Work Text:
He was ignoring you. The clacking of his mechanical keyboard was the only sound that filled the room. You glanced down at your watch. Forty-seven minutes. Forty-seven minutes since he had last looked your way, and that was only because you sneezed.
This was ridiculous. What was the point of Seven coming to this apartment all up in arms with his “I’ll save you” attitude and puppy dog eyes only to push you away? Talk about mixed signals! You resisted the urge to pout, instead turning your attention back to your trusty friend—the smartphone!
But even as you scrolled down another chapter of a webtoon, you found yourself glancing at the hacker sitting beside you. The playful 707, the jokester...was he all a lie? Could the man sitting next to you fabricate another identity that well? You knew that he was a secret agent, but surely even secret agents had feelings.
You laughed quietly at the antics of the main character in the comic and snuck another peek at Seven. He sat there, an immovable statue. Even his expression never changed. What was he thinking? Had he eaten yet?
Under normal circumstances, you would have walked over and asked the man face to face, but the atmosphere weighed heavily on you. You dreaded facing Seven. It was one thing to be told off over chat. It was another thing to see Seven’s mouth tighten, eyes flare, and shoulders tense in person.
Maybe you were being too calm right now, but everything felt so fuzzy and far away. A bomb in the apartment? Developing a crush on a secret agent? Having said secret agent push you away for your own good? Apparently your life was a drama, starring you as the happy-go-lucky main girl and 707 as the tall handsome lead. None of this felt real to you.
This had to be real though…right? Seven looked real enough. Glasses askew, hair messed up, he seemed the stereotypical image of a neurotic genius, but still...the silence bothered you. You needed to hear him speak. You needed to know that if you were to wake up and realize the past few days were a dream, your relationship with Seven had been more than your brain just conjuring up the image of a man.
You speed-dialed Seven on your phone, holding your breath as the line rang. Would he answer?
Seven answered the call with a sigh, keeping his eyes steadfastly fixed on his computer screen. “Again? You don’t give up, do you?”
You felt a bubble of hysterical laughter rising in your chest. Yep, that’s me, you thought. I don’t know when to give up. Not even when it’s annoying. But Seven had picked up your call, and now he was trying to pin this on you? It wasn’t your fault that he had made himself unapproachable for an in person conversation.
“Then don’t pick up,” you replied with a bit more heat than you intended.
Seven caught onto your tone, running a hand through his already messy hair. You could hear his teeth click together as he clenched his jaw. “I didn’t want to… damn it. Next time, I won’t. I’ll turn back first and if I can’t see you, then I’ll pick up.” He sighed, and you saw the edges of his mouth soften the tiniest bit. “So tell me. What’s going on? The system looks fine…”
You opened your mouth to speak your mind, to let him know just why you were so calm and how unfair he was treating both himself and you when—
A splotch of brown near the white wall caught your eye. You paused, staring at it closer.
“Oh my god! Cockroach!” you screeched, diving out of your chair as the brown bug scuttled toward you. Disgusting! You scrambled to your feet, backing away as the bug continued its path. No way...you had thought you were just seeing things when you saw the brown spot in the kitchen earlier. There was no way such a clean apartment could have a cockroach.
Somewhere a switch in Seven’s brain flipped. The red-haired man’s eyes widened, and he jumped to his feet as well, nearly yanking his headphones out of the computer. “Cockroach? Pesticide! Don’t you have any pesticide? No, I’ll go!” he said frantically, untangling the headphones from around his neck and rushing to the kitchen.
You stomped on the ground, hoping that the vibrations would be enough to steer the cockroach away from your direction. It didn’t work. From the kitchen, you heard the sound of cabinet doors being opened and slammed shut.
“How the hell did it come in…? I’ll spray enough pesticide for it to die so don’t worry. Just wait a bit,” Seven muttered, emerging from the kitchen with said substance.
You ran behind him, just barely missing the huge spray of pesticide. Seven’s eyes narrowed as he pressed down even harder on the canister’s button. He would not let this bug live! The cockroach stopped moving, walked forward a few steps, and then promptly keeled over, antennae swaying weakly.
Seven frowned and sprayed it a couple more times for good measure. “Whew...all right...everything’s good. Huh? You-you’re crying? Why!?” The red-haired man craned his neck around, catching a glimpse of your red eyes.
You struggled to breathe, fanning the toxic fumes of bug spray away from your face. Your eyes stung. Unbidden tears welled up as you blinked rapidly. Eventually the air was clear enough for you to breathe again.
“I wanted to tell you before...but I didn’t want to bother you,” you said quietly, staring stubbornly at the back of Seven’s shirt. You recalled seeing the brown splotch in the kitchen earlier and not wanting to say anything in case it was nothing. You didn’t want to seem crazy. Seven had enough on his plate without you bringing up imaginary bugs.
You realized that you and Seven were still talking through the phone, yours clenched tightly in one hand and Seven’s balanced precariously between his chin and shoulder. Even now that Seven was so close to you, he still needed a buffer it seemed.
Seven’s shoulders relaxed ever so slightly, and he shifted the phone into his hand. You resisted the urge to smooth out the wrinkles in his shirt’s fabric. Control , you reminded yourself.
“...I’m just busy working. I’m not mad at you or anything. So if you want to say something, say it.”
Oh, it was so easy for him to say that now, wasn’t it? Even though the original source of your tears was the irritating aerosol, you continued to cry for a different reason now. I’m not mad at you or anything, he said. Then why did you ignore me? you thought, curling your hands into fists. Why did you get close to me, save me, and then treat me like a stranger?
His shoulders began to shake. You watched as his form crumbled right before your eyes; the immovable statue reduced to a pile of rubble. “God… Don’t cry.” Seven put a hand over his eyes, massaging his temples. “What should I do…?” His voice took on a more pleading tone as he continued, “I’ll go look at every corner in this house. Stop crying.”
You resisted the urge to laugh. God Seven reduced to begging all because of your tears. You swallowed thickly and wished that you kept tissues nearby. When you spoke, your voice was clogged with tears and mucous. “Can’t you hold my hand? It’s shaking.”
You meant it. You could barely hold your phone with how badly your hands were trembling. The stress of all the previous week’s events came crashing down on your shoulders all at once. This wasn’t a dream. This was reality. You could have died. You would have died if Seven hadn’t come. And there was no way out. You would be stuck here until you either died or held the party, and honestly at the moment you weren’t quite sure which option seemed more likely.
“Can I...really hold your hand?” The fingers on Seven’s unoccupied hand twitched, and you saw a shudder run through his lanky frame. He didn’t move, however.
You reached out, barely daring to make a sound. Seven’s hand was warm and soft. His fingers were much longer than yours, you realized as you laced your fingers through his. You stepped forward, just enough so that you could rest your face against the strong plane of his shoulder blade.
Seven took in a tiny breath, and you felt his back tremble. Through the haze of emotion clouding your brain, you vaguely registered that you were crying into his shirt...how embarrassing. Seven squeezed your hand, tugging you forward until you were pressed up against his back. You relaxed as his warmth seeped through you. His touch anchored you to the present, and you slowly felt your tears dry up.
“Your hands are so small…” he said in wonderment and then with a healthy dose of embarrassment, “Oh… I’m not doing anything weird. I just want to comfort you.”
You smiled against the curve of his back and then frowned the next second as he let go of your hand and stepped away.
Seven turned around, amber eyes soft and watery. “Here, sit here,” he said, motioning to the seat you vacated previously. “It’s weird to be on the phone when we’re this close. I’ll hang up now.”
The two of you fell into a period of silence as Seven hung up the phone. Your own device felt heavy in your limp hand. Now that the layer of phones was stripped away, what would happen?
You decided to speak first when the silence had dragged on for an uncomfortably long time. “I’m sorry,” you said, chewing your bottom lip nervously, “for”—you paused, searching for the right words and exhaling shakily as you failed to find them. For not reading the mood and joking around too much, for bothering you when you’re doing your best to finish your work so we’re both safe, for feeling too strongly for someone I just met, for...for so many things.
Seven brought his hand up, thumb gently tugging on your lower lip until you released it. “Don’t do that,” he chided. “Don’t...don’t hurt yourself.” He swiped his thumb lightly against your mouth, frowning as it came back stained red. His breath hitched slightly, and he looked at you with a gaze so tender you thought your heart might stop beating.
You couldn’t deny the magnetic attraction you felt toward the redhead. Just being near him was enough to make your knees weak. But your crush on him—if you could even call it a crush—wasn’t just physical. You wanted to know everything about him. You wanted to learn his deepest secrets, what made him tick, and have him trust you enough to know that you would never use it against him.
“Don’t you need to get back to work?” you asked as he wiped his thumb on his shirt.
Seven glanced at his laptop and then back at you. “I do,” he acknowledged, and you tried to clamp down on the pain jolting through your heart, but you were too late.
Your face crumpled, and the tears that had just dried began flowing again. Don’t be selfish, you scolded yourself mentally. It’s all to protect you, so stop crying . But none of your mental arguments stopped your sobs. You raised one hand to wipe at your cheek, and—
“Please don’t cry,” Seven murmured, crushing you against his chest. “When you cry, I can’t stay away from your side. I have to come running. Please”—he ran a hand soothingly down your back—”don’t cry.”
You hiccuped into his shirt, wrapping your arms around him and clinging with all your might. Because you were scared. Who knew when this moment would end? When he would decide to shut you out once again? You needed, you needed—you tilted your head upwards and caught his lips in yours.
The kiss was salty, and Seven could use some chapstick, but the slight hitch in his breath and then the way he tightened his grip and pressed against you was worth it. When the two of you broke apart, you took a second to catch your breath.
And the moment was over just like that. You felt Seven’s grip loosen, and his hands fell away. His voice was quiet but stern as he said, “You’re right. I have work to do.”
It was a dismissal for sure, a reminder of his previous warnings to not get too close to him. You nodded numbly, settling down in the chair as Seven situated himself in his workspace once again. The romantic comedy webtoon you were reading on your phone suddenly didn’t seem so fascinating anymore.
But, you thought to yourself, a small kernel of hope blooming in your chest, he kissed back.