Lee Jihoon doesn’t break the rules. He bends them. Just enough to get away with it. Just enough to make your job harder, just enough to see if you’ll flinch. He’s testing the boundaries. And the worst part? You kind of want to see what happens if he crosses them.
✇ pairing: redbull racing driver! lee jihoon x fia race steward!f! reader
✇ wc: 7. 1K (part 1 of 2!)
✇ genre: enemies-to-??? (sue me okay i have a favorite trope), the max-verstappen-ization of lee jihoon, etc etc etc
✇ warnings: mentions of food, alcohol, erratic (and sometimes frankly dangerous driving), swearing, suggestive content
✇ a/n: this is for @camandemstudios light's out collab! please check out all the other amazing authors <3 // if you see any mentions of ferrari!jeonghan, know that he is from full throttle
Albert Park Grand Prix Circuit — March 8th, 2026
It starts in Australia.
Engines scream against the damp Melbourne air, twenty cars twitching on the grid like restless predators. The new ground-effect regulations have left everyone guessing—cars stiffer, more skittish, the rear ends snapping if you even think about leaning too hard. Jihoon sits low in the cockpit of the RB22, visor fogged at the edges, his pulse steady but alive. Lights out.
His launch isn’t perfect. Wheelspin. He feels it immediately in the vibration through his seat, the rear threatening to snake, but he catches it with a flick of opposite lock. Behind him, a papaya blur—Mingyu’s McLaren—sniffs at the gap, darting to the inside, then abandoning it when the Red Bull squeezes across. Jihoon plants the throttle. The car judders, porpoising in the braking zone, but he doesn’t lift. He can’t. Not in this field. Not with these rules.
Turn three—chaos. A Ferrari spears wide, a Williams twitches on the paint, the track shimmering with light drizzle that never fully left overnight. Jihoon dances on the brake pedal, the rear skating, front begging to bite. Every corner feels like rolling dice.
Lap after lap, the fight breathes down his neck. The McLaren is faster in a straight line, the new engine package giving Mingyu a shove Jihoon can feel every time DRS opens. But through the corners, Red Bull still has claws. Jihoon threads the car across the kerbs, twitching but holding.
“Balance, Jihoon,” his engineer warns over the radio. “You’re over-rotating entry. Keep it clean.”
He doesn’t reply. He’s too busy muscling the car through Turn Nine, the wheel kicking in his hands like it wants to escape.
Mingyu tries one down the inside at Turn Eleven. Jihoon shuts the door—hard. The two cars skim inches apart, a flash of papaya in his mirrors, a heartbeat away from contact. The crowd gasps. Jihoon’s jaw sets tighter.
The race doesn’t feel like strategy anymore. It feels like survival, like two men trying to tame beasts the rulebook barely understood.
And as the laps tick down, one truth hardens in Jihoon’s chest: the car is wild, the regs are chaos, but so long as Mingyu’s shadow sits in his mirrors, he’ll bend every line on the track before he yields.
The rain has stopped but the track is still slick, drying in patches that catch the light under Melbourne’s late sun. Cars twitch through the high-speed chicanes, skidding wide at the exit curbs, no one entirely in control. The new regs promised stability; instead, they’ve delivered chaos.
Jihoon sits third, his RB22 weaving like a restless animal. Ahead, two silver arrows fight each other into turn nine, sparks hissing. Behind, Mingyu’s papaya-orange McLaren shadows every move. For thirty laps he’s been there, a flash of color in Jihoon’s mirrors, always close, always waiting.
Lap 55. Two to go. Jihoon hugs the inside line through turn three, car snapping under braking. Mingyu tries the switchback, gets the nose alongside, but the Red Bull drags ahead with better traction.
Radio crackles.
“Careful, Jihoon. Remember how we go racing.”
He grits his teeth. I know.
Last lap. The grandstands are on their feet, white rain ponchos flapping. The track glistens, half-dry, half-wet, every braking point a gamble. Jihoon brakes late into turn nine, tires squirming, car skating a fraction off line. Mingyu sees it—lunges.
For a heartbeat, the papaya nose is there, filling Jihoon’s peripheral vision. Jihoon jerks left, instinct, blocking under braking. The cars nearly touch, carbon fiber trembling on the edge of disaster. The Red Bull survives the corner, but only just.
The engineer’s voice bursts in, urgent, clipped:
“Race control might be looking at that. Just bring it home.”
Jihoon exhales once, white-knuckled on the wheel, and floors it down the straight. Mingyu stays glued to his gearbox, too far to strike again, close enough to remind him how thin the line is.
The checkered flag waves. Jihoon crosses just miliseconds ahead of the papaya car, and he feels the collective breath everyone at in the garage breathes.
Radio static crackles. “That’s a podium. But you might be having a conversation about that move.”
Jihoon exhales, the ghost of a grin tugging under the helmet. He's never really cared about the lecture. First race of the new regs, and he’d made his point: he wasn’t here to play safe.
He knows why his engineer is so tense—the paddock had been loud with first-race chatter, a mixture of optimism and nerves that always clung to season openers. But this year, there had been a new name threaded into every conversation.
The FIA had appointed a new steward for the season—fresh from MotoGP, already infamous for an unflinching, textbook interpretation of the rulebook. The drivers grumbled about it when the Netflix microphones were too far away to pick up on their wariness. The engineers muttered warnings over headsets. The journalists circled like sharks, eager to see whose weekend will be ruined first.
Jihoon, for the better part of the weekend, pretended he didn't hear any of it. He never had. Stewards, in his mind, were all the same: rigid, faceless, convinced that a white line drawn on asphalt means more than the race itself. He’d been dealing with them for years, and not one has managed to get under his skin.
So when someone in the pre-race strategy briefing had mentioned that the new hire was especially strict, Jihoon only smirked and continued doodling on his notepad.
That’s why Red Bull had wanted him in the first place, isn’t it? He didn’t break rules—he bent them. Just enough to get away with it. Just enough to make their jobs harder.
Maybe that made him cocky, or an asshole, but he’d gotten away with Abu Dhabi last year just fine—he’d even cinched 3rd place from Mercedes by the skin of his teeth, though he’s sure his engineer had almost put in his two weeks during lap fourty-two.
(Jihoon doesn’t blame the guy. The poor man probably shudders every time he thinks about Minghao’s move into Turn 6, wheels almost interlocking with Jihoon’s. Jihoon had shifted just enough under braking to unsettle the Mercedes—any more, and the stewards would have flagged it as a block. But Jihoon had spent a career mastering where that invisible line lay.
The silver car had twitched. The Red Bull sailed through.
Radio crackled in his ears.
“Race control has noted the incident, Jihoon. No investigation.”
Of course. There never was.)
So this new steward? He’s already decided.
They won’t be any different.
The press room hums with stale air and the low buzz of journalists waiting their turn. Jihoon sinks into the couch, posture loose in the way he knows cameras read as confidence rather than arrogance. One arm draped along the backrest, one hand curling absently at the fabric of his race suit, he looks more like someone waiting for an airport lounge announcement than a driver fresh off the podium.
A question cuts through: sharp, clipped, designed to prod.“Jihoon, about the incident with Mingyu: moving under braking. Do you think you crossed the line?”
The microphone hovers near his chin, but Jihoon barely glances at it. He leans forward just enough for the camera lights to catch the edge of a smirk. “Oh, I knew the FIA wouldn’t investigate,” he says, voice light, conversational, as if they were discussing the weather. “There was no room for Mingyu to make that move.”
He finishes like it’s obvious, like the question itself was a waste of oxygen. The corners of his mouth twitch, satisfied, until he catches movement at the edge of the room. His press officer, half hidden near the door, raises a hand in a tiny, desperate motion, the universal signal for shut up. Jihoon blinks, just for a beat, and the smirk falters into something more unreadable.
He blinks once, like he might go on anyway, but before he can, the moderator taps his mic. “Sorry to cut in, Jihoon. Uh, you’ve been called to the stewards.”
The air shifts. A ripple of muffled laughter rolls through the room, reporters leaning closer to their neighbors, amused murmurs spilling between them. Jihoon’s brow furrows.
“For what?” he asks flatly.
More laughter, sharper this time, bouncing off the walls of the press room. Jihoon sits there, eyes narrowing, the ghost of a smile threatening at his mouth—not because he thinks it’s funny, but because he knows the game: play it cool, don’t give them the crack they want.
He stands, straightens out his racesuit. Calm. Deliberate. The cameras keep blinking.
Jihoon is no stranger to the stewards’ office. Years ago, when he was younger and far too eager, he spent afternoons pacing these same hallways, hands clenching the leather of his gloves, trying to argue lines he hadn’t learned to bend yet. The memory irritates him now, a dull thrum under the rush of adrenaline still clinging from the podium. It still irks him to be back, the sterile smell of paper and polished glass reminding him that sometimes he isn’t as untouchable as he thinks.
His engineer, GP, falls into step beside him, voice low, almost conspiratorial. “Just stay calm,” GP murmurs, though his eyes flick constantly to the curious eyes trailing them across the paddock. “Don’t give them any theatrics.”
Every photographer, every team member, every media drone is a ripple in the current Jihoon has to wade through to reach the office. Jihoon lets the words wash over him. Every stride, every measured turn of his head, projects calm; everyone reads it as confidence. He knows the truth—he’s just practiced at looking untouchable.
The door looms ahead, polished, official, unyielding. Inside, the air is cooler than the paddock, the faint scent of coffee and paperwork replacing the warm exhaust and sun-baked tarmac outside. But before he can even reach it, Mingyu and his race engineer materialize in front of him, faces tight with frustration.
“That was too close!” the McLaren driver hisses. “You can’t just jerk under braking like that. You almost took me out.”
Jihoon raises an eyebrow, leaning one shoulder against the wall. Calm. Calculated. “I didn’t take you out, did I?” His voice is smooth, light, almost teasing. “Millimeters, Mingyu. You were on the edge. I didn’t give you room to make that move. That’s racing.”
Mingyu throws up his hands, stepping back. “Racing? That’s reckless! You know the stewards were watching. I shouldn’t have had to guess if you’d slam me!”
Jihoon shrugs, smirk tugging at his mouth. “Guessing is part of it. Part of the fun.” He flicks a glance toward the door. “Anyway, I’m going to see what they have to say. Try not to get caught up in complaining before the show even starts.”
Mingyu grits his teeth, mutters something under his breath, and stalks off down the hallway, feet heavy against the linoleum floor.
The door to the steward’s office swings open. Inside, the room hums with fluorescent light and electronics. Multiple screens line the far wall, each flickering with frame-by-frame footage of incidents from the race. Wheels lock, sparks fly, DRS trains flicker across curbs; each angle frozen and looping in perfect detail. Several older stewards sit behind polished desks, pens in hand, murmuring to one another over notes and laptops— a shrine to authority, to a game Jihoon has always considered himself the master of.
Jihoon knocks once, clears his throat. Heads snap up. Pens pause mid-scribble. The energy in the room stiffens, as if the fluorescent lights themselves are holding their breath.
GP hovers near the door, shifting from one foot to the other, eyes flicking between Jihoon and the other stewards.
“Take a seat,” someone says. The voice is calm, measured—but not familiar. Not a tone he’s ever heard in this room.
Jihoon’s eyes follow the sound. Across the polished desk, a figure looks up from a stack of papers. His gaze drifts down to the nameplate.
Newest steward.
The puzzle pieces click. The chatter he’s heard all weekend—the whispers about the FIA’s latest appointment, the one who’s said to follow the rulebook with unflinching precision—makes sense now. Jihoon fiddles with his fireproofs, moving deliberately toward the chair across from you. Every step is measured, like he’s stepping onto a chessboard he’s never played on before. For the first time today, the game he usually controls feels… slightly unfamiliar.
Even the other male stewards, older, seasoned, experienced—they glance at you before speaking, defer slightly, voices softer when you talk. Their hands hover, pause, eyes tilt toward your expressions. A subtle choreography of attention that’s instinctual, unspoken, and entirely unnoticed by anyone not paying attention. Jihoon notes it, the smallest twitch of respect that frames the room around you. Interesting, he thinks.
“Lee Jihoon,” you say, voice even, professional. Nothing theatrical, no automatic deference. “Have a seat.”
Jihoon tilts his head, smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. He slides into the chair, legs uncrossed, hands resting lightly on his knees. “I did,” he says, voice light, teasing, “nothing worth discussing, I’d say.”
You study him, pen tapping lightly against the desk. “A move that nearly clipped another car under braking might qualify as ‘worth discussing.’”
The smirk widens subtly, almost imperceptible. “Ah,” he says, voice soft, measured, like he’s considering a puzzle rather than a reprimand, “so that is the meeting I’ve been summoned for.”
Jihoon settles into the chair, fireproofs still warm from the paddock heat, and lets the room breathe around him. The older stewards lean back in their chairs, shuffling papers, tapping pens, occasionally glancing up at the screens that loop the race incidents in slow motion. He cracks a half-smile.
“Late braking,” one of them begins, voice steady but careful, “the RB22 squeezed the McLaren—approaching the apex, traction lost—”
Jihoon interrupts smoothly, fingers drumming on his knees. “Traction ‘lost’ is an overstatement. Look at the telemetry. Front tires at 87 percent load. Rear at 91. Not a slip, a correction.” He tilts his head, letting his gaze sweep the room. “I maintain control. No contact. Inches.”
A few of the older stewards shift in their seats, nodding, muttering under their breath. He leans back, arms crossed, eyes flicking lazily to the screens, smug. He’s in the zone. The game he knows.
Then your pen taps. One crisp, deliberate rhythm. The heads of the other stewards snap toward you. Even the ones who’ve spent decades in this office pause, eyes catching yours, voices quiet, waiting.
Jihoon notices the shift before he hears it—the room bending, subtly, toward you. He straightens, a flicker of intrigue.
You lift a hand, pen poised. “The rulebook doesn’t care that you didn’t make contact. Forcing another driver off track under braking, especially in a high-speed section, is precisely what we review. Show me your data. How close was the McLaren at the apex?”
He tilts the monitors toward himself, adjusting the angle. Fingers tap telemetry points, throttle response, braking force. “Look. I left exactly one car width to the white line. He had room, technically. Not a violation. Not dangerous. Inches.”
You tap your pen again, slow, deliberate. “One car width is the margin. Your braking reduced that margin to the absolute minimum at high speed. The FIA considers that forcing. The line you walked was intentional. The maneuver was late, aggressive, and held Mingyu off. Explain why that does not qualify as a breach.”
He leans forward, intrigued now, eyes narrowing. This is different. He can outmaneuver the others with charm, calculation, a well-placed statistic. But you? You don’t blink. You hand him the data, slow, precise, waiting for him to speak.
He scans, running numbers in his mind, recalculating his moves in real time. “Well,” he says finally, voice lighter than the weight of his thought, “the lateral load suggests I held the line, yes—but Mingyu was pressing. He had an option to adjust—”
“Option exists only in theory,” you counter, voice flat. “Track width and your trajectory left him less than a car width at the apex. That meets the definition of forcing. And under braking. High-speed section. Risk multiplied.”
Jihoon pauses. Not a stall. A calculation. He runs through the replay in his head, imagines every microsecond of the move. “Hmm,” he murmurs, more to himself than to you, “that’s… inconvenient.”
You lean back slightly, tapping the pen on the desk. “The penalty is three grid places for the next race in China. No appeal. No room for discussion.”
He blinks, just once, slow. The weight of it sinks in—not because it’s devastating, but because it’s precise, immovable. The older stewards shuffle, muttering approval. The screens flicker with his own actions in the glow of the monitors, yet you remain still, unshaken.
Jihoon leans back in his chair, fireproofs creasing at the shoulders, eyes tracing the lines of his car on the screen. For the first time in a long time, he’s lost something he’s never lost before—control, certainty, the effortless upper hand. The room feels smaller somehow, the air heavier.
You give him an appraising look, pen resting lightly against the desk. “Anything else, Mr. Lee?”
He opens his mouth, then closes it, aware that whatever he says next would be conceding more ground than he’s comfortable with.
GP slides in, hand on his elbow, guiding him toward the door. “Stupid fuckin’ new steward,” he mutters under his breath. “Three places is nothing. We’ll have the pace in quali, don’t worry, Jihoon.”
Jihoon lets himself be herded, but his mind is elsewhere. Every step toward the paddock echoes with the precision of your questions, the weight of your rulings. He doesn’t know what’s more infuriating or more thrilling—the penalty, or the fact that for the first time in ages, someone in this room forced him to pause.
And that… that is a rare, delicious kind of challenge.
Shanghai International Circuit — March 14th, 2026
The sun barely warms the Shanghai skyline as the RB22 fires to life, engine screaming through the pit lane. Concrete walls glint with morning dew, the track slick from an overnight drizzle that never fully disappeared. Jihoon slides into the cockpit, gloves snug, visor fogged at the edges. Three-place penalty from Melbourne? Already weighing on him, but not enough to break rhythm. He breathes in, lets the roar of engines wash over him, and leans back against the headrest.
Qualifying begins like a symphony of controlled chaos. Tyres hiss on the hot, damp asphalt. DRS zones flash green. The team chatter is constant, precise, cutting across the roar.
“Lap time good. Clean exit through Turns 13 and 14,” GP reports.
Jihoon nods, carving through the corners like he’s cutting silk. The RB22 twists and snaps under him, every twitch anticipated. He hits a personal best in sector two, pushing closer to the front, ignoring the three-place penalty. He can work with this.
“That’s provisional pole,” GP’s voice crackles through the radio. “Other driver penalties incoming.”
Then the screens in the pit wall flicker with updates—other drivers’ infractions. Sparks of red beside their names. First Jeonghan, Ferrari. Technical violation. Three-place penalty. Then Mingyu, McLaren. Excessive track limits. Another three places.
Jihoon freezes mid-turn, hands gripping the wheel, mind calculating. His own penalty feels weightless now, a ghost. The stewards, the rules—they are absolute, unflinching, impartial. And you? He knows it’s you behind this. The ruthless precision he’d glimpsed in Melbourne isn’t an accident. It’s deliberate, cold, perfect.
The chatter in his headset fades into white noise. He pulls out of the final corner, looks up at the tower scoreboard, blinking at the new grid.
Fourth place. Almost a guaranteed win, now that both Jeonghan and Mingyu were P5 and P6 behind him. His penalty? Already neutralized by the steady, unyielding hand of a steward who does not bend, does not negotiate, does not care about reputations.
He exhales slowly, letting it out in a long stream beneath his visor. The RB22 hums like it knows its master has paused only for a fraction of a second, then drives on.
The pit lane fills with murmurs as teams reconfigure strategy, whispering about penalties, protests, and the sheer efficiency of the stewards’ office. Jihoon hears snippets, half in disbelief: “New steward… unreal… ruthless…”
He sits back in his seat for a beat longer than necessary, hands relaxed now. The realization settles in: this isn’t just bureaucracy. This is you. Methodical, precise, unflinching. The rules are your god, and you worship them with a devotion that leaves no loopholes, no negotiation, no mercy.
The paddock is quieter at this hour. Most teams have retreated to garages, trailers, and hospitality tents. The floodlights along the back lot cast long reflections on wet asphalt, glittering like shattered glass. Jihoon strides toward the back parking lot, fireproofs replaced by a simple leather jacket over a T-shirt. He prefers this exit—less fan frenzy, fewer cameras, fewer ears to hear the muttered expletives of pit staff impressed or exasperated by his qualifying run.
He heads toward his car, a sleek black Porsche GT3 parked in the far corner of the lot, away from the usual flood of fans and photographers. The wet asphalt glimmers under the late-evening lights, reflecting the Shanghai skyline in fractured shards. Every step echoes in the near-empty paddock, the hum of distant engines and chatter fading behind him.
He rounds the corner and freezes for a fraction. You are walking toward the lot, badge catching the light with every step. He doesn’t startle, just tilts his head, calculating, eyes flicking over your stance, the sharp line of your heels against the pavement.
“Mr. Lee.” Your voice is even, clipped, the syllables precise, carrying just enough weight to make him register that this is you.
“Interesting call on the Ferrari and McLaren,” he says smoothly, keys dangling from his fingers. His tone is teasing, casual—like he’s discussing the weather, not penalties that cost big teams positions.
You glance at him, almost like you’re reading his posture instead of his words. “It wasn’t just me. The other stewards agreed.” Your badge catches the light again, glinting metallic against the dark asphalt, a little like a weapon you don’t brandish but could.
He hums, eyes narrowing slightly. “Besides,” you continue, sidelong glance aimed squarely at him, “you don’t seem too upset about it.”
“Maybe.” He shrugs, grin teasing at the corners of his mouth. “Is that your game, then? Stack the deck against me and then reshuffle?”
You laugh lightly, the sound clipped and measured. “No game. The rules are the rules.” He notices the heels clicking sharply against the asphalt, a rhythm that matches the authority in your stride.
He tilts his head, studying you like he would a rival car’s telemetry. “You don’t give an inch, do you?”
You shoot back instantly, eyes glinting under the lights. “Interesting lesson from a man who doesn’t budge an inch on the track. Or did you forget our conversation last week?”
Jihoon chuckles, low, amused. “I remember. You love absolute control. Don’t you crave a little chaos?”
“Chaos is for people who don’t understand the rules,” you reply, not missing a step. “I prefer certainty.”
He shakes his head, half-smile spreading wider, shadows from the floodlights flickering across his fireproofs. “Certainty’s boring. I like bending. Just enough to test the edge. Just enough to make people flinch without breaking.”
“And yet,” you say, lifting your chin slightly, “you’ve met your match.”
He laughs this time, low and dark, brushing rain-speckled hair from his forehead. “Maybe… or maybe I’ve just found someone worth studying.”
You tilt your head, not missing a beat. “Study the rulebook first. The rest comes later.”
He steps closer on instinct, then stops, respecting the invisible line you set. The lights glint off the windows of his car. “Lesson one,” he murmurs. “Follow the rules. Lesson two…”
“Lesson two?” You prompt, heels clicking closer as you pace past him, glancing over your shoulder. “I don’t hand out lessons for free.”
“Fair,” he hums, voice teasing. “I was hoping you might demonstrate—maybe on track, maybe off.”
You smirk faintly, almost imperceptible. “Demonstrations are not in my job description. Observations are.”
Jihoon exhales, shaking his head with mock exasperation, and slides into the driver’s seat of his car. The engine purrs, a soft counterpoint to the echo of your heels fading behind him. But the your words follow him, sharper than the track limits, tighter than the apex. He knows he’ll be recalculating this encounter for a long while—fascinated, frustrated, intrigued. And maybe, just maybe, a little bit off-balance.
Suzuka Circuit — March 28th and 29th, 2026
For all the penalties you seem to hand out like Christmas presents in Japan, Jihoon is not in your sights at all. He glides onto the Suzuka tarmac in the RB22, engine singing through the misty afternoon air, and for the first time in weeks, he feels untouchable. No creeping reminders of Melbourne or Shanghai. For the first time, it feels like the track and car exist solely for him. Pole position is his, earned, clean. The roar of the team’s garage erupts in approval, echoing across the pit lane, bouncing off the grandstands. He lets himself savor it, slow, deliberate, letting the adrenaline crawl along his spine. Finally, finally, the car is doing what he asks.
The RB22 is perfect this weekend—every curb, every apex, every sweeping corner executed with precision. There isn’t a twitch of oversteer, not a hint of snap under braking. The rear holds like it’s welded to the asphalt, the front biting without protest. Through the S-curves, through 130R, through Spoon, the car flows under him like a living thing, responding to every fingertip on the wheel, every nuance of throttle and brake.
He feels like a god. On the long back straight, the telemetry in his mind confirms it: perfect exit speeds, optimal DRS openings, the car dancing in rhythm with his pulse. He slices through each lap like a knife through silk, smooth, unbroken lines.
And yet… somewhere in the back of his mind, a faint shadow flickers—the memory of you, the unflinching steward who makes sure the rules aren’t just followed, but enforced with surgical precision. He hasn’t felt your interference this weekend, hasn’t had the thrill of calculating margins against your gaze. It’s almost disorienting, driving without the invisible hand pressing just slightly against his shoulder, reminding him that even gods have limits.
As the checkered flag draws closer, the RB22 hums perfectly beneath him. He allows himself a brief, almost imperceptible smile. He’s done everything right, danced on the edge and stayed within, and for the first time in the season, he feels like the one setting the terms. Suzuka bends to his will, clean and relentless, just like the feeling in his chest. He glances at the pit wall, watches the telemetry, sees the engineers’ animated celebrations through the glass. Pole for real. No penalties, no compromises. For once, the game feels… his.
Yet even in this rare, unshakable triumph, the thought of you lingers—somewhere between irritation and intrigue—because he knows that a weekend this clean is almost too perfect to last.
The sun breaks through low clouds, casting dappled light over the grandstands. The grid shuffles into position, engines whining in anticipation. Jihoon lines up P1, the RB22 gleaming under the pale morning sun, slick with morning dew. Tires prepped, brakes warm, heart steady. He can almost feel the track flexing beneath him, knowing it has been tamed… for now.
Lights out.
The launch is clean, tires gripping the asphalt perfectly, car shooting forward with a hiss of energy. Kimi and Yuki behind, threats muted, no one close enough to challenge the apex he carves through Turn One. The RB22 feels alive, responding to every twitch of the wheel, every micro-shift of his weight.
And all the while, that ghost lingers. You. The steward who could, at any moment, erase a weekend of dominance with a single call. He doesn’t see you, yet he feels your gaze in every corner, every braking zone, every inch he stretches the car toward the legal limit. The rules bend around him, but he knows they are not just mechanical—they are watched, measured, enforced.
Lap five, and he edges closer to 130R, just kissing the apex, car balanced on a knife’s edge. He wonders, fleetingly: if he pushed one inch further, would you step in? Does the perfect weekend exist because he’s mastered the RB22—or because you, somewhere above the pit wall or hidden in the steward tower, are letting him test the margins?
Through Spoon Curve and the Casio Triangle, he drives like a man possessed, aware of every microsecond, every vibration in the chassis. No mistakes, no twitch, no hint of compromise. He is everywhere at once, fluid, untouchable. Yet beneath the thrill is the subtle, delicious tension of a game half-played. He wants to see how far he can push. And more importantly, he wants to see if you will stop him.
By lap thirty, the gaps are solidified. The RB22 dominates, every overtake, every exit, perfect. He hears the radio chatter—engineers cheering, strategists shouting—yet he hardly registers it. His mind loops on one thought: Suzuka has been conquered, yes. But the measure of this weekend isn’t just in the car’s obedience. It’s in you.
The checkered flag waves. Victory. Pole to podium conversion seamless. The RB22 hums beneath him like a satisfied predator. He allows himself a slow, deliberate exhale, letting the adrenaline wash over him.
And even in triumph, the thought persists: when will the rules, when will the unseen steward, finally push back? When will the perfect rhythm end?
Suzuka has yielded to Jihoon’s skill. But somewhere, invisible and relentless, you wait.
The podium has barely cooled, the sticky scent of champagne still clinging to the Red Bull fireproofs, stinging his eyes, coating the back of his throat with its sour sweetness. Cameras flash like a hailstorm, catching droplets that glint on his helmet, on the contours of his suit, sparkling against the sun-drenched metal of the podium steps. Mingyu and Jeonghan laugh, spraying reckless streams of golden bubbles, oblivious to the heat rising in Jihoon’s chest as the liquid dribbles into his neck and collar, a pungent reminder of victory’s chaotic trappings.
The press conference had been a carousel of exhilaration. Questions flying, lights blinding, the air thick with excitement and smell of coffee and inked papers. He’d laughed, he’d smirked, he’d charmed every lens aimed at him. Blood had surged in his face repeatedly, cheeks tingling, lips twitching from the strain of constant, radiant smiles. He had felt alive. Untouchable. Perfect.
Now, standing in his quiet, white-walled driver’s room, the chill of air conditioning brushing damp fireproofs, his trainer corners him with that familiar, hesitant expression. There’s a clipboard pressed tight against her chest, pen idle. The silence stretches too long, anticipation gnawing at the edges of his mind.
“Mclaren has lodged a complaint,” she says finally, voice careful, brittle. “They believe your fuel load was too low. The stewards investigated your car.”
The words land like ice cubes down his spine, sharp and sudden. Cold creeps into his chest, numbing, tightening around his heart in a grip that feels unnatural. His lungs seize for air. The perfect weekend, the flawless driving, the gleaming RB22 sliding like liquid through Suzuka’s curves—all of it teeters on a knife-edge now.
“And?” The word escapes his mouth clipped, harsh. Panic coiling in his throat, cutting off his usual composure. His pulse thrums in his ears, loud, relentless.
“I—Jihoon, it was underweight, I’m so sorry—”
The apology never lands. The sound of it dies against the wall as his hands shoot forward, yanking the Red Bull cap from his head. It sails across the room, slamming against the whiteboard with a sharp thunk, ricocheting off the metal corner of a filing cabinet. Even his trainer flinches, eyes wide, as if witnessing a force of nature incarnate.
“FUCK!” Jihoon shouts, voice raw, straining, echoing down the narrow corridor. The single word multiplies in his mind, a relentless mantra of disbelief and fury. “FUCKING FUCK! The fucking STEWARDS!”
He throws himself against the cool wall, palms splayed, helmet still under one arm. He feels like a god, and yet. How thin, how fragile that godhood is. One call, one line in a rulebook, and the pedestal crumbles beneath him. His chest heaves. The blood pounding in his temples feels like it might burst through the skin, and the sharp tang of sweat and champagne stings his nose.
Every sense is hyper-focused: the sterility of the fluorescent lighting above, the faint hum of air conditioning rattling across the walls, the dull metallic scent of the podium behind him mixing with the lingering sweetness of celebration. The RB22 rests outside in the pit lane, gleaming, perfect: untouched, yet its perfection feels meaningless now.
Jihoon’s hands ball into fists, knuckles white against the fireproof suit. The rage is physical, tangible, curling around his ribs and heart, squeezing, tightening, refusing release. It isn’t just disappointment. It’s betrayal, insulted mastery. He had measured the limits of asphalt and regulations with godlike precision, danced on the edge, controlled the chaos, and now someone had reached into that equation and upended it.
And he knows. He knows. It’s you.
The memory of your voice, precise, calm, cutting through the tension of the steward room, echoes unbidden. The cold steel logic, the absolute adherence to the letter of the rules. The three-place penalty in Melbourne was only a taste, a warning. This is the full weight. You had watched, measured, ensured that even the most perfect weekend bends, if not breaks, under scrutiny.
His mind screams. Go back. Go to the stewards. Right now. Demand answers. Confront them. Make them—
“Jihoon! Stop,” his trainer says, hand on his elbow, firm and grounding. “You will not go in there like this. Not now. Not ever. You’ll—”
“I will! I’m not letting them get away with this!” he snaps, jerking away. “I’m not going to sit here while they rip it from me!”
He spins toward the windows, where the RB22 gleams under evening light, perfect and untouchable, mocking him. Every second of triumph is poisoned. The smell of champagne, sweat, and burnt rubber hangs thick in his nose. His hands shake, clenching into fists so tight the knuckles white out, nails biting into palms.
The cold hand of authority presses invisibly on his chest, a force he cannot see but feels in every fiber of his being. It’s you. Your judgment, absolute and unflinching, wrapping him in the certainty that no speed, no skill, no history of outsmarting every steward since he was eighteen—nothing—can alter the outcome. The vise tightens, squeezes. He gasps for air, for leverage, for anything to fight it with—but there is nothing.
Helplessness, raw and unfamiliar, floods him. Rage twists with humiliation. He’s ten years in, a four-time world champion, a master of bending the rules without breaking them, and yet here he stands, trembling with fury, at your mercy.
“I,” His voice is rough, ragged. “I… I can’t,”
His trainer keeps her hand firm on his elbow, guiding him, restraining him from charging off toward the stewards’ office. “Breathe. Don’t do something you’ll regret.”
He glares at the wall, at the gleaming RB22, at the invisible hand that has circled around his neck and refused to loosen. The world narrows to a single, crushing truth: for the first time in a decade, in a lifetime spent controlling every move, every fraction of a second, he cannot move the game to his favor.
He can feel it, sharp as a blade beneath his skin. You’ve made him small. You’ve made him helpless. And it burns.
The elevator hums, lights flickering faintly, as Jihoon leans against the brushed steel wall, gym bag slung over his shoulder. He’s stripped out of the fireproofs, clad in simple black shorts and a grey tee, hair still damp from a quick shower. His jaw is tight, pulse still thrumming from the memory of the steward’s verdict earlier. The disqualification—sharp, brutal—still slices at him. He tries not to think about it. Failing spectacularly.
The doors squeal open at the next floor, and you stumble in. Badge gripped tight in your hand, heels tapping against the metal floor. Hair mussed, cheeks flushed from wind or wine or both—normal. Ordinary. Like someone his age trying to enjoy a Sunday night in Tokyo, instead of the person who dismantled his weekend less than five hours ago. It hits him like iron filings in his throat. Razor blades.
“Oh!” you giggle, spotting him. Voice light, casual, like nothing happened. “Mr. Lee!”
“Hi,” Jihoon says wryly, forcing his shoulders to relax. He shoves his hands into his pockets, the gym bag threatening to slide off his shoulder, trying not to think about the DQ.
“I thought FIA officials can’t be in the same hotels as drivers on race weekends?” he asks, brows raised.
“Well,” you say, stumbling slightly as if tripping over your own words. You wave a hand, dismissing some invisible objection. “Some friends were staying here and—” You giggle again, brushing a strand of hair from your face. “—so, you know.”
Jihoon exhales, a dry laugh escaping. “So you do bend the rules a little.”
“Only off the clock, Mr. Lee,” you shoot back, heels clicking softly against the elevator floor.
“Uh-huh.” He tilts his head, smirk teasing the corner of his mouth, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
The elevator shudders, groaning, then screeches violently to a halt between floors. The lights flicker. A low, metallic clank echoes through the shaft.
“Shit,” he groans, fists tightening briefly at his sides.
“Shit,” you agree, biting your lip, one hand curling around the rail.
The confined space suddenly feels smaller. His pulse hammers in his ears, heat climbing his neck. He glances at you, then at the faintly glowing digital display that refuses to change. Great. We’re stuck.
“Well,” he mutters, kicking lightly at the steel floor, “this is awkward.”
“You think?” you say, tilting your head, voice still light but measured. “We’ll be here a while, I think.”
Jihoon exhales sharply, dragging a hand down his face. “Yeah. We’ll be here,” he echoes, tone darkly amused. Then, before he can stop himself, the words tumble out, raw: “You—about the DQ. I want answers. I want why my car was underweight.”
You straighten immediately, posture snapping into that precise, professional stance. Gone is the flushed, playful exterior; your shoulders tighten, spine straight, eyes cold and exacting. But the corner of your mouth quirks, a faint, rueful smile—apologetic, human. He sees it. A tiny fracture in the unshakable steward mask.
“It was 0.25 kilograms underweight,” you say, carefully, measured, like reading off a caliper. “The sensors confirmed it. The fuel log corroborates it. It’s… precise, not personal.”
He laughs bitterly, shaking his head, jaw rigid. “Precise. Right. It doesn’t make it hurt any less.” His fists clench at his sides, knuckles pale. “I could’ve done better. I could’ve… I could’ve won. And this: this handcuffs me, makes me powerless. You know how that feels, don’t you?”
You look at him, softening fractionally, gaze catching his in a rare moment of connection. “I know how it feels, yes. But I didn’t make the rulebook. I just… enforce it.”
He paces the elevator in a tight loop, sneakers echoing on steel. “It’s… cruel. It’s unfair. I’ve spent ten years bending rules without breaking them, and you—you make me feel like a rookie again. Helpless. And it’s infuriating.”
You lean slightly against the wall, arms relaxed, body casual, but your gaze is pin-sharp, trained, inescapable. “Maybe that’s the point,” you say softly, tone calm but deliberate, like a scalpel.
Jihoon exhales, lungful of metallic-scented air. Heat rolls across his skin, adrenaline tangling with frustration. “Yeah. Maybe.” He glances at your eyes, catching the subtle trace of regret, the human under the steward. And it makes him want—he doesn’t yet know what. To yell, to argue, to challenge, to push.
The elevator hums, stalled between floors, a low vibration running through the polished steel walls. Lights flicker faintly, casting thin shadows that crawl across the corners. Jihoon leans against one wall, shoulders tense, fingers curling into his pockets as he rocks slightly on his heels. His casual clothes feel too soft against the hardness in his chest.
“This feels… unfair,” he says, jaw tight, voice low but edged with fire. He paces a fraction, the echo of his sneakers hollow against the metal floor. “Like you’re punishing me.”
You shift your weight, heels clicking softly, the sound crisp in the silence. The street lights outside filter through the small elevator window, glinting off your badge, long since removed, so all that catches the light is the tilt of your head, the faint curve of a confident smile. “I’ve never punished you, Mr. Lee,” you say, voice even, deliberate. “I only enforce the rules.”
He stops mid-step, fists unclenching but hands still tucked in his pockets, knuckles white. His gaze flickers across the steel walls, as if measuring how much control he has in the space between you. “Doesn’t feel like that. Doesn’t feel like I can even bend them anymore. The sport… it doesn’t feel fun.”
You tilt your chin, eyes sharp, not moving an inch closer, not retreating either. The faint shimmer of your badge in your hand catches the light. “Your safety is what I get paid for. Besides, I’ve only ever penalized you when you explicitly broke the rules. Never otherwise.”
He exhales, slow, deliberate, letting it out like steam from an engine. The tension in his shoulders loosens slightly as curiosity flickers behind the anger. “So… you would let me bend the rules?”
You glance at him, lips tight, eyebrow raised. “I don’t let you do anything, Mr. Lee. You just need to play by the rulebook.”
He smirks, and it’s slow, deliberate, curling just at the corner of his mouth. He steps closer, not threatening, just testing the air. “A deal, then,” he says carefully, voice soft but loaded, “you… let me bend the rules.”
“I—again, I don’t let you—”
“Potato, potahto,” he interrupts, hand waving lazily in the confined space. His casual gesture is at odds with the electricity in his posture, the way his eyes track yours, sharp and playful. “I can bend the rules. Sound fair?”
Your lips press into a thin line, gaze narrowing, but there’s a glint—amusement, maybe, or a spark of challenge. “What do I get out of it?”
The metal beneath your heels shivers faintly as the elevator jolts, groaning back to life with a metallic hiss. The numbers flicker upward, the movement throwing shadows across the two of you. The sudden motion makes his chest puff slightly, a mix of anticipation and triumph. The elevator comes to a grinding stop on the gym floor. He moves forward first, long strides, shoulders relaxed but eyes flicking back to catch yours, the unspoken challenge lingering in the air. “A show, sweetheart,” he teases, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, daring you to care.
The doors slide open, and he’s gone, leaving only the faint echo of his presence, and the lingering sense that the game is far from over.
Hi I want to say i enjoy emails i cant send. From part 1 to the part 2. I’ve blush, i’ve been fluttered, im grinning like an idiot reading it and I EVEN CRIED!!! I rarely cry when reading fics BUT THISSS I CRIED!!! I have to say, out of all Woozi fics out there, yours is probably one of the perfect Woozi fic i have ever read and not once while reading it I feel disappointed by how the storyline and the characters in the story goes. I luv it all💕💗💖💓
wow, what a message to wake up to ! thank you so much for the love on emails i can’t send — in all honesty, i really struggled writing this. it was my first time writing a long-form svt fic in ages, so all the love i’m getting for it is kind of blowing my mind. thank you, thank you, thank you for tuning in and hopping in my inbox to share your thoughts, it means the world to me <33
Lee Jihoon doesn’t break the rules. He bends them. Just enough to get away with it. Just enough to make your job harder, just enough to see if you’ll flinch. He’s testing the boundaries. And the worst part? You kind of want to see what happens if he crosses them.
✇ pairing: redbull racing driver! lee jihoon x fia race steward!f! reader
✇ teaser wc: 0.8k (part 1 drops august 21st!)
✇ genre: enemies-to-??? (sue me okay i have a favorite trope), the max-verstappen-ization of lee jihoon, etc etc etc
✇ warnings: mentions of food, alcohol, erratic (and sometimes frankly dangerous driving), swearing, suggestive content
✇ a/n: this is for @camandemstudios lights out collab! please check out all the other amazing authors <3
“Lee Jihoon,” you say, voice even, professional. Nothing theatrical, no automatic deference. “Have a seat.”
Jihoon tilts his head, smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. He slides into the chair, legs uncrossed, hands resting lightly on his knees. “I did,” he says, voice light, teasing, “nothing worth discussing, I’d say.”
You study him, pen tapping lightly against the desk. “A move that nearly clipped another car under braking might qualify as ‘worth discussing.’”
The smirk widens subtly, almost imperceptible. “Ah,” he says, voice soft, measured, like he’s considering a puzzle rather than a reprimand, “so that is the meeting I’ve been summoned for.”
Jihoon settles into the chair, fireproofs still warm from the paddock heat, and lets the room breathe around him. The older stewards lean back in their chairs, shuffling papers, tapping pens, occasionally glancing up at the screens that loop the race incidents in slow motion. He cracks a half-smile.
“Late braking,” one of them begins, voice steady but careful, “the RB22 squeezed the McLaren—approaching the apex, traction lost—”
Jihoon interrupts smoothly, fingers drumming on his knees. “Traction ‘lost’ is an overstatement. Look at the telemetry. Front tires at 87 percent load. Rear at 91. Not a slip, a correction.” He tilts his head, letting his gaze sweep the room. “I maintain control. No contact. Inches.”
A few of the older stewards shift in their seats, nodding, muttering under their breath. He leans back, arms crossed, eyes flicking lazily to the screens, smug. He’s in the zone. The game he knows.
Then your pen taps. One crisp, deliberate rhythm. The heads of the other stewards snap toward you. Even the ones who’ve spent decades in this office pause, eyes catching yours, voices quiet, waiting.
Jihoon notices the shift before he hears it—the room bending, subtly, toward you. He straightens, a flicker of intrigue.
You lift a hand, pen poised. “The rulebook doesn’t care that you didn’t make contact. Forcing another driver off track under braking, especially in a high-speed section, is precisely what we review. Show me your data. How close was the McLaren at the apex?”
He tilts the monitors toward himself, adjusting the angle. Fingers tap telemetry points, throttle response, braking force. “Look. I left exactly one car width to the white line. He had room, technically. Not a violation. Not dangerous. Inches.”
You tap your pen again, slow, deliberate. “One car width is the margin. Your braking reduced that margin to the absolute minimum at high speed. The FIA considers that forcing. The line you walked was intentional. The maneuver was late, aggressive, and held Mingyu off. Explain why that does not qualify as a breach.”
He leans forward, intrigued now, eyes narrowing. This is different. He can outmaneuver the others with charm, calculation, a well-placed statistic. But you? You don’t blink. You hand him the data, slow, precise, waiting for him to speak.
He scans, running numbers in his mind, recalculating his moves in real time. “Well,” he says finally, voice lighter than the weight of his thought, “the lateral load suggests I held the line, yes—but Mingyu was pressing. He had an option to adjust—”
“Option exists only in theory,” you counter, voice flat. “Track width and your trajectory left him less than a car width at the apex. That meets the definition of forcing. And under braking. High-speed section. Risk multiplied.”
Jihoon pauses. Not a stall. A calculation. He runs through the replay in his head, imagines every microsecond of the move. “Hmm,” he murmurs, more to himself than to you, “that’s… inconvenient.”
You lean back slightly, tapping the pen on the desk. “The penalty is three grid places for the next race in China. No appeal. No room for discussion.”
He blinks, just once, slow. The weight of it sinks in—not because it’s devastating, but because it’s precise, immovable. The older stewards shuffle, muttering approval. The screens flicker with his own actions in the glow of the monitors, yet you remain still, unshaken.
Jihoon leans back in his chair, fireproofs creasing at the shoulders, eyes tracing the lines of his car on the screen. For the first time in a long time, he’s lost something he’s never lost before—control, certainty, the effortless upper hand. The room feels smaller somehow, the air heavier.
You give him an appraising look, pen resting lightly against the desk. “Anything else, Mr. Lee?”
He opens his mouth, then closes it, aware that whatever he says next would be conceding more ground than he’s comfortable with.
thank you so much for "emails i can't send"!! it has become one of my all time favourite stories!!
waaaa thank you for the love on emails i can’t send! it was my first time playing around with epistolary story-telling and i’m glad people liked it <3 hopefully more epistolary work coming soon !!
✉ pairing: director of hr! lee jihoon x planning and recruitment specialist! f! reader
✉ wc: 8.3K of 16.4K (read part 1 here!)
✉ genre: semi-epistolary (in the form of emails and microsoft teams chats), a character study of lee jihoon, angst, it gets sad before it gets happy, coworkers to ????, etc etc etc
✉ warnings: mentions of alcohol, vaguely suggestive
✉ a/n: this is part of the that's showbiz, baby! collaboration. sooooo part 2 is finally here! as always the biggest thanks go to @studioeisa and our little collaboration that could <3 // and of course all my love to @haologram for the beta and the comments on my google doc that never fail to make me smile <3
read part one before reading this!
Jihoon never stays late.
It’s a fact as fundamental as the way the sun rises in the east, the way his coffee always has four pumps of vanilla, no less. He clocks out at five. It's a ritual: leave at five, drive home with the sun dipping just behind the skyline, an instrumental playlist humming through the speakers of a car that still smells like the vanilla air freshener Seungcheol gave him two years ago as a joke and he never removed. Routine. Predictable. Safe. Even you have begrudgingly accepted it.
So he should’ve, in theory, been halfway home by now—tapping his steering wheel at a red light, thinking about dinner or emails or nothing at all.
Instead, he’s walking past the glass boardroom, half-mindedly checking the time on his watch when the light catches his attention.
Still on.
He slows.
Inside, you’re hunched over the table. The massive oak thing is barely visible beneath the sprawl of paper and chaos: highlighters with their caps missing, a half-eaten protein bar, a thermos that’s probably gone cold. Your laptop is open to a spreadsheet, and you’re glaring at it like it’s insulted your ancestors. Your elbow knocks a pen off the table. You don’t even notice.
He stands in the hallway. Watches, just for a second. Tells himself he’s just curious. Just verifying you’re not setting the place on fire. That’s all.
But then you sigh. Not a little one either—this one’s heavy, drawn from someplace near your spine. You drop your pen and rub both hands over your face. When you drag them back through your hair, it messes it up even further. You look exhausted. Over it. Still stubbornly trying.
You make a sound that’s not quite a groan, not quite a whimper.
Something stirs in Jihoon’s chest. Something inconvenient.
He glances down the hall toward the exit, then back at you.
Exhales, slow and steady through his nose. Steps in.
The door opens with a soft click. You don’t notice until he crosses the room and places his bag down at the far end of the table. The sound of the zipper dragging across the wood makes you flinch.
You look up.
Your eyes widen like you’ve seen a ghost.
“Jihoon?” you ask, almost breathless. Your voice is hoarse, tired from silence.
He doesn’t meet your gaze as he pulls a chair out and sits down.
“Quarter two doesn’t build itself,” he murmurs, reaching for the top sheet in the closest stack.
You blink, startled. “You don’t—what are you—”
“I’m not repeating myself,” he says, eyes scanning the sheet. “This graph doesn’t match the data from last week’s headcount.”
You don’t argue. Just sit back down, dazed. And then, after a beat, you smile.
It’s not your usual smile, the bright, dazzling one you aim at the rest of the team. This one’s small. Almost reverent. Like you’re afraid moving too quickly might make him vanish.
Jihoon keeps his eyes on the page. His ears are pink.
He doesn’t sit close—of course not. But close enough. Close enough that when you both reach for the same report, your fingers graze.
Once.
Then again. When he passes you a revised schedule.
A third time, when your pinky nudges his knuckle as you cross out a deadline together, hands pressed side-by-side against the table.
He doesn’t flinch.
Doesn’t move away.
He finds your notes chaotic, color-coded with no logic he can follow. There are hearts around section titles. A doodle of what looks like a stress-eating cat in the margin of the turnover slide.
He wants to be annoyed.
But instead, he feels something else. Something gentler.
By the time the spreadsheet is tamed, the table looks clearer. There’s still a lot to do—but it no longer feels impossible. Just hard. Manageable.
You stretch your arms over your head and groan when your back cracks. “Jesus,” you mumble. “I’m dying.”
“Then who’s finishing the Q2 plan?” Jihoon deadpans.
You laugh, dropping your arms and looking at him like he’s said the funniest thing in the world.
He rolls his eyes—but it’s softer than usual.
He stands. Straightens the cuffs of his shirt. Adjusts his tie, more out of habit than need. Reaches for his bag.
You follow, and when your hand brushes his again, it doesn’t feel accidental.
This time, your fingers curl around his.
A squeeze.
“Thanks, Jihoon,” you say, low and sincere. “Really.”
He swallows once.
His throat feels tight.
He nods.
Because if he opens his mouth, the smile trying to claw its way out might be too obvious to hide.
That planning meeting was our last one! Our Spring Gala next week will be a night to remember thanks to all of your hard work. To celebrate, how about a round at Lucky Strike tonight at 6? First round’s on me.
Y/N L/N
Planning and Recruitment Specialist
The Carat Company
Office: 010-****-**** | Direct: 010-****-****
He’s late.
Not by much. Seven minutes, maybe, but still. Jihoon doesn’t do late. It makes his skin itch. Makes him check his watch twice as he stands outside the bar, staring through the tall windows.
It’s warm inside. Loud. Alive.
He can see flashes of familiar faces through the crowd: Samuel’s bright hair bobbing with laughter, Jisoo sipping something dark, Jihyo leaning in to whisper something conspiratorial to Wonwoo, who only shakes his head and smirks.
And then there’s you, at the bar, already a drink in hand. The glass sweats against your skin. Your shoulders are loose. You’re laughing at something someone says, head tipped back slightly, like you’re made of nothing but light and joy and ease.
Jihoon adjusts the collar of his jacket.
Then pushes the door open.
The first thing that hits him is the music: something bass-heavy and a little obnoxious. The second is Samuel, who lets out a full-bodied whoop the moment he spots Jihoon hovering near the entrance.
“LEE JIHOON!” he hollers, loud enough to draw attention. “Look who decided to stop being a corporate vampire and grace us with his presence!”
Jihoon’s ears go pink.
The team cheers. Someone claps him on the back (too hard), someone else shoves a drink into his hand. Wonwoo gives him a knowing look over the rim of his glass.
Jihoon exhales.
And, slowly, carefully, lets himself exhale a little more.
It’s awkward at first. Always is. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands. His small talk is rusty, and he only half-hears most of what Seungcheol’s complaining about as they hover near the pool table.
But then someone tells a joke—some absurd story about a printer catching fire during last year’s performance reviews—and Jihoon snorts. Actually snorts. And someone laughs, and someone else echoes it, and the next thing he knows, he’s being pulled into a conversation, a rhythm. Jisoo teases him about his four-pump vanilla coffee, and Jihoon fires back without thinking. They laugh.
He laughs.
And then, he sees you again.
You’re alone at the bar now, nursing your drink, the condensation trailing down your fingers. When you catch him looking, you lift your glass slightly in greeting. Your smile isn’t loud. It’s just for him.
He walks over.
“Another?” he asks, nodding at your glass.
You arch a brow. “Offering to buy me a drink, Managing Director Lee?”
“Don't make it weird.”
“I think you just did,” you grin.
He orders whatever you’re drinking. Doesn't ask what it is. Doesn’t really care. He passes it to you and leans against the bar like it’s something he does every Monday.
You’re still smiling. “Didn’t think you’d come.”
“I RSVP’d.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t think you’d actually show.”
He huffs out something that might be a laugh. “I can commit to things, you know.”
“Mm,” you tease. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“You’re literally seeing it.”
“I don’t know,” you say, leaning in just slightly, “you still look like you’re trying to figure out how to file an HR report about being in a bar with your coworkers.”
“I’m not that uptight.”
You hum thoughtfully. “I didn’t say uptight. I said terrified.”
Jihoon narrows his eyes, but you’re already giggling into your drink, shoulders shaking with mirth. It’s reckless, the way he wants to reach out and touch your arm. To feel that warmth up close.
The crowd surges behind you then—someone jostles past, laughing loudly—and you stumble. Not far, not hard, but enough that your hands splay against his chest for balance. He steadies you automatically, hands warm around your waist, breath catching in his throat.
You don’t pull away.
Neither does he.
You’re so close now. Close enough that he can see the way your eyes soften as they meet his, close enough to catch the citrusy sweetness of your drink on your breath.
“Hi,” he says, barely more than a whisper.
“Hello,” you reply, like it’s something sacred.
His fingers tighten ever so slightly at your waist. Just enough.
And then—of course—Samuel barrels between you, slamming a tray of shots down on the bar with a cheer loud enough to wake the dead.
“Round two, LET’S GO!”
You blink. Step back. Jihoon lets go slowly, reluctantly, like every movement takes effort.
But your gaze finds his again across the bar, and your smile—soft and knowing—lingers longer than it should.
Jihoon swallows his sigh with the bottom of a tequila shot. And wonders, not for the first time, what the hell he’s gotten himself into.
By the time the bar crowd begins to thin, the neon lights outside have dulled to a low hum and the laughter has softened to a low murmur. Jihoon catches sight of you by the door, head bowed over your phone, thumb hovering over the Uber app.
It’s reflex, the way he moves toward you. The way the words tumble out before he has the time to question them.
“I’ll drive you home.”
You blink up at him, surprise painted across your face. “Oh! That’s sweet, Jihoon, but you really don’t have to—”
“Really,” he says again, firmer now. “It’s no trouble. You’re on the way.”
That’s a lie.
You are, in fact, not on the way. Not even remotely. You live a full twenty-five minutes in the opposite direction of Jihoon’s quiet, clean apartment with its well-stocked fridge and pristinely alphabetized bookshelf. And it is Monday. And his baby blue shirt is starting to wrinkle. And it is 8:53 p.m. And Jihoon should be asleep in seven minutes if he wants to keep to his ritual.
But none of that matters.
Not when the scent of citrus still clings to your lips, not when your laugh keeps echoing in his head, and not when he can still feel the ghost of your hands pressed against his chest. Jihoon thinks he might actually be dying. Or worse—falling.
You walk side by side down the quiet sidewalk. Your shoes click softly against the pavement. The air is cool and smells faintly of rain.
“Samuel respects you a lot,” you say after a beat, like it’s a casual observation. Like it’s not about to change the tilt of Jihoon’s entire universe.
He startles. “Really?”
You laugh, and it’s bright and clear, and Jihoon wants to bottle the sound and keep it in his jacket pocket. “Yeah, Jihoon. That kid hangs on to every word out of your mouth like it’s gospel. Might even start calling you Jesus at this point."
Jihoon hums. It starts in his chest, low and uncertain. Something warm twists under his ribs, unspools, catches behind his tongue.
He can’t stop himself.
“And you?” he asks.
You glance over. “What about me?”
“Do you… respect me?”
It’s quiet for a second. Just your footsteps and his, the gentle sway of the city at night, and the sound of Jihoon’s heartbeat suddenly pounding too close to his ears.
Then you stop walking.
Jihoon’s already regretting everything. Already planning the rapid backpedal, the awkward mumble, the way he’ll bury himself in work and imaginary meetings tomorrow just to pretend this never happened.
But then you turn to face him, and you look at him like’s made of soft glass.
“Of course I respect you, Jihoon,” you say, gentle. “Why would you even ask that?”
He flounders, suddenly seventeen again, awkward and unsure, staring at his shoes.
“Because of the…you know.. The— thattimeyousaideveryonefearsmeandnoonerespectsme,” he blurts in a single breath, words tangled and messy.
Your face falls. Not with annoyance, but with something far worse—regret. Real, raw, painful regret. And your voice, when it comes, is so soft it nearly undoes him.
“Oh, Jihoon.” You step into his space, not quite touching but close enough to feel the heat coming off you in waves. “I’m so sorry for that. I was stupid. So stupid. I was trying to make a joke and it was a really bad one—”
“It was a really bad joke,” he mutters, stubborn.
“I know. I know,” you agree immediately. “God, I know. I’m so sorry. It was unfair. You work so hard. You take care of this whole company and I—”
You stop. Look at him.
The silence stretches. The moment breathes.
And then your hand lifts, hesitant but sure, and rests against the inside of his wrist. Warm. Anchoring. Alive.
He swears he can feel every beat of his pulse through that single touch.
“Jihoon,” you breathe, cotton-soft. “I’m sorry. I respect you. We all do. I hope you know that.”
His throat bobs. He tries to speak, but the words get caught. He stares at you. Starts at your eyes, your mouth, the crinkle near your nose when you wait for him to say something. So he does.
“I like you,” he mutters to the ground.
Your brow creases. “Sorry?”
“I—” He clears his throat. Forces himself to look up. And this time, he says it like he means it. “I like you.”
Your smile starts slow.
And then it blooms.
Radiant. Blinding.
And you don’t say anything, not at first. You just close the remaining distance between you until Jihoon can smell the faint fruit of your drink again, can feel your breath on his lips as you whisper, “I like you too.”
And this time, when your lips brush his, Jihoon forgets about his bedtime. Forgets about the wrinkles in his shirt and the spreadsheet that’s due tomorrow. Forgets about the rules and rituals.
Because this—your mouth on his, your hand still cradling his wrist like it’s something precious—is everything he didn’t know he needed.
And for once, Lee Jihoon doesn’t think at all.
Jihoon drops you home like a man possessed. He drives with one hand on the wheel and the other still tingling, memorizing the shape of your fingers against his.
Outside your apartment, the air is heavy with spring. You fumble with your keys, laughter bubbling in your chest, but Jihoon has you pressed against the door before you can even get the key halfway into the lock.
He kisses like he doesn’t know how to stop. Like he’s trying to memorize the shape of your mouth with his own. You taste like citrus and warmth and everything he’s tried not to want for months. You gasp into the kiss—breathless, delighted—and it drives him a little mad.
“Jihoon,” you whisper, breath hitching, as you break away for air. “We have a 9 a.m.”
“Mmm,” he hums, nosing against your cheek, already chasing your lips again. “Push the meeting. I’m the managing director.”
You laugh, bright and airy, and it lands somewhere deep in his chest.
“It’s with Wonwoo, you dumbass,” you manage through a grin, shoving lightly at his shoulder.
Jihoon grins, wide and boyish and not at all ashamed.
You finally get the door open, slipping inside, and before he can lean in again, you press your palm against his chest.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” you say, eyes dancing.
And then the door clicks shut between you.
Jihoon’s left staring at your brass door number, dazed.
From inside, muffled: “SEE YOU TOMORROW!”
He walks to his car like he’s drunk on something better than alcohol. Floats through red lights and quiet intersections, the world hushed and glowing.
At home, he doesn’t bother with his usual routine. Doesn’t iron his shirt for the next morning, doesn’t prep his protein shake or check his calendar for the fifth time.
Instead, he crawls into bed, fully clothed, sheets still cool against his back.
And with the lights still off and the city humming faintly outside his window, Jihoon presses a finger to his lips.
He grins into the dark.
He’s completely, hopelessly screwed.
[💬 Microsoft Teams – Direct Message to JEON WONWOO | 9:03 AM]
From: Jeon Wonwoo
Jihoon.
Where are you.
We had a 9 AM????
From: Jeon Wonwoo
Jihoon???
You never miss meetings. All okay?
[💬 Microsoft Teams – Direct Message to Y/N L/N | 9:12 AM]
To: Lee Jihoon
Hey! All okay? You’re usually 10 minutes early to meetings.
Didn’t see you in the office either.
To: Lee Jihoon
not to sound alarmist
but are you okay???? pls check in!
[💬 Microsoft Teams – Direct Message to JEON WONWOO | 9:23 AM]
From: Jeon Wonwoo
I swear to God if you died on me, I will resurrect you just to kill you again.
And then I’ll fire you.
[💬 Microsoft Teams – Direct Message between JEON WONWOO AND Y/N L/N | 9:36 AM]
To: Jeon Wonwoo
he’s not answering me either
do you think he’s okay? should someone go to his place?
does anyone know where he lives???
From: Jeon Wonwoo
I do. But let’s wait. I’ll give him until 10.
If you hear from him before then, ping me.
from: 010-****-****
hey
it’s y/n
got your number from the personnel records
are you okay?
from: 010-****-****
okay i’m going insane over here
i’m about to send a wellness check to your apartment, please text back
please.
He wakes up at 10:23 a.m.
10:23.
The numbers on the screen feel like a punch. He stares at them for a full second, trying to make them make sense—trying to force the ten into a five , the two into a zero. But it doesn’t shift. Doesn’t change.
10:23.
He doesn’t remember turning off his alarm. Doesn’t remember setting it.
Because he didn’t.
Because he’d stayed out too late. Hadn’t done his skincare. Hadn’t reviewed his calendar. Hadn’t ironed a shirt and hung it up outside his closet like he always does. He hadn't even refilled his water bottle for the morning.
Instead, he’d gotten home from Lucky Strike drunk on something that had nothing to do with alcohol. Had stood in his apartment with his shoes still on, his mouth still tingling from the last time he kissed you, and had done the unthinkable.
He'd let himself be happy.
And now—now he was paying for it.
He stumbles into the shower and curses when the water hits him ice-cold. There’s no time to wait for it to warm. He’s in and out in under three minutes, towel half-wrapped around his waist as he claws through his closet like a man possessed. Nothing’s ironed. Nothing’s ready. He yanks on a pair of black slacks that have a crease in the wrong place and grabs a shirt—gray, wrinkled, but button-down enough.
By 10:41 he’s in the car, banana between his teeth, seatbelt snapping across his chest as he pulls out of his parking garage like a bat out of hell.
His hair is still damp when he buzzes into the building.
No latte.
No smile from the barista who usually has it waiting for him.
No quiet morning.
Just shame.
He’s Lee Jihoon. Youngest Managing Director in Carat Company history. A man of systems. Of discipline. Of excellence.
Other people break routine. Other people make mistakes. Not him.
Not him.
Except, this morning—he did.
When he finally sits down at his desk, breath caught somewhere between his chest and his throat, he pulls up his Teams window and writes the shortest message he can manage.
[💬 Microsoft Teams – Direct Message to JEON WONWOO | 11:09 AM]
To: Jeon Wonwoo
Overslept. Sorry. Will reschedule Q2 meeting.
From: Jeon Wonwoo
All good. Y/N was worried.
He doesn’t respond.
There are dozens of emails waiting in his inbox, and his phone buzzes every few seconds. He answers none of them.
He doesn’t look up when the door to the office opens. Doesn’t flinch when he hears your voice, bright and relieved.
“Oh thank God—where were you? I texted you, like, six times. I was going to ask Wonwoo to do a wellness check, I swear to God—”
He lifts his eyes slowly.
And then he breaks.
“I didn’t set my alarm,” he snaps.
Your smile falters. “Okay?”
He stands, abrupt and sharp, chair scraping behind him. “I didn’t set my alarm. I didn’t go to bed at nine. I didn’t iron my clothes. I didn’t prep for my meeting. You know why? Because I was out. At a happy hour. Because I said yes to something I never say yes to.”
You blink. “Jihoon, I didn’t mean—”
“No,” he cuts in, voice tight. “This matters. Because I don’t miss meetings. I don’t show up late. I don’t—” he gestures vaguely, a wide, frustrated sweep of his hand, “—break routine. But ever since you got here, it’s been one thing after another. The snack cabinet. The happy hour. The frog. You—”
He stops, breathing hard.
You’re staring at him like he’s sprouted wings. Or horns.
He knows he sounds ridiculous.
But he can’t stop.
“I was fine before you came here,” he finishes, quietly. “I had a system.”
Your voice is gentle, when you finally speak. Measured, but not unkind. “So you’re mad because… I broke your system?”
He doesn’t answer. His hands are fists at his sides.
And then, more softly still, you say, “Or are you mad because you liked it?”
Silence.
Jihoon’s jaw clenches. He turns back toward his desk.
You don’t press him.
Not at first.
But as your hand brushes the door handle, your voice comes again—quiet, but clear. “Things that only run on systems and don’t change aren’t people, Jihoon. They’re robots.”
You look at him for a moment longer, long enough for him to feel it like a weight, and then walk out, gently shutting the door behind you.
Jihoon sits. Opens his inbox. Stares at the blinking cursor of an apology draft he’s not sure how to finish.
Just wanted to flag that a private office just opened up down the hall. It’s got great light, a bit quieter than your current setup. You’re more than welcome to move in if you’d prefer a little more space (and solitude!). Totally up to you, of course, your call.
Let facilities know if you need help with the move.
Cheers,
Jeon Wonwoo
Chief Executive Officer
The Carat Company
Office: 010-****-**** | Direct: 010-****-****
Jihoon reads it once. Then again.
Solitude.
The word clangs in his chest.
He stares at the timestamp. Sent last night. He hadn't noticed. He hadn't checked.
By the time he walks in the next morning—7:32 a.m., latte in hand, routine clinging to him like armor—your desk is gone.
The tapestry. The frog. The coffee mug with the sarcastic HR slogan. The sticky notes in five colors, and your keyboard, and your notebooks, and the framed printout of the "Go Team!" slide he still pretends to hate.
All gone.
Only the blankness remains, stark and cold against the beige paint. The corner of the office he hasn’t looked at empty in months.
His own reflection looks back at him in the polished screen of your left-behind monitor.
Attached is the first draft of the Q2 planning deck, inclusive of updated retention metrics and proposed staffing ratios. Let me know if there are any revisions you’d like to see ahead of the next leadership sync.
Best,
Y/N L/NPlanning and Recruitment Specialist
The Carat Company
Office: 010-****-**** | Direct: 010-****-****
I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss
This email has not been sent yet. Send during the recipient's work hours?
This email has not been sent yet. Send during the recipient's work hours?
[💬 Microsoft Teams – Direct Message to JEON WONWOO | 3:34 PM ]
From: Jeon Wonwoo
You fucked up.
To: Jeon Wonwoo
I know.
From: Jeon Wonwoo
Then why haven’t you fixed it?
To: Jeon Wonwoo
I don’t know how.
From: Jeon Wonwoo
You hurt her.
To: Jeon Wonwoo
I know.
From: Jeon Wonwoo
She moved offices. She won’t even look at you.
To: Jeon Wonwoo
I know.
From: Jeon Wonwoo
Then do something.Before it’s too late.
From: Jeon Wonwoo
[Attachment: Spring_Gala_Invite_FINAL.pdf]
Funny, you helped design this.
It’s tonight, you know.
To: Jeon Wonwoo
I know.
From: Jeon Wonwoo
Show up.
Or don’t.
Your choice.
It’s 5:07 PM and the sun has dipped low over the city.
Jihoon doesn’t even remember getting in the car.
One minute, he’s staring blankly at the blinking cursor on his screen — the Q2 org restructure report open, untouched, since before lunch — and the next, he’s outside, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles have gone pale. The office garage is slowly emptying out around him. He watches taillights blink down the ramp, fade into the pink-streaked blur of early evening.
He should go home.
He should heat up one of the frozen meals stacked in careful rows in his freezer, open the bottle of Barolo he’s been saving for no reason in particular, watch half an episode of that slow-burn legal thriller everyone says is “so him,” then go to sleep by 9:00pm sharp. He should iron his shirts for the week. Clean out the dishwasher. Pack tomorrow’s lunch.
Instead, he just sits.
The city buzzes quietly around him. Muffled laughter from a group of interns spilling out of the stairwell. A car alarm in the distance. His own breath, tight and even, misting faintly against the driver’s side window.
He doesn’t notice he’s pulled out his phone until it’s already dialing.
“Jihoon-ah,” his mother answers on the third ring. Her voice is warm, as familiar as the scent of roasted barley tea on Sundays. “You’re calling early. Everything okay?”
He opens his mouth. Closes it.
There’s a rustle on the other end of the line — her slippers against tile, maybe, or the sliding of a newspaper across the dining table.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he says finally.
A pause.
“Work?” she asks gently.
“Not exactly.” He rubs at the back of his neck. His collar’s stiff, too tight, like it’s choking him.
He hears her pull the phone closer. Imagines her sitting at the kitchen table, mug in hand, cat curled by her feet. Waiting.
“I had it all down,” he says. “The routine. The schedule. Wake, gym, shower, coffee, calendar, meeting, lunch, meeting, email, leave. Quiet. Predictable.”
“You’ve always liked predictable,” she says, not unkindly.
He exhales. A shaky breath.
“She wasn’t supposed to matter,” he murmurs.
“Ah.”
“She sits too close. She talks too much. Her handwriting is a disaster, and she uses Comic Sans in team decks just to piss me off. She brought a one-eyed frog mug and a tapestry into our office like she was claiming territory—like we were dorm roommates. She runs ten minutes late to every meeting, sings under her breath while drafting spreadsheets, and says things like ‘snack room vibes’ in quarterly planning.”
“And?” his mother prompts.
“And I think I’m in love with her,” Jihoon breathes. “God help me, I really think I am.”
The parking garage feels still all of a sudden. Like the city is holding its breath for him.
He lets the silence stretch. Stares at the dark shape of the rearview mirror. His own eyes, barely visible. Haunted.
“I just—” he starts. Stops. Inhales. Exhales. “I just don’t know how to let her in. Not without undoing all the things I’ve spent years building.”
“Then maybe it’s time to build new things.”
He frowns. “That’s not how it works.”
“Why not?”
Silence again. A dog barks outside his window. The sky burns orange against the high-rises.
“Routine is safe, Jihoon,” she says. “I know that better than anyone. But if all you do is keep yourself safe, you’ll miss the parts of life that are messy and terrifying and completely worth it.”
“I want her to respect me.”
“She does. I bet she did before you even knew her name.”
He presses his lips together. His chest tightens.
“And I want her to—” He breaks off. Stares at the traffic light. “I think I want her to love me.”
His mother’s voice is soft. “Then let her see you. The way you really are. Not just the title. Not just the clockwork.”
Another breath. Then—
“There’s a gala tonight.”
“Then go,” she says, like it’s the simplest thing in the world.
“I don’t even know what tie to wear.”
“Wear the one that makes you feel brave,” she says, smiling, he can hear it.
He lets out something that almost passes for a laugh. “I don’t think I have one of those.”
“Then wear the one you wore when they made you managing director. You didn’t think you were brave then either, remember?”
That stops him cold.
He closes his eyes.
He does remember.
“Be good to her,” she breathes. “I love you.”
He hangs up gently. Stares out the windshield for a long time.
Then, slowly, Jihoon turns the keys in the ignition.
The car hums to life beneath his hands.
[💬 Microsoft Teams – Direct Message to JEON WONWOO | 7:23 PM ]
From: Jeon Wonwoo
You’re late.
You’re never late.
To: Jeon Wonwoo
I know.
From: Jeon Wonwoo
Interesting.
The Spring Gala is… breathtaking.
Jihoon’s never used that word before. Not seriously. But as he steps into the ballroom, he feels something catch in his throat. A pause. An ache. A stillness so sudden he forgets to breathe.
It’s not just elegant. It’s magic.
The lights are low, warm like candlelight, flickering across the gold accents laced through every centerpiece. There’s a live string quartet tucked into the corner, the soft trill of a cello drifting beneath the gentle clinking of glasses. Tables are covered in deep forest-green linens, each one topped with floral arrangements of pale blush and burnt orange and creams, tiny brass frogs nestled among the petals. Jihoon selfishly hopes it’s a quiet nod, maybe, to the one-eyed ceramic that used to sit between your desks.
Soft up-lighting dances across the ceiling in sweeping arcs. At the entrance, a custom neon sign glows: “To Another Season Together – TCC Spring Gala 2025.” The letters are rimmed in flowers. The letters match the font you always use—the one Jihoon used to mock, now memorized.
He blinks once. Twice.
And then his eyes find you.
And everything stops.
You’re standing near the head table in conversation with a small group of executives, the soft fabric of your floor-length dress catching the light with every movement. It’s deep emerald, the color of growth, of beginnings, and it hugs you like a secret. Your hair is swept to one side, gold clips gleaming like constellations. Your earrings swing with every tilt of your head. You're laughing at something Jisoo says, and Jihoon feels like someone’s sucked all the air out of the room.
He can’t breathe.
You look beautiful. God, you look radiant. And yet, when you catch sight of him, all that warmth bleeds from your expression like ink in water.
You walk right past him.
Your heels click like punctuation across the floor. You're all satin grace and practiced poise as you move toward the next wave of guests, Samuel at your side with his shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows and a lanyard tucked into his pocket.
Jihoon turns, throat tight.
He doesn’t think. Just reaches.
His fingers curl gently around your wrist, only for you to yank away like he’s scalded you.
The shame hits fast. Low. Gnawing.
“Director Lee,” you say, voice perfectly modulated, all polished chill. You adjust your bracelet, not looking at him. “How nice of you to come.”
“I—uh.” His tie feels like a noose around his neck. He fingers the knot at his throat like it might unravel something in his chest. “It looks great. The gala. You… you look great.”
You don’t soften. You don’t smile.
“Didn’t think you’d get to see it,” you say evenly, “what with your penchant for never deviating from your schedule.”
Jihoon falters.
“I guess I deserved that one—”
“You did.”
There’s a silence, sharp as cut glass. He wets his lips.
“Can we talk?” he asks.
And for a second, just a second, he thinks you might say yes. Your eyes skim over him, cool and appraising. You step into his space, fingers reaching up to fix the knot of his tie with surgical precision.
You smooth it down.
And say, “No.”
Then you pivot on your heel, chin high. Walk away like it doesn’t cost you anything. You tug Samuel with you by the wrist, and he stumbles, glancing back once with a wide-eyed, apologetic look that makes Jihoon feel like he’s been left standing in the wreckage of his own making.
He doesn’t follow.
Not yet.
The music swells around him.
And Jihoon—Managing Director, chronic early riser, routine-bound, tightly-wound, not-feeling-anything Jihoon—finally feels what it’s like to want something enough to chase it.
He retreats to the bar.
Not far. Just enough to lick his wounds in peace, to press the sweating rim of a half-empty whiskey tumbler to his lips and pretend he doesn’t feel like the smallest man in the world.
Behind him, the gala spins onward. Laughter crests like waves, warm and vibrant. There’s a group on the dance floor now—Jihyo, Samuel, some new interns he doesn’t know by name yet. The lights are soft, golden, perfect. You did this. You made this.
He doesn’t belong in it.
He shifts his weight onto the barstool, straightens the already-perfect crease in his slacks, and stares blankly at the melting ice in his glass.
“Brooding at a party you helped plan is so on brand for you, Jihoon.”
Jihoon doesn’t have to look to know it’s Wonwoo.
Wonwoo leans against the bar beside him, posture loose, glass of red wine in one hand. There’s a slight smirk on his lips, but his voice is quiet. Careful.
Jihoon doesn’t answer.
Wonwoo knocks his shoulder gently against Jihoon’s. “She did a hell of a job, huh?”
Jihoon nods.
“And she looks—”
“I know.”
Wonwoo’s mouth quirks. “I was going to say radiant.”
“I know.”
They lapse into silence for a beat. Music drifts faintly from the speakers overhead: something jazzy and slow now, the kind of thing Jihoon normally hates. He can’t find it in himself to hate anything tonight.
Wonwoo shifts beside him. Swirls his wine.
“You know,” he says finally, and his voice is low, like he doesn’t want to interrupt the fragile world around them, “if you want her, Jihoon…”
Jihoon doesn’t move.
“You should go get her.”
There’s no teasing in Wonwoo’s voice. No smugness. Just a weight behind the words. A simple, heavy truth.
Jihoon blinks slowly at his drink.
When he stands, it’s with a sharp breath and the feeling of something electric coursing under his skin. He doesn’t know where the courage comes from—maybe from the base of his spine, maybe from his chest where your voice still lingers—but his feet are moving before his brain catches up.
He finds you on the balcony, not by accident, but after twenty minutes of circling the ballroom like a man in a maze.
You’re leaning against the railing, spine curved, a half-empty glass of something fizzy cupped between both hands. The light from inside hits your silhouette just barely, outlining the slope of your shoulders, the glint of a bracelet, the softest shift of breath.
He almost doesn’t approach.
He almost retreats, back into the crowd, to pretend he never saw you, to keep carrying the shame like a stone in his pocket. But then you tip your head back, sighing quietly into the night air, and he sees your shoulders lift—just slightly—as though exhaling something that hurt.
That’s what makes him move.
Your voice floats to him before he says anything. "I needed a break. From the crowd."
Jihoon clears his throat. His dress shoes click against the stone.
You don’t look at him.
Of course you don’t.
You take a sip from your drink, and the silence stretches.
“I came out here to find you,” he says at last. His voice is quiet, but not timid.
You nod once, gaze still fixed on the skyline.
“Didn’t think you were one to deviate from routine,” you murmur, and the words aren’t barbed, not quite, but they make him flinch all the same.
Jihoon swallows. “I needed to.”
Silence again. He hates it. Loves it. It’s still better than your coldness from earlier. He turns his head slightly. You’re bathed in the soft golden spill of light from the ballroom; your dress glimmers with it. Your eyes don’t meet his.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
His voice is low. Unsteady.
You blink once, slow. “For what?”
He opens his mouth. Nothing comes. He shifts his weight from foot to foot. The words are there—have been there, pressed against the back of his teeth for weeks—but when he tries to pull them out, they come slow. Crooked.
“For everything,” he manages.
You huff. It’s not cruel, but it isn’t kind either. “That’s not enough, Jihoon.”
And you start to turn—like the whole conversation has passed through you, like you’ve already braced yourself for disappointment.
He panics.
His hand catches your arm.
Not hard. Just enough.
Just enough to say: Wait. Please.
You go still.
Your skin is warm beneath his fingers. Your pulse, steady.
You don’t pull away.
His grip isn’t tight. He’d let go in an instant if you asked. But you don’t ask.
“I like routine,” he blurts. The words tumble. Not eloquent. Not planned. Not rehearsed the way they should’ve been. “I like things neat. I like symmetry. I like when things make sense. My life—it’s boxes. Lines. Fonts. My closet’s color-coded. My days are timed down to the minute.”
You say nothing. Just stare at him.
He’s rambling now. He knows it. He can’t stop.
“And you,” he breathes, “you don’t fit.”
Your eyes narrow, but you still don’t move.
“You burst in late with coffee stains and wild ideas. You use three different fonts in one presentation. You leave your shoes under your desk. You’re loud. You’re chaotic. You—”
He stops.
Swallows hard.
“You made me forget what quiet felt like,” he says.
Finally, your expression shifts. Just a little. Barely perceptible.
“You’re light,” he says, softer now. “And warmth. And you talk too much, and you laugh too loudly, and you planned a whole gala that turned out so beautiful it doesn’t even look like the same building anymore.”
He risks a step closer. His hand drops from your arm. But you still haven’t moved.
“And I’ve missed you.”
The words are raw. Unshielded.
He’s never been good at vulnerability. At messy things.
But you? You’ve always been a little bit messy. Maybe that’s why he likes you so much.
Your lips part. And for the first time since he hurt you, there’s something soft in your eyes. Something tender and tired and maybe a little fragile. Like sunrise peeking through cloud cover.
“Say it again,” you whisper.
Jihoon’s voice breaks. “I missed you.”
You breathe in.
And he holds his breath.
The quiet hum of the city falls away.
Jihoon is still watching you like he’s not sure you’re real, like the soft forgiveness in your eyes might vanish if he so much as blinks. The lights from the ballroom catch in your hair, turning it gold at the edges, and when you take one small step closer, it knocks the breath from his lungs.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers again.
He says it like it’s sacred. Like maybe if he says it enough, it’ll be enough.
“I’m sorry,” Jihoon says, voice low and reverent. “For being cold. For shutting you out. For—” his throat bobs, “—for missing you and not knowing what to do with that.”
Your fingers trace the line of his wrist. “You could’ve started with a text.”
He huffs, a crooked smile tugging at his mouth. “You would’ve given me shit for my ‘corporatisms’.”
“I would’ve,” you agree. And then softer: “But I still would’ve answered.”
That does it.
He doesn’t ask permission. He knows he doesn’t need to. You’re already leaning in. And when he kisses you this time, it’s not tentative or slow. It’s not hesitant like the first time outside Lucky Strike, full of wonder and citrus and possibility.
It’s familiar now. Lived-in. Certain.
His mouth meets yours like a memory, like coming home after a storm. You know this rhythm. You know the sigh he gives when your hand slips into his hair, know the sound he makes when your teeth catch gently at his bottom lip. He angles his head, deepens it, hands sliding to your waist, pulling you in like you’re gravity.
You kiss him back with heat, with ache, with a quiet relief that tastes a little like victory. He’s not the same man who flinched when you suggested team happy hour, not the man who left his 9 a.m. slot sacred and untouchable. He’s here, now—messy and open and all yours.
When you break apart, breathless, you press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. Then another to his cheek. Then one to his jaw, just because you can.
He smiles—really smiles—and his thumb strokes a line across your cheekbone.
You giggle, and the sound makes something in him melt. He can’t help it. He leans in again, plants a kiss to your cheek, then another at your temple. Then your jaw.
You kiss him back with a string of little pecks across his face: cheeks, nose, forehead, lips again. Between each kiss, you tease, “Bet this isn’t on your calendar, Managing Director.” Kiss. “Should I pencil it in for next time?” Kiss. “Repeatable KPI?” Kiss.
“God,” he groans, half-laughing now, arms winding around your waist. “You’re going to be the death of me.”
He pulls back, just enough to look at you fully. His tie’s gone crooked. His hair’s a mess. His heart’s beating so fast it might dislodge a rib.
Then, slowly, nervously, he holds a hand out into the night air, palm open between you.
“Wanna get out of here?”
You tilt your head. Your smile is pure trouble. “Isn’t it past your bedtime, Managing Director?”
He chuckles, leans in, breath warm as it ghosts along your jaw. “Every rule,” he murmurs, voice low and full of promise, “has exceptions.”
And when you take his hand, he holds on like he’ll never let go.
It’s 11:30 when Jihoon finally blinks awake.
The light has already claimed the room—morning sun slipping through the linen curtains he swore were “too thin” when his mom picked them out a few years ago, golden beams painting lazy stripes across the sheets, his bare chest, the tangle of limbs that is you, warm and heavy against him.
By now, he should be up. Should be padding across the apartment on silent feet, folding back the covers with military precision and slotting each pillow into its rightful corner. Should already be in the shower, after his Saturday push day—three sets of incline bench, two supersets with dumbbell flys and cable rows, core finisher, twenty minutes. No more, no less.
He should be out of the shower by 12:10. Should be halfway through his grocery list at the farmer’s market by 12:30 PM, the one he keeps on his Notes app with color-coded categories for protein, greens, fruit, pantry. He should be doing laundry.
But instead, he sighs, nose buried in your hair, and shifts just enough to tighten his grip on your waist. Pulls you closer, until your legs hook instinctively around his and your hand sprawls across his heart. His heart that is—he notices absently—beating just a little slower than usual.
You make a sleepy little noise, eyelids fluttering as your voice breaks the quiet. “Mmm. Don’t you have a shirt to be ironing right now?”
He huffs, rolls his eyes, pinches your side.
You shriek and try to squirm away, but he’s quicker, mouth finding yours before you can get far, swallowing your protest like it’s air.
“Quiet, you,” he mutters against your lips. “Let’s just go back to sleep for a little.”
You hum in reluctant agreement, settling against his chest like you’ve always belonged there. Your breaths even out again, your fingers tracing lazy patterns along the seam of his ribcage.
It’s quiet.
But not the empty, sterile kind of quiet Jihoon’s used to. Not the kind that echoes in a perfectly made bed or a silent inbox. This quiet is warm. Breathing. Laced with the faint sound of your heartbeat against his. It fills the room like a song he forgot he loved.
His eyes slip shut again.
“...But when we wake up,” he mumbles, lips brushing your forehead, “you’re coming to work out with me.”
“Jihoon—” You groan, muffled by his chest.
“What?” he grins, smug. “Can’t burn the entire rulebook on day one.”
You slap his chest lightly, and he laughs. Real, full-bodied. The sound of a man who’s finally learned that some things, like routines, can bend.
Cam [ @highvern] and Em [ @gyuswhore] welcome you to the 2025 Formula One season! Handcrafted by Caratland's best writers, we're here to ask you to join us for the most riveting grid lineup the sport has ever seen. Catch all 26 destinations on our calendar, and all the drama that goes down in the paddocks with it, because soon it'll be Lights Out, and Away We Go!
Get your all inclusive Paddock Pass to the fastest sport in the world! Sign up for the taglist here with a visible age indicator on your blog [no age, no tag!].
Oops! Some of these areas are for 18+ fans only. Remember to check the NSFW warnings before entering the paddock!
🏁 Race: Overtake by @sailorsoons
🏎️ Driver: Choi Seungcheol x f!reader
🛞 Race Stats: Seungcheol and your brother Joshua battle over everything - pole positions, championships, the title of Mercedes’ best driver. The one thing they were never supposed to fight over was you.
Practice Session 🏁 Paddock Pass
🏁 Race: all for one by @amourcheol
🏎️ Driver: Choi Seungcheol x f!reader
🛞 Race Stats: three-time world champion choi seungcheol races for greatness—even if it sacrifices red bull's constructor trophy. you, principal strategy engineer, cannot allow favouring the self-centred driver over the entire team. when a new red bull rookie threatens his position and certain rivals begin to tempt you, seungcheol must consider winning you over—a feat more difficult than a fourth championship.
Practice Session 🏁 Paddock Pass
🏁 Race: Off The Record by @soo0hee
🏎️ Driver: Yoon Jeonghan x reader
🛞 Race Stats: 3 seasons with sky sports. 3 seasons of navigating between drivers, the fia and stubborn team principals. 3 seasons and non had taken your breath the way 2025 had thus far. The reason? Yoon Jeonghan. Ferarris posterboy and the man haunting your gridwalks.
Practice Session 🏁 Paddock Pass
🏁 Race: Revving for Love by @nerdycheol
🏎️ Driver: Yoon Jeonghan x f!reader
🛞 Race Stats: You didn’t expect the guy you swiped left on at the airport to show up at your new job — let alone be one of Formula 1’s top drivers. As the team’s new physiotherapist, you’re here to keep things professional — no distractions, especially not Jeonghan. Charming, smug, and all too aware you once swiped left on him. What starts as cooldowns and awkward stretches quickly turns into something messier. Jeonghan is flirty, unpredictable, and far too in sync with you — and despite your best efforts, he’s getting under your skin. And without you even noticing… the lines start to blur.
Practice Session 🏁 Paddock Pass
🏁 Race: Birdie by @aeristudios
🏎️ Driver: Joshua Hong x reader
🛞 Race Stats: It would be fate that you would be filming a documentary of the same F1 team as your former high school sweetheart: Joshua Hong, F1 golden boy. He still remembers you as Birdie— the one that flew away without saying goodbye. Now, years later, you have to look him in the eye as he recounts what his life has been like without you.
Practice Session 🏁 Paddock Pass
🏁 Race: build this dream together by @joshujin
🏎️ Driver: Joshua Hong x f!reader
🛞 Race Stats: As his race engineer, you’ve spent five amazing years guiding McLaren superstar, Joshua Hong, to victory after victory. But in that fifth year, you learn something horrifying about yourself: you’ve fallen in love with your driver. You’re not willing to let your heart get in the way of everything you’ve worked for, so you do the one thing you know is guaranteed to keep both of your careers safe: you leave.
Two years later, Joshua inadvertently comes crashing back into your life with an announcement that rocks the F1 world. Before you know it, you’re on his doorstep with an offer you know he won’t be able to refuse, ready to guide him back to where he needs to be—one last time.
Practice Session 🏁 Paddock Pass
🏁 Race: burn for the win by @mylovesstuffs
🏎️ Driver: Wen Junhui x f!reader
🛞 Race Stats: being the engineer who knows too much and the sister who’s had enough means standing at the eye of the storm while two men she cares about tear each other apart. jun’s pride could still cost him everything, and yet he refuses to fight to fix what’s broken; neither will minghao. she’s tired of the fallout, but no one listens. a crash was only the beginning. now, can anything bring them back?
Practice Session 🏁 Paddock Pass
🏁 Race: open channel by @sknyuz
🏎️ Driver: Wen Junhui x f!reader
🛞 Race Stats: open channel follows you: a young radio engineer who joins the haas f1 team as the apprentice to laura müller, the first female engineer in the paddock, now the chief engineer who has you under her wing—and as the unexpected successor to your own father, the long-time race engineer of haas’s most elusive driver: wen junhui.
junhui is cold to the media, clinical on the grid, and famously unreadable behind the visor. but when your voice cuts through the static, clear and steady, even he can’t help but lean in—though neither of you knows yet how deeply your pasts are tangled in the echoes of a long-ago memory on the track.
Practice Session 🏁 Paddock Pass
🏁 Race: as seen on screen by @imnotshua
🏎️ Driver: Jeon Wonwoo x f!reader
🛞 Race Stats: Wonwoo doesn’t pay you any attention, not since you were both rookies - him on the track and you in the paddock. You’ve been at Ferrari for years, and now he’s joined the team you’re supposed to be working together, but it seems he still has that same stick up his ass whenever you have something to say.
Practice Session 🏁 Paddock Pass
🏁 Race: behind the lens by @wheeboo
🏎️ Driver: Jeon Wonwoo x f!reader
🛞 Race Stats: Years ago, you and Jeon Wonwoo were inseparable. First loves, reckless hearts, and dreams too big to share—until it all fell apart. He chased after podiums; you stayed behind your lens. Five years later, you’re commissioned in the paddock as a global motorsport photographer for a behind-the-scenes shoot, and he’s back in the centre of your frame as F1’s quiet, unstoppable force. And for the first time in a long time, your photographs begin to feel real again. This time, will your frame capture an ending, or a second chance?
Practice Session 🏁 Paddock Pass
🏁 Race: playing with fire by @starlightkyeom
🏎️ Driver: Kwon Soonyoung x f!reader
🛞 Race Stats: soonyoung doesn't do relationships. or strings. or repeats all that often, honestly. he's one of the best drivers on the circuit and he doesn't need to. the one exception? you, his biggest rival's on-and-off partner. he's always your first call when your relationship is splashed across the headlines again and he never seems to care.
Practice Session 🏁 Paddock Pass
🏁 Race: heartbreak champion by @straylightdream
🏎️ Driver: Kwon Soonyoung x f!reader
🛞 Race Stats: After being together since you were fifteen, things hit a rough patch as your husband chases his goal of being world champion.
Practice Session 🏁 Paddock Pass
🏁 Race: Under Investigation by @diamonddaze01
🏎️ Driver: Lee Jihoon x f!reader
🛞 Race Stats: Lee Jihoon doesn’t break the rules. He bends them. Just enough to get away with it. Just enough to make your job harder, just enough to see if you’ll flinch. He’s testing the boundaries. And the worst part? You kind of want to see what happens if he crosses them.
Practice Session 🏁 Paddock Pass
🏁 Race: shit, this is red bull by @gyubakeries
🏎️ Driver: Lee Jihoon x f!reader
🛞 Race Stats: the version of you that jihoon sees in front of him is not the you he remembers. bleached denim and torn flannels have been replaced by shiny heels and a crisp blazer. jihoon also learns that there are lots of things besides your new appearance that have changed, the most obvious one being — your love for racing. he has no time to waste on all these new facts though, not when the press is behind his ass and you're the only one who can get him out of the messes he creates.
Practice Session 🏁 Paddock Pass
🏁 Race: Burning Bridges by @bluehoodiewoozi
🏎️ Driver: Lee Seokmin x f!reader
🛞 Race Stats: When your fiancé chooses his Formula 1 career over you and makes it everyone’s problem, his teammate Seokmin is not about to just sit back and watch.
Practice Session 🏁 Paddock Pass
🏁 Race: red wine nights by @hannieoftheyear
🏎️ Driver: Lee Seokmin x f!reader
🛞 Race Stats: what's the worst time to hook up with your best friend and change your relationship forever? probably the night before he gets on a plane and flies far away to become a world famous star.
Practice Session 🏁 Paddock Pass
🏁 Race: Rumour by @gyuswhore
🏎️ Driver: Kim Mingyu x f!reader
🛞 Race Stats: It’s hard to dislike Mingyu, an acknowledgement he risks his modesty for. So when he approaches you with rose tinted glasses, clad in the team kit of his dreams, he’s ready to build a rapport of a lifetime with his brand new race engineer.
Until, the brakes screech loud enough for the entire paddock to hear.
It’s hard to dislike Mingyu, but you make it look easy.
Practice Session 🏁 Paddock Pass
🏁 Race: perfect strangers by @studioeisa
🏎️ Driver: Kim Mingyu x f!reader
🛞 Race Stats: for the first time in seven years, kim mingyu thinks he might actually have a shot at standing on the podium. he has a decent car, a good teammate, and... a girlfriend? after f1 tv erroneously tags a complete stranger as his 'partner', mingyu now has to reckon with being one half of the newest couple on the grid.
Practice Session 🏁 Paddock Pass
🏁 Race: one track mind by @haologram
🏎️ Driver: Xu Minghao x f!reader
🛞 Race Stats: after years in the spotlight, you've learned one thing: how to get used to new environments, good and bad. despite the time and the friends you've made along the way, things never really change — and that includes the mentality that winning is the only option.
Practice Session 🏁 Paddock Pass
🏁 Race: victory lap by @minisugakoobies
🏎️ Driver: Xu Minghao x f!reader
🛞 Race Stats: minghao's just led his team to another championship - so why can't he enjoy it? he's jaded, having grown disillusioned with his life, and in desperate need of the familiar spark that’s driven him all these years. lucky for him, a chance encounter with the enemy of his rival will set his ignition ablaze with one wild ride.
Practice Session 🏁 Paddock Pass
🏁 Race: bae-watching by @shinysobi
🏎️ Driver: Boo Seungkwan x reader
🛞 Race Stats: boo seungkwan is over it, really. he's been on the sports circuit for years, but covering any f1 championship gets harder every time. on top of that, he's supposed to get a "fresh angle" on a game that has none-until he's staring down the barrel of history, when she appears right beside the ferrari chief engineer. he's looking at you, but you have stopped looking at him a decade ago.
Practice Session 🏁 Paddock Pass
🏁 Race: along the rubble or the dust by @heartepub
🏎️ Driver: Boo Seungkwan x f!reader
🛞 Race Stats: in the high-octane world of formula one, boo seungkwan has clawed his way up with a mix of charm, grit, skill, and pure luck. he knows, more than anyone else, how coincidence can be a turning point. when, in an improbable series of events, his childhood friend starts lurking in the paddock as his new performance engineer, he gets the distinct feeling that this is about to be one of them. even if (or especially because) he’d rather trust you with his life than with his heart.
Practice Session 🏁 Paddock Pass
🏁 Race: Podium Pleasers by @shadowkoo
🏎️ Driver: Chwe Hansol x f!reader
🛞 Race Stats: F1 driver Vernon is no stranger to stunning women whispering wicked things in his ear during race season, but no voice has stopped his heart quite like yours. The ‘missing’ younger sister of one of his oldest friends. The girl who disappeared two years ago without a word. And now, you’re on his lap with your bare breasts pressed against his chest. He’s horrified to learn that you’re working at an exclusive strip club, tangled in a complicated contract where sex appeal is currency, personal relationships are forbidden, and your freedom is nothing but a twisted illusion. He wants you out, but walking away from a fantasy life built on status and money isn’t that simple. So, in a last-ditch effort, he offers you something else. Something real. A fresh start on the circuit as his assistant, where you can rebuild your future, possibly even a future by his side.
Practice Session 🏁 Paddock Pass
🏁 Race: slow and steady by @haoboutyou
🏎️ Driver: Chwe Hansol x f!reader
🛞 Race Stats: Aston Martin— once a top class, championship winning team, has become riddled with bad press. What better way to cover it up than throwing your driver under the bus? In a not-so elaborate scheme, Vernon and rising star Y/n are entrapped in a dating scandal to cover up the company’s ass, subjecting them to the wrath of public scrutiny instead. Will the awkward dates and busy schedules make way for something more? Or will they let their relationship be dictated by greedy corporations?
Practice Session 🏁 Paddock Pass
🏁 Race: This Town by @wqnwoos
🏎️ Driver: Lee Chan x reader
🛞 Race Stats: Ten years ago, Lee Chan left your hometown without ever looking back. Now, after a crash that loses him the championship, he’s back and asking for your forgiveness — but you’re not sure if you’re ready to risk your best friend leaving you again.
Practice Session 🏁 Paddock Pass
🏁 Race: The Boundary Concept by @kkooongie
🏎️ Driver: Lee Chan x f!reader
🛞 Race Stats: Lee Chan didn't know which was worse: the fact that he still liked you since high school (despite shutting down completely whenever you were around) or the fact that you wanted to meet up with him... for a research paper. But hey, he was willing to take any crumbs as long as he got an opportunity to make you realise he was a super cool racer now. That is, assuming he didn't crash under the intense pressure. Or, in which, you never knew writing a paper on the boundary concept would make you question the boundaries between you and Chan.
hellooooo i know i was supposed to post part two of emails i can’t send last week! but work is reaaaaaallly bad rn and i cannot find the time to format all those emails rn LMFAO. i will post this ASAP i swear to god
✉ pairing: director of hr! lee jihoon x planning and recruitment specialist! f! reader
✉ wc: 8.1K of 16.4K (part two will be out on TUESDAY!)
✉ genre: semi-epistolary (in the form of emails and microsoft teams chats), a character study of lee jihoon, angst, it gets sad before it gets happy, coworkers to ????, etc etc etc
✉ warnings: mentions of alcohol, vaguely suggestive in part 2
✉ a/n: this is part of the that's showbiz, baby! collaboration. i am so so so eternally grateful for all the amazing writers that took a chance on kae and i as we figured out our first ever collab. to the friends i have made, i adore you all so much. i could wax poetic about you all until kingdom come and it would still not be enough. to @haologram, who watched me devolve into a incoherent mess as i wrote this: thank you thank you thank you for giving me the love i needed to keep writing. and most of all, thank you to @studioeisa, who listened to the rantings and ravings of a mad woman six months ago. i love you!
Welcome to The Carat Company. We’re lucky to have poached you from Sebong Corp—they have no idea what they’re missing out on. You seem to have a wealth of knowledge that will set you up for success here.
You will be working very closely with Lee Jihoon, Managing Director of Human Resources (copied), so feel free to direct any questions you may have to him; however, I’ll be available to discuss any other issues you may have as you onboard.
I look forward to seeing the personnel numbers and talent at TCC grow under your capable guidance.
Cheers,
Jeon Wonwoo
Chief Executive Officer
The Carat Company
Office: 010-****-**** | Direct: 010-****-****
Thank you for the warm welcome! I’ll be setting up 1:1s with both you and Mr. Lee to walk through my staffing and hiring plans for this upcoming fiscal year.
Y/N L/N
Planning and Recruitment Specialist
The Carat Company
Office: 010-****-**** | Direct: 010-****-****
Jihoon is fine. See you Monday—I have some time for a quick 9AM. Please block the time off at your earliest convenience.
-LJH
Sent from my iPhone
Jihoon has never been fond of messes.
His office, much like his apartment and the rest of his life, is minimal. Austere. A clean desk is a clean mind, he likes to think. Neatly arranged cables. One mug: white, no logo. His monitors at identical angles. Not a single paperclip out of place.
Order isn’t just habit. It’s armor. Ritual.
Monday mornings are always the same. They have to be.
5:00 AM. Wake up. No snoozing. The second alarm is a concession to humanity, not a need. He’s already up when it chimes.
5:05. Protein bar. Banana. BCAA in a bottle his father gave him two birthdays ago.
5:15. Elevator to the basement gym. The lights always flicker once when he walks in. Nobody else is ever there. Just the rhythmic clank of metal and the breathing that steadies as he shifts from warm-up into motion. Monday is push day—bench press, overhead, incline dumbbell. Same sequence, same reps. Progress measured, logged.
6:30. Shower.
6:45. Dress.
Monday is always the powder-blue button-up. The one his mother bought him when he was promoted to Managing Director of HR at 26—the youngest in Carat Company history. He’d wanted to return it. She’d insisted it was a “soft color,” something to “balance out his personality.” Jihoon wanted to argue, but he’s worn it every Monday since.
7:00. Pull out of his apartment garage in his 2018 silver Honda Civic. The same car he’s had since college. Seungcheol has been trying to convince him to buy something flashier for years. “You’re practically an executive, dude. You deserve something that doesn’t rattle when you hit 80.” Jihoon doesn’t drive above 65. And the Civic has never once failed him.
7:23. Arrive at The Carat Company headquarters. He always parks in B2, Row 3, where the sun doesn’t hit the windshield too hard by mid-afternoon.
7:26. Enter through the back lobby. The building hums at this hour, quiet but awake. Security nods. No badge check. Everyone knows him by now.
7:28. He stops by the lobby café. They don’t ask his order anymore. It’s always a vanilla latte, four pumps of vanilla, exactly 130°F. No more, no less. He’s tested it. 132 is too hot.
7:32. He’s in his office. Alone. Lights off. Laptop humming awake. Forty minutes to himself before the company starts crashing through the doors.
That’s the ritual.
It never fails him.
Until today.
Because today, there is… noise.
There is clattering. And humming. And something that sounds dangerously like a staple gun.
Jihoon steps inside and nearly drops his coffee.
The desk across from his, empty since Mark transferred out in April, is no longer empty. In fact, it's absolutely full. Drowning. Exploding.
There are papers. So many papers. Stacked, scattered, half-stapled in frantic clusters like a college student’s last-minute thesis sprint. There’s a bright pink water bottle sweating condensation onto a leather-bound planner. A ceramic frog (why is it always a frog?) with a missing eye. A chunky knit blanket draped over the back of the desk chair like someone’s been camping here for days. And worst of all—
Worst of all, you're standing on the desk.
Not beside it. Not reaching over it. On it. In sneakers. Pinning what can only be described as an aggressively unprofessional tapestry to the wall with a half-empty box of pushpins at your feet and an expression of utter, unbothered joy on your face.
Jihoon wants to throw up.
He doesn’t say anything at first. He just… stares. Takes a sip of his latte. Regrets it immediately. Too sweet.
You notice him eventually, still kneeling mid-stretch with a final pin between your teeth. “Oh!” you say, hopping down like it’s perfectly normal to greet your manager-slash-office-mate from a tabletop. “Good morning, Mr. Lee!”
“It’s Jihoon,” he replies, voice tight, already regretting the email he sent with that particular instruction.
You smile, oblivious. “Right, sorry. I’m almost done decorating. I just need, like, five more pins. You wouldn’t happen to have–?”
“No.”
A pause. Your smile twitches, not quite fading, but pausing, like maybe you’ve just registered the tone, the disapproval hovering like smog in the pristine office air.
You nod slowly. “Okay. Totally fair. I’ll borrow from Facilities. Or, like… steal. Mark left a stapler in the second drawer.”
Jihoon inhales through his nose.
This was supposed to be a quiet morning. His ritual—his peace—has been hijacked by a whirlwind in platform sneakers and a frog-shaped pencil sharpener.
He walks past you wordlessly, sets his coffee down on the left side of his desk (1.5 inches from the corner, exactly), and sits.
You, of course, keep going.
“I was just finishing up! I know it’s a little early but I get really antsy if I don’t personalize my space on day one, you know? Plus I heard Mark left it kind of bland, so I figured I’d fill the vibe gap. Oh, and I brought coffee! Not for you—you already have one. But for me. Mine’s in the thermos with the stickers. The one that says ‘Gaslight Gatekeep Girlboss HR.’ Cute, right?”
Jihoon closes his eyes, prays for this to be some sleep deprivation-fueled nightmare.
(He knows it isn’t, because he’s never deprived of sleep. It’s a part of his ritual—lights out at 9:00 PM on Sunday nights. No exceptions.)
You pull your chair up to your desk. It makes an awful screeching sound against the hardwood floor.
“Excited for our 9 AM?” you chirp, logging into your laptop. “I made an agenda. Printed it out. Color-coded it, actually. I wasn’t sure what your preferred style was, but I guessed neutral tones? There’s a copy on your desk.”
Jihoon looks down. A salmon-colored folder rests atop his inbox tray. It looks garish against his other, far more sensible, manila folders.
He stares at it.
Then at you.
You’re sipping from your water bottle with the confidence of someone who doesn’t know the rules—and, worse, might not care to learn them.
He exhales. Opens his laptop.
9:00 can’t come soon enough.
The boardroom is too bright.
Jihoon hates this room. The lights are motion-activated, and they always flicker on two seconds too late, as though even the building itself doesn’t want to be here at 9 AM on a Monday. He sits down at the far end of the long conference table, opens his laptop, and aligns his pen with the pad in front of him—not to take notes, but because the symmetry soothes him.
You're already there, of course. Seated three chairs down with a thermos of something that smells aggressively like cinnamon and a laptop covered in glittery stickers. One says: “Certified HR Baddie.” Another: “Ask me about my onboarding karaoke night.”
Jihoon does not ask.
Instead, he watches you pull up your slides on the big screen with a flourish, like a magician preparing a reveal.
You click once.
The first slide appears: a bright pink title screen with comic sans font that reads, in bold, centered letters:
✨ Operation Vibe Overhaul ✨
Building Joyful Infrastructure, One Talent at a Time
Jihoon feels the first flicker of dread.
“Okay!” you begin brightly, gesturing like you’re hosting a game show. “So this is my preliminary Q1/Q2 planning proposal, centered on retention, culture, and morale-building initiatives. I based this on some of the programs I piloted back at Sebong—”
You’re still talking, but Jihoon has stopped listening. Not because he doesn’t care. He very much does. But because slide two is now filled with stock images of people clinking glasses at what appears to be a rooftop mixer. One of them is mid-laugh, mouth open too wide. Another’s holding a ukulele.
You’re talking about “optional happy hour cohorts” and “inter-departmental bonding pods.”
He resists the urge to claw at his tie.
Slide four: A color-coded table titled “Vibe Goals By Department.” There are emoji in the row labels. The one for HR says 🐸.
He discretely opens Teams and clicks on his private thread with Wonwoo.
[💬 Microsoft Teams – Direct Message to JEON WONWOO | 9:48 AM]
To: Jeon Wonwoo
You did this on purpose, you prick.
From: Jeon Wonwoo
We don’t use that kind of language in the office, Jihoon.
I have no idea what you’re talking about btw. Just got off a call. How’s Y/N settling in? :)
To: Jeon Wonwoo
A) F*** you (censored for your professional needs).
B) A planning slide deck for the next fiscal year does not need this much color. We have slide templates (that I MADE, mind you).
C) I repeat, you did this on purpose, didn’t you?
From: Jeon Wonwoo
Play nice. She’s good for you. Don’t get your tighty-whities in a twist.
To: Jeon Wonwoo
Now who’s using language inappropriate for the office?
From: Jeon Wonwoo
My company, my rules.
To: Jeon Wonwoo
Oh, you basta⌶
A throat clears.
Jihoon freezes. When he looks up, the presentation has ended. A final slide blinks at him in bold orange and pink:
✨ THANK YOU FOR LISTENING ✨
You’re watching him. Kindly. Expectantly.
He slams the laptop shut like he’s been caught watching something scandalous.
“I—I was taking notes,” he lies.
You nod, like you believe him.
He straightens. Adjusts his sleeves. Finds some scrap of dignity on the floor, brushes it off, and stands.
“Good plan,” he says finally, voice flat.
He holds out a hand. You take it. High-five it, actually.
“Go team?” you grin.
“No,” he replies.
“Oh.”
Jihoon is out the door before you can say anything else, footsteps brisk, tie slightly skewed.
Just finished reviewing your retention plan deck. Absolutely love what you’ve put together. Really strong alignment with our broader TCC cultural initiatives, and your proactive approach to employee engagement is exactly what we need this year.
As you’re still new and building connections across the org, I’ve volun-told Jihoon (CC’d) to help you organize and launch the first few events, as he knows the org landscape better than anyone. And he’s got a great eye for logistics, even if he pretends not to.
Looking forward to seeing the plans in action! Let me know if you need support (or help convincing Jihoon to wear a team bonding t-shirt).
Cheers,
Jeon Wonwoo
Chief Executive Officer
The Carat Company
Office: 010-****-**** | Direct: 010-****-****
We’re officially halfway through Q1, and what better way to celebrate than with drinks, snacks, and some mediocre bowling?
WHEN: Friday @ 6PM
WHERE: Lucky Strike Lounge (across the street from the building!)
WHY: Because we deserve it and bonding is sexy
No pressure to bowl. Just show up, say hi, eat some onion rings, and let’s decompress together.
Teams invite has been sent out! RSVP by EOD! There may or may not be color-coded team wristbands.
Y/N L/N
Planning and Recruitment Specialist
The Carat Company
Office: 010-****-**** | Direct: 010-****-****
Jihoon leaves the office every day at exactly 5:00 p.m.
Not 4:59. Not 5:02.
At 4:57, he begins to shut his laptop. At 4:58, he returns any lingering pens to the ceramic cup on the right-hand side of his desk. 4:59, he stands. 5:00, he walks out. No more, no less. The moment the minute hand clicks into place, he shuts his laptop with the finality of a courtroom verdict, slides his planner into his bag, and is out the door before anyone can even think about uttering the words “quick question.”
It’s carved into the bedrock of TCC culture—like the Tuesday team lunch or the eternal mystery of who keeps restocking the fifth-floor snack fridge with individually wrapped pickles (it’s Jisoo, but nobody has proof). The junior staff time their meetings around it. Wonwoo calls it Jihoon’s “corporate sunset.” No one bothers him after it.
No one, of course, except you.
You, who arrive at the most chaotic intervals imaginable.
Some mornings, your coffee mug is already half-drunk and sweating a crescent-shaped watermark into a scatter of documents before Jihoon even walks in the door. Other days, you're stumbling in at 10:37 a.m. with a tote bag sliding off your shoulder and your sunglasses still on, dropping your thermos onto your desk with the force of a meteor.
Jihoon does not deal well with unpredictability.
He glares at you when you're late. You smile back. Sometimes you salute. Once, you handed him a donut and said, "To earn my forgiveness." He took it. Ate it. Still glared.
But it's not the timing of your arrivals that gets under his skin the most—it’s your exits.
Or, rather, your lack thereof.
Because you don’t leave at five. Sometimes you leave at six. Sometimes seven. Once, he overheard in the breakroom that you left at 8:15 the night prior and had a minor existential crisis in the parking garage.
And because you don’t leave at five, you tend to… linger.
Which means that at 5:00 p.m.—the precise moment Jihoon’s routine is winding down, when the laptop is sliding shut and his brain is exhaling—your voice inevitably cuts through the still air like a dart aimed straight at his temple.
“Hey, you’re not coming to the happy hour?”
Jihoon freezes. You’re leaning against the doorframe to your office, holding a stack of flyers and a bag of plastic leis. Why you’ve chosen a tropical theme for a February bowling night is beyond him. He doesn’t ask. He never does.
“No,” he replies, not even turning around. “My work day ends at 5.”
You blink. “Right, but it’s not work?”
“It’s after hours.” He pulls out his phone, calmly opens the event invite, and selects RSVP: No.
You squint. “Thanks for RSVP-ing, I guess. We’ll miss you!”
He finally looks at you, expression flat. “Good night, Y/N.”
You raise your hand in mock salute. “See you bright and early, Jihoon.”
He doesn’t say anything as he walks past you. But he hears it—that slight shuffle as you cross the office back to your desk, humming something upbeat under your breath. You’ll probably stay another hour organizing name tags or printing out conversation starter cards for people who will absolutely ignore them.
Jihoon presses the elevator button twice, even though once is enough.
He hates how loud the silence feels when the doors close behind him.
Y/N L/N
Planning and Recruitment Specialist
The Carat Company
Office: 010-****-**** | Direct: 010-****-****
Jihoon stares at the email longer than he should.
He rereads the line again, and again:
“There’s a difference between fear and respect.”
It’s stupid, he tells himself. A throwaway comment. A joke. You make those all the time: half-sarcastic, half-sweet, always smiling when you say them, like your words aren’t meant to leave a mark.
But this one does.
Because Jihoon knows what fear looks like. He sees it every time he steps into a room and someone closes their laptop a little too quickly. Every time an intern flinches when he passes behind their desk. Every time someone thanks him a little too formally for a perfectly normal piece of feedback.
It’s not news. It’s just not something people usually say to his face.
Fear, he’s learned, is efficient. It keeps people from overstepping. From asking too many questions. From getting too close. And Jihoon has spent most of his career relying on that distance like a scaffold—like armor.
He is not warm. He is not easy. He does not charm. He doesn’t try to.
But still, somewhere in the corner of his chest, something twists.
Because he’d always assumed that his precision, his preparedness, the way he catches mistakes before they happen, that those things inspired confidence. Stability. Trust.
Respect.
Not fear.
He sits back in his chair and crosses his arms, glaring at the far wall of his office as if it’s responsible for any of this. There’s a framed certificate there, something corporate and meaningless. He hasn’t looked at it in years.
Maybe he shouldn’t care what you think. You—with your stupid ceramic frog and your cursed tapestry and your way of being everywhere at once, dragging noise and neon in your wake. You’re not the first to misunderstand him.
But the worst part is this: he knows you weren’t trying to hurt him. That line came from somewhere honest. Somewhere careless.
You didn’t say it to wound.
Which is what makes it land all the harder.
His jaw tightens.
Eventually, he drags the cursor over your email and clicks “archive.”
But the words stay.
The meeting is supposed to be about performance review frameworks, going through slides that Jihoon already reviewed last night and flagged in a spreadsheet with more color-coding than is probably necessary.
Wonwoo’s got the slide deck open, half a croissant in his hand, and one socked foot tucked under him like he’s forgotten he’s the CEO of a billion-won company. Jihoon sits stiff-backed across the table, tablet balanced on his knee, stylus poised. He hasn’t taken a single note.
Not because he doesn’t care, but because he hasn’t heard a word.
The words are back.
People fear you. That’s not respect.
They loop through his head like a bad lyric, like a virus he didn’t know he’d downloaded.
Jihoon shifts in his chair. His spine’s too straight. His tie feels too tight, though he hasn’t loosened it yet.
Wonwoo must notice—he’s perceptive like that, always has been—because he squints at Jihoon over the lip of his coffee mug and asks, “Penny for your thoughts?”
Jihoon turns his head, slow and deliberate, and looks him dead in the eye.
This is the man who trusted him five years ago with the top HR seat—26, green but razor-sharp, no tolerance for fluff or sentiment. Jihoon never asked why he got the offer over people twice his age. He just said yes.
Now, he says: “Am I feared or respected?”
Wonwoo chokes on his coffee.
The laugh comes a second later—abrupt, bright, so loud it echoes off the glass walls. He leans back in his chair and throws his head toward the ceiling like he needs the whole room to hear it.
“What the fuck are you talking about, Jihoon?”
Jihoon crosses his arms.
It’s immediate. Reflexive. And as soon as he does it, he hates himself a little. He feels like a petulant five-year-old whose mom just said he couldn’t have another grape juice.
Wonwoo grins, delighted. “She got under your skin, didn’t she?”
Jihoon doesn’t respond. Mostly because he can’t. He drops his gaze resolutely to the conference table, then to the condensation ring his coffee cup is leaving, then anywhere but Wonwoo’s face.
“Oh my god,” Wonwoo wheezes. “She absolutely did. Fuuuuck, good on her. Honestly, it’s about time someone unwound you, you uptight little wind-up toy—”
“I am not wound up,” Jihoon mutters.
“Oh, please. Jihoon. When’s the last time you laughed? Like, actually laughed? Or smiled? Not one of those mouth-twitches you give when Seungcheol says something vaguely charming in all-hands. I mean a real one.”
Jihoon stays silent, chooses to continue his staring match with Wonwoo’s socks.
Wonwoo raises an eyebrow and continues. “You are clinically incapable of relaxing. You once rescheduled a wisdom teeth removal because it conflicted with quarterly audits.”
“They were impacted,” Jihoon says, as if that’s a defense.
“Jihoon,” Wonwoo sighs.
Jihoon doesn’t answer.Instead, he glares pointedly at the framed photo on the shelf behind Wonwoo’s desk—Wonwoo, grinning at a park picnic, surrounded by people who obviously adore him. His family. Friends. Staff.
Wonwoo’s well-liked. Has always been well-liked.
He knows people’s names. Remembers if they have loved ones. Sometimes even remembers the loved ones’ names. He walks into a room and the air loosens.
Jihoon walks into a room and someone minimizes a spreadsheet.
He grits his teeth. Wonwoo notices.
“Jihoon.”
He blinks. Wonwoo’s staring at him now, half-amused, half-exasperated.
“Why does it matter so much?”
Jihoon opens his mouth. Then closes it again.
He doesn’t have an answer. Not one he can say out loud, anyway.
Not that he feels the tiniest sting every time someone calls him cold. Not that he sometimes wonders what it would be like if someone laughed at something he said on purpose.
He presses his lips into a thin line.
Wonwoo leans back and shakes his head, smiling like he knows exactly what Jihoon isn’t saying.
The Employee Retention team needs some help with some minor logistics for our upcoming Spring Gala. If you have some free time and would like to volunteer, you’ll have my everlasting gratitude (and free catered lunch for all planning meetings. Who doesn’t love catered lunch?)
Teams invite has been sent out to the whole team. If you can’t make it, please RSVP no.
Y/N L/N
Planning and Recruitment Specialist
The Carat Company
Office: 010-****-**** | Direct: 010-****-****
Almost immediately, a Teams message pings in the corner of his screen.
[💬 Microsoft Teams – Direct Message to JEON WONWOO | 2:02 PM]
From: Jeon Wonwoo
If you want to be respected, you know what you should do.
To: Jeon Wonwoo
Is this a suggestion or an order?
From: Jeon Wonwoo
Would you listen to either?
He doesn’t respond.
He just stares at the calendar invite. Opens it. Closes it. Opens it again.
He gets up. Makes tea. Returns. Refreshes the invite.
It sits there. Mocking him.
He has exactly three hours of work to do and spends most of it half-distracted, clicking over to the meeting window and then away again, like he’s circling a shark tank.
When he finally presses RSVP—one quick click, not even a keystroke—your head snaps up like you’ve been electrocuted.
“You—you want to help plan the gala?”
The incredulity in your voice rings out across the shared office like a fire alarm. Jihoon winces. He doesn't turn around. Not right away.
He stays frozen mid-motion, phone still in one hand, the other hovering near his keyboard like he’s considering taking it all back. Pretending it was a misclick. A calendar sync error. An accident.
He doesn’t look at you until he has no choice.
His eyes flicker to the screen, then to you.
And his ears, traitorous, are already flushing pink.
“I RSVP’d to your meeting,” he says, flatly. Like it’s a legal obligation, like someone strong-armed him into it in a back hallway under fluorescent lights.
You blink.
“Sorry, I just—I didn’t expect—”
“You asked for volunteers,” Jihoon says, already shifting his weight back toward his desk.
Your mouth opens, then closes. A grin threatens. He can see it, feel it, like heat pressing against his skin. Jihoon sighs and turns fully back to his desk, chair scraping as he sits.
“Don’t make this a thing,” he mutters.
You don’t say anything.
But when he glances sideways, the edge of your smile is still there—tugging at the corner of your cheek, small and real.
He turns back to his monitor and opens a spreadsheet at random.
He’s late to the gala planning meeting. Only by three minutes, but still. Late.
Jihoon hates being late; it disrupts his internal clock, throws off the way he likes to move through a room: silently, efficiently, unseen until he speaks. He adjusts the cuff of his shirt as he reaches the door, steels himself for the usual reaction—the way people hush like he’s a reprimand made of skin and bones, how chairs stiffen, how someone inevitably fumbles with a laptop or closes a browser window with a guilty click.
He pushes the door to Conference Room C open.
And nothing happens.
The conversation continues as if he hasn’t entered. Samuel is talking about caterers. You’re flipping through a binder of vendor estimates, a pen tapping absently against your lip. The screen at the head of the room still glows with a pastel color-coded calendar, and someone (he thinks it’s Eunji from PR) is pouring a second cup of coffee.
Then you glance up. See him. And smile.
“Hey, Jihoon,” you say like it’s just another greeting. Like he’s just another person walking into a room.
Samuel turns, lifts his chin. “You made it,” he says, with the kind of easy camaraderie Jihoon always assumed was reserved for people who laughed together in elevators.
When Jihoon slips into the open seat next to you, Samuel claps him once on the back, casual and friendly, like it’s nothing.
Like it’s normal.
Jihoon sits very still for the next ten minutes. Something quiet and unfamiliar hums under his ribs.
He opens his laptop and stares at the agenda. The numbers swim a little. Everyone’s still talking.
And no one is afraid of him.
It feels… strange.
It feels nice.
Thirty minutes later, the conversation is flowing and Jihoon still feels very, very strange.
“Fireworks are too expensive,” someone says, half-joking. “But what if we did, like, cold sparklers? Just to make the photo ops more fun.”
Jihoon’s been half-listening—half-disassociating, if he’s being honest—because the florist rep was fifteen minutes late and the air-conditioning is loud and someone’s catering mocktail samples in the corner like this is a tasting menu for a royal wedding.
Jihoon doesn’t even look up from his screen. “Sure,” he says dryly. “And maybe we’ll dig a moat while we’re at it. Hire a few swans. Build a drawbridge. Very on-brand.”
He doesn’t mean to be funny.
But you laugh. Loud. Bright.
The kind of laugh that fills a room and then folds into something gentler, just for him.
Jihoon’s head lifts, startled. Your hand is pressed to your chest, your eyes wide like you didn’t expect it either.
“Did you just make a joke?” you ask.
He blinks.
“No.”
You grin. “You did. Oh my god.”
Jihoon looks back at his screen, but something is buzzing under his skin now, like electricity arcing too close to water.
It’s nothing.
It’s a laugh.
But he remembers the sound for the rest of the day.
On Friday, Jihoon stumbles into the breakroom for his mid-morning tea after what has to be the longest hiring call he’s ever been on.
He has thirty-two minutes between meetings, and someone left a post-it on his desk saying the break room kettle is working again. He enters expecting silence.
Instead, Jihyo is there. He’s never really talked to her, he realizes with a start. A hi there, a “hope you’re doing well,” there, but never a full conversation. He regrets that a bit now.
She’s standing with her back to him, shoulders slightly hunched, stirring something golden into a mug. Her phone buzzes next to her elbow. She glances at it and smiles, small and distracted.
Jihoon remembers with a start that she has a boyfriend serving in the army (He makes a mental note to thank Wonwoo and his iron-clad memory of all of his employees).
Jihoon nods once in her direction. She doesn’t notice. He clears his throat. “Your boyfriend doing okay?”
Her spoon clinks against the rim.
She turns slowly, brows raised. He expects suspicion, defensiveness, maybe a polite smile with an escape plan behind it.
But then her face breaks open. Softens.
“Yeah,” she says. “He is. Thanks for asking.”
She reaches into her tote bag without thinking and pulls out a glass jar. No label. Just honey, thick and gold and unbranded. She holds it out to him.
Jihoon hesitates.
She tilts it toward him. “Try it with green tea,” she says. “Secret’s in the citrus trees.”
He takes it.
The jar is warm from her bag, the weight of it unfamiliar in his hand.
“Thanks,” he says.
She shrugs, already turning back to her phone. “You’re welcome, Jihoon.”
When he returns to your office with a steaming mug of green tea, he places the honey on the corner of his desk like it might bite.
You glance up from your laptop. “Oh,” you say. “You got the good stuff.”
“The what?”
“The honey,” you say, smiling. “The break room hierarchy’s best-kept secret.”
He stares at the jar again. “You knew about this?”
You shrug. “Not my secret to tell.”
He lets out a breath. It’s meant to be a huff of disbelief, but it comes out as something else. Softer. Almost amused.
A laugh, maybe.
When he looks up, you’re staring at him like you’ve heard something rare. Something worth holding on to.
Your eyes are wide. Not in fear.
Just surprise.
He turns back to his keyboard. The smile stays longer than it should.
That night, he drives home in silence. No music. No radio.
When he gets in, he doesn’t even take his shoes off before calling his mom.
“Jihoon-ah,” she answers, warm and surprised. “You’re calling early. Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” he says, automatically.
She hums like she doesn’t believe him. There’s the soft sound of her adjusting something on the stove. Then—
“You sound lighter today.”
Jihoon blinks at the ceiling. “Lighter?”
“Not so tired. I can hear it in your voice.”
He doesn't respond.
“And your face looks different in the last few pictures you sent me,” she adds. “You look…” Her voice softens. “Happy. Did something happen at work?”
Jihoon feels the back of his neck go warm. Then the heat crawls up—slow, creeping—to the tips of his ears. He presses a palm over one, like he can stop the sensation by hiding it.
“No,” he says quickly. “Just a good week.”
“Hm,” she says. A knowing noise. “If it’s someone, you can tell me.”
“There’s no one.”
“But maybe,” she says gently, “there could be?”
He doesn’t answer.
She doesn’t press.
But the silence stretches like taffy between them, and Jihoon finds himself staring out the window of his apartment. The light is pale and soft. There’s a gala planning document still open on his laptop. And a Teams chat with you, left unread for the last hour, still blinking at the bottom of the screen.
And when he hangs up, he opens that chat window again.
You’ve sent a link. A mood board for centerpieces.
He stares at it for a long time.
Then, slowly, he smiles.
[💬 Microsoft Teams – Direct Message to Y/N L/N | 2:34 PM]
From: Lee Jihoon
Are you just as bored as I am?
To: Lee Jihoon
gasp! a teams message! is this what the inner circle feels like
From: Lee Jihoon
Yes, yes, you are now one of my elite employees.
To: Lee Jihoon
Lee Jihoon, chronic grump, did you just use a MEME?
From: Lee Jihoon
I am not a grump. I am just selective with who I grace with my laughter and my favor.
To: Lee Jihoon
so you’re saying I’ve been… favored 👀
From: Lee Jihoon
Don’t let it go to your head.
To: Lee Jihoon
Too late. Printing it on a mug as we speak.
From: Lee Jihoon
If that mug ends up in our shared kitchen, I’m filing an HR complaint.
To: Lee Jihoon
Who would you file it to? Yourself?
From: Lee Jihoon
Exactly. And I’d rule against you. With extreme prejudice.
To: Lee Jihoon
so much for elite employee status 😔
From: Lee Jihoon
You’ve never been more elite.
Jihoon doesn’t hear the question at first.
He’s still staring at your last message and trying to figure out what possessed him to send it. His cursor hovers over the message bubble, as if he can unsend it just by glaring hard enough. Across the room, you’re biting back a grin, your chin propped in one hand as you squint at the shared screen. Your knee bounces under the table, just visible beneath the edge of the conference table. You’re pleased with yourself. You know exactly what you’ve done.
He knows you do. And still. Still. It doesn’t stop the corner of his mouth from twitching upward.
He’s so focused on not smiling that he doesn’t hear the question.
“…Jihoon?” someone tries again.
Wonwoo clears his throat pointedly from two seats down. It’s theatrical, the kind of fake cough that sounds suspiciously like Don’t make me say your name again.
Jihoon blinks and sits up straighter.
“Sorry,” he says, briskly. “Could you repeat the question?”
Across the room, you don’t look at him.
But your shoulders shake with barely-contained laughter.
Jihoon sighs through his nose. Wonders how many more meetings he’s going to survive like this.
(Not many, he suspects.)
The meeting wraps with the rustling of papers and the awkward scrape of chairs against laminate floors. Jihoon shuts his laptop with a satisfying snap and stands, already mapping out the most efficient route back to his office—quiet hallways, minimal small talk, absolutely no—
“Elite employee, huh?”
Your voice is too close. It curls around the back of his neck, bright with amusement and something else he can’t name.
He glances to his left. You’re beside him now, walking in step, a shit-eating grin plastered across your face like you invented the concept.
You nudge him lightly with your shoulder. “Think I’ll get a raise in my next performance review?”
Jihoon exhales, too sharp to be a laugh, too soft to be a scoff. “Shut up,” he mutters, but there’s no weight behind it.
You keep walking beside him, unbothered.
You don’t say anything else. And neither does he.
You fall into that strange not-quite-silence you’ve started to share in recent weeks: companionable, teasing, comfortable in a way that makes the back of his throat feel tight. There’s the clack of your shoes beside his, the whisper of air conditioning overhead, the faint buzz of an email notification from someone else’s phone.
And then it happens.
Your pinky brushes his.
Just barely. A graze. A glancing touch that might’ve been accidental—should’ve been accidental. But it lingers for a breath too long.
The sensation is immediate. Sharp. Bright. Like static.
Jihoon’s spine goes ramrod straight. His hand doesn’t pull away. Instead, betraying every single instinct that’s ever kept him in control, his fingers twitch.
Just once. A small flex.
His skin still burns.
You don’t look at him. You don’t say a word. But when the two of you walk back into your shared office, the air between you feels different. Charged. Like something has shifted. Like something is about to break open.
Jihoon sits down. Doesn’t speak.
And across the room, you smile to yourself.
It takes him three full minutes to remember his log-in.
Please join me in thanking Jihoon for restocking the snack cabinets this morning! The chocolate-covered almonds are already gone (guilty 😅), and the sparkling waters were a hit.
Sometimes the little things make a big difference, and I just wanted to shout out the quiet effort behind keeping this office running smoothly. Thanks, Jihoon!
Best,
Y/N L/N
Planning and Recruitment Specialist
The Carat Company
Office: 010-****-**** | Direct: 010-****-****
[💬 Microsoft Teams – Direct Message to Y/N L/N | 9:18 AM]
From: Lee Jihoon
That email was unnecessary.
To: Lee Jihoon
you deserve to be recognized for all the work you do for this team, jihoon.
[💬 Microsoft Teams – Direct Message to JEON WONWOO | 9:22 AM]
From: Jeon Wonwoo
You like her, don’t you?
To: Jeon Wonwoo
Kindly fuck off.
From: Jeon Wonwoo
Language, Jihoon. ….So you do like her.
It happens on a Wednesday.
There’s nothing special about the day; no meaningful glances, no slow-motion sequence where you toss your hair back in golden light or say something profound that punches him square in the gut.
No. It’s Wednesday. The sky is gray. He’s wearing the same charcoal sweater he always wears when it’s under 35°F. You’re not even in the office.
That’s the problem.
He realizes it when he sits down at his desk with his usual morning tea, stares at the wall across from him, and feels… off.
The tapestry is there. Crooked, colorful, stitched with tiny stars and a cat wearing a top hat. It’s awful. Loud.
And yet.
His eyes drift down. To the mug. That damn ceramic frog.
It’s hideous.
It’s perfect.
Jihoon exhales slowly, leans back in his chair, and lets the silence fill the space between him and the humming vent above. It’s too quiet today. No clack of your boots down the hall. No breathless rush as you slide into your seat with a thermos and an apology. No “Morning, Jihoon,” sung like a threat and a gift all at once.
And worst of all, God help him, he misses your laugh.
The one that sneaks up on him. Loud and delighted and entirely unfiltered, like you forgot who you were laughing in front of.
Jihoon stares at his screen.
He’s opened Outlook without meaning to.
Your calendar status reads: “WFH – doctor’s appt in the afternoon.”
He tells himself that’s why he notices.
It isn’t.
He scrolls back up. Opens a new email. Types your name. Stares at the blinking cursor in the message body.
And then he deletes the draft. Again.
He sits back in his chair and rubs a hand over his mouth. Doesn’t even realize he’s smiling.
Oh, shit, he thinks.
He likes you.
He likes you, and he likes your stupid colorful Powerpoint Presentations, and he likes your tapestry with the stitched cat and the crooked stars, and maybe he even likes that you always ask him to help plan things he claims to hate.
Worst of all, maybe he likes the way you make the office feel like something softer. Something warmer. Something that doesn’t need a policy document or a title in bold to have meaning.
Jihoon lets his hand drop to his lap.
And it curls, almost unconsciously—like it remembers the brush of your pinky against his, still seared into his skin.
What do you think about the navy-and-gold color palette for the Spring Gala? I found a local vendor that does some decent floral arrangements—simple, not too flashy.
Might balance out the... sequins you insisted on.
-Jihoon
This email has not been sent yet. Send during the recipient's work hours?
What color dress are you wearing to the gala?
(Not because I want to match my tie. Obviously.)
Just for logistics. For planning. Cohesion. Visual unity.
I’ll stop typing now.
This email has not been sent yet. Send during the recipient's work hours?
PAIRING: lee seokmin x f!reader | WC: 5.7K
GENRE: reincarnation au | soulmate(?) au | angst with a happy ending | time is non-linear and also not real don't read into it too much imo....
WARNINGS: major character death, discussions of blood and weapons, heartbreak x 10000, Seokmin Just Needs A Hug....
A/N: for the 100 collab! thank you to @gyubakeries, @eclipsaria, @nerdycheol, and @shinysobi for hosting such a wonderful collab! | first fic in over a month! sorry I've been gone so long work SUCKS! but writing this was actually so refreshing. I really do enjoy putting Seokmin in Situations (i'm sorry darling boy)
SUMMARY: Seokmin has loved you 99 times. But in this life, just like every other, you don't remember. You never do. But Seomin? He remembers everything. Every goodbye. Every loss. Every time he almost kept you.
On the 47th time Seokmin fell in love with you, he realized it would be the 47th time he lost you, too.
For the first 46 times, he had been foolishly optimistic. For the first 46 times, he still thought himself a king, like he was the first time, his first life. But here, in the 47th (or what could have been his thousandth at this point), Seokmin watched you drop his hand—king of nothing, loser of everything.
He had thought the 47th time would be different.
But then again, he had thought that about the 46th.
In the 46th, he first saw you at the market, laughing—loud, unabashed, bright enough that every head turned toward you. You were tucked between crates of peaches and dried herbs, a smear of pomegranate staining your bottom lip, the sunlight catching in your lashes. A leather satchel hung from your shoulder, worn at the edges, and you walked like someone with places to be and time to waste. You didn’t even glance at him.
That life, Seokmin had sold ink. Hand-ground, bottled in glass, sealed with wax. You visited his stall every week, even though you barely needed supplies. You’d spend long minutes just standing there, brushing your fingers over the shelves like they were familiar somehow. You never lingered on him—but you always lingered.
You asked questions you already knew the answers to. You always added a little extra money to the pile of coins. Once, you’d looked at him for a second too long and said, “It’s strange. You feel like a face I dreamed about.”
Then you’d smiled, tossed a coin onto the table, and left.
You weren’t his, not in that life. You married a cartographer—a good man, Seokmin remembered. He hadn’t hated him. Smelled like cedarwood and carried maps that curled at the edges like flower petals. He’d watch you walk back to the cartographer’s booth, the hem of your skirts catching the breeze, your satchel bouncing against your hip, and think—at least she’s happy.
You died giving birth to your second child. Seokmin found out from a friend of a friend. He didn’t go to the funeral.
And still, your absence gnawed at him in ways he never admitted aloud. He hated himself for thinking it stung a little less that time. Like grief was something you could grow used to.
He closed the stall early the next day. Burned every ledger with your name in it.
This time, in the 47th, you had been the one to say his name first.
In this life, you were a singer. Jazz, mostly—low, smoky notes that curled through the air like perfume. He heard your voice before he saw you, carrying out the back of a bar he hadn’t meant to stop at. It had been years—lifetimes—since he last found you, and hearing you again hit him like a blow to the chest.
He’d stepped outside to clear his head. The alley behind the bar was quiet except for the scrape of a match. When he turned, you were already leaning against the brick wall, a cigarette balanced between your fingers.
“You got a light?” you asked.
He fumbled with his lighter. “Yeah. Here.”
Your fingers brushed his as you took it. Your touch felt exactly the same. You lit your cigarette, exhaled a ribbon of smoke, and looked at him for a beat too long.
“What’s your name?” you asked.
“Seokmin.”
You smiled. “Seokmin,” you repeated, like it tasted good on your tongue. “I feel like I’ve said that before.”
Later that week, you sang for him alone. After the last show, after everyone else had gone. You stood barefoot in the dressing room, still in your stage makeup, and sang something soft and unhurried. He watched you from the chair, hands clasped between his knees, trying not to hold his breath.
In that life, you let him stay.
You fell asleep with your hand curled into the front of his shirt. You let him make you breakfast. You danced with him barefoot on cold tile floors, laughed at his terrible jokes, pulled him into bed when you were too tired to talk. You never once said the word soulmate, but some mornings you looked at him like you were starting to remember.
He almost believed the curse was lifting.
Three weeks later, he read in the paper that the bar had been raided. Police found illegal opium stashed under the floorboards. One casualty. Female. Unnamed. Mid-twenties.
He read the sentence again. And again. The words didn’t change.
He didn’t even finish the article. Just threw the paper into the fire and stood in front of it until the smoke made his eyes sting. He didn’t speak for days. Couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t breathe without hearing your voice in his ears.
The worst part was that it was different, this time. You’d let him love you. You’d leaned into it. And for a moment—just long enough to hurt—he’d thought you might stay.
When the fire burned low in the hearth, and your scarf still hung on the back of the chair, Seokmin realized he was already mourning the 48th.
The first time he had known you, truly known you, he had worn a crown made of thorns and gold.
The thorns were metaphor, at first: guilt threaded through power, a boy-king raised too fast, carved sharp by grief and coronation. But over time, the weight grew real. Heavy. Gilded. Cutting. On colder nights, he would remove it and find faint red grooves across his temples, like the memory of someone’s fingers pressing too tight.
You had never touched the crown. You never bowed, either, not when the court looked on, not when his voice carried over the fields and froze armies in their march. Your head only ever inclined out of habit, not reverence.
You were not a queen. You had never wanted to be.
You had been his warhound. His iron nerve. His blade and the hand that steadied it. You walked three steps behind him in court: silent, precise, eyes ever-moving. But in battle, you rode so close your knees brushed. He had memorized the rhythm of your breathing beside him: steady as the northern wind, sure as thunderclouds in spring. He trusted you more than he trusted his gods.
You bled for him, once.
An assassin’s blade had found its mark, but not the one it sought. He remembered the scream—his own—and how it had barely broken free before you collapsed. Steel had kissed your ribs. You had grabbed the attacker by the hair and run them through before falling.
That night, he paced the length of the war tent, blood soaked through his hands, staining the floor in places the servants would scrub for hours. The physicians had whispered, muttered things about odds and infection and prayers.
But you had lived.
And he had never again worn his crown without hearing your ribs break beneath his fingers.
He never said thank you. You never asked him to.
After, something shifted.
He began reaching for your wrist before any decree. You no longer waited to be summoned. He told his advisors he did not dream. You knew he did.
(You were the only one who stayed when he woke screaming.)
And then, the witch came.
Not cloaked, not veiled, not smoke and shadow. No, she came clothed in grief. In mourning black, with a spine stiff from loss and a voice that broke on the names of her sons. She stood in chains before the court, and the king stood tall as justice was read to her face.
But he flinched when her eyes found you.
Because the witch saw it.
The way his gaze darted to you first. Always first.
The way he moved closer to you without realizing, even now, even here.
The way his hand curled—not around his crown—but around the hilt of his sword, every time her voice rose.
“You strung my children in your gallows,” she said, voice dry as sand. “For every son I buried, you will live a life. And in each one, you will find her again.”
The court murmured. The king stilled.
“And in each one,” she whispered, “she will not know you.”
He tried to kill her then. Blade unsheathed, a scream tearing from his throat. But the magic had already rippled through the chamber, warping the air. By the time his steel reached her, she had turned to dust.
He fell to his knees in it. In her. In the curse that still trembled on the marble floor.
He had dreamed of you, every night before the curse.
After, he dreamed only of losing you.
He never told you what the witch said. Maybe he should have. Maybe you would’ve believed him. But how could he? How could he say, I think I’m going to lose you for a hundred lifetimes, and still hold you like it wasn’t already happening?
He tried to make the most of it. He held your hand longer. He stole minutes, lingered in rooms just to watch you fasten your cloak or pull your hair back with a cord. He memorized the scar on your collarbone, the way your mouth curved when you were amused but trying not to show it.
And when the end came—when a blade meant for him found your heart instead—he didn’t scream.
He only whispered, “Please. Not yet.”
And somewhere, in the distance, the witch laughed.
The next time he woke, he was in a crib. Small hands. Weaker lungs.
No crown.
But still, even as a child, he dreamed of you.
And he remembered everything.
In the 19th life, you had been a lighthouse keeper’s daughter.
A quiet girl, born of fog and brine, made of solitude and wind-whipped cliffs. You spoke with your hands more than your mouth. You hummed sea shanties under your breath and slept in a narrow bed beneath a round window that framed the moon like a portrait.
The nights were long. You were used to ghosts.
That life, Seokmin came to you in a storm; not a man so much as a memory trying to remember itself. His ship had shattered itself against the rocks sometime before dawn. You found him tangled in a net of driftwood and broken oaths, sea-foam in his lashes, a gash on his forehead like something the ocean had kissed and bitten in the same breath.
You dragged him inland, breathless and barefoot, the hem of your nightgown soaking in salt. He coughed up seawater and a name you didn’t recognize.
When he woke, it was to the sound of your fire and the creak of old wood settling in your cottage walls. He bled on your sheets. He slept in your father’s clothes.
You fed him soup without asking questions. He answered them anyway.
“My brother,” he said, fingers twitching against the wool blanket. “The sea took him.”
You didn’t tell him the sea takes everyone, eventually.
He watched you when you weren’t looking. You always were—looking, that is. Out toward the rocks. Up at the sky. Across the slow breath of the sea. But never at him.
Still, you brought him what warmth you could: your silence, your bread, your presence. And he, in return, gave you stories of constellations; of stolen ports and stars that guided without mercy; of the ship he had sailed, black-flagged and silver-rigged, bearing the symbol of your father’s enemy.
He didn’t know you had kept the flag.
Your father did.
He found it three days later, soaked and tangled in the wreckage like a secret unraveling.
He came home with the wind behind him and blood already in his eyes. The storm had passed, but it howled still in the bones of your home.
You stood between them — the man you had nursed back into life, and the man who had given you yours.
“Please,” you said, your voice cracking like driftwood underfoot. “He didn’t come here to fight.”
But your father had known too many men like him.
Men with soft eyes and hidden blades.
Men who flew foreign flags and left entire villages burning in their wake.
Seokmin tried to stand. He was still weak. Still foolish. Still yours.
“I would never hurt her,” he said, voice hoarse, hands raised as if in prayer.
But prayers are no match for grief.
And your father’s blade was already moving.
The hunting knife sank in just below the ribs.
Small. Cruel. Inevitable.
Seokmin tasted iron. Then salt.
Then the press of your hand over the wound, trembling, desperate, too late.
You cradled his face like something fragile and fading. Like driftglass worn smooth by time.
“Why does it feel like we’ve done this before?” you whispered, tears carving salt lines down your cheeks. “Why does this feel like an ending I already know?”
He opened his mouth.
He wanted to tell you: Because it is. Because I’ve loved you this way before. Because I always lose you.But his lungs were filling, and your hands were shaking, and the candlelight was flickering like it knew what came next.
So instead, he closed his eyes and let the sea take him again.
Death came easy, the 19th time. Almost like falling asleep to your voice.
He never woke from that dream. Not until the 20th.
In the third life, you had been a thief, laughing as you ran, skirts hiked, hair wild like a storm had fallen in love with you.
Seokmin had been a soldier then: duty-bound, spine straight, boots loud. He’d seen you first at the edge of the market square, slipping an apple into the folds of your shawl with a wink at the grocer. You’d moved like a secret, like the city itself was built to part for you. You were sunlight in the cracks of stone, mischief bottled in human form.
He hadn’t meant to follow you.
But that’s the thing about you. You happened to him. Like falling. Like gravity.
He chased you through alleyways for reasons even he didn’t understand—at first because it was his job, then because it was you.
You let him catch you once.
Once.
You turned around in the dark, lantern light catching the gold flecks in your eyes. “You’re not very good at this,” you told him, grinning as you pressed him to the wall. “A real guard would’ve cuffed me by now.”
“I forgot the cuffs,” he’d said, heart stuttering.
You laughed into his collarbone.
You were made of quick fingers and quicker stories. You never told him your real name.
You whistled as you walked. Stole buttons from his coat just to stitch them into your own. Called him “soldier boy” until he stopped asking you not to.
He kissed you like he didn’t know it would end. Like maybe it wouldn’t. And you let him. You let him want you.
The last time he saw you, your laugh echoed too far ahead.
You had stolen something you shouldn’t have—something political, or dangerous, or cursed.
He couldn’t remember now. Only that you had turned and run, and he had followed.
You were already bleeding when he caught up.
A blade between your shoulder blades. A pool of red blooming at your spine like the worst kind of flower.
You collapsed in his arms, breath catching like it didn’t know whether to stay or go.
Even then, you looked up at him and smiled. Like he was the one who had stolen something. Like he was the lucky one.
“You almost had me,” you whispered, voice broken but bright.
He pressed his forehead to yours and lied.
“I’ll find you next time.”
You died before he got the last word out.
In that life, he carved your name into the hilt of his blade.
Even though you never gave it to him.
Even though you never said it once.
Even though he wasn’t sure it had been real.
Still, he wrote it in the steel.
Seokmin thinks the lives where he doesn’t see you die are the worst of all.
When death comes suddenly—when he holds your body in his arms, when your final breath stutters against his skin—there is at least a shape to the grief. An ending, cruel and sharp, but certain.
But the lives where you just fade? Where you disappear in the blur of traffic, or laughter, or time? Where you leave without knowing him, without ever realizing what you meant, who you were—those are the ones that ruin him slowly.
There’s no body to mourn. No grave to kneel before. Only the ache of unfinished things. Unkissed mouths. Unspoken names. An entire love story dissolving like fog in morning sun.
He tells himself it’s mercy, that maybe not seeing the end means there wasn’t one. But deep down, he knows better.
The 88th time, he’d been your professor.
He knew it the second you walked into his lecture hall: late, breathless, a pen tucked behind your ear, hair still damp from the rain. You slid into a seat near the back, opened your notebook with fingers that trembled from the cold. You didn’t look at him once that entire hour. Not when he stammered over a line of Yeats that reminded him of the 9th life, or when he dropped his chalk mid-sentence because you had tilted your head in the exact way you used to when you were a queen’s ghost in his bed.
He pretended not to notice you. Tried to be good. Tried to be just a man teaching literature to a room full of strangers. But you weren’t a stranger. Not to him. You were the poem.
You stayed after class one day, weeks in, to ask about a line in The Waste Land. You tapped your pen on the margin like you always did when you were thinking. He watched the ink smudge on your thumb, the same way it had when you'd written him battle reports by candlelight in your first life. You said, “It’s funny, this part—about memory being a kind of burden.” And you laughed.
He forgot how to breathe for a moment.
Because for him, memory was everything. And it was crushing him.
He resigned two weeks later. Left behind a half-finished syllabus and a note to the department chair. You never saw him again. But he saw you, from a distance, months later, laughing in the courtyard with someone else, your copy of Eliot annotated to death. You had underlined the line "These fragments I have shored against my ruins."
So had he.
The 72nd time, he was your neighbor.
Third floor, two windows across.
You liked to play music late at night—old jazz, mostly. Sometimes rock. Sometimes nothing at all, just the clink of a spoon against ceramic as you stirred your tea. He watched the glow of your lamp through the blinds, a moth to something warm and unreachable.
You passed each other in the hallway every morning. You wore headphones, always. He would nod. You’d smile, distracted, polite. Once, you left your laundry basket in the communal room and he guarded it like a temple, sitting cross-legged in front of it with his back against the dryer until you returned. You thanked him with a granola bar and said, “You’re sweet.”
He wanted to tell you that once you had sewn up the wound in his side with your bare hands. That once you had taught him how to peel mangoes with a knife curved like a crescent moon. That once you had died cradled in his lap, whispering a name he hadn’t used in that life—but it was his all the same.
But all he said was, “Anytime.”
You moved out six months later. He never saw where you went.
But for years after, he still left his window open at night, waiting for the sound of your record player.
The 91st time was different.
You met in a secondhand bookstore. It was raining, the kind of rain that turned the city soft and slow. You were in the classics aisle, thumbing the cracked spine of a copy of Wuthering Heights like you couldn’t decide whether to take it home. You looked up when he reached for the same shelf.
He should’ve walked away.
Instead, he picked up the book and offered it to you, holding it out with a sheepish grin. “You look like you’d like this.”
You tilted your head at him. “That obvious?”
He didn’t know what came over him then—maybe it was the scent of the rain in your hair, or the shape of your mouth on a word like obvious—but he said, “You just remind me of someone who once loved tragic things.”
Your eyes narrowed. “And how’d that end for her?”
He could’ve said: with a sword through her chest in a burning chapel or: with your hand in mine on a battlefield, dying with your mouth full of my name or: you don’t want to know, not really.
But instead, he smiled and shrugged. “She loved anyway.”
You paid for the book. Wrote your number on the receipt. Said, “Just in case you have any other doomed recommendations.”
For three weeks, you met in quiet corners of the city. Cafés, museums, bookstores with creaky floors. You kissed him in a park under a jacaranda tree, your hands in his hair, and he thought—please, this time. Just this once.
But the dreams came.
You woke up one night, tangled in his sheets, your breath short, a name you didn’t recognize on your lips. You stared at him like he was a ghost. And maybe he was.
The next morning, your number stopped working.
He never returned to that bookstore.
Time no longer moved straight for him. It twisted, coiled like smoke in a sealed jar, writhing just out of his grasp. It folded in on itself, looped through seams he couldn’t stitch shut. Days became out-of-order photographs, blurred at the edges. Sometimes he woke with dirt beneath his fingernails and someone else’s name on his lips. Other times he woke mid-sentence, his voice hoarse, body trembling, your name already half-formed in his throat before he could stop it.
He’d come to in the middle of moments he hadn’t yet earned.
One time, he opened his eyes and your hand was in his. Candlelight flickered across your features, dancing shadows onto the wall, and you were laughing. Your smile was soft and wine-stained, and he thought, pleasepleasepleaseplease don’t let this be the middle or the end. Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease let this be the beginning.
But then the world exhaled, and so did you. And just like that, you let go. The wax had melted too far. The moment was already behind him.
He was always late. Or far too early.
Once, he walked past a street performance in a rainy city, the smell of chestnuts thick in the air, and a violinist was playing your song. You were in the crowd, arms linked with someone else. You didn’t look his way. That was the 59th life. You’d been happy. He’d gone home alone and carved your name into the baseboard with a penknife.
There were lives where he found you on accident: caught in laughter in a passing car, your head tipped back, wind in your hair. He'd pull over. He’d get out. He’d run after you. By then, it was always too late. Always.
And then there were lives where he lived entire decades without knowing you were there. Lives where your name never passed his lips, but his dreams were full of you anyway. Your eyes in faces of strangers. Your laugh hiding behind glass storefronts and voices on the radio.
Once, he met you on the first day.
He had blinked into existence and there you were, leaning over a record store counter, your chin in your palm, chewing a pencil that had no eraser left.
You didn’t even look up as he entered. “New here?” you asked, thumbing through a crate of old CDs.
He couldn’t speak. Could only nod.
You turned then, slid him a mix tape in a clear case with handwritten words across the label:
for the sad boys.
You raised an eyebrow. “You look like one of them.”
And then—God, then—you smiled.
Not the kind of smile made for anyone else. The kind he remembered from lifetimes ago, before curses, before loss. The kind you gave him when you’d collapse into a tent after battle, dirt on your cheek and blood on your blade, and he would press his forehead to yours and whisper, you made it. That smile.
He didn’t breathe until he was out the door.
In his 98th life, he kept that tape in the top drawer of his nightstand. Even when the store burned down. Even when you left before winter. He never played it. He couldn’t. He didn’t want to know what songs you’d chosen. He didn’t want the sound of your past to be louder than your memory.
And still, some nights, when the silence stretched thin and the moonlight spilled like milk across the floor, he’d take it out of its case. Run his fingers over the letters, worn down by time and hope. He'd hold it to his chest and listen, not to the music, but to what was missing.
You always felt just out of reach.
Like a word he once knew. A breath he hadn’t finished taking. A promise made on a night neither of you could remember.
And the worst part was this:
You didn’t know he was waiting.
You never did.
By the 99th, he no longer prayed for you to remember.
He didn’t beg the stars, didn’t barter with fate, didn’t scream into the ocean the way he had in the 57th life. Didn’t offer up his name like a chant or a wound. No, by then, Seokmin asked for nothing more than time. A brief stay. A held breath. A quiet life, even if it flickered out too soon.
In the 99th, he found you behind a glass door painted with chipped celestial decals, a crescent moon flaking off the ‘o’ in “OPEN,” a trail of stars skimming the corner of the window like they were escaping. The bell chimed as he stepped in, sharp and unkind.
You looked up. You wore a threadbare tank top and boredom like armor, curled on a stool, a single earbud tucked under your hoodie’s drawstring. The whir of a needle hummed from the back room. He thought, just for a moment, that he’d walked into a dream stitched together from old memories. But no, it was you, older, sharper, your smile missing. You hadn’t seen him yet.
He didn’t know what compelled him to speak. Maybe it was the ache in his chest. Maybe it was the way his heart clenched like it always did when it sensed you in the room.
“I don’t have an appointment,” he’d said, voice unsteady.
You glanced at the empty chairs, then at him — his fingers fidgeting with the hem of his sleeve, his breath shallow.
“No one does anymore,” you replied, voice dry. “Sit.”
He lowered himself into the cracked leather chair like a man about to confess.
You set your gloves on with the kind of efficiency that told him you were good at this — careful hands, precise eyes, the kind of focus that once won wars in other lives. You didn’t ask many questions. Just raised a brow as you prepped the machine.
“What are we doing?”
“A sun,” he said. “Small. Over the heart.”
You didn’t laugh. Just nodded.
“Bold placement,” you murmured, your touch ghosting across his chest as you wiped the spot clean. Your fingers were cold. He felt his ribs shudder under them.
When the needle buzzed to life, he barely flinched. Pain was easy now. Familiar. It grounded him, steadied his breathing. He focused instead on your face: the soft crease between your brows, the way your mouth tugged slightly to one side in concentration. The same mouth that had once commanded armies. That had once kissed him behind a curtain of falling snow. That had once whispered his name as you drowned in the 34th life.
You didn’t speak. You didn’t have to.
The silence between you was velvet-lined, thick with memory he could not share.
But then, when it was over—when the ink had settled beneath his skin, permanent and small like a secret—you lingered.
You stared at the sun, your thumb brushing gently around it, not quite touching.
You tilted your head.
“Feels familiar,” you said.
The words weren’t soft. They were hushed. Like they didn’t belong to the present at all. Like they’d spilled out from another life by accident.
Seokmin’s throat tightened.
He wanted to say, It’s because you’ve drawn it before. On my wrist, in the 18th life, when we were both seventeen and on the run. Or the 42nd, when you painted it in the sky for me with fireflies. Or the 65th, when you carved it into the bark of an apple tree and told me you’d always come back.
But he didn’t say any of that.
He just nodded. Quiet. Reverent. Grateful.
And you didn’t press.
He left with a bandage over his heart and the ghost of your fingers still clinging to his skin.
He didn’t ask for your number.
He didn’t need it.
You were always a life away.
And this one was almost over.
When his 100th life comes, Seokmin almost forgets.
Time, by then, is waterlogged: bloated, heavy, slipping through his fingers before he can name it. He wakes sometimes and feels seventeen. Other days, he’s all of them at once: soldier, scholar, ghost, god. There are lifetimes he can no longer separate from dreams. Some where he knows he died before you. Others where you didn’t die at all, just vanished, like smoke trailing from the edge of a candle, leaving him in the dark.
But in this life—in his 100th—Seokmin finds himself with a crown on his head and your hand in his.
It startles him. The symmetry. The cruelty of it. Or maybe it’s mercy. He hasn’t decided yet.
The palace is quieter than he remembers. Not the gold-dripping empire of his first life, where bells tolled and sycophants bowed. This one is quieter. Older. Cracks in the stone. Ivy on the columns. A throne made of wood instead of war.
He looks down, and there you are: fingers woven between his, knuckles familiar.
You’re not in armor this time. No blood on your boots. You wear blue. The soft kind. The same blue as the ink that once stained your hands, satchel heavy with pomegranate. The same ink you dabbed on his trembling skin as he told you he wanted a sun on his chest. Permanent. Just above the heart. The fabric sways when you move, like you’ve never known a battlefield.
But your gaze?
Your gaze is sharp as ever. It slices through the years. Finds him like it always does.
And this time—this time—it lingers.
There’s something different in your eyes. Not just fondness. Not just fate.
Recognition.
He swallows.
You smile. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I’ve seen you,” he says, and it’s the closest he’ll ever come to falling to his knees.
You smile at him as the court rises, as banners are unfurled above their heads.
He lifts his eyes to the crest on the silk.
A sun.
Gold and jagged and familiar, encrusted in diamonds atop your crown.
You wear it differently than he ever imagined. Not like royalty. Not like a symbol. You wear it like it’s always been yours. As if, somewhere in you, your hands remember what it was to trace its shape onto his skin. Onto tree bark. Onto war maps. Onto history.
He turns to you, and for a moment, you're no longer queen—you’re the daughter of the man who had once stood on a gallows, made martyr by the very flag Seokmin now rules under. You had screamed that day—not words, just grief. And even as they pulled you away, he had met your eyes. In that life, his 23rd, you never forgave him.
But in this one, your palm finds his. And stays.
You lean in, as the crowd dissolves around you, a blur of robes and oaths and rustling pageantry.
“I had a dream last night,” you say, soft and faraway. “We were in a forest. I had a sword. You were bleeding. I held your face and told you not to die.”
He lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.
“Did I?”
“No,” you whisper, brushing your thumb across the inside of his wrist, where he swears the skin still remembers the kisses you pressed there 43 lives ago. “You came back.”
The throne behind you is carved wood. No gold. No fanfare. Ivy spills from its corners like it’s always been part of the earth. And maybe it has. Maybe this kingdom is a little quieter, a little humbler, shaped by all the lives he never got to finish. All the ones he watched you slip through like sand.
But here—in this 100th, his last—he thinks maybe it was all worth it.
Because when he looks at you now, all the pieces come together. You laugh with the same mouth that once kissed him behind a bookshop, that once shouted orders on horseback. You smile like a thief who never got caught. You hold his hand like a promise.
And when you kiss him, it tastes like ink and salt and rain.
He feels it then: every life pooling into this one.
Every sun he ever wore.
Every name you ever said, even when you didn’t know why it made your chest ache.
Every version of love that wasn’t enough—until now.
just watched the httyd live action (its perfect btw) and i couldn't stop thinking abt "ash and aether" 🥺 have you ever thought about continuing the series?
hellooooo helloooo!
i absolutely agree. watched the live action twice, cried twice. test drive will forever be the greatest ost known to mankind.
re: ash and aether - thank you for the love! yes, i probably will continue it, but it won't be for a bit unfortunately, work is kicking my butt and i have quite a few collab commitments that i need to focus on before i can come back to my other work!
༄.° pairing: jeon wonwoo x f!reader | ༄.° wc: 7.7k
༄.° genre: nanny diary au | au pair!reader
༄.° warnings: definitely some angst + self-spiraling, bad/negligent rich people parenting, consumption of alcohol, mentions of vomit
༄.° a/n: for cam and em's carat bay collab! was so grateful to take part in another collab and experiment with my writing style a bit :)) please do check out all the other amazing authors in this collab, they are all so so so dear to me
Entry #1: On the Indigenous Habits of the Affluent Family on Summer Vacation
June 13th, 3:04 PM
In the wilds of Carat Bay, the modern matriarch is most commonly spotted with an oat milk matcha and AirPods, muttering something about KPIs. The modern patriarch is nowhere to be seen, having mumbled something about a “board meeting” and “golf with the boys.” Their offspring, small but feral, roam through chlorinated terrain. Their natural prey? Au pairs in department store swimsuits.
Junseo had eaten four frozen lemonades and was now in the middle of what experts in the field might call “a sugar-induced sprint toward cardiac disaster.”
“Junseo, no running by the pool!” you shout, too late. He slips, recovers, and keeps going like a greased piglet on roller skates.
Across the concrete savannah of Carat Bay’s family pool zone, Junhee is in her usual position: crouched at the border between chlorinated civilization and murky wilderness, pool noodle in hand. She is attempting to commit amphibicide via repeated poking of a highly displeased frog.
“Junhee, love, leave the frog alone—he lives here!”
“His name is Boba!” she screams back.
The frog does not look like a Boba. He looks like he’s reconsidering all of his life choices, which, frankly, makes two of you.
Your sandals squeak—a mistake you didn’t realize you’d made until about an hour into your first shift. They’re cute, sure. But tractionless. Supportless. Flat as your social life ever since you moved back in with your parents and became, for lack of better options, an anthropologist in exile.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
Just a few months ago you were crossing the graduation stage in soft linen, clutching your master’s degree in anthropology like it meant something. You had been so certain academia would need someone like you—sharp-eyed, good at syntax, fluent in both fieldwork and feminist theory.
Turns out, the only people hiring anthropologists in this economy are tech companies doing ethics theater and pharmaceutical firms in need of plausible deniability.
You had been dying slowly on your parents’ couch for exactly three weeks when your friend Lexi sent the flyer:
Want to make $$$ babysitting rich kids all summer? Full access to country club, pool, catered lunches. No drowning allowed. :)
You had laughed. And then, somewhere between the fourth rejection email and your mother asking if you wanted to help organize her sock drawer, you’d sent in a resume. You even lied and said you liked children. Two days later, you were hired. The check had commas in it.
Now you’re standing in a wet Target swimsuit, sunburn blooming across your chest, wondering if the rash on your neck is from stress, sweat, or the “reef-safe, organic, mommy-formulated” sunscreen that smells like expired chamomile and four-day-old chlorine.
“Junseo,” you call again, “do not eat that bandaid!”
The bandaid goes into his mouth. The bandaid is chewed. You scream internally.
Your employer, Mrs. Cho, the mother of these twin terrors, has not moved from her perch in the family cabana for the last forty minutes. She’d tossed you a dismissive “just make sure they don’t drown” before retreating into her kaftan and a Zoom meeting. She’s been there ever since: AirPods in, matcha sweating on the teakwood side table, gesturing wildly as she mutters about influencers and packaging aesthetics.
You, meanwhile, are the last line of defense between civilization and frog-assisted chaos.
Later, after bribing the children into a nap with gummy worms and a story you mostly made up about a magical flamingo who goes to therapy, you collapse onto a sun-warmed lounger just outside the cabana. It's one of the only moments of quiet you’ve had since arriving. The kind of quiet that rings a little in your ears.
You close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Maybe consider what a plane ticket to literally anywhere else might cost.
That’s when you feel it—a shift in the light. A shadow cast across your body.
You blink up.
There’s a boy—no, not quite. A man. Mid-twenties, maybe. Dark hair falling slightly into his eyes, expression unreadable. His nametag says Wonwoo. He’s wearing the Carat Bay staff polo, a towel slung casually over his shoulder. His left hand holds a chilled bottle of water, condensation trailing lazy rivulets down his fingers.
He offers it wordlessly.
You take it, startled. “Thank you,” you say, your voice hoarse from yelling and sun.
He doesn’t speak. Just gives you a single, small nod, and walks away.
You watch his back retreat into the shimmer of pool heat, the bottle already cold against your lips.
You don’t know it yet, but this is the last peaceful moment you’ll have for a while.
Entry #2: On Power Hierarchies and Poolside Social Climbing
June 20th, 11:35 AM
In most pack dynamics, the alpha asserts dominance through elaborate displays of confidence. At Carat Bay, this involves hosting themed pool parties and knowing the regional manager’s golf handicap. Among the matriarchs, alliances shift over whose offspring made swim team and who dared to bring store-bought cupcakes to the birthday cabana. It is important to master the subtle art of pretending one is not competing.
You lose your hearing somewhere around the fifth time Junhee screams, “I DON’T WANNA BE A ZEBRA.”
Junseo, face flushed with fury and injustice, echoes her like a demonic chorus: “WE’RE NOT ZEBRAS! I WANNA BE A T-REX!”
“Fine,” you hiss, crouched on the cabana floor with one knee in a puddle of apple juice, “be a godda–dang dinosaur in a zebra onesie, just get in the outfit.”
Today is not your day.
Today is Savannah Safari Birthday™, an event as horrifying as it is aggressively coordinated. The themed party, hosted by one of the more alpha Carat Bay mothers (you learn her name is Seoyeon, but she goes by Stacie, spelled with an ‘ie’ like a threat), has transformed her family cabana into an influencer’s fever dream. Giant cardboard giraffes. Balloon arches in beige and gold. Matching straw hats for all children. And a disturbingly lifelike stuffed zebra standing near the dessert table like it's waiting for a sacrifice.
You wrangle the twins into their assigned costumes—faux-animal-print rompers with little ears on the hoods—while they shriek like banshees at a frequency NASA might want to study.
By the time you emerge into the main cabana area, sweating and frayed, the pool moms are already circling each other like predators in designer plumage.
“Did you hear?” one says, adjusting her visor. “Eunkyung got waitlisted for pre-competitive swim. Waitlisted. And they just redid their pool.”
A blonde with glistening shoulders gasps theatrically. “Waitlisted? Oh no. Maybe she can take up something less... saturated. Pickleball, maybe.”
There’s laughter, brittle as pressed glass.
You hover near the fruit skewers, pretending to supervise the twins as they pelt each other with animal crackers. That’s when you hear it: the first volley fired in your direction.
“Aw, is your niece helping you today?” one of the moms trills, gesturing at you without looking. Her sunglasses are enormous and opaque.
“She’s adorable,” another adds, tone sweet and scalding. “That suit is so… real. You just don’t see people being brave about texture anymore.”
You blink, mouth parting slightly. You’re not sure whether to laugh or start quoting Margaret Mead in self-defense.
“Actually,” you say slowly, “I’m their au pair.”
They blink back, uncomprehending. One finally nods. “Oh! Like an assistant.”
Sure. Like that.
You eventually find yourself corralled in a shady corner with the other au pairs and nannies—two from Portugal, one from Toronto, and one with an indeterminate accent who looks like she’s seen war. Together, you trade horror stories like wartime nurses. One saw a child try to feed a wedding ring to a koi fish. Another was asked to prepare an all-raw vegan lunch for a toddler who eats crayons. You are both horrified and comforted. Trauma loves company.
It ends, as all things do, in carnage. A child screams because someone else got to sit on the fake zebra. Another sobs over the injustice of the animal-shaped cupcakes melting in the heat. You grab the twins, now sticky with fruit and full on far too much cake for their afternoon nap, and make a beeline for the cabana exit just as one of the moms begins berating a nanny for not predicting her daughter’s alleged strawberry allergy.
You’re almost free.
Almost.
And then you crash directly into someone solid.
You go down like a bowling pin.
“Oh my god!” Junseo howls. “YOU FELL!”
“Like, BOOM!” Junhee adds, collapsing into giggles.
You are on the hot concrete, stunned, clutching your elbow and your remaining dignity.
And there he is again.
Wonwoo.
He’s traded his polo for a linen button-up, slightly wrinkled and unfairly flattering. He looks down at you, impassive.
“Hey,” he says.
You blink up at him. “Hi.”
He offers a hand. You take it, and he pulls you up with barely any effort. His hand is warm. Callused. There’s a quiet strength to him, like a character in a Ghibli film who lives alone in the woods and speaks only in cryptic haikus.
Before you can say anything else, one of the moms descends like a hawk. Or a hyena that’s recently had fillers.
“Oh, Wonwoo,” she purrs, practically draping herself across his side. Her teeth gleam. “I didn’t know you were back from Singapore. Is your father joining us for the benefit this year?”
He gently disentangles himself.
“He’s expecting me for lunch,” he replies, tone polite and final.
Her lips purse. You watch her recalibrate in real time, already turning toward another potential social rung.
Wonwoo glances back at you. His expression doesn’t change, but there’s something faint in his eyes. Amusement, maybe. Or pity. Or just wind.
Then he’s gone.
Later, when the twins are face-first in naps (which took a significant amount of wrangling to achieve) and your phone finally has a signal, you search his name.
Jeon Wonwoo.
Son of the owner. Executive board. Dartmouth-educated. There’s a press photo of him at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a sustainability initiative.
Of course.
You drop the phone onto the lounge chair beside you and cover your face with a towel.
Maybe he’s not so different from the moms after all.
Or maybe worse—maybe he’s just better at pretending he isn’t.
Entry #3: On The Nanny Condition (Also Known As: “Doormat Syndrome”)
June 30th, 12:47 PM
Subservience in child-rearing roles is often mistaken for passivity. However, this is more accurately understood as the practiced stillness of someone who has weathered too many juice spills and tantrums. It is not a weakness, but a form of strategic surrender – resignation honed into an art.
It starts the way all days start now: with screaming.
You don’t even flinch anymore. Junseo has weaponized volume as a strategy. Junhee has started using phrases like “I’m telling Mommy!” even though Mommy, at this point, might as well be a cryptid. You text Mrs. Cho about the lunch situation and get no response. You text again. Then once more, with slightly more passive-aggression. Still nothing.
Mr. Cho is presumably in a meeting, on a plane, or golfing through time. His only presence this week has been the sound of an engine disappearing down the driveway at six-fifteen each morning. You’re beginning to suspect he has never actually seen the twins awake.
By 11:30, it’s full meltdown hour. Junhee has decided to sob violently about the wrong flavor of juice. Junseo is lying on the pool deck and pretending to die of hunger. You make the tragic mistake of attempting to fix this by visiting the snack bar—only to find it’s out of chicken nuggets.
Of course it is.
The cabana attendant (your supposed lifeline in this glittering suburban dystopia) is nowhere to be found. Probably hiding behind a towel cart and Googling how to fake appendicitis.
A mom walks by, sipping iced espresso in a wine glass. She clocks the situation—the spilled juice, your panicked rustling through bags, the tantrum echoing off the water—and gives you the kind of look normally reserved for videos of shelter dogs.
Then, like a scene change in a commercial for laundry detergent, he appears.
Wonwoo. The cabana attendant from three down, and apparently some sort of summer camp MacGyver.
Without a word, he crouches beside your mess of a pool chair, reaches into his tote, and withdraws two juice boxes like they’ve been summoned by divine intervention.
“Trade secret,” he says, handing them over. “I keep a stash for emergencies.”
The twins freeze mid-wail. Their heads swivel toward the juice. Junhee actually snatches it like a raccoon who’s just spotted an unattended churro.
You mouth thank you as chaos briefly, miraculously, subsides. Wonwoo gives a small shrug, like it's no big deal that he's just singlehandedly de-escalated a Code Red tantrum. Then he starts rummaging through his bag again.
“Here,” he says, offering you a slightly squished protein bar. “You look like you might pass out before 2. Not a great look in front of the junior elite.”
You stare at the bar, then at him. “Are you always this prepared?”
He squints at the twins, now peacefully arguing over whether dinosaurs could swim. “Experience.”
He rises, but pauses. “Oh, and: sing to them,” he adds, like it’s obvious. “The nap goes easier if you sing. Something simple. Doesn’t matter what.”
You blink. “You know a lot about naps.”
He smirks. Whisper-soft, barely there. “Only the essential ones.”
And then he’s walking away. You’re about to call after him, maybe say something actually coherent, when you spot it. Just barely poking out of his overstuffed bag, next to sunscreen and a spare shirt:
A Secret History, cover creased, dog-eared, loved.
The twins fall asleep in your lap thirty minutes later, sticky fingers curled around juice boxes, heads tilted together like cherubs.
You hum a lullaby under your breath. It works.
Maybe this doormat thing isn’t about surrender, you think, watching the sun cut soft lines through their hair. Maybe it’s about endurance. Outlasting the storm. Knowing when to bend, and when to hum.
And maybe—just maybe—you’re not the only one pretending.
Entry #4: A Brief Field Guide to Cabana Boys (Genus: Mysteriousus Hotus)
July 12th, 7:30 PM
Often underestimated, the Cabana Boy is a curious species: quiet, observant, and frequently found next to industrial-sized coolers. Contrary to popular belief, he is not just decorative. He may, in fact, be reading Donna Tartt during fireworks displays and composing short fiction between towel runs.
You're not sure when you started paying attention. Not in the obvious way—wrangling two five-year-olds who are constantly on the verge of a sugar-induced existential crisis leaves little room for distractions. But somewhere between juice box negotiations and sunscreen reapplications, you noticed the pattern.
Wonwoo clocks in for his 1:00 PM shift at 12:53 on the dot, every day. Rain or shine.
He always brings a slightly crumbly granola bar at exactly 12:45 and hands it over without ceremony. He’s also taken to giving unsolicited (but disturbingly effective) child-wrangling tips.
“If you let them watch an episode of Clifford in the shade, they mellow out.”
“Junhee will eat steamed broccoli if Junseo is watching.”
“They nap better if you hum the Indiana Jones theme.”
When you ask how he knows this, he just shrugs.
“I’ve watched them grow up here.”
He folds towels into perfect thirds—perfect enough to undo the entire previous shift’s work, muttering about symmetry.
And he always—always—has a book in his bag. You’ve clocked A Secret History, Beloved, Middlesex, and now—somehow—Antigone. You, being a civilized person, use sticky notes. He dog-ears. He highlights. You try not to hold it against him.
Then one night, the miracle. A fireworks show lures both Mr. and Mrs. Cho into spending quality time with their children—together—and for the first time in thirty-one days, you are given a few hours off.
You wander the resort grounds in what you tell yourself is idle exploration. You're not looking for him, not exactly. You're just…curious.
You find him perched in the shade outside the Cabana Attendants' Shack, book open, fingers curled at the spine. The sunset drapes him in gold.
“Greek tragedy?” you ask, nodding at the cover.
He startles slightly. Then sees it’s you and offers that small, lopsided smile that always feels like a secret.
“Loyalty to family and all that.” He snaps the book shut. “Why, do you have a favorite?”
The conversation unfolds in sideways glances and thoughtful pauses. He’s more well-read than you expected—not that you ever assumed he was dumb, but you didn’t quite picture him as the kind of guy who casually references Antigone while sipping Gatorade.
You want to bring up the fact that he’s the rumored heir to the waterpark conglomerate whose name is literally embroidered on your staff polo, but you don’t. He doesn’t bring it up, either.
Instead, you trail him as he clocks back in and begins his closing duties. You talk as he refolds towels, delivers last-call lemonades, and waves kids off the splash pad.
He’s soft-spoken but sharp, a bit of a walking contradiction. He debates philosophy with the same tone he uses to explain popsicle storage procedures.
He quotes The Odyssey unprompted. You’re unsure if you’re gagging or swooning. Possibly both. He laughs. The good kind—the kind that makes you want to say something clever, just to earn it again.
And then:
A string of texts from Mrs. Cho.
Where are you?
Can you be back in ten?
Junseo is trying to drink the pool water again.
Three hours gone in a blink.
You sigh, brushing off your shorts. “Duty calls.”
He doesn’t protest. Just reaches into his bag and hands you a worn paperback with a faded spine.
“You’d like this,” he says. “Don’t worry. I only highlighted a little.”
As you jog back to the family villa, the book clutched under your arm, you catch yourself smiling. You don’t know what exactly just happened—but you know you’re already looking forward to tomorrow.
The Cabana Boy: mysterious, mythological, mildly infuriating.
You’re definitely going to need another field guide.
Entry #5: On Emotional Labor (And How to Pretend You’re Fine)
July 18th, 3:56 PM
Among caretakers, the phrase “I’m fine” functions less as a truth and more as a survival mechanism – an autopilot response honed through repetition, like muscle memory or disassociation. It’s not an admission of wellness so much as a polite way of saying: I have exactly six fruit snacks and half a juice box keeping me together right now, please do not ask follow-up questions.
Today is the worst day on record. Not just this summer—ever.
Junhee is feverish and glassy-eyed. Junseo hasn’t stopped crying since 9:07 AM. The phrase “I want mommy” has been used with increasing volume and ferocity for six straight hours.
And still, Mrs. Cho floats in after breakfast, clacking away in her designer heels like you’re just another inconvenience in a long string of logistics. She deposits them into your arms with the same care one might give a bag of dry cleaning. She clacks off in Valentino heels without a glance back. She says “they’ve been so moody lately,” as if their tear-streaked faces and refusal to be peeled off your torso aren’t a screaming counterargument.
Even Wonwoo, usually the child-whisperer, strikes out. He tries Clifford. He tries juice box diplomacy. He even pulls out the secret popsicle stash. Nothing works.
The grand finale: Junhee vomits bright blue Slushie all over your shirt just as Mrs. Cho reappears.
She gasps, horrified—not at her child, no. At you. “This is completely inappropriate. What did you even feed him?”
You’re too shocked to speak.
Wonwoo watches from across the cabana, eyes wide, towel frozen mid-fold. And then—just like that—you snap.
Your eyes are already stinging, breath hitching. You mutter something about needing a minute, and walk fast. Not away from the cabana—out.
You don’t know where you're going, just that it needs to be anywhere else. You barrel through pool chairs, past shrieking toddlers, past lifeguards gossiping about hot guests, and you barely notice the quiet footsteps trailing behind you.
A hand catches your upper arm. Not rough, just... certain.
Wonwoo pulls you into the cool, echoey silence of the staff locker room and sits you down like it’s the most normal thing in the world. You don’t resist.
You sit, shoulders trembling. He turns to his locker, rifling through it. A few seconds later, he tosses a shirt into your lap.
“Here. It’s clean. Smells weird, though. You might smell like sunscreen and... me.”
You pick it up with shaking hands. Chlorine, citrus deodorant, rain. Wonwoo. It hits like a trigger.
And then—
You lose it.
Not the gentle, single-tear kind of cinematic breakdown. No. This is a crash out. Full-body. Unfiltered.
You're pacing now, the shirt clutched in your hand like a lifeline, voice cracking with every word.
“I hate this family.”
“I swear to God, if that woman says one more thing about how hard parenting is—while dumping her kids on me like they’re furniture—I’m gonna lose my actual goddamn mind.” “I’m twenty-three! I should be backpacking in Spain or studying abroad or—I don’t know—eating a yogurt in peace without someone screaming about their sock being too tight.”
You kick a locker.
“And I’m trying so hard. I’m doing everything right. I’ve read so many blogs, Wonwoo.”
You turn toward him, eyes red-rimmed and wild.
“And you know what I get? Vomited on. In public.”
He hasn’t moved. Just sits on the bench, legs spread, arms on his knees, staring up at you like he’s watching a fire he’s not sure how to put out. Like he knows he’ll burn if he gets too close—but also that maybe it’s worth it.
“Are you… done?” he asks, finally. Gently.
You stop. Blink. And then let out a small, wet laugh that sounds more like a sob. You sit down hard next to him, the adrenaline draining from your limbs all at once.
“I think so.”
He leans back slightly. Not touching you, but close enough that you can feel the calm radiating off him.
“Better?”
You don’t answer immediately. You don’t know. But you nod anyway. And he accepts it, like that’s enough.
You sit there, the two of you, in chlorine-scented silence. His shirt still bunched in your lap. Your breathing slows. You count your heartbeats.
And for the first time all summer, someone lets you be tired. Not “still smiling” tired. Not “push through it” tired. Just... human.
You think, maybe, that matters more than anything.
Entry #6: On the Sociocultural Function of Shared Snacks (And Other Low-Stakes Intimacies)
July 25th, 6:23 PM
Anthropological theory suggests that the exchange of Goldfish and Capri Suns constitutes a primitive yet potent form of courtship. Especially when accompanied by verbal rituals such as, “You look like you need a break,” and, “Do you want the last one?” While not as elaborate as other mating rituals, these offerings appear to hold significant emotional currency. Further study is required, but initial findings suggest: this may be how modern love begins.
There’s a rhythm now. He always saves the last piña colada juice box for you. You always act like you don’t care and then accept it anyway, muttering something about “fake cocktails for fake lifeguards.” He always laughs. You always drink it.
You make fun of the way he organizes the towel bins—by saturation level, apparently. “This one’s damp-damp, and that one’s wet-wet? You okay, Marie Kondo?”
Wonwoo shrugs like he’s heard worse, like maybe he’s even proud of it. “It brings me peace.”
It’s easy with him. He always finds his way to your cabana when things are quiet. No one sends him. He just appears. He drops into the lounge chair beside you like he belongs there, legs stretched out, sunglasses slipping down his nose. Sometimes he brings snacks—peanut butter pretzels, Goldfish, gummy worms he claims are “for the kids.” You both know better.
You talk books. Somehow he’s never read Magic Treehouse, which you find personally offensive. “It’s basically required reading for emotionally unstable gifted kids.”
He grins. “Sounds like I dodged a bullet.”
“You’d love it,” you tell him, tossing a pretzel at his face. “You’re such a Virgo.”
“I’m not a Virgo.”
“Spiritually, though.”
He makes you laugh at least once a day. Not a polite laugh. An ugly, tired, full-body snort—the kind that feels like exhaling something heavy.
One afternoon, your fingers brush when he hands you a juice box. The contact is brief, but it lingers. Just enough to make you glance up, and he’s already looking back. Not with some dramatic, swoon-worthy gaze—just steady. Familiar. Like he knows you. Like he sees you.
And then, inevitably, the twins start screaming about a grasshopper. One of them insists it’s going to bite their nose off. The moment cracks clean in half. Wonwoo groans, gets up, and trudges off to play bug bouncer. You watch him go, vaguely amused. A little disappointed.
Later, when the cabana is blissfully quiet again, you ask him something you’ve been holding onto for a while.
“Why do you work here when you don’t need to?”
He doesn’t answer immediately. Just stares at the pool, unreadable. For a second, you think he’s going to deflect with a joke—but instead, he says, quietly, “It’s easier to know people when they’re not pretending.”
He says it like it’s obvious. Like it’s been sitting in the air this whole time, waiting for you to notice.
You don’t quite know what to do with that. But you don’t push.
Instead, you hand him the last peanut butter pretzel without a word.
He takes it.
And for now, that feels like enough.
Entry #7: On Burnout, Bus Rides, and the Quiet in Between
July 31st, 8:39 PM
The much-awaited night off is often viewed as an unproductive lull in the performance of domestic labor. But for the emotionally fried caretaker figure, it is the only sanctioned absence where no one cries, no one spills, and no one demands apple slices cut the “right” way. It is the lone moment in which the help is not expected to perform servitude with a smile. In anthropological terms: a brief return to personhood.
You end up at a bus stop just outside the waterpark. The sun’s long gone, and so are your responsibilities, at least for the next few hours. You’re not even sure where you’re headed. You just wanted to leave. To move. To breathe. You might be a little tipsy—courtesy of the fully stocked cabana bar—but that’s between you and whatever god watches over tired girls with aching feet and full hearts.
Wonwoo finds you under the weak, flickering light of the stop like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“What are you doing here?”
“I have the night off,” you say, nudging a pebble with the toe of your sandal. “Didn’t know where to go. I’m not from here.”
He looks at you for a moment, then smiles. “You’ve got the whole night off?”
You nod just as the bus pulls up. He doesn’t hesitate, just holds out his arm and asks, “Wanna do something fun?”
You giggle, loop your arm through his, and climb aboard.
The bus ride is a quiet kind of lovely. The kind that lets your bones settle after a day of noise and chlorine and children threatening to stage a coup over who gets the blue floatie. You’re too tired to flirt, and he doesn’t seem to mind. He offers his shoulder, opens a book, and lets you lean.
“I didn’t know you took the bus,” you mumble, sleep thick in your voice.
He chuckles. “Why? Thought I had a Porsche?”
You smile into the fabric of his shirt. “What kind of chaebol son doesn’t have a sports car?”
“I do,” he says, tapping his fingers as he leans in close enough for you to get a whiff of his cologne. It’s earthy. Warm. “It’s just hard to park.”
Eventually, the bus rolls into a small downtown area lit with fairy lights, where families drift between ice cream shops and late-night cafés. Wonwoo takes your hand and tugs you down a side street, stopping in front of what looks like an abandoned bookstore. The sign is faded. The windows are dark.
You squint. “On my one night off this summer, you brought me to a murder scene?”
He scoffs, already pulling keys from his pocket. “I clerked here in high school. The owner never asked for them back.”
Inside, the air smells like dust and old stories. He flips on a few lamps and the space flickers to life—messy and charming in a way that feels sacred.
What follows is, undeniably, a reading date. But you both pretend it’s not. It can’t be. Not when summer is almost over. Not when you’ve seen what happens to girls who let themselves want too much.
Still, you talk. You read. He shows you where he used to stash beanbags as a teenager and the corner of a shelf where he carved his name when he was seventeen. He pulls down a hollowed-out book that still contains an unopened bag of gummy bears. When he throws one toward you, you catch it in your mouth without breaking eye contact, and he laughs so hard he nearly drops the whole bag.
At some point, you sigh about how much you miss Cherry Garcia ice cream. He disappears, and a few minutes later, returns with a milkshake.
“It’s not ice cream,” he says, offering it to you, “but it is Cherry Garcia.”
You take one sip and groan. “You’re dangerous.”
“We can split it,” he offers, clearly pleased with himself.
You settle back into the beanbags with the milkshake between you. His shoulder brushes yours. Your pinkies touch. You’re pretty sure this is what love feels like—soft and slow and unbearably sweet.
You’re just about to lean in when your phone rings.
Mrs. Cho.
You answer, and before you can even say hello, her voice cuts through, sharp and desperate. “I need you back. They won’t sleep until you sing to them. Come back now.”
The twins are screaming in the background.
You shoot up, already apologizing, already stuffing your phone in your pocket and looking for your bag.
Wonwoo follows you to the door. Just as you reach for the handle, his hand wraps gently around your wrist.
“You’re the only person from the waterpark I’ve shown this store to,” he says, voice low, almost unsure, and it takes all the willpower in the world not to push him up against the stacks and kiss him stupid. “We should– we should do this again. If you want.”
You should go. You have to go. But instead, you rise on your tiptoes and press a feather-light kiss to his cheek.
“I would love that,” you whisper.
Then you're gone, milkshake in hand, racing back to the chaos. But the softness of that night stays with you.
Entry #8: On the Perfect Family (And Other Bedtime Stories)
August 12th, 1:56 PM
Anthropologists agree that the family unit, built on generations of blood and loyalty, is sacred. This theory begins to unravel around 1:07 PM, when the matriarch of the Cho family – Balenciaga-clad and Bluetooth’d – screams at her offspring for dripping popsicle juice on her Hermès towel. The offspring seek emotional refuge in the arms of the hired help. This only infuriates the matriarch further. Field notes suggest that the sacred family unit may, in fact, be a PR stunt.
The cabana smells like sun-warmed linen and something floral—maybe Mrs. Cho’s perfume. You sit cross-legged on the floor, the twins clambering onto your lap, sticky popsicle juice glistening on their chins. Junseo hiccups, eyes wide, while Junhee presses her damp cheek against your arm, seeking shelter.
Then it happens.
A sharp, slicing voice cuts through the quiet: “Why is there juice dripping on my Hermès towel?” Mrs. Cho storms in, Balenciaga heels clicking like thunder on pavement. The Bluetooth earpiece flashes a faint blue as she glares at you, voice rising like a storm.
The twins flinch. Junhee blinks up at her mother like she’s seeing a stranger. Junseo presses closer to you, face buried in your shirt. You feel the warmth of their small bodies, the tremble in their chests. You are not their mother. You know that. But in moments like this, someone has to be.
Mrs. Cho snaps, “Do not coddle them. This is why they don’t respect me.”
You stand slowly, steadying the children behind you.
“I’m just trying to calm them down,” you say, carefully.
“Oh, please.” Her tone sharpens. “You don’t think I see what you’re doing? What everyone sees? The other mothers laugh behind your back — the little nanny girl and the owner’s son playing house.”
Your breath catches.
“I’m not—”
“I’m not finished.” She steps closer. “You are not their mother. Stop pretending to be. Stop making them believe you are.”
You blink once, twice. And then you break.
“No,” you snap. “You stop. You stop making them believe I’m their mother. You leave them with me for ten hours a day, five days a week. You miss their birthdays. You forget their allergies. You don't even know Junhee likes frogs or that Junseo has nightmares when it rains. You don’t see them. But I do.”
She stiffens. You press the twins behind you gently.
“For fuck’s sake, Mrs. Cho,” you whisper, too tired to yell anymore. “Do you really think this is how good mothers act?”
The silence that follows is jagged. Sharp.
You don't wait for her to respond. You turn. You walk — briskly, almost blindly — past the frozen faces in the walkway, past Wonwoo standing by the corner, unreadable.
You don’t stop until you’re outside.
Night comes like a soft blanket. You’re at the twins’ bedside again, tracing their damp hair, humming lullabies until their breathing evens out. Mrs. Cho sits stiffly across the room, staring at her phone. Her husband lounges on the couch, like nothing happened. As if nothing ever happens.
You're walking beside the lazy river, hands stuffed into the pockets of your hoodie, when you hear the familiar tread of footsteps behind you.
Wonwoo.
You don’t look at him.
“I heard everything,” he says.
You don’t say anything. You keep walking.
“She was way out of line.”
You stop. “You don’t need to defend me.”
“I’m not,” he says quietly. “I’m angry.”
You turn to him. “Why? Why do you even care?”
He falters. “Because I—”
You laugh bitterly. “You what, Wonwoo? You care about me? You want to play the hero now? Where were you earlier? When she humiliated me in front of everyone? You just stood there.”
“I didn’t know what to do—”
“You never know what to do,” you snap, voice cracking. “You always wait until I’m falling apart and then you show up when it’s safe again. When I’ve already picked up my pieces.”
His jaw clenches.
“I’m sorry,” he says, but it sounds like sandpaper. “I should’ve said something. I wanted to.”
“And now what? You want me to pat you on the back because you chased me down after sunset?” Your voice breaks. “This isn’t a fucking romance movie, Wonwoo. You don’t get points for showing up late.”
He stares at you — really stares — and then he says, low and quiet, “I didn’t chase you down for points.”
You shake your head and look away.
“I came because I couldn't let you walk away thinking I didn’t care.” He takes a step closer. “You’re not just someone I flirt with by the pool. You’re not just the girl who helps with the twins. You’re...”
His voice falters.
“You’re the only person who makes this place feel real.”
You feel the ache of it — like something soft tearing.
“I didn’t ask for this,” you whisper.
“Neither did I,” he says. “But I’m here.”
And then he kisses you.
It starts hesitant — a question, a breath — but when you don't pull away, he deepens it, slow and hungry. One hand slides to your jaw, the other finds your waist. You kiss him back like you’ve been holding your breath for two whole months. Because you have.
He pulls back just enough to whisper, “Come with me.”
You nod, breathless.
You stumble through the grass, past the empty lounge chairs, half-laughing, half-shaking. He kisses you again by the maintenance shed. Again near the outdoor shower. You lose track of where you’re going. You only know his hands, his mouth, the way he looks at you like you’re something he’s been dying to touch.
By the time you reach the locker room, he’s pushing you gently against the door, lips trailing fire down your neck.
“Fucking finally,” he groans, like it’s been killing him not to say it. His voice in your ear makes your knees buckle.
You grip his shirt, feel the muscles of his back flex under your fingers. He smells like chlorine and sunscreen and gummy bears and sweat and you want, want, want.
He kisses you again, deeper this time — all tongue and teeth and desperation. The kind of kiss that says I missed you, I wanted you, I want you still.
And then, suddenly — mid-kiss, mid-moment — the world crashes back in.
He’s the son of the owner. He drives a Porsche that probably never sees the road and reads Bukowski like it’s gospel.
You? You read bedtime stories and wipe juice off a Hermès towel. You’re an au pair with a paper degree and an expiring visa. Your chest tightens with a thousand what-ifs.
The summer is bleeding out.
And you're kissing a boy who might not be yours when it ends.
Shit.
Shit.
Shit.
Entry #9: On the Danger of Wanting More
August 19th, 4:21 PM
In most societal structures, the help is expected to exist quietly on the periphery – present but visible, useful but never central. And falling for someone above one’s pay grade? Historically ill-advised, frequently humiliating, and almost always doomed. But anthropologists agree that humans are predictable irrational – no amount of emotional detachment can fully protect you from a boy that kisses you stupid and casually quotes Euripedes.
You pulled away after the kiss, gasping. Dizzy. Brain short-circuiting.
The class divide. The logistics. The impossible futures.
He’s the son of the owner. He could never work another day and still live comfortably into infinity. You’re scraping together tips and spare change, trying to stretch your contract into a real life. He’s got gilded options. You’ve got a ticking clock.
So you avoid him.
When you see him walking toward the cabana for his daily granola bar pilgrimage, you redirect the twins toward the kiddie pool. When he shows up with your favorite pina colada — extra pineapple, no cherry — you pretend it’s nap time. You dodge, deflect, disappear. You rehearse polite excuses until they become muscle memory.
It takes a week for him to finally corner you.
You’re headed to the bathroom, sunglasses on, hoodie up despite the August heat. He intercepts you by the towel stand.
“What are you doing?” he asks, voice low, not angry but confused.
You blink. “Nothing. Peeing?”
“You’re avoiding me.”
“No…”
“You are,” he says, stepping closer. “Don’t lie. You won’t even look at me.”
You focus intently on a damp footprint on the pavement. “I’ve just been… busy.”
“What did I do wrong?”
He says your name like it matters. Like he means it. A question and a plea and a prayer all at once.
“I thought this was going somewhere,” he says. “Where did I go wrong?”
You open your mouth. Close it. Swallow. Then:
“You didn’t.”
His shoulders drop in relief. He starts to move closer, arms lifting — but you stop him with a hand on his chest.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” you repeat. “I did.”
Now he looks confused. “What are you talking about?”
“Wonwoo,” you sigh. “One day, you’re going to take over. You’re going to be CEO of a global resort empire. And me? I’m going to be here. Covered in five-year-olds’ snot and banana crumbs, probably chasing a preschooler into a fountain.”
“So?” he scoffs. “I don’t want this.” He gestures broadly at the lazy river, the snack bar, the sunburned luxury. “I’m not staying. I got into an MFA program. I’m leaving at the end of the month.”
That throws you. “Wait—what? Really?”
He nods. “I want to write. Always have.”
You blink. “Okay… and?”
He reaches out and takes your hand, threading your fingers together like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
“You don’t have it all figured out,” he says softly. “That’s okay. Neither do I. But what are you gaining from babysitting your own life?”
You want to laugh. Or cry. Or kiss him again. Maybe all three.
But you don’t answer. Not yet.
That night, you get a text.
[Attachment: IMG_0142.jpeg]
A photo of an email. Congratulations! You’ve been accepted to the Creative Writing MFA program at—
[Attachment: PDF Lease Agreement]
Two bedrooms. Hardwood floors. Half a mile from the university. Your hometown.
Then a message from him:
You could write too, you know.
I’d read every word.
Entry #10: On Exit Strategies (And the Beginnings We Don’t See Coming)
August 23rd, 7:54 AM
In the study of human nature, we often assume that endings are marked, observable events – clean breaks punctuated by ritual. But fieldwork reveals a more complex truth: endings, like goodbyes, are rarely so precise. Sometimes the dissolve quietly, like mist off the surface of a morning pool. Sometimes they masquerade as beginnings. And sometimes, they don’t happen at all – not really.
It’s your last day at Carat Bay.
The twins start kindergarten on Monday. Their regular au pair — a disheveled girl who looks like she once studied French literature and now only speaks in juice box negotiations — has returned.
You say goodbye to the kids, crouched low to meet their eyes. Junhee hugs you, sticky-fingered and sad. Junseo asks, “Who’ll sing to us now?” in a voice so small it nearly breaks you.
You press teary kisses to their damp little heads. Promise they’ll be okay. They’re good kids. You tell yourself that means something.
You say goodbye to Mr. and Mrs. Cho.
Mrs. Cho barely glances up from her phone. She waves vaguely. Her acrylics glint in the sun.
Mr. Cho squints at you from over his tablet. “We had a new nanny this summer?”
You roll your eyes as you walk away, his confusion trailing behind you like bad perfume.
You drag your suitcase down the cobbled path toward the villa’s front gate, sunscreen and chlorine still clinging to your skin. The early morning air smells like pool chemicals and hotel pastries.
And then you see it — the Porsche, parked crooked in the drive like it doesn’t know it’s expensive.
Wonwoo is leaned against the side, arms crossed, sunglasses perched low on his nose like he’s auditioning for a commercial titled Regret Nothing.
He straightens when he sees you, already moving to grab your suitcase.
“So,” he says, like it’s casual. Like it’s not everything. “You comin’ with me?”
You pretend to think. Just for show. Just for the story.
Then you’re moving — fast, reckless — throwing your arms around him like you never learned how to say goodbye. His mouth finds yours in a kiss that feels like a collision — breathless, greedy, impossible. He laughs against your lips as you stumble back against the car, the heat of the hood warming your spine.
“You ever driven a Porsche?” he asks, his grin crooked, summer-sick and daring.
You break the kiss just long enough to smile. “Not yet.”
He presses the keys into your hand like a promise. Like a dare. Like the start of something you didn’t plan for — and maybe that’s the point.
You take the keys. Open the door.
And you drive — not toward an ending.
But into something new.
Epilogue: On Retrospective Analysis and the Unscientific Nature of Love
Not Dated (yet)
Anthropologists caution against emotional entanglement with their subjects, citing compromised objectivity, blurred boundaries, and the potential erosion of professional distance. This author would like to report that such boundaries are far more porous when your subject brings you coffee and quotes Aeschylus. In the interest of full disclosure: This author ignored the rule. Repeatedly. And with alarming enthusiasm.
Three years later, you live together in a house with creaky floors and a crooked porch light. Wonwoo brings you coffee before you've asked for it, sets it beside your laptop with the reverence usually reserved for sacred texts. He reads your pages in silence, a red pen tucked behind one ear, and presses soft kisses to the back of your neck when you write too late into the night.
The work is fiction. Technically.
But when he gets to the part about juice boxes and Clifford the Big Red Dog, his fingers find yours. He doesn’t say anything, just smiles that slow, knowing smile he saves for when he catches you pretending not to be sentimental.
He's finished his MFA now. Teaches English at the local high school, spends his afternoons grading essays about Of Mice and Men and trying not to laugh when his students call The Iliad “a chore to read.” He comes home smelling like school lunches and adolescent chaos, drops his bag by the door and finds you, always.
The Porsche sits untouched under your window—an inheritance he never asked for, gathering dust and sun-bleached leaves. He takes the train instead. Says he likes the time to read.
Sometimes, you still wake up waiting for someone to call your name and hand you someone else’s kids. Sometimes, you still flinch when your phone rings. But mostly, you write. And mostly, you’re okay.
There is no neat conclusion. Only this:
You’re allowed to want things.
You’re allowed to keep them, too.
Welcome to the official masterlist for the 100SVT Collab, a celebration of Yuki’s 100 followers milestone! 🎉 This collab is hosted by Yuki (me), Rae (@nerdycheol), Tiya (@gyubakeries), and Ro (@shinysobi).
Here, you'll find all the incredible works created by participants, inspired by the theme 100—whether it’s 100 days, 100 memories, 100 texts, or anything else creative!
📌 Entries will be updated as they are posted. Stay tuned for amazing SEVENTEEN content! 🎨✍️🎶
Click here to join the taglist
-> A Seat Across From You by @nerdycheol
Pairings: Choi Seungcheol x reader
Warning(s): strangers to lovers, slow-burn, slice of Life, fluff
W/C: est. 9k+
Summary: Two strangers. One train. An unspoken connection.
Every morning, you and Seungcheol share the same ride—fleeting glances, silent routines, and a growing curiosity neither of you dares to voice. As days pass, the distance between you starts to shrink in quiet, unexpected ways. Could your daily commute lead to something more... or will you remain strangers, passing by like trains on separate tracks?
↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺
-> Bae-sically Fake by @mylovesstuffs
Pairings: Jeonghan × fem!reader
Warning(s): Fake dating au, modern au, romance, comedy, slice of life, slow burn, emotional healing, mentions of past emotional abuse/manipulation, toxic ex, emotional trauma and flashbacks, manipulation disguised as affection [past], reference to stalking/following for confirmation of infidelity, heartbreak and betrayal, gaslighting implications [in past relationship], alcohol consumption, mild cursing/swearing, themes of grief and emotional vulnerability, soft romantic tension, no smut [so far; not written yet], emotionally guarded reader, indirect trauma references, workplace sexism [called out], fluffy but with realistic emotional baggage, cheating and infidelity [past, non-graphic]
*Advanced warning(s): grooming mentioned [non-graphic but explicit reference], mentions of underage grooming [girls legal but barely, predatory behavior], ptsd-like emotional responses
W/C: est 40k+
Summary: You swear when you made up your fake relationship, you didn't know that someone worked at the coffee shop with the same name or that your family would go to check out. Now everyone thinks you guys are actually together, and, well, pretending to be fake partners has never been so complicated. Jeonghan plays along, and even offers you a deal—100 days to let him try and woo your closed-off heart.
↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺
-> Start A War by @sanaxo-o
Pairings: Joshua Hong x female!reader
Warning(s): angst, fluff if you squint, strangers to lovers, kissing, apocalyptic kind of au since it revolves around monsters, major character death, graphic description of a dead body
W/C: tbd
Summary: Getting stuck in a town with no way to escape was not a part of your plan—getting trapped in a town where monsters come out at night to hunt and rip you apart was not your plan either. It was as if living in a nightmare where you were not able to escape but despite all of that you managed to find a small place of comfort in a person who helped you throughout your chaos filled thoughts and anxious queries with his sweet and gentle eyes which always held warmth in them.
↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺
-> 100 Ways To Lose Your Love(And 1 To Get It Back) by @cheers-to-you-th
Summary: Love isn’t lost in the big fights, it’s lost in the fear of being truly seen. The real question is, where is it found?
↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺
-> 100 Ways To Love You by @bella-feed
Pairings: playboi!Jun, clg-student!jun, non-idol!bf jun x f!reader, clg-student!reader. *the reader's name is Nara*
Warning(s): fluff, black cat gf x golden retriever bf, smut (MDNI 18+ only), angsty (at the end) smut (MDNI 18+ only), mentions of food, and alcohol. mentions of seungkwan and few other members. seungkwan is jun's bestfriend. mentions of flowers, swimming, going on dates, drinking alcohol and shi. jun is a playboi. bit angsty in the end. hopefully there’s a part two. lmk if i missed any warnings
*Smut Warning(s): dom!jun, kissing, making out, unprotected sex (don't do it!!!), fingering, slight spanking and face slapping. body fluids (sweat, cum) oral (both m and f; both receiving and giving). lmk if I missed anything
W/C: tbd
Summary: A bet, with three prominent and important conditions, resulted in you and Jun ending up together. But is it a forever thingy?
↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺
-> Loving You For Days And Years by @kyeomofhearts
Pairings: Kwon Soonyoung x fem!reader
Warning(s): slice of life, romance, fluff, humor, non-idol au, swearing, suggestive, time-skips, tooth rotting fluff that might make you want to throw up :P
W/C: 2-3k(tbd)
Summary: You weren’t necessarily looking for love when you met Kwon Soonyoung. Loud, a little dumb, and always cracking jokes at the worst times–he wasn’t exactly your ideal type. And yet, somewhere between his ridiculous texts and the way he always made sure you got home safe, he somehow found a way to your heart. And you? You let him stay.
↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺
-> All Twisted Secrets by @esrione
Pairings: -
Warning(s): Blood, corpse, gore, romance, psychopath survival games(aka dystopian games), poisoned, death, suicide, romance at some point, angst, gunshot fight, gambling(?), action, MDNI, 21+ NSFW
W/C: 52k+
Summary: 100 dollars in casino chips were needed to escape.
Trapped in a deadly game, survival meant playing by the host's twisted rules—or breaking them entirely. As morality fades, Soonyoung and his classmates make a final gamble: kill or be killed. But when the blood dried and the bodies have fallen, one question lingers—was it ever about survival, or had they become the very monsters they sought to destroy?
Teaser | ↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺
-> In The Brown And Blue by @gotta-winwin
Pairings: Jeon Wonwoo x reader
Warning(s): Dystopian, fluff, angst, comfort, mentions of blood, injury, minimal gore, swearing, loss of memory
W/C: tbd
Summary: It’s the centennial of the tunnel’s existence, marking the legacy since its sudden appearance in the woods across your small town. Legends say entering the tunnel sends you back in time to find those lost to you– and as you travel deeper into the tunnel, you swear you can see him, hidden in the brown and blue.
↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺
-> Tour Date by @ppyopulii
Pairings: rockstar!lee jihoon x rising star!reader
Warning(s): Cursing, hook-up culture, mentions of needles, mentions of drugs, mentions of dieting → body dysphoria
*Smut warning(s): making out, Perhaps some fingering (f!receiving)
W/C: tbd, hoping to be around 8k-10k
Summary: The limelight is *yours*—you’ve been itching for it ever since your debut only six months ago, and your pathway to stardom is a straight-shot after being recruited to be the opener for the world-famous rock band CH33RS. This a hundred day tour is sure to bring you the fame you know you’re deserving of, especially after the announcement of your upcoming debut album. The only catch? WOOZI, lead singer of CH33RS, hates you.
↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺
-> A Prescription For Romance by @shinysobi
Pairings: Lee Jihoon x reader
Warning(s): Established relationship (or is it) slice of life, fluff, comedy (reader has a name)
W/C: tbd
Summary: When the new residents join the Cardiothoracic Department, they're thrown for a loop when it comes to the two youngest professors of the hospital- Neurosurgeon Lee Jihoon and you, the Cardiothoracic surgeon. Fed up, they devise a scheme-which might be ingenious, which might be stupid. Will it work? Or will they continue to live under the thumbs of cruella and sauron?
↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺
-> Until You Know Me by @diamonddaze01
Pairings: Seokmin x reader
Warning(s): reincarnation AU, soulmate au, angst, fluff, suggestive (?), discussions of death/reincarnation and heartbreak
W/C: tbd
Summary: Seokmin has loved you 99 times. But in this life, just like every other, you don't remember. You never do. But Seomin? He remembers everything. Every goodbye. Every loss. Every time he almost kept you.
↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺
-> Coffee and Confessions by @gyubakeries
Pairings: Kim Mingyu x f!reader
Warning(s): romance, fluff, slight angst, businessman!mingyu, barista!mc, journal entries and coffee as plot devices, unhealthy consumption of coffee, commitment issues (from mingyu), strangers to lovers
W/C: tbd
Summary: When Kim Mingyu, the no-nonsense businessman, meets you, the barista who laughs more in a simple exchange than he has in the past week, he feels his heart do something strange. Under the guise of understanding this foreign emotion, he keeps coming back to meet you with his journal concealed within the sharp lines of his formal blazers. Soon, the lines between research and attraction blur, and Mingyu finds the same word recurring in the pages of his journal --- your name.
↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺
-> Si belle Homme List by @shinysobi
Pairings: Xu Minghao x f!reader
Warning(s): romance, fluff, comedy, angst, photographer!minghao, matchmaker!mc, slight coercion involved, copious referenes to smoking and drinking, friends to lovers
W/C: tbd
Summary: When Yewon's fiance dumps her before her wedding, she briefly contemplates murder, suicide, and arson--not necessarily in that order. Unfortunately, she has too many events to attend as a married woman, so she turns to her best friend, Xu Minghao, for a contract-100 days as her fiance, no strings attached.
↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺
-> Love In Half Tones by @nerdycheol
Pairings: Xu Minghao x reader
Warning(s): Fluff, angst, bittersweet
W/C: tbd
Summary: You’re a ballerina with big dreams. Minghao’s an artist still waiting for his big break. You meet by chance and fall into something quiet, comforting, and...real. But when your career takes off and his doesn’t, everything starts to shift. You both want to hold on—but chasing dreams sometimes means letting go.
↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺
-> 100 Days by @esrione
Pairings: Boo Seungkwan x reader
Warning(s): fluff, angst, sci-fi, enemies to lovers troop, horror, mentioned of death, explosion and fire flames, robotics
W/C: 11.6k+
Summary: A detective awakens in an abandoned, eerie facility with no memory of how he got there. Armed with a mysterious gameboy-style device, he must navigate dangerous floors filled with hostile robotic maids. As he searches for hidden remote controls to unlock the building’s secrets, every step brings him closer to a truth he never expected.
Teaser | ↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺
-> Lowkey, What Are We? by @vampsol
Pairings: Hansol Vernon Chwe x reader
Warning(s): fluff, angst, smut, fwb!au, brother's best friend!au, college au, feat! joshua hong and kwon soonyoung of seventeen and yang jeongin of stray kids, jealousy trope, two idiots in love but unwilling to admit it
*Smut warning(s): oral (m + f receiving), handjob, praise kink, pet names (baby, sweetheart, etc), unprotected sex, creampie
W/C: tbd
Summary: Your brother's best friend wasn't exactly the perfect guy to start a sexual relationship with, but it's too late to turn back. Your heart may already be too entangled to let him go, no matter your rules, for better or worse.
↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺
-> The Way The Cookie Crumbles by @studioeisa
Pairings: Lee Chan x food journalist!reader
Warning(s): Mentions of food, disease (which neither mcs have). cussing/swearing. themes of food and memory.
W/C: est. 5k
Summary: You need one good story to get your career off the ground. Lee Chan is on a mission to try every chocolate chip cookie in Seoul. Better start somewhere, right?
LOVE&LETTER REPACKAGE ୨ৎ celebrating 10 years with SVT!
i said it once, i'll say it again: caratblr is populated by some of the most talented individuals you will find. incredibly lucky to be in the presence of these greats, whose writing change and challenge the ways we think and the stories we tell. here are some of my all-timers. ‹𝟹
footnotes: some of these work may contain explicit content. please heed the warnings when checking them out. all headers are from u/seventeenzone.
from the vantage point of death by @heartepub
when the lord of the dead meets the goddess of spring, all his plans are derailed.
there is simply no sugarcoating it: viv is a generational writer on this side of the fandom and beyond. this fic is a bullet point in the long list of reasons why. the tale of hades and persephone is time-worn and sometimes tired; viv makes a version of it that is entirely her own in ftvpod. in a way, this reads like a hozier song—haunting gospel, tender folklore, and understated sensuality. spring has come, and it's because viv has brought it in with ftvpod.
to love and to pound by @pochaccoups
There’s something different about Seungcheol since he got you pregnant.
char's work is never short of genius, but this particular piece strikes a balance between intimacy and smut that you are unlikely to find elsewhere. the time spent exploring the physicality of the couple—while also touching on sentiments that just feel so inherently seungcheol—really reminds you why she deserves to hold a username referencing pochaccoups. it bears repeating: char is one of, if not the, best writers you will ever find if you're wanting to read about choi seungcheol.
jeonghan drabble by @seungcheorry
it started with a "love, can i borrow a towel? i forgot mine" the first time he slept at your place; you gave it to him, a silly smile on your lips when he stepped out of the bathroom with your towel around his neck.
there is romance in the mundane, and cherry reminds us of that every so often. her writing has proven to be love letters to the slow days and the stolen moments; this jeonghan drabble is among her best work. there's sentimentality in this piece that manages to weave jeonghan so seamlessly into the seemingly 'boring' humdrum of daily life—proving, once again, that love can be found somewhere between takeout and shampoo.
‘til god breaks this spell by @joshujin
joshua's devotion to you rivals his devotion to his god.
faith is tricky. faith ebbs like the tide; faith finds itself in the oddest of places. some might say faith exists in good writing such as that of trixie's. 'til god breaks this spell is a heart-wrenching exploration of the religions we grow up with, the convictions we grow out of, and the loves we grow around. this is the kind of story that heals something long since forgotten—so, thank you, trixie, for the absolution.
soul like me by @lovetaroandtaemin
You and Joshua have been friends for most of your life, and you thought that you always would be. Turns out, your feelings for each other are stronger than you thought, but love isn't always enough to keep a relationship strong.
to write humane characters in fiction is a feat that ally never seems to struggle with. soul like me bares intrinsic flaws that i'm sure we would all rather forget. it raises a mirror to the people we become when we are hurting and when we intend to hurt. it begs the question: is love the end all be all? the answer lies somewhere in the fic; as for real life, though, ally continues to chart love in all its forms through her writing.
worth it by @chugging-antiseptic-dye
“But I've left no room in my heart to turn back. So if we're wrong, let's be wrong together.”
give a an inch, and she'll take a mile. worth it is reminiscent of the impactful writing one might find from classics like fanfiction.net. to anticipate the ending does not soften the blow. there are no gut punches in this story. just the quiet beginning and end of it all, and the sting that stays in the heartbeats that follow. helpless, thy name is mine, because a is bound to continue with these deep cuts in her future work.
elevatory by @wqnwoos
You were once deeply and irrevocably in love with Kwon Soonyoung, and it’s incredibly hard to avoid that fact when he works literally two offices down from you. It’s even harder to avoid when you’re stuck in a broken elevator with him for hours, and he seems determined to dissect everything that went wrong three years ago.
hana treats soonyoung with a level of respect so rarely seen in fics where he is at the center. the inventiveness of this story is noteworthy, but i firmly believe it's the emotionality that really makes elevatory shine. anybody who has loved, lost, and gained is bound to find something here—whether it is closure, grace, or nostalgia. i, for one, found one of the brightest writers you might ever find on caratblr.
wings against the wind by @diamonddaze01
The tide pulls in. The stars burn on. Neither of you move.
every time i think tara has reached the pinnacle of her writing, she puts out another piece that shows otherwise. what makes wings against the wind a fic worth coming back to time and time again is the setting of it all. their summers could easily be mine, or yours; all of us were sixteen, and eighteen, and twenty-eight once. there is comfort in writing that reminds you that you are not alone in the grand scheme of things. tara is that extended hand, charting the friendship and romance that we lose to the sea.
on call by @kkaetnipjeon
you'd never sleep in an on-call room, but that doesn't mean you won't find other uses for it.
i feel like a broken record who has ranted and raved about mj's writing way too often, but with works like on call, how could i not? this is a stellar intersection of humor, intimacy, and romance, in a setting that is just so utterly apt for jeon wonwoo. i knew this way back when, but this fic has convinced me i'd read 50k words from mj. or her grocery lists, even, if she is ever so inclined. before i'm properly derailed by fangirling: reading on call is the best thing you could do for yourself today.
maestro's muse by @ppyopulii
It’s HYBEHAX’s 10th year anniversary, and as the hackathon’s newest Design Team Lead, you are determined to make this year its best year yet.
jay's maestro's muse is an ongoing series that i can imagine jihoon being proud of. reinventing the form is a challenge few truly succeed at; jay does it, and will undoubtedly continue to do it. the world-building in this is simply lovely, and i'm among the dozens of people who await updates with bated breath.
chunhyangjeon redux by @shinysobi
If I had time, I would learn to love him in a softer way, perhaps, where my hands are bloodied and bruised from trying to hold on too hard.
as someone who has never been particularly well-versed in historical plots, i was pleasantly surprised to thoroughly enjoy chunhyangjeon redux. it might be easy to say that i come from a place of bias—i know how much work ro put into this piece, from ideation to eventual execution. that would be a disservice to the plain and simple fact that this fic is a brilliant period piece with a strong voice and immense soul.
neurosurgeon wonwoo x reader x neurologist jihoon by @thepixelelf
"He's frozen," you tell Jihoon, eyes set on the operating table and the man at the head of it.
there is no fic i think of as often as this. there's one line here—the ending one, specifically—that has quite literally impacted me so much that i continue to revisit this piece half a year (!) after i first found out. this is not an isolated incident; ursa seems to have a penchant for writing fics that truly stick with you. there's a tenderness to her characterizations that you simply can't replicate, which makes much of her masterlist timeless.
wasteland, baby! by @gotta-winwin
they say love can cure infection.
serena, harbinger of heartbreak, was kind enough to preempt me that this fic would rip my heart out of my chest. that did not make things any easier. wasteland, baby! reads like sand in an hourglass. there's a sense of dread that follows you throughout, but it goes hand in hand with hope. it's that heady cocktail of emotion that should convince you serena is worth reading until the end of the world.
golden promises by @diamonddaze01
And so it began. Minghao, who believed in fate, and you, who didn’t.
golden promises is more than just a crash and burn in slow motion. it's the final notes of your favorite song; it's the quiet beginning and end of it all. if you were to look up 'ache' in the dictionary, this fic would be an apt redirection exemplifying the word. while fate is bastardized in this story, it finds a home somewhere else. perhaps in the reminder that tara is fated to write, because golden promises is a fic that demands to be read.
glimpse of us by @gyubakeries
it's all wrong. when mingyu wakes up, a white ceiling presses down on him, the scent of oranges suffocates him, and skin that is brushing against his isn't warm.
you would expect tragedy to shape the form of a fic entitled glimpse of us, but tiya pulls the rug underneath your feet. this fic has a glaring amount of hope despite its heavy angst tag, and i do believe only a write like tiya could strike that balance without it feeling heavy-handed. narrative switches add to the emotional tug-of-war in this piece; redemption is earned, not simply granted. if this is your first glimpse into tiya's work, i urge you to look at the whole picture—it's a gallery worth visiting.
the subtle art of stirring the pot by @miniseokminnies
The kitchen at Quartz and Serenity in New York City runs like a well oiled machine. Then comes Lee Seokmin, the new sous chef, breezing in with a carefree attitude that disrupts your routine. All you've known for the last few years is studying, sleeping, and this kitchen. You try your best to work with the new addition to the chaos but what happens when the pot gets stirred?
if we're talking about the art of something, then let this be the art of writing lee seokmin. bennie nails the buildup and dynamic necessary to execute the tropes in this fic, and it can only come from a place of somebody who knows how to write seokmin. the tension crackles like a livewire in this body of work; much of bennie's writing, i believe, comes to life—whether in a kitchen, a record store, or during a game of chess.
something in the orange by @heartepub
remembrance is also reconstruction. reconstruction presupposes loss. a meditation on memory, narrative, and grief. and, of course, love.
it would be a lie to claim something in the orange as anything less than my favorite piece of k-pop fanfiction, bar none. this is the kind of story that you think of years down the line, even after you've left a fandom. i don't doubt i will. in sito, viv weaves a pulitzer-worthy story that simply cannot be boxed into the genre of 'apocalypse au'. this is grief. this is memory. this is what it means to be human, captured in 5k words featuring boo seungkwan. i will scream it from the rooftops, i will reconstruct to hell and back—sito is an absolute headliner.
it gets easier by @mercif4l
fingers off the unblock button or you're gonna regret it, girl.
rowan has a writing voice that is so utterly distinct, i could scroll through the vernon x reader tag for hours and find nothing like this. there is catharsis in hurt/no comfort, especially when done well. it gets easier gives you room to wallow, but it also reminds you of necessary evils that await on the other side of self-flagellation.
hello, darling by @sailorsoons
Vernon has been one of your best friends for years. Shy, quiet and calm, he’s always been a steady rock for you. He has no idea you’re in love with him, but that’s neither here nor there. After a strange series of events on Halloween night, Vernon seems a little… different, and the new version of him both terrifies and thrills you.
nobody is writing about svt like hali is. her body of work is an outstanding masterlist of alternate universes, spanning genres that touch on the human condition in ways that will leave you breathless. hello, darling is a prime example. the supernatural and thriller aspects of the fic unfold like a jordan peele plot—deliciously tense, intentionally vague, and loaded with suspense.
here, there, and everywhere by @chanranghaeys
This journal belongs to: me. If found, please contact this number. (And please do not read it—unless you want to read the ramblings of a person who fails to deny their feelings for a certain someone.)
here, there, and everywhere is an unashamed love letter to lee chan, from somebody who undoubtedly cares for him. like the song goes, hani knows that love is to share—and there is just so much of it in this fic. in between expressions of devotion and charting of affection through the years, here, there, and everywhere brings us to the very core of what it means to have a bias. overall, a beautiful ode to the man underneath the myth/legend.
not so loud by @daechwitatamic
You've been in love with Lee Chan for almost two years, despite his rejection seven months ago. When you're impossibly coupled up on a friendcation, you're determined not to make it everyone else's problem. Of course, you weren't expecting to have to room with him, and you certainly weren't expecting only one bed…
not so loud is a masterclass in friends to lovers. jo gives all her characters a level of autonomy that makes this fic a living, breathing thing. i remember sending this to four different people the first time i finished it, with a semi-crazed message of you have to read this. that still stands. this piece is gorgeous, not only in how it progresses the relationship, but also in how it resolves it conflicts and brings each scene to life.
MORE & MORE & MORE!
joshujin's we can be all we need (soonyoung)
100vern's while he's gone (soonyoung & vernon)
mylovesstuffs' a song for the ones who leave (vernon)
svtiddiess' the fae in my heart (minghao)
shinwonderful's freedom of choice
vampsol's a cut to remember (vernon)
vampsol's not a bad thing (vernon)
ppyopulii's hoshi + work song by hozier
etherealyoungk's ramen & fate (seungkwan)
shuacore's warm glow (joshua)
miniseokminnies' the boy who lives on the moon (jun)
