conita

los amo heeseung y jongseob (⁠✿⁠^⁠‿⁠^⁠)

[bre6kup]

ִֶָ. ..𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ🪽་༘࿐ james x reader, angst, toxic!james, ex! james, ohyul x reader

Now that you can’t have me

You suddenly want me

Now that I’m with somebody else

You tell me you love me

pov: you and James broke up a year ago, but now he's contacting you out of nowhere, making up rumors about you two.

[freudianne]

➽─────❥ ✿ Video game lover

pairing : Juhoon x reader

boyfriend!Juhoon who gets ragebaited by tomodachi life

It’s no secret to anyone that your boyfriend Juhoon is a complete video game lover. So when the new tomodachi life : living the dream was announced, you immediately made sure to preordered it so as to give it to him when it got officially released. He thanked you by naming his island after your name.

Now, why won't his mii get married to yours? he has been laying in his bed for hours trying to get the two fictional characters to marrying each other. Still stuck at "sweethearts" step, he's actually not in the mood for playing but got addicted because the interactions between the two of you keeps him company when you're not here.

He did try his best : forcing the two to meet and eventually think about marriage. But he would fail miserably. It took him hours, no, days to finally get the chance, and when he did, his face would turn into a frown when failing the fuck ass mini-games to get them to propose. "This game is such a hassle anyway.." “How do you even get ragebaited by a game such as tomodachi life?”

Juhoon changed positions, even playing while eating just to get this game done with. So imagine his face when he successfully fulfilled his mission, probably the greatest sigh of his life. The adorable cutscenes played as he got a small smile at how his mii looked at yours. At that time, you were laying half asleep beside him, so he showed the nintendo screen to you. It was late at night and really dark in the room. The brightness of his switch was all the way up, you squinted to let your eyes adjust themselves, chuckling at how cute it was. “Oh my, that's so sweet."

"I wanna give them a baby though." he looked at you as he said that and you nodded, "That'd be cute, Jju." he nodded, and so he's gonna spend at least another day playing despite almost deleting it when they didn't wanna get married to one another.

"Oh yeah, I'm surprised you kept playing that game for so long." you pointed out and he shrugged. "It gets frustrating sometimes, sure, but it's a good game." he mumbled and you smiled as he laid his head on your lap and you ran your fingers through his hair.

[lvlyynim]

all you said was you loved his hair. when he walked in the front door, you complimented how good the blonde looked. like any good girlfriend would do when their boyfriend doesn’t end up with a fucked up haircut.

now, james has your legs in the air, nose deep in your pussy, tongue showing no mercy. one hand held your legs up while the other spread your lips further apart. the browns of his eyes rolling to the back of his head, at the taste of you on his tastebuds.

“oh my god!”

you squirmed deeper into the mattress, moaned louder as your own hand tangled in between the blonde strands, anchoring what’s left of your sanity. his hand, that held your legs up snaked down to hold your hips in place so he could press his face closer and deeper into your soaked cunt.

whimpering helplessly, james’s tongue teased your throbbing clit with slow circles, flicking the sensitive bud up and down when he hears you call out his name.

“jjami—!” your voice died out with squeak as he plunged two fingers in you without warning. hands now clawing down his back, your pussy clenching at the intrusion, before the pleasure crept up your spine.

“you taste so fucking good, baby.” he whispered lowly against your skin, like it was a forbidden rite. tongue still lapping at you mercilessly, now with the added pressure of his fingers, it was all too much.

the mattress shifted as james pushed his body forward, his free hand folding your body into a mating press. more porngraphic moans left your pretty lips at the new position. almost as if he’s getting off on how loud you can get, his fingers slipped in and out faster, his tongue licked with newfound determination.

“i can’t! i can’t—james!”

throughout all these, his eyes never left yours. he watched closely at how far back your eyes rolled, how your beautiful lips say his name over and over. you never looked so devastated in his hands, crying at every thrust of his fingers, he could see you were close.

under the mercy of his tongue and fingers, you reduced to a sobbing mess. blabbering incoherent pleas when james sucked harshly on your clit. you swore it was like you were struck by lightning, your hips jerked forward and the grip on his hair tightened.

that’s it baby, come for me.

“make a mess on me, baby. god please” he pleaded, tone laced with desperation before diving back in you.

you came with a silent scream, body jolted with the force of your orgasm, james moaned as you squirted all over your boyfriend. lapping at your remnants, his fingers still in you, helping you ride out the high. the sheets were soaked, with some dripping down james’s mouth.

though reluctant, he backed off once you pushed at his head, the waves of overstimulation creeping up slowly. he brought your legs back down on the mattress, massaging your thighs, the muscle tingling under his hands.

catching your breathe, you opened your eyes to look at your boyfriend. kneeled in between your thighs, his lips shined with your essence, with some dripping down his jawline. the smug on his face as he sucked his fingers clean, all while maintaining heavy eye contact. you watched closely at the veins on his hand, the way his mouth enclosed on each finger, leaving with a pop sound.

somehow the blonde accentuates more his features, makes him look a hundred times sexier than he already is. your eyes never leaving his even as he leaned forward, inching closer to your face. it’s like you’re seeing him for the first time, your breath hitched.

“you look so pretty, jjami.” the compliment rolled off your tongue smoothly, and watched in real time, his ears turned a crimson red.

his head plopped into the crook of your neck, hiding his sudden shyness as his arms wrapped around you, his frame shrinking to mold with yours. sometimes you are baffled at how quick his demeanor changed.

he made a noise, something between a whimper and an embarassed groan.

“够了吧。我不想再听了。”

(“enough. i don’t want to hear about it anymore.”)

you chuckled at that, caressing the soft strands of his new hair. james sighed softly, wholeheartedly content. just when you thought he had dozed off, a cheeky hand made its way to grip your ass.

“i’m not done with you, princess.” his voice below an octave, littering small kisses down the slope of your neck.

it’s staggering how fast his mood changes, not that you’re complaining though.

[hyeonsfia]

BLOND HAIR! james

SYNOPIS: James dyed his hair blonde without telling you. You liked it a lot… no like actually A LOT.

CONTAINS: james x fem!reader smau language funny uhhh idk js read it yo😭

[ceuxnoirst]

OOMF !

[ SMAU ]

⌗ SYNOPSIS - in which James is your stan acc oomf on twitter during pandemic days, and once you retrieved the account you suddenly remember him and start talking for a while again, not knowing he's a k-pop idol already.

৻ꪆ idol!james x non-idol! reader ৻ꪆ

⧽ warnings ┆ separate ficion from reality, kpop twt stan account moments , cringe self , fake texts n tweets, vulgar insults n jokes, ooc james, idk ?

⧽ note ┆ reader's online name as tzu (based from twice's tzuyu) , and james' online name as yu (from yufan) , you can't unconvince me James doesn't have a stan acc he's on his phone 24/7 , cleaning up the ideas filled in my notes app pls bear with me lol

꒰ 🌊 — @cookyland @weirdowithaphone @toj1sgf ꒱

© ceuxnoirst

[ramenoil]

it's the things left behind // never let go (demo vers.) —zhao yufan

⛓️ idol!james x f!reader, second chances, misunderstandings, emotional neglect, angst, fluff, written+imgs, never let go org version that i did indeed delete oops! w.c: 3.1k~

syn: sorry love, got practice. love you tho.

playlist: let down by radiohead / dark red by steve lacy

Dating James wasn’t normal—it wasn’t meant to be. He’s an idol. And well, you are…a student. That should’ve been your first warning. You should’ve understood that, but you didn’t. Of course you didn’t.

You and James started dating long before he became James from CORTIS. You knew him as James from Trainee A, James post Trainee A. To you, he was just…James. Now the world knows him differently. With stacked schedules, comeback showcases, and intercontinental interviews, he was busy. Obviously. 

It hadn’t always been like this. Back then, everything felt simpler. His world didn’t stretch as far, didn’t demand as much of him, and somehow, you fit into it without having to try so hard. You didn’t have to think about timing, or schedules, or whether he’d be free. You just… were. And so was he. It never crossed your mind that one day, being with him would start to feel like something you had to work around instead of something that just existed. But things change. Slowly, quietly—until you don’t really notice it happening at all.

Nights where you both could ramble endlessly—about anything. Whether it was the absolutely rigorous schedule James had, or your worries about university. Nights like that? Long gone.

You wish you’d cherished them more.

Fuck, you really do.

Because now that he’s actually achieving his dreams, you’re almost sidelined. Back then, you ran parallel to them—but now it feels like you’ve been left at a pit stop.

“James, stop that!” your voice—accompanied by giggles, echoed through the living room of your apartment as he tickled you.

“Give me the remote,” he whined, grabbing your wrists and trapping you, making it easier to steal it from you.

“It was my chance to pick a show.” You muttered, trying to push him off. 

He only laughed, the sound soft and close, before leaning down and nuzzling his face into the crook of your neck.

“What’s wrong, baby?”

“Let’s not watch anything today,” he murmured instead, arms wrapping around you—warm and grounding, like he had nowhere else to be. 

“Jami, you good?” you murmured, fingers absentmindedly playing with his hair.

He only hummed in response, tightening his grip around you—like you might slip away if he didn’t hold on. As if leaving him had ever been that easy.

You used to wake up tangled in him. Used to fuck up making pancakes together at 2 a.m. because neither of you could cook and neither of you cared enough about the pancakes. But now? Now you’re lucky to even receive a text. You shouldn’t be mad, it’s his job. You knew that before you started dating. But something about getting replaced by his job hurts. 

It started simple, a simple ‘Sorry love, won’t be able to make it tonight.’That was fine. He was busy—he had dreams. Gradually it got worse. Missed anniversaries, missed birthdays. All with the same excuse—’Sorry love, got practice. Love you tho.’ 

One thing you hated was when people said things just for the sake of saying them. ‘Love you’ but you don't feel it anymore. Now, you're staring at a 2 tier cake with one dimly lit candle that says, ‘happy 6 year anniversary’. Sounds wrong, 6 years out of which you don't remember the last 3. Yet again, he’s not here. Sometimes, it feels like you’re dating whatever pieces of him his career leaves behind.It sounds egoistical—you know that. How hypocritical of you to support him and then conclude that the only reason you’ve been sidelined is because of something you supported him in.

The wax from the candle had almost melted onto the frosting by the time a notification snapped you back into reality

Waiting 2 hours for an explanation was bad, but waiting for an explanation on your anniversary? That's insanity. You put your phone down, a heavy sigh slipping past your lips. Your mind is flooded with thoughts—maybe he doesn’t need me anymore, maybe I'm just a burden.

But for some reason, James didn’t try to fix it either. Who just leaves it at being busy? It’s your anniversary. You know better than reaching out to him. 

A day doubled to two, two to four and from four days, it's suddenly been a week. James has been quiet.

And honestly? You’ve stopped waiting.

On the other hand, James has been trying everything to keep you out of his mind. Out of sight, out of mind, they say. But how was he supposed to keep you out of sight when you were everywhere? James opens his phone? A picture of you two. He opens his wallet to pay for something? A polaroid of you. He opens his laptop to produce music? A picture of you again. Fuck that, he even found a polaroid of you both in his pocket.

Martin slides his chair closer, “What’s with you?” Keonho chirps in from the couches, “You’ve been very lowkey with mentioning Yn, what’s mom up to?”

Juhoon chuckles beside him, “Ask her yourself, she loves you anyway.” James doesn’t look up from his screen. He stays quiet for a while before finally mumbling,

‘Don’t.

His words catch everyone's attention. Seonghyeon slides his chair closer too, leaning forward. “What do you mean don’t?”

James murmurs, “We broke up, I think…” 

Everyone erupts with questions— “How?” “What?? WHEN?”

“‘We’re fighting.’”

Juhoon rolls his eyes. “‘What did you do?’”

James finally looks up from his laptop, brows furrowing. “‘What do you mean what did I do? It could be her fault too.’”

Seonghyeon snorts, pushing James’ chair back with his foot. “‘Sure, man.’”

James lets out an annoyed sigh before launching into the story—missing your anniversary because of schedules, not showing up for your anniversary because of the live, the argument that followed. How you asked why Keonho could skip the live for his sister’s birthday while he couldn’t do the same for you.

Keonho immediately sits up straighter. “Wait, you told her that?”

“I mean… yeah?”

“Well that makes you look horrible.”

Martin blinks. “No, because hold on—you missed your anniversary bro?”

“‘I said I was busy, I got her cake for it too.”

Juhoon stares at him for a second before laughing in disbelief. “No way you actually think cake is a valid excuse.”

“We had schedules—”

“You always have schedules,” Seonghyeon cuts in. “That’s literally her point.”

James presses his lips together, jaw tightening. Keonho tilts his head. “And you seriously didn’t see why she got upset when I skipped for my sister?”

“I couldn’t just leave.”

“You could’ve, I did too.” Keonho says carefully. “You just didn’t think you needed to.”

Juhoon frowns. “Okay, but you guys talked after that, right?”

James goes quiet. “…Right?” Martin repeats slower this time.

James rubs a hand over his face. “Not really.”

“What does ‘not’ really mean?”

“We haven’t talked in a week.”

Then all at once, he’s bombarded again—

“A WEEK?!” “ARE YOU INSANE?” “JAMES????”

Juhoon asks again, “‘And you said you think you broke up?’”

James finally looks irritated, defensive more than anything. “I don’t know, okay? She stopped replying and I figured she needed space.”

Seonghyeon just stares at him. “James,” he says slowly, “I genuinely think your girlfriend hates you right now.”

James groans, shoving his face in his palms. He lets out a muffled, “Fuck, what did I do.”

Martin lets out a deep sigh, “God you’re so dumb for your age, go talk to her.” He pauses, staring at James still sitting there like an idiot. Seonghyeon and Martin both kick the legs of his chair hard. ‘I said go!” 

For some reason James doesn’t move. He looks at martin and says

James thinks the worst part about all of this should’ve been the fighting. It’s a fight, it happens. You move on. That’s what usually happens. Disagreement, argument, apologising and moving on. That’s how you both rolled, but this time—this time it was different. There wasn’t any apologising or even attempts to talk it out. Just, silence.

This week for James was full of reminders and pieces of you he carried everywhere. You mattered a lot to him. It hit him how much he actually relied on you. Being the oldest, he carried responsibilities and sometimes he just needed someone like you to talk to. Someone who didn’t expect anything from him. Someone who just wanted him. Not any idolised version, no expectations, no nothing. You just wanted him for him. 

James didn’t realise how much of you existed in his life until suddenly, there was nothing. No texts asking if he’d eaten yet. No random instagram reels or tiktoks at weird hours into the night. No missed calls from you because you “just wanted to hear his voice for a second.”

Nothing.

That terrified him more than the fighting ever could. Because arguments meant you still cared enough to be upset. Silence didn’t. Silence felt like a verdict. The worst part was that James knew this wasn’t sudden. Looking back now, the signs were painfully obvious. The shorter replies. The way you stopped complaining when he cancelled plans. The way you started saying “it’s okay” too quickly.

God.

How did he not notice it sooner?

Or maybe he did notice. Maybe he just thought you’d always stay anyway. That thought alone made guilt twist violently in his stomach. James had gotten so used to you understanding him that he stopped trying to understand you back. Every missed dinner, every forgotten date, every “sorry baby, schedules got extended”—he always assumed there’d be another chance to make it up to you later.

Later.

Everything with him was always later. Later when promotions ended. Later when schedules calmed down. Later when he could finally breathe again. But you waited through all of it. And he just…let you.

Fuck.

The anniversary. James squeezes his eyes shut, the memory making his chest ache. You sitting alone with that cake while he was busy doing a live he barely even remembered now.

The realization makes him feel sick.

Because Keonho was right. He could’ve left earlier. He could’ve skipped it. He could’ve chosen you for once instead of assuming you’d understand again. But he didn’t. The worst part about all of this wasn’t even that you were angry at him.

It was the possibility that you were finally done understanding him at all. 

He rushed to your house. 

Heavy and continuous knocks echoed throughout your apartment. You open your door just enough to take a peek at who’s at the door. 

James. He’s breathing a little too heavily, his forehead has a thin layer of sweat and he’s looking at you with those eyes. Those eyes that spoke before he could. 

You freeze for a second, door opened completely now. “James?” You let out shakily. 

He looks at you, “Can I come in?” He pauses, “Please?”

You let him in. He followed you to your couch hesitantly. When you sat down, he didn’t sit down beside you. Instead, he got on his knees. His forehead resting on your knees. 

He didn’t look up. “I’m sorry.” 

Silence. He took a deep breath, “I’m sorry for being an ass, I'm sorry for being the worst boyfriend ever, I’m sorry for never making time for you, I’m sorry for just…just–” the words caught up in his throat. 

James inhales shakily, shoulders trembling slightly. ‘I-I’m sorry.” His voice cracks halfway through it. Before you can even react, he buries his face deeper into your lap, palms pressing harshly against his eyes like he’s trying to stop himself from falling apart completely.

The room falls quiet again. You don’t know what to say. Because this is James. Your James. The same boy who always kept himself together no matter how exhausted he was. The same boy who laughed through stress and brushed everything off with an easy smile. But right now, he looks ruined. ‘James…’ Carefully, you try lifting his head from your lap, but he only shakes his head stubbornly, fingers curling tighter into your hoodie.

‘James, get up.’ Another small shake of his head. ‘James,’ your voice softens despite your anger, ‘I can’t talk to you like this. Look at me.’

And when he finally does, your breath catches in your throat. His eyes are red and glossy. “Don’t cry.” You say pushing him away slightly. “I won’t accept your apology simply because you’re crying.”

The moment the words leave your mouth, James’ eyes get more watery, he looks up trying not to let the tears slip. His lips part slightly for just a second before he quickly nods. “I know,” he says quietly. “I know that.”

You pull yourself away from his grip gently, creating a little distance between the both of you. Distance allowing you to think, allowing you to breathe—because god, seeing James cry was never easy.

Not when he was the type to hold everything in until it consumed him whole—untill it got so bad he couldn’t keep it in anymore.

“You don’t get to do this now,” your voice shakes despite your attempts to steady it. “You don’t get to ignore me for a week and then show up crying and suddenly expect everything to be okay again.”

“I know.”

“You always know, James.” A sarcastic laugh leaves your lips. “That’s the problem. You know and then you do it anyway.”

He lowers his gaze again..

“I waited for you,” you whisper, and somehow those four words hurt more than yelling ever could. “Do you even understand how horrible that feels? To wait for someone only for them to never show up?”

James swallows harshly.

“I sat there like an idiot waiting for you, I thought you were late because of late night practices or your company, or something but–”  voice cracks, “—You decided not to show up. The live clearly wasn't important enough. Not important at all if Keonho and Seonghyeon could skip it.”

James squeezes his eyes shut.

“Every single time you cancelled on me, I told myself it was okay because you were tired. Because you were busy. Because your dream was finally happening and I wanted to support you so badly.” Tears blur your vision. “Do you know how hard I tried not to become someone that held you back?”

“Baby—”

“No, let me finish.”

He goes quiet again. “I kept understanding and understanding until one day I realized you stopped trying altogether.” Your breathing grows uneven. “You missed our anniversary, James.”

His face crumbles instantly.

“You missed it and somehow I still ended up feeling bad for you because you were stressed.” A broken laugh escapes you. “Do you know how messed up that is?”

“I know,” he says again, voice hoarse now. “I know and I hate myself for it.” Then quietly—“I fucked up.” James finally looks at you properly again, eyes red and swollen. “I got too comfortable,” he admits shakily. “I got so used to you always being there that I stopped being careful with you.”

Your chest tightened painfully.

“I kept thinking there’d be more time.” He laughs weakly through his tears. “Later after promotions. Later after schedules calmed down. Later after everything settled.” His voice breaks again. “I didn’t realize later was hurting you. I never stopped loving you,” James whispers desperately. “Not once. I swear to god, not once.”

“Then why did I feel so alone?”

James lets out a shaky breath before dropping his forehead against your knees again. “I don’t know,” he chokes out miserably. “I genuinely don’t know when I became someone that could hurt you this much.”

The room falls silent except for his uneven breathing. You hate this. You hate how much you still love him despite everything. Hate how one look at him falling apart makes your anger weaken around the edges.

“I was angry,” you admit quietly. “But after a while I just…” You pause. “I got tired.”

James looks up immediately at that. That hurts him more than anything else you’ve said tonight. You weren't tired or angry. You were just done. You’d given up. “No, no—” he shakes his head quickly, panic slipping into his expression again. “Please don’t say that.”

“You made me feel like loving me was inconvenient.”

“I know.”

“You made me feel stupid for missing you.”

“I know.”

“You made me feel like I was asking for too much when all I wanted was you.”

James physically winces. “I know,” he whispers again, tears spilling over finally. “I know, I know and I’m so fucking sorry.”

You stare at him for a long moment. “You really hurt me.”

“I know.” His voice cracks again. “And if I could take it back, I would. I swear I would. I’ll fix it.” 

You don’t respond. 

“I mean it,” he says quickly, crawling closer without even realizing it. “I’ll do better. I’ll make time. I’ll answer your calls even if I’m exhausted, I’ll leave schedules early if I need to, I’ll—”

“James.”

“No, please.” His hands grab yours carefully. “Please let me fix this. Take me back. Please.”

Your eyes sting again, tears welling up.  “I hate how much I love you,” you whisper before you can stop yourself.

His entire expression changes. “You still love me?”

You let out a watery laugh. “Unfortunately.”

James actually sobs at that. A pathetic, relieved sound leaves him as he presses your hands against his face. “Oh my god,” he laughs through tears, “oh my god, I thought I lost you.”

“You did.”

That makes him immediately. And for the first time tonight, James truly understands how close he came to losing the best thing in his life. “I’m serious this time,” he says softly. “I’ll do better.”

You study his face carefully. “You don’t get another chance after this.”

“I know.”

“And if you start making me feel alone again, I’m leaving.”

James nods so fast it almost looks ridiculous. “Okay. Okay, I understand.”

Silence settles between the both of you again. Then finally, quietly—“I’ll give you another chance.”

James freezes. Like he physically stops breathing. “What?”

You sniffle, looking away from him. “I said I’ll give you another chance, idiot.”

His reaction is instant. “Holy shit.” Before you can even process it, James shoots up from the floor so quickly you nearly yelp as he suddenly pulls you up with him. “James—!”

He wraps his arms around you impossibly tight before lifting you clean off the ground. A startled laugh escapes you as he spins you around the living room. “Oh my god,” he keeps repeating breathlessly against your cheek. “Oh my god, I love you, I love you so much—”

“James!”

“I’m serious,” he says frantically, setting you down only to cup your face immediately after. “I love you so much, I’m so sorry, I’m so fucking sorry—”

Then he kisses you like he’s been dying to do it for years. When he pulls away, his forehead rests against yours, both of you breathing unevenly. “I love you,” he whispers again, eyes glossy. “God, I love you.”

@amb4rluvs / @beatbymarzz / @sailuvsu / @lcvehyeon / @frizzyyo / @09zpzkeonnss / @yunjiiin / @hyuneskkami / @one-chance-pls / @rickyshensgirlfriend / @snowzxki / @yuu-kizx / @myen2rude / @meowchness / @jjuhyeons / @6rei-ji / @luffyloving / @w0narchy / @zzzeeetttaaa / @ddolleri / @1giss4swft3 / @ilovegojosatoru13 / @bitemhoon / @lovedove00 / @pixel-zombie / @tateholic / @mershyjershy / @inadazeee / @delirioastral

[fictional-lifee]

Obsession

Summary: you and James watch the obsession movie and you can't stop pretending to be Nikki and James is not fucking with it.

Note: the inspo for this fic. This fic has nothing to do with my OWW series.

JAMES MASTERLIST

The interior of the car was completely dark, save for the ambient glow of the dashboard lights and the faint streetlamps filtering through the windshield.

James sat perfectly still behind the steering wheel, his hands resting loosely on the bottom of the rim as he stared blankly ahead.

The silence between you two was heavy, a stark contrast to the usual upbeat music or casual chatter that filled the space on your drives home.

You clicked your seatbelt into place, the sharp snap echoing in the quiet cabin, but James didn’t even blink.

He looked entirely overwhelmed, his mind clearly still trapped in the final, chaotic scenes of 'Obsession'. It was a struggle to keep the corners of your mouth from twitching upward. The contrast between his usual confident, energetic self and this current state of existential dread was simply too perfect to ignore.

Leaning back into your seat, you slipped your phone out of your pocket. A devious idea took shape. You opened the camera app, switched it to video mode, and propped it face up in the center console.

The lens angled toward the ceiling, capturing the roof of the car, but it was wide enough that your face would enter the frame if you leaned in, and James would be visible if he shifted forward. You tapped the red record button, watching the timer begin to tick up in the dark.

Phase one commenced. You turned your head slowly, putting on your most innocent, concerned expression as you scanned his face.

"You ok, baby?" you asked, softening your voice to a gentle, comforting murmur.

James blinked, breaking his stare from the windshield, and gave a slow, distracted nod. "Yeah... yeah, I’m just wondering about the ending. Like, she was under a spell doing things she couldn't control, and now she's most definitely going to jail just because Bear didn't have the balls to tell her he had a crush. That's actually insane."

While he spoke, his voice rising with genuine exasperation, you began your move. Taking advantage of the dark interior, you slowly and silently shifted your weight, sliding your back along the seat until you were pressed tightly against the passenger side door, maximizing the distance between you.

"And honestly, you could tell it wasn't her," James continued, gesturing with one hand as he ranted to the empty air. "Like, why the fuck is she hiding in a corner watching Bear sleep? Or the weird walking with the flowers? Like, bro, the signs were all there!"

He stopped, shaking his head in utter disbelief at the screenwriting choices, and finally turned his head to look at you. He froze. The space next to him was completely empty, and you were pressed against the far window, staring at him with wide, unblinking eyes.

"Baby?" he asked, his tone dropping into confusion.

That was your cue. Keeping your expression entirely blank and deadpan, you tilted your head slightly. "Go back to sleep, James."

James’s posture stiffened instantly. He recognized the line immediately, and his eyes narrowed in warning. "Y/n," he said, his voice dropping an octave. "Don't."

"You're cute when you sleep," you whispered, completely ignoring his warning and leaning into the creepy cadence of the movie's antagonist.

"Y/n, stop!" He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, pressing his back harder against his own door.

The urge to burst out laughing was bubbling up in your chest, but you fought it down, forcing your face to stay rigid. You decided to pivot to raising your voice into a frantic, pitch perfect imitation of the main character's breakdown.

"No, no, no, no, no, no!" you whimpered softly, before suddenly shouting, "Noooooo, don't do that!"

James actually jumped, his eyes widening in genuine shock because the impression was frighteningly spot on in the enclosed space of the car.

"I thought we were having a nice date," you whined, instantly shifting back to a creepy, sing song voice as you unbuckled and lunged across the center console toward him.

James cringed backward, throwing his hands up to block you, but as he did, his gaze caught the small, glowing red dot on the phone screen resting in the console. He stopped mid air, looking from the phone to your face.

"Are you recording this?"

That was the breaking point. You completely lost your composure, burying your face in your hands as a loud burst of laughter escaped you.

The tense atmosphere shattered instantly. James immediately snatched the phone from the console, bringing it up to his face and addressing the camera with absolute seriousness.

"This has to be a form of abuse," he told the lens, his face deadpan. "Are all the girlfriends doing this right now? I need to know." He turned away from the screen toward you. "Are you gonna post this on TikTok?"

You shrugged, still breathless from laughing, and wiped a tear from your eye. "I can if you want."

James nodded solemnly to the camera. "Please. I need to know if my girlfriend is the only one being insane right now."

"Hey!" You scoffed, lunging forward to snatch the phone back from his grip.

As your hand clamped around the device, James let out a dramatic, theatrical shriek. "Help! She’s gonna make me eat my cat!" he yelled at the top of his lungs.

"You don't even have a cat!" you laughed, finally hitting the stop button to end the recording.

The car fell back into a comfortable quiet, the lingering remnants of your laughter filling the space. James looked over at you, his eyes still narrowed in a playful, cautious squint. You lifted your arms in disbelief, offering an apologetic smile.

"Oh my gosh, it was just a joke, I'm sorry," you said, leaning back toward the center of the car. "Can you love me again?"

He let out a long, theatrical sigh, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling before looking back at you. "I guess," he dragged out the words, though a small smile was finally breaking through his serious facade. "But please, don't ever do that again."

He leaned his head closer, and instinctively, you closed the remaining distance between you. Your noses brushed, your lips just inches apart as the humor faded into something much softer. James stared intently into your eyes, his expression completely relaxed now.

"Ok, fine, I'm sorry," you whispered, tilting your head slightly.

He hummed deeply, his gaze dropping down to your lips for a brief second. "You better be," he murmured, closing the final gap between you.

Extra:

Sidenote: some comments are real. Some I made. All users are fake. I made this small oneshot because I wanted to post something because everything I'm writing rn is either long or taking me awhile to write.

[cortisdoll]

make me trip, make me a fool

synopsis : spending a summer day at the beach with your bf

catalogue ୨୧ cortis x 𝑓!reader ♡ fluff / crack beach au ( slight ) skinship & kisses !

james :

- super organised !!! he has everything you guys might need !!! he brought sunscreen and tanning oil for you in case the uv is high, fruit salads and sandwiches for you guys to eat, different refreshing drinks so you both stay hydrated, his beach bag is practically as big as him !!!

- both of you are really seeing this as a relaxing getaway, sitting under the umbrella together reading a book, tanning under the sun, collecting cool rocks + shells that remind you of each other and swimming calmly in the water, super chill vibes

- stayed out with you until the sun set so you could enjoy the beautiful view by the beach while being cuddled up and got pretty sad when he realised that you guys have to go back home in a bit, probably put some soft music on your drive back because he kept noticing how droopy your eyes were and he knew you’d want to nap in the car ( he might’ve stolen a few quick glances at you while driving )

juhoon :

- your chances of getting him in the water are very slim but while he may not want to go in to swim with you, he will spend most time either sitting on his towel while watching you enjoy yourself from afar or sit by the edge of the water with only his feet in so you too can talk and enjoy each other’s presence.

- napping !!!!! by !!!!! the !!!!! beach !!!!! i can totally see juhoon wanting to take a nap with you after a whole day of playing around with you. his social battery and energy has run out so all he wants to do is take a quick nap with you under the shade, using the sound of the waves as a lullaby 🥹 cuddling at the beach can be a bit too hot though considering the temperature outside + juhoon’s body warmth but who are you to deny him cuddles . . . especially when you’re just as tired !

- he would totally let you bury his feet under the sand. when you first started doing it he kept looking at you crazy but seeing you being so giggly and enjoying yourself while doing it gave him extreme cuteness aggression so in the end he just let you do your thing.

- sharing !!! ice !!! cream !!! with !!! you !!! + obv he’s the one that paid for it !!! you’ve never gotten the chance to even get your wallet outside from your bag while juhoon is around, he’s so quick to pay for all you stuff

martin :

- has a whole playlist made just for your day trip to the beach ! it’s super long too, he first put it on while you two were on your way to the beach and he didn’t turn it off until he was telling you goodbye while dropping you back home.

- he definitely uses both his height + strength to his advantage to pick you up at the most random times, toss you over his shoulder and run into the waves to throw you in the water. you give him a much deserved splashing after with as much water as you can throw his way

- i personally headcanon him as someone who gets sunburned really easily so i hope you brought a lot of sunscreen with you ! you will need to force him to reapply it every hour and by the end of your trip he will still somehow be a bit sunburned. resulting in you giving him kisses because in his defence they “help with the pain” ( he’s just looking for an excuse for you to give him more kisses )

seonghyeon :

- yells at you like he’s your mom when you forget to reapply your sunscreen !!!! it’s okay though because he just wants what’s best for you ( even when he keeps nagging you )

- i can see him being extra shy because of how pretty you look 🥹 definitely takes countless photos throughout your beach trip so he can remember everything, also takes the most gorgeous pictures of you when the sun sets too !!! he cherishes them because you literally look breathtaking with the lighting hitting your skin and making you seem like your glowing, the huge smile on your face, your wet hair and beautiful view behind you !!! he will 1000% set one of the pictures he took of you as his wallpaper later tonight when he’s back home and you’re not there to tease him

- has a sand castle competition with you and you’re both sabotaging each other’s sand castles throughout the whole process. when you’re both finished, he ends up jokingly ruining yours because he realises that it’s better than his. if you get pouty, he will attack you with kisses to make you smile again !

keonho :

- the second you both reach the beach he will immediately run to jump in the water, which results in you yelling at him to come back so you could both put on some sunscreen. he would impatiently wait for you to spread it on his skin but after that he would go in the water to swim and you better believe that he will not come out until the sun sets ( unless it’s to annoy you )

- def asks you to race in the water to see who’s faster ( we both know who would win ) and he keeps doing random tricks in the water in order to impress you. i can totally see you laying on your towel under the shade reading a book while keonho is deep into the sea yelling your name so you could look at him doing something cool 🥹 as annoying as that can get, it’s still really cute because at the end of the day he just wants to show off his cool tricks and make you swoon ( spoiler alert : it lowkey works ).

- he never gets tired though, even after swimming for so long he still has so so so much energy, so while you’re taking a break to recharge your energy and tan a bit he keeps coming over to shake his wet hair all over you, like a wet dog, to get you wet ( you threw sand at him and he ran back into the water while giggling) ( he will come back to annoy you more if you don’t join him soon ).

- when you do join him, he will not stop playfully splashing you with water, and after one too many times of him splashing you, you finally do it back which turns into a whole war between you too.

✉️ thank u for reading ! comments and reblogs are appreciated !

@ cortisdoll ˖ . ݁ ꪆৎ taglist ( open ! ) : @jjuhooners @en-dream @rvenrv @heymaaaartin @meeoowchi @peerlesspine @wonheesyana @09zpzkeonnss @rickyshensgirlfriend @sweethyeon

[beatopiiiia]

only for you

٠࣪⭑ james wants everything perfect for your birthday, even if it’s already perfect to you.

٠࣪⭑ james x f! reader short oneshot, v fluffy

٠࣪⭑wc - 842

To say the members are tired of James is an understatement. All he ever talks about is you, girlfriend this, girlfriend that. To make things worse, it’s your birthday week and it’s fast approaching.

All week he has been preoccupied planning and glued to his phone, reading reviews and asking close friends of yours what your favorite things are, occasionally reminding his friends for advice on how to make this birthday amazing.

Nobody has heard the end of it. No matter what the topic of discussion is, James is finding a way to bring you up, kindly interrupting the members in the middle of whatever urgent task is at hand.

“What do you guys want to eat tonight?” Martin says blankly while looking around for any input. The room is quiet until James’s voice breaks the silence. Everyone looks up in anticipation.

“What should I buy Y/N for dinner on her birthday?” Martin, Juhoon, Seonghyeon, and Keonho’s heads all drop collectively. “Can you spiral over dinner at least? I’m starving.”

⋆˚࿔

"I just don't want to mess this up," James muttered to the empty air. He gripped the gear shift, glancing into the rearview mirror at the four asleep figures in the back. He had been cycling through the same anxious thoughts for the last thirty minutes of the drive.

As the car rolled to a stop outside the dorms, the sudden lack of motion finally nudged his friends awake.

“Where are you going, unc?” Keonho asks groggily. Martin gazes at his watch then turns his attention back to James. Martin checked the time on his watch before looking up at James.

Without missing a beat, James unbuckled his seatbelt. “Y/N’s.” A chorus of groans erupted from the backseat. “Of course,” Juhoon muttered.

Typing in the pin to the keypad felt like muscle memory with the amount of times he has had to do it. Flinging the door open, the smell of perfume and shampoo hits his nose immediately. His eyes drift to the pictures lining the walls. A smile tugged at his lips as memories surfaced behind every photo.

“James?” a sleepy voice calls out for him from down the hall. His internal thoughts are instantly stopped once he hears your voice. Jogging toward your room, he’s greeted with you tucked away underneath the sheets, with a crackly sage green face mask drying on your face.

“It’s so late, baby.” Instantly remembering the time, he looks at the ground. “I just went and grabbed something to eat with the guys. I didn’t mean to startle you.” Gently laying alongside you in the bed, turning his head in your direction.

The room fills with silence, both of you admiring one another. You break the silence. “I missed you so much,” laying your head on his shoulder. He smiles softly and inhales your scent. The smell of lavender and vanilla brings him comfort as it reminds him of you.

“You excited for your birthday, pretty?” You don’t move, and the room becomes silent once again. James starts overthinking almost immediately, wondering what you would say, afraid of your day not going perfectly.

“I am, but I don’t think I want to do much.” You turn your head to look him in the eyes. James nods. “But I know what I do want to do.” Keeping eye contact, James starts smiling, then looks away, his body overwhelmed with embarrassment. “You’re so corny.”

Getting up and grabbing the remote for the TV, you stare back at him, your expression dropping from the smile. Pausing in your steps, James keeps his eyes locked on you. “James, I know you have been planning all week for me.” Shock overcomes James and his eyes widen. He has many questions, but the only word he is able to say is, “How?”

A smug grin is plastered on your face. “Nothing about you is secretive. Besides, the guys complained about it all week.” You giggle. “They are not your friends, baby.”

James groans and drops his head back against the pillow. He is still distraught at how all his planning was ruined due to pure negligence by his friends. Obviously, he knew they meant nothing by it, but it still crushed him knowing that everything he spent planning for you went to waste. James lets out a sigh he didn’t know he was holding.

“Did you at least like the plans?” Laying back in the bed next to him, you also sigh. Moving your head to face him, he’s already looking at you, eager to hear what you have to say. “Of course I did. I think it was so sweet. And the fact that you were going to do all of that made me so happy.” A small smile appears on his face and he turns his head back toward the ceiling.

“I would do anything for you, you know that right?” Moving to lay on his chest, listening to his heartbeat and feeling the softness of his skin, you look up at his focused face. “Even stay home and do nothing on my birthday?” “Only for you.”

taglist: @angelgivethemhell, @ges1ca

thank uu for reading!!

masterlist

[ptolemaeiia]

⸝⸝ RIDE 「 z.yufan 」

I’M GON’ RIDE in which James -your ‘friend’ just bleached his hair blonde but you’re atrociously down bad for each other.

༝ 赵雨凡 ༝ 𝒙 idol!reader

♯ MDNI, friends-with-benefits, blond hair!james, semi-public heated interaction (for a lack of better words), needy and vocal james, oral (m. receiving and f. receiving), riding, extreme eye contact, unprotected sex.

〆the number of requests for blond hair james was concerning. is everyone okay? anyways thanks for 2k my gooner team!

𓏸 7k ╱ 𝓶. list

‘Do people have a sixth sense that-‘

You clicked the delete button furiously, fingers shaking.

‘Can someone feel when another person is-‘

You closed the Google tab, seconds away from throwing your phone out of the window- but the specific feeling that lived right between your thighs magically dragged your fingers back to the screen, opening a brand new one instead.

‘Is it possible for someone to feel when another person is aroused?’

Aroused was a weak word. Fuck that.

‘Is it possible for someone to feel when another person is wet, without touching them?’

You added a single word at the end of your question- reddit. Because somehow these forums had all the answers to every single question.

It had been like this all day -ever since the moment James stepped in the building with that new blonde hair. Platinum, almost silver under certain lights, falling in soft spikes that framed his sharp jawline and made his dark eyes pop like a fucking sin.

The internet was losing its collective mind; and you weren't ready to face the thousands- screw that- millions of thirsty comments.

Blonde James was lethal.

But blonde James was yours first and foremost.

You clicked on the first reddit link, foot tapping on the floor anxiously.

‘You probably can't help being turned on by certain people, but as long as you are polite and don't stare, you'll probably be OK. Just don't do anything to make it worse, like actively fantasizing about sex with them.’ one netizen said.

Funny.

Cause you were pretty sure today, that blonde  hair had flipped a switch inside you. Every time James moved, your gaze locked on the way the strands caught the light, he looked like a glorified anime character, sharp and lean everywhere. And then your eyes would drift lower: the corded muscles of his forearms exposed by rolled-up sleeves, the prominent veins that traced paths over his skin, pulsing faintly with each gesture.

His hands- god, his hands.

Long fingers, knuckles that flexed when he adjusted his mic pack, veins standing out against the back of his palm. You kept imagining them on you, in you, gripping, teasing, spreading.

‘Just don't do anything to make it worse, like actively fantasizing about sex with them.’

Oh you were fucked.

Because that's exactly what you were doing since 9 am sharp this morning, with no break whatsoever.

Get it together, you thought, clenching your thighs together as you waited in the wings during soundcheck.

You aggressively turned off your phone and put it back in your pocket as if it was mocking you with these reddit threads. Your body felt hypersensitive, skin prickling under your stage outfit, heat pooled low in your belly, a constant throb that made your lace panties feel too tight, too damp already.

Just from hair? Pathetic.

But it wasn't just the hair. (It was the hair.) It was also how it made everything about him sharper, the way the strands brushed his neck when he tilted his head and-

Had you mentioned his hands? Oh yeah you were screwed.

Break time. The hallway between dressing rooms was empty for once, staff scattered for lunch. You slipped away, heart hammering, only to feel a warm hand catch your wrist.

And obvious-fucking-ly, it was James.

James your handsome... There was no word to describe what James was.

James was what he became the moment he slipped in your bed and spread your legs with that cocky smirk of his. Which was happening a whole lot lately ever since you'd made that whole fuck-buddy arrangement on a drunken night.

"Hey," he murmured, his voice low and smooth like velvet.

Since when did you throb when someone greeted you? You were going to have to have a pep talk with the girly downstairs, as soon as expeditiously possible.

James pulled you into a shadowed alcove near the emergency exit, the door clicking softly shut behind you both before you could even greet him back.

Up close, the blonde was devastating. A few strands fell over his forehead, and he brushed them back with long fingers. He was still a little sweaty from dancing, having changed his tee shirt into something more comfortable- but also more revealing; his strong arms now completely bare- shoulders and all.

Your breath hitched audibly.

You were so easy, it was terrifying.

"You've been staring all day," he observed, a small smile playing on his lips. Not smug but rather warm- appreciative even.

He leaned in, his breath ghosting your ear, carrying the faint scent of his shampoo mixed with stage makeup and clean sweat. "Something on your mind, baby?"

You swallowed hard, your back pressing against the cool wall. His hands. Those veins. You wanted them wrapped around your throat, your thighs, inside you.

The thought made your nipples tighten against your top.

Reddit girl would be so mad right now.

"Is it that obvious?" you managed to squeak out, though your voice sounded much deeper than you intended.

You tried to look anywhere but at his mouth, but- there were no buts- James was just all over you, playing with the knowledge that you were currently as red as a tulip.

He chuckled, a vibration that you felt in your own chest and he stepped closer, closing the microscopic gap between your bodies until you could feel the heat of his bare arms. He raised one hand, long fingers grazing your jawline before tucking a stray lock of hair behind your ear.

You let out a shaky breath, your knees feeling dangerously weak. You thought you could die right then and there.

"It's more than just staring," he murmured, his thumb tracing the line of your lower lip, pulling it down just enough to reveal the damp pink of your inner lip.

James' gaze darkened, dropping to your mouth before snapping back to your eyes. The playful warmth was still there, but it was being rapidly overtaken by something hungrier, something you knew all too well from how many times you'd explored him.

"You look like you're about to pounce..." He leaned in even closer, his nose brushing against yours, his voice dropping to a whisper. "what's wrong baby?"

What's wrong? You wanted to scream in his face, pull on his hair- but the thought only made you wetter- so impossibly wet- you thought you had never been this turned on in your whole entire life.

All because of some bleach and dye.

He didn't wait for an answer. He slid his hand from your face, his palm flat against the small of your back to pull you flush against him, the hard planes of his chest pressing against your breasts and the solid weight of his thighs slotting between yours. You let out a small, broken moan, your hands instinctively flying to his bare shoulders, your fingers digging into the firm muscle there.

You were so incredibly, hopelessly wet it was pathetic- and the friction of his denim against your damp lace was almost too much to bear.

"James," you breathed, his name a plea.

"Yeah, baby?" He nipped at your earlobe, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin just enough to make you arch into him. "Tell me what's wrong sweet girl."

Your hands, still anchored to his bare shoulders, slid upward, palms grazing the warm, slightly damp skin of his nape. Your fingers tangled into the short, silky strands of his new hair that was softer than expected. Your nails grazed at his scalp, scratching lightly, the way you knew he loved.

"Nothing’s wrong," you whispered, though the way your hips involuntarily hitched against his told a completely different story. You pulled back just enough to look him in the eye. "It's just... you. How am i supposed to focus when you're walking around looking like that?"

James let out a soft, breathless sound halfway between a laugh and a sigh and leaned his forehead against yours, his eyes fluttering shut as he soaked in your words.

"Shit." he let out a breathy laugh, nose brushing your jawline.

Your whole body was on fire, his skin brushing against yours like he had all the time in the world and you weren't standing in a hallway of your workplace.

You didn't answer his cursing with words. Instead, you tilted your head, your fingers tightening in his hair to pull him down just an inch more. You leaned in with a slow and agonizing movement that forced him to hold his breath in anticipation.

When your lips finally met his, it wasn't as frantic as usual; it was a languid, melting sensation. You started with the lightest of brushes, just a ghost of a touch against his bottom lip, teasing him, dragging a needy sound out of him.

You could feel his hands tremble against your waist, his grip tightening as he leaned into the sensation, desperate for more.

Then, you deepened it.

You let your lips part, your tongue sweeping out to graze the seam of his mouth before sliding inside. The kiss was heavy, wet, and incredibly unbearably slow, as you moved your tongue against his in a rhythmic, swirling motion, tasting him the faint hint of mint and the heat of his mouth.

Every time he tried to increase the pace, to suck harder or pull you closer, you slowed down even more, forcing him to endure the delicious torture of your restraint.

James let out a low, broken sound deep in his throat a needy, desperate hum that vibrated against your tongue. He was melting and you could feel him sagging against you.

His hands migrated from your waist to the back of your head, his fingers tangling in your hair to guide you.

He was so responsive, so hungry for the contact that it made you feel less insane for being so aroused by his goddamn hair.

Every time your tongue swiped against his, he let out a tiny, hitched breath, his hips stuttering a frantic, rhythmic press against yours. And when you finally pulled back just a fraction, leaving a thin, glistening thread of saliva connecting your lips, you didn't let him go far.

You stayed in his space, your noses brushing, your breaths mingling in the small gap between you.

James' eyes were hooded, lips swollen and red from your teasing, "You're gonna kill me, you know that?" he dropped a wet kiss on your collarborne.

You didn't give him the satisfaction of a verbal answer- yet again. Instead, you took one of his hands from your waist and guided it downward, moving slowly, watching his eyes widen, his breath hitching in his throat as your fingers led his palm over the curve of your hip and slid beneath the hem of your outfit.

When his fingers finally made contact with the damp lace of your panties, James let out a choked sound.

He didn't even have to push; the moment he felt the slick, undeniable heat radiating from you, he knew. He felt the warmt of your need, the way the fabric was practically soaked through.

His eyes searched yours, blown wide.

"Fuck" he cursed, his voice cracking. "You're soaked y/n."

He looked like he wanted to sink to his knees right then and there on the floor, to worship you properly while you tugged at his blonde hair.

But just as he began to press a finger inward, seeking to soothe the ache, you caught his wrist.

You pulled his hand away, leaving him momentarily unmoored and breathless, and then you slowly drew his fingers out of the lace.

They were glistening, coated in your heat.

James didn't even hesitate, he brought his hand up to his mouth, his eyes never leaving yours, and licked his fingers clean with a slow stroke of his tongue. The sight of him as he tasted you sent a fresh jolt of electricity straight to your core.

"Wanna bury my face between those thighs-" he started, breath fanning over your neck.

But life wasn't all rainbows and butterflies.

"James! Five minutes! We're back on!"

The muffled shout of a stage manager from down the hall shattered the moment in pieces.

The sudden intrusion made you both jump, a small gasp escaping your lips and James let out a frustrated, low groan, burying his face in the crook of your neck for a fleeting second, breathing you in as if he could store the scent of your skin to last him through the next fe hours.

"I'm gonna die." James exhaled shakily, eyes squeezed shut. "Why'd you have to be so fucking beautiful-"

The man made a low, pained sound in his throat. He glanced down, his face flushing a deep flustered crimson and reached down, awkwardly trying to shift himself, but the bulge in his stage pants was unmistakable and completely unyielding.

Despite his efforts, he couldn't hide the evidence of how much you'd just affected him.

He looked up at you, his eyes wide and pleading, completely overwhelmed and his hands hovered in the air, unsure of where to go, his shoulders hunching as if he were trying to shrink away from his own desire.

"I-I can't," he stuttered, his voice strained and thick. "I can't go out there like this. Fuck i'm so hard."

You started to move toward him, maybe to offer a reassuring touch or a lingering glance, but James stepped back, shaking his head frantically. He looked almost pained, his jaw tight as he tried to regain his composure.

"You have to go," he breathed through a pained chuckle, his gaze darting everywhere but your face. "I need a few minutes to cool down, or I swear i'm gonna forget every lyric to the songs."

He laughed, a shaky, breathless sound that lacked any of his usual confidence. He was trembling, his chest heaving as he tried to force his heart rate to slow down. "I can't get it down while you're standing there looking at me like that. You're too... you're too much. I can't think straight."

You gave him a small, knowing smile, enjoying the sight of him so completely undone.

“Good luck with that, handsome.” You began to back away, but he followed you with his eyes, his expression a mix of desperate longing and a sweet, innocent sort of agony.

"Hey, hey, come back here," he called after you, his voice a little louder now, "I mean no- don't come back- just text me when you're out. You're coming back with me tonight."

𓏵 𓏵

James was a man of his word- so as soon as the show ended, still sweaty and soaked in water from the bottle of waters his members had poured on him- he was looking for you.

The adrenaline from the final encore was still coursing through his veins, he didn't even wait for the staff to clear the wings.

The moment he saw you standing near the equipment crates, he was moving. He didn't walk; he practically stumbled toward you, his eyes wide and frantic, searching yours.

He looked like a man who had spent the last hour in a fever dream, counting down every second until he could touch you again.

"You're here," he breathed, the words coming out as a relieved, shaky exhale. He didn't care that he was damp with sweat, or that the scent of salt and stage musk was heavy on him. He reached out, his large hands finding your waist with a suddenness that nearly knocked the wind out of you, pulling you into the shadow of a heavy equipment trunk.

He didn't kiss you immediately. Instead, he leaned his forehead against yours, his eyes squeezed shut, his chest heaving as he tried to regulate his breathing. He was still vibrating from the performance, but the hunger in him was even more intense than it had been in the alcove.

"God, it was so hard," he whispered, his voice a low, wrecked rasp against your skin. "Every time the lights went down for a transition, all I could think about was you."

You let out a small chuckle, amused, but he didn’t let you speak.

"Can we go?" he asked, his voice pleading, his hands sliding down to grip your hips tightly. "Please, baby. I don't wanna talk to the guys, I don't wanna do the debrief... I just wanna be alone with you. I need to feel you."

He leaned in, his damp hair brushing your temple, his lips hovering just a fraction of an inch from yours, waiting for your permission, waiting for you to lead him away from the noise and the lights and into the quiet of your bedroom.

You let out a soft, breathless laugh, your hands sliding up his damp chest to cup his face, your thumbs tracing the line of his jaw.

So needy, you thought, feeling a surge of affection so strong it was almost painful.

"Let’s go then, go grab your stuff," you whispered, leaning in to catch his swollen bottom lip in a quick firm kiss. You pulled back just enough to meet his blown out pupils, your eyes dark with the same hunger he was projecting. "We need to leave now before the hallways get crowded."

You grabbed his hand, lacing your fingers tightly with his, and began tugging him toward the private exit.

"Right. Yes. Stuff. Going," he stammered, his brain clearly struggling to catch up with his body's frantic demands. He looked like he wanted to scoop you up and run, but the reality of the crowded backstage area forced him to maintain a shred of decorum. "Don't move. Don't move from this spot. If someone separates us, I’m gonna lose it y/n.”

He practically scrambled away, his movements uncharacteristically hurried as he grabbed his bag and his damp towel. You watched him, your heart hammering a frantic rhythm against your ribs, feeling the weight of his gaze on you even as he turned his back to gather his things.

A few moments later, he was back, his hand finding yours with a desperate strength, his fingers lacing through yours so tightly it felt like he was trying to fuse your skin together.

He couldn’t care less if the stylists or the other members saw him practically dragging you toward the private exit.

As you slipped through the back door and into the cool and quiet night air of the loading dock, the sudden temperature drop made you shiver, but James was there instantly, pulling you flush against his side. He was still radiating heat, unbothered by the possibility that his members might be looking for him.

"Call your driver, pretty girl," he whispered into your hair as he leaned down, his lips grazing the shell of your ear, his breath hot and frantic.

The silence in the car was heavy, James didn't even bother to ask to turn on the radio; the only sound was the low hum of the engine and the frantic uneven rhythm of your breathing.

He sat in the back seat, but he wasn't looking out the window. He was turned toward you, his body angled sharply, one hand gripping the edge of the leather so hard his knuckles were white. Every time the car hit a small bump, his knee would brush against yours, and he would let out a sharp, hitched breath, as if the simple contact was enough to push him over the edge.

"It’s so hard to sit still," he finally groaned, the sound vibrating in the small space. He reached out, his hand trembling as he rested it on your thigh, his fingers digging into the fabric of your skirt. "I feel like if we don't get to the apartment in the next thirty seconds, I'm going to start unzipping my pants right here."

It was a joke- not that you would mind.

He let out a breathless, self deprecating laugh, but there was nothing funny about the way he was looking at you. His gaze was tracing the line of your throat, the curve of your lips, the way your chest rose and fell with your heavy breathing.

"You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?" he whispered, his voice dropping to a low, gravelly register that made your stomach flip. "The way you're sitting there... so calm... so pretty.”

“Shhh we’re almost there Yufan,” your hand hiked up his thigh, tracing over the hard muscles there.

His hips gave an involuntary, desperate twitch upward, seeking the pressure of your hand, trying to close the agonizing gap between your touch and his need. He was so hard, so incredibly sensitive, that even the slight friction of your hand against his trousers felt like a lightning strike.

"Don't... don't stop," he groaned, his fingers curling into the leather of the seat, his knuckles turning a ghostly white. "Please, baby, don't stop. If you stop now, I think I might actually die."

𓏵 𓏵

The second the apartment door clicked shut, he was on you.

James didn't even wait to turn on the lights. He didn't even make it past the entryway, he practically tackled you against the door, the heavy wood thudding against your back as his body slammed into yours. His hands were everywhere at once clutching your waist, tangling in your hair, pulling you so close that you could feel the thudding rhythm of his heart against your own chest.

"Finally," he choked out, the word sounding more like a prayer than a statement. "Finally, finally, finally."

He didn't kiss you gently this time. He devoured your mouth, his tongue sweeping into your heat with a desperate, rhythmic intensity that made your knees buckle. He was kissing you as if he were trying to breathe you in, as if he could absorb your very essence into his lungs.

Your hands slid under your top, his palms hot and slightly damp against your skin, tracing the curve of your ribs before gripping your waist to hoist you up. You instinctively wrapped your legs around his hips, your thighs squeezing his waist, and the sensation of your damp lace pressing against his hard length made him let out a broken moan into your mouth.

"You're so hot," he whimpered against your lips, his voice wrecked and needy. "you're so fucking beautiful."

He began to move, stumbling backward toward the bedroom, never once breaking the contact of your lips or the frantic grip of his hands. He was stumbling, uncoordinated and desperate, his movements driven by a singular, overwhelming need to be inside you, to feel the friction.

You reached the bedroom and just as you were lost in the heat of his neck, James pulled back just an inch, his breathing still heavy but a glint returning to his eyes. That lopsided, cocky smirk the one he usually reserved for the stage spread across his lips, though his eyes remained soft.

“You know...” he started. He tilted his head, a stray lock of that platinum hair falling over his brow as he cupped your jaw “The hair... I dyed it for you.” He let out a soft, breathless chuckle, his hands sliding from your waist to cup your face, his thumbs tracing your cheekbones with a tenderness that contradicted his smug expression. “Figured since you like Bakugo so much... you might start to like me.”

You stared at him, momentarily stunned. Not a single fiber in your body was ready to think about whatever that meant.

But as you looked at him, really looked at him the way his chest was heaving, the way his eyes were dark with a hunger that bordered on desperation, and the very obvious, heavy ache straining against his trousers a different thought took hold.

Oh, James needs some head. Fuck it he deserves it. “You did?” you smile, breaking the contact. “Didn’t have to change your hair color for me to like you, i already did anyway.”

You slid down his body, your hands gliding over the firm muscles of his thighs, guiding him as you descende and James let out a startled sound as you sank to your knees on the hardwood floor in front of him. He reached out instinctively, his fingers tangling in your hair, his knuckles white as he braced himself against the wall for support.

"Baby?" he breathed, his voice trembling, his eyes wide and blown out as he looked down at you. He looked completely undone, his smugness melting instantly into a state of pure, vulnerable anticipation. "Wait- are you…“

He didn't finish the sentence. He couldn't. He just stood there, trembling, his head tilting back as he watched you, his breath hitching in his throat as he waited for your next move.

You didn't give him the satisfaction of immediate relief. Instead, you leaned in just enough to let your warm breath ghost over the fabric of his trousers, right where he was most sensitive. You watched his eyes flutter shut, his head lulling back against the doorframe with a shaky, expectant groan.

You started with a tease, your tongue tracing the hard, pulsing line of him through the cloth, circling the head of his length with agonizing slowness. You could feel him shudder, his hands tightening in your hair, his hips jerking forward in an uncoordinated attempt to meet your touch.

"Baby... please," he asked, needy "Don't... don't play with me like this. You know how much I need you."

You let out a low, muffled giggle against the fabric, enjoying the way he trembled under your control. You moved your hands up, unbuttoning his trousers and sliding the zipper down with a rasp that sounded like thunder in the quiet room.

When you finally freed him, the sight of him thick, heavy, and pulsing with his own heat made your mouth water.

Then, you finally leaned in.

The moment your lips made contact, James let out a low sound. You took him into your mouth, tongue swirling around the sensitive head before sliding down the length of him in one long, wet motion.

The reaction was instantaneous. His entire body went rigid, his fingers clenching so tightly in your hair that it was almost a tug, but you didn't mind.

He was lost. He was completely, utterly gone. He leaned his head back, his throat working as he swallowed hard, his eyes rolling back in his head.

"Oh god..." he gasped, his voice breaking. "Right there angel... just like that. You're so good... so fucking good to me."

You picked up the pace, your movements becoming more rhythmic and intense. You used your hands to stroke the base of him, creating a seamless, overwhelming sensation that had him swaying on his feet. He was a mess of sensation, his breath coming in ragged, frantic gasps, his hips beginning to move in time with your mouth.

The rhythm of your mouth was relentless, a perfect, swirling combination of heat, suction, and the expert glide of your tongue. You weren't just being careful; you were being thorough, worshiping him with every wet, sliding movement. You could feel the tremors racking his entire frame, the way his thighs shook so violently he had to lean against the wall just to stay upright.

As you felt him reaching that final, frantic peak his hips beginning to stutter in short, desperate jerks you decided to change the dynamic.

You slowed down just a fraction, pulling back enough to let the cool air hit his slick, heated skin, and then you tilted your head back to look up at him. Your eyes were heavy, lidded as you looked up at him through your lashes, your lips glistening and we. Your gaze traveled upward, past his trembling chest, past his frantic throat, until it landed on his hair.

The strands were a mess, damp with sweat and tousled from his own fingers, catching the dim light of the apartment.

He looked so goddamn good-

James opened his eyes, his vision blurry and his mind a fog of pleasure, and he looked down to find you watching him with that dazed, worshipful expression. He saw the way your eyes lingered on his hair, the way you looked at him like you’d die if he didn’t touch you.

"Baby..." he choked out, his voice a mere whisper, his hands shaking as he reached down to cup your face, thumbs brushing over your wet lips. "Just- come up here. I’ll give you anything you need, yeah?"

Every time your glassy, dark eyes drifted up to catch his, his heart gave a violent, painful thud against his ribs.

James was not okay.

He felt dizzy a legitimate, spinning vertigo that made the room tilt. It wasn't just the physical sensation of your mouth; it was the way you were looking at him, you looked so hungry and that caused his undoing.

His cock was twitching in front of your face, the head of him weeping clear droplets of pre cum, reacting to the sensory overload of your presence. He felt like he was a live wire, a single touch away from loosing all control.

James reached down, his fingers trembling so badly he could barely grip your shoulders, his knuckles white. He felt like he could cum at any second, just from your eyes alone.

"Don't look at me like that and then stop," he pleaded, a broken, needy whine vibrating in his chest. He was practically begging now, his pride long since abandoned. "Just... finish it. Please. I can't... I can't hold it- I'm right there... I'm so close..."

His hips gave a sudden, violent twitch, his entire body tensing as he felt the first, unmistakable wave of a climax beginning to form through him.

Gosh- was he that down bad?

You didn't let him drift away, you leaned forward, your hands gripping his thighs to steady him, and took him deep.

The sensation of him filling you, the thickness of him sliding past your throat, forced a muffled noise from his lungs. His fingers tangled so violently in your hair that it was almost a pull, his knuckles white as he braced himself against the wall, his entire body vibrating with the force of his climax.

"Oh fuck fuck fuck- baby." he curzed, the word catching in a sob.

He was pulsing, his entire length twitching rhythmically against your tongue as he began to come. You didn't pull back; you leaned into it, your throat working, your suction intense and unrelenting as he poured himself into you. You felt the hot, thick waves of his cum hitting the back of your throat.

He was shaking, his knees finally giving out as he slumped against the wall, his breath coming in frantic, sobbing gasps. He was completely spent, his eyes glazed and unfocused, staring down at you with a look of pure, holy awe.

And you didn't miss a single drop.

You swallowed every bit of him, the thick, salty taste of him a final, intimate seal on the moment. You took your time, making sure he saw the way you swallowed, making sure he saw the way your throat moved, before you finally pulled back.

The moment you finished, James was a man possessed. He didn't let you stay on the floor for long; he scooped you up and carried you to the bed, his lips finding yours in a series of frantic, messy kisses as he laid you down.

He was still reeling, his mind a hazy fog of pleasure, but the sight of you flushed and breathless made his head spin.

He flipped you onto your stomach, hands sliding down the curve of your spine- and he leaned down, breath hot against the back of your thigh, as he began to work his way up.

When his tongue finally found you, nudging your panties to the side- he let out a low, needy groan, his face burying into your pussy from behind.

His strong hands gripped the soft flesh of your ass, spreading you open for him as a moan vibrated against your soaked folds- his tongue dragging slowly from your dripping entrance all the way to your swollen clit.

James was completely lost in it. He licked broad, flat strokes across your pussy, lapping up your arousal like a man dying of thirst. His tongue circled your clit with teasing pressure before flicking rapidly over the sensitive bundle of nerves, making your hips jerk involuntarily.

“Fuck… you taste so good,” he growled against your core, the words muffled as he pressed his face in harder.

He nudged your panties further aside with his nose, then sucked your clit between his lips, hollowing his cheeks as he drew on it with pulsing suction.

Your thighs trembled, a broken moan spilling from your mouth into the sheets. You didn’t even know what to do anymore- you were wrecked- completely.

You were grinding back against his face without shame now, chasing the building pressure which James only encouraged, his free hand kneading your ass, spreading you wider so he could eat you more thoroughly.

He alternated between long, hungry licks and focused suction on your clit, occasionally pulling back just enough to blow cool air over your overheated flesh before diving back in with renewed hunger.

"James..." you gasped, your fingers digging into the bedsheets, your hips arching instinctively toward him. The sensation was incredible, but the ache in your core was demanding something more something else. "James, stop... wait."

He paused instantly, his head lifting, his face flushed and his hair a beautiful, damp mess. He looked up at you through his lashes, his eyes wide and searching, looking like a puppy waiting for a command. "What? What’s wrong baby"

"Nothing’s wrong," you breathed, reaching back to grab his hands and pulling him upward. You rolled over, your eyes locking onto his, dark and commanding. "I don't want you down there. I wanna feel you. I wanna ride you."

James didn't argue. He couldn't possibly.

He simply sat back on his heels, his breath coming in shallow, jagged hitches as he watched you climb over him. His hands hovered near your waist, wanting to grip you, wanting to pull you down, but he held back, his fingers trembling with the effort of letting you take control.

As you settled onto him- hovering over his cock and slowly sinking down- the sensation of him filling you caused his head to loll back, a long groan escaping his lips.

When you began to move, the rhythm of your hips setting a pace that was both slow and punishingly deep, James fell into a trance of pure sensation.

He couldn't even find the words to praise you anymore.

He just sat there, his chest heaving, his eyes wide and wild as they tracked every movement of your body.

His mouth hung slightly open, his breath hitching every time you bottomed out against him, his gaze so intense it felt like witnessing something forbidden.

You leaned forward, your hands reaching up to find purchase in that beautiful hair you’d been admiring all day. You wound your fingers into the silky strands, tugging just firmly enough to pull his head back, exposing the lon line of his throat.

"You look so good like this, James," you whispered, your voice a low, sultry purr that seemed to vibrate through him. You leaned down, your lips brushing his ear, your breath hot and teasing. "This hair... you look so good.”

You gave his hair another sharp, commanding tug, pulling his face up to meet yours.

"Fuck..." he finally managed to choke out, though it was barely a sound, just a broken exhale of your name. He looked completely unmoored, his hands finally coming up to grasp your hips, not to guide you, but to hold on for dear life as you drove him closer and closer to the edge. "You’re gonna kill me... You're absolutely killing me."

The pace shifted from a slow, torturous grind to a frantic, rhythmic bounce that sent jolts of electricity straight to his core.

You leaned forward, your chest brushing against his, and reached down to grab his hands, guiding them away from your waist and to the swell of your ass.

“Feels so good- you’re so deep.” you keened, head lolling back.

As you picked up the speed, you began to consciously squeeze, your internal walls clenching and pulsing around his cock. You gripped him with a precision that was nothing short of calculated, catching him with every upward surge of your hips.

"Ah fuck-" he whimpered, trying his best not to make this end so quickly.

His hips began to buck upward instinctively, trying to meet your frantic pace, his entire body coiling into a tight, vibrating knot of pure tension.

"You're so tight... you're so fucking tight..." he gasped, the words coming out in broken fragments.

“I know, baby, I know fuck...” you moaned, your head falling back as you felt him bucking beneath you, “You’re so good, James... you feel so fucking good.”

He couldn't even keep his eyes open; he just stared up at you, his jaw tight, his entire body vibrating with the effort of not coming mid sentence.

"mmhh fuck," he choked out, his hands sliding from your ass to your hips, his fingers bruising your skin as he tried to pull you even deeper, to merge your bodies together. "Do it... do it again. Squeeze me like that... please, sweetheart, please."

So you did.

"You're so beautiful..." he said, the words catching in his throat as he watched you, his eyes glassy and unfocused.

“Oh fuck”you gasped, the words breaking into a ragged moan as his hips bucked violently against you, trying to meet your desperate pace. You leaned down, your hair brushing against his sweat slicked skin, and bit your lip to keep from screaming as the tension reached a breaking point. “I’m so close, James... so so close”

You reached down, your fingers tangling in his blonde hair to pull his head up, needing to see his expression when you finally broke.

He cursed sharply, hips snapping up to meet you with renewed force. One hand slid up your back, pressing you flush against his chest while the other slipped between your bodies, his thumb finding your clit.

“Come for me baby-” he growled, voice low and filthy. “Let me feel you.”

The tension snapped.

Your orgasm crashed over you hard, a white-hot wave that tore a loud, shameless moan from your throat. You clenched around him rhythmically, pulsing, soaking him as pleasure ripped through every nerve.

You did it one final time, and that was all it took.

James came with a groan that tore straight from his chest. His whole body seized beneath you -every muscle locking up tight as the first spurt of his cum flooded deep inside you. He couldn’t stop moving. Even as his orgasm ripped through him, his hips kept thrusting up into you in short, desperate, uncontrollable strokes, chasing the pleasure, fucking his cum deeper with every erratic snap of his pelvis.

“Fuck- fuck, baby- ” he gasped, voice hoarse.

His arms wrapped around you like a vice, clinging desperately as he pulled your body flush against his. One hand splayed wide across your back, fingers digging in hard enough to leave marks, while the other gripped the back of your neck, holding you in place. He buried his face into the crook of your neck, mouth open against your sweat-slick skin, panting and moaning as another thick pulse of cum spilled into you.

You could feel everything- the way his cock throbbed and twitched violently inside your pulsing heat, his hips kept rolling in shallow, stuttering thrusts even as he came down, like he physically couldn’t stop claiming you. His lips pressed open-mouthed against your throat, teeth grazing your skin as broken whimpers and curses vibrated against you.

For a long minute he stayed like that -buried to the hilt, still giving tiny, involuntary thrusts as the last drops of his cum leaked into you, arms locked around your body like he never wanted to let go.

“Fucking hell…” he finally breathed, voice wrecked and muffled against your neck. He pressed a sloppy, lingering kiss just below your ear, then another, softer this time. His hold slowly loosened, but only slightly- one hand still stroking down your spine while the other stayed tangled in your hair.

“You okay, baby?” He nuzzled deeper into your neck, pressing another kiss there. “I think I lost the ability to think for a second…”

You softly giggled, breathless- and you kissed him right back on the temple. “Cute”

James looked up, his eyes always told stories but right now- they told you all you needed to know about the nature of your relationship.

There was no way in hell you could both pretend this wasn’t more than a stupid drunken arrangement anymore.

“I should dye my hair more often if it means you’ll ride me like you just did.”

that shit was so long idk what possessed me i’m so down bad it’s so unfunny.😭✌🏻

taglist —🏷️ : @bloomflix @hyukasguitarpick @chaorik1i @yeeyeehaw22 @jakeycakeys @justpassingdontworry @crypticscarrift @ja4hyvn @taelvvrzz @heejakexx68 @kienhawon @jinniepilled @eczlipse @wxnizz @cupcakeangel9 @yuudaiinhs @xysza. @lcvemonth @acaibowl37 @jjujjukeukeu @sinmiedoalamor @jjuhoonn @inadazeee @sonyui @seokiify @seonghwaswifeuuuu @beomchuu2 @miles4eva @ascxan @inadazeee @ilovegojosatoru13 @kkyunho @hyeonverse @ascxan @sanguinosis @yeeyeehaw22 @coxrtizz @kpopsmutty69

[hollyoongs]

oh, you guys, how i love my boy's with blonde 🙂‍↕️ oh, you guys 🤩🤩🤩

shout out to my baby @hyuneskkami for breaking the news first thing in the morning and f you all who didn't in my asks (jk)

[heewnss]

diet pepsi ⸺ camp counselor!jay (sounds to scenes collection)

( ★ ) ⸻ jay spent the entire summer pretending that he wasn't into you. ignoring every single one of your advances, because it made sense. you were younger. he was leaving. it just wouldn't work out. avoiding you just made the most sense. until he's letting himself slip on your last night together and he's quickly realizing that he's made a huge mistake.

۶ৎpairing: mentor!jay x mentee!reader ۶ৎgenre: heavy angst... smut. summer camp au. age gap (reader is 18, jay is 24). established relationships. ۶ৎtw: smut (mdni!) descriptive making out, loss of virginity, mutual pining. unexpected heeseung closure. fingering, dry humping. slight dirty talk. unresolved feelings. cortis!martin makes an appearance. bnd!jaehyun. car sex. subtle masturbation (m.), relationship ending. gone the next morning... post sex abandonment? unprotected sex (not in this economy pls). ۶ৎwc: 16.5k+

⸻ playlist | diet pepsi. addison rae, bound. the ponderosa twins plus one, late night talking. harry styles, electric love. borns, love grows (where my rosemary goes). edison lighthouse, tenerife sea. ed sheeran, perfect places. lorde, bad habit. steve lacy, get you. daniel caesar ft. kali uchis, summertime sadness. lana del rey, vienna. billy joel, the scientist. coldplay.

by the time the sun was setting, camp barely looked like camp anymore. the campers that had spent the past three months running from cabin to cabin had been picked up hours ago. said cabins cleaned up and empty, ready for the winter that slowly crept around the corner. the lake was still. for the first time all summer, there wasn't a schedule to follow, no activities, no headcounts. no one asking where the arts-and-crafts supplies were. you and the eleven other counselors were the only ones left, closing out the summer with a well deserved bonfire barbecue.

martin, sakai and jaehyun dragged picnic tables to the beach before setting the folding chairs up to surround the fire, while jungwon set up his speaker, viv and lex arguing about whose playlist should be shuffled. the smell of charcoal hung heavy in the air as heeseung started up the grill, expertly cutting thick pieces of beef while brin stole bites directly off the serving tray.

he's rolling his eyes the third time her tongs chase his, “those are for everybody,” he grumbles, she nods with a grin – pushing a big piece past her lips. “mhm!” she's reaching for another piece, but he's nudging her away with his hip. she easily reaches around him, popping the pork into her mouth before he can steal it back. “brin.” he tries to sound stern, but the natural softness of his voice never leaves him. “you've eaten like a full cow by now,” he jokes and she grins wide up at him, shoulders lifting in a shrug.

“put more on,” she says simply.

mindless chatter is heard all throughout the beach, a red solo cup clutched in every hand. sunoo is stationed behind a folding table he deemed the bar, two coolers hidden underneath filled with juice and several bottles that had been hidden for the better half of the summer and an obnoxious amount of fruit. mia argues as he hands her drink over, “you shouldn't eyeball vodka,” she nags and he's snorting out a laugh. “it literally won't matter in ten years, just drink.” he encourages, repeating what had become his mantra these last few days.

and no matter how scary that sounded, he was right. all the moments that seemed huge, everything that made you cry, smile, laugh – most likely wouldn't even matter ten years from now. but that's what made every last moment that much more special, what made the goodbyes that you all knew were looming that much more devastating. because despite promising to stay in touch, you all knew that this was all temporary and in ten years, everything would be so different. you all would be completely different.

you sit close to the fire with the other girls as the chaos settles, slowly rotating a marshmallow over the flames. the heat warming the bare skin of your thighs left by the dress you picked this morning. subconsciously putting more thought into your appearance, knowing what tonight meant. it was the last night, yes, but it always was a last chance. so you’re choosing the strapless dress that hugged your frame, a bright orange with pretty pink flowers scattered over it, the colors seeming to pop against your sun-kissed skin.

you hoped you looked as pretty as you felt and that a certain someone took notice, the moment he's drifting into your thoughts – your eyes shift to where he stands. leaning casually against one of the surfboards, head tipped back as he laughs at something jungwon said. jongseong park. jay. you remember reading his name on the welcome sheet on your very first day, the man in charge of the music lodge and all of the instruments inside. your mentor for the next three months and the man who you'd be replacing at the end of the summer when he left for grad school.

that's what he was introduced to you as, but after meeting him, after spending every single day with him for the last ninety-two days, he had become so much more. he was funny, smart, kind, generous and extremely talented. the kids loved him, looked up to him and he gave them a good reason to with how patient and encouraging he was with every last one of them. he was an all around good guy and him being without a doubt the hottest guy you've ever laid eyes on only added to that.

jay was sexy without even trying to be, from his facial expressions to the way his fingers moved over the strings of his guitar, everything he did seemed to draw you in. and god you were so bad at hiding it. from day one, you couldn't keep your eyes from finding him in the crowd, couldn't mask the insistent blush of your cheeks or the way giggles would slip past your lips before you could even think twice.

and the craziest part of all of it, was that he also seemed interested in you. you never missed the way the touches would linger, the way his eyes would drop to your lips before snapping back up to your eyes. you've even caught him watching you from the pier one night when you and the other girls went out for a late swim. but you never once made a move, just treaded dangerously close to the line and it all but drove you insane.

“you're drooling,” you hear from beside you and your body startles, nearly dropping your marshmallow into the fire. viv laugh besides you, leaning into your shoulder as she does. you can already feel the heat rising in your cheeks. “no i'm not,” you uselessly defend and she nods as if she actually believes you, “why don't you go say something?” brin makes an attempt at whispering, leaning across viv to look at you.

you feel the anxiety blooming in your chest before she's even finishing her sentence, “are you crazy!?” while you were like 89% sure jay also thought you were cute, there was still that 11% chance that he was just being nice. and you were terrified by that 11%. viv lifts her drink to her lips, taking a big gulp of it before she's setting in the sand, deciding she was done with it. “he leaves tomorrow... forever.” she reminds with a pointed look. “and then in ten years, none of this will matter...”

as if he could sense he was being talked about, jay's eyes drift in your direction. not even half surprised that he caught you and the other girls staring, it sort of been the theme of the summer. and the way he wiggles his fingers in a slight wave makes everything worse, because you're gasping, marshmallow actually hitting the ground as laughter erupts between your friends.

the night stretches just like that, conversations bouncing between you, drinks and food being passed and lingering stares between you and jay that everyone else pretending they didn't notice. by the time the sky was dark and the stars were twinkling, everything seemed to settle. the feeling of finality that everyone had been avoiding thickening with each flicker of the fire.

“i can't believe i won't be back here next year,” heeseung says, earning a chorus of loud eye rolls from each of you. he's only mentioned it a trillion times in the past three months. “oh my god, wait! it's your last summer!?” lex fakes a gasp that has laughter spreading, heeseung lifts his middle finger in her direction while brin slaps at her shoulder playfully. “cut him some slack, he's been here since they filled the lake.” she teases.

jungwon is quick to interject, a smirk playing on his lips. “nah, that was jay. he poured the water in himself, one cup at a time,” he punctuates his words with a tip of his own cup, letting the last few drops of his liquor hit the sand. “seriously, though, we're going to miss you guys.” sakai starts and you can already hear the quiver in her tone. “it's going to be so weird not smelling brin making bacon before sunrise, or hearing jay fighting with the kids for hiding his drumsticks, no more heeseung waking us up past midnight for ramyeon...” her lips form a pout before she can even finish her thought and you're reaching over to hug her.

“aw.” martin coos, setting down his drink before clapping his hands together. “think tonight calls for some goodbye speeches,” agreement is immediate and it's not long before brin is standing. she talks about her love for the camp, when she started and how close she's become with every one of you, highlighting funny moments, sad ones and ones that she swears she'll never forget. heeseung follows, starting with “i can't believe this is my last summer...” and ending with the same words, head shaking.

jay stands next and you feel the way your heart flutters for no good reason. his hand rubs at the back of his neck, teeth tugging at his lower lip as he fought to put the right words together. he looked handsome, face lit by the fire, hair dyed blond after losing a dare to one of the campers on the first week. it suited him. “i hate public speaking,” jungwon leads the chorus of boos that follow his words, pulling a laugh from him which seems to ease the tension between his shoulders.

he continues on despite the thump in his chest, despite knowing you're sat less than a few feet away, watching him. “honestly, this place has been home for a long time. i started when i was seventeen?” he ignores the groans that come from the group, out of all the counselors, he's been there the longest and he never let them forget it. “get off the stage, unc!” jungwon shouts, hands cupped around his mouth.

jay's eyes drift from the lake, over to the music lodge sitting at the edge of the camp, back to the friends he's grown closer to every summer. and then to you and the way you smile at him has him losing his train of thought for a full three seconds. “seriously, though, i've spent almost every summer here and i thought that would make leaving harder but it isn't. of course, i'll miss the campers, you guys and obviously my music room, but...” his eyes are back on yours and everyone notices the way his gaze, “i think the reason it's kind of easy is because i know everything i love is being left in good hands,” exaggerated gasps are heard around the fire.

jay does his best to ignore them, eyes never breaking from yours. his gaze said everything he had been swallowing for the past few months, mixed with the regret of not having the courage to make a move sooner. stood in his own way each and every time. “yn, i'm so relieved to know you'll be the one replacing me. you're so good with the kiddos, you're smart, funny... patient and creative... way more organized that i've ever been. thank you for making leaving a little bit easier, i appreciate you,” an unmistakable blush has settled on his cheeks and he's moving to sit, “and you look pretty in all your dresses,” the words are jumbled together, alcohol giving him just enough courage to mumble what he had been thinking every morning you walked into the music lodge.

the silence lasts for less than a second before obnoxious cheers erupt through the group. “better late than never!” jaehyun whistles, while sunoo claps wildly beside him. apparently, he had mentioned it to everyone but you the way they were reacting like it was this long awaited thing. it was. you ignore the flutter in your chest long enough to thank him. you can't stop replaying the last three words of his speech: 'all your dresses'. all like every one of them? which meant he had noticed every one. and he thought every one was pretty.

and he waited until the night before he was leaving to say something about it. bittersweet wasn't even the word.

the rest of the evening passes in a blur. all of your crowded around the fire, reminiscing and sharing secrets. it has the expected warm feeling the end of summer would, but you can't seem to fully enjoy it with the way your eyes keep drifting to jay. as the hours tick on, the group starts to break apart around the beach. heeseung and martin had volunteered to get more drinks and jay had hopped up to help, since then the three of them had been seated at the table a few feet away. they're talking quietly but you don't miss the not so discreet way one of them would point in your direction.

viv and mia only make it worse, shoving and hitting your arm wildly when jay finally stands to head toward the coolers. “okay, okay. go now.” you hear one of them say, nearly shoving you off of your chair. and you don't miss the kissing noises they make as you're walking away.

the coolers sit near one of the set up of kayaks that jaehyun swore he'd get put away before sundown. it was ten pm. jay is already crouched beside one when you approach, pushing aside melting ice as he searched for another drink. “hi,” your heart is pounding so rough against your chest, it's all you can muster. you catch the way his hand stills, body stilling for just a second before he's shaking it off – pulling two wine coolers from the ice before standing to face you. he hands one over with the prettiest of smiles.

“hey.” he says through one of his nervous laughs you've gotten so familiar with.

“i liked your speech,” it's all you can think of saying because it's all you can think about. his gaze drops to the sand, a hand lifting to rub at the back of his neck. and for the first time all evening, all summer even – jay actually looks embarrassed. the past three months, you've been the one blushing, the one caught staring, you've been so sure you've been making a fool out of yourself with your loud crush. when it reality, he's been noticing you this entire time too. he was just so much better at hiding it.

his shoulders lift in a slight shrug, “i was just being honest.”

“honest? you were flirting with me,” you accuse playfully and that has his cheeks going pink. “oh my god,” he laughs and it's a real pretty one, it has a smile lifting on your lips almost immediately. his eyes find yours for a moment, but he's quickly finding something else to focus on. and then he's slowly coming back, allowing himself to actually look. his stare is so intense that it has you shifting, searching for something to say, anything to fill the silence. your lips part, but he's beating you to it. “i meant it. i really like you, yn. but...”

he's getting ready to reject you, you can just tell. jay didn't like loose ends and despite all the quiet glances, subtle flirting that you're now just realizing was flirting, he was still leaving in the morning. he was starting a whole new chapter of his life and there could be no maybes left behind. so he needed a clean break. you're interrupting him before he has the chance. “and you said i was pretty in all my dresses. you know, i knew you were staring every morning... you'd always act like you were look at your bon jovi poster,”

jay is letting out a low laugh, “it's a nice poster!” he defends. “but yeah, it was you.” it feels so weird to say out loud, he had been so careful all summer and admitting that he had been admiring you this whole time didn't feel like him. “you looked good in every one. extremely distracting by the way.” he's twisting the cap off of his drink as he speaks, taking a long sip from it.

and you realize why he's not holding back anymore, the semi permanent flush of his cheeks and glossy look in his eye. “every one?” you prompt with a grin, following his lead and taking a sip from your drink too.

he nods without a moment of hesitation, “all of them.” the confidence in his voice catches you off guard, because this was jay we were talking about. the same jay that spent three months carefully putting distance between you every time you got too close. who would find excuses to rush away whenever you'd start flirting with him. the same jay who'd look away whenever you caught him staring, spouting off nonsense facts about bon jovi instead of saying what he truly wanted to.

that jay was looking at you through hooded eyes, gaze dragging over the curves of your body. and a lazy smile stretches on his face that makes your stomach twist. he's nodding his head as if he's confirming a question he had asked himself. “yeah, all of them.” he says quietly. “the long blue one with the slit on the side,” your lips part slightly, the exact morning flashing in your mind. it was only the third day and he called you in early to do one final sweep before the campers were arriving later that day. you remember just throwing the dress on, annoyed that you were up before sunrise when everyone else was sleeping in.

“you remember that?” he's nodding before you're even done speaking. “yeah, you wouldn't stop giving me attitude all day.” he's laughing with a shake of his head. he's taking a step closer, turning so he's facing you fully and you feel your stomach twist. “the white one you wore to the talent show,” he continues, lip tucked between his teeth. he had stood on the other side of the room the entire show, barely speaking two words to you when it was over.

“and...” his head tilts slightly, eyes dragging over you in the way that makes it so painfully obvious that he's been forcing himself not to look at you all summer. he's grinning. “the short orange one you're wearing now,” you actually feel the way your brain short-circuits, eyes wide as your jaw drops. it's usually the other way around, you coming onto him and him ignoring you. so now that the roles were reversed, you have no idea what to do with yourself.

“okay, stop.” you're laughing, hand lifting to slap his shoulder. “what? i can't compliment you? you compliment me all the time.” you shake your head quickly, “tit's different when you do it. especially now.” you point out and jay goes quiet, because he knows you're right. it is different. everything is. summer was over, all the campers were gone, he was leaving tomorrow morning and everything just felt... heavier?

before either of you can say anything else, a scream cuts across the beach. both of you turn at the sound to find sunoo pealing his shirt from his body, sprinting toward the water. “LAST SWIM OF THE SUMMER!” he shouts as he runs. chaos breaks out within seconds, your friends abandoning their drinks and kicking off their shoes. shirts and shorts fly through the air as they reveal the swimsuits they'd been wearing all night.

the firelight flickers across the beach as everyone runs toward the lake. viv jumps on jaehyun's back, his hands clutching her thighs as he runs. jungwon, martin, sakai and lex have already started climbing up a nearby cliff. mia and heeseung are in search of a beach ball. it's so obvious that everyone was trying to drag out time, trying to cram in as many 'lasts' as they could before morning was rolling in and all of this was ending.

you're smiling, gaze shifting back to jay. and you find him already look at you, he smiles brightly before tapping his bottle against yours, tipping it back and swallowing the rest down. you do the same. his head tilts toward the lake once you're finished, brow lifted slightly. “race you,” he's running off before you can even register what he's said, bottle ditched somewhere in the sand and you're quick to follow behind him.

jay's laugh is loud and unrestrained as he runs into the water, pulling his shirt over his head in the process. you've never heard him laugh like that, ever and it's incredibly contagious. your dress joins the liter of clothing at the shoreline as you rush in. the lake is freezing and you're squealing the second it hits your legs. jay turns to face you, he's already fully submerged himself into the water and he's reaching a hand out to you.

“you gotta jump right in,” you've been saying that to him all summer. the irony is funny to you. still, you take hold of his hand and he's easily tugging you toward him. the two of you float there, treading water and staring at each other. it's like he was getting in all the looking he had missed out in the past months. “what?” you're laughing and he's shrugging his shoulder slightly. “just remembering...” you hate the way his words make you feel. you don't want to think about it being the last night, or all the time wasted. so you splash him instead, a hard wave that soaks his hair. jay's laughing, hand pushing his hair back out of his eyes to see that you've swam away and he's quick to swim after you.

you're swimming right through the middle of the impromptu game of water volleyball, jaehyun deciding you're apart of his team and sending jay to join heeseung's side. sunoo teases mia about winning now that they had you and she had jay, she rolls her eyes before roughly serving the ball. it hits jaehyun in the chest and viv shouts from the pier for you all to be careful with her man, brin laughing beside her.

across the lake, jungwon, martin, sakai and lex have made it to the top of the cliff. their voices echo as they argue about what actually counts as a flip. martin deciding to shut them all up by launching himself off of the rock, body flipping naturally in the air whooping loudly just before he's hitting the water with a loud splash and lex follows behind him, looking less graceful but gaining a supportive chant from the girls when she resurfaces.

the game of volleyball melts into a shouting match after the first three rounds, arguments about points that nobody had been even keeping track of in the first place, sunoo swearing that he didn't cheat and heeseung and jay going back and forth about something neither of them seem particularly passion about. the beach ball floats away forgotten by both teams.

eventually, you're paddling your way back toward the dock, pulling yourself up beside viv and brin. water drips from your legs as you stretch them out in front of you, back laying against the warm wood. viv immediately scoots closer, grin wide as her eyes drift to where jay and heeseung fight to pull each other under the water. “so,” you feel the heat rise in your cheeks. “does he like you? does he want to kiss and get married and have five kids?” she's asking and you're barking out a laugh.

“yeah, right.” you roll your eyes. “we didn't say much, really. just that he liked me dresses.” you catch the way brin rolls her eyes, letting out a soft huff. “he's hopeless,” she sighs, but is quickly moving to change the subject, pointing across the lake as sakai shoves jungwon into the water before jumping off behind him. “can you believe she's going to be in charge next year?” brin had spent the past three months training sakai on how to run this place and come next year, she'd be the new head counselor.

viv is shaking her head, “wild. this is the same girl who faked pneumonia to get out of cooking duties, by the way.” you're snorting out a laugh. “i'm going to miss this,” the admission settles between all three of you. waking up and not have your friends right outside your door, no more staying up late to watch the stars. this place somehow became home without any of you noticing and in less than twelve hours it all would be over.

the dock shifts slightly, a large splash following and the sound of jaehyun's laughter. viv is rolling her eyes, kicking her foot out to him but instead of hitting him, he's catching it by the ankle. he's tugging her slightly, earning a swift kick with the other leg. he's laughing. “come here,” his thumb traces her ankle, hand slowly dragging up her calf. “i'm having a conversation,” viv says, gesturing between you and brin.

jaehyun is shrugging quickly. “you can have it in the water,” his fingers tighten around her leg, a sly grin spreading across his lips and anyone can guess what he's thinking. “jaehyun, don't.” he's looking up at her, mischief dancing through his eyes. “what? i'm just touching you. i love you. i can't touch you?” they're ignoring the gagging noises that come from beside them just like they always do.

“i can feel you–” she is not even able to finish her sentence before he's yanking his arm toward him, successfully pulling viv off of the dock and into the water. he catches her instantly, arms around her waist as her legs secure themselves around his waist. “say bye to your friends,” he says already swimming further into the water.

a few feet away, heeseung is waving both his arms in your direction. “are you two planning on sitting there all night?” he shouts with his hands now cupped around his mouth. “maybe!” you're shouting back and he's quickly shaking his head, waving you both over. “get in the water!” brin is quickly pointing at you, despite the fact her legs and hair were still dry. “she doesn't want to,”

“what!? you're still dry,” you point out. she's rolling her eyes, slipping in just as heeseung has started swimming over. you follow behind her. the group gathers together slowly, floating in the middle of the lake as conversations overlap. you're all drifting between each other, talking about plans for the next few weeks, sharing excitement for next year, worries. jungwon's group eventually get their fix of cliff diving and join the rest of you in the water. lex puling herself comfortably on sunoo's back, reaching forward to steal his drink. mia starts another argument this time with sakai about who slept in the most.

and somehow in the midst of all of this, you end up beside jay again, without even fully realizing it. at least that's what you tell yourself when your shoulder bumps against his. one moment, he's laughing at something heeseung says, the very next you're stealing his attention away, in your tiny yellow bikini that barely covers yours ass. he knows. he checked.

you're so close to him, but you're completely enthralled in conversations. laughing loudly and engaging freely. your legs brushes against his whenever a soft wave rolls through and each time neither of you move away or say anything about it. you don't realize that the two of you are floating away at first. you were listening to the others, jungwon's laugh carrying across the water as martin exposes him for never really being on duty.

their voices come and go with the ways, but slowly it seems like they're fading into the background. you shift onto your break, letting the water hold your weight as you stare up at the twinkling stars scattered across the sky. jay stays close to you, tanned skin glistening in the moonlight. his hair is wet and slicked back, dark eyes sparkling as he watches you.

“you stare a lot,” you're pointing out with a laugh.

he's quick to nod his head, not even bothering to deny it. his hands find their way underneath you, floating uselessly beneath your back as if he's holding you up – but not actually touching you. just looking for excuses to be close to you, to touch you. even if it was through the water. “you're so different tonight, i'm not used to this jay.” you're saying after a minute and jay's gaze is dragging up to your eyes.

“am i?” he's asking like it's not the most obvious thing. “yes. you're actually looking at me, complimenting me, not rushing away when i get too close. where was this all summer?” besides the time the two of you spent working together in the music lodge, there were very few times where you were alone. no matter how much you wanted to be. “i was trying really hard to be professional. i'm your mentor.”

“not anymore,” you're quick to point out and you notice the way his eyes drag down the line of your neck to to the swell of your breasts all the way down to the curve of your waist. his eyes catch the gold jewelry that dangles from your navel before he's snapping his eyes back up to yours. “not anymore,” he repeats with a nod. you feel the way the palm of his hand grazes your thigh as he floats closer to you.

you're sure the pounding in your chest can be heard by your friends on the other side of the lake. you try to appear as composed as possible. “so, what else have you been keeping to yourself?” jay's lips shift into a smirk, head tilting to the side slightly. of course you want to know what he's been thinking about you since he was first meeting you. and he's kept his cards so close to his chest up until now, it was only fair. “you want the whole list?”

your head tilts so your able to look at his face fully, eyes wide. “there's a list?”

“a long one,” he's nodding quickly. “like how cute i think you look biting your lip when you play the piano. the way i admired how easily you were able to bond with the kids in our class...” he's actually searching his mind for more things to tell you and you find that unbelievably adorable.

but still, something about all of this just doesn't sit right by you. “why'd you wait so long to say something?” he's letting out a soft sigh, stepping back slightly as his hand rubs at the back of his neck. “i'm leaving in the morning, yn. and i'm not coming back. i mean, i liked you from the start but it didn't seem smart to start something with you i knew i wasn't going to be around to finish.” it made sense. he wasn't coming back, this was his last summer before he went to start his life in new york or california or wherever life took him. this was his past now.

“and i knew you had a crush on me too, it just didn't seem fair.” he's explaining with a sigh and you're nodding, because he's right. you hated to admit it, but he was right. now you knew, though. and you still had the rest of the night. there was no sense in moping around about the fact that this would be the last time you'd see each other when you could be reveling in the time you still had.

you're shifting in the water so you're upright again. “you know, i really thought i was embarrassing myself all summer. turns out you were crushing on me just as bad,” you tease, sticking your tongue out at him that has him smiling. “no, you were.” he's clarifying and you reach over to slap at his chest. “i was not! you kept a mental inventory of my dress collection,” you're pointing out.

“yeah, but i was subtle. you knocked over an entire box of guitar pics when i touched your hand,” the memory makes him smile, you were wearing a green halter dress than, hair pulled into a sleek bun. and you smelt like caramel. “okay, but-” you try to defend yourself, but he's interrupting you. “and let's not forget the time you spilled juice in your lap when i sat by you,” white dress with red and pink flowers all over it. it was ruined. rip.

you embarrassed yourself in front of him more times than you could count and there was denying that, so you don't try to. “you know what,” you're grumbling, hands pushing the water hard enough to send a large splash toward him. it hits him directly in the face, soaking his hair all over again. and you don't miss the dangerous smile on his lips as he reaches up to wipe the water from your eyes, you're already swimming away before he's opening them.

“oh, you're done.” you hear from behind you and you make the mistake of looking back, catching the way he dips under the water. he's scarily fast. you're letting out a squeal as you rush away from him. he's laughing at how easily he's able to close the distance between the two of you. and you hate this version of him. no, actually that was a lie – you hate how much you like this version of him.

this is the jay everyone else around you apparently knew about it. the one that wasn't watching every word or always stepping back. he was no longer trying so hard to keep up with this stiff image of himself, he was just being. and you hate that it took until the very last day for you to finally experience him this way. you're laughing so hard you can barely defend yourself, screaming when jay is finally catching you. “jay!” you shout as he's easily lifting you over his shoulder and tossing you behind his back into the water.

you're resurfacing quickly, jumping onto his back without a bit of hesitation. jay stumbles forward, laughing as you wrap your around his shoulders trying with all your might to get him under the water. “i'm going to fucking drown you,” the threat comes between laughs, ruined by the fact that you're barely even able to move him. “you?” he says amused, a large hand lifting to wrap around the arm you've got around his neck. “are we sure about that?” the confidence in his voice should've been your warning, but you barely have time to question it before he's shaking you off and right back into the lake.

you're bobbing to the surface with a gasp, shoving wet hair from your face as your eyes find jay standing across from you. he's bent over laughing so hard he's basically wheezing, eyes shut as he clutches his stomach and you're taking the chance. you're jumping on him before he can react, sending both of your bodies under the water. you're quick with swimming to the surface, coughing and laughing as jay wipes water from his eyes. “get over here,” his laugh follows his words, and you're instantly swimming away.

you hear the water shifting behind you. way too fast. and you're swimming straight for the rocks, planning on getting out of the water entirely and getting away from him on foot, but you're barely able to touch them when you feel his arm wrap around your waist. he's pulling you toward him swiftly, your spine colliding with his solid chest – hands braced on the rocks in front of you. you were literally trapped between a rock and a hard place. “i warned you,” his voice is right beside your ear and you're suddenly becoming painfully aware of how close you were.

you can feel the way his breathing has changed against your back, hands dropped down to your hips as he holds your body against his. his grip tightens for half a second as another wave rolls between you. you feel him shift behind you, pulling you close and you're gasping when you realize what he's doing. your ass is pressed right against his crotch, his stiffness pressing against your ass. his head tilts slightly, a hand lifting to push your hair off of one shoulder. “done running from me?” he mumbles but you can't even form a proper sentence right now.

you're nodding, breathless, pulse is racing and slowly you're turning around in his arms, hands landing on his shoulders. he looks like he's ready to devour you. hair dripping into his eyes, cheeks flushed and eyes slowly drinking you in. and for once, he's not looking away when your eyes meet. instead, he's moving in closer. your bodies shift until your back is pressed against the rolls and there is no where else for you go besides into him.

his hand lifts from your body, finger latching onto the front strap of your bikini – right between your breasts. he grins at the sound of your breath hitching, the soft gasp you let out when he's tugging you toward him. the water ripples, your chest hits his and he's backing you back against the rock before his leaning down. you can almost hear his resolve snap before his mouth finds yours and you're immediately melting into it.

overhead, jungwon is launching himself off of the cliff after successfully convincing his group to climb back up. his body rotates easily through the air, the best backflip that he's all summer and he can hear the cheer of his friends as they look up at him. and then he's catching movement, seconds before he's about to hit the water. it's you and jay, further from the rest of the group still. standing a bit too close.

he's eyes are widening when jay is lifting his hand, finger hooking into your bikini top and tugging before he's tugging you toward him. “no way,” the words leave his lips just as he's hitting the water, the splash that follows is huge but he can't even reveal in that as he fights to the surface. he swims to the edge of the lake, pulling himself out of the water as he shoves his wet hair from his face. eyes finding the two of you again, still very much kissing. and when he reaches the top of the cliff again, you're in the same spot.

martin is still standing near the edge of the cliff, sakai trying to convince him to belly flop. lex spots jungwon first, brow furrowing. “you said last jump, why you back?” he nearly slips as he rushes toward the edge of the cliff, pointing aggressively down at the water. “look.” martin follows the direction of his finger, sakai tilting her head to the side as she squints and lex crouches down slightly.

“oh my god.”

jay's groaning against your mouth and the sound shoots straight through you. his mouth moves over your swiftly, tongue pushing it's way past your lips. your brain is reeling, completely drowning in the taste of him. everything in the background just ceased to exist, you were no longer worried about tomorrow, or next summer or even your friends that were right behind you. all you could think, breathe, feel was jay.

your mouth tastes like the blueberry wine coolers you've been drinking, you smell like caramel the way you always do, and the way you feel against him is enough to drive just about anyone insane. your arms are around his neck, chest pressed to his and head tilted as your tongue is rolling into his mouth. he doesn't miss the soft whine you're letting out, the sound muffled by his mouth but his dick responds anyway. pressing firmly against you, you're shifting closer.

jaehyun sits on the dock, hands spread out beside him with viv perched between his legs. she's droning on about her new campus and her new roommate that she was so excited to meet. he's half listening, but his attention seems to drift across the water. a habit he's picked up throughout the summer, sort of like canvasing. checking where everyone had ended up, what you're all doing.

brin is floating in the water by heeseung, talking about their first summer here... six years ago. she had these atrocious bangs and braces, he still hadn't even grown into his nose. it was crazy how to two of them grew up. mia and sunoo sit at the edge of the water, legs kicking in front of them as sunoo gushes about finally being reunited with his boyfriend back home.

jungwon, martin, lex and sakai are still on that damn cliff, but instead of doing flips like they had been all night, they're crouched down staring below them. jaehyun follows their gaze and he's nearly falls over when he's seeing what they see. “oh, no way.”

“baby, i'm telling you a story.” viv says from between his legs, turning to look at her man who was clearly no longer paying attention. his hand reaches for her jaw, turning her head in the direction of you and jay. she's gasping, moving quickly like the queen of gossip he knew she was. she's waving her arms dramatically trying to catch mia's attention and it takes less than a few seconds before she's looking over.

'what?' she mouths and viv is pointing in your direction. her eyes land on the two of you instantly and she's grabbing sunoo's arm, pointing across the lake. sunoo is letting out a loud gasp, leaning forward like he's about to charge right over to you. mia is holding him back just in case. “heeseung,” jaehyun is whisper-shouting, catching the older boy's attention pretty quickly.

'look at jay.' he mouths and heeseung's brows are furrowing before both him and brin are turning around. the grin that spreads on his face can only be described as proud. finally. after three months of pining, finally. he has to hold back from applauding his friend.

jay moves like he's been starving for this. hands dropping to your thighs and squeezing roughly until you're taking the initiative and climbing onto him, legs wrapping easily around his waist. he's sucking your lip into his mouth, teeth grazing it as he presses his hips forward, effectively pinning you against the rocks. your hands have made their way into his damp hair, tangled in the strands.

neither of you have any idea that all of your friends bought front row tickets to your first kiss and it's evident in the way jay is shifting his hips forward, half hard cock pressing against him and you're pressing down just as hard. he's humming out a moan and you feel it throughout your body, heat pooling between your legs. his fingers spread against your skin, slowly sliding up your thighs.

you're pulling back just enough to catch your breath, a soft laugh falling from your lips at the dazed look in his eyes. cheeks flushed pink beneath the moonlight, lips swollen from the kiss, chest rising and falling unevenly. droplets of water fall from the hair that covers his forehead. he doesn't say anything, just stands there taking you in. the sight alone has another giggle falling from you lips and that has his gaze dropping to your lips. he's leaning in again before he can think twice about it.

“let her breathe, let her breathe!” sunoo's voice echoes across the lake and you feel jay's body go rigid against you. his eyes squeeze shut as if he's suddenly remembering where he is and the fact that it wasn't just the two of you out there. “that's it! get your man!” mia is whooping, lifting her drink the air as she cheers for you. your shoulders shake, a horrified laugh escaping you as your forehead falls onto jay's shoulder. the sound is quickly swallowed by the shouts that come from your friends.

jay is letting out a low breath through his nose. his head lifting toward the sky for a second with a shake of his head. and when he's looking back down at you, this is the first time you've ever seen him have his composure rocked. usually so calm and careful, but here he looked almost boyish? obviously blushing as the teasing from your friends filled the air. his hands stayed resting on your thighs the entire time, holding your body close to his as jungwon shouts about having seeing it happen first.

“this is so beautiful!” sakai shouts from the top of the cliff, leaning on martin as tears well in her eyes. clearly more emotional about leaving camp than she let on. martin wraps an arm around her waist before leaning forward where jay is able to see him. “look what y'all did! you made kai-baby cry.” he points down at the girl in his arms who also cried after seeing all the beds made this morning.

“kiss again!” jaehyun is shouting from the dock, earning a supportive whistle from viv. the group erupts at the suggestion, childishly chanting 'kiss' as jay stands there mortified. and you think it's hilarious, he looks so cute embarrassed, trying to hide the fact that his heart wasn't pounding and despite how badly he wanted to kiss you, he was all of a sudden feeling shy.

“come on, the first one didn't count!” brin is shouting through the chants. “how would that not count!?” jay shoots back, finally turning back to look at your friends. his reaction only fueling their chants and you can practically feel the heat coming off of him now. they're all a perfect orchestra. heeseung leads the chants, hands cupped around his mouth as cheers for another kiss. lex is leaning over the edge of the rock, sending exaggerated kissy faces your way. and brin is holding her hands up, making them kiss as her lips pucker.

and despite how desperate jay looks to escape their attention, you're addicted to peer pressure. a laugh slips past your lips as your hand is reaching down, fingers pressing against his jaw gently – just enough to turn his head back toward you. the shouting gets louder instantly. you're leaning down against instantly, mouth slotted against his and he's letting out an involuntarily groan at the feeling. the cheers that follow are obnoxiously deafening and it has your laughs dying against jay's lips.

the cold of the lake slowly becomes unbearable and one by one, you all begin making your way back toward the shore. the like that had been full of shouting and splashing just minutes ago is now quiet behind you, water still. wet footprints trail through the sand, towels stolen and half finished drinks recovered from where they had been abandoned hours ago.

you're settling in front of the fire with jay who swiftly positions himself behind you. the fire crackles in front of you, casting a warm light across the campgrounds. hair and body still wet, but you're settling further into jay's chest until going to find a towel. he doesn't seem to care much either, arm looping around your waist as he holds you close to him.

neither of you seem particularly interested in talking about what just happened, instead you just smile way too wide each time your eyes meet. you can hear brin from across the grounds, hair wrapped in a towel and a large hoodie covering her frame. she's rubbing at her stomach as she speaks. “i'm starving!” heeseung snorts as he walks past, his wet swim trunks in hand a pair of dry short hanging loose on his hips. he's digging through the coolers, without even looking up.

“we still have a bunch of meat left. should we kill it?” he suggests and brin's body immediately perks up. “say swear,” she says, taking quick steps to where he stands. he's letting out a soft laugh, pulling two unopened packets of pork belly from the ice with one hand, three packets of brisket in the other. “swear,” brin is squealing, reaching up to take the packets in hand. “see? this is why you're my favorite.” she says, leading the way toward the grill.

heeseung is rolling his eyes, but following closely behind. “yesterday you said lex was your favorite,” he points out and brin is nodding happily. her hand extends so she's able to boop the tip of heeseung's nose, he's scrunching it immediately. “today it's you.”

you spot sunoo walking toward the fire a few seconds later carrying four drinks, two in each hand. “good news,” he announces in a sing-song tone, lifting the bottles toward his face. “i found a full box,” viv and jaehyun trail behind him, stealing one of the bottles before settling on one of the lawn chairs. sunoo hands you a bottle, before passing the next one to jay and plopping down by the fire. “this is starting to feel final,” you say with a pout and you feel the way jay stiffens behind you.

“we live close! we should plan something, yn.” viv reaches her hands out to you and you're agreeing instantly. you two were only a forty-five minute drive apart, it wouldn't be hard to make plans together before next summer, it was just harder when you weren't just a few doors away. rather than across the country.

lex, mia and jungwon take responsibility for the mess they spent most of the night helping create. jungwon is already collecting empty bottles to recycle, lex is carrying a trash bag that's somehow bigger than she is, while mia complains but about everyone being pigs while she cleans up the leftover food. she's mainly yelling at martin who's pretending he can't hear her from where he still sits at the lake with sakai beside him.

they're sat near the edge of the water in the sand, sakai is wrapped in a large blanket and martin has his head resting on her shoulder, fighting the sleep that's creeping up on him. sunoo is rummaging through his bag for something, his bottle pressed between his knees as he looks. “oh wait!” he's exclaiming loud enough that it catches the attention of the people sitting closest to him.

“what?” jungwon is asking, head peeking up from the trash bag he had been separating.

sunoo is pulling a small stack of envelopes from his bag, holding them up with a wide grin. “we forgot these!” he's standing before anybody call say anything else, shuffling through the envelopes and making his way around the camp to hand them out. they're goodbye letters. you know, because you written eleven of your own. everyone had to, it was camp tradition according to brin.

but as sunoo makes his way through the group, the energy changes, you can feel it. the distribution was like a blaring indicator that it was over. eventually, you'd all have to go to sleep and face tomorrow. the fire was going to die down, heeseung was going to run out of food to make, at some point you'll run out of memories to share, stories to tell. it had to end. and you all had to say goodbye.

“i'm going to miss how you always steal my hoodies, even though you have a man.” sunoo says dramatically to viv while handing her the letter he wrote, he's shooting jaehyun a pointed look at the mention of him and then shuffling to find the letter for him. viv is taking hers with a laugh, tucking it safely beneath her leg. “and i'm going to miss pretending not to notice when you and viv disappear,” jaehyun takes his letter with a roll of his eyes, drink still pressed to his lips.

“you never pretended.” he points out and sunoo is nodding with a laugh. “because you guys are gross,” he sings before turning to continue his rounds.

by the time sunoo is dropping back down beside the fire, you've noticed a handful of your friends disappearing into their cabins and coming back with their own letters. but none of you talk about it, none of you make an announcement to pass them out, it sort of just happens.

the grill sizzles, brin stealing a piece of meat before it's finished cooking and heeseung is meeting her with an individual plate with the letter he wrote her tucked underneath it. she doesn't make a big deal out of it, takes the plate and the letter before plopping down at the picnic table to eat. jungwon complains about people not separating recyclables correctly, pulling glass bottles from the trash bag that should only be filled with food. martin is standing above him, note extended in front of his face.

“if that's another bottle, martin, i'm going to drown you in the lake. and then myself,” jungwon grumbles as he looks up, eyes finding the crisp envelope inches from his nose. he takes it quickly, tucking it into his pocket then goes right back to complaining. martin walks up, making his way back to where he had been sitting with sakai before, only now she's standing.

the blanket he had lent to her folded neatly a sad look on her face as she hands it over, the note she wrote for him resting on top. “i'm going to miss you so much,” she says through a sob and martin is chuckling softly, plucking the note from the top before grabbing the blanket. unlike everyone else, he's tearing into his note immediately despite sakai's protests. his eyes move quickly across the paper before they're slowing, taking in every written word and the meaning behind them.

sakai notices the shift, she recognizes it. “martin?” her head tilts up to get a better look at his face but he's quickly looking away, folding the note and tucking it back into it's envelope. “i'm fine,” he rushes out, wiping at his eyes with his knuckle. “let's go help clean up,”

a note seems to fall from the sky as jungwon passes, hitting your knee and landing on jay's lap. “read it away from me,” he mumbles before disappearing with his trash bag. jay is picking it up with a small smile. leave it to jungwon to literally run from any type of emotional exchange. “let me go put this away,” jay says, nudging at you leg gently and you're standing to allow him to slip from behind you and disappear into his cabin. you take the chance to slip away as well, grabbing the stack of letters you had spent the past week writing from underneath your pillow.

jay catches heeseung on his way to the bathroom, “hyung, wait.” heeseung's turning to the sound of jay's voice, eyes instantly landing on the thick envelope in his hand. “what is that like ten pages?” he asks with a laugh, reaching his hand out to take it. “it's only like seven,” he defends and heeseung is shaking his hand, tearing into the letter before jay can say anything of it.

“you know i have to read it out loud,” he says through a chuckle. jay is rolling his eyes, both hands pushing his hair back on his head as he feels his cheeks darkening. “you're so embarrassing,” he says with a shake of his head, but he doesn't fight it. heeseung would just find him and read it out loud later, he did it every summer for the past six years.

he's straightening his back and clearing his throat before bringing the note up to eye level, reading it like it's a scroll. “hyung. i tried keeping this short...” he lowers the letter to shoot a deadpan expression toward the younger boy. “seven pages?” he teases and jay is waving him off with a roll of his eyes. “just hurry up and read it,” much to his surprise, heeseung continues reading. “thank you for spending the past years putting up with me. though, i've been here longer than you... i never truly had someone to look up to until you arrived. we're the oldest, so everyone looks up to us. but i'm thankful i have you to look up to too.” jay doesn't miss the way the playfulness leaves heeseung's tone. realization that this was the last letter finally hitting him.

“i don't know if anybody else realizes how much this place has your fingerprints on it. you came up with most of the things we know call tradition, you've helped me write more songs than i can count. i even heard martin repeat one of your inside jokes his first week here... half the things the campers think have always existed started because of you, you're the blueprint.” heeseung pauses to grin because he had been screaming that for the past four years and finally he was getting the recognition for it.

the letter continues on like that, highlighting the memories they made together in the past six years, how close they've become. jay's plans for the future and how he promises to keep in touch, though, no one ever really did. but heeseung can tell that he meant it. the only difference is, heeseung was leaving too. not for the summer, forever. they both were on different paths of their lives now and seeing each other every summer was going to be a thing of the past.

he doesn't ruin the moment by pointing that out, though.

“you've been apart of almost every version of my adult life and it's going to be so hard imagining moving into my next phase without you standing ten feet away making an unnecessary comment. i don't really know how to end this, because i feel there shouldn't be an end to us. to our friendship. so i'll just say, thank you for being my friend and i'll see you soon.” heeseung looks up at jay to find him trying to look anywhere else, he's shaking his head laughing softly while flipping the pages over in his hands.

there's a few sentences scribbled on the back of the last one. “oh! there's more,” sarcasm drips from his words and jay's letting out a laugh. “i had a lot to say, shut up.” heeseung continues reading. “ps. stop giving relationship advice. even if you're right 99% of the time, stop it. your 'i told you so' face is so annoying. but, you were right again... i regret not telling yn how i feel. and i regret not kissing her when i had the chance,”

heeseung is looking up with a knowing smirk on his face, brow arched and jay is shoving at his shoulder. “that face! you're so irritating,” he says through a laugh while heeseung is carefully folding the note back up. “you kissed her, though. what changed your mind?” judging from the end of his note, it's clear that jay had no intention to actually make a move with you. but he saw the way jay kissed you in the water and how he's been all over you all night. this jay was very different from letter jay.

jay is clapping his hand on heeseung's shoulder with a shake of his head, “those fucking dresses, man.”

the night officially starts to settle around you. letters distributed and tucked away safely. the fire that had been roaring all evening has started to die down, only crackling whenever a piece of wood breaks. the loud shouts of your friends have dwindled into soft murmurs heard throughout the grounds. each one of you losing the battle against sleep, it was impossible to keep fighting it.

the food is gone, the coolers are empty. jungwon has organized every single piece of trash he could get his hands on. there was nothing left to do, there was nothing left to say. sakai and sunoo disappear first, walking into the bathroom with arms linked to do their skincare routine together for the last time of the summer. brin is a few steps behind them, yawning loudly and rubbing at her eye with the heel of her palm.

viv is curled up in jaehyun's lap, his hoodie working as a blanket as her head rests beneath his chin. every few minutes, she'll mumble something into his chest and he'll reach down to smooth a hand over her hair. jaehyun is still wide awake, talking quietly with jay from across the fire. you still sit comfortably in jay's lap but you're zoned out staring at the burning embers of the fire.

jungwon, martin and heeseung have migrated into their cabin, changed into their pajamas and laying on their beds. they talk softly, finding random things to say as they fight off the inevitable sleep. their voices drift through the open window every so often before dissolving back into sleepy laughter. across the lake, lex and mia have claimed the hammock and have been laying there with the past twenty minutes. neither of them have managed to finish a complete sentence, settling for quiet sighs and toying with each other's fingers.

jay feels you shiver against him for the fourth time and it has him realizing rubbing his hands over your arms was useless in warming you up. “you cold?” he asks, head tilting to the side so he can look at you. you're tired but you're fighting it, long curls pulled in a bun at the top of your head and pretty orange dress doing nothing against the cool night air. you're turning to look at him, head bobbing in a nod.

“i have a sweater in the car, should we...” he says it because he wants to spend more time together, that part is obvious. he could've very much you suggest you go to bed, put on warm sweats of your own and call it a night. but in reality, he wasn't ready for his night with you to end and neither were you, which is why you're standing to follow him.

the walk to his jeep isn't long, he parked close to the entrance out of his need for efficiency. he was set to leave early tomorrow morning, had spent the better half of the day loading up his car. it only made sense that it would be parked a few feet away. his arm settles over your shoulders as you walk, a comfortable silence falling over you and you're finally finding the courage to ask him what you've been wondering for the past hour and a half.

“did you forget to write me a letter?” you try to keep your tone playful, masking the echoing doubts in your mind. everyone had a letter, each passed out one by one and you watched jay hand out a letter to each one of your friends. yet, the one that he should've written for you never came. you don't miss the smile that breaks onto his features, a soft laugh falling from his lips as he shakes his head. “no, god no. i just couldn't stop rewriting it,” that peaks your interest. because, yes there must've been unspoken feelings when he sat down to write it, but actually rewriting it felt different.

it took you a good three hours to decide what you were going to say to him. everything you decided just felt too elementary, but even still you only wrote one draft. and that was the one tucked away somewhere in his cabin. “you did? how many did you write?” you're reaching his car just as the question leaves the lips and he shrugs, pulling the car door open before leaning in.

“nine.” he says it so casually, half his body in his car, your eyes are widening anyway. “nine!? you wrote me nine letters!? jay...” he's standing with a black sweater clutched in his hands. it's one you recognize right away, he's worn it enough for you to. just a simple black hoodie with 'miami' written in bold red letters, the word cut off by the deep-v cut into the neckline. he's easily pulling it over your head, guiding your arms into it.

it's such a simple gesture but it's so jay that your heart flutters. hand reaching down to find the side of his neck as he straightens the hem of his sweater against your thighs. you're gently pulling him toward you, to plant a soft kiss to his lips which he returns instantly, arm wrapping around your waist to pull you into him. “nine letters?” you're saying again as he pulls away and his face breaks into a soft smile.

“relax, you're only getting one.” he's reaching back into his car, rummaging through a bag before pulling out the folded piece of paper. number nine. the final draft of his goodbye letter to you, but it felt outdated now for some reason. still, he's handing it over to you with a sad smile. “read it later,” he feels the need to clarify, traumatized by heeseung's traditional presentation.

you're tucking the letter safely into the pocket of his hoodie and silence falls between the two of you. it's a charged silence that holds the words that neither of you are willing to say. instead his eyes stay trained on you as your eyes drift into the back of his jeep. slowly, you're stepping forward to get a better look. and the sight makes your chest tighten. boxes stacked neatly on top of one another, duffel bags shoved into every available corner of his trunk. his guitar. his backup guitar. binders upon binders of sheet music. seven years packed into the back of a car. your breath catches in your throat as you're eyes shift to look back at him, body leaning against the frame of the open car door.

“so... this is really it, huh?” jay follows your gaze, a soft sigh falling from his lips as he nods. “yeah, i guess so,” you feel the way your heart drops, which is stupid, because you had known he was leaving. for the past three months it's all he could talk about. grad school, apartment hunting, moving dates. the weather in his new city, he was never not talking about leaving. but somehow seeing it packed into the back of the car hit differently. it felt real. “it's like you fit your whole cabin into your car, looks weird...”

jay lets out a quiet laugh through his nose, hand lifting to rest just above your head against the car. “tell me about it. my cabin looks weirder, all empty.” your eyes drift back to the boxes, trying hard not to picture how his cabin would look empty. you poked your head in too many times to see if he was around to now think of the reality of him never being around again.

“you did this all day?” you say it just to make conversation, because you have nothing else to say that didn't feel totally depressing. and jay seems to catch on, because he is playing along. he nods simply, lips pulling into his mouth as his eyes drift back to you. “yeah, some of it yesterday.”

“you cried, huh?” you tease and that manages to pull another pretty laugh for him, “i absolutely did not,” he defends halfheartedly, but you're not buying it. “oh, now i know you cried. you're such a liar,” your eyes narrow up at him and that has him laughing even harder and for a second it almost feels normal again. but then your eyes are drifting back, catching sight of his guitar case again.

you're changing the subject quickly. “you know...” your voice trails off, forcing a smile on your lips. “i thought you hated me for like the first two weeks.” jay's head snaps toward you so fast it makes you laugh, his brows raised high toward his hairline. “are you serious?” he says through a laugh, your hand slaps against his chest. “yes! did you forget about how you'd avoid me? and ignore me, even if i was talking directly to you.”

he's laughing, eventually nodding along. because it was true. the first few weeks he couldn't even be around you without his brain short-circuiting and when he'd try to say something, anything – he found himself getting tongue tied more often than not. but still, “you were impossible to ignore. but, yes. i did try.” he had it in his head if he just didn't talk to you, then his feelings wouldn't grow. he was so wrong.

“you'd walk into a room and all of a sudden everyone's attention would be on you. including mine.” his eyes drop to his hoodie and how it swallows your frame, covering up one of your many pretty dresses. then slowly back up to your face, you're staring up at him with the same heart eyed expression you've been giving him all summer. “you flirted with me constantly too, even when i tried not to look your way,” you're laughing, arms reaching up to wrap around his neck.

“i had a feeling it would end up being effective,” you grin and he's smiling, hand lifting to rest on the small of your back. “trust me, it was. it was all i could talk about with heeseung,” but never to you. he never gave away to the slightest bit of interest and that drove you insane every single day. it almost bothered you more that he waited until the last day to finally say something. he could've just left you clueless, able to move on and say that you tried. because you did try, so hard.

and for some reason him waiting until there was no time left to meet you halfway just didn't feel fair. the pout is forming on your lips before you can fight it, hand resting on his cheek. “i wouldn't change a second of this summer, truly. i loved meeting everyone and spending my days with you.” it's hard to ignore the sadness in your eyes, the obvious way you're fighting back tears as you speak. “but, fuck, jay... i wish we had more time,”

he knows exactly what you mean without you having to say it. you spent all summer wanting him, loudly. but every time he caught himself wanting you back, he'd find a reason to keep his distance. to walk away, to play it safe. he'd find a reason not too look too long, not too linger in conversations with you. especially if they were about your shared love for music.

he was so strategic in the way he interacted with you, careful not to let himself enjoy the way your fit lit up whenever you spotted him hanging out in his cabin. he had spent months convincing himself that this was the right way, that he was doing the right thing. the smart thing. that all of this would be easier if he kept his distance, and maybe that would've been true if tonight never happened.

because standing here now, knowing exactly what it feels like to kiss you, makes what should've been an easy goodbye feel impossible. “well,” he's saying with a soft smile, arm lifting so his wrist is in view. and you follow his gaze to the watch on his wrist. “it's only... 2:49AM. there's still five hours and eleven minutes until it's over.” he says with a proud smile, probably at his mental math and that has you laughing softly. “what should we do with that time?” his finger taps at his chin and you're tilting your head to the side.

without missing a beat, you're leaning up to press your lips against his. he's kissing back instantly. his hands fall down to grasp your hips, easily pulling your body against his. your worries about tomorrow seem to melt away as soon as his lips are on yours, your fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of his neck as you hold him to you. jay kisses you with a rushed, starved almost desperate need and it makes it difficult for you to focus on anything but him.

his tongue is pushing past your lips easily, brushing against yours before he's changing his mind and catching your lower lip between his teeth instead. you're gasping, the sound pulling a soft chuckle from his mouth. it dies on your tongue. “you're so perfect,” he sighs, hand resting against the side of your face as he leans back enough to look at you. he's easily tilting your head to the side with his hand, revealing more of your neck to him.

his head is dropping to the side, soft lips finding your skin. salty from the lake but he sucks kisses against the length of it. “jay,” you're gasping, hand reaching out to clutch the fabric of his t-shirt, pulling him close. and his arm tightens around your waist, holding you tight against him as his lips roam your skin. he's focusing his lips just above your collarbone, sucking the skin into his mouth and it has your head lulling back. his body shifts, hands tracing the curves of your body before he's carefully lifting you into the backseat.

it's cramped between all his bags and boxes, and the idea of his new life. but he's climbing in behind you, letting the door slam behind him. closing the two of you in to your own private space and you're on him instantly. his back hits the door from the force of your lips, a soft laugh falling from both of your lips. you kiss him desperately, every push of your lips screaming finally and all he can do is try to keep up. he groans as your hands sneak underneath the fabric of his shirt, nails dragging over his stomach.

your tongue pushes and twists against his, his hands shoving his hoodie and your dress out of the way. his fingers spread over the skin of your ass, squeezing gently and the moan you let out has his dick jumping. jay is easily pulling you further onto him with the grip he has on your ass. it's so uncomfortable, you've got your legs on either side of his waist, he's hanging half way off of the seat, back pressed against the door. all of the crap from his cabin surround your bodies, making it that much more difficult to move. yet, he wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

not when you were hovering over him like this, panting into his mouth while pushing your ass back into the palms of his hands. “oh, fuck.” he's sighing when your lips trail down the length of his jaw, you follow the same pattern as he had before. sucking kisses into is skin, before grazing your teeth over it. focusing on a particular sensitive bit while your hips grind down onto his. a low, untamed growl catches in his throat as he feels the way your body moves against his.

the thin material of your bikini bottoms doing very little to mask the wet heat dripping from between your legs and onto his shorts. his head dips down to find your lips, mouth covering yours quickly and he wastes no time with licking into your mouth. jay's easily pulling you into a deep, needy, almost frantic rhythm that has your head spinning. you're moaning, hips pressing roughly against his. the length of his cock presses delicious against your clothed clit and your hips roll toward his, body shuddering as pleasure spreads throughout your core.

“oh my god,” you're whining into his mouth, hips moving frantically against his. he does his best to lift his hips to meet yours, fingers digging in to the flesh of your ass as heat rises up his neck. “you feel so... holy shit,” he's grunting, head falling back to rest against the door as you basically bounce on his lap. through hooded eyes, he watches the way your body moves against his. the needy roll of your hips paired with the look on your face just makes him harder.

you've got your lip tucked between your teeth, head dipped back as your hands travel up your torso. they find your breasts almost instantly and he watches as you squeeze and toy with them through fabric. he finds it hot how you refused to take off his sweater despite how much you probably want to. your hips move swiftly, pretty moans filling the cramped car as his hard length drags between your folds.

his hips lift to meet each one of your movements, using the grip on your body to press you down harder against him. every last bit of restraint has snap, he's no longer able to hold himself back. chest rising and falling in untimed breaths as a flush creeps onto his cheeks. he tries and fails to hold his whimpers back, but the way you're moving just feels too good. or he's just too sensitive, either way the pressure builds at the pit of his stomach and it's impossible to ignore.

and to make matters worse, jay can tell you're close too just from the unfocused timing of your hips and the helpless whines you're letting out. “jay,” you're gasping, fist clutching the fabric of his shirt as he watches the way your eyes roll back, your thighs squeezing together the best you can with his body between them. and he's quickly deciding he'd rather feel you cum, rather than see it.

“wait, baby... wait.” jay is shifting up, hands moving down to your thighs, stilling your movements. and he finds the pout that takes over your features especially cute, he's pressing a soft kiss to it without thinking. “i want to feel you,” he says simply. he's carefully leaning you back, your body resting against the boxes behind you as he moves to hover above you now.

his fingers sneak underneath the hem of your dress, latching onto the strings of your bottoms as his eyes drag up to look at you. you're shooting a nervous smile in his direction that has his heart softening. “is this okay?” he's asking softly, slowly tugging at the strings. you're nodding quickly, “please, jay.” you're breathing out, hips lifting off of the car seat to make it easier for him.

jay's letting out a soft chuckle before dragging your bottoms down your legs, tossing them somewhere behind him. his eyes drop down to catch the way your folds glisten, large hands pushing the hoodie and your dress up toward your belly button. “fuck,” he sighs with a shake of his head and you feel the heat rising in your cheeks, feeling unbelievably vulnerable under his lustful gaze. he's leaning forward, nose dragging along the length of your neck before his tongue pushes out to drag against your skin.

his hand slides expertly between your legs as his mouth moves to suck a hickey into your skin. your legs spread almost instinctively, moaning as his fingers trace between your folds. “you're so fucking wet,” he's groaning, fingers pushing slowly past your entrance. the warmth of your pussy surrounds his fingers as he slides in all the way to the knuckle. your hips lift to meet his hand and he's grinning down at you. “does it feel good? having my fingers stretch you out?” he asks softly as he curls his fingers inside you.

your walls clamp down around them, head bobbing in a nod. “yes... f-fuck, jay. it feels so good,” you're admitting. jay's fingers thrust deep inside of you, thumb pressing against your clit before he's rubbing slow cirlces against it. it's not long before he's falling into a steady rhythm, free hand lifting to hold your hips still as his fingers fuck into you. you're whining softly, legs spreading wide for him. “jay...” you're pleading, yet you have no idea what you're asking for.

his eyes lift to find yours, head tilting to the side slightly. “what, baby?” he grins, speeding up the movement of his hand and easily pulling a loud gasp from your lips. the sound of his chuckle follows, his eyes dropping back to your pussy. you're basically dripping around his fingers walls pulsing with each thrust. “i need... more, jay please.” your words break on a desperate cry, his fingers scissoring inside of you as his thumb presses harder against your clit.

“whatever you want,” he says, but the truth was he couldn't wait much longer either. not with this insistent throb between his legs, and the way you were looking up at him, so needy and ready. he had waited long enough for a moment like this with you, he was done waiting. jay pulls his hand away slowly, hands flying to push his shorts out of the way. his wet hand wrapping around his thick length and you watch as he strokes himself slowly, coating his shaft with your arousal.

the sight makes your mouth water. he stays knelt there for a few moments, just rubbing his hand over himself and watching you and the intensity in his stare makes your body hot. “spread your legs for me,” he's saying after a minute and you're separating your knees without a word, pussy clenching at the groan he lets out. “jay. fuck me, please.” you're whining, hand dropping down the length of your body to spread your folds for him, showing him just how badly you needed him.

he's leaning forward quickly, mouth covering yours in a needy kiss as the bulbous head of his cock bumps against your fingers. he takes his time with lining himself up with your tight hole, pushing his hips forward slowly until he's feeling you stretch around him. you have to remind yourself to relax as he pushes forward, breathing through the pain that comes with each inch of him. your fingers clutch his hair the moment that he's bottoming out and he feels the way your body stiffens.

“relax, baby. take your time.” he soothes, hand stroking your hair gently as he watches you adjust. he leans down to press soft kisses against your skin. switching between sucking hickeys into your neck and twisting his tongue with yours. he waits patiently for you to loosen up for him, but the moment he feels you shifting, he's taking that as his go and thrusting his hips forward. “fuck!” you shout, back arching as much as it can and he's pinning you back down with his hips.

slowly, he's pulling his hips back, allowing you to feel every rigid inch of his cock. “you're squeezing me so tight,” he says before he's quickly slamming back in. your body jerks, hips lift, whines falling from your lips as he falls into a steady pace. your hands are on his shoulders, nails dragging against his skin. jay fucks into you slowly and incredibly deep. his grip is tight on your waist, dragging your body down onto him with each thrust. his face remains buried in your neck, mouthing at your skin as his cock splits you open.

you feel him so deeply, he's no longer holding back and the desperate movement of his hips has an electric need shooting through your body. you needed to be closer. needed to feel him deeper. needed his hands on you like this forever. his teeth bite into your skin, muffling the long groan threatens to slip out and you're matching it with a needy whimper. his thrusts become brutal, hips snapping against yours in a overwhelmingly rough pace. your nails drag over the muscles of his back, legs spreading wider for him as desperate cries fill the car.

“jay, oh my god. i'm gonna...” you don't know if you should push him away or pull him closer, heat spreading throughout your body as the knot at the pit of your stomach tightens. jay keeps up with the pace as best he can, hand dropping down to find your clit again and he rubs figure eights into the sensitive bud. his head lifts so he can watch the way your face contorts in pleasure.

your orgasm tears through your body, eyes rolling all the way to the back of your head as your back arches off of the seat. it's unlike anything you've felt before, body going numb as his hips continue to move between your thighs – fucking you through it. “god, look at you.” he sighs, burying himself deep inside of you, balls slapping against your ass with each thrusts. he moves until you're coming down for your high, watching the way your body relaxes in his arms. and only then is he pulling back, slowly drawing his hips away from your body and twisting his body so he's sitting upright on the seats.

“fuck,” he breathes, hand wrapping over his cock to keep it from falling limp. “i had the craziest cramp in my leg,” he says through a laugh, eyes shifting to find you. you're half way off of the seat, back resting against a box and hair falling messily around your face. “you okay?” he asks, smiling softly the second you're nodding. his free hand reaches out toward you, beckoning you over with a grin.

you're lifting slowly, allowing his arm to wrap around his waist and for her to tug you onto his lap. “come ride me, i'm almost there,” there's quiet begging in his tone as he lifts your body slightly, enough to pull you into his lap. your heart jumps, body freezing as you stare over at him with wide eyes. “oh, uhm... i've never? i don't think i know how...” you feel the heat rising in your cheeks and jay's brow furrows at your words.

“you've never rode someone before?” he asks because it sounds almost insane. of course you've rode someone before. he takes in the look in your eye, the shy blush that darkens your cheeks. “well, no... that was my first time,” you say sheepishly and his eyes are flying open, his hand falling from his cock to push his hair back on his forehead. “what?” he says it, even though he's positive he heard you clearly.

he just couldn't believe it. didn't even stop and consider it. and now he feels terrible because he just took your virginity like it was nothing. like it was something you could just hand out. it should've been special, he should've made it special. “yn, you can't lose your virginity in the back of my car!?” you're laughing at his distress, the wrinkle between his brow as they furrow in pure worry.

you don't know why you find him so cute this way. your shoulders lift in a shrug, hands settling on his shoulders. “too late?” you're saying through your laughter and he's shooting you a pointed look. “not funny, yn. i should've been gentle,” you're quick to shake your head, hands covering his cheeks as you lean down to press a soft kiss to his lips. he kisses you back slowly, hands resting on your waist much lighter now. you're pulling back slowly, head tilting slightly.

“come on, you already took it. don't clam up now,” you're leaning down to plate a kiss to his lips that has his worries melting away. your tongue wrapping around his, fingers curling in his hair as you lift your hips to climb further up on his lap. his head rests on the back of the chair when you pull away, looking up at you through his lashes as your hand reaches down wrapping around his cock. his hips twitch as you position his head at your entrance, “teach me,” you say with a pout and just like that his restraint is gone.

again.

–

you're not heading back to jay's cabin until the sun is already peaking over the mountains. it's weirdly empty, just like you imagined. his bed made in the middle of the room. he doesn't let you dwell on the look of it for too long, not wanting you to sleep too deep in your thoughts while you're having such a good time. he's pulling you into bed beside him, easily tucking your body into his as the two of you finally drift off to sleep.

and you stay like that in his arms for god knows how long. your head on his chest and his arm wrapped securely around your waist. he doesn't dare move, even when sleep finally takes over. which doesn't last as long as he would have hoped, his alarm blaring at exactly 7:15am. he's careful not to wake you as he slips out of bed, showering and changing his clothes as you shift and pull at his sheets. you don't even budge when he's making his bed, or when he's taking the last bag out of his room and into his car.

there's so much more he wanted to say. and he hated that he had no more time. for a long while, jay just stands there. keys in hand as his eyes scan over his empty cabin, save for you curled beneath his blankets. the morning sun peaks in through his window, golden streaks fanning across the bed. and you don't even shift. you're dead asleep, drooling onto his pillows and the sight has a soft laugh falling from his lips.

“wow,” he's shocked because even like this, smushed face and messy hair – you still look so pretty. he should leave, he needed to get on the road before the gps estimated a different arrival time. there were a list of things that he needed to get done back at his apartment before he was heading to the airport, he needed to leave. instead, he's making his way back into the cabin. setting his keys back on his desk before pulling out the blank notebook from one of the drawers, stealing a page.

he starts writing. the words coming to him much easier now that he's no longer hold back. he's ran out of reasons not to tell you exactly how he feels. he spent the last nine drafts trying to sound reasonable and failed every single time. because, this wasn't reasonable. falling for you was the most unreasonable thing that he has ever done, but he loved every second of it.

jay doesn't stop once as he writes, not a single typo. his feelings hit the page unfiltered, for the first time all summer. he's saying everything that he's wanted to, to you, about you. for you. he doesn't make a single edit. every for sentences, his eyes would drift over to where you lay, curled in his hoodie and drowning in his sheets. and then three more sentences would come to mind, two more after that. he writes until he's filled the entire page and then some more on the back.

once he's finished he's folding it carefully, slipping it into an envelope before scribbling something across the front. he's moving to stand beside the bed one last time, setting the note on his empty pillow before his eyes drift over to you. the urge to wake you up hit him intensely, he wanted so badly to say goodbye properly, to steal one more kiss, one more touch, one more hour. but he knew that was wrong. that he'd end up wanting to stay longer, actually seeing him walk away might hurt you more.

so he doesn't. he just sets his hand on your head softly, brushing your hair back so he's able to press a soft kiss to your forehead. his lips linger there for a moment, silently hoping that you'd wake up on your own. and when you don't, he's standing. he grabs his keys from his desk, takes one final look at you, before he's heading out of the cabin, closing the door tight behind him.

you're stirring awake two hours later. the first thing you notice is that you feel warm, surrounded by jay's familiar scent. you sink further into the mattress, sunlight spilling from the windows and warming your skin and for a few seconds you don't open your eyes. instead, you nuzzle yourself into jay's warmth as moments from the night before flood your memory.

playing with jay in the lake. kissing jay against the rocks. jay holding you by the fire. walking with jay to his car, his arm around your shoulders. jay fucking you in that same car, in so many different ways. you could still feel the stretch of him between your legs. a smile spreads across your lips, remembering exactly how he felt beneath you as you rode him for the first time ever. and you're suddenly filled with the need to try it again. to feel him again.

you're reaching out before your mind can tell you differently, eyes snapping open when your hand is met with nothing but emptiness. your eyes find the clock sat on his nightstand, reading the flashing numbers that stare back at you. 10:17AM. your stomach drops, a deep frown replacing the sleepy smile you had been wearing before. “oh,” you're sighing as realization hits, jay was gone.

you knew he'd be leaving early, he told everyone that he was going to be gone before anyone was really waking up. but despite knowing, not seeing him beside you still stings. slowly you're sitting up in his bed, the over-sized hoodie shifting over your shoulders as you reach to rub at your eyes. everything feels heavy, your heart thumps uselessly in your chest as your eyes scan over the room.

he was really gone. the bathroom had been emptied out this morning, his desk was completely cleared off, posters torn down and folded neatly. there was no trace of him left in this room besides you and the fact that he took everything and left you behind has your throat tightening. your eyes drift back toward his pillow, eyes furrowing at the sight of the crisp envelope that laid on top of his blue pillowcase. you're reaching for it quickly, reading over the words written across the front of the envelope. “make it ten versions,” you read and you don't waste a second before tearing the note open.

❝ yn.

i've written this goodbye letter to you so many times that i almost forgot the point of it. the first few letters sounded like i was giving you a college recommendation... then i got too emotional about leaving the music lodge in your care. the third version was so embarrassingly raw that if you ever somehow read it i'd most likely evaporate where i stand. the one that I gave you, version nine, was the one that felt the most honest to me. at least at that time. now, it just feels like it was written by someone else.

someone that was still pretending he hadn't fell for you. i spent the last three months pretending that i wasn't looking for you in every room. pretending that i was fine with keeping things professional. wasted so much time pretending that i didn't feel the same way that you did and i think i owe you an apology for that. i owe you a lot of apologies, honestly.

i'm sorry that i waited until the last day to make a move. i'm realizing now, seated at my desk and you snoring behind me that, that was the wrong move. i should've said something sooner, i shouldn't have let you wonder if you were the only one with the crush. or at least stuck to my guns, said nothing, and left quietly. because this sucks so much worse. leaving after just one night of getting to know how it feels to be with you feels horrible. but i don't regret it, don't get me wrong. i'm happy that our last night together was every bit of perfect, i just wish i got it together sooner. for the both of us.

and that brings me to my next apology. i'm sorry that you spent all summer being brave enough for the both of us. you were so loud about your feelings, you never hid, you flirted with me in front of everyone despite their teasing. you made your feelings so clear and gave me every opportunity to meet you halfway and i kept coming up with excuses not to.

i convinced myself that keeping my distance would be best for the both of us. there was no point in starting something that i couldn't finish, but i realize now i was too focused on that small detail. because while the future was clear and we both knew this summer would end, we could've still enjoyed each other for three full months rather than one night. that's my fault, i'm sorry i robbed us of that.

for the last seven years, this place has been my home away from home. i know the walls, i know the smells, every last detail is engraved in my brain like a sixth sense. so naturally, i figured no longer having it as a constant would be the hardest thing of all, the thing that i'd miss most. but now i'm realizing (again) that i was wrong, because what i'm going to miss most is you.

i'm going to miss the way your face lights up when you talk about music, the way you manage to make every conversation last twice as long as they should. your laugh, your smile, the taste of your lips. i'm going to miss how warm you felt sleeping against me. and most of all, i'm going to miss all the things that i want to experience with you and now know it's too late.

fuck, i hate that it's too late...

for the first time ever, i have no idea what will happen next. because as you read this, i'm probably already on the road, heading home or toward the airport and even though, i know that has always been the plan, i can't help but wonder if i should be doing something different. or if it's stupid to make such huge life changes over someone you just met. for the first time ever, i don't trust my own plan and that scares the shit out of me.

but i kind of like it, because if there's one thing this summer taught me, one thing that you taught me... it's that all of life's best moments happen when you stop trying to control them. it took me until last night to realize it, that's why i kissed you when i did. none of that was part of the plan, but i'm so happy that i let myself enjoy being with you, even if it was just once.

i know i don't have to tell you this, but don't worry too much about me... enjoy your school year, enjoy your life. go on all the dates, make new friends and be as happy as you can possibly be. i hope that one day the universe will bring us back together, but in the meantime... keep my hoodie safe. it looks better on you, anyway.

jay.❞

forever tags: @noidnoentry @lilpeachgrl @jakeycakeys @str4rxy7 @jaxenberry @noisyjunglegorgon @prettygirlthings-world @yeseoist @rayofsunshineeee @mayawastaken26 @beomluvrr @tinyenha @w2heehoon @rikisonline @reading-wh0re @nodoubtily @lilllslayswanderwoodsan

[loveridden1999]

top 3 hobbies for young adults:

1. borrowing misery from future

2. carrying grief of the past

3. agonizing over the present

[uniicorns-arereall]

you know what, fuck it be free, keep reading that bad fan fiction, keep writing that bad fanfiction, keep using y/n, keep staying up to 4 a.m reading x reader, to be cringe is too be free

(just NO a.i)

[throughyrs]

"Blindly Yours"

eom seonghyeon x myopic!reader AU oneshot — ☆.ᐟ

⋆.ೃ࿔* :·🔎⋆.ೃ࿔* :·

background :: A severely nearsighted girl with an aggressively “nonchalant” personality keeps losing her glasses, only to find herself slowly and unavoidably pulled closer to Seonghyeon, a busy idol who quietly becomes her anchor in everyday chaos.

warnings :: Mild language, embarrassing/crush-centered humor, teasing friend group dynamics, accidental flirting, emotional vulnerability, and slow-burn romantic tension.

lee' s note :: inspired by this ask! this one is a super long one! just to make up for my little break I had hehe. pls enjoy! w/ luv, THROUGHYRS

⋆.ೃ࿔* :·🎧⋆.ೃ࿔* :·

You’ve known Sora long enough to know her life doesn’t happen in normal settings.

It happens in group chats, chaotic house visits, sudden introductions, and people slowly accumulating in her orbit like she collects them without trying.

Which is how you ended up knowing her older brother, Martin Edwards, for years.

And how you ended up knowing his entire extended circle of friends.

And how, somehow, that circle expanded into people you were never emotionally prepared for.

Like Eom Seonghyeon.

Eom Seonghyeon.

A member of CORTIS — the globally known group made up of Martin, Keonho, James, Juhoon, and him — constantly moving between schedules, rehearsals, airports, interviews, and stages. Someone who should feel distant in every possible way.

But somehow doesn’t.

Not when he shows up at Sora’s house like it’s normal. Not when he’s standing in the same kitchen as you talking to Martin like he belongs there. Not when he greets you like you’re just… part of his everyday environment.

Which is a problem.

Because you are extremely committed to the idea that you are normal about him.

You are not.

But you are committed.

There are three facts everyone agrees on about you.

One: you are one of Sora’s closest friends.

Two: you are completely useless without your glasses.

Three: you are absolutely, painfully obvious when it comes to Seonghyeon.

You disagree with number three.

Strongly.

In your mind, you are incredibly nonchalant.

Cool. Controlled. Emotionally stable. Mysterious if you squint.

That is your version of reality.

Everyone else has a different one.

The morning everything goes wrong starts like any other morning where you briefly believe in peace.

You reach for your glasses.

Nothing.

You freeze.

Slowly sit up.

Check again.

Still nothing.

A quiet, sinking realization spreads through your chest.

No.

Not again.

You begin searching immediately. Bed, floor, desk, chair, under pillows, behind objects that should not be movable but somehow are. You find a pen, a spoon, two hair ties, and a receipt from a café you don’t remember visiting, which feels like the universe is mocking you personally.

No glasses.

You stare at the spoon.

It offers no advice.

You ignore all of them.

Because you are calm.

Mostly calm.

Okay, slightly panicking.

But internally calm.

Sora arrives like she’s been assigned a job by the universe.

She starts searching immediately.

“You didn’t lose them somewhere insane again, did you?”

“I don’t lose things in insane places.”

“You left your phone in the fridge.”

“That was strategic cooling.”

“That’s not a thing.”

“It should be.”

She doesn’t respond to that, because she knows arguing won’t change your confidence level.

Her phone buzzes.

She glances at it.

“Oh yeah I also brought my brother here. Hes finally home lol”

You pause.

“…which one.”

“Martin. And the others.”

You sit up too fast.

Then immediately pretend you didn’t.

Sora notices anyway.

“You’re doing it.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“You literally changed posture.”

“I have posture.”

“You don’t.”

You do not respond.

Because you are above this conversation.

Technically.

Downstairs, voices drift up.

Familiar ones.

Keonho. James. Juhoon. Martin.

And Seonghyeon.

You walk down carefully.

Not normally.

Carefully.

Like your body is suddenly aware of its own existence.

When you enter, everyone is already there.

Minji is grinning.

Hana is watching.

Jae is holding his phone like it’s recording evidence.

Yuna looks like she’s predicting your downfall in real time.

And Seonghyeon is standing near the counter mid-conversation with Martin.

He looks up.

Sees you.

Smiles slightly.

“hey”

You respond instantly.

“hey”

Then your brain adds a second attempt before you can stop it.

“…hey”

Silence hits the room instantly.

Minji snorts.

Jae mutters something about “we got it.”

Hana hides her laugh.

Sora looks like she’s already tired.

Seonghyeon just smiles like this is normal behavior for you specifically.

Which is the worst part.

You attempt recovery.

You fail immediately.

You walk straight into a chair.

You recover too quickly to be casual about it.

Keonho laughs first.

“she’s fighting furniture again.”

James adds without looking up, “furniture winning.”

Juhoon follows up, “scoreboard updated.”

“Furniture: 5, Y/N: 0”

You pretend you did not hear any of that.

Seonghyeon moves closer at some point.

Not obvious.

Just enough that suddenly he’s within your space.

“Where’d you last see them?”

“I don’t know.”

“You always say that.”

“Because it’s consistent.”

He exhales like this is a well-worn problem.

But he doesn’t leave.

He just stays.

Like it makes sense to stay.

Like it’s automatic.

That becomes the pattern.

He guides you without making it a thing.

“Step down.”

“I know.”

“You were about to miss it.”

“I was testing timing.”

“You fail that test often.”

Minji laughs somewhere behind you.

Hana whispers, “he’s so calm about roasting her.”

Yuna replies, “this is baseline behavior.”

You refuse to respond.

Because acknowledging it would make it real.

At some point they get a call from their manager and step away.

And everything feels subtly wrong without him there.

You don’t say anything about it.

You don’t have to.

When they returns, everything shifts back into place without explanation.

Like it was always supposed to be that way.

That thought annoys you more than you expect.

Hours pass like that.

Small corrections.

Small adjustments.

Small moments you refuse to label.

And every time you try to prove you don’t need him

you immediately prove the opposite.

That night, your phone is too easy to reach.

So you check Twitter.

Seonghyeon leaves later.

No dramatic goodbye.

Just a pause beside you.

“Don’t walk into anything.”

“I don’t.”

“You do.”

“Rarely.”

“Consistently.”

Then he leaves anyway.

And the space he leaves behind feels too noticeable.

Which you immediately hate.

You don’t reply.

Because he’s right.

And that is extremely inconvenient.

When you finally lie down, it doesn’t feel like the day is ending.

It feels like something is starting.

And you don’t have a nonchalant explanation for that.

Not yet.

The next day, your glasses arrive.

Sora holds them like they’re sacred.

“Behold. Vision restoration arc.”

“I could see before.”

“You walked into a wall.”

“The wall moved.”

“It did not.”

You put them on.

Everything sharpens.

Too sharply.

Too clearly.

Including him.

Which is arguably worse.

Seonghyeon is there again.

Of course he is.

He greets you like normal.

“hey”

You answer like normal.

“hey”

Once.

No repeats.

No mistakes.

Perfect control.

Fake control.

Because now that you can see clearly, you notice everything.

The way he stands.

The way he listens.

The way he looks at people like they matter while they’re talking.

And occasionally

just occasionally

the way his eyes land on you and linger like it’s not an accident.

Sora notices immediately.

“You’re worse now.”

“I have glasses now.”

“That’s the problem.”

You refuse to elaborate.

Because that would be dangerous.

At some point, Seonghyeon ends up beside you again.

Like always.

Like it’s default.

“Finally found them?”

“I didn’t lose them on purpose.”

“You never do.”

“Thanks.”

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

“I took it as one.”

He laughs slightly.

And your brain registers it far too strongly.

Later, he’s the first to leave again.

You notice before he says anything.

“Busy today?”

Martin answers for him, “schedule’s packed.”

Keonho: “we are going to survive unfortunately.”

James: “as usual.”

Juhoon: “legend behavior continues.”

Seonghyeon doesn’t say much.

Just looks at you once.

“you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“obviously.”

Then softer:

“don’t overthink things.”

“I don’t.”

“You do.”

“…unfair.”

A small smile.

“I’ll text you later.”

“You don’t have to.”

Pause.

“I want to.”

Then he leaves.

Sora watches you immediately.

“You felt that.”

“I felt nothing.”

“That is a lie with emotional structure.”

You walk away.

But you already know she’s right.

That night, you open your phone again.

You are not.

But you stop pretending a little less each time.

And somewhere between all of that

Seonghyeon starts becoming less of a “presence you notice”

and more of a “constant you rely on.”

Without either of you naming it yet.

Which is, honestly, the most dangerous kind of change there is.

The shift doesn’t announce itself.

It just… starts showing up in the smallest possible ways.

Like Seonghyeon being slightly harder to reach on certain days.

Or your texts sitting unread longer than usual.

Or the group chat mentioning “schedule changes” in a tone that sounds too casual to be casual.

At first, you don’t think much of it.

Because you’re you.

And you are famously “not affected by things.”

Except you are, just not in a way anyone would immediately call dramatic

More like… you just notice the gaps.

The pauses where he used to be.

One evening, Sora drops her bag on your bed with way too much force and immediately flops down beside it like she’s exhausted by your entire life trajectory.

You sigh, “He’s been gone a lot more lately.”

You don’t look up from your phone.

“Seonghyeon and Martin is always busy.”

“Not like this.”

That makes you pause.

Just slightly.

You don’t respond right away, which already betrays you more than words would’ve.

Sora watches you for a second.

Then softer:

“They’re in comeback prep.”

“I know.”

“And overseas schedules.”

“I know.”

“And interviews and rehearsals and whatever else idols do when they disappear into airports for a living.”

“I know.”

A beat.

Then she adds, quieter:

“You’re doing that thing again.”

You finally look at her.

“What thing.”

“The pretending-you-don’t-care thing.”

“I don’t pretend.”

She raises an eyebrow.

You stare back.

Hold it.

Lose immediately.

“…I just mean it’s normal.”

Sora hums like she doesn’t believe you, which is rude but accurate.

“Sure.”

That night, your phone doesn’t light up.

Not the way it usually does.

No “you home?”

No “don’t walk into anything.”

No random check-in that sounds like nothing but somehow lands like everything.

You tell yourself it’s fine.

You even believe it for approximately five minutes.

Then you don’t.

You’re halfway through scrolling your feed when Minji’s message pops up in the group chat.

You don’t reply.

But you also don’t stop reading.

Which is your first mistake.

Because the more you look, the more real it becomes.

Photos. Clips. Fans. Headlines.

Seonghyeon smiling in passing. Seonghyeon walking through crowds. Seonghyeon existing in a completely different part of the world like it’s normal.

And you realize something slightly annoying.

You’ve gotten used to him being… close.

Not physically.

Just consistently there in your orbit.

And now he isn’t.

And your brain doesn’t like that gap.

At all.

The next day feels louder than usual.

Not because anything is different.

But because everything is the same,

The group still gathers at Sora’s house.

But there’s a missing frequency.

And you keep noticing it.

Which is deeply inconvenient.

At some point, you’re sitting on the couch when Sora nudges you lightly.

“He texted you yet?”

You glance down at your phone.

“No.”

“Mm.”

A pause.

“You’re checking it a lot.”

“I’m not.”

Sora doesn’t argue.

Just leans back.

“You’re worse when you pretend you’re fine.”

“I am fine.”

“That’s not what I said.”

You don’t respond.

Because she’s annoying.

And correct.

Later that evening, your phone finally lights up.

That lands differently than it should.

You stare at the screen.

Then slowly:

And somehow that word feels like a promise.

The next few days fall into a pattern.

He’s busy.

You’re not.

But somehow, he still shows up in small pieces of your day.

A random message.

A short voice note.

A “you ate?”

A “don’t forget water.”

And every time, you try to act normal about it.

And every time, you fail a little more internally.

Sora notices before you say anything.

Of course she does.

She always does.

“You’re smiling at your phone again.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“It’s just a phone.”

“It’s Seonghyeon.”

You pause.

“That is not what I said.”

“It’s what I said.”

You throw a pillow at her.

She catches it without looking away from you.

“You miss him.”

“I do not miss people.”

Sora tilts her head.

“Okay.”

Too easy.

Suspiciously easy.

You narrow your eyes.

“…don’t ‘okay’ me like that.”

But she just smiles slightly.

Like she’s storing the information away.

Which is worse.

Two days later, things change again.

Not dramatically.

But enough that you feel it before you understand it.

Seonghyeon calls instead of texting.

You hesitate before picking up.

Then answer.

His voice comes through slightly tired.

“you’re home?”

“yes.”

“good.”

A pause.

Then:

“We’re coming back tomorrow.”

That shouldn’t feel like something.

But it does.

You sit up a little.

“already?”

“schedule moved up.”

“…oh.”

Another pause.

Then softer:

“you sound surprised.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

You don’t argue this time.

Because you are.

Just slightly.

Unfairly so.

When he comes back, it’s late.

Sora drags you to the living room under the excuse of “group hangout,” which is clearly code for something else.

You don’t question it.

Because you already know.

You hear the door before you see him.

And suddenly the room feels different again.

Not loud.

Just… complete.

Keonho calls out first.

“HELLLLOOOO WE SURVIVEDDDD.”

James follows:

“barelyy.”

Juhoon:

“The legends return.”

Martin laughs loudly.

And then—

Seonghyeon walks in.

He looks the same.

Tired in that soft, familiar way.

Hair slightly messy.

Bag slung over one shoulder.

And when his eyes land on you

he pauses.

Just a fraction.

Then smiles.

Not big.

Not performative.

Just real.

“hey.”

You respond immediately.

“hey.”

Only once this time.

No hesitation.

No echo.

But your chest still does that annoying thing anyway.

He doesn’t come closer right away.

He just looks at you for a second longer than necessary.

Like he’s confirming something.

Then finally:

“you okay?”

You nod.

“yeah.”

A pause.

Then, quieter:

“you didn’t text as much.”

That catches you off guard.

“…you noticed that?”

“i notice you.”

Simple.

Direct.

No hesitation.

And that should be normal.

But it isn’t.

Not anymore.

Sora is absolutely watching this like it’s a live documentary.

Minji too.

Hana has already grabbed her phone.

Jae looks like he’s restraining himself from narrating out loud.

Yuna looks like she predicted this outcome three weeks ago.

And you?

You are very carefully trying to remember how to breathe normally.

Seonghyeon finally sits beside you.

Not too close.

But close enough that you notice everything again.

And for the first time, you realize something:

you didn’t just miss him being around.

you missed how naturally he fit into your space.

Later, when everyone starts dispersing, he walks you out again.

It’s quiet outside.

Familiar again.

But different now.

Because this time, the silence between you doesn’t feel empty.

It feels full of everything you haven’t said yet.

He stops walking first.

You stop too.

You don’t even ask why.

He looks at you for a second.

Then says, softly:

“i missed this.”

You blink.

“…this?”

“you.”

Simple again.

No drama.

No buildup.

Just truth.

And you hate how easily it lands.

You try to recover your usual tone.

Fail immediately.

“I’m literally right here.”

“I know.”

A pause.

Then a small smile.

“that’s why i missed you.”

And your brain officially stops functioning for about three seconds.

You look away first.

Which is unfair.

Because you’re pretty sure he knows exactly what that did to you.

And when you finally speak, it comes out quieter than intended.

“…you’re really bad at saying things normally.”

Seonghyeon hums lightly.

“you’re really bad at reacting normally.”

You exhale.

“…fair.”

There’s a pause.

Not awkward.

Just loaded.

Then he steps slightly closer.

Not overwhelming.

Just enough.

“can i ask you something?”

You hesitate.

“…depends.”

He smiles faintly.

“do you still think you’re nonchalant?”

That hits directly.

You stare at him.

“…i am.”

He raises an eyebrow.

And you immediately know you’ve lost that argument before it started.

He doesn’t push further.

Just waits.

Patient.

Like he always does.

And finally, you let out a small breath.

“…maybe a little less than before.”

That makes him smile.

Properly this time.

“progress.”

You roll your eyes.

But there’s no real bite to it anymore.

And when he finally reaches for your hand again

you don’t even hesitate this time.

You just take it.

Like it was always going to happen.

And somewhere behind you, Sora whispers:

“oh this is absolutely irreversible now.”

And for once

you don’t argue.

It becomes harder to pretend after that.

Not because anything suddenly changes in a loud, dramatic way.

But because now there’s a memory attached to everything.

His hand in yours.

His voice saying he missed you like it was the simplest fact in the world.

The way he didn’t hesitate.

The way you didn’t pull away.

Those kinds of things don’t just disappear when you go back inside and act normal again.

They linger.

Annoyingly.

The next few days, Seonghyeon is still technically busy.

But “busy” now looks different than it did before.

Because even when he’s not physically there, he still shows up in ways that feel… intentional.

A message in the morning.

A short call at night.

A random photo of something he saw on the street with no context at all.

You try not to read into it.

You fail immediately.

One afternoon, you’re sitting with Sora and Minji when your phone buzzes again.

You pause.

You are not a liar.

Technically.

You just… forgot lunch existed for a while.

You stare at the screen.

Minji leans over immediately.

“he’s parenting you.”

“He is not.”

Sora, without looking up:

“He is absolutely parenting you.”

You ignore both of them

You stare at your phone like it personally betrayed you.

Minji is already laughing.

Sora is smiling like she’s watching something inevitable unfold.

“You’re cooked,” Minji says.

“I am not cooked.”

“You’re being monitored.”

“That is not what this is.”

Sora finally looks up.

“That is exactly what this is.”

You glare at both of them, then reluctantly take a picture of a snack you didn’t want to eat but now have to for legal reasons.

You send it.

A moment later:

You nearly drop your phone.

Minji loses it.

Sora just nods slowly like she’s accepting the downfall of your entire resistance arc.

And the worst part?

You don’t even hate it.

Not really.

That evening, the group is all gathered again at Sora’s place.

Martin and all of CORTIS are there too—Keonho, James, Juhoon—lounging around like they belong to the furniture now.

Seonghyeon arrives later than everyone else.

Of course he does.

He always does now.

And somehow, you still notice the exact moment he enters the room.

The energy shifts.

Subtle.

But undeniable.

He greets everyone normally.

Then looks at you.

Just for a second longer.

“hey.”

You respond.

“hey.”

No hesitation this time.

Still controlled.

Still pretending.

Still completely transparent to everyone except you.

Minji whispers loudly on purpose:

“she said it normally. character development.”

Hana laughs.

Yuna nods like she’s tracking data.

Jae mutters, “temporary stability.”

Sora just sips her drink like she’s watching a documentary finale unfold.

You ignore them all.

Mostly successfully.

Seonghyeon sits down beside you again.

Not too close.

But close enough that your brain immediately becomes aware of him in a way that is physically inconvenient.

He leans back slightly.

Exhales.

Tired.

But present.

You glance at him before you can stop yourself.

“You okay?”

He looks at you.

A small pause.

“yeah.”

Then, softer:

“just missed a lot of things.”

Your stomach does something extremely unhelpful.

You look away immediately.

“…you’re dramatic.”

That earns a quiet laugh.

“i’m not.”

“You are.”

“i’m honest.”

That shuts you up for half a second.

Because that is worse.

Later, the group starts doing whatever chaotic thing they always do—games, arguing, laughing too loudly, someone yelling about snacks.

And you and Seonghyeon somehow end up slightly separated from it.

Not intentionally.

Just naturally.

Like the rest of the world blurred out around you two without asking permission.

At some point, he shifts closer again.

Not abrupt.

Just small.

Familiar.

And you don’t move away.

Which is new.

You notice that too.

“you’ve been quieter lately,” he says.

You blink.

“…i am always quiet.”

“not like this.”

You glance at him.

He’s watching you like he already knows the answer.

That’s the frustrating part.

He doesn’t guess.

He just… observes.

And somehow always ends up right.

You lean back slightly.

“…you’ve been gone a lot.”

A pause.

He nods once.

“yeah.”

“that’s your job.”

“i know.”

Another pause.

Then quieter:

“still didn’t like it.”

You look at him quickly.

He’s not joking.

Not teasing.

Just honest.

And that makes your chest tighten again in that annoying way you’re starting to recognize too well.

You try to recover your usual tone.

Fail halfway.

“…you’re acting like this is something serious.”

“It is.”

You blink.

“…what is?”

He looks at you then.

Properly.

Like he’s choosing words carefully for once.

“You.”

That one word.

Simple.

Heavy.

Not dramatic.

Just real.

You go quiet.

Which is rare enough that even the group notices from across the room.

Sora is definitely watching now.

Minji too.

Hana has stopped talking entirely.

Even Keonho glances over mid-laugh.

Seonghyeon doesn’t rush you.

Just waits.

Patient.

Like always.

And that patience is what finally breaks your “nonchalant” defense system completely.

Because it gives you time to think.

And thinking is dangerous.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” you finally admit.

He tilts his head slightly.

“you don’t have to say anything perfect.”

“That’s not comforting.”

“It’s not meant to be.”

That makes you exhale a small laugh despite yourself.

“…you’re really annoying when you’re honest.”

“you like it.”

“I do not.”

He hums.

“sure.”

And somehow that “sure” feels like he doesn’t believe you, but also doesn’t need you to admit it out loud.

Which is worse.

A pause settles between you.

Not uncomfortable.

Just full.

Then, very quietly, he says:

“i’m not going anywhere for a while.”

You look at him.

“…that sounds like a threat.”

“It’s not.”

“it kind of is.”

He smiles slightly.

“it’s a promise.”

That lands differently.

You don’t respond right away.

Because your brain is doing that thing again where it forgets how words work.

So instead, you just nod once.

Small.

Barely noticeable.

But real.

Across the room, Minji whispers:

“this is it.”

Hana replies:

“final stage unlocked.”

Jae adds:

“romance arc confirmed.”

Yuna:

“inevitable conclusion: approaching stability.”

Sora, dramatically:

“i’m moving out.”

You hear them.

Of course you do.

But for once, you don’t care enough to argue.

Because Seonghyeon is still beside you.

Still there.

Still close enough that you can feel the calm he brings without him trying.

Later, when everyone finally starts leaving, he walks you out again.

It’s night.

Quiet.

Familiar streetlights.

Soft air.

The kind of silence that doesn’t feel empty anymore.

You stop walking at the same time this time.

No hesitation.

He notices.

Turns slightly toward you.

And you realize something simple.

You’re not trying to pretend tonight.

Not really.

He speaks first.

“you’re thinking again.”

You exhale.

“…yeah.”

“about what.”

You hesitate.

Then, quietly:

“…you.”

He doesn’t react like it’s surprising.

Just like it was expected.

Which is infuriating.

A pause.

Then he steps a little closer.

Not closing space too fast.

Just enough to make your heartbeat noticeably louder in your own ears.

“good thing or bad thing?”

You hesitate again.

Then, honestly:

“…i don’t know yet.”

He nods like that’s fine.

Like uncertainty is allowed.

Like you don’t have to be fully figured out to be here with him.

And then, softer:

“we can figure it out.”

You look at him.

“…together?”

“yeah.”

Simple.

No pressure.

Just direction.

Something in your chest finally unclenches in a way you didn’t realize it was holding on so tightly.

You don’t say anything back.

You don’t need to.

Because when he reaches for your hand again this time

you meet him halfway.

No hesitation.

No pretending.

No “nonchalant” version of yourself trying to survive the moment.

Just you.

And him.

And the very obvious, very inevitable fact that this was never just an accident of timing or friendship or proximity.

It was always going here.

And now it finally is.

[cortismoon]

Pretty when I cry.

SYPNOSIS : in which… being a trainee under hybe obviously was not fun. It made your life miserable for a long time. You thought that when the time to debut finally came, things would get better. But when you see who you were to debut with, things get even worse.

CORTIS 6TH MEMBER AU

warnings: angst, emotional and physical(?) abuse

a/n: AllDay Project plays a major role in the readers life here. For the sake of the story, please lets just pretend that ADP is unproblematic and under HYBE.

01 | 02 | 03 | 04

series mlist

being a trainee under HYBE had sounded like a dream when you first got accepted.

you still remembered the day they called you into that tiny practice room with the gray walls and the flickering light above your head. your hands had been shaking so badly that you almost dropped your phone when they told you the news. debut team candidate. that was the title they gave you.

you had cried in the bathroom afterward. not because you were sad, but because after years of training, years of standing in lines while judges stared at you with blank faces, years of starving yourself and pretending you weren’t tired, something finally seemed worth it.

you were fourteen back then.

everyone around you congratulated you like you’d won the lottery.

“you’re so lucky.”

“i wish i was you.”

“you’re going to become famous.”

nobody ever saw the reality of it.

they didn’t see how your legs trembled after dancing for twelve hours straight. they didn’t hear the trainers screaming in your face because your voice cracked during vocal lessons. they didn’t know how humiliating it felt to stand on a scale every monday morning while adults examined your body like you were some unfinished project.

you learned quickly that nothing inside that building was ever enough.

you could lose weight, but not enough.

you could dance well, but not enough.

you could sing properly, but not enough.

there was always another criticism waiting for you.

the vocal lessons were the worst.

your throat always tightened before entering the room. the instructors acted like fear made people stronger. every mistake you made echoed around the walls while they sighed dramatically or rubbed their temples like you were exhausting to deal with.

“again.”

“support your breathing.”

“why are you shaking?”

sometimes your voice trembled so badly you physically couldn’t continue singing. and every single time, you wanted to disappear.

the physical stuff wasn’t brutal enough for people to call it abuse.

that was the worst part.

a slap to the cheek because you missed timing.

someone shoving the back of your head forward when you weren’t bowing deeply enough.

fingers yanking harshly at your ponytail while fixing your posture.

small things.

small enough that people could pretend they weren’t serious.

but every single one of them made your stomach twist.

there were nights where you sat alone in the dorm bathroom staring at yourself in the mirror, wondering why your body flinched whenever someone moved too fast near you.

still, you stayed.

because leaving would mean all of it happened for nothing.

and eventually, somehow, you made it far enough to be considered for debut.

they told you the group was going to be called AllDay Project.

a co-ed group.

honestly, that terrified you at first.

you’d trained around boys before, obviously, but never closely. boys your age usually intimidated you. most of them were loud or rough or made you feel stupid without even trying. you kept expecting something bad to happen.

but when you met the members for the first time, everything felt strangely calm.

the company brought you into one of the larger dance studios late at night. everyone was already there except you, standing around awkwardly with paper cups of iced coffee and water bottles scattered across the floor.

you bowed so quickly your neck hurt.

“hello, i’m—”

“we know who you are.”

that had been bailey.

bailey sok smiled so brightly at you that it immediately eased some of your panic. you recognized her instantly, obviously. You even followed her on social media. she walked over first and introduced herself properly anyway, like she wasn’t already famous enough to make you nervous.

she spoke to you comfortably, naturally, like you’d already been part of the team for months.

it made your chest feel lighter.

then there was youngseo.

Youngseo seemed shy from the second you met her. when you bowed to each other, her ears turned pink instantly and she kept brushing hair behind her ear nervously while talking.

she wasn’t cold, though.

just quiet.

you could tell pretty quickly that she observed people more than she spoke. sometimes you’d catch her looking at you during practice before glancing away immediately once you noticed.

annie was the complete opposite.

Annie Moon talked to you like you were an old friend after less than ten minutes. she asked you questions nonstop while sitting beside you on the floor stretching before practice.

what food do you like?

how long have you trained?

what music do you listen to?

do you hate monthly evaluations too?

she made you laugh harder than anyone else at first.

later that night, while everyone else was cleaning up after practice, annie quietly told you something while handing you a water bottle.

“youngseo was supposed to debut before, actually.”

you blinked.

“really?”

annie nodded carefully.

“it didn’t happen in the end.”

suddenly youngseo’s quietness made more sense.

and then there was woochan.

Jo Woochan looked exhausted the first time you met him.

not physically exhausted.

emotionally.

like someone who stopped expecting good things a long time ago.

he still smiled politely when greeting you, but it didn’t fully reach his eyes. he mostly stayed silent during your first meeting, listening while the others talked.

you thought maybe he just didn’t like you at first.

but a few days later, tarzzan explained it while both of you sat outside the practice room eating convenience store ramen at nearly midnight.

“he’s scared to trust it.”

“trust what?”

“the debut.”

Tarzzan leaned back against the wall with a sigh.

“he was supposed to debut before too. it didn’t happen.”

you stared quietly at the floor after that.

suddenly everything made sense.

woochan and youngseo carried the same expression sometimes. like they wanted to believe things were finally working out, but were too scared to let themselves feel hopeful.

tarzzan himself was easier to understand.

he was loud in a comforting way. always smiling, always talking, always trying to make the atmosphere lighter whenever practices got tense.

if the room felt too heavy, he noticed immediately.

sometimes he danced horribly on purpose just to make everyone laugh during breaks.

sometimes he brought snacks secretly even though half the trainees were technically banned from eating them.

sometimes he just sat beside people silently when they looked upset.

you liked him quickly because of that.

for the first month, everything honestly felt…good.

weirdly good.

you practiced together every day until early morning. you ate together afterward sitting cross-legged on studio floors surrounded by empty drink bottles and backpacks. you all learned each other’s habits naturally.

bailey hummed choreographies under her breath while thinking.

annie talked in her sleep sometimes during long van rides.

youngseo quietly covered people with blankets if they accidentally fell asleep in the practice room.

woochan stayed behind after everyone left to practice rap verses alone.

tarzzan couldn’t sit still for more than thirty seconds.

you laughed more than you had in years.

sometimes you forgot how miserable trainee life actually was.

you were still scared, obviously.

you were only fifteen.

the others were older than you, more experienced than you, and definitely more mature.

there were moments where you wondered if you even belonged there at all.

but every time insecurity started crawling into your chest, someone pulled you back out of it.

bailey complimenting your dancing randomly.

annie dragging you into conversations so you wouldn’t feel left out.

youngseo waiting for you after evaluations so you wouldn’t walk back alone.

woochan silently handing you throat medicine after vocal practice destroyed your voice.

little things.

small things that somehow mattered a lot.

for the first time since becoming a trainee, you actually started feeling safe around people.

and maybe that was your mistake.

because the moment you finally started feeling comfortable, everything abruptly changed.

it happened on a thursday.

you remembered because thursdays were usually the hardest practice days. choreography evaluations were always on thursdays, and everyone was already irritated before practice had even started.

the practice room smelled like sweat and cheap deodorant. the mirrors were fogged slightly near the corners, and your knees hurt every time you bent down because you’d been practicing the same part over and over for nearly four hours straight.

bailey was sitting on the floor tying her hair back again while annie complained dramatically about how hungry she was.

“if i die today, tell people it was because this company refused to feed me.”

“you literally ate thirty minutes ago,” tarzzan said.

“that was a banana. i need real food.”

you laughed quietly from where you sat against the wall trying to catch your breath. even woochan smiled a little at that.

youngseo handed you your water bottle without saying anything after noticing you coughing again. your throat had been hurting all week from vocal practice.

everything felt normal. tiring, but normal.

then the practice room door suddenly opened.

all six of you looked over immediately.

one of the staff members stepped inside, expression unreadable.

“meeting room. now.”

everyone stared.

tarzzan frowned first. “right now?”

“yes. immediately.”

and then the door shut again.

silence filled the room almost instantly.

annie blinked. “what the hell?”

“did someone mess something up?” bailey asked quietly. nobody answered.

usually meetings were planned ahead. managers would tell you days earlier so schedules could be rearranged. random meetings almost never happened unless something was wrong.

your stomach already felt uneasy while standing up.

woochan looked tense immediately. you noticed it from the way his shoulders stiffened.

youngseo looked nervous too.

the walk to the meeting room felt way longer than usual.

nobody joked around on the way there. nobody spoke much at all. you could hear your own heartbeat while stepping inside.

your soon to be manager was already sitting there waiting for you. the second you saw his face, something inside your chest dropped. he looked guilty.

all six of you sat down slowly around the table. the room suddenly felt too cold.

the manager rubbed his hands together awkwardly before speaking.

“first of all…thank you for working hard these past months.”

immediately, your stomach twisted harder.

nobody started meetings like that unless the conversation was going somewhere horrible.

he sighed heavily before continuing. “i’ll get straight to the point.”

his eyes landed on you for half a second before looking away again.

“there’s been a change regarding the debut lineup.”

your heartbeat became so loud you could barely hear him properly anymore.

“after discussions with the company, it’s been decided that you will no longer be debuting with allday project.”

for a second, everything went silent.

it honestly felt like your brain stopped working.

you just stared at him.

you thought maybe you heard wrong.

maybe this was about another trainee.

maybe he meant schedules were changing.

maybe maybe maybe.

but then he kept talking.

“the company feels that you’re too young to debut in this lineup right now. they also believe the group dynamic works better without adding another member.”

without adding another member.

like you hadn’t already spent months with them.

like you were some random extra person.

your vision blurred instantly.

your chest hurt so badly it made you nauseous.

you genuinely thought you were going to throw up right there on the table.

“what?” annie said it first. not quietly either.

“what the hell are you talking about?”

the manager sighed tiredly. “this decision came from higher up.”

“that’s bullshit,” tarzzan snapped immediately.

bailey looked furious. you’d genuinely never seen her look angry before.

“you can’t suddenly do this now. debut preparations are already happening.”

“she’s part of the team,” annie added loudly. “you can’t just remove her because of her age now. you already knew how old she was before.”

youngseo looked pale beside you.

woochan hadn’t said anything yet.

he was staring down at the table with an expression that honestly scared you more than yelling would have.

because he looked like he’d expected this all along.

finally, he spoke quietly.

“so you’re doing it again.”

the manager closed his eyes briefly.

“woochan.”

“you keep doing this to people.” his voice wasn’t loud, and that made it worse.

you sat there frozen while everyone argued around you. the words barely registered properly anymore.

too young.

doesn’t fit the group.

removed from lineup.

you felt humiliated.

you spent months believing these people when they promised you a future.

you changed everything for this. your sleep. your body. your entire life. and now suddenly you “didn’t fit.”

the manager kept apologizing over and over, but it was obvious he didn’t actually have control over any of it.

eventually he just sighed heavily.

“the decision is final.”

nobody spoke after that.

“you’re dismissed.”

the second you stepped outside the meeting room, you broke.

the crying came out so suddenly that it almost hurt. your breathing turned uneven instantly while tears blurred everything around you.

“it’s not fair,” you kept repeating. “it’s not fair.”

annie immediately wrapped her arms around you while bailey rubbed your back desperately trying to calm you down.

tarzzan kept cursing under his breath angrily. youngseo looked close to crying too. and woochan just stood there silently staring at the floor. his expression hurt to look at.

because now you understood.

you finally understood what he and youngseo must have felt when this happened to them before.

the embarrassment, the shock, the horrible feeling of suddenly realizing you trusted people who never actually cared about you at all.

moving out of the dorm felt unreal.

you packed your clothes numbly while trying not to cry every five minutes. nobody left your side the entire time.

annie folded your hoodies because your hands wouldn’t stop shaking properly. bailey packed your skincare and toiletries carefully into boxes. tarzzan kept trying to make stupid jokes even though his eyes were red. youngseo quietly helped you organize everything without speaking much. and woochan carried almost all your bags himself.

nobody wanted you alone.

when it was finally time to leave, all six of you stood outside the dorm building waiting for the uber the company had ordered for you.

the night air felt freezing.

nobody spoke.

cars passed by occasionally, but otherwise everything was painfully quiet.

woochan stood beside you holding your suitcase handle tightly.

youngseo’s fingers stayed intertwined with yours the entire time.

you didn’t even realize how hard you were holding her hand until your knuckles started hurting.

your eyes burned nonstop from crying.

then annie suddenly spoke.

“y/n.”

you looked up slowly.

her eyes were watery too.

“this situation doesn’t mean we stop being friends.”

your lip trembled immediately.

“you have all our numbers. and we’re obviously not removing you from the groupchat.”

tarzzan nodded quickly beside her.

“seriously. don’t disappear on us.”

annie swallowed hard before continuing.“we might not be in the same group anymore, but you still mean a lot to all of us.”

the uber pulled up beside the sidewalk right then.

the headlights made everyone look pale.

you stared at annie silently. you wanted to answer, you really did, but your throat felt too tight to speak.

another tear rolled down your face.

woochan quietly lifted your suitcase into the trunk for you. youngseo squeezed your hand one last time before letting go.

and then you got inside the car without saying a single word.

the next two months were miserable.

honestly miserable.

every single day felt identical. wake up at six in the morning. drag yourself out of bed while your body still ached from the day before. rush to the company building half asleep. practice until your feet burned. get criticized. practice more. eat barely enough to stop yourself from fainting. repeat.

you forgot how empty trainee life actually felt until you were forced back into it again.

before allday project, this life had been normal to you.

you were used to crying quietly in bathroom stalls after evaluations. used to the awkward silence between trainees who all secretly viewed each other as competition. used to the loneliness.

but being with them had ruined you.

because for the first time, you’d actually felt happy there.

you’d gotten attached to laughing during breaks. to eating together after practice. to hearing annie complain dramatically every five minutes. to bailey fixing your posture gently instead of yelling at you for getting something wrong. to tarzzan’s stupid jokes. to youngseo’s quiet kindness. to woochan silently sitting beside you during late night practices because neither of you liked being alone anymore.

they made the building feel less suffocating.

and now everything felt cold again.

the new trainee dorm was awful too.

nobody there really spoke to each other much. everyone kept their heads down constantly, too exhausted or too paranoid to bother making friends. you hated it immediately.

sometimes at night, you stared at the ceiling while clutching your phone tightly in your hand.

the groupchat was still active. annie spammed it the most. tarzzan sent blurry pictures of random things constantly. bailey sometimes sent videos from practice. youngseo mostly reacted quietly to messages instead of typing. woochan disappeared for hours at a time before suddenly replying with something dry that somehow still made you laugh.

they never stopped talking to you like you were part of them. that almost made it worse, because you missed them so badly it physically hurt.

sometimes you typed responses while crying silently into your pillow because you knew you’d probably never stand beside them onstage again.

you hated yourself for still hoping.

then one morning, everything changed again.

your alarm never even got the chance to ring.

your phone started vibrating violently against the bedside table instead.

you groaned tiredly, reaching over half asleep before squinting at the screen.

the second you saw the contact name, your stomach dropped.

manager.

your old manager.

for a moment, you just stared at the screen while your heartbeat sped up.

why was he calling you? had something happened? did somebody get hurt?

your fingers shook slightly while answering.

“…hello?”

“come to the hybe building. fifth floor.” his voice sounded serious immediately.

you sat upright. “what?”

“just come. now.” and then he hung up.

you stared at your phone in complete confusion. your chest already felt uneasy again. the entire subway ride there felt horrible. your thoughts wouldn’t stop spiraling.

was this about allday project? did someone leave? did they need backup dancers? were they officially terminating your contract?

by the time you reached the building, you felt sick.

you made it there in barely half an hour.

the fifth floor felt strangely unfamiliar. you’d almost never practiced there before.

you followed the room number he texted you and pushed open the practice room door carefully.

and immediately froze.

five boys stood inside staring back at you awkwardly.

your entire body went cold instantly.

no. absolutely not.

you slowly turned toward your old manager standing near the mirrors.

“are you insane?”

complete silence.

the room became so quiet you could practically hear everyone breathing.

the boys looked genuinely shocked.

trainees didn’t talk to managers like that. especially not younger trainees.

but you didn’t care.

your chest was already tightening with panic and anger.

your manager sighed heavily like he expected this reaction.

“y/n, this is the best i could do.”

“best you could do?” you repeated incredulously. “what the hell is this? I didn’t ask for this?”

“having you removed from the lineup wasn’t my decision. you know that already.”

“then why am i here?”

“because if you want to debut, this is your last chance.”

you stared at him.

he continued speaking before you could interrupt.

“hybe isn’t planning another debut for a long time after this.”

your vision blurred almost immediately.

you were so angry you genuinely felt dizzy.

“No, i don’t care!” you snapped loudly. “this whole thing is insane! you’re insane! what kind of logic is this?!”

the boys standing behind you looked painfully uncomfortable now.

one of them glanced at the others awkwardly while another crossed his arms tightly without saying anything.

“you want to debut a girl in a boy group?” your voice cracked from frustration. “what the hell even is that?!”

“lower your voice and calm down.” the manager warned. “You have to think about it before you decline this offer, Y/N. I’m being serious when I say this is your last chance.”

“no!”

you almost never yelled.

that was the thing.

you were usually quiet during arguments. you hated confrontation, but right now you felt humiliated all over again. like they were throwing random scraps at you hoping you’d accept them gratefully.

“I know you wanted allday project,” your manager said sharply. “i know that, alright?”

“then why are you acting like this fixes anything?!”

“because you didn’t fit there.”

the words hit you hard enough to physically hurt.

your breathing became uneven instantly. he pointed toward the boys behind you.

“you fit there better.”

you laughed bitterly through tears.

“you cannot be serious.”

“their concept is about breaking expectations. trying new things. standing outside the norm. colouring outside the lines. you fit perfectly into that.”

you opened your mouth immediately to argue again.

“No,” he cut you off firmly. “don’t speak anymore. i told you to think about it, not argue about it.”

the room fell silent again.

you glared at him through blurry vision while tears slid down your face angrily.

he sighed again before gesturing toward the boys. “this is cortis, by the way.”

nobody moved. nobody smiled.

“cortis, meet y/n. potentially your newest member.”

the manager rubbed his forehead tiredly before walking toward the door.

and then he left. just like that. leaving you standing there alone with five strangers.

the silence afterward was unbearable. you could feel them staring.

one boy awkwardly lifted his hand in a tiny wave after a few seconds.

“uh…hi.”

you didn’t answer.

another boy avoided eye contact entirely.

two of them honestly looked irritated that you were there at all.

one of them met your glare directly with one of his own.

that pissed you off even more. like this was somehow your fault too. your chest tightened painfully.

you suddenly felt stupid standing there crying in front of strangers.

you glared back at the two boys staring at you before turning around sharply.

and then you walked straight out of the room.

the door slammed behind you so hard the windows rattled violently.

©cortismoon all rights reserved. Please do not copy, repost or claim as your own.

[ptolemaeiia]

脷 .ᐟ TONGUE. in which, your ‘relationship’ with James couldn’t be messier, a situationship based on fights and low-key hookups, tearing at each other like it’s second nature—all sharp words, dirty looks, and the kind of tension that never really goes away. because the thing about james? he knows exactly how to hurt you—and you hurt him right back…

❛ 赵雨凡 𝑥 idol!reader ❜ 𓈒𓈒 based on my baby @tinygladiatorworm ‘s request 𖤼

⚠︎ MDNI ! smut, a LOT of angst~, multiple sexual scenes, violence, james is mean but reader isn’t all that better, denial, toxic dynamics, james is an asshole but listen to me NEVER in bed, ghosting, situationship, unprotected sex / multiple positions, masturbation, blurred nude/ sexting / body deterioration/ vomiting. Enhypen cameo.

𓏸 23,1k ╱ 𝓶. list. ♪♫ 𝑝laylist

TONGUE ࿇ part 1. part 2.

The first thing you ever said to James was:

“You’re in my spot.”

Not the most auspicious beginning. Not the kind of story that made for a clean narrative arc -no charged glance across a room, no meaningful collision, no moment with enough cinematic weight to justify everything that came after it.

Just you, age 18, three months into your debut, standing in the doorway of Practice Room 7B at 11pm with your water bottle and your USB drive.

And James, 19, sprawled across the center of the floor with his headphones around his neck and his jacket thrown over the mirror rail. His long legs were taking up an amount of space that felt frankly unreasonable, looking up at you with the unhurried expression of someone who had not been expecting company and was not particularly moved by its arrival.

“There’s no names on the floors,” he said.

“I booked this room,” you said. “7B, eleven pm. Check the system.”

He didn’t check the system. He looked at you for a moment with the assessing quality that you would not recognize as characteristic until much later, and then he said: “I’ve been here since nine.”

“And your booking ended at eleven,” you said, stepping inside because waiting in the doorway felt like conceding something. “So.”

He made a pause in which he conducted some internal deliberation, the outcome of which was apparently a decision to be mildly entertained rather than annoyed.

He sat up, reaching for his jacket with the unhurried ease of someone who moved through the world at his own pace regardless of external pressure.

“You’re from R3SET,” he said. Not a question.

“You’re from Cortis,” you said, equally declarative.

“James,” he said, which was not exactly an introduction so much as information delivered flatly.

“I know who you are,” you said.

Something moved at the corner of his mouth. “Yeah?”

“You were the dude who changed the note… the one in the song at that showcase stage everyone talked about for two weeks.”

“Three weeks,” he said.

“Two,” you said. “I checked.”

He looked at you then -really looked, the first time, the kind of look that was less social and more like assessment, and something in it was so direct that it felt almost rude. Then he stood up, gathered his things without particular hurry, and walked toward the door.

“It was three weeks,” he said, passing you.

“It really wasn’t,” you said to his retreating back.

The door swung shut and you stood alone in Practice Room 7B and felt, despite having successfully reclaimed your space, that the exchange had ended in something closer to a draw.

You didn’t think about it again for two weeks, which was its own kind of foreshadowing.

• • •

The thing about HYBE was that it was enormous and also, paradoxically, very small.

Enormous in the way of any machine with global reach -the floors and corridors and practice rooms and studios multiplying upward and outward, the constant movement of staff and talent and camera crews and visiting collaborators.

The kind of place where you could theoretically spend a month without seeing the same person twice.

And yet the industry within the industry -the specific ecosystem of the acts themselves, the people who lived in the same buildings and ate from the same canteen and used the same practice rooms and breathed the same air recycled through the same HVAC system -was genuinely, inescapably small.

You saw the same faces, you learned people’s schedules by accident, by proximity, by the way your paths intersected in corridors and elevators and waiting rooms without either party having arranged it.

You started seeing James everywhere approximately two weeks after the practice room, which you attributed to coincidence, and then to probability, and then eventually just accepted as a feature of your shared geography.

He was in the elevator one morning when you got on with your members, both groups maintaining the polite, comfortable distance of people who were not unfriendly but were also not yet anything in particular.

He nodded. You nodded. Simple.

Hye-ri, who had not yet heard the Practice Room 7B story and would later respond to it with conspiratorial energy, smiled brightly at everyone.

The elevator arrived at its floor and one group filed out. He held the door for Soeun, who was the last one off, moving as slowly as was her nature at 9am.

“Thanks,” Soeun said sleepily.

He said nothing, just released the door once she was through. You glanced back as the doors closed and he was looking at something on his phone.

Not at you, so you looked forward again.

• • •

The first real conversation -not the territorial exchange about Practice Room 7B, but the first one with actual content, actual duration, actual evidence of two people engaging with each other rather than simply occupying the same space- happened at the canteen at an off-hour on a Tuesday.

You’d come down at 2pm, between schedules, when the lunch rush was over and the space was quiet. You wanted something warm and uncomplicated and to sit somewhere that wasn’t a practice room or a meeting room or a corridor for approximately twenty minutes.

James was at a corner table with what appeared to be a cup of coffee and nothing else, looking at his phone with a focused scowl.

The canteen was otherwise empty.

You got your food -the plain rice and the soup, because your stomach was in that specific state of demanding something simple- and made the social calculation that sitting at the opposite end of the canteen from the only other person there was ruder than sitting nearby, so you chose a table two away from his.

He glanced up when you sat down, registered you, and looked back at his phone.

You ate your soup.

“You’re always here at weird hours,” he said, without looking up.

“So are you,” you said.

“I’m avoiding a meeting.”

“I’m between schedules.”

“What kind of schedule runs until 2am?” he asked, and now he did look up, and there was something in the question that was less pointed than curious -the genuine kind of curiosity that didn’t dress itself up.

“Rehearsal ran late,” you said. “Then a vocal session. We have a comeback in six weeks.”

“R3SET’s second?” He said it like he’d already known and was confirming.

“Yeah.” You looked at him. “You’re not avoiding a meeting. Your schedule’s on the third floor board, you don’t have anything until four.”

There was a pause.

“You read the third floor schedule board?” he asked.

“I pass it every day.”

“And you memorized my schedule.”

“I memorized the general layout,” you said, with perfect composure. “You happen to be on it.”

He looked at you for a moment with that specific expression -the almost-smile that wasn’t quite, that lived in the small muscles around his eyes rather than his mouth. “Right,” he said.

You ate your soup and he went back to his phone.

Twenty minutes passed in a quiet that was, you noticed, not uncomfortable. The two of you existing in the same space without requiring anything from each other, and neither apparently needing to fill the space with noise.

When you stood up to leave he said, without looking up: “Seven weeks.”

“What?”

“Your comeback. It’s seven weeks out, not six. The release dates got pushed on Monday.”

You stood there for a moment. “How do you know R3SET’s release schedule?”

“I read the boards,” he said. “You happen to be on them.”

He looked up then, and the almost-smile was doing the thing where it almost became an actual smile and then pulled back at the last moment like it had decided against it.

You held his gaze for exactly the amount of time required to not look away first, which was becoming a recurring theme, and then you picked up your tray.

“Thanks,” you said.

“Sure,” he said.

You walked out and made it to the elevator before you let the small, involuntary smile happen, where nobody could file it as evidence of anything.

• • •

It built the way these things built -not in dramatic installments but in the accumulation of small moments that didn’t individually amount to anything and collectively amounted to everything.

He started saving you a spot in the one practice room with the good sound system when he finished early, without mentioning it -you’d just arrive to find a piece of tape with your initials on the booking board in his handwriting.

You never acknowledged it out loud and neither did he. It simply happened, and then continued to happen, and you both treated it as unremarkable.

You gave him your extra energy bar once, in a corridor, because you had two and he looked like he hadn’t eaten since morning. He took it without excessive gratitude, just ate it while you talked about something unrelated, and the next week a different brand of bar appeared in your bag that you hadn’t put there.

There was an award show in November -your first major one as a group, the kind of night charged with the particular glamour and underlying anxiety of a milestone.

You were waiting in the corridor behind the stage in your outfit, which was a structural confection of embellished fabric that looked extraordinary and made sitting down a political decision, when he appeared from a different direction in his own stage clothes, and you both stopped.

He looked at you -the full honest look, the kind he sometimes gave when he’d apparently decided not to moderate it.

“You look-” he started, and seemed to reroute something. “Good luck tonight.”

“You too,” you said.

He nodded once before walking past, and your stylist appeared from around the corner and started fussing with your hair.

The moment folded itself away into the noise of the evening, and later, on stage, in the middle of your third song, you looked out into the audience and found him in the seats assigned to Cortis, with the navigational certainty of someone who hadn’t been looking for him and had found him anyway.

He was watching. Not performing-watching, not the ambient attention of someone in an audience.

Actually watching, with the focused quality you’d come to recognize as characteristic. He didn’t look away when you made eye contact.

You looked away first, because you had choreography to execute and couldn’t afford the distraction, but the heat of it stayed on the side of your face for the rest of the song like a second spotlight.

• • •

James was the first person (other than your members) in the building who ever made you genuinely laugh.

Not the performance laugh -the one you’d refined to a bright, camera-ready sound that communicated joy without revealing anything.

The actual one, the one that caught you off guard and came out bigger than you intended, the one that made your eyes crease at the corners in a way your makeup artist always had to correct before filming.

It was something stupid. You couldn’t even remember what, later, when you tried -some observation he’d made in that flat, deadpan delivery of his, something about Martin’s posture.

And you’d laughed, the real one, before you’d had time to present the curated version instead.

He’d looked surprised. Then the almost-smile finally completed itself -actually became a smile, rare and brief and somehow private, like something he hadn’t intended to share and had anyway.

And then both of you had looked away simultaneously like two people who had accidentally seen something they weren’t supposed to.

That was 7 months in. By then you already knew you were in trouble, the specific kind that didn’t announce itself but showed up one day fully installed and looked back at you like it had always been there.

• • •

The first fight was in January.

Not a small one. The real inaugural event -the one that established the template for everything that followed, that revealed the specific architecture of how you two functioned, when the politeness dissolved and the actual material underneath was exposed.

It was about something professional, technically.

A collab arrangement that had fallen through due to scheduling and a comment he’d made in a group setting, that you’d taken as pointed and that he’d claimed was general. But the claim itself feeling like a provocation rather than a clarification.

It had escalated with a speed that surprised you both, the way flash fires did -the specific combustibility of two people who had spent seven months building up a charge without discharge.

Every careful canteen silence, every piece of tape on a booking board, every unremarked energy bar, every held glance and looked-away-from moment: all of it apparently convertible into fuel.

You said things. He said things. The things were sharp and specific, which was worse than general and vague. That meant you both knew exactly where to aim.

He told you that your drive was so relentless it was alienating. You told him that his emotional unavailability was a character flaw he’d dressed up as depth.

And other particularly childish things.

Both of you hit something real. Both of you knew it.

It ended not with resolution but with you walking out of the conversation, and him letting you. The two of you spending eleven days not speaking in a building you shared, navigating around each other with effortful precision.

On the twelfth day he was in the elevator when you got on, alone, the doors closed, and in the four floors between you and your destination neither of you spoke. When the doors opened he held them and let you out first with the same gesture he’d used for Soeun seven months ago.

“The tape’s back on 7B,” he said, as the doors were closing. “If you want it.”

You walked to the practice room.

The tape was there, your initials in his handwriting, unremarkable and consistent and saying more than either of you had managed in eleven days of silence. So you pulled out your USB drive and started the music and didn’t think about what it meant, because thinking about what it meant required a vocabulary you hadn’t yet developed for whatever this was.

• • •

The second fight happened in March, and it was the one that changed the coordinates of everything.

In retrospect -and you would spend a considerable amount of time in retrospect, dissecting this particular evening with forensic attention. Like someone trying to locate the exact moment a thing became a different thing -it wasn’t even a significant fight. Not by the standards.

It was a Tuesday, late, and you were both in the building past reasonable hours.

You’d crossed paths in the corridor outside the vocal booths in the specific way that felt, by now, less like coincidence and more like the building itself was engineering your proximity through some architectural conspiracy.

You’d said something. He’d responded. The response had landed wrong. The details were almost beside the point -they always were with James, the specifics of the argument always slightly less important than the current running underneath it.

What mattered was the escalation, which was quick and hot, the two of you falling into the rhythm of it with the terrible fluency of people who’d already mapped each other’s pressure points and couldn’t help pressing them.

You were in his face in the way you got when you were angry -close, refusing to let height function as advantage, chin tilted up, voice controlled and precise in the way that was somehow more aggressive than shouting.

He was doing the jaw thing, the one where the muscle flickered at the corner, and his eyes were dark, direct and giving nothing.

“You don’t actually know me,” you said, which was what you said when he’d gotten too close to something accurate and you needed to push him back. “You think you do-”

“I know you better than you’re comfortable with,” he said, flat and certain. “That’s the problem.”

“That’s not a problem, that’s a delusion-”

“You went still,” he said. “Just now. When I said that. You went still.”

“I didn’t-”

“You always go still when something’s true.”

You stared at him, he stared back.

And something in the architecture of the moment shifted without announcement -the way pressure shifted before weather, that subtle change in atmospheric quality that meant something was about to happen whether or not anyone had decided on it.

You didn’t decide. That was the thing you’d return to later, examining it from different angles.

It didn’t feel like a decision.

It felt like the inevitable conclusion of seven months of accumulated charge finally finding its outlet, physics rather than choice, the thing that happened when you built up enough of something and ran out of room to keep containing it.

You kissed him.

Or he kissed you.

The honest answer was that it was simultaneous in the way that made attribution impossible, the two of you crossing the remaining distance at the same moment as if you’d both received the same signal from the same source.

His hand came up to the side of your face with a roughness that wasn’t quite gentle and wasn’t quite not, and you had a fistful of his jacket.

The anger didn’t disappear -that was the thing that surprised you most in the moment, that the anger didn’t disappear but instead converted, transformed into something that ran in the same channel at the same intensity in a completely different direction.

It lasted approximately ten seconds.

You both pulled back. Looked at each other. The corridor was still empty, the distant practice track was still running. Nothing had changed about the physical reality of the space, but everything had changed about what existed in it.

His hand was still near your face. Neither of you moved for a moment.

Then you let go of his jacket

“That,” you said, with all the composure you could assemble on short notice, which was not as much as you would have liked, “didn’t happen.”

Something moved through his expression. Not agreement. Not disagreement. Something harder to read. “Okay,” he said.

“I’m serious.”

“I know.”

“James.”

“I said okay, jeez,” he scoffed.

You straightened. Fixed your top, met his eyes one final time with the look you used when you needed to communicate that you were in complete control of a situation.

You walked back down the corridor and took the stairs, because the elevator required waiting and waiting required standing still and standing still was not something you were capable of in that particular moment.

In the stairwell you sat on the third step from the bottom, pressing your fingertips to your mouth and stared at the concrete floor.

You said, quietly and with feeling, a word that started with ‘F’ and covered approximately forty percent of what you were actually feeling, the other sixty percent being substantially too complicated for a single word to manage.

Fuck, it didn’t happen, you told yourself.

Your heartbeat said otherwise, loud and inconveniently informative.

• • •

It happened again three weeks later... ironically.

This time there was less plausible deniability about what it was -it wasn’t the end of an argument, wasn’t the discharge of accumulated charge.

It was a different kind of moment entirely, which made it both better and worse simultaneously.

You’d been in the practice room late, alone, running the bridge section of the new choreography for what felt like the fortieth time because something in the transition wasn’t landing cleanly.

You couldn’t locate the problem from inside the movement, which was the particular frustration of dance -sometimes you needed external eyes, someone to stand outside the thing and see what you couldn’t feel.

James had appeared in the doorway with the look of someone who’d been passing and had stopped, and for a moment he’d just watched you run the section.

“The weight transfer,” he said, from the doorway. “You’re anticipating the next count. You lose the accent.”

You ran it again, adjusting.

“Better,” he said.

Then he came in and stood beside you in the mirror, and ran the count with you -not the full choreography, just the four bars in question, his reflection beside yours in the practice room mirror.

His timing was good in the simple baseline way that people who lived in music tended to have regardless of their primary discipline.

When you ran it clean he caught your eye in the mirror and said: “There. You’re insanely good when you focus.”

And you responded with blurry eyes : “Yeah.”

The room was very quiet because then, neither of you was looking at the mirror anymore.

The second time was slower than the first. That was the difference - the first time had been the speed of reaction, of something that had been held too long finally releasing.

You felt the shift in the air before his hand moved -his palm sliding slowly up your arm, over the thin strap of your practice top, until his fingers curled around the back of your neck.

His grip was warm, firm, not quite gentle. When you finally looked up at him, his eyes had gone dark, pupils wide.

He didn’t ask. He simply leaned in and kissed you like he’d already made the decision minutes ago.

It started slow, almost careful -his lips pressing against yours with deliberate pressure, warm and slightly damp from the heat of the room. Then the restraint slipped.

His mouth opened, and the kiss deepened with a low, quiet hunger. His tongue brushed yours, not teasing but claiming, stroking in a slow, heated rhythm that made your stomach tighten. You tasted salt on his lips from the earlier dancing, felt the faint scrape of stubble against your skin as he tilted his head and took more.

His other hand found your waist, fingers digging in just enough to pull you flush against him. The kiss grew hotter, wetter.

A soft, involuntary sound escaped you, and he answered it with a low exhale through his nose, almost a growl, as he backed you half a step until your lower back met the barre.

He pressed forward, chest to chest, one thigh sliding between yours as the kiss turned unmistakably heated -messy, urgent, tongues sliding and lips sucking, breathing growing ragged between the brief moments you broke apart only to crash back together.

When he finally pulled back just enough to look at you, his lips were flushed and shiny, breath coming hard. His forehead rested against yours, eyes half-lidded, and for a second the only sound in the mirrored room was the two of you trying to remember how to breathe.

Your makeup from earlier had faded to its bones. Your hair had come partly undone. You looked, you thought, like someone in the middle of something they hadn’t planned.

Which was accurate.

James was watching your reflection rather than your face, which felt like a concession of some kind -the mirror was easier, the distance of the reflection, the ability to look at something without quite looking directly at it.

“We should probably…” you started.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Talk about-”

“Probably,” he agreed.

You both didn’t talk about it.

Not that night, not in the days following.

By unspoken mutual agreement you treated the practice room the way you’d treated the corridor -as something that had happened in a pocket outside normal time.

You saw each other in the building and were normal, which is to say you were exactly what you’d always been -two people with an unclassifiable dynamic and an ongoing low-grade tension.

It was, you would think later, an approach with significant structural flaws.

• • •

The first time you slept with James was inevitable in the way that cellular reproduction is inevitable

-something that had been pulling since the moment the charge between you became too dense to ignore, building through every charged silence, every almost-smile, every fight that left you both raw and buzzing.

It happened six weeks after the second kiss, in the quiet, exhausted aftermath of one of those late nights where the building felt like it belonged only to the two of you.

You’d both been avoiding each other again after a stupid argument about nothing that had somehow spiraled into everything -something about schedules and priorities, and how neither of you ever actually said what you meant.

Three days of careful, professional distance in the corridors. Three days of pretending the other person didn’t exist in a space where existence was impossible to avoid.

You were in 7B again, alone, running through vocals until your throat felt like sandpaper because stillness was worse than exhaustion.

James appeared in the doorway like he always did, unannounced, carrying two bottles of water he couldn’t explain.

He set one down near your bag without a word and leaned against the mirror rail, watching you with that clinical, cataloguing stare.

You didn’t tell him to leave. He didn’t ask if he should stay.

The conversation that followed was sparse, edged, full of the things you weren’t saying.

Accusations dressed as observations.

Defenses that sounded like attacks.

Until the space between you simply ran out, and the kiss that started it was less explosion this time and more surrender -slow at first, almost reluctant, like both of you were still trying to talk yourselves out of it even as your hands moved.

He knew exactly how to touch you.

That was the terrifying part.

From the first slide of his palm up your waist under your shirt, he read your body like he’d been studying it for months in secret (because he had). The way his thumb pressed just under your ribs made your breath catch. The way he bit down on your shoulder when you tugged at his hair drew a sound from you that felt humiliatingly honest.

You knew him too -knew the tension at the base of his spine when he was trying to hold back, knew how his breath stuttered when you dragged your nails down his back, knew the exact rhythm that made his control fracture.

There was no discussion. No “what are we doing.” No neat categorization. You ended up on the floor with the lights still on, door locked and the faint smell of rubber mats and sweat in the air, clothes shoved aside rather than removed entirely because stopping felt impossible.

It was slow at first -agonizingly so- James pushing into you with a controlled patience that felt like punishment, forehead pressed to yours, eyes open the whole time. Every inch deliberate. Every roll of his hips measured to draw out the kind of sound you refused to let anyone else hear.

But it was the loudest you’ve ever felt him, deep in your bone marrow, all-consuming. Not loud, not frantic at first, but devastatingly precise.

He fucked you like he’d already memorized every map point of your pleasure and was now tracing them with ruthless focus -slow, deep strokes that made your back arch off the floor. His hand clamped gently but firmly over your mouth when your voice started to climb, because even then, even in that moment, the building and the world outside still existed. You came so hard your vision whited out at the edges, thighs shaking around his waist, and he followed shortly after with a low, broken sound against your neck, hips stuttering as he buried himself deep.

Afterward you lay there tangled on the floor, breathing hard, neither of you speaking for a long time. The weight of what had just happened settled over both of you like a second skin -intimate, terrifying, and already laced with the knowledge that this would complicate everything without solving anything.

You didn’t label it. Not that night, not ever. It simply became another layer of the thing between you: a new way to argue with your bodies instead of your words.

Sometimes it followed a fight -angry, rough, biting kisses and hands that gripped too hard, the kind of sex that felt like punishment and absolution at once.

Sometimes it happened in the quiet lulls, slower and almost tender in its exhaustion, where he would press his face into your neck and you would let yourself hold him like he was yours without ever saying it.

The toxic rhythm continued, unchanged at its core. He would disappear for days after particularly raw nights -ghosting texts, avoiding your usual corridors, throwing himself into work like distance could reset the scale. You would do the same, blocking his number for forty-eight hours only to unblock it when the silence felt worse than the fighting.

You’d show up at each other’s dorms at odd hours under flimsy excuses (a forgotten charger, a question about a stage cue, clothes left behind on purpose), and end up in his bed or against his door or in the shower with the water running loud enough to cover the sounds you couldn’t quite muffle.

He knew your body with devastating accuracy-the exact pressure on your clit that made your legs give out, the angle that had you clenching around him with a broken whimper, the way sucking on the spot just below your ear made you forget every defensive retort.

You knew his -the way his hips stuttered when you whispered filthy observations against his mouth, the way gripping the back of his neck grounded him when he got lost in his own head, the way he groaned your name like a curse and a prayer when you rode him slow and deliberate, refusing to let him rush.

It was never just sex.

It was the continuation of every conversation you refused to finish out loud. Every thrust carried the weight of ‘I see you.’ Every bite carried ‘I hate how much I need this.’

Every time he came with your name muffled against your skin, it felt like another thread tightening around the thing neither of you would name.

You kept orbiting. Fights, silence, explosive nights that left you both wrecked and temporarily softer, then more fights. The push and pull became the architecture of whatever this was -intimate, codependent, and fundamentally unresolved. Because naming it would require choosing, and choosing felt more dangerous than the endless cycle of coming together and pulling apart.

• • •

Three years had gone by.

Three years, and James was still the same.

Still the same flat delivery and assessing gaze and emotional availability of a particularly well-defended fortress. Still the same almost-smile that completed itself approximately four times a year and each time felt like being handed something rare and slightly dangerous. Still the same fluency in your pressure points, still the same precision with words when he wanted them to land somewhere specific, still the same capacity to fill a room with his particular brand of charged, difficult presence in a way that you’d never been able to adequately explain to anyone who asked.

You’d tried, once, when Hye-ri had asked you to describe what it was about him -what the actual thing was, underneath the toxicity narrative, underneath the drama, the real answer.

You’d sat with the question for a long moment and then said: he’s the most specific person I’ve ever met.

In conclusion, you were both still the same, only maybe worse.

You rolled your eyes so hard it actually hurt, tossing your phone onto the silk duvet of your bed.

Lock my doors? Who the fuck does this fucking little bitch think he is?

As if he hadn't already broken through every single one of your defenses months ago, making sure you were now opened raw and spread on a fucking platter for him - aphrodisiac foods and all.

You knew exactly what he was doing playing that toxic game where he'd insult your existence one minute and then pull you against him so tight you could feel his heartbeat the next.

Grabbing your oversized hoodie, you didn't even bother changing out of your stage makeup, the glitter still clinging to your eyelids like shimmering armor. You knew you were playing with fire, but the adrenaline of a fight was the only thing that made you feel alive lately.

Maybe that was the whole problem.

Every argument with James sent something electric through your veins, sharp and addictive, the way his jaw clenched when he was angry, the way your pulse quickened when neither of you backed down, the way every cruel word felt like a challenge thrown across a battlefield.

It was exhausting. It was toxic.

It was also the closest thing to feeling alive you had found in months.

Silence bored you. Peace made your skin itch. But a fight with James? A fight with James could have your heart hammering against your ribs so hard it felt like it was trying to escape.

It made you feel seen. Seen in the worst possible way, maybe, but seen nonetheless.

Because no one got under your skin the way he did and you hated him for it.

You hated how he could turn a harmless conversation into a screaming match. Hated how he knew exactly which buttons to push. Hated how anger always burned hotter when it was directed at him.

And maybe the sickest part was that, somewhere between the insults and slammed doors, you found yourself craving it.

Craving him.

Not because fighting felt good, but because it was the only time neither of you pretended not to care.

Ten minutes later, you were standing in the hallway of the Cortis dorms, your knuckles rapping sharply against the wood, and your keys in your hand ( which you’d hoped you could stab through his stupid face ).

The door swung open almost immediately, and there he was, hair a mess, eyes bloodshot, looking absolutely wrecked but still somehow infuriatingly handsome.

"The hell you doin' here?" James muttered, leaning heavily against the doorframe. His voice was raspy, thick with the remnants of alcohol and irritation. He looked you up and down, his gaze lingering a second too long on your legs before he scowled. "Thought you'd be tucked in at 9pm, acting all high and mighty like always.”

"You're a dick, James," you snapped, stepping past him into his space without waiting for an invitation. "Juhoon told me you were out here throwing a tantrum like a child."

"A tantrum?" He let out a dry, bitter laugh, closing the door with a heavy thud behind you. He stepped into your personal bubble, looming over you so you had to tilt your head back just to meet his eyes. The tension was thick enough to choke on that familiar, jagged energy that always preceded a blowout or a breakdown. “You’re the one who came here. I was just drunk, it wasn’t that deep.”

"Not that deep?" You scoffed, a sharp, melodic sound that felt jagged in the quiet of the dorms. You stepped closer, your chest nearly brushing his, refusing to let his height intimidate you. "You're literally texting people like a fucking psycho, James. You're embarrassing yourself."

James let out a huff, the scent of expensive whiskey and something uniquely him that warm, musky scent that always made your stomach do a traitorous flip hitting you full force.

He didn't back away. Instead, he leaned down, his face inches from yours, his eyes dark and swirling with a mix of intoxication and pure, unadulterated irritation.

"Embarrassing? Please," he sneered, his gaze dropping to your lips for a split second before snapping back to your eyes. "You love it. You love comin' over here in the middle of the night just to tell me how much of a prick I am. You're addicted to the drama, y/n. Don't even lie to yourself, that’s embarrassing."

He reached out, his fingers catching a strand of your hair, tugging it just slightly not enough to hurt, but enough to make the contact feel intentional, aggressive.

"You're so damn extra," he muttered, his voice dropping an octave, turning low and dangerous. "Walkin' in here lookin' like that...full of attitude. You think you're so untouchable, huh? Like you're too big for this shit?"

He stepped even closer, forcing you to take a half step back until the edge of his kitchen counter pressed into your lower back. He loomed over you, his presence heavy and suffocating in the best possible way.

"You're a menace," he whispered, his thumb grazing your jawline, his touch surprisingly soft compared to the venom in his words. "A tiny, loud mouthed, beautiful menace. And you're drivin' me fucking crazy."

His eyes searched yours, searching for the spark of a fight, for the retaliation he knew was coming. He was baiting you, pushing you to the edge because he knew that once you tipped over, there was no going back to being 'just friends' or 'just a situationship.'

"So, what's it gonna be tonight?" he challenged, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, though it didn't reach his eyes. "You gonna scream at me 'til your throat hurts, or are you gonna shut the fuck up and actually do something about it?"

You let out a sharp, mocking laugh, refusing to let his proximity intimidate you even as your heart thudded a frantic rhythm against your ribs.

God, he was so predictable, using his hands to distract you when he knew he was losing the verbal war.

You reached up, grabbing the front of his shirt with a white knuckled grip, pulling him down until your foreheads collided.

"You're so full of yourself, thinking i’m the only one addicted to this," you hissed, your eyes flashing with a mix of fury and hunger. "Maybe I didn't come here to scream, James. Maybe I just came to remind you exactly who it is that actually puts up with your bullshit."

Without waiting for his smug comeback, you stood on your tiptoes and crashed your lips against his, the kiss less of a romantic gesture and more of a collision hard, desperate, and tasting faintly of whiskey.

The moment your lips crashed into his, a low, guttural sound escaped the back of James's throat halfway between a groan and a growl.

He didn't do gentle. He didn't do "sweet."

The second you initiated the contact, his hands moved from your hair to your waist, his fingers digging into the fabric of your oversized hoodie with a bruising intensity, as if he were trying to pull you inside his very skin.

He kissed you back with a frantic, starving energy, his tongue sweeping against yours in a way that felt like a battle for dominance. It was messy, teeth clashing, the taste of whiskey and salt and pure, unbridled tension coating your mouth. He tasted like the chaos you both thrived in.

"Fuck," he breathed against your lips, breaking the kiss for just a fraction of a second to catch his breath, his forehead still pressed hard against yours. His eyes were blown wide, the pupils swallowing the iris, looking dark and predatory in the dim light of the apartment. "You're such a brat. Always gotta have the last word, even when you're using your mouth for somethin' else."

He didn't give you time to retort. His hands slid down from your waist, gripping your thighs and hoisting you up so you had to wrap your legs around his waist just to stay upright. He backed you up against the counter, the granite cold against your skin, but he was pure heat.

"You think you're so smart, huh?" he muttered, his lips grazing the sensitive skin just below your ear, sending a violent shiver down your spine. He nipped at your lobe, his voice dropping into that rough, drawl that always made your knees weak. "Thinkin' you can just walk in here, look all pretty and smug, and make me forget how much you pissed me off hours ago?"

He pulled back just enough to look you in the eyes, his gaze heavy and hooded, his thumb dragging roughly over your bottom lip, smearing the remnants of your lip gloss.

“I still hate you.” He declared, as if you could care less.

He leaned back in, his kiss deeper this time, more possessive, his hands roaming your body as if he were trying to memorize every inch of the girl who knew exactly how to ruin him.

A wicked, dangerous thought flickered in the back of your mind. You weren't just going to let him have his way not tonight. He thought he was the one in control, the one who could just summon you with a few drunken, messy texts and expect you to fall into his lap.

Not a chance, fucktard.

You leaned into the chaos, matching his intensity with a fervor that was almost manic, let your hands slide under his shirt, your nails grazing the skin of his back, tracing the muscles there just enough to make him hiss through his teeth. You kissed him like you were trying to consume him, your movements calculated and devastatingly effective. You knew exactly where to press, how to tilt your head, how to let your breath hitch in a way that he could feel against his skin.

You felt him react the way his breathing hitched, the way his grip on your thighs tightened until it was almost painful, and the unmistakable shift in his body as he grew hard against you. He was losing it. The smug, cocky James was being dismantled by the very person he'd spent the last hour insulting.

Just as his hands began to slide lower, just as he let out a sound that was finally pure and honest, you pulled back.

It wasn't a gradual retreat, it was a sharp, sudden break. You slid off him, your feet hitting the kitchen floor with a soft thud that felt deafening in the sudden silence.

James stumbled slightly, his hands grasping at empty air where your waist had been seconds ago. He blinked, his eyes glazed and dark, looking completely dazed and desperately needy. "Yo... where the fuck are you going'?" he rasped, his voice cracking. He reached for you, his movements uncoordinated, his face a mask of confusion and sudden, intense frustration. "Y/n, don't be a bitch. We just-"

"We just what, James?" you interrupted, your voice cool, smooth, and entirely too calm for someone who had just been devouring him. You reached up, smoothing down your oversized hoodie, your expression unreadable despite the glitter still shimmering on your eyelids. "You were 'just drunk,' remember? You said it wasn't that deep.“

You turned toward the door, a small, triumphant smirk playing on your lips that you made sure he couldn't see.

Gotcha bastard.

"Wait, hold up," he growled, stepping toward you, his chest heaving. He looked wrecked hair a disaster, lips swollen, and a look of pure, desperate irritation on his face. "You're really gonna do this? You're gonna leave me like this? That's low, even for you."

"Get used to it you manchild," you tossed over your shoulder, grabbing your keys. "You wanted a tantrum? You got one. Goodnight, James."

As you walked out the door, you could practically feel his gaze burning a hole in your back, his frustration radiating off him in waves. You knew he was standing there, probably cursing your name under his breath.

And that was exactly the point.

• • •

The next day hit like a hangover, except for the part you weren’t the one who’d been drinking.

You pushed through the revolving doors of the HYBE building with your signature Prada sunglasses perched on your nose even though the lobby lighting was soft and flattering. Your manager scurried behind you like an overworked shadow, clipboard in hand, already rattling off the day’s agenda in rapid-fire mode.

“R3SET styling at 10:30 sharp. You’re filming joint content today with Enhypen for their new single promo - dance challenge, variety games, and that ‘chemistry talk’ segment the fans love. Their company specifically requested some cross-group pairings.”

You offered her a small, tired nod instead of words, flipping your hair so the ends brushed your shoulders in a smooth motion. The echo of your shoes against the marble floors cut through the quiet hum of staff and distant practice room bass as you kept walking.

‘No need to snap at her just because you’re exhausted’ you thought to yourself. She was just doing her job in this machine that never stopped spinning. You saved your venom for people who actually deserved it.

Enhypen. Cute.

At least it wasn’t him.

Today you could breathe without the weight of last night’s wreckage pressing on your ribs.

Inside the fifth-floor styling suite reserved exclusively for R3SET, the familiar controlled chaos of the music industry machine wrapped around you like expensive perfume and hairspray. The air smelled of warm curling irons, fresh coffee from the craft table, and that signature Jo malone diffuser scent they pumped in to “set the mood.”

Clothing racks dominated one wall -today’s concept was cool, street style: oversized Adidas zip-up jackets in sleek black and washed-out grey, layered over fitted crop tops, paired with relaxed cargo pants and sneakers..

Your members were already deep in transformation mode. Mina sat regal while a senior stylist perfected her long extensions, Hye-ri was getting her nails done in a glossy blood-red, and maknae Soeun was dozing in her chair as the makeup artist contoured her cheeks into something angelic.

You dropped into the center makeup chair like you owned the entire floor, crossing your legs with a dramatic sigh.

Ji-eun, your long-time makeup artist who had survived two years of your moods, gave you a quick once-over in the mirror. “Rough night?” she asked under her breath, already squeezing primer onto her palette.

“Define rough,” you muttered, scrolling through your phone even though the notifications were painfully empty. No drunk apologies. No blocked-number workarounds. Just silence. “Just make me look… alive please.’”

Ji-eun smiled faintly. “Got it.”

Mina glanced over, lips already glossed to perfection. “You disappeared after practice yesterday. Again. You good?”

“Spectacular,” you replied, voice laced with sarcasm. “Just dealing with manchildren who think 2 am. drunk texts are romantic.”

Hye-ri’s head snapped up like a meerkat. “James again? Seriously, unnie, how many times are you two gonna do that toxic shit before one of you actually taps out?”

Never, your mind whispered traitorously.

“It’s complicated, what can i say?” You shrugged.

The memory of last night flooded in uninvited; his wrecked hair, whiskey breath, the way he’d pinned you against the counter like he wanted to disappear inside you. The triumphant click of his dorm door behind you still echoed in your chest like a victory that tasted strangely like ash.

It all felt like a blade you kept pressing into both your palms just to feel something real.

Ji-eun worked in focused silence, blending cool concealer under your eyes to erase the faint shadows of sleeplessness. She layered on a smoked-out lid with razor-sharp black wings, turning your gaze into something predatory and elegant. Your lips got a deep, venomous berry stain -kiss-proof, because your line of work demanded perfection even when your insides felt like chaos.

The K-pop content machine never stopped turning. Joint promotions like this with Enhypen were calculated gold: their sleek, powerful boy-group energy paired beautifully with R3SET’s fierce, unapologetic girl-crush concept. Dance challenges, playful variety games, forced “get-to-know-you” segments -all designed to spark fan edits and trending hashtags. Companies loved this shit. Fans ate it up.

Your phone buzzed. A staff message confirming the pairings. You didn’t bother opening it fully.

Hye-ri spun in her chair, now fully styled in a cropped metallic top that flashed under the ring lights. “Jake and Sunghoon are stupid fine. Think we’ll get paired for the couple dance segment?“

You scoffed, examining your reflection as Ji-eun finished with setting spray. The girl in the mirror looked lethal -flawless skin glowing, hair in sleek waves with strategic face-framing pieces.

But inside, something softer twisted. Last night you’d ghosted James properly after months of toxic push-and-pull. Deleted everywhere. Left him standing there wrecked. And now, even on a day that had nothing to do with Cortis, his stupid ghost lingered like expensive cologne you couldn’t wash off.

‘Let him suffer’, you thought, but the thought carried a quiet ache -like pressing on a bruise just to watch the colors bloom. Of fucking course he wouldn’t suffer, how naive could you be?

“Yeah, well,” you said aloud, voice dripping venom, “hot doesn’t fix emotional constipation. Most of these idols are better at choreography than conversation anyway.”

You had… weird ways to cope.

Soeun giggled. “Unnie, you’re so fucking scary.”

“Realistic,” you corrected, standing up as the stylists adjusted your jacket to hang off one shoulder just right.

Your manager popped her head back in. “Fifteen minutes until we head to Studio 4 with Enhypen. Smile. Be friendly. The director wants natural vibes.”

You smirked at your reflection one final time, tilting your chin.

Natural vibes.

Sure.

As R3SET filed out toward the elevators - sneakers tapping in unison, ther familiar tension coiled low in your stomach. Not because of Enhypen, but because somewhere in this same building, James was probably nursing the same bruised ego and headache you’d gifted him last night.

You wondered if he’d heard about today’s schedule.

You wondered if he’d care, which was obvious, he probably wouldn’t care.

The distant bass from practice rooms thrummed through the walls like a heartbeat. Your own heart did that stupid, traitorous flip it always did when your thoughts drifted to him -equal parts hate and hunger, wrapped in the prettiest shade of toxicity.

This is going to be a long day, you thought, a small, but at least today, the battlefield didn’t have his name on it.

You stepped into Studio 4 with a soft smile, the bright lights warming your face as you adjusted the oversized zip-up jacket hanging casually off one shoulder. The polished floors reflected the group’s energy, professional. and you gave a little wave to everyone already there, your glittery eyelids catching the light in a subtle shimmer.

Your members moved around you comfortably- Mina offering polite hellos, Hye-ri stretching with a laugh, and Soeun rubbing her eyes sleepily. You felt that familiar pre-filming flutter in your stomach, not quite nerves but a quiet excitement mixed with the weight of last night still lingering like a faint bruise.

The Enhypen boys were clustered near the craft table, looking sharp in their coordinated streetwear. Jake noticed you first and flashed that warm, dimpled smile. “Hey! So glad you guys made it.”

You returned the smile easily, tilting your head with a small laugh. “Hi, yeah, we’re excited to be here. Thanks for having us, the new song is amazing, by the way.”

Okay, just breathe and be normal. No need to overthink this, you thought, suspicious they’d read through your mind and find out just how much of a crazy bitch you were.

Your manager gave you an approving nod as you kept things light and friendly, your members chatting politely with them.

Sunghoon offered you a curt nod, while Heeseung bowed politely. Jungwon, the leader, stepped forward with easy warmth. “I watched some of your latest stages y/n! The dance machine herself- it’s really cool to finally collab like this.”

Dance machine. The nickname always made you duck your head a little, cheeks warming with humble pride. You’d earned it through endless hours in practice rooms, pushing your body until the music felt like it lived in your bones, but you never let it go to your head.

“Ah, stop, you’re too sweet,” you said with a shy grin, waving it off. “I’m just happy to dance with all of you. And Riki and i gotta live up to the title of best dancers of this generation.”

You caught Riki’s eye across the group and gave him a friendly fist bump when he approached, his tall frame and sharp grin matching your energy in the best way. There was an easy respect between you two, no awkwardness, just shared love for the craft.

“Yeah i’m sure we could never disappoint” Riki said, voice low and teasing but kind.

“Pretty sure we won’t,” you replied softly, smiling wide. “I’ve been practicing that footwork you posted last month - it’s killer.”

The director clapped his hands, calling everyone into position before the conversation could continue.

“Alright! Starting with the dance challenge for the ‘Bite me’ remix. Let’s keep it natural, lots of energy and good vibes.”

The cameras started rolling, and you moved with effortless grace, your body syncing to the heavy bass like it was second nature. Every sharp isolation, every smooth body roll, every powerful pop flowed out of you warmly, drawing quiet cheers from the staff. Riki matched you perfectly, the two of you creating that unspoken chemistry that made the dance feel alive. During the partner section, his hand guided your waist for a small lift- professional, precise, and supportive.

Between takes, you found yourself chatting with Riki near the water station. He leaned against the wall, wiping sweat from his brow with a towel. “Your timing on that pre-chorus footwork is insane. How do you even make the transitions feel so natural?”

You smiled, twisting open your water bottle and taking a sip. “Lots of late nights pushing it until it clicked, honestly. But you’re incredible too - you know that ankle detail you added? I tried stealing it for our teaser, but it looked mid.” A soft, genuine laugh escaped you.

It felt refreshing, this easy conversation without any sharp edges. God, when was the last time talking to someone didn’t feel like walking through a minefield?

Your mind drifted traitorously back to James, as it always seemed to do. He would’ve noticed already -the single rebellious lash at the outer corner of your right eye that curled upward like a tiny black wing, refusing to cooperate no matter how carefully Ji-eun applied the mascara. It looked like deliberate eyeliner flair, but it wasn’t. James knew that.

He noticed everything about you: the way you favored your left hip when it tightened from over-practice, the specific tilt of your head when you were holding back a real smile, the faint scar on your knuckle from that mic stand incident two years ago.

Even in the midst of chaos, he saw the small things that made you feel truly seen… and that was part of what made everything so complicated.

You shook the thought away gently (aggressively) as the director called for the variety games segment. The group split into mixed teams for the silly relays -balloon passing with no hands, quick karaoke bits, and freestyle dance prompts. You ended up with Jake and Riki, fumbling through the challenges with plenty of laughter and when it was your turn to freestyle, Riki kicked it off with intricate footwork that had everyone clapping. You followed with fluid waves and isolations, keeping it playful and encouraging the others, the cameras rolled capturing the brotherly energy that Enhypen had towards your members and you.

This was fun, better than sulking all day because of some self centered prick-

Jungwon laughed from the sidelines. “You really are the dance machine. That was so smooth!”

You blushed a little, smiling shyly. “Thanks, but you guys killed it too, no really.”

The chemistry talk segment wrapped things up, everyone sitting in a loose circle on the studio floor with mics clipped on. The questions started light -favorite collabs, funny stage fails, dream variety show ideas. Hye-ri’s dramatic reactions had the whole group giggling. Then it shifted to partnerships.

“So, y/n and Riki,” the MC staff prompted with a friendly smile. “You two are always trending for your dance collabs. What’s it like working together?”

Riki glanced at you thoughtfully. “She pushes everyone to be better. It’s easy to sync up cause i feel like we both catch the little details that make a performance special.”

You nodded, smiling softly as you tucked a strand of hair behind your ear. “He’s right. It’s nice when someone just… gets the feeling behind the moves. And Riki’s always so encouraging, like a brother,- i learn a lot from him.” You gave his shoulder a light, friendly nudge and the laughter that followed felt natural, the cameras capturing the easy, likeable vibe the director wanted.

Filming wrapped with group photos, warm goodbyes, and promises of future collabs and some Enhypen members filed out first, waving cheerfully.

You were gathering your things, slinging your bag over your shoulder with a content sigh, when the studio door opened briefly.

James walked past in the hallway, probably heading somewhere else in the building, his messy hair and sharp jawline unmistakable even from a distance. His eyes flicked inside the studio and landed on you- specifically on you chatting animatedly with Riki near the exit, the two of you still exchanging quick notes about the choreography with easy smiles.

You didn’t see him at first, but the familiar pull in your chest hit anyway.

His expression tightened for a split second -something unreadable- before he kept walking. You caught the movement out of the corner of your eye too late, your smile faltering just a touch as that toxic mix of ache and hunger twisted quietly inside you again.

You adjusted the strap of your bag on your shoulder, the oversized hoodie slipping a little further down your arm, and waved goodbye to the other members as they headed off to their next schedule. Jake shot you a thumbs-up, and you waved back with both hands, cheeks still carrying that post-filming flush.

Being kind came naturally most days -it was easier to smile and lift others up than to sharpen your words like weapons- but moments like this reminded you how fragile that calm could be when James was involved.

Not that you actually gave a fuck.

Your members gathered around you near the mirrors as staff began packing up equipment. Mina tilted her head, noticing the tiny shift in your expression. “You okay, unnie? You looked like you were having fun with Riki earlier.”

You let out a soft breath and smiled again, this one a little smaller but still real. “Yeah, I’m good. It was really fun. Riki’s so talented -it’s nice when you can just… dance without thinking and all that corny stuff.”

“You two are literally the dance machine duo everyone talks about. I swear, the way you synced up? Chef’s kiss. But seriously, you’ve been a little spacey today.” Hye-ri slung an arm around your shoulders, her blood-red nails flashing under the lights. “Is it because of… looser king?”

Looser king was the -ridiculous and childish- nickname you’d given James, it was some sort of code name to make it easier to speak about him under full confidentiality. But you were pretty sure James was aware that he was in fact the looser king.

Soeun perked up from where she was sipping her water, eyes wide and curious. “Wait, James again? Unnie, you gotta tell us the full story one day. You always come back from seeing him looking like you got into a fight with 10 elephants or something.”

You ducked your head with a shy laugh, tucking that stubborn strand of hair behind your ear again. The rebellious lash at the outer corner of your right eye caught in the mirror’s reflection -curling upward just enough to look like intentional liner flair. You knew James would have zeroed in on it instantly if he’d been closer.

It was scary, really -how someone who drove you so crazy could still make you feel more seen than the thousands of fans screaming your name.

Why does he have to notice the small things? It would be easier if he just… didn’t, you thought.

Screw that, it would be easier if he just fucking died.

“I don’t know,” you admitted quietly to your members, voice kind and a little vulnerable as you all started walking toward the elevators. “It’s complicated. He texts something messy at 2 a.m., i show up like an idiot, and then… well, you know. But today was nice. No drama, just dancing and laughing with good people. I’m tryna keep it that way.”

Hye-ri squeezed your shoulder supportively. “You deserve easy days, unnie. You work harder than anyone I know. Him on the other hand? He deserves to get properly beaten up.”

The compliment warmed you, but the last comment made you even happier, and you bumped her lightly with your hip, grinning. “Stop, you’re gonna make me blush in front of the staff, i’m gonna start thinking it’s okay to beat men up sometimes.”

Inside your head, though, the gremlin of misconduct whispered: “Beat him up until he can’t even curse at you anymore. Violence IS the answer.”

•••

As you rode the elevator down, the distant bass from other practice rooms vibrated through the walls like a comforting heartbeat.

Your phone buzzed in your pocket -a staff message about the next schedule and a few fan edits already popping up from previous projects. You looked through the myriad of comments, some outstandingly mean for no reason, but some comforting.

And every few seconds your mind circled back to James standing in that hallway, jaw tight, eyes locked on you like he couldn’t look away.

He’d seen the easy smile you gave Riki, the open body language, the way you were genuinely enjoying yourself without the usual push-and-pull.

You wondered if he’d text again tonight. If you’d answer. If you’d end up right back where you started -face down in his bed or storming out his door.

For now, though, you zipped up your hoodie a little higher and followed your members out into the lobby, offering small smiles and waves to passing staff. Self control was a beautiful invention. Because you were about 99% sure that without it, you’d be yelling at everyone by now.

Mina walked on your left, her long extensions swaying elegantly with each step like a living curtain of silk, one hand absently twirling a strand around her finger in that regal quirk of hers that always made her look like she belonged in a drama scene even during casual walks. At 24, she carried herself with this quiet, big-sister poise that somehow made everyone around her feel steadier.

Hye-ri, on your right, bounced along with her usual energetic flair, her freshly done blood-red nails flashing like warning signs every time she gestured wildly, cracking her knuckles with a satisfying pop that made Soeun cringe beside her. At 20, Hye-ri was the spark plug of R3SET -bold, dramatic, but with a heart so big it could probably power the entire building’s sound system.

“I swear, y/n-unnie, you and Riki looked like you were born to share a stage, it’s so sad fans would make rumors if you guys collabed… Meanwhile, I was over here trying not to drop that balloon on Jake’s head during the relay. Did you see his face? Poor guy went full puppy eyes.” She let out a bright, infectious laugh that turned a few heads in the lobby, slinging her arm around your shoulders again in that casual, protective way she had.

Inside your head, a funny little voice chimed in: Hye-ri’s nails could probably slice through tension like butter. If only they could cut through my James-induced brain fog too.

Maknae Soeun trailed just behind, rubbing at her eyes with the heel of her hand in her signature sleepy way, her angelic contoured cheeks still flushed from the variety games. At 19, she was all wide-eyed curiosity mixed with this adorable habit of dozing off mid-conversation if things got too calm, only to pop back awake with the most random questions.

“Can we get snacks on the way back? My stomach’s doing that rumble thing again.” She patted her belly dramatically.

As your manager’s van pulled up to the curb, Hye-ri hopped in first, dramatically claiming the back seat with a flourish of her red nails.

“Shotgun for snacks! Soeun, no falling asleep on my shoulder this time -you drool.”

Soeun climbed in after her with a sleepy protest and a giggle, “I don’t. Only time i did that was cause i was exhausted.”

Mina slid in gracefully beside you in the middle row, her extensions pooling neatly as she offered you a piece of gum from her bag -another one of her quiet caring quirks, always prepared with little comforts, her eyes flicking to you with that perceptive big-sister intuition.

You accepted it with a grateful smile, popping the minty gum into your mouth as the van merged into traffic. “Thanks, Mina. Seriously, you all made today feel easy, no pressure, just… dancing and laughing. It’s been a while since it felt that light, you guys are the best.”

The girls smiled at you, Hye-ri pulling you into a side hug as the van settled.

The city lights started blurring past the windows as evening crept in, and Soeun’s head was already starting to tilt toward Hye-ri’s shoulder despite her earlier denial. Hye-ri just rolled her eyes fondly, adjusting so the maknae could rest comfortably -her tough exterior hiding the softest spot for the youngest.

“You know,” Hye-ri said after a beat, voice dropping into something more sincere as she looked at you, “whatever’s going on with James… you don’t have to figure it out alone, you know that right?”

You leaned your head against the cool window, watching the streets pass in a gentle rhythm, and let out a small self-deprecating laugh.

“I know. And I appreciate it more than you guys realize. He’s just… he’s so weird. And so i get weird too, it’s a never ending cycle. And it’s kinda…complicated. ”

The van filled with understanding hums and a few teasing but kind jabs from Hye-ri about “toxic hot boys,” but you just refused to categorize him as that. He was mean, and rude, and moody, but toxic?

Was it really toxic if you wanted it that much?

• • •

You stepped into the dorm after what felt like an eternity, the heavy door clicking shut behind you with a sigh of relief.

The familiar scent of vanilla candles and the faint trace of Hye-ri’s strawberry body spray wrapped around you like a hug you didn’t know you needed. She always had this way of spraying the sweetest scents that reminded you of your childhood, back when you weren’t this tormented by fat CEOs (bang pd yes) and executives.

The living room was dimly lit by the string lights Soeun had insisted on hanging last month -soft golden glows that made the space feel less like a high-end prison and more like an actual home. You kicked off your sneakers, letting them thud against the shoe rack, and padded toward your room in socked feet, the cool hardwood a small mercy against your aching soles.

“Unnie, don’t stay up too late doing black magic on James, we’ve got early meetings tomorrow.” Hye-ri called from the kitchen.

She was already raiding the fridge for late-night snacks (cucumbers since the company had made her go on an -unnecessary- diet) Her voice carried that signature playful lilt, the one that always made you snort even when you were drained.

She was teasing you about the last fan rumors: people claiming they’d seen you do black magic on other idols at an award show; when you’d thought black magic meant the kind of princess-and-pony magic that people of color did.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll try not to summon any demons or illuminati…” you shot back, voice tired but teasing.

In your room, you peeled off the oversized hoodie and cargo pants, tossing them into the laundry hamper with more force than necessary. The glitter on your eyelids had survived the day surprisingly well, but it was time to let the armor come off.

You headed straight for the bathroom, twisting the faucet until steam rose in lazy curls. The tub filled slowly as you added a generous scoop of Epsom salts and a few drops of lavender oil -the good stuff your manager had gifted after that brutal comeback week. Sinking into the hot water felt like sinking into oblivion, the heat seeped into your muscles, loosening the knots from hours of dancing and the invisible tension James always left coiled in your chest.

Somehow it all came back to him. Even when it wasn’t inherently about him. God, just one night without thinking about that walking glob of spit and dust, you thought, tilting your head back against the cool porcelain edge while bubbles popped softly around you.

You scrolled through your phone with damp fingers -harmless stuff: fan edits, a few memes Soeun had sent in the group chat, a skincare tutorial that promised to fix “tired eyes.”

For once, James didn’t dominate every corner of your brain. You let yourself float there, eyes half-closed, humming the melody of Enhypen’s new track under your breath.

After the bath, skin flushed and smelling like an Ulta store, you wrapped yourself in a fluffy robe and tackled your mini skincare ritual. Double cleanse, toner, serums layered like a protective spell - your makeup artist Ji-Eun would be proud. You even did the gua sha thing Mina swore by, rolling the cool stone along your jawline while staring at your reflection.

Energized by the warm water and the rare quiet, you settled at your desk in soft lounge shorts and a cropped tank, laptop open.

You had a half-finished lyrics draft for a potential solo track- something about wanting what you shouldn’t. Your fingers hovered over the keys, then dove in, you tweaked melodies on your keyboard setup, layering soft synths over a moody bassline. Time slipped away pleasantly, during which for a solid hour, James was just background noise, a faint echo rather than the main track.

You even laughed at yourself when a particularly cheesy line came out - “heart like a battlefield, but damn if I don’t love the war” -and deleted it immediately. Cringe. But accurate.

Your phone buzzed on the desk beside you, the screen lighting up with a new message. You glanced over, expecting a text from the members’ group chat or a staff alert.

Instead, it was from him. James.

The preview showed an image attachment. Your stomach did that annoying little flip despite everything, what could he possibly have to say that fit into a singular photo?

You opened it. There, in crystal clear detail, was his hand -long fingers, veins prominent, the same hand that had gripped your thighs last night- holding up a pair of familiar red lace panties.

Your red lace panties. The delicate ones with the tiny bow at the front.

Forgot these at my place last week, brat. Figured you might want them back.

Your face heated instantly. That smug fucking asshole.

You could practically hear his raspy voice saying it, that low drawl laced with mockery. You stared at the photo, thumb hovering over the screen.

The panties looked small in his grip, almost fragile against the rough masculinity of his hand. Heat pooled low in your belly uninvited before you locked the phone and set it face down, refusing to give him the satisfaction of an immediate reply.

Ignore. Let him stew.

You tried going back to your lyrics, but the words blurred, then came another buzz, and against your better judgment, you checked.

The same red lace panties, now wrapped tightly around his very hard cock. The fabric stretched obscenely over the thick length, the lace pattern visible where it strained. His hand was gripping the base, thumb pressing just below the head. The lighting in his room was low, shadows accentuating every ridge and vein.

“Fuck,” you whispered aloud, thighs pressing together instinctively, not without a bit of annoyance. Your pulse kicked up, a traitorous warmth spreading between your legs. The image was burned into your retinas now -raw, deliberate and meant to ruin your peace. You typed back quickly, fingers flying:

You: You’re actually deranged. Delete those.

Then, because you couldn’t help poking the bear:

And stop stealing my shit, you klepto

You waited. The typing bubbles appeared… then disappeared with no response. Minutes ticked by. Nothing. You refreshed the chat like an idiot, heart hammering.

Of fucking course. He starts the fire and walks away. This was his sick revenge for yesterday.

The ache between your thighs grew insistent, slick and frustrating. You shifted in your chair, trying to focus on anything else- your laptop, the half-written chorus... But all you could picture was him, lounging in his bed, smirking at his phone while you sat here wet and bothered.

Eventually, you gave up, you brushed your teeth aggressively, changed into an oversized sleep shirt, and crawled into bed.

The sheets felt too warm, too smooth against your sensitized skin, you felt like you were about to blow up any minute, taunt nipples brushing against the mattress. You tossed and turned, the image replaying behind your closed eyelids, his hand, the lace. The way he’d looked at you last night -desperate and furious and hungry all at once.

Your hand slipped under the covers once, hovering, but you stopped yourself with a groan, ‘Not giving him that power tonight.’

• • •

Morning light filtered through your curtains, soft and golden. Your alarm hadn’t even gone off yet when your phone vibrated on the nightstand. Groggy, you reached for it, rubbing sleep from your eyes. And who better than an entitled motherfucker to wake you up when things are already going downhill.

James : Two can play that game, you brat.

You stared at the screen, a slow smile tugging at your lips despite the fresh wave of heat low in your stomach. The dynamic between you two was a live wire -dangerous, addictive, impossible to quit cold turkey.

He pushed, you pushed back harder; he teased, you left him wrecked; he ignored, and you burned.

You : Keep dreaming. Those panties are yours now. Consider it a parting gift.

You set the phone down, stretching languidly under the covers, body still humming from last night’s unresolved tension.

You wondered how long it would take before one of you cracked again.

James : They were already mine, finders keeper.

• • •

The HYBE lobby was already in full morning swing when you pushed through the revolving doors, the familiar sensory assault of cold air conditioning, distant bass lines, and the sharp scent of coffee hitting you all at once. You had your phone pressed against your ear, pretending to be on a call so no one would stop you for small talk, which was a technique you’d perfected to a fine art over the years. Your manager walked three steps behind you, mercifully quiet for once, scrolling through her own device.

You hadn’t replied to James’s last text yet.

That was a choice. A very deliberate, very painful choice, like holding your hand over a candle flame just to prove you could. You were fully aware that the longer you waited, the more it would eat at him, and the thought of James checking his phone every ten minutes with that jaw-tight, eye-twitching irritation he got when he was being ignored made something deeply petty bloom in your chest like a very satisfied flower.

You were not above petty. You had built an entire personality around it.

The elevator dinged open on the third floor and you stepped out into the corridor that ran between the mid-size practice rooms, the ones with the slightly better sound systems that the senior acts got priority access to.

You were scanning your schedule on your phone, half reading, half still replaying his text in your head - two can play that game, you brat- when you nearly walked directly into Park Sunghoon’s elbow.

“Whoa, sorry-” he started, stepping back.

“No, my fault,” you said automatically, phone disappearing into your pocket like you weren’t supposedly on a call, as you offered him a polite smile. He looked mildly alarmed in the way that extremely handsome people sometimes did when they accidentally inconvenienced someone, like they were genuinely surprised their existence had physical consequences. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

“Neither was I,” he said easily, readjusting the water bottle under his arm. “Good collab yesterday. You and Riki make everyone else look like they’re moving through concrete.”

“You’re being modest, your lines yesterday were clean,” you said, and meant it.

You headed in opposite directions with nothing more than a nod, which you appreciated. Sunghoon had always struck you as someone who understood the value of not overstaying a conversation. You could respect that.

You were halfway down the hall when you felt it before you saw it -that specific shift in the air quality that your nervous system had apparently been trained, like a very stupid Pavlovian dog, to recognize.

James was coming from the other direction. He had his hood up, headphones around his neck, a coffee in one hand, and the particular walk he had when he’d slept badly -slightly slower than usual, shoulders carrying extra tension, jaw working like he was grinding through something mentally. He looked like a weather system. Specifically, the kind with a rotating center and a name assigned by meteorologists.

You didn’t slow down. Neither did he. You passed each other with approximately forty centimeters of clearance and zero words exchanged.

His eyes slid to yours for exactly one second -dark, unreadable, and annoyingly direct -before you both looked away simultaneously, with the practiced indifference of two people who had touched each other’s skin less than thirty-six hours ago and were now pretending to be strangers in a hallway.

You turned the corner and stood still for two full seconds. “Cool, you thought. “Great. Fantastic. Incredible start to the day.”

Your phone buzzed, and you stared at the screen with the expression of someone watching a car roll slowly into a ditch.

You pocketed your phone with more force than necessary and pushed open the door to Practice Room 3B, where Mina was already stretching in the center of the floor with the serene, unhurried energy of someone who had slept eight full hours and woken up without a single unresolved situationship weighing on their conscience.

It must be nice, you thought, not for the first time, to be Mina.

“You good?” she asked, not looking up from where she was bent over one extended leg, her long extensions fanned across the floor.

“Perfect,” you said, tossing your bag toward the mirror wall. “Completely, entirely, one hundred percent fine.”

She looked up at that, because after 3 years Mina could identify the specific frequency of your lies with the accuracy of military-grade sonar. One perfectly shaped eyebrow climbed toward her hairline.

“Looser king?” she asked.

“Passed him in the hallway.”

“And?”

“Nothing. We didn’t talk.”

Mina made a small, diplomatic humming sound that somehow communicated, I have opinions about this but I love you so I won’t say them right now, which was honestly one of her most advanced social skills. She uncurled from her stretch and stood up with effortless grace. “Hye-ri’s getting coffee downstairs, Soeun already called in that she’s running fifteen minutes behind because she fell back asleep.”

“So out of character,” you said, and meant it with great affection but with extreme sarcasm.

You pulled up the playlist for your current practice track and dropped into a stretch of your own, letting the familiar burn in your hamstrings pull your focus back into your body and away from the seven-layer cake of annoyance currently occupying the front of your mind. Music drifted from the Bluetooth speaker -a pre-release track you’d been given early for choreography study, something with a heavy trap undercurrent and a melody that kept catching on a particular interval you found compelling. You hummed along absently, working through your warm-up sequence.

The thing about dancing -the real thing, the thing you couldn’t explain to people who didn’t do it-was that it required your entire brain. Not just the motor cortex doing its job, but everything: musicality, spatial awareness, emotional translation, split-second physical decision-making.

When you were actually in it, properly in it, there was no room for anything else. No James, no red lace photographs, no hallway eye contact that lasted exactly one second too long to be purely coincidental.

The problem was warm-up. Warm-up was not properly in it yet. Warm-up left your mind running parallel tracks, which meant James had real estate in your head and was currently doing absolutely nothing productive with it.

The door banged open.

“I got oat milk lattes and one matcha because Mina will make that face at me if I don’t.” Hye-ri swept in with a drink carrier, her red nails vivid against the cardboard, wearing a cropped sweatshirt that said PROBLEMS across the chest in block letters that you privately thought was too on the nose for a Tuesday morning.

She set the carrier down and looked between you and Mina with the swift social intelligence of someone who’d grown up reading rooms as a survival skill. “What’d I miss?”

“She passed ‘looser king’ in the hallway,” Mina said, accepting her matcha.

Hye-ri turned to you with the expression of a scientist observing a very predictable chemical reaction. “And?”

“Why does everyone keep asking ‘and’ like something interesting happened?” you said, taking your latte. “Nothing happened. We walked past each other. That’s it.”

“Did you make eye contact?”

“Err… briefly.”

“Did it kill you?”

“A little bit.”

“Okay yeah that tracks.” She dropped onto the floor beside you, tucking her legs into a butterfly stretch. “You know what your problem is? You’re too proud to be the first one to crack and he knows it”

You took a long sip of your latte and stared at the middle distance. “I really need you to not be right about this.”

“Unfortunately,” she said brightly, “I am almost always right. It’s actually a burden how smart and on the point i am.”

“Tragic,” Mina said, very quietly, into her matcha.

The door opened again and Soeun stumbled in looking like she’d been reassembled from several different directions, her hair in a lopsided bun and her bag hanging off one shoulder at an angle that suggested gravity was also conspiring against her this morning. “I’m here, I’m here -the alarm got delayed.. AND I fell asleep, it wasn’t just the falling asleep part-”

“We know,” the three of you said simultaneously.

She dropped her bag and looked at you with sudden alertness, the way she sometimes snapped into clarity completely at random, like a phone screen turning on when you weren’t expecting it. “Did something happen with looser king?”

You looked at the ceiling. “Everyone mind your business,” you said, with all the conviction of someone who was absolutely going to tell them everything eventually and knew it.

Practice went well, which it usually did when you threw yourself into it with the emotional displacement energy you’d developed over years. By the time your choreographer ran you through the new bridge section for the fourth time, you’d stopped thinking in words entirely and were operating purely on music and muscle memory, which was exactly where you liked to be.

Soeun caught the hip accent on the pre-chorus after several attempts and let out a delighted noise that made everyone in the room smile, because Soeun happy about a breakthrough was one of those genuinely contagious joys that didn’t require any context.

Your phone stayed in your bag during practice. That was the rule -the one rule you actually kept consistently. Whatever chaos was happening in the outside world, the practice room was the one place that remained clean.

When you finally surfaced two and a half hours later, sweaty and pleasantly wrung out, you had three messages from James waiting. You sat on the floor against the mirror wall to cool down, water bottle in hand, and read them in order.

James: you know what’s funny

James: you walking out the other day like that

James: pretty sure that’s the most attention you’ve ever paid me

You looked at the screen for a long moment. That was more honest than anything he usually sent.

He wouldn’t have said that if he’d thought it through. He was more careful than that when he was composed. Which meant he’d sent it before he was fully composed, which meant he’d been thinking about it for a while.

You: that’s the saddest thing you’ve ever said to me. and you once told me my stage presence was “mid” so that’s saying something

His reply came in thirty seconds, which told you everything.

James: i was drunk when i said that

You: you’re always drunk when you say the things that actually matter

James: don’t psychoanalyze me before noon

You: it’s 11:47

James: close enough

You: James.

A pause. Longer than the previous ones.

Your chest did the thing it did sometimes -the complicated clench that wasn’t quite longing and wasn’t quite anger but lived in the narrow territory between them where nothing was comfortable and everything was too warm.

James: come get your panties back

You let out a sound that was caught precisely between a laugh and a frustrated groan.

Hye-ri looked up from where she was re-taping her fingers and you held up a hand: don’t ask.

She held both hands up: wasn’t going to. You both knew that was a lie.

You: burn them. keep them. donate them to a museum. I don’t fucking care.

James: you care, you love these panties.

You: I really don’t anymore now that i know you had your filthy hands on it.

James: same hands that had you bent over just last week.

You put your phone face down on the floor and pressed your palms to your eyes.

The maddening, infuriating, genuinely impressive thing about James was that he was a cruel asshole but also so particularly interesting.

You knew the way his mood shifted when he was actually upset versus performing irritation, the minute tension around his eyes that appeared before a real argument. You knew he held his coffee cup with two hands in the morning even though it wasn’t heavy enough to need two hands. You knew he got quieter, not louder, when something actually got to him, and that the loud version -the insults and the jaw clenching and the aggressive proximity- was almost always armor.

You knew his armor better than most people knew his face.

That was the problem, distilled to its ugliest and most honest form. You knew each other too well for any of the distance to actually work. Every exit you staged, every blocked number, every time you walked out his door with something that felt like triumph and tasted like loss- he could see through it. And you could see through his.

It was like trying to hide from someone who had your exact same prescription lenses.

You picked up your phone.

You: fine. I’ll come get them. but if you say anything stupid I’m leaving immediately.

James: define stupid

You: anything that comes out of your mouth

James: so you’re definitely leaving immediately

You: yeah probably

James: tonight?

You: yeah. tonight.

You locked your phone and stood up, rolling your neck until it cracked satisfyingly, and gathered your bag from the corner. Soeun was demonstrating something to Hye-ri near the mirror, both of them half-watching you with the transparent subtlety of people who had not been watching you at all and definitely hadn’t seen any of that.

Mina was on the phone across the room, not looking at you, which was actually the most suspicious thing she could have done.

“Practice is over,” you announced to no one in particular. “Everyone go be beautiful normal people somewhere else.”

“We live with you,” Soeun pointed out helpfully.

“Then go be beautiful normal people in our home.”

“You’re going to see him tonight, aren’t you,” Hye-ri said. It wasn’t a question.

Her blood-red nails caught the overhead lighting as she crossed her arms, expression somewhere between fond and long-suffering, like a person watching their favourite disaster film for the eleventh time. They already knew the ending and were choosing to watch anyway.

You slung your bag over your shoulder, in an exaggerated professional tone “I’m going to retrieve personal property that was stolen from me.”

“In the middle of the night.”

“Theft doesn’t have business hours, Hye-ri.”

She pointed at you with one finger. “You’re going to come home and either look like you got thoroughly fucked or like someone ran you over, and either way I want a full debrief.”

“Absolutely not,” you said, heading for the door.

“I’m setting an alarm!” she called after you.

You waved your hand without turning around, and the door swung shut behind you, and you stood in the corridor for a moment in the particular specific quiet of having made a decision you knew was probably not wise and were going to make anyway, because some gravitational fields were simply too strong to resist with willpower alone.

• • •

The Cortis dorms were exactly as chaotic as they always were at nine in the evening.

You could hear them before you even reached the floor -the specific layered noise of young men ( more like boys) existing loudly and simultaneously, someone’s music bleeding through a closed door, the distant sound of what was either a heated gaming session or a genuine argument, and the unmistakable smell of instant ramen drifting into the corridor like an olfactory welcome mat.

You’d changed before coming. Not dramatically -you weren’t about to give James the satisfaction of thinking you’d dressed for him- but you’d swapped the practice sweats for a pair of black sweatpants and a top that your members’ stylist had described as “effortless,” which felt appropriate. Hair down, lip tint, the same pair of sneakers you’d been wearing all day because you genuinely could not be bothered to perform any harder than this.

You were here on an errand. A retrieval mission.

A very normal, very emotionally uncomplicated visit to collect an item of personal property from a person you definitely did not have complicated feelings about.

This was a lie and you were aware of it.

You raised your knuckles to knock on the main dorm entrance when the door swung open from the inside, and you came face to face with Seonghyeon, who was clearly on his way out with his gym bag and had not been expecting you.

“Oh,” he said. “Hey.”

“Hey,” you said.

A beat of the specific silence that existed between people who knew each other primarily through someone else’s drama.

“He’s in his room,” Seonghyeon offered.

“Cool,” you said. “Thanks.”

He held the door open for you and left, which you appreciated enormously. You stepped inside, where the living room was occupied by Martin on the couch with a controller and Keonho eating ramen at the kitchen counter with the focused energy of someone treating their meal as a professional obligation. Martin glanced up, did a small double take, and then looked back at his screen, Keonho lifted his chopsticks in a gesture that you interpreted as a greeting and possibly also a salute.

“He knows you’re coming?” Keonho asked, not unkindly.

“Allegedly,” you said.

“Cool.” He went back to his ramen. No further questions. You appreciated the Cortis members’ collective commitment to minding their own affairs, which was either a very mature group dynamic or a survival mechanism developed from living with James the tyrant.

You knocked on his door with three sharp raps- not soft, never soft, softness at James’s door felt like conceding something- and waited.

“It’s open,” he called, and his voice was that particular texture it had in the evenings, slightly lower, the performance of the day worn off the edges of it.

You opened the door.

His room was dim, lit by the lamp on his desk and the ambient glow of his monitor, which had a paused game on the screen. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, elbows on his knees, wearing a black hoodie and sweats, hair doing the specific unstyled thing it did when he’d showered and not thought about it afterward. He looked up when you walked in and said nothing for a moment, just looked at you with that dark, assessing gaze that always felt like being weighed against something.

“You actually came,” he said.

“I said I would.”

“You say a lot of things.”

“So do you,” you said, stepping inside and letting the door fall mostly shut behind you. You crossed your arms, staying near the door, because proximity to James in a dimly lit room after nine pm was a variable that required careful management. “Where are they?”

One corner of his mouth moved. Not quite a smile. Something more infuriating than a smile. He reached to the nightstand beside his bed without breaking eye contact and held up the red lace, dangling from one finger with a casual ease that made your jaw tighten.

“You came all the way here for these,” he said.

“You made a whole deal out of having them,” you said. “Don’t act so surprised.”

“I’m not surprised.” He set them down on the bed beside him, which meant you’d have to get closer to take them, obviously intentional.

You stared at him for a moment with the knowledge that you saw exactly what was happening and was choosing to walk into it anyway, because what was the alternative - admitting you couldn’t get within arm’s reach of him without losing structural integrity?

Absolutely the fuck not.

You sprint-crossed the room and picked them up.

He caught your wrist. Not hard -barely any pressure at all, really- just the curl of his fingers around your wrist bone in that specific way that your nervous system had apparently mapped and catalogued for immediate betrayal, because your pulse spiked before your brain had even fully processed the contact.

“You’re just gonna leave,” he said. It wasn’t quite a question.

“That was the plan,” you said.

“You’re not going to say anything.”

“I said plenty today. Over text. Which you started, by the way, with your little stupid photos.”

“You could have ignored them.”

“How does one possibly ignore a dick pic?”

“Fair,” His thumb moved slightly against the inside of your wrist, slow and thoughtless in the way that was somehow worse than deliberate.

He was looking up at you from where he sat, which was a strange reversal of the usual geometry between you, and something about it stripped away one of the standard layers of defense.

“You wanna fight?” he asked.

“I always wanna fight with you,” you said honestly.

“Yeah.” A pause. “Me too.”

You looked at him. He looked at you. The lamp threw warm shadows across the angles of his face, and the ramen smell from the kitchen was faintly detectable even here; somewhere down the hall someone scored a goal based on the brief eruption from the living room, and none of it touched the specific atmosphere of this room, which had its own weather system entirely.

“Come here,” he said, quietly. Not commanding, not performing - just that, two words with the pretense stripped out, and that was the version of James that was the most genuinely dangerous because it was the one you couldn’t construct a defense against.

You let the red lace fall from your fingers like it had burned you, the fabric whispering against the nightstand as it landed. James didn’t move at first. He just watched you with that half-lidded stare, the one that always made the air feel thicker, heavier, like the room itself was leaning in.

Then his hand was on your wrist again, firmer this time, tugging you down until your knees hit the edge of the bed between his spread thighs.

You went willingly. That was the worst part -you always went.

His other hand came up to your jaw, thumb pressing just under your chin to tilt your face toward his. “You’re pissed,” he murmured, voice low enough that it vibrated against your skin.

“So are you.”

“Yeah.” His grip tightened, not enough to hurt but enough to remind you he could. “Come here and be pissed with me, then.”

You kissed him first, skill issue. It was immediate, messy, all teeth and frustration, the kind of kiss that felt like an argument with no words. His mouth was hot, demanding, tasting faintly of the mint he’d probably chewed to cover the taste of whatever he’d been stress-eating earlier.

You climbed into his lap without breaking it, knees bracketing his hips, hands fisting in the front of his hoodie like you wanted to rip it off and strangle him with it at the same time.

His hands settled on your hips, fingers flexing against the soft fabric of your sweatpants. Not pulling, not yet. Just holding. Testing.

“You really came all this way just to pretend you don’t want this,” he said, voice low, rough around the edges from the long day.

“I came for my panties,” you answered, even as your hands slid up his chest, feeling the steady thump of his heart under the hoodie. Too fast for someone pretending to be casual.

“Liar.” He tugged you closer with a firm grip, guiding you until you were straddling one of his thighs. The solid pressure of muscle against your core was immediate, warm, and maddening. You had to bite the inside of your cheek to swallow the sound that tried to escape. His thumb slipped beneath the waistband of your sweats, stroking bare skin in slow, lazy circles that sent heat pooling low in your belly. “You always lie when you’re already wet for me.”

“Fuck you,” you whispered, but there was no heat in it. Or maybe there was too much.

He huffed a quiet laugh against your collarbone, then pressed an open-mouthed kiss there, slow and deliberate, teeth grazing just enough to make you shiver. “That’s the plan.”

He took his time, savoring the slow unraveling. Your top came off first, dragged upward by his hands, his calloused palms skimming up your ribs, thumbs brushing the sensitive underside of your breasts before cupping them fully. He watched your face the entire time- cataloguing the way your breath hitched, the flutter of your lashes, the flush creeping across your chest. When he leaned in, mouth closing over one nipple, tongue slow and teasing in wet circles, you let out a shaky exhale and threaded your fingers through his hair, tugging harder than necessary.

James groaned softly against your skin, the vibration traveling straight through you. “Still so fucking sensitive here.”

He switched sides, sucking harder this time, one hand sliding down your stomach until his fingers dipped beneath your waistband. He stroked you through the thin fabric of your underwear first- firm, deliberate circles that made your hips twitch forward involuntarily, chasing the friction.

“James-” you started, voice already fraying. When he finally pushed your sweats and underwear down your thighs, you stood just long enough to kick them away. Naked now, while he was still mostly dressed.

The power imbalance felt deliberate and infuriating.

He pulled you back into his lap fully, both of you facing each other. His hands mapped every inch of your bare back, then lower, squeezing your ass as he rocked you against the hard, insistent line of his cock still trapped in his sweats. The friction was torturous- too much fabric, not enough skin, the heat of him radiating through the material.

You reached between you, palming him firmly, feeling the thick length twitch under your touch. He was hot, already leaking against the fabric. “You’re just as bad,” you muttered against his mouth, stroking him slowly. “Acting like you don’t think about this every single night.”

“I do.” Honest and raw. His voice dropped. “Every fucking night.”

The confession cracked something open in your chest. You shoved his hoodie and shirt up and off in one impatient motion, running your hands over the familiar planes of his chest, the faint ridges of muscle, the tension coiled tight in his shoulders. His breathing had grown heavier, forehead pressed to yours, eyes half-closed as you freed him from his sweats and stroked him skin-to-skin-slow, deliberate pulls that made his hips jerk.

He caught your wrist again -the same one from earlier- and pulled your hand away. “No time.”

And he was right, there was no time indeed. This was a quickie, one of the many you’d had with him, nothing more nothing less.

Then he flipped you onto your back with controlled strength, the narrow dorm bed creaking under the shift in weight. He settled between your thighs, broad shoulders blocking out most of the lamplight. His cock nudged against your entrance, sliding through your slickness in slow, teasing drags against your clit, but never pushing inside. Just rocking, building the ache until your nails dug into his biceps.

You squirmed, nails digging into his biceps. “Stop fucking teasing.”

“Make me.” His smirk was infuriating, but his eyes were dark with the same need clawing at you.

You wrapped your legs around his waist and tried to pull him in, but he resisted, holding your hips down with one hand while the other braced beside your head. He leaned down, kissing you deeply again, then trailed his mouth along your jaw, your neck, sucking a mark just below your ear that would be hell to hide tomorrow.

Only when you were trembling, hips chasing him desperately, did he finally push inside -inch by slow, thick inch. The stretch burned in the best way, filling you completely. Your mouth fell open on a silent cry.

James’s hand clamped over your mouth instantly, palm firm, fingers pressing into your cheek.

“Quiet,” he growled against your ear, voice strained as he bottomed out and stilled, letting you feel every inch of him. “Whole dorm’s still awake. You want them to hear how badly you need my cock?”

You glared at him, but your walls clenched hard around him in response. He hissed through his teeth, eyes fluttering shut for a second before locking back on yours.

He started moving -slow, deep rolls of his hips that dragged against every sensitive spot inside you. Not frantic, not yet. Every thrust was deliberate, angry in its restraint, like he was punishing you both for how much you needed this. The bed creaked softly with each movement. Skin against skin, the faint wet sounds of him sliding in and out, your ragged breathing against his palm.

You moaned into his hand, the sound muffled and desperate. He leaned closer, forehead to forehead again, sweat starting to bead on his skin.

“Feel that?” he whispered, grinding deep on a particularly slow thrust. “So fucking tight. Like you were made for me.”

You bit the side of his palm in retaliation. He chuckled darkly, then snapped his hips harder once, twice, making your eyes roll back before he slowed again, dragging it out.

“Say it,” he demanded, voice barely above a breath. “Tell me you missed this.”

You shook your head stubbornly, even as tears of overwhelming sensation pricked at the corners of your eyes. He pulled almost all the way out -leaving you devastatingly empty-then slid back in so torturously slow you nearly sobbed against his hand.

“Say it.”

“…Missed it,” you mumbled against his palm, the words barely intelligible. “Missed you, asshole.”

His eyes darkened further. The pace picked up gradually - still controlled, but deeper, rougher, hips slapping against yours with more force. Every thrust carried weeks of unsaid fights, missed calls and slammed doors. Anger and longing twisted together until you couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.

His free hand gripped your thigh, spreading you wider, angling so he hit that spot inside you with every stroke. Your nails raked down his back, leaving red lines you knew he’d feel tomorrow. He groaned low in his throat, pressing his face into your neck, teeth grazing your shoulder as he fucked you harder.

You were close -embarrassingly close both to orgasming and dying apparently- body tightening around him, thighs shaking. James could feel it. He always could.

“Not yet,” he rasped, slowing again, keeping you right on the edge. “Not until I say.”

You whined against his hand, frustrated tears pricking at the corners of your eyes from the intensity of it all. He kissed the corner of your eye, almost gentle, then started moving again -long, dragging strokes that made your toes curl.

When he finally let you tip over, it crashed through you like a wave. Your whole body seized, back arching hard as you came with a broken cry muffled completely by his palm. He fucked you through every wave, hips stuttering only slightly as your orgasm milked him, drawing it out until you were trembling and oversensitive beneath him.

James’s rhythm grew erratic, thrusts turning rough and desperate. His breathing was ragged against your neck, hot and uneven.

“Fuck-fuck, I’m-” The words were barely coherent, growled into your skin. His hand finally slipped from your mouth so he could brace himself better, fingers digging into the sheets beside your head.

He drove into you one last time, burying himself to the hilt so deep you felt it in your stomach. His entire body went rigid above you -muscles locked, back bowing, thighs trembling against yours. A low, guttural groan tore from his throat, raw and broken, vibrating against your collarbone as his hips jerked forward in sharp, involuntary pulses.

You felt every pulse of his release-hot, thick spurts flooding deep inside you, each one accompanied by a helpless grind of his hips, like he was trying to push even deeper, trying to fuse the two of you together. His cock throbbed hard with every wave, the warmth of him spilling and spilling until it started to leak out around where you were joined.

His breath came in harsh, stuttering gasps, his forehead pressed tight to yours, sweat dripping from his hair onto your cheek. For several long seconds he stayed buried inside you, hips making tiny, reflexive movements as the last aftershocks rolled through him, his body shuddering with the intensity of it.

When it finally ebbed, he collapsed half on top of you, heavy and boneless, face buried in the crook of your neck. His heart hammered against your chest, matching the frantic rhythm of your own.

Afterward, the room was very quiet. The lamp was still on. It was always still on, after, because neither of you ever thought to turn it off in the chaos of everything preceding the quiet, and neither of you got up to do it once the quiet arrived.

You lay on your back staring at the ceiling, one arm folded behind your head, and James lay on his stomach beside you with his face turned toward the wall, breathing slowly. The distance between you was maybe four inches of mattress and approximately several miles of everything else.

You stared at the ceiling’s small imperfections. There was a hairline crack in the plaster near the light fixture that described a gentle arc, like a parenthesis opened and never closed. You’d noticed it before. The thought arrived uninvited and you told it to leave.

“You’re thinking too loud,” James said into the pillow.

“You can’t hear thoughts.”

“I can hear yours.” A pause. “You get this specific kind of still when you’re overthinking. Like you stop existing in your body a little bit.”

You said nothing for a moment.

“That’s very observant of you,” you finally said, and your voice came out quieter than you intended but still filled with sarcasm.

“Yeah well.” He shifted, turning his face toward you now, cheek pressed to the pillow, eyes half-closed but watching you in that steady way. “I pay attention.”

“I know you do,” you said. “That’s the problem.”

“Why’s it a problem?”

“Because it makes it hard to pretend this is nothing.”

The words sat in the air between you, neither retracted nor addressed immediately, just existing with the particular weight of something that had been thought many times and said aloud for the first time.

James was quiet for long enough that you started constructing your exit- the mental logistics of gathering your things, the specific tone you’d use to say something deflecting and semi-sharp on your way out, the way you’d walk down the corridor past Keonho and Martin with your expression completely neutral.

“It’s not nothing,” James said.

Two words. Same economy as before.

You turned your head to look at him. He was still watching you, and up close in the lamp light his eyes were less unreadable than usual -or maybe you’d just learned to read them, which was its own problem, its own intimacy you’d never consented to and couldn’t revoke.

“I know,” you said.

“But you’re still gonna leave.”

“Yes.”

“And tomorrow-”

“Tomorrow is tomorrow,” you said.

He held your gaze for another moment, then something settled across his face -not resignation exactly, more like acceptance of a pattern neither of you had figured out how to break yet.

His fingers moved those four inches of mattress and found yours, not interlacing, just his hand covering yours, warm and still.

“Your lash was doing the thing today,” he said, after a moment, gesturing to his own. “The outer corner one.”

You closed your eyes briefly. “I know.”

“Ji-eun never gets it to lay flat.”

The lamp hummed. Somewhere down the hall, the gaming sounds had quieted. The building itself seemed to have settled into its nighttime frequency, that low ambient hum of a structure full of sleeping people, and for a few minutes neither of you moved or spoke.

The four inches of mattress stayed exactly as they were, and his hand stayed on yours, and the ceiling crack remained a parenthesis with no closing bracket.

Eventually you sat up. Found your things in the dimness with the quiet efficiency of someone who’d had to gather herself in worse conditions than this. James watched you without speaking.

You paused at the door.

“The lash always does that,” you said. “Every time. You’d think I’d be used to it by now.”

A beat.

“Some things you don’t get used to, y/n,” he said. “You just keep noticing them.”

You stood in the doorway for one more second, the lamp throwing your shadow long and soft across his floor, and then you walked out and pulled the door behind you with a quiet click that felt like punctuation on a sentence neither of you had finished writing.

Martin had fallen asleep on the couch. Keonho’s bowl was in the drying rack. The corridor was empty and the building was quiet and you walked through it with your sneakers making soft sounds against the floor, the red lace in your jacket pocket, and the careful, fragile weight of it’s not nothing sitting somewhere behind your sternum like a splinter you hadn’t decided what to do with yet.

Your phone buzzed as the elevator doors closed.

James: get home safe

You stared at it for the entire descent.

You: yeah

You pocketed the phone and put on a face mask. The lobby doors opened to the night air, cool and immediate, and you stepped out into it and kept walking, and you didn’t look back at the building, because some things were better approached from a forward direction, even when everything in you wanted to turn around.

Tomorrow was tomorrow.

• • •

One moment you were in the grey half-sleep where everything was soft and unformed, the next your alarm was going off, and the full inventory of last night was loading in your chest like a program with too many files, slow and slightly painful.

It’s not nothing.

You lay there for ninety seconds staring at the ceiling of your own room, which had no interesting cracks, just smooth white plaster and the faint shadow of the curtain moving in the air conditioning.

Then you got up, because lying still with your own thoughts first thing in the morning was a form of self-harm you weren’t willing to engage in today.

This was as damaging as blasting Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain and hoping for the best.

The dorm was quiet. Hye-ri’s alarm hadn’t gone off yet, which meant you had maybe twenty minutes before the building became a person with feelings, specifically loud ones.

You moved through the kitchen on autopilot -kettle, mug, the good green tea Mina kept in the cabinet above the stove that she’d never explicitly said you could have but had also never said you couldn’t. You wrapped both hands around the mug and stood at the kitchen window watching the city do its early morning thing.

James was silent, so were you. But this time maybe you’d been waiting for a different outcome, in that little naive headspace of yours.

You drank your tea and tried not to think about the weight of him inside of you, his hands on your neck.

You thought about it constantly.

ᴺᴼᵂ ᴾᴸᴬᵞᴵᴺᴳ Who knows - daniel caesar ♫♬♪

The company building had a rooftop that technically wasn’t for general use but that enough people accessed informally that it had developed a small ecosystem of folding chairs, a forgotten umbrella that had been there since at least February.

You’d discovered it eighteen months ago during a particularly brutal comeback period when the practice rooms felt like they were closing in, and you’d been going up there sporadically ever since -not often enough to make it a habit exactly, but enough that it felt like yours in some half-acknowledged way.

You went up there on your lunch break.

Not for any specific reason. The afternoon had a strange texture to it -your schedule had been lighter than usual, a few meetings, a vocal session that had ended early, and you’d found yourself with ninety minutes of unstructured time that felt like a gift you didn’t know how to receive.

Hye-ri had gone to get food with Soeun. Mina was on a call with her family. The practice rooms were occupied by other groups, and the styling suite smelled aggressively of hairspray.

You sat in one of the folding chairs with your knees drawn up and your jacket zipped to your chin, and you looked at the city spread out below in its usual state of organized chaos, and you let yourself be quiet.

It lasted approximately four minutes.

Your phone buzzed.

Not James -a staff notification about next week’s schedule, which you read and immediately forgot.

But the buzz had disrupted the quiet, which made you pick up your phone, which made you open your messages, which meant you were now - magically- looking at the thread with James the way you sometimes prodded a bruise to check if it still hurt.

It did. It reliably did.

You scrolled up. Not far -just enough to see the shape of what the last week looked like in text.

You read it like reading someone else’s story. A very compelling, very dysfunctional someone else’s story.

And that was when the door to the rooftop opened.

You expected staff. Maybe Hye-ri, who had an uncanny ability to locate you regardless of where you went, like a heat-seeking missile with gel nails.

You did not expect Juhoon, who was one of the Cortis members you actually liked -quiet, thoughtful, someone who’d always existed pleasantly on the periphery of the James situation without ever inserting himself into it. He looked mildly surprised to find you there.

“Hey,” he said. “I didn’t know you came up here.”

“I didn’t know you did either,” you said. “You can stay. There’s another chair.”

He unfolded it and sat down, stretching his legs out, tilting his face up toward the pale afternoon sky.

“You were at the dorms last night,” he said eventually, not accusatory, just noting.

“Briefly,” you said.

He nodded. Another silence.

“Can I ask you something?” you said.

“Sure.”

“What’s he like,” you said carefully, “when I’m not there?”

Juhoon considered this with the seriousness it deserved, which you appreciated. He wasn’t someone who gave careless answers.

“Quiet,” he said finally. “He’s quieter than people think. The loud thing is-” he paused, choosing words, “-it’s real, but it’s not the whole thing. When he’s actually upset about something he goes very still.”

“I know,” you said, because the question was dumb. You knew James.

“Yeah.” He glanced at you sideways. “I figured you would.”

“Is he-” you stopped.

“What?”

You looked at your phone in your hands. The thread with James still open. “Is he okay?” you asked, and hated that you were asking, and asked it anyway because apparently that particular self-protective instinct was not functioning correctly today.

Juhoon was quiet for a moment. “I think he will be,” he said, which was not the same as yes, and you both knew it, and he said it anyway with the careful honesty of a good friend protecting two people simultaneously.

You nodded slowly.

“You know I like you,” Juhoon said. “And I like him. So I’m not going to say anything about-” he gestured vaguely at the air between you, which was a gesture that somehow communicated the entire last several months with impressive economy. “But I’ll say this. He talks about you without meaning to. Like you come up in the middle of sentences about completely different things. He doesn’t notice he’s doing it.” He paused. “And that’s either really good or it’s-”

“The problem,” you finished.

“Yeah.”

You sat with that, as heavy and as real as it was.

The city hummed below you, indifferent and continuous, and a pigeon landed on the railing six feet away and looked at you with the blank assessment of a creature utterly unbothered by human emotional complexity, which you found enviable.

“Thanks,” you said to Juhoon.

“Didn’t really say anything.”

He nodded once, and you both sat there a while longer in the pale afternoon light, and you didn’t look at your phone again.

• • •

The thing happened at 4:17pm.

You were in the corridor outside the third floor vocal booths, waiting while your vocal coach finished a session with someone else, scrolling through nothing in particular with the half-attention of someone killing time.

The corridor was quiet -just the muffled sound of whoever was in the booth, and the distant hum of the building, and your own low-grade awareness of the afternoon pressing toward evening.

You heard James before you saw him.

Not his voice -you heard his laugh. That specific one, the real one, low and slightly reluctant, the one that sounded like it surprised him every time it came out.

He came around the corner with two of the Cortis members, Martin and Keonho in the animated mid-conversation energy of people who’d just come from something good.

He was gesturing with his coffee cup, and his hood was down, he looked easy in a way he almost never looked when you were in the same space as him.

You registered all of this in approximately two seconds.

He saw you on the third second.

The laugh didn’t stop immediately, but it changed. His body adjusted the way it always did in your presence, that slight shift toward readiness, toward the particular loaded awareness that existed between you like a standing current.

The members with him, noticed. They absorbed the shift with the smooth discretion of people who’d seen it before and kept walking, a natural drift that created a few feet of separation, still present but no longer part of the conversation.

“Hey,” James said. His voice was normal. Easy. The same register as the laugh.

“Hey,” you said.

He stopped near you, coffee cup in hand, and looked at you with that familiar specific attention, and you looked back, and the hallway was quiet between you.

And then Martin said something- not to you, to James, a quick murmured comment accompanied by a grin that you didn’t quite catch -and James’s mouth curved, brief and private, the smile aimed at the floor before he looked back up at you.

“What?” you said.

“Nothing,” he said. “You just look-” he paused, assessing, and the look was warm in a way that your body recognized before your brain did, that specific quality of attention that he reserved for you in your quieter moments. “You look tired.”

“Thanks,” you said flatly.

“I didn’t mean it badly.” A pause. “You were up late.”

“We were both up late.”

“Yeah.” The edge of his mouth moved again. “Worth it though.”

And that was it -that was the specific, small, ordinary thing that should not have been the thing. He said it quietly, almost to himself, genuine and unguarded, the way he sometimes spoke when he forgot to armor himself first.

Worth it though.

Like it was simple. Like the previous months of sharp words and slammed objects and photographs sent to deliberately unravel you and the come-heres were all components of something with a simple arithmetic, something that could be summed up and found to be worth it.

And something in you looked at that -at his face, open and tired and fond in the dim corridor light, at the easy way he’d laughed seconds before you appeared, at the life he had that you orbited and disrupted and were disrupted by in return -and something went very, very quiet.

Worth it though.

Were you? Were you worth it? Was any of this worth it? The way he handed you matches and then acted surprised by the fire?

The way you walked out his door feeling victorious and arrived home feeling like something had been excavated from you?

The way you couldn’t go through a normal workday without your thoughts circling back to him with the tireless repetition of water finding its lowest point?

You thought about Juhoon on the rooftop.

“He talks about you without meaning to. Like you come up in the middle of sentences about completely different things.”

You thought about the way you’d pressed your hand over the candle flame on the rooftop and called the burn worth it, and standing here now you couldn’t find the logic anymore.

Not because James wasn’t -something.

He was something. He was specific and perceptive and genuinely capable of moments that got through every defense you’d ever constructed. He saw the lash.

He was sweet, at times, weaponizing his soft edges just to wreck you even more.

But he also sent those photographs at midnight like a lit match through a letterbox. He called you names and meant it to wound.

He pulled you against him and then held you at arm’s length and then pulled you back again and called the cycle by your name like you were the one maintaining it.

He used your own hunger against you with the practiced ease of someone who’d mapped your weaknesses and filed them for deployment.

And you did the same to him. You knew you did, you matched his cruelty word for word, you showed up when you should have stayed away and stayed away when he was genuinely reaching for something real.

You were doing it to each other.

Equally. Fluently. In a language you’d developed together that was entirely composed of damage dressed up as desire.

Worth it though.

Looking at him now in the corridor, warm and unguarded, the laugh still faintly present in the lines of his face -you felt the pull of it. The specific gravitational field. Of course you did.

You thought you probably always would, in some residual way, the way you could always find north even in an unfamiliar city.

But underneath the pull was something else. Quieter than everything preceding it. An exhaustion so thorough it had become structural, like a building that had been load-bearing something too heavy for too long and had finally taken stock of its own foundation.

You were so tired.

Not of him, exactly. Of this.

Of the version of yourself that existed in this particular orbit -sharp and defended and constantly braced for impact, simultaneously craving the collision and flinching from it.

Winning small battles and losing something larger and more important in increments too gradual to track, until you stood in a corridor at 4:17pm and looked at a boy who could recite the inventory of your small imperfections from memory and felt, for the first time clearly: this is not sustainable.

Not he is terrible. Not the clean narrative of a villain and a victim, which would have been easier.

Just: this specific thing, as it is, is taking more than it’s giving, and has been for long enough that you’ve normalized the deficit.

You’d lied. You’d lied when you said you enjoyed it. You were such a skilled liar.

“I’ll see you around,” you said.

James’s expression shifted slightly, reading the specific quality of your tone in that perceptive way he had. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” you said, and it wasn’t entirely a lie. You felt, in fact, unusually clear. “I’ll see you around, James.”

You walked away before he could respond. Down the corridor, around the corner, past the elevators to the stairwell because you needed the physical rhythm of stairs under your feet, needed something mechanical and grounding while your mind ran its quiet revolution.

You pushed through the stairwell door and sat on the third step from the bottom and held your phone in both hands.

You opened instagram first.

His profile -which you’d visited with the compulsive frequency of someone returning to a bruise- looked back at you.

You pressed block and the account disappeared. Clean and immediate, like a light switched off.

Something moved through your chest -not triumphant, not devastated. Something quieter. Like exhaling after holding your breath for a very long time without realizing.

Twitter. Same motion. Block.

The gesture was so small. The tap of a thumb. And yet each one felt like setting something down that you’d been carrying so long you’d stopped noticing the weight, only registering its absence now as a kind of lightness that was almost disorienting.

You opened your contacts and found his name- no special designation, just ‘bitch ass piece of shit’ because you’d never let yourself do something as revealing as save him with a nickname or a symbol, had maintained that small performative distance even in your own phone as if it proved something.

You looked at it for a moment.

You thought about the hand covering yours in the dark.

You thought about the way he’d said : “it’s not nothing.”

You thought: no. it isn’t. and that’s exactly why.

Because if it were nothing, you could manage it. You’d managed nothing before -the industry was full of nothing, of pleasant meaninglessness and easy transience, and you navigated it fine.

Nothing didn’t keep you up at night. Nothing didn’t send photographs calibrated to your specific vulnerabilities at midnight. Nothing didn’t notice the lash, or the scar, or the way you went still when you were overthinking.

Nothing wasn’t this.

And this, as it existed, was quietly making you less.

In small steady increments, the way weather eroded things: a little more defended, a little less open, a little quicker to reach for the sharp response because you’d trained yourself in this particular sparring match until the reflexes were automatic.

You were funnier about it than you used to be, more armored, more fluent in the language of mutual damage.

None of those were things you wanted to become more of.

You blocked his number.

Then you sat with that for a moment, in the concrete quiet of the stairwell with its faint smell of cleaning product and the distant sound of bass from a practice room somewhere above you, and you breathed. In and out, slow and deliberate, the way your therapist had taught you two years ago during the first bad comeback, the way you sometimes forgot to do when things felt manageable and remembered only in the moments they suddenly didn’t.

You weren’t crying. You noticed this with some surprise. You’d expected to feel something more violent -the hot-eyed, tight-throated thing that sometimes arrived when you made a decision that cost you something.

Instead there was just this: the quiet. The lightness of something set down. The slightly raw feeling of a wound that had been cleaned rather than just covered.

The stairwell door above you opened, and Hye-ri appeared on the landing, looking down at you with an expression that said she had found you by some combination of instinct and dedicated search effort.

“The vocal coach is asking for you,” she said. And then, without being told anything, reading you with the comprehensive accuracy she’d developed over two years of shared space: “What happened?”

You looked up at her. “Nothing bad,” you said, which was true. “I just-” you paused, searching for the right word, and settled on the honest one: “I just put something down.”

She came down the stairs and sat beside you without a word, her red nails bright against the grey concrete, and leaned her shoulder into yours. “Okay,” she said simply, she knew you. Deeply.

You leaned back. Somewhere in the building, in a corridor you’d just walked away from, James was probably still standing with his coffee cup, and he would check his phone at some point tonight and find the specific silence of someone who was no longer there.

You thought about that.

You let yourself think about it fully, without flinching -the version of him that would notice, that would go quiet in that particular way Juhoon had described, that would understand immediately what the silence meant because he understood you with the thorough, inconvenient accuracy of someone who’d been paying attention for too long to pretend otherwise.

It hurt. Of course it hurt. You weren’t going to pretend it didn’t, not even to yourself in the privacy of a stairwell with no audience. He was real and specific and the pull was real and losing access to something real always cost something real, regardless of whether it was the right thing.

“Come on,” Hye-ri said softly, standing up and extending her red-nailed hand. “Vocal coach. Then we’re getting actual food tonight, not cucumbers, I don’t care what the company says.”

You looked at her hand for a moment. Then you took it, and stood up, and pushed through the stairwell door back into the brightness of the corridor.

Your phone stayed in your pocket. Dark and silent and, for the first time in months, entirely your own.

Everything was going to be just fine.

• • •

The first time things started to be the opposite of fine, you genuinely thought it was the bibimbap.

The rehearsal had run a long forty minutes over schedule, which in the industry was practically punctual, but which your body had apparently decided to register as a personal grievance.

You’d been working a new formation for the comeback stage, a complex one with tight partner transitions and a center section that required the kind of sustained core engagement that left you aware of muscles you’d forgotten you had.

By the time your choreographer finally called it, the practice room smelled aggressively of exertion and someone’s sports drink, and all four of you were in various states of pleasant physical destruction.

You’d eaten quickly -bibimbap from the canteen, slightly lukewarm because the timing never quite worked -and then gone straight to the bathroom to change before the evening schedule.

And then you were on your knees on the tile floor, and the bibimbap was no longer a factor in your immediate future.

It wasn’t dramatic. That was the first thing. You’d half-expected, from the limited experience you’d had with this particular activity, something more cinematic -the kind of thing that announced itself with ceremony.

Instead it arrived with very little warning and was over quickly, leaving you kneeling on the cool tile with your hand braced against the wall over the toilet and your eyes watering from the effort, feeling hollowed out and mildly indignant.

You sat back on your heels and assessed.

Okay, you thought. The bibimbap. Obviously.

It had been slightly warm. The canteen had been crowded. These things happened, especially during high-intensity periods when your immune system was presumably stretched thin doing other jobs.

You cleaned yourself up with the efficiency of someone who had no time for lingering, rinsed your mouth, checked your reflection with the critical neutrality of a technician assessing equipment, and concluded that you looked fine. Slightly pale, maybe. Nothing concealer couldn’t manage. Or maybe blush.

You walked out of the bathroom and rejoined your members in the corridor.

“You good?” Soeun asked, with her particular brand of innocent perception.

“Canteen bibimbap,” you said, with the decisive tone of someone closing a subject.

“Oh god,” Hye-ri said, with feeling. “The one with the egg?”

“Yeah i think.”

“I told Mina last week that the egg situation in there was suspicious.”

“You told me the rice situation was suspicious,” Mina said.

“Both can be true.”

And that was it. Subject closed, explanation accepted, the conversation moving on with the easy momentum of people who had too many things on their schedules to linger. You filed it away under resolved and didn’t think about it again.

That was a Tuesday.

The following Monday, it happened again.

This time there was no bibimbap to blame. You’d eaten carefully that morning -plain rice, some steamed vegetables, the kind of breakfast your nutritionist described as clean fuel in a tone that made it sound more appealing than it tasted. You’d felt fine through the morning meeting, fine through the first hour of vocal practice, fine right up until the point where you weren’t.

You made it to the bathroom with enough time to be grateful for small mercies, and then you were back on the tile, and afterward you sat against the wall of the stall for a moment longer than last time, frowning at the middle distance.

A bug, you decided. A stomach bug, obviously. The kind that moved through groups of people living in close proximity with the inevitability of weather. You made a mental note to increase your vitamin intake and drink more water and went back to vocal practice eight minutes later, telling your coach you’d needed a moment.

She’d looked at you with the particular assessment of someone who had worked with idols long enough to recognize the specific vocabulary of I am not telling you the full story and said nothing beyond: “Drink some water.”

You drank some water.

That was Monday.

By the following week, there was a pattern, which you were actively declining to acknowledge as such.

It wasn’t every day. That was part of why the denial was structurally sound -you couldn’t maintain something as dramatic as every day without it becoming impossible to ignore, but the intermittent nature of it allowed you to keep generating individual explanations with the industrious creativity of someone who had decided on the conclusion and was working backward.

The spicy ramen Hye-ri had made on Wednesday. The supplements you’d started for the comeback period, which were new and therefore plausibly adjusting. The general physical demand of rehearsals, which were intensifying as the release date approached. A mild intolerance to something in the canteen, possibly dairy-related, possibly egg-related, possibly the entire canteen in general.

The explanations were plentiful and convenient and you deployed them as needed.

What you were not doing -what you had specifically and deliberately decided not to do- was connect any of it to the three weeks of silence on your phone where a particular contact used to be.

Because that would be absurd. That would be the kind of thing that happened in stupid rom coms, the psychosomatic manifestation of unresolved emotional distress playing out through the digestive system like some kind of humiliating physiological metaphor and bla bla bla.

You were not a drama. You were a professional with a comeback in six weeks and a body that was experiencing a minor and entirely explicable gastrointestinal inconvenience, and the two facts existed in completely separate categories with no relationship to each other whatsoever.

This was your position and you were maintaining it.

The members noticed on a Thursday.

You’d made it through the full rehearsal that day -a good day, actually, one of those sessions where everything clicked in the way that felt like payment for all the sessions that didn’t.

The new formation had finally settled into your bodies collectively, Soeun had nailed the bridge section that had been giving her trouble for two weeks, and your choreographer had used the word clean three times in a row, which in his personal vocabulary was roughly equivalent to a standing ovation.

You’d all come out of it flushed and genuinely pleased, the specific good tired that felt earned rather than depleting.

And then you’d gone quiet in a way that apparently registered.

You were sitting on the practice room floor with your knees pulled up, water bottle in hand, and you’d realized with the distant, clinical awareness of someone observing themselves from a slight remove that you were doing the breathing exercise -the one from your therapist, the slow in and out- and that you were doing it because something in your midsection was making a case for your attention that you were trying to negotiate with.

Not now, you thought, with the weary authority of someone who had been having this exact internal argument for two weeks. Absolutely not, we are at work, this is not the time.

Your body, as it had been doing with increasing frequency, did not find this persuasive.

“Unnie.” Soeun’s voice was careful in the way it got when she was paying close attention, the sleepiness entirely absent. “You’ve gone the color of the practice room wall.”

“I’m fine,” you said. Automatic, immediate.

“You’ve said that every day this week,” Mina said, from across the room. She was watching you with that steady big-sister attention that was nearly impossible to deflect because it didn’t push- it simply waited, patient and completely immovable.

“Because I’ve been fine every day this week,” you said.

“You didn’t eat lunch,” Hye-ri said, sitting down beside you. Her red nails wrapped around her own water bottle. “You said you weren’t hungry. Yesterday you also said you weren’t hungry. The day before-”

“I appreciate the erm… documentation,” you said, “but I’ve just been off my appetite a little. It’s a stomach thing. It’ll pass.”

“How long have you had a stomach thing?” Mina asked.

A pause that lasted approximately one second too long.

“Not long,” you said.

Hye-ri and Mina exchanged a look over your head that you clocked in your peripheral vision and chose not to address, because addressing it would require engaging with the implication of it, and the implication was something you were not prepared to engage with on a Thursday evening in a practice room that smelled of sports drink and effort.

“You should see the company doctor,” Mina said.

“It’s a stomach bug,” you said. “Seeing the company doctor for a stomach bug is-”

“If it’s been more than a week it’s not a stomach bug, it’s something to get checked out,” Mina said, with the gentle inflexibility she deployed when she’d made up her mind about something. “Will you just go? For me?”

You looked at her.

She looked back, and her expression was the one she used when she wasn’t going to negotiate.

“Fine,” you said. “I’ll go.”

Hye-ri patted your knee with one red-nailed hand. “Good. Also eat something tonight. Real food. I’m making the soup.”

“You put too much garlic in the soup.”

“The garlic is medicinal and you’re welcome in advance.”

• • •

Dr. Yeon was in her forties, brisk and perceptive, and she’d been the company’s primary physician long enough to have developed a comprehensive understanding of the specific way this industry affected the people working in it.

You sat on the examination table in your practice clothes and answered her questions with the cooperative honesty of someone who had already decided this was a stomach bug and was simply here to have that confirmed so you could report back to Mina.

She asked when it had started.

You thought about it. “Three weeks ago, maybe. Give or take.”

“Frequency?”

“A few times a week. Not every day. It’s inconsistent.”

“Nausea before, during, or after eating?”

“Both. Sometimes neither, sometimes just-” you paused. “Out of nowhere.”

“Appetite changes?”

“Some.”

“Sleep?”

You thought about your sleep over the last three weeks.

The way you’d been waking at 3am with the disorienting certainty of having been in the middle of something important, finding nothing but the dark ceiling and the ambient city noise.

The way you’d been logging the hours but not quite getting the rest, lying in the accumulated silence of a blocked contact like a room where the furniture had been removed -technically empty, technically fine, somehow echoing.

“Some,” you said.

Dr. Yeon made notes. She asked a few more questions, took your blood pressure, reviewed the standard basics. Then she set her clipboard on the desk and looked at you with the direct, non-judgmental attention of someone who had decided to say something she suspected you might not welcome.

“Everything looks physically normal,” she said. “Nothing alarming in what you’re describing medically. But I want to ask you something and I’d like an honest answer.”

“Okay,” you said, with the composure of someone who already felt the shape of what was coming.

“What’s your stress level been like? The last month or so.”

“Normal,” you said. “Comeback prep. The usual.”

“Anything outside of work?”

He’d taped your hand three times in bed that night.

“Not particularly,” you said.

Dr. Yeon held your gaze for a moment with the particular expression of a medical professional who was not required to believe everything their patient said and who knew it and who was extending the professional courtesy of not saying so directly.

“Physical symptoms without a clear physical cause often have a stress component,” she said carefully. “That’s not to say it’s not real -it is real, your body is experiencing something real. But the body and the mind are less separate than we like to think. Especially in high-demand environments like yours.” A pause. “Is there anything going on that you might be minimizing?”

Minimizing. What an elegant, clinical word for what you were doing.

“I’m managing everything fine,” you said. “Really. I think it’s just the comeback schedule catching up to me.”

She looked at you for one more moment, then nodded once -the small professional nod of someone accepting an answer they did not entirely believe while respecting the patient’s right to give it.

“I’ll have some bloodwork done just to rule things out. In the meantime -eat regularly, even if the appetite isn’t there. Small amounts. Stay hydrated. Prioritize sleep where you can.” She paused. “And if things don’t improve in the next week or two, or if they get worse, I want you back in here.”

“Of course,” you said.

She gave you a mild antinausea prescription and a vitamin supplement recommendation and you thanked her and left, and the door clicked shut behind you with a neat finality, and you stood in the hallway outside her office and looked at the ceiling for a moment.

It’s the comeback schedule, you thought firmly. Obviously.

• • •

The weeks accumulated like sediment, each one depositing its own layer of evidence that you were filtering carefully before it could reach the part of your brain responsible for inconvenient conclusions.

Week three: you lost four pounds without trying, which your stylists noticed before you did when a fitting for the comeback stage outfits required unexpected adjustments.

The head stylist had said nothing beyond a mild professional observation, but she’d looked at you with the same expression Dr. Yeon had used, and you’d looked brightly back and said you’d been working hard and moved on.

Week four: the nausea had developed a schedule of its own, arriving most reliably in the mornings and then subsiding into a low-grade background hum that you’d learned to work around the way you worked around a minor injury - accommodating it, building your day around its rhythms, never quite acknowledging it as something that required real attention.

You were getting very good at working around it.

Your performances didn’t suffer- you made sure of that with a fierce, quiet determination that was, if you were being honest, the closest you came to acknowledging that something was wrong.

You wouldn’t have had to fight that hard to maintain your standard if there hadn’t been something trying to pull it down. The fighting itself was the evidence. But you fought, and your performances stayed clean, and from the outside everything looked like a professional managing a demanding schedule.

Inside, you were having the ongoing conversation with your own body, the one where you kept saying ‘not now’ and it kept saying ‘soon’ with the patient persistence of something that knew it would win eventually.

• • •

You didn’t connect it. You were still not connecting it.

Your mind maintained its position with the stubborn structural integrity of something that knew that connecting it would require feeling it fully, and feeling it fully was- not yet.

Not on a bathroom floor at 2am with a comeback in three weeks and an early call time in five hours.

But your body was keeping its own record, patient and thorough, logging every entry in its own language. The nausea. The weight. The sleep that restored nothing. The 3am fucking ceilings.

It was writing the story you wouldn’t let yourself tell, one quiet symptom at a time.

And eventually, you knew -in the way you knew things you weren’t ready to acknowledge, the knowing that lived below language- eventually, you were going to have to read it.

But you were hiding it from yourself. James’ absence was undeniably taking a toll on your body.

Not in the ways you’d expected grief to present - you’d experienced loss before, in smaller forms, and it had always been recognizable, had always announced itself with the appropriate emotional vocabulary. This was different.

This was quieter and more physical and more insidious, arriving not in waves of feeling but in the baseline functioning of your body simply becoming less efficient at its own operation, like a system running a background process that was consuming more memory than anyone had accounted for.

You weren’t sad, exactly. That was what made it so difficult to identify, so easy to mislabel for so long. You weren’t walking around with the specific weight of sadness on your chest.

You were just -diminished. Running at a capacity slightly below what was normal, in the way that was subtle enough to attribute to other things indefinitely, which you had done, which had worked right up until the moment it hadn’t.

The body didn’t distinguish between kinds of absence.

That was what Dr. Yeon had been trying to tell you in the soft-lit office with the clipboard and the clean bloodwork and the careful professional language.

The body simply registered: something that was here is no longer here. And proceeded to respond to that information with the thoroughness of something that had no access to the reasoning that made the absence make sense -the stairwell logic, the right-decision logic, the this-was-the-healthy-choice logic. All of that lived in the mind.

The body just kept the raw account.

Something was gone. Something that had been present for three years.

And your body, uninterested in the reasoning, had simply begun to reflect that.

• • •

part 2 available !

ⓘ ptolemaea

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