gd invites you to join in filming good day and to join his project!
it's not healthy, but it's with you (ao3)
a sticky note is left on your pillow inviting you to smoke on the balcony with ji
three's a crowd (ao3)
running away from the media, you gd and top decide to hide away in a closet and get locked in.
MDNI! prove your worth (ao3)
You work as an unpaid intern for CEO!Ji-yong, the power dynamic shifts as he offers you an alternate form of payment.
your biggest fan (ao3)
You're a fan of GDs, and you attend his fansign. He leaves his phone number and you decide to go on a date together.
quiet between the stars (ao3)
Part two of your biggest fan. You didn’t plan to see him again, but Ji-yong had other ideas. One quiet night turns into something neither of you expected.
yandere! ji-yong
childhood promises (ao3)
(unofficial) prequel to there was no other choice. former school friends meet at your secret hidehout.
there was no other choice (ao3)
gd invites you to stay at his own place after there's a mysterious water leak in your apartment.
Signed, Sealed, Yours (ao3)
Sequel to 'there was no other choice', the morning after you wake up together. A planned date with him is interrupted by your past friend, and you go out and drink together. His control is tested.
choi seung-hyun / t.o.p
too steamy to sleep (ao3)
Interrupting your peaceful nap, Seung-hyun insists on borrowing your own and teases you further after noticing your flushed reaction.
playing pretend (ao3)
When you just try to enjoy your day at a bar you're bothered by your ex, so you ask Choi Seung-hyun to help avoid them.
three's a crowd (ao3)
Running away from the media, you Ji-yong and Seung-hyun decide to hide away in a closet and get locked in.
wrong room (ao3)
After a long day, you're so tired you stumble into what you think is your hotel room.. only to end up in Seung-hyun's.
ah, i've been super inactive here..🥹 i wanna try and write again for you guys, no promises but since ppl are asking i'll try to have a fic maybe by next week 💛
Summary: You ask to tag along with your best friend, Jiyong to the Singapore Grand Prix. He takes this as an opportunity to try and seduce you.
Word Count: 2.3k
Warnings: 18+ MDNI. Unprotected p in v., some fluff, past FWB relationship mentioned.
Author’s Note: I think we were all feeling some type of way with this fit. So here we are. I left this kind of open ended with the potential for a second part if there’s interest in it.
Racing had always been a passion of yours, so when Jiyong had been announced as a headliner for the Grand Prix you’d begged him to go. It wasn’t something you did often, or at all - using him for his status. He was your best friend and you never wanted him to think you were only with him because of what he could do for you.
He’d jumped at the chance to take you along, usually having to beg you to go to shows outside of Korea and had made sure to do it up. He was going to stay for a couple extra days so you could actually see the race and not just practice or his performance.
“You’re ridiculous.” You laughed during rehearsals when he started making car noises in the mic.
It was nice seeing him so relaxed and calm these days. It had been a long time since he’d felt so free on that stage. You were happy to be able to witness a bit of it this year. Jiyong smirked at you before going back to rehearsal. You took some time to wander around the space, having never been here before when you eyed the paddock.
“You’ll get to see it Sunday.” Jiyong promised, his voice booming through the mic.
You turned to face him with a grin on your face. One he mirrored back. He liked having you here and would do anything to keep that smile on your face. Even if that meant sitting through a race he knew nothing about. It didn’t matter, so long as he was with you. Maybe he'd finally be able to convince you that you belonged together.
The rest of the night was filled with drinks and laughter over food. Jiyong talked excitedly about the show and how happy he was to be back in Singapore. You caught yourself staring at him, longingly throughout dinner, he was wearing that black suit very well. But then again, when didn’t he? You shook those thoughts from your head as quickly as they entered. You’d been there, tried that, it hadn’t worked then. It wouldn’t work now. You wished it could though, you loved him as more than a friend and you knew he felt the same way. Maybe in a different life.
∘•···············•∘ʚ ♡ ɞ∘•················•∘
It was so incredibly hot the next evening. You’d hoped the rain would cool things off, but instead you were sitting in Jiyong’s trailer cooling yourself off with a fan as you watched him get ready.
“I don’t know how you do this. It’s so hot.” You groaned, stretching out on the couch.
“I try not to think about it too much.” He shrugged, popping an eye open to look at you in the mirror. “Chaerin’s set is about to start.”
“Oh shit.” You jumped up, the fan clutched in your hand for dear life. “I’ll be back.” You waved before running out the door.
Chaerin had become a friend of yours through Jiyong, she’d argue she was actually your best friend and not him and just to push his buttons you’d agree any chance you got. You stood to the side, hiding in the shadows as you watched her set. The rain had thankfully let up but the heat was even worse now than it had been an hour ago.
“You’re here!” Chaerin squealed when she finally saw you, pulling you into a hug.
“I am! Forced Ji to bring me along for the race.”
“Can’t believe you didn’t ask me.” She folded her arms, brow raised.
“Sorry, I didn’t think you’d want to stay.”
“Can’t even if I wanted to. I can’t even watch his set. But I’m glad I got to see you.”
She wrapped her arm around you as the two of you took off backstage. Giving you a final hug before you reached Jiyong’s trailer and opening the door. Jiyong turned his head slightly from his spot in a chair. Chaerin waved at him.
"Have fun." She winked at you before heading off.
“How was it?”
“It was - “ you swallowed, as you turned your head from Chaerin's disappearing form to look at Jiyong. Black pants, a white tank top and a tie tied loosely around his neck. “Good. It was good.” You nodded, stumbling over your words.
You tapped your leg nervously as you moved to sit as far away from Jiyong as possible. This was bad. Very bad. You’d seen every concert look he had so far and this wasn’t one in his usual rotation. You weren’t prepared. He looked up from his phone, a brow raised.
“Are you ok?”
“Yeah. Just hot.” You shrugged, avoiding eye contact.
Jiyong smirked as he stood up. He slid into his custom made racing jacket and you swallowed as you took in the completed look. This was unfair. Not that he was doing it on purpose, he didn’t know you still harbored feelings for him.
“You coming?” Your head shot up, the smirk still on his face as you met his eye.
He was enjoying this, not that he’d admit it to you, of course. But he’d picked out a few suits and this outfit especially for you when you’d asked to come along. Jiyong was crazy about you, and if this was how he had to get your attention, he’d do it a million times over.
“Yeah.” You stood up, following him out. Your eyes never leaving him. This was going to be a long night.
Jaeho escorted you to the vip section and you braced yourself for what you were sure was going to be an unforgettable show. Maybe it was the heat getting to you, but once he took the show you were like a cat in heat. Suddenly changing from best friend to crazed fan who wanted to rip that jacket off him.
You could feel the heat circling around you, the combination of the night air and the thousands of fans packed in. You spent the rest of the show going back and forth between worrying about his well being and finding the sweat rolling down his face incredibly sexy. What was wrong with you? You weren’t supposed to feel this way about your best friend.
You however didn’t have much time to ponder those thoughts when Jaeho came to take you backstage. Walking back into Jiyong’s trailer your heart sank a bit when you saw him wrapped in towels, ice pack on his head. He looked utterly exhausted. The heat you’d been feeling suddenly didn’t seem important, not when the guy you loved was laying on a couch looking like that.
“Hey.” You whispered as you moved to the chair next to him. He popped an eye open, a smile somehow still on his face.
“How’d I do?”
“Amazing as always.” He smirked, eyes closing again. “You’re ridiculous.” You laughed.
“What? Why?” His eyes shot back open, and he moved to sit, the ice pack falling to the floor.
“You’re worried about how you did when you’ve practically got heat exhaustion.”
You shot up from your chair, grabbing the ice pack and sinking onto the couch next to him. You carefully moved his jacket to the side and held the ice pack up to his forehead. Suddenly realizing just how close the two of you were to each other. You’d been avoiding this since you saw him in the pants, thankfully he had changed into something lighter.
He moved the ice pack from his head, the smirk finally vanishing as he dug around in the ice pack. Grabbing a piece of ice, he moved it to his finger sighing in relief as the coolness offered instant relief to his hand. He looked back over at you, his hand cupping your face.
“You're hot too.” He whispered and without hesitation he took the ice pack, gently dabbing it on your forehead.
“I’m fine.” You reached up, stopping his movements. “I’m not the one who just performed. We’re taking care of you.”
Jiyong’s hand moved back to your face, the ice ring cool against your skin causing you to shudder. Jiyong’s eyes moved from your eyes to your lips and he cocked his head ever so slightly. He had wanted to kiss you a million times in the past but had always fought away the urge to ruin the friendship. But tonight he didn’t want to. His eyes shot back up to yours and you nodded. Not trusting your words.
Jiyong’s lips collided with yours, a kiss filled with desperation and years of pent up feelings. His hand stayed on your cheek, his thumb rubbing soothing circles over your skin and you sighed as he pulled back.
You turned your head, your lips moving to kiss his hand. Your eyes caught sight of the ice ring and before you could stop yourself you opened your mouth, closing it over his finger and biting down on the ice, pulling it off his finger and popping it into your mouth.
“Fucking hell, Jagiya.” He laughed as you leaned back.
“What? Too much?” He shook his head.
“Not enough.” He pulled you on top of him, his hands moving to your waist.
Your hips grinded into him and you groaned when you realized how hard he was, feeling him through the thin material of your skirt. His lips met yours again hungrily as his fingers moved to brush over the thin material of your panties.
Your hips grinded into his again and he met your movements. He moved your panties to the side, his fingers running and down your slick folds teasingly as you grinded into him again.
“This has to go.” He patted your skirt and you stood up, removing your skirt and panties quickly before moving to straddle his lap again.
His thumb rubbed against your clit and you moaned as you worked the button on his pants, finally freeing his hard cock from his pants. You pumped him slowly, his mouth moving from your lips to your neck.
“Fuck me, Ji.” You begged into his ear.
Jiyong froze for a second. It had been a long time since the two of you had been in a situation like this and there was a part of him that was scared this would ruin the friendship. But maybe this would change everything for the better. Maybe this time it’d work out. His hands moved back to your hips as he guided you over him.
You sunk down on him slowly, letting him enter you completely and you sat there enjoying the feel of him inside of you for a minute. His cock twitched inside you and you moaned before you rolled your hips slowly.
His hips moved to meet your every movement, and you couldn’t remember why you’d ever stopped this part of your relationship. It was like your bodies were made for each other. Your bodies moving in perfect sync, like you’d done this a million times.
Jiyong reached for the ice, grabbing a cube and running it from your lips down your throat. You moaned, encouraging him to continue, and he smirked, popping the ice cube into his mouth. He sucked on the cube for a minute before discarding it. His mouth moving down to your breasts, his tongue circled your nipple. His hand pinching your other one causing you to move a bit more roughly against him.
He smirked against your skin, his hand moving to your back to keep you upright as your movements got faster. Your fingers dug into his shirt, holding on for dear life as you rode him faster.
Jiyong slipped his hand from your hip back in between you, his thumb rubbing slow circles on your clit, bringing you closer to the edge. Your head fell back as his name fell from your lips, your mind going fuzzy as you felt yourself teetering over the edge.
“Cum for me, Jagiya.” He whispered against your skin.
His voice was just the motivation you needed and you rolled your hips, shouting out in pure ecstasy as you came undone. Jiyong thrusted inside of you as you road out your orgasm, his quick behind yours as he released inside of you. He held you to him tightly, your breath shaky as you tried to catch it. Your eyes finally met and you smiled.
“You were trying to seduce me, weren’t you?”
“What do you mean?” You rolled your eyes.
“The black suit at dinner, the leather racing jacket today.” You pointed to the PMO jacket that was laying on the couch next to you and he smirked.
“Maybe I was.”
“You’re the worst.”
“Only because it worked.” He shrugged. "And besides, I did say you'd be coming earlier. I'm a man of my word" He looked at you smugly and you groaned.
"Don't ." You moved off him slowly, immediately missing the closeness as you stood up.
His staff would be back any minute and you weren’t going to get caught like this. You slid your skirt back on before sitting down next to Jiyong.
“Should we talk about what just happened?”
“Only if you want to.” Jiyong wasn't going to push, not today.
“Maybe it can wait until we’re back home.”
You didn’t want to think about what this meant. You just wanted to focus on how you felt right now. And right now, you wanted to take him back to the hotel and do this for the rest of the night. The logistics about what this meant, what he meant to you, how everything would change, could wait until you were back home.
As if reading your mind, Jiyong stood up, grabbed your hand and led you out of the trailer. He’d do whatever he could to convince you that picking him would be the right choice. But if he could only ever have you as a best friend, that would be ok with him too, as long as he had you in some capacity.
summary: jiyong seems to take an interest in you, the new public relations manager, and finds himself craving your approval.
word count: 2408
tags: flirting, slight power dynamics, steamy towards the end -- part of @jiyongsangel's mans best friend writing challenge !!
ao3 link
The first time you met Kwon Jiyong, he was forty-five minutes late.
You were sitting in one of the conference rooms of YG Entertainment’s sleek office building, staring at the untouched stack of press packets you’d prepared for the group’s tour announcement. As the newly assigned public relations manager for one of the biggest acts in the industry, you wanted your first day to be perfect. Organized. Professional. Scandal-free.
But no one warned you about him.
The door burst open mid-thought, and in he strolled—oversized sunglasses, ripped designer jeans, and a smirk that could start wars.
“Sorry, traffic,” he said casually, holding an iced coffee like he’d been on vacation instead of heading to a meeting scheduled an hour ago.
“You live five minutes away.”
“You checked?”
“It’s my job to know things, Mr. Kwon.”
Jiyong grinned, clearly delighted by your irritation. He lowered the sunglasses slowly, revealing annoyingly pretty eyes that sparkled with mischief. “Cute. So you’re the new babysitter, huh?”
You set your jaw, flipping open your folder. “I’m the one who keeps the headlines about your group focused on music instead of whatever… circus you have going on in your personal life.”
He slid into the chair across from you, looking utterly unbothered. “So basically, you clean up after me.”
“Glad you understand,” you deadpanned.
He laughed, leaning back in his chair like this was the most entertaining meeting of his life. “I like you already. Most people are scared to talk to me like that.”
“Most people don’t know what they’re doing. I do.”
That made him pause. His grin didn’t falter, but something in his expression shifted—just a flicker. Like he was studying you for the first time instead of just trying to get under your skin. Your comment earned you a raised eyebrow—and, annoyingly, a smile that was a little too charming for its own good.
And you hated that your pulse jumped under the weight of his gaze.
Two hours later, you were standing backstage at the hotel ballroom where the group’s press conference was being held, headset on, clipboard in hand, doing what you did best: holding everything together with duct tape and sheer willpower. The other members of the group were lined up neatly, dressed perfectly in the stylist’s carefully coordinated vision. Cameras were already flashing, reporters buzzing with questions.
Then there was Jiyong.
Slouched in his chair at the end of the row like he owned the building. Sunglasses back on. One ankle propped on his knee like this was a café hangout instead of a live-broadcast press event. You could practically feel your blood pressure rising.
You leaned toward him just before the cameras went live, hissing at him to lose the sunglasses.
He tilted his head lazily toward you, that infuriating smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. “What, and deprive them of the mystery?”
“Deprive me of a heart attack,” you snapped.
“You sure you’re not just dying to see my eyes again?” He murmured, low enough that the others wouldn’t hear.
You froze for half a second, heat prickling at the back of your neck, but recovered quickly. “I’m dying to not have to clean up another headline about you acting like a rockstar on live TV.”
For a moment, you thought he’d keep pushing. But then—so suddenly you almost didn’t believe it—he took off the sunglasses and slipped them into his jacket pocket, obedient for once. Except when the questions started, he didn’t stick to the script.
Reporters asked about the new album, and he let the others yap off-topic. They asked about the group’s inspiration, he mentioned how it was obviously heartbreak. What else would it be? One reporter even asked about dating rumours and, instead of deflecting like you told him to, he smirked to himself and mumbled something cryptic. By the time it was over, your notes were crumpled in your hands, your headset askew, and you were seconds away from launching yourself into traffic.
Backstage, you cornered him the second the cameras were off. “What was that?!”
He shrugged, utterly unbothered. “Entertainment.”
“This is not a game, Kwon Jiyong—”
“Relax,” he drawled, leaning against the wall with a lazy grin. “You said you know what you’re doing, right? Looks like the world’s still spinning. Guess I didn’t ruin everything after all.”
By the third disaster of the week, you had stopped hoping for smooth sailing. At this point, you were just aiming for survivable. The charity red carpet was supposed to be simple. Quick photos, a few interviews, and out. The group was already lined up like the professionals they were, every member dressed perfectly, smiles practiced but genuine enough to keep the fans screaming.
Of course, Jiyong had showed up late, hair damp, shirt buttoned in a way that made you wonder if he’d lost a fight with it on the drive over.
Your clipboard was in your hands before you even realized you’d tightened your grip on it.
“Nice to see you too, boss,” he said as soon as he caught your stare, grin sharp and effortless as the press went wild for him.
“This isn’t about me seeing you,” you said evenly, eyes scanning the reporters, the cameras, the lights. “This is about the fact that you were supposed to be here twenty minutes ago and now I have to reshuffle the entire schedule to fit you in.”
No anger. No panic. Just facts.
Something flickered in his expression, like he’d expected you to yell.
He tried anyway. “Aw, come on, I made it, didn’t I?”
“Stand on the mark,” you said, pointing to the tape on the floor. “Smile. Don’t answer any personal questions. Keep your comments brief so we can get through this on time. Can you do that?”
The edge of his grin softened, eyes narrowing in curiosity now. Like he wasn’t sure what to do with someone who didn’t play his game.
“Sure,” he said slowly. “Whatever you say, ma’am.”
The moment he turned toward the cameras, you saw it. The way he paused for half a beat, like he was thinking about something to say to you, something clever or teasing… and couldn’t come up with a single thing.
And that? That was more satisfying than yelling at him would have ever been.
Naturally, the second the interviews started, he still couldn’t help himself—throwing in a wink at the camera, cracking a joke that made the reporters laugh. But it wasn’t reckless this time. It was like he was performing while keeping one eye on you, waiting for you to crack.
By the time the event wrapped up, you had managed to get the schedule back on track, the press satisfied, and the manager breathing again.
“See?” Jiyong said afterward, hands in his pockets as you crossed paths backstage. “No disasters. Guess I’m not that bad, huh?”
“Not bad,” you said, flipping through your notes. “Just undisciplined. We’ll work on it.”
His grin faltered—just barely—but you caught it. And for the first time, he didn’t look like the man in control of the room.
You’re not sure when the dynamic shifted.
At first, you thought it was a coincidence. Jiyong arriving on time for a photoshoot? Must have been a rare alignment of the planets. Him actually following the wardrobe notes you gave the stylists? Probably a fluke.
But then it kept happening.
He’d show up exactly two minutes before call time with his usual iced coffee in hand, acting casual like he hadn’t spent half the week ignoring schedules before you started. He still cracked jokes during interviews, but he stuck to the talking points you sent out beforehand, his smirk flashing toward you like he was checking to see if you noticed. You always did. You just didn’t react. Not outwardly, anyway.
“Good job today,” you said once after a particularly smooth press junket, your eyes still on the clipboard as you scanned the next day’s schedule.
It was nothing. Just a polite acknowledgement.
He was quiet for a moment, and when you looked up, he had this odd expression—like a kid who’d just gotten a gold star and wasn’t sure what to do with it.
The next day, he was on time again.
After a while, you realized he was… competing with himself.
When you praised the group for wrapping an event without chaos, he started cracking less outrageous jokes in interviews. When you mentioned you appreciated punctuality, he began showing up early enough to be seen waiting. When you gave notes on posture and tone for televised segments, he actually followed them, smirking like he was expecting a report card afterward.
He never said anything directly. Of course he didn’t. That would be too easy.
But you started catching the way his eyes would flick toward you after a reporter laughed at his perfectly timed, non-controversial joke. Or how he’d linger nearby after an event, clearly waiting for you to give instructions he absolutely didn’t need.
And when you gave those short, professional compliments—
“Good interview.”
“Better pacing this time.”
“Nice job staying on message.”
—he would nod like it was nothing. Like it didn’t matter.
But you caught the way his mouth would twitch, the way his shoulders loosened, the way he walked away like someone who’d just been told they did well for once in their life.
Of course, he still had his moments.
“So… that was at least a B-plus, right?”
“B-minus. You need to work on your breathing control.”
The way he stared at you? Like you’d just handed him a personal challenge. Somehow, without meaning to, you’d become the one person in his glittery, chaotic life whose opinion actually mattered. And he was terrible at hiding it.
You weren’t expecting anyone that late.
It was past nine, you’d already kicked off your heels, hair pinned up messily, laptop open on the coffee table while you finished tomorrow’s press notes. When the knock came—sharp, impatient—you assumed it was a delivery mix-up.
Instead, it was Kwon Jiyong, leaning against your doorframe like a desperate lover boy in a bittersweet romantic film. Hood up, sunglasses on, grin flashing like he didn’t look ridiculous showing up like that at night.
“Do you wear those to bed, too?” You asked, leaning one shoulder against the door, arms crossed.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” He shot back, smirk tugging at his mouth.
You gave him the flattest look you could manage. “What are you doing here, Jiyong? It’s late.”
He shrugged, shifting his weight lazily. “You don’t answer my texts.”
“Because they’re not work-related.”
“That’s cold, boss,” he said, hand over his heart in mock injury. “I thought we were building something special here.”
You didn’t move, didn’t rise to the bait, and that was the thing—he wasn’t used to people not giving him what he wanted. He tilted his head, studying you like he was trying to find the crack in your armor.
“Y’know… you talk to me like I’m some reckless kid who can’t be taken seriously.”
“Do I?”
His eyes narrowed slightly at the almost-smile you didn’t quite let him have. “Yeah. Like you’ve got me all figured out.”
“Maybe I do.” You met his gaze evenly.
There it was. The flicker across his face when he realized you weren’t bluffing. That calm, infuriating confidence of yours was eating at him, and the worst part? He liked it. For once, he didn’t have a slick comeback ready. His tongue darted over his lower lip like he was stalling for time, his weight shifting as if he wasn’t sure whether to stay or leave.
Finally, he said, quieter than before, “So what would it take for you to admit I’m not just some… manchild to babysit?”
“More than showing up at my door after hours.”
For a moment, he just stared at you, jaw tight, tongue pressed against the inside of his cheek.
Then he moved.
One step. Then another. Until your back hit the wall just inside your doorway.
You didn’t flinch. Didn’t push him away. Just stayed there, calm as ever, while he loomed closer, one hand braced above your shoulder, the hood of his sweatshirt shadowing his sharp eyes.
“You know,” he murmured, his voice low now, almost rough, “you drive me crazy.”
Do I?” You repeated.
He gave a sharp little laugh under his breath, but there was nothing funny in his expression now. “You stand there with your perfect little clipboard, like you’ve got me all figured out. Makes me wanna—”
His eyes flicked to your mouth, then back up to meet your gaze again.
“Wanna what exactly?” You asked, tone smooth, even as your pulse hammered in your throat.
See if you’d stay this calm if I kissed you.”
“And what makes you think I wouldn’t?”
That did it.
You could see it happen—the moment the game changed. The moment the golden boy with all his charm and swagger finally lost his balance. Because for once, you weren’t yelling or bossing him around. For once, he used his charms on a woman he was infatuated with and it didn’t stick to the usual script. You were pretty much daring him, and Jiyong was never good at walking away from a dare.
One second, he was watching you like a man on the edge. The next, his mouth was on yours, hot and reckless, his hand finally cupping your jaw like he couldn’t hold back another second.
The wall was cool against your spine, contrasting the sheer heat of his touch.
And still, even as you kissed him back you stayed infuriatingly calm. Like you were letting him, not losing yourself to him.
It drove him wild.
He broke away just enough to murmur against your lips, breath hot and uneven.
“God, you make me insane,” he said, like it was a confession dragged out of him. “How can you stand there and remain perfectly calm while I’m—” He huffed a short laugh, frustrated. “—while I’m me.”
Your lips curved in the faintest smile. “Dangerous?”
He groaned softly, the sound half amusement, half defeat. “Sure… if that’s what you wanna call it.”
You let your hands slide up his chest, slow, deliberate, resting against his shoulders like you were holding him still.
“Lucky for you,” you said softly, voice smooth enough to cut glass. “I like danger.”
tysm rei for inviting me to this challenge, im so sorry this was so late but i hope you guys enjoyed :,))
synopsis: you were about done and frustrated with chan's antics. so, taking matters into your own hands, you set up a bit of a trap (minor, baby trap) to see if he'd take the bait. and once he did? well. you finally convinced him to see the benefits of talking.
note: this is part of ciara's brat summer 2025 writing challenge and is inspired by charli xcx's collab with troye sivan "talk talk".
as always, thanks for reading. :)
Masterlist
Fifteen minutes or so later, Chan showed up at your door, knocking in quick succession. Still clad in a pair of grey sweats and a plain black tee, you made your way over and opened the door.
"You can't stay long, I've got about 30 minutes til I gotta leave," you said, turning back around as he came inside, shutting the door behind him.
"Wait, can we talk for a minute?" Chan's voice was small, slightly nervous.
"We can talk while I'm getting ready, my curling wand is hot." You hadn't turned around, and just stepped inside your bedroom and the en suite bathroom.
Cautiously following you, Chan meandered over to your bed and sat down on the edge, watching you fidget with a hair clip to section off your long hair. "So, what's on your mind?"
Raking his fingers through his hair, he looked around your space, trying to figure out what to say. "I... I didn't realize you had a date tonight."
Glancing over at him through the corner of your eye, a strand of hair twirled around the hot tool, you lightly shrugged. "Cause you hadn't asked."
"Didn't realize I needed to..." he said softly, and you kept quiet, waiting to see if he was going to work all of this out in his head. "I guess I have a question?"
"Hmm?" You murmured, eyes focused on your hair.
"Is it just me, or is something going on here?"
"What do you mean?"
"With us. You, me, us." Chan gestured between the two of you, still roughly 10 feet away from his position on the bed.
Laughing shortly, incredulously, you paused before replying. "Not to my knowledge?"
"Y/n, I'm being serious."
"So am I, Chan." You replied, resting the curling wand on the counter top with a little more gusto than intended. He startled with the clanging noise.
Turning to face him, you cocked your hip to one side, both hands coming to rest on your hips. "I have no idea what you think is happening here because you won't talk to me."
"I talk to you all of the time!" His brows furrowed in genuine confusion, the volume of his voice increasing just slightly.
"About dumb shit! Like your new soundboard, and the restaurant around the corner that you said had the best bibimbap, or the stupid thing Han said!" Your exasperation of the situation was becoming evident.
"I tell you all of that dumb shit because I want to share those things with you! Like, when I found that new restaurant with the bibimbap because you said it was your favorite food! Or the random rose laying on the ground the other day because it made me think of you! Or the new beat I was messing with on the new soundboard I told you about that I was inspired by YOU to write!"
Your lips parted in surprise, then closed. Shifting your stance, you dropped your hands at your sides and looked at him somewhat dumbfounded, half your hair curled, half still pinned up awkwardly. "Well... why didn't you tell me that?"
"Because I didn't think I had to!" Chan said, slapping his hands down on his thighs. "I thought..." he sighed heavily, shoulders slumping as his gaze shifted down to the floor. "I thought that you knew how I felt about you and that I didn't need to tell you."
"Chris..." you mumbled, taking a few barefooted steps from the bathroom into the bedroom, standing just a few feet from him. "I'm not a mind-reader. If you have something to say then you should just talk to me. Tell me how you feel."
Peaking up at you through his lashes, he parted those big beautiful lips and spoke gently. "I feel like... like I don't want to share you with anyone else."
Taking another step forward, you hesitated, waiting for him to continue. And when he didn't, you tried again. "Why?"
"Because."
"Because why?"
"Because I have feelings for you, damnit!" Chan sat back up straighter, throwing his hands in the air as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "And I thought you had feelings for me!"
"I do," you murmured quietly, taking another step closer.
"...you do?"
Nodding your head, you moved to stand right in front of him, still keeping a tiny bit of distance between you.
"Then why are you going out on a date with someone else?"
You smirked, the corners of your lips inching upwards slyly. "I'm not."
He blinked at you, trying to process your words. "Come again?"
"I'm not going on a date with someone else."
"Then... then what the hell is all of this?" He asked, more confused than ever.
"I needed you to tell me that you had feelings for me, you idiot." You finally closed the minimal gap between you, hands coming to rest on his broad shoulders. "You wouldn't tell me what was going on here and I was tired of waiting for you to open up and talk."
"Evil." He mumbled, tilting his head back to look up at you.
"Look at all of this confusion that could've been avoided had you just chosen to talk to me and say 'Hey Y/n, I like you, let's try this thing out for real.'"
Taking a breath, he sat there, pondering. "I don't know if I should be mad at you for trying to trick me like this..." Slowly, his hands lifted to rest on either side of your waist, keeping you firmly in front of him. "Or relieved, for finally having it out in the open," he said with a heavy, relaxed sigh.
"Let's go with the second one," you smirked, shaking his shoulders lightly in a teasing manner, finally getting him to crack a smile. "But... now if you don't mind, I have a date to get ready for tonight so can you find yourself out?"
He laughed, finally feeling the severity of the moment lift into that of relief. "What time should I be back to pick you up?"
"How 'bout an hour?"
"An hour it is. But. Under two conditions." He said, fingertips digging playfully into your hips.
"I do not like the sound of this..."
"One..." he began, "you wear that blue dress. Looked so freaking hot in it."
With a short laugh, you nodded your head, fingers running up his shoulders to his neck, playing with the soft curls at the base. "And two?"
"Two... I get to kiss you."
Coming in slightly closer to him, you smiled, your eyes falling to his lips. "Thought you'd never ask."
Chan moved one of his hands to rest gently on the back of your neck, and pulled you down to connect your lips ever-so-softly against his. Lingering there for a moment, he hummed happily against your mouth, his hand on your waist pulling you in tighter to his muscular frame.
"Talking ain't so bad, huh?" You murmured, kissing him again lightly.
"If this is the result? I'll talk to you forever, Babygirl."
pairing: kwon ji-yong x reader
wc: 8k
summary: After trying to avoid Ji-yong at a party and failing, you what you're better at than anything else. A steamy night you'll both forget.
tags: 18+ MDNI, asshole/toxic!ji-yong, semi-public flirting, smut, unprotected p in v, afab reader
a/n: SORRY this one is so long it got away from me,,, this is for the BRAT SUMMER 2025 event!
ao3
The bass hits you before the door even opens.
It rattles the ground beneath you, sending a wave thrumming through your very bones and through your veins. It lands somewhere in your ribs, finding a home there and burying itself. The line outside had stretched well past the block when you first arrived, but a mystery stranger had pulled you in through the side, past the doorman. Pass the waiting, someone who owed you a favor, or maybe you owed him now. It didn’t matter.
Inside, the club is alive, practically breathing on its own. The air is humid from the shifting of bodies together, music loud and rattling your skull. It’s dark despite the flashing lights, and you can’t escape the thought that the sight of it is sickly beautiful. Everything around you drowns in red light and thigh smoke. It curls around you and clings to your skin.
You don’t see him right away, which is good.
You’re halfway into your second shot, your lips already shining from taking them and smeared from laughing too hard from laughing into someone’s shoulder. You told yourself that you weren’t here for anyone except for yourself. You even told your friends too, even if they didn’t believe you. You’re just here to dance and sweat the day off, to soak in something reckless.
But it’s when you tilt your head back and close your eyes with arms raised, hips lazy and swaying to some chopped, glittering remix of a song you once loved, that he finds you.
He doesn’t call your name, doesn’t tap your shoulder. You just feel him.
That weightless shift in the air. Like gravity reorienting itself. Like something warm pressed against the edges of your attention. You open your eyes, and he’s already there. A step away. Lit up by the seizure-bright strobe in intervals, Ji-yong watches you like he’s half-dreaming, smoke curling from between his fingers as he exhales.
He’s smoking. Indoors. Of course he is.
His cigarette glows at the tip every time he pulls from it, the light catching his rings and the edge of his smirk. His shirt is half-unbuttoned, chains peeking beneath. His hair’s a little messy, dark, maybe damp from sweat. He looks ruined in the best way, like he’s been partying for hours and still somehow makes exhaustion look curated. It’s unfair how he can make a place like this look designer, too.
He takes one more drag before letting the smoke trail from his lips: slow, deliberate— and then nods at the DJ booth.
“You’re early,” he mouths across the space between you. He doesn’t shout, the music swallows everything else.
You let your gaze drag over him before lifting your glass slightly in return. “You shouldn’t be expecting me. I came here for myself.”
His grin flashes, quick and feral, and it hooks in your stomach a little too fast.
He moves closer. Just enough that his presence brushes against yours without touching. His eyes drop to your mouth, your throat, the slick line of sweat catching light at your collarbone. He leans in, close enough to feel the heat of him against your ear. His voice is a low murmur, roughened by smoke and volume.
“I almost didn’t come, until I knew you’d be here.”
Your lips part, but you don’t speak, not yet. You know he did come, that he’s here now. He always finds you, whether he wants to or not. Under the lights, though, it’s hard to tell who’s chasing who.
You don't answer him.
Instead, you take a slow sip of your drink. Tilt the glass just enough to let him watch your throat move as you swallow. It’s petty, deliberate, and of course it works its charm on him.
Ji-yong's gaze flickers. Brief, but sharp. A new track pulses in. A warped synth layering over a deep, glittering beat. Something twisted and feminine. It vibrates in your ribs, thick as blood. You sway. Just slightly. A little off-time on purpose. He notices. Of course he does.
You don’t invite him closer. You don’t need to. The space between you is already shrinking, breath by breath, the way it always does. Some doomed orbit. The heat of him is right there, just there— and when he exhales, the smoke lingers over your skin. Ji-yong shifts his weight, rings glinting as he crushes the cigarette out against a sleek black ashtray on the high table beside him. He leans forward slowly into your space, and sets his hand against the small of your back.
It’s light. Barely there. But you feel it.
The music doesn’t stop. The crowd doesn’t stop. The world spins mad and fast all around you. Bodies colliding, lights splitting the air into gold and red and blue. The only thing that feels solid is him. His hand. His heat. The drag of his voice as it slips low, low, lower.
“Come dance,” he says, but it’s not a request.
You raise a brow, chin tilted up in mock defiance. “You never dance.”
“I do,” he murmurs, eyes locked on yours, “when it’s with you.”
And there it is.
That thing you pretend not to hear. That flicker of something heavier than lust threading through his voice. It's in the way he looks at you, like he wants to be good tonight, but already knows he won’t be. You hesitate, just long enough to make him wait. You set your glass down, slowly, and let your hand trail down his arm as you pass him. A promise.
You walk ahead, the press of his hand following you across the dance floor.
By the time you hit the floor, the lights have shifted. They’re colder now, harsh strobes of white and violet. A drop is building in the music, but you don’t care. Ji-yong moves behind you, and his hands find your hips like they belong there. His breath ghosts over the shell of your ear, and for a second it’s too loud, too close, and not close enough.
You move first. A slow roll of your body into his, a rhythm he catches like he never forgot it. His grip tightens. His voice brushes your neck, too low to catch completely.
But you think he says, “That’s it.”
And just like that, you’re not sure if the heat in your chest is from the bass, the liquor, or him. The crowd shifts, spills, flows around you, but Ji-yong doesn’t move. His hands stay at your hips, fingers spread wide, anchoring you in place. Not rough. Not yet. Just firm. Decided. You feel him exhale behind you. The ghost of smoke still clinging to his breath, warm against your cheek.
“You smell like trouble,” you murmur, not looking back.
“I am trouble,” he says, unapologetic. And then, quieter: “But so are you.”
Your breath stutters. A throb of bass passes through the soles of your feet and he sways with you, the motion subtle. Lazy. His hips align behind yours. You’re not dancing anymore so much as pressing, molding to the tempo in the spaces between beats and words.
You tilt your head back just slightly, and he uses that moment to lean in closer. His nose brushes along the edge of your jaw, soft and fleeting.
“Look at you,” he says, low enough that it’s just for you. “Lit up like neon.”
And God, he’s dangerous like this. Smooth voice. Sharp rings. Cigarette heat still on his fingertips where they graze the edge of your top, dragging slow down your side. Your hands reach back, unthinking, touching his waist to steady yourself. He pauses in his sway, his breath catching as your touch collides with him. You knew you hit a nerve.
He doesn't flinch, though. He just moves in closer, and when you bend your wrist to drag your knuckles lightly along the seam of his jeans, you hear him laugh under his breath, delighted and exasperated all at once. You can feel the way your bodies pressed together, lightly sprinkled in the humidity of the room and sweat of body heat. The way he presses into you, with much less shame than he should be having now.
There's a game here. There's always a game. Maybe that's why you've kept him so close, even when you both pretended you weren't circling each other anymore.
The room throbs and jumps but it's smaller now, tight as a confession booth. Every sense sharpens. You're aware, suddenly, of the beads of sweat forming along your lower back, the damp heat of bodies crowding against yours on either side. Of the citrus tang of someone else's drink being spilled near your feet. And most of all, of the voice threading the air beside your jaw, softer now:
"You missed me," he says, almost teasing, the ghost of lips barely brushing your cheek.
Your laugh is sharper than you meant it to be. "You're always so sure of yourself, aren’t you?”
He doesn’t hesitate to answer, “Of course I am.”
“When I first met you you were so sheepish I thought if I looked at you too long you’d run off,” you murmur, “You’re different now, but you still aren’t very good at dancing.”
You can’t help your own dry humor. You weren’t doing so much as practically rubbing against each other in the middle of the dance floor, anyway.
He grins at that, and the sharpness fades from his gaze for just a second. The strobe catches a glimmer of someone you almost recognize from before; the version of him that blushes easy, that tripped for months over his own wants and words around you. You used to love that version, how he’d stumble, how much you could bend him before he snapped.
But maybe you like this one better, the one who grabs you without asking, whose hands are confident now. Maybe you like that you helped make him.
“I got better,” he says, rolling his hips against you in time to the beat. “Or maybe you just stopped pretending to be unimpressed.”
You snort, but he’s right. You gave up pretending a long time ago.
He moves you, then a gentle but insistent tug, his palm flat at the base of your spine. He never loses step, not even when you maneuver a half-turn so you’re facing him. It feels like a ballroom dance for a moment instead of to whatever pulsing club classic blares over your heads.
Ji-yong grins, wicked, as you spin into him and find his eyes. In this light, with your faces close, he’s more beautiful than he should be. Ghostly with sweat-paneled skin and that hunger set somewhere in his gaze. You float your hands up, skim his jaw, and his mouth opens just barely.
“You’re going to owe me for this,” you say, not sure what ‘this’ you mean— the dance, the memory, this version of you that wakes up at 2AM demanding more. Ji-yong tilts his head, drags a finger along the curve of your shoulder to the hollow of your throat, follows it with his gaze.
“I already do,” he says, and you believe him.
For a while, you let the music have you. It’s easy, when each track runs into another, when the world outside might as well not exist. You let him crowd you at the edge of the floor, the two of you blurring into the pulse of everything alive and breathless. He’s talking into your ear again, voice rough and hungry, peeling off bits of himself in the hope that you’ll notice how open his hands really are.
He’s confiding useless little nothings: the name of the remix, how many cigarettes he’s had, a story about the last concert he’d crashed hard after performing. None of it matters except the rhythm it makes, the way he’s arching his neck to whisper, the way you lean into him so the words can't escape.
You close your eyes and lose count of how many songs go by, how many times his hand slips under the hem of your shirt or how often your hips slot perfectly into his. At some point you stop pretending there’s any real distance between you, that you came here alone, that you’re not both desperate for something that can’t quite be named.
The first time he tries to kiss you, you dodge, smiling like it’s all just a game you’re both in on. He exhales, a sharp huff that lifts the hair behind your ear, and you feel him grin against your hairline. He purrs like a damn cat, leaning into you yet again. The second time, you let it connect. It’s not careful. It’s not even a kiss.Your mouths collide, too eager, the taste of soju and smoke and all that laughing burned into your lips.
He’s breathing hard, so are you, and when you break apart the need coiled in your chest only tightens. You let your hand slip into his hair, tilting him up for a proper try. This time he’s ready: everything softens, slows, his mouth gentle. Less about taking and more about wanting. And somehow that’s the thing that makes you shiver, even though you’re already burning up.
It pulls you deeper. You want more. You want him to want more.
You bite at his lower lip, just enough for him to feel it, and his hands flex where they hold you. The edge of the dance floor is a blur, but you’re coldly aware of eyes on you. Of countless strangers setting their gaze on the couple recklessly connecting. You don’t care. Why should you? You want Ji-yong to see what happens when you stop playing coy and give in. When he tries to say something, you catch his mouth with yours and swallow the words down until only the heat is left.
You don’t remember when you backed him up against the far wall, but here you are, palm flat on his chest and heart pounding under your fingers. He tastes like sweat and Red Bull and something bitter you can’t name. It’s addictive. He pulls away first, breathless and too proud to show it, and the flash of his teeth is half warning, half invitation. The lights flicker. He’s so close that his next words feel like a secret pressed to your lips.
“Let’s get out of here,” he says, orders.
He means right now, you realize, now-now, and the look in his eyes tells you he might just shatter if you decline. It’s a look you haven’t seen on him in a long time, and it looks good on him. You nod, and neither of you say anything more. He laces his fingers through yours. It’s something he’s never done in public before, but maybe tonight is about new rules. He pulls you straight through the crowd. You barely register the darting glances and the ripple of awareness that follows in your wake. People always watched Ji-yong, but now they’re watching you, too.
You hit the air outside and it's freezing, the city’s summer night suddenly cool compared to the club. You breathe, but it’s still full of him. He steers you quick and decisive, around curbs and past cabs hawking for a fare. He walks like the street belongs to him, and maybe it does. For a moment your mind betrays you: you do, too. You glance at your joined hands, and you don’t even try to steal yours back.
He doesn’t say anything until you’re two blocks away and the music is gone, replaced by the greasy throb of traffic and neon flickering lights.
“You could afford a cab,” You point out, “didn’t someone drive you here?”
You’re still breathless, still heated from your shared dance. Ji-yong takes a moment, digging into his pocket and plucking out a face mask he hadn’t decided to bother with until now. He pulls it over his nose, a beanie appearing from his hand and pressing over his head. It’s a version of him you’re much more used to: G-Dragon trying to avoid the press, paparazzi.
He still hasn’t spoken, so you try again, “A little late for that.”
He steers you down an alley anyway, a shortcut behind the closed restaurants. He walks fast, pulling you side-by-side for a few yards, matching your pace without glancing over. When you do look at him, he’s already watching you again, the curve of his mouth hidden now, but you can see it in the way his eyes crinkle. He never could hide anything from you for long.
It’s quiet here, every footstep a little echo that multiplies your heart’s pounding. There’s no one around, just the hum of a tired city and the distant pulse of all those people pretending to be someone better for the night.
Halfway down the alley he stops, so suddenly you almost stumble. He’s still holding your hand, and he tugs again, harder this time, and you finally realize where you had been tugged along to. Just out of the corner of your eye you spot the gate to the back of his penthouse. You were so out of it you hadn’t recognized the streets that should’ve been familiar.
The side door clicks open with a practiced flick of his wrist, then you’re inside, out of the heat, into the sharp chill of the sharp contrast of his penthouse. It’s warm on the inside, more comfortable than it had any right to be. There was a pile of shoes by the entry way. Cozy, his. The hum of a refrigerator is the only thing reaching you for a moment, like the city itself had been put on mute.
Ji-yong’s mask comes off with a quick tug, his beanie thrown somewhere on the nearest ledge. The air inside the penthouse is both cooler and charged, as if the walls are holding their breath for what happens next.
“You’re reckless,” you finally tell him, letting your voice break the hush as you toe your shoes off by the door. “Dragging me here like some kind of prize.”
He ignores you for a moment, pulling his phone from his pocket and hitting a button you know triggers the privacy glass. He checks his reflection in the darkened marble, runs a hand through his damp hair, then turns to face you head-on.
“Not a prize,” he says, voice suddenly softer than the club before. Then, he seems to catch himself in the middle of it.
“Just—” His gaze stutters, mid-leap, and he finishes: “You.”
The penthouse is a gallery of bad decisions and beautiful things, a soft-lit mausoleum for every unwise purchase and every night that should have ended earlier. He keeps it cold in here, so you’ll have to pull his hoodies off his bedroom floor and wear them when you sleep. When you offer a sarcastic “Nice place,” he shrugs like he doesn’t believe it, never did, and tosses his keys to the counter. The sound is precise, practiced.
You cross the laminate floor, breath slowing but hands still a little shaky. There is a geography to this space, the hallway you never quite got used to. The first time you stayed over, you swore you’d never make it a habit. The security guard in the lobby memorized your face anyway, always greeted you with that knowing smirk at four in the morning.
There’s a bottle already open on the kitchen island, sweating from the short walk from his fridge. Two glasses, one full. He pours you the other. “Sanity check,” he says, sliding it over, a soft wink. “In case you want out.”
You don’t, not even a little. His sharp edges soften again as his slicked-back hair falls forward into his face, taking a drink and nodding to you.
There's a gap left deliberate, a challenge. The city out the windows is wide and desperate, all glass and nighttime theater, but inside it's tendon-tight with anticipation. His cologne rises as he leans on the marble, or maybe that's just the way you remember things, his scent stitched into every memory where your hearts ever ran a fever.
You collect the glass, thumb smooth on the rim, and drink without blinking. It's not the first time you've played this part. The liquor is clean, clinical, a mouthful of ghosts. The cold of it drags all the way down, waking up something animal in you.
"Tell me," you say, barely above a hush, "what are we doing here, really?"
He smiles the way he always does when the mask comes off, and you see what a mess he is beneath the polish: knuckles bruised blue, the flush riding high on his cheekbones, all that boyish charm that doomed you to be tied to him for the inevitable future.
He leans against the counter, elbows propped up, face shadowed and strobing in the shimmer of city light. “Same thing we’ve always done,” he admits quietly, fingers fussing with one of his heavier chains. “Trying to see who wins before the next song runs out.”
You nod, slow, letting the words unspool. Maybe he’s right. Maybe you two are locked into this dance, always a push, always a pull. Sometimes you chase. Sometimes you want him to catch you. Most of the time you’re not sure which would be worse.
He stalks closer, a dragon in Chanel sweats, and you get the sense that all the bravado he wears in the clubs and concerts and crowded places was left outside with the echoing bass and the sweat of other people’s hands. Alone, it’s just this: a sharp-boned boy, the kind who leaves glittering bruises and never apologizes.
“I came to the club to avoid this same cycle,” You say it just so it feels less like a lie.
You knew damn well when you came dressed the way you did, pressed against him— exactly what you’d be getting. There’s nothing new under the sun except the way his mouth feels when he’s desperate.
Ji-yong tilts his empty glass and balances the rim against his bottom lip, his eyes never leaving yours. He’s a study in hunger and patience, all that ferocity boiled down to a single, waiting line. “You want me to say it?” he asks, eyes glimmering.
“I want you to mean it,” you correct, and he laughs, a real sound, slick and sharp and a little cracked. He walks you backwards until your hips hit the edge of his kitchen island, and the cold marble presses through your thin skirt like a dare. His hands land flat on either side of you, pinning you gently. He leans in until his lips just brush your jaw, and you feel yourself melting.
The same way you always did with him, every time. That damn cycle was working against you, and of course you let it.
Ji-yong slides a hand up, up, along your ribs, finding the edge of your jaw, thumb painting a slow line over your cheek. “You ruin me,” he says, simple as an exhale. “Every time.”
You could laugh, but you don’t. You feel something breaking behind your ribs. You want to say something soft for once. But what’s the point? He wouldn’t believe you, not really. So you tip your head, welcoming the touch.
He moves in as if it’s inevitable. Tilts your chin and brings your mouths together, this time slow, as if you’ve got all night, as if the world couldn’t possibly touch you here. His hands are careful, all the reckless charm drained from him for this one minute where you let him believe he’s the one in control. He bites your lower lip, gently and then claiming all over again.
It should startle you, this quiet hunger masquerading as tenderness, but it doesn’t. It just burrows into your chest and starts digging. You clutch at his shirt, twisting it in your fists, and you realize it’s not for drama but just to keep yourself tethered. He feels you waver and pulls you in tighter, like he’s capable of holding you together with just his arms.
“You should hate me,” he says, breath ghosting your lips when he finally lets up. He’s still so close it’s more a thought than a sound.
“Maybe I do,” you reply, and when he shivers you almost want to take it back.
He doesn’t release you, not even when it gets hard to breathe in the charged air between you. When you finally break away, you don’t go far. You just lean back against the counter, arms folded now to keep the shiver from traveling. He’s watching you with that artist’s gaze, dissecting every piece of you.
He doesn't move to fill the gap. He lets it stretch, slow as honey, until your pulse settles into something almost steady. “What are you thinking?” It’s a gentle demand. He wants the truth, or at least your best imitation of it.
You’re about to answer, but something in his eyes stops you. He’s waiting for the part of you that’s honest, the one you so rarely expose. It’s not fair, you think. He already knows how you’ll answer.
You break the spell with a shrug, lean into the cold of the counter. “You know I want to forget this night with you. You don’t want to hear anything else though, do you?” You don’t mean it to come across cold, but you hear it in the way your voice hisses.
You aren’t sure where this sudden shift in behavior came from. By now, you’d be muttering his name and pressing his wrists into the bed beneath. Depending on how badly he wanted to pretend like he was in charge.
Something changes in the little space between you. The air thickens, hungry and raw, all the more dangerous for how neither of you wants to name it. Ji-yong pushes off the counter, his hands dropping to his sides, jaw flexing as if fighting off a hundred things he could say. He fixes you with that slantwise gaze, the one that always knows how to dismantle you, how to peel you apart by degrees.
“You know I remember every time,” he says. Soft, sure, like pulling a trigger with his voice. “Every single fucking time. I don’t let go.” He tips his glass, drains it, and for a moment looks so tired, so utterly exposed, you want to step forward, pull the leather from his bones and let him just be warm for once.
But he’s never given you that. Never let you see him truly still. You don’t know if he can. He sets down his glass with an audible click, spins it so hard you think it might shatter, and then paces to the edge of the room. His steps are slick on the cold floor, and for a long moment you can’t see the expression on his face at all.
You watch his back. Watch the way his shoulders bunch, the way he rolls his neck like he’s trying to shake off the words before they stick. It doesn’t work. You see that in the tense set of his jaw, the way his breath fogs the window where he rests his palms, head bowed.
“Come here,” you say, almost gently. You almost wonder if you’ll have to repeat it. You don’t. Ji-yong is at your side in a heartbeat, pressure collapsing the space between you until your knees are bracketed by his thighs.
He’s not even touching you, not yet, but you can feel the heat from his hands at your hips, a field of tension so fierce you could slice it open and crawl inside. His eyes are all pupil, wild, but his voice is careful when he says, “You sure?” You don’t know if he means this, now, or everything that comes after.
“I’m sure,” you say. You’ll never stop being sure.
That’s all it takes. He folds into you with a crash, a surge of mouth and hands and bones. His lips find your throat, savage and patient, fingers pulling your shirt up, up, greedy for skin. You feel the chill of the marble and the heat of his palms, contradiction making you shiver more than the liquor ever did.
He lifts you onto the countertop in a single, blunt motion, knuckles ghosting the sensitive skin behind your knees, pushing your legs apart around him. Just like that, you’re forgetting the confession you were a breath away from speaking just a moment ago.
He kisses you harder. When he tries to talk you out of your top, you laugh, tilting your head so his mouth can find more of your throat, and then, because he never could resist a dare, you let him.
The marble props you up cold, the skin of your thighs slick with that electric sweat, and it should embarrass you how quickly you let him peel away your shirt, but you meet his gaze as he does it, daring him to blink first. He doesn’t, of course.
Instead: “You’re always so fucking beautiful when you wanna kill me,” he says, voice thick, hands already working up your hips, leaving thumb-shaped memories along your bones.
You could bite back something clever, but instead you reach for the hem of his shirt, nails grazing his ribs. He gives way just as easily, leaving him bare. You can’t help but trace your fingers over his side, pressing in until you could feel his ribs beneath.
He hisses through his teeth, his eyes flashing up to yours, a warning and a goad in the same breath. You push him back just enough to give yourself leverage, then hook your legs around his waist, dragging him close again. The collision is hard and too much, and not enough; the sound of it echoes in the glossy, empty room.
He kisses you like no one’s watching. That’s always been the trouble with Ji-yong—he loves privacy only as a stage. His hands skim up and down your back, all restless energy and careful fingers, and for one second you think about stopping. Putting a hand to his chest and telling him to slow down, to look at you the way he does when you’re both sobered up by morning.
Daring, you press your hand over his soft skin. The heartbeat under your palm is frantic, impossible, caged-bird desperate. He pulls back, only just, and his eyes snag yours in the freeze between beats. For a second you both just breathe, balanced on the knife-edge of wanting more and wanting to run. His hand is splayed hot over your thigh, one thumb absentmindedly rubbing circles where the skin is slick.
You wonder, as always, if this is the moment he’ll break first—if he’ll remember how to be careful, if he’ll stutter out some excuse and retreat into himself like in the old days. He doesn’t. This version of Ji-yong is dangerous and much braver than the last, and you’re the only one who knows the secret: he’s only brave when he’s with you.
When he speaks, his voice is sandpaper and sugar: “Look at me.”
You do. You always do.
The city is a reflection behind him, spectral and far away. His skin is slick, your own still tingling, your pulse a flickering strobe. You watch the way his damp hair falls forward, how he trembles with the restraint it takes not to just devour you whole, and you feel something cave in your chest, tender and sharp all at once.
This isn’t a war, not really. It’s an old, old ache that keeps finding new ways to bleed.
He draws your hands up to his neck, cupping them there as if they could ward off ghosts. The gesture is almost sweet, except he’s still grinding you harder against the edge of the marble. His lips graze your cheekbone, your brow, and his breath shudders as if it takes everything in him not to say the thing he’s always wanted to say.
You know, because it’s curling in your own throat, too.
His hands drop to your waist, rough and desperate now, dragging your heat forward, anchoring you even as your legs wrap tighter and your hips move in time with him. You’re slick where your bodies meet, throbbing at the edge of agony and pleasure in the way only he could make you.
His chain is cold in your hands, and you tug on it, pulling his mouth back to yours. He groans, deep and unguarded, and the sound vibrates through your teeth and all the way down. You kiss until you feel dizzy, until you’re not sure where you end and he begins, until the taste of him is all you remember how to want. Fingers, clever and sharp, slide up your thigh, slipping beneath the waistband of your skirt, and you feel him shudder as he finds nothing but skin. He stares at you, pupils blown, a hundred different hungers running wild in the wet heat between you.
“Fuck,” he says, reverent. “You’re killing me.”
“You always like when I look at you like I want you dead, don’t you?”
He laughs, not quite out loud, the sound stiffened into a gasp. His brow knots, his mouth in your hair. “You know I do,” he mouths wet to the side of your neck, and bites, not gently. Marking you. Claiming and repudiating all at once. His fingers flex tighter around your waist and you nearly buckle in his grip, the pulse of him strong between your legs.
He wants to ruin you, but he wants to be the only one allowed to tape you back together after. You know this, and you let it happen.
He drags your hips forward until there is nothing in the world but the press of him, the throb and slip of skin, the friction so hot it borders on violence. You claw for his face, his jaw, the chain around his neck. He lets you scratch, lets you take, lets you leave half-moons in the soft skin under his collarbone.
You wonder, not for the first time how long until one of you really does break the other. He sways into you, not quite gentle, and you both flinch at the sharp, animal stutter that happens when every bit of self-restraint gets scraped raw. His hands dig in, and your hips cant forward in open, easy invitation.
“You want it rough tonight?” he asks, voice a bare thread, but he’s already bruising up your thighs with his grip, already reading the answer written on your face. Your laugh is a dare and a refusal, but your body says yes, yes, god yes, and you show him with the hard clutch of your fingers into his bad shoulder.
You duel like this, always: push, pull, then duck and reappear somewhere feral. He rucks your skirt, the fabric bunched past your hips, and the skin-on-skin is sudden and electric. Every part of you that wants to be wanted lights up at the way he grinds between your
legs, the damp heat there making the rest of the world collapse inward. The veins in his arms stand out with the strain of holding himself steady, but he doesn’t falter.
He brings his mouth to your ear, voice shaking with the force of holding back. “Tell me you want this.” The way he says it, tonight he needs it to be true.
You thread your arms behind his neck, pull yourself up so the next words are tangled straight into his hair: “I want you to fuck me right here. I want you to remember it every time you walk through your kitchen.” You don’t recognize your own voice, but maybe that’s the point.
Ji-yong stops pretending. He lets out a sound. A half laugh, half plead, and then he’s flicking up the edge of your skirt, fingers dragging hard at your hips until the fabric is somewhere far away. You want him so badly it’s a kind of sickness, a fever rising off the skin, and his touch burns when he takes your panties away, flicking them somewhere behind him.
You don’t care if you find them in the morning.
He finds you wet, trembling, opens you with two sure fingers and watches you gasp. All his careful restraint is gone now, replaced by something reckless; you grab for his wrist, hungry to feel yourself pinwheeled raw and exposed through his hands. He moves slowly at first, as if time is elastic, as if he can make the memory of tonight last longer by measuring each motion, drawing each sound from you as deliberate as a note in music.
You buck into him, shameless. The cold of the countertop stings and the heat of his hands sears, and you grind against his palm, looking for more, needing so much it almost hurts.
“Desperate,” he murmurs, like a compliment and a confession.
He pulls his fingers free—not to leave you wanting, but to bring them up to his mouth, licking them clean while looking at you with a gaze so steady it dares you to look away. You don’t.
He gives you back your own taste like a promise, then uses both hands to pull you forward, the edge of the countertop biting into you. One palm splays over your lower stomach, holding you flush to the cold marble as he frees himself with the other, the zipper rasping quick and frantic over the thrum in your ears. You fumble at his waistband, teeth bared in a smile you can't even see, and the next thing you know he's pressing in, the hard length of him tight against you, and you are so unbelievably, humiliatingly ready.
Ji-yong takes his time lining up, the head of his cock sliding along your slick entrance, and the weight of his stare makes you impossibly more sensitive. He wants you to break, to beg, but you only bare your teeth at him, nails digging into his arms as you brace yourself. Only when you mutter, "Fucking hell, do it," does he actually push in.
Just enough to make you whine, then waits, gathering the air between you in a palm-size globe of want until you think you’ll claw right through his skin if he doesn’t move. He’s staring at your face, at the twist of your mouth and scrunching your nose, and in another life maybe that look would be soft. But here, in this city, with this boy, it’s about watching you fracture, counting the instruments in your scream.
“Look at me,” he says again, and you do, even as he splits you in half.
You hold his gaze all the way in. The pain is sharp at first, then molten, then nothing but heat and the sting of tears at the edges of your eyes. He sets a rhythm punishing and perfect, every thrust built for sensation, for claim. He paces you with the metronome in his chest, watching how each measured snap of his hips crumples you further, sets you vibrating on the marble like a live wire.
Your legs tremble, heels scraping at the cold surface for purchase, until you lock your ankles at the small of his back and drag him in deeper. He sucks in a breath hard enough to whistle and slams forward, and you break, clinging to his shoulders as your body shudders around him.
“Oh, fuck,” he says, reverent, like he’s praying. His voice cracks with it. You snap your teeth at him in a grin, and the sound you make is its own kind of worship.
The counter is slick with sweat and whatever’s leaking from you now, and he slides a hand beneath your ass to tip your hips up, opening you so wide you gasp. The kitchen is echoing with the sound of skin and your shared gasps.
You ride the shock together, hips finding a rhythm that is not quite the music and not quite each other, something wilder in the dissonance. He sets his jaw, holding back, wanting to make it last, but you’re not here to last. You’re here to burn.
He tucks his face into your neck, biting back the ragged edge of a scream. Nuzzling you in that cat-like way he favored so much when he edged on something softer. You feel it anyway, vibrating through your body as he fills you, as if every part of you was made for this moment. You reach back, raking fingers through his hair, gasping when he thrusts deeper, harder, as if he wants to carve the shape of himself into your body.
You break first, shuddering around him, a wave of heat and ache that crests and pulls you under. He holds you through it, teeth at your collarbone, hands bruising and then gentle when the shaking in your thighs gets too intense. You lose yourself in the aftershocks, letting his name slip out, over and over, until it’s just a syllable that means nothing but the rush of being seen.
He follows, a low growl muffled into your shoulder, hips stuttering as he comes. You feel it, the hot surge inside you, and the way he clings like he’s afraid of falling. For a second, there’s nothing but the high-pitched static of after, the two of you collapsed together and made softer by the tremble in his limbs. He holds your face with both hands, searching it, making sure you really are still here.
Somewhere between the shallow, shivering breaths and the slow return to gravity, you realize your skirt is still bunched around your hips, and the marble cold enough to start raising goosebumps. You lift your head, blinking him into view. He presses a gentle kiss to your temple, then chin, then the round of your cheek where you try to look away.
“Don’t hide from me now,” he says, and you want to protest, but he’s already sliding out, the sensation leaving you raw and open. Everything’s a mess: you can feel the mix of you leaking onto the marble, and you hate and love how soft he acts now.
He pulls you upright with both hands, steadying you on trembling legs, and for a moment neither of you say a word. The city’s lights blink on and off behind the blackout glass, casting what’s left of your dignity and his shame in cinematic glow. Ji-yong’s chest heaves, still open and vulnerable in the bare slant of his ribs. The cold bites your thighs; you turn into him, wanting to burrow down, but he shakes his head soft and leans away to grab a dish towel from the sink.
It’s almost funny how domestic he looks. He wets the towel under the tap, returns, and dabs at the mess on your skin with a kind of gentleness that you know is for him, not you. Still, you let him. You always do.
He doesn’t meet your eyes as he wipes the inside of your knees, and the trails all the way to your inner thighs. Careful, methodical. Not shy, he never had been since the first time you both stumbled into his place.
He puts the towel aside and leans his head against your shoulder, both of you wordless and emptied out, bodies pressed together cold and damp in the hush of his penthouse. He inhales hard, slow, as if he could memorize the shape of your scent.
You’re about to speak, something to break the spell—but he beats you to it. “Stay,” he says, voice muffled in the hollow above your collarbone. He’s never figured out how to ask for things in any other way.
The towel is still clutched in his hand, but now it’s just a piece of fabric, limp and useless. The illusion of him as caretaker lasts only until you see the goosebumps sprinting up his arms, the shake in his hands, the ragged edge in his voice. You hold him for a while, anchored to the kitchen island, brushing sweat-damp hair from his face. Your heart aches, traitorous.
“You’ll push me away in the morning,” You whisper, “So carry me to bed to make up for it.”
He doesn’t argue. He scoops you up, the muscle memory of it so practiced it makes you laugh, a barked sound in your own throat as your arms go automatically around his neck. He’s not tall enough to make it look effortless, but you like the way he staggers just a little, the honest flex in his jaw, the way he hitches your legs tighter as he walks the length of the penthouse.
He stumbles once on the way to the bedroom, nearly dropping you, and you bark out a laugh. He huffs, “Don’t bite me,” not meaning it.
He kicks the bedroom door open with his hip, and the small violence of it makes something in you jolt awake. The room is sparse, blackout curtains, the only point of color the heap of washed-out hoodies and the forest of sneakers along the far wall. He sets you down in the sheets like he can’t stand to keep you out of his space one second longer.
He goes to the bathroom first, and you hear the rattle of the medicine cabinet, the whir of the tap, and then he emerges with a glass of water and two ibuprofen. He sets them on the nightstand and then crawls onto the bed beside you, sheets still cold from the day’s inertia, but his body heat erases it fast.
Neither of you mention the night, or the mess in the kitchen, or the fact that you both know exactly how this will end. Maybe in the morning. Maybe with a phone call, or a quiet nothing texted at 2pm. For now, the city is nothing but the soundproof hush of his bedroom, the distant sirens a background pulse to your unsteady breathing.
You roll to your side, pushing your hair up off your forehead, watching the outline of his profile as he stares at the shadowed ceiling like a boy on the edge of a confession. You almost ask what he’s thinking, but you already know.
You inch closer, the distance shrinking until you could count every fluttering movement of his eyelids. "Do you ever wish it was different?" you ask, voice low.
You breathe in the space between you, catch the tobacco memory in his hair, the leftover sting of sweat, the salt of his body. You remember all the times you left before the light changed, before he could even try to keep you. You’ve tried to construct an answer for this question a hundred times, but it always collapses under the weight of your own design.
"Sometimes," he says. "But only when I let myself get soft."
“And you aren’t now?” You ask, as if speaking will make it any different.
You know, no matter what words you say, you’ll be politely pushed out tomorrow morning. It doesn’t lessen the sting, or stop the heavy sway of sleep tugging at the edge of your eyelids.
Ji-yong just smiles at the ceiling, one arm curled under his head, the other lazily tracing circles at your hip as if the whole history of you could be mapped there. He doesn’t answer right away, and the silence makes the question feel heavier, as if it might pull the whole bed through the floor if neither of you dare move.
You watch his profile, the way his tongue runs along the edge of his teeth in thought. You reach over, press your lips into his shoulder blade, and let the shape of his name form on your tongue for the thousandth time. You don’t say it. He doesn’t need you to.
“Good night,” He answers instead of any other handful of answers you could’ve asked for.
You think of all the ways you want to answer but don’t, and the city spins outside the blackout curtains, your bodies electric and drained, the room a quiet box of animal heat.
pairing: kwon ji-yong x reader
wc: 4.8k words
tags: 18+ SMUT MDNI!, established relationship, mutual pining, submissive gd, dominant reader, fem!reader, oral (reader receiving)
summary: What was supposed to be a quiet ride home turns into a an unspoken confession, a bouquet too big to ignore, and a night where enither of you are quite ready to let go.
a/n: this is for the gd&top writing event! go check it out!
ao3
The late night stretches across the sky of Seoul as Ji-yong's sleek black car crossed the city scape. As it all came to an end, you couldn't help but watch the sun set out of the passenger window, an invisible timer to when the night would eventually draw to a close. The car stops itself in front of your place, and you unbuckle yourself—
Until Ji-yong's hand has stretched across the backseat and placed itself over yours.
His nails are manicured, his fingers slim and pretty as always. His grip is tight over yours, not claiming but urgent instead. You can feel his heart rate skyrocket even through the slight contact. He hasn't spoken yet, and you slowly move your gaze from his smiley face tattoo looking back at you up to the soft curve of his jaw. His smooth features are lit lightly by the overhead lights and the remaining red tones of late dusk fading away.
“What is it?” You ask first, your hand still moving beneath the contact.
Then, his face shifts into something you were all too familiar with: a playful pout in your direction.
He leans in, tilts his head and gives his best pleading eyes, “Don't go home, jagi.”
You scoff at that, but you don't pull away. Your hand pauses over the buckle and you decide to entertain him, if only for a small moment.
“Why shouldn't I?” You tease, tilting your head in the opposite direction.
Playing whatever invisible game he was pushing onto you. He shifts beside you, as if he's trying to get comfortable in his seat and brushes his thumb against your knuckles. It's a slow, circling motion to soothe you, or maybe himself. He ducks his head a little, shy and boyish the way he always got when he wanted something out of you.
Ji-yong cooes, “You don't have to say yes. I just don't want the night to end yet.”
Out of the corner of your eye you spot your driver tapping on the wheel. Not impatiently, but when his gaze meets yours from the rearview the pressure to answer feels a little more real. Politely, he immediately looks away. You're trying to draw your attention away from Ji-yong’s ridiculously close and pouty face but you're not sure how well it's working.
“This again?” You play lightly, “Are you trying to kidnap me?”
You can hear the grin in his voice when he answers. “Only holding you hostage until the sun comes up. That's not illegal, is it?”
Just as you inhale to say something cheeky back, he leans in before murmuring:
“Wait here.”
Before you can argue, he slips out of the car. You watch through tinted windows as he walks around the back and pops open the drunk. You try to dip your head to get a peek at his silhouette but it provides nothing. Not until it's carefully closed and your eyes wide. At the sight of a ridiculously oversized bouquet.
Half your brain wonders if Vogue or Chanel has a line of bouquet flowers you should know about, watching as he slides and in. The size of it can barely manage to fit between the seats. It makes him look comically small in comparison. You're worried it will block the view out the back door. He holds it out to you with a box of his head, and a boyish smirk tugging at his lips.
“Now you have to stay.”
Feeling playful, you take the bouquet. Spin it in your hand, once or twice. You consider playing out this game with him longer. Dropping the bouquet and grabbing the handle of the door. Rushing out onto the street to see if he's desperate enough to chase you. You could only imagine the headlines if G-Dragon was spotted among the streets chasing after a mystery person carrying the world's largest bouquet.
“Youre dramatic,” you sigh and look up to the driver, “Keep going.”
The car ride is smooth and silent as the car pulls forward. Ji-yong gized you an amazed gaze as the car pulls forward, but decides not to say anything else. As if he's afraid of breaking the olive branch delicately offered to you. It wouldn't be the first time you had been to his luxury penthouse, and secretly you hope it isn't the last either.
He's lucky he's cute.
When the car pulls to a stop he ignores the driver trying to open his door and practically sprints to open yours. He's slightly out of breath when he pulls it open for you, with a wide and endearing gaze meant only for you. He stretches forward his hand for you to take. You grin and take it, feeling sheepish under his gaze. You squeeze his hand.
“Such a gentleman,” you coo as you follow him, the late night chill breeze hitting you both.
You follow as he unlocks the door and shuts the outside away, kicking off your shoes in the entryway. No matter how many times you visited him you could never quite get used to the stark contrast between his celebrity life and his home. A pile of shoes discarded by the entryway and a large package box used as a table, keys and anything else.
He steps ahead of you, “Do you want tea?”
You nod silently, looking around for a moment before spotting a vase on his table. You step forward, placing the stems of the bouquet down so you're not awkwardly carrying the weight around. Following him to his kitchen, you lean against the wall and watch as he gets to work. Quietly grabbing a mystery package of tea from the cupboards and preparing a mug.
He makes it just how you like it, like always. As he hands it to you he murmurs something about it being a special blend. Unsure of what to expect, you slowly blow over it to cool it down.
As soon as you sip it though, the taste is familiar. Your mind goes to a corner store run by an older woman, and the tea she always offers but you politely declined until recently.
“I didn't know you bought locally,” you watch the steam spread out as you speak over the mug.
He gives you a fake-hurt look before nodding, “That's right. I'm not the same guy who kept caviar in his fridge.”
Then, after a pause, he steps forward to nudge you away from the kitchen and towards his couch, “Come sit. You're making me nervous just standing there.”
You nod at his invitation, carefully and holding onto your cup as you take a seat after his. You choose to sit a little closer than you need to, just enough that your knee brushed against his. Your shoulders touch when you bring the tea to your lips again.
He's blushing again, just barely enough for you to spot the pink at the tips of his ears. It was dangerously endearing how easy he pulled you into his world without you realizing it. A comfortable silence hangs in between you as you finish off your mugs, leaving them empty once you're both finished.
“So what's the real plan here?” You finally tease as you leave your cup to the table, “Im being held hostage with flowers and tea, and then what?”
“This is the plan. I'm just that charming,” he purrs, grinning and all faux innocence.
When he says if, his hand brushed against yours again. He lingers for just a moment too long before he leaves his fingers into yours. You feel the cold press of his rings against your hand, a flash of his colorful nails as he seals your hand with his own.
Ji-yong shifts again beside you, this time getting good and wrapping his arms around your waist, nuzzling up against the side of your shoulder.
“You know what was the first thing I noticed about you?”
You blink in surprise, turning to him, “Hm?”
“You act a lot stronger on the outside than what you are really,” he titls his head up, meeting your gaze with a smile, “I thought, you were a lot like me. We put on armor for the outside world. But I like who you are underneath it.”
You turn your head away, slightly flushed, “So you invited me to wax poetics about how you like me?”
Ji-yong laughs, really laughs at your comment and ducks his head against your shoulder again. It warms through the fabric of your shirt where he reads against you. “No,” he chuckles, “I invited you because I didn't want to miss this version of you.”
You glance at him, eyebrow raised, “What version am I?”
He adjusts slightly, moving himself up. Until his cheek rests against your collarbone. His voice drops a little into a whisper, something deeper. “The one who doesn't dodge compliments, Who leans in when you think I'm not paying attention—”
He pauses, squeezing your hand again. He's getting bold with it, a finger hooking underneath your jacket and placing itself beneath the layers.
“The one who lets me stay close, and doesn't pretend you don't like it.”
You're tempted to pull back, to fall back into your sarcasm you usually hide behind. Your body doesn't move though. Instead, your fingers curl around the hem of the blanket sitting beside you.
“You're too good at this,” You admit, your voice coming out more raw than you expect.
“At what?” His eyes search yours, despite his teasing tone.
“Making it hard to leave.”
“Then don't,” Your words get a smile out of him. Real, lazy and a little sleepy at the edges. He nudges his nose against your neck, soft and warm. Cat-like. “Stay.”
This time, you feel bold again.
“You're needy, you know that?”
He scoffs at that, but doesn't move. “Needy?”
You nod enthusiastically, “You’ve said yourself, you're like a cat. Clinging to me then pretending like you didn't give me a bouquet the size of a small island.”
He pouts, pushing away from you. Playing with you. “No way.”
He doesn't pull away completely though. As soon as he's done playing, he leans right back into you, reaching up beside your face. He catches a loose strand of hair and gently pushes it back behind your ear. The look in his eyes is somewhere between entirely somewhere else and absorbed in you. When your eyes meet his, you catch him lingering.
His gaze keeps moving. Your eyes, your ear, your mouth. You can count the amount fi times his gaze keeps dropping, and you swear at yourself mentally for never catching onto how obvious he was. You wonder how long he's been admiring like this, like a man that wanted but couldn't have you. You liked it, too, making him really earn it.
His hand shifts and curls underneath your jaw. He moves forward slightly, his head tipped to the side. You can feel a shift in the space as he gets closer to you. His legs attempt to weave between your own, to pull himself as close as he can get to you.
The moment hangs, almost too intense. You can smell the faint cologne of whatever designer body wash he used and see the dilation of his pupils as he fights his own anticipation. Like a cat spotting a bird from a window and deciding when to strike. You let him wait. Curious for how far he’ll go, you hold the moment as taut as a violin string and let the tension warp and ache.
It’s Ji-yong who breaks first, nudging into you with a cautious, feather-light brush of his mouth. It’s softer than you expect. A touch so gentle it could be considered a suggestion, a question instead of a claim. You’re the one who makes it real, tipping forward with your hand against the nape of his neck, deepening the kiss. He sighs into you.His arms wind firmer around your waist and you’re half-laughing against his mouth, biting back something like disbelief and delight. His arm tugs at you sweetly and pulls you closer. He doesn't slow until your legs are spread on either side of him, seated in his lap. He pulls away minutely, his breath coming and going quickly.
Ji-yong stares up at you, his lips parted and shining, the blush peaking in dazzling color along his cheeks. You’re suddenly aware of the whole sprawl of him—his body under yours, his hands exploring up your back, greedy and reverent at once. It shouldn’t feel like gravity, but it does, like you both slipped into a new law of nature and this is just the proof.
"I didn’t think you’d actually…" he starts, then stops, bashful. You raise an eyebrow, feeling reckless.
“You’re the one who kidnapped me,” you say, voice low.
He grins at that, his tongue darting to catch a smile. “Then I guess I can’t let you escape now.”
The world narrows to the soft blue dark of the apartment, the city noise muffled into hush. He leans up to kiss you again, a little more sure, a little more desperate. You thread your fingers through his hair, and he responds immediately. The thrill of it makes you laugh into his mouth. Ji-yong tastes like smoke and the tea he made, warm and a little herbal. He hooks his fingers into either side of your waist and tugs with a sort of need that feels deeper, growing between the close contact.
You ease your hands up under his shirt, skimming over hard ribs, learning the landscape of his body by touch. For a man who is always performing, always the subject of a thousand cameras, his skin is soft and unassuming. He grins into the kiss; his whole body tilts up to meet you, like you’re a gravity he wasn’t warned about.
When you finally pull back, the air feels charged, humid. Ji-yong brushes his thumb across your lower lip, amusement and worship in equal measure on his face.
“I was thinking about having you like this for the whole night,” he admits, soft and sheepish.
You tilt your head, pressing down against him again. “Can you handle it?”
“You doubt me?” he whispers, and you can’t deny how much you like the spark in his eyes, and the soft laughter he gives you.
The question hangs, but Ji-yong doesn’t wait for your answer. He tilts up, inconveniently beautiful. He presses his smile to the skin just under your jaw, then downward, slow and searching. His hands are everywhere; greedy, graceful, learning your body as if it’s an unreleased melody only he understands.
You feel the couch dig into your knees, the weight of him balanced underneath. The room grows small, air thick as honey. He's not rushed— he's methodical, almost meditative, pausing to look at you for permission and delighting in every new shiver he coaxes.
His hands dip under the hem of your shirt, then pauses.
“Do you want somewhere ah… more comfortable than the couch?”
But you don't. You answer him by trailing your fingers underneath his shirt in turn and pulling his shirt off first. You take a moment to admire the tattoos on the sides of his ribs. Mind Control, Forever Young. You trace your fingers over the letters.
“Maybe I'm doubting you now,” you tease.
He scoffs, like you’d just dared him to break his own record. The dare is alive in the way he moves, how he boldly takes hold of your shirt and tosses it beside his own, joining a small pile forming on the floor. He draws you close again, and this time his touch is more determined. A feverish energy vibrates beneath his skin; he wants to impress you, to prove something with his hands and breath and body.
He kisses you again, deep and urgent, guiding you with gentle insistence until you’re laid out across the couch and he’s half over you, half cradled by the cushions. His mouth never leaves your skin as he works his way down, from collarbone to sternum, leaving a constellation of heated, reverent kisses in his path.
“You know, I was always told I’m competitive,” he whispers against your hip bone, laughing low, “but you bring out something else in me.”
“You really look like a- like a dragon. Dragon eyes.” Your gaze trails to his, leaning up into him when he presses a kiss to the button of your jeans. “Don't keep me waiting, Ji-yong.”
He hums, a sound as much through his lips as through your thigh, and fumbles with the button. For someone who spends half his life in clothes crafted by strangers, he's cautious, respectful. His fingertips glide slowly over denim before popping it one-handed. He acts cool, but the quickness of his breath and trail of blush along his neck betrays him.
The city flickers blue and pink through the high windows, painting strange mosaics onto the ceiling and your skin as he slips your jeans down enough to ghost his palm over your thigh. He shivers when he touches you, reverent. Finally, the constant motion of his touch stills over the teasing line of your panties.
“Go on,” you coach him. “Show me why I haven't left.”
He laughs, but it’s more a sound that wrenches in his chest, and his fingers curl along the seam as he slides them aside just enough to ghost the line of you. The hush that falls is too charged to be quiet; the city outside is nothing, the room filled with the small sounds you both make. Two elegant fingers press over you, tentative at first, growing confident as he feels your hips tip into him.
“Fuck,” he murmurs, not in shock, but in worship. “You’re so… always more than I imagined.”
He exhales and leans in, his cheek nuzzling into the curve of your thigh, his lips hot even through the fabric still teasing over you. You think, in the untethered stretch of that moment, that you could drown in the way he looks at you. He finally grabs onto the fabric with his teeth, tugging them over and revealing your to the cold air around you.
You brace against the couch, and groan when he hesitates again. You wonder if this infinite waiting game is meant to tease or torture. Or both.
You tangle your hands in his hair in command and he breaks, his lips cool and soft as they graze upward. He had you figured out until now. Ji-yong’s tongue traces upward, patient, never breaking eye contact. The feeling of his tongue is dizzying, building gentle and deep until you arch your hips into him and clutch his hair so tight it must hurt, but he only moans into your skin and holds you closer.
He works with a precision you didn’t expect; each swirl and flick deliberate, each pause as if he needs a new mental snapshot to remember this, make art of it. He’s greedy in the best way. He wants to taste every reaction, every sound, every breathless curse that happens only here. He keeps you there, trembling on the edge, until your knees shake and his own breath trembles just to hear you. This, apparently, is the memory he wants most: your hands fisted in his hair, your chase for air, the crush of your name on his tongue.
That’s how you come apart for him, hips and voice in chorus, the city at large and the room shrunk to a single point of gravity, and Ji-yong at its center.
When you resurface, he presses up along your body, all hungry, giddy praise and bright, childlike smile. His lips are slick, but he kisses you anyway. You pretend it’s nothing when you kiss him back, tasting him and yourself, but your chest is shaking when you reach up for his jaw, guiding him back to you.
Using the heat of the moment against him, you roll him with a shove to his shoulder and he drops back into the cushions, laughing. You move over him, knee at his side, bracing yourself above him. Your hands are already working at the button of his pants, and Ji-yong’s eyes go huge as he puts his hands behind his head, elbows sharp against the couch, ceding all authority to you.
“You gonna one-up me?” he dares, breathless.
“Easily,” you reply, though your voice is so soft the words don’t land like an insult. His fly gives easily and you pull at the waistband, fingers mapping the lines of his stomach. For all his posturing, he’s vibrating with anticipation, his chest rising and falling so fast you half expect him to faint.
You take your time, dragging your hands along his skin. You catch him straining through designer jeans and grin to yourself. He may have acted tougher, but here he was melting just for you. When he tries to reach for you, you grab his wrists with your free hand and pin them above his head.
“Don't act like you weren't waiting for this,” you tease, rubbing over the shape of him through fabric. “Could you finish like this?”
The challenge makes his whole face flush, but he doesn’t look away. Instead, Ji-yong nods with that cocky tilt of his chin you’ve seen on glossy magazine covers, but now it’s just for you and just as precarious as it is practiced. “I—” his voice cracks and restarts, his knuckles white where you hold him down, “If you keep looking at me like you own me, yes.”
You hum approval and let your palm roam, slow at first, savoring the way his body arches for you. The hard line of him stretches and thrums, straining for more friction. You rock yourself just above him, not quite touching, letting him feel the heat and weight of you as reward.
“Say please,” you prompt, and his groan is almost enough of an answer on its own. He meets your eyes, and for one raw second every mask and performance drops. He’s just a man under you, wanting and grateful.
“What was that?” You tease, popping open the tight fabric and rubbing over his boxers underneath. You can feel the fabric is already damp at the tip, “I didn't hear you.”
It takes him a moment to find the words, and when he does, there’s a roughness in them you’ve never heard. “Please. Touch me,” Ji-yong says, not hiding, even a little. “Please.”
You reward him by taking him in hand, letting your palm slide up, a slow torturous stroke. He gasps, his hips buck despite his grip on self-control, and for a second you almost pity him. Not quite enough to stop. His hands knot against each other where you’ve pinned them, and you feel the trembling in his forearms, the seismic restraint. He could easily overpower you, but he doesn't. He allows himself to be held down.
You lean down, brushing your lips to his neck, and the sound he makes is nearly a whimper. “Is this what you wanted?” you whisper, teeth grazing his skin. He nods, too far gone to pretend otherwise. He looks perfect like this.
You slide your free hand up the ridges of his ribcage, feel him shudder under your palm. The tension running through Ji-yong is exquisite, a livewire hum. His whole frame strains between wanting to hold it together and wanting to be completely, unforgettably undone. You don’t let up, you won’t. You want him to crack, want to see even the smallest fracture in that famous composure laid out raw and trembling for you, just you.
You rock your hips gently for emphasis and his mouth falls open in a silent, breathless gasp. "Good boy," you murmur, half-mocking, half-devotional, and are caught off guard by the desperate, satisfied sound he makes in response. You could drown in how hungry he is for every bit of affection you let him have.
“You like that?” You tease, finally peeling him free from his boxers.
He's not in your hand, his hips bucking more now. You press until you’re up against him, letting him feel the wet between your legs at the base as you rub over him. You grin when he whines and bucks his hips again.
Finally pitying him, you lift yourself from his lap. Not enough to press him closer, but letting him rut against your heat, against the slick dripping from you. Like that, he melts and ruts into you more desperate than you'd seen before. He melted into a more familiar version of himself. Desperate, and a little shy as he thrust against you.
You squeeze his wrists together, humming, “Good boy. Finish for me.”
Just like that, something snaps in him. He bucks quicker, driving himself into your heat without ever pressing into you. You feel it between you when he whines and paints your thighs with it. He's shaking when he does, rutting wildly as the last aftershocks of pleasure leave him.
“So,” you prompt as he finishes, still breathless and probably on an entire different planet, “Are you happy I stayed?”
He tries to regain composure, but all he can do is laugh—wet, wrung-out, a little incredulous. “Way happier than you, it looks like.” He pushes himself up on an elbow, still caged under your thighs, and flicks his gaze up to meet yours. There’s a flush that lingers high in his cheeks. He grins, sheepish and triumphant all at once. “Though I think I have a little catch-up to do.”
You’re already reaching for him, spreading a thin haze of sweat across his chest as you press your palm flat over his heart. It thuds, erratic, eager. With a casualness that belies the afterglow, Ji-yong wipes a finger through the mess he’s left and touches the damp trail to the inside of your thigh. He sucks at his teeth, a gesture so unselfconsciously pleased with himself that for a moment you almost forget to be embarrassed. Almost.
He grabs a throw pillow from beside him and stuffs it under your hips, shifting you down with possessive care. “Stay,” he commands, voice roughened at the edges.
In a movement he's gone from beneath you to trading places all over again. He wipes his hand again, then leans over you, mouth hot and red-lipped, biting an almost-chaste kiss onto your knee. Then, slowly, he sinks down the length of your body, chasing the taste of you he left unfinished.
This time he’s different—hungry, insistent, nothing withheld. His hands spread your thighs like he’s opening a gift, soft squeeze of each thumb so reverent it borders on worship. This time it's his fingers instead of his mouth working at you. He uses the slick gathered from your thigh, easily spreading you open.
“I can feel your heart beating against my fingertip,” he purrs, curling them up sweetly inside you.
He ruts behind the motion of his hand, all too obvious and desperate all at once. He presses up inside you, his thumb working over your clit at the same time.
“Keep going,” you pant, struggling to keep up with your authoritative time you managed moments ago.
Ji-yong makes a sound, a half whimper, half laugh. He mutters, “I never want to stop.” Another curl of his fingers, and you tremble, body instinctively clenching around the steady, wicked rhythm. You grab at his wrist, as if that could anchor yourself, and this provokes him only further; his thumb works slick circles and his eyes go obsidian-bright as he watches you strain and break around his hand.
His fingers speed up, ruthless. Your vision whites out for a moment, the world reduced to a pulse at his fingertips and the need to grind down against the heel of his palm. You stifle a cry as you shudder through it. When you collapse back onto the couch, sweat pooling at your tailbone, Ji-yong snickers, slow and lazily pleased, like a cat that’s finally caught its mouse. He wipes his fingers over the inside of your thigh, smearing the mess over your skin.
He sits back, knees folded under him, biting his thumb as if he can’t quite believe what he’s accomplished. “You look good like that,” he says, words a little disjointed, staring at you still trembling on his couch. His eyes roam: your flushed thighs, the way your chest lifts and falls, the collapse of your limbs over his furniture. “You look—” he stops, overfull, and opts to crawl up beside you and press a string of soft, private kisses along your jaw.
You let him, still not quite able to coordinate your limbs.
Neither of you says much after. The sharp and frantic edges of need are rounded off, leaving only a staggering softness. Ji-yong tucks your head under his chin, wraps his arms around you, sticky with sweat and clutching you like you might evaporate. Eventually your heart rate slows enough for you to surface, his fingers tracing idle nonsense into the patch of exposed skin at your back.
“Don't go home,” you murmur, “should've known you wanted to keep me for this.”
He chuckles, but doesn't deny it, of course he doesn't.
“I love you, jagiya.”
-
tag list: @petersasteria, @sherrayyyyy, @loveesiren, @aizshallnotbefound, @breakmeoff
it's officially summer so you know what that means !! me and @flymetothexmoon had this idea at the same time, what originally stemmed from me trying to think of title ideas for my thanos smut fic xd
from 1-16 of july, fics based off the brat album will be posted by all these lovely writers for various fandoms like: squid game, bigbang, 2ne1, stray kids, aespa, and bts.
360 — T.O.P (BIGBANG), @peachesclose
Club Classics — G-DRAGON (BIGBANG), @currentloser
Sympathy is a Knife — G-DRAGON (BIGBANG), @jiyongsangel
I Might Say Something Stupid — T.O.P (BIGBANG), @moonqz4now
Talk Talk — BANGCHAN (SKZ), @breakmeoff
Von Dutch — G-DRAGON (BIGBANG), @mashtatosworld
Everything is Romantic — HYUNJIN (SKZ), @emmiesoverthemoon
Rewind — G-DRAGON (BIGBANG), @steponupbabe
So I — JUNGKOOK (BTS), @petersasteria
Girl So Confusing — WINTER (AESPA), @makeitworse
Apple — THANOS (SQUID GAME), @flymetothexmoon
B2B — G-DRAGON (BIGBANG), @loveesiren
Mean Girls — G-DRAGON (BIGBANG), @moontabi
I Think About It All The Time — G-DRAGON (BIGBANG), @jiuwaves
365 — G-DRAGON (BIGBANG), @ikwon1c
Guess — CL (2NE1), @gdinthehouseee
writers please tag it with 'bratsummerchallenge25' as it will make it easier to find
please reply to this post if you would like to be tagged in the fics !!
This is entirely inspired by @makeitworse and @petersasteria ‘s events and work! Credits go to them, especially for allowing me to do this event! Thank you so much 🙏🏼
This will be a BIGBANG / GD&TOP writing event where I’ve gathered some of my favourite writers so do a story on a song from the GD&TOP album! Enjoy ;
HIGH HIGH :
KWON JIYONG @steponupbabe
OH YEAH :
CHOI SEUNGHYUN @iibgdrgn
DONT LEAVE :
KWON JIYONG @currentloser
BABY GOODNIGHT :
CHOI SEUNGHYUN @flymetothexmoon
KNOCK OUT :
CHOI SEUNGHYUN & KWON JIYONG @moontabi
OH MOM :
CHOI SEUNGHYUN @ikwon1c
OBSESSION :
KWON JIYONG @jiyongsangel
OF ALL DAYS :
CHOI SEUNGHYUN @lovemepartly
WHAT DO YOU WANT? :
KWON JIYONG @moonqz4now
TURN IT UP :
CHOI SEUNGHYUN @gdinthehouseee
These writers are incredible and i’m so happy they’re apart of it!! Let me now if you’d like to be added to the tag list! We hope you enjoy the stories 🖤
pairing: kwon ji-yong x reader
word count: 3029
tags: fan x idol, hurt/no comfort, break up fic, angst
summary: After going on a date with Ji-yong, a stranger spots you in public. Rumor circulates wildly, and he thinks it best to disappear.
ao3 - this is part 3! continuation from part one - part two
You're still standing just inside your apartment when your phone buzzes.
The screen lights up with a message from a friend, “Tell me this isn't you. 😳”
You tap it open. It's a fan account. One of those obsessive ones, always digging, always dissecting. You brace yourself without knowing why.
Then, there it is, a blurry photo. Two figures, a kiss, and his scarf.
#GDRAGONDATE
The caption is casual, playful even, but the comments—
“Who's that person?”
“Is he dating?”
“That scarf looks like the one from that fansign in 2018 omg”
Your thumb hesitates over the screen. You know if you keep going, it'll only get worse. Maybe they've gone pixel-by-pixel, looking for a reason to hate you. You try to laugh, to tell yourself it's just noise.
Your fingers twitch with the urge to throw your phone across the room. You imagine someone from work seeing it, or worse? Your parents. Not for shame but because it's not theirs. None of it was ever supposed to be theirs. It does nothing to still your too-fast heart and your breath catches, right and unmoving in your lungs.
At first, your instinct is to protect him. Of course it is. He never asked for this life to swallow him whole, not like this. He's only a man who wanted a kiss, who tucked his scarf around you like maybe it all meant something. Your eye traces over the blurry outline of your body. The kiss caught in profile, hidden in the folds of your scarf. It would almost be a pretty couple photo, if it weren't smeared across the internet like a scandal.
You see what they see now. Not a man kissing someone he loves— but a legend, caught slipping. The G-Dragon, the idol. A rumor caught red-handed.
A flicker of doubt pushes cold through your ribs, needle-sharp and quiet. Your stomach sinks as the door clicks shut behind you, sealing out the world— or sealing you in. You can't tell which.
Your apartment feels too quiet, like it's waiting for something. No ambient music or a drink or cups. You set your phone down and force yourself to take a breath. You try to keep your coat off with shaking hands but the wool sticks to your arms like it doesn't want to let go. Your shoes come off awkwardly. One by one. The scarf ends up puddled on a chair. You tell yourself you'll feel better once you sit down and drink some water.
The hum of the fridge is too loud. A car alarm chirps outside. Somewhere above, a neighbor drags a chair across the floor. Mundane sounds in an unrecognizable world.
Yet, you pick your phone up again. You're back in his message thread without thinking of it. Of course the thread is short. You've only seen each other twice. There were no long voice notes or blurry vacation photos, no silly memes sent late at night. Just a few scattered thoughts, glowing on the screen.
Two days ago:
> You still think that ramyeon place is better than mine?
Last night:
> You hum when you eat. It's cute.
You smile faintly, the image of him all but vanishing still fresh in your mind. It doesn't last. Your fingers hover for a moment before you try something light.
> Did you get home okay?
No typing bubble, not even a read receipt. You let the screen stay idle for a while. Eventually you open your front camera, half-intending to send him a picture. Something to show you're fine, to prove you're not scared. Your hair is wild from the wind, and the place where he kisses you still burns soft and warm. You wipe it off anyway.
The day drags on for a long while. You microwave something tasteless and scroll past every app without truly taking any of it in. Yours pass in silence. Night fully takes its hold, but it feels like it never truly started.
Later, curled in bed, you try again.
> Pretty sure you left your lighter in my coat pocket.
Still nothing.
You close your eyes, letting your phone fall to your chest. Maybe he's spiraling too. Maybe he's being told to disappear behind the scenes. Finally, brutally, you consider that maybe you’re foolish to think you’re more than a moment he needs to forget.
This was always going to end like this. Softly, silently, without a real goodbye.
You fall asleep with a weight pressed against your chest, and a single tear sliding cold over your cheek.
In the morning, your phone buzzes.
A message, without a name.
> Don't open your curtains today.
Your pulse jumps. You don't have to check, but still, you do.
You rub your eyes and walk to the window, ducking your head low as you push open a slit in the blinds. There it was. The black van from the night before— or maybe they all looked the same. Tinted windows. Engine humming.
The thought crosses your mind: almost as if it had never left. Watching, waiting for any sign of you. Of the idol’s captured kiss. Your hands are shaking as you pull out your phone, but you text anyway.
> I saw the van. I'm not scared.
Just as you expected, it's left on delivered. You wait, breath shallow, fingers still resting against the screen.
> It was just two dates, but I really liked them.
> I still like you.
And after a ,omg pause, the words you don't want to write, but so anyway:
> Is this how it ends?
Your thumb hovered then retreated. You typed the question three times and erased it twice. Every time you started something different but either sounded too bitter or too soft. In the end, this message still waited. Not because it was the most honest, but because it didn't beg. It only asked. You let the words settle into place like dust.
You keep the thread open until the screen goes dark. You don't delete it, but you won't send another message, either. You lie there, staring at nothing, listening to the low hum of something outside you're finally realizing never quite leaves.
For a brief, fragile time. You let yourself believe all of this wasn't real love yet. It was too early for this sort of heartbreak. Yet, your heart betrays you and aches like you lost something real.
Maybe it wasn't love. Maybe it was just the idea of it, but you wanted it. So badly. That wanting, that possibility, hurts you just as much.
The rest of the day feels like walking through thick fog. You eat half a piece of toast over the sink and stare out the window, not really looking at anything. Every sound outside startles you, every buzz of your phone spikes your pulse. It's never him, it's just spam. Or a friend sending a reel. Worse, someone pretending they don't know, asking if you're free tonight.
You consider deleting your account, just to disappear a little. The way he probably has. You don't. You simply scroll, numb, watching strangers dissect your scarf and the curve of your shoulder like they've earned it. Maybe they have and you were foolish to believe this could ever stay yours.
Evening comes thick and heavy. The kind of gray-blue that settles in your bones. You curl up under a blanket and let your phone okay music, just to fill the space. It plays a track he recommended to you only a week ago, but it already feels like a past life. Heat builds behind your eyes as a soft instrumental washes over you. You remember the way he hummed along when he played it to you, just loud enough for you to notice,
You close your eyes. Maybe if you just let the song play, something will unravel. Maybe it would summon something back.
Somewhere else deep in Seoul, Ji-yong pressed play on the same song.
It wasn't a coincidence. He searched for it, even though it was already saved. His phone had been set to Do Not Disturb all day, his inbox full and unread. His finger hovered over a thread he wants to open, but he didn't. Not yet.
He listened to the track like it wa the only thing holding him together, not loud. Just there. Filling the silence of his balcony as he sat hunched, head bent. A cigarette smoldered in a tray nearby, until it became just a nub. Smoke wafted in the cold air, creating a small trail of it around himself. The lights behind him are off, and his coat still smelled like your perfume.
Rain whispered against the balcony railing, slow and steady. It pooled in shallow puddles below, catching the city lights and warping them into rippling halos. Ji-yong didn't move, letting the cold settle into his bones like a penance. Despite the roof above him a cold drop slipped down the back of his neck, but he barely blinked. It was quieter this way, the question of what it would cost to want something honestly.
He could say something, anything. He could. But he knew what the van meant, what the photo meant. What the silence between you carried.
Still, he wished you would message him again. Even just one word. Something simple, like ‘Hey.’ It would wreck him. He pulled up your last text again, mindful of the way delivered changes over to ‘Read’.
> Is this how it ends?
His thumb lingered over the keyboard. The cursor blinked at him. Yes, he could say. Or No, I'm sorry. But he doesn't.
Instead, he opened your Instagram page again. Not to like anything, just to see if you've posted. You haven't. Still, he scrolled. He stopped on the first photo you ever sent him, that café. The stupid coffee with the foam heart tilted to the side. The one you both laughed at. He thought you looked like the sun itself.
He swiped up, closed the app, and set his phone screen-down.
Then, he stood. Quietly, as if he made too much noise, something between you might break for good. As if it hadn't already.
He looked over the busy streets of the city. From his penthouse. he doesn't spot a van outside. Just a steady breeze of smoke. The city hasn't paused, only he had.
That was the problem, wasn't it?
You didn't pause, you texted. You waited. You left the door open, even as it cracked your chest. He stopped still, listening to the rain and doing nothing. Not because he didn't want to respond— he couldn't figure out how to do it right.
Anything he said now would make it worse. That's the lie he told himself, the same way he told himself two dates wasn't enough to unravel him like this. But it was, it is. The thing between you was quiet and honest in a way he hadn't let himself believe he still had the right to want.
He sat back down, elbows on his knees. His hands ran over his face like it might pull action out of him. All he had was smoke and the song washing over himself. Noise at the back of his head. Versions of himself whispered, Don't drag them into this. They don't know what the media will do. Let them hate you. That's safer.
It's not even about the van, or the photo, or the swarm he knew was coming.
It's about the fact that for a moment, just one stupid moment, he forgot who he was supposed to be. In that forgetting, he let someone see him. Not the brand, not the story. Just Ji-yong.
He’d try to erase it before it could cost you both more.
He told himself this would be a clean break and he wouldn't let it linger. Still, the text sat there like thorns at the back of his mind. Not accusatory, just soft. Hopeful, and that's worse.
He reread your last message.
> Is this how it ends?
A breath caught in his throat, the part of him that wanted to answer No is louder than it should’ve been. It would be easier to let that message fade unanswered, buried beneath notifications, drowned by silence. He told himself that's what's best. But the music kept playing, and your words won't leave him.
His thumb hovered again. Not over the delete button, not anymore. He started typing. Paused, deleted. Started again.
This wasn't a love story, not yet. Not really. It still ached like one.
> I'm sorry.
> It wasn't supposed to go this way.
The cursor blinked. He exhaled, shaking.
> I thought if I disappeared, it would protect you.
Three dots appeared, then vanish.
> I see now it just hurt you.
Still, he doesn't send it. It's too much, too bare. Too late. He deleted it all except one sentence.
Something simple, that still held the weight of everything he can't say.
> I miss you.
He sent it. Not because it would fix anything, or because he expected you to answer. Pretending not to care— that was starting to hurt more than anything the truth could cost him.
Your phone buzzes.
You don't look at it at first. You're used to it by now, the way nothing good ever comes through that glow. Something in you shifts— a pause, an invisible tug.
You reach for it, half-asleep beneath your blanket.
> I miss you.
You blink once, twice. The screen blurs slightly from the tears you hadn’t realized were still sitting in your eyes. You read it again, and again. Somehow, it feels more like goodbye than please come back.
You read the message again, slower this time. As if you could decide something in the rhythm. Maybe the I miss you was typed and erased a dozen times. Maybe it wasn't meant to reach you at all, but it did.
Your chest tightened, but not like before. Not the panic or being watched or the gut-sick twist of silence. This is quieter, you close your eyes and press your phone to your heart. Foolish, maybe. but the warmth there is real.
You wipe your eyes, slowly this time, the motion almost meditative. the room feels warmer now— not from the heater, but from the way something heavy inside you just shifted. You draw your knees to your chest and breathe in deep, letting the scent of your laundry detergent, faint lavender, wrap around you.
For the first time in hours, you notice the smallest things again: the uneven hem of the curtains swaying from the window, the chipped corner of your phone case. The sound of your breath catching on the inhale. You rest your chin on your knees and let the world be quiet with you.
You can't reply, not yet. You pull your phone out and your thumb hovers before falling away. You just sit with the screen, letting the ache stretch wider and softer, like a bruise starting to fade.
The music that once made your ribs sting now okays gently in the background. The same song, you’re not sure how it's still playing. Maybe the app looped. It's just been that kind of day: circular, slow, and cruel.
It wasn't even a song with lyrics. Just a piano and strings, soft and slow. Each note dropped like water from a leaking faucet. Familiar now, almost too much. You could almost hear Ji-yong's breath beside you, reminded of how he once pointed out that you’d hum without realizing it. The track didn't ask anything of you. It simply filled the space that grief hollowed out.
This time, when the instrumental rises, you don't flinch. You let it wash over you. In another apartment, on another balcony, someone else is listening too.
The thought arrived uninvited: Maybe you weren't wrong to want this.
If this wasn't just fantasy, or the version of him that looked at you like the noise of the world disappeared. Maybe that was real, too.
You exhale, your breath shaking a little.
Outside, the van is gone. You didn't see it leave, you only notice through the cracks of the blinds how the streetlamp hits the sidewalk again. The light stretches across your floor, an invitation to begin again.
You pull the blanket closer. You don't text back. Not yet.
Your phone doesn't leave your hand either. It rests against your stomach, warm from your touch. You close your eyes for a second, maybe a minute. The song has cycled again. A string you've heard too many times by now hums quietly, but it doesn't sting like it did this morning.
Sleep deprivation, grief, and the weight of holding so much silence came over you.
Your thumb brushes the keyboard again. Not to confess, just to type something soft. Barely more than a breath.
> I miss you too.
You didn't mean to send it. Not really. It stared back at you, half-formed, like so many unsent things. Your phone buzzes again, the tiniest vibration. You see it's gone through. Sent. Time stutters. You stare at the screen like you've dropped something and can't catch it in time.
You bolt upright, suddenly wide awake. You stare at the screen, like it might take it back, as if there was a rewind button for honesty. Part of you hopes the signal failed even as your heart leaps at the tiny ‘sent’ checkmark. Your mouth is dry. Your breath catches, but you don't unsend it. You don't hide from it, either.
Instead, you let yourself feel what it means. You weren't ready to say it, but it was already true.
Far across Seoul, Ji-yong’s screen lights up again. He sees your words— short, simple, exposed.
He doesn't move at first, just lets the words echo through him. Then he exhales. Slow like the breath itself might shatter the moment. His fingers curl around the edge of the balcony, attempting to ground himself in the moment.
Something eases in his shoulders. Not a smile exactly, but the ache beneath his ribs softens. He feels the weight of his own name lift just slightly. It's not over yet.
The soft mist of rain has stopped.
taglist: tag list: @petersasteria, @sherrayyyyy, @loveesiren, @aizshallnotbefound, @breakmeoff
