about what Dohyeon is saying is rubbing him the wrong way. “So were you two
friends when you were younger?” Jaeyoung interjects.
“Uh—”
“No,” Sangwoo says. It’s matter-of-fact and casual, and the whole situation still feels off to
Jaeyoung somehow.
“Can you imagine being friends with this guy?” Dohyeon is clearly joking, but insults
disguised as jokes are still insults. “No offense to you guys, of course.”
“Of course,” Jihye repeats flatly.
“Hey.” Dohyeon takes a step back and crosses his arms, somewhere between defensive and
taken aback. “We all thought—” he starts, and then clearly seems to think better of it. “I’m
happy for Sangchu, you know? It’s good to see you having friends.”
“Thank you.” Sangwoo picks up his book and clearly dismisses Dohyeon. Dohyeon rolls his
eyes and makes a ‘see?’ gesture.
“Bye.” Jaeyoung follows Sangwoo’s example and picks up his stylus again. Jihye opens her
book.
“Uh, bye, I guess.” As Dohyeon is leaving, Jaeyoung hears him mutter, “Of course he’d make
friends with other weirdos.”
Jaeyoung’s phone buzzes a second later. What a mean person!!!! Jihye has sent him.
Absolute douchebag, Jaeyoung sends back.
Can’t believe oppa had to go to school with those guys :(
Ice cream?
Ice cream.
“Hey,” Jaeyoung says as casually as he can. By the look Jihye shoots him, he misses the
mark. “I’m feeling done with sketching. Want to go get ice cream?” Jaeyoung can hear how
stilted he sounds, but Sangwoo still looks up with a thoughtful expression and nods in
agreement.
“From the store across—”
“Across from your favorite noodle place, of course,” Jihye jumps in. “Where else?”
Sangwoo nods again and starts packing up his things. Jaeyoung passes him his tablet to carry
in his backpack together, and Jihye slips her book back into her tote bag.
On their way out, Jaeyoung and Jihye share a conspiratorial grin and a fist bump.
but what does it mean?
Chapter Notes
chapter tags: established relationship
“I expected you to be less interested in the abstract art,” Jaeyoung can’t help but comment to
Sangwoo as they walk to the next room in the exhibit together. His boyfriend is innately
practical and has trouble reading meaning when it’s not on the surface—Jaeyoung would’ve
expected abstract art to be the ultimate hurdle.
Sangwoo hums. “In some ways it’s easier to understand, actually.” Jaeyoung is about to
respond when he spots the wrinkle in Sangwoo’s brow. “Easier to interact with,” he corrects.
“Not easier to understand.”
“Explain it to me?” Jaeyoung offers.
Sangwoo looks at the next piece consideringly. It’s almost entirely one color—a dark, muted
blue—and broken up by a few curved lines like scales or broken glass. “I think most people,
when looking at art, feel the need to ask and answer the question, ‘But what does it mean?’,
and perhaps especially with abstract art. But abstract art is so hard to understand that I let go
of that question and just look at it for what it is. I just let my eyes see.” Sangwoo tilts his
head, still looking at the artwork. “It’s nice.”
Jaeyoung looks at Sangwoo, and then look at the piece, trying to just see it for what it is
without thinking about the medium or color theory or process, or million other things that
he’s learned about in class.
I see blue, he thinks. And maybe that’s all it needs to be.
Chapter End Notes
i did in fact actually look up korean abstract artists for this. i’m not clear on if the piece
that sangwoo’s referring to here is on display or has already been bought? but it’s an
actual piece of abstract art by kim whanki! apparently he’s one of the pioneers of
abstract art in korea!
how long have we known each other?
Chapter Notes
chapter tags: amnesia, established relationship, married couple, hospitals, fluff
this was inspired by that one post about that person whose husband was flirting with his
wife after surgery bc of the temporary amnesia? smth like that? i’m not sure what the
original post was exactly tbh (too distilled down the social media grapevine), but this is
the vibes i was going for: link
Sangwoo opens his eyes to a hospital room and two concerned people peering down at him.
“Chu Sangwoo-nim,” says the one that he’s fairly certain is a nurse. “You’ve just come out of
surgery, and the anesthesia might still be wearing off. Are you currently feeling any pain or
other symptoms?”
Now that the nurse has drawn attention to it, Sangwoo does feel a deep ache in his abdomen,
and a pervasive sense of exhaustion. “I’m tired,” he reports, “and my stomach…? Abdomen?
It hurts.”
The nurse nods. “That’s to be expected, unfortunately. Please take this time to rest. You’ll be
prescribed painkillers and antibiotics when you’re discharged. Do you have any questions
before I leave?”
It feels a little like Sangwoo’s mind is a house, and he’s currently standing in the only room
with the light on. He’s confused and disoriented and he feels slow. “No,” he says slowly. Any
thoughts in his mind are currently slipping through his grasp like fish.
The nurse waits another beat before nodding again. “If you need anything, there’s a call
button on the remote next to your bed.” With that, Sangwoo and the other person are left
alone in the room.
The other person is… tall. He towers over the bed, but has a kind of puppy-like expression
that softens any threatening energy. He looks delicate but strong and beautiful and definitely
not like someone who’d be waiting for Sangwoo to get out of surgery. “You’re… very
pretty.” The words slip out from him without any thought.
The person looks offensively surprised before his expression morphs into a wide grin. “Your
first words out of surgery are to compliment me on my looks? I’m shocked, Chu Sangwoo.”
Sangwoo frowns. “Do I not tell you that a lot?”

He regrets asking when the person’s smile drops off in favor of a frown. “Do you not
remember?”
“I liked your smile better.” It comes out plaintively, a forlorn complaint. Sangwoo reaches
out, not even sure what he wants to grasp, but the person seems to know him better than
himself and slides into one of the chairs next to Sangwoo’s hospital bed so that he can slide
one of his own hands into Sangwoo’s and press a kiss to the back of Sangwoo’s hand.
“Oh!” There are bubbles popping in Sangwoo’s stomach. The person grins and repeats the
action, laughing when Sangwoo giggles. “Oh,” Sangwoo repeats, and touches the edge of the
person’s smile. “Happiness looks good on you.”
Completely counter to what Sangwoo had wanted, this makes the person grow serious again.
“Sangwoo-yah. Do you remember who I am?”
Sangwoo is trying so hard to turn on the other lights in his mind, but he’s still standing in the
dark. “No. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Another kiss gets pressed to the back of Sangwoo’s hand. Sangwoo wonders if
the feeling of fluttering ever goes away. “The nurse explained that temporary amnesia is
sometimes a side effect of the anesthesia. It’ll go away, so try not to worry too much, okay?
I’m Jaeyoung. I’m your, uh…” Here, he pauses and leans in closer. Sangwoo watches with
blank fascination, not sure what’s happening. “We’re husbands. Not legally, I guess. But it’s
real. It’s true. To me, to you, to our friends… All the people that matter.”
“Oh.” Sangwoo blinks, trying to put this big box of information, of feeling, into the small, lit
room of his mind. “Really?”
“Really.”
He sits with that for several moments until he comes to the conclusion that the box just
doesn’t fit in his room right now. “Wow.”
Jaeyoung laughs. “‘Wow’?”
“You’re beautiful,” Sangwoo can’t help but comment. “Your laugh is so pretty. I hope I make
you happy.”
“You do,” Jaeyoung says immediately. “Can I kiss you?”
Sangwoo hesitates. This person has probably already done that a lot before, right? “Yes,” he
agrees hesitantly.
Jaeyoung rises halfway out of his seat to brush a kiss each over Sangwoo’s forehead, nose,
and lips, hardly more than a brief touch. “I love you so much, Chu Sangwoo,” he says as he
finishes, sitting back down and grabbing Sangwoo’s other hand as well. “You make me happy
every day. I mean, you also make me incredibly annoyed sometimes, but—I’m happy. And
you’re happy too, I think. I know.”
“That’s good,” Sangwoo says decisively. “I like that. That we’re both happy.”
Jaeyoung laughs softly. “I like that too.”
“How long have we known each other?” Sangwoo has so many questions, even though he
knows the answers are in a dark corner somewhere.
“We celebrated our six year anniversary a few months ago—of us knowing each other, not of
being married,” Jaeyoung corrects quickly when he spots Sangwoo’s eyes getting wide.
“That’s a long time,” Sangwoo declares solemnly. “Do we live together?”
“It’d be weirder for us not to live together, don’t you think?” Sangwoo shrugs. “We do,
though I think you regret that decision every day.”
“I don’t think I could regret anything about you,” Sangwoo says. He doesn’t know anything
about Jaeyoung, not really, but he knows he’s telling the truth.
He watches with fond amusement as Jaeyoung blushes. “Wait until you remember reminding
me to do the laundry four times a day,” he mumbles, but his rosy cheeks don’t sell it.
Sangwoo still has questions, is still trying to fight through the fog and darkness, but he feels a
different kind of darkness pulling at him. “I’m tired,” he tells Jaeyoung. “Will you still be
here when I wake up?”
“I’ll always be here,” Jaeyoung promises, leaning over to kiss Sangwoo’s cheek. “Sleep.”
Sangwoo lets his eyes drift closed and falls asleep with warmth in his hand and light in his
heart.
Chapter End Notes
forgot that it’s not stated explicitly—in my mind, sangwoo just got his appendix out or
smth! whatever not-as-serious, well-studied and relatively routine surgery will put your
mind at ease haha
thank you for your time
Chapter Notes
chapter tags: established relationship, getting to know each other, humor
The first time that Sangwoo and Jaeyoung have a real, honest-to-god date together—because
Jaeyoung doesn’t count anything in between their half-romantic friendship and Sangwoo
saying ‘yes’ to the full experience—Sangwoo concludes their dinner by rubbing his hands on
his legs vigorously and saying, “Thank you for your time.”
Jaeyoung, who’s in the middle making sure that everything is paid for and that he’s collected
all of his belongings, stares at Sangwoo. “Chu Sangwoo,” he says, after he’s processed
‘Thank you for your time’. “You’re not at a job interview.”
“I know.”
“We’ve eaten together before.”
“I know.”
Jaeyoung folds his hands together and contemplates this. “Okay.” After a moment, he adds,
as formally as possible, “Thank you for your time as well.”
Sangwoo gives him a small smile and a half-eye roll for that, which, in Jaeyoung’s humble
opinion, makes the whole experience worth it.
Chapter End Notes
so… i have more snippets written than there are days in this month 👀 currently
planning on just continuing to update this story until i run out of chapters, but lmk if i
should let this one end and start a new fic or something!
not my area of expertise
Chapter Notes
chapter tags: criminals au, mafia, exes
don’t think abt the world building too hard, this is vibes only LOL. quicksilver is from
quickst, i just decided to change the name to smth nicer
“Hey, Jaeyoung.” Jaeyoung looks up as Sooyoung peeks her head into his room. “We have
someone in the office—”
“Not my area of expertise,” Jaeyoung interrupts. ‘The office’ is code for their interrogation
room, and Jaeyoung isn’t about to step foot near that place if he can help it. His strengths lie
in infiltration and extraction, and Sooyoung knows that.
Sooyoung sighs and knocks her head against the door tiredly. “I know. This person asked for
you by name, though, and he has information that’ll help us with Quicksilver.” That catches
Jaeyoung’s attention. Quicksilver has been a pain in their ass for years now, and any leg up
would be invaluable. “Might as well try this first before we break out the saws and pliers, you
know?”
He looks down at his desk, covered in half finished sketches and stacks of paperwork that
he’s been too lazy to finish. Nothing that can’t wait for a few minutes while he goes and finds
out what their captive wants. “Fine,” he says, standing up. “I better get something nice for
this, though.”
“A croissant from that bakery you really like,” Sooyoung quickly offers as she leads him
down the hallway.
“Something bigger. A full barbecue dinner.”
“You’re kidding me. You want me to explain that to our finance department? ‘Jaeyoung was
being a bitch so I took him out for food’?”
Jaeyoung shrugs. “Yeah. Besides, our ‘finance department’ is Jihye and her sidekick. Are you
telling me you’re scared of Jihye?”
Sooyoung rolls her eyes. “Have you ever tried making up excuses while Jihye’s looking at
you with her saddest eyes? More effective torture than anything Yoona could come up with, I
swear to god.”
“Hell, invite Jihye out with us. I’m sure she’d enjoy an excuse to splurge and eat something
nice.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Sooyoung brings them to a stop in front of a closed metal door. “He’s inside. Don’t say
anything about yourself or us. Don’t make any promises that could backfire. Just keep him
talking. If it looks like things are going downhill or you’re not getting anything out of him,
just get out of there. Got it?”
It’s Jaeyoung’s turn to roll his eyes. “I do field work, you know,” he reminds her. “I do know
how to do my job.”
“Debatable,” she shoots back. He watches her disappear into the observation room before he
opens the door.
He doesn’t know what he was expecting. Sooyoung had said he’d been asked for by name, so
an old acquaintance, maybe, that he’d fallen out of touch with. A target he’d met while in the
field who’d dug around enough to figure out his cover story. Hell, maybe just a random
someone who’d found something out about their organization. Nothing could’ve prepared
him for the sight of Chu Sangwoo sitting calmly at their interrogation table, hands cuffed
behind his back.
“Chu Sangwoo,” he breathes. He feels like he’s been punched in the chest, ears ringing, as he
crosses the short distance it takes to reach the empty chair and pour himself into it.
“Hyung,” Sangwoo greets, and oh, that’s unfair.
The last time Jaeyoung saw Sangwoo had been less than six months ago, through the blurry
filter of tears as he’d been told in no uncertain terms that they couldn’t see each other
anymore and had to break up—sans any explanation, of course. Jaeyoung is still nursing the
wound. “So,” Jaeyoung says, willing the ache in his chest to go away. “I’m guessing you’re
not a computer science student, then.”
Sangwoo, at least, has the conscience to look contrite. “No.”
Jaeyoung waits a beat before the impatience and rising annoyance beat out any lessons about
how silence is your friend during interrogations. “‘No’? That’s it? You come here—willingly,
I’m assuming—ask for me by name, just to tell me ‘no’? Chu Sangwoo, you know you owe
me an apology and an explanation. Start talking, or else I’m calling Yoona in here, and she’s
much less nice than I am.”
“There’s no need to threaten me,” Sangwoo protests, but doesn’t object when Jaeyoung
scoffs. He takes a deep breath, and then another, staring at the concrete to Jaeyoung’s right.
“Before I begin, I want you to know that everything, our relationship… That was real. What I
felt, what you felt… Well, I can’t speak for you, but it was real to me.”
At this, Sangwoo glances quickly at Jaeyoung, meeting his eyes for a split second before
looking away again. “I knew about your work here before we started dating. I’m the lead
hacker for Quicksilver—it’s my job to know these things. We did meet at that gallery by
coincidence,” he adds, like he knows Jaeyoung would be wondering. Jaeyoung hates him for
reading him so well. “I was trying to keep you and my work as separate as possible, but
around a year ago, my boss —the boss—found out and started putting pressure on me to use
you as a source of information. I refused. Told him to, at the very least, assign someone else
to you—your case. He refused my refusal.” Sangwoo draws in a breath that shakes ever-so-
slightly.
The thing is, Jaeyoung can absolutely believe this story. If everything he knows about
Sangwoo is to be believed, he’s an incredibly principled individual; he would’ve hated being
told to betray Jaeyoung. It also explains why Sangwoo had done a 180 in their relationship.
All of the work Jaeyoung had done to understand him, to soften his guard and worm his way
into being one of Sangwoo’s closest people—all of that was gone. In hindsight, he should’ve
known something was wrong, but he’d been under the impression that they were just having
an inexplicable couple’s spat, and Sangwoo was being stubborn.
“So I started looking into Quicksilver,” Sangwoo continues. “I wanted to know why they
were asking me to do these things. Why they wanted information on you and Dex so badly.”
Here, Sangwoo pauses. Jaeyoung waits for half a minute, a minute, until he’s not sure that
Sangwoo’s going to speak without being prompted. “And?” he asks. His voice comes out
softer than he wants it to.
Sangwoo takes in a deep breath, holds it, and sighs it out loudly. “Everything that I found out
is on the flash drive that your people took from me when they searched me. If they’re smart,
they won’t have plugged it in anywhere yet, but it’s just files. Information. Nothing on
current operatives,” he adds quickly, shooting a look at Jaeyoung. Jaeyoung inclines his head.
To Sangwoo, those people are probably friends. “But enough to put a stop to some of their
plans, probably. Bring them down entirely, if you’re smart about it.”
Jaeyoung sits back, head spinning. He needs to talk to Sooyoung, Yoona—anyone, to make
sense of all this information. If he’s reading Sangwoo correctly, then Quicksilver is up to
something bad. “And what about you?” he makes himself ask.
Sangwoo catches his eye here. He’s always had a knack for either avoiding all eye contact or
making Jaeyoung feel like he’s rooted in place for how much Sangwoo stares into his soul.
“I’m at your mercy now.” It’s said without much inflection, like it’s a casual decision that
Sangwoo is making. “I can’t go back to Quicksilver.” His lips draw up slightly at the corners.
“I’ll be in your care. Hyung.”
After that reveal, Jaeyoung half-heartedly probes him for more information and Sangwoo
responds with the same deadpan seriousness that Jaeyoung has always known him for. His
mind feels blank, and he’s definitely not in the right mindset for this kind of work. Sooyoung
must see it too because she comes in a few moments after he’s had that thought, ushering him
out with a hard look at Sangwoo.
Jaeyoung can’t help but glance back. The last thing he sees before the door closes is Sangwoo
staring back at him, dark eyes sharp and piercing and yet ever so soft.
can you feel this?
Chapter Notes
chapter tags: canon compliant, established relationship, texting format
Jang Jaeyoung 😇 🥰❤😘

Today 23:45
sangwoo-yah
are you awake?
Yes
oh?
i’m surprised
isn’t it past your bedtime???
It’s strange to go to sleep without having a phone call with you first
🥺🥺🥺
JAGI
It’s part of my routine now
can you feel this?
What?
my love, all the way from france
I can feel my blankets, my sheets, and my pajamas
:(
I can feel my love for you

All the way from inside me
:D
love you too
sorry i can’t call today :(
lunch meeting ran over, i’m back in the office now and can’t talk on the phone
people in france take so long to eat, did you know that???
If you’re in the office, then you shouldn’t be texting me either
shit shouldn’t have told you that
You should go back to work, hyung
but i want to talk to you :(
The sooner you finish what you need to do in France, the sooner you can come home
true true
miss you, sangwoo-yah ❤
I miss you too, hyung
good night
Good night
Chapter End Notes
jaeyoung absolutely stole sangwoo’s phone and added those emojis to his contact
against his will
i’m not overly happy about it
Chapter Notes
chapter tags: established relationship, healthy communication
One morning, after Jaeyoung washes his rice bowl and sets it aside to air dry, Sangwoo puts
down his chopsticks and tells him bluntly, “I think you need to live in your own apartment for
a day.”
Jaeyoung stares at him uncomprehendingly. “What?”
Sangwoo doesn’t even do him the justice of looking shifty or uncomfortable. He just looks
Jaeyoung straight in the eye and repeats, “I think you need to live in your own apartment for
a day.” That sentence doesn’t make any more sense to Jaeyoung the second time around. Are
they having a fight? Did he do something? What’s going on? “I need some space.”
“You need some space,” Jaeyoung repeats slowly. “What happened? Did I do something?”
Sangwoo takes a discomfitingly long time to answer. “Nothing specific happened. I need
some space to myself, and I think that’d be best accomplished by you staying in your
apartment temporarily for a day. Perhaps two at most. I’ll have a better answer for you by the
end of that time.”
So they are fighting, Jaeyoung concludes. “Fine,” he says, trying to keep his tone as even as
possible. He’s not sure if the burning feeling that’s rising in his chest is anger or panic. “I’ll
grab my things and leave, then.”
The entire time that he’s gathering his scattered belongings—laptop, notebook, various
pencils and pens—he can’t help but dart glances at Sangwoo, hoping that he’ll say something
to stop him. Hoping that he’d misunderstood somehow. He’d thought that they were beyond
the period in their relationship of awkward miscommunication or lack of communication at
all, but here they are, back at square one again.
Sangwoo seems to pick up on at least some of this, because he shifts in his chair and offers,
“This isn’t supposed to be something bad, hyung. I want some time to sort out my thoughts,
but I don’t think I can do that while we’re spending all of our time in the same space together.
I’ll see you again soon.”
Jaeyoung can’t get his head to wrap around the idea that ‘not bad’ and ‘kicked out by
Sangwoo’ can be mutually inclusive, but he knows well enough by now that his and
Sangwoo’s brains don’t work the same way. “Okay.”
When he passes Sangwoo on the way to the apartment door, he can’t help but pause. “Kiss?”
he asks softly, and the wave of relief he feels when Sangwoo nods is as soothing as it is
alarming.
The kiss that they share is short and dry and brief, the kind of affectionate but passionless
action that a housewife gives to her husband when he leaves for work. Stop catastrophizing,
Jang Jaeyoung, he chides himself. Listen to Sangwoo—there’s nothing wrong. “I’ll see you
later, then?” he murmurs.
Sangwoo nods. “I’ll message you.”
And just like that, Jaeyoung is standing outside of Sangwoo’s apartment, bag in hand. Alone.
The first thing he does is call Yoona. “What the fuck do you want, you bastard,” she groans
after the third call. “It’s Saturday. I’m sleeping in.”
“My boyfriend kicked me out,” he says, and finally lets the whine slip into his voice. “Can I
come over?”
“What? Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“You guys had a fight?”
“No! I don’t know. I don’t think so?”
Yoona groans loudly. It goes on for several seconds. “Fine. But you owe me.”
“Sure, sure.”
Forty minutes later, he’s sitting on Yoona’s couch, enduring her stink-eye with the ease of
long practice. “Give me that,” she hisses, grabbing the bag of takeout food that Jaeyoung
picked up on the way, half as breakfast and one hundred percent as bribery. “So,” she says
through a mouthful of rice. “Talk.”
“What is there to talk about?” Jaeyoung groans, throwing himself backwards onto the couch
and splaying out pathetically. He’s being dramatic, but Yoona would understand—he’s helped
her dye her hair an ill-advised green after a breakup. She’s in no place to judge. “He told me
that he needed space, didn’t tell me why, and now I’m here.”
“Uh huh,” Yoona says skeptically. “And you guys aren’t ‘on a break’ or some bullshit like
that?”
“He specifically told me that everything’s fine, actually.” The ceiling of Yoona’s apartment
has an odd black streak in the corner that it takes Jaeyoung a couple seconds to place as a
smear from when they’d manage to toss a shoe up there and it’d made a mark before coming
down. “But what if it’s not fine?” He sits up abruptly, looking over at Yoona. She stares back,
unimpressed and aggressively chewing a mouthful of gyeranmari. “What if he breaks up with
me?”
“He’s not going to break up with you,” she reassures, even though he can tell that she
probably wants to say something along the lines of ‘haha, sucker’. “You know Sangchu. I
know Sangchu. He’s got the emotional intelligence of a rock.”
“No, he doesn’t,” Jaeyoung protests out of loyalty to his boyfriend.
“A mossy rock,” Yoona allows. “He probably just needs some time like he said. Everything’s
fine.”
Yoona is right. Jaeyoung knows she’s right, but there’s still a tight knot of anxiety that sits
right below his ribcage that makes him want to go back to Sangwoo and demand answers,
just to make it go away. “This sucks.”
“You’re telling me,” Yoona mutters. She still sets her food aside though and curls up next to
him. “How are you doing?”
“Well, I’m not overly happy about all this.” Jaeyoung pouts, sliding down until he can rest his
head on her head. “I just want to see him again. Isn’t that stupid? It’s been less than two hours
and I miss him already. Maybe we do need time away from each other.”
“It’s okay to be sad,” Yoona says softly, which hits Jaeyoung right in the fleshy part of his
heart. Fucking best friends who know you better than you know yourself. “And it’s not
stupid. You care a lot for each other. Which is why he took the time to tell you what he
needed instead of arguing with you.”
Jaeyoung sighs heavily through his nose. “You’re right.” Of course she’s right—Yoona is
always right, somehow.
“Of course I’m right.”
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck you.”
Two days later, Jaeyoung is finally allowed back in Sangwoo’s apartment. “Hyung,”
Sangwoo greets at the door. There’s a slight smile on his lips, which translates to a beaming
grin on anyone else. Definitely not the look of someone who’s about to initiate a breakup.
“Chu Sangwoo.” Jaeyoung wants to hug and kiss and cuddle the shit out of his boyfriend. He
settles for asking, “Kiss?”
Sangwoo considers this for a second. “Hug?”
“Hug,” Jaeyoung agrees, and almost sweeps Sangwoo off his feet with the force of his
embrace. “Missed you.”
“It’s been barely over forty-eight hours since we’ve seen each other, hyung.” Still, he feels
Sangwoo’s hands come up and pat his back. Sangwoo treats every hug like he’s never had
human interaction before, which is both hilarious and endearing.
“So you’re going to say that you didn’t miss me at all?”
“I didn’t have time to miss you.”
“How mean. I missed you as soon as I left.” He pokes Sangwoo’s side, chuckling when he
jolts and tries to squirm away. “I’m joking, by the way.” He’s not really joking, but he’s still
being more lighthearted than Sangwoo is probably taking it.
“Oh,” Sangwoo says in a voice that definitely implies that he’s reading their conversation
differently now. “I see.”
“‘I see’,” Jaeyoung mimics. “Can we go inside now? Someone is going to see us and think
we’re ridiculous.”
Sangwoo extracts himself from Jaeyoung’s arms, which is a shame even though Jaeyoung
was the one to suggest it. “Hyung is the one who asked to hug.”
“Actually, I wanted a kiss. You asked for a hug.”
Sangwoo rolls his eyes and holds his door open wider. “Come in, hyung.”
“Hey, you’re the one who likes to be specific about everything. I’m just following your lead,”
Jaeyoung says as he heads inside, and then he has to stop in the foyer because the apartment
is different. “Did you… clean?” he asks, because everything is neater than before. He hadn’t
noticed how cluttered the space was getting until all of it got put away.
“I did. I also organized,” Sangwoo says, as if Jaeyoung wouldn’t have noticed. “That’s what I
needed space for.”
Jaeyoung frowns. “To… clean the apartment,” he says slowly. “You could’ve done that while
I was here. Or I could have helped out.”
“No,” Sangwoo blurts, quick enough that Jaeyoung feels reflexively hurt by it. He sighs.
“Hyung,” he starts, before thinking better of it and grabbing a sheet of paper off of the coffee
table. Jaeyoung feels his eyebrows lift. Oh, so this is serious enough for Sangwoo to need a
script. “I like spending time with you,” he reads. “A lot. It makes me happy, and I like that
we’re dating.” Jaeyoung senses a ‘but’. “I also like having my apartment arranged in a
specific way. When I’m in your space, like in your apartment or in your studio, I know that in
the end, I can’t change too much about the environment and your belongings.”
“There was that one time—” Jaeyoung mimes zipping his mouth shut when Sangwoo glares
at him.
“But when I’m in my own space, I want things to be a certain way. I know that you’ve been
trying to be considerate by asking me how I do things and replicating them as best as you
can, but it’s not the same. That’s why it took me so long to bring up—because I know you
care about me, and I didn’t want you to think that I wasn’t noticing that.” He glances up at
Jaeyoung at this part, and Jaeyoung feels a complicated stab of emotion in his chest. “But it’s
been stressing me out to feel like my apartment isn’t my space anymore, and I needed these
past two days to figure that out. I think we should have a conversation about that now, so this
letter ends here. I love you.”
Sangwoo sets the sheet of paper down. Jaeyoung feels inexplicably like crying. “Warning:
I’m going to hug you again.”
“Oh—” Sangwoo’s breath gets pushed out in an ‘oof’ after that. Jaeyoung buries his nose in
Sangwoo’s hair and breathes in the smell of his shampoo. “Was the letter too much?” he asks,
voice small.
Jaeyoung’s grip tightens. “No, it was perfect. I promise.” They stay like that until Jaeyoung
feels like he can breathe without doing it around the lump in his throat. “Okay. Let’s talk.” He
lets go in time to see Sangwoo nod. “What do you feel like the solution is?”
Sangwoo opens his mouth, hesitates, and then closes it again. Jaeyoung waits patiently, long
enough to figure out that this is a ‘haven’t sorted my thoughts yet’ kind of pause and not a
‘words are difficult’ kind of pause. “I want to hear your gut reaction. It’s okay if you think
that I won’t like it, or it’s not the ‘right’ solution. That’s what conversation is for.”
Sangwoo still takes several more moments to respond. “I… want my apartment to myself.
You can still spend time here, but I’d rather study at your apartment or spend the night there,
than have you do it here.”
Jaeyoung figured it’d be something along those lines. “Okay.”
Sangwoo does a double take. “‘Okay’?”
“Okay.” Jaeyoung shrugs. “You like having this space to come back to, right? Without me
influencing it?” Sangwoo nods. “And you don’t plan on spending less time with me because
of this?” Sangwoo nods again. “Then sure. I agree that it sounds like it’d be better for both of
us to spend less time here so that it’s less stressful for you. I don’t mind.”
He’s not sure why Sangwoo looks so perplexed by his agreement. “It’s unfair, though.”
“Why?”
“Then I’m the one going into your space and messing it up. Shouldn’t it be equal?”
A laugh bursts out of Jaeyoung, and then he has to hurry to wave his hands and placate
Sangwoo. “Sangwoo-yah. I forget where I put things constantly. If you started moving things
around in my apartment, as long as it’s not something I’m using every day, I’m probably not
going to notice. You’re much neater than I am. It’s not unequal because it’s not something
that matters to me.”
“Oh.” Sangwoo cocks his head to the side. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
Jaeyoung reaches out and claps his hands to Sangwoo’s cheeks, squishing them until
Sangwoo resembles a fish that’s becoming rapidly unamused. “Let’s try this for a while,
okay? If it’s still not working, then we can try again. We can always keep trying. I want to
keep trying with you. Okay?”
Sangwoo wrestles out of Jaeyoung’s grip and gives him a side-eye while rubbing his cheeks.
Jaeyoung doesn’t bother telling him that it makes him look adorable, not obstinate. “Okay.”
Jaeyoung draws him in for one last hug before pulling him towards the door. “I haven’t spent
time with you for two days! Let’s watch a movie together. I’ll make popcorn.”
“Hyung is like a puppy that hasn’t been given enough attention.”
“I resent that comparison.”
“Shall I text Choi Yoochae and see if she agrees?”
“Don’t you dare—I can’t believe you’d gang up on me.”
They’ll be okay, Jaeyoung thinks as he unlocks his own door and pushes Sangwoo inside.
They’ll be okay.
it’s a situation we have to prepare ourselves for
Chapter Notes
chapter tags: alternate universe, dimension travel, actor rpf (park seoham)
Seoham is so, so glad that he and Jaechan had previously decided to get breakfast together
this morning.
“So you woke up this morning and just found yourself here,” he recaps, rubbing his temples.
Sangwoo—Chu Sangwoo, the character—nods. “If you’re playing a prank on me, Jaechan-
ah, I’m going to kill you.” Even as he says it, though, he knows that Jaechan wouldn’t go this
far for a prank, and Sangwoo acts so differently from Jaechan besides. It’s completely and
utterly impossible, and yet—
“Jaechan…nim is the actor who plays me?” Sangwoo asks hesitantly.
Seoham nods, head still in his hands. “Yeah.”
He looks up after a long moment of silence to see Sangwoo making a face like he just sucked
on a lemon. “This is very strange.”
“You’re telling me,” he mutters.
“And your name is?”
“Park Seoham.”
“I see.”
Seoham assumes that Sangwoo has more questions, but his stomach chooses that moment to
make its presence known. “Ah,” he says, feeling suddenly self-conscious. If this was Jaechan,
he’d probably tease Seoham for having such a loud stomach, but Sangwoo just stares at him.
“I’ll order breakfast.”
“Okay,” Seoham says as they eat their breakfast that Seoham had delivered. He feels bad for
Sangwoo—his phone apparently got left behind in his own universe. Not that Seoham knows
if it’d work here anyway. “We should get our stories straight.”
“Our stories?” Sangwoo repeats.
It hits Seoham all of a sudden the sheer madness of this whole thing. Not just Jaechan and
Sangwoo spontaneously switching places, but passing Sangwoo off as Jaechan during both
filming for Semantic Error and Dongkiz’s promotions. “Shit.” He hopes they don’t have
anything more strenuous than a few photoshoots today. “Shit.”
“That doesn’t sound good.” And then it hits all over again that Sangwoo isn’t Jaechan, and
he’s not sure when he’s going to get him back.
“I’m just processing,” Seoham says as lightly as possible. “So. Your name is Park Jaechan for
today. We’ll be acting together this morning—oh.” Suddenly, he realizes that this is someone
who’s literally living the story that they’re acting. “Where… uh, where are you in your
relationship with Jang Jaeyoung?”
Sangwoo’s expression doesn’t change, but the tips of his ears flush bright red. “Jaeyoung-
hyung and I are dating. Which you know, presumably.”
Seoham feels a wave of relief hit him like a ton of bricks. That means the timeline of
Sangwoo’s universe is at some point after the conclusion of the story. “Ah, yeah, but I want
to make sure that we’re not going to interfere in your relationship with him. You know, like
spoilers.” Spoilers for real life—what a concept. “Anyway, we’ll be acting together for most
of the morning and early afternoon, and then you have a schedule with Dongkiz for a few
hours. Your manager will pick you up for that. After that, you’ll come back here and finish up
with filming at the end of the day.” And hopefully everything will be back to normal by
tomorrow, he hopes.
Sangwoo nods his head slowly. “Okay. I don’t know how to act, though. Or be an idol. I’m a
college student. A programmer.”
Seoham winces. “Yeah. Well, the acting should be easy, at least—the scenes we’re doing
should all be memories for you. You just have to act as yourself and tell people that you’re
being serious about staying in character today. I’ll do the heavy lifting.” He tries to give
Sangwoo a reassuring smile. “As for being an idol… well.” Sangwoo’s not about to make up
for years of training in one day. “Do your best? And pray that it’s just photoshoots for the
promotional materials. Just… copy what everyone else is doing.”
Sangwoo gives him a flat look. “Fine. There’s no way I can call out of work for a day?”
Seoham thinks about that time Jaechan was so exhausted that he literally fell asleep on set,
and yet he still showed up on time to all of his obligations. There’s no way anyone would
believe him for a second if he tried to call out of work for anything other than being sent to
the hospital. “Nope.”
“Fine,” Sangwoo repeats. “Is there anything else I should know?”

Seoham hums. “You have an older brother named Jaemin. Your mom calls while we’re on
set, sometimes. I’m pretty close with your family.”
“Do you think that’ll come up today?” Sangwoo’s eyebrows draw together. Sangwoo tends to
look so much more serious than Jaechan—Seoham finds himself missing his smile.
“It’s a situation that we have to prepare ourselves for, at least.” Seoham wracks his brain for
anything else Sangwoo might need to survive the day. “With your members—”
“Who?”
“The other members of your idol group. If they ask what's going on, just tell them that you’re
not feeling well and had a long night of shooting. I think they’re used to you being more low-
energy right now.” From what Jaechan has told him, he’s much less concerned about putting
up a front when he’s with his members compared to when he’s on set. Even so, Seoham can
still tell that Jaechan needs at least twice as much rest as he’s been getting.
When he checks on Sangwoo again, his heart goes out to him when he sees how
overwhelmed he looks. “Hey, it’ll be okay. I’ll be with you for most of the day. If you have
any questions, you can call me. I’ll cover for you as best as I can.”
“I don’t have many other options than to just endure it for now,” Sangwoo points out. “But
thanks.”
“Are you ready?” They’ll need to be getting to hair and makeup soon.
Sangwoo gives him a wry look. “Not at all. Let’s go.”
Chapter End Notes
at ordtxl’s suggestion, i’ll be ending this fic at 29 chapters still, but i’ll be picking up
with a new fic for all the other snippets i have written! if you want to be updated for
those when the new fic gets posted, you can subscribe to the series :)
show me where you are from
Chapter Notes
chapter tags: alien au
another actual, 100 word drabble! this is in the same universe as ch 18
“Show me where you’re from,” Jaeyoung says, offering Sangwoo a map of the stars. He
doesn’t know much about astronomy—he thinks it’s possible that the stars are different in the
summer and winter, and also in the northern and southern hemispheres?—so he’s not sure
what it would do for him even if Sangwoo did point out something on the map. In the end,
though, Sangwoo shakes his head.
“My solar system is not on here,” he says. “At least, not as depicted.” He circles a space in
the middle of a constellation. “We are around here, I think.”
Chapter End Notes
this au is the silliest thing ever

well, that’s your bad
Chapter Notes
chapter tags:
part one: established relationship, communication, conflict resolution (?)
part two: alternate universe - role reversal, meet ugly
so. i originally wrote part two of this chapter as the fill for this prompt, except the way i
incorporated it was far enough from the original wording that i decided to start over with
part one. i’d already written part two anyway, so now you get both!
“I’ve been kicked out of the apartment again,” Jaeyoung reports, crashing face first into the
couch in his studio.
Yoona doesn’t even show him the decency of looking up from her tablet. “Uh huh. What did
you do this time?”
Jaeyoung pouts. “Why do you assume that it was something I did?”
At this, Yoona does look up from her work, just to give him a Look. Jaeyoung thinks of it as
her ‘Jaeyoung you great big idiot, what will I do with you’ look. “When is it not something
that you did?”
“Hey, Sangwoo can be annoying all the time,” Jaeyoung protests.
“At least he’s upfront about it.” Yoona sighs and swivels around in her chair until she’s facing
him and all his pathetic glory, crumpled up on the couch. “Oh, if only your many admirers
could see you now.” Jaeyoung flips her off; she returns the gesture. “What happened?”
“He got annoyed at me for all of the chores I forgot.”
Yoona raises an eyebrow. “Which were?”
“I forgot to replace the toilet paper in the bathroom. I didn’t dry the dishes before putting
them back in the cabinet. I didn’t color-sort the laundry before giving the clothes back to him
—which isn’t a thing that he usually gets annoyed at me for!” Jaeyoung hurriedly adds.
There’s other things, he’s sure, but those are the ones that Jaeyoung knows he forgot about
this week.
“But he does get annoyed at you for the other things. And you know this.”
“…yeah.”
“Well, that’s your bad, then.” Yoona swivels back around in her chair and picks up her stylus
again.
“Yoonaaaaaaaa,” Jaeyoung groans. “Ugh, living together is going to drive both of us crazy.”
Yoona snorts. “Then don’t live together. It’s not as if you two can’t afford two separate
apartments.”
Jaeyoung automatically goes to protest, but then the words actually register. Technically, they
do still have separate apartments—Sangwoo’s just been living with him ‘because it’s a more
efficient use of our time and space, hyung’, and Jaeyoung hadn’t seen any reason not to. They
could just… not live together. “Huh.”
“Learn to actually talk to each other like emotionally competent human beings and then try
again,” Yoona advises.
“I don’t like the way you said that—”
“Then don’t come to me for advice all the time.”
“—but I’ll take it under advisement.” Jaeyoung pauses, before adding begrudgingly,
“Thanks.”
Yoona rolls her eyes. “If you really want to thank me, buy me something expensive.” She still
holds her hand out for a high-five, though, so Jaeyoung figures that he can buy her a slice of
cheesecake from a nice bakery and he’ll be set.
Prompt fill 2
“Sorry, sorry,” Jaeyoung apologizes as soon as he throws open the door to the classroom. “I
know I’m late, sorry to keep you waiting.” The person who’s probably Chu Sangwoo stares
at him, face blank. Jaeyoung strides across the classroom as quickly as possible and starts
pulling things out from his bag. “The bus was late, and then there were these three girls
walking really slowly on the sidewalk—you know how it is.”
Sangwoo speaks up for the first time. “Not really.”
Jaeyoung pauses in taking out his portfolio. “Excuse me?”
“I try to account for any and all inconveniences by arriving at least thirty minutes early to all
my obligations.” Sangwoo states this like it’s a simple feat and not completely unreasonable
for any sane person with a normal working schedule. “Since we’re fifteen minutes behind
schedule, can we please review our materials as quickly as possible to make up for the lost
time?”
What an asshole. Jaeyoung slowly breathes through the rising annoyance. Chu Sangwoo had
come highly recommended by Sooyoung, who’d insisted that Sangwoo is the best
programmer in his year and will surely be making waves in his field as soon as he graduates.
As far as his personality goes, Jaeyoung remembers her saying that he’s a bit ‘uppity’, not
that he’s horrifically rude. “Certainly,” Jaeyoung says, pasting on a smile.
They go over Jaeyoung’s final project for one of his senior capstones quickly enough. The
idea of the project is to combine visual design with another field and to work collaboratively
with people who aren’t already well-versed in art and design. Jaeyoung has always been
interested in video game development, so he figured that it’d be a good chance to get a peek
behind the curtains.
He’s regretting that decision now.
Besides Sangwoo’s irritating bluntness, he’s still efficient and knowledgeable, and by the end
of their hour together, they have a workable timeline for the project, with regular check-ins
that Jaeyoung is sure he’ll be annoyed by within two weeks. About halfway through their
meeting, Jaeyoung also realizes that half of Sangwoo’s obstinance is him trying to push
Jaeyoung to think bigger with their project, which takes the wind out of Jaeyoung’s sails.
“Those are all of the details that I wanted to discuss,” Sangwoo says as he re-organizes all of
his materials and prepares to put them back in his bag. “Other than your punctuality, it seems
like you’ll be acceptable to work with.”
And there comes all of his anger again. “Hey.” Jaeyoung stabs a finger at Sangwoo. “I told
you, the bus was running late. I didn’t show up late on purpose.”
Sangwoo, as Jaeyoung is coming to understand is par for the course for him, doesn’t back
down. “Well, that still sounds like your fault. Like I said, preparing for things to go wrong is
a part of showing up on time.”
Jaeyoung is reminded of every single teacher he ever hated in high school. If Sangwoo
wasn’t so good at what he did, and if they weren’t so compatible academically, Jaeyoung
would drop him faster than the blink of an eye. “Fine,” he says, swinging his backpack onto
his shoulder. “I’ll show up on time to our next meeting, okay? Overly punctual CEO-nim.”
Sangwoo’s lips thin in annoyance, but he still nods sharply. “See that you do.”
Jaeyoung rolls his eyes and walks out of the classroom hoping that he hasn’t just consigned
himself to a year’s worth of headaches.
Chapter End Notes

leap year day tomorrow! last chapter for this month…!!
god bless your little heart
Chapter Notes
chapter tags: friendship, cat cafe
This social outing with Choi Yoona is not exactly what Sangwoo was expecting. The woman
seems to be the same type of person that Jaeyoung is: beautiful, a little bit cold, but willing to
be friendly once all pretenses have been dropped. A prototypical popular girl who Sangwoo
would’ve done everything to avoid when he was in high school. So, in some part of his mind,
he was anticipating that Yoona suggest an art gallery, or a mall, or a restaurant to meet up at.
Instead, he’s sitting at a cat cafe.
“What?” she barks, but the harshness of it is tempered by the purring calico in her lap. “Are
you surprised?”
Sangwoo nods slowly, not sure if this is a trick question. “A bit.” A tabby winds around his
ankles and meows. He bends under the table to scratch its head and pet it a few times.
“So,” Yoona’s voice comes from above. “What’s it like dating Jang Jaeyoung?” Sangwoo
promptly hits his head on the underside of the table. “Oh, jeez. That bad? Tell noona
everything.”
“Choi Yoochae-ssi,” he says, carefully maneuvering himself out from under the table so he
doesn’t hit anything again. “Are you doing this on purpose?”
She smirks at him and holds up her thumb and forefinger pinched close together. “A little?”
Grabbing her latte from the table, she gives him an expectant look and an impatient wave
over her hand. “I still want to hear! Tell me, tell me.”
What is it like, dating Jaeyoung? Sangwoo doesn’t have any other points of reference, so he’s
not sure what Yoona is looking for. “We watch movies and TV shows together. We do work
together. We eat together. We also do those things separately.”
Yoona makes a face at him. “I don’t know what else I expected from you. That’s just a
laundry list of normal things that happen in your life,” she complains. “What’s it like? How
do you feel?”
Sangwoo wrinkles his nose. “Like I’m in a relationship?”

Yoona stares. “God bless your little heart.” She sets her latte back on the table and leans
closer, nearly dislodging the cat in her lap. “Do you like him?”
“Yes.” That, Sangwoo can answer firmly.
“And you like dating him?”
“Yes.”
“He doesn’t annoy you?”
Sangwoo hesitates. What relationship is there out there without some annoyance? Can two
people truly be close without seeing the worst sides of each other?
Apparently Sangwoo doesn’t need to answer, though, because when he takes too long to
respond, Yoona nods in satisfaction and raps her knuckles on the table. “Exactly. He’s so
annoying. Don’t you agree?” Sangwoo’s response evidently isn’t needed here either because
she continues, “If you’d just blindly said that he never annoys you and you two are in
ignorant, happy love together, I would’ve known you were a bad match.” She raises her cup
of coffee like she’s toasting him. “Okay. You pass the best friend test.”
Sangwoo doesn’t understand what’s happening. “Oh.” After a moment, he adds hesitantly,
“Thank you?”
Yoona laughs. “You’re welcome, Chu Sangchu-ssi.”
For a minute or two, Sangwoo is thoroughly distracted by an orange tabby leaping onto their
table and giving their coffee a curious sniff. Once Yoona wrangles it off, though, he thinks to
ask, “Does hyung need a best friend test?” He’s not sure that he has anyone around to give a
best friend test. Jihye, maybe?
Yoona hums. “‘Need’? Probably not. It’s traditional, though.”
“What a strange tradition.”
“Oh, you didn’t even get the most traditional part from me.” Yoona grins, leaning in closer
again. “If you break Jaeyoung’s heart or hurt him in any way… I can get very creative about
ways to hurt you back. So don’t do it, okay?”
“I’ve already hurt him, though,” Sangwoo points out. He doesn’t really want to, considering
the threat that Yoona just gave, but he’s not about to lie.
“That’s true.” Yoona eyes him consideringly. “You can make up for it this time by paying for
both of us today.”
Sangwoo frowns. “That’s making it up to you, though. Not Jaeyoung-hyung.” Belatedly, it

occurs to him to add, “It’s not possible to have a relationship entirely without pain.”
“Yah, Sangwoo-yah,” Yoona snaps. “Stop thinking so hard about it. Pay for me today and
we’ll call it even.”
Sangwoo wants to keep poking at the illogic of all this, but he can tell that this isn’t the time.
“Fine.”
They both lapse into silence after that, preoccupied with a cat, or their drink, or looking
around at their surroundings. Yoona, surprisingly, is quiet company; she doesn’t tap or hum
like Jaeyoung does, and she doesn’t constantly try to make conversation like Jihye.
He’d be willing to hang out with Yoona again, he decides. Especially if it means that he gets
to pet cats.
Chapter End Notes
congrats everyone! you made it to the end of february 😊 if you’re in the northern
hemisphere, days will be getting longer, there’ll be more daylight, and nature will start
coming back to life! wishing everyone an auspicious start to march come tomorrow 💛
if you still wanna keep reading my writing, i’ll be adding a new fic to this series
tomorrow with more sem error/jangchu snippets! feel free to stop by (or not) ^^
End Notes
you can find me tumblin here: tumblr
Please drop by the Archive and comment to let the creator know if you enjoyed their work!

Day by Day

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Day by Day

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day by day

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/53445334.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Instead, he’s sitting at a cat cafe. (from Ch.29)

parameters of this challenge:

i hope you enjoy! happy reading!

See the end of the work for more notes

drabble list 6, prompt 58

“Let me through, I’m a doctor.”

Jihye is not going to believe this.

drabble list 6, prompt 52

chapter tags: au - exes, exes with benefits (if that’s a thing?)

None of it can mean anything, and yet…

drabble list 6, prompt 2

no additional chapter tags necessary: canon compliant/post-canon (tv)

drabble list 6, prompt 50

chapter tags: post-canon (tv)

drabble list 6, prompt 74

chapter tags: vampire au, vampire!jaeyoung

my first actual drabble (exactly 100 words)!

drabble list 6, prompt 60

chapter tags: party games (truth or dare), established relationship

drabble list 6, prompt 29

“Pufferfish are poisonous.”

Sangwoo nods. “Really.”

Sangwoo shrugs. “I’m not, usually. Just certain ones.”

“Or you’ve left the apartment messy again.”

“Or you’re late to one of our dates.”

“I’m going to go have lunch without you.”

drabble list 3, prompt 4

chapter tags: royalty au, secret relationship

drabble list 3, prompt 27

drabble list 3, prompt 74

chapter tags: librarian au

See the end of the chapter for more notes

“Where did he go?” Jaeyoung is saying.

“Don’t say it like that. I’m observing respectfully.”

A snort. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?”

“When have your vibes ever been right?”

Oh. They are talking about him.

“You—” Jaeyoung groans quietly. “You’re a horrible friend.”

“We’re perfect for each other.”

Sangwoo takes a deep breath. He turns around. “Jaeyoung-nim. Hello.”

“Are you being serious?” Jaeyoung’s voice sounds incredulous.

Sangwoo frowns. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Works for me.”

Jaeyoung gestures magnanimously to the nearest row of bookshelves. “Please, be my guest.”

Chapter End Notes

((friendly reminder to not hit on employees while they’re working skdjfbdhfh))

drabble list 3, prompt 5

chapter tags: royalty au, secret relationship, established relationship

this is a continuation of/in the same universe as ch.8!

Yes, very conflicted.

“Ah.” Apparently Sangwoo missed that beat in this conversation.

Hopefully, that’s enough. It has to be.

drabble list 3, prompt 14

although this wasn’t necessarily written to be a continuation of ch5, it can be seen as

“They’re just food!”

Someone else, however…

“Sangwoo-yah!” Jaeyoung exclaims excitedly seventeen minutes later—he knows, because

That, Jaeyoung supposes, is reasonable.

“There is an irony in the design of vampires,” Sangwoo continues as if he’s giving a

The vampire doesn’t reply, of course.