come settle down, settle down
leo/eunji
2272w, g
domestic!au vignettes aka sleepy times with leoji. inspired by a conversation I had with kurdoodle about wanting nothing but domestic bliss for leoji.
i.
taekwoon never wakes to the sound of birds and sunshine. he wakes to half-open blinds and dark rooms and the sound of water gushing from the tap in the tiny bathroom on the other side of the room. he could probably afford to live in a bigger space, but years of cramped quarters with five other people has embedded itself into his bones. five people could never fit in an apartment where the bed, dining table and couch are all in one room, but it fits two perfectly.
eunji emerges from the bathroom with a bright smile and sleep still in her eyes, humming a tune to herself, a face towel slung over her shoulder. she climbs back into bed and bends over him, hair tickling his cheek.
“i’ve gotta go to work, i’ll see you tonight okay?” she whispers, her toothpaste-minty breath swirling around him in a foggy haze. he gives a sleep-induced nod, eyes only half open. her fingers leave damp trails on the underside of his jaw as she leans in and kisses him on the side of the mouth, and he reaches out and pulls her into him before she can leave.
“good morning,” he mumbles into her hair. he feels her smile against his chest.
“good morning,” she trills, and suddenly the day doesn’t seem like such a burden. birds and sunshine are a rarity in taekwoon’s mornings but eunji, he finds, is a perfect substitute for both.
“have a good day,” he adds, threading his fingers through her hair. she rests her arms on his chest and smiles that smile that can light up a room and steal his heart every single time.
“it already is,” she laughs.
ii.
sometimes taekwoon comes home to an empty apartment and a slew of apologies in the form of text messages that he doesn’t always reply to. it isn’t that he’s mad at her, it’s just that he knows, he gets it, their lives will probably never really belong to each other as long as they both live in the mad world of entertainment. he wishes she’d stop apologizing every time she doesn’t make it home. he wishes he could too.
sometimes taekwoon comes home to bright lights and the smell of food wafting through the air and guilt weighing down his bones. it isn’t that he doesn’t want her to spoil him, it’s just that he could never treat her as well as she does him. he wishes sometimes that she would get mad at him, that she would yell at him and tell him that he’s doing something wrong. he wishes that she wouldn’t take all the blame on herself every single time. he wishes her heart wasn’t big enough for the both of them.
“i’m sorry,” he whispers into her hair as her head droops slightly, fingers still clutching at the half-empty wine glass on the table. she looks up at him, eyes a little unfocused.
“what for?” she asks. her voice is thick with exhaustion.
he presses a quick kiss to her temple. “i’ll do the dishes.” when he comes back she’s fast asleep with her head on the table, fingers still twined around the stem of her wine glass. he picks her up as well as he can and carries her to bed.
iii.
there are days where the both of them have empty schedules. those are the rare days, where taekwoon stumbles home at 5am and doesn’t need to be awake in 3 hours, where eunji doesn’t wake up to an empty bed and the moon still high in the sky. those are the days when taekwoon wakes to the sun shining in full force through the blinds, the sounds of the city bustling around them, eunji’s head pressed to his back.
those are the days when taekwoon feels a semblance of something of a normal life.
“we should get up and do something,” eunji smiles with her eyes still closed, pressing a kiss to his cheekbone. he mumbles something indiscernible and tightens his arms around her waist. his legs hang off the side and he has to squash himself into the back of the couch to keep her from falling off. her shoulder is digging into his chest and every now and then the cushion slips out from under his head but this; having her so close without needing to worry about time, without thinking that she might need to leave soon - this makes every little discomfort worth it.
eunji shifts, turning herself around so that they’re chest to chest. “or we could just spend the day like this, i guess,” she laughs. her breath tickles his chin just for a second before he tangles his fingers through her hair and pulls her in for a long, sleepy kiss.
“that sounds like heaven,” he murmurs against her lips. her smile is a whisper as she loops her arms around him, fingers cool against the back of his neck.
taekwoon drifts in and out of a peaceful slumber, eunji’s fingers grazing swirls into his head, the rhythm of her heartbeat echoing through his own chest.
iv.
taekwoon glances up at the clock as he flips another page of his book; 3am. he’s never known eunji to come home so late, and without letting him know either. he supposes she might be having a late night acting session - she’s had those every now and then - but the thought of her chemistry with her most recent male co-star has been swirling around his brain ever since he watched the first episode of her new drama. which is why he’s still up at 3am when he’s been awake for almost 24 hours, leafing through a book without reading any of the words, waiting for her.
the key turns in the lock and he half gets to his feet, changes his mind. the door opens a little more timidly than usual and her head appears in the doorway, hands clinging to the doorknob as if for dear life.
“you’re awake,” she says in surprise as she steps into the room. her hair is mussed. in the dim light taekwoon notices the lines under her eyes that seem to only reveal themselves at night. it startles him that he knows what her face looks like at any given moment of the day; fresh in the morning, dimmer in the evening, absolutely exhausted in the wee hours of the morning.
“yeah,” he says, shorter than he intended. “why didn’t you call?”
she pauses to drop her keys on the dining table. it sounds like shattering glass in the silence. “i thought you’d be asleep,” she says softly. she pours herself a glass of water, seats herself on the couch. taekwoon sets his book down without marking the page, not that he’d been following the story anyway.
“where were you?” he asks, getting up from the bed. he crosses the space in quick strides, crouches down in front of her knees. her eyes flit to his, then away. he doesn’t like the wary look in them. he touches her knee, leans in. he can smell the alcohol wafting from her clothes. “you went drinking?”
“i’m tired,” eunji murmurs. “i’m going to take a shower.” she rises from her seat, brushing past taekwoon. in this part of the night, the silence is so deep that every sound is amplified tenfold. the breeze that comes as she walks past sounds like a roaring gale to his ears. the warmth from her knee pulses in the palm of his hand, then fades.
“eunji.” his hand balls into a fist. “were you with him?”
he hears her footsteps pause. “what is that supposed to mean?” her voice sounds less like sunshine and birds and more like a thousand cold lonely nights, tinged with frost. “i don’t ask you what you’ve been doing when you come stumbling home at 4am. i don’t bother you when i don’t see you for days at a time. why are you doing this to me?”
he rests his head in his hands, pinches the bridge of his nose. “i’m sorry.”
“please don’t do that. i hate it when you do that.”
“sorry.”
silence.
he turns around, but she’s already gone. the sound of the shower comes on, a thunderstorm in the quiet apartment. taekwoon waits for it to shut off, then gets up and knocks on the door. “eunji.” there, that frosty silence. “i’m sor…” he trails off. “it’s not that i don’t trust you,” he says through the door. he wants to believe that she’s listening. “i just wish you let me know. i was…. i was worried.”
she wrenches the door open, clad only in a towel. the ends of her hair are wet and if possible, she looks even more exhausted. “why?” she demands. “so you can leave me feeling guilty when you don’t reply again?” she’s about the slam the door shut but he stops it with one hand.
“i love you,” taekwoon says to her face. it echoes around them, tangles itself in the web that they’ve woven around themselves of things they never really say. “i’m not good enough for you, but i love you anyway. i can’t…” her eyes are piercing. he takes a deep breath. “i can’t lose you. i… i’m sorry i hurt you.” and he closes the door for her before she can say anything back.
he feigns sleep on the couch when he feels her fingers hovering over his shoulders. her breath ghosts against the skin of his cheek when she leans in and whispers something that he can’t quite hear into his ear. then a quick kiss to his jaw, and she’s gone.
he doesn’t sleep the whole night.
v.
“look,” taekwoon puts his phone in her lap. she takes it, then looks questioningly at him.
“what do you want me to say?” she asks, giving it back. the twinkle in her eyes means that she knows exactly what he wants her to say. he smiles, scoots closer to her. they’re on the floor in front of the couch, watching tv.
“don’t you think it’s time for us to get a cat?” taekwoon snuggles up to her, resting his arm behind her on the couch and tucking her hair behind an ear. “they don’t need a lot of looking after. wouldn’t a cat be the perfect addition to our perfectly normal domestic life?”
eunji laughs then, batting his hand away. “you always get awfully chatty when you talk about cats.”
“look at this one,” he finds another picture and shows it to her. “isn’t it cute? look at its ears!”
“stop looking at cats and look at me instead,” eunji takes the phone from him and throwing her legs over his lap. she rests her head on his shoulder. outside is grey and rainy, wind squalls blowing periodic heavy raindrops over the street. inside, the yellow of their couch looks more homely than ever, and eunji’s legs over his feel beautifully warm.
“i’m afraid the cat is a lot cuter than you,” taekwoon grins, and tries to take his phone back. she holds it behind her, just out of his reach. “eunji.” she laughs as he snatches at it, waving it away. “hey, give it back!”
“make me,” she sticks her tongue out at him. it’s a game they play from time to time, and he knows where this is going all too well. he rolls his eyes, slides a hand behind her waist and tugs her into him. she squeaks a little, but the grin doesn’t fade.
“you asked for it,” he whispers huskily, and kisses her. it’s soft and warm and comforting and when he pulls away, the tip of his nose grazing against hers, she drops the phone to put both her hands on his face and yank him right back.
“you make this too easy for me,” he chuckles a little breathlessly when they break away, reaching behind her and taking his phone. he smirks down at her and waves it in his hand.
“no, you make this too easy for me,” she returns, one hand reaching up to tangle itself in his hair. it’s a familiar gesture, one that never ceases to calm him down but also turns him into absolute putty in her fingers. he grins as she smirks mischievously back at him. she’s always known exactly how to get him to do what she wants and really, all he wants to do is make her happy. the wind blows a little harder, rattling the windowframes as he tosses the phone on to the couch, puts both arms around her and kisses her again. the game always ends this way, although of course he’s not going to complain about it.
“you know,” eunji says later as she draws lazy circles on his chest, through his sweater. her head is in his lap and the abandoned tv program plays vacantly in the background. “i don’t really want a cat right now.”
he looks down at her from his phone. “why not?”
“because,” her eyes look a little drowsy in the light, but he can sense the contentment in her voice. “the only cat i need right now is you.” she reaches out and touches him lightly on the tip of his nose with a finger. “and i don’t think i can deal with two cats in this household anyway.”
“they don’t need a lot of looking after,” taekwoon protests but she just laughs, closing her eyes as she drifts off to sleep. outside, the rain slows to a faint, quiet drizzle.
2272w, g
domestic!au vignettes aka sleepy times with leoji. inspired by a conversation I had with kurdoodle about wanting nothing but domestic bliss for leoji.
i.
taekwoon never wakes to the sound of birds and sunshine. he wakes to half-open blinds and dark rooms and the sound of water gushing from the tap in the tiny bathroom on the other side of the room. he could probably afford to live in a bigger space, but years of cramped quarters with five other people has embedded itself into his bones. five people could never fit in an apartment where the bed, dining table and couch are all in one room, but it fits two perfectly.
eunji emerges from the bathroom with a bright smile and sleep still in her eyes, humming a tune to herself, a face towel slung over her shoulder. she climbs back into bed and bends over him, hair tickling his cheek.
“i’ve gotta go to work, i’ll see you tonight okay?” she whispers, her toothpaste-minty breath swirling around him in a foggy haze. he gives a sleep-induced nod, eyes only half open. her fingers leave damp trails on the underside of his jaw as she leans in and kisses him on the side of the mouth, and he reaches out and pulls her into him before she can leave.
“good morning,” he mumbles into her hair. he feels her smile against his chest.
“good morning,” she trills, and suddenly the day doesn’t seem like such a burden. birds and sunshine are a rarity in taekwoon’s mornings but eunji, he finds, is a perfect substitute for both.
“have a good day,” he adds, threading his fingers through her hair. she rests her arms on his chest and smiles that smile that can light up a room and steal his heart every single time.
“it already is,” she laughs.
ii.
sometimes taekwoon comes home to an empty apartment and a slew of apologies in the form of text messages that he doesn’t always reply to. it isn’t that he’s mad at her, it’s just that he knows, he gets it, their lives will probably never really belong to each other as long as they both live in the mad world of entertainment. he wishes she’d stop apologizing every time she doesn’t make it home. he wishes he could too.
sometimes taekwoon comes home to bright lights and the smell of food wafting through the air and guilt weighing down his bones. it isn’t that he doesn’t want her to spoil him, it’s just that he could never treat her as well as she does him. he wishes sometimes that she would get mad at him, that she would yell at him and tell him that he’s doing something wrong. he wishes that she wouldn’t take all the blame on herself every single time. he wishes her heart wasn’t big enough for the both of them.
“i’m sorry,” he whispers into her hair as her head droops slightly, fingers still clutching at the half-empty wine glass on the table. she looks up at him, eyes a little unfocused.
“what for?” she asks. her voice is thick with exhaustion.
he presses a quick kiss to her temple. “i’ll do the dishes.” when he comes back she’s fast asleep with her head on the table, fingers still twined around the stem of her wine glass. he picks her up as well as he can and carries her to bed.
iii.
there are days where the both of them have empty schedules. those are the rare days, where taekwoon stumbles home at 5am and doesn’t need to be awake in 3 hours, where eunji doesn’t wake up to an empty bed and the moon still high in the sky. those are the days when taekwoon wakes to the sun shining in full force through the blinds, the sounds of the city bustling around them, eunji’s head pressed to his back.
those are the days when taekwoon feels a semblance of something of a normal life.
“we should get up and do something,” eunji smiles with her eyes still closed, pressing a kiss to his cheekbone. he mumbles something indiscernible and tightens his arms around her waist. his legs hang off the side and he has to squash himself into the back of the couch to keep her from falling off. her shoulder is digging into his chest and every now and then the cushion slips out from under his head but this; having her so close without needing to worry about time, without thinking that she might need to leave soon - this makes every little discomfort worth it.
eunji shifts, turning herself around so that they’re chest to chest. “or we could just spend the day like this, i guess,” she laughs. her breath tickles his chin just for a second before he tangles his fingers through her hair and pulls her in for a long, sleepy kiss.
“that sounds like heaven,” he murmurs against her lips. her smile is a whisper as she loops her arms around him, fingers cool against the back of his neck.
taekwoon drifts in and out of a peaceful slumber, eunji’s fingers grazing swirls into his head, the rhythm of her heartbeat echoing through his own chest.
iv.
taekwoon glances up at the clock as he flips another page of his book; 3am. he’s never known eunji to come home so late, and without letting him know either. he supposes she might be having a late night acting session - she’s had those every now and then - but the thought of her chemistry with her most recent male co-star has been swirling around his brain ever since he watched the first episode of her new drama. which is why he’s still up at 3am when he’s been awake for almost 24 hours, leafing through a book without reading any of the words, waiting for her.
the key turns in the lock and he half gets to his feet, changes his mind. the door opens a little more timidly than usual and her head appears in the doorway, hands clinging to the doorknob as if for dear life.
“you’re awake,” she says in surprise as she steps into the room. her hair is mussed. in the dim light taekwoon notices the lines under her eyes that seem to only reveal themselves at night. it startles him that he knows what her face looks like at any given moment of the day; fresh in the morning, dimmer in the evening, absolutely exhausted in the wee hours of the morning.
“yeah,” he says, shorter than he intended. “why didn’t you call?”
she pauses to drop her keys on the dining table. it sounds like shattering glass in the silence. “i thought you’d be asleep,” she says softly. she pours herself a glass of water, seats herself on the couch. taekwoon sets his book down without marking the page, not that he’d been following the story anyway.
“where were you?” he asks, getting up from the bed. he crosses the space in quick strides, crouches down in front of her knees. her eyes flit to his, then away. he doesn’t like the wary look in them. he touches her knee, leans in. he can smell the alcohol wafting from her clothes. “you went drinking?”
“i’m tired,” eunji murmurs. “i’m going to take a shower.” she rises from her seat, brushing past taekwoon. in this part of the night, the silence is so deep that every sound is amplified tenfold. the breeze that comes as she walks past sounds like a roaring gale to his ears. the warmth from her knee pulses in the palm of his hand, then fades.
“eunji.” his hand balls into a fist. “were you with him?”
he hears her footsteps pause. “what is that supposed to mean?” her voice sounds less like sunshine and birds and more like a thousand cold lonely nights, tinged with frost. “i don’t ask you what you’ve been doing when you come stumbling home at 4am. i don’t bother you when i don’t see you for days at a time. why are you doing this to me?”
he rests his head in his hands, pinches the bridge of his nose. “i’m sorry.”
“please don’t do that. i hate it when you do that.”
“sorry.”
silence.
he turns around, but she’s already gone. the sound of the shower comes on, a thunderstorm in the quiet apartment. taekwoon waits for it to shut off, then gets up and knocks on the door. “eunji.” there, that frosty silence. “i’m sor…” he trails off. “it’s not that i don’t trust you,” he says through the door. he wants to believe that she’s listening. “i just wish you let me know. i was…. i was worried.”
she wrenches the door open, clad only in a towel. the ends of her hair are wet and if possible, she looks even more exhausted. “why?” she demands. “so you can leave me feeling guilty when you don’t reply again?” she’s about the slam the door shut but he stops it with one hand.
“i love you,” taekwoon says to her face. it echoes around them, tangles itself in the web that they’ve woven around themselves of things they never really say. “i’m not good enough for you, but i love you anyway. i can’t…” her eyes are piercing. he takes a deep breath. “i can’t lose you. i… i’m sorry i hurt you.” and he closes the door for her before she can say anything back.
he feigns sleep on the couch when he feels her fingers hovering over his shoulders. her breath ghosts against the skin of his cheek when she leans in and whispers something that he can’t quite hear into his ear. then a quick kiss to his jaw, and she’s gone.
he doesn’t sleep the whole night.
v.
“look,” taekwoon puts his phone in her lap. she takes it, then looks questioningly at him.
“what do you want me to say?” she asks, giving it back. the twinkle in her eyes means that she knows exactly what he wants her to say. he smiles, scoots closer to her. they’re on the floor in front of the couch, watching tv.
“don’t you think it’s time for us to get a cat?” taekwoon snuggles up to her, resting his arm behind her on the couch and tucking her hair behind an ear. “they don’t need a lot of looking after. wouldn’t a cat be the perfect addition to our perfectly normal domestic life?”
eunji laughs then, batting his hand away. “you always get awfully chatty when you talk about cats.”
“look at this one,” he finds another picture and shows it to her. “isn’t it cute? look at its ears!”
“stop looking at cats and look at me instead,” eunji takes the phone from him and throwing her legs over his lap. she rests her head on his shoulder. outside is grey and rainy, wind squalls blowing periodic heavy raindrops over the street. inside, the yellow of their couch looks more homely than ever, and eunji’s legs over his feel beautifully warm.
“i’m afraid the cat is a lot cuter than you,” taekwoon grins, and tries to take his phone back. she holds it behind her, just out of his reach. “eunji.” she laughs as he snatches at it, waving it away. “hey, give it back!”
“make me,” she sticks her tongue out at him. it’s a game they play from time to time, and he knows where this is going all too well. he rolls his eyes, slides a hand behind her waist and tugs her into him. she squeaks a little, but the grin doesn’t fade.
“you asked for it,” he whispers huskily, and kisses her. it’s soft and warm and comforting and when he pulls away, the tip of his nose grazing against hers, she drops the phone to put both her hands on his face and yank him right back.
“you make this too easy for me,” he chuckles a little breathlessly when they break away, reaching behind her and taking his phone. he smirks down at her and waves it in his hand.
“no, you make this too easy for me,” she returns, one hand reaching up to tangle itself in his hair. it’s a familiar gesture, one that never ceases to calm him down but also turns him into absolute putty in her fingers. he grins as she smirks mischievously back at him. she’s always known exactly how to get him to do what she wants and really, all he wants to do is make her happy. the wind blows a little harder, rattling the windowframes as he tosses the phone on to the couch, puts both arms around her and kisses her again. the game always ends this way, although of course he’s not going to complain about it.
“you know,” eunji says later as she draws lazy circles on his chest, through his sweater. her head is in his lap and the abandoned tv program plays vacantly in the background. “i don’t really want a cat right now.”
he looks down at her from his phone. “why not?”
“because,” her eyes look a little drowsy in the light, but he can sense the contentment in her voice. “the only cat i need right now is you.” she reaches out and touches him lightly on the tip of his nose with a finger. “and i don’t think i can deal with two cats in this household anyway.”
“they don’t need a lot of looking after,” taekwoon protests but she just laughs, closing her eyes as she drifts off to sleep. outside, the rain slows to a faint, quiet drizzle.