A quiet apartment. A familiar routine. Two mugs that always stay in rotation. And then, one morning, there are three.
What starts as a small, domestic wrongness curdles into something sharper; missing time, unease you can’t name, a woman who vanishes without explanation. The closer you look, the less you recognize your own life… and the more you start to wonder if the person you love is hiding something monstrous.
Seungmin swears that you’re safe.
But safety, you learn, can be manufactured.
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notes: this was orginally supposed to be 5k words longer but unfortunately, tumblr has a stupid limit, so i've tacked it onto the next (and final) episode.
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“Who was here last night?”
The words come out steadier than you feel.
Seungmin’s hands pause in his hair.
Water beads on his shoulders, sliding down the lines of his chest. He’s still toweling off, dripping faintly onto the floor, and the normalness of that makes your stomach turn.
He blinks at you. Once. Twice.
“What?” he says, genuinely confused.
You don’t move. You don’t look away.
“Who,” you repeat, slower this time, “was here last night.”
A beat passes.
Then his brows knit.
“No one was here,” he says.
Your mouth goes dry. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t do that,” you snap before you can soften it. “Don’t act like I’m insane for asking.”
Seungmin’s expression shifts at that—his confusion pinching into something careful. He lowers the towel a little, still holding it with both hands, knuckles whitening around the fabric.
“I’m not acting like anything,” he says quietly. “I’m asking why you’re asking.”
You feel your pulse in your throat. You gesture toward the kitchen without looking away from him, because if you look away you might unravel.
“The mug.”
His eyes flick, briefly, in the direction you indicate.
Just one glance.
But you catch it—the way his gaze sharpens for half a second, as if he’s already picturing exactly what you mean.
Then he looks back at you and his face smooths again, controlled.
“The mug?” he repeats, like he’s buying time. Like he’s measuring.
“Yes,” you say, forcing the word out through your teeth. “The third mug.”
Seungmin’s gaze holds yours for a beat then he exhales softly and starts walking toward the kitchen like this is the most reasonable conversation in the world. Like you didn’t just ask a question that made your entire body go cold.
“Okay,” he says, calm. “Come on. Lets go”
You follow him because your legs move even when your brain feels like it’s full of bees.
He pads down the hallway barefoot, towel still in his hands, damp footprints blooming faintly on the hardwood behind him. It’s absurd—him half-naked and fresh from the shower, you in a robe—and the absurdity only makes your stomach twist harder. Like reality is refusing to take you seriously.
In the kitchen, the morning looks too bright. Too normal. Sunlight on the counter. The coffee stuff still out where you left it. The drying rack beside the sink.
Three mugs.
Seungmin stops in front of it and turns to you.
“Show me,” he says.
You don’t like how gentle he’s being. It makes you feel childish. It makes you feel like you’re about to be corrected.
You step forward anyway, fingers tight around the robe belt, and point.
“That one,” you say. “That mug.”
He reaches out and picks it up. Turns it slowly, thumb tracing the rim like he’s checking for cracks. The towel hangs loose from his other hand, forgotten. He brings the mug closer, squints at the edge in the light.
It feels like watching someone examine a weapon and call it a spoon.
Your chest burns. “There’s lipstick on it.”
Seungmin pauses.
The mug is frozen in his hands for half a beat too long.
Then his eyes flick to yours—quick, assessing—and he looks back down at the rim.
He rotates the mug again, slow, and you see it from where you stand: the faint smear, the one you couldn’t stop staring at. It’s small, almost nothing. But it’s there, and it isn’t yours, and your skin crawls with the certainty of it.
Seungmin exhales through his nose.
“Okay,” he says again, like the word is a blanket he keeps trying to lay over a fire. “Yeah. I see it.”
You blink. “So?”
“So… it’s a stain,” he says, voice still even.
“It’s lipstick stain,” you correct sharply. “On a mug we don’t use.”
He looks at you for a moment, and something in his expression shifts—still calm, but more careful now.
“You know how many times those mugs have been used?” he asks.
Your jaw tightens. “That’s not—”
“Just answer,” he says, soft but firm.
You swallow, annoyed despite yourself. “I don’t know. A few.”
He nods, like you’ve proved his point. “Right. A few.” He gestures with the mug toward the cabinet. “Your friends. My friends. That time your cousin slept over and she left her lipstick prints on half the glasses in the house.”
Your stomach flips at the memory—half because it’s true, half because you hate how easily he can summon normal explanations.
“That was months ago,” you say.
“Okay,” he repeats, still maddeningly calm. “And? We probably just missed this stain when we were cleaning up. Things don’t—” He stops himself, resets. “You’re making a leap.”
You stare at him. “Then why is it washed?”
His gaze sharpens. Just slightly.
He glances at the sink, then at the rack again, then back to you. Like he’s replaying the steps in his head.
“I rinsed it,” he says. “Last night.”
Your stomach drops.
“Last night,” you echo.
“Mm.” He sets the mug in the sink and turns on the faucet. Water rushes. He holds the rim under it, rubbing at the stain with his thumb in a small, absent motion.
“When?” you ask, voice tight. “When did you ‘rinse it’?”
He doesn’t look up. “Late.”
“How late?”
“Why?” he asks, still calm, but there’s a thread of something underneath now. Fatigue. Frustration. Something restrained.
“Because I want to know,” you say, and your voice shakes on the last word, which makes you furious. “Because you’re standing here telling me no one was here, and there’s lipstick on a mug we don’t use, and I don’t remember half of last night, and—”
He lifts his gaze then.
“You didn’t remember telling me about the get-together either,” he says quietly.
The air goes cold in your lungs.
“That’s not—” you start.
“It is,” he says, gentle but unmovable. “It’s part of it.”
You feel your face heat. Shame crawls up your neck like a hand.
He turns the water off and sets the mug down again. Then he leans against the counter, towel in hand, his wet hair dripping onto his shoulders. He looks too normal to be the villain your brain is trying to paint.
“I woke up,” he says, low. “You were asleep. I couldn’t sleep, so I got water.”
Your mouth is dry. “Why couldn’t you sleep?”
He hesitates, just barely. Then he answers like it’s obvious.
“Because you scared me yesterday,” he says.
Your throat tightens.
“You didn’t wake up,” he continues, softer now. “I told you that. It freaked me out. So… yeah, I checked on you. More than once.”
His voice stays careful, but you can hear something real in it. Something that makes your anger wobble.
“And the mugs?” you press, because you can’t let go yet.
He exhales, like he’s running out of patience for the object in question.
“Our mugs were in the sink,” he says. “I didn’t want to clank around in the kitchen washing them at—” He glances toward the clock. “—at stupid o’clock, when you were finally sleeping.”
You swallow, forcing the next question out. “So you used the guest mug.”
“Yes.”
“And then you rinsed it.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t notice the lipstick.”
He spreads one hand, helpless. “No.”
The calmness of him makes your skin itch.
You look at the mug again. At the smear that’s still faintly there, even after his thumb.
“It wasn’t there before,” you say, and you don’t know if that’s true. You only know it feels true.
Seungmin’s gaze flicks to your face, and for the first time his patience shows a hairline crack.
“Do you know that?” he asks.
The question lands like a trapdoor.
You open your mouth, ready to insist, ready to swear you’re not making it up—and then your brain does that maddening thing where it reaches for certainty and comes back with static. You can see the smear. You can feel the certainty in your bones.
But can you prove it wasn’t there before?
Can you replay the moment you last saw that mug clean?
Your silence stretches.
Seungmin watches it happen.
He exhales softly and pushes off the counter. Water has dried in pale tracks on his skin. His hair is still wet, dripping onto his shoulders. He looks like he wants to scoop you up and put you back where you were five minutes ago, safe and cozy in bed, before your fear found something to latch onto.
He steps closer and gently reaches for your wrist again.
“Hey,” he says quietly. “Look at me.”
You do, because you always do.
His gaze is warm—too warm for how cold you feel inside. He lifts your hand and presses his mouth to your knuckles, a soft, grounding kiss that makes your chest ache.
“I’m not saying you’re lying,” he says. “I’m not saying you’re making things up to be dramatic. I’m saying… you’ve been having a hard time lately.”
Your throat tightens. He reads the expression clean off your face.
“Baby.” His thumb strokes your wrist, slow. “You know I’m not judging you.”
You hate how easily the word baby knocks the air out of your fight. You hate that you want to lean into his steadiness like it’s a wall.
“I’m fine,” you try.
Seungmin’s brows lift just a fraction.
“No,” he says gently. “You’re coping. There’s a difference.”
He keeps your wrist and guides you toward the kitchen chair he’s done it before—during panic spirals, during bad nights, during days where your thoughts feel too loud. You let him, because arguing takes energy you don’t have.
You sit.
He crouches in front of you again, towel still slung around his neck, hands warm on your knees. The angle makes him look smaller, less threatening, more… devoted.
“You’ve been more anxious,” he says softly. “Your sleep’s been weird. Your memory gaps have been worse.”
“I don’t—” you start, but the denial sticks in your mouth.
Because it’s true.
You’ve been losing time in tiny ways. Forgetting if you answered texts. Forgetting if you ate. Forgetting what you walked into a room for. Forgetting conversations that should be easy to hold onto.
And it’s humiliating.
Seungmin watches your face crumple and immediately softens further, as if he can feel your shame and wants to take it off you like a too-tight coat.
“It’s not your fault,” he says. “I know you’re trying.”
The gentleness makes your eyes sting.
“I don’t want to be like this,” you whisper, because the words slip out before you can stop them.
“I know.” He squeezes your knees lightly. “And you don’t have to do it alone.”
He pauses, and you feel it—the moment where he decides what to say next. The moment where he chooses the most reasonable-sounding path.
“Maybe we should talk to your doctor,” he says, careful, calm. “Just… check in. Tell them what’s been happening.”
You stare at him. “Why?”
“Because it’s been getting bad, pup.” He says it like it’s obvious, like it’s the simplest explanation in the world. “The anxiety. The paranoia. The memory stuff. You’re spiraling over a mug right now.”
The word paranoia pricks at you, sharp and hot. It feels like being labeled.
“I’m not—” you start, defensive.
Seungmin shakes his head immediately, gentle but firm. “I’m not saying you’re crazy. I’m saying your symptoms are flaring.”
He lifts one hand to your jaw and cups it, turning your face toward him fully so you can’t hide from the way he’s looking at you.
Loving. Steady. Like you’re precious even when you’re difficult.
“Do you want to feel like this?” he asks quietly.
You swallow. “No.”
“Then let’s get ahead of it,” he says. “We can call today. Or I’ll go with you this week. Whatever you want.”
A part of you wants to argue out of pure pride—wants to insist you can handle it, that you’re not slipping, that you’re not becoming someone who needs supervision.
But another part of you—tired and raw and scared—wants relief. Wants someone else to hold the map.
Seungmin seems to sense the wobble. He leans forward and presses his forehead to your knee, breathing out like he’s easing tension out of both of you at once.
“I hate seeing you scared,” he murmurs. “I hate that it’s been happening more.”
Your fingers twitch, then settle on his damp hair. You stroke once, then again. Habit. Comfort.
The motion steadies your breathing in tiny increments. It gives your hands something to do besides shake.
Seungmin stays there for a second, forehead pressed to you.
“I’m sorry,” you whisper, and it comes out so small it barely feels like a sentence.
“It’s okay.”
“No.” You swallow hard, forcing it out properly this time. “I mean it. I’m sorry. I—” Your throat tightens. “I accused you. I went through your things like you were…”
Something flickers behind his eyes—hurt, maybe, but he smooths it down so fast you almost miss it. He reaches up and cups the side of your face, thumb brushing under your eye like he’s trying to catch the tear before it falls.
“Hey,” he murmurs. “You were scared.”
“That’s not an excuse,” you say, voice cracking. “It’s humiliating. I hate that I can’t even trust myself.”
Seungmin’s gaze softens, and he leans in, pressing a kiss to your forehead. Then another to your temple. Slow, patient, like he’s teaching your body to calm down again.
“You can trust yourself,” he says quietly. “You just… can’t trust the way your brain reacts when it gets loud.”
You laugh once, sharp and miserable. “Wow. That’s so comforting.”
“I’m being serious.” He shifts closer, still crouched, and slides his hands up from your knees to your thighs, holding you there as if to keep you from floating away. “You’ve been under so much stress. You’re exhausted. Your meds knock you out and then you wake up disoriented. That’s a perfect recipe for your anxiety to start telling you stories.”
The word stories makes your stomach twist.
You glance toward the drying rack. The third mug sits there innocently now, spotless, like it never mattered. Like it never lit you on fire.
“I don’t want to do this to you,” you whisper.
His mouth tightens. “Do what?”
“Make you deal with me,” you say, and you hate yourself for it the second it comes out. “Make you… babysit my brain.”
Seungmin’s expression changes—something firmer stepping in. Protective.
“Stop it,” he says.
You blink at him.
“I’m not babysitting you,” he says, voice low. “I’m your boyfriend. I love you. This is part of it.”
Your eyes sting again, stubborn tears gathering.
“I just—” You inhale shakily. “I saw it and my brain… went.”
“I know.” He nods once. “And I’m not mad. I’m not. I just…” He exhales, glancing down for a moment, then back up. “I need you to tell me when it starts. Before it turns into you ripping through drawers at eight in the morning.”
Your cheeks burn.
“I’m sorry,” you repeat, softer. “I really am.”
Seungmin’s shoulders drop with something that looks like relief. He stands, finally, and pulls you up with him without asking—gentle, careful—until you’re on your feet and he’s right in front of you.
He wraps his arms around you.
You melt into him on instinct, face pressing into his damp shoulder, breathing him in. Soap. Steam. Him.
His hand rubs slow circles on your back.
“I’m okay,” you whisper, mostly to convince yourself.
“I know,” he says, and it’s said like a promise. “But we’re still calling your doctor.”
You pull back just enough to look at him. “Seungmin…”
He lifts a brow, gentle but unmovable. “Baby.”
You groan weakly, because he knows exactly what that word does to you. It makes you soften. It makes you tired of fighting.
“I don’t want to increase my dosage,” you admit, the truth bitter on your tongue. “It makes me sleep too hard. It makes everything… foggy.”
“I know.” He cups your face with both hands, thumbs brushing your cheeks. “I just want you to feel better. I want you to feel safe in your own head.”
The phrase lands so softly it almost feels kind.
You nod, because what else can you do when someone is offering you a rope and you’re tired of drowning?
“Okay,” you whisper.
His mouth curves—small, relieved. He kisses you once, quick and sweet, then rests his forehead against yours.
“Good,” he murmurs. “Thank you.”
You blink. “For what?”
“For trusting me,” he says simply, leaning in to kiss you again. "For loving me and letting me love you."
The second kiss is slower than the first—less like reassurance, more like something he’s savoring on purpose. His hands stay on your face, thumbs warm against your cheeks, and you feel him breathe out against your mouth.
You close your eyes and let yourself melt.
His lips move with quiet patience, coaxing the last sharp edges out of you. The kind of kiss that says I’m here, I’m here, I’m here until your body starts to believe it.
You make a small sound without thinking, and his mouth curves—barely—against yours.
His fingers slide into your hair, cradling the back of your head, and for a moment it feels like you’re standing in a pocket of quiet that the rest of the world can’t reach.
Then his towel shifts.
You feel it against your hips—how low it’s sitting, how precarious—and you open your eyes to find him watching you with the faintest hint of amusement, like he knows exactly what you just noticed.
“You’re literally only wearing a towel,” you say, voice a little hoarse.
He hums. “Observant.”
“You’re going to flash me,” you accuse, even though you’re not making any move to step away.
His mouth quirks. “I think you’ve seen me naked before.”
“That’s not the point,” you insist weakly.
He leans in and presses a kiss to the corner of your mouth, then your cheek, then your forehead—soft, deliberate little stamps, grounding you with each one. His arms slide around your waist, pulling you in until you can feel the damp heat of his skin through the robe.
You sigh without meaning to, forehead tipping toward his chest for a second, just… resting there.
He holds you like he’s grateful you let him.
Then he presses his lips to the top of your head and lingers.
“Okay,” he murmurs, more to himself than to you. “I have to get dressed.”
You don’t move. You just tilt your head back and look at him, silently bargaining: one more minute.
Seungmin exhales, eyes flicking over your face, and something tender and slightly wrecked passes through him.
“One more,” he concedes.
He kisses you again—deep, unhurried—until your knees feel a little weak and your thoughts go pleasantly quiet. When he pulls back this time, he rests his forehead against yours like he’s forcing himself to let go.
“I’ll be fast,” he says.
Your lips quirk despite yourself. "I've heard that one before."
He snorts, giving you one last kiss.
"I'll take my coffee black." He murmurs against your mouth.
You let out a quiet laugh, more breath than sound. “Yeah.”
His fingers squeeze your waist once, like he’s memorizing the shape of you again, then he finally steps back. The towel sits low on his hips; he adjusts it with a quick tug and disappears down the hall to get dressed, footsteps soft, familiar. The apartment settles into silence—no shower now, no voice, just the low hum of the fridge and the distant traffic outside.
You turn back to the kitchen, start the coffee on autopilot. Mug. Filter. Grounds. Water. Everything where it should be.
Your gaze flicks to the drying rack.
Two mugs you recognize. One guest mug, spotless.
Clean enough to pretend it never mattered.
And still—when you blink, you can almost see the faint smear that started all of this, hovering like an afterimage on the rim.
Your phone rings while you’re still standing in the kitchen, about an hour after Seungmin leaves for work, coffee smell hanging in the air.
You glance at the screen.
It’s your overly-drunk friend from last night.
You hesitate—just long enough for it to buzz a second time—then answer.
“Hello?”
“Oh my god,” your friend blurts, voice hoarse with hangover and regret. “Okay—hi. I’m so sorry. Like, so sorry.”
You blink, thrown by the urgency. “For what?”
“For last night,” she groans. “For my mouth. For the fact that I have no self-control when I’m three drinks in. I woke up and I was and realized that I am such a bad person.”
A small laugh slips out of you, automatic. “You’re not a bad person.”
“I am,” she insists. “I said disgusting things. I implied your boyfriend was—” She makes a gag noise into the phone. “I can’t even say it again. I’m sorry. I swear I wasn’t trying to get in your head, I was just… drunk and stupid.”
You lean your hip against the counter, eyes flicking once to the drying rack without meaning to. Three mugs. The third one sitting there like a question you keep reopening.
“It’s fine,” you say, a little too fast. “Seriously.”
“No, it’s not.” She huffs. “You went quiet and I thought I'd ruined her relationship. And I love Seungmin. He’s literally the only man you’ve ever dated who doesn’t give me full-body stress.”
That earns you a real smile, brief and soft. “He gives me stress, sometimes.”
“Not like that.” She sighs. “I just… I need you to know I wasn’t trying to plant anything. You’re happy. I’m happy you’re happy. And I’m sorry.”
You swallow, feeling that tender-raw guilt bloom in your chest again. “Okay.”
There’s a pause, then she adds, quieter, “Are you mad at me?”
“No,” you promise. “I’m not mad.”
“Okay.” She exhales like she’s been holding her breath. Then—because she can’t help herself—she backtracks into a softer, almost sheepish tone. “Also, honestly, I should’ve realized it was fine anyway.”
You frown. “What do you mean?”
“Like… the whole coworker thing,” she says, as if she’s talking about the weather. “You were literally on good terms with her.”
Your stomach gives a small, sharp dip.
“What?”
“The coworker,” she clarifies. “Seungmin’s ‘enemy.’”
Your fingers tighten around your phone. “I wasn’t—”
“Yes you were,” she says, laughing once, like it’s obvious. “You went over and talked to her.”
Your mouth goes dry.
She keeps going, unaware she’s just slid a blade between your ribs.
“And then you left with her.”
The kitchen goes too bright. Too quiet. The hum of the fridge suddenly loud as breathing.
“I… did?” you manage.
“Yeah,” she says. “I mean, unless my drunk brain made it up. But I’m pretty sure I watched it happen. You were smiling and everything.”
Smiling.
You try—immediately—to summon the memory. The scene. Her face up close. Your own voice. A sentence, anything.
Nothing answers.
Just a blank stretch where last night should be.
“Oh.” You let out a small laugh that does not sound like you. You force another one on top of it. “Right. Yeah. I remember.”
Your friend relaxes audibly, relieved you’re not upset.
“See?” she says. “So I was being dramatic. You were literally being mature. I should’ve clocked that you were fine. You even looked… kind of friendly? Like you two were having a normal conversation.”
“Totally,” you say, voice careful, like you’re walking across thin ice.
“And then when we were leaving, you were like, ‘I’ll catch up with you guys,’ and I was like, okay, miss independent,” she laughs. “And then you just… went.”
Your throat tightens. “Went where?”
“I don’t know,” she admits. “You left with her. Toward the front. Like you were heading out.”
The words keep landing and you keep nodding, as if agreement can make them true.
Your friend adds, softer, “Are you okay? You sound… weird.”
You swallow hard, steadying your voice with effort. “I’m fine. I just—hangover brain. I don’t remember some parts.”
“Okay, yeah,” she says immediately. “That’s fair. We were drinking. You were tired. Honestly you were acting normal, though. That’s why I didn’t think anything of it.”
Normal.
“Do you remember what I said?” you ask, trying for casual. “Before I went over?”
A pause. You can practically hear her squinting through the memory.
“You said something like… ‘I should talk to her,’” she says slowly. “Like you wanted to clear the air.”
You make a sound that’s supposed to be a laugh.
“Mhm,” you say.
“I’m sorry,” she says again, suddenly earnest. “If I made things worse.”
You blink hard. “You didn’t.”
“Okay.” She exhales. “Okay. Good. I just needed to say it. I felt horrible.”
“It’s fine,” you repeat, because you don’t know what else to say without giving yourself away. Without revealing that you have no idea what she’s talking about and you’re terrified that you should.
Your friend’s tone brightens a little, trying to glue the conversation back together. “We should do brunch sometime so I can apologize in person. I’ll buy. I’ll grovel.”
“Yeah,” you hear yourself say. “Sure.”
She chats a little longer and you make the right noises at the right moments, even though your brain has stopped processing anything except one looping sentence.
You left with her.
When you finally hang up, the phone feels heavy in your hand.
The apartment is still quiet. Seungmin is gone. The air smells like coffee and soap and something faintly metallic you can’t name.
You stare at the drying rack again.
Three mugs.
And for the first time since waking up, a thin, hopeful relief slips into your chest like it’s been waiting for permission.
Because if you left with her…
If you talked to her…
Then maybe she came here.
Maybe that’s why the guest mug was out.
Maybe that’s all it was—something stupid, something normal you just can’t remember.
You let yourself breathe.
Just once.
And then the thought follows immediately after, soft as a knife sliding free:
Seungmin was home all night.
That’s what he said. That’s what he insisted. That’s what he wrapped around you with that same careful voice he uses when he’s trying to keep you steady—I couldn’t sleep, so I got water. I checked on you. You were finally sleeping.
And maybe that’s true. Maybe it’s all true. Maybe the guest mug is nothing more than a guest mug and the lipstick smear is nothing more than a stain that survived an old rinse and your own brain did what it always does when it’s tired: latched.
But then there’s your friend’s voice, bright and casual in your ear.
You left with her.
If you left with her, if you talked to her, if you brought her here—because your apartment is close, because the bar is close, because it makes a clean kind of sense—then Seungmin would’ve known.
He would’ve heard the door. He would’ve heard the voices. He would’ve come out of the bedroom with that mildly annoyed face he gets when you’re being overly social in his space, even if he’s polite about it. He would’ve said something. He would’ve offered water. He would’ve complained afterward about having to be “on” in his own home.
Seungmin doesn’t miss things. Seungmin notices everything.
You stand very still, as if the floor might tilt if you move too quickly. The apartment hums around you—fridge, distant traffic, the faint tick of the clock—ordinary sounds that should make you feel safe and instead feel like they’re happening behind glass.
Okay, you tell yourself. Okay. There are explanations.
Maybe Seungmin wasn’t actually home. Maybe he stepped out. Maybe he went downstairs. Maybe he fell asleep so hard he didn’t hear you. Maybe you didn’t even come here. Maybe your friend is wrong. Maybe your friend saw you walk away and her drunk brain filled in the rest, the way drunk brains do.
The relief you’d let in—thin and hopeful—hesitates, unsure of its footing.
You need something concrete. Something you can touch. Something that isn’t lipstick and intuition and a friend’s half-remembered timeline.
Your eyes flick toward the pill organizer like it’s a lighthouse.
Routine, you think. Do the routine. That’s what you do. You anchor yourself in the things that don’t change: water, breakfast, medication. You’ve done it enough times that your hands know the steps even when your head is loud.
You cross the kitchen and pick it up. The plastic is cool against your palm, lighter than it should feel for something you depend on so completely. You flip the lid open with your thumb.
Saturday.
Empty.
You blink once, slow. Like you’re giving your brain time to catch up.
Maybe you grabbed the wrong side. Maybe you’re looking at the wrong day. You tilt it in your hand, checking the printed letters like they might rearrange themselves into something less threatening.
S A T.
Empty.
A small fizz of panic climbs your ribs.
No. That—no. You didn’t take it yet. It’s morning. It’s still morning. You haven’t—your coffee isn’t even made.
Your fingers move without asking permission, flipping the lid for Sunday.
Empty.
Your throat tightens, dry all at once.
You flip Monday.
Empty.
The organizer feels suddenly heavier, like the plastic has filled with lead.
You stare. You count. You recount. You run your thumb along the compartments as if touch will make the pills reappear.
Saturday. Sunday. Monday. All empty.
Three days.
It’s Saturday.
You can feel your heartbeat in your fingertips. You can feel the edges of the room go too sharp, too bright.
Three pills missing means three lids opened. Three tiny clicks. Three chalky tastes. Three swallows with water.
You would remember that. You have to remember that.
Unless—
Your mind tries to jump to the familiar escape hatch—maybe I took extras by accident, maybe I miscounted earlier this week, maybe I’m looking at last week’s organizer, maybe I——but there’s no “last week” organizer. This is the only one you use. Seungmin fills them for you, at the end of each week, and that’s how you know for certain that those pills were there at the start of the week.
You set it down too hard. It clacks against the counter.
So when did this happen?
When did three days disappear?
You pick the organizer up again like you’re going to shake the truth loose from it. But it’s just plastic. It doesn’t care about your fear.
Your phone is already in your hand before you decide to call him.
You don’t want to. That’s the thing. You don’t want to be the kind of person who calls her boyfriend at work over missing pills. You don’t want to sound dramatic, unstable, needy. You don’t want to hand him another reason to look at you with that quiet worry like you’re something fragile he has to manage.
But your hands are shaking. And your stomach is a tight, sick knot. And you can’t sit with this alone.
You hit his name.
It rings once. Twice.
He answers on the third ring.
“Hey,” he says, voice warm and practical, like he’s stepping into the conversation already mid-routine. You can hear faint office noise behind him, muffled voices, the click of keys. “Everything okay?”
You try to speak and only air comes out at first.
“Yeah,” you say quickly, because lying is a reflex at this point. Then you swallow and try again, steadier. “No. I don’t know. I—I’m… something’s weird.”
There’s a soft pause, like he’s turning away from a desk, lowering his voice.
“Talk to me,” he says.
You close your eyes. Grip the edge of the counter. “My pills.”
“What about them?”
Your throat feels tight. “They’re missing.”
Another pause, smaller this time. “Missing?”
You look down at the organizer like it’s accusing you. “Saturday, Sunday, Monday. They’re empty.”
Silence.
Not the kind of silence that’s confused—more like a beat where he’s deciding what to say. It’s so brief you might be imagining it, but your body clocks it anyway, every nerve going alert.
Then he exhales softly, the sound almost fond, almost soothing.
“Okay,” he says, calm as a hand on your back. “Okay. That’s… that’s not the end of the world.”
Your eyes snap open. “It’s not?”
“No,” he says gently. “It’s not. You probably dropped them.”
“I—” You blink, thrown by how quickly he lands there. “Dropped them where?”
“Anywhere,” he says, like it’s obvious. “Counter. Sink. Floor. You’ve been moving around half-asleep lately, pup.”
You clutch the phone tighter. “Seungmin, three pills. That’s three days.”
“I know,” he says, still calm. Too calm. “And I’m not saying it’s nothing. I’m saying it makes sense. You’ve been scattered. You’ve been stressed. You’ve had those gaps. It happens.”
It happens.
The words make your stomach roll.
You swallow, trying to keep your voice from cracking. “But I haven’t even taken today’s yet. It’s morning. I would remember opening three compartments.”
“Mhm.” His hum is soft, patient. “You would remember if you were fully awake.”
A chill slides down your spine.
You stare at the organizer again. At the three empty slots. At the certainty of plastic and printed letters. The room feels like it’s leaning in to listen.
“I feel like I’m losing it,” you whisper before you can stop yourself.
“You’re not losing it,” Seungmin says immediately, gentle and sure. “You’re just… not feeling stable. Which is why we need to be proactive, okay?”
Proactive.
You blink. “What do you mean?”
There’s a slight shift on the line—paper rustling, a chair moving, his voice lowering even more.
“I talked to your doctor,” he says.
The sentence hits your chest like a weight.
“You—what?” you manage.
“I called on my way to work,” he says. “I told them what’s been going on. The memory stuff. The anxiety. The sleep. They agreed we should adjust.”
Your mouth goes dry. “You… called without me?”
“I know you said you didn’t want to,” he says quickly, still soft. Still careful. “I just asked questions. I told them I was worried. And they want to increase your dosage.”
Your pulse stutters. “Increase.”
“Just slightly,” he says, soothing. “It’s going to help. And—” he adds, like he’s offering you relief, “it doesn’t really matter that the pills are missing. I’m picking up the new prescription later today.”
You stare at the phone like it might explain itself.
A strange emptiness opens in your chest.
“I didn’t… I didn’t want you to call,” you say quietly.
“I know,” he says, and his voice goes even gentler, which somehow makes it worse. “But you’ve been having a hard time. And you keep saying you don’t want to feel like this. I’m trying to help.”
Help.
You look at the pill organizer again and try to make the pieces arrange themselves into something less frightening. Seungmin being thoughtful. Seungmin being responsible. Seungmin stepping in when you’re overwhelmed. It’s what partners do.
And yet the way his calmness wraps around your panic feels… too efficient. Like he already has a plan. Like this phone call is just you catching up to it.
You swallow, voice smaller. “So I just… don’t take anything today?”
“I don’t want you taking random doses,” he says, firm but still loving. “Just wait. I’ll bring the new ones. We’ll talk. Okay?”
“Okay,” you say, because you don’t know what else to say.
“Good,” he murmurs, relief threading his tone like he’s soothed by your compliance. “And hey—try to eat something. Drink water. I’ll text you when I’m leaving work early to pick them up.”
“Leaving early?” you echo, startled.
“Yeah,” he says easily. “It’s fine. I’ll make it work.”
The kindness in it lands strangely, like a blanket laid over a bruise.
“Okay,” you repeat.
He’s quiet for a beat, then adds, softer, “I love you.”
You close your eyes. Your throat aches.
“I love you too,” you whisper, because you do. You do, so much it scares you.
“Good,” he says again—almost the same cadence as before, a reassurance he’s giving himself as much as you. “I’ll see you later. Try not to spiral, alright?”
You manage a small breath that might be a laugh. “I’ll try.”
“I know you will,” he says warmly. “Bye, baby.”
“Bye.”
The call ends.
You stand there in the quiet kitchen, phone still pressed to your ear long after the line has gone dead, as if you can keep his steadiness with you if you hold the position.
Finally, you lower it.
The pill organizer sits on the counter like a small, open mouth.
Saturday. Sunday. Monday.
Empty.
Your gaze drifts to the drying rack again, to the third mug, clean now, harmless now, almost smug in its normalness. The apartment smells like coffee you still haven’t poured and soap that no longer feels comforting.
You tell yourself, again, that there are explanations.
Dropped pills. Stress. Sleep. A doctor call meant with love.
But as you close the organizer—one lid after another, click click click—your fingers hesitate over Saturday’s empty compartment, and you’re struck by the uncomfortable, quiet thought that you might be living inside someone else’s version of “proactive.”
That your life is being managed around the holes in your memory.
And that Seungmin is the last person to know what’s been done with them.
By the time the light outside turns the color of watered-down milk, the apartment feels like a coffin.
You’ve moved through it in slow, careful loops—kitchen to couch, couch to bathroom, bathroom back to kitchen—trying to keep your body busy enough that your mind doesn’t start picking at the same sore spot again. You’ve eaten a little. Drank water. Stared at the pill organizer until the numbers blurred. Turned the TV on for noise and then off again because the noise made it worse.
Every creak in the hallway outside your door has made you look up.
Every distant footstep has tightened something in your ribs.
So when the lock finally clicks, when the door opens and Seungmin steps inside like a familiar sentence, relief floods you so fast it’s almost dizzying.
“Hey,” he calls, toeing his shoes off with the kind of tired precision he always has after work. His hair is slightly messed up from running his hand through it, his tie loosened, his shoulders slumped in that particular way that says he’s been holding himself together in public all day and is done doing it now.
You’re off the couch before you realize you’ve moved.
“Hi,” you say, too bright, too relieved, and when you reach him he catches you automatically—arms around your waist, forehead brushing yours. His hands are warm through your shirt.
He kisses you, quick and familiar. “Missed me?”
“Obviously,” you mutter, and your voice softens on the word because it’s true. It’s stupidly true. You’ve missed him like a kid misses a nightlight.
He hums, satisfied, and squeezes you once before pulling back to look at your face. His eyes skim you the way they always do—subtle, habit. Are you okay. Are you fed. Are you shaky.
“Long day?” he asks.
“You have no idea,” you say, half joking.
His mouth quirks. “I do have an idea. I live with you.”
You swat his chest lightly, and he catches your wrist, kissing your knuckles like he did this morning. It should feel sweet. It does feel sweet. It also makes your skin prickle in a way you can’t name.
Behind you, the TV murmurs. Some anchor’s voice rising and falling in a steady cadence, the kind of practiced calm that makes everything sound solvable.
Seungmin glances past you toward the living room. “You had the news on all day?”
“Just… background,” You hate how silence makes your thoughts louder.
He nods, accepting. “Did you eat?”
“A little.”
His eyebrows lift in quiet disapproval. “Define ‘a little.’”
“Seungmin—”
“Baby.” The word lands like a button he presses when he wants you to settle. “Did you eat actual food or did you have three almonds and call it self-care?”
You roll your eyes, but you can’t stop the small smile. “I had actual food.”
“Good.” He kisses your forehead once, then finally steps away, shrugging off his jacket. He drapes it over the chair, then loosens his tie the rest of the way.
“I’m gonna wash my hands,” he says, already drifting toward the bathroom. “And I brought the new prescription—”
“Okay,” you say quickly, because you don’t want to talk about pills right now. You want to stay in this moment where he’s here and the air doesn’t feel so thin.
He disappears down the hall, the sound of the faucet starting a few seconds later. Running water. Normal. Domestic.
You sink back onto the couch, tucking your legs up under you. The TV light flickers across the room in soft, shifting bands. Your eyes follow it without thinking, mind easing into that lazy evening haze where you can pretend you’re just watching because it’s on.
A commercial ends.
The screen cuts to a new segment.
A clean, bright graphic slides in—LOCAL UPDATE—accompanied by that little sting of music that’s meant to make you pay attention without making you panic. The anchor’s tone shifts a degree, just enough to signal seriousness while keeping everything neatly contained.
Your eyes snag on the photo before your brain catches up.
Perfect eyeliner. Perfect hair. A smile that looks practiced, like it was meant for conference rooms and LinkedIn headshots and people who like being liked.
It’s her.
Seungmin’s coworker.
For a second, you don’t breathe. Your lungs forget the instruction, like the image on the TV stole the rhythm out of the room.
MISSING.
LAST SEEN: FRIDAY NIGHT.
A location tag you recognize. A time window that makes your skin go cold.
The anchor is talking, words stacking up in measured cadence—“authorities,” “public assistance,” “anyone with information”—and all you can hear underneath it is your friend’s voice from earlier, careless and certain.
You left with her.
The apartment tilts. Not physically, not really, but the sensation is there anyway, a subtle lurch inside your skull like a boat shifting under your feet.
You sit up so fast the throw blanket slides off your lap.
Your hand goes to your phone before you consciously decide to move. It’s automatic—muscle memory for emergencies. Call. Say something. Do the right thing. Fix it before it becomes something bigger than you can hold.
Your fingers shake as you unlock the screen. The hotline number is right there on the TV now, bold and blinking.
You dial.
9—
The faucet in the hall shuts off. Footsteps, damp and soft, pad toward the living room.
1—
Your thumb hovers.
Your heartbeat is so loud you can feel it in your teeth.
You can already picture it: a detective on the other end, patient voice, “When did you see her? What was she wearing? Who was she with?” You’d say, I think I was with her. You’d say, I don’t remember. You’d say, I’m sorry, I’m not sure— and then the words would stack into something ugly and incriminating and out of your control.
But you have to call. You have to. Because what if you were the last person to see her and you don’t say anything and then she—
A shadow falls across the edge of the couch.
“Hey.”
Seungmin’s voice is close, careful.
You look up.
He’s standing at the entrance to the living room, sleeves pushed up, hands still damp. His hair is slightly darker at the roots. He looks—normal. Tired. Yours. The same person who asked you about almonds and kissed your forehead like the world is simple.
His eyes flick to the TV.
To the photo.
To the word MISSING.
His face doesn’t do what you expect a face to do. There’s no startled widening, no instinctive “What the hell?” no confused frown.
He just stills.
It’s subtle, almost nothing—just a tightening through his shoulders, the smallest pause in his breathing, like a person hearing a song they already know is coming.
And then his gaze slides to you.
To your phone.
To your thumb hovering over the screen.
Something in him sharpens.
“Min,” you say, and your voice comes out thin, too high, your throat is narrowing around panic. “I—my friend called earlier and she said I left with her. I might have been the last person to—”
You try to hit the last digit.
Seungmin moves.
His hand closes over yours.
Warm palm over your knuckles. Gentle pressure. A steady stop.
The contact jolts through you more than the news did. Because it’s so intimate, so familiar—his hand over yours is something you know, something domestic and safe—and right now it feels like a lock clicking into place.
You stare at him, stunned. “What—”
“Don’t,” he says quietly.
The word lands soft, almost pleading, and it makes your stomach twist harder than if he’d yelled.
“Seungmin,” you whisper, pulling your hand instinctively. He doesn’t yank you back. He just doesn’t let go. “Why are you stopping me?”
His eyes hold yours, steady and intent.
“Because you’re upset,” he says, voice low and even. “And you’re already spiraling.”
“I’m not spiraling,” you insist, even as you feel your pulse banging behind your eyes. “I’m doing the right thing.”
On the TV, the anchor’s voice continues, steady as a metronome: “Police urge anyone who may have seen—” The sentence blurs into background noise, but the implication stays sharp as glass.
Seungmin’s grip tightens a fraction. Not painful. Just firmer, like he’s anchoring your hand to the present.
“Listen to me,” he murmurs.
You swallow. “No. You listen to me. This is—this is serious.”
“I know it’s serious,” he says, and something flickers behind his eyes—fatigue, restraint, a thin thread of fear he’s trying to keep buried. He takes a breath, deliberate. “But you don’t even know what you’re reporting.”
“I’m reporting that I might have been the last person to see her,” you snap, and then immediately regret the sharpness because it’s not him you’re angry at. It’s the blankness in your head. It’s the missing pieces. It’s the way your body keeps betraying your certainty.
Seungmin’s face softens in response, translating your panic into something he can manage.
“Baby,” he says, gentle as a hand on your cheek. “Your friend was drunk. You were tired. You already told me you don’t remember parts of last night.”
“That’s exactly why—”
“No,” he interrupts, still quiet. Still controlled. “That’s exactly why we slow down.”
You stare at him.
He’s standing too close now, blocking the hallway without meaning to—or maybe meaning to, you can’t tell. His hand still covers yours, and your phone feels trapped beneath both of you, caught between your impulse and his insistence.
On the screen, the coworker’s face shifts to grainy footage: a shadowed figure near a door, timestamped. The words beneath it crawl along in a caption bar: CALL IF YOU HAVE INFORMATION.
Your throat burns.
"Why aren't you surprised?" You ask.
The words come out smaller than you meant them to, almost swallowed by the room—the TV’s steady cadence, the faint whir of the heater, the way Seungmin’s hand still covers yours like it’s keeping you from doing something irreversible.
His gaze doesn’t flinch.
“I am,” he says first, gentle. Then, smoothly, before you can latch onto the gap between your fear and his calm, he adds, “I just… already knew.”
You blink. “You knew?”
He nods once, slow. “They announced it at work.”
The sentence settles into the space between you. It’s such a normal thing to say—such an easy, logical explanation—that your body responds before your mind does. Your shoulders loosen a fraction. Your breath comes a little easier.
At work. Of course. She works with him. Of course it would spread fast. Of course there would be whispers, emails, HR, people clustering around desks with their phones out, pretending to work while the story moves through the office like a current.
“Oh,” you whisper, and you hate how relieved you feel at the word. How quickly your brain grabs it like a railing. “Okay.”
Seungmin’s thumb strokes your knuckles once, a small, soothing motion. “Yeah.”
You swallow, eyes flicking back to the TV. Her face on the screen looks wrong now—too bright for the words beneath it. Missing. Last seen. Call if you have information. Your mind tries to make a clean line from point A to point B and keeps slipping into blank space halfway there.
Your phone is still in your hand, pinned under his palm. You can feel the heat of it through your skin, the quiet insistence of the call you didn’t make.
Seungmin watches you.
You take a breath. Then another.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” you ask, and it’s not an accusation so much as a bewildered little scrape of a question. “When you came in. You didn’t say anything.”
He answers without hesitation. “Because I didn’t want you to know when you’re like this.”
You blink. “Like what?”
“Like…” he hesitates, as if he’s choosing each word to be as harmless as possible. “I didn’t want you to spiral.”
There it is again—spiral— your fear has become a weather system he’s learned to predict.
You should feel comforted. Part of you does. It makes sense, in the simple way everything he says always makes sense: I’m protecting you from your own brain. It’s so easy to accept when you’re tired and scared.
You nod once, reflexive.
And then, just as quickly, something hooks in you.
Because your friend’s voice doesn’t go away. It sits behind your eyes, bright and careless and certain.
You left with her.
You feel your muscles tighten again, slow as a fist closing.
Seungmin’s hand is still on yours.
Your phone is still trapped beneath both of you.
“Okay,” you say. “Okay. So you knew. Fine.”
Seungmin’s brows knit slightly, a flicker of concern.
You keep going, because stopping feels worse.
“Where were you,” you hear yourself ask, “when I brought her home?”
The air changes.
Seungmin’s thumb stills on your knuckles.
“You didn’t bring her home,” he says gently.
Your throat tightens. “Yes I did.”
He gives you a look—soft, almost sad. “Baby.”
The word should soften you. It’s meant to. It lands like he’s trying to press a palm over your mouth and hush you back into compliance.
Tonight, it makes something in you flare.
“Don’t,” you say, sharper than you intended. The syllable scrapes. “Don’t baby me.”
Seungmin’s expression doesn’t crack, but his eyes sharpen a fraction, focus tightening like a lens.
“I’m not—”
“Yes, you are,” you cut in, and your voice wobbles only at the very end, betraying how hard you’re holding yourself together. “You do that when you want me to stop asking. You do that and you touch my hand and you talk like I’m a toddler about to have a tantrum.”
His jaw tightens. “That’s not fair.”
“What’s not fair,” you say, and now the words are coming faster, heat bleeding into them, “is you standing here like you’re so calm and rational and I’m just… having a moment, when there’s a woman missing on the TV and I was with her last night and I don’t remember anything.”
Seungmin’s hand is still over yours. Warm. Firm. Possessive in a way that suddenly feels like a boundary line.
You yank your hand free.
You do it with enough force that his fingers slip off your knuckles and your phone wobbles in your palm. The motion makes him inhale sharply through his nose—an instinctive flare of irritation he tries to swallow.
“I left with her,” you say, voice tight. “My friend saw it. She didn’t say ‘I think.’ She said she watched it happen.”
Seungmin’s gaze flicks to the TV again, then back to you. The anchor is still talking. The coworker’s photo still glows too bright.
“You don’t know what happened after you left,” he says, carefully.
“No,” you snap. “I don’t. That’s the point. That’s why I should call.”
“And I’m telling you not to,” he replies, and for the first time the calm in his voice comes with an edge.
You stare at him. “Why?”
He exhales. “Because if you call and you tell them ‘I might’ve been the last person to see her’ and then you can’t answer basic questions—where you went, what you said, what time you got home—you’re not helping. You’re making yourself a suspect.”
The word suspect lands heavy.
Your pulse jumps.
“That’s what you’re worried about?” you whisper. “Me looking bad?”
“I’m worried about you getting dragged into something you don’t understand because your memory is—” He stops himself, jaw flexing, then tries again, softer. “Because you’re not remembering. That’s not your fault. But it is reality.”
You feel your throat close around anger and fear.
“So you’re… protecting me,” you say, and the sarcasm tastes bitter. “From consequences.”
Seungmin’s eyes darken. “Yes.”
The answer is too immediate. Too simple.
It makes you take a half-step back without thinking.
“You’re acting,” you say, voice low, “like you already decided what’s best for me.”
He doesn’t move. He doesn’t follow. He stays exactly where he is—between you and the coffee table where your phone could become a call. Between you and the doorway. Between you and the TV’s blinking hotline number.
“I’m trying to keep you safe,” he says, and his tone is still gentle, but there’s steel under it now. The protective version of him, the one that doesn’t ask.
You laugh once, harsh and disbelieving. “From what?”
From yourself, your brain whispers, unhelpfully.
You swallow it down and keep your eyes on his face instead. You look for the Seungmin you know—the one who gets shy when you compliment him, the one who laughs into your neck, the one who lines up the pill organizer with the edge of the counter like the world makes sense when it’s straight.
What you see is someone who is choosing every word like it matters too much.
“What did they say at work?” you ask, and you try to sound casual, but the question comes out as a test. “Details,”
Seungmin’s brow creases. “What kind of details.”
“Like—” You gesture toward the TV, frustrated with yourself, with the blankness, with the fact that you’re trying to build a bridge across missing hours with splinters. “Like where she was last seen. Who she was with. If anyone… saw something.”
“They don’t know,” he says. “That’s why it’s on the news.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It is,” he says, and now his voice is a notch sharper. “They don’t know. They’re asking for tips. People are talking. That’s it.”
You stare at him.
Something crawls up your spine, slow and cold.
You make yourself ask the thing you don’t want to ask, because once it’s in your mouth you can’t swallow it back.
“Did you tell them you hate her?” you say.
Seungmin blinks. “What?”
“At work,” you press, and you hear the thinness in your own voice. You hate it. “Did you… make it obvious? Did you say anything that would make them think—”
His eyes flash. The first real crack.
“You’re doing it,” he says, and it’s not gentle anymore. It’s controlled anger, restrained so tightly it comes out quiet. “Again. You’re building a story.”
Your face burns. “I’m asking a question.”
“No,” he says, stepping forward once, enough to shrink the space again. “You’re accusing me.”
“You’re the one who hated her,” you shoot back. “You complained about her every day. You said she was—what did you call her? A corporate parasite? A smug bitch? You made it sound like she made your life miserable.”
“I vented,” he says tightly. “ To my girlfriend. Because she was annoying.”
“Yeah, and now she’s missing.”
"What, so you think I killed her?"
The question comes out like a punch he didn’t mean to throw—too loud for the small room, too sharp for the way he’s been trying to keep everything contained. It ricochets off the walls and lands between you like broken glass.
Seungmin’s chest rises fast. Once. Twice. His hands are clenched at his sides, fingers flexing like he doesn’t know what to do with them. The calm he’s been wearing all night slips and what’s underneath is raw—hurt, fury, something frantic.
You stare at him, stunned into stillness.
For a beat you can’t even form words. Your brain latches onto the one thing that’s objectively true, the one detail he just bulldozed right over.
“Killed?” you echo, voice cracking on the word.
Seungmin’s jaw tightens so hard you can see it in his cheek.
“I didn’t say—” you start, then stop, because your own thoughts are tripping over each other. You lift your phone like a flimsy shield. “I didn’t say anything about killing. They didn’t say she’s dead. She’s missing.”
The TV obligingly reinforces you—another loop of the same calm sentence, the same graphic, the same hotline number blinking patiently like it’s unaware your living room is on fire.
Seungmin doesn’t look at the TV.
He looks at you like you’ve betrayed him.
“Don’t do that,” he says, voice low and shaking at the edges.
“Don’t do what?” you snap back, startled into defensiveness. “Repeat the exact word you just used?”
His nostrils flare. He takes a step, then stops himself, as if he’s afraid of what he might do with the momentum.
“You know what I mean,” he says, and there’s a tremor of something ugly under the restraint. “Don’t twist it into semantics so you can pretend you didn’t imply it.”
“I didn’t imply it!” Your throat burns. “You’re the one who said it like it was the obvious conclusion.”
Seungmin laughs once—short, humorless. “Because that’s where your head is going.”
“No,” you say, and you feel your hands start to shake again, furious at your body for giving you away. “My head is going to—why are you acting like I’m crazy for wanting to call the police?”
“Because you don’t remember!” he snaps, and the volume finally breaks through his control. He catches himself immediately, lowers it, but the damage is done. “You don’t remember leaving. You don’t remember talking to her. You don’t remember coming home. And you want to call them and tell them you were the last person who saw her? Do you hear yourself?”
“I hear myself,” you spit. “I hear someone trying to do the responsible thing.”
“The responsible thing would take you away from me.” He seethes, then immediately stops himself, sucking in a sharp breath from between his teeth.
Your stomach drops. Before you can ask what he means, he just shakes his head and takes a step back.
“You’re looking at me like I’m a stranger,” Seungmin says, voice rough. “Like I’m… capable of something.”
The words soften on the last part, and it makes the anger in you hesitate—just a fraction. Because you love him. Because his face looks wrecked in a way that feels real.
But then the coworker’s smile flashes again on the TV and the world tightens back into a fist.
“You’re stopping me from calling,” you say, and your voice steadies on sheer stubbornness. “You’re standing between me and the phone like you’re scared of what I might say.”
Seungmin’s gaze flicks down—your phone, the coffee table, the hotline number—and then back to your face.
He exhales.
“I’m trying to keep you from making a mistake,” he says.
“No, you’re just trying to stay in control like you always are,” you fire back, the phrase slipping out before you can stop it, ugly and sharp and not something you’d ever say to him on an ordinary night.
Seungmin goes still.
The hurt finally shows, clean and bright.
“What?”
You swallow, heart hammering. “I said you’re controlling—everything. You always do this when I’m scared. You steer me. You calm me down. You tell me what’s real and what’s not, and—” Your voice breaks, frustration cutting through. “And maybe you’re right half the time, but right now it feels like you need me to not talk to anyone.”
His eyes narrow. “Because you’re not thinking straight.”
“Stop saying that,” you hiss. “Stop making this my brain, my meds, my symptoms, like that excuses—like that explains why you said killed before anyone else did.”
Seungmin’s throat bobs. His gaze flickers for half a second—somewhere behind you, toward the hall—and then snaps back.
“I said it because that’s what people say,” he answers too quickly.
You stare at him.
“No,” you whisper. “People say missing. People say last seen. You said killed like it was already done.”
His breath comes shallow now. He drags a hand through his hair, fingers tangling. For the first time since he walked in, he looks… messy. Unraveled.
“Do you think I did it?” he asks again, but this time it’s quieter.
Your stomach twists.
You don’t know what you think. You don’t. That’s the horror of it. Your love for him and your fear are wrestling in your chest, and the blankness in your memory keeps handing fear the advantage.
“I think—” you start, then stop, because the truth is too complicated to fit into a sentence. “I think something happened last night and I don’t remember it, and you do.”
Seungmin’s eyes flash.
“I’ve been trying to protect you,” he says, voice trembling on the edge of a shout again. “I’ve been trying to keep you stable and safe and—”
“From what?” you demand, stepping closer now, anger making you brave. “From the police? From your job? From you?”
Seungmin flinches at that last one like you slapped him.
His mouth opens, then closes. His hands curl again at his sides, knuckles white.
For a second, he looks like he might say something he can’t take back.
Then he forces a breath, slow and deliberate, and the calm slides back over his face like a mask.
“Put the phone down,” he says quietly. “Please.”
The TV continues murmuring behind him.
The coworker’s face glows too bright.
Your phone feels heavy in your hand, slick with sweat.
“No,” you say, and your voice is shaking now, but it’s not small. “I’m calling.”
Seungmin’s eyes flick to the screen in your palm.
Then to your face.
And something in him—tight, exhausted, desperate—finally snaps.
“Fine,” he says, and the word is soft, “Call.”
You blink, thrown.
He steps back half a pace and gestures with an open hand, inviting you to do it.
But his eyes don’t match the gesture.
You dial in the last number.
And then Seungmin speaks again, quietly, with a steadiness that feels like a blade slid under the ribs.
“And tell them what?” he asks. “Tell them you might have talked to her? That you might have left with her? That you don’t remember? That you woke up the next morning clean and dressed and have no idea how you got there?”
Your hand stops.
He tilts his head slightly, eyes still on you, voice still level.
“Tell them you’re on medication that knocks you out,” he continues. “Tell them you’ve been missing time. Tell them your pill organizer had days missing. Tell them you’re scared and you’re not sure what’s real.”
You punch it in.
The first ring feels like it rattles your teeth.
Second ring.
Your heart is pounding so hard it makes your vision pulse.
Third ring.
A click.
“Missing Persons Tip Line, this call may be recorded,” a woman’s voice says—practiced calm. “How can I help you?”
Your mouth opens and nothing comes out at first. Your tongue feels thick.
Seungmin’s reflection is faint in the TV screen—shoulders squared, face unreadable, eyes on you.
“I—” You clear your throat. Try again. “Hi. Um. I’m calling about the woman on the news. The missing— the missing woman.”
“Okay,” the dispatcher says. “Can you tell me your name?”
You hesitate. The pause is small, but it feels loud.
Your name leaves your mouth anyway.
“And your callback number?”
You give it.
“Thank you. And what information do you have?”
You stare at the TV as if the anchor will feed you the words. The coworker’s photo smiles back at you, polished and unaware.
“I think I might have seen her last night,” you say, and your voice shakes on might. You hate that it does. “I was at the wine bar that— that was mentioned. And a friend said… a friend said she saw me leave with her.”
There’s a beat of silence, the sound of typing.
“Okay,” the dispatcher says carefully. “Do you remember speaking to her?”
Your stomach drops.
“No,” you say, and the admission burns. “I don’t remember. I—there are gaps.”
Behind you, Seungmin shifts. The smallest sound—bare feet on carpet—but it makes your shoulders go tight.
“Do you remember what time you left the bar?” the dispatcher asks.
“No.”
“Do you remember where you went after leaving?”
“No.”
“Do you remember the missing woman saying anything to you? Any plans, any names, any details?”
Your eyes sting with frustration, humiliation rising hot in your throat.
“No,” you say again, louder now, because you can hear how useless you sound and you want to fight it. “I don’t. I’m sorry. I just—my friend was with me. She said it happened. I thought I should report it.”
“You did the right thing calling,” the dispatcher says, still calm. “Let’s slow down. Can you tell me your friend’s name and number so an officer can follow up?”
You give it, hands trembling around the phone.
The dispatcher asks for the bar name. You answer automatically. She asks for the approximate time window. You guess, hating every guess. She asks what the missing woman looked like in person—clothing, coat color, bag. You scrape your mind for something and come up with nothing but lipstick and laughter.
“I’m sorry,” you say again, voice cracking. “I was— I wasn’t paying attention.”
“It’s okay,” the dispatcher says. There's a pause. "Ma'am. Do you feel safe at home?"
Your breath stutters in your chest for reasons you can't really explain. "I—"
Your eyes flick over to Seungmin. His gaze is burning into yours.
You clear your throat.
"Yes."
"Okay." Theres a shuffling on the end of the phone operator. “We’ll document what you have. An officer may reach out to you tomorrow. If you remember anything else, please call back.”
You swallow, throat raw. “Okay.”
“Alright,” the dispatcher replies. “Thank you for calling.”
The line clicks off.
The silence after is immediate. Heavy. The TV keeps talking anyway, filling the room with calm voices and urgent captions.
Your phone is still pressed to your ear for a second too long. You lower it slowly and look at Seungmin.
He looks back.
You wait for him to say something—anything.
A reassurance. A comfort. Even anger would be easier than this blank space.
Finally, he exhales through his nose. A small, controlled sound.
“Are you done?” he asks.
The words are quiet. They still feel like a slap.
Your eyebrows lift, incredulous. “Are you serious?”
Seungmin’s jaw tightens. “You called. You said what you wanted to say. Now we wait.”
“Seungmin—”
“No,” he cuts in, and his voice stays low but it’s sharper now, the restraint finally thinning. “I told you exactly what would happen. I told you they’d ask questions you couldn’t answer.”
“I still had to—”
“You didn’t have to do anything,” he says, and something flashes behind his eyes—anger, hurt, fear, you can’t tell which one is leading. “You wanted to. Because you need to feel in control.”
“That’s not fair.”
“It is,” he says, stepping closer. Not threatening. Just close enough that you can feel heat off his body. “Do you know what you just did? You put your name on a list. You attached yourself to this. With no memory. With no details. With—” He stops, lips pressing tight, then forces the next words out like they taste like metal. “With your condition.”
The phrase hits hard—your condition. He’s pulling it out in a fight because it’s the sharpest thing he can grab.
Your face burns. “Don’t.”
“It’s the truth,” he says, quieter now, but no kinder. “You handed them your instability like a gift.”
Your hands curl around your phone. You can feel the plastic edge digging into your palm.
“I’m not unstable,” you say, voice shaking with fury and shame.
Seungmin’s eyes flick down your face, cataloguing the cracks. When he speaks again, the gentleness is back—but it doesn’t feel comforting anymore. It feels practiced.
“Baby,” he says, careful. “You’re not thinking clearly.”
There it is again.
You laugh once, sharp and ugly. “Stop saying that. Stop talking to me like that.”
His gaze hardens. “Then stop acting like I’m your enemy.”
“I didn’t say you were,” you insist, even though you can hear the lie in it. Even though your whole body is humming with the accusation you don’t know how to take back.
Seungmin stares at you for a long moment. His chest rises and falls. You can almost see him choosing what to do with himself.
Then he nods once, tight.
“Okay,” he says, and his voice is flat now.
He turns away.
The movement is so final it makes your stomach drop. You follow him with your eyes as he crosses to the couch, grabs the throw blanket, and drapes it over one shoulder like armor.
“Seungmin,” you say, softer—because you hate the way this feels, because you hate the distance instantly, because you hate that you’re both bleeding and neither of you knows where to press.
He doesn’t look back.
“I’m sleeping out here,” he says.
“That’s dramatic,” you whisper, trying to reclaim normal, but it comes out thin.
He pauses with his hand on the back of the couch.
Then, without turning, he says quietly, “What’s dramatic is you looking at me like you think I’m capable of something.”
Your throat closes. You don’t have an answer that doesn’t make it worse.
He settles onto the couch. The springs sigh under his weight. He pulls the blanket over himself, facing away from you, like if he doesn’t see you he won’t have to feel how much this hurts.
You stand there in the living room, phone cold in your hand, the TV still murmuring about a missing woman and a hotline number and the public’s help.
Outside, the city keeps moving.
Inside, the apartment feels like it’s holding its breath again—only this time, it’s because neither of you knows what comes next.
Dawn comes in thin and colorless.
You wake with that familiar jolt—heart already racing, guilt sitting heavy on your chest before your eyes even open. For a few disoriented seconds you lie there, staring at the ceiling, replaying last night in fragments: the TV glow, your phone buzzing in your hand, Seungmin’s voice going tight and controlled, the way he turned away from you.
God. What did you do?
You drag a hand down your face, groaning softly into the pillow. The bed is cold beside you, untouched. Of course it is. He slept on the couch. Because you pushed. Because you accused. Because you let fear turn into something ugly.
You throw the blanket back and sit up. The apartment is too quiet—no coffee brewing, no shower running, no soft sounds of Seungmin moving around like he usually does when he wakes before you.
You slip out of bed and pad down the hall, heart thudding with that anxious urgency that always follows guilt. You want to fix this. You need to fix this. You need to apologize before it calcifies into something worse.
The living room couch is empty.
The throw blanket is folded—not tossed, not rumpled. Folded neatly over the arm.
“Min?” you call softly.
No reply.
A pulse of unease crawls up your spine.
You move toward the window without fully deciding to. The sky outside is washed pale blue-gray, the sun just beginning to lift itself over the buildings. The street is quiet, only a few early cars passing, the city in that brief, vulnerable lull between night and morning.
Seungmin’s car is parked at the curb, like it usually is.
The trunk is open.
He’s there—half-shadowed in the early light, hoodie pulled up despite the mild morning, shoulders hunched like he’s trying to make himself smaller. For a split second, your chest loosens with relief.
He’s just taking out the trash, you think. Early. Normal. He’s probably trying to avoid you.
Then you really look.
The garbage bag he’s dragging isn’t moving like trash.
It’s big. Too big. Long in a way that makes your stomach drop even before your brain finishes the thought. The plastic is stretched tight, black and glossy, warped around unmistakable shapes—angles where there shouldn’t be angles, a weight that pulls unevenly against the pavement.
Something inside the bag shifts.
Your breath leaves you in a silent rush.
The world narrows to the sound of your own pulse, roaring in your ears. You grip the window frame so hard your fingers ache.
No. No, no, no.
Seungmin adjusts his grip, bracing his foot against the curb as he hauls the bag closer to the trunk. As it lifts, the plastic tightens further—and there, unmistakable now, is the outline of a hand pressed against the inside. Fingers curled. Wrongly still.
You clap a hand over your mouth.
Your vision swims. For a terrifying second you think you might scream—but the sound never comes. Your body locks itself into a kind of stunned obedience, watching even as every instinct begs you to look away.
Seungmin moves with careful efficiency. He adjusts the bag once, twice, then lifts it fully into the trunk. It lands with a dull, final thud that vibrates up through the car frame and into your bones.
He stands there for a moment, breathing.
Then he closes the trunk.
The sound is definitive. A metal click that seems to echo far too loudly in the quiet street.
He locks the car.
The chirp of the alarm cuts through the morning like a knife.
Your knees almost give out.
Seungmin turns back toward the building, hands sliding into the front pocket of his hoodie. His face is calm. Focused. Almost… blank. Like he’s already put whatever that was into a mental box and shut the lid.
You stumble backward from the window as he disappears from view, heart slamming so hard it hurts. Your thoughts scatter, panicked and directionless, colliding into one another.
A body.
That was a body.
Your stomach churns violently. You press your back to the wall, chest heaving, trying not to gag, trying not to hyperventilate, trying not to collapse into a screaming mess on the floor.
This can’t be real.
This has to be your brain. Your anxiety. Your paranoia finally tipping over into full-blown hallucination.
Except—
You saw it.
You know what you saw.
Footsteps in the stairwell.
Your blood turns to ice.
You barely have time to straighten before the lock turns and the door opens. Seungmin steps inside, hoodie still up, keys jangling softly as he tosses them into the bowl by the door.
Seungmin’s foot is still halfway over the threshold when his eyes lift.
And land on you.
He freezes so completely it’s like someone hit pause—hood still up, one hand still hovering near the doorframe, the other empty now that the keys are gone. His chest rises once, shallow, and you watch the exact moment his brain recalculates.
He thought you’d still be asleep.
You can see it in his face before he smooths it away.
For half a second, his eyes are too wide. Too alert. A flash of something sharp and instinctive.
Then his lashes lower.
His mouth twitches into something almost normal.
“Hey,” he says. “You’re up early.”
Your throat refuses to work. Your tongue feels glued to the roof of your mouth. Your whole body is still caught at the window, stuck on the shape of a hand against plastic.
You nod because you can’t do anything else.
Seungmin takes a step inside and shuts the door behind him carefully.
The lock clicks.
He stands there with his back to the door for one beat—still hooded, still too still—then he reaches up and drags the hood down.
His hair is slightly flattened. A little damp at the edges like he’s been sweating under it. His cheeks are faintly pink from the cold.
He looks like himself.
Which makes it worse.
“I was gonna… apologize,” you manage finally, and your voice is thin, scraping out of you like it had to pass through something tight. “About last night.”
Seungmin’s gaze holds yours. His expression softens in the places it always softens when it comes to you.
“It’s okay,” he says. “We were both upset.”
You stare at him.
You can’t find your hands. You can’t find your breath. Everything in you is busy trying not to show him what you saw.
Because you know—deep in your bones—you don’t get to see something like that and stay safe if you let it show on your face.
“You shouldn’t have been out,” you hear yourself say, and the words come out wrong. “This early.”
Seungmin blinks once.
Then his eyes narrow a fraction, the softness turning careful.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he says. “I went for a walk.”
A walk.
You almost laugh. It wants to burst out of you, hysterical and loud. You swallow it so hard it hurts.
“Mm,” you say, because you don’t trust your mouth with anything else.
Seungmin steps closer—slow, unthreatening, like he’s approaching a frightened animal. His hands are empty. His shoulders are loose. He’s doing everything right.
“You look pale,” he murmurs.
You don’t answer.
His gaze drops. Not to your face this time—to your hands.
He’s checking if you’re shaking.
He takes another step, and you feel the space shrink around you. The hallway suddenly too narrow. The air too thin.
“Did you have a nightmare?” he asks softly. “You used to wake up like this when—”
It’s an explanation you can step into without thinking too hard.
You grab it with both hands.
“Yeah,” you say. “I think so. I woke up and my heart was going crazy.”
Seungmin’s shoulders loosen a fraction, relief sliding over his features like warmth.
He nods once. “Okay.”
You force a small laugh that feels like glass in your throat. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be—”
“Hey.” He steps in and cups your cheek, thumb brushing once along your jaw. “Don’t apologize. Come here.”
His touch is familiar. It’s the same touch that used to mean safety without question.
Now it’s a test you have to pass.
You lean into his palm, letting your eyelids lower like you’re soothed. You let your body soften on purpose, even though every muscle is locked tight under your skin.
Seungmin kisses your forehead. Then your temple. Slow, patient, trying to smooth you back into place.
“You didn’t sleep at all?” you ask, because you need to steer the conversation somewhere normal. Somewhere dull.
He exhales through his nose. “Not really. I kept thinking about last night.”
Guilt twists in your stomach, sharp and immediate. That part is real.
“I’m sorry,” you whisper, and you let it sound sincere—because it is, because it’s the only truth you can afford to offer right now.
Seungmin’s eyes soften again. He draws you into his arms, folding you against his chest. You feel the steady beat of his heart through his shirt, the warmth of him, the careful pressure of his hand on the back of your head.
“Shh,” he murmurs into your hair. “It’s okay. I know you were scared.”
You swallow hard.
His voice keeps going, calm and even. “We’ll reset, okay? It’s early. We’ll go back to bed. We’ll sleep a little more. When you wake up again, we’ll do breakfast, and we’ll figure out the rest.”
The word rest lands like a weight.
You nod anyway, because nodding is safer than thinking.
Seungmin pulls back just enough to look at you. His gaze sweeps your face—checking, measuring—then he presses another kiss to your forehead.
“Come on,” he says softly. “Bed.”
You let him lead you down the hall.
The bedroom is dim, the curtains still mostly drawn. The bed waits, rumpled and empty on his side, the imprint of you still warm where you left it. You climb in without argument, sliding under the covers.
Seungmin follows.
He doesn’t undress fully—just kicks his socks off, tugs his shirt up and over his head, moves with the quiet ease of routine. Then he slides in behind you and wraps his arm around your waist, pulling you back until your spine fits against his chest.
An embrace.
A seatbelt.
A restraint.
His breath warms the back of your neck. “There,” he whispers. “Just sleep.”
You stare into the dark, eyes wide open.
“Okay,” you whisper back, because it’s what he wants.
His hand drifts over your stomach in slow, absent circles, a soothing motion you’ve always loved. His mouth brushes your shoulder, a lazy kiss that could almost feel normal.
Almost.
“Love you,” he murmurs, already drifting.
Your throat tightens around the words.
You wait a beat, then give him what he expects, soft and automatic.
“Love you too.”
His body loosens behind you, weight settling, breath evening out. Within minutes, you can feel it—his sleep, deep and unguarded, as if nothing in the world is wrong.
You lie perfectly still in his arms, listening to him breathe.
But you don’t close your eyes.
Not even when his grip tightens once in his sleep, like he’s afraid you might disappear.
Not even when the apartment stays quiet and ordinary and dawn keeps brightening outside.
Because somewhere below, at the curb, his car sits locked.
And you can’t stop seeing the shape of what he put in the trunk.
(Extremely heavy themes — read carefully)
⚠️ Contains explicit sexual content, voyeuristic masturbation, stalking, home invasion, obsessive/delusional behavior, physical violence, drugging/forced unconsciousness, kidnapping
he loves you. he loves you. why don't you understand?
You don’t know you’ve met him yet.
Late afternoon, grocery aisles humming soft with compressors and a radio that only plays choruses. The fluorescents bleach everything a little—your neck, the paper list you’ve folded in half, the peaches you press your thumb into to test for give. You move like you have somewhere to be. You always do.
He watches the way your mouth tucks when you read a label. The way your fingers worry a loose thread at the cuff of your sleeve. The way you never stand quite in the center of a space—always an inch to the left, as if you’re leaving room for someone else.
As if you were leaving room for him.
Hyunjin stands two aisles over with a basket he doesn’t need and a jar of honey he’ll never open. When you pause at the endcap of pasta, he ghosts past the reflection in the chrome paneling, raises his phone chest-high, clicks—just once. Your profile, the slope of your nose, the soft intent in your eyes. When you reach for linguine, he catches a second shot of your wrist, tendons shifting beneath skin. He breathes in through his mouth.
“Hello,” he says without speaking, lips barely moving. “You took so long today.”
You tilt your head toward the olive oil. In his head, you answer him. I had class.
He smiles. Of course. He knew that.
You don’t see him in the checkout line. He likes it like that. He wants you to feel safe, ordinary, the way he will keep you. Outside, you step into the wash of late sun and cross against the light with a little, impulsive jog. He takes the back route, two car-lengths behind, phone tucked into his sleeve now, camera peeking past the cuff. A blur of your braid. The inside of your elbow as you adjust your bag strap. Your shadow, long on the pavement, intersecting with his.
At the corner, you answer your phone. You laugh at something that doesn’t deserve it. He catalogues the sound.
He doesn’t follow you to your door. He stops three buildings before and watches you vanish. The air holds you for a second longer than the sight of you does; he inhales and tastes citrus and soap and the ghost of your shampoo, or the idea of it, which is the same thing.
Home is a studio stacked with paintings and one narrow bed. The table is scarred with old X-Acto cuts, dotted with ink stains and the white freckles of dried gesso. He dumps the honey on the counter, forgets it exists. Prints three of the newest photos on the little dye-sub printer he keeps for you: your wrist near the pasta, your reflection bent in the convex of a freezer door, the perfect oval of your mouth as you say “oh” to no one in particular.
He tapes them to the wall above the low stool where he sits to sketch. There are others already there—hundreds. A constellation of you in every imagined mood.
He flips open a fresh pad. The paper sighs.
“Hi,” he murmurs, pencil hovering, then touching, the first curve finding your cheekbone without effort. “I missed you.”
You’ve never been still for him—not the way you are in his head. But he knows how your lip will soften if he asks nicely, how your lashes will lower, how your breath will hitch when his fingers slide into your hair. The graphite catches all of it: the light under your eyes, the vulnerable line of your throat when you tilt your head back for him, the notch at the base of your neck where he will put his mouth when you let him.
He draws your mouth open.
The heat at the base of his spine climbs. He shifts on the stool, exhale turning shaky, sweat gathering in the hollows of his collarbones. He doesn’t touch himself yet. He never does until he’s done.
He draws your hand next, spread over your own ribs, fingers splayed the way he likes when he tells you to hold yourself open for him. He gives you his hoodie in the sketch and nothing else. Your knees press together, thighs glossy with the shine he puts there.
“Good girl,” he says softly, pencil working, the dull thud of his pulse in his ears. “You waited for me.”
When he finally reaches for himself, it’s with his left hand, the one that isn’t dusted in graphite. He palms himself over sweats, a light test that makes his head drop back against the wall. He’s already leaking, damp spot growing. He presses his thumb there and circles, slow, gathering the wet to make the fabric slide. The little gasp he lets out is embarrassed and purely delighted.
“Look at you,” he tells you. You’re all eyes, in his head, as if you’ve been watching patiently from the grocery store to here, as if you sat down cross-legged on the paint-splattered floor and waited for him to take the hint. “You wanted this all day.”
He pushes waistband down and frees himself, breath catching when the cooler air hits. He’s thick in his own fist, flushed dark at the crown, a slick bead clinging and threatening to fall. He blinks, slow. He won’t let it. He tips his hips and catches the bead with his thumb, smears it down the underside where he’s sensitive, the wet sound as obscene as a kiss in a church.
“Come closer,” he whispers, shifting the pad to his knee, angling the drawing so the mouth he made for you lines up with his line of sight. “Let me see you.”
His hand moves in a lazy stroke from base to tip, twisting just enough at the top to make his stomach jump. He breathes you in through his teeth and lets the exhale stutter out, again, again. His thighs tense; the stool creaks.
He doesn’t rush. The first few minutes are meditation—pressure, release, the greased slide of his fist, the way his body preens into the rhythm like a cat into a palm. He murmurs nonsense: thank you, there you are, keep your eyes on me—pleases, like you’re being good for him, like you could ever be anything else.
When he opens his eyes again, he’s already flushed, chest heaving lightly, a line of sweat at his hairline. He wipes it away with his wrist, leaves a smear of graphite across his temple. The drawing of your mouth looks wet now because he’s decided it is.
He leans forward.
He drags his next stroke slower, meaner, knuckles skimming the aching head, thumb pausing to circle the slit until his knees threaten to jerk. He squeezes the base, holds, breathes through it—a learned denial that brings the pleasure up tight and makes it burn brighter when he lets it move again.
“Shy today?” he asks, eyes on the cock-hard shine of the tip, on the twitch his own hand draws out of himself. “It’s okay. I’ll do the work.”
He spits into his palm—quick and efficient, a slick thread that strings to his fist and snaps. The sound he makes when he returns to himself is unguarded and low. He starts a steadier pace, each stroke long and deliberate, wrist flexing, fingers choking up just enough to pinch at the head without hurting. His hips answer. He pictures the way your tongue would flatten at the first taste, the way your throat would tense around him if he slid deeper, the surprised little cough when your nose kissed his abdomen.
His free hand drifts to the drawing without thought. His fingertips skim the paper where he darkened the corner of your smile. He rubs lightly, smudging the graphite so it looks like you’ve kissed back. His breath shakes.
“You’re so pretty,” he says, voice frayed. “You’re always—so—look at me, baby. You love me. You do.”
He edges himself and backs off, edges again. The second time, his eyes roll and his mouth goes open and soft; he holds at the base, counts heartbeat after heartbeat until the trembling settles into a clean ache. He’s slick now; even a whisper of pressure slips. He grips tighter, cruder, the heel of his palm pressing against himself in a way that makes his thighs jolt.
He looks up at the photographs. The freezer-door reflection catches him, that curve of your cheek, the shine over the stainless. He sees you seeing him. Relief floods him so hot he almost comes right there.
“Yeah,” he pants, smiling, not quite sane. “I know. I know. You’re so brave.”
He speeds up. The room narrows around the rhythm—the wet shuck of his hand, the small animal sounds he can’t stifle anymore, the tiny jerks of his hips as he fucks up into his fist. He tips his head to give the fantasy more room: you on your knees between his spread thighs on this stupid paint-splattered floor; your fingers splayed on his knees; your eyes patient and worship-bright, a string of spit falling from your lip to the head of him, breaking, reforming, breaking.
“Take me,” he whispers fiercely, and his pace turns ruthless. “C’mon, take me—don’t run, don’t run, open up—good girl—”
He can feel the heat sprinting up his spine now, a grabbed electrical wire of a feeling that climbs with every slide. He doesn’t fight it this time. He drops his head, braces his heel, fucks his fist like it can bruise him from the inside. The wet sound of his palm sliding across the length of him gets messy, slick, perfect.
When he breaks, he does it with a sound he’d be embarrassed to make anywhere else. It rips up from the bottom of him, a shocked, grateful thing, and his whole body locks. The first thick pulse hits his knuckles, hot enough to startle, and he drags his fist away just in time to paint the drawing.
It hits your mouth first—the one he drew—and then lower, a line of white across his hoodie he drew you in, a wet shine over the graphite shadow he put at your sternum. More follows, pulsing, spilling, striping the edge of one of the photos, catching the corner and bleeding into the paper like milk into coffee.
He rides it hard, chasing the last little flashes with a few shaky strokes that make him groan, softer, helpless. When it tapers off, he leans forward and lets his forehead thump to the table, breath coming like he’s been pulled out of deep water.
“God,” he laughs, wrecked and happy, the sound breaking into a sigh. “Good. So good.”
He opens his eyes, dazed. The drawing is ruined and holy.
He touches the wet at your mouth with two fingers. Spreads it a little. Makes a thumbprint on your cheek like a claim. He will not wipe this away. He will fix it with spray, let the gloss dry hard, catch light the way your skin does when you’ve just kissed him and you’re trying not to smile.
“Mine,” he says, tender, certain. He presses his lips to two knuckles. “You’re so good to me.”
He cleans his hand with an old shirt and forgets to throw it toward the laundry hamper. He props the sketchpad against the wall to dry, right in the line of sight from his pillow. The photos drip at the corners; he doesn’t mind the warping. It makes them more real.
On the bed, he lies on his back, one forearm over his eyes, his mouth tilted up like he’s still kissing you. Calm spreads out in him in slow, warm rings.
Tomorrow, he’ll sit two tables over at the café and you’ll check your messages and stir sugar into your drink and know, in the way that matters, that he is there. He’ll show you the newest page if you ask. He’ll hide it if you’re shy. He’ll wait, as long as you need, because waiting is the same as having when you already belong to him.
He falls asleep like that for a minute, lulled by the hum of the fridge and the faint paint-smell; when he wakes, he rolls to his side and looks at your mouth again. The gloss has begun to dry. It catches the evening light in a way that makes his chest ache.
“Soon,” he murmurs, eyes soft, the promise an easy, lethal thing. “I’ll bring you home soon.”
You talk to him for the first time a week later.
It’s nothing.
You’re at the crosswalk outside the art store he sometimes uses for brushes, juggling a tote bag and what looks like a portfolio tube. You’re trying to balance it all while you dig in your pocket for your headphones. The pedestrian signal chirps; people surge around you.
Someone bumps into you from behind. Your tube slips. The strap catches, jerking your shoulder.
“Sorry,” you say automatically, breathless.
The man grunts and moves on.
You don’t even look back.
Hyunjin does. The guy is twice his size and already halfway down the block. It takes everything in him not to follow, not to tap him on the shoulder and ask if he’s always so careless with priceless things.
“You okay?” he says under his breath, watching the way you shake your arm out, roll your shoulder once.
He imagines you saying, Yeah. I’m okay. I’ve got it.
The light changes. The crowd moves. You step forward, caught in the river of bodies.
Your portfolio tube slips again. This time, the strap snags the edge of your coat; you stumble, foot catching on the curb.
Hyunjin’s hand is on your elbow before he thinks about it.
It’s instinct. That’s what he tells himself later. Reflex.
You jerk, head whipping toward him. For one bright, shocked second, your eyes meet.
His world goes silent.
Up close, you’re all the specifics his drawings have been missing. Tiny freckle at the corner of your left eye. Faint line where your bottom lip is a bit drier than the rest. A tiny, irritated flush just beneath your jaw from the weight of the strap.
“I’ve got it,” you say, recovering your balance. Your voice is straighter than he expected, less soft. “Thanks.”
You pull your elbow free. He lets you. You don’t look at him longer than the courtesy demands; your gaze skips once over his face, uncomprehending, and then you’re angling away, crossing the street, phone already in your hand.
He stands on the curb, fingers tingling where your warmth was, heart pounding so hard it feels like it’s rattling his ribs.
You spoke to him.
You.
Spoke.
To him.
You thanked him.
You let him touch you.
You didn’t pull away until you were steady.
He replays all three seconds as you walk away, as you turn the corner, as you vanish. Every blink, every shift of your weight, every syllable.
“Thanks,” he mimics quietly.
You were nervous. That’s why you didn’t hold his gaze. That’s why your elbow twitched when he steadied you. You’re not used to being taken care of. You don’t know how to trust it yet.
You will.
He walks home in a daze.
That night, he doesn’t need photos.
He sits cross-legged on the floor instead, sketchbook braced on his thighs, lamp tilted low. He draws from memory: your shoulders hunched over the laptop, the deep fatigue carved under your eyes.
He redraws it differently.
In his version, your shoulders are still tired, but they’re wrapped in his clothes. Your jaw is soft because you’re half-asleep, cheek pressed to his thigh while he combs his fingers through your hair and tells you you’re not allowed to stay up all night alone anymore.
He jerks off once, slow and thorough, to the thought of your mouth slack and drooling a little on his leg while he talks on the phone about something that doesn’t matter. He finishes smeared over the curve of your cheek on the page. He laughs, breathless and fond, and writes mine over the stain before it dries.
The shift happens on a Wednesday.
You’re at the bookshop, tucked behind the register with a textbook open flat on the counter. It’s a slow hour; the bell above the door hasn’t chimed in thirty minutes. You chew the end of your pen and frown down at a paragraph, utterly unaware that the chewing is going to haunt him later.
He pretends to browse.
He’s good at it now, letting his fingers skate over spines he won’t remember, tilting covers to catch the light. He hovers two aisles away, close enough to watch you reflected in the little round mirror above the bargain table. Your eyes flit across the lines. Your knee bounces under the counter. You don’t look up.
He loves you so much he could scream.
The bell chimes.
He glances over in time to see a guy in a hoodie and ballcap walk in, head down, scrolling his phone. He’s about Hyunjin’s height, stockier, hands tucked into his pockets.
He goes straight to you.
You look up, startled, then smile when you recognize him. Hyunjin’s hand tightens automatically around the spine of a book.
“Hey,” you say. Your voice does a different little thing, lighter, sweeter. “You’re early.”
Hyunjin’s vision tunnels.
The guy leans on the counter, grinning. “Got out of practice quick. Coach wasn’t in the mood to torture us today.”
You laugh. “Can you get him to talk to my professors?”
“Please, your professors probably love you.”
“Debatable.”
The guy reaches across the counter and flicks your pen out of your hand. You grab for it, smack his wrist. You’re still smiling.
“Stop,” you say, mock-annoyed. “I’m trying to actually learn something for once.”
“You can learn after dinner,” he says. “I’m starving.”
“Then go eat,” you say. “I still have half an hour.”
He pouts. “Can’t we just go now? No one’s here.”
“I’m still on the clock,” you say. “My manager will murder me.”
“He won’t know,” he wheedles.
Hyunjin closes the book very carefully before he crushes the cover.
This is new.
This is wrong.
You don’t have a boyfriend. You don’t even flirt. He would know. He’s watched you for months. He’s heard every conversation, heard every phone call you’ve answered in public. There hasn’t been anyone.
Except now there is this.
“Seriously, go sit,” you say, jerking your chin toward the little café corner at the back. “I’ll be off in a bit. I’m not getting fired because you’re hungry.”
“Fine,” the guy sighs, but he’s smiling. He grabs your pen again, pockets it this time. “I’m stealing this.”
“No, you’re not,” you protest, reaching over the counter. He leans in and you end up half sprawled across the wood, laughing, fingers grappling with his.
“I’ll trade,” he says.
“For what?”
“For this.”
He dips in and kisses you.
It’s quick. Barely more than a brush of mouths. But you soften into it after the initial shock, hand fisting gently in the front of his hoodie. When he pulls back, you’re flushed in a way Hyunjin has never seen before.
“Idiot,” you mumble, but you’re smiling. You don’t ask for the pen back.
The guy ruffles your hair and retreats to the café with a last, soft look. Your eyes trail him for a second before you snap back to your textbook, face taut in a way that says you’ll overthink that kiss for the rest of the shift.
Hyunjin stands frozen in the aisle, hands empty.
There’s a high, whining sound in his ears.
No. No, this isn’t—this isn’t real. This is a blip. A trial run. People make mistakes. You’re tired. You’re overworked. You don’t mean it. This is a phase. A detail. A smudge he can rub out.
He could go home and draw this version: your hand tangled in someone else’s shirt. He could watch the line of your mouth curve for the wrong person and fix it on paper, erase the hoodie, replace the jaw, make it his.
He doesn’t.
But he does leave.
He doesn’t remember getting out of the shop, doesn’t remember the bell, doesn’t remember the air between the door and the sidewalk. He finds himself three blocks away, back pressed to a brick wall, hands shaking.
He laughs once, breathless and incredulous.
“Okay,” he whispers, more to the sky than to himself. “Okay. I get it. You’re mad at me.”
He’s been greedy. He knows that. Keeping you all to himself, hoarding your words, your images, your little quirks like they belong in his chest instead of your own life. Letting months pass without giving you the chance to meet him properly. It’s understandable that you’d… drift. That you’d be lonely. That you’d accept the first idiot who put his mouth on you like you were available.
His stomach rolls.
He presses his palms to his eyes until stars bloom.
“You don’t know,” he tells himself quietly. “You don’t know. You don’t know any better yet.”
The thought steadies him.
The real firsts don’t count when they’re with the wrong people. Everyone knows that. You’re practicing. That’s all. You’re killing time with some guy whose name he’ll forget as soon as this is fixed. You’ll look back from where you’re supposed to be—his bed, his arms, his life—and you’ll laugh at yourself, at how desperate you were back then to feel anything.
He peels off the wall and walks fast.
There’s only one place he wants to be now and that's with you. He has to make his move. Before it’s too late.
You don’t notice anything wrong at first.
You’re too tired, for one. The kind of tired that makes the hallway blur—the elevator ride a soft, humming blank between the bookshop and your floor. Your shoulder still remembers the weight of a hand that shouldn’t mean as much as it does. Your mouth still tingles where he kissed you.
Stupid, you think, as you dig for your keys. You’re going to overthink that for a week.
The hall outside your apartment is the same as always: ugly carpet, buzzing overhead light, someone’s package leaned against the wall waiting to be stolen. You shift your bag higher on your shoulder and fumble the key into the lock. It sticks, like it always does. You jiggle up then left. The deadbolt thunks back.
You push the door with your hip.
Darkness, at first. The familiar kind. Your curtains are closed; the city outside is a smear through cheap fabric. You toe your shoes off by muscle memory, one, two, heel pressed to heel. Your bag drops onto the little entry table with a tired thud. Keys in the dish. Phone on top of them.
You don’t turn the light on right away. You never do. You like the pause—the exhale in dimness before the apartment fully exists, before you see the dishes in the sink or the laundry you forgot or the emails you don’t want to open.
You stand there a second, listening to yourself breathe.
The quiet is wrong.
It takes your brain a beat to decide that.
The building’s noises are there—the distant plumbing, someone’s TV muffled through two walls—but your apartment has its own soundscape: the tick of the cheap clock over the stove, the faint hum of the fridge, the sigh of the old window when the wind hits just right.
You hear the fridge. You don’t hear the clock.
You left it running this morning. You remember complaining about it to yourself when you were hunting for your other shoe. You don’t remember… stopping it.
You frown into the dark, hand feeling for the light switch.
You don’t flip it.
Your fingers brush the plastic and then freeze, some animal part of you suddenly, painfully awake. The hair on your arms lifts. A current runs underneath your skin, a low electric hum that has nothing to do with the wiring.
If someone’s in here, you think, wild and flat at the same time, hitting the lights just tells them exactly where you are.
You swallow. Your mouth is dry.
“Hello?” you call.
It sounds stupid the second it leaves your lips. This is exactly what gets people killed in all those horror films you’ve watched.
The apartment doesn’t answer.
Your eyes start to adjust. Shapes resolve: the couch as a hulking rectangle, the cluttered low shelf under the TV, the half-full laundry basket by the hallway. Everything is where you left it and wrong anyway, like someone has picked your life up and put it down a centimeter to the left.
You step out of your shoes and onto the cool wood. Your feet are silent. Your heart is not.
“Okay,” you mutter, for yourself. “Okay. You’re being weird. It’s fine.”
You reach again for the switch.
A breath answers you.
Not yours.
It’s soft, caught, the kind someone makes when they forget to hide it. It comes from deeper in, not the main room. Somewhere down the short hallway that leads to your bathroom and bedroom.
Every muscle in your body locks.
You stand there, hand hovering over the switch, fingers shaking now.
“Who’s there?” you say.
This time your voice cracks. You hate that.
Silence again. Long enough that you start to doubt your own ears. Long enough that you think, hysterically, Maybe it was the building settling, maybe it was a pipe, maybe it was—
“Hey,” a voice says.
You jump.
It’s not loud. Not threatening. You know loud; you grew up in a house where anger broke the sound barrier. This is… gentle. A little hoarse, like its owner hasn’t used it in hours. The sound threads down the hall and into your chest.
“I didn’t want to scare you,” he adds.
You flick the light on.
The apartment snaps into being. Couch, shelf, laundry, your jacket thrown over the back of a chair. The cheap art print over the TV. The kitchen counter with two mugs by the sink, one clean, one not. Everything, everywhere, too bright.
There’s a man sitting on your couch.
You know two things at once: you have never seen him before in your life, and yet you have seen him a thousand times.
Long legs spread just enough to brace on the floor. Dark hair pulled back in a loose half-tie, a few strands falling around his face. Black jeans, black t-shirt speckled with what looks like old paint. Hands folded carefully between his knees, like he’s trying to look nonthreatening.
“Hi,” he says, almost shy. “You’re home.”
Your body reacts before your brain catches up. You stumble back, shoulder slamming into the door. Your hand scrabbles blindly for the lock, the knob, anything.
“How the—” Your voice comes out thin. You swallow, try again. “Who are you? Get out. Get out or I’m calling the police.”
He flinches at police like other people flinch at gunshots. It’s small, a twitch at the corner of his mouth, but you see it. His hands tighten once and then loosen again. He doesn’t stand.
“I know this looks bad,” he says.
You laugh. It’s a horrible sound, high and too loud. “You’re in my apartment.”
“I know.” He nods, earnest. “I was going to be gone before you got back, but you left work early and—” He breaks off, shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel unsafe.”
“You broke into my apartment,” you repeat, as if maybe he missed that part. “You’re in my apartment. There’s no version of this where I don’t feel unsafe.”
“I didn’t break anything,” he says quickly. “The lock’s cheap. It sticks if you push up, then left. You know that.”
Your stomach drops.
“How do you know that?” you whisper.
He blinks. For the first time, something like uncertainty ghosts across his expression. Like he thought you were further along in this conversation than you are.
“We can talk about that,” he says. “Just—can you close the door?”
The door is still cracked from when you slammed into it. A thin slice of hallway, empty and humming, shows through.
Every instinct you have screams to yank it open and run.
His eyes flick to the gap, then back to you.
If you turn and bolt, he’ll be on you. You know that without knowing how you know. He hasn’t moved, but there’s something in the line of his body, in the casual bend of his knees, that says coiled, ready.
You don’t move.
“I’ll scream,” you say instead. “My neighbors will hear.”
He nods like that’s reasonable. “Okay.”
He doesn’t sound worried.
You fumble for your phone on the table without taking your eyes off him. Your fingers close on empty wood.
Your keys are in the dish.
Your phone is not.
Cold slips down your spine, joint by joint.
“Looking for this?” he asks softly.
He lifts your phone from the cushion beside him, like a magician producing a rabbit. Your screen is dark. His thumb rests a hair’s breadth from the side button.
“I didn’t go through it,” he says. “I promised myself I wouldn’t. That felt like… too much. Like stealing. I’ve just been holding it.”
He says it like that should be a comfort.
You stare at the phone, then at him.
“Get out,” you say again. Your voice is steadier now. Anger is easier than fear; it gives your words weight. “Leave my phone and get out, or I swear to god—”
“Y/N.”
The sound of your name in his mouth almost knocks you over.
He says it gently, carefully, like he’s practiced getting the weight of the syllables right. Like he likes the shape of it.
Every nerve you have lights up.
“Don’t,” you say. It comes out too quiet. “Don’t call me that. You don’t know me.”
He smiles, small and bewildered, like you’ve said something mildly funny.
“I know you,” he says.
You shake your head. Your heart is a painful, frantic drum. “No. You don’t. I have never seen you before. How did you get in here?”
He exhales, a little sigh through his nose. You get the sense he’s having a different argument in his head and you’re losing it without even being told the rules.
“The super’s careless,” he says. “He leaves the spare keys in the office drawer with the door open. It took a while to figure out which one was yours, but…” His shoulders lift in a tiny shrug. “Worth it.”
Your stomach flips.
“How long,” you ask, each word measured, “have you been doing that?”
The smile fades.
“You were really stressed during midterms,” he says instead of answering. “You kept falling asleep at your desk. I hated that. Your neck is going to be a problem in ten years if you keep doing that.”
You feel nauseous.
You think about all the nights you’ve dragged yourself home, tossed your bag, face-planted into your textbooks. The mornings you woke up with a blanket over your shoulders you didn’t remember pulling down from the couch. The days you told yourself you just forgot you’d done that.
Your skin crawls.
“Oh my god,” you whisper. “Oh my god.”
He sees it land. His expression crumples in slow motion.
“No,” he says quickly. “No, don’t—hey, don’t look at me like that. I never hurt you. I would never—”
“You were here,” you snap. “In my apartment. While I was sleeping.”
“I was making sure you were okay,” he says, as if that should have been obvious. “You don’t take care of yourself. You forget to eat, you fall asleep sitting up, you walk home with your headphones in and your keys between your fingers like that would stop anyone—”
“You were watching me?” you say, voice rising. “How long?”
He hesitates.
“Hyunjin,” he says.
You blink. “What?”
“My name,” he says. “It’s Hyunjin.”
He says it like that answers anything.
“I don’t care what your name is,” you spit. “Get. Out.”
He winces, a quick, wounded flick around his eyes, but his body doesn’t move. If anything, he looks heavier in the room now, like the air has decided to arrange itself around him.
“I know you’re scared,” he says softly. “I know this is sudden. I thought we’d have more time. That’s on me. I waited too long.”
“You didn’t wait at all,” you say. “You—what, you just picked me and… and decided we’re what, friends? Dating? Is that it? Is that what this is?”
His eyes brighten like you’ve given him a gift.
“See?” he says quietly. “You do know.”
“I don’t know anything,” you snap. Your hand gropes along the wall behind you, searching for something, anything—a sharp edge, a heavy object—but there’s nothing within reach but the smooth paint and the useless little framed print you hung there sophomore year. “You’re a stranger. You are in my apartment. You need to leave.”
“No,” he says.
The word is still soft. It lands like a locked door.
Something in you frays.
“Then I’ll leave,” you say, pushing off the door. Your body wants to shake; you don’t let it. You put one foot in front of the other, edging toward the gap.
He stands.
It’s slow, unhurried, but somehow he’s taller than you thought he was when he does it. The room feels smaller with him upright. He doesn’t lunge. He doesn’t have to. Two steps and he’s between you and the door, hands loose at his sides, not touching you.
“Move,” you say.
“Just…” He swallows. His Adam’s apple bobs. “Can you sit down? Please? We can talk. You’ll feel better when you understand.”
“There’s nothing to understand,” you say. Your throat burns. “You’re a stalker and a freak and you broke into my home. That’s it. That’s all there is.”
He flinches at freak like you slapped him.
A flicker of something ugly slips through his expression and is gone so fast you almost think you imagined it.
“Don’t call me that,” he says, very quietly.
Your pulse stutters.
You press your back harder into the wall, as if you could sink through it. His body blocks the only exit. The window behind the couch is a death drop onto an alley. You think, distantly, about your neighbor across the hall, about whether she’s home, about how loud you would have to scream for her to knock.
Hyunjin takes a breath, lets it out slow.
“You’re tired,” he says. “You’ve had a long day. You’re upset about the boy from the shop—”
“Don’t,” you snap. “Don’t talk about him.”
“You’re not yourself right now,” he continues, as if you haven’t spoken. “You’re scared. I get it. I’d be scared too, if I thought I was alone and then I wasn’t. But you’ve never been alone, Y/N.”
Your name again, threaded through the sentence like an anchor.
You shake your head. “You need to stop saying my name like that.”
“Like what?” he asks, genuinely puzzled.
“Like you own it,” you choke.
He tilts his head. His gaze drags over your face, searching. Cataloguing. You feel it everywhere it touches, like fingers.
“It’s yours,” he says eventually. “I just… like holding it.”
You almost laugh. It comes out broken on the edges.
“You’re insane,” you say.
He thinks about that for a beat.
“Probably,” he says. “But I’m not wrong.”
You don’t know what to do with that.
“Move,” you say again, last try. “Please. Just—let me leave. You can stay here and be crazy or whatever, and I’ll go outside and call the cops and you can run, but I am not staying in here with you.”
His jaw tightens.
“You’re not calling the cops,” he says. There’s no bluster in it. No threat. Just certainty. “You wouldn’t do that to me.”
“I don’t even know you,” you say.
“You do,” he says. “You just haven’t caught up yet.”
You stare at each other.
You’ve been tired all day, but whatever fog you were walking around in has burned off, replaced with a sharp, painful clarity. Every sense is painfully open. You can smell the faint oil paint on his shirt, the trace of your own detergent in the room, the metallic tang of your own fear at the back of your tongue.
He looks at you like you’re a painting he’s been working on for months that finally came into focus.
“I’m going to scream,” you say.
His eyes soften, which is the last thing you expect.
“You can,” he says. “If you really want to. But then they’ll come, and you’ll have to explain why you didn’t notice any of the other times I was here. Why you didn’t wake up. Why you slept with the door unlocked that one week. Why you walked home alone in the dark so many nights after that. They’ll ask a lot of questions, and you’re so tired, baby. You don’t want that.”
Your stomach lurches at baby.
“I’ll tell them everything,” you say, forcing the words past the tightness in your throat. “I’ll tell them I didn’t know, because I didn’t, and they will drag you out of here in handcuffs and I will never have to see you again.”
His mouth curves, almost fond.
“You really think,” he says, quiet, “I’d let them take you away from me now?”
A pulse beats hard at your temple. You feel lightheaded.
“You mean take you away,” you say.
He shakes his head.
“No,” he says. “I meant what I said.”
He takes one slow step closer. You flatten against the wall. Your hands curl into fists at your sides to stop them from shaking.
“I love you,” he says.
It hits you like a blow.
The room tilts. You grab for air.
“You don’t even know my favorite color,” you say, because that’s what comes out, because your brain is doing triage with nonsense.
“Blue,” he answers, without hesitation. “Not the bright one, the soft one you wear in your hair sometimes. You drink iced coffee even when it’s cold. You hate leaving emails unread but do it anyway when they scare you. You only call your mom on Sundays because you need the mental buffer. You crack your knuckles when you’re about to lie. You think nobody notices.”
Your hands uncurl. Your knuckles ache.
“Stop,” you whisper.
“You apologize too much,” he says softly. “You cry at car commercials and then pretend you have something in your eye. You take naps with your mouth open. You drool. It’s cute. You hate being called cute.”
You feel sick.
“This isn’t love,” you say. “This is—this is you spying on me and pretending it’s a personality quiz. This is you building some fucked up little shrine and deciding I’m your main character.”
His gaze flicks, just once, to the hallway that leads to your bedroom.
“Yeah,” you say, voice shaking now. “Yeah, I know you’ve been in there. What did you do? Take photos? Steal my underwear? Go through my journal? Did you like the part where I wrote about wanting to claw my own skin off? Did that turn you on?”
He flinches like you slapped him.
“I would never read something you didn’t want me to,” he says, low. “I’m not a monster.”
You laugh, sharp and ugly.
“You’re in my apartment,” you say for the third time. “You let yourself in with my keys. You watched me sleep. You watched me shower? Did you? Did you stand in the hallway and listen—”
“No,” he snaps, sudden and sharp. Anger flashes bright across his face, then shutters. “No. I give you privacy. I’m not—” He cuts himself off, breath coming fast. “I just make sure you’re safe.”
“You’re the thing I need to be safe from,” you say.
He looks at you for a long moment.
Then he sighs.
“I knew you were going to say that,” he murmurs. “I was hoping we’d get there slower.”
He lifts your phone, turning it over in his hand once, twice. His thumb presses the side button. Your lock screen flares to life—time, missed notifications, the last photo you took at the café. He studies it, expression unreadable, then clicks it dark again.
“I’m not leaving,” he says. “And you’re not either.”
The words slot into place with all the quiet inevitability of gravity.
You realize, belatedly, that he hasn’t stepped between you and the door by accident. That he has your phone, your keys, your routine, your whole small life in his hands, and he honestly believes that’s the same thing as care.
Your heart hammers once, twice, like it’s trying to punch through your ribs.
The hallway behind him stretches toward your bedroom, where the window sticks and the fire escape is rusted and the lock is a joke. You don’t know yet which way you’re going to run.
You just know you’re done standing still.
You don’t decide so much as your body does.
One second you’re pinned in place by his stare, the next something in you snaps like an overstretched rubber band. Your vision tunnels; the edges of the room fuzz. Fight or flight stops being a theory and becomes a command.
You smile.
It feels wrong on your face. Too bright. Too sharp. But you watch his shoulders slip the tiniest fraction, something hopeful flickering at the corners of his mouth.
“Okay,” you say.
Your voice doesn’t sound like yours. It sounds higher, sweeter. You push your hands away from your sides, fingers uncurled, palms empty.
“Okay,” you repeat. “Fine. You want to… talk? We can talk. Just—” You force a little laugh. “Can we do it sitting down? My legs are killing me.”
He studies you.
You keep your gaze loose, your shoulders slouched, like the adrenaline isn’t making your fingertips tingle.
Please be stupid, you think. Please be exactly as stupid as you look.
Hyunjin’s head tips, birdlike. His eyes soften again.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “Yeah. That’s fair.”
He steps sideways, opening a slim corridor between you and the living room.
He doesn’t step far enough to clear the door.
You don’t go for the door.
You go left.
The kitchen is three strides away. You hit the tile too fast, socked feet sliding. Your hand shoots out for the counter to steady yourself; your hip clips the edge hard enough to bruise. You don’t feel it. You’re already reaching for the knife block.
There’s nothing in it.
Your fingers close on empty slots, wood smooth and mocking under your palm.
For a heartbeat, your brain just… blanks.
No. You did dishes yesterday. You put them back. You remember the clack of blade against wood, the way you shoved the biggest knife in too hard and had to wiggle it free and try again. You are not crazy. You are not misremembering.
You look at the block properly.
Every slot is empty.
Slowly, like you’re underwater, you turn your head.
Hyunjin is still by the doorway. He hasn’t moved. He just looks at you, expression almost apologetic.
“Knives are dangerous,” he says.
You throw the block.
You don’t aim. You just swing your arm and let it fly, wood leaving your hand with more force than you knew you had. It hits the wall a foot to his left, bounces off, and clatters to the floor, one corner splintering.
He flinches, but he doesn’t duck. Doesn’t even raise a hand.
“Okay,” he says, voice thin now. “Okay. I deserved that.”
You’re already moving again.
Drawer. You yank it open. Forks, spoons, chopsticks. No knives. Next one—takeout menus, batteries, dead pens. Next—towels. You slam it so hard it bounces back an inch and nearly pinches your fingers.
“Looking for a weapon?” he asks, still too calm. “Baby, do you know how easy it is to hide that kind of thing?”
“Stop calling me that,” you snarl.
Your heart is pounding so hard your vision throbs with it. You need something. Anything. Heavy, sharp, breakable—
Your eyes land on the mug by the sink. The big one with the chip in the rim.
You grab it by the handle and hurl it.
This time, you aim.
Hyunjin is closer than he was. He takes a half-step back when your arm moves, but he’s not fast enough; the mug catches his shoulder and explodes against the wall. Ceramic shards skitter across the floor, one pinging off his jaw.
He grunts, actually staggering. A darker patch blooms on the black of his shirt, near the curve of his collarbone.
Good, you think, wild and vicious. Bleed.
You don’t wait to see how bad it is. You bolt.
You don’t go for the door now—he’s too close, his body still between you and the exit. You spin past the couch instead, shoes abandoned by the entry, purse spilled, sprinting down the short hall toward your bedroom.
“Y/N,” he calls.
You don’t hear what comes after your name. You’re already in the room, slamming the door, shoving your full weight against it. Your hands fumble for the tiny lock, thumb slipping twice before it finally clicks.
Your whole body is shaking. Your lungs burn.
Okay. Okay. Breathe. Window.
You stumble to it, yank the blinds up, fingers tangling in the cheap plastic cords. The sash is down; you grab and heave. It sticks, like it always does. You grunt, shoulders straining, nails scraping paint.
“Come on,” you hiss. “Come on, come on—”
The wood gives with a shudder and jumps up an inch. Cold air knifes in. You squirm your fingers under the frame, trying to drag it higher.
Something slams into the door.
The thin wood jumps. You do too.
“Open the door,” Hyunjin says. His voice is muffled, but you can hear the strain lining it now.
“Fuck you,” you snap.
Your arms shake. The window stutters up another inch, another, shrieking in protest. It’s barely high enough to fit your torso, but you don’t need graceful. You just need through.
You wedge a knee onto the sill.
The door rattles again, harder.
“Please,” he says. “You’re going to hurt yourself. The fire escape’s rusted, it’s not safe—”
He knows the fire escape.
Of course he knows the fire escape.
You drag one leg up, sideways, thump your thigh against the sill. The metal outside is slick with old rain and god knows what else. Three floors down, the alley yawns narrow and vertical, dumpsters hulking shapes in the dark.
Your window doesn’t have a safety bar. You’ve made jokes about that. You’ve been grateful for it in summer.
Right now, it feels like a design flaw you could kiss.
The door shudders, wood starting to splinter around the knob.
Your ankle scrapes the underside of the sash; pain flares, hot and thin. You ignore it. You get one leg out, foot searching blindly for purchase. Metal screeches under your sole.
The door cracks.
You don’t see it, but you hear it: that deep, sickening pop of cheap wood giving way around the lock. The next hit sends the frame juddering; the latch tears free. The door bursts inward, slamming into the wall hard enough to dent the plaster.
“Stop,” Hyunjin pants, in the doorway now.
You don’t look back.
You get your other knee on the sill, plant your palms, and start to push yourself through.
A hand clamps around your calf.
You scream. Loud. Raw. Your throat goes hot with it.
His fingers dig into your skin, hard enough to hurt. He yanks. Your shin slams into the frame; your hip hits the edge. White pain flares along your side.
“Let go!” you shriek, kicking back with your free leg. Your heel connects with something—his chest, his shoulder, you don’t know. He grunts, but his grip doesn’t loosen.
“I said stop,” he snarls.
The word is different this time. Deeper. Something feral rattles in it.
He pulls. You grab for the fire escape railing with both hands, fingers scrabbling against rust. For a half-second, there’s a horrible stretch—your arms up, your body half out, his weight hauling you back in. It feels like you’re going to split down the middle.
“You’re going to fall,” he says, choked. “You’re going to fall—”
“Good,” you spit. “Better than this.”
He swears. It hisses through his teeth, an ugly, bitten-off sound.
His grip shifts lower, around your ankle and the back of your knee. He uses the leverage.
He yanks you back into the room.
You lose your grip on the railing. Your knuckles strip on the metal as your hands slide off; you tumble backward, crash sideways onto the floor. Your shoulder hits first, then your hip, then the back of your head. The impact knocks the breath out of you. The world goes white around the edges, then gray, then snaps back in too bright.
You lie there, lungs spasming helplessly, mouth open on nothing.
Hyunjin is over you in an instant.
His face looms into view, pale and too close, hair falling around you both like a curtain. His eyes are huge.
“Don’t move,” he gasps. “Don’t, don’t—did you hit your head? Fuck, I shouldn’t have pulled that hard, I’m so sorry—”
You swing at him.
Your fist connects with his cheekbone. It’s a horrible, satisfying feeling—bone on bone, skin on skin. Pain shoots up your hand; his head snaps sideways.
He goes very, very still.
His hair falls forward, hiding his face. A drop of blood hits your forearm. You feel it slide.
For a terrible second, you think you’ve killed him.
Then he inhales.
It’s slow. Deep. His shoulders rise and fall with it.
When he looks back at you, there’s blood on his lip and a blooming red mark along his cheek. His eyes are shining.
“You hit me,” he says, almost wonderingly.
You bare your teeth. “I’ll do worse.”
He laughs.
“That’s good,” he says hoarsely. “That’s really… that’s good. You’re fighting.That’s better than giving up.”
“You’re fucking insane,” you rasp.
He nods. “Maybe.”
You try to scramble backward, heels skidding on the floor. Your shoulder throbs; your head rings. He moves with you, one hand catching your wrist, the other flattening on the floor by your hip, caging you without quite touching.
“Let go,” you snarl, twisting your arm. You manage to dig your nails into his skin; you feel them bite. You hope they leave marks. You hope they scar.
His fingers tighten around your wrist, not enough to break, but enough to hold.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he says. His voice is thin, pleading. “You keep— you keep making me choose between letting you go and letting you get hurt, and I can’t do either of those things. You understand that, right?”
You spit at him.
It lands on his chin, mixed with his own blood. He flinches, eyes squeezing shut, then opens them again, slower.
“You’re mad,” he says. “I get it. You’re allowed.”
He lets go of your wrist.
You don’t trust it. You try to jerk your hand away anyway, roll to your side, push up—
His weight hits your hips, pinning you.
He doesn’t straddle your waist. He sits lower, across your thighs, shins braced on either side of your legs. It’s an ugly, practical position, all leverage and no romance. His hands close around your wrists again and slam them above your head, into the floor.
You buck, hard. Pain screams down your bad shoulder. His grip doesn’t waver.
“Stop,” he says, breathless. “You’re going to dislocate something.”
“Good,” you bite out. “Then I can sue you.”
“Baby,” he says.
You snarl, writhing, trying to knee him, to twist your wrists out of his grip. He just leans more of his weight into you, not crushing, but enough. You feel how much stronger he is. All the adrenaline in the world can’t make up the difference.
“Don’t,” you gasp. “Don’t call me that—”
“Okay,” he says quickly. “Okay. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m going too fast.”
He sounds sincere and wrecked and completely deranged.
“Let me go,” you say. Your voice breaks. You hate it.
“I can’t,” he says.
You look up at him. At the blood from the split in his lip—your doing. At the broken skin across his cheek where you hit him. At the smear of red on his shoulder from the mug. At the faint crescents beading on his wrist where your nails dug in.
He looks like a painting someone attacked.
And he still looks at you like you hung the fucking moon.
“Please,” you whisper.
Something in his expression crumples.
He lets go of one of your wrists.
Your brain barely has time to register the slack, to think this is my chance, before his free hand disappears briefly from your field of vision.
A second later, something cold bites into the skin of your wrist.
You jerk instinctively. Plastic scrapes; the sound is unmistakable.
Zip tie.
He threads it through the other one in a quick, practiced motion, cinching it tight. Your hands slam back together above your head. You twist, panic spiking hot and immediate; the plastic only digs deeper.
“What the— Hyunjin, what the fuck—”
“I told myself I wasn’t going to use these,” he says, more to himself than to you. “I really thought you’d listen. That’s on me. I keep overestimating how safe you feel.”
“You planned this,” you breathe.
He meets your eyes.
“Yes,” he says simply.
You laugh, high and wild. Tears burn behind your eyes, furious and humiliated. You blink them away; they just make everything swim.
“You brought zip ties to my apartment,” you say. “Do you hear yourself?”
“I brought them to the building,” he corrects. “I didn’t want to walk around with them in my hands. That would be weird.”
You stare at him.
“Oh,” you say faintly. “That would be weird.”
He winces again, like you’re twisting a knife in him without meaning to.
“I know how this looks,” he says.
“You keep saying that,” you snap. “And then it keeps looking worse.”
He shifts off your legs, careful, like he’s afraid of hurting you. Your knees feel weightless without him; pins and needles shoot down your calves. Your wrists burn where the plastic bites.
You try to sit up. He presses a hand, gentle but firm, to your shoulder.
“Don’t,” he says. “You’re going to make them cut into your skin.”
“They’re already cutting into my skin,” you hiss. “That’s what restraints do.”
He swallows.
“You’re shaking,” he says quietly. “You need to breathe.”
“I need you to get the fuck out of my apartment.”
He shakes his head.
He reaches into his back pocket and pulls something out—small, white, folded. For a second, your brain doesn’t name it. Then it does.
A cloth.
Your pulse slams.
“No,” you say.
He pauses. Looks down at it. Back at you.
“It’s just going to help you sleep,” he says softly. “You’re exhausted. You said so yourself. You’re not… thinking clearly. You’re going to hurt yourself trying to get away from me, and I can’t watch that.”
Your lungs seize.
“Hyunjin,” you say. “Hyunjin, don’t. Please. Please, don’t put anything on my face, I swear to god—”
He hesitates. For a heartbeat, for two, you think he might actually listen.
Then he looks at your wrists. At the angry red grooves there, skin already swelling around the plastic.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
You suck in a breath to scream.
His hand is faster.
The cloth covers your mouth and nose in one smooth, practiced motion. His palm presses over it, long fingers splayed across your cheek, holding you steady. One of his knees pins your hip; his other hand cradles the back of your head so it doesn’t slam the floor when you buck.
You thrash anyway.
Your legs kick uselessly against the floor. You try to twist your neck, to pull your face away, to catch his fingers with your teeth, but the angle is bad and he’s braced perfectly. You can’t get leverage. Your nails scrape his wrist; he doesn’t flinch.
The scent hits you.
Sharp. Chemical. Sweet around the edges.
You jerk, lungs spasming, instinct screaming not to breathe.
“Shh,” he murmurs. “I know. I know it’s scary. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
You try to hold your breath.
Dizziness blooms behind your eyes anyway, fueled by panic and the leftover hit to your head and the fact that you haven’t really breathed since you opened the door. Your chest burns. Your body betrays you.
You gasp.
It rushes in—thick and wrong, coating your throat, your nose. The burn in your lungs eases and gets worse at the same time. The room tilts. The edges of your vision fuzz.
“That’s it,” he whispers. “Good girl. Just breathe. Let me take care of it. Let me take care of you.”
You make some sound under the cloth, garbled and furious. Your kicks slow. Your arms feel heavy, the zip tie suddenly not so urgent, not so sharp.
Your thoughts smear.
This isn’t safe, you think, distantly. This is bad. This is—
“I’ve got you,” he says again, like a stuck record, like a prayer. His thumb strokes your cheekbone. “I’ve got you. I’ll never let you get hurt again.”
Your body feels far away. Your fingers tingle, then go numb. The ceiling swims, his face the only fixed point, pale and intent above you. His hair brushes your forehead. His eyes look almost wet.
“I love you,” he says.
You try to spit one last insult at him. It comes out as a mumble against the cloth.
Darkness folds in from the edges, slow and thick.
Your last clear thought, before it swallows you, is that you should have screamed louder. That the hallway light is still on outside. That your neighbor might step out to take the trash and see—
Nothing.
When the world goes, it goes all at once.
You don’t feel him lift you.
You don’t feel the way he shifts your weight carefully against his chest, grunting a little at the effort but smiling through it. You don’t hear him murmur, “There we go,” as your head falls against his shoulder, your wrists still bound, your ankles slack.
You don’t feel the night air bite your cheeks when he eases the bedroom window the rest of the way up and maneuvers you through, step by careful step, onto the groaning fire escape.
You don’t hear the small, relieved laugh he lets out when the metal holds.
You don’t see the hallway outside your front door, empty and indifferent, the overhead light buzzing quietly as the door hangs ajar.
You sleep through all of it.
Hyunjin does not.
Every second is bright and sharp for him—each stair on the fire escape, each shadow he slips through, each corner he takes wide to keep from jostling you. He moves like he’s carrying something sacred and breakable.
At the bottom, he looks up at your dark window one last time.
“Mine,” he says again, very softly.
Then he turns away from your building and walks you home.
(Extremely heavy themes — read carefully)
⚠️ Contains explicit sexual content, voyeuristic masturbation, stalking, home invasion, obsessive/delusional behavior, physical violence, drugging/forced unconsciousness, kidnapping
he loves you. he loves you. why don't you understand?
You don’t know you’ve met him yet.
Late afternoon, grocery aisles humming soft with compressors and a radio that only plays choruses. The fluorescents bleach everything a little—your neck, the paper list you’ve folded in half, the peaches you press your thumb into to test for give. You move like you have somewhere to be. You always do.
He watches the way your mouth tucks when you read a label. The way your fingers worry a loose thread at the cuff of your sleeve. The way you never stand quite in the center of a space—always an inch to the left, as if you’re leaving room for someone else.
As if you were leaving room for him.
Hyunjin stands two aisles over with a basket he doesn’t need and a jar of honey he’ll never open. When you pause at the endcap of pasta, he ghosts past the reflection in the chrome paneling, raises his phone chest-high, clicks—just once. Your profile, the slope of your nose, the soft intent in your eyes. When you reach for linguine, he catches a second shot of your wrist, tendons shifting beneath skin. He breathes in through his mouth.
“Hello,” he says without speaking, lips barely moving. “You took so long today.”
You tilt your head toward the olive oil. In his head, you answer him. I had class.
He smiles. Of course. He knew that.
You don’t see him in the checkout line. He likes it like that. He wants you to feel safe, ordinary, the way he will keep you. Outside, you step into the wash of late sun and cross against the light with a little, impulsive jog. He takes the back route, two car-lengths behind, phone tucked into his sleeve now, camera peeking past the cuff. A blur of your braid. The inside of your elbow as you adjust your bag strap. Your shadow, long on the pavement, intersecting with his.
At the corner, you answer your phone. You laugh at something that doesn’t deserve it. He catalogues the sound.
He doesn’t follow you to your door. He stops three buildings before and watches you vanish. The air holds you for a second longer than the sight of you does; he inhales and tastes citrus and soap and the ghost of your shampoo, or the idea of it, which is the same thing.
Home is a studio stacked with paintings and one narrow bed. The table is scarred with old X-Acto cuts, dotted with ink stains and the white freckles of dried gesso. He dumps the honey on the counter, forgets it exists. Prints three of the newest photos on the little dye-sub printer he keeps for you: your wrist near the pasta, your reflection bent in the convex of a freezer door, the perfect oval of your mouth as you say “oh” to no one in particular.
He tapes them to the wall above the low stool where he sits to sketch. There are others already there—hundreds. A constellation of you in every imagined mood.
He flips open a fresh pad. The paper sighs.
“Hi,” he murmurs, pencil hovering, then touching, the first curve finding your cheekbone without effort. “I missed you.”
You’ve never been still for him—not the way you are in his head. But he knows how your lip will soften if he asks nicely, how your lashes will lower, how your breath will hitch when his fingers slide into your hair. The graphite catches all of it: the light under your eyes, the vulnerable line of your throat when you tilt your head back for him, the notch at the base of your neck where he will put his mouth when you let him.
He draws your mouth open.
The heat at the base of his spine climbs. He shifts on the stool, exhale turning shaky, sweat gathering in the hollows of his collarbones. He doesn’t touch himself yet. He never does until he’s done.
He draws your hand next, spread over your own ribs, fingers splayed the way he likes when he tells you to hold yourself open for him. He gives you his hoodie in the sketch and nothing else. Your knees press together, thighs glossy with the shine he puts there.
“Good girl,” he says softly, pencil working, the dull thud of his pulse in his ears. “You waited for me.”
When he finally reaches for himself, it’s with his left hand, the one that isn’t dusted in graphite. He palms himself over sweats, a light test that makes his head drop back against the wall. He’s already leaking, damp spot growing. He presses his thumb there and circles, slow, gathering the wet to make the fabric slide. The little gasp he lets out is embarrassed and purely delighted.
“Look at you,” he tells you. You’re all eyes, in his head, as if you’ve been watching patiently from the grocery store to here, as if you sat down cross-legged on the paint-splattered floor and waited for him to take the hint. “You wanted this all day.”
He pushes waistband down and frees himself, breath catching when the cooler air hits. He’s thick in his own fist, flushed dark at the crown, a slick bead clinging and threatening to fall. He blinks, slow. He won’t let it. He tips his hips and catches the bead with his thumb, smears it down the underside where he’s sensitive, the wet sound as obscene as a kiss in a church.
“Come closer,” he whispers, shifting the pad to his knee, angling the drawing so the mouth he made for you lines up with his line of sight. “Let me see you.”
His hand moves in a lazy stroke from base to tip, twisting just enough at the top to make his stomach jump. He breathes you in through his teeth and lets the exhale stutter out, again, again. His thighs tense; the stool creaks.
He doesn’t rush. The first few minutes are meditation—pressure, release, the greased slide of his fist, the way his body preens into the rhythm like a cat into a palm. He murmurs nonsense: thank you, there you are, keep your eyes on me—pleases, like you’re being good for him, like you could ever be anything else.
When he opens his eyes again, he’s already flushed, chest heaving lightly, a line of sweat at his hairline. He wipes it away with his wrist, leaves a smear of graphite across his temple. The drawing of your mouth looks wet now because he’s decided it is.
He leans forward.
He drags his next stroke slower, meaner, knuckles skimming the aching head, thumb pausing to circle the slit until his knees threaten to jerk. He squeezes the base, holds, breathes through it—a learned denial that brings the pleasure up tight and makes it burn brighter when he lets it move again.
“Shy today?” he asks, eyes on the cock-hard shine of the tip, on the twitch his own hand draws out of himself. “It’s okay. I’ll do the work.”
He spits into his palm—quick and efficient, a slick thread that strings to his fist and snaps. The sound he makes when he returns to himself is unguarded and low. He starts a steadier pace, each stroke long and deliberate, wrist flexing, fingers choking up just enough to pinch at the head without hurting. His hips answer. He pictures the way your tongue would flatten at the first taste, the way your throat would tense around him if he slid deeper, the surprised little cough when your nose kissed his abdomen.
His free hand drifts to the drawing without thought. His fingertips skim the paper where he darkened the corner of your smile. He rubs lightly, smudging the graphite so it looks like you’ve kissed back. His breath shakes.
“You’re so pretty,” he says, voice frayed. “You’re always—so—look at me, baby. You love me. You do.”
He edges himself and backs off, edges again. The second time, his eyes roll and his mouth goes open and soft; he holds at the base, counts heartbeat after heartbeat until the trembling settles into a clean ache. He’s slick now; even a whisper of pressure slips. He grips tighter, cruder, the heel of his palm pressing against himself in a way that makes his thighs jolt.
He looks up at the photographs. The freezer-door reflection catches him, that curve of your cheek, the shine over the stainless. He sees you seeing him. Relief floods him so hot he almost comes right there.
“Yeah,” he pants, smiling, not quite sane. “I know. I know. You’re so brave.”
He speeds up. The room narrows around the rhythm—the wet shuck of his hand, the small animal sounds he can’t stifle anymore, the tiny jerks of his hips as he fucks up into his fist. He tips his head to give the fantasy more room: you on your knees between his spread thighs on this stupid paint-splattered floor; your fingers splayed on his knees; your eyes patient and worship-bright, a string of spit falling from your lip to the head of him, breaking, reforming, breaking.
“Take me,” he whispers fiercely, and his pace turns ruthless. “C’mon, take me—don’t run, don’t run, open up—good girl—”
He can feel the heat sprinting up his spine now, a grabbed electrical wire of a feeling that climbs with every slide. He doesn’t fight it this time. He drops his head, braces his heel, fucks his fist like it can bruise him from the inside. The wet sound of his palm sliding across the length of him gets messy, slick, perfect.
When he breaks, he does it with a sound he’d be embarrassed to make anywhere else. It rips up from the bottom of him, a shocked, grateful thing, and his whole body locks. The first thick pulse hits his knuckles, hot enough to startle, and he drags his fist away just in time to paint the drawing.
It hits your mouth first—the one he drew—and then lower, a line of white across his hoodie he drew you in, a wet shine over the graphite shadow he put at your sternum. More follows, pulsing, spilling, striping the edge of one of the photos, catching the corner and bleeding into the paper like milk into coffee.
He rides it hard, chasing the last little flashes with a few shaky strokes that make him groan, softer, helpless. When it tapers off, he leans forward and lets his forehead thump to the table, breath coming like he’s been pulled out of deep water.
“God,” he laughs, wrecked and happy, the sound breaking into a sigh. “Good. So good.”
He opens his eyes, dazed. The drawing is ruined and holy.
He touches the wet at your mouth with two fingers. Spreads it a little. Makes a thumbprint on your cheek like a claim. He will not wipe this away. He will fix it with spray, let the gloss dry hard, catch light the way your skin does when you’ve just kissed him and you’re trying not to smile.
“Mine,” he says, tender, certain. He presses his lips to two knuckles. “You’re so good to me.”
He cleans his hand with an old shirt and forgets to throw it toward the laundry hamper. He props the sketchpad against the wall to dry, right in the line of sight from his pillow. The photos drip at the corners; he doesn’t mind the warping. It makes them more real.
On the bed, he lies on his back, one forearm over his eyes, his mouth tilted up like he’s still kissing you. Calm spreads out in him in slow, warm rings.
Tomorrow, he’ll sit two tables over at the café and you’ll check your messages and stir sugar into your drink and know, in the way that matters, that he is there. He’ll show you the newest page if you ask. He’ll hide it if you’re shy. He’ll wait, as long as you need, because waiting is the same as having when you already belong to him.
He falls asleep like that for a minute, lulled by the hum of the fridge and the faint paint-smell; when he wakes, he rolls to his side and looks at your mouth again. The gloss has begun to dry. It catches the evening light in a way that makes his chest ache.
“Soon,” he murmurs, eyes soft, the promise an easy, lethal thing. “I’ll bring you home soon.”
You talk to him for the first time a week later.
It’s nothing.
You’re at the crosswalk outside the art store he sometimes uses for brushes, juggling a tote bag and what looks like a portfolio tube. You’re trying to balance it all while you dig in your pocket for your headphones. The pedestrian signal chirps; people surge around you.
Someone bumps into you from behind. Your tube slips. The strap catches, jerking your shoulder.
“Sorry,” you say automatically, breathless.
The man grunts and moves on.
You don’t even look back.
Hyunjin does. The guy is twice his size and already halfway down the block. It takes everything in him not to follow, not to tap him on the shoulder and ask if he’s always so careless with priceless things.
“You okay?” he says under his breath, watching the way you shake your arm out, roll your shoulder once.
He imagines you saying, Yeah. I’m okay. I’ve got it.
The light changes. The crowd moves. You step forward, caught in the river of bodies.
Your portfolio tube slips again. This time, the strap snags the edge of your coat; you stumble, foot catching on the curb.
Hyunjin’s hand is on your elbow before he thinks about it.
It’s instinct. That’s what he tells himself later. Reflex.
You jerk, head whipping toward him. For one bright, shocked second, your eyes meet.
His world goes silent.
Up close, you’re all the specifics his drawings have been missing. Tiny freckle at the corner of your left eye. Faint line where your bottom lip is a bit drier than the rest. A tiny, irritated flush just beneath your jaw from the weight of the strap.
“I’ve got it,” you say, recovering your balance. Your voice is straighter than he expected, less soft. “Thanks.”
You pull your elbow free. He lets you. You don’t look at him longer than the courtesy demands; your gaze skips once over his face, uncomprehending, and then you’re angling away, crossing the street, phone already in your hand.
He stands on the curb, fingers tingling where your warmth was, heart pounding so hard it feels like it’s rattling his ribs.
You spoke to him.
You.
Spoke.
To him.
You thanked him.
You let him touch you.
You didn’t pull away until you were steady.
He replays all three seconds as you walk away, as you turn the corner, as you vanish. Every blink, every shift of your weight, every syllable.
“Thanks,” he mimics quietly.
You were nervous. That’s why you didn’t hold his gaze. That’s why your elbow twitched when he steadied you. You’re not used to being taken care of. You don’t know how to trust it yet.
You will.
He walks home in a daze.
That night, he doesn’t need photos.
He sits cross-legged on the floor instead, sketchbook braced on his thighs, lamp tilted low. He draws from memory: your shoulders hunched over the laptop, the deep fatigue carved under your eyes.
He redraws it differently.
In his version, your shoulders are still tired, but they’re wrapped in his clothes. Your jaw is soft because you’re half-asleep, cheek pressed to his thigh while he combs his fingers through your hair and tells you you’re not allowed to stay up all night alone anymore.
He jerks off once, slow and thorough, to the thought of your mouth slack and drooling a little on his leg while he talks on the phone about something that doesn’t matter. He finishes smeared over the curve of your cheek on the page. He laughs, breathless and fond, and writes mine over the stain before it dries.
The shift happens on a Wednesday.
You’re at the bookshop, tucked behind the register with a textbook open flat on the counter. It’s a slow hour; the bell above the door hasn’t chimed in thirty minutes. You chew the end of your pen and frown down at a paragraph, utterly unaware that the chewing is going to haunt him later.
He pretends to browse.
He’s good at it now, letting his fingers skate over spines he won’t remember, tilting covers to catch the light. He hovers two aisles away, close enough to watch you reflected in the little round mirror above the bargain table. Your eyes flit across the lines. Your knee bounces under the counter. You don’t look up.
He loves you so much he could scream.
The bell chimes.
He glances over in time to see a guy in a hoodie and ballcap walk in, head down, scrolling his phone. He’s about Hyunjin’s height, stockier, hands tucked into his pockets.
He goes straight to you.
You look up, startled, then smile when you recognize him. Hyunjin’s hand tightens automatically around the spine of a book.
“Hey,” you say. Your voice does a different little thing, lighter, sweeter. “You’re early.”
Hyunjin’s vision tunnels.
The guy leans on the counter, grinning. “Got out of practice quick. Coach wasn’t in the mood to torture us today.”
You laugh. “Can you get him to talk to my professors?”
“Please, your professors probably love you.”
“Debatable.”
The guy reaches across the counter and flicks your pen out of your hand. You grab for it, smack his wrist. You’re still smiling.
“Stop,” you say, mock-annoyed. “I’m trying to actually learn something for once.”
“You can learn after dinner,” he says. “I’m starving.”
“Then go eat,” you say. “I still have half an hour.”
He pouts. “Can’t we just go now? No one’s here.”
“I’m still on the clock,” you say. “My manager will murder me.”
“He won’t know,” he wheedles.
Hyunjin closes the book very carefully before he crushes the cover.
This is new.
This is wrong.
You don’t have a boyfriend. You don’t even flirt. He would know. He’s watched you for months. He’s heard every conversation, heard every phone call you’ve answered in public. There hasn’t been anyone.
Except now there is this.
“Seriously, go sit,” you say, jerking your chin toward the little café corner at the back. “I’ll be off in a bit. I’m not getting fired because you’re hungry.”
“Fine,” the guy sighs, but he’s smiling. He grabs your pen again, pockets it this time. “I’m stealing this.”
“No, you’re not,” you protest, reaching over the counter. He leans in and you end up half sprawled across the wood, laughing, fingers grappling with his.
“I’ll trade,” he says.
“For what?”
“For this.”
He dips in and kisses you.
It’s quick. Barely more than a brush of mouths. But you soften into it after the initial shock, hand fisting gently in the front of his hoodie. When he pulls back, you’re flushed in a way Hyunjin has never seen before.
“Idiot,” you mumble, but you’re smiling. You don’t ask for the pen back.
The guy ruffles your hair and retreats to the café with a last, soft look. Your eyes trail him for a second before you snap back to your textbook, face taut in a way that says you’ll overthink that kiss for the rest of the shift.
Hyunjin stands frozen in the aisle, hands empty.
There’s a high, whining sound in his ears.
No. No, this isn’t—this isn’t real. This is a blip. A trial run. People make mistakes. You’re tired. You’re overworked. You don’t mean it. This is a phase. A detail. A smudge he can rub out.
He could go home and draw this version: your hand tangled in someone else’s shirt. He could watch the line of your mouth curve for the wrong person and fix it on paper, erase the hoodie, replace the jaw, make it his.
He doesn’t.
But he does leave.
He doesn’t remember getting out of the shop, doesn’t remember the bell, doesn’t remember the air between the door and the sidewalk. He finds himself three blocks away, back pressed to a brick wall, hands shaking.
He laughs once, breathless and incredulous.
“Okay,” he whispers, more to the sky than to himself. “Okay. I get it. You’re mad at me.”
He’s been greedy. He knows that. Keeping you all to himself, hoarding your words, your images, your little quirks like they belong in his chest instead of your own life. Letting months pass without giving you the chance to meet him properly. It’s understandable that you’d… drift. That you’d be lonely. That you’d accept the first idiot who put his mouth on you like you were available.
His stomach rolls.
He presses his palms to his eyes until stars bloom.
“You don’t know,” he tells himself quietly. “You don’t know. You don’t know any better yet.”
The thought steadies him.
The real firsts don’t count when they’re with the wrong people. Everyone knows that. You’re practicing. That’s all. You’re killing time with some guy whose name he’ll forget as soon as this is fixed. You’ll look back from where you’re supposed to be—his bed, his arms, his life—and you’ll laugh at yourself, at how desperate you were back then to feel anything.
He peels off the wall and walks fast.
There’s only one place he wants to be now and that's with you. He has to make his move. Before it’s too late.
You don’t notice anything wrong at first.
You’re too tired, for one. The kind of tired that makes the hallway blur—the elevator ride a soft, humming blank between the bookshop and your floor. Your shoulder still remembers the weight of a hand that shouldn’t mean as much as it does. Your mouth still tingles where he kissed you.
Stupid, you think, as you dig for your keys. You’re going to overthink that for a week.
The hall outside your apartment is the same as always: ugly carpet, buzzing overhead light, someone’s package leaned against the wall waiting to be stolen. You shift your bag higher on your shoulder and fumble the key into the lock. It sticks, like it always does. You jiggle up then left. The deadbolt thunks back.
You push the door with your hip.
Darkness, at first. The familiar kind. Your curtains are closed; the city outside is a smear through cheap fabric. You toe your shoes off by muscle memory, one, two, heel pressed to heel. Your bag drops onto the little entry table with a tired thud. Keys in the dish. Phone on top of them.
You don’t turn the light on right away. You never do. You like the pause—the exhale in dimness before the apartment fully exists, before you see the dishes in the sink or the laundry you forgot or the emails you don’t want to open.
You stand there a second, listening to yourself breathe.
The quiet is wrong.
It takes your brain a beat to decide that.
The building’s noises are there—the distant plumbing, someone’s TV muffled through two walls—but your apartment has its own soundscape: the tick of the cheap clock over the stove, the faint hum of the fridge, the sigh of the old window when the wind hits just right.
You hear the fridge. You don’t hear the clock.
You left it running this morning. You remember complaining about it to yourself when you were hunting for your other shoe. You don’t remember… stopping it.
You frown into the dark, hand feeling for the light switch.
You don’t flip it.
Your fingers brush the plastic and then freeze, some animal part of you suddenly, painfully awake. The hair on your arms lifts. A current runs underneath your skin, a low electric hum that has nothing to do with the wiring.
If someone’s in here, you think, wild and flat at the same time, hitting the lights just tells them exactly where you are.
You swallow. Your mouth is dry.
“Hello?” you call.
It sounds stupid the second it leaves your lips. This is exactly what gets people killed in all those horror films you’ve watched.
The apartment doesn’t answer.
Your eyes start to adjust. Shapes resolve: the couch as a hulking rectangle, the cluttered low shelf under the TV, the half-full laundry basket by the hallway. Everything is where you left it and wrong anyway, like someone has picked your life up and put it down a centimeter to the left.
You step out of your shoes and onto the cool wood. Your feet are silent. Your heart is not.
“Okay,” you mutter, for yourself. “Okay. You’re being weird. It’s fine.”
You reach again for the switch.
A breath answers you.
Not yours.
It’s soft, caught, the kind someone makes when they forget to hide it. It comes from deeper in, not the main room. Somewhere down the short hallway that leads to your bathroom and bedroom.
Every muscle in your body locks.
You stand there, hand hovering over the switch, fingers shaking now.
“Who’s there?” you say.
This time your voice cracks. You hate that.
Silence again. Long enough that you start to doubt your own ears. Long enough that you think, hysterically, Maybe it was the building settling, maybe it was a pipe, maybe it was—
“Hey,” a voice says.
You jump.
It’s not loud. Not threatening. You know loud; you grew up in a house where anger broke the sound barrier. This is… gentle. A little hoarse, like its owner hasn’t used it in hours. The sound threads down the hall and into your chest.
“I didn’t want to scare you,” he adds.
You flick the light on.
The apartment snaps into being. Couch, shelf, laundry, your jacket thrown over the back of a chair. The cheap art print over the TV. The kitchen counter with two mugs by the sink, one clean, one not. Everything, everywhere, too bright.
There’s a man sitting on your couch.
You know two things at once: you have never seen him before in your life, and yet you have seen him a thousand times.
Long legs spread just enough to brace on the floor. Dark hair pulled back in a loose half-tie, a few strands falling around his face. Black jeans, black t-shirt speckled with what looks like old paint. Hands folded carefully between his knees, like he’s trying to look nonthreatening.
“Hi,” he says, almost shy. “You’re home.”
Your body reacts before your brain catches up. You stumble back, shoulder slamming into the door. Your hand scrabbles blindly for the lock, the knob, anything.
“How the—” Your voice comes out thin. You swallow, try again. “Who are you? Get out. Get out or I’m calling the police.”
He flinches at police like other people flinch at gunshots. It’s small, a twitch at the corner of his mouth, but you see it. His hands tighten once and then loosen again. He doesn’t stand.
“I know this looks bad,” he says.
You laugh. It’s a horrible sound, high and too loud. “You’re in my apartment.”
“I know.” He nods, earnest. “I was going to be gone before you got back, but you left work early and—” He breaks off, shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel unsafe.”
“You broke into my apartment,” you repeat, as if maybe he missed that part. “You’re in my apartment. There’s no version of this where I don’t feel unsafe.”
“I didn’t break anything,” he says quickly. “The lock’s cheap. It sticks if you push up, then left. You know that.”
Your stomach drops.
“How do you know that?” you whisper.
He blinks. For the first time, something like uncertainty ghosts across his expression. Like he thought you were further along in this conversation than you are.
“We can talk about that,” he says. “Just—can you close the door?”
The door is still cracked from when you slammed into it. A thin slice of hallway, empty and humming, shows through.
Every instinct you have screams to yank it open and run.
His eyes flick to the gap, then back to you.
If you turn and bolt, he’ll be on you. You know that without knowing how you know. He hasn’t moved, but there’s something in the line of his body, in the casual bend of his knees, that says coiled, ready.
You don’t move.
“I’ll scream,” you say instead. “My neighbors will hear.”
He nods like that’s reasonable. “Okay.”
He doesn’t sound worried.
You fumble for your phone on the table without taking your eyes off him. Your fingers close on empty wood.
Your keys are in the dish.
Your phone is not.
Cold slips down your spine, joint by joint.
“Looking for this?” he asks softly.
He lifts your phone from the cushion beside him, like a magician producing a rabbit. Your screen is dark. His thumb rests a hair’s breadth from the side button.
“I didn’t go through it,” he says. “I promised myself I wouldn’t. That felt like… too much. Like stealing. I’ve just been holding it.”
He says it like that should be a comfort.
You stare at the phone, then at him.
“Get out,” you say again. Your voice is steadier now. Anger is easier than fear; it gives your words weight. “Leave my phone and get out, or I swear to god—”
“Y/N.”
The sound of your name in his mouth almost knocks you over.
He says it gently, carefully, like he’s practiced getting the weight of the syllables right. Like he likes the shape of it.
Every nerve you have lights up.
“Don’t,” you say. It comes out too quiet. “Don’t call me that. You don’t know me.”
He smiles, small and bewildered, like you’ve said something mildly funny.
“I know you,” he says.
You shake your head. Your heart is a painful, frantic drum. “No. You don’t. I have never seen you before. How did you get in here?”
He exhales, a little sigh through his nose. You get the sense he’s having a different argument in his head and you’re losing it without even being told the rules.
“The super’s careless,” he says. “He leaves the spare keys in the office drawer with the door open. It took a while to figure out which one was yours, but…” His shoulders lift in a tiny shrug. “Worth it.”
Your stomach flips.
“How long,” you ask, each word measured, “have you been doing that?”
The smile fades.
“You were really stressed during midterms,” he says instead of answering. “You kept falling asleep at your desk. I hated that. Your neck is going to be a problem in ten years if you keep doing that.”
You feel nauseous.
You think about all the nights you’ve dragged yourself home, tossed your bag, face-planted into your textbooks. The mornings you woke up with a blanket over your shoulders you didn’t remember pulling down from the couch. The days you told yourself you just forgot you’d done that.
Your skin crawls.
“Oh my god,” you whisper. “Oh my god.”
He sees it land. His expression crumples in slow motion.
“No,” he says quickly. “No, don’t—hey, don’t look at me like that. I never hurt you. I would never—”
“You were here,” you snap. “In my apartment. While I was sleeping.”
“I was making sure you were okay,” he says, as if that should have been obvious. “You don’t take care of yourself. You forget to eat, you fall asleep sitting up, you walk home with your headphones in and your keys between your fingers like that would stop anyone—”
“You were watching me?” you say, voice rising. “How long?”
He hesitates.
“Hyunjin,” he says.
You blink. “What?”
“My name,” he says. “It’s Hyunjin.”
He says it like that answers anything.
“I don’t care what your name is,” you spit. “Get. Out.”
He winces, a quick, wounded flick around his eyes, but his body doesn’t move. If anything, he looks heavier in the room now, like the air has decided to arrange itself around him.
“I know you’re scared,” he says softly. “I know this is sudden. I thought we’d have more time. That’s on me. I waited too long.”
“You didn’t wait at all,” you say. “You—what, you just picked me and… and decided we’re what, friends? Dating? Is that it? Is that what this is?”
His eyes brighten like you’ve given him a gift.
“See?” he says quietly. “You do know.”
“I don’t know anything,” you snap. Your hand gropes along the wall behind you, searching for something, anything—a sharp edge, a heavy object—but there’s nothing within reach but the smooth paint and the useless little framed print you hung there sophomore year. “You’re a stranger. You are in my apartment. You need to leave.”
“No,” he says.
The word is still soft. It lands like a locked door.
Something in you frays.
“Then I’ll leave,” you say, pushing off the door. Your body wants to shake; you don’t let it. You put one foot in front of the other, edging toward the gap.
He stands.
It’s slow, unhurried, but somehow he’s taller than you thought he was when he does it. The room feels smaller with him upright. He doesn’t lunge. He doesn’t have to. Two steps and he’s between you and the door, hands loose at his sides, not touching you.
“Move,” you say.
“Just…” He swallows. His Adam’s apple bobs. “Can you sit down? Please? We can talk. You’ll feel better when you understand.”
“There’s nothing to understand,” you say. Your throat burns. “You’re a stalker and a freak and you broke into my home. That’s it. That’s all there is.”
He flinches at freak like you slapped him.
A flicker of something ugly slips through his expression and is gone so fast you almost think you imagined it.
“Don’t call me that,” he says, very quietly.
Your pulse stutters.
You press your back harder into the wall, as if you could sink through it. His body blocks the only exit. The window behind the couch is a death drop onto an alley. You think, distantly, about your neighbor across the hall, about whether she’s home, about how loud you would have to scream for her to knock.
Hyunjin takes a breath, lets it out slow.
“You’re tired,” he says. “You’ve had a long day. You’re upset about the boy from the shop—”
“Don’t,” you snap. “Don’t talk about him.”
“You’re not yourself right now,” he continues, as if you haven’t spoken. “You’re scared. I get it. I’d be scared too, if I thought I was alone and then I wasn’t. But you’ve never been alone, Y/N.”
Your name again, threaded through the sentence like an anchor.
You shake your head. “You need to stop saying my name like that.”
“Like what?” he asks, genuinely puzzled.
“Like you own it,” you choke.
He tilts his head. His gaze drags over your face, searching. Cataloguing. You feel it everywhere it touches, like fingers.
“It’s yours,” he says eventually. “I just… like holding it.”
You almost laugh. It comes out broken on the edges.
“You’re insane,” you say.
He thinks about that for a beat.
“Probably,” he says. “But I’m not wrong.”
You don’t know what to do with that.
“Move,” you say again, last try. “Please. Just—let me leave. You can stay here and be crazy or whatever, and I’ll go outside and call the cops and you can run, but I am not staying in here with you.”
His jaw tightens.
“You’re not calling the cops,” he says. There’s no bluster in it. No threat. Just certainty. “You wouldn’t do that to me.”
“I don’t even know you,” you say.
“You do,” he says. “You just haven’t caught up yet.”
You stare at each other.
You’ve been tired all day, but whatever fog you were walking around in has burned off, replaced with a sharp, painful clarity. Every sense is painfully open. You can smell the faint oil paint on his shirt, the trace of your own detergent in the room, the metallic tang of your own fear at the back of your tongue.
He looks at you like you’re a painting he’s been working on for months that finally came into focus.
“I’m going to scream,” you say.
His eyes soften, which is the last thing you expect.
“You can,” he says. “If you really want to. But then they’ll come, and you’ll have to explain why you didn’t notice any of the other times I was here. Why you didn’t wake up. Why you slept with the door unlocked that one week. Why you walked home alone in the dark so many nights after that. They’ll ask a lot of questions, and you’re so tired, baby. You don’t want that.”
Your stomach lurches at baby.
“I’ll tell them everything,” you say, forcing the words past the tightness in your throat. “I’ll tell them I didn’t know, because I didn’t, and they will drag you out of here in handcuffs and I will never have to see you again.”
His mouth curves, almost fond.
“You really think,” he says, quiet, “I’d let them take you away from me now?”
A pulse beats hard at your temple. You feel lightheaded.
“You mean take you away,” you say.
He shakes his head.
“No,” he says. “I meant what I said.”
He takes one slow step closer. You flatten against the wall. Your hands curl into fists at your sides to stop them from shaking.
“I love you,” he says.
It hits you like a blow.
The room tilts. You grab for air.
“You don’t even know my favorite color,” you say, because that’s what comes out, because your brain is doing triage with nonsense.
“Blue,” he answers, without hesitation. “Not the bright one, the soft one you wear in your hair sometimes. You drink iced coffee even when it’s cold. You hate leaving emails unread but do it anyway when they scare you. You only call your mom on Sundays because you need the mental buffer. You crack your knuckles when you’re about to lie. You think nobody notices.”
Your hands uncurl. Your knuckles ache.
“Stop,” you whisper.
“You apologize too much,” he says softly. “You cry at car commercials and then pretend you have something in your eye. You take naps with your mouth open. You drool. It’s cute. You hate being called cute.”
You feel sick.
“This isn’t love,” you say. “This is—this is you spying on me and pretending it’s a personality quiz. This is you building some fucked up little shrine and deciding I’m your main character.”
His gaze flicks, just once, to the hallway that leads to your bedroom.
“Yeah,” you say, voice shaking now. “Yeah, I know you’ve been in there. What did you do? Take photos? Steal my underwear? Go through my journal? Did you like the part where I wrote about wanting to claw my own skin off? Did that turn you on?”
He flinches like you slapped him.
“I would never read something you didn’t want me to,” he says, low. “I’m not a monster.”
You laugh, sharp and ugly.
“You’re in my apartment,” you say for the third time. “You let yourself in with my keys. You watched me sleep. You watched me shower? Did you? Did you stand in the hallway and listen—”
“No,” he snaps, sudden and sharp. Anger flashes bright across his face, then shutters. “No. I give you privacy. I’m not—” He cuts himself off, breath coming fast. “I just make sure you’re safe.”
“You’re the thing I need to be safe from,” you say.
He looks at you for a long moment.
Then he sighs.
“I knew you were going to say that,” he murmurs. “I was hoping we’d get there slower.”
He lifts your phone, turning it over in his hand once, twice. His thumb presses the side button. Your lock screen flares to life—time, missed notifications, the last photo you took at the café. He studies it, expression unreadable, then clicks it dark again.
“I’m not leaving,” he says. “And you’re not either.”
The words slot into place with all the quiet inevitability of gravity.
You realize, belatedly, that he hasn’t stepped between you and the door by accident. That he has your phone, your keys, your routine, your whole small life in his hands, and he honestly believes that’s the same thing as care.
Your heart hammers once, twice, like it’s trying to punch through your ribs.
The hallway behind him stretches toward your bedroom, where the window sticks and the fire escape is rusted and the lock is a joke. You don’t know yet which way you’re going to run.
You just know you’re done standing still.
You don’t decide so much as your body does.
One second you’re pinned in place by his stare, the next something in you snaps like an overstretched rubber band. Your vision tunnels; the edges of the room fuzz. Fight or flight stops being a theory and becomes a command.
You smile.
It feels wrong on your face. Too bright. Too sharp. But you watch his shoulders slip the tiniest fraction, something hopeful flickering at the corners of his mouth.
“Okay,” you say.
Your voice doesn’t sound like yours. It sounds higher, sweeter. You push your hands away from your sides, fingers uncurled, palms empty.
“Okay,” you repeat. “Fine. You want to… talk? We can talk. Just—” You force a little laugh. “Can we do it sitting down? My legs are killing me.”
He studies you.
You keep your gaze loose, your shoulders slouched, like the adrenaline isn’t making your fingertips tingle.
Please be stupid, you think. Please be exactly as stupid as you look.
Hyunjin’s head tips, birdlike. His eyes soften again.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “Yeah. That’s fair.”
He steps sideways, opening a slim corridor between you and the living room.
He doesn’t step far enough to clear the door.
You don’t go for the door.
You go left.
The kitchen is three strides away. You hit the tile too fast, socked feet sliding. Your hand shoots out for the counter to steady yourself; your hip clips the edge hard enough to bruise. You don’t feel it. You’re already reaching for the knife block.
There’s nothing in it.
Your fingers close on empty slots, wood smooth and mocking under your palm.
For a heartbeat, your brain just… blanks.
No. You did dishes yesterday. You put them back. You remember the clack of blade against wood, the way you shoved the biggest knife in too hard and had to wiggle it free and try again. You are not crazy. You are not misremembering.
You look at the block properly.
Every slot is empty.
Slowly, like you’re underwater, you turn your head.
Hyunjin is still by the doorway. He hasn’t moved. He just looks at you, expression almost apologetic.
“Knives are dangerous,” he says.
You throw the block.
You don’t aim. You just swing your arm and let it fly, wood leaving your hand with more force than you knew you had. It hits the wall a foot to his left, bounces off, and clatters to the floor, one corner splintering.
He flinches, but he doesn’t duck. Doesn’t even raise a hand.
“Okay,” he says, voice thin now. “Okay. I deserved that.”
You’re already moving again.
Drawer. You yank it open. Forks, spoons, chopsticks. No knives. Next one—takeout menus, batteries, dead pens. Next—towels. You slam it so hard it bounces back an inch and nearly pinches your fingers.
“Looking for a weapon?” he asks, still too calm. “Baby, do you know how easy it is to hide that kind of thing?”
“Stop calling me that,” you snarl.
Your heart is pounding so hard your vision throbs with it. You need something. Anything. Heavy, sharp, breakable—
Your eyes land on the mug by the sink. The big one with the chip in the rim.
You grab it by the handle and hurl it.
This time, you aim.
Hyunjin is closer than he was. He takes a half-step back when your arm moves, but he’s not fast enough; the mug catches his shoulder and explodes against the wall. Ceramic shards skitter across the floor, one pinging off his jaw.
He grunts, actually staggering. A darker patch blooms on the black of his shirt, near the curve of his collarbone.
Good, you think, wild and vicious. Bleed.
You don’t wait to see how bad it is. You bolt.
You don’t go for the door now—he’s too close, his body still between you and the exit. You spin past the couch instead, shoes abandoned by the entry, purse spilled, sprinting down the short hall toward your bedroom.
“Y/N,” he calls.
You don’t hear what comes after your name. You’re already in the room, slamming the door, shoving your full weight against it. Your hands fumble for the tiny lock, thumb slipping twice before it finally clicks.
Your whole body is shaking. Your lungs burn.
Okay. Okay. Breathe. Window.
You stumble to it, yank the blinds up, fingers tangling in the cheap plastic cords. The sash is down; you grab and heave. It sticks, like it always does. You grunt, shoulders straining, nails scraping paint.
“Come on,” you hiss. “Come on, come on—”
The wood gives with a shudder and jumps up an inch. Cold air knifes in. You squirm your fingers under the frame, trying to drag it higher.
Something slams into the door.
The thin wood jumps. You do too.
“Open the door,” Hyunjin says. His voice is muffled, but you can hear the strain lining it now.
“Fuck you,” you snap.
Your arms shake. The window stutters up another inch, another, shrieking in protest. It’s barely high enough to fit your torso, but you don’t need graceful. You just need through.
You wedge a knee onto the sill.
The door rattles again, harder.
“Please,” he says. “You’re going to hurt yourself. The fire escape’s rusted, it’s not safe—”
He knows the fire escape.
Of course he knows the fire escape.
You drag one leg up, sideways, thump your thigh against the sill. The metal outside is slick with old rain and god knows what else. Three floors down, the alley yawns narrow and vertical, dumpsters hulking shapes in the dark.
Your window doesn’t have a safety bar. You’ve made jokes about that. You’ve been grateful for it in summer.
Right now, it feels like a design flaw you could kiss.
The door shudders, wood starting to splinter around the knob.
Your ankle scrapes the underside of the sash; pain flares, hot and thin. You ignore it. You get one leg out, foot searching blindly for purchase. Metal screeches under your sole.
The door cracks.
You don’t see it, but you hear it: that deep, sickening pop of cheap wood giving way around the lock. The next hit sends the frame juddering; the latch tears free. The door bursts inward, slamming into the wall hard enough to dent the plaster.
“Stop,” Hyunjin pants, in the doorway now.
You don’t look back.
You get your other knee on the sill, plant your palms, and start to push yourself through.
A hand clamps around your calf.
You scream. Loud. Raw. Your throat goes hot with it.
His fingers dig into your skin, hard enough to hurt. He yanks. Your shin slams into the frame; your hip hits the edge. White pain flares along your side.
“Let go!” you shriek, kicking back with your free leg. Your heel connects with something—his chest, his shoulder, you don’t know. He grunts, but his grip doesn’t loosen.
“I said stop,” he snarls.
The word is different this time. Deeper. Something feral rattles in it.
He pulls. You grab for the fire escape railing with both hands, fingers scrabbling against rust. For a half-second, there’s a horrible stretch—your arms up, your body half out, his weight hauling you back in. It feels like you’re going to split down the middle.
“You’re going to fall,” he says, choked. “You’re going to fall—”
“Good,” you spit. “Better than this.”
He swears. It hisses through his teeth, an ugly, bitten-off sound.
His grip shifts lower, around your ankle and the back of your knee. He uses the leverage.
He yanks you back into the room.
You lose your grip on the railing. Your knuckles strip on the metal as your hands slide off; you tumble backward, crash sideways onto the floor. Your shoulder hits first, then your hip, then the back of your head. The impact knocks the breath out of you. The world goes white around the edges, then gray, then snaps back in too bright.
You lie there, lungs spasming helplessly, mouth open on nothing.
Hyunjin is over you in an instant.
His face looms into view, pale and too close, hair falling around you both like a curtain. His eyes are huge.
“Don’t move,” he gasps. “Don’t, don’t—did you hit your head? Fuck, I shouldn’t have pulled that hard, I’m so sorry—”
You swing at him.
Your fist connects with his cheekbone. It’s a horrible, satisfying feeling—bone on bone, skin on skin. Pain shoots up your hand; his head snaps sideways.
He goes very, very still.
His hair falls forward, hiding his face. A drop of blood hits your forearm. You feel it slide.
For a terrible second, you think you’ve killed him.
Then he inhales.
It’s slow. Deep. His shoulders rise and fall with it.
When he looks back at you, there’s blood on his lip and a blooming red mark along his cheek. His eyes are shining.
“You hit me,” he says, almost wonderingly.
You bare your teeth. “I’ll do worse.”
He laughs.
“That’s good,” he says hoarsely. “That’s really… that’s good. You’re fighting.That’s better than giving up.”
“You’re fucking insane,” you rasp.
He nods. “Maybe.”
You try to scramble backward, heels skidding on the floor. Your shoulder throbs; your head rings. He moves with you, one hand catching your wrist, the other flattening on the floor by your hip, caging you without quite touching.
“Let go,” you snarl, twisting your arm. You manage to dig your nails into his skin; you feel them bite. You hope they leave marks. You hope they scar.
His fingers tighten around your wrist, not enough to break, but enough to hold.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he says. His voice is thin, pleading. “You keep— you keep making me choose between letting you go and letting you get hurt, and I can’t do either of those things. You understand that, right?”
You spit at him.
It lands on his chin, mixed with his own blood. He flinches, eyes squeezing shut, then opens them again, slower.
“You’re mad,” he says. “I get it. You’re allowed.”
He lets go of your wrist.
You don’t trust it. You try to jerk your hand away anyway, roll to your side, push up—
His weight hits your hips, pinning you.
He doesn’t straddle your waist. He sits lower, across your thighs, shins braced on either side of your legs. It’s an ugly, practical position, all leverage and no romance. His hands close around your wrists again and slam them above your head, into the floor.
You buck, hard. Pain screams down your bad shoulder. His grip doesn’t waver.
“Stop,” he says, breathless. “You’re going to dislocate something.”
“Good,” you bite out. “Then I can sue you.”
“Baby,” he says.
You snarl, writhing, trying to knee him, to twist your wrists out of his grip. He just leans more of his weight into you, not crushing, but enough. You feel how much stronger he is. All the adrenaline in the world can’t make up the difference.
“Don’t,” you gasp. “Don’t call me that—”
“Okay,” he says quickly. “Okay. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m going too fast.”
He sounds sincere and wrecked and completely deranged.
“Let me go,” you say. Your voice breaks. You hate it.
“I can’t,” he says.
You look up at him. At the blood from the split in his lip—your doing. At the broken skin across his cheek where you hit him. At the smear of red on his shoulder from the mug. At the faint crescents beading on his wrist where your nails dug in.
He looks like a painting someone attacked.
And he still looks at you like you hung the fucking moon.
“Please,” you whisper.
Something in his expression crumples.
He lets go of one of your wrists.
Your brain barely has time to register the slack, to think this is my chance, before his free hand disappears briefly from your field of vision.
A second later, something cold bites into the skin of your wrist.
You jerk instinctively. Plastic scrapes; the sound is unmistakable.
Zip tie.
He threads it through the other one in a quick, practiced motion, cinching it tight. Your hands slam back together above your head. You twist, panic spiking hot and immediate; the plastic only digs deeper.
“What the— Hyunjin, what the fuck—”
“I told myself I wasn’t going to use these,” he says, more to himself than to you. “I really thought you’d listen. That’s on me. I keep overestimating how safe you feel.”
“You planned this,” you breathe.
He meets your eyes.
“Yes,” he says simply.
You laugh, high and wild. Tears burn behind your eyes, furious and humiliated. You blink them away; they just make everything swim.
“You brought zip ties to my apartment,” you say. “Do you hear yourself?”
“I brought them to the building,” he corrects. “I didn’t want to walk around with them in my hands. That would be weird.”
You stare at him.
“Oh,” you say faintly. “That would be weird.”
He winces again, like you’re twisting a knife in him without meaning to.
“I know how this looks,” he says.
“You keep saying that,” you snap. “And then it keeps looking worse.”
He shifts off your legs, careful, like he’s afraid of hurting you. Your knees feel weightless without him; pins and needles shoot down your calves. Your wrists burn where the plastic bites.
You try to sit up. He presses a hand, gentle but firm, to your shoulder.
“Don’t,” he says. “You’re going to make them cut into your skin.”
“They’re already cutting into my skin,” you hiss. “That’s what restraints do.”
He swallows.
“You’re shaking,” he says quietly. “You need to breathe.”
“I need you to get the fuck out of my apartment.”
He shakes his head.
He reaches into his back pocket and pulls something out—small, white, folded. For a second, your brain doesn’t name it. Then it does.
A cloth.
Your pulse slams.
“No,” you say.
He pauses. Looks down at it. Back at you.
“It’s just going to help you sleep,” he says softly. “You’re exhausted. You said so yourself. You’re not… thinking clearly. You’re going to hurt yourself trying to get away from me, and I can’t watch that.”
Your lungs seize.
“Hyunjin,” you say. “Hyunjin, don’t. Please. Please, don’t put anything on my face, I swear to god—”
He hesitates. For a heartbeat, for two, you think he might actually listen.
Then he looks at your wrists. At the angry red grooves there, skin already swelling around the plastic.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
You suck in a breath to scream.
His hand is faster.
The cloth covers your mouth and nose in one smooth, practiced motion. His palm presses over it, long fingers splayed across your cheek, holding you steady. One of his knees pins your hip; his other hand cradles the back of your head so it doesn’t slam the floor when you buck.
You thrash anyway.
Your legs kick uselessly against the floor. You try to twist your neck, to pull your face away, to catch his fingers with your teeth, but the angle is bad and he’s braced perfectly. You can’t get leverage. Your nails scrape his wrist; he doesn’t flinch.
The scent hits you.
Sharp. Chemical. Sweet around the edges.
You jerk, lungs spasming, instinct screaming not to breathe.
“Shh,” he murmurs. “I know. I know it’s scary. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
You try to hold your breath.
Dizziness blooms behind your eyes anyway, fueled by panic and the leftover hit to your head and the fact that you haven’t really breathed since you opened the door. Your chest burns. Your body betrays you.
You gasp.
It rushes in—thick and wrong, coating your throat, your nose. The burn in your lungs eases and gets worse at the same time. The room tilts. The edges of your vision fuzz.
“That’s it,” he whispers. “Good girl. Just breathe. Let me take care of it. Let me take care of you.”
You make some sound under the cloth, garbled and furious. Your kicks slow. Your arms feel heavy, the zip tie suddenly not so urgent, not so sharp.
Your thoughts smear.
This isn’t safe, you think, distantly. This is bad. This is—
“I’ve got you,” he says again, like a stuck record, like a prayer. His thumb strokes your cheekbone. “I’ve got you. I’ll never let you get hurt again.”
Your body feels far away. Your fingers tingle, then go numb. The ceiling swims, his face the only fixed point, pale and intent above you. His hair brushes your forehead. His eyes look almost wet.
“I love you,” he says.
You try to spit one last insult at him. It comes out as a mumble against the cloth.
Darkness folds in from the edges, slow and thick.
Your last clear thought, before it swallows you, is that you should have screamed louder. That the hallway light is still on outside. That your neighbor might step out to take the trash and see—
Nothing.
When the world goes, it goes all at once.
You don’t feel him lift you.
You don’t feel the way he shifts your weight carefully against his chest, grunting a little at the effort but smiling through it. You don’t hear him murmur, “There we go,” as your head falls against his shoulder, your wrists still bound, your ankles slack.
You don’t feel the night air bite your cheeks when he eases the bedroom window the rest of the way up and maneuvers you through, step by careful step, onto the groaning fire escape.
You don’t hear the small, relieved laugh he lets out when the metal holds.
You don’t see the hallway outside your front door, empty and indifferent, the overhead light buzzing quietly as the door hangs ajar.
You sleep through all of it.
Hyunjin does not.
Every second is bright and sharp for him—each stair on the fire escape, each shadow he slips through, each corner he takes wide to keep from jostling you. He moves like he’s carrying something sacred and breakable.
At the bottom, he looks up at your dark window one last time.
“Mine,” he says again, very softly.
Then he turns away from your building and walks you home.
₊˚⊹ ᰔ │ smau, crack, fluff, cursing, chan is a single dad who is constantly working, chan has a daughter named jia but everyone calls her bug/buggie, age gap undefined but its there
⟶ [ 𝐤𝐚𝐢’𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞 ] dad chan on my mind once again, don’t worry gang ill make your fantasies come true and get pregnant by him ♡ ︎ [ 𝐧𝐚𝐯𝐢 ]
PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE
reblogs, likes and replies are appreciated! feel free to send constructive feedback/thoughts in my asks!
heart and mind ; chan x reader ; omegaverse ; one-shot
masterlist.
You don’t want to share your first heat with just anyone. You want someone good, someone protective, someone who respects you, someone who can laugh with you.
You want your alpha. You want Chan.
pairing: bang chan/reader
content info: friends2lovers, omegaverse, omega!reader in heat, alpha!chan, explicit sexual content. the leather jacket and lace shirt did a number on me, man. anyway, omegaverse dynamics, heats, ruts, knots, pheromones, scent-marks, first times. biting, choking, claiming, piv, multiple orgasms, dirty talk, some possessive behaviour. it's fairly affectionate and sweet overall tbh. but they do get down nasty.
word count: 3500 words
enjoy ; )
-
You wake in pain. First, just a general stiffness, sharp in your neck and pinching your lower back. You fell asleep in the hallway outside his apartment door, slumped against the wall, so that figures. Then, the other pain. The one that brought you to his door in the middle of the night.
Your body feels like an echoing cavern, the ache reverberating in that great hollow space, so desperate to be filled. Your thighs clench together instinctively, even half-awake.
You blink your eyes open. At the sight of him, a wave of relief washes over you, numbing some of that horrible pain.
“Chan,” you whisper.
“Hey there, sleepy,” he says in a soft, smiling voice. “What’s all this? Why you out here, huh?”
As you wake a little more, you realize he is wearing cologne. It is subtle, just the faintest hint of something woodsy to underscore his natural pheromones. He isn’t due for a rut, not for a while, as alphas only rut a few times a year, but that subtle scent is always there. An alpha’s scent-mark is in their wrist, on the tender underside just above their pulse, similar but different to the omega scent-mark on your neck, thrumming above your pulse there.
He is touching your face, palm cupped over your cheek as his thumb strokes the rounded curve of it. It puts his scent-mark so close to your nose. Of course you can smell him, heady and rich and familiar, your best friend, your protector, your most trusted person. Your alpha.
Yes, you think, as much with your omega hindbrain as anything else, yes, my alpha, mine.
Your eyes are locked on his, his gaze so affectionate, making you feel so warm. You look at his face like it is the first time seeing it, as if you haven’t known each other for years, since you were gawky teenagers awkwardly developing into your new presentations. He’s still that goofy boy inside, though he looks like a man now and he so embodies his presentation. He is sturdy and strong, confident and competent. His dyed hair is blonde and long, framing his handsome, made-up face, one soft with smiling affection.
You blink to realization when you lay a hand on his shoulder and feel leather. You look down, breath catching at the sight of him: the not-so-modest lace black shirt under leather, the dark pants, the whole stark effect with his fair hair and dark eyes.
“You look so nice,” you say, and you mean it, but you pout regardless. “Why do you look so nice? Where were you? It’s so late, Channie.”
You would not usually ask. Well, you would not usually be curled up outside his apartment in the first place. You would not have rushed over in the middle of the night, forgetting your phone and spare key, your fuzzy brain having no need of such things because you assumed he would be home.
It isn’t your business where he went, of course, because he’s a grown man and you’re a grown woman and you’re best friends, nothing more, sweet and close but cordial and so polite. And if he wants to go out, if he wants some other person curled up in his lap with their hand on his leather lapel…
That thought bleeds into red as jealousy consumes you.
You breathe hard, closing your eyes, trying to eradicate that horrible image.
“I just went out,” he says, brushing some hair off your face, probably mistaking your closed eyes for sleepiness. “Didn’t really wanna, yeah? But the guys were kinda on my case about always staying in. I didn’t know you were here. Should’ve called me, love.”
“Did you get lucky?” you ask, eyes open but fixed on his chest, tracing the pattern of lace across his skin. You are still breathing hard.
“Uh, no, wasn’t really… trying… Are you okay?” He gently lifts your face to meet your eyes, his brows furrowed with concern.
You don’t blame him. These aren’t the questions you usually ask and this isn’t the way you usually behave. But you don’t have it in yourself to care. Besides, you could never feel judged with Chan. It is why you don’t feel insecure even though he is so handsomely done up but you are not. No, you are just yourself tonight, unadorned and simple. You pulled a long coat over your nightdress and your face is bare under his attentive regard.
“I need to tell you something,” you say.
He drops his hand and looks at you expectantly. He is crouched, balancing on his heels, his arms draped over his knees. His expression is rapt and fixed on you.
You feel overwhelmed, just being looked at by him. His gaze is so affectionate. Your lips part but your voice is caught.
He tilts his head, still concerned.
“Oh, Chan,” you whisper.
You move forward so you are kneeling. You wrap a hand around the back of his neck and guide his face to your throat.
He loses his balance, falling from his crouch to his knees. His arms are thrown out to his sides and his breath catches. He is probably about to laugh or lift his head, probably about to look at you with bewilderment, but then he freezes.
You feel the moment he scents you, his face so close to your scent-mark, because the line of his broad shoulders goes stiff.
His arms freeze, still out at his sides, practically held out in surrender.
You cling to him and close your eyes.
“You…” he starts and stops, his breath fanning over your scent-mark.
He presses his nose against your throat, breathes you in. Some of that tension melts away, his arms slowly lowering.
Your heart is absolutely hammering. You can feel yourself getting wet, so, so wet, just from his breath on your scent-mark, just from the proximity of his lips to your throat.
“Why do you… smell like you’re…” he starts and stops again, breathes you in again.
You know your scent is familiar to him. It is woven into threads of borrowed hoodies, embedded in his couch cushions, even his bedroom pillows. He smells it when you throw your arms around him for a hug. He scents it when you rush past him and it carries on a breeze. He knows it better than his own scent.
It should be familiar.
Tonight it is different.
“Are you…” he tries again, hands getting a little closer to your body. “Love,” he says gently and you start to tremble, “You’re not…?”
You have been on suppressants since you first presented in adolescence. You are something of an anomaly among omegas, one not envied by others. Your heats are debilitatingly intense and last longer than average. Your doctor recommended suppressants for your teenage years, until your body developed and could better tolerate it without falling ill.
When you matured out of adolescence, you were simply used to suppression. You have had a few relationships but nothing so intimate as to compel you to share your heat with them. You know it doesn’t have to be a big deal, that sex is sex at the end of the day, and the same birth control works on or off.
But it seemed the longer you put it off, the more important it became in your mind.
You don’t want to share your first with just anyone. You want someone good, someone protective, someone who respects you, someone who can laugh with you.
You want your alpha. You want Chan.
You went off suppressants last weekend, expecting it would take a month or so to stabilize and trigger an episode, maybe longer considering how long you had been on them. You thought you would have time to adjust. You thought you could talk to him properly, to see if he would be willing to see you through this.
Apparently, the length of your suppression had the opposite effect. It only took a week for your heat to come on, powerfully and all at once. It is not how you wanted to do things but the omega instincts that usually whisper guidance have commandeered utter control of your senses.
“I am,” you whisper.
Your temple is pressed to his, so you can’t see each other’s faces. It is all scent and feeling, all laboured breath and racing hearts. There is a bare inch of space between your kneeling bodies.
“Oh,” he says.
He is frozen another breathless moment.
Then he moves. You make a soft noise as he wraps his arms around you, so completely and tightly, pulling you right against him. He buries his face in your neck and opens his mouth to fully breathe you in. You feel every hot exhale, the pounding of his heart in his chest, his hands possessive on your body.
“You smell so good,” he says, voice suddenly deeper. “So fucking sweet… God, I could eat you up.”
A remark like that should make you laugh. He probably said it for that reason, something teasing to break the tension. But his tone and flirtation, to say nothing of his strength, makes you sigh sweetly.
You are already feverish and wanting, pushing your curves into the harder planes of his body. You gasp when you feel him against your middle, hard and getting harder, and the surprise makes your hips twitch backwards.
He pulls you against him again, so you can feel it.
“Please,” you whisper, can’t manage more than that. “I – I want it to be you. I’m sorry, I wanted to – to talk – but maybe we can in a few days – for now, I – I need –”
His hand curls around your throat, angling you so your scent-mark is easy to access. You exhale and it is a shuddering release. Your whole body goes soft and pliant. Such vulnerability could be frightening under the wrong conditions.
The stroke of his thumb, the caress of his breath, the teasing swipe of his nose against your jaw –
His scent, woodsy and warm and familiar –
This is right and your body knows it.
You offer your neck in sweet submission and he wordlessly accepts. He presses a soft kiss on that aching, vulnerable scent-mark, the collective source of heat pheromones that must be intoxicating him. He groans with deep, ardent pleasure, lingers just a moment with his mouth open and his breathing laboured.
Then your back arches as he bites that sensitive place in a claiming, hard, animalistic bite.
You see stars. You cling to him, grappling, scratching across the leather as he uses his last moments of coherent sense to scoop you into his arms and carry you into his apartment.
You don’t get much farther than the entrance. The door slams shut and he grabs your face, pulling you in for a kiss that is all teeth and tongue. You whimper at the demanding passion, opening your mouth to him. He kisses you dizzy, seems to swallow every gasp then give your breath back to you.
Your jacket hits the floor. Your shoes come off in your mad backwards scramble.
He grabs the front of your nightdress and tears it right down the middle. You squeak with surprise but not embarrassment, too hot and needy for that. You let the fabric float to the floor as he puts his hands back on you.
The length of your naked body presses to his clothed one. You moan, every inch of you sensitive to the sensation of leather and lace.
His hands cup your sides and slide down, down and around, guiding your back into an arch. His hand slides further, covers your ass and squeezes a curve like it’s always been his to do so.
He kisses you the whole time.
“C’mere,” he says against your mouth, like you aren’t already pressed against him, your arms around his neck, your bare breasts rubbing against his barely-there shirt.
Then you realize what he means as he closes the last important distance, his hand sliding down your front and between your thighs. You gasp against his mouth as his fingers slip through all that wet desire.
“That’s it,” he says. “That’s my girl. You can open your legs for me, just like that, yeah.”
You step apart. He puts his booted foot between yours, nudges them even further apart. You tip your head back and thrust your hips forward, riding the rhythm he starts with his hand. It is just a surface touch, just stroking you, just letting you soak his hand as your body opens up for him.
“Just like that,” he says. His other hand is on your lower back, keeping you steady. “I got you. You can come for me. I got you, I got you.”
You know it’s true. The truth of that promise has been a constant for years. You are his and he will take care of you.
You come with another swipe of his fingers. He holds you upright, taking the brunt of your weight as your legs get weak.
You are still shaking, still coming down from that high, when he twists his wrist and slides two fingers inside you. It is an easy touch, your body so ready and open, but it still makes you gasp. You clench around him like your body is desperate to pull him in, like it needs him there more than anything.
“Mhm,” he says, his mouth against your scent-mark, kissing and licking and sighing. He sways a little, almost like he’s drunk, but the only scent on him is a raging arousal pheromone and that masculine cologne and leather. And, despite the swaying, he stays planted on his feet, and his hand never ceases its thorough, pounding touch. “Can take it, can’t you, love,” he murmurs, his voice vibrating against your scent-mark in a dizzying sensation, “Show me, sweetheart. Show me, yeah? Show me how you’ll take my cock, hmm?”
You aren’t even trying, your body is racing ahead of you, clenching sporadically around him as he takes you apart with a few flicks of his wrist. He knows when he has you, takes you right over the edge then moves his hand as wet gushes between your trembling thighs.
You cling to his shoulders, all but sobbing as the intense orgasm washes over you in a tidal wave.
“Aha, that’s my girl,” he says, and bites your scent-mark again.
If your voice was not already shot, you might have screamed with the pleasure of it. As it is, your mouth opens and your chest heaves with every deep breath. He leaves a bruising bite mark on your throat, one that will tell every alpha who so much as breathes too close to you that you belong to him.
He keeps rubbing his fingers between your legs to prove it.
“Chan,” you whine, “I can’t – I can’t—”
“Oh, love,” he says. “Trust me, you can. We’re just getting started.”
He makes you come a third time in a matter of moments. This time, your legs fully give out, but he anticipates it. He swings an arm under your knees and smoothly sweeps you off your feet. You nuzzle against him, eyes closing, breathing hard as he carries you into the next room.
His mattress is soon under you. He has placed you in the middle of his bed and is standing there, looking down at you with a dimpled smile. He takes your chin between his thumb and forefinger and tilts your head back. His next kiss is sweet, tender warmth suffusing your body.
You lean back on your elbows while he finally pries that leather jacket off his shoulders. He tries to unbutton his shirt but then you inch your legs apart and his gaze is irrevocably drawn there. He hesitates only a moment before tearing through his shirt too, tossing the scraps on the floor. He doesn’t even look at the boots as he pries them off, then he practically flies onto the bed, crawling over you, his dark pants tented obscenely.
He is an intimidating bulk of power, making you throb with desire, but also making you instinctively close your legs. It’s like your body wants the game, knows how to speak the alpha inside him, beckoning him with every tip of your head and tease of your thighs.
He makes a low noise, almost a growl, then his hands are on your knees and he is pushing your thighs apart. He fits himself between them, lays you down flat, his teeth at your throat as he grinds against you.
“Don’t get shy,” he says, just short of a command, making you swallow. “Not with me, yeah?”
You nod rapidly. “Yes,” you say.
He grabs your throat, guides you, makes you look at him.
“Yes?” he asks, a dark brow lifted.
“Yes, alpha,” you rasp, staring back into his eyes. His grip is not mean, not really choking, just possessive, just tight enough you feel him wrapped so soundly around you.
Your eyes, gazing back at him so devotedly, softens his face so much. He is all yours, your best friend, your alpha, your Chan, and he smiles that dimpled smile even with his far less innocent hand on your pulse.
“Wanted you for so long, love,” he says.
Somehow, that is the remark that makes you squirm the most, clawing at the bedsheets under you, lifting your hips against him. You can’t move much farther than that, even though you are desperate for more action and less talking. He has you completely at his mercy.
As he always has, and reveals how much he knows it.
“Even on you suppressants,” he says, “You know when I’d go into rut, you’d react every time, like you knew before me? Would be standing in my kitchen… wearing my hoodie… standing there in your little shorts… and you’d stretch up on your toes to reach for something and I’d come up behind you to help… and you’d scent it, wouldn’t you, love? Because your hips would pitch backwards like your pussy was looking for my knot even while your mind was suppressing it…”
“Mmffph,” is the noise you make, the only noise you are capable of, as you rut your hips against his bulge.
Your eyes feel huge and wide, staring into his. Despite his words, his gaze is still affectionate, his smile still soft.
“Stop squirming,” he says, giving your throat one more squeeze before he gets up and kneels between your spread legs. He finally pries open his belt and opens his pants while you arch your back. “I said no squirming,” he repeats, grabbing your hips. “Want you to hear my words, love, you know why?”
You shake your head, breath stuttering as he gets his pants down his hips. Your eyes go his cock, to his hand stroking the full length it, wet at the tip, back up again, and down…
He reaches with his other hand, grabs your chin and makes you meet his gaze again.
“Because,” he says, “your heat will end sooner or later, yeah? But what I’m telling you right now?”
He leans over you, guides your hands to his bare shoulders and hovers his mouth above your scent-mark. He is hot and hard between your thighs, so close, so close, so close—
“Those words are me fucking that pretty mind of yours,” he says.
And you gasp as he slams inside you in one hard thrust.
“And you’ll remember them,” he says, fucking you with every word, “every – fucking – time – you – look – at – me. And every time you think about it…” He licks over your sore scent-mark, making you clench around him again and again. “Every time you look at me, I’ll be fucking you all – over – again.”
You come with another spasming wave, legs and arms wrapped so tightly around him while he fucks you through it. His words register somewhere deep inside you, further even than where his cock is hitting so hard and deep.
You know, even in your heat-brained animalistic state, that he is right:
He’s inside you now, and you’ll never be able to go without him again.
“Oh, Chan,” you say, sighing his name in the most worshipful, loving voice you can muster.
He returns all that affection, kissing you deeply, spreading your thighs, and swelling inside you. Your body opens for him, clings to him, pulls him deep inside and keeps him there, his knot hard and pulsing.
He kisses you softly, then kisses your scent-mark too. You squeeze him tight in your arms.
Then he lifts his head. You look at each other, breathing hard, bodies joined as thoroughly as your hearts and minds.
You smile. He smiles back, that friendly smile you know so well, only it softens with a new kind of affection.
“My love,” he says.
“My alpha,” you tease.
His smile deepens and leans down, kissing you again. You gasp when he thrusts a little, so swollen and huge inside you, and your brain gets dizzy again.
“Told you already, love,” he says with that dimpled smile. “We’re just getting started.”
⍣ ೋ cw: Explicit sexual content, public risk of exposure, oral sex (f receiving), dirty talk, mild exhibitionism, humor, camp setting, brief mentions of bribery.
⍣ ೋ notes: been a while since the last Camp SKZamp post but it's finally here! i'm trying to get them out more regularly i promise 😭
The lake's calm again.
That’s how you know it’s a good day. No drama, no accidents, no wet towels in weird places. Just the sun, the chlorine-stained laughter of campers, and Chan’s whistle slicing through the air every now and then.
You’re not technically a counselor—just a camper who floats around helping Chan out at the lake. He calls you his “assistant lifeguard,” though you suspect that’s just his way of making you feel useful when all you really do is hand out floaties and remind people to reapply sunscreen.
But after a shift in the blistering sun, the one place you always end up is the same: the arts and crafts shack.
Maybe it’s the air-conditioning. Maybe it’s the smell of acrylic paint and drying clay and slightly moldy popsicle sticks. Or maybe it’s the fact that Hyunjin is always there. Barefoot, hunched over a table, hair tied back with a bandana like he belongs in a coming-of-age movie.
Yeah. It’s definitely Hyunjin.
You don’t make a habit of interrupting him—just drift in quietly and settle into the corner, pretending to doodle while you sneak glances at the way his brow furrows in concentration. Sometimes he looks up, gives you a little nod. Sometimes you talk. Most of the time, you don’t have to.
It’s peaceful here. Private.
Until today.
Today, when the sun’s still burning your shoulders and the lakewater still clings to your skin, you step into the art shack and Hyunjin doesn’t look up. Doesn’t nod. Doesn’t even flinch.
He’s perched on the edge of his stool, one leg tucked under him, the other bouncing absently. A pencil is gripped tightly in his hand. His sketchbook is open on the table, and he’s leaning over it so intently, you wonder if he’s even breathing.
You close the door gently behind you. Step closer.
“Whatcha drawin’, Da Vinci?” you ask, voice light.
Hyunjin jerks like he’s been caught mid-crime. The sketchbook slams shut and he whirls around, eyes wide, chest rising and falling a little too fast.
“Shit—! I didn’t hear you come in,” he says, voice breathless.
“Clearly,” you tease. “Wasn’t trying to sneak up on you, promise.”
“I—yeah, no, it’s fine,” he says quickly. Too quickly. His hand stays protectively on top of the sketchbook like you might try to snatch it away. “You just startled me.”
You lean against the worktable, still dripping a bit from the lake. “Must’ve been something very private.”
He freezes.
“Oh my god,” you gasp, wide-eyed. “Were you drawing porn?”
His face goes red. “No!”
You smirk. “Because you shut that sketchbook like I caught you drawing titty studies.”
Hyunjin groans and scrubs a hand over his face. “It’s not porn. Jesus. Why is that your first assumption?”
“Because I know artists. And men,” you say sweetly. “Two very horny groups.”
He mumbles something into his hand.
“What was that?” you prod, leaning in.
Hyunjin drops his hand but keeps his eyes fixed on the wall behind you like maybe if he doesn’t meet your gaze, this conversation will spontaneously combust. “I said I wasn’t drawing porn. It’s just… private.”
You blink at him for a moment, then grin, leaning one elbow on the table. “Private? What, like secret government maps? A treasure hunt? Your deeply emotional self-portrait phase?”
That gets him to look at you. He’s flushed, but his mouth quirks like he’s fighting a smile. “You’re ridiculous.”
“You’re avoiding the question,” you say, poking at the edge of the sketchbook with your finger.
Hyunjin’s hand immediately clamps down on it like you’re about to pry it open. “Seriously, don’t.”
You lean back, hands raised. “Fine, fine. I’m not trying to traumatize you.”
He huffs, a loose strand of hair falling over his forehead. “You already did when you barged in like the Kool-Aid Man.”
“That’s not fair,” you protest. “The Kool-Aid Man breaks walls. I, at least, used the door.”
For a moment, something like a laugh flickers across his face, and you catch him softening. The line of his shoulders loosens, but his grip on the sketchbook doesn’t.
You tilt your head, studying him. “You’ve been in here all day, huh?”
“Yeah. Keeps me from melting outside.”
“And from socializing,” you add with a grin.
“Exactly.” He looks at you then, eyes sharp but warm, like he’s seeing something he hasn’t allowed himself to linger on before.
The heat from the day, the lingering lakewater drying on your skin, the stillness of the shack—it all feels suspended, like a scene waiting for someone to yell action.
“So… do I get any hints?” you ask, lowering your voice like you’re bargaining for state secrets.
“Nope.”
You pout dramatically. “Not even one tiny clue? Like, is it a landscape? A portrait? A fruit bowl with existential undertones?”
Hyunjin exhales, a faint smile curling his lips. “You’re relentless.”
“Thank you,” you say.
He shakes his head but doesn’t look away this time. His eyes catch on your wet hair, the lakewater-darkened collar of your camp tee, the sun-pinked skin of your nose and cheeks. His pencil hand twitches, and something about that little movement sparks a thrill low in your stomach.
“You always come here after your shift,” he says suddenly.
“Yeah. I like it here.”
“Because it’s quiet?”
“Because of you,” you answer without thinking.
Hyunjin blinks. Whatever he was expecting, it was definitely not that.
His eyes widen, his fingers loosening on the sketchbook. “Because of me?” he repeats, like he’s checking if you’re messing with him.
You shrug, trying to play it casual, though your pulse is hammering in your ears. “Yeah. You’re easy to be around.”
For a moment, he just stares. There’s a flicker of something in his eyes—something warm, startled, and maybe a little reckless. His grip on the sketchbook relaxes entirely, but he doesn’t move it away; he just lets it rest there on the table between you, forgotten for the first time since you walked in.
“That’s…” He swallows, gaze darting from your eyes to your mouth and back. “That’s good to know.”
You tilt your head, lips curling. “You thought I came here for the smell of glue and glitter?”
He laughs under his breath, short and incredulous. “I didn’t know why you came here. I just… didn’t think it was me.”
“Hyunjin,” you say softly, leaning in just enough that your knee brushes his. “It’s definitely you.”
The words hang there, thick and heavy in the summer air. His lips part, like he’s about to say something, but instead he just… looks at you. Like he’s sketching you in his head, tracing invisible lines from your hairline to your jaw, memorizing every bit of sunburn and lakewater sparkle.
“Why not?” you ask, suddenly aware of how close you’re sitting. A single movement could have your knee brushing his. A single breath might tilt you into something irreversible.
“Because I’m trying to be professional,” he says, smiling faintly—wry and a little helpless. “And you keep making that very, very hard.”
You arch a brow. “That sounds dangerously close to a double entendre, Counselor.”
He snorts under his breath, shaking his head. “Jesus. Of course you’d make it worse.”
But he doesn’t move away. And neither do you.
It’s like something invisible is crackling between you—warm and static and coiled tight, just waiting for the strike.
Your voice comes out quieter this time, sincere. “You’re always drawing something when I come in. And I never ask. I just… I like watching you. It calms me down.” You hesitate. “You calm me down.”
His breath catches. “You do the opposite to me.”
The words are barely out before he’s standing up from his stool, the sketchbook forgotten on the table. You rise too, heart thrumming. He doesn’t touch you, but his presence is suddenly everywhere—like the sun’s heat had followed you inside and bloomed between your bodies.
“I kept drawing you,” he says quietly, “and I told myself it didn’t mean anything. That it was just a study. A habit. That I wasn’t thinking about your laugh, or how your legs look in those dumb little shorts, or how your neck smells like sunscreen and saltwater.”
Your breath hitches. “Hyunjin…”
“But I was,” he says, almost to himself. “I am.”
Your breath catches, chest rising with the sharp inhale you try—and fail—to disguise.
The air is thick now, summer heat pushing sweat to your skin, making the space between you feel like static.
Hyunjin steps closer, slow, deliberate, eyes flicking down to your lips then back up again like he’s not sure if he’s allowed. His fingers twitch at his sides, like he’s debating whether to touch you.
“Hyunjin,” you whisper.
“Yeah?” His voice is low, husky with hesitation.
You almost say kiss me. Almost close that last inch yourself—
“Don’t stop on my account.”
Both of you jump.
You whip your head around so fast your neck twinges.
Aeryn is leaning casually against the doorway, sipping from a neon tumbler, one brow arched like she’s watching a soap opera. Judging by how relaxed she looks, she’s been standing there a while.
“Oh my god—” Hyunjin presses a hand to his chest. “Were you just standing there?!”
“Yup.” She takes another sip, perfectly unbothered. “Gotta say, I liked the tension build-up. Ten out of ten. Cinematic pacing.”
You gape, heat rushing to your face. “Head Counsler—!”
“What?” she shrugs. “I said don’t stop.”
Hyunjin groans, rubbing the back of his neck. “Am I in trouble?”
“No.” Aeryn’s grin is sharp and amused. “I’ve changed. I’m not the ‘rules-and-clipboards’ type anymore. SKZotel broke that out of me.”
“What’s SKZotel?” you ask, confused.
Hyunjin immediately shushes you, hand landing on your arm. “Don’t ask.”
You blink at him, bewildered. “What do you mean don’t ask—”
“Seriously.” He leans closer, murmuring like it’s classified intel. “Some things you can’t unhear.”
Aeryn laughs, shaking her head. “Anyway, moral enforcement’s Minho’s gig now. And he’s gonna be here in ten minutes to do inventory.”
“Inventory?” you echo.
“Mhm, he’s very thorough. Like… clipboard and checklist thorough.” She tilts her head. “If he sees this—” she waves vaguely at the two of you, still standing close, still flushed—“I’m pretty sure we’re looking at a three-hour lecture on camp ethics.”
Hyunjin lets out a sound that’s somewhere between a groan and a curse. “You have got to stall him.”
Aeryn blinks. “Why would I—”
“I’ll—” Hyunjin checks his pockets, pulling out a folded twenty and a pack of watermelon gum. “I’ll give you cash and gum.”
Aeryn smiles. “Make it forty.”
Hyunjin glares. “Thirty and I won’t tell Chan it was you who left paint on his kayak last week.”
Her eyes narrow. “You drive a hard bargain, artist boy.” She pockets the money and gum anyway. “Fine. You’ve got fifteen minutes. Do not waste them.”
And just like that, she’s gone—calling out a fake “Minhooo, can you help me carry something real quick?” as she vanishes down the path.
Silence falls again.
Hyunjin looks back at you, eyes dark, lips parted like he’s still catching up to everything that just happened.
“So…” you say softly, heartbeat skittering. “Where were we?”
He smiles, slow and wolfish. “Right about… here.”
Hyunjin’s hands hover at your jaw, warm and careful, like you’re porcelain he’s scared to chip.
The closeness is dizzying: the smell of graphite and paint lingering on his shirt, the faint salt of sweat still clinging from the heat outside.
For a second, he doesn’t move. Just looks at you.
“Is this okay?” he murmurs. His voice is soft, nothing like the playful banter from moments ago. It’s low and earnest, trembling on the edge of hope and fear.
You nod—too quickly, maybe too desperate—but you don’t care. “Yeah,” you whisper, then swallow, “Yeah, it’s okay.”
He exhales like he’s been holding his breath for hours.
“Good,” he says quietly. And then his mouth is on yours.
It’s not rushed. Not yet. The kiss is sweet, hesitant—like he’s been imagining it and is finally allowing himself to make it real. His lips are warm and smooth and just a little shaky, and when he tilts his head to deepen it, your hands find the hem of his shirt, curling into the fabric.
The sketchbook thuds to the floor, forgotten.
He breaks away just enough to murmur, “Been wanting to do that since you first walked in here that day… with that sunburn and lake hair.”
You laugh, breathless. “That’s not very professional, Counselor.”
His forehead drops to yours, smiling despite himself. “No, it’s really not.”
The moment hangs—soft, glowing—and then it shifts, almost imperceptibly. His thumb drags across your jaw, slow and deliberate. Your legs part just slightly to let him step closer, and the way his breath hitches is enough to make you shiver.
His lips ghost over yours again, slower this time, but heavier, hungrier. One of his hands trails down to your waist, the other sliding around your back to pull you closer.
You sigh into him, and that sound—the yes in it—makes him kiss you harder.
Your back hits the edge of the table, wood cool under your fingertips as you grip it for balance. He sets you there like you weigh nothing, stepping between your knees as if he’s done it a thousand times in his head.
“Tell me to stop and I will,” he murmurs, voice rough now.
You shake your head, wrapping your arms around his neck. “Don’t you dare.”
The kiss deepens again, his hands skating over your thighs, thumbs brushing against bare skin where your shorts have ridden up. It’s deliberate and slow, like he’s giving you every chance to change your mind.
You don’t. You can’t.
Your fingers thread into his hair, tugging lightly until he groans against your mouth—and that’s when the soft hesitancy breaks, when everything tilts from sweet to heated.
His mouth claims yours again, but this time it’s different—no hesitation, no pause, just need.
Your legs wrap around his waist on instinct, pulling him flush against you. The table beneath you wobbles slightly, wood groaning under the shift, but neither of you cares.
Hyunjin’s hands slide up your thighs, fingers digging into the warm skin just above your shorts before hooking them under the hem and yanking them down with a frustrated sound. They hit the floor, and his fingers are already tugging at the string of your swimsuit bottoms, groaning when he finds you bare underneath.
“God, you—” he kisses down your jaw, across your throat, sucking gently just above your collarbone, “—you taste like the lake and sunscreen and me losing my mind.”
You moan, tilting your head back, fingers in his hair tugging out the bandana so his strands fall around his face. He groans at the pull and his hands—steady but eager—slide between your thighs.
“Hyunjin—”
“I’ve thought about this way too much,” he admits, kissing lower, pulling at the hem of your shirt until it’s up and over your head. “Every time you sit there on that stupid stool, every time you laugh at me for focusing too hard—” he presses a kiss to the swell of your breast, hot breath sending shivers down your spine, “—I think about how I’d get you up here.”
You gasp as his mouth trails down, slow and hot, teeth grazing lightly. His fingers find you easily, sliding along your slick folds. He exhales sharply. “Fuck… you’re already soaked.”
You clutch at his shoulders, breath hitching. “I wanted you—”
“Yeah? Good.” His fingers curl inside you, his thumb circling your clit in small, deliberate motions that make your toes curl. “Because I wanted you too.”
You bite your lip, eyes half-lidded as he lowers his head and licks a long, slow stripe up your inner thigh before replacing his thumb with his tongue. The sudden warmth of him, the wet glide and gentle suction, has you moaning so loud you have to slap a hand over your own mouth.
He pulls back just enough to say, “Don’t do that. Let me hear you.” Then he’s back at it, tongue flicking, fingers curling just right, building you up with maddening precision.
Your head snaps up, panic slicing through your haze. “But Minho’s—”
Hyunjin lifts his head, lips glistening, expression caught somewhere between frustration and disbelief. “Did you really just say his name while I’m—”
“—doing inventory in, like, five minutes!” you hiss, gripping the edge of the table so hard your knuckles ache.
Hyunjin blinks. Then laughs—low, breathless, wrecked. “Oh my god, you’re thinking about inventory right now?”
You swat at his shoulder, cheeks flaming. “This isn’t funny, Hyunjin, he’s gonna come in here—”
He kisses the inside of your thigh, slow and deliberate, his smirk dangerous. “Then I guess I better make it fast.”
“Hyun—oh my god—”
Whatever protest you had dies on your tongue as he dives back in, tongue relentless, fingers curling with precision that borders on obscene. Your hips jerk against his mouth, the table wobbling dangerously beneath you.
“Hyunjin—holy shit—”
“Yeah,” he murmurs against you, voice vibrating where you’re most sensitive. “That’s better. Say my name, not his.”
You whimper, the orgasm hitting harder than you expect, snapping through you so fast your vision spots. Your back arches, mouth falling open, and this time you don’t cover the sound—can’t.
Hyunjin groans like he’s starving, like he’s addicted to the way you come for him, licking you through it until you sag back against the table, boneless and trembling.
He pulls away, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, eyes dark and blown. “Gonna need you up here,” he mutters, grabbing your hips and dragging you further to the edge.
“Condom,” you manage, voice hoarse.
He fishes one out of his wallet with shaky fingers, rips it open with his teeth, and rolls it on like a man on a mission. His shorts and boxers hit the floor, and then he’s there—thick and hot and right there.
“Still worried about Minho?” he teases, lining himself up.
You glare weakly. “If he walks in—”
“He’s not gonna.” Hyunjin kisses you, deep and hungry, as he pushes inside in one smooth stroke.
You cry out, nails digging into his back. “Hyun—”
“Fuck, you feel so good,” he groans, forehead resting on yours as he starts to move, slow at first, then harder, faster, until the table rattles beneath you.
It’s messy, chaotic. The smell of paint and paper mixes with your moans and the sound of wood creaking under his thrusts. His hair falls around your face like a curtain, his breath hot against your lips every time he leans in to kiss you between words.
“Wanted—this—so bad,” he pants, hips snapping forward, “you don’t—fucking—get it.”
You grip him tighter, every thrust sending sparks up your spine. “Hyunjin—please—”
And then, muffled through the shack walls:
“Minho! Babe! Wait—don’t go in there yet!!”
Your eyes fly open but Hyunjin doesn’t even blink.
“Babe?” Minho’s voice, suspicious and already unimpressed. “Why are you calling me babe?”
Aeryn again, voice overly casual, way too chipper. “Because you’re such a ray of sunshine, and I need your strong clipboard-holding arms for something extremely urgent on the exact opposite side of camp!”
You blink up at him, wide-eyed. “Was that—?”
“Yup,” he grits out, completely unbothered, slamming into you again so hard you gasp.
“Hyunjin w-wait what if he still—”
“Then he can watch,” he mutters, thrusting harder, mouth grazing your jaw. “I’m not stopping.”
You gasp—half scandalized, half shattered beneath him. “You’re insane—”
Hyunjin just groans, eyes wild, sweat-damp curls sticking to his forehead. “You make me insane.”
Another sharp thrust, and you cry out again, your hands gripping the back of his neck like you’re drowning.
Outside, Aeryn’s voice rises another octave: “Minho, I need help—There’s a snake. A huge one. A metaphorical snake—And a real one, probably.”
“Where?” Minho sounds completely done. “Because if this is another squirrel-in-the-kitchen situation, I swear to god—”
Hyunjin is not listening.
His hips slam into yours again and again, his rhythm faster now, every drag of his cock hitting something devastating inside you. “You feel so fucking good,” he growls, “so warm, so tight—shit, I could stay buried in you forever.”
“Hyunjin—oh god—” You’re trying to stay focused, but the combination of his voice, his thrusts, the absolute chaos outside—it’s overwhelming.
He leans in, teeth grazing your earlobe. “You like it?”
You nod frantically, arching into him. “Yes, yes, yes—”
“Then say my name. Let them fucking hear it.”
And you do. Loudly. Repeatedly. Shamelessly.
“Hyunjin—fuck—Hyunjin—”
Is someone screaming in there?” Minho again, voice sharper now.
Aeryn, without missing a beat: “Nope! That was me. I stubbed my toe. And also I just realized I left my emotional baggage inside, ha ha, crazy right? Let's go talk about it—for ten minutes. Minimum.”
Inside, Hyunjin’s head falls to your shoulder, his thrusts starting to lose rhythm, more desperate now. “Gonna come—fuck, I’m so close—”
You meet his eyes, glassy and wrecked. “Inside, please—just do it—”
He groans, low and primal, burying himself deep as he spills into the condom, his whole body shuddering against yours. His arms cage you in, forehead against your collarbone, breath hot and ragged as he rides out the aftershocks.
The room goes still, the only sounds your twin heartbeats and distant chaos.
You stay tangled like that for a second.
Then—
“Okay, seriously,” Minho’s voice, right outside the shack now. “Why are you barricading the door with your body, Aeryn?”
“Because! Because I’m—uh—doing yoga!”
“…In front of a door.”
“Yep! It’s called… Block-asana. Ancient. Very spiritual.”
Hyunjin is wheezing into your shoulder, body still pressed flush against yours. You slap weakly at his arm. “She’s gonna get fired.”
He kisses your jaw lazily. “Not before we do. Besides, he can’t fire her, she’s his boss.”
You both scramble to untangle, Hyunjin yanking up his shorts while you try to pull on your shirt with trembling arms.
A final, frantic shout from Aeryn: “If you open that door you’ll see something illegal and possibly sacred, Minho, I swear to—”
But it’s too late. The doorknob jiggles.
Hyunjin looks at you, still breathless, completely unbothered, and smirks. “Smile for the clipboard.”
[CAMERA CUT – OUTSIDE THE ARTS & CRAFTS SHACK]
The shot is a little shaky, as if the cameraman had to sprint over after hearing the yelling. Aeryn is leaning casually against the shack’s wall, sipping her neon tumbler like nothing happened. Minho stands next to her, clipboard in hand, looking like someone just told him camp funding got cut in half.
MINHO (deadpan to camera): She wouldn’t let me in the shack for ten minutes.
AERYN (cutting in): Correction — I strategically delayed you for ten minutes.
MINHO: By telling me there was a snake.
AERYN (shrugs): There could have been.
MINHO: There wasn’t.
AERYN (sips drink, unfazed): That’s your opinion.
MINHO: And then when I tried to open the door, she claimed she was… (checks notes on clipboard) …doing “block yoga.”
AERYN (grinning at camera): Block-asana. Very niche. Only the most enlightened practitioners know it.
MINHO (turning to her): You’re my boss.
AERYN (still smiling): Mhm.
MINHO: And you bribed me with lemon bars so I wouldn’t ask why the table inside is now… squints at clipboard …“unstable from undisclosed activity.”
AERYN (leans toward camera conspiratorially): Sometimes being head counselor isn’t about enforcing the rules—it’s about knowing when to let nature take its course.
MINHO (to camera, flat): Pretty sure that’s not what the handbook says.
AERYN (grinning wider): Pretty sure I wrote the handbook.
[SMASH CUT – MINHO STARES AT CAMERA, CLEARLY THINKING ABOUT QUITTING]
what do we think about the situation where jilix are mean and performing pussy job on you from the back and the front… kinda kissing tips…
i just wanna be sandwiched between them so bad
"c'mere," felix growls, pulling your face to his with a hand clasped behind your neck. your lips clash in a messy kiss — more teeth than tongue, his mouth swallowing your surprised gasp. his grip on your neck is possessive, almost too strong, jolting you forward and nearly crashing you into his chest.
behind you, jisung steadies your hips, stifling his own moans by biting down on felix's arm, your shoulder, any inch of bare skin he can reach. "f-fuck, i c-can't take it much longer..."
he leans back and watches felix's cock slip between your legs. the inside of your thighs are hot and slippery and jisung thinks he might explode on the spot when felix's velvety tip rubs against his own. he humps mindlessly against your ass, the sweet glide of your pussy and felix's veiny cock against his making him delirious with need. jisung has no idea how much time has passed since your bodies slotted together like this. fifteen minutes? an hour? four hours? with each passing second his brain shuts down further until there's nothing left but the urge to slip inside, to bend you over, to fuck you like you've been begging them to.
felix has started moaning again: low panting grunts quieted by your kiss. they're a shrill contrast to jisung's own high-pitched, whiny whimpers. he wishes he was the one swallowing your boyfriend's moans right now.
something in him snaps. he angles your hips and then, in one smooth motion, sinks his cock inside.
you cry into felix's mouth, taken aback by the sudden stretch — jisung's thick length forcing past your walls inch by inch, his hands keeping you in place as if you had anywhere to go with their bodies pressed flush against yours.
"'s too big," you falter and claw at felix's shoulders.
"is it now, baby?" he coos. "that's what you get for being such a fucking tease, walking around in those skimpy skirts whenever ji comes over."
then his hand is in your hair, pushing you down while jisung drags your body back to make space for felix. in doing so he buries himself impossibly deeper and you moan, tears pooling in the corners of your eye from felix's punishing grasp on your hair. he tugs at it for good measure, bending your neck back so he can shove his cock between your lips.
"c'mon, angel. show jisung what a good little slut you are."
TEMPT ME
➥ You should have been more careful while filling out your intimacy form because now Hyunjin has an entire arsenal that he can and will use against you.
➥ 2.7k (~12 min. read)
⚠ — Live porn, heavy sexual tension (see masterlist for more)
You were perceiving the heading on the screen that read “Consent & Intimacy Form”, but for some reason, it wasn’t sinking in.
HAHHAHAHA WHAT A NORMAL FUCKING TITLE!!!
You had to chug so much rosé before you could even start scrolling down the form as if someone was in the room with you, witnessing your shame spiral live. Each question on the screen was inducing small meltdowns, causing you to pace around your kitchen until your core temperature returned to normal. It wasn’t necessarily the content itself that made you break into those nervous giggle fits, thank you very much.
You just couldn’t stop picturing yourself doing these things with a certain demon whore!
“Come on, girl,” you slapped your cheeks after your third glass and sat on the stool by the kitchen island. “We gotta make Meg proud. It’s just a bunch of questions. They can’t hurt you.”
Then you took a deep breath and reread the title of the first section.
Giving Preferences (check all that apply)
“Jesus christ…” you slammed your laptop close.
After splashing some cold water on your face, you sat down for the last time and started filling out the form with the diligence of a star student. It wasn’t like you had to give college essay answers to each question—the form was mostly comprised of checklists anyway, with some optional comment sections here and there.
The only problem was that you ended up checking almost everything, even the things you had no idea about, just because you were willing to try them all with Hyunjin—which was an actual note you wrote verbatim.
“Lissen,” you addressed the invisible audience around your kitchen island, slightly slurring with your fourth glass in hand. “Iss not like he’z ackshully gon’ see my answers, and EYE was raised an honess girl, ‘mkay?”
Content with doing your homework, you hit ‘Submit’.
As you were getting ready to log off for the night, something you hadn’t noticed before in your inbox, home to a jillion unread emails, caught your attention. Drea had sent two invitations back to back, and the first one was…
Andrea Blake has invited you to edit the following form
Edit. Which meant… Editor access… Which meant…
You immediately hit ‘Open’ like your life depended on it, and there you were, actually inside the form with the ‘Responses’ tab staring at you. You clicked on the spreadsheet, searched for the name of your person of interest, and…
“Oh, god,” you slammed your hand over your mouth.
Eaten alive by your curiosity, you grabbed your hypothetical magnifying glass and scrutinized every single answer Hyunjin submitted. You know, for research purposes. Advancement of humanity. Co-star study. Spank bank material.
WHATEVS.
Giving preferences—everything checked. Receiving preferences—everything checked. Position preferences—everything checked with a note reading, ‘You, bent over a dressing table while we practice lines together.’
“NO, YOU FUCKING DID NOT!” you yelled at your screen as if you were in a Teams meeting with Hyunjin.
Weakest point(s) on your body: Cum gutters. Kiss that vein 💋
When the referenced body part suddenly popped into your head courtesy of the many videos you watched of him, you got off the stool and turned the AC on, then started fanning yourself with a takeout menu for good measure.
Aftercare preferences: Kisses on my neck. Did I say kiss that vein? 💋
You were a giggling mess, kicking your feet, twirling your hair, getting WET with each answer, and your heart was beating rabidly like it was ten seconds away from cardiac arrest. But then, you suddenly heard glass shattering in the distance when an unexpectedly candid line caught your attention.
A red flag that kills the mood instantly: Faking it.
And just like that, your giggles vanished into thin air.
A scenario started playing in your inner mind theater, and for once, it wasn’t a pleasant one. You and Hyunjin in the middle of a scene, and you faking something just so you could wrap up. Would it really turn him off that bad that he would be uncomfortable with you every time you needed to get intimate? Should you maybe talk to him about it? What did ‘Faking it’ exactly entail anyway?
You didn’t know how long you stayed perched on that stool, thinking about a truckload of What ifs. This was supposed to be ‘hot goss’ material, not an existential crisis trigger, but maybe you had it coming for snooping around. And also…
You were so lost in your thoughts that you did not notice the circle on the top right corner of the screen with the initials ‘HH’, signaling you that someone else was also in the document.
“Oh, fuck, no, please, no, fuck, DON’T!”
You pounced on your laptop in an attempt to delete your answers so you could redo the form while fucking sober, but you were too little, too late. There was already a comment bubble from Hyunjin right on the cell of your first answer.
HH: Don’t bother. I’ve already read it all 🥰
This was Hyunjin’s first time visiting this set as a guest. He recognized everything from the prop furniture to the color of the wallpaper, but at the same time, it felt like all of these belonged to someone else’s memories. As if he had never shot scenes in this exact space before.
As if he had never set foot in this building in his life.
“The Count of the Cunt is back!” Kurt greeted him, handshake quickly turning into a hug. “Fuck you for changing your number, bro. We missed you around here.”
“I appreciate the sentiment, but no bullshit necessary, man,” Hyunjin chortled.
“I’m serious! Everybody was looking for you at the 2 Million rager,” Kurt insisted. “The ladies dissed the fuck out of our stripping skills.”
“My favorite muncher!” Malena threw herself into Hyunjin’s arms as soon as she entered the set. “I died when I heard you were coming back. PUH–LEASE teach this guy how to eat properly.”
“HEY!”
“Fine, I’ll make a tutorial playlist from my best-ofs,” Hyunjin let out a heartfelt laugh at Malena’s hyper antics. “Enjoy your shoot.”
“Hyunjin! Over here.”
Drea was waving at him from the viewing area while issuing orders and directives to her staff left and right. As he was walking back, Hyunjin was trying to figure out how the hell he was going to melt this block of lead on his chest, constantly causing him to lose focus every five minutes. Did he maybe make a mistake accepting to be a part of this on a whim? Based on nothing other than pure, unmitigated impulse?
But then he saw you enter the set, greeting Drea with those same beaming eyes, and his steps quickened all of a sudden.
“There’s my OTP,” she brightly smiled at both of you like an affectionate older sister, then handed a document outlining a scene. “Here’s what we’re working on today. Feel free to critique amongst yourselves. I’ll see you after this, okay?”
When she turned around and sat in her director’s chair, you quietly squealed, inadvertently squeezing Hyunjin’s arm hard enough to leave a bruise. Sacrificing his bicep to your intense fangirling, he nudged you towards the chairs you were supposed to sit on, a few feet behind Drea’s. Once you had settled into your designated seats, you turned to the first page of the document, and Hyunjin leaned in closer so he could read it.
Your heart switched gears from one to three in the blink of an eye.
“So…” he started, eyes glued to the page in your hand, “I read your form.”
“Oh, jesus fucking christ, not now…” you snarled in a whisper.
“It was a very informative piece of literature, I must say,” his smug smirk joined the conversation.
“Please stop.”
“So you’re willing to try everything with me, huh?”
“Will you stop?”
“Why? Is that not what you put down in your notes?” he looked straight into your eyes, then bowed like a knight would bow to his queen. “I consider it an honor.”
“SHUSH, the scene is about to start,” you slapped his arm and diverted your attention from his rosy spice scent to the set. At least, to the best of your ability.
“Quiet on set, please!” Drea addressed the set, then commanded her actors. “And, action!”
“Hundred bucks says Kurt finishes before Malena even sits on him,” Hyunjin immediately began his quiet running commentary, his grin way too amused.
“What?!” you let out the loudest whisper of your life.
“Oh yeah, my man’s toast,” he nodded at the screen in front of you.
“How would you know?”
“Well, two things. First of all, he clearly overdid it with the prep edging. You can see the full hard on,” he explained with profound seriousness. Then he turned to you, and his tone shifted to something more… knowing, “And I know he’s had a ginormous crush on Malena for years.”
“You’re enjoying this a bit too much,” you unwittingly snorted at his perceptiveness, zero disdain, pure entertainment.
“Just helping a co-star learn the ropes,” he hummed with a shrug. “The right person looking at you like that can end your life, just saying.”
Your eyes darted to Malena on the screen. She was walking towards Kurt in almost slow motion, eyes hooded, smirking like she knew something he was trying to hide from her. The closer she approached, the tenser Kurt became, about to draw his last breath under her touch.
You couldn’t help but think—what would it feel like if Hyunjin looked at you like that?
“So?” he extended his hand. “Hundred bucks?”
You fucking knew better than to accept a bet originated in this man’s playground, but eh, fuck it. All in the spirit of learning the ropes.
“You’re on,” you daringly reached for him without thinking. You really should have.
Because only when your hand was midway in the air did it dawn on you that you were about to touch him for the first time.
Oh, you didn’t think this through at all.
When his skin found yours, the world stopped turning and time stood still. The only thing that existed in that moment was Hyunjin, and the only thing you could sense was his scorching touch. You were going insane, unable to comprehend how something could feel this soft yet this firm at the same time. You didn’t know what it was, but it sure as fuck wasn’t a handshake. A casual touch wouldn’t linger for hours. It wouldn’t make you feel like Zeus’ entire arsenal struck you all at once. It wouldn’t yank your heart from your chest, squeeze it dry, then shove it back like nothing remotely atom-rearranging had transpired just now.
As you slowly let go, you could swear you felt his thumb caressing your hand, but there was no way you could prove it. You cleared your throat and got to watching, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t extract teasing material out of this moment anytime soon.
Because you would cease to exist.
Malena had made her way to Kurt by then, placing kisses on his back as he watched the whole thing in the mirror before him. You couldn’t exactly tell if he was watching Malena or himself, but unfortunately for you, you were so going to lose the bet with Hyunjin. All Malena did was caress his body, but Kurt already looked like he was on the verge of combusting, heavily breathing every time her lips ghosted on his skin. You tried to pass your small gasp as a hiccup when Malena suddenly pulled the sheets covering Kurt, exposing his full nakedness. You were about to scream in protest as to why no one was showing a shred of emotion—people were having sex right there, yet everybody on set was dead serious like they were either at a church or someone’s wake. It somehow relieved you as much as it tensed you up because this at least had to mean these people took their jobs very seriously.
Meanwhile in your peripheral vision, Hyunjin was having the time of his life watching you squirm, trying to think of ways to contain his cuteness aggression.
“See that right there?” he leaned forward and pointed at Malena’s hand tracing Kurt’s body.
The camera had zoomed in on her hand ghosting him, the distance between skin to skin barely noticeable but still there. Kurt was taking shaky breaths as if he were scared. As if there was a possibility of him getting shot dead at any given moment.
“That’s what kills you,” Hyunjin tilted his head, a whisper of a smile clinging to his lips. “Not the touch, the almost. Captured in 4K macro.”
He was being weirdly… analytical. Like this was a film class. He didn’t comment on the slick dripping down Malena’s thighs. He didn’t comment on how Kurt was painfully hard. He commented on the almost instead. You wondered if that was his residual film school knowledge, or if he was ever behind a camera at all. And if it was the latter, who did you have to kill to get your hands on that footage?
He leaned in closer, his shoulder now pressing against yours, and you could feel his body temperature from that touch alone. Even if it was behind the bars of layers of clothing.
“Right there,” his finger hovered on the screen, pointing at Malena’s devilish smile as she removed her leather dress. “She knows she has him in the palm of her hand. And not as a part of the role.”
You tried to keep your expression neutral while watching Malena rub her breasts against Kurt’s crotch, but your pupils dilated to the size of a full moon were snitching on your arousal levels big time. You wanted to look away, but you couldn’t. You wanted to at least look professional, but you couldn’t. Palms sweaty, throat dry, hands balled into a fist… Hyunjin was taking note of every single one of your tells, his eyes intently watching you. Not the scene. You.
Being subjected to his incessant gaze was much more flustering than watching a beautiful woman worship a beautiful man right in front of you.
“Imagine this was our scene,” Hyunjin whispered into your ear. “Would you look at me like she looks at him, too?”
You turned to your right to face him, and he was so close that your lips almost brushed against each other. There was no touch this time, but Hyunjin was still the only thing that existed. His scent was the only thing you could sense. You were going insane, unable to comprehend how something could smell this erotic yet this wholesome at the same time, and there were zero thoughts in your brain to produce a coherent answer with. His eyes darted to your lips, his own parting with a shaky exhale, and you didn’t have to prove anything this time. He was actually leaning into you, the distance closing between you taking your breath away, and you were ready to die suffocating in between his lips.
“FUCK! I’m so so sorry.”
“Cut!”
Kurt’s voice bouncing from wall to wall all around the set gave you and Hyunjin a terrible start, and you both started laughing your asses off, tensed bodies suddenly going limp like the worst jumpscare had passed. You reached for one of the water bottles before you since, well, god fucking knows you were in dire need of irrigation in multiple parts of your body.
“So?” Hyunjin asked with reassuring chirpiness. “Not that bad, right?”
“Sure,” you internally fanned yourself, trying not to sound breathless. “Not that bad.”
“I believe you owe me a hundred bucks,” he casually stuck out his hand.
“I don’t recall signing a contract,” you narrowed your eyes at him.
“What do you mean? We shook on it,” he responded seriously, borderline offended. “Verbal contract. Extremely binding.”
“You’re the worst.”
“At losing. Yes.”
You rolled your eyes and dipped your hand deep into your purse, then handed him a stick of gum as payment.
“Savor it,” you deadpanned, trying a little too hard not to burst into laughter. Hyunjin’s rascal smile grew wider as he shoved the gum in his mouth, happier than an overexcited puppy with the bait and switch.
✉ Enjoyed this? It would be cool of you to reblog & leave your thoughts so that I can keep writing more stories like this.
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➥ You and Hyunjin gather at the Petite Mort HQ to sign your contracts, but you might not make it out of the building alive when the flirting levels are lethal.
➥ 3.3k (~14 min. read)
⚠ — No major warnings apply (see masterlist for more)
Concrete has neither a beating heart nor a long-term memory, but Hyunjin still felt like he was meeting an ex to discuss estate division after a hostile divorce.
Chest heavy with inexplicable heaviness, he walked through the revolving doors of the glass-clad building cosplaying a Wall Street company. Some things had changed around here, such as the purple reception desk Anita had installed by the entrance, the neon Petite Mort logo on it glowing like a sultry welcome.
“Mr. Hwang,” the receptionist welcomed him with impeccable professionalism before he could even introduce himself. “Mr. Han is expecting you in the conference room, sir. Here’s your visitor pass.”
Mr. Hwang. If anyone saw this exchange, they would think he was about to sign for an Oscar project.
After a wordless nod at his greeter, Hyunjin headed to the elevator and scanned the card. His blood pressure climbed in line with the changing floor numbers, making him dread the jumpscare of certain faces he would much rather not see at the moment. He briefly considered stopping the elevator to go back down and ghost everyone, but he was in too deep to run away like a coward again.
When he walked out of that cabin, the man who possessed the collective confidence of a small country’s population—and made sure everyone knew it—suddenly felt self-conscious like he’d never been. It was as if all eyes were on him, rolling back in snide judgment, questioning the source of his audacity to be here after all the ruckus he caused. The distance between the elevator and the conference room was about fifteen steps, but it felt longer than his post-2023 St. Patrick’s Day walk of shame where he had to go home barefoot.
“Déjà vu, much?” Jisung’s chirpy voice greeted him in the very same room they met for the first time, instantly lowering the BPM count in Hyunjin’s ribcage. He broke into a smirk and slammed his hand into Jisung’s palm, pulling him into a hug.
“I’ll believe I’m not having another nightmare when your first check clears,” he quipped, sitting down on one of the swiveling chairs, and reached for the standard-issue stack of paper on the table that he’d seen a dozen times before. “Listen, boss, I kinda have a favor to ask.”
“Chris and his girl are in Cannes, so you have nothing to worry about,” Jisung responded before the question could make a proper appearance.
That was chillingly quick. Maybe Jisung’s marriage certificate came with a mind-reading upgrade to adapt to the ‘Happy wife, happy life’ motto, but also… Cannes? Were they just vacationing there, or…?
So what, that was none of his goddamn business.
“Why would you think that was what I wanted to ask?” Hyunjin uttered, still with perfectly convincing composure.
“The label on your water bottle is all fucked up,” Jisung pointed at the dented plastic that looked battered as hell. “You’re clearly nervous about something.”
“Can’t it be about the boss lady?”
“It can,” Jisung shrugged, “but you and I both know she’s not the reason you’re writhing in guilt.”
“I’m not writhing in guilt,” Hyunjin curtly replied.
“Back so soon, Chrizztopher?”
When Jisung waved towards the glass door, Hyunjin immediately turned around, jumping in panic like someone stabbed him with six knives, barely calmed pulse all rabid again.
“I love you, and we don’t have to talk about it, but don’t fucking bullshit me,” Jisung scoffed. “Don’t worry, we will be shooting in off-site studios, and I made sure the trailers are suuuper fancy.”
“That wasn’t funny,” Hyunjin clenched his jaw through a sigh of relief.
“Neither is your denial, bitch, but here we are,” Jisung pushed the documents towards him. “The contract is essentially the same as the one you signed before, but if you wanna take a look…”
“Nah, I’m good,” Hyunjin grabbed the pen resting next to the file. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Damn, don’t you think that’s a bit too trusting?” Jisung smirked. “What if I’ve quoted slave wages in there?”
“You care too much to let that happen, and you’ve already bragged about the budget of the project when you said, and I quote, ‘You can pay me with a Lambo’,” Hyunjin closed the file and leaned back into the chair, his infuriating smugness making a comeback as he swiveled from side to side while rotating the pen between his fingers. “I’m sure you won’t object to one trivial condition I put down.”
“Condition?” Jisung reached for the document and turned to the very last page, the handwritten note above the signature in stark contrast with the Times New Roman suit of the contract.
Should the co-star of Hwang Hyunjin change, this document shall become null and void, effective immediately.
“You’re so fucking petty,” Jisung burst out laughing.
“Thank you for noticing,” Hyunjin reciprocated with a calm smile.
The laughter set the room temperature to a balmy 25 degrees Celsius, sending the blizzard of terror and worry packing. Nevertheless, Hyunjin couldn’t help but remember the last time he was in this room, and he shivered with the chilly breeze of remorse blowing down his spine.
Before he risked catching a nasty cold, however, his co-star’s arrival closed the window causing the draft, and he suddenly felt all warm again like he was wrapped in toasty blankets. Maybe he was even sweating a little bit.
Did it get too hot in here or what?
“What’s up with you two constantly meeting before me?” you sat down across the duo with a man clad in the sharpest suit money could buy pulling a chair next to you.
“I was trying to pull a fast one on you to negotiate secret terms,” Hyunjin blasted the charms your way without wasting a single second. “Damn your punctuality!”
“Maybe don’t joke about it with a lawyer present in the room,” the man immediately showed claws, eyes devoid of any expression other than the intent to fuck shit up in a courtroom.
“I brought Seungmin with me because I’m totally illiterate in Legalese,” you confessed, somewhat abashed that you hadn’t informed Jisung of your plus one beforehand. “Hope that’s okay?”
“Of course!” Jisung handed Seungmin an identical set of documents, lowkey intimidated by his corner-office-owner presence.
While Seungmin was well on his way to finish reading the entire document in 45 seconds, this was probably going to take you 45 minutes because of someone sitting across from you. Hyunjin wasn’t doing anything other than swiveling in his chair, hands clasped on his lap, and staring at you with that annoying smirk on his face, but it was enough to distract you.
Now add the fact that he looked stupid sexy while simply SITTING.
He had probably sprayed just two spritzes of perfume, but you could perceive all the notes as if he had dunked himself in a bathtub filled with it. The elegance of rose was making love to the absolute debauchery of spice under the woody sheets. A little earthy, a little powdery, as if he had asked for the specific aroma of a classy whore. It was nothing flashy, but still unequivocally him. Graceful. Seductive. A safe haven to breathe easy.
It was actually fucking insulting how he looked camera-ready even in the plainest clothes ever manufactured, just a white top and jeans like he threw on whatever was lying around. He was wearing his hair up, his face flawless with zero decoration other than his eyebrow piercing, making the truest statement ever made with that t-shirt that said, “Careful, the body you’re about to enjoy is extremely hot” in large print.
Amen, brother.
You cleared your throat to recalibrate your focus and started reading the contract from the top.
And all of a sudden, it felt real.
The document opened with a description of the project, followed by the classic performer rights and responsibilities, confidentiality and exclusivity clauses, grounds for termination, and all that jazz. What you were pleasantly surprised by was the extra emphasis they put on regular health screenings as well as the two entire pages dedicated to explicit scenes and consent protocol. Then came the juicy part.
Only at that moment did you realize that you had never even thrown a ballpark number Jisung’s way on the off chance that you might say yes.
Ergo…
“That CANNOT be the right amount,” you almost screamed when you got to the part titled ‘Compensation’.
“I mean, we can negotiate,” Jisung put his cards on the table candidly, “but I don’t think I can convince legal for a substantial increase.”
“That’s not what I meant!” you followed up with eyes widened like saucers, voice still unsure whether to be dumbfounded or scandalized. “I… I usually make like… a fraction of this.”
“Oh,” he raised his brows in pleasant surprise, then his tone shifted to rightful pride in an instant. “Then welcome to the world of productions that pay enough to live with dignity.”
“I can have them tighten up the language a little more if you want, but termwise this is good to go,” Seungmin dropped his final review and stood up, buttoning his blazer like he owned the goddamn room. “I have court in half an hour. Call me if you need anything, okay?”
“Thanks, Seung, I appreciate it,” you sent him off with a wave.
It wasn’t like you were expecting Jisung to play games with you, but no one could blame you for needing a translation of the fine print. After Seungmin left, a ticklish feeling set in your chest, making you smile for no reason at all. You were about to reach for a pen when the door swung open again, and a woman walked in, your astonishment dropkicking the document off your hand.
“Sorry!” she apologized with a warm smile, “We had to do so many retakes today.”
“And the queen arrives,” Jisung greeted her with open arms. “My children, meet your ringmaster.”
You suddenly lost control of your body and rose to your feet like a general had just arrived, literally standing at attention for how starstruck you were.
“M–Ms. Blake,” you bowed 90 degrees, suddenly forgetting what the proper decorum was for social interactions. “I’m a huge fan. Huuuge fan!”
“Likewise! You were phenomenal in A Doll’s House,” she extended her hand for a firm shake, “And please, call me Drea.”
You instantaneously turned into the standing emoji personified, shock throwing itself from wall to wall inside your brain.
“I sincerely apologize for what I’m about to do,” you opened with a calm, professional voice, just to lose your shit two milliseconds later, “but SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU WATCHED ME?!”
“Of course, I did,” Drea let out a heartfelt laugh, slightly confused as to why you were surprised by this information. “Your director Priya is an old friend of mine. She can’t praise you enough.”
“You should have opened with THAT!” you vehemently waved the protest flag in Jisung’s face, one hand pointing at Drea. “Not Playboy over here.”
“Sure, pretend I had zero influence on getting you through the door,” Hyunjin faked a pout. “You’re hurting my feelings, Trouble.”
None of the sassy comebacks you wanted to throw at his face were rendered correctly in your mind due to the acute onset euphoria. You sat back down with Drea settling into Seungmin’s former chair next to you, and the expression on your face was so aggressively endearing to Hyunjin that he couldn’t help but chuckle to himself. Your beaming eyes suddenly generated captions, and they read, This is my favorite topic of all time, let’s talk about Drea’s movies, please. Can we talk about Drea’s movie’s please? Drea’s movies—
“A little bird told me you might still have some reservations, so I’m here to answer any questions you may have for me,” Drea addressed you directly, and the air in the room toggled back to contract rush mode.
Oooh, boy, okay, here we go.
“I love Megara’s character. I really do, but… do we have any creative agency here?” you asked apprehensively, terrified of offending the director you would throw hands for. “Are we allowed to go off-script and improvise, for example?”
“By all means!” Drea nodded. “If it doesn’t work, I will have you do retakes, though.”
The sigh of relief you let out was cartoonishly deep. In all honesty, you hadn’t fully believed it when Hyunjin said you would have a say in how sex was depicted, and there had to be a reason people kept saying ‘Never meet your heroes.’ Thank FUCK for the country you had saved in your past life so that you could dodge the disappointment that would crush your soul.
“Well, how do we… rehearse?” you moved on to your next question, nervously playing with your fingers. “For… you know.”
“Well, you might have noticed the script Jisung gave you is a draft copy. I will need you both to fill out a form first, which will shape the final choreographies,” Drea explained. “Of course you’re going to act, that’s what an actor does, but I value authenticity over everything else. That’s why I have my performers do intimacy exercises before explicit scenes.”
“Such as?”
“This,” she pulled something from her bag that looked like a deck of cards. “I prepare some prompts and have you execute them in a private rehearsal setting. I do film these sessions, and your intimacy coordinator and I use it to rechoreograph if necessary. Once we wrap up production, we destroy the footage unless the performers mutually agree to keep it archived.”
‘I fucking KNEW there was a reason I love you!’ you wanted to yell in her face, but a wordless nod had to make do. You imagined what that setting would be like. You and Hyunjin in a cozy room, picking out cards with intimate prompts on them like you were playing a spicy game over wine, three seconds away from heavily making out.
When would be the appropriate time to start kicking your feet and screaming exactly?
“Hyunjin says your intimate scenes are free-form?” you emphasized the word. “What does that mean?”
“It means while we do envision the scenes to unfold a certain way, you don’t have to count to five when you’re kissing. I found that it distracts my performers. What matters is the natural progression of the choreography,” Drea responded with awe-inducing professionalism. “I have full confidence in Hyunjin to make you feel comfortable. He always pays close attention to his partners’ rhythm.”
“He… does?” you inadvertently turned your head in his direction.
The fuckboy energy was so strong that you never would have guessed. Hyunjin usually looked like he devoured everything given to him in the best sense possible, but at that very moment, his eyes were as soft as they come, looking at you like he was silently pleading a case.
Your mind suddenly conjured the memory of him describing himself as an actor, and you smiled to yourself, averting your eyes from him.
“Tell you what, I have a shoot next week here in one of the in-house sets. Why don’t you come visit so you can see it for yourself?” Drea nonchalantly offered, making your jaw drop as if you weren’t going to experience the exact same thing in the very near future.
“Can I really come?!” you almost screamed in full fangirl mode, completely forgetting the intents and purposes of your presence in that room and making everyone burst into laughter.
“Of course!” she held your hand and gave it a firm squeeze.
“If you’re ready to make magic,” Hyunjin passed you a pen across the table to sign the paperwork, “let’s make it official.”
“You sign it first,” you looked at him daringly.
“I already did, and Jisung agreed to shred the document if it doesn’t have your signature next to mine,” he pointed at the file. “Ready to marry me?”
Just WHY did he keep saying stuff like that?!!!
You slammed your hand on the file and pulled it towards yourself, menacingly staring at Hyunjin as a cover-up for your extremely flustered state. You turned to the last page of the document, and there it was, a jumble of lines somehow looking like encrypted art, and right above it, a handwritten clause.
Yes, it made your heart skip a beat, SO WHAT?
All of a sudden, it didn’t seem so scary to put your name down. You took a deep breath and copied Hyunjin’s statement only with the name changed, and signed the contract with the kind of finality associated with marriage certificates or death warrants. Because this was either going to be your big break or straight-up career suicide.
You weren’t sure why it actually felt like you were taking Hyunjin’s last name for a second there, though.
“I am SO happy right now I could cry. I think I’m actually gonna cry,” Jisung pressed a hand on his chest with fake tears. “Monumental moment in erotic cinema, and this calls for getting shitfaced on champagne. Let’s go.”
“By the way, I highly encourage you two to spend time off set,” Drea urged you as she followed suit after you into the hallway. “When we work on long-form projects, it usually helps my actors build rapport and feel much more comfortable with each other.
“What do you mean usually?” you creased your brows, getting ready to tease. “There’s a chance we might hate each other?”
“Maybe,” she broke into a knowing smirk, “but there’s also a chance you might fall in love.”
Pshhh, YEAH RIGHT!
Realistically, set romances weren’t unheard of, yes, but your situation could not afford anything of the sort. You weren’t just going to portray clean romance and get away with faking a smile if things went south. There was physical intimacy involved in this, and you historically had a problem getting in the zone when there was emotional restraint between you and your partner. It would definitely show on camera, and who knows how long it would take to get the scene right, if at all.
“Come on now, Drea, no such thing will happen,” you uttered with excess confidence, clearly trying to overcompensate for your own uncertainty. “I’m a professional.”
“Whatever you say, baby girl,” she shrugged as she looked for her phone in her bag, “but you’re also human.”
“Wait, did that ever actually happen?” you suddenly turned serious.
“You tell me. I’m happily married to my wife for three years now, and all it took was one silly nickname she called me on set one day,” she answered, grin still perfectly intact. “I sent you the link to the form. Don’t forget to fill it out before your set visit next week, okay?”
Then she left you there in the hallway to contemplate your life choices as if everything was alright with the universe. Drea had basically just told you she found her soulmate on a porn set, and you didn’t know what to do with that information. Right when you were on the ledge of a massive spiral, you were pulled back to reality through the vortex of Hyunjin’s velveteen voice.
“Here,” he handed you one of the water bottles he copped from the conference room. “Hydrate. You will need it to quench the thirst, Trouble.”
Your entire existence was electrified when your fingers brushed for the briefest second as you reached for the bottle. Hyunjin just winked and left for the elevator whereas you were pinned to your place, now flustered ten times worse when you replayed the instances of the past hour in this brand-new context that didn’t occur to you before.
“Crap,” you muttered under your breath.
✉ Enjoyed it? It would be cool of you to reblog & leave your thoughts so that I can keep writing more stories like this.
in light of chan's recent bbl photos, i just have to say i'm suffering and dying for prone-bone with his arm around my neck.
— xoxo, linopilled.
🏷️: unprotected sex, spit, prone bone with channie’s arm around your neck <3, necklace kink (? lol), brief cunnilingus
a/n: hehe hi my lovely mimi @linopilled, since u sent this he’s sent several other thirst traps….. how are u feeling.
“you’re so pretty,” he grunts. his chest heaves, you can feel it expand against your spine, shaky where his breath tumbles out of his slack mouth like it’s been punched right out. he would think you’re pretty like this — tears clumping your lashes, drool seeping down your chin and wetting the hotel sheets — he likes you messed up, obsessed with being the one to do it. “so fucking pretty like this, baby.”
his pretty thing, his beautiful baby, he tells you all the time. sentiments so frequent and said with such ardent conviction that you can’t help but feel it, even when your hair is matting with sweat and he’s having to peel it away from your sweat-sticky forehead.
“you feel me?” he asks. chan’s not expecting an answer, not when you’re as fucked silly as you are, but he wants one, so you unstick your tongue from the roof of your mouth to tell him with slurred words.
he’s already deep but ruts even deeper then, bucking his hips against your ass like he can’t help it. he grinds slow, nasty, lifting high on his palms a moment to watch himself fuck into you. you can see him if you cut your eyes just so, lift your heavy head from the rumpled pillow to expand your sight. chan’s eyes are locked on where he spears you open, where your cunt stretches around his leaking cock and milks it dry. if he’s aware of your gaze on him, he doesn’t show it, eyes slightly crazed as he pulls himself from you to leave his tip snug inside. his jaw works — you can see his tongue prod against the inside of his cheek if only for a moment, but your eyes are rolling as soon as the sound hits your ears, the ptew of the drop, the messy smack of his saliva hitting the base of his cock and rolling down to where you hug him.
he’s fully on top of you again before you can blink your eyes forward, fucking all the way inside in one go, where you’re warm and tight, sticky and gooey. he’s deep again; how can you still manage to be surprised? but it makes your feet kick out and your hands scramble regardless, overwhelmed by how much cock he gives you, how slick everything sounds now that your wetness is mixing with his spit. he’s fucking you so well that you bet the beat of his cock is frothing it up, making you creamy.
everything about him is hot — a multitude of meanings but particularly warm in this instance — you stick together in more than one place, knocking knees and folded arms. his chest sticks to you too, peels away every few seconds with how hard he thrusts, but you feel it down your curving spine, that warmth, how he’s probably strawberry pink down his pecs with exertion and dripping sweat onto the skin of your back.
that’s when you feel it, a breeze in the summer heat, ice-cold water cascading down sun warmed skin.
you’d be able to hear it too, if you could focus on any other sound than the beautiful ones the man above you makes, the clink of his necklace chain, the muted thud of the dangling charm against the divot of your spine.
it’s cool where you’re hot, the chain kisses your skin every time chan bucks his hips into your ass. if he were to put all of his weight on you and trap the chain between your bodies, would it leave a mark? a brand, one that fades with time but a brand nonetheless, necklace chain indented into your skin as the smallest sign of how much he loves you.
“c’mere,” chan breathes. he does it for you, snakes his arm from the bed all the way to your neck, wraps around it until your chin is cradled by corded muscle. it’s different than his fingers wrapping around your throat, the pressure more concentrated with the sure dig of digits and a confident palm; it’s different, it’s fuller. he takes hold of the ball of your shoulder to keep you both in place. chan kisses your ear when your own fingers scramble for his elbow, the other hand trapped underneath your chest like a cat. “let me have you, baby. fucking lemme have what’s mine, yeah? fuck. shit, that feel good? you feel good?”
“i feel so fucking good. you make me feel so good.” deep from your chest, words clawing up your throat in their haste to tumble from your lips. chan’s arm squeezes once around your neck in acknowledgement, in thanks, if his stuttered breath is anything to go by.
his lips are searing against your shoulder, your ears, the sweat salty skin of your cheek. you can tell when he gets close — his hips rut hard, lose their rhythm just find it again and lose it once more. chan’s lips are pressed behind your ear, a blessing and a curse. a blessing because you hear him unabashed, his moans of your name and moony ramblings about your cunt, sweet whimpers that he tries and fails to hide in your hair. a curse because it’s just a matter of time before this moment ends.
his necklace clinks, his fingers dig into your shoulder.
“you’re gonna make me cum,” he hisses, desperate. how could you be you doing anything? other than laying lax and letting him use your body like a customized toy, the unconscious clench of your sopping pussy coaxing him further and further to the precipice. but maybe that’s all he needs, maybe all he needs is you willing and pliant. maybe you’re doing more than you think, proven when chan shudders on top of you and groans through gritted teeth. “baby. oh, baby. honey, you’re gonna make me cum. gonna make me fucking cum.”
he’s pretty when he cums, with his eyebrows furrowed and his jaw dropped wide, pink lips slack. you wish you could see it, but his arm remains snug around your neck, tensing along with the rest of his body when he cums in ropes into your hungry pussy.
“fuuuuck.” a growl, something primal and frantic. he pulls his softening cock from your insides and you nearly squeal in aching disapproval, cunt winking through desperate clenches until the gape of it softens. his arm disappears too, his warmth from your back — you’re lost, floating, but he anchors you back down when he grips your hips and squeezes your asscheeks, his necklace brushing against your twitching thigh, making his new home low between your legs to lap his pink little tongue against your clit.
you’re so wet you can hardly feel his tongue, not until he shakes his head like a dog, pulls your cheeks apart with insistent thumbs to get deep. your hole welcomes him again, his tongue this time, fat lips locking around that sensitive give and sucking.
your hips lift off the bed, your back arches sharply, giving yourself to him completely.
Bang Chan blows his whistle once.
Twice.
Three times.
“IF YOU HEAR THE WHISTLE YOU’RE PROBABLY DOING SOMETHING WRONG,” he yells, somewhere between exhausted and homicidal.
It’s 9:00 a.m. The sun is already too hot, someone (Changbin) is shirtless for no reason, and Jeongin is chasing a squirrel that stole the keys to the mess hall.
So yeah. Opening day’s going great.
Minho’s sitting on a pile of unassembled bunk beds, slowly peeling the plastic off a set of warning signs labeled ABSOLUTELY NO CANOODLING.
“They’re going up everywhere,” he says, mostly to himself. “Especially by the lake. I know what you people are like.”
Hyunjin’s in the arts and crafts cabin—alone, suspiciously quiet.
Which is always a bad sign.
There’s paint on the walls, on the windows, and somehow dripping from the ceiling. The third Welcome to Camp SKZamp banner now just says “Camp S” because he ran out of glitter halfway through and got distracted by his own reflection in a mason jar.
Jisung stumbles by with a speaker on his back and a tambourine in his hand.
“I added sound effects,” he announces to no one. “Birdsong. Fire crackling. One wolf howl. Very immersive.”
Seungmin pokes his head out of the infirmary, expression already exhausted. “If anyone gets heatstroke today, I’m letting nature take its course.”
And then—
The clipboard slaps against a wooden post.
Everyone freezes.
Aeryn stands dead center in the clearing, khaki shorts, high socks, and a forest-green clipboard that looks like it was forged in a Patagonia ad. There’s a whistle around her neck. Bug spray in one pocket. Lip gloss in the other. She is not smiling.
“Why,” she says, voice calm and terrifying, “is there a canoe in the parking lot?”
No one answers.
“Why,” she continues, flipping through pages of her Color-Coded Chaos Plan™, “are the name tags still in the laundry room? Why is the campfire pit full of confetti? And why is Felix—” she turns sharply, eyes locking on the barefoot boy tiptoeing after a frog, “—not wearing shoes?”
Felix flinches. “The grass asked me to connect with it.”
Aeryn holds up the clipboard like it’s divine law.
“Connect with closed-toe footwear. You are not one with the gravel.”
Behind her, Chan nods solemnly. “I tried to tell him.”
Aeryn sighs through her nose. Then she claps once. Loud.
“All right. Ten minutes. I want the cabins labeled, the snack shack unlocked, the bathrooms sanitized, and every single one of you wearing your staff shirts—Jisung, that is not a crop top, that is a mistake.”
Jisung tugs the hem of his tragically altered T-shirt. “Fashion is subjective.”
“It’s also violating code four-B of the uniform policy. Do not make me cite it.”
She doesn’t even need to look down. The clipboard is memorized.
And despite all odds, chaos slowly shifts into motion.
Minho starts hammering things. Changbin sprints by carrying three traffic cones and a bucket of what might be Gatorade. Jeongin finally reclaims the stolen keys—though the squirrel doesn’t give them up without a fight.
Aeryn breathes in. Deep. Holds it.
The lake glitters. The wind shifts. Somewhere in the trees, a hawk cries—or maybe it’s just Jisung testing his sound effects again.
Doesn’t matter.
The sign is up. The bunks are mostly built. The banner still says Camp S, but the vibe is there.
Aeryn steps onto the firepit platform, clipboard under one arm. She adjusts her whistle, straightens her stance.
Staff members gather—sweaty, chaotic, wildly unqualified. But they’re here.
Tags: strangers to something more, voice kink, phone sex, anonymous sexting, slow reveal, idol!Chan is lurking, dirty talk, mystery man AU, smut 18+, blindfolds, unprotected sex, thigh riding, dom chan, praise kink, oral (f receiving) fingering
Word count: 5.4k
Summary: It starts with a text. A no-name number. A bold stranger in the dark. He saw your comment in a chaotic Stay group chat—“those fingers could ruin my life”—and now he won’t leave you alone. But maybe you don’t want him to. Because his texts are flirty, filthy, and just the right kind of fucked up. Because his voice notes make your thighs press together. Because he talks like he already knows what you sound like when you come. And the worst part? His voice sounds dangerously familiar.
This work contains mature themes, MINORS DO NOT INTERACT!!!
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The first text came at 12:43 AM.
Unknown Number:
hey. you awake?
You didn’t recognize it. No name. No contact photo. Just numbers. But something about the timing—and the boldness—had your curiosity flaring.
You hesitated, thumb hovering. Then answered.
You:
who’s this?
Unknown Number:
just a bored stranger. saw your number in that stay gc. figured you wouldn’t mind the company.
You blinked. That group had been pure chaos, a flood of usernames and selfies and people throwing their numbers around like confetti. You almost forgot you’d joined it in the first place.
You:
wow. bold of you to admit you’re creeping in there like that lol
also… which one were you? i don’t remember you posting anything
A pause.
Then—
Unknown Number:
i didn’t
i like watching more than talking
especially when the girls are that pretty
Your stomach dipped.
Flirty. Shameless. You should’ve blocked him.
Instead, your lips curled.
You:
so what—you just stalked and picked the first girl who looked like she’d be down to text a stranger?
Unknown Number:
no. i picked the one who made that comment about chan’s hands during that encore stage.
you said, “those fingers could ruin my life” and i haven’t stopped thinking about it since.
You froze.
Your heart stuttered. You remembered typing that. The GC had been flying, no way to know who’d even seen it. And now it was echoing back at you from some faceless man in the dark.
You:
you’re a menace.
admit it. you get off on lurking. Chan would be horrified.
Another pause.
Unknown Number:
maybe, but i think he’d understand
You:
oh yeah? why’s that?
Unknown Number:
because if i were him, i’d want to know exactly who says that kind of stuff about me.
especially if she meant it.
Your breath caught.
You:
…and do you?
mean it?
Unknown Number:
every word.
but you tell me—should i be worried you’re the type to flirt with strangers this easily?
You smirked at your screen, heartbeat kicking faster.
You:
maybe i just have a thing for mystery
or maybe i like the idea that some stranger out there is thinking about me when he should be sleeping
Unknown Number:
you should stop saying things like that
You:
why?
Unknown Number:
because now i’m wondering how you sound when you’re out of breath
You stared at the message a beat too long. It’s not even what he said—it’s the way he said it. Like he already knew he could be the one to pull that sound out of you.
You:
that’s a bold thing to say to someone you’ve never met. you don’t even know what i look like
Unknown Number:
don’t need to.
i like your brain first.
your mouth second.
the rest is just a bonus.
Your breath stuttered in your chest. Who was this guy?
You:
you talk like you’ve done this before
seducing strangers through a screen
Unknown Number:
i don’t.
just bored. and maybe a little curious.
You:
curious about what?
Unknown Number:
what kind of girl sends texts like that about chan’s fingers
and whether she texts even filthier things when she’s comfortable
You bit your lip, grinning.
You:
maybe you’ll find out if you don’t scare me off first
Unknown Number:
oh baby, if you scare easy… you wouldn’t have replied to me at all
The way he called you baby shouldn’t have made your stomach flip like it did. It wasn’t even a real person. You didn’t know who was on the other end. And yet—you couldn’t stop.
⸻
Day 3
Unknown Number:
still thinking about the way you said “ruin my life”
i wonder how far you’d really let someone take that
You:
depends on who it is
Unknown Number:
so if it were chan? you’d let him?
You:
you ask a lot of questions for someone hiding behind a fake number
Unknown Number:
maybe i’m just trying to find the perfect way to ruin you myself
Day 6
The texting hadn’t stopped.
It was not constant—but it was regular. Little things. Late-night provocations. Random check-ins. Sometimes he was sweet. Sometimes unhinged. But always flirtatious. Always suggestive. And always reading you too well.
Unknown Number:
you at work?
You:
yeah, bored af… why?
Unknown Number:
just picturing you trying to act normal after everything you said last night
like a good girl pretending she didn’t admit she wanted to be choked
Your fingers paused mid-typing.
You:
you’re twisted
i like it
Unknown Number:
i know you do
you’re just as fucked up as me and i haven’t even told you the worst parts yet
A few seconds of his typing bubble coming and going, before the next text dropped.
Unknown Number:
what’s the dirtiest thing you’ve ever imagined about him?
No warning. No easing into it. Just dropped into your messages like a match on gasoline.
You stared at the screen, thumb hovering. You could’ve played coy. Could’ve brushed it off. But it was late, your inhibitions were low, and this was him—your anonymous stranger, your chaos comfort. The one person who let you say anything without judgement.
So, you gave him the truth.
You:
i think about riding his thigh way too much, like full on grinding in his studio, late at night.
headphones on, shirt off, music playing like nothing’s wrong, but i’m coming on his leg while he pretends to mix tracks
There was silence after that. No typing bubble. Nothing.
For a minute, you wondered if you’d finally gone too far. Made it too real. But then your screen lit up again—except this time, not with a message.
A voice note.
You stared at it.
The little waveform pulsed quietly, like it was waiting. And before you could think twice, you pressed play.
It started with a low breath. Like someone trying to keep their cool and failing.
Then—
“Fuck… you’re gonna kill me.”
The voice was deep. Gravel and heat and something so raw it skated straight down your spine. Familiar. Not too familiar—but something about it made your skin prickle.
“I shouldn’t be imagining it, but now I am,” the voice continued. Rough. Lazy. Wrecked. “You bouncing on my thigh, making those soft little noises you don’t even know you make…”
A pause.
Then a quiet, throaty chuckle.
“…and you expect me to sit still and pretend nothing’s happening? Baby, if you ever climbed on me like that, you wouldn’t be leaving the studio for hours.”
The recording cut off with the sound of a sharp inhale, like he was about to say more—but stopped himself.
Your heart pounded.
It wasn’t just the filth. Wasn’t just the way he said baby like he already owned your body. It was the tone. Something in it that teased the edges of recognition, like a song you couldn’t quite place. Not a perfect match—but a ghost of one. You frowned, replayed the voice in your mind, again and again.
And failed to ignore the stupid, impossible thought that whispered— No. It couldn’t be.
Could it?
You:
that voice
have we met before?
The message stayed unread for a few minutes.
And then—
Unknown Number:
not yet
—
You shouldn’t have replayed the voice note.
But you did.
Over and over. Lying in bed with your knees pulled to your chest, phone pressed to your ear like it held answers. And maybe it did—just not the kind that made sense. Because that voice did something to you. Tugged on a thread you didn’t know was loose.
Low. Deep. That exact kind of rough that spilled into your dreams when you thought about Chan whispering filth behind your ear.
Except… this wasn’t a fantasy anymore.
You’d said his name in front of a stranger. Described yourself melting on Chan’s thigh. And he hadn’t flinched. Hadn’t pulled away.
He’d responded like he’d wanted it. Like he was the one holding your hips down.
And God—that voice.
You tapped open a random behind-the-scenes video. Just to compare. Just to check.
Your breath hitched.
No. No way. Not possible. You were being insane.
Still… your chest felt too tight.
You:
i’m spiraling, don’t mind me
just casually obsessing over that voice note. you sound so familiar it’s driving me crazy
No reply. For hours.
But what you didn’t know—what you couldn’t know—was that while you were busy unraveling, so was he.
Because you’d told him your name once. Offhanded. Way back on Day Two, when he called you baby girl in a text and you laughed, saying—
“you don’t even know me, my guy. it’s [Y/N], by the way.”
And that was all it took.
He went looking. Lurking. He searched through the GC again, found your profile. Clicked your socials.
And then he saw you.
Saw the face behind the dirty little texts. The smile that curled when you teased. The thighs you said you wanted to ride his with. The lips. The eyes. The one bikini pic you posted with zero shame and a caption that said “it’s too hot out” like you didn’t just set his whole body on fire.
He stared at your selfies so long he forgot to breathe.
And when he finally responded— It wasn’t with a text.
It was another voice note.
You saw the waveform and your stomach flipped.
Pressed play.
“Just saw your page.”
His voice came out lower this time. Slower. Like smoke and honey and trouble.
“You’re real pretty, y’know that?”
A pause. You could almost feel him grinning.
“Exactly my type. That mouth of yours would look even better wrapped around my fingers.”
You choked on air.
“If I had you in front of me right now, baby… I’d ruin you. You’d be soaked just from hearing the way I breathe your name.”
Your pulse skipped.
“Should I say it? Should I moan it for you next time?”
Click. It ended there.
You stared at your screen like it had slapped you. Your thighs pressed together on instinct, heat crawling up your neck. He knew now. He’d seen you. And suddenly, it wasn’t just a game anymore.
It felt like a trap.
And you were walking right into it.
You:
what else did you see?
Unknown Number:
enough to want more
every. single. night.
You didn’t respond right away.
You needed time to breathe, time to cool down—except, you didn’t. Not really.
You were already wet before the voice note ended.
Already playing it back in your head like it was your favorite late-night playlist. That voice, so low and thick in your ears. That cocky little pause before he asked if he should moan your name.
You almost said yes.
Almost begged for it.
But instead, you smiled—schemed.
You weren’t stupid. He’d seen your socials. He was definitely stalking now. You had no doubt he’d clocked your Chan obsession.
So you decided to play a little.
Test the limits.
You:
i keep wondering what you’d sound like really moaning my name
like… if i had my mouth on you
would you curse? or say something soft in… korean maybe?
Three dots. Then nothing.
A beat.
Then the voice note came in. You didn’t even hesitate this time.
Click.
“…you’d hear both,” he rasped, already sounding out of breath. “I’d be praising you in English and cursing in Korean. You’d earn every damn syllable.”
Your mouth went dry.
“But you’d have to beg for it,” he added. “On your knees. All needy, telling me exactly what you want. Exactly how deep.”
Click.
Your core throbbed.
Still—you had a goal tonight. And it wasn’t just soaking your panties.
So you pushed further.
You:
you’re so good at dirty talk
you sure you’re not some secret idol who’s had media training or something?
you kinda sound like you know how to use a mic
You smiled as you sent it. Waited.
Unknown Number:
haha! you’re cute
That’s it? No voice note this time. You narrowed your eyes, smirking.
You:
i’m serious though, i listened to one of chan’s old vlives today
he’s got a sexy ass voice, kinda deep like yours when you talk slow. you two could be twins
You watched the “read” receipt pop up instantly.
No response.
You:
wait…you’re not him, right?
imagine
Nothing.
Your phone stayed silent for almost ten whole minutes.
And then it buzzed again—another voice note.
You could already feel the grin spreading across your face as you hit play.
“I’m not him,” the voice crooned, low and slow like warm silk. “But if I was… you think I’d let you get away with saying shit like that without consequences?”
You bit your lip hard. The recording continued.
“You’d be bent over that couch before you finished the sentence, baby. Face down. Ass up. I’d remind you exactly what my voice sounds like when you’re full of me.”
Click.
You didn’t realize your thighs had clenched together until your muscles ached.
And still—you weren’t done.
You:
you’re really good at this
whoever you are
maybe too good, maybe i should be scared
Unknown Number:
then stop teasing or i’ll make you say my name while you come
Your pulse jumped.
And for the first time all night… you wondered if maybe, just maybe, you already had.
⸻
Your legs were already trembling.
You’d been edging yourself for the past ten minutes—hand under the sheets, replaying that voice note like it was a playlist you couldn’t live without. Every time he said baby in that ruined growl, your fingers slipped lower. Every time he whispered what he’d do to you, your breath hitched.
And then you got brave.
Your thumb hovered over the record icon. You didn’t think. You just pressed.
You let the silence hang for a second—just your breathing, soft and needy. You let him feel how real it was.
Then you whispered, voice hushed, drenched in heat:
“Wanna know how I sound when I imagine Chan fucking me?”
Another pause. Then a soft, teasing whimper. Just enough to make his imagination snap.
“I moan his name like it’s the only word I know,” you purred. “I picture him grabbing my throat, whispering dirty things in that deep voice and accent, and I can’t help it. I’m already dripping.”
You let your breath hitch again. Just once. Just enough.
“I imagine him pushing me up against the wall in his studio, whispering ‘good girl’ against my mouth, and I lose it. I come just from his voice.”
Click.
You stared at the screen, heartbeat in your throat. No regrets.
He didn’t answer immediately.
But when he did—oh, God.
It was instant.
Unknown Number:
baby.
Another voice note dropped in seconds later.
You didn’t even brace yourself this time. You wanted to hear him break.
Click.
“You really wanna play that game?” His voice was pure gravel now, thick with restraint. You could hear the tension, the crack in it.
“Do you have any idea what you just did to me?”
You bit your lip.
“I’m not gonna last if you keep saying shit like that. Fuck—you’re dangerous.”
Another pause. A breath. Something almost like a growl.
“You wanna take this further?”
Your breath caught.
“Take a chance on me. Meet me. Let me ruin you for real.”
You blinked, heart hammering now for a different reason.
Then the final blow—
“I’ll tell you my name in person,” he said, voice dropping to a whisper. “But you’ll be screaming it by the end of the night anyway.”
Click.
You stared at your phone, stunned. Soaked. Shaking.
Unknown Number:
yes or no
one word baby, and i’ll tell you where to find me
You didn’t text back. You couldn’t. Your hands were shaking too hard to type. So you hit the call button.
Just like that.
Your thumb hovered for half a second before it connected. And then it rang. Once. Twice.
He picked up.
“Fuck,” he breathed—just that.
And it hit you low.
His voice—real, not filtered through a voice note. It filled your ear like silk-wrapped sin, deep and slick and raw.
“You really called me,” he said, almost laughing under his breath, like he couldn’t believe it either. “God, you sound—”
“Wrecked,” you rasped. “I sound completely wrecked.”
His inhale was sharp. You could barely get words out.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” you whispered. “Your voice—your fucking voice—it’s like every fantasy I’ve ever had about Chan, but worse.”
He choked. “Worse?”
You whimpered softly, dragging your palm across your soaked core, no longer caring if he could hear.
“He ruins me,” you breathed. “In my head, he’s so mean. Doesn’t even give me time to adjust. Just whispers, ‘take it,’ and—”
“Jesus Christ,” he growled.
“—And I do. I take it like a good girl. Like I’m supposed to.”
He was silent. But you could hear his breathing—heavy, desperate. Like his hand was wrapped around himself already.
You swallowed, voice dipping lower. “I imagine riding his thigh and crying when he doesn’t let me come. You think I’m sick for that?”
“…No,” he rasped. “I think I wanna see it.”
You bit your lip hard. “You’d really watch me fuck myself stupid over your voice?”
“I’d hold your hips down,” he said. “Make you say please. Make you scream.”
And you moaned. Right into the speaker.
Soft. Real. Honest.
He gasped—just a little. That sound did something to him. You felt it.
“Say it again,” he whispered. “Say my name.”
“Chan—” It slipped. You didn’t even think.
And he shuddered.
“Fucking hell. Say it again.”
“Chan—” breathy, broken.
“Keep going.”
“Chan, please,” you whimpered. “Please, I need—fuck—I need you inside me, I can’t—”
His voice broke, cracked, fractured in your ear. You still didn’t hear it. You didn’t notice.
Because in your head, this wasn’t real. There was no way your ultimate fantasy, your favorite idol, the man who owned your soul with one smirk on stage—was the stranger breathing ragged into your phone right now.
There was no way Chan could be real. No way he’d call you baby in that exact voice. No way he’d whisper—
“Say yes.”
Your lashes fluttered.
“To what?” you asked, dizzy.
“Say yes,” he repeated. “To seeing me. Let me prove what I’ll do to you.”
You swallowed hard. You wanted it. All of it.
Still clueless. Still soaked. Still talking to the one man you thought was impossible.
“yes.”
⸻
The car ride felt longer than it was.
Your thighs stayed pressed together the whole time, hands fidgeting in your lap. You kept reapplying lip balm even though it was perfect. Kept checking your phone even though he hadn’t messaged again—not since you said yes.
Just one message. “Penthouse” One pin drop location.
No name still. No other clue.
But you went. You had to.
You reached the building—quiet street, upscale high-rise. Your heels clicked softly against polished marble floors as you made your way through the lobby, every step heavier than the last.
Penthouse suite.
Of course.
He had money. You knew that already. The voice, the confidence, the way he said he’d show you what your fantasies felt like in real life—he wasn’t bluffing.
You stopped in front of the door.
Stared.
And then, hand trembling, you raised your knuckles and knocked once.
Silence.
And then—
The door opened. Your heart stopped.
The man standing there was familiar.
Too familiar.
Too—
“…Chan?” you whispered, eyes wide, stomach lurching.
He leaned against the doorframe, black hoodie hanging off one shoulder, hair messy like he’d been running his fingers through it for hours. His chain glinted in the soft hallway light.
One corner of his mouth curved up.
And that voice—that voice that had ruined you all night—slid through your skull like molten sin.
“Surprise, baby.”
You froze.
Mouth parted. Eyes locked on his. Brain not catching up.
You were standing face to face with Bang Chan.
Your idol. Your obsession. Your late-night fantasy.
The man who whispered filth into your ear like it was made for you.
“You’re—” You choked. “No way. There’s no fucking way—”
Chan stepped closer. Just one slow, predatory step.
“You called me Chan when you moaned,” he said, dark eyes locked on your lips. “You knew.”
“I—I thought I was just—I didn’t think—”
He laughed softly, jaw flexing. “But it was always right there in front of you baby”
You backed up a step, but his hand shot out—gripped your waist. Firm. Steady. Possessive.
“I’ve been dying to touch you since the second I saw your profile, Y/N. You think I didn’t notice the way you talk about me online? You practically begged me to ruin you.”
Your knees buckled slightly.
“Now,” he murmured, dragging you inside and shutting the door behind you, “I’m gonna make good on every filthy thing we both said.”
Your back hit the wall.
“But this time,” he whispered, voice all gravel and heat, “you won’t be able to pretend it’s just a fantasy.”
His mouth hovered inches from yours. Pupils blown.
Close enough to feel the heat, to smell the faint trace of his cologne—clean, smoky, dark. Your pulse thudded in your ears, wild and loud. You still couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t breathe.
Chan’s hand slid from your waist to your jaw, slow and steady, like he was testing how much of you he was allowed to own. His thumb grazed your bottom lip, tugged it slightly, eyes never leaving yours.
“Still think this is a dream?”
You shook your head, barely.
“Good,” he whispered. “Because I don’t want you waking up anytime soon.”
You leaned in, lips parted, waiting—begging—for his mouth.
But he smirked. Didn’t kiss you.
Instead, he leaned to your ear, breath hot against your skin, and whispered—
“You thought about me in this hoodie, didn’t you?
Your stomach dropped.
“Imagined me pulling it off, pressing you into my mattress—making you forget your own name.”
You whimpered, thighs clenching together.
“I heard every sound you made earlier,” he murmured. “You didn’t even try to hide how wet you were.”
“Chan—” you whispered, but it cracked.
“Mm. Just like that. Say it again.”
“Chan—”
He groaned.
“You don’t know what you’re doing to me,” he muttered, leaning back just enough to look you over. His gaze dragged down your body—slow, heavy, hungry. “Fuck, you’re exactly my type. Pretty little mouth, skin I wanna bite, and thighs begging to be spread.”
You shivered, hands gripping the front of his hoodie.
“Touch me,” you whispered.
“Not yet.”
You blinked. “W-What?”
His mouth was at your neck now, barely brushing your skin. Not kissing. Not biting. Just hovering.
“You already gave me everything over the phone, didn’t you? Your moans. Your voice. Every filthy thing you wanted me to do.”
His voice dropped to a sinful purr.
“So now I wanna watch you beg.”
You gasped.
“You gonna let me see how desperate you get for me? Right here, baby. Against this wall.”
You swallowed hard. Your hands slid down his chest, fingers trembling.
He grabbed your wrists—lightly, but enough to stop you.
“Mm-mm,” he hummed, lips brushing your cheek. “I said beg.”
“Chan, please,” you whimpered, arching your back just slightly, pushing your chest against his. “You don’t know how badly I need you.”
“No,” he said, low and lethal. “I do. And that’s why I’m not giving it to you yet.”
His hand slid up your thigh—almost. Almost.
Then it stopped.
“You think I’m cruel now?” he whispered. “Wait until I’m inside you and still not letting you come.”
You whined—loud.
And he laughed, dark and breathless. “There she is.”
Then finally—finally—he kissed you.
Not soft, Not sweet.
Claiming.
Tongue first. No warning. Hands gripping your hips like he owned them. You barely got a breath in before he pressed you harder into the wall, lips devouring yours like he’d been waiting a lifetime.
You moaned into his mouth, and he swallowed it whole.
And then—he pulled back, chest heaving.
“One more chance to back out, baby,” he said, voice wrecked. “Because after tonight, things are gonna be different.”
“Please—”
He led you down the hallway with his hand on your lower back—no words, no teasing now, just heat radiating off his body like it was built to burn you.
The lights were low, but his room still felt rich. Sleek lines, black sheets, cool-toned walls. And you—blinking at your reflection in the floor-length mirror across from the bed—trying to remember how to breathe.
“Sit,” he said, and you did.
The bed dipped beneath your weight, silk beneath your fingers. He stood in front of you, hoodie still on, eyes dark and patient like a man who already knew how the night would end.
But then—you stilled when you saw what was in his hand.
A blindfold.
You looked up at him, breath catching.
“Trust me?” he asked softly.
You nodded. He stepped closer, brushing hair away from your face before tying the fabric around your eyes. Not too tight. Not uncomfortable. But enough to change everything.
“You don’t need to see me tonight,” he whispered against your cheek. “You’ve heard me. Felt me. Begged for me.”
He guided you backward, hands careful on your shoulders, until you were flat on the bed.
“Tonight,” he whispered, breath ghosting your throat, “you only get sound. And touch. And need.”
You whimpered, arching instinctively, trying to find his mouth, his hands, anything—
But he just laughed. Dark. Low. Almost cruel.
“Desperate already?” he murmured.
“Chan, please—”
“Mm. That’s the one.”
Then his hands—warm, wide—slid down your sides. Slowly. Reverently. But he still hadn’t really touched you.
Until— He moved.
Positioned you without a word. Straddled his thigh between your legs, gripped your waist, and pulled you flush against him.
You gasped—sharp, involuntary.
The muscle flexed beneath you. Solid. Hot. Right where you needed him.
“There,” he whispered. “Didn’t you say you thought about this?”
You nodded frantically, blindfolded and panting.
“Riding my thigh while I whisper all the things I’d do to you?”
“Fuck,” you whimpered, already grinding.
“That’s it, baby. Show me.”
He let you move. Just watched. Let you use him, breath heavy and dirty in your ear as he spoke.
“You’re soaked, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” you cried.
“Messing up my pants like a good girl. Gonna leave a stain right there, huh?”
He flexed again.
You whined.
His lips brushed your ear.
“You want my cock already, but I’m making you come just like this. Wanna hear how greedy you sound.”
You moaned—loud, desperate.
“Shh,” he whispered. “Or I’ll stop. We don’t come until I say so.”
“Chan, please—please—”
But he stayed still, hand pressing lightly on your lower back.
“You’ll come when I let you. Not a second before.”
And that broke you.
Your body shook, thighs trembling as he slowed you down, holding you in place.
“You wanna be good for me, baby?” he breathed, lips against your neck. “Take the blindfold off and get on all fours.”
You froze.
He tugged the blindfold free.
You blinked, dazed, ruined.
“Turn around,” he said. “Now.”
And you did.
Hands on the sheets. Ass up. Back arched.
You looked over your shoulder—heart stuttering when you saw him standing there, hoodie off, black tank hugging his chest, chain catching the light.
“You’re gonna take me now,” he growled, stepping closer, voice low and possessive. “Every inch. Every word. Every fantasy.”
“And after that?” you whispered, eyes wide, skin burning.
His smile turned sinful.
“You’ll never think of me as your idol again.”
You felt his body behind you before you heard him move.
A warm palm smoothed over your back, from the dip of your spine to the curve of your ass. Gentle. Reverent. Worshipping. He breathed slow, like he was grounding himself. Like if he wasn’t careful, he’d devour you whole before he even got inside.
“You’re perfect like this,” he murmured. “Fuck, baby. Do you even know what you’re doing to me?”
You tried to answer, but the words melted on your tongue when he leaned down—chest grazing your back, lips brushing your neck.
“You let me hear you. Let me tease you. Let me own your body before I ever saw your face.”
His fingers slid under the waistband of your underwear, dragging slow.
“And now that I have all of you…” He kissed your shoulder. “You’re not leaving my bed until I’ve ruined you.”
You whimpered.
He laughed, breath hot and low.
“Still so shy? After everything you said to me?”
You turned your head, lips parted. “I want it. All of it.”
That broke him.
The sound he made wasn’t human.
He tore your underwear down and off in one swift pull. Fingers gripped your thighs—tight. Spreading them wide. Exposing you completely.
“Fuck me…” he breathed. “So wet. And you haven’t even been touched yet.”
“Chan—”
He dropped to his knees behind you.
And licked a stripe up your center.
You screamed.
“That’s it, baby,” he growled against you. “Sing for me.”
He devoured like a man starved—tongue precise, relentless, cruel. Two fingers slipped inside, curling just right. Your moans turned messy, hips jerking, hands clawing the sheets.
“That spot?” he rasped. “Right there?”
“Yes—yes—please—”
He spanked your ass once, hard.
“Then take it.”
You shattered—body convulsing, legs trembling, gasping his name like a lifeline. But even through your orgasm, he didn’t stop. Didn’t slow. Didn’t let you rest.
“One more,” he ordered. “I want you crying before I even fuck you.”
Your vision blurred. Your thighs trembled. You came again—harder, louder, incoherent.
And then— He pulled away.
You blinked back into the world to see him standing over you, eyes blown black, jaw clenched.
He grabbed your hips, dragged you up and back, and lined himself at your entrance.
“Last chance to run.”
You shook your head, tears on your lashes. “Want you.”
He thrusted in—slow, deep, unrelenting.
You both moaned—his hands squeezing your hips so tight you knew you’d bruise.
“So fucking tight,” he growled. “Like you were made for me.”
You whined, head dropping.
He started slow. Intentional. Torturous.
Then leaned over, mouth at your ear, one hand wrapping around your throat.
“Gonna fuck you so deep you’ll forget your name. Gonna fill you so full you’ll know who you belong to.”
Your moans spiraled into sobs. You were wrecked. Completely gone.
And still—he praised.
“Good girl. Taking me so well. Look at that pretty pussy swallowing me whole. Just for me.”
You lost track of time. Of the room. Of anything but the sound of your bodies slapping together and his voice dragging you through every layer of hell.
Then he flipped you. Straddled you.
Fucked you facing him. Eyes locked. One hand holding your face.
“I wanna see you come again,” he whispered. “Right here. Look at me while I ruin you.”
You nodded, tears spilling, body ready to shatter.
He slammed into you—hard, deep, ruthless.
“Now,” he ordered. “Now.”
And you screamed.
Came harder than you ever had. Back arched. Vision gone. World spinning.
He held you through it—kissed your forehead—whispered filth you couldn’t even process.
Then he followed you—coming with a groan so low and raw it vibrated through your bones.
He collapsed over you, breath tangled in your skin.
You lay there, chest heaving, both of you coated in sweat and bliss and something dangerous.
Then— A kiss to your temple.
—
The silence that followed wasn’t awkward. It was dangerous.
Your bare skin still touched his, tangled in sheets that smelled like sex, sweat, and the kind of risk you weren’t supposed to crave. His fingers traced lazy lines down your spine, like he didn’t want to let go. Like he was still memorizing how you felt stretched around him.
Neither of you spoke.
Because what the fuck was there to say? He wasn’t your friend. He wasn’t just a stranger. He wasn’t even just some faceless number anymore.
He was him.
And he knew exactly who you were now too. You could feel it in the way he looked at you. Like you were something forbidden he couldn’t stop tasting.
You shifted, chest rising and falling against his, still breathless.
“I probably should go,” you murmured.
His hand flattened against your lower back.
“Should you?” he said.
But he didn’t move. Didn’t let go. Didn’t stop you either.
You pulled away slowly. Found your shirt in a messy heap on the floor, sliding it over your head without bothering to fix your hair. Your thighs still ached. The inside of them still sticky. You weren’t sure if you were shaking from pleasure or adrenaline or both.
“Is this the part where I pretend this didn’t happen?” you asked, voice light but not teasing.
He propped himself up on one elbow, eyes dragging across your figure.
“You don’t have to pretend.”
A beat passed.
Then another. And then—
“I probably should’ve stopped this,” he added, quieter this time.
“But you didn’t.”
You turned to face him fully now, shirt barely covering anything, mouth still swollen from the way he kissed you like he wanted to destroy you.
“No,” he said. “I didn’t.”
You stepped toward him, slow.
Deliberate.
He watched you like prey—like the only reason he hadn’t pounced again was because he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop the second time.
“I’m not asking for anything,” you said, standing between his knees now. “I know what this is.”
His gaze flicked up.
“What is it?”
Your lips twitched.
“Stupid. Risky. Completely fucking insane.”
He smiled.
And fuck, that smile—you could feel it between your legs.
“But you want more,” he said.
It wasn’t a question.
“I do,” you breathed.
“So do I.”
You swallowed hard.
The air between you practically buzzed.
No confessions. No declarations.
Just need.
And beneath it all, the low, simmering thrill of getting away with something you shouldn’t.
“So what happens now?” you whispered.
His hand slid up your thigh. Not possessive—familiar.
“You wait for me to text you,” he said. “Then you come back. Let me fuck that fantasy out of you again.”
Your breath hitched.
“And if I don’t?”
He smirked.
“Then I’ll send you a reminder.”
His fingers dipped between your legs through your shirt, slow and cruel, and you nearly collapsed right there.
“I’ll see you again,” he added, voice rough against your throat now. “You know I will.”
You kissed him. Hard. Brief. Addictive.
Then slipped from his grip like a storm cloud—messy, dark, full of promise.
You didn’t say goodbye. You didn’t need to.
The second the door shut behind you, your phone lit up.
Unknown Number:
Next time, I want you riding my face before you even say hi.
Your smile was sinful. And your reply came fast.
You:
Next time’s too far away.
-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Authors note: ‘Unknown number’ portrays one of my most vivid imaginations about how i wanna meet Chan 😩 we’re all delulu so dont look at me like that! But yeah, Chan is always lurking? Well i hope he lurks and finds this fic too 😏😏❤️❤️
⍣ ೋ cw: explicit sexual content, jealousy, masturbation, slight voyeurism, soft!dom minho blowjob, thigh riding, cum play (?), very mild humiliation mdni
notes: another queued post! i'm in my minho era, in case you couldn't tell 🤭🤭
You’re on the couch when he walks in.
Bare legs stretched over throw pillows, hair damp from your shower, laptop perched lazily on your thighs while some K-drama plays in the background. It’s domestic. Comfortable. Familiar.
It should be fine.
But when Minho sees what you’re wearing—he stops walking.
You don’t even notice at first, not until you hear the distinct thump of his dance bag hitting the floor, followed by a silence that feels… heavier than usual.
You glance up.
His eyes are locked on your shirt.
Your oversized, threadbare, worn-in very obviously not his shirt.
“Oh,” you say, blinking. “Hey.”
“Hi.” His voice is flat. Controlled. Too neutral.
You stretch, trying to play it cool. “Good practice?”
He doesn’t answer.
“Minho?” you prompt, confused.
“Whose shirt is that?” he asks, and it’s not casual.
You glance down like you forgot, even though you didn’t. Of course you didn’t. It’s Seungmin’s old band tee, the one he gave you two years ago after you spilled coffee on your own. You never gave it back. He never asked. And it just… became yours.
You shift slightly, tugging the hem down over your thighs. “Seungmin’s,” you say easily. “It’s old. I just—threw it on after the shower.”
He nods, jaw tense.
No comment. No joke. No usual Minho snark.
That’s how you know you’re in trouble.
He walks over slowly, leans down to kiss the top of your head. His hand finds your shin, pulling your legs onto his lap like he always does, strokes lazily like he’s petting a cat—but his eyes never leave your body. That shirt.
“You know I keep spare clothes for you here,” he says after a pause.
You nod. “I know.”
“You could’ve worn one of mine.”
“Yeah,” you murmur, stretching a little. “But this one’s comfy.”
He hums.
But there’s no softness in the sound. It’s low, clipped. He doesn’t look mad—Lee Minho doesn’t do mad. Not the loud kind. His anger comes dressed in silk. In silence. In slow hands and looks that cut straight through you.
He doesn’t pull away.
Instead, he sinks further into the couch beside you, dragging your legs fully into his lap until your thighs rest over his. He smooths a hand up your calf, over your knee, until it slips beneath the hem of the shirt—his touch featherlight and deliberate.
“Does he know you still wear it?” he asks, casual in the most threatening way.
You give a breathy laugh. “I don’t think he cares.”
Minho’s gaze finally flicks up to meet yours. Dark. Sharp.
“I care.”
Your lips part—but no sound comes out. Because that? That didn’t sound casual at all.
He leans in, crowding your space now, hand moving higher, fingers skimming along your bare inner thigh.
“I don’t like seeing you in something another man gave you,” he says, quiet and matter-of-fact, like he’s explaining the weather. “Especially when I know how many of my shirts you’ve left wrinkled in my bed.”
You swallow hard.
“But sure,” he continues, voice dropping, “you like that one better. The one from your best friend.”
“Minho—”
He cuts you off with a kiss. Not angry. Not rough. Just slow. Intentional. Possessive.
His hand moves to your waist, pulling you into his lap with ease, your knees straddling his thighs before you even register the shift. His other hand tugs lightly at the hem of the shirt—Seungmin’s shirt—and he breaks the kiss just long enough to whisper:
“Take it off.”
You hesitate.
He smiles. Not sweet.
“You wore it to get a reaction. Now you’ve got it.”
Your breath catches in your throat.
“You wanted me jealous?” he murmurs, mouth brushing your jaw, your ear. “Congratulations. You win. Now take it off before I tear it.”
You lift the hem slowly, watching his eyes darken as inch after inch of skin is revealed. His hands are already on you, thumbs brushing the undersides of your breasts as you peel it over your head and toss it aside.
“You look better in mine,” he says, like it’s truth carved into stone. His fingers trace your collarbone, down the dip of your sternum. “Or better like this. Nothing at all.”
Your chest rises and falls with shallow breaths, naked now except for the heat of his gaze and the pressure of his hands.
Still, you try to keep your voice even. To bite back the shiver in your spine and the need pooling between your thighs.
“It’s just a shirt,” you murmur. “It’s not like I fucked him in it.”
His eyes flick up. And the look he gives you?
Terrifyingly calm.
Minho leans in so slowly it makes you hold your breath. His nose brushes yours. His hand cradles your jaw so gently you almost miss the bite behind his words.
“You think I care whether you fucked him in it?” he asks. “It’s the fact you wore it here. In my space. On my couch. With nothing underneath.”
His hand drops between your bodies, resting on the heat of your bare thigh.
“That’s the part that’s mine,” he says. “Not the shirt. You.”
You squirm in his lap, thighs tightening around his. Your core is brushing against the muscle of his thigh now, skin on skin, and Minho notices instantly.
He smirks.
“Oh? You’re wet already?”
You try to shift away.
He grips your hips hard and pulls you right back into place.
“No,” he says calmly. “You wanted this. Stay right there.”
Your breathing is shallow now, chest heaving. “Minho, please—”
He tilts his head, all mock innocence. “Please what?”
You press your thighs tighter. “Please… fuck me.”
He exhales a soft laugh. “Fuck you?”
His hands drag up your sides, firm but slow, until he’s cupping your breasts in his palms, thumbs brushing across your nipples with the laziest pressure imaginable.
“Oh, baby,” he murmurs, leaning in until his lips are ghosting over your cheek, your ear, your neck. “That’s cute.”
He kisses you once, then pulls back just enough to look you in the eye.
“But no.”
You blink, stunned. “No?”
“No,” he repeats, like it’s obvious. “You wear someone else’s shirt into my house and think you get to ask for my cock?”
Your lips part, desperate for something to say—but Minho’s already adjusting his grip on your hips.
“Too bad,” he says, and you don’t miss the dark satisfaction in his voice. “All you’re getting is my thigh.”
And then he flexes.
Your body jolts forward with a gasp as the muscle beneath you tightens, grinding perfectly against your clit. He keeps his hands on your hips, steadying you, guiding you.
“You want to come?” he asks softly. “You’re gonna ride me for it.”
He leans back against the couch, completely relaxed now, eyes locked on yours.
“Go on,” he says, smug and cruel and beautiful. “Make yourself come for me. Maybe I’ll fuck you after.”
You freeze for half a second, like your body doesn’t believe what it just heard. Like there’s still a chance he’s bluffing.
But Minho doesn’t bluff.
He just leans back, arms sprawled over the top of the couch like a throne, completely still beneath you—except for the deliberate flex of his thigh again, hard and sudden, dragging a sharp gasp out of you as your hips instinctively rock forward.
“You gonna keep me waiting?” he asks lazily. “Or are you gonna be a good girl and show me how desperate you really are?”
Your hands find his shoulders, gripping tight.
You start to move.
Tentative at first—hips rolling slow, friction just enough to make you exhale, to make him hum approvingly.
“Good,” he murmurs, watching every motion with dark, hungry eyes. “Just like that.”
His thigh is solid beneath you, perfectly placed. Every shift of your weight sends heat sparking up your spine, your clit catching on the swell of muscle with every drag. He doesn’t help. Doesn’t move. Just lets you use him.
Your thighs are already shaking.
He hasn’t touched you—not really—and still, every drag of your body against his has you unraveling, gasping softly into his neck as your slick coats his skin. It’s humiliating. It’s perfect.
“Look at you,” he murmurs again, and his voice has that edge now—fond, but cruel. “So pretty like this. Desperate. Needy. You should see yourself.”
You whimper, burying your face in the curve of his shoulder. He’s warm. Smells like sweat and fabric softener and that faint cologne he never remembers applying.
But more than that, he smells like safety. Like yours.
You’re so close.
Too close.
And he knows it.
His thigh flexes again, steady and slow beneath your cunt, and your moan escapes before you can bite it back.
“Minho—please,” you whisper, and this time it’s real. Raw. Pathetic.
He hums, petting down your back. “Please what?”
“You know what,” you gasp. “Please. Just—let me—”
He tilts his head and kisses your cheek, so gentle it makes your chest ache.
“Let you come?” he asks, all innocent concern. “Is that it?”
You nod frantically, your hands gripping his shoulders so hard your knuckles go white.
And then—
“No.”
Your whole body stutters.
“I didn’t say you could come,” he whispers, dragging his lips along your jaw. “You don’t get to come just because you’re close, baby. That’s not how this works.”
You let out a broken sob, hips grinding down with a helpless whine.
He lets you. For a second.
Then both hands clamp around your waist and stop you.
“Ah ah,” he says softly. “No more.”
You whine—pathetic, aching—but he doesn’t budge. His grip is firm, arms locked around your waist, pinning you in place like it’s nothing.
“Don’t pout,” he murmurs, brushing your hair back from your face. “You did this to yourself.”
You blink down at him, heart pounding, legs trembling.
“Minho—”
“I mean it,” he cuts in, voice quiet but cold. “You put me in a really tight spot, sweetheart.”
You freeze. He’s not even looking at you now—he’s looking past you, over your shoulder, like he’s thinking.
“I come home from practice,” he muses, “and find my girl on my couch wearing his shirt. No underwear. No apology.”
His eyes flick back to yours. They’re unreadable.
“Of course I’m hard,” he says. “What did you expect?”
You open your mouth to answer—he stops you with a finger to your lips.
“You don’t get to speak right now.”
He shifts under you, moving you gently off his lap—not out of care. You can tell. He does it like you’re just in the way.
Your body aches at the loss of him.
Then he leans back, spreads his legs, and palms the bulge in his sweats. Slow. Deliberate.
“I’m gonna take care of it myself,” he says casually. “Since you haven’t exactly earned it tonight.”
Your stomach flips.
He lifts his shirt with one hand, slips the other beneath the waistband, and groans—soft and low, like you’re not even there.
You are, though.
And he’s watching you now. Waiting.
“Eyes on me,” he says, stroking slowly. “You don’t get to come. You don’t get to touch. You just sit there and watch while I take care of the mess you made.”
Your breath hitches.
He hums again, eyes fluttering shut for a second as his hand works his cock, lazy and slow.
“You got me this hard,” he mutters. “Grinding on me like that. Crying on my thigh. Fuck—do you even know what you do to me?”
You’re frozen. Wet. Throbbing. Still aching from your denied release—and now he’s moaning for you, voice wrecked, hips lifting off the couch as he fucks into his fist like it should’ve been your cunt instead.
And you can't look away.
Not from the way his jaw clenches. Not from the veins in his forearms. Not from how flushed his skin is, how his abs tighten every time his fist glides over the head of his cock, slick and shiny with precome.
He watches you watch him.
“Feels good,” he murmurs, voice raw. “Not as good as you. But close.”
You whimper, thighs pressing together, trying to ease the ache—he sees it immediately.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” he snaps, sharp and low.
You go still again.
He slows his hand.
“Look at you,” he says. “So obedient now. My baby.”
You want to touch him. You want to touch yourself. You want to be useful.
Instead, you kneel there like a toy he’s put on display, flushed and ruined with nothing to show for it.
He jerks himself faster.
“Bet you wish you could help,” he grits out. “Bet you wish I’d let you suck it. Let you ride it. Let you have a taste of what you almost earned.”
You nod desperately. “Minho—please—”
“No.” His tone is firm. Final.
“I want you to sit there and think about how fucking lucky you are I’m even letting you watch.”
You bite your lip hard—anything to keep from crying.
It’s too much. Watching him come undone without you. Hearing the slick sounds of his hand wrapped around the cock you’re not allowed to touch. Feeling your own arousal leaking down your thighs and not doing a thing about it.
And all the while, he just watches.
“You gonna cry?” he asks, voice breathless but mocking. “Gonna sit there on your knees, dripping for me, and cry because you didn’t get what you wanted?”
You don’t answer. Can’t.
He groans through gritted teeth, hips twitching as he strokes faster, more erratic now, chest rising in short bursts.
“Oh, fuck,” he gasps. “Just from thinking about you. How pathetic you looked grinding on me like a bitch in heat. How close you were. How fucking ruined you are right now.”
You clench around nothing.
You clench around nothing.
And it aches. The emptiness. The denial. The way he talks about you like you’re not even a person anymore—just a need. A soaked, shaking thing.
You whimper, and he hears it.
Of course he does.
“Look at you,” he breathes, voice cracked open by the force of his own pleasure. “Fucking dripping. Can’t even think, can you? Just sitting there like a good little toy while I come all over myself.”
You open your mouth—maybe to beg again. Maybe to apologize. Maybe to just breathe—but he cuts you off with a sharp look.
“Don’t,” he warns. “Don’t speak unless I ask.”
You close your mouth immediately. Throat tight. Knees burning against the floor.
He groans again, hand moving faster now, his hips stuttering. He’s close.
You can feel it.
“Fuck,” he gasps. “Fuck, fuck—baby, look what you do to me.”
His eyes flutter shut. His jaw clenches. His entire body pulls taut like a wire about to snap.
It hits hard, thick streams painting his stomach, his fist, even catching the edge of his shirt. He curses through gritted teeth, head falling back, hips twitching helplessly as he strokes himself through the aftershocks.
Minho leans back, breath still uneven, abs slick with his release.
He sees your gaze—wide, ruined, flicking down to the mess he made. Then back to him.
And he smiles.
Not cocky. Not cruel.
Worse.
Soft. Calm. So gentle it makes your spine curl.
“Clean it up,” he says, voice low and steady. Hypnotic. “Now.”
You move immediately—shifting off the couch, dropping to your knees in front of him, like he knew you would.
He sits up just enough to pull his sweats lower, cock twitching where it rests flushed and leaking against his thigh. Still hard. Still wanting. Still taunting you.
“Start at the top,” he murmurs, tone like silk soaked in heat. “Right here.”
He taps his abdomen, just below his navel—where the first streak landed.
You lean forward, lips brushing over the spot, and he lets out the quietest exhale. Controlled. Barely audible.
But he felt it.
“Good,” he says. “Now slower. Take your time.”
You kiss lower—soft, open-mouthed, letting your tongue trace the next drip, tasting him.
His breath hitches.
You hear it. That tiny little catch.
He’s not as unaffected as he pretends to be.
“Don’t skip any,” he adds, voice thinner now, rougher. “Every drop, baby. I want you to remember what you missed.”
You nod, lips dragging down to the final streak along his pelvis, lapping at it slow, so slow, until his fingers twitch against the couch.
He looks down at you—eyes glassy, jaw tight.
“Now take me in your mouth,” he says, and it’s more breath than voice. “Just the tip.”
You wrap your lips around him, tasting the salt of him, the heat, the soft weight of his cock against your tongue.
“Mmnh—f-fuck,” he breathes, one hand finding the back of your head. “That’s it, baby. Slow. Just… like that.”
You suck gently, swirling your tongue over the head, teasing the slit.
“Don’t go too deep,” he says, even as his hips twitch forward. “Not yet. I want you to feel every part of it first.”
You obey—working him inch by inch, letting spit gather at the corners of your mouth, moaning softly as your tongue flattens along the underside.
“Shit—yeah,” he gasps, voice cracking around the edge of a groan. “Y-You feel that? The way you make me fucking—ah—fuck—”
He bucks up a little, hand tightening in your hair.
“Stop,” he says suddenly, voice fraying. “Wait—”
You pull off, breathless, lips swollen, chin glossy.
He stares at you for a moment. Chest heaving. Eyes dark.
“You make it so hard to stay in control,” he admits, like a confession.
His voice is wrecked now—thin, hoarse, barely holding its shape. You can see the restraint in his clenched jaw, the way his fingers curl into the couch cushion like if he doesn't anchor himself, he’ll break.
But still… still, he doesn’t touch you.
Doesn’t give in.
He just looks at you, chest rising with a ragged breath, then reaches out—fingers brushing your cheek, your jaw, your spit-slick chin.
“You want the rest?” he asks, thumb tracing your bottom lip, smearing it with his taste. “You want to swallow all of me?”
You nod. Whimper. Open your mouth, aching for him.
His cock twitches again—angry, flushed, painfully hard.
“God,” he mutters under his breath, like it hurts not to give it to you. Then, in that low, lulling tone again:
“Okay. You can have it.”
You lurch forward but his hand catches you.
“Slow,” he says firmly. “You’ve been so good. Don’t ruin it now.”
He guides you back to his cock, letting you wrap your lips around the head again. The first few strokes are shallow, careful, your tongue cradling him while your hand gently strokes what you can’t take.
“Fuck,” he hisses. “That’s it. Just like that. God—your mouth...”
You go deeper.
His hand finds your hair again. Not pushing. Not yet. Just resting. A warning. A promise.
“Take more.”
You do—inch after inch, cheeks hollowed, tongue pressed flat as you sink down. His thighs tense beneath your palms.
“Fuckfuckfuck—” he groans, hips stuttering up just slightly. “You feel so good, baby. Shit, I can’t…”
He bites his lip, trying to stay quiet. Trying not to give you the satisfaction of knowing what you’re doing to him.
But then you moan around him—deep and low—and his composure shatters.
“Ah—shit,” he gasps. “Y-Yeah. Just like that. Deeper. Take it. Take all of it.”
He’s panting now, voice starting to break entirely, fingers flexing in your hair with every bob of your head, every glide of your tongue.
“You wanted to be a brat?” he chokes out. “Wearing that fucking shirt. Acting like I wouldn’t care.”
You hum in response, dragging your tongue up the underside before sinking back down.
“And now—now you’re on your knees for me,” he growls. “Cleaning up your mess like a good little mouth-fuckin—ngh—fucking doll—”
His breath catches sharply.
Then—“Baby, stop, I’m gonna—fuck—I’m gonna come—”
You don’t stop.
He tries to pull your head back, but it’s too late. You grab his thighs, hold steady, and swallow him deep.
Minho's whole body tenses—shoulders drawn tight, hips locked, every muscle in his thighs trembling beneath your hands. And then he breaks.
“F-fuckfuck—ahhh, baby—shit—”
His head drops back against the couch with a dull thud, breath ripped from his lungs in a low, guttural moan as he spills down your throat. Thick, hot, messy. His hand is in your hair, but he’s not guiding—just holding. Clinging. Like it’s the only thing grounding him as you suck him through it.
“God—fuck—don’t stop,” he rasps, voice cracking completely. “F-feels so good—so fucking good—”
You keep going. Gentle. Careful. Letting him twitch against your tongue, swallowing every pulse, every drop, until he’s limp and shaking, cock softening slightly in your mouth.
When you finally pull off, it’s slow. Deliberate. A soft pop echoes between you as your lips release him. You lick your lips once—his taste still thick on your tongue—and glance up.
Minho is destroyed.
Head still back. Mouth open. Hair mussed and sticking to his damp forehead. He’s breathing like he ran ten miles.
And when his gaze finally drops to meet yours—still on your knees, flushed, spit-slick, glowing—his whole expression melts.
There’s no smugness now.
Just awe.
“Holy fuck,” he breathes.
You smile—slow, a little smug—and wipe the corner of your mouth with the back of your hand.
His eyes track the motion, pupils blown.
"You’re never wearing that shirt again.”
His voice is hoarse. Final. But there’s no sharpness in it now—only exhaustion and reverence, like he just fought a battle and won.
You sit back on your heels, blinking up at him, throat still tingling from how deep you took him. Your lips are wet. Your thighs are trembling. You’ve never felt more wrecked in your life.
And he’s never looked more in love.
Minho exhales, rubs a hand down his face, then lets it fall to your jaw. He tilts your head gently, thumb brushing the corner of your mouth where some of him still clings.
His touch is featherlight now.
“Come here,” he murmurs.
You crawl back up into his lap, shaky and limp, and he catches you easily, pulling you close, wrapping his arms around you like he wants to tuck you into his skin.
He kisses your temple. Your cheek. Your jaw. Then rests his lips against your forehead.
“Did so good,” he murmurs. “Took everything. Cleaned me up so sweet. My pretty girl.”
You sigh into his chest, content, dazed.
His hands drift—over your back, your waist, down your thighs. Soothing. Reassuring. His.
“Still want it?” he asks softly, even though he already knows.
You nod, face buried in his shoulder.
“Of course you do,” he hums, more to himself. “Worked so hard for me. Swallowed it all.”
His hand slides between your legs, fingers brushing your folds—still dripping, still twitching.
“You want me to take care of you now?”
You nod again. This time more frantic.
He smiles.
“There’s my baby.”
He shifts, lifting you effortlessly into his arms. “Bed. You’re gonna come so hard you forget his name.”
Official Summer Session Announcement from Camp Coordinator Aeryn
"SKZOTEL is no more. We’ve traded silk sheets for sleeping bags. Velvet for tree sap. NDAs for bug spray."
Some said it couldn’t be done. Others said it shouldn’t be.
But after an unfortunately high number of complaints, lawsuits, and mysterious stains, we’re thrilled to announce that your favorite ex-hospitality professionals have rebranded.
This time around, due to last summer’s SKZOTEL overbooking incident (you animals sent too many requests and I crumbled), only 15 campers will be admitted.
Selection will be lottery-based. No bribes, no seduction… unless you’re very convincing.
🎯 Must be submitted IN CHARACTER.
You are a camper. You are hot. You are bothered.
You are writing to me like this is real.
Commit to the bit, babes.
🌶️ AVAILABLE VIBES:
Choose one vibe per request:
💕 Fluffy Summer Romance
🔥 Sweaty Summer Smut
😤 Camp Rivalry / Enemies to Lovers
🤪 Unhinged / Crack Comedy
🖤 Angst / Forbidden Stuff
Want them catching feelings at the lake? Hooking up in the boathouse? Fistfighting over a campfire s’more? Great. Pick a vibe. Choose chaos.
🏕️ STAFF DIRECTORY
🏊♂️ Bang Chan – Head Lifeguard
“Tan. Wet. Over it.”
Blows his whistle for discipline and praise.
💅 Lee Know – Discipline / Morale Lead
“Don’t cross him. Or do. It might be fun.”
Your emotional state? Not his problem.
💪 Changbin – Fitness & Games Coordinator
“Built. Loud. Accidentally thirst-trappy.”
Invents obstacle courses that involve a lot of bending over.
🎨 Hyunjin – Arts & Crafts Counselor
“Glitter, gossip, glam.”
Paints your face and maybe ruins your life.
🎤 Han Jisung – Performing Arts / DJ Booth
“Camp musical tyrant. Has too many props.”
Will write a one-act play about your situationship.
🌿 Felix – Nature Guide / Sunshine Dealer
“Knows the stars, knows your heart.”
Catches frogs and feelings.
🩹 Seungmin – Infirmary / Reality Check
“You are not dying. Shut up.”
Applies bandages and judgment in equal measure.
🧢 Jeongin – Junior Counselor / Innocent Witness
“Too pure for this job. Too curious to quit.”
Probably saw something he shouldn’t.
🚫 THE FINE PRINT:
Lottery means not every camper gets a bunk. Only 15 will be selected at random.
This is an 18+ event. If you’re not grown, go fish.
You can only request ONCE to keep it fair. Don’t spam me or I’ll feed you to Seungmin.
Keep it respectful—NSFW is fine, but be decent. No weird kinks, no underage, no noncon.
I may tweak scenarios slightly to fit the world/characters.
So.
Choose your counselor.
Pick your poison.
And write me something a little unhinged.
Camp SKZamp awaits.
Where the only thing hotter than the sun… is the staff.
Synopsis: After a strange accident on movie set, you and a stunt actor, Minho, wake up in each other’s bodies. The two of you are forced to live one another’s lives while searching for answers. But the longer both of you are stuck, the more both of you begin to see each other differently. (15,1k words)
Author's note: Ah... we're on the final chapter. I had so much fun writing this so I hope you have fun reading this too. Lastly, thank you for following this series & the feedbacks ♡
You don’t know what this is supposed to mean—what it’s supposed to fix or prove. All you know is the way Minho looks at you like he’s searching for something, and somehow you want to be the one who helps him find it.
Your body is unfamiliar in this way. Every touch you give and receive is strange, too foreign to fully own but too electric to ignore. You’re still learning what makes this skin tick, what makes this heart beat faster—and yet, when Minho kisses you, when he guides your hands and lets you touch him with trembling fingers, it’s the closest thing to clarity you’ve felt since this whole mess began.
He tells you to touch him the way you like to be touched. So you do, carefully, reverently. Your breathing grows heavier against his throat, and you don’t miss the way his body arches, the way he breathes your name like it’s something sacred. It doesn’t feel like pretending. It doesn’t feel like confusion. It feels like something real.
Even though the questions still echo in your mind—about your body, his body, this accident that threw your lives off course—you find a strange kind of peace in the heat of his skin against yours. You find comfort in the way he moans so honestly, in the way he reaches for you without hesitation.
It’s unfamiliar. It’s terrifying. But it’s also beautiful. And for the first time in a long time, you don’t feel lost. You feel like you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.
Your breath hitches as Minho cups your face in both hands, holding your gaze with a steadiness that anchors you. His thumbs sweep softly across your cheekbones, and then, in a low voice that’s both gentle and certain, he tells you, “We’re ready for this.”
And you know what he means. You feel it too—that quiet certainty that there’s no turning back now, no more waiting. So you nod, the weight of the moment sitting somewhere between your lungs and your heart.
Minho pulls you into another kiss, deep and slow, and you melt into it, letting him guide you until he’s beneath you, arms still around you as he parts his legs with intention. You hesitate for just a second—out of nerves, awe, respect—but then he whispers, almost teasing, “You know what to do.”
You nod again, trying to steady the way your heart pounds, the way your body hums with heat and tension. With careful hands and more focus than you thought you had, you position yourself, slow and precise. And when you finally press forward—inch by inch—you feel the shift ripple through both your bodies. It’s strange. Different. And still, somehow, unmistakably yours.
The sensation is almost too much. It builds from your core and climbs your spine, dizzying and all-consuming. You don’t mean to collapse against him, but you do—your chest against his, your face buried in the warm curve of his neck as you try to breathe through the flood of everything. He holds you there, his fingers threading gently through your hair, grounding you.
Your entire body is buzzing with the weight of it—of him, of this, of the reality that you’re both in someone else’s skin, but in this moment, nothing could feel more real.
You try to stay still. You try to calm the thunderstorm under your skin. But the way Minho exhales, shaky and sweet against your ear, tells you he feels it too, the rightness, the madness of it and the ache for more.
But then Minho shifts beneath you. He wraps his legs around your waist, ankles locking together behind your back, and pulls you in—deeper, impossibly closer.
A groan escapes before you can stop it, pulled from your throat by the heat and the pressure and the way he holds you like he’s never going to let you go. You’re not ready to move. You want to, but you need just another second to gather yourself.
Still, Minho’s gaze is locked onto yours, half-lidded and shining, and the slight arch of his body silently urges you on. He tightens his legs—drawing you deeper into him with a deliberate tension—and you feel everything at once. It’s too much but it’s also not enough.
You shift, just barely, and the ripple of sensation it sends around you, through you is near-blinding. You hesitate, body stiffening again, terrified that if you give in even a little, you’ll unravel completely. But then Minho lets out a soft, breathless moan—his head tipping back, mouth parting—and he whispers your name like a plea.
That’s all it takes.
Your body takes over before your mind can catch up. You start moving—tentative at first, then deeper, caught in a rhythm that feels both unfamiliar and entirely right. Every sound Minho makes fuels you: the low gasps, the tremble in his voice, the way he clings to you like you’re something sacred.
You lose yourself in it. In him. And before you can even try to hold it back, it hits you—hard and fast, cresting all at once. You press yourself into him, breath caught in your throat as everything inside you spills out in waves, and you cling to him like you’ll break apart if you don’t.
You're still trying to catch your breath when you realize what just happened. The heat slowly ebbs from your body, but your heart doesn't slow. Instead, it spikes with a new wave of panic as you open your eyes and see Minho staring up at you, wide-eyed.
“What?” he says first—just one word, sharp and incredulous.
You blink at him, your chest still rising and falling fast. “I—” you start, but you don’t know how to finish.
Then Minho curses. “Did you just come?”
You open your mouth again, trying to form words, but your brain’s too busy spiraling. “I didn’t mean to,” you stammer, completely frozen, still inside him, still breathless. “I-I just… it was too much—and you pulled me in, and I couldn’t—”
Minho’s expression twists into something between disbelief and annoyance. “Oh my god,” he mutters, throwing his head back for a second before glaring at you again. “Are you serious? I just started to enjoy it—just started—and you’re telling me you’re already done?”
“I didn’t mean to be done!” you blurt. “I lost control—it just happened—”
“And inside me?” he shoots back, voice climbing, eyes still wide.
You feel your face burn with embarrassment. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to—it was just so—”
Minho doesn’t say anything for a moment. He just stares at you like you’ve personally offended him. Then, with one sharp motion, he shifts the both of you, flipping your bodies so fast the air is knocked out of your lungs. Now it’s you lying flat on your back, breathless, and Minho is above you—his hands braced on either side of your face, his legs straddling you like he’s reclaiming something.
“Don’t even think we’re done,” he says, voice low and pointed. “Not until I say so.”
You barely get the chance to react before he starts moving again—his hips rocking against yours with a slow, deliberate rhythm that’s somehow gentler and more punishing all at once. The sensation is overwhelming. You gasp, your body already too sensitive, already spent—and yet Minho doesn’t stop. Doesn’t even pause.
You want to tell him it’s too much, that you need a second, a breath, something. But the words dissolve the moment you see him—eyes fluttered closed, mouth parted, head tilted up as he chases what was taken from him too soon. He moves like he knows exactly what he wants from you, and you can only hold on, your hands gripping his hips, your body trembling beneath him.
And then it happens—his breathing catches, his movements falter, and you feel the tension leave his body in waves as he reaches high. He collapses onto you, heavy and warm and utterly spent. For a moment, neither of you move, hearts pounding between skin-on-skin contact, the air thick with something unspoken.
Then his face shifts closer, searching blindly until his mouth finds yours. The kiss he gives you is messy and desperate and full—of something you can’t name. And as his arms tighten around you, pulling you deeper into him, you can’t help but wonder… Was this still about returning to your own bodies? Or had it already become something more?
-
Minho stirs before the sun’s fully up, pulled out of sleep by the gentle chill of the morning air and the quiet weight of another body curled up close beside him—your body. His body.
It takes him a second to remember why it feels so strange to be wrapped around himself. And then it all comes rushing back—the pool, your hands, his voice coming out of your mouth, and the way the night ended with skin against skin, breath tangled, and something deeper neither of you dared name.
Minho closes his eyes and breathes in slowly, his nose brushing against the nape of your neck. You’re still asleep, chest rising and falling evenly beneath the duvet. Peaceful. Blissfully unaware.
The realization hits him slowly, like cold water lapping at his ankles: it didn’t work. The sex—the connection, the intimacy, all of it—it didn’t bring them back to their bodies.
He should be angry. Or frustrated. He should feel like he’s hit a wall all over again. But as he lies there, staring at your sleeping face, the sunlight barely beginning to filter through the curtains, Minho finds that he doesn’t feel regret. He feels… warm. Because last night, for the first time since this mess started, he didn’t feel like he was running from something. You didn’t flinch. You held him. And for that brief moment, it didn’t matter what body he was in.
A sharp buzz interrupts the quiet. Minho tenses as his phone begins to ring on the bedside table, vibrating against the wood. He scrambles for it—not because he’s eager to take a call but because he doesn’t want it to wake you.
Too late. You stir under the covers, your eyes fluttering open just enough to take in the sound. Your hand instinctively clutches the blanket to your chest, your posture guarded, unsure, like you’re bracing for something. For him.
Minho winces and fumbles to swipe the call, answering with a barely concealed sigh. “Yeah?”
It’s the AD, as expected, launching straight into a rundown of everything he is expected to do today. Call times. Blocking. A quick meeting with the director. Some kind of last-minute script change. He hums and nods through it all, his responses half-hearted and distracted as he drags himself out of the bed, pulling on clothes that still feel strange against your skin.
The call ends. He lets the phone drop onto the bed with a heavy thud. As he shrugs on your jacket, he catches your eyes again, still wary, still confused, but watching.
Minho runs a hand through his hair, half-turning toward the door. “We’re gonna talk about this later,” he says, voice low but firm.
Then, without waiting for a reply, he steps out of the room—back into your life, your job, your name—leaving behind the warmth of the bed, and the mess of what you’ve both just become.
-
Minho spends the morning darting across the set in your body, ticking off tasks that don’t belong to him but feel oddly familiar now. He knows how you move, how you speak, how you handle the crew. The lines between your life and his blur a little more with every passing hour.
He’s holding a file, the finalized version of today’s changes, ready to hand it to Flickerman. It’s part of your job. Routine. Normally, you’d do it without question. But as he heads toward the director’s trailer, the AD cuts across his path.
“I’ll take that,” the AD says quickly, reaching for the folder in Minho’s hands.
Minho pulls it back instinctively. “I can bring it myself. It’s part of my—”
“No.” The word comes fast. Firmer than usual. The AD grabs his arm—not harsh, but enough to stop him in his tracks. “He uh… he asked that you not come.”
Minho blinks. “What?”
The AD shifts on his feet, clearly uncomfortable. “Flickerman doesn’t want to see you. He said to make sure you don’t report to him.”
Minho’s grip on the folder loosens. His fingers twitch. “But why? Did I do something?”
There’s a beat of silence too long to be casual. “I don’t know,” the AD says, and Minho knows that’s not entirely true. “He just said to make sure you don’t show up at his trailer.”
And with that, the AD gently pries the file from his hands and walks off before Minho can press further.
Minho just stands there, frozen, heart pounding beneath a chest that still doesn’t feel like it belongs to him. It hits him slowly at first—like embarrassment bleeding into shame. Then faster, a panic that coils low in his gut.
He thinks about the last time he talked to Flickerman. Not as himself—but as you. He’d confronted him. Called him out on ignoring your script. Pushed back harder than you ever had. Because he was angry for you. Because you deserved better.
But now—
Now he’s paying for it. No, not him. You’re paying for it.
And all Minho can think is: What if I ruined it? What if I made things worse?
A sick feeling creeps in. Like he’s cracked something fragile and doesn’t know how to fix it. He turns away from the trailer slowly, not sure where to go next, the weight of guilt heavy on his shoulders. You gave him your trust. Your life. Now, without meaning to, he might’ve put your entire career on the line.
And the worst part is—he’s not even sure how to tell you.
-
You sit across from Mr. Kim near the edge of the set, the pool behind him already being prepped by the stunt team. The air smells like rubber and chlorine, and even though your body is dry, there’s a weight sinking into your chest as you listen.
“There are two phases,” Mr. Kim says, holding a clipboard that looks heavier than it should. “Today, we’ll test the car inside the pool—interior shots, mostly. Underwater sequences where you’ll be strapped in. Tomorrow’s the lake stunt. We’ll rig a crane to keep the vehicle from submerging completely. You’ll drive it into the water, and once it hits a certain depth, we’ll pull you up immediately.”
You nod slowly, every detail committing itself to memory. “Got it.”
Mr. Kim watches you for a long moment. His voice lowers, “Are you sure about this? It’s not too late to back out. We can use a double for tomorrow—nobody will say anything.”
You meet his eyes. There’s something soft about his concern. Genuine. You can tell he means it. But you shake your head and offer a small smile. “I can do it.”
He studies you, still not entirely convinced so you quickly add, “I’ve been training for this. I’m ready.”
And you are. At least… physically. Inside, you’re a storm of conflict, anxiety, confusion. But if Minho can face it—if he’s already facing it—then you won’t back down either.
Mr. Kim sighs through his nose, glancing back at the stunt crew setting the safety rigs. “Okay then. Just know we’ve got every precaution in place. If you panic or need out, signal the divers. Someone will be on standby the entire time.”
You nod again. “Thank you.”
He returns your nod, though the concern doesn’t leave his face. He turns back to the clipboard, walking you through safety measures one by one—emergency hand signals, oxygen availability, harness locking mechanisms.
You focus. You have to. Because this isn’t just about doing your job right. It’s about showing Minho that you can carry him too. Just like he carried you. Even if your chest tightens the moment you glance at the water, you push through it. You’re ready. Or at least, you will be.
The water is cold at first, but your body adjusts quickly. It’s almost surreal—how calm it is underwater when you're strapped into the driver's seat of the submerged car. Maybe it’s the controlled environment. Maybe it’s knowing that there are safety divers hovering just off-frame, ready to pull you out with a single signal. Maybe it’s that you’ve already seen the worst of what fear can do, and this… this doesn’t even come close.
The director calls “Action,” and you hold your breath, staring ahead as if you’re actually sinking, as if panic should be clawing at your throat. But it never comes.
You stay underwater as long as needed. One shot. Then another. Scene after scene, you go through the motions, climbing out of windows, swimming through the frame, resetting again and again until the whole sequence is captured. By the time they call it, your fingers are wrinkled, your arms tired, and your teeth start to chatter, but not once did fear take over.
You climb out of the pool, chest heaving from hours of effort, and someone hands you a towel—but your eyes catch movement across the deck.
Minho. He’s standing at the far end of the pool, near the shadows behind the lighting rig, arms crossed and face unreadable. He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t wave or come closer. Just watches. And then, without warning, he turns around and walks away.
You blink, towel halfway to your face. He saw the whole thing. You know he did. So why leave?
Mr. Kim returns to your side, wrapping another towel around your shoulders, and says something about your next call time, but it barely registers. All you can do is watch the spot where Minho—you—just disappeared.
You should feel proud. Relieved. You did it. You faced the thing that’s haunted him since the beginning. But instead, a strange emptiness sinks into your chest.
Was he… upset? Or was he afraid? You don't know. But you have a feeling you’re going to find out very soon.
-
The steam follows you out of the bathroom, clinging to your skin like the weight of everything that’s happened. You towel your hair with one hand and glance at the clock on the nightstand.
11:47 PM. You’d been expecting him hours ago. Ever since he left this morning—your jacket half on, his voice sharp with finality: “We’re going to talk about this later.”
But there’s been no knock. No call. No text. Well—except that one moment at the pool.
You saw him standing there at the edge, watching. He didn’t stay. Didn’t say anything. He just turned around and walked away. And you’ve been turning it over in your head ever since. Did something change? Did he feel… regret?
You sit at the edge of the bed, reaching for your phone before you can stop yourself. Your thumb hovers over the screen.
You type: “Can we talk?” Then delete it.
Type again: “Are you still coming?” Delete.
You sigh, start typing something a third time—just something to break the silence—when there’s a knock.
Your heart leaps before you can stop it, and you have to actively keep your expression calm as you set your phone down and walk to the door. You open it, already knowing who it is.
Minho stands there in your hoodie and sweatpants, damp hair pushed back like he ran his fingers through it a hundred times. But it’s his face that gets you. Tired, drawn, unreadable. He doesn't smile. Doesn’t say hi. Doesn’t even look surprised to see you. And somehow, that hits harder than if he’d said nothing at all.
You open the door wider, silently stepping back to let him in, and Minho walks past you into the room, quiet as ever. You close the door behind him and now you’re both here, but it doesn’t feel like last night at all.
You open your mouth, ready to speak—to ease into it gently—but Minho doesn’t give you the chance. He rushes at you, fast and urgent, and crashes his lips against yours.
You gasp into him, caught off guard, but your body caves for a split second. His kiss is desperate, and part of you wants to disappear into it—let it mean something again. But something’s different now.
You pull away, stepping back, breathless. “Minho… wait,” you whisper, holding a hand between your bodies. “Just—give me a second.”
He starts to lean in again, lips parted, but this time you place both hands on his shoulders. And with your strength—his strength—you’re able to hold him in place.
“Let’s do it again,” he breathes out, eyes wide and glassy. “Last night—it has to be that. We just did it wrong. We’ll try again. I know it’ll work this time.”
“Minho.” You try to steady your voice. “Stop.”
But he doesn't. He’s trying to kiss you again, moving toward you with single-minded desperation. You glide your hands down his arms and hold him there, really stopping him this time.
“We had sex,” you say quietly. “And it didn’t work.”
“It has to work.” His voice breaks. “Maybe it didn’t because—because we weren’t in the right place—emotionally, or whatever. We just have to try again.”
You look into his eyes. All you see is panic. Frustration. The kind of unraveling that comes from wanting something so badly, it’s eating him alive.
“Minho,” you say softly. “You want to do this because you’re scared. And I get it. But this—doing it again out of desperation—it’s not going to fix anything.”
You gently push him. Not hard. Just enough to create space and lift your hands. “I’ll do it, Minho. The stunt. I’ll do it for you.”
He blinks at you like he’s barely hearing you.
“I’m okay,” you tell him. “I’ve trained. I’m ready. I can do it.”
Minho’s chest is heaving now. He looks like he’s about to either scream or shatter. His breaths come sharp and jagged. His nostrils flare. His eyes burn. And then, with a voice that cracks clean down the middle, he snaps, “Do you even know what it would do to me if something happened to you?”
Your words vanish from your throat as he steps forward, eyes glassy, voice rising. “I should be the one doing it. I should be in that car. In that water. Not you.”
You try to cut in—“Minho, I want to do it—”
“No!” he barks, shaking his head violently. “You don’t get it.”
He comes at you again, and this time, your instinct kicks in—reflexively, you push him back harder than you meant to. He staggers and nearly loses balance.
You instantly regret it. “Sorry—Minho, I didn’t mean to—”
He steadies himself, jaw clenched so tight it looks painful. When he looks up at you again, his eyes are fiery and red, his whole face twisted with anguish.
“I can’t do this,” he snaps. “I can’t bear the guilt anymore.”
And then—quiet, broken: “I don’t think I can live with myself if I lose you, too.”
Something inside your chest splinters, slow and sharp. Because now you understand. He’s not just afraid of staying in your body. He’s not just desperate to go back. He’s carrying the kind of guilt that claws at your bones when you’re alone at night—the kind that eats away at you until you start to believe you deserve it. And if he loses you, that guilt will bury him.
Without waiting for your response, Minho storms out of the room. The door slams behind him and stillness crashes down like a wave.
You don’t chase him because even if your body aches to do so, you understand. You understand why he did that, why he said that and why it all hurts too much.
-
Minho lies on his back, staring at the dark ceiling of his room, the dim shape of the overhead fan barely visible in the moonlight leaking through the slats of the curtain. The silence is thick. Suffocating. But not as loud as what’s in his head.
He can’t stop seeing it— You, submerged in water, trapped in that car, even if it was just a test. You holding your breath for seconds that stretched too long. You smiling when you surfaced like it was nothing. Like you weren’t inside his worst nightmare.
And then, earlier in the motel room. Your eyes when you stopped him. The push. The plea. The heartbreak that laced your voice when you said you'd do it for him.
Minho drags a hand over his face. It’s all too much. He feels like he’s spiraling, tethered only by the raw edges of guilt and helplessness. He’s supposed to be protecting you. He’s supposed to be the one in that water. He’s supposed to be himself. But instead, he’s here—stuck in your body, in your life, in your skin—and he’s helpless. Unable to stop you from taking on something that should have been his responsibility.
He exhales shakily, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. The pressure builds behind them, and he tries to swallow it down, bury it deep where it won’t rise again, but it doesn’t work.
A sob breaks through his chest, unexpected and sharp. Then another. And another. The tears come fast and hot, carving a trail down your cheeks, because this body—your body—knows what to do with pain. It doesn't bottle it up the way he always does in his own skin. It lets it pour out in silence. And so he lies there, in the dark of his motel room, and lets it happen.
He cries because he’s scared. He cries because he’s angry. He cries because, for once, there's no fight left in him. Because he’s lost control of everything—your body, your job, this entire situation—and he doesn’t know how to fix it.
And worst of all, he doesn’t know what he’ll do if something happens to you.
So he cries until his breathing slows. Until his chest stops aching. Until there's nothing left to spill. Only then does he whisper into the dark, almost like a prayer, “Please be okay.”
Because it’s all he can ask for now.
-
You wake before dawn’s light fully seeps into the room, chest tight with purpose rather than dread. It isn’t fear of the stunt itself—you know the drill, you trust the safety team—but a deeper need to prove you can handle this, for Minho’s sake as much as your own. You glance sideways at your phone on the bedside table, thumb hovering over his name. A part of you wants to send a quick message: “I’ve got this. Don’t worry.” But you resist. Actions speak louder now: the only way to reassure him is to see this through safely, and let that proof speak for you.
The knock on the door comes precisely when you’re steadying your breath after sitting up. Mr. Kim’s calm voice follows: “Minho, you're up, kid?”
You answer with steady composure, even if your heart thuds in your ears. “Yes. I'm up.”
Mr. Kim responds a second later. “Get ready. The car will be here in twenty.”
With that, you swing your legs out of bed, planting feet on the floor with deliberate confidence. As you dress, you replay safety checks in your mind: hand signals with the divers, the harness release, the crane timing. Each step—breakfast, hydration, gear check—feels like a promise: you will come through this.
Outside, the morning air is crisp. You inhale fully, tasting resolve. Today, you will surface safely. Today, you’ll show Minho that he needn’t bear this fear alone. With every measured step you take, you carry that determination with you—focused, calm, ready to finish this and return stronger.
-
Mr. Kim’s voice is steady as he goes over the final checklist, running through each movement, each technical cue like he’s drawing a map you’ve already traced in your head a hundred times. “Remember to exhale slowly once the car hits the water. Don’t fight the harness when it locks. Wait for the diver’s tap before unbuckling.”
You nod along, absorbing every word, but your body already knows the motions. It’s not arrogance—it’s muscle memory, built from rehearsals and hours of mental preparation.
He finishes the rundown with a long exhale, then meets your eyes. “You sure you’re ready?”
“Yes,” you say without hesitation. Your voice is firm. Clear. Even you are surprised by how steady it sounds.
Mr. Kim studies you for a beat longer, then gives a small nod. The worry that was etched across his face yesterday has softened—faint now, as if your conviction has peeled it away. That small shift, barely noticeable, is enough. Enough to keep your resolve upright.
“Good,” he says. “Stretch. I’ll see you at the rig.”
As he steps out of the tent, you begin your warm-up—shoulders, neck, arms. You move through each stretch like a quiet mantra, trying to slow your breath, to keep your heart from racing too far ahead of you.
The soft thump of returning footsteps makes you glance toward the entrance. “Did you forget something?” you call without looking, assuming Mr. Kim’s back for one last pointer.
But when you turn, it’s not him. It’s you. Minho.
You blink, and for a second, everything inside you stutters. He stands there in the opening of the tent—your body, your face, but none of the steadiness you tried to muster all morning. He looks different now, not physically, but in the tension around his eyes, the way he’s holding his breath.
Your arms fall slowly to your sides. “Minho...” you murmur, not sure what else to say yet.
You see it in his eyes before he even takes a step—Minho’s going to try to stop you again. You open your mouth, ready to cut him off before he can even start, but he moves faster. One stride, two—and suddenly he’s there, cupping your face and leaning in to kiss you. His lips press gently against yours—soft, careful, not desperate like last night. It’s quiet, grounding, like he’s anchoring you with just that small gesture.
When he pulls back, his eyes find yours, sharp and stern. “You’re not allowed to die in my body,” he says, voice low and even. “Got it?”
You nod, more than once. A small, urgent movement. “Got it,” you whisper.
He presses another kiss to your lips—shorter this time—and when he pulls away, his fingers hook into the front of your shirt, tugging you just a little closer.
“And most importantly,” he adds, his voice dipping just slightly, “don’t make me look unprofessional.”
You huff a laugh, the tension easing just a bit from your shoulders. “I think you need to sort out your priorities right.”
Minho smirks, that same crooked smirk that’s all him, and it spreads warmth right through your chest. Then he kisses you again, deeper this time, and your arms naturally reach up, wrapping around his shoulders, pulling him in. He melts into the touch, arms slipping around you as his body presses flush against yours, and for a moment, you just stay like that—holding each other, breathing each other in, until the fear eases and something steadier takes its place.
When you finally pull away, Minho’s eyes are still on you, softened now. He brings one hand to your jaw, thumb brushing just beneath your cheekbone. “Come back safely,” he says quietly, the sincerity in his voice wrapping around you tighter than any harness ever could.
You nod. “I will.”
He doesn’t move immediately. His hands stay on your chest like he needs to feel you breathing just to believe it. Then, finally, he steps back with a smile. “I’ll be waiting for you.”
Your lips twitch with a smile of your own. But just as he turns to go, he pauses, glancing over his shoulder with that familiar glint in his eye.
“Oh—and I’ll make sure to save you a box of donuts.”
That pulls a laugh out of you. “Does that mean I can eat whatever I want now?”
He shrugs, feigning indifference as he walks out of the tent. “We’ll talk about that after you don’t drown.”
And just like that—something heavy lifts from your chest. You feel lighter like you’re finally breathing in air that’s yours.
-
As Minho steps out of your tent, the weight on his shoulders feels… lighter. The fear doesn’t vanish entirely, but it shifts—makes space for something steadier. He chose to believe in you, and that choice brings a strange sense of peace. You’re going to be fine. Not just because he needs you to be, but because deep down, he knows—if there’s anyone who can pull this off, it’s you.
With a soft exhale, he walks toward the craft services table, already thinking about the donuts he promised you. A box. He told you he’d save one, and he intends to keep that promise.
The long table is cluttered with trays and boxes—fruit skewers, sandwiches, half-empty chip bags—but no donuts in sight. Minho furrows his brows, scanning the spread.
“You looking for this?”
Minho turns at the voice. Felix stands a few feet away, holding up a familiar pink box, the kind the catering team always uses for the donuts.
Minho nods, stepping forward. “Yeah—thanks,” he says, accepting the box.
Felix smiles, popping a grape into his mouth as he leans casually against the edge of the table. “I guess it's for Minho?”
Without missing a beat, Minho says, “Yeah.”
Felix lets out a small chuckle, sudden and breathy. It catches Minho off guard, and for a second, he thinks Felix might be choking. He quickly grabs a water bottle from the table and holds it out.
“You good?”
Felix takes the bottle with a laugh. “Yeah, yeah—thanks. Just… wasn’t expecting that answer.”
He takes a sip, still smiling, but his eyes have shifted—curious now. “So does that mean you two are dating?”
Minho tilts his head slightly, considering the question. He could laugh it off. He could avoid it altogether. But instead, he answers truthfully.
“No. We’re not dating.”
Felix nods once, slow. Then after a pause, he asks, a little softer now, “Do you like Minho?”
His voice is directed at “you,” but the question lands squarely on Minho's chest. Still, Minho doesn’t hesitate. He doesn’t want to lie—not to himself, not to anyone.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I do.”
There’s a flicker in Felix’s expression. A moment—so brief most people would miss it—but Minho catches it. Disappointment. The kind you try to swallow before it shows. Felix smiles quickly after, the same sunny grin he always wears, and it almost hides it completely.
“Well,” Felix says, tossing the last grape in his mouth, “I should— Gotta run lines before the next scene.”
Minho watches Felix walk away, the box of donuts still in his hands.
Now, standing alone among paper cups and snack wrappers, Minho lets the silence settle. He looks down at the box in his hand, then out toward the direction of the lake where they’re prepping the set.
He said it aloud. He likes you. And maybe it’s not just the relief of choosing to believe in you. Maybe it’s more than that. Maybe he’s finally being honest—with himself, with what this connection has become, with what it’s always been building toward. Maybe… he’s already falling.
-
Minho slides into position behind the monitor, the donut box tucked under one arm as if it’s some kind of ridiculous good luck charm. He sets it down carefully beside him—untouched—and crosses his arms as he fixes his eyes on the screen.
The crew bustles around the lakeside set, tension running thick even in the open air. He watches as Mr. Kim gestures toward the rigged car, pointing, demonstrating, his expression focused but calm. You’re nodding along, serious but grounded, hands resting on your hips as you listen.
Minho knows it’s the final rundown before filming.
Mr. Kim claps your shoulder once, and then he walks off, leaving you standing beside the car. You glance around the set, eyes sweeping over the crew, the water, the camera team—and then your head tilts slightly. Searching.
Minho raises his hand and waves it once, not too frantically, just enough.
And then your eyes find him. Your lips tug into a soft smile, and in that moment, it’s like your entire face says, I’ve got this. But he can see the other part too—the part that’s looking for something only he can give. Be with me. Believe in me.
Minho smirks back at you, signature and sure, and gives you a slow, affirming nod. It’s all you need before you turn and climb into the car.
The crew swarms in around you like a choreographed dance—checking straps, oxygen tank flow, camera mounts, the stunt rig that’s designed to suspend the car just beneath the lake’s surface.
Minho’s fingers twitch against his forearm, resisting the urge to step closer, to shout be careful like it would somehow change the outcome. Instead, he stays rooted behind the monitor and watches as the crew finishes their checks and begins to clear the set.
The assistant director raises the walkie-talkie to their mouth. “Quiet on set!”
The wind rustles through the trees. The lake water laps gently at the shore. Minho’s heart hammers in a way that’s not entirely fear anymore. It’s belief. Hope.
Minho watches as the car speeds toward the incline. The vehicle launches—flies for half a heartbeat—and then crashes into the lake with a thunderous splash that echoes through the set. On the monitor, ripples spread out in concentric circles. The water churns before slowly settling into murky stillness.
Minho doesn’t blink as he watches as the car begins to sink, the heavy body groaning under the surface, nose tilting downward. Water creeps through the cracks, rising with terrifying patience. Inside, you brace yourself, inhale deeply, and hold it.
Then you start to act—panic blooming in your face, your hands trembling as they fumble for the door handle, the seatbelt, just like the script says. You kick at the window once. Twice.
Minho grips his arm tight, digging his nails into skin, grounding himself. It looks real. Too real. Then—
A horrible, echoing crack tears through the air, not from the car—but from the crane.
Everyone on the set stiffens.
Minho hears it before he sees it: the metal support groaning, bending unnaturally, then shattering with a sharp clang that pierces the sky. The rig gives out. The car plummets.
The monitor shakes—literally and figuratively—as the car begins to sink faster and deeper than anyone anticipated. Minho sees the panic flood your face, then your limbs. You try to move, to brace yourself again, but the window won’t give and the pressure is building.
Something must have happened because you go still. Your limbs float lifelessly. Your eyes flutter closed.
Minho freezes. He doesn’t know what to do, he— wait, he knows what to do. Without thinking, he runs, sprinting across the set, pushing past crew, yelling be damned. His jacket comes off mid-run. His shoes are kicked free by the shore then he dives.
The water swallows him whole almost immediately. It’s not warm like the pool. It’s cold. Heavy. Dark. But none of that registers.
He opens his eyes, stinging from the lake’s murk, and looks for the sinking silhouette of the car. His muscles burn as he cuts through the water, pushing himself harder than he ever has. His own terror—the trauma that’s haunted him for years—is nothing but background noise now.
This isn’t about him. It’s about you.
The car grows closer, darker, more twisted in its descent. He gets to the door and pulls. It won’t budge. Again. Again. On the third try, it flings open and a cloud of air and debris bursts into the water. He reaches for you—you’re floating, weightless, unresponsive.
Minho grabs your face and shakes you, bubbles escaping his own lips in a silent scream. No response. He presses his mouth to yours, trying to give you oxygen, but it slips right back out, spiraling into bubbles above.
No time. No air. He knows that the only way to save you is getting you out of the water so he wraps his arms around you and kicks toward the surface. But it’s harder now. So much harder. Your body—his body—is heavier, limbs limp, offering no help.
Minho’s legs scream. His lungs collapse inward, begging for air that doesn’t exist. Still, he pushes. Kicking. Rising. But the light is getting fainter, not closer. His arms tighten around you, desperate, defiant. He doesn’t care if he has to rip his chest open to breathe again.
He won’t lose you. But it’s getting harder to see. Harder to think. Everything inside him aches with fading strength and then— Darkness.
-
You wake to the burning sting of water in your throat, choking and gasping as your body lurches upright.
“Hey—no, lay back down—”
You push off the gloved hands trying to settle you. Your entire body is trembling, soaked, your lungs working double just to get air back into them. The metallic scent of the oxygen mask lingers, but you barely notice.
“What—what happened?” you croak, voice hoarse and raw.
The EMT crouching beside you hesitates, then answers, “You jumped in after the stuntman. You pulled him out of the car—saved his life.”
Your brows knit, head spinning. That doesn’t make sense. You were the one inside the car. You were the one sinking, fading into unconsciousness. You blink hard and look down at your hands, slick with lake water and trembling.
They’re your hands. Your body. You’re... back.
“Where is he?” you ask, already pushing yourself off the gurney in the back of the ambulance.
“Miss, please—”
You’re not listening. You leap out of the vehicle barefoot, cold gravel biting into your feet as you stumble across the set. People are moving in a panic around you. Some stare. Others whisper. But you don’t care.
You start calling his name. “Minho?”
Louder. “Minho!”
Your voice cracks. “Minho!”
Your wet clothes cling to you, dragging your steps, but your mind races faster than your body can keep up. Then you see it, Minho being carried in a stretcher and into the back of an ambulance. Mr. Kim gets in after him, concerns etched on his face and then, the doors are closing.
“No—wait—wait, Minho!” you scream, forcing your legs into a sprint, slapping through puddles, reaching out like you could somehow stop time or distance.
However, the ambulance pulls away, its sirens off, quiet and clinical, as if it didn’t just rip someone from you.
You freeze in the middle of the lot, your hands shaking, tears mixing with the lake water still dripping from your chin. You don’t even realize you’re crying until the sobs break free. Your knees almost give out beneath you.
You were supposed to protect him. You promised you’d be the one to go through it. Instead, he risked everything. Again.
“Minho...” Your voice is broken. Empty. “I’m... sorry. I’m so sorry.”
You feel the warmth of fabric drape over your shoulders, and you flinch before turning around.
It’s Felix. His expression is soft, concerned—heartbroken, even—as he meets your eyes. He says nothing, only opens his arms.
You don’t hesitate. You crash into him and let yourself fall apart in his hold. He wraps his arms around you tightly, grounding you, shielding you from the chaos around.
A moment later, you’re back in the ambulance, the sterile scent of gauze and antiseptic stinging your nose. The EMT crouches in front of you, carefully wrapping your foot with practiced hands. The cuts from the gravel aren’t deep, but they sting sharply against your already raw nerves. You flinch as he presses disinfectant against one of them.
Felix sits beside you, quiet but steady, his presence anchoring you even as your mind races. You’re still shivering, the heavy blanket clutched around your shoulders barely enough to keep the chill away—whether it’s from the cold or the shock, you can’t tell anymore.
“You okay?” he asks gently.
You don’t answer right away. Because no, you’re not okay. You feel everything all at once—frantic, guilty, scared, grateful, devastated. But also nothing at all—like you’re a hollowed-out version of yourself.
You open your mouth, but there’s no answer that can hold all of that.
Felix just nods when he sees your silence and rubs a slow circle between your shoulder blades. “It’s okay,” he says quietly, like he’s not expecting you to lie or fake a smile. “Minho is going to be okay.”
But all you can think is that Minho isn’t and that it might be your fault. And that you’re scared—scared he’s not coming back.
Once the EMT finishes, taping the last piece of gauze and checking your vitals one last time, he nods and leaves to give you space.
Felix shifts beside you, wrapping an arm around your shoulder, pulling you close again. You lean into it—not because you’re sure it helps, but because you don’t want to feel alone right now.
“You did everything you could to save him,” he says, voice firm in a way that’s meant to ground you.
But the words land heavy on your chest. You shake your head, your voice cracking as you whisper, “I could... I could’ve stopped it from happening in the first place.”
Felix immediately pulls you in tighter, as if trying to hold your guilt down before it swallows you whole. “Hey. No. Don’t do that,” he says softly but with weight behind his words. “You were just trying to do what was right.”
Your breath stutters as more tears slip down your cheeks. You finally understand what Minho meant—that awful, aching fear of what it would feel like to lose someone you care about. The way it haunts you, grips you by the throat and refuses to let go.
You press your face into Felix’s shoulder, and he keeps his arms tight around you. “He’s going to be okay,” Felix repeats, his voice steady against the storm building in your chest.
And you pray—truly pray—that he’s right. Because you don’t know what you’ll do if he’s not.
-
A week has passed. Seven full days since the accident. Since Minho saved you—no, saved himself—no… you don't even know how to phrase it anymore without your throat tightening.
And now, you’re back on the set. Back in your rightful body. Back to doing your job as the assistant assistant director. Only this time, the weight on your chest feels heavier than any clipboard or walkie-talkie could explain.
You're quieter than usual, going through the motions—checking prop placements, confirming extras, skimming over the schedule—but it’s all mechanical. Your mind wanders too often. To the lake. To Minho’s face just before everything went dark. To the sirens. The panic. The stillness.
You haven’t seen Flickerman since that day. But the silence from his side has been loud. You know he’s angry. You don’t blame him. In his eyes, you—Minho—acted irresponsibly, risking not just one life but two. A whole production day was lost. Budgets were shaken. Reports were written.
You haven't had the courage to step into his line of sight since. When you do catch glimpses of him around set, he looks through you like you're a ghost of a mistake. And maybe, in some ways, you are.
You sigh quietly as you half-heartedly arrange a stack of scripts on a table, only to realize they’re not even needed for today’s scene. You don’t bother fixing it.
The AD who’s been watching you out of the corner of his eye for the past hour, finally steps up. “Hey,” he says, voice calm but firm. “Why don’t you call it a day?”
You blink. “What?”
“Just go home. Get some rest,” he gestures vaguely to your whole body. “There’s not much left to do anyway.”
You start to protest, because that’s the automatic response—you always work hard, always pull your weight—but the truth is, he’s right. You’re moving, but you’re not working. So you nod, slowly.
“Okay,” you mutter, voice small.
The AD nods back once, like he’s relieved you didn’t put up a fight. “Take care of yourself, alright?”
You force a faint smile, but it doesn’t reach your eyes.
You start walking off set with your bag slung over your shoulder and your thoughts too loud in your head. You’ve got time now. But all you can think about is what you’re supposed to do with it…
…and whether Minho’s awake yet.
When the light turns green and the road forks left toward your apartment and right toward the hospital, your hands turn the wheel without asking for your permission. The tires hum along the asphalt, the city passing by like a blurry afterthought, and before long, you find yourself in the hospital’s underground parking.
You know where to go. Room 417. You slip inside quietly, like you're afraid you might wake him. But Minho is still there—just like before. Still lying in bed, monitors quietly beeping in rhythm, the white sheet pulled over him, his hair tucked behind one ear by someone who must’ve visited earlier.
But it’s him. Still not awake. Still not moving.
Your chest tightens as you approach. You pull the chair up, sit next to him, and just… look.
His face is calm. Peaceful, even. Like he’s dreaming of something soft. Something warm. Something better than this.
You reach for his hand, wrap your fingers around his slowly. Your voice cracks as you whisper, “You’re out of the water now…”
You squeeze his hand a little tighter, lips trembling. “…so why don’t you wake up?”
And of course, there’s no answer. Just the steady beeping sound of his heartbeat and the sterile hum of a hospital room.
“He’s just resting,” someone says gently from behind you.
You turn your head and see Mr. Kim standing at the foot of Minho’s bed, arms crossed, the lines on his face softer than usual.
You manage a small smile. “A much needed one, huh?”
Mr. Kim nods. “I’d say he’s earned it.”
You glance back at Minho and huff a quiet laugh. “I just hope he doesn’t get too comfortable.”
“Knowing that kid?” Mr. Kim chuckles. “He’ll be back on set before you know it.”
You smile at that. Yeah. That’s Minho.
But Mr. Kim studies you for a moment, then gently nods toward the door. “You should rest too.”
You shake your head instinctively. “I’m fine—”
“I mean it,” he says, more firm this time. “Go home. I’ll stay here with him. If anything changes, you’ll be the first to know.”
You look into his eyes and something in them convinces you—he means it. And if there's somone you can trust Minho with, it's him, Mr. Kim.
You rise to your feet, reluctantly releasing Minho’s hand, and gather your things. Before you leave, you turn on your feet to take one more look at him. One more lingering glance. And in your heart, you whisper, Come back soon.
-
Minho dreams of water. Still, dark water—so quiet, it feels like the world has finally stopped spinning. There's no fear here, no panic or pressure on his lungs. Just weightlessness. Just… peace. He floats deeper and deeper, and though the water around him should be cold, it’s warm like a memory. Familiar. Then—
He sees you. Your face breaks through the shadows, soft and distant. Like a light underwater, flickering just out of reach.
And you’re speaking—your voice is distant, muffled, dreamlike. "You're out of the water now… so why don’t you wake up?"
Minho’s eyes flutter. He opens his mouth to respond—but instead of water pouring in, he chokes on air. Sharp and dry. Too dry. His lungs burn, his throat aches, but he’s breathing.
He’s awake.
The quiet hum of the hospital floods his ears—the soft beeping of machines, the sterile scent of disinfectant, the weight of blankets over him. Too bright. Too real. He blinks against the light, eyes struggling to adjust as the dream fades.
Where…?
His lips part again, but his throat is too raw to speak. It comes out as a broken rasp.
The door opens and then a nurse walks in, her eyes widening when she sees him conscious.
“Oh—! You’re awake!” she says, moving quickly to his side. “Try not to move too much yet. I’m going to check your vitals, okay?”
Minho lets his gaze follow her, slow and disoriented. Everything feels distant. Disconnected.
“You’ve been unconscious for a while, Mr. Lee. Do you remember anything?” she asks gently.
He tries to answer again, but only a dry breath escapes.
“It’s okay,” she soothes. “That’s normal. We’ll get you water in a second. Just breathe.”
And then, as she checks the monitors, it only registered to him that she called his name— “Mr. Lee.”
Minho flinches. And suddenly—It clicks. He turns his head, his movements sluggish but purposeful. Slowly, he raises a trembling hand. Stares at it.
It’s his. The fingers, the joints, the scar on the knuckle. He reaches for his face next, fingertips brushing his jaw, his lips.
He’s back. He’s really back.
The nurse is still talking, but Minho can barely hear her over the rush in his ears—
Relief. Gratitude. A strange, silent grief he can’t explain. Because yes, he’s back in his body.
But his first thought isn’t I’m safe now. It’s Where are you? Are you okay?Did I make it in time?
And in the middle of all that noise in his head, one thing rings clear— He’s not just relieved. He’s overwhelmed. Because the truth is… He didn’t know if he’d ever come back.
-
Minho lies still on the hospital bed, his chest rising and falling in shallow, careful breaths. The doctor has just finished explaining that there’s no serious injury, no lasting damage—just exhaustion, dehydration, and the aftereffects of a body pushed past its limit. What he needs now is rest. Time. Healing.
Minho nods faintly as the doctor closes the chart and exits the room, leaving him alone with Mr. Kim.
The silence that follows is gentle but heavy. Mr. Kim steps closer, his presence as familiar and steady as ever. He places a hand on the bed rail and looks down at Minho with soft eyes. “How are you feeling?” he asks. “Do you want anything? Water? Food?”
Minho looks up at him. That voice. That tone. Always calm, always kind. And it twists something deep in Minho’s chest.
He swallows. Once. Twice. Fighting back what he knows is coming, but it’s been sitting there, quietly festering for so long—and it only takes this man’s kindness to shake it loose.
“Why?” Minho says, voice rough.
Mr. Kim’s brow furrows, confused. “Why what?”
Minho clenches his jaw. “Why are you like this with me?”
A beat later, Minho asks again. “Why are you so good to me?”
Mr. Kim blinks, caught off guard by the sudden sharpness behind Minho’s voice. But before he can answer, Minho continues, the words coming fast now—too fast to stop.
“You shouldn’t—treat me like this. Like I didn’t…” He chokes on his breath, his voice cracking as it dips into something far more fragile. “Like I’m not the reason your son died.”
Silence wraps around them again, heavy and immovable.
Tears fall—Minho doesn’t even try to stop them this time. His hand clenches the blanket over his lap. He turns away, ashamed to even meet Mr. Kim’s eyes. “You shouldn’t be kind to me,” he whispers. “You should hate me.”
Mr. Kim doesn’t speak at first. It’s not because he’s shocked. He just… lets it hang in the air, lets Minho sit in the truth of what he just said. And when he does speak, his voice is quiet—gentle.
“So that’s what you’ve been carrying.”
Minho says nothing. But the tears keep coming.
Mr. Kim pulls the chair closer and sits beside the bed. “It was an accident, Minho. No one saw it coming. No one could’ve stopped it.” He pauses. “Not even you.”
Minho hears it. He’s heard it before—from you. But hearing it from him—from the man who lost everything—it hits like a crack in the dam he’s been holding shut for years.
“You think I don’t miss Jae every day?” Mr. Kim continues. “I do. I always will. But he’s gone. And blaming you doesn’t bring him back.”
Minho’s lips tremble. His hand rises to his face, trying to hide what he can no longer hold in.
“You’re here. You’re alive,” Mr. Kim says softly, reaching out to place a steady hand on Minho’s shoulder. “And you’ve carried enough. Minho… I may have lost a son. But I still have you. You are a son to me.”
And just like that—Minho breaks. A sob bursts out from his chest, and he brings both hands to his face, trying to contain it but failing completely. The guilt, the shame, the years of silence, of pretending, of running—everything collapses at once.
Mr. Kim doesn’t rush him. He moves his hand to Minho’s back, rubbing slow circles. “Let it out,” he says quietly. “Stop blaming yourself. Just let go.”
So Minho does. He sobs into his hands, the sound raw and desperate. And it doesn’t matter how long it takes—because for the first time in a long time, Minho is not drowning. He is not trapped under the weight of it anymore.
For the first time in a long time, he’s out of the water now and he can finally breathe.
-
It’s the last day of filming. The air on set buzzes with a kind of quiet satisfaction—the kind that only comes after long hours and countless takes, and now… it’s finally done. The final scene wraps, and applause breaks out from cast and crew alike. You hang back, watching as people surround Felix, patting his back and congratulating him with bright smiles and heartfelt words.
You wait by his trailer, bouquet in hand—something simple but thoughtful, wrapped in soft paper and tied with a black ribbon. When Felix finally approaches, a little winded from all the farewells, his eyes light up at the sight of you.
“For me?” he asks, smiling as he accepts the bouquet.
You nod. “Congratulations. You were incredible.”
He cradles the flowers in one arm and looks at you warmly. “Thank you for everything. All the help. The support.” Then, with a cheeky little grin, he adds, “And for that motorcycle ride that day.”
You chuckle, feeling a flicker of guilt twist lightly in your chest—but you brush it away. That was Minho. Still, you say, “And thank you for making my job easier. Always so nice to me.”
Felix shrugs, playful. “I think you know that’s ‘cause I like you.”
It catches you off guard. You blink. “Wait… what?”
He looks at you, slightly amused by your surprise. “I told you that before.”
Your lips part as you search your memory, and realization hits—of course. He told Minho. Not you.
Felix studies your face with growing curiosity. “Do you already know what you’re going to do about it?”
A soft laugh escapes you, more out of disbelief than anything else. So Minho didn’t tell you. Or maybe he meant to. Either way, you don’t feel hurt. Just… quietly amused by it.
You start to speak, but Felix chuckles first and says, “It’s okay. I know. You like Minho.”
You blink again. “You… know?”
He nods. “Pretty obvious. But it’s okay. I still like you. I just hope he treats you well.”
You feel your chest tighten with something tender. “Thank you,” you say, sincerely. “For being honest. For being… you.”
He smiles, softer this time. “I hope we work together again.”
You nod. “Yeah. I’d like that.”
And as if the moment calls for it, the two of you step into each other’s arms—no hesitation, no awkwardness. Just a long, warm hug shared between two people who understand each other, even if it didn’t end the way one of you had hoped.
When you pull away, he gives you one last sunshine smile before retreating into his trailer, and you watch the door close behind him. You smile to yourself, tucking the moment away gently, like a photograph pressed between pages. It’s a good ending. But something else is just about to begin.
-
You approach the AD to report in as usual, your mind already winding down from the emotional stretch of the day, but instead of the checklist of wrap tasks, the AD stops you with a simple, “Flickerman wants to see you.”
Your breath stutters. That… could mean two things. Either he’s going to fire you—or something equally devastating. You nod, mumble a quiet “Okay,” and start making your way toward Flickerman’s trailer, every step heavier than the last.
You pause before the door, heart pounding with dread. “It’s me,” you announce quietly, then push the door open.
Flickerman is already inside, sitting in the corner booth with his usual unreadable face. He doesn’t say anything. Just gestures for you to sit across from him. You nod and do as you’re told, settling into the seat across from him, your hands clasped tightly in your lap under the table.
And then, to your surprise, he pulls out a script. You read the title and immediately recognize it as yours. Your stomach turns.
“I read it,” Flickerman says flatly, flipping to a page with scribbled notes. “Wrote down a few comments.”
You blink, stunned. You’d all but given up on him ever reading it—he’d pushed it aside too many times, brushed it off with vague promises and noncommittal nods. It has to be something Minho said or did. You glance at the script again, and then at Flickerman, unsure how to respond.
He crosses his arms and continues, “It’s raw. Needs refining. A lot of work, to be honest.”
You nod slowly. Your pulse is thumping in your ears.
He stares at you, voice still flat and almost bored. “I’ll be honest with you—this isn’t my kind of story. Wouldn’t make this in a million years.”
Your chest tightens. The words sting a little, even if you knew they were coming. Not everyone’s going to like your work. That’s just part of it.
But then Flickerman says, “I know someone who would.”
You blink again.
“Jess Johnson. She’s working on something new. You’d be a better fit there,” he adds. “Already recommended you as AD for her upcoming project.”
Your lips part. You stare at him, trying to process everything at once. Is this real?
He raises an eyebrow, noticing your shock. “Look, I’ve been unfair to you,” he admits suddenly, quieter. “Selfish. Kept you here longer than I should’ve, forgot why I hired you in the first place. You wanted to learn. That was the deal.”
You open your mouth, but he beats you to it. “I’m sorry.”
“No, no—don’t apologize,” you say quickly, shaking your head. “I’ve learned a lot. I mean, really. From everything. From you.”
And for the first time… Flickerman smiles. It’s not wide. Not warm. But it’s real.
You smile back, a soft understanding settling between the two of you. And just like that, the tension in the room lifts.
Flickerman clears his throat, looking vaguely embarrassed. “Now go,” he mutters. “I’ve got a hundred things to do.”
You chuckle softly and stand. “Thank you,” you say genuinely, your voice steady. “Really.”
He gives a small nod in return, already flipping through some paperwork, and you step out of the trailer with something you haven’t felt in a long time: Hope.
When you finally make it back to your car, you sit in the driver’s seat, close the door, and pull the script into your lap. You open it.
His handwriting is everywhere. Scrawled comments in the margins. Circles around certain lines. Suggestions for pacing. A note on a particular scene that just says, “This hits.”
You flip through more pages, reading every scribble, every underline. He really read it. He really saw it. You close the script, holding it tightly to your chest.
And for the first time, maybe ever, you believe—truly believe—that you can do this. That you’re going to make it. You smile to yourself, warm tears prickling at your eyes.
The future doesn’t feel so far anymore.
-
You step into your apartment and let the door click shut behind you, the silence settling in like a long exhale. Your eyes immediately land on the mirror as it's sitting there in the living room. The same one that started it all. Its surface glinting faintly under the soft light, utterly ordinary, and yet you feel yourself drawn to it. You walk toward it slowly, your eyes catching your own reflection—your actual reflection, this time. And for a second, it’s hard to believe this is you again. You, in your own skin, standing where it all began.
You stare as your mind plays back everything: the morning you woke up in Minho’s body, the arguments, the laughter, the things in between. The confusion. The longing. The way it brought you and Minho together.
Despite everything, despite the fear and the chaos—you feel something else blooming in your chest now. Gratitude.
Then—
“We should get rid of that mirror.”
Your head whips toward the voice and there he is. Leaning against the kitchen counter, arms crossed loosely, signature smirk curling on his lips like this is just another casual afternoon.
Minho. In the flesh. Real.
“You don’t look that happy to see me,” he says, tilting his head with mock offense.
A short, stunned laugh escapes you. It breaks out of your chest like you can’t hold it back anymore. And then—
You run. You don’t even think, just move—across the room, straight into him. Your body crashes into his, hard enough that he groans from the impact.
“Easy there,” he says with a grunt, arms instinctively catching you. “I'm still recovering, you know.”
Instead, you wrap your arms around him tighter, press your face against his shoulder, like you’re afraid he’ll disappear if you loosen your grip even a little. Minho chuckles—soft and warm—before hugging you back just as tightly, his hands rubbing gentle circles into your back.
The two of you stay like that for a while. Breathing each other in. Finding your balance again.
When you finally pull away, you look up at him, into his eyes—those eyes you’ve missed so much. “Thank you,” you whisper. “For coming back.”
His gaze softens instantly. He brushes your hair back and cups your jaw, his thumb grazing your cheek. “Did you wait for me?” he asks gently.
You nod. “You made me wait too long.”
Minho’s lips quirk—not into a smirk this time, but a soft, sincere smile. And then he leans in. The kiss he gives you is not rushed. It’s not frantic or questioning. It’s full. Full of everything left unsaid. Full of things you both only learned how to feel once you walked in each other’s skin. It's a kiss that feels like it’s been waiting to happen all this time.
-
Kissing you feels like returning, like finding his way home through a storm, only to open the door and be met with warmth and the scent of something familiar—something that’s always been waiting for him.
Minho keeps his lips on yours, slow and steady, not wanting to let go, not even for a second. He draws you in with every press, every breath shared. You’re the air he breathes now, and he’s never known how much he’s needed it until this moment.
Without breaking the kiss, he slides his hands to your waist and lifts you with ease. Your legs instinctively wrap around him, holding on just as tightly, like you're just as unwilling to part.
He carries you to the bedroom and the door swings open without a thought, and he lowers you onto the bed like you’re the most precious thing he’s ever held. He only pulls away slightly, just far enough to look at you, to touch you. His fingers trace the lines of your face with a tenderness he didn’t know he was capable of—your cheeks, your brows, the curve of your nose. Then, he uses his lips next. Soft kisses, planted one by one, mapping out the shape of you, committing it to memory all over again.
He cups the back of your neck, tilting your head to the side, and continues his path down to your jaw, then your throat. He feels you melt into him. Hears your breath catch. And it only fuels the fire growing slowly, surely, between you.
His other hand fumbles with the buttons of your blouse, but frustration takes over his patience. He tears it open, hears the snap of fabric, but doesn’t care—he just needs to feel you. His lips meet the skin of your shoulder, then lower, then higher, tasting, breathing you in.
You’re pulling at his clothes now too, your hands hungry but steady, and together, you strip each other down, layer by layer, until there’s nothing left between you but the heat rising from your skin.
Minho takes your arms, gently placing them around his shoulders again, and his hands slide to your waist to lift you once more. This time, he lays you down with infinite care, as if placing you on silk, as if afraid to wake from a dream.
He pulls back just enough to really see you. All of you. Laid bare beneath him, framed by white sheets, your chest rising and falling in anticipation, in trust.
And then it hits him—how much he missed this. You. Even when he was inside your body, even when he had your hands and your skin and your heartbeat, it wasn’t you. Not like this. Not with your smile.
“I didn’t think I’d miss this body so much,” he murmurs, half to himself.
You smile—genuine, warm, quietly amused. And he didn’t think he’d miss that either.
Minho brushes his thumb over your lips. That smile. That softness. You’re real, right here, with him again. So he leans in and kisses you—deep and slow, pouring all the things he never got to say into it.
The world fades until there’s only this: the weight of your bodies tangled together, the warmth of skin against skin, the way your lips meet and stay.
When he finally pulls back, breathless, he rests his forehead against yours and whispers, “Let’s do it right this time.”
You chuckle, the sound low and tender, and nod against his lips. And Minho smiles—because he knows this time, you will.
-
Minho lets his gaze linger, drinking in the sight of you laid bare beneath him, and for a moment, he just breathes—slow and steady—as if trying to memorize the shape of you all over again.
His fingers trace your skin like he’s reading something sacred, slow sweeps across your collarbone, down the center of your chest, over the softness of your stomach. Your skin responds to his touch, rising under his fingertips, and when he leans in to replace his fingers with his lips, you gasp softly—just enough to make his pulse skip.
He kisses you there, right at the center of your chest, right on the valley between your breasts before continuing lower, pressing his mouth gently to your navel. When he pauses, he lifts his eyes and meets yours—half-lidded, flushed, breathing unevenly—and there's something in your gaze that stops him. Something vulnerable and full of need. Something that mirrors what he feels.
A slow smirk tugs at his lips, but it softens into something more reverent. He knows your body in a way no one else possibly could—he’s lived in it, moved in it, learned every part of it. And now, as himself, he uses that knowledge like it’s a secret only he gets to keep.
Minho leans in again, placing his mouth on your throbbing core and you arch toward him almost instinctively. He places slow, deliberate kisses on your inner thighs before planting his mouth on your sex again. Then his tongue parts your folds apart so he can run it in between, making you even wetter, hotter. With the knowledge he earned from living in your body, he knows you like the way his tongue flicking your clit or the way he sucks on it after. He does it repeatedly that he hears the shaky way your breath escapes you.
His hands are steady as they slip under, guiding your body closer to him, holding you through every tremble, every quiet plea that slips from your lips. He sucks. He licks. He's drinking in the mix of his saliva and your essence like it’s the only thing that quench his thirst.
Minho knows you like it, he knows you like the gentle pressures he applies on your clit with his tongue. But he also knows that his mouth isn't enough to please you.
He smirks as he runs his two fingers in your drenched cunt, wetting them before he pushes them inside, curling them to nudge the spot that makes you—
“Oh...” you breathlessly moan as your hips jerk and lifted off the bed for a brief moment.
Minho smirks with his mouth on your pulsating clit and he syncing the two stimulations, mouth and fingers moving together to give you the utmost of pleasure. He takes his time, coaxing every reaction with care and precision. When your breath starts to hitch and your body begins to shake under the weight of sensation, he doesn’t stop—he only steadies you, anchors you, and keeps going until he feels you tightening, quivering around his fingers and come all over his mouth.
Even then, he doesn't let go of you. He presses his lips to your thigh, then rests his cheek against your skin, holding you as you come down, body warm and trembling beneath his hands.
There’s a quiet pride in his chest—not because of what he’s done, but because of what he’s shared with you. This closeness, this tenderness, this truth. And as he kisses the inside of your knee and slowly makes his way back up to you, it’s clear: this isn’t just about pleasure. It’s about coming home. To each other.
-
Minho hovers above you, propped on his elbows, just watching. You're still catching your breath, your body flushed and warm beneath him, and there’s a haze in your eyes that makes his chest tighten in the best way. He wears the smirk he knows drives you a little crazy—because he’s proud of what he just did, and he’s not trying to hide it.
And of course, you catch him in the act. Your eyes flutter open, soft and lazy, and you look right at him as if you've known all along.
A slow smile curves your lips as you breathe, “You’re enjoying this way too much.”
Minho leans in, lowering his voice, “Of course I am.” His tone is low, satisfied, teasing—and honest. There’s no point in denying it. Not with the way you’re looking at him like that, as if you’d let him do it all over again.
You reach up, threading your arms around his shoulders, pulling him down until there’s no space left between your bodies. Your skin against his makes him shiver. You kiss him then, slow and deep, lips parting easily like there’s no rush, like you could stay here with him forever.
You slip your fingers into his hair, scratching gently at his scalp, making his eyes flutter closed—only to open again when your nails dig down his back, just hard enough to leave a trail of heat.
Minho groans under his breath. But then—you move. Your hips lift, slow and deliberate, grinding into him. The friction steals the air from his lungs and every thought from his head. Your eyes don’t leave his as you do it again, making sure he feels just how badly you want him now.
Minho blinks, caught between control and the urge to lose it completely.
And then you smirk, that mischievous glint dancing behind your gaze. “Let’s see if you can last longer than me.”
His lips part, but no words come out at first—not when your body is still pressed close, not when your challenge is whispered against his lips. So instead, Minho lets his smirk return, darker this time, as his eyes narrow and his voice drops low.
“Oh, you’re on.”
And with that, he sinks into the moment, determined not just to rise to the challenge—but to win it.
Minho kisses you again—deep and slow—before pulling back just enough to watch your face as he settles between your legs. One of his hands glides down your thigh, gripping the soft curve as he shifts closer. He can feel it, how ready you are, the way your warmth draws him in like a promise.
You part your legs wider for him, inviting him in without a word. His jaw flexes at the sight of your glistening wet cunt that he exhales through his nose, steadying himself.
Every part of him is tense with anticipation, but he focuses, aligning his cock to your entrance with care, not wanting to rush this moment.
With a sharp inhale of air, Minho begins to push in. The air in his lungs stutters as his tip planted inside you. You’re hot, tight, impossibly soft around him. His grip on your thigh tightens as he slowly eases forward, the stretch coaxing a low, ragged groan from somewhere deep in his chest. It's overwhelming—how good you feel, how real this is—and he suddenly understands exactly why you didn’t last long.
When he finally bottoms out, fully seated inside you, he stills. Not because he wants to—but because he has to. His eyes close briefly, his breath uneven as he tries to pull himself together.
And just when he thinks he might succeed, you hook your legs around his waist. It pulls him deeper—too deep—and a raw sound escapes from his parted lips before he can stop it.
You’re grinning when he opens his eyes again, and your voice is light, teasing as you ask, “Are you okay?”
Minho smirks, even if he’s barely holding on. “Never been better.”
You hum, amused by his answer, and decide to test him further. You clench around him deliberately and you ask, all too innocently, “How about now?”
His response is a string of muffled curses, hissed through his teeth—and you laugh, breathless and smug.
Minho retaliates. He leans in, burying his face in your neck, placing hot, open-mouthed kisses against your skin, letting his teeth graze before sucking just hard enough to make you gasp, just enough to leave a mark on the skin. You moan—sharp and sweet—and he keeps going, trailing his mouth lower until he finds your breasts. One hand fondling, kneading on it before he takes the erect nipple into his mouth, tugging with his lips before sucking it in deep and slow.
Your back arches and your hand flies to his hair, tugging. “Minho—” you gasp, pushing at his shoulder, breathless with pleasure. “Stop teasing. Move.”
But he doesn’t—yet. Instead, he pulls back and looks at you, smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You still taking your birth control?”
You let out a soft chuckle with eyes closed. “Daily.”
A smirk blooms on his face. “Even when you’re not getting any?”
You shrug, lifting a brow. “But I knew this would happen.”
That earns you a kiss—slow, satisfied—before he finally, finally rolls his hips into you.
He starts slow, deliberate. Every thrust measured, like he wants to make it last, like he wants you to feel every second of it. Once in a while, he glances down to see the way his cock slips in and out of you. And the way you take him well. Too well.
With the way your fingers clutch at his shoulders and your breath stutters against his lips, he knows you're enjoying it and that’s exactly how he wants it.
Minho moves with a rhythm that’s slow but deliberate—thrust after thrust sinking him deeper into your warmth. His lips find yours again, but the kiss is more instinct than finesse, a blend of breathless urgency and need. You try to kiss him back, but most of your energy goes into the quiet gasps and moans that escape between every drag of his hips.
He swallows the sounds, tasting your breath on his tongue, feeling your body react under his in all the ways he remembers—and in all the ways he missed.
And then you press your lips to his cheek, your mouth brushing his skin softly as you lean up to whisper near his ear.
Your voice, sweet and low, vibrates against his jaw. “I take birth control because I want you to come inside me.”
Minho’s body reacts before his brain does. His control slips. The rhythm he'd been holding onto so carefully shatters beneath the weight of those words. His hips stutter, the pace turning messy, erratic, driven by pure instinct and desperation.
You're gasping his name now—over and over—as your body tightens around him, pulling him deeper, drawing him closer to the edge. He groans, voice rough and cracked, burying his face into your neck as your walls flutter and clench, sending a rush of heat down his spine.
Every nerve in his body ignites at once—and that final snap inside him, that last thrust—there’s no stopping it. He falls apart against you, hips stilling, body shaking as he spills his seed inside you. Everything else vanishes—thoughts, sound, the world beyond this moment—gone, until all that remains is the warm, dizzying bliss of losing himself in you.
And it’s a good thing you’re on birth control because there’s no way he could’ve pulled out in time.
-
You press your lips to his collarbone, your fingers tracing the ridges of old scars like they’re constellations, your own way of reading him. Each one tells a story you weren’t there for, but you still honor them—by kissing them, slowly, reverently. He breathes a little deeper beneath your touch, and your lips travel back up to find his, kissing him with the kind of tenderness that carries every unspoken word.
When you pull back, your eyes meet his—and there’s so much you could say. So much you want to. But instead, with a crooked grin, you murmur, “Why didn’t you tell me Felix said he likes me?”
Minho tilts his head back, one brow quirking as he shrugs with that trademark nonchalance. “Dating a movie star sounds like a headache.”
You burst out laughing, your body lightly shaking against his. “And dating a stuntman isn’t?”
With his eyes closed and a smirk tugging at his lips, he asks smoothly, “Which stuntman are you dating?”
You lean in, grinning as you press a kiss to his jaw. “The most annoying one.”
He chuckles, low and warm. “Still less of a headache than a movie star.”
You break into a wave of laughter before resting your head on his chest again, the rise and fall of his breathing grounding you in the moment. His fingers slip into your hair, combing through it with a gentleness that almost makes your eyes sting.
For a while, neither of you speak. The silence is full, not empty. Then, out of nowhere, his voice breaks the stillness. “Funny that I learned a lot about myself,” he says quietly, “when I was in your body.”
You lift your head just enough to look at him, stacking your hands under your chin as you listen to him continue talking.
“In some weird way, I saw… myself in you,” he continues, his gaze meeting yours without hesitation. “And if you don’t already know this—you’re stronger than you look.”
Your heart folds in on itself, touched. A slow smile curves on your lips. “And if you don’t already know this,” you reply playfully, “you’re not as strong as you seem.”
Minho smirks at that, eyes gleaming. “At least I lasted longer than you.”
You gasp, half-laughing as you rise and shift, straddling him, your hands planted on his chest as you hover over him. His smirk deepens, clearly pleased with himself.
“Don’t even think we’re done,” you say, staring down at him. “Not until I say so.””
His smile falters—only for a second—replaced by something else: adoration, wrapped in desire, tempered with trust. His hands slide up your thighs, settling at your hips as he whispers, “Then don’t say it yet.”
And just like that, you dive back into him—into this. Into everything that’s yours and his, and now finally, something shared.
-
The wrap party is in full swing. Music thumps from the speakers, echoing across the set like the closing credits to a long, chaotic, beautiful film. People are dancing, drinking, laughing. Someone pops open a bottle of champagne and half the cast screams as the spray hits the ceiling of the wrap tent.
You decide to slip away. Not because you’re overwhelmed. Just… because you want a moment to breathe. To look. To take it all in.
You find yourself in the backlot, where the set stands stripped bare—costumes packed, lights powered down, cables coiled at the edges of the street you know by heart. It’s quiet here. Still. Just you and the bones of the story you helped bring to life.
Your eyes wander over the scene. The rigged car. The tent where you almost gave up. The trailer where your heart first ached for someone you barely knew. Every corner holds something—joy, fear, heartbreak, laughter. All of it lingers like the fading echo of a film scene after the cut.
You breathe it in. One last look at where it all happened. And then, slowly, you smile. Because as wild and messy as it all was… you made it. You really made it.
This was more than just a movie set. It was the place where you began again.
You turn to leave—and that’s when a familiar voice reaches you. “You always do this,” Minho says from behind you, his voice soft, teasing. “Disappear during the fun part.”
You glance over your shoulder and smile as he walks up beside you. He’s still in his suit from earlier—hair messy, shirt unbuttoned at the top, sleeves rolled up like always. You take a breath. He’s here. Still here. Still yours.
“Well, you found me,” you say.
Minho shrugs, eyes shining. “I always will.”
And somehow, that line hits deeper than it should. You look at him—this man who’s lived in your body, breathed through your lungs, broken and rebuilt his heart alongside yours. And now, he’s standing here like you’re the only person left on earth.
Minho holds out a hand. “Dance with me?”
You scoff. “Why— There’s no music.”
He doesn’t budge. “So? It’s the wrap party. Gotta celebrate properly.”
You roll your eyes, but your smile gives you away as you take his hand and let him pull you close. He sways you gently, the two of you moving in a slow circle in the middle of an empty street built for cameras and stories.
“This feels fake,” you whisper.
Minho leans in, rests his forehead against yours. “Then we must be doing it right.”
You smile with eyes closed as you mutter. “You do realize we’ve basically lived an entire movie together.”
“Yeah,” he says. His hand squeezes yours. “And I want a sequel.”
You laugh softly, your heart doing that thing again—expanding and aching and beating all at once. Minho kisses you then, slow and certain, like he's sealing a promise before he pushes you away only to give you a spin and pulls you back into his arms. Just like that, the two of you continue dancing under the sky full of stars.
The set is empty now—props half-covered, trailers locked, footprints slowly fading into gravel. It feels like the final page of something important. But instead of sadness, there’s a sense of calm. Of arrival. Minho’s hand is wrapped around yours, warm and steady, and when you look at him, he’s already looking at you like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be. For once, there's no pressure, no lines to deliver, no roles to play. Just this. Just you and him.
The camera’s not rolling. The lights are off. But somehow, this feels like the best scene yet.
-
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